The Umbrella Man and Other Stories (29 page)

So last Thursday I went to this small dinner party at a friend’s in London, and while we were standing around in the drawing room before the meal, sipping good martinis and talking about the atom bomb and Mr. Bevan, the maid popped her head in to announce the last guest.

“Lady Turton,” she said.

Nobody stopped talking; we were too well mannered for that. No heads were turned. Only our eyes swung round to the door, waiting for the entrance.

She came in fast—tall and slim in a red-gold dress with sparkles on it—the mouth smiling, the hand outstretched towards her hostess, and my heavens, I must say she was a beauty.

“Mildred, good evening!”

“My dear Lady Turton! How nice!”

I believe we
did
stop talking then, and we turned and stared and stood waiting quite meekly to be introduced, just like she might have been the queen or a famous film star. But she was better looking than either of those. The hair was black, and to go with it she had one of those pale, oval, innocent fifteenth-century Flemish faces, almost exactly a Madonna by Memling or Van Eyck. At least that was the first impression. Later, when my turn came to shake hands, I got a closer look and saw that except for the outline and colouring it wasn’t really a Madonna at all—far, far from it.

The nostrils for example were very odd, somehow more open, more flaring than any I had seen before, and excessively arched. This gave the whole nose a kind of open, snorting look that had something of the wild animal about it—the mustang.

And the eyes when I saw them close, were not wide and round the way the Madonna painters used to make them, but long and half-closed, half smiling, half sullen, and slightly vulgar, so that in one way and another they gave her a most delicately dissipated air. What’s more they didn’t look at you directly. They came to you slowly from over on one side with a curious sliding motion that made me nervous. I tried to see their colour, thought it was pale grey, but couldn’t be sure.

Then she was led away across the room to meet other people. I stood watching her. She was clearly conscious of her success and of the way these Londoners were deferring to her. “Here am I,” she seemed to be saying, “and I only came over a few years ago, but already I am richer and more powerful than any of you.” There was a little prance of triumph in her walk.

A few minutes later we went in to dinner, and to my surprise I found myself seated at her ladyship’s right. I presumed that our hostess had done this as a kindness to me, thinking I might pick up some material for the social column I write each day in the evening paper. I settled myself down ready for an interesting meal. But the famous lady took no notice of me at all; she spent her time talking to the man on her left; the host. Until at last, just as I was finishing my ice cream, she suddenly turned, reached over, picked up my place card and read the name. Then, with that queer sliding motion of the eyes she looked into my face. I smiled and made a little bow.
She didn’t smile back, but started shooting questions at me, rather personal questions—job, age, family, things like that—in a peculiar lapping voice, and I found myself answering as best I could.

During this inquisition it came out among other things that I was a lover of painting and sculpture.

“Then you should come down to the country some time and see my husband’s collection.” She said it casually, merely as a form of conversation, but you must realize that in my job I cannot afford to lose an opportunity like this.

“How kind of you, Lady Turton. But I’d simply love to. When shall I come?”

Her head went up and she hesitated, frowned, shrugged her shoulders and then said, “Oh I don’t care. Any time.”

“How about this next weekend? Would that be all right?”

The slow narrow eyes rested a moment on mine, then travelled away. “I suppose so, if you wish. I don’t care.”

And that was how the following Saturday afternoon I came to be driving down to Wooton with my suitcase in the back of the car. You may think that perhaps I forced the invitation a bit, but I couldn’t have got it any other way. And apart from the professional aspect, I personally wanted very much to see the house. As you know, Wooton is one of the truly great stone houses of the early English Renaissance. Like its sisters, Longleat, Wollaton, and Montacute, it was built in the latter half of the sixteenth century when for the first time a great man’s house could be designed as a comfortable dwelling, not as a castle, and when a new group of architects such as John Thorpe and the Smithsons were starting to do marvellous things all over the country.

It lies south of Oxford, near a small town called Princes Risborough—not a long trip from London—and as I swung in through the main gates the sky was closing overhead and the early winter evening was beginning.

