‘I’m standing here listening. Septimus Tuam is chatting up Mrs FitzArthur.’
‘There are women in their graves, buried by the love of Septimus Tuam. Aren’t there three who went into a decline and died within two years? I’ve told you, pet. It’s in the letters. They couldn’t eat their food, they had a taste for nothing at all. Women meet up in heaven and compare their notes. “We’ll impel a holy man towards Septimus Tuam,” said one to another. How about that?’
‘I cannot accept it.’
‘Dead women sent you to the love department. The dead inspired me to put you on the track of Septimus Tuam.’
‘No.’
‘The dead are devils when they get going. Give me the promise now: I’m a match for three dead women.’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘I’m telling you what to think, Mr Blakeston-Smith. The dead sent you: I wondered who did. Their job is done, and so is yours. Let them go back to their shrouds; and get back to St Gregory’s yourself.’
‘I’m as cross as two sticks.’
‘Nobody feels impelled, pet, once they’ve discovered the source. You could be hanged for a thing like that.’
‘I couldn’t kill a fly,’ cried Edward, annoyed with himself for saying it, ‘I’m no crusader for three dead women and they should know it.’
‘Well, then?’
‘I’m fed up with all of you. I’ve had the same breakfast every day since I came to London. I’ve been dropped into a state of depression, pitched about from pillar to post. Words have been put into my mouth; I’ve been hit on the face by a butcher, and threatened by Septimus Tuam, and called mad by practically everyone. I am not mad, Lady Dolores: I’d rather say the dead are in charge than that.’
‘You cannot trust the dead.’
‘They messed me up.’
‘It’s a disgraceful thing –’
‘Devil take you, Lady Dolores!’ cried Edward suddenly and with agitation. ‘And devil take the dead. I’ve had enough.’
In the love department the air was thick with poetry and the scent of the typists, but in Lady Dolores’ chill sanctum there were only the greyness of the filing cabinets and the gloom of the squarely-built woman who had never been classified as a dwarf. She would not see Edward Blakeston-Smith again; she would not see his pale hair or the blush of his cheeks. She would miss his innocence.
Septimus Tuam said:
‘We’ll be so careful in future, Blanche, that not even a fly on the wall would notice a thing. You see if we aren’t.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Lady Dolores. ‘Don’t ever forget me. Don’t ever forget the love department.’
‘How could I?’ cried Edward. ‘However could I?’
Septimus Tuam looked away, and saw the youth in the telephone-box. The youth was standing oddly, as though he had suffered from a seizure, as though in a state of collapse.
‘We’ll be unbelievably cautious,’ said Septimus Tuam, pleased that the wretched little private eye, or whatever he was, was dying in a telephone-box. ‘You’ll be surprised.’
Mrs FitzArthur was silent for a moment. Employing then a prepared formation of words, she said:
‘I’m afraid there is to be no future for you and me, my dear. I came to this conclusion: that should I return to Harry FitzArthur I should return with all my heart. You and I must say goodbye.’
Mrs FitzArthur held out her right hand for Septimus Tuam to receive, imagining that he would take it with a slow motion and raise it, possibly, to his lips: he had acted as elegantly before. But Septimus Tuam did not take the right hand of Mrs FitzArthur. He recalled his own limb held out in a similar manner not fifty minutes ago in the Bluebird Café in Wimbledon. He saw from the corner of his eye the door of the telephone-box open and the youth who had given his name as Blakeston-Smith stagger ridiculously out. The youth stood peering at him, and peering at Mrs FitzArthur.
‘That man’s no good,’ said Edward, coming closer. ‘He’ll send you to your grave, Mrs FitzArthur.’
Mrs FitzArthur opened her mouth to pass a comment on this, but in fact could think of no comment to pass. Feeling calmer, Edward walked away.
‘What’s that in aid of?’ enquired Mrs FitzArthur, and then said she was sorry, referring to the news she had broken to her one-time lover. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ said Mrs FitzArthur. She proffered her right hand again, but Septimus Tuam only looked at it. He looked at it and then looked into Mrs FitzArthur’s eyes.
