“Bye-bye,” said Mrs. Coner in the idiom of her former avocation. She went, shutting the door which Mavis had left open.
“These clothes do make one stink.” Lady Cecilia was putting on a plain navy blue skirt. Mrs. Iblis only wished she would go. Then Lady Cecilia put on a matching tunic, and Mrs. Iblis realized.
“I’ve never actually met a Salvation Army lassie before.”
“It gives one a standing,” said Lady Cecilia. “At places like this and times like the present. Major Barbara was on to something.” She had buttoned the tunic to the neck. “It’s a damned fetching outfit, you know.” She extended one black silk leg. “The number it fetches might surprise you.”
“Are you making it your career?”
“Until they chuck me out.” There was a tap on the door. It was Mavis with an emerald-colored silk mackintosh. “How frightfully sweet of you! I’ll be back immediately the Shelter shuts.”
“Hurry. The Forum will give out if you don’t keep their glands working.”
“Your book!” cried Mrs. Iblis. It had obviously been forgotten.
“You read it,” said Lady Cecilia. “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Mrs. Iblis had hoped to see Patacake put on her bonnet; but she was gone with no sign of the object.
“Shall I lock you in?” inquired Mavis. “It might be quieter for you, and there’s a bell.”
“Thank you very much,” said Mrs. Iblis. “But no.”
When Mrs. Iblis awoke, she felt extremely hungry. Used to four reasonable meals a day, she had had nothing of the kind since an early and rushed luncheon at the London railway terminus. She had turned out the light but could see by the illuminated dial of her wrist-watch that it was half past eleven. Despite Mrs. Coner’s words, surely the party below might be over? Panic seized Mrs. Iblis, confronted with a foodless night. Switching on the bedside light, she rose, tried to smooth her dress, and put on her shoes. If the party were over, then Sister Nuper would have been with her by now. The thunder and rain seemed to have stopped, though Mrs. Iblis did not give the time to making sure. She felt once more in vigorous health, considering the hour. Mrs. Iblis did what she could with her hair and hastened downstairs.
There was still a great crowd, but the atmosphere had changed. There was very little light (Bunhill was supplied by two separate circuits, one of which had been affected by the thunderstorm) and astonishingly little noise. People were sitting about in small groups, often on the floor: and the general conversational level rose little above a mutter. Mrs. Iblis recalled a number of the faces, but none in the hall (to her relief) belonged to anyone with whom she had spoken.
To reach the billiard room, it was necessary to pass through the drawing room and take a passage leading off between the drawing room and the dining room. In the murky drawing room (decorated with neutral-colored abstractions screwed in pale frames to the walls) Mrs. Iblis noticed the unmistakable figure of Ruth. She was lying on the antique-shop chaise longue, with an entirely blank expression on her round face and clasped frankly and ruthlessly in the arms of a man whose back was turned to Mrs. Iblis, but who was wearing a black suit. Ruth’s moplike hair was in worse disarray than ever. Mrs. Iblis could not help wondering if Ruth were happy.
From off the passage led an apartment known as the music room, which Mrs. Iblis had not so far entered. The door of this room was open, and from it came a loud and cheerful noise, contrasting with the subdued, almost dead tone which ruled elsewhere. When Mrs. Iblis reached the door, she could not but look in. Seated on top of a vast black concert grand was the woman she had supposed to be Sister Nuper, in her silken nurse’s dress and tall stiff collar. She appeared to be administering some kind of light-hearted “quiz” to her group of young men, now apparently increased in number, who were gathered round her on the floor. They had mostly placed themselves very close to her. The prevailing attitude among them was far from one of relaxation; on the contrary, most of them were kneeling and leaning eagerly forward. Though the distance from the door was not great, Mrs. Iblis was unable to hear the question asked in Sister Nuper’s soft cooing voice; but a number of the young men appeared to answer in unison. Sister Nuper’s position, dangling her beautifully shaped legs in gray silk stockings from the piano, enabled Mrs. Iblis to see that, unlike most tenders of the sick, she was wearing shoes with enormously high heels. In the back row of the cluster of men, one figure, Mrs. Iblis noticed, seemed almost hysterically eager to answer the question or to answer it first. As Sister Nuper asked another question, Mrs. Iblis passed on. She was far from sure that she agreed with Mavis’s view that no better person than Sister Nuper could be found with whom to share her bedroom.
