The Fantasy and Mystery Stories of F Scott Fitzgerald

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Roscoe’s son moved up into the first grade after a year, but Benjamin stayed on in the kindergarten. He was very happy. Sometimes when other tots talked about what they would do when they grew up a shadow would cross his little face as if in a dim, childish way he realized that those were things in which he was never to share.

  The days flowed on in monotonous content. He went back a third year to the kindergarten, but he was too little now to understand what the bright shining strips of paper were for. He cried because the other boys were bigger than he and he was afraid of them. The teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand he could not understand at all.

  He was taken from the kindergarten. His nurse, Nana, in her starched gingham dress, became the centre of his tiny world. On bright days they walked in the park; Nana would point at a great gray monster and say ‘elephant,’ and Benjamin would say if after her, and when he was being undressed for bed that night he would say it over and over aloud to her: ‘Elyphant, elyphant, elyphant.’ Sometimes Nana let him jump on the bed, which was fun, because if you sat down exactly right it would bounce you up on your feet again, and if you said ‘Ah’ for a long time while you jumped you got a very pleasing broken vocal effect.

  He loved to take a big cane from the hatrack and go around hitting chairs and tables with it saying: ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ When there were people there the old ladies would cluck at him, which interested him, and the young ladies would try to kiss him, which he submitted to with mild boredom. And when the long day was done at five o’clock he would go upstairs with Nana and be fed oatmeal and nice soft mushy foods with a spoon.

  There were no troublesome memories in his childish sleep; no token came to him of his brave days at college, of the glittering years when he flustered the hearts of many girls. There were only the white, safe walls of his crib and Nana and a man who came to see him sometimes, and a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at just before his twilight bed hour and called ‘sun.’ When the sun went his eyes were sleepy – there were no dreams, no dreams to haunt him.

  The past – the wild charge at the head of his men up San Juan Hill; the first years of his marriage when he worked late into the summer dusk down in the busy city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days before that when he sat smoking far into the night in the gloomy old Button house on Monroe Street with his grandfather – all these had faded like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been.

  He did not remember. He did not remember clearly whether the milk was warm or cool at his last feeding or how the days passed – there was only his crib and Nana’s familiar presence. And then he remembered nothing. When he was hungry he cried – that was all. Through the noons and nights he breathed and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and darkness.

  Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind.

  Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr–nce of W–les

  The Majestic came gliding into New York harbour on an autumn morning. She sniffed at the tug-boats and turtle-gaited ferries, winked at a gaudy young yacht and ordered a cattle-boat out of her way with a snarling whistle of steam. Then she drew up at her private dock with all the fuss of a stout lady sitting down, and announced complacently that she had just come from Cherbourg and Southampton with a cargo of the very best people in the world.

  The very best people in the world stood on the deck and waved idiotically to their poor relations who were waiting on the dock for gloves from Paris. Before long a great toboggan had connected the Majestic with the North American continent and the ship began to disgorge these very best people in the world – who turned out to be cinema stars, missionaries, retired jewellers, British authors, musical comedy twins, the Duchess Mazzini (née Goldberg) and, needless to add, Lord and Lady Thingumbob, of Thingumbob Manor.

  The deck gradually emptied, but when the last Poiret Madonna had reached shore the photographers still remained at their posts. And the officer in charge of debarkation still stood at the foot of the gangway, glancing first at his watch and then at the deck as if some important part of the cargo was still on board. At last from the watchers on the pier there arose a long-drawn ‘Ah-h-h!’ as a final entourage began to stream down from deck B.

  First came two French maids, one carrying a pair of minute dogs and the other bearing an enormous green parrot in an enormous red cage. After these marched a squad of porters, blind and invisible under innumerable bunches and bouquets of fresh flowers. Another maid followed, leading a sad-eyed orphan child of a French flavour, and close upon its heels walked the second officer, pulling along three neurasthenic wolfhounds, much to their reluctance and his own.

