Vile Bodies

Little, Brown and Company

CHAPTER 1

It was clearly going to be a bad crossing.

With Asiatic resignation Father Rothschild S. J. put down his suitcase in thecorner of the bar and went on deck. (It was a small suitcase of imitationcrocodile hide. The initials stamped on it in Gothic characters were not FatherRothschild's, for he had borrowed it that morning from the valet-de-chambreof his hotel. It contained some rudimentary underclothes, siximportant new books in six languages, a false beard and a school atlas andgazetteer heavily annotated.) Standing on the deck Father Rothschild leaned hiselbows on the rail, rested his chin in his hands and surveyed the procession ofpassengers coming up the gangway, each face eloquent of polite misgiving.

Very few of them were unknown to the Jesuit, for it was his happy knack toremember everything that could possibly be learned about everyone who couldpossibly be of any importance. His tongue protruded very slightly and, had theynot all been so concerned with luggage and the weather, someone might haveobserved in him a peculiar resemblance to those plaster reproductions of thegargoyles of Notre Dame which may be seen in the shop windows of artists'colormen tinted the color of "Old Ivory," peering intently from among stenciloutfits and plasticine and tubes of watercolor paint. High above his head swungMrs. Melrose Ape's travel-worn Packard car, bearing the dust of threecontinents, against the darkening sky, and up the companion-way at the head ofher angels strode Mrs. Melrose Ape, the woman evangelist.

"Faith."

"Here, Mrs. Ape."

"Charity."

"Here, Mrs. Ape."

"Fortitude."

"Here, Mrs. Ape."

"Chastity ... Where is Chastity?"

"Chastity didn't feel well, Mrs. Ape. She went below."

"That girl's more trouble than she's worth. Whenever there's any packing to bedone, Chastity doesn't feel well. Are all the rest here—Humility,Prudence, Divine Discontent, Mercy, Justice and Creative Endeavor?"

"Creative Endeavor lost her wings, Mrs. Ape. She got talking to a gentleman inthe train ... Oh, there she is."

"Got 'em?" asked Mrs. Ape.

Too breathless to speak, Creative Endeavor nodded. (Each of the angels carriedher wings in a little black box like a violin case.)

"Right," said Mrs. Ape, "and just you hold on to 'em tight and not so muchtalking to gentlemen in trains. You're angels, not a panto, see?"

The angels crowded together disconsolately. It was awful when Mrs. Ape was likethis. My, how they would pinch Chastity and Creative Endeavor when they got themalone in their nightshirts. It was bad enough their going to be so sick withoutthat they had Mrs. Ape pitching into them too.

Seeing their discomfort, Mrs. Ape softened and smiled. She was nothing if not"magnetic."

"Well, girls," she said, "I must be getting along. They say it's going to berough, but don't you believe it. If you have peace in your hearts your stomachwill look after itself, and remember if you do feelqueer—sing. There's nothing like it."

"Good-bye, Mrs. Ape, and thank you," said the angels; they bobbed prettily,turned about and trooped aft to the second-class part of the ship. Mrs. Apewatched them benignly, then, squaring her shoulders and looking (except that shehad really no beard to speak of) every inch a sailor, strode resolutely forrardto the first-class bar.

Other prominent people were embarking, all very unhappy about the weather; toavert the terrors of seasickness they had indulged in every kind of civilizedwitchcraft, but they were lacking in faith.

Miss Runcible was there, and Miles Malpractice, and all the Younger Set. Theyhad spent a jolly morning strapping each other's tummies with sticking plaster(how Miss Runcible had wriggled).

The Right Honorable Walter Outrage, M.P., last week's Prime Minister, was there.Before breakfast that morning (which had suffered in consequence) Mr. Outragehad taken twice the maximum dose of a patent preparation of chloral, and losingheart later had finished the bottle in the train. He moved in an uneasy trance,closely escorted by the most public-looking detective sergeants. These men hadbeen with Mr. Outrage in Paris, and what they did not know about his goings onwas not worth knowing, at least from a novelist's point of view. (When theyspoke about him to each other they called him "the Right Honorable Rape," butthat was more by way of being a pun about his name than a criticism of theconduct of his love affairs, in which, if the truth were known, he displayed anotable diffidence and the liability to panic.)

Lady Throbbing and Mrs. Blackwater, those twin sisters whose portrait by Millaisauctioned recently at Christie's made a record in rock-bottom prices, weresitting on one of the teak benches eating apples and drinking what LadyThrobbing, with late Victorian chic, called "a bottle of pop," and Mrs.Blackwater, more exotically, called "champagne," pronouncing it asthough it were French.

"Surely, Kitty, that is Mr. Outrage, last week's Prime Minister."

"Nonsense, Fanny, where?"

"Just in front of the two men with bowler hats, next to the clergyman."

"It is certainly like his photographs. How strange he looks."

"Just like poor Throbbing ... all that last year."

"... And none of us even suspected ... until they found the bottles under theboard in his dressing room ... and we all used to think it was drink ..."

"I don't think one finds quite the same class as Prime Ministernowadays, do you think?"

"They say that only one person has any influence with Mr. Outrage ..."

