The Sheik of Alabam

by Michael Arlen

 

The Sheik of Alabam

Love Makes the World Go Round, They Say. But Denys
and Madeleine Weren't So Sure. Another Delightful
Fantasy by the Author of “The Lark Among Crows”

By Michael Arlen

“”MADELEINE, Madeleine!”

The young man with the fair hair that shone like gold in the prodigal sunlight threw back his head and listened, but all he heard were the million faint sounds that are called silence in a sunlit garden. And far below—for the garden lay like a bright handkerchief on a hill—the afternoon sea slept profoundly.

“Madeleine!” he called. “Madeleine!”

But that was surely a lazy young man, for not one inch did he move from his station on the lawn, a very tidy lawn that was made for nothing if not for the cultivation of afternoon tea and leisurely conversation.

Now from where he stood on the lawn, a lithe figure in white flannels with the sun for a crown on his young head, the long white villa, brave with red-and-white sun-blinds, lay before his eyes like a temptation; and so he smiled a funny smile, in a way he had when temptations stood before him. Often had he smiled that smile, and always the temptation that stood before him had become as a fruit in his hand, and he had enjoyed the fruit, and then he had gone on to enjoy other fruits; for this was young Denys, handsome young Denys of the ancient house of Malaise, as penniless a cadet of that ancient house as had ever wandered the world in search of ease and distraction—for such were the laws of his life. And his life had been made easy for him, for he was an attractive young man, as young men go, and none more diverting at all hours of the day and night: so that many had forgotten that for five long years he had been a puissant man of war.

But all that is ancient history, and what has ancient history to do with Denys, he who stood on the lawn before the Villa Corydon and called out the name of Madeleine, that she should come out and play tennis with him? The hard court lay beside the villa like a cloth of pink silk between the white and yellow cascades of myrtle and mimosa; and far below curved the pretty bay of Cannes, as blue as the blue of a doll’s eyes, and across the bay loitered the yachts with ivory-white sails.…

“Madeleine! Oh, Madeleine! Denys, your lover, is calling you!”

And she came out from the Vida Corydon, a white figure with small golden head and eyes as soft as daydreams, and you saw at once why the villa was like a temptation to any man who was a man.

Ah, me! Ah, me! Madeleine has no lover, boy! Madeleine is quite forlorn!”

“Well, then,” laughed Denys—and he never forced a laugh—“don’t talk so much, and let’s play tennis.”

Now you must know that Madeleine’s voice was low and slightly husky, the sort of voice that women so like in other women, a strangely enchanting voice to come from that tall white girl with the short, curly golden hair; and it was a voice that always seemed to whisper, though indeed this Madeleine was so proud that she would never really whisper about anything, wherefore she was often shocking people.

“It’s a shame,” whispered Madeleine; “it’s a shame, Denys, to put you under another humiliation. But what will be, will be; so come, we’ll play. I am free till tea time.”

“And then?”

“And then, Denys, my services are required. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

“Well, let’s forget poverty!” cried Denys, he who had never remembered it until the bailiffs stood at his door; wherefore Captain Malaise did not often approach his own door but lived at the houses of his many friends, who liked him very well, for he was an attractive young man, as young men go.…

And so Denys and Madeleine played tennis on the pink court between the myrtle and mimosa, while far below the afternoon sea slept profoundly; and, because Denys’s hair was golden under the sun and because Madeleine’s was golden even under the moon, they were very evenly matched in the game.

AS DENYS was poor, so Madeleine was poor; but because Denys was a man he could wear an air of freedom, while Madeleine could only wear the clothes that her women-friends gave her, and women-friends have a way of giving presents which is not conducive to a sense of freedom in the recipient. That is what Mrs. Edith Wharton says, and who will gainsay Mrs. Wharton about the ways of women and parasites?

Of course Madeleine made a little money. Her bridge was very good; and she was the “friend” of Mrs. Lyon, the owner of the Villa Corydon. Mrs. Lyon was an American widow who was so well known in America for being unknown that she lived in Europe; and to her house the Lady Madeleine, daughter of the recently deceased seventh Duke of Marlow (bankrupt) and sister of the eighth (bankrupt), brought her many friends, so that the heart of Angela Lyon was thrilled with the idea that she was in society, and the dreams of Angela Lyon were concerned with the coming season in London, where she would take a large house, and how she would entertain a salon therein, whereas, of course, she would only be keeping a restaurant. But Madeleine made no such petty distinctions; she would not ever laugh at her whose bread she ate; besides, Madeleine loved her, in her fashion.

