by Edna Ferber
“You have said nothing.”
“All right then. You’re going to hear something. Bart and his ma have had a terrible quarrel. Oh, I thought that would make you open those eyes. The old devil is wild. Bart told her that he wasn’t afraid of her any more—that he hated her—that he was in love with you. The chambermaid on their floor is paid to—that is, she does some laundry work for me, you understand. She said it was awful; she thought the old lady would have a stroke. Miss Diggs was dousing her with eau de cologne and spirits of ammonia and she slapped Diggs’ face—not that that matters, but I just thought you’d like—well, she said she was going to run you out of town—out of the country—out of—”
“There is no other place,” Clio murmured, her lids half closed, “except out of the world, and I don’t think the poor old lady will have the courage to murder me. Do you?” She cocked an amused eye at Sophie Bellop. One eye. The other was closed.
“Stop that! This is no laughing matter, I tell you.”
“Oh, but let us laugh, anyway. The world—life—is no laughing matter. But one must laugh.”
“If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes that you’d had only one of those cocktail things, I’d say you were just plain drunk. Even though you’re not, I ought to march right out of here and leave you. But I’m not going to be beaten by that old buzzard, Van Steed. It’s a matter of pride.”
“Pride,” echoed Clio in a maddening murmur. “That is what the Dulaines have. I am a Dulaine, but not chacalata. I have very little pride, really.”
“You’re talking nonsense. Listen. Do you know what the old woman said to her son? And what she’s saying to everyone in the hotel? That you’re not a countess at all; that you’re not even Mrs. De Chanfret; that you’re an adventuress; that you’ve got a touch of the tarbrush!”
Clio now settled herself rather cozily as for a nap. “There is much in what she says. She is no fool, that old mégère.”
The patience of the good-natured Bellop snapped. She bounced out of her chair, she shook Clio’s shoulder, she stood over her in elephantine anger. “No, but you are. If I weren’t sure that creepy woman of yours would put a knife into me, I’d slap you here and now. I’m only talking to you out of kindness of my heart.”
“And out of your hatred for Mama Van Steed.”
“You’re an ungrateful brat!”
Clio sprang up, she took Sophie Bellop’s hand, she looked beseechingly into her face. “I am! I am! But I am so troubled. I don’t know what is the matter with me. Suddenly I don’t care. I don’t care about the very thing for which I’ve worked and planned and schemed.”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve almost got it.”
“You think so?”
“Of course. Where’s your spirit! He’s never looked at a woman before, except just by way of politeness. When he came here today it was on the tip of his tongue to ask you to marry him. I’m sure of it. That’s why I stayed away until I saw him come out, wobbling like a man who’d been hit. I don’t say you’d make a suitable wife for him— but then, you wouldn’t make a suitable wife for anyone—unless it was a Bengal tiger. You like him, don’t you? Of course you’re not in love with him. He doesn’t expect it. Look here, are you listening to what I’m saying?”
“What? Who?”
“Good God! She says who! A fortune of millions in her very hand, and she says who!”
“Oh. Yes. You mean little Van Steed. Do you know, Mrs. Bellop, the women in America are very powerful. The men seem to spend their whole time and their energies on business matters while the women manage their lives for them. Here in the North, especially. I myself seem to be like that now. In France I remember it was quite different, it—”
“We haven’t time to talk about France now, or whether American women are strong-minded. You know perfecdy well that I got up this fancy-dress ball just for you. It won’t be like the regular hops. We’re having a supper at eleven—not just fruit-punch and cakes. Every millionaire in Saratoga will be there. The New York newspapers will call it the Millionaires’ Ball. And that old harpy, Van Steed, is arranging to have everybody cut you.”
“How nice!” cooed Clio at her most French.
“But I’ll be there. It’s my ball—at least, I got the hotel to give it. The Grand Union is wild with jealousy. I’ve found out that Guilia Forosini is coming as a Spanish gypsy—orange satin skirt, red velvet jacket, gold braid, epaulets, gold-ball fringe. Mrs. Porcelain’s wearing a rose trellis costume. Ankle-length skirt of ciel blue tulle and satin, garlands of roses on her shoulders, and a headdress made to represent a gilt trellis covered with roses. Now you—what’s the matter!”
