“Really the service at this hotel is a scandal,” he cried heatedly, “I’ve been ringing my bell for fifteen minutes and I can’t get anyone to pay the smallest attention to me.”
“Service?” exclaimed Anastasia Alexandrovna. “There is not a servant left in the hotel.”
“But I want my laundry. They promised to let me have it back last night.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t got much chance of getting it now,” said Ashenden.
“I’m not going to leave without my laundry. Four shirts, two union suits, a pair of pyjamas, and four collars. I wash my handkerchiefs and socks in my room. I want my laundry and I’m not going to leave this hotel without it.”
“Don’t be a fool,” cried Ashenden. “What you’ve got to do is to get out of here while the going’s good. If there are no servants to get it you’ll just have to leave your washing behind you.”
“Pardon me, sir, I shall do nothing of the kind. I’ll go and fetch it myself. I’ve suffered enough at the hands of this country and I’m not going to leave four perfectly good shirts to be worn by a lot of dirty Bolsheviks. No, sir, I do not leave Russia till I have my laundry.”
Anastasia Alexandrovna stared at the floor for a moment; then with a little smile looked up. It seemed to Ashenden that there was something in her that responded to Mr Harrington’s futile obstinacy. In her Russian way she understood that Mr Harrington could not leave Petrograd without his washing. His insistence had given it the value of a symbol.
“I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find anybody about who knows where the laundry is, and if I can I’ll go with you and you can bring your washing away with you.”
Mr Harrington unbent. He answered with that sweet and disarming smile of his.
“That’s terribly kind of you, Delilah. I don’t mind if it’s ready or not, I’ll take it just as it is.”
Anastasia Alexandrovna left them.
“Well, what do you think of Russia and the Russians now, Mr Harrington?” asked Ashenden.
“I’m fed up with them. I’m fed up with Tolstoy, I’m fed up with Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, I’m fed up with Chekhov. I’m fed up with the Intelligentsia. I hanker after people who know their mind from one minute to another, who mean what they say an hour after they’ve said it, whose word you can rely on; I’m sick of fine phrases, and oratory and attitudinizing.”
Ashenden, bitten by the prevailing ill, was about to make a speech when he was interrupted by a rattle as of peas on a drum. In the city, so strangely silent, it sounded abrupt and odd.
“What’s that?” asked Mr Harrington.
“Rifle-firing. On the other side of the river, I should think.”
Mr Harrington gave a funny little look. He laughed, but his face was a trifle pale; he did not like it, and Ashenden did not blame him.
“I think it’s high time I got out. I shouldn’t so much mind for myself, but I’ve got a wife and children to think of. I haven’t had a letter from Mrs Harrington for so long I’m a bit worried.” He paused an instant. “I’d like you to know Mrs Harrington, she’s a very wonderful woman. She’s the best wife a man ever had. Until I came here I’d not been separated from her for more than three days since we were married.”
Anastasia Alexandrovna came back and told them that she had found the address.
“It’s about forty minutes’ walk from here and if you’ll come now I’ll go with you,” she said.
“I’m ready.”
“You’d better look out,” said Ashenden. “I don’t believe the streets are very healthy today.”
Anastasia Alexandrovna looked at Mr Harrington.
“I must have my laundry, Delilah,” he said. “I should never rest in peace if I left it behind me and Mrs Harrington would never let me hear the last of it.”
“Come on then.”
They set out and Ashenden went on with the dreary business of translating into a very complicated code the shattering news he had to give. It was a long message, and then he had to ask for instructions upon his own movements. It was a mechanical job and yet it was one in which you could not allow your attention to wander. The mistake of a single figure might make a whole sentence incomprehensible.
Suddenly his door was burst open and Anastasia Alexandrovna flung into the room. She had lost her hat and was dishevelled. She was panting. Her eyes were starting out of her head and she was obviously in a state of great excitement.
