The Toff and the Fallen Angels

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 1

Home Truths For The Toff

 

IT was a day when the Honourable Richard Rollison, known to so many as the Toff, was happy and content. Contemplating this state of near-euphoria as he sat in a comfortable armchair and looked idly at his Trophy Wall, he was puzzled. He had no right, he felt, to be as happy as he was; nor had he any special reason.

And yet he was in a mood when his heart was positively buoyant.

The world was in its constant state of fear and threat of bomb-blast, and the politicians who called themselves statesmen appeared no less impotent, and no nearer the use of reason.

The nation was in its constant state of tightening its belt and grinning, whatever new privation was thrust upon it.

The youth of the nation was under the usual, periodic charge of irresponsibility, the more mature critics virtuously recalling their own young days, which time and nostalgia appeared to have set in a permanent state of industry and innocence.

Taxation, especially for the Toff, who after some lean years was once again a man of major substance, was very heavy.

Yet he survived.

And the world survived.

And in Britain, most people lived reasonably well; the super-markets were full, the betting shops were busy and the football fans were about to put away their rattles, their team-colours, their scarves and their woollen hats, for this was the merry month of May.

Spring.

Suddenly Rollison laughed—a low-pitched chuckle of sound reflecting his good humour.

“And it isn’t even love !” he murmured.

As he spoke, the door which led from the domestic quarters of his flat in London’s Mayfair, opened, and Rollison’s man-of-all-work appeared. His name was Jolly. He had served the Toff for so long that he had reached the stage of being more counsellor and friend than servant. There were some who regarded a gentleman’s gentleman in this age of pop and do-it-yourself as an anachronism—as conceivably Jolly was. Indeed, he looked it, a man of medium height and doleful countenance, his sagging jowl hung in dignified abandon over a winged collar and a grey cravat. For the rest, he was dressed with impeccable restraint in a black jacket and striped trousers.

He carried coffee on a silver tray.

“Did you say something, sir?” he asked, putting the tray down on a low table near the chair.

“I said,” said Rollison, “that I am happily out of love, and completely fancy free.”

“If I might say so, a pointer, sir,” remarked Jolly.

“Oh, is it?” Rollison looked surprised. “And to what does it point?”

“It suggests the oncoming of—er—of—er—” Jolly, for once, was suddenly embarrassed and with remarkable presence of mind he moved back. “I think I hear someone knocking, sir. Will you excuse me.” Swift and silent, he reached the door.

“Dolly,” called Rollison sternly.

“Sir?”

“There is no-one knocking. You were going to say that my mood of contentment suggested the final oncoming of maturity, were you not?”

Jolly looked at him judicially. “Well, sir, it is to be expected.”

“Do I look my age?” demanded Rollison.

“But you are not old, sir!”

“That is a contradiction,” stated Rollison.

“In no way, sir. When I suggested that your—ah-maturer years made it possible for you to be content without any—ah—romantic interludes, I did not mean that you were—ah—”

“Incapable,” said Rollison drily. “Or even impotent.”

“Indeed no, sir!”

“Jolly.”

“Sir.”

“Since you are in a mood to be devastatingly honest and I am in a mood to listen, tell me this : am I less attractive to women than I was? Or are women less attractive to me?”

Jolly hesitated, considered, then moved forward to pour out the coffee. As he handed a cup to Rollison he spoke again, as one stepping on very delicate ground. “I think the truth is, sir, that you are more selective than in times past.”

“Ah. More choosey, you mean.”