“What girl?”
“It doesn’t matter much what girl at his time of life,” Jeffrey said. “Just a girl. Her name is Sally Sales.”
“Oh, dear,” Madge said, “Sally Sales.”
Jeffrey had picked up his coat, and now he held it by the collar.
“Do you know her?” he asked. “What’s wrong with her?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Madge answered, “I’ve only heard Beckie speak about her. She just isn’t the type of girl for Jim. She’s—Oh, I don’t know, I just wish it weren’t Sally Sales.”
“Madge,” Jeffrey told her, “you can’t have Jim to yourself all the time. You mustn’t be jealous of his girls.”
“Of course I’m jealous,” Madge said, “and I’m not ashamed of it. Darling, any mother is.”
Jeffrey put on his dinner coat. If it was not one thing, it was another. When you were in love you had a feeling that all problems would be automatically settled once you had married the girl you loved. When the children were born and the house became filled with screams and diapers, you were certain that the problem would solve itself when the children were able to walk and button themselves. The future kept holding a bundle of hay in front of you, and you plodded after it, but you never got the hay. Now that Jim was grown up, there was a new kind of emotion, and a whole new tangle of jealousies and values, far more complicated than any that had gone before. Motherhood was more intense than fatherhood, a force with which it was impossible to argue.
“Well,” Jeffrey said, “there must be some girl who is almost good enough for Jim.”
“I wish you wouldn’t joke about it,” Madge said. “I was thinking the other day, whenever I come to you with a problem, you try to pass it over. It doesn’t help when I’m worried, Jeffrey.”
“Everybody’s worried,” Jeffrey said. “You are, I am, everybody is.”
“Jeff,” she said, “you don’t know what boys and girls are like now. He might marry her.”
“Who?” Jeffrey asked. “Who might?”
“Sally Sales. Aren’t you listening, Jeffrey?”
It had a sort of universal value. When he answered he could almost hear the same thing being said by a million other people.
“Every time Jim speaks to a girl, you think he’s going to marry her,” Jeffrey said. “Why don’t you put your mind on Gwen? Now almost any minute Gwen might marry—one of the elevator boys or the man who fixes the telephone or someone.”
“Oh, Gwen,” Madge said, and she laughed. “I don’t see how you can help noticing—Gwen isn’t the type that attracts men at all.”
“There’s the bell,” Jeffrey said. “That must be Minot, now.”
There was one good thing about middle age. There might be new worries, but a lot of old ones were gone. There were a lot of things which you finally knew you could not do, so that it was logical to give up trying to do them. Jeffrey knew that he would never read all the books in the library, for example—that it was impossible, simply because of the cold mathematics of time. He knew that he would never succeed completely in doing much that he had wished. There was a pack trip, for instance, which he had always wanted to take in the Rockies. He could think about it still, but he would never have the time. Among other things that he would never do or be, he knew finally that he would never be the sort of person that Minot Roberts was. He was not even sure that he cared much now for those attributes in his friend which he had admired for so long. His manner and his composure would never be like Minot’s and he would never have Minot’s sportsmanship or his code of honor or his generosity. Now, he was not sure that he wanted to be as far removed from the world as Minot.
Yet, when he saw Minot, he felt a great warmth of friendship for him and a certain wonder at how much that friendship had changed his life. If he had not met Minot Roberts years before in France, he would not have been where he was at all, but there was no use trying to be like Minot any longer.
Minot’s hair was gray, but his figure looked extraordinarily lithe. He looked as though he could ride as well as he ever could, and his gray eyes were just as keen and the set of his jaw was just as firm as in the past. The trouble was that he looked too young. Time should have changed him in some way, and he seemed impervious to change. As Minot stood near the cocktail shaker and the glasses, he reminded Jeffrey of one of those portraits that you see in advertisements of some rare old blended whisky. You could almost make up a caption to put beneath him as you saw him standing there. You might have called it “The Portrait of a Gentleman Meeting His Old Friend,” the old friend being a bottle. You might have called it “Aristocrats, Both” or “Fifty Years in the Wood, but as Sound as Ever.” It was not right to think of Minot in that way. It was not loyal, but there it was.
