“Now,” said Colonel Beaton, “my business can wait. I got your letters, Wilfred, and they told me pretty well all I wanted to know. A very good bit of research, I may say. But Hugh and I both want to know what you saw or heard of James, as I must call your brother, though I don’t know him. Perhaps it was as well that you didn’t write about it. Julia might have seen the letters. She is very apt to go through my correspondence.”
“Well,” said Wilfred, “I got on to your friends, Hugh, and they had met James. They used to know him before he was married. I suppose on a newspaper.”
Hugh nodded.
“But they didn’t know his address. They said he had been going the pace a bit and told me the likely places to find him. It wasn’t till last night at a place called Ali Baba that I found him. That friend of yours, Hugh, took us there.”
“Who was us?” said Hugh.
“His sister, of course,” said Wilfred sulkily, but suddenly remembering that he was a man of the world and as such liable to be chaffed, on quite an equal footing, by other men of the world, he smiled kindly at Hugh and continued his story.
“It’s sort of dancing place and they drink a lot, and your friend said there was probably a lot of cocaine and stuff changing hands, but we weren’t having any, so that didn’t matter. And then I had the shock of my life, because I saw James sitting on a high stool at the bar. He had two or three women with him, and he looked ghastly. His face had gone sort of flabby and it looked as if someone had put a sponge over it and made his features all run into each other.”
“I recognize your description perfectly,” said Hugh. “I have more than once had the pleasure of seeing James looking like that, and knowing that he was going home to Caroline. Go on.
“Well, I felt sorry for old James, but I couldn’t exactly go up and claim him as a long lost brother with that nice sister of your friend’s with me. So presently your friend got one of the girls that he knew a bit to come to our table, and she said James had been in there most of the week standing drinks to everyone and telling them how his wife had bolted with another man who wouldn’t marry her. My God, sir, though James is my brother I felt pretty sick when I heard that. I used to think Caroline was a bit hard on James, but since I’ve seen him and heard the sort of lies he tells, I see she was right. No decent woman could stay with him. The girl said she thought he was drugging too, but that may be an exaggeration. Anyway I gave her a hundred francs and my address, and she said she’d let me know if James left Paris. She said he talked a lot of hot air about a fortune in South Africa, but no one believed him, and the last two days he had been cadging drinks instead of standing them, so she thought he was on the rocks.”
“It’s an ugly story,” said Colonel Beaton, “and you deserve all our thanks, Wilfred. Have a drink.”
“Thanks, sir. Oh, I can’t tell you what a brute I felt,” said Wilfred walking about with his glass in his hand. “You know, sir, James is the eldest, and I’ve always thought a lot of him. One does with one’s elder brother, you know. He is seven older than I am – there is Anna in between and another sister that died – and I thought he was the biggest hero in the world. He used to be awfully decent to me when I was a kid and let me oil his bat and things like that. So when he began all this drink business I just didn’t believe it. I often saw him a bit above himself, but I thought it rather a joke. I thought Caroline was making a fuss about nothing. But now I’ve seen what he can be like I really don’t want to set my eyes upon him again. To talk of Caroline like that. Why she never looked at another man in her life. Oh, I’m thoroughly ashamed.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Hugh, catching him by the arm and making him sit down. “All Caroline’s friends know she couldn’t do such a thing to save her life. I’ve known her ever since we were children and I’m pretty sure she would have told me or Francis if she ever had any feeling for anyone. She adored James and he broke her heart, and that’s the end of it.”
Colonel Beaton said nothing, but thought that he was on the whole thankful for a certain want of perspicacity in his future son-in-law. If he and Caroline kept silence, there would be no chance of Julia’s light heart being even for a moment made heavy, as it undoubtedly would if she guessed that Caroline had been unhappy. He did wonder for a moment if Anna knew anything, but knowing Anna’s steadfast loyalty, he was able to dismiss the shadow at once.
