The Passing Bells (21 page)

Fenton Wood-Lacy's batman opened the door to the captain's tastefully furnished flat, which Roger was sharing while in London. Roger was seated on the drawing room floor, surrounded by printed proofs of his poems. Sprawled next to him was Rupert Brooke, shoes and stockings off, a white tennis shirt open down the front revealing an expanse of brawny, tanned chest. Brooke's friend, Lascelles Abercrombie, sat in a chair, puffing on a pipe and reading the afternoon edition of the
Globe.

“Hello, Rupert,” Charles said. It was good to see the man again. The poet had left King's College when he and Roger had gone up to Cambridge, but his influence had been strong, had put a stamp on all literary societies that had flourished there. And Brooke had lived for a time near the college, at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, and he and Roger, and many others, had spent hours there talking endlessly about books and poetry or swimming in the dam above Byron's Pool. . . .
“Yet stands the church clock at ten to three? / And is there honey still for tea?”

“Hello, Charles,” Brooke said with a lazy smile. “Happy birthday.”

“Yes, Greville,” Abercrombie muttered. “Many happy returns of the day.”

“I gather Roger's been advertising the fact,” Charles said.

Brooke nodded. “In the hope we can all pressure you into throwing a party for the occasion . . . or at least a bang-up feed at some small but epicurean restaurant.”

“Be my guests,” he said thickly.

Roger looked up for the first time and noticed the sickly pallor of his friend's face.

“I say, Charles, do you feel all right?”

“I'm fine . . . thanks.”

“Well, you don't look fine. Webber!”

The batman darted into the room. “Yes, sir?”

“Fix Mr. Greville a large whiskey. And Mr. Brooke and Mr. Abercrombie could go for a Guinness, if there's any left.”

“There's one bottle, sir.”

“Divvy it up, that's the good chap.” He watched the soldier-servant scurry off. “My dear brother runs a niggardly house. No, Charles, you look pale as a ghost.”

Charles sat on the edge of a sofa. He really didn't feel well at all. “It's just the heat and the petrol fumes. God,” he blurted, “I'd like to get away for a month or two. Can't you postpone that blasted book? Let's go to Greece. Train to Trieste and then shanks' mare to Epirus.”

Abercrombie lowered his newspaper. “I'd stay away from that section of the world for a few months. Austria just sent a perfectly shocking demand to Serbia—a veritable slap in the face with an iron glove. There's bound to be another war in the Balkans. We were just discussing it before you arrived. Care to read the dispatch from Belgrade?”

“Oh, bugger Belgrade!” His tone had a bitterness that surprised even him.

“Oh, I say,” Roger said. “We like little Serbia, don't we?”

It was all correct and proper, Fenton Wood-Lacy was thinking as he walked slowly toward number 24 Cadogan Square. It was the day after Winifred Sutton's debut ball, and it was socially correct to return, leave one's calling card, or thank the hostess for a grand time. He had come to do more than that. He had had only one dance with Winifred, but it had been the final one, a waltz, and after it was over he had overheard a woman mention to Lady Mary that her daughter looked beautiful, “. . . and they make such a lovely couple.” Lady Mary had beamed radiantly. He had then brought Winifred a final cup of punch and had asked her if he might call the next day and perhaps, if she wasn't too tired from the exertions of the ball, go for a walk.

“I am so glad you asked,” she had said. “And I shall let you in on a secret.
Mama will be pleased as well
.”

And so now he stood on the front steps of the Suttons' London house, feeling, he thought ruefully, very “suitorish” with a box of sweets from Fortnum and Mason under his left arm. A butler anticipated his ringing the bell and opened the door.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

He was ushered, almost reverently, into the drawing room, where Winifred and her parents were waiting. They all seemed immensely relieved when he walked in.

“Ah, Fenton,” the Marquess of Dexford cried. He was a stout, balding man with the slightly bowed legs of a lifetime horseman. “Jolly nice of you to drop by, what? Care for a glass of sherry? Did I tell you I saw your uncle t'other day? At the Army-Navy. Looked fit. His division did damn well at Sal'sbury in the old maneuvers, what?”