Clio was laughing. She was laughing as she hadn’t laughed since she came to Saratoga; she was staggering with laughter; the tears of laughter were filling her eyes.
Kakaracou, grimly disapproving, was in the bedroom doorway. “I told you leave Miss Clio alone when she like this.”
“It’s all right,” Clio gasped. “Go away, Kaka. Dear Mrs. Bellop, forgive me. But the Spanish gypsy—and the gilt trellis on the head—it is so—so—” She was off again into the peals of hysterical laughter.
But even the good nature of the ebullient Sophie Bellop was cooled by now. “I’m going. You’re right, Kaka. For that matter, I’m beginning to think that old viper Clarissa Van Steed is right, too, for the first time in her life. I came here to tell you that I think you ought to outdo them by coming as a French marquise—satin hoops, powdered wig, all your jewelry. I would help you, and your woman here is a seamstress, I’m sure.”
Clio was suddenly very sober, deeply interested. “Pink satin, do you think? Over great hoops. With flounces of fine black Spanish lace? It was my mother’s. I have it here in my unopened trunks.”
“That’s it! Wonderful!”
“Satin slippers with great diamond buckles?”
“Really! Can you manage?”
“It is nothing. And powdered hair and a little black patch here— and here—and all my jewels. All, you think?”
“Certainly. All. You’ll look dazzling. Simply dazzling.”
“How nize! How nize!” Clio’s eyes were very narrow. There was something in her face and in the face of the Negress that made Sophie Bellop vaguely uncomfortable.
“You’ll have to send him a note telling him you were ill or hysterical or something. He’ll understand—I hope. Look, I’ll tell him myself. You’ve got to make an entrance with him—not too early.”
“I am coming to the dance with—with him. With Clint.”
“But you can’t. It’ll spoil everything. Besides, he isn’t here.”
“He will be.” Her face set in iron stubbornness. “No matter afterward. But I am going with him.”
XVI
Thirty miles to Albany. Clint Maroon was tooling along in the cool of the August day. Day, in fact, had not yet come. At two in the morning the road between Saratoga and Abany was still a dark mystery ahead, but the twin bays, fresh, glossy, restive after forty-eight hours of idleness, swung along as sure-footed as though the bright sun shone for them. For this trip Maroon had abandoned the clarence for a light, springy cart. Its four wheels seemed simultaneously off the ground, the cart and driver suspended in mid-air, so little did the bays make of the weight they were pulling along the road to Albany.
Clint Maroon was happy. He was happier than he had been in months. The reins in his hands, the cool moist air against his face, no sound except the hoofbeats and the skim of the wheels over the hard-baked road. No sun, no moon, no stars, no women, no fuss, no crowds; and the exhilarating prospect of a tough fight ahead. As blackness melted to a ghostly gray the good burghers sleeping lightly in the gray dawn stirred restlessly between rumpled sheets and started up in nightmarish fright, recalling the legend of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, or old Indian stories of the region in earlier days—tales of sudden massacres and Iroquois uprisings. But it was only Clint Maroon, though they did not know, whirling along behind the
light-stepping bays, high, wide and handsome, and singing the cowboy songs of old Texas as he went his nostalgic way.
I jumped in my saddle
An’ I give a li’l yell
An’ the swing cattle broke
An’ the leaders went to hell.
Tum-a-ti-yi, yippi, yippi, yea, yea, yea.
Tum-a-ti-yi, yippi, yippi, yea, yea, yea.
Aside from Van Steed he had taken no one into his confidence. To Clio he had said, “I’m fixing to go away, Clio, on business. Couple of days.”
“Business. What business?”
He evaded this. “Cupide’ll look after you. And Bart.” He grinned.
Her hand on his arm, her tone wistfully reproachful. “But I thought we were here as partners, Clint. When we talked in New Orleans of this Saratoga we made the adventure together.”
“Shucks, honey, you don’t need me any more. You set out to catch you a millionaire and you’ve got him, roped and tied. All you’ve got to do now is cinch the saddle on him. He’s already been gentied by his ma.”
