“Well, I'm going to tell you something about my life,” he said. “I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear. I am the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west – all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.”
He looked at me sideways – and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford”, or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him after all.
“What part of the middle-west?” I inquired.
“San Francisco. My family all died and I came into a good deal of money[42]. After that I lived in all the capitals of Europe – Paris, Venice, Rome – collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting, painting a little.”
His voice was solemn as if the memory of that sudden extinction of a clan still haunted him. For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg but a glance at him convinced me otherwise.
With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned “character” leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne.
“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief and I tried very hard to die but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I was promoted to be a major[43]. Here's a thing I always carry. A souvenir of Oxford days.”
It was a photograph of young men. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, younger – with a cricket bat in his hand.
Then it was all true.
“I'm going to make a big request of you today,” he said, “so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody.”
The next day I was having dinner with Jordan Baker. Suddenly she said to me, “One October day in nineteen-seventeen – Gatsby met Daisy. They loved each other, but she married Tom Buchanan. Tom was very rich. I know everything, I was bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed. She had a letter in her hand. I was scared, I can tell you; I'd never seen a girl like that before. She began to cry – she cried and cried.
The next April Daisy had her little girl. About six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay. He wants to know, if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over[44].”
The modesty of the demand shook me.
“He's afraid. He's waited so long. He wants her to see his house,” she explained. “And your house is right next door.”
“Does Daisy want to see Gatsby?”
“She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her to know. You're just supposed to invite her to tea.”
Chapter 5
When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire. Two o'clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar.
At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into “hide-and-go-seek” or “sardines-in-the-box” with all the house thrown open to the game. But there wasn't a sound. Only wind in the trees which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned away I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn.
“Your place looks like the world's fair,” I said.
“Does it?” He turned his eyes toward it absently. “I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car.”
“It's too late.”
“Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? I haven't made use of it all summer.”
“I've got to go to bed.”
“All right.”
He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness.
“I talked with Miss Baker,” I said after a moment. “I'm going to call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over here to tea.”
“Oh, that's all right,” he said carelessly. “I don't want to put you to any trouble.”
“What day would suit you?”
“What day would suit YOU?” he corrected me quickly. “I don't want to put you to any trouble, you see.”
“How about the day after tomorrow?” He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance:
“I want to get the grass cut,” he said.
We both looked at the grass – there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass.
“There's another little thing,” he said uncertainly, and hesitated.
“Would you rather put it off for a few days?” I asked.
“Oh, it isn't about that. At least – ” He fumbled with a series of beginnings. “Why, I thought – why, look here, old sport, you don't make much money, do you?”
“Not very much.”
This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.
“I thought you didn't, if you'll pardon my – you see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of sideline, you understand. And I thought that if you don't make very much – You're selling bonds, aren't you, old sport?”
“Trying to.”
“Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.”
I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life. But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there.
I called up Daisy from the office next morning and invited her to come to tea.
“Don't bring Tom,” I warned her.
“What?”
“Don't bring Tom.”
“Who is Tom?” she asked innocently.
The day agreed upon was pouring rain.
At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass.
At two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it.
An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in. He was pale and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
“Is everything all right?” he asked immediately.
“The grass looks fine, if that's what you mean.”
“What grass?” he inquired blankly. “Oh, the grass in the yard.” He looked out the window at it, but judging from his expression I don't believe he saw a thing.
“Looks very good,” he remarked vaguely.
I took him into the pantry where he looked a little reproachfully at the Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen shop.
“Will they do?” I asked.
“Of course, of course! They're fine!” and he added hollowly, “…old sport.”
“Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late!” He looked at his watch as if there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. “I can't wait all day.”
“Don't be silly; it's just two minutes to four.”
He sat down, miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.
Under the dripping bare lilac trees a large open car was coming up the drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic smile.
“Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?”
The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.
“Are you in love with me,” she said low in my ear. “Or why did I have to come alone?”
“That's the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour.”
We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living room was deserted.
“Well, that's funny!” I exclaimed.
“What's funny?”
She turned her head as there was a light, dignified knocking at the front door. I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire and disappeared into the living room. It wasn't a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.
For half a minute there wasn't a sound. Then from the living room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note.
“I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.”
“We haven't met for many years,” said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.
“Five years next November.”
The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.
Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and while Daisy and I talked looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense unhappy eyes. However, as calmness wasn't an end in itself I made an excuse at the first possible moment and got to my feet.
“Where are you going?” demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm.
“I'll be back.”
“I've got to speak to you about something before you go.”
He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door and whispered: “Oh, God!” in a miserable way.
“What's the matter?”
“This is a terrible mistake,” he said, shaking his head from side to side, “a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“You're just embarrassed, that's all,” and luckily I added, “Daisy's embarrassed too.”
“She's embarrassed?” he repeated incredulously.
“Just as much as you are.”
“Don't talk so loud.”
“You're acting like a little boy,” I broke out impatiently. “Not only that but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone.”
He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach and opening the door cautiously went back into the other room.
I went in – after making every possible noise in the kitchen short of pushing over the stove – but I don't believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.
“Oh, hello, old sport,” he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands.
“I want you and Daisy to come over to my house,” he said, “I'd like to show her around.”
“You're sure you want me to come?”
“Absolutely, old sport.”
Daisy went upstairs to wash her face – too late I thought with humiliation of my towels – while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn.
“My house looks well, doesn't it?” he demanded. “See how the whole front of it catches the light.”
I agreed that it was splendid.
“Yes.” His eyes went over it, every arched door and square tower. “It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it.”
“I thought you inherited your money.”
“I did, old sport,” he said automatically, “but I lost most of it in the big panic – the panic of the war.”
I think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business he was in he answered “That's my affair,” before he realized that it wasn't the appropriate reply.
“Oh, I've been in several things[45],” he corrected himself. “I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either one now.”
Before I could answer, Daisy came out of the house and two rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in the sunlight.
“That huge place THERE?” she cried pointing.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it, but I don't see how you live there all alone.”
“I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people.”
Daisy admired everything: the house, the gardens, the beach.
He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.
His bedroom was the simplest room of all – except where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure dull gold. Daisy took the brush with delight and smoothed her hair, whereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh.
Recovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.
“I've got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.”
He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher – shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
“They're such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I've never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.”
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly. I began to walk about the room, examining various objects. A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk.
“Who's this?”
“That's Mr. Dan Cody[46], old sport. He's dead now. He used to be my best friend years ago.”
There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume – taken apparently when he was about eighteen.
“I adore it!” exclaimed Daisy.
After the house, we were to see the grounds and the swimming pool, and the hydroplane and the midsummer flowers – but outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound.
Almost five years! His hand took hold of hers and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. They had forgotten me, Gatsby didn't know me now at all. I looked once more at them and went out of the room, leaving them there together.
Chapter 6
James Gatz[47] – that was his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment – when he saw Dan Cody's yacht. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row-boat and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.
His parents were unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. So he invented Jay Gatsby, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.