But I had been poor then. I could remember rushing out of the great bank at One Willow Street in New York when I had been a penniless twenty-one, and there on the corner of Willow and Wall I had come face to face with Jason Da Costa, rich, golden and successful …
I suddenly realized that the car was stationary and that both Peterson and the chauffeur were looking at me expectantly. For five horrible seconds I could remember neither where I was nor whom I had come to see.
‘Shall I go in and ask for the lady, sir?’ said the chauffeur helpfully.
Without a word I got out of the car and walked up the steps, but before I could ring the bell she had opened the door and eclipsed the past.
‘
Salve, venusta Lesbia!
’ I exclaimed in tolerable parody of Catullus, and we both laughed. She was wearing a long black coat which concealed her gown, and some glittery rings dangled garishly from her ears. Not only was her mouth painted a deep shade of red, but her cheeks were rouged and there was some nasty black stuff on her eyelashes. I wondered why I had decided to take her out to dinner, and came to the conclusion I must have been suffering from a premature lapse into senility. Surely only old men could want to take out vulgarly-painted little girls.
‘I’m afraid I owe you an apology,’ she said ruefully as we set off in the car to the Savoy. ‘I was so beastly intellectual this morning.’
I looked at her with astonishment. ‘Miss Slade,’ I said, ‘apologize if you wish for daubing yourself with the modern equivalent of blue woad, but there’s no need I assure you, to apologize for capping a quotation of Catullus.’
‘Well, my father always said men hated that kind of thing—’
‘Doesn’t that depend on the man? What kind of men have you been meeting?’
‘Mostly my father. I think I have an Electra complex,’ said Miss Slade gloomily, and the remainder of the journey passed very agreeably as she expounded on her imaginary psychological troubles.
It seemed that her father had been an English eccentric of the highest order and had practised every imaginable social vagary. In between sallies to London to drink himself under the table at the best-known twilight gathering places of the West End, he had stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a whig (‘A
whig
?’ I said incredulously to Miss Slade; ‘a whig,’ repeated Miss
Slade in despair), campaigned for the legalization of prostitution, penetrated suffragette meetings while disguised as a woman and held chamber music concerts in the nude on the Norfolk barges known as wherries. He had also been known to disrupt matins to register his disapproval of the Church of England. He had written thirty concertos for the flute, mailed sixty-two letters to
The Times
(all unpublished), dabbled in spiritualism and had privately published a book which purported to prove that Shakespeare had been a nom de plume for Queen Elizabeth. In addition to these diverse activities he had somehow found the time to indulge in the usual shooting, fishing and sailing which were so popular with the more conventional of the Norfolk gentry, and fancied himself as a ‘decoy man’, a hunter who traps wild duck in nets with the aid of a dog.
‘I do understand,’ I said sympathetically as we reached the Savoy, ‘that he must have been very tiring to live with, but I don’t see why you should imagine you have an Electra complex.’
‘I loved him,’ said Miss Slade. ‘Surely in the circumstances that must mean I was emotionally disturbed?’
‘Courageous, I agree, but—’
‘You haven’t heard the worst of it. I had a most unnatural childhood, Mr Van Zale.’
‘What fun it must have been! Come along into the restaurant and tell me all about it.’
Well oiled by the best cuisine in London, the saga of eccentricity in a Norfolk backwater unfolded with a truly Gothic splendour. Harry Slade’s first wife had been an aristocratic lady in delicate health, and from her chaise-longue she had engaged a governess to attend to her small daughter.
‘The governess was my mother,’ said Miss Slade apologetically. ‘My father fell in love with her and his wife rushed off with Chloe to get a divorce. It was like a shoddy version of
Jane Eyre
, with my father playing a fifth-rate Mr Rochester …’
The saga continued in baroque style. Her mother had departed when Harry Slade had refused to give up drinking, and Miss Slade had spent two years at her grandparents’ Lincolnshire rectory. ‘My grandparents wanted to keep me after my mother died, but I wanted so much to get back to Mallingham …’
I noted the substitution of Mallingham for her father but made no comment. Presently we had reached Slade’s third marriage to a chorus girl who had insisted that her stepdaughter be sent away to boarding school – ‘Though I had the last laugh there,’ said Miss Slade, ‘because I loved Cheltenham’ – and we then proceeded to the saga’s gory climax: Harry Slade’s alcoholic breakdown, temporary recovery and his eventual death from cirrhosis of the liver.
