Nothing Venture

by Patricia Wentworth

  Nan’s heart gave a foolish little jump. It was silly to mind Cynthy talking like that. She said,

  “You’d feel better if you washed your face, ducky.”

  Cynthia sniffed and dabbed her eyes.

  “Yes, you would. And did you get the eggs?”

  Cynthia dabbed again and shook her head.

  “Then I must fly, or we shan’t have anything to eat. We’ll have to have them boiled. Now, up you get and put on the saucepan! I won’t be a minute. Perhaps the old rabbit will oblige.”

  Mrs Warren having duly obliged, Nan returned with a couple of eggs, only to find that Cynthia had neither washed her face nor put on the saucepan. She had got up from the floor and was gazing tearfully out of the window.

  Nan pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  Whilst she put on the eggs, Cynthia walked up and down talking in a soft exhausted voice.

  “You can have both eggs—I don’t want anything. It’s all very well to say pull yourself together, but Frank’s just as miserable as I am, and I’m not only thinking about myself, I’m thinking about him. And in ten days he’ll be gone to Australia, and I shall never see him again. And to think that it’s just money that’s keeping us apart! If his uncle hadn’t changed his will at the last minute, he’d have had two thousand pounds and been able to buy that partnership.”

  “Your egg’s done,” said Nan. “I don’t know why you like them nearly raw.” Frank Walsh’s nonexistent two thousand pounds was a subject to be escaped from with all possible despatch.

  “If I only had two thousand pounds!” said Cynthia. She stood still in the middle of the floor and flung out her hands. “Isn’t there anything one can do to make money quickly?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything you can do, ducky,” said Nan.

  Cynthia turned away with a sob. She went back to the window and stood there twisting her fingers and crying. Through the faded dressing-gown Nan could see her shoulder-blades moving as she drew quick sobbing breaths. She went on speaking in a matter of fact sort of way.

  “Cynthy, you really would feel much better if you would dress and have something to eat. Sitting and thinking about things makes them a hundred times worse.”

  “It’s all very well for you,” said Cynthia in a hopeless voice. “You don’t know what it is to want someone all the time, and to know that he’s going right away and that you’ll never see him again. You’ve never been in love, so you don’t know.”

  “No,” said Nan. “Cynthy, do come and eat your egg or it will be cold, and a cold egg is simply unutterable.”

  IV

  Nan was very tired when she got back to the office. She had got Cynthia to eat something, to dress, and to promise that she would go out. She felt as if she had been moving a lot of very heavy furniture. Cynthia was loving and sweet and gentle, but she was a dead weight, and there were times when it took the very last of Nan’s strength to carry it.

  She found Miss Villiers on her knees in the deed room sorting papers after her own peculiarly languid and dilatory fashion.

  “No, dear, I haven’t found it. But I’ve had a perfectly lovely idea for making up that length of georgette I got—you know, the pale blue with the faded patches. Well, if I have it scalloped just where the fade comes—Oh, I say, dear, you’re not going! I made sure you’d give me a hand when you got back.”

  “I’ve got the Harrington deeds to type,” said Nan.

  She took off her hat, sat down to the typewriter, and passed with relief into a formal world of set, correct phrases and stilted repetitions.

  Mr Page came in presently with a pleasant word.

  “Feeling all right again, Miss Forsyth?”

  Then click, click, click, the swish of the moving keyboard, and such words as, hereditaments, messuages, hereinbefore, and party of the first part.

  Nan began to feel less tired. It wasn’t work that tired you; it was fighting with yourself and trying to carry someone else all the time. If Cynthia would only get a job. But standing in a shop tired her feet, and typing made her back ache, and she didn’t seem to be able to manage children. Besides, her looks had always been against her; she was too pretty and too fragile, and too gentle.

  Nan forced her attention back to that comfortable formal world in which there were no emotions.

