Decline and Fall, page 9
Paul returned to the Common Room with the Doctor's message.
'Hell! said Grimes. 'I still hoped it might fall through.
'What d'you want for a wedding present? Paul asked.
Grimes brightened. 'What about that binge you promised me and Prendy?
'All right! said Paul. 'We'll have it tomorrow.
* * *
The Hotel Metropole, Cympryddyg, is by far the grandest hotel in the north of Wales. It is situated on a high and healthy eminence overlooking the strip of water that railway companies have gallantly compared to the Bay of Naples. It was built in the ample days preceding the war, with a lavish expenditure on looking‑glass and marble. To‑day it shows signs of wear, for it has never been quite as popular as its pioneers hoped. There are cracks in the cement on the main terrace, the winter garden is draughty, and one comes disconcertingly upon derelict bathchairs in the Moorish Court. Besides this, none of the fountains ever play, the string band that used to perform nightly in the ballroom has given place to a very expensive wireless set which one of the waiters knows how to operate, there is never any notepaper in the writing‑room, and the sheets are not long enough for the beds. Philbrick pointed out these defects to Paul as he sat with Grimes and Mr Prendergast drinking cocktails in the Palm Court before dinner.
'And it isn't as though it was really cheap, he said. Philbrick had become quite genial during the last few days. 'Still, one can't expect much in Wales, and it is something. I can't live without some kind of luxury for long. I'm not staying this evening, or I'd ask you fellows to dine with me.
'Philbrick, old boy, said Grimes, 'me and my pals here have been wanting a word with you for some time. How about those yarns you spun about your being a ship-owner and a novelist and a burglar?
'Since you mention it, said Philbrick with dignity, 'they were untrue. One day you shall know my full story. It is stranger than any fiction. Meanwhile I have to be back at the Castle. Good night.
'He certainly seems quite a swell here, said Grimes as they watched him disappear into the night escorted with every obsequy by the manager and the head‑waiter. 'I daresay he could tell a story if he wanted to.
'I believe it's their keys, said Mr Prendergast suddenly. It was the first time that he had spoken. For twenty minutes he had been sitting very upright in his gilt chair and very alert, his eyes unusually bright, darting this way and that in his eagerness to miss nothing of the gay scene about him.
'What's their keys, Prendy?
'Why, the things they get given at the counter. I thought for a long time it was money.
'Is that what's been worrying you? Bless your heart, I thought it was the young lady in the office you were after.
'Oh, Grimes! said Mr Prendergast, and he blushed warmly and gave a little giggle.
Paul led his guests into the dining‑room.
'I haven't taught French for nothing all these years, said Grimes, studying the menu. 'I'll start with some jolly old huîtres.
Mr Prendergast ate a grape‑fruit with some difficulty. 'What a big orange! he said when he had finished it. 'They do things on a large scale here.
The soup came in little aluminium bowls. 'What price the ancestral silver? said Grimes. The Manchester merchants on the spree who sat all round them began to look a little askance at Paul's table.
'Someone's doing himself well on bubbly, said Grimes as a waiter advanced staggering under the weight of an ice‑pail from which emerged a Jeroboam of champagne. 'Good egg! It's coming to us.
'With Sir Solomon Philbrick's compliments to Captain Grimes and congratulations on his approaching marriage, sir.
Grimes took the waiter by the sleeve. 'See here, old boy, this Sir Solomon Philbrick ‑ know him well?
'He's here quite frequently, sir.
'Spends a lot of money, eh?
'He doesn't entertain at all, but he always has the best of everything himself, sir.
'Does he pay his bill?
'I really couldn't say, I'm afraid, sir. Would you be requiring anything else?
'All right, old boy! Don't get sniffy. Only he's a pal of mine, see?
'Really, Grimes, said Mr Prendergast, 'I am afraid you made him quite annoyed with your questions, and that stout man over there is staring at us in the most marked way.
'I've got a toast to propose. Prendy, fill up your glass. Here's to Trumpington, whoever he is, who gave us the money for this binge!
'And here's to Philbrick, said Paul, 'whoever he is!