The billiard room, still illuminated from the defective strip, looked exactly as before, except that there was now only one surviving waiter, the toiler behind the buffet, the other two having cut the cloth to bits and then gone back to London together, leaving the damaged table littered with colored balls and cubes of chalk. As before, there were about a dozen guests eating and drinking. The tone of their hushed conversations suggested that they were complaining of one another to confidential friends.
Mrs. Iblis asked what there was to eat. Little seemed visible on the buffet but débris.
“There’s only lobster salad.” The waiter had had enough.
It was not at all what Mrs. Iblis wanted. “That will be delicious.” She recognized that it was late.
The waiter shoved up from under the buffet a plateful assembled many hours earlier.
“Cider? No beer.”
“I’d love a glass of cider.”
It was drawn from a plywood cask and was a product of a local industries group which Coner fostered. The smell and flavor were unusual, but Mrs. Iblis almost at once recognized that the brew was potent.
She was so hungry that the lobster salad was soon gone, though normally she avoided tinned shellfish.
“There’s some cake.”
“Thank you. I’d love some cake.” Again, however, she felt that there were at the moment more desirable foods.
The waiter gave her two large pieces, as the buffet was soon to close. The plate was too small for its load, but the cake was cake, not good, not bad, not indifferent.
This time no one came near Mrs. Iblis, or enforced conversation. This time she would almost have been glad for someone to do so (though not, for choice, any single one of the day’s previous new acquaintances).
“Could I possibly have some coffee if there’s any left?” She had not yet finished the cider.
The waiter glared at her, then went to the other end of the buffet, produced a full cup from under it, and returned to her without a word. He had slopped much of the contents into the saucer. The coffee was far from hot and contained insufficient sugar. When it was finished, Mrs. Iblis was unsure what to do next. She stood sipping the remains of the peculiar amateur cider. To the waiter she might not have existed. To her fellow guests, as they finished their scraps of food and drink, she might have been a hostile object.
In the end she was almost alone and contemplating a return to bed, when Coner entered. Mrs. Iblis identified him at once as the overanxious figure in the back row round Sister Nuper. He advanced upon the buffet. His face was strained and his gait slightly shambling.
“Got any Scotch?”
“Only cider left, Mr. Coner.”
Encountering her host thus for the first time, Mrs. Iblis wondered whether good manners enjoined that she should speak to him. On the whole, she thought it would be simpler to do nothing. Coner, however, took the initiative. Glancing round the room before departing to unlock his spirit store, his eye lighted upon her isolated figure, still holding the glass. He stared at her for several moments, then advanced.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs. Iblis. I’ve no business here, really. My invitation was postponed on account of the Forum. But your wife asked me to stay as I didn’t get the letter of postponement.”
“I’m glad
she did.” Coner was still staring hard. The flesh on his face was like a loose mask covering another face beneath. “I hope they’re looking after you properly.”
“Perfectly, thank you. I’m having a lovely time.”
“What d’you think of the Forum? We’ve got pretty well everyone who carries weight, don’t you think?”
“I’m afraid some of it’s rather above my head.”
Though continuing to stare at her in a way which Mrs. Iblis was beginning to find odd, Coner seemed hardly to be attending.
“No real synthesis has emerged,” he said. “Nothing beyond the separate individual arguments and experiences.” He spoke like a defeated general referring to reinforcements. “Pity about Rabbi Morocco having to go home. He could have helped a lot.”
“How?” Mrs. Iblis wanted to enter into the spirit of it.
“The A. G. S. is making headway all the time, you know.”
