Fancies and Goodnights Read online

  Mrs. Beaseley looked at these admirable footprints with neither awe nor interest — only annoyance at the thought of her husband's triumph and the vindication of the Portuguese. She did not cry out in wonder, or call to the sleeping menfolk, but only gave a sort of honking snort. Then, picking up a sizeable palm frond, this unscrupulous woman obliterated the highly interesting footprints, never before seen by a white person's eyes. Having done so, she smiled grimly and looked for the next, and she wiped out that one, too. A little farther on she saw another, and then still one more, and so on, till she had removed every trace down to the tepid lip of the lake, where the last was printed at the very edge of the water.

  Having obliterated this final trace, Mrs. Beaseley straightened up and looked back toward the hut. «You shall hear of this,» she said, addressing her sleeping husband, «when we are settled down at Miami and you are too old to do anything about it.»

  At that moment there was a swirl in the water behind her and she was seized by a set of teeth which quite exactly resembled sabres. She had no leisure to check up on the other points mentioned by the Portuguese doctor, but no doubt they came up to specification. She uttered one brief scream as she disappeared, but her voice was hoarse by reason of the strain she had put on it during the previous weeks, and her cry, even if it had been heard, could easily have been confused with the mating call of the Megatherium, thought to be extinct. In fact, the last surviving Megatherium emerged from the jungle only shortly afterward, looked around in all directions, shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and went back the way he had come.

  Shortly afterward, Mr. Beaseley awoke, noted the absence of his wife, and finally went and woke the Portuguese. «Have you seen my wife?» said he.

  «Really!» said the little Portuguese, and went to sleep again.

  Mr. Beaseley went out and looked around, and at last returned to his friend. «I'm afraid my wife has run away,» said he. «I have found her footprints leading down to the lake, where she has evidently encountered some native in a canoe and persuaded him to transport her down the river. She was always threatening to do so in order to take a small house at Miami.»

  «That is not a bad town,» said the Portuguese, «but in the circumstances perhaps Buenos Aires is better. This monster is a great disappointment, my dear friend. Let us go back to Buenos Aires, where I will show you some extraordinary things — in quite a different line of course — such as your Ripley has never dreamed of.»

  «What an agreeable companion you are!» said Mr. Beaseley. «You make even city life sound attractive.»

  «Well, if you get tired of it, we can always move on,» said the little Portuguese. «I know some tropical islands where the girls — though their lips are not designed to hold dinner plates — are nevertheless marvels of nature, and their dances are wonders of art.»

  OVER INSURANCE

  Alice and Irwin were as simple and as happy as any young couple in a family-style motion picture. In fact, they were even happier, for people were not looking at them all the time and their joys were not restricted by the censorship code. It is therefore impossible to describe the transports with which Alice flew to embrace Irwin on his return from work, or the rapture with which Irwin returned her caresses.

  It was at least two hours before they even thought about dinner. Even then, it took a long time to get the food on the table, there was so much patting and petting, nibbling at the nape of the neck, mumbling of ears, kissing, fondling, and foolishness to the carrying of every single dish.

  When at last the meal was ready, you may be sure they ate with excellent appetite. Nevertheless, whatever was best on his plate, he found time to put it on hers, and she was no slower in picking out some dainty titbit to pop between his eager and rather rubbery lips.

  After dinner they would sit in one chair, for all the world like two innocent love-birds in a cage, and he would entertain her with a detailed catalogue of her charms, which gave her the highest possible opinion of his taste and judgment. However, these delights did not endure very long, for they found it necessary to go to bed at an early hour, in order to rise bright and fresh in the morning.

  It was a dull and heavy night when he did not wake up once or twice, and switch on the light to assure himself she was not merely a delightful dream. She, blinking through the rosy radiance, was not in the least annoyed at being thus awakened, and they would have a very delightful little conversation and soon would fall happily asleep again.

