‘‘Yes.… I turned it down then. Galloping insanity.”
She looked down at her programme, flicked through the pages. ‘‘I think there’s been a change in ‘Façade’. Oh, no. I must have misunderstood Tracey. He said something this morning——’’
‘‘How is he?’’
‘‘Fairly well. Mrs. Moreton’s away and we’re having some repairs done, and that always makes him cross because they are never done the way he wants them. We may go away ourselves next week.”
‘‘Oh? Where?’’
‘‘Only to Scarborough for a bit. Victor is there, and it will be a good thing for Tracey to be away while the dust is about. And the servants need a holiday. We’re closing the house. Have you been away?’’
‘‘No.… No, I’ve been in London most of the time. Busy, you know. Not riding.…”
She smiled, put her hand on the balcony edge, as if to look down into the orchestra, where all the fiddles tuning up were making an exciting sound.
‘‘I suppose—that other time it was because Clive Fisher was giving us the tickets—was that why you wouldn’t go?’’
‘‘Yes.”
‘‘You don’t like him, do you?’’
‘‘… Well, he’s not my favourite type.”
‘‘Sometimes—about some things that you must feel most deeply you say so little, Oliver. Are you very intolerant underneath?’’
‘‘Very intolerant,’’ I said, as the conductor came up the steps to his rostrum.
Chapter Nine
You couldn’t expect my first feelings about ballet to be anything but good—though I suppose if you’d asked me afterwards I should hardly have been able to describe a thing. It was one of those queer experiences, seeing something in absence of mind. The dancing and the music and the colour didn’t create an emotion for me; they commented on an emotion already in me. They were a foreground fulfilling the purpose of a background.
Sarah, of course, never took her eyes off the stage while the curtain was up, except once or twice to whisper a word of comment or explanation. Her look was of someone deep and lost—and at the end she seemed to find it hard to come back to ordinary things. She didn’t raise any objection when I got my car from a side street and took her to a place for supper. There was lightning flickering in the sky as we went in.
In the restaurant we talked about ballets and the people who danced them. If there had been a certain amount of constraint in her attitude this winter it wasn’t there to-night. She’d been in a dream; that made the difference. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same dream as mine.
When I had passed her something she said: ‘‘Your finger’s been hurt at some time. That one. Was it in the war?’’
‘‘No.… When I was eighteen I wanted to get away from home—at any price; so I went as a stoker, crossed the Atlantic. Coming home I got the finger crushed. The surgeon wanted to hack it off, but in fact it mended pretty well.”
Sarah said quietly: ‘‘I think Tracey’s right in a way, Oliver: you don’t talk enough about yourself. You don’t even talk about the war.”
‘‘We’re too near another to make light conversation about the last.”
‘‘… And there’s your work. What have you been doing to-day?’’
Of course I didn’t mention the Highbury business; but instead I told her about a case last week when a man had tried to defraud the insurance company on the theft of some motor cars.
‘‘Do you get many false claims?’’
‘‘Quite a few. More often in fires than in burglary, because it’s easier to cover up.” I tried to go on talking, as she seemed interested. ‘‘People like to get rid of bad stock. But even then we often catch them out. It isn’t really easy to start a fire without paraffin cans or a stack of plywood boxes. Often the floor gives way, and part of the preparations falls through to the cellar or into the foundations and isn’t burnt.”
She picked up her glass and stared at the wine. ‘‘Moral to that, I should think, is start your fire in the cellar.”
‘‘And near a lift or any part of your warehouse where there’s a good upward draught. Of course, these days people try to be too smart.”
‘‘How?’’
‘‘Well, they’re not content with the old ways; they try something new, with electricity or gas. The simplest props are still the best: candle in a waste-paper basket; that sort of thing.”
‘‘Why a candle in a waste-paper basket?’’
‘‘Well, you set your fire, drapes, stock, piled chairs, whatever it is, soaked in turpentine; and under it you put a candle, standing on hemp or something, inside a waste-paper basket. Then you light the candle and leave, and the fire breaks out when you’re asleep in bed sixty miles away.”
