Josephine Tey - To Love and Be Wise

'Is he staying long with you?

Walter said that he and Searle planned to do a book together. They had not yet decided on the form of it.

'Gipsying Through Orfordshire?

'Something like that. I do the spiel and Searle does the illustrations. We haven't thought of a good central theme yet.

'A little early in the year to go gipsying.

'Good for photography, though. Before the county becomes clotted with greenery.

'Perhaps your young friend would like to photograph Hoo House, Toby said, picking up the two mugs and moving with admirable casualness to the bar with them.

Walter stayed where he was and wondered how many drinks Serge Ratoff had had since last he noticed him. He had been only two short of a row then, he had reckoned. Now he must be almost at explosion point.

Toby put the mugs on the counter, entered first into conversation with the landlord, then with Bill Maddox, and so quite naturally with Searle again. It was dexterously done.

'You must come and see Hoo House, Walter heard him say presently. 'It is very beautiful. You might even like to photograph it.

'Has it not been photographed? asked Searle, surprised. It was quite an innocent surprise; an astonishment that a thing so beautiful should be unrecorded. But what it conveyed to his hearers was: 'Is it possible that any facet of Toby Tullis's life has remained unpublicised?

This was the spark that ignited Serge.

' Yes ! he shrieked, shooting out of his corner like a squib and sticking his furious small face within an inch of Searle's, 'it has been photographed! It has been photographed ten thousand times by the greatest photographers in the world and it does not need to be made cheap by any stupid amateur from a country that was stolen from the Indians even if he has a profile and dyed hair and no morals and a —

'Serge! said Toby, 'shut up!

But the wild babble poured out of Serge's ravaged face without a pause.

'Serge! Do you hear! Stop it! Toby said, and pushed Ratoff lightly on the shoulder so as to urge him away from Searle.

This was the final touch, and Serge's voice rose into one high continuous stream of vituperation, most of it couched in mercifully unintelligible English but spattered liberally with phrases in French or Spanish and studded here and there with epithets and descriptions of a freshness that was delightful. 'You middle-west Lucifer! was one of the better ones.

As Toby's hand took him by the back of the collar to drag him away from Searle by force, Serge's arm shot out to where Toby's new-filled beer mug was waiting on the counter. He reached it a split second before Reeve, the landlord, could save it, grabbed it, and launched the whole contents into Searle's face. Searle's head moved sideways by instinct, so that the beer streamed over his neck and shoulder. Screaming with baffled rage, Serge lifted the heavy mug above his head to fling it, but Reeve's large hand closed on his wrist, the mug was prised out of his convulsive clutch, and Reeve said: 'Arthur!

There was no chucker-out at the Swan, since there had never been any need for one. But when any persuading had to be done, Arthur Tebbetts did it. Arthur was cattleman up at Silverlace Farm, and he was a large, slow, kind creature who would go out of his way to avoid treading on a worm.

'Come now, Mr Ratoff, Arthur said, enveloping with his Saxon bulk the small struggling cosmopolitan. 'There's no call to get fussed over little things. It's that there gin, Mr Ratoff. I've told you afore. That ain't no drink for a man, Mr Ratoff. Now you come with me, and see if you don't feel the better of a dose of fresh air. See if you don't.

Serge had no intention of going anywhere with anyone. He wanted to stay and murder this newcomer to Salcott. But there was never any successful argument against Arthur's methods. Arthur just put a friendly arm round one and leaned. The arm was like a limb of a beech tree, and the pressure was that of a landslide. Serge went with him to the door under pressure, and they went out together. Not for one moment had Serge stopped his torrent of accusation and offence, and not once as far as anyone knew had he repeated himself.

As the high babbling voice died into the outer air, the onlookers stirred into relief and conversation again.

'Gentlemen, said Toby Tullis, 'I apologise on behalf of the Theatre.

But it was not said lightly enough. Instead of being an actor's gay smoothing over of an awkward moment, it was Toby Tullis reminding them that he spoke for the English Theatre. As Marta had said: everything that Toby did was a little off-key. There was a murmur of amusement, but if anything his speech added to the village's embarrassment.

The landlord mopped Searle's shoulder with a glass-cloth, and begged him to come in behind and his missus would take some clean water to his suit and get the smell of the beer off it before it dried in. But Searle refused. He was quite amiable about it but seemed to want to get out of the place. Walter thought that he was looking a little sick.

They said good-evening to Toby, who was still explaining Serge's temperament in terms of the Theatre, and went out into the sweet evening.

'Does he often sound off like that? Searle asked.

'Ratoff? He has made scenes before, yes, but never such a violent one. I've never known him use physical means before.

They met Arthur, returning to his interrupted beer, and Walter asked what had become of the disturber.

'He run away home, Arthur said with his large smile. 'Went off like an arrow from a bow. He could beat a hare, that one. And went back to his drink.

'It's early for dinner yet, Walter said. 'Let us walk home by the river and up by the field-path. I am sorry about the row, but I expect that in your job you are used to temperaments.

'Well, I have been called things, of course, but so far nothing has actually been flung at me.

'I dare swear no one ever thought of calling you a middle-west Lucifer before. Poor Serge. Walter paused to lean on the bridge below the Mill House, and look at the reflection of the afterglow in the waters of the Rushmere. 'Perhaps the old saying is true and it is not possible to love and be wise. When you are as devoted to anyone as Serge is to Toby Tullis, I expect you cease to be sane about the matter.

'Sane, said Searle sharply.

'Yes; things lose their proper proportions. Which, I take it, is a loss of sanity.

Searle was quiet for a long time, staring at the smooth water as it flooded so slowly towards the bridge and then was flicked under it with the sudden hysteria of water sucked round obstacles in its path.

'Sane, he repeated, watching the place where the water lost control and was sucked under the culvert.

'I'm not suggesting the fellow is mad, Walter said. 'He has just lost hold of common sense.

'And is common sense so desirable a quality?

'An admirable quality.

'Nothing great ever came out of common sense, Searle said.

'On the contrary. Lack of common sense is responsible for practically every ill in life. Everything from wars to not moving up in the bus. I see there is a light in the Mill House. Marta must be back.

They looked up at the pale bulk of the house glowing in the half-dark as a pale flower glows. A single light, still bright yellow in what was left of the daylight, starred the side that looked on the river.

'A light the way Liz likes them, Searle said.

'Liz?

'She likes them golden like that in the daylight. Before the dark turns them white.

For the first time Walter was forced into considering Searle in relation to Liz. It had not crossed his mind until now to consider them in relation to each other at all, since he was not in the least possessive about Liz. This unpossessiveness might have been accounted to him for virtue if it had not sprung directly from the fact that he took her for granted. If by some method of hypnotism the last dregs of Walter's subconscious could have been dragged to the surface, it would have been found that he thought that Liz was doing very well for herself. Even the shadow of such a thought would have shocked Walter's conscious mind, of course; but since he was entirely unself-analytical and largely unselfconscious (a quality that enabled him to perpetrate the broadcasts which so revolted Marta and endeared him to the British public), the farthest his conscious mind went was to hold it gratifying and proper that Liz should love him.