You Can't Go Home Again (38 page)

And the young man, evidently in the approved accent, said briefly: “Eh!”—an ejaculation which might have been indicative of almost anything, but which was here obviously taken for agreement. This interchange between them had taken place, like all the conversations in the group, in a curiously muffled, clipped speech. Both the girl and the young man had barely opened their mouths—their words had come out between almost motionless lips. This seemed to be the fashionable way of talking among these people.

As Mr. Logan kept working and pressing with his hairpin, suddenly the side of the bulging doll was torn open and some of the stuffing began to ooze out. Miss Lily Mandell watched with an expression of undisguised horror and, as the doll began to lose its entrails, she pressed one hand against her stomach in a gesture of nausea, said “Ugh!”—and made a hasty exit. Others followed her. And even Mrs. Jack, who at the start of the performance had slipped on a wonderful jacket of gold thread and seated herself cross-legged on the floor like a dutiful child, squarely before the maestro and his puppets, finally got up and went out into the hall, where most of her guests were now assembled.

Almost no one was left to witness the concluding scenes of Mr. Piggy Logan’s circus except the uninvited group of his own particular friends.

Out in the hall Mrs. Jack found Lily Mandell talking to George Webber. She approached them with a bright, affectionate little smile and queried hopefully:

“Are you enjoying it, Lily? And you, darling?”—turning fondly to George—“Do you like it? Are you having a good time?” Lily answered in a tone of throaty disgust:

“When he kept on pushing that long pin into the doll and all its insides began oozing out—ugh!”—she made a nauseous face—“I simply couldn’t stand it any longer! It was horrible! I had to get out! I thought I was going to puke!”

Mrs. Jack’s shoulders shook, her face reddened, and she gasped in a hysterical whisper:

“I know! Wasn’t it awful!”

“But what is it, anyway?” said the attorney, Roderick Hale, as he came up and joined them.

“Oh, hello, Rod!” said Mrs. Jack. “What do you make of it Hale?”

“I can’t make it out,” he said, with an annoyed look into the living-room, where Piggy Logan was still patiently carrying on. “What is it all supposed to be, anyway? And who is this fellow?” he said in an irritated tone, as if his legal and fact-finding mind was annoyed by a phenomenon he could not fathom. “It’s like some puny form of decadence,” he murmured.

Just then Mr. Jack approached his wife and, lifting his shoulders in a bewildered shrug, said:

“What is it? My God, perhaps
I’m
crazy!”

Mrs. Jack and Lily Mandell bent together, shuddering helplessly as women do when they communicate whispered laughter to one another.

“Poor Fritz!” Mrs. Jack gasped faintly.

Mr. Jack cast a final bewildered look into the living-room, surveyed the wreckage there, then turned away with a short laugh:

“I’m going to my room!” he said with decision. “Let me know if he leaves the furniture!”

19. Unscheduled Climax

At the conclusion of Mr. Logan’s performance there was a ripple of applause in the living-room, followed by the sound of voices. The fashionable young people clustered round Mr. Logan, chattering congratulations. Then, without paying attention to anybody else, and without a word to their hostess, they left.

Other people now gathered about Mrs. Jack and made their farewells. They began to leave, singly and in pairs and groups, until presently no one remained except those intimates and friends who are always the last to leave a big party—Mrs. Jack and her family, George Webber, Miss Mandell, Stephen Hook, and Amy Carleton. And, of course, Mr. Logan, who was busy amid the general wreckage he had created, putting his wire dolls back into his two enormous valises.

The atmosphere of the whole place was now curiously changed. It was an atmosphere of absence, of completion. Everybody felt a little bit as one feels in a house the day after Christmas, or an hour after a wedding, or on a great liner at one of the Channel ports when most of the passengers have disembarked and the sorrowful remnant know that the voyage is really over and that they are just marking time for a little while until their own hour comes to depart.

Mrs. Jack looked at Piggy Logan and at the chaos he had made of her fine room, and then glanced questioningly at Lily Mandell as if to say: “Can you understand all this? What has happened?” Miss Mandell and George Webber surveyed Mr. Logan with undisguised distaste. Stephen Hook remained aloof, looking bored. Mr. Jack, who had come forth from his room to bid his guests good-bye and had lingered by the elevator till the last one had gone, now peered in through the hall door at the kneeling figure in the living-room, and with a comical gesture of uplifted hands said: “What is it?”—leaving everybody convulsed with laughter.

