A Wreath for Rivera (6 page)

“What? I wasn’t listening,” said Lord Pastern. “Look here, Bellairs, about to-night — ”

“To-night,” Mr. Bellairs interrupted, smiling from ear to ear, “is in the bag. We’ll rock them, Lord Pastern. Now, don’t you worry about to-night. It’s going to be wonderful. You’ll be there, of course, Miss Wayne?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Carlisle murmured, wishing they were not so zealous in their attentions.

“I’ve got the gun fixed up,” her uncle said eagerly. “Five rounds of blanks, you know. What about those umbrellas, now — ”

“You are fond of music, Miss Wayne? But of course you are. You would be enchanted by the music of my own country.”

“Tangos and rhumbas?” Carlisle ventured. Mr. Rivera inclined towards her. “At night,” he said, “with the scent of magnolias in the air — those wonderful nights of music. You will think it strange, of course, that I should be — ” he shrugged up his shoulders and lowered his voice — “performing in a dance band. Wearing these appalling clothes! Here, in London. It is terrible, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see why.”

“I suppose,” Mr. Rivera sighed, “I am what you call a snob. There are times when I find it almost unendurable. But I must not say so.” He glanced at Mr. Bellairs, who was deep in conversation with his host. “A heart of gold,” he whispered. “One of nature’s gentlemen. I should not complain. How serious we have become,” he added gaily. “We meet and in two minutes I confide in you. You are
simpática
, Miss Wayne. But of course you have been told that before.”

“Never,” said Carlisle firmly and was glad to see Edward Manx come in.

“Evenin’, Ned,” said Lord Pastern, blinking at him. “Glad to see you. Have you met — ”

Carlisle heard Mr. Rivera draw in his breath with a formidable hiss. Manx, having saluted Mr. Bellairs, advanced with a pleasant smile and extended hand. “We haven’t met, Rivera,” he said, “but at least I’m one of your devotees at the Metronome. If anything could teach me how to dance I’m persuaded it would be your piano-accordion.”

“How do you do,” said Mr. Rivera, and turned his back. “As I was saying, Miss Wayne,” he continued, “I believe entirely in first impressions. As soon as we were introduced — ”

Carlisle looked past him at Manx, who had remained perfectly still. At the first opportunity, she walked round Mr. Rivera and joined him. Mr. Rivera moved to the fireplace, before which he stood with an air of detachment, humming under his breath. Lord Pastern instantly button-holed him. Mr. Bellairs joined them with every manifestation of uneasy geniality. “About my number, Carlos,” said Lord Pastern, “I’ve been tellin’ Breezy — ”

“Of all the filthy rude — ” Manx began to mutter. Carlisle linked her arm in his and walked him away. “He’s just plain frightful, Ned. Félicité must be out of her mind,” she whispered hastily.

“If Cousin George thinks I’m going to stand round letting a bloody fancy-dress dago insult me — ”

“For
pity’s
sake don’t fly into one of your rages. Laugh it off.”

“Heh-heh-heh.”

“That’s better.”

“He’ll probably throw his sherry in my face. Why the devil was I asked, if he was coming. What’s Cousin Cécile thinking of?”

“It’s Uncle George — shut up. Here come the girls.”

Lady Pastern, encased in black, entered with Félicité at her heels. She suffered the introductions with terrifying courtesy. Mr. Bellairs redoubled his geniality. Mr. Rivera had the air of a man who never blossoms but in the presence of the great.

“I am so pleased to have the honour, at last, of being presented,” he said. “From Félicité I have heard so much of her mother. I feel, too, that we may have friends in common. Perhaps, Lady Pastern, you will remember an uncle of mine who had, I think, some post at our embassy in Paris, many years ago. Señor Alonso de Manuelos-Rivera.”

Lady Pastern contemplated him without any change of expression. “I do not remember,” she said.

“After all it was much too long ago,” he rejoined gallantly. Lady Pastern glanced at him with cold astonishment and advanced upon Manx. “Dearest Edward,” she said, offering her cheek, “we see you far too seldom. This is delightful.”

“Thank you, Cousin Cécile. For me, too.”

“I want to consult you— You will forgive us, George. I am determined to have Edward’s opinion on my petit point.”

“Let me alone,” Manx boasted, “with petit point.”

