A HANDFUL OF DUST

by Waugh Evelyn

Do you know how much it costs just to live here? We should be quite rich if it wasn’t for that. As it is we support fifteen servants indoors, besides gardeners and carpenters and a night-watchman and all the people at the farm and odd little men constantly popping in to wind the clocks and cook the accounts and clean the moat, while Tony and I have to fuss about whether it’s cheaper to take a car up to London for the night or buy an excursion ticket

‘Did you mind when I tried to kiss you just now?’ ‘Me? No, not particularly.’ ‘Then why wouldn’t you let me?’ ‘Oh dear, you’ve got a lot to learn.’ ‘How d’you mean?’ ‘You mustn’t ever ask questions like that. Will you try and remember?’

She had forbidden Beaver to send her a present or to write to her; in self-protection, for she knew that whatever he said would hurt her by its poverty, but in spite of this she awaited the posts nervously, hoping that he might have disobeyed her.

‘Tell you what, I shouldn’t drive if I were you.’ ‘Not drive?’ ‘No, I shouldn’t drive. They’d say you were drunk.’ ‘Who would?’ ‘Anyone you ran over. They’d say you were drunk.’ ‘Well, so I am.’ ‘Then I shouldn’t drive.’ ‘Too far to walk.’ ‘We’ll take a taxi.’ ‘Oh, hell, I can drive.’ ‘Or let’s not go to Brenda’s at all.’ ‘We’d better go to Brenda’s,’ said Jock. ‘She’s expecting us.’

‘Two men of thirty,’ he said to himself, ‘behaving as if they were up for the night from Sandhurst—getting drunk and ringing people up and dancing with tarts at the Old Hundredth...

‘Ben says natives aren’t humans at all really.’ ‘Ah, but he’s thinking of Negroes, I expect. These are pure Semitic type.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘The same as Jews.’ ‘Ben says Jews are worse than natives.’

‘Nanny, I do think that Princess is beautiful, don’t you?’ Nanny sniffed. ‘It would be a dull world if we all thought alike,’ she said.

‘It’s going to be so much worse for Brenda. You see she’d got nothing else, much, except John. I’ve got her, and I love the house ... but with Brenda John always came first ... naturally ... And then you know she’s seen so little of John lately. She’s been in London such a lot. I’m afraid that’s going to hurt her.’ ‘You can’t ever tell what’s going to hurt people.’ ‘But, you see, I know Brenda so well.’

‘You just wait a few weeks,’ he had said. ‘Brenda will come back. She’ll soon get sick of Beaver.’ ‘But I don’t want her back.’ ‘I know just how you feel, but it doesn’t do to be medieval about it. If Brenda hadn’t been upset at John’s death this need never have come to a crisis. Why, last year Marjorie was going everywhere with that ass Robin Beaseley. She was mad about him at the time, but I pretended not to notice and it all blew over. If I were you I should refuse to recognize that anything has happened.’

The fourth week-end after Brenda’s departure from Hetton was fixed for Tony’s infidelity. A suite was engaged at a seaside hotel (‘We always send our clients there. The servants are well accustomed to giving evidence’) and private detectives were notified. ‘It only remains to select a partner,’ said the solicitor; no hint of naughtiness lightened his gloom. ‘We have on occasions been instrumental in accommodating our clients but there have been frequent complaints, so we find it best to leave the choice to them. Lately we had a particularly delicate case involving a man of very rigid morality and a certain diffidence. In the end his own wife consented to go with him and supply the evidence. She wore a red wig. It was quite successful.’

While they were dancing Tony came straight to business. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to come away for the week-end?’ he asked. ‘Shouldn’t mind,’ said Milly. ‘Where?’ ‘I thought of Brighton.’ ‘Oh ... Is it for a divorce?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You wouldn’t mind if I brought my little girl with us? She wouldn’t be any trouble.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You mean you wouldn’t mind?’ ‘I mean I should mind.’ ‘Oh...You wouldn’t think I had a little girl of eight, would you?’ ‘No.’ ‘She’s called Winnie. I was only sixteen when I had her. I was the youngest of the family and our stepfather wouldn’t leave any of us girls alone. That’s why I have to work. She lives with a lady at Finchley. Twenty-eight bob a week it costs me, not counting her clothes. She does like the seaside.’

‘No, I just couldn’t feel the same about her again.’ ‘Well, why feel the same? One has to change as one gets older.

Since they had left Georgetown there had not been any part of his body that was ever wholly at ease. His face and neck were burned by the sun reflected from the water; the skin was flaking off them so that he was unable to shave. The stiff growth of beard pricked him between chin and throat. Every exposed part of his skin was bitten by cabouri fly.

There was five hours’ difference in time. They had altered their watches daily on the voyage out. Which way? It ought to be easy to work out. The sun rose in the east. England was east of America so he and Dr Messinger got the sun later.