Such then, with many details of minor significance, is the history of the Lady Madeleine until this afternoon when she is playing tennis with a very old friend on a small hill above the bay of Cannes. That very old friend, to be sure, is one among the many details of minor significance, for there was a night during the war, which they say is over now, when Captain Malaise, on short leave, approached Madeleine where she stood thoughtfully on a terrace looking over Hyde Park. Within was music and the lilt of whispering feet, and over Hyde Park walked a moon.…

“Madeleine!” said he, and he looked so stern, but perhaps that was only the hazard of the moon.

“Denys!” said she, and she looked so happy, but surely that was only the hazard of the moon.

“Madeleine, I love you,” said Denys, and she seemed to smile with her heart, and so they were engaged; but when he came back from France she said with a doubtful smile:

“Oh, this is absurd, Denys! We are too poor.”

“Right, dear, right!” smiled Denys, and he never forced a smile; and so the engagement was declared null and void, and ever after they would laugh at themselves, how they had pledged themselves to one another without due thought to the amenities of life, which are so important.

NOW it is the way with people who play tennis like grim archangels that when they have ceased playing they instantly look as though they had been thinking of something else all the time. That, anyhow, is how Denys and Madeleine looked as they walked up the gentle slope from the tennis-court to the lawn—where, in the meanwhile, had blossomed a table set with the silver, china and napery of tea.

They loitered, they stopped. Madeleine’s gray eyes, which silly men had said were the softest eyes that ever were, seemed absorbed in the blue carpet of the sea, and Denys seemed to Have fallen into an unusual silence. And then came suddenly to them Mrs. Lyon’s voice from within the house; but it might equally well have come directly from the plains of Dakota, which is next door to Minnesota, where all good things come from, even Swedes, flour, and Sinclair Lewis.

“Madeleine, Madeleine! Where are you?”

“Oh, damn!” said Denys. And Madeleine, awake at last, mocked him with a laugh.

“Dear Denys! What is the matter with you today? You have actually not smiled for five minutes! Smile, Denys, smile! There is so much to smile about, always, but always!”

“That’s why, I suppose, whenever I come iqpon you alone you look as though——”

“Never mind that, Denys!” she laughed, but there was something quite sharp in the low, husky voice. “I’m not so often alone, remember, and so why shouldn’t I have a little holiday when I am?”

“And, Madeleine, what are your little holidays?”

“Oh, dreams, just dreams!”

“Madeleine!” called the voice from the plains of Dakota. “Madeleine!”

“Run along, Madeleine!” said Denys; and, because he said it curiously, she stared at him, into him. He did not flinch at all. He did not know how to flinch, though, like all attractive men, he could every now and then look very shy.

“Despising me, dear?” she asked softly.

He laugh like a schoolboy.

“Why, of course!” he said. “And myself. So that’s that, Madeleine. After all, let’s face our lives for what they are. I was a fool to leave the army, but I thought I would easily find a job of sorts. And you, Madeleine, were a fool to be born of a race of slack gentlemen, so that you like all the fine, easy things. I can’t help thinking, dear, that we would both be so nice if only we had ten thousand a year——”

“Each?” she asked quite seriously.

“If you please,” he said quite seriously. But by then she was obviously thinking of something else, for when she next spoke it was as though her voice came from a remote place, it was so low and impersonal:

“Would you have me changed, Denys? Would you have me a quite different Madeleine? Would you have me earn my bread with my hands; would you have me dressed in drab clothes; would you have my hair soiled with the dust of workrooms, while my eyes grew anxious with worrying and my face haggard with waiting for that which would never come, which is a curious thing called happiness?”

“Madeleine, for God’s sake!” he pleaded against her bitterness, which was the worse for being so calm.

“But it is difficult, isn’t it, for people like you and me? Brought up in luxury, brought up as children of the minor gods—and then, you know, quite penniless! And not trained to make a penny, either! Yes, it is difficult, I do think! You, at least, have prospects, for your mean old uncle might die at any moment—but me!”

