THE FAT IN THE FIRE
Peter, self-appointed sub-editor to the Gem, was revising a dissertation
of Vyvian's on lace. It was a difficult business, this. Vyvian, in
Peter's opinion, needed so much expurgation; and yet one couldn't be
unkind. Peter wished very much that Hilary would get rid of Vyvian.
Vyvian often wrote such tosh; though he was clever, too. Came of being a
bounder, perhaps. Peter had often noticed that bounders were apt to write
tosh, even clever bounders. Such a sensitive bounder, too; that made it
extraordinarily difficult to edit him satisfactorily. Decidedly Hilary
ought to get rid of him, gently but finally. That would have the added
advantage of freeing Peter from the obligation of "making a third" with
him and Rhoda Johnson. Also, one would feel safer; one didn't really
trust Vyvian not to be doing little private deals of his own; so little,
in fact, did one trust him that the names of dealers were rigorously
taboo now on the Gem.
Peter sighed over this rather tiresome article on lace. He wanted to be
finishing one of his own on well-heads; and then he wanted to go out with
Leslie and look for stone lions for Leslie's gate-posts; and then he and
Leslie were going to dine with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. There were a lot of
jolly things to be done, when he had finished with Vyvian's lace.
Peter was quite enjoying life just now; it was interesting trying to set
the Gem on its legs; there were immense potentialities in the Gem now
that toshery with dealers had been put an end to. And to be allowed to
write _ad infinitum_ about well-heads or anything else was simply
splendid.
Peter heard, with a small, abstracted part of his mind, someone talking
to Hilary in the hall. The low-toned conversation vaguely worried his
subconscious self; he wished people would converse more audibly. But
probably it was private.... Peter suddenly frowned irritably and sat
upright, biting at his pen. He was annoyed with himself. It was so
impertinent, so much the sort of thing he most disliked, to be
speculating, as he had suddenly found himself doing, on the nature of
another person's private business. Had he come to that? It must be some
emanation from that silly, syrupy article of Vyvian's; Vyvian, Peter felt
sure, would have towards a private conversation just such an attitude
that he had detected in himself. He settled himself to his job again,
and made a rather savage excision of two long sentences.
The outer door shut. Peter heard Hilary's steps crossing the hall alone,
rather slowly, till they stopped at the door of the saloon. Hilary came
in; his head was thoughtfully bent, and he didn't at first see Peter at
the table in a corner. When he did see him, he started violently. Hilary
had such weak nerves; he was always starting for no reason.
Peter said, "Things going on all right?" and Hilary said, "Yes, quite,"
and stood silent for a moment, his mobile face flickering nervously, as
it did when he was tired or embarrassed.
"I was looking for Peggy," he added, and went out. He had forgotten,
apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going
shopping and would be out all the afternoon.
Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen. From his expression,
Mrs. Johnson might have inferred that he had been in the Cathedral again,
smelling at the choky incense, and had got "funny feelin's" within. They
were like the nauseating reminiscence of an old sickness. He tried to
ignore them. He said to himself, "I'm an ass. I'm a suspicious,
low-minded ass."
But he was somehow revolted by the thought of going on with the work for
"The Gem" just then. He was glad when Leslie called to fetch him out.
Leslie said, "What's the matter, my son?"
Leslie had, with all his inapprehensiveness of things, an extraordinary
amount of discernment of people; he could discern feelings that had no
existence. Or, if they had any existence in this case, they must have
been called into it by Vyvian's sugary periods. Peter conceded that to
that extent he ailed.
"A surfeit of Vyvian. Let's come out and take the air and look for little
stone lions."
Leslie was restful and refreshing, with his direct purposes and solid
immobility. You could be of use to Leslie, because he had a single eye;
he knew what he wanted, and requested you to obtain it for him. That
was simple; he didn't make your task impossible by suddenly deciding that
after all he didn't really want what you were getting for him. He was a
stable man, and perhaps it is only the stable who are really susceptible
of help, thought Peter vaguely.
At seven o'clock Peter and Leslie went to the Ca' delle Gemme. They
found Cheriton there. Cheriton was talking when they arrived, in his
efficient, decisive, composed business tones. Lord Evelyn was pacing up
and down the room, his fine, ringed hands clasped behind his back. He
looked extraordinarily agitated; his delicate face was flushed crimson.
Denis was lying back in a low chair, characteristically at ease.
When Leslie and Peter came in, Cheriton stopped speaking, and Lord Evelyn
stopped pacing, and absolute silence momentarily fell.
Then Denis gave his pleasant, casual "Hullo."
Cheriton's silence continued. But Lord Evelyn's did not. Lord Evelyn,
very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter,
turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little
apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last in
the fire.
