‘I have just been taught,’ said Hector, ‘that I’m of no more consequence than a coral-insect — I’ve spent an hour in the National Library of Scotland, and that’s what libraries do to me. — But even an insect may have a sense of propriety. And because Simon and I … ’
‘You’ve become friends, so we’re no longer to be lovers. Is that what you’re trying to say?’
‘What else can I say?’
‘You can say you’re a hypocrite, you can say you’re a coward. When I’ve given up so much for you … ’
‘I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness … ’
‘You wouldn’t get it if you did! Oh, Yacky Doo! When Simon came back last night — this morning, I mean — and told me he’d been here till after two o’clock, I thought you must have been talking about me, and you’d told him everything, and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I didn’t want to live without you, though you’ve been cruel to me — you’ve been deliberately cruel, you’ve tried to break me into little bits like a boy taking a clock to pieces — but I want you still, though I don’t love you, not as I love Simon … ’
‘If you love Simon … ’
‘I do!’
‘If you love him,’ said Hector, ‘you can have nothing more to do with me. Nor want to. And I … ’
‘You’re a liar and a hypocrite and a prig! You want to get rid of me, and you’re trying to find an excuse by saying that now you’re friends with Simon, your sense of honour … ’
‘There’s reality in a sense of honour.’
‘Even if you’re no bigger than an insect?’
‘Even though I am no bigger than a coral-insect.’
‘Oh, don’t be a fool,’ said Jane. ‘Simon has had to go to London again, and talk to someone at the War Office, so I told mother I was going to see him off, and then — well, I said I wouldn’t be home for dinner.’
‘And now you’ll have to tell her that you’ve changed your mind.’
‘But I haven’t!’
‘Can’t you see how impossible it is? Simon and I were in the Desert together … ’
‘Aren’t we all in a desert? All the time? Oh, damn you bloody male prigs! Damn you to hell!’
On Hector’s untidy table there was a heavy ash-tray of Royal Copenhagen porcelain. Jane picked it up, and with a swift, skimming motion threw it at him. He might have avoided it, but pride forbade him to dodge. The ash-tray struck him on the right temple — he staggered slightly — and then, holding a handkerchief to his forehead, where the blood came darkly down, said, ‘I must go and find some sticking-plaster. Help yourself to a drink, if you want one.’
He turned away, and from the littered table Jane snatched a half-empty bottle of whisky — the whisky that had been brought out for Mr Greenshaw’s entertainment — and was about to throw that, too — she was already swinging for the throw — when, on the table, she saw something that checked her movement and changed her intention. Her temper was still a few degrees below the heat of murder — she was not blinded by temper — and when she saw the square manila envelope she remembered all that Simon had told her. She knew the contents of the envelope.
Simon was an admirable soldier. But even the most staunch and gallant soldier may not be proof against the solicitations of a young wife who invites him — still sleepy, but waking to remorse — into her bed at six o’clock in the morning, and offers him forgiveness in return for a full story of what had kept him out so late. That is what Jane had done, and Simon had told her — under a pledge of secrecy — the whole tale of The Merry Muses as he had learnt it at Max’s dinner-table. That mysterious and most valuable book, committed to Hector’s care, was enclosed in a large, square envelope. And there it lay! There on his table!
She put down the bottle and picked up the envelope. She looked inside, and there indeed was an oldish-looking book. She recognized her chance of revenge, and following Hector to the bathroom, said loudly, ‘You needn’t hurry, for I’m going! I can find other people to dine with — people who’ll be glad to dine with me — and I dare say we shan’t see each other again. So good-bye!’
She went down the narrow stairs, and out into the mews. She went through the lane to Charlotte Square, and strode resolutely — the manila envelope under her arm — to the Gargoyle Restaurant. There were only a few people at the bar, and taking a stool at the far end she put down the envelope, set a dish of olives on it, and ordered a dry Martini.
