“Hello, Mr. Van Pycke! Lookin’ for Buzzy?”
The thin old gentleman paused. He lifted his nose-glasses and deliberately set them upon the bridge of his long, aristocratic,—and we must say it,—somewhat rose-tinted nose. Then his slim fingers dropped to the end of his neat gray mustache. A coolly impersonal stare sought out the speaker.
“Good evening,” he said, in the most suave manner possible. No one would have suspected that he was unable to recall the name of the youth who put the question. “Yes, I rather expected to find Bosworth here. He said something about dining here.”
“He’s upstairs in Peter Palmer’s room.”
“Thank you. I sha’n’t disturb him. Disagreeable night, gentlemen.”
The back of his spike-tailed coat confronted the group an instant later; he was crossing the room, headed for the gray-heads in the window.
“Good evening, Billings. How are you, Knapp? A beastly night.”
The three did not shake hands. They had passed that stage long ago. They did nothing that they didn’t have to do.
“I was just telling Knapp that it reminds me of the blizzard in—”
“Stop right there, Billings,” interrupted Mr. Van Pycke. “It reminds me of every blizzard that has happened within my recollection. They’re all alike—theoretically. A lot of wind, snow, and talk about the poor. Sit down here and have your liqueurs with me.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to go in all this tonight,” said little Mr. Billings, ‘59, unconsciously pressing his knees together as he sat down at the small table.
“You’re getting old, Billings.”
“So are you, Van Pycke. Demmit, I’m not more than two years older than you. What’s more, you have a grown son.”
“My dear fellow, Bosworth is only twenty-five. A man doesn’t have to be a Methuselah to have a grown son. They grow up like weeds. And some of them amount to about as much as—ahem! Ahem! Please press that button for me, will you, Knapp? I don’t see why the devil they always have the button on the other side of the table. No, no! I’ll sign for them, old chap. Don’t think of it! Here, boy, let me have the ticket. Mr. Knapp rang, but he did it to oblige me. Now, see here, Knapp, I don’t like that sort of—”
“My dear Van Pycke, permit me! Billings is having his coffee with me. It’s coming now. I insist on adding the cordial.”
“Very well, if you insist. Napoleon brandy with a single drop of Curaçao. Mind you,—a single drop, waiter. Ever try that fine old brandy, Knapp?”
“I can’t afford it,” said Knapp, bluntly.
“It’s the only kind that I can drink,” was all that Van Pycke said, lifting his thin eyebrows ever so slightly.
“Yes, it’s a rotten night,” put in Mr. Billings with excellent haste.
Knapp’s face had gone a trifle red.
Down at the other end of the room the “young bucks” were discussing the seared trio under the smileless portrait of a college founder. They spoke in rather subdued tones, with frequent glances toward the door at their left.
“Old Van Pycke is the darndest sponge in the club. He never buys a drink, and yet he’s always drinking,” said one young man.
“His nose shows that all right. I hate a pink nose.”
“You’d think he owned the club, the way he treats it,” said another.
“Tell me about him,” said a new member—from the West. “He’s the most elegant, the most fastidious gentleman I’ve ever seen. An old family?”
“Rather! The Van Pyckes are as old as Bowling Green. Some of ’em came over in the Ark—or was it the ‘Mayflower’?”
“Buzzy came over in the ‘Lusitania’ last year,” ventured one of them.
The self-appointed historian, a drawler with ancestors in Trinity churchyard, went on: “Buckets of blue blood in ’em. The old man there is the last of his type. His son, Buzzy,—Bosworth Van Pycke,—he’s the chap who gave the much-talked of supper for Carmen the other night—he’s really a different sort. Or would be, I should have said, if he had half a chance. Buzzy’s a good fellow—a regular—”
“You bet he is!” exclaimed two or three approvingly.
“The old man’s got queer ideas about Buzzy. He insists on his being a regular gentleman.”
“Nothing queer in that,” interrupted the Westerner.
