‘What’s your other name?’
Griselda clutched at a wisp of what she took to be worldly wisdom.
‘Musselwhite.’
‘So you’re Anne Musselwhite. One of the Brigade of Guards people?’
‘No.’
‘I say, would you rather have gone to Scott’s and had lobsters?’
‘No.’
‘Not under the weather are you?’
‘No.’
‘Shall we stop and have a drink? Might pull you round.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘We’re there anyway. There’ll be time for one or two quick ones before we eat. We might go somewhere afterwards and dance.’
The taxi drew up at an exceedingly splendid block of flats. Hooper gave the driver a ten shilling note and waved away the thought of change.
They ascended by lift to the top floor. The flat had fashionable furniture, no pictures, and a view.
‘Gioiosa! Do sit down.’
Griselda seated herself upon a geometrical sofa, upholstered in a strident, headachy green, and applied herself to watching the rotating dome of the Coliseum through the long low windows.
The Sardinian girl entered. She was brown and luscious, and, bearing in mind the characteristics of her people, could not have been more than fourteen. She wore a black satin dress cut alarmingly low, and no stockings.
‘We want to eat. What can you do for us?’
‘A spiced omelette with sauerkraut? Some hot meat served in oil?’
‘Anne Musselwhite. Which?’
‘You haven’t any fish?’
‘Some potted squille only, signorina. Non troppo fresche.’
‘Could I just have a little bread and butter with some warm milk?’
Gioiosa looked at her employer.
‘Anne Musselwhite, you’ve been deceiving me. You are under the weather. You must permit me to prescribe. All right,’ he said to Gioiosa, ‘anything you like.’
‘Anything you say, signore.’ She smiled bewitchingly and departed.
Hooper produced a bunch of keys and unlocked a vast antique cabinet bearing the Hat and blazon of some fourteenth or fifteenth century Prince-Bishop. He mixed a complicated drink, with ingredients derived from the interior.
‘This’ll make your blood run cold.’
‘No thank you. Could I just sit for a few minutes?’
‘Of course. I’ll leave it by you.’ He drew up a three-legged occasional table in cream aluminium.
‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.’
‘I expect you’ve been overdoing it in the shop. We’ll have to see about that.’ He poured himself a big round brandy-glass of neat whisky.
‘If I could be quiet for a while, I’ll be perfectly all right.’
‘I’ll leave you by yourself.’ She smiled at him gratefully. Taking his whisky he opened a door into the next room. The door was decorated with scarlet zig-zags. In the doorway, Hooper looked back and said ‘Darling Anne Musselwhite.’ Then he withdrew, shutting the door. Instantly there was the sound of dance music. Hooper’s gramophone was such a good model that it might have been in the room with Griselda.
Griselda removed her feet from the carpet (which was covered with representations of the Eiffel Tower in different colours) and placed them on the sofa. The dome of the Coliseum began to rotate faster and faster, and almost at once, despite the music. Griselda was asleep.
She first dreamed that she was climbing Mount Everest with Mrs Hatch, who was dressed as a lama; then that Epping Forest was ablaze and Sir Travis Raunds’s catafalque, four times life-size, reared itself incombustible in the midst; and lastly that she was dressed rather mistily in white and had just been married to Kynaston. Kynaston had insisted on removing her shoes in the Church Vestry; was embracing her and about to kiss her. It was, she felt, a perfectly agreeable prospect, because for some reason, not very clear, no responsibility attached to the transaction. But before the transaction was completed, Griselda awoke.
Hooper’s arm was round her waist. With his free hand, he was unbuttoning her blouse. Moreover, he had already removed her shoes. Griselda felt it was a situation which Lotus (for example) would have managed better than she.
As she awoke, Hooper sat back a little.
‘I do hope you are feeling cured.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ She was rebuttoning her blouse. ‘Well enough to go.’
‘But Gioiosa has prepared some food for us.’
‘Where are my shoes?’
‘Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m very fond of you, Anne Musselwhite.’
‘Where are my shoes?’
‘Sit down and let’s talk it over. I’ll get you a drink.’
Griselda crossed barefoot to the door.
‘You can’t very well go without your shoes.’
‘I’d rather not. I’ll have to explain what happened in order to borrow a pair.’
‘Anne Musselwhite, you’ve got things all wrong.’ He was recharging his big brandy glass.
There was a knock at the door. Griselda opened it. It was Gioiosa.
‘Ready to eat, signore.’
Looking Griselda up and down, whom previously she had only seen seated, and discovering that she lacked shoes, Gioiosa went into extravagant foreign laughter.
‘Grazie, signorina. Non conobbi.’
She was about to go, but Griselda caught her by the arm.
‘Lend me some shoes. Your feet are about the right size.’
‘You wear my shoes!’ She was giggling like an imbecile.
It seemed hopeless. Griselda dropped her arm and made for the front door. In a moment she was running down the pasage, shoeless like Cinderella at midnight. The carpet in the passage was thick and patterned like a tiger-skin. The walls bore large golden gulls in plastic relief. At the end, an under-porter had been working all day on a defective radiator, and the pieces lay scattered about until he could resume the next day. Some of them had already been kicked quite long distances by passing tenants and visitors.
As Griselda reached the corner where the stair-well began, there was a clatter behind her. She thought that Hooper was in pursuit; then realised that it was only a pair of shoes. She paused and looked back.
‘I tell you, Anne Musselwhite, I think very little to you.’
It occurred to Griselda that if she returned to pick up the shoes there might be further trouble.
‘If you think it’s fair,’ went on Hooper, ‘to take a man’s drink and hospitality, and let him pay for you all round the place, and then give him nothing in return, I for one don’t.’
Griselda turned her back.
‘Won’t you think again? We might go dancing somewhere.’
Griselda’s back was negative.
‘Oh, go to hell,’ said Hooper irritably and slammed the door.
All the same, thought Griselda, it was odd how after weeks and months of only Peggy, she should make so many new friends in so short a time.
Immediately she entered her room, Peggy knocked on her door.
‘Come in Peggy. Sit down. Do you mind if I undress?’
‘I have never thanked you for the picnic.’
‘No need to. I hope you enjoyed it?’
‘I found them interesting to observe.’
‘Lena said something of the same kind.’
‘I thought Lena was more than a little affected, I’m afraid.’
‘Who did you like?’
‘I haven’t known them long enough to like any of them.’
In view of Barney’s attitude, and the lateness of Peggy’s return from the jollification, Griselda thought that disappointing.
XXVII
Promptly, and on writing-paper which reminded her of Louise’s, Griselda received her reply:
Dear Miss de Reptonville,
Of course I know Louise. But I don’t know where she is. I wish I did. I’m sorry.
Very sincerely yours,
Hugo Raunds.
Kynaston, installed as custodian of the Liberator’s immortal memory, moved into an attic flat near his place of work. He had followed Days of Delinquency with Nights of Negation, but his publishers took the view that the receipts from the former work did not justify further adventures; and he was in a state of melancholy mania.