The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories Read online

  “Go on in!” she called.

  Obediently he rose and dived. When he emerged, dripping, and made the climb he found that she was no longer on the ledge, but after a frightened second he heard her light laughter from another shelf ten feet up. There he joined her and they both sat quietly for a moment, their arms clasped round their knees, panting a little from the climb.

  “The family were wild,” she said suddenly. “They tried to marry me off. And then when I’d begun to feel that after all life was scarcely worth living I found something”—her eyes went skyward exultantly—“I found something!”

  Carlyle waited and her words came with a rush.

  “Courage—just that; courage as a rule of life, and something to cling to always. I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life. All sorts of courage—the beaten, bloody prize-fighter coming up for more—I used to make men take me to prize-fights; the déclassé woman sailing through a nest of cats and looking at them as if they were mud under her feet; the liking what you like always; the utter disregard for other people’s opinions—just to live as I liked always and to die in my own way—Did you bring up the cigarettes?”

  He handed one over and held a match for her silently.

  “Still,” Ardita continued, “the men kept gathering—old men and young men, my mental and physical inferiors, most of them, but all intensely desiring to have me—to own this rather magnificent proud tradition I’d built up round me. Do you see?”

  “Sort of. You never were beaten and you never apologized.”

  “Never!”

  She sprang to the edge, poised for a moment like a crucified figure against the sky; then describing a dark parabola plunked without a slash between two silver ripples twenty feet below.

  Her voice floated up to him again.

  “And courage to me meant ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life—not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living. A sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things.”

  She was climbing up now, and at her last words her head, with the damp yellow hair slicked symmetrically back, appeared on his level.

  “All very well,” objected Carlyle. “You can call it courage, but your courage is really built, after all, on a pride of birth. You were bred to that defiant attitude. On my gray days even courage is one of the things that’s gray and lifeless.”

  She was sitting near the edge, hugging her knees and gazing abstractedly at the white moon; he was farther back, crammed like a grotesque god into a niche in the rock.

  “I don’t want to sound like Pollyanna,” she began, “but you haven’t grasped me yet. My courage is faith—faith in the eternal resilience of me—that joy’ll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And I feel that till it does I’ve got to keep my lips shut and my chin high, and my eyes wide—not necessarily any silly smiling. Oh, I’ve been through hell without a whine quite often—and the female hell is deadlier than the male.”

  “But supposing,” suggested Carlyle, “that before joy and hope and all that came back the curtain was drawn on you for good?”

  Ardita rose, and going to the wall climbed with some difficulty to the next ledge, another ten or fifteen feet above.

  “Why,” she called back, “then I’d have won!”

  He edged out till he could see her.

  “Better not dive from there! You’ll break your back,” he said quickly.

  She laughed.

  “Not I!”

  Slowly she spread her arms and stood there swanlike, radiating a pride in her young perfection that lit a warm glow in Carlyle’s heart.

  “We’re going through the black air with our arms wide,” she called, “and our feet straight out behind like a dolphin’s tail, and we’re going to think we’ll never hit the silver down there till suddenly it’ll be all warm round us and full of little kissing, caressing waves.”

  Then she was in the air, and Carlyle involuntarily held his breath. He had not realized that the dive was nearly forty feet. It seemed an eternity before he heard the swift compact sound as she reached the sea.

  And it was with his glad sigh of relief when her light watery laughter curled up the side of the cliff and into his anxious ears that he knew he loved her.

  VI

  Time, having no axe to grind, showered down upon them three days of afternoons. When the sun cleared the port-hole of Ardita’s cabin an hour after dawn she rose cheerily, donned her bathing-suit, and went up on deck. The negroes would leave their work when they saw her, and crowd, chuckling and chattering, to the rail as she floated, an agile minnow, on and under the surface of the clear water. Again in the cool of the afternoon she would swim—and loll and smoke with Carlyle upon the cliff; or else they would lie on their sides in the sands of the southern beach, talking little, but watching the day fade colorfully and tragically into the infinite languor of a tropical evening.

  And with the long, sunny hours Ardita’s idea of the episode as incidental, madcap, a sprig of romance in a desert of reality, gradually left her. She dreaded the time when he would strike off southward; she dreaded all the eventualities that presented themselves to her; thoughts were suddenly troublesome and decisions odious. Had prayers found place in the pagan rituals of her soul she would have asked of life only to be unmolested for a while, lazily acquiescent to the ready, naïf flow of Carlyle’s ideas, his vivid boyish imagination, and the vein of monomania that seemed to run crosswise through his temperament and colored his every action.

  But this is not a story of two on an island, nor concerned primarily with love bred of isolation. It is merely the presentation of two personalities, and its idyllic setting among the palms of the Gulf Stream is quite incidental. Most of us are content to exist and breed and fight for the right to do both, and the dominant idea, the foredoomed attempt to control one’s destiny, is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few. To me the interesting thing about Ardita is the courage that will tarnish with her beauty and youth.