“Where’s Mr Harrington?” she cried. “Isn’t he here?”
“No.”
“Is he in his bedroom?”
“I don’t know. Why, what’s the matter? We’ll go and look if you like. Why didn’t you bring him along with you?”
They walked down the passage and knocked at Mr Harrington’s door; there was no answer; they tried the handle; the door was locked.
“He’s not there.”
They went back to Ashenden’s room. Anastasia Alexandrovna sank into a chair.
“Give me a glass of water, will you? I’m out of breath. I’ve been running.”
She drank the water Ashenden poured out for her. She gave a sudden sob.
“I hope he’s all right. I should never forgive myself if he was hurt. I was hoping he would have got here before me. He got his washing all right. We found the place. There was only an old woman there and they didn’t want to let us take it, but we insisted. Mr Harrington was furious because it hadn’t been touched. It was exactly as he had sent it. They’d promised it last night and it was still in the bundle that Mr Harrington had made himself. I said that was Russia and Mr Harrington said he preferred coloured people. I’d led him by side streets because I thought it was better, and we started to come back again. We passed at the top of a street and at the bottom of it I saw a little crowd. There was a man addressing them.
“‘Let’s go and hear what he’s saying,’ I said.
“I could see they were arguing. It looked exciting. I wanted to know what was happening.
“‘Come along, Delilah,’ he said. ‘Let us mind our own business.’
“‘You go back to the hotel and do your packing. I’m going to see the fun,’ I said.
“I ran down the street and he followed me. There were about two or three hundred people there and a student was addressing them. There were some working-men and they were shouting at him. I love a row and I edged my way into the crowd. Suddenly we heard the sound of shots and before you could realize what was happening two armoured cars came dashing down the street. There were soldiers in them and they were firing as they went. I don’t know why. For fun, I suppose, or because they were drunk. We all scattered like a lot of rabbits. We just ran for our lives. I lost Mr Harrington. I can’t make out why he isn’t here. Do you think something has happened to him?” Ashenden was silent for a while.
“We’d better go out and look for him,” he said. “I don’t know why the devil he couldn’t leave his washing.”
“I understand, I understand so well.”
“That’s a comfort,” said Ashenden irritably. “Let’s go.”
He put on his hat and coat, and they walked downstairs. The hotel seemed strangely empty. They went out into the street. There was hardly anyone to be seen. They walked along. The trams were not running and the silence in the great city was uncanny. The shops were closed. It was quite startling when a motor-car dashed by at breakneck speed. The people they passed looked frightened and downcast. When they had to go through a main thoroughfare they hastened their steps. A lot of people were there and they stood about irresolutely as though they did not know what to do next. Reservists in their shabby grey were walking down the middle of the roadway in little bunches. They did not speak. They looked like sheep looking for their shepherd. Then they came to the street down which Anastasia Alexandrovna had run, but they entered it from the opposite end. A number of windows had been broken by the wild shooting. It was quite empty. You could see where the people had scattered, for strewn about were articles they had dropped
in their haste, books, a man’s hat, a lady’s bag, and a basket. Anastasia Alexandrovna touched Ashenden’s arm to draw his attention: sitting on the pavement, her head bent right down to her lap, was a woman and she was dead. A little way on two men had fallen together. They were dead too. The wounded, one supposed, had managed to drag themselves away or their friends had carried them. Then they found Mr Harrington. His derby had rolled in the gutter. He lay on his face, in a pool of blood, his bald head, with its prominent bones, very white; his neat black coat smeared and muddy. But his hand was clenched tight on the parcel that contained four shirts, two union suits, a pair of pyjamas, and four collars. Mr Harrington had not let his washing go.
