But in September, Arthur and Marjorie became a great deal less important. Sam got an offer for his first big part and Solange was so excited, she went out and bought a magnum of champagne which they drank in total abandon together. It was for the leading role in Wilderness, and promised to be one of the most important plays on Broadway. It was a fabulous part for Sam, and both of them were hysterical with excitement. Arthur handled the contracts, Sam told P. J. Clarke's he wouldn't be coming back that fall, and they went into rehearsal almost immediately. The play was handsomely backed, and produced by one of Broadway's most successful producers. Sam Walker's career was launched, and he was going to be in good company that winter. Rex Harrison was going to be appearing in Anne of the Thousand Days at the Schubert, with Joyce Redman. Henry Fonda and David Wayne were already in Mister Roberts at the Alvin, and Anne Jackson was opening on October 6 in Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke at the Music Box Theater. This was going to be a year they would always remember.

Arthur took them both to lunch at “21” to celebrate. He explained that Marjorie was already busy with law school and couldn't join them, and Solange had an announcement of her own. She had already told Sam the night before, and he was flying high. Suddenly, they had everything they wanted. He and Solange were going to have a baby, it was due in April, and by then Sam would have settled into the play. Everything was just perfect, and Arthur looked at them wistfully over lunch. He was only thirty-two years old, but lately he seemed much older. He had wanted children too, but by the time Marjorie finished law school she'd be thirty-three years old and anxious to start on her career. Realistically, he knew he would never have a child now, and for some reason it made Solange and Sam's baby seem even more important.

“I envy you both.” Not only the baby, but everything they had, the love that was so obvious, the excitement over Sam's career. Everything seemed to be beginning for them. Sam was twenty-six years old, and Solange was twenty-three. It seemed light years from the day they had first seen her, after the liberation of Paris. She was so elegant and sleek, she was even more beautiful now, and she seemed so constantly full of life and excitement.

And the excitement didn't dim that fall, as Sam rehearsed the play night and day, and honed it to perfection. He came home exhausted at night, but never too exhausted to make love to Solange, or tell her about the cast, or the changes in the play. His leading lady was Barbara George, a major star of Broadway, and she was teaching him a great deal, all of which he told Solange with fire in his eyes and the laughter that made her love him.

They opened on December 9, the day after Rex Harrison in Anderson's play, and Sam's reviews were even better than those he'd had before. It was difficult to believe … more than that … incredible. … He had made it!





Chapter 4




The baby was born while they were still riding on the high of his enormous success on Broadway. Solange timed it perfectly, she went into labor after the curtain came down on Saturday night, and the baby was born at ten o'clock the next morning at Doctors Hospital on East End Avenue. It was a natural birth, and they had a little girl, she was nestled in her mother's arms, with her father's dark hair and her mother's green eyes the first time that Sam saw her. He was overwhelmed by how pretty she was, and how beautiful Solange looked, tired but proud, as though she knew an important secret now, and had worked hard to learn it.

Arthur was their first visitor the next day, and his eyes grew damp as he looked through the window at the baby. They had named her Hilary, and Solange loved the name even though it was difficult for her to say it. She had never mastered the American h, and she called her “Ilary,” and whispered to her in French when they brought the baby to her to nurse her. They had asked Arthur to be her godfather, and he was deeply touched, but instead of Marjorie, Sam had asked his leading lady, Barbara George, to be the baby's godmother.

The christening was at St. Patrick's Cathedral with full pomp and circumstance. The baby wore a beautiful lace gown that her godmother had bought her at Bergdorf Goodman. And Solange was wearing a new mink coat and a diamond ring that Sam had bought her for having the baby. Their circumstances had greatly improved since his role in Wilderness, and they moved to a larger apartment on Lexington Avenue, which wasn't luxurious, but it was a great deal nicer than the one they'd had under the Third Avenue El. The baby had come home to her new room, overlooking a little back garden, and Sam and Solange had a cozy room of their own, and a spacious living room to entertain their friends. There seemed to be a constant flow of people in their apartment now, new friends, actors mostly, and people in Sam's play. Solange didn't mind having them around, on the contrary, she liked it.

