by Alec Waugh
It was Roger who gave him a real welcome. He was in holiday mood; in white ducks that was to say, a panama hat, black and white buckskin shoes and an old Etonian tie. He slapped Gordon jovially upon the shoulder.
‘See here,’ he said. ‘I’m in a mess. There were a lot of bums aboard that boat. They made friends with us. You’ve got to be social on a boat. They saw I was a fellow who stood drinks, so they decided that they’d better get off at the same port. Now, I let them think that Villefranche and Cap Ferrat were different names for the same place. And I want them to go on thinking so till they find how far it is to walk. I don’t want you to be saddled with them. Heaven disallow that! And unless you’re richer than I am, don’t start drinking at their table. But I would be God Almighty grateful if you could shepherd them till it’s too late for them to realize that there’s no ferry service across the bay.’
His eyes twinkled, and his hand pressed Gordon’s shoulder. ‘He couldn’t be friendlier,’ Gordon thought. But the very friendliness of the greeting fretted him.
‘Now, look here, you lads,’ Roger was calling out. ‘I don’t know much about this place myself, but here’s Gordon Carruthers, who’s lived here so long that it’s just nobody’s business why he does. He’ll show you where you’d best get settled in. We’re just going to move our trunks across, then we’ll be back with you for cocktails. That’s settled. Fine!’
A minute later Gordon was left with two American men and three American women to be found homes for. They were typical tourist types; the men hearty, broad, clean-shaven, middle-aged; the women in the middle thirties, and smart in a standardized Macy fashion. Gordon had resource to an invariable formula:
‘What about all having a drink first?’ he said.
The suggestion was enthusiastically received.
‘Roger Sweden wasn’t too far wrong,’ was Gordon’s mental comment, as he observed the gusto with which they set to work upon their martinis, and within five minutes of receiving them issued an order for a further round.
The rounds succeeded; an incessant flow of talk was sustained unbrokenly. Gordon longed for a pause in the way that in a rugger match an exhausted forward prays for the ball to be kicked into touch or a half-back to get offside so that a whistle may blow and bring a respite to the shoving, dribbling, passing. Nor were the new arrivals any nearer finding hotels for themselves, but simply six martinis further from sobriety by the time Roger and Faith Sweden returned from Cap Ferrat in their grey-green Chrysler. A twinkle came into Sweden’s eyes as he saw them grouped upon the terrace, round a number of half-empty glasses with their trunks and suitcases stacked in a variegated pile.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You boys seem to have been enjoying yourselves all right. It’s time we started. Now, let’s have one more round of drinks. What is it you’ve all been having? Martinis? Eight martinis, boy. Then we’ll go and eat. You can bring me the check at the same time.’
‘A good many of these are mine,’ Gordon expostulated.
The twinkle remained in Sweden’s eyes as he handed a billet to the barman.
‘There’ll have been a good many rounds down to your account before you’re through with this party,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of this.’
Gordon was relieved to be spared the expense of six rounds of martinis to another person’s friends. At the same time, he was a little irritated at the way in which Sweden had taken charge of a situation that he had fancied himself to be controlling. ‘Oh, well,’ he thought. ‘I’ll ask them all up to dinner.’ Sweden intercepted him, however. Before the last cocktail was three-quarters finished, he had risen to his feet.
‘What about dinner now, you fellows? I wish we could ask you over to Cap Ferrat, but our place isn’t ready yet. And anyhow, I expect eight of us would be too much for a new lot of servants to tackle on a first evening. Where do you think, Gordon, would be the best place for us to eat?’
‘I had been going to suggest that you came and had dinner at the Welcome here with me.’
If Sweden noticed the invitation he ignored it.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘You have far too many meals there to want to have parties there, as well. Let’s go some place else. What’s this Riviera Bar like?’
‘It can be pretty good.’
‘Let’s see then, if this is going to be one of their good days.’
