“Gin?” he said in a whisper. “Gin?”
“She’s rather fond of gin,” Mrs. Troup informed him. “She makes it herself from a recipe; it’s quite simple I believe.”
“And she carries this flask “Oh, not all the time!” Mrs. Troup protested, laughing. “Only to dances and girls’ lunches.” And, observing her brother’s expression, she added: “Of course, she never takes too much; you mustn’t get a wrong idea of Jeannette. She and all the girls of her set don’t believe in that, at all — I’m positive none of them has ever been intoxicated. They have the very highest principles.”
“They have?”
“Yes; you see, Jeannette has read Wells and Shaw since she was twelve. When we go home and you meet Jeannette, you must try to understand that she belongs to a different generation, Charles. You see, Jeannette has had so many influences that didn’t affect your own youth at all. For instance, she always insisted on going to the movies even when she was a little girl, and I rather enjoy them myself, when I’m tired; and then there’s the new stage — and the new novel — you know, we have everything on the stage and in books that we used to think could only be in books and on the stage in France, because here the police—”
“But in France,” he interrupted, “ — in France they didn’t let the jeune fille read the books or go to the theatre.”
“No,” she agreed. “But of course over here we’ve had feminism—”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s something to do with the emancipation of women.” She paused, then added thoughtfully:— “Of course, Jeannette smokes.”
“What!”
“Oh, that’s nothing at all,” she said hastily. “They’ve had to permit it in nearly all the restaurants.”
He rose, leaning heavily upon his chair, as if for support, and looking rather more pallid than usual. In fact, his brow was damp from the exertion its interior workings had undergone in the effort to comprehend his sister’s conversation. “I think, if you don’t mind,” he murmured, “I’ll go directly to bed and rest.”
“Do,” she said sympathetically. “We’ll talk some more about Jeannette to-morrow. She’s the most lovably pretty thing in the world, and you’ll be era—” She changed the phrase hastily. “You’ll be delighted to have such a niece.”
But, as it happened, when she began to speak of Jeannette the next day, he gently protested, asking her to choose another topic. “I’m sure I couldn’t understand,” he said, “and the effort rather upsets me. It would be better to wait and let me form my own impressions when I see her.”
His sister assented without debate; and nothing more was said about Jeannette until a week later when they were on the train, and half the way home. A telegram was handed to Mrs. Troup by the porter, and after reading it, she glanced rather apprehensively toward her brother, who, in the opposite seat, was so deeply attentive to a book that he had not noticed the delivery of the telegram; in fact, he did not observe it, still in her hand, when he looked up vaguely, after a time, to speak a thought suggested by his reading.
“So many of these books about the war and the after-effects of the war say that there is to be a ‘new world.’ All the young people have made up their minds that the old world was a failure and they’re going to have something different. I don’t know just what they mean by this ‘new world’ the writers talk so much about, because they never go into the details of the great change. It’s clear, though, that the young people intend the new world to be much more spiritual than the old one. Well, I’m anxious to see it, and, of course, it’s a great advantage to me, because I stayed so long at that queer place — where the doctors were — it will be easier to start in with a new world than it would be, maybe, to get used to the changes in the old one. I’m mighty anxious to see these new young people who—”
His sister interrupted him. “You’ll see some of them soon enough, it appears. I really think Jeannette shouldn’t have done this.” And she handed him the telegram to read.
THOUGHT I BETTER LET YOU KNOW IN CASE YOU PREFER TAKING UNCLE CHARLES TO HOTEL FOR FIRST NIGHT AT HOME
AS AM THROWING TODDLE ABOUT FORTY COUPLES AT HOUSE SAUSAGE BREAKFAST AT FOUR GM TO FINISH THE SHOW AND BLACKAMALOO BAND MIGHT DISTURB UNCLE CHARLES.
Uncle Charles was somewhat disturbed, in fact, by the telegram itself. ‘“Am throwing toddle’—” he murmured.