I went slowly up the long drive, trying to see as much of the grounds as possible, especially the famous topiary which I had heard such a lot about. And I must say it was an impressive sight. On all sides there were massive yew trees, trimmed and clipped into many different comical shapes—hens, pigeons, bottles, boots, armchairs, castles, eggcups, lanterns, old women with flaring petticoats, tall pillars, some crowned with a ball, others with big rounded roofs and stemless mushroom finials—and in the half darkness the greens had turned to black so that each figure, each tree, took on a dark, smooth sculptural quality. At one point I saw a lawn covered with gigantic chessmen, each a live yew tree, marvellously fashioned. I stopped the car, got out and walked among them, and they were twice as tall as me. What’s more the set was complete, kings, queens, bishops, knights, rooks and pawns standing in position as for the start of a game.

Around the next bend I saw the great grey house itself, and in front of it the large entrance forecourt enclosed by a high balustraded wall with small pillared pavilions at its outer angles. The piers of the balustrades were surmounted by stone obelisks—the Italian influence on the Tudor mind—and a flight of steps at least a hundred feet wide led up to the house.

As I drove into the forecourt I noticed with rather a shock that the fountain basin in the middle supported a large statue by Epstein. A lovely thing, mind you, but surely not in sympathy
with its surroundings. Then, looking back as I climbed the stairway to the front door, I saw that on all the little lawns and terraces round about there were other modern statues and many kinds of curious sculpture. In the distance I thought I recognized Gaudier Brzeska, Brancusi, Saint-Gaudens, Henry Moore, and Epstein again.

The door was opened by a young footman who led me up to a bedroom on the first floor. Her ladyship, he explained, was resting, so were the other guests, but they would all be down in the main drawing room in an hour or so, dressed for dinner.

Now in my job it is necessary to do a lot of week-ending. I suppose I spend around fifty Saturdays and Sundays a year in other people’s houses, and as a result I have become fairly sensitive to unfamiliar atmosphere. I can tell good or bad almost by sniffing with my nose the moment I get in the front door; and this one I was in now I did not like. The place smelled wrong. There was the faint, desiccated whiff of something troublesome in the air; I was conscious of it even as I lay steaming luxuriously in my great marble bath; and I couldn’t help hoping that no unpleasant things were going to happen before Monday came.

The first of them—though more of a surprise than an unpleasantness—occurred ten minutes later. I was sitting on the bed putting on my socks when softly the door opened, and an ancient lopsided gnome in black tails slid into the room. He was the butler, he explained, and his name was Jelks, and he did so hope I was comfortable and had everything I wanted.

I told him I was and had.

He said he would do all he could to make my weekend agreeable. I thanked him and waited for him to go. He hesitated, and then, in
a voice dripping with unction, he begged permission to mention a rather delicate matter. I told him to go ahead.

To be quite frank, he said, it was about tipping. The whole business of tipping made him acutely miserable.

Oh? And why was that?

Well, if I really wanted to know, he didn’t like the idea that his guests felt under an obligation to tip him when they left the house—as indeed they did. It was an undignified proceeding for the tipping and the tipped. Moreover, he was well aware of the anguish that was often created in the minds of guests such as myself, if I would pardon the liberty, who might feel compelled by convention to give more than they could really afford.

He paused, and two small crafty eyes watched my face for a sign. I murmured that he needn’t worry himself about such things as far as I was concerned.

On the contrary, he said, he hoped sincerely that I would agree from the beginning to give him no tip at all.

“Well,” I said. “Let’s not fuss about it now, and when the time comes we’ll see how we feel.”

“No, sir!” he cried. “Please, I really must insist.”

So I agreed.

He thanked me, and shuffled a step or two closer. Then, laying his head on one side and clasping his hands before him like a priest, he gave a tiny apologetic shrug of the shoulders. The small sharp eyes were still watching me, and I waited, one sock on, the other in my hands, trying to guess what was coming next.

All that he would ask, he said softly, so softly now that his voice was like music heard faintly in the street outside a great concert
hall, all that he would ask was that instead of a tip I should give him thirty-three and a third per cent of my winnings at cards over the weekend. If I lost there would be nothing to pay.

