To ‘The Hay Wain’ they went. Albert felt battered with fatigue and longed for his bed. This time they approached their destination by means of a fire-escape, and when they had successfully negotiated its filthy rungs, they found themselves in a long, low, rather beautiful attic. There were rushes on the floor, pewter and wild flowers (which being dead, slightly resembled bunches of hay) on the tables, and the seats were old-fashioned oak pews, narrow, upright, and desperately uncomfortable.
A waiter, dressed in a smock which only made him look more like a waiter than ever, handed them a menu written out in Gothic lettering. Ten or twelve other people were scattered about the room, none of them were in evening dress. They all looked dirty and bored.
‘Is Rory Jones singing tonight?’ asked Sally.
‘Yes, madam; Mr Jones will be here in a few moments.’
An hour and a half later Rory Jones did appear, but he had just come from a private party, was tired, and not a little tipsy. After singing his best known and least amusing songs for a few minutes, he staggered away, to the unrestrained fury of Major Spratt, who could be heard expressing himself outside the door in terms of military abuse.
‘Let’s go on, soon.’
‘On,’ thought Albert wearily, ‘never bed?’
The next place they visited, run by a certain Colonel Bumper, was called ‘The Tally-Ho’ and was an enormous basement room quite full of people, noise and tobacco smoke. It appeared that champagne was obtainable here, owing to the fact that the club had been raided by the police the week before and was shortly closing down for good.
Albert thought of Paris night clubs with some regret. He felt that ‘The Hay Wain’ and ‘The Witch’ might be sufficiently depressing, but that ‘The Tally-Ho’ induced a positively suicidal mood – it had just that atmosphere of surface hilarity which is calculated to destroy pleasure.
‘Let’s go on soon,’ said Walter, when they had drunk some very nasty champagne. Despite the cabman’s warning, they now went to ‘The Electric Torch’ but found on arrival that the ‘very ordinary people’ had gone. Moreover the band had gone, the waiters had gone. Alone, amid piled up chairs and tables placed upside down on each other, stood the proprietor, Captain Dumps. He was crying quite quietly into a large pocket handkerchief, and never saw them come or heard them creep silently away.
After this, to Albert’s ill-concealed relief, they went home. It was half-past five and broad daylight poured in at his bedroom window. He calculated with his last waking thoughts that this ecstatic evening must have cost Walter, who had insisted on paying for everything, at least twenty pounds, and he felt vaguely sorry for Sally.
4
The following afternoon at about half-past three Sally and Walter got out of bed and roamed, rather miserably, in their pyjamas.
The daily woman had come and gone, and Albert’s room proved, on inspection, to be empty. After a lengthy discussion as to whether they could bring themselves to eat anything and if so, what, they made two large cups of strong black coffee, which they drank standing and in silence. Sally then announced that she felt as if she were just recovering from a long and serious illness and began to open her morning letters. ‘Bills, bills, and bills! Darling, why did we hire that Daimler to go down to Oxford? There must have been trains, if you come to think of it.’
‘Yes, but – don’t you remember? – we hadn’t an A.B.C. We couldn’t look them up. Give the bill to me.’ He took it from her and began to burn holes in it with his cigarette, but Sally, engrossed in a letter, did not notice.
‘Who’s that from?’
‘Aunt Madge. Listen to it:
‘My Dearest Sally,
‘You will no doubt have seen in the newspapers that your Uncle Craig has been appointed chairman of the mission to New South Rhodesia …
‘Of course I haven’t! Does she imagine I have nothing better to do than read the papers?’
‘Go on,’ said Walter.
‘Where am I? Oh, yes!
‘… This was all very sudden and unexpected and has caused us inconvenience in a thousand ways, but the most unfortunate part of it is that we had arranged, as usual, several large shooting parties at Dalloch Castle. I wrote and asked your father and mother if they would go up there and act as host and hostess, but Sylvia tells me that they have to pay their annual visit to Baden just then. It occurred to me that perhaps you and Walter are doing nothing during August and September, in which case, it would be a real kindness to us if you would stay at Dalloch and look after our guests. I know that this is a big thing to ask you to do and, of course, you must say no if you feel it would be too much for you. If you decide to go we will send you up in the car and you must invite some of your own friends. Dalloch will hold any amount of people.
‘Yrs. affecly.,
‘Madge Craigdalloch.
‘PS. – General Murgatroyd, a great friend of your Uncle Craig’s, will be there to look after the keepers, etc.’
There was a long silence. Walter sat down rather heavily.
‘Well?’ said Sally.
‘Well, what?’
‘Shall we do it? Listen, my precious. I know it would be awful and I expect you’d simply hate it, poor sweet, and nothing to what I should, but still, facts must be faced. If we do this we shall save money for two solid months, and after that, if you like, we could probably afford to spend a little time in Paris, if we could let the flat. Albert might be able to tell us of some nice cheap hotel there.’
Walter became sulkier every minute.
‘I won’t stay at a cheap
