An older man would have torn open the telegram and read it, but anything sealed was sacred to him, and such telegrams spelled emergencies. There was nothing for it save to get it to Esther in the gymnasium as quickly as possible.
One thing he knew — he would not go upon the dance floor in search of her. After he had argued his way past the doorkeeper, he was simply standing there feeling helpless, when Dizzy spied him from above.
“There’s Tommy!” she exclaimed.
“Where?”
“The short boy by the door. Well, that’s pathetic, if you ask me! He wouldn’t even come out and look at us, and then he goes to the prom.”
“He doesn’t seem to be having much of a time,” said Clara.
“Let’s go down and cheer him up,” Gwen suggested.
“Not me,” said Dizzy. “For one thing, I wouldn’t want the Rays to know we were here.”
“I forgot about that.”
“Anyhow, he’s gone now.”
He was gone, but not, as they supposed, into the delirious carnival. Irresolute, he had finally conceived the idea of mounting to the running track and trying to locate Esther among the dancers. Even as Dizzy spoke, he was there at her elbow, to their mutual surprise.
“I thought you were in bed!” he exclaimed, as he recognized his cousin.
“I thought you were studying.”
“I was studying when a telegram came, and now I’ve got to find Esther.”
He was introduced with great formality; Gwen and Clara immediately adopting the convention that they had not known of his existence in the same town.
“Esther was in one of the boxes a while ago,” said Gwen. “No. 18.”
Grasping at this, Tommy turned to Dizzy.
“Then I wonder if you’d mind going over and giving her this telegram?”
“I would so mind,” said Dizzy. “Why don’t you give it to her yourself? We’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither am I; they let me in. But I can’t just walk across there all by myself, and you can,” he said earnestly.
Gwen had been looking at him in a curiously intent way for some moments. He was not at all the person she had pictured — in fact, she decided that he was one of the handsomest boys she had ever seen in her life.
“I’ll take it to her,” she said suddenly.
“Will you?” For the first time he seemed to see Gwen — a girl who looked like the pictures in the magazines, and yet was smaller than himself. He thrust the telegram at her. “Thanks! Gosh, I certainly am — — “
“I’m not going downstairs alone,” she interrupted. “You’ve got to take me part way.”
As they descended, he looked at her again out of the corner of his eye; at the big arch he paused.
“Now you take it the rest of the way,” he said.
“The best way would be to do it together.”
“Oh, no!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t say that. I’m not going to walk across the floor.”
“I didn’t mean walk. If we walked, everybody’d kind of look at us, but if we danced across to the box, nobody would notice it.”
“You said you’d take it!” he said indignantly.
“I will, but you’ve got to take me.” And she added innocently, “That makes it easy for us both.”
“I won’t do it,” he declared.
“Then you can take it yourself.”
“I never — — “
Suddenly, before he realized it, she was in the circle of his arm, his hand was on what was apparently a forgotten seam in her dress just between shoulder blades, and they were moving across the floor.
Through the line of stags and out into the kaleidoscope. Gwen was at home; all hesitancy at the daring of her idea vanishing like the tension of a football player after the kick-off. By some inexorable right, this was her world. This was, perhaps, not the time set for entering it, but, maybe because her generation had ceased to move in the old Euclidian world, her age ceased to matter after a moment. She felt as old as any girl on the floor.
And now, miracle of miracles, the lights dimmed, and at the signal, the divine spark passed from one orchestra to another, and Gwen was dancing onward in a breathless trance to the melody of “Cheek to Cheek.”
*****
In the Laurel Club box, the ladies were growing weary. Chaperonage, they decided, was too lightly undertaken, too poorly compensated for. They were tired of the parade of animation, of lovely, confident faces, and one of them said as much to the middle-aged man who sat at her side. He, too, wore the look of speculating upon the texture of cool pillowcases and the beatitude of absolute quiet.
“I had to come,” she said, “but I still don’t understand why you came.”
“Perhaps because I saw in the morning paper that you’d be here, after all these years.”
“This is no place to say that to a woman of my age; the competition makes me feel very old. Look at that odd-looking couple — like a pair of midgets. I haven’t seen them before.”
He looked, but they seemed like just the sort of eccentrics to wander into any doze, so, after vaguely replying, “Aren’t they cute?” he glazed his eyes for a while, until she commented: “There they are again. Such little people. That girl — why, she can’t be more than fourteen, and she’s like a blase, world-weary woman of twenty. Can you imagine what her parents could have been thinking of, to let her come here tonight?”
He looked again; then, after a long pause, he said, rather wearily:
“Yes, I can imagine.”
“You think it’s all right then?” she demanded. “Why, it seems to me — — “
“No, Helen, I just meant I can imagine what they would be thinking if they knew about it. Because the girl seems to be my daughter.”
V
It was not in Bryan’s nature to rush out and snatch Gwen from the floor. Should she pass near him again, he intended to bow to her very formally indeed and let the next step be hers. He was not angry with her — he supposed her hostess was behind the matter — but he was angry at a system which permitted a baby disguised as a young woman, a marriageable young woman, to dance at a semipublic ball.
