Kitabı oku: «Ptomaine Street: The Tale of Warble Petticoat», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX

Lotta Munn ran in occasionally. She was of the anecdotal type. The stories she told made one gasp. They were always prefaced by an “Oh, my dear, I can’t tell you that one—it’s too awful!”

Warble didn’t care much for these tales, indeed, frequently missed the point, and laughed purely from a sense of duty.

As she observed to Petticoat, one day, in exasperation, “There are only two classes of women in this world—women who tell naughty stories, and women I have never met!”

Also Lotta Munn was by way of being complimentary. She told Warble that old Leathersham thought her a peach, and that Trymie Icanspoon declared he was going to make love to her.

That Mrs. Charity Givens had heard she was a great heiress, and meant to stick her for a new hospital. That Le Grand Paynter wanted to do her portrait, life size and full width, and that the Reverend Avery Goodman said she was very light on her feet for a fat woman.

The last made Warble mad and she made a face at Lotta and sent her home.

A rose-colored June day. Meringues of cloud floating on a sky of cerulean custard.

She crawled out for a walk. It was ninety-eight in the shade, too hot to run much.

She walked down Ptomaine Street, her nose shining, and pearly drops chasing each other down her back like rain on a car window pane.

In her tucked white dimity and ankle-ties, her pink sunbonnet and her tiny, frilled parasol, she was as much out of place in the aesthetic town as whipped cream on a grapefruit.

She circled the outskirts of the town, and noted the massive and imposing gateways to the great estates. She knew the grandeur inside, she had been there. Cubist landscapes, some of them, others were Russian steppes, and in one instance a magnate was having the ruins of an Egyptian temple excavated on his grounds, which he had previously with difficulty and at great expense had buried there.

She did not know what to do about it.

She felt, intuitively, that these men would resent her criticism of their homes. Yet she couldn’t let it go on—this gigantic inutility, this mammoth lack of practical, efficient management.

Why, the ground sunk in a sunken garden would raise crops enough to feed an army—and Lord knew how soon they might be needed.

And then she happened to think that reform, like charity should begin at home, and she decided to start in on Petticoat.

She did.

They were sitting in their home-like Tower of Jewels, and, a bit timidly, Warble said, “Let’s pote quoetry to each other.”

Poor child, nervousness or emotion always made her reverse her initial letters.

“All right,” Petticoat returned, good naturedly, “you begin.”

Just what Warble wanted! Fate was always good to her.

“I will, because I hope to reform your tastes, dear, and teach you to see the beauty of simple beautiful poetry. Listen to this:

 
  “Weep and the world weeps with you,
  Laugh and you laugh alone—”
 

“That’ll do, Warb. Don’t go too far. Now it’s my turn. But, you know, dear, quoting isn’t everything. You must learn to dissect, to interpret, and above all to trace the influences that swayed the poet.

“Now I’ll read you a poem picked at random, and then I’ll trace the influences for you.”

Petticoat reached out a languid arm, picked up a current magazine and read:

  “‘FULFILMENT

 
  ‘Here, at your delicate bosom, let death
  Come to me
  Where night has made a warm Elysium,
  Lulled by a soft, invisible sea.
 
 
  ‘Now in the porches of your soul I stand
  Where once I stood;
  Fed and forgiven by a liberal hand,
  My broken boyhood is renewed.
 
 
  ‘You are my bread and honey, set among
  A grove of spice;
  An ever brimming cup; a lyric sung
  After the thundering battle-cries.
 
 
  ‘You are my well-loved earth, forever fresh,
  Forever prodigal, forever fond,
  As, from the sweet fulfilment of the flesh,
  I reach beyond.’”
 

Noting that Warble was still awake, Petticoat discoursed:

“In the first line, we note the influence of Swinburne. There could be no better start out. The Swinburne collocation of delicate bosom and death is both arrestive and interesting. The third and fourth lines denote the influence of Poe. To be sure, ‘a warm Elysium’ sounds like a new and appetizing soft drink, but that is not what is meant; and the sea is indubitably the one that sounded around the tomb of Miss Annabel Lee.

