The Expected Happens
One evening, about a fortnight later, Sir Garth Fratten and Leopold
Hessel walked down the steps of the “Wanderers,” in St. James’s
Square, of which rather large-hearted club Hessel was a member, and
turned towards Waterloo Place. Fratten usually spent an hour or so at
his club, or that of one of his friends, in the evening and walked
home afterwards across the Park to his house in Queen Anne’s Gate. It
was, in fact, the only exercise that he got in the day.
“Thanks for my tea, Leo,” said Sir Garth. “First-rate China tea it was
too—I wonder where you get it?”
Hessel smiled. “That’s one of the advantages of being not too
exclusive,” he said. “We’ve got members from all parts of the world
and in all sorts of business; it’s rather a point of pride with us
that each member who can should help the club to get the best of
everything. That tea is unobtainable on the market—Rowle gets it for
us, he’s a Civil Servant in Hong Kong; we’ve got more than one
tea-merchant, but they can’t produce anything to touch it.”
He paused for a moment, then continued: “I wanted to ask you, Fratten,
whether you’ve really settled to go into that Finance Company. Inez
told me a couple of evenings ago that she was afraid you had, but I
hope that she misunderstood you.”
He looked questioningly at his companion.
Fratten, being conscious of unspoken criticism, answered brusquely,
“Certainly I have. I don’t know why you all make such a fuss about the
thing—it’s quite unimportant.”
“That it certainly is not, in the sense that it endangers your health.
But I am afraid it is no use protesting further. You found the Company
sound?”
For a second Sir Garth seemed to hesitate, then: “Oh yes, sound,
certainly sound—and interesting,” he added with a peculiar smile.
“Exactly,” said Hessel, “and you will throw yourself into it with all
your strength and wear yourself out.”
“Nonsense, Leo; don’t be so fussy. Look here, I want to talk to you
about Ryland; I want your advice.”
For a few paces Hessel walked on, without seeming to attend to what
his friend was saying; then he evidently wrenched his mind back from
its wanderings.
“Ryland?” he said. “Not another scrape, I hope?”
The banker frowned. “Scrape is hardly adequate,” he said. “The young
fool has got himself engaged to some chorus girl and now—as usual—he’s
had enough of her and wants to break it off—naturally she wants money.
He wrote to me the other day asking for money—I found his letter when
I got back from the Hospital Board the day I had that shock. I sent
for him and we had an almighty row—both lost control of ourselves, I’m
afraid. I’m rather ashamed of that, but what shocks me so much is that
he should have said the things he did. He’d got some queer ideas in
his head about entail—he spoke in the most callous and unfeeling way.
I was hurt, Leo—deeply hurt. I thought that, at bottom, he was really
fond of me.”
“So he is, Fratten, so he is, of course,” interjected Hessel. “You
said yourself that you both lost your tempers—one says all sorts of
things that one doesn’t mean when one loses one’s temper—then one’s
sorry for them and probably one’s too stupid or sensitive to say so.
Ryland’s all right really, I’m sure he is—a young ass about women, of
course, but his heart’s all right.”
Fratten sighed. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “My God, what a
heavenly evening—what a view!”
The two men had reached the top of the broad flight of steps leading
from Waterloo Place down into the Mall. Above their heads towered the
tall column from which the soldier-prince gazed sadly out over the
London that had forgotten him. Daylight had gone, but the lamps
revealed the delicate outline of the trees in the Green Park, their
few remaining leaves gleaming a golden-brown wherever the light caught
them. In the background it was just possible to get a glimpse of the
delicate white beauty of the Horse Guards building, its clock-tower
illuminated by hidden lights; beyond, on the right the sombre mass of
the Foreign Office loomed up against the purple sky. The soft evening
fog mellowed the whole scene to one of real beauty.
Fratten stood for a moment drinking it in; his companion waited with
him, but seemed to have little eye for his surroundings. He had
lighted a cigar and gave some attention to the way in which it was
burning.
“Have you ever thought,” he asked as they moved on, “of getting Ryland
to take up the stage professionally—either as an actor or producer? He
has considerable talent, I believe. It seems to me that real work of
any kind, however . . . hold up!”
