"Ask someone who knows them better," I suggested. "I've hardly seen
either for months."
There was less delicacy about Pebbleridge, when I dined with him; less
still about Frank Jellaby, when I met him at the Club. To the party
organiser moral depravity is of interest only in so far as it
contributes to damage a hostile cause.
"Grayle's hardly chosen a fortunate moment for the double event," he
observed gleefully.
I made it a rule in these days never to admit knowledge of the facts
until I had discovered how much my antagonist knew. The House of Commons
on this occasion was better informed than Pont Street, the County Club
or Eaton Place.
"Well, you know, he's been living--for months, apparently--with Mrs.
O'Rane? I'm told O'Rane is bringing a petition. It will rather cook
Grayle's goose, if this all comes out just when he's waiting to be sent
for. It'll be a pretty bad case, from all accounts. You know O'Rane,
don't you? Well, he lost his sight early in the war, which won't get
Grayle much sympathy; and he was pretty newly married, which will appeal
to the sentimental; and the whole business seems to have been conducted
without any regard for human decency. Grayle used to go to the house as
a friend, have them to his house, meet O'Rane in the Smoking-Room.... If
he goes into the witness box, he'll be broken for all time, but, whether
he goes in or not, he's dished himself for the present; even in war-time
the Nonconformist Conscience wouldn't swallow a scandal of that kind.
It's a bit ironical, isn't it? Like Parnell when he'd got Home Rule in
the hollow of his hand. Grayle has done more to bring about this crisis
than any six other men--including Northcliffe. He worked the Tories; he
could call for anything he liked; and now you and I have only to wait
for the story to get round a bit, and you'll find that Grayle's duties
at the War Office are so important that he won't have time to attend the
House, let alone taking a job." He laughed jubilantly. "Nemesis!
Nemesis!"
"_If_ the story is true," I said. "Where did you hear it?"
"Oh, everybody's talking about it! You don't suggest it's untrue?"
"I agree that everybody's talking about it, though that by itself
doesn't make it true. Indeed, I've heard so many versions that I'm
beginning to get confused. You say that O'Rane is bringing a petition?
That's quite well-established? If so, this is the most convincing
version that I've heard since lunch, because I don't suppose he would
act on mere suspicion."
Jellaby looked up to the ceiling and pinched his chin thoughtfully
between thumb and finger.
"I can give you my authority, I think. I was talking to several of the
Lobby correspondents--it was that little man Palfrey, the fellow from
the 'Night Gazette.' He told me that Grayle had been sent for all right,
but not to be sounded for an office. This story was going about, and
they wanted to know if it was true. I don't know where Palfrey got his
facts from, but he's usually very well informed. He told me quite
definitely that O'Rane was applying for a divorce."
I hardly knew whether to be surprised or not. When I last saw O'Rane he
did not seem to have made up his own mind. At first he had told us
unmistakably that he would be driven to bring the marriage to an end,
unless his wife and Grayle separated; later, when she was for a moment
once more in his house, he forgot to threaten and expended himself in
pleading, with an appeal to Grayle which I should have been unable to
resist, if I had been in his place. Her voice and bodily presence, the
memories of the few weeks when they had lived together there seemed to
have killed any feeling of resentment and of personal interest; O'Rane
was begging the two of them to spare him the necessity of an extreme
step. He did not convince them, but, when I left, I was not sure that he
had not convinced himself.
Jellaby was about to leave me, when I called him back.
"I want to ask a favour of you," I said. "Don't make party capital out
of this--yet awhile, at least. I know all these people; and I should
like you to hold your hand for the present. If the story's true, if the
case comes into court, it's public property for the world to discuss.
But, until then, don't spread a story which may not be true and, true or
not, must be tolerably unpleasant for young O'Rane."
"But I'm not spreading it!" Jellaby protested. "Everybody seems to have
heard of it except you."
