65 Short Stories (84 page)

‘Three reasons. First, she won’t let me go to bed with her without. Second, she makes me laugh like a hyena. And third, she’s alone in the world, without a single relation, and she must have someone to take care of her.’

‘The first reason is just swank and the second is eyewash. The third is the real one and it means that she’s got you by the short hairs.’

His eyes gleamed softly behind his large spectacles.

‘I shouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t dead right.’

‘She’s not only got you by the short hairs but you’re as pleased as Punch that she has.’

‘Come and lunch tomorrow and have a look at her. She’s easy on the eye.’ Charlie was a member of a cock-and-hen club which at that time I used a good deal and we arranged to lunch there. I found Margery a very attractive young woman. She was then just under thirty. She was a lady. I noticed the fact with satisfaction, but with a certain astonishment, for it had not escaped my notice that Charlie was attracted as a rule by women whose breeding left something to be desired. She was not beautiful, but comely, with fine dark hair and fine eyes, a good colour and a look of health. She had a pleasant frankness and an air of candour that were very taking. She looked honest, simple, and dependable. I took an immediate liking to her. She was easy to talk to and though she did not say anything very brilliant she understood what other people were talking about; she was quick to see a joke and she was not shy. She gave you the impression of being competent and business-like. She had a happy placidity that suggested a good temper and an excellent digestion.

They seemed extremely pleased with one another. I had asked myself when I first saw her why Margery was marrying this irritable little man, baldish already and by no means young, but I discovered very soon that it was because she was in love with him. They chaffed one another a good deal and laughed a lot and every now and then their eyes met more significantly and they seemed to exchange a little private message. It was really rather touching.

A week later they were married at a registrar’s office. It was a very successful marriage. Looking back now after sixteen years I could not but chuckle sympathetically at the thought of the lark they had made of their life together. I had never known a more devoted couple. They had never had very much money. They never seemed to want any. They had no ambitions. Their life was a picnic that never came to an end. They lived in the smallest flat I ever saw, in Panton Street, a small bedroom, a small sitting-room, and a bathroom that served also as a kitchen. But they had no sense of home, they ate their meals in restaurants, and only had breakfast in the flat. It was merely a place to sleep in. It was comfortable, though a third person coming in for a whisky and soda crowded it, and Margery with the help of a charwoman kept it as neat as Charlie’s untidiness permitted, but there was not a single thing in it that had a personal note. They had a tiny car and whenever Charlie had a holiday they took it across the Channel and started off, with a bag each for all their luggage, to drive wherever the fancy took them. Breakdowns never disturbed them, bad weather was part of the fun, a puncture was no end of a joke, and if they lost their way and had to sleep out in the open they thought they were having the time of their lives.

Charlie continued to be irascible and contentious, but nothing he did ever disturbed Margery’s lovely placidity. She could calm him with a word. She still made him laugh. She typed his monographs on obscure bacteria and corrected the proofs of his articles in the scientific magazines. Once I asked them if they ever quarrelled.

‘No,’ she said, ‘we never seem to have anything to quarrel about. Charlie has the temper of an angel.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘he’s an overbearing, aggressive, and cantankerous fellow. He always has been.’

She looked at him and giggled and I saw that she thought I was being funny. let him rave,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s an ignorant fool and he uses words of whose meaning he hasn’t the smallest idea.’

They were sweet together. They were very happy in one another’s company and were never apart if they could help it. Even after the long time they had been married Charlie used to get into the car every day at luncheon-time to come west and meet Margery at a restaurant. People used to laugh at them, not unkindly, but perhaps with a little catch in the throat, because when they were asked to go and spend a week-end in the country Margery would write to the hostess and say they would like to come if they could be given a double bed. They had slept together for so many years that neither of them could sleep alone. It was often a trifle awkward. Husbands and wives as a rule not only demanded separate rooms, but were inclined to be peevish if asked to share the same bathroom. Modern houses were not arranged for domestic couples, but among their friends it became an understood thing that if you wanted the Bishops you must give them a room with a double bed. Some people of course thought it a little indecent, and it was never convenient, but they were a pleasant pair to have to stay and it was worth while to put up with their crankiness. Charlie was always full of spirits and in his caustic way extremely amusing, and Margery was peaceful and easy. They were no trouble to entertain. Nothing pleased them more than to be left to go out together for a long ramble in the country.

When a man marries, his wife sooner or later estranges him from his old friends, but Margery on the contrary increased Charlie’s intimacy with them. By making him more tolerant she made him a more agreeable companion. They gave you the impression not of a married couple, but, rather amusingly, of two middle-aged bachelors living together; and when Margery, as was the rule, found herself the only woman among half a dozen men, ribald, argumentative, and gay, she was not a bar to good-fellowship but an asset. Whenever I was in England I saw them. They generally dined at the club of which I have spoken and if I happened to be alone I joined them.

When we met that evening for a snack before going to the play I told them I had asked Morton to come to supper.

‘I’m afraid you’ll find him rather dull,’ I said. ‘But he’s a very decent sort of boy and he was awfully kind to me when I was in Borneo.’

‘Why didn’t you let me know sooner?’ cried Margery. ‘I’d have brought a girl along.’

‘What do you want a girl for?’ said Charlie. ‘There’ll be you.’

‘I don’t think it can be much fun for a young man to dance with a woman of my advanced years,’ said Margery.

‘Rot What’s your age got to do with it?’ He turned to me. ‘Have you ever danced with anyone who danced better?’

I had, but she certainly danced very well. She was light on her feet and she had a good sense of rhythm.

‘Never,’ I said heartily.