The one-sided conversation became increasingly more fatuous, and then, blessedly, goodbyes were said, and he and Winifred were outside the house in the golden sunshine.

“Shall we walk up to Kensington Gardens?” he asked.

She put a hand on his arm. “Let's walk slowly to the river. I love Chelsea, don't you?”

He admitted that he did. He also told her that she looked lovely.

She blushed and her hand tightened on his arm. “Thank you. Is it wrong for me to say that you look lovely, too? That's not the proper thing to say to a man, I know, but it happens to be true. I feel very proud walking beside you.”

Her usual reticence vanished once they were away from the house. She was candid about herself, aware of her shortcomings.

“But I
am
trying to better myself. Take this frock. I think it's very becoming, but Mother said no at first. She thought it was too daring in the bodice, but I don't think a woman should feel ashamed that she has a—well, a female chest, do you?”

“Certainly not.”

“One of my problems has always been a sweet tooth. I used to be mad for cream buns, but one can achieve slenderness by being firm in one's resolve to avoid such treats. I shall treasure your box of chocolates, but I shan't eat them.”

“I'm sorry. My next present to you will not be edible.”

She slipped her arm through his. Her intimacy was childlike. He felt like a favorite uncle. Lord, he thought, how terribly young she is.

The Thames was sluggish in the afternoon heat, and their conversation about Chelsea began to wear thin. A public house in Cheyne Walk looked inviting, but he couldn't take her there. She seemed content just to be with him, walking decorously by his side, arm in arm, not caring whether they spoke or not. A tug plowed upriver, pulling a string of empty coal barges. Some gray birds rose from the mud flats in the shadow of Albert Bridge and flew off across the river toward Battersea. They walked on, leaving the embankment and walking slowly up King's Road in the direction of Sloane Square. A sentry standing by the iron gates of the Duke of York's barracks tapped the butt of his rifle twice against the pavement as they walked past him.

“Why did he do that?”

“Because he recognized me as an officer,” Fenton said after acknowledging the salute with a slight nod of his head.

“Is he in your regiment?”

“He's in the Royal Sussex, but I've been to the barracks a few times. Perhaps he remembered my face.”

“No. You just look like a captain in the Coldstream Guards. I think it's the way you wear your skimmer. It's the way I imagine Kitchener would wear his.”

He leaned toward her and whispered loudly in her ear, “Don't tell anyone, but Lord Kitchener doesn't own a straw hat. Nothing but uniforms. Even his pajamas . . . scarlet with rows and rows of medals.”

Her laugh was throaty and rich. “Oh, dear, poor Mrs. K., how she must suffer!”

He was enjoying her company. Was, in fact, beginning to like the girl. And that mildly bawdy allusion to old K. and his missus proved that she wasn't a prude. Yes, he liked her. She was on the dowdy side, no question about that. Even the new frock was of no great help. It showed her figure, to be sure, but it wasn't exactly a figure that would set a man's blood on fire. Her hair was pretty in the sun and her complexion clear and rosy. Good teeth. Lips that would be described in a novel as kissable. He liked her. She was easy to be with, and one could, in a sense, relax.

“Are you feeling a bit peckish?” he asked. “A cup of tea, some sandwiches?”

“I'm always peckish. It shall be the death of me. On my tombstone they will write: ‘Here lies Winifred Sutton, fasting at last.' ”

His laugh was a gunshot that turned heads. He took hold of her hand and steered her across the busy street, dodging cars and lorries, and into an Italian restaurant that he remembered with favor. He had taken Lydia there once. She had enjoyed the Milanese food, but had been bored by the Chelsea “types”—the actors, writers, and painters who haunted the place from morning to night. Winifred, on the other hand, was delighted by the revelation of a side of Chelsea she had never seen, nor even knew existed. The dimness of the shuttered room, the candles stuck into wine bottles on each table, the Bohemian crowd fascinated her. A burly man with a ragged red beard, a shabby velvet cloak draped across his shoulders, paused in front of their table and eyed Fenton up and down.

“You look like the Prince of Wales.”

“Only when I'm sitting down,” Fenton said, then rose to his full six feet two inches.

