The Thinking Reed (22 page)

As soon as decently might be after lunch, she left them and went upstairs to sleep and awoke late in the afternoon. Through her lashes she saw that Marc was sitting in an armchair not far from her bed, and she sighed and smiled in her contentment that she was married to him, that they had come to Le Touquet, which was such a pleasant place in springtime, and that everything seemed to be going so well for everybody.

“Darling,” she murmured, keeping her eyes shut, but turning over towards him and smiling.

“My little cat,” he answered. But he spoke so dryly and abruptly that she knew something was wrong, and instantly sat up.

“Marc, what has happened?”

“Ah, what a fool I am! I did not mean to let you know, because you have such a loving heart and you want your friends to be happy. But I always give things away. Well, the fact is that that affair we’d such hopes of doesn’t seem to be going at all.”

“What affair?”

“Luba and Alexander Pillans, of course.”

“But it is going perfectly! You should have seen them at lunch. He is all that we hoped. He likes her splendid pictorial beauty, but what he really wants is affection. I tell you it could not be better.”

“Ah,” said Marc, “that was when you were there. You can always make things happen the way you want.” A curious vestigial bitterness swept over her, and she found herself recalling the lunch with Laurence a year before, which had so signally proved the untruth of what Marc was saying. But she realized that this was probably the last time she would ever feel anything at all about that. “Go on, go on,” she said, for Marc had stopped to sigh, and rub his forehead with his knuckles, and stare at his boots, as he did in moments of self-dislike. “I am so different,” he grumbled, “if I had taken after Maman it would have been better, but the truth is father’s family can’t stop being peasants, and I can’t handle people. I couldn’t do a thing with the situation.”

“But what has happened?” cried Isabelle. “What can have happened?”

“Poots has happened,” said Marc. “To Pillans. He is mad about her at first sight.”

Isabelle started up, and then fell back on the pillows. “Ah, but that we could not have foreseen!” she complained.

“I should have foreseen it,” said Marc, “for, fool that I was, I told Poots that Pillans was many times a millionaire.”

“Ah, darling, darling,” said Isabelle.

“I tell you, I am a fool. I am half peasant, I am without delicacy,” said Marc. “I do not know why you have ever had anything to do with me. But I told her without meaning any harm, because it never occurs to me people are more interested in those that have money than in those that haven’t.”

“I know, dear,” said Isabelle.

“I told her simply so that we could get away. It was intolerable. I thought we were going to be there the whole afternoon. You know how late we were in starting, naturally it was past lunchtime when we finished. It had not been a pleasant game, we had a difference with the foursome ahead of us, which would have been nothing if Poots had not been very rude. And she was not playing, mind you, she was only walking round. I was eager to get back here, I wanted to be with you, and this place makes me as hungry as a wolf. But then Poots began to gabble that she must see somebody called Bonzo.”

“Did she say why?”

“Ah, no. She just kept on saying, ‘You know, darling, I’ve got to see Bonzo,’ and went about asking everybody where Bonzo was, and telephoning all over the place while I sat in the bar eating those abominable potato chips and drinking cocktails. Then somebody came in with the news that Bonzo was in fact at Frinton-on-Sea. The camel, the crane, the stone-worker of a Poots!”

“But couldn’t you get away then?”

“It appeared so for a moment, but then she realized that if she couldn’t see Bonzo she must see someone else. But the name of this person she had unfortunately forgotten. However, she went about describing his personal appearance to everybody she could find, saying, ‘You know who I mean, oh God, you know who I mean, tall man with grey eyes, terribly good shoulders, won the Calcutta Sweep one year.’ She went and had a long conversation about him with the bartender, she is one of those women who become very easily intimate with bartenders, and then I really could not stand it another moment. I got up and said that you were waiting for me with an American friend of Luba’s to whom I particularly did not wish to be impolite. And idiot that I am, I mentioned his name. Then at once she said, ‘Haven’t I heard that name before? Who is he?’ ”

“She would have said that of any name,” said Isabelle.

“Yes, I know, I know, but I did not think, I am a clown,” said Marc. “I said he is many times a millionaire, and the trick was done. Her face went like a ferret’s, and before I knew where we were, we were on our way together back to the hotel. Of course luck would have it Luba and this Pillans were sitting out at a table on the terrace, and before I knew what we were doing we were beside them, and she was arranging that we should all lunch out there off beer and sandwiches, so that she need not leave them. And, I tell you, he was like a rabbit that has seen a snake. He never looked at Luba again.”

“But how is it possible?” asked Isabelle. “I have never heard of anything so extraordinary. Because he is a nice man, this Mr. Pillans. He is exactly the kind of man we imagined from his story; he needs tenderness, he could really appreciate Luba. How can he be attracted by that horrible little creature?”

“Lots of people like the smell of drains,” said Marc. “It’s understood that one shouldn’t and nobody would really argue that it’s healthy to live over a drain, but all the same you’ll see a certain number of people throwing back their heads and sniffing in the air with ecstasy when they’ve passed a particularly pheasanty bit of Marseilles. The most respectable people have this weakness. And, mind you, this Poots is ambitious about being a drain. She has the eyes a fish would have if it were thinking lecherously about the things which I believe fish can’t do.”

“But what does this mean?” asked Isabelle. “Do the Renarts give the young people no money; are they very poor?”

“I do not suppose the Renarts give them very much, for I know they think their son is not serious,” said Marc, “but that is beside the point. What this little creature wants is not so much the rewards of the prostitute’s life as its excitements and disorders. Ah, when she was circulating about the golf club inquiring for Bonzo, how she reminded me of the little drabs that come into low cafes about one or two in the morning and ask the waiters if they have seen Jean-le-Bossu, or, if they haven’t seen him, the friend he goes about with, the Pole with the squint. I tell you, she is an infection. There is no way of making her behave.”

Isabelle sat silent for a minute, then put forward her chin. “I will not let her take Mr. Pillans from Luba,” she said. “I will not let her spoil both their lives.”

“You have a lot to fight,” said Marc. “He sat and worshipped her while she put a wall of scarlet paint on her lips, not making any real attempt at maquillage, just putting up an advertisement of whorishness. Well, if he married the Stravazzi and the Mardi, I suppose it was an ill omen.”

“There is more in him than that,” said Isabelle. “I will not let this thing happen.”

The telephone rang and Marc grasped it savagely, shouting, “Allo! Allo! Allo!”

“Gently!” bade Isabelle, but he threw the instrument down on the bed beside her, crying, “It is the ordure’s aunt, it’s Lady Barnaclouth.”

Isabelle picked it up and said, “Yes … yes … how do you do … yes, we are dining with you tonight. Philippe told us you had very kindly asked us … at half past eight, that will be very nice … Yes? Yes? You want to know if we are Americans?”

“Impertinence,” said Marc.

“Yes, I am, but my husband is not … I don’t think you understood me. I said my husband was not … I beg your pardon? I beg your pardon?”

“What is she asking that surprises you so?” said Marc. “Is she an ordure also, the aunt?”

“Be quiet,” said Isabelle. “If we divorce some day, it will be because you do things like this.” She continued down the telephone, “No … that is to say, not much … I mean, my husband can shoot, he shoots sometimes, but he has so little time. He is very busy …” She looked at the instrument in perplexity, and then replaced it on the rack. “She has rung off,” she said, and put her hand to her forehead.

“What in the name of God was that?”

“I could not quite follow the conversation,” said Isabelle. “She suddenly asked if we were Americans, and simply would not listen when I told her you were not, and then she asked if you were fond of shooting.”

“Fond of shooting?” asked Marc. They regarded each other for a moment. “Name of God, what can she want me to shoot after sundown in Le Touquet at Easter?”

“There must be an explanation,” said Isabelle, “though I cannot think what it can be.”

“The explanation is that the niece is an ordure and the aunt a lunatic,” said Marc. “What a family! Never will I forgive the Renarts for bringing all this upon us. Waiting for dinner last night, hour after hour. My stomach with all those cocktails in it. This Poots. I will write to Maman tonight and say that Natalie’s François will have to be a fireman after all.”

“Would you like to ring up Lady Barnaclouth in half an hour, and say I have been taken ill, and that you must stay at home with me?” said Isabelle. “As you very well know, I do not do this sort of thing as a rule, but these people appear to be barbarians. I had meant to ring up and say that Luba could not come, so that she could dine quietly with Mr. Pillans.”

“How naïve you are,” said Marc. “Poots had not been talking to Pillans for half an hour before she drooped her eyelids and put on an expression that made her face look like an unmade bed and asked him to join the party this evening.”

“Ah, well, then we must go,” said Isabelle. “I tell you I will not have this thing happen.”

“My dear,” said Marc, “you are quite calm, but I believe you are near to crying.”

“I cannot expect to have as much self-control now as I would at any ordinary time,” replied Isabelle.

