The Fashion In Shrouds (11 page)

‘Damn funny,' he said.

He was still lost in unquiet thought when the fat man reappeared, his face shining.

‘Look 'ere,' he said with even less ceremony than usual, ‘look 'ere. Look what I've found on the doorstep. 'Ere's a bottle o' milk for you.'

Mr Campion raised his eyes to the newcomer and for an instant he did not recognize the heart-shaped face with the triangular smile and the expression that was as resourceful, as eager, and as infinitely young as when he had last seen it six years before.

‘Hullo, Orph,' said Amanda Fitton. ‘The lieut. has come to report. This is a nice thing to get in my face when I look up at your window for the first time in six years.'

She held out a small brown paw and displayed a yellow button with a rose painted on it lying in the palm.

‘Thank you, Amanda.' Mr Campion took the button and pocketed it. ‘It burst off my waistcoat as my heart leapt at your approach. A most extraordinary phenomenon. I wondered what on earth it was. Why did you come? I mean, nothing wrong, I hope?'

Amanda pulled off her hat and the full glory of the Pontisbright hair glowed in the evening light.

‘It's about my Chief, Alan Dell,' she said, ‘and frightfully confidential. I say, Albert, you don't know a man called Ramillies, do you?'

MR CAMPION LEANT
back in the taxi-cab, which smelt like the inside of the dressing-up trunk in the attic of his childhood's home, and glanced at the shadowy form beside him with a return of a respect he had forgotten. The six years between eighteen and twenty-four had certainly not robbed Amanda of her pep. On the whole he was inclined to think they must have added power to her elbow.

It was now a little after twelve, and the night, it seemed, was yet a babe.

‘What I still don't understand is how you got there,' he said. ‘I thought aeroplane works were holies of holies.'

‘So they are.' Amanda sounded cheerful in the darkness. ‘It took me three and a half years to do it, but I'm a pretty good engineer, you know. I went straight into the shops when I got some money. I hadn't a sufficiently decent education to take an ordinary degree, so I had to go the back way. My title helped, though,' she added honestly.

‘Did it? What does your brother say about it?'

‘The little earl?' Lady Amanda Fitton's respect for young Hal did not seem to have increased. ‘He's still at Oxford. He seemed to be dying of old age last time I saw him. He's given me up for the time being. Aunt Hat says he's gathering strength. Meanwhile don't take your mind off the business in hand. This is serious. I'm up here on a sacred mission. You don't seem to realize that. The man Ramillies and his crowd must be called off A.D. What am I going to tell the boys?'

Mr Campion stirred.

‘Amanda,' he inquired, ‘was I a hero in my youth?'

‘A hero? No, of course not. What's the matter with you?' She was surprised. ‘You've got introspective or had a serious illness or something. You were a useful, dependable sort of person and the only soul I could think of to come to in this idiotic mess. Besides, in view of one thing and another, I thought you might know something about it already. Look here, you forget about yourself for a minute and consider the situation. Here's a man – a genius, Albert; there's no one like him – and in the middle of serious and important work he's got hold of by the wretched Ramillies and his crowd and taken completely off his course. It's a frightful calamity; you must see that. We can't get on without him. The whole machine-room is held up. Drawings are waiting for his okay. Specimen parts are ready to be tried out. All kinds of details you wouldn't understand. And it's not only that. There's the morale of the whole place to consider. He's endangering it. We stuck it as long as we could and then Sid sent me up to find out how bad things really were. We talked it all over and decided that real loyalty isn't just sentimental and unpractical. A.D. has been got at. He's a child in some things. He must be persuaded back to work.'

Mr Campion, thirty-eight next birthday, was aware of a chill. It began in the soles of his feet and swept up over him in a tingling wave. Behind Amanda's story he had caught a glimpse of a world which he had practically forgotten. In many ways it was an idiotic, exasperating but tremendously exciting world wherein incredible dreams fed fine enthusiasms and led to fierce consultations, pathetically noble sacrifices, and astounding fears of endeavour, to say nothing of heights of impudence which made one giddy even in considering them.

‘You're all pretty young down there, I suppose?' he ventured.

