[Cover Illustration]
Vile Bodies
A NOVEL BY
EVELYN WAUGH
CHAPMAN & HALL
LONDON
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1930
THIS EDITION, RESET, 1965
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BUTLER & TANNER LTD
FROME & LONDON
CATALOGUE NO. 4/5055/02
WITH LOVE TO
BRYAN MOYNE AND DIANA MOSLEY
Preface
This was a totally unplanned novel. I had the facility at the age of 25
to sit down at my table, set a few characters on the move, write 3000
words a day, and note with surprise what happened. The composition of
_Vile Bodies_ was interrupted by a sharp disturbance in my private life
and was finished in a very different mood from that in which it was
begun. The reader may, perhaps, notice the transition from gaiety to
bitterness.
It was the first of my books to be a popular success. _Decline and Fall_
had been well reviewed but its sales in its first year were small, fewer
than 3000 copies if I remember rightly. _Vile Bodies_ caught the public
fancy for extraneous reasons. ‘The Bright Young People’ with whom it
deals, and of whom I was a member rather on the fringe than in the
centre, were one of the newspaper topics of the time. They were totally
unlike the various, publicized groups of modern youth, being mostly of
good family and education and sharp intelligence, but they were equally
anarchic and short-lived. The jargon most of us spoke came new to the
novel reader and so captivated one prominent dramatic critic that for
weeks he introduced into articles week after week: ‘“Too sick-making”,
as Mr Waugh would say.’ There was also a pretty accurate description of
Mrs Rosa Lewis and her Cavendish Hotel, just on the brink of their
decline but still famous. I think I can claim that this was the first
English novel in which dialogue on the telephone plays a large part. For
reasons of novelty the many gross faults were overlooked. There were not
many comic writers at that time and I filled a gap. I began under the
brief influence of Ronald Firbank but struck out for myself. It is not a
book I enjoy re-reading but there are one or two funny scenes which
redeem it from banality. I like Colonel Blount, though he is a figure
from conventional farce. He was brilliantly played by Athol Stewart in a
very poor dramatic version. I may add that at the time I invented
‘Father Rothschild’ I had never met a Jesuit.
E. W.
_Combe Florey_ 1964
_‘Well in_ our _country,’ said Alice, still panting a little,
‘you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for
a long time, as we’ve been doing.’_
_‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now_, here, _you
see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same
place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least
twice as fast as that!’_
_‘If I wasn’t real,’ Alice said—half laughing through her
tears, it all seemed so ridiculous—‘I shouldn’t be able to
cry.’_
_‘I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?’ Tweedledum
interrupted in a tone of great contempt._
—A L I C E T H R O U G H T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S
_Chapter One_
It was clearly going to be a bad crossing.
With Asiatic resignation Father Rothschild S.J. put down his suitcase in
the corner of the bar and went on deck. (It was a small suitcase of
imitation crocodile hide. The initials stamped on it in Gothic
characters were not Father Rothschild’s, for he had borrowed it that
morning from the _valet-de-chambre_ of his hotel. It contained some
rudimentary underclothes, six important new books in six languages, a
false beard and a school atlas and gazetteer heavily annotated.)
Standing on the deck Father Rothschild leant his elbows on the rail,
rested his chin in his hands and surveyed the procession of passengers
coming up the gangway, each face eloquent of polite misgiving.
Very few of them were unknown to the Jesuit, for it was his happy knack
to remember everything that could possibly be learned about every one
who could possibly be of any importance. His tongue protruded very
slightly and, had they not all been so concerned with luggage and the
weather, some one might have observed in him a peculiar resemblance to
those plaster reproductions of the gargoyles of Notre Dame which may be
seen in the shop windows of artists’ colourmen tinted the colour of ‘Old
Ivory’, peering intently from among stencil outfits and plasticine and
tubes of water-colour paint. High above his head swung Mrs Melrose Ape’s
travel-worn Packard car, bearing the dust of three continents, against
the darkening sky, and up the companion-way at the head of her angels
strode Mrs Melrose Ape, the woman evangelist.
‘Faith.’
‘Here, Mrs Ape.’
‘Charity.’
‘Here, Mrs Ape.’
‘Fortitude.’
‘Here, Mrs Ape.’
‘Chastity. . . . Where is Chastity?’
‘Chastity didn’t feel well, Mrs Ape. She went below.’
‘That girl’s more trouble than she’s worth. Whenever there’s any packing
to be done, Chastity doesn’t feel well. Are all the rest here—Humility,
Prudence, Divine Discontent, Mercy, Justice and Creative Endeavour?’
‘Creative Endeavour lost her wings, Mrs Ape. She got talking to a
gentleman in the train. . . . Oh, there she is.’
‘Got ’em?’ asked Mrs Ape.
Too breathless to speak, Creative Endeavour nodded. (Each of the angels
carried her wings in a little black box like a violin case.)
‘Right,’ said Mrs Ape, ‘and just you hold on to ’em tight and not so
much talking to gentlemen in trains. You’re angels, not a panto, see?’
The angels crowded together disconsolately. It was awful when Mrs Ape
was like this. My, how they would pinch Chastity and Creative Endeavour
when they got them alone in their nightshirts. It was bad enough their
going to be so sick without that they had Mrs Ape pitching into them
too.
Seeing their discomfort, Mrs Ape softened and smiled. She was nothing if
not ‘magnetic’.
‘Well, girls,’ she said, ‘I must be getting along. They say it’s going
to be rough, but don’t you believe it. If you have peace in your hearts
your stomach will look after itself, and remember if you _do_ feel
queer—_sing_. There’s nothing like it.’
‘Good-bye, Mrs Ape, and thank you,’ said the angels; they bobbed
prettily, turned about and trooped aft to the second-class part of the
ship. Mrs Ape watched them benignly, then, squaring her shoulders and
looking (except that she had really no beard to speak of) every inch a
sailor, strode resolutely forrard to the first-class bar.
