1919 (49 page)

“Jez, that was a circus,” said Fred. “Out here it's too damn hellish to be funny . . . everybody starved and crazy.”

“You were damn sensible not to get to be an officer . . . you have to be so damn careful about everything you say and do you can't have any kind of good time.”

“Jez, you're the last man I'd ever have expected to turn out a captain.”

“C'est la guerre,” said Dick.

They drank and talked and talked and drank so much that Dick could barely get back to his compartment with his despatch case. When they got into the Warsaw station Fred came running up with a package of chocolate bars. “Here's a little relief, Dick,” he said. “It's a fine for coucher avec. Ain't a woman in Warsaw won't coucher for all night for a chocolate bar.”

When he got back to Paris, Dick and Colonel Edgecombe went to tea at Miss Stoddard's. Her drawingroom was tall and stately with Italian panels on the walls and yellow and orange damask hangings; through the heavy lace in the windows you could see the purple branches of the trees along the quai, the jade Seine and the tall stone lace of the apse of Notre Dame. “What a magnificent setting you have arranged for yourself, Miss Stoddard,” said Colonel Edgecombe, “and if you excuse the compliment, the gem is worthy of its setting.” “They were fine old rooms,” said Miss Stoddard, “all you need do with those old houses is to give them a chance.” She turned to Dick: “Young man, what did you do to Robbins that night we all had supper together? He talks about nothing else but what a bright fellow you are.” Dick blushed. “We had a glass of uncommonly good scotch together afterwards . . . It must have been that.” “Well, I'll have to keep my eye on you . . . I don't trust these bright young men.”

They drank tea sitting around an ancient wroughtiron stove. A fat major and a lanternjawed Standard Oil man named Rasmussen came in, and later a Miss Hutchins who looked very slender and welltailored in her Red Cross uniform. They talked about Chartres and about the devastated regions and the popular enthusiasm that was greeting Mr. Wilson everywhere and why Clemenceau always wore grey lisle gloves. Miss Hutchins said it was because he really had claws instead of hands and that was why they called him the tiger.

Miss Stoddard got Dick in the window: “I hear you've just come from Rome, Captain Savage . . . I've been in Rome a great deal since the war began . . . Tell me what you saw . . . tell me about everything . . . I like it better than anywhere.” “Do you like Tivoli?” “Yes, I suppose so; it's rather a tourist place, though, don't you think?” Dick told her the story of the fight at the Apollo without mentioning Ed's name, and she was very much amused. They got along very well in the window watching the streetlamps come into greenish bloom along the river as they talked; Dick was wondering how old she was, la femme de trente ans.

As he and the Colonel were leaving they met Mr. Moorehouse in the hall. He shook hands warmly with Dick, said he was so glad to see him again and asked him to come by late some afternoon, his quarters were at the Crillon and there were often some interesting people there. Dick was curiously elated by the tea, although he'd expected to be bored. He began to think it was about time he got out of the service, and, on the way back to the office, where they had some work to clean up, asked the Colonel what steps he ought to take to get out of the service in France. He thought he might get a position of some kind in Paris. “Well, if you're looking for that, this fellow Moorehouse is the man for you . . . I believe he's to be in charge of some sort of publicity work for Standard Oil . . . Can you see yourself as a public relations counsel, Savage?” The Colonel laughed. “Well, I've got my mother to think of,” said Dick seriously.

At the office Dick found two letters. One was from Mr. Wigglesworth saying that Blake had died of tuberculosis at Saranac the week before, and the other was from Anne Elizabeth:

 

D
ARLING
:

I'm working at a desk in this miserable dump that's nothing but a collection of old cats that make me tired. Darling, I love you so much. We must see each other soon. I wonder what Dad and Buster would say if I brought a goodlooking husband home from overseas. They'd be hopping mad at first but I reckon they'd get over it. Gol darn it, I don't want to work at a desk, I want to travel around Europe and see the sights. The only thing I like here is a little bunch of cyclamens on my desk. Do you remember the cute little pink cyclamens? I've got a bad cold and I'm lonely as the dickens. This Methodist Board of Temperance and Public Morals are the meanest people I've ever seen. Ever been homesick, Dick? I don't believe you ever have. Do get yourself sent right back to Rome. I wish I hadn't been such a prissy silly little girl up there where the cyclamens bloomed. It's hard to be a woman, Dick. Do anything you like but don't forget me. I love you so.

