II
“Let’s play parcheesi,” said little Steve.
“I have to telephone Aunt Isabel,” said Cicily.
“I haven’t done my practising,” said Jenny.
They were all sitting around the living-room fire. Jane was presiding over the little silver coffee service on the table at her knee. Sarah was passing the creme de menthe. The little cut-glass goblets, filled with vivid green liquid, looked very festive and frivolous, on the small silver tray. Jimmy grasped his with a sigh of satisfaction. Miss Parrot took hers with the deprecatory gesture of every trained nurse accepting an alcoholic beverage. Jane sipped hers with the comforting realization that the ice was perfectly pulverized.
“Do you like parcheesi?” said little Steve to Jimmy.
“I love it,” said Jimmy, “but I hurt my finger yesterday and I’m afraid I couldn’t throw the dice.”
“Anyway,” said Jenny, “I have to practise.”
“Not tonight,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “Day before yesterday I hurt my ear and sudden noises pain it dreadfully.”
Jenny and Cicily and Miss Parrot all laughed uproariously at his nonsense.
“Well,” said Cicily, “I do have to telephone Aunt Isabel.”
“That’s a fine idea,” said Jimmy approvingly. “And Miss Parrot looks to me like a perfect parcheesi fan. I think it would be very nice, Cicily, if Steve got the board all ready in another room so that, when you had finished telephoning your aunt, you and she and Jenny and Steve could all play parcheesi together, while your mother sat here in the firelight and told me what to do for my finger and my ear.”
Miss Parrot, having finished her creme de menthe, rose with a smile. She was obviously quite captivated by Jimmy.
“Come up to the playroom, children,” she said. “I’ll play parcheesi with you.”
“And don’t I have to practise?” asked Jenny jubilantly.
“Not if Mr. Trent’s ear is hurting him,” smiled Jane.
Jenny threw Jimmy a grateful smile. Steve dragged Miss Parrot from the room. Cicily followed with Jenny.
“I can’t believe,” said Jimmy, as he lit a cigarette, “that those great children are yours.”
“They are,” said Jane briefly.
“Cicily’s a perfect heartbreaker,” said Jimmy.
“I’m afraid she will be,” said Jane.
“Why ‘afraid’?” asked Jimmy.
“I don’t think breaking hearts is a very rewarding occupation,” said Jane.
“Oh—someone else can always mend them,” said Jimmy lightly. He twinkled across at her, through a blue streak of cigarette smoke. “You know that, don’t you, Jane?”
“I’ve never broken any hearts,” said Jane, smiling. “So really I don’t.”
“Well—experience is the best teacher,” said Jimmy affably.
Sarah reentered the room to remove the coffee tray. She picked up the cups and the little cut-glass goblets with the silent efficiency of the perfect servant and retired noiselessly into the hall.
“It moves on greased wheels, doesn’t it, Jane?” said Jimmy.
“What does?” asked Jane.
“Your life,” said Jimmy.
“Yes,” said Jane. “But I grease them.”
“I suppose you do,” said Jimmy. “But you don’t mind it, do you?”
“I get awfully sick of it,” said Jane honestly.
Jimmy watched her for a moment in silence behind the cigarette smoke.
“Sick of what?” he said presently.
“Sick,” said Jane earnestly, “of greasing wheels. Sick of running the house and bossing the servants and dressing the children. Sick of seeing that everything looks pretty and everything goes right. Sick of seeing that the living-room is dusted before ten every morning and that dinner is served on the stroke of seven every night. Sometimes I wonder what’s the use of it all. Sometimes I wish that Stephen and I could just tear up our roots and buy a couple of knapsacks and put the children in a covered wagon and start out to see the world. Just wander, you know, for a year or two. Wander everywhere, before we’re too old to do it. Not bother about anything. Not care. Not do anything we didn’t really want to. I suppose you think I’m crazy!” She broke off abruptly.
