John decided to walk from Earl's Court to West Kensington. Being still
in complete ignorance of what Hugh had done, he had a presentiment that
this time it was something really grave, and he was now beginning to
believe that George knew how grave it was. Perhaps his decision to go on
foot was not altogether wise, for he was tired out by a convulsive day,
and he had never experienced before such a fathomless sinking of the
stomach on the verge of being mixed up in a disagreeable family
complication, which was prolonged by the opportunity that the walk
afforded him for dismal meditation. While he hurried with bowed head
along one ill-lighted road after another a temptation assailed him to
follow George's advice and abandon Hugh, and not merely Hugh, but all
the rest of his relations, a temptation that elaborated itself into
going back to Church Row, packing up, and escaping to Arizona or British
East Africa or Samoa. In the first place, he had already several times
vowed never more to have anything to do with his youngest brother;
secondly, he was justified in resenting strongly the tortuous road by
which he had been approached on his behalf; thirdly, it might benefit
Hugh's morals to spend a week or two in fear of the ubiquitous police,
instead of a few stay-at-home tradesmen; fourthly, if anything serious
did happen to Hugh, it would serve as a warning to the rest of his
relations, particularly to George; finally, it was his dinner hour, and
if he waited to eat his dinner before tackling Hugh, he should
undoubtedly tackle him afterward in much too generous a frame of mind.
Yes, it would be wiser to go home at once, have a good dinner, and start
for Arizona to-morrow morning. The longer he contemplated it, the less
he liked the way he had been beguiled into visiting Hugh. If the--the
young bounder--no, really bounder was not too strong a word--if the
young bounder was in trouble, why could he not have come forward openly
and courageously to the one relation who could help him? Why had he
again relied upon his mother's fondness, and why had she, as always,
chosen the indirect channel by writing to George rather than to himself?
The fact of the matter was that his mother and George and Hugh possessed
similar loose conceptions of integrity, and now that it was become a
question of facing the music they had instinctively joined hands. Yet
George had advised him to have nothing more to do with Hugh, which
looked as if his latest game was a bit too strong even for George to
relish, for John declined to believe that George possessed enough of the
spirit of competitive sponging to bother about trying to poach in Hugh's
waters; Hilda or Eleanor might, but George.... George was frightened,
that was it; obviously he knew more than he had told, and he did not
want to be exposed ... it would not astonish him to learn that George
was in the business with Hugh and had invented that letter from Mama to
invoke his intervention before it was too late to save himself. What
could it all be about? Curiosity turned the scale against Arizona, and
John pressed forward to West Kensington.
The houses in Carlington Road looked like an over-crowded row of tall,
thin men watching a football match on a cold day; each red-faced house
had a tree in front of it like an umbrella and trim, white steps like
spats; in a fantastic mood the comparison might be prolonged
indefinitely, even so far as to say that, however outwardly
uncomfortable they might appear, like enthusiastic spectators, they were
probably all aglow within. If John had been asked whether he liked an
interior of pink lampshades and brass gongs, he would have replied
emphatically in the negative; but on this chill November night he found
the inside of number 22 rather pleasant after the street. The maid
looked doubtful over admitting him, which was not surprising, because
an odor of hot soup in the hall and the chink of plates behind a closed
door on the right proclaimed that the family was at dinner.
"Will you wait in the drawing-room, sir?" she inquired. "I'll inform Mr.
Touchwood that you're here."
John felt a grim satisfaction in thus breaking in upon Hugh's dinner;
there was nothing so well calculated to disturb even a tranquil
conscience as an unexpected visit at such an hour; but the effect upon
guilt would be....
"Just say that a gentleman wishes to speak to him for a minute. No
name," he replied.
The walk through the dim streets, coupled with speculations upon the
various crimes that his brother might have committed, had perhaps
invested John's rosy personality with an unusual portentousness, for the
maid accepted his instructions fearfully and was so much flustered by
them that she forgot to turn up the gas in the drawing-room, of which
John was glad; he assured himself that the heavily draped room in the
subdued light gave the final touch to the atmosphere of horror which he
aimed at creating; and he could not resist opening the door to enjoy the
consternation in the dining-room just beyond.
"What is it?"
A murmur from the maid.
"Well, you'd better finish your soup first. I wouldn't let my soup get
cold for anybody."
There followed a general buzz from the midst of which Hugh emerged, his
long, sallow face seeming longer than usual in his anxiety, his long,
thin neck craning forward like an apprehensive bird's, and his bony
fingers clutching a napkin with which he dusted his legs nervously.
"Like a flag of truce," John thought, and almost simultaneously felt a
sharp twinge of resentment at Hugh's daring to sport a dinner jacket
with as much effrontery as if his life had been as white as that expanse
of shirt.
