by Richard Hull
But Linnell had had enough.
‘Really, Mr Spring-Benson, if you are going to be as tactful with those whom you airily propose to interview as you are being with me, I do not think that The New Light would care to employ you. We have, after all, as one of the most important London morning newspapers – in many ways the most important – a considerable reputation to keep up, not only as to what we publish, but even as to the conduct of our staff – and there is no need for you to smile superciliously at such a reflection. Consequently, although I have listened very patiently and for a very long while to what you had to say on account of the introduction which you brought, I can offer you absolutely no hope of any employment on the staff of The New Light. Good morning.’
Gregory got up slowly. He never really had expected anything else, but it had been worth trying. It only remained to beat a retreat, with dignity, of course – he could always do that – but if possible with something more than that. He got up in as leisured a manner as he could and adjusted an already quite perfectly tied tie in a mirror over the fireplace.
‘A pity,’ he remarked. ‘I had several ideas floating vaguely in my mind. But no doubt I can find a use for them – elsewhere.’
It was not very original, but it served its purpose. He had only gone a few yards down the passage when Linnell’s door opened again.
‘If you really have any ideas, send them in to me – personally. I’ll see that they are read.’ The door shut again and Linnell returned to his desk. It was very improbable, he thought, that he would ever hear from Gregory Spring-Benson again, but if that definitely irritating young man had got anything, the door had been left open for The New Light to get it. Once before it had been shut too firmly and their rivals had profited, and Linnell had got into considerable trouble over the matter. At any rate he had done his best.
As he found his way out of the offices of The New Light, Gregory smiled. He was very satisfied with himself. He had achieved much more than he had expected to do and he put it all down to the way he had conducted himself. A certain debonair frankness, combined with a pose of specious honesty, he believed suited him. At the worst it allowed him to say what he liked without anyone taking it very ill. And to-day he had exaggerated it deliberately until it had passed the limits which he usually imposed on himself; but then, he reflected, that kind of thing was necessary with anyone connected with a newspaper. In Gregory’s opinion a man would not become a common or garden journalist unless he was naturally vulgar and ostentatious, and contact with a newspaper would inevitably increase such characteristics. Sooner or later any newspaper man was bound to become so thick-skinned that half measures would always be quite useless.
Yes, on the whole he thought he had done well. He had not of course got a job, but then he could hardly have expected to do so. But he had made certain that if any opportunity came his way, he could make use of it. It was a pity of course that he had not got a vestige of an idea in his head and that his final remark to Linnell had been the idlest bluff. Still, as it had come off, he would somehow or other turn it into a reality.
For something had got to be done about it. There were far too many bills outstanding for him to allow even so evanescent an opportunity to pass, and he had lost far too many jobs in the past for him to have the slightest illusion that he would remain long in any other what he might get, or that any of his previous employers would give him an exactly perfect reference. In fact the last sufferer from his assistance had told him bluntly that he considered perfect idleness and sarcasm to his superiors an inadequate substitute for more humdrum but useful qualifications, and indicated that if he was applied to, he would reply in much those terms.
Consequently there seemed little chance of the bills being met, or of Gregory’s exclusive and expensive tastes, particularly in claret, being catered for. Unless of course Uncle James adopted him – a highly improbable event.
Well, the first thing to do seemed to be to see what type of paper The New Light really was. Except for its headlines, Gregory did not think that he had ever read a word of it. Certainly he had not looked at it seriously. He bought a copy and took a taxi to the Savoy. After all, one must lunch somewhere, and one must get back from the East End slums behind Fleet Street, and the amount spent would really make very little difference to his creditors. It was only a drop in the ocean. As for the penny for the paper, it was positively a business expense. He almost felt as if he had begun to buy the foundations of a fortune. A chateau-bottled wine was necessary to make up for the effort expended.
Toying with half a lobster – an infelicitous combination as he realised after he had ordered it – in fact the mésalliance was a proof that he was overtired – he glanced at The New Light. He even read part of its leading article and some of its political and foreign news. On the whole he felt disgusted. They were neither of them subjects which interested him in the least, but so far as he could make out The New Light was either reckless of consequences or merely anxious to be mischievous. They only seemed to wish to turn the events of the day into startling and sensational news. If anyone took them seriously, they might well bring down the Government or disturb that light sleeper, the Peace of Europe.
But then no one – except perhaps the principal owner of the paper – did take them seriously. Their foreign news was only the pendant to the matters that really interested their readers, and which could be certainly found more entertainingly written in The New Light than elsewhere. Gregory read the account of a murder trial, and even with his complacency decided that he would be up against very capable competition – that is, if he tried to compete.
