The Slaves of Solitude (22 page)

There was a pause.

‘Or perhaps,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘Dame Roach could give
you
some wrinkles. What?’

Miss Roach got his meaning at once. He meant that Miss Roach, as a less youthful or less well-preserved woman than Vicki, and having, as such, more wrinkles on her face, could well afford to
dispense with them, pass them on to Vicki. She was amazed by the lengths to which Mr. Thwaites went nowadays. He had got steadily worse since Vicki had arrived: he got worse, it seemed, every day,
every hour.

She hoped that the others had not fully taken in his meaning, as, if they had, it was difficult to know what she ought to do. Walk out of the room? In the silence that followed she wondered what
Mr. Thwaites was going to say next.

He actually said nothing intelligible. Instead of this he imitated a cat.

‘Miaow!  . . .’  whined   Mr.  Thwaites.  ‘Miaow! Miaow! . . . Miaow! . . .’

3

Obscure as this might have been with one unacquainted with Mr. Thwaites’ mental processes, his meaning, as usual, was clear enough to those who were familiar with
these. Although he had brought up the subject of wrinkles himself, he was now, in that extraordinarily free-and-easy association of ideas which characterised him, making it appear that the two
women had begun the thing, and was saying ‘Miaow! . . . Miaow!’ in order to suggest that these two women were being ‘catty’ to each other in discussing each other’s
wrinkles.

Here Mrs. Barratt took a hand. She had been reading her newspaper, and whether she had properly understood the crude affront a moment ago offered to Miss Roach, Miss Roach did not know. She did,
however, come in on Miss Roach’s side.

‘What’s the matter with
you
, Mr. Thwaites?’ she said, smiling. ‘Are you taken ill or something?’

‘No, I’m not taken ill,’ said Mr. Thwaites, looking at Vicki and Miss Roach. ‘Miaow! . . . Miaow!’

And he then pretended to look for a cat under the table.

‘Pussy!’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘Pussy! . . . Pussy! . . . Pussy!’

Both Miss Roach and Vicki looked down their noses.

‘I don’t seem to be able to find him,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Well, never mind that. What were we talking about?’

‘We were talking about Russian dances, Mr. Thwaites,’ said Vicki, with a sort of primness.

‘Oh. Were we? I thought we were talking about wrinkles.’

‘Oh well,’ said Mrs. Barratt, ‘I don’t think we’d better talk about wrinkles. We know enough about them without having to talk about them.’

‘Yes, we certainly do,’ said Miss Roach.

‘And do
you
assent to that statement?’ said Mr. Thwaites, looking at Vicki.

‘Naturally,’ said Vicki.

‘Why?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘You haven’t got any wrinkles, have you? At least not as far as I can see.’

‘Ah – perhaps you don’t see everything, Mr. Thwaites,’ said Vicki.

‘See everything?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘No, perhaps I don’t . . .’

At this moment something in Mr. Thwaites’ measured tone made Miss Roach look up at him. Something in his words as well. Was Mr. Thwaites about to become ‘suggestive’?
Increasingly complimentary to Vicki he had already shown sufficient signs of being in the last week or so (while increasingly harsh and bullying to herself), but so far he had not stepped further
into actual sexual innuendo.

Looking at him now, it suddenly occurred to Miss Roach that perhaps a new Mr. Thwaites was about to appear on the scene. Had he not an excitable, an almost feverish look? And did not his talk,
which was certainly growing wilder and wilder, coincide with this look?

‘But perhaps I’d
like
to see everything,’ said Mr. Thwaites, in the same measured tone, and looking at Vicki in the same measured way. ‘Or at any rate a bit
more.’

There was no doubting what he was up to now. Oh dear – thought Miss Roach – not this! Not, on top of yesterday evening, on top of her sleepless night, on top of her quarrel with
Vicki and deadly feud against her – not a new Mr. Thwaites with an elderly physical passion out of control! And not for Vicki! Not, at this juncture, another feather in her cap! (For she
would take it as such: she was that sort of woman.)

‘I don’t quite follow, I’m afraid, Mr. Thwaites,’ said Vicki, primly again, but by no means with a look of displeasure.

‘Don’t you?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘I wonder if you could if I said it in French?’

This was referring back to a conversation a few days ago, in which it had been agreed that things could be expressed in French which could not be expressed in English.