She was again aware of her special state when they were all in the automobile that evening, on their way to the Villa Sans Souci. It seemed to her that she was more conscious than she would usually have been that Marc was sulky, and would probably be rude to someone before the night was over. She was conscious, too, that even Luba’s qualities had their defects, that her extreme beauty and its timeless, hieratic quality, made her less like a woman who could be fitted into other human beings’ lives than an image whose place was among the candles on an altar, or on the shoulders of acolytes in procession during the feasts of the church. Her sweetness proceeded from her as solidly, as conspicuously, as invariably, as the stiff tiara of golden rays that such images wear. It was perhaps natural that Mr. Pillans, though his jaw dropped at each new revelation of her beauty, should want a companion nearer common earthly form. Isabelle’s supersensitiveness made of the small, drooping shape on the strapontin opposite her a hieroglyphic, standing for all sorts of childish, enthusiastic, confiding qualities, which would have made him a perfect husband for Luba, which made it hideously probable that he would be seduced away from her. It seemed beyond doubt that they were not the best chosen automobile load in the world, and that this expedition could end in nothing good.

When they walked into the hall of the Villa Sans Souci, Marc came to a halt, thinking they must have come to the wrong house, since he recognized the footman as the servant of Madame Coulevois, a friend of theirs who had, he knew, a villa somewhere in the woods at Le Touquet. But the man assured him that there was no mistake, explaining with the air of sour despondency affected by French servants when they speak of any act of liberality committed by their employers, that though this was Madame Coulevois’s villa, she had lent it to Lady Barnaclouth. They followed him through double doors directly into the sort of trouble which Isabelle had anticipated, for two plain and elderly women, very ill dressed, advanced to greet them, explaining with gusts of laughter which were purely social and had no relation whatsoever to anything at all amusing, that neither of them was their hostess, that they were her sisters, Lady Barron and Lady McKentrie. It appeared that Lady Barnaclouth had been obliged to go out and dine with some Americans who were anxious to take her shooting in Scotland for the season, and wanted to settle everything at once; and that she had been desolated by this obligation, and had left all manner of apologetic messages. Isabelle received this announcement with amiable murmurs, reflecting that one laid oneself open to this sort of thing if one accepted invitations from people one did not know, and that anyway nothing could be of less importance. But Marc’s voice boomed out, as loud as if he were addressing a meeting, expressing profound rhetorical condolences with Lady Barnaclouth. He could imagine nothing, he said, more painful to a woman of good breeding than that she should have to go out when she had invited guests. She must at this moment be enduring agonies, he hazarded.

Isabelle remained quite still, practising that rigidity of spine and smile which is the sign of conjugal loyalty strained to its limits; for she did not think they ought to quarrel with these people so long as there was a chance of extricating Mr. Pillans from their clutches. But she was able to relax in a minute, for it appeared that Marc’s outburst had made no impression on the two elderly ladies, who merely expressed cheerful agreement with his sentiments and began to introduce them to all their fellow guests, explaining complacently that they themselves were two of the famous Lauriston sisters, and that nearly everybody there was either a Lauriston or of Lauriston blood. It did not appear to have been a good recipe for a party. Poots was sitting on a sofa with two girls like herself, Bridget and Lettice Someone, all with their eyebrows lifted, their mouths dragged down, with this idiot expression of objectless sagacity, of imaginary prudence; and Ferdy Monck was standing by them, still handling his private preoccupations with his superb public air. He was looking down the bosom of Bridget’s gown as if he were thinking of India. On the other side of the room Philippe, in a tremor of hero-worship, was pressing more cocktails on two blank-looking and beautifully made Englishmen, whose coats fitted exquisitely over their sculptured shoulders. At the sight of them little Marc began to try to stretch up his neck and straighten his spine, and Isabelle was for the thousandth time surprised to realize how much she loved him. Then there was a handsome dark man of about thirty, standing alone, rather smaller and more carelessly dressed than the other two Englishmen. He was there, Lady Barron explained, because, though he was not a Lauriston, he had painted a Lauriston: he was an artist called Alan Fielding, who had done a portrait of Lettice. The entrance of the newcomers seemed to have pleased him, and he gave them a quick, glowing smile; and Isabelle reflected that, had she not been married, this was a man whose friendship might have given her pleasure. But that was a purely technical judgment, untinged by regret. “But these are true Lauristons,” said Lady Barron, her voice swelling again, as she came to an elderly man with silver hair, as handsome and as without conversational promise as a prize dog, and a plain woman of his own type.