Vile Bodies

  “I’ll try, Ginger. Have a drink.”

  “No, thank you… this only shows what an escape Nina’s had—poor little girl.”

  “Good-bye, Ginger.”

  “Good-bye, Symes.”

  “Young Thingummy going?” said Lottie, appearing in the door. “I was just thinking about a little drink.”

  Adam went to the telephone box… “Hullo, is that Nina?”

  “Who’s speaking, please? I don’t think Miss Blount is in.”

  “Mr. Fenwick-Symes.”

  “Oh, Adam. I was afraid it was Ginger. I woke up feeling I just couldn’t bear him. He rang up last night just as I got in.”

  “I know. Nina, darling, something awful’s happened.”

  “What?”

  “Lottie presented me with her bill.”

  “Darling, what did you do?”

  “Well, I did something rather extraordinary… My dear, I sold you.”

  “Darling… who to?”

  “Ginger. You fetched seventy-eight pounds sixteen and twopence.”

  “Well?”

  “And now I never am going to see you again.”

  “Oh, but Adam, I think this is beastly of you; I don’t want not to see you again.”

  “I’m sorry… Good-bye, Nina, darling.”

  “Good-bye, Adam, my sweet. But I think you’re rather a cad.”

  Next day Lottie said to Adam, “You know that chap I said came here asking for you?”

  “The dun?”

  “Well, he wasn’t a dun. I’ve just remembered. He’s a chap who used to come here quite a lot until he had a fight with a Canadian. He was here the night that silly Flossie killed herself on the chandelier.”

  “Not the drunk Major.”

  “He wasn’t drunk yesterday. Not so as you’d notice anyway. Red-faced chap with an eyeglass. You ought to remember him, dear. He was the one made that bet for you on the November Handicap.”

  “But I must get hold of him at once. What’s his name?”

  “Ah, that I couldn’t tell you. I did know, but it’s slipped my memory. He’s gone to Manchester to look for you. Pity your missing him!”

  Then Adam rang up Nina. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t do anything sudden about Ginger. I may be able to buy you back. The drunk Major has turned up again.”

  “But, darling, it’s too late. Ginger and I got married this morning. I’m just packing for our honeymoon. We’re going in an aeroplane.”

  “Ginger wasn’t taking any chances, was he? Darling, don’t go.”

  “No, I must. Ginger says he knows a ‘tophole little spot not far from Monte with a very decent nine-hole golf course.’ ”

  “Well?”

  “Yes, I know… we shall only be away a few days. We’re coming back to spend Christmas with papa. Perhaps we shall be able to arrange something when we get back. I do hope so.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Ginger looked out of the aeroplane: “I say, Nina,” he shouted, “when you were young did you ever have to learn a thing out of a poetry book about: ‘This sceptre’d isle, this earth of majesty, this something or other Eden’? D’you know what I mean?—‘this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea…

  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

  This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings

  Feared by their breed and famous by their birth…’

  I forget how it goes on. Something about a stubborn Jew. But you know the thing I mean?”

  “It comes in a play.”

  “No, a blue poetry book.”

  “I acted in it.”

  “Well, they may have put it into a play since. It was in a blue poetry book when I learned it. Anyway, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Well, I mean to say, don’t you feel somehow, up in the air like this and looking down and seeing everything underneath. I mean, don’t you have a sort of feeling rather like that, if you see what I mean?”

  Nina looked down and saw inclined at an odd angle a horizon of straggling red suburb; arterial roads dotted with little cars; factories, some of them working, others empty and decaying; a disused canal; some distant hills sown with bungalows; wireless masts and overhead power cables; men and women were indiscernible except as tiny spots; they were marrying and shopping and making money and having children. The scene lurched and tilted again as the aeroplane struck a current of air.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” said Nina.

  “Poor little girl,” said Ginger. “That’s what the paper bags are for.”

