Vile Bodies · Chapter 5 (1/3) (1/2)

V

Adam woke up feeling terribly ill. He rang his bell once or twice, but nobody came. Later he woke up again and rang the bell. The Italian waiter appeared, undulating slightly in the doorway. Adam ordered breakfast. Lottie came in and sat on his bed.

“Had a nice breakfast, dear?” she said.

“Not yet,” said Adam. “I’ve only just woken up.”

“That’s right,” said Lottie. “Nothing like a nice breakfast. There was a young lady for you on the phone, but I can’t remember what it was she said at the minute. We’ve all been upside down this morning. Such a fuss. Had the police in, we have, ever since I don’t know what time, drinking up my wine and asking questions and putting their noses where they’re not wanted. All because Flossie must needs go and swing on the chandelier. She never had any sense, Flossie. Well, she’s learned her lesson now, poor girl. Whoever heard of such a thing⁠—swinging on a chandelier. Poor Judge What’s-his-name is in a terrible state about it. I said to him it’s not so much the price of the chandelier, I said. What money can make, money can mend, I said, and that’s the truth, isn’t it, dear? But what I mind, I said, is having a death in the house and all the fuss. It doesn’t do anyone any good having people killing theirselves in a house like Flossie did. Now what may you want, my Italian queen?” said Lottie as the waiter came in with a tray, the smell of kippers contending with nuit de Noel rather disagreeably.

“Gentleman’s breakfast,” said the waiter.

“And how many more breakfasts do you think he wants, I should like to know? He’s had his breakfast hours ago while you were powdering your nose downstairs, haven’t you, dear?”

“No,” said Adam, “as a matter of fact, no.”

“There, do you hear what the gentleman says? He doesn’t want two breakfasts. Don’t stand there wiggling your behind at me. Take it away quick or I’ll catch you such a smack.⁠ ⁠… That’s just the way⁠—once you get the police in everyone gets all upset. There’s that boy brings you two breakfasts and I dare say there’s some poor fellow along the passage somewhere who hasn’t had any breakfast at all. You can’t get anywhere without a nice breakfast. Half the young fellows as come here now don’t have anything except a cachet Faivre and some orange juice. It’s not right,” said Lottie, “and I’ve spoken to that boy about using scent twenty times if I’ve spoken once.”

The waiter’s head appeared, and with it another wave of nuit de Noel.

“If you please, madam, the inspectors want to speak to you downstairs, madam.”

“All right, my little bird of paradise, I’ll be there.”

Lottie trotted away and the waiter came sidling back bearing his tray of kippers and leering at Adam with a horrible intimacy.

“Turn on my bath, will you, please,” said Adam.

“Alas, there is a gentleman asleep in the bath. Shall I wake him?”

“No, it doesn’t matter.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The waiter stood about fingering the brass knobs at the end of the bed, smiling ingratiatingly. Then he produced from under his coat a gardenia, slightly browned at the edges. (He had found it in an evening coat he had just been brushing.)

Would the signor perhaps like a buttonhole?⁠ ⁠… Madame Crump was so severe⁠ ⁠… it was nice sometimes to be able to have a talk with the gentlemen⁠ ⁠…

“No,” said Adam. “Go away.” For he had a headache.

The waiter sighed deeply, and walked with pettish steps to the door; sighed again and took the gardenia to the gentleman in the bathroom.

Adam ate some breakfast. No kipper, he reflected, is ever as good as it smells; how this too earthly contact with flesh and bone spoiled the first happy exhilaration; if only one could live, as Jehovah was said to have done, on the savour of burnt offerings. He lay back for a little in his bed thinking about the smells of food, of the greasy horror of fried fish and the deeply moving smell that came from it; of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and the dullness of buns.⁠ ⁠… He planned dinners of enchanting aromatic foods that should be carried under the nose, snuffed and thrown to the dogs⁠ ⁠… endless dinners, in which one could alternate flavour with flavour from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great draughts of the bouquet of old brandy.⁠ ⁠… Oh for the wings of a dove, thought Adam, wandering a little from the point as he fell asleep again (everyone is liable to this ninetyish feeling in the early morning after a party).

Presently the telephone by Adam’s bed began ringing.

“Hullo, yes.”

“Lady to speak to you.⁠ ⁠… Hullo, is that you, Adam?”

“Is that Nina?”

“How are you, my darling?”

“Oh, Nina.⁠ ⁠…”

“My poor sweet, I feel like that, too. Listen, angel. You haven’t forgotten that you’re going to see my papa today, have you⁠ ⁠… or have you? I’ve just sent him a wire to say that you’re going to lunch with him. D’you know where he lives?”

“But you’re coming too?”

“Well, no. I don’t think I will, if you don’t mind.⁠ ⁠… I’ve got rather a pain.”

“My dear, if you knew what a pain I’ve got.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, but that’s different, darling. Anyway, there’s no object in our both going.”

“But what am I to say?”

“Darling, don’t be tiresome. You know perfectly well. Just ask him for some money.”