“You, Madeleine!” said Denys. “Why, dear, your prospects are nearer than mine by a long way! Now you can’t deny that, can you? All these rich men who would marry you…”

Always they would tease each other about her marriage. It was a joke, a fantasy. But today her fancy did not seem inclined to laughter, nor did she even smile, as she said:

“So far I’ve so hated the idea of earning my living that way. But now——”

“There’s Dexter Harcourt,” he teased her.

“Yes, isn’t there?” she said, but her fancy did not incline her to smile. “He’s going to ask me tonight. I feel it in my bones. And I am going to accept him tonight. I feel that in my bones, too.”

“Madeleine, what sensitive bones you have today!”

“Madeleine!” came the voice from the plains of Dakota. “Madeleine, where are you?”

“I must go,” she said swiftly. “I have to arrange for the party tonight. You’re coming, of course?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “You’ll be so busy, accepting Dexter Harcourt——”

“But that will only take a minute, Denys! If one can’t make a mess of one’s life in a minute, what can one do! Now do come!”

And swiftly she was walking away across the lawn.

“Madeleine!” And the voice that called her name was recognizably the voice of Denys the jester.

The sun seemed to leap on the gold of her hair as she turned her face to him.

“Yes, dear?”

“Madeleine, didn’t I once make a sweeping statement?”

“Once—and once upon a time, Denys! But only once!”

“One only repeats the things that don’t matter, Madeleine. Shall I make an exception?”

“Denys, you are too serious!” she whispered into the sunlight.

“I love you, Madeleine.”

Into the sunlit garden of the Villa Corydon walked the god of silence, and heavily he strode between them for a while.…

Then, because of this and that, Madeleine smiled.

“Dear Denys!” smiled Madeleine. “This is really very gratifying, after all these years!” And Madeleine smiled. “And, Denys, will there be any third time?”

“No,” he said harshly. “No.” And he left her, striding away down the little hill wreathed in bright yellow flowers, while she stood as he had left her, poised between a laugh and a cry. The laugh won.…

“Madeleine, Madeleine!”

NOW Cannes is, of course, a city of pleasure; and in a city of pleasure there is, of course, nothing on earth to do but kill time; so that quite a number of the people who were invited came to Angela Lyon’s party, bringing with them a great number of people who were not invited—for why be selfish? Also, there ere two tough-looking men.

“My, who are those two?” asked pretty Miss Hart of Denys Malaise, as they danced by the two tough-looking men, who stood in the doorway of the ballroom in dinner suits of unsymmetrical appearance and with expressions of forced geniality.

“Good Lord!” said Denys. “Wouldn’t you know them a mile off, Eleanor?”

“Well, I’d prefer to know them a mile off than close to,” she laughed, for Denys was a good dancer and she was enjoying herself. But even had Denys been a poor dancer she would have been enjoying herself, for has it not been said that he was an attractive young man, as young men go?

“Obviously,” said Denys, “they are detectives. Oh, obviously!”

“Detectives!” sighed Eleanor Hart, and she was thrilled.

“Mrs. Lyon, you see, has some marvelous jewels and some funny superstitions: and the latter prevent the former from being locked up in a safe-deposit in the town, so the last time she gave a party some one took a fancy to a charming brooch of hers and also took the charming brooch. Therefore, detectives.”

“Oh, look!” cried pretty Miss Hart. “How lovely Lady Madeleine looks in that jade-green dress! Of course, jade-green is a little out of fashion now, but——”

“Madeleine is the fashion,” smiled Denys. “Where is she now? Dancing?”

“Over there. She’s dancing with Dexter Harcourt.”

“Dancing with Dexter Harcourt!” said Denys. “How you exaggerate, Eleanor! A woman doesn’t dance with Dexter Harcourt—she lets him stand at attention on her feet.”

Pretty Miss Hart looked furtively at the profile of her tall, fair partner, and she noticed that, when he thought he was not being watched, he did not trouble to smile. It was a stern-looking profile, thought pretty Miss Hart, and she suddenly understood what she had never been quite able to understand before, how Denys had been one of the most gallant and resourceful men in the war.