  There was rarely more than a quarter of a mile of the black road to be seen at one time. It unrolled like a length of cinema film. At the edges was confusion; a fog spinning past: “Faster, faster,” they shouted above the roar of the engine. The road rose suddenly and the white car soared up the sharp ascent without slackening speed. At the summit of the hill there was a corner. Two cars had crept up, one on each side, and were closing in. “Faster,” cried Miss Runcible, “faster.”

  “Quietly, dear, quietly. You’re disturbing everyone. You must lie quiet or you’ll never get well. Everything’s quite all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.”

  They were trying to make her lie down. How could one drive properly lying down?

  Another frightful corner. The car leaned over on two wheels, tugging outwards; it was drawn across the road until it was within a few inches of the bank. One ought to brake down at the corners, but one couldn’t see them coming lying flat on one’s back like this. The back wheels wouldn’t hold the road at this speed. Skidding all over the place.

  “Faster. Faster.”

  The stab of a hypodermic needle.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, dear… nothing at all… nothing.”

  Thirteen

  The film had been finished, and everyone had gone away; Wesley and Whitefield, Bishop Philpotts and Miss La Touche, Mr. Isaacs, and all his pupils from the National Academy of Cinematographic Art. The park lay deep in snow, a clean expanse of white, shadowless and unspotted save for tiny broad arrows stamped by the hungry birds. The bellringers were having their final practice, and the air was alive with pealing bells.

  Inside the dining room Florin and Mrs. Florin and Ada, the fifteen-year-old housemaid, were arranging branches of holly above the frames of the family portraits. Florin held the basket, Mrs. Florin held the steps and Ada put the decorations in their places. Colonel Blount was having his afternoon nap upstairs.

  Florin had a secret. It was a white calico banner of great age lettered in red ribbon with the words “WELCOME HOME.” He had always known where it was, just where to put his hand on it, at the top of the black trunk in the far attic behind the two hip baths and the ’cello case.

  “The Colonel’s mother made it,” he explained, “when he first went away to school, and it was always hung out in the hall whenever he and Mister Eric came back for the holidays. It used to be the first thing he’d look for when he came into the house—even when he was a grown man home on leave. ‘Where’s my banner?’ he’d say. We’ll have it up for Miss Nina—Mrs. Littlejohn, I should say.”

  Ada said should they put some holly in Captain and Mrs. Littlejohn’s bedroom.

  Mrs. Florin said, whoever heard of holly in a bedroom, and she wasn’t sure but that it was unlucky to take it upstairs.

  Ada said, “Well, perhaps just a bit of mistletoe over the bed.”

  Mrs. Florin said Ada was too young to think about things like that, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.

  Florin said would Ada stop arguing and answering back and come into the hall to put up the banner. One string went on the nose of the rhinoceros, he explained, the other round the giraffe.

  Presently Colonel Blount came down.

  “Should I light the fires in the big drawing room?” asked Mrs. Florin.

  “Fires in the big d
rawing room? No, why should you want to do that, Mrs. Florin?”

  “Because of Captain and Mrs. Littlejohn—you haven’t forgotten, have you, sir, that they’re coming to stay this afternoon?”

  “Captain and Mrs. Fiddlesticks. Never heard of them. Who asked them to stay I should like to know? I didn’t. Don’t know who they are. Don’t want them… Besides, now I come to think of it, Miss Nina and her husband said they were coming down. I can’t have the whole house turned into an hotel. If these people come, Florin, whoever they are, you tell them to go away. You understand? I won’t have them, and I think it’s very presumptuous of whoever asked them. It is not their place to invite guests here without consulting me.”

  “Should I be lighting the fires in the big drawing room for Miss Nina and her young gentleman, sir?”

  “Yes, yes, certainly… and a fire in their bedroom, of course. And, Florin, I want you to come down to the cellar with me to look out some port… I’ve got the keys here… I have a feeling I’m going to like Miss Nina’s husband,” he confided on their way to the cellar. “I hear very good reports of him—a decent, steady young fellow, and not at all badly off. Miss Nina said in her letter that he used to come over here as a little boy. D’you remember him, Florin? Blest if I do… What’s the name again?”

