‘Blimey,’ said Hermes. ‘That all you’ve got?’
‘The privilege of serving Eros must make up the balance.’
‘What’s a ruddy statue got to do with it?’
‘Come,’ cried Mr Tamburlane, ‘let us mount the car of love.’
‘Bloody swindler,’ said Hermes. ‘Look at that!’ He extended his hand bearing the seven coppers to Frank seeking sympathy.
‘More fool you,’ said Frank. He added something which Griselda failed to hear, being now on her way out of the restaurant. She noticed, as she followed Mr Tamburlane, who firmly took the lead, that his many acquaintances among the customers gave an impression of knowing him only by sight. They smiled and bowed as he passed, but said nothing. The doorman could still be heard execrating Mr Tamburlane in the background. But Andrews, the head waiter, was as deferential as ever.
‘Hope to see you again soon, sir.’
‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ replied Mr Tamburlane.
‘Would you care to book a table now, sir? Like yesterday?’
‘All our yesterdays,’ said Mr Tamburlane; and, suddenly remembering the customary usage, stood aside for Griselda to precede him into the warm summer air. There could be little doubt that he was the worse for drink.
There was the appalling question of who could pay for the hansom; including, Griselda supposed, an extra passenger. Only one answer being possible, Griselda attempted to recall the total sum in her handbag. Did hansom cabs charge at the same rates as taxis, she wondered; and would there soon be a scene like the one with the doorman?
‘Mount,’ said Mr Tamburlane to Griselda.
The door of the cab hung back against the side, and Griselda put her foot on the little step and entered. She had never been in a hansom cab before. The vehicle, although astonishingly open to the air, somehow managed to retain a strong, utterly unknown smell.
‘Mount,’ said Mr Tamburlane to Kynaston.
Kynaston ascended and seated himself. He looked somewhat dishevelled with wine, though less so than Mr Tamburlane.
Mr Tamburlane’s foot was on the step when the driver shouted down out of the sky ‘Two’s the legal limit.’ He flourished his whip.
‘Stuff,’ replied Mr Tamburlane.
‘I’ll lose my licence.’
‘I’ll buy you another one,’ said Mr Tamburlane.
‘Mind you do,’ said the driver. Mr Tamburlane had looked like a tip of unprecedented size, and the driver was used to eccentrics who could pay for their indulgences. He flicked Mr Tamburlane on the left ear.
Kynaston had moved close to Griselda, making a small amount of room for Mr Tamburlane in the far corner. But Mr Tamburlane ignored this provision and fell heavily into place between the two of them, sending Kynaston sliding away along the slippery leather.
‘Permit me,’ he said, putting an arm round each of them. ‘For warmth.’
Indeed it was surprisingly draughty for such a warm evening.
‘Will you be cold?’ said Griselda to Kynaston along the back of Mr Tamburlane’s neck. She had completed her mental arithmetic and a last desperate hope entered her mind. ‘Perhaps we’d better go by tube?’
As she spoke she felt through Mr Tamburlane’s body his other arm tightening on Kynaston.
‘Thank you, Griselda,’ said Kynaston gulping. ‘I’ll be warm enough. I loathe wrapping up.’ But his tones were soft. They expressed pathetic gratitude for what he took to be Griselda’s first piece of solicitude for him, her first essay at managing his diffused and migrant life.
‘Vile were if indeed,’ said Mr Tamburlane, muscling in still further, ‘for the Lachender Held young Siegfried to mask his manhood with draperies.’
There was a moment’s silence while Mr Tamburlane consolidated his grip, and Griselda looked up at the stars.
‘Well?’
The cabman had lifted the little hatch in the roof.
‘Advance,’ said Mr Tamburlane.
‘Once round the Park?’ asked the cabman. ‘Or along the Victoria Embankment?’
‘Juvenal Court,’ said Kynaston. ‘Just off Tottenham Court Road.’
‘It’s not usual,’ said the cabman. ‘I don’t cater for regular fares. Can’t afford it. There’s taxis for that. I’ve got my living to earn.’
‘We’ll see that you don’t lose by it,’ said Mr Tamburlane, his voice full of banknotes.
‘Take care that I don’t.’
‘Young love is on the wing tonight,’ said Mr Tamburlane.
‘Honeymoon couple? OK.’
He shut the trap and they drove off. At the moment of departure the doorman appeared: ‘Watch out,’ he shrieked. ‘They’ll welsh you.’
‘Lie down and cool off,’ rejoined the cabman ungratefully.
It was pleasant, though squashed. Griselda remembered Lord Beaconsfield’s phrase ‘The gondola of London.’ To journey from one gilded hall to another by hansom cab alone with the person one truly loved must indeed have been heaven. As soon as the present journey started, however, Griselda realised the origin of the unusual smell. It came from the horse. The vehicle. moreover, lacked a jingling belclass="underline" that essential appurtenance for romance.
They clattered along swiftly. Pedestrians, habituated to vehicles equipped with audible warnings, were several times all but slaughtered, to the accompaniment of dreadful language from the cabman. Walking-out couples, glad of something to do, and parties up from the country, stood on the pavements sentimentally staring. Police constables were irritable or facetious. An elementary school child threw a fire-cracker, which fortunately failed to discharge. At Cambridge Circus an elderly woman shouted several times to the driver ‘It’s unsafe. It’s unsafe. It’s unsafe’; at which the driver lifted the trap in the roof and bawled down ‘She’s dead right’, then went into roars of Mephistophilean laughter. Griselda wondered whether the fiery and erratic behaviour of the horse reflected some kind of incorrect feeding.
Juvenal Court appeared to be three adjoining mid-nineteenth century houses run together and converted into a rabbit warren. There were lights at every single window including one or two very small ones. A girl’s head was projecting from one of the upper windows.
‘Barney,’ she cried, ‘come to me.’ Presumably she was addressing an intimate on a lower floor.
Instantly a man looked out. ‘I’m tired,’ he shouted back in a cultivated accent. The street light showed that he had much smooth black hair and a large nose. The girl moaned and withdrew. Griselda had seen that she was wildly beautiful.
Kynaston had squeezed himself from Mr Tamburlane’s grasp and began to stand about ineffectively on the pavement. He seemed worried.
Mr Tamburlane, though his eyes were open, indeed unusually wide open, continued supine.
‘Well?’ enquired the driver.
Griselda opened her purse. ‘How much?’
‘I leave that to the party concerned, miss.’ The driver implied that the question was in curiously bad taste.
Griselda submitted two halfcrowns. Instantly and wordlessly the driver hurled them on the granite setts of the gutter.
‘It’s all I can spare.’
‘Who’s asking you?’
Kynaston had ascended the steps to the surviving front door and stood lurking in the shadows. The other two front doors had been superseded by kitchenettes.
‘Come on, Mr Tamburlane. We’re there.’ Griselda dragged at his arm, but it merely came away as if it had dropped off his shoulder. Mr Tamburlane continued to stare at the horse’s tail out of unnaturally large white eyes.
The driver lifted his hatch. He adressed one word to his fare.
‘Out.’
Mr Tamburlane hardly moved, but the horse swished his tail and whinnied. Kynaston was fidgeting. He seemed distinctly upset.