Sir Pompey And Madame Juno

by Martin Armstrong

  Mildred’s nerves never left her alone for long; indeed, they had come, by degrees, to dominate not only her own life but also Edward’s. Even on the rare occasions when she and Edward could afford a holiday, it was her nerves that dictated where they were to go. What with her headaches and sleeplessness, there were so few places that suited them. Even the doctors didn’t understand her. Last summer her latest doctor had ordered the East Coast: Whitby, of all places! That, of course, was absurd: she herself had said so from the first; but Edward, for once, had insisted. He pointed out, with a deadly reasonableness, that it was useless to go from doctor to doctor without ever carrying out the instructions of any of them: that it was right to suppose that a doctor who had made a special study of nervous cases knew better what a patient needed than the patient herself. In fact Edward had insisted on Whitby, and Mildred, with a sigh and a shrug of her shoulders, had yielded. One got tired, in the end, of struggling against people who never even tried to understand one. But events had proved her right. Two days before they were to have started she was assailed by such a serious attack that the visit had to be postponed. ‘My poor Edward,’ she had said, raising her large eyes to his as he stood at her bedside, ‘I knew how it would be,’ That was all: not a word of reproach to anyone. But the doctor, as it turned out, had been firm about Whitby. Four days later he had pronounced her not only fit to travel but actually in urgent need of the very air which, it appeared, Whitby alone could supply; and to Whitby they had gone. But, once again, Mildred proved to have been right. Her nerves at Whitby were worse, much worse, than ever – so bad, indeed, that Edward still looked back on that holiday with horror, for never once did Mildred’s nerves allow her to be even tolerable company. Throughout their visit she would neither do anything nor say anything, and nothing that Edward could do was any good. If he sat with her, offered to read to her, or to get for her anything she might want, it only seemed to irritate her; and if, seeing that he irritated her, he left her and went for a walk, then she felt aggrieved. ‘Of course, my poor dear, I mustn’t expect you to sit all day with an invalid,’ she would say, looking sadly into his eyes.

  At last, even Mildred herself began to be a little surprised at her attitude towards Edward. Why was she always so disagreeable to him? She did not know, herself. An irresistible impulse goaded her. The smallest thing would start it. One day, as they sat in the gardens listening to the band, Edward had remarked that it was chilly and with a little shiver Mildred had agreed.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like me to get your coat?’ he asked.

  That was enough. Instantly Mildred felt irritable. Why must he always ask questions, always lay the obligation of choice upon her? She really wanted her coat, but it was hateful to her to have to say Yes. It amounted to asking him a favour. ‘No, thank you!’ she replied.

  ‘But you said you felt chilly. You’d better let me get it.’

  She shook her head impatiently. ‘I said “No, thank you,” Edward!’ How annoying he was; and still more annoying when, as he always did, he took her at her word! For what Mildred really wanted him to do was to get the coat either without asking her at all or else in spite of her refusal. Then she would have either accepted it with a petulant, protesting sigh or thrown it aside, reminding him: ‘But I told you, Edward, I didn’t want it.’

  The climax came one morning towards the end of their visit. Mildred had begun the day with impenetrable sulks, but after breakfast she had consented to go for a stroll and had gone to her room to get ready. Edward sat waiting for her in the hall. He waited an hour; then, as she still failed to appear, he went to her room. But Mildred was not in her room. He looked into the drawing-room on his way downstairs, but the drawing-room too was empty. At last he found her in the lounge. She was sitting in an easy chair staring idly in front of her. She had not even put on her hat.

  ‘Why, Mildred … !’ he said, going up to her chair. But Mildred took no notice of him. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been waiting for you all this time.’

  Mildred looked up at him. ‘No!’ she replied, and immediately turned away her head.

  ‘You’re not feeling well?’

  ‘Quite. Thanks!’ She hardly opened her mouth to let out the two dry monosyllables.

  ‘Do you intend to sit here all morning?’

  Mildred nodded sulkily. It was clear that she intended to give no explanation of her change of mind.