It was all so soft and smooth and sudden that I was not even surprised.

“Do they play a lot of cards, Jelks?”

“Yes, sir, a great deal.”

“Isn’t thirty-three and a third a bit steep?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“I’ll give you ten per cent.”

“No, sir, I couldn’t do that.” He was now examining the fingernails of his left hand, and patiently frowning.

“Then we’ll make it fifteen. All right?”

“Thirty-three and a third, sir. It’s very reasonable. After all, sir, seeing that I don’t even know if you are a good player, what I’m actually doing, not meaning to be personal, is backing a horse and I’ve never even seen it run.”

No doubt you think I should never have started bargaining with the butler in the first place, and perhaps you are right. But being a liberal-minded person, I always try my best to be affable with the lower classes. Apart from that, the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit to myself that it was an offer no sportsman had the right to reject.

“All right then, Jelks. As you wish.”

“Thank you, sir.” He moved towards the door, walking slowly sideways like a crab; but once more he hesitated, a hand on the knob. “If I may give a little advice, sir—may I?”

“Yes?”

“It’s simply that her ladyship tends to overbid her hand.”

Now
this was
going too far. I was so startled I dropped my sock. After all, it’s one thing to have a harmless little sporting arrangement with the butler about tipping, but when he begins conniving with you to take money away from the hostess then it’s time to call a halt.

“All right Jelks. Now that’ll do.”

“No offence, sir, I hope. All I mean is you’re bound to be playing against her ladyship. She always partners Major Haddock.”

“Major Haddock? You mean Major Jack Haddock?”

“Yes, sir.”

I noticed there was a trace of a sneer around the corner of Jelks’s nose when he spoke about this man. And it was worse with Lady Turton. Each time he said “her ladyship” he spoke the words with the outsides of his lips as though he were nibbling a lemon, and there was a subtle, mocking inflection in his voice.

“You’ll excuse me now, sir.
Her ladyship
will be down at seven o’clock. So will
Major Haddock
and the others.” He slipped out of the door leaving behind him a certain dampness in the room and a faint smell of embrocation.

Shortly after seven, I found my way to the main drawing room, and Lady Turton, as beautiful as ever, got up to greet me.

“I wasn’t even sure you were coming,” she said in that peculiar lilting voice. “What’s your name again?”

“I’m afraid I took you at your word, Lady Turton. I hope it’s all right.”

“Why not?” she said. “There’s forty-seven bedrooms in the house. This is my husband.”

A small man came around the back of her and said, “You know, I’m so glad you were able to come.” He had a lovely warm smile and when he took my hand I felt instantly a touch of friendship in his fingers.

“And Carmen La Rosa,” Lady Turton said.

This was a powerfully built woman who looked as though she might have something to do with horses. She nodded at me, and although my hand was already halfway out she didn’t give me hers, thus forcing me to convert the movement into a noseblow.

“You have a cold?” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I did not like this Miss Carmen La Rosa.

“And this is Jack Haddock.”

I knew this man slightly. He was a director of companies (whatever that may mean), and a well-known member of society. I had used his name a few times in my column, but I had never liked him, and this I think was mainly because I have a deep suspicion of all people who carry their military titles back with them into private life—especially majors and colonels. Standing there in his dinner jacket with his full-blooded animal face and black eyebrows and large white teeth, he looked so handsome there was almost something indecent about it. He had a way of raising his upper lip when he smiled, baring his teeth, and he was smiling now as he gave me a hairy brown hand.

“I hope you’re going to say some nice things about us in your column.”

“He better had,” Lady Turton said, “or I’ll say some nasty ones about him on my front page.”

I laughed, but all three of them, Lady Turton, Major Haddock, and Carmen La Rosa had already turned away and were settling themselves back on the sofa. Jelks gave me a drink, and Sir Basil drew me gently aside for a quiet chat at the other end of the room. Every now and then Lady Turton would call her husband to fetch her something—another martini, a cigarette, an ashtray, a handkerchief—and he, half rising from his chair, would be forestalled by the watchful Jelks who fetched it for him.