Mr Tamburlane was shown to a table near the back of the room. ‘I hope you will have no objection,’ he enquired of his guests, ‘to caviare, turtle soup, sole, a fillet steak, and a bird? I am becoming increasingly set in my ways.’
Griselda noticed that Kynaston seemed entirely able to eat a normal meal provided that it was offered and organized by someone else.
As they ate, and drank the excellent and appropriate wines which their host ordered out of his head and without recourse to the Wine List, Mr Tamburlane talked more and more expansively, breaking off every now and then to impart to an under-waiter a request for French Mustard or another baton. He called the under-waiters by their Christian names: Leslie, Frank, and Noel. By the deference shown him in return Mr Tamburlane might have been his namesake, the Scourge of God. It even seemed to Griselda a little exaggerated, like a caricature of good service.
‘It gives me particular pleasure,’ said Mr Tamburlane, ‘to meet another acolyte of the golden and gracious Miss de Repteonville, for another acolyte I readily perceive that you are. Miss de Reptonville has rapidly set up her own particular and especial altar in my soul. I am sure she has in yours also?’
‘I proposed marriage to her today. During lunch.’
‘Then’ cried Mr Tamburlane, transfigured, ‘this little dinner is an agape, a love-feast, without my knowing it. How limited your news makes me feel, how squat and lacking in vision! We should have drunk from the fountain in the temple of Lanternland, and the livers of young white peacocks should have been our sustenance. For, if I may for one single moment be personal, your youthful candour and clear brow give assurance of our goddess’s response.’
‘Not quite,’ said Kynaston. ‘It’s still an open question.’
‘You did not cry out and leap to his waiting arms,’ said Mr Tamburlane in amazement to Griselda.
‘We were lunching in Fullers at the time, Mr Tamburlane.’
‘Do it now, Miss de Reptonville. They know me here and I can declare a plenary indulgence for all possible consequences. Take him and let us inaugurate a rite which shall last till Venus succumbs before the onrush of Apollo. On a later day, I shall myself take the bridegroom aside and, old man that I am, show him secrets of joy most germane to your bliss, Miss de Reptonville, most unknown to his heart.’ Mr Tamburlane’s fluffy white hair was moist with rapture, good wine, and the heat of the restaurant, his beaming face, the image of the Japanese ensign.
‘I’m afraid I turned the offer down,’ said Griselda. ‘I’m very sorry to spoil things.’
‘But why, dear Anaxarete, make yourself stone?’
‘You know very well, Mr Tamburlane, that I have no inclination to marry anyone.’
‘But you could fall into no error more fundamental! If you wish to continue – if you hope to rediscover—’ But suddenly, with a sound like the discharge of a cork, the excited Mr Tamburlane, ignorant of the extent of Kynaston’s knowledge, discontinued his observations. ‘Fear nothing,’ he said to Kynaston, his eyes still very bright, ‘nor let your night’s rest be troubled unless with anticipation of raptures. I shall myself speak apart to our erring one during business hours tomorrow.’
‘It will make no difference,’ said Griselda, smiling sweetly. ‘I’m resolved to marry no one.’
‘Noel,’ exclaimed Mr Tamburlane, ‘we’re ready for the steak.’
It was exquisite; as was the ensuing bird, which Mr Tamburlane carved personally, with a long thin knife, like a rapier, incredibly sharp, and a fork fiercer than Morton’s. Afterwards came flaming pancakes, and rich Turkish coffee in cups bearing the insignia of the establishment, and two Benedictines each. Mr Tamburlane completed the occasion by appending to the bill his curving, speckled, backward-sloping signature; and giving a pound in largesse. He then suddenly excused himself to Griselda and Kynaston, and rapidly disappeared through a little door beneath a reproduction of Winterhalter’s portrait of the Duke of Sussex.
‘Enjoy your dinner, miss?’ enquired Noel.
‘Very much indeed, thank you.’
‘Nice gentleman, Mr Tamburlane.’
‘He comes here a lot?’
‘Usually with his Indian friends.’
‘I don’t know about them,’ said Griselda, her curiosity surmounting her manners.
‘All in coloured robes and covered in diamonds and rubies.’ He placed his hands on the end of the table and sank his voice.
‘I’m afraid we don’t live up to that.’
‘No, miss,’ said the waiter, glancing at Kynaston’s torn and dirty cricket shirt. ‘Of course, Mr Tamburlane gets all his money from India.’
‘How?’ asked Kynaston.
‘Business with the rajahs and such like. They’ve all got as much money as a dog has fleas.’ He lowered his voice still further. ‘They say it’s them who keep his account with us in order.’
But Mr Tamburlane was standing behind him.
‘Beg pardon, sir. I was just asking the young lady whether she enjoyed her dinner.’
‘Of course, she enjoyed her dinner, Noel. This is the happiest day of her life.’
Used to such situations in the course of his work, the waiter took Mr Tamburlane’s meaning immediately.
‘My respectful congratulations to you, sir. And to you, madam.’
‘Thank you, Noel,’ said Kynaston calmly. ‘I’ve done nothing to deserve my good fortune.’
‘And what becomes of us now?’ enquired Mr Tamburlane, seating himself on the corner of the upholstered bench. ‘The night is still a virgin. All right, Noel. You can go.’
‘Thank you, sir. Good night sir. Good night madam. Good night sir.’
‘Tell me, young bridegroom,’ resumed Mr Tamburlane, when the adieux to Noel were concluded, ‘what was your intention tonight in bearing off Miss de Reptonville? You must, I suppose, have had some intention. Or perhaps not; perhaps you thought merely to let the gale of love blow whither it listed? If so may I blow with it for a spell? May I savour, if only by proxy, la premier souvenir d’amour?’
‘We were going to look at a flat.’
‘The hymeneal shrine! Nothing could more perfectly suit me. Let us go there at once. Frank,’ cried Mr Tamburlane. ‘please ask the doorman to summon us a taxi. No, wait. Ours should be a ritual progress. Make it a hansom. There is always one stationed at the bottom of Piccadilly.’
‘There is one thing which is being overlooked,’ said Griselda when the flurry had subsided.
‘Name it,’ said Mr Tamburlane. ‘It shall be my privilege to provide it. Shall night-scented flowers be strewn before us as we pass through Leicester Square? I presume that is the direction?’
‘Juvenal Court,’ replied Kynaston. ‘Just off Tottenham Court Road.’
‘Shall the fountains in Seven Dials run wine? Shall two white oxen be roasted whole in St Giles’s Circus?’
It occurred to Griselda that Mr Tamburlane was a little drunk. Possibly his meals when his Indian friends were actually present, were less far-reaching.
‘The point we are overlooking,’ said Griselda, ‘is that I have no intention of marrying.’
‘Let us leave events to take their course,’ replied Mr Tamburlane. ‘Indeed I have absolute faith that they will do so.’
The doorman entered the restaurant and came to Mr Tamburlane’s table.
‘Hansom, sir.’
Mr Tamburlane rose.
‘Swift as the thoughts of love. We are grateful to our Hermes.’ Griselda’s worst forebodings were confirmed when Mr Tamburlane produced his wallet and found it empty. The pound he had given to the waiter must have been all it contained. He sought for change in his trousers pocket and produced sevenpence. This sum seemed far from satisfying the doorman, who, for one whom presumably he had regarded as a very special customer, must have run all the way to Piccadilly Circus.