He placed it on the table, bowed and returned to Elena’s side.
“A man of action!” said Toby. “I never knew anyone be so courteous in so few words.”
“He cannot speak, because he is very angry,” Rosario explained. “And you, you are mad. But you know how to treat people.”
“It comes from my grandmother,” replied Toby, who, after his concentration on Almádena, was now feeling his liquor. “She was of the same trade as the Marquis. Only her lavatory was public.”
“True?” asked Rosario, interested.
“True as I sit here! A hard-working woman!”
“And to think they say the family is not respected in England!” declared Rosario indignantly.
She compared her own profession to that of Toby’s fantastic ancestress, and was comforted by the thought that the second generation of her own numerous and illegitimate offspring might some day refer to her with pride.
“I see that you are inspired when you have drunk,” said Manuel drily.
“My grandmother?”
“I spit on your grandmother! I’m talking of the way you handled Almádena. Did you realise at all that we were in a nasty position?”
“No. Were we? I thought he seemed unreasonably annoyed.”
“Unreasonably annoyed! La gran puta! He was longing to make trouble, and we’d have had it whether we apologised or bluffed him. And you, you talk of his tie!”
“But I did like his tie,” Toby insisted. “It’s a very good tie. It surprised me that he didn’t wear some horrible thing with diagonal stripes. I was complimenting him.”
“You were inspired!” Manuel repeated. “You appealed to a point of honour. He couldn’t do anything else but give you his tie. I should have done the same myself. We had better go before the effect wears off.”
“Why should we? He’s a good fellow, Manuel. Look at him!”
The Marquis was sitting quite calmly without his tie, and engaged in affable conversation with Elena. It was impossible not to admire him. One felt that it was the correct fashion to wear no tie in a cabaret.
“You know why he wouldn’t drink with you?”
“No, nor care. That’s his own business,” answered Toby, knowing well that Almádena would not sit down with a waiter. “What can we drink after brandy?”
“More brandy.”
“Can we trust it here?”
“Yes. Dog doesn’t eat dog, and the manager will give me something passable. We’ll stay if you like—but if there’s trouble with our friend, don’t try the same trick again.”
“I’ll admire his trousers,” said Toby. “Rosario, I want Elena.”
“Speak lower, man!” Rosario appealed, throwing a nervous glance at Almádena. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Her simple soul thrilled to this evidence of overmastering passion. She walked out to the artistes’ dressing room, making an almost invisible sign to Elena as she passed. After a discreet interval, Elena excused herself and followed.
Almádena, left alone, watched the two men with icy and self-conscious calm. That waiter—it was very awkward. He had seemed a very decent fellow who knew his job, unlike some of these Chileans who were so anxious to show you that they didn’t like waiting and weren’t used to it. One must now avoid him after that absurd incident—he might not be so respectful. God knew he didn’t despise the lower classes. Cordiality in church and on the estate. Always. But in these brothels there was no social discipline. There were no conventions. One troubled oneself to get up and put a pair of boors in their place and found oneself handing over a tie to a damned insolent Englishman who thought he spoke Spanish. The man had probably asked the Muelle de Flores waiter for some addresses and was too clumsy to get rid of his pimp when he had finished with him. He shouldn’t have Elena anyway, the little tart. Looked like one of these blasted parlour bolsheviks the English put in their diplomatic corps. If so, a word with the ambassador. Disgusting that people in an official position should patronise a place like this. Or anyone of breeding.
At this point in Almádena’s offended self-examination Elena returned and demanded supper. She was not hungry, but merely earning a bonus for herself. The management’s profits on food were relatively higher than on drink, and she received a fifty per cent commission. She seldom ate the food that she persuaded her escorts to buy for her. A thrifty and sensible creature, it seemed to her sacrilege to destroy anything that had cost so much. She mixed up the potato salad with the cold chicken, poured olive oil on the lot and had the waiter remove it at a moment when the buyer’s attention was occupied.
