The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [60]
“Rotten. That drink doesn’t seem to agree with me.”
“I will give you something to make you better. The forest has remedies for everything; to make you awake and to make you sleep.”
“You haven’t seen my watch anywhere?”
“You have missed it?”
“Yes. I thought I was wearing it. I say, I’ve never slept so long.”
“Not since you were a baby. Do you know how long? Two days.”
“Nonsense. I can’t have.”
“Yes, indeed. It is a long time. It is a pity because you missed our guests.”
“Guests?”
“Why, yes. I have been quite gay while you were asleep. Three men from outside. Englishmen. It is a pity you missed them. A pity for them, too, as they particularly wished to see you. But what could I do? You were so sound asleep. They had come all the way to find you, so—I thought you would not mind—as you could not greet them yourself I gave them a little souvenir, your watch. They wanted something to take home to your wife who is offering a great reward for news of you. They were very pleased with it. And they took some photographs of the little cross I put up to commemorate your coming. They were pleased with that, too. They were very easily pleased. But I do not suppose they will visit us again, our life here is so retired . . . no pleasures except reading . . . I do not suppose we shall ever have visitors again . . . well, well, I will get you some medicine to make you feel better. Your head aches, does it not . . . We will not have any Dickens today . . . but tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. Let us read Little Dorrit again. There are passages in that book I can never hear without the temptation to weep.”
OUT OF DEPTH
I
Rip had got to the decent age when he disliked meeting new people. He lived a contented life between New York and the more American parts of Europe and everywhere, by choosing his season, he found enough of his old acquaintances to keep him effortlessly amused. For fifteen years at least he had dined with Margot Metroland during the first week of his visit to London, and he had always been sure of finding six or eight familiar and welcoming faces. It is true that there were also strangers, but these had passed before him and disappeared from his memory, leaving no more impression than a change of servants at his hotel.
Tonight, however, as he entered the drawing room, before he had greeted his hostess or nodded to Alastair Trumptington, he was aware of something foreign and disturbing. A glance round the assembled party confirmed his alarm. All the men were standing save one; these were mostly old friends interspersed with a handful of new, gawky, wholly inconsiderable young men, but the seated figure instantly arrested his attention and froze his bland smile. This was an elderly, large man, quite bald, with a vast white face that spread down and out far beyond the normal limits. It was like Mother Hippo in Tiger Tim; it was like an evening shirt-front in a du Maurier drawing; down in the depths of the face was a little crimson smirking mouth; and, above it, eyes that had a shifty, deprecating look, like those of a temporary butler caught out stealing shirts.
Lady Metroland seldom affronted her guests’ reticence by introducing them.
“Dear Rip,” she said, “it’s lovely to see you again. I’ve got all the gang together for you, you see,” and then noticing that his eyes were fixed upon the stranger, added, “Doctor Kakophilos, this is Mr. Van Winkle. Doctor Kakophilos,” she added, “is a great magician. Norah brought him, I can’t think why.”
“Musician?”
“Magician. Norah says there’s nothing he can’t do.”
“How do you do?” said Rip.
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” said Dr. Kakophilos, in a thin Cockney voice.
“Eh?”
“There is no need to reply. If you wish to, it is correct to say ‘Love is the law, Love under will.’ ”
“I see.”
“You are unusually blessed. Most men are blind.”
“I tell you what,” said Lady Metroland. “Let’s all have some dinner.”
It took an hour’s substantial eating and drinking before Rip began to feel at