Black Mischief

by Evelyn Waugh

  ‘Look here, Rex, ‘ he said,. ‘what I want to know is what you’re going to do about Seth.’

  ‘Seth?’ Lord Monomark turned an inquiring glance on Sanders. ‘What am I doing about Seth?’

  ‘Seth?’

  ‘It seems to me there’s an extremely tricky political situation developing there. You’ve seen the news from Ukaka. It doesn’t tell one a thing. I want to get some first-hand information. I’m probably sailing almost at once. It occurred to me that I might cover it for you in the Excess.’

  Towards the end of this speech, Lord Monomark’s bewilderment was suddenly illumined. This was nothing unusual after all. It was simply someone after a job. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t interfere with the minor personnel of the paper. You’d better go and see one of the editors about it. But I don’t think you’ll find him anxious to take on new staff at the moment.’

  ‘I’ll tell them you sent me.’

  ‘No, no, I never interfere. You must just approach them through the normal channels.’

  ‘All right. I’ll come up and see you after I’ve fixed it up. Oh, and I’ll send you Griffenbach’s report on the onion and porridge diet if I can find it. There’s my sister. I’ve got to go and talk to her now, I’m afraid. See you before I sail.’

  Barbara Sothill no longer regarded her brother with the hero-worship which had coloured the first twenty years of her life.

  ‘Basil,’ she said. ‘What on earth have you been doing? I was lunching at mother’s today and she was wild about you. She’s got one of her dinner parties and you promised to be in. She said you hadn’t been home all night and she didn’t know whether to get another man or not.’

  ‘I was on a racket. We began at Lottie Crump’s. I rather forget what happened except that Allan got beaten up by some chaps.’

  ‘And she’s just heard about the committee.’

  ‘Oh that. I meant to give up the constituency anyhow. It’s no catch being in the Commons now. I’m thinking of going to Azania.’

  ‘Oh, were you? — and what’ll you do there?’

  ‘Well, Rex Monomark’ wants me to represent the Excess, but I think as a matter of fact I shall be better off if I keep a perfectly free hand. The only thing is I shall need some money. D’you think our mother will fork out five hundred pounds?’

  ‘I’m sure she won’t.’

  ‘Well, someone’ll have to. To tell you the truth I can’t very well stay on in England at the moment. Things have got into rather a crisis. I suppose you wouldn’t like to give me some money.’

  ‘Oh, Basil, what’s the good? You know I can’t do it except by getting it from Freddy and he was furious last time.’

  ‘I can’t think why. He’s got packets.’

  ‘Yes, but you might try and be a little polite to him sometimes — just in public I mean.’

  ‘Oh, of course if he thinks that by lending me a’ few pounds he’s setting himself up for life as a good fellow …‘

  In the days when Sir Christopher was Chief Whip, Lady Seal had entertained frequently and with relish. Now, in her widowhood, with Barbara successfully married and her sons dispersed, she limited herself to four or five dinner parties every year. There was nothing elastic or informal about these occasions. Lady Metroland was a comparatively rich woman and it was her habit when she was tired to say casually to her butler at cocktail time, ‘I am not going out tonight. There will be about twenty to dinner,’ and then to sit down to the telephone and invite her guests, saying to each, ‘Oh, but you must chuck them tonight. I’m all alone and feeling like death.’ Not so Lady Seal, who dispatched engraved cards of invitation a month in advance, supplied defections from a secondary list one week later, fidgeted with place cards and a leather board as soon as the acceptances began to arrive, borrowed her sister’s chef and her daughter’s footmen and on the morning of the party exhausted herself utterly by trotting all over her house in Lowndes Square arranging flowers. Then at half-past five when she was satisfied that all was ready she would retire to bed and doze for two hours in her darkened room; her maid would call her with cachet Faivre and clear China tea; a touch of ammonia in the bath; a touch of rouge on the cheeks; lavender water behind the ears; half an hour before the glass, fiddling with her jewel case while her hair was being done; final conference with the butler; then a happy smile in the drawing-room for all who were less than twenty minutes late. The menu always included lobster cream, saddle of mutton and brown-bread ice, and there were silver-gilt dishes ranged down the table holding a special kind of bonbon supplied to Lady Seal for twenty years by a little French shop whose name she would sometimes coyly disclose.