Her request for supper reminded Almádena that he was hungry. Out of his annoyance with the pair opposite and his natural detestation of cabaret food was born a sudden and ingenious idea. It would compliment the Muelle de Flores waiter and at the same time put him in his place; it would humiliate the Englishman; it would compel Elena’s respect by a calm gesture infinitely more effective than any violence; and it would restore his self-respect. Almádena sent for the proprietor.
Rosario returned to her table, where Manuel and Toby had begun serious drinking, while exploring each other’s past. She carried her flesh proudly, as befitted the broker in so important a love affair. She felt a motherly affection for the mysterious Englishman and frankly admitted to herself that Elena, though too thin, was a pretty little piece.
“She thinks you are very sympathetic,” Rosario announced. “She wants to meet you to-morrow. The Café Aconcagua at seven o’clock. She promises nothing, you understand. She doesn’t often come here. She is very independent.”
“To-morrow!” exclaimed Toby. “Who can say if I shall want her to-morrow, Rosario? Desire is like a pear, dear Rosario. There is but a half-hour in its life when it should be eaten. Here to-night and gone to-morrow. Here this year and gone next year. All things are dust, Rosario.”
“It is very true,” sighed Rosario. “Ay! Ay, for us women!”
The proprietor of the Alcázar hovered over their table, smiled professionally at Toby and addressed himself to Manuel.
“Your countryman over there,” he began, “is the Marquis of Almádena.”
“Viva la república! ” answered Manuel shortly.
“It doesn’t impress me either,” said the proprietor. “But let us forget names. He is very distinguished, and good for business—yours and mine. He asks you a favour.”
From where he sat Toby could see Almádena’s studied air of unconcern. He suspected mischief and concentrated his thoughts so that his imagination, soaring from the fumes of the brandy, might play over the human situation rather than enjoy itself in fantasy.
“He wonders if you would be good enough to make for him and the señorita pimientos rellenos such as you serve at the Muelle de Flores,” the proprietor went on. “It is a little irregular, but my kitchen is at your disposal, and—the bill will be so much that neither of us has reason to complain.”
“Tell him,” replied Manuel cordially, “that I will make him pimientos rellenos on one condition; that he sticks them—”
“Thank you, Manuel amigo!” Toby interrupted loudly. “I know what your good heart was going to say!” He turned to the proprietor. “I will explain. He would make a condition. He has promised to get me a job.”
Manuel swallowed the forcible refusal that had been at the gate of his lips, and felt the sudden exhilaration of comradeship. He was prepared to throw caution away and go through with whatever devilry Toby was planning.
“I do not understand,” said the proprietor.
“If he does you this favour, you must let me serve. Isn’t that so, Manuel?”
Manuel looked blandly at the proprietor.
“That is so,” he agreed. “We will do it for you, but together. I make that condition.”
“But it cannot be permitted! He is a guest! An Englishman!”
“Do you think Englishmen don’t eat?” asked Toby. “I want a job.”
“But you can’t wait at table!”
“Yes, I can wait very well. I am a valet—out of work. Speak for me, Manuel!” he appealed. “You know I have no luck.”
“It is pure truth,” said Manuel. “I know what you are thinking—that he appears very well dressed. Who would not with such clothes? They were his master’s. He was in the service of the Spanish ambassador.”
“And the Marquis knows me,” insisted Toby. “Here is his tie upon the table. That is proof. Why should he give me his tie? Because I lent it to him six months ago when he came to call and his own was covered with mud. At the door I lent it to him. He was very grateful. If I serve him now he might employ me. Of course I shall not take the tip.”
“There is a cat shut up in this,” replied the proprietor suspiciously. “I think you wish to make a scandal. What is he, Rosario?”
“I cannot tell,” Rosario answered, knowing the tie story was a lie but unwilling to hinder a friend who might really be in need of a job. “I do not understand these men. Who would say that this one is a waiter? The other may be a valet. All I know is that he comes of a humble family. Of that I am sure.”
