From a View to a Death, page 4
‘Quite likely. That would have been some years ago.’
‘About five years or even more.’
‘Did you know all the crowd who went about with her at that time?”
‘Only a few,’ Betty said. ‘I knew rather a different lot then. Richer and more boring. But I knew some of them and I believe I once met Hortense. But how in the world did you come to be asked down here by Mary? You’re more like one of my friends. I thought Mary only liked young men in the Foreign Office or the Brigade. She’s always been terribly shocked by the people that I know.’
‘Has she?’
He was anxious to discover more about Betty’s life in order to consolidate with this information his own position in regard to her. While he was doing this it would be as well to find out about Mary too. Betty said:
‘Shocked? I should think she has. I always imagined that she was cut out for a thoroughly stuffy existence. But I see that there is hope for her yet.’
‘When did you decide that you wanted a change yourself?’
Betty said: ‘Well, I decided it pretty early on but I didn’t do anything about it for some time. I only did something about it when I discovered that I had some money of my own. You can take it from me that we poor girls have a terribly hard time of it if we haven’t any money. Fortunately a great-aunt left me and Mary a little so that if Mary ever wanted to cut loose she’d be able to do so as I did. But then she never will.’
‘Won’t she?’
‘Mary will marry some nice little younger son. She’s not at all ambitious, you see. She just likes a quiet life.’
‘And what do you like?’
Betty, without extinguishing her cigarette, threw what remained of it into the fireplace, where it lay sending up a wisp of smoke. She clasped her fat little hands together and said:
‘Me? Well, I’ve liked a good many things in my time. You should have seen my husband. The most wonderful profile you ever dreamt of. Rudolph Valentino simply wasn’t a starter. Of course I didn’t know how queer he was when I married him. Did you ever meet him? He was called Umberto. He was also called the Duca di Civitacampomoreno, but no one ever took that very seriously except himself.’
‘I think I was introduced to him once at the Bœuf.’
‘Yes, he liked the lads at the Bœuf. I used to like that sort of thing too in the old days and I had a fine time of it for a bit after I walked out on him. But you get tired of it. So I thought I’d come back and live in the country. It’s better for the nerves. And besides I have such awful taste in men that I knew I should get into a real mess if I went on the way I was going. And then there was Bianca growing up.’
‘Who is Bianca?’
‘My small daughter.’
‘What did your family think about it all?’
Betty lit another cigarette. She said:
‘They’ve always been a bit vague about what exactly did happen after I was married, and anyway they knew damn well that I should be less nuisance here than anywhere else, so here I am. I just go about doing good, and falling for all the pansies in the neighbourhood.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s not such a bad life.’
Zouch did not answer. His feelings had been profoundly outraged. It was bad enough that he should find someone staying in the house who knew such details about himself as his attachment to Hortense, but that this person should be his host’s daughter, and that she should combine this knowledge with talking the language of any little model of his acquaintance, was genuinely distressing. He realised now why Mary had mentioned her sister to him so seldom. He became all at once aware of how much he himself disliked people with Betty’s attitude towards life. He was surprised into silence and it was a relief to him that at this moment his attention was diverted from Betty’s display of bad taste by the rattling of the door-handle and immediately after by the entry into the room of a child, a little girl of about five or six years old, with a snub nose and a peculiarly malicious expression. There could be no doubt that this was Betty’s daughter. The child stood swinging backwards and forwards on the door-handle. Betty said:
‘Hullo, poppet.’
‘Hullo,’ said the child, looking at Zouch.
‘Come and say how do you do to Mr. Zouch.’
The child moved slowly forward towards Zouch and, extending her hand, said:
‘I’ve seen him already.’
‘You can’t have done, sweetheart. He’s only just arrived here.’
‘I saw him in the morning-room this afternoon. He saw me too but he didn’t stop.’
‘Darling, I’m sure you didn’t. What were you doing there? You haven’t seen Bianca yet, have you?’
Stealthily removing with his handkerchief some viscous matter that had adhered to his fingers after Bianca’s handshake, Zouch said:
‘No, I don’t think we have met before.’
He had no great objection to children and had often found that to spend a few minutes playing with them was an admirable method of convincing people that he had a heart, if not of gold, at least of some almost equally precious substitute. Betty said:
‘What were you doing in the morning-room, Bianca?’
‘Reading the paper.’
‘What paper?’
‘The Times.’
At this moment Mary came into the room again. She was still flushed.
‘Oh, hullo, Bianca,’ she said. ‘Have you been introduced to Mr. Zouch?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had a look at the old schoolroom,’ Mary said. ‘There’s every sort of thing in it at the moment but I’ve told Marshall to clear it up a bit. It’s beautifully light.’
Bianca said: ‘What are you going to do in the big schoolroom, Mary?’
‘I’m going to have my picture painted.’
‘Can I too?’
‘I daresay Mr. Zouch will paint yours too if you ask him nicely.’
‘Will you?’
‘Yes,’ said Zouch, ‘I’d like to paint Bianca very much.’
‘Will it be funny?’ Bianca said.
