Vile Bodies · Chapter 5 (2/3)

“I don’t really think I like Greta Garbo. I’ve tried to,” said Colonel Blount, “but I just don’t.”

They went in to luncheon in a huge dining-room dark with family portraits.

“If you don’t mind,” said Colonel Blount, “I prefer not to talk at meals.”

He propped a morocco-bound volume of Punch before his plate against a vast silver urn, from which grew a small castor-oil plant.

“Give Mr. Symes a book,” he said.

Mrs. Florin put another volume of Punch beside Adam.

“If you come across anything really funny read it to me,” said Colonel Blount.

Then they had luncheon.

They were nearly an hour over luncheon. Course followed course in disconcerting abundance while Colonel Blount ate and ate, turning the leaves of his book and chuckling frequently. They ate hare soup and boiled turbot and stewed sweetbreads and black Bredenham ham with Madeira sauce and roast pheasant and a rum omelette and toasted cheese and fruit. First they drank sherry, then claret, then port. Then Colonel Blount shut his book with a broad sweep of his arm rather as the headmaster of Adam’s private school used to shut the Bible after evening prayers, folded his napkin carefully and stuffed it into a massive silver ring, muttered some words of grace and finally stood up, saying:

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have a little nap,” and trotted out of the room.

“There’s a fire in the library, sir,” said Mrs. Florin. “I’ll bring you your coffee there. The Colonel doesn’t have coffee, he finds it interferes with his afternoon sleep. What time would you like your afternoon tea, sir?”

“I ought really to be getting back to London. How long will it be before the Colonel comes down, do you think?”

“Well, it all depends, sir. Not usually till about five or half-past. Then he reads until dinner at seven and after dinner gets the Rector to drive him in to the pictures. A sedentary life, as you might say.”

She led Adam into the library and put a silver coffeepot at his elbow.

“I’ll bring you tea at four,” she said.

Adam sat in front of the fire in a deep armchair. Outside the rain beat on the double windows. There were several magazines in the library⁠—mostly cheap weeklies devoted to the cinema. There was a stuffed owl and a case of early British remains, bone pins and bits of pottery and a skull, which had been dug up in the park many years ago and catalogued by Nina’s governess. There was a cabinet containing the relics of Nina’s various collecting fevers⁠—some butterflies and a beetle or two, some fossils and some birds’ eggs and a few postage stamps. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books, a gun, a butterfly net, an alpenstock in the corner. There were catalogues of agricultural machines and acetylene plants, lawn mowers, “sports requisites.” There was a fire screen worked with a coat of arms. The chimneypiece was hung with the embroidered saddle-cloths of Colonel Blount’s regiment of Lancers. There was an engraving of all the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron, with a little plan in the corner, marked to show who was who. There were many other things of equal interest besides, but before Adam had noticed any more he was fast asleep.

Mrs. Florin woke him at four. The coffee had disappeared and its place was taken by a silver tray with a lace cloth on it. There was a silver teapot, and a silver kettle with a little spirit-lamp underneath, and a silver cream jug and a covered silver dish full of muffins. There was also hot buttered toast and honey and gentleman’s relish and a chocolate cake, a cherry cake, a seed cake and a fruit cake and some tomato sandwiches and pepper and salt and currant bread and butter.

“Would you care for a lightly boiled egg, sir? The Colonel generally has one if he’s awake.”

“No, thank you,” said Adam. He felt a thousand times better for his rest. When Nina and he were married, he thought, they would often come down there for the day after a really serious party. For the first time he noticed an obese liver and white spaniel, which was waking up, too, on the hearthrug.

“Please not to give her muffins,” said Mrs. Florin, “it’s the one thing she’s not supposed to have, and the Colonel will give them to her. He loves that dog,” she added with a burst of confidence. “Takes her to the pictures with him of an evening. Not that she can appreciate them really like a human can.”

Adam gave her⁠—the spaniel, not Mrs. Florin⁠—a gentle prod with his foot and a lump of sugar. She licked his shoe with evident cordiality. Adam was not above feeling flattered by friendliness in dogs.

He had finished his tea and was filling his pipe when Colonel Blount came into the library.

“Who the devil are you?” said his host.

“Adam Symes,” said Adam.

“Never heard of you. How did you get in? Who gave you tea? What do you want?”

“You asked me to luncheon,” said Adam. “I came about being married to Nina.”

“My dear boy, of course. How absurd of me. I’ve such a bad memory for names. It comes of seeing so few people. How are you?”

They shook hands again.

“So you’re the young man who’s engaged to Nina,” said the Colonel, eyeing him for the first time in the way prospective sons-in-laws are supposed to be eyed. “Now what in the world do you want to get married for? I shouldn’t, you know, really I shouldn’t. Are you rich?”

“No, not at present, I’m afraid, that’s rather what I wanted to talk about.”

