Mansfield with Monsters (7 page)

Mug talked as though he might never drink the coffee in his hand while Eddie Warren downed his and set down the cup with a face of anguish as though he had drunk and seen the spider.

Miss Fulton sank into the lowest, deepest chair and Harry handed round the cigarettes.

From the way he stood in front of her shaking the silver box and saying abruptly: “Egyptian? Turkish? Virginian? They're all mixed up,” Bertha felt that he really disliked Miss Fulton. And she decided from the way Miss Fulton said: “No, thank you, I won't smoke,” that she was hurt or confused by it.

“Oh, Harry, don't dislike her,” she thought. “You are quite wrong about her. She's wonderful, wonderful. And, besides, how can you feel so differently about someone who means so much to me. I shall try to tell you when we are in bed to-night what has been happening. What she and I have shared.”

At those last words something strange and almost terrifying darted into Bertha's mind. And this something blind and smiling whispered to her: “Soon these people will go. The house will be quiet. The lights will be out. And you and he will be alone together in the dark room, the warm bed…”

For the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband. Oh, she'd loved him. She'd been in love with him, of course, in every other way, but just not in that way. And equally, of course, she'd understood that he was different. They'd discussed it so often. It had worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold, but after a time it had not seemed to matter. They were so frank with each other, such good pals. That was the best of being modern.

But now—ardently! ardently! The word ached in her ardent body! Was this what that feeling of bliss had been leading up to?

“My dear,” said Mrs Norman Knight, “you know our shame. We are the victims of time and train. We must return back to our suburban sanctuary before curfew shuts the tunnel gates. How fortunate you are to have owned a house in the city before the walls went up. But this evening's been so nice.”

“I'll come with you into the hall,” said Bertha. “I loved having you. But you must not miss the last train. That's so awful, isn't it?”

“Why doth the bridegroom tarry?” said Mug as though only now observing that it was only the three of them at the front door.

“Never mind all that, Face. It's time we headed for home and hearth. Do tell that husband of yours good-night from us, darling.”

“Quite. Leave him and Eddie to their whisky.” He squeezed Bertha's hand as he shook it and sailed out the door with a wave, declaring that: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

“Good-night, good-bye,” she cried from the top step, feeling that this self of hers was taking leave of them for ever. She watched them walk down the path and disappear into the shadows as though the night had swallowed them whole.

When she got back into the drawing-room Eddie was alone by the fire.

“I
wonder
if you have seen Bilks'
new
poem called ‘Table d'Hôte',” said Eddie softly. “It's
so
wonderful. In the last Anthology. Have you got a copy? I'd
so
like to
show
it to you. It begins with an
incredibly
beautiful line: ‘Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?' ”

“Yes,” said Bertha. And she moved noiselessly to a table opposite the drawing-room door and Eddie glided noiselessly after her. She picked up the little book and gave it to him; they had not made a sound.

He wandered back to his seat to look it up and she went back to the door and eased it open a crack. She saw Harry striding out of his study carrying Miss Fulton's coat. Miss Fulton stood a few steps down the hall with her back to him and her head bent. He advanced on her, tossed the coat down at her feet, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her violently to him.

“Where were you this afternoon? Why didn't you come? I crossed the river to wait for you!” he hissed.

“I couldn't,” she murmured, eyes down at the floor. “I was… detained.”

His lips said: “You can't do this to me. I adore you,” and Miss Fulton laid her moonbeam fingers on his cheeks and smiled her sleepy smile. Harry's nostrils quivered; his lips curled back in a hideous grin while he whispered: “To-morrow, you must meet me, I have had our private little hotel across the river restocked and fortified,” and with her eyelids Miss Fulton said: “Yes.”

He grabbed her by her arm and kissed her mouth and then her neck, his fingers caressing her skin so that her silver dress slipped off the shoulder on the left side.

Bertha saw the red gash across the pale skin just as Harry's fingers brushed over the dried wound on her left shoulder blade. Roughly, he bent her round to examine the mark.

“It's just a scratch. It's nothing,” Miss Fulton pleaded.

Bertha wanted to burst through the doorway and rush in between them, or to scream at her to flee, but she couldn't move or speak.

“Here it is,” said Eddie, walking up behind Bertha. “ ‘Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?' It's so
deeply
true, don't you feel? Tomato soup is so
dreadfully
eternal. Oh, I say!”

At the sound of his voice, Harry spun round face them, allowing Miss Fulton a moment's distraction to break free from his grip. It was as though she understood Bertha's thoughts entirely. The exit to the street blocked by Harry's bulk, she darted to the back door of the drawing-room.

“Please,” Bertha wished silently, “let her flee, let her escape.”