“Minot,” Madge said, “it’s been ages.”
“Madge, dear,” Minot said.
That was all. It was uncomplicated, but if Jeffrey had said it, he knew he would have sounded like a fool. Minot and Madge were speaking a language which he would never speak, but he felt no resentment. Madge had had her chance once and she had wanted him, not Minot. There had been times when Jeffrey had been amazed at that effort of Madge’s at natural selection, and times when he was certain that Madge had made a mistake in not marrying a man with a background like her own, but now he was not so sure. It may have been that Madge had been endowed with a flash of intuition, an instinct for survival in that desire she once had possessed for change. There was something about Minot which was static, a little like the face of a clock which no longer ticked. It did not change Jeffrey’s affection for him, but there it was. He had never thought before of Minot as a type, but that was what he was; and now—it may have been because the world was shaking with the new war—the type was a little outmoded, a little dry and sterile: beautiful, but of no present use. It was so exactly like the portrait beside the whisky bottle of distinction that Jeffrey wished he had not thought of it. It was not right. It was disturbing to think that the world might no longer have time for what Minot Roberts represented, and it was not because Minot was old. It was because he looked so young.
Minot looked at him as he always did whenever they met.
“Hi, boy,” Minot said.
“Hi,” Jeffrey answered.
It meant that they were very old friends, but Jeffrey could never convey in that monosyllable all that Minot could.
Jeffrey poured three of gin and one of vermouth into the cocktail shaker and stirred it carefully because Minot was always particular about Martinis.
“It’s better to have one here before we go,” Jeffrey said; “they always have bad cocktails at the dinner.”
Minot smiled at him and the little wrinkles narrowed about the corners of his eyes. “Boy,” he said, “that’s a good idea. We’ll have one with Madge.”
Jeffrey looked up from the shaker.
“Here, you’d better do it.”
“It’s all in the lemon,” Minot said. “Just the outside peel—That batman cuts the peel too thick, Jeff, but don’t let it bother you, here we are.”
None of it ever spilled when Minot poured Martinis. His lean bronzed hand was as steady as a surgeon’s.
“Here you are, darling,” he said to Madge, as he handed her a glass. “Down the hatch and happy days.”
That speech was not trite when Minot spoke it; it glowed with kindly hospitality, and it made Madge laugh.
“Minot,” she said, “why is it you always give me a sense of security?”
“That isn’t kind,” Minot said. “Whenever I show up, dear, the Romans always hide their wives. You know, I’ve just thought of something.”
“Don’t keep it to yourself,” Jeffrey said, “be sure to tell us, Minot.” But he said it affectionately as one would to one’s best friend.
“It’s a poem,” Minot said, “it’s been running through my head all day. It goes something like this: ‘Four things greater than all things are, Women and horses and power and war.’ We’ve g
ot them all now, haven’t we?”
It was exactly what Minot should have said, being what he was.
“Maybe we’d better be pushing on,” Jeffrey said.
“Why, Jeffrey,” Madge said, “don’t be so rude. Minot’s only just come.”
“He knows what I mean,” Jeffrey answered. “We’ve got to be going, to the war, at the Contact Club.”
“That’s right,” Minot said. “It’s time we were up and over the lines. I’ve got the car downstairs, but I’ll tell you what we’ll do first.”
“We’ll have another drink,” Jeffrey said.
“Naturally,” Minot answered, “we’ll have another drink, but first let’s give Madge the old song, shall we?”
“What old song?” Jeffrey asked.
“Come on,” Minot said, “one, two, three—”
“Oh, I’m looking for a happy land where everything is bright, Where the hangouts grow on bushes and we stay out every night …”
While they were singing it Jeffrey forgot about the strange, chaotic day—Waldo Berg and the Bulldog Club and Walter Newcombe and Madge and Gwen and Jim and the apartment—and he forgot what he had been thinking about Minot because Minot gave him too that sense of security of which Madge had been speaking.