  And then suddenly the outer door was flung open and Jervis Weare strode through the room, wrenched at the handle of Mr Page’s sanctum, and disappeared, slamming the door behind him. It was the most sudden thing that had ever happened. Between the bang of the first door and the slam of the second there was just a momentary impression of Jervis with his face set in a black rage. Nan had hardly time to catch her breath. He plunged past. The second door banged. She had the feeling that he had taken the room in his stride without seeing it, or anything in it. And then his voice struck harshly on her ears in a violent oath.

  She stood up, shaking a little, and came out from behind her table. He had slammed the door so violently that it had latched and then unlatched itself. It stood now an inch ajar, and she could hear Mr Page’s startled exclamation.

  “Mr Jervis! What has happened? I beg of you!”

  Nan stood still in the middle of the floor. It was most clearly her duty to close the door. She stood quite still, and heard Jervis Weare go tramping through the room beyond; and as he tramped he swore in a steady bitter flow; not speaking loudly, but with a deadly effect of weighing every word.

  “Mr Jervis! Mr Jervis! I beg of you! Something has happened—I beg that you will tell me what has happened. I—I—Mr Jervis!”

  There was a silence. Mr Page’s voice left off, and nothing else began. There was a dead silence.

  Always after that moment Nan knew what was meant by a silence being dead. Something was dead in there. She knew what Mr Page must be looking like. In her own mind she could see his face, surprised, shocked, distressed, the ruddy colour a little sunk. She thought that he had risen, or half risen, from his chair. But she couldn’t see Jervis in her mind—only the back of that black head of his, the furious tilt of it, the forward thrust of his shoulders, all frozen in the silence—the dead silence. It seemed to go on for a most intolerable time.

  Then Jervis said in quite a quiet, low voice,

  “She’s thrown me over.”

  Mr Page exclaimed. Nan did not know what he said. It was just a sound to her; it left no mark.

  Jervis Weare spoke again.

  “She’s thrown me over.”

  He said it twice. And then he laughed, still on that low, quiet tone; only just at the end it broke sharply, harshly, and so ceased.

  Mr Page’s voice sounded nearer. He said at once in a distressed tone,

  “Miss Carew? Dear, dear—how’s this? Mr Jervis, I—I—” he stopped, commanded himself, and took up the last word again, but in an altered manner. “I am very much distressed at this. Won’t you tell me what it is? Is it—is it irremediable?”

  “Oh, quite,” said Jervis Weare.

  Nan could imagine a quick gesture to point the words. Voice and gesture thrust Rosamund Carew into the limbo of things out of the question.

  The sound of Mr Page’s feet came after that. If there had been any other sound, Nan would not have heard them. They went across the room to the window, halted, and came back again. Then Mr Page’s professional voice, grave and concerned:

  “Sit down, won’t you? Yes—it will be better. This is a very serious matter. I don’t mean only personally—though, as I am sure you know, you have my deep sympathy. But there is another aspect—” He stopped as if he balked at this aspect to which he alluded. “This—this unfortunate breach has a consequence which may not have occurred to you, and cannot have occurred to Miss Carew.”

  Every time Mr Page stopped speaking, that dead silence closed upon the room:

  Nan’s whole being so strained towards what was happening in the silence that she seemed to see Jervis still standing with the office table between him and Mr Page. S
he could see him standing there, but not his face. She wanted to see his face.

  Half a minute went by. Then he said harshly, answering Mr Page,

  “You think not?”

  Mr Page coughed.

  “Mr Weare, I am obliged to point out that the terms of your grandfather’s will make this breach a most serious matter. I am bound to tell you this, and to ask whether there is not any chance of—in short, a reconciliation.”

  Another measure of silence, and then Mr Page breaking it.

  “Mr Weare—will you tell me what has happened? I am in ignorance. How can I advise you? Since you have come to me, I must suppose that you want my advice.”

  “No,” said Jervis Weare—“not your advice, Mr Page.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I will tell you.” He spoke now in a cold, composed tone.