“The second stanza opens under pure Tennysonian influences. This may not be clear at first to the beginner in influence tracing, but it is unmistakably so to the expert. The recurring sibilants, the sound without sense, the fine architectural imagery, all point to the great Lady Alfred. The latter half of this stanza is due entirely to the strong influence of D. W. Griffith. The poem was, without doubt, written after the poet had been to see ‘Broken Blossoms,’ and the liberal hand from which that production was flung to a waiting world left its ineffaceable finger-prints on his polished mind.

“Now we come to stanza three. The first line shows the influence of Mother Goose; the second is an unconscious echo of Solomon’s Song; the ever-brimming cup owes itself to Omar; and the rest of the stanza to Rupert Brooke.

“Thus we see the importance of widespread reading, and a catholicity of influences.

“Influence is wonderful! To invent a new simile, it is like a pebble dropped into a placid lake; the ripples form ever-widening circles, and the influence of an influence is never wholly lost.

“Perhaps—and this is quite as it should be—the final stanza is the finest of all. It starts out under the influences of Walt Whitman. Had Walt been omitted, the whole structure would have tumbled to the ground! No self-respecting poet now-a-days writes without being influenced by Whitman. It isn’t done. It would be as indiscreet as to appear in one’s shirt-sleeves. The influence of the good, gray Poet must be felt, must be shown, or the budding bard is out of the running. Only a dash of Whitman is needed—‘my well-loved earth’ and ‘prodigal’ are quite sufficient.

“‘The sweet fulfilment of the flesh’ is a final roundup that gracefully blends Whitman’s and Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s influential powers—and, incidentally, justifies the magnificent title of the poem.

“Then, as a crowning triumph, note the splendid last line, a masterpiece brought about by the influence of Sir Oliver Lodge and his spiritistic ilk! Could anything be finer? What imagery for a last line! What a break-off, leaving the gasping reader in a state of choking suspense, of avid, ungratified curiosity! A great poem indeed, and influenced by a noble army of writers.

“Nor is the manner of the thing all that matters. The theme—the great idea of the whole affair—is a marvelous example of influence. The New York State Legislature recently passed a bill making attempted suicide no longer a punishable offense. If successful, it is, like virtue, its own reward. Indeed, it has to be, for as the Penal Code distinctly states, owing to the impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator no forfeiture is imposed. But the new law lifts the ban from futile efforts in the matter of self-destruction, and one need not pay the hitherto exacted fine of a thousand dollars by way of a luxury tax on such diversion.

“Can it be doubted, then, that our Poet read of this new law, and—it may be unconsciously—was so influenced by it that he devoted sixteen lines of his precious verse to the expression of his willingness to let death come to him?”

“I don’t blame him for being willing, and I wouldn’t put a straw in Death’s way,” said Warble, earnestly. “I’m glad you read me that, Bill, for that is just the sort of thing I mean to eradicate from your system. It’s like a disease, this aestheticism of yours—it’s the Culture Ptomaine.”

“Now, hold on, Dumpling Dear, do you know a culture from a ptomaine?”

“Oh, I don’t mean the cultures you take, I mean Culture with a big C. It’s a poison, and as you cure ptomaine poisoning, I’m going to cure this town of its deadly art poisoning. I’m in revolt.”

“That’s right, everybody who is anybody is in revolt against something nowadays, because our knowledge of the truth is too great for our existing conditions, and it bursts—”

 
  “Like poor Betsy Binn, who was so very pure within,
  She burst this outer shell of sin,
  And hatched herself a cherubim!”
 

Warble interrupted.

“Yes, or as Gertrude Stein puts it: ‘It is a gnarled division, that which is not any obstruction, and the forgotten swelling is certainly attracting. It is attracting the whiter division, it is not sinking to be growing, it is not darkening to be disappearing, it is not aged to be annoying. There cannot be sighing. This, is bliss.’ There you see how art is greater than life—how—”

“Do you think I’m too fat?” Warble again interrupted him.

“I do, my dear. You weren’t, I think you are, I know you will be.”

“Would you love me more if I were—didn’t weigh so much?”

“Yes, in exact inverse ratio.”

Warble made an awful face at him, and then she went quietly around behind him, and dropped down his back a little fuzzy caterpillar, which she had tied in her handkerchief for that very purpose.

It was her last effort to cure her husband of culture poisoning, but she was not yet ready to give up her big idea of reforming Butterfly Center.

