In the evening we had a quiet dinner at Maxims, in the smaller room where Aunt Augusta thought to escape the tourists. There was one, however, whom we could not escape; she wore a suit and a tie, and she had a voice like a mans. She not only dominated her companion, a little mousy blond woman of uncertain age, she dominated the whole room. Like so many English abroad she seemed to ignore the presence of foreigners around her and spoke in a loud voice as though she were alone with her companion. Her voice had a peculiar ventriloquial quality, and when I first became aware of it I thought it came from the mouth of an old gentleman with a rosette of the Legion of Honour[116] in his buttonhole who sat at the table opposite ours, and who had obviously been taught to chew every morsel of his meat thirty-two times. Four-legged animals, my dear, always remind me of tables. So much more solid and sensible than two legs. One could sleep standing up. Everyone who could understand English turned to look at him. His mouth closed with a startled snap when he saw himself the centre of attention. One could even serve dinner on a man with a broad enough back, the voice said, and the mousy woman giggled and said, Oh, Edith, and so identified the speaker. I am sure the woman had no idea of what she was doing she was an unconscious ventriloquist, and surrounded as she believed by ignorant foreigners and perhaps excited a little by unaccustomed wine, she really let herself go.
It was a deep, cultured, professorial voice. I could imagine it lecturing on English literature at one of the older universities, and for the first time my attention strayed from Aunt Augusta. Darwin the other Darwin[117] wrote a poem on the Loves of the Plants. I can well imagine a poem on the Loves of the Tables. Cramping it might be, but how deliciously so, when you think of a nest of tables, each fitting so blissfully, my dear, into one another.
Why is everyone staring at you? Aunt Augusta asked. It was an embarrassing moment, all the more so as the woman had suddenly stopped speaking and had plunged into her carré dagneau[118]. The trouble is that I have an unconscious habit of moving my lips when I am thinking, so that to all except my immediate neighbours I seemed to be the author of her ambiguous remark.
I have no idea, Aunt Augusta, I said.
You must have been doing something very odd, Henry.
I was only thinking.
How I wish I could conquer the habit. It must have been established first when I was a cashier and silently counted bundles of notes. The habit betrayed me very badly once with a woman called Mrs. Blennerhasset, who was stone deaf and a lip-reader. She was a very beautiful woman who was married to the mayor of Southwood. She came to my private office once about some question of investments, and while I turned over her file my thoughts couldnt help dwelling a little wistfully on her loveliness. One is more free in thought than in speech and when I looked up I saw that she was blushing. She finished her business very quickly and left. Later, to my surprise, she dropped in to see me again. She made some small alteration to the decision we had reached about her War Loan and then said, Did you really mean what you told me? I thought she was referring to my advice about National Savings Certificates.
Of course, I said. That is my honest opinion.
Thank you, she said. You mustnt think I am at all offended. No woman could be when you put it so poetically, but, Mr. Pulling, I must tell you that I truly love my husband. The awful thing, of course, was that she couldnt in her deafness distinguish between the lip movements made by spoken words and the movements which expressed my unspoken thoughts. She was always kind to me after that day, but she never came to my private office again.
That night at the Gare de Lyon I saw my aunt into her couchette and ordered her petit déjeuner from the conductor for eight a.m. Then I waited on the platform for the train from London to come in from the Gare du Nord. It was five minutes late, but the Orient Express had to wait for it.
As the train moved slowly in, drowning the platform with steam, I saw Wordsworth come striding through the smoke. He recognized me at the same moment and cried, Hi, fellah. He must have learnt the Americanism during the war when the convoys for the Middle East gathered in Freetown Harbour. I went reluctantly towards him. What are you doing here? I asked. I have always disliked the unexpected, whether an event or an encounter, but I was growing accustomed to it in my aunts company.
Mr. Pullen, Mr. Pullen, Wordsworth said, you an honest man, Mr. Pullen. He reached my side and grasped my hand. Ar allays was your friend, Mr. Pullen. He spoke as if he had known me for years and I had been a long time in his debt. You no humbug me, Mr. Pullen? He gazed wildly up and down the train. Wheres that gel?
My aunt, I said, if thats whom you mean, is fast asleep by now in her couchette.