The Favorite Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (51 page)

He sounded his klaxon shrilly. Carruthers was breathless with excitement. They drove up a narrow road through an olive grove, and came to a low, white, rambling house. Betty was standing at the door. He jumped out of the car and kissed her on both cheeks. For a moment he could not speak. But subconsciously he noticed that at the door stood an elderly butler in white ducks and a couple of footmen in the fustanellas of their country. They were smart and picturesque. Whatever Betty permitted her chauffeur it was evident that the house was run in the civilized style suited to her station. She led him through the hall, a large apartment with whitewashed walls in which he was vaguely conscious of handsome furniture, into the drawing-room. This was also large and low, with the same whitewashed walls, and he had immediately an impression of comfort and luxury.

“The first thing you must do is to come and look at my view,” she said.

“The first thing I must do is to look at you.”

She was dressed in white. Her arms, her face, her neck, were deeply burned by the sun; her eyes were bluer than he had ever seen them and the whiteness of her teeth was startling. She looked extremely well. She was very trim and neat. Her hair was waved, her nails were manicured; he had had a moment’s anxiety that in the easy life she led on this romantic isle she had let herself go.

“Upon my word you look eighteen, Betty. How do you manage it?”

“Happiness,” she smiled.

It gave him a momentary pang to hear her say this. He did not want her to be too happy. He wanted to give her happiness. But now she insisted on taking him out on the terrace. The drawing-room had five long windows that led out to it and from the terrace the olive-clad hill tumbled steeply to the sea. There was a tiny bay below in which a white boat, mirrored on the calm water, lay at anchor. On a further hill, round the corner, you saw the white houses of a Greek village and beyond it a huge grey crag surmounted by the battlements of a medieval castle.

“It was one of the strongholds of the Knights,” she said. “I’ll take you up there this evening.”

The scene was quite lovely. It took your breath away. It was peaceful and yet it had a strange air of life. It moved you not to contemplation, but stirred you to activity.

“You’ve got the tobacco all right, I suppose.” He started.

“I’m afraid I haven’t. I never got your wire.”

“But I wired to the Embassy and I wired to the Excelsior.”

“I stayed at the Plaza.”

“What a bore! Albert’ll be furious.”

“Who is Albert?”

“He drove you out. Player’s is the only tobacco he likes and he can’t get it here.”

“Oh, the chauffeur.” He pointed to the boat that lay gleaming beneath them. “Is that the yacht I’ve heard about?”

“Yes.”

It was a large caïque that Betty had bought, fitted with a motor auxiliary and smartened up. In it she wandered about the Greek islands. She had been as far north as Athens and as far south as Alexandria.

“We’ll take you for a trip if you can spare the time,” she said. “You ought to see Cos while you’re here.”

“Who runs it for you?”

“Of course I have a crew, but Albert chiefly. He’s very clever with motors and all that.”

He did not know why it gave him a vague discomfort to hear her speak of the chauffeur again. Carruthers wondered if she did not leave too much in his hands. It was a mistake to give a servant too much leeway.

“You know, I couldn’t help thinking I’d seen Albert before somewhere. But I can’t place him.”

She smiled brightly, her eyes shining, with that sudden gaiety of hers that gave her face its delightful frankness.

“You ought to remember him. He was the second footman at Aunt Louise’s. He must have opened the door to you hundreds of times.”

Aunt Louise was the aunt with whom Betty had lived before her marriage.

“Oh, is that who he is? I suppose I must have seen him there without noticing him. How does he happen to be here?”

“He comes from our place at home. When I married he wanted to come with me, so I took him. He was Jimmie’s valet for some time and then I sent him to some motor works, he was mad about cars, and eventually I took him on as my chauffeur. I don’t know what I should do without him now.”

“Don’t you think it’s rather a mistake to get too dependent on a servant?”

“I don’t know. It never occurred to me.”

Betty showed him the rooms that had been got ready for him, and when he had changed they strolled down to the beach. A dinghy was waiting for them and they rowed out to the caïque and bathed from there. The water was warm and they sunned themselves on the deck. The caïque was roomy, comfortable, and luxurious. Betty showed him over and they came upon Albert tinkering with the engines. He was in filthy overalls, his hands were black and his face was smeared with grease.

