BEST SHORT STORIES

Otago Witness, Issue 4031, 16 June 1931, Page 8

BEST SHORT STORIES

XII.—THE BLACK MONOCLE.

By

CHARLES BRACKETT.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness. )

Unfortunately I gave my order rather | leisurely before I began to listen to what the lady at the next table was saying, i Had I any idea I’d have said, “ Eggs Benedict and coffee,” to the waiter as I 1 slid behind the narrow table into my seat. ; He’d shown me to a place on the i bench running along the wall, a loca- . tion I like because my ears are excel- '

lent, and when I’m alone casual neighbours provide me with an interest I welcome after so much reading. After all, gathering data for a new mechanical encyclopaedia is rather impersonal work. The menu presented pleasant problems, as is apt to be the case in spring; and so, though from the rhythm of their talk I could tell that the ladies on my right had got down to conversational business, I indulged in judicious hesitancy before ordering galantine of truffled chicken and new asparagus. Usually women repeat themselves so much one loses little by such a delay. These particular ladies were, I judged, from out of town though perhaps the far one had moved to New York. She w’as the elder of the two and it was she who was eating in a way which showed she appreciated the cuisine. My immediate neighbour was evidently on a diet. She had before her only a green salad and a glass of buttermilk, in neither of which did she seem profoundly interested. She was a pretty lady, and had been prettier I was sure. About thirty-four 'or five, she was. not so smartly turned out as she should have been. There was an indescribable hurried look about her as though she’d had to break off shopping and dash to her luncheon appointment without taking a moment to arrange herself. I liked her instantly. I liked the way she used her mouth, and her very beautiful white teeth. I liked her for her air of happiness. She was a homey person.

“ Have you ever heard of anything so ghastly?” were the first words of hers I caught. “ But he’d said it, and what was there to be done about it? Of course I didn’t see Nancy again while I was there, and she’ll probably hale me for ever, though heaven knows I wouldn’t have had it happen for worlds, and Harry was as innocent as a babe.” “ But tell me what Nancy’s like since she’s been living in Paris,” the lady beyond the elder one said.

I “ My dear, you’d never know her. She goes in for smart tailleurs and tight i felt hatg and she’s had all that little fuzz taken off her face. As I - said to Harry, I didn’t see anyone while I was there who was quite so Parisian. She l made me feel like old Mag the village i slattern. I really had been to Paris I once or twice in my life, you know. ' As a matter of fact, father and mother

and I used to stop there almost every year on our trips. But Nancy, who’d never got nearer it than a Burton Holmes lecture until four years ago, somehow made me feel as though it were my first visit, as though we might have thought it was Paris we saw but we’d really got off at the junction and never realised it.” “Oh, Mary, aren’t you killing!” the lady beyond said. “ But don’t you think it’s pretty cute of Nancy? She’s so very much in the know. She’s so obviously that rare American who can adapt herself to the Gallic temperament. I’d asked her to luncheon at Prunier’s because I adore the fish there. (I didn’t stick to my diet when I was in Paris, you can be sure.) Prunier’s is obvious I know, but it’s reliable, and I hadn’t any time to shop around among the restaurants. My dear, shC'patronised it off the face of the earth. ‘lt seems so funny to be in Prunier’s again,’ she said. ‘ I haven’t been hem since the day after I arrived. Aren’t the trippers too killing? There’s hardly a French person here.’ You know the sort of thing.”

“ Didn’t it make you a little mad, Mary ? ” the lady beyond asked. “ No, it didn’t,” my lady answered. “ Not in Nancy. After all, Nancy had had a pretty dreary childhood and girlhood. Don’t you remember those awful clothes her mother used to make her wear back home, and those long black cotton stockings? And the way she was wedged and squeezed into parties. How the boys hated her! She was too smart for them, of course. She was too smart ,for us girls, too, as a matter of fact. I liked her because she made a kind of heroine of me, and always thought my clothes were perfect and that I had the grandest time in the world, bu't I was always a little bit afraid of her smartness. Well I remembered all those things, and to see her sitting there being the Soul of Paris didn’t irritate me a bit. She had a fling coming to her.”