"Good Lord," Hugh exclaimed when he recognized his brother. "I thought
you were a detective, at least. Come in and have some grub, won't you?
Mrs. Fenton will be awfully glad to see you."
John demurred at the invitation. Judging by what he had been told about
Mrs. Fenton's attitude toward Hugh, he did not think that Touchwood was
a welcome name in 22 Carlington Road.
"Aubrey!" Hugh was shouting. "One of my brothers has just blown in."
John felt sure that the rapid feminine voice he could faintly hear had a
distinct note of expostulation in it; but, however earnest the
objection, it was at once drowned in the boisterous hospitality of
Aubrey, who came beaming into the hall--a well set up young man of about
twenty-five with a fresh complexion, glasses, an opal solitaire in his
shirt, and a waxy white flower in his buttonhole.
"Do come in," he begged, with an encouraging wave of his napkin. "We've
only just begun."
Although John felt that by dining in this house he was making himself an
accessory after the still undivulged fact, he was really so hungry by
now that he could not bring himself to refuse. He knew that he was
displaying weakness, but he compounded with his austere self by arguing
that he was more likely to arrive at the truth if he avoided anything in
the nature of precipitate action.
Mrs. Fenton did not receive her guest as cordially as her son; in fact,
she showed plainly that she resented extremely his having been invited
to dinner. She was a well-preserved woman and reminded John of a pink
crystallized pear; her frosted transformation glistened like encrusted
sugar round the stalk, which was represented by a tubular head ornament
on the apex of the carefully tended pyramid; her greeting was sticky.
"My son's friend has spoken of you," Mrs. Fenton was saying, coldly, in
reply to John's apologies for intruding upon her like this. He for his
part was envying her ability to refer to Hugh without admitting his
individual existence, when somebody kicked him under the table, and,
looking up, he saw that Hugh was frowning at him in a cautionary
manner.
"I've already met your brother, the writer," his hostess continued.
"My brother, James?" asked John in amazement. He could not envisage
James in these surroundings.
"No, I have not had the pleasure of meeting him _yet_. I was referring
to the dramatist, who has dined with me several times."
"But," John began, when another kick under the table silenced him.
"Pass the salt, will you, George, old boy?" Hugh said loudly.
John's soup was cold, but in the heat of his suppressed indignation he
did not notice it. So George had been masquerading in this house as
himself; no wonder he had not encouraged the idea of an interview with
Hugh. Evidently a dishonest outrage had been perpetrated in his name,
and though Hugh might kick him under the table, he should soon obtain
his revenge by having Hugh kicked out of the house. John took as much
pleasure in his dinner that evening as a sandbag might have taken in
being stuffed with sand. He felt full when it was over, but it was a
soulless affair; and when Mrs. Fenton, who had done nothing except look
down her nose all through the meal, left the table, he turned furiously
upon Hugh.
"What does this gross impersonation mean?" he demanded.
Aubrey threw himself figuratively between the brothers, which only
seemed to increase John's irritation.
"We wanted to jolly the mater along," he explained. "No harm was
intended, but Hughie was keen to prove his respectability; so, as you
and he weren't on the most cordial terms, we introduced your brother,
George, as yourself. It was a compliment, really, to your public
character; but old George rather enjoyed dining here, and I'm bound to
say he sold the mater some very decent port. In fact, you're drinking it
now."
"And I suppose," said John, angrily, "that between you all you've
perpetrated some discreditable fraud, what? I suppose you've been
ordering shirts in my name as well as selling port, eh? I'll disown the
bill. You understand me? I won't have you masquerading as a gentleman,
Hugh, when you can't behave like one. It's obtaining money under false
pretenses, and you can write to your mother till you're as blue in the
face as the ink in your bottle--it won't help you. I can put up with
laziness; I can tolerate stupidity; I can endure dissipation; but I'm
damned if I'll stand being introduced as George. Port, indeed! Don't try
to argue with me. You must take the consequences. Mr. Fenton, I'm sorry
I allowed myself to be inveigled like this into your mother's house. I
shall write to her when I get home, and I hope she will take steps to
clear that impostor out. No, I won't have a cigar--though I've no doubt
I shall presently receive the bill for them, unless I've also been
passed off as a tobacconist's agent by George. As for him, I've done
with him, too. I shall advertise in the _Times_ that neither he nor Hugh
has any business to order things in my name. I came here to-night in
response to an urgent appeal; I find that I've been made a fool of; I
find myself in a most undignified position. No, I will not have another
glass of port. I don't know how much George exacted for it, but let me
tell you that it isn't even good port: it's turbid and fiery."
