Monty shrugged his shoulders. He was not so obstinate in his belief as
his speech made him appear. Already he was searching in his memory for
occasions, for details, for possible spies. An idea occurred to him.
"Jacobs?" he asked. "Impossible."
Blanche shook her head. Patricia, watching her, thought she was paler.
The brilliant lips were hardly parted as she spoke.
"Nothing's impossible," answered Blanche, drawing her breath quickly.
Monty looked at her with sudden attention. Suspicion darted to his eyes.
"You?" he cried. "Not you, Blanche?" His face had crimsoned. Again
Blanche slowly shook her head.
"Nothing's impossible," she repeated.
iv
It was then only that she took further notice of Patricia, to whom she
made a slight ironic inclination of the head. While Monty stood with
that brooding glance of suspicion still directed upon her, his doubt,
once awakened not easily to be dispelled, Blanche opened the door.
"You want to go, don't you?" she said. "Well, you can go now. We shall
get along better without you now. I hope you've been edified. You've
seen Monty, and you've seen me, and you've learnt quite a lot that you
won't be able to repeat. It'll do you good. You once said that the
world was full of women who had found out too late. I wish that you
could be one of them. I should enjoy it. Now go."
Patricia, in silence, passed from the room, and into the hall; and the
door was closed again. Monty had not spoken. She was alone in the hall,
which rose lofty and spacious above her head to a painted ceiling, the
whole in a brilliant blue. Around the ceiling ran a strip of shaded
light, the reflection of which made the hall's illumination. The walls
were hung with thick brilliant curtains which deadened all sound, and
thick rugs lay along the polished parquet flooring. Only by the door
stood a single small piece of statuary, a reproduction of a classic
fragment. There seemed to be a stifling heaviness in the air, as of
scent, so much had she been affected by the late scenes. Patricia
paused here as one in a dream, bowed and trembling, but with emotion
that was new to her. She was no longer afraid or angry; but she was
pierced through and through with the longing for contact with something
unquestionably clean.
She had reached the heavy front door. Her hand was outstretched to the
catch. And then she hesitated. This poignant desire was irresistible.
It was the longing to be assoiled. Only by such contact could she
recover purity, could she be at peace. Memory flashed a thought into
Patricia's mind. With a glance across her shoulder, a hasty step to the
wide staircase, a pause for intent listening, she ran back into the
room from which she had a short time before taken her hat and coat.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: NIGHT CALL
i
At his desk that day, Edgar had worked loyally to keep his attention
concentrated upon matters in hand. He had always been in the habit
of excluding private concerns from his mind during business hours;
and even here, owing to determination and practice, he was partly
successful. He did not consciously think of Patricia while he was
reading and dictating letters, while he was talking to several
exacting visitors, while he telephoned, and even while he lunched
in company with other business men. He made no attempt to be alone
or to be in company. It was not apparent to any of those who dealt
with him that day that he was otherwise than as usual--competent,
friendly, and benevolently unshakeable in decision. And yet the secret
Edgar, the unsuspected Edgar, the Edgar who was Hamlet, was extremely
disturbed. This Edgar was faced with a crisis. He was angry. He was
angry and exasperated and broken-hearted. But he was much more angry
and exasperated than he was broken-hearted. And in the middle of his
emotions, this secret Edgar was engaged in the preposterous act of
laughing.
The secret Edgar was, in fact, a little boy who had never grown up; but
he concealed this from everybody, and it was supposed that he did not
exist. Therefore the really grown-up persons in Edgar's office--such
as his typist and his junior clerks and his shipping clerks--had a
feeling of superiority to him which was mingled with their feeling of
respect. They all thought, privately, how imaginative they were, in
being able to enjoy books and plays which contained whimsical notions,
and how completely a business man Edgar was. And this secret Edgar,
who lost his temper and raged and roared with merriment in the middle
of his own furies, was like a little boy who had been angry and cannot
keep on being angry because everybody else, so amused, is trying to
remain grave. The secret Edgar was unsuspected by those around the
outward Edgar; and Edgar lived so entirely in the secret Edgar that
he never knew that there was any other Edgar at all. It never entered
his head to suppose that there were two Edgars--outside and inside,
as it were,--and as the serious Edgar had a day's work to do, the
secret Edgar made no attempt to interfere. The day's work was done; the
last letter was signed; and Edgar--the composite Edgar--the physical
Edgar--was at length free to abandon himself to anger and exasperation
and broken heart and laughter. He put his hat unemotionally upon his
head, and carefully threaded himself into his overcoat; and then he
left the office, and was out in the darkness and traffic of the City of
London.