“How much money have you got?”

“Well, sir, actually at the moment I haven’t got any at all.”

“When did you last have any?”

“I had a thousand pounds last night, but I gave it all to a drunk Major.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Well, I hoped he’d put it on Indian Runner for the November Handicap.”

“Never heard of the horse. Didn’t he?”

“I don’t think he can have.”

“When will you next have some money?”

“When I’ve written some books.”

“How many books?”

“Twelve.”

“How much will you have then?”

“Probably fifty pounds advance on my thirteenth book.”

“And how long will it take you to write twelve books?”

“About a year.”

“How long would it take most people?”

“About twenty years. Of course, put like that I do see that it sounds rather hopeless⁠ ⁠… but, you see, Nina and I hoped that you, that is, that perhaps for the next year until I get my twelve books written, that you might help us⁠ ⁠…”

“How could I help you? I’ve never written a book in my life.”

“No, we thought you might give us some money.”

“You thought that, did you?”

“Yes, that’s what we thought⁠ ⁠…”

Colonel Blount looked at him gravely for some time. Then he said, “I think that an admirable idea. I don’t see any reason at all why I shouldn’t. How much do you want?”

“That’s really terribly good of you, sir⁠ ⁠… Well, you know, just enough to live on quietly for a bit. I hardly know⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, would a thousand pounds be any help?”

“Yes, it would indeed. We shall both be terribly grateful.”

“Not at all, my dear boy. Not at all. What did you say your name was?”

“Adam Symes.”

Colonel Blount went to the table and wrote out a cheque. “There you are,” he said. “Now don’t go giving that away to another drunk major.”

“Really, sir! I don’t know how to thank you. Nina⁠ ⁠…”

“Not another word. Now I expect that you will want to be off to London again. We’ll send Mrs. Florin across to the Rectory and make the Rector drive you to the station. Useful having a neighbour with a motor car. They charge fivepence on the buses from here to Aylesbury. Robbers.”

It does not befall many young men to be given a thousand pounds by a complete stranger twice on successive evenings. Adam laughed aloud in the Rector’s car as they drove to the station. The Rector, who had been in the middle of writing a sermon and resented with daily increasing feeling Colonel Blount’s neighbourly appropriation of his car and himself, kept his eyes fixed on the streaming windscreen, pretending not to notice. Adam laughed all the way to Aylesbury, sitting and holding his knees and shaking all over. The Rector could hardly bring himself to say good night when they parted in the station yard.

There was half an hour to wait for a train and the leaking roof and wet railway lines had a sobering effect on Adam. He bought an evening paper. On the front page was an exquisitely funny photograph of Miss Runcible in Hawaiian costume tumbling down the steps of No. 10 Downing Street. The Government had fallen that afternoon, he read, being defeated on a motion rising from the answer to a question about the treatment of Miss Runcible by Customs House officers. It was generally held in Parliamentary circles that the deciding factor in this reverse had been the revolt of the Liberals and the Nonconformist members at the revelations of the life that was led at No. 10, Downing Street, during Sir James Brown’s tenancy. The Evening Mail had a leading article, which drew a fine analogy between Public and Domestic Purity, between sobriety in the family and in the State.

There was another small paragraph which interested Adam.

The death occurred early this morning at a private hotel in Dover Street of Miss Florence Ducane, described as being of independent means, following an accident in which Miss Ducane fell from a chandelier which she was attempting to mend. The inquest will be held tomorrow, which will be followed by the cremation at Golders Green. Miss Ducane, who was formerly connected with the stage, was well known in business circles.

Which only showed, thought Adam, how much better Lottie Crump knew the business of avoiding undesirable publicity than Sir James Brown.

When Adam reached London the rain had stopped, but there was a thin fog drifting in belts before a damp wind. The station was crowded with office workers hurrying with attaché cases and evening papers to catch their evening trains home, coughing and sneezing as they went. They still wore their poppies. Adam went to a telephone-box and rang up Nina. She had left a message for him that she was having cocktails at Margot Metroland’s house. He drove to Shepheard’s.

“Lottie,” he said, “I’ve got a thousand pounds.”

“Have you, now,” said Lottie indifferently. She lived on the assumption that everyone she knew always had several thousand pounds. It was to her as though he had said, “Lottie, I have a tall hat.”

“Can you lend me some money till tomorrow till I cash the cheque?”

“What a boy you are for borrowing. Just like your poor father. Here, you in the corner, lend Mr. What-d’you-call-him some money.”

A tall Guardsman shook his retreating forehead and twirled his moustaches.

“No good coming to me, Lottie,” he said in a voice trained to command.

“Mean hound,” said Lottie. “Where’s that American?”

Judge Skimp, who, since his experiences that morning, had become profoundly Anglophile, produced two tenpound notes. “I shall be only too proud and honoured⁠ ⁠…” he said.

