But he was not intending to make a home in England, he reflected a few moments later, as he sat in the corner of the cab.
In his hotel bedroom that night he felt a slow and rather comfortable disappointment soaking into him. Subconsciously he knew he had been expectant over this meeting with Philippa; now he realised, not without relief, that all such expectancy had vanished. It wasn’t only she who had failed him, but he who had failed himself. He didn’t want to know anybody in that eager, confidential way; he had no energy for it; he would rather chat with a stranger in a train whom he would never sec again. It had been a mistake to go to Surbiton; perhaps it had been a mistake even to come to England.
The next morning, after he had talked to the girl in Romano’s Bar- about some theatres he was intending to visit, she said: “You seem to go about a lot by yourself. Haven’t you any friends?”
“Not in London,” he replied. “A few people the other side of the world—mostly Chinamen. That’s all.” He liked to see her eyebrows arch in astonishment.
“I say! Fancy being friends with Chinamen! But you must know somebody in London, if you used to live here?”
“A few business acquaintances, but I don’t count them. Oh, and two people in Surbiton. I went to see them last night, but I don’t suppose I shall go again.”
“Why not? Weren’t they nice to you?”
“Oh yes. Rather nicer, perhaps, than I was to them.”
“Then why—”
He laughed. “Never mind. I hardly know myself. But you can fill me up another glass of sherry and have one with me.”
“Righto, and thanks, though mine’s a gin, if you don’t mind…Well, here’s luck to you, anyway.”
Once he toyed with the idea of asking her out to some theatre or music- hall, but he decided, on reflection and without any sort of snobbishness, that the perfection of their relationship depended on the counter between.
He staved in London over a week, and on the whole he enjoyed himself. He dined at his publisher’s town house and met there a man on the staff of The Times who promptly commissioned from him a series of articles on the future of the rubber industry. It gratified and perhaps slightly surprised him to realise that his book had become, in its own field, something of a classic.
He also vent to theatres, cinemas, exhibitions; he walked in the parks; he listened to the open-air speakers near the Marble Arch; he lunched and dined in any hotel or restaurant that chanced to catch his eye; he sat in the Embankment gardens and pencilled drafts of his Times articles; he had casual and agreeable chats with policemen and bus-conductors. Philippa wrote to him, inviting him to Surbiton for any week-end he liked and he wrote back thanking her, but fearing that his arrangements would so soon be taking him temporarily out of London that he could not settle anything just yet. He enclosed, however, five guineas for her slum children, and hoped she would forgive him.
Then one morning he went to Harley Street to be examined and overhauled by a specialist. He went quite calmly and came away equally so. It was about noon, and he took a taxi back to the hotel, where he found a letter awaiting him—one he had been expecting. After reading it through he said to the bureau-clerk: “I shall be leaving to-morrow.” Then he stepped out into the sunshine and walked across the Strand to Romano’s Bar. The dark-haired girl placed his sherry before him with a smile. “Here again,” she said. “You’re becoming one of our regulars.”
“Not for long, I’m afraid,” he answered. “I’m off to-morrow.”
“Where?”
“Ireland.”
“Business?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Going for long?”
“Don’t know, really.”
“It’s queer, seems to me, the way you don’t know anybody and don’t seem to know even things about yourself. Fact is, I’m beginning to think you must be a queer one altogether.”
He laughed. “I had a queer sort of adventure this morning, anyway. Went to a doctor and was told I ought to give up smoking and drinking, go to bed early every night, and avoid all excitements. What would you do, now, if your doctor told you that about yourself?”
“I don’t suppose I’d take any notice of it.”
“Quite right, and I don’t suppose I shall either.”
“Go on!” she laughed. “You don’t look ill! I don’t believe you went to any doctor at all—you’re just having me on!”
“Honestly, I’m not. It’s as true as those Chinese friends of mine.”
He joked with her for a little longer and then went to lunch at Simpson’s. Afterwards he returned to the hotel, wrote a few letters, and began to pack his bags in readiness for the morrow. Then he went out for a stroll; he walked up to Covent Garden Market, where there were always interesting scenes, and then westward towards Charing Cross Road, where he liked to look at the bookshops. But he felt himself becoming very tired long before he reached this goal, so he turned into the familiar Maiden Lane for a drink and a rest at Rule’s. But it wanted a quarter of an hour to opening time, he discovered, when he reached the closed door, and as his tiredness increased, he entered the little Catholic church almost opposite and sat down amidst the cool and grateful dusk.
He felt refreshed after a few minutes and began to walk round the church, examining the mural tablets; in doing so, without looking where he was going, he almost collided with a young priest who was also walking round. Apologies were exchanged, and conversation followed. The priest, it appeared, was not attached to the church; he was merely a sightseer, like Fothergill himself. He was from Lancashire, he said, on a business visit to London; when he had time to spare he liked going into churches—“a sort of ’busman’s holiday,” he added, with a laugh. He was a very cheerful, friendly person, and Fothergill, who liked casual encounters with strangers, talked to him for some time in the porch of the church as they went out. Then it suddenly occurred to both of them that there was no absolute need to cut short a conversation that had begun so promisingly; they walked down Bedford Street to the Strand, still talking, and with no very definite objective. The priest, whose name was Farington, said he was going to have a meal somewhere and take a night train back to Lancashire; Fothergill said he was also going to have dinner. Farington then said that he usually took a snack at Lyon’s Corner House, near Charing Cross; Fothergill said, all right, that would do for him too. So they dined together inexpensively and rather uncomfortably, surrounded by marble and gilt and the blare of a too strident orchestra.
Yet Fothergill enjoyed it. He liked Farington. He liked Farington’s type of mind—intellectual, sincere, interested in all kinds of matters outside the scope of religion, worldly to those who saw only the surface, spiritual to those who guessed deeper. He was emphatically not the kind of man to insist on rendering to God the things which were Caesar’s. During the meal Fothergill chanced to mention something about rubber plantations, and Farington said immediately: “I say, didn’t you tell me your name was Fothergill? I wonder, now you’re talking about rubber, whether you’re the Fothergill who used to be at Kuala Simur?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That’s odd. It means I know quite a lot about you—Father Richmond and I are great friends—we were at Ware together.”
“Really? Oh yes, I remember him very well. Where is he now?”