Eva Trout (35 page)

Now free to devote himself to his affairs, he began to install himself for his visit; when she came back, he was already busy. The despatch-case was open; he was extracting its professional contents, ranging these on a side table cleared for the purpose. Out first, from the top, came the latest
Astèrix
. Otherwise, these were charts, measurement-forms, diagrams, blown-up technical photographs, letter-blocks, a small magnifying hand-mirror and other impedimenta connected with the twice-daily oral exercises, supervised by himself, which—it was understood?—nothing whatsoever during his time in London must be allowed to imperil or interrupt (
he
would not neglect them!). To the onlooker, Eva, there was about his preoccupation something other than the limpid seriousness of childhood; indeed, alien or even hostile to it. With so much to conquer, he was going to have little or no time to be a child. There was something forbidding—sundering? repellent?— about his centredness, his complacent precision, his assessingness, his anaesthetised rapid handling. He gnawed on a lip, a little—as he might later? These proceedings demarcated his features. A preview … ? History, one was forced to remember, is forged by the over-riders of handicaps, some evident, some not known till the end.

“Oh my
dear
,” she cried to him down the room, “my dear little boy!”

He came to show her this latest
Astèrix.

After lunch, they would take the Jaguar somewhere: though where? What way out of pressurised London, this fine Sunday? When they were up again from the restaurant, she told him: “First, you stay with your book; I have to telephone.” To do so, she went to her room.

After some pages, Jeremy looked about him. He lit on the bulge in the curtain made by the carton. Shelving
Astèrix
, he went soundlessly over and leaned round Eva’s door—as ever, ajar. Along the bed she lay like a long log; the receiver was by her on the pillow, and her face was so locked away into it, in either passion or obstinacy, that only the jawline could be seen. So, he safely went across to the carton. He did not require to dig deep; something immediately met his hands. The parcel was as weighty as it was curious; he bore it back with him to the sofa, where he sawed away at the heavily-knotted string with his little pocket-knife. What was laid bare needless to say delighted him. He turned it over and over, held it at arm’s length, nursed it against a cheek, looked down the barrel, becoming with every minute more loth to part with it.

He brought himself to stow it away, provisionally, at the back of the bottom drawer of the escritoire, covering it with a huge used pair of ocelot gauntlets, a leaking bagful of sea-shells, and some other debris. String, wrappings, he dropped back into the carton.

Eva came in and said: “Let us go out!” They did not after all take the car but walked to the Serpentine, returning for tea in excellent spirits. The wretched carton, more prominent than it had been, caught Eva’s eye, as the one blot. “I
should
like that taken downstairs again,” she told the waiter as he wheeled in the trolley. “Though I know this is Sunday. In a day or two, tell them, I’ll look through it; I do not think, meanwhile, there is much in it likely to be of value. I believe there is a parcel which is not mine; that—tell them—I must also go into, in a day or two.” The waiter, a good friend, himself carried away the carton. Meeting no one to whom the matter could be of interest, he did not transmit the message about the parcel. Its not being there, therefore, was not noted.

Mme Bonnard, of course, had been the person summoned by Eva to the telephone. Taking advantage of the siesta hour, the woman doctor, staying with friends in Nevern Square, had been sleeping, lightly, after her early morning journey and in preparation for the
soirèe
shortly to open the conference. Nonetheless: “Oh, yes—Miss Trout? I am delighted to hear from you. All goes well?”

“Oh, yes; thank you. And Jeremy is in good condition. It is simply that he must go back when you go, on Thursday; I cannot keep him till the end of the week. So, the escort you had arranged for him, for next Sunday, will have to be cancelled.—Can you kindly do that?”

“
Ah, non!
”

“You cannot cancel the escort?”

“I cannot believe you. You know, this is quite a reversal.”

“Yes. I am going abroad on Thursday, to be married. That will be in the morning. I should like him to be at the station

to see us off.
Your
departure won’t be till later, when your conference closes?”

“You understand what a blow you may be inflicting?—That you undo the entire good of this visit?”