Night in the City of London, on a week-day, is as remarkable and as
romantically bizarre as night in some such centre of the engineering
industry as Barrow-in-Furness, where the tipping of molten slag and the
blazing sky-reflections of many furnaces compose miraculous effects
for the sensitive. As Edgar stepped out into the cold air, thousands
of people were making the sidewalks impassable, and pressing out into
the asphalted roadways, and jostling and going self-absorbed to every
point of the compass. Many vehicles were joined in the general hustle
and congestion; cabs, omnibuses, postal-vans, and the like, all flashed
their way through the crowds. Deafening noises filled the ears. Lights
and shadows fought desperately their incessant battle. Boys and
young men carrying waste-paper baskets full of letters, or piles of
parcels which extended from their waists to their chins, or bundles
carried fore and aft across their bent shoulders, staggered from all
directions; others ran, doubling in and out among the foot-passengers
and the vehicles, unburdened, hurrying hither and thither, their little
black hats pressed down upon their ears, or their little cheap soft
felt hats cocked askew with impudent carelessness. Others again wore
no hats at all, but swung along bare-headed and short-coated even
in the chilly evening breeze. High above the streets were globes of
white light, which hung centrally, without standards to support them.
And in these narrow streets, in the white, fizzing lights, amid the
close-running traffic, with this noise and helter-skelter rushing to
catch posts and trains and omnibuses dinning into his ears and dazzling
his eyes and bewildering his senses, the secret Edgar found himself
sensibly exhilarated. It was quite dark, and the sky was invisible.
Somewhere beyond the crowd and the lights, and beyond the overhanging
murk, it lay; to be guessed and known, but never to be seen. He had
worked well all day. He was contented with the way in which various
transactions in which he was engaged were progressing. And only one
thing in all the world caused him distress; and yet that one thing, so
all-important, out-weighed every complacency and every other care. It
was a preoccupation. It was Patricia.
Because of Patricia, Edgar was angry and exasperated and
broken-hearted. Because of Patricia, he was shaken with preposterous
laughter.
ii
Within an hour he was indoors, in that house in Kensington where
Patricia had realised what the word "home" might mean. The house was
still; the servants were quiet-footed and the carpets were thick.
Doors, well-made and heavy, closed gently and remained closed, without
rattling. Even Pulcinella was subdued by even-tide, except upon the
arrival of a member of the family much beloved. Then no amount of
custom could stale the little dog's rapture. Edgar admitted himself,
and washed, and went down to the brown room upon the mezzanine floor
which was his own room, where there was a fire, and where books upon
white-enamelled shelves warmed the walls from floor to ceiling and made
them cordially glow with companionship. He had an hour before dinner,
an hour in which to vent his anger and exasperation, in which to
contemplate his broken heart. And when he reached the room he spent his
hour in doing none of these things. He sat instead and tried to decide
what he was going to do about Patricia. For he had now definitely
made up his mind that Patricia was to be won. No young woman is so
ostentatiously decided when she has in fact made up her mind.
At the same time, Patricia was a mystery to Edgar. He could have
named her traits with scarcely a grievous error in observation; but,
this done, she would still have been a mystery. A man who behaved
as she was obviously in the habit of behaving could have had no
interest for Edgar. If he had not loved Patricia he would have found
her insufferable. But he loved her. The secret Edgar--who was all
heart--loved her; the outward Edgar merely received impressions of her.
The impressions might constantly be disagreeable--some of them were
wholly disagreeable;--but they slipped into the heart of the secret
Edgar, which was big enough to hold them all. And it was this secret
Edgar who conned the mystery, with rather more humour than the outward
Edgar was always supposed to possess. Which explains why Edgar's
ruminations were interrupted by laughter--not loud, hearty, hopelessly
solemn laughter; but laughter that was a catching of the breath,
explosive, and then silent.
"She _is_ the most preposterous creature that ever lived," said Edgar.
"The most conceited, blind, ridiculous little fathead...."