‘I had to look after him when my stepmother walked out with Percy,’ said Miss Slade. ‘I was his keeper. It was frightful. I think I’d have gone mad if I hadn’t escaped to Cambridge. And then of course he had the nerve to die broke and intestate. Wasn’t that the absolute frozen limit?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He
sounds a fool. But you’re no fool, are you, Miss Slade? All that rigmarole about an Electra complex was merely a device to maintain my interest in your admittedly unusual situation. Tell me, why do you avoid talking of your mother?’
She went bright red. ‘My mother died of tetanus. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It’s an ill wind, as they say. At least her death allowed you to go back to Mallingham.’
She opened her mouth to speak but no words came. A waiter poured her some more champagne. My own glass was still standing untouched beside my plate of Dover sole.
‘Let me see if I’ve understood your situation,’ I said amicably. ‘You despised your father and your refusal to discuss your mother indicates you’ve rejected her too. Your half-brother wants to deprive you of your home and your half-sister isn’t lifting a finger to stop him, so they can hardly be considered your friends, particularly when your home means so much to you. You’re destitute and desperate but whether by skill, judgement or just plain good luck you’ve thought of an interesting idea for making money. I made a couple of calls this afternoon. Cosmetics today happens to be an interesting field – more interesting than I’d anticipated. It’s a pity that a woman’s considered a bad business risk.’
‘But I’m just as well educated as any man!’
‘Forget it, Miss Slade. In the world where you’re going to have to earn your living, you won’t have the chance to scan iambic pentameters.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you’re going to turn me down because I’m a woman?’
I sighed. ‘Don’t waste your emancipated rage on me, my dear, because my mother and sister proved to me early in life that women can be just as able intellectually as any man under the sun. Believe me, if I turn you down it won’t be because I think you’re a member of an inferior species. It’ll be because I know all too well what a handicap your sex would be in the world of commerce where other men hold less enlightened views than mine.’
‘People can overcome handicaps,’ said Miss Slade.
‘You might find this handicap too severe. I doubt if you could rise above it.’
‘Oh yes, I could!’ she said fiercely.
I stared at her. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that if she had been a man I would have unhesitatingly added her to my list of protégés. For years I had made a hobby of picking out unlikely people and watching them climb to prominence against long odds.
‘How can I prove myself to you?’ she said, just as O’Reilly and Steve Sullivan and a dozen others had all said to me in the past. And then she said in a rush: ‘When
you
were my age did you never once have your back to the wall? And if you did, was there no one who reached out to give you a helping hand?’
My mind
spun far out over the curve of memory and when it returned I saw my own image reflected back at me in her dark earnest eyes. But I knew I had to be careful. This would be a big gamble. I had to be absolutely sure.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
‘But—’
‘I’ve just one piece of advice to give you: be yourself. I think I’ve already demonstrated that I’m capable of seeing through any pose you care to strike. Now let’s have a little coffee and talk of something else.’
She responded so smartly that I gave her an ‘A’ for adaptability. She said she had read in the paper that I had been in Genoa before I had arrived in London, and she asked me to tell her about the Conference. Mentally allotting her another ‘A’ for effort I gave her my views on European politics, and then since those politics were inextricably mixed with economics I began to talk of the new theories of John Maynard Keynes. Soon we were debating whether the old laws of Adam Smith had reached the stage of disintegration.
‘You socialists are in an awkward situation,’ I said after she had confessed her political inclinations and told me that anyone who had ever been broke must inevitably lean towards socialism. ‘Until now laissez-faire economics has brought tremendous wealth. You argue that this wealth should be shared – but this implies a belief that the wealth is going to be sustained. In other words you have to support capitalism in order to put your theories into operation – surely an embarrassing situation for anyone veering towards Bolshevist beliefs!’
