Magnus Merriman (30 page)

‘Then why didn't you say so? I believe you're only making an excuse to get rid of me. Oh, Magnus, why are you so changeable? You took a sudden dislike to me before,
and now you've done it again. I've tried to be nice to you: I haven't bored you by talking shop, or about the children—'

Magnus grew impatient. ‘I'm telling you the simple truth,' he said. ‘If you don't believe that I have an appointment, come with me and see.'

‘Who is it that you're going to meet?'

‘A woman called Nelly Bly.'

‘Honestly? The Nelly Bly who writes for the
Morning
Call
? Oh, I should love to meet her! Can I really come?'

Magnus had not the slightest desire to add Margaret to the party, but having in some sort invited her he found difficulty in explaining this. He hesitated before replying.

‘But I suppose I should only be in the way,' said Margaret. ‘You don't really want me, do you?'

She looked so pathetic—or so it seemed to Magnus—that his heart melted and he answered, ‘Of course I want you to come. I shouldn't have asked you otherwise. And Nelly will like to meet you too.'

He went to put on his coat and thought ruefully that now he would have little chance to extract any information from Nelly, and wished that he could arrange his affairs more cleverly.

In the taxi that carried them to Fleet Street, Margaret sat silent for most of the time, but as they turned into Aldwych she said brightly, ‘I knew I couldn't have offended you really, because I hardly said anything at all. It was you who were talking all the time, wasn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Magnus. ‘I talk too much.'

‘Then perhaps you offended yourself?'

‘I habitually do,' said Magnus.'

In the
Morning Call
office he told Nelly that an old friend of his had visited him just as he was about to leave, and for politeness' sake—mere politeness, that frailty in human intercourse—he had brought her with him. ‘She's a doctor,' he said. ‘I hope you don't mind her coming?'

‘That's all right,' said Nelly. ‘Bring the whole harem, if you want to. I always like to see what sort of girls a man gets hold of.'

They drove to the Café Royal and found a table in the
crowded
brasserie
. Margaret was delighted and talked to Nelly Bly with great animation. She referred to Nelly's work to show that she was familiar with it, and casually mentioned her own profession. Nelly was interested and asked several questions that Margaret answered with some authority. Then Margaret called her attention to a somewhat remarkable hat worn by a woman at a neighbouring table, and, growing more friendly still, they discussed the bonnet with common interest. One hat led to another, and then to such matters as tulle and georgette. They described their past, present, and future wardrobes to each other, and Magnus, who had thought a witty cynicism was the invariable staple of Nelly's conversation, was surprised to hear the simple enthusiasm with which she discussed what seemed to have been an ordinary green frock. He had expected that Margaret would be the unwanted guest, and now it seemed that he was playing that distasteful part. He listened with great boredom and displeasure to the interminable rigmarole about shops, prices, blouses, furs, bonnets, and whatnots.

After a long time Margaret leaned back in her chair with a sigh of satisfaction, and said, ‘Oh, I do love a good talk about clothes!'

At this moment two people, looking for a table, halted beside theirs to survey the over-populous scene. One of them was a tall young man in evening dress, a handsome haughty young man who might be in the Guards; the other was a tall girl in a white velvet cloak with a fine collar of ostrich feathers, a handsome rose-and-tawny girl at the sight of whom Magnus's heart leapt like a shot rabbit.

She chanced to look down, and saw him. ‘For the Lord's sake,' she said, ‘look who's here!'

‘Hullo, Frieda,' said Magnus, and stood up somewhat awkwardly.

‘Don't get worried,' said Frieda, ‘we shan't intrude on your simple ménage. Do you see a table anywhere, Jimmy?'

‘No,' said the young man. ‘I told you there was no use in coming here. It's always crowded.'

‘But I like a crowd,' said Frieda. ‘Get hold of that waiter and see what he can do.'

‘You'd better stay here,' said Magnus. ‘There's plenty of room.'

‘Well, that'll be quite like old times. You don't know Jimmy, do you? This is Jimmy French.'

