“I left Thurlow early this morning,” I said. “I am motoring with an elderly lady I met there, and two American friends of hers. We are going on to Cornwall to-morrow. My friends are busy in London this afternoon, and it occurred to me that it was an excellent opportunity to discuss my affairs with you. I admit, I had overlooked the fact that you usually go away in August.”
I sat back and watched for his reaction, which, when it came, was not favourable.
“I take it, you wish to discuss your financial affairs. You hope that you may induce me to reconsider my decision.”
“Yes.”
“On what grounds?”
I paused for a moment—sign of weakness, I fear. My real grounds, of course, were that in three weeks’ time, if he didn’t pay my annuity, I shouldn’t have a single penny in my pocket. But I felt that if I told him this, I should simply be strengthening his hand. My game was to pretend that I had some resources, and not to make an appeal for pity, till everything else had failed.
“On what grounds?” he repeated. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his black coat seemed to emphasise the blackness of his moustache, and the hairs in his nostrils.
“On the ground that you see me here as a perfectly responsible and respectable member of society, and that there is no excuse—any longer, if ever there was one—for withholding my allowance.”
“I see. As to that, I think you must expect me to come to my own conclusions. During the last few months—since March, in fact, when to my personal knowledge you were neither a responsible nor a respectable member of society—you have withdrawn yourself from observation by me. And you have declined so far as I know to submit yourself to the observation of any other—er—competent observer.”
He gave no vestige of a smile as the silly sentence ended.
“I’m quite willing to talk about that incident in March,” I replied. “In fact, I should like to. Perhaps I do owe you an explanation. Look here, Rusper, it is a thousand pities that the personal equation has been fated to crop up between us.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“I mean the fact that I was once—can’t you help me out? You know I don’t want to antagonise you.”
“If you are alluding to Mrs. Rusper, I shall be glad if you will cease to do so.”
“Can’t you see that I’m bound to allude to her—to explain what happened in March?”
“No, I do not.”
He sat back in his chair, and went on:
“I think you may have some idea in your mind that my attitude to you has been determined by the fact that you insulted my wife in a public place. Please disabuse yourself at once of that notion. The fact that the lady in the lounge whom you accosted, while you were drunk, happened to be my wife, is neither here nor there. The fact that it was my wife merely explained how your outrageous behaviour was brought so quickly to my notice. I have no personal feelings in the matter. I am glad it was my wife, because, otherwise, it might have been a long time before I heard of your condition. I am sorry it was my wife, because I dislike to think of her being insulted in a public place, and still more because you seem to think that my decision regarding you has been made through vindictiveness on my part.”
“But, Rusper, haven’t you considered——”
“What?”
“Haven’t you considered what the effect of suddenly seeing your wife sitting there was on me? Do you suppose I should have behaved like that, if it had been any other woman?”
“You had every opportunity of explaining all this to me the next morning, when I called at your hotel. You refused to see me, and have given me no explanation since then.”
“Well, will you let me give you one now?”
My moment had come. I began to talk, warming myself up to eloquence, and making deep inroads on my poor little stock of nervous energy. I wondered whether Rusper was listening. From time to time he drummed his hairy fingers on the mahogany desk, behind which he was sitting.
I gave him a short sketch of my career, enlarging on my difficulties, and disappointments—the handicaps of my sensitiveness and vivid imagination. I touched on my service in the army, my wound in the head and its after-effects, the hidden mental scars which the War left behind. I see now that it was a foolish line to have taken, but I forgot I was talking to Rusper and imagined I was pleading before a more sympathetic tribunal.
Then I passed on to my meeting with Catherine, saying nothing to her discredit and much to mine, and admitting that it was perhaps lucky for her that she had not married me. When describing the shock of her refusal, I was careful not to blame her in any way. But I was bound to describe my wretchedness, so as to explain the episode which led to my abrupt departure from Barling House School. Here I was able to pay a tribute to Rusper for his prompt and tactful handling of the situation. I reminded him of the “satisfaction” I had given while I was in the charge of Dr. Duparc, and how, on leaving, Dr. Duparc had declared me to be rather highly strung, but perfectly normal. I admitted that since then, I had not been teetotal, but maintained that I probably drank far less than the average business man—or professional man, for that matter. I insisted that I was in no sense drunk on the unlucky evening when I ran into Catherine in the hotel lounge at Boschurch. I begged him to try to realise the effect which that shock was bound to have upon me, and I added that it was quite clear that half the trouble had arisen from the silly conduct of the hotel-porter, and the man who had fetched him. It was with some difficulty that I refrained from calling Catherine’s conduct silly, too. As for the next morning, I confessed that I had acted like an idiot in refusing to see Rusper, when he had taken the trouble to come down from South Mersley. I had regretted it a good deal afterwards, but hoped that Dora would act as peacemaker. Meanwhile, I had gone to Thurlow, and my life there had been in every way above reproach. I had made some nice friends—I mentioned the visit to Lady Evans’ country house—some of whom were even then taking me with them to Cornwall. The party, I told him, consisted of a Colonel’s widow, an American business-man and his wife who had been at school with a cousin of the Colonel’s widow. None of them had any idea that my allowance had been stopped by my trustee on the ground that I wasn’t a respectable or responsible person. Had they known, they would have been amazed and horrified at my trustee’s action. (This remark was not very wise, I fear.)