Warble was a determined little person, and, too, fate often gave her a good boost, and she thought one was about due.

She went to the Toddletopsis Club, at Lotta Munn’s.

Lotta had inherited eight or ten town and country houses, and for the moment was perched like a bird of passage, on her Roman villa, called Seven Hills.

Warble’s little electric Palanquin rolled through the arch of Constantine and she ascended the dazzling flight of marble steps to the entrance patio.

“Hello, Pot Pie,” screamed Lotta, by way of greeting, “come on in, the firewater’s fine.”

It was, and there was lots of it, and a group of long silk-legged Butterflies were sprawled on the Roman couches, smoking and chatting as they spun the Toddletops.

Warble was unfamiliar with the teetotum-like things, but the others kindly instructed her. Moreover, there was a roulette wheel and some other devices of which our litle heroine didn’t even know the name.

Also, there were tables, where those who chose played high-staked bridge, poker or rum.

Warble wasn’t a born gambler. Games of chance had no appeal for her. She wanted to make faces at everybody and run away. But she scolded herself for being too superior and forced herself to stay with the bunch.

In a way, she was rewarded, for she won all the money from the others. Her luck was monumental. Every different game she tried she took all the stakes, and at last having broken the bank, she was forced to go home for lack of occupation.

She was a proud and stuck-up chit all the evening.

Trymie Icanspoon called and flirted something fierce. But it didn’t mean a thing to Warble, for the man was so saturated with art that it oozed forth in his conversation and she had no idea what he was driving at.

He went home thinking she was the most deliciously tempting morsel he had ever seen and the biggest fool.

“No, I couldn’t fall in love with him. I like him, as a gift-book, but he’s no man. Could I kiss him? Not with a real movie kiss.

“They say marriage is a lottery. I haven’t drawn much. I mean in the matter of love. I wish I had a Prince Charming. Bill would do, all right, but he thinks I’m too fat. I wish I could get thinner—all of them are. Lotta’s like a golf club and Daisy’s like a breadstick.

“I s’pose they were born that way.

“I wasn’t.

“I wonder when we’ll begin to keep a family.

“I’m crazy about Bill—I am—I am—

“Am I?

“All the girls are, too.

“Does he care for them? For any of them? For all of them?

“For that detestable Daisy? That disgusting Iva? That rotten Lotta!

“Oh, I may as well admit it—I just adore Bill!

“This frock is too tight—I must have it stretched.

“Yes, I’m mad over my husband—but—”

She sought Petticoat in his rooms.

She tumbled into his lap, and he pushed her out until he could set aside the Angora cat and the Airedale and his pet guinea pig, then he said politely, “Is this your seat?” and she perched on his knee.

“Do you love me, dear?” she asked, her voice full of a dumb pathos.

“Ooooooooooooooooooo! I’m sleepy,” he said, with a cavernous yawn and a Herculean stretch that threw her out on the floor. “Want any money?” She looked at him. He was not unlike John Barrymore in The Jest, and Warble fell for him afresh.

“You are so beautiful—” she wailed. “I wish you loved me—”

“I wish I did,” he returned, honestly, “but you are such a butter-ball.”

“Oh, Butterfly Thenter calls anybody Butter-ball who weights over ninety-five! If you’re so cut up about it I won’t live under this roof another minute! I can earn my own living, and all I want, too! You can get a divorce and marry some thread of a woman who has ptomaines all the time!”

“Pish, tush, Warb, don’t be a damfool! Lay off the melodrama. I do love you—at least, I love ninety-five pounds of you. Now, will you be good?”

“Yeth.”

“And will you try to think of me as a devoted and loving husband, even if I’m not one?”

“Oh, my dear, I am unjust to you! I will take what you give me—what you can spare from the little dog and the cat and the guinea pig. And I will be your own little Petty Warblecoat. And I won’t give you over to Iva Payne—I hate her!”

CHAPTER X

The mail

The Petticoats rarely received mail. It wasn’t done much in Butterfly Center. So unaesthetic.

On a tray, a lacquered lackey brought a letter to Warble.

A white letter. Large and square—ominously square.

Warble took tray and all and went with it to Petticoat’s rooms—the letter was addressed to him.

