The Rose Garden (20 page)

“There is something strange about it,” Lewis said. “How long have we been here? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?”

“I suppose they're shy,” Leona said. “George said none of the Retreat people who came danced.”

George, who had been dozing, came to at the sound of his name and sat up, looking around blearily.

“Well, where's the rush, girls?” he inquired. “I thought we were going to be stampeded. What happened to the stag line?”

Leona shot him a venomous glance. Turning to Lewis, she said in a low voice, “Did you notice anything in the bar? I mean, were they friendly and everything?”

“Sure,” Lewis said. “They went out of their way to help me get the drinks. They were—well, you know, the same as they always are.”

“I'm afraid you girls outsmarted yourselves,” Charles said, chortling faintly. “The poor creatures are paralyzed by the splendor of your attire.”

Leona turned impulsively to Lewis. “Lewis, why don't you and Dolly start things off by dancing together. Not that I care that much about dancing, but if they're shy—”

“Nothing doing,” Lewis said.

“Oh, Leona, we can't do that,” Dolly said. “They have to ask us. We can't just jump right into the middle of their dance. After all, we don't really come here to dance. We just come—well, to be nice.”

“You're stuck,” George said. “It's a boycott. They're on to you, girls.”

“That's ridiculous, George!” Leona cried indignantly. “They're dancing with Edward.”

George shrugged.

“If it were a boycott,” Charles interposed, “we'd know it by their demeanor. They'd giggle or point their fingers or something. These people can't control their emotions. They have to show what they feel. But I can see no evidence of hostility in this assemblage.”

“Neither can I!” Leona cried. “Why, they're smiling and friendly and all. There's Bridie waving at me now. They're just shy, incredible though it may seem. Well, who ever would have thought it? It's too bad. Not that it matters, of course.”

“I didn't know Edward could even stand up,” Dolly said suddenly, “and look at him now. The life of the party.”

“The parlormaids' Don Juan,” Charles said. “The scullery sheik.”

George emitted a rude crow of mirth. “A rehearsal, by God!” he cried. “Is that what you're going to say to Tarnac tomorrow, Charles? I've always wanted to see you working on those witty sayings of yours. Try some more, Charles. We'll tell you the good ones.”

Charles froze into a dark knot of rage. Leona turned pale.

“Shut up, you,” Lewis said. “Do you hear me? Shut up. We know Tarnac; you don't.”

George waggled a finger at him. “Now, now, Lewis. Just because Tarnac is dancing and you're not. No one asked me to dance, but you don't see me getting all red and angry.”

Lewis crouched like a beast on his straight wooden chair. “Come outside,” he said. “I'll break your neck for that.”

“Break it here,” George said with enthusiasm. “Come on, break it. Hit me. Come on, hit me.”

“Oh, God!” Leona moaned. “Will you two stop it! Stop this at once. The servants, Lewis! Have some sense! Oh, Charles, smile as though nothing had happened. Dolly, stop glaring at George that way. Lewis, pull yourself together, please.”

Lewis squared around to face the dancers again. Behind him, George grinned.

“All right,” Lewis said. “All right. But I won't forget this, Leona.”

“How could you, dear?” Leona said soothingly. “And neither will George,” she promised, in a different tone.

“Oh, let's go home. Let's get out of here, for heaven's sake!” Dolly said.

“You can't go home that fast,” George said. “Maybe it
is
a boycott. Maybe they're not shy at all. Maybe they want to teach you a lesson. Us a lesson, I mean. Us a lesson.”

“I couldn't care less!” Dolly cried. “It's all a great bore as far as I'm concerned. Let's you and me go anyway, Lewis.”

“Little feelings hurt?” George inquired, and sniggered.

Lewis set his glass carefully on the floor, and then clenched his fist melodramatically. “Listen, little man,” he said to George, “my wife's feelings are not hurt. My wife's feelings could never be hurt by a crew of drunken servants and street-sweepers and God knows what.”

“Oh, Lewis, old man,
I
know that,” George said, “but do
they
know that?”

“What do I care what they think!”

“Keep your voice down, Lewis,” Leona said coldly. “For once, George is right. We have to stay a little while, I'm afraid, deadly though it is. We can't let them think they drove us out. We'll stay a reasonable time, and then go. I still don't think they're doing it on purpose. It would be too silly.”

“We'll know tomorrow, anyway,” Dolly said, sighing. “Edward will tell us.”

“I must say he has a nerve,” Leona said. “He hasn't come near us once. After all, Dolly, you are his hostess.”

“Edward has reached his proper level, my dear,” Charles said. “Look at the pathetic fellow, capering around.”

“Utterly smug,” Dolly said. “Oh, God,” she added. “He heard us talking this morning on the deck, Leona. About the dance, I mean, and these damned stockings and all. Do you suppose he'll tell them? I really can't bear to think of them laughing at us.”

“I don't think he'll say anything,” Lewis said. “I don't think he'd go that far.”

“I really think we've stayed long enough, don't you, Charles?” Leona said.

“We will not go home, children,” Charles said. “I know you girls are disappointed you weren't asked to dance. Lewis and George, too, of course. But we mustn't let our little peeve show. This is much too interesting a scene to miss, and I intend to sit it out. Chins up, now. We're not leaving. Don't look so down, Dolly. There'll be other dances.”

“What do you mean there'll be other dances?” Dolly cried furiously. “You're the one who's been making all the fuss about coming to this wretched thing. What about your special waistcoat and your waltzing slippers?”

Charles regarded her with cool amusement. “Leona knows all
about that, Dolly,” he said. “I have a severely infected foot, which obliges me to wear a pliable shoe. I never had the slightest intention of dancing tonight, but I didn't want to spoil your fun by refusing to come, and in any case the spectacle interests me, and you are making it even more interesting, my dear, with this childish display of temper because the little boys didn't notice your sexy new stockings. Isn't that so, my sweet? Leona, you remember my telling you about my wretched foot?”