‘But even when Mr. Jack came into the room and stood staring down quizzically, Mr. Logan did not look up. He seemed not to have heard anything. Utterly oblivious of their presence, he was happily absorbed in the methodical task of packing up the litter that surrounded him.

Meanwhile the two rosy-cheeked maids, May and Janie, were busily clearing away glasses, bottles, and bowls of ice, and Nora started putting the books back on their shelves. Mrs. Jack looked on rather helplessly, and Amy Carleton stretched herself out flat on the floor with her hands beneath her head, closed her eyes, and appeared to go to sleep. All the rest were obviously at a loss what to do, and just stood and sat around, waiting for Mr. Logan to finish and be gone.

The place had sunk back into its wonted quiet. The blended murmur of the unceasing city, which during the party had been shut out and forgotten, now penetrated the walls of the great building and closed in once more upon these lives. The noises of the street were heard again.

Outside, below them, there was the sudden roar of a fire truck, the rapid clanging of its bell. It turned the corner into Park Avenue and the powerful sound of its motors faded away like distant thunder. Mrs. Jack went to the window and looked out. Other trucks now converged upon the corner from different directions until four more had passed from sight.

“I wonder where the fire can be,” she remarked with detached curiosity. Another truck roared down the side street and thundered into Park. “It must be quite a big one—six engines have driven past. It must be somewhere in this neighbourhood.”

Amy Carleton sat up and blinked her eyes, and for a moment all of them were absorbed in idle speculation about where the fire might be. But presently they began to look again at Mr. Logan. At long last his labours seemed to be almost over. He began to close the big valises and adjust the straps.

Just then Lily Mandell turned her head towards the hall, sniffed sharply, and suddenly said:

“Does anyone smell smoke?”

“Hah? What?” said Mrs. Jack. And then, going into the hall, she cried excitedly: “But yes! There is quite a strong smell of smoke out here! I think it would be just as well if we got out of the building until we find out what’s wrong.” Her face was now burning with excitement. “I suppose we’d better,” she said. “Everybody come on!” Then: “0 Mr. Logan!”—she raised her voice, and now for the first time he lifted his round and heavy face with an expression of inquiring innocence—“I say—I think perhaps we’d all better get out, Mr. Logan, until we find out where the fire is! Are you ready?”

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Logan cheerfully. “But fire?”—in a puzzled tone. “What fire? Is there a fire?”

“I think the building is on fire,” said Mr. Jack smoothly, but with an edge of heavy irony, “so perhaps we’d better all get out—that is, unless you prefer to stay.”

“Oh no,” said Mr. Logan brightly, getting clumsily to his feet. “I’m quite ready, thank you, except for changing my clothes—”

“I think that had better wait,” said Mr. Jack.

“Oh, the girls!” cried Mrs. Jack suddenly, and, snapping the ring on and off her finger, she trotted briskly towards the dining-room, “Nora—Janie—May! Girls! We’re all going downstairs—there’s a fire somewhere in the building. You’ll have to come with us till we find out where it is.”

“Fire, Mrs. Jack?” said Nora stupidly, staring at her mistress.

Mrs. Jack saw at a glance her dull eye and her flushed face, and thought: “She’s been at it again! I might have known it!” Then aloud, impatiently:

“Yes, Nora, fire. Get the girls together and tell them they’ll have to come along with us. And—oh!—Cook!” she cried quickly. “Where is Cookie? Go get her, someone. Tell her she’ll have to come, too!”

The news obviously upset the girls. They looked helplessly at one another and began to move aimlessly round, as if no longer certain what to do.

“Shall we take our things, Mrs. Jack?” said Nora, looking at her dully. “Will we have time to pack?”

“Of course not, Nora!” exclaimed Mrs. Jack, out of all patience. “We’re not moving out! We’re simply going downstairs till we can learn where the fire is and how bad it is!...And Nora, please get Cook and bring her with you! You know how rattled and confused she gets!”

“Yes’m,” said Nora, staring at her helplessly. “An’ will that be all mum?---I mean”—and gulped—“will we be needin’ anything?”

“For heaven’s sake, Nora—_no!_…Nothing except your coats. Tell the girls and Cook to wear their coats.”