‘Vraiment, monsieur
’ said Vicki. ‘
Pourquoi en français? Vous êtes tres gai ce matin, n’est pas? Je crois que ce serait mieux si vous continuez
votre petit déjeuner.’

She couldn’t, thought Miss Roach – she
couldn’t.
No woman on earth could descend to such depths as these. But she had. What, exactly, Vicki had said she did not know,
for she herself could not speak French.

‘Go on,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘I like to hear you speaking French.’

‘Non
–
c’est assez,’
said Vicki. ‘
Vous allez continuer voire répas ou je ne dirais plus.’

‘And what about Dame Roach?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Can she speak French?’

‘No,’ said Miss Roach. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

And, catching Vicki’s eyes for a second, she realised that one of the objects of this exhibition was to reveal as even more insular and English the English Miss.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1

M
ISS ROACH
had not been mistaken: this was the beginning of something new.

It seemed, almost, that Mr. Thwaites, that morning at breakfast, had sensed a fatal split between the two women, and (this coinciding with the release of some previously more or less submerged
ambition or desire in regard to Vicki of his own) had rushed in to take advantage of it.

Yes – Mr. Thwaites had conceived an elderly amorous desire for Vicki. From now on there was no evading a fact which grew daily more evident. You could hardly be surprised. If you made up
to an old man like that, rallied him, flattered him, challenged him, played patience with, made
moues
at him, dripped your beastly hair over him – you could hardly be surprised. Old
men were notoriously unfastidious, and it was not, after all, any feather in Vicki’s cap.

It was difficult to ascertain whether the force motivating the old man was actually desire or vanity. There was probably something of both. Also, curiously mixed up in it all, there was a hatred
of Miss Roach. It was as if he had found another delightful rod with which to beat Miss Roach. Or it was as if, suspecting Miss Roach’s disapproval, he was defying her. Or it was as if,
knowing somehow of the rupture between herself and Vicki (perhaps having been privately told as much by Vicki!) he was seeking to please Vicki by striking at Miss Roach. Whatever it was, it was
plain to all. He was unable to make a remark in subtle or open praise of Vicki without somehow dragging in Miss Roach. He was unable to be ‘suggestive’ about Vicki’s physical
attractiveness without making some complementary suggestion about Miss Roach’s lack of it.

And those ‘suggestions’! Whatever Vicki did, whatever Vicki said, he was on to her like a terrier. His state of self-consciousness was painful: he watched her all day, and pounced at
every opportunity. He pounced without opportunity: he twisted her words, he turned her thoughts. He twisted and turned his own thoughts and words in order to create opportunities. Among other
things he had developed a madness to hear her speaking in French. ‘Say
that
in French,’ he would say, or ‘What’s
that
in French?’ Vicki obliged,
charmingly, rapidly, liltingly, fluently: she was an indescribably low woman. Later he asked for things in German. He could understand none of this, but he liked to watch her as she spoke her own
guttural tongue. Also this was another way of striking at Miss Roach.

Oddly enough, he did not allow all this to become too obvious in front of the other guests. Like all complete fools, he was anything but a fool. Behind his puerility there was a sort of base
natural cunning. He was clever enough somehow to avoid creating an open scandal in the boarding-house. It was only when Miss Roach alone was present, when just the three of them were together, that
he really let himself go.

Vicki’s reaction to all this was also interesting. She was too clever to show any of the definite pleasure and triumph which Miss Roach was quite certain she was in fact feeling. While
leading Mr. Thwaites on with her French and her German and in other ways, she still kept up a pretence of being mildly scandalised, and of rebuking him, even if kittenishly. Her attitude was
signalised mainly by a sort of growing and insufferable smugness. As Mr. Thwaites progressed in his ardour a kind of indolent look had appeared in her eyes. Her manner had become more indolent,
too. Her walk, her sideways glances, the very movement of her shoulders, had become indolent. She seldom made
moues
, and she no longer let her hair drip about. She didn’t have to.

Another thing which Miss Roach noticed was that, since arriving at the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and particularly since Mr. Thwaites had begun this sort of thing, Vicki’s foreign accent had
become much more pronounced. Nor did Miss Roach believe that it was quite the genuine accent of a German speaking English. She believed, rather, that it was something eclectic which Vicki believed
to be pretty, and had adopted purely for the sake of charming.

