The New Moon with the Old (23 page)

By five o’clock that afternoon, when Mr Rowley was left to take his nap, Clare had been on duty for eight hours. She had been sent for while finishing her breakfast (served by a fatherly floor waiter who had been much distressed to hear that her lights had fused. ‘Such a thing to happen
here
– and to a young lady!’) She had read the morning paper aloud for a short time and then been forced to talk until lunch arrived. It was a dull meal of steamed fish and rice pudding but at least it gave her a chance to stop talking as Nurse Brown was in attendance and Mr Rowley was eager to hand on much that Clare had said. Nurse Brown made such comments as ‘Well, now, isn’t that interesting? She must tell you more about that, mustn’t she?’ and beamed on Clare, who now felt she had nothing more to tell him about anything whatever.

After lunch she firmly suggested she should read.

‘Lots of nice books on the table there,’ said Nurse Brown. ‘I expect Mr Rowley’s in the middle of one of them.’

‘I was, but my last young lady made it seem very dull. Anyway, Clare must start a new one or she won’t enjoy it herself. Make your own choice, my dear.’

As all the books proved to be detective novels she felt her chance of enjoyment was small, but anything would be better than talking. Choosing the one with the most attractive jacket, she read as brightly as she could, even attempting to
be dramatic. But it was no use. After a couple of chapters Mr Rowley stopped her.

‘Even so splendidly read, this isn’t interesting. Detective stories aren’t what they used to be.’

To the best of Clare’s belief, what they now lacked they had never had. She asked if he ever read historical novels. ‘Oh, not modern ones; they’re usually dull – or horrid. I mean lovely romantic ones, like Dumas.’

Mr Rowley smiled reminiscently. ‘Dumas? He gave me great pleasure when I was a boy. How delightful to meet a young lady who knows his work. Kindly ring for Nurse Brown. She will telephone my bookseller.’

When the nurse came he told her to order a complete set of Dumas. Clare, about to protest that even one Dumas novel would last them for weeks, restrained herself. If complete sets existed she was all for having one around. Nurse Brown soon reported that Dumas had written several hundred books, many not obtainable, but a fine set of novels was being sent by special messenger.

‘Then we shall have plenty to read this evening,’ said Mr Rowley. ‘So, for the moment, we’ll talk.’

Somehow Clare got through the afternoon. Tea, with Nurse Brown present, made a break. And at last it was time for Mr Rowley’s pre-dinner nap – before settling down to which, he made sure Clare would dine with him.

‘It won’t be like this every day,’ Nurse Brown assured her, when they had closed the door on him. ‘It’s just – well, you’re a novelty. Anyway, Miss Gifford’s going to see that you get a good salary – I’ve told her what a fancy the dear old gentleman’s taken to you. Now you’d better get some exercise. You can walk in the park.’

Clare hurried out, eager for fresh air and for a chance to think; not that she could make much of her thoughts. She was troubled by a sense of flatness – well, who wouldn’t be,
after having to talk so much? But there seemed more to it than that.

Walking in the autumnal park she took herself to task. She should be feeling nothing but gratitude for having found a job she could actually do – and one which included most luxurious board and lodging. And she should also be grateful for having come through last night without disaster; if she had made a scene it might so easily have been counted against her. She had kept her head. Surely most girls would have panicked? Really, she could be a little proud of herself. And now, presumably, Mr Charles had gone back ‘abroad’ and would trouble her no more. An elderly, ugly, arrogant man …

She turned to face the hotel and wondered which was the window of her room; then remembered it looked onto the street, not the park. She had a vivid memory of Mr Charles’s tall, heavy figure as he drew back the curtains. What an adventure to have on her first day away from home! Considered as an adventure it seemed somehow valuable, to be recalled with pleasure, and she would recall it in fullest detail while taking a pre-dinner bath. She had that morning evolved a technique of lying back supported by one foot on the bath-rack.

Re-entering the hotel, she was conscious of welcome. The commissionaire saluted, the hall porter smiled. Was that her special page? Yes! She responded to his wide grin. The lift man knew her floor, which was more than she did. Barely twenty-five hours ago she had arrived scarcely daring to hope. Now she was an accepted resident. Everything was wonderful. But she still felt flat.

