Lorraine was not able to see Hal, but she talked to her on the
telephone, and told her she was going into the country at once, and
Alymer was coming down for the weekend. “We wondered if you could get
off too. Do try,” she said.
Hal answered at once that she could not manage it this week, but
possibly the next, if Lorraine were still away.
“I’ve only arranged for a week’s holiday,” Lorr aine replied. “What a
nuisance you should be unable to come this week.”
As a matter of fact, Hal was only going out for the day with her cousin
on Sunday, but an urgent little note from Sir Edwin had begged her to
keep Saturday free for him; and because the suspense was becoming
unendurable, she granted his request, determined to know the truth.
So it happened that Lorraine motored down alone to a quaint little
fishing-village on the south coast, where there was a charming,
old-fashioned, creeper-decked hotel, too far from the railway for the
ordinary weekend tourists, and patronised mainly by motorists in the
summer.
And on Friday the motor went back to town to fetch Alymer, bringing him
down about four o’clock, unaccompanied.
“So Sydney will have to be chaperone after all,” Lorraine said lightly.
“Now, what should you like to do tomorrow?”
“Is there any chance of fishing?”
He asked the question with some diffidence, fearing that it might only
bore her.
Lorraine clapped her hands.
“Exactly what I thought. We’re going to have the jolliest little
fishing-smack imaginable for the whole day; and Sunday too, if you
like; and take our lunch with us, and fish until we are tired.”
A glad light leapt to Alymer’s eyes.
“By gad! You are a trump,” he said.
In the meantime Hal waited a little feverishly for Saturday. They were
to have one of their long outings. Meet at twelve, motor for two hours,
lunch at two, then a walk; back to town to dine, without changing, in
some grill room.
Sir Edwin had mapped it all out beforehand, sitting at his desk, with
an anxious, unhappy expression, unrelieved by the evidences all around
him of what he had achieved—of the proud position that was his. Indeed
he almost wished he could will it all away, and be just an independent,
moderately successful solicitor, able to please himself in all things;
instead of bound by the demands of party and position.
And those demands just now were very exacting. It was not an easy party
to serve, and the less so in that its ranks numbered many soldiers of
fortune of the swashbuckler type, who meant to hold the power they had
attained partly on the exploitation of a lie, by fair means or
otherwise; even if necessary by further lies—lies upon lies—but clever,
carefully manipulated ones; not bald, childish, outspoken ones.
One of their most prominent office-holders had recently perpetrated a
lie of the latter type. Such a barefaced, impudent, obvious lie, that
there was no possibility of covering it up, and the whole country
talked of it. Music halls laughed at it, comic papers and comic songs
rang with it, election platforms bristled with it.
Naturally the party was very annoyed. One could imagine them saying
indignantly to the offender: “Lie as much as you like, but for
goodness’ sake have the common sense to lie cleverly. If you can’t do
that, better confine yourself to merely distorting facts.”
The official in question held a post in the same department as Sir
Edwin—which meant that quite enough opprobrium had been recently hurled
at the Law without risk of any further scandal.
The party was not sufficiently strong for that. They had fright enough
over a paragraph in the _Church Gazette_, hinting at a lady in
connection with one of their Ministers—where there should be no lady;
but prompt action had steered the ship through those shoals in safety.
But all the same, this business of The Right Honourable Sir Edwin
Crathie and the Stock Exchange had got to be attended to at once. Under
no possible consideration must it leak out that a Cabinet Minister had
been speculating so heavily, and lost to such an extent, that nothing
but an immense sum of money could save him from disgrace, bankruptcy,
and ruin.
One friend and another had tided him over for some little time, but he
had continued to be reckless and incautious, relying with an unpleasant
sneer upon his title.
“Oh well!” had been his conclusion; “if the worst comes to the worst, I
can always sell my name to an heiress.”
Finally, that unhappy condition had arrived. It had further chosen the
worst possible moment—the moment when the music halls and comic papers
were waxing hilarious over the badly executed lie.
