by Alec Waugh
As Haystack had announced his intention of having the dining-room transported to America, auctioning the Romneys, and converting the carcase into a country club, the question of being able or not able to maintain the house was irrelevant.
‘I should rather doubt it,’ Gordon said.
Trumper shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I know. It’s pathetic to see these fine old families breaking up.’
‘I wouldn’t say they were breaking up,’ said Gordon. ‘They’re getting a good deal of enjoyment out of living, and my young nephews are going to need a good deal of stopping, at whatever they may choose to aim.’
‘I know, I know; but the old system, the old way of life . . .’ and Trumper shrugged his shoulders.
For the greater part of lunch they discussed valedictorily old country houses and knickerbocker hospitality. As the table was being cleared, a cut glass decanter with a silver label Tort’ hung over it, was set at Trumper’s side.
‘I think your brother-in-law would approve of this,’ was Trumper’s comment. An approval which in a cooler climate Gordon would have shared abundantly, for it was Taylor’s and ‘04.
Trumper began to question Sweden about his plans.
‘I suppose you know a great many people along the coast?’
Faith laughed at that.
‘Is there any place in the world where Roger doesn’t! I scarcely know what it’s like to make a friend for myself.’
‘My dear, you make such curious friends.’
‘That’s not very complimentary to Gordon.’
‘I had thought he was our friend.’
‘I had hoped I was.’
Faith did not answer directly. ‘Do I make curious friends?’ she asked.
‘There was that bicyclist of yours.’
‘Oh, that!’
There was a brooding quality behind her smile; an unruffled secrecy of spirit that fluttered, it seemed to Gordon, the pages of a chapter usually left closed.
The moment passed as quickly as it had come.
‘There’s an extremely pleasant antique shop in St Paul,’ Trumper remarked. ‘There are a couple of blue vases there that I’ld like to see. The view’s magnificent. If you’ve nothing more amusing to do, we might go up there this afternoon.’
High and grey and ramparted, with its square tall tower to sentinel an entire countryside, St Paul’s to the invading Saracen must have seemed hopelessly impregnable. Un-taken and self-contained, it has strayed little outside its village confines. As the road curves up from Nice you see it very much as its invaders saw it during the centuries when stones and summits could withstand spears and arrows. Within, it has altered little. There are the same dark arch-ways; the uneven streets, cool, cobbled and unguttered; the stone façades; the high-set windows. It is outside the ramparts that the two main hotels are built. They are pleasant. On the broad shaded terrace of the Colombe d’Or, orange trees are set. Their white blossoms fall on you in early summer as you sit at the table looking out over a green valley. Pigeons flutter among their branches, perching beside you on the stonework.
‘I’ld much rather sit here than hunt among antique shops,’ was Faith’s comment.
‘Then shall I stay with you?’ Gordon asked.
Before Faith could speak, her husband had replied for her.
‘Why, certainly, that’s a fine idea. You stay and keep Faith company while Michael and I hunt out bargains for each other.’
It was the second time in their lives that they had been alone together; and even now, it was in the most public place in a tourist-frequented village. They neither of them spoke. They leant forward on their elbows, their chins rested on their wrists. They looked away from each other across the valley to St Jeanette. Then suddenly, as was her wont, breaking into the silence as though she were speaking out of the middle of a conversation:
‘I felt so frightened when you were away. I had no hold on you. I didn’t know what you might be doing. That’s why I rang you up. I had to remind you of me. I knew so little of your life, whom you were seeing, what you were doing. I didn’t know any of your friends. I said to myself: “All day long he’s among people I don’t know, among conditions I don’t know. There’ll be nothing to remind him of me.” I felt so defenceless.’
‘Don’t you think I was feeling the same way about you?’
‘You needn’t have.’ Then, after a pause: ‘But I’ve got you now.’
She did not ask him how he had felt; she did not ask for avowals or protestations. ‘She is so certain of herself,’ thought Gordon, ‘that she can be sure of me.’
‘There were so many things,’ she said, ‘that I did want to ask you. I used to read a book and think: “I wonder if Gordon’s read this. I wonder if Gordon likes it?” Then I’ld see the model of a dress. I’ld say: “Gordon would like me in this.” But you weren’t there, and I couldn’t ask you. Now I’ll be able to tell you everything. We’re going to be so happy, Gordon.’
He did not ask her in what way or when. The exquisite sun-soaked afternoon, with the cool wind blowing from the sea and an occasional cloud, flimsy, deciduous, dove-coloured, floating across the sky to cast its hazy shadow over the terraced valley was lovely enough and unreal enough to cheat them into a belief of its own reality. So that they sat there talking quietly, as they had at other times; in the brief lull of New York parties; as their cars rattled them over the long roads to Westchester; while the talk had flowed and ebbed on the porch that looked eastwards to the Hudson.
It was of trifles that they talked. He pointed out to her the far mountain view of St Jeanette.
‘That’s where the witches are,’ he told her.
‘I wonder if there are any still.’
‘They say there are.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Do you remember that poem of Hardy’s about the oxen on Christmas Eve, wishing it might be so?’
‘Did you read Townsend Warner’s witch story?’ Happy and inconsequential their talk flowed on till they heard the sound of Sweden’s voice, forceful and American, and Trumper’s precise and anglicized. The talk became general again. ‘Don’t forget,’ said Trumper as he shook Gordon’s hand in leave-taking, ‘to remember me to your dear sister when you write.’
On his return Gordon found in the pigeon-hole below his key a thin green folded envelope. It was signed ‘Masters.’ ‘New York seems to have made you rather casual,’ it said.
* * *
Before he had said good-bye, Gordon had invited the Swedens across to Villefranche to dine with him. He had fixed a date two evenings away. He had no idea what the outcome of the situation was to be, but he was resolved to be Sweden’s host as much as he was his guest.
‘Maybe I’ll see you before then, though,’ he had said to Faith.
‘I’ll see to that,’ had been her answer.
The following evening as he was sitting in the Summer Bar, with the gramophone playing and the children chattering in the street outside, a small urchin put his head round the door.
‘Ah, yes, Monsieur Gordon, I thought so.’
Then turning back into the street called ‘Here he is, madame.’
A moment later Faith was standing in the doorway.
She was dressed with appropriately dear simplicity. Her legs were bare and sandalled, her head hatless, so that the butter-yellow mane of hair fell in a curve across her face. Round her neck was knotted a soft silk scarf. Her sleeveless jumper was green patterned at the back with acrobats. No one could have seemed less appropriate than Faith to such a setting. Yet she did not seem out of place as she walked over the tiled floor to Gordon’s table.
‘They told me at the Welcome that I should probably find you here,’ she said.
Rolo was sitting at Gordon’s table with a fisherman, and a young mason who had recently finished his service in the Twenty-fourth. They rose from their seats; but when they began to move to another table, Faith called th
em back.
‘No, please stay,’ she said. ‘I’ld like a citron pressé, Gordon.’
They had been playing cochon when she arrived.
‘Don’t let me interrupt your game,’ she said. ‘I’ll watch.’
After a moment or two she said, ‘I think I see how it goes now.’
When the dice came to her, she shook her turn.
Of old Southern stock she had inherited the capacity to meet on terms of equality people of any class. When the gramophone began to play Rolo asked her if she would dance with him.
‘Certainly,’ she replied.
Rolo danced well: with a sense of rhythm and no elaboration of step. He was four inches taller than Faith. On that small tiled floor he made as graceful a thing of the creaking tango as Valentino in the ‘Four Horsemen.’ The sailors and workmen from the other tables looked up from their drinks and cards. When the record ran down, they clapped their hands. ‘Again!’ they called out, ‘again!’
‘Shall we?’ said Faith.
‘Why not?’
‘Then let’s find a new tune, anyhow.’
She walked over to the pile of records that stood by the wide-mouthed brass gramophone.
