Poor Caroline (50 page)

'Very good, miss.'

She rejoined her cousins in the car, laughing softly to
herself.

On the note she had written:

'You might at least pay me the compliment of asking me
to marry you. I do love you, you know. ELEANOR.
'

* * * *

Just as Eleanor handed her note to the undertaker's young
man, Basil St. Denis sat on a terrace below the Casino at
Monte Carlo smoking cigarettes, and watching the speedboats scribble white curving lines across the deep blue bay.
The sun poured down upon him like a benediction. He
knew now that he had not been warm for months.

That was all that was wrong with him. He had been too cold. London in winter was intolerable. It had been stupid of him ever to think he could endure it. What one needed
was sunlight. Well, thank Heaven the London adventure
was over. Only that morning Gloria had written to him
full plans for her hat-and-gown shop in the Boulevard des
Moulins. Gloria, marvellous woman, would make it pay.
The sooner she came, the better, for he missed her. He
needed her rich and tranquil personality to invigorate him.

He drew from his breast pocket the deep violet envelope almost covered by her large sprawling writing. On scented
paper, with bright purple ink, she wrote news of the state
of her finances, her resignation from the Hanover Square house, the death of Caroline Denton-Smyth and the volun
tary winding up of the Christian Cinema Company.

'Apparently, my dear, it was all in an awful legal mess,
but the de la Roux girl is on to it like a ferret - all efficiency
and company law and what-not. I hope it'll keep fine for her. It had really gone quite bust before Caroline's acci
dent. Oh, well it was quite fun while it lasted, and nobody seems to be much the worse for it, and at any rate we have
learned one thing from it all, that England in spite of Home
and Beauty is no place for us.'

He put down the letter to light a cigarette, remembering
as he did so poor Caroline's puzzled face bending over a
tattered copy of the Companies Consolidation Act of 1908. He remembered her large innocent brown eyes full of won
der as she looked up to ask 'if we are an association to pro
mote art, religion, charity and other useful purposes and
yet
we are for gain, if possible, which section of the act ought
we to come under?'

Of course the whole thing had been a farce from the be
ginning. Caroline was a farce. All life was a farce. But Gloria would be coming out in another six weeks, and
Gloria, even though she too was undoubtedly a figure in a farce, was a marvellous woman, and one of the few serene
and unchanging certainties in a restless and unstable world.

* * * *

Not very far along the coast, passengers were scrambling
laboriously up the gangway from the Marseilles dock on
to a ship bound for the East. Among them rolled Clifton Roderick Johnson, shouldering his way through American
tourists, Dutch commercial travellers and French merchants.
Behind him panted Delia, bumping a circular scarlet hat-box against the rail.

'You might stop. You might help a girl,' she scolded.
'Leaving me to carry everything. Gall yourself a gentle
man!' Johnson was already carrying two suit-cases and he
did not call himself a gentleman. That boast at least had
never been his. He called himself an artist, a pioneer, a
teacher, an enemy of society, a benefactor of the Arts, an
adventurer, a citizen of the British Empire, and a great lover. But he did not call himself a gentleman.

Three days ago, he might have explained this to Delia,
but he was learning the futility of explanation.

'Second class? On a dingy little cockle shell like this?
And you posing as a millionaire and going to take me a tour
de-luxe round the Mediterranean? I've a jolly good mind
to get you run in for White Slave Traffic.
I
am
under age, you know.'

'Be quiet. Be quiet. Do you wanna get all the nosy-
parkers on board on to us?'

But appeal was useless. Delia was tired already of adven
ture. She was cramped and dirty from her long journey
through France sitting up all night in a second-class carriage.
She was angry and bored and resentful, and she meant to
let him know it. But she had to go with him to Alexandria,
for he refused to give her money to return
, fearing lest she
should betray him, uncertain about the extradition laws,
uncertain of the extent of his offences or the chaos he had left behind. He stood on deck looking at the gangway, and
listening and half expecting to see an English policeman
climb after him to arrest and take him back to England.
But the girl at his side was merciless. The scolding voice
went on and on, lacerating his
nerves, tormenting him. But
he would not leave her behind. He could not desert her
in Paris, or Marseilles or even in Alexandria. She would make too much noise and he could not afford to face her
vindictiveness while he was still uncertain whether he
was a criminal flying from justice or a business man on
holiday.