A moment later, the flatness was replaced by dismay. As she approached her room she saw her suitcase being carried out by a chambermaid. Was she being evicted? Then Nurse Brown, at the door of Mr Rowley’s suite, beckoned her in.

‘The girl’s moving your things for you, dear – I’ve had to get you another room. Mr Charles is coming back.’

For a second, Clare’s thoughts whirled. She then implored herself to keep calm. Having taken Mr Charles’s advice and said nothing about their meeting, she must now proceed with extreme caution. ‘From abroad?’ she asked, histrionically.

‘Well, dear … come in to my room for a minute. Quietly – Mr Rowley’s still asleep. Of course I’m always happy to see Mr Charles but I must say this is a bit sudden. I rang him up to tell him we’d found a young lady, and bless me if he didn’t say he’d be back this very night. And before you meet him, dear, well, I do have to warn you of one or two things.’

‘Oh?’ said Clare, trying to sound only casually interested. ‘To begin with, don’t ask him questions about having been abroad. Oh, he’ll make up some story to satisfy Mr Rowley but the least said about it the better. You see, dear, we sometimes
pretend
Mr Charles is abroad; otherwise his grandfather wants him to live at the hotel. Naturally Mr Charles can’t do that all the time but he hates hurting the old gentleman’s feelings. So he says he has to go abroad on business – which is true enough sometimes but more often he just goes off to his flat.’

‘And Mr Rowley doesn’t know about the flat?’

‘Well, he does in a way, dear, but he thinks Mr Charles only visits a lady friend there.’

‘Oh,
I
see,’ said Clare. ‘My father has that kind of lady friend in a flat. I mean he had before he bolted.’

‘Really, dear? I thought it had rather gone out of fashion. Of course it was all the thing for gentlemen when Mr Rowley was young and he thinks it’s the right thing for Mr Charles and likes hearing all about it. But the truth is that Mr Charles hardly ever has ladies to stay at his flat and anyway he hates telling Mr Rowley about his private life, so he’s had to invent a lady. She’s foreign and dashing, with a violent temper – he makes her sound ever so real. And now … But I mustn’t tell you.’

‘Oh, go on,’ said Clare, coaxingly.

‘Well, it’s only fair you should know the kind of gentleman he is. And you’ll see the funny side of it. The truth is, he
has
had a lady staying at the flat for once, and she
is
foreign. “Nurse,” he says to me just now on the phone, “it’s a case of life imitating fiction.” It seems they had a row yesterday before he went off to business, and, when he came back, in the small hours, she’d bolted the door against him. Short of breaking the door down, there was nothing he could do. No doubt she expected him to, but he wasn’t having any. “I needed a night’s
rest
, Nurse,” he says, “and a kind friend let me have one.” My word, it’s a mercy he didn’t come back here!’ She laughed heartily.

Clare hastened to laugh too.

‘Not that you’d have had any trouble. Mr Charles is a gentleman. Still, you will need to be careful, dear, because you’re the type he most admires – quite a bit like the last girl who lived in, only you’re much prettier.’

‘Did she have trouble?’

The nurse chuckled. ‘Her trouble was that she
didn’t
have it – he changed his mind. He soon found out she wasn’t as refined as she looked. But he was very generous to her. And you mustn’t think he isn’t nice. It’s just that he has to have distractions, what with Mr Rowley on his hands and lots of business worries – property deals, if you know what they are; his name’s often in the papers. It’s a wonder he can ever spare time to stay here.’

Clare asked how long he would be staying.

‘Well, he’s completed some big business deal today, and got rid of the foreign lady – I mean the real one, not the one he tells Mr Rowley about.’ Again the nurse chuckled. ‘So he might stay quite a while. I hope so, anyway; life’s quite different when Mr Charles is with us. Now you’d better get changed for dinner.’

‘Will Mr Charles be here for it?’ Clare’s tone betrayed her nervousness.

Nurse Brown gave her a kind look. ‘No, dear. He said he’d be very late and not see any of us till tomorrow. And you mustn’t worry. Everything will be all right as long as … well, I’ve given you the hint. Your new room’s only a few doors away, across the corridor. The key’s on the hall table.’

The room proved to be pleasant but less luxurious than Mr Charles’s. Clare rather resented that he had ousted her; but other aspects of his return worried her far more.

