On his way, he had looked into three bookshops, none of which displayed a single copy of Seven Silent Sinners, though it was little more than three months since it had first appeared. Was it worth while trying to write another book and achieve what Lady Beatrice had called his silver jubilee? He wasn’t even sure that his new title, The Righteous Heart, hadn’t been used before,—indeed, he now thought it had, or something very like it.
Apart from all this, he wasn’t feeling too well. It might be that the steak and kidney pudding he’d had for lunch at his club had upset him a little, or he might have done too much walking that afternoon. At all events, in the left side of his chest he had a suspicion of the same pain that had attacked him the day he lost his temper with the woman whose poodle had fouled the doorstep of Number Ten.
He was on the point of looking for a taxi, when he saw Hugo and was reminded of what Magda had told him that morning. It was clear that he’d got to come to an understanding with Hugo, if only to protect himself from having his white lies exposed. Besides, a few words of caution and reprimand were certainly due—for the boy’s own sake—and no time could be more convenient that the present for delivering them.
He called, ‘Hugo, Hugo!’
Hugo looked up with big, startled, tired eyes, like a sleepwalker suddenly aroused from a dream.
‘Yes, Mr Bray? I—I was just taking a walk, before going home for tea. I think I’m late—yes, very late, but I’ve walked too far and can’t hurry.’
‘Very well, Hugo. I’m tired too. We’ll have a taxi together. I’ve got something rather important to say to you.’
They found a taxi quickly and got in. For some reason Justin couldn’t bring himself to feel any real anger with the little thief, though he did his best to speak in a schoolmasterish way.
‘I’m going to ask you a question, Hugo, and I want you to tell me the truth. Have you ever taken any of my cigarettes?’
Hugo pondered a moment, realising in an obscure way that a great deal depended on whether he said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
Then he said, ‘Yes, Sir. Six times,—but I’ve only taken a very few each time. I’m very sorry. I know it was very wicked of me indeed—but the shops wouldn’t sell me any. They said I was too young.’
‘Does your mother know you smoke?’
‘I don’t smoke, Sir.’
‘Then why did you take them? Not to sell them, surely?’
‘No, Sir. I took them to give to a friend.’
The memory of Justin’s own half-forgotten romantic schoolboy friendships came back to him and made him feel almost sentimental.
‘You realise that what you did was very wrong?’
‘Yes, Sir. I promise I’ll never do it again.’
‘You see,’ Justin went on, ‘what you did might so easily have thrown suspicion on an innocent person. I don’t smoke myself, and I don’t often have guests who do. Who, do you think, was the most natural person for me to suspect? No, I don’t mean Bath. He only smokes a pipe, and I’ve known him far longer than I’ve known you—or your mother or sister. Who was the obvious person?’
Hugo looked at him with an expression of horror—though Justin misinterpreted its origin—as he whispered, ‘Magda!’
‘Exactly. Was it fair to her?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Now, Hugo,—this is a secret between us, and I rely on you to keep it. I told your sister that I’d given you the cigarettes,—so, if anything’s said, though I urged her to let the whole matter drop, you’ll understand the position. Perhaps I may have done wrong—perhaps it might have been better to let you get a good scolding from your mother. It’s hard to know, in these cases. If your mother really cross-examined me, I doubt if I should have the face to stick to my story. So, as I told your sister, don’t refer to the subject again. And if you want any more cigarettes, you might do me the favour of asking permission, before you take them. By the way, how old is the friend to whom you give them?’
Hugo blushed and said, ‘He’ll be thirty-four his next birthday—in February.’
Justin looked a little surprised and said, ‘Really! I only asked, so as to be sure that he was of an age to smoke. I see he is.’
For two minutes they drove on in silence. Then Hugo asked suddenly, ‘What started you counting the cigarettes, Sir?’
Justin replied with a touch of indignation, ‘I’ve never counted my cigarettes in my life. I explained to you how——’ Then he broke off, realising that he hadn’t meant to tell Hugo outright that it was Magda who raised the alarm, even though he might have implied it.