Fool, fool that he had been even to have attempted that
mad journey. Fool, fool, to ask Delia to join him. For with her his money would last only half as long, and he was tired
of her already. Her shrill petulance maddened him. And
he could not shake her off.

He stood on the dingy deck looking back at Marseilles,
wretched and fearful, a victim of his own temperament, of
his upbringing, his tastes, and of the Christian Cinema
Company.

* * * *

Joseph Isenbaum came late that morning to the office.
He had been compelled to call upon an American client at
Brown's Hotel, and arrived just in time to glance through
his letters before he went off to lunch at Simpson's.

He was in admirable humour. Everything had gone
very well with him. He was likely to make a profit of
£18,500 17
s.
6
d.
from his transaction with the American.
The picture he had bought last week proved to be a genuine
Sebastino Corea, a painter whose work, if now a trifle
démodé,
was at least worth acquiring. He would bid for those
two Ming vases on sale to-morrow at Christie's if the dealers
didn't run up the price too ridiculously.

He turned over his letters with satisfaction, jerking out to
his secretary short notes for his replies. Then he came to
one from an unfamiliar firm of solicitors, which for a few
moments made him pause.

It stated that Messrs. Perkin & Warbeck were acting on behalf of Miss Eleanor de la Roux, a shareholder in the Christian Cinema Company, Ltd., and executor of the late Miss Caroline Denton-Smyth, also a shareholder in that
company. Miss de la Roux had instructed them to ap
proach him with a view to winding up the company, volun
tarily if possible. Owing to Miss de la Roux's decision not
to bring any action, it seemed unlikely that any litigation
would ensue from the transaction; but in order to facilitate
their action, the representative of Messrs. Perkin & Warbeck
requested the pleasure of an interview with Mr. Isenbaum.

He
put down the letter and chuckled softly. So this was
the end of the Christian Cinema Company Ltd. Ah well,
ah well, and Caroline Denton-Smyth was dead. Poor
Caroline. She had been so much alive, she had enjoyed
with such pathetic absurdity her position as a business
woman. She was such a queer old bird.

And she was dead. Well, he had reason to be grateful to
her. Through her he had met Basil St. Denis and through
St. Denis young Benjamin had been entered for Eton.
What was there left now for the Christian Cinema Company
to do? Had it not better, after that supreme achievement,
fade out of existence with its founder? It had smoothed the
path of life for Benjamin Isenbaum, a Jew. Was not that a
Christian act? What better justification could any company
require? 'Bless you, Caroline,' thought Joseph Isenbaum.

'Tell Perkin & Warbeck I can see their representative at 11.30 a.m. next Wednesday,' he told his secretary. 'Now,
what about that order from Rumania?'

The first Virago Modern Classic was published in London in
1978, launching a list dedicated to the celebration of women writers and to the rediscovery and reprinting of their works.
While the series is called "Modern Classics," it is not true that
these works of fiction are universally and equally considered
"great," although that is often the case. Published with new crit
ical and biographical introductions, books appear in the series
for different reasons: sometimes for their importance in liter
ary history; sometimes because they illuminate particular
aspects of women's lives, both personal and public. They may be classics of comedy or storytelling; their interest can be historical, feminist, political, or literary. In any case, in their variety and richness they promise to confuse forever the question
of what women's fiction is about, while at the same time affirm
ing a true female tradition in literature.

Initially, the Virago Modern Classics concentrated on English
novels and short stories published in the early decades of the century. As the series has grown, it has broadened to include
works of fiction from different centuries and from different countries, cultures, and literary traditions; there are books
written by black women, by Catholic and Jewish women, by
women of almost every English-speaking country, and there
are several relevant novels by men.

Nearly 200 Virago Modern Classics will have been published in
England by the end of 1985. During that same
year, Penguin
Books began to publish Virago Modern Classics in the United
States, with the expectation of having some forty titles from the series available by the end of 1986. Some of the earlier
books in the series were published in the United States by
The Dial Press.