At the foot of the stairs was a large, low-ceilinged room filled with shiny black-topped tables and red wicker armchairs. The bar, built in the shape of an L, took up most of two sides of this saloon, of which the pillars and marbled wall decoration again recalled Mr. Deacon’s name by their resemblance to the background characteristic of his pictures: Pupils of Socrates, for example, or By the Will of Diocletian. No doubt this bar had been designed by someone who had also brooded long and fruitlessly on classical themes, determined to express in whatever medium available some boyhood memory of Quo Vadis? or The Last Days of Pompeii. The place was deserted except for the barman, and a person in a mackintosh who sat dejectedly before an empty pint tankard in the far corner of the room. In these oppressively Late Roman surroundings, after climbing on to a high stool at the counter, I ordered food.
I had nearly finished eating, when I became obscurely aware that the man in the corner had risen and was making preparations to leave. He walked across the room, but instead of mounting the stairs leading to the street, he came towards the bar where I was sitting. I heard him pause behind me. I thought that, unable at the last moment to tear himself away from the place, he was going to buy himself another drink. Instead, I suddenly felt his hand upon my shoulder.
‘Didn’t recognise you at first. I was just on my way out. Come and have one with me in the corner after you’ve finished your tuck-in.’
It was Jeavons. As a rule he retained even in his civilian clothes a faded military air, comparable with — though quite different from — that of Uncle Giles: both of them in strong contrast with the obsolete splendours of General Conyers. A safety pin used to couple together the points of Jeavons’s soft collar under the knot of what might be presumed to be the stripes of a regimental tie. That night, however, in a somewhat Tyrolese hat with the brim turned down all the way round, wearing a woollen scarf and a belted mackintosh, the ensemble gave him for some reason the appearance of a plain-clothes man. His face was paler than usual. Although perfectly steady on his feet, and speaking in his usual slow, deliberate drawl, I had the impression he had been drinking fairly heavily. We ordered some more beer, and carried it across the room to where he had been sitting.
‘This your local?’ he asked.
‘Never been here before in my life. I dropped in quite by chance.’
‘Same here.’
‘It’s a long way from your beat.’
‘I’ve been doing a pub crawl,’ he said. ‘Feel I have to have one — once in a way. Does you good.’
There could be no doubt, after that, that Jeavons was practising one of those interludes of dissipation to which Lovell had referred, during which he purged himself, as it were, of too much domesticity.
‘Think there is going to be a war?’ he asked, very unexpectedly.
‘Not specially. I suppose there might be — in a year or two.’
‘What do you think we ought to do about it?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘Shall I tell you?’
‘Please do.’
‘Declare war on Germany right away,’ said Jeavons. ‘Knock this blighter Hitler out before he gives further trouble.’
‘Can we very well do that?’
‘Why not?’
‘No government would dream of taking it on. The country wouldn’t stand for it.’
‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ said Jeavons.
‘Well?’
‘Well, we’ll just have to wait,’ said Jeavons.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Wait and see,’ said Jeavons. ‘That was what Mr. Asquith used to say. Didn’t do us much good in 1914. I expect you were too young to have been in the last show?’
I thought that enquiry rather unnecessary, not by then aware that, as one grows older, the physical appearance of those younger than oneself offers only a vague indication of their precise age. To me, ‘the Armistice’ was a distant memory of my preparatory schooclass="underline" to Jeavons, the order to ‘cease fire’ had happened only the other day. The possibility that I might have been ‘in the war’ seemed perfectly conceivable to him.
‘Some of it wasn’t so bad,’ he said.
‘No?’
‘Most of it perfect hell, of course. Absolute bloody hell on earth. Bloody awful. Gives me the willies even to think of it sometimes.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Joined up at Thirsk. Started off in the Green Howards. Got a commission after a bit in one of the newly-formed battalions of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. I’d exchanged from the Duke’s into the Machine-Gun Corps when I caught it in the tummy at Le Bassée.’
‘Pretty unpleasant?’
‘Not too good. Couldn’t digest anything for ages. Can’t always now, to tell the truth. Some of those dinners Molly gives. Still, digestion is a funny thing. I once knew a chap who took a bet he could eat a cut-off-the-joint-and-two-veg at a dozen different pubs between twelve o’clock and three on the same day.’
‘Did he win his bet?’
‘The first time,’ said Jeavons, screwing up his face painfully at the thought of his friend’s ordeal, ‘someone else at the table lit a cigarette, and he was sick — I think he had got to about eight or nine by then. We all agreed he ought to have another chance. A day or two later he brought it off. Funny what people can do.’
Conversation could be carried no further because at this point ‘closing time’ was announced. Jeavons, rather to my surprise, made no effort to prolong our stay until the last possible moment. On the contrary, the barman had scarcely announced ‘Time, gendemen, please,’ when Jeavons made for the stairs. I followed him. He seemed to have a course for himself clearly mapped out. When we reached the street, he turned once more to me.
‘Going home?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Wouldn’t like to prolong this night of giddy pleasure with me for a bit?’
‘If you have any ideas.’
‘There is a place I thought of visiting tonight. A club of some sort — or a ‘bottie party’ as they seem to call it these days — that has just opened. Care to come?’
‘All right.’
‘A fellow came to see Molly some weeks ago, and gave us a card to get in any time we wanted. You know, you buy a bottle and all that. Makes you a member. Chap used to know Molly years ago. Gone the pace a bit. Now he is rather hard up and managing this hide-out.’
‘I see.’
‘Ever heard of Dicky Umfraville?’
‘Yes. In fact I met him once years ago.’
‘That’s all right then. Umfraville is running the place. Molly would never dream of going near it, of course. Thought I might go and have a look-see myself.’
‘Is Dicky Umfraville still married to Anne Stepney?’
‘Don’t think he is married to anyone at the moment,’ said Jeavons. ‘That would make his third or fourth, wouldn’t it?’
‘His fourth. She was quite young.’
‘Come to think of it, Molly did say he’d had another divorce fairly recently,’ said Jeavons. ‘Anyway, he is more than usually on the rocks at the moment. He used to stay at Dogdene when Molly’s first husband was alive. Gilded youth in those days. Not much left now. First-class rider, of course, Umfraville. Second in the National one year.’