Courts of Idleness (18 page)

“What a day!” It was Berry’s voice. “Nice little journey hasn’t it been? I think I enjoyed that wait at Zagzig as much as anything. You know. Where the engine sprayed us with dirty water and we had to shut the windows.”

“For goodness’ sake, get out,” said Daphne.

“Why?” said her husband. “Listen to the thunder of the Atlantic on our left front. What was it Cowper said?” He raised his voice, “Jonah!”

“Hullo,” came from the other
arabiya
.

“Do you say ‘Coughper’ or ‘Cooper’? Personally I always say ‘Wordsworth.’”

“Will you get out?” said Daphne fiercely.

A moment later, wearily she and Jonah ascended the steps. I could hear Jill laughing as Berry entrusted various articles of baggage – Adèle’s and mine among them – to the porter’s care.

Jonah saw us first.

“Good lord!” he cried, standing still.

Then my sister saw us, and caught her breath.

“You are late,” said I, stifling a yawn.

There was a shriek from Jill, and then she and Daphne flung themselves upon Adèle with every manifestation of amazement and delight. Jonah sank on to a chair, wide-eyed and shaking his head. I rose to my feet and took a step forward.

Berry came up the steps.

“What is it?” he was saying. “Rabies, or have you met someone you know?”

Then he saw me.

For fully a quarter of a minute we regarded one another in silence. Then he dropped everything he was carrying, and, stepping out of the havoc of wraps and sticks and dispatch-cases, walked round me on tip-toe. Presently he came up and felt me, then peered into my face.

“From the hooded (
sic
) look in your eyes and the unpleasant stench of spirits emanating from your person, I assume you have been the guest of the Royal Air Force. Did you have a nice flight?”

“Lovely, thanks. Hope our luggage wasn’t a nuisance?”

“Don’t mention it. I love working for you. Give me your room number, and I’ll go and turn your bed down. You know, I’m not at all certain you didn’t do it on purpose.”

I clapped him on the back.

“I knew I could depend upon you,” I said. “And there” – I pointed to a table – “is your reward?”

“Don’t say it’s iced beer,” said Berry. “I can’t bear it.”

“But it is,” said Jonah, opening a bottle.

Berry turned to me, glass in hand.

“I’m not going to wish you luck,” he said, “because you have more than your share already. But I am gratified to observe that, waster as you will always be, somewhere beneath that mass of corruption which you call your soul there are still stirring the instincts of humanity. And now I want a cigarette. You’ll find some in your dispatch-case.” He pointed to where he had dropped it. “By the way, I wish you wouldn’t lock your things. Jonah and I had to borrow a ticket punch from the conductor to get it open.”

Solemnly we regarded the Colosseum. “Reminds me of the Albert Hall with the lid off,” said Berry. “But it does want doing up. Glad I haven’t got it on a full repairing lease.”

“Is anything sacred to you?” demanded Daphne.

“Yes,” said her husband. “My appetite. That is why I venture for the second time to suggest that we should leave this relic of barbarity without delay. Besides, it revives painful memories.”

“When were you here before?” said Jonah.

“In a previous existence. Joan of Arc was by no means my first incarnation. In AD 77 I was a comic gladiator. Used to fight with gorgonzolas which had been previously maddened by having Schiller read to them in the original tongue. They used to call me ‘Sticking Plaster,’ because I was always coming off.”

“Of course you’re spoiling the whole place for me,” said his wife. “I came here—”

“They seem to have moved the cloak-room,” continued Berry, looking about him. “It used to be over there just behind the mammoth-hutches.”

This was too much for Jill and Adèle, who abandoned themselves to uncontrolled merriment. With a gesture of resignation, Daphne detached herself from the party and strolled out of earshot. Berry looked at me.

“I wonder if we can smoke,” he said. “They used not to allow it before 1300 hours. Anyone who broke the rule was thrown to the bears. Not the ordinary ones, but the Camemberts. A shocking fate.”

“Trajan altered all that,” said I. “But, of course, that was after your death.”

“Yes,” said Berry. “I was flayed alive for trespass in 96. After that I became a sacred sucking-pig at Antioch. Thank you.” He accepted a cigarette. “How many of these did we bring in all?”

“Adèle and I brought, five hundred each,” said Jill. “So did Daphne.”

“Jonah and I a thousand,” said I. “And you?”

Berry spread out his hands.

“Most unfortunately—”

I shut the case with a snap.

“Make the most of that one,” said I. “It’s the last you’ll take off me. If I’d had the slightest idea you hadn’t troubled, d’you think I’d have been financing you for the last ten days?”

“D’you mean to say you never brought any at all?” said Jonah.

“Fact,” said Berry. “Look at those idle tiers. Do you know what they mean?”

Jonah turned to me.

“And I let him have a box of a hundred yesterday because he said he couldn’t get at his.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“It was the truth,” said Berry. “If they weren’t there, I couldn’t get at them. Obviously.”

Jonah raised his eyes to heaven and turned to follow Daphne, who was alternately consulting a guide-book and scrutinizing the tremendous ruin.

