The Twyborn Affair (6 page)

None the less, she was relieved to arrive at the English Tea-room and Library, except that, as she turned in, she caught sight of a pouting, heavy, middle-aged woman, over-dressed for a walk through a provincial town. (Plate-glass, she reminded herself, never tells the truth; it was a well-known fact.)

Mrs Golson got up her best manner for Miss Clitheroe presiding behind the counter which dispensed rock-cakes and scones together with culture.

Mrs Golson had brought her Hall Caine to exchange for an Edith Wharton long coveted but never secured.

Miss Clitheroe barely glanced at the shelf. ‘Edith is out. More probably stolen. She means so much to us at St Mayeul.'

Rather glumly Mrs Golson accepted
The Hand of Ethelberta
while trying to console herself with the thought that some considered Mrs Wharton ‘sarcastic'.

Miss Clitheroe was the kind of Englishwoman established in foreign parts who made people grateful for any of the smaller mercies she vouchsafed. She was so thin, so high-toned, so assured, and had lived abroad so long she could afford to be patronising. Her French exhibited a fluency that nobody, not even the French themselves, would have dared reject, its timbre reminiscent of a struck gong.

Mrs Golson would never have admitted that Miss Clitheroe terrified her. She did not know, poor thing, that others, not only Colonials, but fairly intrepid English, had experienced the same terror while ordering their tea and scones or exchanging their library books. Nor were they reassured by her smile, if she deigned to subject them to it, while staring through her gold-rimmed spectacles along the ridge of what could have passed for a high-born nose, in which was rooted, above the swell of the right nostril, a small but noticeable, tufted mole. Miss Clitheroe was familiarly, and always spotlessly dressed, in a pale brown, or what she herself referred to as a ‘biscuit' smock.

Mrs Golson dipped her eyes before the Englishwoman's superior stare. Far too much had happened today; little did she know that more was to happen.

Miss Clitheroe might have known from the way she kept glancing at the clock and tapping her ring on the counter—a father's signet, Joanie realised, such as Eadie wore.

Such an air of prescience in the proprietress made the customer swivel on her heels, and there was the charming young creature of the pink villa walking past the English Tea-room's bow-window.

‘Oh,' Mrs Golson began to churn it out, ‘who is that young person—just walking past—Miss Clitheroe?' She heard herself generating the unpleasant sound of phlegm she associated with the thick enunciation of certain men, her husband included.

‘That is Madame Vatatzes,' Miss Clotheroe replied without hesitation.

Mrs Golson confided, ‘I've seen her—or so I believe.' Then, regrettably, she giggled.

Miss Clitheroe went on tapping her father's ring on the counter. ‘A charming young woman.'

‘Charming—yes, charming.'

They were on about it,
ratatattat
.

Miss Clitheroe said, ‘I can't say I'm acquainted with her. Nor her Greek husband, who is somewhat—well, eccentric.'

Miss Clitheroe paused in her tattoo.

Mrs Golson said how interesting—‘A
Greek!
'

‘Oh, yes,' Miss Clitheroe replied, ‘we're near enough to the Near East.'

After which they both fell silent.

Till Mrs Golson asked, ‘What is
she
? I mean, of course, her origins.'

Miss Clitheroe hesitated. ‘She could be English. She is very well-spoken. But one can't always tell, can one? in a world like this.'

She looked at Mrs Golson, who feared that she was being lumped among the undesirables.

But what the deuce, as Curly might have said. She was obsessed by her vision of the young woman in the velvet toque, the rather ratty stone-marten stole, in transit past the tea-room window. The reflections in plate-glass would never distort Madame Vatatzes as they are reputed to, and do distort those who are in for punishment.

Although Madame Vatatzes was not wearing them, she had left behind her, Mrs Golson thought she detected, the scent, the blur of violets.

Oh, ridiculous!

While Miss Clitheroe had begun a recitative from behind the counter. ‘They are out at “Crimson Cottage”.' She gave it a French pronunciation, and nobody, least of all Mrs Golson, would have disputed her right to do so: she had lived so long on the Coast, and besides, the spit which flew out through the gaps between her teeth defended her bona fides. ‘They rent the place from Madame
Llewellyn-Boieldieu—slightly Welsh through the Llewellyns of Cwm. Her husband, Monsieur Boieldieu, didn't recover from an accident.' Here Miss Clitheroe glanced at the clock. ‘Are you acquainted with Madame Boieldieu?'