“You’ll take care of him, won’t you, Minot?” Madge asked. “And Jeff, dear, you’d better sleep in the study in case you fall over things.… Oh, Jim, here’s Uncle Minot, dear.”
Jim came into the living room, ready to go out, too. His dinner coat made him stand up straighter.
“How about a lift,” he asked, “if you’re going as far as Park Avenue and 52d Street?”
“We’re going to a happy land where everything is bright,” Minot said, “and 52d Street is on the way. Well, well, look at him.”
“What about him?” Jeffrey asked.
Minot Roberts was smiling at Jim, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were deeper.
“Jeff,” Minot said, “he looks about ready to take a crack at the Boches.”
Somehow the term put them back to where they really were, two old men looking at a boy. It gave Jeffrey a curious twinge of something that was almost anger. Jim was his son, not Minot Roberts’, and what had bothered him all day came nearer until it gripped him with cold fingers.
“We’re not in this show,” he said, but Minot only laughed. His reactions were definite and undeviating, never changed by doubt.
“That’s what they said in ’16,” he answered. “Remember, Wilson kept us out of war? It’s always an open season on the Boches. If I were Jim’s age, I’d be over there right now. Let’s go, Jeff.”
The doorman scurried out to the sidewalk and blew his whistle. “Mr. Roberts’ car, Mr. Roberts’ car, coming up.”
Minot’s black town car rolled out of the dusk and stopped at the curb by the apartment awning. It was an addition to the picture that Jeffrey’s mind was making—Minot Roberts, sportsman and man about town, master of hounds, member of the stock exchange, clubman, World War ace. It was everything that the writers of light fiction were always looking for. It was a paragraph in a gossip column or a bit of a true confession. It was not Henry James, but it was Robert W. Chambers, and Richard Harding Davis’ Van Bibber, and Mr. Gray’s Gallops I and Gallops II. The frustrations of the doorman vanished and his job achieved a dignity and a sublimation when Minot’s car stopped at the curb.
Minot’s chauffeur, trig and lean, with iron-gray hair, had sprung to the sidewalk. He was smiling because Pierre was an old friend of the family who knew all of Mr. Minot’s friends and who understood their values. Pierre, too, fitted into the picture. He might have been the confidential servant who had grown gray as a rat in the service of the Robertses, who had been with his master through many a scrape, who had doubtless followed just behind him when he went over the top in the Great War. Actually, Pierre was none of those things. He was just a good chauffeur with good references, but he looked them, and perhaps he thought them, too.
“Good evening, sir,” he said to Jeffrey. “Good evening, Mr. Jim.”
The instant that the door was opened, the interior of the car glowed with a soft, warm light, showing the fawn-colored upholstery and the mirror and the ash tray and the neatly folded rug.
“I’m looking for a happy land,” Minot was humming, “where everything is bright.”
Jeffrey wished that Minot would stop humming that tune. It was one of Minot’s worst habits; and now that he was started, that tune would keep on with him all the evening. When they had walked across the fields near Bar-le-Duc to the planes waiting on the line, Minot had always been humming. It may have been what was the matter with all of them—looking for a happy land where everything was bright. Jeffrey could imagine Minot looking for it in the sky when he dove at Richthofen’s Circus, looking for it later when he rode point to point and when he got his Kodiak bear. That happy land must be somewhere, and you must search for it until you died, and the larger the gesture of the search, the better. Madge was looking for the happy land and now Jim was starting.
Jeffrey leaned back in the seat.
“I never get used to town cars,” he said.
He thought a slight shadow crossed Minot’s face, and he realized that his remark had the quality of a small boy’s derisive whistle.
“It’s a temporary luxury,” Minot answered. “I won’t have it long, come the Revolution.”
That was what they always said, “come the Revolution,” and you were meant to laugh, come the Revolution. But come hell or high water, Minot must have believed that he would always have his car.
