by Sara Seale
He didn’t turn on the light, but stood by the bed looking down at her. In the firelight he could see she had been crying.
“What are you doing here?” he asked gently.
She looked up at him and the thick hair fell back from her face, curling on to her shoulders.
“There’s something about not letting the sun go down upon your wrath,” she said, and fiddled nervously with a button at her throat.
James reflected that there was something very disarming about Sarah in her pyjamas with their high, unsophisticated neck and little turned-down collar. She must have looked just like this when Long John had come to kiss her good night years ago.
“I don’t understand why you were so angry, J.B.,” she said. “But I couldn’t go to sleep thinking you might go away.”
“Isn’t that what you always wanted?” he asked her curiously.
“No—no, it isn’t,” she answered a little breathlessly. “I know when you first came home, I tried to drive you away. But it’s different now I’ve got used to you. I said I didn’t want you at all, but it wasn’t true.” She knelt up on the bed and put her arms round his neck and he knew she was crying again. “It wasn’t true, J.B. You’re all I have, and I love you very much. Please be fond of me a little.”
He held her close, feeling as he did so her sharp little shoulder blades through the thin silk, too sharp, too fine drawn altogether, and he knew then that a further complication had come into his relations with her. Even as he spoke the reassuring words he might have used to a child, he was aware that she would no longer be wholly child to him. He didn’t want, he thought wryly, to fall in love at his age with a troublesome, untried girl almost young enough to be his daughter. He could see only absurdity and no serenity of mind in such a situation, and he wondered if this thing had come upon him as long ago as the first time he had seen her, a solemn little girl in the moonlight, spitting cherry-stones into a punchbowl.
“Lord Almighty!” he said, half laughing. “What a pair we are. Do you know it’s nearly one o’clock and we’re indulging in a good old-fashioned bedroom scene?” Sophie would have a fit! She lifted a face wet with tears.
“And you won’t go away—whatever I do?” she said.
“Of course I won’t go away. I made a fool of myself, I’m afraid, but I’d been worried stiff about you.”
“I’m sorry about the coat,” she said humbly. “It was awfully expensive, too.”
“Well, we’ll talk about the coat tomorrow.” He suddenly wanted to tell her she could have ten coats if she wished. What on earth did it matter how much of his money she spent? He examined her weary little face in the firelight, and was unaware of the anxious tenderness in his own.
“You’re worn out, sweetheart,” he said, and was unconscious of the unfamiliar endearment. “Run off to bed and sleep the clock round. I can’t have you looking like a little ghost.”
She slipped off the bed, dimly aware of a difference in him, but too tired to question what it was.
“Good night, dear J.B.,” she said, and reached up to kiss him. “You are a comfort to me.”
The next day Sarah woke at eleven, yawned and turned over and went to sleep again. When she next woke Sophie was standing by her bed, her arms full of clean laundry.
“Where shall I put it?” she said vaguely.
Sarah stretched and sat up.
“Oh, put it on the floor,” she said. “What’s the time?”
“Nearly half-past twelve. You ought to get up. I can’t put clean clothes on the floor, Sarah, and the drawers seem to be full,” Sophie said.
“They aren’t really, I’ve only been routing, Golly! I haven’t slept so late since I was born.”
“You were very tired. James said I was to let you sleep.” Sophie, clutching the neat stack of underclothes, was still looking helplessly round the cluttered room.
“Oh, put them on the chest of drawers, Jenny can see to them when she does the room,” said Sarah impatiently. “Come and sit on the bed, Sophie, while I eat an apple. The rest of my breakfast looks pretty nasty. Is it raining?”
“Cats and dogs,” said Sophie, and plumping the washing on top of a heap of old letters, sat down obediently on the bed. Sophie loved a gossip, and there were things she wanted to know.
“Do you feel more rested, dear?” she asked, looking curiously at the girl’s face. Sarah was pale, but she was usually pale. She seemed fresh enough after her long sleep, but there were still faint shadows under her eyes.