Mrs Golson was going at the knees. ‘I know nobody,' she confessed feebly, and ordered a pot of strong tea.

Miss Clitheroe was not amused; she called, ‘
Geneviève? Un thé
.'

‘
Pas de scones? Pas de rock-kecks?
' Geneviève called back from the depths.

‘
Rien d'autre
' Miss Clitheroe was very firm about it. ‘
Je suis en retard
. You will understand,' she told her customer, ‘an invalid friend is expecting me.' She began throwing a handful of
rock-kecks
into a cardboard box.

From her experience of the English Tea-room's
rock-kecks
Mrs Golson hoped the invalid friend would have the strength to cope.

She herself was coping with the tea, which she soon rejected forcibly. ‘I too,' she said, and smiled, ‘am late. My husband will be wondering.'

Husbands!
Miss Clitheroe's stare implied.

When Mrs Golson had paid for the nasty tea she was abandoning (it was the idea of tea more than tea itself that she had needed as a fortifier) she hurried off in the direction taken by Madame Vatatzes. Conscious of Miss Clitheroe's stare boring into her shoulder blades, she would have liked to point out that the direction was unavoidable, since Madame Vatatzes had been heading towards the Grand Hôtel Splendide des Ligures.

Everything today was unavoidable, it seemed, for here on the edge of the hotel garden there had gathered a group of sympathisers, voluble but ineffectual, round one who appeared to have suffered a mishap. The person was seated on the low wall containing the hotel garden, just outside the rotunda where a musical trio of sorts performed at this hour of afternoon.

With joy and dismay Mrs Golson realised that the individual exciting the pedestrians' concern was none other than Madame Vatatzes.

‘
Mais vous devez souffrir, madame, si vous vous êtes foulée la cheville
,' said the least vague, though hardly authoritative member of her entourage. ‘
On doit vous emmener quelque part … au moins appeler une voiture … votre mari …
'

‘
C'est rien. Oui, je souffre un petit peu … Je resterai ici quelques instants pour me reposer
,' the young woman replied in a low and level voice, apparently practised in the use of the French language and only slightly foreign in the intonation she gave it.

‘
Qu'est-ce que c'est arrivé?
' The crisis made Mrs Golson less conscious than usual of her clumsy linguistic carpentry.

On the credit side, as an Australian she was probably more competent to take the matter in hand than any of those standing round expressing formal sympathy. Realisation gave her the courage, moreover, to face the handsome Madame Vatatzes, who in turn seemed to be quailing in the presence of Australian competence.

When she suddenly made the effort to reply in perfectly good English, if slightly flattened perhaps, by whatever it was that had happened to her. ‘Something minor and foolish. From thinking of other things I stepped half on half off the kerb and twisted my ankle.'

Although now in the position of
dea ex machina
Mrs Golson blushed with embarrassment for the French she had blurted at one who had such command of English.

‘Should you see a doctor perhaps?' she suggested, when she had intended to insist with British firmness.

‘Oh no, not doctors! They pull you about so!'

Madame Vatatzes sounded so positive Mrs Golson would have felt ashamed of her miserable suggestion, but had what might prove to be a real brainwave.

‘Why not let me help you into the hotel—where I'm staying—and our man will run you home in the motor?'

‘Oh, I couldn't
really
!' protested Madame Vatatzes with no good reason.

She had the finest eyes Mrs Golson had ever seen: neither blue, nor grey, nor green, but a mingling of them all, changing probably
according to mood or light. Her companion imagined how, on a day which loured less, the eyes of Madame Vatatzes might reflect the sun itself.

Mrs Golson must have appeared so entranced, the eyes could have realised their own power, and relented.

Soon after, Madame Vatatzes sighed, and said, ‘You are very kind. Perhaps I'll accept your offer.' She glanced up, smiling not quite at Mrs Golson, as though unwilling to admit her own dependence. ‘My husband is getting on,' she said, ‘and imagines all the worst disasters.'

