The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories Page 17

There was a pause.

  “How’s Doris?”

  “Down with T.B. Never mind about her. I want to know about you. Or are you still uncommunicative? Of course, I see now that you had your reasons. Not that you need have had. I’m utterly sympathetic in principle. I hope you gather that?”

  “Could we talk about something else?”

  “I like masterful women—in fact, I direly need one myself to organize things for me.”

  “I remember.”

  “And, of course, that kind of woman often——”

  “Please could we talk about something else?”

  “I thought that perhaps you would be grateful for an utterly sympathetic listener?”

  The arrival of the waitress spared Griselda an answer.

  “There’s no Ovaltine.”

  Griselda supposed that he would order Nescafé; but he said “A sundae will do. When I’ve finished the fruit.”

  “Which sort of sundae?”

  “Any sort.” Later he was brought a sundae costing 3/6. It was the biggest and best.

  “Let’s come to realities.”

  “Haven’t we?” asked Griselda.

  “I mean our joint future.”

  “I’m provided for. I’ve got a job in a bookshop.”

  “You can’t be getting much?”

  “No. But I like the job.”

  “Which shop?”

  “It’s called Tamburlane.”

  “Rather beyond the means of most people who can read. But reputable.”

  “You know it?”

  “By reputation. Tamburlane was the son of pauper parents and raised in the East End. He always wanted to own a bookshop: a morbid respect for learning based on frustration. In the end he made a bit of money out of prospecting in Alaska and got his way. There! I feel well-­informed.”

  “Better than I am.”

  “You pick up things like that from the sort of people I’ve mixed with. Where are you living?”

  “Off the Edgware Road.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Monica Paget-­Barlow says there’s a flat in Juvenal Court. It’s not altogether an ideal home, but I expect it’s better than what you’ve got. Possibly the two of us could afford it? That is if I could settle on something which brought in money steadily.”

  “I’m perfectly content where I am.”

  “You mean you’ve not yet had time to get round to the idea of living with me?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t feel equal to organizing me?”

  “Not even myself.”

  “I’m sorry, Griselda. I’m not really heartless.”

  At a neighbouring table, a child was sick on the floor. It was impossible to believe that so small a vessel could have held so much.

  “I’m unhappy.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m glad to have met you. I need a friend.”

  “I’ve always been fond of you, Griselda. You know that.” He spoke as if his was a hopeless passion of many years standing.

  “Where are you living now?”

  “Friends house me for odd nights.”

  “Are you looking for a job?”

  “The jobs available are mostly rather hell.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m trying to work up my plastic poses.”

  “Do they help?”

  “It’s an extension of Laban’s teaching. But entirely original.”

  Across the room a waitress overturned a tray laden with portions of roast veal. She was a pretty girl and several men began to assist her with the re-­assembly. But their efforts were competitive and helped very little.

  “Now that I’ve met you I think I’ll close with General Pampero.”­

  “Who’s he?”

  “The Liberator of Orinoco. He spent most of his life in exile: naturally in London. The Orinocan Government have just bought the house he lived in. They want someone to curate. Very few Orinocans are allowed out of the country. I know a girl who works in the Embassy. She claimed I was a D.Litt. and got me the offer.”

  “Where’s the house?”

  “Somewhere the other side of Mecklenburgh Square. Quite a healthy neighbourhood.”

  “Why haven’t you moved in already?”

  “I’m afraid of acquiring roots.”

  “You had roots in Hodley.”

  Kynaston stopped eating and looked into Griselda’s eyes.

  “Griselda, I suppose you wouldn’t marry me?”

  “I’m in love with someone else.”

  “In love?”

  “Certainly.”

  He continued to gaze at her.

  “I’m in love with you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Of course I’m in love with you,” he said with faint irritation. “You’re unique.”

  Griselda said nothing.

  “Let’s stick to realities. Is there any future to this other business?”

  Griselda still said nothing.

  “I mean we’ve both made pretty good messes of our lives so far. I think we should cut our losses.”

  “I’m in love with someone else, Geoffrey.”

  “I have an intensely devoted nature. I could make you happy.”

