her customary habit of self-observation, that she had thrown her night-things together anyhow. The difference between this frenzied packing operation and the deliberate care she had taken, in spite of her rage, to fold and fit her possessions into place at St Philumena’s less than a day ago failed to register.
Coat — hat — handbag — suitcase; Caroline grabbed them and hustled out of the door, slamming it to. She rattled downstairs and out of the front door, which she slammed behind her. At the top of Queen’s Gate, turning in from Old Brompton Road, she got a taxi and secured herself inside it with a slam of the door.
‘It is quite a common thing,’ Willi Stock said. ‘Your brain is overworked.’ This was the Baron speaking. He stood by the electric fire with its flicking imitation coals, sipping Curacao.
Caroline sipped hers, curled up on the sofa, and crying. Absorbing the warmth of the fire and of the liquor, she felt a warmth of gratitude towards the Baron. For the last hour he had been explaining her mental condition. She was consoled, not by the explanations, but by the fact of his recognizable face, by the familiar limitations of his mind, and by the reality of his warm flat and his bottle of Curacao.
For the first time in her life, she felt that Willi Stock was an old friend. Regarding him in this category, she was able to secure her conscience in his company. For the Baron belonged to one of the half-worlds of Caroline’s past, of which she had gradually taken leave; it was a society which she had half-forgotten, and of which she had come wholly to disapprove. It was over a year since she had last seen the Baron. But Laurence had kept up with him, had mentioned him from time to time, which confirmed Caroline in her feeling, that she was in the company of an old friend. She greatly needed the protection of an old friend till daylight.
He said, ‘Eleanor is away on tour just now.’
Caroline said, ‘I know, Laurence had a postcard.’
Eleanor Hogarth was the Baron’s mistress. ‘Did he?’ said the Baron. ‘When was that?’
‘Oh, last week sometime. He merely mentioned it.’
They called him the Baron because he called himself Baron Stock. Caroline was not aware from what aristocracy he derived his title: nor had anyone inquired; she was sure it was not self-imposed as some suggested. He came originally from the Belgian Congo, had travelled in the Near East, loitered in Europe, and finally settled in England, a naturalized British subject. That was fifteen years ago, and he was now nearing fifty. Caroline had always felt that the Baron had native African blood, without being able to locate its traces in any one feature. She had been in Africa, and had a sense of these things. It was a matter of casual curiosity to her; but she had noticed, some years ago, when Africa’s racial problems were being discussed in company with the Baron, he had denounced the blacks with ferocious bitterness, out of all proportion to the occasion. This confirmed Caroline’s judgement; there was, too, an expression of pathos which at times appeared on the Baron’s face, which she had seen in others of concealed mixed colour; and there was something about the whites of his eyes; what it was she did not know. And altogether, having observed these things, she did not much care.
The Baron had set up a bookshop in Charing Cross Road, one of those which keep themselves exclusively intellectual. ‘Intellect-u-al,’ the Baron pronounced it. He would say, ‘Of course there are no intellect-u-als in England.’
It had been the delight of Caroline and Laurence to recall the day when they looked in on the Baron at Charing Cross Road, to find him being accosted by a tiny woman with the request:
‘D’you have any railway books for children?’
The Baron reared high and thin on the central expanse of grey carpet and regarded her silently for half a second.
‘Railway books for children,’ she repeated. ‘Books with pictures of trains and railways.’
The Baron said: ‘Railway books for children, Madam? I do not think so, Madam.’ His arm languidly indicated the shelves. ‘We have Histor-ay, Biograph-ay, Theolog-ay, Theosoph-ay, Psycholog-ay, Religio-n, Poetr-ay, but railway books for children. … Try Foyles across the road, Madam.’
He raised his shoulders and eyebrows as he turned to Laurence and Caroline. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘knew a man in the Belgian Diplomatic Service who was the author of a railway book for children. It was very popular and sold quickly. A copy was sent to a family in Yugoslavia. Of course, the book contained a code message. The author was revising the book for the second edition when he was arrested. That story is my total experience of railway books for children. Have you read this work on Kafka? — it has just come in, my darlings, my Laurence and my Caroline.’
In this way, Baron Stock was an old friend.
Caroline lay in the dark warm room on a made-up sofa bed. The Baron had left her just after four had struck. She had stopped crying. In case she should want them, the Baron had left a bottle of aspirins on a chair by the sofa. Caroline reached out for the bottle, unscrewed the cap and extracted the twist of cotton wool which she had hoped to find. She stuffed a piece in each ear. Now she was alone, it seemed to her that she had been playing a false role with the Baron. It was the inevitable consequence of her arrival at his flat in a panic, at a late hour; ‘Willi! Let me in, I’ve been hearing voices!’
After that, she was forced to accept his protection, his friendliness; was glad of it. And when he had settled her by the fire:
‘Caroline,
She had begun to weep, to apologize.
‘Caroline,
And so she had to play the part. Now, alone in the dark, she thought, ‘I should have faced it out at the flat. I shouldn’t have run away.
The Baron, of course, was convinced she was suffering from a delusion.
‘It happens to many many people, my dear. It is quite nothing to worry about. If the experience should recur you will have a course of analysis or take some pills and the voices will go away. But I doubt that the phenomenon
