He and Anthony used sometimes to exchange distant greetings in which the condescension (if there is a condescension in greetings) was always on Copperthwaite’s side. And indeed the Roland-Rex was a sight to dream of, not to tell. At least Anthony, with his ignorance of all that made one car superior to another, couldn’t have told! But he did at least realize that here was a car that from its sheer bulk, more noticeable behind than before, as if it wore a bustle, took up half the street.
Copperthwaite did not always recognize Anthony when Anthony on foot, and Copperthwaite, eyes half closed, installed in his Roland-Rex fortress, met each other. The smugness on Copperthwaite’s dozing face was sometimes more than Anthony could stand.
He consoled himself with the thought that Copperthwaite was (to misquote Mrs. Hermans) a creature of inferior blood, a proud but childlike form.
All the more was he surprised when one morning he received a letter with no stamp on it, brought by hand.
Dear Sir, (it said)
I wish to inform you that I have now terminated my engagement with my present employer, Mr. Almeric Duke. It is not on account of any disagreement with Mr. Duke, who has been both generous and understanding, but I am not happy with the conditions of my service, especially as regards the car. From what I am told, I understand you have not found another man, sir, to drive your car and minister to your comforts, and if you will consider my application to take me back into the position in which I was always happy, I shall be much obliged.
I am, sir,
Yours respectfully,
Anthony studied this missive with mixed feelings. Copperthwaite had not treated him well. His daily help, who had been with him a good many years, and had known one or two of Copperthwaite’s quickly changing predecessors, once said to him, ‘You’re too easy-going with them, Mr. Easterfield, that’s what it is.’ She did not mean it as a compliment. All very well and good; but if Anthony wasn’t easy-going with them, indeed if he criticised them—their cooking, their driving, the friends of both sexes, or any sex, that they brought into the flat from time to time, their unwarrantable absences or their sometimes more disturbing presences—at the faintest hint of criticism they departed, almost before the offending words were out of his mouth. ‘Easy-going’ on his part meant easy-going on theirs; but if he had adopted a policy of ‘hard-going’, he trembled to think what the results might have been.
It was the recollection of these fugitive characters that made Anthony think more kindly of Copperthwaite. Copperthwaite had treated him badly but he had at any rate given him a week’s notice; he hadn’t just ‘slung his hook’ (to use an old-fashioned expression), leaving the keys of the flat and the car-keys on the table with a pencilled note to say he was ‘fed up’.
No, during the years that he and Copperthwaite had been together they had got on very well—not a ‘misword’ between them. His daily help, who was nothing if not censorious, may have thought that Anthony was too easy-going with Copperthwaite; but there was no occasion for hard feelings.
Never take a servant back again was the advice of our forebears. The word ‘servant’ was now out of date, it was archaic; it could never be used in polite or impolite society. A ‘servant’ was ‘staff’: even one ‘servant’ was ‘staff’. One envisaged a bundle of staves, of fasces (infamous word) once used as a symbol of their office by Roman Lictors, and then by Mussolini.
Copperthwaite a staff? The staff of life? Thinking of the dreary days and weeks that had passed since his departure, thinking of his forerunners, so much less helpful and hopeful than he, looking to the future, which seemed to hold in store nothing more alluring than an Old People’s Home, Anthony began to think more favourably of Copperthwaite’s return.
In spite of his elders’ advice not to take back a ‘servant’, what harm could Copperthwaite do if he came back? He could become more ‘bossy’, Anthony supposed; he had always been a bit bossy, he used to decide for Anthony many small problems of food, wine, and so on, that Anthony had been too tired, or too old, or too uninterested, to decide for himself.
The worst he could do was to leave, as he had just done; and Anthony had survived that, and no doubt would survive it again.
But why did Copperthwaite want to give up this much better-paid, much more glamorous job, with the American gentleman on the other side of the Square, with the Roland-Rex to give it added prestige value?
Dear Copperthwaite, (he wrote)
If you would like to come back here, please do. I have made some tentative enquiries for other Staff, but I haven’t fixed up anything, so if you want to come back you are at liberty to, and of course I shall be pleased to see you.
My car is still in the garage. It hasn’t been used much since you went away, and I expect various things will have gone wrong with it, the battery will have run down and the tyres will need pumping up, and the oil!—but you will know about this better than I do.
Please let me know when you are ready to return, so that I can answer the answers to my advertisements for another Staff.
Yours sincerely,
Copperthwaite’s reply came promptly.
‘Will be with you on Monday, Sir.’
So he must have given in his notice to the American gentleman before he got Anthony’s answer. Rather mortifying to know that Copperthwaite took it for granted he would be welcome back: but what a relief to know that the rhythm and routine of his life so dismally interrupted would be resumed.
Say nothing to begin with; make no comment; express no curiosity.
Such were some of Anthony’s resolutions on the Saturday before Copperthwaite was due back on Monday morning. But, when the bell of the flat-door pealed at 8 a.m. on Sunday, he was taken by surprise. Who was this ? What was this ? The porter, telling him he had left a tap dripping, flooding the flat below? An urgent letter on Her Majesty’s Service, demanding Income Tax? The postman—but the postman never rang the bell unless he was carrying some object (usually of evil import) too bulky to pass through the letter-box—and besides, the post didn’t come on Sunday.
So pessimistic was Anthony’s imagination that he could not think of any summons at eight o’clock in the morning that did not presage disaster or even doom. A mere burglar, with a sawn-off shot-gun or a blunt instrument would have been a relief compared with the horrors Anthony had begun to envisage.
Copperthwaite said, ‘I came a bit early, sir, because I know that eight o’clock is about the time you like your tea.’
‘Well, yes, I do,’ said Anthony, putting all his previous thoughts into reverse. ‘And I expect you want some tea too.’
‘All in good time, sir, all in good time,’ said Copperthwaite, ‘but meanwhile may I dispose of these bits and pieces?’
The bits and pieces were two very heavy and expensive suit-cases, made of white leather. Anthony admired them and wondered how Copperthwaite had come by them: the American gentleman, no doubt. He even envied them although when full—when bulging, as they now were—he couldn’t have carried them a yard.
‘Well, you know where to go,’ he said, laughing rather feebly, ‘the first on the right. You won’t find it changed—no one has had it since you were there. All the same,’ he added suddenly, ‘I think the bed—the mattress—ought to be aired. The bed-clothes—the sheets and blankets are all right. They’re in the airing-cupboard.’
‘Don’t worry, sir,’ said Copperthwaite, bending down to pick up his suit-cases, ‘aired or not aired, it’s the same to me.