The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over

by W. Somerset Maugham

  But human nature is weak. You must not ask too much of it. They ate grilled fish while Lena ate macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter; they ate grilled cutlets and boiled spinach while Lena ate pâté de foie gras; twice a week they ate hard-boiled eggs and raw tomatoes, while Lena ate peas swimming in cream and potatoes cooked in all sorts of delicious ways. The chef was a good chef and he leapt at the opportunity afforded him to send up one dish more rich, tasty and succulent than the other.

  “Poor Jim,” sighed Lena, thinking of her husband, “he loved French cooking.”

  The butler disclosed the fact that he could make half a dozen kinds of cocktail and Lena informed them that the doctor had recommended her to drink burgundy at luncheon and champagne at dinner. The three fat women persevered. They were gay, chatty and even hilarious (such is the natural gift that women have for deception) but Beatrice grew limp and forlorn, and Arrow’s tender blue eyes acquired a steely glint. Frank’s deep voice grew more raucous. It was when they played bridge that the strain showed itself. They had always been fond of talking over their hands, but their discussion had been friendly. Now a distinct bitterness crept in and sometimes one pointed out a mistake to another with quite unnecessary frankness. Discussion turned to argument and argument to altercation. Sometimes the session ended in angry silence. Once Frank accused Arrow of deliberately letting her down. Two or three times Beatrice, the softest of the three, was reduced to tears. On another occasion Arrow flung down her cards and swept out of the room in a pet. Their tempers were getting frayed. Lena was the peacemaker.

  “I think it’s such a pity to quarrel over bridge,” she said. “After all, it’s only a game.”

  It was all very well for her. She had had a square meal and half a bottle of champagne. Besides, she had phenomenal luck. She was winning all their money. The score was put down in a book after each session, and hers mounted up day after day with unfailing regularity. Was there no justice in the world? They began to hate one another. And though they hated her too they could not resist confiding in her. Each of them went to her separately and told her how detestable the others were. Arrow said she was sure it was bad for her to see so much of women so much older than herself. She had a good mind to sacrifice her share of the lease and go to Venice for the rest of the summer. Frank told Lena that with her masculine mind it was too much to expect that she could be satisfied with anyone so frivolous as Arrow and so frankly stupid as Beatrice.

  “I must have intellectual conversation,” she boomed. “When you have a brain like mine you’ve got to consort with your intellectual equals.”

  Beatrice only wanted peace and quiet.

  “Really I hate women,” she said. “They’re so unreliable; they’re so malicious.”

  By the time Lena’s fortnight drew to its close the three fat women were barely on speaking terms. They kept up appearances before Lena, but when she was not there made no pretences. They had got past quarrelling. They ignored one another, and when this was not possible treated each other with icy politeness.

  Lena was going to stay with friends on the Italian Riviera and Frank saw her off by the same train as that by which she had arrived. She was taking away with her a lot of their money.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, as she got into the carriage. “I’ve had a wonderful visit.”

  If there was one thing that Frank Hickson prided herself on more than on being a match for any man it was that she was a gentlewoman, and her reply was perfect in its combination of majesty and graciousness.

  “We’ve all enjoyed having you here, Lena,” she said. “It’s been a real treat.”

  But when she turned away from the departing train she heaved such a vast sigh of relief that the platform shook beneath her. She flung back her massive shoulders and strode home to the villa.

  “Ouf’ she roared at intervals. “Ouf’

  She changed into her one-piece bathing-suit, put on her espadrilles and a man’s dressing-gown (no nonsense about it), and went to Eden Roc. There was still time for a bathe before luncheon. She passed through the Monkey House, looking about her to say good morning to anyone she knew, for she felt on a sudden at peace with mankind, and then stopped dead still. She could not believe her eyes. Beatrice was sitting at one of the tables, by herself; she wore the pyjamas she had bought at Molyneux’s a day or two before, she had a string of pearls round her neck, and Frank’s quick eyes saw that she had just had her hair waved; her cheeks, her eyes, her lips were made up. Fat, nay vast, as she was, none could deny that she was an extremely handsome woman. But what was she doing? With the slouching gait of the Neanderthal man which was Frank’s characteristic walk she went up to Beatrice. In her black bathing-dress Frank looked like the huge cetacean which the Japanese catch in the Torres Straits and which the vulgar call a sea-cow.