"At the Japanese Embassy ..."

"Of course, dear, not so loud. But tell me, Fanny, seriously, do you thinkreally and truly Mr. Outrage has IT?"

"He has a very nice figure for a man of his age."

"Yes, but his age, and the bull-like type is so often disappointing.Another glass? You will be grateful for it when the ship begins to move."

"I quite thought we were moving."

"How absurd you are, Fanny, and yet I can't help laughing."

So arm in arm and shaken by little giggles the two tipsy old ladies went down totheir cabin.

Of the other passengers, some had filled their ears with cotton wool, otherswore smoked glasses, while several ate dry captain's biscuits from paper bags,as Red Indians are said to eat snake's flesh to make them cunning. Mrs. Hooprepeated feverishly over and over again a formula she had learned from a yogi inNew York City. A few "good sailors," whose luggage bore the labels of manyvoyages, strode aggressively about smoking small, foul pipes and trying to getup a four of bridge.

Two minutes before the advertised time of departure, while the first admonitorywhistling and shouting was going on, a young man came on board carrying his bag.There was nothing particularly remarkable about his appearance. He lookedexactly as young men like him do look; he was carrying his own bag, which wasdisagreeably heavy, because he had no money left in francs and very little leftin anything else. He had been two months in Paris writing a book and was cominghome because, in the course of his correspondence, he had got engaged to bemarried. His name was Adam Fenwick-Symes.

Father Rothschild smiled at him in a kindly manner.

"I doubt whether you remember me," he said. "We met at Oxford five years ago atluncheon with the Dean of Balliol.

I shall be interested to read your book when it appears—an autobiography,I understand. And may I be one of the first to congratulate you on yourengagement? I am afraid you will find your father-in-law a littleeccentric—and forgetful. He had a nasty attack of bronchitis this winter.It's a drafty house—far too big for these days. Well, I must go below now.It is going to be rough and I am a bad sailor. We meet at Lady Metroland's onthe twelfth, if not, as I hope, before."

Before Adam had time to reply the Jesuit disappeared. Suddenly the head poppedback.

"There is an extremely dangerous and disagreeable woman on board—a Mrs.Ape."

Then he was gone again, and almost at once the boat began to slip away from thequay towards the mouth of the harbor.

Sometimes the ship pitched and sometimes she rolled and sometimes she stoodquite still and shivered all over, poised above an abyss of dark water; then shewould go swooping down like a scenic railway train into a windless hollow and upagain with a rush into the gale; sometimes she would burrow her path, withconvulsive nosings and scramblings like a terrier in a rabbit hole; andsometimes she would drop dead like a lift. It was this last movement that causedthe most havoc among the passengers.

"Oh," said the Bright Young People. "Oh, oh, oh."

"It's just exactly like being inside a cocktail shaker," said Miles Malpractice."Darling, your face—eau de Nil."

"Too, too sick-making," said Miss Runcible, with one of her rare flashes ofaccuracy.

Kitty Blackwater and Fanny Throbbing lay one above the other in their bunksrigid from wig to toe.

"I wonder, do you think the champagne ...?"

"Kitty."

"Yes, Fanny, dear."

"Kitty, I think, in fact, I am sure I have some sal volatile ... Kitty, Ithought that perhaps as you are nearer ... it would really hardly be safe for meto try and descend ... I might break a leg."

"Not after champagne, Fanny, do you think?"

"But I need it. Of course, dear, if it's too much trouble?"

"Nothing is too much trouble, darling, you know that. But now I come to think ofit, I remember, quite clearly, for a fact, that you did not pack the salvolatile."

"Oh, Kitty, oh, Kitty, please ... you would be sorry for this if I died ... oh."

"But I saw the sal volatile on your dressing table after your luggage had gonedown, dear. I remember thinking, I must take that down to Fanny, and then, dear,I got confused over the tips, so you see ..."

"I ... put ... it ... in ... myself ... Next to my brushes ... you ... beast."

"Oh, Fanny ..."

"Oh ... Oh ... Oh."

To Father Rothschild no passage was worse than any other. He thought of thesufferings of the saints, the mutability of human nature, the Four Last Things,and between whiles repeated snatches of the penitential psalms.

The Leader of his Majesty's Opposition lay sunk in a rather glorious coma, madesplendid by dreams of Oriental imagery—of painted paper houses; of goldendragons and gardens of almond blossom; of golden limbs and almond eyes, humbleand caressing; of very small golden feet among almond blossoms; of littlepainted cups full of golden tea; of a golden voice singing behind a paintedpaper screen; of humble, caressing little golden hands and eyes shaped likealmonds and the color of night.

Outside his door two very limp detective sergeants had deserted their posts.

"The bloke as could make trouble on a ship like this 'ere deserves to get awaywith it," they said.

The ship creaked in every plate, doors slammed, trunks fell about, the windhowled; the screw, now out of the water, now in, raced and churned, shaking downhatboxes like ripe apples; but above all the roar and clatter there rose fromthe second-class ladies' saloon the despairing voices of Mrs. Ape's angels, infrequently broken unison, singing, singing, wildly, desperately, as though theirhearts would break in the effort and their minds lose their reason, Mrs. Ape'sfamous hymn, There ain't no flies on the Lamb of God.