Miss Fulton's slender fingers wrapped around the door handle. She held it for a moment longer and then looked back up the hall towards Bertha as she stepped out of the drawing-room.

“Good-bye,” whispered Bertha.

Miss Fulton turned, opened the door and ran out into the darkness. Harry didn't chase her but marched back into his study. Bertha started to cross the hall but as she neared the study Harry strode through the door, wielding his shotgun.

“Harry, no. Please,” she cried, reaching for his arm, but he brushed her aside and hurried out onto the balcony over-looking the garden.

“She's infected. Damn fool must have breached the cordon for some reason.”

Bertha chased after him into the moonlit garden. His pace was so intent and quick, every step made the distance between them wider. Miss Fulton had given up running now. She simply walked towards the tall, slender pear-tree at the far end of the garden. It struck Bertha at that moment. The beauty of it. The perfection of the flowering tree, the luminous moon and slender figure dressed in shimmering silver.

Harry was gaining on her. He trampled through a bed of slumbering tulips and was not more than ten feet away when Miss Fulton stopped in front of the tree.

“Your lovely pear-tree,” she said, her dreamy voice resounding through the silent garden.

Harry raised his shotgun and Bertha thought perhaps she hadn't even heard the shot. All she could hear was Miss Fulton's words dancing in her ears. She saw the body slump and fall to the ground at the base of the tree. And then she was gone.

“I'll have everything cleaned up and see Eddie makes it back home safely,” said Harry, extravagantly cool and collected as he turned away and walked back to Bertha. “You'd better get inside. It's cold. You'll catch your death out here.”

She couldn't look at him. The guards were shouting to each other as they rushed into the garden, lured away from their patrol by the call of gunfire. She couldn't bear to look at them either. She simply ran back into the house.

“Your lovely pear-tree—pear-tree—pear-tree!” That sweet voice like an everlasting echo even after she had closed the door.

“Oh, what is going to happen now?” she cried.

But when she woke up the next morning and looked out into the garden, the pear-tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.

The Young Girl

In her blue dress, with her cheeks lightly flushed, her blue, blue eyes, and her gold curls pinned up as though for the first time—pinned up to be out of the way for her flight—Mrs Raddick's daughter might have just dropped from this radiant heaven. Mrs Raddick's timid, faintly astonished, but deeply admiring glance looked as if she believed it, too; but the daughter didn't appear any too pleased—why should she?—to have alighted on the steps of the Casino. Indeed, she was bored—bored as though Heaven had been full of casinos with snuffy old saints for croupiers and crowns to play with.

The leech on her neck was pulsing slightly, veins of dark brown throbbing under its pale skin. Its spindly tentacles wrapped around the daughter's slender neck, disappeared beneath her gold curls and down under her coat. I felt my own leech swell as it fed off my pleasure in seeing so radiant a creature, and it released a trace of its nectar into my bloodstream.

“Now Hennie, you go with the nice man. You don't mind awfully, do you?” Mrs Raddick asked me, her eyes wild. Her own leech was bloated, enormous, almost as large as the handbag she clutched. It was latticed with purple and crimson. “Sure you don't? There's the car, and you'll have tea and we'll be back here on this step—right here—in an hour. You see, I want her to go in. She's not been before, and it's worth seeing. I feel it wouldn't be fair to her.”

“Oh, shut up, mother,” said she wearily. “Come along. Don't talk so much. And your bag's open; you'll be losing all your money again.”

“I'm sorry, darling,” said Mrs Raddick.

“Oh,
do
come in! I want to make money,” said the impatient voice. “It's all jolly well for you—but I'm broke!”

“Here—take fifty francs, darling, take a hundred!” I saw Mrs Raddick pressing notes into her hand as they passed through the swing doors.

Hennie and I stood on the steps a minute, watching the people. He had a very broad, delighted smile. At twelve, he was too young to be leechbonded. His pleasure was all his own.

“I say,” he cried, “there's an English bulldog. Are they allowed to take dogs in there?”

“No, they're not.”

“He's a ripping chap, isn't he? I wish I had one. They're such fun. They frighten people so, and they're never fierce with their—the people they belong to.” Suddenly he squeezed my arm. “I say,
do
look at that old woman. Who is she? Why does she look like that? Is she a leechlost?”

The ancient, withered creature, wearing a green satin dress, a black velvet cloak and a white hat with purple feathers, jerked slowly, slowly up the steps as though she were being drawn up on wires. She stared in front of her, she was laughing and nodding and cackling to herself; her claws clutched round what looked like a dirty boot-bag. Whether her alien was still attached was not clear; the ruinous work of its excessive nectar was all too obvious.