“Except that he thinks a fellow can’t be a gentleman unless he’s a loafer. He brought Buzzy up with the understanding that it wasn’t necessary for him to be anything but a Van Pycke. The Van Pycke name, and all that sort of rot. It wouldn’t be so bad if the old man had anything to back it up with. He hasn’t a sou markee. That’s the situation. For the last twenty years he’s lived in the clubs, owing everybody and always being a gentleman about it. He has a small interest in the business of Rubenstein, Rosenthal & Meyer,—logical but not lineal descendants of the Van Pyckes who were gentlemen in dread of a rainy day,—but he doesn’t get much out of it. Five or six thousand a year, I’d say. When Buzzy’s maternal grandfather died, he left something in trust for the boy. Fixed it in such a way that he isn’t to have the principal until he’s fifty. By that time the old man over there will have passed in his checks. Catch the point? It was done to keep the amiable son-in-law from getting his fingers on the pile and squandering it as he squandered two or three other paternal and grand-paternal fortunes. Buzzy has about ten thousand a year from the trust fund. I know that he pays some of his father’s debts—not all of ’em, of course; just the embarrassing kind that he hears about from creditors who really want their money. In a way, the old man has spoiled Buzzy. He has always pounded it into the boy’s head that it isn’t necessary to work—in fact, it’s vulgar. When Buzzy first came into the club, two years ago, he was insufferable. At college, every one liked him. He was himself when out from under the old man’s influence. After he left college, he set himself up as Van Pycke, gentleman. The old man told him the name was worth five millions at least. All he had to do was to wait around a bit and he’d have no trouble in marrying that amount or more. Marriage is the best business in the world for a gentleman, he argues. I’ve heard him say so myself.
“Well, Buzzy’s pretty much of a frivoler, but he isn’t a cad. He’d like to do right, I’m sure. He didn’t get started right, that’s all. He goes about drinking tea and making love and spending all he has—like a gentleman. Just sleeps, eats, and frivols, that’s all. He’ll never amount to a hang. It’s a shame, too. He’s a darned good sort.”
At the little table down the room Van Pycke, senior, was holding forth in his most suave, convincing manner.
“Gentlemen, I don’t know what New York is coming to. There are not ten real gentlemen between the Battery and Central Park. Nothing but money grabbers. They don’t know how to live. They eat like the devil and drink as though they lived in an aquarium; and they say they’re New Yorkers.”
Mr. Van Pycke’s patrician nose was a shade redder than usual. Billings, paying no heed to his remarks, was trying to remember how Van Pycke looked before his nose was thoroughly pickled. It was a long way back, thought Mr. Billings, vaguely.
“I think I’ll have a high-ball,” said Mr. Van Pycke. “Have something, Knapp? Billings? Oh, I remember: you don’t drink immediately after dinner. Splendid idea, too. I think I’ll follow your example, tonight at least. I have a rather important—er—engagement, later on.” He twirled his mustache fondly.
“You’ll pursue the fair sex up to the very brink of the grave, Van Pycke,” grumbled Knapp.
“If you mean my own grave, yes,” said the other, calmly. “If you mean that I’ll pursue any fair sexton to the brink of her grave, you’re mistaken. I don’t like old women. By the way, Knapp, do you happen to know Jim Scoville’s widow?”
“You mean young Jim Scoville?”
“Certainly. I don’t discuss dowagers. Everybody knows the old one. I mean the pretty Mrs. Scoville.”
“More or less scandal about her, isn’t there?” ventured Billings, pricking u
p his ears.
“Not a grain of truth in it, not a grain,” retorted Mr. Van Pycke in such a way that you had the feeling he wanted you to believe there was scandal and that he was more or less connected with it. He studied the chandelier in a most evasive manner. “Ahem! Do you know her?”
“Only by reputation,” said Knapp, with gentle irony.
“I’ve seen her,” said Billings. “At the horse show. Or was it the automobile—”
“I was in her box at one and in her tonneau at the other,” said Mr. Van Pycke, taking the cigar Knapp extended. He glanced at his watch with sudden interest. “Yes, I see quite a bit of her. Charming girl—ahem! Of course” (punctuating his opinion with deliberate care) “she has been talked about, in a way. Lot of demmed old tabbies around town rippin’ her up the back whenever she turns to look the other way. Old Mrs. Scoville is the queen tabby. She hates the young Mrs. Jim like poison. And, come to think of it, I don’t blame the dowager. Charlotte is one of the most attract—”
“Charlotte!” exclaimed Knapp. “Do you call her Charlotte?”
