‘Oh, there’s a letter from Ruth, how nice.’
‘What does she say?’
‘Wait a moment, dear, I must find my glasses.’
‘Telling you the train, I expect. Might I have the marmalade? Some day it will be explained to me why it’s always on your side of the table when you don’t eat it. Jessie must have a reason, but it escapes me. Thank you. You told Ruth that Raymond and Coral were coming by the 4.50?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know if Stephen can get off so early. They keep him so late sometimes.’
‘In a Government office? That will be news to a lot of people.’
‘Now then . . . Oh dear, Penelope has a slight cold.’
‘Babies always look as though they had slight colds, I don’t see how anyone can tell the difference. You don’t mean that they’re not coming?’
‘Oh no, no. By the 4.50, that’s a comfort. So now they can all come together.’
‘Better tell Hoskings.’
‘I told him yesterday that he’d have to meet Raymond— well yes, perhaps I’d better just give him a ring, or he’ll be wondering about the others. I’m so glad Mark is coming by train. I don’t like him dashing about the country on that motor-bicycle, particularly at night.’
‘Mark? You didn’t tell me about that. Has he written? When?’
‘This morning, dear. It’s here. Just a postcard to say “Coming by 4.50”.’
‘May I look?’
‘It was only a postcard, dear. I thought you would have read it.’
‘Never saw it. I was wondering why he hadn’t written to me. May I—Thank you. “Coming by 4.50. Mark”. Good. You’d better tell Hoskings he’ll want both cars— or shall I go and meet them for one?’
‘Better leave it to Hoskings, dear. You’ll be wanting to make the cocktails.’
‘That’s true . . . And I must make sure the television set is working. I’m glad I got that in time for Christmas. I don’t suppose they’ve any of them seen one. I know Mark hasn’t.”
‘Yes, dear, but don’t let us sit in the dark all the time.’
‘No, no, of course not. But there it is, if they want it.’
‘Yes, and that reminds me, the bedside light in Coral’s room has gone. Put in a new bulb for me, Gerald, they always look as if they were waiting to explode when I do it.’
‘Right . . . I say, Helen, you do think that Coral will like that what do you call the thing?’
‘Boutonnière. Oh, I’m sure she will, dear. It was very expensive. And Ruth will love the bedroom slippers.’
‘She’d better. I’d put her over my knee and give her a damned good spanking with them if she didn’t. Can’t do that to Coral unfortunately, not being one’s own daughter. She’s not exactly——’
‘What, dear?’
‘Easy. Except on the eye, of course.’
‘Well, we know who we wanted Ray to marry, but when you look round at all the extraordinary girls he might have married, I don’t think that we must complain.’
‘There’s still Mark, of course. Not that he’ll be thinking of it for some time yet. And who said that I was complaining of Coral? It’s a pleasure to look at her. All I say is that she’s not exactly one of us. So damned aloof. D’you think they’re happy? Why haven’t they got any children? Been married two years.’
‘Gerald dear, are you suggesting that young married people can’t live happily together in a small flat unless they have children; or that they can’t have children unless they are happy?’
‘Leave it, Helen, leave it. And I’ll have half a cup, and I mean half. A little more milk this time, you never give me enough milk.’
‘All the same, I think I know what you meant. There, is that better? And peel me an apple, will you, darling? Or, better still, share one with me, I don’t really want more than half. You mean that husband and wife don’t always agree about children, and if they are quarrelling about it, then they aren’t happy.’
‘Practically what I said, wasn’t it? What does Ruth think?’
‘If she thinks about it at all, she thinks that now she has given you a grandchild, any other baby in the family would be a—what’s the word?’
‘Mistake.’
‘No, dear. I could have thought of that for myself. Anti-climax, that’s it.’
‘Ruth seems to forget that her baby is a Rawson, not a Merridew.’
‘I don’t suppose she forgets, she just doesn’t think it matters.’
‘One doesn’t want the family to die out.’
‘Well, dear, it won’t be doing it this morning, so we’ll just have to wait and see. You reminded Philbeach to bring in some holly?’
