Cordelia

by Winston Graham

  ‘He didn’t always go in at the Variety,’ she said. ‘But let’s wait.’

  Pridey glanced at her with a wrinkling of his eyebrows.

  The girls had gone off and were followed by the big act of the evening, a sort of ballet in which a lithe man in a tiger skin danced on a reddened stage among women in ballet frocks and was challenged and defeated at intervals by a fairy with a lighted wand.

  The waiter came back with the food they had ordered and with Cordelia’s sherry.

  ‘I’ve brought you ginger beer, sir. I hope that’ll suit.’

  ‘This steak,’ said Pridey, ‘is undercooked. Not cooked in the right way either. Tell me about Mr Crossley, Stephen Crossley. Is he still manager here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But if you want to complain about the food–’

  ‘Is he here, Mr Crossley? Is he here tonight?’

  ‘I think he’s coming, sir. He didn’t last night because he was at the Golden Fleece. If you want to see Mr Warburton–’

  ‘We do not want to see Mr Warburton. Will Mr Crossley come in here if he does come?’

  ‘I expect so, sir; he usually does.’ The waiter ducked down and away.

  Pridey took up his knife and fork. ‘Whole secret of cooking steak,’ he said gloomily, ‘ is that it be treated like an erring husband and well beaten with a rolling-pin. If you spare the pin you spoil the rump.’

  The ballet came to an end with virtue triumphant. The chairman could hardly make himself heard above the talk and the clatter that broke out.

  ‘Interesting,’ Pridey said with his mouth full, ‘the misdirected talents of these people. Those frescoes on the walls. Imitations of the sort of thing you’d dig up in Greece. Well, if you’re going to have Greece, have Greece. Why surround them with those cheap crystal columns that would offend any reasonable man? Eating nothing, young woman. You’d a good enough appetite not long ago.’

  ‘That’s why,’ she said, smiling, though it wasn’t true.

  ‘Ever since we came in,’ said Pridey, ‘a man at the corner table’s been making eyes at you. Looks on me as an elderly lecher, no doubt.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice, please.’

  ‘More than an hour curling his moustache. They’re even longer in this city. Wilberforce has the longest moustache in England. Like a straw mattress.’ Pridey waved his knife. ‘Let me tell you, you’ll find Mrs Cowdray’s mattresses deficient in give and take. No question, but we’ve been spoiled. Frederick’s a difficult man to live with but he knows how to buy beds …’

  She put her hand on his arm. Someone had come in.

  There was no mistaking him the instant she saw his head. For the moment he was moving among other people by the door, but he was coming this way. It was something about the set of his head, the way he held his shoulders, which unlocked all the old feelings and memories. She kept her own head lowered, forgetting her veil, afraid of being seen before she was ready, until she was calm.

  When she raised her head he was half way across the floor. At his side was a tall dark young woman in green.

  Pridey said: ‘Don’t worry about me if you want to go off. I’ll eat your steak.’

  They had gone across to two seats at the chairman’s table. The chairman bowed his welcome. A waiter held out the chairs, and the young woman sat down. The chairman leaned over and said something about the comic dancers who were now on the stage. Drink was brought, and a waiter lighted Stephen’s cigar. The woman’s head was close to Stephen’s as they consulted the menu. Very strikingly dressed in that vivid green, she’d a way of throwing back her head to shake away her hair. About twenty-eight or thirty.

  Pridey said: ‘He’s put on weight since I saw him last. Can’t be with eating his own steaks. Perhaps we should have had the cutlets.’

  It is not necessary always to hear what people are saying in order to know the sort of thing they are saying. She was doing most of the talking, saying something about the dancers and the stage, gesturing a little with one hand. He listened attentively, more than attentively. Cordelia knew that look.

  ‘Same girl,’ said Pridey.

  ‘What? What d’you mean?’

  ‘She was with him before. When I met him that time I told you about.’

  ‘Months ago? You never mentioned her.’

  ‘Never occurred to me. Didn’t know you were interested. Anyway she’s probably just a friend.’

