by Alec Waugh
“Some men; what sort of men?” he said mockingly. “There’s all sorts. Do you think any decent man,” he went on savagely, “would consent to an arrangement such as that? Do you think there’s a decent man in England who wouldn’t be sick at the very thought of it?”
“I know one who wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean by that,” he taunted her, “by your one who wouldn’t? Do you mean to say that you put the question, as an abstract problem to some man at dinner, and to amuse you, as a conversational pose, he said that he’d have no objection?”
“I meant what I said,” she answered quietly. “I know one decent man who wouldn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Her eyes never wavered, never dropped from his. The flush had left her cheeks, leaving her face an ivory whiteness.
“In the only possible way,” she said.
Slowly, as her meaning went home to him, the stupefied expression of his face changed to one of astonished horror.
“Do you mean,” he said, “do you mean that you yourself—that I shouldn’t have been the first—that in your own life there has been already such a man?”
“Is not that, Eric, the only possible way?”
It was her turn to speak tauntingly. She had her weapons sharpened, and she knew it; knew how she could take her revenge on him fully, for the things he had said of her and as good as said of Ransom. He had flung men’s honour in her face as a thing that she, being a woman, would not understand. He made the reply that she had expected of him.
“The man must have been a cad,” he said.
She answered quietly, dangerously quietly had he not been too concerned with his own reactions to take note of her.
“I shouldn’t be so certain of that, Eric,” she said, “if I were you.”
“Cad, why, of course, he must have been a cad,” he said contemptuously. “Who but a cad could have tolerated such a situation?”
Slowly her eyes narrowed into steel grey slits, slowly her lips tightened over her mouth. Well, he’d asked for it. He’d better have it.
“Would you say, Eric Somerset,” she said, and she spoke slowly, carefully articulating every word, “would you care to say that Ransom Heritage was a cad?”
“Ransom Heritage,” he gasped, and flung out each hand against the mantelpiece as though it were himself that was reeling, himself and not the entire code of principles and conduct on which he had built his life.
“So it is a surprise to you,” she said, and in her voice was a curious exulting note of triumph. “I thought it would be. I thought Simon Merivale had not told you everything.”
Chapter XXI
The Face Of The Gorgon
For Eric Somerset it was a night of torture. Curiously enough it was Ransom’s, rather than Marjorie’s, part in the affair that made him feel that the world as he had known it was lying in ruins at his feet. He could have found, after all, explanations enough for Marjorie’s behaviour. Woman was an unknown world to him. He had seen her described in so many books and poems as fickle and wanton and perfidious. He had thought Marjorie to be as pure as she was beautiful; but so had all the other men who had been deceived by women. The discovery that Marjorie was not the thing for which he had taken her was bound to have been an intense personal disenchantment, but it did not involve the ruin of an entire code of conduct. It did not destroy utterly for him in one blow a thing of which he had been certain as he was of the British Empire—the code of masculine honour.
He could not understand how Ransom Heritage, a man for whom he felt both affection and respect, could have accepted so grotesquely shameful a position. He had realised that such things were done, but not by the sort of people that he knew. There were some things he had imagined that one simply did not do, that there was in life as there had been at school a code of honour. That you played life as you played football, and that while some players would take advantage of a referee, the better people didn’t. You had your rules, and you kept to them. And Ransom surely, of all people, was one of those who played by rule: He could not understand it. It was not as though Ransom could not have afforded to marry Marjorie. He might be in debt, he probably was in debt; but you couldn’t get into debt without having some money somewhere. Why hadn’t he, if he had loved her, married her? And if he hadn’t loved her, why had he made love to her? One hadn’t the right to make love to girls like Marjorie unless one loved them. Or was it simply that one felt differently about these things when one grew older. More than once had Marjorie spoken to him in parables of things he would understand later, of the days when he would have learnt that you couldn’t get a thing both ways. And at some such change of thought Merivale too had hinted. Was that what worldly wisdom meant, the abandonment of one’s principles and beliefs, because life was easier if one shut one’s eyes to things. If that was it, then worldly wisdom was nothing more than an acceptance of the second best, with a refusal to acknowledge that it was the second best. Was that what Merivale had come to, and Ransom, and in her way too, Marjorie? At any rate it was what she had tried to force on him. And he must not take it, for her sake as for his. He must show her that the first best was yours for finding, if you had the courage to go out in search of it; and now that Marjorie’s conduct had come to appear to him in comparison with Ransom’s conduct comparatively trivial, trivial because whereas Marjorie had shaken a hypothetical and imagined world, Ransom had destroyed an actually existing world, he found it easy enough to explain and condone Marjorie’s acceptance and treatment of the situation.
It was not as if these things had happened since they had become friends. They had happened when she was a lonely and unprotected woman. And men showed a woman little mercy when she was once weak with them. They were like hounds upon a prey. One of them would get her down, and the rest would keep her down. It was not as if she had preferred those other men to him. If she had, it would have been different. But she had not. If she had known him then, none of this, he liked to think, could have happened to her. Should he not behave then as though it had not happened, as though it belonged to another life—a life he had not touched.