‘A lot of us are. A.D.'s wonderful like that.' Amanda's eyes were shining in the dusk. ‘It's just ability that counts with him. Of course, there are a few old people too, but they're all fanatically keen on the work and that keeps them young. We're all so helplessly worried, Albert, or at least all those of us are who realize what's up. It's such a wizard show. We're all behind him, you see. We'd do anything for
the work, absolutely anything. We all would. He
couldn't
let us all down, could he?'

Her voice was wonderfully young and clear and he was reminded of the first time he had ever heard it in the drawing room at Pontisbright Mill when the curtains had been drawn to hide the tears in the furniture. A lot of water had gone through the wheel since then, he reflected.

‘It all depends,' he said cautiously. ‘A man has a private life, you know, apart from his work.'

‘Not A.D.' Amanda was vehement. ‘His work's his life and he's a very great man. That's why we all depend on him so He's a genius.'

It went through Mr Campion's mind that he had had a spot of trouble with geniuses before, but he thought it politic not to say so. He continued with his diffident questioning.

‘What put you on to Ramillies?'

‘That's the only telephone number that seems to reach Dell. He's got some money in Caesar's Court, you know, and he must have picked up that crowd down there. Ramillies is all right really, I believe; I mean, his family is all right and he's a Governor on the West Coast somewhere; but he's wild and in with a wild crowd. A.D. has probably never met anything like him before and is going into some idiotic scheme for setting up an airport in an African swamp. He gets wrapped up in things like that sometimes. The only alarming thing is that he's never neglected us before and we are so hoping that there aren't any sharks in Ramillies's lot. You don't know, do you? Sometimes these clever crooks get hold of wild hearties like Ramillies and impress them. A.D. wouldn't fall in the ordinary way. but if they approached him through a county mug he might just possibly be taken in.'

Mr Campion's eyebrows rose in the darkness.

‘I say,' he murmured, ‘don't you think you may be getting a bit melodramatic? No offence, of course, but if a lad doesn't turn up at the office for a day or two it doesn't always mean that he's in the hands of what counsel calls “a wicked and unscrupulous gang”.'

‘An office, yes,' conceded Amanda with contempt, ‘but not our Works. You don't seem to understand at all. He's
neglecting his
work
. We haven't seen him at all for a fortnight and before then he was vague and preoccupied. Sid and I diagnosed a succession of hangovers. It really is serious. Sid has sent me to find out, and I must. Then if things don't improve we must have it out with him and get him back to normal.'

‘I see,' said Mr Campion a little helplessly. ‘Who is Sid?'

Amanda chuckled. ‘Sid's my immediate boss. A grand chap. He was born in Wallington and went to the Polytechnic and starved through the shops, finally got his M.I.M.E and is one of the finest men in his own line in the kingdom. He's only twenty-nine and an awful snob, but so absolutely honest as a workman.'

‘A snob?'

‘Yes, bless him. He's batty about my title. He's always getting at me for it just so he can hear himself use it. I like Sid. He's got enthusiasm. Where is this place The Tulip? What makes you think they may be there?'

‘Intuition backed by the law of elimination.' Mr Campion sounded dogged. ‘If they're not here, my child, we shall have to start knocking at doors and asking. London is a largish town for that method, but since you've made up your mind I see no other course.'

‘I hope you're not getting old,' said Amanda dubiously. ‘If the worst comes to the worst we'll begin at Hampstead and work our way south.'

The Tulip had been flowering for a little over seven months and was therefore nearing its zenith in the fashionable sunlight. Jules Parroquet, whose golden rule for the exploitation of a successful restaurant and night-club was simple – a new name and orchestra to every two changes of paint – already considered it one of his triumphs. The ceiling of flowers was still noticed and admired and the silly little striped canvas canopies every now and again were as fresh and piquant as when they had first been erected.

Mr Campion and Amanda stood for a moment looking over the broad silver rail above the orchestra before going down to the dance-floor level, where Campion was relying on the Head Waiter, the lean Ulysse, the one permanent husbandman in Parroquet's ever-changing flower garden, to find them a respectably prominent table.