  ‘Ladies and – gentlemen!’ announced the chairman in a hoarse convivial voice. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! I now have the honour and privilege of announcing to you that by special request …’

  The girl clinked her glass against his and drank. In the silence that suddenly fell she laughed, an easy, husky, sophisticated laugh. She turned to say something to a waiter, and Cordelia could see her face again, the creamy whiteness of her skin, the prominent cheek-bones, black straight brows, full lips curved down. Not pretty but fascinating; could one ever take one’s eyes from her opulent feline face? A man dressed in tattered black clothes and with a shade over one eye had come lurching on to the stage.

  In the orchestra a piano began to tinkle, and the man sang in a great growling voice.

  ‘Oh, my name it is Sam Hall, Chimney Sweep

  Chimney Sweep.

  Now my name it is Sam Hall, Chimney Sweep …’

  Special request. Her special request? In Manchester they had sung ‘Massa’s in de Cold, Cold Ground’.

  The singer hitched up the belt round his trousers and rubbed the bristles on his chin. His malevolent eye wandered round the silent room.

  ‘Oh me master taught me flam,

  Taught me flam,

  Me master taught me flam,

  Though he knowed it all was bam,

  And now I must go Hang,

  Damn your eyes!’

  Stephen wasn’t looking at the stage; he was watching the young woman at his side.

  The people in the hall were as if hypnotized. No waiter moved or knife clattered. There was an age-old sense of evil here which went far deeper than mere words.

  ‘Then the hangman will come too,

  Will come too,

  Then the hangman will come too,

  With all his bloody crew,

  And he’ll tell me what to do.

  Blast his eyes!’

  Cordelia thought: I must get away before he sees me.

  A sudden storm of clapping broke the silence. With scarcely any change in his scowl the singer acknowledged his applause. They brought him back again and again. The chairman glanced inquiringly at Stephen, who glanced at the girl beside him. She tossed back her head and made a negative movement with her hand. The chairman motioned to bring down the curtain.

  ‘Ladies and – gentlemen!’ he began, announcing the next number.

  ‘I think we’ll go, Pridey,’ she said. ‘I’ll come round in the morning. He’s – too busy tonight.’

  ‘Extraordinary song. Kind of hypnosis,’ said Pridey. ‘Man would have made a good preacher. Don’t jump to conclusions, young woman. Go up to Crossley, say how d’ye do, see what he says.’

  ‘No, no, I couldn’t. I don’t want to tonight. No, I’m not jumping to conclusions. Truly. I want to be fair. And it wouldn’t be fair – tonight. Let’s go home. I want to. I’ll come round in the morning. I promise I will.’

  ‘Y’promise. And what if he’s away somewhere else?’ Pridey fished out his stick. ‘ How would it be if I poked that man as I went out? He’s still ogling. Make him laugh on the other side of his moustache.’

  ‘No, no. Pay the bill, will you, please, and then we can watch our chance to slip away.’

  A giant about nine feet tall had come on the stage and began to sing a comic song. He was constantly interrupted by a dwarf, and soon they came to blows. The girl in green was ignoring the show and talking to Stephen again. The vehemence and the vitality in her seemed to dominate him.

  There was a roar of laughter as the dwarf took out a pocket-knife and sawed the giant’s head off. Co
rdelia got quietly to her feet and did not look back till she was near the door. Their leaving had not been noticed. Everyone was laughing and clapping because the giant’s severed head lying on the stage was now going on with the song while his headless body held the dwarf down.

  As they were leaving, Pridey tipped their waiter and said: ‘Who’s that lady with Mr Crossley. D’you know her, eh?’

  ‘Who, that? Yes, Miss Freda Gerald. The actress, sir.’ The waiter looked at the silver in his hand. Finding it sufficient, he added: ‘From the Garrick, sir. At least, that’s where she was last.’

  ‘She often come here?’

  ‘With Mr Crossley? Yes, sir. Quite often.’

  They went out. A slanting cloud of fog was drifting up from the river. It passed veil after veil before the glimmering lights of the narrow street. A sailor was arguing with a prostitute, and the smell of soup came up through a grating. Beggars whined in the gutter.