FOOTPRINTS IN THE JUNGLE
THERE is no place in Malaya that has more charm than Tanah Merah. It lies on the sea, and the sandy shore is fringed with casuarinas. The government offices are still in the old Raad Huis that the Dutch built when they owned the land, and on the hill stand the grey ruins of the fort by aid of which the Portuguese maintained their hold over the unruly natives. Tanah Merah has a history and in the vast labyrinthine houses of the Chinese merchants, backing on the sea so that in the cool of the evening they may sit in their loggias and enjoy the salt breeze, families dwell that have been settled in the country for three centuries. Many have forgotten their native language and hold intercourse with one another in Malay and pidgin English. The imagination lingers here gratefully, for in the Federated Malay States the only past is within the memory for the most part of the fathers of living men.
Tanah Merah was for long the busiest mart of the Middle East and its harbour was crowded with shipping when the clipper and the junk still sailed the China seas. But now it is dead. It has the sad and romantic air of all places that have once been of importance and live now on the recollection of a vanished grandeur. It is a sleepy little town and strangers that come to it, losing their native energy, insensibly drop into its easy and lethargic ways. Successive rubber booms bring it no prosperity and the ensuing slumps hasten its decay.
The European quarter is very silent. It is trim and neat and clean. The houses of the white men-government servants and agents of companies-stand round an immense padang, agreeable and roomy bungalows shaded by great cassias, and the padang is vast and green and well cared for, like the lawn of a cathedral close, and indeed there is in the aspect of this corner of Tanah Merah something quiet and delicately secluded that reminds you of the precincts of Canterbury.
The club faces the sea; it is a spacious but shabby building; it has an air of neglect and when you enter you feel that you intrude. It gives you the impression that it is closed really, for alterations and repairs, and that you have taken indiscreet advantage of an open door to go where you are not wanted. In the morning you may find there a couple of planters who have come in from their estates on business and are drinking a gin-sling before starting back again; and latish in the afternoon a lady or two may perhaps be seen looking with a furtive air through old numbers of the Illustrated London News. At nightfall a few men saunter in and sit about the billiard-room watching the play and drinking sukas. But on Wednesdays there is a little more animation. On that day the gramophone is set going in the large room upstairs and people come in from the surrounding country to dance. There are sometimes no less than a dozen couples and it is even possible to make up two tables of bridge.
It was on one of these occasions that I met the Cartwrights. I was staying with a man called Gaze who was head of the police and he came into the billiard-room, where I was sitting, and asked me if I would make up a four. The Cartwrights were planters and they came in to Tanah Merah on Wednesdays because it gave their girl a chance of a little fun. They were very nice people, said Gaze, quiet and unobtrusive, and played a very pleasant game of bridge. I followed Gaze into the card-room and was introduced to them. They were already seated at a table and Mrs Cartwright was shuffling the cards. It inspired me with confidence to see the competent way in which she did it. She took half the pack in each hand, and her hands were large and strong, deftly inserted the corners of one half under the corners of the other, and with a click and a neat bold gesture cascaded the cards together.
It had all the effect of a conjuring trick. The card-player knows that it can be done perfectly only after incessant practice. He can be fairly sure that anyone who can so shuffle a pack of cards loves cards for their own sake.
“Do you mind if my husband and I play together?” asked Mrs Cartwright. “It’s no fun for us to win one another’s money.”
“Of course not.”
We cut for deal and Gaze and I sat down.
Mrs Cartwright drew an ace and while she dealt, quickly and neatly, chatted with Gaze of local affairs. But I was aware that she took stock of me. She looked shrewd, but good-natured.
She was a woman somewhere in the fifties (though in the East, where people age quickly, it is difficult to tell their ages), with white hair very untidily arranged, and a constant gesture with her was an impatient movement of the hand to push back a long wisp of hair that kept falling over her forehead. You wondered why she did not, by the use of a hairpin or two, save herself so much trouble. Her blue eyes were large, but pale and a little tired; her face was lined and sallow; I think it was her mouth that gave it the expression which I felt was characteristic of caustic but tolerant irony. You saw that here was a woman who knew her mind and was never afraid to speak it. She was a chatty player (which some people object to strongly, but which does not disconcert me, for I do not see why you should behave at the card-table as though you were at a memorial service) and it was soon apparent that she had an effective knack of badinage. It was pleasantly acid, but it was amusing enough to be offensive only to a fool. If now and then she uttered a remark so sarcastic that you wanted all your sense of humour to see the fun in it, you could not but quickly see that she was willing to take as much as she gave. Her large, thin mouth broke into a dry smile and her eyes shone brightly when by a lucky chance you brought off a repartee that turned the laugh against her.