John rose from the table and was making for the door, when Hugh took
hold of his arm.
"Look here, old chap," he began.
"Don't attempt to soften me with pothouse endearments," said John,
fiercely. "I will not be called 'old chap.'"
"All right, old chap, I won't," said Hugh. "But before you go jumping
into the street like a lighted cracker, please listen. Nobody has been
ordering anything in your name. You're absolutely off the lines there.
Why, I exhausted your credit years ago. And I don't see why you should
grudge poor old George a few dinners."
"You rascal," John stammered. "You impudent rascal!"
"Don't annoy him, Hughie," Aubrey advised. "I can see his point."
"Oh, you can, sir, can you?" John snapped. "You can understand, can you,
how it affects me to be saddled with brothers like these and port like
this?"
John was so furious that he could not bring himself to mention George or
Hugh by name: they merely represented maddening abstractions of
relationship, and he longed for some phrase like "my son's friend" with
which he might disown them forever.
"You mustn't blame your brother George, Mr. Touchwood," urged Aubrey.
"He's not involved in this latest affair. I'm sorry we told the mater
that he was you, but the mater required jollying along, as I explained.
She can't appreciate Hugh. He's too modern for her."
"I sympathize with Mrs. Fenton."
"You must forgive a ruse. It's just the kind of ruse I should think a
playwright would appreciate. You know. Charley's Aunt and all that."
John clenched his fist: "Don't you mutter to me about a sense of humor,"
he said to Hugh, wrathfully.
"I wasn't muttering," replied Hugh. "I merely observed that a little
sense of humor wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm sorry that George has been
dragged like a red herring across the business, because it's a much more
serious matter than simply introducing George to Mrs. Fenton as you and
selling her some port which personally I think is not at all bad, eh,
Aubrey?"
He poured himself out another glass to prove his conviction.
"You may think all this a joke," John retorted. "But I don't. I consider
it a gross exhibition of bad taste."
"All right. Granted. Let's leave it at that," sighed Hugh, wearily. "But
you don't give a fellow much encouragement to own up when he really is
in a tight corner. However, personally I've got past minding. If I'm
sentenced to penal servitude, it'll be your fault for not listening.
Only don't say I disgraced the family name."
"Hugh's right," Aubrey put in. "We really are in a deuce of a hole."
"Disgrace the family name?" John repeated. "Allow me to tell you that
when you hawk George round London as your brother, the playwright, I
consider _that_ is disgracing the family name."
"So that if I'm arrested for forgery," Hugh asked, "you won't mind?"
"Forgery?" John gasped.
Hugh nodded.
"Yes, we had bad luck in the straight," he murmured, tossing off two
more glasses of port. "Cleared every hurdle like a bird and ... however,
it's no good grumbling. We just didn't pull it off."
"No," sighed Aubrey. "We were beaten by a short head."
John sat down unsteadily, filled up half a glass of Burgundy with
sherry, and drank it straight off without realizing that George's port
was even worse than he had supposed.
"Whose name have you forged?" he brought himself to ask at last.
"Stephen Crutchley's."
"Good heavens!" he groaned. "But this is horrible. And has he found out?
Does he know who did it?"
It was characteristic of John that he did not ask for how much his
friend's name had been forged.
"He has his suspicions," Hugh admitted. "And he's bound to know pretty
soon. In fact, I think the only thing to do is for you to explain
matters. After all, in a way it was a joke."
"Yes, a kind of experimental joke," Aubrey agreed.
"But it has proved to me how easy it is to cash a forged check," Hugh
continued, hopefully. "And, of course, if you talk to Crutchley he'll be
all right. He's not likely to be very severe on the brother of an old
friend. That was one of the reasons we experimented on him--that, and
also partly because I found an old check book of his. He's awfully
careless, you know, is Stephen--very much the high-brow architect and
all that, though he doesn't forget to charge. In fact, so many people
have had to pay for his name that it serves him right to find himself
doing the same for once."
"Does Mrs. Fenton know anything of this?" John asked.
"Why, no," Aubrey answered, quickly. "Well, women don't understand about
money, do they? And the mater has less idea of the wicked world than
most. My father was always a bit of a recluse, don't you see?"
"Was he?" John said, sarcastically. "I should think his son will be a
bit of a recluse, too, before he's done. But forgery! No, it's
incredible--incredible!"
"Don't worry, Johnnie," Hugh insisted. "Don't worry. I'm not worrying at
all, now that you've come along. Nobody knows anything for certain yet.
George doesn't know. Mama doesn't know. Mrs. Fenton doesn't know. And
Stevie only guesses."
"How do you know that he guesses?" John demanded.
