‘Ah!’ said a voice, ‘got a cigarette, Guv’nor?’
‘I’ll give you all I’ve got and half a crown, if you’ll find a cab close by with a lady in it. What street’s this?’
‘Don’t arst me! The streets ’ave gone mad, I think.’
‘Listen!’ said Michael sharply.
‘That’s right, “Someone callin’ so sweet.”’
‘Hallo!’ cried Michael. ‘Fleur!’
‘Here! Here!’
It sounded to his right, to his left, behind him, in front. Then came the steady blowing of a cab’s horn.
‘Now we’ve got ’em,’ said the bit of darkness. ‘This way, Guv’nor, step slow, and mind my corns!’
Michael yielded to a tugging at his coat.
‘It’s like no-man’s-land in a smoke barrage!’ said his guide.
‘You’re right. Hallo! Coming!’
The horn sounded a yard off. A voice said: ‘Oh! Michael!’
His face touched Fleur’s in the window of the cab.
‘Just a second, darling. There you are, my friend, and thanks awfully! Hope you’ll get home!’
‘I’ve ’ad worse nights out than this. Thank you, Captain! Wish you and the lady luck.’ There was a sound of shuffling on, and the fog sighed out: ‘So long!’
‘All right, sir,’ said the hoarse voice of Michael’s cabman. ‘I know where I am now. First on the left, second on the right. I’ll bump the kerb till I get there. Thought you was swallered up, sir!’
Michael got into the cab, and clasped Fleur close. She uttered a long sigh, and sat quite still.
‘Nothing more scaring than a fog!’ he said.
‘I thought you’d been run over!’
Michael was profoundly touched.
‘Awfully sorry, darling. And you’ve got all that beastly fog down your throat. We’ll drown it out when we get in. That poor chap was an ex-service man. Wonderful the way the English keep their humour and don’t lose their heads.’
‘I lost mine!’
‘Well, you’ve got it back,’ said Michael, pressing it against his own to hide the emotion he was feeling. ‘Fog’s our sheet-anchor, after all. So long as we have fog, England will survive.’ He felt Fleur’s lips against his.
He belonged to her, and she couldn’t afford to have him straying about in fogs or Foggartism! Was that the – ? And then, he yielded to the thrill.
The cabman was standing by the opened door. ‘Now, sir, I’m in your Square. P’r’aps you know your own ‘ouse.’
Wrenched from the kiss, Michael stammered: ‘Righto!’ The fog was thinner here; he could consult the shape of trees. ‘On and to your right, third house.’
There it was – desirable – with its bay trees in its tubs and its fanlight shining. He put his latch-key in the door.
‘A drink?’ he said.
The cabman coughed: ‘I won’t say no, sir.’
Michael brought the drink.
‘Far to go?’
‘Near Putney Bridge. Your ’ealth, sir!’
Michael watched his pinched face drinking.
‘Sorry you’ve got to plough into that again!’
The cabman handed back the glass.
‘Thank’ee, sir; I shall be all right now; keep along the river, and down the Fulham Road. Thought they couldn’t lose me in London. Where I went wrong was trying for a short cut instead of takin’ the straight road round. ‘Ope the young lady’s none the worse, sir. She was properly scared while you was out there in the dark. These fogs ain’t fit for ‘uman bein’s. They ought to do somethin’ about ’em in Parliament.’
‘They ought!’ said Michael, handing him a pound note. ‘Good-night, and good luck!’
‘It’s an ill wind!’ said the cabman, starting his cab. ‘Goodnight, sir, and thank you kindly.’
‘Thank you!’ said Michael.
The cab ground slowly away, and was lost to sight.
Michael went into the Spanish room. Fleur, beneath the Goya, was boiling a silver kettle, and burning pastilles. What a contrast to the world outside – its black malodorous cold reek, its risk and fear! In this pretty glowing room, with this pretty glowing woman, why think of its tangle, lost shapes, and straying cries?
Lighting his cigarette, he took his drink from her by its silver handle, and put it to his lips.
‘I really think we ought to have a car, Michael!’
Chapter Eight
COLLECTING EVIDENCE
THE editor of The Protagonist had so evidently enjoyed himself that he caused a number of other people to do the same.
‘There’s no more popular sight in the East, Forsyte,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘than a boy being spanked; and the only difference between East and West is that in the East the boy at once offers himself again at so much a spank. I don’t see Mr Perceval Calvin doing that.’