Tales of the Jazz Age (Classic Reprint) Page 6

  V

  The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, one hundred per cent Americans swore, wild–eyed débutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrangement in what had occurred.

  In the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a snow–covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most exacting stage–manager would have acknowledged any improvement in casting the part to be quite impossible.

  Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage. Betty Medill—or was it Betty Parkhurst?—storming furiously, was surrounded by the plainer girls—the prettier ones were too busy talking about her to pay much attention to her—and over on the other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his headpiece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes, just as he had apparently proved his case, some one would mention the marriage certificate, and the inquisition would begin again.

  A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo, changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty.

  "Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, dear. The courts will annul it without question."

  Betty's angry tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tight together, and she looked stonily at Marion. Then she rose and, scattering her sympathizers right and left, walked directly across the room to Perry, who stared at her in terror. Again silence crept down upon the room.

  "Will you have the decency to grant me five minutes' conversation—or wasn't that included in your plans?"

  He nodded, his mouth unable to form words.

  Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the little card–rooms.

  Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the failure of his hind legs to function.

  "You stay here!" he commanded savagely.

  "I can't," whined a voice from the hump, "unless you get out first and let me get out."

  Perry hesitated, but unable any longer to tolerate the eyes of the curious crowd he muttered a command and the camel moved carefully from the room on its four legs.

  Betty was waiting for him.

  "Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've done! You and that crazy license! I told you you shouldn't have gotten it!"

  "My dear girl, I—"

  "Don't say "dear girl" to me! Save that for your real wife if you ever get one after this disgraceful performance. And don't try to pretend it wasn't all arranged. You know you gave that colored waiter money! You know you did! Do you mean to say you didn't try to marry me?"

  "No—of course—"

  "Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now what are you going to do? Do you know my father's nearly crazy? It'll serve you right if he tries to kill you. He'll take his gun and put some cold steel in you. Even if this wed—this thing can be annulled it'll hang over me all the rest of my life!"

  Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, wouldn't you like to belong to the pretty snake–charmer for all your—"

  "Shut–up!" cried Betty.

  There was a pause.

  "Betty," said Perry finally, "there's only one thing to do that will really get us out clear. That's for you to marry me."

  "Marry you!"

  "Yes. Really it's the only—"

  "You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if—if—"

  "I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if you care anything about your reputation—"

  "Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to think about my reputation now. Why didn't you think about my reputation before you hired that horrible Jumbo to—to—"

  Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly.

  "Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows I renounce all claims!"

  "But," said a new voice, "I don't."

  Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her heart.

  "For Heaven's sake, what was that?"

  "It's me," said the camel's back.

  In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them.

  "Oh," cried Betty, "you brought that object in here to frighten me! You told me he was deaf—that awful person!"

  The camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of satisfaction.

  "Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no person. I'm your husband."

  "Husband!"

  The cry was wrung simultaneously from Betty and Perry.

  "Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink is. The smoke didn't marry you to the camel's front. He married you to the whole camel. Why, that's my ring you got on your finger!"

  With a little yelp she snatched the ring from her finger and flung it passionately at the floor.

  "What's all this?" demanded Perry dazedly.

  "Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you don't I'm a–gonna have the same claim you got to bein' married to her!"

  "That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to Betty.

  Then came the supreme moment of Perry's evening, the ultimate chance on which he risked his fortunes. He rose and looked first at Betty, where she sat weakly, aghast at this new complication, and then at the individual who swayed from side to side on his chair, uncertainly, menacingly.

  "Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, "you can have her. Betty, I'm going to prove to you that as far as I'm concerned our marriage was entirely accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my rights to have you as my wife, and give you to—to the man whose ring you wear—your lawful husband."

  There was a pause and four horror–stricken eyes were turned on him,

  "Good–by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't forget me in your new–found happiness. I'm going to leave for the Far West on the morning train. Think of me kindly, Betty."

  With a last glance at them he turned and his head rested on his chest as his hand touched the door–knob.

  "Good–by," he repeated. He turned the door–knob.

  But at this sound the snakes and silk and tawny hair precipitated themselves violently toward him.

  "Oh, Perry, don't leave me! Perry, Perry, take me with you!"

  Her tears flowed damply on his neck. Calmly he folded his arms about her.

  "I don't care," she cried. "I love you and if you can wake up a minister at this hour and have it done over again I'll go West with you."

  Over her shoulder the front part of the camel looked at the back part of the camel—and they exchanged a particularly subtle, esoteric sort of wink that only true camels can understand.

  MAY DAY

  I

  There had been a war fought and won and the great city of the conquering people was crossed with triumphal arches and vivid with thrown flowers of white, red, and rose. All through the long spring days the returning soldiers marched up the chief highway behind the strump of drums and the joyous, resonant wind of the brasses, while merchants and clerks left their bickerings and figurings and, crowding to the windows, tu
rned their white–bunched faces gravely upon the passing battalions.

  Never had there been such splendor in the great city, for the victorious war had brought plenty in its train, and the merchants had flocked thither from the South and West with their households to taste of all the luscious feasts and witness the lavish entertainments prepared—and to buy for their women furs against the next winter and bags of golden mesh and varicolored slippers of silk and silver and rose satin and cloth of gold.

  So gaily and noisily were the peace and prosperity impending hymned by the scribes and poets of the conquering people that more and more spenders had gathered from the provinces to drink the wine of excitement, and faster and faster did the merchants dispose of their trinkets and slippers until they sent up a mighty cry for more trinkets and more slippers in order that they might give in barter what was demanded of them. Some even of them flung up their hands helplessly, shouting:

  "Alas! I have no more slippers! and alas! I have no more trinkets! May heaven help me for I know not what I shall do!"

  But no one listened to their great outcry, for the throngs were far too busy—day by day, the foot–soldiers trod jauntily the highway and all exulted because the young men returning were pure and brave, sound of tooth and pink of cheek, and the young women of the land were virgins and comely both of face and of figure.

  So during all this time there were many adventures that happened in the great city, and, of these, several—or perhaps one—are here set down.

  I

  At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May, 1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Biltmore Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well–cut, shabby suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health, this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a low, incessant fever.

  Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was directed to a telephone at the side.

  After a second his connection was made; a sleepy voice hello'd from somewhere above.

  "Mr. Dean?"—this very eagerly—"it's Gordon, Phil. It's Gordon Sterrett. I'm down–stairs. I heard you were in New York and I had a hunch you'd be here."

  The sleepy voice became gradually enthusiastic. Well, how was Gordy, old boy! Well, he certainly was surprised and tickled! Would Gordy come right up, for Pete's sake!

  A few minutes later Philip Dean, dressed in blue silk pajamas, opened his door and the two young men greeted each other with a half–embarrassed exuberance. They were both about twenty–four, Yale graduates of the year before the war; but there the resemblance stopped abruptly. Dean was blond, ruddy, and rugged under his thin pajamas. Everything about him radiated fitness and bodily comfort. He smiled frequently, showing large and prominent teeth.

  "I was going to look you up," he cried enthusiastically. "I'm taking a couple of weeks off. If you'll sit down a sec I'll be right with you. Going to take a shower."

  As he vanished into the bathroom his visitor's dark eyes roved nervously around the room, resting for a moment on a great English travelling bag in the corner and on a family of thick silk shirts littered on the chairs amid impressive neckties and soft woollen socks.

  Gordon rose and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it a minute examination. It was of very heavy silk, yellow, with a pale blue stripe—and there were nearly a dozen of them. He stared involuntarily at his own shirt–cuffs—they were ragged and linty at the edges and soiled to a faint gray. Dropping the silk shirt, he held his coat–sleeves down and worked the frayed shirt–cuffs up till they were out of sight. Then he went to the mirror and looked at himself with listless, unhappy interest. His tie, of former glory, was faded and thumb–creased—it served no longer to hide the jagged buttonholes of his collar. He thought, quite without amusement, that only three years before he had received a scattering vote in the senior elections at college for being the best–dressed man in his class.

  Dean emerged from the bathroom polishing his body.

  "Saw an old friend of yours last night," he remarked. "Passed her in the lobby and couldn't think of her name to save my neck. That girl you brought up to New Haven senior year."

  Gordon started.

  "Edith Bradin? That whom you mean?"

  "'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still sort of a pretty doll—you know what I mean: as if you touched her she'd smear."

  He surveyed his shining self complacently in the mirror, smiled faintly, exposing a section of teeth.

  "She must be twenty–three anyway," he continued.

  "Twenty–two last month," said Gordon absently.

  "What? Oh, last month. Well, I imagine she's down for the Gamma Psi dance. Did you know we're having a Yale Gamma Psi dance to–night at Delmonico's? You better come up, Gordy. Half of New Haven'll probably be there. I can get you an invitation."

