He found Oglethorpe laying out the new suit, together with socks, underwear, shirt, tie, and handkerchief, all selected with severely professional discrimination as suitable to the image of a rising young playwright.
“Oglethorpe.”
“Yes, Mr. David?”
“What is that swan doing in the bathroom?”
“It seems to like it in there, sir, when the weather’s chilly. I suppose it’s natural; the presence of water, you know, and the radiators. If you will not be requiring another bath this afternoon, I’ll fill it with cold (adding just a dash of warm); it serves nicely as an indoor paddling pool.”
“But what is the swan doing here at all?”
“It’s in the lease, sir; didn’t you read it? Furniture, fittings, appurtenances, and one swan, care of aforesaid swan to be undertaken by the hereinaftermentioned Henry Wadsworth Oglethorpe.”
“I have to share this flat with a swan?”
“It is a very valuable bird, sir.” Oglethorpe’s tone held a faint touch of reproof. “A gold-banded swan of Izbanistan.”
“Why isn’t it at the zoo?”
“That wouldn’t do for it at all, sir. It’s a very particular bird.”
“Bad-tempered?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say so, Mr. David.” Was there a hint of reserve in his manner? “Keeps itself to itself, in general. When the weather’s fine, of course, it will be in the garden.”
David now understood why the garden, a pleasant little court with a grape arbour and fig tree, was three-quarters filled with an evidently new pool.
“What sex?” he asked. “The swan? Male or female?”
Oglethorpe answered repressively that the bird was a pen, and folded David’s handkerchief into a neat geometrical figure. “I’ll bring your lunch in ten minutes, Mr. David.”
The omelet was delicious and the wine mellow; nevertheless, lunch would have been a more cheerful meal if the swan had not chosen to trundle, slowly and with dignity, into the dining room, where it sat on the serving cart, following the progress of every bite into David’s mouth. He tried a placatory offer of toast fingers, which were ignored.
Hurrying back to work in the study, he heard slow, flapping footsteps behind him. Then there was a slight flurry, and Oglethorpe’s voice, low, but firm: “Mr. David is busy with his writing and doesn’t want to be bothered. I’ll fill the bath and you can have a nice swim.”
Feeling rather a pig, David closed the study door. Halfway through the afternoon (Act II was not going well) he felt obliged to tiptoe along to the bathroom and peer through the crack of the door. The swan was in the bath, sailing about above her reflection, and preening her back with brisk, housewifely jabs of the beak. She seemed contented enough, but was there a slight droop to her neck, as if she knew she had been rebuffed? Conscience-stricken, David left the study door open, and not long after kept his head assiduously bent over his notebook as a slow slipslop crossed the rush matting behind him. (Had she dried her feet before leaving the bathroom?)
At seven Oglethorpe, gliding in to inquire about the evening meal, found the playwright scribbling away like mad, while the swan, silent, impassive, but not unsympathetic, sat on a corner of his desk, pinning down a large heap of manuscript.
“I’ve made a casserole, sir. When would you like it?”
“I’d like it now,” said David, stretching his cramped hand. “I’ve done enough.”
When Oglethorpe brought the after-dinner coffee, David asked the swan’s name.
“Miss Lou—that is, she hasn’t exactly got a name, sir. Miss Louise never thought to name her.”
“She ought to have a name. I shall call her Lucy Snowe,” said David, thinking of the memorable descriptive sentence in Villette: “I, Lucy Snowe, was calm.” Calmness seemed to be this Lucy’s forte.
“Very good, sir. Shall you be wanting anything more?”
“No. Thank you, Oglethorpe. You’re making me very comfortable,” David said, looking from the peacefully glowing fire to the swan on the ebony concert grand with her head tucked under her wing. It was surprising how quickly one became accustomed to the presence of a swan in the room.
“It’s a pleasure to look after you, sir.” Oglethorpe gently closed the door, leaving the silent pair to their own reflections.