“Beaton,” said Hugh, interrupting his thoughts, “after all what is it we are frightened of? We all want to save Caroline, but from what? James can’t touch her now. The Danvers’ will take care of her, and if he did want to come home as the prodigal son, she could always go to friends for a bit. Julia and I would love to have her as soon as we’ve settled about a house. And if I know James he would soon get sick of being at home and go off again on the loose. Aren’t we exciting ourselves about nothing?”
“I have asked myself that question,” said Colonel Beaton, “and I confess it puzzles me. Not knowing James Danvers, it is more difficult for me to form a judgment. I have never heard any good of him. Even your parents, Wilfred, who adore him, can only speak of him with pain. On the other hand his friends may have a very different story. What do you think, Wilfred?”
Wilfred, pleased and flattered by the question, wrinkled his forehead and made several false starts in the immense difficulty of putting his thoughts into words.
“Well, sir,” he said at last, “I dare say what I’m trying to say will sound a bit dippy to you, but it’s the best I can do. If you think of the awful amount of trouble James has made, nearly killing Caroline, pretty well breaking the parents’ hearts, giving our name a thoroughly unpleasant sound, leaving debts all over the place, telling whacking lies about his own wife, what guarantee have we got that he won’t do it again? It sounds pretty rotten to say this, I know, especially as he has had a thin time since then and after all he never did anything to me. But if you’d seen him as I did, with those cheap women, all filled up with drink and dope, you wouldn’t like the idea of his coming barging into your family again, quite apart from Caroline. You see, sir, I know James a bit and I can tell you this, that even in his worst times he can pull up a few days and anyone who met him would think he was a misunderstood angel. You know, Hugh.”
“I do,” said Hugh. “And it is just then that he is most dangerous. But I still wonder if we aren’t making too much fuss.”
“We shall probably know that sooner than we like,” said Colonel Beaton. “We rely on you, Wilfred, to keep us posted. And thank you very much for what you have done. As for your work for me it was excellent. Evidently Paris suits you to work in. By the way, did I give you enough money?”
“Oh, rather, sir. I’ve got a lot of change for you,” said Wilfred taking an envelope out of his pocket and handing it to the colonel. “And here’s a list of my expenses. I hope you won’t think it’s too much.”
Colonel Beaton looked at the list while Hugh and Wilfred talked. He saw that Wilfred had stayed at a cheap hotel and evidently done his best to spare his employer’s pocket as much as possible. The bills for his evening meals could not possibly include the night clubs and bars which he mentioned. Rather touched by this honesty, his first impulse was to ask Wilfred to keep the change as if he were a schoolboy being tipped. But on consideration he thought it would hurt the boy’s feelings. This adventure seemed to have put him on his feet again after his young sorrow over Julia and he had earned the right to be treated as a man.
“Thanks, Wilfred,” he said. “That’s quite all right. But next time you go on business for me, you must treat yourself better. My representative must cut a bit of a dash when he goes abroad.”
Wilfred went red in the face and gobbled.
“By the way,” said Hugh, “that hundred francs you gave to James’ lady friend – I asked you to do that job and it’s up to me to pay the expenses for the pub-crawling. James doesn’t go to cheap places, I know of old.”
That temptation was considerable. Paris had made a
hole in Wilfred’s private purse, a hole which would have to be filled by having lunch at tea shops and averting his thoughts from Paris till his wages next fell due. But it couldn’t be done.
“Thanks awfully, Hugh,” he said, reddening again but speaking with a certainty which surprised his hearers and himself, “but James is my brother. This is a family affair.”
Wilfred’s homeward path was cheered by the thought that old Beaton had not misplaced his confidence. It had been a jolly lucky thing for Beaton that he had happened to be free, thought Wilfred rather conceitedly, little knowing what pains Caroline had taken for him. Before going to bed, he gave himself a little pleasant self-torture by saying aloud, “To think of Julia in Hugh’s arms,” though his boy’s modest mind gave no particular interpretation to the words, which were in the nature of a sacrifice to the Proprieties from a rejected lover. But when he was in bed his mind turned, not unpleasantly, to that sister of Hugh’s friend. Some girl that girl.
