The Merry Muse

by Eric Linklater

  During the last six or seven weeks Max had seen a lot of Paula, and he professed to be sadly hurt by her desertion. — ‘Milton needs me!’ she had said, her eyes large and bright in her awareness of importance, her words vibrant with earnestness. ‘And I must go to him at once. Or almost at once. For if I keep him waiting, he may do something desperate.’

  ‘He may find another woman.’

  ‘No,’ said Paula, ‘I’m not afraid of that. Not now. I feel he’s undergone some profound change, and he realizes now that I’m necessary for his happiness. And he, of course — well, he’s been the only man in my life, really.’

  ‘What do you think I am? A wraith?’

  ‘Darling Max, you’re wonderful. I shall always remember you with love and admiration.’

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said. ‘Miss you badly.’ And sitting back in comfort, he drank his sherry with the profoundly consoling thought that the episode could hardly have found a neater and more desirable termination. It was well timed, too. After six or seven weeks he had begun to find Paula a little too demanding. He had no cause to be ashamed, but he was in his sixty-first year, and at that age a man knew the danger of letting a passionate attachment go on too long. But he had spoken truthfully when he said he would miss her, and now he was visited by a very happy thought. The affair need not come abruptly to an end. It deserved a memorable and well-managed conclusion — it demanded a climax — and now he knew the proper setting for its climax.

  They were in the Gargoyle Restaurant, sitting at a table in an alcove which commanded a view of the entrance and the long corridor leading inward from it. They had ordered luncheon, and told the head waiter they were in no hurry. They were drinking a second glass of sherry when Max conceived his happy idea.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ he said, ‘that makes me feel uneasy. Your husband writes from Tangier, and his proposal is that you should fly out and join him there. Well, Tangier’s an odd sort of place, and if there’s any question of settlements — the renewal or revision of marriage settlements — it’s not the domicile that I, as a lawyer, would advise a client to choose.’

  ‘I can trust Milton!’

  ‘Do you know a lawyer in Tangier whom you can trust? You’ll need advice, won’t you?’

  ‘At a time like this, when we’re both looking forward to complete reconciliation, it seems so wrong to think about legal issues. About settlements, and that sort of thing. But I suppose they’re necessary.’

  Paula sighed, and her eyes grew large again as she contemplated the strangeness of life. ‘One can’t ignore the future altogether, can one? So perhaps you’re right.’

  ‘Well, now you’ve admitted that, just listen to my plan. I, as I told you, have been invited to become a director on the board of Cockcroft and Sandeburn: and that I take as a great honour, and a very appropriate one. I’ve drunk a lot of port in my time, and they’re the greatest port-wine shippers in the world. Now their suggestion is that I should go out to Lisbon for a week or two, as soon as I can, and they’ll show me round. They’ve promised to give me a very pleasant time, and I’m sure they will. And what I propose is that you should come too.’

  ‘But I must go back to Milton!’

  ‘Tell him to come and meet you in Lisbon. Not immediately, of course. We’ll have two or three days together first. And when he does come, you’ll introduce me as your lawyer — and a friend of your father — and whatever legal business he wants to talk, he’ll talk with me.’

  Paula looked very grave, and before she had thought how to reply, a waitress brought two plates of smoked eel.

  ‘Did I order that?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I did,’ said Max. ‘I wasn’t in a mood for anything elaborate to-day — simplicity’s my nature, when it comes to analysis — and you can never make up your mind what you want. So while you were downstairs I said to the head waiter, “Persicos odi, puer, apparatus, bring me a chop and a couple of potatoes.” He’s an intelligent fellow, very intelligent, and he asked no questions. Just said, “Two loin chops, and, to begin with, perhaps some smoked eel?” So there it is.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I like smoked eel.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Max. ‘Eat it, and enjoy it. But I’ll tell you what: to celebrate my little plan, and drink to three happy days in Lisbon, we’ll have a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘But I don’t think I should go to Lisbon. It wouldn’t be quite fair to Milton, would it?’