They had got about half-way down the triple flight of steps, when a
man, evidently in a great hurry, running down the steps from behind
them, stumbled and fell against Sir Garth, catching hold of his arm to
recover his own balance. Fratten did not fall, though he might have
done so had Hessel not been on his other side to steady him.
“I—I beg your pardon, sir,” stammered the intruder. “I’m in a great
hurry; I hope I haven’t hurt you?”
The speaker was a well-built man of rather more than average height,
without being tall. He appeared to be somewhere in the thirties and
wore a dark moustache.
“Are you all right, Fratten; are you all right?” asked Hessel,
anxiously looking in his companion’s face. Sir Garth had closed his
eyes for a minute, and in the dim light he appeared to be rather
white, but he soon pulled himself together and smiled at his
companion.
“Quite all right, Leo,” he said.
“In that case, sir,” said his “assailant,” “if you’ll forgive me—I’ll
be off—great hurry—important message—Admiralty . . .” and he was off,
dashing down the steps as before and disappearing in the direction of
the great building across the road on the left. A small group of
people had collected but when they found that nothing really exciting
had happened they quickly dispersed—all except one middle-aged lady
who fluttered round Sir Garth, chattering excitedly about “dastardly
attack,” “eye-witness,” “police,” etc., until Hessel brusquely
requested her to take herself off. Hessel himself was not a little
excited; he insisted on cross-examining his friend as to his symptoms,
begged him to take a cab and, when he refused, took him by the arm and
almost led him along, gesticulating energetically with his free hand,
in which the lighted cigar still glowed. Sir Garth thought that he had
never before seen his friend display so markedly the reputed
excitability of his race.
Fratten himself appeared to be very little upset by the incident; he
listened with some amusement to Hessel’s exhortations and allowed
himself to be shepherded across the Mall. The pair stopped for a
second on the island in the middle to allow a car to pass and then
crossed slowly to the other side; they had reached the footway and
taken a step or two towards the Horse Guards Parade when Fratten
uttered a sharp ejaculation, staggered, and then, gasping for breath,
sank slowly down into a limp bundle on the ground. Hessel had been
quite unable to hold up the dead-weight of the body through whose arm
his own was linked; in fact he was nearly pulled to the ground
himself. He threw himself on his knees beside his friend and peered
anxiously into his face.
What he saw there was deeply disturbing. Sir Garth’s face was deadly
pale in the dim light, his eyes stared up, unseeing but agonized; his
mouth was open and set as if in a desperate effort to breathe. But the
gasping breaths had ceased, the body was quite still.
Hessel clasped and unclasped his hands nervously.
“Fratten;” he said. “Fratten; can you hear me?”
No answer came from the still figure on the ground.
Hessel looked up at the ring of pale faces hovering above him.
“Has anyone got a car?” he asked, “or a taxi?”
“Shall I fetch a doctor, sir?” asked one of the crowd.
“Or a policeman?” asked another.
“Or an ambulance?”
“No, no, a car. I want to get him to his own house—quite close here.
His own doctor—knows all about this. Sir Horace Spavage. Heart—I’m
afraid . . . a car . . .”
“I’ve got a car here,” said a newcomer who had pushed his way through
the crowd and heard the last words. “A limousine—he’ll be comfortable
in that.” (“Not much use to him, though,” he muttered to himself.)
“Lend a hand, somebody; I’ll take his shoulders. Put a hand under his
head, will you?”
Very carefully the limp form was carried to the car and deposited on
the soft cushions of the back seat. Hessel got in beside it and took
his friend’s hand, which felt to him deathly cold. The owner of the
car got in beside the driver and in less than two minutes they had
reached Queen Anne’s Gate. Fortunately, as Hessel thought, Inez was
not in and Sir Garth was carried into the morning-room and laid on the
big sofa. There was no lift in the house and Hessel did not like, he
told Golpin, to risk the climb to the second floor.
Within ten minutes Sir Horace Spavage had arrived. One glance at the
white and agonized face was enough.
“Dear, dear!” he said. “So soon?”
Kneeling down by the sofa, he picked up one of his patient’s hands,
held the wrist for a few seconds between his fingers and thumb, and
laid it quietly down again. Then, undoing the front of the shirt and
vest, he laid his hand on the bare chest and tapped it firmly with the
rigid fingers of his other hand. Even to Hessel’s untutored ears, the
sound produced was curiously muffled and dull. Sir Horace rose slowly
to his feet, putting away the stethoscope which he had automatically
slipped round his neck.
