Dana Ames
Margie knight was admittedly a fool—but a clever one. She was the mothers’ menace type of girl, if you know what I mean. “What I want to know is—what kind of children will a girl like that have? Tell me that!” And, “It’s not that I can’t trust my son Albert. He has a remarkably strong will power, but—” And, “Of course I can’t see anything so attractive about her, she’s just noisy—”
All of which means that Margie was a cute little thing with the kind of nose that Gloria Swanson has made famous, and a mop of gold-red hair that crinkled a bit.
She was, in type, the perennial flapper, and undoubtedly she might have gone on for five years slithering across the dancing floor of the Gates’ End Country Club, and in the same fashion trudging over its links, and motoring speedily along the smooth boulevards that led to it and more especially away from it. She managed to be mildly crazy about two or three men at a time, with an occasional college boy thrown in during vacations. A fairly good line she had, too.
“Listen… you can’t expect me to believe that?”
“Well, after all, you are so good looking and popular and everything, and somebody told me somep’n about you once! You’ve got a perfectly terrible reputation—”
“Listen, it’s not that I don’t trust you absolutely, but my conscience is non-skid—”
Yes, a fairly good line. Margie was a little fool, of course, but a rather clever one, at that.
And, at nineteen, she looked back over the many and varied experiences she’d gone through since she had left Miss Gulliver’s School two years before, and found them good. She wasn’t half so sophisticated as she thought she was—nobody could be—but her assumption of ennui, remembered hastily in moments of super-jazz, was most captivating.
She might have gone on five years, easily, broadcasting thrills without a pause for intensive thought at the Gates’ End Country Club—if she hadn’t found the White Hair.
The finding of the White Hair was brought about in the most casual, ordinary way. It was two-thirty in the afternoon, and Margie was bellowing from her bedroom for the immediate services of one black and affable Cora. Cora was shared between Margie, her mother, and an older sister, and it is quite possible that Cora worked harder upstairs than the cook ever did downstairs. However…
Margie was due for a game of golf at the country club at three. At two-thirty, therefore, Cora was helping her into an athletic undergarment of turquoise silk, beige woolen stockings and swagger little oxfords with suede fringes. Margie, leaping to the dresser to powder her nose, was all ready except for the sweater and skirt that Cora was patiently dangling in mid-air.
“Nev’ mind, Cora darling, I’ll just drag a comb through the old haystack and jump into the clothes—deeump-dump-dump—deum-dump-dump—Oh-h!-o-h!—OH!”
“Too many gin fizzes ’fore lunch and your nerves are all jumpy,” Cora remarked sagely. “Here, honey, lemme—”
But Margie was standing practically petrified, holding gingerly between thumb and forefinger an authentic White Hair. Fifteen minutes later she tottered weakly to the phone and informed Jimmy Nesbit that she couldn’t possibly play golf until further notice.
Of course she shouldn’t have taken the thing so seriously. But think of the things in this odd little world that are taken seriously, if it comes to that.
“It isn’t the fact that I’ve had a white hair,” she remarked plaintively to her mother. “’Cause Lord knows I pulled that one out faster’n the eye could see! But any day I might find another—and another—and another!”
Soberly she stared into the picture of her complete decay. She saw herself with twinges of rheumatism in her dancing legs—with pouches under her very blue eyes—with natural bracelets around her slim white throat.
Just as soberly she jerked out of the turquoise blue thing and the woolly sweater and skirt, and allowed herself to be poured into a warm tub with the right kind of bath salts for evening and likewise into a ginger-colored georgette dinner dress. Then she treated Jimmy Nesbit to three or four of her father’s drinks, snatched from the paneled safe under the sideboard in the dining room—Margie having cracked harder propositions than safes in her time. And so, as Mr. Pepys says, on her rather mournful way with Jimmy Nesbit to the Country Club…
The Older Generation—playfully called “older” not because of the way they looked but because of the way they wore their inhibitions—had long since given up coming to the club in the evenings. They patronized the links and timidly they sat on the wide, awninged veranda in the afternoons, but it was understood that their sons and daughters disapproved heartily of their making themselves conspicuous after 10 p.m. They were expected to motor into town for the Opera, a calm and cruel dictate to which they bowed their heads, meekly.
Consequently the Gates’ End ballroom looked, as Margie and Jimmy paraded into it, like a Methodist minister’s idea of the devil’s own go-cart, rapidly sliding southward.