Miss Roach, of course, personally found it hideous. Particularly did she abominate Vicki’s use of the indefinite article, which was stressed, made to stand out, in the most repulsive way.
Instead of ‘You’re in a very bright mood this evening, Mr. Thwaites,’ she would say ‘You are in A very bright mood this evening, Mr. Thwaites.’ And instead of saying
‘Now, Mr. Thwaites, would you like a cigarette,’ she would say ‘Now, Mr. Thwaites, would you like A cigarette?’ And she would say ‘Now, I think I will take A
walk’ and ‘Ah, never mind – I have what you call A hunch!’ And the minute pause she made just before uttering this A was filled with indescribable self-conscious archness,
and, for no particular reason, got on Miss Roach’s nerves more than any other single thing.

2

It was at tea-time in the Lounge, four days after that revealing breakfast, that matters took a turn for the worse.

Miss Steele was out to tea: Mrs. Barratt hurried out after a single cup: and the three were left alone together.

Somehow the subject had got back to dancing. Somehow, ever since hearing of Vicki’s dancing on that evening out with the Lieutenant, Mr. Thwaites had got dancing a little on the brain. Was
this because he had some visions of holding Vicki in his arms in a dance? He had even gone so far as to say that he himself would take Vicki out for a dance one of these days. He would show her
some dancing, he said.

‘But I thought you said,’ he now said to Vicki, ‘that you could do all sorts of dances?’

This was typical of the present situation: he now remembered everything the woman said. Miss Roach herself remembered Vicki saying exactly this, four days ago at breakfast-time: he had got the
precise words. He remembered everything, to use against Vicki, to use against Vicki in dalliance, to twist and to turn.

‘Really?’ said Vicki. ‘I don’t know that I did.’

‘Oh yes, you did. Didn’t she, Miss Roach?’

‘Yes, I believe she did,’ said Miss Roach.

‘Ah well,’ said Vicki, ‘perhaps I say A heap of things I do not mean.’

(‘Heap’, Miss Roach noticed, was an Americanism which she had obviously picked up from the Lieutenant, who used it constantly.)

‘Perhaps,’ said Mr. Thwaites, after a pause, ‘you
Lead
a lot of Dances, as well.’

Another twist. It was easy to see what he was getting at: at the same time it was almost impossible to do otherwise than pretend that one saw no such thing – a classical Thwaitesian
dilemma.

As Vicki did not choose to answer, Mr. Thwaites repeated himself.

‘How do you mean, Mr. Thwaites?’ said Vicki.

‘I mean perhaps you
like
leading people dances,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Perhaps you make a hobby of it?’

‘Lead people dances? Who, for instance?’

‘Oh – the Male of the Species. What? Don’t you?’

‘No, Mr. Thwaites. Certainly not that I’m aware of.’

‘What! Don’t you? And like it, too! I’d wager she does – wouldn’t you, Miss Roach.’

‘Oh – I don’t expect she does,’ said Miss Roach. She wondered if she could gracefully leave the room. If Mr. Thwaites was going to make love to Vicki in front of her,
surely this would be the best thing to do. But at the moment she had a full cup of tea on her knee.

‘But perhaps you wouldn’t know anything about it,’ said Mr. Thwaites, looking at Miss Roach.

There were three ways of answering this. One was with the drearily familiar ‘What do you mean?’ Another was with the embarrassing and equally familiar silence. The other (in view of
the fact that his intention pretty obviously was to present her with one of the gravest affronts a man could present to a woman) was to throw her cup of tea in his face. But she had better not do
this, and she had better not say ‘What do you mean?’, in case he did explain more fully what he meant. So she remained silent. But Mr. Thwaites had better not go too far.

Luckily he altered his line.

‘Some funny things go on in dances in this town,’ he said, ‘as far as I can see.’ He was alluding to recent scandals, concerning girls and Americans in a hotel in the
town, which had got into the local newspapers.

‘Yes. Some very funny things,’ said Vicki. ‘I read about them.’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Roach. ‘So did I.’

‘In fact, it hardly seems safe to go to them,’ said Vicki.

‘No,’ said Miss Roach. ‘It hardly does.’

It was then that Mr. Thwaites went too far.

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry.’

There was a pause. Then Miss Roach, having thought it out, took up her cup of tea, put it down on the table, and walked towards the door.