An Awkward Conversation
There are certain things one does not discuss in polite circles, among them family scandals, dalliances beyond the confines of sacred matrimony, and financial transactions involving unacceptable losses. So you can imagine my dismay when my own brother, the hitherto reliable and unassuming Mortimer, launched into a conversation that embraced all three of these taboo subjects, right in the drawing room of one’s own club.
He was there at my invitation, and I was quite aghast when I grasped the direction in which the conversation – more of a confession really – was heading. The mortification one felt was only to grow, as one could clearly sense from the very start of his revelation. Still, I indulged him. The poor fool was quite a-dither about it, and with good reason. He had been well and truly diddled by a jezebel, and it had left him inconsolable. I shall relate.
This hussy had approached Mortimer at a pony sale, ostensibly seeking his opinion on a particular animal that she was, she explained, considering adding to her stable for the coming polo season. Given that my brother was there for the same purpose, and is well known as both a horseman and breeder, this situation was not too far out of the ordinary. However, the fact that he had never laid eyes on this young lady before – and he is very much a central figure in the world of polo in these parts – nor recognised her name, should have set his internal alarm bells pealing like Great Tom in Oxford at five minutes past nine in the evening. He was, he confided, entirely taken by her beauty at the time, and failed to hear the tolling of his own carillon of Prudence, Fidelity and Rectitude.
The word he used was ‘ravishing’, a term I had never heard him use and which I suspect had never escaped his lips until the moment he uttered it in my presence. ‘Oh, she was a ravishing beauty,’ he said. ‘But more, she was touchingly trusting. Almost from the moment we met, she acted as if – and one felt – that we had long been close and confidential friends.’
‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘you had met this young person before, and simply forgotten?’
Oh no, he insisted. Her exquisite appearance and wonderfully approachable manner made her consummately memorable. The possibility that he had previously made her acquaintance but had forgotten her was so remote as to be inconceivable.
‘If she is as memorable as all that,’ I suggested, ‘you will have no trouble identifying her in a police line-up.’
‘Good heavens, Gerald,’ he exclaimed with some alacrity. ‘I certainly will not be pursuing Adrienne (for such was the name of the minx) via the authorities. I would much rather let the matter lie. God forbid that Elspeth should ever find out.’
This last was true. Mortimer’s dearly beloved spouse, formerly a charming young waif of pleasing proportions and obliging temperament, had in the fifteen years of their marriage metamorphosed into something of a fuming leviathan. The good lord alone knows what she had to be so constantly irate about. Mortimer was a generous and entirely amenable husband whose commitment to Elspeth’s contentment led him to make himself entirely absent for long periods of time, lest his mere presence bring on one of her tirades. And when he was with her, he was so utterly accommodating as to be positively submissive. Their offspring, too, could surely not have been the source of Elspeth’s continuous flow of vexation and vituperation. Both Archibald and his sister Daphne were passably attractive, acceptably intelligent, and gratifyingly undemanding, happy to spend the majority of their time (when not away at boarding school) with their matronly nanny, Nanny. The family lived in splendour in a gorgeous manor, surrounded by a marvellous estate that was ably managed by a large staff of dedicated, if occasionally terrified, retainers, so their domestic situation was, if anything, one to be envied.
And yet, there it is; Elspeth was not the kind of woman to forgive even the mildest of transgressions, let alone one involving both infidelity and fiscal irresponsibility. I concurred with Mortimer’s decision to keep his aberrant behaviour and its unfortunate consequences from his wife. At the same time, my curiosity was burning like the filament of a gas lamp that has just been installed below the flame, so in spite of my misgivings I pressed him for details of that very behaviour.
It seemed that this scheming filly had reluctantly, and more than a touch coquettishly, divulged to Mortimer that she had lately parted company with her husband, an incomparably rich but heartless foreigner, and was awaiting a handsome settlement. She was, however, momentarily embarrassed, and having received such encouraging advice regarding the pony in question from Mortimer, was emboldened to ask whether he thought the seller might accept a promissory note for the price of the beast.
My dear, chivalrous, boneheaded brother took the bait and swallowed it whole.
‘No need, my dear,’ he said. ‘Allow me to meet your commitments today, and indeed until such time as your financial arrangement with your former husband has been completed.’
The young lady, this shameless temptress, was so eager to accept Mortimer’s offer that she enthusiastically bid on the animal and another three besides, when the auction took place.
