A Handful of Dust

by Evelyn Waugh

  “We went to a party.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that—not strictly, but I daresay no harm will come of it. Have you had your breakfast?”

  “Yes, in the dining room with Winnie.”

  “But Mr. Last, what are you thinking of? You’ve got to get evidence from the hotel servants.”

  “Well, I didn’t like to wake Milly.”

  “She’s paid for it, isn’t she? Come, come, Mr. Last, this won’t do at all. You’ll never get your divorce if you don’t give your mind to it more.”

  “All right,” said Tony. “I’ll have breakfast again.”

  “In bed, mind.”

  “In bed.” And he went wearily upstairs to his rooms.

  Winnie had drawn the curtains but her mother was still asleep. “She woke up once and then turned over. Do get her to come out. I want to go on the pier.”

  “Milly,” said Tony firmly. “Milly.”

  “Oh,” she said. “What time is it?”

  “We’ve got to have breakfast.”

  “Don’t want any breakfast. I think I’ll sleep a little.”

  “You’ve had breakfast,” said Winnie.

  “Come on,” said Tony. “Plenty of time to sleep afterwards. This is what we came for.”

  Milly sat up in bed. “O.K.,” she said. “Winnie darling, give mother her jacket off the chair.” She was a conscientious girl, ready to go through with her job, however unattractive it might seem. “But it’s early.”

  Tony went into his room and took off his shoes, collar and tie, coat and waistcoat, and put on a dressing gown.

  “You are greedy,” said Winnie, “eating two breakfasts.”

  “When you’re a little older you’ll understand these things. It’s the Law. Now I want you to stay in the sitting room for quarter of an hour very quietly. Promise? And afterwards you can do exactly what you like.”

  “Can I bathe?”

  “Yes certainly, if you’re quiet now.”

  Tony got into bed beside Milly and pulled the dressing gown tight round his throat. “Does that look all right?”

  “Love’s young dream,” said Milly.

  “All right then. I’ll ring the bell.”

  When the tray had been brought Tony got out of bed and put on his things. “So much for my infidelity,” he said. “It is curious to reflect that this will be described in the papers as ‘intimacy.’ ”

  “Can I bathe now?”

  “Certainly.”

  Milly turned over to sleep again. Tony took Winnie to the beach. The wind had got up and a heavy sea was pounding on the shingle.

  “This little girl would like to bathe,” said Tony.

  “No bathing for children today,” said the beach attendant.

  “The very idea,” said various onlookers. “Does he want to drown the child?” “He’s no business to be trusted with children.” “Unnatural beast.”

  “But I want to bathe,” said Winnie. “You said I could bathe if you had two breakfasts.”

  The people who had clustered round to witness Tony’s discomfort looked at one another askance. “Two breakfasts? Wanting to let the child bathe? The man’s balmy.”

  “Never mind,” said Tony. “We’ll go on the pier.”

  Several of the crowd followed them round the slots, curious to see what new enormity this mad father might attempt. “There’s a man who’s eaten two breakfasts and tries to drown his little girl,” they informed other spectators, skeptically observing his attempts to amuse Winnie with skee-ball. Tony’s conduct confirmed the view of human nature derived from the weekly newspapers which they had all been reading that morning.

  *

  “Well,” said Brenda’s solicitor. “We have our case now, all quite regular and complete. I don’t think it can come on until next term—there’s a great rush at the moment, but there’s no harm in you having your own evidence ready. I’ve got it typed out for you. You’d better keep it by you and get it clear in your mind.”

  “… My marriage was an ideally happy one,” she read, “until shortly before Christmas last year when I began to suspect that my husband’s attitude had changed towards me. He always remained in the country when my studies took me to London. I realized that he no longer cared for me as he used to. He began to drink heavily and on one occasion made a disturbance at our flat in London, constantly ringing up when drunk and sending a drunken friend round to knock on the door. Is that necessary?”

  “Not strictly, but it is advisable to put it in. A great deal depends on psychological impression. Judges in their more lucid moments sometimes wonder why perfectly respectable, happily married men go off for week-ends to the seaside with women they do not know. It is always helpful to offer evidence of general degeneracy.”

  “I see,” said Brenda. “From then onwards I had him watched by private agents and as a result of what they told me, I left my husband’s house on April 5th. Yes, that all seems quite clear.”

  III

  Lady St. Cloud preserved an atavistic faith in the authority and preternatural good judgment of the Head of the Family; accordingly her first act, on learning from Marjorie of Brenda’s wayward behavior, was to cable for Reggie’s return from Tunisia where he was occupied in desecrating some tombs. His departure, like all his movements, was leisurely. He did not take the first available boat or the second, but eventually he arrived in London on the Monday after Tony’s visit to Brighton. He held a family conclave in his library, consisting of his mother, Brenda, Marjorie, Allan and the solicitor; later he discussed the question fully with each of them severally; he took Beaver out to luncheon; he dined with Jock; he even called on Tony’s Aunt Frances. Finally on Thursday evening he arranged to meet Tony for dinner at Brown’s.

