Boys and Girls Come Out to Play (33 page)

But the engineer lost no time in making this sense of pity seem ridiculous. His hands in his pockets, he planted himself square in front of the young man and asked him with a rather amused smile: “How old are you, James?”

“Eighteen, Mr. Streeter.”

Both Divver and Harriet now turned to look at Morgan, and smiled at him gently, as though they had never seen him before but trusted in his being a good-hearted boy—one so innocent of the world that neither would dream of disillusioning him.

“Eighteen? Now, let me see. What was I up to when I was eighteen?”

His wife smiled again, suggesting how absurd but charming it was to think of her husband having been an adolescent. All three of them now smiled again at Morgan, affectionately and nostalgically.

“Eighteen.” The engineer crossed to a cabinet and opened the glass door. “Do you like snapshots, James?” he asked, pulling out an old-fashioned black album.

Morgan loathed other people’s photographs. “Why, yes I do, Mr. Streeter,” he said.

“I’m not sure they start at eighteen,” said the engineer, looking worried, “but no matter, there are plenty of them. Soon after, I went to engineering college—happiest days of a man’s life, college days.”

“Indeed, they should be,” said Divver.

“Indeed, they
are
,” said the engineer; “and anyone who doesn’t think so has never had to face up to the shocks of maturity. Now, sit down here,” he told Morgan, pointing to a corner of the couch, “and I think you’ll have time to skim through before we eat.”

He gave Morgan a fatherly pat and went back to the two adults. “I guess you and I are not likely to agree politically,
Mr. Divver,” he said, “but at least we may see eye to eye on the seriousness of today’s news.” “Terrible, terrible,” said Divver.

Morgan sat alone in his corner, a small boy dismissed to play, with the engineer’s youth open on his knees.

He saw a land of fading sepia, peopled with sturdy white men in khaki shorts and open shirts, and hot Kaffirs simpering on their fingers, half-naked. The bare ground was spotted with tents, thatched round huts and tin bungalows; in the background were mountains of slag, and an occasional big wheel perched in the gallows over a pit-head. Off the dulled old surfaces of the prints came thinly the dry heat of South Africa and the sting of blown ore-dust.

“No man who has not been in a mine and not known miners knows what the world is all about,” the engineer was telling Divver. “I trust you are not one of those well-meaning humanitarians who are such an obstruction to real scientific progress?”

“I think I can say frankly,” Divver replied, “that our magazine is pretty good about keeping out earnest crackpots and dreamers.”

“I am very glad to hear it. I don’t think I have ever had the pleasure of reading your good magazine, but I should be very happy to do so.”

“Larry does so love writing and people that really face up to hard facts,” said Harriet, with a rather timid laugh.

“You’re still a young man, Mr. Divver,” said the engineer very firmly, “and the lesson of hard facts is best learnt young.”

Having made Divver feel like a small boy too, the engineer came over to the back of the couch. Over Morgan’s shoulder he turned a page of the album, and pointed his cigarette at a row of stern colonials, some with massive moustaches. “I was a Rough Rider in the days of my youth,” he said.

Morgan laughed politely.

“Do you think I am joking? Nothing of the sort. Rough
Riders is what a group of us called ourselves in those days. Come over here, Divver…. You would have been interested to know the Americans who were with Cecil Rhodes, and who survived him. We built Johannesburg: people don’t seem to create cities any more. We got around, too. We were vigorous, and ready to take risks. We never stayed long in one place; I knew men who couldn’t work on one mine longer than a year. Some of my friends made fortunes. We used to pair off and buy-out some farmer and work the ground with the very same dolly stamps we’re using on the Mell mines now. We kept greyhounds too; you should have seen them run. We used to ride horseback forty miles, and back, just to see something at the theatre. I consider that a long way to go for culture; a hard, instructive way.”

He turned the pages as he spoke, and the miner of his youth passed in review, sometimes in a group, sometimes alone, legs wide apart, slim and well-built, always smiling: Streeter at the opening of a bell-tent, Streeter talking with friends, Streeter on a porch, on horseback, on trek in a Scotchcart with six oxen, in an orchard of apricots. Under each of these photographs was a comment in Chinese-white ink. Some of the comments were ordinary: “Self and Manager at the Old Celebration Concession (10-11-03)”; others were full of the jocularity with which a young man both adorns and hides his egotism. “Shakespeare on the Mine!” was written under a group of young miners, miming horribly, grimacing and falling on their knees: “Hammondstein, Jacksonberg and Streeterwitz” was under a trio whose noses had been extended by shadow. It seemed that in later years the engineer had felt uncomfortable, and had tried to erase some of this vulgarity. But the ink of the original inscriptions was the indelible fluid of a young man’s conviction that his most ordinary acts must be permanently recorded: erasing the record when the ink had grown stiff and its words shameful, had meant rubbing away
as well most of the paper on which it was written; and where a new caption had been inked in (the mere tart date of self-confident maturity) it had seeped away on all sides like swamp water, or softened the paper into a hole through which one might see a caption of the previous page. The engineer had neatly trimmed these holes with his wife’s manicure scissors.