“Of course, darling,” Leona said. “You should apologize, Dolly.”

“Haw, haw, HAW,” George said. “He made that all up just now to save his face, such as it is.”

“Leave the room at once, George,” Leona said.

“Make me,” George said. “Go ahead, make me. Make me.”

“Make you what?” Charles asked in contempt.

Leona threw Charles a glance of anguish. “Oh, Charles, don't provoke him. Poor George is not himself this evening.”

“Poor George,” George said, apparently to himself. “Poor George,” he said again. He stood up. “POOR GEORGE!” he roared. “POOR, POOR George!”

The nearest dancers hesitated and then went on. George smiled and sat down again.

“I'll kill you for this, George,” Leona said.

“I'll do it again, and I'll do worse than that, Leona,” George said, “unless you say after me now, ‘Nice George.'”

Leona stared at him and then spoke quickly. “Nice George,” she said.

“Keep smiling, children,” Charles said brightly. “Remember, it's all just a little joke. Don't let them guess there's anything wrong.”

“Now, Leona,” George said, “say, ‘Rich, handsome, good George.'”

“Rich, handsome, good George,” Leona gabbled.

George looked pleased. “‘Popular George'?” he suggested.

“Popular George.”

“Good enough,” George said. “Now Charlie—‘Nice George,' please. If you don't say ‘Nice George,' Charlie, I'm coming over there and twist your ears, one to the front, one to the back. ‘Nice George.'”

“Nice George,” Charles said, sneering. Leona, Lewis, and Dolly, all three turned their gaze uneasily from him.

“Stop making faces, Charlie,” George said good-humoredly. “Now all together—‘Rich, handsome, witty George, good George, nice George.'”

“Rich, handsome, witty George,” they chorused feebly, “good George, nice George.”

George took out his flask. “‘Pleasant, popular,
able
George.'”

“Pleasant, popular, able George.”

In the swollen peace that followed, Leona and Dolly smiled stiffly at each other. “I really never felt so much of a fool in my life,” Dolly said.

“We can leave in about an hour, don't you think?” Charles said.

“An hour, Charles, yes, let's say an hour at the most,” Leona agreed fervently.

They continued to sit, smiling. Behind them, having tasted heaven, George slept. Before them, the dance went on.

Next morning, Charles awoke as usual at nine-thirty, but he did not immediately open his eyes. He waited, lying very still, breathing calmly and deeply, until his first impression of uneasiness, of being on guard, had passed into a determined surge of good spirits, and then, to his delighted surprise, into a playful well-being that carried him out of bed and across to the table where his notebook lay. He lifted the book, admiring the neatness—that is, he
thought, the dispassionateness—of last night's entries. He had stayed awake almost until dawn, sitting here in silence until his temper was cool enough to let him write as he knew he should write. Now it was all in hand. The day was full of promise. He was going into battle, and his adversaries, meager enough in their normal state, would all have horrifying hangovers.

“George,” he murmured, and read. It was disagreeable stuff, but he absorbed it bravely. George was easy game. George would learn his lesson well. Thinking of the awakening George must at this moment be enduring with Leona, Charles could almost find it in his heart to be sorry for the poor wretch. Edward would squirm, too. That would all be perhaps too easy.

But then came the difficult part, because already, at the memory of the evening, Charles was beginning to rage again. He was churning with rage. He could burn the memory of his own ludicrous part in the whole business from the minds of the others, by turning their derision back on them, but could he forget it himself? Because if he did not forget it, or destroy it, its damage would show, and the others would know for certain that he had been as vulnerable as they to the general humiliation. “They must not know,” he said aloud. “It must not show,” he said. “Today will prove what I am—a man above all this petty frenzy. I am different from all these people,” he told himself angrily. He stood up and strode barefoot around the room.

Suddenly he stopped in the center of the woolly white rug and, gazing down at his untidy bed, clutched his head with both hands. “I simply must remember that I am an observer,” he said. The image that had come to him again and again last night as he sat on the dais returned once more: He saw himself before leaving for the dance, posturing in front of this very pier glass, taking the attitudes of the waltz, actually dancing backward with the hand mirror, watching the swing of his coat and the curve of his trouser
legs. “I cannot bear this!” Charles said wildly, and started to catalogue the shame of the others. Dolly's net stockings, he thought, and that absurd rose. Leona's open chagrin. Lewis's deathly embarrassment. And George with his sad little flash of courage. And Tarnac—why, he had enough gibes prepared to keep Tarnac reeling for a year.

Gradually Charles's head grew quiet. He opened the curtains. Another perfect day. It might be yesterday—but he thrust that thought quickly out of sight. He sat in the chintz chair and permitted himself an unusual indulgence: he smoked a cigarette before breaking his fast. Then he rang for Bridie, and when she appeared, he stared at her in amazement, for even he could not ignore the extraordinary violence she brought with her into the room.

She handed him his orange juice and poured the hot milk and coffee. He eyed her curiously as he sipped the orange juice. Her face was actually twitching with some emotion. Something must have upset her last night. He felt he could not bear it if she left the room before he knew what it was.

“A very pleasant party last night, Bridie,” he said smoothly. “Very pleasant indeed. The girls looked so pretty in their little best dresses.”

“I suppose they did, sir.” Bridie hurled herself at the window curtains, and snatched them apart with such force that the whole inside window frame was left naked, ruining Leona's lovely draped effect. Charles frowned in surprise. More here than meets the eye, he thought, and wondered how best to approach this maddened woman.