Love in these Days

by Alec Waugh

  “Christopher,” Humphrey was announcing, “have you seen Heresy trying to signal to you?”

  More than once during the course of dinner her eyes across the room had met Lord Heresy’s, and they had smiled in the manner of those that share a secret. She had only met him once at Christopher’s cocktail party, but there had been no mistaking the gleam of interest which had lighted his face as he had talked to her.

  And when he came across after dinner to their table, although it was to Humphrey and Christopher that he spoke, she knew that it was to herself that his conversation was addressed.

  “Goin’ on anywhere afterwards?” he asked.

  “We thought,” said Christopher, “of sampling ‘The Cave of Melody.’”

  “What’s that? The latest night club?”

  “Not quite; a sort of Bohemian cabaret.”

  Lord Heresy shrugged his shoulders.

  “Not quite my line, I’m afraid. I’ve got a crowd goin’ to the Embassy. Better join us, hadn’t you?”

  His eyes were on Mildred Atkinson. It was to her, she knew, that the invitation was being made. And her toes within her shoes curled inwards upon themselves.

  “It’s awfully nice of you,” Christopher said, “but there’s a show on at the Cave that we particularly want to see.”

  Mildred pouted. She would much rather have gone to the Embassy with Lord Heresy, where there was a good floor and a decent band, and she would be in the same room with what she was seeing everywhere described as London’s smartest women. But it was not for her, as the youngest of the party, to express her preference.

  Lord Heresy also looked disappointed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Still, another time, perhaps.”

  He was looking straight at Mildred as he spoke. There was no mistaking the implied significance of his words.

  Chapter XIII

  “The Cave of Melody”

  London, it has been often said, possesses no Latin quarter. That, for some reason or other, is not our game, and such clubs and restaurants as pride themselves on their Bohemianism are imitations, dingily insincere, of the sort of thing that flourishes so naturally in Montparnasse. “The Cave of Melody,” however, like “The Golden Calf” before the war, did for the brief summers of its burgeoning enjoy an atmosphere peculiarly and refreshingly its own. It was like nothing else.

  It consisted of two large rooms divided by a sort of hall on the first floor of a depressingly-appearanced house in Charlotte Street. At the extremity of the larger room there was a stage from which were beaten out the brazen syncopations of the latest foxtrots, and on the occasion of an all night revel, at suitable periods of the evening, the stray items of a variety programme were delivered. The all night revel would take place two or three times a month in celebration usually of some theatrical first night. They were described as fancy dress, and you went there in what you liked: in tweeds or dinner jackets, or in dominoes. You took your own drinks with you, which were consumed in the smaller room, with such solider nutriment as an unlicensed bar provided.

  As is the case with all such places, the atmosphere of the Cave altered considerably if imperceptibly in the course of its thirty odd months’ existence. Bloomsbury founded it, Mayfair discovered it, Belgravia laid wreaths upon the coffin. At this particular period of its history it was perhaps at its gayest and most varied. It was less underworld than it had been, less upper world than it was to become. There were still as many lounge suits as there were dinner jackets. And of the hundred and eighty or so present, a score perhaps were in some sort of fancy dress.

  It was half-past eleven, the best of all times to get there, when Christopher and his party arrived. For the first twenty minutes it was cold and empty and forbidding; and by twelve it had grown so crowded that it would take half an hour to discover who was and who was not there, and Christopher wanted to be early enough to find partners for his guests. That was one of the charms of “The Cave of Melody.” You went there to see your friends, not to remain with the party that you had come with.

  And you had always, as you walked down the bleak stone-flagged passage, the agreeable knowledge that part of the noise that was surging through the swing glass door was being contributed by the last of all people in the world that you would expect to find there. The surprise on this occasion was provided for Christopher by a long, slim, ill-kept figure with lank disordered hair, a pair of indescribably uncreased and presumably grey flannel trousers that flapped and bagged over a pair of violet and unsuspended socks, clad about the waist and shoulder in a black three-button coat trimmed about the neck and shirt and sleeve with astrachan, that identified itself as one of Humphrey’s most pleasant and least reputable acquaintances.

  “My dear John,” Christopher exclaimed, “what are you wearing?”

  “My own invention, Christopher, made to my own pattern. I’ve been to see ‘The Enemies of Woman,’ fifteen times—have you seen it? Wonderful film, wonderful! I felt I must look like an Ibanez hero. It is nice to see you. Hope I’m not drunk, are you?” and he dived a grubby hand into a grubbier pocket from which he produced, surrounded with string and dust, a round tobacco tin. “Just one more pipe,” he explained, “then we’ll take a walk outside and I’ll tell you all about a film I’m going to have taken privately.”

  He filled his pipe and lighted it at the sixth attempt.

  “Now,” he said, “now, I’m ready. It’s to be called’ The Cities of the Plains! Eton and Oxford.’ We’ll make our fortunes. Your brother’s going to float us as a company. Come along.”

  Christopher looked round him for his guests. He had already introduced them to a number of people. They were dancing, the four of them, with agreeable partners. The music had only just started. It would be a good ten minutes before they would need to be again looked after. And John MacFarlane was entertaining company.