They were large, pale green olives, and she ate three before tasting her Martini. She had small sharp teeth under a short upper lip, and she ate fiercely and with purpose. Like chisels her teeth went through the taut and salty flesh of the olives, and rasped on the stones. She was mastering her emotions and re-establishing self-control — and, being a careful girl, she had thought it unwise, after so harrowing a scene, to drink on an empty stomach. She took another olive, for safety, and drank her Martini in slow, deliberate sips.
She had to decide what to do. She had to fill an empty evening, for she was determined not to dine at home. There was no one at the bar, or in the restaurant, whom she knew, but it was early yet, and someone would surely come in: Edinburgh was small enough to make that probable. Indeed, most of her friends came regularly to the Gargoyle, and a few were almost as constant in attendance as if it were their club. She ordered another Martini — but suddenly, for fear of being left alone, decided to ask Hester to dine with her.
She spoke to the barman: ‘I’ll be back in a moment. I’m going to telephone.’
Hester was an old friend who had had several unhappy love-affairs — indeed, she had never had a happy one — and because, in her childhood, her parents had been badly off, she always enjoyed being taken out to dinner. And when she’s in good form, thought Jane — waiting for Hester to reply — she’s really very amusing. ‘Hester?’ she said. ‘It’s Jane, and I’m all alone.’
A couple of minutes later she returned to her stool at the bar, and realized she had been foolish. The purloined envelope, with its precious content, was still there, but how easily it could have been stolen! If anyone knew what’s in it, she thought, and what it’s worth — but no one does, of course, so there wasn’t any danger. But I mustn’t forget it again.
She took it off the bar and, putting it on her stool, sat firmly upon it. There, she thought, it’s safe now — and looked round to see who had spoken to her.
A man and a woman had just come in, both of whom she knew. The man was a friend of her father’s, though much younger than Max: he was tall and well-built, with a healthy look that came from taking much of his pleasure out of doors, and a raffish air that hinted other amusements. With the woman she had been at school.
‘Jane!’ said the man. ‘What a happy chance to find you here! What are you going to drink?’
‘I have one.’
‘Well, have another. You know Paula, don’t you?’ ‘We were at school together,’ said Paula.
‘Not for long,’ said Jane.
‘Oh, I’m older than you. I know that, but you needn’t shout about it. She hated me then,’ said Paula, ‘and I don’t think she’s ever got over it. Have you, darling?’
‘Of course I have — but you were damned cruel to me.’
‘All for your own good, my pet. You were a rather dirty and very impertinent little girl, and I was a conscientious prefect. I did my duty, and I’m sure you’re all the better for it.’
‘She’s a dutiful type,’ said the man, ‘but don’t enquire to whom she’s dutiful. What are we going to drink?’
A moment or two later he said, ‘Your father, Jane, was cut out of the rock. You know he was stalking with us? With me and Tom Murdoch, in the wilds of Lochaber? Paula went out one day, but she wasn’t really interested. Not in stags, only in a very handsome young gillie we had … ’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Paula. ‘I’m getting rather tired of that story. It was pouring with rain, and we had to take shelter somewhere.’
‘Well, anyway,’ said the man, ‘your father was the beau sabreur and juvenile lead in our little party. He’s twenty years older than I am — more than twenty years older than Tom — and he did better than either of us. And he kept us up at night! We came back to-day, with Tom and Mona, and we’re all going to dine together.’
‘Then mother will be alone,’ said Jane, ‘for I’m dining here.’
‘Why don’t you come with us?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Paula. ‘She wouldn’t enjoy it. You’ll be talking about crawling up corries, and how the wind kept changing, and what the hinds were doing. All that sort of thing, and nothing else. You’d be bored to tears, and so shall I be. But I’ve learnt how to restrain them. I’ve learnt a lot in my young life.’
