At last the Lieutenant allowed them to leave, and she and Vicki were walking along in the blackness in silence – a silence and blackness contrasting strongly with the light and noise they had left, and causing momentary speechlessness. But at last the Lieutenant was mentioned and Vicki said that she thought him ‘very good fun’.
‘He’s a bit of a handful,’ said Miss Roach, ‘isn’t he?’ And Vicki paused a moment before replying.
‘Oh yes. Perhaps,’ she then conceded. ‘But not if you know how to handle him.’
And Miss Roach did not like this.
2
Nor did she exactly like the way, after they had each gone to their rooms in the five minutes or so they had to prepare for dinner, Vicki came into her room without knocking, and a moment afterwards, with a peculiarly affected sigh, flopped down on her bed and carefully watched her at the mirror making her modest toilette.
Suddenly visualising, and already contemplating subtle methods of combating, a state of affairs in the future in which Vicki Kugelmann might, at any moment of the day or night, enter her room, flop down on her bed, and look at her, Miss Roach, an ardent lover and pursuer of privacy, became absent-minded in her answers.
Nor was Miss Roach’s apprehensiveness decreased when, after they had heard the gong below being hit by Mrs. Payne, Vicki arose from the bed (without making any attempt to adjust the rumpled art-silk coverlet, or to smooth out the dent which her body had made in the bed) and, going over to Miss Roach’s dressing-table, picked up Miss Roach’s comb, and began hastily to comb her hair in the mirror – combing in that dashing, vigorous, head-shaking style which seems to a super-sensitive watcher to be spreading dandruff everywhere even if actually it is not . . .
Then Miss Kugelmann, humming to herself, looked at herself in a general way in the mirror, made a neat adjustment here and there, seemed decidedly pleased with what she saw, and with a smiling ‘Well – I suppose we must not keep the old fogies waiting’ joined Miss Roach at the door, going out of the door before Miss Roach.
3
That had been a curious dinner. It had seemed as though they were all, with the exception of Mr. Prest in his corner, slightly dressed up as if for an occasion. Miss Steele and Mrs. Barratt were both slightly dressed up. Even Sheila was dressed up – neater, more ceremonious. The food itself was dressed up, better served. A new guest seldom fails to exercise this stimulating effect upon a boarding-house immediately upon arrival. Mr. Thwaites had certainly been dressed up (though Miss Roach could not quite analyse in what way), and on their appearance in the room, rose, in the most continental manner possible, in his seat. Miss Kugelmann begged him to be seated. Miss Roach did not have to hear Vicki and Mr. Thwaites talking to each other for more than thirty seconds to realise how well they had got on at the tea which had been briefly described to her. Was it conceivable that Mr. Thwaites was, after all, and in complete abandonment of his previously chauvinistic attitude, a little smitten?
Then the whole atmosphere and tempo of the dinner had been changed. Instead of the vast, pin-dropping silences, broken only by the long nasal booming of Mr. Thwaites and the agonised replies of a tortured and evasive Miss Roach, by the rumble of the lift and the sound of Sheila collecting plates – instead of this Miss Kugelmann’s voice cheerfully prevailed above the atmosphere, rendered that of Mr. Thwaites a mere assenting and slightly bewildered bass, and went on unselfconsciously and almost unintermittently as she put polite questions to both Mr. Thwaites and Mrs. Barratt and answered graciously and serenely whatever questions they put to her. Miss Roach got, indeed, an impression of the Rosamund Tea Rooms being a sort of mixed school for young people into which a new mistress had been suddenly introduced, a new German mistress with foreign methods, whose business it was cheerfully to question the boys and girls – to find out how much they knew and where they stood generally – so that she might liven things up and put their education on a new footing. And this was the poor lonely German girl whom Miss Roach had once befriended against a multitude in the mood to stone her! It was really very remarkable. She was, evidently, one of those people who at once take for granted what good comes their way, and go on without pause greedily to pursue their next advantage. You never knew what people were really like, did you?