“You’re difficult,” said Manuel reproachfully, “very difficult. You ask me favours and will not grant any. Haven’t you any pity for this boy? You compel me to speak plainly. No pimientos unless he serves them!”
“Look at my references!” begged Toby, seeing the proprietor hesitate.
He opened his pocket case and pulled out three letters of introduction, which he hoped would pass as references even if the proprietor examined them. The man glanced at one, saw it was in English and gave up.
“Have it your own way,” he said. “We cannot pass the whole night talking.”
He accompanied Manuel Vargas to the kitchen.
Toby gave them ten minutes’ grace lest Almádena should suspect the variation about to be embroidered on his artistic scheme. He admired the marquis’s ingenuity. The move had been really well calculated to put them both in their places. Indeed if Manuel had been insensitive he might well have been more complimented than annoyed.
He paid the bill and pretended to leave the Alcázar, making his way to the kitchen unseen by Almádena. Manuel was standing over the fire, stirring the base of his sauce in an earthenware casserole and watched eagerly by the proprietor.
“Hola!” said Manuel. “Warm some plates and a platter, will you? Here’s hot water! There’s no other way. A disgusting kitchen!”
“It’s that the cook doesn’t come on duty till two,” the proprietor apologised. “He works in a café till then.”
Manuel dropped four stuffed pimientos into the casserole.
“The rest,” he said, “is my secret.”
“As you wish, chico! As you wish!”
The proprietor good-humouredly withdrew.
“What is the secret?” Toby asked.
“There isn’t any. He bored me, so I got rid of him. There are only two secrets in cooking—care and timing. Bad cooks think they must give food all sorts of special flavours to hide their inefficiency. Good cooks bring out the flavour that is there. It’s just a matter of loving food and taking pains,” said Manuel, gently caressing one of his pimientos with a wooden spoon. “And cooking must be adjusted to circumstances. When you have only a steer and a fire, the highest art is the Argentine churrasco. When you’re a well-fed bourgeois who can afford to sit and wait twenty minutes for his order, you get those exquisite French entrées. When a whole nation is late for meals, it wants a casserole that can be kept simmering without spoiling. That is the contribution of Spain. This is nearly ready.”
“You’re taking a lot of trouble for Almádena,” said Toby, fascinated by Manuel’s restless hands.
“So I would if I were going to have him shot. A point of honour. Why be careless about it? Stop and think where the heart is, and aim at it. I’ve known six men put six shots into the right lung. You’d better get an apron and jacket. They are hanging up in the scullery.”
Toby explored a closet in the scullery, a filthy nest of brooms, buckets, cleaning rags and aprons. The sweeper must have been in a hurry that morning, for she had swept the mess into this dark hole and closed the door on it. Cold sober and fastidious, he would have been revolted, but wine deadened his sensitivity to material objects while increasing it towards human beings. He dressed himself in a greasy black jacket and an apron stiff with egg and sauces, and presented himself for inspection.
Manuel’s face lit up with amusement.
“It’s overdone, amigo!” he said. “You’ll put him off his meal. Take an apron that hasn’t been used for wiping dishes. And find another jacket.”
“It’s the only one,” Toby answered.
“You’ll have to wear your own, then.”
“It is disgusting,” admitted Toby, peeling off the jacket and holding it at arm’s length. “How the devil does a waiter ever keep clean?”
“He doesn’t!” said Manuel. “The public are accustomed to reasonable dirt. They only see stains. Grease spots are accepted as a trade-mark. You don’t consciously notice them any more than the pattern of your plate. Here! Take my apron! It’s fairly clean.”
Toby girded himself with the apron and took the dish from Manuel.
“I’ll be out in a minute to ask him most respectfully how he liked it,” Manuel said. “And as not God himself knows what will happen, do not forget that the window of Room Seven upstairs gives on to a fire-escape.”
