Being no great performer myself, I rather enjoyed tennis played in these leisurely, at times undoubtedly eccentric, conditions; but Widmerpool was perpetually grumbling about ‘the game not being taken seriously’, a complaint that was, from his point of view, fully justified: although he was himself in no sense a good player. If he could possibly manage to do so, he would try to arrange a ‘men’s four’, which usually resulted in one of us partnering a Scandinavian; and it soon became clear that, however much Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist might be able to cloak their mutual antipathy in the common intercourse of everyday life, their hatred for each other on the tennis court was a passion far less easily curbed. As it happened, a ‘men’s four’ was not so simple for Widmerpool to contrive as might be supposed, because Berthe and Suzette were inclined to resent having to play in a four with Paul-Marie and Jean-Népomucène—another instance of excessive insistence on dignity defeating its own ends, for in that manner the girls would have gained practice which they greatly needed—and also, a more potent reason, because there were at best only four tennis balls; one of which had a gash in its outer covering which adversely affected the bounce. These balls not uncommonly became mislaid in the thickets of the garden; and, although Paul-Marie and Jean-Népomucène were themselves not above playing a single with only one ball (provided this were not the damaged one), the rest of the party looked upon a couple of sound balls as a minimum; and preferred, if possible, to have the use of all available. Sometimes either Berthe or Suzette was ‘souffrante’, and wanted to sit out for a set or two. This rarely occurred to both of them on the same day, so that, as it happened, competition between Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist, although each occasionally played against the other partnering one of the girls, took on its most violent aspect when both were engaged in a ‘men’s four’: a ‘single’ between them being, naturally, unthinkable.
If a ‘single’ had ever taken place, it would undoubtedly have been won by Monsieur Örn, a better player than Monsieur Lundquist, taller and quicker in movement. There was, however, another element that entered into these games, especially when four were playing. This was knowledge of the peculiarities of the court, and their uses in winning a set, of which Monsieur Lundquist had a far keener grasp than Monsieur Örn. Monsieur Lundquist was also accustomed to practice a trick which had for some reason the effect of making Monsieur Örn abandon his normal state of vague, silent acceptance of the hardships of life and become decidedly irritable. This stratagem was for Monsieur Lundquist suddenly to change the style of his service, from a fairly brisk delivery that sent the grit flying about the court, to a gentle lob that only just cleared the net: a stroke which, quite unaccountably, always took Monsieur Örn by surprise, invariably causing him to lose the point.
Monsieur Lundquist never employed this device more than once in the course of an afternoon: often not at all. However, on one unusually hot day, after I had been at La Grenadière for several weeks, he did it twice in the same set, catching out Monsieur Örn on both occasions. It so happened that earlier in the same afternoon a ball lodged itself four or five times under the back line, a particularly annoying circumstance for the player—in every case Monsieur Örn—who certainly would otherwise have won the point. After the last of these ‘lets’, Monsieur Lundquist served his second lob—an unheard-of thing—catching Monsieur Örn unawares for the second time, with—so far as I was concerned—entirely unexpected effect on the Norwegian’s temper.
The actual word, or words, employed by Monsieur Örn never came publicly to light, even after the whole matter had been closed: nor was it ever established whether the epithet, or designation, had been expressed in Swedish, Norwegian, or in some opprobrious term, or phrase, common to both languages. Whatever was said, Monsieur Örn spoke quietly, with closed lips, almost muttering to himself; although in a manner apparently audible to Monsieur Lundquist, who lost all at once his look of enormous self-satisfaction, went red in the face, and walked quickly round to the other side of the net. Widmerpool, his partner, shouted: ‘Mais qu’est-ce que vous faites, Monsieur Lundquist? J’en ai ici deux balles. C’est assez?’
Monsieur Lundquist took no notice of him. It was at least clear to me that, whatever else he might want, he had not crossed the court in search of tennis balls. He went straight up to Monsieur Örn and—I suppose—demanded an apology. ‘I thought those northern races did not get hysterical,’ Widmerpool said to me afterwards, when we were discussing the distressing scene that followed; which ended with Monsieur Lundquist marching away from the rest of us, jumping on his bicycle, and riding at breakneck speed over the dusty pot-holes that punctuated the drive’s steep descent. At one moment, as he rounded the corner, I felt sure that he was going to come off; but he recovered his balance, and passing rapidly through the open gates of wrought iron that led to the road, he disappeared from sight. I agreed with Widmerpool that if he had supposed that hysteria formed no part of the Scandinavian temperament, he had—to use a favourite phrase of his own—based his opinion on insufficient data.