  It is not likely that a husband whose evenings are so contentedly spent at home will often linger in saloons and barrooms when the day's work is done. It was only on rare occasions that Irwin suffered himself to be persuaded, and even then he would suddenly think of his darling; how plump, how soft, how deliciously rounded she was, and he would give a sort of frisk or leap into the air.

  «Why the hell do you do that?» his friends would demand. «Did you think someone was giving you a hotfoot or something?»

  «No, no,» he would reply evasively. «I was just feeling peppy. I was just feeling full of beans.»

  With that, he would grin all over his face like a fool, and take hasty leave of them, and rush home at top speed, eager to reassure himself as to the genuine existence, and his own miraculous possession, of those tender, those rounded, those infinitely sweet details that made up his delectable little wife.

  On one of these occasions he was darting home as fast as his legs would carry him, when he forgot to look about him in crossing the street, and a taxi came swiftly around the corner. Fortunately the driver jammed on his brakes; otherwise Irwin would have been bowled over like a ninepin, and might never have seen his honey bun any more. This idea appalled him, and he was unable to dismiss it from his mind.

  That night they were seated as usual in their single chair, she tenderly stroking his somewhat sallow chops, and he protruding his lips, like some eager ape at the approach of a milk bottle, in the attempt to imprint kisses on her passing hand. In this interval it was his custom to recite all the events of the long day, and especially how he had missed her. «And that reminds me,» said he, «I was very narrowly missed myself, by a taxi, as I was crossing the street, and if the driver had not put his brakes on I should have been bowled over like a ninepin. And then maybe I should never have seen my honey bun any more.»

  At these words her lips trembled, and her eyes brimmed over with tears. «If you didn't see me any more,» she said, «then I wouldn't see you any more.»

  «I was just thinking of that,» said Irwin.

  «We always have the same thoughts,» said she.

  This, however, was no consolation; their thoughts that evening were so unutterably sad. «All day tomorrow,» said Alice, weeping, «I shall be seeing you lying all squashed in the gutter. I'm sure it will be too much for me. I shall just lie down and die.»

  «Oh, I wish you had not said that,» said Irwin. «Now I shall be thinking of you lying all crumpled on the hearthrug. I shall go mad, or die.»

  «Oh no!» cried Alice. «Now I shall think of you dying because you think I might be dead. The thought will kill me.»

  «Now it's even worse,» lamented Irwin. «Supposing you should die because you think that I've died because … It's too much! I can't bear it!»

  «Nor can I,» said she.

  They hugged each other very tightly, and exchanged kisses rendered surpassingly salty by their tears. This is thought by some to add relish, as with peanuts, by bringing out the sweetness. Irwin and Alice were too overcome to appreciate fine points of this nature; they could think of nothing but of how each would feel if the other should suddenly die. Consequently they got never a wink of sleep all night long, and Irwin was deprived of the pleasure of dreaming of his Alice, and of switching on the light to find that she was true. She, on her side, was denied the joy of blinking up in a sudden rosy radiance to see him hovering and goggling over her. They made up for this by the passion and fervour of their embraces. Consequently, when the dawn came cool and grey and rational in at
their window, the unhappy pair were themselves feeling cooler, greyer, and more rational than at any time since they had first met.

  «Alice,» said Irwin, «we must look at this bravely. We must face up to what may happen, and do our best to provide what consolation we can.»

  «My only consolation will be to cry,» said she.

  «Yes, and mine, too,» said he. «But would you rather cry in a fireless garret, and have to stop and get up and do your own housework, or would you rather cry in a fine apartment, with a mink coat on, and plenty of servants to bring in your meals?»

  «I would rather have my meals brought in,» said she. «Because then I could go right on crying. And if I had a mink coat on I should not catch cold, and sneeze in the middle of it.»

  «And I would rather cry on a yacht,» said he, «where my tears could be ascribed to the salt spray, and I should not be thought unmanly. Let us insure one another, darling, so that if the worst happens we can cry without interruption. Let us put nine-tenths of our money into insurance.»