  A pause. Then the captain, Sir Howard Deems Macdougall, appeared at the rail, with something that might have been a pile of gorgeous silver fox fur standing by his side.

  Rags Martin-Jones, after two years in the capitals of Europe, was returning to her native land! Rags Martin-Jones was not a dog! She was half a girl and half a flower, and as she shook hands with Captain Sir Howard Deems Macdougall she smiled as if someone had told her the newest, freshest joke in the world. All the people who had not already left the pier felt that smile trembling on the morning air and turned around to see. She came slowly down the gangway. Her hat, an expensive, inscrutable experiment, was crushed under her arm so that her scant, French-bobbed hair tossed and flopped a little in the harbour wind. Her face was like seven o’clock on a summer morning, save where she had slipped a preposterous monocle into an eye of clear, childish blue. At every few steps her long lashes would tilt out the monocle and she would laugh, a bored, happy laugh, and replace the supercilious spectacle in the other eye.

  Tap! Her one hundred and five pounds reached the pier, and it seemed to sway, and bend from the shock of her beauty. A few porters fainted. A large, sentimental shark which had followed the ship across made a despairing leap to see her once more, and then dived, broken-hearted, back into the deep sea. Rags Martin-Jones had come home.

  There was no member of her family there to meet her, for the simple reason that she was the only member of her family left alive. In 1913 her parents had gone down on the Titanic together rather than be separated in this world, and so the Martin-Jones fortune of seventy-five millions had been inherited by a very little girl on her tenth birthday. It was what the pessimists always refer to as a ‘shame.’ Rags Martin-Jones (everybody had forgotten her real name long ago) was now photographed from all sides. The monocle persistently fell out, and she kept laughing and yawning and replacing it, so no very clear picture of her was taken, except by the motion-picture camera. All the photographs, however, included a flustered, handsome young man, with an almost ferocious love-light burning in his eyes, who had met her on the dock. His name was John Chestnut, he was already talked of as a risen star in the financial world, and he had been hopelessly in love with Rags ever since the time when she, like the tides, had come under the influence of the summer moon.

  When Rags became really aware of his presence they were walking down the pier, and she looked at him blankly, as though she had never seen him before in this world.

  ‘Rags!’ he began. ‘Rags –’

  ‘John Chestnut?’ she inquired, inspecting him with interest.

  ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘Are you trying to pretend you don’t know me? That you didn’t write to tell me to meet you here?’ She laughed. A chauffeur appeared at her elbow, and she twisted out of her coat, revealing a dress made in great, splashy checks of sea-blue and grey. She shook herself like a wet bird.

  ‘I’ve got a lot of stuff to declare at the customs,’ she remarked absently.

  ‘So have I,’ said Chestnut anxiously, ‘and the first thing I want to declare is that I’ve loved you, Rags, every minute since you’ve been away.’ She stopped with a groan.

 
; ‘Please! There were some young men on the boat. The subject’s gotten to be a bore.’

  ‘My Heaven!’ cried Chestnut. ‘Do you mean to say that you class my love with what a lot of insolent kids said to you on a boat!’ His voice had risen, and several people in the vicinity turned to hear.

  ‘Sh!’ she warned him. ‘I’m not giving a circus. If you want me to even see you while I’m here you’ll have to be less violent.’

  But John Chestnut seemed unable to control his voice.

  ‘Do you mean to say’ – it trembled to a carrying pitch – ‘that you’ve forgotten what you said on this very pier just twenty-two months ago last Thursday?’ Half the passengers from the ship were now watching the scene on the dock, and another little eddy drifted out of the customs house to see.

  ‘John’ – her displeasure was increasing – ‘if you raise your voice again I’ll arrange it so you’ll have plenty of chance to cool off. I’m going to the Ritz. Come and see me there this afternoon.’

