Sir!' She Said (7 page)

“I've so enjoyed myself,” she said as she went up to say good-bye. “It has been fun. It was nice of you to ask me.”

“But you are not going. You've only just arrived.”

“I've been hours.”

“But I've seen nothing of you. And you haven't seen any of my toys. There are some books and pictures that might amuse you; this, for instance.”

From the mantelpiece he handed her a small Chinese scent-bottle. “The figures are painted inside the glass,” he said. “I've never managed to find out how they got them there. That's rather jolly, too: Limoges.”

He showed her the things casually, as though they
were less possessions than subjects for talk, for the exchange of ideas, for the comparing of mutual tastes.

There was plenty to discuss.

It was an Adams table that stood in the centre of the formal red curtained dining-room. On the walls were eighteenth-century racing prints. The long, low sideboard was bright with heavy candelabra. There were Persian rugs on the floor of the narrow hall. The solitary Chippendale book-case was bright with bindings: calf and vellum and morocco. The engravings upon the primrose-coloured walls were Fragonards. It was a man's flat. But the flat of a man with a fastidious, almost feminine taste, and with the means to indulge that taste.

As they strolled from room to room, chattering casually, she felt that the making of each indifferent remark was deepening that sense of intimacy between them of which she had been conscious from the first moment that he had walked into the shop. He made no reference to the screen. It had been an excuse that screen, then, as had been all those other things that he had bought. It was to see her that he had come into the shop. The knowledge thrilled her. She was happy, absurdly happy that it was to see her, not to have her advice that he had asked her to his party. It was regretfully that as they walked back into the hall she turned towards the door.

“I really must go now,” she said.

He looked at her quizzically.

“Really?”

“I'm dining at eight. It's twenty to. As it is I shall be too late to dress.”

“And it is as important as all that?”

“I don't know what you mean by it being important. My people don't like being kept waiting.”

“So you've parents, then?”

“Naturally. What did you think?”

“I don't know that I did think.”

“Didn't bother to, I suppose?”

She spoke quickly, irritably. But his smile was gentle and reassuring. “I thought you were nice,” he said. “I was content to leave it there.” And there was a softness in his voice that warmed her.

“That's nice of you,” she said, as she stretched out her hand in leave-taking.

It was a small hand, compact and practical. He held it in his, turning the fingers over.

“I wish you hadn't got to go,” he said. “I wish that dinner wasn't as important as all that. If it wasn't, I'ld have asked you to stay and have some food with me. We'ld have gone out into the country. By the river somewhere. It would have been nice, you know.”

He looked at her interrogatively, persuasively; not urgingly, but insidiously.

“Is the dinner really as important as all that?” he asked.

She hesitated. Important? Of course it wasn't; not really. As far as she knew there would be just the family: not anyone certainly whom her people would expect her to be there for. And the grey eyes were mockingly affectionate, and the fingers were gentle that fondled hers.

“It would be nice, you know,” that voice insisted. “Don't you think that if it wasn't too important you
might ring up and make some excuse or other?” Had he pleaded more, it would have been easier to resist. And she did not want to resist. She wanted to drive away from the heat and dust of London into the cool sweetness of a country twilight. She wanted to know more of this man who had excited her curiosity for so long. She wanted to hear his voice and to watch his hands, to feel the warmth of his smile on her.

“All right,” she said, “I'll come.”

His car was parked in St. James's Square. It was a racing model, low and long, bronze painted with silvered fittings, and deep grey leathered seats. As they drove westwards along Piccadilly she watched admiringly the skill and sureness with which he guided his way through the traffic. He did not speak. And she was grateful to him for letting her savour in silence the moment's glamour, the moment's peace.