“Crazy?” said Jimmy. “I think you’re just right. There’s a lot of the nomad in me, you know. I guess the tent got into my blood. If I’d been born a gypsy instead of a Methodist minister’s son, I’d never have broken home ties. Golly!”—he waved his cigarette with enthusiasm—“I’d like to go round the world. Round and round it in circles. Round it in every latitude. Let’s do it, Jane! Let’s surprise Stephen tonight! You leave a note on the pincushion and I’ll send a wire to Agnes. ‘Gone—to points unknown!’ We’ll set out for the Golden Gate—I guess we can buy those knapsacks in the Northwestern Station—and sail for the South Sea Islands and drift over to Siam and Burma and India and on up to China—and by that time Stephen and Agnes will have divorced us and I’ll make you an honest woman, Jane, in a little Chinese shrine with the temple bells ringing overhead, and we’ll wander on, through Tibet and Afghanistan and Persia to Asia Minor, or maybe up to Russia, and then down through the civilized countries, which won’t be so nice, but where the food will be much better, to Africa, Jane! To the Dark Continent. And maybe when we get there we’ll stay—stay in the village of some cannibal king who never even heard of a musical critic or a suburban housewife, where concertos for the violin are unknown and living-rooms are never dusted! How about it, Jane?” He paused out of breath and looked engagingly over at her.
“It sounds very alluring,” said Jane, “but a little uncomfortable.”
“Comfort!” scoffed Jimmy. “You don’t really care about comfort!”
“Yes, I do!” cried Jane. “When I haven’t got it! And so do you. I don’t know you so awfully well, Jimmy, but I know you well enough to know that. You care so much about comfort that you won’t get up in the morning and make your own bed for Agnes! You won’t ride on a milk train instead of the Twentieth Century! I don’t think you’d be so good in a jungle. When I go to a jungle, I think I’ll take Stephen. He’d be very capable there.”
“I’m sure,” said Jimmy cheerfully, “he’d have sanitary plumbing installed in a fortnight. Nevertheless, something tells me that Stephen is no gypsy. If you ever see the Dark Continent with Stephen, you’ll see it in the discreet light shed on it by Thomas Cook and Sons! But as for me, with or without Agnes, I’m going to see the world before I die.”
“Mumsy”—it was little Steve on the threshold—“we want to kiss you good night.”
“Come in,” said Jane. “Come in, all of you.” The three children were lingering in the doorway.
“How’d the game come out, Steve?” asked Jimmy affably.
“Miss Parrot won,” said Steve gloomily. “She always does.”
“I’m going to send you a set of loaded dice,” said Jimmy benevolently. “Come in, kids, and sit down.” He rose as he spoke. “I want to sing to you.” He had picked up his fiddle-case and was removing the violin. Jane looked up in surprise. Jimmy was a strange mixture of contradictions. The children settled themselves delightedly on the floor near the fire. Jimmy tucked his violin under his chin and tuned it airily as he sauntered across the room.
“It’s an old English ballad,” he said, “and a particular favorite of mine. It appeals to your mother, too, who is really a gypsy at heart. Did you know that, children? There she sits by those polished brass andirons looking very pretty in a French tea-gown, but at heart she’s dancing barefoot by a bonfire in a tattered red shawl—dancing in the dark of the moon to the tinkle of a tambourine. When she married your father, children, she jumped over a broomstick. But later he took up with the bond business. That’s the way most of us get married. Did you know that, Cicily? But later we nearly all of us take up with something else and after that we only use broomsticks to sweep with.”
The children were staring at him in wide-eyed fascination. They were still staring when he began softly to sing:
“There were three gypsies a-come to my door,
And downstairs ran my lady, O!
One sang high and the other sang low,
And the other sang bonny, bonny Biscay, O!
“Then she pulled off her silk-finished gown
And put on hose of leather, O!
The ragged, ragged rags about our door—
She’s gone with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!”
Jimmy paused to smile mockingly at Jane, drawing his bow with a flourish across the strings of his violin.
“It was late last night when my lord came home,
Inquiring for his lady, O!
The servants said, on every hand,
She’s gone with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!
“Come saddle me my milk-white steed
And go and fetch my pony, O!
That I may ride and fetch my bride,
Who is gone with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!
“Then he rode high, and he rode low,
He rode through wood and copses too,
Until he came to an open field
And there he spied his lady, O!
“What makes you leave your house and land
What makes you leave your money, O?
What makes you leave your new-wedded lord,
To go with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O?”
Again Jimmy paused to smile mockingly at Jane and again his bow swept over a string and a note of triumph quivered in the air.
“Oh, what care I for my house and land.
And what care I for my money, O?
What care I for my new-wedded lord,
I’m off with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!”
His bow ran wildly, jubilantly over the high strings, then dropped to a sombre note of accusation.