‘We’ll have a foxtrot this time,’ she said.
The sailors beat time to the music with their hands and feet. But Gordon did not notice the grace of the swaying bodies. His eyes were fixed on Rolo’s fingers, short, stumpy, broad, with black and bitten nails, against the delicate sage green of his partner’s jumper.
‘He’s a very good dancer indeed,’ she said as she came back to the table.
‘He appears to be,’ said Gordon.
A minute or two later Faith rose to her feet. ‘I must be going. I only came over for a few minutes. Roger had some work to be settled. No, don’t bother to walk down with me.’
‘Of course I’m going to.’
Before she left, she shook hands with Rolo and the two others at her table.
‘Good night to you,’ she said.
‘Good night,’ they answered. ‘Come back soon.’
‘I certainly will that!’
She had left an atmosphere of warmth and happiness behind her.
‘That’s a very remarkable man,’ she said as they walked down the steep street towards her car. ‘If he had been born somewhere else, he would have had quite a career.’
Again came that inexplicable itch of irritation.
‘That’s what I’ve always thought about Armantine.’
‘Armantine?’
‘The woman who runs the bar.’
‘The tall, light-haired one?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hardly noticed her.’
They walked on in silence.
‘I suppose you’ll be going back there, won’t you?’ she said, as he closed the door of her car.
‘I imagine so. I usually stay there till it closes.’
‘I see.’
‘Till tomorrow, then.’
‘Till tomorrow.’
Next morning he gave his orders for the evening’s dinner. He was very anxious that the evening should be a success.
They would have soupe de poissons to begin with, he decided. It was a dish that probably would be new to Faith who was visiting the Riviera for the first time. They would need something simple to follow that, a grilled chicken and a salad with a soufflé of some kind to finish with. The patronne suggested a rum or cheese omelette. But he shook his head. Faith would prefer a sweet, a strawberry soufflé he decided in the end. There was a reasonable Pouilly on the wine list. They would have fine maison with the coffee.
With the feeling that everything was prepared, he set himself to his morning’s work. The work went well. By three o’clock he had done two thousand words. He was just preparing to go over for an early bathe when there was the tap of knuckles on the door. He was wanted on the telephone. It was an American and a masculine voice.
‘This is Roger Sweden speaking. I’ve got myself in a rare muddle and I want you to help me out. Tell me, now, have you asked anyone to meet us tonight at dinner?’
‘No.’
‘That’s fine, because I’ll tell you just what’s happened. I’ve found out that there are some very old friends of ours staying over here. They’ll be going to Paris in a few days. I’m particularly anxious to see them and tonight seems to be the only time when they’re free.’
‘Let’s put off this evening, then.’
‘No, no, that’s not what I meant at all. If it had meant that I’ld never have suggested it. Wouldn’t miss this evening for anything.’
‘We can easily fix some other day.’
‘No, sir. You’re busy and we’re busy. We’ve far too often an ocean between us to miss any meetings here. What I was going to say was that instead of our coming to dine with you, you should come over to dine with us.’
‘Well. . . .’
‘There’s no “well” to it. You can, can’t you? Why, of course you can. We’ll call for you at about six.’
He had rung off before Gordon could expostulate.
‘Now, I wonder,’ Gordon thought, ‘I wonder.’
Pensively he walked across to the Cabanon to cancel his order for the dinner. ‘We shan’t want that dinner, after all,’ he said. ‘I’m going over to Cap Ferrat instead of their coming over here.’
‘Very good, Monsieur Gordon.’
‘And I wonder if that was on purpose,’ Gordon thought. ‘I wonder if he’s resolved to be my host, not me his. Does he mean all the obligation to be on my side?’ If that was the reason it had been clever of Sweden to ask first whether he had anyone else coming; so that he shouldn’t have that loophole. It wasn’t likely. Probably he was imagining things. ‘Anyhow, this is going to be the last time,’ he vowed, ‘that I’m going to let that kind of thing happen to me.’
