Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  “That’s true,” agreed Juan absently. He was absorbed in the previous suggestion. “The trouble is that I don’t live in Boston. If I left college I’d want to be near her, because it might be a few months before I’d be able to support her. And I don’t know how I’d go about getting a position in Boston.”

  “If you’re Cora Chandler’s cousin, that oughtn’t to be difficult. She knows everybody in town. And the girl’s family will probably help you out, once you’ve got her — some of them are fools enough for anything in these crazy days.”

  “I wouldn’t like that.”

  “Rich girls can’t live on air,” said the older man grimly.

  They played for a while in silence. Suddenly, as they approached a green, Juan’s companion turned to him frowning.

  “Look here, young man,” he said, “I don’t know whether you are really thinking of leaving college or whether I’ve just put the idea in your head. If I have, forget it. Go home and talk it over with your family. Do what they tell you to.”

  “My father’s dead.”

  “Well, then ask your mother. She’s got your best interest at heart.”

  His attitude had noticeably stiffened, as if he were sorry he had become even faintly involved in Juan’s problem. He guessed that there was something solid in the boy, but he suspected his readiness to confide in strangers and his helplessness about getting a job. Something was lacking — not confidence, exactly — “It might be a few months before I was able to support her” — but something stronger, fiercer, more external. When they walked together into the caddie house he shook hands with him and was about to turn away, when impulse impelled him to add one word more.

  “If you decide to try Boston come and see me,” he said. He pressed a card into Juan’s hand. “Good-bye. Good luck. Remember, a woman’s like a street car — — “

  He walked into the locker room. After paying his caddie, Juan glanced down at the card which he still held in his hand.

  “Harold Garneau,” it read, “23-7 State Street.”

  A moment later Juan was walking nervously and hurriedly from the grounds of the Culpepper Club, casting no glance behind.

  V

  One month later San Juan Chandler arrived in Boston and took an inexpensive room in a small downtown hotel. In his pocket was two hundred dollars in cash and an envelope full of liberty bonds aggregating fifteen hundred dollars more — the whole being a fund which had been started by his father when he was born, to give him his chance in life. Not without argument had he come into possession of this — not without tears had his decision to abandon his last year at college been approved by his mother. He had not told her everything; simply that he had an advantageous offer of a position in Boston; the rest she guessed and was tactfully silent. As a matter of fact, he had neither a position nor a plan, but he was twenty-one now, with the blemishes of youth departed for ever. One thing Juan knew — he was going to marry Noel Garneau. The sting and hurt and shame of that Sunday morning ran through his dreams, stronger than any doubts he might have felt, stronger even than the romantic boyish love for her that had blossomed one dry, still Montana night. That was still there, but locked apart; what had happened later overlay it, muffled it. It was necessary now to his pride, his self-respect, his very existence, that he have her, in order to wipe out his memory of the day on which he had grown three years.

  He hadn’t seen her since. The following morning he had left Culpepper Bay and gone home.

  Yes, he had a wonderful time. Yes, Cousin Cora had been very nice. Nor had he written, though a week later a surprised but somehow flippant and terrible note had come from her, saying how pleasant it was to have seen him again and how bad it was to leave without saying good-bye.

  “Holly Morgan sends her best,” it concluded, with kind, simulated reproach. “Perhaps she ought to be writing instead of me. I always thought you were fickle, and now I know it.”

  The poor effort which she had made to hide her indifference made him shiver. He did not add the letter to a certain cherished package tied with blue ribbon, but burned it up in an ash tray — a tragic gesture which almost set his mother’s house on fire.

  So he began his life in Boston, and the story of his first year there is a fairy tale too immoral to be told. It is the story of one of those mad, illogical successes upon whose substantial foundations ninety-nine failures are later reared. Though he worked hard, he deserved no special credit for it — no credit, that is, commensurate with the reward he received. He ran into a man who had a scheme, a preposterous scheme, for the cold storage of sea food which he had been trying to finance for several years. Juan’s inexperience allowed him to be responsive and he invested twelve hundred dollars. In his first year this appalling indiscretion paid him 400 per cent. His partner attempted to buy him out, but they reached a compromise and Juan kept his shares.