“Last night you slept on a goose-feather bed,
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
But tonight you sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!”
Again the bow fluttered over the strings. The recreant lady’s laughter seemed tinkling in the room.
“Oh, what care I for a goose-feather bed,
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
For tonight I shall sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the raggle-taggle gypsies, O!”
He dropped his bow abruptly. In the sudden silence Steve’s voice rang out shrill with interest.
“And did she?”
“That lady did,” said Jimmy gravely. “She had the courage of her convictions.”
“And she never went back?” pursued Steve eagerly.
“Oh—that I can’t tell you,” said Jimmy gaily. “The song doesn’t say. I shouldn’t be surprised if she did, though. Lots of ladies do.”
“Children—you must go to bed,” said Jane. “It’s very late.”
“I must go back to town,” said Jimmy. He was putting the violin away in its case.
“Must you?” said Jane. “It’s very early.”
“I think I must,” said Jimmy.
“But we haven’t had any Debussy,” said Jane.
“We’ll have him next time,” smiled Jimmy.
“We’ll have Stephen next time, too,” said Jane.
“That will be delightful,” said Jimmy. The words might have seemed sarcastic if he had not been smiling so pleasantly. Suddenly, hat in hand, he crossed the room. He held out his hand to Jane. “You must make Stephen like me,” he said disarmingly.
“He will,” said Jane. Looking up into Jimmy’s charming faun-like face, Jane, at the moment, could not imagine anyone not liking him.
“I hope he will, Jane,” said Jimmy. “For I like you.”
“Stephen always likes people who like me,” said Jane loyally.
“Then that’s just as it should be,” said Jimmy. “When may I come again?”
“How about Tuesday?” said Jane. “Come out to dinner. Take the five-fifty with Stephen.”
“I will,” said Jimmy. “Good night, kids! Now, all together, before I go! Do you like me? The answer is ‘yes’!”
In the resulting clamour, Jimmy made his escape. He threw Jane one last smile from the threshold. As she heard the front door close behind him, Jane walked over to little Steve. For no reason whatever, she kissed him, very warmly.
“What are you smiling at, Mumsy?” said Jenny.
“Nothing,” said Jane. She ran her hand caressingly over Cicily’s fair crinkly hair. She kissed Jenny’s little freckled nose and pushed her toward the door.
“Go to bed, now, all of you,” said Jane. Left to herself, she picked up a book from the table and sat down in her chair to read it. She did not open it, however, but sat softly smiling, her eyes upon the fire. Stephen found her, sitting just like that, when he came home an hour later by the ten-ten.
“Bert’s better,” he said from the doorway, “And Muriel’s in fine shape. She’s taking everything very calmly. Young Albert gets home tomorrow!”
Jane realized that she had not once thought of Muriel since she had left the telephone after talking with Stephen five hours before. She felt suddenly conscious-stricken. She jumped up to help Stephen off with his coat.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Did you fix everything up for her?” Even now, Jane felt she wasn’t really thinking of Muriel. She did not give Stephen time to answer her question. “Jimmy Trent was here for dinner,” she said.
“Jimmy Trent?”
“Yes. He came out unexpectedly. He brought his fiddle and sang to the children.”
“Can he sing?” Stephen was walking across the room to lock the glass doors that opened on the terrace.
“Yes, Quite nicely. He’s very amusing. Stephen—”
Jane hesitated.
“Yes,” said Stephen, fumbling with a door-latch.
Jane did not answer. She had had it on the tip of her tongue to say “Stephen, I think he’s falling for me,” Then she remembered. She remembered the three weeks in which Jimmy had not telephoned. He was probably just getting a rise out of her that evening. Well—anyway, even so, he did not know that he had got it. That was a comfort. Of course he was not falling for her. He was Agnes’s husband and, obviously, a very volatile young man.
“Yes?” said Stephen again, turning from the window.
“Oh—nothing,” said Jane. Stephen turned out the lights.
“If Bert lives,” said Jane, “we ought to ask young Albert out here for the weekend. It would relieve Muriel, and Cicily would love to have him. Jack and Belle are coming.”
“All right,” said Stephen. Jane preceded him up the staircase. The spell invoked by Jimmy was already evaporating. She was glad that she had not said anything silly to Stephen. She was really a very silly woman, thought Jane, as she slipped out of the Poiret tea-gown. Jimmy did not mean anything by all that nonsense. It was just his line.