Eva returned as usual late on Friday afternoon. In the vestibule between her room and the door to the stables is an oaken throne. In this I planted myself. Unfortunately I became lost in the chords in the chroma of old glass and didn’t notice E., riding crop in her hand, not even aware she was being ambushed. “S’agit-il d’un guet-apens? Si vous voulez discuter avec moi d’un problème personnel, vous pourriez me prévenir?”
Being caught by surprise like that made me speak my thought aloud. Eva caught the word. “Sneak, you call me? ‘Une moucharde’? Ce n’est pas un mot aimable, Mr. Frobisher. Si vous dites que je suis une moucharde, vous allez nuire à ma réputation. Et si vous nuisez à ma réputation, eh bien, il faudra que je ruine la vôtre!”
Belatedly, I opened fire. Yes, her reputation was precisely what I had to warn her about. If even a visiting foreigner to Bruges had seen her consorting in Minnewater Park during school hours with a scrofulous toad, it was only a matter of time before all the rumormongers in the city had turned the name of Crommelynck-Ayrs to Mudd!
One moment I expected a slap, the next, she reddened and lowered her face. Meekly, she inquired, “Avez-vous dit à ma mère ce que vous avez vu?” I replied that, no, I had not told anyone, yet. E. took careful aim: “Stupid of you, Monsieur Frobisher, because Mama could have told you that mysterious ‘consort’ was Monsieur van de Velde, the gentleman with whose family I lodge during my school week. His father owns the largest munitions factory in Belgium, and he is a respectable family man. Wednesday was a half holiday, so Monsieur van de Velde was kind enough to accompany me from his office back to his house. His own daughters had a choir rehearsal to attend. The school does not like its girls to walk out alone, even during daylight. Sneaks live in parks, you see, dirty-minded sneaks, waiting to damage a girl’s reputation, or perhaps prowling for opportunities to blackmail her.”
Bluff or backfire? I hedged my bets. “Blackmail? I have three sisters of my own, and I was concerned for your reputation! That is all.”
She relished her advantage. “Ah oui? Comme c’est délicat de votre part! Tell me, Mr. Frobisher, what exactly did you think Monsieur van de Velde was going to do to me? Were you frightfully jealous?”
Her awful directness—for a girl—quite knocked the bails off my wicket. “I am relieved that this simple misunderstanding has been cleared up”—I chose my most insincere smile—“and offer my sincerest apologies.”
“I accept your sincerest apologies in the precise same spirit they are offered.” E. walked off to the stables, her whip swishing the air like a lioness’s tail. Went off to the music room to forget my dismal performance in some devilish Liszt. Can normally rattle off an excellent La Prédication aux Oiseaux, but not last Friday. Thank God E.’s leaving for Switzerland tomorrow. If she ever found out about her mother’s nighttime visits—well, doesn’t bear thinking about. Why is it I never met a boy I couldn’t twist round my finger (not only my finger) but the women of Zedelghem seem to best me every time?
Sincerely,
R.F.
ZEDELGHEM
29th—VIII—1931
Sixsmith,
Sitting at my escritoire in my dressing gown. The church bell chimes five. Another thirsty dawn. My candle is burnt away. A tiring night turned inside out. J. came to my bed at midnight, and during our athletics, my door was barged. Farcical horror! Thank God J. had locked it on her way in. The doorknob rattled, insistent knocking began. Fear can clear the mind as well as cloud it, and remembering my Don Juan, I hid J. in a nest of coverlets and sheets in my sagging bed and left the curtain half open to show I had nothing to hide. I fumbled across the room, not believing this was happening to me, deliberately knocking into things to buy time, and reaching the door, called out, “What in hell is the matter? Are we on fire?”
“Open up, Robert!” Ayrs! You can imagine, I was ready to duck bullets. Desperate, I asked what time it was, just to win another moment.
“Who cares? I don’t know! I’ve got a melody, boy, for violin, it’s a gift, and it won’t let me sleep, so I need you to take it down, now!”
Could I trust him? “Can’t it wait until the morning?”
“No, it bloody can’t, Frobisher! I might lose it!”
Shouldn’t we go to the music room?
“It’ll wake up the house and, no, every note is in place, in my head!”
So I told him to wait while I lit a candle. Unlocked my door, and there stood Ayrs, a cane in each hand, mummified in his moonlit nightshirt. Hendrick stood behind him, silent and watchful as an Indian totem. “Make way, make way!” Ayrs pushed past me. “Find a pen, grab some blank score paper, turn on your lamp, quickly. Why the deuce do you lock your door if you sleep with the windows open? The Prussians are gone, the ghosts’ll just drift through the door.” Garbled some balderdash about not being able to fall asleep in an unlocked room, but he wasn’t listening. “Have you got manuscript paper in here or should I have Hendrick go and get some?”
Relief that V.A. hadn’t come to catch me tupping his wife made his imposition seem less preposterous than it actually was, so fine, I said, yes, I have paper, I have pens, let’s start. Ayrs’s sight was too poor to see anything suspicious in the foothills of my bed, but Hendrick still posed a possible danger. One should avoid relying on servants’ discretion. After Hendrick had helped his master to a chair and wrapped a rug round his shoulders, I told him I’d ring for him when we were done. Ayrs didn’t contradict me—he was already humming. A conspiratorial flicker in H.’s eyes? Room too dim to be sure. The servant gave a near-imperceptible bow and glided away as if on well-oiled coasters, softly shutting the door behind him.
Splashed a little water on my face at the washbowl and sat opposite Ayrs, worrying J. might forget the creaking floorboards and try to tiptoe out.
“Ready.”
Ayrs hummed his sonata, bar by bar, then named his notes. The oddity of the miniature soon absorbed me, despite the circumstances. It’s a seesawing, cyclical, crystalline thing. He finished after the ninety-sixth bar and told me to mark the MS triste. Then he asked me, “So what d’you think?”
“Not sure,” I told him. “It’s not at all like you. Not much like anyone. But it hypnotizes.”
Ayrs was now slumped, à la a Pre-Raphaelite oil painting entitled Behold the Sated Muse Discards Her Puppet. Birdsong foamed in the hour-before-dawn garden. Thought about J.’s curves in the bed, just a few yards away, even felt a dangerous throb of impatience for her. V.A. was unsure of himself for once. “I dreamt of a . . . nightmarish café, brilliantly lit, but underground, with no way out. I’d been dead a long, long time. The waitresses all had the same face. The food was soap, the only drink was cups of lather. The music in the café was”—he wagged an exhausted finger at the MS—“this.”
Rang for H. Wanted Ayrs out of my room before daylight found his wife in my bed. After a minute H. knocked. Ayrs got to his feet and limped over—he hates anyone seeing him assisted. “Good work, Frobisher.” His voice found me from down the corridor. I shut the door and breathed that big sigh of relief. Climbed back to bed, where my swampy-sheeted alligator sank her little teeth into her young prey.
We’d begun a luxuriant farewell kiss when, damn me, the door creaked opened again. “Something else, Frobisher!” Mother of All Profanities, I hadn’t locked the door! Ayrs drifted bedward like the wreck of the Hesperus. J. slid back under the sheets while I made disheveling, surprised noises. Thank God, Hendrick was waiting outside—accident or tact? V.A. found the end of my bed and sat there, just inches from the bump that was J. If J. sneezed or coughed now, even blind old Ayrs would catch on. “A tricky subject, so I’ll just spit it out. Jocasta. She isn’t a very faithful woman. Maritally, I mean. Friends hint at her indiscretions, enemies inform me of affairs. Has she ever . . . toward you . . . y’ know my meaning?”