“I’m as fit as a flea,” Sarah said, and bit into an apple with satisfaction. “Where’s J.B.?”
“James went into Brighton. He came up to see if you’d like to go with him, but you were asleep,” Sophie told her.
Sarah pushed a hand through her tousled hair.
“Did he come in here?” she asked with interest. “I bet he nearly swooned at the mess. J.B. is horribly tidy—tidy and punctual! When will he be back?”
“In time for lunch. Sarah dear”—Sophie thought she had detected apprehension in Sarah’s question—“I think if you behave just as if nothing has happened—I mean ignore last night, he was worried—well, I mean, he doesn’t usually shout.”
Sarah tossed the core of her apple into the fireplace and smiled at Sophie.
“J.B.’s all right,” she said, and bounced out of bed.
She dressed with speed, eyed a new frock of Peronel’s doubtfully, and decided that old clothes were more comfortable in which to seek favours. Besides, the rain was still coming down in buckets. She scrambled into a pair of old slacks and a thick green sweater and went out on to the landing just as Pepper was going to sound the gong. He looked up, saw her with one leg over the banister and said reprovingly:
“Miss Sarah, a little lady uses the stairs.”
“I’m not a little lady, and the banisters are quicker,” she shouted back, and slid down the wide, polished rail almost into James’s arms at the bottom.
CHAPTER NINE
As lunch proceeded, Sarah began to feel a little nervous. It wasn’t going to be easy explaining that hundred and fifty pounds to James. She knew exactly when it would happen. when they had finished coffee Sophie would go upstairs for her afternoon nap. On such a wet day she and James would be condemned to the library for the-afternoon. The library would mean explanations of yesterday and the fox fur jacket, and that would inevitably lead to other things.
It all worked out to schedule. Sophie smothered a yawn and went through her usual little ritual of pretence.
“Such a horrid day. I really think I’ll go upstairs for half an hour.”
In spite of herself, Sarah said:
“Oh, don’t go, Sophie. Have your forty winks in here.”
“I never have forty winks,” Sophie said with dignity, “But I just think I’ll go upstairs and see to a few things.”
Sarah sighed.
“All right, you old dear. It’s a shame to spoil your afternoon,” she said, and Sophie went and Sarah was alone with James. She wandered restlessly round the room, picking up objects and putting them down again.
James watched her for a bit in silence, then he said:
“All right, Sarah. Stop pacing and get it off your mind.”
“Get what off my mind?” she evaded, not looking at him.
“Whatever it is you’re trying to screw up your courage to tell me. You’ve been like cat on hot bricks all through lunch.” That was one good thing about the G.I., Sarah thought, he always came straight to the point She turned rounds thrust her hands in her pockets and said quickly:
“J.B., I’m in a mess.”
He smiled faintly. So many times she had stood there, a little defiant, a little humble?, and said: “J.B., I’m. in a mess.” A summons for parking her car where it shouldn’t be parked, for shooting the lights, for speeding in a built-up area—Sarah’s motoring offences were many and monotonous.
“After all,” she said now a little defensively, “I’ve no one else to go to.�
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He thought of her last night kneeling on his bed in her pyjamas saying: “You’re all I have, and I love you very much.” “Go on, tell me,” he said gently. “What is it this time?”
She began pacing again.
“J.B., I’ve been such a fool,” she said. “You did warn me and I didn’t listen.”
He realised then that this was something more serious than those other occasions.
“Well, come and sit down and we’ll talk it all out,” he said kindly. “Whatever it is, I shan’t eat you, and it’s so difficult to talk when you prowl about behind me.”
She hesitated, then flung herself on the rug beside him and leaned her head against his knees.
“I want a hundred and fifty pounds,” she said in a muffled voice.
He raised his eyebrows. Sarah had often asked him for an advance on her allowance, but she had never before asked him for money outright.
“You’re not going to tell me that regrettable coat cost a hundred and fifty pounds, are you?” he said lightly.