  “Are you happy yourself?”

  “You could make me.”

  “I expect most married couples have exactly those expectations of each other.”

  “They’re perfectly reasonable expectations. People aren’t designed to be happy in isolation like sentries in boxes.”

  He seemed startlingly in earnest.

  “What about Doris?”

  “I’m very fond of little Doris but I don’t want to marry her. Besides, as I told you, she’s got T.B.”

  “Does she want to marry you?”

  “She can’t marry anyone. She’s very ill. I can only see her once a week.”

  “You do still see her?”

  “Of course, I do. I’m very fond of her. I’m not a monster.”

  “I’d like to see her some time.”

  “I don’t think you’ve much in common. But you can if you want to.”

  “I suppose we haven’t really.”

  “I am glad you can see it. It’ll save a lot of nervous tension and train fares. Will you come and look at this flat in Juvenal Court?”

  “Won’t you live where you work?”

  “The Orinocans have sublet most of the house. The General’s relics hardly fill two rooms. There’ll be an Orinocan Enquiry Bureau in a third room. That’s me too. An Orinocan trading concern have got the rest. But I can’t afford Juvenal Court without you. It’s quite amusing. Friends of mine live in the other flats. Come and see it this evening. The flat won’t stay empty for ever. I’ll call for you.”

  “Geoffrey,” said Griselda, “I must make it plain to you that the chance of my marrying you is entirely and absolutely nil.”

  CHAPTER XX

  But when the shop shut, Kynaston was lurking outside.

  “After all, I’ve nowhere else to go,” he said.

  He even assisted Mr. Tamburlane to put up the shutters; so that Griselda had to introduce him. Though he was reasonably good-looking by modern male standards, his clothes appeared as inappropriate as in Fullers.

  Mr. Tamburlane seemed unperturbed. After they had stood about on the pavement outside the shop mumbling disconnected generalities, he said: “I wonder if the two of you would care to join me in a small repast? I usually go to Underwoods. They know my ways.” It was the first such invitation Griselda had received from him.

  Kynaston immediately accepted for himself and Griselda. They proceeded on foot to a restaurant near the Charing Cross Road. Mr. Tamburlane, although the hysteria of the evening rush hour was at its height, and tired workers were flickering and zigzagging across the pavement like interweaving lightning, walked slowly and contemplatively, his eyes directed upwards to a group of swallows swirling after flies, his expression
that favoured in coloured representations of the Blessed St. Francis.

  “Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,” quoted Mr. Tamburlane, gazing upwards in a warm and gentle rapture, as the trio clove a passage through the toilers frenzied for the consolations of home.

  “Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,

  Though all things feast in the spring’s guest-­chamber,

  How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?

  For where thou fliest I shall not follow,

  Till life forget and death remember,

  Till thou remember and I forget.”

  “There is no felicity,” he continued, as they stood outside Swan and Edgars, waiting to cross the road, “exceeding that which can ensure upon utter disregard of the consanguineous prohibitions.”

  Underwoods claimed to combine the tradition of the English chop-­house with that of the cosmopolitan restaurant-­de-­luxe. The tables were set in dark mahogany boxes, but there were attractive red-­shaded lights, and the benches had been ameliorated with padded upholstery. The tablecloths were very white, the cutlery very glittering, and the menu cards large as barristers’ briefs. There were dimly illuminated portraits of Daniel Mendoza and the Boy Roscius. There was a greeny-­grey skull in a glass case bearing a silver plaque inscribed with the names “William Corder” in pleasantly extravagant Gothic script. Griselda thought it might well prove the most agreeable restaurant she had so far visited.

  Mr. Tamburlane seemed to be exceedingly well known, both to the staff and to many of the other customers. Preceded by the head waiter, whom he had greeted with a quiet “Good evening, Andrews,” he advanced between the lines of boxes, frequently acknowledging greetings. Griselda, following him, attracted almost as much interest; and Kynaston came last, looking more unsuitably dressed than ever. There were an unusual number of men in the restaurant; and few of the women but looked exceedingly striking. Under-­waiters with long white aprons darted about like trolls.

