Virgin With Butterflies (7 page)

And boy, I did.

“Just so,” he says. “They'll be pretty sore,” he says, “and who could blame them? Now, the prince is leaving around sunrise from the airport, in a very neat little job that he bought himself while passing through Detroit, I have told him that you are in a kind of spot with
Pimples and his little pals, and naturally the prince feels that he ought to do anything he can for you, after you risking all to get Hankah back for him.”

“Who's that?” I says.

“That,” he says, “is the name of the ruby in the ring.”

“Do they christen their rubies?” I says. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“Baby,” he says, “unless I miss my guess, you're going to learn about a lot of things you've never heard about before.”

“But how can I go, now I know that he's a prince?”

“Forget it,” he says. “He's as nice a little guy as ever rode an elephant,” he says.

“But who's going to pay my way back?”

“Listen,” he says, and he came over and stood looking in my eyes, and I couldn't help thinking how much like the real thing he looked—boyish and nice and ready to grin. “You've got to understand what that ruby's worth to these boys,” he was saying.

“I know, the Wrigley Building. You told me,” I says.

“But more than that,” he says, “it's sacred. You see it was on the finger of a very special god of theirs.”

“He must have been a giant,” I says. “How'd he lose his pinkie ring?”

“Well,” he says, “a very unexpected earthquake came along and shook him the hell off of his throne. His stone hand, with this ring on his thumb, broke off and rolled down the hill right into the front door of this prince's old father's private palace. So this hand has become a kind of talisman. So when his youngest boy started out on this trip, the old prince took the ring off of the stone
hand and tied the ring around his boy's neck and let him come to America with the family jewelry, from which he has already raised about two or three million bucks—for what purpose Mr. Hoover's nosiest little sleuths, in association with Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard and every department in England, including Big Ben, have been unable to find out. But I just mention in passing that whatever it is that he's over here collecting nickels for seems to be of a good deal of interest to a good many governments.”

“Has he sold 'em all, the jewelry?” I asked him.

“We don't know,” he says, “but one thing we do know. His old man thought this magic ring from this god would protect the young prince, and the funny thing is that by God it has. What I mean is, for getting the ring back I guess these guys feel like they owe you enough money to fill this room. So you go ahead with him and collect it,” he says, “but if they don't pay up,” he says, “we'll sure bring you back from wherever you want to ditch the picnic—you and your aunt Mary, too.”

“My what?” I says.

“Your aunt Mary,” he says, and he led me over to the sofa by the window.

“You've got an Aunt Mary, see, and you naturally couldn't go off to Mexico with a lot of strange gentlemen without a chaperone, even when they're trying to repay you for saving Hankah, the ruby, by getting you away from dangerous gangsters. So naturally your aunt Mary will accompany you.”

“But who is she?” I says. “I haven't got any aunt Mary.”

“You have now,” he says. “She's a nice woman,
young enough to enjoy the trip, but with white hair, so she lends dignity to any gathering. And what's more she's waiting for you right now in the next room, and when you're ready, I'd like to bring her in.”

“There's just one thing,” I says. “My Pop,” I says. “He's in Mattoon.”

“Would you like me to go see him?” he says. “After you're gone, I mean.”

“It would scare him to death,” I says. “He's had enough surprises.”

“Then why tell him at all, till you get back?”

“Because,” I says, “he would have to know it. I write him a note twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, and tell him what I've been doing.”

“Your letters are going to be more interesting,” he says, “from now on.”

“Listen,” I says, “he's getting no younger, and I'm all he's got pretty near, except an old tool box and a pair of patched overalls and a job of carpentering one or two days a week when he feels like working. You can't just send a postal telegraph boy with a wire that you've gone off in an airplane—a thing you've never been on before—with a prince, his sweet and an aunt Mary that you haven't got, and expect him not to blow a gasket,” I says. “And besides—and this is very important—I send him a little money every week, see? And maybe he couldn't spend Mexico money even if I got hold of any to send him. I'll have to go to see him and explain it.”

“I'm afraid you can't,” he says. “You're leaving pretty near right now.”

“Listen, Mr. Wens,” I says, “I can see there's more
to this trip than shooting catfish, but you don't know what my Pop's been through. I can't do it,” I says, “I ain't going.”

“Wait,” he says. “Isn't there somebody else who could go see your Pop and explain?”

“Jeff,” I says.

