Highland Fling (21 page)

‘Very kind of him, I think,’ said her father reprovingly.

‘Oh, well; yes, so it is. Very kind of all the people who send these inferior things. I only wish they wouldn’t, that’s all.’

‘How much better it would be,’ sighed Lady Dacre, ‘if
everybody
would send cheques.’

‘Or postal orders,’ said Jane.

‘Or stamps,’ said Albert.

For the next week or two, Jane and Albert had to make up their minds that they would only see each other once a day. They generally dined together and sometimes went to a play, but were often too tired even for that. Presents poured in for both of them, over and above which Albert was now very busy arranging about his exhibition.

He found that he had not brought over quite enough pictures for it, and embarked on a series of woodwork designs for six chairs, based on the theme of sport in the Highlands. He also completed his ‘Catalogue of Recent Finds at Dalloch’ (having wired for and obtained the consent of the Craigdallochs), intending that a specimen copy should be on view at the exhibition.

With Albert thus kept so busy that anyhow he would have had no time to play with her, Jane found her own jobs far less disagreeable. As Lady Dacre had predicted, the presents she received greatly improved in quality as time went on and she
found it much less boring to write letters thanking for things that she really liked. Her trousseau now became a source of great interest, especially the wedding dress, which she could not try on often enough and which was extremely lovely. As for the other things, tiring as it undoubtedly was to stand for hours every day being fitted, there was a certain excitement about the idea that by the time she began to wear them she would be a married woman, and this sustained her.

Walter and Sally Monteath, on their return to London, found themselves financially in a very bad way indeed. They had lost almost all their personal effects in the fire. Although they replaced these as economically as they could, it took most of their available money to do so. At this inconvenient moment the accumulated bills of months began to rain upon them, more numerous and insistent than ever before. The bank refused to allow them a further overdraft, all Sally’s jewellery had long since been sold, and she began to have difficulty even in paying the household books.

Sally felt desperately ill and worried, and even Walter was obliged to give up taking taxis everywhere; but, apart from that, the situation did not appear to weigh on him at all until, one evening, he came in with some books that he was going to review and found her crying bitterly.

‘Sally, darling angel! What
is
the matter?’ he said, kneeling down beside her and stroking her hair. When, through her tears, she explained to him that she could bear it no longer, that she literally didn’t know how to raise money for the week’s books, and that she had been adding up what they owed and found it amounted to nearly a thousand pounds, Walter was enormously relieved.

‘I thought something frightful must have happened,’ he said. ‘But if that’s all you’re worrying about, I can easily get some money. Why, anybody would lend us a hundred pounds or so to carry on with till our next quarter comes in. As for the bills, they can wait for years, if necessary.’

‘Walter, they
can’t
. Why, some of them have lawyer’s letters with them already. And it’s no use borrowing a hundred pounds – that won’t really help us at all, permanently, I mean. Then think of Morris-Minerva. How expensive all that business will be, and how are we going to educate him, or anything?’ She burst into fresh floods of tears and said wildly that she must have been mad to marry him on so little money but that she had thought they would be able to manage, and that so they would have, except for his idiotic extravagance.

Walter, who had never before in his life known Sally to utter a cross word, was amazed by this outburst and began to feel really worried. His was the sort of mentality which never apprehends an unpleasant situation until it is presented so forcibly that it can no longer be ignored. Now, for the first time, he began to see that their position was, in fact, very parlous, and he was plunged into extreme despair.

‘Anyhow, darling,’ he said, ‘I can’t have you worrying like this. Leave it all to me. I’ll find a job and support you properly. I’ll go out now, this minute, and find one,’ he added, and seizing his hat he dashed out of the house, saying that he would come back when he had some work, and not before.

Sally felt strangely comforted by his attitude, although not very optimistic about the job. She sat by the fire and thought that, after all, these bothers were very trifling matters compared to the happiness of being married to Walter.

While she was sitting there thinking vaguely about him, there was a resounding peal on the door-bell.

Sally remembered that the daily woman had gone home, and was half-considering whether she would sit still and pretend that everybody was out, when it occurred to her that it might be Walter, who was in the constant habit of losing his latchkey. The bell rang again, and this time Sally, almost mechanically, went to the door and opened it.