  Basil arrived among the first guests. There was carpet on the steps; the doors opened with unusual promptness; the hall seemed full of chrysanthemums and footmen.

  ‘Hullo, her ladyship got a party? I forgot all about it. I’d better change.’

  ‘Frank couldn’t find your evening clothes, Mr Basil. I don’t think you can have brought them back last time you went away. I don’t think her Ladyship is expecting you to dinner.’

  ‘Anyone asked for me?’

  ‘There were two persons, sir.’

  ‘Duns?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. I told them that we had no information about your whereabouts.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  ‘Mrs Lyne rang up fifteen times, sir. She left no message.’

  ‘If anyone else wants me, tell them I’ve gone to Azania.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Azania.’

  ‘Abroad?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Basil….’

  The Duke and Duchess of Stayle had arrived. The Duchess said, ‘So you are not dining with us tonight. You young men are all so busy nowadays. No time for going out. I hear things are going very well up in your constituency.’ She was often behindhand with her news. As they went up the Duke said, ‘Clever young fellow that. Wonder if he’ll ever come to anything though.’

  Basil went into the dark little study next to the front door and rang up the Trumpingtons.

  ‘Sonia, are you and Alastair doing anything tonight?’

  ‘We’re at home. Basil, what have you been doing to Alastair? I’m furious with you. I think he’s going to die.’

  ‘We had rather a racket. Shall I come to dinner?’

  ‘Yes, do. We’re in bed.’

  He drove to Montagu Square and was shown up to their room. They lay in a vast, low bed, with a backgammon board between them. Each had a separate telephone, on the tables at the side, and by the telephone a goblet of ‘black velvet’. A bull terrier and chow flirted on their feet. There were other people in the room: one playing the gramophone, one reading, one trying Sonia’s face things at the dressing-table. Sonia said, ‘It’s such a waste not going out after dark. We have to stay in all day because of duns.’

  Alastair said, ‘We can’t have dinner with these infernal dogs all over the place.’

  Sonia: ‘You’re a cheerful chap to be in bed with, aren’t you?’ and to the dog, ‘Was oo called infernal woggie by owid man? Oh God, he’s made a mess again.’

  Alastair: ‘Are those chaps staying to dinner?’

  ‘We asked one.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Basil.’

  ‘Don’t mind him, but all those others.’

  ‘I do hope not.’

  They said: ‘Afraid we’ll have to. It’s so late to go anywhere else.’

  Basil: ‘How dirty the bed is, Sonia.’

  ‘I know. It’s Alastair’s dog. Anyway, you’re a nice one to talk about dirt.’

  ‘Isn’t London hell?’

  Alastair: ‘I don’t, anyway, see why those chaps shouldn’t have dinner downstairs.’

  They said: ‘It would be more comfortable.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  ‘One we picked up last night. The other has been staying here for days.’

  ‘It’s not only
the expense I mind. They’re boring.’ They said: ‘We wouldn’t stay a moment if we had anywhere else to go.’

  ‘Ring for dinner, sweet. I forget what there is, but I know it’s rather good. I ordered it myself.’

  There was whitebait, grilled kidneys and toasted cheese. Basil sat between them on the bed and they ate from their knees. Sonia threw a kidney to the dogs and they began ‘a fight.

  Alastair: ‘It’s no good. I can’t eat anything.’ Sonia’s maid brought in the trays. She asked her: ‘How are the gentlemen getting on downstairs?’

  ‘They asked for champagne.’

  ‘I suppose they’d better have it. It’s very bad.’

  Alastair: ‘It’s very good.’

  ‘Well it tasted awful to me. Basil, sweety, what’s your news?’

  ‘I’m going to Azania.’

  ‘Can’t say I know much about that. Is it far?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Alastair, why not us too?’

  ‘Hell, now those dogs have upset everything again.’

  ‘How pompous you’re being.’

  After dinner they all played happy families. ‘Have you got Miss Chips the Carpenter’s daughter?’