  The inner sense of his own destiny which had never deserted him whispered that he was going to be a rich man. But at the end of that year an event took place which made him think that it didn’t matter after all.

  He had seen Noel Garneau twice — once entering a theatre and once riding through a Boston street in the back of her limousine, looking, he thought afterwards, bored and pale and tired. At the time he had thought nothing; an overwhelming emotion had seized his heart, held it helpless, suspended, as though it were in the grasp of material fingers. He had shrunk back hastily under the awning of a shop and waited trembling, horrified, ecstatic, until she went by. She did not know he was in Boston — he did not want her to know until he was ready. He followed her every move in the society columns of the papers. She was at school, at home for Christmas, at Hot Springs for Easter, coming out in the fall. Then she was a debutante, and every day he read of her at dinners and dances and assemblies and balls and charity functions and theatricals of the Junior

  League. A dozen blurred newspaper unlikenesses of her filled a drawer of his desk. And still he waited. Let Noel have her fling.

  When he had been sixteen months in Boston, and when Noel’s first season was dying away in the hum of the massed departure for Florida, Juan decided to wait no longer. So on a raw, damp February day, when children in rubber boots were building darns in the snow-filled gutters, a blond, handsome, well-dressed young man walked up the steps of the Garneau’s Boston house and handed his card to the maid. With his heart beating loud, he went into a drawing-room and sat down.

  A sound of a dress on the stairs, light feet in the hall, an exclamation — Noel!

  “Why, Juan,” she exclaimed, surprised, pleased, polite, “I didn’t know you were in Boston. It’s so good to see you. I thought you’d thrown me over for ever.”

  In a moment he found voice — it was easier now than it had been. Whether or not she was aware of the change, he was a nobody no longer. There was something solid behind him that would prevent him ever again from behaving like a self-centred child.

  He explained that he might settle in Boston, and allowed her to guess that he had done extremely well; and, though it cost him a twinge of pain, he spoke humourously of their last meeting, implying that he had left the swimming party on an impulse of anger at her. He could not confess that the impulse had been one of shame. She laughed. Suddenly he grew curiously happy.

  Half an hour passed. The fire glowed in the hearth. The day darkened outside and the room moved into that shadowy twilight, that weather of indoors, which is like a breathless starshine. He had been standing; now he sat down beside her on the couch.

  “Noel — — “

  Footsteps sounded lightly through the hall as the maid went through to the front door. Noel reached up quickly and turned up the electric lamp on the table behind her head.

  “I didn’t realize how dark it was growing,” she said rather quickly, he thought. Then the maid stood in the doorway.

  “Mr Templeton,” she announced.

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Noel.

  Mr Templeton, with a Harvard-Oxford drawl, m
ature, very much at home, looked at him with just a flicker of surprise, nodded, mumbled a bare politeness and took an easy position in front of the fire. He exchanged several remarks with Noel which indicated a certain familiarity with her movements. Then a short silence fell. Juan rose.

  “I want to see you soon,” he said. “I’ll phone, shall I, and you tell me

  when I can call?”

  She walked with him to the door.

  “So good to talk to you again,” she told him cordially. “Remember, I want to see a lot of you, Juan.”

  When he left he was happier than he had been for two years. He ate dinner alone at a restaurant, almost singing to himself; and then, wild with elation, walked along the waterfront till midnight. He awoke thinking of her, wanting to tell people that what had been lost was found again. There had been more between them than the mere words said — Noel’s sitting with him in the half-darkness, her slight but perceptible nervousness as she came with him to the door.

