She did not think of the future. There was no future for her. There was only an irrevocable past and a sordid, yet dream-like present, that clung round her spirit as a damp mist might have clung round her person, intangible and yet penetrating and all-pervading, hampering and stifling her.
The modicum of physical strength which she had regained in Clevedon Square was ebbing imperceptibly from her. It was difficult to sleep very well in Malden Road, where the trams and the omnibuses passed in incessant, jerking succession, and the children screamed in the road late at nights and incredibly early in the mornings. The food was neither good nor well prepared, but Alex ate little in the heat, and reflected that it was an economy not to be hungry.
The need for economy was being gradually borne in upon her, as her small stock of money diminished and there came nothing to replace it. Presently she exerted herself to find a registry office, where she gave her name and address, and was contemptuously and suspiciously eyed by an old lady with dyed red hair who sat at a writing-table, and asked her a fee of half-a-crown for entering her name in a ledger.
“No diplomas and no certificate won’t take you far in teaching now-a-days,” she said unpleasantly. “Languages?”
“French quite well and a little Italian. Enough to give conversation lessons,” Alex faltered.
“No demand for ’em whatever. I’ll let you know, but don’t expect anything to turn up, especially at this time of year, with every one out of town.”
But by a miraculous stroke of fortune something did turn up. The woman from the registry office sent Alex a laconic postcard, giving her the address of “a lady singer in Camden Town” who was willing to pay two shillings an hour in return for sufficient instruction in Italian to enable her to sing Italian songs.
Elated, Alex looked out the conversation manual of her convent days, and at three o’clock set out to find the address in Camden Town.
She discovered it with difficulty, and arrived late. The appointed hour had been half-past three.
Shown into a small sitting-room, crowded with furniture and plastered with signed photographs, she sank, breathless and heated, into a chair, and waited.
The lady singer, when she came, was irate at the delay. Her manner frightened Alex, who acquiesced in bewildered humiliation to a stipulation that only half-fees must be charged for the curtailed hour. She gave her lesson badly, imparting information with a hesitation that even to her own ears sounded as though she were uncertain of her facts. However, her pupil ungraciously drew out a shilling from a small chain-purse and gave it to Alex when she left, and she bade her come again in three days’ time.
The lessons went on for three weeks. They tired Alex strangely, but she felt glad that she could earn money, however little; and although the shillings went almost at once in small necessities which she had somehow never foreseen, it was not until the middle of September that she began once more to reach the end of her resources.
Just as she had decided that it would be necessary for her to write to Cedric, she received a letter from him, forwarded from her bank.
Alex turned white as she read it.
“MY DEAR ALEX,
“I am altogether at a loss to understand why Ellen (the upper-housemaid at home) writes to Violet on Friday last, Sept. 12, that you have left Clevedon Square, and that she and the other servant have not yet received the money for their board and wages. This last I take to be an oversight on your part, but you will doubtless put it right at once, since you will remember that I handed you a cheque for that purpose just before leaving London. As to your own movements, I need hardly say, my dear Alex, that I do not claim to have any sort of authority over them of whatever kind, but both Violet and I cannot help feeling that it would have been more friendly, to say the least of it, had you given us some hint as to your intentions. Knowing that Barbara is already abroad, and Pamela with her friends yachting, I can only hope that you have received some unforeseen invitation which appealed to you more than the prospect of solitude in Clevedon Square. It would have been desirable had you left your address with the servants, but I presume the matter escaped your memory, as they appear to be completely in the dark as to your movements.
“Violet is looking quite herself again, and sends many affectionate messages. She will doubtless write to you on receipt of a few lines giving her your address. I am compelled to send this letter through the care of Messrs. Williams, which you will agree with me is an unnecessarily elaborate method of communication.
“Your affectionate brother,
“CEDRIC CLARE.”
Alex was carried back through the years to the sense of remorse and bewilderment with which she had listened to the measured, irrefutable condemnations, expressed with the same unerring precision, of Sir Francis Clare. She realized herself again, sick with crying and cold with terror, standing shaking before his relentless justice, knowing herself to be again, for ever and hopelessly, in the wrong. She would never be anything else.
She knew it now.
Her sense of honour, of truth and justice, was perverted — in direct disaccord with that of the world. What would her brother say to her misuse of the money that he had entrusted to her? Alex knew now, with sudden, terrifying certainty how he would view the transaction which had seemed to her so simple an expedient. She knew that even were she able to make the almost incredible plea of a sudden temptation, a desperate need of money, that had led her voluntarily to commit an act of dishonesty, it would stand her in better stead than a mere statement of the terrible truth — that no voice within her had told her of dishonour, that she had — outrageous paradox! — committed an act of dishonesty in good faith.
To Cedric, the lack in her would seem so utterly perverted, so incomprehensible, that there would appear to be no possibility of that forgiveness which, as a Christian, he could consciously have extended to any wilful breaking of the law. But there would be no question of forgiveness for this. It was not the money, Alex knew that. It was her own extraordinary moral deficiency that put her outside the pale.