‘‘Very ingenious. Has that often been done?’’
‘‘We don’t know how often.”
There was a crack and a rumble outside. She looked up startled, then looked at her watch. ‘‘I hope it isn’t going to break now. I must keep an eye on the last train.”
‘‘I’ll drive you down, of course. That goes without saying.”
‘‘Is that a new car you have?’’
‘‘New to me.”
It was warm in the restaurant, and the hum of noise made a sort of privacy: you could talk within a small personal orbit; the waiters and the diners and the vague ordinary faces were out of focus. There was no more thunder and when at length we came out we were surprised to see the streets fairly streaming with water, as if they’d just been hosed. There was no rain then, so we ducked hurriedly into the car.
‘‘I’m not too late for the last train.”
‘‘No, nonsense. But will you be all right in that thin coat?’’
She said she’d be all right.
I started up the engine, and then a silly thing happened. I’d only had this car a month, and as it had been fine all the time I didn’t know the sliding roof leaked. While we were having supper a lot of rain had come through and lodged in the upturned sun-visors. As soon as I moved the car the water spilled out in a cascade. I got most of it directly on my head, as if someone had tipped a cup of water over me. Sarah got nearly as much in her lap.
It was one of those things that sometimes happen as if specially arranged by a malignant joker. I got out a handkerchief and a piece of clean cheesecloth and gave them to her and apologized and laughed and fumed, while the water trickled down my neck. It was a job to see what we were doing, and because I’d moved out of my parking place a taxi was angrily hooting behind. By the time I’d drawn in again and made sure that most of the spare water was mopped up it was raining again.
I said: ‘‘ I can’t tell you what I feel about this. I’ll drive round to my flat and pick up a mack and a rug.”
Her frock rustling, she curled her legs underneath her and sat on them. ‘‘I’m all right. I’m too used to the country to be afraid of a bit of water.”
‘‘Your frock isn’t. We’re only five minutes away.”
I manœuvred the car out and turned it north, across Piccadilly and up Regent Street and along Wigmore Street, Just for a minute when we reached the flat I couldn’t get out, the rain was so heavy.
It bubbled and blistered on the windscreen, and the street lights
glimmered on a canal with cars, ploughing through it tyre deep. I glanced at Sarah and saw her pull her coat round her. I thought
she shivered.
‘‘You’d better come in and dry yourself in front of the fire,’’ I
said. ‘‘It’s a good hour’s run and you’ll be frozen.”
She didn’t speak.
We waited three or four minutes, until the next break. Then I
ran round and opened the door. She got out and we crossed to
the shelter of the dress-shop porch before I let myself in.
I’ve never been proud of my flat, but it never looked shabbier
than when she went into it.
The gas fire popped, and I pulled a
chair up a bit. ‘‘ Sit here. I’ll
get the rug. It’s in my room.”
When I came back she was standing with her skirt held out like
a fan and her hair ruffled with the rain. She was looking curiously
about her, in a strange element, sizing it up.
I said: ‘‘ She stood in her scarlet gown. If anyone touched her
the gown rustled; She stood in her scarlet gown, Her face like a
rose and her mouth like a flower.”
Sarah had half turned, but she didn’t speak for some time. I’d
only switched on one table lamp—to try to disguise the worst—and
the light showed her pale eyelids.
She said: ‘‘What’s that?’’
‘‘Something I read the other night.”
‘‘I didn’t know you read poetry.”
‘‘I don’t, much.”
‘‘Or quoted it.”
‘‘A dog’s allowed two bites. After that you can shoot him.”
I went across and took a newish raincoat out of a cupboard. It
was sizes too big for her.
She said: ‘‘I think we should go. Tracey may be getting anxious.”
‘‘Ring him if you like.”
‘‘Well, I can’t—from here.”
‘‘No … I suppose not.” I chucked the raincoat on a chair. ‘‘ Tracey’s a very generous man, isn’t he?’’