  ‘His treatment of you hasn’t been any too scrupulous.’

  ‘But that’s all in the past, all that sort of thing. We’re going to make a fresh start: that’s what he said in his letter.’

  ‘Throwing yourself at his head won’t help you to make a good start. Keep him waiting for a while.’

  ‘But it’s so dangerous. I know Milton, and if he can’t get what he wants … ’

  ‘Tell him he’s going to get it, but on conditions. Don’t underrate yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t. I’ve always tried to be honest about myself.’

  ‘Well, then. If I can persuade him to accept your honest valuation of what he wants, you’ll be very well off.’

  ‘Poor Milton! He does need someone to take care of him, doesn’t he? — But look! Hugh Burnett’s going to a children’s party.’

  Coming towards them, down the long corridor that led from the entrance, were Hugh Burnett and a girl who wore a dark blue duffle-coat, long pale blue stockings and a pale blue muffler that matched them. She was very young, but when Max leaned forward to stare with brutal curiosity as they passed, she was not disconcerted but looked at him with equal interest. It was Burnett who, as he paused to speak to them, showed in his manner some embarrassment.

  ‘I call that disgusting!’ said Paula, and angrily watched him follow his guest into the main restaurant. ‘He’s old enough to be her father.’

  ‘I’m old enough to be yours.’

  ‘Oh, that’s quite different. I’m grown-up — and have been for years. But for a man like Hugh to bring a girl of that sort to the Gargoyle—to let himself be seen with a girl as young as that — well, it sets a very bad example,’ said Paula primly.

  ‘She’s a little beauty,’ said Max, ‘and in a couple of years’ time there’ll be a lot of competition to take her out. It’s damned clever of Hugh to get in on the ground floor.’

  A few minutes later Burnett came out of the main restaurant and spoke to them again: ‘I’ ve been meaning to come and see you, Max, to ask what news there is of Simon.’

  ‘They’re still in Kuala Lumpur, and apparently beginning to settle down there.’

  ‘Was it only a rumour that they were going to New Brabant?’

  ‘You know as much about that as I do. A couple of months ago it looked as if they were needed, and before Christmas there may be more trouble. But at the moment everything’s quiet.’

  ‘So you’ve nothing to worry about for the present. Well, I’m glad of that. Very glad. That’s really all I came to ask you.’

  ‘I thought you were going to ask if I approve of that girl you’ve got. And I do! But who is she?’

  ‘She’s the girl I told you about, from Gairloch. I met her at Hector Macrae’s funeral. It was she who heard what he said as he stepped off the pavement.’

  ‘Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore?’

  ‘That’s who she is. She knows Greek too.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering what you and she could have in common,’ said Paula. ‘I had forgotten your scholarly interests.’

  ‘She is a very intelligent girl,’ said Burnett coldly, ‘and a delightful companion. The night before last we dined with Tom and Mona Murdoch, both of whom agreed with me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That she is a delightful companion.’ And with squared shoulders and a firm step he returned to the restaurant. ‘The poor fool,’ said Paula.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Getting on for forty, I suppose.’

  ‘And s
he looks about eighteen.’

  ‘What a little beauty,’ said Max thoughtfully.

  ‘West Highland prettiness, that’s all.’

  He took from his waistcoat pocket an oval miniature, in a thin gilt frame, of a girl with a blue ribbon threaded through her yellow curls. ‘What do you think of that?’ he asked. ‘Is she a beauty, or just pretty?’

  ‘Just pretty,’ said Paula.

  ‘It’s a Cosway. Richard Cosway, 1742 to 1821. I’ve bought three of these things in the last month. Two by Engleheart, and this. I may start collecting them.’

  ‘I thought you only liked great big pictures.’

  ‘Little things are the last to be found,’ said Max.

  The pattern of their conversation had been broken and they could not properly put it together again. In some attic of his imagination Max had discovered a picture of Hector walking to his death, and Paula, jealous of girlhood, was searching possibility for a topic that, in the Gargoyle Restaurant, could hold Hugh Burnett and that infant bluestocking in a common interest. There had been a time when she herself fished for his attention, and failed to find the proper lure. What was that damned girl using? Dapping a natural may-fly, she bitterly supposed.