“A relative?”

“No, and Pop never seen him even, but Jeff could do it.”

“Better than me?” he says.

“Better than anybody,” I says.

“Thanks,” he says, “and now where is this Jeff?”

“That's the trouble,” I says.

“We'll find him,” he says.

“But you can't,” I says. “He's hacking, or maybe driving around on the company's gas looking for me all over Chicago. You don't seem to realize,” I says, “what an impossible thing it is to find a special yellow cab that's cruising around Chicago.”

“You don't seem to realize,” he says, “who you are mixed up with.”

And I certainly didn't.

When we got to the airport, me and Mr. Wens and Aunt Mary, there was Jeff, pale as a ghost, with motorcycle cops standing guard over him. Good old Jeff—I would have liked to have kissed him, but, of course, I didn't.

We didn't have long to talk, and did his blue eyes open when I told him what I was going to do, and did he say “No!”

Then Mr. Wens took him off at the side and showed
him some papers from his hip pocket, and Jeff came right back, and I saw everything was different.

“You've got to go,” he says. “I'll be in Mattoon in the morning. Don't worry now, and when you start back just call the cab company, get my boss, Mr. Worthing, reverse the charges, tell him when you'll get in, and I'll meet you, right here on this spot.”

“Kiss Pop for me,” I says, and I wrote the address. “You'll love him, Jeff. What about money, Jeff?” I says. “I send Pop two dollars a week for pipe tobacco and shaving soap and things.”

“Don't worry,” he says, “it's all fixed.”

“I'll pay you back,” I says.

“It ain't me,” Jeff says, and he nodded his head at Mr. Wens. “Everything is taken care of,” he says, “by your boyfriend.”

“He ain't, Jeff,” I says. “He ain't, honest he ain't. Please don't think he is.”

Mr. Wens was yelling “All aboard!” He was surrounded by a lot of people, the motorcycle cops that had brought Jeff and more of the prince's men than I'd ever seen before. The four sweets, the two boys and a lot of baggage, plus a pilot and a copilot went up the steps. Aunt Mary held out her hand in a clean white glove to Mr. Wens.

“Thank you so much,” she says, “for arranging everything for my niece and me. You were very kind.”

“Don't mention it,” he says. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Swift,” she says, and climbed up the steps to the plane.

“Goodbye,” I says, too, “Mr.—”

“Swift,” he says, “Wens is my pet name,” and he was
grinning. I turned back at the door and looked down the little flight of steps that was on rollers, and there stood Jeff, looking a little scared and sad.

“What's he so troubled about?” I says to myself, and then something sort of melted in my throat. “It's me. Jeff is scared something will happen to me.” So, “Jeff,” I yelled, “come here.” He ran up the steps so they rolled a little out from under us.

“What do you want?” Jeff says, and his blue eyes was begging me to please want something.

“Just, goodbye,” I says. He kissed me, firm and hard on my mouth, till it hurt, and then he let me go and was gone.

Somehow I was sitting down and something was roaring and then Jeff and the buildings moved away faster and faster and we bumped once, and then the whole world settled down below us, like it was floating out from under us, and I knew we were gone.

“Goodbye, Jeff,” I says, waving my new handkerchief at a cloud and then wiping my eyes with it. Aunt Mary patted my hand and leaned over to the prince and spoke softly.

“Her brother,” she said, with her sweet quiet smile, and everybody looked sympathetic.

Aunt Mary sat by me but after a while, she went up and sat in another seat and started to write a letter or something. And there I was, going up through the morning.

I
HAD ALWAYS WONDERED
what it would be like to go flying and here I was doing it and there was nothing to it. You just sit in a train that goes fast for a minute like any other train, and then it slows up and instead of the things going past the window they go by slow, away off down there, and you can see a lot more.

Flying is just a train that's no trouble and if you do hit the ground it's no worse than hitting another train, which trains are always doing. So I just looked back at the sunrise over my shoulder and decided to enjoy it, like Pop said to try to do, no matter where you find yourself or with who.

Then the prince gentleman was sitting beside me, and I says, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he says, in his soft voice.

“Listen,” I says, “can you understand me all right?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Well,” I says, “you see, I'm American and I don't know your ways because I never met any princes before and my Pop always said, if you don't know how to do, ask polite, and anybody that is anybody will answer, just as polite, and then you'll know, my Pop says.”

