Fanshaw

“ I said to myself when I met you this morning in the Red Cross office: There is a man of parts, an unusual person.... With me there are no half measures, I am a man of action.... So I immediately invited you to dinner. I am sure neither of us will regret it."
"Indeed, not for my part ..." stammered Fanshaw. ”

“ Overhead the afternoon sun beat heavily on the broad maple leaves; patches of sunlight littered the ground like bright torn paper. Through the trees came the mud smell and the restless sheen of the river. Fanshaw was trying to think of something to say to the girl beside him; he daren't turn towards her until he had thought of something to say.
"Doggone it I've got an ant down my back," cried Cham, sitting up suddenly, his face pink.
"Momma catch it," spluttered Phoebe in the middle of a gust of laughter. ”

“ In his mind muddled the towns Whitey had told him about, Akron and Cleveland and Chicago and Atlanta, Georgia, and Tallahassee and Key West, and Fanshaw's delicately intoned voice saying: Like beautiful leanfaced people of the Renaissance lost in their vermillion barge.... Ellen wasn't leanfaced; plump cheeks, plump breasts. He was living now. Now he'd forget how his father looked with his collar round backwards, he'd forget Nan with Ellen, realer than old fool Fanshaw's vermillion barge. ”

“ Dumont's look shot straight into Fanshaw's.
"Not a cent!" he said with vicious emphasis. "Not a red!"
Fanshaw paled and pinched in his lips. "I'm a desperate man. I'm ruined. Leonora—"
Dumont shook his head, the veins swelling in his forehead and neck. The last strand of his self-restraint snapped. "Leave her out of this! She has no claim on me NOW—and YOU never had."
Fanshaw stared at him, then sprang to his feet, all in a blaze. "You scoundrel!" he shouted, shaking his fist under Dumont's nose.
"If you don't clear out instantly I'll have you thrown out," said Dumont. ”

“ Why are you laughing Nan?"
"You are so eager about it, Wenny, dear."
"What in hell would you be eager about if not that?"
"Why be too eager about anything?" put in Fanshaw in his most languid voice.
"O you make me tired, Fanshaw."
Fanshaw flushed. The little rat, he thought, I'd like to smack him for being so silly. If he could get all that energy into something worth while. That's the difference between us and people like Pico della Mirandola or Petrarch. They could get all that energy into thought, art for the liberation of the world. We fritter it in silly complications. What a clever idea ”

“ They drank glasses of orangeade in silence, Wenny paid the girl behind the cash-register who showed two gold teeth in a smile as they went out. Fanshaw was already thinking with eager anticipation of his room with its orange shaded lamp; the cosy bookish smell of it, the backs of his books in their case of well dusted mahogany and the discreet sheen of the gold letters of their titles in the lamplight, the sepia of the Primavera over the mantel, the neatness of his bedroom, the linen sheets on his bed, the clean aloofness of fresh pyjamas.
"I often wonder why I go out in the evenings at all." ”

“ Fanshaw was speaking—"You're very tired, aren't you?"
"Very," replied Pauline, with a struggle to smile.
"What a child you look! It seems absurd that you are a married woman. Why, you haven't your full growth yet." And on an impulse of intuitive sympathy Mrs. Fanshaw pressed her arm, and Pauline was suddenly filled with gratitude, and liked her from that moment.
Alone in her sitting-room at the hotel, she went up to the mirror over the mantel, and, staring absently at herself, put her hands up mechanically to take out her hat-pins. ”

“ A man in a seedy red sweater torn at the elbows was bringing a canoe out of the boathouse. A cool weedy smell teasing to the nostrils came up out of the river.
"Ou, isn't it deep?" said Elise, pressing her fluffy dress against Fanshaw's leg.
"Stop it, I tell you ... You'll push me in the water ... Ow!" Cham was brandishing a bullrush at the pink girl, tickling her with it. She was protesting in a gruff baby lisp full of titters. "If you spoil my dress ..."
"I'm sure you paddle beautifully ... D'you mind if I call you Fanshaw ... It's a funny name like a stage name. Look at them!" ”

