Authors: Christina Stead
The Princess had had Angel, her sealyham, on the geranium-coloured cushion beside her during dinner, feeding him titbits. The manager had brought him a plate of meat and some water, so that Angel had behaved very well up to now. But now the Princess said:
‘But we have not made Angel sing. You know, Mrs Pallintost, I am trying to sell Angel, for I must go away to South America. I do not know what restrictions there are. But I want him in good hands. I want someone who will see him as he is. I have advertised him and had plenty of offers for him, but unfortunately I have left his pedigree at home in Italy, I do not know where; and my Italian maids are darlings, they adore me, simply worship the ground I walk on, for it means nothing to us, but a great deal to them, poor dears, it really lightens their work, that they are working for a Princess; and I know they pray for me in church. Still, they can hardly read or write and I am sure they would not understand a document like Angel’s pedigree. So it is no use writing to them.’
‘But write to the General’s wife,’ said Mrs Trollope.
‘You and Robert really should go and stay in my apartment. It is so comfortable, warm, excluding the heating, it would only cost you 10,000 lire a month. You would save money and have a darling personal maid, Teresa, an unmarried mother with a boy at high school who will simply do anything, sewing and cutting out, and all you must pay her is 11,000 lire a month; and a little something extra for dresses if you wish it; and you don’t pay the whole expenses but share with the General and his wife. And before they were married the General got on ideally with Teresa and Maria, that’s Teresa’s sister who comes in; you pay her about 10,000 lire, it depends; and it cost the General only 20,000 lire a month, all in. Of course, the poor man—’
‘Yes, Bili—’ Mrs Trollope tried to interrupt.
But the Princess went on with the General’s family history for a long time and accounted for all the General’s family expenses, which they could share.
‘How old was the General’s mother, the Countess?’ asked Mrs Trollope.
‘Ninety-six, but she had all her faculties and though she was so small, like a little child, I assure you he could have carried her in his pocket, I assure you she was very spry and did all the accounts and was carried off only by a cold: there was nothing the matter with her. The General did not know what to do. He had lived for her. He sent for my friend who was in Bogota because she was afraid of the Russians, she felt she could not go back to Columbus, Ohio; but when he told her about the big empty apartment she came and married him.ʼ
‘Oh, Bili, Robert and I are thinking of going to South America, but the idea makes me very unhappy,’ said Mrs Trollope.
‘That’s why I thought my apartment in Milan would be ideal for you. They are all so simple; they adore us.’
Said Lilia: ‘Well, it is a question of my pounds. I do not want to bring them all abroad. Robert thinks I am stupid; but I say to him, I don’t care if I lose some money. I cannot live for the exchanges, I want to live in peace. I want some money in my homeland, and if the pound is getting smaller and smaller as they say I still want some of it somewhere in the British Empire. Do you know, Robert has a chart; he will show it to you only too willingly. He works on it every day; all his business ability has come down to that; and it shows that all the exchanges are against the pound, as he expresses it. All over the world at a given moment, we, that is the pound, may be weak. It amuses him; and this chart is to be the chart of my life.’
Robert laughed modestly:
‘Well, it’s like crosswords, you see. I like it. It reminds me of business; and besides, I have not yet entirely concluded my business in Malaya. And it makes me sleep well. If Lilia would take an interest, she is really very good at it, she would sleep better.’
Mrs Trollope continued: ‘If I want half a dozen of those pretty Swiss handkerchiefs for Jessamine my married daughter, I do not hear a word from him for a whole hour and then he brings me a calculation of what it would cost me in France, England, South Africa, the Argentine and the U.S.A. and how I must transfer the pounds to pay for it. I do not want to understand. Surely it is very easy, if you have money? Surely I can enjoy my own money without this? But you see, for Robert, it is his only genuine pleasure; it is his hobby.’
Robert was flattered. ‘Oh, you see, Mrs Pallintost, we are getting older; and I am not so energetic as I was. It keeps my memory and faculties working. Don’t you find your memory failing, for example, Mrs Pallintost?’
Mrs Pallintost, who was thirty-five, said:
‘No, my memory is quite all right.’
