Vile Bodies · Chapter 9 (1/2)

IX

At luncheon time next day Adam rang up Nina.

“Nina, darling, are you awake?”

“Well, I wasn’t⁠ ⁠…”

“Listen, do you really want me to go and see your papa today?”

“Did we say you were going to?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To say could we be married now I had a job.”

“I remember⁠ ⁠… yes, go and see him, darling. It would be nice to be married.”

“But, listen, what about my page?”

“What page, angel?”

“My page in the Excess⁠ ⁠… my job, you know.”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… well, look⁠ ⁠… Ginger and I will write that for you.”

“Wouldn’t that be a bore?”

“I think it would be divine. I know just the sort of things you say.⁠ ⁠… I expect Ginger does too by now, the poor angel⁠ ⁠… how he did enjoy himself last night.⁠ ⁠… I’m going to sleep now⁠ ⁠… such a pain⁠ ⁠… goodbye, my sweet.”

Adam had some luncheon. Agatha Runcible was at the next table with Archie Schwert. She said they were all going to some motor races next day. Would Adam and Nina come, too. Adam said yes. Then he went to Aylesbury.

There were two women on the other side of the carriage, and they, too, were talking about the Younger Generation.

“… and it’s a very good position, too, for a boy of that age, and I’ve told him and his father told him. ‘You ought to think yourself lucky,’ I’ve said, ‘to get a good position like that in these days, particularly when it’s so hard to get a position at all of any kind or sort.’ And there’s Mrs. Hemingway with her son next door who left school eighteen months ago, and there he is kicking his heels about the house all day and doing nothing, and taking a correspondence course in civil engineering. ‘It’s a very good position,’ I told him, ‘and, of course, you can’t expect work to be interesting, though no doubt after a time you get used to it just as your father’s done, and would probably miss it if you hadn’t it to do’⁠—you know how Alfred gets on his holidays, doesn’t know what to do with himself half the time, just looks at the sea and says, ‘Well, this is a change,’ and then starts wondering how things are at the office. Well, I told Bob that, but it’s no good, and all he wants to do is to go into the motor business; well, as I said to him, the motor business is all right for them that have influence, but what could Bob hope to do throwing up a good job, too, and with nothing to fall back on supposing things did go wrong. But, no, Bob is all for motors, and, of course, you know it doesn’t really do having him living at home. He and his father don’t get on. You can’t have two men in a house together and both wanting the bath at the same time, and I suppose it’s only natural that Bob should feel he ought to have his own way a bit more now that he’s earning his own money. But, then, what is he to do? He can’t go and live on his own with his present salary, and I shouldn’t be any too pleased to see him doing it even if he could afford it⁠—you know what it is with young people, how easy it is to get into mischief when they’re left to themselves. And there are a great many of Bob’s friends now that I don’t really approve of, not to have in and out of the house, you know the way they do come. He meets them at the hockey club he goes to Saturdays. And they’re most of them earning more money than he is, or, at any rate, they seem to have more to throw about, and it isn’t good for a boy being about with those that have more money than him. It only makes him discontented. And I did think at one time that perhaps Bob was thinking of Betty Rylands, you know Mrs. Rylands’ girl at the Laurels, such nice people, and they used to play tennis together and people remarked how much they were about, but now he never seems to pay any attention to her, it’s all his hockey friends, and I said one Saturday, ‘Wouldn’t you like to ask Betty over to tea?’ and he said, ‘Well, you can if you like,’ and she came looking ever so sweet, and, would you believe it, Bob went out and didn’t come in at all until supper time. Well, you can’t expect any girl to put up with that, and now she’s practically engaged to that young Anderson boy who’s in the wireless business.”