  ‘But Rags!’ he protested hoarsely. ‘Listen to me. Twenty-two months ago –’ Then the watchers on the dock were treated to a curious sight. A beautiful lady in a checkered dress of sea-blue and grey took a brisk step forward so that her hands came into contact with the excited young man by her side. The young man, retreating instinctively, reached back with his foot, but finding nothing relapsed gently off the thirty-foot dock and plopped into the Hudson River. A shout of alarm went up and there was a rush to the edge just as his head appeared above water. He was swimming easily and, perceiving this, the young lady who had apparently been the cause of the accident leaned over the pier and made a megaphone of her hands.

  ‘I’ll be in at half-past four!’ she cried. And with a cheerful wave of her hand, which the engulfed gentleman was unable to return, she adjusted her monocle, threw one haughty glance at the gathered crowd and walked leisurely from the scene.

  The five dogs, the three maids, the parrot and the French orphan were installed in the largest suite at the Ritz, and Rags tumbled lazily into a steaming bath, where she dozed for the greater part of an hour. At the end of that time she received business calls from a masseuse, a manicurist, a beauty doctor and finally from a Parisian hairdresser who restored the French bob to its original perfection. When John Chestnut arrived at four he found half a dozen lawyers and bankers, the administrators of the Martin-Jones trust fund, waiting in the hall. They had been there since half-past one, and were now in a state of considerable agitation. After one of the maids had subjected him to a severe scrutiny, possibly to be sure that he was thoroughly dry, John was conducted immediately into the presence of M’selle. M’selle was in her bedroom, reclining on the chaise-longue among two dozen silk pillows that had accompanied her across the water. John came into the room somewhat stiffly and greeted her with a formal bow.

  ‘You look better,’ she said, raising herself from her pillows and staring at him appraisingly. ‘It gave you a colour.’ He thanked her coldly for the compliment.

  ‘You ought to go in every morning.’ And then she added irrelevantly, ‘I’m going back to Paris tomorrow.’ John Chestnut gasped.

  ‘I told you in my letter that I didn’t intend to stay more than a week, anyhow,’ she added.

  ‘But Rags –’

  ‘Why should I? There isn’t an interesting man in New York.’

  ‘But listen, Rags – won’t you give me a chance? Won’t you stay for, say, ten days and get to know me a little?’

  ‘Know you!’ Her tone implied that he was already a far too open box.

  ‘Well, what do you want me to be?’ he demanded resentfully. ‘A cross between an actor and an amusement park?’

  ‘I want a man who’s capable of a gallant gesture.’

  ‘Do you want me to express myself entirely in pantomime?’

  Rags uttered a disgusted sigh.

  ‘I mean you haven’t any imagination,’ she explained patiently. ‘No Americans have any imagination. Paris is the only city where a civilized person can exist. Paris is the capital of the world.’

  ‘Don’t you care for me at all any more?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have crossed the Atlantic to see you if I didn’t. But as soon as I looked over the Americans on the boat I knew I couldn’t marry you. I’d just hate you, John, and the only fun I’d have out of it would be the fun of breaking your heart.’ She began to twist herself down among the cushions until she almost disappeared from view.

  ‘I’ve lost my monocle,’ she exclaimed. After an unsuccessful search in the silken depths she discovered the elusive glass hanging down the back of her neck.

  ‘I’d love to be in love,’ she went on, replacing the monocle in her childish eye. ‘Last spring in Rome I almost eloped with an Indian Rajah, but I took an intense dislike to one of his other wives.’

  ‘Don’t talk that rubbish!’ cried John, sinking his face into his hands.

  ‘Well, I didn’t marry him,’ she protested. ‘But in one way he had a lot to offer. He was the third richest subject of the British Empire. That’s another thing – are you rich?’

  ‘Not as rich as you.’

  ‘There you are. What have you to offer me?’

  ‘Love.’