‘How is your memory? Do you remember why you left Basel?’ said the doctor, laughing, to his wife.
‘Well, mine isn’t what it was,’ said Mr Wilkins complacently.
Mr Pallintost introduced the subject of the car he wanted Mr Wilkins to buy. Mr Wilkins went into a long description of the car, the body, the engine, the peculiar advantages of the selling prices in Switzerland and elsewhere, the course of the exchanges over the past few months, what he could get it for now if the manufacturers had stuck to their bargain, for even if they did not, he had allowed a small margin for the fall of the lira. He also said he had in mind a car he had just seen in the Geneva show, a Fiat whippet or midget very suitable for them, with seats for two in front and very roomy in the back for luggage.
‘I should never have to offer anyone a lift; I should never have more than one passenger, my cousin Lilia. And very roomy in the back for luggage.’
He and Mrs Trollope argued about how much luggage they could stow in the back—‘certainly not my steamer trunk’—and how far they could go with it.
Everyone became interested, discussed how far the whippet would go, what hills it could climb and whether it was suitable for Switzerland in winter. Mr Wilkins said: ‘But that is just where I intend to use it. I am a good driver and if I tip Lilia over the edge of some Alp that will be just an accident.’ He laughed gaily, rubbing his hands, and continued:
‘But I hardly think it will come to that. I should hardly like to kill Lilia in a car where she has put me at the wheel of her own free will. Lilia has put me at the wheel of her fortune and I think I shall manage both with reasonable skill.’
Mrs Trollope said restlessly ‘I would rather trust myself than anyone. Robert no doubt means well, but he cannot keep his hands off money. He is always wanting to try those charts of his on money. And it is my money he experiments with. I may be old-fashioned; I am, I know. But I think money is stable. It is what you have. It is what you live by. I don’t like it parcelled out and fooled with. Now I had money coming to me in France last year and I wrote a letter to the people saying I would accept it in francs. The people wrote back saying they would pay me in francs at once. And Robert made me write another clever letter saying they must get permission from the exchange, permission to pay me in England where the money was due; and then Robert intended to change it into Swiss francs at the permitted rate and I could get my French dress in French francs exchanged for Swiss francs at the black market rate, and do you know what happened? They have not made arrangements to pay me from that day to this.’
‘Oh, I knew that story was coming. Lilia cannot get it into her head—’ and he began explaining patiently as if Lilia had not understood; but she put her hands to her head and said:
‘I should rather lose half the money than go through all that.’
Mr Wilkins said gently: ‘But, Lilia, that is it; I do not want you to lose half your money; and I am going to see that you increase it. Neither of us is young any more and we must think of our old age.’
The Princess cried: ‘I think that kind of talk is mad, Robert. As soon as I sell Angel, I am going off to the Argentine and I am going to get married. First, of course, I have an appointment in Paris next month, where I am going to have a certain operation, and when I have spent some weeks in a nursing-home I shall be young again and I am going to South America where they have dictators and an organized society and excellent servants and I am going to get married. If my intended husband lets me down I shall open a beauty parlour in Palm Beach. I’m tired of Europe. I have already sent some of my things out there and I have sent money too. Your money is safe with a dictator. He keeps the greedy people down, those who want to nationalize everything and take what isn’t theirs to take. Get married again, Lilia; then you will be happy again. It is a new life.’
At this Angel squealed. He had slid down under the table, where he saw bits of food and he sat under Dr Blaise’s chair. Dr Blaise trod on his foot. Bili half-rose and cried:
‘Angel, come here to your sweetheart. No one meant to hurt you, Angel. Everyone loves Angel. Dr Blaise loves you, Angel. No one would hurt you purposely. It was all an accident, darling. He meant to stroke you, darling. Sit here, darling, safe behind your sweetheart’s back. There!’
She grinned at the doctor. The dog crouched trembling behind her.
A little later, when they had had their liqueurs, the Princess told several stories of how to get black-market funds; then suddenly became bored and said:
‘And now Angel must sing. He has waited very patiently.’
The doctor burst out laughing. The Princess plumped Angel between herself and Madame Blaise and began to sing in a piping old voice, ‘D’ye ken John Peel?’ which was the song Angel sang, she said.