“ It's fearfully dangerous to live. I should say music was less safe than love."
"Not if you use your reason, Wenny," said Fanshaw.
"Who ever had any reason to use? It's an illusion, the result of thinking things over after they've happened."
Nan left the table. Fanshaw found himself glaring indignantly at Wenny.
"Gee, isn't Nan beautiful to look at tonight?"
"O, she is!" said Fanshaw smiling with forced frankness. He felt a tumult like frightened pigeons in a box inside him. Heavens, suppose he was in love with Nan!
Nan came down the redcarpeted stairs beside the gondola, pulling on her gloves. ”

“ Dumont pressed an electric button, then leaned back in his revolving chair and surveyed Fanshaw tranquilly. "Not a cent!" he repeated, a cruel smile in his eyes and round his mouth. The boy came and Dumont said to him: "Send the watchman."
Fanshaw drew himself up. "I shall punish you," he said. "Your wealth will not save you." ”

“ Fanshaw looked up from the photographs of Red Cross activities he was sorting, let his eye roam across the golden and rusty roofs that stretched away under the window past domes and more domes towards St. Peter's and Janiculum, glanced at the blue reflected light on Major Baldwin's puttees, at his elegant whipcord breeches and Sam Browne belt, red and shiny as his puttees, until at last he found himself looking into his blue watery eyes.
"I suppose ... I guess there's nothing to it but to go back to teaching the young idea how to appreciate art." ”

“ He was a pudgy-faced boy with pink cheeks and wiry light hair like an Irish terrier's. He leaned forward with pouting lips towards Fanshaw, who sat, tall and skinny, by the window, with one finger scratching his neck under the high stiff collar from which dangled a narrow necktie, blue, the faded color of his eyes.
"But jeeze, man," Cham whined.
"Well, what did you go and make it for?"
"Hell, Fanshaw, I couldn't know that Al Winslow was going to get scarlet fever.... Most fellers 'ld be glad of the chance. It isn't everybody Phoebe Sweeting'll go out with." ”

“ A grimy man in his shirtsleeves carried in a tray of freshwashed glasses in through a green baize door. As Wenny pulled off his overcoat he thought he was going to faint. Letting the coat drop to the floor he grabbed the table and lowered himself into a chair. The expression of consternation on Fanshaw's face as he picked up the coat made him laugh so that his eyes filled with tears.
"Well, what will you have? Don't eat too much, it might make you sick." ”

“ Nan laughed.
"You seem to be feeling very superior this evening, Fanshaw. What have you done to be so cocky?"
"Little enough, God knows.... Nan, I wish we could get Wenny settled somehow. I'm worried about him. He ought to get to work at something definite."
"But he's so enormously alive, Fanshaw. How can one worry about him. O, if I had half his vitality, sensitiveness...."
"So much of that is sheer nerves ... in a man. In you it's different. There's something rock bottom about women that men haven't at all. We are lichen. If we are too alive we burn up and shrivel.... ”

“ Wenny's brown eyes looked at her timidly for a moment. He spread his square hands on his knees and glanced down at their large knuckles. In Nan a cold voice exulted: he has the hands of a ditchdigger.
"I wish I knew," he said.
She looked at Fanshaw. His bluish green crepe necktie was the color his eyes were behind the round tortoiseshell spectacles. His arched nose and high forehead were what had made one of the girls say: There's a clever looking man. She was glad he was here. She always felt sane where Fanshaw was.
"Wenny," Fanshaw was saying as he got to to his feet. ”

“ Fanshaw hastened his stride. His muscles were tense. A holdup.
"Walk slow like. Lemme walk between yez for crissake."
Fanshaw looked desperately up the long straight street towards the glare of Central Square. Not a policeman of course. The man walked panting between them with red sweating face stuck forward. Fanshaw dropped back a step and came up on the outside of Wenny. ”

“ He glanced in the direction of the squat block of gaily painted wooden buildings devoted to the inner needs of Fanshaw's clients. "The awning hides it, but I can see a bit of it still. Until it moves, I can go on talking. Frankly, I am in the position of the High Church curate who went out wild-pig shooting in the territories of the Limpopo with a single-bore hammer-gun of grandpapa's pattern—and got his choice of pot-shots between a lion and a rhino. Prinz Heinrich is my royal lion and von Herrnung,—who counted for little more than a bush-pig—has suddenly swelled into a rhinoceros." ”