Lady Pastern put her arm through his and led him apart. Carlisle saw Félicité go to Rivera. Evidently she had herself well in hand: her greeting was prettily formal. She turned with an air of comradeship from Rivera to Bellairs and her stepfather. “Will anyone bet me,” she said, “that I can’t guess what you chaps have been talking about?” Mr. Bellairs was immediately very gay. “Now, Miss de Suze, that’s making it just a little tough. I’m afraid you know much too much about us. Isn’t that the case, Lord Pastern?”

“I’m worried about those umbrellas,” said Lord Pastern moodily and Bellairs and Félicité began to talk at once.

Carlisle was trying to make up her mind about Rivera and failing to do so. Was he in love with Félicité? If so was his jealousy of Ned Manx a genuine and therefore an alarming passion? Was he on the other hand a complete adventurer? Could any human being be as patently bogus as Mr. Rivera or was it within the bounds of possibility that the scions of noble Spanish-American families behaved in a manner altogether too faithful to their Hollywood opposites? Was it her fancy or had his olive-coloured cheeks turned paler as he stood and watched Félicité? Was the slight tic under his left eye, that smallest possible muscular twitch, really involuntary or, as everything else about him seemed to be, part of an impersonation along stereotyped lines? And as these speculations chased each other through her mind, Rivera himself came up to her.

“But you are so serious,” he said. “I wonder why. In my country we have a proverb: a woman is serious for one of two reasons — she is about to fall in love or already she loves without success. The alternative being unthinkable, I ask myself — to whom is this lovely lady about to lose her heart?”

Carlisle thought: “I wonder if this is the line of chat that Félicité has fallen for.” She said: “I’m afraid your proverb doesn’t apply out of South America.”

He laughed as if she had uttered some brilliant equivocation and began to protest that he knew better, indeed he did. Carlisle saw Félicité stare blankly at them and, turning quickly, surprised just such another expression on Edward Manx’s face. She began to feel acutely uncomfortable. There was no getting away from Mr. Rivera. His raillery and archness mounted with indecent emphasis. He admired Carlisle’s dress, her modest jewel, her hair. His lightest remark was pronounced with such a killing air that it immediately assumed the character of an impropriety. Her embarrassment at these excesses quickly gave way to irritation when she saw that while Mr. Rivera bent upon her any number of melting glances he also kept a sharp watch upon Félicité. “And I’ll be damned,” thought Carlisle, “if I let him get away with that little game.” She chose her moment and joined her aunt, who had withdrawn Edward Manx to the other end of the room and, while she exhibited her embroidery, muttered anathemas upon her other guests. As Carlisle came up, Edward was in the middle of some kind of uneasy protestation: “ — but, Cousin Cécile, I don’t honestly think I can do much about it. I mean — oh, hullo, Lisle. Enjoyed your Latin-American petting party?”

“Not enormously,” said Carlisle, and bent over her aunt’s embroidery. “It’s lovely, darling,” she said. “How do you do it?”

“You shall have it for an evening bag. I have been telling Edward that I fling myself on his charity, and,” Lady Pastern added in a stormy undertone, “and on yours, my dearest child.” She raised her needlework as if to examine it and they saw her fingers fumble aimlessly across its surface. “You see, both of you, this atrocious person. I implore you — ” Her voice faltered. “Look,” she whispered, “look now. Look at him.”

Carlisle and Edward glanced furtively at Mr. Rivera, who was in the act of introducing a cigarette into a jade holder. He caught Carlisle’s eye. He did not smile but glossed himself over with appraisement. His eyes widened. “Somewhere or other,” she thought, “he has read about gentlemen who undress ladies with a glance.” She heard Manx swear under his breath and noted with surprise her own gratification at this circumstance. Mr. Rivera advanced upon her.

“Oh, Lord!” Edward muttered.

“Here,” said Lady Pastern loudly, “is Hendy. She is dining with us. I had forgotten.”

The door at the far end of the drawing-room had opened and a woman plainly dressed came quietly in.

“Hendy!” Carlisle echoed. “I had forgotten Hendy,” and went swiftly towards her.