“Yes; as I thought,” he said. “The aneurism has burst.”
The funeral of Sir Garth Fratten took place on the following Monday.
The actual burial was at Brooklands and was attended only by members
of the family and a few close personal friends. Ryland and Inez were
the chief mourners, Ryland looking very subdued and unhappy, and Inez
worn out with misery but erect and calm—and very beautiful in her
black clothes. A few distant cousins had come to establish a
relationship which the dead man had allowed to remain distant during
his life, whilst Leopold Hessel, Laurence Mangane, Sir Horace Spavage,
and Mr. Septimus Menticle, the family solicitor, were also present.
In London a memorial service was held at St. Ethelberta’s, one of
Wren’s most beautiful—and threatened—City churches. The church was
packed with City men of all types and standings. A Director of the
Bank of England was present to represent that august institution
officially, together with members of the committees of Lloyds and the
Stock Exchange. All the directors of Fratten’s Bank, except of course
Hessel, were there, and Major-General Sir Hunter Lorne, a notable
figure even among men of note, represented the Victory Finance
Company. Every member of the staff of Fratten’s Bank, which was closed
for the day—a unique circumstance—was there, from the chief cashier to
the latest-joined stamp-licker. The City felt that one of its big men
had gone—one of the fast-disappearing pre-war type—and it was, beneath
its inscrutable surface, genuinely moved.
When the burial at Brooklands was over, the party returned to Queen
Anne’s Gate. Inez, with quiet dignity, poured out tea and then excused
herself and retired, leaving Ryland to act as host to the rather
uncomfortable and ill-assorted gathering. When tea was finished a move
was made to the dining-room and as soon as the gloomy committee was
seated round the big mahogany table, Mr. Menticle produced the last
will and testament of his late client. Placing a pair of gold
pince-nez upon his aquiline nose, he cleared his throat and, in a
precise voice, read the contents of the crisp document in his hand.
The distant cousins were all agreeably surprised by what they heard,
the staff of Fratten’s Bank were remembered to a man—and girl, various
charities were mentioned, though not unduly, and the residue of the
estate was divided equally between “my two children, Ryland and Inez
Fratten.” Leopold Hessel was appointed sole executor with a generous
legacy and the instruction that Sir Garth’s private and business
papers should be in the first place scrutinized by him and their
disposal left to his sole discretion.
“There, gentlemen!” said Mr. Menticle, when the reading was over,
“that represents the attested wishes of a very big and generous man;
if, as one who has known him and his family and affairs for many
years, I may be allowed to say so, it represents also a very
reasonable and well-balanced distribution of the goods which he
largely created himself and which, as we know, it was as impossible
for him as for any other to take with him out of this world. With your
permission, gentlemen—yours especially, Mr. Fratten—I will now
withdraw. I have, I am sorry to say, other work awaiting me at my
office which this sad occasion has caused me to neglect.”
When the last of the ghouls had left, Ryland Fratten returned to the
dining-room and sank again into the chair he had just left. For
minutes he sat there, motionless, staring at the polished surface of
the table, his face an expressionless mask—except for the eyes, in the
depth of which a look of some agonized emotion seemed to lurk—sorrow,
remorse, fear?
The door opened quietly and Inez’ wistful face peered round it.
“There you are, Ry!” she said. “I’ve been hunting for you everywhere,
since I heard the front door slam. I thought perhaps old Menticle had
got his teeth into you about the will or something. What are you doing
in here all by yourself, old man?”
Ryland turned his haggard face towards her, an attempt at a smile
quivered on his mouth, and then his head sank into his folded arms and
a deep sob shook his body.
Inez slipped on to the chair next to him and threw her arm across his
shoulders.
“Ry,” she said. “What is it? My dear, tell me.”
A look of anxiety and almost more than sisterly tenderness came into
her eyes as Ryland sat motionless, unanswering.
At the same time, back at his office in Lincoln’s Inn—where also he
lived, in considerable bachelor comfort—Mr. Menticle emptied his
dispatch-case on to the table before him. From the heap of documents
he selected one, a parchment, less soiled than most of the others. He
ran his eye over its brief contents, looked for a minute out of the
window, as if in deep thought, then slowly tore it across and across.