The Fabulous Mrs. V.

by H. E. Bates

  ‘Minksie, I always knew you were a fool—’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ Minksie said. ‘You wouldn’t know me if I wasn’t, would you? Go and get the cornflowers, Connie darling. I’m on the up-swing already. I’ll get the marigolds.’

  It was Connie, not Minksie, who had the bright idea of wrapping the hats in damped cellophane and carrying them in big paper-bags across the meadows to keep them fresh. The blue hat, trimmed in delicate spirals of blue and pink cornflower with here and there a cluster of yellow roses, seemed to heighten the delicacy of Connie’s brown bird’s-egg face as she stood before the mirror in the bedroom and tried it on. Under a ravishing bed of burning orange, marigold laid upon marigold until hardly an inch of the white hat’s brim was visible any longer, Minksie’s hair seemed to bleach to a shade of tenderest barley straw, giving her face a rosier, sharper glow.

  ‘We’re a couple of fools if ever there were two,’ Connie said. We’ll look fine when they start to fade.’

  ‘By the time you’ve had oysters and vin rosé and something else to drink you’ll be past caring whether they fade.’

  ‘I sincerely trust you’re right.’

  ‘Oh! Connie, you look delicious. I tell you, darling, you really do.’

  ‘The voice of the flatterer is heard in the land. We’re a couple of fools, I tell you,’ Connie said. ‘We’re heading for the drain.’

  Grasshoppers in myriads, in almost fiercely sizzling chorus, intensified the heat of high noon as the two girls walked across the meadow path towards the river. Everywhere the tall July grasses, thick and sappy and crowded with moon-daisy and sorrel and red and white clover, were shadeless. The unclouded blue of sky was almost flinty straight above and became softened only in hazy poplared distances, far away.

  ‘Shall we put the hats on now,’ Connie said, ‘or wait till we get there?’

  ‘I think now. In the shade of that big sycamore.’

  Clever idea of Connie’s, Minksie said, the paper bags and the cellophane. The freshness of the flowers remained unfaded; not a single petal had drooped at all.

  ‘We’ll eat outside,’ Minksie said, ‘shall we? If I remember rightly they have tables outside, under big chestnut trees.’

  Five minutes later the two girls were facing a shady terrace of trees so crowded with diners and drinkers that not a single table remained unoccupied. A slightly harassed waiter waved them inside a bar bursting at the doorway with rubicund shirt-sleeved men holding pint mugs of beer in their hands. Inside it was crowded too. A furnace roar of voices burned in low-ceilinged rooms.

  ‘I told you we were fools,’ Connie said. ‘We should have known you have to book here on Sundays.’

  A second waiter, perky-faced, carrying plates of frosty golden melon, came from the kitchens, gasping like a fish to reach fresh air.

  Minksie, tilting her hat to one side, gave him a smile of such destructive charm, expansive as a sunflower, that he actually drew up as sharply as if with brakes, in a sudden skid.

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Is there no chance of a table? I mean outside.’

  The waiter, who seemed to be about to swallow the two hats in one large fish-like grin, said with his own particular sort of charm:

  ‘If we can’t squeeze two hats like that in I’ll go to Jericho.’ He gave both hats another glance of perkiest admiration, openly and frankly captivated. ‘Be with you in two splits—’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mind sharing, dear? Might have to share.’

  ‘Preferably not, but—’

  ‘Be with you in two shakes,’ the waiter said and bore away the melon in a golden swirl.

  ‘Now you see exactly what I mean,’ Minksie said. ‘A real hat has them in a tiz. The purple bucket would only have put the poor man off. Didn’t you hear him call me dear?’

  ‘This way, madam.’ Back again, swift as if mechanically propelled, the waiter put on all brakes and actually squeezed Minksie with friendly brevity at the elbow before, with equal swiftness, guiding both girls away. ‘Have to share, I’m afraid, dear. For a bit anyway.’

  Over by the edge of the river, deep in chestnut shade, two young men were sitting at a table for four, brooding with some evident uneasiness over two pints of shandy.

  Wiping up the table and then with swift flourishes the two empty chairs, the waiter gave out a strong impression of conferring great honour on the two drinkers.

