by Muriel Spark
From somewhere far away at the top of the house comes a howl and a clatter.
‘I’ll have a vodka and tonic,’ says Clovis, as he passes through the big kitchen and returns to his papers at the butler’s desk.
‘Very good,’ says Lister, looking round. ‘Any more orders?’
‘Nothing for me. I had my carrot juice. I couldn’t stomach a sherry, not tonight,’ says Eleanor.
‘Nerves,’ says Lister, and has started to leave the kitchen when the house-telephone rings. He returns to answer it.
‘Lister here,’ he says, and listens briefly while something in the telephone crackles into the room. ‘Very good,’ he then says into the telephone and hangs up. ‘The Baron,’ says he, ‘has arrived.’
•
The Baron’s great car moves away from the porter’s lodge while the porter closes the gates behind it. It slightly swerves to avoid Hadrian who is walking up the drive.
The porter, returning to the lodge, finds his wife hanging up the house-telephone in the cold hall. ‘Lister sounds like himself,’ she tells her husband.
‘What the hell do you expect him to sound like?’ says the porter. ‘How should he sound?’
‘He was no different from usual,’ she says. ‘Oh, I feel terrible.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen, dear,’ he says, suddenly hugging her. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘I can feel it in the air, like electricity,’ she says. He takes her arm, urging her into the warm sitting-room. She is young and small. She looks as if she were steady of mind but she says, ‘I think I am going mad.’
‘Clara!’ says the porter. ‘Clara!’
She says, ‘Last night I had a terrible dream.’
Cecil Klopstock, the Baron, has arrived at his door, thin and wavering. The door is open and Lister stands by it.
‘The Baroness?’ says the Baron, passively departing from his coat which slides over Lister’s arm.
‘No, sir, she hasn’t arrived. Mr Passerat is waiting.’
‘When did he come?’
‘About half-past six, sir.’
‘Anyone with him?’
‘Two women in the car. They’re waiting outside.’
‘Let them wait,’ says the Baron and goes towards the library, across the black and white paving of the hall. He hesitates, half-turns, then says, ‘I’ll wash in here,’ evidently referring to a wash-room adjoining the library.
•
‘I thought it best,’ Lister says as he enters the servants’ sitting-room, ‘to tell him about those two women waiting outside, perceiving as I did from his manner that he had already noticed them. — “Anyone with Mr Passerat?” he said with his eye to me. “Yes, sir,” I said, “two ladies. They are waiting in the car.” Why he asked me that redundant question I’ll never know.’
‘He was testing you out,’ says Hadrian who is whisking two eggs in a bowl.
‘Yes, that’s what I think, too,’ says Lister. ‘I feel wounded. I opened the door of the library. Passerat got up. The Baron said “Good evening, Victor” and Passerat said “Good evening.” Whereupon, being unwanted, I respectfully withdrew. Sic transit gloria mundi.’
‘They will be sitting down having a drink,’ says Pablo who has cleaned himself up and is now regarding his hair from a distance in the oval looking-glass. This way and that he turns his head, with its hair shiny-black.
‘Didn’t he ask for more ice?’ says Eleanor. ‘They never have enough ice.’
‘They have plenty of ice in the drinks cupboard. I filled the ice-box, myself, and put more on refrigeration this afternoon when you were all busy with your telephoning and personal arrangements,’ Lister says. ‘They have ice. All they need now is the Baroness.’
‘Oh, she’ll come, don’t worry,’ says Clovis, stacking his papers neatly.
‘I wish she’d hurry,’ says Heloise, as she slumps in a puffy cretonned armchair. ‘I want to eat my dinner in peace.’
Hadrian has prepared a tray on which he has placed a dish of scrambled eggs, a plate of thin toasted buttered bread, a large cup and saucer and a silver thermos-container of some beverage. Eleanor, with vague movements, leaves her table-setting to place on the tray a knife, a fork and a spoon; then she covers the toast and the eggs with silver plate-covers.
‘What are you doing?’ says Hadrian, grabbing the knife and fork off the tray. ‘What’s come over you?’
‘Oh, I forgot,’ says Eleanor. ‘I’ve been in a state all day.’ She replaces the knife and fork with one large spoon.
Lister goes to the house-telephone, lifts the receiver, and presses a button. Presently the instrument wheezes. ‘Supper on its way up to him in the attic,’ says Lister. ‘Yours will follow later.’
The instrument wheezes again.
‘We’ll keep you informed,’ says Lister. ‘All you have to do is stay there till we tell you not to.’ He hangs up. ‘Sister Barton is worried,’ he says. ‘Him in the attic is full of style this evening and likely to worsen as the night draws on. Another case of intuition.’
Hadrian takes the tray in his hands and as he leaves the room he asks, ‘Shall I tell Sister Barton to call the doctor?’
‘Leave it to Sister Barton,’ says Lister, gloomily, with his eyes on other thoughts. ‘Leave it to her.’
Heloise says, ‘I can manage him in the attic myself, if it comes to that. I’ve always been good to him in the attic.’
‘You better get some sleep after you’ve had your supper, my girl,’ says Clovis. ‘You’ve got a big night ahead. The reporters will be here in the morning if not before.’
‘It might not take place till six-ish in the morning,’ says Heloise. ‘Once they start arguing it could drag on all night. I’m intuitive, as Mr Lister says, and —’
‘Only as regards your condition,’ says Lister. ‘Normally, you are not a bit intuitive. You’re thick, normally. It’s merely that in your condition the Id tends to predominate over the Ego.’
‘I have to be humoured,’ says Heloise, shutting her eyes. ‘Why can’t I have some grapes?’
‘Give her some grapes,’ says Pablo.
‘Not before dinner,’ says Clovis.
‘Clara!’ says Theo the porter. ‘Clara!’
‘It’s only that I’m burning with desire to ask them what’s going on up at the house tonight,’ she says.
‘Come back here. Come right back, darling,’ he says, drawing her into the sitting-room where the fire glows and flares behind the fender. ‘Desire,’ he says.
‘Theo!’ she says.
‘You and your nightmares,’ Theo says. He shuts the door of the sitting-room and sits beside her on the sofa, absentmindedly plucking her thigh while he stares at the dancing fire. ‘You and your dreams.’
Clara says, ‘There’s nothing in it for us. We were better off at the Ritz in Madrid.’
‘Now, now. We’re doing better here. We’re doing much better here. Lister is very generous. Lister is very, very generous.’ Theo picks up the poker and turns a coal on the fire, making it flare, while Clara swings her legs up on to the sofa. ‘Theo,’ she says, ‘did I tell you Hadrian came down here to borrow a couple of eggs?’
‘And what else, Clara,’ says Theo. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Just the eggs.’
‘I can’t turn my back but he’s down here,’ says Theo. ‘I’ll report him to the Baron tomorrow morning.’ He goes to draw the window-curtains. ‘And Clovis,’ he says
, ‘for not keeping an eye on him.’ Theo returns to the sofa.
Clara screams ‘No, no, I’ve changed my mind,’ and pushes him away. She ties up her cord-trimmed dressing-gown.
‘Not so much of it, Clara,’ says Theo. ‘All this yes-no. I could have the Baroness if I want. Any minute of the hour. Any hour of the day.’
‘Oh, it’s you that makes me dream these terrible things, Theo,’ she says. ‘When you talk like that, on and on about the Baroness, with her grey hair. You should be ashamed.’
‘She’s got grey hair all places,’ Theo says, ‘from all accounts.’
‘If I was a man,’ says Clara, ‘I’d be sick at the thought.’
‘Well, from all accounts, I’d sooner sleep with her than a dead policeman,’ says Theo.
‘Hark, there’s a car on the road. It must be her,’ says Clara. But Theo is not harking. She plucks at his elastic braces and says, ‘A disgrace that they didn’t have an egg in the house for the idiot-boy’s supper. Something must be happening up there. I’ve felt it all week, haven’t you, Theo?’
Theo has no words, his breath being concentrated by now on Clara alone. She says, ‘And there’s the car drawing up. Theo — it’s stopped at the gate. Theo, you’d better go.’
He draws back from his wife for the split second which it takes him to say, ‘Shut up.’
‘I can hear the honking at the gate,’ she says in a loud voice — ‘Don’t you hear her sounding the horn? All week in my dreams I’ve heard the honking at the gate.’ Theo grunts.
The car honks twice and Theo now puts on his coat and pulls himself together with the dignity of a man who does one thing at a time in due order. He goes to the hall, takes the keys from the table drawer and walks forth into the damp air to open the gate beyond which a modest cream coupé is honking still.
It pulls up at the porter’s lodge after it has been admitted. The square-faced woman at the wheel is the only occupant. She lets down the window and says, cheerfully, ‘How are you, Theo?’
‘Very well, thanks, Madam. Sorry to keep you waiting, Madam. There was a question of eggs for the poor gentleman in the attic, his supper.’
She smiles charmingly from under her great fur hat.
‘Everything goes wrong when I’m away, doesn’t it? And how is Clara, is she enjoying this little house?’
‘Oh yes, Madam, we’re very happy in this job,’ says Theo. ‘We’re settling in nicely.’
‘You’ll get used to our ways, Theo.’
‘Well, Madam, we’ve had plenty of experience behind us, Clara and me. So we’ve shaken down here nicely.’ He shivers, standing in the cold night, bareheaded in his porter’s uniform.
‘Your rapport with the servants — is that all right?’ gently inquires the Baroness.
Theo hesitates, then opens his mouth to speak. But the Baroness puts in, ‘Your relationship with them? You get on all right with them?’
‘Oh yes, Madam. Perfectly, Madam. Thanks.’ He steps back a little pace, as if only too ready to withdraw quickly into the warm cottage.
The Baroness makes no move to put her thick-gloved hand on the wheel. She says, ‘I’m so very glad. Among servants of such mixed nationalities, it’s very difficult sometimes to achieve harmony. Indeed, we’re one of the few places in the country that has a decent-sized staff. I don’t know what the Baron and I would do without you all.’
Theo crosses his arms and clutches each opposite sleeve of his coat just below the shoulders, like an isolated body quivering in its own icy sphere. He says, ‘You’ll be glad to get in the house tonight, Madam. Wind coming across the lake.’
‘You must be feeling the cold,’ she says, and starts up the car.
‘Good night, Madam.’
‘Good night.’
He backs into the porchway of the cottage, then quickly turns to push open the door. In the hall he lifts the house-telephone and waits for a few seconds, still shivering, till it comes alive. ‘The Baroness,’ he says, then. ‘Just arrived. Anybody else expected?’
The speaker from the kitchen at the big house says something briefly and clicks off. ‘What?’ says Theo to the dead instrument. Then he hangs up, runs out of the front door and closes the big gates. He returns as rapidly to the warm sitting-room where Clara is lying dreamily on the sofa, one arm draped along its back and another drooping over the edge. ‘You waiting for the photographer?’ says Theo.
‘What was all that talk?’ Clara says.
‘Shivering out there. She was in her car, of course, didn’t feel it. On and on. Asked after you. She says, are we happy here?’
Pablo has got into the little cream coupé and driven it away from the front of the house as soon as Lister has helped the Baroness out of it, taken her parcels, banged shut the car door, and followed her up the steps and into the hall.
‘Here,’ she says, pulling off her big fur hat in front of the hall mirror. Lister takes it while she roughs up her curly grey hair. She slips off her tweed coat, picks up her handbag and says, ‘Where’s everyone?’
‘The Baron is in the library, Madam, with Mr Passerat.’
‘Good,’ she says, and gives another hand to her hair. Then she pulls at her skirt, thick at the waist and hips, and says, ‘Tell Irene I’ll be up to change in half-an-hour.’
