The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over (97 page)

Mr Sunbury was silent. He had long ago learnt that it didn’t get him anywhere with Beatrice to answer back.

“I don’t hold with a man marrying till he knows his own mind,” she went on. “And a man doesn’t know his own mind till he’s thirty or thirty-five.”

“He was pleased with his presents,” said Mr Sunbury to change the conversation.

“And so he ought to be,” said Mrs Sunbury still upset.

They had in fact been handsome. Mr Sunbury had given him a silver wrist-watch, with hands that you could see in the dark, and Mrs Sunbury had given him a kite. It wasn’t by any means the first one she had given him. That was when he was seven years old, and it happened this way. There was a large common near where they lived and on Saturday afternoons when it was fine Mrs Sunbury took her husband and son for a walk there. She said it was good for Samuel to get a breath of fresh air after being cooped up in a stuffy office all the week. There were always a lot of people on the common, but Mrs Sunbury who liked to keep herself to herself kept out of their way as much as possible.

“Look at them kites, Mum,” said Herbert suddenly one day.

There was a fresh breeze blowing and a number of kites, small and large, were sailing through the air.

“Those,
Herbert, not them,” said Mrs Sunbury.

“Would you like to go and see where they start, Herbert?” asked his father.

“Oh, yes, Dad.”

There was a slight elevation in the middle of the common and as they approached it they saw boys and girls and some men racing down it to give their kites a start and catch the wind. Sometimes they didn’t and fell to the ground, but when they did they would rise, and as the owner unravelled his string go higher and higher. Herbert looked with ravishment.

“Mum, can I have a kite?” he cried.

He had already learnt that when he wanted anything it was better to ask his mother first.

“Whatever for?” she said.

“To fly it, Mum.”

“If you’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself,” she said.

Mr and Mrs Sunbury exchanged a smile over the little boy’s head. Fancy him wanting a kite. Growing quite a little man he was.

“If you’re a good boy and wash your teeth regular every morning without me telling you I shouldn’t be surprised if Santa Claus didn’t bring you a kite on Christmas Day.”

Christmas wasn’t far off and Santa Claus brought Herbert his first kite. At the beginning he wasn’t very clever at managing it, and Mr Sunbury had to run down the hill himself and start it for him. It was a very small kite, but when Herbert saw it swim through the air and felt the little tug it gave his hand he was thrilled; and then every Saturday afternoon, when his father got back from the City, he would pester his parents to hurry over to the common. He quickly learnt how to fly it, and Mr and Mrs Sunbury, their hearts swelling with pride, would watch him from the top of the knoll while he ran down and as the kite caught the breeze lengthened the cord in his hand.

It became a passion with Herbert, and as he grew older and bigger his mother bought him larger and larger kites. He grew very clever at gauging the winds and could do things with his kite you wouldn’t have thought possible. There were other kite-flyers on the common, not only children, but men, and since nothing brings people together so naturally as a hobby they share it was not long before Mrs Sunbury, notwithstanding her exclusiveness, found that she, her Samuel, and her son were on speaking terms with all and sundry. They would compare their respective kites and boast of their accomplishments. Sometimes Herbert, a big boy of sixteen now, would challenge another kite-flyer. Then he would manoeuvre his kite to windward of the other fellow’s, allow his cord to drift against his, and by a sudden jerk bring the enemy kite down. But long before this Mr Sunbury had succumbed to his son’s enthusiasm and he would often ask to have a go himself. It must have been a funny sight to see him running down the hill in his striped trousers, black coat, and bowler hat. Mrs Sunbury would trot sedately behind him and when the kite was sailing free would take the cord from him and watch it as it soared. Saturday afternoon became the great day of the week for them, and when Mr Sunbury and Herbert left the house in the morning to catch their train to the City the first thing they did was to look up at the sky to see if it was flying weather. They liked best of all a gusty day, with uncertain winds, for that gave them the best chance to exercise their skill. All through the week, in the evenings, they talked about it. They were contemptuous of smaller kites than theirs and envious of bigger ones. They discussed the performances of other flyers as hotly, and as scornfully, as boxers or football-players discuss their rivals. Their ambition was to have a bigger kite than anyone else and a kite that would go higher. They had long given up a cord, for the kite they gave Herbert on his twenty-first birthday was seven feet high, and they used piano wire wound round a drum. But that did not satisfy Herbert. Somehow or other he had heard of a box-kite which had been invented by somebody, and the idea appealed to him at once. He thought he could devise something of the sort himself and since he could draw a little he set about making designs of it. He got a small model made and tried it out one afternoon, but it wasn’t a success. He was a stubborn boy and he wasn’t going to be beaten. Something was wrong, and it was up to him to put it right.