  “Beatrice, what are you doing?” she cried in her deep voice.

  It was like the roll of thunder in the distant mountains. Beatrice looked at her coolly.

  “Eating,” she answered.

  “Damn it, I can see you’re eating.”

  In front of Beatrice was a plate of croissants and a plate of butter, a pot of strawberry jam, coffee, and a jug of cream. Beatrice was spreading butter thick on the delicious hot bread, covering this with jam, and then pouring the thick cream over all.

  “You’ll kill yourself,” said Frank.

  “I don’t care,” mumbled Beatrice with her mouth full.

  “You’ll put on pounds and pounds.”

  “Go to hell!”

  She actually laughed in Frank’s face. My God, how good those croissants smelt!

  “I’m disappointed in you, Beatrice. I thought you had more character.”

  “It’s your fault. That blasted woman. You would have her down. For a fortnight I’ve watched her gorge like a hog. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. I’m going to have one square meal if I bust.”

  The tears welled up to Frank’s eyes. Suddenly she felt very weak and womanly. She would have liked a strong man to take her on his knee and pet her and cuddle her and call her little baby names. Speechless she sank down on a chair by Beatrice’s side. A waiter came up. With a pathetic gesture she waved towards the coffee and croissants.

  “I’ll have the same,” she sighed.

  She listlessly reached out her hand to take a roll, but Beatrice snatched away the plate.

  “No, you don’t,” she said. “You wait till you get your own.”

  Frank called her a name which ladies seldom apply to one another in affection. In a moment the waiter brought her croissants, butter, jam, and coffee.

  “Where’s the cream, you fool?” she roared like a lioness at bay.

  She began to eat. She ate gluttonously. The place was beginning to fill up with bathers coming to enjoy a cocktail or two after having done their duty by the sun and the sea. Presently Arrow strolled along with Prince Roccamare. She had on a beautiful silk wrap which she held tightly round her with one hand in order to look as slim as possible and she bore her head high so that he should not see her double chin. She was laughing gaily. She felt like a girl. He had just told her (in Italian) that her eyes made the blue of the Mediterranean look like pea-soup. He left her to go into the men’s room to brush his sleek black hair and they arranged to meet in five minutes for a drink. Arrow walked on to the women’s room to put a little more rouge on her cheeks and a little more red on her lips. On her way she caught sight of Frank and Beatrice. She stopped. She could hardly believe her eyes.

  “My God!” she cried. “You beasts. You hogs.” She seized a chair. “Waiter.”

  Her appointment went clean out of her head. In the twinkling of an eye the waiter was at her side.

  “Bring me what these ladies are having,” she ordered.

  Frank lifted her great heavy head from her plate.

  “Bring me some pâté de foie gras, she boomed.

  “Frank!” cried Beatrice.

  “Shut up.”r />
  “All right. I’ll have some too.”

  The coffee was brought and the hot rolls and cream and the pâté de foie gras and they set to. They spread the cream on the pâté and they ate it. They devoured great spoonfuls of jam. They crunched the delicious crisp bread voluptuously. What was love to Arrow then? Let the Prince keep his palace in Rome and his castle in the Apennines. They did not speak. What they were about was much too serious. They ate with solemn, ecstatic fervour.

  “I haven’t eaten potatoes for twenty-five years,” said Frank in a far-off brooding tone.

  “Waiter,” cried Beatrice, “bring fried potatoes for three.”

  “Très bien, Madame.”

  The potatoes were brought. Not all the perfumes of Arabia smelt so sweet. They ate them with their fingers.

  “Bring me a dry Martini,” said Arrow.

  “You can’t have a dry Martini in the middle of a meal, Arrow,” said Frank.