"Well, that's part of the story, eh, Aubrey?" said Hugh, turning to his
accomplice, who nodded sagely.
"Which I suppose one ought to tell in full, eh, Aubrey?" he went on.
"I think it would interest your brother--I mean--quite apart from his
being your brother, it would interest him as a playwright," Aubrey
agreed.
"Glasses round, then," called Hugh, cheerfully.
"There's a vacant armchair by the fireplace," Aubrey pointed out to
John.
"Thanks," said John, stiffly. "I don't suppose that the comfort of an
armchair will alleviate my feelings. Begin, sir," he commanded Hugh.
"Begin, and get it finished quickly, for heaven's sake, so that I can
leave this house and think out my course of action in solitude."
"Do you know what it is, Johnnie?" Hugh said, craning his neck and
examining his brother with an air of suddenly aroused curiosity. "You're
beginning to dramatize yourself. I suppose it's inevitable, but I wish
you wouldn't. It gives me the same kind of embarrassed feeling that I
get when a woman starts reciting. You're not subjective. That's the
curse of all romantic writers. You want to get an objective viewpoint.
You're not the only person on in this scene. I'm on. Aubrey's on. Mrs.
Fenton and Stevie Crutchley are waiting in the wings, as it were. And,
for all I know, the police may be waiting there, too, by this time. Get
an objective viewpoint, Johnnie. Subjectivity went out with Rousseau."
"Confound your impudence," John spluttered.
"Yes, that's much better than talking about thinking out a course of
action in solitude," Hugh approved. "But don't run away with the idea
that I'm trying to annoy you. I'm not. I've every reason to encourage
the romantic side of you, because finally it will be the romantic side
of you that will shudder to behold your youngest brother in the dock. In
fact, I'm going the limit on your romance. At the same time I don't like
to see you laying it on too thick. I'll give you your fine feelings and
all that. I'll grant you your natural mortification, etcetera, etcetera.
But try to see my point of view as well as your own. When you're
thinking out a course of action in solitude, you'll light a cigar with a
good old paunch on it, and you'll put your legs up on the mantelpiece,
unless you've grown old-maidish and afraid of scratching the furniture,
and you'll pat your passbook, which is probably suffering from fatty
degeneration. That's a good phrase, Aubrey?"
"Devilish good," the accomplice allowed. "But, look here, Hugh,
steady--the mater gets rather bored if we keep the servants out of the
dining-room too long, and I think your brother is anxious to have the
story. So fire ahead, there's a good fellow."
Hugh looked hurt at the lack of appreciation which greeted the subtler
shades of his discourse, but, observing that John looked still more hurt
at being kept waiting, he made haste to begin without further reference
to style.
"Well, you see, Johnnie, I've always been unlucky."
John made a gesture of impatience; but Hugh raised a sedative hand.
"I know there's nothing that riles lucky people so much as when unlucky
people claim the prerogatives of their bad luck. I'm perfectly willing
to admit that I'm lazier than you. But remember that energy is a gift,
not an attainment. And I was born tired. The first stunning blow I had
was when the old man died. You remember he always regarded me as a bit
of an infant prodigy? So I was from his point of view, for he was over
sixty when he begot me, and he used to look at me just as some people
look at the silver cups they've won for races. But when he died, all the
advantages of being the youngest son died with him, and I realized that
I was an encumbrance. I'm willing to grant that I was a nuisance, too,
but ... however, it's no use raking up old scores.... I'm equally
willing to admit that you've always treated me very decently and that
I've always behaved very rottenly. I'll admit also that my taste in
clothes was beyond my powers of gratification; that I liked wine and
women--or to put a nicer point upon it--whisky and waitresses. I did.
And what of it? You'll observe that I'm not going to try to justify
myself. Have another glass of port? No? Right-o; well, I will. I repeat
I'm not going to attempt to justify myself, even if I couldn't, which I
can, but in vino veritas, which I think you'll admit is Latin. Latin, I
said. Precisely. Where was I?"
"Hugh, old boy, buck up," his friend prompted, anxiously.
"Come, sir," John said, trembling visibly with indignation. "Get on with
your story while you can. I don't want to waste my time listening to the
meanderings of a drunkard."
Hugh's eyes were glazing over like a puddle in frost, but he knitted his
brows and regarded his brother with intense concentration.
"Don't try to take any literary advantage of me, Johnnie. You can dig
out the longest word in the dictionary, but I've got a longer.