She tapped but there was no answer. Listening at the door, she could hear him splashing in his rock-hewn bath and leaping, chamois-like, from crag to crag of his quarried bathroom.

She sat down on the floor and waited. Petticoat’s toilets were like linked sweetness, long drawn out.

It was late afternon, before he emerged, fresh, roseate and smiling, and imprinted a kiss on Warble’s cheek that left the red stamp of a lip-sticked mouth. Warble sometimes thought if it could be arranged as a dating stamp, she could keep a record of when he had last kissed her.

Poor little Warble—she loved her Big Bill so fondly, and he only looked on her as something fatter than his dog, a little bigger than his cat. Timidly she proffered the trayed letter.

“Oh, my Heavens!” and Petticoat smote himself, hip and thigh. “Where did you get this? Why was I not told sooner of its arrival? To me! And postmarked Lake Skoodoow-abskoosis! Home of my ancestors! Woman! Why this delay? Why?”

“It came this morning,” said Warble, apologetically, “but you were in your bath, and the door was locked.”

“But this is a most important letter. Why didn’t you slip it under the door?”

“I couldn’t,” said Warble, simply, “it was on a tray.”

“As I hoped—I mean, feared—” exclaimed Petticoat, tearing the envelope from the sheet, “he is dead!”

It made Warble writhe to see the devastated envelope—she always slit them neatly with a paper-knife—but she was thrilled by Petticoat’s excitement.

“A fortune!” he exclaimed. “My revered ancestor, the oldest of the Cotton-Petticoats, has died and left all his wealth to me! A windfall! Now we can afford to have a baby and get over the Moorish Courtyard, too! Oh, Warble, ain’t we got fun!”

He danced about the room, in his blue burnous and red tarbush, looking more like a howling dervish than a tempestuous Petticoat.

Warble thought a minute. A baby would be nice—and perhaps she could reform that more easily than she could older people.

“All right,” she said, “and I’ll have beautiful gaternity mowns of shuffy fliffon—I mean, fliffy shuffon, no—shiffy fluffon—oh, pleathe—pleathe—”

Warble’s tongue always misbehaved when she was excited or embarrassed, but Petticoat didn’t notice her.

“I can send Roscoe Rococo after that Courtyard,” he mused, “he’ll know. The last man I sent to Spain for a casemented façade, brought home a temple! But Roscie knows, and he’ll do it proper. I don’t want to run over just now—”

The baby was coming.

Warble reveled in infant layettes and her own layouts for lying in. She sank deeper and deeper in a sea of baby-clothes, down pillows and orris powder. Nursery quarters were added to the house, influenced by Lucca Delia Robbia and Fra Angelico.

Also a few influential Madonnas.

The Butterflies came in with advice. Marigold Leathersham was dubious about the wisdom of the plan, but brought a pillow of antique rose point, filled with ostrich plumes.

Mrs. Holm Boddy rushed over with a copy of Poems Every Expectant Mother Ought to Know, and Lotta Munn sent a card of diamond safety pins.

Iva Payne, the hateful thing, sent a Cubist picture of an infant falling downstairs, but Warble couldn’t make it out so its pre-natal influence didn’t amount to much.

Daisy Snow, innocent child, sent a beautiful edition of How to Tell Your Young, a treatise of the bird-and-bee-seed-and-pollen school, and Faith Loveman sent her own marked copy of Cooks that Have Helped Me.

But Warble made a face at them all, and gave their books to the Salvation Army and read the Diary of Maggot Somebody.

Another fate slather.

The baby was twins.

That was the way things came to Warble—fate in big chunks—destiny in cloudbursts.

Two little red Petticoats all at once to hang on the ancestral tree.

But Warble was not caught napping. In her efficient way, she had provided two bassinets, two nurseries—in fact, she had really provided three of everything, but the third wasn’t needed, and she thriftily ordered it put aside for the present and for the future.

Dr. Petticoat was enchanted.

He saw the children first, asleep in their downy nests, tucked in by the skilled hands of the staff of trained nurses, and as he gazed on his offspring, his little tucked and quilted Petticoats, he named them Guelph and Ghibelline, after two of his illustrious ancestors and ran off at once to put up their names at various select and inaccessible clubs.