Red beard nodded. “So I can see, mate. You and your lady want your portraits done? Half a crown each.”

“And a liter of Chianti, of course.”

“Of course.”

The man sketched while they ate, using charcoal and pastels. The results were very good.

“May I have yours?” Winifred asked. “I shall treasure it always.”

She felt slightly tipsy from a glass of wine, and so he ordered a taxi and asked the driver to take a long way back to Cadogan Square. Her head cleared as they drove around the park, but she remained euphoric.

“This has been the most wonderful afternoon of my life.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, Winifred.”

She clutched the two portraits and turned on the seat to look at him.

“Can we do it again sometime?”

She was his for the asking. Hooked, netted, and placed in the creel. He felt a nagging sense of shame for being so cold-blooded about it, but, damn it all, he
did
like her.

“As often as you like. Although I suppose you'll be leaving London soon.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “We go back to Dorset on the first of August.” Her eyes had an almost haunted look of appeal.

“May I ask your father for formal permission to call on you, Winifred? Here in London—and—as often as possible at Lulworth Manor?”

She seemed to stop breathing for a moment, then she let out a tiny cry and leaned against him, her lips brushing the side of his face.

“Oh, yes, yes. Oh, my dearest,
dearest
Fenton . . . may God bless you and keep you always . . .
always
. . . .”

Martin Rilke tried to keep his mind on what he was typing, but the chatter of the Teletype machines intruded on his thoughts. He had been given the courtesy of a glass-enclosed cubicle, sharing the space with the theater reviewer, but the top of the cubicle was open and the sounds of the enormous room rolled over it like great waves over a dike. The banner of the morning edition had been made up, and he could see it as a copy boy hurried the proofs to one of the editors.

SERBIAN CRISIS GROWS

That was a feather in Jacob's hat, he was thinking. They had pulled him off murder trials and sent him hurrying off to Belgrade. He envied him. The page in his typewriter mocked the severity of the European situation:

There is something about Lord's cricket ground that is humbling to even the most uninitiated of spectators. Standing in the Long Room, amid the almost holy relics of the game's past, looking up at the severe visage of W. G. Grace, whose bust dominates the pavilion, even this Yankee was struck by

Struck by what? The absurdity of the game? Men in white clothing standing about in the sun? The lack of passion? The elderly men seated in the shade, murmuring, “Good play . . . Oh, well done, sir”? Where was the explosive snap of the ball from home to second to catch the runner? And where was the runner himself, sliding in with his spikes high, trailing dust?

But the piece must be laudatory, with just the gentlest of digs at the more stuffy types of clubmen with their “haw haw” fatuity—a few thorn pricks amid the roses.

“Are you finished, Mr. Rilke, sir?” a copy boy asked, poking his head around the doorway. The accent was strong East End, but no longer incomprehensible to Martin's ear. He was becoming Anglicized.

“Another fifteen minutes, Jimmy.”

“Right you are, sir.”

Twenty minutes to the midnight deadline. He'd make it with ease, even with the rambling of his thoughts. When he was done, he raised his hand and the boy darted into the cubicle and raced away with the copy. Martin took off his glasses, wiped them with a handkerchief, and placed them in his pocket. The theater reviewer, a cadaverous man who had never been seen by anyone on the paper dressed in anything but evening clothes and white tie, rose stretching and yawning from behind his desk, where he had been sound asleep for the past two hours.

“All done, Rilke?”

“Yes. Put to bed.”

“That's where I should be.”

The reviewer yawned and drew a cigarette from a silver case.

“You could have been there for the past two hours.”

“I know, but I feel restless. I rather miss Jacob. He's the only one I know who might conceivably understand what's going on. The other chaps around here are no bloody use at all.” He smiled thinly. “They know only what they read in the papers. I tell you, Rilke, I'm most apprehensive about the Balkan situation. I can't see how it can possibly ease off or where it will end. Oh, well, worrying about it won't make it change, will it? Can I buy you a drink at Romano's?”

“No, thanks, I think I'll go straight home.”

“I'll share your taxi, if you don't mind. I have this absolute horror of being alone lately. Can't explain it. Damnedest feeling.”