Other prominent people were embarking, all very unhappy about the
weather; to avert the terrors of sea-sickness they had indulged in every
kind of civilized witchcraft, but they were lacking in faith.
Miss Runcible was there, and Miles Malpractice, and all the Younger Set.
They had spent a jolly morning strapping each other’s tummies with
sticking plaster (how Miss Runcible had wriggled).
The Right Honourable Walter Outrage, M.P., last week’s Prime Minister,
was there. Before breakfast that morning (which had suffered in
consequence) Mr Outrage had taken twice the maximum dose of a patent
preparation of chloral, and losing heart later had finished the bottle
in the train. He moved in an uneasy trance, closely escorted by the most
public-looking detective sergeants. These men had been with Mr Outrage
in Paris, and what they did not know about his goings on was not worth
knowing, at least from a novelist’s point of view. (When they spoke
about him to each other they called him ‘the Right Honourable Rape’, but
that was more by way of being a pun about his name than a criticism of
the conduct of his love affairs, in which, if the truth were known, he
displayed a notable diffidence and the liability to panic.)
Lady Throbbing and Mrs Blackwater, those twin sisters whose portrait by
Millais auctioned recently at Christie’s made a record in rock-bottom
prices, were sitting on one of the teak benches eating apples and
drinking what Lady Throbbing, with late Victorian _chic_, called ‘a
bottle of pop’, and Mrs Blackwater, more exotically, called
‘_champagne_’, pronouncing it as though it were French.
‘Surely, Kitty, that is Mr Outrage, last week’s Prime Minister.’
‘Nonsense, Fanny, where?’
‘Just in front of the two men with bowler hats, next to the clergyman.’
‘It is certainly like his photographs. How strange he looks.’
‘Just like poor Throbbing . . . all that last year.’
‘. . . And none of us even suspected . . . until they found the bottles
under the board in his dressing-room . . . and we all used to think it
was drink . . .’
‘I don’t think one finds _quite_ the same class as Prime Minister
nowadays, do you think?’
‘They say that only _one_ person has any influence with Mr Outrage
. . .’
‘At the Japanese Embassy . . .’
‘Of course, dear, not so loud. But tell me, Fanny, seriously, do you
think really and truly Mr Outrage has IT?’
‘He has a very nice figure for a man of his age.’
‘Yes, but _his_ age, and the bull-like type is so often disappointing.
Another glass? You will be grateful for it when the ship begins to
move.’
‘I quite thought we _were_ moving.’
‘How absurd you are, Fanny, and yet I can’t help laughing.’
So arm in arm and shaken by little giggles the two tipsy old ladies went
down to their cabin.
Of the other passengers, some had filled their ears with cotton wool,
others wore smoked glasses, while several ate dry captain’s biscuits
from paper bags, as Red Indians are said to eat snake’s flesh to make
them cunning. Mrs Hoop repeated feverishly over and over again a formula
she had learned from a yogi in New York City. A few ‘good sailors’,
whose luggage bore the labels of many voyages, strode aggressively about
smoking small, foul pipes and trying to get up a four of bridge.
Two minutes before the advertised time of departure, while the first
admonitory whistling and shouting was going on, a young man came on
board carrying his bag. There was nothing particularly remarkable about
his appearance. He looked exactly as young men like him do look; he was
carrying his own bag, which was disagreeably heavy, because he had no
money left in francs and very little left in anything else. He had been
two months in Paris writing a book and was coming home because, in the
course of his correspondence, he had got engaged to be married. His name
was Adam Fenwick-Symes.
Father Rothschild smiled at him in a kindly manner.
‘I doubt whether you remember me,’ he said. ‘We met at Oxford five years
ago at luncheon with the Dean of Balliol. I shall be interested to read
your book when it appears—an autobiography, I understand. And may I be
one of the first to congratulate you on your engagement? I am afraid you
will find your father-in-law a little eccentric—and forgetful. He had a
nasty attack of bronchitis this winter. It’s a draughty house—far too
big for these days. Well, I must go below now. It is going to be rough
and I am a bad sailor. We meet at Lady Metroland’s on the twelfth, if
not, as I hope, before.’
Before Adam had time to reply the Jesuit disappeared. Suddenly the head
popped back.
‘There is an extremely dangerous and disagreeable woman on board—a Mrs
Ape.’
Then he was gone again, and almost at once the boat began to slip away
from the quay towards the mouth of the harbour.
Sometimes the ship pitched and sometimes she rolled and sometimes she
stood quite still and shivered all over, poised above an abyss of dark
water; then she would go swooping down like a scenic railway train into
a windless hollow and up again with a rush into the gale; sometimes she
would burrow her path, with convulsive nosings and scramblings like a
terrier in a rabbit hole; and sometimes she would drop dead like a lift.
It was this last movement that caused the most havoc among the
passengers.
‘Oh,’ said the Bright Young People. ‘Oh, oh oh.’
‘It’s just exactly like being inside a cocktail shaker,’ said Miles
Malpractice. ‘Darling, your face—eau de Nil.’
‘Too, too sick-making,’ said Miss Runcible, with one of her rare flashes
of accuracy.
Kitty Blackwater and Fanny Throbbing lay one above the other in their
bunks rigid from wig to toe.
‘I wonder, do you think the _champagne_ . . . ?’
‘Kitty.’
‘Yes, Fanny, dear.’
‘Kitty, I think, in fact, I am sure I have some sal volatile. . . .
Kitty, I thought that perhaps as you are nearer . . . it would really
hardly be safe for me to try and descend . . . I might break a leg.’
‘Not after _champagne_, Fanny, do you think?’
‘But I need it. Of course, dear, _if it’s too much trouble_?’
‘Nothing is too much trouble, darling, you know that. But now I come to
think of it, I remember, quite clearly, for a fact, that you did _not_
pack the sal volatile.’