“It is wonderful, isn’t it?” said Adèle, looking about her. “How many did it hold?”

“Eighty thousand, I think,” said I. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

She nodded.

“You ought to have seen it full,” said Berry. “Crammed. And not a bit of paper in the house. They used to have to put the orchestra in the arena sometimes. It didn’t work, though. They were roped off, of course. But the lions didn’t see the rope or something. Anyway—”

He stopped to light his cigarette.

“I’m afraid to ask anything else,” said Adèle, with such gravity as she could command, “and there are such heaps of things I want to know.”

“Come along,” said I. “This way. My memory’s not like his, but one term I came out top in Roman History.”

As we moved away, my brother-in-law addressed himself to Jill.

“My dear,” he said, “let this be a lesson to you. Never cast a silk purse before swine.”

We were all on the way from Egypt to England. We had come by Taranto, and had seized upon the opportunity of spending a few days in Rome. No one of us had visited the city before.

It is not remarkable that we were all fascinated. Even Berry, for all his ribaldry, was profoundly impressed. There was so much that was so venerable. If Rome had been smaller – if we could have seen a quarter at a time, perhaps it might have been otherwise. But there was so much – and every yard of it was hallowed ground. We stood as pygmies beside the mighty ghosts with which, for me, the streets were thronged. It was difficult to think that they, too, had been men and women of like passions with us. They had been the Royalty of the world; and so, for us, Rome was a palace and her ways ‘the presence strew’d.’ What manner of man had sunned himself at this corner? Maybe but a greasy-chopped scullion, a coarse fellow, one-eyed, yet – a Roman. Small enough fry while he lived, two thousand years have made his shade that of a giant. So with their deeds and lives and manners – Time has magnified them all, good and evil alike, dressed them in purple dignity, so that the venue of them is full of such tremendous memories, the aged stocks and stones conjure up visions so notable, as make you fall silent with thinking on them.

But that was when we were grave.

Adèle Feste and I were fast friends. Indeed, we all loved her, and the reflection that, when we reached England, she was destined to leave us and continue her journey to her home in the United States was already painful, and one which we endeavoured to thrust aside so often as it recurred.

Together she and I passed beneath one of the great archways.

“Of course, I shall simply live to come here again,” said Adèle, staring up at the great walls.

“May I come with you, when you do?”

Adèle tilted her chin.

“If you still want to, and my husband doesn’t object.”

“Your marriage would, of course, complicate matters. I suppose you couldn’t revisit Rome first and marry afterwards?”

Adèle looked thoughtful.

“Most American girls seem to get married between their first and second visits to Europe,” she said. “Of course, I might be an exception. You never know.”

“You’re an exception to every rule I ever knew,” said I. “Look at the way you move, for instance.”

“But I can’t.”

“Nor you can. And you can’t see yourself from behind, either. Or when you’re dancing, or – You do miss a lot, Adèle. D’you mind smiling for me? Thank you.”

She threw back her head and laughed.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “That wasn’t for you. I smile for nobody.”

I sighed.

“That’s right. Break my heart. Throw it down and jump on it. You cracked it the first day I saw you. Now smash it up.” I looked at her. “And when my sister taxes you with your carelessness, what shall you say?”

“I shall tell her that it ‘came in two in me ’and,’” replied Adèle. “And there’s Jill waving. I expect they’re thinking about lunch.”

As we came up:

“To say,” said Berry, “that I am an-hungered conveys nothing at all. My vitals are screaming for nourishment. My paunch—”

“Beast,” said Daphne. “Vulgar beast.”

“No coarseness, please,” said her husband. “But I’ve been butchered to make one Roman holiday, and I’m not going to be starved to make another. Have you ever been flayed, Jonah?”

“Very seldom.”

“During my martyrdom,” said Berry, “‘Bohême’ was played backwards to drown my cries. I don’t suppose they gave you a band, did they?”

Jonah shook his head.

“I suffered in silence,” he said. “Same as I’m doing now.”

“How rude!” said my brother-in-law. “How very rude! Never mind. I expect he wants his lunch. I told you about my vitals, didn’t I? Oh, yes. If you remember, I was interrupted just as I was saying that my—”

“This is sheer blackmail,” said Daphne, turning to Adèle. “It’s a great mistake to give in to the brute, but it’s a question of being insulted or letting him have his way. We’ll leave him behind tomorrow.”

As we set our faces towards the entrance:

“I shall begin with melon,” said Berry.

Cultivate the siesta habit, and it is not so easy to be rid of it again. Berry and Daphne and Jill had been long enough in Egypt to become accustomed to a rest after luncheon. This they were learning to curtail, but they never left the hotel before four. Miss Feste was more energetic. Besides, she had not been in Egypt so long. Jonah had no excuse, and was quite frank about it. “Sheer laziness,” he would say. “Sheer laziness. But a real sleep after lunch is to my liking. Wish I’d thought of it before.” And then he would follow the others into the lift, and congratulate them on “the contraction of a vice as wise as it is beneficial.”

