‘Have you ever been in a great crowd?’ she said, because she had this feeling she must exchange and share with him.
Down below Amabel broke into their silence by saying:
‘Well, and what about my bath, if you please?’
Alex said: ‘Good Lord, yes, haven’t they done anything about it yet?’ apologized, and telephoned down while Angela dutifully made comments on how impossible it was to get things done in hotels. Alex was told there was a bath to their room, it was through the bedroom and he passed this news on, and also that her maid was coming.
When she came in she said at once, as though she was alone with Amabeclass="underline" ‘Oh, Madam, I had such a time, you would hardly credit it, Madam, but we got here in the car although one man did get up on the running-boards. Oh, Moddom, you can’t have any idea of what it’s like. Do you think it’s the revolution, Madam, and I have your bath-salts unpacked and your bath is ready for you now.’
‘Shall I come with you and watch you have it?’ Angela asked her, but Amabel was not having that.
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘look, I’ve something I must say to Alex.’
As they went out and Angela was left, wishing once more her Adams was back with her again, she wondered if Amabel was going to let him see her in her bath. But surely not in front of her maid, she thought, without noticing how this would make it better in one sense, even if it could not make it right. After all, she knew them so little, she only knew Amabel as being very smart, but she had not bargained to let Alex see her in her own bath, or any other young man like that, or any man at all, and she hoped she would not have to, not for Max or anyone; it could not be expected of her. And how could Alex make compliments on how Amabel looked in a bath with her maid standing by handing her sponges, or would he make no compliments because it had happened so often before and was so ordinary? She made up her mind she would show what she thought by not going in when Amabel sent for her, and in any case she felt she never would be able to if Alex was there; she could not be by the bath in front of Alex, looking into his eyes it would be as if they had done murder, or so it seemed to her it would be to look into his eyes laid upon the woman’s nakedness.
Actually most elaborate precautions were taken, and of this Angela knew nothing because she could not bring herself to go and see. Alex had to stand far away when her maid came out, which she did so continually that Amabel might have been in the way of being brought to bed. He saw nothing of her and did not even hear her well.
Amabel giggled. ‘She thinks we are in here together,’ she said, as if she could dream of it, with Alex of all men.
‘I know,’ he said back through her door. And he for his part imagined her where she lay, pink with warmth and wrapped round with steam so comfortable she would be more animated now, more cheerful. Aromatic steam as well from her bath salts so that if her maid had been a negress then Amabel’s eyes might have shone like two humming birds in the tropic airs she glistened in.
‘Oh, Toddy,’ she said to her maid, ‘you have brought the right bath-salts.’
‘What’s that?’ he shouted.
She kicked her legs and splashed and sent fountains of water up among the wreaths of sweet steam, and her hands with rings still on her fingers were water-lilies done in rubies.
‘Do you take your rings off,’ he shouted, ‘when you have your bath?’
‘Why?’ she said.
‘I was wondering what you looked like.’
‘Sweet of you,’ she shouted back, and she would have been offended if he had not said something of that kind. She did not think it sweet of him at all.
‘Did they make you wear a nightdress in your bath when you were at school?’
She laughed and said he must not shout so loud or Angela would know he was not in with her. Her maid, stifling, wondered if it would not bring her asthma on again.
Auntie May’s room was next door and Claire said to Evelyn, Amabel was keeping Alex hanging on. Even those who went to bed with her never were allowed to see her with no clothes on, because someone quite early in her life had carved his initials low on her back with an electric-light wire, or so Embassy Richard had told her.
‘D’you think Angela Crevy ever’s met him?’
‘No I don’t,’ Evelyn said to her. ‘She’s trying to be one of us.’
At this poor Auntie May shifted slightly in her bed.
‘My dear, what are we to do with her?’ Evelyn put a finger to her lips, but Claire went on. ‘I don’t care,’ she said, ‘she must get well, it’s too absurd her being ill here, letting that idiot doctor say fantastic things about her, even if they might be true. Why are the old allowed to go about alone; they ought to make a law about it. What would have happened to her if we had not been there and Max, he is so perfectly sweet, hadn’t taken this room? But it’s unfair to him if she doesn’t get well soon or get over it, whichever it is, or both,’ she said.
And Auntie May, half-way round from another spell of what had come over her and struck her down into nightmares and exhaustion and wandering so that she had been diagnosed as tight, and tight she was with dreams spoke up from mists which wrapped her round not sweet and warm. She mistook her niece for another barmaid, and Said in a high wavering voice:
‘I’m surprised at you, surprised I am,’ she said, ‘you should be glad I came in and gave you custom, a customer I came in, that’s what you are here for, here for,’ she said, and was silent. ‘I shall complain,’ she said, trying to. raise herself on her arm, and Claire leaned forward and said: ‘Hush, auntie, you don’t know what you are saying.’ This silenced her again.
‘Claire, d’you suppose she heard us?’
‘What on earth do you mean? My dear, she is raving. Oh, why did she come to be such a worry to us, isn’t it a shame?’
‘You mean she thought she was talking to a waitress,’ Evelyn said. ‘But you know it is so dangerous to speak in front of people when they are ill, you think they can’t hear, but one can never tell. I remember my mother telling me when Grannie died the nurse said she had only so long to live, ten hours, or whatever it was then, and she said, “Don’t,” just like that. And that was after she had lain there like a log for two days and nights.’
‘Well then,’ Claire whispered, ‘don’t talk in front of her.’
‘Oh,’ said Evelyn, also in whispers now, ‘but she is not going to die, is she?’
‘My dear, don’t you of all people go and let me down. I’ve trouble enough on my hands now in all conscience without — oh well,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not easy just now, is it? And where’s that wretched husband of mine, why doesn’t he do something?’
‘But surely that’s just it,’ said Evelyn, ‘there’s nothing to do.’
Thomson, who was still looking after Julia’s luggage where it had been left until it could be registered, felt he must stretch his legs again. He said to her porter: ‘Jack, I’ll be back,’ and came out from behind her barricade of trunks to find Edwards sitting on one of Max’s suit-cases.
‘Mr Adey, I believe,’ he said, and raised his hat.
‘Mr Livingstone, I presume, Miss Wray,’ said Edwards. They both of them laughed. Thomson sat down on yet another pigskin case and said what game was it this they were playing? and he got his answer, hide and seek. Oranges and lemons he suggested was more likely, but no, said Edwards, sardines was all the rage now not blind bloody man’s buff, which was kept for Dartmoor Sunday afternoons. Both laughed again.
‘Well,’ Thomson said, ‘it was a funny game whatever it was, and even if it had not got a name, it was more like drivers waiting outside shops or at dances.’ He asked if Edwards had had his tea. Neither had so much as tasted it this afternoon. Edwards had some chocolate in bars which he called iron rations, but he explained he did not want to touch that, not knowing but what they might be here all night when they might want something more urgent, for even if it had been three hours or more since their dinner it might be long night before they saw supper. Thomson said he was not going to wait all that long time, and Edwards asked him why he did not go along and see if he could get himself something. Thomson explained it did not taste like it should if he had his tea alone, he liked company with it, and why didn’t Edwards come along and see what they could find? But Edwards considered they would find every tea place full. Also he would not leave this dressing-case of his.