Oliver is taking Ted out to Melgrove with him over Sunday for suburban
fresh-air and swimming, so the two just manage to catch the 12.53 from
the Grand Central, in spite of Slade Wilson's invitation to talk
all night and breakfast at the Brevoort. They spend the rattling,
tunnel-like passage to 125th Street catching their breath again, a
breath that seems to strike a florid gentlemen in a dirty collar ahead
of them with an expression of permanent, sorrowful hunger. Then Ted
remarks reflectively,
“Nice gin.”
“Uh-huh. Not floor varnish anyway like most of this prohibition stuff.
What think of the people?”
“Interesting but hardly conclusive. Liked the Wilson lad. Peter, of
course, and Johnny. The French person rather young Back Bay, don't you
think?”
Oliver smiles. The two have been through Yale, some of the war and much
of the peace together, and the fact has inevitably developed a certain
quality of being able to talk to each other in shorthand.
“Well, Groton plus Harvard--it always gets a little inhuman especially
Senior year--but gin had a civilizing influence. Lucky devil!”
“Why?”
“Baker's newest discovery--yes, it does sound like a patent medicine.
Don't mean that, but he has a play on the road--sure-fire, Johnny
says--Edward Sheldon stuff--Romance--”
“The Young Harvard Romantic. An Essay Presented to the Faculty of Yale
University by Theodore Billett for the Degree of--”
“Heard anything about your novel, Oliver?”
“Going to see my pet Mammon of Unrighteousness about it in a couple of
weeks. Oh _Lord!_”
“Present--not voting.”
“Don't be cheap, Ted. If I could only make some money.”
“Everybody says that there is money in advertising,” Ted quotes
maliciously. “Where _have_ I heard that before?”
_“That's_ what anybody says about anything till they try it. Well,
there is--but not in six months for a copy-writer at Vanamee and Co.
Especially when the said copy-writer has to have enough to marry on.”
“And will write novels when he ought to be reading, 'How I Sold
America on Ossified Oats' like a good little boy. Young people are _so_
impatient.”
“Well, good Lord, Ted, we've been engaged eight months already and we
aren't getting any furtherer--”
“Remember the copybooks, my son. The love of a pure, good woman and the
one-way pocket--that's what makes the millionaires. Besides, look at
Isaac.”
“Well, I'm no Isaac. And Nancy isn't Rebekah, praises be! But it is
an--emotional strain. On both of us.”
“Well, all you have to do is sell your serial rights. After that--pie.”
“I know. The trouble is, I can see it so plain if everything happens
right--and then--well--”
Ted is not very consoling.
“People get funny ideas about each other when they aren't close by. Even
when they're in love,” he says rather darkly; and then, for no apparent
reason, “Poor Billy. See it?”
Oliver has, unfortunately--the announcement that the engagement between
Miss Flavia Marston of Detroit and Mr. William Curting of New York has
been broken by mutual consent was an inconspicuous little paragraph in
the morning papers. “That was all--just funny ideas and being away. And
then this homebred talent came along,” Ted muses.
“Well, you're the hell of a--”
Ted suddenly jerks into consciousness of what he has been saying.
“Sorry” he says, completely apologetic, “didn't mean a word I said,
just sorry for Billy, poor guy. 'Fraid it'll break him up pretty bad
at first.” This seems to make matters rather worse and he changes
the subject abruptly. “How's Nancy?” he asks with what he hopes seems
disconnected indifference.
“Nancy? All right. Hates St. Louis, of course.”
“Should think she might, this summer. Pretty hot there, isn't it?”
“Says it's like a wet furnace. And her family's bothering her some.”
“Um, too bad.”
“Oh, _I_ don't mind. But it's rotten for her. They don't see the point
exactly--don't know that I blame them. She could be in Paris, now--that
woman was ready to put up the money. My fault.”
“Well, she seems to like things better the way they are--God knows
why, my antic friend! If it were _my_ question between you and a year
studying abroad! Not that you haven't your own subtle attractions,
Ollie.” Ted has hoped to irritate Oliver into argument by the closing
remark, but the latter only accepts it with militant gloom.