The sun had set, the air was cooling. The pale green of the sky was deepening to violet; a violet through which the first stars would soon be shining faintly. In a few moments they would be away from London; from the noise of its traffic, its trams and lorries, its crowded pavements. Soon they would have swung on to the curved concrete of the Great West Road, the roofs and chimney-pots would be at the back of them. They would know the freedom and the thrill of speed; with the needle flickering between fifty-five and sixty, with the engine sobbing softly, gratefully. On either side of them would be green spaces, shadowing trees and haystacks, and browsing cattle. In the west, growing brighter from mile to mile, would be a quarter moon: and lapping softly between the weeds
against the willows, would be the Thames. In a happiness so complete that it trembled upon the edge of tears, she lay back against the cushions.

Within three-quarters of an hour of leaving London they were at Bray. “It's a Tuesday,” said Todd, as he swung the car through the gates of the Café Hongroise. “It should be emptyish. Let's book a table and wander round the garden.”

He was right. There were scarcely a dozen people in the restaurant; the café gardens were deserted. No cocktails were being wagered for on the many-bunkered putting course. As they drove past it, Jean touched his arm and pointed.

“Do let's play,” she said. “I've never seen real putting.”

Todd looked at the course sceptically. It was an absurd course. There were tunnels and bridges and water hazards. “If you're going to judge my golf on that,” he said, “you'll wonder how I've managed to qualify for a single championship. Still, if you'ld like to have a shot, I'll give you a stroke a hole.”

The attendant from whom they took clubs and balls received Todd with a grin.

“How'ld you like to play Merivale on this course, Sir?” he asked.

“I'ld sooner toss for it.”

“I hope that's not the way you're going to settle Thursday's game. I've got two quid on you.”

“I'll have to be extra careful with my approach shots, then.”

He spoke jokingly, but without false modesty, in a way Jean liked. She liked, too, the deference and
admiration with which the attendant spoke to him. And though the Bray putting course was no more a test of golf than a village wicket is a test of batsmanship, she could not help marvelling at the precision and accuracy of Gavin's strokes. The stroke a hole he had offered her was quite inadequate. “What a pity,” he said, “we didn't have a bet on this. Let's go and eat.”

He had chosen a table at the extreme edge of the balcony. Only a few feet away the river ran softly towards Kent. Punts drifted dreamily along it with girls in soft summer frocks lying among the cushions; happy and lazy-eyed, their fingers trailing in the water, with gramophones vibrating wheezily, and the water dancing below the violet of the sky, reflecting mistily the silver crescent of the moon: with the jazz band murmuring behind them: its cymbals muted: in harmony with the quiet evening.

“I've never been as happy as this,” thought Jean, “never. Anywhere, with anyone.”

And she was grateful to Gavin Todd for the flow of talk that he maintained; for saving her from effort, leaving her at peace to enjoy to its full the scents and sounds and beauties of this June evening. He talked of himself to begin with: of his early matches, his first championship.

“Golf's a funny game,” he said. “I suppose that it's true of all other games, but golf is the only game that I know and it's true of that, that as far as actual golf is concerned there is nothing to choose between a thousand people. Stroke by stroke there's not a foot of difference. They can hit as straight and they can hit as far as any champion. Farther and straighter
as often as not. They'ld stand, anyone of them, a fifty-fifty chance of winning any single hole off Hagen or Cyril Tolley or myself. But there's something that can't be taught or learnt that makes all the difference between the man who goes round day after day between 70 and 73 and the man who never goes under 76. I don't know what it is. It's concentration probably. You've got it or you haven't got it. And you can't be in the championship class without it.”

Jean Ryland had not been round a golf course more than a dozen times. But any man is interesting when he is discussing his own shop, and it was the first time she had met upon such terms a man pre-eminent in his own sphere.

She listened eagerly: comparing the Gavin Todd who sat there talking to her with the Gavin Todd who had bought scent-bottles in Brooke Street, wondering how they could be the same person, realising that they were; happy that it should have been in this way that they had met, that she had begun by liking him for himself, as himself; that she had refused to believe him to be the lounge lizard for which Julia had taken him.

“If I win on Friday, I'm going to have a dinnerparty,” he said. “Not a big one. Just the people I really like. Will you come to it?”