  Edward stood bewildered. What could he do? He had no notion, even after all these years, how to deal with these moods. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘you would like some papers to read?’

  ‘No, thanks!’ She began to beat time irritably with one foot.

  Edward laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘There’s really nothing I can do for you?’

  She suddenly raised her eyes. ‘You can go away,’ she broke out with extreme ill-temper, ‘and leave me in peace.’

  Edward drew back. ‘For how long?’ he asked. The question, simple creature that he was, was asked in perfect innocence. He was ready, if only she would say when, to return as soon as ever she wanted him to return. It did not occur to him that his question, to one already in a bad temper, was an exasperating one.

  Mildred turned from him with a quick gesture of hatred. ‘Oh, go! For God’s sake, go!’ As she spoke she stamped her foot, as though words alone could never express the violence of her irritation. Then she covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shut him out. Never before had she exhibited a loathing so undisguised.

  That, for Edward, had been the end of it. At that moment the last pallid remains of his sorely-tried love had been extinguished. Externally it made little difference. Mildred noticed no change in his behaviour to her except on those rare occasions when it suited her to be sweet and forgiving – those occasions when she would smile up at him, lay her hands on his shoulders, and murmur: ‘Poor dear! Your delicate wife is a great trial, isn’t she?’ At such moments she began to be aware that Edward’s responses had lost something of their old ardour. They had become detached, even summary. ‘All right, old girl!’ he would say, and before Mildred realized what was happening he had kissed her and brought the incident to an abrupt close. It was a little surprising, a little disrespectful, from a man so utterly devoted to his wife: however, it was, after all, only another sign that Edward, however much he might love her in his simple, crude way, never really understood her.

  But for Edward himself the difference was tremendous. Mildred had been enough of a trial when he loved her: but now that his love for her was dead it seemed that life had lost all its savour. His work at the office kept him busy, of course, for the greater part of the day, but now there was no alleviation in the hours spent at home. Boxed in a small house with an ill-tempered woman no longer loved, whose unstable moods he still felt it his duty to indulge, he felt his life becoming daily more colourless and more unbearable. His youth and gaiety began to wither: he grew subject to fits of depression which he found more and more difficult to resist. Most terrible of all was the certainty that the future held no relief. For the rest of his life he was doomed to the dreary alternation of office and home, broken only by the still more desolating holiday with this soul-destroying woman.

  Then, out of the blue, had come that astonishing letter. He had found it waiting for him among his other correspondence one morning when he arrived at the office. Having read it, he sat with it lying before him, immovable, dazed, slowly and gradually realizing, as in some wonderfully unfolding dream, the incredible meaning of what it announced to him. He must have sat idle for over an hour when at last he roused himself to write the letters which the surprising event required.

  During the next few days Edward went about his affairs like a man in a trance. He was bewildered, dazzled. Morning, noon, and night it filled his thoughts. His mind was busy with plans and schemes: his emotions were in a state of intense but strangely peaceful ferment. It was as if his mind and soul were growing, developing, like a flower in sunshine.

  U
ntil every detail was settled he said nothing to Mildred. To tell her would only have led to endless arguments, discussions, and scenes, and on the main point his mind had already been made up within an hour of receiving the news. But a week later, when the morning mail brought him the assurance that the last detail of business was settled, he decided that the moment had come to break the news.

  They had just begun breakfast. It was not perhaps the most favourable moment, for Mildred had come down in one of her sulkiest moods and when Edward, holding up the letter, said to her, ‘I should like, Mildred, before I start for the office, to talk over rather an important matter with you,’ her face clouded at once. ‘Not now, please, Edward!’ she replied.

  ‘As you like, my dear. Only, it is rather urgent and it would be more convenient not only for me but also for you…’

  Mildred closed her eyes with that air of long-suffering which was one of her favourite retorts, and repeated once again, as if for the benefit of a supremely stupid person: ‘Not now, please, Edward.’

  Edward shrugged his shoulders and put the letter in his pocket. When he returned home that afternoon he found Mildred playing the piano. She did not stop when he entered the room: she did not so much as turn her head.

