TOCCATA AND FUGUE
And term was really over then!
Gaveston could hardly believe it. But yet--it must be: already the
3.43 from Oxford had slid through the pale December sunlight past
Hinksey Halt, Goring-and-Streatley, and Slough (for Windsor). He
had unfolded the still ink-perfumed pages of his _Daily Telegraph_
only to crumple the paper up in exasperation at the _bourgeois_
complacency of its intolerable _clichés_, and it lay forgotten in a
corner of the first-class compartment. No, the frore Chiltern Hills
and the willow-shadowed water-meadows had been fitter accompaniment
for the rhythm of his musings, playing as they were upon two months
dappled with such perplexing patterns of sun-warm happiness and frosty
disillusionment.…
This had been but his first term. But nevertheless, with Mongo’s help,
he had succeeded in getting himself elected to the Union Society
without a single blackball; and after that the other clubs, smaller
and less exclusive, had hastened to net in this remarkable freshman.
Soon no host had felt his party, whether breakfast or cocoa, to be a
real social _éclat_ unless one at least of his guests could enliven
the discussion, whether it turned upon the beauties of Beowulf or
the existence of a Deity, by the apt quotation of Gaveston ffoulis’s
opinion on the point at moot. And Gaveston had soon won a name for
himself, too, by the quiet and unostentatious entertaining he had
done, receiving the nicer sort of undergraduate now in his Wallace
_pied-à-terre_, now in the quaint but distinctive Cadena grill-room;
and his meals were voted by the _cordons bleus_ of the University to be
worthy of the best modern Luculli and Mæcenasses.
He had made good.
He lit a plump Turkish cigarette, and lay back to ponder both present
and future.
Had this Oxford that he loved anything more to give him, he wondered?
Who could tell? Maybe an answer would come from the Babylonian sphinx
whose smoky breath he could now see besmirching the virgin sky. Who
could tell? But, meanwhile, his thoughts could scarcely move beyond the
long-looked for pleasure of once again seeing his mother. She would be
waiting for him, he felt sure, at Paddington, and as the train rushed
thitherwards he let his mind run ahead of it to feast on the exquisite
prospect.…
Yes, Julia, Lady Penhaligon had played a more urgent and immediate rôle
in her son’s life than is the privilege of most mothers. And she had
her reward. He always chose her hats for her now.
The only daughter of Sir Piers ffoulis, one of the last of the
English statesmen, she had been married when but twenty-nine to a
famous explorer of the Arctic Seas. An altogether unexpected thawing
of the Great Krioquhkho pack-ice, which soon after the wedding he
went to survey, brought him back to England a year before his return
was anticipated, and he found himself obliged to divorce poor Julia
directly after, and indeed on account of, her son’s birth.
But she had drawn consolation from the boy’s eyes, which were already
remarkable, and had determined that at all costs _he_ should be
beautiful and happy.
“And you’ve succeeded, mother dear,” he would often tell her in a burst
of grateful confidence.
Her love, she resolved, would be recompense enough for the cruelty of
his fate. She would remain young, no matter what the expense (and it
was great), to keep him company, and in the meantime she remarried.
But, as the autumn came remorselessly round, she was once more
divorced. (Gaveston could still remember her tears when she came up
to the night-nursery to tell him how absurdly unreasonable the King’s
Proctor had threatened to be that time.…) Then for quite a considerable
period she lived in singleness, but, just before Gav was going to Eton,
a Baronet had proposed to her. He was old. But, as the precocious boy
pointed out, the title was older. And so Mrs. Fünck, as Mums then was,
had accepted Sir Evan Penhaligon.
Of Gaveston the baronet was as fond as of the mother, perhaps
fonder, and there had been long amazing holidays for the boy in his
step-father’s house. It was one of the smallest houses in Mayfair,
but, as Gav was fond of saying to his less fortunate friends, that was
better than the largest in West Kensington. And he remembered----
* * * * *
But there! That was Ealing! And a moment later the train was slowing
down as it curved into Paddington.
And yes! His happiness was complete! He found his mother furrily
ensconced in the deep-seated mauve Rolls-Royce.
“I’ve come all, yes, all the way to meet you, Gav,” she whispered
between her kisses. “And such a long way it’s been. Why ever don’t we
live in--is it Bayswaters they call it? So near this, isn’t it?”
“As absurd as ever, mother, and younger I’m certain.” He thought he had
never seen his mother radiant with so ethereal a beauty. “You pet,” he
went on, taking her hand, “I never dreamed of your meeting me.”
“But what a lovely blue engine they gave your train, dearest,” and she
slipped a cushion in Gaveston’s corner.
Gav nodded to the chauffeur.
“I’ll drive,” he said, and then quickly: “No, I won’t. Home, Curzon.”
And he got inside the luxurious _coupé_ beside Lady Penhaligon. For
suddenly he had seen his mother’s sombre eyelids fluttering in that
faint pathetic way they had. How helpless, how pitiful that look was!
And how terribly familiar! It only appeared when her life had reached
one of its great crises.
The car sped from the station.
“And now, dearest, you’ll be able to help me,” Gav heard his mother
murmuring as she fumbled in the embossed leather pocket on the door of
the car. He felt sure something had happened.
“Not again, Mums?” he asked with a gentle but worldly smile.
“Yes: respondent,” she smiled back. “But, seriously, do you think
black is _really_ necessary?” and she handed him a folded copy of _The
Times_.
“I must think it over, mother dear,” and he looked down the familiar
column of the paper.
DIVORCE AND ADMIRALTY
Dawkins _v._ Dawkins and Smithers.
Jones _v._ Jones and another (Pt. Hd.).
Penhaligon _v._ Penhaligon, Rosenbaum, Litovski, du Val,
Spirella, van Houten, Casablanca and Mahmoud Pasha.