‘Oh, Kitty, oh, Kitty, please . . . you would be sorry for this if I
died . . . oh.’
‘But I saw the sal volatile on your dressing-table after your luggage
had gone down, dear. I remember thinking, I must take that down to
Fanny, and then, dear, I got confused over the tips, so you see . . .’
‘I . . . put . . . it . . . in . . . myself. . . . Next to my brushes
. . . you . . . beast.’
‘Oh, Fanny . . .’
‘Oh . . . Oh . . . Oh.’
To Father Rothschild no passage was worse than any other. He thought of
the sufferings of the saints, the mutability of human nature, the Four
Last Things, and between whiles repeated snatches of the penitential
psalms.
The Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition lay sunk in a rather glorious
coma, made splendid by dreams of Oriental imagery—of painted paper
houses; of golden dragons and gardens of almond blossom; of golden limbs
and almond eyes, humble and caressing; of very small golden feet among
almond blossoms; of little painted cups full of golden tea; of a golden
voice singing behind a painted paper screen; of humble, caressing little
golden hands and eyes shaped like almonds and the colour of night.
Outside his door two very limp detective sergeants had deserted their
posts.
‘The bloke as could make trouble on a ship like this ’ere deserves to
get away with it,’ they said.
The ship creaked in every plate, doors slammed, trunks fell about, the
wind howled; the screw, now out of the water, now in, raced and churned,
shaking down hat-boxes like ripe apples; but above all the roar and
clatter there rose from the second-class ladies’ saloon the despairing
voices of Mrs Ape’s angels, in frequently broken unison, singing,
singing, wildly, desperately, as though their hearts would break in the
effort and their minds lose their reason, Mrs Ape’s famous hymn, _There
ain’t no flies on the Lamb of God_.
The Captain and the Chief Officer sat on the bridge engrossed in a
crossword puzzle.
‘Looks like we may get some heavy weather if the wind gets up,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t wonder if there wasn’t a bit of a sea running to-night.’
‘Well, we can’t always have it quiet like this,’ said the Chief Officer.
‘Word of eighteen letters meaning carnivorous mammal. Search me if I
know how they do think of these things.’
Adam Fenwick-Symes sat among the good sailors in the smoking-room
drinking his third Irish whisky and wondering how soon he would feel
definitely ill. Already there was a vague depression gathering at the
top of his head. There were thirty-five minutes more, probably longer
with the head wind keeping them back.
Opposite him sat a much-travelled and chatty journalist telling him
smutty stories. From time to time Adam interposed some more or less
appropriate comment, ‘No, I say that’s a good one,’ or, ‘I must remember
that,’ or just ‘Ha, Ha, Ha,’ but his mind was not really in a receptive
condition.
Up went the ship, up, up, up, paused and then plunged down with a
sidelong slither. Adam caught at his glass and saved it. Then shut his
eyes.
‘Now I’ll tell you a drawing-room one,’ said the journalist.
Behind them a game of cards was in progress among the commercial gents.
At first they had rather a jolly time about it, saying, ‘What ho, she
bumps,’ or ‘Steady, the Buffs,’ when the cards and glasses and ash-tray
were thrown on to the floor, but in the last ten minutes they were
growing notably quieter. It was rather a nasty kind of hush.
‘. . . And forty aces and two-fifty for the rubber. Shall we cut again
or stay as we are?’
‘How about knocking off for a bit? Makes me tired—table moving about
all the time.’
‘Why, Arthur, you ain’t feeling ill, surely?’
‘’Course I ain’t feeling ill, only tired.’
‘Well, of course, if Arthur’s feeling ill . . .’
‘Who’d have thought of old Arthur feeling ill?’
‘I ain’t feeling ill, I tell you. Just tired. But if you boys want to go
on I’m not the one to spoil a game.’
‘Good old Arthur. ’Course he ain’t feeling ill. Look out for the cards,
Bill, up she goes again.’
‘What about one all round? Same again?’
‘Same again.’
‘Good luck, Arthur.’ ‘Good luck.’ ‘Here’s fun.’ ‘Down she goes.’
‘Whose deal? You dealt last, didn’t you, Mr Henderson?’
‘Yes, Arthur’s deal.’
‘Your deal, Arthur. Cheer up, old scout.’
‘Don’t you go doing that. It isn’t right to hit a chap on the back like
that.’
‘Look out with the cards, Arthur.’
‘Well, what d’you expect, being hit on the back like that. Makes me
tired.’
‘Here, I got fifteen cards.’
‘I wonder if you’ve heard this one,’ said the journalist. ‘There was a
man lived at Aberdeen, and he was terribly keen on fishing, so when he
married, he married a woman with worms. That’s rich, eh? You see he was
keen on fishing, see, and she had worms, see, he lived in Aberdeen.
That’s a good one that is.’
‘D’you know, I think I shall go on deck for a minute. A bit stuffy in
here, don’t you think?’
‘You can’t do that. The sea’s coming right over it all the time. Not
feeling queer, are you?’
‘No, of course I’m not feeling queer. I only thought a little fresh air
. . . Christ, why won’t the damn thing stop?’
‘Steady, old boy. I wouldn’t go trying to walk about, not if I were you.
Much better stay just where you are. What you want’s a spot of whisky.’
‘Not feeling ill, you know. Just stuffy.’
‘That’s all right, old boy. Trust Auntie.’
The bridge party was not being a success.
‘Hullo, Mr Henderson. What’s that spade?’
‘That’s the ace that is.’
‘I can see it’s the ace. What I mean you didn’t ought to have trumped
that last trick not if you had a spade.’
‘What d’you mean, didn’t ought to have trumped it? Trumps led.’
‘No, they did _not_. Arthur led a spade.’
‘He led a trump, didn’t you, Arthur?’
‘Arthur led a spade.’
‘He couldn’t have led a spade because for why he put a heart on my king
of spades when I thought he had the queen. He hasn’t got no spades.’
