Poor Caroline (8 page)

'Ah,' said he. 'I believe that you do not know Mr. Isen
baum, Mr. St. Denis? Mr. St. Denis, Mr. Isenbaum.'

Mitchell had made one miscalculation. Of all his clients
there was none who appreciated better than Basil St. Denis
the fine shades of etiquette at Mitchell's. He knew that
Augustus Mitchell did not introduce his
Jews. He knew that
Mitchell sought to make himself unpleasant. He quietly
spiked the tailor's guns.

'Ah, Isenbaum, we are two revolutionaries. Mitchell will
have none of us. I am desolate. We must console each other. Were you going anywhere?'

'Only eventually back to the city. But not in any hurry,'
smiled Joseph nervously.

'Then come and have a drink first,' said Basil, as though
Joseph Isenbaum were the one man in all London whom he
had hoped to meet.

They left the shop together, leaving the tailor more har
assed, angry, outraged and discomforted than he had ever been since Mitchell's stood in Sackville Street. But Joseph
was elated. He knew that he had done a
good day's work.
If a few hundred pounds invested in a wild-cat enterprise to purify the cinema could buy him the friendship of an old
Etonian, the investment was as good as made.

§2

A week later, Joseph Isenbaum asked St. Denis to bring
Miss Denton-Smyth to lunch with him at Boulestin's. He
had devoted some thought to the details of that party. 'It's not enough for the man to be indebted to me,' he had told
himself. 'He's got to like me.' He felt that the liking depended to a great extent upon the choice of a restaurant.
The Savoy was too hackneyed, Claridge's no place for busi
ness, Simpson's too beef-steaky and he-mannish. He chose
Boulestin's.

Sitting in the ante-room, uneasily turning over smooth
new copies of the
Sketch
and
Taller,
he waited for St. Denis
and the lady who had inspired his interest in the cinema.
He was anxious to meet this Miss Denton-Smyth, for though
still uncertain of St. Denis's honesty and intentions, Joseph
felt perfect confidence in his taste. Any lady whom St. Denis
brought to lunch would be worth entertaining.

Joseph tried to imagine what she would be like. He pic
tured her walking down the shallow rose-carpeted stairs,
and pausing to look at the glass case imprisoning bags and
scarves and fantastic glass beads displayed by an amusingly
expensive store. Would she be young, shy, ardent, the least
little trifle absurd in her fanaticism, like the charming young
thing who had once tried to interest him in a dancing
school? Or would she be a business woman, keen and com
petent as a greyhound, and unruffled as a fashion-sketch
from
Vogue?

She was late of course. They were both late. He imagined
that St. Denis would always be a little late. Unpunctuality
was the privilege of charming people. Joseph himself always

arrived everywhere a little too early, and then suffered
anguish from the embarrassment of waiting.

He was perturbed to-day by other considerations. Should he offer cocktails? Or was St. Denis one of those gourmets who accuse cocktails of blasphemy against the well-trained
palate? And if a cocktail, which?

He studied the little list. 'Moonshine,' 'Kingston,' 'Alex
andre'? This lunch was going to cost him a pretty penny.
It would be worth it, of course, if only Benjamin could go to Eton. But though aware of the advantages of extrava
gance, he could not refrain from reckoning his losses. His generosity and his economies were spasmodic. After a lunch at Boulestin's, he would ride for weeks in buses, and snap at
his wife for buying her stockings in half-dozen pairs.

He thought he would smoke. Smoking gave a fellow self-
confidence. The sight of his cigarette-case reassured him. He had exercised commendable self-control in choosing plain tortoise-shell with a gold monogram, when he might
so easily have carried platinum set with diamonds. His cigarette-case, he considered, was All Right, and it was immensely important to be All Right when one was the father
of a prospective Etonian.

His attention was diverted from his contemplation of Ben's
future by the sight of a woman entering the restaurant. She
was so remarkable a woman that Joseph stared at her with
indignation. For when one has gone to all the trouble and
expense of choosing to entertain acquaintances at Boulestin's, one does at least expect to be spared nuisances of that
kind. Joseph wanted her to be removed immediately, not
rudely of course, and not in any way that would cause discomfort to a spectator, but gently and firmly lured upstairs
again, and out into the more appropriate neighbourhood of
Covent Garden. Seated among the fruit boxes and orange
cases of the market, she would seem almost commonplace.

But she did not appear to be abashed by her intrusion.
She halted in the doorway, and fumbling among the chains
and beads about her neck, found a pair of lorgnettes, clicked
them open, and stood peering through them into the ante
room, turning her finger a little as she peered, so that all her chains and beads clashed softly together, like the trappings
of an oriental dancer at a cheap music hall. The lorgnettes
imparted to her short, plump, eccentric figure an air of
comic but indomitable dignity. Her preposterous red hat,
with its huge ribbon bows and sweeping pheasant's feather, bobbed triumphantly above her fizzled hair. Her green coat shone with age, but it was elaborately decorated with lumps
and bands of sealskin, the fur worn to that soft ruddy opales
cence which it acquires with extreme decrepitude. Her
shoes-Joseph had taught himself always to look at a
woman's shoes-were worse than inadequate, they were
shameful.