“I’m sure I’ve no business not to know, but what is the A. G. S.?”
“The Avant Garde Synagogue. Something entirely new. It’s a great mistake to ignore what the Jews are doing.”
“I am told that the Salvation Army are doing a lot too,” said Mrs. Iblis, greatly venturing.
“Of course Patacake’s utterly irreplaceable. One just wouldn’t try.” His eyes were now wandering up and down her body in a way to which she was unaccustomed; but he sank into silence.
“Will you be writing about the Forum in your papers?” inquired Mrs. Iblis, in order to say something.
“The whole of the next issue in each case except for a slaughterhouse feature in Roundabout. But I doubt whether we really reach them.” He seemed in the last stages of gloom.
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” said Mrs. Iblis comfortingly. “All those millions of copies. Power like that over people’s minds must be a rather terrible thing.” She was conscious that the very strong cider had reached her very weak head from her very empty stomach.
The pupils of Coner’s eyes seemed to perform a complete half-circle. Then he said: “You should wear nothing but black. Cut rather low. The sort of style young girls can’t manage.” He had placed his hand firmly on Mrs. Iblis’s thorax to indicate precisely how low. Mrs. Iblis withdrew slightly with a distinct shudder.
“Thank you for the advice.”
He stepped toward her again. “I find something quite remarkably charming about you. Even in pale blue.”
Without the cider, Mrs. Iblis would probably have blushed and felt flattered. As it was, she answered: “Nonsense, Mr. Coner. I’m not quite so silly as that.”
The waiter had just drawn a greasy overcoat from the hidden recess which had earlier evicted lobster salad. He departed, worming his way into the garment.
“Shall I leave the lights, Mr. Coner?”
“Yes. I’ll put them out.”
The last guests having also withdrawn, Mrs. Iblis was alone in the billiard room with her host and a dish filled with sliced cake.
“What’s your name?”
“Iblis. i—b—l—i—s.”
“How much do you know about me?”
“Very little more than I’ve read in the papers and so forth. Only what everyone knows.”
“Shall we sit down?”
Mrs. Iblis wanted few things less. However, they sat in the depressing yellow glare on blue basketwork chairs brought in for use by frequenters of the buffet. It was not even very warm.
“It’s close.” Coner passed his handkerchief round the inside of his collar. “But never mind that. Now where shall I begin?” This question was for answer by the speaker himself. Clearly he was about to tell his life story.
“I expect you’ll soon have to join your other guests, so I mustn’t keep you too long.”
“Oh God,” said Coner, “the world’s weight! The terror of one’s own littleness.” He was even whiter and had begun to weep profusely. His head dropped onto his hands, so that they covered his face. A cataract of tears fell through his fingers onto his gray trousers, which became as if spattered with ink.
Mrs. Iblis, who had never seen a man behave like this before (and hardly even a woman), was completely at a loss. After all the events of that day, Coner’s demonstration was too much for her. Her body was insufficiently nourished, her mind awash in homemade cider. She too began gaspingly to weep. The scene in the billiard room was as if the two of them had just forsaken the last childhood’s illusions.
Coner seemed quite lost to the world. Tears flooded his clothing. His body shook. His mind might have ceased to function.
Mrs. Iblis was less collapsed. The tears raced down her face, but she scrabbled through her handbag for a handkerchief and after a few minutes had somewhat pulled herself together.
“Please forgive me, Mr. Coner,” she said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Coner went on sobbing and shivering like a man whose heart was long since broken and for whom such episodes as this were regular occurrences.
“Please, Mr. Coner.” She extended her own rather unsteady hand and touched his shoulder. “What can I do?” Afraid, like most women, to go too far in sympathy lest the sympathy be misinterpreted, she had never in her life gone further than this.
Coner began to babble distressingly of his littleness and inadequacy; his responsibilities; his uncertainties; his health troubles. “The human mind is such a minnow,” he spluttered out. “If only one could find some all-embracing pattern to guide one.”