“She means she’s giving a dance,” his sister explained, frowning. “It’s really not very considerate of her, our first evening at home; but Jeannette is just made of impulses. She’s given I don’t know how many dances since I went away with you, and she might have let this one drop. I’m afraid it may be very upsetting for you, Charles.”
“You could send her a telegram from the next station,” he suggested. “You could ask her to telephone her friends and postpone the—”
“Not Jeannette!” Mrs. Troup laughed. “I could wire, but she wouldn’t pay any attention. I have no influence with her.”
“You haven’t?”
“No.” And upon this Mrs. Troup became graver. “I don’t think her father would have had any either, if he had lived; he was so easy-going and used to sing so loudly after dinner. Jeannette always seemed to think he was just a joke, even when she was a child. The truth is, she’s like a great many of her friends: they seem to lack the quality of respect. When we were young, Charles, we had that, at least; our parents taught us to have that quality.”
“But haven’t you taught Jeannette to have it?”
“Indeed I have,” Mrs. Troup sighed. “I’ve told her every day for years that she hadn’t any. I noticed it first when she was thirteen years old. It seemed to break out on her, as it were, that year.”
“How did it happen?”
“Why, we were staying at a summer hotel, a rather gay place, and I’m afraid I left her too much to her governess — I was feeling pretty blue that summer and I wanted distraction. I liked tangoing—”
“‘Tangoing’?” he said inquiringly. “Was it a game?”
“No; a dance. They called it ‘the tango’; I don’t know why. And there was ‘turkey-trotting,’ too —— —— — —”
“‘Turkey-trotting’?” he said huskily.
“Well, that,” she explained, “was really the machiche that tourists used to see in Paris at the Bal Bullier. In fact, you saw it yourself, Charles. A couple danced the machiche that night at the Folies Ber—” She checked herself hastily, bit her lip, and then, recovering, she said:— “I got quite fond of all those dances after we imported them.”
“You mean you got used to looking at them?” he asked slowly. “You went to see them at places where they were allowed?”
At this she laughed. “No, of course not! I danced them myself.”
“What!”
“Why, of course!”
“No one—” He faltered. “No one ever saw you do it?”
“Why, of course. It’s a little difficult to explain this to you, Charles, but all those dances that used to seem so shocking to us when we went to look on at them in foreign places — well, it turned out that they were perfectly all right and proper when you dance them yourself. Of course I danced them, and enjoyed them very much; and besides, it’s a wholesome exercise and good for the health. Everybody danced them. People who’d given up dancing for years — the oldest kind of people — danced them. It began the greatest revival of dancing the world’s ever seen, Charles, and the—”
He interrupted her. “Go a little slower, please,” he said, and applied a handkerchief to his forehead. “About your seeming to lose your authority with Jeannette—”
“Yes; I was trying to tell you. She used to sit up watching us dancing in the hotel ballroom that summer, and I just couldn’t make her go to bed! That was the first time she deliberately disobeyed me, but it was a radical change in her; and I’ve never since then seemed to have any weight with her — none at all; she’s just done exactly wha
t she pleased. I’ve often thought perhaps that governess had a bad influence on her.”
He wiped his forehead again, and inquired: “You say she’s given dances while you’ve been away with me?”
“Oh, she asks plenty of married people, of course.”
“And it wouldn’t be any use to telegraph her to postpone this one?”
“No. She’d just go ahead, and when we got home, she’d be rather annoyed with me for thinking a dance could be postponed at the last minute. We must make the best of it.”
“I suppose so.”
“We won’t reach the house till almost nine, and you can go straight to bed, Charles. I’m afraid the music may disturb you; that’s all. Dance music is rather loudish, nowadays.”
