by Ruth Wade
“All right, all right.” Mike heaved himself to his feet. “It’s a strange fact that I never feel embarrassed for my profession until I am in your company.”
The old man chose to accept this as a compliment. He swung the door open with a complacent flourish, and they started off for the President’s Lodging.
Chapter 4
On Bradley’s doorstep Mike experienced an almost uncontrollable longing to run away. His wide-open eyes and his long, thin face gave him something of the appearance of an anxious snail, as Professor Daly unkindly told him.
“Look happy, honoured, hungry if you like,” he said, “but for heaven’s sake don’t look apologetic. Now you are worse than ever,” he wailed as Mike wilted before his eyes.
Fortunately the door was opened just then by Jennings, who acted as Bradley’s butler on these occasions. Professor Daly replaced his air of elegant dignity as if it had been a hat, and led the way into the hall. Mike followed him in a fog of unhappiness, through which he quite failed to observe his surroundings. Jennings removed his overcoat for him and bore it away. Dimly he saw Bradley advancing through an open door in front of him.
Then suddenly the air cleared. Bradley was shaking his hand, welcoming him, leading him in, introducing him to the other guests as if he were especially proud of him. He gave no sign whatever of his knowledge of Mike’s real profession. He even forbore from naming his fictitious occupation, as he might have done if he had wished privately to enjoy Mike’s embarrassment. Mike was very grateful to him for this.
Bradley’s drawing-room was a long, fine room with three tall windows looking into a private garden. They were curtained now against the night, in red brocade.
The Sheraton furniture, the Waterford glass and Sevres china, and the Persian rugs all betokened a household where there had never been any children. Their museum-like perfection was faintly depressing, in spite of the comfort of the armchairs and sofas.
Mrs. Bradley, to whom he was introduced first, was rather a surprise to Mike. She was so small that her head was strained backwards to look up at him, like a child’s. Her figure was generously curved, but well controlled, probably at great expense. Her hair was a respectable grey, perfectly waved and with a faint blue rinse. Her expression was friendly and cheerful, except when she glanced at her husband. Then she looked anxious and unhappy. She greeted Mike warmly and then turned to Professor Daly with a nervous giggle.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “Why don’t you ever come when you are in town?”
To Mike’s astonishment a little flush crept over Daly’s face. He took her hand for a moment and said:
“You are looking well, Helen. It is nice to see you.”
She laughed skittishly. Her husband called her sharply then and she had to turn away to greet another guest. Mike found himself standing with Professor Daly a little apart from the rest, drinking a cocktail with a lot of vermouth in it.
“Nasty stuff, isn’t it?” said Daly, lifting his glass and eyeing the contents appreciatively. “I always did hate vermouth.”
“I had no idea that you were so closely acquainted with our hostess,” said Mike in a low voice.
“Mrs. Bradley and I are old friends. I’m sure I told you that,” said Daly. He looked across the room at her, where she stood giggling and smiling at a short stout man who could be no one but Mr. Leahy. “Amazing woman, isn’t she? Awfully well preserved for fifty-eight. She possesses the secret of eternal youth, which consists in wearing one’s false teeth at night.”
Mike was watching Mr. Leahy and wondering for the thousandth time how it was that Americans of his type were as easily recognizable as if they had been Chinese.
Mr. Leahy was short and yellow and his waistline had the uncompromising outward curve of a rubber ball. His hair and moustache and eyebrows were long and white and bristling. The set of his mouth showed plainly what his accent would be. His age might have been anything from sixty to seventy-five. His large, round, grey eyes were very sharp and he had a strange trick of lowering one eyebrow and opening the other eye very wide, as if this helped him to understand the motives of the person with whom he was conversing. Mike would have liked to talk to him, for he always found self-made men fascinating. He warned himself that he was not at Bradley’s party for pleasure, however, and began to ask Daly about the other people present.
“There’s Badger,” said the old man. “And that is Mrs. Badger two steps behind him. She knows her place, poor lady. Tatty, isn’t she? You’d never think she has a Master’s degree in chemistry, would you?”