“ Of course she was clever,” the lady beyond admitted, “ but I don’t like those clever women.” “ Clever! What other one of that old crowd of girls in Toledo could hold a job as French correspondent on a big fashion magazine, do you suppose?” “Oh, is that what she does?” “Yes, and it’s the most wonderful position you ever heard of. She knows all the great couturiers by their first names, gets special rates, and goes to private showings.” “ No wonder she feels pretty big.” “ Probably she wasn’t nearly so bad as I’ve made her out, but I had myreasons for feeling self-conscious. Harry and I had grabbed the - chance of the trip, which was absolutely unexpected. We’d just had time to park the boys with Nell, who didn’t want them because she was afraid they’d scour the alleys and bring some germs into her nest (they did too, measles; both of hers had them terribly), and I hadn’t bought a thing. All my clothes were filthy rags and as every one tells me, I’ve let myself go to pieces anyway. That’s why I’m trying to stick to this diet, but I’m going to take one forkful of that lobster salad from your plate if it kills me. My dear, isn’t it heavenly!” “ But go on about Nancy.” “ Well, as I was saying, of all places to look seedy, in Paris is the worst. The very air makes you clothes-conscious. Being there with Nancy multiplied that effect about a thousand times.” “ I don’t believe she looked one half as pretty as you did,” the lady beyond affirmed.

“ Perhaps not to your prejudiced eyes, lamb, but she looked eighty-eight times as smart, which is what counts. The thing that pleased me about her, though, was that you could smell a beau in everything she said or did. You know that special little pleased assurance that a satisfactory offer in the offing gives a girl—well, it just radiated from her. Besides she kept saying, ‘We went to such and such a restaurant. . . We went to the opening of the Swedish ballet,’ and when I asked ‘ Who are we ? ’ she said, * Oh, a man I know and I.’ “ ‘ You can’t fool me, Nancy Hillier,’ I told her when I saw,.-the way she sloped her head as she said it. ‘ He’s a heavy suitor.’ “ ‘ Well, I suppose he is,’ she admitted. “ ‘ Tell me about him.’ >f ‘ I don’t want to,’ she explained, ‘ until you see him. I told him to stop in here so we could make arrangements about a party we’re going to to-night, just so you could.’ ” “ I wonder she dared let him have a glimpse of you,” the lady beyond commented. “ Oh, don’t be silly, darling,” my lady said, and went on with her narrative. “ Well, I told Nancy/ I’m just dying to see him.’ “ Then Nancy sprang her mystery. ‘ Something happened to him in the war,’ she said. ‘He’s never talked to me about it but—well, you’ll see. . . . I imagine that’s why he’s never left France since. People here are so much more used to such things than they are in America for instance, and more polite anyway. They never think of staring. Of course, to me it isn’t a disfigurement, I feel about it it as though it were the most splendid decoration! ’ “Of course, those few broken sentences had just set me off emotionally. Poor Nancy! At the age of 35 to get

a first beau, and then not a complete one.

“ I was making sympathetic nonplussed sounds when Nancy gasped: ‘ There’s Zig now,’ and’ coming lip the stairs I saw the composite profile of all the Greek gods who uidn’t have beards. He was tall, he carried himself like a stag, and when he turned at the head of the stairs I looked instantly to see if he had both arms. He did, but then I didn’t have to wonder any more. I saw wlyat Nancy had meant. He was wearing a black monocle.” “ Didn’t it look outlandish ? ” the lady beyond asked. “Outlandish! It was the smartest, most romantic touch I ever saw in my life. Just imagine one of those supercilious archangels they get to pose for men’s hats, in a black monocle you knew to be the badge of distinguished service in the wmr! Why, I was reduced to an absolute pulp! “He came up to Nancy, and clicked his heels together and bent over and kissed her hand, and then she presented him—“ Mary dear, I want you to meet Zig Barton —and he clicked/his heels again and said ‘ Enchante,’ and kissed my hand. I don’t know whether I spok< or not. I have an impression that 1 just gasped and gaped. He and Nancy made their arrangements ” “In English?” the lady beyom wanted to know. “ I don’t know what you’d call it. It was one of those ‘ But no, chore amie conversations. Of course, I never took my eyes from him, and I had a funny sense that I’d seen him before, or somebody 'who looked a little like him. J knew it couldn’t be he because I’d nevyr been knocked so flat. I told myself it must be just some idealised memory of the first time I’d happened on Guido’s Apollo. “ Finally he bowed to me from the hips, perfectly gorgeously, said ‘ A ec soir ’ to Nancy, smiled and strode away. “‘Well, what do you think of him? ’ Nancy asked. “ I tried to sound as generous as I felt. ‘ I absolutely bowled over,’ I told her. ‘ He’s gorgeous. He makes me. ashamed to have you see my poor prosaic Harry.’ “ ‘ Isn’t it tragic about his eye ? ’ she asked. “ All I could say was, ‘ I don’t know that I think it is,’ with a kind of adoring esxcited giggle. ‘ I think the monocle is marvellous.’ “ Then she gave up her bluff. ‘ Isn't it divine ? ’ she agreed. ‘ And the best part of it is that he never makes capital of having been wounded. He won’t even talk about the war, just says it was a terrible bore. You’d think he must have been in the Service of Supply.’ “ ‘ Are you engaged to him ? ‘ I asked. “ ‘ Yes. We aren’t announcing it though. People don’t in our set. We’ll just be married one day.’ Well, times have changed since Nancy used to telephone me long distance if little Bobby’ Carter asked her to a box party so he could make her sit in the front of the box and hide the way he and Myrtle Stone were holding hands in the back, and it just gave me a thrill to think of all that Nancy had accomplished. She’d had a long wait, but she was marrying more excitingly than any one of us, and I almost told her so. Of course, I wanted all the information I could get to tell people when I went bfick. “ ‘ Is he French ? ’ I asked.