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “ — I was thinking maybe I’d dress and look on for a while; I do want to see these new young people. It might be a good thing for me to begin to get accustomed—”
“So it might,” she agreed, brightening. “I was only bothered on your account, and if you take it that way, it will be all right.” She laughed. “The truth is, I enjoy Jeannette’s dances myself. I like to enter into things with her and be more like a sisterly companion than a mother in the old-fashioned strict sense. That’s the modern spirit, Charles; to be a hail-fellow of your children — more a wise comrade than a parent. So, if you feel that you would be interested in looking on, and won’t be disturbed — well, that’s just too lovely! And you’ll adore Jeannette!”
He was sure of that, he said; and added that as he was Jeannette’s uncle he supposed it would be proper to kiss her when she met them at the station.
“Oh, she won’t be at the station,” said his sister. “In fact, I’ll be surprised if she remembers to send the car for us.”
But as it happened, Mrs. Troup was surprised: Jeannette sent the car, and they were comfortably taken homeward through a city that presented nothing familiar to Charles Blake, though he had spent his youth in it. The first thing he found recognizable was the exterior of his sister’s big house, for she had lived in it ever since her marriage; but indoors she had remodelled it, and he was as lost as he had been under the great flares of light downtown. Mrs. Troup led him up to his room and left him there. “Jeannette’s dressing, they tell me,” she said. “Hurry and dress, yourself, so as to see her a minute before she gets too busy dancing. It’s late.”
In spite of her instruction, he was too nervous to dress quickly, and several times decided to get into bed instead of proceeding with his toilet; but an ardent curiosity prevailed over his timidity, and he continued to prepare himself for a state appearance, until a strange event upset him.
There were a few thin squeaks and low blats of warning — small noises incomprehensible to him, and seemingly distant — when suddenly burst forth the most outrageous uproar he had ever heard, and he thought it just outside his door. When it happened, he was standing with his right foot elevated to penetrate the orifice of that leg of his trousers, but the shock of sound overturned him; his foot became entangled, and he fell upon the floor.
Lying there, helpless, he heard a voice sweet as silver bells, even when it screamed, as it had to scream now to make itself heard. “No, no! I don’t want ‘The Maiden’s Dream’! Stop it; dam it!” And the outrage became silence, murmurously broken by only the silvery voice which was itself now indistinguishable, except as ineffable sound; he could not make out the words.
Fingers tapped on his door. “Do hurry, Charles dear,” Mrs. Troup said. “Jeannette’s arguing with the musicians, but she might have a moment or two to see you now. People are just beginning to come.”
“With whom?” he asked hoarsely, not attempting to move.
‘“With whom’ what? I don’t understand,” his sister inquired, shouting through the closed door.
“You said she’s arguing. With whom?”
“With the musicians.”
“With whom?”
“The musicians. They began to play ‘The Maiden’s Dream,’ but she doesn’t like it: she wants something livelier.”
“Livelier?”
“I must run,” Mrs. Troup shouted. “Do hurry, Charles.”
In spite of this departing urgency, Charles remained inert for some time, his cheek upon a rug, his upper eye contemplating the baseboard of the wall, and his right foot shackled in his trousers. Meanwhile, voices began to rise without in an increasing strident babble, until finally they roused him. He rose, completed his toilet and stepped outside his door.
He found himself upon a gallery which looked down upon a broad hall floored in wood now darkly lustrous with wax. He had a confused impression of strewn and drifting great tropical flowers in haphazard clusters and flaring again, in their unfamiliar colours, from the reflecting darkness of the polished floor; such dresses as he had never seen; and flesh-tints, too, of ivory and rose so emphasized and in such profusion as likewise he had never seen. And from these clusters and from the short-coated men among them, the shouting voices rose to him in such uproarious garbling chorus that though he had heard choruses not very different, long ago, it increased his timidity; and a little longing floated into his emotion — a homesickness for the old asylum, where everything had been so orderly and reasonable.
Suddenly he jumped: his hands were clutched upon the railing of the gallery, and they remained there; but his feet leaped inches into the air with the shock; for the crash that so startled him came from directly beneath the part of the gallery where he stood. In his nervousness, he seemed about to vault over the railing, but as his feet descended, he recognized the sound: it was of a nature similar to that which had overcome him in his room, and was produced by those whom his sister had defined as “the musicians:” they had just launched the dance music. The dusters of tropical flowers were agitated, broke up. The short black coats seized upon them, and they seized upon the short black coats; something indescribable began.
