CHAPTER III

TOCCATA AND FUGUE

And term was really over then!

Gaveston could hardly believe it. But yet--it must be: already the 3.43 from Oxford had slid through the pale December sunlight past Hinksey Halt, Goring-and-Streatley, and Slough (for Windsor). He had unfolded the still ink-perfumed pages of his _Daily Telegraph_ only to crumple the paper up in exasperation at the _bourgeois_ complacency of its intolerable _clichés_, and it lay forgotten in a corner of the first-class compartment. No, the frore Chiltern Hills and the willow-shadowed water-meadows had been fitter accompaniment for the rhythm of his musings, playing as they were upon two months dappled with such perplexing patterns of sun-warm happiness and frosty disillusionment.…

This had been but his first term. But nevertheless, with Mongo’s help, he had succeeded in getting himself elected to the Union Society without a single blackball; and after that the other clubs, smaller and less exclusive, had hastened to net in this remarkable freshman. Soon no host had felt his party, whether breakfast or cocoa, to be a real social _éclat_ unless one at least of his guests could enliven the discussion, whether it turned upon the beauties of Beowulf or the existence of a Deity, by the apt quotation of Gaveston ffoulis’s opinion on the point at moot. And Gaveston had soon won a name for himself, too, by the quiet and unostentatious entertaining he had done, receiving the nicer sort of undergraduate now in his Wallace _pied-à-terre_, now in the quaint but distinctive Cadena grill-room; and his meals were voted by the _cordons bleus_ of the University to be worthy of the best modern Luculli and Mæcenasses.

He had made good.

He lit a plump Turkish cigarette, and lay back to ponder both present and future.

Had this Oxford that he loved anything more to give him, he wondered? Who could tell? Maybe an answer would come from the Babylonian sphinx whose smoky breath he could now see besmirching the virgin sky. Who could tell? But, meanwhile, his thoughts could scarcely move beyond the long-looked for pleasure of once again seeing his mother. She would be waiting for him, he felt sure, at Paddington, and as the train rushed thitherwards he let his mind run ahead of it to feast on the exquisite prospect.…

Yes, Julia, Lady Penhaligon had played a more urgent and immediate rôle in her son’s life than is the privilege of most mothers. And she had her reward. He always chose her hats for her now.

The only daughter of Sir Piers ffoulis, one of the last of the English statesmen, she had been married when but twenty-nine to a famous explorer of the Arctic Seas. An altogether unexpected thawing of the Great Krioquhkho pack-ice, which soon after the wedding he went to survey, brought him back to England a year before his return was anticipated, and he found himself obliged to divorce poor Julia directly after, and indeed on account of, her son’s birth.

But she had drawn consolation from the boy’s eyes, which were already remarkable, and had determined that at all costs _he_ should be beautiful and happy.

“And you’ve succeeded, mother dear,” he would often tell her in a burst of grateful confidence.

Her love, she resolved, would be recompense enough for the cruelty of his fate. She would remain young, no matter what the expense (and it was great), to keep him company, and in the meantime she remarried. But, as the autumn came remorselessly round, she was once more divorced. (Gaveston could still remember her tears when she came up to the night-nursery to tell him how absurdly unreasonable the King’s Proctor had threatened to be that time.…) Then for quite a considerable period she lived in singleness, but, just before Gav was going to Eton, a Baronet had proposed to her. He was old. But, as the precocious boy pointed out, the title was older. And so Mrs. Fünck, as Mums then was, had accepted Sir Evan Penhaligon.

Of Gaveston the baronet was as fond as of the mother, perhaps fonder, and there had been long amazing holidays for the boy in his step-father’s house. It was one of the smallest houses in Mayfair, but, as Gav was fond of saying to his less fortunate friends, that was better than the largest in West Kensington. And he remembered----

* * * * *

But there! That was Ealing! And a moment later the train was slowing down as it curved into Paddington.

And yes! His happiness was complete! He found his mother furrily ensconced in the deep-seated mauve Rolls-Royce.

“I’ve come all, yes, all the way to meet you, Gav,” she whispered between her kisses. “And such a long way it’s been. Why ever don’t we live in--is it Bayswaters they call it? So near this, isn’t it?”

“As absurd as ever, mother, and younger I’m certain.” He thought he had never seen his mother radiant with so ethereal a beauty. “You pet,” he went on, taking her hand, “I never dreamed of your meeting me.”

“But what a lovely blue engine they gave your train, dearest,” and she slipped a cushion in Gaveston’s corner.

Gav nodded to the chauffeur.

“I’ll drive,” he said, and then quickly: “No, I won’t. Home, Curzon.”

And he got inside the luxurious _coupé_ beside Lady Penhaligon. For suddenly he had seen his mother’s sombre eyelids fluttering in that faint pathetic way they had. How helpless, how pitiful that look was! And how terribly familiar! It only appeared when her life had reached one of its great crises.

The car sped from the station.

“And now, dearest, you’ll be able to help me,” Gav heard his mother murmuring as she fumbled in the embossed leather pocket on the door of the car. He felt sure something had happened.

“Not again, Mums?” he asked with a gentle but worldly smile.

“Yes: respondent,” she smiled back. “But, seriously, do you think black is _really_ necessary?” and she handed him a folded copy of _The Times_.

“I must think it over, mother dear,” and he looked down the familiar column of the paper.

DIVORCE AND ADMIRALTY

Dawkins _v._ Dawkins and Smithers.

Jones _v._ Jones and another (Pt. Hd.).

Penhaligon _v._ Penhaligon, Rosenbaum, Litovski, du Val, Spirella, van Houten, Casablanca and Mahmoud Pasha.

