65 Short Stories

  So, on Tuesday but rather late, I went to Jane’s. I confess I was a little surprised at the company. It was quite a remarkable collection of writers, painters and politicians, actors, great ladies and great beauties: Mrs Tower was right, it was a grand party; I had seen nothing like it in London since Stafford House was sold. No particular entertainment was provided. The refreshments were adequate without being luxurious. Jane in her quiet way seemed to be enjoying herself; I could not see that she took a great deal of trouble with her guests, but they seemed to like being there and the gay, pleasant party did not break up till two in the morning. After that I saw much of her. I not only went often to her house, but seldom went out to luncheon or to dinner without meeting her. I am an amateur of humour and I sought to discover in what lay her peculiar gift. It was impossible to repeat anything she said, for the fun, like certain wines, would not travel. She had no gift for epigram. She never made a brilliant repartee. There was no malice in her remarks nor sting in her rejoinders. There are those who think that impropriety, rather than brevity, is the soul of wit; but she never said a thing that could have brought a blush to a Victorian cheek. I think her humour was unconscious and I am sure it was unpremeditated. It flew like a butterfly from flower to flower, obedient only to its own caprice and pursuivant of neither method nor intention. It depended on the way she spoke and on the way she looked. Its subtlety gained by the flaunting and extravagant appearance that Gilbert had achieved for her; but her appearance was only an element in it. Now of course she was the fashion and people laughed if she but opened her mouth. They no longer wondered that Gilbert had married a wife so much older than himself They saw that Jane was a woman with whom age did not count. They thought him a devilish lucky young fellow. The admiral quoted Shakespeare to me: ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.’ Gilbert was delighted with her success. As I came to know him better I grew to like him. It was quite evident that he was neither a rascal nor a fortune-hunter. He was not only immensely proud of Jane but genuinely devoted to her. His kindness to her was touching. He was a very unselfish and sweet-tempered young man.

  ‘Well, what do you think of Jane now?’ he said to me once, with boyish triumph.

  ‘I don’t know which of you is more wonderful,’ I said. ‘You or she.’

  ‘Oh, I’m nothing.’

  ‘Nonsense. You don’t think I’m such a fool as not to see that it’s you, and you only, who’ve made Jane what she is.’

  ‘My only merit is that I saw what was there when it wasn’t obvious to the naked eye,’ he answered.

  ‘I can understand your seeing that she had in her the possibility of that remarkable appearance, but how in the world have you made her into a humorist?’

  ‘But I always thought the things she said a perfect scream. She was always a humorist.’

  ‘You’re the only person who ever thought so.’

  Mrs Tower, not without magnanimity, acknowledged that she had been mistaken in Gilbert. She grew quite attached to him. But notwithstanding appearances she never faltered in her opinion that the marriage could not last I was obliged to laugh at her.

  Why, I’ve never seen such a devoted couple,’ I said.

  ‘Gilbert is twenty-seven now It’s just the time for a pretty girl to come along. Did you notice the other evening at Jane’s that pretty little niece of Sir Reginald’s? I thought Jane was looking at them both with a good deal of attention, and I wondered to myself.’

  ‘I don’t believe Jane fears the rivalry of any girl under the sun.’

  Wait and see,’ said Mrs Tower.

  You gave it six months.’

  Well, now I give it three years.’

  When anyone is very positive in an opinion it is only human nature to wish him proved wrong. Mrs Tower was really too cocksure. But such a satisfaction was not mine, for the end that she had always and confidently predicted to the ill-assorted match did in point of fact come. Still, the fates seldom give us what we want in the way we want it, and though Mrs Tower could flatter herself that she had been right, I think after all she would sooner have been wrong. For things did not happen at all in the way she expected.

  One day I received an urgent message from her and fortunately went to see her at once. When I was shown into the room Mrs Tower rose from her chair and came towards me with the stealthy swiftness of a leopard stalking his prey. I saw that she was excited.

  ‘Jane and Gilbert have separated,’ she said.