But just at that moment there was Mrs Raddick again with—
her
—and another lady hovering in the background. Mrs Raddick rushed at me. She was brightly flushed, gay, a different creature. She was like a woman who is saying ‘good-bye' to her friends on the station platform, with not a minute to spare before the train starts.

“Oh, you're here, still. Isn't that lucky! You've not gone. Isn't that fine! I've had the most dreadful time with—her,” and she waved to her daughter, who stood absolutely still, disdainful, looking down, twiddling her foot on the step, miles away. “They won't let her in. I swore she was twenty-one, old enough to host one of… them. But they won't believe me. I showed the man my purse; I didn't dare to do more. But it was no use. He simply scoffed… And now I've just met Mrs MacEwen from New York, and she just won thirteen thousand in the
Salle Privee
—and she wants me to go back with her while the luck lasts. Of course I can't leave—her. But if you'd—”

At that ‘she' looked up; she simply withered her mother. “Why can't you leave me?” she said furiously. “What utter rot! How dare you make a scene like this? This is the last time I'll come out with you. You really are too awful for words.” She looked her mother up and down. “Calm yourself,” she said superbly. Her leech shivered and shrank at her bitterness.

Mrs Raddick was desperate, just desperate. She was ‘wild' to go back with Mrs MacEwen, but at the same time…

I seized my courage. “Would you—do you care to come to tea with—us?”

“Yes, yes, she'll be delighted. That's just what I wanted, isn't it, darling? Mrs MacEwen… I'll be back here in an hour… or less… I'll—”

Mrs R dashed up the steps. I saw her bag was open again.

So we three were left. But really it wasn't my fault. Hennie looked crushed to the earth, too. When the car was there she wrapped her dark coat round her—to escape contamination. Even her little feet looked as though they scorned to carry her down the steps to us.

“I am so awfully sorry,” I murmured as the car started. My leech was as confused as I was by my pleasure and discomfort.

“Oh, I don't
mind
,” said she. “I don't
want
to look twenty-one. Who would—if they were seventeen! It's”—and she gave a faint shudder—“the stupidity I loathe, and being stared at by old fat men. Beasts!”

Hennie gave her a quick look and then peered out of the window.

We drew up before an immense palace of pink-and-white marble with orange-trees outside the doors in gold-and-black tubs.

“Would you care to go in?” I suggested.

She hesitated, glanced, bit her lip, and resigned herself. “Oh well, there seems nowhere else,” said she. “Get out, Hennie.”

I went first—to find the table, of course—she followed. But the worst of it was having her little brother, who was only twelve, with us. That was the last, final straw—having that child, trailing at her heels.

There was one table. It had pink carnations and pink plates with little blue tea-napkins for sails.

“Shall we sit here?”

She put her hand wearily on the back of a white wicker chair.

“We may as well. Why not?” said she.

Hennie squeezed past her and wriggled on to a stool at the end. He felt awfully out of it. She didn't even take her gloves off. She lowered her eyes and drummed on the table. When a faint violin sounded she winced and bit her lip again. Silence. Newly-bonded leeches reacted violently to music.

The waitress appeared. I hardly dared to ask her. “Tea—coffee? China tea—or iced tea with lemon?”

Really she didn't mind. It was all the same to her. She didn't really want anything. Hennie whispered, “Chocolate!”

But just as the waitress turned away she cried out carelessly, “Oh, you may as well bring me a chocolate, too.”

While we waited she took out a little, gold powder-box with a mirror in the lid, shook the poor little puff as though she loathed it, and dabbed her lovely nose.

“Hennie,” she said, “take those flowers away.” She pointed with her puff to the carnations, and I heard her murmur, “I can't bear flowers on a table.” They had evidently been giving her leech some pleasure, for she positively closed her eyes as I moved them away.

The waitress came back with the chocolate and the tea. She put the big, frothing cups before them and pushed across my clear glass. Hennie buried his nose, emerged, with, for one dreadful moment, a little trembling blob of cream on the tip. But he hastily wiped it off like a little gentleman. I wondered if I should dare draw her attention to her cup. She didn't notice it—didn't see it—until suddenly, quite by chance, she took a sip. I watched anxiously; she faintly shuddered.

“Dreadfully sweet!” said she. The leech at her shoulder pulsed and swelled gently.

A tiny boy with a head like a raisin and a chocolate body came round with a tray of pastries—row upon row of little freaks, little inspirations, little melting dreams. He offered them to her. “Oh, I'm not at all hungry. Take them away.”

He offered them to Hennie. Hennie gave me a swift look—it must have been satisfactory—for he took a chocolate cream, a coffee éclair, a meringue stuffed with chestnut, and a tiny horn filled with fresh strawberries. She could hardly bear to watch him. But just as the boy swerved away she held up her plate.

“Oh well, give me
one
,” said she.