* * * *
A week passed. Hounded by Luffington, David acquired a correct wardrobe, had a haircut that brought into view his haggard good looks, and attended the first night of his new play. It was an instant success.
With two plays running, David Glendower became a celebrity and, if Luffington had had his way, would have appeared at countless public occasions and TV interviews. David, however, had a strong faculty of self-preservation, which, backed by Oglethorpe’s quelling manner of answering the telephone or door, kept most of his admirers at bay.
One of them got through, however.
Everyone who knew Blair Lanaway described her as a horrible girl, “but,” they were obliged to add, “she does have staying power.” It was true, she had. To this, and not at all to the fact that she was a Hon. did she owe her job as gossip columnist for Fancy magazine; she always got the copy she was after and it was universally admitted that she wrote the liveliest, knowingest, bitchiest column in the business. She had a round face with pink pushed-up cushiony cheekbones, plum-black eyes, and a golliwog mop of black hair; her loud laugh and her ringing public-school tones were known from one end of Mayfair to the other end of Fleet Street.
The moment she laid eyes on David all her acquisitive instincts came into play.
David had the misfortune to twist his ankle slightly coming down the theatre steps after a compulsory visit to the three hundredth night of A Nice Drop of Rain. Blair happened to be at hand; she swooped on him like a hen harrier and insisted on driving him home in her nasty little car before he could extricate himself. Politeness demanded that he ask her in for a drink. As a matter of fact, Miss Lanaway practically carried him over the threshold, to Oglethorpe’s evident and deep disapproval.
Before David could think of an excuse, she had invited him to dinner at her flat the following night, promising to come and fetch him.
In years to come when David woke, twitching from nightmares, he would remember that evening. Blair served him a hellish cocktail (he thought it might have been petrol and rosehip syrup with a pinch of phenobarbitone); thereafter he sat in a state of stupor. Blair curled herself up on the hearthrug and chattered gaily, but as the evening progressed she moved closer and closer until her elbows were on his knees and she was gazing intensely into his eyes; by about midnight she was saying with a boyish laugh, “Why bother to go home? I’ll blow up the airbed if you prefer to sleep single.”
“My butler will be worrying about me,” David managed to articulate, trying to edge towards the door on his good foot.
“Bother your butler.”
“And so will Lucy.”
“Who’s Lucy?” she said sharply.
“’A maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love.’ Thanks for a delightful evening,” he said, finding the doorknob as thankfully as a drowning swimmer finds a rock.
She was so annoyed that she let him go, and he managed to weave and hobble to the taxi rank.
But the following evening she called at the flat in Curzon Street. As ill luck would have it, Oglethorpe was out; it was his evening off and he was singing with the Aeolian choir in Haydn’s Creation. David had to answer the door.
Blair surged past him, all generous sympathy, crying out, “You poor dear! Do you feel terrible after last night? Never mind, I forgive you! I’ve brought a bottle of Volga Dew for a pick-me-up. Don’t trouble to hunt for a corkscrew; you sit down and rest your foot. I’m a champion at finding things in other people’s kitchens. No Lucy? I knew you were pulling my leg.”
“She’s in the garden,” David said faintly.
“Nonsense, sweetie, you’re just a great big storyteller, aren’t you? Here we are, clever little Blair’s found two tumblers and a corkscrew, so let’s be cosy.”
David looked longingly towards the study, where Act II was waiting, but he did not know how to evict his unwelcome guest. He wondered how long it would be before Oglethorpe came home.
Blair had kicked her shoes off and would have let her hair down had it been possible. “Let’s sit on the sofa,” she said. “Now I want to talk to you about contact, David; for a man in your position, contact is so essential.”
People always seemed to be lecturing him about his position, David thought; at the moment it seemed to be deteriorating alarmingly; he felt homesick for the viaduct.
At this moment three loud raps sounded on the window. Blair shot upright, greatly startled.