“What I lived on before the procés was decided,” haughtily replied the Princesse. “And, naturally, it isn’t business. Arrangements of this kind are not made through a lawyer’s office. My assurance is enough for you, I should hope.”
Fitzmaurice, without speaking, nodded thoughtfully. The assurance of the Princesse, evidently, was quite enough for him.
“Then I don’t think we need go into it any further. As soon as you have arranged matters, send me your banker’s address, and the money can go quarterly through my bank, beginning on September 25th, if the engagement has been formally announced by then, with the consent of Lucien’s mother.”
“Good God,” said Fitzmaurice, still staring. “You are a holy terror.”
A small gesture of her hand repudiated his admiration.
“What happens if I can’t get Clarissa to toe the line? She’s the very devil itself, when it comes to obstinacy.”
“Naturally, if you fail, we are exactly where we were before — in every respect. But you won’t fail,” said the Princesse significantly.
She rose.
“Look here—”
The Princesse shook her head, unconsciously echoing Cliffe Montgomery:
“That will do, Fitzmaurice.”
“But I haven’t yet said—”
“There is no need to do so,” said the Princesse, leaving the room.
The hall door was open and she passed out, the faithful Miss Fish starting the car into life almost as she did so from her station a few yards down the avenue.
“Well?” said Miss Fish. “Well?”
Her ardent impatience made the word ring like a challenge.
“It will be all right,” said the Princesse.
“I knew that if anybody could do it — but tell me — Only,” added Miss Fish tardily, “don’t, on any account, allow me to be indiscreet. If I could tell you what lectures I get from Olivia on the subject — ! Tell me nothing — nothing, except what you want to tell me.”
“Nothing is settled, but I think it will be. No, I did not see Mrs. Fitzmaurice — nothing would induce me to see her if I could avoid it — but I saw Fitzmaurice, whom I know only too well. And he will do what is necessary.”
“And can he influence his wife?”
“Yes,” said the Princesse decisively. “From the moment that Radow — who knows nothing about anything except music and affairs of sex — told me that Clarissa was still in love with Fitzmaurice, I knew perfectly well that he was the person to approach. Poor dear Cliffe Montgomery failed, because he had not the sense to see that. But then he knows only about practical things, like money and houses and trains. Which really,” said the Princesse thoughtfully, “are of very little use.”
At this sentiment, all that was Roedean and Oxford in Miss Fish rose up, aghast.
“Now that” she said firmly, “I cannot altogether subscribe to. I go with you, as you know, all the way, more or less, but personally, I am essentially practical. Martha, as I always say, rather than Mary.”
“This, I know, is a bad corner,” said the Princesse.
“Quite. And although I understand, perfectly and absolutely understand, that your point of view may be rather different, still, what I do feel—”
Miss Fish explained what she did feel.
The Princesse, in a courteous but absent-minded manner, made assenting sounds from time to time, the while her eyes remained apprehensively fixed upon the road ahead of them.
XX
FITZMAURICE WINS
REGGIE FITZMAURICE knocked at the door of his wife’s sitting-room, as she had long ago trained him to do.
“Come in!”
Clarissa, sitting with her feet up on the sofa, with writing-materials strewn all round her, looked at her husband with an expression that might have been one of relief. It was very seldom that he sought her of his own accord.
“Hullo, Reggie. Come in and shut the door. Sit down.” Even to Fitzmaurice, her manner was dictatorial.
“I’m nearly frantic,” Clarissa declared. “Really, the amount of work I get through would kill most women. You don’t realize, for one minute, all I’ve got on my hands. Running the show in London — and then this place—”
“Lucien ought to takeover this place,” remarked Fitzmaurice, causing her to gaze at him in astonishment.
“Don’t talk like a fool, Reggie. How could a boy like Lucien look after an estate like Mardale? I’ve got quite other plans for Lucien.”
“That’s really what I came to talk about,” Fitzmaurice said, without looking at her. He had not obeyed her injunction to sit down, but stood throwing a glass paper-weight from one hand to the other and catching it again.