‘What d’you mean, not got no spades? I got the queen.’
‘Arthur, old man, you _must_ be feeling queer.’
‘No, I ain’t, I tell you, just tired. You’d be tired if you’d been hit
on the back same as I was . . . anyway I’m fed up with this game . . .
there go the cards again.’
This time no one troubled to pick them up. Presently Mr Henderson said,
‘Funny thing, don’t know why I feel all swimmy of a sudden. Must have
ate something that wasn’t quite right. You never can tell with foreign
foods—all messed up like they do.’
‘Now you mention it, I don’t feel too spry myself. Damn bad ventilation
on these Channel boats.’
‘That’s what it is. Ventilation. You said it.’
‘You know I’m funny. I never feel sea-sick, mind, but I often find going
on boats doesn’t agree with me.’
‘I’m like that, too.’
‘Ventilation . . . a disgrace.’
‘Lord, I shall be glad when we get to Dover. Home, sweet home, eh?’
Adam held on very tightly to the brass-bound edge of the table and felt
a little better. He was _not_ going to be sick, and that was that; not
with that gargoyle of a man opposite anyway. They _must_ be in sight of
land soon.
It was at this time, when things were at their lowest, that Mrs Ape
reappeared in the smoking-room. She stood for a second or two in the
entrance balanced between swinging door and swinging door-post; then as
the ship momentarily righted herself, she strode to the bar, her feet
well apart, her hands in the pockets of her tweed coat.
‘Double rum,’ she said and smiled magnetically at the miserable little
collection of men seated about the room. ‘Why, boys,’ she said, ‘but
you’re looking terrible put out over something. What’s it all about? Is
it your souls that’s wrong or is it that the ship won’t keep still?
Rough? ’Course it’s rough. But let me ask you this. If you’re put out
this way over just an hour’s sea-sickness’ (‘Not sea-sick, ventilation,’
said Mr Henderson mechanically), ‘what are you going to be like when you
make the mighty big journey that’s waiting for us all? Are you right
with God?’ said Mrs Ape. ‘Are you prepared for death?’
‘Oh, am I not?’ said Arthur. ‘I ’aven’t thought of nothing else for the
last half hour.’
‘Now, boys, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to sing a
song together, you and me.’ (‘Oh, God,’ said Adam.) ‘You may not know
it, but you are. You’ll feel better for it body _and_ soul. It’s a song
of Hope. You don’t hear much about Hope these days, do you? Plenty about
Faith, plenty about Charity. They’ve forgotten all about Hope. There’s
only one great evil in the world to-day. Despair. I know all about
England, and I tell you straight, boys, I’ve got the goods for you.
Hope’s what you want and Hope’s what I got. Here, steward, hand round
these leaflets. There’s the song on the back. Now all together . . .
sing. Five bob for you, steward, if you can shout me down. Splendid, all
together, boys.’
In a rich, very audible voice Mrs Ape led the singing. Her arms rose,
fell and fluttered with the rhythm of the song. The bar steward was hers
already—inaccurate sometimes in his reading of the words, but with a
sustained power in the low notes that defied competition. The journalist
joined in next and Arthur set up a little hum. Soon they were all at it,
singing like blazes, and it is undoubtedly true that they felt the
better for it.
Father Rothschild heard it and turned his face to the wall.
Kitty Blackwater heard it.
‘Fanny.’
‘Well.’
‘Fanny, dear, do you hear singing?’
‘Yes, dear, thank you.’
‘Fanny, dear, I hope they aren’t holding a _service_. I mean, dear, it
sounds so like a hymn. Do you think, possibly, we are _in danger_?
Fanny, are we going to be wrecked?’
‘I should be neither surprised nor sorry.’
‘Darling, how can you? . . . We should have heard it, shouldn’t we, if
we had actually _hit_ anything? . . . Fanny, dear, if you like I will
have a look for your sal volatile.’
‘I hardly think that would be any help, dear, since you _saw_ it on my
dressing-table.’
‘I may have been mistaken.’
‘You _said_ you _saw_ it.’
The captain heard it. ‘All the time I been at sea,’ he said, ‘I never
could stand for missionaries.’
‘Word of six letters beginning with ZB,’ said the chief officer,
‘meaning “used in astronomic calculation”.’
‘Z can’t be right,’ said the captain after a few minutes’ thought.
The Bright Young People heard it. ‘So like one’s first parties,’ said
Miss Runcible, ‘being sick with other people singing.’
Mrs Hoop heard it. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘I’m through with theosophy
after this journey. Reckon I’ll give the Catholics the once over.’
Aft, in the second-class saloon, where the screw was doing its worst,
the angels heard it. It was some time since they had given up singing.
‘Her again,’ said Divine Discontent.
Mr Outrage alone lay happily undisturbed, his mind absorbed in lovely
dream sequences of a world of little cooing voices, so caressing, so
humble; and dark eyes, night-coloured, the shape of almonds over painted
paper screens; little golden bodies, so flexible, so firm, so surprising
in the positions they assumed.
They were still singing in the smoking-room when, in very little more
than her usual time, the ship came into the harbour at Dover. Then Mrs
Ape, as was her invariable rule, took round the hat and collected nearly
two pounds, not counting her own five shillings which she got back from
the bar steward. ‘Salvation doesn’t do them the same good if they think
it’s free,’ was her favourite axiom.
_Chapter Two_
‘Have you anything to declare?’
‘Wings.’
‘Have you wore them?’
‘Sure.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘Divine Discontent gets all the smiles all the time,’ complained
Fortitude to Prudence. ‘Golly, but it’s good to be on dry land.’
Unsteadily, but with renewed hope, the passengers had disembarked.
Father Rothschild fluttered a diplomatic _laissez-passer_ and
disappeared in the large car that had been sent to meet him. The others
were jostling one another with their luggage, trying to attract the
Customs officers and longing for a cup of tea.