Mr French submitted to the introduction with a marked indifference. Magnus introduced the others and ordered more drinks. He felt very uncomfortable. Nelly Bly sat with an expectant smile of a playgoer waiting for the curtain to rise. Frieda looked at Magnus with a sardonic smile. Margaret looked at him and at Frieda with open curiosity. And Mr French, looking at nobody, appeared to be thoroughly bored and displeased by the circumstances in which he found himself.

Magnus asked Frieda, ‘Have you been long in London?'

‘Oh, a few weeks,' she answered. ‘Uncle Henry didn't send you his love, if that's what you're wanting to know.'

Nelly Bly looked at Magnus with frank inquiry. Margaret looked at him with growing suspicion. And Mr French glanced at him with chill displeasure.

‘Well, that's a pity,' said Magnus, endeavouring to deal lightly with the situation. ‘Did you see anything of Frank Meiklejohn during the summer?'

‘No, I got tired of politicians,' said Frieda. ‘I got tired of Scotland, too.'

‘Are you not going back?'

‘Not till the Jews go back to Egypt.'

Now Margaret looked inquisitively at Frieda; Nelly Bly regarded her with interest; and Magnus feverishly wondered which of the dozen questions in his mind would sound discreetest and yet elicit the most information.

Frieda drank some beer. ‘That's good beer,' she said. ‘What are you drinking, Jimmy?'

‘Er, brandy,' said Mr French.

‘Why, that'll just rip the lining right off your stomach, Jimmy. You've got a delicate stomach: you know you have!'

Mr French frowned slightly, but offered no other comment on this accusation.

‘Perhaps Mr French might usefully consult Dr Innes about his stomach,' suggested Nelly.

‘Oh, these aren't surgery hours,' said Margaret brightly. ‘Anyway, I don't think there can be anything seriously wrong with Mr French. He looks perfectly healthy.'

Mr French's frown deepened perceptibly.

Margaret, welcoming her release from silence, leaned forward and said, ‘Look at that awful old man over there with the lovely girl.'

Everybody except Mr French turned and regarded with interest a ferrety wizened old man with a grey moustache and an excited leer on his face who was eagerly talking to a girl, young but opulent in beauty, red-haired and boldly dressed.

‘I shouldn't think he could handle her,' said Frieda.

‘I shouldn't think he could do anything else,' said Nelly Bly.

Frieda laughed loudly. Margaret laughed a little shyly. Magnus, because he was anxiously wondering why Frieda had left Edinburgh, laughed somewhat half-heartedly. Mr French surveyed them with cold astonishment.

‘That was pretty good, Nelly,' said Magnus.

‘Pretty good!' exclaimed Frieda. ‘Why, it was just perfect!'

Magnus, as host, felt the necessity of entertaining his guests. ‘You know the awful difficulty of maintaining conversation with a stranger?' he said. ‘The first five minutes are easy: you talk about a play or two, the weather, what-do-you-think-about-New-York, anything at all: and then the easier springs dry up and you begin to wonder what the other person is really interested in, so that the topic won't fail after the first gush. I remember dancing with a girl in Philadelphia once and this difficulty cropped up. I had just been introduced to her, and somehow it happened that we had to dance together for a long time. And I couldn't find anything to say. But while I was hunting for a subject it occurred to me that there was one thing that everybody was interested in, so I said quite innocently, “I've been trying to think of something to talk about that you would enjoy: but there's only one thing in the world that's guaranteed to interest everybody, and perhaps I don't know you well enough to discuss that.” Well, she was evidently both Puritanical and
frightened, for she suddenly stopped dancing, looked at me in the most hostile manner, and left me without a word.'

‘That was just too bad,' said Frieda. ‘I guess you don't usually get rebuffed?'

‘I know just what you meant, Magnus,' said Margaret kindly, ‘and how you meant it. I wouldn't have been offended, and I don' see why she was.'

‘Oh, he was right enough,' said Frieda. ‘Everybody
is
interested in it. Even Jimmy is. You're interested, aren't you, Jimmy?'

‘In what?' asked Mr French.

‘Why, in love!' Frieda made a histrionic
moue
, and winked dramatically.

‘We need something more to drink,' said Mr French. ‘Waiter!'

‘I seem to remember that the philosopher Zeno had to do with a woman only once in his life,' said Nelly, ‘and then he says, it was simply out of politeness on his part.'

