Bachelors Anonymous (14 page)

These
phenomena passed unnoticed by Mr Llewellyn. It is never easy to detect molten
passion from outside, particularly if you are rather self-centred, as he was.
Trout to him, whether a-glow or with his inner light turned off, was just
Trout. He said he was glad to see him and hoped that he could dine with him,
and Mr Trout said he already had a dinner date. Sherlock Holmes, had he been
present, would have drawn conclusions from the tremor in his voice as he spoke,
but it made no impression on Mr Llewellyn. If he thought anything about it, he
merely assumed that Mr Trout was suffering from catarrh.

‘I can
only stop a minute,’ said Mr Trout. ‘I’m on my way to get my hair trimmed. I
just looked in to have a word with young Pickering.’

‘What
about?’

‘Oh,
just something I have to tell him. Nice boy, Pickering. We spent the afternoon
together.’

‘Doing
what?’

‘Chasing
girls in taxi cabs.’

‘I
thought you didn’t go in for that sort of thing.’

‘As a
rule no, but Pickering made a point of it.’

‘Damn
fool. Playing with fire.’

‘Would
you say that?’

‘Yes, I
would say that. If that’s the way he’s going to carry on, he’ll be married
before he knows what’s hit him.’

Mr
Trout forbore to comment on this sentiment. Lawyers learn to be diplomatic, and
he could see that the subject had begun to annoy his friend.

‘You
didn’t tell me if Pickering was in,’ he said.

‘No, he
went out for a walk, looking like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh. Why he was
looking like that he didn’t explain.’

‘It’s
his love life, I.L. It’s come a stinker.’

‘He
doesn’t know his luck.’

A spasm
of pain passed over Mr Trout’s face, as if he had been a curate compelled to
listen to blasphemy from his vicar. Pursuing his policy of being diplomatic, he
said nothing on the subject but in between two dance steps asked if Mr
Llewellyn happened to know the name of the girl to whom Joe Pickering had given
his heart.

‘Sure,’
said Mr Llewellyn. ‘She interviewed me for her paper. It’s Fitch. Did you ever
hear a song of Cole Porter’s—Mister and Mrs Fitch?’

‘No.’

‘Good
song. I often sing it in my bath.’

‘Indeed?
I would like to hear it.’

‘You
must drop in some morning. About half-past nine would be the best time. Bring a
raincoat, as I splash about a good deal. It’s one of those songs that need
putting over with gestures.’

Mr
Llewellyn paused. Mr Trout had begun to float about the room like something out
of Swan Lake, and Mr Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet
in his dealings with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers should behave
like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held,
is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire
he should not carry on like him. For the first time it struck him that there
was an oddness in Mr Trout this evening, as if he on honeydew had fed and drunk
the milk of Paradise, and he did not pay him a substantial annual retainer for
doing that.

There
was abruptness in his voice as he said:

‘Why do
you want the girl’s name?’

‘I
shall be calling on her shortly, and I’d like to know who to ask for. She
lives, I understand, at Fountain Court, Park Lane. It is my intention to see
her and effect a reconciliation between her and Pickering. I don’t like the
thought of two loving hearts being parted by a misunderstanding. Who do you
think I am? Thomas Hardy?’

Mr
Llewellyn was now definitely perplexed. He could make nothing of this. Mr
Trout’s diction was beautifully clear, leaving no possibility that he could
have mistaken what he said, but his words did not appear to make sense. He
would have scorched him with a rebuking glare if Mr Trout had stayed still long
enough for it to reach its target, but had to content himself with projecting a
rebuking glare in his general direction.

‘Trout,’
he said, ‘have you had a couple?’

‘Certainly
not.’

‘Then
why are you talking this apple sauce about loving hearts? Last night—’

He did
not complete the sentence. The telephone was ringing.

‘Answer
that, Trout,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘If it’s for me, say I’m out.’