“Not boring you, I hope?” he said.

“Oh, no,” said Morgan, feeling the weight of two bodies on his neck, and wondering if the bones would crack.

The engineer at once brought out a second volume.

Snow was falling; the engineer was clean-shaven and heavier. The captions were uncorrected. With Morgan bent in half and crushed, the trio marched through Norway and Sweden, Italy and the Riviera, Jugoslavia (“Austria in those days, of course,” said the engineer), Greece, Spain, and Finland.

“There’s the first asbestos mill with modern driers,” said the engineer, pointing.

“I’ve always regretted not keeping a camera,” said Divver.

“It’s
interesting
,” said the engineer.

In every foreground stood the same figure, always a little stouter, a little whiter, more manly, more distinguished. Here, was Streeter, out-smiled at last, beside Herbert Hoover in Belgium (“Rehabilitation Commission, ’19”); there, in a fur coat, he was exchanging jokes with Colonel Cooper (“Dnieperpetrovsk, ’26”), and chatting with fezzed dignitaries (“Assuan, ’30”). 1935 was the last date. “I’ve got at least a hundred more to go in,” said Streeter. “You care to do it for me, James?”

“Oh, thank you,” said Morgan.

The door opened and Simon came in, pushing a wheeled vehicle piled with snow-white linen and silver. He was followed by a larger vehicle, divided in tiers, with bottles, tureens and hot dishes, pushed by two very young waiters with moustaches as fine as knife blades.

“Aha! Vittles!” said the engineer.

Simon gave him an old man’s humble smile, and then turned on the two assistants, muttering short orders under his breath, correcting them with pettish taps on the wrist. When the big table by the window was perfectly laid, the crested napkins shaped into admirals’ hats, the two young waiters stepped back and stood side by side at attention.

“Let’s have the windows open, Larry,” said Harriet.

Each waiter reverently drew back a half of the great curtain, and Simon pushed open the French windows.

The sounds and silence of a summer evening entered the room; over the white linen on the table Morgan could see the first stars pressing through the twilight and the yellow lights of private windows. Up from the square came the imaginary rustle of hurrying, passing feet, and one or two real voices, clear, but distant and subdued. Simon murmured something deferentially to Harriet, who started.

“Oh, Larry; tonight’s the evacuation practice.”

Simon nodded.

“I had forgotten,” said the engineer.

He stood silent for an instant, and his ruddy face took on a deep, sullen expression; his thoughts appeared to have dropped into some private area of intense hostility. His wife looked at him nervously and said in a hopeful voice, “It’s not until nine o’clock, Larry. I suppose because it’s not dark enough before.”

She reluctantly took her eyes away from her husband, and told Divver and Morgan, “Will you sit here … and you here,” speaking to them as if they were inanimate objects whose arranging was just part of an old habit.

The two waiters gently pushed Morgan and Divver up in their chairs; Simon managed Harriet, and arranged the engineer at the head of the table in a tall, carved, armed chair. Streeter suddenly began to speak, in an angry, hoarse tone.

“This town has a kind of mayor, or whatever they choose to call him, of whom any decent town would be ashamed. If
anything goes wrong, if there is any danger right here, he plans to evacuate the whole population.”

Morgan felt a sharp jump of fear. Danger
here
? Where
I
am? How possible? He stared wonderingly through the window, into the twilight.

“He seems to think it would be a good idea if I, a citizen of a neutral country, were to lend a hand by appearing at one of his evacuation rehearsals.”

“Larry sent him a stiff letter,” said Harriet, breaking into a relieved laugh.

“I did indeed,” said the engineer grimly.

“It doesn’t sound like a promising beginning,” said Divver,

“What doesn’t?” asked the engineer.

“I mean, just evacuating the town.”

The engineer pondered this remark for a moment, and then, as though it had somehow given him back his confidence, asked brusquely. “What’s so wrong with that, Mr. Divver, may I ask?”