‘Of course. Not too much of it about this year, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, I expect he’ll find some, he always does. I wish I had a few flowers for Coral’s room. Such a bad month.’
‘Nothing in the greenhouse?’
‘Not for picking. Oh well, she’ll understand. And there’s the new Vogue, she’ll like that. The girls had better have breakfast in bed, then there won’t be so much pressure on the bathrooms.’
‘What will Jessie say to that?’
‘I daresay I can make it all right with Jessie. Coral’s so decorative in bed, that always appeals to them, and of course she’d do anything for Ruth.’
2
‘By the way, Coral, did you write and tell Mother the train?’
‘Just as you like, darling.’
‘What did you think I said?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Coral, I’m asking you. Did you write and tell Mother the train?’
‘Did I write and tell Mother the train? Did—I—write— no, it’s no good, sweetie, I’m not with you. The author and I are in a little shack in the Adirondacks, and at any moment the postman will knock twice. It’s very difficult being suddenly asked about mothers. What were you saying, darling?’
‘Oh, never mind. I was just wondering, I didn’t notice you were reading. Sorry.’
‘What did you wonder, darling?’
‘I just asked if you had written to tell Mother about the train.’
‘No, precious, I thought you were going to.’
‘As a matter of fact, I did.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ray darling, one of us is definitely going downhill. Taking a long distance view of the situation from my little eyrie in the Adirondacks, it seems to me that if a letter has been written to your mother telling her about the train, our united purpose is achieved. She now knows about the train. Obviously there is a flaw somewhere, but for the moment I don’t see it.’
‘You told me you were going to write. It was just by chance that I happened to mention it.’
‘You have mentioned it every day for the last week, darling. It couldn’t have been a coincidence every time.’
‘I mean just by chance I happened to mention it in my letter to Mother.’
‘Ah well, it’s the same train whether you mentioned it by chance or by grim purpose, so that’s all right. What a very, very ugly word “mention” is. Let’s not mention it again.’
‘It would have been rather more polite, don’t you think, if you had written to her, and said how much you were looking forward to coming down for Christmas?’
‘More polite, perhaps, but not so truthful, darling. And it still wouldn’t have told her what train we were coming by. What train are we, by the way? Something tells me I ought to know.’
‘Obviously the 4.50. It’s the only good one.’
‘Would it be obvious to your mother too? Because if so——’
‘Oh God, why do we have to madden each other like this? At least, I suppose I madden you, I know you’re maddening me.’
‘Am I, sweetie? I’m so very sorry. Let me return to my little shack.’
‘Coral darling, what is the matter? Would you rather we didn’t go down to Wheatleys for Christmas?’
‘Much.’
‘Coral!’
‘You didn’t really want to know, did you, darling? It was just a rhetorical question. I was supposed to say “Don’t be so absurd”, and you would have said “Well, then?”’
‘I had no idea.’
‘That shows what a good wife or a good actress or a good something I am.’
‘What’s the matter with Wheatleys?’
‘As an hotel, darling, nothing. Comfortable beds, central beating, log fires, first class cuisine, fully licensed, constant h. and c., the usual offices conveniently placed— which is always, I think, so important—willing service and every possible home comfort. Oh, I nearly left it out— delightful rural surroundings.’
‘But you just can’t stand the family. Is that it?’