It was clear at once that in this school for boys and girls Miss Kugelmann’s favourite pupil was Mr. Thwaites – her favourite if only because the most backward or difficult – challenging her capacities to bring him out. She put on a particular expression when Mr. Thwaites spoke – and it was Mr. Thwaites this and Mr. Thwaites that.
It was easy to see that she had quickly realised that Mr. Thwaites was the key-man and dominant figure of the boarding-house, and had made up her mind to conquer him. Whether Mr. Thwaites was in fact to be conquered, whether he had, perhaps, at last met his match, remained matters of doubt to Miss Roach. Knowing his character, she believed that although at the moment somewhat dumb-founded, hesitant, and perhaps indeed a little ‘smitten’, he was not without much in reserve, and was not the sort of man to have his ultimate dominance easily wrested from him.
Before five minutes had passed Vicki Kugelmann had already found occasion humorously, nay flirtatiously, to disagree with Mr. Thwaites on the matter of cigarette-smoking – Mr. Thwaites saying that this was in all cases poison to the system, and Miss Kugelmann making an exception of Turkish cigarettes, which she said were a different thing altogether. She had, she said, her ‘very own special brand’, and after dinner she would make Mr. Thwaites try one.
Then again, a little later, she had occasion to disagree with Mr. Thwaites on the subject of hot-water bottles, which Mr. Thwaites declared were symptoms of decadence, but the use of which Miss Kugelmann, leading Mrs. Barratt and Miss Roach, warmly supported. Mr. Thwaites, she said, was a little conservative – was he not – no?
Then again, a little later, the topic of card games having arisen, various types of patience were discussed, and Miss Kugelmann once more held out for her ‘very own brand’. This she said she would teach Mr. Thwaites, after dinner, if he cared.
‘I see,’ she said, after a few more of these pleasant disagreements, ‘that I shall have to take you in hand, Mr. Thwaites.’
‘Yes – I see you will,’ said Mr. Thwaites, looking very odd, but by no means displeased.
In the middle of dinner Miss Roach heard the telephone distantly ringing in Mrs. Payne’s room, and a moment afterwards Sheila came in and told her that it was for her. She rose and went into Mrs. Payne’s room, from which Mrs. Payne happily was absent. It could be no one, she knew, but the Lieutenant, and the Lieutenant it was.
‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Have you finished dinner round there?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re right in the middle of it.’
‘Well, will you hurry up and finish it and come round here?’
As the Lieutenant, when he had departed from them five and twenty minutes ago, had made no mention of ever seeing them again at any time in the future, here was more of his inconsequence, and she suspected that he was drunk.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I don’t think I can do that’; and ‘Aw, why not?’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Come on. I’m lonely.’
‘Well, I’ve got to stay with Vicki, for one thing,’ said Miss Roach. ‘It’s her first night here, and I can’t very well leave her alone – can I?’
‘Oh, I meant bringing her,’ said the Lieutenant, with unexpected promptness, and there was a pause . . .
‘She’s kind of cute, isn’t she?’ said the Lieutenant. ‘I like her. I mean bringing her.’
‘Well, I don’t think we can,’ said Miss Roach; and ‘Aw, come on,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Bring her around. I guess she’s kind of cute.’
‘No, we really can’t,’ said Miss Roach, and after more argument on his part, ‘No, we really can’t’ and ‘No. We can’t. Really. No!’ And a few moments later she had rung off, conscious of having refused the Lieutenant something for the first time, and of having
had, perhaps, her first brush with him.
Feeling oddly upset, she returned to the dining-room. Vicki, along with the others, glanced at her curiously as she sat down, but she said nothing.
Why, she wondered during the remainder of the dinner, had she so immediately and resolutely turned down the Lieutenant’s offer? Were they in fact bound to stay at the Rosamund Tea Rooms that evening? Were they under any obligation to the boarding-house, and would they in fact have come to any harm outside? Was it really because she had believed that the Lieutenant had been a little drunk? And would not her friend herself have been delighted to go?