‘You bet it will,’ said her mother.
Mary said: ‘Well, that is rude after he has been kind enough to say that he will paint your horrid child.’
‘Will he do it now?’ said Bianca.
She took Zouch by the arm and began to swing up and down on it as she had done on the handle of the door.
2
TORQUIL FOSDICK bicycled slowly along the High Street, planning great things. It was his second long vacation from Oxford, from which he had been sent down for a term for failing to pass an examination. He was at one of the smaller colleges, the members of which, although in their cups they sometimes ill-treated him, were secretly rather proud of his appearance and ways and the fact that he had found admittance to circles which those of them who could read knew of, but only from the diligent study of novels about Oxford. The secretary of the college hockey club, bemused one night with a couple of glasses of port stood him by his tutor, had entered Torquil’s rooms by mistake for his own and had noticed there a distinct smell of incense. This had made him suspicious at once, and from that moment Torquil, who was himself only very dimly aware of the wonders of nature, achieved a reputation for profligacies which had rarely if ever crossed his mind. But when he was at home he burnt hardly any incense at all and occupied himself for the most part in country pursuits, which he enjoyed on account of his keen sense of social life. He was indeed at this moment bent on a mission to promote conviviality.
He met Joanna by the war memorial. She had been doing the day’s shopping and had a basket on her arm. Torquil liked Joanna in a detached sort of way because she was the only person in the neighbourhood who had ever read any of the same books as himself and so he stopped and got off his bicycle and raised his hairy grey soft hat.
‘Hullo, Torquil,’ said Joanna.
The weather was still hot and she disliked any business that had to do with housekeeping. Torquil smoothed back his hair and put his hat on again. Then he said in his grandest manner:
‘Joanna, will you accept an invitation to my cocktail party at the Fox and Hounds?’
Joanna had never in her life been to a cocktail party although she had in fact drunk a cocktail before dinner at the house of some people who lived near, whose party she had been in for the hunt ball earlier in the year. This circumstance when considered in relation to the number of times that she had read about such entertainments made it clear to her that here was something not to be missed, although in Torquil’s hands its form might well be of an unaccustomed order. She said:
‘Of course I should love to, Torquil. When is it going to be?’
Torquil hunched his shoulders slightly and began to flap his disproportionately large hands.
‘That’s not decided yet,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way to the Fox and Hounds now to arrange all that with Captain McGurk.’
‘Who is going to be there?’
Torquil squirmed from the hips. He twisted his face into a mysterious expression and said:
‘Well, I haven’t decided that altogether yet, either.’
‘I suppose I oughtn’t to have asked you.’
‘No, you oughtn’t, really. You see, I don’t exactly know yet who will come. The Passengers, for instance. I expect Betty will, but I’m not sure about Mary. And then they’ve got someone staying there whom I’d like to get. He’s Arthur Zouch. Quite a well-known artist.’
‘Oh, is he staying there?’ said Joanna.
The name was unfamiliar to her and she wondered whether there was anywhere where she could look him up before she met him, if she did succeed in meeting him. This was clearly the young man with the beard, whose arrival Major Fosdick had reported.
‘And then,’ said Torquil, ‘I thought I might get the Orphans to play their organ for some of the time.’
‘What a good idea.’
‘Do you think they would be too noisy?’
‘In the room?’
‘If it was a nice day we might sit in the yard overlooking the canal.’
‘That sounds lovely.’
They stood looking at each other. Torquil had given his information to the accompaniment of so great an output of energy that he was now exhausted and Joanna herself wished to get away and consider at her leisure how exciting or not the party was likely to be. Torquil draped one of his legs over his bicycle again. He smiled wanly and said:
‘I’ll let you know when I have decided more about it all.’
‘Thank you so much, Torquil.’
‘Don’t mention it to anyone.’
‘Of course not.’
He rode away over the cobbles with bent shoulders. Senile decay seemed already to have laid its hand on him while he was still in the grip of arrested development. Prematurely young, second childhood had come to him at a time when his contemporaries had hardly finished with their adolescence. Joanna went on with her shopping. Things were looking up. Later on in the morning she met the two Miss Brabys, the daughters of the vicar. She was annoyed to find that these plain but kind-hearted girls had also been invited to Torquil’s party and spoke of it as if it were no secret at all. It was just like Torquil, she thought, to make a mystery of a thing like that. At the same time she was glad that he was giving the party.
The storm did not break until Sunday morning. At Passenger Court they were hanging about, waiting to start for church. It was Zouch’s custom to follow the religious observances of his hosts in all his visits, except in the case of strictly orthodox Jewish households, and he was wearing a quieter tie than usual and one of his less arty shirts. He had risen early that morning, intending to walk round the garden before breakfast, but the rain had made this impossible and now he sat on the sofa reading one of the papers. Outside it thundered every few minutes. A steady downpour was soaking the lawn. Every time the noise of the thunder came nearer Mr. Passenger said:
‘It’s only a matter of time before it strikes the house. It’s the curse. Three times it will be destroyed by fire. I remember that every time there is a storm.’