“The human mind is a whale.” The speaker was Mr. Stillman, who had entered the large murky room unnoticed. It was the first time Mrs. Iblis had seen him since her arrival. He looked businesslike and prosperous in his well-cut dark suit. He carried a copy of the Jewish Monthly.
“The human mind is a whale,” said Mr. Stillman again. “It’s all there inside you, enormous unknown things, difficult to reach. And woe betide the man who looks outside himself for what he can only find inside. That is surely one thing which modern psychology has made clearer than ever. The subconscious mind, you know. So much larger than the conscious. The subliminal self.” He paused. His eye was traveling along the buffet. “Ah, cake. There are hungry people in the house. Do you mind if I take the cake?”
Coner was staring at him, his face like an idiot’s.
Mrs. Iblis replied: “I am sure that will be all right.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Stillman, picked up the large white dish in his free hand, and left.
Coner now partially came to. “That’s what we’re all trying to do,” he said. “To find ourselves.”
“I gather not,” rejoined Mrs. Iblis, with what might almost have been acerbity. “You’re all trying to find something larger than yourselves.”
She rose and left the billiard room, leaving Coner recumbent like a drenched tea cloth.
Everybody was eating cake and seemed more cheerful. It was like the miracle of the loaves, until Mrs. Iblis realized that volunteers had scoured the house for food and had stumbled upon a cache in the little pantry allotted to the caterers for their supplies. Also in the pantry were traces of proteinous foodstuffs which the hired staff had withheld and taken home to sell. The discovery had diverted much of the conversation to questions of supply and then rapidly to politics. Altogether, though disagreeing with many of the views expressed, Mrs. Iblis had never felt so much at home at Bunhill as now. Even Professor Borgia made comparatively agreeable company when discoursing upon the complexities of Swiss dietetics. Mrs. Iblis took another piece of cake herself, though it was long past her hour. After the last crumb went down, Sister Nuper emerged from the music room at the head of her young men. Idly curious, Mrs. Iblis counted them. They numbered no less than twelve, each as radiantly good-looking as the rest. Would Sister Nuper, her pleasant evening over, now proceed to bed? Apparently not: Sister Nuper went directly to the front door, opened it, and led the way out into the chilly night, closely attended as ever by her faithful followers. The door banged loudly behind the last of them, shakin
g the house.
Mrs. Iblis now dared to ask questions. “Where are they going at this hour?”
Her neighbor, a metaphysical daredevil who had recently been the youngest Ph.D. of his year, became suddenly reserved, almost aggressive. “They’ve gone for a walk,” he replied rudely, as if it were no business of hers.
Mrs. Iblis did not care to invite another snub from these strange people by pursuing the matter further. Despite the welcome loosening up of the talk, she had the irritating feeling that she alone (or almost alone) was excluded from a general and advantageous secret. Of course, she reflected, she had not been really intended to be present that weekend.
Nonetheless, she felt piqued. She decided to go to bed and went. One or two of her fellow guests to whom she said good night (there was no sign of Coner or Mrs. Coner, or even Mr. Stillman) seemed surprised, but only faintly.
Mrs. Iblis turned out the light and drew back the curtains, glad to stand for a moment in the cool darkness. Though the storm was long since over, the sky was not clear. There appeared, on the contrary, to be a dense ceiling of low cloud obscuring the stars but tinged with a radiance towards the east, which Mrs. Iblis supposed to come from the moon.
In the comfortable bed Mrs. Iblis soon fell asleep once more, despite the uncertainties relating to Sister Nuper’s movements. After a dreamless span of uncertain length, she was awakened by a knocking on the door, at once purposeful and agitated.
“Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Iblis rather peevishly. She switched on the bedside light.
She supposed it to be Sister Nuper (in who knows what condition?); but, in fact, it was Mavis. She wore saffron silk pajamas and no dressing gown. Her face was covered with unpleasing traces of what Mrs. Iblis presumed to be a “pack.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong. I’m frightened.” Mavis was shivering noticeably.
The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories Page 37