The Beautiful and Damned
consequently had best be left alone. Anthony customarily demurred,
insisting that the accused was a "good one," but he found that his
judgment was more fallible than hers, memorably when, as it happened on
several occasions, he was left with a succession of restaurant checks
for which to render a solitary account.
More from their fear of solitude than from any desire to go through the
fuss and bother of entertaining, they filled the house with guests every
week-end, and often on through the week. The week-end parties were much
the same. When the three or four men invited had arrived, drinking was
more or less in order, followed by a hilarious dinner and a ride to the
Cradle Beach Country Club, which they had joined because it was
inexpensive, lively if not fashionable, and almost a necessity for just
such occasions as these. Moreover, it was of no great moment what one
did there, and so long as the Patch party were reasonably inaudible, it
mattered little whether or not the social dictators of Cradle Beach saw
the gay Gloria imbibing cocktails in the supper room at frequent
intervals during the evening.
Saturday ended, generally, in a glamourous confusion--it proving often
necessary to assist a muddled guest to bed. Sunday brought the New York
papers and a quiet morning of recuperating on the porch--and Sunday
afternoon meant good-by to the one or two guests who must return to the
city, and a great revival of drinking among the one or two who remained
until next day, concluding in a convivial if not hilarious evening.
The faithful Tana, pedagogue by nature and man of all work by
profession, had returned with them. Among their more frequent guests a
tradition had sprung up about him. Maury Noble remarked one afternoon
that his real name was Tannenbaum, and that he was a German agent kept
in this country to disseminate Teutonic propaganda through Westchester
County, and, after that, mysterious letters began to arrive from
Philadelphia addressed to the bewildered Oriental as "Lt. Emile
Tannenbaum," containing a few cryptic messages signed "General Staff,"
and adorned with an atmospheric double column of facetious Japanese.
Anthony always handed them to Tana without a smile; hours afterward the
recipient could be found puzzling over them in the kitchen and declaring
earnestly that the perpendicular symbols were not Japanese, nor anything
resembling Japanese.
Gloria had taken a strong dislike to the man ever since the day when,
returning unexpectedly from the village, she had discovered him
reclining on Anthony's bed, puzzling out a newspaper. It was the
instinct of all servants to be fond of Anthony and to detest Gloria, and
Tana was no exception to the rule. But he was thoroughly afraid of her
and made plain his aversion only in his moodier moments by subtly
addressing Anthony with remarks intended for her ear:
"What Miz Pats want dinner?" he would say, looking at his master. Or
else he would comment about the bitter selfishness of "'Merican peoples"
in such manner that there was no doubt who were the "peoples"
referred to.
But they dared not dismiss him. Such a step would have been abhorrent to
their inertia. They endured Tana as they endured ill weather and
sickness of the body and the estimable Will of God--as they endured all
things, even themselves.
IN DARKNESS
One sultry afternoon late in July Richard Caramel telephoned from New
York that he and Maury were coming out, bringing a friend with them.
They arrived about five, a little drunk, accompanied by a small, stocky
man of thirty-five, whom they introduced as Mr. Joe Hull, one of the
best fellows that Anthony and Gloria had ever met.
Joe Hull had a yellow beard continually fighting through his skin and a
low voice which varied between basso profundo and a husky whisper.
Anthony, carrying Maury's suitcase up-stairs, followed into the room and
carefully closed the door.
"Who is this fellow?" he demanded.
Maury chuckled enthusiastically.
"Who, Hull? Oh, _he's_ all right. He's a good one."
"Yes, but who is he?"
"Hull? He's just a good fellow. He's a prince." His laughter redoubled,
culminating in a succession of pleasant catlike grins. Anthony hesitated
between a smile and a frown.
"He looks sort of funny to me. Weird-looking clothes"--he paused--"I've
got a sneaking suspicion you two picked him up somewhere last night."
"Ridiculous," declared Maury. "Why, I've known him all my life."
However, as he capped this statement with another series of chuckles,
Anthony was impelled to remark: "The devil you have!"
Later, just before dinner, while Maury and Dick were conversing
uproariously, with Joe Hull listening in silence as he sipped his drink,
Gloria drew Anthony into the dining room:
"I don't like this man Hull," she said. "I wish he'd use Tana's
bathtub."
"I can't very well ask him to."
"Well, I don't want him in ours."
"He seems to be a simple soul."
"He's got on white shoes that look like gloves. I can see his toes right
through them. Uh! Who is he, anyway?"
"You've got me."
"Well, I think they've got their nerve to bring him out here. This isn't
a Sailor's Rescue Home!"
"They were tight when they phoned. Maury said they've been on a party
since yesterday afternoon."
Gloria shook her head angrily, and saying no more returned to the porch.
Anthony saw that she was trying to forget her uncertainty and devote
herself to enjoying the evening.
It had been a tropical day, and even into late twilight the heat-waves
emanating from the dry road were quivering faintly like undulating panes
of isinglass. The sky was cloudless, but far beyond the woods in the
direction of the Sound a faint and persistent rolling had commenced.
When Tana announced dinner the men, at a word from Gloria, remained
coatless and went inside.
Maury began a song, which they accomplished in harmony during the first
course. It had two lines and was sung to a popular air called Daisy
Dear. The lines were:
"The--pan-ic--has--come--over us, So _ha-a-as_--the moral de_cline_!"
Each rendition was greeted with bursts of enthusiasm and prolonged
applause.
"Cheer up, Gloria!" suggested Maury. "You seem the least bit depressed."
"I'm not," she lied.
"Here, Tannenbaum!" he called over his shoulder. "I've filled you a
drink. Come on!"
Gloria tried to stay his arm.
"Please don't, Maury!"
"Why not? Maybe he'll play the flute for us after dinner. Here, Tana."
Tana, grinning, bore the glass away to the kitchen. In a few moments
Maury gave him another.
"Cheer up, Gloria!" he cried. "For Heaven's sakes everybody, cheer up
Gloria."
"Dearest, have another drink," counselled Anthony.
"Do, please!"
"Cheer up, Gloria," said Joe Hull easily.
Gloria winced at this uncalled-for use of her first name, and glanced
around to see if any one else had noticed it. The word coming so glibly
from the lips of a man to whom she had taken an inordinate dislike
repelled her. A moment later she noticed that Joe Hull had given Tana
another drink, and her anger increased, heightened somewhat from the
effects of the alcohol.
"--and once," Maury was saying, "Peter Granby and I went into a Turkish
bath in Boston, about two o'clock at night. There was no one there but
the proprietor, and we jammed him into a closet and locked the door.
Then a fella came in and wanted a Turkish bath. Thought we were the
rubbers, by golly! Well, we just picked him up and tossed him into the
pool with all his clothes on. Then we dragged him out and laid him on a
slab and slapped him until he was black and blue. 'Not so rough,
fellows!' he'd say in a little squeaky voice, 'please! ...'"
--Was this Maury? thought Gloria. From any one else the story would have
amused her, but from Maury, the infinitely appreciative, the apotheosis
of tact and consideration....
"The--pan-ic--has--come--over us, So _ha-a-as_--"
A drum of thunder from outside drowned out the rest of the song; Gloria
shivered and tried to empty her glass, but the first taste nauseated
her, and she set it down. Dinner was over and they all marched into the
big room, bearing several bottles and decanters. Some one had closed the
porch door to keep out the wind, and in consequence circular tentacles
of cigar smoke were twisting already upon the heavy air.
"Paging Lieutenant Tannenbaum!" Again it was the changeling Maury.
"Bring us the flute!"
Anthony and Maury rushed into the kitchen; Richard Caramel started the
phonograph and approached Gloria.
"Dance with your well-known cousin."
"I don't want to dance."
"Then I'm going to carry you around."
As though he were doing something of overpowering importance, he picked
her up in his fat little arms and started trotting gravely about
the room.
"Set me down, Dick! I'm dizzy!" she insisted.
He dumped her in a bouncing bundle on the couch, and rushed off to the
kitchen, shouting "Tana! Tana!"
Then, without warning, she felt other arms around her, felt herself
lifted from the lounge. Joe Hull had picked her up and was trying,
drunkenly, to imitate Dick.
"Put me down!" she said sharply.
His maudlin laugh, and the sight of that prickly yellow jaw close to her
face stirred her to intolerable disgust.
"At once!"
"The--pan-ic--" he began, but got no further, for Gloria's hand swung
around swiftly and caught him in the cheek. At this he all at once let
go of her, and she fell to the floor, her shoulder hitting the table a
glancing blow in transit....
Then the room seemed full of men and smoke. There was Tana in his white
coat reeling about supported by Maury. Into his flute he was blowing a
weird blend of sound that was known, cried Anthony, as the Japanese
train-song. Joe Hull had found a box of candles and was juggling them,
yelling "One down!" every time he missed, and Dick was dancing by
himself in a fascinated whirl around and about the room. It appeared to
her that everything in the room was staggering in grotesque
fourth-dimensional gyrations through intersecting planes of hazy blue.
Outside, the storm had come up amazingly--the lulls within were filled
with the scrape of the tall bushes against the house and the roaring of
the rain on the tin roof of the kitchen. The lightning was interminable,
letting down thick drips of thunder like pig iron from the heart of a
white-hot furnace. Gloria could see that the rain was spitting in at
three of the windows--but she could not move to shut them....
... She was in the hall. She had said good night but no one had heard or
heeded her. It seemed for an instant as though something had looked down
over the head of the banister, but she could not have gone back into the
living room--better madness than the madness of that clamor....
Up-stairs she fumbled for the electric switch and missed it in the
darkness; a roomful of lightning showed her the button plainly on the
wall. But when the impenetrable black shut down, it again eluded her
fumbling fingers, so she slipped off her dress and petticoat and threw
herself weakly on the dry side of the half-drenched bed.
She shut her eyes. From down-stairs arose the babel of the drinkers,
punctured suddenly by a tinkling shiver of broken glass, and then
another, and by a soaring fragment of unsteady, irregular song....
She lay there for something over two hours--so she calculated afterward,
sheerly by piecing together the bits of time. She was conscious, even
aware, after a long while that the noise down-stairs had lessened, and
that the storm was moving off westward, throwing back lingering showers
of sound that fell, heavy and lifeless as her soul, into the soggy
fields. This was succeeded by a slow, reluctant scattering of the rain
and wind, until there was nothing outside her windows but a gentle