The Captain and the Chief Officer sat on the bridge engrossed in a crosswordpuzzle.

"Looks like we may get some heavy weather if the wind gets up," he said."Shouldn't wonder if there wasn't a bit of a sea running tonight."

"Well, we can't always have it quiet like this," said the Chief Officer. "Wordof eighteen letters meaning carnivorous mammal. Search me if I know how they dothink of these things."

Adam Fenwick-Symes sat among the good sailors in the smoking-room drinking histhird Irish whiskey and wondering how soon he would feel definitely ill. Alreadythere was a vague depression gathering at the top of his head. There werethirty-five minutes more, probably longer with the head wind keeping them back.

Opposite him sat a much-traveled and chatty journalist telling him smuttystories. From time to time Adam interposed some more or less appropriatecomment, "No, I say that's a good one," or, "I must remember that," or just "Ha,Ha, Ha," but his mind was not really in a receptive condition.

Up went the ship, up, up, up, paused and then plunged down with a sidelongslither. Adam caught at his glass and saved it. Then shut his eyes.

"Now I'll tell you a drawing room one," said the journalist.

Behind them a game of cards was in progress among the commercial gents. At firstthey had rather a jolly time about it, saying, "What ho, she bumps," or "Steady,the Buffs," when the cards and glasses and ashtray were thrown on to the floor,but in the last ten minutes they were growing notably quieter. It was rather anasty kind of hush.

"... And forty aces and two-fifty for the rubber. Shall we cut again or stay aswe are?"

"How about knocking off for a bit? Makes me tired—table moving about allthe time."

"Why, Arthur, you ain't feeling ill, surely?"

"'Course I ain't feeling ill, only tired."

"Well, of course, if Arthur's feeling ill ..."

"Who'd have thought of old Arthur feeling ill?"

"I ain't feeling ill, I tell you. Just tired. But if you boys want to go on I'mnot the one to spoil a game."

"Good old Arthur. 'Course he ain't feeling ill. Look out for the cards, Bill, upshe goes again."

"What about one all round? Same again?"

"Same again."

"Good luck, Arthur." "Good luck." "Here's fun." "Down she goes."

"Whose deal? You dealt last, didn't you, Mr. Henderson?"

"Yes, Arthur's deal."

"Your deal, Arthur. Cheer up, old scout."

"Don't you go doing that. It isn't right to hit a chap on the back like that."

"Look out with the cards, Arthur."

"Well, what d'you expect, being hit on the back like that. Makes me tired."

"Here, I got fifteen cards."

"I wonder if you've heard this one," said the journalist. "There was a man livedat Aberdeen, and he was terribly keen on fishing, so when he married, he marrieda woman with worms. That's rich, eh? You see he was keen on fishing, see, andshe had worms, see, he lived in Aberdeen. That's a good one that is."

"D'you know, I think I shall go on deck for a minute. A bit stuffy in here,don't you think?"

"You can't do that. The sea's coming right over it all the time. Not feelingqueer, are you?"

"No, of course I'm not feeling queer. I only thought a little fresh air ...Christ, why won't the damn thing stop?"

"Steady, old boy. I wouldn't go trying to walk about, not if I were you. Muchbetter stay just where you are. What you want's a spot of whiskey."

"Not feeling ill, you know. Just stuffy."

"That's all right, old boy. Trust Auntie."

The bridge party was not being a success.

"Hullo, Mr. Henderson. What's that spade?"

"That's the ace, that is."

"I can see it's the ace. What I mean you didn't ought to have trumped that lasttrick, not if you had a spade."

"What d'you mean, didn't ought to have trumped it? Trumps led."

"No, they did not. Arthur led a spade."

"He led a trump, didn't you, Arthur?"

"Arthur led a spade."

"He couldn't have led a spade because for why he put a heart on my king ofspades when I thought he had the queen. He hasn't got no spades."

"What d'you mean, not got no spades? I got the queen."

"Arthur, old man, you must be feeling queer."

"No, I ain't, I tell you, just tired. You'd be tired if you'd been hit on theback same as I was ... anyway I'm fed up with this game ... there go the cardsagain."

This time no one troubled to pick them up. Presently Mr. Henderson said, "Funnything, don't know why I feel all swimmy of a sudden. Must have ate somethingthat wasn't quite right. You never can tell with foreign foods—all messedup like they do."

"Now you mention it, I don't feel too spry myself. Damn bad ventilation on theseChannel boats."

"That's what it is. Ventilation. You said it."

"You know I'm funny. I never feel seasick, mind, but I often find going on boatsdoesn't agree with me."

"I'm like that, too."

"Ventilation ... a disgrace."

"Lord, I shall be glad when we get to Dover. Home, sweet home, eh?"

Adam held on very tightly to the brass-bound edge of the table and felt a littlebetter. He was not going to be sick, and that was that; not with thatgargoyle of a man opposite anyway. They must be in sight of land soon.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. Copyright © 2012 Evelyn Waugh. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown and Company.
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