There ensued an uncomfortable scene, such as may readily be imagined.
Lord Evelyn said, and his sweet voice quavered distressingly up and down,
"I suppose it's been a good joke. But I wouldn't have thought it of you,
Peter Margerison; I wouldn't have thought it of you. Of your brother I
say nothing; it's a dishonest world, and he's like the rest, and I can't
say he ever gave me any reason to trust him, so I've myself to blame. But
you--I did trust you. I thought you were a nice boy, and cared too much
for nice things to lie about them." He broke off, and looked round the
room--at the Diana and Actæon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous
collection. They weren't nearly all monstrous, either--not even most--but
he didn't know that; they might be for all he could tell. He looked at
them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that
which gave Peter his deepest stab of pitiful pain.
"You've made a fool of me between you," said Lord Evelyn, and suddenly
sat down, as if very tired. Leslie sat down too, ponderous and silent
in the shadowed background. But Peter remained standing before them all,
his head a little bent, his eyes on Denis Urquhart's profile. He was
wondering vaguely if Denis would say anything, and if so what it would
be.
Still looking at Denis, he made foolish apologies because he was always
polite.
"I'm frightfully sorry.... I've been frightfully sorry all along...."
Lord Evelyn lifted a white hand, waving his absurdities contemptuously
aside.
"All along! Oh, I see. At least you're honest now; you don't attempt to
deny that you've known all about it, then." There was perhaps a fresh
ring of bitterness in his voice, as if some last faint hope had been
killed by Peter's words.
Cheriton, whose eyes were studying the floor, lifted them sharply for
a moment, and glanced at Denis, who was lighting a cigarette and didn't
look at him.
"You knew that first evening, when you looked at the things," said Lord
Evelyn, half a question still in his querulous voice. "You saw through
them at once, of course. Anyone but a blind fool would have, I've no
manner of doubt. Cheriton here says he saw you see through them."
Peter stammered over it. "I--I--knew they weren't much."
Lord Evelyn turned to Cheriton whose face was still bent down as if he
didn't much like the scene now he had brought it about.
"You were right, as usual, Jim. And Denis was wrong. Denis, you know," he
added to Peter, "was inclined to put your morals above your intelligence.
He said you couldn't have known. Cheriton told him he was sure you had.
It seems Cheriton was right."
It seemed that he was. Peter imagined that Cheriton would always be
right.
After a moment's silence Peter gathered that they were all waiting to
hear if he had anything to say about it. He hadn't much, but he might
as well say it, such as it was.
"It won't make much difference, of course," he began, and his voice
sounded odd and small and tired in the great room, "but I think I
should like you to know that all this stopped three weeks ago.
Hilary--we--decided then to--to give it up, and run 'The Gem' on
different lines in future. We couldn't easily undo the past--but--but
there's been nothing of the sort since then, and we didn't mean there to
be again. Oh, I know that doesn't make much difference, of course...."
The only difference that mattered was that Denis frowned.
Incidentally--only that didn't matter--Cheriton laughed curtly, and Lord
Evelyn wearily said, "Oh, stop lying, stop lying. I'm so unutterably
tired of your lies.... You think we don't know that your brother accepted
a bribe this very afternoon.... Tell him, Jim."
So Jim told him. He told him shortly, and in plain words, and not as if
he was pleased with his triumph in skilful detection, which he no doubt
was.
"I rather wanted to sift this business, Margerison, as I had suspected
for a good while more than I could prove. So to-day I sent a man to your
brother, commissioning him to pretend to be an art-dealer and offer a sum
of money for the insertion in 'The Gem' of an appreciative notice of some
spurious objects. As perhaps you are aware, the offer was accepted.... It
may seem to you an underhand way of getting evidence--but the case was
peculiar."
He didn't look at Peter; his manner, though distant, was not now
unfriendly; perhaps, having gained his object and sifted the business,
there was room for compassion. It was a pity that Peter had made things
worse by that last lie, though.
"I see," said Peter. "It's all very complete."
And then he laughed, as he always did when disasters were so very
complete as to leave no crevice of escape to creep through.
"You laugh," said Lord Evelyn, and rose from his chair, trembling a
little. "You laugh. It's been an admirable joke, hasn't it? And you
always had plenty of sense of humour."
Peter didn't hear him. He wasn't laughing any more; he was looking at
Denis, who had never looked at him once, but sat smoking with averted
face.
"Shall I go now?" said Peter. "There isn't much more to say, is there?