  «It will leave us very little to live on now,» said she. «But that is all the better, beloved, because then it will be all the more of a consolation.»

  «That was exactly my idea,» said he. «We always have the same thoughts. This very day I will take out the policies.»

  «And let us,» cried she, «insure our dear bird also,» pointing to the feathered cageling, whom they always left uncovered at night, in order that his impassioned trills might grace their diviner raptures.

  «You are right,» said he. «I will put ten bucks on the bird. His chirpings would be as a string of pearls to me, if ever I were left alone.»

  That day Irwin made arrangements for the investment of nine-tenths of his earnings. «We are poor,» said he, on his return, «but we have each other. If ever we are robbed of that joy we shall at least have many thousands of dollars.»

  «Do not speak of them,» said she. «Hateful dollars!»

  «By all means,» said he. «Let us have dinner. I was very economical at lunchtime, and I am unusually hungry this evening.»

  «It will not take long,» said she. «I was economical at the market, and have bought a new sort of food. It is amazingly cheap, and it contains a whole alphabet of vitamins, enough to keep a whole family in pep and energy for a week. It says so in the description on the packet.»

  «Splendid!» said he. «Depend upon it; your dear, sweet, tender little metabolism, and my great, gruff, bearish metabolism, will spell all the honey-dovey-love-words in creation out of that same alphabet of vitamins.»

  No prospect could be more agreeable, but as the days passed it appeared that their metabolism would have put on a poor show at any word-making game. Or perhaps the manufacturer of the product had been misled by some alien-minded scientist, and had thus erred slightly in the description on the packet. Irwin grew so weak that he could no longer leap into the air at the thought of his darling, his tender, his deliciously rounded little wife. On the other hand, Alice grew so thin that he no longer had any reason to do so.

  Her stockings now wrinkled revoltingly upon her stick-like legs.

  «I think,» thought Irwin, «she no longer rushes to greet me with eager rapture as of yore. Perhaps it's as well. How much more delightful, to be greeted by a porterhouse steak!»

  What with this new, disturbing thought, and his sawdust diet, and the innumerable financial worries that increasingly beset the young lovers, now that nine-tenths of their income went into insurance, Irwin frequently passed wakeful nights, but he no longer felt impelled to switch on the light, and feast his eyes on his beloved. The last time he had done so, she had mistaken his face for an omelette. «Oh, it's only you,» she had murmured, turning crossly away.

  They fed their new diet to the bird, who soon afterwards flopped on his back, threw up his feet, and died. «At least we get fifty bucks on him,» said Irwin. «And he is only a bird!»

  «I hope we are not thinking the same thought,» said Alice.

  «Of course not,» said he. «How can you imagine it?»

  «I certainly am not,» said she. «How shall we spend the money? Shall we buy another canary?»

  «No,» said he. «Let us have something bigger. Let us buy a big, fat roasting chicken.»

  «So we will,» said she, «and potatoes and mushrooms and string beans, and chocolate cake, and cream and coffee.»

  «Yes,» said he. «And coffee. Get some good, strong, bitter coffee; something with a real kick to it, if you know what I mean.»

  «I will get,» said she, «the best, the strongest, and the bitterest I can.»

  That night they were not long in carrying in the dishes, nor in emptying them when they were on the table.

  «This is certainly good strong coffee,» said Irwin. «And bitter.»

  «Is it not?» said she. «You didn't by any chance, change the cups round while I was in the kitchen?»

  «No, dear,» said Irwin. «I was just wondering if you had. It certainly seems to have a kick in it.»

  «Oh, Irwin!» cried Alice. «Is it possible we had the same thought after all?»

  «It feels like it,» cried Irwin, legging it for the door faster even than he had done in the old days, when he used to leave saloons and barrooms with such impetuous speed. «I must get to a doctor.»

  «So must I,» said she, fumbling also for the latch.

  The poison, however, acted extremely quickly on their weakened constitutions. Even as they scuffled for precedence they fell prone upon the door mat, and the postman came and covered them with bills.