  “Let’s take a turn outside,” he said, and arm in arm they strolled together round the mournful foliage of Fitzroy Square, talking of this and that, of that and the other thing, so pleasantly that their walk lasted a good deal longer than ten minutes. By the time they returned it was to find Geoffrey Brackenridge leaning, a peeved and ungracious figure, against the doorway of the larger room.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Tell me, who’s that man Sybyl’s dancing with?”

  Christopher searched for her round the room and at last found her, her eyes lit and sparkling, her body swaying to the foxtrot’s rhythm, her hand resting on the dinner jacket of a very good-looking and very well-dressed man whom he knew by sight but not personally, and not by name.

  “I’m not certain,” he replied. ‘He’s often here. I can find out quite easily if you like.” And he turned in search of someone who might enlighten him. But a hand caught him by the arm and pulled him back.

  “You don’t know,” Geoffrey said impatiently. “You don’t know him! You didn’t introduce him to her?”

  “How could I if I didn’t know him?”

  “Then you mean,” he said, “then . . . how on earth then is she dancing with him?”

  He spoke quickly, fretfully, and there was a hot angry flush upon his cheeks. Christopher took him by the arm and led him into the smaller room.

  “My dear fellow,” Christopher said, “for heaven’s sake don’t get excited. One dance had ended. The man she was with wanted to dance with someone else. As he didn’t see me anywhere, and as he didn’t probably remember that you had come with her, naturally he thought that the only polite way of getting rid of her was to introduce her to someone else, which apparently he has done.”

  Geoffrey accepted the explanation grudgingly.

  “She shouldn’t have,” he said. “She might have known that I should have been waiting to dance this with her.”

  “That’s absurd! How was she to? Had you asked her?”

  “No, but——”

  “Then, my good Geoffrey, as you hadn’t asked her to dance and as when the music stopped you were dancing w
ith someone else, she very naturally supposed that for the next dance too you would be engaged. At any rate, you can hardly expect her to refuse someone else on the off-chance of your waiting. Besides,’ Christopher added, “she’s a social creature. She enjoys, I expect, meeting new people.”

  At that moment Sybyl Marchant came into the smaller room with the unknown partner.

  “That was a fine dance,” he was saying. “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a foxtrot more. Now what will you have? There’s not much, I’m afraid, that this bar can offer you. There’s tea, coffee, lemonade, and a villainous concoction called, I believe, cherry cider; a most unfermented juice. What is it to be?”

  “The cider,” she laughed. “I’ll risk it,” and leant forward, her plump white arms stretched sideways along the bar.

  “Well, Mrs. Marchant,” said Christopher, “enjoying it?”

  She turned and smiled at him; a flashing, rippling smile.

  “Terribly,” she said. “And you? Why aren’t you dancing though? And Geoffrey, you must make him dance.”

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were roguish.

  “Then perhaps,” suggested Geoffrey, “we might have the next together.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Sybyl’s partner, “that Mrs. Marchant has promised her next dance to me.”

  From the quiet, concise, purposeful tone in which he spoke, and from the quick thoughtful 100 that Sybyl flung at him, Christopher more than half suspected that not till that moment had there been a word said of the next dance between them.

  There was a pause, then Sybyl turned to Geoffrey.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You should have asked me sooner. It must be one later now.”

  In silence Christopher stood watching her sip at the cherry cider, watching also the smile of flattered vanity that played beneath the moustache of the tall, well-dressed young man beside her. Did he realize, Christopher wondered, that he was being used, as women will use a man, as a weapon simply, to ensure their conquest of another; that he was himself nothing to her; that he was merely the sword that had lain handiest; that he would serve her purpose in her woman’s war, and having served it, be discarded; did he realize anything of that? or was that smile of complacent vanity his complete conception of the incident? Would through the years that same proud smile return whenever he thought of her, and would he, whenever he thought of her, reflect regretfully that he had only met her once—a pity! such eyes, such promise.

  They munched a sandwich, drank their cherry cider. The music started. He placed his hand upon her elbow, and as he placed it there Christopher felt Geoffrey shudder at his side. It was quite time, Christopher thought, for him to be found another partner.

  • • • • • • • •

  It has been said that there is only one sure way of enjoying a modern dance, and that is to take to it a girl with whom you are not in the least in love. With the modern non-programme system there is every likelihood of a quarrel before the night is through. It is impossible to carry an evening’s entire programme in one’s head; especially when half the dances are promised as the next, or missing two, or the one after the next but one. Particularly is this the case at a place like “The Cave of Melody” where no numbers are put up. Within a quarter of an hour, between Geoffrey and Sybyl Marchant such a calamity had arisen.

  And in this way.

  Christopher had found Geoffrey a partner and she had asked him, when the music was beginning for the next dance, if she might introduce him to her sister. “I’m dancing this one I’m afraid,” she said, “but my sister doesn’t seem to be, I think.”

