The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [146]
They paused at the top of the steps and stared out in the gloaming. To their left the great bulk of the chapel loomed immensely; below them the land fell away in terraces to the playing fields with their dark fringe of elm; headlights moved continuously up and down the coast road; the estuary was just traceable, a lighter streak across the grey lowland, before it merged into the calm and invisible sea.
“Same old view,” said Tamplin.
“Give me the lights of London,” said Charles. “I say, it’s rotten luck for you about the Settle.”
“Oh, I never had a chance. It’s rotten luck on you.”
“Oh, I never had a chance. But O’Malley.”
“It all comes of having that tick Graves instead of Frank.”
“The buxom Wheatley looked jolly bored. Anyway, I don’t envy O’Malley’s job as head of the dormitory.”
“That’s how he got on the Settle. Tell you later.”
From the moment they reached the Hall steps they had to unlink their arms, take their hands out of their pockets and stop talking. When Grace had been said Tamplin took up the story.
“Graves had him in at the end of last term and said he was making him head of the dormitory. The head of Upper Dormitory never has been on the Settle before last term when they moved Easton up from Lower Anteroom after we ragged Fletcher. O’Malley told Graves he couldn’t take it unless he had an official position.”
“How d’you know?”
“O’Malley told me. He thought he’d been rather fly.”
“Typical of Graves to fall for a tick like that.”
“It’s all very well,” said Wheatley, plaintively, from across the table; “I don’t think they’ve any right to put Graves in like this. I only came to Spierpoint because my father knew Frank’s brother in the Guards. I was jolly bored, I can tell you, when they moved Frank. I think he wrote to the Head about it. We pay more in Head’s and get the worst of everything.”
“Tea, please.”
“Same old College tea.”
“Same old College eggs.”
“It always takes a week before one gets used to College food.”
“I never get used to it.”
“Did you go to many London restaurants in the holidays?”
“I was only in London a week. My brother took me to lunch at the Berkeley. Wish I was there now. I had two glasses of port.”
“The Berkeley’s all right in the evening,” said Charles, “if you want to dance.”
“It’s jolly well all right for luncheon. You should see their hors d’oeuvres. I reckon there were twenty or thirty things to choose from. After that we had grouse and meringues with ices in them.”
“I went to dinner at the d’Italie.”
“Oh, where’s that?”
“It’s a little place in Soho not many people know about. My aunt speaks Italian like a native so she knows all those places. Of course, there’s no marble or music. It just exists for the cooking. Literary people and artists go there. My aunt knows lots of them.”
“My brother says all the men from Sandhurst go to the Berkeley. Of course, they fairly rook you.”
“I always think the Berkeley’s rather rowdy,” said Wheatley. “We stayed at Claridges after we came back from Scotland because our flat was still being done up.”
“My brother says Claridges is a deadly hole.”
“Of course, it isn’t everyone’s taste. It’s rather exclusive.”
“Then how did our buxom Wheatley come to be staying there, I wonder?”
“There’s no need to be cheap, Tamplin.”
“I always say,” suddenly said a boy named Jorkins, “that you get the best meal in London at the Holborn Grill.”
Charles, Tamplin and Wheatley turned with cold curiosity on the interrupter, united at last in their disdain. “Do you, Jorkins? How very original of you.”
“Do you always say that, Jorkins? Don’t you sometimes get tired of always saying the same thing?”
“There’s a four-and-sixpenny table d’hôte.”
“Please, Jorkins, spare us the hideous details of your gormandizing.”
“Oh, all right. I thought you were interested, that’s all.”
“Do you think,” said Tamplin, confining himself ostentatiously to Charles and Wheatley, “that Apthorpe is keen on Wykham-Blake?”
“No, is he?”
“Well, he couldn’t keep away from him in Evening School.”
“I suppose the boy had to find consolation