Роберт Эйкман: The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

With the first symptoms of daylight, the tension in the room melted into appeasement. Griselda subsided into deep quiet sleep, the little noises ebbed, a measure of warmth returned.

Griselda slept steadily for the time which remained. At the last moment before waking, she seemed to have a dream of a different order. The earlier dreams she never remembered; this one she never forgot. She dreamed of a strange perfect love; a great good, unknown to the waking world; an impossibly beautiful happiness. The rapture of her dream was something new to her. It stayed with her while she rose to wash and dress; and longer.

V

A housemaid brought her tea and two rusks on a tray.

‘Pity it’s raining. It’ll spoil tonight.’

Filled with her dream, Griselda felt happily combative.

‘I don’t see why it should.’

‘All the lovely dresses’ll get sopping wet. And lots won’t come at all if it’s raining.’

‘Perhaps it’ll stop. Rain before seven. Fine before eleven.’

The housemaid laughed. ‘Not round ’ere.’ Then, looking at Griselda accusingly, she said, ‘Will I run a bath for you?’

‘No, thank you. I’ll manage it myself if I want it.’

‘The shower’s tricky.’

‘I’ll risk it.’

‘Just as you say.’ She went.

Without resorting to the shower, for she hated getting her head wet, Griselda washed carefully all over. She felt that there was no knowing where the day’s events might take her. To meet the changed weather, she put on her coat and skirt, and a woollen jumper.

Mrs Hatch was already seated at the head of the breakfast table, dressed precisely as on the day before; but there was no sign of any of her other guests. Monk and Stainer were both in attendance. Before Mrs Hatch was an enormous congregation of eggs, all so green that they looked as if disease had struck them.

‘Good girl,’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘Up in proper time and prepared for the weather, I see. You sit next to me. Pamela can sit the other side of me when she chooses to appear. Have some eggs? At Beams we have duck eggs every morning for breakfast. It’s one of our traditions. Take as many as you like. And have some cocoa. We don’t rot our guests with tannin or caffeine until later in the day.’

‘Thank you,’ said Griselda. ‘I’m hungry. May I take two?’

‘For breakfast at Beams no one ever takes fewer than four. Except Mr Leech, perhaps. I’m sure you don’t want to follow after him. Take another two.’

Monk raised a huge bowl-like cup containing about half-a-pint of cocoa and conveyed it to Griselda.

‘I think I’ll eat these two first, if I may.’

‘Afraid for your liver?’ enquired Mrs Hatch. ‘You needn’t be, you know, if you make sure of enough exercise. That reminds me, I plan to take Austin for one of our walks tomorrow. It’ll set him up and blow away all the fug from the dance as well. As you’re a walker too, I’m sure you’d like to join us.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Griselda, battering her second egg. ‘If I’m not too tired after dancing.’

Mrs Hatch glanced at her, but at that moment one of the windows was raised from the outside, and Mr Leech entered over the sill. He looked very tired and dingy.

‘Good morning. I trust I’m not late. I’ve been trying out my old limbs on the trapeze in the garden.’

‘Fine exercise for men,’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘Useless for women, unfortunately. Help yourself to eggs.’

With a hand which trembled slightly, Mr Leech took a single egg.

Monk, who had departed for the toast, now returned bearing also an armful of mail. He proceeded to sort it and to distribute it among the various places. Most of it seemed to be for Edwin: a vast heap of letters in flimsy envelopes with foreign stamps, and large official packets. The correspondence for the Ellensteins seemed mostly to bear penny and halfpenny stamps. George Goss received a single letter: in a very thick violet envelope, bigger and more massive than usual, and threaded down one side with a fragment of carmine ribbon. The handwriting of the superscription, Griselda could not but observe, was proportionate in size to the envelope. Mrs Hatch received a few nondescript items, all of which she opened voraciously with the bread-knife before reading any. Griselda, to her surprise, received a letter from the girl she had known since childhood, and who liked to write to someone sojourning at so distinguished an address as Beams. She had nothing to say and Griselda felt faintly bored by the obligation to reply. Pamela received nothing. Probably, Griselda felt, Pamela never replied to letters, so that people gave up writing. More surprisingly, Mr Leech seemed to receive nothing either.

‘Mullet is taking Mr Barnes’s letters up to his room,’ remarked Monk.

Mrs Hatch said nothing.

Soon Edwin appeared full of apologies and newspapers. At least six of the latter were under his arm in various stages of mutilation and decomposition.

‘I do hope you will also forgive my taking the liberty of cutting up all your morning papers. I shall, of course, replace the copies later, but Miss Van Bush, my secretary, will be calling immediately after breakfast, and it is best if I can pass the really relevant items on to her right away.’ He flourished a little packet with a large red seal. ‘Clippings. The result of my labours before breakfast. Ah, how really wonderful to see a Beams breakfast again. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else.’ Edwin wore a brand-new light grey suit, a dark grey silk shirt, and Old Etonian tie, and an orchid. He began to wade through the expected clutch of eggs.

George Goss entered in his hairy green tweeds.

‘Good morning, Melanie. Gottfried and Odile ask me to tell you they won’t be down until later.’

He put his letter to one side unopened, and began to smash away at a bevy of eggs. Immediately he had entered, Monk, Griselda noticed, had slipped away.

‘George,’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘Would you please put that billet-doux in your pocket or somewhere? No one cares for a good scent more than I do, but that isn’t a good scent. It makes the whole room stink.’

‘The poor little thing hasn’t the cash for the sort of stuff you’d go in for,’ remarked George. Inserting a thick finger, he rather clumsily ripped open the envelope.

Monk returned with a bottle of brandy, about two-thirds full, which he passed on to Mrs Hatch. Taking a syphon from the sideboard, he placed it on the table next to George. This seemed the usual method, Griselda observed: Mrs Hatch normally maintained control of the bottle.

‘Why do you keep her so short?’

‘My dear Melanie, now that I’ve got on in the world, so to speak, I don’t have to keep anyone. There’s always a long line eager to take care of me.’

He began to read the letter, looking, Griselda thought, like a monstrous sheep which had been dyed green.

Edwin was working methodically through his heap, opening the letters neatly with an ivory and gold paper-knife which had been given him by the King of Roumania, and making three piles, one of matter to be handed over to Miss Van Bush, one of items to be answered in his own holograph, and one of empty envelopes.

A number of the packets containing whole newspapers, often with marked passages. Glancing at one of these, Edwin suddenly rose, and saying to Mrs Hatch ‘Excuse me. Something rather unexpected,’ bore it round the table to Mr Leech, pointed out the significant passage, and said something quietly in Mr Leech’s left ear. The Prime Minister, who had apparently sunk into a light coma (he had not even finished his egg), stirred very slightly and began to read. After some time had passed with Mr Leech staring unwinkingly at the paper, Edwin spoke again in his ear.