  “Littlejohn, sir.”

  “Yes. Littlejohn, to be sure. I had the name on the tip of my tongue only a minute ago. Littlejohn. I must remember that.”

  “His father used to live over at Oakshott, sir. A very wealthy gentleman. Shipowners, I think they were. Young Mr. Littlejohn used to go riding with Miss Nina, sir. Regular little monkey he was, sir, red-headed… a terrible one for cats.”

  “Well, well, I dare say he’s grown out of that. Mind the step, Florin, it’s all broken away. Hold the lamp higher, can’t you, man. Now, what did we come for? Port, yes, port. Now, there’s some ’96 somewhere, only a few bottles left. What does it say on this bin? I can’t read. Bring the light over here.”

  “We drank up the last of the ’96, sir, when the film-acting gentleman was here.”

  “Did we, Florin, did we? We shouldn’t have done that, you know.”

  “Very particular about his wine, Mr. Isaacs was. My instructions was to give them whatever they wanted.”

  “Yes, but ’96 port… Well, well. Take up two bottles of the ’04. Now, what else do we want? Claret—yes, claret. Claret, claret, claret, claret. Where do I keep the claret, Florin?”

  Colonel Blount was just having tea—he had finished a brown boiled egg and was spreading a crumpet with honey—when Florin opened the library door and announced “Captain and Mrs. Littlejohn, sir.”

  And Adam and Nina came in.

  Colonel Blount put down his crumpet and rose to greet them.

  “Well, Nina, it’s a long time since you came to see your old father. So this is my son-in-law, eh? How do you do, my boy. Come and sit down, both of you. Florin will bring some more cups directly… Well,” he said, giving Adam a searching glance, “I can’t say I should have recognized you. I used to know your father very well indeed at one time. Used to be a neighbor of mine over at where-was-it. I expect you’ve forgotten those days. You used to come over here to ride with Nina. You can’t have been more than ten or eleven… Funny, something gave me an idea you had red hair…”

  “I expect you’d heard him called ‘Ginger,’ ” said Nina, “and that made you think of it.”

  “Something of the kind, I dare say… extraordinary thing to call him ‘Ginger’ when he’s got ordinary fair hair… anyway, I’m very glad to see you, very glad. I’m afraid it’ll be a very quiet weekend. We don’t see many people here now. Florin says he’s asked a Captain and Mrs. Something-or-other to come and stay, damn his impudence, but I said I wouldn’t see them. Why should I entertain Florin’s friends? Servants seem to think after they’ve been with you some time they can do anything they like. There was poor old Lady Graybridge, now—they only found out after her death that her man had been letting lodgings all the time in the North Wing. She never could understand why none of the fruit ever came into the dining room—the butler and his boarders were eating it all in the servants’ hall. And after she was ill, and couldn’t leave her room, he laid out a golf links in the park… shocking state of affairs. I don’t believe Florin would do a thing like that—still, you never know. It’s the thin edge of the wedge asking people down for the weekend.”

  In the kitchen Florin said: “That’s not the Mr. Littlejohn I used to know.”

  Mrs. Florin said, “It’s the young gentleman that came here to luncheon last month.”

  Ada said, “He’s very nice looking.”

  Florin and Mrs. Florin said, “You be quiet, Ada. Have you taken the hot water up to their bedroom yet? Have you taken up their suitcases? Have you unpacked them? Did you brush the Colonel’s evening suit? Do you expect Mr. Florin and Mrs. Florin to do all the work of the house? And look at your apron again, you wretched girl, if it isn’t the second you’ve dirtied today.”

  Florin added, “Anyway, Miss Nina noticed the banner.”

  In the library Colonel Blount said, “I’ve got a treat for you tonight, anyway. The last two reels of my cinema film have just come back from being developed. I thought we’d run through it tonight. We shall have to go across to the Rectory, because the Rector’s got electric light, the lucky fellow. I told him to expect us. He didn’t seem very pleased about it. Said he had to preach three sermons tomorrow, and be up at six for early service. That’s not the Christmas spirit.