  Mr. Tamburlane was shown to a table near the back of the room. “I hope you will have no objection,” he enquired of his guests, “to caviare, turtle soup, sole, a fillet steak, and a bird? I am becoming increasingly set in my ways.”

  Griselda noticed that Kynaston seemed entirely able to eat a normal meal provided that it was offered and organized by someone else.

  As they ate, and drank the excellent and appropriate wines which their host ordered out of his head and without recourse to the Wine List, Mr. Tamburlane talked more and more expansively, breaking off every now and then to impart to an under-­waiter a request for French Mustard or another baton. He called the underwaiters by their Christian names: Leslie, Frank, and Noel. By the deference shown him in return Mr. Tamburlane might have been his namesake, the Scourge of God. It even seemed to Griselda a little exaggerated, like a caricature of good service.

  “It gives me particular pleasure,” said Mr. Tamburlane, “to meet another acolyte of the golden and gracious Miss de Reptonville, for another acolyte I readily perceive that you are. Miss de Reptonville has rapidly set up her own particular and especial altar in my soul. I am sure she has in yours also?”

  “I proposed marriage to her today. During lunch.”

  “Then” cried Mr. Tamburlane, transfigured, “this little dinner is an agape, a love-­feast, without my knowing it. How limited your news makes me feel, how squat and lacking in vision! We should have drunk from the fountain in the temple of Lanternland, and the livers of young white peacocks should have been our sustenance. For, if I may for one single moment be personal, your youthful candour and clear brow give assurance of our goddess’s response.”

  “Not quite,” said Kynaston. “It’s still an open question.”

  “You did not cry out and leap to his waiting arms,” said Mr. Tamburlane in amazement to Griselda.

  “We were lunching in Fullers at the time, Mr. Tamburlane.”

  “Do it now, Miss de Reptonville. They know me here and I can declare a plenary indulgence for all possible consequences. Take him and let us inaugurate a rite which shall last till Venus succumbs before the onrush of Apollo. On a later day, I shall myself take the bridegroom aside and, old man that I am, show him secrets of joy most germane to your bliss, Miss de Reptonville, most unknown to his heart.” Mr. Tamburlane’s fluffy white hair was moist with rapture, good wine, and the heat of the restaurant; his beaming face, the image of the Japanese ensign.

  “I’m afraid I turned the offer down,” said Griselda. “I’m very sorry to spoil things.”

  “But why, dear Anaxarete, make yourself stone?”

  “You know very well, Mr. Tamburlane, that I have no inclination to marry anyone.”

  “But you could fall into no error more fundamental! If you wish to continue—if you hope to rediscover—” But suddenly, with a sound like the discharge of a cork, the excited Mr. Tamburlane, ignorant of the extent of Kynaston’s knowledge, discontinued his observations. “Fear nothing,” he said to Kynaston, his eyes still very bright, “nor let your night’s rest be troubled unless with anticipation of raptures. I shall myself speak apart to our erring one during business hours tomorrow.”

  “It will make no difference,” said Griselda, smiling sweetly. “I’m resolved to marry no one.”

  “Noel,” exclaimed Mr. Tamburlane, “we’re ready for the steak.” It was exquisite; as was the ensuing bird, which Mr. Tamburlane carved personally, with a long thin knife, like a rapier, incredibly sharp, and a fork fiercer than Morton’s. Afterwards came flaming pancakes, and rich Turkish coffee in cups bearing the insignia of the establishment, and two Benedictines each. Mr. Tamburlane completed the occasion by appending to the bill his curving, speckled, backward-­sloping signature; and giving a pound in largesse. He then suddenly excused himself to Griselda and Kynaston, and rapidly disappeared through a little door beneath a reproduction of Winterhalter’s portrait of the Duke of Sussex.

  “Enjoy your dinner, miss?” enquired Noel.

  “Very much indeed, thank you.”

  “Nice gentleman, Mr. Tamburlane.”

  “He comes here a lot?”

  “Usually with his Indian friends.”

  “I don’t know about them,” said Griselda, her curiosity surmounting her manners.