‘‘In what way?’’
‘‘He doesn’t seem to mind your coming out with me.”
‘‘He thinks—he says I don’t get enough … change.”
‘‘All the same, it isn’t every husband …”
‘‘Oh, I know. We have—a perfect understanding and trust.”
At the time I wouldn’t admit how those words made me feel. ‘‘So any cavalier …”
‘‘In the last two years I’ve been out three times without Tracey.”
‘‘Sorry.… Forget I spoke.”
I lit a cigarette for her, and there was silence for a while. The gas fire was hissing like an angry audience.
She said: ‘‘I’m dry now. Let’s go.”
I said: ‘‘ You know I love you, don’t you?’’
She got up so that her face was in the shadow. The cigarette between her fingers was quite steady.
‘‘Yes.…”
‘‘How long have you known?’’
‘‘Since that Sunday we went riding.”
‘‘Not before then?’’
‘‘… Yes … I think before then.”
‘‘And what of Tracey’s—understanding and trust?’’
She said: ‘‘I’m afraid it doesn’t cover this.”
She put her cigarette to her lips and drew on it. The glow lit up her face.
‘‘Why did you,come out with me then?’’
Her eyes flickered over me for a second, then she moved slowly to pick up her coat.
‘‘There were reasons.… It’s stopped raining, Oliver.”
‘‘Carry your own coat. Put this on,’’ I said, holding out the raincoat.
She hesitated and then came back.
‘‘Why did you come out with me, Sarah?’’
‘‘Should I not have done? Perhaps it’s because I wanted to. I don’t know. I’m very sorry I can’t answer. I shouldn’t have come.” She laughed, under her breath, without humour. ‘‘That’s obvious, isnt it? Sorry.”
‘‘There’s nothing to be sorry for—or to blame yourself for. I hope you’ll come again.”
‘‘Pity you didn’t go on pretending.… So much easier to cheat when nothing’s been said.”
I helped her into the raincoat. In the coat there seemed nothing of her. She turned with a sort of wry smile to thank me, but instead she said: ‘‘Oh, Oliver, don’t look like that.…”
For a second she looked up at me not resisting the pressure of my hands on her arms; and I bent and kissed her cheek and then her mouth. It was queer. It was as if suddenly something had happened so that experience was two seconds old and racing downhill.
I felt her pushing me away, and at once I let her go. The shabby room grew its four walls, shadows made the same geometry on the ceiling; I took a deep breath; she and the coat were gone.
I caught her at the door. ‘‘ Sarah …”
‘‘Let’s not say anything more now.”
‘‘Sarah …”
She turned then—in a sort of anger that wasn’t quite anger.
‘‘Don’t say anything, Oliver. Not now.… You see you were right, weren’t you? It just doesn’t work out. I shouldn’t have come.”
I drove her back to Lowis. There were no speed cops or I should have been run in. It wasn’t that I drove so fast but that I couldn’t pay the job any attention. Not surprising, I suppose. It was the first time in all this time I’d ever so much as touched her except once or twice to shake hands. Perhaps that first meeting was partly to blame; but she’d always seemed so very far away. Nor, looking back even ten minutes, could I decide how much give way there had been on her side, what her thought and her feeling had been. And she didn’t help me, she wouldn’t talk about it.
The house was in darkness when we got there except for a light in the main hall. I stopped well back, hoping no one would hear the car, and got out to open the door for her. But as I did so Trixie began to bark, and I saw the gleam of a cigarette. Tracey was standing on the top step.
‘‘That you, Sarah?’’ he called. ‘‘Bring Oliver in for a drink. I want to talk to him.”
Chapter Ten
I suppose we’d had the whole drive to recover. Anyway, he seemed to notice nothing peculiar in our manner. All the same it was an ordeal, standing there in the light blinking and drinking, pulses going faster, imagining one’s face was stretched and shiny and unreal, or perhaps smeared with lipstick.
I think he only wanted an excuse for getting me inside. Alone in the house except for the two old servants, he was probably glad of someone to talk to. Part of the hall was in dustsheets and there were builders’ ladders beside the stairs. Woodworm had been found in the heavy oak balustrade running round the gallery, and they were not quite sure yet how far it had spread. He was full of a scheme for improving the lighting in the hall by putting two fresh windows in the roof but doubtful whether he could afford the thing as he really wanted it.
Presently Sarah excused herself and went off to bed, but I stayed there until nearly two, sipping his brandy and trying to take an intelligent interest in his concerns, feeling by turns depressed and elated, and by turns a fine fellow and a hypocrite.
When I looked back three months after, I felt I ought to have seen and understood far more without any sudden happening to point it from outside. I wasn’t just out of my shell. But there it was. I didn’t, not an inkling, not the breath of an idea. It took the Highbury case to set off the fuse.
I’d talked the case over at length with Michael and his father; and we’d had a conference at the studios on the Monday. When Charles Highbury was still off on the Tuesday morning I phoned Foster and suggested we should get another opinion; so arrangements were made for Sir Roger Fetter to call on Mr. Highbury on the Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon I called on Sir Roger. He was of the opinion that there was nothing seriously wrong with Mr. Highbury except a bruised eye which was rapidly mending. When I got back to the office I sat and thought the thing over pretty closely for about an hour. I wondered again about the night before his collapse, the date he’d had with a Mr. W. Court in north London, that I’d seen marked in his appointment book. Had he kept it, and did it hold the solution? Mr. W. Court, Monk’s Croft, N.W.8. About six I got my car and went to see.
My map didn’t show Monk’s Croft; and north London is a warren if you don’t know your way about. It took me best part of an hour up and down residential by-ways before a policeman told me it was Monk’s Court I wanted, and that was the big new block of flats on the right. By then I’d got the thing straight, and the janitor
told me a Mr. William Croft lived on the eighth floor. He also told me that Mr. Croft was an American and worked at the Embassy.
Mr. Croft himself let me in; a well-dressed, quiet spoken chap in his thirties. I’d met one or two such in the last years of the war, and they mostly seemed to come from Boston.
It was a big flat, with white walls and reseda green curtains and a lot of built-in bookshelves. After he’d shown me in and stared at my card a minute he said:
‘‘Can I help you?’’
‘‘I hope so, Mr. Croft. I’m very sorry to trouble you, but I’m an insurance investigator and I’m trying to clear up an incident that occurred last Thursday evening, to Mr. Charles Highbury, the film star. I gather he had dinner with you that evening.”
‘‘He certainly did.”
‘‘And got himself rather knocked about.…”
‘‘Well, not at the dinner table.”
I laughed. ‘‘Naturally not. But …”
I stopped there and eyed him and hoped for the best. I wondered if the bluff would work, or if it was the wrong bluff.
Croft looked troubled. He fiddled with his tie and stared out of the window. ‘‘ I think this calls for a drink,’’ he said. ‘‘Will you have a Scotch and soda?’’
I knew then that my hunch had been a good one. He was a time clinking glasses at a cocktail cabinet and when he came back he said:
‘‘Can we get this straight? Just what interests do you represent, Mr. Branwell, and just what trouble am I laying up for myself or for anybody else if I talk to you?’’
‘‘None at all. I can promise you that. I’m working for the underwriters who have to meet a claim put in by Mr. Highbury’s producer, because Highbury is ill. Well, they’ll settle the claim in any case, but want to check up on exactly what happened. There’s no question whatever of wanting to make a charge against you—or anyone else, for that matter.”
‘‘Well, I should hope not!’’ he said, and laughed. He raised his glass and drank, and as he did so he caught my eye. He put his glass down. ‘‘You don’t suppose I hit him, do you?’’
I said cautiously: ‘‘Mr. Highbury is a bit vague as to what exactly happened.”
Fortune Is a Woman Page 7