Quickly grasping the situation, she ran up to her brother and kissed him.
“Come along and put your bag in your room. It will be ready for you in two shakes.”
Robert retired for a time. When he came back there was a clatter of lively talk in the room.
John was saying to Phoebe:
“Peabright has a frightfully high opinion of your poems—a justly high opinion. I was having lunch with him the other day, and he said it was only a matter of time before you took your place among the modern masters—yes, really, my dear!”
At the same time Mr. Dobsley, keeping within reach of the bottles and siphons on a table in the corner, was earnestly refuting Mr. Youghall’s views on realism:
“It’s li’ this, ol’ man—y’ must rec’nise thrubbly romazzic inkerlation of gerral tenzies. Gerral tenzies always romazzic.”
Robert Arthur, with his glinting monocle in his eye, his face corrugated with bewilderment and the effort to appear at ease, looked very unhappy. He regarded most of the company (and with some reason) as “queer”, and he believed that most of them led immoral lives. It was a great pity that dear Phoebe would insist on knowing such people. Phoebe, who was trying to make the best of her mixed company, again rose to the occasion. She led her brother to a secluded corner of the room.
“You’ve got some strange people here,” said Robert, looking at Phoebe with gratitude and affection.
“Not much in your line, I’m afraid, Bobby. You see, one has to know these people, because they help one. But there’s John—you know him.”
Yes; Robert knew John, but somehow or other he did not feel that he wanted to talk to him. John was a curious fellow, vaguely dangerous. This was a new idea, but Robert did not examine it closely.
“And how are the Shufflecester people?” said Phoebe. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
Robert replied that he didn’t want to make a nuisance of himself. Just for one night—or maybe two, if she could manage. He explained that he was looking for work. After all, they were terribly hard up. He would see Jackson and Arkwright and one or two others who had promised to help him if they could. True, he was getting on in age; but then he had experience. He was ready for anything—anything with a bit of money in it.
And here John came up to them, and Robert told him about his plans. John, who had had a whisky or two, rubbed his chin and looked rather queerly at Robert, and Robert gave him an ugly, sharp glance and went on talking to Phoebe.
Now this good girl, so anxious to forget herself and to help other people, had a sudden inspiration.
“I say, Bobby!—There’s a man over there who would interest you very much, and who would like to meet you, I think. Probably he’s quite as much bored as you are by all this jargon. Mr. Sundale, the great financier. He was telling me about some new scheme of his—sharks, I believe—in the Pacific—”
“In the Pacific! That sounds interesting.”
Robert, smarting a little from his encounter with John, felt at once that he was on the track of a job. He had a nimble fancy, he was mentally adventurous. The mere word Pacific stimulated him. John would see—they would all see—that he was a man who could pick up a first-rate job, a job calling for real enterprise. And he would escape; he would fly away from his troubles, fly away to the blue seas and the waving palms and the pearly-white beaches of a southern archipelago. Certainly an inspiration.
Soon he was talking, gravely, confidentially, to Mr. Sundale.
Mr. Sundale had a kind of oily black brilliance, he shone like a bit of polished coal. His beautiful Assyrian locks were discreetly pomaded, his black eyebrows were always twitching about—archly, derisively, invitingly, fiercely, always moving up and down. A black moustache curled in a pair of fine little horns over his luscious red mouth. He spoke in a rich drawling bass, harmonious and virile.
Furtively glancing with his black eyes, Mr. Sundale quickly formed his opinion of Robert Arthur. It may or may not have been a correct opinion, for Mr. Sundale thought that Robert might be of some use to him. When he learnt that Robert had been for many years with Hayle, Trevors and Ockersley he was obviously impressed.
Mr. Kewdingham implored Mr. Sundale to give him more precise information—in confidence.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Sundale, allowing his eyebrows to drop level for a moment. “You see, Mr. Kewdingham, it will be an Anglo-Batavian company. The Van Kloopens, the sugar people, are willing to provide a dozen trawlers for a start. These vessels are at present in the Scheldt—under repairs. The fish will be caught in nets of steel wire, made flexible by a new process. The cost of each net is about a hundred pounds. As for the shark, I don’t suppose that you realise his commercial possibilities. His liver resembles that of the cod, only it is much larger, and its oil has the same valuable properties as real cod-liver oil. Hum, hum!” Mr. Sundale looked extremely knowing, his eyebrows tilted to a most cunning angle. “The fins of the shark are eaten by the Chinese, who regard them as a great delicacy and pay ridiculous prices for them. The bones are ground into a chemical manure of the finest quality. The skin, treated in a certain way, can be made into a sort of leather. It is better than leather, and more quickly and easily prepared.”
“Then, of course, you will install a fair amount of plant at your factories?”
“Yes. Our main power units will consist of Heinz-Beckford heavy-oil engines.”
“What!” cried Robert, “the good old H.B.! That’s my own particular line. I put in a dozen of ’em at Seaforth harbour.”
“Now look here, Mr. Kewdingham—” The conversation became highly technical.
Presently Robert said: “And how about the men who will take charge of the stations—the factory managers?”
“Ah, hum! I will admit a slight difficulty.” The black eyebrows made a whimsical arabesque. “You see, we need rather exceptional men. We need men with organising experience, intelligence, courage, a sense of responsibility, initiative, loyal devotion to the interests of the shareholders, and the ability to control native labour.” Mr. Sundale had said that before—at a directors’ meeting. “An engineer, if he possessed the necessary qualities, would be ideal; he could probably act in a double capacity, and so draw the pay of two appointments.”
“Frankly, Mr. Sundale, I think I might be of some use to you.”
Mr. Sundale appeared to cogitate. He dreamily took a golden case from his pocket and offered Robert a cigarette. Then he flicked up his brows into an arch of pure candour and frankness.
“I should not think of asking you seriously to join us until I was in a position to say something more about the prospects of the company. You see, I am interested in scores of concerns; and this is quite a new one—attractive to me because it is highly speculative, one might almost say romantic. Dierick Van Kloopen is a personal friend of mine, and I know he’s a sound man; but I should like to wait a little—just a little. I know your sister very well, Mr. Kewdingham, and so you must allow me to treat this, if I may, as a family matter. I don’t want to propose anything that would not be entirely to your advantage. In the meantime, I’m very grateful to you for your interest. