Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (378 page)

He was in a bad humor at Gus Myers’ dinner--annoyed with his host for talking so freely about their business arrangement. When at last they rose from the table, he decided that it was no go and called Myers aside.

“Look here. I’m afraid this isn’t a good idea, after all.”

“Why not?” His host looked at him in alarm. “Are you going back on me? My dear fellow--”

“I think we’d better call it off.”

“And why, may I ask? Certainly I have the right to ask why.”

Stuart considered. “All right, I’ll tell you. When you made that little speech, you mentioned me as if you had somehow bought me, as if I was a sort of employee in your office. Now, in the sporting world that doesn’t go; things are more--more democratic. I grew up with all these men here tonight, and they didn’t like it any better than I did.”

“I see,” Mr. Myers reflected carefully--”I see.” Suddenly he clapped Stuart on the back. “That is exactly the sort of thing I like to be told; it helps me. From now on I won’t mention you as if you were in my--as if we had a business arrangement. Is that all right?”

After all, the salary was eight thousand dollars.

“Very well, then,” Stuart agreed. “But you’ll have to excuse me tonight. I’m catching a train to the city.”

“I’ll put an automobile at your disposal.”

At ten o’clock he rang the bell of Teddy’s apartment on Forty-eighth Street.

“I’m looking for Mr. Van Beck,” he said to the woman who answered the door. “I know he’s gone to the theater, but I wonder if you can tell me--” Suddenly he guessed who the woman was. “I’m Stuart Oldhorne,” he explained. “I married Mr. Van Beck’s cousin.”

“Oh, come in,” said Betty pleasantly. “I know all about who you are.”

She was just this side of forty, stoutish and plain of face, but full of a keen, brisk vitality. In the living room they sat down.

“You want to see Teddy?”

“He’s with my wife and I want to join them after the theater. I wonder if you know where they went?”

“Oh, so Teddy’s with your wife.” There was a faint, pleasant brogue in her voice. “Well, now, he didn’t say exactly where he’d be tonight.”

“Then you don’t know?”

“I don’t--not for the life of me,” she admitted cheerfully. “I’m sorry.”

He stood up, and Betty saw the thinly hidden anguish in his face. Suddenly she was really sorry.

“I did hear him say something about the theater,” she said ruminatively. “Now sit down and let me think what it was. He goes out so much and a play once a week is enough for me, so that one night mixes up with the others in my head. Didn’t your wife say where to meet them?”

“No. I only decided to come in after they’d started. She said she’d catch the theater train back to Long Island or go to her mother’s.”

“That’s it,” Betty said triumphantly, striking her hands together like cymbals. “That’s what he said when he called up--that he was putting a lady on the theater train for Long Island, and would be home himself right afterward. We’ve had a child sick and it’s driven things from my mind.”

“I’m very sorry I bothered you under those conditions.”

“It’s no bother. Sit down. It’s only just after ten.”

Feeling easier, Stuart relaxed a little and accepted a cigar.

“No, if I tried to keep up with Teddy, I’d have white hair by now,” Betty said. “Of course, I go to his concerts, but often I fall asleep--not that he ever knows it. So long as he doesn’t take too much to drink and knows where his home is, I don’t bother about where he wanders.” As Stuart’s face grew serious again, she changed her tone: “All and all, he’s a good husband to me and we have a happy life together, without interfering with each other. How would he do working next to the nursery and groaning at every sound? And how would I do going to Mrs. Ruthven’s with him, and all of them talking about high society and high art?”

A phrase of Helen’s came back to Stuart: “Always together--I like for us to do everything together.”

“You have children, haven’t you, Mr. Oldhorne?”

“Yes. My boy’s almost big enough to sit a horse.”

“Ah, yes; you’re both great for horses.”

“My wife says that as soon as their legs are long enough to reach stirrups, she’ll be interested in them again.” This didn’t sound right to Stuart and he modified it: “I mean she always has been interested in them, but she never let them monopolize her or come between us. We’ve always believed that marriage ought to be founded on companionship, on having the same interests. I mean, you’re musical and you help your husband.”

Betty laughed. “I wish Teddy could hear that. I can’t read a note or carry a tune.”

“No?” He was confused. “I’d somehow got the impression that you were musical.”

“You can’t see why else he’d have married me?”

“Not at all. On the contrary.”

After a few minutes, he said good night, somehow liking her. When he had gone, Betty’s expression changed slowly to one of exasperation; she went to the telephone and called her husband’s studio:

“There you are, Teddy. Now listen to me carefully. I know your cousin is with you and I want to talk with her. . . . Now, don’t lie. You put her on the phone. Her husband has been here, and if you don’t let me talk to her, it might be a serious matter.”

She could hear an unintelligible colloquy, and then Helen’s voice:

“Hello.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Oldhorne. Your husband came here, looking for you and Teddy. I told him I didn’t know which play you were at, so you’d better be thinking which one. And I told him Teddy was leaving you at the station in time for the theater train.”

“Oh, thank you very much. We--”

“Now, you meet your husband or there’s trouble for you, or I’m no judge of men. And--wait a minute. Tell Teddy, if he’s going to be up late, that Josie’s sleeping light, and he’s not to touch the piano when he gets home.”

Betty heard Teddy come in at eleven, and she came into the drawing-room smelling of camomile vapor. He greeted her absently; there was a look of suffering in his face and his eyes were bright and far away.

“You call yourself a great musician, Teddy Van Beck,” she said, “but it seems to me you’re much more interested in women.”

“Let me alone, Betty.”

“I do let you alone, but when the husbands start coming here, it’s another matter.”

“This was different, Betty. This goes way back into the past.”

“It sounds like the present to me.”

“Don’t make any mistake about Helen,” he said. “She’s a good woman.”

“Not through any fault of yours, I know.”

He sank his head wearily in his hands. “I’ve tried to forget her. I’ve avoided her for six years. And then, when I met her a month ago, it all rushed over me. Try and understand, Bet. You’re my best friend; you’re the only person that ever loved me.”

“When you’re good I love you,” she said.

“Don’t worry. It’s over. She loves her husband; she just came to New York with me because she’s got some spite against him. She follows me a certain distance just like she always has, and then--Anyhow, I’m not going to see her any more. Now go to bed, Bet. I want to play for a while.”

He was on his feet when she stopped him.

“You’re not to touch the piano tonight.”

“Oh, I forgot about Josie,” he said remorsefully. “Well, I’ll drink a bottle of beer and then I’ll come to bed.”

He came close and put his arm around her.

“Dear Bet, nothing could ever interfere with us.”

“You’re a bad boy, Teddy,” she said. “I wouldn’t ever be so bad to you.”

“How do you know, Bet? How do you know what you’d do?”

He smoothed down her plain brown hair, knowing for the thousandth time that she had none of the world’s dark magic for him, and that he couldn’t live without her for six consecutive hours. “Dear Bet,” he whispered. “Dear Bet.”

III

The Oldhornes were visiting. In the last four years, since Stuart had terminated his bondage to Gus Myers, they had become visiting people. The children visited Grandmother Van Beck during the winter and attended school in New York. Stuart and Helen visited friends in Asheville, Aiken and Palm Beach, and in the summer usually occupied a small cottage on someone’s Long Island estate. “My dear, it’s just standing there empty. I wouldn’t dream of accepting any rent. You’ll be doing us a favor by occupying it.”

Usually, they were; they gave out a great deal of themselves in that eternal willingness and enthusiasm which makes a successful guest--it became their profession. Moving through a world that was growing rich with the war in Europe, Stuart had somewhere lost his way. Twice playing brilliant golf in the national amateur, he accepted a job as professional at a club which his father had helped to found. He was restless and unhappy.

This week-end they were visiting a pupil of his. As a consequence of a mixed foursome, the Oldhornes went upstairs to dress for dinner surcharged with the unpleasant accumulation of many unsatisfactory months. In the afternoon, Stuart had played with their hostess and Helen with another man--a situation which Stuart always dreaded, because it forced him into competition with Helen. He had actually tried to miss that putt on the eighteenth--to just miss it. But the ball dropped in the cup. Helen went through the superficial motions of a good loser, but she devoted herself pointedly to her partner for the rest of the afternoon.

Their expressions still counterfeited amusement as they entered their room.

When the door closed, Helen’s pleasant expression faded and she walked toward the dressing table as though her own reflection was the only decent company with which to forgather. Stuart watched her, frowning.