Chapter IX
Family Council
The question now was, should Francis give up the house to Hugh and Julia, or should Hugh and Julia find a home for themselves and leave Francis in possession. The house had been left to Francis by his parents, but he and Hugh had shared every expense since Francis’ parents had died, a good many years ago. A great deal of self-sacrifice was shown on both sides, and no one would speak the truth. Julia, whom love had deprived of the few wits she possessed except on the subject of clothes, said she didn’t care where she lived so long as Hugh was there. Hugh said it didn’t seem fair to turn old Francis out and probably Julia would like something more up to date. Francis said he wouldn’t care to stay on alone in a house that size, and he could easily find a flat for himself so long as there was one room big enough to hold his books.
Anna and Caroline who were having dinner with Francis and Hugh before going to a cinema, agreed that it was a very difficult question.
“I suppose,” said Anna, “whoever keeps the house keeps Rose.”
Both men looked at her in terror and admiration.
“By Jove, Anna, you are right,” said Hugh. “That settles it. Francis, you stay on. I wouldn’t let Rose get at Julia for words. Julia wouldn’t be able to call her soul her own.”
“That’s not fair,” said Francis indignantly. “Just because I’m not going to be married you propose to hand me over to Rose. No, Hugh. You and Julia, who is capable of managing any number of parlormaids, keep on the house. I shall go to the club for a bit till I find a flat.”
“But need either of you live there?” asked Caroline.
Again her cousins stared, but this time in admiration unmixed with terror.
“Why don’t you sell it,” continued Caroline, “and have a nice new flat each? If you don’t, one of you will get stuck in that house forever and ever, and Rose will close your eyes when you die.”
“She would,” said Hugh with much feeling. “Francis, can you remember a single day in our lives that hasn’t been blighted by Rose?”
“I like her,” said Anna. “When I set up house on my own I’ll have Rose to look after me. When do the Beatons come up?”
“Tomorrow,” said Hugh. “Julia says she needs three weeks to her get clothes, though what she wants with clothes—”
“Yes, Hugh, we all know you would take her in her shift,” said Caroline, “but one doesn’t say it. When is the wedding exactly?”
“Fourteenth of February, St. Valentine’s Day,” said Hugh with revolting sentiment. “It’s to be in London, you know after all, and very quiet because of some dead aunt of Julia’s. Francis will have to be best man.”
“All right, if I must, I must,” said his cousin.
“You can always kiss Anna, you know,” said Hugh, not noticing how embarrassed Anna looked.
“Don’t be coarse, Hugh,” said Caroline.
“Course? My dear Caroline, who is coarse? It was not I who used the word shift, and it is the best man’s privilege, nay his dismal duty, to kiss the bridesmaids. Why aren’t you being a bridesmaid, Caroline?”
“Could I?” said Caroline, looking away.
Francis kicked Hugh hard under the table and Anna made a face at him, by which means he was brought to understand that he had not shown tact.
“One bridesmaid is quite enough,” said Anna, “for the wedding of a dead aunt. And Julia is showing great sense, considering how cold February can be, in having a coat and skirt wedding.”
“Well, now it is quite settled that you sell the house and Rose, isn’t it,” said Caroline, “and both find charming new abodes. I’ll come and help you with curtains and things, Francis, when you move. Heavens, we’ll be late.”
The film had just begun when they got to the cinema and they had to push to their seats in the dark. Hugh went in first to find their places, then came Caroline, then Francis and at the end Anna. Each was affected in his or her way by the romantic atmosphere of film-land, the wailing and throbbing of canned music, and the occasional sounds of the electric organ when its deep toned voice faltered. Hugh, to do him justice, thought chiefly of Julia, though he was pleased to have his cousin Caroline next to him and had been delighted to find in her at dinner some flashes of the impudence that used to amuse him in old days. Her plan of selling the house – and Rose – was masterly. If only that blighter James would keep away. He also wondered vaguely how Francis was getting on, but as Francis had said nothing lately of his feeling for Caroline, Hugh had not cared to press him.