Toby pushed through the swing doors and advanced with dignity upon Almádena’s table. His customer did not notice him until he had laid the plates and was passing the dish at Elena’s left. Even then he only became aware of Toby through Elena’s stare, which led him in turn to the amused stares of half the room.
“What the devil?” exclaimed Almádena indignantly in perfect English.
“Your stuffed pimientos, my lord,” answered Toby calmly.
“Is this a joke?”
“In no way, my lord.”
“I am hardly accustomed to having jokes played on me,” remarked Almádena with a fine eighteenth-century ring in his voice.
Toby ignored him and reminded Elena that the dish was at her side.
“Will not the señorita serve herself?”
Elena looked up along the arm that tendered the pimientos rellenos in the hope of catching some expression that would give her the clue to what was going on. Her feminine ability to sense moods had been somewhat blunted by overmuch masculine society. She was tempted to assume that the Englishman was serving in order to be near her—a charming impudence that she did not dare openly to appreciate. On the other hand the laughter behind his eyes did not seem to ask for her response, and the tone of voice in which he had spoken the foreign language to the marquis had none of the note of challenge that she expected to hear. She looked across to Rosario for help, but Rosario was watching with a genial, motherly interest in which was neither surprise nor mockery. The solemn little mestiza gave up all attempt to explain the problem and, since there was nothing else to be done, helped herself to a pimiento. Toby noticed with approval the misty dark down that softened and beautified the outline of her forearm.
“Leave that dish alone!” snapped Almádena.
Elena dropped the spoon and fork and made a face which she believed to be coy.
“This is a joke in very poor taste!”
“I thought so too,” Toby replied. “But it’s yours, not mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“You requested my friend to cook for you. As we wanted to continue our conversation, I really had no alternative but to accompany him and serve.”
The marquis was intelligent enough to understand Toby’s answer. It stung him. He therefore jumped to his feet and crea
ted a diversion.
“It’s a lie! You want this girl!”
“Certainly I do. Who wouldn’t?”
“It’s the damnedest insolence I ever heard of!”
“To want this girl?”
“She is sitting with me!” stormed Almádena.
“My dear man, you can’t expect my desire to be affected by her geographical position. Be reasonable! After all, I haven’t made any attempt to get her away from you.”
“Reasonable?” shouted the marquis. “You are a swine, do you hear me? A swine!”
He stepped back and stood dramatically expecting a blow.
“Swine,” said Toby, “is not strong enough. Let me give you a tip. If you want to provoke a fight with an Englishman, call him a bastard!”
“Bastard, then! Bastard! You are a bastard!”
Almádena choked with fury over the magic password.
“But I’m not,” Toby answered. “So it falls flat.”
“You are! A dirty bastard!”
“I’m not.”
“You are!” Almádena yelled, dancing with rage.
Toby was irresistibly reminded of similar arguments at the age of twelve. The laughter rose up at the back of his nose and would not be denied. He put down the dish of pimientos on the table and shook with uncontrollable mirth, though he knew it to be untimely and provocative and cursed himself for a fool.
Almádena was no longer a human being; every conventional outlet for the expression of his anger had been stopped. His enemy could not be insulted and could not be hit; such wild laughter inhibited the hand; it inspired a sort of frozen panic as well as anger. Almádena drew his revolver from his hip pocket. It was the last gesture left to him. He did not think whether he intended to fire or not.
Toby was shocked by the sudden jamming into reverse of all the gears of his emotions. He felt a rush of blood over his body, followed instantly by clammy chill, as if his laughter had been cut by a sudden consciousness of some unforgivable offence against good taste. He grabbed the bottle off Almádena’s table, but before he could use it a plate whizzed edge-on past his ear and smashed against the wall. A second plate caught the marquis on the temple and dropped him. As Toby looked round, far more alarmed than he had been by the mere appearance of the revolver, a third plate landed in the pimientos. Rosario had opened a burst of rapid fire like a fat and angry howitzer.
The Third Hour Page 24
