The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping

by Warwick Deeping

  “Don’t worry, dear. I shan’t get hurt.”

  Herrick sat up till midnight in his garden, with his loaded gun across his knees, but no sound came from the bungalow, and when the silence satisfied him he went to bed.

  Very early, before daylight, Herrick woke with the impression that someone had been shouting at him, and knocking at his door. He sat up, thoroughly awake, to see his window as a mere greyness, with one of the yews stretching a black hand across it. He remembered that he had been dreaming of something, a dream of confusion and violence.

  He pushed back the clothes.

  “Hallo, you lame idiot!”

  The voice came from the garden, a man’s voice, deep and mocking.

  “Hallo! I want a few words with you, Mr. Tertium Quid. I have been spending the night over there with my wife.”

  Herrick got out of bed. There was a kind of angry blaze in him, but he moved very quietly. He had placed his gun against a chair. He took it and went to the window.

  “Who’s there?”

  He could see the man standing in the middle of his grass plot and close to one of the apple trees.

  “My name’s Sheen. Heard it, perhaps! Well, look here—I have had my wife watched. And you. She knows all about it now. I have a sort of way with women, Mr. Tertium Quid.”

  Herrick cocked his gun.

  “You beast,” he said.

  Howard Sheen laughed.

  “I’ve given her a lesson. Oh, no, I’m not going to divorce her. I thought you’d like to know. And now I am going back to make her get me some breakfast.”

  Herrick raised his gun.

  “One moment. You seem to think that you can play with a woman’s life. Well, you can’t, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

  It had grown lighter, and both men could see the whiteness of each other’s faces, but Sheen saw more than the face at the window, and he turned and ran. Herrick saw him make straight for the garden fence, and he decided to shoot when Howard Sheen should reach the fence. Yet he did not shoot. Something restrained him. He saw Sheen leap the fence, and go plunging down the hillside.

  Herrick stood stock still. For the moment he was conscious of nothing but conflicting impulses, and of the knowledge that Sheen was heading straight for the sand-pit. Should he fire in the air, or shout, or leave the thing to end as Fate might choose? The daylight was broadening. Would Sheen see the rotten fence contrived out of old hop-poles that guarded the cliff-like walls of the pit? It was a mere line of flimsy grey rails and posts, almost invisible in a half light.

  Herrick was about to shout when he heard that most significant sound, the snapping of rotten wood. It came to him quite clearly in the grey hush before the dawn, and no other sound followed it. The silence remained like water that closes over a dropped pebble.

  Herrick put his gun aside, and hurried into his clothes.

  He went down to the sand-pit, entering it by the track from the lane.

  The sun was up when Herrick came to the white bungalow. He found the door open; he went in, to find Sheen’s wife waiting, sitting upright in a chair, with a kind of horror in her eyes. She looked at him, and then hid her face in her hands, the face of a woman who had been humiliated.

  He trembled as he looked at her, for his love cried out and ran to staunch the wound.

  “Dear—it is all over. He’s dead.”

  He was aware of her eyes looking up at him with a new fear in them.

  “Peter——”

  “No; it was an accident. He fell into the sand-pit. God! life’s queer.”

  THE LIARS

  On the Plage of Grandville in August you saw the pale primrose-coloured sands stippled with red and white tents and innumerable little figures scattered like a handful of coloured beads. Life lay in three streaks: the life of the sea, the sands, the parade and the hotels; separate yet one, constantly changing its counters. The great white and gold casino looked like an elaborate white-sugared cake. The Hôtels Metropole and Splendid glittered like two great ice-bergs.

  People who were supposed to matter stayed either at the Metropole or the Splendid.

  Mr. Wilfred Jacks mattered; at least—he led the world to suppose so. He occupied a fourth floor room at the Metropole, and helped to colour the sands with a sky-blue bathing suit, and went nightly to the casino in black and white, and danced and risked ten francs on the little horses.