‘I got half a dozen of the best stowed away,’ confided the journalist.
‘They’re generally pretty easy after a bad crossing.’ And sure enough he
was soon settled in the corner of a first-class carriage (for the paper
was, of course, paying his expenses) with his luggage safely chalked in
the van.
It was some time before Adam could get attended to.
‘I’ve nothing but some very old clothes and some books,’ he said.
But here he showed himself deficient in tact, for the man’s casual air
disappeared in a flash.
‘Books, eh?’ he said. ‘And what sort of books, may I ask?’
‘Look for yourself.’
‘Thank _you_, that’s what I mean to do. _Books_, indeed.’
Adam wearily unstrapped and unlocked his suitcase.
‘Yes,’ said the Customs officer menacingly, as though his worst
suspicions had been confirmed, ‘I should just about say you had got some
books.’
One by one he took the books out and piled them on the counter. A copy
of Dante excited his especial disgust.
‘French, eh?’ he said. ‘I guessed as much, and pretty dirty, too, I
shouldn’t wonder. Now just you wait while I look up these here
_books_’—how he said it!—‘in my list. Particularly against books the
Home Secretary is. If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we
can at least stop its being brought in from outside. That’s what he said
the other day in Parliament, and I says “Hear, hear. . . .” Hullo,
hullo, what’s this, may I ask?’
Gingerly, as though it might at any moment explode, he produced and laid
on the counter a large pile of type-script.
‘That’s a book too,’ said Adam. ‘One I’ve just written. It is my
memoirs.’
‘Ho, it is, is it? Well, I’ll take that along, too, to the chief. You
better come to.’
‘But I’ve got to catch the train.’
‘You come along. There’s worse things than missing trains,’ he hinted
darkly.
They went together into an inner office, the walls of which were lined
with contraband pornography and strange instruments, whose purpose Adam
could not guess. From the next room came the shrieks and yells of poor
Miss Runcible, who had been mistaken for a well-known jewel smuggler,
and was being stripped to the skin by two terrific wardresses.
‘Now then, what’s this about books?’ said the chief.
With the help of a printed list (which began ‘Aristotle, Works of
(Illustrated)’) they went through Adam’s books, laboriously, one at a
time, spelling out the titles.
Miss Runcible came through the office, working hard with lipstick and
compact.
‘Adam, darling, I never saw you on the boat,’ she said. ‘My dear, I
can’t _tell_ you the _things_ that have been happening to me in there.
The way they looked . . . too, too shaming. Positively surgical, my
dear, and _such_ wicked old women, just like _Dowagers_, my dear. As
soon as I get to London I shall ring up every Cabinet Minister and _all_
the newspapers and give them all the most shy-making details.’
The chief was at this time engrossed in Adam’s memoirs, giving vent at
intervals to a sinister chuckling sound that was partly triumphant and
partly derisive, but in the main genuinely appreciative.
‘Coo, Bert,’ he said. ‘Look at this; that’s rich, ain’t it?’
Presently he collected the sheets, tied them together and put them on
one side.
‘Well, see here,’ he said. ‘You can take these books on architecture and
the dictionary, and I don’t mind stretching a point for once and letting
you have the history books, too. But this book on Economics comes under
Subversive Propaganda. That you leaves behind. And this here
_Purgatorio_ doesn’t look right to me, so that stays behind, pending
inquiries. But as for this autobiography, that’s just downright dirt,
and we burns that straight away, see.’
‘But, good heavens, there isn’t a word in the book—you must be
misinterpreting it.’
‘Not so much of it. I knows dirt when I sees it or I shouldn’t be where
I am to-day.’
‘But do you realize that my whole livelihood depends on this book?’
‘And _my_ livelihood depends on stopping works like this coming into the
country. Now ’ook it quick if you don’t want a police-court case.’
‘Adam, angel, don’t fuss or we shall miss the train.’
Miss Runcible took his arm and led him back to the station and told him
all about a lovely party that was going to happen that night.
‘_Queer_, who felt queer?’
‘You did, Arthur.’
‘No I never . . . just tired.’
‘It certainly was stuffy in there just for a bit.’
‘Wonderful how that old girl cheered things up. Got a meeting next week
in the Albert Hall.’
‘Shouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t go. What do you say, Mr Henderson?’
‘She got a troupe of angels, so she said. All dressed up in white with
wings, lovely. Not a bad-looker herself, if it comes to that.’
‘What did you put in the plate, Arthur?’
‘Half-crown.’
‘So did I. Funny thing, I ain’t never give a half-crown like that
before. She kind of draws it out of you, damned if she doesn’t.’
‘You won’t get away from the Albert Hall not without putting your hand
in your pocket.’
‘No, but I’d like to see those angels dressed up, eh, Mr Henderson?’
‘Fanny, surely that is Agatha Runcible, poor Viola Chasm’s daughter?’
‘I wonder Viola allows her to go about like that. If she were my
daughter. . . .’
‘_Your_ daughter, Fanny. . . .’
‘Kitty, that was not kind.’
‘My dear, I only meant . . . have you, by the way, heard of her lately?’
‘The last we heard was worse than anything, Kitty. She has left Buenos
Aires. I am afraid she has severed her connection with Lady Metroland
altogether. They think that she is in some kind of touring company.’
‘Darling, I’m sorry. I should never have mentioned it, but whenever I
see Agatha Runcible I can’t help thinking . . . girls seem to know so
much nowadays. We had to learn everything for ourselves, didn’t we,
Fanny, and it took so long. If I’d had Agatha Runcible’s chances. . . .
Who is the young man with her?’
‘I don’t know, and, frankly, I don’t think, do you? . . . He has that
self-contained look.’
‘He has very nice eyes. And he moves well.’
‘I dare say when it came to the point . . . Still, as I say, if I had
had Agatha Runcible’s advantages . . .’
‘What are you looking for, darling?’