He did not find Georgia immediately, but was relieved to see that the place was filled with likely people. Stage and society were well represented and Money hung about with Art in the corners, while the mass attempt at complete un-self-consciousness provided the familiar atmosphere of feverish effort.

Young Hennessy, sitting at a table with a duchess, an actor-manager and two complete strangers, made an importunate attempt to attract his attention, and it was not until then that Campion, normally the most observant of men, glanced at Amanda and noticed that she had grown astonishingly good to look at. She saw his expression and grinned.

‘I put my best frock on,' she said. ‘Hal chooses all my things. Hal says good undergraduate taste is the only safe criterion of modern clothes. He takes it terribly seriously. Do you see anybody you know or have we got to go on somewhere else?'

‘No, this'll do.' Mr Campion's tone contained not only relief but a note of resignation. Amanda, he foresaw, was about to discover the worst.

Ulysse received them with all that wealth of unspoken satisfaction which was his principal professional asset and conducted them to the small but not ill-placed table which he swore he had been keeping up his sleeve for just such an eventuality. The worst of the cabaret was over, he confided with that carefully cultivated contempt for everything that interfered with beautiful food, which was another of his more valuable affectations. He also spent some time considering the best meal for Amanda at that time of night.

As soon as they were at peace again Mr Campion took it upon himself to rearrange his companion's chair so that her view across the room was not impeded. Then he sat down beside her.

‘There you are, lady,' he said. ‘Once more the veteran conjuror staggers out with the rabbit. There's the situation for you in the proverbial nut.'

Georgia and Alan Deli had a table on the edge of the dance-floor and from where she now sat Amanda had clear view of the two profiles. Georgia's slightly blunt features and magnificent shoulders were thrown up against the moving
kaleidoscope of colour, and Dell sat staring at her with fifteen years off his age and the lost, slightly dazed expression of the man who, whether his trouble be love, drink or merely loss of blood, has honestly no idea that he is surrounded by strangers.

Infatuation is one of those slightly comic illnesses which are at once so undignified and so painful that a nice-minded world does its best to ignore their existence altogether, referring to them only under provocation and then with apology, but, like its more material brother, this boil on the neck of the spirit can hardly be forgotten either by the sufferer or anyone else in his vicinity. The malady is ludicrous, sad, excruciating and, above all, instantly diagnosable.

Mr Campion glanced at Amanda and was sorry. Illusions may deserve to be broken, young enthusiasts may have to take what is coming to them, and heroes may desert their causes as life dictates, but it is always an unhappy business to watch. Amanda sat up, her round white neck very stiff and the jut of her flaming curls dangerous. Her face was expressionless, and the absence of any animation brought into sudden prominence the natural hauteur stamped into the fine bones of her head. She regarded the two for a long candid minute and then, turning away, changed the conversation with that flat deliberation which is a gift

‘This is excellent fish,' she said.

Mr Campion, who had the uncomfortable feeling that he had been a little vulgar, laboured to make amends.

‘It's dudgeon,' he said. ‘Very rare. They have great difficulty in keeping it. Hence the term “high . . .”.'

‘Yes, I know.' Amanda met his eyes. ‘We lived on it down at the mill one year. Do you remember? Who is that woman?'

‘Georgia Wells, the actress.'

Amanda's fine eyebrows rose.

‘I thought that was Lady Ramillies?'

‘Yes,' said Mr Campion.

She was silent. There was no possible way of divining what was in her mind, but he reflected that the younger generation was notoriously severe.

‘It wears off, you know,' he said, trying not to sound avuncular. ‘He can't help the out-in-the-street-in-the-nude
effect, poor chap, at the moment. Nothing can be done. The work will have to wait.'

‘No, nothing can be done,' agreed Amanda politely. ‘That's what I have to explain to Sid. Thank you very much for bringing me.'

She moved her chair a little to shut out Dell, and set herself to be entertaining. Mr Campion approved. He remembered enough of the hard-working, hero-worshipping, ecstatic days of his own youth to realize some of the shame, the sneaking jealousy and horrified sense of injustice and neglect that comes when the great man lets his fiery disciples down. But if Amanda was conscious of any of this she was not inflicting it upon him. Her manners were irreproachable. Amanda was, as ever, the perfect gent.