  Edward raised his voice above the music. ‘About this business matter, Mildred,’ he began.

  Mildred turned her head, but did not stop playing. ‘Wait, Edward! Wait! Can’t you hear I’m in the middle of a piece?’

  Edward waited and Mildred played on. He knew the piece and he knew that she was deliberately playing it much more slowly than she usually played it. When at last she reached the final chord, he rose to his feet.

  ‘Now, Mildred … !’ he said. But Mildred was still playing. She was improvising chords and arpeggios. Her hands wandered idly and listlessly over the keys. Edward, exasperated beyond endurance, took up a china bowl which stood on a table beside him and sent it crashing into the grate.

  That at least stopped the music. With a shriek Mildred leapt from her seat and turned on him. ‘How dare you!’ she screamed, quivering and breathless. ‘How dare you do that I’ and she began to whimper hysterically. But something in Edward’s face silenced her. He spoke quietly, but Mildred had noticed the quick swelling and contracting of his nostrils.

  ‘Are you going to listen or are you not?’ he asked.

  For a moment Mildred stared back at him dumbly. She was struggling between rage and a new sense of fear. ‘No!’ she said at last.

  ‘Very well!’ Edward turned on his heel and made for the door.

  ‘Where are you going, Edward?’ she asked tremulously.

  ‘Out!’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Out!’he shouted. ‘Out! Anywhere! Tooting! Blackpool! the Ural Mountains!’

  She had never seen Edward so furious. The foolish, comic words made his fury the more alarming. She had carried her stubbornness too far: something must be done.

  Suddenly she became all soft gentleness. ‘Anywhere, to get away from me!’ she murmured reproachfully.

  ‘Exactly!’ answered Edward.

  ‘Edward, how can you say such unkind things to me!’

  ‘It was you who said it, my dear. Why deny yourself the credit for it, especially as it’s true!’

  Mildred’s heart was beginning to flutter. This, in Edward, was something new. What had happened? Had she lost her control over him? ‘Edward,’ she whimpered, ‘I believe you hate me!’

  ‘You’re right, Mildred. I do.’

  For a moment Mildred’s face was sullen, then her expression changed and she went up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re very naughty this evening!’ she cooed.

  But Edward stepped back, wrenching his shoulders from her grasp. ‘Don’t be a fool!’ he said. ‘I’m in no mood for pawing and purring. I’m sick of these endless sulks and reconciliations – sick of them, do you hear?’ He shouted the words at her so loudly that Mildred raised her hands to her ears.

  ‘Edward! Edward! My nerves!’

  ‘Damn your nerves!’ he shouted. ‘What about my nerves! Do you ever think of them?” You pretend you’re a poor little invalid with delicate nerves: perhaps you believe it yourself by this time: but you’re wrong. You’re simply a creature of whims and moods – nice when it suits you to be, damnable when it doesn’t – simply an idle, discontented, selfish, tyrannical woman with no sense of decency and an iron constitution.’

  He paused, breathless, and, noticing his breath-lessness, laughed. ‘There!’ he said, grown suddenly calm. ‘I feel better. Now sit down, please, and listen to my business. It affects you rather closely.’

  Mildred sat down obediently. This sudden calmness of Edward’s was even more disquieting than his anger.

  ‘An uncle of mine,’ he began, ‘whom I have never seen – he lived all his life abroad – has just died and left me twenty thousand pounds. Surprising, isn’t it, Mildred? That means a thousand a year. And do you realize what a thousand a year means? It means that we are free, Mildred.’

  ‘Free, Edward?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Free. It means that you are free from me and I am free from you. Do you see? Money is a wonderful thing, Mildred. It has been so simple for me, for instance, to open an account in your name at the bank and arrange that two hundred and fifty pounds shall be paid into it every half-year. As for myself, on my way home just now I bought myself a ticket for … well, for a place whose name I need not mention – a place on the Continent. I start this evening at nine-thirty.’

  Mildred stared at him aghast. ‘But … but …’ she began.