The play ran for a full year, and closed after Christmas of 1949. Sam had many offers within a month, and when he finally chose one he liked he barely had time to catch his breath with Solange and Hilary before he went to rehearsals. Hilary was nine months old by then, and crawling everywhere. She turned up at his feet in his bathroom, when he was shaving, and under the breakfast table in the morning as he drank his coffee, with a constant chorus of “Da Da Da”s which delighted him. He wanted to have another child soon, hopefully a boy, but Solange wanted to wait. She was content with little Hilary and wanted to give her her full attention. She was a devoted mother, and she seemed even more loving with Sam now since the baby had been born. It was as though it had increased her supply of love for him tenfold.

And motherhood certainly hadn't harmed her looks. She was an incredibly beautiful girl, even more so now, and the press had begun to talk about her increasingly as Sam Walker's fabulous-looking wife. She had been interviewed more than once, but she always directed the attention back to Sam, and talked about what an important actor he was. And the critics agreed with her more than ever after the opening of his new play. It ran for two years, and when it finally closed, Sam decided to take some time off, and Solange almost immediately got pregnant. And nine months later, another daughter, redheaded this time, like her mother was, born on the opening night of Sam's new play. Solange had to rush to the hospital with Arthur just after the curtain went up. She felt terrible not to see Sam's opening night, but she barely made it to the hospital, squeezing Arthur's hand, as he begged the driver to go faster. Alexandra was born ten minutes after they arrived, on a gurney just outside the delivery room, as the baby gave a lusty cry, and Solange lay back with a soft moan spent with the effort. Arthur came to see her as soon as she was put in a room, and he teased her about their going back in time for the final curtain with the baby. Solange loved the idea and wished she could actually do it. Instead, she made him promise to bring Sam back with him afterward, and Arthur left promising to see her the next day.

Sam didn't get to the hospital till the next morning. He explained that he'd been tied up with endless cast parties, and he pretended not to see the hurt look in her eyes. She had waited for him all night and he hadn't even called her. He brought her a spectacular emerald bracelet, but still, she had silent questions about where he had been, and she was desperately hurt that he hadn't come to see her. He was so much less attentive these days, because the play was a demanding one, he said, and she knew this part was the most difficult of all, but still … to her, their baby was more important. But all he could talk about was his leading lady. He seemed obsessed with her. And it was Arthur who took Solange and Alexandra home from the hospital while Sam was at rehearsal. He seemed to be out constantly and she didn't say anything to Sam when he came home late at night, but she always noticed. She particularly noticed the heady scent of another woman's perfume, and although she didn't say it to him, she knew that lately their marriage was different. She felt a void in her own life as a result, an emptiness that was a constant pain, and only Arthur seemed to understand it. He was the only one she could talk to. He had his own problems as well. He still wanted children, and Marjorie wouldn't hear of it. And for his own part, Arthur thought Sam was a damn fool, but he never said so. He only did his best to bolster Solange's spirits during their frequent lunches. It wasn't fair to hurt a woman who was so much in love with her husband. And he often found himself wishing that he had won over Sam, years before, but it was too late now. Solange was married to Sam, and she adored him.

“And you, Arthur, what about you, are you happy? No, of course not,” she answered for him and he didn't disagree. How could one be happy, with a woman like Marjorie? She was a selfish, ambitious iceberg. “You should force her to have babies if you want them.” She looked serious and he laughed. It was impossible to force Marjorie to do anything she didn't want to do. Impossible for him anyway. He wasn't that kind of person.

“You can't force a woman to have a baby.” He smiled ruefully. “You'd only have an unhappy mother and eventually an unhappy child. Not like yours.” They were perfect little cherubs, her children Hilary and Alexandra, and he adored them. Hilary was still as dark as Sam, with big green eyes, and Alexandra had bright red hair and big blue eyes. He smiled at Solange then, and saw the sadness in her eyes. She knew what Sam was up to, just as everyone else in New York did, she had heard the rumors, and there were constant items about him in the papers.