Miss Hart’s father was a captain of industry in Chicago, but part of the time he lived in a villa at Cannes, for he believed that a little European Influence was a necessary ingredient of Poise, which is, of course, among the most recent of American inventions. Part of the European Influence he had picked on was Captain Malaise, who was staying with them.

Mr. Hart simply couldn’t help respecting a man who did no work so efficiently as Denys. Mr. Hart was a really modern American, and had got beyond all that “hustling” and “booster” back-chat. “That young man,” said Mr. Hart of Denys, “may have no money, but he sure has Poise.” Pretty Miss Hart also thought Denys had Poise, and she was well prepared to listen to anything he had to say of a personal nature—but, somehow, he did not seem quite to say it.

“Who is this Dexter Harcourt man?” asked Denys suddenly. “He must be rich, by the money he throws away at the Casino.”

“Well,” said pretty Miss Hart, “he’s very well known back home, and he’s surely rich enough, even though Henry Ford might not be impressed. My father likes him.”

“Yes, but your father also likes me,” said Denys, “so that doesn’t mean much.”

“Difficult not to like you,” said Miss Hart, very faintly.

Denys seemed to look right down into her gentle eyes, and his own looked grave and troubled.

“Do you really mean that, Eleanor?”

They danced.

“Yes,” she murmured.

They danced.

“Bless you,” whispered Denys. “God bless you, Eleanor. And He will, too.”

Pretty Miss Hart had to bite her lip.

“It’s too hot, dancing,” she said at last. “Let’s go sit in the garden—shall we?”

And silently they walked out through the French windows into the garden.

IT WAS about an hour later that, from the garden, a silhouette could be seen standing against one of the livid French windows of the ballroom. The silhouette seemed to be looking for a shadow in the recesses of the garden. That, anyhow, is how the shadow felt about it.

Then, suddenly, “The Sheik of Alabam” came to Cannes: the saxophone and the drum shattered the silence; and at the same moment the eyes of the silhouette seemed to have formed a shadow out of the night, for the silhouette came out into the garden and became a tall young man with a thoughtful face.

The shadow stirred a little on her white bench. She was in a jade-green dress, and she wore a doubtful smile, and when her companion on the bench said something she answered thus and thus. Her companion was a stalwart gentleman with a heavy, handsome face and very intelligent eyes.

“I think,” said Denys to the shadow in the jade-green dress, “that it is now our turn to take the floor, Madeleine. Sorry to interrupt you, Harcourt.”

“Go ahead,” growled Dexter Harcourt amiably.

Madeleine rose, and her jade-green dress made a faint noise like hidden water, but she said never a word.

“Well, I think I’ll come with you into the house,” said Mr. Harcourt. “Getting cold here. One does get chilly, sitting out.”

“Two shouldn’t, so I’ve read in books,” said Denys gravely.

“Ah!” said Dexter Harcourt. “What do you think, Lady Madeleine?”

“I am not thinking at the moment, Mr. Harcourt. Come, Denys, if we are to dance.”

But, as they moved across the lawn, “The Sheik of Alabam” left Cannes as suddenly as he had come.

“They saw you coming,” smiled Dexter Harcourt.

“They saw some one going, you mean,” said Denys, with eyes intent on the suddenly stilled, grouped figures in the ballroom. “They shouldn’t have stopped then; it was the middle of the tune.”

“Oh, dear, something’s happened again!” sighed Madeleine, for she felt responsible for Mrs. Lyon—who, as they stepped into the ballroom, rushed up to her. Mrs. Lyon was in a silver dress which would have looked charming on her daughter; but as she had no daughter she wore it herself. She looked flushed.

“Necklace,” she just breathed. “Madeleine, my pearl necklace!”

“But you’ve got it on, dear!”

“Teclas!” trembled Mrs. Lyon. “The real ones were in the safe in my bedroom——”

“Lord, they’re not stolen!” said Dexter Harcourt.

“Madeleine, what shall I do!” trembled Mrs. Lyon. “I am so upset, Madeleine. It is dreadful, dreadful!”

“Gee, but it’s stiff luck,” said Mr. Harcourt, “to throw a party and then get a rope of pearls shanghaied!”

“Darling, I’m so sorry!” said Madeleine very gently. “But surely the detectives——”

“Here they are,” said Denys. “Shall I arrest them first, Mrs. Lyon, or would you rather they arrested one of us?”