‘You want me to continue the inventory? Very well, sweetie. If I had met your father out anywhere, we should have got on madly together, and everybody would have said “Who’s Coral’s new boy-friend?” As the father of a family in the bosom of his family, and being a bit frightened of me anyway, he doesn’t seem to sort of co-operate. I forget now whether I did kiss him or didn’t kiss him when we first met, but whichever it was, it must have been wrong. Or done in the wrong way. Your mother naturally doesn’t like me. She probably had a girl in her mind for you— you must tell me about her one day—and is always comparing me with her, and thinking how much nicer it would have been if only little Margot had been coming down to them for Christmas. Mark is a thoroughly nice person, but I should like him more if he weren’t always telling me about the girl he is in love with. This is always slightly annoying for anybody moderately good-looking, but it is more annoying when you have just worked yourself up into taking an interest in Betty and telling yourself that she can’t be as frightful as she sounds, and then find that it isn’t Betty any longer, it’s Sally. All this is rather silly and personal, I know, because Mark is an extremely attractive boy—or would be, if he weren’t always moaning for somebody else when I see him. Stephen is all right; naturally I have a strong feeling for him as a fellow-alien. But I’ve seen so many Stephens with watch-chains and striped trousers and a dispatch-case in the cloaks that I don’t really get much of a kick out of them. He explained the Gap to me last time we dined there, and I felt it yawning between us more and more widely as the evening wore on. Still, I think I like him more than any of you do. No man bores me all the time: there’s always something. As for Penelope, she’s just like any other baby of that age. One says “Isn’t she sweet?” or “Hasn’t she grown?” whichever sounds the less unlikely, and looks around for somebody else. Oh, I was forgetting Jessie. Jessie and I get on very well together. I’m taking her down an old dress of mine. She’ll look ghastly in it, but she won’t know. There!’
‘You haven’t mentioned Ruth.’
‘No, darling, I thought I’d better not.’
‘You mean you hate her?’
‘No, sweetie, it’s just that Ruth and I took one look at each other three years ago, and rushed off to Reno and got a divorce for incompatibility.’
‘I always felt that she was rather unenthusiastic about you, but I thought you liked her well enough.’
‘That, darling, is one of the incompatibles. Our idea of good manners.’
‘I admit she is a little outspoken——’
‘She admits it too in the most charmingly outspoken way. I suppose all those years in the Sergeants’ Mess saying
“Eyes right”——’
‘She was a Section Officer.’
‘Was she, darling? Somehow I always see her in the Sergeants’ Mess.’
‘Well, thank you for being so frank about us all.’
‘Vous l’avez voulu, Georges Dandin.’
‘So now we know where we are.’
‘Well, darling, I’m not sure about that, but at least we know where we shall be for Christmas.’
‘What I don’t know is where you’d like to be.’
‘The reason why you don’t know, sweetie, is that you have never asked me.’
‘All right, I’m asking you now—at least, it’s too late now, of course, but suppose I’d said a month ago “Darling, where would you like to go for Christmas?” what would you have said?’
‘Oh, Raymond, my idiot child, don’t you see that if you had said that, then it wouldn’t have mattered where we went? I’d probably have said “Wouldn’t you like to go to Wheatleys, darling, because if you’d like it very much——” and perhaps I should have found that you didn’t really like it as much as all that, and would rather have been going off alone with me to a little inn in the Cotswolds or an hotel in Paris, or—oh, I don’t know, but it would have been fun talking it over. And if I had felt that you couldn’t bear Christmas anywhere but at Wheatleys, and were just being sweetly unselfish about it, why of course I would have said “Oh, darling, let’s go to Wheatleys.” But—oh, well.’
‘Yes . . . I see . . . I’m sorry, darling.’
‘Sweetie!’
‘Next year——’
‘Yes, next year. Ray . . . Darling? This isn’t the Adirondacks! Help, help!’
3
‘Stephen!’
‘Yes?’
‘Come here a moment, old thing.’
‘What is it?’
‘Steve—ern!’
‘Damn. Oh, all right . . . What is it?’
‘You haven’t upset anything?’
‘Not that I know of. Did you want me to?’
‘Silly old boy, I just wondered what the damn was about. Oh, I don’t mind, one gets used to swearing in the Army. Did a bit of it myself if it comes to that. I wondered if you had spilt the ink.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Well, are you busy at the moment?’
‘I am trying, in the face of constant interruption, to finish that report.’
‘Oh well, you’ve missed the post now. Look, old man, the point is, which of your dressing-cases are you taking? Because, if you take the big one, then we can fill up with the presents and one or two things of mine and Baby’s. You won’t want much.’
‘No, not much. Only my dressing-case to myself.’
‘Play the game, old thing. We’re all in this together. Naturally if I had any room left over in mine for anything of yours—all I want to know is which dressing-case you’re taking, and then I shall be able to make my own plans. Don’t forget that I’ve got Baby to think of.’