  Edward interrupted her. ‘We won’t discuss it, Mildred. Everything, you see, is already settled: in fact, I have a taxi coming in …’ – he took out his watch – ‘in twenty minutes. I must go and pack at once.’

  He turned from her and strode to the door and next moment Mildred heard his feet on the stairs. She stood beside the chair in which she had sat all the time he had been speaking, staring, dazed and bewildered, in front of her. After standing immovable for what seemed at least an hour, she dropped back into the chair. Edward’s footsteps in the bedroom overhead kept up an endless come and go, Through her stupor she heard a taxi stop at the front-door: then the door-bell rang and, almost immediately after, there were steps on the stairs and the door behind her opened. She raised her eyes. Edward stood in the half-open door way.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’

  For a moment it seemed as if he were coming towards her. Then abruptly he checked himself and, before she had moved or spoken, she found herself staring stupidly at the closed door. He had gone. And, when the taxi drove away a minute later, she was still staring.

  My Poor Dear Uncle

  Every table in the restaurant was filled. Showers of lights hung from the lofty ceiling, dwarfing the activity below, where, among the white of table-linen, the black and white of dresssuits, the patches of bright and various colours and the subdued sparkle of the women’s dresses and jewels, waiters carrying dishes and bottles threaded noiselessly among the tables over the thick-piled crimson carpet. Everywhere there was a sense of ease, good manners, refined indifference – everywhere except at a round table in a corner at which sat four old gentlemen. Here there was no indifference: on the contrary things were humming – rising, as it were, by well-sustained degrees to some yet unrealized climax. The old boys ate and drank assiduously, devoutly; and, as each new dish or bottle was seen to be approaching, they turned their attention to it with the undisguised and innocent zest of children, welcoming it to their bosoms with a twinkling of eyes, an expansion of smiles, and a joyful rubbing of palms.

  For this was an occasion-an occasion which happened only twice in the year. Twice in the year these old gentlemen – Mr. Puffinlow, Mr. Lipscombe, Colonel Anstruther, and the irresistible Mr. Freddie Cumberbatch – would meet together in London for the mere purpose of dining. And dine they did, sumptuously and unforgettably. For a week before the occasion the menu wa
s the object of careful and anxious thought which ended in a preliminary visit to the restaurant where in a private room Mr. Freddie Cumberbatch sat in close and earnest consultation with M. Arnaud the chef.

  But although, as has been said, there was a definite and unique character in their demonstrations in the presence of food and drink, a closer attention revealed individual differences. Mr. Puffinlow-who was turnip-headed, bleary-eyed, wore a walrus moustache, and laughed through his nose-showed in his transports a certain seriousness, a tenacity and a rolling of the eye which betrayed the gourmand under the gourmet. Mr. Lipscombe, a barrister, was cooler and more restrained in his actions, though the boyish gleam of his eye and the set of the clean-shaved, epicurean mouth, somewhat drawn-in between the keen, intellectual nose and chin, were enough to destroy any suggestion of apathy. The Colonel, on the other hand, turned upon each new bottle or dish that regard of penetrating ferocity with which he had been accustomed to inspect recruits. But not for long: for very soon his fine, frost-bitten features dissolved into an enraptured smile and his eyes danced jocularly as he adjusted his eye-glass for a closer examination. But it was from Mr. Freddie Cumberbatch that the true spirit of the party radiated. His round, rosy face, his close, sandy moustache and side whiskers, his dancing, flaming blue eyes, his little round paunch and the whole of his plump little body glowed with the purest and most innocent joy. It was the joy of the babe at the sight of his mother, of the angels in heaven over the sinner that repents. He it was and Mr. Puffinlow who did most of the talking. The Colonel would occasionally tell a brief and pointed story of strange occurrences in remote lands, or interject a highly-charged snarl: at intervals Mr. Lipscombe with the nicest adjustment would let fall into the conversation a dry, acidulated drop which threw the party into a sudden delighted ferment; but for the most part Mr. Cumberbatch wove his glittering symphonies, and Mr. Puffinlow his more solemn fugues, uninterrupted.