  There would be no gesture with a tone like that. He would be standing at the table, just touching it perhaps with a steadying hand as he bent to speak to Mr Page.

  He dropped his voice a little and went on:

  “You say that I’m probably not aware of my position. That’s a mistake. If I’m not married within three months of my grandfather’s death, Miss Carew—” the name halted him—“Miss Carew steps into my shoes. How very charitable to suppose that she doesn’t know it! No, one minute—you wanted me to speak, and you’d better let me get on with it. You talk about a quarrel, and you ask whether it can’t be made up. There hasn’t been any quarrel. There has been nothing but a polite note to say she’s very sorry but she finds she can’t marry me after all.”

  “My dear fellow—my dear boy—” The professional manner had given way. Mr Page was being personally shocked and aware that, after all, he had known this large furious young man in sailor suits.

  Jervis went on speaking.

  “My grandfather died on the fifteenth of May. This is the thirteenth of August. I suppose she had this in her mind all along. She wouldn’t hear of being married before the fourteenth. She said it would give us both a pleasant thrill to feel we were running it so fine.”

  “No, no,” said Mr Page. “No, no—don’t tell me the thing was planned!”

  Jervis Weare laughed.

  “And you’ve been a lawyer for forty years! Planned? Of course it was planned! My grandfather—you—me—I dare-say we’ve all had quite a good opinion of ourselves. And we’ve just been puppets—damned cardboard dolls—whilst Rosamund has pulled the strings and laughed at us. Why did he put that clause into his will? You don’t know, and I don’t know—but Rosamund knows, and now that she’s played the dirty trick, she thinks she can get away with it and scoop the lot. Well, I’m damned if she will!”

  Nan heard him strike the table. Something fell—a book—no, the almanac—there was the tinkle of breaking glass; and then that frozen control quite gone as he raged up and down the room.

  “My position—oh yes, she knows it, and I know it, and you know it. If I’m not married by the fifteenth—that’s what she’s reckoning on. I told you I’d let you know why I’d come in a minute. I’ve come to find out how I can do her in. She thinks she’s got me in a cleft stick, but there’s nothing in my grandfather’s will about marrying her. I’ve got to get married by the fifteenth—but I’ve not got to marry Rosamund Carew. There are about two million more women than men in England, aren’t there—and any one of the odd two million will do. Find me a girl who’ll marry me at twenty-four hours’ notice!”

  “Mr Jervis—Mr Jervis! It can’t be done.”

  “There are such things as special licences, aren’t there?”

  “Yes—yes—it takes three days except in extraordinary circumstances.”

  “Aren’t these extraordinary enough? I should have thought—”

  “A moment, a moment, please. You have the three days—your grandfather’s will specifies three months and a day as the period. We have always spoken of the period as three months, and possibly Miss Carew—” He broke off with a cough. “No, no, one shouldn’t impute such motives—not without absolute proof.”

  Jervis Weare had stopped pacing the room.

  “I’ve three clear days? Good! You have only to find me a wife.”

  Mr Page had got his professional voice back.

  “Mr Jervis, you must give me time for consideration. There are other courses open to you. In the circumstances I have no doubt that the Courts would extend the time. It could be argued that you had done your best to carry out the provisions of the will. I should like to take counsel’s opinion. The question of conspiracy might arise. In my opinion Miss Carew would be very ill advised if she made any claim. There is also breach of promise. You would without doubt be awarded very heavy damages.”

  “And make myself the laughing-stock of the whole country? I’d rather let her get away with it—and I’ll see her damned before I do that! I tell you I’ll see her damned!” His fist struck the table again.

  “Mr Jervis!”

  “She’s played her ace, and she thinks the trick’s hers, but if I can trump the ace—” He broke off to laugh again and went on with a rush. “What’s the good of counsel’s opinion and a decision of the Courts? I want to beat her at her own game. She’s made a fool of me, and I’ll make a fool of her. She’s left me standing, and I’m hanged if I’ll be left. Who’ll be the fool when she picks up The Times on, let us say the seventeenth, and sees that I’m married—‘On the 16th instant, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Mr Jervis Weare to Miss Blank Dash.’ And that, you see, is where you come in. You’ve got to fill in the blank and the dash—you’ve got to find me a wife.”