Why, in that case, had she not consulted Vicki? Why, now, was she saying nothing about it and not intending to say anything about it? Why, above all, when the Lieutenant had been talking to her, had she found herself saying to herself that she would be damned if she would take Vicki round with her to meet him?
Was she jealous? She dismissed the idea with an easy conscience as grotesque. But what was this strange woman doing to her? She was doing something.
4
Miss Roach had rather hoped that circumstances, to save her from being further pained and embarrassed, might somehow cause Miss Kugelmann to forget her promise to make Mr. Thwaites smoke one of her special brand of cigarettes after dinner, and to teach him her special brand of patience. But not at all. Almost as soon as the coffee had come in Miss Kugelmann had exclaimed ‘Ah!’ reminiscently, left the room, and returned a few moments later with an extremely smart cigarette-case in a chamois-leather cover. This cigarette-case was a late nineteen-twenty model, and exhibited within, in addition to cigarettes, the half-revealed snapshot of a man, and metal clips which had pinched the cigarettes in the middle and made them look as though they had been wearing stays which were too tight for them – this after they had already been crushed flat by the pressure of the two sides of the case when closed. It was handed round to all, but all made polite excuses with the exception of Mr. Thwaites, who was committed.
Miss Kugelmann then lit Mr. Thwaites’ cigarette for him in a charming and girlish way, and afterwards took out one for herself and sat down on the settee and smoked it with all the grace and elaboration she alone knew how to bring to this normally unstudied pastime – seductively crossing her legs, vigorously tapping the cigarette on the case, putting the cigarette with delicacy and precision into a holder (and the holder with equal delicacy and precision into her lips), lighting up with finesse, at once blowing out sophisticated smoke through her nose, throwing back her head, emitting thin smoke-streams into the air with the mouth of a whistler, or clever smoke-rings with the mouth of a fish, neatly tapping away ash, finding minute or imaginary specks of tobacco on her lips and daintily removing them with her third finger and thumb, etc., etc., etc. Mr. Thwaites, himself smoking awkwardly, watched her, charmed. Miss Roach watched her, fascinated.
Even more charming and fascinating was Mr. Thwaites’ subsequent initiation into Miss Kugelmann’s game of patience – charming the way in which she overrode Mr. Thwaites’ original shyness and reluctance – his ‘laziness’ as she called it – and overcame all material difficulties, she herself going downstairs to find some cards from Mrs. Payne, herself getting the card-table from the corner and placing it under a suitable standard-lamp, herself arranging two chairs each side of it and primly commanding Mr. Thwaites to sit on one of them while she sat on the other.
Charming the way, too, with two packs of cards, she set up two games, one for Mr. Thwaites, which she could supervise upside down, and one for herself. Charming the meticulous care with which she expounded the rules, and the patience with which she bore Mr. Thwaites’ initial mistakes. Charming the difficulties caused by this upside-down way of teaching him, the laughable errors which, because of this, she herself made as well as he.
Charming the way, in her efforts to get a proper visual angle on his cards, her hair would sometimes fall right down over her face, only to be tossed back into place with an unconsciously impetuous jerk of her head – or the way, when she was doubtful exactly where to place a card, she would let it hang hesitantly in the air, or place the tip of it on the tip of her lower teeth, looking admonishingly and shrewdly at the cards in front of her.
Charming, when Mr. Thwaites began to get the hang of the game, the words of encouragement, the challenges, the reproaches, the commiserations, the sighs, the little cries of happiness – all this in an uninterrupted little stream of sound, forming a burbling background or foreground to the consciousness of the guests who sat over by the fire and read or knitted.
‘I think our newcomer’s charming,’ Mrs. Barratt murmured to Miss Roach when this had been going on for about half an hour. She said this as if to please Miss Roach, and so Miss Roach was compelled not only to smile but to look pleased. Mrs. Barratt had evidently got the point which Miss Kugelmann had been making.
Miss Steele was the first to go to bed. ‘Well – good night,’ she said, singling out and smiling at Vicki. ‘I see you’re going to liven us up.’