  “All in coloured robes and covered in diamonds and rubies.” He placed his hands on the end of the table and sank his voice.

  “I’m afraid we don’t live up to that.”

  “No, miss,” said the waiter, glancing at Kynaston’s torn and dirty cricket shirt. “Of course, Mr. Tamburlane gets all his money from India.”

  “How?” asked Kynaston.

  “Business with the rajahs and such like. They’ve all got as much money as a dog has fleas.” He lowered his voice still further. “They say it’s them who keep his account with us in order.”

  But Mr. Tamburlane was standing behind him.

  “Beg pardon, sir. I was just asking the young lady whether she enjoyed her dinner.”

  “Of course, she enjoyed her dinner, Noel. This is the happiest day of her life.”

  Used to such situations in the course of his work, the waiter took Mr. Tamburlane’s meaning immediately.

  “My respectful congratulations to you, sir. And to you, madam.”

  “Thank you, Noel,” said Kynaston calmly. “I’ve done nothing to deserve my good fortune.”

  “And what becomes of us now?” enquired Mr. Tamburlane, seating himself on the corner of the upholstered bench. “The night is still a virgin. All right, Noel. You can go.”

  “Thank you, sir. Good night sir. Good night madam. Good night sir.”

  “Tell me, young bridegroom,” resumed Mr. Tamburlane, when the adieux to Noel were concluded, “what was your intention tonight in bearing off Miss de Reptonville? You must, I suppose, have had some intention. Or perhaps not; perhaps you thought merely to let the gale of love blow whither it listed? If so may I blow with it for a spell? May I savour, if only by proxy, le premier souvenir d’a
mour?”

  “We were going to look at a flat.”

  “The hymeneal shrine! Nothing could more perfectly suit me. Let us go there at once. Frank,” cried Mr. Tamburlane, “please ask the doorman to summon us a taxi. No, wait. Ours should be a ritual progress. Make it a hansom. There is always one stationed at the bottom of Piccadilly.”

  “There is one thing which is being overlooked,” said Griselda when the flurry had subsided.

  “Name it,” said Mr. Tamburlane. “It shall be my privilege to provide it. Shall night-­scented flowers be strewn before us as we pass through Leicester Square? I presume that is the direction?”

  “Juvenal Court,” replied Kynaston. “Just off Tottenham Court Road.”

  “Shall the fountains in Seven Dials run wine? Shall two white oxen be roasted whole in St. Giles’s Circus?”

  It occurred to Griselda that Mr. Tamburlane was a little drunk. Possibly his meals when his Indian friends were actually present, were less far-­reaching.

  “The point we are overlooking,” said Griselda, “is that I have no intention of marrying.”

  “Let us leave events to take their course,” replied Mr. Tamburlane. “Indeed I have absolute faith that they will do so.”

  The doorman entered the restaurant and came to Mr. Tamburlane’s table.

  “Hansom, sir.”

  Mr. Tamburlane rose.

  “Swift as the thoughts of love. We are grateful to our Hermes.” Griselda’s worst forebodings were confirmed when Mr. Tamburlane produced his wallet and found it empty. The pound he had given to the waiter must have been all it contained. He sought for change in his trousers pocket and produced sevenpence. This sum seemed far from satisfying the doorman, who, for one whom presumably he had regarded as a very special customer, must have run all the way to Piccadilly Circus.

  “Blimey,” said Hermes. “That all you’ve got?”

  “The privilege of serving Eros must make up the balance.”

  “What’s a ruddy statue got to do with it?”

  “Come,” cried Mr. Tamburlane, “let us mount the car of love.’’

  “Bloody swindler,” said Hermes. “Look at that!” He extended his hand bearing the seven coppers to Frank seeking sympathy.

  “More fool you,” said Frank. He added something which Griselda failed to hear, being now on her way out of the restaurant. She noticed, as she followed Mr. Tamburlane, who firmly took the lead, that his many acquaintances among the customers gave an impression of knowing him only by sight. They smiled and bowed as he passed, but said nothing. The doorman could still be heard execrating Mr. Tamburlane in the background. But Andrews, the head waiter, was as deferential as ever.