At his undergraduate club the next day, he wended his way from group to group, stopping to chat momentarily here and there, but with his eye always out for Gwen, who was to meet him there. When the crowd was drifting out and down to the stadium, he called the Rays’ house, and found her still there.
“You better meet me at the game,” he said, glad he had given her the ticket. “I want to go down now and see the teams practice.”
“Daddy, I hate to say it but I’ve lost it.” Her voice was hushed and solemn. “I searched and searched, and then I remembered I stuck it in the mirror at home with some invitations, to see how it would look, and forgot to — — “
The connection was broken, and a male voice demanded if there were rooms at the club tonight and if the steward had delivered a brown lunch basket to Thomas Pickering, ‘96. For ten minutes more he jangled the receiver; he wanted to tell her to buy a bad seat in the end stand and work her way around to him, but the phone service in Princeton shared the hysteria of the crowd.
People began going by the booth, looking at their watches and hurrying to get to the kick-off; in another five minutes there was no one going by the booth, and there was sweat upon Bryan’s brow. He had played freshman football in college; it meant to him what war or chess might have meant to his grandfather. Resentment possessed him suddenly.
“After all, she had her fun last night, and now I have a right to mine. Let her miss it. She doesn’t care, really.”
But on the way to the stadium he was torn between the human roar that went up at momentary intervals behind that massive wall and the picture of Gwen making a last desperate search for that precious counter that gleamed uselessly in a mirror at home.
He hardened himself.
“It’s that disorderliness. This will be a better lesson than any lecture.”
It was as he reached his seat that he saw that there was a hand signaling him, heard a voice hailing him.
“Oh, daddy, here we are! We thought maybe you’d — — “
“Sit down,” he whispered, breathlessly slipping into his place. “People want to see. Did you find your ticket?”
“No, daddy. I had a terrible time — but this is Tommy Ray, daddy. He hasn’t got a seat here; he was just keeping your seat till you came. He can sit anywhere because he — — “
“Be quiet, Baby! You can tell me later. What’s happened on the field? What’s on that Scoreboard?”
“What Scoreboard?”
From the aisle steps whither he had moved, Tommy supplied the information that it was nothing to nothing; Bryan bent his whole attention upon the game.
At the quarter, he relaxed and demanded:
“How did you manage to get in?”
“Well, you see, Tommy Ray” — she lowered her voice — “this boy beside me — he’s one of the ticket takers. And I knew he’d be somewhere, because he told me last night that was why he had to go home — — “
She stopped herself.
“I understand,” Bryan said dryly. “I wondered what you found to talk about in that remarkable dancing position.”
“You were there?” she cried in dismay. “You — — “
“Listen to that Harvard band,” he interrupted, “jazzing old marching songs — seems sort of irreverent. Of course, you’d probably like them to play ‘Cheek by Jowl.’“
“Daddy!”
But for a moment her eyes were far off on the gray horizon, listening, not to the band, but to that sweeter and somehow older tune.
“What did you think?” she asked, after a moment. “I mean when you saw me there?”
“What did I think? I thought you were just too cute for words.”
“You didn’t! I don’t care how you punish me, but please don’t ever say that horrible word again!”
STRANGE SANCTUARY
The little girl with dark blue eyes and last summer’s golden tan rang the doorbell of the Appletons’ house a second time, then turned to the Negress behind her.
“I know there’s somebody in, Hazeldawn, because I can hear them. Just leave the suitcase and you can go back to Mrs. Martin’s.”
“You sure, now, these people expect you?”
“Well, Mrs. Martin said she telephoned both places before she fixed things up; so if it wasn’t the Sidneys’, this must be where I’m expected Somebody has to take me in,” she added wryly. The little girl’s name was Dolly Haines and her age was thirteen.
The door was suddenly answered by a youth whom Dolly had never seen before. Startled by the strange face, Dolly turned back to Hazeldawn: “Don’t go yet. There may be some mistake.”
“The Appletons don’t seem to be around,” the boy said. “There was a maid awhile ago, but she doesn’t seem to be around either.” Seeing her hesitate, and experiencing a quick response to her beauty, he added, “But come in. Glad to have you. I been making myself at home for two hours.”
He was fifteen, tall without being gangling, ruddy-cheeked and full of laughter and loose in his clothes. Liking him immediately, sophistication flowed into Dolly. She said to the Negress:
“Thanks oodles, Hazeldawn, Tell the postman about the mail — and bring me my laundry when it’s ready.”
The boy carried her bag and Dolly followed. They sat on the sofa in the living room, at home within five minutes.
Clarke Cresswell turned on the radio. “I’m beginning to think I own this place,” he said. “Have you been here before?”
“This’ll be the third time — if they take me in. I’ve been visiting around like this since father got sick last April, and I’m tired of it.”
“Don’t I understand!” the boy agreed darkly. “My parents were drowned in China when I was two, and I was shipped home by registered mail. I’ve been a guest ever since. But I’m not visiting the Appletons,” Clarke went on; “I’m only here for dinner. They’ve got measles at my prep school, so I’m visiting my aunt, Miss Grace Terhune.”