“Yes,” he says, “he is right.”

“First,” I says, “what do I call you—your majesty, or what?”

“What you call me before,” he says.

“Well, I didn't have to call you nothing before, because before you was just somebody in trouble, see, and I was trying to help you.”

“You did help me,” he says. “We are friends, yes?”

“Sure,” I says, “I am, anyway.”

“Me, too,” he says. “Treat me as before. I like it very much.”

“Well, that's fine,” I says. “But first I got to give you some money,” I says. “I had to spend five dollars for the chain to a man that got his thumbs cut off.”

“No!” he says, and he opened his big eyes at me.

“Not last night. He had 'em cut off of him quite awhile ago. And a hundred dollar bill I had to spend to buy chips to get in a place where the ring was at, so I did. And I won some, and you are only out that hundred, because I didn't want to take the ring off of him without giving him something. Here's the rest.” And I gave him what was left.

He held it in his two hands, and two big tears came into his eyes.

“Haven't you got no handkerchief?” I says, and then I saw it sticking out of his sleeve. So I took it, his hands being busy holding the money and I wiped his eyes, just like I used to do for Willie's when he was small.

“Don't cry,” I says. He started to give the money back to me and I give it to him and he give it to me.

“We did that already,” I says, “remember?” and we was both laughing.

“You know why you go with me?” he asked.

“Do you?” I asked right back.

“Of course,” he says. “It is because of danger for you.”

There didn't seem to be much to say to that, so we just sat there, quiet, and he put the money in his pocket.

“Your aunt Mary is kind,” he says finally.

“Yes, she is,” I says, and I sure hoped he wouldn't ask too many questions.

Mr. Wens, or Mr. Swift, as he is, I guess, had been over a lot of stuff with me and I hoped I had it all straight. But it seemed that was all the prince wanted to say. And that's the way he always was.

Pop was like that. If, some Saturday, he wanted you not to go over to Maxine Bell's to make fudge, and instead he asked you to go to the bank, to pay the interest on a loan before twelve, he'd just ask it.

Pop wouldn't say, “Are you doing anything this morning?” when he knew you were. He'd just say, right out, “I want you to do something this morning that will spoil your fudge making,” and he'd tell you. And you'd feel complimented that you were a podner with him, and it brought you closer together, without saying anything, see?

Well, somehow, I felt the same way now, especially when the prince gentleman says, “Your Aunt Mary says she thinks you ought to stay away for some time, that your brother will explain to your father.”

I thought for a minute he meant Willie, but of course he meant Jeff, so I didn't say anything.

“We stay one day in Mexico City,” he says, “and you must have clothes. I do not like you to wear black,” he says. “White is better for you.”

“Listen,” I says, “I don't understand all of this.”

“I know,” he says. “Tomorrow Aunt Mary takes you shopping. You agree?”

“Okay,” I says.

“Now I send you some breakfast,” he said, and he held out his hand with the little ring on it. “We are friends,” he says.

“Sure,” I says, and we shook. His hand was so little and so strong you couldn't believe hardly it could be both. So he left, and Aunt Mary come back so quick, I knew she was waiting for him to go.

“Well,” she said, and she sat down. It was a book she had been writing in, not a letter. She hardly had time to say more than, “Well,” before the two boys brought in the prettiest breakfast you ever saw. They hooked the tray on somehow, and there it was, just like a drive-in. There was flowers on the tray: fresh roses—a red one for Aunt Mary and a big white one for me.

Nothing surprised Aunt Mary.

“Sweet,” she says, and she pinned hers on her black dress. The pins come with 'em. So I pinned mine on, and it smelled good, like going to church when I was little.

While we ate I looked sideways at Aunt Mary. Her hair was white, but her face was pretty and soft and kind. She was all in black, like me, and nothing seemed to be on her mind but getting sheared eggs into her mouth, with a kind of a dainty way of holding her fork. It was a heavy fork and not like any I'd ever seen.

The dishes were made out of the same stuff as the fork, silver I guess, but the cups were an ivory-colored china, so thin and light you thought the handles would
break right off, but they was strong like his little hands and didn't.

“I want to talk to you,” she said, when I had put back my napkin that was like a thin handkerchief with writing embroidered on it, and the boys had taken away the tray.

“Mr. Swift says you are as calm as a water lily,” she says. “A water lily can be very restful.”