‘Irene’s off tonight, Madam.’
‘Heloise, is she here?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘Still working? Is she fit and well?’
‘Oh, she’s all right, Madam. I’ll tell her to go and prepare for you.’
‘Only if she’s feeling up to it,’ says the Baroness. ‘I think the world of Heloise,’ she says, stumping heavily to the library door which she opens before Lister can reach it, pausing before she enters to turn to Lister while the voices within suddenly stop. ‘Lister,’ she says, standing in the doorway. ‘Theo and Clara — they have to go. I’m so very sorry but I need the little house for one of my cousins. We don’t really need a porter. I leave it to you, Lister.’
‘Well, Madam, it’s a delicate matter at the moment. They won’t be expecting this.’
‘I know, I know. Arrange something to make it easy, Lister. The Baron and I would be so grateful.’ Then she throws open the door somewhat dramatically and walks in, while the two men get up from the grey leather armchairs. Lister waits in the room, by the door.
‘Nothing, thanks, Lister,’ says the Baron. ‘We have everything here for the moment.’ He waves towards the drinks cupboard in a preoccupied way. The Baroness flops into a sofa while Lister, about to leave the room, is halted by the Baron’s afterthought — ‘Lister, if anyone calls, we aren’t on any account to be disturbed.’ The Baron looks at the ormolu and blue enamelled clock, and then at his own wristwatch. ‘We don’t want to be disturbed by anyone whomsoever.’ Lister moves his lips and head compliantly and leaves.
‘They haunt the house,’ says Lister, ‘like insubstantial bodies, while still alive. I think we have a long wait in front of us.’ He takes his place at the head of the table. ‘He said on no account to disturb them. “Not to be disturbed, Lister.” You should have seen the look on her face. My mind floats about, catching at phantoms and I think of the look on her face. I am bound to ventilate this impression or I won’t digest my supper.’
‘Not a bad woman,’ says Pablo.
‘She likes to keep grace and favour in her own hands,’ Lister says, ‘and leave disagreeable matters to others. “The couple at the
lodge has to go, Lister,” she said, “I rely on you to tell them. I need the lodge for my cousins,” or was it “my cousin”? — one, two, three, I don’t know. The point is she wants the lodge for them.’
‘How many cousins can she possibly have?’ says Eleanor, looking at the clean prongs of her fork, for some reason, before making them coincide with a morsel of veal. ‘And all the secretaries besides.’
‘Cousins uncountable, secretaries perhaps fewer,’ says Lister, ‘if only she had survived to enjoy them. As it is the lodge will probably be vacated anyhow. No need for me to speak to the poor silly couple.’
‘You never know,’ says Heloise.
‘Listen! — I hear a noise,’ says Pablo.
‘The shutters banging upstairs,’ says Hadrian.
‘No, it’s him in the attic, throwing his supper plates around,’ Heloise says.
‘It wasn’t plates, it was a banging,’ Pablo says. ‘There it goes. Listen.’
‘Eat on,’ says Clovis. ‘It’s only the couple of ladies in the car again. They’re getting impatient.’
‘Why don’t they ring?’ says Lister as he listens to the thumping on the back door.
‘I disconnected the back door bell,’ Clovis says. ‘We need our meal in peace. Since I was goaded to do most of the cooking it’s my say that goes. Nobody leaves the table before their supper’s over.’
‘Suppose one of them in the library rings for us?’ Eleanor says.
Lister reaches out for his wine-glass and sips from it. The banging at the door continues. Clovis says, ‘It’s doubtful if they will call us, now. However, we must no longer respond, it would be out of the question. To put it squarely, as I say in my memoir, the eternal triangle has come full circle.’
‘They’ve as good as gone to Kingdom Come,’ says Lister, ‘However, it is I who decide whether or not we answer any summons, hypothetical or otherwise.’
‘It’s Lister who decides,’ says his aunt Eleanor.