  Not really? Well, you were right after all.’

  Mrs Tower looked at me with an expression I could not understand. ‘Poor Jane,’ I muttered.

  ‘Poor Jane!’ she repeated, but in tones of such derision that I was dumbfounded.

  She found some difficulty in telling me exactly what had occurred.

  Gilbert had left her a moment before she leaped to the telephone to summon me. When he entered the room, pale and distraught, she saw at once that something terrible-had happened. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

  ‘Marion, Jane has left me.’

  She gave him a little smile and took his hand.

  ‘I knew you’d behave like a gentleman. It would have been dreadful for her for people to think that you had left her.’

  ‘I’ve come to you because I knew I could count on your sympathy.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t blame you, Gilbert,’ said Mrs Tower, very kindly. ‘It was bound to happen.’ He sighed.

  ‘I suppose so. I couldn’t hope to keep her always. She was too wonderful and I’m a perfectly commonplace fellow’

  Mrs Tower patted his hand. He was really behaving beautifully. ‘And what’s going to happen now?’

  ‘Well, she’s going to divorce me.’

  ‘Jane always said she’d put no obstacle in your way if ever you wanted to marry a girl.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s likely I should ever be willing to marry anyone else after being Jane’s husband,’ he answered. Mrs Tower was puzzled. ‘Of course you mean that you’ve left Jane.’

  ‘I? That’s the last thing I should ever do.’

  ‘Then why is she divorcing you?’

  ‘She’s going to marry Sir Reginald Frobisher as soon as the decree is made absolute.’

  Mrs Tower positively screamed. Then she felt so faint that she had to get her smelling salts.

  ‘After all you’ve done for her?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing for her.’

  Do you mean to say you’re going to allow yourself to be made use of like that?’

  ‘We arranged before we married that if either of us wanted his liberty the other should put no hindrance in the way.’

  ‘But that was done on your account. Because you were twenty-seven years younger that she was.’

  ‘Well, it’s come in very useful for her,’ he answered bitterly.

  Mrs Tower expostulated, argued, and reasoned; but Gilbert insisted that no rules applied to Jane, and he must do exactly what she wanted. He left Mrs Tower prostrate. It relieved her a good deal to give me a full account of this interview. It pleased her to see that I was as surprised as herself and if I was not so indignant with Jane as she was she ascribed that to the criminal lack of morality incident to my sex. She was still in a state of extreme agitation when the door was opened and the butler showed in-Jane herself She was dressed in black and white as no doubt befitted her slightly ambiguous position, but in a dress so original and fantastic, in a hat so striking, that I positively gasped at the sight of her. But she was as ever bland and collected. She came forward to kiss Mrs Tower, but Mrs Tower withdrew herself with icy dignity.

  ‘Gilbert has been here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ smiled Jane. ‘I told him to come and see you. I’m going to Paris tonight and I want you to be very kind to him while I’m away. I’m afraid just at first he’ll be rather lonely and I shall feel more comfortable if I can count on your keeping an eye on him.’

  Mrs Tower clasped her hands.

/>   ‘Gilbert has just told me something that I can hardly bring myself to believe. He tells me that you’re going to divorce him to marry Reginald Frobisher.’

  ‘Don’t you remember, before I married Gilbert you advised me to marry a man of my own age? The admiral is fifty-three.’

  ‘But, Jane, you owe everything to Gilbert,’ said Mrs Tower indignantly. ‘You wouldn’t exist without him. Without him to design your clothes, you’ll be nothing.’

  ‘Oh, he’s promised to go on designing my clothes,’ Jane answered blandly. ‘No woman could want a better husband. He’s always been kindness itself to you.’

  ‘Oh, I know he’s been sweet.’

  ‘How can you be so heartless?’