‘I wish you would think of her as a unit and not as a species. The name is Penelope.’
‘Time enough for that, old man, when she knows we’re talking about her.’
‘I frequently refer to you as “Ruth” rather than “Woman” when you don’t know that I am talking about you. The cases seem to be parallel.’
‘Yes, well, I can’t discuss parallelograms now, I’ve got to do the packing. You’re taking the big dressing-case, is that all right?’
‘No, I’m taking the small one.’
‘Aren’t you being just a little bit obstructive, old man? Why is it so necessary for you to take the smaller one, when the whole side benefits if you take the larger one?’
‘I might say, my dear Ruth, that the smaller one was your wedding-present to me, and that I cannot bear to spend a single night away from it. What I do say is that the other one isn’t really a dressing-case at all. It has none of those invaluable partitions for brushes, combs, nail-scissors, tweezers and the now unfashionable razor-strop. Only when fortified by the companionship of your dressing-case do I feel sufficiently sure of myself to face a week-end at Wheatleys.’
‘It’s a damned good one, though I say it myself. It put me back eighty-five guineas.’
‘Indeed? Not a sum to be lightly left behind in the box-room. I shall take it with me.’
‘Oh well, if you’re going to play for yourself and not for the side——What did you mean by “facing” a week-end at Wheatleys? It sounds as if you didn’t like going there.’
‘I hope so. I couldn’t dislike it more.’
‘My dear old thing, what do you mean?’
‘When, as a very young member, I was first privileged to enter the Athenaeum, I felt like a new boy at school. Nobody talked to me. Everybody seemed to know everybody except myself. The only place where I didn’t feel an outcast was in the lavatory. By repairing thither every few minutes and washing my hands vigorously and in obvious haste, I managed to give myself, and I hope others, a continuous impression that I was on my way to be the life and soul of the party in some more social corner of the club. Making the necessary allowances for the difference in the intellectual atmosphere and the size of the lavatory, I have felt much the same at Wheatleys.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Stephen. You get on well enough with Coral, anyhow. Don’t think I haven’t noticed it.’
‘Coral and I are as friendly as any two castaways would be who accidentally found themselves in the same caravan in an Esperanto Holiday Camp. If we didn’t talk to each other, we should have to learn Esperanto. It is a pity that we bore each other so profoundly. On the intellectual plane, I mean.’
‘The only plane that interests Coral is the slap-and-tickle plane.’
‘Naturally I shall leave Penelope’s education in your hands, but you must see that she doesn’t pick up any coarse expressions from her mother.’
‘Sorry, old man, but five years in the Army—— Don’t think that I don’t like Coral. I like her very much.’
‘Oh, I realised that you liked her very much. The signs are unmistakable.’
‘It’s only that I don’t think that she is the right wife for Raymond. I’m sure she’s ruining him.’
‘Ah, I hadn’t realised that. Financially or morally?’
‘Both, I should say . . . What did you mean by Esperanto? Or didn’t you?’
‘My dear Ruth, I am in the habit of choosing my words. I meant that your family, like every other family, has a language of its own, consisting of unintelligible catch-phrases, favourite but not generally known quotations, obscure allusions, and well-tried but not intrinsically humorous, family jokes. For instance, there was a constant reference last Christmas to somebody or something called Bufty.’
‘Pufty.’
‘I accept the correction, without admitting that it is in itself elucidatory.’
‘It was terribly funny. It was when Raymond was four years old. Let me see, I was six, because it was the day before my birthday, so he would be just short of four. We had taken a house by the sea——’
‘Yes, dear, and you all shrieked with laughter, and you have been saying “Pufty” to each other ever since. One needs to have lived in the atmosphere of a family joke to appreciate it properly. Bald narration rarely does it justice. That is the point which I was endeavouring to make.’
‘The point being that you are bored stiff at Wheatleys?’
‘Let us say rendered uncomfortable by the realisation that I am not there on my own merits, but merely as witness to Penelope’s legitimacy; so that when the Vicar’s wife says archly to her “Where’s Daddy?”, you can answer truthfully for her “In the lavatory”.’