“Not that I’m conservative,” Minot said. “It’s been a great show. This is a great time to live. Jim here’s the boy who’s going to see the fun.” Minot picked up a mechanism that looked like a miniature broadcasting instrument, which came out of a little pocket on the side of the seat. “Pierre, stop on the corner of Park and 52d. Mr. Jim is leaving us.”
Then Minot thought of something else. He pulled a wallet from his pocket.
“How’s the money situation, Jim?” he asked. “Jeff, you’ll let me do this, won’t you?” He pulled a bill from his wallet. “Take this, and go to Twenty-One, Jim. Tell Jack or Charlie that I sent you, and spend it all tonight. Don’t save it. Spend it all tonight.”
Jeffrey glanced at the bill. It was fifty dollars.
“Jim,” Jeffrey said, “say thank you to the nice gentleman.”
“Gosh,” Jim said, “well, gosh, Uncle Minot, thanks a lot.”
Minot laughed. The car was stopping at the corner of 52d and Park.
“I’m your godfather, you know,” he said. “Have a good time while you can, and spend it all tonight.”
“Gosh, Uncle Minot,” Jim said again. “Well, gosh, thanks a lot.”
Then the door closed and Jim was gone.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jeffrey said. “Fifty dollars is a lot of money.” And Minot laughed again.
“That’s what money’s for.” And he slapped Jeffrey’s knee. “It’s great to see you, boy. You’re looking fine.”
“It’s great to see you, Minot,” Jeffrey said. “You’re always looking fine.” Then they did not speak for a minute, and the lights of Park Avenue moved past them.
It was inconceivable to Jeffrey to think of Minot Roberts in a patronizing way, but now all at once it came over him that Minot had been everywhere, but he had never been around. As he sat beside him, Jeffrey felt older and wearier than Minot Roberts. He had seen too many worlds; he had been around too much.
“Jeff,” Minot said, “have you heard about the solicitor for the Crown from Bermuda who met the little streetwalker in the London blackout? Stop me if you’ve heard it.”
Jeffrey did not stop him. There was Minot Roberts in the London blackout just like Walter Newcombe.
“Well it seems,” Minot said, “as his Majesty’s solicitor was crossing Piccadilly—” There it was, the blackout stories were always in Piccadilly—“he was
accosted by a little streetwalker. ‘My dear girl, you don’t know who I am,’ he said. ‘I’m a solicitor for the Crown.’ And what do you think the little girl said?”
“What?” Jeffrey asked.
“She said, ‘Then you must come along with me, sir, for we ’ave a great deal in common, though I only solicit for ’alf a crown.’”
Jeffrey laughed—he wanted to do his best to make Minot think he hadn’t heard it.
“Jeff,” Minot said, “you didn’t think that I was too impulsive giving Jim that cash—that I stepped on your toes, or anything?”
“No,” Jeffrey answered. “I was thinking of what I’d have done if anybody had given me fifty dollars when I was Jim’s age.”
“It just came over me,” Minot said. “It’s just possible that Jim won’t have much time.”
“What?” Jeffrey asked him. “What do you mean, ‘much time’?”
“You know what I mean,” Minot answered. His accent was clipped and precise, but his tone was gentle and casual. “Now there was Stan—he always knew his number was up. He didn’t have much time.”
Jeffrey looked out of the window. He did not want to answer, and when he did, every word hurt him.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s so.”
“Jeff,” Minot went on. “You know how a moment strikes you, sometimes, as being more valuable than another moment. Now up there in the apartment when I saw you and Madge and then when Jim came in, I thought it was particularly swell. You all looked so darned happy. There isn’t any trouble any more. Madge has everything she wants.”
Jeffrey did not answer. He saw that Minot was watching him through the dark of the car.
“Jeff,” Minot asked him, “you’ve got what you want, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey answered, “yes, I guess so.” And Minot Roberts laughed.
“Well, that’s swell,” he said. “Well, here we are.” And he began to sing that tune again.
“We’re looking for a happy land, where everything is bright.”
“Minot,” Jeffrey told him, “if it’s all the same to you, would you get your mind on something else?”
So Little Time Page 8