“H’lo! H’lo there, Margie! Come and get a little nip right out of daddy’s hip pocket—”
“Say, Margie, come and Charleston with me after I get through tossing Jim Nesbit outa window. I’m sick and tired of this girl Peggy snagging her heels in my instep—”
Margie snapped automatically into form. It was all right for Bill Older to kid Peggy Carruthers, because everybody knew that Peggy turned down his honorable proposal of matrimony every weekend. And everybody knew, too, that no one could Charleston the way Margie could Charleston.
She grinned, and slid into Jimmy’s arms. After one dance they skidded into a locker room and had many drinks from many flasks. Quiet, sweet little drinks. The whole gang was there, howling and purring and screeching just as usual. And, as far as these things can be rated outside of the novels of 1910, Margie was the star of the performance—also as usual. There wasn’t any dead hush when she came into a room, or anything medieval like that, but there were a dozen proffered drinks, dances, dates or whatever anybody happened to have. Life ought to have been a pleasant bonbon for Margie Knight… it ought to have been.
She drifted out to a corner of the veranda for a little judicious necking with Jimmy. Jimmy was her current heavy love. He hadn’t been last week, and he might not be next week, but he was now.
“Gosh! What a night!” said Jimmy.
Margie sighed. She recognized this as the opening of the Line Romantic.
But she murmured, “Umm-h’mm—stars ’n—’n the moon ’n everything.”
“Sure. Listen, did anyone ever tell you—”
Margie sighed again, almost inaudibly, her mind on other matters. Jimmy was a sweet kid, but meaningless. He’d just come out of Princeton with a great gesture, aged twenty-two years and eight months. And it was well known that, just as he’d contracted with his father not to smoke until he was eighteen, so had he contracted not to marry until he was twenty-five. At the risk of losing most of the mint and a handful of railroads.
Looking back over her heavy loves, Margie admitted ruefully to herself that there had been something the matter with all of them… if one considered them matrimonially. One had a wife—a sort of a wife—another was too pouchy around the eyes, another subsisted solely as a perennial house guest, another—
Oh, Lord! What was the use! Wasn’t there anything hanging around loose for a girl to marry!
There was not. And Margie, since she’d found the White Hair, was determined that she must marry while her market value was at its height. She just couldn’t go on having a good time until she joined the rocking chair brigade—still with a one-syllable prefix hitched to her name. This might be 1926—but that sort of thing wasn’t done. You simply had to be “one of our prettiest debutantes” or else “one of the most popular of our younger matrons.” And you couldn’t go on being one of our prettiest debutantes with silver threads among the gold—not in this day of being quick on the hip and fast on the draught.
But Jimmy was still talking.
“Honestly, I never knew a girl I was so crazy about. You’ve got just simply everything, Margie. Looks and charm—and all the manly virtues. You know what I mean. Carrying your alcohol and not blowing lady-like smoke rings and all that. There’s always been something that’s got me on the ragged edge about every woman I’ve ever known—except you.”
“Oh, gosh, Jimmy—I get so sort of fed up! What good does it do me being marvelous? What good does it do any of us? If we were really knockouts—Peggy Joyce or Gilda Gray or the Queen of Roumania—you see what I mean? I’m not really marvelous at all, that’s just moonlight and moonshine—I’m just what’s called a ‘good egg’ and also in the interesting process of either getting scrambled or hard-boiled.”
“You’re morbid tonight.”
Margie lit a cigarette and tossed the match to the lawn. “No, I only just stopped pulling a line, for once. And consequently you get scared to death of me. Nev’ mind, Jimmy dear. Let’s go inside and show ’em all how two white people can dance when they really want to.”
But this wasn’t the end of that particular evening on the profane precincts of the Gates’ End Country Club—not by a long way.
Margie, being a good egg whether she wanted to be or not, was not one to leave an evening flat on its back, strangling for breath. Nor did anyone but the dumb Jimmy have any inkling that there was anything preying on what might have been her mind. She didn’t get up and announce to the assembled throng that frankly she wanted a husband and that she wouldn’t be happy till she got one—with a single chin and six bank accounts. She kept on dancing without a pause if you don’t count the glides into the locker room from time to time—until it was about one o’clock and the black boy with the banjo was just getting good—and Janet Prescott came in with a new man on her arm.
Immediately Margie spotted the new man, and bore down on him, figuratively. It looked as if Heaven had suddenly taken a great personal interest in Margie. For it was whispered around, faster than a six-tube set could broadcast an Indian love lyric, that this new man, by name of Robert Luther, was thirty years old, unattached as a floating pink cloud, and just delirious with money.