  “Can’t I? You wait and see.”

  “All right then. Bring me a double dry Martini,” said Frank.

  “Bring three double dry Martinis,” said Beatrice.

  They were brought and drunk at a gulp. The women looked at one another and sighed. The misunderstandings of the last fortnight dissolved and the sincere affection each had for the others welled up again in their hearts. They could hardly believe that they had ever contemplated the possibility of severing a friendship that had brought them so much solid satisfaction. They finished the potatoes.

  “I wonder if they’ve got any chocolate éclairs,” said Beatrice.

  “Of course they have.”

  And of course they had. Frank thrust one whole into her huge mouth, swallowed it and seized another, but before she ate it she looked at the other two and plunged a vindictive dagger into the heart of the monstrous Lena.

  “You can say what you like, but the truth is she played a damned rotten game of bridge, really.”

  “Lousy,” agreed Arrow.

  But Beatrice suddenly thought she would like a meringue.

  THE HAPPY COUPLE

  I DON’T KNOW that I very much liked Landon. He was a member of a club I belonged to, and I had often sat next to him at lunch. He was a judge at the Old Bailey, and it was through him I was able to get a privileged scat in court when there was an interesting trial that I wanted to attend. He was an imposing figure on the bench in his great full-bottomed wig, his red robes and his ermine tippet; and with his long, white face, thin lips and pale blue eyes, a somewhat terrifying one. He was just, but harsh; and sometimes it made me uncomfortable to hear the bitter scolding he gave a convicted prisoner whom he was about to sentence to a long term of imprisonment. But his acid humour at the lunch-table and his willingness to discuss the eases he had tried made him sufficiently good company for me to disregard the slight malaise I felt in his presence. I asked him once whether he did not feel a certain uneasiness of mind after he had sent a man to the gallows. He smiled as he sipped his glass of port.

  “Not at all. The man’s had a fair trial; I’ve summed up as fairly as I could, and the jury has found him guilty. When I condemn him to death, I sentence him to a punishment he richly deserves; and when the court rises, I put the case out of my head. Nobody but a sentimental fool would do anything else.”

  I knew he liked to talk to me, but I never thought he looked upon me as anything but a club acquaintance, so I was not a little surprised when one day I received a telegram from him saying that he was spending his vacation in the Riviera, and would like to stay with me for two or three days on his way to Italy. I wired that I should be glad to see him. But it was with a certain trepidation that I met him at the station.

  On the day of his arrival, to help me out, I asked Miss Gray, a neighbour and an old friend of mine, to dinner. She was of mature age, but charming, and she had a flow of lively conversation which I knew nothing could discourage. I gave them a very good dinner, and though I had no port to offer the judge, I was able to provide him with a good bottle of Montrachet and an even better bottle of Mouton Rothschild. He enjoyed them both; and I was glad of that, because when I had offered him a cocktail, he had refused with indignation.

  “I have never understood,” he said, “how people presumably civilised can indulge in a habit that is not only barbarous but disgusting.”

  I may state that this did not deter Miss Gray and me from having a couple of dry Martinis, though it was with impatience and distaste that he watched us drink them.

  But the dinner was a success. The good wine and Miss Gray’s sprightly chatter combined to give Landon a geniality I had never before seen in him. It was plain to me that notwithstanding his austere appearance he liked feminine society; and Miss Gray in a becoming dress, with her neat head only just touched with grey and her delicate features, her sparkling eyes, was still alluring. After dinner the judge, with some old brandy still further to mellow him, let himself go, and for a couple of hours held us entranced while he told us of celebrated trials in which he had been concerned. I was not surprised therefore that when Miss Gray asked us to lunch with her next day, Landon, even before I could answer, accepted with alacrity.

  “A very nice woman,” he said when she had left us. “And a head on her shoulders. She must have been very pretty as a girl. She’s not bad now. Why isn’t she married?”

  “She always says nobody asked her.”

  “Stuff and nonsense! Women ought to marry. Too many of these women about who want their independence. I have no patience with them.”

