‘Well, it sounds rather lugubrious but I absolutely love it. I have an indelible pencil, you see, and when people are brought in dying and so on, I write on their foreheads.’
‘Good gracious me, what do you write?’
‘M for male and F for female, according to which they are, and a number. That’s for the Ministry of Pensions. Then, for the doctor, how many doses of morphia and castor oil and so on they have had.’
‘What an awful idea. What happens if you get a negro – or a neanderthal type with a very low forehead? You can’t always count on having high, smooth, white brows, you know, like Luke’s.’
‘Try not to be facetious, darling, it’s quite serious. Then I put their jewels into dainty little chintz bags made out of Fortmason remnants.’
‘When you say you do all this, what exactly do you mean?’
‘Well, darling, I should do it if there was a raid. It’s rather like private theatricals, you know what I mean. “It’ll be all right on the night” kind of idea. The worse the dress rehearsal, the better the show, and so on.’
Mary became very scornful and said it was the stupidest job she had ever heard of. ‘Jewels,’ she said, ‘in chintz bags. Writing M and F. Really, Sophia, I give up.’
Sophia said it was better than doing nothing like Mary, and they rang off, each in a huff.
When Sophia saw Rudolph she said she had heard that he had been seen out with a duck-billed platypus disguised as a Sultana. (Olga’s rather long, turned-up nose was considered to be one of her great attractions.)
‘Yes, my little Puss-puss,’ he said, ‘I did take the alluring Princess to a movie what time you went whoring round with your Cabinet puddings.’
‘I thought you told me you were going to play bridge at your club?’
‘So I was, until I met Olga.’
‘But where did you meet her?’
‘At my club.’
‘Rudolph, what a story.’
‘Well, I did. She came along in a taxi after I had telephoned to her.’
‘Oh. What was she like?’
‘Cracking bore, as usual. Talked about nothing but herself. I had to hear the whole story of how Serge blighted her life by refusing to allow her self-expression on the films. As though one didn’t know that the old boyar would allow her to do anything which brought in the roubles.’
‘She was always having tests,’ said Sophia.
‘And they were lousy. Well, then of course she is having all those books dedicated to her and pictures painted of her, and so on. But she has abandoned these activities for a very important job under the Government. First Aid Post, I guess. Chap in my club, a doctor, gave her her first aid exam. He said. “Now Princess, if you found a man with a badly broken leg and you had no splint or bandage, what would you do?’ and she said, “Take my drawers off and tie the leg to my leg.” So of course he passed her.’
Sophia saw that she must look out. She knew very well that when a man is thoroughly disloyal about a woman, and at the same time begins to indulge in her company, he nearly always intends to have an affair with that woman. The disloyalty is in itself a danger signal. She would not have supposed that Olga was exactly to Rudolph’s taste, but these things do not follow any known rules and you never can tell.
‘Beastly fellow,’ she said. ‘I see you’re in love with her.’
‘Rather,’ said Rudolph. ‘I see you’re jealous.’
‘Rather.’ Sophia got up and rang the bell for the cocktail things. ‘I say, darling, by the way, you know Florence?’
‘Yes, I’m in love with her too, of course?’
‘Very likely. Anyhow, you know she lives with us now. Well, I believe she must be nicer than we thought she was, because, whatever do you think? She keeps a pigeon in her bedroom.’
‘Does she now? I thought she kept Luke.’
‘No, no, darling, I’ve often told you. Anyway, there it is, she keeps this terribly nice pigeon.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘I expect it is her friend. I would love to have a sweet pigeon for a friend, but I must say I never would have thought it of Florence, she doesn’t strike one as an animal lover. Milly doesn’t like her at all.’
‘I call it very queer,’ said Rudolph. ‘Do you think it might have some religious significance?’
‘It’s a pigeon, not a dove.’
‘Florence wouldn’t know the difference. That’s it, I expect she is keeping it to let loose over Brother Bones’s head next time she sees him.’