It was quite hideous that she should be there, destroying the muted perfection of that subterranean refuge from distressing things. Her poverty, her oddity, her jaunty air of
unintimidated resolution were abominable.

Joseph was a soft-hearted man. He did not wish to be re
minded of the poverty and loneliness of odd old ladies when
about to enjoy himself at a good restaurant. Supposing St.
Denis came in and saw her there? Joseph shuddered, and
tried to turn his mind to the anticipation
of
cr
é
pes de Volailles.

But through the open door he saw now, coming down the
staircase, a pair of elegant feet with immaculate spats, fol
lowed by beautifully pressed trousers, followed by a lounge
suit of Mitchell's most perfect cut, followed by the thin, pale,
handsome, supercilious face of Basil St. Denis. Horrors! St. Denis would see the
old hag in the doorway. There was no
remedy for this nightmare situation.

He did see her. St. Denis paused and looked at the
woman. The woman turned and looked at St.
Denis. Then
she let her lorgnettes fall and held out her hand with a little
cry of pleasure.

'Oh, I didn't see you and I knew I was late, and though
I know it's silly, I always say to myself now has he been run
over by a bus, or have I come to the wrong restaurant?'

'You've come to the right restaurant, and I was not run
over by a bus, and here is our host waiting for us. Mr. Isen
baum, may I introduce the honorary secretary of the Chris
tian Cinema Company, Miss Caroline Denton-Smyth?'

Joseph gasped; Joseph stared. With a terrific effort he
tried to pull himself together and to assume the careless
courtesy of an Etonian's father. He heard his treacherous
voice stammering:

'Pleased to meet you, Miss Denton-Smyth.'

After that there was nothing for it but a cocktail.

If Miss Denton-Smyth looked strange in the restaurant, she made it quite clear by her manner that she felt quite at
home there. She settled herself at the little painted table,
and talked to the waiter with smiling familiarity. She would
certainly have a cocktail. If Alexandres really had whipped
cream in them, she would have an Alexandre. She adored
whipped cream. She adored those very curious paintings on
the wall. A little
Bohemian
perhaps; but then it was nice,
once in a way, to be Bohemian. And now that she was con
nected with the cinema trade it was important to get to
know all sorts and conditions of men - and women. She caught sight of a lovely blonde, trim as a magpie in black and white, dazzling an enamoured stock-broker at a corner
table -
'Men
and women,' repeated Miss Denton-Smyth,
sipping her Alexandre with satisfaction.

Joseph watched her, fascinated. He noticed that St. Denis
took her entirely for granted, treated her as though her
oddity were an asset, or, even more subtly, as though she
were not odd at all. And following St. Denis, attempting to
imitate St. Denis's delicacy of feeling, Joseph found himself
regarding Miss Denton-Smyth with acquiescence. For
though she was shabby, pretentious and a little absurd, she
was not insignificant. Seen more closely, her shabbiness
wore an air of picturesque and debonair eccentricity.

She was a little woman, short, plump and animated as a
kitten. Beneath her hat bubbled and curled the dyed and
frizzled fringe that almost hid her lively arched brown eyebrows. Her eyes were large, handsome, brown and romantic as a spaniel's. She might have been any age between forty-
five and seventy. There was youth in her eyes, in her vitality,
in her soft, eager hurrying voice and merry laugh; there was
youth in her girlish skirt and sturdy legs; but her skin was
old. Her round brown face was wrinkled as a walnut; her
neck was old, and her busy restless hands were knotted with
rheumatism.

St. Denis let her talk. It amused Joseph to watch how he
prompted her with casual questions, as though her flow of discursive, excited, emphatic conversation gave him ex
quisite entertainment. Joseph could not keep up with her at all.

He heard her say, 'And so, you see, if we can really buy the
rights for six months of the Tona Perfecta, we shall soon raise
the capital for manufacture.'

He gathered that the Tona Perfecta was some newly invented talking film.

'Yes, Mr. Johnson met him, and of course although he is perhaps a rather
rough
diamond, I always say he has a heart of gold, and then these Canadians are somehow so
winning,
and Mr. St. Denis went with Johnson to the laboratory,
didn't you, Mr. St. Denis? It's out at Annerley, you know, in a really extraordinary place, although he is undoubtedly
a genius.'

Joseph's mind leapt panting after her eager affirmations,
but he was handicapped by the necessity of instructing the
waiter, of choosing wines, and of paying attention to his
other guest. He could not follow her.