‘So you couldn’t trust me,’ he said bitterly. ‘You had to go getting a private detective. And now you’re giving out lies and slop.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ cried Mrs FitzArthur.
This fat old bitch, thought Septimus Tuam. ‘It’ll sicken me to think of you,’ he said, and he walked away without another word.
Edward, crouching behind a luggage-trolley in a corner, saw Septimus Tuam make his way among the travellers. He looked in the other direction and saw Mrs FitzArthur still sitting on the seat.
Septimus Tuam, in a fury as great as Edward’s had been, walked in the rain from Victoria Air Terminal to the King’s Road and on towards Putney. He walked with his umbrella up, cursing in his heart the whole of womankind. He had burnt his boats with Mrs Bolsover; Mrs FitzArthur had betrayed the trust he had placed in her. Together, these facts made Septimus Tuam bitter, as often before he had been bitter, for his life had not been an easy one. Tomorrow he would have to start again; he would be obliged to frequent pastures new, and he did not care for the thought. He had left on a seat in the air terminal the most generous woman he had ever experienced; he had left in a Wimbledon tea-shop a woman who might have suited for quite a bit yet, had she not been so foolish as coolly to inform her husband of the facts. He sighed in the rain, striding the anger out of his system, endeavouring to look ahead. With the flaw in his nature, he knew that he would try and fail, he would risk indignity and he would suffer it, he would be lucky not to suffer incarceration as well. Who would the next woman be, he wondered, that woman he was destined to fail with? Tall or short, young, old, middle-aged, dark or fair? And who would the woman after the failure be? Would he strike one who was not as well-to-do as she looked? Or one who was given to violence, or drink, or had ugly finger-nails? He had experienced many, he reflected, as he strode ahead: the good and the bad, the generous and the mean, the meek, the foolish, the wise; women who had, for a time at least, been full of love.
Far behind him, wheeling his bicycle and carrying no umbrella, Edward was bidding goodbye to Septimus Tuam, following him along a street for old times’ sake. He was leaving Septimus Tuam to Lady Dolores, and the three dead women could like it or lump it. In a minute or two he would jump on to his landlady’s bicycle and ride away from this large city, from the enemies of love, and from London’s lovers. He would turn on the lamp he had bought for the bicycle and he would ride out into the night, with no hat upon his head, to the south coast of England, to St Gregory’s by the sea.
Edward wondered if anyone at all would kill Septimus Tuam in the end; perhaps, he thought, Lady Dolores would. He shook his head over himself, marvelling to think that he had ever feared that against his desires he might do the wicked man to death, driving home a bullet or strangling him with telephone wire. Perhaps it was true what Lady Dolores had said, that three dead women had met in their after-life and had picked him out as a suitable candidate for the work; however it was, it didn’t much matter now. As he pushed his bicycle along the streets, seeing the umbrella of Septimus Tuam far ahead of him, he remembered the fuss he had made about the posters and the odd state he had found himself in when he had confused the people of the posters with Goths and Visigoths. ‘Strain and overwork; impelled by the dead. I’m a mixed-up kid,’ said Edward. He stood in the rain and made up his mind ‘I shall take rest and tranquillity again and I shall bring them in my time to others. St Gregory’s is my resting place: I am scheduled to become Brother Edward.’ Many faces came into Edward’s mind then, including those
that might well have belonged to the three dead women. They were nodding at him, pleased with him, implying that he had done well. ‘So we part on good terms,’ said Edward, ‘even though I have not done a deed.’ He looked ahead and could see no sign of the thin form of Septimus Tuam. ‘I have lost him for the very last time,’ said Edward, and laughed and jumped on to his landlady’s bicycle. He felt cold with all the rain on his clothes and stopped by a café to have a cup of tea.
‘You’re damp,’ said the woman who handed it to him.
‘I am truly damp,’ replied Edward, and drank the pale beverage without taking off his gloves that were beginning to cling uncomfortably to his fingers. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, and left the café. Crouched over the handlebars, firm on the saddle, Edward prepared himself for the long journey. He was anxious now not to waste time: he wished to see, as soon as was humanly possible, the kind countenance of Brother Edmund and the hands of Brother Toby moving the draughtsmen on the board.