“I know why you’re in a rotten humor,” he said; “though I don’t believe you know yourself.”

“I’m not in a rotten humor,” Helen responded in a clipped voice.

“You are; and I know the real reason--the one you don’t know. It’s because I holed that putt this afternoon.”

She turned slowly, incredulously, from the mirror.

“Oh, so I have a new fault! I’ve suddenly become, of all things, a poor sport!”

“It’s not like you to be a poor sport,” he admitted, “but otherwise why all this interest in other men, and why do you look at me as if I’m--well, slightly gamy?”

“I’m not aware of it.”

“I am.” He was aware, too, that there was always some man in their life now--some man of power and money who paid court to Helen and gave her the sense of solidity which he failed to provide. He had no cause to be jealous of any particular man, but the pressure of many was irritating. It annoyed him that on so slight a grievance, Helen should remind him by her actions that he no longer filled her entire life.

“If Anne can get any satisfaction out of winning, she’s welcome to it,” said Helen suddenly.

“Isn’t that rather petty? She isn’t in your class; she won’t qualify for the third flight in Boston.”

Feeling herself in the wrong, she changed her tone.

“Oh, that isn’t it,” she broke out. “I just keep wishing you and I could play together like we used to. And now you have to play with dubs, and get their wretched shots out of traps. Especially”--she hesitated--”especially when you’re so unnecessarily gallant.”

The faint contempt in her voice, the mock jealousy that covered a growing indifference was apparent to him. There had been a time when, if he danced with another woman, Helen’s stricken eyes followed him around the room.

“My gallantry is simply a matter of business,” he answered. “Lessons have brought in three hundred a month all summer. How could I go to see you play at Boston next week, except that I’m going to coach other women?”

“And you’re going to see me win,” announced Helen. “Do you know that?”

“Naturally, I want nothing more,” Stuart said automatically. But the unnecessary defiance in her voice repelled him, and he suddenly wondered if he really cared whether she won or not.

At the same moment, Helen’s mood changed and for a moment she saw the true situation--that she could play in amateur tournaments and Stuart could not, that the new cups in the rack were all hers now, that he had given up the fiercely competitive sportsmanship that had been the breath of life to him in order to provide necessary money.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for you, Stuart!” There were tears in her eyes. “It seems such a shame that you can’t do the things you love, and I can. Perhaps I oughtn’t to play this summer.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “You can’t sit home and twirl your thumbs.”

She caught at this: “You wouldn’t want me to. I can’t help being good at sports; you taught me nearly all I know. But I wish I could help you.”

“Just try to remember I’m your best friend. Sometimes you act as if we were rivals.”

She hesitated, annoyed by the truth of his words and unwilling to concede an inch; but a wave of memories rushed over her, and she thought how brave he was in his eked-out, pieced-together life; she came and threw her arms around him.

“Darling, darling, things are going to be better. You’ll see.”

Helen won the finals in the tournament at Boston the following week. Following around with the crowd, Stuart was very proud of her. He hoped that instead of feeding her egotism, the actual achievement would make things easier between them. He hated the conflict that had grown out of their wanting the same excellences, the same prizes from life.

Afterward he pursued her progress toward the clubhouse, amused and a little jealous of the pack that fawned around her. He reached the club among the last, and a steward accosted him. “Professionals are served in the lower grill, please,” the man said.

“That’s all right. My name’s Oldhorne.”

He started to walk by, but the man barred his way.

“Sorry, sir. I realize that Mrs. Oldhorne’s playing in the match, but my orders are to direct the professionals to the lower grill, and I understand you are a professional.”

“Why, look here--” Stuart began, wildly angry, and stopped. A group of people were listening. “All right; never mind,” he said gruffly, and turned away.

The memory of the experience rankled; it was the determining factor that drove him, some weeks later, to a momentous decision. For a long time he had been playing with the idea of joining the Canadian Air Force, for service in France. He knew that his absence would have little practical bearing on the lives of Helen and the children; happening on some friends who were also full of the restlessness of 1915, the matter was suddenly decided. But he had not counted on the effect upon Helen; her reaction was not so much one of grief or alarm, but as if she had been somehow outwitted.