‘Why, darling, such an extraordinary thing. Here _is_ the sal volatile
next to my brushes all the time.’
‘Fanny, how awful of me, if I’d only known . . .’
‘I dare say there must have been another bottle you saw on the
dressing-table, sweetest. Perhaps the maid put it there. You never know
at the Lotti, do you?’
‘Fanny, forgive me . . .’
‘But, dearest, what is there to forgive? After all, you _did see_
another bottle, didn’t you, Kitty darling?’
‘Why, look, there’s Miles.’
‘Miles?’
‘Your son, darling. My nephew, you know.’
‘_Miles._ Do you know, Kitty, I believe it is. He never comes to see me
now, the naughty boy.’
‘My dear, he looks terribly _tapette_.’
‘Darling, I know. It is a great grief to me. Only I try not to think
about it too much—he had so little chance with poor Throbbing what he
was.’
‘The sins of the fathers, Fanny . . .’
Somewhere not far from Maidstone Mr Outrage became fully conscious.
Opposite him in the carriage the two detectives slept, their bowler hats
jammed forwards on their foreheads, their mouths open, their huge red
hands lying limply in their laps. Rain beat on the windows; the carriage
was intensely cold and smelt of stale tobacco. Inside there were
advertisements of horrible picturesque ruins; outside in the rain were
hoardings advertising patent medicines and dog biscuits. ‘Every
Molassine dog cake wags a tail,’ Mr Outrage read, and the train repeated
over and over again, ‘Right Honourable gent, Right Honourable gent,
Right Honourable gentleman, Right Honourable gent . . .’
Adam got into the carriage with the Younger Set. They still looked a bit
queer, but they cheered up wonderfully when they heard about Miss
Runcible’s outrageous treatment at the hands of the Customs officers.
‘_Well_,’ they said, ‘_Well!_ how too, too shaming, Agatha, darling,’
they said. ‘How devastating, how un-policeman-like, how goat-like, how
sick-making, how too, too awful.’ And then they began talking about
Archie Schwert’s party that night.
‘Who’s Archie Schwert?’ asked Adam.
‘Oh, he’s someone new since you went away. The _most_ bogus man. Miles
discovered him, and since then he’s been climbing and climbing and
_climbing_, my dear, till he hardly knows us. He’s rather sweet, really,
only too terribly common, poor darling. He lives at the Ritz, and I
think that’s rather grand, don’t you?’
‘Is he giving his party there?’
‘My dear, of course not. In Edward Throbbing’s house. He’s Miles’
brother, you know, only he’s frightfully dim and political, and doesn’t
know anybody. He got ill and went to Kenya or somewhere and left his
perfectly sheepish house in Hertford Street, so we’ve all gone to live
there. You’d better come, too. The caretakers didn’t like it a bit at
first, but we gave them drinks and things, and now they’re simply
thrilled to the marrow about it and spend all their time cutting out
“bits”, my dear, from the papers about our goings on.
‘One awful thing is we haven’t got a car. Miles broke it, Edward’s, I
mean, and we simply can’t afford to get it mended, so I think we shall
have to move soon. Everything’s getting rather broken up, too, and
dirty, if you know what I mean. Because, you see, there aren’t any
servants, only the butler and his wife, and they are always tight now.
So demoralising. Mary Mouse has been a perfect angel, and sent us great
hampers of caviare and things. . . . She’s paying for Archie’s party
to-night, of course.’
‘Do you know, I rather think I’m going to be sick again?’
‘Oh, Miles!’
(Oh, Bright Young People!)
Packed all together in a second-class carriage, the angels were late in
recovering their good humour.
‘She’s taken Prudence off in her car again,’ said Divine Discontent, who
once, for one delirious fortnight, had been Mrs Ape’s favourite girl.
‘Can’t see what she sees in her. What’s London like, Fortitude? I never
been there but once.’
‘Just exactly heaven. Shops and all.’
‘What are the men like, Fortitude?’
‘Say, don’t you never think of nothing but _men_, Chastity?’
‘I should say I do. I was only asking.’
‘Well, they ain’t much to look at, not after the shops. But they has
their uses.’
‘Say, did you hear that? You’re a cute one, Fortitude. Did you hear what
Fortitude said? She said “they have their uses”.’
‘What, shops?’
‘No, silly, men.’
‘_Men._ That’s a good one, I should say.’
Presently the train arrived at Victoria, and all these passengers were
scattered all over London.
Adam left his bag at Shepheard’s Hotel, and drove straight to Henrietta
Street to see his publishers. It was nearly closing time, so that most
of the staff had packed up and gone home, but by good fortune Mr Sam
Benfleet, the junior director with whom Adam always did his business,
was still in his room correcting proofs for one of his women novelists.
He was a competent young man, with a restrained elegance of appearance
(the stenographer always trembled slightly when she brought him his cup
of tea).
‘No, she can’t print that,’ he kept saying, endorsing one after another
of the printer’s protests. ‘No, damn it, she can’t print _that_. She’ll
have us all in prison.’ For it was one of his most exacting duties to
‘ginger up’ the more reticent of the manuscripts submitted and ‘tone
down’ the more ‘outspoken’ until he had reduced them all to the
acceptable moral standard of his day.
He greeted Adam with the utmost cordiality.
‘Well, well, Adam, how are you? This is nice. Sit down. Have a
cigarette. What a day to arrive in London. Did you have a good
crossing?’
‘Not too good.’
‘I say, I _am_ sorry. Nothing so beastly as a beastly crossing, is
there? Why don’t you come round to dinner at Wimpole Street to-night?
I’ve got some rather nice Americans coming. Where are you staying?’
‘At “Shepheard’s”—Lottie Crump’s.’