  ‘But I was never in love with Gilbert,’ said Jane. ‘I always told him that. I’m beginning to feel the need of the companionship of a man of my own age. I think I’ve probably been married to Gilbert long enough. The young have no conversation.’ She paused a little and gave us both a charming smile. ‘Of course I shan’t lose sight of Gilbert. I’ve arranged that with Reginald. The admiral has a niece that would just suit him. As soon as we’re married we’ll ask them to stay with us at Malta-you know that the admiral is to have the Mediterranean Command-and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if they fell in love with one another.’

  Mrs Tower gave a little sniff

  ‘And have you arranged with the admiral that if you want your liberty neither should put any hindrance in the way of the other?’

  ‘I suggested it,’ Jane answered with composure. ‘But the admiral says he knows a good thing when he sees it and he won’t want to marry anyone else, and if anyone wants to marry me-he has eight twelve-inch guns on his flagship and he’ll discuss the matter at short range.’ She gave us a look through her eyeglass which even the fear of Mrs Tower’s wrath could not prevent me from laughing at. ‘I think the admiral’s a very passionate man.’

  Mrs Tower gave me an angry frown.

  ‘I never thought you funny, Jane,’ she said. ‘I never understood why people laughed at the things you said.’

  ‘I never thought I was funny myself, Marion,’ smiled Jane, showing her bright, regular teeth. ‘I am glad to leave London before too many people come round to our opinion.’

  ‘I wish you’d tell me the secret of your astonishing success,’ I said. She turned to me with that bland, homely look I knew so well.

  ‘You know, when I married Gilbert and settled in London and people began to laugh at what I said no one was more surprised than I was. I’d said the same things for thirty years and no one ever saw anything to laugh at. I thought it must be my clothes or my bobbed hair or my eyeglass. Then I discovered it was because I spoke the truth. It was so unusual that people thought it humorous. One of these days someone else will discover the secret and when people habitually tell the truth of course there’ll be nothing funny in it.’

  ‘And why am I the only person not to think it funny?’ asked Mrs Tower.

  Jane hesitated a little as though she were honestly searching for a satisfactory explanation.

  ‘Perhaps you don’t know the truth when you see it, Marion dear,’ she answered in her mild good-natured way.

  It certainly gave her the last word. I felt that Jane would always have the last word. She was priceless.

  FOOTPRINTS IN THE JUNGLE

  ♦

  There is no place in Malaya that has more charm than Tanah Merah. It lies on the sea, and the sandy shore is fringed with casuarinas. The government offices are still in the old Raad Huis that the Dutch built when they owned the land, and on the hill stand the grey ruins of the fort by aid of which the Portuguese maintained their hold over the unruly natives. Tanah Merah has a history and in the vast labyrinthine houses of the Chinese merchants, backing on the sea so that in the cool of the evening they may sit in their loggias and enjoy the salt breeze, families dwell that have been settled in the country for three centuries. Many have forgotten their native language and hold intercourse with one another in Malay and pidgin English. The imagination lingers here gratefully, for in the Federated Malay States the only past is within the memory for the most part of the fathers of living men.

  Tanah Merah was for long the busiest mart of the Middle East and its harbour was crowded with shipping when the clipper and the junk still sailed the China seas. But now it is dead. It has the sad and romantic air of all places that have once been of importance and live now on the recollection of a vanished grandeur. It is a sleepy little town and strangers that come to it, losing their native energy, insensibly drop into its easy and lethargic ways. Successive rubber booms bring it no prosperity and the ensuing slumps hasten its decay.

  The European quarter is very silent. It is trim and neat and clean. The houses of the white men-government servants and agents of companies-stand round an immense padang, agreeable and roomy bungalows shaded by great cassias, and the padang is vast and green and well cared for, like the lawn of a cathedral close, and indeed there is in the aspect of this corner of Tanah Merah something quiet and delicately secluded that reminds you of the precincts of Canterbury.

