1
It was Monday, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the last week of
Fanny's fortnight in London.
Barbara had been busy all morning with Mr. Waddington's correspondence
and accounts. And now, for the first time, she found herself definitely
on the track of Mrs. Levitt. In checking Palmer and Hoskins's, the
Cheltenham builders, bill for the White House she had come across two
substantial items not included in their original estimate: no less than
fifteen by eight feet of trellis for the garden and a hot water pipe
rail for the bathroom. It turned out that Mrs. Levitt, desiring the
comfort of hot towels, and objecting to the view of the kitchen yard as
seen from the lawn, had incontinently ordered the hot water rail and the
trellis.
There was that letter from Messrs. Jackson and Cleaver, Mr. Waddington's
agents, informing him that his tenant, Mrs. Levitt, of the White House,
Wyck-on-the-Hill, had not yet paid her rent due on the twenty-fifth of
September. Did Mr. Waddington wish them to apply again?
And there were other letters of which Barbara was requested to make
copies from his dictation. Thus:
"My Dear Mrs. Levitt" (only he had written "My dear Elise"),--"With
reference to your investments I do not recommend the purchase, at the
present moment, of Government Housing Bonds.
"I shall be very glad to loan you the fifty pounds you require to make
up the five hundred for the purchase of Parson's Provincial and London
Bank Shares. But I am afraid I cannot definitely promise an advance of
five hundred on the securities you name. That promise was conditional,
and you must give me a little time to consider the matter. Meanwhile I
will make inquiries; but, speaking off-hand, I should say that, owing to
the present general depreciation of stock, it would be highly
unadvisable for you to sell out, and my advice to you would be: Hold on
to everything you've got.
"I am very glad you are pleased with your little house. We will let the
matter of the rent stand over till your affairs are rather more in order
than they are at present.--With kindest regards, very sincerely yours,
"HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON.
"P.S.--I have settled with Palmer and Hoskins for the trellis and hot
water rail."
"_To_ Messrs. Lawson & Rutherford, Solicitors,
"9, Bedford Row, London, W.C.
"Dear Sirs,--Will you kindly advise me as to the current value of the
following shares--namely:
"Fifty £5 5 per cent. New South American Rubber Syndicate;
"Fifty £10 10 per cent. B Preference Addison Railway, Nicaragua;
"One hundred £1 4 per cent. Welbeck Mutual Assurance Society.
"Would you recommend the holder to sell out at present prices? And
should I be justified in accepting these shares as security for an
immediate loan of five hundred?--Faithfully yours,
"HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON."
He was expecting Elise for tea at four o'clock on Wednesday, and Messrs.
Lawson and Rutherford's reply reached him very opportunely that
afternoon.
"Dear Sir,--_Re_ your inquiry in your letter of the twenty-fifth instant,
as to the current value of 5 per cent. New South American Rubber
Syndicate Shares, 10 per cent. B Preference Addison Railway, and 4 per
cent. Welbeck Mutual Assurance Society, respectively, we beg to inform
you that these stocks are seriously depreciated, and we doubt whether
at the present moment the holder would find a purchaser. We certainly
cannot advise you to accept them as security for the sum you name.--We
are, faithfully,
"Lawson & Rutherford."
It was clear that poor Elise--who could never have had any head for
business--was deceived as to the value of her securities. It might even
be that with regard to all three of them she might have to cut her
losses and estimate her income minus the dividends accruing from this
source. But that only made it the more imperative that she should have
at least a thousand pounds tucked snugly away in some safe investment.
Nothing short of the addition of fifty pounds to her yearly income would
enable Elise to pay her way. The dear woman's affairs ought to stand on
a sound financial basis; and Mr. Waddington asked himself this question:
Was he prepared to put them there? All that Elise could offer him,
failing her depreciated securities, was the reversion of a legacy of
five hundred pounds promised to her in her aunt's will. She had spoken
very hopefully of this legacy. Was he prepared to fork out a whole five
hundred pounds on the offchance of Elise's aunt dying within a
reasonable time and making no alteration in her will? In a certain
contingency he _was_ prepared. He was prepared to do all that and more
for Elise. But it was not possible, it was not decent to state his
conditions to Elise beforehand, and in any case Mr. Waddington did not
state them openly as conditions to himself. He allowed his mind to be
muzzy on this point. He had no doubt whatever about his passion, but he
preferred to contemplate the possibility of its satisfaction through a
decent veil of muzziness. When he said to himself that he would like to
know where he stood before committing himself, it was as near as he
could get to clarity and candour.