  ‘Not at home but have you got Mr Chips the Carpenter? Thank you and Mrs Chips the Carpenter’s wife? Thank you and Basil have you got Miss Chips? Thank you. That’s the Chips family.’

  Basil left early so as to see his mother before she went to bed.

  Sonia said, ‘Good-bye, darling. Write to me from where-ever it is. Only I don’t expect we’ll be living here much longer.’

  One of the young men said: ‘Could you lend me a flyer? I’ve a date at the Café de Paris.’

  ‘No, you’d better ask Sonia.’

  ‘But it’s so boring. I’m always borrowing money from her.’

  In the course of the evening Lady Seal had found time to touch her old friend Sir Joseph Mannering on the sleeve and say, ‘Don’t go at once, Jo. I’d like to talk to you afterwards.’ As the last guests left he came across to the fireplace, hands behind his coat-tails and on his face an expression of wisdom, discretion, sympathy, experience and contentment. He was a self-assured old booby who in the easy and dignified role of family friend was invoked to aggravate most of the awkward situations that occurred in the lives of his circle.

  ‘A delightful evening, Cynthia, typically delightful. I sometimes think that yours is the only house in London nowadays where I can be sure both of the claret and the company. But you wanted to consult me. Not, I hope, that little trouble of Barbara’s.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing about Barbara. What’s the child been doing?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. It was just some idle bit of gossip I heard. I’m glad it isn’t worrying you. I suppose Basil’s been up to some mischief again.’

  ‘Exactly, Jo. I’m at my wits’ end with the boy. But what was it about Barbara?’

  ‘Come, come, we can’t fuss about too many things. I did hear Basil had been up to something. Of course there’s plenty of good in the boy. It only wants bringing out.’

  ‘I sometimes doubt it.’

  ‘Now, Cynthia, you’re overwrought. Tell me exactly what has been happening.’

  It took Lady Seal some time to deliver herself of the tale of Basil’s misdemeanours. ‘… if his father were alive … spent all the money his Aunt left him on that idiotic expedition to Afghanistan … give him a very handsome allowance … all and more than all that I can afford … paid his debts again and again … no gratitude … no self-control … no longer a child, twenty-eight this year … his father … the post kind Sir William secured him in the bank in Brazil … great opening and such interesting work … never went to the office once … never know where or whom he is with … most undesirable friends, Sonia Trumpington, Peter Pastmaster, all sorts of people whose names I’ve never even heard … of course I couldn’t really approve of his going about so much with Mrs Lyne — though I dare say there was nothing wrong in it — but at least I hoped she might steady him a little … stand for Parliament … his father … behaved in the most irresponsible way in the heart of his constituency … Prime Minister … Central Office … Sonia Trumpington threw it at the mayor … Conservative ball … one of them actually arrested … come to the end, Jo … I’ve made up my mind. I won’t do another thing for him — it’s not fair on Tony that I should spend all the money on Basil that should go to them equally … marry and settle down … if his father were alive … it isn’t even as though he were the kind of man who would do in Kenya,’ she concluded hopelessly.

  Throughout the narration Sir Joseph maintained his air of wisdom, discretion, sympathy, experience and contentment; at suitable moments he nodded and uttered little grunts of comprehension. At length he said: ‘My dear Cynthia. I had no idea it was as bad as that. What a terrible time you have had and how brave you have been. But you mustn’t let yourself worry. I dare say even this disagreeable incident may turn to good. It may very likely be the turning-point in the boy’s life … Learned his lesson. I shouldn’t wonder if the reason he hasn’t come home is that he’s ashamed to face you. I tell you what, I think I’d better have a talk to him. Send him round as soon as you get into touch with him. I’ll take him to lunch at the club. He’ll probably take advice from a man he might resent from a woman. Didn’t he begin reading for the Bar once? Well, let’s set him going at that. Keep him at home. Don’t give him enough money to go about. Let him bring his friends here. Then he’ll only be able to have friends he’s willing to introduce to you. We’ll try and get him into a different set. He didn’t go to any dances all last summer, 11 remember you telling me. Heaps of jolly girls coming out he hasn’t had the chance of meeting yet. Keep him to his work. The boy’s got brains, bound to find it interesting. Then when you’re convinced he’s steadied up a bit, let him have chambers of his own in one of the Inns of Court. ‘Let him feel you trust him. I’m sure he’ll respond …‘ For nearly half an hour they planned Basil’s future, punctually rewarding each stage of his moral recuperation. Presently Lady Seal said: ‘Oh Jo, what a help you are. I don’t know what I should do without you.’