  At this point Nan became aware of the slow, heavy beating of her heart. It seemed to be knocking against her side. The beats did not quicken, but they grew heavier, and with each thud there came a drumming in her ears, so that she could not listen—and she must, must listen. She took a step forward, her hand at her throat. She heard Mr Page protest. And then, so loud that it came through the loud beating of her heart, Jervis Weare’s voice:

  “If you won’t help me, I’ll help myself, if I have to pick her up off the streets!”

  And right on that the door of the deed room must have opened, because Miss Villiers was saying,

  “I can’t find it, dear, and if I’ve been through one file, I’ve been through a dozen.”

  At the sound of Miss Villiers’ voice something happened to Nan. She stepped forward and closed the door of Mr Page’s room with so steady and gentle a touch that neither Mr Page nor Mr Jervis Weare were aware that it had been ajar and was now latched. Then she turned round and spoke in a matter-of-fact voice,

  “You’d better go on looking.”

  “Cool as a cucumber she was. ‘And you’d better go on looking for it,’ she said.” Miss Villiers was afterwards in considerable request as an authority on what had taken place on that August afternoon—“‘You’d better go on looking for it.’ Well I must say I thought she might have given me a hand, but she just picked up her hat and out she went and down the stairs, and I heard the door shut, and that’s the last I saw of her. And a minute later if Mr Weare didn’t come bursting through the office as if he’d been fired out of a gun. Well, that’s just my way of putting it—but you know what I mean, dear. And Mr Page so put about he never so much as thought of asking for the paper I’d been looking for—which was just as well, for I didn’t find it till next day.”

  V

  When Nan Forsyth had shut the street door behind her, she crossed the road. She wasn’t tired any more. Her feet carried her lightly. She felt as if she was being swept along by a strong current. The current carried her and she went with it. Her heart had stopped knocking against her side, and this was a great relief.

  She walked a little way, and then back. As she turned again, Jervis Weare was striding down the street, and, still without any sense of effort, she quickened her pace so as not to be left too far behind. When he turned the corner, she crossed to the same side of the street and ran.
She had to keep him in view and to find out where he was going. She had no thought that it would be difficult to come to speech with him. She hoped that he was going home to the big Georgian house in Carrington Square, which was one of the things that would pass from him to Rosamund Carew if he did not marry within the time set by his grandfather’s will.

  Nan lifted her head. Neither the house nor anything else that was his should pass to Rosamund Carew. The current that was carrying her along was a current of protective love. Ten years ago she had saved his life, and he had never known it. Now she was going to save him again. Rosamund shouldn’t rob him; neither should he rob himself.

  She looked back across the ten years to the little girl of twelve, with her passionate adoration for the dark boy of twenty who did not so much as know of her existence. He had never noticed her, never spoken to her. But when the great adventure came, she had flung down her life with both hands to save his. He had never known, and he would never know, but it was her most secret happiness. She dreamed sometimes of the rocky pool with the salt, cold water coming in on a flood tide. She felt his weight on her straining childish shoulders, and the sea flinging her against jagged rock. Then she would wake and touch the white scar on her arm and go over the whole adventure in her mind. Sometimes she wondered whether she would ever come across the little man with the queer name who had come to their rescue—Ferdinand Fazackerley. Such an extraordinary name. It would be odd if they met again—but odd things happen, for she had met Jervis Weare.

  Jervis Weare walked straight on, giving her enough to do to keep up with him. Nan became more and more certain that he was going home. She came up with him just as he was crossing into Carrington Square.

  The sun struck hot on the dark rusty green of the trees. The little square was empty. She crossed the road half a pace behind him and spoke his name as her foot touched the kerb: