Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (286 page)

They were conducted through filthy streets to a tumble-down house on the edge of town. A man with a hunting rifle, lounging outside, straightened up and spoke sharply to the porter, but after an exchange of phrases they passed, mounted the stairs and knocked at a door. When it opened a head peered around the corner; the porter spoke again and they went in.

They were in a large dirty room which might have belonged to a poor boarding house in any quarter of the Western world--faded walls, split upholstery, a shapeless bed and an air, despite its bareness, of being overcrowded by the ghostly furniture, indicated by dust rings and worn spots, of the last decade. In the middle of the room stood a small stout man with hammock eyes and a peering nose over a sweet, spoiled little mouth, who stared intently at them as they opened the door, and then with a single disgusted “Chut!” turned impatiently away. There were several other people in the room, but Brevoort and Olive saw only Emily, who reclined in a chaise longue with half-closed eyes.

At the sight of them the eyes opened in mild astonishment; she made a move as though to jump up, but instead held out her hand, smiled and spoke their names in a clear polite voice, less as a greeting than as a sort of explanation to the others of their presence here. At their names a grudging amenity replaced the sullenness on the little man’s face.

The girls kissed.

“Tutu!” said Emily, as if calling him to attention--”Prince Petrocobesco, let me present my cousin Mrs. Blair, and Mr. Blair.”

“
Plaisir
,” said Petrocobesco. He and Emily exchanged a quick glance, whereupon he said, “Won’t you sit down?” and immediately seated himself in the only available chair, as if they were playing Going to Jerusalem.

“
Plaisir
,” he repeated. Olive sat down on the foot of Emily’s chaise longue and Brevoort took a stool from against the wall, meanwhile noting the other occupants of the room. There was a very fierce young man in a cape who stood, with arms folded and teeth gleaming, by the door, and two ragged, bearded men, one holding a revolver, the other with his head sunk dejectedly on his chest, who sat side by side in the corner.

“You come here long?” the prince asked.

“Just arrived this morning.”

For a moment Olive could not resist comparing the two, the tall fair-featured American and the unprepossessing South European, scarcely a likely candidate for Ellis Island. Then she looked at Emily--the same thick bright hair with sunshine in it, the eyes with the hint of vivid seas. Her face was faintly drawn, there were slight new lines around her mouth, but she was the Emily of old--dominant, shining, large of scale. It seemed shameful for all that beauty and personality to have arrived in a cheap boarding house at the world’s end.

The man in the cape answered a knock at the door and handed a note to Petrocobesco, who read it, cried
“Chut!”
and passed it to Emily.

“You see, there are no carriages,” he said tragically in French. “The carriages were destroyed--all except one, which is in a museum. Anyhow, I prefer a horse.”

“No,” said Emily.

“Yes, yes, yes!” he cried. “Whose business is it how I go?”

“Don’t let’s have a scene, Tutu.”

“Scene!” He fumed. “Scene!”

Emily turned to Olive: “You came by automobile?”

“Yes.”

“A big de luxe car? With a back that opens?”

“Yes.”

“There,” said Emily to the prince. “We can have the arms painted on the side of that.”

“Hold on,” said Brevoort. “This car belongs to a hotel in Budapest.”

Apparently Emily didn’t hear.

“Janierka could do it,” she continued thoughtfully.

At this point there was another interruption. The dejected man in the corner suddenly sprang to his feet and made as though to run to the door, whereupon the other man raised his revolver and brought the butt down on his head. The man faltered and would have collapsed had not his assailant hauled him back to the chair, where he sat comatose, a slow stream of blood trickling over his forehead.

“Dirty townsman! Filthy, dirty spy!” shouted Petrocobesco between clenched teeth.

“Now that’s just the kind of remark you’re not to make!” said Emily sharply.

“Then why we don’t hear?” he cried. “Are we going to sit here in this pigsty forever?”

Disregarding him, Emily turned to Olive and began to question her conventionally about New York. Was prohibition any more successful? What were the new plays? Olive tried to answer and simultaneously to catch Brevoort’s eye. The sooner their purpose was broached, the sooner they could get Emily away.

“Can we see you alone, Emily?” demanded Brevoort abruptly.

“Why, for the moment we haven’t got another room.”

Petrocobesco had engaged the man with the cape in agitated conversation, and taking advantage of this, Brevoort spoke hurriedly to Emily in a lowered voice:

“Emily, your father’s getting old; he needs you at home. He wants you to give up this crazy life and come back to America. He sent us because he couldn’t come himself and no one else knew you well enough--”

She laughed. “You mean, knew the enormities I was capable of.”

“No,” put in Olive quickly. “Cared for you as we do. I can’t tell you how awful it is to see you wandering over the face of the earth.”

“But we’re not wandering now,” explained Emily. “This is Tutu’s native country.”

“Where’s your pride, Emily?” said Olive impatiently. “Do you know that affair in Paris was in the papers? What do you suppose people think back home?”

“That affair in Paris was an outrage.” Emily’s blue eyes flashed around her. “Someone will pay for that affair in Paris.”

“It’ll be the same everywhere. Just sinking lower and lower, dragged in the mire, and one day deserted--”

“Stop, please!” Emily’s voice was cold as ice. “I don’t think you quite understand--”

Emily broke off as Petrocobesco came back, threw himself into his chair and buried his face in his hands.

“I can’t stand it,” he whispered. “Would you mind taking my pulse? I think it’s bad. Have you got the thermometer in your purse?”

She held his wrist in silence for a moment.

“It’s all right, Tutu.” Her voice was soft now, almost crooning. “Sit up. Be a man.”

“All right.”

He crossed his legs as if nothing had happened and turned abruptly to Breevort:

“How are financial conditions in New York?” he demanded.

But Brevoort was in no humor to prolong the absurd scene. The memory of a certain terrible hour three years before swept over him. He was no man to be made a fool of twice, and his jaw set as he rose to his feet.

“Emily, get your things together,” he said tersely. “We’re going home.”

Emily did not move; an expression of astonishment, melting to amusement, spread over her face. Olive put her arm around her shoulder.

“Come, dear. Let’s get out of this nightmare.” Then:

“We’re waiting,” Brevoort said.

Petrocobesco spoke suddenly to the man in the cape, who approached and seized Brevoort’s arm. Brevoort shook him off angrily, whereupon the man stepped back, his hand searching his belt.

“No!” cried Emily imperatively.

Once again there was an interruption. The door opened without a knock and two stout men in frock coats and silk hats rushed in and up to Petrocobesco. They grinned and patted him on the back chattering in a strange language, and presently he grinned and patted them on the back and they kissed all around; then, turning to Emily, Petrocobesco spoke to her in French.

“It’s all right,” he said excitedly. “They did not even argue the matter. I am to have the title of king.”

With a long sigh Emily sank back in her chair and her lips parted in a relaxed, tranquil smile.

“Very well, Tutu. We’ll get married.”

“Oh, heavens, how happy!” He clasped his hands and gazed up ecstatically at the faded ceiling. “How extremely happy!” He fell on his knees beside her and kissed her inside arm.

“What’s all this about kings?” Brevoort demanded. “Is this--is he a king?”

“He’s a king. Aren’t you, Tutu?” Emily’s hand gently stroked his oiled hair and Olive saw that her eyes were unusually bright.

“I am your husband,” cried Tutu weepily. “The most happy man alive.”

“His uncle was Prince of Czjeck-Hansa before the war,” explained Emily, her voice singing her content. “Since then there’s been a republic, but the peasant party wanted a change and Tutu was next in line. Only I wouldn’t marry him unless he insisted on being king instead of prince.”

Brevoort passed his hand over his wet forehead.

“Do you mean that this is actually a fact?”

Emily nodded. “The assembly voted it this morning. And if you’ll lend us this de luxe limousine of yours we’ll make our official entrance into the capital this afternoon.”

IV

Over two years later Mr. and Mrs. Brevoort Blair and their two children stood upon a balcony of the Carlton Hotel in London, a situation recommended by the management for watching royal processions pass. This one began with a fanfare of trumpets down by the Strand, and presently a scarlet line of horse guards came into sight.

“But, mummy,” the little boy demanded, “is Aunt Emily Queen of England?”

“No, dear; she’s queen of a little tiny country, but when she visits here she rides in the queen’s carriage.”

“Oh.”

“Thanks to the magnesium deposits,” said Brevoort dryly.

“Was she a princess before she got to be queen?” the little girl asked.

“No, dear; she was an American girl and then she got to be a queen.”

“Why?”

“Because nothing else was good enough for her,” said her father. “Just think, one time she could have married me. Which would you rather do, baby--marry me or be a queen?”

The little girl hesitated.

“Marry you,” she said politely, but without conviction.

“That’ll do, Brevoort,” said her mother. “Here they come.”

“I see them!” the little boy cried.

The cavalcade swept down the crowded street. There were more horse guards, a company of dragoons, outriders, then Olive found herself holding her breath and squeezing the balcony rail as, between a double line of beefeaters, a pair of great gilt-and-crimson coaches rolled past. In the first were the royal sovereigns, their uniforms gleaming with ribbons, crosses and stars, and in the second their two royal consorts, one old, the other young. There was about the scene the glamour shed always by the old empire of half the world, by her ships and ceremonies, her pomps and symbols; and the crowd felt it, and a slow murmur rolled along before the carriage, rising to a strong steady cheer. The two ladies bowed to left and right, and though few knew who the second queen was, she was cheered too. In a moment the gorgeous panoply had rolled below the balcony and on out of sight.

When Olive turned away from the window there were tears in her eyes.

“I wonder if she likes it, Brevoort. I wonder if she’s really happy with that terrible little man.”

“Well, she got what she wanted, didn’t she? And that’s something.”

Olive drew a long breath.

“Oh, she’s so wonderful,” she cried--”so wonderful! She could always move me like that, even when I was angriest at her.”

“It’s all so silly,” Brevoort said.

“I suppose so,” answered Olive’s lips. But her heart, winged with helpless adoration, was following her cousin through the palace gates half a mile away.

FAMILY IN THE WIND

The two men drove up the hill toward the blood-red sun. The cotton fields bordering the road were thin and withered, and no breeze stirred in the pines.

“When I am totally sober,” the doctor was saying — “I mean when I am totally sober — I don’t see the same world that you do. I’m like a friend of mine who had one good eye and got glasses made to correct his bad eye; the result was that he kept seeing elliptical suns and falling off tilted curbs, until he had to throw the glasses away. Granted that I am thoroughly anaesthetized the greater part of the day — well, I only undertake work that I know I can do when I am in that condition.”

“Yeah,” agreed his brother Gene uncomfortably. The doctor was a little tight at the moment and Gene could find no opening for what he had to say. Like so many Southerners of the humbler classes, he had a deep-seated courtesy, characteristic of all violent and passionate lands — he could not change the subject until there was a moment’s silence, and Forrest would not shut up.

“I’m very happy,” he continued, “or very miserable. I chuckle or I weep alcoholically and, as I continue to slow up, life accommodatingly goes faster, so that the less there is of myself inside, the more diverting becomes the moving picture without. I have cut myself off from the respect of my fellow man, but I am aware of a compensatory cirrhosis of the emotions. And because my sensitivity, my pity, no longer has direction, but fixes itself on whatever is at hand I have become an exceptionally good fellow — much more so than when I was a good doctor.”

As the road straightened after the next bend and Gene saw his house in the distance, he remembered his wife’s face as she had made him promise, and he could wait no longer: “Forrest, I got a thing — “

But at that moment the doctor brought his, car to a sudden stop in front of a small house just beyond a grove of pines. On the front steps a girl of eight was playing with a gray cat.

“This is the sweetest little kid I ever saw,” the doctor said to Gene and then to the child, in a grave voice: “Helen, do you need any pills for kitty?”

The little girl laughed.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. She was playing another game with the cat now and this came as rather an interruption.

“Because kitty telephoned me this morning,” the doctor continued, “and said her mother was neglecting her and couldn’t I get her a trained nurse from Montgomery.”

“She did not.” The little girl grabbed the cat close indignantly; the doctor took a nickel from his pocket and tossed it to the steps.

“I recommend a good dose of milk,” he said as he put the car into gear. “Good night, Helen.”