Sweden had said six. But it was close upon half-past when the grey-green Chrysler swept round in front of the Welcome. It was amply crowded. Faith was driving it. Two people were seated beside her at the wheel, while her husband extricated himself with some relief from between two portly ladies in the back seat. Gordon wondered where they would find room for him on their journey to Cap Ferrat. It was soon clear, however, that this carload was not the contents for the future party. The two men who extricated themselves from the steering gear revealed themselves to be Gregory and Francis, the men who had dined with them that first night.
‘We found these lads looking likely to get into mischief in Monte,’ explained Sweden, ‘so we thought we’d better bring them right back where they belonged.’
The ample ladies, from the proprietory way in which they eyed them, were apparently part of the potential mischief.
‘Then in that case we’d better have a drink,’ said Gordon.
‘It’s all right with me, brother,’ said Gregory.
‘I’m not quarrelling,’ said Francis.
They had both of them ‘Gone Riviera’ with a vengeance. On their heads were bérets. Their faces and arms were salmon-pink, within a short distance of blistered agony. They were wearing white half-sleeved cotton jumpers with zip openings, and white flannelette trousers. They were sockless and wore espadrilles. They were full of their experiences.
‘That beach at Monte Carlo, and those backs, oh boy! If Broadway had seen that, Ziegfeld could put the shutters up! What’ll I have? Gin fizz for me.’
The drinks had been ordered before the party had grouped itself round a table. As the waiter brought the tray, Gordon handed him a hundred-franc note. It was done very unostentatiously; but Sweden caught the movement. His eyes met Gordon’s. Gordon wondered whether there was momentarily in them a look of declared antagonism. His manner was as affable as it had ever been, however.
‘I’m sorry about this evening,’ he was saying.
‘It’s only postponed.’
‘Sure, it’s only postponed.’
But neither of them suggested an alternative date.
‘We’ll have t
o be going soon,’ he said.
‘If there’s anything left of your car to take you.’
It was Rolo who had interrupted them. Swaggering along the front he had shooed away a group of children who were examining the large and shining car with large and shining eyes. Coming up to Gordon, he slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Eh bien, mon brave!’
Then, turning to Faith.
‘When are you coming up to dance with me again?’ he said; and without waiting for an answer, with a wave of the hand, passed on.
‘That’s a fresh guy,’ said Sweden. ‘Do you know, honey, whom he reminds me of? That bicycling friend of yours.’
Her eyes followed him pensively.
‘He’s far less good-looking.’
‘There are times,’ said Gordon, ‘when that fellow sends shudders down my spine.’
‘Then you know how a nice woman feels when a man looks at a flash Jane and says “There’s a pretty piece! ” ’
‘I suppose we’ve all got a barmaid side to us,’ said Gordon.
‘I know I’ve got a barman side to me,’ said Gregory.
‘As the governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina,’ said Francis.
‘Garçon!’ called out Sweden.
When the waiter came round, Gordon shook his head.
‘Not another?’ said Sweden. ‘Well, perhaps you’re wise. Maybe I won’t either. What about you, Faith?’ Faith shook her head. ‘Then, in that case I think we’d better leave you here and trot straight along to our guests. You’ll forgive us, won’t you?’
‘Sure, we’ll forgive you.’
‘They’ld forgive anyone anything,’ was Sweden’s whispered comment, ‘as long as they’d a drink inside them, and another by their wrist.’
Roger Sweden had spoken with the liveliest contempt of the American tourists he had shared the crossing with. But the difference between the party at the Cabanon on the first night, and the party at the Swedens’ rented villa was one of degree, not of kind. The setting was gracious. On the Beaulieu side of the Cap, with its main room, verandahed and on the second floor, looking towards the grey Italian frontier, the villa possessed the tranquil luxury of good taste. The arrangements were smooth and orderly. As in Sweden’s New York apartment the guests were gracious, educated, well-bred people. But the conversation, though it had the pace, the wit, the hearty friendliness of a New York party, had none of the range and variety of subject.