Mike thanked heaven that the room was so large that Daly’s remarks could not be overheard. Really, he thought, the old man was becoming quite outrageous. But what a strangely clear little picture he could give of a personality in a few words. Mrs. Badger wore an unbecoming grass-green crepe dress with a cheap lace collar. The scaffolding of her underwear showed clearly through the clinging material. The hemline was uneven. Her hair was a faded blond, in a kind of bird’s nest of tangles. Her complexion was mottled, and she used no artifice to conceal it. But she had an extremely intelligent expression for all that, and Mike wondered what deficiency it was in her that caused her to overlook all consideration of her appearance. In the course of his experience he had known many reasons for this, and the commonest one was despair.
At this point in his reflections the door was opened by Jennings to admit a tall girl with smooth red hair and alabaster-white skin. Mrs. Bradley left Mr. Leahy for a moment to welcome her. Then the red-haired girl reached for a drink off Jennings’s tray, and came over to Professor Daly. He advanced to greet her with outstretched hands.
“Why, Sodia, how you have grown!” he said, gazing at her with delight.
“It was bound to happen,” she said. “Mind my drink.”
She held it safely out of reach.
“I had no idea you were going to be here,” he said. “Come and meet Mr. Kenny.”
Her eyes were emerald green. She was like the Harry Clarke illustration of the Snow Queen, Mike thought. He wondered if his ears had deceived him about her name. Daly introduced her as Miss Milligan.
“You met her father last night,” he said. “Professor Milligan. I have the honour to be Sodia’s godfather.”
He congratulated her on her father’s appearance of good health.
“Yes, he’s bursting with health,” she said. “The only trouble is that the better he feels, the worse grip his little failing has on him. He is a job to look after.”
“Still the same?” said Daly sympathetically.
She nodded moodily.
“Of course as long as he doesn’t go outside the College he’s safe enough. I have got very clever at telling where the things come from.”
Mike had stood by, feeling a little embarrassed, though he could only guess at the subject of this conversation. He looked around the room and saw that Professor Burren had come in and was listening superciliously to Mrs. Bradley. The President had gone across to shake hands with a young man who had just slipped into the room, with a quick snake-like movement around the door. He saw Bradley lead him across to Badger, who winced, but then squared his shoulders and made an apparently friendly remark. Bradley signalled with his eyes to Jennings to bring a drink to the latest guest. But Jennings affected not to notice, and bore his tray of drinks right out of the room. Mike noticed that the young man flushed angrily at this and made a snappish remark to Badger.
“Ah-ah!” said Professor Daly’s voice in his ear. “It’s a very foolish student that talks like that to his professor. Sodia has been telling me about our young friend, but you were staring so hard that you didn’t hear.”
“What did you call Miss Milligan?” Mike asked urgently.
“Her name is Sylvia, I believe, but her father has always called her Sodia. He says it is easier to remember. She tells me she is paying court to that young man, whose name is Tennyson-Smith, if you can believe that.”
He was sulking l
ike a nasty child while she turned an extraordinarily beautiful smile upon him and talked to him eagerly in a low intimate tone. Mike could see that she had the double objective of covering up Tennyson-Smith’s bad manners and encouraging him to be happy and enjoy the party. Mike thought enviously how he would burgeon if that smile were ever turned on him. But Tennyson-Smith remained coldly selfish, and even half-turned an insulting shoulder towards her. She flushed quickly and then became absorbed in finishing her drink.
“That fellow is a pup,” said Mike angrily.
Daly sighed.
“I tried to tell her she could do better, but it seems he’s a Poet, and not only that but a Misunderstood Poet. I’d go bail that I’d understand him, all right!”
“Why is he at this party?” Mike asked.