“Denys, be serious!” pleaded Madeleine.

“Really, my dear, a chap can’t be serious about a pearl necklace,” pleaded Denys. “Can he, Mrs. Lyon? For of course they’re insured?”

“Captain Malaise, you are so cute, and you’re doing me so much good!” Mrs. Lyon smiled. “Oh, yes, they’re covered!”

“Madame,” began one of the two French detectives, a bad-tempered-looking man; and he talked closely to Mrs. Lyon for a while. Madeleine, while she listened, looked gravely round the excited groups of people in the ballroom.

“My!” gasped Mrs. Lyon. “He wants to search all the men!”

“And very reasonable, too,” cried Denys. “Come on, Harcourt, let’s strip as far as such stripping is compatible with the dignity of Anglo-Saxon gentlemen.”

“Anglo-Saxon nothing!” snapped Dexter Harcourt. “I’m not in for this searching business. You’re not serious, Angela!”

“As it’s Mrs. Lyon’s party,” said Madeleine gently, “don’t you perhaps think that it’s for her to decide? After all, this is a rather—well—mixed party, and there are a good many uninvited people here—and among them, so the detectives say, two or three well-known Casino crooks.”

“But also two or three gentlemen,” said Dexter Harcourt.

“Come, let’s not boast!” grinned Denys. He seemed to be enjoying the party.

“Captain Malaise!” exclaimed Mrs. Lyon, for the word “gentleman” was sacred to her; and then, because the lady from the plains of Dakota was a lady, even though she did want to get into society, she suddenly turned to the waiting detectives.

“I engaged you,” she said, in that variation of French which French people always answer in English, “I engaged you, messieurs, to prevent my jewels being stolen, not to annoy my guests. Thank you.”

That annoyed the bad-tempered-looking detective; he nodded toward Denys and spoke closely and vehemently to Mrs. Lyon. Madeleine listened, and then laughed.

“Commedia!” laughed Madeleine. “Commedia!”

“What’s the fool say now?” growled Dexter Harcourt.

“Me not fool!” snapped the detective.

“Yes, we have no bananas!” grinned Denys. “What is it, Madeleine? Is he accusing me of taking the pearls?”

“Oh, no!” trembled Mrs. Lyon.

“He doesn’t go quite so far as that,” laughed Madeleine, but she looked dangerously at the detective, who tried to look dangerously back. “He merely says he saw you going upstairs, and he would like to know what you did upstairs.”

“And very reasonable, too!” said Denys, and very gravely he turned to the detective. “Monsieur, I went upstairs with a view to stealing the pearls. But when I got there the cupboard was bare——”

“We talk not of cupboards!” snapped the detective. “I have been observing you, monsieur.”

“I only hope, then, that you’ll be influenced by the fact that I wear black socks with a dinner jacket, whereas you seem inclined toward the colored-sock school of thought, which, I assure you, is not really modish. The question is, after all, should a plain-clothes man be so extremely plain?”

“Bah!” said the detective.

And “The Sheik of Alabam,” he came to Cannes again.

”LET every one dance!” begged Mrs. Lyon. “This is too annoying. Captain Malaise, please don’t notice them! Mr. Harcourt, won’t you dance with me?”

“Won’t I!” said Dexter Harcourt, and did.

“And, Denys, won’t you dance with me?” asked Madeleine.

“My God, I wish I never need dance with any one else!”

And softly Denys and Madeleine danced, softly; and he was aware only of the golden head beside his own, and of the faint scent she used, and of the impotence of desiring the unattainable.

“Denys, why did you try to make fun of Dexter Harcourt? He’s so nice, really.”

Softly they danced, softly, each absorbed in the invisible thing over the other’s left shoulder, which is the modern way.

“Madeleine, I’m madly jealous!”

“Denys, how absurd you are!”

“That’s it, laugh at me! You have no heart, Madeleine. I can see the hole where your heart should be.”

Softly they danced, softly; and it seemed to him that the short golden hair beside his cheek smelled as clean as grass; and his face grew white and set.

“So you like Harcourt,” he muttered.

“Yes, frightfully!” she whispered.

“And of course you’ve accepted him?”

“Deny’s, I’m so weak!”