Metempsychosis! Hear that? I'm willing to admit that I don't like having
to say it, but you find me another man who can say it at all after
George's port. Metempsychosis! And it's not a disease. No, no, no, no,
don't you run away with the idea that it's a disease. Not at all. It's a
religion. And for three years I've been wasting valuable knowledge like
that on an architect's office. Do you think Stevie wants to hear about
metempsychosis--that's the third time I've cleared it--of course he
doesn't. Stephen Crutchley is a Goth. What am I? I'm a Palladian. There
you have it. Am I right, Aubrey?"
"Quite right, old boy, only come to the point."
"That's all right, Aubrey, don't you be afraid. I'm nursing her along by
the rails. You can lay a hundred pounds to a box of George's cigars bar
one. And that one's me. Where was I? Ah, yes. Well, I'm not going to say
a word against Stephen, Johnnie. He's a friend of yours. He's my boss.
He's one of England's leading ecclesiastical architects. But that
doesn't help me when I find myself in a Somersetshire village seven
miles from the nearest station arguing with a deaf parson about the
restoration of his moldy church. Does it? Of course not. It doesn't help
me when I find myself sleeping in damp sheets and woken up at seven
o'clock by a cross between a gardener and a charwoman for early service.
Does it? Of course not. Architecture like everything else is a good job
when you're waving the flag on top of the tower; but when you're digging
the foundations it's rotten. Stevie and I have had our little
differences, but when he's sober--I mean when I'm sober--he'll tell you
that there's not one of his juniors he thinks better of than me. I'm
against Gothic. I consider Gothic the muddle-headed expression of a
muddle-headed period. But I've been loyal to Stevie, only...."
Hugh paused solemnly, while his friend regarded him with nervous
solicitude.
"Only," Hugh repeated in a loud voice. "Metempsychosis," he murmured,
and drinking two more glasses of wine, he sat back in his chair and
shook his head in mute despair of human speech.
Aubrey took John aside.
"I'm afraid Hugh's too far gone to explain all the details to-night," he
whispered. "But it's really very serious. You see he found an old check
book of Mr. Crutchley's, and more from a joke than anything else he
tried to see if it was difficult to cash a check. It wasn't. He
succeeded. But he's suspected. I helped him indirectly, but of course I
don't come into the business except as an accessory. Only, if you take
my advice, you'll call on Mr. Crutchley as soon as you can, and I'm sure
you'll be able to square things up. You'll know how to manage him; but
Hugh has a way of exasperating him."
All the bland, the almost infantine simplicity of Aubrey Fenton's
demeanor did not avail to propitiate John's rage; and when the maid came
in with a message from his hostess to ask if it would soon be convenient
to allow the table to be cleared, he announced that he should not remain
another minute in the house.
"But can Hugh count on your support?" Aubrey persisted. He spoke like an
election agent who is growing rapidly doubtful of his candidate's
prospects.
"He can count on nothing," said John, violently. "He can count on
nothing at all. On absolutely nothing at all."
Anybody who had seen Hugh's condition at this moment would have agreed
with John. His eyes had already lost even as much life as might have
been discerned in the slow freezing of a puddle, and had now assumed the
glassy fixity and perfect roundness of two bottle-stoppers.
"He can count on nothing," John asseverated.
"I see," said Aubrey, tactfully. "I'll try and get that across to him.
Must you really be going?"
"Immediately."
"You'll trot in and say ta-ta to the mater?"
John had no wish ever again to meet this crystallized lady, but his
politeness rose superior to his indignation, and he followed the son of
the house into the drawing-room. His last glimpse of Hugh was of a
mechanical figure, the only gesture of which was awkwardly to rescue
every glass in turn that the maid endeavored to include in her clearance
of the table.
"It's scandalous," muttered John. "It's--it's abominable! Mrs. Fenton,"
he said with a courtly bow for her hospitality, "I regret that your son
has encouraged my brother to impose himself upon your good-nature. I
shall take steps to insure that he shall do so no longer. I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Fenton, I apologize. Good-night."
"I've always spoilt Aubrey," she said. "And he always had a mania for
dangerous toys which he never could learn to work properly. Never!" she
repeated, passionately.
For an instant the musty sugar in which she was inclosed cracked and
allowed John a glimpse of the feminine humanity underneath; but in the
same instant the crystallization was more complete than ever, and when
John released her hand he nearly took out his handkerchief to wipe away
the stickiness.
"I say, what steps _are_ you going to take to-morrow?" Aubrey asked.
"Never mind," John growled. Inasmuch as he himself had no more idea of
what he intended to do than Aubrey, the reply was a good one.
Where Carlington Road flows into Hammersmith Road John waited for a
passing taxi, apostrophizing meanwhile the befogged stars in the London
sky.