Morton was waiting for us when we reached Ciro’s. He looked very sunburned in his evening clothes. Perhaps it was because I knew that they had been wrapped away in a tin box with mothballs for four years that I felt he did not look quite at home in them. He was certainly more at ease in khaki shorts. Charlie Bishop was a good talker and liked to hear himself speak. Morton was shy. I gave him a cocktail and ordered some champagne. I had a feeling that he would be glad to dance, but was not quite sure whether it would occur to him to ask Margery. I was acutely conscious that we all belonged to another generation.

‘I think I should tell you that Mrs Bishop is a beautiful dancer,’ I said. ‘Is she?’ He flushed a little. Will you dance with me?’

She got up and they took the floor. She was looking peculiarly nice that evening, not at all smart, and I do not think her plain black dress had cost more than six guineas, but she looked a lady. She had the advantage of having extremely good legs and at that time skirts were still being worn very short. I suppose she had a little make-up on, but in contrast with the other women there she looked very natural. Shingled hair suited her; it was not even touched with white and it had an attractive sheen. She was not a pretty woman, but her kindliness, her wholesome air, her good health gave you, if not the illusion that she was, at least the feeling that it didn’t at all matter. When she came back to the table her eyes were bright and she had a heightened colour.

‘How does he dance?’ asked her husband.

‘Divinely.’

‘You’re very easy to dance with,’ said Morton.

Charlie went on with his discourse. He had a sardonic humour and he was interesting because he was himself so interested in what he said. But he spoke of things that Morton knew nothing about and though he listened with a civil show of interest I could see that he was too much excited by the gaiety of the scene, the music, and the champagne to give his attention to conversation. When the music struck up again his eyes immediately sought Margery’s. Charlie caught the look and smiled.

‘Dance with him, Margery. Good for my figure to see you take exercise.’ They set off again and for a moment Charlie watched her with fond eyes. ‘Margery’s having the time of her life. She loves dancing and it makes me puff and blow. Not a bad youth.’

My little party was quite a success and when Morton and I, having taken leave of the Bishops, walked together towards Piccadilly Circus he thanked me warmly. He had really enjoyed himself I said good-bye to him. Next morning I went abroad.

I was sorry not to have been able to do more for Morton and I knew that when I returned he would be on his way back to Borneo. I gave him a passing thought now and then, but by the autumn when I got home he had slipped my memory. After I had been in London a week or so I happened to drop in one night at the club to which Charlie Bishop also belonged. He was sitting with three or four men I knew and I went up. I had not seen any of them since my return. One of them, a man called Bill Marsh, whose wife, Janet, was a great friend of mine, asked me to have a drink.

‘Where have you sprung from?’ asked Charlie. ‘Haven’t seen you about lately.’ I noticed at once that he was drunk. I was astonished. Charlie had always liked his liquor, but he carried it well and never exceeded. In years gone by, when we were very young, he got tight occasionally, but probably more than anything to show what a great fellow he was, and it is unfair to bring up against a man the excesses of his youth. But I remembered that Charlie had never been very nice when he was drunk: his natural aggressiveness was exaggerated then and he talked too much and too loud; he was very apt to be quarrelsome. He was very dogmatic now, laying down the law and refusing to listen to any of the objections his rash statements called forth. The others knew he was drunk and were struggling between the irritation his cantankerousness aroused in them and the good-natured tolerance which they felt his condition demanded. He was not an agreeable object. A man of that age, bald and fattish, with spectacles, is disgusting drunk. He was generally rather dapper, but he was untidy now and there was tobacco ash all over him. Charlie called the waiter and ordered another whisky. The waiter had been at the dub for thirty years.

‘You’ve got one in front of you, sir.’

‘Mind your own damned business,’ said Charlie Bishop. ‘Bring me a double whisky right away or I’ll report you to the secretary for insolence.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said the waiter.

Charlie emptied his glass at a gulp, but his hand was unsteady and he spilled some of the whisky over himself

‘Well, Charlie, old boy, we’d better be toddling along,’ said Bill Marsh. He turned to me. ‘Charlie’s staying with us for a bit.’

I was more surprised still. But I felt that something was wrong and thought it safer not to say anything.

‘I’m ready,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ll just have another drink before I go. I shall have a better night if I do.’

It did not look to me as though the party would break up for some time, so I got up and announced that I meant to stroll home.

‘I say,’ said Bill, as I was about to go, ‘you wouldn’t come and dine with us tomorrow night, would you, just me and Janet and Charlie?’

‘Yes, I’ll come with pleasure,’ I said.

It was evident that something was up.

The Marshes lived in a terrace on the East side of Regent’s Park. The maid who opened the door for me asked me to go in to Mr Marsh’s study. He was waiting for me there.

‘I thought I’d better have a word with you before you went upstairs,’ he said as he shook hands with me. ‘You know Margery’s left Charlie?’

‘No!’

‘He’s taken it very hard. Janet thought it was so awful for him alone in that beastly little flat that we asked him to stay here for a bit. We’ve done everything we could for him. He’s been drinking like a fish. He hasn’t slept a wink for a fortnight.’

‘But she hasn’t left him for good?’

I was astounded.

‘Yes. She’s crazy about a fellow called Morton.’

‘Morton. Who’s he?’

It never struck me it was my friend from Borneo.

‘Damn it all, you introduced him and a pretty piece of work you did. Let’s go upstairs. I thought I’d better put you wise.’

He opened the door and we went out. I was thoroughly confused. ‘But look here,’ I said.

‘Ask Janet. She knows the whole thing. It beats me. I’ve got no patience with Margery, and he must be a mess.’