“Next Tuesday, I think they said it was,” said Lady Julia Penhaligon,
“and it’s going to mean a new step-dad for you, Gav. Do you prefer one
nationality to another? They all have their attractions, you know. I
love travelling, though I never went to the Arctic.”
Gaveston was never a Jingo, but unhesitatingly he answered,
“English.”[5]
[5] The late Mr. Budd took an active interest in the League of
Nations. (LIT. EXEC.)
“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed.
“Yes, Joey Rosenbaum’s certainly the dearest of dears, but so’s his
wife really, and then that would mean another case, and how expensive
things are getting.… I owe Reville thousands as it is.… Oh, Gav,” she
coaxed, “would you mind _mon petit du Val_? He’s so nice at ordering a
dinner--oh, you’d _love_ him.”
Curzon was opening the door.
“_Justement comme vous voulez, ma chérie_,” said Gav with courtly grace
as, arm-in-arm, they went up the steps.
Home again!
* * * * *
The first week of Gaveston’s vacation disappeared in a long whirl
of consultations with dressmakers, lawyers, furriers and beauty
specialists, on his mother’s behalf, and, on his own, in visits to
the photographer and tailor. (There was only one Hugh Cecil and Willy
Clarkson, wasn’t there?) Indeed, he hardly found time to have his
things packed up (they were leaving Half Moon Street, of course) or
even to arrange the flowers of a morning. And then, once again, he
found himself at that fateful Paddington, seeing his mother off to
Bournemouth, after the successful pronouncement of the decree, her grey
eyes shining with a new happiness. And suddenly he felt a terrible
loneliness.
“But I shall only be away three or four weeks, Gav dear,” she had said.
“And I’m always as happy as a bird with Cousin Adolpha----”
“As a mocking-bird?” Gav had queried laughingly to mask his bitter
disappointment at missing for the first time his mother’s companionship
at the festive season.
But he had promised to be a good boy, and to treat his dear Uncle
Wilkinson with tact.
“You’ve such a lot,” she said wistfully, “and anyway it will be nice
for you living in the[6] Albany this cold weather. It _was_ sweet of
him to ask you to stay with him for your holidays.”
[6] _Sic_ throughout. A more experienced novelist would
doubtless have omitted the “the.” (LIT. EXEC.)
And then the train had pulled out in its ruthless way, almost before
he had time to find his way to the door of the reserved Pullman
saloon-car, heavy with the scent of the winter-roses he had ordered to
be sent from Selfridge’s that morning. How poignant was their sweetness
amid the smoke and bustle and jangle of the mammoth terminus!
Gaveston drove the Panhard (it was his favourite) back to Half Moon
Street. Already the posters of the evening papers were sprawling in the
muddy gutters and flapping in the rain-soaked wind----
PENHALIGON CASE: RESULT.
How sad it all really was, he reflected, beneath the glittering
surface, and how nerve-racking those months between the _nisi_ and the
absolute. Poor Mums.… Was it rain on the wind-screen that dimmed his
view of the lighted street as the great Panhard purred down the Edgware
Road, or.… He brushed his eyes, and opened the throttle wider.…
He picked up his suit-cases at the house, and drove round without delay
to the Albany Yard.
“Sir Wilkinson ffoulis?” he asked the porter.
“C, sir,” came the answer, “on your right, if you please.”
And C, The Albany, was to be Gav’s address for the rest of this
vacation.
Gaveston took care only to meet people of whose peculiarness and
uniquity he could be proud, and so he always felt a properly nepotal
affection for Sir Wilkinson ffoulis, K.V.O. A diplomat, now retired, he
had been _en poste_ at Reijkavik, Quito, Adis Ababa, and Cayenne. “And
after that,” the veteran would say, casting up his eyes to the Angelica
Kauffmann ceiling of the St. James’s Club, “I was fifteen months _en
disponibilité_, pressin’ my claims to a chargéship in Pesth or Janeiro.
They offered me Albania. I preferred the Albany.”
Wilkinson had his share of the dry ffoulis wit.
“Milord receives,” said Hekla, the Icelandic valet. He showed Gaveston
into a room decorated exclusively with signed photographs of the
various royalties whom Sir Wilkinson had been able to serve in those
directions for which he had an all but unique talent, and which formed
a very frequent subject for his reflection and reminiscence.
“Glad you’ve come, m’ boy,” he said heartily. “I think you’ll be
comfortable here while your mother’s away, and, gad! you’ll brighten up
the old place for me. I feel so _diablement disoccupato_, y’ know,” he
went on meditatively, “but I’ll enjoy helpin’ you to find your feet in
town. Don’t suppose you’ve seen much of the green-rooms yet, eh?”
Gaveston made a deprecating gesture.
“But look here: there’s a little Spanish gal singin’ at the Col.
just now … remember once the King of the Belgians, the old ’un … the
Ludwigstrasse tried to get hold of her then … ended as a Principessa
… but old Leopold sent me that photograph all the same.” And the old
fellow chuckled.
Gaveston knew all his uncle’s stories, and only listened at intervals:
they were more interesting like that.
“Thanks immensely, Uncle Wilkie,” he replied. “Awfully thoughtful of
you. But I want to think things over first.”
“Young devil…! Want to drive your own wagon, eh?”
“Shan’t hitch it to a Star, though,” flashed Gaveston.
“He! he! Good lad! Gad! you’re a ffoulis all right. _Quel garçon!_” and
with a laugh that he had learned from the accounts of those who had
known the Marquess of Steyne, the old rake donned his beaver-hat and
started on his quotidian round of the more exclusive clubs.
But as he went out of the door he threw Gaveston a latch-key.
“Catch, m’ boy!” he called to him.