  Two days later he opened the Transcript to the society page and read down to the third item. There his eyes stopped, became like china eyes:

  Mr and Mrs Harold Garneau announce the engagement of their daughter Noel to Mr Brooks Fish Templeton. Mr Templeton graduated from Harvard in the class of 1912 and is a partner in — —

  VI

  At three o’clock that afternoon Juan rang the Garneaus’ doorbell and was shown into the hall. From somewhere upstairs he heard girls’ voices, and another murmur came from the drawing-room on the right, where he had talked to Noel only the week before.

  “Can you show me into some room that isn’t being used?” he demanded tensely of the maid. “I’m an old friend — it’s very important — I’ve got to see Miss Noel alone.”

  He waited in a small den at the back of the hall. Ten minutes passed — ten minutes more; he began to be afraid she wasn’t coming. At the end of half an hour the door bounced open and Noel came hurriedly in.

  “Juan!” she cried happily. “This is wonderful! I might have known you’d be the first to come.” Her expression changed as she saw his face, and she hesitated. “But why were you shown in here?” she went on quickly. “You must come and meet everyone. I’m rushing around today like a chicken without a head.”

  “Noel!” he said thickly.

  “What?”

  Her hand was on the door knob. She turned, startled.

  “Noel, I haven’t come to congratulate you,” Juan said, his face white and , his voice harsh with his effort at self-control. “I’ve come to tell you you’re making an awful mistake.”

  “Why — Juan!”

  “And you know it,” he went on. “You know no one loves you as I love you, Noel. I want you to marry me.”

  She laughed nervously.

  “Why, Juan, that’s silly! I don’t understand your talking like this. I’m engaged to another man.”

  “Noel, will you come here and sit down?”

  “I can’t, Juan — there’re a dozen people outside. I’ve got to see them. It wouldn’t be polite. Another time, Juan. If you come another time I’d love to talk to you.”

  “Now!” The word was stark, unyielding, almost savage. She hesitated.

  “Ten minutes,” he said.

  “I’ve really got to go, Juan.”

  She sat down uncertainly, glancing at the door. Sitting beside her, Juan told her simply and directly everything that had happened to him since they had met, a year and a half before. He told her of his family, his Cousin Cora, of his inner humiliation at Culpepper Bay. Then he told her of his coming to Boston and of his success, and how at last, having something to bring her, he had come only to find he was too late. He kept back nothing. In his voice, as in his mind, there was no pretence now, no self-consciousness, but only a sincere and overmastering emotion. He had no defence for what he was doing, he said, save this — that he had somehow gained the right to present his case, to have her know how much his devotion had inspired him, to have her look once, if only in passing, upon the fact that for two years he had loved her faithfully and well.

  When Juan finished, Noel was crying. It was terrible, she said, to tell her all this — just when she had decided about her life. It hadn’t been easy, yet it was done now, and she was really going to marry this other man. But she had never heard anything like this before — it upset her. She was — oh, so terribly sorry, but there was no use. If he had cared so much he might have let her know before.

  But how could he let her know? He had had nothing to offer her except the fact that one summer night out West they had been overwhelmingly drawn together.

  “And you love me now,” he said in a low voice. “You wouldn’t cry, Noel, if you didn’t love me. You wouldn’t care.”

  “I’m — I’m sorry for you.”

  “It’s more than that. You loved me the other day. You wanted me to sit beside you in the dark. Didn’t I feel it — didn’t I know? There’s something between us, Noel — a sort of pull. Something you always do to me and I to you — except that one sad time. Oh, Noel, don’t you know how it breaks my heart to see you sitting there two feet away from me, to want to put my arms around you and know you’ve made a senseless promise to another man?” There was a knock outside the door.

  “Noel!”

  She raised her head, putting a handkerchief quickly to her eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Brooks. May I come in?” Without waiting for an answer, Templeton opened the door and stood looking at them curiously. “Excuse me,” he said. He nodded brusquely at Juan. “Noel, there are lots of people here — — “

  “In a minute,” she said lifelessly.