But as he moved ahead the faces appeared again in his mind, and then the face of Eve Bolsover came and banished all the others. There were tears on her cheeks, the tears that had flowed in the Bluebird Café. Her face remained until Edward said, ‘I shall call in on Mrs Bolsover, to tell her I’ll pray for her marriage.’
He pedalled fiercely, causing buses and motor-cars to hoot their horns at him. The rain fell heavily on his bare head and soaked through his clothes. He could feel it on his back and on his legs. In Putney he pulled the wash-leather gloves from his hands and threw them on to the street.
A man, seeing something fall, shouted after Edward, imagining that the gloves had been dropped in error. He darted into the street himself, to rescue the pale objects, still shouting at Edward, hoping to return his property.
A taxi-cab, moving fast, swerved to avoid this man and, since it was moving faster than its driver imagined, mounted the pavement.
‘What d’you think you’re doing,’ shouted the angry driver, peering from his cab through the rain and the twilight, ‘running into the road on a night like this? You could have caused an accident.’
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said the man, holding Edward’s gloves in his hand. ‘A chap on a bike dropped these. I thought, you see, they might have been something valuable.’
‘I don’t see at all. It’s bloody improper, that.’
‘Well, no harm done,’ said the man. ‘And these turn out to be only a pair of gloves.’
‘What’s he mean, no harm done?’ cried the shrill voice of a pedestrian from the other side of the taxi-cab. ‘Look here at this lot.’
Edward pedalled hard up Putney Hill, panting a bit. He cycled on, past the house in which he had observed, through a window, Mr and Mrs FitzArthur emotionally involved in their drawing-room. He bore to the right, and drew up eventually in Crannoc Avenue.
‘Mrs Bolsover!’ cried Edward. ‘Mrs Bolsover! Mrs Bolsover!’
He called her name as he dismounted in a hurry from the bicycle. He ran towards the hall-door, shouting it still. He rang the bell and banged on the wooden panels, and in the end the door was opened, and Eve stood in front of him.
‘Yes?’ she said in a calm voice. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t you know me, Mrs Bolsover?’ As he asked the question in an excited way, Edward remembered saying the same thing on the doorstep of Mrs Poache. He thought about Mrs Poache, and decided not to call on her. Eve said:
‘I cannot help you if you are a detective. You were kind today, but I would rather not.’
‘I was employed a while since in a love department. You, I’m afraid, were a payer of debts.’
‘One lives and learns, God knows.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bolsover. I am terribly sorry.’
Edward seized her right hand and shook it up and down. ‘I’m going back to St Gregory’s,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget you. I’m going to become Brother Edward.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand anything of what you say. You’re soaking wet.’
‘I’ll remember your face, Mrs Bolsover. You have great beauty: you are a lovely thing.’
‘You haven’t a coat,’ said Eve, opening the door wider. ‘Come in.’
Edward shook his head. ‘I’m going to cycle ninety miles,’ he said, ‘in the rain.’
‘But you can’t. Look –’
‘No, Mrs Bolsover. Pause only to assess the damage. I’ll pray for your marriage: I’ve come to tell you that. I’ll pray for your marriage every day of my life.’
‘But I’ve never known you. I don’t understand.’
Her children, in a bath, were calling for her attention, laughing and seeming to be happy. Tears came into her eyes as she heard the noise and looked at the young man standing there, saying he was sorry for her and speaking of prayer. Septimus Tuam had said this young man was mad: she supposed he was right.
‘Don’t go into a decline, Mrs Bolsover. Try and keep your pecker up. I’ll pray every day, at eight o’clock in the morning.’
‘Please come in –’
‘I’m exchanging innocence for wisdom, Mrs Bolsover. I am in that process. Love falls like snow-flakes. It conquers like a hero.’
Eve, puzzling over these sentiments and the choice of their expression, saw the young man run off, dripping wet. He mounted a bicycle and rode away, down Crannoc Avenue.
25
That night, lying snugly in her bath, Lady Dolores thought of Edward. She guessed that Edward was cycling towards the south coast in the rain, and when she thought of him she thought too that the rain would match his sorrows. She knew that because she had come to know Edward: she herself found rain a happy thing, and always had.