  ‘I’m sure you two gentlemen won’t mind sharing for a bit, will you? Be a pleasure, won’t it, on a nice day like this?’

  One of the young men, a dark boy with a hint of moustache, looked shy; the other, older and perhaps shy too or merely reserved, put on a cold expression, rubbing his chin uneasily. It was clear that they did mind sharing; it was not a pleasure. They could only devise unintelligible murmurs to each other and suck at beer and withdraw sombrely into themselves.

  ‘May we have two martinis?’ Minksie said. She gave another broad sunflower smile that had the waiter instantly running. ‘And we want to eat later.’

  ‘Yes, dear. Yes, madam. Be with you in two shakes.’

  Slowly, almost painfully, as in a dream, the two men became astonishingly aware of the hats. The big circles of blue and yellow and orange and pink dazzled and dominated the air like a pair of Catherine wheels. A deep scent from several sprigs of honeysuckle, gathered by Minksie on the way and hastily tucked like a cream-red tail into Connie’s large blue bow, fell on the air with light intoxication.

  Presently the two men seemed to withdraw, embarrassed, still farther into themselves, retrieved from sheer frigidity only by the warm and perky voice of the waiter, returning with two martinis and the bill of fare.

  ‘Now ladies, what shall it be?’

  The waiter set down the two glasses and stood with pencil and order book in hand.

  ‘I know exactly what I’m going to have,’ Minksie said. ‘I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Oysters.’

  One of the men, the older one, actually let out a short hard laugh, stifling it immediately with his hand and so giving it sharper emphasis.

  ‘Sorry, madam. Oysters not in season. It’s July.’

  ‘Hence the laugh.’ Minksie tilted her hat pointedly, at the same time raising her glass to Connie. ‘Well, here’s goodbye to the oysters, darling. They cannot walk with us. What about smoked salmon?’

  ‘It travels badly in the heat, madam. We called it off for the weekend.’

  ‘Goodbye to the smoked salmon.’

  ‘We’ve got very good trout, madam. Local ones.’

  ‘Trout is for me,’ Connie said.

  Minksie said trout was for her too and afterwards roast chicken with french beans and fresh green salad.

  ‘And a big fat carafe of vin rosé, please. Cold.’

  ‘Yes, madam. Two trout, two chicken, two salad, one fat rosé. Be with you in a shake of two fins.’

  ‘No hurry,’ Minksie called after him. ‘We’re here for the day.’

  The waiter having disappeared, Minksie stared at the two men with a studious, positively chilling calm. She had not forgotten the oysters; the laugh was still an echo in her ears. With pointed deliberation she took off her hat and laid it on the table with the apparent intention of executing a small repair on a falling marigold. The hat, covering no less than a third of the table, caused the older of the two men to snatch away his shandy glass and stare coldly across the river.

  The dark boy merely sat reserved and mesmerised, becoming acutely aware of an incredible feature in the hats. It came to him as a new revelation that the flowers were real. This fact held him for some time in a painful state of wonder while his friend, even cooler now, seemed to find something of extravagant interest in the repeated disappearance of a diving moorhen, a dark acrobat on the far side of the river.

  Minksie, putting the hat with a broad gesture back on her head, presently fixed the dark boy with a long, melting stare. Under it he flushe
d visibly even before she said:

  ‘You won’t mind my asking, I know. But when do oysters come into season?’

  ‘I’m really not sure.’ He had become increasingly nervous. He scraped at his upper lip, with its shadow of moustache, with a tentative finger. ‘September, is it? Isn’t it something to do with an “r” in the month?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.’

  ‘September to April,’ the older man said, rather tautly.

  ‘Oh! really?’ Under the hat, so luxurious but fresh, her face again had that look of playful fox-cub innocence that succeeded only in making the dark boy flush again. ‘That’s interesting. Because I remember I was in Paris once and we ate them there in July.’

  ‘Portuguese,’ the older man said.

  ‘Is there some difference?’

  ‘Much smaller.’

  ‘Oh? I thought it was larger.’

  ‘Smaller.’

  There was a certain stiffness in the air.

  ‘Anyway, they’re oysters just the same?’ Minksie said. ‘Connie, we really must remember to ask for Portuguese next time.’