  Draping himself reluctantly in fresh underwear, Dean lit a cigarette and sat down by the open window, inspecting his calves and knees under the morning sunshine which poured into the room.

  "Sit down, Gordy," he suggested, "and tell me all about what you've been doing and what you're doing now and everything."

  Gordon collapsed unexpectedly upon the bed; lay there inert and spiritless. His mouth, which habitually dropped a little open when his face was in repose, became suddenly helpless and pathetic.

  "What's the matter?" asked Dean quickly.

  "Oh, God!"

  "What's the matter?"

  "Every God damn thing in the world," he said miserably, "I've absolutely gone to pieces, Phil. I'm all in."

  "Huh?"

  "I'm all in." His voice was shaking.

  Dean scrutinized him more closely with appraising blue eyes.

  "You certainly look all shot."

  "I am. I've made a hell of a mess of everything." He paused. "I'd better start at the beginning—or will it bore you?""Not at all; go on." There was, however, a hesitant note in Dean's voice. This trip East had been planned for a holiday—to find Gordon Sterrett in trouble exasperated him a little.

  "Go on," he repeated, and then added half under his breath, "Get it over with."

  "Well," began Gordon unsteadily, "I got back from France in February, went home to Harrisburg for a month, and then came down to New York to get a job. I got one—with an export company. They fired me yesterday."

  "Fired you?"

  "I'm coming to that, Phil. I want to tell you frankly. You're about the only man I can turn to in a matter like this. You won't mind if I just tell you frankly, will you, Phil?"

  Dean stiffened a bit more. The pats he was bestowing on his knees grew perfunctory. He felt vaguely that he was being unfairly saddled with responsibility; he was not even sure he wanted to be told. Though never surprised at finding Gordon Sterrett in mild difficulty, there was something in this present misery that repelled him and hardened him, even though it excited his curiosity.

  "Go on."

  "It's a girl."

  "Hm." Dean resolved that nothing was going to spoil his trip. If Gordon was going to be depressing, then he'd have to see less of Gordon.

  "Her name is Jewel Hudson," went on the distressed voice from the bed. "She used to be "pure," I guess, up to about a year ago. Lived here in New York—poor family. Her people are dead now and she lives with an old aunt. You see it was just about the time I met her that everybody began to come back from France in droves—and all I did was to welcome the newly arrived and go on parties with 'em. That's the way it started, Phil, just from being glad to see everybody and having them glad to see me."

  "You ought to've had more sense."

  "I know," Gordon paused, and then continued listlessly. "I'm on my own now, you know, and Phil, I can't stand being poor. Then came this darn girl. She sort of fell in love with me for a while and, though I never intended to get so involved, I'd
always seem to run into her somewhere. You can imagine the sort of work I was doing for those exporting people—of course, I always intended to draw; do illustrating for magazines; there's a pile of money in it."

  "Why didn't you? You've got to buckle down if you want to make good," suggested Dean with cold formalism.

  "I tried, a little, but my stuff's crude. I've got talent, Phil; I can draw—but I just don't know how. I ought to go to art school and I can't afford it. Well, things came to a crisis about a week ago. Just as I was down to about my last dollar this girl began bothering me. She wants some money; claims she can make trouble for me if she doesn't get it."

  "Can she?"

  "I'm afraid she can. That's one reason I lost my job—she kept calling up the office all the time, and that was sort of the last straw down there. She's got a letter all written to send to my family. Oh, she's got me, all right. I've got to have some money for her."

  There was an awkward pause. Gordon lay very still, his hands clenched by his side.

  "I'm all in," he continued, his voice trembling. "I'm half crazy, Phil. If I hadn't known you were coming East, I think I'd have killed myself. I want you to lend me three hundred dollars."

  Dean's hands, which had been patting his bare ankles, were suddenly quiet—and the curious uncertainty playing between the two became taut and strained.

  After a second Gordon continued:

  "I've bled the family until I'm ashamed to ask for another nickel."

  Still Dean made no answer.

  "Jewel says she's got to have two hundred dollars."

  "Tell her where she can go."

  "Yes, that sounds easy, but she's got a couple of drunken letters I wrote her. Unfortunately she's not at all the flabby sort of person you'd expect."

  Dean made an expression of distaste.

  "I can't stand that sort of woman. You ought to have kept away."

  "I know," admitted Gordon wearily.

  "You've got to look at things as they are. If you haven't got money you've got to work and stay away from women."