Eustace and Hilda (74 page)

‘It was a very beautiful house, but at first she did not take to the idea of living there.' ‘I imagine his parents were dead.' ‘Well, not to begin with, but they were both killed in a motor accident.' ‘That seems rather summary.' ‘Well, it does happen, doesn't it?' ‘Had they been against the marriage?' ‘Well, in a sense, yes. You see they would have liked him to marry a rich girl.' ‘I see. What happened when their opposition was removed?' ‘I haven't quite got up to that yet, but my idea was a kind of gradual and progressive interchange of their good qualities—I mean, he would become more sympathetic in his outlook, kinder to cripples and so on, and she would lose some of the self-sufficiency which had hitherto made strangers, quite unjustly, a little afraid of her. He would become more aware of the moral, and she of the actual world. Of course they would be a very decorative pair, which his parents were not, though they were very good people in their way. But they had always been a little behind the times——'

‘Excuse me, but who had?' ‘I'm sorry, I meant his parents. They were not exactly proud, you know, but they thought a good deal about their pedigree, which was a very old one, and they weren't in touch with the latest developments and were rather apart from the people round them.‘ ‘What developments, in Heaven's name?' ‘Well, social and political and cultural—they hadn't contributed much, you understand, to the spiritual life of the district, though of course they had been very generous to it financially.' ‘Why of course? You seem to use words very loosely. Do you know you've begun every sentence with “well” so far? When I was at the Lycée des Beaux-Arts at Lausanne they used to say “What's the good of a well without any water?”' ‘Oh, I'm sorry. Talking makes one careless. My prose style is much more formal.' ‘I should hope so. But what happened when your hero's parents succumbed?' ‘Oh, then he and she got to work and organised the neighbourhood, and built a kind of theatre in the village, which was called after them, of course, and they had plays and concerts and lectures, and that part of the county became quite famous, and was called “Little Athens” by some people.' ‘Was it, indeed? And in what county have you laid your scene?' ‘Well, I thought of Norfolk. But when the idea caught on it would spread to other places and perhaps be the beginning of a new kind of civilisation.'

There was no answer; the sense of the presence of Eustace's interlocutor grew dim, and Eustace thought he must have gone away. But presently his rasping voice was heard again.

‘Is that all? Do you leave them there, Pericles and Aspasia, co-educating in Little Athens?' ‘Oh, they would have children, of course, who wouldn't have to go through what they had—I mean, in the way of making mistakes, and taking the wrong path, and having temperaments at odds with what they really wanted. They would find everything ready for them, so to speak, and start being happy straight away.' ‘In fact, you would be describing the dawn of the Golden Age?' ‘Well, I hadn't thought of it like that, but I should try to get the feeling of light into the book, gradually spreading, you know, until finally it enveloped everything, so that everything shone of itself, in the way it sometimes does here.' ‘But as you describe the book, there would be no darkness, only this appalling daylight growing stronger till everyone had to wear blue spectacles or go blind?' ‘Oh, it wouldn't go quite like that—you see, there would be some shadows at the beginning—obstacles to the marriage, and so on, and then the parents being killed, and perhaps some other setbacks as well—I haven't quite decided. No, I should try to give the effect of the light growing out of darkness.' ‘Would there be any limit to the rise in temperature?' the Voice asked. ‘Should you stop at a hundred, or go on to boiling-point?'

‘Oh,' said Eustace, ‘you're ragging me, but I should try to get the effect of light without too much heat.' ‘It would certainly be the first meteorological novel, but I can't see,' said the Voice, ‘that it would be strikingly original in other ways. And I don't think you've got the material for a novel. A short story, perhaps, a long short story, the kind no publisher will take.' ‘Still, it would be a book, wouldn't it? I should be able to say I was writing a book?' ‘Well, I suppose so,' said the Voice grudgingly. ‘But it seems such a funny thing to want to say.'