'And here's to Miss Fagan, said Mr Prendergast, 'with our warmest hopes for her future happiness!
'Amen, said Grimes.
After the soup the worst sort of sole. Mr Prendergast made a little joke about soles and souls. Clearly the dinner‑party was being a great success.
'You know, said Grimes, 'look at it how you will, marriage is rather a grim thought.
'The three reasons for it given in the Prayer‑book have always seemed to me quite inadequate, agreed Mr Prendergast. 'I have never had the smallest difficulty about the avoidance of fornication, and the other two advantages seem to me nothing sort of disastrous.
'My first marriage, said Grimes, 'didn't make much odds either way. It was in Ireland. I was tight at the time, and so was everyone else. God knows what became of Mrs Grimes. It seems to me, though, that with Flossie I'm in for a pretty solemn solemnization. It's not what I should have chosen for myself, not by a long chalk. Still, as things are, I suppose it's the best thing that could have happened. I think I've about run through the schoolmastering profession. I don't mind telling you I might have found it pretty hard to get another job. There are limits. Now I'm set up for life, and no more worry about testimonials. That's something. In fact, that's all there is to be said. But there have been moments in the last twenty‑four hours, I don't mind telling you, when I've gone cold all over at the thought of what I was in for.
'I don't want to say anything discouraging, said Mr Prendergast, 'but I've known Flossie for nearly ten years now, and ‑
'There isn't anything you can tell me about Flossie that I don't know already. I almost wish it was Dingy. I suppose it's too late now to change. Oh dear! sait Grimes despondently, gazing into his glass. 'Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! That I should come to this!
'Cheer up, Grimes. It isn't like you to be as depressed as this, said Paul.
'Old friends, said Grimes ‑ and his voice was charged with emotion ‑ 'you see a man standing face to face with retribution. Respect him even if you cannot understand. Those that live by the flesh shall perish by the flesh. I am a very sinful man, and I am past my first youth. Who shall pity me in that dark declivity to which my steps inevitably seem to tend? I have boasted in my youth and held my head high and gone on my way careless of consequence, but ever behind me, unseen, stood stark Justice with his two‑edged sword.
More food was brought them. Mr Prendergast ate with a hearty appetite.
'Oh, why did nobody warn me? cried Grimes in his agony. 'I should have been told. They should have told me in so many words. They should have warned me about Flossie, not about the fires of hell. I've risked them, and I don't mind risking them again, but they should have told me about marriage. They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower‑strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children. I should have been warned of the great lavender‑scented bed that was laid out for me, of the wistaria at the windows, of all the intimacy and confidence of family life. But I daresay I shouldn't have listened. Our life is lived between two homes. We emerge for a little into the light, and then the front door closes. The chintz curtains shut out the sun, and the hearth glows with the fire of home, while upstairs, above our heads, are enacted again the awful accidents of adolescence. There's a home and family waiting for every one of us. We can't escape, try how we may. It's the seed of life we carry about with us like our skeletons, each one of us unconsciously pregnant with desirable villa residences. There's no escape. As individuals we simply do not exist. We are just potential home‑builders, beavers, and ants. How do we come into being? What is birth?
'I've often wondered, said Mr Prendergast.
'What is this impulse of two people to build their beastly home? It's you and me, unborn, asserting our presence. All we are is a manifestation of the impulse of family life, and if by chance we have escaped the itch ourselves, Nature forces it upon us another way. Flossie's got that itch enough for two. I just haven't. I'm one of the blind alleys off the main road of procreation, but it doesn't matter. Nature always wins. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Why didn't I die in that first awful home? Why did I ever hope I could escape?
Captain Grimes continued his lament for some time in deep bitterness of heart. Presently he became silent and stared at his glass.
'I wonder, said Mr Prendergast, 'I wonder whether I could have just a little more of this very excellent pheasant?
'Anyway, said Grimes, 'there shan't be any children; I'll see to that.