  The club faces the sea; it is a spacious but shabby building; it has an air of neglect and when you enter you feel that you intrude. It gives you the impression that it is closed really, for alterations and repairs, and that you have taken indiscreet advantage of an open door to go where you are not wanted. In the morning you may find there a couple of planters who have come in from their estates on business and are drinking a gin-sling before starting back again; and latish in the afternoon a lady or two may perhaps be seen looking with a furtive air through old numbers of the Illustrated London News. At nightfall a few men saunter in and sit about the billiard-room watching the play and drinking sukas. But on Wednesdays there is a little more animation. On that day the gramophone is set going in the large room upstairs and people come in from the surrounding country to dance. There are sometimes no less than a dozen couples and it is even possible to make up two tables of bridge.

  It was on one of these occasions that I met the Cartwrights. I was staying with a man called Gaze who was head of the police and he came into the billiard-room, where I was sitting, and asked me if I would make up a four. The Cartwrights were planters and they came in to Tanah Merah on Wednesdays because it gave their girl a chance of a little fun. They were very nice people, said Gaze, quiet and unobtrusive, and played a very pleasant game of bridge. I followed Gaze into the card-room and was introduced to them. They were already seated at a table and Mrs Cartwright was shuffling the cards. It inspired me with confidence to see the competent way in which she did it. She took half the pack in each hand, and her hands were large and strong, deftly inserted the corners of one half under the corners of the other, and with a click and a neat bold gesture cascaded the cards together.

  It had all the effect of a conjuring trick. The card-player knows that it can be done perfectly only after incessant practice. He can be fairly sure that anyone who can so shuffle a pack of cards loves cards for their own sake.

  Do you mind if my husband and I play together?’ asked Mrs Cartwright. ‘It’s no fun for us to win one another’s money.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  We cut for deal and Gaze and I sat down.

  Mrs Cartwright drew an ace and while she dealt, quickly and neatly, chatted with Gaze of local affairs. But I was aware that she took stock of me. She looked shrewd, but good-natured.

  She was a woman somewhere in the fifties (though in the East, where people age quickly, it is difficult to tell their ages), with white hair very untidily arranged, and a constant gesture with her was an impatient movement of the hand to push back a long wisp of hair that kept falling over her forehead. You wondered why she did not, by the use of a hairpin or two, save herself so much trouble. Her blue eyes were large, but pale and a little tired; her face was lined and sallow; I think it was her mouth that gave it the expression which I felt was characteristic of caustic but tolerant ir
ony. You saw that here was a woman who knew her mind and was never afraid to speak it. She was a chatty player (which some people object to strongly, but which does not disconcert me, for I do not see why you should behave at the card-table as though you were at a memorial service) and it was soon apparent that she had an effective knack of badinage. It was pleasantly acid, but it was amusing enough to be offensive only to a fool. If now and then she uttered a remark so sarcastic that you wanted all your sense of humour to see the fun in it, you could not but quickly see that she was willing to take as much as she gave. Her large, thin mouth broke into a dry smile and her eyes shone brightly when by a lucky chance you brought off a repartee that turned the laugh against her.

  I thought her a very agreeable person. I liked her frankness. I liked her quick wit. I liked her plain face. I never met a woman who obviously cared so little how she looked. It was not only her head that was untidy, everything about her was slovenly; she wore a high-necked silk blouse, but for coolness had unbuttoned the top buttons and showed a gaunt and withered neck; the blouse was crumpled and none too clean, for she smoked innumerable cigarettes and covered herself with ash. When she got up for a moment to speak to somebody I saw that her blue skirt was rather ragged at the hem and badly needed a brush, and she wore heavy, low-heeled boots. But none of this mattered. Everything she wore was perfectly in character.

  And it was a pleasure to play bridge with her. She played very quickly, without hesitation, and she had not only knowledge but flair. Of course she knew Gaze’s game, but I was a stranger and she soon took my measure. The team-work between her husband and herself was admirable; he was sound and cautious, but knowing him, she was able to be bold with assurance and brilliant with safety. Gaze was a player who founded a foolish optimism on the hope that his opponents would not have the sense to take advantage of his errors, and the pair of us were no match for the Cartwrights. We lost one rubber after another, and there was nothing to do but smile and look as if we liked it