A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh [14]
Paddington Station. They had a Pekingese dog named Djinn. Brenda had come on impulse, leaving the butler to ring up and tell Marjorie of her arrival. She emerged from the train, after two hours and a quarter in a carriage crowded five a side, looking as fresh and fragile as if she had that moment left a circle of masseuses, chiropodists, manicurists and coiffeuses in an hotel suite. It was an aptitude she had, never to look half finished; when she was really exhausted, as she often was on her return to Hetton after these days in London, she went completely to pieces quite suddenly and became a waif; then she would sit over the fire with a cup of bread and milk, hardly alive, until Tony took her up to bed. Marjorie had her hat on and was sitting at her writing table puzzling over her cheque book and a sheaf of bills. "Darling, what does the country do to you? You look like a thousand pounds. Where did you get that suit?" "I don't know. Some shop." "What's the news at Hetton?" "All the same. Tony madly feudal. John Andrew cursing like a stable boy." "And you?" "Me? Oh, I'm all right." "Who's been to stay?" "No one. We had a friend of Tony's called Mr. Beaver last week-end." "John Beaver?... How very odd. "I shouldn't have thought he was at all Tony's tea." "He wasn't... What's he like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's pathetic all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the Park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watt's Physical Energy; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr. Cruttwell, their bone setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr. Beaver's sex-life?" I shouldn't know. Pretty dim I imagine... You do fancy him?" "Oh well," said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping-towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodge-keepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr. Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr. Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it-that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs. Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, for its spring redecorations. It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond-least of all affection for Mrs. Beaver or for each other-except that their names were in current use-an accessible but not wholly renegade Duke, an unmarried girl of experience, a dancer and a novelist and a scene designer, a shamefaced junior minister who had not realised what he was in for until too late, and Lady Cockpurse; "God, what a party," said Marjorie, waving brightly to them all. "You're both coming to my party, darlings?" Polly Cockpurse's strident tones rang