  Geoffrey looked anxiously about the room. Sybyl was not in the larger room. “Would you excuse me,” he had murmured, “I must just see——” He hurried through the hall into the small room that was noisy with conversation and the clattering of plates and cups; the air was thick with smoke as he peered dubiously into it. That dark figure in the corner? No, it was not she. She was not here. She had said one later. Had she meant one later in the evening? Just any odd one later. Or had she defined it specifically as the one later, the one after the one he had asked for? This very dance, in fact. At any rate, she was not here. Whatever she had meant she was not here. She had not troubled to remember and if she could not trouble to remember, then he was not going to trouble himself to worry her. Besides, there was the girl waiting in the dance room.

  And at the moment, exactly, that he had left the bar, Sybyl Marchant, standing a little tired in the cool air of Charlotte Street, realized that the music had begun.

  “The next dance,” she said. “I must get back for this.”

  “I also, and what a pity. We must have another later in the evening.”

  “We must,” she agreed heartily. But she scarcely listened to him. She was eager to be with Geoffrey again. He had learnt his lesson, she imagined. Her partner followed, emboldened by the willingness of her reply. Their colloquy in the open had been less fruitful than he had hoped from the readiness with which she had accepted his suggestion that it really was a little hot in the sitting-room. Seeing life as he saw it, he could hardly perhaps have been expected to understand that her ready acceptance had been inspired chiefly by the desire to appear cool and fresh and fragrant for her dance with Geoffrey. They arrived in the dancing room at the exact moment that Geoffrey was completing his first turn of the room with his new partner.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed.

  Her ex-partner bent an attentive ear towards her.”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Nothing,” she replied; and walked straight and quickly to a neutral seat on one of the red cloth-covered benches that flanked the room on either side.

  It was at the same instant, practically, that Christopher and Geoffrey realized she was sitting there alone, and they cast, each of them, about the room an equally despairing glance. If there is one thing more than another a woman hates, it is having to sit in a ballroom by herself. Men do not care for it. But they can pretend always to have been enjoying a smoke or drink or may assume a distaste for feminine society. A woman has no such resorts. Something had to be done.

  Suddenly and providentially there appeared in the doorway the solitary and unsteady figure of John MacFarlane.

  “John,” Christopher shouted as he passed him, “can you dance?”

  Upon the tall and elegant personality of Chris Stirling, John levelled a glazed and scornful look.

  “Dance?” he said, “do I look as though I could!”

  “Can you talk then?”

  He drew himself up at that.

  “Talk?” he said. “Am I not unsober?”

  “Then for God’s sake be unsober,” Christopher implored, “beside that woman in the black dress on the bench across there. She’s nice. Honest, she is. Say I sent you. They call her Mrs. Marchant.”

  And when he next passed Sybyl it was to hear John arraigning at the highest pitch of his powerful voice every film actor in the world but Lionel Barry more.

  • • • • • • • •

  When a couple have begun to quarrel, it is profitless on that night at any rate, to attempt a reconciliation. The best plan is to focus your attention upon the one with whom you are most intimate, endeavour to pacify him and let the other one alone. That is what Christopher tried to do.

  As they were grouped in a half-circle about the stage applauding a scandalous and modern rendering of an eighteenth century love song, he felt a hand close upon his elbow, and an angry voice muttered in his ear: “Where’s Sybyl? I can’t see her. Where is she? I must find her.” But Christopher made no attempt to find her. A hundred and eighty people grouped on chairs and forms and on the floor were congested in the semi-darkness.

  “Come along,” he said. “Let’s go into the other room and chat.” Brackenridge let himself be led. It was empty there, save for one ancient and ragged creature who leant forward half asleep across the corner table. He did not stir as they walked past him. Drunk, probably, they though
t.

  “It’s your own fault, you know,” Christopher said. “You cut her dance.”

  “I dare say, I dare say,” he explained. “But how was I to know it was her dance? How can one tell now that you have no programmes? It was ridiculous ever to give them up. I can’t think why we did. Part of the informality, I suppose, of modern life, or boasted informality.” He laughed scornfully.

  The bundle of rags in the corner shifted dreamily.

  “Is it your wife?” it said.

  “No,” replied Geoffrey angrily.

  “Then if it isn’t,” the muffled voice made answer, “you’ve no cause to worry. It’s only wives that you need trouble about. I’ve had two and they both left me within five years. But I’ve had the same mistress for thirty years, and none of my friends has laid a finger on her. Too personal a piece of property, I suppose. Haven’t touched her, not one of them, in thirty years. I wish one of them would sometimes.”

  And the obscene mess chuckled croakingly.

  “Oh lord!” said Brackenridge, “let’s get out of this.”

  The cabaret show had finished. The couples were straying back chatting, for the long interval, towards the bar and tables. In the narrow hall they passed Sybyl and her former partner laughing together. For a moment Christopher thought Brackenridge might go for them. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get outside.” And he pushed him hurriedly through the door.

  Outside, away from the noise and heat and music Geoffrey Brackenridge grew calmer. For the first time in his life as they walked southwards towards Oxford Street he slipped his arm through Christopher’s.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been an ass. But I can’t help feeling jealous. Myself, I met her at a dance, you see.”