The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [68]
“Exactly. Well I think I shall keep it on. The only trouble is that my wife is inclined to fret a little about the rent. My idea is to use it when I come to London instead of my club. It will be cheaper and a great deal more convenient. But my wife may not see it in that light . . . in fact . . .”
“I quite understand.”
“I think it would be better if my name didn’t appear on that board downstairs.”
“Naturally. A number of my tenants are taking the same precaution.”
“So that’s all right.”
“That’s quite satisfactory. I daresay you will want some little piece of extra furniture—a writing table, for instance.”
“Yes, I suppose I had better.”
“I’ll send one round. I think I know just what will suit you.”
The table was delivered a week later. It cost eighteen pounds; on the same day there was a new name painted on the board below.
And for the price of the table Mrs. Beaver observed absolute discretion.
Tony met Brenda at Marjorie’s house and they caught the evening train together.
“Did you get rid of the flat?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s all settled.”
“Mrs. Beaver decent?”
“Very decent.”
“So that’s the end of that,” said Brenda.
And the train sped through the darkness towards Hetton.
PERIOD PIECE
Lady Amelia had been educated in the belief that it was the height of impropriety to read a novel in the morning. Now, in the twilight of her days, when she had singularly little to occupy the two hours between her appearance downstairs at quarter past eleven, hatted and fragrant with lavender water, and the announcement of luncheon, she adhered rigidly to this principle. As soon as luncheon was over, however, and coffee had been served in the drawing room; before the hot milk in his saucer had sufficiently cooled for Manchu to drink it; while the sunlight, in summer, streamed through the Venetian blinds of the round-fronted Regency windows; while, in winter, the carefully stacked coal-fire glowed in its round-fronted grate; while Manchu sniffed and sipped at his saucer, and Lady Amelia spread out on her knees the various shades of coarse wool with which her failing eyesight now compelled her to work; while the elegant Regency clock ticked off the two and a half hours to tea time—it was Miss Myers’s duty to read a novel aloud to her employer.
With the passing years Lady Amelia had grown increasingly fond of novels, and of novels of a particular type. They were what the assistant in the circulating library termed “strong meat” and kept in a hidden place under her desk. It was Miss Myers’s duty to fetch and return them. “Have you anything of the kind Lady Amelia likes?” she would ask sombrely.
“Well, there’s this just come in,” the assistant would answer, fishing up a volume from somewhere near her feet.
At one time Lady Amelia had enjoyed love stories about the irresponsible rich; then she had had a psychological phase; at the moment her interests were American, in the school of brutal realism and gross slang. “Something else like Sanctuary or Bessie Cotter,” Miss Myers was reluctantly obliged to demand. And as the still afternoon was disturbed by her delicately modulated tones enunciating page by page, in scarcely comprehensible idiom, the narratives of rape and betrayal, Lady Amelia would occasionally chuckle a little over her woolwork.
“Women of my age always devote themselves either to religion or novels,” she said. “I have remarked among my few surviving friends that those who read novels enjoy far better health.”
The story they were reading came to an end at half past four.
“Thank you,” said Lady Amelia. “That was most entertaining. Make a note of the author’s name, please, Miss Myers. You will be able to go to the library after tea and see whether they have another. I hope you enjoyed it.”
“Well, it was very sad, wasn’t it?”
“Sad?”
“I mean the poor young man who wrote it must come from a terrible home.”
“Why do you say that, Miss Myers?”
“Well, it was so far fetched.”
“It is odd you should think so. I invariably find modern novels painfully reticent. Of course until lately I