She was a little bit alarmed to see, standing in the passage,
three tall bearded strangers, but was soon reassured by the unmistakably gloomy voice of Ralph Callendar which issued from behind one of the beards, and said:

‘Sally, dear, I hadn’t realized until this very moment that you are
enceinte
. How beautifully it suits you! Why had nobody told me?’

Sally laughed and led the way into the drawing-room. She now saw that the other men were Jasper Spengal and Julius Raynor, very efficiently disguised.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but how
could
you tell? It’s really very exciting, due in April. Morris, if a boy, Minerva, if a girl, and we haven’t the slightest idea where she’s going to live (there’s no room here, as you know) or how we can afford to educate him. But Walter’s out now, looking for a job. Have a cocktail, Ralph dear, be an angel and make one; the things live in that chest. But why fancy dress so early in the evening, and why haven’t we been asked to the party?’

‘No, dear,’ said Ralph sadly, taking some bottles out of the chest. ‘Not fancy dress at all – disguise.’

‘Are you – not wanted by Scotland Yard for anything, I hope?’

‘No, dear, curiously enough. No; we are going, simply in order to please Jasper, to the Savoy Theatre, where we shall see a Gilbert and Sullivan operette, called – what is it called, Jasper?’

‘ “I Gondolieri.” ’

‘Yes, “I Gondolieri”. Jasper has a new philosophy, which is that one should experience everything pleasant and unpleasant, and says that nobody ought to die until they have seen one Gilbert and Sullivan operette and one Barrie play. Last night he begged us to accompany him on these grim errands, and after much talk, we allowed ourselves to be persuaded. But as it would be impossible to explain this to all the casual acquaintances whom we might meet at the theatre, we decided to take the precaution of a disguise.

‘It is one thing to see a Gilbert and Sullivan, and quite another
to be seen at one. We have our unborn children to consider, not to mention our careers.

‘It has taken us nearly all day, but I think the result satisfactory. To complete the illusion we intend to limp about during the
entr’acte
. Jasper, as you see, has a slight hump on one shoulder, and Julius a snub nose.

‘I myself, have not been obliged to go to such lengths. Nobody would ever suspect me. Even if I went undisguised, they would only say, “We didn’t know Ralph had a double.” Did you mention, Sally, that Walter is looking for a job?’

‘Yes, poor lamb, he is.’

‘He won’t find one, of course. But never mind, there are worse things than poverty, though I can’t for the moment remember what they are, and we’ll all take it in turns to keep the baby for you. A poet of Walter’s ability has no business with money troubles and jobs and nonsense like that. Are you very hard up at the moment, Sally?’

‘Yes, terribly, you know. We’ve got such debts and then our people simply can’t help. They give us more than they can afford as it is.’

‘Well, then, my dear, I’ll tell you what to do, straight away. Come and live with me till Christmas and let the flat to an American woman I know for twenty guineas a week. Would that help?’

‘Ralph, what an angel you are! But, of course, we can’t do that, and we’re not really so hard up, you know, only one likes a little grumble. Anyway, who would pay twenty guineas for a tiny flat like this? What are you doing?’

‘Hullo! Regent 3146,’ said Ralph into the telephone, his eyes on the ceiling. ‘Hullo! Mrs Swangard? Ralph here. Yes, I found you the very thing – a jewel, 65 Fitzroy Square. Belongs, you know, to the famous poet Monteath. Yes, I had the greatest difficulty.… Oh, no, no trouble. I knew at once it would be
the
place for you. Heart of Bloomsbury.… Oh, most fashionable,
all the famous people.… Yes, all round you, roaring away. What? I said “roaringly gay” … My dear, you’ll be astounded when I tell you … only twenty guineas! A
week
, not a day.

‘Wonderful, yes. Of course, they wouldn’t let it to just anybody, as you can imagine.… No.… As soon as you like – tomorrow if you like.… Tomorrow, then.… Yes, I’ll come round and see you about it after the play tonight.… Yes, perfect … goodbye.’

‘Oh, Ralph!’ said Sally, almost in tears. ‘How sweet you are! That means more than a hundred pounds, doesn’t it, and almost at once? Think what a help it will be. That is, if she likes the flat; but perhaps she won’t?’