“My God, Madeleine, I can’t bear it—your marrying him—or any one!”

“But, Denys, I said I was so weak!”

“Don’t I know it!” he said savagely.

“Yes. So I refused him. You see, dear, I like him so much, he’s really such a nice man, that I simply couldn’t just marry him for his money.”

“Madeleine, you’re divine!”

“Whereas, Denys, I suspect you of designs on that pretty little Eleanor Hart. She adores you, I know.”

Nimbly, he avoided an enthusiastic couple.

“I wish,” he said, “that people wouldn’t dance in open formation.”

“Denys, are you going to marry Eleanor Hart?”

“Madeleine, I’m so weak!”

“Oh, thank God!” whispered Madeleine. “Are you doing anything tomorrow, Denys?”

“I wake up loving you. I have lunch, loving you. I play polo, loving you. I dine, loving you. I play baccarat, loving you. I sleep, loving you. That’s all, dear.”

“The Americans are right, Denys. What we English need is action, action. So if that’s all you are doing tomorrow I thought we might fill in the time by going somewhere and getting married.”

Softly they danced, softly; and, because of this and that, his profile was white and set.

“Denys, why don’t you speak?” she whispered frantically “Don’t you love me?”

“I said I wouldn’t say it a third time, but I love you so much, Madeleine, that I’ll stretch a point just for once. Madeleine, I love you.” But that is all he said, and her feet seemed to her to grow heavy in the dance.

“Denys!” she whispered. “I am so miserable, and I thought I would be so happy, having decided to forfeit wealth and marry you. Denys, aren’t you going to make a poor woman of me? I’ll cry right in the middle of the ballroom if you say no. I will, I will!”

“Madeleine, I can’t marry you,” he muttered. “You don’t understand. There’s something——”

“The lack of money! Oh, I’ve got enough for the ceremony and a reasonable honeymoon.”

“Oh, damn money! We can always go on the films, I suppose. Especially you. They’re very partial to dukes’ daughters on the films, Madeleine. No, there’s something else. You can’t marry a man like me.”

“Denys, I don’t understand,” she pleaded.

“You see, dear, I’m a thief.”

“Denys! Oh, my God!”

“I’VE got to tell you, Madeleine. You simply can’t marry a man like me, a thief. And I’ve been a thief ever since the war, Madeleine. I got reckless after you thought again about marrying me. I’ve simply lived on stolen pearls, Madeleine though, God knows, so many people wear Teclas nowadays. And it was I who took that brooch the last time Mrs. Lyon gave a party. So, you see, Madeleine, you can’t marry a thief.”

Softly they danced, softly, and each stared at the invisible thing over the other’s shoulder, which is the modern way.

“Denys, my Denys! I shall marry the man I love, my Denys!”

“Madeleine, you can’t mean that!”

“But I do, Denys! I can’t bear your being like that, my dear. You’ll promise never to be careless again, Denys? You’ll promise to keep straight?”

“Madeleine, what will be the difficulty, married to you! I’ll just work, I will. Yes, I promise.”

And “The Sheik of Alabam,” he left Cannes and returned to Alabama. The dance had ceased.

“So will I,” whispered Madeleine, and a white hand fluttered to a secret part of her dress; and, he following her with bewildered eyes, she ran across the room to where Mrs. Lyon stood panting with Dexter Harcourt.

“Angela darling, the thief who took your pearls must have got frightened, for I’ve just found them by chance tucked away in the corner of that sofa there. I’m so glad, Angela. And you must be glad too, please, because Denys and I are going to get married almost at once, though of course we have no money and only the most septic prospects.”

“Madeleine!” trembled the lady from Dakota. “My, I am so pleased. Captain Malaise, I was never so happy, I declare! Madeleine, you must accept these pearls as a wedding present from me. You must, please!”

Denys coughed.

“Eh—I think—” he began.

And Madeleine’s eyes seemed quite dim.

“Angela, put your pearls away, dear. Pearls don’t suit me, Angela, I assure you. I simply hate pearls, you know. Give me Teclas, any day.”

“About all you’ll get, married to me!” said Denys; and the rest of this story is quite uninteresting, for the marriage was successful, as marriages go.

Coming—another of Michael Aden’s fantasies.