The dance music did not throb — the nervous gentleman in the gallery remembered dance music that throbbed, dance music that tinkled merrily, dance music that swam, dance music that sang, and sometimes sang sadly and perhaps too sweetly of romantic love — but this was incredible: it beat upon his brain with bludgeons and blackjacks, rose in hideous upheavals of sound, fell into chaos, squawked in convulsions, seemed about to die, so that eighty pairs of shoes and slippers were heard in husky whispers against the waxed floor; then this music leaped to life again more ferociously than ever.
The thumping and howling of it brought to the gallery listener a dim recollection: once, in his boyhood, he had been taken through a slaughterhouse; and this was what came back to him now. Pigs have imaginations, and as they are forced, crowding against one another, through the chute, their feet pounding the thunderous floor, the terrible steams they smell warn them of the murderers’ wet knives ahead: the pigs scream horror with their utmost lungs; and the dumfounded gentleman recalled these mortal squealings now, though there was more to this music. There should be added, among other noises, all the agony three poisoned cats can feel in their entrails, the belabourings of hollow-log tomtoms by Aruwimi witch-doctors, and incessant cries of passion from the depths of negroes ecstacized with toddy.
A plump hand touched Mr. Blake’s shoulder, and lifting his pale glance from below he found that his sister had ascended the gallery stairs to speak to him. “What are they doing down there?” he shouted. “Toddling.”
“You mean dancing?”
“Yes; toddling. It’s dancing — great fun, too!” He was still incredulous, and turned to look again. To his perturbed mind everybody seemed bent upon the imitation of an old coloured woman he had once seen swaying on the banks of a creek, at a baptism. She jiggled the upper portions of her, he remembered, as if she were at once afflicted and uplifted by her emotions; and at the same time she shuffled slowly about, her very wide-apart feet keeping well to the ground. All of these couples appeared to have studied some such ancient religious and coloured person anx
iously; but this was not all that interested the returned Mr. Blake. Partners in the performance below him clung to each other with a devotion he had never seen except once or twice, and then under chance circumstances which had cost him a hurried apology. Some, indeed, had set their cheeks together for better harmony; moreover, the performers, who in this exhibition of comedy abandoned forever all hope of ever being taken seriously by any spectator, were by no means all of the youthfulness with which any such recklessness of dignity had heretofore been associated in Mr.Blake’s mind: heads white as clouds moved here and there among the toddlers; so did dyed heads, and so did portly figures.
“I came up to point Jeannette out to you,” Mrs. Troup explained, shouting in her brother’s ear. “I wanted you to see her dancing: she looks so beautiful. There she is! See! Doesn’t she look pretty?”
His eyes aimed along her extended forefinger and found Jeannette.
Jeannette did “look pretty” indeed, even when she toddled — there could be no test more cruel. She was a glowing, dark-eyed, dark-haired, exquisite young thing shimmering with innocent happiness. One of her childish shoulders bore a jewelled string; the other nothing. Most of her back and a part of each of her sides were untrammelled; and her skirt came several inches below the knee, unless she sat. Nothing her uncle had ever seen had been so pretty as Jeannette.
To her four grandparents, Jeannette would have been merely unbelievable. Her eight great-grandparents, pioneers and imaginative, might have believed her and her clothes possible, but they would have believed with horror. In fact, to find ancestors who would not be shocked at Jeannette, one would have to go back to the Restoration of Charles Stuart. At that time she had five hundred and twelve great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-parents, and probably some of them were familiar with the court. They would have misunderstood Jeannette, and they would not have been shocked.
“I just wanted you to see her,” Mrs. Troup shouted. “I must run back to my partner and finish this. Come down when this number is over and meet some people.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 499