‘Or maybe she saved its life. Mr Stone, in our Post, you know, has to keep down the London pigeons in peace time, and he says it’s awfully difficult because wherever you put your trap some old lady always pops her head out of a window and sets up a screeching about it and calls in the police and so on. However early in the morning, it’s always just the same. So the result is that London pigeons are not really kept down very much, as you may note. Perhaps Florence saw this one in a trap (they get up very early in the Brotherhood, you know), and promised not to let it loose again if she might have it. I like her much better for it, actually.’
Florence now came into the room. She told Sophia that Luke had been guided to ask a hundred people to dinner the next day to talk about Moral Rearmament. ‘It’s to meet this friend of ours, Heatherley Egg,’ she said. (Florence always introduced new people into her conversation with the word ‘this’. ‘This woman I met in the bus’, or ‘This cousin of my father’s’. It was a habit which maddened Sophia.) ‘I have arranged the whole thing,’ Florence continued; ‘gold chairs and food and so on are all ordered. I just looked in here to say how much we hope you will come to it, as I feel sure you will be interested. Heatherley Egg has just arrived from the States and he will tell us what the President said to him about Moral Rearmament. Just the two of them (the three, I should say, because of course, there was a Third present) talked it over for nearly five minutes, and Heth says – well, you must hear it from his own lips tomorrow evening. There will be members of the Brotherhood from all, yes, I am happy to say, all the European countries.’
Sophia and Rudolph hurriedly explained that they had a very long-standing engagement for the following evening. Florence looked a bit crucified and said how strange it must be to live in a perpetual whirl of thoughtless gaiety.
‘I call a hundred people to dinner a pretty good whirl, personally.’
Florence said she must go as she had this First Aid lecture.
‘It was her book I saw that awful old knee joint in.’
Sophia went to the telephone and dialled a number. ‘You know I really admire her for doing the first aid course, I never would have expected it, like the pigeon, and dyeing her hair. It all shows how I underestimated Florence.’ She rang up Vocal Lodge and asked Sir Ivor whether she and Rudolph might dine with him the next day. ‘There is a Brotherhood orgy here, and we can’t take it.’
‘Yes, Sophie, my darling, you may, but you must be nice to the Gogothskys who are coming, and not make poor dear Olga cry like you did last time. Promise? All right, eight o’clock then, I have to be at my post by ten.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Sophia to Rudolph when she had rung off. ‘People from every European country, think of it. I mean the whole point of the war is one doesn’t have to see foreigners any more. And as for what the President said to Heth – horrors!’
The Russians marched into Poland on the very day of Florence’s party. Luke was stunned by this practical demonstration of Russo-German solidarity.
‘Herr Hitler told me himself that his life’s work was to lead a crusade against Bolshevism.’
‘Then you ought to have smelt a rat at once,’ said Sophia unkindly.
‘But he was so earnest about it. He said over and over again that Bolshevism was the greatest force for evil the world has ever known.’
‘Of course I don’t want to say I told you so, darling, but there’s never been a pin to put between the Communists and the Nazis. The Communists
torture you to death if you’re not a worker, and the Nazis torture you to death if you’re not a German. If you are they look at your nose first. Aristocrats are inclined to prefer Nazis while Jews prefer Bolshies. An old bourgeois like yourself, Luke, should keep your fingers out of both their pies.’
Luke must have been quite distracted. He did not even protest, as he usually did, when Sophia called him a bourgeois, that the Garfields were an old Saxon family dating back to before the Conquest. Which, as Sophia would very justly observe, did not affect the matter one way or another.
‘And let me tell you,’ she went on, ‘if you continue to believe everything these foreigners in Germany said to you, you are in for some very nasty shocks, old boy. They have told a lot of people a lot of things not strictly speaking true, and most of us are beginning to get wise. The day they said they would never use gas against civilians every First Aid Post in London let down its gas-proof flaps, and we have all stifled ever since.’
Poor Luke passed his hand over his smooth, white forehead and looked sad. Sophia was sorry that she had been so beastly to him, and said, ‘Darling, are you excited for your party tonight?’
‘I am not a baby to be excited for a party. It will, I hope, be interesting. Mr Egg appears to have seen the President.’
So Rudolph was right, and Luke was getting bored with the Brotherhood. She wondered whether it was a religion which took a great hold on people, and whether it would leave the poor fellow with an uneasy conscience for the rest of his life.