  ‘Wonder what flam means,’ said Pridey. ‘“My master taught me flam.’’ Rather think it’s something to do with humbug. Lying, hypocrisy, and humbug. Flin-flam. That sort of thing. Shall we walk for a bus or take a cab?’

  ‘A cab, please,’ said Cordelia.

  Chapter Nine

  Now be scrupulously fair. What did you expect, that he should stay away from all women for years on end in the remote hope of still attracting you? Did you think he should have pined away or taken to drink?

  Or, be honest, is it the woman herself? Her feline beauty had suddenly come from nowhere, formidably, to stretch across all the future. In the dark, grope for knowledge, for lights and signs, for insight but not imagination. Freda Gerald. It did not connect. A name disembodied. That woman with her poise, her hard sophistication, the beautiful flamboyant clothes, her upflung head. And Stephen. ‘Oh, my sweetheart, could you expect me to be faithful all these years?’ Toss and turn and turn and toss, praying for daylight yet dreading daylight. Be a coward and run away and earn an everlasting self-contempt – or else face it out as promised to Pridey.

  She dreamt too: of seeing Stephen in the music hall with the girl in green, and someone whispered, ‘ Oh, don’t you know who that is? That’s Margaret!’ She dreamt of Uncle Pridey lecturing to Mr Huxley, of Brook wildly acclaimed as a poet, of Slaney-Smith the believer and Mr Ferguson the atheist. Sometimes she was so near waking that thoughts and dreams wove themselves into a logical pattern hardly to be distinguished from the paradoxes of real life.

  When morning came at last she dressed with great care. Last night, carrying immeasurable weight among all the other considerations, was the fact that she was wearing part of the mourning she had put on for Brook. In that she must look drab and colourless beside the jungle green of the striking frock. Whatever the outcome, that was not the way it must be.

  By chance the one frock she had brought was also green, though of a pale apple green with a check underskirt and a tight bodice and lace at the throat and wrists. She had brought one other hat, a little feather toque of grey with a green ribbon. Uncle Pridey plucked at his beard when he saw her.

  They arranged over breakfast that Pridey should take Ian to the Zoo.

  ‘We’ll meet at lunch,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll be back by then. In any case – I’ll meet you here at one.’

  The fog had cleared. London looked different in the morning light, the character of the light seemed slightly different from the northern city. The traffic was as thick as ever, people pushed along the pavements; at least a quarter of them looked foreign. Not that she was unused to foreigners. Strange smells, stranger accents, strange clothes; she was in a new land.

  She walked a little way, chiefly to steady herself, to be sure of composure. Then she stopped a hansom. They tlot-tlotted off at a brisk pace, pushing among the buses and the thronging pedestrians.

  There was no one about at the entrance of the Royal Varieties. Hours early. The street looked drab and untidy. A woman was hanging out washing on the balcony opposite. Probably the place was closed and Stephen in some office miles away. She paid off the hansom. Unlike the old Variety, this building was not on a corner and there seemed no stage entrance. Tentatively she walked up to one of the glass doors and pulled. The door opened easily.

  Inside all was quiet and very dark. Smoke and stale beer and dust. Far in the distance was the sibilant sound of someone scrubbing. She groped her way towards it, found narrow stairs. The sound came from up there. It was pitch dark on the stairs and she was glad to get to the top.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  The scrubbing stopped.

  ‘ ’Ullo?’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I could find no one downstairs.’

  ‘What d’you want?’

  The charwoman was on her knees not far away.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Stephen Crossley. Do you know if he’s here?’

  ‘Yer up the wrong stairway, mum. It’s the other one b’ind the door as you come in. ’ Ave you got an appointment?’

  ‘Er – no. But I think he’ll see me.’

  ‘I’ll show you the way.’ Wiping her hands on her apron, the old woman got up and squeezed past in her cast-off bombasine dress. Gin and carbolic soap.

  So he was here. Down the stairs and across the foyer. Up some more stairs. Lighter here. A glass door. Tap-tap.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lidy ’ere to see Mr Crossley.’