She nodded her head. She had promised to go to a dance or theatre, she could not remember which, with a young man who for some months had been paying her assiduous court. He would be angry tomorrow when he read her telegram. He would be huffy. He would write her a curt note that he
would expect to hurt; but that wouldn't, because she did not care. For a week he wouldn't ring her up. Then one morning there would be a bunch of flowers, and two hours later an invitation to dine or dance, and he would fancy that his week's neglect had been a good lesson to her, that he had played the cave man successfully. He could think it for all she cared.

“Let's dance,” said Gavin.

As she rose to her feet she was horribly afraid that he would dance badly, that there would be something wrong with him, that he couldn't be all perfect. She was so afraid of it that her feet missed the beat of the movement, but his hand, firm and guiding, was upon her shoulder, his body was vibrant with the music's pulse: with eyes half closed she surrendered to the dance's rhythm. She felt that it was the first time that she had danced in all her life.

They sat in silence at their table when the dance was over. They understood each other well enough to be able to dispense with words. Minutes passed before he spoke again: with his eyes averted this time.

“Happiness is a curious thing,” he said. “We spend all our time talking of it, planning for it, looking for it, and all the time we seem to be missing it. It seems to be somewhere else. And then suddenly it comes. And one does not know why or how. One thinks of happiness in terms of so many things, concrete things usually, success, money, fame; and then there's just an evening like this, driving out into the country after a cocktail party, and sitting on a balcony, talking and dancing and looking at the river, and for no reason in the world one feels that it's
squared the balance for every unhappiness one's ever felt.”

She made no answer. There were no words that could have expressed what she was feeling. That he should be happy too: that it should be as much a miracle for him as it was for her. And afterwards as they drove back, she did not feel as the lights and sounds of London came about them that the magic interlude was ending. tomorrow she would go back to Brooke Street, to arrange dresses, and file orders and be diplomatic with testy customers, to exchange confidences with Julia just as though nothing at all had happened. But it would be not the same self that would be there. There would be always that magic countryside waiting to be won back to.

She could find no words to thank Gavin when the time came to say good-night. She just pressed his hand. “Please win on Friday,” she said, and a moment later she was in her bedroom, leaning out of an open window watching the tail lights of his car sweep round the bend of Kingsley Crescent.

Happily she stretched her arms above her head. It had been so lovely. He had been so sweet to her. Nothing had been spoilt. Nothing ever would be spoilt. Not that she wanted to look ahead, to ask herself questions, to wonder where it would all end. It was enough surely to be happy. Whatever happened nothing could ever take that evening from her.

Arthur Paramount had never been to the Derby. On the Tuesday evening he had rung up a friend to ask what he should wear. “Dinner jacket and white tie,” he had been told, and the line promptly disconnected. “Silly ass,” had been his comment, but he had not felt encouraged to enquire further. When morning broke, a grey and misty morning, he stood in irresolute deliberation before the open door of his compactum wardrobe. Which was it to be? A lounge suit, plus fours, or a morning coat? Plus fours would be more comfortable. And plus fours suited him. But if every one else in the party was wearing a silk hat, Melanie might be ashamed of his homburg; a rather ancient homburg it was at that. Which would Melanie prefer? If it were a question of oneself alone it was better to be under- than overdressed. When one was with a girl, however.. . . Perhaps it had better be a morning coat.

He felt satisfied with his decision an hour later as he stood in self-contemplation before his full-length mirror. His coat was new enough to look smart, but not so new as to make it seem that he were dressed for an occasion. His double-breasted blue-grey bow tie spread creaselessly over the wide wings of his
collar. He really did look rather well. His appearance gave him an encouraging feeling of self-confidence. Melanie would be less aloof, less unapproachable, perhaps, when she saw how favourably he compared with the other men in the party. Perhaps she would have dinner with him afterwards. He had not suggested anything to her, but he had kept the evening free. Perhaps she would be in a less exacting mood. Why shouldn't she be, after all? There was nothing he wouldn't do for her. He had a certain amount of money. He'ld have more when his father died. Why shouldn't she take him seriously? There were plenty of other girls who'ld be quite ready to.