A
NNE
E
LIZABETH
.

 

When Dick got back to his hotel room with the two letters in the inside pocket of his tunic he threw himself down on the bed and lay a long time staring at the ceiling. A little before midnight Henry knocked on the door. He was just in from Brussels. “Why, what's the matter, Dick, you look all grey . . . are you sick or something?”

Dick got to his feet and washed his face at the washbasin. “Nothing the matter,” he spluttered through the water. “I'm fed up with this man's army, I guess.”

“You look like you'd been crying.”

“Crying over spilt milk,” said Dick, and cleared his throat with a little laugh.

“Say, Dick, I'm in trouble, you've got to help me out. . . . You remember that girl Olga, the one who threw the teapot at me?” Dick nodded. “Well, she says she's going to have a baby and that I'm the proud parent. . . . It's ridiculous.”

“Well, things like that happen,” said Dick sourly.

“No, but Christ, man, I don't want to marry the bitch . . . or support the offspring . . . it's too silly. Even if she is going to have a baby it's probably not mine . . . She says she'll write to General Pershing. Some of those poor devils of enlisted men they sent up for twenty years for rape . . . it's the same story.”

“They shot a couple. . . . Thank God I wasn't on that courtmartial.”

“But think of how it ud upset mother. . . . Look here, you can parleyvoo better'n I can . . . I want you to come and talk to her.”

“All right . . . but I'm dead tired and feel lousy . . .” Dick put on his tunic. “Say, Henry, how are you off for jack? The franc's dropping all the time. We might be able to give her a little money, and we'll be going home soon, we'll be too far away for blackmail.” Henry looked low. “It's a hell of a thing to have to admit to your kid brother,” he said, “but I played poker the other night and got cleaned out . . . I'm S.O.L. all down the line.”

They went around to the place on Montmartre where Olga was hatcheck girl. There was nobody there yet, so she was able to come out and have a drink with them at the bar. Dick rather liked her. She was a bleached blonde with a small, hard, impudent face and big brown eyes. Dick talked her around, saying that his brother couldn't marry a foreigner on account of la famille and not having a situation and that he would soon be out of the army and back at a drafting desk . . . did she know how little a draftsman in an architect's office was paid en Amerique? Nothing at all, and with la vie chère and la chute du franc and le dollar would go next maybe and la revolution mondiale would be coming on, and the best thing she could do was to be a good little girl and not have the baby. She began to cry . . . she so wanted to get married and have children and as for an avortment . . . mais non, puis non. She stamped her foot and went back to her hatcheck booth. Dick followed her and consoled her and patted her cheek and said que voulez vous it was la vie and wouldn't she consider a present of five hundred francs? She shook her head but when he mentioned a thousand she began to brighten up and to admit that que voulez vous it was la vie. Dick left her and Henry cheerfully making a date to go home together after the boite closed. “Well, I had a couple of hundred bucks saved up, I guess it'll have to go . . . try to hold her off until we can get a good exchange . . . and Henry, the next time you play poker, for goodness' sake watch yourself.”

The day before the first plenary session of the Peace Conference Dick was running into the Crillon to go up to see Mr. Moorehouse who had promised to get cards for him and Colonel Edgecombe, when he saw a familiar face in a French uniform. It was Ripley, just discharged from the French artillery school at Fontainebleau. He said he was in there trying to find an old friend of his father's to see if he could get a job connected with the peace delegations. He was broke and Marianne the Third Republic wasn't keeping him any more unless he enlisted in the foreign legion and that was the last thing he wanted to do. After Dick had phoned Major Edgecombe that Mr. Moorehouse had been unable to get them cards and that they must try again through military channels they went and had a drink together at the Ritz bar.

