Delphi complete works of.., p.276
Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 276
“Just a minute, if you please,” said the voice of Rex Pebble, issuing from the opposite bedroom door.
“Good gracious!” said Spray, staring at Rex and realizing her mistake. “I thought he was you. How careless of me. I’ll have to watch my step. You look so much alike.”
“Hold on,” said the disappointed Kippie. “I thought I was myself, but apparently I’m that guy. Who are we, anyway?”
“Believe it or not,” answered Spray, “he’s your darling uncle Rex, and I am the mistress known as Spray. A miracle has given us back our youth, and we are preparing to make the best of it.”
“No, you’re not, hussy,” Sue Pebble chimed in, appearing behind her husband in the doorway. “If I have to tear his body limb from limb, I’ll get the secret of this rejuvenation out of him, and use it myself.” The woman threw Rex Pebble a fierce look. “Then I’ll make the best of it!”
“You may have the secret, my dear,” said the woman’s husband, “if I can give it to you. I’m beginning to think it’s more of a curse than a blessing. Particularly to be sane and yet young. The two don’t mix.”
“Oh, they don’t, don’t they?” interrupted Spray Summers hotly. “Well, fancy that! Only two minutes ago you were standing on the other side of that door — a bedroom door — suggesting things to me that I hadn’t considered for years, and now here you are — telling your wife — the old cow — that you’re cursed with youth. It wasn’t youth you were cursed with two minutes ago.”
“Well, if he wasn’t cursed with youth, just what was he cursed with?” inquired Sue Pebble. Her tone had that icy cordiality which women hold in reserve for their most bitterly detested rivals. “Just what was he cursed with?”
“For my part,” said Spray, raising her voice, “I wouldn’t say that he was cursed with anything. But whatever it was, it was something you haven’t known about for a long, long time.”
“I suppose you know everything that goes on in our home?” Sue shot back at her rival.
“I certainly know everything that does not go on in your home. And I do know what goes on in my home.”
“Make up your minds, girls,” Kippie cut in genially. “Decide between you where something does go on. It’s important.”
“You keep your trap shut, you young whipper-snapper,” Sue hissed. “I’ll thank you to keep out of what you’ve gotten me into. As for you, Rex Pebble,” the woman flung at him, “I should think you’d be ashamed to go around jazzing up your body like that! You should be content to grow old gracefully.”
“Like whom?” Spray’s quiet young voice bit into the controversy.
“Like me,” Sue snapped back. “I’ve had my fun and I don’t go around like a chameleon, changing colors all the time.”
“I don’t suppose you put that red on your lips, either, or were just threatening to tear Rex Pebble limb from limb unless you could discover the secret of youth?”
“Since I’ve seen how young blood goes to old heads, I’ve learned a lesson.” Sue spat out the words, but they deceived no one. With wonder and envy she looked upon Spray’s body that glowed with beauty and vitality. There they stood, elderly blonde and young brunette, Rex Pebble’s public and private life, his lost world and his world regained, while the man gazed from one to the other in silent bewilderment. Never could there have been a greater contrast between two women, yet their behavior was strikingly alike. Both wanted the man and were ready to do battle for him, even to his chagrin and embarrassment. Rex glanced at Kippie. Surprise and a little horror were written on the young man’s face.
“Listen,” Rex whispered. “Let’s skip the tournament and get a drink.” The two stole away downstairs, Nokashima following in awed silence. A few minutes later they were comfortably ensconced in the kitchen, scene of late merriment, all thoughts of the battle lost to mind. Hal and the Major toasted the new arrivals.
Upstairs Spray Summers had the parting shot as she prepared to retire into her bedroom and close the door temporarily upon this disconcerting woman.
“Incidentally,” Spray remarked, “you might just drop that cocktail shaker. No wonder some people get such queer ideas in their heads. I’m sorry for anyone who can’t take his drinks.” The door closed none too gently.
“I’ll see you later,” promised Sue Pebble between clenched teeth, “and when I do, you won’t know me, even if I have to cut my hair.”