Mr
Trout went to the instrument, and the first words he uttered caused Mr
Llewellyn to stiffen from head to foot like a nymph surprised while bathing,
for they were ‘Good evening, madam’, and they froze him to the marrow. Warmly
he congratulated himself on his prudence in telling Mr Trout to answer the call.
London, of course, was full of those who might be addressed as ‘.Madam’, but he
could think of only one. To only one, moreover, he had given his telephone
number. He feared the worst. It appalled him to think how nearly he had come to
kidding back and forth with Vera Dalrymple, a course which could not but have
ended in disaster. He waited breathlessly for Mr Trout to say he was out.

‘I am afraid,’
said Mr Trout in his polished manner, ‘that he is not at home at the moment,
but he should be returning shortly, and I will not fail to give him your
message. I am sure he will be delighted. Not at all,’ said Mr Trout, apparently
in answer to some expression of thanks at the other end. ‘A pleasure. Goodbye,
madam, goodbye. What lovely weather we are having, are we not? A Miss Dalrymple,’
he said, hanging up. ‘She wants you to give her dinner the day after tomorrow.
She will be calling for you at about seven-thirty.’

Mr
Llewellyn was staring dumbly, as Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott might have stared
when the mirror cracked from side to side and the curse had come upon her.
Indeed, if the Lady of Shalott had entered at this moment, he would have
slapped her on the back and told her he knew just how she felt.

‘And …
you … told … her … you … were … sure … I … would … be …
delighted!’ he whispered.

Having
said this, he was silent for a space, wrestling with his feelings. He was
wondering how he had ever looked on Ephraim Trout as a friend and resolving, as
soon as he could get around to it, to transfer his legal affairs from his hands
and place them in those of Jones, Jukes, Jerningham and Jenkinson. Would
Jones, he reasoned, have told Vera Dalrymple that he would be delighted to give
her dinner? Would Jukes? Not a chance. Nor would Jenkinson and Jerningham. And
this was a man who prided himself on belonging to Bachelors Anonymous. It was
enough to make one ask oneself what things were coming to. It is not too much
to say that Mr Llewellyn was stricken to the core.

Men who
are stricken to the core react in one of two ways. They rave and curse—this was
the method preferred by King Lear—all that Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
stuff—or a sort of frozen calm comes over them as if their circulation had been
suspended. It was to the latter school that Mr Llewellyn belonged. He might
become irritable over trifles, but in serious crises he was a block of ice. On
the occasion when Weinstein-Colossal had stolen two of his best stars nobody
could have guessed from his demeanour the volcanic fury that was surging within
him. So now he said almost gently:

‘You
told her I would be delighted, did you? Do you realise that if I give this
woman dinner, I shall almost certainly ask her to marry me?’

‘And
you couldn’t do better,’ said Mr Trout heartily. ‘I have not had the pleasure
of meeting her, but I assume that she is charming, and the thing that matters
is to get married. Who was it described bachelors as wild asses of the desert?
I forget, but he was right, and what future is there for a wild ass? Practically
none. It just goes on being a wild ass until something happens to end its
aimless existence, and nobody cares a damn when it’s gone. You’re crazy if you
intend to go on being a lonely bachelor, not that I suppose one could actually
call you a bachelor. Marriage is the only road to contentment and happiness.
Think of the quiet home evenings, she busy knitting the tiny garments, you in
the old armchair with your crossword puzzle. Think of the companionship, the
feeling that you are never going to be alone again. Get married, I.L. Give this
Dalrymple dinner tomorrow and over the meal attach yourself to her little hand
and ask her to be yours. Excuse me,’ said Mr Trout. ‘I must be going. I have to
get a shampoo and manicure in addition to the hair-trim.’