“As a matter of fact, my dear, I don’t discuss my Lucien with anybody, not even with you,” Clarissa told him, frowning.
“Right-oh! but I do discuss my Sophia,” Fitzmaurice rejoined. “In fact, I’m here to discuss her, or whatever you like to call it, now.”
Clarissa looked up at him sharply. She was, as usual, carefully and elaborately made up, but the lines on her face stood out sharply, and the coarse, reddish hair, henna-brightened, was pushed away from her forehead with an unwonted disregard for appearances. She had kicked off her smart, tight shoes, too, and they lay on the floor beside the sofa. Fitzmaurice dispassionately observed the ugly shape of her silk-stockinged feet, usually so carefully disguised.
“I wish to God you’d sit down, Reggie. And you’ll drop that paper-weight in a minute. Now, look here, of course you can say anything you like about Sophie, but please realize that she’s as much my child as yours — more, in fact, because I’ve done a dam’ sight more for her than you have, always. And a nice way she’s taken to show her gratitude, I must say.”
“Bosh! What else did you expect, Clarissa, letting the two grow up together like that? It was bound to happen.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she snapped.
“Anyway, it has,” Fitzmaurice pointed out. “And if you take my advice, old girl, you’ll just make the best of it, and thank your stars it isn’t a revue actress twenty years older than himself or anything like that.”
Clarissa sat up and looked full at her husband.
“But, you see, I shan’t take your advice,” she said. “Why on earth should I, Reggie? I haven’t asked for it to begin with, and I don’t want it to go on with. I’ll do the best I can for Sophie, ungrateful little fool though she’s been, because — because she’s your child, Reggie.”
A note had crept into Clarissa’s voice that only Fitzmaurice ever heard there. She put out her hand to him, and the hard glance of her large, light eyes softened.
“For God’s sake, Reg, be a little nice to me. I’ve had about as much as I can stand. And you’ve been a brute to me all this summer, running after that rotten Leila Delmar — though I know very well there’s nothing in that.”
Her gaze, ravaged with anxiety, devoured his face.
“Poor old girl,” said Fitzmaurice easily. He made no movement towards her, but continued to throw the paper-weight backwards and forwards.
“Put that down!” suddenly screamed Clarissa, her nervous control giving way. She swung her feet to the ground, a shower of papers falling all round her, and stood in front of him, tense and shrill.
“You beast — you utter beast! You’ve had everything from me, you owe me everything you’ve got in the world and so does Sophie, and yet you can’t even show me a little decent sympathy. I believe you hate me.”
The tears were streaming down her face.
“Don’t be a fool, Clarissa.” Fitzmaurice at last put down his paper-weight and took her by the elbows, tightening his grasp as she furiously strove against it.
“You make me sick with these perpetual scenes of yours. I’ve had enough of them. I’m going to clear out.”
He had made the same threat before, but it never failed of its effect.
“You can’t.”
“You’re not the only woman with money of her own
,” said Fitzmaurice brutally.
“You cad, you utter beast—” Clarissa, amidst choking sobs and screams, poured out abuse, writhing and straining all the time against his hold.
Fitzmaurice drew a long breath and thought of the old Princesse’s money.
“Listen,” he said roughly. “I’m in earnest this time. You’ve got to give in about Lucien and Sophia, and let them marry and live here — which is exactly what they ought to do. It’s not asking such a hell of a lot after all. Sophia’s a decent kid — she won’t go back on you.”
“I won’t do it,” cried Clarissa, fighting and crying.
“Then I shall clear out and take Sophia with me. And your precious boy will probably come after us and marry the kid. Have sense, Clarissa. You’re bound to lose in the end; why not give in at once, and have everybody saying it’s all your doing?”
“Let me go,” she sobbed.
“Not till you’ve promised.”
“No.”
Fitzmaurice suddenly shifted his grip, took her by the shoulders, and shook her.
“That’s the way to treat you,” he said, slightly breathless. “And I’m through with it, Clarissa. It’s a dog’s life, and I’ve had enough of it. I’m off.”
