I nodded to that. In five minutes they arrived, and we drank them and smoked cigarettes we found in a humidor—English cigarettes of strong Turkish tobacco. A maid came, and said that Mr. Priest would be much obliged if we would let him know when we would dine. I told her that we would eat whenever it was convenient, and she dropped a little curtsy and withdrew.
“At least,” Marcella commented, “he’s making us comfortable while we wait.”
D
inner was lamb in aspic, and a salad, with a maid—another maid—and a footman to serve while Priest stood by to see that it was done properly. We ate at either side of a small table on a terrace overlooking another garden, where antique statues faded to white glimmerings as the sun set.
Priest came forward to light the candles. “Will you require me after dinner, sir?”
“Will your employer require us; that’s the question.”
“Bateman can show you to your room, sir, when you are ready to retire. Julia will see to Madame.”
I looked at the footman, who was carrying in fruit on a tray.
“No, sir. That is Carter. Bateman is your man.”
“And Julia,” Marcella put in, “is my maid, I suppose?”
“Precisely.” Priest gave an almost inaudible cough. “Perhaps, sir—and madame—you might find this useful.” He drew a photograph from an inner pocket and handed it to me.
It was a black-and-white snapshot, somewhat dog-eared. Two dozen people, most of them in livery of one kind or another, stood in brilliant sunshine on the steps at the front of the house, men behind women. There were names in India ink across the bottom of the picture:
“Our staff, sir.”
I said, “Thank you, Priest. No, you needn’t stay tonight.”
T
he next morning Bateman shaved me in bed. He did it very well, using a straight razor and scented soap applied with a brush. I had heard of such things—I think my grandfather’s valet may have shaved him like that before the First World War—but I had never guessed that anyone kept up the tradition. Bateman did, and I found I enjoyed it. When he had dressed me, he asked if I would breakfast in my room.
“I doubt it,” I said. “Do you know my wife’s plans?”
“I think it likely she will be on the South Terrace, sir. Julia said something to that effect as I was bringing in your water.”
“I’ll join her then.”
“Of course, sir.” He hesitated.
“I don’t think I’ll require a guide, but you might tell my wife I’ll be with her in ten minutes or so.”
Bateman repeated his, “Of course, sir,” and went out. The truth was that I wanted to assure myself that everything I had carried in the pockets of my old suit—car keys, wallet, and so on—had been transferred to the new one he had laid out for me; and I did not want to insult him, if I could prevent it, by doing it in front of him.
Everything was where it should be, and I had a clean handkerchief in place of my own only slightly soiled one. I pulled it out to look at (Irish linen) and a flutter of green came with it—two bills, both fifties.
Over eggs Benedict I complimented Marcella on her new dress and asked if she had noticed where it had been made.
“Rowe’s. It’s a little shop on Fifth Avenue.”
“You know it, then. Nothing unusual?”
She answered, “No, nothing unusual,” more quickly than she should have, and I knew that there had been money in her new clothes too, and that she did not intend to tell me about it.
“We’ll be going home after this. I wonder if they’ll want me to give this jacket back.”
“Going home?” She did not look up from her plate. “Why? And who are ‘they’?”
“Whoever owns this house.”
“Yesterday you called him he. You said Priest talked about
I said nothing.
“You think he spent the night in my room, they separated us and you thought that was why, and you just waited there—was it under a sheet?—for me to scream or something. And I didn’t.”
“I was hoping you had and I hadn’t heard you.”
“Nothing happened, dammit! I went to bed and went to sleep, but as for going home, you’re out of your mind. Can’t you see we’ve got the job? Whoever he is—wherever he is—he likes us. We’re going to stay here and live like human beings, at least for a while.”
A
nd so we did. That day we stayed on from hour to hour. After that, from day to day, and at last from week to week. I felt like Klipspringer, the man who was Jay Gatsby’s guest for so long that he had no other home—except that Klipspringer, presumably, saw Gatsby from time to time, and no doubt made agreeable conversation, and perhaps even played the piano for him. Our Gatsby was absent. I do not mean that we avoided him, or that he avoided us; there were no rooms we were forbidden to enter, and no times when the servants seemed eager that we should play golf or swim or go riding. Before the good weather ended, we had two couples up for a weekend; and when Bette Windgassen asked if Marcella had inherited the place, and then if we were renting it, Marcella said, “Oh, do you like it?” in such a way that they left, I think, convinced that it was ours, or as good as ours.
And so it was. We went away when we chose, which was seldom, and returned when we chose, quickly. We ate on the various terraces and balconies, and in the big, formal dining room, and in our own bedrooms. We rode