Obediently and with considerable steadiness, Gordon noticed, the party sauntered the thirty or so yards between the Welcome and the Cabanon. They certainly had strong heads for liquor. He himself had stood out on the last four rounds.
On their way to the Cabanon they compared French cocktails with American.
‘It certainly is good to be drinking real liquor on dry land.’
‘I never felt it was real liquor with that boat swaying.’
‘Boy, it wasn’t the boat swaying; it was you.’
‘We shipped enough to make it sway.’
‘I’ll tell the world we did.’
‘We certainly did have a grand time.’
‘You’ve said it.’
‘We certainly did make that boat hum!’
They stood telling each other how they had made it hum, while Roger arranged the menu.
‘You come over here and give me a hand with this,’ he said to Gordon. ‘If I once start letting these boys order for themselves, you and I’ll go hungry. They don’t know what they want. I figure it they’re not interested in food.’
In a minute or two the menu was decided.
‘And I’ld order them Bellet, if I were you,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s the best local wine, and it’s quite light.’
‘Which is what these bums need, I fancy.’ His hand rested affectionately on Gordon’s shoulder. ‘It’s grand to be seeing you again. Just grand. Can’t say how glad I was when Faith told me you’ld be down here.’
With Faith herself, Gordon had not yet managed to exchange one word. Nor was there any immediate likelihood of his doing so. She was seated between the two men, who were both busy telling her different stories at the same time. She was listening with the look of impersonal attention that he had noticed on her face so often.
‘Now I’ve ordered your dinner for you and your wine,’ said Sweden. ‘If there’s anything any of you don’t like, why, just you order something else.’
‘Don’t talk about food, big boy; just let that wine come home.’
Most of the talk went that way. The girl on Gordon’s right had not seemed particularly lively when he had seen her first, but the influence of juniper had brought a light to her eyes and a moisture to her lips. Gordon had asked her if she was a New Yorker.
‘Am I a New Yorker! Say, that’s rich. Gregory,’ she called across the table, ‘this guy’s just asked if I’m from New York!’
Gregory guffawed loudly. ‘Is she from New York? I’ll say she’s from New York. Should you say she was from New York, Francis?’
‘Just where Forty-second Street hits Broadway!’
The conversation became general. It did not matter much whom you sat next at that kind of party. Everything was said in shouts and across the table. ‘My! but that’s a smart looking guy,’ said Francis.
It was Rolo who had excited his attention. Rolo was on his way to Nice to entertain his widow. He was wearing a tightly fitting pearl-grey suit. His shoes were very small, very pointed and very polished. The brim of his grey felt hat was slanted downwards and forwards at an angle of fifteen degrees.
‘Who is it?’ Sweden asked.
‘The chief greengrocer. He’s a local figure.’
‘He looks interesting,’ said Faith.
It was the first time Gordon had heard her voice. He had forgotten how golden a tone it had.
‘He’s rather a poisonous person, really,’ he replied.
‘Is he?’
Though Faith had said that he was interesting, she displayed no wish to hear about him. Gordon felt the same irritation over her approval that he had at their first meeting over
her remark that she had found Harlem rather fun. He felt a need to abuse Rolo.
‘He’s a good example of the way a perfectly nice person can get ruined down here,’ he said. ‘Everyone who knew him ten years ago agrees that he was charming. Then painters asked him to pose for them, and women began to tell him he had bold eyes.’
‘Bold eyes!’ interrupted one of the women. ‘Oh, boy, I must go and look at them.’
‘Quiet, there, Sugar. Be yourself!’
‘But Gordon says that boy’s got bold eyes!’
‘So we’ve all, haven’t we?’
So it went on. It was the kind of quick-fire repartee that was only funny after several cocktails when you were in a good mood; when each sentence was snapped home hard upon another. The wise-cracks got wider and faster as the evening went on. It exhausted Gordon. It was the kind of thing that went well enough in the club car of a Pullman train; but here it was out of place: or rather he was in the wrong mood for it. He was tired with the excitement of a long day. Would the evening never end! He saw no reason why it should as long as Sweden was prepared to go on ordering fines. Even Faith, who drank little and had taken small part in the conversation, appeared to be in no hurry to get away.