"I shall not forget to-night. No, I certainly sha'n't. I doubt if any
dramatist ever spent such another. A glimpse at all the animals of the
globe, a lunch that would have made a jackal vomit, a search for two
lost children, an interview with a fatuous brother, a loan of over
thirty pounds, a winking landlady, a narrow escape from being bored to
death by a Major, a dinner that gave me the sensation of being slowly
buried alive, a glass of George's port, and for climax the news that my
brother has committed a forgery. How can I think about Joan of Arc? A
few more days like this and I shall never be able to think or write
again--however, please God, there'll always be the cinema."
Whirring home to Hampstead John fell asleep, and when he had
supplemented that amount of repose in the taxi by eight hours in his own
bed, he woke next morning with his mind made up to square matters with
Stephen Crutchley, to withdraw Hugh from architecture, to intern him
until Christmas at Ambles, and in the New Year to transport him to
British Honduras as a mahogany-planter. He had met on board the
_Murmania_ a mahogany-planter who was visiting England for the first
time in thirteen years: the profession must be an enthralling one.
It was only when John reached the offices of Stephen Crutchley in Staple
Inn that he discovered it was Sunday, which meant another whole day's
idleness and suspense, and he almost fell to wishing that he was in
church again with Bertram and Viola. But there was a sweet sadness in
this old paved court, where a few sparrows chirped their plaintive
monotone from an overarching tree, the branches of which fretted a sky
of pearly blue, and where several dreary men were sitting upon the
benches regarding their frayed boots. John could not remain
unsusceptible to the antique charm of the scene, and finding an
unoccupied bench he rested there in the timid sunlight.
"What a place to choose for a forgery," he murmured, reproachfully, and
tried to change the direction of his thoughts by remembering that Dr.
Johnson had lived here for a time. He had no sooner concentrated upon
fancies of that great man than he began to wonder if he was not mistaken
in supposing that he had lived here, and he looked round for some one
who could inform him. The dreary men with frayed boots were only
counting the slow minutes of divine service before the public-houses
could open: they knew nothing of the lexicographer. But the subject of
forgery was not to be driven away by memories of Dr. Johnson, because
his friend, Dr. Dodd, suddenly jumped into the train of thought, and it
was impossible not to conjure up that poor and learned gentleman's last
journey to Tyburn nor to reflect how the latticed dormers on the Holborn
side of the Inn were the same now as then and had actually seen Dr. Dodd
go jolting past. John had often thought how incomprehensible it was that
scarcely a century ago people should have been hanged for such crimes as
forgery; but not it seemed rather more comprehensible. Of course, he
should not like to know that his brother was going to be hanged; but for
the sake of his future it would be an excellent thing to revive capital
punishment for minor crimes. He should like when all this dreadful
business was settled to say to his brother, "Oh, by the way, Hugh, I
hear they've just passed a bill making forgery a capital offense once
more. I think you'll like mahogany-planting."
But would the fear of death act as a deterrent upon such an one as Hugh,
who after committing so dishonorable a crime had lacked even the grace
to make his confession of it soberly? It was doubtful: Hugh was without
shame. From boyhood his career had been undistinguished by a single
decent action; but on the contrary it had been steadily marred by vice
and folly from the time when he had stolen an unused set of British
North Borneo stamps from the locker of his best friend at school to this
monstrous climax. Forgery! Great heavens, had he ever yet envisaged Hugh
listening abjectly (or worse impudently) to the strictures of a scornful
judge? Had he yet imagined the headlines in the press? _Brother of
distinguished dramatist sent to penal servitude. Judge's scathing
comments._ Mr. Touchwood breaks down in court. _Miss Janet Bond's
production indefinitely postponed._ Surely Stephen would not proceed to
extreme measures, but for the sake of their lifelong sympathy spare his
old friend this humiliation; yet even as John reached this conclusion
the chink-chink of the sparrows in the plane-tree sounded upon the air
like the chink-chink of the picks on Dartmoor. Hugh a convict! It might
well befall thus, if his jaunty demeanor hardened Stephen's heart.