Perhaps, thought Alex drearily, this was how criminals always felt. They did the things for which they were punished because of some flaw in their mental outlook — they didn’t see that the things mattered, until it was too late. They had to be saved from themselves by punishment or removal, or sometimes by death; and for the protection of the rest of the community, too, it was necessary to penalize those who could not or would not conform to the standard. Alex saw it all.
But dimly, involuntarily almost, an echo from her childhood’s days came back to her, vaguely formulated into words:
“Always take the part of the people in the wrong — they need it most.”
The only conviction to which she could lay claim was somehow embodied in that sentiment.
XXVIII
Cedric
She wrote to Cedric, the sense of having put herself irrevocably in the wrong by her own act making her explanation into an utterly bald, lifeless statement of fact. She felt entirely unable to enter into any analysis of her folly, and besides, it would have been of no use. Facts were facts. She had taken Cedric’s money, which he had given her for one purpose, and used it for another. There had not even been any violent struggle with temptation to palliate the act.
Alex felt a sort of dazed stupefaction at herself.
She was bad, she told herself, bad all through, and this was how bad people felt. Sick with disappointment, and utterly unavailing remorse, knowing all the time that there was no strength in them ever to resist any temptation, however base.
She wondered if there was a hell, as the convent teaching had so definitely told her. If so, Alex shudderingly contemplated her doom. But she prayed desperately that there might be nothing after death but utter oblivion. It was then that the thought of death first came to her, not with the wild, impotent longing of her days of struggle, but with an insidious suggestion of rest and escape.
She played with the idea, but for the most pa
rt her faculties were absorbed in the increasing strain of waiting for Cedric’s reply to her confession.
It came in the shape of a telegram.
“Shall be in London Wednesday 24th. Will you lunch Clevedon Square 1.30. Reply paid.”
Alex felt an unreasonable relief, both at the postponement of an immediate crisis, and at the reflection that, at all events, Cedric did not mean to come to Malden Road. She did not want him to see those strange, sordid surroundings to which she had fled from the shelter of her old home.
Alex telegraphed an affirmative reply to her brother, and waited in growing apathy for the interview, which she could now only dread in theory. Her sense of feeling seemed numbed at last.
Something of the old terror, however, revived when she confronted Cedric again in the library. He greeted her with a sort of kindly seriousness, under which she wonderingly detected a certain nervousness. During lunch they spoke of Violet, of the shooting that Cedric had been enjoying in Scotland. The slight shade of pomposity which recalled Sir Francis was always discernible in all Cedric’s kindly courtesy as host. After lunch he rather ceremoniously ushered his sister into the library again.
“Sit down, my dear you look tired. You don’t smoke, I know. D’you mind if I — ?”
He drew at his pipe once or twice, then carefully rammed the tobacco more tightly into the bowl with a nicotine-stained finger. Still gazing at the wedged black mass, he said in a voice of careful unconcern:
“About this move of yours, Alex. Violet and I couldn’t altogether understand — That’s really what brought me down, and the question of that cheque I gave you for the servants. I couldn’t quite make out your letter—”
He paused, as though to give her an opportunity for speech, still looking away from her. But Alex remained silent, in a sort of paralysis.
“Suppose we take one question at a time,” suggested Cedric pleasantly. “The cheque affair is, of course, a very small one, and quite easily cleared up. One only has to be scrupulous in money matters because they are money matters — you know father’s way of thinking, and I must say I entirely share it.”
There was no need to tell Alex so.
“Have you got the cheque with you, Alex?”
“No,” said Alex at last. “Didn’t you understand my letter, then?”
Cedric’s spectacles began to tap slowly against the back of his left hand, held in the loose grasp of his right.
“You — er — cashed that cheque?”
“Yes.”
Alex felt as though she were being put to the torture of the Inquisition, but was utterly unable to do more than reply in monosyllables to Cedric’s level, judicial questions.
“May I ask to what purpose you applied the money?”
“Cedric, it’s not fair!” broke from Alex. “I’ve written and told you what I did — I needed money, and I — I thought you wouldn’t mind. I used it for myself — and I meant to write and tell you—”
“You thought I wouldn’t mind!” repeated Cedric in tones of stupefaction.
“You said you would advance me money — I knew you could write another cheque for the servants’ wages. I — I didn’t think of your minding.”
“Mind!” said Cedric again, with reiteration worthy of his nursery days. “My dear girl, you don’t suppose it’s the money I mind, do you?”
“No, no — I ought to have asked you first — but I didn’t think — it seemed a natural thing to do—”
“Good Lord, Alex!” cried Cedric, more moved than she had ever seen him. “Do you understand what you’re saying? A natural thing to do to embezzle money?”
Tears of terror and of utter bewilderment seized on Alex’ enfeebled powers, and deprived her of utterance.
Cedric began to pace the library, speaking rapidly and without looking at her.
“If you’d only written and told me what you’d done at once — though Heaven knows that would have been bad enough but to do a thing like that and then let it rest! Didn’t you know that it must be found out sooner or later?”