“Well, and there’s our Lily now. You know how she would go in for being a manicurist. Her father didn’t like it, and for a long time he wouldn’t have it at all. He said it was just an excuse for holding hands, but, anyway, I said, ‘If that’s what the girl wants to do, and if she can make good money doing it, I think you ought to be able to trust your own daughter better than to stand in her way.’ I’m a modern, you see. ‘We’re not living in the Victorian Age,’ I told him. Well, she’s in a very nice job. Bond Street⁠—and they treat her very fair, and we’ve no complaints on that score, but now there’s this man she’s met there⁠—he’s old enough to be her father⁠—well, middle-aged anyway⁠—but very smart, you know, neat little grey moustache, absolute gentleman, with a Morris Oxford saloon. And he comes and takes her out for drives Sundays, and sometimes he fetches her after work and takes her to the pictures, and always most polite and well spoken to me and my husband, just as you’d expect, seeing the sort of man he is, and he sent us all tickets for the theatre the other night. Very affable, calls me ‘Ma,’ if you please⁠ ⁠… and, anyway, I hope there’s no harm in it⁠ ⁠…”

“Now our Bob⁠ ⁠…”

They got out at Berkhamsted, and a man got in who wore a bright brown suit and spent his time doing sums, which never seemed to come right, in a little notebook with a stylographic pen. “Has he given all to his daughters?” thought Adam.

He drove out to Doubting by a bus which took him as far as the village of petrol pumps. From there he walked down the lane to the park gates. To his surprise these stood open, and as he approached he narrowly missed being run down by a large and ramshackle car which swept in at a high speed; he caught a glimpse of two malignant female eyes which glared contemptuously at him from the small window at the back. Still more surprising was a large notice which hung on the central pier of the gates and said: “No Admittance Except on Business.” As Adam walked up the drive two lorries thundered past him. Then a man appeared with a red flag.

“Hi! You can’t go that way. They’re shooting in front. Go round by the stables, whoever you are.”

Wondering vaguely what kind of sport this could be, Adam followed the side path indicated. He listened for sounds of firing, but hearing nothing except distant shouting and what seemed to be a string band, he concluded that the Colonel was having a poor day. It seemed odd, anyway, to go shooting in front of one’s house with a string band, and automatically Adam began making up a paragraph about it:

“Colonel Blount, father of the lovely Miss Nina Blount referred to above, rarely comes to London nowadays. He devotes himself instead to shooting on his estate in Buckinghamshire. The coverts, which are among the most richly stocked in the county, lie immediately in front of the house, and many amusing stories are related of visitors who have inadvertently found themselves in the line of fire.⁠ ⁠… Colonel Blount has the curious eccentricity of being unable to shoot his best except to the accompaniment of violin and cello. (Mr. ‘Ginger’ Littlejohn has the similar foible that he can only fish to the sound of the flageolet⁠ ⁠…)”

He had not gone very far in his detour before he was again stopped, this time by a man dressed in a surplice, episcopal lawn sleeves and scarlet hood and gown; he was smoking a cigar.

“Here, what in hell do you want?” said the Bishop.

“I came to see Colonel Blount.”

“Well, you can’t, son. They’re just shooting him now.”

“Good heavens. What for?”

“Oh, nothing important. He’s just one of the Wesleyans, you know⁠—we’re trying to polish off the whole crowd this afternoon while the weather’s good.”

Adam found himself speechless before this cold-blooded bigotry.

“What d’you want to see the old geezer about, anyway?”

“Well, it hardly seems any good now. I came to tell him that I’d got a job on the Excess.”

“The devil you have. Why didn’t you say so before? Always pleased to see gentlemen of the Press. Have a weed?” A large cigar-case appeared from the recesses of the episcopal bosom. “I’m Bishop Philpotts, you know,” he said, slipping a voluminously clothed arm through Adam’s. “I dare say you’d like to come round to the front and see the fun. I should think they’d be just singing their last hymn now. It’s been uphill work,” he confided as they walked round the side of the house, “and there’s been some damned bad management. Why, yesterday, they kept Miss La Touche waiting the whole afternoon, and then the light was so bad when they did shoot her that they made a complete mess of her⁠—we had the machine out and ran over all the bits carefully last night after dinner⁠—you never saw such rotten little scraps⁠—quite unrecognizable half of them. We didn’t dare show them to her husband⁠—he’d be sick to death about it⁠—so we just cut out a few shots to keep and threw away the rest. I say, you’re not feeling queer, are you? You look all green suddenly. Find the weed a bit strong?”

“Was⁠—was she a Wesleyan too?”

“My dear boy, she’s playing lead⁠ ⁠… she’s Selina. Countess of Huntingdon.⁠ ⁠… There, now you can see them at work.”