‘Well! Why didn’t you tell me all this before I fixed it up? We could have gone to your people if you had said so.’
‘Nothing would have induced me to say so. You would have found it extremely unpleasant. My mother would have taken you up into her room and shown you countless photographs of myself as a baby, and told you how much, much more beautiful I was than Penelope. Father, unlike yourself, strongly objects to women in slacks, calling constant attention to the place where he particularly disapproves of them. My brother, whom I dislike profoundly, would make love to you and then try to borrow a fiver. My sister and you would loathe each other even more enthusiastically than you and Coral do. It would be an interesting but not a happy Christmas.’
‘I don’t loathe Coral, and I’m quite sure she doesn’t loathe me. I’ve always tried to help her. If I had had her in my section, I could have done a lot for her.’
‘Leaving the question of Coral’s higher education for the moment, you now see that I am not a family man, my dear, and that I think family parties are a mistake.’
‘In other words, you would rather we spent Christmas here—just the three of us?’
‘Yes, Ruth. Or, if you and Penelope liked to go to Wheatleys—just the one of us.’
‘Then you won’t come, Mark?’
‘Darling, I’ve told you, I can’t possibly. You know how I’d love to. Oh, Sally, do try to understand.’
‘I understand perfectly. I’m going to St Moritz with the Campbells, they’ve asked me to bring a man with me, I’ve invited you, and you’ve turned me down. It’s all quite simple, and rather humiliating.’
‘Darling, don’t be such an idiot. I might have been stuck in an office instead of on my own, and then how could I possibly have come? There’s nothing humiliating about asking a man to go out with you, and then finding that he’s booked up.’
‘Obviously if you had been stuck in an office, I should never have thought of you. But you’re perfectly free; and, if you’re going to be a writer, I should have thought that the more experience of every kind you got, the better. And there’s a good deal of difference between asking a man to go to a dance with you—or having two tickets for Wimbledon or something—and choosing him out of everybody else to spend a fortnight in Switzerland with you, practically alone.’
‘Oh God, don’t I know? It’s wonderful of you. Don’t I wish like hell that I could come? You talk as if I were doing it on purpose. I’m just as sick about it as you are, only——’
‘I’m not in the least sick about it, don’t flatter yourself. There are plenty of other people in the world—Rex would jump at it——’
‘Oh lord, not that little twerp?’
‘At any rate he isn’t tied to his mother’s apron-strings, as some people are.’
‘I’ve told you that this has nothing to do with Mother. It’s Father.’
‘Daddy’s little boy.’
‘All right, if you care to put it like that. I don’t know that it helps.’
‘Sorry, forget it. It’s just that I simply can’t understand you, Mark. You’ve always pretended to be rather keen about me.’
‘Yes, I think you can start with that assumption fairly safely. If this weren’t the Ritz Bar, I’d illustrate it for you. What publishers call profusely.’
‘All right, you’re keen about me. . . . Well, naturally, of course, you’re fond of your people——’
‘Not naturally, but I am.’
‘Yes, and no doubt you’d have quite a good Christmas with them——’
‘Well, we’ll have a family four-ball one morning, I expect, and I like seeing my niece, she’s rather fun, and Father has a new T.V. set—oh, it won’t be so bad.’
‘Exactly. You’re not wildly excited at the prospect?’
‘I’m certainly not.’
‘Would you enjoy coming to Switzerland with me?’
‘Ten thousand times more.’
‘One might almost say that you would be wildly excited at the prospect?’
‘One might. Only wildly is a very tame word.’
‘Then why on earth——’
‘You’d better have another drink, hadn’t you, darling? This is where we came in.’
‘No, go on, I want to understand. You are of age and your own master. You have the choice of two things, neither of them in any way wrong. And you deliberately choose the “not so bad” one instead of the “wildly exciting” one. I can’t make sense of it.’