Mrs Golson was enchanted to help this lovely young creature hobble as far as the rotunda, and to take upon herself some of Madame Vatatzes' weight. The ugly movements to which the young woman was reduced by her mishap gave her companion strength. As they entered a world of sticky cakes and stickier music Mrs Golson might have discovered a mission.

‘Absurd this afternoon music always sounds!' She laughed to apologise.

Mrs Golson would have loved it on her own. She thought she could identify the Meditation from
Thaïs
. She would have loved to settle down with an éclair, followed perhaps by a reckless
Mont Blanc
, and let the music lap round memories of a recently established, intricately constructed, relationship.

‘Are you musical?' she asked far more recklessly than she would have downed the forbidden
Mont Blanc
.

‘My husband says I'm not,' Madame Vatatzes bit her lip for the pain her ankle was causing her, ‘only musically ambitious.'

Remembering the two on their piano-stool, Mrs Golson nursed her secret. Or was it? Had Madame Vatatzes seen her standing at the wall under the olive tree spellbound by the music she had been listening to? She could not be sure. She did not care. To help support the weight of this radiant young woman was in itself enough to dismiss doubts. Mrs Golson was so devoted to her mission she would have got down on all fours and offered herself as a mule if asked.

Instead she announced, at the highest pitch of recklessness, ‘We'll take the lift up to our suite—away from this appalling din—and sit in comfort—rest your ankle—while I send for the car.' It sounded dashing, to herself at least.

Madame Vatatzes hobbled and grinned.

Released by the hunchback from the gilt cage in which he functioned, she stumbled and gasped on catching sight of a figure some way down the corridor. ‘
Je me demande … cette femme de chamber …
'

‘Charming girl. Joséphine. She came to work here just the other day.'

‘She is—or was—my maid,' Madame Vatatzes explained, not without bitterness. ‘A liar into the bargain.'

‘Oh, they all thrive on untruths!'

‘Most of us do. Did you never tell a lie?'

‘Oh, well, of course one does
—sometimes—
under provocation—tell a fib!' Mrs Golson admitted and laughed.

‘But Joséphine—I thought her too good, too innocent to lie like the rest of us.'

‘My dear!' Mrs Golson protested. ‘I can't believe you tell untruths!'

Madame Vatatzes, on Mrs Golson's arm, had hobbled almost as far as the corner round which Joséphine had made her escape.

‘Yes,' Madame Vatatzes confessed. ‘I've never been brave enough to live the truth.'

Mrs Golson felt she was being drawn out of her depth. She did not want to be upset. She was ready to be charmed again.

‘And Joséphine needed the money, I expect. We couldn't afford to pay her as much as we ought.'

Madame Vatatzes was far too explicit for Mrs Golson. At the same time the mention of poverty cheered her up; it gave her back her sense of power. She must think of something, valuable but discreet, perhaps a pretty brooch in
semi
-precious stones, to give this attractive young person. She doubted, however, that Madame Vatatzes would allow herself to be bound.

Just then, they reached the door of the Golson suite.

‘Oh dear, my husband has been smoking
—cigars
!” Mrs Golson rushed at the window.

‘I must say I enjoy the smell of a cigar.' Madame Vatatzes' thoughts seemed to make her feel at home, for she sat down abruptly in the Louis
bergère
; it could, on the other hand, have been pain in her ankle forcing her to take the weight off it. ‘In fact,' she confessed, ‘I like the smell of a man.'

Breathless from the stiff window as well as confused by the unorthodox remark, Mrs Golson replied, ‘Well, it depends—surely. I can enjoy the smell of tweed—and leather—and all that—but I can't say I like a man's smelly smells.'

At once she blushed. She had never felt so tactless, stupid, vulgar. She wondered anyone put up with her. No doubt they would not have, if it hadn't been for her money, it was her own bitterest private opinion on sleepless nights and in the company of those she wished to impress.

But Madame Vatatzes did not seem to question her companion's values. ‘Even what you call their smelly smells can have a perverse charm. The smell of an old man, for instance. So many layers of life lived—such a compost!'

It was too much for Mrs Golson. ‘Wouldn't you like to take off your shoe? I'll put a cushion under your foot. I could even bathe the ankle. A compress … Should it be hot or cold? I can never remember.'