Fancies and Goodnights
Page 45
«There is some then?» said Caroline.
«The extract has been made,» said Humphrey, «in very odd circumstances, about which I'll tell you exactly nothing — it has been made three times.»
«Three!» exclaimed Alan, as if impressed by the coincidence, because there were three people right there in the room.
«I took one,» said Humphrey with a smile.
«And the others?» cried Caroline.
«Fortunately one dose is enough,» continued Humphrey. «I don't want to bore you with technicalities, but this is extremely interesting. This secretion actually changes the functions of two distinct glands, neither of them the gland from which we originally extracted it. Now …»
«But, Humphrey dear, what happened to the other two doses?»
«Vingleberg took one of them. He's sixty-eight and as ugly as a monkey. He'll stay sixty-eight, and stay ugly, for the next two hundred years.»
«For God's sake!» said Alan bitterly.
«And the third?» asked Caroline.
«Caroline, my dear,» said Humphrey, «I brought that back with me. I needn't tell you why.» As he spoke he unlocked a little drawer in his desk. «Here it is,» he said, holding an ordinary phial full of a colourless liquid. «Life, youth, love, for nearly two hundred years! Probably more, because in that time we'll have found out all sorts of things. I nearly poured this away, the day I landed.»
«Oh, Humphrey, I … what can I say?»
«I don't feel that way any longer,» said Humphrey. «In fact, I didn't from the very first moment I met you both. So I'd like you to have this, if you'd care for it. Call it a sort of belated wedding present. Here you are. To both of you.»
He held out the phial and, finding two hands extended to receive it, he brought them together. «But you do solemnly swear never to say a word?» he asked.
«I do,»said Caroline.
«I do,»said Alan.
«It sounds quite like the wedding service,» said Humphrey with a smile. He laid the phial in their joined hands. «But, of course, it isn't. Well, there it is, for both of you.»
«We shall take half each,» said Caroline.
«A hundred years apiece!» said Alan.
«Here! Wait a minute! Hold on!» said Humphrey. «I'm afraid I've misled you. I suppose one works on a subject for years, and gets so close to it, one forgets other people don't know the first thing. There was an interesting example of that…»
«Why can't we take half each?» said Caroline rather loudly.
«Because, my dear, glands don't understand arithmetic. A half-changed gland won't give you half two hundred years of youth and beauty. Oh, no! Caroline, I remember the very first time I met you I told you what people were like when certain glands were deranged.»
«You mean those awful idiots ?»
«Exactly. This is one dose here, and one dose only. It can be drunk in one gulp; it's got a little flavour, but hardly unpleasant. It's simple, but it's dangerous if you fool with it — like dynamite. Keep it as a curiosity. It's no use; it isn't pretty; it's a wedding present. At least it's unique.»
«Well, thank you, Humphrey. Thank you very, very much.»
Thereupon Caroline and Alan went home, where they set this interesting little bottle on the mantelpiece. They then took a long look at it, and a long look at each other. Had it been possible they might have taken a long look in that enormous mirror, the public eye, before which — almost in which — their lives were lived, and in which they were the perfect lovers.
«You must take it right away,» said Alan. «I'll get you a glass of water to drink afterwards.»
«I shall do no such thing. Alan, I want you to drink it.»
«Darling, come here and look in the glass. Do you see? I'm being perfectly selfish. I want you to be like that forever.»
«I can see you, too, Alan. And that's how you've got to be.»
Some compliments were exchanged. They were sincere and enthusiastic, and became more so. In the end the little bottle was entirely forgotten. But the next morning it was still there.
Alan and Caroline were as determined as ever, each that the other should drink the precious potion. It is impossible to say exactly what it was in their protestations that suggested that each of them may have thought a little about it during the night.
«We can't spend the rest of our lives doing a sort of 'After you, Alphonse,'» said Caroline. «I swear to you; I cross my heart and hope to die — I want you to take it. Now please do.»