“No, it’s nothing to do with the coat, though I’m afraid you will get the bill for that now because I won’t be able to pay for it myself, as I meant to.”
“I see,” said James, and decided to let the matter of the coat pass for the time being. “What do you want a hundred and fifty pounds for? It’s a goodish sum.”
“Can you let me have it and no questions asked?”
“Yes, I can let you have it, but I think I have a right to know how it’s to be used,” he said quietly. “Are you in debt, Sarah?” She remembered James’s views on being in debt and said quickly:
“Do you have to ask questions, J.B.? You haven’t got the same views as other people. You wouldn’t understand.”
He put a hand under her chin and turned her face up to him. “Look at me, Sarah,” he said gently. “We won’t get anywhere, you and I, by walking round the thing. How can you know if I’d understand or not unless you give me a chance?”
“Because you’ve told me so several times,” she said.
James regarded her steadily.
“I see. I suppose you’ve been gambling.”
She met his eyes with candour.
“Yes, I have. J.B., try and understand. It didn’t seem to do any harm. It was my own money, and it was exciting. I won and won—you wouldn’t believe what I had in the bank. And then I began to lose. Always I thought I’d win it back, so I went on. But I simply couldn’t win—the tables, investments, everything went wrong.” She felt his withdrawal, though his face remained unchanged, and pleaded: “I want to stop, but I can’t until I’ve paid back what I lost. Please, J.B., please try and understand.”
He got up and, walking over to the window, stood looking out on the rain-drenched park.
“I understand perfectly well,” he said at last. “It’s the cry of all gamblers, Sarah, ‘I want to stop, but I can’t because I’m losing.’ And so they go on until the mess is too deep to get out of. If you owe a hundred and fifty, that means you’ve been gambling with someone else’s money. I have to pay that debt for you, so that makes the deal dishonest. It’s that angle I’ve tried to make you understand before. Speculation is a dangerous game, because sooner or later you’re bound to strike a bad patch and then someone has to pay the piper, and it isn’t you.”
She sat back on her heels, watching the rain beat against the window and fighting back the tears which threatened to disgrace her. J.B. was perfectly justified in all he said. She was not going to take it like a snivelling schoolgirl.
“How much do you reckon you’ve lost since you started playing?” he asked.
Sarah swallowed hard. Put like that it was going to sound rather terrific. She hadn’t stopped to think how much she was losing until the money was all gone.
“Well, what with lucky speculations and one thing and another, I suppose I won about two thousand,” she said, and wished her voice didn’t sound so husky.
He wheeled round from the window.
‘Then you’ve lost just over two thousand pounds in the past couple of months,” he exclaimed. “But it’s fantastic! Had you no idea of the magnitude of such a loss—a child of your age! Why on earth couldn’t you pull up before?”
“I never thought about it until the money was all gone,” she said honestly. “I know it sounds an awful lot, but I felt the money was mine. If I lost it, it was my funeral.”
He came back to the fire and stood looking down at her in silence for a few minutes, more disturbed than he cared to admit. If her father’s curse was already on the child, then heaven help them both. He saw her face, white and unhappy and defenceless. She was biting her lower lip hard to keep back the tears. No good could be done at this stage by delivering the harsh lecture she evidently expected. He must try to get to the bottom of the thing some other way.
He sat down again in his chair and said:
“Tell me this quite honestly, Sarah. Do you want to stop, or will you be tempted to gamble again with this hundred and fifty pounds? It’s something you have to know about yourself.”
She turned to him eagerly.
“I want to stop,” she said simply. “I decided yesterday when I was watching all those people’s faces. They were horrible—grasping and greedy—and I thought: I could become like that. It shocked me dreadfully, I understood then what you’d meant when you said you knew what it could do to people—”
He looked at her searchingly.
“Yes, I believe you do understand,” he said. “It’s a craving, you know, Sarah, something that’s got to be fought like any other vice—drink, dope—all those things.”