  A bland youth, debonair, with a very sleek fair head and blue eyes that were both audacious and shy, he appeared to cultivate the pomp of life, or as much of it as the fashion of Grandville would allow him. He lay in the sun; he played like an ephemera; he hummed cheerfully like a fine young drone. A gilded youth—what! A child of the gods.

  Daily from the Hôtel Splendid came the dark lady, walking slim-legged down to the sea in amber and jade green, and wearing the dinkiest of caps. Mr. Jacks, sun-bathing, saw her take to the waves, and the lure was trailed, but she was a fine swimmer and he was not.

  On two successive mornings he puffed and splashed in pursuit, following a little amber-coloured cap, but she was too rapid for him. On the third morning he saw her swimming towards the raft. He, too, would swim to the raft.

  He did, arriving there very blown, and glad to clutch at a loop of rope. She was sitting on the raft, looking seawards, with her back to him, and trailing her feet in the water.

  He heaved himself up.

  “Excuse me, but have you any idea of the time?”

  She turned sideways to look at the ridiculous creature who had asked such a question. Did he think that she bathed in her wrist-watch?

  “Not the faintest.”

  “Thanks; I wanted to see how long it took me. It was exactly eleven-thirty-three when I started.”

  She showed hauteur.

  “Indeed. And how——?”

  “Oh, by the casino clock.”

  “It is still there.”

  She dabbled her feet again and displayed the back of a very pretty neck.

  “Yes, I know; but I thought—well—at this distance——”

  “Look.”

  He swept back his hair and looked.

  “Quite right. Exactly—eleven-thirty-nine.”

  “Rather slow going.”

  He smiled; her chin had come back towards her left shoulder.

  “Perfect—out here. The Plage looks like a flower garden, doesn’t it? I can see my window at the Metropole.”

  “I cannot see mine.”

  “The Splendid.”

  “I’m looking across the Channel. I can’t see a hundred miles.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Sussex—you know.”

  “You live in Sussex?”

  “Used to”—and she drawled: “sold the old place. Becomin’ too trippery, and the shootin’ not what it was.”

  “Ah, just so. Dorset’s our country. Jacks—the Dorset Jacks.”

  “Oh, yes; the Dorset Jacks.”

  “Used to be spelt Jaques. French extraction. Came over with the Conqueror.”

  She considered the sea and the sky.

  “That’s interesting. My name’s Stuart.”

  “Stewart.”

  “Spelt with a u, not with an e w.”

  “Ah, I see——”

  “Belonged to that crowd; Scotch—you know—them; same family as the Whitehall lot; descendants.”

  He thrilled a little, and in spite of the altitude of her ancestral past, transferred himself to the seaward side of the raft.

  “You must be rather proud of it.”

  “I am.”

  “Especially in these—er—democratic days.”

  “Of course. And so are the Jacks, I suppose?”

  “Oh, rather. There’s a church in Dorset—full of Jacks.”

  “Indeed.”

  A somewhat corpulent Frenchman arrived on the raft, seemingly very full of sea water and determined to be rid of it. Miss Stuart looked pained. She dropped into the sea, and Mr. Jacks with her, leaving the corpule
nt gentleman to readjust his balance. She reached the shore half a minute ahead of Wilfred Jacks, and stood looking seawards a moment before strolling towards her particular little bathing tent. He was wading through the shallow water when she reached the tent. She entered it without troubling to look back at the slow-swimming male.

  Jacks doubled across to the Metropole, gathered up a raincoat and a pair of slippers from a garden chair, and made a dash for the fourth floor. He changed with great rapidity. He looked very new in a nice pair of peach-coloured Oxford trousers and a tight-waisted coat. He wondered whether he would be in time to post himself near that particular tent before she emerged. He was in time. He sat down on the sand, and a sudden shyness attacked him.

  Obviously, she belonged to the smart set. She was the real thing; county, upper ten, or whatever you liked to call it. And did five minutes conversation on a bathing-raft authorize a fellow to raise his hat to a descendant of the Stuarts when she had changed her bathing dress for a Paris frock? Mr. Jacks did not quite know.

  But—dash it all—he might just as well do the thing thoroughly. If this holiday was his great adventure, well—let it be unique.

  She appeared, all rosy in printed chiffon, and wearing a little black hat. He got up quickly; he had a way of blushing on occasions, and he blushed on this occasion. He raised his hat.

  “Took me seven minutes to swim back.”

  She looked just a little austere. A Stuart might be expected to show something of the grand air.

  “Indeed. Perhaps you will do better to-morrow.”

  He blushed again. Really—he was a nice lad. And she smiled. Obviously, the Jacks of Dorsetshire were considerable people.

  “Someone has bagged my deck-chair.”

  He was off like a flash.

  “I’ll get you one.”

  But he brought two.

  That was the beginning of their Plage romance. He supposed that she was staying at the Splendid with friends, but she confessed that she was quite alone.

  “A bit stale, you know; end of the season—functions, everything. One gets jaded.”

  “Of course,” said he.

  “I came over here to lie in the sun and laze. Don’t want to meet people—any of my set. When you meet them everywhere—for three months—Ascot—Wimbledon—Ranelagh—Henley, and every other night at some dance——”

  “Quite so. Like seeing the same people on the platform each morning——”

  He had made a slip, and he was aware of her looking at him with vague suspicion.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” she drawled; “but a car spoils one——”

  “Doesn’t it. Never travel in a train if I can help it. By the way—do you dance—here?”

  She gave him to understand that she was rather fed up with dancing.

  “At the end of the season, you know—I’m awfully stale.”

  And quickly he confessed that he too had been dancing too much, for he was determined to remain in the high altitudes of the Stuart tradition. If this was adventure, well—he would live up to the high level of it. What he imagined to be the aristocratic atmosphere always fascinated him. But he did confess that he went sometimes to the casino.

  “The band’s quite decent——”

  “Horribly crowded—I expect.”

  “Rather so. Funny people. Amuses me.”

  “Yes, what a quaint crowd one does meet everywhere these days.”

  “Doesn’t one.”

  “One wonders where our lot get to.”

  “It’s a fact.”

  “Are you staying long?”

  “Another week. Have to be back on September 1st.”

  “Oh—shootin’.”

  “That’s it.”

  “I am staying till September 3rd or so. May crawl on to Dinard—if this place begins to bore me.”

  The romance developed, and its atmosphere was unusual, aristocratic, languid, sophisticated. Iris Stuart appeared to be superlatively bored with life, and Wilfred Jacks panted after her as he had followed her in the sea. He, too, pretended to be bored with life. He began to dawdle and to drawl in what both he and she proposed to consider the smart style. Half yawningly she allowed herself to patronize the casino. They danced with languor; they sat about and sucked drinks through straws; they smiled vaguely, and remarked to each other on the strangeness of the people. Not the Stuart—Jack crowd.

  “Simply priceless—aren’t they!”

  “Gorgeous. Where—do—they come from?”

  “Oh, Tooting,” said she, producing a little mirror and a powder-puff—“or Balham, or Putney.”

  Mr. Jacks, shocked, struggled with a vulgar blush, for he came from Putney.

  But debonair young free-lance that he was he fell prostrate at Miss Stuart’s haughty and sophisticated feet. He thought her marvellous, Olympian, a creature of languid mystery. And yet—he had qualms. They grew. There were moments when he began to wish—and so savagely—that she was not so elevated and superior. A hopeless passion, the coloured splendour of a week, seven romantic days!

  If only she was the sort of girl you could take down to Hampton or Staines for a Sunday on the river! Horrid reality! But he was enveloped in stage ennui, breathing her rarified atmosphere, aping an aristocratic languor that felt like a wet shirt when he wanted to sit in the sun. Why the devil had she been born a Stuart?

  Besides—he was in another quandary. If you behaved as an Olympian and took a young goddess to Grandville casino—you had to pay. Obviously! You were the gilded youth. You threw a fifty franc note casually upon a table, and looked as though it was beneath you to remember the change.