It was after ten when Roger rose to his feet.
‘Well, boys, it’s been a big day.’
‘Yes, sir, I figure it’s time we hit the hay.’
Gordon was the only one who left his chair however. As Sweden went up to the bar to settle the account, he moved across to Faith.
Very fresh and cool she looked at the close of this long, hot exhausting day. Only a little lowering of the eyelids warned him of real tiredness. Well, what could she expect, if she persisted in surrounding herself with such a crowd of chattering apes? Tired himself, and with nerves on edge, as happened invariably when he was working hard, he looked impatiently at her. But even as he looked, she turned towards him; very fond were her eyes, and tender. ‘I’m so happy to have you back,’ she said. Into her voice came the slow, tender note.
At the sound of it his resentment passed. They were together again in harmony.
‘We are going to have such happy times,’ she said. Then turning in her chair, ‘Roger, what is it we are doing tomorrow?’ she called out.
‘We are going up to Vence, aren’t we, to lunch with Michael Trumper?’
‘We’ll be leaving at half after twelve?’
‘About that.’
‘Then we can call for Gordon at a quarter of one?’
A look of surprise flickered, Gordon thought, across Sweden’s face. But it vanished so quickly that he could not be sure.
‘Quarter of one would be fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet him on the terrace here.’
It was the first suggestion that had been made to Gordon that he should lunch with them on the following day. He had, in fact, promised Masters to go over to Antibes and lunch with him. The arrangement had been made three or four days back. Masters would have probably invited someone to meet him. It would be impossible to put through a telephone call as late as this.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he began. Faith interrupted him.
‘No, you can’t start making other plans on our first day here. He can’t, can he, Roger?’
‘Of course he can’t. We’ll call for him as near to quarter of one as can be. That’s fixed, Gordon, isn’t it?’
The geniality in Sweden’s voice was, Gordon fancied, slightly overpitched. He nodded his head, however, notwithstanding. Yes, he’ld be there. He was touched by Faith’s wanting him. By her assumption that he could fit in his plans with hers as easily as she would with his. He would send Masters a telegram in the morning. Masters would be angry. But they were old friends. He would be forgiven.
As he stood beside the grey-green Chrysler, the sound of singing from the Cabanon drowned the soft purr of the starting engine.
‘That was a party,’ was Faith’s first remark as she climbed into the car next morning.
She was sitting beside Sweden at the wheel, and talked back at him over her shoulder.
‘I suppose they were all right, really,’ Gordon said.
‘Oh, no, they weren’t,’ said Sweden. ‘They were just tough folk from Maine and Massachusetts, trying to break down New England consciences. No, sir, they were not all right. But on a boat you can’t not be friendly. As soon as you get off the boat you’ve got to lose them.’
‘What happened to them in the end?’
‘As their luggage has gone, I suppose they got taken in somewhere. I’ve not seen any of them yet this morning.’
‘How they’ll be feeling this morning isn’t anybody’s business.’
The contempt with which Sweden had spoken of his compatriots surprised Gordon. To him they had seemed no worse than a great many Americans that he had seen shouting round the Paris bistros. Which was the mistake, he supposed, that Englishmen always made about Americans. They assumed to be representative the people they saw spending money most conspicuously. They only noticed what was noisiest. The casual spectator of such a party as last night’s would not have noticed the Swedens, because they were quiet.
‘Who is it we’re lunching with today?’ asked Gordon.
‘A man I was at Harvard with: whom I’ve not seen since. He runs some kind of charitable organization in Arabia. I’ve never quite known why.’
To Gordon, that at any rate, was made clear enough within an hour of his arrival.