The grey-green lacquer of the cabinet above the writing-table was cool to look at, but Eustace felt his damp hand sticking to the blotting-paper. Never mind, he had written three pages and the book was in being. But how hot he was. He found himself longing for the cool shadows of Hyde Park, and the elms and plane trees of Rotten Row under which Lord Anchorstone was exercising his horse. That name had got to be changed, but it would serve for the moment. His lordship had just espied the beautiful girl surrounded by a group of grubby, pale-faced children, and was wondering what impression it would make on the other riders, many of them his friends, if he suddenly pulled up, leapt off his horse, led it towards the child-girt maiden, and got into conversation with her.

‘Excuse me, but don't you find those children a frightful nuisance? Wouldn't you like me to send them away?' ‘Oh no, thank you; you see, they have no one else to look after them.' ‘Well, suppose you made them run a race to the Serpentine and back, wouldn't that be a good plan?' ‘But what should I do meanwhile?' ‘Here's a seat, you can talk to me.' ‘But your horse?' (Eustace's imagination was haunted by this quadruped, as difficult to dispose of as a body in a murder story.) ‘Oh, my groom will take it. I've ridden enough for this afternoon.' ‘You're very kind, Mr.——?' ‘Anchorstone.'

She does not find out about his title till later, but the discovery makes his suit no easier, for she is a proud girl and inclined to be suspicious of a noble name. Henry James wouldn't have begun a novel in that way, but Meredith might have. Jasper Bentwich hadn't liked the opening, but he didn't feel drawn to honeymoon couples. Eustace was reminded of Lord and Lady Morecambe. It was nearly half-past five and he must take the plunge. Perhaps they would still be having tea in the Piazza.

But voices reached him from the other end of the great sala, and as he rounded the column two figures rose to their feet. One was a tall, fair man wearing a navy-blue coat over white flannels, the other a thin girl with high, wide cheekbones, and very large, rather shallow-set eyes under hair that was almost black.

“Here's our author,” said Lady Nelly from her chair. “Mr. Eustace Cherrington—Lady Morecambe, Lord Morecambe. All beginnings have to be formal, don't they?”

The couple smiled amiably at Eustace. “We looked for you,” Lady Nelly said, “and I nearly sent a deputation to your room, but you were nowhere to be found. Silvestro disclosed that you had been seen walking rapidly in the direction of the Zattere. He was sure you had an appointment to keep.”

“I only went to see the bridge being built,” said Eustace.

“We must take his word for it, mustn't we? And may we know what you did after that?”

Blushing with triumph Eustace replied, “I came back and wrote my book.”

C
OMING
down at eight o'clock the next evening, Eustace found Lord Morecambe alone. Sitting in a high-backed chair upholstered in worn crimson velvet, he was fanning himself with a white silk handkerchief.

“God, I am tired,” he said, “after all that sight-seeing. And now we've got to be out all night. If we asked for a whisky and soda do you think they'd know what it was?”

“We could try,” said Eustace cautiously.

“Ring the bell, then, there's a good fellow; I don't know where it is.”

Not unwilling to air his knowledge of the domestic arrangements of the palace, Eustace rang.

“Now you'll have to speak to him,” said Lord Morecambe. “You're the Italian scholar.”

“They don't always come,” said Eustace, but in this case they did and the drink was not slow in following.

“That makes the place look more like home, doesn't it?” said Lord Morecambe, contemplating the tray and its accompaniments with an approving eye. He was quite right, Eustace thought; the square-cut, glittering decanter shed its yellow beams far and wide like an English deed in an Italian world.

“No one would tell me what the word means,” said Lord Morecambe, raising his glass, “but here's to the Redentore.” Noticing Eustace's hesitation, he added, “Don't say it if you'd rather not.”

Strongly feeling that he would rather not, and hoping Lord Morecambe's ignorance was genuine, Eustace drank in silence.

“You know those candles we got in the church this morning,” Lord Morecambe went on, “they're supposed to do all kinds of things for us, but I put more faith in this, don't you?”

“Well——” Eustace began, uneasily.

“Don't say so if you don't think so. Some believe in one kind of spirit, some in another. This won't make a very good foundation for champagne, by the way. That is, if the old girl's going to give us champagne.”

Eustace flinched at this reference to Lady Nelly.

“She said she was.”

Lord Morecambe refilled his glass.