'It has always been a mystery to me why people marry, said Mr Prendergast. 'I can't see the smallest reason for it. Quite happy, normal people. Now I can understand it in Grimes' case. He has everything to gain by the arrangement, but what does Flossie expect to gain? And yet she seems more enthusiastic about it than Grimes. It has been the tragedy of my life that whenever I start thinking about any quite simple subject I invariably feel myself confronted by some flat contradiction of this sort. Have you ever thought about marriage ‑ in the abstract, I mean, of course?
'Not very much, I'm afraid.
'I don't believe, said Mr Prendergast, 'that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed. Don't you agree?
'I don't think you can be quite right, said Paul; 'you see, animals fall in love quite a lot, don't they?
'Do they? said Mr Prendergast. 'I didn't know that. What an extraordinary thing! But then I had an aunt whose cat used to put its paw up to its mouth when it yawned. It's wonderful what animals can be taught. There is a sea‑lion at the circus, I saw in the paper, who juggles with an umbrella and two oranges.
'I know what I'll do, said Grimes. 'I'll get a motor bicycle.
This seemed to cheer him up a little. He took another glass of wine and smiled wanly. 'I'm afraid I've not been following all you chaps have said. I was thinking. What were we talking about?
'Prendy was telling me about a sea‑lion who juggled with an umbrella and two oranges.
'Why, that's nothing. I can juggle with a whacking great bottle and a lump of ice and two knives. Look!
'Grimes, don't! Everyone is looking at you.
The head‑waiter came over to remonstrate. 'Please remember where you are, sir, he said.
'I know where I am well enough, said Grimes. 'I'm in the hotel my pal Sir Solomon Philbrick is talking of buying, and I tell you this, old boy: if he does, the first person to lose his job will be you. See?
Nevertheless he stopped juggling, and Mr Prendergast ate two pêches Melba undisturbed.
'The black cloud has passed, said Grimes. 'Grimes is now going to enjoy his evening.
CHAPTER XIII The Passing of a Public School Man
Six days later the school was given a half holiday, and soon after luncheon the bigamous union of Captain Edgar Grimes and Miss Florence Selina Fagan was celebrated at the Llanabba Parish Church. A slight injury to his hand prevented Paul from playing the organ. He walked down the church with Mr Prendergast, who, greatly to his dismay, had been instructed by Dr Fagan to give away the bride.
'I do not intend to be present, said the Doctor. 'The whole business is exceedingly painful to me. Everybody else, however, was there except little Lord Tangent, whose foot was being amputated at a local nursing‑home. The boys for the most part welcomed the event as a pleasant variation to the rather irregular routine of their day. Clutterbuck alone seemed disposed to sulk.
'I don't suppose that their children will be terribly attractive, said Beste‑Chetwynde.
There were few wedding presents. The boys had subscribed a shilling each and had bought at a shop in Llandudno a silver‑plated teapot, coyly suggestive of art nouveau. The Doctor gave them a cheque for twenty‑five pounds. Mr Prendergast gave Grimes a walking‑stick — 'because he was always borrowing mine' ‑ and Dingy rather generously, two photograph frames, a calendar, and a tray of Benares brassware. Paul was the best man.
The service passed off without a hitch, for Grimes's Irish wife did not turn up to forbid the banns. Flossie wore a frock of a rather noticeable velveteen and a hat with two pink feathers to match.
'I was so pleased when I found he didn't want me to wear white, she said, 'though, of course, it might have been dyed afterwards.
Both bride and bridegroom spoke up well in the responses, and afterwards the Vicar delivered a very moving address on the subject of Home and Conjugal Love.
'How beautiful it is, he said, 'to see two young people in the hope of youth setting out with the Church's blessing to face life together; how much more beautiful to see them when they have grown to full manhood and womanhood coming together and saying, "Our experience of life has taught us that one is not enough."
The boys lined the path from the church door to the lychgate, and the head prefect said: 'Three cheers for Captain and Mrs Grimes!