“Yes, I've done her out of that, too,” he says abysmally, “as well as
sticking her in St. Louis while I stay here and can't even drag down
enough money to support her--”
“Oh, Ollie, snap out of it! That's only being dramatic. You know
darn well you will darn soon. I'll be saying 'bless you, my children,
increase and multiply,' inside a month if your novel goes through.”
“If! Oh well. Oh hell. I think I've wept on your shoulder long enough
for tonight, Ted. Tell me your end of it--things breaking all right?”
Ted's face sets into lines that seem curiously foreign and aged for the
smooth surface.
“Well--you know my trouble,” he brings out at last with some difficulty.
“You ought to, anyhow--we've talked each other over too much when we
were both rather planko for you not to. I'm getting along, I think. The
work--_ca marche assez bien_. And the restlessness--can be stood. That's
about all there is to say.”
Both are completely serious now.
“Bon. Very glad,” says Oliver in a low voice.
“I can stand it. I was awful afraid I couldn't when I first got back.
And law interests me, really, though I've lost three years because of
the war. And I'm working like a pious little devil with a new assortment
of damned and when you haven't any money you can't go on parties in New
York unless you raise gravy riding to a fine art. Only sometimes--well,
you know how it is--”
Oliver nods.
“I'll be sitting there, at night especially, in that little tin Tophet
of a room on Madison Avenue, working. I _can_ work, if I do say it
myself--I'm hoping to get through with school in January, now. But it
gets pretty lonely, sometimes when there's nobody to run into that you
can really talk to--the people I used to play with in College are out
of New York for the summer--even Peter's down at Southampton most of the
time or out at Star Bay--you're in Melgrove--Sam Woodward's married and
working in Chicago--Brick Turner's in New Mexico--I've dropped out of
the Wall Street bunch in the class that hang out at the Yale Club--I'm
posted there anyhow, and besides they've all made money and I haven't,
and all they want to talk about is puts and calls. And then you remember
things.
“The time my pilot and I blew into Paris when we thought we were hitting
somewhere around Nancy till we saw that blessed Eiffel Tower poking out
of the fog. And the Hotel de Turenne on Rue Vavin and getting up in the
morning and going out for a café cognac breakfast, and everything being
amiable and pleasant, and kidding along all the dear little ladies that
sat on the _terrasse_ when they dropped in to talk over last evening's
affairs. I suppose I'm a sensualist--”
“Everybody is.” from Oliver.
“Well, that's another thing. Women. And love. Ollie, my son, you don't
know how very damn lucky you are!”
“I think I do, rather,” says Oliver, a little stiffly.
“You don't. Because I'd give everything I have for what you've got and
all you can do is worry about whether you'll get married in six months
or eight.”
“I'm worrying about whether I'll ever get married at all,” from Oliver,
rebelliously.
“True enough, which is where I'm glowingly sympathetic for you, though
you may not notice it. But you're one of the few people I know--officers
at least--who came out of the war without stepping all through their
American home ideas of morality like a clown through a fake glass
window. And I'm--Freuded--if I see how or why you did.”
“Don't myself--unless you call it pure accident” says Oliver, frankly.
“Well, that's it--women. Don't think I'm in love but the other thing
pulls pretty strong. And I want to get married all right, but what girls
I know and like best are in Peter's crowd and most of them own their
own Rolls Royces--and I won't be earning even a starvation wage for two,
inside of three or four years, I suppose. And as you can't get away
from seeing and talking to women unless you go and live in a cave--well,
about once every two weeks or oftener I'd like to chuck every lawbook I
have out of the window on the head of the nearest cop--go across again
and get some sort of a worthless job--I speak good enough French to do
it if I wanted--and go to hell like a gentleman without having to worry
about it any longer. And I won't do that because I'm through with it and
the other thing is worth while. So there you are.”
“So you don't think you're in love--eh Monsieur Billett?” Oliver puts
irritatingly careful quotation marks around the verb. Ted twists a
little.
“It all seems so blamed impossible,” he says cryptically.
“Oh, I wouldn't call Elinor Piper _that_ exactly.” Oliver grins. “Even
if she is Peter's sister. Old Peter. She's a nice girl.”
“_A nice girl?_” Ted begins rather violently. “She's--why she's--” then
pauses, seeing the trap.
“Oh very well--that's all I wanted to know.”