And what there is, perhaps you will tell us to-morrow.... It seems so
silly to say one is sorry about a thing like this--but I am, you know,
horribly. I have been all along, ever since I found out. You think
that must be a lie, because I didn't tell. But things are so mixed and
difficult--and it's not a lie." He was looking at Lord Evelyn now, at
the delicate, working face that stabbed at his pity and shame. After all,
it was Lord Evelyn, not Denis, whom they had injured and swindled and
fooled; one must remember that. To Lord Evelyn he made his further
feeble self-exculpation. "And, you know, I did really think Hilary had
dropped it weeks ago; he said he would. And that's not a lie, either."
But he believed they all thought it was, and a silly one at that.
It was Lord Evelyn who laughed now, with his high, scornful titter.
"You and your sorrow! I've no doubt your brother will be sorry too, when
he hears the news. I may tell you that he'll have very good reason to
be.... Yes, by all means go now--unless you'd like to stay and dine,
which I fancy would be carrying the joke too far even for you.... Will
you stay one moment, though? There's a little ceremony to be performed."
He crossed the room, and took the Sienese chalice between his hands,
holding it gingerly for a moment as if it had been some unclean thing;
then he dashed it on to the marble floor and it lay in splinters about
his feet. He took up the pair of vases next it, one in each hand (they
happened to be of great value), and threw them too among the splinters;
he had cleared the shelf of all its brittle objects before Leslie, who
had sat motionless in the background until now, rose and laid a heavy
hand on his arm.
"My dear sir," said Leslie tranquilly, "don't be melodramatic. And don't
give the servants so much trouble and possible injury when they do the
room to-morrow. If you want to part with your goods, may I ask to be
allowed to inspect them with a view to purchase? Some of them, as you
are no doubt aware, are of considerable intrinsic value, and I should be
happy to be allowed to buy."
Lord Evelyn looked at the man of commerce with distant contempt.
"As you please, sir. I've no doubt that Mr. Peter Margerison will be
equally happy to give you his valuable advice in the business. He is your
counsellor in these matters, isn't he. An excellent adviser, of sound
judgment and most disinterested honesty!"
He bowed to Peter, who took it as a dismissal, and said "Good night."
Denis, at the opposite side of the room, nodded in his casual way,
neither hostile nor friendly, but gentle and indifferent. You couldn't
make Denis seem angry, or hurt, or agitated in any way whatever. He had
always the air of reserving his opinion; and he extremely disliked
scenes. To be present at this one must have been painful to him. Peter,
who knew him so well, knew that. He liked things to go easily and
smoothly always. He had winced at the crash of glass on marble; it seemed
to him in such bad taste. This, no doubt, was his attitude towards the
whole business; towards the Magerisons' behaviour, Cheriton's exposure
of it, and this final naked, shameful scene of accusation and confession.
Peter was realising this as he put on his coat in the hall, when the door
he had shut behind him was opened, and steps followed him. He started and
faced round, a hope leaping in his face. The swift dying of it left him
rather pale.
Leslie said, "I'm coming too."
It was good of Leslie, thought Peter dully, and not caring in the least.
He said, "No, stay and dine. Really, I'd like you to.... We'll talk
to-morrow."
Leslie put on his overcoat and said to the footman, "Call a gondola,"
and the footman stood on the steps and cried "_Poppe_" till a _poppe_
came; then they swung away down a rose-flushed water-street with the
after-glow in their eyes.
Leslie was restful; he didn't bother one. He merely said, "We'll dine
to-night at Luigi's."
It was not until they had done so, and were having coffee outside, that
Peter said, "We'll have to leave Venice, of course, directly we can."
"You too?" said Leslie. "You go with them?"
"I go with them," said Peter. "Well, I can't well stay here, can I. And
we may as well stick together--a family party..... You see, I haven't a
notion what Hilary will do to live now. I can go into business of sorts.
Hilary can't; he'd hate it so. Hilary's not business-like, you know. Nor
is Peggy. I couldn't trust them by themselves; they'd tumble into
something and get broken. They need my common sense to sustain them."
Leslie said, "What's the matter with your own line of life, that you want
to chuck it?"
Peter looked at him in surprise.
"It's chucked me," he said. "Violently--with a smash. You don't suppose
anyone will hire me again to buy their things for them? There'll be
something of a crab on the Margerison family in future. It's going to
be made very public, you know, this business; I gathered that. We shall
be--rather notorious, in a very few days."
Leslie said, after a moment, "I've hired you to buy my things for me. Are
you going to chuck me?"
And Peter, leaning his forehead on his hand as if tired, returned
beneath his breath, "Don't be good to me, please, just now. And you
must see I've got to chuck it all--all that side of things. We must do
something quite new, Hilary and I. We--we've spoiled this."
After a pause, Leslie said gently, afraid of blundering, "You stick
together, you and your brother? You go through it together--all the way?"
Peter answered hopelessly, "All the way. We're in it together, and we
must get out together, as best we can," and Leslie accepted that, and
asked no further question.