Michael Trumper’s villa was a mile or two out of Vence. It was on a hill. From one side you saw the white houses of Grasse climbing back into the hills. From the other the low promontory of the Cap, the Mediterranean and the outline, faint and misted, of the Estrelles. It was built on a Spanish model, with a grass court-yard, on to which all the windows opened. At the end of the court-yard was a swimming-pool. It would have looked better in Hollywood. But it looked pretty enough in the Alpes Maritimes. The room into which the Swedens and Gordon were shown was intended to look as though it had been furnished without plan. Its gilt chèirs; its Sevres porcelain; its Louis Quatorze clock; its Adams table; its Limoges enamel, were so clearly out of period that you knew the exact impression that the room had been meant to give. You were meant to think of the last flower of an old family, to whom had come from this and the other branch this piece of armour; that sideboard; that brocaded chair; of a man of fastidious taste and leisure who had bought at random the things that had touched his fancy; in the Caledonian Market, in a bazaar in Tunis, in an antique shop in Milan. But the effect was too studied. Most of it, you suspected, was the result of three days’ industry in Paris.
Trumper, himself, was a small dapper little man, clean-shaven; with short-cut grizzled hair. He had a mincing manner. As they came into the room he was dictating in French to a dark, willowy, young man who rose on their arrival and left the room.
‘My secretary,’ Trumper explained, ‘a most charming fellow. He has his meals with me when I’m alone. But his English is so indifferent that he can’t take part in a general conversation.’
The incident reminded Gordon of an English trader in Siam despatching his Lao wife to the kitchen on the arrival of white visitors.
Trumper was from Boston. He pronounced his ‘a’s’ as though an ‘h’ followed them. He despised New York. It was not America. California was bloated with retired Iowans. Life was limited in New England. The South was decadent. Boston was the only city with a really exclusive social life. To understand America you had to have visited in West Cedar Street.
‘I don’t serve cocktails,’ he said. ‘I may have an old-fashioned palate, but I prefer sherry.’
Sherry is not a good drink in hot weather. It is too liverish, but it was good sherry. No, he did not go to the States a great deal now, he said. Boston was not what it was. Money was the only thing that counted for anything. Breeding was ignored. There were no great ladies like Mrs Stuyvesant to reply to the woman from the Middle West who said, ‘Now, how do you pronounce Chicago?’ ‘We do
n’t pronounce it.’
‘Even New York,’ he concluded, ‘had something then.’
He elaborated the theme during a meal that was served in an early Victorian dining-room. There were wax fruit, glass chandeliers and antimacassars.
‘I like to have these things round me,’ he explained. ‘I should have been happier, I fancy, if I had been born then.’
It soon became clear to Gordon why Michael Trumper had concerned himself with philanthropy in Arabia. His two main preoccupations were involved. On the one hand for the beauty and therefore for the future welfare of Arabian youth, he had a genuine personal concern, while on the other, though in Boston he was no more than a comparatively well-off man, in Europe he was extremely wealthy, and by devoting his wealth to a charity in which English people were likely to be interested, he was able to entertain and meet a great number of titled English.
There is no city in the world that contains more wholehearted snobbery than Boston. When Faith had introduced Gordon as an English novelist, Trumper had been uninterested. He must apologize for not knowing Gordon’s name, he said. There were so many novelists, and, besides, he didn’t read novels. An occasional detective story, yes; but what little spare time he got for reading he liked to spend on real facts about real people. When, however, in the course of a discussion of London, he mentioned Julia’s name, and Gordon interpolated: ‘Do you know her? she’s my sister,’ his interest became agitatedly acute.
‘Why, of course I know her. Not as well as I should like to naturally, but my regard for her is very great, and for her parents-in-law, too. I had the privilege of visiting at Haystack once. A very beautiful old house indeed. Now, tell me, do you think that your brother-in-law will be able to keep it up when it comes to him? Death duties must be a heavy drain on an estate like that.’