And Robert fell for Margie.
They went out on the veranda. (A different corner from the last time—Margie had her subtle delicacies.)
And to Margie’s infinite satisfaction, Robert not only went in straightway for the Line Romantic but likewise for the Line Protective. From which you can always distinguish the men who marry from the men who like to have their breakfasts alone with a siphon bottle.
“Sure you won’t be cold? That dress—”
Margie preened in ginger-color. “Don’t you like the dress?”
“H’mm… it’s a pretty shade, but if you belonged to me—”
Margie shook the mop of red-gold hair out of her eyes. “I don’t like it very much myself. It’s too—too extreme. But you’ve no idea how hard it is—to sort of keep up with the—the others—”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t mind, Margie? If you were my own sister—I wish, though, you’d let me tell you what I think about you?”
“I’d adore having you…”
“Well, even in just this half hour of our knowing each other, I think probably I understand you a lot better than all these friends of yours do. They’re trying to make a jazz-girl out of you, and all the time you’re the mother type.”
Margie restrained her little heels from kicking. “I—I’d like to live up to your ideal of me, but honestly I’m just a silly little thing—”
“Oh—no! D’you mind if I kiss you, just once?”
This was a poser. Up to this time Margie had hated men who put any responsibility up to anybody but themselves. But she kind of turned her cheek around. Robert Luther kissed her. Chastely.
When they finally got back into the big room, Margie was worrying over whether to have Janet Prescott or Alice Dorn for maid of honor. Robert’s intentions, seething in his mind, were as evident as the Star Spangled Banner on the Fourth of July…
Obviously it was her cue now to be demure, and Margie Knight was not one to miss a cue. It was hard, though, seeing Janet in the limelight, clad scantily in the leopard-skin rug off the tiles in front of the fireplace, doing an imitation of somebody or other doing something.
“Oh, fine!” said Jimmy, cattily. “Here we have a moving picture, vintage of 1908—”
Jimmy was jealous on Margie’s account, because Margie and Janet had always been rivals for the calcium glow…
But Margie didn’t mind, this time—much. Because Robert Luther evidently wasn’t aware that there was a girl in a leopard-skin garment alive in the world. His nice brown eyes were as fixed on Margie as tacks in a carpet. They had, off in the locker room, two nice little drinks of straight lemonade with seltzer water (Margie giving occasional little squeaks because it was so sizzy!) and while they were indulging in these refreshments Robert told her All About Himself.
“I just know you come from the West,” said Margie.
“Say, that’s clever of you. Yes, Wyoming, and I only came East to round off a cattle deal; I can’t always trust my agents in New York for the big stuff. They’re terribly afraid of turning over five cents—”
Margie’s eyes were admiring. Golly! How she did need, with her tastes, the sort of husband who wasn’t afraid of turning over five cents! Yea, verily…
“I honestly think you’re simply wonderful,” she said, with a certain earnestness.
“Oh, I don’t know! Just business. But I’m sure talking about business must be dull for you. My kid sister—she’s the one who married Jordan Arthur, the bread king—well, she always says when I get started on cattle I’m impossible. By the way, I want you to meet my sister some time soon. She’s keen to have me marry some attractive, really decent girl—and settle down—”
Decent? Margie wondered. What were the Wyoming standards of decency, anyhow? It made so much difference whether or no you had a decent mind. Some people might think that she and Jimmy Nesbit, two nights ago, had been—had been, well, a little reckless. But Margie thought then, and still thought now, that when you’re young and very much alive and the stars are out like a thousand million diamonds—well, that you can’t be expected to act as if you had wrinkles behind the ears.
Wrinkles. White Hair. Age. Security.
That brought her back, fast enough, to Robert Luther. She leaned forward a little, and in a moment she was in his arms. Not much thrill to Robert, but he was darn nice. Anybody could see that. Treated her as if she were eighteenth century lace. Now Jimmy always treated her, when he got the chance, as if she were sport flannel, washable… and absolutely nothing by the yard! Margie gave herself a little mental shake. It wasn’t quite square reconciling herself to a new love by running down an old one.
“Say!” said Robert suddenly. “I’m going to run back to the hotel and get some pictures I have of my sister and her family. I want to show you. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Margie waved goodbye to Robert and sauntered into the big room. She was radiant, but a little thoughtful too. A man doesn’t dash off in the middle of the night to show you pictures of his sister unless he’s as serious as pneumonia. Margie knew that. She had Mr. Robert Luther. And forthwith she would become “one of our most popular young matrons” any time she wanted. She could easily persuade Robert to live in the East, while he was in the first wild transports or whatever you called ’em—and probably Janet Prescott had better be maid-of-honor—.
Well, this was her last half hour, then, of being wild. She shook off her conscience and made a dash for Jimmy.
“It’s too bad,” he said grumpily “that a guy can’t see the girl he dragged to a rotten dance more’n once every four hours—”
“Not a rotten dance. Listen to that music!” Margie flashed a grin at the black boy with the banjo. “Listen—he’s playing somep’n good. Don’t know what it is, but they wrote it on molasses.”
Jimmy was immediately in a good humor. That was one of the nice things about Jimmy. He didn’t have any sense.
“Sure is keen music. Keen time, too. And a keen dress you got on.”
“Like it?”
“Sure do. Always like economy. Every time I see an economical girl I say, ‘There’s a woman for a white man to love.’”
“You’re such a sil’, Jimmy.”
“Sure. So are you. Only clever. I understand you perfectly.”
“Sometimes I think you do, too, Jimmy.”
“I know it. I can imagine all the things you do when I’m not around. Try me.”
“All right! What do I like for breakfast?”
“Easy. A gin fizz, toast, marmalade and strong black coffee. Right?”
“Absolutely. How did you know?”
“Because that’s my idea of a morning meal. And we’re sisters under the sex… Go on, what else do you want to know?”
“Well, Jimmy, what kind of people am I politest to?”
“Servants.”
“Bulls’ eye!”
“Sure.”
“Now, then—not counting you in on this—what’s my idea of morality?”
“Matter of mood and man with you, generally. But you’d never be emotionally sloppy. If you ever got in any kind of a jam, you wouldn’t have hysterics. You’d have a cold bath, and think it over on a cigarette.”
“You darling!”
“Sure.”
“Listen, I can’t tell you why—but I want you to kiss me now—immediately!”
Affably Jimmy took her elbow and they slithered out to the jaded veranda.
He kissed her.
Then Robert came back. Margie remembered nervously all about the Future—you can remember about the Future, you know. And Robert looked so nice and protective and clean-cut and all that.
Margie tripped from Jimmy to Robert.
Robert took her quite out of earshot of the saxophone, always a favorable sign, because a saxophone is the patron saint of love affairs, not marriages.
“As I was saying,” said Robert, quite as if he hadn’t been away at all, “I think I understand you. Perfectly. And I’ve been thinking it over during my drive. Fact is, Margie—dear—I want a wife. I want to get married. Settle down. Have kiddies.”
“Well—except maybe for just over the weekends—”
Robert didn’t hear this mild and flippant interruption. “Will you be my wife?” he said.
Here it was. Away with the Menace of the White Hair! Here was a man with looks and money and family. And she was nineteen.
“See,” said Robert Luther, suddenly, diving into an inner pocket. He was one of those men who keep things in inner pockets. “See, here’s my kid sister at Miami—”
This sister-in-law of hers was evidently going to play an important part in her life. Margie looked with mild interest at the snapshot of a pretty girl in a bathing suit.
“Nice—very nice,” she said.
“Oh yes,” said Robert. “That one was taken—let’s see—that was taken summer before she was married. Just after she finished boarding school. Now this one shows her with her husband and the kids—that’s all I’ve got of her—”
Casually Margie took the picture from his hand. Casually—at first—she searched for the face of the pretty girl…
A worried looking young woman in a ghastly motor outfit. A masterful man with a cigar, standing by her side. Three small and mad looking children scowling in the sun.
“They travel all over the country together in an automobile,” Robert remarked with satisfaction. “Jordan’s crazy about motoring. But they lead the most well-regulated lives of any people I know. Before they were married Jordan said to me, ‘I’ll take care of Cynthia because I understand Cynthia,’ and that’s the—”
But that was as far as he got. Because Margie had fled.
When he saw her again Margie and Jimmy Nesbit were celebrating, for no reason at all, the Fall of the Bastille. And then Margie was shrieking with mirth.
“Listen, gang! I’ve got a White Hair! See—find it for ’em, Jimmy!” (Margie had forgotten pulling that lorn hair out.) “I’m going in for one of those distinguished white streaks that duchesses have—won’t it be gorgeous?”
“How exciting!” cried Janet Prescott, not without a tinge of envy. Margie was always thinking up something extraordinary.
“Yes, I think so,” said Margie, biting Jimmy’s ear. “I thought it was terrible at first, but after this and from now on I’m going in for being myself. You know, Jimmy—”