“He and Sodia are joint secretaries of the Students’ Council; she tells me,” said Daly. “That could be the reason. But I think it’s really because Tennyson-Smith’s father is the manager of the College’s bank. Bradley’s mind always works like that. Tennyson-Smith is not a good sample of student to show to Leahy if that’s what Bradley was thinking of. Sodia is fine, though he probably only asked her because she keeps company with him. Bradley doesn’t hold much with women — ”
Jennings’s return to announce dinner interrupted this discourse. Mrs. Bradley moved towards the door, collecting Mrs. Badger and Miss Milligan on the way. The President came next, with an affectionate hand on Tennyson-Smith’s arm. His head was turned away, however, to talk to Leahy, who walked at his other side. The young man looked slighted, as well he might, for Bradley was treating him like a child. Mike thought what a strange mistake it was for the President to make, and wondered, not for the first time, whether it might not be a student who had threatened his life. Daly had informed him that the life of a good President is threatened by at least one student every year. For the first time in his life he wished that he had darkened the doors of some university when he was younger.
At dinner Mike sat next to Mrs. Badger. He hardly noticed what he was given to eat, because she questioned him so closely, throughout the meal, about the organization of vocational schools. Every time he tried to change the subject, she hauled him back firmly. She pegged down every statement that he made, and referred back to his former remarks with as much ease as if she had been reading them from a book. All the time that she was talking she ate up her dinner expertly. It was obvious that she deeply enjoyed every bite. Mike looked across at Badger with respect. In his company Mrs. Badger had looked cowed.
Professor Daly was sitting at Bradley’s left at the top of the long table. Bradley was fully occupied with Mr. Leahy, who sat at his other side, and Daly had had to content himself with listening to the sour discourse of Burren. He wanted to talk to Badger, but Badger was at the other end of the table, beside Mrs. Bradley. Burren was not a demanding partner. He prosed along about the sins of his colleagues and speared his dinner delicately. If Daly answered him, he paused and lowered his head for a moment and then took up his discourse at the exact point at which he had left off. Daly would have dearly loved to rub Burren’s Voltairean nose in his gâteau à la crème. Since this was not possible he simply stopped listening to him.
He looked across at Mike, who was clearly in difficulties with Mrs. Badger. Daly knew that she was always dangerous when she was savouring temporary freedom from her husband. At any moment, he thought, she would accuse Mike of being the fraud that he was. Now, in the strong ringing tone that he usually kept for the lecture room, Daly called across to Mr. Leahy opposite him:
“Tell us, Mr. Leahy, what exactly are you presenting to the College?”
All conversation stopped, as Daly had intended that it should, and everyone looked fixedly at the little American. He was not at all embarrassed by this. He wiped his mouth with his napkin in a leisurely way and looked around the table.
“We have not exactly decided what it is to be thus far,” he said, in the slightly drawling accent which always sounds faintly sardonic to Europeans. “There have been lots of suggestions. A house for the most distinguished professor on the staff was one idea. They have something like that in Copenhagen.”
Badger made a strange little choking sound which he smothered in his napkin. Leahy looked down along the table at him, speculatively. Then he went on:
“Yes, the President thought that that would cause trouble, so we abandoned it.”
“Comparisons often cause trouble,” said Daly quickly.
“Yes,” said Leahy. “That’s what finished my second idea, too.”
“What was that?” asked Burren flatly.
“To develop the most progressive department.” The little man moved his shoulders unhappily. “I just want to give something to the College. I don’t want to tie it up so that it won’t be any use to you. I don’t know anything about College — never spent as much as one day there — but your President is a very fine man indeed and I trust him. Yes, sir, I trust him.”
“Very nice,” said Burren acidly.
Daly restrained himself with difficulty from kicking Burren’s shin under the table. Bradley looked as if he were about to stand up and make a speech of thanks. Then Mrs. Bradley broke the tension by saying brightly:
“Oh, you’ll think of something, I’m sure. Do have some marshmallows.”