The
effect of this eloquence on Mr Llewellyn was to add to the emotions of the Lady
of Shalott those of Julius Caesar when stabbed by Brutus. We can put up with
the knavish tricks of enemies—we may not like them, but we can endure them—but
when we are betrayed by a friend we drain the bitter cup and no heel taps. The
one thing Mr Llewellyn had been sure he could rely on was the stability of the
Trout doctrine. Whoever else might fail him, Trout was a solid rock. And here
he was, mouthing these dreadful sentiments without, apparently, a qualm. He
could not have been more horrified and in the depths if he had been a Tory member
of Parliament and had heard his Leader expressing the opinion that there was a
lot of sound sense in the works of Karl Marx, and the Communists were not such
bad chaps if you got to know them.

We have
said that in moments of crisis Mr Llewellyn always preserved an outward calm,
but that was intended to apply only to ordinary crises. In one of this
magnitude he could not be expected to keep dismay from showing in his
appearance. When Mr Trout had left him, his trepidation was unmistakable. He
sat motionless in his chair, looking like something the cat had brought in.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, so dull, so dead in look, so
woebegone, drew Priam’s curtain at the dead of night and would have told him
half his Troy was burned.

It was
thus that Joe, returning from his walk, found him, and it is greatly to his
credit that one glance at that haggard face told him that his own troubles must
be shelved for the time being and all his faculties concentrated on those of
his employer.

‘Good
Lord,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

In
broken accents Mr Llewellyn started to fill him in, as he would have put it,
but the accents were not so broken as to render Joe incapable of following the
scenario. Having the advantage of knowing Miss Dalrymple, he was able to
appreciate without difficulty the emotions of anyone who found himself in
danger of marrying her, and he would have clasped Mr Llewellyn’s hand, had not
the latter been waving it. Very clearly he saw that now was the time for all
good men to come to the aid of the party.

‘I
don’t like this,’ he said.

‘Well,
you don’t suppose
I
do,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘But what I don’t understand
is why you have to ask her to marry you. Surely there are other things you can
talk about at dinner. The weather, books, the situation in China, the prospects
of a general election.’

Mr
Llewellyn uttered an impatient snort.

‘I
explained that to you very clearly the day we met, but I see that I shall have
to do it again. The first thing you have to grasp is that I am a man of intense
sensitiveness and spirituality. Got that into your nut? I can’t hurt people’s
feelings. Do you understand that, or are you as big a damned fool as you look?
Well then, I take her to dinner. At first everything’s all right. We get
through the soup, fish and whatever it may be without disaster because she’s
biding her time, and then we come to the coffee. Coffee’s the danger spot.
There is a pause in the conversation.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
she’s preparing to unmask her batteries. She is sitting with a sort of faraway
look on her face. She heaves a sigh. She says what a lonely life hers is and
how hollow success is and how the applause of her public can never make up for
not having a home. Upon which, I ask her to marry me. It’s something to say.
It’s put me off coffee for life. All my marriages came about like that, even
Bernadine Friganza, who wouldn’t have recognised a home if you had brought her
one on a plate with watercress around it.’

‘And
they never refuse you?’

‘Of
course not. Who would?’

Joe
pondered. What with his sensitiveness and spirituality this man was plainly an
object for concern. He could see but one solution of his problem.

‘You
mustn’t take Vera Dalrymple to dinner.’

‘How
can I get out of it? She’s calling for me the day after tomorrow at
seven-thirty.’

‘You
mustn’t be here.’

‘Where
else can I be?’

‘In
hospital.’

‘In
what?’

‘Hospital.
You’ll be safe there.’

Again
Mr Llewellyn snorted. If Joe had been making a suggestion at a studio
conference, he could not have snorted more vehemently.

‘And
how do I get into a hospital? What do you propose that I shall do? Get run over
by a taxi cab? Chew soap and pretend I’m having a fit?’

‘Tell
them you want a check-up. You probably need one anyway.’

The
fire faded from Mr Llewellyn’s eyes. The snort was silent on his lips. He
regarded Joe with the admiration of a fond father whose infant son has spoken
his first word.