Brothers and Sisters now began flocking into the house. They all looked very much alike and might easily, had there not been a hundred of them, have been brothers and sisters indeed. The girls were all dressed in simple little tub frocks with a bastard Tyrolean flavour, they wore no hats or stockings, and quite a lot of grimy toes poked their way out of sandals. They were sunburnt, their foreheads were wrinkled, and their hair and lips were very thin. The young men, of whom there were quantities, appeared at first sight to be extremely well dressed, but their suits were too broad at the shoulder, too slim in the hips, and not made of quite the very best stuff – in fact, they would not stand up to close examination. They answered to names like Heth for Heatherley, Ken for Kennerley, and Win for Winthrop, and spoke with Hollywood accents. They were sunburnt, and when you first looked at them, immensely handsome, like the suits. Their eyes and teeth were blue. The cosmopolitan element in this party was not in evidence, and Sophia thought Florence must have meant Americans from every country in Europe, until she heard a gabble of foreign languages. She concluded that the Brotherhood, like Hollywood, places its own stamp on all nationalities, as it certainly confers a particular type of looks, of clothes, and that ‘If this is pleasure give me pain’ expression which is permanently on all the faces of its adherents. There was not one soul in uniform.
Rudolph, however, when he arrived to take Sophia down to Kew was resplendent in the full rig of the Wessex Guards.
‘I kept it secret for a surprise for you,’ he said; ‘wait till you see my coat, though, lined with scarlet.’
‘Well, you do look pretty,’ said Sophia approvingly. Before the war, she had often thought of seeing him in uniform for the first time, and had supposed that she would cry. Now she simply felt delighted. Indeed Rudolph, unusually well shaved, looked handsome and soldierly, an example, she felt, to the brothers. War psychology, so incomprehensible during peace time, already had her in its grip.
Florence introduced Mr Egg to them. ‘Heatherley, this is Sophia Garfield, Rudolph, this is Heatherley.’ Brotherhood manners were like that. ‘Sophia, you must wait a moment while Heth tells us what the President said to him. He’s just going to now.’ She got up on a chair and clapped her hands. ‘Silence everybody, please. Heatherley is going to tell us what the President said about Moral Rearmament.’
Silence fell at once, and all faces were turned towards Heatherley who was scrambling on to the chair.
‘Well, folks,’ he said impressively, ‘I went to see the President.’ Pause. ‘We were alone together, just the three of us, you understand. The President is a busy man.’ Pause. ‘Well, he said to me.’ An impressive pause, Heatherley looked all round the room, and finally continued, ‘He said “I think Moral Rearmament is a very very fine idea.” ’
There was a prolonged and reverent silence, broken by Florence who said, ‘I always think it is so important to hear the exact words when a man like that makes a statement like that. Thank you, Heth; personally I shall treasure this little scene.’
The Gogothskys were already at Vocal Lodge when Sophia and Rudolph arrived. Olga, greatly to Sophia’s delight, for she made a mental collection of Olga’s clothes, was wearing a snood. A bit of it came round and fastened under her chin like a beard and she looked, as no doubt she felt, very Slav. The Prince, a huge jolly drunken fellow whom everybody liked, was dressed in Air Force blue; he announced that he was on leave from his balloon, Blossom. It was evident that Blossom had made a man of him. Hitherto his life had been spent trailing about after Olga, making, in return for her considerable income, the small and rather unreal (as he was a British subject), but in his wife’s eyes, invaluable, contribution of princedom. Now he was bronzed, clean, fairly well shaven, and apparently quite sober. He and Rudolph slapped each other on the back, compared uniforms and were very gay.
‘You managed to get away from your chief,’ Sophia said to Olga, her eyes feasting on the snood.
‘He heard of my sorrow and begged me to take some leave,’ said Olga reproachfully.
‘Sorrow?’ said Rudolph. ‘Why, you are looking a bit widowed, come to think of it. What’s up?’
‘My relations in Poland – ’
‘Didn’t know you had any,’ said Sophia sceptically.
