‘Did you get my letter?’ he said to Nicholas.
‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘which letter?’
‘I wrote, let me see, the day before yesterday, I think. I wrote —‘
‘Oh. that letter,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes, I believe I did receive a letter.’
George went away into his inner office.
Nicholas said to Jane, in a good, loud voice, that he was going for a stroll in the park now that the rain had stopped, and that it was lovely having nothing to do but dream beautiful dreams all the day long.
‘Yours very sincerely and admiringly, Charles Morgan,’ wrote Jane. She opened the door of her room and shouted, ‘Turn down the wireless a bit, I’ve got to do some brain-work before supper.’
On the whole, they were proud of Jane’s brain-work and her connexion with the world of books. They turned down all the wirelesses on the landing.
She read over the first draft of the letter, then very carefully began again, making an authentic-looking letter in a small but mature hand such as Charles Morgan might use.. She had no idea what Charles Morgan’s handwriting looked like; and had no reason to find out, since George would certainly not know either, and was not to be allowed to retain the document. She had an address at Holland Park which Nicholas had supplied. She wrote this at the top of her writing paper, hoping that it looked all right, and assuring herself that it did since many nice people did not attempt to have their letterheads printed in war-time and thus make unnecessary demands on the nation’s labour.
She had finished by the time the supper-bell rang. She folded the letter with meticulous neatness, having before her eyes the pencil-line features of Charles Morgan’s photograph. Jane calculated that this letter by Charles Morgan which she had just written was worth at least fifty pounds to Nicholas.
George would be in a terrible state of conflict when he saw it. Poor Tilly, George’s wife, had told her that when George was persecuted by an author, he went on and on about it for hours.
Nicholas was coming to the club after supper to spend the evening, having at last persuaded Joanna to give a special recital of The Wreck of the Deutschland. It was to be recorded on a tape-machine that Nicholas had borrowed from the newsroom of a Government office.
Jane joined the throng in its descent to supper. Only Selina loitered above, finishing off her evening’s disciplinary recitation:
… Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.
The warden’s car stopped piercingly outside as the girls reached the lower floor. The warden drove a car as she would have driven a man had she possessed one. She strode, grey, into her office and shortly afterwards joined them in the dining-room, banging on the water-jug with her fork for silence, as she always did when about to make an announcement. She announced that an American visitor, Mrs G. Felix Dobell, would address the club on Friday evening on the subject, ‘Western Woman: her Mission’. Mrs Dobell was a leading member of the Guardians of Ethics and had recently come to join her husband who was serving with the United States Intelligence Service stationed in London.
After supper Jane was struck by a sense of her treachery to the establishment of Throvis-Mew, and to George with whom she was paid to conspire in the way of business. She was fond of old George, and began to reflect on his kindly qualities. Without the slightest intention of withdrawing from her conspiracy with Nicholas, she gazed at the letter she had written and wondered what to do about her feelings. She decided to telephone to his wife, Tilly, and have a friendly chat about something.
Tilly was delighted.. She was a tiny redhead of lively intelligence and small information, whom George kept well apart from the world of books, being experienced in wives. To Tilly, this was a great deprivation, and she loved nothing better than to keep in touch, through Jane, with the book business and to hear Jane say, ‘Well, Tilly, it’s a question of one’s raison d’être.’ George tolerated this friendship, feeling that it established himself with Jane. He relied on Jane. She understood his ways.
Jane was usually bored by Tilly, who, although she had not exactly been a cabaret dancer, imposed on the world of books, whenever she was given the chance, a high leg-kicker’s spirit which played on Jane’s nerves, since she herself was newly awed by the gravity of literature in general. She felt Tilly was altogether too frivolous about the. publishing and writing scene, and moreover failed to realize this fact. But her heart in its treachery now swelled with an access of warmth for Tilly. She telephoned and invited her to supper on Friday. Jane had already calculated that, if Tilly should be a complete bore, they would be able to fill in an hour with Mrs G. Felix Dobell’s lecture. The club was fairly eager to see Mrs Dobell, having already seen a certain amount of her husband as Selina’s escort, rumoured to be her lover. ‘There’s a talk on Friday by an American woman on the Western Woman’s Mission, but we won’t listen to that, it would be a bore,’ Jane said, contradicting her resolution in her effusive anxiety to sacrifice anything, anything to George’s wife, now that she had betrayed and was about to deceive George.
Tilly said, ‘I always love the May of Teck. It’s like being back at school.’ Tilly always said that, it was infuriating.
*
Nicholas arrived early with his tape-recorder, and sat in the recreation room with Joanna, waiting for the audience to drift in from supper. She looked to Nicholas very splendid and Nordic, as from a great saga.
‘Have you lived here long?’ said Nicholas sleepily, while he admired her big bones. He was sleepy because he had spent most of the previous night on the roof with Selina,
‘About a year. I daresay I’ll die here,’ she said with the conventional contempt of all members for the club.
He said, ‘You’ll get married.’
‘No, no.’ She spoke soothingly, as to a child who had just been prevented from spooning jam into the stew.
A long shriek of corporate laughter came from the floor immediately above them. They looked at the ceiling and realized that the dormitory girls were as usual exchanging those R.A.F. anecdotes which needed an audience hilariously drunken, either with alcohol or extreme youth, to give them point.
Greggie had appeared, and cast her eyes up to the laughter as she came towards Joanna and Nicholas. She said, ‘The sooner that dormitory crowd gets married and gets out of the club, the better. I’ve never known such a rowdy dormitory crowd in all my years in the club. Not a farthing’s worth of intelligence between them.’
Collie arrived and sat down next to Nicholas. Greggie said, ‘I was saying about the dormitory girls up there: they ought to get married and get out.’
This was also, in reality, Collie’s view. But she always opposed Greggie on principle and, moreover, in company she felt that a contradiction made conversation. ‘Why should they get married? Let them enjoy themselves while they’re young.’
‘They need marriage to enjoy themselves properly,’ Nicholas said, ‘for sexual reasons.’
Joanna blushed. Nicholas added, ‘Heaps of sex. Every night for a month, then every other night for two months, then three times a week for a year. After that, once a week.’ He was adjusting the tape-recorder, and his words were like air.
‘If you’re trying to shock us, young man, we’re unshockable,’ said Greggie, with a delighted glance round the four walls which were not accustomed to this type of talk, for, after all, it was the public recreation room.
‘I’m shockable,’ said Joanna. She was studying Nicholas with an apologetic look.
Collie did not know what attitude she should take up. Her fingers opened the clasp of her bag and snapped it shut again; then they played a silent tip-tap on its worn bulging leather sides. Then she said, ‘He isn’t trying to shock us. He’s very realistic. If one is growing in grace — I would go so far as to say when one has grown in grace — one can take realism, sex and so forth in one’s stride.’