  A middle-aged clerk with shiny hair brushed sideways.

  ‘Got an appointment, miss?’

  ‘No. Will you just tell him Mrs Ferguson.’

  ‘Very good – madam.’

  Now for it. Oh, God. The sound of voices. The clerk moved aside. Stephen.

  ‘Cordelia!’

  He stood there in the open doorway. For a second he did not move any farther, his eyes like a stranger’s, then warming, brightening.

  ‘Cordelia, I never expected …’

  With sudden calm, Heaven-sent, she smiled back at him.

  ‘I thought I’d call in – for a few moments.’

  ‘I thought it was a ghost! I really did. Come in. Come in. What are you doing in London? After all these years!’

  He came across and took her hands, smiled into her eyes. Seek, seek now for a hint of the equivocal in his welcome. He was plumper than she remembered. But all the old long-remembered charm, the clear full brown eyes twinkling with vitality and the joy of life.

  ‘I’m here for a few days’ holiday. I felt – I must call.’

  ‘Of course you must call! I should never have forgiven you. Come in. Come in here. At once!’

  He led the way into his office, shut the door, stood with his back to it.

  ‘By all the Saints, so you’ve come to see me at last! Well, and so you should. It’s five or six years since we met and all my letters unanswered and the door closed upon me when I called. I was miserable for years, you know!’

  Past tense. She said: ‘ I thought you would have gone back to America.’

  ‘I very nearly did. But then I changed my mind. It’s the way of things.’ He walked across to the table. ‘Drink?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, do; it’ll keep out the cold.’

  It would keep out the cold. ‘All right.’

  There was a moment’s silence. A soda siphon fizzed. Find something to say. He came back.

  ‘Here’s to you, my sweetheart.’ He’d remembered that she preferred sherry.

  He said: ‘Oh, yes,’ and sighed.

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘You’re beautiful. More beautiful than I remember! I thought you’d changed.’

  ‘It’s only five years,’ she said, with a little smile.

  ‘Yes, but … Well, what of it? You haven’t, and that’s the main thing.’ They talked hesitantly for some minutes, hand-picking words, without warmth, cautious only to say so much. He asked her how she had found him. ‘Is Brook with you?’

  ‘… No.’

  He lit a cigar. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry.�
�� The conventional phrase. But the conventional phrase led his own mind on. He looked at her through a cloud of tobacco smoke. Something kindled in his eyes. ‘How long are you here for?’

  ‘I must leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Flying visit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Must go as soon as that?’

  ‘Must go.’

  His voice grown a little softer, he said: ‘After that last visit to your house I was so upset! I was in a Hell of jealousy and anger. I thought, Let her go, I hate her! I’ll go to America again. But it wasn’t as easy as that. You can’t love and hate to order. I couldn’t forget you.’

  ‘But in the end you did?’

  ‘Do I look as if I’ve forgotten you? I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. You know you’re the only person who’s ever really counted.’

  She said in haste, trying abruptly to divert him: ‘Uncle Pridey’s quite a famous man now. They’ve made a great fuss of him here, and there’s talk of his being given an honorary degree at one of the universities. I hope I’m not interrupting you in your work, Stephen, not intruding, I mean. I felt I wanted to come for the sake of old times.’ Her voice sounded false even to herself.

  He smiled his old smile. ‘And why shouldn’t it be for the sake of new times too?’

  She turned away, but his hand moved to her elbow; he pulled her slowly round to face him.

  ‘Did you really come all this way just to go off again tomorrow?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Yes, I certainly do.’

  They looked into each other’s eyes. Drown there, one could so easily drown there. He bent to kiss her.

  Don’t shirk this. She gave him her lips, warm and unreserved, as they had once been. He put his arms right round her in an embrace in which passion seemed in a few moments to grow and flower.

  His face was altering, the sleekness going out of it. Slowly she put her hands to his shoulders, and, aware of the pressure, he released his hold, withdrew his mouth.

  ‘On my life and soul,’ he said, ‘you’re lovely! I’ve never known anyone more lovely.’