  “Aren’t you well?”

  “Yes.”

  He came into the room, frowning.

  “What’s been upsetting you, dear?” He glanced quickly at Juan, who stood up, his eyes blurred with tears. A menacing note crept into Templeton’s voice. “I hope no one’s been upsetting you.”

  For answer, Noel flopped down over a hill of pillows and sobbed aloud. “Noel” — Templeton sat beside her, and put his arm on her shoulder — “Noel.” He turned again to Juan, “I think it would be best if you left us alone, Mr — — “ the name escaped his memory. “Noel’s a little tired.”

  “I won’t go,” said Juan.

  “Please wait outside then. We’ll see you later.”

  “I won’t wait outside. I want to speak to Noel. It was you who interrupted.”

  “And I have a perfect right to interrupt.” His face reddened angrily. “Just who the devil are you, anyhow?”

  “My name is Chandler.”

  “Well, Mr Chandler, you’re in the way here — is that plain? Your presence here is an intrusion and a presumption.”

  “We look at it in different ways.”

  They glared at each other angrily. After a moment Templeton raised Noel to a sitting posture.

  “I’m going to take you upstairs, dear,” he said. “This has been a strain today. If you lie down till dinnertime — — “

  He helped her to her feet. Not looking at Juan, and still dabbing her face with her handkerchief, Noel suffered herself to be persuaded into the hall. Templeton turned in the doorway.

  “The maid will give you your hat and coat, Mr Chandler.”

  “I’ll wait right here,” said Juan.

  VII

  He was still there at half past six, when, following a quick knock, a large broad bulk which Juan recognized as Mr Harold Garneau came into the room.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Mr Garneau, annoyed and peremptory. “Just what can I do for you?”

  He came closer and a Sicker of recognition passed over his face.

  “Oh!” he muttered.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Juan.

  “It’s you, is it?” Mr Garneau appeared to hesitate. “Brooks Templeton said that you were — that you insisted on seeing Noel” — he coughed — “that you refused to go home.”

  “I want to see
Noel, if you don’t mind.”

  “What for?”

  “That’s between Noel and me, Mr Garneau.”

  “Mr Templeton and I are quite entitled to represent Noel in this case,” said Mr Garneau patiently. “She has just made the statement before her mother and me that she doesn’t want to see you again. Isn’t that plain enough?”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Juan stubbornly. “I’m not in the habit of lying.”

  “I beg your pardon. I meant — — “

  “I don’t want to discuss this unfortunate business with you,” broke out Garneau contemptuously. “I just want you to leave right now — and come back.”

  “Why do you call it an unfortunate business?” inquired Juan coolly. “Good night, Mr Chandler.”

  “You call it an unfortunate business because Noel’s broken her engagement”

  “You are presumptuous, sir!” cried the older man. “Unbearably sumptuous.”

  “Mr Garneau, you yourself were once kind enough to tell me — — “

  “I don’t give a damn what I told you!” cried Garneau. “You get out of here now!”

  “Very well, I have no choice. I wish you to be good enough to tell Noel that I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

  Juan nodded, went into the hall and took his hat and coat from a chair. Upstairs, he heard running footsteps and a door opened and closed — not before he had caught the sound of impassioned voices and a short broken sob. He hesitated. Then he continued on along the hall towards the front door. Through a portiere of the dining-room he caught sight of a man-servant laying the service for dinner.

  He rang the bell the next afternoon at the same hour. This time the butler, evidently instructed, answered the door.

  Miss Noel was not at home. Could he leave a note? It was no use; Miss Noel was not in the city. Incredulous but anxious, Juan took a taxicab to

  Harold Garneau’s office. “Mr Garneau can’t see you. If you like, he will speak to you for a moment on the phone.”

  Juan nodded. The clerk touched a button on the waiting-room switchboard and handed an instrument to Juan.