“I never saw a real water lily,” I says. “What has it got to do?”

“It's got to rest quiet on the water,” she says, “just looking as beautiful as what you look.” I can't say it like she said it, so calm and quiet, with pretty near a smile. Her hands were beautiful, no nail polish, but done nearly every day, you could see that.

“And no matter what waves come rolling in,” she says, “nor which way the current takes the water lily, it just goes along, asking no questions.”

“But what does a water lily have to do? If it don't know,” I says, “maybe it won't do what it's supposed to do,” I says.

“As long as it sits quietly,” she says, “it'll be guided.”

“By who?” I says.

“By a very wise old fish,” she says, “that can't explain just now.”

I got a little tired of this crossword puzzle way of talking.

“The prince gentleman is leaving Mexico tomorrow night,” I says. “Do we go back to Chicago then?”

“This is a current we'll have to meet when we meet it,” she says. “All I want to see you do is have as good a time as money and new places can give you.”

“His money?” I says. “I won't take pay for what I've done. It's all right if Mr. Hoover wants to pay my way,” I says. “He wouldn't be fool enough to put out the cash unless he thought it was worth it. But this gentleman is a foreigner, and he talked like he wanted to put out for some clothes and shopping for me. Maybe he don't know that with us a girl doesn't go around taking clothes off a man for just nothing,” I says.

“Just books and flowers,” she says, and she was smiling. “That Swift boy is a genius,” she says. “He'll get decorated for this.”

Often times she'd say things like that that I didn't always get, but she meant it nice, nothing undercutting about Aunt Mary.

Soon after that I went to sleep, and I dreamed about Pop and Ma, before she got like she is now so we had to get 'em to keep her up there on the hill.

Something jolted and I woke up to find Aunt Mary had buckled my safety belt around my stomach, which is what you have to do when you land. We got out of the plane someplace pretty flat, and Aunt Mary and I went to the Ladies' and we started to take a little walk up and down to stretch our legs.

Then a lot of men in overall suits climbed onto the plane, and the prince gentleman talked to some reporters that hadn't seen us yet because of where we had been. Then they did see us and they asked the prince who we were, but he wouldn't tell and they started toward us. So we got in the plane, and the prince paid out money in the office and then he hurried and got in, too.

But one of the reporters got a ladder and climbed up
it and flashed a camera flash at me right close through the window. The motors were going, and somebody pushed the ladder over with him on it and dragged it out of the way, and we moved off.

Everything was going past us faster and faster and then a big town was sinking below us and we was flying along again.

We settled down and I felt at home and pretty soon lunch came—it was prettier than breakfast and more of it.

After the trays went away, balanced by the two boys, the prince's men all talked to each other and me and the prince gentleman sat together again, and it seemed like we had gotten to be friends. We laughed a good deal, and I kept making pretty smart cracks to see his pretty white teeth and so we had a real good time.

“Is this your plane?” I says to him, as we was looking at the mountains down below us.

“I buy it for my brother, I take it back to him, a present,” he says.

“That'll be a nice present. I guess he'll sure be surprised to get a plane,” I says.

“He has some,” he says, “but none so big as this American one. It is best,” he says. “I ordered it before the war came, but when it was ready, after it is finished, they cannot get men to fly it to my home and no ships to send it, so I bring pilots and come to collect it. It is very nice, and nicer because of you.”

Well, when we got to Mexico City it seemed like those two Japanese gentlemen that had been visiting in Washington didn't do something right, because some other Japanese that sure was no gentlemen, they came over to
a place that's called Pearl Harbor and they blew it right up. And they oughtn't to of done that, so there was a war.

Aunt Mary said she was glad we got away when we did and she talked to the prince about it.

Somehow she didn't seem quite the same when she was talking to him, as she did with me.

I thought she sounded just a little dumb sometimes, and I was worrying about it a little for fear he wouldn't see how smart she was, so I decided maybe she didn't feel quite comfortable with a prince. When she was just with me I didn't know if she knew or not why she had come along. So I just went on being a water lily, and I let Aunt Mary do all the planning.

I couldn't help thinking how I'd make Millie's and Moe's eyes open when I got back and told 'em. I sat and thought how they'd both look when I walked in, and they said, “Where you been?” And I'd say, “Oh, Mexico City.”

And the plane jolted and we had on our emergency belts and it landed and there we were in Mexico City.