So Anthony did not feel it was irreligious to wish for his friends, not too much burdened and borne down by sorrow, the desire of their hearts, even in the material sphere. Did not devout Roman Catholics pray to St. Anthony, his namesake, for the recovery of some unimportant object, a wrist-watch, for instance, which they had lost? One could not, oneself, pray to God for the recovery of a wrist-watch; in relation to God it would be outside one’s terms of reference; and, as a Protestant, one did not pray to the Saints. But on behalf of someone else, one might, and that was how Anthony came to pray that Copperthwaite, to whom he was much attached, might be granted the gift of a Roland-Rex motor-car. He did not think of himself as concerned in the gift: he only wanted it for Copperthwaite.
Rising stiffly from his knees, after an unusually long and laborious session of intercession, he felt he might have done someone a good turn. It is difficult to know what a friend really wants; and what will be good for him if he wants it. Copperthwaite wanted a Roland-Rex.
A few days later Copperthwaite came to him with a rather stiff face and said,
‘I’m afraid, sir, I shall have to ask for my cards.’
Copperthwaite had been with Anthony for a good many years, and the phrase was unfamiliar to him.
‘Your cards, what cards, Copperthwaite?’ He thought they might be some sort of playing cards.
‘My cards, sir, my stamps and my P.A.Y.E., same as you have always paid for.’
‘You can have them, of course,’ said Anthony, bewildered. ‘That is, if I can find them. But what do you want them for?’
Copperthwaite’s face stiffened yet more: Anthony could hardly recognize him.
‘Because I’ve been offered a better job sir, if you’ll excuse me saying so. I’ve been happy with you, sir, and you mustn’t think I don’t appreciate what you have done for me. But a man in my position has to look after himself—you might not understand that, sir, being a gentleman.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Anthony, still bewildered.
Copperthwaite’s face grew stiffer.
‘An American gentleman—no offence to you, sir—has asked me to go to him. The porter in this block of flats told him about me. He pays very good money.’
‘I can raise your salary, if you like,’ said Anthony, his own face beginning to stiffen.
‘Oh no, sir, I couldn’t ask you to do that, I’m not a gold-digger, and besides—’
‘Besides what?’ asked Anthony crossly.
‘Besides, he has a Roland-Rex car, and it’s always been my ambition to drive one, as you know, sir.’
‘When do you want to go?’ asked Anthony.
‘A week next Saturday. That will give you time to find another man.’
‘I’m not sure it will,’ said Anthony. ‘But meanwhile I’ll look for your cards.’
The week passed, and Anthony tried in vain to find a replacement for Copperthwaite. In answer to his advertisement, several candidates for the job presented themselves and interviews were arranged. He was on his best behaviour, and they were on their best behaviour; who could tell? ‘There is no art,’ as Shakespeare, or his spokesman, truly said, ‘to find the mind’s construction in the face.’ As for references, so his friends assured him, they were often written by the applicants themselves. ‘Mr. Anthony Bragshaw’ (surprising how many of them were called by his own name) ‘is honest, sober, and trustworthy: a good driver, and an excellent plain cook. I have no hesitation whatever in recommending him for the situation he is applying for.’
Two or three of these replies were written on the writing-paper, and contained the telephone number of the applicant’s employer: but when he rang up the number, he did not get a reply.
Anthony himself could not cook, nor could he drive: pushing up the seventies, he needed outside help. Meals were not so difficult; he could go out for food. And as for transport, there were buses, and tubes and taxis, if one could find a taxi at the right moment. It was ridiculous to complain of things which, as Sir Thomas Browne said, ‘all the world doth suffer from’ (including death).
He didn’t know what to do with his car, so he left it in the communal garage, where it had a place, 5A. Sometimes, when he engaged one of the porters, or a casual man to drive it, it was neither found in 5A, nor returned to 5A. Someone else had been taking it for a ride.
Copperthwaite himself Anthony saw, from time to time, for his employer lived on the opposite side of the Square, in one of the few houses that hadn’t been ‘converted’ into flats. Anthony didn’t always recognize him, for Copperthwaite had been so smartened up. He wore the conventional chauffeur’s uniform, blue suit, black tie, peak cap—and he looked straight ahead of him, as if other cars were in the way (as they often were).
He and Anthony used sometimes to exchange distant greetings in which the condescension (if there is a condescension in greetings) was always on Copperthwaite’s side. And indeed the Roland-Rex was a sight to dream of, not to tell. At least Anthony, with his ignorance of all that made one car superior to another, couldn’t have told! But he did at least realize that here was a car that from its sheer bulk, more noticeable behind than before, as if it wore a bustle, took up half the street.
Copperthwaite did not always recognize Anthony when Anthony on foot, and Copperthwaite, eyes half closed, installed in his Roland-Rex fortress, met each other. The smugness on Copperthwaite’s dozing face was sometimes more than Anthony could stand.
He consoled himself with the thought that Copperthwaite was (to misquote Mrs. Hermans) a creature of inferior blood, a proud but childlike form.
All the more was he surprised when one morning he received a letter with no stamp on it, brought by hand.
Dear Sir, (it said)
I wish to inform you that I have now terminated my engagement with my present employer, Mr. Almeric Duke. It is not on account of any disagreement with Mr. Duke, who has been both generous and understanding, but I am not happy with the conditions of my service, especially as regards the car. From what I am told, I understand you have not found another man, sir, to drive your car and minister to your comforts, and if you will consider my application to take me back into the position in which I was always happy, I shall be much obliged.
I am, sir,
Yours respectfully,
Anthony studied this missive with mixed feelings. Copperthwaite had not treated him well. His daily help, who had been with him a good many years, and had known one or two of Copperthwaite’s quickly changing predecessors, once said to him, ‘You’re too easy-going with them, Mr. Easterfield, that’s what it is.’ She did not mean it as a compliment. All very well and good; but if Anthony wasn’t easy-going with them, indeed if he criticised them—their cooking, their driving, the friends of both sexes, or any sex, that they brought into the flat from time to time, their unwarrantable absences or their sometimes more disturbing presences—at the faintest hint of criticism they departed, almost before the offending words were out of his mouth. ‘Easy-going’ on his part meant easy-going on theirs; but if he had adopted a policy of ‘hard-going’, he trembled to think what the results might have been.
It was the recollection of these fugitive characters that made Anthony think more kindly of Copperthwaite. Copperthwaite had treated him badly but he had at any rate given him a week’s notice; he hadn’t just ‘slung his hook’ (to use an old-fashioned expression), leaving the keys of the flat and the car-keys on the table with a pencilled note to say he was ‘fed up’.
No, during the years that he and Copperthwaite had been together they had got on very well—not a ‘misword’ between them. His daily help, who was nothing if not censorious, may have thought that Anthony was too easy-going with Copperthwaite; but there was no occasion for hard feelings.