Hugo said softly, ‘So it was Magda who counted them. She told you about me.’
Justin gripped the boy’s arm and gave it a warning squeeze. ‘Now, Hugo, put all that right out of your thoughts and don’t ever mention it to your sister or your mother. Your sister had to tell me, for her own sake. It was a very unpleasant position for her to be in. As I said, I’m not at all sure I ought to have shielded you. You’ve been very lucky this time, but if anything like this ever happens again, you won’t get off so lightly. As it is, if anything else should disappear in this house, I shan’t be able to stop myself wondering if it isn’t you who have taken it.’
At these words, Hugo began to cry. Justin was greatly embarrassed and took Hugo’s arm again, but more affectionately, and said, ‘For goodness sake, pull yourself together. What will your mother think if you come home with tear-stains on your face? Let’s forget the whole thing.’
They didn’t speak again till the taxi drew up at Number Ten. Hugo got out first, held the door politely for Justin, and said, ‘Mr Bray, I’m more grateful to you than I can tell you. Thank you very, very much.’ Then he climbed down the iron steps to the area, as fast as he could, while Justin paid the fare.
[5]
In Cornwall, though only a child, Hugo had quite a reputation for possessing the gift of second sight. He had displayed it three times. When told that the household Corgi (which had contracted an irregular union), was going to have puppies, he said, ‘Yes, she’ll have six. Three will be brown and two will be black.’ And when they laughed and said, ‘That still leaves one. What colour will that one be?’, he answered ‘I don’t know. It’ll be so small, it might be any colour.’ And sure enough there were three brown puppies and two black ones and the sixth, the runt of the litter, was such a mixture of black, brown, grey and white, that it was hard to describe it.
The second instance was vaguer but more alarming. There was a billiards-room built out at the back of Polvannion. It hadn’t been in use for over twenty years, and Miss Tredennick had said that Hugo might play there whenever he liked. But he said he hated the room, and seemed so frightened of even going into it, that they gave up trying to persuade him to play there. Then, one day, without any kind of warning at all—there had been neither cracks nor creaks—the heavy Victorian ceiling collapsed with a crash, and huge jagged chunks of plaster covered the billiards-table and one end of the floor. Most fortunately the room was empty at the time. Anyone who had been caught in that thunderous avalanche would have been badly injured, if not killed.
But the third manifestation was the most formidable. Hugo was devoted to an enormous tortoise-shell cat. One afternoon, the gardener found him clasping it in his arms and sobbing violently. When asked what the trouble was, Hugo said, ‘Darling Timmie,—we’re going to lose him soon, and I love him so much. I can’t bear it. I can’t.’ For the next two days he refused to be comforted. In vain they assured him that Timmie’s health was robust to the point of unruliness, that he had eaten three mackerel for breakfast and had caught a rat in the coal-cellar afterwards. Alas, the next news was that Timmie had been found in a rabbit-snare, strangled, with the cruel brass wire cutting deep into the flesh round the throat.
Of course, there were sceptics who qualified these stories and played them down. Magda was one of them. But Mrs Muller, who had a strong vein of superstition herself, inherited from her Swedish mother,
was a firm believer, half proud of her son’s clairvoyance and half terrified of what he might prophesy next. However, since that time, he had prophesied nothing, and people who had heard of his three lucky shots, began to think that, if they had been inspired, the inspiration had vanished with his childhood.
That evening, at supper, he hardly spoke and seemed to have little appetite. Mrs Muller kept saying, ‘He’s tired out, poor boy, that’s what it is,’ and she looked reproachfully at Magda who had a way of urging him to take more exercise than was good for him. When the meal was over, instead of getting up at once, as he usually did, he remained in his chair and put his hand to his head, half shutting his eyes.
‘What is it, Hugo? Have you a headache, darling?’
Without looking up, he said in a low, flat voice, ‘Before the end of this year someone in this house is going to die.’ Mrs Muller uttered a cry of horror and said, ‘Not us, not us! Oh Hugo, say it’s not going to be any of us three!’ Hugo opened his eyes, and gazing with an expression of hatred straight at Magda, who was standing aghast by the opposite side of the table, he said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ and went into his room.
VI
THE FOURTH OF NOVEMBER
Dorothy was waiting for Robert to come home from his work. She felt no special eagerness to see him, but his return marked a stage in the day’s routine, and was for that reason something to which she looked forward. The tiniest landmark in her aimless life was better than its unidentified emptiness.
Since Robert had left the flat that morning, she had done nothing of any consequence. One or two small household tasks, a few words with Mrs Pye (who came to oblige five mornings a week for two hours), a stroll down Parkwell Road with a visit to Garrows—though she hadn’t bought anything there—a cheap lunch at a café kept by two ladies, another short stroll towards Kensington Gardens—but it looked so like rain that she soon turned back—a few minutes’ spiritless reading, a nap, her solitary tea at half-past four and the boredom of washing up afterwards—these were the sum of her physical activities.
Of course, her thoughts had been busy the whole time, in their uncontrollable way. She had vaguely pitied herself for leading the kind of life she had to lead, though she knew quite well that it was her own inner nature that fixed the pattern. She had thought about Robert, too,—and here she really had something to think about; for since she had come back from her visit to Cambridgeshire, he seemed oddly changed. He struck her as more alive and brighter than he had been, and yet on edge. He was also better looking, and there were times when she could almost understand how, during the spell of her infatuation for him, she had thought no other man in the world could be so handsome. At such moments she felt a physical attraction emanating from him, that almost tempted her to break down the barrier that she herself had erected between them four years before. But even if her pride would have allowed her to try, she hadn’t the courage.
It was both novel and humiliating that his initiative should now exceed her own. For many years it was she who planned their diversions and devised little changes to vary their fixed way of life. ‘If it’s fine, we might spend the afternoon at Windsor. . . . Do you know, I’ve never been to the Prospect of Whitby. . . . How about the Zoo? . . . Don’t you think you’d like to see the Radio Exhibition?’ But now she seemed spiritually tethered to a mile radius round Ten Pollitt Place, and he was the restless one. ‘I want some fresh air. Won’t you come out for a stroll?’ But what was the use of going for a walk after the shops had shut?
Any moment now she might hear the front door opening and his feet on the stairs. He trod more springily, and yet more aggressively, than any other resident in the house. Mrs Muller thumped, Magda hardly made a sound, and Hugo’s shuffle was like a throaty whisper. Mr Bray moved like a delicate old woman, while poor Miss Tredennick hardly moved at all. Ten to six. It wasn’t worth while settling down to anything, though it might be as well to change the water in that vase. What a pity it was that chrysanthemums made the water go such a poisonous colour and so smelly.
Instead of carrying the vase, as it was, to the bathroom, she lazily spread a newspaper on a table and laid the twelve flowers on it. Some leaves and a good many petals fell on the floor. She picked them up, resenting the effort, and threw them into the waste-paper basket. Then she emptied the water out of the vase, refilled it, brought it back to the sitting-room and arranged the flowers in it. They had a bleak look after losing so many of their leaves, and more of their petals fell. Really, the labour had hardly been worth while,—like so many of the tasks she set herself. Ignoring the second batch of fallen petals—they weren’t very many, and Mrs Pye would sweep them up in the morning—she spent a couple of minutes saying ‘Tweet, tweet’ to Peter and Wendy, the two budgerigars. Even they were unresponsive, as were the four goldfish lurking amongst the weed in a small aquarium at the other end of the room.