He would not have dared to communicate this view of Patricia to anybody
alive. He would not have dared to mention it even to Claudia. Even to
hint the smallest part of it to Patricia herself would have been the
act of a madman. And yet to himself Edgar was frank and fair about it.
Because Edgar knew that when he said or thought such a thing every word
was qualified and softened by an emotion in himself towards the object
of his laughter which was without comparison the most precious thing in
his life.
iii
Presently he heard the telephone bell ringing downstairs, and as he
was not sure that Claudia was in, and as Mrs. Mayne was almost as
ridiculous on the telephone as her husband, who invariably rang off
while he went to find somebody less incompetent, Edgar walked out of
the room. The bell had ceased ringing; but he proceeded as far as
the clothes-cupboard where it was installed, on the chance that the
answerer might not be Claudia. It was she, however. As Edgar put his
head inside the clothes-cupboard she was saying "Hold on," and she
turned as if to leave the cupboard in search of somebody who was wanted.
"Oh, there you are," said Claudia. "I didn't know you were in. It's Mr.
Gaythorpe."
Edgar took the receiver from his sister's hand. Old Gaythorpe was one
of those rare people who speak as clearly on the telephone as they
would speak in a room. Every word he said was audible. Edgar could
imagine the old man present. The dry wisdom of his manner was in an
extraordinary degree conveyed by the sound of his voice.
"Look here, young man," said Gaythorpe. "I've been kept here by
importunate suitors. My train has gone. I want to see you. Can I come
to dinner?"
"Of course!" cried Edgar, foolhardy in giving such encouragement
without consultation with the kitchen, but relying upon Mayne ingenuity
to expand a meal at short notice.
"I'll take what Mrs. Mayne gives me," the voice continued, the voice of
an experienced family man. "Right. I'll come along."
Edgar flung up the receiver. He turned to Claudia, who was leaning
pensively against the doorpost, waiting to hear the worst.
"He's coming to dinner."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Claudia, blanching. "I must see mother! We've got
one guest already--Olivia Stephens."
"Oh, do you know her?" said Edgar, surprised. He was familiar with the
name; but he could not at first discover in what connection.
"School with her," called Claudia, hurrying away. "Known her all my
life. So have you. Come and talk to her."
It was evidently to be a bright evening. Edgar followed, trying to
remember Olivia Stephens, and to recall what he knew of her. There came
back to his mind a picture of a girl who came to see Claudia in bygone
days, a girl with a long plait of hair and very arched brows and a
freckled snub nose; of an older girl with her hair up, who had not very
much to say for herself; of a young creature who flaunted a shapeless
olive-green frock down the cobbled street of a Cornish fishing village,
attended by an amiable fellow in a reddish-brown Norfolk suit, bearing
a black-bowled pipe and a cudgel. This picture, which wavered and
sharpened in its successive stages, like a series of kinema close-ups,
recalled Olivia to his experience. She was the girl who had married
an artist--the Norfolk-jacketed young man with the pipe; upon whose
behalf Edgar had been persuaded to buy some water-colour drawings
which hung in his mother's bedroom. What was it about her?--poor,
artist-husband--cheerful--ah, babies! Olivia was the girl who had the
two babies! The girl of his ideal! She it was of whom Claudia had
given accounts which had filled him with admiring approval. Edgar was
triumphant at his own instinct for clues and associations. It came into
his head that he had seen vague resemblances to Olivia and the young
artist at Monty's September party. Of course! He had not spoken to her,
because his memory had been too vague; but now he was clear. The girl
he had seen must indeed have been Olivia; and her artistic husband must
have been the link with Monty and the æsthetes. They were the young
people who were still in love with each other. He could recall their
happiness. Even in recollection Edgar was pleased with them.
"Babies," he ejaculated recognisingly to himself. He entered the
sitting-room with the anticipation of interest; but with a certain
sinking of the heart lest Olivia should be restricted to a single topic.
iv
"How are you, Edgar?" asked Olivia. She sat by the fire in the
blue-grey drawing-room; and there was work in her hands. The work was
obviously a garment for a small child. He recognised her at once by the
well-arched eyebrows, and by the fact that she wore--as in his first
vision--a dress which was olive-green in colour. The freckles were
banished (whether by the season, or by some more permanent cure, he
could not tell); but the calm, innocent eyes and odd little nose were
much as he remembered them to have been. Her shoulders were broader,
and her breast had developed. Otherwise she was the agreeable creature
he had known, between fair and dark, with plump arms and legs and a lot
of fair hair. She had a very sweet lazy smile, and an unself-conscious
manner which came of not taking herself very seriously. She was about
twenty-six. Theoretically, Edgar knew, Olivia was his ideal type of
woman. She gave love with the eager readiness of the trustful child;
she spoke quietly and seldom, but without constraints; she had courage
and patience and unselfishness. And he was in love with her opposite.