“ ‘ No,’ Nancy said. “ ‘ I thought the name Barton didn’t sound very French,’ I pushed right on, ‘but he speaks it so beautifully. English people have such a chance to learn it if they want to though. I suppose he’s been spending part of the year here ever since he w r as a little boy.’

Nancy didn’t say a word, so I had to be crude and ask, ‘ He is English, isn’t he? ’ “ ‘ No,’ Nancy answered a little snappishly, just because she liked to have him thought as exotic as possible, I guess. “ ‘ You don’t mean to tell me he’s an American!’ I gasped. “ She nodded that he was. “ ‘ Do you suppose I could ever have seen him?” I asked, remembering that little impression. “‘ I guess you’d have remembered him,’ Nancy snipped but I didn’t take warning. “ ‘ What part of the country is he from ? ’ I asked flat out. “ ‘ His family lived in Grand Rapids,’ Nancy said as though it were just an accident and he’d never associated with them at all intimately anyway.” “ She knew you’d visited there,” the lady beyond hazarded. “ I don’t think it was that. It was just that she hated to have anything about him so commonplace as nice old Grand Rapids. But of course I had visited there and as she said those words hings came back to me like a flash. Barton!’ I said. ‘Why, he must be the one who—— ’ Then I caught myself.” “ I’d have told her then and there,” he lady’beyond pronounced. “No you wouldn’t. After all, life tas been pretty good to you just as it las to me. We can afford to be generous. vVhy be mean just because you have a chance?” The lady beyond became sententious. “ And never does anybody any harm to know the truth.” “ You know that isn’t really true, darling. There are all sorts of illusions that are just like bread to people. I could have bitten my tongue out for having said those words. Being as clever as she is of course Nancy seized on them. “‘He must be the one who what?’, she asked. “‘ He must be one of the crowd of boys Harry knew in Grand Rapids,’ I said feebly. ‘ Harry lived there for a while, you know.’ “ ‘ That wasn’t what you started to say,’ she accused me. ‘ You said, “ Why, he must be the one who ” ’ ‘“Did I?’ I babbled. ‘I haven’t any idea what I was going to say.’ “ Nancy had coloured that queer purplish red. ‘You know perfectly well what you were going to say,’ she told me. ‘Now what was it?’ “ I tried being dignified. ‘ I’m not accustomed to lying, Nancy,’ I said. “ ‘ Then don’t try it now,’ she. advised me. “What were you going to say?’ “‘ I haven’t any idea,’ I lied. ‘lt just seemed to me that I’d heard Harry, or somebody, mention a man named Barton.’ “‘What did they say?’ Nancy crossquestioned. “ I could only bleat, ‘ Nothing that I can remember.’ “ ‘ Either you’ve heard something you don’t want to repeat ’ “ ‘ I haven’t,’ I put in. “ ‘ Or you’re just trying to make me uncomfortable.’ “ But there was something pathetic about her even then, darling. She was so wild. She was the mother bird flapping above the nest which held her darling illusions, and all I wanted to say was, ‘Oh don’t! Don’t! I wouldn’t hurt your babies for worlds.’ What I did say was, ‘My dear, I’m certainly not trying to make you uncomfortable, and I don’t remember hearing a deroga--tory syllable.’ Wouldn’t you think that would have been enough? But Nancv pounced on it. That’s the trouble about being clever. “ ‘ You do remember something, though,’ she cried. ‘ Why don’t you tell it? Because you like me to think that it’s something that would upset me. I never knew you to be a cat before, Mary. But then I suppose this is the first time I ever saw you envious.’ “ ‘ What do you mean by that ? ’ I asked.