Six o’clock struck. The clock kept perfect time, since Robert looked after it. He was now twenty minutes late. But it was silly to worry. It was true, he was very seldom kept late at his office. His department, in the tradition of the democratic civil servant of to-day, worked by the clock rather than by the needs of the job. But there might be fog out at Hackfield, the power might have been cut, or there might have been a slight mix-up on the line. Nothing alarming, of course, nothing like a real accident—O God, not that!—but even if there were, it would be most unlikely that anyone would be seriously hurt or killed. At the very worst it would be one or two people in the extreme front of the train or at the rear, say the engine-driver or the guard, who might be taken to hospital with slight shock. Meanwhile, how unfair, how inconsiderate it was of fate that she should be kept on tenterhooks like that,—especially as Robert had said he’d make the pastry for the stewed steak pie they were going to have that night. (He had a wonderfully light touch with pastry, and his, unlike other people’s, rarely gave her indigestion.) Should she try to make some herself? In the early days of her married life she had taken one or two courses in cookery, and she wasn’t too bad when she gave her mind to it. She went to the kitchen and took the tin of flour down from the shelf. What a pretty tin it was,—one of a cream-coloured set, each one with the name in gold on the side, a red top and a ring of red flowers round the bottom. If only one could regard them as ornaments and never have to fill them or use them or clean them!
She looked at the time, but the electric clock in the kitchen had stopped at a few minutes past eleven. Mrs Pye must have unplugged it for some reason. Better leave it for Robert. There were so many plugs and flexes—Robert was one who loved electric gadgets—she might very easily make a wrong connexion and burn something out. And Robert would be, not angry, but coldly severe. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t fiddle about with these things. You don’t understand them and you don’t really want to.’ (That was more or less what he’d said when she’d burnt out the new refrigerator.)
Dispirited, she went back to the sitting-room, said, ‘Tweet, tweet,’ to the budgies and tapped the aquarium. When the half-hour struck, she was in a state of panic. What would she do if Robert never came home?
[2]
There had been no fog at Hackfield, no power-cut, no mix-up on the line. Robert had left his office two minutes before the usual time and found a train waiting for him in the station. His good luck held at Leicester Square, and he reached South Kensington having gained another four minutes. Magda was walking nervously up and down the little arcade. Regardless of who might see him, he took her in his arms and kissed her.
It was their first real meeting since the glorious Sunday, more than three weeks before, when they had been to his colleague’s empty flat in Twickenham,—three weeks of suspense and frustration, while the physical side of his nature, newly awakened, almost goaded him into open defiance of all conventions, and his accustomed prudence, reinforced though it was by some odd scruples, was hard put to restrain him. But this equivocal and explosive situation couldn’t be allowed to go on
very long. The strain on the nerves was becoming too great. He was far from being a hypocrite, and playing a perpetual part in front of Dorothy was making his romance into a nightmare.
And there was Magda too to be considered. He had sense enough to realise that in her, as in her mother, there was a strong vein of what he called Puritanism. She was capable of sinning in the grandest of manners, but capable also, alas, of the most austere and uncompromising repentance, once temptation lost its keen edge. The very readiness with which she had surrendered to him had been a sign not of moral looseness, but of its opposite, true love, which if her conscience so decreed, wouldn’t shrink from a life-time’s aftermath of misery. For her sake as well as his, he must bring things to a head. After all, it was the certain happiness of two against the doubtful happiness of one. Dorothy didn’t love him and didn’t need him except in small, menial ways.
He took Magda’s hand as they turned out of the arcade and held it while they walked down Thurloe Street into Thurloe Square. His face was rather grim and had a suggestion of nobility in its expression. He said, ‘My darling, every moment is precious to-night, because we’ve got so few of them together. I’ve had plenty of time—too much time—to think things over, and so have you. The position is this. My colleague, who’s now in America, is due back at the beginning of next month. This means, we may, with great luck, be able to pay two more visits to Twickenham, but not more than that. Now, I could take a small flat somewhere—a couple of rooms, or one room even would do, provided it didn’t cause too much talk—where we could go. There’d still be the difficulty of fitting in your free time with the time I could slip off from Dorothy. I know you don’t like this hole-in-corner business any more than I do. But there’s nothing else for it, unless you and I get married.’
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