“ I'm goin' fishin' ... Ou ... I got him. O it's just a leaf ... O he looked. He's a cool one. I'm goin' to smack your face."
"Catch me first, Phoebe deary," cried Cham, running off up a path. She lit out after him. "Look out for your dress on them bushes," cried Elise.
"I should worry."
Fanshaw watched the pink dress disappear down the path, going bright and dull in the patches of sun and shadow among the maple trees. Their laughing rose to a shriek and stopped suddenly. Fanshaw and Elise looked at each other.
"Children must play," said Fanshaw stiffly. ”

“ She walked back and forth in front of the drugstore. A hallucination, of course. But could she have seen him? Before she knew it she had called out: "Wenny!" People were looking at her. She walked hurriedly up the dark street, breathless, running away from them. She spun in the grip of a horrible nausea.
* * * *
"Why, Confucius looks sleeker than ever, Nan," said Fanshaw, and ran the tips of his fingers round the big blue teapot. They sat in the open window looking out at the misty russet trees of the Fenway, with the teatable between them.
"He never goes hungry, or rather thirsty." ”

“ He got so little of all he had longed for before he died, Fanshaw was thinking; and what I long for, how little of it shall I get! He felt tears welling up within him.
At the corner where he waited for the Brookline car some workmen were repairing the track. Under baggy blue shirts the muscles of arms and shoulders moved tautly. A smell of sweat and rank pipes came from them. Wenny would have wanted to be one of them, redfaced spitting men with skillful ugly hands. The men who had dug the grave had been like that, men digging everywhere were like that ”

“ Fanshaw waved a long thin hand in the air.
"For Heaven's sake, don't squabble. After all those young women, I feel weak. There must have been a thousand of them ... I say, Nan, did you invite the whole conservatory?"
"No, but as they were all dying to say they'd been in the same room with Salinski, I went the limit."
"You certainly did."
"Gosh! The size of that star," came Wenny's voice from the window. In his black silhouette Nan was imagining the moulding of the muscles of the arms, the hollow between the shoulders, the hard bulge of calves. She got to her feet. ”

“ Fanshaw walked with long, leisurely stride into his bathroom, where he hung his dressing gown on the back of the door. He came back with yellowstriped pajamas under his arm and sat on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes. Fearful how this business upsets me, he muttered aloud. Much too fond of Wenny, his dark skin, his extraordinary bright eyes. One ought to have more control over one's emotions, senses. At grade school in Omaha, there had been that curlyhaired boy, Bunny Jones. ”

“ Fanshaw. "If we take care to go only where he goes we shall not run much risk."
As if he heard what she was saying, Mr. Fanshaw at that moment turned his horse, and passed the carriage; he was on his way to take the lane that ran down stream. A countryman plodded at his stirrup, and Sir Hervey's grooms followed. After them came a second countryman with a sack drawn over his shoulders. As this man passed the carriage Sophia leaned from the window and called to him.
"Does this lane lead to a better ford, my man?" she asked. ”

“ Fanshaw. If he's honestly sorry, he's no business marrying Marion Wolton.
Johnstone. Why not?
Fanshaw. He has a debt to be paid. He can't wash his hands of the kind of things he's done; if he were in earnest in regretting his old life, he would do something to make up for it.
Johnstone. Well, isn't he? He's going to marry a nice girl and settle down.
Fanshaw. If he were in earnest he'd marry, instead, one of at least two girls I know of—not this one. ”

“ The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the superstition. "A near relation of my family," said he, "expired last night in this castle. ”

“ Fanshaw replied. "We've got a box at Weber and Fields', and two men asked, and we need another woman. I'd have asked you before, but there wouldn't be room for any more men."
Mrs. Fanshaw had to insist until she had proved that the invitation was sincere; then, Pauline accepted—a distraction was always agreeable, never so agreeable as when it offered itself unannounced. It was toward the end of the dinner that Mrs. Fanshaw happened to say: "I see your husband's like all of them. I don't believe there ever was a woman an American man wouldn't desert for business." ”