“Oh don't look so much like a little tin Talleyrand, Ollie! I'm _not_
sure--and that's rather more than I'd even hint to anybody else.”
“Thanks, little darling.” But Ted has been stung too suddenly, even by
Oliver's light touch on something which he thought was a complete and
mortuary secret, to be in a mood for sarcasm.
“Oh, well, you might as well know. I suppose you do.”
“All I know is that you seem to have been visiting--Peter--a good deal
this summer.”
“Well, it started with Peter.”
“It does so often.”
“Oh Lord, now I've _got_ to tell you. Not that there's
anything--definite--to tell.” He pauses, looking at his hands.
“Well, I've just been telling you how I feel--sometimes. And other
times--being with Elinor--she's been so--kind. But I don't know, Ollie,
honestly I don't, and that's that.”
“You see,” he begins again, “the other thing--Oh, _Lord_, it's so
tangled up! But it's just this. It sounds--funny--probably--coming from
me--and after France and all that--but I'm not going to--pretend
to myself I'm in love with a girl--just because I may--want to get
married--the way lots of people do. I can't. And I couldn't with a girl
like Elinor anyway--she's too fine.”
“She is rather fine,” says Oliver appreciatively. “Selective
reticence--all that.”
“Well, don't you see? And a couple of times--I've been nearly sure. And
then something comes and I'm not again--not the way I want to be. And
then--Oh, if I were, it wouldn't be much--use--you know--”
“Why not?”
“Well, consider our relative positions--”
“Consider your grandmother's cat! She's a girl--you're a man. She's a
lady--you're certainly a gentleman--though that sounds like Jane Austen.
And--”
“And she's--well, she isn't the wealthiest young lady in the country,
but the Pipers _are_ rich, though they never go and splurge around
about it. And I'm living on scholarships and borrowed money from the
family--and even after I really start working I probably won't make
enough to live on for two or three years at least. And you can't ask a
girl like that--”
“Oh, Ted, this is the twentieth century! I'm not telling you to hang up
your hat and live on your wife's private income--” “That's fortunate,”
from Ted, rather stubbornly and with a set jaw.
“But there's no reason on earth--if you both really loved each other and
wanted to get married--why you couldn't let her pay her share for
the first few years. You know darn well you're going to make money
sometime--”
“Well--yes.”
“Well, then. And Elinor's sporting. She isn't the kind that needs six
butlers to live--she doesn't live that way now. That's just pride, Ted,
thinking that--and a rather bum variety of pride when you come down to
it. I hate these people who moan around and won't be happy unless they
can do everything themselves--they're generally the kind that give their
wives a charge account at Lucile's and ten dollars a year pocket money
and go into blue fits whenever poor spouse runs fifty cents over her
allowance.”
Ted pauses, considering. Finally,
“No, Ollie--I don't think I'm quite that kind of a fool. And almost thou
convincest me--and all that. But--well--that isn't the chief difficulty,
after all.”
“Well, what _is_?” from Oliver, annoyedly.
Ted hesitates, speaking slowly.
“Well--after the fact that I'm not sure--France,” he says at last, and
his mouth shuts after the word as if it never wanted to open again.
Oliver spreads both hands out hopelessly.
“Are you _never_ going to get over that, you ass?”
“You didn't do the things I did,” from Ted, rather difficultly. “If you
had--”
“If I had I'd have been as sorry as you are, probably, that I'd knocked
over the apple cart occasionally. But I wouldn't spend the rest of
my life worrying about it and thinking I wasn't fit to go into decent
society because of what happened to most of the A.E.F. Why you sound as
if you'd committed the unpardonable sin. And it's nonsense.”
“Well--thinking of Elinor--I'm not too darn sure I didn't,” from Ted,
dejectedly.
“That comes of being born in New England and that's all there is to it.
Anyhow, it's over now, isn't it?”
“Not exactly--it comes back.”
“Well, kick it every time it does.”
“But you don't understand. That and--people like Elinor--” says Ted
hopelessly.
“I do understand.”
“You don't.” And this time Ted's face has the look of a burned man.
“Well--” says Oliver, frankly puzzled. “Well, that's it. Oh, it doesn't
matter. But if there was another war--”
“Oh, leave us poor people that are trying to write a couple of years
before you dump us into heroes' graves by the Yang tse Kiang!”