‘I don't call that philosophy,' said Frieda. ‘I call that dumb.'

‘Philosophy may be exclusive as well as inclusive,' said Magnus.

‘I know what philosophy is. I had a boy-friend from Iowa once—I guess I told you about him—and he knew the whole line-up from old man Plato to Bergson. And I've done some pretty tall thinking of my own. I was telling Jimmy my girlish thoughts the other day, and if he'd only listened he could have built up a right smart system of philosophy out of them. One that works, anyway. But he doesn't seem interested in my mental processes.'

‘Only in your motor impulses?' suggested Nelly.

‘Say, what the hell do you mean by that?' demanded Frieda.

Nelly looked at her with a tolerant smile.

It was Margaret who averted the impending breeze. She giggled. She leaned forward and said, ‘I don't know if I ought to tell you this, but it's terribly funny. I read it in a medical book. It said that Acton, who was once regarded as the chief English authority on sexual matters, had declared that “happily for society the supposition that women possess
sexual feelings can be dismissed as a vile aspersion.” That was a good many years ago, of course.'

‘You certainly discovered an interesting subject,' said Nelly to Magnus.

‘There's still politics,' he answered.

‘Oh yes!' exclaimed Margaret. ‘Do tell us about the election in Kinluce! I read everything I could find about it at the time, but I've always wanted to hear what really happened, and why you only got—how many votes was it? I'd have voted for you if I'd been there.'

‘Kinluce!' said Frieda. ‘My God. I never want to hear that name again in all my life.'

Margaret and Nelly Bly looked at her with renewed inquiry. Had it not been for curiosity Margaret would have been definitely hostile. And though Nelly Bly was more impersonal there seemed little amiability in her regard. But Magnus was troubled by the reminder of the election's consequences, and his sympathy went out to Frieda, and he hated Jimmy French, and was irrationally jealous of him, and felt thoroughly unhappy. He had never before seen Frieda dressed so magnificently or seeming so handsome.

Mr French looked wearily at Frieda and said, ‘I think it's time we were going.'

For a moment Frieda stared bitterly at Magnus. Then rudely she blew a draught of cigarette smoke over the table, shrugged her shoulders, and said, ‘Just whatever you say, Jimmy. Wheresoever you go I go also.'

She stood up and gathered her white velvet cloak about her. Mr French coldly inclined his head. Frieda said, ‘Well, good-night everyone. Good-night, Magnus. Two heads are better than one, but three's a crowd on the pillow. Sleep well!'

‘She doesn't seem to like us,' said Nelly.

‘How terribly rude!' said Margaret. ‘Where did you meet her, Magnus?'

‘In Edinburgh.'

‘And that man she was with was even ruder, though he's terribly good-looking. I wonder who he is?'

‘He's in the Guards. His father had a bicycle-shop in
Birmingham and made a fortune during the war by turning it into a munition factory,' said Nelly.

‘Do you know him?' Magnus asked.

‘I know who he is. I know who everybody is who's got enough money to be news or potential news. And he seems to have a fancy for American girls. He was keeping one a year ago, a nice girl, though she wasn't as good looking as this one.'

Magnus was unpleasantly affected by this unequivocal reference to Frieda's position. He had realized she was French's mistress: it was impossible to suppose anything else. But to hear it stated as an actual and ostensible fact was painful indeed.

‘Did you know her well?' asked Margaret.

‘I saw a good deal of her when I was in Edinburgh,' said Magnus. ‘She'd had a very rough time in America—her parents died and left her completely destitute, I believe—and then she came to live with an uncle and aunt who were very difficult and unsympathetic. She hasn't had an easy life.'

‘I wouldn't worry about her if I were you,' said Nelly. ‘She seems able to look after herself all right.'

‘Magnus was always far too ready to believe in people,' said Margaret.

‘Rubbish!' said Magnus.

‘Every animal walks in its own way,' said Nelly, and finished her drink, and picked up her gloves and her bag, and suggested it was time to go.

Magnus told the taxi-driver to go first to Manchester Street, where Nelly Bly lived very comfortably. On the way there she said to him, ‘You'll be hearing from Barney Wardle in a day or two, I expect. There's going to be a change of policy, and you'll have to get new instructions.'