Now that he was away from her, now that he knew the worst, now that his inflamed force had spent itself, he could think calmly and with detachment of Marjorie if not of Ransom. For in Ransom’s conduct he saw the forerunner of a state of mind at which one day he might arrive himself. He saw coming towards him down the years the procession of experiences that were to test one by one his faith and courage; the experiences that had produced in Ransom and Merivale and all those others, a philosophy of “Let it pass. It does not matter,” and in the less worthy ones, those two police agents, for instance, at the Wolves, a compromise of cynical self-seeking. The better ones looked on and smiled ironically for the most part: “Everything passes,” they appeared to say. “There are no new sensations. Some things are worth repeating, others not. Either way it does not matter. We have the right to decorate as we may choose the interval before the final silence.” And the others, the majority, bared their teeth, and a cruel glint was in their eyes. “Life is a dirty struggle,” they appeared to say. “It is not for us to try and clear it up. Some one has got to prey upon the carcases. It might just as well be us.”
It was hat that frightened him—the thought that one day he might himself become like that; that one day he would be neither disgusted nor surprised to learn that one of the men he admired most was content to share a woman with another man, that life would dirty him as it had dirtied all those others till he had ceased even to look on it as dirt. They had felt once, after all, as he had felt, Ransom and Merivale and the rest. They had set out meaning to refuse the substitute, and life had forced them to accept a compromise, to be material and worldly wise. That was what frightened him, the thought that little by little the despoiling years would take their toll of him.
“They shan’t, though, they shan’t,” he said, “I won’t let them. We’re going to be better than that, Marjorie and I; we’
re going to make something more than a compromise of our life together.”
Through long, tossing hours he sought for a solution.
Next morning at breakfast his eyes were heavy.
“Eric,” his mother said, “you’re looking extremely pale. I hope you’re not overworking.”
“Overworking,” his father grunted. “The young rascal hasn’t done a stroke of work the last three months. Late nights, that’s what the trouble is with him. A little less dancing and a little more study is what you need. Who are you playing football against this week?”
“The Exiles, father, a goodish side. They beat us in the last game.”
“Um. And they’ll beat you again if you don’t take my advice and avoid those sausages. They’re very rich. Try some of that ham.”
“By the way,” he added, “isn’t the address of that friend of yours, Captain Merivale, something in Cadogan Gardens?”
“Yes, father. Why?”
“Only that his brother’s engagement is in the Times this morning. There, at the top there of the column.”
“Mr David Merivale and Miss Blanch Tristram.” Eric’s heart stopped as he read the names, stopped with an indrawn tremor of sudden envy. And the marriage was to take place immediately.
Lucky devils, he thought. If only love could have come to him so tranquilly.
Chapter XXII
Charles Granta Grows Suspicious
The same announcement caught half-an-hour later the eye of Manon Granta as she lay back among her pillows.
“We must give them a good present,” had been her comment as she dropped the paper on to her pale blue eiderdown. “And Hudson,” she continued, “would you please tell Mr Granta that I should be grateful if I might see him before he leaves this morning.”
“A good present,” he had said. “Why? I don’t know them.”
“I do, though,” his wife replied, “and, as a matter of fact, so do you. They were at our dance.”
“So were a great many other people. If we’re going to give good presents to all of them—”
“Now, now, now,” she said, “don’t be difficult. I know the champagne last evening was both sweet and warm. But that’s all over now. And I think I’d like you to get that present for them to-day. It would be nice for ours to be the first. And it’s quite possible that they may decide as it’s to be a rushed affair not to have any reception. In which case there won’t be many presents. So be a good obedient darling, and get something really nice for them.” And she tapped her fingers lightly against his cheek.
The habit of economy once formed is as hard to break as any other habit, and though Charles Granta was likely, in the absence of revolution or of a capital levy, to become a millionaire in the course of the next ten years, he still bought jewellery and furniture at unassuming, unfashionable, and consequently inexpensive places. And as he had been informed the other day that there was in London no sounder pawnbroker than Lewisohn, he instructed his chauffeur to drive to the office by way of a narrow and unfrequented street in Camberwell.
“I want,” he said to the wrinkled little Hebrew with the long, exquisitely polished finger nails who came out of a small, dark inner room to speak to him, “I want some jewels, nothing extravagant, for a wedding present.”
Mr Lewishon tapped the nails of his hands against one another, and smiled.
“I have,” he said, “better and cheaper jewels than anyone in London. You come with me and I will show you.”
He led Mr Granta into the inner room. “Be seated, if you please, sir,” walked over to a safe, unlocked it, and drew from it a drawer containing a large number of differently sized cases. “You will find something there, I think, to please you,” and the long tapering fingers laid open to his inspection case after gleaming case.
Charles Granta was more concerned with choosing an article that would confer credit upon his generosity than one which would give pleasure to the bride in whom he took not the slightest interest. It would be pleasant if he could do both. But he wished chiefly to make the other guests remark that old Granta had behaved pretty handsomely. After some dozen cases had been opened, he pointed to a small diamond star brooch.