They had rounded the wing and were now in full view of the front of the house, where all was activity and animation. A dozen or so men and women in eighteenth-century costume were standing in a circle singing strongly, while in their centre stood a small man in a long clerical coat and a full white wig, conducting them. A string band was playing not far off and round the singers clustered numerous men in shirt sleeves bearing megaphones, cinematograph cameras, microphones, sheaves of paper and arc lamps. Not far away, waiting their turn to be useful, stood a coach and four, a detachment of soldiers and some scene shifters with the transept of Exeter Cathedral in sections of canvas and matchboarding.

“The Colonel’s somewhere in that little crowd singing the hymn,” said the Bishop. “He was crazy to be allowed to come on as a super, and as he’s letting us the house dirt cheap Isaacs said he might. I don’t believe he’s ever been so happy in his life.”

As they approached the hymn stopped.

“All right,” said one of the men with megaphones. “You can beat it. We’ll shoot the duel now. I shall want two supers to carry the body. The rest of you are through for the afternoon.”

A man in a leather apron, worsted stockings and flaxen wig emerged from the retreating worshippers.

“Oh, please, Mr. Isaacs,” he said, “please may I carry the body?”

“All right, Colonel, if you want to. Run in and tell them in the wardrobe to give you a smock and a pitchfork.”

“Thank you so much,” said Colonel Blount, trotting off towards his house. Then he stopped. “I suppose,” he said, “I suppose it wouldn’t be better for me to carry a sword?”

“No, pitchfork, and hurry up about it or I shan’t let you carry the body at all; someone go and find Miss La Touche.”

The young lady whom Adam had seen in the motor car came down the steps of the house in a feathered hat, riding habit and braided cape. She carried a hunting crop in her hand. Her face was painted very yellow.

“Do I or do I not have a horse in this scene, Mr. Isaacs? I’ve been round to Bertie and he says all the horses are needed for the coach.”

“I’m sorry, Effie, you do not and it’s no good taking on. We only got four horses and you know that, and you saw what it was like when we tried to move the coach with two. So you’ve just got to face it. You comes across the fields on foot.”

“Dirty Yid,” said Effie La Touche.

“The trouble about this film,” said the Bishop, “is that we haven’t enough capital. It’s heartbreaking. Here we have a first-rate company, first-rate producer, first-rate scene, first-rate story and the whole thing being hung up for want of a few hundred pounds. How can he expect to get the best out of Miss La Touche if they won’t give her a horse? No girl will stand for that sort of treatment. If I were Isaacs I’d scrap the whole coach sooner. It’s no sense getting a star and not treating her right. Isaacs is putting everyone’s back up the way he goes on. Wanted to do the whole of my cathedral scene with twenty-five supers. But you’re here to give us a write up, aren’t you? I’ll call Isaacs across and let him give you the dope.⁠ ⁠… Isaacs!”

“Yuh?”

“Daily Excess here.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“I’ll be right over.” He put on his coat, buttoned it tightly at the waist and strode across the lawn, extending a hand of welcome. Adam shook it and felt what seemed to be a handful of rings under his fingers. “Pleased to meet you, Mister. Now just you ask me anything you want about this film because I’m just here to answer. Have you got my name? Have a card. That’s the name of the company in the corner. Not the one that’s scratched out. The one written above. The Wonderfilm Company of Great Britain. Now this film,” he said, in what seemed a well-practised little speech, “of which you have just witnessed a mere fragment marks a stepping stone in the development of the British Film Industry. It is the most important All-Talkie super-religious film to be produced solely in this country by British artists and management and by British capital. It has been directed throughout regardless of difficulty and expense, and supervised by a staff of expert historians and theologians. Nothing has been omitted that would contribute to the meticulous accuracy of every detail. The life of that great social and religious reformer John Wesley is for the first time portrayed to a British public in all its humanity and tragedy.⁠ ⁠… Look here, I’ve got all this written out. I’ll have them give you a copy before you go. Come and see the duel.⁠ ⁠…

“That’s Wesley and Whitefield just going to start. Of course, it’s not them really. Two fencing instructors we got over from the gym at Aylesbury. That’s what I mean when I say we spare no expense to get the details accurate. Ten bob each we’re paying them for the afternoon.”

“But did Wesley and Whitefield fight a duel?”