‘Well, try, darling. I’ll put it in words, more or less, of one syllable. My people like having all the family round them at Christmas in the old family home. Silly, sentimental, old-fashioned, mid-Victorian, Christmas-number, anything you care to call it. But they like it. Raymond was away a couple of years in the war, of course, but Ruth was always stationed in England, and I was at school through most of it, so the war didn’t make very much difference. We’ve always been together at Christmas ever since I can remember. I’d far sooner be in Switzerland with you; I’d far sooner be anywhere with you. When you began about Switzerland this evening, I was just wondering if I dare ask you to spend Christmas with us at Wheatleys. Rather apologetically, because we haven’t much to offer you. Well, that’s off. You’re going to Switzerland. But I can’t come with you, because I’ve told them that I’m coming home. They are expecting me, and it will disappoint them terribly, particularly Father, if I don’t come. I’m very fond of them both, and very grateful, because I do think, so far as I’m concerned, that they have been model parents. Well, that’s all. Somebody’s got to be terribly disappointed—me or them. Or as we writers say, I or they. And since I’m doing the choosing, I don’t see how I can possibly avoid choosing myself. That’s all.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t. Not in that voice.’
‘You didn’t think of my disappointment, I suppose?’
‘You told me not to flatter myself.’
‘You needn’t. Give her my love, won’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘This other girl, in the country.’
‘Sure you won’t have another drink?’
‘No, thanks. I must ring up Rex. I think Rex, don’t you?’
‘I think so, from what I’ve seen of him. Nice curly hair, definitely not Daddy’s little boy, and probably in the black market for nylons. Shall we go?’
‘Good-bye . . . good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, Father.’
‘Good-bye, my boy. Come again soon.’
‘Good-bye, Penelope, bye-bye, darling.’
‘Grannie’s saying good-bye to you, darling, say “Bye-bye, Grannie.” Oh, she said “Gannie”! Did you hear her, Stephen? Yes, darling, that’s who she is—Gannie. Good-bye, Mother, I’ll send you the pattern.’
‘Any time, dear. Good-bye. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye. . .’
‘Well—that’s over. I think they enjoyed themselves, Helen.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they did, darling.’
‘Mark looked a bit run down, I thought.’
‘He hadn’t quite such a good appetite as usual, but I expect it’s just that he’s in love again.’
‘Mark? Nonsense. Working too hard, probably, and not getting enough exercise . . . I think they all liked their presents.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they did. Is that the pen Mark gave you?’
‘Yes, one of those patent things. Writes five miles or something. Just what I wanted. Wonder how he knew.’
‘Oh, well, I expect he knew somehow. Did you like your pipe?’
‘Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks all right. I expect Ray helped her choose it. She was looking very pretty, I thought. Particularly in that blue thing.’
‘Coral? Yes, she’s almost too attractive. I hope dear Ray is happy. I wish I could get to know her better. I’m sure she’s a nice girl really.’
‘Much more friendly this time, I thought, what I saw of her. Next time you go up to London, why not take her out to lunch, and——’
‘Yes, I think I will, Gerald, that’s a good idea. But don’t expect me to go up in a balloon with Stephen, because I just couldn’t manage it.’
‘Oh, there’s more to Stephen than you think. For one thing he’s a damned good putter.’
‘I daresay, dear. I wouldn’t get to know about it in a balloon.’
‘I told you, or didn’t I, that Mark and I beat them 2 and 1. We were playing pretty well—well, we generally do when we play together—but Ray was right off his drive, and if it hadn’t been for Stephen’s short game, particularly his putting—though of course that doesn’t say that he’s easy to live with . . . Ruth was looking as well as ever, I thought. Wonderful health that girl’s got. Mark tells me that they think a lot of Stephen in the Treasury. Ruth will be Lady Rawson one day, you’ll find. How will you like that, Helen?’
‘Well, as long as she doesn’t expect Jessie to call her Your Ladyship, I shan’t mind. I’m just going down to the pillar-box, dear. Can I post anything for you?’
‘I’ll go, I’ll go. Give me your letters.’
‘It’s quite all right, dear, I shall like the little walk.’
‘I’ll come with you . . . You know, Helen, much as I like having them all here for Christmas, I must say it’s a great relief when they’ve gone, and we are alone together again.’