He had then conveyed her back to her surprisingly modest accommodation (still no alarm bells, Mortimer?), where they ordered in a fine meal and copious quantities of very expensive French champagne, all furnished by my credulous kinsman. This was followed by an entire night of unbridled passion, the particulars of which were communicated to me in excruciating detail and which I will here omit. Suffice to say, Mortimer claims that it was unlike anything he had ever experienced with she who had heretofore been his only reference point in the matter of copulation, Elspeth.
In the ensuing weeks, Adrienne had run up quite a tab on Oxford and Regent Streets, had thrown several extravagant soirees attended by people unknown to Mortimer or indeed to society as we know it, and had entertained Mortimer in the boudoir to a perfectly scandalous degree.
Then one morning he had awakened hung-over, sexually sated to an inordinate extent, and alone. Adrienne had absconded, taking with her his wallet, his suit, shoes and hat, and every other item in the flat, bar the bed in which mon frere slept, gloriously insensible of the crime being perpetrated upon him. He had prevailed upon a local tradesman to take himself off to the family home and seek an audience with Mortimer’s trusted manservant Manfred, entering via the service entrance of course. Manfred had grasped the import of the situation and had returned with the trades fellow, bearing a fresh set of clothing and a large container of masculine scent.
All in all, Mortimer’s losses had amounted to a pretty sum, and to add insult to injury, Elspeth had become peevishly suspicious of his absences, which had been even more prolonged than usual. Poor Mortimer’s self-esteem had fallen like Nelson at Trafalgar, and he wore his misery like that chap’s ill-fitting red coat. He moaned, he whined, and I am not sure that at one stage he did not even resort to shedding a tear.
I commiserated, through gritted teeth. Misjudgment of that nature and scale is regrettable, but I found Mortimer’s compulsion to share it almost unforgiveable. His dour mood was having a dampening effect on my own elevated one, and his long and lugubrious story had prevented me from mentioning my own good news. I was, you see, awaiting the arrival of my fiancé of three weeks, Laurel.
As Mortimer finished his tale of woe, and I continued to mutter sympathetic platitudes, my darling at last walked into the room to put an end to the pain.
You can, I am sure, imagine my astonishment when Mortimer looked up at Laurel, and with a sharp, inquisitorial tone, said, ‘Adrienne!’
He was there at my invitation, and I was quite aghast when I grasped the direction in which the conversation – more of a confession really – was heading. The mortification one felt was only to grow, as one could clearly sense from the very start of his revelation. Still, I indulged him. The poor fool was quite a-dither about it, and with good reason. He had been well and truly diddled by a jezebel, and it had left him inconsolable. I shall relate.
This hussy had approached Mortimer at a pony sale, ostensibly seeking his opinion on a particular animal that she was, she explained, considering adding to her stable for the coming polo season. Given that my brother was there for the same purpose, and is well known as both a horseman and breeder, this situation was not too far out of the ordinary. However, the fact that he had never laid eyes on this young lady before – and he is very much a central figure in the world of polo in these parts – nor recognised her name, should have set his internal alarm bells pealing like Great Tom in Oxford at five minutes past nine in the evening. He was, he confided, entirely taken by her beauty at the time, and failed to hear the tolling of his own carillon of Prudence, Fidelity and Rectitude.
The word he used was ‘ravishing’, a term I had never heard him use and which I suspect had never escaped his lips until the moment he uttered it in my presence. ‘Oh, she was a ravishing beauty,’ he said. ‘But more, she was touchingly trusting. Almost from the moment we met, she acted as if – and one felt – that we had long been close and confidential friends.’
‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘you had met this young person before, and simply forgotten?’
Oh no, he insisted. Her exquisite appearance and wonderfully approachable manner made her consummately memorable. The possibility that he had previously made her acquaintance but had forgotten her was so remote as to be inconceivable.
‘If she is as memorable as all that,’ I suggested, ‘you will have no trouble identifying her in a police line-up.’
‘Good heavens, Gerald,’ he exclaimed with some alacrity. ‘I certainly will not be pursuing Adrienne (for such was the name of the minx) via the authorities. I would much rather let the matter lie. God forbid that Elspeth should ever find out.’
