Роберт Эйкман: The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

‘Certainly,’ said Griselda. ‘Won’t you take off your cloak?’

‘Thank you.’ He looked up at her. He was very pale; with large but well-shaped bones, and black eyes.

‘There’s a stand in the corner. Under the bust of Menander.’

‘I didn’t know there was a bust of Menander.’

‘It’s conjectural.’

‘Like so much else.’

Griselda thought he almost smiled.

He removed his cloak. He was wearing evening dress with a white waistcoat; and across his breast ran the bright silk ribbon of a foreign order.

He hung up his coat and hat, and began to examine the books. He went along the shelves steadily and methodically, noting every title and frequently extracting a book for similarly exact scrutiny of its contents. Some of the books he bore away to Griselda’s desk, where he had soon built a substantial cairn. Griselda and Lena descended alternately to serve other customers. Many of them seemed surprised by the distinction of the stranger’s appearance.

Before his circuit of the shop was three-quarters completed, he came to rest by the desk. ‘Alas, I must go. You see: I am awaited.’ He extended his hand towards the wintry morning outside the shop window. The snow clouds were so heavy that it hardly seemed day; but as Griselda followed his gesture, she saw that the dim and dirty light was further diminished by some large obstruction.

‘I’ll make out a bill and then pack up the books in parcels.’

‘Please don’t trouble. My coachman and footman will load them into the carriage.’

He went to the door and spoke briefly to someone outside.

A man of about thirty, with very long side whiskers, entered, and began to bear away armfuls of books. He wore a beaver hat, a long dark green topcoat with a cape, and high boots. Clearly he had been sitting on his box in the snow while his master shopped.

‘Don’t take them before Miss de Reptonville has accounted for them.’

Griselda put some shillings in the pounds column and Lena slightly damaged the dust-jacket of The Light of Asia ; but both took care to display no surprise.

‘Ask Staggers to help you, if you wish.’

‘No necessity, sir. One more trip and I’ll finish. Staggers needs to hold the umbrella between the door and the carriage.’

‘Of course. Most proper.’

Griselda, being unproficient at arithmetic, could only hope that the grand total could be substantiated. It was certainly the grandest total since she had entered the shop.

The customer produced an unusually large cheque book from a pocket inside his cloak and wrote out the cheque in black ink. Griselda saw that the cheque, which was on a small private Bank previously unknown to her, bore the drawer’s coat of arms and crest. One glance at this last and she had no need to look at the signature.

The customer was regarding her. ‘I received your Christmas Card. Thank you.’

‘I was grateful for your letter.’

‘Nothing would have pleased me more than to have been able to help you’ He spoke with much sincerity.

An invisible hand lightly squeezed at Griselda’s throat.

‘I must give you a receipt.’

She was unable even to stick on the stamp symmetrically.

‘Please introduce me to your friend.’

‘Of course. Please forgive me. Both of you. Lena Drelincourt. Sir Hugo Raunds.’

Lena descended. She looked a little startled. Their visitor removed a white kid glove, more than slightly discoloured with his recent work, and put out an elegant and well kept hand.

‘I like your shop. I used to know Mr Tamburlane quite well. I shall hope to visit you again. May I?’ It was if he were a caller rather than a customer.

‘As soon as possible,’ said Lena.

‘Lena writes.’

‘Of course. Her three books are by my bed, and I admire them more at every reading.’

Lena went slightly pink and looked charming.

‘Good-bye then, Miss de Reptonville.’

Griselda took his hand. It was firm and dry and cool.

She looked him in the eyes. ‘There’s no news?’

‘No news.’ He still held her hand. ‘I hope I need not say I should have told you?’

‘No . . . I couldn’t help asking.’

He said nothing for a moment; then silently released her hand. All the while he was returning her gaze. Lena was looking on flushed and fascinated.

‘All packed up, sir,’ said the footman from the exactly right distance between the group of them and the shop door.

‘I’m coming. You can tell Staggers to get back on his box.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Their visitor put on his cloak. He had reached a decision. ‘I propose,’ he said, ‘to ask you to come and stay with me. Both of you.’ He seemed to speak with hesitation. ‘But naturally only if you wish to do so. Please say nothing now. There will be a formal invitation; which if you wish to decline or ignore I shall entirely understand.’

At this moment Griselda recalled old Zec’s curious behaviour at the All Party Ball when Hugo Raunds was mentioned.

‘We’d love to come,’ said Lena casually.

He made no reply, but bowing slightly and saying ‘Your servant, ladies,’ departed into the London snow.

Griselda and Lena followed him to the door. His carriage was an immense affair, with the familiar crest upon the door and at the base of the massive brightly polished lamps. Drawn by two proportionately immense black horses, with wild eyes, nostrils steaming like volcanoes, waving manes, and long undocked tails, it was governed by an immense coachman, so rugged and round and red as to overawe all possible comment. His red hair stuck out horizontally from beneath his huge tilted beaver. His red beard was snowy as Father Christmas’s. His red ear was curiously round, like the top of a red toadstool.

As the equipage drove away into the thickly drifting snow, Griselda and Lena perceived that on the opposite pavement, previously obscured from them by the bulk of the carriage itself, had accumulated, even in the teeth of the weather, a small cluster of passing Londoners. Rage and contempt were in every face and posture. Griselda had seldom seen any gathering of people so much under the influence of their emotions.

XXXV

Griselda had told Lena about Louise and said that she had mentioned the family which dwelt in the house they had entered on the day of Kynaston’s final picnic. Now she told her about Zec and his wife, whom for a long time she had forgotten; and of Louise’s words ‘Hugo is a very secret man.’

‘You mean,’ said Lena, ‘that after Mr Tamburlane you’ve had enough of secret men?’

‘Not altogether that. I don’t think Hugo Raunds is like Mr Tamburlane, do you, Lena?’

‘Not altogether, I should say.’

‘I just thought that if we’re going to stay with him – are we, by the way?’

‘It’ll mean coffins for beds and tooth mugs in gold plate.’

‘If we are going to stay, perhaps we could find out just why people don’t seem to like him.’

‘I don’t know that that’s any great mystery,’ said Lena. ‘If you think what people are like. Still I agree we might dig about.’

But it was hard to know which piece of ground to turn first; so that by the time the invitation arrived, they had discovered nothing more about their host whatever.

They were invited to visit a house which seemed to be in the Welsh Marches; and no term was set to their stay. The brief letter ended with the words ‘Come and see for yourselves. Then please yourselves.’

‘Hell of a journey in February,’ remarked Lena, ‘and, I should say, doubtfully worth the expense seeing that we can’t both leave the shop for more than a day or two. Still, better than that mausoleum in Essex doubtless. I suppose I shall have to freeze in a skirt all the time as it’s a country family?’