Suppose that Stephen should be seized with one of those moral crises
that can only be relieved by making an example of somebody? Would it not
be as well to go down at once to his place in the country and try to
square matters, unembarrassed by Hugh's brazen impenitence? Or was it
already too late? John could not bring himself to believe that his old
friend would call in the police without warning him. Stephen had always
had a generous disposition, and it might well be that rather than wound
John's pride by the revelation of his brother's disgrace he had made up
his mind to say nothing and to give Hugh another chance: that would be
like Stephen. No, he should not intrude upon his week-end; though how he
was going to pass the long Sunday unless he occupied himself with
something more cheerful than his own thoughts he did not know. Should he
visit James and Beatrice, and take them out to lunch with a Symphony
Concert to follow? No, he should never be able to keep the secret of
Hugh's crime, and James would inevitably wind up the discussion by
making it seem as if it were entirely his own fault. Should he visit
George and warn him that the less intercourse he had with Hugh the
better, yes, and incidentally observe to George that he resented his
impersonation of himself at Mrs. Fenton's? No, George's company would be
as intolerable as his port. And the children? No, no, let them dress up
with minds still untainted by their Uncle Hugh's shame; let them enact
Robinson Crusoe and if they liked burn Halma House to the ground. What
was unpremeditated arson compared with deliberate forgery? But if there
was a genuine criminal streak in the Touchwoods, how was he ever again
to feel secure of his relations' honor? To-morrow he might learn that
James had murdered Beatrice because she had slept through the opening
chapters of _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_. To-morrow he might learn that
George was a defaulting bookmaker, that Hilda had embezzled the whole of
Laurence's board, and that Harold was about to be prosecuted by the
Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Why, even his mother
might have taken to gin-drinking in the small hours of the morning!
"God forgive me," said John. "I am losing my faith in humanity and my
respect for my mother. Yet some imbeciles prate about the romance of
crime."
John felt that if he continued to sit here brooding upon his relations
he should be in danger of taking some violent step such as joining the
Salvation Army: he remembered how an actor in _The Fall of Babylon_ had
brooded upon his inability to say his lines with just the emphasis he as
author had required, until on the night before the opening he had left
the theater and become a Salvationist. One of the loafers in the court
shuffled up to John and begged him for a match; when John complied he
asked for something to use it on, and John was so much distressed by the
faint likeness he bore to his eldest brother that he gave him a cigar.
"Without me that is what they would all be by now, every one of them,
James, George, and Hugh," he thought "But if I hadn't been lucky, so
might I," he added, reprovingly, to himself, "though at any rate I
should have tried to join a workhouse and not wasted my time cadging for
matches in Staple Inn."
John was not quite clear about workhouses; he had abandoned realistic
writing before he dealt with workhouse life as it really is.
"However, I can't sit here depressing myself all day; besides, this
bench is damp. What fools those sparrows are to stay chirping in that
tree when they might be hopping about in Hampshire--out of reach of
Harold's air-gun of course--and what a fool I am! But it's no use for me
to go home and work at Joan of Arc. The English archers will only be
shooting broad arrows all the time. I'll walk slowly to the Garrick, I
think, and have an early lunch."
Perversely enough the club did not seem to contain one sympathetic
acquaintance, let alone a friend, that Sunday; and after lunch John was
reduced to looking at the portraits of famous dead players, who bored
him nearly as much as one or two of the live ones who were lounging in
the smoking-room.
"This is getting unendurable," he moaned, and there seemed nothing for
it but to sally forth and walk the hollow-sounding city. From Long Acre
he turned into St. Martin's Lane, shook off the temptation to bore
himself still more hopelessly by a visit to the National Gallery, and
reached Cockspur Street. Three or four Sabbath loiterers were staring at
a window, and John saw that it was the office of the Cunard Line and
that the attraction was a model of the _S.S. Murmania_.
"What a fool I am!" John murmured much more emphatically than in Staple
Inn. He was just going to call a taxi to drive him to Chelsea, when he
experienced from yesterday a revulsion against taxis. Yesterday had been
a nightmare of taxis, between driving to the Zoo and driving to the
police station and driving home after that interview with the forger--by
this time John had discarded Hugh as a relation--not to mention Mrs.
Worfolk in a taxi, and the children in a taxi, and their luggage buzzing
backward and forward between Earl's Court and Hampstead in a taxi. No,
he should walk to Chelsea: a brisk walk with an objective would do him
good. 83 Camera Square. It was indeed rather a tribute to his memory, he
flattered himself, that he could remember her address without referring
to her card. He should walk along the Embankment; it was only half-past
two now.
It was pleasant walking by the river on that fine afternoon, and John
felt as he strode along Grosvenor Road, his spirit rising with the eager
tide, that after all there was nothing like the sea, nothing!
"As soon as I've finished Joan of Arc, I shall take a sea-voyage. It's
all very well for George to talk about sea-voyages, but let him do some
work first. Even if I do send him for a sea-voyage, how will he spend
his time? I know perfectly well. He'll feel seasick for the first week
and play poker for the rest of the passage. No, no, after the Christmas
holidays at Ambles he'll be as right as a trivet without a sea-voyage.