This scene, though in itself a violent one, did not take long to play out. Before its close, Berthe and Suzette had both risen from the seat upon which they had been resting, and done their best to join in. They were only partially successful in this, though they contrived to add appreciably to the hubbub. Finally, we were all left standing in the centre of the court beside Monsieur Örn, who had limited himself throughout the commotion almost entirely to monosyllables. He now began to speak in a deep, strident voice, which after a minute or two showed signs of shaking with emotion. At first Widmerpool and I were unable to grasp the root of the trouble, partly because Monsieur Lundquist’s lobbing technique was sufficiently common for none of the rest of us specially to have noticed it that afternoon: partly because at that age I was not yet old enough to be aware of the immense rage that can be secreted in the human heart by cumulative minor irritation. However, the subject of the dispute began to reveal itself in due course after Monsieur Lundquist had left the gardens. In fact Monsieur Örn at length demonstrated the origin of his annoyance by himself tapping a ball—the gashed one—lightly over the net in Monsieur Lundquist’s manner, where it fell flat, like a stone, on the reddish dust. ‘Jamais,’ said Monsieur Örn, now very quietly, after performing this action several times. ‘Jamais—jamais.’ Whether his words were intended to convey that no one should ever practice tricks of that sort, or whether he was expressing an intention never again to play tennis with Monsieur Lundquist was not certain.
The result of all this was a breach between Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist which there seemed no possibility of closing. By the time we reached the house, I had satisfactorily reconstructed the situation in my own mind; and I imagined—as it turned out, quite incorrectly—that I had grasped its intricacies more thoroughly than Widmerpool. It is doubtful whether the two girls ever understood the true source of the disturbance, though neither of them was backward in explaining what had gone wrong, and how it should be put right. There is no knowing what sort of an account Madame Leroy was given of the trouble, because she heard the first version from Berthe and Suzette as soon as we arrived back at La Grenadière.
Whatever was said was, in any case, sufficient to prepare her for a trying time at dinner that evening, during which meal Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist spoke no word to each other and very little to anyone else: projecting between them across the table a cloud of hatred that seemed to embarrass even Madame Leroy, not easily disconcerted in her own house. Her husband, it is true, did not show any concern whatever, or, indeed, awareness that something might be amiss; and Paul-Marie and Jean-Népomucène, at first greatly delighted by the grown-up quarrel, soon forgot the Scandinavians in some elaborate and secret diversion of their own. Berthe, Suzette, and Madame Dubuisson were in a state of acute excitement, shooting each other glances intended to be full of meaning; while they conversed in a kind of hissing undertone. Widmerpool, also, was plainly agitated. The only per
son whole-heartedly amused, and pleased, by what had happened was Monsieur Dubuisson, who talked more than was his custom throughout the meal, amplifying a little the exposé he had given on the previous day of one of his favourite subjects, the development of water-power in Morocco. So far as I was concerned myself, these circumstances made me feel very uneasy, and I could see no way for matters to right themselves; nor for normal life to be carried on, except by the hand-to-mouth method symbolised by passing to Monsieur Örn or Monsieur Lundquist whatever food or drink each was likely to need, for which neither would ask the other. This state of affairs lasted throughout the following day, and the next; until there seemed no solution to the problem of how to restore the relationship between Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist to its old footing, imperfect as this may have been.
To my great surprise, Monsieur Dubuisson began to discuss this situation with me one evening, when we found ourselves alone together in the garden. It had been another bakingly hot day, and the white dust lay thick on the leaves of the shrubs, and over the battered seat upon which I was sitting. I was reading Bel-Ami, discovered among the books—on the whole not a very exciting collection—kept in the glass cabinet in the hall. Monsieur Dubuisson had been walking up and down one of the paths, studying a newspaper. Now he came across the withered grass, and sat down beside me, at the same time taking from the pocket of his black alpaca coat his pipe, of which—like Peter Templer—he was, for some reason, immensely proud. As usual he cleared his throat several times before speaking, and then, leaning backwards, spat sideways over the seat. In his slow, disapproving voice he said: ‘I think it would be a—a little absurd if I talked French to you in view of our—our relative mastery of each other’s tongue. Do you agree, Jenkins, yes?’