“Will he like that?”

“Yes, darling, of course he will. Why will you go on? I’ve got to get up now. Goodbye. Take care of yourself.⁠ ⁠… Ring me up when you get back and tell me what papa said. By the way, have you seen the paper this morning?⁠—there’s something so funny about last night. Too bad of Van. Goodbye.”

While Adam was dressing, he realized that he did not know where he was to go. He rang up again. “By the way, Nina, where does your papa live?”

“Didn’t I tell you? It’s a house called Doubting, and it’s all falling down really. You go to Aylesbury by train and then take a taxi. They’re the most expensive taxis in the world, too.⁠ ⁠… Have you got any money?”

Adam looked on the dressing-table: “About seven shillings,” he said.

“My dear, that’s not enough. You’ll have to make poor papa pay for the taxi.”

“Will he like that?”

“Yes, of course, he’s an angel.”

“I wish you’d come too, Nina.”

“Darling, I told you. I’ve got such a pain.”

Downstairs, as Lottie had said, everything was upside down. That is to say that there were policemen and reporters teeming in every corner of the hotel, each with a bottle of champagne and a glass. Lottie, Doge, Judge Skimp, the Inspector, four plain-clothes men and the body were in Judge Skimp’s suite.

“What is not clear to me, sir,” said the Inspector, “is what prompted the young lady to swing on the chandelier. Not wishing to cause offence, sir, and begging your pardon, was she⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Yes,” said Judge Skimp, “she was.”

“Exactly,” said the Inspector. “A clear case of misadventure, eh, Mrs. Crump? There’ll have to be an inquest, of course, but I think probably I shall be able to arrange things so that there is no mention of your name in the case, sir⁠ ⁠… well, that’s very kind of you, Mrs. Crump, perhaps just one more glass.”

“Lottie,” said Adam, “can you lend me some money?”

“Money, dear? Of course. Doge, have you got any money?”

“I was asleep at the time myself, mum, and was not even made aware of the occurrence until I was called this morning. Being slightly deaf, the sound of the disaster⁠ ⁠…”

“Judge What’s-your-name, got any money?”

“I should take it as a great privilege if I could be of any assistance⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s right, give some to young Thingummy here. That all you want, deary? Don’t run away. We’re just thinking of having a little drink.⁠ ⁠… No, not that wine, dear, it’s what we keep for the police. I’ve just ordered a better bottle if my young butterfly would bring it along.”

Adam had a glass of champagne, hoping it would make him feel a little better. It made him feel much worse.

Then he went to Marylebone. It was Armistice Day, and they were selling artificial poppies in the streets. As he reached the station it struck eleven and for two minutes all over the country everyone was quiet and serious. Then he went to Aylesbury, reading on the way Balcairn’s account of Archie Schwert’s party. He was pleased to see himself described as “the brilliant young novelist,” and wondered whether Nina’s papa read gossip paragraphs, and supposed not. The two women opposite him in the carriage obviously did.

“I no sooner opened the paper,” said one, “than I was on the phone at once to all the ladies of the committee, and we’d sent off a wire to our Member before one o’clock. We know how to make things hum at the Bois. I’ve got a copy of what we sent. Look. Members of the Committee of the Ladies’ Conservative Association at Chesham Bois wish to express their extreme displeasure at reports in this morning’s paper of midnight party at No. 10. They call upon Captain Crutwell⁠—that’s our Member; such a nice stamp of man⁠—strenuously to withhold support to Prime Minister. It cost nearly four shillings, but, as I said at the time, it was not a moment to spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Ithewaite?”

“I do, indeed, Mrs. Orraway-Smith. It is clearly a case in which a mandate from the constituencies is required. I’ll talk to our chairwoman at Wendover.”

“Yes, do, Mrs. Ithewaite. It is in a case like this that the woman’s vote can count.”

“If it’s a choice between my moral judgement and the nationalization of banking, I prefer nationalization, if you see what I mean.”

“Exactly what I think. Such a terrible example to the lower classes, apart from everything.”

“That’s what I mean. There’s our Agnes, now. How can I stop her having young men in the kitchen when she knows that Sir James Brown has parties like that at all hours of the night.⁠ ⁠…”

They were both wearing hats like nothing on earth, which bobbed and nodded as they spoke.

At Aylesbury Adam got into a Ford taxi and asked to be taken to a house called Doubting.

“Doubting ’All?”

“Well, I suppose so. Is it falling down?”

“Could do with a lick of paint,” said the driver, a spotty youth. “Name of Blount.”

“That’s it.”

“Long way from here Doubting ’All is. Cost you fifteen bob.”

“All right.”

“If you’re a commercial, I can tell you straight it ain’t no use going to ’im. Young feller asked me the way there this morning. Driving a Morris. Wanted to sell him a vacuum cleaner. Old boy ’ad answered an advertisement asking for a demonstration. When he got there the old boy wouldn’t even look at it. Can you beat that?”