Miss Henderson had been Félicité‘s governess and had remained with the family after she grew up, occupying a post that was half-way between that of companion and secretary to both Félicité and her mother. Carlisle called her controller-of-the-household and knew that many a time she had literally performed the impossible task this title implied. She was a greyish-haired woman of forty-five; her appearance was tranquil but unremarkable, her voice pleasant. Carlisle, who liked her, had often wondered at her faithfulness to this turbulent household. To Lady Pastern, who regarded all persons as neatly graded types, Miss Henderson was no doubt an employee of good address and perfect manners whose presence at Duke’s Gate was essential to her own peace of mind. Miss Henderson had her private room where usually she ate in solitude. Sometimes, however, she was asked to lunch or dine with the family; either because a woman guest had slipped them up, or because her employer felt it was suitable that her position should be defined by such occasional invitations. She seldom left the house and if she had any outside ties, Carlisle had never heard of them. She was perfectly adjusted to her isolation and if she was ever lonely gave no evidence of being so. Carlisle believed Miss Henderson to have more influence than anyone else with Félicité, and it struck her now as odd that Lady Pastern should not have mentioned Hendy as a possible check to Mr. Rivera. But then the family did not often remember Hendy until they actually wanted her for something. “And I myself,” Carlisle thought guiltily, “although I like her so much, had forgotten to ask after her.” And she made her greeting the warmer because of this omission.

“Hendy,” she said, “how lovely to see you. How long is it? Four years?”

“A little over three, I think.” That was like her. She was always quietly accurate.

“You look just the same,” said Carlisle, nervously aware of Mr. Rivera close behind her.

Lady Pastern icily performed the introductions. Mr. Bellairs bowed and smiled expansively from the hearth-rug. Mr. Rivera, standing beside Carlisle, said: “Ah, yes, of course. Miss Henderson.” And might as well have added: “The governess, I believe.” Miss Henderson bowed composedly and Spence announced dinner.

They sat at a round table, a pool of candlelight in the shadowed dining-room. Carlisle found herself between her uncle and Rivera. Opposite her, between Edward and Bellairs, sat Félicité. Lady Pastern, on Rivera’s right, at first suffered his conversation with awful courtesy, presumably, thought Carlisle, in order to give Edward Manx, her other neighbour, a clear run with Félicité. But as Mr. Bellairs completely ignored Miss Henderson, who was on his right, and lavished all his attention on Félicité herself, this manoeuvre was unproductive. After a few minutes Lady Pastern engaged Edward in what Carlisle felt to be an extremely ominous conversation. She caught only fragments of it as Rivera had resumed his crash tactics with herself. His was a simple technique. He merely turned his shoulder on Lady Pastern, leant so close to Carlisle that she could see the pores of his skin, looked into her eyes and, with rich insinuation, contradicted everything she said. Lord Pastern was no refuge as he had sunk into a reverie from which he roused himself from time to time only to throw disjointed remarks at no one in particular, and to attack his food with a primitive gusto which dated from his Back-to-Nature period. His table manners were defiantly and deliberately atrocious. He chewed with parted lips, glaring about him like a threatened carnivore, and as he chewed he talked. To Spence and the man who assisted him and to Miss Henderson, who accepted her isolation with her usual composure, the conversation must have come through like the dialogue in a boldly surrealistic broadcast.

“… such a good photograph, we thought, Edward, of you and Félicité at the Tarmac. She so much enjoyed her party with you…”

“… but I’m not at all musical…”

“… you must not say so. You are musical. There is music in your eyes — your voice…”

“… now that’s quite a nifty little idea, Miss de Suze. We’ll have to pull you in with the boys…”

“… so it is arranged, my dear Edward.”

“… thank you, Cousin Cécile, but…”

“… you and Félicité have always done things together, haven’t you? We were laughing yesterday over some old photographs. Do you remember at Clochemere…?”

“… Gee, where’s my sombrero?”

“… with this dress you should wear flowers. A cascade of orchids. Just here. Let me show you…”

“… I beg your pardon, Cousin Cécile, I’m afraid I didn’t hear what you said…”

“Uncle George, it’s time you talked to me…”

“Eh? Sorry, Lisle, I’m wondering where my sombrero…”

“Lord Pastern is very kind in letting me keep you to myself. Don’t turn away. Look, your handkerchief is falling.”

“
Damn!
”

“Edward!”

“I beg your pardon, Cousin Cécile, I don’t know what I’m thinking of.”

“Carlos.”

“… in my country, Miss Wayne… no, I cannot call you Miss Wayne. Car-r-r-lisle! What a strange name… Strange and captivating.”

“Carlos!”

“Forgive me. You spoke?”

“About those umbrellas, Breezy.”

“Yes, I did speak.”

“A thousand pardons, I was talking to Carlisle.”

“I’ve engaged a table for three, Fée. You and Carlisle and Ned. Don’t be late.”

“My music to-night shall be for you.”

“I am coming also, George.”

“
What
!”

“Kindly see that it is a table for four.”

“
Maman
! But I thought…”

“You won’t like it, C.”