“I don’t think so. This is, as you say, ‘a visit.’ As I can now see clearly, for me and Jeremy there will in the future be nothing but these; and
they
, Madame Bonnard, will content him. So, I think he should see I see he is free of me; and what better way than this to show him? I am sorry to disturb you after your journey, but time is short: I have to make many arrangements, bookings, and travel plans, all of which I must communicate to my
fianc è
, whom I meet at the station.”

Mme Bonnard, with her first touch of astringency (malice, not: malice was not in her) asked: “Arrangements, might you not entrust to your future husband?” No reaction. She went on: “Since—if?—your mind is made up, let us no longer speak of this. And how completely impossible, on the telephonel Simply, Miss Trout, will you let me point out one thing? In a young person, vanity,
amour propre
, and most of all
amour vanit è
, can be passions. They can be dangerous. You feel it is now out of your power to injure Jeremy? You insist that he watch your departure with another person? In that event, allow me to warn you.—It is still in your power to offend him … You wish me, then, to have his return plane reservation transferred from today week to next Thursday evening?”

“If you would be so kind.”

Sun filled the dust-tarnished glassy parts of the roofs of the temple of departure and streamed through; elsewhere were unpolluted spaces of blue sky. The odours of Victoria Station were fanned by a passage of air: the hour was early, the day young. There was also a dying-down of reverberations, themselves few: the station, for all its resonance, all its immensity, either was always quieter than it once was or was in one of those lulls which descend on termini. The matitudinal rush into London in the suburban section was petering out—and had been in any event remote from Continental Departures, a section having its own functions, dominated by its own clocks. Over platform 8, dedicated to the Golden Arrow, ran a second and lower roof, or glass canopy, which, supported by green-painted iron stanchions, extended some way further towards the Continent after Victoria’s major arches ceased. The train was drawn up at its moorings. This was Thursday.

So far, not much was happening. Barely a passenger yet thought of being aboard. Through the Golden Arrow’s succession of long windows voluptuous demi-dusk and subdued glitter were hinted at. Yet the train, unsolidified by occupants, had a spectral transparency: one saw through it—beyond was a great dun brick immutable wall. Attendants, buttoned up to the chin, stood officially if not yet expectantly at the ready, some in doors, some on the platform. “I don’t yet know where I am,” said Henry, sauntering up to one of them. Though with nothing to show, he’d been let through the barrier. “What had I better do?—get my porter to wait?”

“No, I’ll look after that case, sir. We can see later.”

“Well, thank you,” said Henry, tipping everybody concerned. He then hastened back through the barrier to the book-stall, where he laid in what constituted a sheaf of cosmopolitan glossy magazines. His family believed him to be in Italy. He wore a light-grey suit, a white carnation. Not only when lighthearted but still more when light-headed does one tread on air, as did he, re-approaching the train, dodging the stanchions, flapping the magazines, angling his way between knots of people. A flash of shadow, a something of the recalcitrance there is about an inaccessible young dancer drew glances after him up the platform. Whom, it was wondered, did
he
belong to? A hand flitted over his shoulder. “Aha,” said Constantine, “how are you?”

“Oh—hullo!”

“And where are
you
off to, in such a hurry?” asked Constantine, not only in a benevolent but in what could have been a perfectly general way. “You are looking delightful, my dear boy,” he went on, examining the carnation. “As befits the occasion,” he ended, trimly.

Henry rallied. “So glad you could come!”

“Yes. Yes indeed, so am I. Rather a thin representation, I am sorry to see, so far. Loyal as many of us are, it was short notice. Still who knows who may not yet materialise?—Jeremy to be with us, do you happen to know?”

“Yes; he’ll be coming along with the porter’s wife, Mrs. Caliber. They leave Paley’s in a taxi just after Eva; she will come in a Daimler.”

“A motorcade. Which now should be some way under way. —Tell me, how is Eva?”

“Actually,” replied Henry, at once lightly, confidently and confidentially, “I haven’t
seen
her for rather more than a week; you know how it is. Naturally, we have talked. I mean, on the telephone.” Disengaging himself, to the extent of a step or two, from Constantine, he scanned the perspective, towards the barrier.—”I say, aren’t those Mr.
and
Mrs. Arble?”

“Not so improbably as one might imagine.—Where?”