  By the end of this conversation the dark boy, teased by innocence of a new magnitude and the incredible glory of the hat, became so uneasy that suddenly Minksie felt strangely sorry for him and was glad to hear once again the chirping voice of the waiter, returning with glasses, cloth and cutlery.

  ‘Will you be taking lunch too, gentlemen?’

  ‘We haven’t really made up our minds.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I lay the table?’

  ‘Oh! please carry on.’

  The two men lifted up their glasses of shandy. The waiter spread the tablecloth and the two men put their glasses down again.

  ‘I hope you won’t be put off by us,’ Connie suddenly said.

  ‘I rather think we’d better drink up,’ the older man said.

  ‘Now that would be just plain silly,’ Minksie said. She turned on the older man an even steadier, more melting stare, followed by another radiant sunflower smile. ‘Now wouldn’t it really?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I’m sorry we butted in,’ Minksie said. She picked up her martini and drained it with sudden relish. ‘Won’t you have a drink with us? Please.’

  ‘Well, it’s extraordinary—’

  ‘Could you stand a martini? I’m going to have another. Connie too.’

  ‘Well, really—’ It was now the turn of the older man to dissolve into a ritual of uncertainty. All the time Minksie held him spellbound with a smile. ‘What do you say, Phil? It’s really up to you—’

  ‘Four martinis it is then?’ The waiter, a busy man with neither time nor patience to waste, hopped perkily away, flicking his cloth like a white wing. ‘Be with you in a shake.’

  The older man, who though not more than twenty-five had hair that receded sharply at the temples, its fairness singularly aloof in some way, started an elaborate and rather stumbling expression of thanks about the martinis, but Minksie cut him short:

  ‘Oh! that’s nothing. Forget it. My name’s Minksie. This is my friend Connie Alfreston.’

  ‘Minksie?’ the older man said. ‘Did you say Minksie?’

  ‘Her real name’s Elizabeth,’ Connie said. ‘But Minksie suits her better. It’s just her.’

  ‘Why Minksie?’

  ‘Like the fur,’ Minksie said. ‘I’m the expensive one.’

  The man with receding hair looked inexpressibly startled, as if wondering exactly what expensive meant. The realisation that the two hats were trimmed with real flowers had startled him greatly too but not nearly so much as the sudden suspicion that Minksie might be well, perhaps—

  ‘I see,’ he said, cold again.

  ‘Here come the martinis,’ Connie said. ‘Lovely.’

  The waiter set down the four fresh martinis and, brisk as ever, asked if the two gentlemen had made up their minds about lunch yet? Because things were getting pretty hot and hectic everywhere. He’d soon have to know.

  ‘Well, I suppose—’

  ‘Oh! do,’ Minksie said. ‘We shan’t eat you. Starving though I am.’

  ‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm in making a foursome. If you really don’t mind.’

  ‘Must be dutch, though,’ the dark boy said. ‘Must be strictly dutch.’

  ‘What a glorious day,’ Minksie said and started laughing in her refreshing playful way so that the marigolds quivered all over the hat. ‘I’m beginning to feel all swing-high already.’

  Her burst of laughter started a new mood. A pair of swans, coming slowly down river with five still brownish cygnets, added sudden grace to the scene. The flap of a white wing seemed to break the tension of the hot still air and the man with receding hair said:

  ‘My name is Frobisher. This is Phil Weston.’

  The smiles that the girls gave were flowery. The hats almost seemed to dance as they lifted their faces.

  ‘Cheers,’ Minksie said and raised her glass to each man in turn.

  ‘I say,’ Frobisher said, ‘these martinis are good. You don’t often get them so good. I suppose you wouldn’t join us in another?’

  ‘Grand idea,’ Minksie said.

  ‘Don’t forget we have to eat pretty soon,’ Connie said.

  ‘We mustn’t forget either,’ Phil Weston said, ‘that we really owe you one.’

  ‘Put it on the slate,’ Minksie said. ‘Charge ’em up.’

  Under the influence of a third martini her eyes seemed to enlarge still further. The dark boy grasped for the first time that their pellucid beauty was full of the grey of the sea. Huge and level under the golden flowery brim of the hat they held him in uneasy suspense, so that he was hardly aware of the arrival of trout, brown butter and vin rosé.