  “Take me with you,” she said late one night as they sat lazily in the grass under the shadowy spreading palms. The negroes had brought ashore their musical instruments, and the sound of weird ragtime was drifting softly over on the warm breath of the night. “I’d love to reappear in ten years as a fabulously wealthy high-caste Indian lady,” she continued.

  Carlyle looked at her quickly.

  “You can, you know.”

  She laughed.

  “Is it a proposal of marriage? Extra! Ardita Farnam becomes pirate’s bride. Society girl kidnapped by ragtime bank robber.”

  “It wasn’t a bank.”

  “What was it? Why won’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t want to break down your illusions.”

  “My dear man, I have no illusions about you.”

  “I mean your illusions about yourself.”

  She looked up in surprise.

  “About myself! What on earth have I got to do with whatever stray felonies you’ve committed?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  She reached over and patted his hand.

  “Dear Mr. Curtis Carlyle,” she said softly, “are you in love with me?”

  “As if it mattered.”

  “But it does—because I think I’m in love with you.”

  He looked at her ironically.

  “Thus swelling your January total to half a dozen,” he suggested. “Suppose I call your bluff and ask you to come to India with me?”

  “Shall I?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “We can get married in Callao.”

  “What sort of life can you offer me? I don’t mean that unkindly, but seriously; what would become of me if the people who want that twenty-thousand-dollar reward ever catch up with you?”


  “I thought you weren’t afraid.”

  “I never am—but I won’t throw my life away just to show one man I’m not.”

  “I wish you’d been poor. Just a little poor girl dreaming over a fence in a warm cow country.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been nice?”

  “I’d have enjoyed astonishing you—watching your eyes open on things. If you only wanted things! Don’t you see?”

  “I know—like girls who stare into the windows of jewelry-stores.”

  “Yes—and want the big oblong watch that’s platinum and has diamonds all round the edge. Only you’d decide it was too expensive and choose one of white gold for a hundred dollars. Then I’d say: ‘Expensive? I should say not!’ And we’d go into the store and pretty soon the platinum one would be gleaming on your wrist.”

  “That sounds so nice and vulgar—and fun, doesn’t it?” murmured Ardita.

  “Doesn’t it? Can’t you see us travelling round and spending money right and left, and being worshipped by bell-boys and waiters? Oh, blessed are the simple rich, for they inherit the earth!”

  “I honestly wish we were that way.”

  “I love you, Ardita,” he said gently.

  Her face lost its childish look for a moment and became oddly grave.

  “I love to be with you,” she said, “more than with any man I’ve ever met. And I like your looks and your dark old hair, and the way you go over the side of the rail when we come ashore. In fact, Curtis Carlyle, I like all the things you do when you’re perfectly natural. I think you’ve got nerve, and you know how I feel about that. Sometimes when you’re around I’ve been tempted to kiss you suddenly and tell you that you were just an idealistic boy with a lot of caste nonsense in his head. Perhaps if I were just a little bit older and a little more bored I’d go with you. As it is, I think I’ll go back and marry—that other man.”

  Over across the silver lake the figures of the negroes writhed and squirmed in the moonlight, like acrobats who, having been too long inactive, must go through their tricks from sheer surplus energy. In single file they marched, weaving in concentric circles, now with their heads thrown back, now bent over their instruments like piping fauns. And from trombone and saxophone ceaselessly whined a blended melody, sometimes riotous and jubilant, sometimes haunting and plaintive as a death-dance from the Congo’s heart.

  “Let’s dance!” cried Ardita. “I can’t sit still with that perfect jazz going on.”

  Taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy soil that the moon flooded with great splendor. They floated out like drifting moths under the rich hazy light, and as the fantastic symphony wept and exulted and wavered and despaired Ardita’s last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandoned her imagination to the dreamy summer scents of tropical flowers and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she opened her eyes it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost in a land created by her own fancy.

  “This is what I should call an exclusive private dance,” he whispered.

  “I feel quite mad—but delightfully mad!”

  “We’re enchanted. The shades of unnumbered generations of cannibals are watching us from high up on the side of the cliff there.”

  “And I’ll bet the cannibal women are saying that we dance too close, and that it was immodest of me to come without my nose-ring.”

  They both laughed softly—and then their laughter died as over across the lake they heard the trombones stop in the middle of a bar, and the saxophones give a startled moan and fade out.

  “What’s the matter?” called Carlyle.

  After a moment’s silence they made out the dark figure of a man rounding the silver lake at a run. As he came closer they saw it was Babe in a state of unusual excitement. He drew up before them and gasped out his news in a breath.

  “Ship stan’in’ off sho’ ’bout half a mile, suh. Mose, he uz on watch, he say look’s if she’s done ancho’d.”

  “A ship—what kind of a ship?” demanded Carlyle anxiously.

  Dismay was in his voice, and Ardita’s heart gave a sudden wrench as she saw his whole face suddenly droop.

  “He say he don’t know, suh.”

  “Are they landing a boat?”

  “No, suh.”

  “We’ll go up,” said Carlyle.