One more insoluble problem.
"How are you?" he answered. "And how's ... er, Stephens?" Then, with
the proud feeling of taking his fences: "And how are the babies?"
"How nice of you to ask about them!" said Olivia, comfortably, with
her slow, happy, lazy smile. "Joan isn't very grand. She's got a cold.
That makes her just a little trying and sentimental at the moment. But
Michael is tremendously hefty, and already weighs about ten stone. He's
a sort of prize ox. In fact Mercy--Peter's sister--says he's not like a
baby at all, but like a beautiful white calf. You haven't seen either
of them, I expect, though Claudia has. Joan's three; and Michael's just
over a year, and walks well. Look here, you ought to come and see them.
They'd do you good. You must be getting quite middle-aged, Edgar. Yes,
I can _see_ you are. You ought to have children of your own. Then you
wouldn't have time to grow old. Come and see them, will you?"
"This conversation is going to be extremely indelicate and extremely
rude, I can see," replied Edgar. "I begin already to remember you as
an excessively rude and, indelicate girl in a pigtail. I am _not_
middle-aged, and I don't _look_ as though I were middle-aged. So that's
finished. As to the babies, I _will_ come. I ought to have come before;
but I had forgotten all about you. When Claudia said you were here I
had really to recall who you were. How is it you never come to see us?
Or _do_ you come, secretly?"
Olivia grimaced.
"I go out very little. The babies, you see. Michael needs somebody
still--they both need somebody to put them to bed; and Michael
sometimes yells for me. I'm only out this evening because Peter's
sister is staying with us. Peter's coming for me later on. He couldn't
come to dinner, because he's finishing some work."
"Painting?"
Olivia shook her head, a little ruefully.
"Black-and-white. He's got some regular work to do at last. So things
are looking up with us. We're beginning to save. He wants us to go and
live in the country somewhere--not too far away--for the sake of the
babies; and we shall do that next year if we can get a cottage."
"But would you like that? Wouldn't it be dull for you?" asked Edgar.
Olivia shook her head again, this time without any ruefulness at all.
"Nothing could be duller than London," she said. "Besides, if we had
a nurse, Peter and I could always come up to town for an evening. One
consequence of being rich would be a nurse; and that would mean lots
of liberty, with the right girl. We shouldn't go anywhere quite in the
wilds. And it isn't as though Joan would need a school just yet. She's
got another three years before she need go. The great thing is for them
to be able to play out-of-doors."
Edgar nodded, much impressed by this notion of life.
"Would _you_ be happier?" he asked.
"I?" cried Olivia. "I couldn't be. I seem to have got everything I
want."
Edgar stared meditatively at this remarkable woman.
"You're very fortunate," he said, drily. And then: "You're very rare."
v
With dinner came the other guest, cynically benevolent as ever; and
the table in the big old-fashioned dining-room was a full one. At
it there were three elderly people and three young ones; and, as if
naturally, all the talking which was not done by Mrs. Mayne took place
between Claudia and old Gaythorpe. They sparred on the best of terms,
because there was a very pleasant feeling between them, and they were
like partners in a game who knew each other's play. Mr. Mayne sat with
fierce dignity at one end of the table, high above the heat of battle;
and his wife, placidly nimble of brain, at the other, absorbed in
it. Olivia blissfully enjoyed her dinner in a home-made frock, with
hands that were reddened by house-work, and an inner happiness which
caused her to accept every kindness with glee. Edgar, lazily listening
to Claudia in combat with his old friend, was content to leave the
conversation to them. And Claudia, who was full of spirits, was being
agile and aggressive; and old Gaythorpe was in his own dry way being
equally agile and aggressive. The motto of each was the same: "Never
give your adversary a moment's peace."
"You seem to think that income tax is the only tax there is!" cried
Claudia. "It's the rich man's tax, and always will be. If you were
poor, and paid your taxation indirectly--"
"I do that as well, my dear Claudia. My sugar costs me--"
"Neither your sugar nor your coal!" she retorted.