And when he wrote to Elise that his promise was conditional he really
did mean that the loan would depend on the value of the securities
offered; a condition that his integrity could face, a condition that, as
things stood, he had a perfect right to make. While, all the time, deep
inside him was the knowledge that, if Elise gave herself to him, he
would not ask for security--he would not make any conditions at all. He
saw Elise, tender and yielding, in his arms; he saw himself, tender and
powerful, stooping over her, and he thought, with a qualm of disgust: "I
wouldn't touch her poor little legacy."
Meanwhile he judged it well to let the correspondence pass, like any
other business correspondence, through his secretary's hands. It was
well to let Barbara see that his relations with Mrs. Levitt were on a
strictly business footing, that he had nothing to hide. It was well to
have copies of the letters. It was well--Mr. Waddington's instinct, not
his reason, told him it WA well--to have a trustworthy witness to all
these transactions. A witness who understood the precise nature of his
conditions, in the event, the highly unlikely event, of trouble with
Elise later on. (It was almost as if, secretly, he had a premonition.)
Also, when his conscience reproached him, as it did, with making
conditions, with asking the dear woman for security, he was able to
persuade himself that he didn't really mean it, that all this was clever
camouflage designed to turn Barbara's suspicions, if she ever had any,
off the scent. And at the same time he was not sorry that Barbara should
see him in his rôle of generous benefactor and shrewd adviser.
"I needn't tell you, Barbara, that all this business is strictly
private. As my confidential secretary, you have to know a great many
things it wouldn't do to have talked about. You understand?"
"Perfectly."
She understood, too, that it was an end of the compact with Ralph Bevan.
She must have foreseen this affair when she said to him there would be
things she simply couldn't tell. Only she had supposed they would be
things she would see, reward of clear eyesight, not things she would be
regularly let in for knowing.
And her clear eyes saw through the camouflage. She had a suspicion.
"I don't see," she said, "why you should have to go without your rent
just because Mrs. Levitt doesn't want to pay it."
She was sorry for Waddy. He might be ever so wise about Mrs. Levitt's
affairs; but he was a perfect goose about his own. No wonder Fanny had
asked her to take care of him.
"I've no doubt," he said, "she _wants_ to pay it; but she's a war widow,
Barbara, and she's hard up. I can't rush her for the rent."
"She's no business to rush you for trellis work and water pipes you
didn't order."
"Well--well," he couldn't be angry with the child. She was so loyal, so
careful of his interests. And he couldn't expect her to take kindly to
Elise. There would be a natural jealousy. "That's Palmer and Hoskins's
mistake. I can't haggle with a lady, Barbara. _Noblesse oblige_." But he
winced under her clear eyes.
She thought: "How about the fifty and the five hundred? At this rate
_noblesse_ might _oblige_ him to do anything."
She could see through Mrs. Levitt.
Mr. Waddington kept on looking at the clock.
It was now ten minutes to four, and at any moment Elise might be there.
His one idea was to get Barbara Madden out of the way. Those clear eyes
were not the eyes he wanted to be looking at Elise, to be looking at him
when _their_ eyes met. And he understood that that fellow Bevan was
going to call for her at four. He didn't want _him_ about. "Where are
you going for your walk?" he said.
"Oh, anywhere. Why?"
"Well, if you happen to be in Wyck, would you mind taking these
photographs back to Pyecraft and showing him the ones I've chosen? Just
see that he doesn't make any stupid mistake."
The photographs were staring her in the face on the writing-table, so
that there was really no excuse for her forgetting them, as she did. But
Mr. Waddington's experience was that if you wanted anything done you had
to do it yourself.