They glared at each other, the two partners. “Yes, I know I have been successful,” she said, evenly. “I shan’t forget you. When the time comes.”
“Poor little Bart! If I didn’t hate him and all his kind like poison I’d have a mind to warn him he was making a misjudgment. In his place I sure would feel cheap to think I was being married for my money.”
“You need never fear. When you win five hundred at cards you feel yourself rich. The sweet little woman in Texas has just such ambitions, I am sure—she who makes the ravishing white satin neckties with the blue forget-me-nots.”
“Yep, sure is comical the way a woman likes to put her mark on a man with a needle. You couldn’t sit nor sleep till you had me crawling with those fancy initials all over my handkerchiefs and shirts. I looked to wake up any morning and find a big C, with a pretty vine, branded on my rump.”
With the most disarming candor she said, “He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”
“Bart, he isn’t the asking kind. You have to tell him.”
They fell silent there in the dim coolness of her cottage sitting room. It was a warm pulsating silence such as they often had known in the dusk of the fragrant little garden in Rampart Street. As though sensing this he said, “It was different in New Orleans. Why can’t it be like that here? You were mighty sweet, those days. Ornery—but mighty sweet.”
In sudden fright, “Clint! Chéri! You’re not leaving me!” She flung herself against him, she clung to him.
“Times I wish I could.”
“Where are you going? Don’t go! Don’t go! Stay, stay!” Her arms about him, her scented laces smothering him.
He took her head in his two hands and looked down into her face. “Do you want to come away from here now, honey? Say the word.”
But at that she hesitated a moment. In that moment he put her gently from him. “I have to go get some sleep,” he said, soberly. “Up before daybreak tomorrow.” He stode toward the door.
“But you will be back for the hop—no, it is a ball that the Bellop is giving. A ball, no less, for these canailles. If you like you may escort me.”
“I reckoned you were fixing to go with Bart.”
“I was, but—”
“Better go with him. Adios, honey. Pleasant dreams.” Suddenly he strode over to her, caught her up and kissed her roughly, punishingly, set her down so that she swayed dizzily. The next instant she heard the tap of his high-heeled boots on the veranda stairs.
Now, as Clint Maroon drove along toward Abany in the dawn, he thought, why don’t you light out of here, cowboy? High-tail it out of there, and stay out. What call have you got to get yourself mixed up with railroads and foreign women and voodoo witches and dwarfs? You’re Clint Maroon, of the Texas Maroons. Why don’t you just keep on traveling away from here? They’ll ship Alamo after you. That’s about all you got to leave.
Clint! Chéri! You’re not leaving me!
He knew he could not do it. Not yet.
The sun was higher now. The world was beginning drowsily to awake. From roadside farmhouses, as the turnout whirled by, there came the scent of coffee and of frizzling ham.
I’d like mighty well, Clint thought, to stop by and sit down to a good farm breakfast of biscuits and fried potatoes and ham like I used to back home. None of this la-de-da New Orleans and Saratoga stuff. Another month ofthat, I’m likely to be a sissy worse than Van Steed. Van Steed. No real harm in him. Not to say, harm. Not pure cussedness like the others. I wonder what the Gould crowd will do if they’re licked. What was that Pappy said old Neely Vanderbilt said—it never pays to kick a skunk. Well, stink or not, I’m enjoying this. I don’t recollect when I’ve felt more like tackling a job. Getting soft as mud sitting around eating quail, drinking wine, parading good horse-flesh up and down that sinkhole Broadway in Saratoga like a damned Easterner.
He had not pressed the bays, for he knew he was in ample time. Nevertheless they had, in five hours, easily covered the distance between Saratoga and Albany. He made straight for the Albany station. He knew he could get breakfast there. And there his drive would end and the business of the day begin. Few people were astir in the early-morning streets of Albany, yet those few stared, smiled, and a few even waved and broke into laughter as the handsome bays and their dashing driver and the dusty light cart flashed past. What the tarnation is eating on folks in this town! Clint thought, puzzled. You’d think they’d never seen a horse before, or a man driving. He whirled up to the Albany station, drew up at a hitching post and saw the faces of the loungers and Negro porters break into broad grins. Instinctively now he turned to glance over his shoulder. There behind him, snug as a jack-in-the-box and markedly resembling one, sat Cupide. Grinning, goggle-eyed, he was wedged neatly into the back of the cart. His glossy hat sat at a debonair angle, his maroon uniform was neatly buttoned, his arms were folded across his chest, his smile was an ivory gash, but his gaze was apprehensive as it met Maroon’s stupefied stare.