  Miss Gray lived in a little house facing the sea at St. Jean, which is a couple of miles from my own house at Cap Ferrat. We drove down next day at one and were shown into her sitting-room.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she said to me, as we shook hands. “The Craigs are coming.”

  “You’ve got to know them at last.”

  “Well, I thought it was too absurd that we should live next door to one another, and bathe from the same beach every day and not speak. So I forced myself on them, and they’ve promised to come to lunch to-day. I wanted you to meet them, to see what you make of them.” She turned to Landon. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  But he was on his best behaviour.

  “I’m sure I shall be delighted to meet any friends of yours, Miss Gray,” he said.

  “But they’re not friends of mine. I’ve seen a lot of them, but I never spoke to them till yesterday. It’ll be a treat for them to meet an author and a celebrated judge.”

  I had heard a good deal of the Craigs from Miss Gray during the previous three weeks. They had taken the cottage next to hers, and at first she feared they would be a nuisance. She liked her own company and did not want to be bothered with the trivialities of social intercourse. But she very quickly discovered that the Craigs were as plainly disinclined to strike up an acquaintance with her as she with them. Though in that little place they could not but meet two or three times a day, the Craigs never by so much a glance gave an indication that they had ever seen her before. Miss Gray told me she thought it very tactful of them to make no attempt to intrude upon her privacy, but I had an idea that she was not affronted, a little puzzled rather, that they apparently wanted to know her as little as she wanted to know them. I had guessed some time before that she would not be able to resist making the first advance. On one occasion, while we were walking, we passed them, and I was able to have a good look at them. Craig was a handsome man, with a red, honest face, a grey moustache and thick strong grey hair. He held himself well, and there was a bluff heartiness of manner about him that suggested a broker who had retired on a handsome fortune. His wife was a woman hard of visage, tall and of masculine appearance, with dull, fair hair too elaborately dressed, a large nose, a large mouth and a weather-beaten skin. She was not only plain but grim. Her clothes, pretty, flimsy and graceful, sat oddly upon her, for they would better have suited a girl of eighteen, and Mrs. Craig was certainly forty. Miss Gray told me they were well cut and expensive. I thoug
ht he looked commonplace and she looked disagreeable, and I told Miss Gray she was lucky that they were obviously disposed to keep themselves to themselves.

  “There’s something rather sweet about them,” she answered.

  “What?”

  “They love one another. And they adore the baby.”

  For they had a child that was not more than a year old; and from this Miss Gray had concluded that they had not long been married. She liked to watch them with their baby. A nurse took it out every morning in a pram, but before this, father and mother spent an ecstatic quarter of an hour teaching it to walk. They stood a few yards apart and urged the child to flounder from one to the other; and each time it tumbled into the parental arms it was lifted up and rapturously embraced. And when finally it was tucked up in the smart pram, they hung over it with charming baby talk and watched it out of sight as though they couldn’t bear to let it go.

  Miss Gray used often to see them walking up and down the lawn of their garden arm in arm; they did not talk, as though they were so happy to be together that conversation was unnecessary; and it warmed her heart to observe the affection which that dour, unsympathetic woman so obviously felt for her tall, handsome husband. It was a pretty sight to see Mrs. Craig brush an invisible speck of dust off his coat, and Miss Gray was convinced that she purposely made holes in his socks in order to have the pleasure of darning them. And it looked as though he loved her as much as she loved him. Every now and then he would give her a glance, and she would look up at him and smile, and he gave her cheek a little pat. Because they were no longer young, their mutual devotion was peculiarly touching.

  I never knew why Miss Gray had never married; I felt as certain as the judge that she had had plenty of chances; and I asked myself when she talked to me about the Craigs, whether the sight of this matrimonial felicity didn’t give her a slight pang. I suppose complete happiness is very rare in this world, but these two people seemed to enjoy it, and it may be that Miss Gray was so strangely interested in them only because she could not quite suppress the feeling in her heart that by remaining single she had missed something.