Then they returned to the Castle. The honeymoon had been postponed until the end of term, ten days later, and the arrangements for the first days of their married life were a little meagre. 'You must do the best you can, the Doctor had said. 'I suppose you will wish to share the same bedroom. I think there would be no objection to your both moving into the large room in theWest Tower. It is a little damp, but I daresay Diana will arrange for a fire to be lighted there. You may use the morning‑room in the evenings, and Captain Grimes will of course, have his meals at my table in the dining‑room, not with the boys. I do not wish to find him sitting about in the drawing‑room, nor, of course, in my library. He had better keep his books and gown in the Common Room, as before. Next term I will consider some other arrangement. Perhaps I could hand over one of the lodges to you or fit up some sort of sitting‑room in the tower. I was not prepared for a domestic upheaval.
Diana, who was really coming out of the business rather creditably, put a bowl of flowers in their bedroom, and lit a fire of reckless proportions, in which she consumed the remains of a desk and two of the boys' playboxes.
That evening, while Mr Prendergast was taking Prep. at the end of the passage, Grimes visited Paul in the Common Room. He looked rather uncomfortable in his evening clothes.
'Well, dinner's over, he said. 'The old man does himself pretty well.
'How are you feeling?
'Not too well, old boy. The first days are always a strain, they say, even in the most romantic marriages. My father‑in‑law is not what you might call easy. Needs thawing gently, you know. I suppose as a married man I oughtn't to go down to Mrs Roberts's?
'I think it might seem odd on the first evening, don't you?
'Flossie's playing the piano; Dingy's making up the accounts; the old man's gone off to the library. Don't you think we've time for a quick one?
Arm in arm they went down the familiar road.
'Drinks are on me to‑night, said Grimes.
The silver band were still sitting with their heads together discussing the division of their earnings.
'They tell me that married this afternoon you were? said the stationmaster.
'That's right, said Grimes.
'And my sister‑in‑law never at all you would meet whatever, he continued reproachfully.
'Look here, old boy, said Grimes, 'just you shut up. You're not being tactful. See? Just you keep quiet, and I'll give you all some nice beer.
When Mrs Roberts shut her doors for the night, Paul and Grimes turned back up the hill. A light was burning in the West Tower.
'There she is, waiting for me, said Grimes. 'Now it might be a very romantic sight to some chaps, a light burning in a tower window. I knew a poem about a thing like that once. Forget it now, though. I was no end of a one for poetry when I was a kid ‑ love and all that. Castle towers came in quite a lot. Funny how one grows out of that sort of thing.
Inside the Castle he turned off down the main corridor.
'Well, so long, old boy! This is the way I go now. See you in the morning. The baize door swung to behind him, and Paul went up to bed.
* * *
Paul saw little of Grimes during the next few days. They met at prayers and on the way to and from their classrooms, but the baize door that separated the school from the Doctor's wing was also separating them. Mr Prendergast, now in unchallenged possession of the other easy‑chair, was smoking away one evening when he suddenly said:
'You know, I miss Grimes. I didn't think I should, but I do. With all his faults, he was a very cheery person. I think I was beginning to get on better with him.
'He doesn't look as cheery as he did, said Paul. 'I don't believe that life "above stairs" is suiting him very well.
As it happened, Grimes chose that evening to visit them.
'D'you chaps mind if I come in for a bit? he asked with unwonted diffidence. They rose to welcome him. 'Sure you don't mind? I won't stay long.
'My dear man, we were just saying how much we missed you. Come and sit down.
'Won't you have some of my tobacco? said Prendergast.
'Thanks, Prendy! I just had to come in and have a chat. I've been feeling pretty fed up lately. Married life is not all beer and skittles, I don't mind telling you. It's not Flossie, mind; she's been hardly any trouble at all. In a way I've got quite to like her. She likes me, anyway, and that's the great thing. The Doctor's my trouble. He never lets me alone, that man. It gets on my nerves. Always laughing at me in a nasty kind of way and making me feel small. You know the way Lady Circumference talks to the Clutterbucks ‑ like that. I tell you I simply dread going into meals in that dining‑room. He's got a sort of air as though he always knew exactly what I was going to say before I said it, and as if it was always a little worse than he'd expected. Flossie says he treats her that way sometimes. He does it to me the whole time, damn him.