Edward passed Guildford, noticing the bulk of the cathedral on a hill. He saw some of the poster people, like ones he had seen in London. He felt pain in both his feet, but pedalled on.
Lady Dolores stood up in her bath and dried her short body with an orange-coloured towel. She wrapped the towel around her and poured herself some whisky. With a glass in her hand, she sat down on her bed and looked into her file on Septimus Tuam. It contained all that Edward had reported, and all the letters that the women had written to her about Septimus Tuam over the years.
Lady Dolores poured more whisky. She sipped it as she absorbed again the details of the information that Edward had carried to her. She learnt some of it by heart, closing her eyes and repeating the sentences with her chin lifted. She compared a phrase here and there with something in the letters from the women.
Lady Dolores had no intention of employing the hard-headed man that Edward had imagined: there was no need to. Edward in his innocence had noted all the evil of Septimus Tuam; he had not overlooked a single thing: he had written a book about the creature.
Lady Dolores removed her glasses and rubbed them with a corner of the orange-coloured towel. She put on a night-dress and took the file to bed with her, repeating what she read over and over again, speaking loudly in the stillness of her bedroom in the love department. She dreamed, while still awake, of her meeting with Septimus Tuam. She walked up the stairs of the house in which he lived, and knocked with her knuckles on the panels of his door. ‘My old friend has sent me,’ she said. ‘A lady you have known. You breed bulldogs, I understand?’ Septimus Tuam said no, he did not breed bulldogs. He had had a bulldog as a child, he admitted; he was fond of the animals. ‘What a silly mistake!’ said Lady Dolores. ‘How on earth can it have come about?’ Septimus Tuam said he didn’t know. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘since you’re here.’
Edward smelt the sea and cycled towards it. He brought the bicycle to a stop on the sea front, and left it there, propped against a lamp-post, while he walked on to the sand and onward to the sea. He took his shoes and socks off and crept with his bare feet into the foam of the sea’s edge, letting the salt sting his blistered soles. It was the place where he had seen the children playing soldiers and, remembering that, he pretended to be a soldier too, moving alone in the hazy light of the dawn, feeling good to b
e alive. He wheeled the bicycle to St Gregory’s, and pressed open a kitchen window.
Lady Dolores slept for an hour, from six until seven. She rose then and bathed again. She ate a little cake, dressed herself expensively, and arranged for a taxi to convey her to Putney.
In the early morning the drive was pleasant. People on the pavements moved speedily to work, or stood at bus-stops. They were people who didn’t waste time, as later in the morning they might, talking to one another or looking at the goods for sale in shop windows. There was a briskness about all movement; nobody was passing away the time of day.
The taxi crossed Putney Bridge and moved into a web of back streets. ‘About here, I imagine,’ said Lady Dolores to the driver, taking from her purse a ten-shilling note. She secured a cigarette in her holder and applied a match to it. ‘Thank you, madam,’ said the taxi-driver. ‘I need change,’ said Lady Dolores.
Septimus Tuam’s name did not feature among the names beside the bells at the door of the rooming-house, a fact that did not greatly surprise Lady Dolores, since she imagined that he was careful over the displaying of that name.
‘Can I help you?’ said an elderly man to her, coming out of the house. ‘For whom are you looking, madam?’
Lady Dolores repeated Edward’s description of Septimus Tuam. ‘I am looking for him,’ she said. ‘Do you know which room?’
‘Are you his mother?’ said the man in a respectful voice, taking off his hat.
‘I am not his mother,’ returned Lady Dolores, ‘nor ever have been. Which room?’
‘Madam,’ said the man.
Lady Dolores frowned, thinking that this person was a bore. She said, ‘Never mind if you cannot help me. Don’t let it worry you.’
Lady Dolores smiled, but the man said:
‘Madam, may I offer you the condolences of a stranger?’
‘Why condole? What are you on about?’
‘I am on about a dead man,’ said the elderly stranger. ‘In the hands of the Blessed Lord since half past five yesterday afternoon.’
The Love Department Page 25