  He was eight years older than Brenda; very occasionally a fugitive, indefinable likeness was detectable between him and Marjorie, but both in character and appearance he was as different from Brenda as it was possible to imagine. He was prematurely, unnaturally stout, and he carried his burden of flesh as though he were not yet used to it; as though it had been buckled on to him that morning for the first time and he were still experimenting for its better adjustment; there was an instability in his gait and in his eyes a furtive look as though he were at any moment liable to ambush and realized that he was unfairly handicapped for flight. This impression, however, was due solely to his physical appearance; it was the deep bed of fat in which his eyes lay, that gave them this look of suspicion; the caution of his movements resulted from the exertion of keeping his balance and not from any embarrassment at his own clumsiness, for it had never occurred to him that he looked at all unusual.

  Rather more than half Reggie St. Cloud’s time and income was spent abroad in modest archaeological expeditions. His house in London was full of their fruit—fragmentary amphoras, corroded bronze ax heads, little splinters of bone and charred stick, a Greco-Roman head in marble, its features obliterated and ground smooth with time. He had written two little monographs about his work, privately printed and both dedicated to members of the royal family. When he came to London he was regular in attendance at the House of Lords; all his friends were well over forty and for some years now he had established himself as a member of their generation; few mothers still regarded him as a possible son-in-law.

  *

  “This whole business of Brenda is very unfortunate,” said Reggie St. Cloud.

  Tony agreed.

  “My mother is extremely upset about it, naturally. I’m upset myself. I don’t mind admitting, perfectly frankly, that I think she has behaved very foolishly, foolishly and wrongly. I can quite understand your being upset about it too.”

  “Yes,” said Tony.

  “But all the same, making every allowance for your feelings, I do think that you are behaving rather vindictively in the matter.”

  “I’m doing exactly what Brenda wanted.”

  “My dear fellow, she doesn’t know what she wants. I saw this chap Beaver yesterday. I
didn’t like him at all. Do you?”

  “I hardly know him.”

  “Well, I can assure you I didn’t like him. Now you’re just throwing Brenda into his arms. That’s what it amounts to, as I see it, and I call it vindictive. Of course at the moment Brenda’s got the idea that she’s in love with him. But it won’t last. It couldn’t with a chap like Beaver. She’ll want to come back in a year, just you see. Allan says the same.”

  “I’ve told Allan. I don’t want her back.”

  “Well, that’s vindictive.”

  “No, I just couldn’t feel the same about her again.”

  “Well, why feel the same? One has to change as one gets older. Why, ten years ago I couldn’t be interested in anything later than the Sumerian age and I assure you that now I find even the Christian era full of significance.”

  For some time he spoke about some tabulae execrationum that he had lately unearthed. “Almost every grave had them,” he said, “mostly referring to the circus factions, scratched on lead. They used to be dropped in through a funnel. We had found forty-three up to date, before this wretched business happened, and I had to come back. Naturally I’m upset.”

  He sat for a little eating silently. This last observation had brought the conversation back to its point of departure. He clearly had more to say on the subject and was meditating the most convenient approach. He ate in a ruthless manner, champing his food (it was his habit, often, without noticing it, to consume things that others usually left on their plates, the heads and tails of whiting, whole mouthfuls of chicken bone, peach stones and apple cores, cheese rinds and the fibrous parts of the artichoke). “Besides, you know,” he said, “it isn’t as though it was all Brenda’s fault.”

  “I haven’t been thinking particularly whose fault it is.”

  “Well, that’s all very well, but you seem rather to be taking the line of the injured husband—saying you can’t feel the same again, and all that. I mean to say, it takes two to make a quarrel and I gather things had been going wrong for some time. For instance you’d been drinking a lot—have some more burgundy, by the way.”

  “Did Brenda say that?”

  “Yes. And then you’d been going round a bit with other girls yourself. There was some woman with a Moorish name you had to stay at Hetton while Brenda was there. Well, that’s a bit thick, you know. I’m all for people going their own way, but if they do they can’t blame others, if you see what I mean.”

  “Did Brenda say that?”

  “Yes. Don’t think I’m trying to lecture you or anything, but all I feel is that you haven’t any right to be vindictive to Brenda, as things are.”

  “She said I drank and was having an affair with the woman with a Moorish name?”

  “Well, I don’t know she actually said that, but she said you’d been getting tight lately and that you were certainly interested in that girl.”

  The fat young man opposite Tony ordered prunes and cream. Tony said he had finished dinner.

  He had imagined during the preceding week-end that nothing could now surprise him.

  “So that really explains what I want to say,” continued Reggie blandly. “It’s about money. I understand that when Brenda was in a very agitated state just after the death of her child, she consented to some verbal arrangement with you about settlements.”

  “Yes, I’m allowing her five hundred a year.”

  “Well, you know, I don’t think that you have any right to take advantage of her generosity in that way. It was most imprudent of her to consider your proposal—she admits now that she was not really herself when she did so.”

  “What does she suggest instead?”

  “Let’s go outside and have coffee.”

  When they were settled in front of the fire in the empty smoking room, he answered, “Well, I’ve discussed it with the lawyers and with the family and we decided that the sum should be increased to two thousand.”