‘In spite of a couple of bad days,’ said the man, ‘we had a damned good time. It’s wonderful country, and rough enough to give you all you need, though you kill nothing. Yesterday, for example, I started off up a hill called the Sgoran Dubh … ’
His story was still unfinished when Hester arrived. Jane had listened, unwillingly at first, but with a gradual admission of interest. He was not, so far as she knew, distinguished for his sensitivity or strength of mind — he was one of her father’s friends: one of several whose names she had never troubled to remember — but from his enthusiasm he evoked something of the splendours and serenity of the high, unpeopled lands where the red deer grazed beneath enormous skies — and she half-forgot the tangle of her own emotions in the transmitted excitement of his feelings while, in the stillness of a corrie, he had patiently — with speed held in check by patience — approached the crest from which the deer were visible and within range.
She saw, and ungraciously admitted what she saw, that Paula too was listening; but she told herself that Paula’s interest, in a tale so healthily simple, was only pretended. She had never liked Paula, and would not even admit that she was handsome; though Paula, under a mask of hard assurance, was very like the beautiful Mrs Moncrieffe whom Raeburn painted.
Then Hester arrived, and interrupted the story with a recital of her difficulties in finding a taxi. Hester had the sort of prettiness which is called ‘appealing’ — a rosebud mouth and big pale grey eyes that she opened and shut as if they were signalling lamps — but under her apparent need of sympathy — of help and love — there was a stubborn persistency of interest in her own activities, or her pre-occupations, that many, after some acquaintance, found tiresome.
To fortify himself against boredom, the man who had been stalking ordered another round of drinks; and ten minutes later Jane decided that Hester had monopolized the conversation for long enough — Hester, she admitted, was always at her worst when there was a new man in the party — and firmly she said, ‘We’re going to dine early, and have a long talk. Don’t keep father up too late,’ she added.
They were hardly out of earshot when Hester said, ‘Have you heard what I’ve heard — about Paula … ’
‘Oh, do wait till we’re sitting down! Let’s order our dinner first, and then talk scandal if you want to.’
‘It isn’t that I want to … ’
‘But I ought to know?’
‘I think you should … ’
At the bar, Paula stooped to pick up a large, square envelope that had fallen from Jane’s stool when she got up to go.
‘There’s a book in it,’ she said. ‘Why do you suppose she was sitting on it?’
‘Why not go and ask her?’
‘I’m not going to run errands for her! She’s a cold, self-satisfied, empty-headed bitch — but a bitch that’s never in season. I don’t suppose she’s ever had … ’
‘Now, steady. Steady on. I think she’s a nice girl. And anyway, she’s Max’s daughter, and Max … ’
‘I’d run errands for him, but not for her.’
She spoke to the barman. ‘I think this belongs to Mrs Telfer, Fred. I saw it on the floor, just after she went. Will you look after it for her?’
‘It won’t be the first time,’ said Fred. ‘It’s usually gloves, but once it was a dormouse.’
‘A dormouse?’
‘It was a present for someone.’
‘Perhaps we should have another drink.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘Time for one more, and then we’ll go along to Tom and Mona’s.’
At their table in the main room of the restaurant, Hester was speaking with soft insistency. ‘No one ever thought it would last, of course. I only met Milton Moberley once, but that was enough — knowing what I did of Paula, I mean. An American with a London tailor and two divorced wives already — it wasn’t a promising beginning. Whatever promises were made, at a marriage of that sort, were bound to be broken. It was only a question of who would break them first. But I did think it would have lasted longer. To separate in less than three years does show—well, not only instability: that’s obvious — but what, if you sympathize with Paula — and though I’ve never liked her, I am sorry for her — is even worse, from her point of view. Oh, much worse. It means that she can’t hold a man’s interest. Now five years — if she and Milton had lived together for, let’s say, five years, before deciding to part — well, that would have been respectable, and everyone would have been on her side. But under three years — that’s very different. And from what I’ve heard, she’s hoping to divorce him — she has started proceedings already, so I was told — and Milton is cross-petitioning, if that’s the word, so the whole case is going to be very distasteful, especially for us, who’ve known her from childhood.’
