The Thinking Reed (26 page)

Poots looked down her cigarette-holder at the brooch, and up it at Luba. She said, crinkling up her eyes, baring her teeth, “Couldn’t think of it, no, really not, doesn’t matter a bit, thanks awfully.” A greedy acceptance would have been better, for it would have deprived Luba of the jewel and nothing else. But this refusal deprived her of everything by implying that not possibly could anything Luba owned be new or valuable enough for Poots, and that she was a funny woman not to know it was so.

“The cotignac,” said Serge, “the cotignac.”

“A moment,” said Luba, pinning back the brooch. Her hands fell to her sides. “I am so clumsy, I am pricking myself,” she said.

“Let me do it,” said Serge.

She smiled at Marc and Isabelle over his fingers. “Goodbye, and tonight I will try to be in time for dinner.”

When they had gone, Poots said, “It’s too awful about Russians, isn’t it? I mean, it’s all gone on so long that one can’t still be sorry for them.”

“There is no reason that I know why one should be sorry for the Princess Couranoff,” said Isabelle.

“Oh, well,” said Poots. She showed that she knew Isabelle was lying. Her eyes ranged slowly about the lounge, she rolled her cigarette-holder backwards and forwards in her mouth, the pace of her breathing deliberate and contented and voluptuous. “Talking of tonight,” she began, but was slapped on the back by a young man in a dove-coloured pullover who was, it appeared, an English earl who wrote the gossip column for a certain Sunday paper. On hearing his occupation Isabelle felt more intensely than she had done during the last forty-eight hours as if she had been forced to take up her residence in a house riddled with rat holes. But the young man was civil enough and had, indeed, come to take Poots away to play poker with someone called Froggie. Marc and Isabelle gazed up at him with an amiability that they felt to be fatuous, as soon as what Poots was telling them had penetrated to their understanding. She had reminded them that they had said she and Philippe and Bridget might bring Johnny Durham with them to dinner tonight, since they had invited him to dine with them before there was the question of this joint farewell dinner with them and Mr. Pillans and the Princess; and for a minute Marc and Isabelle had both been lost in speculation as to how far it was stupidity, how far it was brassy impudence, which enabled her to speak in such terms of the invitation that she had tricked and cadged out of their reluctance. They hardly realized till they were staring at her retreating back, how handsomely she had owned that, not having the brains of a flea, she had made a mistake in the identity of the permitted extra guest. They would, she had begged, remember that she had been alone when she asked their permission. When she got back to Philippe, he had told her that it was not Johnny Durham but Benny d’Alperoussa with whom they had been going to dinner, who would therefore be Marc and Isabelle’s guest. And there would be his wife, too, of course.

“But this is too much,” said Marc. “This is not to be borne.”

Isabelle saw that his face had become purple, and braced herself to teach him to exercise more self-control. “It is impossible that anything so little serious cannot be borne,” she told him crisply.

“So little serious?” repeated Marc.

“So little serious,” she echoed him confidently. “He is a vulgar and detestable man, we must admit. But it will not hurt us to dine with him tonight, for tonight will pass, and from tomorrow morning we need never see him again. So just let us make up our minds to see the business through, and the less fuss we make the better we will feel.”

“Oh, you are clever,” said Marc. “You are always cleverer than anybody else.” His face was suffused with a dark flush, and he spoke almost as roughly as he did sometimes when he was rebuking a servant. She had always felt ashamed that he should use that tone on those occasions, and she found it intolerable that he should use it to her now. A pang of pure hatred against him passed through her body. “So it is not serious, that I should have to dine with Benny d’Alperoussa? You really think that? Well, listen carefully and you will learn something. Benny d’Alperoussa is the last word in the filth of great international affairs. All over the world that dirty Greek has cheated good people into thinking that they were guaranteeing themselves a hearth in their old age, and bad people into thinking that at last roguery was going to draw a profit; and good and bad alike have found themselves out in the streets. And the cheats who worked with him to put them there have found themselves out in the streets too, but with knives in their backs. I am telling you, several men who have worked with Benny have been found dead just about the time when there should have been a sharing of the spoils. He is in the armament traffic, and he would supply arms to the enemies of France as well as to France, the dirty beast. And more than that he has corrupted our political system. Half our Cabinet is in his pay, and countless deputies, and countless journalists. To be involved with him, so that he should be able to make me a request which I might have to refuse, may put me into every sort of trouble you can imagine. If I am pleasant to him, I make an enemy of every honest man whom he has not been able to bribe, of every friend in high places that his dead enemies have left behind them. And you know how I am placed in regard to the government.” He broke off, looked away, and then lifted the eyes of a beaten dog to hers. “You see, I lose my temper with you because I am in a tight place, and I am in a tight place only because of my own fault. If I had not been a gambler and a waster, I would not have to fear anyone on earth. And because I feel fear, I have been rude to you, my love, my angel.”

“Oh, but I deserve it!” breathed Isabelle. Tears stood in her eyes. She had learned nothing. Had he not taught her this lesson long before, that there was an immense territory of which he knew every detail and of which she was almost entirely ignorant, when at Cap d’Antibes she had made so gross an error about the status and mission or Monsieur Campofiore? “Forgive me, forgive me,” she murmured.

“No, it is my fault, it is I that have to be forgiven,” he said.

“No, no,” she said. His hands found hers under the table, and their fingers played together, interlacing and returning pressures.

“I love you so,” he said.

“I love you so,” she answered, “but apart from that, you were right. You knew all about these things. I am an ignorant fool, you were right to shut me up.”

“No, in any case I must not talk to you like that,” he muttered. “Because—because”—he could not speak the words, and their hands twisted and turned together again.

At their elbows Lady McKentrie said, “Well, you’re both looking very glum for two such fortunate young people. May my sister and I sit down for a minute?” They settled themselves comfortably, opening their wet mackintoshes, which exhaled a smell of rubber. “Well, what was the trouble?” she continued. “The bad weather, I expect. Well, it’s a pity the new generation isn’t as hardy as ours.”

“We’ve been a long, healthy walk,” said Lady Barron. “The whole length of the esplanade and back.”

“All we Lauristons are great walkers,” said Lady McKentrie.

“The promenade and back is, however, not a very great distance,” said Marc.

“Oh, Marc, Marc,” said Isabelle under her breath.

“But then the way we were brought up made us sturdier than other people,” said Lady Barron. “The plainest of food, the plainest of clothes, early to bed, early to rise.”

“Well, why not?” asked Marc. “Why not?”

“It would do you two good,” said Lady Barron benevolently, “to see how simply people of our sort live in England. There is a lot of fast living and extravagance in London, but it’s only there, and among the new people who have come up. If you come to the country, you will find people like us living just as they have always lived, quietly and soberly.”

“But very happily,” said Lady McKentrie. “We have our pleasures, Mr. Sallafranque, our own quiet pleasures.”

She and her sister sat nodding their heads rhythmically for a minute or two, and then Lady Barron said, in that tone of pure welcome, untainted by any anxieties about rooms and dates and compatibility with other guests, which is used by hostesses when issuing invitations in general terms that will never become more specific. “You must come and spend Christmas with us.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lady Barron. “It would be lovely for them.”

“It would be charming,” said Isabelle.

“Plain good fare,” said Lady McKentrie, “and the house full of young people, and old and young join in the children’s games.”

“Ah, if only Harthing wasn’t let!” said Lady Barron. “That was my sister-in-law’s place. Ah, do you remember the Christmas before poor Gilbert died?”

“Yes, indeed!” said Lady McKentrie. “Such a house-party. They were all there. There was Lord Liddington—he was Prime Minister—and poor Eddie Charlesworth—he was Viceroy the next year—and Sir Henry Flaxman, who was at the Admiralty, a most brilliant man. Constantly you’ll find him reading things in the original, just for his own amusement. And there were twenty of us Lauristons. We began the morning so beautifully with such a happy breakfast, and then we all went to the schoolroom and gave the children their presents, and they played and sang and recited to us; I remember Clare—that’s Lady Barnaclouth’s wonderful daughter, a genius if ever there was one—reciting a long, long piece from Racine. And then we all went and skated on the lake till churchtime—”

“But stop a minute,” said Marc. “Why did Lady Barnaclouth’s daughter recite a piece from Racine on Christmas morning?”

“She had been taught it by her governess,” said Lady Barron. “Do you French people not learn your classics when you are children?”