For the second time that evening Sue was on the verge of tears. It was all so bewildering, and she felt so left out of things. What was the secret? How had they done it? Did she have a chance in the world of catching up with this curious parade of youth? Sue felt very sorry for herself. It was extraordinary, too, how possessive she had become about Rex. She was wondering at the whole state of affairs and, in desperation, considering a drink out of the shaker which she still held when a soft hand slipped its fingers into hers.
“I heard the whole thing, my dear,” murmured a pleasant feminine voice, “and I don’t blame you a bit. For fifteen years I was shut up in stone and never had a chance. It’s terrible.”
Sue Pebble turned and stared. The girl beside her was young and beautiful in a classic, glowing sort of way. She had long hair, wound about her head, and she moved with a flowing rhythm that was unlike anything Sue had ever seen. However, Sue winced at the expression “shut up in stone.”
“Don’t tell me,” she admonished, “that you’ve been shut up in a tomb and have just come to life. I couldn’t stand it. Too many awful things have been happening around here.”
“Very interesting, if you ask me,” said Baggage, the garden piece. “That is, if you like firemen. It just happened that I brought one upstairs with me. He wasn’t run out with the rest. He’s gone to sleep in there.” She indicated a door.
“Of course, nothing that you say makes the slightest sense to me,” remarked Sue, “but then I’m getting used to that. I don’t understand about the fireman or the stone or anything,” she faltered.
“Come with me,” suggested this unusual girl, “and I’ll tell you a story that will curl your hair. Besides, if you’re a good listener I’ll give you a secret you’d very much like to know.” Baggage led the way downstairs and out into the garden, meanwhile telling the tale of her sudden overpowering impulse to leap into the glorious pool, and its consequences.
They drew near the pool. Sue stared with envious fascination at the calm water, gently ruffled by the breeze.
“If you want to be as young as that other bi — I mean wench — you see your husband told me not to say ‘bitch’ — why, just swim across the pool, and you’ll have it.”
“Have what?” Sue inquired.
“It,” repeated Baggage. “Isn’t that what you were wishing for just now? Youth, beauty, sex appeal, or what have you these days. Anyway, you’ll be like the other one in there.” This she said with a wave of her slim white hand toward the house.
Sue was skeptical but interested. Between the lines of the girl’s story, which recounted so many years of gazing wistfully out at men from a cold beautiful stone face, and of watching the playful antics of couples on this very lawn, she could read genuine longing and convincing desire. She was inclined to believe the fantastic tale, if for no other reason than that the creature seemed to tell it out of such a wistful sort of memory.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“The gods only know, perhaps,” said Baggage. “But I think I’m jealous. And, anyway, you’re his wife, and it will even things up a bit if you both are young together. Not only even things up, but make them much livelier, and I love excitement!”
“Maybe it was what was in the shaker, but whatever it was, or is, I’m diving in that pool,” said Mrs. Pebble. “The only thing I can get is a cold in the head and my clothes wet, if your recipe doesn’t work, and if it does — well — let the fireworks fly!”
So saying, Sue Pebble, who had not swum with such enthusiasm in years, plunged into the silvery water. For a moment she stood poised, as though experiencing a new sensation. A delighted smile began to spread over her features, which even in the dusky light of the garden appeared magically to take on new attractions. The woman dipped her head beneath the surface and came up beaming.
“Something’s happening,” she shouted with joy, as with new life and vigor she began to streak across the pool. An inscrutable Mona Lisa expression grew on the lips of Baggage. For soon, on the other side of the pool, stood a girl who, even in the wet baggy clothes of a middle-aged woman, was a creature of infinite blond beauty.
13. MAN INTO CHILD
THE NEW AND lovely edition of Sue, Mrs. Rex Pebble, stood beside the magic pool, rinsing her soaked garments and regretting not a whit the miraculous plunge that had caused her to ruin one of her favorite gowns. Sue ran admiring hands over her hips. They were beautifully rounded, svelte but well filled, the kind of hips that make cotton look like silk and $17.75 resemble a straight $75. No more lying awake nights planning how to infuse youth into her clothes; no more anguished early mornings of strenuous exercise, or evenings of denying herself the fatal sweets that add weight.