“I propose to come.”

“Damn it, you’ll sit and glare at me and make me nervous.”

“Nonsense, George,” Lady Pastern said crisply. “Be good enough to order the table.”

Her husband glowered at her, seemed to contemplate giving further battle, appeared suddenly to change his mind and launched an unexpected attack at Rivera.

“About your being carried out, Carlos,” he said importantly. “It seems a pity I can’t be carried out too. Why can’t the stretcher party come back for me?”

“Now, now, now,” Mr. Bellairs interrupted in a great hurry. “We’ve got everything fixed, Lord Pastern, now, haven’t we? The first routine. You shoot Carlos. Carlos falls. Carlos is carried out. You take the show away. Big climax. Finish. Now don’t you get me bustled,” he added playfully. “It’s good and it’s fixed. Fine. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“It is what has been decided,” Mr. Rivera conceded grandly. “For myself, I am perhaps a little dubious. Under other circumstances I would undoubtedly insist upon the second routine. I am shot at but I do not fall. Lord Pastern misses me. The others fall. Breezy fires at Lord Pastern and nothing happens. Lord Pastern plays, faints, is removed. I finish the number. Upon this routine under other circumstances, I should insist.” He executed a sort of comprehensive bow, taking in Lord Pastern, Félicité, Carlisle and Lady Pastern. “But under these exclusive and most charming circumstances, I yield. I am shot. I fall. Possibly I hurt myself. No matter.”

Bellairs eyed him. “Good old Carlos,” he said uneasily.

“I still don’t see why I can’t be carried out too,” said Lord Pastern fretfully.

Carlisle heard Mr. Bellairs whisper under his breath: “For the love of Pete!” Rivera said loudly: “No, no, no, no. Unless we adopt completely the second routine, we perform the first as we rehearse. It is settled.”

“Carlisle,” said Lady Pastern rising, “shall we…?”

She swept her ladies into the drawing-room,

Félicité was puzzled, resentful and uneasy. She moved restlessly about the room, eyeing her mother and Carlisle. Lady Pastern paid no attention to her daughter. She questioned Carlisle about her experiences in Greece and received her somewhat distracted answers with perfect equanimity. Miss Henderson, who had taken up Lady Pastern’s box of embroidery threads, sorted them with quiet movements of her hands and seemed to listen with interest.

Suddenly Félicité said: “I don’t see much future in us all behaving as if we’d had the Archbishop of Canterbury to dinner. If you’ve got anything to say about Carlos, all of you, I’d be very much obliged if you’d say it.”

Miss Henderson, her hands still for a moment, glanced up at Félicité and then bent again over her task. Lady Pastern, having crossed her ankles and wrists, slightly moved her shoulders and said: “I do not consider this a suitable occasion, my dear child, for any such discussion.”

“Why?” Félicité demanded.

“It would make a scene, and under the circumstances,” said Lady Pastern with an air of reasonableness, “there’s no time for a scene.”

“If you think the men are coming in,
Maman
, they are not. George has arranged to go over the programme again in the ballroom.”

A servant came in and collected the coffee cups. Lady Pastern made conversation with Carlisle until the door had closed behind him.

“So I repeat,”‘ Félicité said loudly, “I want to hear,
Maman
, what you’ve got to say against Carlos.”

Lady Pastern slightly raised her eyes and lifted her shoulders. Her daughter stamped. “Blast and hell!” she said.

“Félicité!” said Miss Henderson. It was neither a remonstrance nor a warning. The name fell like an unstressed comment. Miss Henderson held an embroidery stiletto firmly between finger and thumb and examined it placidly. Félicité made an impatient movement. “If you think,” she said violently, “anybody’s going to be at their best in a strange house with a hostess who looks at them as if they smelt!”

“If it comes to that, dearest child, he does smell. Of a particularly heavy kind of scent, I fancy,” Lady Pastern added thoughtfully.

From the ballroom came a distant syncopated roll of drums ending in a crash of cymbals and a loud report. Carlisle jumped nervously. The stiletto fell from Miss Henderson’s fingers to the carpet. Félicité, bearing witness in her agitation to the efficacy of her governess’s long training, stooped and picked it up.

“It is your uncle, merely,” said Lady Pastern.

“I ought to go straight out and apologize to Carlos for the hideous way he’s been treated,” Félicité stormed, but her voice held an overtone of uncertainty and she looked resentfully at Carlisle.