Sir Edwin had been summoned to a consultation that had been the reverse
of pleasant. The only thing was that the way of escape had been
thoughtfully planned for him. He had no need to hunt up the heiress for
himself. She was considerately provided.
Miss Bootes’ father was a wealthy Liberal, who had more than once
generously supplied funds to the party, in return for some small favour
he craved. Now he wanted a celebrity, with a title, for his daughter.
Sir Edwin hardly came up to the required standard, but Mr. Bootes was
easily persuaded that there was absolutely no limit to his
possibilities, were he once set on his feet as far as money was
concerned.
The Prime Ministership, followed by a Peerage, were in his certain
grasp, had he but the necessary money to back him.
Papa Bootes said over an over to himself: “My daughter, Lady Elizabeth
Crathie” (it was really Eliza, but had been discreetly changed to suit
the fashion), and came to the conclusion that a Cabinet Minister for a
son-in-law sufficiently banished the odorous flavour patent manures had
given to his fortune.
Finally he inquired the amount of Sir Edwin’s debts, and promised a
cheque if the delicate little matter were settled.
Hence the consultation, and the polite but firm intimation that Sir
Edwin must close with the offer—that he had not even the right to
choose ruin instead, because of its effect on the party.
And of course, now the crisis had come, Sir Edwin did not want to close
with the offer. In his own mind he consigned the party, and all
belonging to it, to the very worst hell of Dante’s Inferno.
But, beyond relieving his mind a little, their imaginary exodus did not
help him in the least. He found himself in the very undesirable
position of furnishing a telling example of the utter impossibility of
serving two masters.
To do his common sense justice he had never had the least intention of
attempting to. Without any prevarication as far as his own feelings
were concerned, he had quite honestly chosen to serve Mammon. Having
decided thus far, he banished the very memory of any other possible
master. He did not exist for him. Mammon, in that it meant place, and
power, and money, was the only god he wanted to serve.
And now?—
Well, of course, the Little Girl must go. At first he said it harshly,
shrugging his shoulders and pursing his lips. It had only been a
pastime all through, and, thanks to her own pluck and sense, it had
been one of those rare, delightful pastimes that, ended suddenly, might
leave only a gracious, enjoyable memory behind. He was glad of that.
Somewhere in his heart, that was mostly impressionless India rubber,
there had proved to be a healthy, flesh-and-blood spot after all. She
had found it quickly—gone straight to it with the unerring directness
of a little child. It existed still—would always exist for her.
But in future the India rubber would have to close over it, and hide it
from all chance of discovery. In future he must not even remember it
himself. For that way lay weakness. No serving of Mammon could be
achieved, whichever way he turned, with the frank, candid, clever
Little Girl.
And so she must go; and since it was inevitable, the sooner the better.
Then had come the afternoon’s golf; and, without asking himself why, he
had hidden from her that there was any change. Afterwards, because the
impending finale made him desire her as he had never desired her
before, he went into the pretty little sitting-room and kissed her.
When he hurriedly departed, he remembered only that the kiss had been
sweet. Also that evidently no rumour had reached her yet. But of course
it would. Any moment of any day her newspaper office might get the news
and publish it.
He spent a wretched week, torn mercilessly by his desire to serve two
masters. In the end, because he was a man who hated to be thwarted, he
swore a violent oath, and said that he would.
Then he sent Hal the urgent little note, and made his plans for the
day. They all hinged largely upon his hope to get her to go to his flat
in Jermyn Street, after that grill-room dinner. That was why when they
met he cleverly took the bull by the horns directly he saw in her eyes
that she had heard the news. He appealed, with insight, to her sense of
humour.
“If you look at me like that,” he said, “I shall punish you by sitting
down here, in St. James’s Park, on the curbstone, and giving you an
explanation before all London that lasts an hour.”
“I’ve a great mind to keep you to it,” with her low, musical laugh,
“and send Peter to bring a phonograph man with a blank record to take
it down.”
“And a dozen journalists with snap-shot cameras, and biograph
apparatus, to link us in notorious publicity to all eternity.”