“How much?” he asked.
“Sixty pounds, sir,” he was told.
“Right. I’ll give you fifty,” and opening his pocket-book he placed a fifty-pound note face downwards on the table. Fifty pounds was the sum he had intended to spend, and he had brought a note knowing that a note being a degree nearer to reality than a cheque has in bargaining the power of actual value. There on the table spread before the dealer’s eyes was money, not the equivalent of money.
Mr Lewisohn hesitated. “Very well, then,” he said, “you may have it for fifty.”
“Thanks,” said Mr Granta, and leaning forward closed the case and put it in his pocket. “You’ve got some pretty good stuff,” he continued. “I shall probably be wanting something else some day soon. May I have a look at some of your rather better things?”
“It is a pleasure,” Mr Lewisohn replied, and the drawer had been replaced in the safe and another set before him.
Charles Granta was fond of stones. He liked the touch of them and the sight of them. He handled them lovingly, “I could have been quite happy,” he said, “as a pawnbroker. I should have loved having things like this about me. But I don’t believe I should have been a success at it, I should have so hated selling them.”
A dry chuckle rattled in Mr Lewisohn’s protruding throat. “That is the voice,” he said, “of the true artist. I, too, feel like that. I should prefer to keep stones and not sell them, but I have a family, and the man who has a family is no longer free. His children say: ’Father, we must have this. Father, we must have that,’ and so that they shall have what they want, we have to sell our jewels. The married man, sir, must compromise with his conscience.”
Charles Granta laughed. “You’re a philosopher, Mr Lewisohn.”
Mr Lewisohn inclined his head sideways in agreement. “I have,” he said, “a great deal of time to think. Ah, you admire that necklace, sir,” he said, as he noticed that his client was staring with fixed and peculiar attention at a pearl necklace. “A very beautiful thing, sir. I gave five hundred pounds for it, sir. I could let you have it for six.”
Charles Granta did not answer. He had taken from the case and was turning over in his hand such a pearl necklace as he had last seen about the white throat of his wife. It was, as far as he could see, identical. He counted the pearls. Thirty-eight of them—the exact number. And they were strung on the same gold chain, fastened by the same gold and enamel clasp. He remembered very clearly the day on which he had bought that necklace. It was the day after Manon had accepted him, the happiest and proudest day in some ways of his life. He had spent a long time over the choosing of that necklace. He was not likely to forget what it had looked like. Manon had not worn it so often recently. It was curious that there should be another necklace identical in every detail.
“Where did you get this thing?” he asked.
“I am sorry, sir,” Mr Lewisohn answered, “that is one of the things I may not tell. I respect always the identity of the persons who are so kind as to allow me now and then to give them help.”
“I’ll give you a hundred pounds,” he said, “to tell me.”
But again the little Jew’s hands fluttered apologetically before his face, and his highly polished nails glistened under the light of the lamp by which the small dim room was lighted.
“I am very sorry, sir,” he said. “There is one thing only that I do not sell here, and it is that. This room, sir, it is rather, you know, like a confessional.”
“Um,” said Charles Granta. He gave a last look at the necklace, closed the case with a snap, and handed it back to Mr Lewisohn. “Very well,” he said. “You’re quite right. I’m glad you feel like that.”
As a result of his visit to Mr Lewisohn’s establishment, Charles Granta arrived some thirty minutes later at the o
ffice than was usual for him. But he had learnt, in the days when he had conducted alone a business for which ninety-eight per cent. of the world would have required two assistants, to carry out three jobs at the same time. He found it quite simple to dictate a letter to his secretary, to conduct a conversation over the telephone, and to correct and sign his morning’s correspondence simultaneously. By half-past eleven he was quite prepared for an interview with the manager of the Universal Asiatic Company.
The Universal Company wished to sell to him for ten thousand pounds a certain quantity of raw material. The profit on such a deal for both parties would be fifteen hundred pounds. Charles Granta, however, knew that it was worth the while of the Asiatic to sell him the material for nine thousand pounds. And that whereas he could himself afford to lose fifteen hundred pounds, the Universal Company could not afford to lose five hundred. He knew also that he had delayed the completion of the transaction till such a time as it would be impossible for the Universal Company to find another purchaser. It was the sort of bluff that he particularly enjoyed. He did not want to lose fifteen hundred pounds, but he could afford to lose it. It was a gamble with money that he had.
“Well, Mr Farquharson,” he said to the Universal’s manager, “you’ve got my letter, and I hope we’re going to fix up this little thing without any more delay. I’ll buy at nine thousand.”
Mr Farquharson shook his head. “It can’t be done, Mr Granta,” he said. “It can’t possibly. That means a profit of not more than five hundred pounds to us, which means a profit of only four per cent. after our overhead expenses have been taken away.”
“Your overhead expenses are,” retorted Granta, “a relatively fixed amount. A deal that covers your working expenses is actually profitable to you, because it is making a cut into that fixed amount and will make it easier for you to make profits on other deals. This deal, as a matter of fact, not only pays your overhead charges, but brings you in a net profit of, you say, four per cent.”