  Cold and delicious, the vin rosé woke Frobisher to fresh and unprecedented eloquence:

  ‘I say, this is nice. We weren’t going to eat really. We had rather a late breakfast and well—’

  ‘Well what?’ Minksie said.

  ‘Well, I understand it’s a trifle on the expensive side here.’

  Minksie laughed gaily again and looked about her at the densely crowded tables.

  ‘An awful lot of people don’t seem to mind,’ she said, ‘me among them.’

  ‘Do you always come here on Sundays?’ Frobisher said.

  ‘Oh! no,’ Connie said, ‘we usually stay in bed and snoozle and read the papers. Or slop about and do jobs.’

  ‘We generally read too,’ Frobisher said. ‘I say, this trout’s delicious. I adore the butter.’

  Gazing at the swans, who had revolved on the width of the river some distance up and were now returning, the dark boy remarked that the day reminded him in some curious way of Proust. Perhaps it was the swans. There was some connection there of course—Swann’s Way. Did Minksie, he wondered, ever read Proust.

  ‘Generally the News of the World,’ Minksie said.

  Even Frobisher was constrained to laugh quite loudly at this. All his early frigidity melted into air and he almost exploded into sudden pleasantry:

  ‘Look, the swans are coming to be fed.’ Phil Weston had noticed it too and was already breaking bread into small pieces in preparation. ‘Oh! I don’t think so. Much as I like you I fear you’re not going to share my delicious bread and butter.’

  Arching white swan necks broke the reeds below the terrace.

  ‘Do you suppose they’d eat a piece of trout skin?’ the dark boy said.

  ‘You try ’em and see,’ Minksie said.

  ‘I don’t think one should,’ Frobisher said. ‘I somehow don’t think the management would approve.’

  In the soft grey mirror of Minksie’s eyes Phil Weston saw the reflected tangle of swan necks twine and untwine like some engrossing piece of crochetry. The sight held him spellbound while he drank vin rosé in rapid gulps and thought of Proust again. It was all so like those eternal summers in the France of long ago. What was it?—a frieze of girls? A la Recherch
e du Temps Perdu.

  ‘You’re looking awfully hard at me,’ Minksie said. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Oh! I’m sorry,’ he said and confessed that he was really thinking of Proust again and how she would fit in.

  ‘Fit in?’ Minksie said. ‘With what?’

  ‘I suppose it must be the hat, but I think you look awfully like one of those girls he was so fond of describing. You know, sort of all Edwardian and flouncy.’

  Even Minksie now looked startled.

  ‘Strange you should say that,’ she said. ‘That’s how I felt I wanted to be today.’

  ‘You’re not psychic, by any chance, are you?’ Connie said.

  Phil Weston said he wasn’t aware of it and was once again caught up in the engrossing crochetry of swan-necks reflected in the grey sea of Minksie’s eyes.

  ‘I must read this Proust,’ Minksie said, ‘instead of the News of the World.’

  ‘Oh! would you like to?’ he said. ‘I’d gladly lend you a copy.’

  Minksie expressed her thanks, at the same time noticing that the vin rosé had been reduced to a mere pink centimetre’s depth in the bottom of the carafe. Connie noticed it too. By chance the waiter was within hailing distance and in a moment had gone away with an order for more.

  The notion of being like a girl in a book had already induced in Minksie a strange sensation of floating unreality and after more wine it was Connie, not Minksie, who started to come to gayer life. Her brown bird’s-egg face turned more and more to Frobisher, who now sat rapidly breaking bread into tiny pieces and throwing it to the swans, dreamy-eyed, as if totally unaware of what he was doing.

  With still more wine Connie’s throat and chest presently became flushed a deeper rose. In the stifling air she kept throwing back the neck of her blue dress an inch or two, sometimes leaving the deep division of her breasts startlingly white and bare. Gin, she was fond of telling Minksie, made her amorous and vin rosé even more so.

  As she turned her beautiful brown eyes more and more on Frobisher she was aware that he too was under a spell, so much so that in the middle of the chicken course white morsels of bread sauce got stuck to his chin and were left there, like blots of lather after a shave, with Frobisher all the time oblivious and not troubling to wipe them away.