Morgan expected Divver to retort with equal sharpness, but Divver only looked embarrassed and said nothing.

“It’s obviously the sensible thing to do, isn’t it? What else —in a town this size?”

Divver gave a half-nod, and bent over his soup. He is definitely not the man I so admired eating his soup in my mother’s house, Morgan thought.

“No,” said the engineer, assured as ever once more. “It’s not the evacuation; it’s the man’s impudence in pestering me.” He looked up at Simon and said impatiently. “That’s quite enough. Off you go with your men. We can manage.”

The old man bowed and drove the assistants in front of him through the door.

“He thinks I’m the Shah of Persia,” said the engineer.

“You are just a little formidable you know, dear,” said his wife, laughing louder this time. Divver laughed too. The
engineer feigned modesty, but managed a tight, proud little smile.

At that moment, Morgan looked sharply at Harriet, and his eyes became fixed on her, examining her in a desperate way. She was still smiling happily, but when she slowly turned her head and struck his fixed stare, she frowned, flushed and looked away angrily. He was now more certain than ever that they had become strangers; what made this worse was his feeling that she and Divver and the engineer had reached an understanding, and that all at once he was alone and friendless.

“One of those old relics from someone’s baronial hall,” said the engineer. “He gives me the willies. Though one is instinctively sorry for a man whose day is over and done with.”

“Mr. Divver,” said Harriet, turning herself entirely away from Morgan, “I know this is very rude, so please forgive me, but I am dying to know what happened to your poor eye.”

Divver looked pleased, and gave a very modest account. “It’s nothing to the way it looked a few days ago,” he said. The engineer finished his soup and listened attentively.

“So this is our last day at the Hotel Poland,” concluded Divver gaily. “My friend James had a little unpleasantness too.” He winked suggestively at the engineer.

Morgan gave a fearful shiver. But the engineer only said “Hm … hm …,” reached out his arm suddenly and pulled a speaking tube from a silver wall-clip. “A message for Mr. Sallegrave, if you please,” he said into the tube. “Kindly ask him to telephone Mr. Streeter as soon as possible.

“I don’t know what’s getting into people in this province,” he said, replacing the tube, “but
this
little item is one I can remedy, if I am not mistaken.”

“Will you carve, Larry dear?” said his wife.

He went over to the wheeled table and took the top off a handsome roast of beef, frilled with a circle of roast potatoes
and sprigs of parsley. “A dish for the gods,” he said, and began to sharpen the long carving knife, flashing it above and below the steel like a skilled butcher.

The telephone rang. With a gesture of the shining knife and steel, the engineer waved his wife back into her chair and went on with his sharpening. After he had delicately tested the blade with his thumb from haft to tip, he laid it down and walked slowly to the ’phone.

“Ah, Mr. Sallegrave … And how are you? … I am very glad to hear it … Thank you, I too, Mr. Sallegrave, but there is a small matter I would like to take up with you … Thank you, I am glad to hear it … Now, sir, my concern is regarding two very personal friends of mine, old friends, you understand. One is named Mr. Max Divver; the other—what did you say your name was, young fellow?—yes, the other is Mr. James Morgan. Now, Mr. Sallegrave, I understand that these two friends of mine have caused you some worry…”

The manager’s voice broke into a long cackle, to which the engineer listened patiently, holding the receiver slightly away from his ear and letting his eyes rove placidly from his wife to Divver, to Morgan, who all were listening with excitement. After a half-minute the manager’s voice began to ebb, and the engineer took over again in a smooth, firm tone.

“Quite so, Mr. Sallegrave, my sympathies are wholly with you. I think my friends have acted with gross irresponsibility and childishness”—at which point, to show that he meant exactly what he said, he looked at Morgan and Divver with the utmost sternness. “In your position, Mr. Sallegrave, I should have acted in precisely the same way: no hotel can be allowed to collapse through inadequate control, and I well know the pride you take in your admirable management.
Nonetheless,
Mr. Sallegrave,
as
a
personal
favour
to
myself
I wish to ask you to be so good as to permit my friends to stay. I myself shall be responsible for their good behaviour hereafter”
—and he again looked sternly at the culprits. “What is that? … Certainly … A letter of apology to—one moment—yes, to Baron von Turn und Mannefarbe … you shall have it, Mr. Sallegrave; Mr. Divver will write it this very evening and it shall be delivered to you to hand to the baron … I am most grateful to you, Mr. Sallegrave; and I can assure you that my friends appreciate your magnanimity … Thank you, sir … and a very good night to you too.”