All her usual self-distrust was back. Now that she knew more about him she felt sure her behaviour had been dangerously silly. She should have forced him to go or gone herself, to Nurse Brown. No wonder he had kissed her – not that the top of one’s head really counted, but still, what impertinence! Like an eighteenth-century rake casually kissing a chambermaid. And she had conspired with him, deceived Nurse Brown. If that ever came out …

She must treat him with the greatest coldness. No, he might resent that and so might Nurse Brown who obviously adored him, and they might do her out of her job. She must be pleasant, but firm. He must be made to see the kind of girl she really was. And perhaps she was flattering herself in thinking she might have ‘trouble’ as Nurse Brown called it. And anyway, one could hardly have
serious
trouble unless one was to some extent willing – which one never would be, with such an ugly, elderly man. Still, she must be wary, both of ‘trouble’ and of losing her job. And she must be particularly wary of herself; that sense of confidence she had experienced last night was most dangerous, and just a form of conceit, really. She wasn’t usually conceited. As a rule she did realize what a fool she was – and heaven help her if she forgot it! And now she couldn’t bear thinking about it one moment longer. Anyway, she must dress.

She had barely finished when the telephone rang: ‘Those books you wanted have been sent up, dear. Could you come in and arrange them while Mr Rowley gets ready for dinner?’

She found a very large set of Dumas stacked on the
sitting-room
floor. The volumes were old but perfectly preserved, their edges gilt, their spines and comers bound in green leather, their sides in green and grey marbled paper. There were many titles of which she had never even heard. What treasure! She arranged the whole collection along the white marble mantel, wondering if she would ever get time to read some of it on her own. She liked to lose herself in books, live in them – as she never could do when reading aloud.

Nurse Brown steered Mr Rowley in. He was particularly cheerful and talked with pleasure of his grandson’s return. ‘He’s a dear fellow. We’ve always been very close since his father died when Charles was eight. You’ll like him, Clare – and he’ll like you. I think, Nurse, we must see that Clare is carefully chaperoned.’

He and Nurse Brown seemed to think this a very good joke. Dinner was served: again clear soup, chicken and ice cream; Clare gathered it was a standing order. She also gathered that Mr Rowley had very little sense of taste left. She was realizing more and more how extremely old he was. His height and breadth gave an illusion of virility which was indeed an illusion.

After dinner she had half an hour on her own while he was put to bed. She again began to worry about Mr Charles; even the beautifully engraved illustrations to the Dumas novels failed to distract her and she was glad when at last she was sent for. She took half a dozen of the novels with her and gave Mr Rowley his choice. But she found he wanted not to listen to Dumas but to her talking about Dumas. Would she describe the novels, tell him which were her own favourites and why? Well, if she had to talk, this gave her plenty to
talk about, and if her powers of invention were weak, her memory was excellent. She said her favourite of all was
Louise de la Vallière
and launched into a description of it.

She had reached the night scene under the royal oak when she interrupted the story to say: ‘Goodness, how excited I was when I first read that – I was only fourteen. You see, Louis Quatorze overhears Louise declare her love for him, so of course one gets afraid for her.’

‘In case she loses her honour?’ queried Mr Rowley, gravely.

‘No, in case it puts him off. But it works just the other way and she becomes his mistress – but not for ages and she makes a terrible fuss about it. She’s really rather dull and pious. Nell Gwynne was far more fun – and darling Charles II was
much
more exciting than Louis Quatorze. Still, it was reading about Louise that made me want to be a king’s mistress.’

‘My dear Clare! Surely you’re not serious?’

She looked at him quickly. Was he shocked? He certainly had no right to be, if he liked his own grandson to keep a lady in a flat. Anyway, it was hard enough to think of things to tell him without having to censor her conversation. And perhaps he’d quite enjoy being a little bit shocked.

‘I am, indeed,’ she said gaily. ‘It’s a standing joke against me. Being a king’s mistress is the only job I’ve ever fancied.’

‘How very astonishing! Tell me how you … er, visualize the job.’

He was smiling now, interested. No, he hadn’t been shocked. And she was glad of another subject to talk about. Unearthing a memory of some old Ruritanian novel, she said: ‘Well, I’d live in a secluded house on the outskirts of the capital city.’