What is a trivet by the way? Now if I had a secretary, I should make a
note of a query like that. As it is, I shall probably never know what a
trivet is; but if I had a secretary, I should ask her to look it up in
the dictionary when we got home. I dare say I've lost thousands of ideas
by not having a secretary at hand. I shall have to advertise--or find
out in some way about a secretary. Thank heaven, neither Hilda nor
Beatrice nor Eleanor nor Edith knows shorthand. But even if Edith did
know shorthand, she'd be eternally occupied with the dactylography--as I
suppose _he'd_ call it--of Laurence's apostolic successes--there's
another note I might make. Of course, it's nothing wonderful as a piece
of wit, but I might get an epigram worth keeping, say three times a
week, if I had a secretary at my elbow. I don't believe that Stephen
will make any difficulties about Hugh. Oh no, I don't think so. I was
tired this morning after yesterday. This walk is making me see events in
their right proportion. Rosification indeed! James brings out these
things as if he were a second Sydney Smith; but in my opinion wit
without humor is like marmalade without butter. And even if I do rosify
things, well, what is it that Lady Teazle says? _I wish it were spring
all the year round and that roses grew under our feet._ And it takes
something to rosify such moral anemia as Hugh's. By the way I wonder
just exactly whereabouts in Chelsea Camera Square is."
Now if there was one thing that John hated, if there was one thing that
dragged even his buoyant spirits into the dust, if there was one thing
worse than having a forger for a blood-relation, it was to be compelled
to ask his way anywhere in London within the four miles radius. He would
not even now admit to himself more than that he did not know the _exact_
whereabouts of Camera Square. Although he really had not the remotest
idea beyond its location in the extensive borough of Chelsea where
Camera Square was, he wasted half-an-hour in dancing a kind of Ladies'
Chain with all the side-streets off King's Road and never catching a
glimpse of his destination. It was at last borne in upon him that if he
wanted to call on Mrs. Hamilton at a respectable hour for afternoon tea
he should simply have to ask his way.
Now arose for John the problem of choosing the oracle. He walked on and
on, half making up his mind every moment to accost somebody and when he
was on the point of doing so perceiving in his expression a latent
haughtiness that held him back until it was too late. Had it not been
Sunday, he would have entered a shop and bought sufficiently expensive
to bribe the shopman from looking astonished at his ignorance.
Presently, however, he passed a tobacconist's, and having bought three
of the best cigars he had, which were not very good, he asked casually
as he was going out the direction of Camera Square. The shopman did not
know. He came to another tobacconist's, bought three more cigars, and
that shopman did not know either. Gradually with a sharp sense of
impending disgrace John realized that he must ask a policeman. He turned
aside from the many inviting policemen in the main road, where the
contemptuous glances of wayfarers might presume his rusticity, and tried
to find a policeman in a secluded by-street. This took another
half-an-hour, and when John did accost this ponderous hermit of the
force he accosted him in broken English.
"Ees thees ze vay to Cahmehra Squah?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders
in what he conceived to be the gesture of a Frenchman who had landed
that morning from Calais.
"Eh?"
"Cahmehra Squah?" John repeated.
The policeman put his hand in his pocket, and John thought he was going
to whistle for help; but it was really to get out a handkerchief to blow
his nose and give him time to guess what John wanted to know.
"Say it again, will yer?" the policeman requested.
John repeated his Gallic rendering of Camera.
"I ain't seen it round here. Where do you say you dropped it?"
"Eet ees a place I vants."
What slow-witted oafs the English were, thought John with a
compassionate sigh for the poor foreigners who must be lost in London
every day. However, this policeman was so loutish that he felt he could
risk an almost perfect pronunciation.
"Oh, Kemmerer Squer," said the policeman with a huge smile of
comprehension. "Why, you're looking at it." He pointed along the road.
"Damn," thought John. "I needn't have asked at all. Sank you.
Good-evening," he said aloud.
"The same to you and many of them, Napoleon," the policeman nodded.
John hurried away, and soon he was walking along a narrow garden, very
unlike a London garden, for it was full of frost-bitten herbaceous
flowers and smelt of the country. Not a house on this side of the square
resembled its neighbor; but Number 83 was the most charmingly odd of
all, two stories high with a little Chinese balcony and jasmine over a
queer pointed porch of wrought iron.
"Yes, sir, Mrs. Hamilton is at home," said the maid.
The last bars of something by Schumann or Chopin died away; in the
comparative stillness that succeeded John could hear a canary singing,
and the tinkle of tea-cups; there was also a smell of muffins
and--mimosa, was it? Anyway it was very delicious, he thought, while he
made his overcoat as small as possible, so as not to fill the tiny hall
entirely.
"Mr. Touchwood was the name?" the maid asked.
"What an intelligent young woman," he thought. "How much more
intelligent than that policeman. But women are more intelligent in small
things."
John felt very large as he bowed his head to enter the drawing-room.