“Certainly!” said Mr. Van Pycke, with a chilly uplifting of his eyebrows.
“I thought her name was Laura,” said Billings, who read all the gossip in the weekly periodicals.
Mr. Van Pycke coughed. There seemed some likelihood of his bursting, the fit lasted so long.
“Charlotte is a pet name we have for her,” he explained, somewhat huskily, when it was over. “Demmed stupid of me!” he was saying to himself. “As I said before, I don’t blame the old lady. Young Mrs. Jim has got five or six of the Scoville millions, and she’s showing the family how to spend it. Her husband’s been dead over two years. She’s got a perfect right to take notice of other men and to have a bit of fun if she takes the notion. Hasn’t she? I—I—it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she were to take a new husband unto herself before long.” He uttered a very conscious cackle and looked at his watch quite suddenly—or past it, rather, for he forgot to open the virtuously chased hunting case.
Billings waited a moment. “I hear she is quite devoted to Chauncey De Foe,—or is it the other way?”
Mr. Van Pycke took five puffs at his cigar before responding, all the while staring at Billings in a perfectly unseeing way.
“I beg pardon? Oh, yes, I see. Not at all, my dear Billings. De Foe is—er—you might say, a part of her past. He’s out of it, quite. I don’t mind telling you, he’s a—ahem! a damned nuisance, though.” This time he looked at his watch with considerable asperity. “Half-past eight! Where the devil is Bos—I say, Knapp, can you see the length of the room? Is he in that crowd over there?”
“No, he isn’t,” said Knapp, shortly.
“I shall have to telephone up to Palmer’s room. I must see him before leaving the club. Beastly night, isn’t it?”
“Beastly,” remarked the two old gentlemen, unconsciously heaving sighs of relief as Mr. Van Pycke arose and adjusted his immaculate waistcoat. Then he moved away, trimly.
A particularly vicious gust of wind swept up to the windows; the fusillade of gritty snowflakes caused the two old men to lift their gaze to the panes. Billings arose and peered into the swirling, seething street. A phantom-like hansom was passing, a vague, top-heavy thing in shifting whites. Two taxicabs crawled humbly up to the club entrance, and away again, ghostly in their surrender to the noise of the wind.
Mr. Billings shuddered as he resumed his seat.
“I wonder if Van Pycke imagines that she could even think of marrying him! Sixty-three, if he’s a day!” Mr. Billings had not been thinking of the storm while he stood in the window.
“Fine old New York name, Billings,” mused Knapp. “You can’t tell what these women will do to get a name that means something.”
Mr. Billings was silent for a long time. Suddenly he stirred himself, relighted his cigar, and remarked: “By Jove, hear that wind howling, will you! It’s really worse than the blizzard of ‘93.” “Billings” was not yet a fine old New York name.
The crowd of young fellows at the other end watched Mr. Van Pycke vanish through the door. He was peering into his nose-glasses in such a lofty manner that one might have believed that he scented something disagreeable in every one who passed. As a matter of fact, his sole object was to discover his son if possible. For a long time he had nourished the conviction that his son would not take the trouble to discover him, if he could help it, no matter how close the propinquity. Mr. Van Pycke attributed this phase of filial indifference to the sublimity of caste. After all, wasn’t Bosworth the son of his father, and wasn’t it quite natural that he should be an improvement on all the Van Pyckes who had gone before? What was the sense in having a son if it were not to better the breed?
Sometimes, however, Mr. Van Pycke experienced the sickening fear that Bosworth avoided him because of a foolish prejudice against the lending of money to relatives. There was an admirable counter-irritant, however, in Bosworth’s assertion that one never got back the money he lent to relatives; and, as long as Mr. Van Pycke had known him in a pecuniary way, the young man had lived up to this principle by not even suggesting the return of a loan. Mr. Van Pycke was very proud of his son. He sometimes wished he could see more of him.
Bosworth lived in the club. Van Pycke, senior, had lived there, but was now living at one of the other clubs—he would have had some difficulty in remembering just which one if suddenly questioned.
“I hope Buzzy isn’t going to turn out like the old man,” said one of the loungers, addressing himself to the crowd.