“Yes’m,” said Nora dumbly, and after a moment, looking fuddled and confused, she went uncertainly through the dining-room to the kitchen.

Mr. Jack meanwhile, had gone out into the hall and was ringing the elevator bell. There, after a short interval, his family, guests, and servants joined him. Quietly he took stock of them:

Esther’s face was flaming with suppressed excitement, but her sister, Edith, who had hardly opened her mouth all evening and had been so inconspicuous that no one had noticed her, was her usual pale, calm self. Good girl, Edith! His daughter, Alma, he observed with satisfaction, was also taking this little adventure in her stride. She looked cool, beautiful, a bit bored by it all. The guests, of course, were taking it as a lark—and why not?—_they_ had nothing to lose. All except that young Gentile fool—George What’s-his-name. Look at him now—all screwed up and tense, pacing back and forth and darting his feverish glances in all directions. You’d think it was
his
property that was going up in smoke!

But where was that Mr. Piggy Logan? When last seen, he was disappearing into the guest-room. Was the idiot changing his clothes after all?—Ah, here he comes! “At least,” thought Mr. Jack humorously, “it must be he, for if it isn’t who in the name of God is it?”

The figure that Mr. Logan now cut as he emerged from the guest-room and started down the hall was, indeed, a most extraordinary one. All of them turned to look at him and saw that he was taking no chances of losing his little wire dolls or his street clothes in any fire. Still wearing the “costume” that he had put on for his performance, he came grunting along with a heavy suitcase in each hand, and over one shoulder he had slung his coat, vest, and trousers, his overweight tan shoes were tied together by their laces and hung suspended round his neck, where they clunked against his chest as he walked, and on his head, perched on top of the football helmet, was his neat grey hat. So accoutred, he came puffing along, dropped his bags near the elevator, then straightened up and grinned cheerfully.

Mr. Jack kept on ringing the bell persistently, and presently the voice of Herbert, the elevator boy, could be heard shouting up the shaft from a floor or two below:

“All right! All right! I’ll be right up, folks, as soon as I take down this load!”

The sound of other people’s voices, excited, chattering, came up the shaft to them; then the elevator door banged shut and they could hear the car going down.

There was nothing to do but wait. The smell of smoke in the hallway was getting stronger all the time, and although no one was seriously alarmed, even the phlegmatic Mr. Logan was beginning to feel the nervous tension.

Soon the elevator could be heard coming up again. It mounted steadily—and then suddenly stopped somewhere just below them. Herbert could be heard working his lever and fooling with the door. Mr. Jack rang the bell impatiently. There was no response. He hammered on the door. Then Herbert shouted up again, and he was so near that all of them could hear every word:

“Mr. Jack, will you all please use the service elevator. This one’s, out of order. I can’t go any farther.”

“Well, that’s that,” said Mr. Jack.

He put on his derby, and without another word started down the hall towards the service landing. In silence the others followed him.,

At this moment the lights went out. The place was plunged in inky blackness. There was a brief, terrifying moment when the women caught their breaths sharply. In the darkness the smell of smoke seemed much stronger, more acrid and biting, and it was beginning to make their eyes smart. Nora moaned a little, and all; the servants started to mill round like stricken cattle. But they calmed down at the comforting assurance in Mr. Jack’s quiet voice speaking in the dark:

“Esther,” he said calmly, “we’ll have to light candles. Can you tell’ me where they are?”

She told him. He reached into a table drawer, pulled out a flashlight, and went through a door that led to the kitchen. Soon he reappeared with a box of tallow candles. He gave one to each person and lighted them.

They were now a somewhat ghostly company. The women lifted their candles and looked at one another with an air of bewildered surmise. The faces of the maids and Cookie, in the steady flame that each held before her face, looked dazed and frightened. Cookie wore a confused, fixed smile and muttered jargon to herself. Mrs. Jack, deeply excited, turned questioningly to George, who was at her side:

“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered. “Isn’t it the strangest thing? I mean—the party—all the people—and then this.” And, lifting her candle higher, she looked about her at the ghostly company.

And, suddenly, George was filled with almost unbearable love and tenderness for her, because he knew that she, like himself, felt in her heart the mystery and strangeness of all life. And his emotion was all the more poignant because in the same instant, with sharp anguish, he remembered his decision, and knew that they had reached the parting of the ways.