Mrs. Passenger said: ‘Oh come, Vernon. You never mentioned the story to me until two years ago and soon after you told me about it I found something of the sort in a novel that Mary had got from the library. I believe you read about it there and got muddled.’
Mr. Passenger assumed a pitying expression but he did not answer his wife. He was in a bad mood that morning. His relations with Zouch had not yet stabilised. Mr. Passenger took every possible advantage that accrued to him on account of his age, position, and the fact that he was host, while in return Zouch presumed on his own standing as guest, allowed himself considerable latitude of behaviour on account of his profession, and extracted the utmost from his status as Young Man. He did all this only when necessary as a retaliatory measure, but, as Mr. Passenger disliked prima facie all guests brought to the house by his daughters, Zouch found that in self-defence he was compelled to call up his reserves quite often. But, like Zouch, Mr. Passenger himself recognised the presence of another superman and he had therefore not yet risked a frontal attack. However, his wife had annoyed him by contradicting and after a few minutes he cleared his throat and said:
‘You’re an artist, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Zouch, who was always prepared for the worst and had in the past got it too often to be made nervous by bugaboos of this kind. Mr. Passenger thought for a moment. Then he said:
‘What do you think about Sargent?’
‘I suppose he has his niche.’
Zouch did not see why he should come out in the open after so slight an acquaintance. A pronouncement on such a subject might be used as a stick to beat him with for the rest of his stay.
‘His niche?’
‘His niche.’
Mr. Passenger did not answer. He laughed dryly to himself. He never spoke to Zouch again about painting and as Zouch himself was too experienced ever to raise such a topic he never discovered what were in fact Mr. Passenger’s views on Sargent, which were of no great interest to him except in as much as they affected the length of his visit. To what extent this did actually depend on Mr. Passenger he had been unable at present to discover. As the subject of art was evidently at an end for the morning he picked up the paper again but it contained nothing that could be considered even remotely interesting to an adult in full possession of his faculties and so he put it down and looked across to the desk where Mary was writing letters. He wondered whether those firm, decided features of hers meant that she would always want her own way or whether, when it came to brass tacks, she would crumple up like a girl he knew who was a waitress in a cafe-bar in Soho and who had much the same profile. It was evident that Mary was built for endurance, and twenty years hence she would look scarcely less handsome than she did at that moment. She had, too, what Americans called poise. He was still thinking about her when Mary sealed the last envelope and, looking up, said to him:
‘Of course you will be able to stay for the pageant, won’t you? It will be quite soon. We don’t know the exact date yet, but quite soon.’
Zouch glanced politely in the direction of Mrs. Passenger, who was reading a bulb catalogue with the help of a lorgnette. He said:
‘I hope I shall be able to. It is so kind of you to ask me. It depends how things turn out. I hope to hear for certain the day after to-morrow. Do you think you could keep the invitation open until then?’
This was untrue. As far as he could see he had nothing to do for the rest of his life, but it seemed to let everybody down more lightly if he put it like that. Mary herself was not taken in. She was sure that he could and would stay. But like Zouch she felt that this was a better way of putting it and she admired him for expressing himself in similar terms to those which she herself would have used in his place. Mr. Passenger said:
‘Have I really given permission for this mummery to take place in the grounds?’
‘Don’t be absurd, father. Of course you have.’
‘It can’t happen. The lawn will be ruined.’
Mrs. Passenger said: ‘It can’t possibly be altered now. It is all arranged. You can always go away for the day if you think it will be a bore for you. You said yesterday you had some things to do in London. We shan’t want the car so why not go to London in it?’
‘Then I am to be turned out of my own house, am I?’
‘Please, Vernon, don’t say things like that.’
‘Why am I always being made a convenience of?’
‘That sounds like the car,’ said Mrs. Passenger in a voice that dismissed the subject. ‘Are you ready for church, Mr. Zouch?’
‘All except my hat.’
‘Where is Betty?" said Mr. Passenger, who had now lost interest in the question of the pageant.
‘She hasn’t got up yet,’ Mary said.
Mr. Passenger said: ‘I wish I could stay in bed all the morning without any responsibilities. Unfortunately for me I have an example to set. What an easy time all you young people have. I envy you.’
‘Why do you go, Vernon, if it’s one of the days when you are not feeling well? Why not stay here and do the crossword puzzle? After all, Mr. Braby can always read the lessons himself.’
‘No, no. I’ll go. It’s my duty, I suppose.’
‘But why?’
‘I’ll go. I’ll go.’
Mrs. Passenger sighed. It looked as if it were going to be one of her husband’s bad mornings. It was in this vein that they set out for church. As they were getting into the car Zouch said:
‘Are we going to the grey church I can see from my bedroom window?’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘We have to use the church in the town. The local vicar is a very tiresome fellow. He used to argue with my father about doctrinal matters and my father, who was a very devout man, once struck him with his open hand. Since then we’ve had to go to the town church. That was nearly fifty years ago now, and there is no way of getting rid of him, so we just have to wait. He’s remarkably hale and hearty for his age but he can’t live for ever. It’s inconvenient, but there it is.’