  OLD ACQUAINTANCE

  The apartment, on a fifth floor in the huitième arrondissement, was pervaded by the respectable smell of furniture polish. The Parisian ménage of 40,000 francs a year smells either thus, or of a certain perfume, which indicates quite a different way of living.

  Monsieur et Madame Dupres, admirably fitted by temperament for the rotund connubialities of a more spicily scented dwelling, nevertheless had dwindled away twenty years of life in the austere aroma of furniture polish. This was because of an intense though unacknowledged jealousy, which had early inclined both parties to the mortification of their own flesh.

  Monsieur had been jealous because he had suspected that Madame had not been altogether free from certain regrets when they married. Madame had been jealous rather in the manner of a miser who underpays his servant and therefore suspects his honesty. It is true that on the rare occasions when they visited the café, Monsieur would look round for a copy of La Vie Parisienne, and if there was a picture in it that interested him, his eyes would remain riveted on it for five minutes at a stretch.

  Hence the unvoluptuous furniture of Parisian puritanism, and hence its weekly anointings with the pungent resins of respectability.

  Now, in the bedroom, the smell of medicine was added. Madame Dupres lay dying of a frugal pneumonia. Her husband sat beside the bed, unfolding his handkerchief in hopeful expectation of a tear, and craving damnably for a smoke.

  «My dear,» said Madame faintly, «what are you thinking about? I said, 'Get the gloves at Pascal's. There the prices are not beyond all reason.'»

  «My dear,» replied her husband, «excuse me. I was thinking of long ago; how we used to go about together, you and I and Robert, in the days before he went to Martinique, before you and I were married. What friends we were! We would have shared our last cigarette.»

  «Robert! Robert!» murmured Madame Dupres. «I wish you could be at my funeral.»

  At these words a ray of light fell into a long-neglected corner of Monsieur's mind. «Holy saints!» cried he, slapping his knee. «It was Robert, then, all the time?»

  Madame Dupres made no reply; only smiled, and expired. Her husband, a little at a loss as to what to do, kissed her lifeless brow once or twice, tried kneeling by the bedside, got up, and brushed his knees. «Twenty years!» he murmured, stealing a glance at the mirror. «Now I must let the doctor know, the notary, the undertaker, Aunt Gabrielle, the cousins, the Blanchards. I must c
all at the Mairie. I can hardly get a smoke at the Mairie.»

  «I could have a puff here, but people coming in would smell it. It would savour of a lack of respect for the dead. Perhaps if I went down to the street door, just for five minutes … After all, what are five minutes, after twenty years?»

  So Monsieur Dupres descended to the street door, where he stood on the step, conscious of the soft air of early evening, and inhaling the smoke from his long-awaited cigarette. As he drew in his first puff, a smile of the utmost satisfaction overspread his plump features.

  «Ah, my poor Monsieur Dupres!» said the concierge, emerging suddenly from her den. «How goes it with Madame? She suffers?»

  Conscious of his cigarette and his smile, Monsieur Dupres felt he could hardly explain that his wife had passed away but a minute before. «Thank you,» said he, «she suffers no longer. She sleeps.»

  The concierge expressed optimism. «After all,» she said, «Madame is from Angers. You know the proverb about the women of Angers.»

  She prattled on in this vein; Monsieur Dupres paid no attention. «I will go upstairs,» thought he, «and make the sad discovery. Then I can return and confront this old cow with a more appropriate countenance».

  «And then, my God! there is the doctor, the notary, the funeral arrangements, aunts, cousins … My cigarette is done already, and I scarcely noticed I was smoking it. In a civilized country a bereaved should be left alone with his regrets.»

  The concierge retired, but would undoubtedly soon return to the attack. Monsieur Dupres felt that he could do with another cigarette, but this time a cigarette smoked under better conditions, so that its healing task might be accomplished unhindered. His nervous condition demanded a seat in a modest café, a glass of Pernod before him, and all about him the salutary air of cafés, which is infinitely more fragrant than furniture polish.