Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“What was that? I didn’t know you knew he was back here.”

“I’ve heard a few things about him. He’s been lobbying, you could almost call it, for support in some squabble he’s having with the French Government. Apparently when we entered the war he was caught over there, though he’d had ample warning to get out, and anyone but a fool or a pro-German would have. But he was working on a picture and when the Germans interned him as an enemy alien I’m sure he became anti-German enough for anybody. His chief peeve, though, seems to have been against the Vichy Government for not taking his side. Now he wants the State Department to back him up against the new French Government because they won’t let him stay there. Complicated, eh? It’s also rather preposterous. He hasn’t a grain of political wisdom and he doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that on the scale of current events he and his affairs count for nothing. Still, you can go a long way in Washington drawing-rooms with a well-kept grievance. I heard he’d been taken up by one of the weaker-minded senators, but even this couldn’t hold when the latest rumour got around.”

“What was that?” she asked again. It chilled her a little that Austen should have known so much about Paul without mentioning it till now, and that, in substance, it fitted so neatly with what she had learned from others.

“It may not be true, but the story is that he came to be on pretty good terms with the German camp commandant and actually sold him on the idea that he should be let out on some kind of parole to finish the film, but the plan hadn’t time to go through before the war ended. Of course it was just the way to be tagged a collaborationist, and it certainly was incredibly stupid when the German defeat was already in sight. Anyhow he made enemies by it, and some of them are over here now, so I guess a Senator can be forgiven for dropping him like a hot potato.” He added judicially: “I suspect the real truth is, and has been all along, that he simply wanted to finish that damned film, and to do so he didn’t care whom he trafficked with—the Vichy French or the Germans or the Americans or the Free French or the Devil himself. That would be in character, wouldn’t it?”

“So what do you think will happen?”

“Goodness knows. Trouble for him of one kind or another, but that won’t be anything new in his experience. And he usually falls on his feet, doesn’t he?”

There were visitors waiting for them at the house, and the subject of Paul was not resumed when they were alone again. Carey had expected it would be, if only to clear up one point—should she answer Paul’s wire in the negative or merely ignore it? She was certain the matter must have occurred to Austen, and the fact that he did not mention it seemed to indicate that he was deliberately leaving her to do whichever she wished or thought best. She did what she thought he would have preferred—she sent no answer at all, and she somehow knew that he knew and was grateful for her decision. They had reached that point in understanding of each other. Meanwhile Austen was having his first real vacation for years, and as Carey was not in a play and had no plans for one, she could share his enjoyment of it. Norris was in Germany, having come through the invasion campaigns without a scratch and with a certain amount of credit. At a world-moment heavy with destiny Carey and Austen could both feel that their own personal case had been dealt with leniently, so that they could now become spectators for a breathing spell. Every morning Austen watched the tractors and drag-chains at work on his waste-land and at lunch reported progress as if it were symbolically important in their lives, and almost every evening they listened to the radio like a good bourgeois couple and went to bed early. And on his sixty-first birthday they had the liveliest week-end party they could assemble.

One afternoon in October the first really cold spell hit New York City and Carey decided not to go out. She sat by the fire in the library, reading a novel, half dozing, and catching the muted sounds of wind and traffic that made more satisfying the sanctuary of the room. Richards, back after demobilization, was taking his day off. Towards four o’clock she heard the front door bell; after a pause it rang again, and then again, so she got up to find out what was happening. By the time she reached the hall Flossie was at the door, closing it on someone from whom she had taken a card. Had she put it on the tray as usual Carey would have made no comment, but she saw her slip it into her pocket, and this stirred a mild curiosity. “Who was that, Flossie?”

“Oh, nobody, ma’am.”

“Let me see the card.”

Flossie delivered it with a hesitation that just fell short of intransigence. She was an elderly Scotswoman, unsuitably named, but of intimidating character and loyalty—a breed of domestic rapidly becoming extinct, Austen had sometimes said, with more regret than Carey could muster. Carey stared now at the card, then hurried across the hall. There was a built-out porch with side windows that gave views along the street in both directions; she could see a man walking slowly, aided by a stick, towards Lexington. She turned back to Flossie.

“Will you please go after Mr. Saffron and bring him back here?”

“I told him you weren’t in, ma’am.”

“But I AM in.”

“I told him what Mr. Bond said to tell him.”

“Mr. Bond? I don’t understand…”

“He told Richards if ever a Mr. Saffron called he was to say you weren’t in.”

(_A_ Mr. Saffron—as if the woman didn’t know who he was.)

“Flossie, whatever Mr. Bond said, I’m sure he’d wish you to do what I ask. So will you please bring Mr. Saffron into the library… He seems to be lame, so you won’t have to run to catch him up.”

A moment later Paul was ushered in, leaning on his stick. He looked old, but his face was ruddy red, and he had a beaming smile for her as he crossed the room. “Paul!” she exclaimed, waiting for Flossie to leave as if nothing else could be said till they were alone. But after the door closed she could not think of anything to say at all. Her chief emotion was one that had been mounting ever since the incident in the hall—anger, resentment, and a kind of helpless opposition to the all-seeing and all-knowing surveillance that Austen had put around her. Doubtless his motives were of the best, but she knew that if she tried to defend him to herself she would find the whole situation sheerly intolerable, the more so as it affected Flossie and Richards. It was a peculiar thing (and she had often reflected on it) that Austen could win the utmost allegiance of servants and employees—or was it because of his frightening skill in choosing the kind from whom such allegiance was obtainable? But even that did not fully explain why it was not offered to her. Maybe because she valued it less, and freedom more. All this was in her mind as she took Paul’s hand.

“Well, Carey, my dear…” He bowed over her finger-tips, a little shakily, then stood with his back to the fire. “Excuse me for toasting my behind —if I don’t get warm before I sit down, you’ll never get me up again… Arthritis.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You know what happened? They put me in an internment camp. No proper heating—we shivered every winter for months on end. But I’m getting treatment now… I’m glad I took another chance on catching you in.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Twice. What’s the matter with that old family retainer of yours?”

“She makes mistakes.”

“I’d cast her for Grace Poole in Jane Eyre—well, no, she’s too much the type. And your butler, who told me you were out, the last time —a pinchbeck Malvolio. Remember the drunken one we had at Mapledurham? There’s something quite fascinating about English butlers. One of the end products of our civilization. Some time I’d like to make a picture in which God is a butler.”