The silver tongs dropped one, two, three—and a cherry tartlet. “I don't know why you're giving me all these,” she said, and nearly smiled. “I shan't eat them; I couldn't!”

I felt much more comfortable. I sipped my tea, leant back, and even asked if I might smoke. My leech enjoyed the sensation, and I couldn't bring myself to mind about the years it might cost me. At that she paused, the fork in her hand, opened her eyes, and really did smile. “Of course,” said she. “I always expect people to.” But at that moment a tragedy happened to Hennie. He speared his pastry horn too hard, and it flew in two, and one half spilt on the table. Ghastly affair! He turned crimson. Even his ears flared, and one ashamed hand crept across the table to take what was left of the body away.

“You utter little beast!” said she.

Good heavens! I had to fly to the rescue. I cried hastily, “Will you be abroad long?”

But she had already forgotten Hennie. I was forgotten, too. She was trying to remember something… She was miles away, sugar and nectar intoxicating her as her leech fed.

“I—don't—know,” she said slowly, from that far place.

“I suppose you prefer it to London. Fewer of these around.” I indicated my parasite. “They're quite a rarity here. It's more—more—”

When I didn't go on she came back and looked at me, very puzzled. “More—?”

“
Enfin
—gayer,” I cried, waving my cigarette. “Refined. The poorer classes feed theirs in such base ways back home.”

But that took a whole cake to consider. Even then, “Oh well, that depends!” was all she could safely say.

Hennie had finished. He was still very warm.

I seized the butterfly list off the table. “I say—what about an ice, Hennie? What about tangerine and ginger? No, something cooler. What about a fresh pineapple cream?”

Hennie strongly approved. The waitress had her eye on us. The order was taken when she looked up from her crumbs.

“Did you say tangerine and ginger? I like ginger. You can bring me one.” And then quickly, “I wish that orchestra wouldn't play things from the year One. We were dancing to that all last Christmas, before I was bonded. Now it's too sickening!”

To human ears it was a charming air. Now that I noticed it, it warmed me, and my leech didn't mind so much.

“I think this is rather a nice place, don't you, Hennie?” I said.

Hennie said: “Ripping!” He meant to say it very low, but it came out very high in a kind of squeak.

Nice? This place? Nice? For the first time she stared about her, trying to see what there was… She blinked; her lovely eyes wondered. A very good-looking elderly man stared back at her through a monocle on a black ribbon. But him she simply couldn't see. There was a hole in the air where he was. She looked through and through him.

Finally the little flat spoons lay still on the glass plates. Hennie looked rather exhausted, but she pulled on her white gloves again. She had some trouble with her diamond wrist-watch; it got in her way. She tugged at it—tried to break the stupid little thing—it wouldn't break. Finally, she had to drag her glove over. I saw, after that, that the nectar had subsided and she couldn't stand this place a moment longer. Indeed, she jumped up and turned away while I went through the vulgar act of paying for the tea.

And then we were outside again. It had grown dusky. The sky was sprinkled with small stars; the big lamps glowed. While we waited for the car to come up she stood on the step, just as before, twiddling her foot, looking down.

Hennie bounded forward to open the door and she got in and sank back with—oh—such a sigh! Her leech would never thrive on such sighs.

“Tell him,” she gasped, “to drive as fast as he can.”

Hennie grinned at his friend the chauffeur. “
Allie veet
!” said he. Then he composed himself and sat on the small seat facing us.

The gold powder-box came out again. Again the poor little puff was shaken; again there was that swift, deadly-secret glance between her and the mirror.

We tore through the black-and-gold town like a pair of scissors tearing through brocade. Hennie had great difficulty not to look as though he were hanging on to something.

And when we reached the Casino, of course Mrs Raddick wasn't there. There wasn't a sign of her on the steps—not a sign.

“Will you stay in the car while I go and look?”

But no—she wouldn't do that. Good heavens, no! Hennie could stay. She couldn't bear sitting in a car. She'd wait on the steps.

“But I scarcely like to leave you,” I murmured. “I'd very much rather not leave you here.”

At that she threw back her coat; she turned and faced me; her lips parted. “Good heavens—why! I—I don't mind it a bit. I—I like waiting.” I caught a hint of silver in her hand, the bright flash of a stolen blade. And suddenly her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes grew dark—for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “L—let me, please,” she stammered, in a warm, eager voice. “I like it. I love waiting! Really—really I do! I have all the time in the world…”

Her free hand stole up to the starved leech on her shoulder, brushed against the tentacles that bored into her flesh. She closed her eyes and her fingers recoiled. Her dark coat fell open, and her white throat—all her soft young body in the blue dress—was like an emerging flower with a parasite deep within its dark bud.