… the gypsy camp …

N CAROLINE MEIGS’S GARDEN Dennis stood by the birdbath where silly stone dolphins feebly sprayed a cracked bowl. He could watch both doors for Effie from this point; she might come from the balcony stairs or the basement hallway that opened directly on the garden. He hated this anxiety over her, scorned himself for finding his life somehow lacking without her. He thought she might come since she had sometimes spoken of Caroline Meigs and had, he surmised, often basked here in the respectful adulation of intellectual young men. Curiosity had led him here as it had into Belle Glaenzer’s, to see how nearly the picture Effie had given checked with the original. Moreover, today’s party was for him. Mrs. Meigs insisted on a focus for her afternoons, preferably the freshest of public names which she ordered from publishers or producers or senators as she would order other decorations from florist or caterer.

Mrs. Meigs herself seemed to be nowhere about though she had screamed down to the butler from an upstairs window, “Be careful of that sandwich plate, Yama, it’s Belle Glaenzer’s.” Nor was her famous yachting cousin Wylie present. There were in fact no familiar faces among the lonely guests wandering about clinging to their red rooster cocktail glasses as if these glasses were protective aprons for their shy miseries, so Dennis went indoors to see if there might be some sign of Effie or word of her. He recalled rumors that Mrs. Meigs prided herself on a perfectly delicious punch made of pure alcohol and grape juice, which she declared fooled everyone, and enabled her to entertain at very little expense. The result of this shrewd fooling was that guests were always prowling about the basement in a game she had never thought to invent but which was the life of her parties, namely the Scotch Hunt. There was invariably some old family friend or an intuitive type who knew the hiding place and since her private stock was very good indeed little groups of guests were always clustered in the laundry leaning over the electric mangle or in the coal cellar or the cook’s bedroom, contentedly sharing a glass with no gaily embossed red rooster on its rim at all but more likely the plainest jelly glass or even a half-pint cream bottle.

Dennis wandered through the downstairs hall eyeing these groups disagreeably. Some young men with startlingly broad-shouldered suits returned his examination with equal hostility. These gentlemen had elected the pantry as their clubroom, and their adenoidal voices with accompanying flashes of primitive dentistry proclaimed British culture nobly upheld by Cinnamon, Paprika, Curry, Ginger, and Bread.

“Has Mrs. Callingham been here, do you know?” he inquired.

The tallest, thinnest, palest young man with the boniest skull and the narrowest jaw, appraised Dennis.

“I’ve never met her so I can’t say,” he said civilly. “I know Callingham, of course—he’s a great friend of Caroline’s cousin Wylie, you know. Look here, aren’t you the chap we met at the beer place with Glaenzer a fortnight or so back?”

“Possibly,” said Dennis and added as a bright afterthought. “I meet so many people.”

“She might be upstairs,” ventured another. “Women always are mulling about up there.”

Dennis went up the narrow creaking staircase wondering idly how soon the entire house would fall to pieces or be returned to the horses from whom Caroline had obviously stolen it. Women were hovering in a raftered bedroom around a handsome silk-canopied bed upon which a large bullish man in somewhat premature Palm Beach was reading palms. No Effie here. Dennis crossed the hall, bumping his head on a low-hanging Moorish lamp, and saw in another bedroom, definitely Turkish in spirit, or at least Turkish tearoom, his hostess, judging from the dressing gown and mules she wore to match the damask hangings. She was seated at her desk, a plumed pen in hand, scanning a sheet of paper.

“I’m looking for Effie Callingham,” he said. “Is she coming, do you know? I’m Orphen.”

Mrs. Meigs absently looked up from the paper. Her face was quite young if a trifle leathery in texture, but the years like relentless moths had revenged themselves on her neck, shriveling almost visibly by the minute under its heavy Oriental jewelry.

“Effie? Was she in a leopard jacket—oh no, that was Carol. Did you have your hand read yet, Mr. Orphen? Mac—MacTweed, you know, told me you were interested in palmistry—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“—so I had Vinal Turner come to read, just on your account. You must let him do you.”

Dennis saw she had a great list of names printed on the paper in hand, evidently her guest list, for she read aloud gloatingly: “—the Argentine ambassador, the second cousin of the Duchess of Kent, a Russian film director, the Southern senator—oh, it’s a grand party I’m having for you today, Mr. Orphen!”

Unlike most guest lists, Mrs. Meigs had not only the names of her company but the reason for their invitations beside them in case the name conveyed nothing. She thought of people in their categorical terms so completely that she sometimes startled them by her absent-minded greetings—“How do you do, Mrs. Charles B. Tody, wife of the Paramount director?” or “Are you having a nice time, Mabelline Emma Foster, first white woman to breakfast with the Sultan?”

She was, Dennis thought, having a much better time up here alone with her glamorous paper guest list than with the stupid people themselves downstairs. She had been giving parties for years and aside from once having been a showy debutante who rode her ponies straight onto the ballroom floor and other such pranks seemed to have no other career than that of a resolute salonnière, a woman sought by the art set because she was in the Social Register and was rich besides, and approved by the Registered because she knew artists and was rich besides. She drew aside the curtains to peer down into the garden.

“There’s Tony Glaenzer. You must get to know each other. I wonder if he brought Callingham. Do make Vinal Turner read your palm, darling.”

Dennis retreated, leaving her to her reading, and heard the earnest voice of the palmist. “You have a well-defined sense of taste. I’ll bet you’re a good cook.” Then, as the lady demurred he amended with a hearty laugh, “At any rate you do appreciate good cooking. Ha ha.”

Coming downstairs he was almost pushed back by the rush of ambassadors, film directors, politicians, and other titles all rushing to have their hands read in the tiny bedroom. Sentences floated through the air like autumn leaves, voices said they did or did not believe in palmistry but on the contrary did not or did believe in astrology. An ex-Central American president and an ex-Metropolitan singer noisily agreed that they did believe in black cats and Friday the thirteenth because of certain curious experiences they were only too happy to relate, and a gray little woman in pince-nez held up a group outside the bedroom door by whispering that she had just driven in from Danbury and that she herself read palms in an amateur way, and this news spreading down the crowded halls and stairs stirred Yama, the Filipino butler then in the pantry to take on a few of the well-tailored young men in actual crystal gazing, the ball being conveniently on hand over an opened jar of Major Gray’s chutney, so that out in the garden the other guests were forced to wait on their own sandwich and punch needs in the most uncivilized fashion. Dennis struggled through this mob to the end of the garden but voices fluttered out from all directions and hushed exclamations of awe as an omen struck home. “Courage and endurance but no aggression.” “I see a woman making trouble,” stated Yama in a flat singsong voice, “a red room on a hill by a sea—” and from the woman with the pince-nez—“Either that hump means a great musical talent or a good sense of order or else you’re terribly sensual,” and again the earnest Turner voice, “A fine sense of taste here. Hm … I’ll bet you’re a good cook.… No? …” then once more the hearty laugh though having waded through so many palms the tone was tinged with desperation now, the laugh had a tinny quality, “at any rate you do appreciate good cooking.”

Dennis nervously dipped into the punch on the long iron marble-topped garden table, and gulped down the potion. It burned the throat, tasted feebly of grape juice and left the tongue stiff and suddenly enormous and misshapen in the mouth while the recipe divided inside his chest and stomach into its singularly uncongenial ingredients, this one stinging, that one burning, and another merely throwing the entire intestinal system into reverse. That, deduced Dennis, must be the cucumber, that fine cucumber base, and it reminded him of Phil Barrow’s punch recipes, which, like Mrs. Meigs’s, had no antidote but straight Scotch for the two days following. He put down the glass quickly, felt a gloved hand on his wrist and saw Olive Baker of all people smiling pensively at him from under a large rather flattering black hat.

“You didn’t expect to see me at such a celebrated party, did you?” She laughed triumphantly. “Now really, don’t you wonder how I came here? Don’t worry, Corinne and I never expect you to ask us anywhere with your famous friends. Is that Tallulah Bankhead over there in the wool hat?”

“It’s not my party. Where’s Corinne?” Dennis felt his customary unreasoning annoyance at Corinne’s popping into his private bachelor life. He wanted her to be on call for him in his depressed moments or between other engagements but when she unexpectedly appeared at a party he became automatically her man, someone he must watch to see she had a good time and watch also to see she did not have too good a time. If Olive was here then Corinne must be around. Olive raised her brows at his questioning glance around.

“I’m all alone,” she said coquettishly. “I came with Vinal Turner—he’s Mother’s palmist and he knew I always wanted to meet people like this, and that I knew you. Imagine having all these wonderful people here just to meet you. Doesn’t it make you feel proud?”

Dennis looked at her narrowly and detected a faintly sarcastic twist to the lips. She would tell Corinne and Phil that there was poor Dennis without a soul to talk to; to wonder he never took Corinne to those marvelous places, the poor fellow didn’t know anyone. And Phil would say with great satisfaction, “After all, Orphen is not the man to attract friends. I could never see how he appealed to Corinne here, but I daresay some maternal instance came out in her. Why don’t you let me buy you a dog, Baby, a dachshund?” Yes, that would be exactly the discussion Olive would stir up. He saw she was smiling at him with arch significance, the girlfriend smile he classified it, the smile that telegraphed we’ve-always-understood-each-other-better-than-you-and-she-have. He poured her some punch silently and she gracefully arranged herself on the arm of the one chair in the place and pulled her hat impulsively down to cover the tiny but study-provoking birthmark over her left eye.

“Now let’s talk,” she commanded playfully. “We’ve never had a really nice talk, have we, Dennis? Tell me how you came to write. I suppose you had to make money so you just started writing, didn’t you?”

Dennis sighed. He looked uneasily at the man in the chair who after all had been there first and was now forced to cower in the shadow of Olive’s fine derriére. The man returned Dennis’s look pugnaciously. Dennis bowed. There was something familiar about the fellow. Of course. It was none other than the young man who lived above him, the young agitator.

“Mr.—er—Schubert, Miss Baker,” he said, and Olive turned quickly to meet the great man. It was useless to explain to Olive it was not the Schubert.

“I know you,” the young man said sourly to Olive. “I let you in Orphen’s apartment about daylight the other morning.”

Olive gave a gay laugh.

“Not me. And Corinne doesn’t look anything like me, so it must have been another lady.… Never mind, Dennis, don’t look so worried. I’ll never breathe it to Corinne.”

The hell she wouldn’t. She beamed reassuringly at Dennis and then set about being charming to Mr. Schubert. The way Olive was charming was to part her lips breathlessly, throw her head back, eyes wide and glazed, intent on her vis-à-vis, a trick she had got from the most popular girl at Miss Roman’s school. The most popular girl had astigmatism as her excuse, but the squinting, the difficult focusing, the voluntary dilation of the pupils, the sudden shake of the head like a wet puppy as the vision blurred, all these were somehow connected in Olive’s mind with being the Prom Queen. To this trick she had added a quick incredulous, “Oh no! NO!” to register eager astonishment combined with a dash of intellect. Her social manner thus displayed appeared to be the flag of the class war to the young man Schubert, who watched her performance with narrowed eyes and a sardonic superior smile, answering her bright sallies with a meditative, “Yes, that would be your point of view.… Yes, a woman of your class would say that.”

There, reflected Dennis enviously, is a young man sitting pretty, and literally too since his politics dismissed bourgeois etiquette and allowed him to relax at ease in the one chair of the place while ladies fumed. His sharp face wore the veiled and justifiable satisfaction of a man with a secret formula for destroying society. How simple his life was, reflected Dennis, no demon of wonder or curiosity over each separate human being; he was a wholesaler as against the artist retailer. Olive, for example, could be dismissed without study as our Number 742 Bourgeois Virgin; he, Dennis, was our Number 549, Bourgeois Realist, who fairly enough satirized his own class but then, with reprehensible bourgeois honesty, even satirized the Party itself and the Revolution, subjects alone out of all human life to be treated purely mystically. Our Number 549, Bourgeois Satirist, envied our Number 1, Complacent Communist, for he had the answer book, he need not work in the laboratory where the experiments so often refused to prove the premise, he could wear his political blinders like any romantic old lady in the midst of sordid testimony to human behavior, he could wear them and receive a bright little red button for his lapel in reward. For our Number 1 no individual woes need disturb, but only Wholesale Conditions and this made life pleasanter, for then Society could be blamed for the poverty of one’s friends and no gift from one’s own pocket was necessary. Five answers to everything, Vegetable, Mineral, Animal, Fish, Fowl. Happy Mr. Schubert, now placing Olive as Fowl, eliminating all the remarks that made her Olive and heeding only those that made her Fowl. As a matter of fact Mr. Schubert belonged definitely in Caroline Meigs’s class, those who dealt not in persons but in categories, and this was the making of Snobs, people who believe the world would be more beautiful if it were made up not of blundering human beings but of lovely paper guest lists.

“Tell me, Mr. Schubert, or you, Dennis,” begged Olive brightly, “which is Anthony Glaenzer? I saw his picture in the rotogravure and he looked so terribly attractive. You know him personally, don’t you, Dennis?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Dennis and thought of all the boasting he had done at Barrow dinners to offset Phil’s smugness and Olive’s distrust of him, and it served himself right, he thought, for Tony Glaenzer to come up from the kitchen at that moment with an eager young man on either side. Caroline Meigs’s red face appeared at the upstairs window, frantically waving a bony hand cuffed with antique jewels.

“Tony!” she screamed above the hum of mounting confusion. “That’s the guest of honor there by the snacks. Say something to him.”

Tony’s weary eye fell on Dennis and he graciously obeyed his hostess.

“Haven’t I met you before?”

Dennis bowed.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully.

He felt Olive prodding him in the back with her forefinger but he ignored this hint for introductions. He saw the young Communist quickly take a pad out of his pocket and make a rapid sketch of Glaenzer’s profile. Bored Bourgeois, Dennis deduced, and thought, surprised, his neighbor, aside from being a radical and dropping plaster into Dennis’s room, was undoubtedly the Schubert whose suave caricatures appeared in all the smart magazines. As the artist leafed over his pages, he saw a disheartening sketch of himself, fantastically unkempt hair and tie, wild, shrewd eyes slightly crossed, an ahah smile pulling at the left side of his face, and he thought with alarm that it was true, other people had realized he had a passport face with even distinct criminal features.

“Dennis,” said Olive urgently, but Dennis did not hear her for he saw Effie pushing her way through the crowd about the basement door, a fixed party smile on her face. She caught his eye and there was such dazed appeal in her glance that Dennis forgot everything in hurrying to her side.

“That,” said someone beside him, “is Mrs. Andrew Callingham—the first one.”

She kept smiling, conscious of this stir whenever she appeared in public, straightened her shoulders to appear more worthy of bearing the great name, a gesture that had become second nature to her.

“Will you come with me?” she whispered. “Oh, please. I do need you.”

He took her arm silently and hurried her through the basement door. In the front hall it occurred to him that his hat was somewhere upstairs but it didn’t matter, and he had a flicker of apprehension about Olive’s reaction to his rude desertion, but nothing mattered. The Danbury lady, her hat pushed on the back of her marcelled hair, spectacles askew, was being read by the master himself, though by way of impressing a rival he was now throwing in a dash of astrology. “You are a One person,” he was saying, “and in another week you will be entering the Fourth Vibration.”

“Is that good?” someone asked.

“Perfect,” promised the seer.

“Andy’s back,” Effie whispered to Dennis. “We’ve got to find him for Marian.”

“Isn’t that Mrs. Callingham?” someone said, but this time Effie did not smile or turn. They hurried out into the street, Dennis bareheaded, hat and Mrs. Meigs’s party for his book forgotten in his elation that Effie needed him, he was as necessary to her life as she was to his.