He cast a fleeting glance at Alex, who sat with the tears pouring down her quivering face, but she said nothing. It was of no use to explain to Cedric that she had never thought of not being found out. She had meant no concealment. She had thought her action so simple a one that it had hardly needed explanation or justification. It had merely been not worth while to write.
Cedric’s voice went on, gradually gaining in power as the agitation that had shaken him subsided under his own fluency.
“You know that it’s a prosecutable offence, Alex? Of course, there’s no question of such a thing, but to trade on that certainty—”
Alex made an inarticulate sound.
“Violet says of course you didn’t know what you were doing. That wretched place — that convent — has played havoc with you altogether. When I think of those people — !” Cedric’s face darkened. “But hang it, Alex, you were brought up like the rest of us. And on a question of honour — think of father!”
Alex had stopped crying. She was about to make her last stand, with the last strength that in her lay.
“Cedric — listen to me. You must! You don’t understand. I didn’t look at it from your point of view — I didn’t see it like that. There’s something wrong with me — there must be — but it didn’t seem to me to matter. I know you won’t believe me — but I thought the money was quite a little, unimportant thing, and that you’d understand, and say I’d done right to take it for granted that I might have it.”
“But it’s not the money!” groaned Cedric. “Though what on earth you wanted it for, when you had no expenses and your allowance just paid in — But that’s not the point. Can’t you see, Alex? It’s not this wretched cheque in itself; it’s the principle of the thing.”
Alex gazed at him quite hopelessly. The flickering spark of spirit died out and left her soul in darkness.
Cedric faced her.
“I couldn’t believe that your letter really meant what it seemed to mean,” he said slowly; “but if it does — as on your own showing it does — then I understand your leaving us, needless to say. Where are you living — what is this place, Malden Road?”
Characteristically, he drew out her letter, and referred to the address carefully.
“Where is Malden Road?”
“In Hampstead — near Barbara.”
“Are you in rooms?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find them? Who recommended them?”
She made no answer, and Cedric gazed at her with an expression of half-angry, half-compassionate perplexity.
“You are entitled to keep your own counsel, of course, and to make your own arrangements, but I must say, Alex, that the thought of you disturbs me very much. Your whole position is unusual — and your attitude makes it almost impossible to—” He broke off. “Violet begged me — quite unnecessarily, but you know what she is — not to let you feel as though there were any estrangement — to say that whatever arrangement you preferred should be made. Of course, Pamela’s marriage will add to your resources — you understand that? She is marrying an extremely wealthy man, and I shall have not the slightest hesitation in allowing her to make over her share of father’s money to you as soon as it can be arranged. She wishes it herself.”
He paused, as though for some expression of gratitude from Alex, but she made none. Pam had everything, and now she was to have the credit and pleasure of a generosity which would cost her nothing as well. Alex maintained a bitter silence.
“The obvious course is for you to join Barbara, paying your half of expenses, as you will now be enabled to do.”
“Barbara doesn’t want me.”
“It is the natural arrangement,” repeated Cedric inflexibly. “And I must add, Alex, that you seem to me to be terribly unfitted to manage your own life in any way. If what you have told me is the case, I can only infer that your moral sense is completely perverted. I couldn’t have believed it of one
of us — of one of my father’s children.”
Alex knew that the bed-rock of Cedric’s character was reached. She had come to the point where, for Cedric, right and wrong began and ended — honour.
They would never get any nearer to one another now. The fundamental principle which governed life for Cedric was deficient in Alex.
She got up slowly and began to pull on her shabby gloves.
“Will you forgive me, Cedric?” she half sobbed.
“It isn’t a question of forgiveness. Of course I will. But if you’d only asked me for that wretched money, Alex! What you did was to embezzle — it neither more nor less. Oh, good Lord!”
He looked at her with fresh despair and then rang the bell.
“You’re going to have a taxi,” he told her authoritatively. “You’re not fit to go any other way. Alex, my dear, I’d give my right hand for this not to have happened — for Heaven’s sake come to me if you want anything. How much shall I give you now?”
He unlocked the writing-table drawer agitatedly. Alex thought to herself hysterically, “He thinks I may steal money, perhaps, from somebody else, if I want it, and perhaps I should.” And with a sense of degradation that made her feel physically sick, she put into her purse the gold and the pile of silver that he pushed into her hand.
Cedric straightened himself, and taking off his glasses, wiped them carefully.
“Write to me, Alex, and let me know What you want to do. Barbara will be back soon — you must go to her — at any rate for a time — till after Pamela’s wedding. You know that’s fixed for December now? And, my dear, for Heaven’s sake let’s forget this ghastly business. No one on this earth but you and I and Violet need ever know of it.”
“No,” said Alex.
She looked at him with despair invading her whole being.
“Good-bye, Cedric. You’ve been very, very kind to me.”
“The taxi is at the door, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Cedric took his sister into the hall, and she gave a curious, fleeting glance round her at the familiar surroundings, and at the broad staircase where the Clare children had run up and down and played and quarrelled together, in that other existence.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 122