  ‘Love!’ She disappeared again among the cushions. ‘Listen, John. Life to me is a series of glistening bazaars, with a merchant in front of each one, rubbing his hands together and saying, “Patronize this place here. Best Bazaar in the world.” So I go with my purse full of beauty and money and youth, all prepared to buy. “What have you got for sale?” I ask him, and he rubs his hands together and says, “Well, mademoiselle, today we have some perfectly be-oo-tiful love.” Sometimes he hasn’t even got that in stock, but he sends out for it when he finds I have so much money to spend. Oh, he always gives that to me before I go, and for nothing. That’s the one revenge I have.’ John Chestnut rose despairingly to his feet and took a step toward the window.

  ‘Don’t throw yourself out,’ Rags exclaimed quickly.

  ‘I won’t.’ He tossed away his cigarette.

  ‘It isn’t just you,’ she said in a softer voice. ‘Dull and uninspired as you are, I care for you more than I can say. But life’s so stupid here. Nothing ever happens.’

  ‘Well,’ he said doggedly, ‘just for a change you’re to come out with me tonight.’

  ‘Where to?’ demanded Rags with scorn.

  ‘I’ll take you to the most amusing place in the city.’

  ‘What’ll happen? You’ve got to tell me what’ll happen?’

  John Chestnut suddenly drew a long breath and looked cautiously around as if he were afraid of being overheard.

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth,’ he said in a low, worried tone, ‘if everything was known something pretty awful would be liable to happen to me.’

  She sat upright, and the pillows tumbled about her like leaves.

  ‘Do you mean to imply that there’s anything shady in your life?’ she cried, with laughter in her voice. ‘Do you expect me to believe that? No, John, you’ll have your fun by plugging ahead on the beaten path – just plugging ahead.’

  Her mouth, a small, insolent rose, dropped the words on him like thorns. John took his hat and coat from the chair and picked up his cane.

  ‘For the last time, will you come along with me tonight and see what we can see?’

  ‘See what? See whom? Is there anything in this country worth seeing?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘for one thing you’ll see the Prince of Wales.’

  ‘What?’ She left the chaise-longue at a bound. ‘Is he in New York?’

  ‘He will be tonight. Would you care to see him?’

  ‘Would I? I’d give a year of my life to see him for an hour.’ Her voice trembled with excitement.

  ‘He’s been in Canada. He’s down here in cognito. And I happen to know where he’s going to be tonight.’

  Rags gave a sharp, ecstatic cry: ‘Felice! Louise! Nanine!’

  The
three maids came running. The room seemed to fill suddenly with vibrations of wild, startled light.

  ‘Felice, the car!’ cried Rags. ‘Louise, my gold dress and the slippers with the real gold heels! The big pearls too, all the pearls, and the egg diamond and the stockings with the sapphire clocks! Nanine, send for the hairdresser on the run! My bath again, ice cold and half full of almond cream! Felice, Tiffany’s like lightning, before they close! Find me a bracelet, a brooch, a pendant, anything, it doesn’t matter, with the arms of the House of Windsor!’ She was fumbling at the buttons of her dress, and as John turned it was already sliding from her shoulders.

  ‘Orchids, for the love of heaven! Four dozen, so I can choose four.’

  And then maids flew here and there about the room like frightened birds.

  ‘Perfume, Louise! Bring out all my perfume and my white sable and my diamond garters and the sweet oil for my hands! Here, take these things! This too and this – ouch! – and this!’ With becoming modesty John Chestnut closed the outside door. The six trustees, in various postures of fatigue, of ennui, of resignation, of despair, were still cluttering up the outer hall.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ announced John Chestnut, ‘I fear that Miss Martin-Jones is much too weary from her trip to talk to you this afternoon.’

  ‘This place, for no particular reason, is called the Hole in the Sky.’ Rags looked around her. They were on a roof garden wide open to the night. Overhead the true stars winked cold and the moon was a sliver of ice in the dark west. But where they stood it was as warm as June, and the couples dining or dancing on the central floor were unconcerned with the forbidding sky.