«Get this straight once and for all,» said Alan. «You're going to take it, and I'm not. I'm going to be like that fellow what's his name who fell in love with — you know — the goddess.»
«But darling, think of your overhead smash!»
«What's wrong with it? Are you trying to tell me it's not holding up?»
«Of course not. It's wonderful how it holds up. Everyone says so. But you'll be up against that awful boy from California in August, you know.»
«I can take care of that pip-squeak without any monkey gland,» said Alan. «I must say I'm rather suprised you think I can't.»
«I don't think you can't, »said Caroline. «But …»
«Oh, there's a 'but' to it!»
«But you are six years older than I am.»
«Oh, listen! A man's got ten years at least on a woman.»
«Not every woman. It's true some women like going around with men old enough to be their fathers.» She studied him thoughtfully. «I think you'll look awfully distinguished with grey hair.»
Alan looked unhappily into the mirror. Then he looked at Caroline. «I can't imagine you with grey hair. So, you see, if I did drink it, just to please you …»
«I wish you would,» cried Caroline, whose basic goodness and kindness are a matter of record. «Alan, I won't see you get old, and ugly, and ill … and die. I'd rather it was me. Truly I would. Rather than have you die and be left without you.»
«And that goes for me,» said Alan, with just as much emphasis, but yet in a way that caused her to look at him searchingly.
«But you'd love me?» she asked, «even if I did get old? Wouldn't you?» Then, giving him no time at all: «Or would you?»
«Carrie, you know I would.»
«No, you wouldn't. But I would you.»
«If that's what you think,» said Alan, «you'd better take it yourself. It's obvious. Go on — take it. And let me get old.»
«I wish Humphrey had never given us the wretched stuff!» cried Caroline. «Let's pour it down the sink. Come on! Right now!»
«Are you crazy?» cried Alan, snatching the phial from her hand. «The only bottle in the whole world! From what Baxter said, a man died for the sake of what's in that bottle.»
«And he'd be awfully hurt if we threw it away,» murmured Caroline.
«To hell with him,» said Alan. «But after all it's a wedding present.»
So they left it right there on the mantelpiece, which is a good place for a wedding present, and their wonderful life went on.
The only trouble was, they were both becoming age-conscious to a degree which gradually amounted to an obsession. Caroline became extremely exacting at the beauty parlour. It was pathetic to see Alan hovering in front of the mirror, trying to decide if that was only a sun-bleached hair on his temple, or a grey one. Caroline watched him, and in the mirror he saw her watching him. They looked at themselves, and they looked at each other, and whoever looks in that way can always find something. I shall not describe the afternoon when Alan's birthday cake was brought in with the wrong number of candles on it.
However, they both tried desperately to be brave about it, and Caroline might have succeeded.
«It won't be so bad,» she said. «After all, we can grow old together.»
«A nice old couple!» said Alan. «Silver hair, plastic dentures … !»
«Even so, if we still love each other,» maintained Caroline.
«Sure! On a porch! With roses!»
It was that very night, in the midd
le of the night, Alan was suddenly awakened. Caroline had turned the light on, and was bending over him, looking at him.
«What is it? What's the matter? What are you looking at me for?»
«Oh, I was just looking at you.»
Most men, if they woke up in the middle of the night and found Caroline bending over them, would think they must have died and gone to Heaven, but Alan took it very peevishly. He seemed to think that she was examining him for enlarged pores, deepening wrinkles, sagging tissues, blurring lines, and other signs of incipient decay, and she found it hard to make a convincing denial, because she had been doing exactly that.
«I've a good mind to take that stuff and swallow it down right now,» said Alan in a rage.
«Yes, it's just the sort of thing you would do,» retorted Caroline.
It will be seen that a situation had developed in which almost anything that either of them did would be certain to offend the other.
