‘The Doctor keeps telling me that health is the first thing in life, don’t you, Doctor?’ she said, with a sly smile.
‘Why, you can’t pay too high a price for health.’
‘I guess she pays you quite enough — ha, ha, ha!’ guffawed Beastly.
‘If I had better health,’ she sighed, ‘I would enjoy life. I would go to the Opera. As it is, we’ve only been twice — to Faust and to Aida.’
‘I heard all about it,’ the Doctor observed with a bow.
‘Who from?’
‘Friends. They said you were greatly discussed and looked charming.’
‘When was that?’ asked my aunt.
He looked puzzled and taken aback. ‘Oh … Wednesday night.’
‘Why, that was long ago — in the summer,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been out anywhere since then. I was laid up all Wednesday. I had a most terrible migraine in the night. Indeed, at one time I felt so bad I thought I would not hold out.’
‘I know, I was very anxious about you — very anxious indeed. Hope you feel better now.’
‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘I think I must start taking Ferros ferratinum.’
Raising and dropping his forefinger, ‘Best thing for you,’ he said.
Indeed it seemed that she had found her man.
In the long interval Gustave Boulanger, who had a high but very weak tenor, was enjoined to give us a song. He coughed a little, stroked his throat in a nervous gesture as though adjusting his Adam’s apple. Tuning his wind instrument. One had the feeling that unless he set it to the proper pitch, his voice might break out in quite another clef. His throat adjusted, he sang Ich grolle nicht, to Count Valentine’s able accompaniment on the piano, but out of deference to Aunt Teresa and her deceased son he pretended that the words of the song were not German but Dutch. But my aunt did not care; besides, she knew German, and it was the Belgians themselves who had killed her son in the war.
When he finished, we applauded vociferously. But Gustave never said anything. He only stroked his broad chin with his two fingers and smiled. While Count Valentine was still at the piano the Chinese boys brought trays with little glass plates of ice-cream, and General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ approached to where Aunt Teresa was sitting, with a plate of strawberry-ice in his hand.
‘No, thank you, General. The Doctor has forbidden me to have ice-cream.’
The Doctor looked pensive. Then:
‘It’s all right in my presence,’ he said. ‘Only don’t have the strawberry-ice.’
‘But I hate vanilla!’
‘Well, it is really of no consequence. Only eat it very slowly,’ he said.
While the dance was in full swing and Vladislav had strayed away from the front door, the virgin came in and while nobody was looking fainted in the waiting-room.
‘Impossible! Impossible!’ cried Aunt Teresa when Vladislav reported that a young woman was lying dead on the floor in the waiting-room.
‘Impossible!’ the Doctor echoed.
‘But who is she? I say this is impossible!’
‘Impossible!’
‘But, Doctor, she’s alive!’ cried Aunt Teresa as she beheld the virgin twitching on the floor.
‘Oh, yes, as a doctor I can confirm that fact.’
‘I didn’t believe it.’
‘Nor did I.’
‘Is that because of the heat in the room, Doctor?’
‘Distinctly the heat,’ he bowed.
She sighed. ‘Well — it’s hot in here.’
He sighed too.
‘Chaleur de diable!’ muttered Uncle Emmanuel.
‘Telephone at once to the hospital,’ commanded Dr. Abelberg.
‘Telephone! — ’ repeated Vladislav in abject tones. ‘Why, you can telephone, of course, or else not telephone. It’s all one. In France there are properly equipped hospitals and things. But here’—an abject gesture—‘you are safer at home than in the hospital. The other day they took my cousin to hospital, which was full up; they put the poor fellow on the floor in the corridor; he was still where they’d put him two days later, and on the third gave up his soul to God. “We’ve no time to bother. Told you we’re full up,” they said. And by the time they looked at him again his skull had split in two against the skirting.’
We tried all the hospitals, but all were full to overflowing; and it fell to Berthe to nurse the virgin back to life.
Aunt Teresa the while had returned to the drawing-room where General ‘Pshe-Pshe’, in a melancholy mood, was saying:
‘I am not understood! Not understood by my wife, not understood by my daughter, not understood by my son; never! You alone (he brushed her pale hand with his prickly black moustache), you alone! Here I’m content. This is my spiritual home.’
Dr. Abelberg was the last to go.
‘And what then, Doctor?’ solicited my aunt, as she took leave of him in the drawing-room.
Folding his fingers as he spoke, Dr. Abelberg said: ‘Salt baths morning and evening. Cold and hot compresses. Gargling before and after every meal. Tranquillity, tranquillity, and once more tranquillity.’
‘And what about Ferros ferratinum? Leave it?’
‘Leave it!’
I followed him out into the hall.
‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘tell me about Aunt Teresa. Is there any real cause for anxiety?’
‘Ah!’ He waved his hand in an airy gesture and bent down to my ear. ‘I wish I had her health,’ he whispered. ‘Why, she’s as strong as a horse.’ And he bid me good night.
37
EXODUS OF THE POLYGLOTS
AFTER THE BALL COUNT VALENTINE CALLED TO TENDER his congratulations on the occasion of the birthday of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, and incidentally enquired if he could not have a Sam Browne belt like mine. General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ also called.
Closeted with Aunt Teresa, ‘I am not understood,’ he said, ‘not understood by my family. But here in your midst I can rest, here I’m at home.’ He brushed his prickly moustache against her slender hand. Tears came into his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
The wedding was to take place immediately a portion of my uncle’s brood had left for England. The first batch of Diabologhs — comprising mostly sons-in-law and married daughters, nurses, sucklings, Theo among them — sailed on Thursday. At the station while we waited for the train, another babe came up to Theo, and in the simple way that babies have, bit him on the brow. The second batch of Diabologhs sailed on Saturday. My red-haired cousin sailed. The first clean-up, the first big sweep had been made, and one began to see one’s way in the remaining mass, discern familiar faces. It looked as if at last Sylvia and I could marry in God’s name and live in our own flat without encumbrance. Uncle Lucy remained with Aunt Molly and the small children. He walked about with a long face, swinging a hammer and trying to be useful, but looking thoroughly out of his element. Poor man! It was not the fault of his face: he had a soul that didn’t smile. Also he had purchased roubles — and his pessimism on that count alone would seem rational enough. And already news had dribbled through that the first batch of Diabologhs had arrived in England and that my elder cousin, the artist of a modern school, for lack of other suitable subsistence, was now engaged in painting bicycles in Sussex; but still we two were not married. The War Office had obviously been losing interest in our adventure. Pickup was recalled. This was the first sign. And then, one day, there came a missive foreshadowing our complete withdrawal before long from the Far East. As I passed on the news at dinner Aunt Teresa’s breath seemed to catch in her throat, and she looked a little pale. ‘But what will you do? You cannot leave us all alone? And we cannot go to Europe with you as we have no means! Can’t you write and tell them this at the War Office?’