And lastly, I went on, I had a written testimonial from the resident proprietor of the King Stephen Hotel at Thurlow to the effect that I had been a thoroughly satisfactory guest.
Here I tasted the last dregs of humiliation, as I stood up and handed Rusper the letter which I had got the proprietor to write. I felt like a street-corner cadger, who stops you and urges you to read a grubby and illegible doctor’s certificate—rather than do which, you give him a shilling. I felt worse, because the cadger is used to it and knows all the moves of the game, and I was a novice. It had been distressing to ask the proprietor to write the letter, to cope with his surprise and to give some explanation of my strange request. But it was infinitely more distressing to give Rusper the letter. I had tried to keep it clean, but none the less it was a little dog-eared. As he read it, I felt full of shame, particularly at the thought of the word gentlemanlike. How I wished I had made the writer change it, but it had been such a strain to get the letter written at all, that I couldn’t cavil at the phrasing.
As if to spare me nothing, Rusper read it aloud.
I have great pleasure in stating that Mr. Stephen Payne has resided at the King Stephen Hotel, Thurlow-on-Sea, from March 14th, 1936, to August 17th, 1936. During that time he has met all his obligations punctually, and has behaved both to his fellow-guests and the staff in a most gentlemanlike manner. I am extremely sorry he is leaving us and hope we shall soon have the pleasure of welcoming him here again.
E. Beamish,
Prop
rietor of the King Stephen Hotel,
Thurlow-on-Sea.
Rusper stood up and, as he gave me the letter back, said, “Thank you.”
There was a pause, so long that I had to break it. “Well?” I said.
He said, “Sit down.”
I obeyed, and he went on:
“I am sorry to say, Payne, that everything you have told me to-day only confirms me in my opinion, that I am not justified, either as a medical man or as a friend of your family, in permitting you to be at large, until you have had a long course of treatment. I have listened to your account of yourself with more sympathy than you will give me credit for. A doctor, you know, shouldn’t feel too much sympathy for a patient, because——”
I interrupted him by saying, “But I’m not your patient. I’m nobody’s patient.”
He frowned, but with an effort went on quietly:
“In a sense, you are my patient. It was your father’s manifest intention that you should be. I owe your father a great debt of gratitude. He was kindness itself to me at the start of my career, and I intend to act up, as fully as I can, to the responsibilities which he entrusted to me. The chief of these responsibilities is you. I am afraid that, perhaps owing to the—er—friction which there was between your father and yourself, you have tended to underrate the very real affection he had for you. Surely he showed this affection in leaving you the greater part of his fortune. Despite his knowledge that your sister was well provided for by her marriage, he might easily have divided his money equally between the two of you. As you know, you had the bigger share. But—and this is where we shall disagree—he also showed his affection for you by appointing me to be trustee of your fund. In other words, he was insisting that, in some sense, you should be my patient. As a medical man, he was far from blind to the perils of your unstable temperament. He realised, especially after your unfortunate experiences during the War, that you needed watching. He saw, as plainly as I do, that your mental health was not all it should be. He saw, as I do, the dangers that lie ahead of you—not the commonplace danger that you might be imprudent with your capital and land in the bankruptcy court—but the more subtle danger that your psychic traumatism would lead to a progressive dementia with lamentable consequences both for you and for society. It is for this reason that I insist—that I am bound most regretfully to insist that——”
“And when have I shown signs of this dementia?”
I asked the question almost perkily. The thought that Rusper imagined that he could impress me by his medico-parsonic lecture made me feel frivolous. I hadn’t come to South Mersley to be lectured. I had come to claim my rights. If there was to be lecturing, it should be done by me.
“You show it now,” he said.
“Rubbish.”
“You will hardly deny that you showed it when you had to leave Barling House School, or last March when you insulted a lady—never mind if she happened to be my wife—in a hotel lounge.”
“I do mind if she happened to be your wife. (a) If she hadn’t been, you’d have heard nothing about the incident, and (b) if it hadn’t been Catherine, the incident would never have occurred.”
“If the lady you accosted hadn’t been Mrs. Rusper, the scene might easily have been worse. She might have had hysterics. She might have——”
“I shouldn’t have accosted her, as you call it.”
There was a pause, and I went on: “Can’t you see that ridiculous event in its true perspective? Can’t you judge it like an impartial person?”
“I venture to think I do.”
“And I venture to think you don’t.”
It was like playing noughts and crosses. It led us nowhere, but I felt bound to make my mark wherever I could.
“Well,” he said, “so as to avoid personalities, let us consider the incident which led to your leaving Barling House School.”