  They ascended the hill in silence, Ardita’s hand still resting in Carlyle’s as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it clinch nervously from time to time as though he were unaware of the contact, but though he hurt her she made no attempt to remove it. It seemed an hour’s climb before they reached the top and crept cautiously across the silhouetted plateau to the edge of the cliff. After one short look Carlyle involuntarily gave a little cry. It was a revenue boat with six-inch guns mounted fore and aft.

  “They know!” he said with a short intake of breath. “They know! They picked up the trail somewhere.”

  “Are you sure they know about the channel? They may be only standing by to take a look at the island in the morning. From where they are they couldn’t see the opening in the cliff.”

  “They could with field-glasses,” he said hopelessly. He looked at his wrist-watch. “It’s nearly two now. They won’t do anything until dawn, that’s certain. Of course there’s always the faint possibility that they’re waiting for some other ship to join; or for a coaler.”

  “I suppose we may as well stay right here.”

  The hours passed and they lay there side by side, very silently, their chins in their hands like dreaming children. In back of them squatted the negroes, patient, resigned, acquiescent, announcing now and then with sonorous snores that not even the presence of danger could subdue their unconquerable African craving for sleep.

  Just before five o’clock Babe approached Carlyle. There were half a dozen rifles aboard the Narcissus he said. Had it been decided to offer no resistance? A pretty good fight might be made, he thought, if they worked out some plan.

  Carlyle laughed and shook his head.

  “That isn’t a Spic army out there, Babe. That’s a revenue boat. It’d be like a bow and arrow trying to fight a machine-gun. If you want to bury those bags somewhere and take a chance on recovering them later, go on and do it. But it won’t work—they’d dig this island over from one end to the other. It’s a lost battle all round, Babe.”

  Babe inclined his head silently and turned away, and Carlyle’s voice was husky as he turned to Ardita.

  “There’s the best friend I ever had. He’d die for me, and be proud to, if I’d let him.”

  “You’ve given up?”

  “I’ve no choice. Of course there’s always one way out—the sure way—but that can wait. I wouldn’t miss my trial for anything—it’ll be an interesting experiment in notoriety. ‘Miss Farnam testifies that the pirate’s attitude to her was at all times that of a gentleman.’ ”

  “Don’t!” she said. “I’m awfully sorry.”

  When the color faded from the sky and lustreless blue changed to leaden gray a commotion was visible on the ship’s deck, and they made out a group of officers clad in white duck, gathered near the rail. They had field-glasses in their hands and were attentively examining the islet.

  “It’s all up,” said Carlyle grimly.

  “Damn!” whispered Ardita. She felt tears gathering in her eyes.

  “We’ll go back to the yacht,” he said. “I prefer that to being hunted out up here like a ’possum.”

  Leaving the plateau they descended the hill, and reaching the lake were rowed out to the yacht by the silent negroes. Then, pale and weary, they sank into the settees and waited.

  Half an hour later in the dim gray light the nose of the revenue boat appeared in the channel and stopped, evidently fearing that the bay might be too shallow. From the peaceful look of the yacht, the man and the girl in the settees, and the negroes lounging curiously against the rail, they evidently judged that there would be no resistance, for two boats were lowered casual
ly over the side, one containing an officer and six bluejackets, and the other, four rowers and in the stern two gray-haired men in yachting flannels. Ardita and Carlyle stood up, and half unconsciously started toward each other. Then he paused and putting his hand suddenly into his pocket he pulled out a round, glittering object and held it out to her.

  “What is it?” she asked wonderingly.

  “I’m not positive, but I think from the Russian inscription inside that it’s your promised bracelet.”

  “Where—where on earth——”

  “It came out of one of those bags. You see, Curtis Carlyle and his Six Black Buddies, in the middle of their performance in the tea-room of the hotel at Palm Beach, suddenly changed their instruments for automatics and held up the crowd. I took this bracelet from a pretty, overrouged woman with red hair.”

  Ardita frowned and then smiled.

  “So that’s what you did! You have got nerve!”

  He bowed.

  “A well-known bourgeois quality,” he said.

  And then dawn slanted dynamically across the deck and flung the shadows reeling into gray corners. The dew rose and turned to golden mist, thin as a dream, enveloping them until they seemed gossamer relics of the late night, infinitely transient and already fading. For a moment sea and sky were breathless, and dawn held a pink hand over the young mouth of life—then from out in the lake came the complaint of a rowboat and the swish of oars.

  Suddenly against the golden furnace low in the east their two graceful figures melted into one, and he was kissing her spoiled young mouth.

  “It’s a sort of glory,” he murmured after a second.

  She smiled up at him.

  “Happy, are you?”

  Her sigh was a benediction—an ecstatic surety that she was youth and beauty now as much as she would ever know. For another instant life was radiant and time a phantom and their strength eternal—then there was a bumping, scraping sound as the rowboat scraped alongside.

  Up the ladder scrambled the two gray-haired men, the officer and two of the sailors with their hands on their revolvers. Mr. Farnam folded his arms and stood looking at his niece.