‘Absolutely.’
One had to admit that he spoke English remarkably well, in spite of the hesitations made necessary by the subtlety of his processes of thought. There could be no doubt that every sentence was intended to knock you down by its penetrative brilliance. Smiling quietly to himself, as if at some essentially witty conception that he was inwardly playing with, and withheld only because its discernment was not for everybody, he began slowly to fill his pipe with tobacco—again like Peter’s—that smelt peculiarly abominable.
‘There seems to be a regular falling-out between our good friends from the north,’ he said.
I agreed.
‘You and I,’ said Monsieur Dubuisson, ‘belong to nations who have solved their different problems in different ways.’
I admitted that this assertion was undeniable.
‘Our countries have even, as you would say, agreed to differ. You lean on tradition: we on logic.’
I was not then aware how many times I was to be informed of this contrast in national character on future occasions by Frenchmen whose paths I might happen to cross; and again I concurred.
‘As I understand the affair,’ went on Monsieur Dubuisson, ‘as I understand the circumstances of the matter, it would be difficult to achieve something in the nature of a reconciliation.’
‘Very difficult, I——’
‘It would be difficult, because it would be hard to determine whether an appeal should be made, on the one hand, to your congenital leaning towards tradition: or, on the other, to our characteristic preference for logic. Do you agree? The way may even lie near some Scandinavian fusion of these two ideas. You read Strindberg?’
‘I have heard of him.’
‘I think our Swedish friend, Lundquist, is quite pleased with himself,’ said Monsieur Dubuisson, allowing me no opportunity to interrupt his train of thought: at the same time nodding and smiling, as a speaker personally familiar with the exquisite sensations that being pleased with oneself could impart to the whole being. ‘Örn, on the other hand, always seems to have the blues. During the war I knew some of your countrymen of that type. Always down at the mouth.’
‘Did you see a lot of the British Army?’
‘Towards the end, quite a lot. It was obvious, speaking English as I do. For three months I was second-in-command to a battalion. I was wounded twice and have four citations.’
I asked if he had ever come across my father in Paris; but, although Monsieur Dubuisson was unwilling to admit that they had never met—and assured me that he had heard Commandant Leroy speak of my father in the highest terms—it seemed probable that the two of them had never run across one another. On the other hand, Monsieur Dubuisson remarked: ‘Much of my work was done with Captain Farebrother, whom you have perhaps met in England. He was called Sunny Farebrother by his comrades in the army.’
‘But how astonishing—I have met him.’
As a matter of fact, I had thought of Farebrother almost as soon as Monsieur Dubuisson had mentioned his own war record, because it had immediately occurred to me how much Jimmy Stripling would have loathed Monsieur Dubuisson, with his wounds and citations. Besides, Monsieur Dubuisson’s treatment of the circumstances of his war career made Farebrother’s references to his own military past seem infinitely fastidious.
‘But why should you think it astonishing?’ asked Monsieur Dubuisson, with one of his withering smiles, which spread over the whole of his face, crinkling the features into the shape of a formal mask of comedy, crowned with greyish-mauve locks. ‘Captain Farebrother is a man I know to go about a great deal in society. What could be more natural than that you should have met him?’
I did not know in those days that it was impossible to convince egoists of Monsieur Dubuisson’s calibre that everyone does not look on the world as if it were arranged with them—in this case Monsieur Dubuisson—at its centre; and, not realising that, in his eyes, the only possible justification for my turning up at La Grenadière would be the fact that I had once met someone already known to him, I tried to explain that this acquaintanceship with Farebrother seemed to me an extraordinary coincidence. In addition to this, if I had been old enough to have experienced something of the world of conferences and semi-political affairs, in effect a comparatively small one, it would have seemed less unexpected that their meeting had taken place.
‘He was a good fellow,’ said Monsieur Dubuisson. ‘There was, as a matter of fact, a small question in which Captain Farebrother had shown himself interested, and of which I later heard nothing. Perhaps you know his address?’