  Rousing himself, Max said, ‘There was no point in ordering champagne if we’re not going to drink it,’ and, lifting the dripping bottle from its bucket, re-filled their glasses.

  ‘I’ve had a very interesting letter from Simon,’ he said. ‘I haven’t properly read it yet, it only came this morning. But they’re all in high spirit, he says, and that includes the Malays. There’s tremendous fraternization, and apparently a very curious thing has happened within the few weeks they’ve been there. — But wait a moment, and I’ll read it to you.’

  From an inside pocket he fetched a flimsy, air-mailed letter and, pushing away his plate, carefully flattened the folded sheets. ‘Here it is,’ he said, and read:

  About a week or ten days after we landed, something very strange occurred among the native population of Kuala Lumpur. They decided — or so it seemed — that it was carnival-time, and the whole regiment became their guests at the carnival. And now I’ve discovered the explanation. A new poet has come into flower! A Malayan poet, of course, and, from the translations I’ve seen, a very bawdy fellow he is. But intensely amusing. He hasn’t been identified, he’s a complete mystery, but suddenly his poems began to circulate, and now they’re known to everyone. The influence they have had is both delightful and disconcerting, for though the whole town is in the best of tempers, it’s very difficult to get anyone to do much work. I am more than a little worried, but everyone else in the regiment is enjoying a permanent birthday, and even I have to laugh when I listen to some of the excuses that are offered — by all sorts of people from Government officials to petty contractors — when I complain about the failure or non-existence of facilities we had been promised. The poems I have seen — which in effect are their excuses — are rather like those, in the alleged handwriting of Robert Burns, that you showed me on a memorable evening in your house on Corstorphine Hill. If one were fanciful, one could almost believe them to be Burns’s verses translated into Malay, and re-translated (for my benefit) into English.

  Max refolded the letter and returned it to his inner pocket. ‘It reminds you,’ he said, ‘of the few days of carnival we had in Edinburgh.’

  ‘A very few days,’ said Paula, ‘and already people are denying they ever occurred. They pretend that our little carnival (not that I enjoyed it) was an invention of the newspapers.’

  ‘It couldn’t have gone on,’ said Max. ‘Not through the winter. Now Portugal, they say, has a very good climate. I’ve never been there, and I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Do you really think I should come with you? And ask Milton to meet me there?’

  ‘Of course I do. It’s common sense. And I think we’re entitled to a last instalment of common pleasure too.’

  They recaptured, then, the earlier trend of their conversation, and pursued it for half an hour with such attention to dates, the wording of cablegrams, and the booking of air passages and hotel accommodation as seemed necessary. Then, at a quarter to three, Paula said she must go, for she had an appointment with a hairdresser at half-past two.

  Max remained at their table, sipping slowly and judiciously a glass of vintage port that he had thought appropriate to his new directorship. In his mind there circulated a medley of anticipation and reminiscence. The week after next there would be wine-tasting and dancing with Paula at Estoril; the month before last there had been the abrupt and shocking violence of Hector’s death on the Dean Bridge. The port he was drinking was older than his favourite vintage — a slightly faded wine of 1912 — and in a modern context 1912 was the day before history began. This wine had lived through the five (the almost five) decades of the modern world; and was only a little faded in consequence. A wine both philosophical and heroic. Death was dissolved in it; and it had coloured the lips of love.

  Now he was going to be a shipper of this great wine, a trafficker in immortal vintages, leaving dead poets among the rotting weed and broken barrel-staves of abandoned wharves (he wiped a tear from his eye) but sailing to new harbours where girls in the sunrise lifted white arms to greet him and evening reddened the faces of staunch and prudent men who, with no doubt of continuity, put their trust in maturity.

  With a sudden access of confidence, an assurance of well-being, he rose and called loudly for his hat and coat. Comfortable and well-dressed (a bowler hat, a dark blue coat, and leather gloves) he went out into a bright, hard-blowing afternoon — not yet cold, though it was the last of November — and with a measured dignity walked to his office in Hill Street.