‘That’s what I tried to explain to Mick, but he didn’t understand. He thought I was just a bad loser,” she said.
James’s face hardened.
“That swine!” he said harshly. “I might have known he was at the bottom of all this. Do you owe him this money?”
“A hundred of it. Peronel lent me the other fifty yesterday. I hoped I’d be able to pay him back out of that.”
“Now, listen to me,” he said, “I’ll send Fennick his cheque myself, and I shall write at the same time and make it quite clear that he is not to see you again, and my reasons why, and this time I expect you to co-operate. I can’t lock you up and prevent you seeing your friends. I can only trust you, and I do trust you. Don’t ever let me find that you’ve been seeing this man when you’ve told me that you were with someone else. That would hurt me very much.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I won’t ever hurt you knowingly,” she said. “Do you think I could see Mick just once—to explain?”
He glanced at her sharply.
“You haven’t imagined yourself in love with the man, have you?” he asked.
She blinked back the tears.
“I don’t know,” she said a little forlornly. “I asked you once how one knew, do you remember? You said you supposed it took everyone differently, and that at my age everyone new must seem exciting. Mick was exciting.”
“But, Sarah darling,” he said gently, “—not a man like that. Don’t you know what he is? He can make love no doubt because it’s become second nature to him. Every young girl is fair game. Why, he’s a man of my age! You’re just another affair to him.”
“You don’t seem old,” she said—“not too old for me, I mean. Do you find me too young?”
He smiled a little sadly.
“The world would say so, I’m afraid,” he said, thinking of other things. “If Fennick were a different type of man, then perhaps—but as things are—Sarah, you mustn’t let your head be turned by every attractive philanderer who pays you compliments. Remember Pinto!”
“Mick isn’t in the least like Pinto,” said Sarah with distaste, and wondered what James would say if he knew that Fennick was still a married man.
“No,” agreed James a little dryly. “There’s probably much less harm in Pinto. Now listen, Sarah, I hope you’ve had your lesson. I rather thi
nk you have. I’ll pay both these debts for you and we’ll say no more about it, but I’ll only do it on condition that you stop seeing Fennick. I don’t believe for one moment that you’re in love with him, any more than you are with young Summers, who at least is a decent proposition, but if you think you are, then all the more reason for making a break now. If Fennick means business, he’ll come down here and see me, but I warn you, if he does, I shall do everything in my power to stop the thing going any further. Will you promise me?”
She nodded, relinquishing Mick with a pang of regret. Love?
Well, perhaps it hadn’t been exactly love, and anyway, if he already had a wife, it was no good. Sarah was still simple enough to rule out other possibilities.
“Right,” said James crisply. “Now let’s forget it. What shall we do with the rest of this dreary afternoon?”
Sarah felt that if they stayed where they were she would burst into tears all over J.B.’s bosom. He had the most disconcerting effect on her emotions these days.
“Let’s go into the barn and play ping-pong,” she suggested, feeling the need for something active.
But she was right off her game. She ran about a great deal and hit plenty of balls to the other end of the barn, but she never scored a point. Her back was beginning to ache and the sharp click of the balls as they went to and fro over the table seemed to get louder and louder.
Quite suddenly the thing came upon her again, and without any warning she crumpled up on the bare, scrubbed boards and lay in a little heap at James’s feet.
James picked her up and carried her through the rain back to the house. He stood for a moment in the hall, her light, limp little body in his arms, and shouted frenziedly: “Sophie! ... Pepper!” then he went into the library, and set her on a sofa.
She looked very white, and there was the same blue tinge to her lips he had noticed that day at the pool. He rang the bell violently, then went on his knees beside the couch and began rubbing her hands desperately trying to bring them warmth. Old Pepper stood in the doorway, his hair still ruffled from his afternoon nap.
“Miss Sarah’s fainted—find me some brandy, quick,” said James. “And fetch Miss Brand.”