“What’s the matter, Albert?” said Betty.

He raised himself and faced her respectfully.

“Nothing, m’lady. I was just “aving a look round.”

“There are only two things Albert loves in the world. One is the car and the other’s the yacht. Isn’t that true, Albert?”

She gave him a gay smile and Albert’s rather stolid face lit up. He showed his beautiful white teeth.

“That’s true, m’lady.”

“He sleeps on board, you know. We rigged up a very nice cabin for him aft.”

Carruthers fell into the life very easily. Betty had bought the estate from a Turkish pasha exiled to Rhodes by Abdul Hamid and she had added a wing to the picturesque house. She had made a wild garden of the olive grove that surrounded it. It was planted with rosemary and lavender and asphodel, broom that she had sent from England and the roses for which the island was famous. In the spring, she told him, the ground was carpeted with anemones. But when she showed him her property, telling him her plans and what alterations she had in mind, Carruthers could not help feeling a little uneasy.

“You talk as though you were going to live here all your life,” he said.

“Perhaps I am,” she smiled.

“What nonsense! At your age.”

“I’m getting on for forty, old boy,” she answered lightly.

He discovered with satisfaction that Betty had an excellent cook and it gratified his sense of propriety to dine with her in the splendid dining-room, with its Italian furniture, and be waited on by the dignified Greek butler and the two handsome footmen in their flamboyant uniforms. The house was furnished with taste; the rooms contained nothing that was not essential, but every piece was good. Betty lived in considerable state. When, the day after his arrival, the Governor with several members of his staff came over to dinner she displayed all the resources of the household. The Governor entering the house passed between a double row of flunkeys magnificent in their starched petticoats, embroidered jackets, and velvet caps. It was almost a bodyguard. Carruthers liked the grand style. The dinner-party was very gay. Betty’s Italian was fluent and Carruthers spoke it perfectly. The young officers in the Governor’s suite were uncommonly smart in their uniforms. They were very attentive to Betty and she treated them with easy cordiality. She chaffed them. After dinner the gramophone was turned on and they danced with her one after the other.

When they were gone Carruthers asked her: “Aren’t they all madly in love with you?”

“I don’t know about that. They hint occasionally at alliances permanent or otherwise, but they take it very good-naturedly when I decline with thanks.”

They were not serious. The young ones were callow and the not so young were fat and bald. Whatever they might feel about her Carruthers could not for a moment believe that Betty would make a fool of herself with a middle-class Italian. But a day or two later a curious thing happened. He was in his rooms dressing for dinner; he heard a man’s voice outside in the passage, he could not hear what was said or what language was spoken, and then ringing out suddenly Betty’s laughter. It was a charming laugh, rippling and gay, like a young girl’s, and it had a joyous abandon that was infectious. But whom could she be laughing with? It was not the way you would laugh with a servant. It had a curious intimacy. It may seem strange that Carruthers read all this into a peal of laughter, but it must be remembered that Carruthers was very subtle. His stories were remarkable for such touches.

When they met presently on the terrace and he was shaking a cocktail he sought to gratify his curiosity.

“What were you laughing your head off over just now? Has anyone been here?”

“No.”

She looked at him with genuine surprise.

“I thought one of your Italian officers had come to pass the time of day.”

“No.”

Of course the passage of years had had its effect on Betty. She was beautiful, but her beauty was mature. She had always had assurance, but now she had repose; her serenity was a feature, like her blue eyes and her candid brow, that was part of her beauty. She seemed to be at peace with all the world; it rested you to be with her as it rested you to lie among the olives within sight of the wine-coloured sea. Though she was as gay and witty as ever, the seriousness which once he had been alone to know was now patent. No one could accuse her any longer of being scatter-brained; it was impossible not to perceive the fineness of her character. It had even nobility. That was not a trait it was usual to find in the modern woman and Carruthers said to himself that she was a throw back; she reminded him of the great ladies of the eighteenth century.