“Good old Judge Thingummy,” said Lottie. “That’s the way.”

Adam hurried out into the hall as another bottle of champagne popped festively in the parlour.

“Doge, ring up the Daimler Hire Company and order a car in my name. Tell it to go round to Lady Metroland’s⁠—Pastmaster House, Hill Street,” he said. Then he put on his hat and walked down Hay Hill, swinging an umbrella and laughing again, only more quietly, to himself.

At Lady Metroland’s he kept on his coat and waited in the hall.

“Will you please tell Miss Blount I’ve called for her? No, I won’t go up.”

He looked at the hats on the table. Clearly there was quite a party. Two or three silk hats of people who had dressed early, the rest soft and black like his own. Then he began to dance again, jigging to himself in simple high spirits.

In a minute Nina came down the broad Adam staircase.

“Darling, why didn’t you come up? It’s so rude. Margot is longing to see you.”

“I’m so sorry, Nina. I couldn’t face a party. I’m so excited.”

“Why, what’s happened?”

“Everything. I’ll tell you in the car.”

“Car?”

“Yes, it’ll be here in a minute. We’re going down to the country for dinner. I can’t tell you how clever I’ve been.”

“But what have you done, darling? Do stop dancing about.”

“Can’t stop. You’ve no idea how clever I am.”

“Adam. Are you tight again?”

“Look out of the window and see if you can see a Daimler waiting.”

“Adam, what have you been doing? I will be told.”

“Look,” said Adam, producing the cheque. “Whatcher think of that?” he added in Cockney.

“My dear, a thousand pounds. Did papa give you that?”

“I earned it,” said Adam. “Oh, I earned it. You should have seen the luncheon I ate and the jokes I read. I’m going to be married tomorrow. Oh, Nina, would Margot hate it if I sang in her hall?”

“She’d simply loathe it, darling, and so should I. I’m going to take care of that cheque. You remember what happened the last time you were given a thousand pounds.”

“That’s what your papa said.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“I told him everything⁠—and he gave me a thousand pounds.”

“… Poor Adam⁠ ⁠…” said Nina suddenly.

“Why did you say that?”

“I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… I believe this is your car.⁠ ⁠…”

“Nina, why did you say ‘Poor Adam’?”

“… Did I?⁠ ⁠… Oh, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I do adore you so.”

“I’m going to be married tomorrow. Are you?”

“Yes, I expect so, dear.”

The chauffeur got rather bored while they tried to decide where they would dine. At every place he suggested they gave a little wail of dismay. “But that’s sure to be full of awful people we know,” they said. Maidenhead, Thame, Brighton, he suggested. Finally they decided to go to Arundel.

“It’ll be nearly nine before we get there,” the chauffeur said. “Now there’s a very nice hotel at Bray.⁠ ⁠…”

But they went to Arundel.

“We’ll be married tomorrow,” said Adam in the car. “And we won’t ask anybody to the wedding at all. And we’ll go abroad at once, and just not come back till I’ve written all those books. Nina, isn’t it divine? Where shall we go?”

“Anywhere you like, only rather warm, don’t you think?”

“I don’t believe you really think we are going to be married, Nina, do you, or do you?”

“I don’t know⁠ ⁠… it’s only that I don’t believe that really divine things like that ever do happen.⁠ ⁠… I don’t know why.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I do like you so much tonight. If only you knew how sweet you looked skipping about in Margot’s hall all by yourself. I’d been watching you for hours before I came down.”

“I shall send the car back,” said Adam, as they drove through Pulborough. “We can go home by train.”

“If there is a train.”

“There’s bound to be,” said Adam. But this raised a question in both their minds that had been unobtrusively agitating them throughout the journey. Neither said any more on the subject, but there was a distinct air of constraint in the Daimler from Pulborough onwards.

This question was settled when they reached the hotel at Arundel.

“We want dinner,” said Adam, “and a room for the night.”

“Darling, am I going to be seduced?”

“I’m afraid you are. Do you mind terribly?”

“Not as much as all that,” said Nina, and added in Cockney, “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Everyone had finished dinner. They dined alone in a corner of the coffee-room, while the other waiters laid the tables for breakfast, looking at them resentfully. It was the dreariest kind of English dinner. After dinner the lounge was awful; there were some golfers in dinner-jackets playing bridge, and two old ladies. Adam and Nina went across the stable-yard to the taproom and sat until closing time in a warm haze of tobacco smoke listening to the intermittent gossip of the townspeople. They sat hand-in-hand, unembarrassed; after the first minute no one noticed them. Just before closing time Adam stood a round of drinks. They said:

“Good health, sir. Best respects, madam,” and the barman said, “Come along, please. Finish your drinks, please,” in a peculiar singsong tone.