2
Elise would be taken into the drawing-room. He went to wait for her
there.
And as he walked up and down, restless, listening for the sound of her
feet on the gravel drive and the ringing of the bell, at each turn of
his steps he was arrested by his own portrait. It stared at him from
its place above Fanny's writing-table; handsome, with its brilliant
black and carmine, it gave him an uneasy sense of rivalry, as if he felt
the disagreeable presence of a younger man in the room. He stared back
at it; he stared at himself in the great looking-glass over the
chimneypiece beside it.
He remembered Fanny saying that she liked the iron-grey of his moustache
and hair; it was more becoming than all that hard, shiny black. Fanny
was right. It _was_ more becoming. And his skin--the worn bloom of it,
like a delicate sprinkling of powder. Better, more refined than that
rich, high red of the younger man in the gilt frame. To be sure his
eyes, blurred onyx, bulged out of creased pouches; but his nose--the
Postlethwaite nose, a very handsome feature--lifted itself firmly above
the fleshy sagging of the face. His lips pouted in pride. He could still
console himself with the thought that mirrors were unfaithful; Elise
would see him as he really was; not that discoloured and distorted
image. He pushed out his great chest and drew a deep, robust breath. At
the thought of Elise the pride, the rich, voluptuous, youthful pride of
life mounted. And as he turned again he saw Fanny looking at him.
The twenty-year-old Fanny in her girl's white frock and blue sash; her
tilted, Gainsborough face, mischievous and mocking, smiled as if she
were making fun of him. His breath caught in his chest. Fanny--Fanny.
His wife. Why hadn't his wife the loyalty and intelligence of Barbara,
the enthusiasm, the seriousness of Elise? He needn't have any
conscientious scruples on Fanny's account; she had driven him to Elise
with her frivolity, her eternal smiling. Of course he knew that she
cared for him, that he had power over her, that there had never been and
never would be any other man for Fanny; but he couldn't go on with
Fanny's levity for ever. He wanted something more; something sound and
solid; something that Elise gave him and no other woman. Any man would
want it.
And yet Fanny's image made him uneasy, watching him there, smiling, as
if she knew all about Elise and smiled, pretending not to care. He
didn't want Fanny to watch him with Elise. He didn't want Elise to see
Fanny. When he looked at Fanny's portrait he felt again his old
repugnance to their meeting. He didn't want Elise to sit in the same
room with Fanny, to sit in Fanny's chair. The drawing-room was Fanny's
room. The red dahlia and powder-blue parrot chintz was Fanny's choice;
every table, cabinet and chair was in the place that Fanny had chosen
for it. The book, the frivolous book she had been reading before she
went away, lay on her little table. Fanny was Fanny and Elise was
Elise.
He rang the bell and told Partridge to show Mrs. Levitt into the library
and to bring tea there. The library was _his_ room. He could do what he
liked in it. The girl Fanny laughed at him out of the corners of her
eyes as he went. Suddenly he felt tender and gentle to her, because of
Elise.
When Elise came she found him seated in his armchair absorbed in a book.
He rose in a dreamy attitude, as if he were still dazed and abstracted
with his reading.
Thus, at the very start, he gave himself the advantage; he showed
himself superior to Elise. Intellectually and morally superior.
"You're deep in it? I'm interrupting?" she said.
He came down from his height instantly. He was all hers.
"No. I was only trying to pass the time till you came."
"I'm late then?"
"Ten minutes." He smiled, indulgent
Elise was looking handsomer than ever. The light November chill had
whipped a thin flush into her face. He watched her as she took off her
dark skunk furs and her coat.
How delightful to watch a woman taking off her things, the pretty
gestures of abandonment; the form emerging, slimmer. That was one of the
things you thought and couldn't say. Supposing he had said it to Elise?
Would she have minded?
"What are you thinking of?" she said.
"How did you know I was thinking of anything?"
"Your face. It tells tales."
"Only nice ones to you, my dear lady."
"Ah, but you _didn't_ tell--"
"Would you like me to?"
"Not if it's naughty. Your face looks naughty."