Then an unfortunate thing happened. Herbert began to go out after supper. Mrs Sunbury didn’t like it much, but Mr Sunbury reasoned with her. After all, the boy was twenty-two, and it must be dull for him to stay home all the time.

If he wanted to go for a walk or see a movie there was no great harm. Herbert had fallen in love. One Saturday evening, after they’d had a wonderful time on the common, while they were at supper, out of a clear sky he said suddenly:

“Mum, I’ve asked a young lady to come in to tea tomorrow. Is that all right?”

“You done what?” said Mrs Sunbury, for a moment forgetting her grammar.

“You heard, Mum.”

“And may I ask who she is and how you got to know her?”

“Her name’s Bevan, Betty Bevan, and I met her first at the pictures one Saturday afternoon when it was raining. It was an accident-like. She was sitting next to me and she dropped her bag and I picked it up and she said thank you and so naturally we got talking.”

“And d’you mean to tell me you fell for an old trick like that? Dropped her bag indeed!”

“You’re making a mistake, Mum, she’s a nice girl, she is really and well educated too.”

“And when did all this happen?”

“About three months ago.”

“Oh, you met her three months ago and you’ve asked her to come to tea tomorrow?”

“Well, I’ve seen her since of course. That first day, after the show, I asked her if she’d come to the pictures with me on the Tuesday evening, and she said she didn’t know, perhaps she would and perhaps she wouldn’t. But she came all right.”

“She would. I could have told you that.”

“And we’ve been going to the pictures about twice a week ever since.”

“So that’s why you’ve taken to going out so often?”

“That’s right. But, look, I don’t want to force her on you, if you don’t want her to come to tea I’ll say you’ve got a headache and take her out.”

“Your mum will have her to tea all right,” said Mr Sunbury. “Won’t you, dear? It’s only that your mum can’t abide strangers. She never has liked them.”

“I keep myself to myself,” said Mrs Sunbury gloomily. “What does she do?”

“She works in a typewriting office in the City and she lives at home, if you call it home; you see, her mum died and her dad married again, and they’ve got three kids and she doesn’t get on with her step-ma. Nag, nag, nag all the time, she says.”

Mrs Sunbury arranged the tea very stylishly. She took the knick-knacks off the little table in the sitting room, which they never used, and put a tea-cloth on it. She got out the tea-service and the plated tea-kettle which they never used either, and she made scones, baked a cake, and cut thin bread-and-butter.

“I want her to see that we’re not just nobody,” she told her Samuel.

Herbert went to fetch Miss Bevan, and Mr Sunbury intercepted them at the door in case Herbert should take her into the dining-room where normally they ate and sat. Herbert gave the tea-table a glance of surprise as he ushered the young woman into the sitting-room.

“This is Betty, Mum,” he said.

“Miss Bevan, I presume,” said Mrs Sunbury.

“That’s right, but call me Betty, won’t you?”

“Perhaps the acquaintance is a bit short for that,” said Mrs Sunbury with a gracious smile. “Won’t you sit down, Miss Bevan?”