Things went on like this until the last day of the tournament at Forest Hills. It was on this day that Alan encountered the boy-wonder from California. He saw, as he had seen before, that the stripling had a game very noticeably lacking in finesse. He had tremendous force and a great deal of speed, but no finesse at all. His reflexes were uncanny; it was impossible to fool him by a change of pace. But reflexes are one thing; finesse is quite another. «Why the hell do I keep thinking about finesse?» said Alan to himself before the first set was over. When the last set was done, the answer was there as big as the scoreboard. The stringy boy from California put his hand on Alan's shoulder as they walked off the court together. To a man who has been played to a stand-still, the hand of the victor is a heavy load to carry.
Nevertheless Alan took his defeat very well. All through the evening he firmly discounted the alibis that his friends invented for him. «The son of a bitch just plain battered me off the court,» said he with a rueful grin. Even when Caroline explained to everyone how tense and nervous he'd been lately, he showed no slightest sign of the rage and desolation which howled within him.
That night, in spite of his aching weariness, he lay awake long after Caroline was sound asleep. At last he got up and crept with infinite caution into the living-room. He took up the little phial, unscrewed the top, and drained the contents at a single gulp. He went to the little faucet behind the bar, and refilled the phial with water. He was about to replace the cap when a thought struck him, and he looked about among the bottles until he settled on some bitters. He added several drops to the water in the phial, and then put it back on the mantelpiece. Over the mantle-piece was a mirror; Alan took a long look in this mirror, and he smiled.
Now it happened that at this time Caroline was playing the part of a girl who was encumbered with an amiable fool of a younger sister. The girl who played this sister walked out in a fit of temper, and a new girl had to be found in a hurry. One of the producers, without even the excuse of a villainous motive, but out of sheer sottish good nature, nominated the niece of a friend of his. The girl had to be sent for and looked at, and at once everyone saw that she was the crazy kid sister in person, for she was nothing more or less than a long-limbed, wide-mouthed, dazzle-eyed version of Caroline in slang, so to speak, with a grin instead of a smile, and a stumble instead of Caroline's wonderful walk; and instead of that look of spring morning joy that beamed from Caroline's face the newcomer had an expression of slap-happy bewilderment, as if the world was playing a succession of highly diverting tricks on her.
Everyone thought she was charming, and everyone approved the choice, Caroline included. The first time she went on, Caroline stood in the wings to see how she took to it. She could see just by looking at her back that the girl lit up as she stepped into view of the audience. It hardly amounted to a premonition, but she stepped forward and watched attentively as the girl blundered through the agreeable little routine that the part called for. It was a scene that always drew a pleasant round of applause. This time, as the girl came off the stage: «My God!» thought Caroline, «that's my applause.»
She was perfectly right. The sound that was mounting out front was of a timbre discernibly more feverish, and with more of the humming undertone of the human voice in it, than the applause that rewards a good piece of acting. This was the sound made by an audience that has fallen in love. Caroline knew it well. She had heard it every night for a good many years, and she heard it that same night when, a few minutes later, she made her own entrance. But, rightly or wrongly, it now seemed to her that a certain amount was missing, and to Caroline's ear that amount was exactly equal to what had been bestowed on the gangling youngster.
In the passage outside her dressing room a small group was listening with new respect to the producer who had found the girl. «What do you think of her, Carrie?» he asked amiably as Caroline approached.
«I think she's a darling,» replied Caroline.
«Carrie,»said he, «she's the biggest discovery since you walked on that night in Newport.»
Caroline smiled and entered her dressing room. Through the half-open door she heard someone say, «But do you think she'll make an actress?»
«Let me tell you, my boy,» returned the fortunate discoverer. «I was out front all through the second act. Now, when you're talking to that kid the way I'm talking to you, what is she? Just a kid. But, my boy, when she walks on the stage — she's YOUTH. The crazy, lovely, dizzy, unlucky, stumble-bum youth of this day and age, my boy! And she tears your goddam heart out. So I don't give a hoot in hell if she ever learns to act. In fact I hope to God she never will. I've put on as many good shows as anyone else over the last fifteen years, and I remember what Wolcott Gibbs said about some dame quite a time ago. 'When youth and beauty walk on the stage,' he said, 'to hell with Sarah Bernhardt.'»