“Big time stuff,” said Ripley, looking around at the decorations on the uniforms and the jewels on the women, “
How are you goin' to keep 'em down on the farm
. . .
After they've see Paree?
” Dick grunted. “I wish to hell I knew what I was going to do after I got out of this man's army.” “Ask me something easy . . . oh, I guess I can get a job somewhere . . . if the worst comes to the worst I'll have to go back and finish Columbia . . . I wish the revolution ud come. I don't want to go back to the States . . . hell, I dunno what I want to do.” This kind of talk made Dick feel uneasy: “Mefiez vous,” he quoted. “Les oreilles enemies vous écoutent.” “And that's not the half of it.”

“Say, have you heard anything from Steve Warner?” Dick asked in a low voice. “I got a letter from Boston . . . I think he got a year's sentence for refusing to register . . . He's lucky . . . A lot of those poor devils got twenty years.” “Well, that comes of monkeying with the buzzsaw,” said Dick outloud. Ripley looked at him hard with narrowed eyes for a second; then they went on talking about other things.

That afternoon Dick took Miss Stoddard to tea at Rumpelmeyers, and afterwards walked up to the Crillon with her to call on Mr. Moorehouse. The corridors of the Crillon were lively as an anthill with scuttling khaki uniforms, marine yeomen, messenger boys, civilians; a gust of typewriter clicking came out from every open door. At every landing groups of civilian experts stood talking in low voices, exchanging glances with passersby, scribbling notes on scratchpads. Miss Stoddard grabbed Dick's arm with her sharp white fingers. “Listen . . . it's like a dynamo . . . what do you think it means?” “Not peace,” said Dick.

In the vestibule of Mr. Moorehouse's suite, she introduced him to Miss Williams, the tiredlooking sharpfaced blonde who was his secretary. “She's a treasure,” Miss Stoddard whispered as they went through into the drawingroom, “does more work than anybody in the whole place.”

There were a great many people standing around in the blue light that filtered in through the long windows. A waiter was making his way among the groups with a tray of glasses and a valetlooking person was tiptoeing around with a bottle of port. Some people had teacups and others had glasses in their hands but nobody was paying much attention to them. Dick noticed at once from the way Miss Stoddard walked into the room and the way Mr. Moorehouse came forward a little to meet her, that she was used to running the show in that room. He was introduced to various people and stood around for a while with his mouth shut and his ears open. Mr. Moorehouse spoke to him and remembered his name, but at that moment a message came that Colonel House was on the phone and Dick had no further chance to talk to him. As he was leaving Miss Williams, the secretary, said; “Captain Savage, excuse me a moment . . . You're a friend of Mr. Robbins', aren't you?” Dick smiled at her and said, “Well, rather an acquaintance, I'd say. He seems a very interesting fellow.” “He's a very brilliant man,” said Miss Williams, “but I'm afraid he's losing his grip . . . as I look at it it's very demoralizing over here . . . for a man. How can anybody expect to get through their work in a place where they take three hours for lunch and sit around drinking in those miserable cafés the rest of the time?”

“You don't like Paris, Miss Williams.”

“I should say not.”

“Robbins does,” said Dick maliciously. “Too well,” said Miss Williams. “I thought if you were a friend of his you might help us straighten him out. We're very worried over him. He hasn't been here for two days at a most important time, very important contacts to be made. J.W.'s working himself to the bone. I'm so afraid he'll break down under the strain . . . And you can't get a reliable stenographer or an extra typewriter . . . I have to do all the typing beside my secretarial duties.” “Oh, it's a busy time for all of us,” said Dick. “Goodby, Miss Williams.” She gave him a smile as he left.

In late February he came back from a long dismal run to Vienna to find another letter from Anne Elizabeth:

 

D
ICK
D
ARLING
:

Thanks for the fine postcards. I'm still at this desk job and so lonely. Try to come to Rome if you can. Something is happening that is going to make a great change in our lives. I'm terribly worried about it but I have every confidence in you. I know you're straight, Dicky boy. Oh, I've got to see you. If you don't come in a day or two I may throw up everything and come to Paris. Your girl,