“Oh, he’ll marry rich and go the pace, and the old man will die happy,” said another.
“He’s hanging around that flossy Mrs. Scoville a good bit these days,” observed the drawler. “That’s not the best thing in the world for him.”
“She’s not as bad as she’s painted,” protested some one.
“My mother says she’s the limit,” said the drawler.
“That’s what my mother says also,” argued another, “but it’s because she’s afraid I’ll slip up some day and fall a victim to the lady’s charms. These mothers are a nifty lot. They’ve got their eyes peeled and their ears spread, and they don’t give a hang what they say about a woman if she’s likely to harm sonny-boy.”
“Well, say what you please, Mrs. Scoville is as swift as a bullet. She carried on to beat the band with Chauncey De Foe long before Jim Scoville died, and she’s still going it. Everybody talked about it then, and people don’t forget. My mother says she knows of a dozen of the best houses where she is no longer received. I’m sorry that Buzzy has taken it into his head to flutter about her flame. He’s bound to get a good singeing.”
“Oh, Buzzy’s not such a fool as you think. He’s pretty wise to women. He’s had nothing else to do but to study ’em since he left college.”
“But she’s always doing some freakish thing to get into the newspapers. Next thing you know, Buzzy’ll have his name in the paper as taking a chimpanzee out to dinner, or being toastmaster at a banquet for French poodles. She delights in it, just because it makes people sit up and gasp. That sliding down the banister party she gave at her coming-out party last spring must have been a ripper. Four or five old ladies who couldn’t slide down a haystack got mad and went home. They’ve cut her since then.”
“Coming-out party?” queried the Westerner. “I thought you said she was a widow.”
“She is. It was when she came out of mourning.”
“I think I’d like to know her,” mused the Westerner, his eyes lighting up.
“She’s very expensive,” murmured the drawler, who also would have enjoyed an acquaintanceship.
For a few minutes they all seemed to be interested in their own thoughts. Finally a youth in a lavender waistcoat and a gray dinner jacket broke the silence.
“Gimme a cigaret, Bob.”
“Don’t you ever buy cigarets, Sticky?” growled the one addressed, reluctantly extending his case.
“Sticky”
ignored the question. “I wonder if Buzzy’s got it into his head to get married,” he said reflectively.
“She’s rich enough,” remarked the drawler.
“How about De Foe? He’s the bell-cow, isn’t he?”
“She’s in love with him, that’s all. The name of Van Pycke would get her into the very heart of the Four Hundred. With Buzzy’s patronymic and the lamented Jim’s millions, she’d be an establishment in herself. And, besides, Buzzy’s a chap any woman might be proud of as a husband. He’s good-looking, amusing, popular, and—useless. His habits are unnaturally decent. Drinks less than any fellow in the club—except the spooks who don’t drink at all. Gambles moderately and—”
“Fellows, I believe Buzzy’d make something of himself if he didn’t have the family name to carry around,” burst out “Sticky.” “Lemme take a cigaret, Bob. Yes, sir; he’s got it in him. If the old man was off the map, Buzzy’d come to realize that there’s something for him to do besides marrying for money. The way it is now, he’s just got to marry a lot of dough. It’s cut out for him. That’s all he’s ever been taught,—that’s all he grew up for. He’s—Sh! Here he is!”
A slender young man, immaculately dressed from tip to toe, approached the group. If any feature was out of proportion in this young man’s face, it was his nose,—or perhaps it was his mouth. His nose was rather long and fine,—a typically aristocratic Van Pycke nose, but unblooming,—and his mouth was a bit too large for perfect symmetry, you might argue. But the one denoted truly patrician blood; the other signified no small amount of strength as well as the most engaging good nature. That is to say, one could not, by any chance, take him for a snob; the mouth quite offset the nose. Mr. Van Pycke has already said he was twenty-five. He looked what he was set up to be,—a gentleman, bred and born.
More than one of his friends noticed the absence of a certain genial smile that usually illumined his face when he joined a party of acquaintances. There was something almost suggestive of gloom in his eyes. The mobile lips were not spread in the gentle smile they knew so well; they were rather studied in their sedateness. His hands were in his pockets (which was most unusual), and—yes, his tie was rather carelessly knotted.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 207