‘I am afraid not.’
‘It is of no consequence,’ said Monsieur Dubuisson. ‘I can easily trace him.’
All the same he cleared his throat again, rather crossly. I felt that all this talk about the war, by reviving old memories, had put him out of his stride. He pulled at his pipe for a time, and then returned to the subject of Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist.
‘Now you were present when this falling-out took place,’ he said. ‘Can you recite to me the pertinent facts?’
I told him how matters had looked to me as a witness of them. He listened carefully to the story, which sounded—I had to admit to myself—fairly silly when told in cold blood. When I came to the end he knocked out his pipe against the leg of the seat, and, turning towards me, said quite tolerantly: ‘Now look here, Jenkins, you know you and I cannot believe eyewash of that sort. Grown-up men do not quarrel about such things.’
‘What were they quarrelling about, then?’
Monsieur Dubuisson gave his slow, sceptical smile. He shook his head several times.
‘You are no longer a child, Jenkins,’ he said. ‘I know that in England such matters are not—not stressed. But you have no doubt noticed at La Grenadière the presence of two charming young ladies. You have?’
I conceded this.
‘Very good,’ said Monsieur Dubuisson. ‘Very good.’
He rose from the seat, and stood looking down at me, holding his hands behind his back. I felt rather embarrassed, thinking that he had perhaps guessed my own feelings for Suzette.
‘Then what is there to be done about it?’ I asked, to break the silence.
‘Ah, mon vieux,’
said Monsieur Dubuisson. ‘Well may you ask what is to be done about it. To me—troubled as I am with a mind that leaps to political parallels—the affairs seems to me as the problems of Europe in miniature. Two young girls—two gentlemen. Which gentleman is to have which young girl? Your Government wishes mine to devalue the franc. We say the solution lies in your own policy of export.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I shrug my shoulders,’ he said, ‘like a Frenchman on the London stage.’
I was entirely at a loss to know how to reply to his presentation of this political and international allegory in relation to the matter in hand: and I found myself unable to grasp the implications of the parallel he drew with sufficient assurance to enable me to express either agreement or disagreement. However, Monsieur Dubuisson, as usual, appeared to expect no reply. He said: ‘I appreciate, Jenkins, that you have come here to study. At the same time you may need something—what shall I say?—something more stimulating than the conversation which your somewhat limited fluency in the French language at present allows you to enjoy. Do not hesitate to talk with me when we are alone together on any subject that may happen to interest you.’
He smiled once again; and, while I thanked him, added: ‘I am conversant with most subjects.’
As he strolled back across the lawn towards the house, he stowed away his pipe, which he seemed to use as a kind of emblem of common sense, in the pocket of his black alpaca jacket, which he wore over fawn tussore trousers.
I remained on the seat, thinking over his remarks, which required some classification before judgment could be passed on them. I could not accept his theory that jealousy about the girls, at least jealousy in any straightforward form, was at the bottom of the quarrel; because, in so much as the Scandinavians were to be thought of in connexion with Berthe and Suzette, each had paired off—if such an expression could be used of so amorphous a relationship—with a different girl: and everyone seemed perfectly happy with this arrangement. Berthe, as I have said, undoubtedly possessed a slight weakness for Monsieur Örn, which he recognised by markedly chivalrous behaviour towards her, when any such questions arose as the pumping-up of tyres of her bicycle, or carrying parcels back from the village when she did the shopping. Like Berthe, Monsieur Örn, too, was engaged; and he had, indeed, once handed round a small, somewhat faded, snapshot of himself sitting in ski-ing costume in the snow with his fiancée, who came from Trondhjem. Monsieur Lundquist, on the other hand, although interest in himself allowed him to show no more than moderate preference towards girls, or anyone else, seemed distinctly inclined towards Suzette. In so much as this allocation could be regarded as in any way part of a system, it also appeared to be absolutely satisfactory to everyone concerned. Indeed, the only person I knew of who might be said to have suffered from emotions that fell within the range of those suggested by Monsieur Dubuisson was myself; because, although the episode of the tennis court represented the more dramatic side of life at La Grenadière, the image of Suzette played in fact a far more preponderant part in my thoughts than the affairs of the Scandinavians, however unrestrained their behaviour.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 1 Page 14