“We can’t avoid personalities there, either,” I said. “The trouble then was caused entirely by Catherine’s—Mrs. Rusper’s, perhaps I should say—rejection of me. It unnerved and unbalanced me.”
“You see. Being crossed in love hasn’t, normally, such an outrageous result.”
One up to Rusper, but I parried the thrust.
“Perhaps it hasn’t, but you whisked me off to your friend, Dr. Duparc, and he discharged me as cured a few weeks later. You, yourself, let me go free and paid my full allowance. That’s all past history, you can’t rake that up now.”
“It becomes relevant in the light of what transpired later.”
“What did transpire later?”
“The Boschurch incident.”
Here, lamentably—though if I hadn’t done so, it would have made no difference—I lost my temper.
“Haven’t I explained to you,” I shouted, with a thump on Rusper’s desk, “one thousand times, that that was your damned wife’s fault, and no one else’s?”
The next pause was horrifying. I had leisure to watch all his reactions. I saw with an instantaneous clairvoyance that he was not in love with Catherine. I guessed that he had never been in love with her, as she, physically, had been in love with him. I guessed that in marrying her, he had married her uncle, the famous Harley Street specialist. But I saw that in insulting his wife, I had insulted—not his affections—but his vanity. This was unpardonable. I had done for myself, utterly, finally, and for ever. If I didn’t say something quickly he would tell me to go to the gutter where I belonged.
So I said, “Where is my hat, please?”
“Before you go——” he said, taken slightly aback.
“I’m going now.”
He gave me my hat, which was lying on a sofa by the wall. I raised it—it was a heavy brown Homburg, monstrously shabby—wondering whether I should give myself the pleasure of hitting him in the face with it, but refrained, and, consulting-room or no consulting-room, put it on my head, and walked out of the room rather slowly.
He followed, all agog.
When we reached the door—he was two paces behind me—I said, “Your hall needs doing up. The paper’s filthy.”
Then I went through the door and shut it in front of him. I had an impulse to run, as I walked down the little garden path, but mastered it. In fact, I put my nose to the honeysuckle before I shut the gate. But smell, for once, meant nothing to me.
2
Things like that produce a numbness. I was numb all the way back to London, too numb to eat my dinner—useful economy—and too numb to take in the plot of the film I went to see in the evening. When I went to bed, I slept pretty well.
I awoke feeling rather sick, as I do when my nerves have been strained, and I was still feeling rather sick when the Hicksons’ grand car startled my shabby hotel by calling for me and my luggage, before collecting the party at the Hyde Park Hotel. Mrs. Temperley said I looked pale. Digby V. Hickson said she ought to be more discreet. When a young bachelor comes to London, he naturally makes a night of it. Or words to that effect. It was kindly meant and sounded quite funny in American.
I revived with every mile which separated us from London. Between Salisbury and Shaftesbury we had a roadside luncheon—hamper from Fortnum and Mason’s and champagne. We all slept afterwards, in the car, except the chauffeur, and I missed Yeovil, Chard, Crewkerne, and Honiton. In Exeter we had a quick tea. The Hicksons were eager to dine at Falmouth. And I must be their guest, at any rate for one night. Oh, yes, I must. They had felt terribly upset that I hadn’t gone with them to the Hyde Park Hotel.
We reached Falmouth about eight o’clock, and there was no room for me at the Hicksons’ hotel. Hickson called himself a blamed fool for having omitted to make proper reservations. However, I must dine with them. During dinner, the porter should telephone around and get me accommodation for the night, and whatever it was, it should go on the Hicksons’ bill. If I d
idn’t allow them to make that little gesture they’d think I was a downright unfriendly person. Dinner was long and large, and we had more champagne. Mr. Hickson congratulated me at great length on living in such a beautiful country as England—a country with such great traditions, so steeped in all the splendour of the past, and still maintaining such equilibrium and poise. And it had been just too wonderful having me along. Mrs. Hickson, who was a bit of an invalid, complained of sleepiness and went to bed, taking her husband with her, and leaving Mrs. Temperley to make a private farewell. She did it with great sweetness. If I didn’t write to her or come to visit Thurlow again, she’d search me out. She asked no questions, but showed that she had guessed a good deal. I felt a little maudlin, and called her “My good angel.” Then rather hurriedly I said goodbye, and walked through the narrow streets of the town to my hotel. The Hicksons’ chauffeur, I found, had taken my luggage there while we were having dinner. It was a relief not having to tip him.
So this was Cornwall.
3
It was still more Cornwall, next morning, when I found the room in the fisherman’s house where I’m now staying.
It is still Cornwall, utterly, unbelievably, enchanting. And except for Dora—to whom I must now write—there is no one to whom I can write about it. And she, to be convinced, will want silly picture-postcard raptures, like those vivid views of Chillon our friends used to send us when holiday-making in Switzerland.
Before I write to Dora, perhaps it would be as well if I re-read her last letter to me:
Monday,
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