Along the table little silver dishes of sweets were ranged. She had them all nibbling by the time the coffee was brought in, a minute later. Bradley had a special little dish, set squarely in front of his own plate, containing a few small, hard biscuits. He reached for them one after another, but he did not offer them to anyone else. Seeing Daly’s eye on him, he said:
“I like macaroons. I always have a special dish for myself.”
Daly hoped that his expression did not reveal his opinion of Bradley’s manners. Burren, at his elbow, snorted and said:
“I like macaroons, too. Could I have one, please?”
He held out his hand for the dish. Bradley gave it to him with a sudden little jerking movement. Burren, looking pleased, took one and bit it in two.
“Delicious!” he said emphatically. “Do have one, Mrs. Badger.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Badger, reaching across the table for the dish.
She held it out to Mike.
“I can guarantee their quality,” she said. “The President always has the best of everything.”
Mike shook his head, speechless with loathing of the horrible game that they were playing. Down along the table they sent the little dish from one eager hand to the other. Each made a little derisive comment and passed it on with a flourish. Even Miss Milligan and Tennyson-Smith joined in. Daly and Mike avoided each other’s eyes. Mr. Leahy looked bewildered. Mrs. Bradley looked frightened. Bradley’s face was smooth but his eyes were shadowed with rage and hatred. When Burren handed him back the dish at last, with a single macaroon remaining, he received it without a word. He picked up the biscuit and put it in his mouth as if he were not in the least interested in it. In the midst of an uneasy silence he chewed and swallowed it. Then he stood up and said in a perfectly normal tone:
“Shall we go back to the drawing-room?”
They all pushed back their chairs, a little too noisily, and followed him out of the room.
The rest of the evening was an embarrassing business. Burren was in high good humour now. He kept bursting into little explosions of laughter which were curious to watch, for his features somehow gave the impression that they were not made for laughter. Mrs. Badger talked patronizingly to Mrs. Bradley about foreign travel. Daly found this diverting. He knew that Badger had brought his wife to Paris for their honeymoon and had trailed her, in pitiful high heels, into a succession of the carman’s cafés that he had frequented when he had spent a year there on a postgraduate scholarship. Soon all the little Badgers had come along and swallowed up any money that might have served to bring them abroad again.
Mrs. Bradley, on the other hand, had lived in Africa for a num
ber of years, and had spent many summers in French and Italian resorts. Watching how patiently she allowed Mrs. Badger to tell her all about Europe, Daly thought he saw how it was that she had succeeded in living for all these years with Bradley. She was like a pedigree Jersey cow, he thought, small and self-assured and valuable, and as patient as a Buddha. She had not been in the least like this when he had known her, long ago.
Daly sat firmly between Miss Milligan and her young man and devoted himself to making them behave civilly to each other. This took only half of his attention, so that he was able to observe what went on among the other guests. Badger had attached himself to Mike. Daly heard him discoursing on the shortness of life. Once, in a little lull in the general conversation, his voice droned out lugubriously:
“Timor mortis conturbat me.”
Mike nodded dumbly, finding no words with which to reply. Burren laughed to himself. Daly wondered how he was going to endure the next hour before they could all decently go home. Bradley and his wife were the only people who seemed to be at ease. The President chatted to Mr. Leahy about the importance of the social side of university life. Mr. Leahy said from time to time:
“Of course I don’t know anything at all about College, but I think you’re dead right. I think that’s mighty important.”
He was an abstemious person, Daly noticed. When Jennings brought in a tray with drinks he drank a glass of soda-water. Burren looked sharply at the labels and said:
“Ha! Tullamore Dew!”
He poured himself a half tumblerful, put a single splash of soda-water into it, and drank it all within five minutes, without any visible effect. Miss Milligan had whiskey, too.
“Do you like it?” Professor Daly asked.
“I need it,” she said sharply. “And for heaven’s sake don’t preach about it — ”
“I wasn’t going to,” said Daly, “but now I will. Young women who drink whiskey with enjoyment are taking the risk of pickling their insides beyond repair, and of ending their lives in the company of little green men only four inches high.”
