Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [67]
They were still sitting in silence when Troutbeck came to them, ten minutes later. "Miss Bloggs says she is expecting you upstairs to play cards." "You don't mind?" William asked. Mr. Salter was past minding anything. He was led upstairs, down long lamp-lit corridors, through doors of faded baize, to Nannie Bloggs's room. Uncle Theodore was already there arranging the card table beside her bed. "So this is him," she said. "Why hasn't he got any shoes?" "It's a long story," said William. The beady old eyes studied Mr. Salter's care-worn face; she put on her spectacles and looked again. "Too old," she said. Coming from whom it did, this criticism seemed a bit thick; even in his depressed condition, Mr. Salter was roused to resentment. "Too old for what?" he asked sharply. Nannie Bloggs, though hard as agate about matters of money and theology, had, in old age, a soft spot for a lover. "There, there, dearie," she said. "I don't mean anything. There's many a young heart beats in an old body. Sit down. Cut the cards, Mr. Theodore. You've had a disappointment I know her being away. She always was a contrary girl. The harder the wooing the sweeter the winning, they say � two spades �and there's many a happy marriage between April and December � don't go peeping over my hand, Mr. Theodore � and she's a good girl at heart, though she does forget her neck sometimes � three spades � comes out of the bath just as black as she went in, I don't know what she does in there..."
They played three rubbers and Mr. Salter lost twenty-two shillings. As they rose to leave, Nannie Bloggs, who had from long habit kept up a more or less continuous monologue during the course of the game, said: "Don't give up, dearie. If it wasn't that your hair was thinning you mightn't be more than thirty-five. She doesn't know her own mind yet and that's the truth." They left. William and Uncle Theodore accompanied Mr. Salter to his room. William said "Good night." Uncle Theodore lingered. "Pity you doubled our hearts," he said. "Yes." "Got you down badly." "Yes." A single candle stood on the table by the bed. In its light Mr. Salter saw a suit of borrowed pyjamas laid out. Sleep was coming on him like a vast, pea-soup fog, rolling down Fleet Street from Ludgate Hill. He did not want to discuss their game of bridge. "We had all the cards," said Uncle Theodore magnanimously, sitting down on the bed. "Yes." "I expect you keep pretty late hours in London." "Yes...no...that is to say, sometimes." "Hard to get used to country hours. I don't suppose you feel a bit sleepy." "Well, as a matter of fact..." "When I lived in London..." began Uncle Theodore. The candle burned low. "... Funny thing that." Mr. Salter awoke with a start. He was sitting in Priscilla's chintz-covered armchair; Uncle Theodore was still on the bed, reclining now like a surfeited knight of the age of Heliogabalus. "Of course you couldn't print it. But I've quite a number of stories you could print. Hundreds of 'em. I was wondering if it was the kind of thing your newspaper..." "Quite outside my province, I'm afraid. You see, I'm the Foreign Editor." "Half of them deal with Paris; more than half. For instance ..." "I should love to hear them, all of them, sometime, later, not now..." "You pay very handsomely, I believe, on the Beast." "Yes." "Now suppose I was to write a series of articles..." "Mr. Boot," said Mr. Salter desperately. "Let us discuss it in the morning." "I'm never in my best form in the morning," said Uncle Theodore doubtfully. "Now after dinner I can talk quite happily until any time." "Come to London. See the Features Editor." "Yes," said Uncle Theodore. "I will. But I don't want to shock him; I should like your opinion first." The mists rose in Mr. Salter's brain; a word or two loomed up and was lost again�"Willis's rooms...'Pussy' Gresham...Romanoes...believe it or not, fifteen thousand pounds..." Then all was silence. When Mr. Salter awoke he was cold and stiff and fully dressed except for his shoes; the candle was burned out. Autumnal dawn glimmered in the window, and Priscilla Boot, in riding habit, was ransacking the wardrobe for a lost tie.