The Arbles, spotting their spotters simultaneously, acknowledged that they had—she with a wave, he with a nod—but did not yet join them. Iseult had removed the hair from her forehead; it was confined back by a wide rose-red bandeau, and she carried an armful of red roses, nodding out of the top of their waxen wrappings. With an air of graceful provinciality she, side by side with her husband, was inspecting the Golden Arrow, outside and in. He, spruce though informal, wore a check tweed jacket; his hair, as though fresh from a last dash over a basin, was lustrously plastered to his skull: an all-out return of his coppery manly glowingness denoted his being as well content with himself as a new penny. A retaining hand of his was under her elbow; at the same time, he conveyed the impression of having no objection to her having him in tow, to an extent… “And let
that
be a lesson to you, my good Henry,” enjoined Constantine, turning a basilisk eye, with some satisfaction, on the bridegroom-to-be. But further sight of the Arbles was intercepted by a character who advanced, raising its hat, asking: “Are you by chance Mr. Henry Dancey?”

“Yes, I am,” said Henry. “What made you guess?”

“My name is Denge,” Mr. Denge said, as though that answer were self-explanatory.

“Eva—Miss Trout—will be delighted,” averred Henry. He himself lit up, at the historic interest. Otherwise, this party was not being a gala. “Noble of you, to arrive!”

“Old times are old times.—Running it a little fine, though, is she not?” Mr. Denge asked, looking forebodingly at the platform clock.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” cried Henry, mastering instant terror—frantically wanting, also, somehow to disentangle himself from Constantine. “I think I see—” he began, craning his neck, dodging his head. “No, you don’t,” said Constantine, clamping down on that, “not yet.” Mr. Denge, addressing himself to Constantine, said he expected this might be Mr. Ormeau? “And how is our young lady?” he put to her former guardian, as likely to be the more seasoned, rock-bottom authority. “As ever?”

“So it would seem,” said Constantine, irony making him still more affable.

“Pardon me; that’s to say
well
, I hope?”

“One assumes, well,” said the oracle, “on this day-of-days! In point of fact, Mr. Denge, I must tell you, I have not seen her, one way and another, since her visit to France. And that lasted some time. She is educating a little boy—as you may know?—which involves her, of course, in many decisions. It was in the boy’s interest that she left for France; so far back, now that I come to think of it, as May. Yes, early in May. One regretted seeing her go. But Miss Trout’s decisions—and this I believe you
do
know?—are taken rapidly.”

“Before you can say ‘knife,’ virtually,” said Mr. Denge.

“ ‘Impulsive,’ I suppose, is the word,” said Constantine pensively. “—Are you impulsive, Henry?”

“No; I suffer from morbid indecisions.”

“One would hardly have thought so.—Yes,” marvelled Constantine, rubbing lightly at the site of an eyebrow, “how time flies.
How
many weeks since I’ve seen her? It could be months, even.”

“No,” said the literal Henry. “It’s not July yet.”

“It shortly will be.”

“By that time, you will have seen her—we hope!” said Henry, who all this time had been going quietly whiter. “So, as one of my sisters used to say, ‘Writhe not!’ “

“I was sorry about Louise,” said Constantine.

This was harkened to, honourably-speaking inadvertently, though on the off-chance, possibly, that it might furnish a clue, by not so much a group as a drift of people, seven or eight of them, who, questingly in movement along the platform (which was by now steadily if not yet rapidly filling up) came as though by telepathy to a near-stop. Henry’s hymeneal carnation perhaps drew them? They had the waveringness of a phantom company. Of various ages, and both sexes, they shared a tribal likeness. Aunts, uncles, cousins? Each wore a look, or air, which in its own immaterial way was a wedding garment. One or two of the men were decorated by floral buttonholes; women and girls carried ingenuous bunches or fanciful little baskets of garden flowers, hopefully ready to be offerings, in white-gloved hands. They hesitated—then, there being no verification nor hopes of verification, by consent turned away again, to resume their course along the flank of the train, still, always, searching from face to face. Henry looked after the last of them. Hoaxed, were they? An unreal act collects round it real-er emotion than a real act, sometimes, he thought.

Beside him, the old warlock inquired: “None of your people here?”

“No. Hay-making. Hay fever.”

Constantine did not hear him. “My God …” he said.