This last was true. Mortimer’s dearly beloved spouse, formerly a charming young waif of pleasing proportions and obliging temperament, had in the fifteen years of their marriage metamorphosed into something of a fuming leviathan. The good lord alone knows what she had to be so constantly irate about. Mortimer was a generous and entirely amenable husband whose commitment to Elspeth’s contentment led him to make himself entirely absent for long periods of time, lest his mere presence bring on one of her tirades. And when he was with her, he was so utterly accommodating as to be positively submissive. Their offspring, too, could surely not have been the source of Elspeth’s continuous flow of vexation and vituperation. Both Archibald and his sister Daphne were passably attractive, acceptably intelligent, and gratifyingly undemanding, happy to spend the majority of their time (when not away at boarding school) with their matronly nanny, Nanny. The family lived in splendour in a gorgeous manor, surrounded by a marvellous estate that was ably managed by a large staff of dedicated, if occasionally terrified, retainers, so their domestic situation was, if anything, one to be envied.
And yet, there it is; Elspeth was not the kind of woman to forgive even the mildest of transgressions, let alone one involving both infidelity and fiscal irresponsibility. I concurred with Mortimer’s decision to keep his aberrant behaviour and its unfortunate consequences from his wife. At the same time, my curiosity was burning like the filament of a gas lamp that has just been installed below the flame, so in spite of my misgivings I pressed him for details of that very behaviour.
It seemed that this scheming filly had reluctantly, and more than a touch coquettishly, divulged to Mortimer that she had lately parted company with her husband, an incomparably rich but heartless foreigner, and was awaiting a handsome settlement. She was, however, momentarily embarrassed, and having received such encouraging advice regarding the pony in question from Mortimer, was emboldened to ask whether he thought the seller might accept a promissory note for the price of the beast.
My dear, chivalrous, boneheaded brother took the bait and swallowed it whole.
‘No need, my dear,’ he said. ‘Allow me to meet your commitments today, and indeed until such time as your financial arrangement with your former husband has been completed.’
The young lady, this shameless temptress, was so eager to accept Mortimer’s offer that she enthusiastically bid on the animal and another three besides, when the auction took place.
He had then conveyed her back to her surprisingly modest accommodation (still no alarm bells, Mortimer?), where they ordered in a fine meal and copious quantities of very expensive French champagne, all furnished by my credulous kinsman. This was followed by an entire night of unbridled passion, the particulars of which were communicated to me in excruciating detail and which I will here omit. Suffice to say, Mortimer claims that it was unlike anything he had ever experienced with she who had heretofore been his only reference point in the matter of copulation, Elspeth.
In the ensuing weeks, Adrienne had run up quite a tab on Oxford and Regent Streets, had thrown several extravagant soirees attended by people unknown to Mortimer or indeed to society as we know it, and had entertained Mortimer in the boudoir to a perfectly scandalous degree.
Then one morning he had awakened hung-over, sexually sated to an inordinate extent, and alone. Adrienne had absconded, taking with her his wallet, his suit, shoes and hat, and every other item in the flat, bar the bed in which mon frere slept, gloriously insensible of the crime being perpetrated upon him. He had prevailed upon a local tradesman to take himself off to the family home and seek an audience with Mortimer’s trusted manservant Manfred, entering via the service entrance of course. Manfred had grasped the import of the situation and had returned with the trades fellow, bearing a fresh set of clothing and a large container of masculine scent.
All in all, Mortimer’s losses had amounted to a pretty sum, and to add insult to injury, Elspeth had become peevishly suspicious of his absences, which had been even more prolonged than usual. Poor Mortimer’s self-esteem had fallen like Nelson at Trafalgar, and he wore his misery like that chap’s ill-fitting red coat. He moaned, he whined, and I am not sure that at one stage he did not even resort to shedding a tear.
I commiserated, through gritted teeth. Misjudgment of that nature and scale is regrettable, but I found Mortimer’s compulsion to share it almost unforgiveable. His dour mood was having a dampening effect on my own elevated one, and his long and lugubrious story had prevented me from mentioning my own good news. I was, you see, awaiting the arrival of my fiancé of three weeks, Laurel.
As Mortimer finished his tale of woe, and I continued to mutter sympathetic platitudes, my darling at last walked into the room to put an end to the pain.
You can, I am sure, imagine my astonishment when Mortimer looked up at Laurel, and with a sharp, inquisitorial tone, said, ‘Adrienne!’