  But there his clerk Hoyle met him with a worried expression, and in a despairing voice exclaimed, ‘Oh, Mr Arbuthnot, I thought you were never coming! I’ve had a very difficult time with Mrs Youghal.’

  ‘My sister?’

  ‘You had an appointment with her at half-past two. Did you forget all about it?’ ‘She’s gone, has she?’

  ‘It might be better for us if she had. But no, Mr Arbuthnot. She’s still here, and not in a good temper, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Damnation!’ said Max. ‘Damnation doubled and redoubled. You’re right, Hoyle, I did forget it, and now — well, I’d better get it over.’

  ‘Mrs Youghal isn’t alone, sir. There’s a Mr Lintot with her.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘I have a feeling that he may be a solicitor.’

  ‘Then I’m not afraid of him!’

  Max took off his overcoat and went upstairs with heavy tread. He opened the door of his room, paused, and returning to the head of the stairs shouted to his clerk, ‘Hoyle! See that I’m not disturbed for the next half hour, will you? I don’t want any telephone calls unless there’s one from Lisbon.’

  He returned to his room, smiling with a bold assumption of geniality, and said, ‘Now I can give you my undivided attention. — Jessie, my dear, I’m glad to see you; you’re looking well. I’m sorry I’m a little late … ’

  ‘We have been sitting here for three quarters of an hour,’ said Jessie. ‘Three quarters of an hour!’ There were little patches of red on her thin cheeks, like a frosty sunburn, and the hue of anger had also coloured the bridge and tip of her nose.

  ‘I’ve been very busy. Very busy indeed. I have to go abroad quite soon … ’

  ‘There’s business that you and I have to do even sooner,’ said Jessie. ‘And to begin with, let me introduce Mr Lintot.’

  Mr Lintot was a slenderly built, well preserved man of about fifty whose thin, yellowish grey hair was brushed so smoothly across his scalp that it seemed to have been painted on, and covered with a gleaming varnish. He had a cold, elusive smile, and sad, grey eyes. He was darkly and discreetly dressed, and he had a habit of pulling the long lobe of his right ear with nicely manicured fingers.

  Max shook hands warmly with him, and offered him a cigar from the box o
n his table. But Mr Lintot did not smoke.

  ‘Mr Lintot is my lawyer,’ said Jessie.

  ‘And I’m sure you’re in very good hands,’ said Max.

  Like a wisp of wintry sunshine on an iceberg, a shy thin smile flickered over Mr Lintot’s pale cheeks, and he said, ‘I was most grateful to you, Mr Arbuthnot, for all the assistance you gave us at the time of Mr Youghal’s death. The arrangements you made were far beyond my capacity, and, unhappily, it was beyond my capacity to attend the funeral. I feel sea-sick even at the end of a pier.’

  Unlike his smile, his voice was soft and warm. A purring voice.

  ‘I hope you haven’t run into any difficulties in the matter of poor Charlie’s estate,’ said Max. ‘If you have, and if I can be of any help … ’

  ‘You can help me in one way, and one way only,’ said Jessie, ‘and that’s by paying me for the book you’ve lost.’

  ‘Now my dear Jessie, do please be reasonable. You asked me to ascertain the value of a certain book — does Mr Lintot know what we’re talking about?’

  ‘Mr Youghal himself showed it to me. As a curiosity, you understand. I have in fact seen it several times.’ Mr Lintot’s admission sounded like a cat purring over a saucer of milk.

  ‘Then you can appreciate the fact that what I was asked to do was a matter of some delicacy,’ said Max.

  ‘Delicate or indelicate,’ said his sister, ‘you succeeded only in losing the book.’

  ‘It’s too early to say that. The police are still investigating.’

  ‘I have it on good authority,’ said Mr Lintot gently, ‘that the police have given up hope of recovering it, and I think we must now accept the fact that it is irretrievably lost.’