John Bingham - Five Roundabouts to Heaven

“Not in the fire!” muttered Bartels, but he was too late.

The dead moth hit the embers at the side, and a small flame shot up, flickered for the space of a second, and died down. Bartels had swung round, as I recalled he had swung round before, when a live butterfly had fluttered into the grate at the chateau.

“Why not in the fire?” asked Beatrice. “It was dead, wasn’t it?”

Dear, practical, dutiful Beatrice!

She went out into the kitchen. Shortly afterwards, I followed her to say goodbye. She was rolling some pieces of filleted fish in breadcrumbs, and looked up at me and said sadly:

“See how he needs me?”

That was my last chance. I did not take it.

On the contrary, I said in those sad, regretful tones I know so well how to adopt: “He needs you all right. Yes, he certainly needs you.”

Then I kissed her on the cheek.

I went out, leaving her alone in the cottage with Bartels.

The remainder of the evening was for me a mad rush, a happy whirl of laughter, and food and wine and fast driving.

I drove up to Lorna’s cottage and braked the car violently and blew three long blasts on the horn, and leaped out and rang the bell incessantly.

She came to the door.

“Why, hello,” Lorna said. “What’s the uproar about? Are you on fire, or-”

I did not let her finish. I grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her into the house, and slammed the door.

“Come on!” I cried. “Come on, throw some town clothes on, and get cracking. We’re going up to town, to celebrate!”

“Celebrate what, for heaven’s sake?” she said, and laughed.

“We’ll decide that on the way. Come on, girl, dash up and change into something that isn’t evening dress. Let no time be wasted, Lorna Dickson; this is no night for a girl to be on her own in a house in the country!”

“What’s special about tonight?” she asked, as I pushed her towards the stairs.

“Nothing’s special about tonight. No beautiful girl should ever be alone at night. ’Tisn’t safe. Go on. Up you go!”

“But what are we going to do?” she protested.

“One, dash up to London, and have a quick drink and a smoked salmon sandwich. Two, dash in and see a revue, or what’s left of it by the time we get there. Three, dash out of the revue, and have some supper and see a cabaret. Four, dash down here again. OK?”

“But you can’t drive me all the way home again!”

“Who can’t?”

“You can’t. You won’t get home till about four in the morning.”

“That’s right,” I said happily. “That’s quite right. Now go and change, and stop arguing.”

She hesitated. Then she turned and ran lightly up the stairs.

“I’ll be ten minutes,” she said over her shoulder.

“Too long,” I called after her. “Cut it down to seven. The horses will get cold.”

She put her head over the banisters. “If the coachman wants a drink, he can help himself.”

“The coachman will.”

That is one of the memories I shall always retain of Lorna: her head over the banisters, her grey-blue eyes dancing with the fun of unexpected pleasure.

Loneliness on her part, rush tactics on my part: that’s what I had gambled on. I was giving her no chance to wonder if Bartels would mind; no chance to wonder anything at all, if it comes to that.

I did well that evening.

I suppose it was the first expensive evening out she had enjoyed for a long time. Bartels had certainly insufficient money to do what Lorna and I did that evening. It was laughter all the way, except towards the end of the drive home.

We had turned off the Kingston Bypass, and driven through Esher, and had just turned the sharp bend beyond Esher, when I asked Lorna if she would care to come out again the following week and see another show.

She said nothing, but it was easy enough to guess what she was thinking. So I said it for her:

“I don’t suppose Barty would mind.”

“He might be a little-envious. He is such a generous chap, but of course he can’t afford evenings like this. And I wouldn’t want him to. I think he might be a bit hurt, you know.”

I accelerated and passed a lorry, then dropped speed to an easy forty-five.

“I’m not quite sure whether Barty has the right to feel hurt,” I said flatly.

“Meaning?”

“You know as well as I do, Lorna.”

“Yes,” she said softly. Then again: “Yes.”

Her hand was lying on the seat beside me. I placed my left hand over it, and said: “You know, my dear, Barty is a terrific romantic. He is always-looking for perfection.”

I gave her hand the merest suggestion of pressure, and replaced my own on the wheel.

“Always looking for it? Do I gather that you are trying to tell me that I am not the result of his first search?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Perhaps not. If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. It’s none of my business. It’s no concern of mine.”

Lorna remained quiet. She had not removed her hand from the seat, but I let it lie there, while I played my last important card.

“Besides,” I said casually, “he will have to consider the effect of anything he may do upon Beatrice’s health.”

I saw Lorna look at me suddenly, but I kept my eyes on the road ahead.

“Her health?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong with her health? Barty never told me there was anything the matter with her health.”

Poor Lorna! I could guess how the icy fingers of doubt and fear were beginning to grip her by the throat. I longed to stop the car and take her in my arms and comfort her. There was nothing wrong with Beatrice’s health, of course. Fundamentally, she was as sound as a bell, though once she had had slight palpitations of the heart through taking too many aspirins.

“I don’t think,” I said carefully, “that her heart is as strong as it could be. Nothing serious,” I added hastily, for if you wish to add an air of truth to a statement it is as well to soft-pedal it.

Then it sounds plausible. Suckers believe it.

“I see,” said Lorna slowly. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know. He never told me that.”

“Oh, didn’t he?” I answered. “He probably didn’t think it necessary. It’s nothing serious, you know.”

After a while, as she said nothing, I said:

“On the whole, I would rather you didn’t mention it to Barty. He might think I was interfering.”

“I think I must mention it. It makes a difference.”

“I wouldn’t like to quarrel with him, Lorna. We’ve been friends since boyhood. I rather wish I hadn’t told you now. But I thought you knew, of course.”

She thought for a few moments. “All right,” she said at length. “I won’t mention it. Thank you for telling me.”

When I dropped her at her home, she asked me in for a final drink. But I declined. I said goodbye to her on the doorstep.

She was smoking a cigarette. I said to her: “May I have that cigarette you’re smoking?”

“If you wish. Why?”

“Because it has touched your lips,” I said.

Corny, of course. I had heard a Swede say it once in Stockholm.

Still, it worked. She smiled gently, and held it out. I took it and put it to my own lips, and touched my hat with a semi-military salute and turned away and climbed into my car and drove off. It had been a most satisfactory evening, and I felt cheerful all the way back.

Poor old Bartels! It was like taking candy from a child. Easy, dead easy, I thought.

It was twilight now, but the air remained hot and still in the woods above the chateau. So still that I could hear movements in the house, and even the plop as a frog dived off the side of the moat into the water.