“Another war--and bang! into the aviation.” Ted muses, his face gone
thin with tensity. “It could last as long as it liked for me, providing
I got through before it did; you'd be living anyhow, living and
somebody, and somebody who didn't give a plaintive hoot how things
broke.”
He sighs, and his face smooths back a little.
“Well, Lord, I've no real reason to kick, I suppose,” he ends. “There
are dozens of 'em like me--dozens and hundreds and thousands all over
the shop. We had danger and all the physical pleasures and as much money
as we wanted and the sense of command--all through the war. And then
they come along and say 'it's all off, girls,' and you go back and
settle down and play you've just come out of College in peace-times
and maybe by the time you're forty you'll have a wife and an income if
another scrap doesn't come along. And then when we find it isn't as easy
to readjust as they think, they yammer around pop-eyed and say 'Oh, what
wild young people--what naughty little wasters! They won't settle down
and play Puss-in-the-corner at all--and, oh dear, oh dear, how they
drink and smoke and curse 'n everything!'”
“I'm awful afraid they might be right as to what's the trouble with us,
though,” says Oliver, didactically. “We _are_ young, you know.”
“Melgrove!” the conductor howls, sleepily. “Melgrove! Melgrove!”
V
The Crowe house was both small and inconveniently situated--it was
twenty full minutes walk from the station and though a little box of a
garage had been one of the “all modern conveniences” so fervidly painted
in the real estate agent's advertisement, the Crowes had no car. It was
the last house on Undercliff Road that had any pretense to sparse grass
and a stubbly hedge--beyond it were sand-dunes, delusively ornamented by
the signs of streets that as yet only existed in the brain of the owner
of the “development,” and, a quarter of a mile away, the long blue
streak of the Sound.
Oliver's key clicked in the lock--this was fortunately one of the
times when four-year-old Jane Ellen, who went about after sunset in a
continual, piteous fear of “black men wif masks,” had omitted to put
the chain on the door before being carried mutinously to bed. Oliver
switched on the hall light and picked up a letter and a folded note from
the card tray.
“Ted, Ollie and Dickie will share that little bijou, the sleeping porch,
unless Ted prefers the third-story bathtub,” the note read. “Breakfast
at convenience for those that can get it themselves--otherwise at nine.
And DON'T wake Dickie up.
“MOTHER.”
Oliver passed it to Ted, who read it, grinned, and saluted, nearly
knocking over the hatrack.
“For _God's_ sake!” said Oliver in a piercing whisper, “Jane Ellen will
think that's Indians!”
Both listened frantically for a moment, holding their breath. But there
was no sound from upstairs except an occasional soft rumbling. Oliver
had often wondered what would happen if the whole sleeping family
chanced to breathe in and out in unison some unlucky night. He could
see the papery walls blown apart like scraps of cardboard--Aunt Elsie
falling, falling with her bed from her little bird-house under the
eaves, giving vent to one deaf, terrified “Hey--what's that?” as she
sank like Lucifer cast from Heaven inexorably down into the laundry
stove, her little tight, white curls standing up on end....
Ted had removed his shoes and was making for the stairs with the
exaggerated caution of a burglar in a film.
“'Night!” called Oliver softly.
“G' night! Where's my bed--next the wall? Good--then I won't step
on Dickie. And if you fall over me when you come in, I'll bay like a
bloodhound!”
“I'll look out. Be up in a minute myself. Going to write a letter.”
“So I'd already deduced, Craig Kennedy, my friend. Well, give her my
love!”
He smiled like a bad little boy and disappeared round the corner. A
stair creaked--they were the kind of stairs that always creaked like old
women's bones, when you tried to go up them quietly. There was the
sound of something soft stubbing against something hard and a muffled
“_Sonofa--_”
“What's matter?”
“Oh, nothing. Blame near broke my toe on Jane Ellen's doll's porcelain
head. 'S all right. 'Night.”
“'Night.” Then in an admonitory sotto-voce, “Remember, if you wake
Dickie, you've got to tell him stories till he goes to sleep again, or
he'll wake up everybody else!”
“If he wakes, I'll garotte him. 'Night.”
“'Night.”