‘“Just that you never had a suitor ®ne half as attractive as Zig Barton, so you like to imply that before the war he didn’t run around Grand Rapids with the crowd Harry Foster did. Who cares anything about that? What’s Grand Rapids, anyway? People are crazy about him who wouldn’t wipe their shoes on Grand Rapids.’ ” “ How did you take that ? ” the lady beyond asked, so angry that she had to pause in eating her coffee parfait. “ Well, I was annoyed, but I was amused too. I concentrated hard on the memory of those cotton stockings and 1 said, ‘ Let’s drop the subject. You’ve made it all up.’ “‘I will not,’ she almost screamed. •Why, just because you’re settled down in a stodgy rut, you should resent this wonderful thing that’s happened to me, 1 don’t pretend to understand, but I’m going to find out just how much truth “ ‘ Will you please hush,’ I begged her. •Here comes Harry. Don’t let him find us quarrelling.’ ” “ I warrant the sight of Harry made her change her tune,” the lady beyond said. “ Why, Harry’s one of the handsomest men ” “My dear,” my lady disillusioned her, “ I must admit that I’ve never seen Harry look less attractive in his life. He’d just been struggling through a business conversation with some Frenchma,n, and then walked in the hot sun; and he was wearing an old suit that he insisted would do until he got to London, and he’d had the most awful haircut on the steamer. - “ ‘ Hello, Nancy,’ he said. “ Nancy was drawn up taut and proud. •Hello, Harry.’ “He slumped down in a chair and said, ‘ Gee, Nancy, you look like a million dollars.’ “ I cringed because I knew Nancy would think that just showed the base commercial standards of America. “ As a matter of fact, she didn’t even hear what he’d said. She began where she’d left off with me. ‘ Maybe you can settle a point for us, Harry.’ “ ‘ Glad to,’ Harry said. ‘ What’s it about ? ’ “ If I could only have had two seconds to warn him, but there wasn’t a chance! I tried saying, ‘ Please don’t,’ but she turned on me furiously. “ ‘ Yes, we’re going to have this thing out.’ Then she swung back to Harry. •We were talking about Zig Barton.’ “ ‘ Don’t know him,’ Harry announced. “ ‘ From Grand Rapids,’ Nancy went on. ‘ I believe his full name is Clarence Hobart Barton. “ ‘ Oh, sure,’ Harry said, and my heart sank because I knew it w r as on the tip of his tongue. “‘ He made a great record in the war,’ I put in quickly enough to save the situation. “‘Did he?’ Harry asked, wrinkling his forehead. ‘ I thought he was in the Y.M.C.A. canteen in Bordeaux. It seemed to me I ran into him there.* “ ‘ Well, is that anything against him?’ Nancy stormed. “ ‘ It certainly isn’t,’ Harry said, nice about it, the way most men are who saw really terrific service. ‘He couldn’t get into any of the regular branches of course. I haven’t a doubt he tried.’ “‘ He probably was sent up to the front line at some time,’ I suggested. An intuitive person would have known from the way I was acting, but Harry’s awfully dumb about that sort of thing. “ Nancy merely threw me a look full of malice and disdain. ‘ Did you ever hear anything in Grand Rapids to his discredit ? ’ she demanded.

“ ‘ Not a word,’ Harry said, looking startled, and from her face I knew Nancy felt she had scored a complete triumph. It was over apparently, and I drew one easy breath; then Harry spoke that fatal sentence which told everything. It was horrible.” “ I think she richly deserved it,” the lady beyond proclaimed. “ Are you ready to start? The check is three fifty-five. I’ll just leave four dollars, or do you think that’s too much? I’m in sort of a hurry.” “ That’s about right,” my lady said and they started to push the table forward. That was . where I forgot lessons learned at my mother’s knee. “ I beg your pardon,” I said to my lady, “ but I have to speak to you; may I ? ” She looked surprised, but amused. “ Well, you seem to be doing it,” she said. “ I’ve been listening to every word you said,” I announced. “Well really!” she gasped. “ I know it was wrong,” I admitted. “ I deserve a State’s Prison sentence, but cruel and unusual punishments aren’t permitted in the United States, not even for eavesdropping. You can’t torture me. .I’ve got to know what Harry’s remark was.” The lady sniiled. 1 knew one could count on anybody with that nice smile. “ I’ve never been so flattered,” she told me. “ All Harry said was: ‘ Why, everybody I know has always liked old cross-eyed Clarence.’ ”