“Next Tuesday, I think they said it was,” said Lady Julia Penhaligon, “and it’s going to mean a new step-dad for you, Gav. Do you prefer one nationality to another? They all have their attractions, you know. I love travelling, though I never went to the Arctic.”

Gaveston was never a Jingo, but unhesitatingly he answered, “English.”[5]

[5] The late Mr. Budd took an active interest in the League of Nations. (LIT. EXEC.)

“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed.

“Yes, Joey Rosenbaum’s certainly the dearest of dears, but so’s his wife really, and then that would mean another case, and how expensive things are getting.… I owe Reville thousands as it is.… Oh, Gav,” she coaxed, “would you mind _mon petit du Val_? He’s so nice at ordering a dinner--oh, you’d _love_ him.”

Curzon was opening the door.

“_Justement comme vous voulez, ma chérie_,” said Gav with courtly grace as, arm-in-arm, they went up the steps.

Home again!

* * * * *

The first week of Gaveston’s vacation disappeared in a long whirl of consultations with dressmakers, lawyers, furriers and beauty specialists, on his mother’s behalf, and, on his own, in visits to the photographer and tailor. (There was only one Hugh Cecil and Willy Clarkson, wasn’t there?) Indeed, he hardly found time to have his things packed up (they were leaving Half Moon Street, of course) or even to arrange the flowers of a morning. And then, once again, he found himself at that fateful Paddington, seeing his mother off to Bournemouth, after the successful pronouncement of the decree, her grey eyes shining with a new happiness. And suddenly he felt a terrible loneliness.

“But I shall only be away three or four weeks, Gav dear,” she had said. “And I’m always as happy as a bird with Cousin Adolpha----”

“As a mocking-bird?” Gav had queried laughingly to mask his bitter disappointment at missing for the first time his mother’s companionship at the festive season.

But he had promised to be a good boy, and to treat his dear Uncle Wilkinson with tact.

“You’ve such a lot,” she said wistfully, “and anyway it will be nice for you living in the[6] Albany this cold weather. It _was_ sweet of him to ask you to stay with him for your holidays.”

[6] _Sic_ throughout. A more experienced novelist would doubtless have omitted the “the.” (LIT. EXEC.)

And then the train had pulled out in its ruthless way, almost before he had time to find his way to the door of the reserved Pullman saloon-car, heavy with the scent of the winter-roses he had ordered to be sent from Selfridge’s that morning. How poignant was their sweetness amid the smoke and bustle and jangle of the mammoth terminus!

Gaveston drove the Panhard (it was his favourite) back to Half Moon Street. Already the posters of the evening papers were sprawling in the muddy gutters and flapping in the rain-soaked wind----

PENHALIGON CASE: RESULT.

How sad it all really was, he reflected, beneath the glittering surface, and how nerve-racking those months between the _nisi_ and the absolute. Poor Mums.… Was it rain on the wind-screen that dimmed his view of the lighted street as the great Panhard purred down the Edgware Road, or.… He brushed his eyes, and opened the throttle wider.…

He picked up his suit-cases at the house, and drove round without delay to the Albany Yard.

“Sir Wilkinson ffoulis?” he asked the porter.

“C, sir,” came the answer, “on your right, if you please.”

And C, The Albany, was to be Gav’s address for the rest of this vacation.

Gaveston took care only to meet people of whose peculiarness and uniquity he could be proud, and so he always felt a properly nepotal affection for Sir Wilkinson ffoulis, K.V.O. A diplomat, now retired, he had been _en poste_ at Reijkavik, Quito, Adis Ababa, and Cayenne. “And after that,” the veteran would say, casting up his eyes to the Angelica Kauffmann ceiling of the St. James’s Club, “I was fifteen months _en disponibilité_, pressin’ my claims to a chargéship in Pesth or Janeiro. They offered me Albania. I preferred the Albany.”

Wilkinson had his share of the dry ffoulis wit.

“Milord receives,” said Hekla, the Icelandic valet. He showed Gaveston into a room decorated exclusively with signed photographs of the various royalties whom Sir Wilkinson had been able to serve in those directions for which he had an all but unique talent, and which formed a very frequent subject for his reflection and reminiscence.

“Glad you’ve come, m’ boy,” he said heartily. “I think you’ll be comfortable here while your mother’s away, and, gad! you’ll brighten up the old place for me. I feel so _diablement disoccupato_, y’ know,” he went on meditatively, “but I’ll enjoy helpin’ you to find your feet in town. Don’t suppose you’ve seen much of the green-rooms yet, eh?”

Gaveston made a deprecating gesture.

“But look here: there’s a little Spanish gal singin’ at the Col. just now … remember once the King of the Belgians, the old ’un … the Ludwigstrasse tried to get hold of her then … ended as a Principessa … but old Leopold sent me that photograph all the same.” And the old fellow chuckled.

Gaveston knew all his uncle’s stories, and only listened at intervals: they were more interesting like that.

“Thanks immensely, Uncle Wilkie,” he replied. “Awfully thoughtful of you. But I want to think things over first.”

“Young devil…! Want to drive your own wagon, eh?”

“Shan’t hitch it to a Star, though,” flashed Gaveston.

“He! he! Good lad! Gad! you’re a ffoulis all right. _Quel garçon!_” and with a laugh that he had learned from the accounts of those who had known the Marquess of Steyne, the old rake donned his beaver-hat and started on his quotidian round of the more exclusive clubs.

But as he went out of the door he threw Gaveston a latch-key.

“Catch, m’ boy!” he called to him.