The name made Dolly sit up. “Why, she’s the assistant headmistress of my school!”
“Don’t blame me.”
She wouldn’t have blamed him for anything.
“Let’s light a fire,” he suggested, and she agreed that a fire would be nice.
They sat before it and discussed what makes a girl popular and such matters until a maid called Dolly to the phone. It was Mrs. Appleton:
“I’m so sorry, Dolly. We’ve been delayed. We ran over a pig near Annapolis and we thought it was a man. It looked just like a man… Have Evelyn cook supper for you and Clarke right away.”
Dolly looked at herself in the hall mirror before she went back into the library. She had never been happy in just this way before, and she wanted to see what she’ looked like. Returning to the fireside, she said, “Go on.”
“What were we talking about?” Clarke asked.
*****
Next day there was an invitation to a Halloween party and a letter from her father:
You’re always regretting the lack of relatives. Well, now you’ve got one. Cousin Charlie Craig (uncle to you!) is on his way back home after ten years in Europe. His house is at 2008 St. Paul Street. Go call on him — he writes me that he’ll be delighted either to put you up or dress you down while I’m away. He’s peculiar, but I think you’ll like him.
The news was interesting, but it was overshadowed by the more vivid presence in the city of Clarke Cress-well. Or rather his specter, for Dolly didn’t see him again all that week. At last she inquired around school whether any of the girls had met him. Her eagerness was communicated to her friends. Overnight he became a sort of legend: “Has any one met Clarke Cresswell?”
When Saturday arrived, Dolly thumbed through the telephone book. In a moment the fact that an uncle was in town became the most important thing in the world. For Miss Grace Terhune, Clarke’s aunt, lived only two doors away from him.
She had been considering a shopping trip to the five-and-ten, but now it was plain that her duty was to call on her uncle.
St. Paul Street was in the old residential section. On summer days the passer-by could glance through the tall windows at family portraits that had hung undisturbed for a hundred years.
But today the blinds on 2008 were drawn and there was such a long silence after Dolly rang the bell that she nearly gave up. Then the door opened a little way and a birdlike young woman cooed, “What is it?”
“I’m Dolly Haines. I came to see my Uncle Charlie.”
The tiny woman scrutinized her, and Dolly thought she was very pretty with her doll’s hair and china-blue eyes. “Who sent you?” the woman asked.
“My father. He wanted me to call on Uncle Charlie because I’ve never met him and he thought I ought to.”
The woman hesitated. Then she said, “Well, I’ll see. You come in.”
Dolly stepped into the hall and the door closed behind her. Inside it was very dim. Rectangles of cheesecloth indicated paintings on the wall, and the same material protected clocks, busts, lamps, and books.
“I didn’t mean to call so soon,” said Dolly. “I know Uncle Charlie just got home.”
“How did you know?”
“Father told me.” Dolly was glad, in view of the woman’s inhospitable attitude, that she had brought her father’s letter. “This’ll tell who I am.”
The woman took the letter and held it to a bulb of dim orange in the hall. Then she said, “Wait a minute, little girl, right where you are,” and flew up the long stairs. Then a door opened and closed above.
As she waited, Dolly’s mind began to turn on the house two doors farther on.. Her reverie was interrupted by
a man coming downstairs. He was tall and handsome, with a blond hairline mustache; he held out a friendly hand and said, “Hello there! Bit dark, what?”
“Are you my Uncle Charlie?”
*****
“What? No; name’s Redfern — Major Redfern. Sorry to say Charlie’s not up to much today. Touch of liver… Do you live around here?”
“I used to live with father. But he got arthritis and had to go to New Mexico.” Dolly rambled on for a moment, even though she had still to be asked to sit down.
Major Redfern interrupted her suddenly: “You’ll soon be a debutante, won’t you?”
“Me? Oh, not me — not for a long time. But I know a lot of debutantes who went to my school last year.”
“Did they, now? Who? I have letters of introduction to some debutantes, but I seem to have mislaid them.”
Dolly began naming debutantes she knew. Major Redfern interrupted:
“Duckney? That’ll be the daughter of L. P. Duckney, won’t it? The one who’s having a big party Monday night?”
“I suppose so. I sit behind her in church.”
He laid down the hat and stick he carried. “Forgot something upstairs,” he said.
“If Uncle Charlie is sick, tell him never mind,” Dolly called after him. “I can come another time.”
“No, no. Sit tight. He wants to see you.”
Presently the little woman flutterde down, Major Redfern after her. The woman was more friendly now; she introduced herself as Miss Willie Shugrue, adding, “Your uncle can’t see you today, but he sent his love.”
“My father’s been sick too, so I can sympathize.”
“I’m the trained nurse,” volunteered Miss Willie. “But I — “
Major Redfern interrupted abruptly: “I’ll do the talking.” Then, to Dolly, “Always welcome here in . Charlie’s house, I know. Maybe you’d like to pay us a little visit.”
“I couldn’t exactly leave these people I’m visiting right now,” Dolly said. “I’d be glad to come later, though.” Dolly felt that the call had run its course. “Good-by. Tell Uncle Charlie I hope he feels better tomorrow.”
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 337