  ‘Dear Cynthia, it is one of the privileges of maturity to bring new strength and beauty to old friendships.’

  ‘I shan’t forget how wonderful you’ve been tonight, Jo.’ The old boy bounced back in his taxi-cab to St James’s and Lady Seal slowly ascended the stairs to her room; both warm at heart and aglow from their fire-lit, nursery game of ‘let’s pretend’. She sat before her bedroom fire, slipped off her dress and rang the bell beside the chimney-piece.

  ‘I’ll have my milk now, Bradshawe, and then go straight to bed.’

  The maid lifted the jug from the fender where it had been keeping warm and deftly held back the skin with a silver apostle-spoon as she poured the hot milk into a glass. Then she brought the jewel case and held it while wearily, one by one, the rings, bracelet, necklace and earrings were slipped off and tumbled in. Then she began taking the pins from her mistress’s hair. Lady Seal held the glass in both hands and sipped.

  ‘Don’t trouble to brush it very long tonight, I’m tired.’

  ‘I hope the party was a success, my lady.’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes, I’m sure it was. Captain Cruttwell is very silly, but it was kind of him to come at all at such short notice.’

  ‘It’s the first time Her Grace’s youngest daughter has been to dinner?’

  ‘Yes, I think it is. The child looked very well, I thought, and talked all the time.’

  Lady Seal sipped the hot milk, her thoughts still wandering innocently in the soft places where Sir Joseph had set them. She saw Basil hurrying to work in the morning, by bus at first, later — when he had proved his sincerity — he should have a two-seater car; he would be soberly but smartly dressed and carry some kind of business-like attaché-case or leather satchel with him. He would generally have papers to go through before changi
ng for dinner. They would dine together and afterwards often go out to the theatre or cinema. He would eat with good appetite, having lunched quickly and economically at some place near his work. Quite often she would entertain for him, small young people’s parties of six or eight — intelligent, presentable men of his own age, pretty, well-bred girls. During the season he would go to two dances a week, and leave them early …

  ‘Bradshawe, where is the spoon? It’s forming a skin again.

  … Later she went to tea with him in his rooms in Lincoln’s Inn. He lifted a pile of books from the armchair before she sat down. ‘I’ve brought you a looking-glass.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, how sweet of you.’

  ‘I saw it in Helena’s shop this morning and thought it just the thing to go over your fire. It will lighten the room. It’s got a piece chipped off in one place but it is a good one.’

  ‘I must try it at once.’

  ‘It’s down in the car, dear. Tell Andrews to bring it up …‘

  A knock at the door.

  ‘What can they want at this time? See who it is, Bradshawe.’

  ‘Mr Basil, my lady.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  Basil came in, so unlike the barrister of her dream that it required an effort to recognize him.

  ‘I’ll .ring for you in a few minutes, Bradshawe … Basil, I really can’t talk to you now. I have a great deal to say and I am very tired. Where have you been?’

  ‘Different places.’

  ‘You might have let me know. I expected you at dinner.’

  ‘Had to go and dine with Alastair and Sonia. Was the party a success?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, so far as can be expected. I had to ask poor Toby Cruttwell. Who else was there I could ask at the last moment? I do wish you wouldn’t fiddle with things. Shut the jewel case like a good boy.’

  ‘By the way, I’ve given up politics; did you know?’

  ‘Yes, I am most distressed about the whole business —vexed and distressed, but I can’t discuss it now. I’m so tired. It’s all arranged. You are to lunch with Sir Joseph Mannering at his club and he will explain everything. You are to meet some new girls and later have tea — I mean rooms — in Lincoln’s Inn. You’ll like that, won’t you, dear? Only you mustn’t ask about it now.’