“If there are to be apologies,” her mother rejoined, “it is Carlisle who should receive them. I am so sorry, Carlisle, that you should have been subjected to these — ” she made a fastidious gesture — “these really insufferable attentions.”

“Good Lord, Aunt C,” Carlisle began in acute embarrassment and was rescued by Félicité, who burst into tears and rushed out of the room.

“I think perhaps…?” said Miss Henderson, rising.

“Yes, please go to her.”

But before Miss Henderson reached the door, which Félicité had left open, Rivera’s voice sounded in the hall. “What is the matter?” it said distinctly and Félicité, breathless, answered, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“But certainly, if you wish it.”

“In here, then.” The voices faded, were heard again, indistinctly, in the study. The connecting door between the study and the drawing-room was slammed to from the far side.

“You had better leave them, I think,” said Lady Pastern.

“If I go to my sitting-room, she may come to me when this is over.”

“Then go,” said Lady Pastern, drearily. “Thank you, Miss Henderson.”

“Aunt,” said Carlisle when Miss Henderson had left them, “what are you up to?”

Lady Pastern, shielding her face from the fire, said: “I have made a decision. I believe that my policy in this affair has been a mistaken one. Anticipating my inevitable opposition, Félicité has met this person in his own setting and has, as I think you would say, lost her eye. I cannot believe that when she has seen him here, and has observed his atrocious antics, his immense vulgarity, she will not come to her senses. Already, one can see, she is shaken. After all, I remind myself, she is a de Fouteaux and a de Suze. Am I not right?”

“It’s an old trick, darling, you know. It doesn’t always work.”

“It is working, however,” said Lady Pastern, setting her mouth. “She sees him, for example, beside dear Edward, to whom she has always been devoted. Of your uncle as a desirable contrast, I say nothing, but at least his clothes are unexceptionable. And though I deeply resent, dearest child, that you should have been forced, in my house, to suffer the attentions of this animal, they have assuredly impressed themselves disagreeably upon Félicité.”

“Disagreeably — yes,” said Carlisle, turning pink. “But look here, Aunt Cécile, he’s shooting this nauseating little line with me to — well, to make Fée sit up and take notice.” Lady Pastern momentarily closed her eyes. This, Carlisle remembered, was her habitual reaction to slang. “And, I’m not sure,” Carlisle added, “that she hasn’t fallen for it.”

“She cannot be anything but disgusted.”

“I wouldn’t be astonished if she refuses to come to the Metronome to-night.”

“That is what I hope. But I am afraid she will come. She will not give way so readily, I think.” Lady Pastern rose. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I shall break this affair. Do you hear me, Carlisle? I shall break it.”

Beyond the door at the far end of the room, Félicité‘s voice rose, in a sharp crescendo, but the words were indistinguishable. “They are quarrelling,” said Lady Pastern with satisfaction.

As Edward Manx sat silent in his chair, glass of port and a cup of coffee before him, his thoughts moved out in widening circles from the candle-lit table. Removed from him, Bellairs and Rivera had drawn close to Lord Pastern. Bellairs’s voice, loud but edgeless, uttered phrase after phrase. “Sure, that’s right. Don’t worry, it’s in the bag. It’s going to be a world-breaker. O.K., we’ll run it through. Fine.” Pastern fidgeted, stuttered, chuckled, complained. Rivera, leaning back in his chair, smiled, said nothing and turned his glass. Manx, who had noticed how frequently it had been refilled, wondered if he was tight.

There they sat, wreathed in cigar smoke, candle-lit, an unreal group. He saw them as three dissonant figures at the centre of an intolerable design. “Bellairs,” he told himself, “is a gaiety merchant. Gaiety!” How fashionable, he reflected, the word had been before the war. Let’s be gay, they had all said, and glumly embracing each other had tramped and shuffled, while men like Breezy Bellairs made their noise and did their smiling for them. They christened their children “Gay,” they used the word in their drawing-room comedies and in their dismal, dismal songs. “Gaiety!” muttered the disgruntled and angry Edward. “A lovely word, but the thing itself, when enjoyed, is unnamed. There’s Cousin George, who is undoubtedly a little mad, sitting, like a mouth-piece for his kind, between a jive merchant and a cad. And here’s Fée anticking inside the unholy circle while Cousin Cécile solemnly gyrates against the beat. In an outer ring, I hope unwillingly, is Lisle, and here I sit, as sore as hell, on the perimeter.” He glanced up and found that Rivera was looking at him, not directly but out of the corners of his eyes. “Sneering,” thought Edward, “like an infernal caricature of himself.”