  Didn’t want to bring the car round to fetch us either. It’s only a matter of a quarter of a mile, no trouble to him, and how can we walk in the snow carrying all the apparatus? I said to him, ‘If you practiced a little more Christianity yourself we might be more willing to subscribe to your foreign missions and the Boy Scouts and organ funds.’ Had him there. Dammit, I put the man in his job myself—if I haven’t a right to his car, who has?”

  When they went up to change for dinner Nina said to Adam, “I knew papa would never recognize you.”

  Adam said, “Look, someone’s put mistletoe over our bed.”

  “I think you gave the Florins rather a surprise.”

  “My dear, what will the Rector say? He drove me to the station the first time I came. He thought I was mad.”

  “… Poor Ginger. I wonder, are we treating him terribly badly?… It seemed a direct act of fate that he should have been called up to join his regiment just at this moment.”

  “I left him a check to pay for you.”

  “Darling, you know it’s a bad one.”

  “No check is bad until it’s refused by the bank. Tomorrow’s Christmas, then Boxing Day, then Sunday. He can’t pay it in until Monday, and anything may have happened by then. The drunk Major may have turned up. If the worst comes to the worst I can always send you back to him.”

  “I expect it will end with that… Darling, the honeymoon was hell… frightfully cold, and Ginger insisted on walking about on a terrace after dinner to see the moon on the Mediterranean—he played golf all day, and made friends with the other English people in the hotel. I can’t tell you what it was like… too spirit-crushing, as poor Agatha used to say.”

  “Did I tell you I went to Agatha’s funeral? There was practically no one there except the Chasms and some aunts. I went with Van, rather tight, and got stared at. I think they felt I was partly responsible for the accident…”

  “What about Miles?”

  “He’s had to leave the country, didn’t you know?”

  “Darling, I only came back from my honeymoon today. I haven’t heard anything… You know there seems to be none of us left now except you and me.”

  “And Ginger.”

  “Yes, and Ginger.”

  The cinematograph exhibition that evening was not really a success.

  The Rector arrived while they were finishing dinner, and was shown into the dining room shaking the snow from the shoulders of hi
s overcoat.

  “Come in, Rector, come in. We shan’t be many minutes now. Take a glass of port and sit down. You’ve met my daughter, haven’t you? And this is my new son-in-law.”

  “I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him before too.”

  “Nonsense, first time he’s been here since he was so high—long before your time.”

  The Rector sipped his port and kept eyeing Adam over the top of his glass in a way which made Nina giggle. Then Adam giggled too, and the Rector’s suspicions were confirmed. In this way relations were already on an uneasy basis before they reached the Rectory. The Colonel, however, was far too intent over the transport of his apparatus to notice anything.

  “This is your first visit here?” said the Rector as he drove through the snow.

  “I lived near here as a boy, you know,” said Adam.

  “Ah… but you were down here the other day, were you not? The Colonel often forgets things…”

  “No, no. I haven’t been here for fifteen years.”

  “I see,” said the Rector with sinister emphasis, and murmured under his breath, “Remarkable… very sad and remarkable.”

  The Rector’s wife was disposed to make rather a party of it, and had arranged some coffee and chocolate biscuits in the drawing room, but the Colonel soon put an end to any frivolity of this kind by plunging them all in darkness.

  He took out the bulbs of their electric lights and fitted in the plug of his lantern. A bright beam shot across the drawing room like a searchlight, picking out the Rector, who was whispering in his wife’s ear the news of his discovery.

  “… the same young man I told you of,” he was saying. “Quite off his head, poor boy. He didn’t even remember coming here before. One expects that sort of thing in a man of the Colonel’s age, but for a young man like that… a very bad lookout for the next generation…”

  The Colonel paused in his preparation.

  “I say, Rector, I’ve just thought of something. I wish old Florin were here. He was in bed half the time they were taking the film. I know he’d love to see it. Could you be a good chap and run up in the car and fetch him?”