‘Didn’t you, darling? Yes, indeed, my great-great-great-grandmother was a Paczinska, and I fear my poor cousins must have fallen into Bolshevik hands. You know what that meant in Russia – they were given over to their peasantry to do as they liked with.’ Olga gave a tremendous shudder.
Sophia said there must be something wrong somewhere. If the Duchess of Devonshire, for instance, was handed over to the peasantry to do as they liked with, they would no doubt put her in the best bedroom and get her a cup of tea. ‘If the peasantry are really such demons,’ she said, ‘whose fault is that, pray?’
‘But I saw in the papers that the Bolshies are going in on purpose to protect you White Russians,’ said old Ivor, rather puzzled.
Serge Gogothsky had been brought up in England, and had spent most of his life here. He must, therefore, have been well accustomed to the national ignorance on the subject of foreign affairs, but this was too much even for him. He gave a sort of warbling roar, and jumped about the room like an agonised Petrushka explaining the historical and geographical position of White Russia.
‘All right, keep your hair on,’ said the old singer, taking his off and adjusting a curl. ‘Have another drink.’
This panacea for all ills was accepted, and peace reigned once more until Rudolph tactlessly observed that he was not so enthusiastic about Europe being overrun by the murderous Muscovites as Hitler seemed to be. The Prince once more became very much excited, and said that if the Allies had assisted the White Russians at the end of the last war and enabled them to reinstate the Romanoffs, none of this would have happened.
‘What nonsense. The Romanoffs were just as likely to get imperial ideas as Uncle Joe any day of the week. You Asiatics should be kept out of Europe, that’s what it is.’
‘Keep your hairs on, dears, and let’s have dinner,’ said Sir Ivor, who only enjoyed joking conversations of an esoteric kind.
During dinner Sophia noticed that Olga was drooping her eyelids a good deal at Rudolph who seemed not to be disliking it. She cast about for means of retaliation (upon Rudolph, Olga she could always deal with very easily) but saw none to hand. The old gentleman would hardly bring conviction as a stalking horse, and the trouble with Serge was that the sma
llest encouragement too often led to rape. A tremendous dip of the offending eyelids stung Sophia into action and she turned to Olga with a sweet smile and asked how Savonarola was getting along. She always reserved this question for very special occasions.
‘Dearest, there is a war on, you know. Sometimes, however, I do manage to do a little scribbling, busy as I am my poetry simply forces its way on to paper. Last night, during a lull, I read some of my sonnets to the Chief. He says they remind him of Elizabeth Browning’s Sonnets to the Portuguese.’
‘From,’ said Rudolph. ‘Who is your Chief?’
Olga gave a great swoop of the eyelids, and said that her job, which was very important, and her Chief, who was very very famous, had to be kept very very secret.
‘Bet Haw-Haw knows them,’ said Rudolph. ‘I suppose you are one of those pin-money lovelies I am always reading about, eh? Come clean now, aren’t you?’
‘By the way, dears, I have a new job,’ said Ivor.
Sophia wrestled with temptation. She longed to take Olga down a peg by being in the know; the old gentleman was just going to tell them himself, so where would be the harm? On the other hand, Fred had begged her to be careful. She decided to wait and see what Ivor said. Meanwhile the conversation flowed on.
Rudolph said, ‘I suppose you are a wonderful old spy in a wonderful new wig. I suppose that’s what Olga is really, a beautiful female spy, worming her way into the hearts of careless young officers like Serge and me.’ Olga, who liked to be taken very seriously, was not pleased. She drooped her eyelids at the Empire dessus de table instead of at Rudolph, and Sophia relaxed once more.
‘Talking of jobs, you should see Sophia’s Post,’ went on Rudolph, who entirely against her orders, was always popping in and out of it. ‘Serge, old boy, here’s a tip for you – the first thing that strikes the eye is a notice, written out in wobbling capitals by our Sophia, which says, “Never give a drink to a patient marked H.” See the form, you old mujik, the great thing is never by any chance let yourself be marked H. Farther on, however, you come to notices with arrows attached, also written by our little friend, and therefore extremely unprofessional in appearance, saying, “Males remove underclothing here”, “Females remove underclothing here”, and these lead, quite logically, to the midwifery department. I had no idea the Borough Councils were such realists.’