Miss Slade launched gamely into a distinction between democratic socialism and communism, and argued that socialism must ally itself with capitalism until the socialists had a majority in Parliament. At this point, within the framework of a democracy, socialism would triumph and capitalism would wither away.
‘It’s democracy that would wither away,’ I said, ‘but that might not necessarily be a tragedy.’
‘You don’t believe in democracy?’ She was shocked.
‘I believe in Plato. There’s only one form of government that’s worse than democracy and that’s tyranny.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought an American would pay much attention to Plato’s
Republic
! Didn’t Socrates advocate that in a state there should be a close connection between ethics and politics?’
I laughed so loudly that people near by turned to stare at us. Miss Slade suddenly dissolved into giggles. When we had recovered I said smoothly: ‘May I suggest we adjourn to Curzon Street to view the Rouen Apocalypse?’ and pushed back my chair.
‘But you haven’t paid the bill!’
‘Oh, I never handle money – such a vulgar capitalist occupation! Come along, my dear. No, don’t feel obliged to finish the champagne.’
But of course she had to finish it. I gave her ‘D’ for recklessness but mitigated it to ‘C’. After all, she was very young. What a delectable age
twenty-one was! Young women of that age were freed from the awkwardness of adolescence yet were still fluid before the onset of maturity. I decided I was extremely partial to young girls in their early twenties.
When we arrived home I took her to the library and offered her a cigarette from the box on the table.
She looked at me. ‘I’m sure you don’t approve of women smoking.’
‘My dear, there comes a point when to oppose social change is not only futile but debilitating. Take a cigarette if you want one. I’m sure you’d look charming even if you decided to smoke a Havana cigar.’
She still hesitated but finally, remembering my earlier advice, she accepted a cigarette and thanked me when I lit it for her. When she choked on the smoke a second later I had the excuse to sit down beside her and pat her on the back.
My fingers gravitated to her waist. I slid my arm around her, and removing the cigarette I extinguished it in the ash-tray.
‘I’m married, you know,’ I said as I leant forward to kiss her.
‘How nice! Do you marry often?’
‘About once every ten years.’ I congratulated myself on having extinguished the offensive cigarette before the taste could ruin her mouth. As my hands moved luxuriously over her hips I allowed my kisses to lengthen until I was aware of the most pervasive sense of well-being. It is always so gratifying when events move exactly according to plan.
‘We really should take a look at the Rouen Apocalypse,’ I murmured. ‘If you can summon the energy to stir from this comfortable couch I suggest we move upstairs.’
‘Why isn’t the manuscript here in the library? Oh, I see – it’s so valuable you keep it in a safe.’
‘No, my dear, just under my pillow. This way.’
I steered her into the hall. She was by no means drunk, but she was a long way from being sober. As we climbed the stairs she said gravely: ‘There are two things you should know. First I think marriage is an abominable institution, and second I absolutely believe in the intellectual validity of free love.’
‘I always knew I approved of higher education for women. Who was your idol when you were at Cambridge? Marie Stopes?’
‘Well, of course I wouldn’t expect a Victorian like you to understand. If you disapprove of women using cosmetics you’re bound to disapprove of them using contraceptives!’
‘My dear, I have many ambitions, but the destruction of the human race isn’t one of them, and according to Malthus carefree procreation can only lead to a disaster of apocalyptic dimensions.’ Opening the door of my room I ushered her inside. ‘And talking of Apocalypses—’
‘Oh, there it is!’ exclaimed Miss Slade, and headed straight for the manuscript which was lying on the night-stand.
We sat down on the bed together and looked at ten-headed serpents, leering gargoyles and the tortured faces of wicked sinners facing the eternal
fires of hell. It took her less than three minutes to become restless and seconds later I was removing the manuscript from her hands. ‘The text should really be reviewed in daylight,’ I murmured. ‘The script is faint in parts and you don’t want to strain your eyes.’
‘I’m not worried about my eyes,’ said Miss Slade, ‘just my … oh, Great Scott, what a blinking nuisance! Do you have a lavatory near here? I should have gone at the Savoy.’
‘I think you’ll find the plumbing here satisfactory. Through that door over there.’