“No, I’m not trying to sell him anything⁠—at least not exactly.”

“Personal visit, perhaps.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

Satisfied that his passenger was in earnest about the journey, the taxi-driver put on some coats⁠—for it was raining⁠—got out of his seat and cranked up the engine. Presently they started.

They drove for a mile or two past bungalows and villas and timbered public houses to a village in which every house seemed to be a garage and filling station. Here they left the main road and Adam’s discomfort became acute.

At last they came to twin octagonal lodges and some heraldic gateposts and large wrought-iron gates, behind which could be seen a broad sweep of ill-kept drive.

“Doubting ’All,” said the driver.

He blew his horn once or twice, but no lodge-keeper’s wife, aproned and apple-cheeked, appeared to bob them in. He got out and shook the gates reproachfully.

“Chained-and-locked,” he said. “Try another way.”

They drove on for another mile; on the side of the Hall the road was bordered by dripping trees and a dilapidated stone wall; presently they reached some cottages and a white gate. This they opened and turned into a rough track, separated from the park by low iron railings. There were sheep grazing on either side. One of them had strayed into the drive. It fled before them in a frenzied trot, stopping and looking round over its dirty tail and then plunging on again until its agitation brought it to the side of the path, where they overtook it and passed it.

The track led to some stables, then behind rows of hothouses, among potting-sheds and heaps of drenched leaves, past nondescript outbuildings that had once been laundry and bakery and brewhouse and a huge kennel where once someone had kept a bear, until suddenly it turned by a clump of holly and elms and laurel bushes into an open space that had once been laid with gravel. A lofty Palladian façade stretched before them and in front of it an equestrian statue pointed a baton imperiously down the main drive.

“ ’Ere y’are,” said the driver.

Adam paid him and went up the steps to the front door. He rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. Presently he rang again. At this moment the door opened.

“Don’t ring twice,” said a very angry old man. “What do you want?”

“Is Mr. Blount in?”

“There’s no Mr. Blount here. This is Colonel Blount’s house.”

“I’m sorry.⁠ ⁠… I think the Colonel is expecting me to luncheon.”

“Nonsense. I’m Colonel Blount,” and he shut the door.

The Ford had disappeared. It was still raining hard. Adam rang again.

“Yes,” said Colonel Blount, appearing instantly.

“I wonder if you’d let me telephone to the station for a taxi?”

“Not on the telephone.⁠ ⁠… It’s raining. Why don’t you come in? It’s absurd to walk to the station in this. Have you come about the vacuum cleaner?”

“No.”

“Funny, I’ve been expecting a man all the morning to show me a vacuum cleaner. Come in, do. Won’t you stay to luncheon?”

“I should love to.”

“Splendid. I get very little company nowadays. You must forgive me for opening the door to you myself. My butler is in bed today. He suffers terribly in his feet when it is wet. Both my footmen were killed in the war.⁠ ⁠… Put your hat and coat here. I hope you haven’t got wet.⁠ ⁠… I’m sorry you didn’t bring the vacuum cleaner⁠ ⁠… but never mind. How are you?” he said, suddenly holding out his hand.

They shook hands and Colonel Blount led the way down a long corridor, lined with marble busts on yellow marble pedestals, to a large room full of furniture, with a fire burning in a fine rococo fireplace. There was a large leather-topped walnut writing-table under a window opening on to a terrace. Colonel Blount picked up a telegram and read it.

“I’d quite forgotten,” he said in some confusion. “I’m afraid you’ll think me very discourteous, but it is, after all, impossible for me to ask you to luncheon. I have a guest coming on very intimate family business. You understand, don’t you?⁠ ⁠… To tell you the truth, it’s some young rascal who wants to marry my daughter. I must see him alone to discuss settlements.”

“Well, I want to marry your daughter, too,” said Adam.

“What an extraordinary coincidence. Are you sure you do?”

“Perhaps the telegram may be about me. What does it say?”

“ ‘Engaged to marry Adam Symes. Expect him luncheon. Nina.’ Are you Adam Symes?”

“Yes.”

“My dear boy, why didn’t you say so before, instead of going on about a vacuum cleaner? How are you?”

They shook hands again.

“If you don’t mind,” said Colonel Blount, “we will keep our business until after luncheon. I’m afraid everything is looking very bare at present. You must come down and see the gardens in the summer. We had some lovely hydrangeas last year. I don’t think I shall live here another winter. Too big for an old man. I was looking at some of the houses they’re putting up outside Aylesbury. Did you see them coming along? Nice little red houses. Bathroom and everything. Quite cheap, too, and near the cinematographs. I hope you are fond of the cinematograph too? The Rector and I go a great deal. I hope you’ll like the Rector. Common little man rather. But he’s got a motor car, useful that. How long are you staying?”

“I promised Nina I’d be back tonight.”

“That’s a pity. They change the film at the Electra Palace. We might have gone.”

An elderly woman servant came in to announce luncheon. “What is at the Electra Palace, do you know, Mrs. Florin?”