‘Well, that’s always fun. I’ve been trying to get an autobiography out
of Lottie for ten years. And that reminds me. You’re bringing us your
manuscript, aren’t you? Old Rampole was asking about it only the other
day. It’s a week overdue, you know. I hope you’ll like the preliminary
notices we’ve sent out. We’ve fixed the day of publication for the
second week in December, so as to give it a fortnight’s run before
Johnnie Hoop’s autobiography. That’s going to be a seller. Sails a bit
near the wind in places. We had to cut out some things—you know what
old Rampole is. Johnnie didn’t like it a bit. But I’m looking forward
terribly to reading yours.’
‘Well, Sam, rather an awful thing happened about that . . .’
‘I say, I hope you’re not going to say it’s not finished. The date on
the contract, you know . . .’
‘Oh, it’s finished all right. Burnt.’
‘Burnt?’
‘Burnt.’
‘What an awful thing. I hope you are insured.’
Adam explained the circumstances of the destruction of his
autobiography. There was a longish pause while Sam Benfleet thought.
‘What worries me is how are we going to make that sound convincing to
old Rampole.’
‘I should think it sounded convincing enough.’
‘You don’t know old Rampole. It’s sometimes very difficult for me, Adam,
working under him. Now if I had my own way I’d say, “Take your own time.
Start again. Don’t worry . . .” But there’s old Rampole. He’s a devil
for contracts, you know, and you did _say_, didn’t you . . . ? It’s all
very difficult. You know, I wish it hadn’t happened.’
‘So do I, oddly enough,’ said Adam.
‘There’s another difficulty. You’ve had an advance already, haven’t you?
Fifty pounds, wasn’t it? Well, you know, _that_ makes things very
difficult. Old Rampole never likes big advances like that to young
authors. You know I hate to say it, but I can’t help feeling that the
best thing would be for you to repay the advance—plus interest, of
course, old Rampole would insist on that—and cancel the contract. Then
if you ever thought of re-writing the book, well, of course, we should
be delighted to consider it. I suppose that—well, I mean, it _would_ be
quite _convenient_, and all that, to repay the advance?’
‘Not only inconvenient, but impossible,’ said Adam in no particular
manner.
There was another pause.
‘Deuced awkward,’ said Sam Benfleet. ‘It’s a shame the way the Customs
House officers are allowed to take the law into their own hands. Quite
ignorant men, too. Liberty of the subject, I mean, and all that. I tell
you what we’ll do. We’ll start a correspondence about it in the _New
Statesman_. . . . It is all so deuced awkward. But I think I can see a
way out. I suppose you could get the book rewritten in time for the
Spring List? Well, we’ll cancel the contract and forget all about the
advance. No, no, my dear fellow, don’t thank me. If only I was alone
here I’d be doing that kind of thing all day. Now instead we’ll have a
new contract. It won’t be quite so good as the last, I’m afraid. Old
Rampole wouldn’t stand for that. I’ll tell you what, we’ll give you our
standard first-novel contract. I’ve got a printed form here. It won’t
take a minute to fill up. Just sign here.’
‘May I just see the terms?’
‘Of course, my dear fellow. They look a bit hard at first, I know, but
it’s our usual form. We made a very special case for you, you know. It’s
very simple. No royalty on the first two thousand, then a royalty of two
and a half per cent., rising to five per cent, on the tenth thousand. We
retain serial, cinema, dramatic, American, Colonial and translation
rights, of course. And, of course, an option on your next twelve books
on the same terms. It’s a very straightforward arrangement really.
Doesn’t leave room for any of the disputes which embitter the relations
of author and publisher. Most of our authors are working on a contract
like that. . . . Splendid. Now don’t you bother any more about that
advance. I understand _perfectly_, and I’ll square old Rampole somehow,
even if it comes out of my director’s fees.’
‘Square old Rampole,’ repeated Mr Benfleet thoughtfully as Adam went
downstairs. It was fortunate, he reflected, that none of the authors
ever came across the senior partner, that benign old gentleman, who once
a week drove up to board meetings from the country, whose chief interest
in the business was confined to the progress of a little book of his own
about bee-keeping, which they had published twenty years ago and, though
he did not know it, allowed long ago to drop out of print. He often
wondered in his uneasy moments what he would find to say when Rampole
died.
It was about now that Adam remembered that he was engaged to be married.
The name of his young lady was Nina Blount. So he went into a tube
station to a telephone-box, which smelt rather nasty, and rang her up.
‘Hullo.’
‘Hullo.’
‘May I speak to Miss Blount, please?’
‘I’ll just see if she’s in,’ said Miss Blount’s voice. ‘Who’s speaking,
please?’ She was always rather snobbish about the fiction of having
someone to answer the telephone.
‘Mr Fenwick-Symes.’
‘Oh.’
‘Adam, you know. . . . How are you, Nina?’
‘Well, I’ve got rather a pain just at present.’
‘Poor Nina, shall I come round and see you?’
‘No, don’t do that, darling, because I’m just going to have a bath. Why
don’t we dine together?’
‘Well, I asked Agatha Runcible to dinner.’
‘Why?’
‘She’d just had all her clothes taken off by some sailors.’
‘Yes, I know, it’s all in the evening paper to-night. . . . Well, I’ll
tell you what. Let’s meet at Archie Schwert’s party. Are you going?’
‘I rather said I would.’
‘That’s all right, then. Don’t dress up. No one will, except Archie.’
‘Oh, I say. Nina, there’s one thing—I don’t think I shall be able to
marry you after all.’
‘Oh, _Adam_, you are a bore. Why not?’
‘They burnt my book.’
‘Beasts. Who did?’
‘I’ll tell you about it to-night.’
‘Yes, _do_. Good-bye, darling.’
‘Good-bye, my sweet.’
He hung up the receiver and left the telephone-box. People had crowded
into the Underground station for shelter from the rain, and were shaking
their umbrellas and reading their evening papers. Adam could see the
headlines over their shoulders.