"Everyone's heard of it at about fifteenth hand. Whether it's true or
not is very simply tested by events. O'Rane's not likely to let his wife
go _on_ living with Grayle, if that's what she's doing now; if he takes
action, you'll know your story's true; if he doesn't--well, for pity's
sake don't even repeat such charges against a perfectly innocent woman."
The epithet made Jellaby wag his head at me very knowingly.
"There's no smoke without fire, you know, Stornaway," he said.
I cannot deal with debilitated minds which employ proverbs in place of
arguments; Jellaby remained unanswered.
I had hardly got rid of him and ordered myself a glass of port wine,
when a page-boy brought me a card and stated that Sir Roger Dainton was
waiting in the hall and would like to see me for a moment. Now, I had
been on nodding terms with Dainton a dozen years in and out of the
House, but we had never attained greater intimacy, as I am
temperamentally unable to suffer bores gladly. A call from such a man at
nine o'clock in the evening could mean only one thing.
"Ask him, with my compliments, if he will join me in a glass of wine," I
said.
Under his usual garb of awkward diffidence and universal apology, I
could see that my visitor was perplexed and worried. For several moments
I entirely failed to check his flow of regret at disturbing my dinner;
when I silenced him with three interruptions and as many invitations to
taste his wine and try some of my nuts, he planted his elbows
impressively on the table, leaned forward, opened his lips and then
flung himself back and swept our corner of the Coffee-Room for
eavesdroppers.
"I hope there's nothing wrong," I said.
He planted his elbows in position a second time and abruptly covered his
face with his hands.
"It's--incredible," he began. "My little girl--Sonia, you know Sonia?
Have you heard about it?"
"I don't know what you're referring to yet," I pointed out.
"Sonia's run away from her husband!" he whispered uncomprehendingly.
"She's gone off with another man. They say--they say David's going to
divorce her."
He lowered his hands, and the round, child's eyes, harmonising perfectly
with the chubby, boyish face, were as full of horror and incredulity as
his voice had been. I knew, of course, that Dainton had lost his elder
son in the first year of the war and I believe that the younger had
been wounded at least twice; this was the first time, however, that he
had been flung against the sharp rocks of life, and he was as helplessly
and bewilderedly scared and resentful as a child who has fallen among
the breakers on a rugged coast.
"You had better tell me all about it," I said.
His stammering, self-interrupted narrative added nothing to the three
sentences which he had already spoken. The blow had fallen that day at
luncheon. Dainton found himself one of a large party which was for the
most part unknown to him. Half-way through the meal he caught the sound
of his daughter's name with some comment which would have been
grotesque, if it had not been uttered with so much assurance. There
followed the silence which drives home to a speaker that he has said
something unpardonable and that he alone is unaware what it is.
Dainton's neighbours rallied simultaneously and doused him with two
conflicting jets of conversation, only to find that he was not listening
and that, when they paused, he asked in an amazed whisper whether they
had heard what was said.
"I may not have caught it right," he explained hopefully.
But both denied that they had heard the words in question.
When luncheon was over, an unknown woman with a scarlet face came up to
him and apologised with tears in her eyes. What he must think.... She
wouldn't have done such a thing for the world.... Really it was partly
their hostess's fault for not introducing them properly. Honestly, she
had no idea....
"I asked her to say it again," Dainton told me dully. "It was the very
first I'd heard, the first I'd _suspected_.... I can't believe it
_now_--not _Sonia_.... She--she said it was only a rumour, she couldn't
vouch for it, but there was a report that David was going to ..."
He paused to raise his glass, spilling the wine generously. "I didn't
know what to do. I couldn't go about asking every Tom, Dick and Harry
whether _my daughter_--When I got away from the office to-night, I went
round to her house to see if I could find out anything from Oakleigh or
George--I could talk to them fairly freely.... I remember my wife told
me, I forget when it was, that Sonia was away and that George had moved
in there to look after his uncle; neither of us ever _dreamed_ then....
They were both out, so I thought I'd come and bother you. I knew you
were pretty intimate with them. I--quite frankly I want you to tell me
if what that woman said was true."