  A waiter had pocketed the fifty franc note, and had offered no change. And Mr. Jacks had not dared to remind or to protest.

  But the loss of that fifty franc note was a disaster. Sitting on the bed of Room No. 103, and examining the contents of his wallet, he realized that with the squandering of that fifty franc note his margin had disappeared. Three times he counted his French money, and the English pound note and the small change he had kept in reserve. He scribbled calculations on the back of an envelope. The situation was desperate. If he stayed the full fortnight he would not have sufficient money for the paying of his bill.

  But the hotel might take a cheque. His bank balance at home was some three pounds on the right side. He summoned his assurance, and lounged down to tackle the clerk in the bureau.

  “I say—do you take cheques here?”

  “No, sir——”

  “Not English cheques——?”

  “No, sir, unless monsieur is staying—two more weeks—a month.”

  Jacks felt snubbed. Nasty, suspicious people! But the solution of the problem was obvious. He would have to curtail his holiday, and disappear homewards two days earlier than he had intended. Two days less with Iris! And he would never see her again; he could never see her again.

  He walked up to Grandville castle, and sat on the grass and gloomed. Only two more days! And the blue sea and the yellow sand and Iris gone like a dream, an impossible yet adventurous dream. Damn it—why did he swim out to that raft? He had got his silly wings singed. The thing was too real. He had come by a genuine wound.

  At the casino that evening he was an unhappy young man who made a very poor attempt to appear blasé.

  “I say, it’s an awful bore—but I have to go back on Thursday.”

  She looked surprised—sorry.

  “Must you! But why——?”

  “Business. My confounded lawyers have wired. You see, I’m a trustee, and we are selling some of the Dorset estate.”

  His wail was genuine, and she was curiously sympathetic.

  “What a bore. I’m sorry, Jacko. But then—we may meet in town——”

  “Of course,” said he desperately; “what’s your address?”

  “Ashley Gardens.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Westminster; No. 273.”

  He brought out a pocket-book and scribbled it down.<
br />
  “Sorry; I haven’t a card on me. My flat is Sloane Square way. Know that part?”

  “Slightly.”

  “Mozart Mansions. But—of course——”

  “Yes, of course,” said she. “Ashley Gardens—you know.”

  For the next two days they were rather serious young things, and when he left Grandville to catch the Dieppe boat she saw him off at the station. They were sad. They forgot to be upper tennish. They held hands through the window.

  “See you in town, Jacko.”

  “Of course, old thing. I have had a perfectly lovely time. I’m sorry—horribly sorry——”

  “So am I.”

  The moving train parted them, and Wilfred sat down in his first-class corner seat. He was bluffing on a second-class ticket.

  “That’s the end of it—you silly ass.”

  She had waved to him and turned soberly away.

  “What a pity! And such a dear boy. What will he think when he calls at Ashley Gardens?”

  So, they parted, and a week later a depressed and sentimental young man saw the great campanile of the cathedral black against the stars. The day’s work was over, and he should have been at Putney, but he had come to wander about Westminster, and to gaze up at windows, and to breathe the Olympian air of Ashley Gardens. He searched for No. 273 and could not find it, but he did not press the search too closely lest he might provoke some sudden disastrous meeting. The humiliation of it would be unsupportable, to have to confess himself a little charlatan, a junior clerk in a stockbroker’s office masquerading for a fortnight as a young man of the moneyed classes. What a damned fool he would look. And worse than a fool.

  “I wish I had told her,” was his inward cry; “I ought to have told her the very first day. Such a game is all right when you don’t feel serious——”

  So serious was he that he walked all the way back to Putney, lamenting under the September stars.

  Yet, on the very same evening a girl who might have been reading a novel in Highbury was wandering down Sloane Street. She, too, was breathing a dream atmosphere. She had looked up Mozart Mansions in the directory and had been unable to find this musical edifice. She interrogated a policeman in Sloane Square.

  “Can you tell me where Mozart Mansions are?”