Just for a second Miss Roach thought that she detected a note of sarcasm or faint revulsion in this remark, and her spirits rose in the dim hope of having conceivably found one who might, since dinner, have been seeing eye to eye with herself. But the next moment the hope departed.
‘It’s just what we old fogies are wanting,’ said Miss Steele, with conviction and delight, and left the room.
5
How long she had had to stand it after that she did not know. The burbling from the card-players had continued, but had grown slowly quieter and more self-absorbed: the heat in the room grew heavier and heavier, and gas-fire drunkenness supervened for what seemed hours.
At last Mrs. Barratt rose, and began to collect her things, and Miss Roach rose too, went to the mantelpiece, and looked over at Vicki. Vicki saw her, understood her glance, yawned prettily while looking at Mr. Thwaites (she brought even to yawning the same sort of preciosity as she brought to smoking), and signified that they had both had enough. Five minutes later they had said good-night to Mr. Thwaites, and were on the stairs on the way to bed.
‘Come in and see my room,’ said Vicki, when they were on the top landing, and Miss Roach went in.
There was, actually, little to be seen in Vicki’s room, which was even drearier and darker under the dim electric light than Miss Roach’s own, but the first things which Miss Roach actually saw were two portraits of men on the dressing-table – one large silver-framed one of an extremely good-looking young man of blond and German appearance, and one smaller one of what appeared to be a middle-aged English naval officer – and she at once got a distinct impression that in asking her to come in and see her room Vicki had in reality been asking her to come in and see these. She got this impression because Vicki, after lighting her gas-fire, immediately went over to the dressing-table and began to comb her hair in the close vicinity of these photographs, almost pointing at each of them with dripping hair and brisk comb, while she talked in a rather self-conscious voice of other matters. But as, at any rate, it wasn’t Miss Roach’s comb, or Miss Roach’s dressing-table, Miss Roach didn’t mind.
It was soon found that Vicki’s gas-fire was not working properly, and Vicki, who had now taken off her dress and put on a large, comfortable blue dressing-gown (actually a man’s dressing-gown, edged with cord, which might have been borrowed from a man), suggested that they should have a final cigarette in Miss Roach’s room. This they did, speaking sotto voce as they crossed the landing and closed the door.
Naturally the subject of Mr. Thwaites arose, and Vicki gave her verdict.
‘Oh,’ she said, flopping the whole weight of her dressing-gowned body down on to Miss Roach’s bed once again, ‘he’s all right, poor old bean: the old gent only wants a little handling.’
If this woman (thought Miss Roach, as she sat on the wickerchair and seemed placidly to smoke the last cigarette of the day with her friend) goes on talking about ‘beans’ and ‘gents’: if she makes any f
urther mention of ‘handling’ people or taking people ‘in hand’: if she combs her hair over any more people’s photographs, or flops her body on to any more people’s beds, or, as she was now doing, flicks her cigarette-ash over any more people’s bedside tables, then she, Miss Roach, was at some time in the distant future, or even in the very immediate present, going to start to scream or going to start to hit. But she showed nothing of this, save for a faintly absent-minded look in an otherwise cheerful and cordial countenance, and their cigarettes at last came to an end.
‘Well – a very successful evening,’ whispered Vicki, as she said good-night at the door. ‘I am going to like it here – a lot.’ And Miss Roach agreed that things could not have gone better.
That was hours ago now, and still she could not sleep. She must calm down. She was exaggerating things. She always exaggerated things at this time of night – at this time of morning. There was no harm in the woman. She was just a little old-fashioned, skittish, that was all – perhaps rather absurdly old-fashioned and skittish at times. The Lieutenant had thought she was kind of cute. She was madly exaggerating things. She was a born exaggerator. This was her fault in life . . .
‘A very successful evening.’ Yes, indeed, a very successful evening. You might almost say a knock-out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
TO the endless snubbing and nagging of war, its lecturing and admonitions, Miss Roach was subjected from the moment she left the Rosamund Tea Rooms in the morning to the moment she returned at night, and these things were at last telling upon her nerves and general attitude.
The Slaves of Solitude Page 12