‘My dear, that woman will like just exactly what I tell her to like. So pack up and come round some time in the morning. There’s quite a good-sized bedroom you can have, if you don’t mind sharing my sitting-room. Oh, nonsense, darling, you’d do the same by me, as you know very well. The poor are always good to each other. Are you going to Albert’s private view?’ he added, as though anxious to change the subject.

‘Oh, that’s tomorrow, of course, I’d forgotten. Yes, we’re supposed to be lunching with him first.’

‘I hear he’s given Jane for an engagement ring a garnet with Queen Victoria’s head carved on it.’

‘No! has he? Have you any idea at all what his pictures will be like?’

‘Absolutely none; but Bennet, I believe, thinks well of them.’

Jasper and Julius, who had been looking at
Vogue
, now came over to the fireplace. Feeling that they had so far not quite earned their cocktails, they began to pour forth a flood of semi-brilliant conversation, mostly in Cockney, told two stories about George Moore, one about Sir Thomas Beecham, asked if there was any future for Delius, and left, taking Ralph with them.

Sally resumed her meditations. How right she had been to
marry Walter after all. Nobody could have made her so happy; life with him was very nearly perfect. The same tastes, the same friends, the same sense of humour and, above all, no jealousy. She dropped happily into an almost voluptuous doze. The rain was falling outside, which made the room seem particularly warm and comfortable.

Her thoughts became more and more misty, and chased each other through her head in the most inconsequent way until they were nonsense and she was on the edge of sleep – ‘When the rain is falling thickly there should be long white hands waving in it.’

Walter, finding her fast asleep on the floor, her head buried in a cushion, wondered whose were the empty cocktail glasses. He found a thimbleful of cocktail left in the shaker which he drank, and then woke up Sally by kissing her.

‘It’s no good, darling,’ he said, ‘I cannot dig, and to write gossip I’m ashamed, but I’ve borrowed ten pounds from Albert, and I love you dreadfully, and I’ll write some articles for the Sunday papers. We’ll get rich somehow. Meanwhile, I’m going to take you out to dinner at Quaglino’s because you haven’t been there and it might amuse you. And who’s been drinking out of my cocktail glasses, I should like to know?’

‘I made a hundred pounds while you were out, my angel, by letting the flat to an American friend of Ralph’s from tomorrow, and Ralph says we can go and live in Gower Street while it’s let; he’s got a bedroom all ready for us. So what d’you think of that, sweetest?’

‘Well, I think that beggars can’t be choosers. If it’s a load off your mind, I’m glad and, of course, it’s divine of Ralph. Still, of course, really it’s too bloody, because we shall never have a single minute to ourselves. You know what it is in Ralph’s flat – one long party.’

‘I know, darling, but it’s only for six weeks, and it will be such a saving. Also, I didn’t like to hurt his feelings by refusing, it was
so sweet of him to think of it. As a matter of fact, we could go for some of the time to my family: they’re always asking us to stay with them.’

‘I believe it would be cheaper in the end,’ said Walter crossly, ‘to stay on here. Couldn’t you telephone to Ralph and say that we’ve changed our minds?’

‘No, darling, I couldn’t. If you can’t support me, somebody must, you know, and as we’re both devoted to Ralph why not let it be he? We needn’t really go to the family, of course; I only said that to annoy you, although I shall have to go sometime. By the way, too, remind me to tell mother about Morris-Minerva. I’m sure I ought to have told her ages ago, because it’s the sort of thing it drives her mad to hear from somebody else.

‘Darling Walter. And I’m sorry I said all that about supporting me because I know you would like to be able to. And anyway, we’re so much happier like this than if you had some horrid sort of job which you hated. And if we’re really going to Quaglino’s hadn’t you better telephone for a table, my sweet?’

Albert had decided that the private view of his pictures should take the form of a giant cocktail-party at the Chelsea Galleries, where they were being exhibited, the afternoon before they were to be opened to the public. Guests were invited from half-past three to seven, and at three o’clock Albert and Jane, supported by the Monteaths and Mr Buggins, with whom they had all been lunching, arrived at the Galleries in a state of some trepidation.