Caroline closed her door.
That night she couldn't get home fast enough. She felt she needed Alan. She felt like a wounded animal that instinctively seeks some bitter herb, the one thing that will cure it. She knew, as it were, the flavour of what she needed from him: harsh, astringent, healing to the bruised ego; the acrid emanation of … which of his qualities. «Anyway, it's there,» she thought in the elevator. «It's there in his ugly smile; in the way he …» Here she stopped short. «Alan's smile? Ugly? I'm certainly good and mixed up. Never mind! At least I'm home.»
She went in, and the place was empty. The emptiness of one's own home at midnight, when one has fled there for comfort, is an abomination and an injury, and Caroline took it as such, though it was the most ordinary thing in the world for Alan to go out while she was at the theatre, and to get home after she did. Recently, he had done so almost every night, and she hadn't given it a thought. But tonight she was injured and angry.
She walked from one room to another, looked at the largest photograph of Alan, and felt dissatisfied with his smile. «It's not mature,» she said. She looked in the glass and tried, with considerable difficulty, a smile of her own. This she found even more unsatisfactory, but for the opposite reason. «I may as well face it,» said this valetudinarian of twenty-seven, «I'm old.» She stood there watching her reflection as she drew down the corners of her mouth, and in the stillness and silence of the apartment she could feel and almost hear the remorseless erosion of time. Moment after moment particles of skin wore away; hair follicles broke, splintered, and decayed like the roots of dead trees. All those little tubes and miles of thread-like channels in the inner organs were silting up like doomed rivers. And the glands, the all-important glands, were choking, clogging, abrading, falling apart. And she felt her marriage was falling apart, and Alan would be gone, and life would be gone.
Her eyes were already on the little phial. She took it up, she unscrewed the top, and she drank the contents. She was very calm and controlled as she went to the bathroom and refilled the phial with water, and added a little quinine to give it the bitter taste. She put the phial back in its place, eyed her reflection again as she did so, and called herself by a name so extremely coarse
and offensive that it is almost unbelievable that so charming a girl as Caroline could have uttered the word.
When Alan returned that night, she did not ask him where he had been, but overwhelmed him with tenderness, feeling of course as if she had unspeakably betrayed him, and was going to desert him, and go away into an endless springtime, where he could never follow her.
This mood continued over the weeks that followed, and should, one would say, have been matched by an equal remorseful tenderness in Alan, but things are not always as they should be. The fact is, the only inconvenience he suffered from his little secret concerning the phial, was the thought of being married to an aging woman, which makes a man feel like a gigolo.
So time, which was the cause of all this trouble, went on, and both Caroline and Alan, secure in imperishable youth, saw in the other, as through a magnifying glass, more and more of the hastening signs of decay. Alan began to feel very much ill-used. He felt that Caroline at the very least should have provided herself with a younger sister. One night he dropped into the theatre and discovered that, in a manner of speaking, she had done so.
Soon after this Alan began to win his matches again, and by the same comfortable margin as before. The experts all noted that he had entirely regained his old fire and aggressiveness, and they confidently expected him to win back the championship the following year.
All this time, Humphrey, being trained to await patiently the outcome of his experiments, waited patiently. It may be asked how he knew that both of them would take the potion. The answer is, he was completely indifferent as to whether both of them took it, or one of them, or neither. It was his opinion that a good marriage would survive the phial, and a bad one would be wrecked by it, whichever way it happened.
Very late one evening his doorbell rang three or four times in rapid succession. He raised his eyebrows, and hurried to open it. There stood Caroline. Her hat, hair, dress, and all the rest of it looked just as usual; yet she gave the impression of having run all the way. Humphrey gave her his ugly smile, and, saying never a word, he led her through into the living-room, where she sat down, got up, walked about a little, and at last turned to him. «I've left Alan,» she said.