After a few bars, in fact, Angel opened his mouth and broke into a series of howls reasonably varied and moans reasonably scaled. The maître d’hôtel, who was standing behind a distant service bar, hastily put down a glass he had been rubbing and hurried across the room. The doctor, who was holding his ribs with laughter at the sour faces worn by the rest of the company (except Mrs Trollope), waved him away, but he stood dubiously in the next booth, now unoccupied. From the booth on the other side came a surprising American woman, five feet ten tall, elegantly and suitably dressed, who had been speaking French all the evening, fluently and with a strong mid-Western accent, and who had been running like a yearling between the telephone and her present friends. She said:
‘Oh, quel chien adorable!’
‘I hope we didn’t disturb you,’ said Mr Wilkins, laughing quietly.
‘Oh, ne vous en faites pas; I love dogs,’ said the American woman.
She then called, using her fingers, hands, arms and her long supple body for this, each of her company to look at the adorable dog singing; and she declared that they had had a cat to talk on the radio, but that that cat had died; and that this dog really sang.
‘Il chante; on ne peut le nier.’
The Princess said at once: ‘I am going to South America to get married and I must sell Angel to someone who loves him. He has a wonderful pedigree, sire and dam champions for generations. He is so affectionate. You have love and pedigree guaranteed; that is a nice package deal.’
The American said: ‘Oh, I love him. How much is Angel?’
‘Two hundred dollars in dollars.’
‘Oh, it is a lot of dollars. Not that I am sure he isn’t worth it. But I am going to South America too. Franco said Switzerland will be the centre of the next war. I trust him. I think it is better to go while the going is good.’
‘So do we,’ said Mr Wilkins.
‘But the question is where,’ said Mrs Trollope.
They discussed it again; and when the American woman had gone back to her table and they were having a second round of coffee, brought in silver pots and ordered by the doctor, Madame Blaise began showing some more photographs—one showed the house owned by herself and the doctor in Basel.
‘What a beautiful house,’ said Mr Pallintost, thankful that it was no teratological specimen this time.
It was a brick dwelling with three storeys and an attic, flat-faced, modern, with a terrace running round the corner of the second storey and an awning over it. Round the house was a garden behind iron railings.
Said Mrs Pallintost: ‘I cannot understand why you live in a hotel, Madame Blaise.’
‘When you live in a house there are servants, they have to have orders, I hate giving orders and scolding when they are not obeyed, for they never are. But we have a housekeeper Ermyntrud, who is ugly and old and a spinster, and she loves to do that. At least in the hotel I think about nothing.’
The Princess studied the photograph; and said, ‘But surely, Madame, with such a beautiful home you ought to stay in it and help your husband.’
‘Oh, I am quite satisfied with her staying in the hotel,’ said the doctor.
‘I shall never go home,’ said Madame Blaise.
‘No, you will never come home,’ said the doctor grimly.
‘He talks about nothing but disease and sickness. I must wait till he comes home for a drink. He locks up the drinks. And when we sit down to dinner he tells me details of every horrible disease he has seen in the hospital and shows me photographs of his patients. He has a cabinet full at home and only I am allowed to see them.’
‘But you will go home when the next winter is over,’ said Mr Pallintost, shocked.
‘Oh, no, I’m going to stay here for life.’
The doctor said:
‘Oh, I don’t think she will ever leave here alive. I am glad for her to stay here for life. Marriage is a curse and the more I am free of her the better I feel.’
Madame Blaise said seriously: ‘I am looking for romance and I should go off on my own, only that I must do all the business and money matters for my husband and son and daughter. Without me they would be in rags. I brought all the money to the house. A physician eats up all he earns. I did not wish to have this house but the doctor insisted upon it for his prestige; and I hate it. I always hated that house; it is a prison, a death-house. While I am there, I have a feeling that I shall never get out of it alive.’
‘The fact is, she sits there all day and never attempts to get out,’ said the doctor.
‘But, Madame, you said you were going to the U.S.A.,’ said the Princess.
‘Oh, yes, we are going to the U.S.A. to look for our son spoiled by her. If he doesn’t break his neck first. He will break it one way or another the way she has brought him up.’