Left to our own devices, Adèle and I usually went for a stroll till tea-time. In this point the day on which we had visited the Colosseum was not exceptional. When the other four had shamefacedly retired to their respective rooms, I turned to Miss Feste.

“Shall we push off again? Shall we perambulate? Or do you want to write letters?”

“I do not,” said Adèle. “I ought to. It’s scandalous. Mother will be cabling to the Embassy about me, if I don’t take care. But I just can’t sit here with Rome at the door.”

I rose to my feet.

“When I return,” I said, “I shall have my headgear with me.”

Ten minutes later we were abroad.

It was a brilliant afternoon. Not a cloud floated in the blue sky, there was no wind, and the sun blazed in the heaven, flooding the broad streets and open spaces with warmth and lustre, and lighting so faithfully the precious buildings that the eye need miss no jot or tittle of their beauty, fine and elusory though it might be.

Adèle and I went our way leisurely. As we turned the corner of a little alley tucked under the shadow of some great gallery, we almost collided with a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church.

As I raised my hat:

“Why, Monseigneur!” cried Adèle.

“My dear child!”

The two shook hands.

“I am so glad to see you,” said Adèle. Then she introduced me. “You’re fellow-countrymen,” she added, turning to me. “Monseigneur Forest lives in Rome, but he is still an Englishman.”

“So I can see.”

It was indeed a typically English face that was smiling from under the broad-brimmed hat. The features were fine and regular, the mouth kindly, the chin strong. A fresh colour was springing in his cheeks, and honesty sat in his blue eyes for all to see. Monseigneur was very tall and broad in proportion – fifty years old, perhaps, but I had never seen a finer man.

“And what are you doing here, my dear? I wish I could believe that you were actually on your way to see me.”

“I wasn’t,” said Adèle truthfully. “But I’ll come gladly. We’re on our way back from Egypt…” Quickly she told him the circumstances of our visit. “Are you a cardinal yet?” she added naïvely.

The prelate smiled.

“Not yet, not yet.” He sighed. “And now I must go, or I shall be late. Come, both of you, to tea with me the day after tomorrow.” He gave us his address. “It will make me so happy.”

Gratefully we accepted.

The next moment he was gone.

As we walked, Adèle told me about him. They had been members of the same house-party in France in July, 1914. “And then the War came in the middle of it all, and we all left, and I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. But I never forgot. He’s just the finest gentleman that ever happened.”

“He never forgot, either.” Up went the chin. “And I shan’t ever forget,” I added. “That makes three. Had you cut your hair short when you met him?”

Adèle shook her head, smiling.

“Ah. Then it must have been your brown eyes. Or your mouth. And yet I don’t know. There’s so much of you that’s beautiful.”

“For Heaven’s sake,” said Adèle, “leave something to the imagination.”

“Don’t blame me, my dear. You shouldn’t be so attractive. Be thankful that I don’t burst into song. I’m not at all sure I’m not going to intone, as it is. I shouldn’t hesitate if I had a tuning-fork.”

We had been strolling careless of our whereabouts, and as I spoke we entered a small sequestered square. Its houses were manifestly ancient, and on one side was towering the back wall of a church. The stained glass of a beautiful window flamed in the afternoon sun. Save for two men, the square was deserted. Doors and windows were open, but shutters were closed and blinds lowered. None of the occupants were in sight.

The two men were going in opposite directions. One moved heavily. Decently dressed, he might have been a merchant on his way to his office, wrapped in contemplation. The other was approaching us, so that we could see his face. This was very Italian, and there was a queer scared look in his eyes. His nose seemed to have been bent out of the straight. Whether he saw us or not I cannot say, but, as he passed the merchant, he turned, whipped his right hand from his pocket, and struck twice at the other’s back. Without a cry the merchant spun round and fell heavily backwards on to the cobbles. In a flash his assailant had thrust his hand into his victim’s breast, and was darting away in the direction from which he had come, cramming something into his pocket as he ran.

The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected that I was stupefied. Indeed, for the fraction of a second I wondered whether I had witnessed a vision, or imagination had played a mad trick upon my brain, but instantaneously the grim figure lying asprawl in the hot sunshine gave me the lie. Adèle gasped, shuddered, and caught at my arm, and the next moment I was across the little square in hot pursuit of the assassin.

The little silent street down which he had sped was tortuous, and though I was expecting to see him when I rounded a bend, the next reach of the alley was empty, and fifty paces further on the street curled again. Cursing my folly for not starting earlier in hot pursuit, I covered the fifty yards at a furious rate, only to find myself at a place where four ways met. Anxiously I stared down the little streets in turn. Here was a little traffic and a few passers-by, but there was no one that at all resembled the man of whom I was in chase.

I stood still, wondering what to do. Since I could not speak a word of Italian, I hesitated to accost the people that I saw about me. Vainly I scanned the streets for a policeman. Then I heard the sound of quick breathing behind me, and swung round, to see Adèle standing quite close to me, one little hand pressed to her side.

“Gone?”

She flung the question at me a little unsteadily.

I nodded.