‘I’ve no sympathy with her at all,’ said Jane. ‘When I first went to school, I was just twelve, and I’d never been away from home before. And she was a prefect, and made life hell for me. That first term — it was summer, and I’d expected to enjoy it — was pure hell: all because of her.— Is there any difference between scampi and Dublin Bay prawns?’
‘I think they’re both called crevettes, in French.’
‘I like them much better than oysters. I like something you can get your teeth into.’
‘I never eat oysters, they make me ill. But is it true that she’s divorcing him? From what I was told, there’s no doubt about it, but have you heard anything?’
‘Yes, it’s quite true.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mother told me. Mother doesn’t like her any more than I do.’
‘Now this,’ said Hester, speaking even more earnestly than before, ‘is what I really wanted to tell you, and I do hope it won’t hurt you to hear it, but even if it does, I think you ought to know. Now this is Monday, so yesterday was Sunday, and it was just a fortnight ago — a fortnight yesterday — that Willy Watson took me down to North Berwick, and we had lunch at the Marine Hotel. Now that’s in confidence, and I don’t want you to tell anyone, because Willy’s wife, as you know, is almost a permanent invalid, and it wouldn’t be fair to her, though there’s nothing in it — absolutely nothing, for Willy’s devoted to her, and so am I — but there we were, and, as it happened, we had a table near the window, and on the other side, immediately opposite — though they never noticed us — were Paula and your father.’
‘He’s her lawyer,’ said Jane. ‘Are your sweetbreads good?’
‘Yes, but your steak looks better. I wish I’d asked for a steak.’
‘You had your chance, and it’s too late now to change your mind. Have some more rosé’
‘He may be her lawyer … ’ said Hester.
‘He isn’t handling her divorce case. He doesn’t do that sort of work. But her father’s an old friend of his — they quarrel over a bridge-table at least twice a week — so he’s advising her, in a general way, and I think he has found her a lawyer who’s good at divorces. Someone, I suppose, who can judge between the sort of lie that may be accepted, and the lies that no one could believe.’
‘In that case,’ said Hester, ‘it may not be so bad as it seemed. If they were there only as friends, I mean, and not as a lawy
er and his client. They were drinking champagne, and from a professional point of view that would look rather bad, wouldn’t it?’
‘Father will drink everything on the wine-list with anyone who has the stamina to keep him company,’ said Jane.
‘He’s a wonderful man,’ said Hester. ‘I admire him intensely. And probably I’ve been worrying myself quite unnecessarily. But it did seem to me such a pity that a man like your father should be wasting his time with Paula — and buying her champagne.’
‘He won’t come to any harm,’ said Jane, with a fine assumption of indifference — but she ate what was left of her steak with a fierce attention that was very like the controlled anger in which she had bitten the salty flesh of four green olives before she drank her first cocktail.
Hester grew aware that something she had said — she could not think what — had offended Jane, and with the deference that she owed to her hostess, explained, ‘Of course, I didn’t mean to imply … ’
‘You can imply anything you like,’ said Jane. ‘Implication bounces off my father like a ball in a squash-court.’
‘He’s so strong. So sure of himself,’ said Hester. ‘I wish Willy Watson had some of his assurance. Willy is so easily hurt. If anything were said about him — about his taking me to North Berwick, for example — he would be so upset … ’
Moodily, for a quarter of an hour, Jane listened to a tedious analysis of the emotions that Hester shared, or did not share, with Willy Watson — a man, as she knew, of unruffled probity — and deeply regretted her faint-hearted impulse to ask Hester to dine with her. Then two young officers in Simon’s regiment came in. They made extravagant protestation of their pleasure in meeting her, and begged permission to dine at her table. Surely Mrs Telfer and her friend could eat another dinner? Could they not all start again, with a few oysters to revive a jaded appetite …
‘Oysters always make me ill,’ said Hester, opening and shutting her large, pale eyes; and one of the young officers was so enchanted by this display that he promptly ordered champagne, and the party went on till the head waiter, with appropriate reluctance, told them that everyone else had gone, and the restaurant must be closed.
The Merry Muse Page 10