Strangely enough, or perhaps not strangely at all, Betty Bevan looked very much as Mrs Sunbury must have looked at her age. She had the same sharp features and the same rather small beady eyes, but her lips were scarlet with paint, her cheeks lightly rouged, and her short black hair permanently waved. Mrs Sunbury took in all this at a glance, and she reckoned to a penny how much her smart rayon dress had cost, her extravagantly high-heeled shoes, and the saucy hat on her head. Her frock was very short and she showed a good deal of flesh-coloured stocking. Mrs Sunbury, disapproving of her make-up and of her apparel, took an instant dislike to her, but she had made up her mind to behave like a lady, and if she didn’t know how to behave like a lady nobody did, so that at first things went well. She poured out tea and asked Herbert to give a cup to his lady friend.

“Ask Miss Bevan if she’ll have some bread-and-butter or a scone, Samuel, my dear.”

“Have both,” said Samuel, handing round the two plates, in his coarse way. “I like to see people eat hearty.”

Betty insecurely perched a piece of bread-and-butter and a scone on her saucer and Mrs Sunbury talked affably about the weather. She had the satisfaction of seeing that Betty was getting more and more ill-at-ease. Then she cut the cake and pressed a large piece on her guest. Betty took a bite at it and when she put it in her saucer it fell to the ground.

“Oh, I am sorry,” said the girl, as she picked it up.

“It doesn’t matter at all, I’ll cut you another piece,” said Mrs Sunbury.

“Oh, don’t bother, I’m not particular. The floor’s clean.”

“I hope so,” said Mrs Sunbury with an acid smile, “but I wouldn’t dream of letting you eat a piece of cake that’s been on the floor. Bring it here, Herbert,

and I’ll give Miss Bevan some more.”

“I don’t want any more, Mrs Sunbury, I don’t really.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like my cake. I made it specially for you.” She took a bit. “It tastes all right to me.”

“It’s not that, Mrs Sunbury, it’s a beautiful cake, it’s only that I’m not hungry.”

She refused to have more tea and Mrs Sunbury saw she was glad to get rid of the cup. “I expect they have their meals in the kitchen,” she said to herself. Then Herbert lit a cigarette.

“Give us a fag, Herb,” said Betty. “I’m simply dying for a smoke.”

Mrs Sunbury didn’t approve of women smoking, but she only raised her eyebrows slightly.

“We prefer to call him Herbert, Miss Bevan,” she said.

Betty wasn’t such a fool as not to see that Mrs Sunbury had been doing all she could to make her uncomfortable, and now she saw a chance to get back on her.

“I know,” she said. “When he told me his name was Herbert I nearly burst out laughing. Fancy calling anyone Herbert. A scream, I call it.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like the name my son was given at his baptism. I think it’s a very nice name. But I suppose it all depends on what sort of class of people one is.”

Herbert stepped in to the rescue.

“At the office they call me Bertie, Mum.”

“Then all I can say is, they’re a lot of very common men.”

Mrs Sunbury lapsed into a dignified silence and the conversation, such as it was, was maintained by Mr Sunbury and Herbert. It was not without satisfaction that Mrs Sunbury perceived that Betty was offended. She also perceived that the girl wanted to go, but didn’t quite know how to manage it. She was determined not to help her. Finally Herbert took the matter into his own hands.

“Well, Betty, I think it’s about time we were getting along,” he said. “I’ll walk back with you.”

“Must you go already?” said Mrs Sunbury, rising to her feet. “It’s been a pleasure, I’m sure.”

“Pretty little thing,” said Mr Sunbury tentatively after the young things had left.

“Pretty my foot. All that paint and powder. You take my word for it, she’d look very different with her face washed and without a perm. Common, that’s what she is, common as dirt.”

An hour later Herbert came back. He was angry.

“Look here, Mum, what d’you mean by treating the poor girl like that? I was simply ashamed of you.”

“Don’t talk to your mother like that, Herbert,” she flared up. “You didn’t ought to have brought a woman like that into my house. Common, she is, common as dirt.”

When Mrs Sunbury got angry not only did her grammar grow shaky, but she wasn’t quite safe on her aitches. Herbert took no notice of what she said.

“She said she’d never been so insulted in her life. I had a rare job pacifying her.”