"Indeed, yes."
"Our sugar doesn't. Nor our tea. Nor our coal. We buy in bulk. If you
don't escape, it's by bad buying. We have tons of coal. Poor people buy
in quarter-hundredweights, and pay fifty per cent more. A ha'porth of
jam--you can't get ha'porths now, as it happens--multiplied many times
makes much more a pot than you pay. Every necessary costs more."
"Is jam a necessary? I never eat it."
"Your pampered children do."
"Ah, my children. Yes.... Pampered _indeed_. I agree. The younger
generation, of course. Take the cost of education, Claudia. What have I
paid in school fees?"
"If the Council schools are all you say, they'd have been quite
adequate."
"Your own dexterity isn't the fruit of the Council school," parried
Gaythorpe.
"No; it's my own!" cried Claudia.
"Claudia, dear," objected Mrs. Mayne. "Your father and I can hardly be
called ordinary people."
They all laughed at this simple interruption. Claudia was instantly
deflated. She turned to Olivia.
"Are you going to give your babies any education?" she demanded.
"Well," said Olivia. "Peter doesn't think ordinary education is much
good. He thinks it just spoils children to be taught by rote. But then
he thinks that better education only teaches them to spend money--not
to make it. He was at a public school himself."
"And is he well-educated?" pressed Claudia.
"Oh, he ... of course, he _knows_ a lot. But it isn't very precise
knowledge. He can't spell: he's never sure about words like 'separate'
or 'receipt.' He's not very good at figures. I have to do the sums as a
rule; but then of course that's just knack."
"Yes, and there's another thing!" Claudia, reminded by Olivia's
admission as to figures, returned to her direct challenge. "Women!"
There was a general groan.
"He's very unsound there," interjected Edgar, cheerfully. "You'd better
go no further."
"By the way, Olivia." Claudia was diverted from her argument. "Have you
ever met an awful girl--an artist--called Amy Roberts?"
"O-oh!" exclaimed Olivia, in disgust. "Where on earth did you meet her?"
"At Patricia's--Patricia Quin's."
"Such a nice girl," said Mrs. Mayne, aside to Gaythorpe. "A friend of
Edgar's."
Instantly Gaythorpe shot a glance of inexpressible malice at Edgar.
"Indeed," he said, politely. There was benign poison in his encouraging
tone. He beamed upon Mrs. Mayne, hoping for further information about
Edgar's friend, immediately recalling the Miss Fly-away of their
conversation.
"Patricia Quin?" repeated Olivia, doubtfully. "Oh, a fair girl--. Isn't
she Harry Greenlees's mistress?"
"No." Edgar did not hear himself speak.
"Who told you that?" indignantly cried Claudia. "It's scandalous!"
Olivia, disconcerted, tried to remember the name of her informant. The
general distress was so obvious that she slightly reddened.
"Wait a minute," she said. "I'm sorry if I've said something I ought
not to. I thought there wasn't any question about it. I think it was
Blanche Tallentyre who told Peter."
"Well, it's not true!" cried Claudia. "What a beast Blanche Tallentyre
must be. Have you ever met her, Edgar?"
Edgar, deeply moved, was staring at the table, his face stern.
All their eyes were upon him. He had a remembered glimpse of an
unhappy-looking woman across a dinner-table, of lips parted to speak,
of a speech checked and an enmity formed in a single instant.
"Yes," he answered slowly. "At Monty's. Patricia was rude to her.
That's the explanation. Not deliberately rude, but wounding. I saw that
she felt vicious about it. But surely you don't accept anything _she_
might say as probable, Olivia?"
"Perhaps not," Olivia agreed. "No: she isn't a nice woman. I suppose
there's no doubt that she's Monty's mistress, herself."
"Dear, dear!" protested Mrs. Mayne. "It seems so horrible to have that
word bandied about by nice young girls. It's such a pity. Don't you
think so, Mr. Gaythorpe?"
"I quite agree with you, Mrs. Mayne," said the old man. "A great pity.
A very great pity. And who--" he paused, speaking across the table to
Edgar. "Who is Monty?"
"Monty Rosenberg." It was a chorus.
"Indeed. And is he a friend of yours, Edgar?"
Edgar's eyes met those of his tormentor very candidly across the table.