“No; I couldn’t stand that. What is your alternative?”
“A long, perfect day in this heavenly sunshine, pretending anything in
the world you like that will make us forget the stale, boresome, old
week-day world. Then, at the end of it, the unfolding of a glorious
plan that is an explanation in itself.”
Hal looked doubtful, and seemed to cogitate. He waited in an anxiety he
could scarce conceal, watching her mobile, sensitive face. Finally the
sunshine and the light-hearted carelessness made the strongest appeal,
and she gave in.
“Very well. If it had been dull and cloudy I would not have agreed. But
one daren’t trifle with sunshine. We’ll take our fill of it while it
lasts.”
So it happened that their last long day was one of the best they had
known—each being clever enough to carry out the suggested programme and
banish the following cloud for the time.
Hal was a little feverish—a little gayer than usual, with some hidden
strain; a little pathetically anxious to act an indifference she could
not possibly feel, concerning that rumour, and throw herself heart and
soul into their compact of forgetting everything for a little while
except the sunshine and the exhilarating dash through a spring-decked
England.
In some places the hedges were white with hawthorn; and in sheltered
nooks they sped past primroses, like pale stars in the grass. There
were plantations of feathery, exquisite larch trees, their lovely green
enhanced by tall dark pines, standing among them like sentinels. In gay
gardens joyous daffodils nodded and laughed to them as they whirled
past. Sir Edwin ventured an appreciative remark.
“Don’t talk,” Hal said. “Pretend you are in a worldwide cathedral, and
it is the great annual festival of spring.”
“May I sing?” he asked humorously.
“No; not as you value your life. We have only to listen to the choir.
Hush, don’t you hear the birds singing the grand spring ‘Te Deum’!”
But after a time she spoke herself.
“Was it all like this on Thursday night—all these delicious scents and
sights and sounds cast broadcast, for all who passed to enjoy?”
“I expect so. Why?”
The kindliness in the quizzical grey eyes was amazing, as he sat back,
watching her with covert insistence, instead of the spring glories. How
the divine spark changes a man for the brief moments when it reigns!
Banishing utterly Stock Exchange scandals, convenient heiresses,
exacting parties, the merciless claims of the god Mammon. He might have
looked just so, years and years ago, before he entered that hard
service, and buried all his best under layer upon layer of harsh,
deadening, world-wise grasping. Pity that the best is so frail to
withstand the onslaught of the demons of power and place—so easily
overcome and thrust away probably for ever.
“I was up in Holloway. I suppose you know it? And there was a strong
man dying a helpless invalid, and his sister breaking her heart, and a
woman from the opposite flat, who said she stood for nothing in the
world but a letter of the alphabet. And all round was gloom, and murk,
and shabbiness, and hard, pitiless facts. I came home in the tube, and
all the passengers seemed to look like lifeless, starved, white-faced
mummies. They made me feel frightened. I wondered where joy had fled
to.
“And here, was it just like this all the time?... flowers, and sweet
scents, and spring, and hopefulness?... And scarcely any one to enjoy
it all; while those white-faced, vacant mummies were journeying
foolishly to and fro in that stuffy, detestable tube.”
“You shouldn’t go to such places. What have you to do with Holloway,
and shabbiness, and starving people? If you belonged to me, I wouldn’t
let you go.”
“Of course I have to do with them. We all have. But I don’t know what.
And it frightens me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt frightened before. It
was like being brought up sharp against a stone wall.”
His lips were suddenly a little stern. Stone walls had to be broken
down. That was the use of being strong. One was not frightened; one
just got a battering-ram, and forced a passage through. He would tell
her soon, but not out here. Not just yet.
“You are forgetting our compact. I’m surprised at you, Hal. I call it a
slight on the sunshine.”
“Why, so it is!... Avaunt, and leave my mind, Holloway! This day
belongs to the spring.”
And until they drew up outside the Criterion Grill, she kept her
spirits high, and gave herself to the joy of the hour.