“Reggie!” she screamed.
He let go of her and flung her back on to the sofa. He walked towards the door.
“Reggie!”
For once in his life Fitzmaurice had, as he himself would have expressed it, “gone all out” after his objective.
Clarissa, the bully, finding herself bullied, was beaten.
He knew it, at the sight of her cowering, crouched in the corner of the sofa, and in the sound of her imploring cry.
“Reggie, don’t go! For God’s sake, don’t leave me, Reggie. You’re the only man I’ve ever cared for in my life. I’ll do anything you like, if only you won’t go.”
Fitzmaurice came slowly back to her. It was entirely characteristic of him that he was principally conscious of a desire to laugh at the easiness of his victory.
“D’you swear you’ll let Sophia and Lucien marry, and take over this place?”
“I’ll swear anything, if you’ll only love me a little bit, Reggie. There’s not another soul in the world who cares for me if you don’t—”
Clarissa, sobbing and disordered, flung out her arms and caught him in a convulsive embrace.
An hour later Clarissa rang the bell and sent a summons to her maid.
“Foster, I’m going to bed. I’m absolutely done in.”
“I’m not surprised, madam. I’ve never seen a lady work herself to death as you do, if I may say so.”
Foster had long ago learned that this was a safe card to play.
“I suppose I’m a perfect sight. I’ve been most frightfully upset. Go and get my room ready, and I shall take a couple of aspirins and see if I can get some sleep. I’m not to be disturbed by anybody.”
“Very good, madam.”
Foster held open the door and Clarissa, with the languid movements of exhaustion, went upstairs, followed by her maid.
In her bedroom she took one look at her reflection in the gilt, triple-sided mirror on the dressing-table, and broke into exasperated tears again.
“Good God, what a sight I am. I look fifty if I look a day. What it is to be a woman! There’s nothing — nothing after youth is gone.”
Clarissa flung herself about the room, tearing off her clothes and throwing them on chairs, on the floor, in every direction.
Foster, thoroughly familiar with every phase of her mistress’s nervous crises, knew that any interference would only exasperate her further. She, accordingly, stood still and spoke very softly.
“Indeed, madam, though it may be a liberty for me to say so, anybody would take you for Miss Sophie’s sister. Many’s the time I’ve heard it said in the room, when you’ve both been dressed for a dance, that nobody couldn’t tell you weren’t sisters.”
She was watching Clarissa narrowly, though still without moving, and, seeing her calmer, attempted a form of sympathy that had sometimes been successful before.
“I’m sure I only hope that Mr. Fitzmaurice appreciates all you do for him and for Miss Sophie, madam — simply wearing yourself out. Gentlemen are sometimes rather inconsiderate, we know.”
Foster had seen Fitzmaurice leaving Clarissa’s sitting-room just before she herself entered it.
“Hold your tongue,” said Clarissa roughly. “You’ll be dam’ lucky, let me tell you, my girl, if, when you’re my age, you can find any man to be half as much in love with you as Mr. Fitzmaurice is with me.”
“Oh, madam, as if I didn’t know that!” ejaculated Foster. She never troubled to finesse with her mistress, and blandly ignored the many times that Mrs. Fitzmaurice, sobbing hysterically, had poured out complaints to her of Fitzmaurice’s unkindness and infidelity.
“Let me help you with your hair, madam, won’t you? Indeed, it isn’t every lady who could go on as you do, thinking of others all the time, and never resting herself. But Miss Sophie’s growing up now, she’ll be doing more to help you, no doubt.”
Foster, together with all the other upper servants at Mardale, was as well aware as possible that Sophie had been proposed to by Lord Clutterthorpe, had accepted him, and, within twenty-four hours, had changed her mind. She knew, also, that Sophie and Lucien had decided that they were engaged to one another, and that Clarissa had decided otherwise. All that she now wanted to know was whether it would be better diplomacy to lament Miss Sophie’s wickedness and ingratitude, or to acclaim her as Clarissa’s careful choice of a daughter-in-law.