“Good—we couldn't have got through the evening without it. And talking of champagne reminds me that I saw Dick Staveley the other night. He's a friend of yours, isn't he? I was dining at the Ritz, a thing I seldom do, and he was there with a damned pretty girl. The champagne made me think of it.”

Eustace took a gulp of whisky and coughed. “Do you know who she was?”

“No, and that surprised me, for I know most of his girl-friends.”

“Did she look as if she was enjoying herself?” Eustace asked.

“She looked—well, excited,” Lord Morecambe said. “So did Dick, and I don't wonder,” he chuckled.

Eustace drew his breath with difficulty. “Was she dark or fair?”

“More dark than fair, and she had the most marvellous skin and eyes like stars.”

“Was she drinking champagne too?” Eustace asked.

“She kept putting her hand over the glass, but I dare say some trickled in between her fingers.”

Eustace had never been to the Ritz, but he tried to envisage the scene.

“I was with some people,” Lord Morecambe said, “but I couldn't help seeing, because there was a looking-glass straight in front of me and they were reflected in it.”

“Was he being nice to her?” Eustace said.

“Well, what do you expect? I'm not so sure that she was being nice to him though. Poor old Dick, he doesn't like being thwarted.”

“You mean the champagne?”

“I meant in general. We were going to a play, so I didn't see how it ended.”

“The—the argument?”

“Yes, if you could call it that.”

“But they seemed to be getting on all right?” said Eustace.

“Like a house on fire. I was amused, because usually, as you know, Master Dick has matters all his own way; this time it was he who was making the running.”

“You think he had met his match?” said Eustace.

“In all senses of the word.”

“When was that?” Eustace asked.

“I forget the exact day. Hullo, here's Lady Nelly and Héloise.” He stood up, and Eustace too. “Nelly, we were having a religious drink, to celebrate the day. Will you join us?”

Lady Nelly looked at the whisky with distaste. “Speaking for myself, no,” she said. “And really, Héloise, you must try to cure him of this horrible habit of blasphemy.”

In the soft southern drawl which Eustace was beginning to like, Lady Morecambe answered, “But I have tried, Lady Nelly. I say to him, ‘Harry, I don't mind what you do in England, because it's your country, but at home they'll think I've married a real tough!'”

Lord Morecambe did not seem at all abashed. “I don't believe it,” he said. “I believe they'll like my red blood much better than my blue. Besides, we aren't in America now. I'm a Protestant, and it's my duty to protect you against Popish superstitions.”

“Isn't he terribly unadaptable?” said Héloise, looking at her husband with fond pride.

“Don't let's provoke him,” said Lady Nelly, “or we shall have him talking about Wops and Dagoes next. Harry, the sight of your drink has made me thirsty. Eustace, be an angel and ring the bell. But not whisky, it's too disgusting—don't you think so, Héloise? I can't imagine where they found it. What a blighting effect men have. The room smells like a bar.”

“That was just what Cherrington and I liked,” said Lord Morecambe, as Eustace jumped up to do his errand. “We were saying how it took away the foreign feeling.”

“I'm sure Eustace didn't,” said Lady Nelly, to Eustace's relief. “Or if he did, it was only to humour your Anglo-Saxon prejudices.”

“He did—didn't you, Cherrington? He made a note to put it in his book.”

“I wish I was a writer,” said Héloise earnestly, before Eustace had time to think out a reply. “Then I could let everyone know what a wonderful time Lady Nelly's giving us.”

Even Eustace, whose conversational approaches were fairly guileless, felt this to be an unsophisticated remark.

“She wouldn't thank you,” said Lord Morecambe. “She likes her affairs kept private.”

But Lady Nelly did not seem to agree.

“Nonsense, Harry,” she said. “I'm only too pleased to know that Héloise is enjoying herself. How could I know if she didn't tell me?”

“Well, you could see if she was crying,” said Lord Morecambe. “I'm enjoying myself too, Nelly, except for some of the foreign stuff. Do you know what I'd like? I'd like to spend a quiet evening here playing bridge.”

The ladies made noises of disgust.

“Don't listen to him, Lady Nelly,” said Héloise. “It only makes him worse.”