To Caroline, seated between her cousins, it seemed as if time had rolled back and she was a girl again, or happy with them in the days before James became possessed by evil. It was impossible not to be conscious of Hugh by her side. For many months, numbed and sickened by fear of James, she had let her thoughts turn to Hugh as a refuge, first as the dear cousin and friend of her youth, then, when James had left her and her life became of no account, with increasingly deep affection. She recognized it as one of the inevitable follies of her sex that she had loved without return and fed her love upon her own imagination, but her need to love was urgent beyond all reasoning. She had never even got so far as to hope for anything definite. A ceaseless immolation of herself upon the altar of a god of her own creating had been enough to fill her days. She had never written to Hugh, unless perhaps a note on business or an invitation to the Danvers’, but everything that happened to her, everything she saw and thought, had been phrased in her mind as part of a long eternal letter to Hugh. Even now, she found herself mentally writing to him exactly what she felt about his engagement to Julia, quoting with some pleasure the words she had sung to Colonel Beaton.
Then, while the film melted from bad to worse and the luscious canned music spilled its syrup upon the audience, Caroline suddenly, with a wave of sick shame, saw herself from outside as an enemy might see her. An idle, selfish woman who because she had once had a husband that was not kind felt rather too good for this world; who fed herself on the honeydew of self-delusion; who wantonly imagined a lover that had never existed; who had in her cowardice and egoism allowed her husband’s name to be tacitly ignored in his own parents’ house; who had used and profited by Anna’s affectionate devotion. She was bitterly hard on herself in this moment of vision. She did not count her joy in Hugh and Julia’s happiness as a sign of grace, but smiled sardonically at the weak fool who could, unloved, find joy in the happiness of the beloved, thus making herself the heroine of a fine if hackneyed dramatic situation. Like most dramatic self-torturers, she forgot or omitted the one thing in which she had been cruel beyond any need, her want of self-control over Francis’ proposal. If she had thought of this, she would have explained it away to herself, perhaps not unjustly as the cruelty born of fear. There are natures that can be generous and forgiving under slights, neglect, privation, but if once terrified, physically or mentally, the wound to their inner self, the degradation of the immortal being, is such that they will be cold and implacable to the offender forever. They will never seek
revenge, nor speak bitter words, but their lives will run frozen over black depths where past cruelties lie. Such, for right or wrong, were Caroline’s feelings for James, if ever he came to her mind. Such might have been her feelings for Francis had not some unwilling recognition of his sincerity, some far echo of his pain, pierced her frozen thoughts once and again.
But Francis was not in her mind, and thinking as she did of Hugh, she began to wonder why she should suddenly be so clear-sighted about what had been till now a glorious rose tinted muddle of emotion. At what moment had she begun to see clearly? She could only imagine that the mere fact of Hugh’s engagement to Julia had so removed him that she could for the first time contemplate him in perspective. She still cared for her cousin with the old affection, but there had been lately things that ruffled, that even offended her sensibilities. When Hugh had asked her at dinner why she wasn’t a bridesmaid, she had shrunk back inwardly as if from a blow. Hugh might have meant it in joke, kindly, but nonetheless had he made her shrink at the thought of what she was. “Neither wife nor maid,” she quoted savagely for her own benefit, and then had to laugh at the misapplication of the words to herself and her perpetual inability to avoid making a tragi-comedy of her feelings for her own pleasure.
Francis hearing her laugh looked at her with satisfaction. The film did not seem to him particularly funny, but if it amused Caroline it was well worth while. Caroline, who felt his glance rather than saw it, looked up, and with her own amusement at herself still in her mind, gave Francis such a piercing smile that all in a moment hope made his heart hit him and take his breath away. Luckily, it was not necessary to talk while the film was going on, so he smiled back and grappled with the problem of normal breathing. All at once the film appeared to him extraordinarily funny and Francis, who like most scholarly men laughed with difficulty, gave vent to several loud, distinct Ha-has which amused his neighbors and made Caroline lay her hand on his arm.
O, These Men, These Men! Page 13