He turned over the page, and towards the bottom of a column, read the headline ‘Haunted House Inhabited’. ‘The little village of Amberhurst,’ he read, ‘is greatly interested in the arrival of the new tenant of Amberhurst Place, a house which has remained unoccupied for years owing to a legend that the mansion is haunted.
‘Recently, however, the property was sold privately, but it was only yesterday that the name of the purchaser was known in the village whose prosperity, the district being remote and thinly populated, depends to some extent on the Place.
‘It is now revealed that the purchaser is Mr James Warrenton, the well-known international financier–’
Gregory – to do him justice – shuddered at the last phrase. It was to his mind an oppressive cliché, and if it had ended with the alternative word ‘crook’, he thought it would not be out of place. But what was Uncle James doing at Amberhurst?
One reason at least was not hard to guess. Jude Warrenton, Gregory’s grandfather, had been of no importance when he left Amberhurst as a young man in order to try (with only moderate success) to earn a fortune in London, but the family had never forgotten the village from which they had come. Indeed, Gregory’s widowed Aunt Julia, he believed, still lived there with her two sons, Arthur and Christopher Vaughan, although it was some years now since he had even returned his aunt’s Christmas wishes.
So, then, Uncle James had probably returned there and bought the big house of the district in order to triumph over all those who remembered his father, and to show publicly to all his relations how much he had risen in the world, financially, at any rate.
A strange old man, Jude Warrenton, from all accounts – cantankerous and full of fads, a characteristic which he had transmitted to most of his descendants. One of his minor idiosyncrasies had been that all his children should have the same initials, but with a less unusual name than his own. Consequently his first four children had been christened Jane (Gregory’s mother), John, Julia and James.
The arrival of another daughter had presented a difficulty, so the family tradition ran. Jude had refused to contemplate ‘Judith’ as being too like his own name, and he had had a dislike for ‘Jill’. Finally, it was alleged, some flippant friend, looking at the golden-haired baby, had suggested that she should be called Jerusalem, and fed entirely on milk and honey, with the result that in a moment of fancy the gi
rl was called Jacynth, ‘which’, old Jude was supposed to have said, ‘comes out of the Apocrypha too’. It was believed that he was vaguely thinking of the Book of Revelations.
It appeared to have been too much for the child. Anyhow, she was never really a success. She had managed to grow up, and even to marry, Gregory believed; but he had lost touch with her children if she had any, and anyhow she was dead now. In fact only James and Julia survived, since his Uncle John was dead too, leaving (inconsiderately) a daughter. Gregory had been annoyed about that at first, as it had meant that the last vague hope of there being a legacy for him from Uncle John had disappeared. Then he had heard that there had been no money anyhow, and had forgiven his unknown cousin for her existence.
Gregory turned back to his paper and finished reading the few more sentences which completed the notice of Amberhurst Place. They were devoted to a short account of the ghost which was alleged to haunt it. He gathered that it was not a very nice ghost, but the description of its activities was brief and bald, and concerned more with its appearance than its actions. Apparently it became visible mainly to exhibit a red feather sticking up from a conical hat, and the fact that it was red seemed to the writer to be of importance, though why he did not say.
It suddenly struck Gregory that the whole paragraph was greatly inferior to the general standard of The New Light. If he had not been interested in Amberhurst, he would never have read it. The style in which it was written was unenterprising and dull; in fact the incident itself was unworthy of being chronicled.
The more he looked at it the more he was surprised that it was there at all. He would very much like to have asked Linnell about it. Moreover, he was by no means certain that he had entirely probed all his uncle’s reasons for buying the house. He had always been told that the reason why Amberhurst Place had remained untenanted for so long was not only that it possessed the inconvenience of having a private ghost, but that it possessed as well every other inconvenience and, though Uncle James might be a crank, he liked comfort.
Rather thoughtfully Gregory tore the paragraph out of the paper and finished his lunch, the paying for which left him with rather less money than he had hoped that he had. Then he went back to his small flat, on the way unexpectedly buying a second copy of The New Light. From this he carefully cut out the paragraph and put it in an envelope with a note to Linnell.
‘This,’ he wrote, ‘is the sort of thing which I could do better. There appears to be nothing of interest from your correspondent’s account. But my instinct tells me that behind it there is something which may be worthwhile. At any rate I am going down to Amberhurst, and I hope to prove to you that my instincts are worth your while to back.’
As he posted it, he reflected not that he was being offensive, but that preparation was occasionally wise. If he had seen that paragraph before he interviewed Linnell, he could have used it to greater advantage.
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