She had always had a feeling for literature, the poems she wrote as a girl were graceful and melodious, and he was more interested than surprised when she told him that she had undertaken a solid historical work. She was getting materials together for an account of the Knights of St John in Rhodes. It was a story of romantic incidents. She took Carruthers to the city and showed him the noble battlements and together they wandered through austere and stately buildings. They strolled up the silent Street of the Knights with the lovely stone facades and the great coats of arms that recalled a dead chivalry. She had a surprise for him there. She had bought one of the old houses and with affectionate care had restored it to its old state. When you entered the little courtyard, with its carved stone stairway, you were taken back into the middle ages. It had a tiny walled garden in which a fig-tree grew and roses. It was small and secret and silent. The old knights had been in contact with the East long enough to have acquired Oriental ideas of privacy.

“When I’m tired of the villa I come here for two or three days and picnic. It’s a relief sometimes not to be surrounded by people.”

“But you’re not alone here?”

“Practically.”

There was a little parlour austerely furnished.

“What is this?” said Carruthers pointing with a smile to a copy of the
Sporting Times
that lay on a table.

“Oh, that’s Albert’s. I suppose he left it here when he came to meet you. He has the
Sporting Times
and the
News of the World
sent him every week. That is how he keeps abreast of the great world.”

She smiled tolerantly. Next to the parlour was a bedroom with nothing much in it but a large bed.

“The house belonged to an Englishman. That’s partly why I bought it. He was a Sir Giles Quern, and one of my ancestors married a Mary Quern who was a cousin of his. They were Cornish people.”

Finding that she could not get on with her history without such a knowledge of Latin as would enable her to read the medieval documents with ease, Betty had set about learning the classical language. She troubled to acquire only the elements of grammar and then started, with a translation by her side, to read the authors that interested her. It is a very good method of learning a language and I have often wondered that it is not used in schools. It saves all the endless turning over of dictionaries and the fumbling search for meaning. After nine months Betty could read Latin as fluently as most of us can read French. It seemed a trifle ridiculous to Carruthers that this lovely, brilliant creature should take her work so seriously and yet he was moved; he would have liked to snatch her in his arms and kiss her, not at that moment as a woman, but as a precocious child whose cleverness suddenly enchants you. But later he reflected upon what she had told him. He was of course a very clever man, otherwise he could not have attained the position he held in the Foreign Office, and it would be silly to claim that those two books of his could have made so much stir without some merit; if I have made him look a bit of a fool it is only because I did not happen to like him, and if I have derided his stories it is merely because stories of that sort seem to me rather silly. He had tact and insight. He had a conviction that there was but one way to win her. She was in a groove and happy in it, her plans were definite; but her life at Rhodes was so well-ordered, so complete and satisfying, that for that very reason its hold over her could be combated. His chance was to arouse in her the restlessness that lies deep in the heart of the English. So he talked to Betty of England and

London, their common friends and the painters, writers, and musicians with whom his literary success had brought him acquaintance. He talked of the Bohemian parties in Chelsea, and of the opera, of trips to Paris
en bande
for a fancy-dress ball, or to Berlin to see the new plays. He recalled to her imagination a life rich and easy, varied, cultured, intelligent, and highly civilized. He tried to make her feel that she was stagnating in a backwater. The world was hurrying on, from one new and interesting phase to another, and she was standing still. They were living in a thrilling age and she was missing it. Of course he did not tell her this; he left her to infer it. He was amusing and spirited, he had an excellent memory for a good story, he was whimsical and gay. I know I have not made Humphrey Carruthers witty any more than I have shown Lady Betty brilliant. The reader must take my word for it that they were. Carruthers was generally reckoned an entertaining companion, and that is half the battle; people were willing to find him amusing and they vowed the things he said were marvellous. Of course his wit was social. It needed a particular company, who understood his allusions and shared his exclusive sense of humour. There are a score of journalists in Fleet Street who could knock spots off the most famous of the society wits; it is their business to be witty and brilliance is in their day’s work. There are a few of the society beauties whose photographs appear in the papers who could get a job at three pounds a week in the chorus of a song-and-dance show. Amateurs must be judged with tolerance. Carruthers knew that Betty enjoyed his society. They laughed a great deal together. The days passed in a flash.