  “That’s quite out of the question. I couldn’t begin to afford it.”

  “Well, you know, I have to consider Brenda’s interests. She has very little of her own and there will be no more coming to her. My mother’s income is an allowance which I pay under my father’s will. I shan’t be able to give her anything. I am trying to raise everything I can for an expedition to one of the oases in the Libyan desert. This chap Beaver has got practically nothing and doesn’t look like earning any. So you see—”

  “But my dear Reggie, you know as well as I do that it’s out of the question.”

  “It’s rather less than a third of your income.”

  “Yes, but almost every penny goes straight back to the estate. Do you realize that Brenda and I together haven’t spent half that amount a year on our personal expenses? It’s all I can do to keep things going as it is.”

  “I didn’t expect you’d take this line, Tony. I think it’s extremely unreasonable of you. After all, it’s absurd to pretend in these days that a single man can’t be perfectly comfortable on four thousand a year. It’s as much as I’ve ever had.”

  “It would mean giving up Hetton.”

  “Well, I gave up Brakeleigh, and I assure you, my dear fellow, I never regret it. It was a nasty wrench at the time of course, old association and everything like that, but I can tell you this, that when the sale was finally through I felt a different man, free to go where I liked…”

  “But I don’t happen to want to go anywhere else except Hetton.”

  “There’s a lot in what these Labor fellows say, you know. Big houses are a thing of the past in England.”

  “Tell me, did Brenda realize when she agreed to this proposal that it meant my leaving Hetton?”

  “Yes, it was mentioned, I think. I daresay you’ll find it quite easy to sell to a school or something like that. I remember the agent said when I was trying to get rid of Brakeleigh that it was a pity it wasn’t Gothic, because schools and convents always go for Gothic. I daresay you’ll get a very comfortable price and find yourself better off in the end than you are now.”

  “No. It’s impossible,” said Tony.

  “You’re making things extremely awkward for everyone,” said Reggie. “I can’t understand why you are taking up this attitude.”

  “What is more, I don’t believe that Brenda ever expected or wanted me to agree.”

  “Oh yes, she did, my dear fellow. I assure you of that.”

  “It’s inconceivable.”

  “Well,” said Reggie, puffing at his cigar, “there’s more to it than just money. Perhaps I’d better tell you everything. I hadn’t meant to. The truth is that Beaver is cutting up nasty. He says he can’t marry Brenda unless she’s properly provided for. Not fair on her, he says. I quite see his point in a way.”

  “Yes, I see his point,” said Tony. “So what your proposal really amounts to, is that I should give up Hetton in order to buy Beaver for Brenda.”

  “It’s not how I should have put it,” said Reggie.

  “Well, I’m not going to and that’s the end of it. If that’s all you wanted to say, I may as well leave you.”

  “No, it isn’t quite all I wanted to say. In fact I think I must have put things rather badly. It comes from trying to respect people’s feelings too much. You see I wasn’t so much asking you to agree to anything as explaining what our side propose to do. I’ve tried to keep everything on a friendly basis but I see it’s not possible. Brenda will ask for alimony of two thousand a year from the Court and on our evidence we shall get it. I’m sorry you oblige me to put it so bluntly.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “No, nor had we, to be quite frank. It was Beaver’s idea.”

  “You seem to have got me in a fairly hopeless position.”

  “It’s not how I should have put it.”

  “I should like to make absolutely sure that Brenda is in on this. D’you mind if I ring her up?”

  “Not at all, my dear fellow. I happen to know she’s at Marjorie’s tonight.”
<
br />   *

  “Brenda, this is Tony… I’ve just been dining with Reggie.”

  “Yes, he said something about it.”

  “He tells me that you are going to sue for alimony. Is that so?”

  “Tony, don’t be so bullying. The lawyers are doing everything. It’s no use coming to me.”

  “But did you know that they proposed to ask for two thousand?”

  “Yes. They did say that. I know it sounds a lot but…”

  “And you know exactly how my money stands, don’t you? You know it means selling Hetton, don’t you?… hullo, are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “You know it means that?”

  “Tony, don’t make me feel a beast. Everything has been so difficult.”

  “You do know just what you are asking?”

  “Yes… I suppose so.”

  “All right, that’s all I wanted to know.”

  “Tony, how odd you sound… don’t ring off.”

  He hung up the receiver and went back to the smoking room. His mind had suddenly become clearer on many points that had puzzled him. A whole Gothic world had come to grief… there was now no armor glittering through the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the green sward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled…

  Reggie sat expanded in his chair. “Well?”

  “I got on to her. You were quite right. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. It seemed so unlikely at first.”

  “That’s all right, my dear fellow.”

  “I’ve decided exactly what’s going to happen.”

  “Good.”

  “Brenda is not going to get her divorce. The evidence I provided at Brighton isn’t worth anything. There happens to have been a child there all the time. She slept both nights in the room I am supposed to have occupied. If you care to bring the case I shall defend it and win, but I think when you have seen my evidence you will drop it. I am going away for six months or so. When I come back, if she wishes it, I shall divorce Brenda without settlements of any kind. Is that clear?”