She waited for a lead, and got it without delay.
“I’ve had the most ghastly time over Miss Sophie’s affairs, Foster. Young people are so utterly selfish and heartless — one might wear one’s nerves to tatters, trying to arrange their lives for them in the best and wisest way possible — and they wouldn’t give a damn. As a matter of fact, it’s about Miss Sophie that I’ve been simply killing myself this last week.”
“No mother could possibly have done more for Miss Sophie than you have done, madam, ever since she was a little tot of a thing.”
“You may well say so!” ejaculated Clarissa sharply. “I’ve been more than a mother to her, because no mother could possibly have had so much to contend with as I have. Give me the aspirin, Foster.”
Clarissa, undressed and in her white crépe de chine pyjamas, got into bed.
“Draw the curtains,” she ordered, “and clear out. I’m going to get what sleep I can, and I’m not to be disturbed for anyone or anything. Call me at half-past six, and tell Mr. Lucien that I want to see him in my sitting-room at seven.”
“Very good, madam.”
Fitzmaurice, at the enormous writing-table that he so seldom put to its intended purpose, sat opposite to the whisky-decanter, from which he had liberally helped himself after leaving Clarissa, and turned things upside down in search of a post-card.
At last one was discovered. In a slovenly scrawl he addressed it to the Princesse de Candi-Laquerriere, and then, on the reverse side, printed two letters— “O.K.” — unaccompanied by either date or signature.
As usual, he was without a postage stamp — a convenient lack that ensured his getting all his outgoing correspondence stamped by the butler.
Passing into the hall, Fitzmaurice, with his graceless grin, dropped his post-card into the letter-box and returned to the only half empty decanter.
“You’re wanted on the telephone, sir, if you please. Lord Clutterthorpe.”
Lucien, mildly astonished, walked across the hall. He had just got in, after a day spent with the agent.
“Hullo, Bat!”
“Hullo, yourself.” Bat’s queer, drawling voice, with its slight hint of a stutter, came very clearly over the wires.
“Left your sponge-bag behind?”
“Probably, but that isn’t why I rang up. You’re looking for a job, aren’t you?”
“That
is so.”
“The old man’s got one, quite ready to offer it to you. A sort of minor manager’s job, earn-while-you-learn kind of thing.”
“Managing what? It’s frightfully good of him, incidentally, and of you too.”
“Yes, we’re like that — runs in the family.” Bat’s laugh sounded faintly. Lucien could almost see the blink of his eyelids.
“‘S a matter of fact, the ancient creature who’s acting as manager now has quite one foot in the grave and doesn’t get round as he should. But with a bright lad like yourself, and a car, he could hang on a bit longer. It’s near Cardiff, incidentally, where my papa owns a mine or a mill or something. You’ll get a letter about it to-morrow.”
“That’s terribly good hearing.”
“Will it fix up you and Sophie?”
“Rather.”
“There’s some sort of a house provided, I believe — God knows what it’s like. The screw is what they call a mere pittance.”
“Will you have another three minutes?”
“No,” said Bat’s voice, a fraction of a second before Lucien said “Yes.”
They were disconnected.
Lucien stood for a moment, thoughtful. Then he hung up the receiver and walked slowly away.
It was six o’clock.
“If you please, sir, madam would like to see you in the writing-room at seven o’clock.”
“All right. Do you know where Miss Sophie is?”
“In the schoolroom, I believe, sir. Madam is lying down in her bedroom and wishes not to be disturbed.”
“Well, I’m not thinking of disturbing her,” said Lucien.
He went upstairs.
He had scarcely seen Sophie alone since they had sat together in the schoolroom in the moonlight.
She was seated on the window-sill, doing nothing, except gazing into the garden below, and looked up at him with her pretty tranquil smile.
“I was hoping you’d come.”
Lucien kissed her.
“Darling, too marvellous. I really think we can get married to-morrow.”
“Special licence?” Sophie smiled.
“Oh, I got that two days ago, just in case. It’s in my pocket.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 341