“We learn them to an altogether excessive degree,” said Marc. “It is precisely because I was so forcibly acquainted with the works of Racine at school that I am astonished by this anecdote of life among the English aristocracy. I cannot think why your niece should have chosen this material to recite on that occasion, or why all these famous men should have listened to it. Did they really find that Racine was sympathetic to the Christmas spirit?”

“The better the day, the better the deed,” said Lady McKentrie.

“It is really a most peculiar picture,” mused Marc. “All these famous men sitting round and listening to your niece—how old was she, by the way?”

“Thirteen,” said Lady Barron.

“To a child of thirteen reciting Racine on Christmas morning. It is a consequence that could hardly have crossed the mind of Jehovah when he offered up His son as an atonement for the sins of the world. It is a consequence that would certainly have astonished Racine when he wrote, ‘
Quel est l’étrange acceuil qu’on fait à votre père, mon fils.’ ”
He paused, struck by a thought. “I still know that scene by heart,” he said; and he began again, “ ‘
Phèdre peut seule expliquer ce mystère, Mais si mes voeux ardents vous peuvent émouvoir, Permettez-moi, seigneur, de ne la plus revoir, Souffrez que pour jamais le tremblant Hippolyte Disparaisse des lieux que votre épouse habite.’ ”
He continued for some time and then paused. “The scene is about eighty or ninety lines long. I know them all. This is a magnificent speech which is coming now, ‘
Que vois-je? Quelle horreur dans ces lieux répandue Fait fuir devant mes yeux ma famille éperdue?’ ”
When he paused for breath, Lady Barron and Lady McKentrie said they thought they must be going, and he rose at once. “Goodbye, goodbye,” he said. “Some day I must give myself the pleasure of asking you many questions. I would like to know for one thing whether those famous men were offered any alternative amusement to gathering round your little niece while she recited the verses of my glorious compatriot. And in the meantime I assure you, along the promenade and back is not a very long walk.”

Isabelle said softly, “Marc, you are absurd.” A vein on his forehead was raised and blackberry coloured, and he was tapping with his clenched fist on the table.

“I cannot bear those imbeciles with their vast, flat feet, their coats that smell like the corridors of a lycée in wintertime, and their perpetual pose of being honest women who know how to bring up a family, when what they have done is to let loose on the world a pack of decaying cranes like that Bridget and that Poots, that Poots who has let us in for dining with Benny d’Alperoussa. Ah, I must have another drink.”

“But, Marc,” said Isabelle, “can we not cancel this dinner? Can you not say that I am ill and that you are frightened to leave me, and then we could dine in our rooms?”

“He would not believe it,” said Marc. “Even if it were true, he would not believe it. Men who are infamous like that are as sensitive as young girls making their entrance into society. The suspicion of a rebuff lacerates them. But Benny is no young girl; disagreeable things may happen to those whom he suspects. Oh, we must see it through.”

“My poor Marc,” murmured Isabelle.

“It is a greater humiliation than you can imagine,” Marc grumbled, “because I should not let you meet Madame d’Alperoussa. She is the lowest of women. She was born in some Balkan town where all the females become courtesans at the age of twelve years unless prevented by some relevant deformity, and even there her lack of virtue struck people as remarkable. After some years of intensive cultivation of the vices she became the mistress of the Minister of War, who, when at last his digestion revolted, insisted on d’Alperoussa taking her over as the price for getting a new army clothing contract. I tell you, it is not pleasant for me that, owing to my own folly, I must see my wife sit at the same table with such a woman.”

“Come now,” said Isabelle, “it is exceedingly unlikely that at a distance of several feet, and under the restrictions of a restaurant dinner, she should be able to contaminate me. It will be very entertaining to watch her and try to guess whether Benny gave the poor Balkan soldiers better or worse boots because of her.”

“It is all very well for you to talk like that,” said Marc gloomily, “you do not know such people. If the talk gets too disgusting, you must pretend to feel ill and go.” He drummed on the table, and stood up with an exclamation of impatience. “This will never do! I was about to order another drink, and I have already drunk too much today. I must be good. You will see, I will be very good. See, I will put you in the elevator and you will go up and rest. I must go out, it has nearly stopped raining now.” As they walked along the lounge, he suddenly exclaimed with violence, “I will go and prove that those vain and hideous old women lied. I am sure it is not more than half an hour, along the promenade and back.”