I thought her a very agreeable person. I liked her frankness. I liked her quick wit. I liked her plain face. I never met a woman who obviously cared so little how she looked. It was not only her head that was untidy, everything about her was slovenly; she wore a high-necked silk blouse, but for coolness had unbuttoned the top buttons and showed a gaunt and withered neck; the blouse was crumpled and none too clean, for she smoked innumerable cigarettes and covered herself with ash. When she got up for a moment to speak to somebody I saw that her blue skirt was rather ragged at the hem and badly needed a brush, and she wore heavy, low-heeled boots. But none of this mattered. Everything she wore was perfectly in character.
And it was a pleasure to play bridge with her. She played very quickly, without hesitation, and she had not only knowledge but flair. Of course she knew Gaze’s game, but I was a stranger and she soon took my measure. The team-work between her husband and herself was admirable; he was sound and cautious, but knowing him, she was able to be bold with assurance and brilliant with safety. Gaze was a player who founded a foolish optimism on the hope that his opponents would not have the sense to take advantage of his errors, and the pair of us were no match for the Cartwrights. We lost one rubber after another, and there was nothing to do but smile and look as if we liked it.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with the cards,” said Gaze at last, plaintively. “Even when we have every card in the pack we go down.”
“It can’t be anything to do with your play,” answered Mrs Cartwright, looking him full in the face with those pale blue eyes of hers, “it must be bad luck pure and simple. Now if you hadn’t had your hearts mixed up with your diamonds in that last hand you’d have saved the game.”
Gaze began to explain at length how the misfortune, which had cost us dear, occurred, but Mrs Cartwright, with a deft flick of the hand, spread out the cards in a great circle so that we should cut for deal. Cartwright looked at the time.
“Oh, will it?” She glanced at her watch and then called to a young man who was passing through the room. “Oh, Mr Bullen, if you’re going upstairs tell Olive that we shall be going in a few minutes.” She turned to me. “It takes us the best part of an hour to get back to the estate and poor Theo has to be up at the crack of dawn.”
“Oh, well, we only come in once a week,” said Cartwright, “and it’s the one chance Olive gets of being gay and abandoned.”
I thought Cartwright looked tired and old. He was a man of middle height, with a bald, shiny head, a stubbly grey moustache, and gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore white ducks and a black-and-white tie. He was rather neat and you could see he took much more pains with his clothes than his untidy wife. He talked little, but it was plain that he enjoyed his wife’s caustic humour and sometimes he made quite a neat retort. They were evidently very good friends. It was pleasing to see so solid and tolerant an affection between two people who were almost elderly and must have lived together for so many years.
It took but two hands to finish the rubber and we had just ordered a final gin and bitters when Olive came down.
“Do you really want to go already, Mumsey?” she asked.
Mrs Cartwright looked at her daughter with fond eyes.
“Yes, darling. It’s nearly half past eight. It’ll be ten before we get our dinner.”
“Damn our dinner,” said Olive gaily.
“Let her have one more dance before we go,” suggested Cartwright.
“Not one. You must have a good night’s rest.”
Cartwright looked at Olive with a smile.
“If your mother has made up her mind, my dear, we may just as well give in without any fuss.”
“She’s a determined woman,” said Olive, lovingly stroking her mother’s wrinkled cheek.
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham: East and West (Vol. 1 of 2)) Page 79