In what seemed like a single fluid motion Clint Maroon had leaped to the ground, had thrown the reins to a waiting boy and advanced on Cupide, whip in hand.
“Get down out of there, you varmint! Get down or I’ll haul you down.”
Cupide stood up while the onlookers guffawed as for the first time they realized the stature of this strangely attired passenger. Nimbly he leaped to the ground, his tiny feet in their glittering top boots landing neatly as a cat’s. As Maroon reached for him, the sad eyes looked up at him, the clear boyish voice broke a little with a note of pathos beneath its engaging humor.
“It was like riding on a donkey’s tail, Monsieur Clint. Bumpitty-bump, bumpitty-bump. I’m hollow as a drum.”
Maroon laid a heavy hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “What do you want here?”
“Breakfast. I am hungry for my breakfast.”
Maroon’s voice dropped. “Did she send you?”
“No. I ran away. I hid in the back of the cart. It was fine—but bumpy.”
“You get out of here.”
“No, Monsieur Clint. No! I want to fight, too, with you and the rest. I’m strong. You know how I am strong.”
“Doggone if I haven’t got a mind to tan you good, here and now, you little rat. Skin you and pin your hide to a fence, that’s what I ought to do. How’d you know where I was going?”
The old face on the childlike body was turned up to him, its look all candor and simplicity. “I listened at the keyhole. I heard everything. It’s going to be a fine fight.” He rubbed his tiny hands together. “I can’t wait undl I begin butting them in the stomach, the canailles.’’’’
Maroon’s reply was a venomous mutter, out of which son-of-a-bitch emerged as the least offensive term. “You’re going to get the hell out of here. . . . Hi, boy! What’s the next train to Saratoga? . . . D’you want to earn five dollars? You go rustle some breakfast—coffee and so on—for this little runt. You’ve got a good half an hour before tra
in dme. You buy a ticket and set him on that train headed for Saratoga, and don’t you let him out of your sight till the train’s started. Go on, get going, act like you’re alive!”
“Monsieur Clint! You’re not going to send me back!”
“You’re damn whisdin’ I am!” An aggrieved note crept into his voice. “Tagging me around. I bet she put you up to it.”
“No, no! No one. Not Mad’moiselle, not Kaka. No one knows. Please let me stay. I will help, I will work, I will fight—”
“Shut up!” He dropped his voice, his very quietness was venomous. “And if you let out a word of what you know, here or in Saratoga, I’ll kill you when I get back, sure as shooting.” He turned to the fellow who now had emerged from the depot, railway ticket in hand. “Now, you. Hang on to that ticket till he’s on the train. Give him his breakfast. If he gets balky leave him go without. One thing. Look out he don’t butt you.”
A bewildered look came into the face of the newly appointed guardian. “Don’t what?”
“Butt you. He’s got a head like a cannon ball. . . . I’ll learn you to tag around after me. And remember! One word out of you about you know what and—” He snapped his fingers and flung the sound away, dead. Suddenly, to his horror, the litde man dropped to his knees, he clasped his arms about Maroon’s legs.
“Don’t do this to me! Don’t! Don’t! I am strong. You know how strong. I am stronger than three regular men, I will fight—”
With terrible ruthlessness Maroon plucked the dwarf from him as you would fling off an insect. “Get away from me, you varmint you! I’ll learn you to flap those big ears of yours at keyholes!”
The childlike figure was on its feet at once, like a thing made of steel springs. Even as the onlookers guffawed Clint Maroon felt his first pang of contrition, felt his face redden with shame at what he had done.
Cupidon brushed himself off, methodically. Quietiy he looked at Maroon. His eyes gazed straight into those of his idol. “Monsieur, I am a man,” he said. For that instant he was somehow tall.