PEER’S DAUGHTER’S DOVER ORDEAL
SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS BY SOCIETY
BEAUTY
HON. A. RUNCIBLE SAYS ‘TOO
SHAMING’
‘Poor pretty,’ said an indignant old woman at his elbow. ‘Disgraceful, I
calls it. And such a good sweet face. I see her picture in the papers
only yesterday. Nasty prying minds. That’s what they got. And her poor
father and all. Look, Jane, there’s a piece about him, too. “Interviewed
at the Carlton Club this evening, Lord Chasm,” that’s her dad, “refused
to make a definite statement. ‘The matter shall not be allowed to rest
here,’ he said.” _And_ quite right, too, I says. You know I feels about
that girl just as though it was me own daughter. Seeing her picture so
often and our Sarah having done the back stairs, Tuesdays, at them flats
where her aunt used to live—the one as had that ’orrible divorce last
year.’
Adam bought a paper. He had just ten shillings left in the world. It was
too wet to walk, so he took a very crowded tube train to Dover Street
and hurried across in the rain to Shepheard’s Hotel (which, for the
purposes of the narrative, may be assumed to stand at the corner of Hay
Hill).
_Chapter Three_
Lottie Crump, proprietress of Shepheard’s Hotel, Dover Street, attended
invariably by two Cairn terriers, is a happy reminder to us that the
splendours of the Edwardian era were not entirely confined to Lady
Anchorage or Mrs Blackwater. She is a fine figure of a woman, singularly
unscathed by any sort of misfortune and superbly oblivious of those
changes in the social order which agitate the more observant _grandes
dames_ of her period. When the war broke out she took down the signed
photograph of the Kaiser and, with some solemnity, hung it in the
men-servants’ lavatory; it was her one combative action; since then she
has had her worries—income-tax forms and drink restrictions and young
men whose fathers she used to know, who give her bad cheques, but these
have been soon forgotten; one can go to Shepheard’s parched with
modernity any day, if Lottie likes one’s face, and still draw up, cool
and uncontaminated, great, healing draughts from the well of Edwardian
certainty.
Shepheard’s has a plain, neatly pointed brick front and large, plain
doorway. Inside it is like a country house. Lottie is a great one for
sales, and likes, whenever one of the great houses of her day is being
sold up, to take away something for old times’ sake. There is a good
deal too much furniture at Shepheard’s, some of it rare, some of it
hideous beyond description; there is plenty of red plush and red morocco
and innumerable wedding presents of the ’eighties; in particular many of
those massive, mechanical devices covered with crests and monograms, and
associated in some way with cigars. It is the sort of house in which one
expects to find croquet mallets and polo sticks in the bathroom, and
children’s toys at the bottom of one’s chest of drawers, and an estate
map and an archery target—exuding straw—and a bicycle and one of those
walking-sticks which turn into saws, somewhere in passages, between
baize doors, smelling of damp. (As a matter of fact, all you are likely
to find in your room at Lottie’s is an empty champagne bottle or two and
a crumpled camisole.)
The servants, like the furniture, are old and have seen aristocratic
service. Doge, the head waiter, who is hard of hearing, partially blind,
and tortured with gout, was once a Rothschild’s butler. He had, in fact,
on more than one occasion in Father Rothschild’s youth, dandled him on
his knee, when he came with his father (at one time the fifteenth
richest man in the world) to visit his still richer cousins, but it
would be unlike him to pretend that he ever really liked the embryo
Jesuit who was ‘too clever by half’, given to asking extraordinary
questions, and endowed with a penetrating acumen in the detection of
falsehood and exaggeration.
Besides Doge, there are innumerable old housemaids always trotting about
with cans of hot water and clean towels. There is also a young Italian
who does most of the work and gets horribly insulted by Lottie, who once
caught him powdering his nose, and will not let him forget it. Indeed,
it is one of the few facts in Lottie’s recent experience that seems
always accessible.
Lottie’s parlour, in which most of the life of Shepheard’s centres,
contains a comprehensive collection of signed photographs. Most of the
male members of the royal families of Europe are represented (except the
ex-Emperor of Germany who has not been reinstated, although there was a
distinct return of sentiment towards him on the occasion of his second
marriage). There are photographs of young men on horses riding in
steeple-chases, of elderly men leading in the winners of ‘classic’
races, of horses alone and of young men alone, dressed in tight, white
collars or in the uniform of the Brigade of Guards. There are
caricatures by ‘Spy’, and photographs cut from illustrated papers, many
of them with brief obituary notices, ‘killed in action’. There are
photographs of yachts in full sail and of elderly men in yachting caps;
there are some funny pictures of the earliest kind of motor car. There
are very few writers or painters and no actors, for Lottie is true to
the sound old snobbery of pound sterling and strawberry leaves.
Lottie was standing in the hall abusing the Italian waiter when Adam
arrived.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you are a stranger. Come along in. We were just
thinking about having a little drink. You’ll find a lot of your friends
here.’
She led Adam into the parlour, where they found several men, none of
whom Adam had ever seen before.
‘You all know Lord Thingummy, don’t you?’ said Lottie.
‘Mr Symes,’ said Adam.
‘Yes, dear, that’s what I said. Bless you, I knew you before you were
born. How’s your father? Not dead, is he?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid he is.’
‘Well, I never. I could tell you some things about him. Now let me
introduce you—that’s Mr What’s-his-name, you remember him, don’t you?
And over there in the corner, that’s the Major, and there’s Mr
What-d’you-call-him, and that’s an American, and there’s the King of
Ruritania.’
‘Alas, no longer,’ said a sad, bearded man.
‘Poor chap,’ said Lottie Crump, who always had a weak spot for royalty,
even when deposed. ‘It’s a shame. They gave him the boot after the war.
Hasn’t got a penny. Not that he ever did have much. His wife’s locked up
in a looney house, too.’
‘Poor Maria Christina. It is true how Mrs Crump says. Her brains, they
are quite gone out. All the time she thinks everyone is a bomb.’