“Look,” called Sue Pebble in a voice so musical that it surprised herself, “did you ever see anything neater?”
She indicated her bust with a proud gesture.
“Very good,” commented Baggage across the water,
“but I think I’m pretty neat myself.” The girl abruptly lifted her skirts, revealing ankles and limbs of graceful beauty. They were, however, somewhat on the classical mold, while Sue Pebble’s rejuvenated form was nothing more nor less than the lusciously appealing, smoothly curved figure of a girl in the deceptive neighborhood of twenty.
“No wonder,” returned Sue; “You ought to be beautiful. You’ve been in this pool all your life.”
“A hell of a lot of good it did me,” came back the sharp answer. “I’d like to know what fun the Venus de Milo ever had. All that ever happened to her was to have her block knocked off.” Baggage, out of bitter experience, was deeply scornful of the ways of art.
“I wonder, my dear,” said Sue, in the voice of half-abstraction which a beautiful woman uses while she is engaged in examining her figure, “whether you have ever looked at the Venus closely enough?”
“Oh, I’ve been chipped myself,” said Baggage, “but that’s just by curiosity-seekers, people you’d meet in any museum. It’s no more damaging than riding in a taxi — I should say less so, on the whole. What I mean is, there I was locked up in stone for fifteen years, watching everyone else have fun, while some of them actually used to laugh at me.”
“They did?” inquired Sue, but her tone revealed only perfunctory interest. Sue preened here and there, removing wet garments from time to time to get as much look at her new-found loveliness as she possibly could.
She began to wish desperately for a full-length mirror.
“They used to snicker and say, ‘Wonder what that old gal would do if she could get down off her pedestal?’”
“Well, my dear, wasn’t that just what you were thinking yourself?”
“It certainly was,” answered Baggage, “but it was the way they used to say it that burned me up. Of course, my clothes were old-fashioned, but, after all, you can’t keep up with the styles if no one will send a sculptor around. Besides, those men do have the most awfully phooey ideas. A sash here and a bow there, and they call it class. Personally, I think clothes are heaven’s greatest gift to man. I’d rather tantalize any day than give away the whole show the first time I see a man.”
This bit of philosophy seemed to give Mrs. Pebble pause. She shook out her tousled golden curls and a strange light came into her china-blue eyes.
“You know,” said Sue, “you start me to thinking. I believe I’ll actually have to borrow some of that brazen hussy’s clothes.”
“Borrow them?” mocked Baggage. “I’ve been changing dresses every two hours since I jumped off that rock.” She pointed with distaste to the plinth that stood in the center of the pool, lonely and deserted without the adornment of her classical beauty. “When I get through with a dress, I just touch a match to it. I’ve always wanted clothes to burn.”
“How do you get them?” inquired Sue. “Do you know where the clothes closet is?”
“Do I?” asked Baggage. “That’s where I parked that red-hot fire-eater I was out with when I first met you in the hall. He’s lying under a blanket and two or three old suitcases and some shoes. I thought I’d cover him up so nobody’d take him away till I saw whether I could use him again.”
“What’s the matter with the poor fellow? Is he ill? Was he overcome?”
“He’s just tired,” returned Baggage. I thought he needed a good nap, so I just handed him a little poke in the nose.”
“I see that I can learn things from you,” remarked Sue Pebble, walking around the edge of the pool toward Baggage, who stood nearest the house. “Just now I can’t think of anything that would give me greater satisfaction than a small theft from Miss Spray Summers’ wardrobe. I hate that woman cordially.”
“Oh, I know,” answered the girl. “And I do too. She’s so damned confident. No woman ought to be as confident of a damned man as she is of your husband. And she has been for years.”
“You’re telling me,” said Sue. “Personally, I don’t give a hang much one way or another, but I hate to see the bi — wench have such smooth sailing.”
“The nights I’ve stood out there and watched them,” Baggage’s words seemed torn out of a searing memory. “At least you would have thought they’d have the decency to keep from in front of me. But no, sir, they seemed proud as pie about it. They hadn’t been out in the garden much of late, though.”
“You liked my husband, didn’t you?” asked Sue Pebble, drawing close to Baggage.
“You mean, I like your husband, responded the girl with determination, “but I don’t seem able to get near him with that woman around.”
“Well,” said Sue, “we’re both out after the same scalp. You’ve helped me a lot, and now I’m going to do something for you. Just come this way and show me that clothes closet.”
“We want to be careful not to wake up Bill,” Baggage observed, “because if we did he’d probably raise a heck of a squawk and the whole house would come running.”
At the precise moment that these two eye-filling figures were moving across the Summers’ lawn toward the house, Rex Pebble, inside, reached a decision. He was in no cheerful mood. To have a mistress restored to her pristine beauty and an elderly wife dropped on your hands in a rage of jealousy, perhaps quite justified, is something to add iron-gray hairs to the head. This was one situation in which Rex, an inventor of sorts, could think of nothing to relieve the tension of the situation. And on top of this here was young Kippie telling him the most monstrous kind of ill luck at the office. It appeared that the Rex Pebble fortune was on the eve of being rubbed out. It was horrible to think what both Sue and Spray would have to say, after all these years, in a jam like that. Rex’s new-young brows were furrowed with care.
The group on the whole was a congenial one. There was Major Jaffey, who since the dramatic departure of Joe, his banking prospect, with Elmer, had no one but Rex to whom he could confide his world-shaking ideas. There was Hal, the faithful fireman, who had stayed on after his fellows had gone. Nokashima, feeling the call for food, was busily preparing a steak on the capable-looking electric stove, at the same time feeding Mr. Henry from a baby’s bottle. Mr. Henry had doffed his ferocious king of the jungle headdress and was now nothing more or less than a playful bloodhound puppy, who frisked about the kitchen, exhilarated by his brand-new sense of smell. There was plenty to smell in that room. Steak, highballs, toasting bread, and the various alluring scents of Spray, Sue, and Fifi, not to mention Baggage, who had passed to and fro through the place.
“I could make a suggestion or two,” Kippie was saying, “only I’m afraid of getting my head snapped off.”
His uncle turned on the youth, though actually to an outsider it would have looked as though one youth were turning viciously on another.
“None of your funny ideas,” said Rex Pebble, shaking a vigorous forefinger in an elderly way that was quite incongruous with his dapper appearance. “I suppose you don’t think it’s enough to have imported your dear aunt into this madhouse? That idea ought to last you for about a month.”
“But this is a dandy thought, Uncle Rex,” explained Kippie. “I wish you’d give me a chance to tell you about it. It’s about an invention.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rex’s tone was bitter. I suppose you want me to start a nudist colony or a health-giving springs resort founded on that blasted pool.”
“Not at all,” returned Kippie. “All I’d like to see you do is get back the blueprint of the mouse trap that fellow got away from you.”
“Rats!” said Rex appropriately. “I hoped I’d forgotten that. There may have been money in it, but I was gypped, and the fellow got away with the plans, and that’s that.” He dismissed the subject.
“Wouldn’t you get it back if you could sell it and save us on margin?” Young Kippie’s tone was sly.
“Nocka, when you’re through torturing that piece of meat,” Mr. Pebble addressed his small servant, “I think it would be a good idea to open up a bottle of brandy for Mr. Kippie. I can’t think of anything but brandy and women that will keep him quiet, and of these two, drink is the lesser evil.”
“O.K., O.K.!” Kippie was quick to jump at whatever came his way, “but if I ever get a chance myself, I’m going to get that mouse trap back, and the world will beat a path to my door.”
“I don’t seem to need mouse traps to get the world to my door.” Rex glanced around the room, which seemed wilted in its state of disarray. No one had bothered to pick up the glasses of the late firemen’s ball. In fact, the only difference in the room was that other glasses had been added by the more recent inhabitants.
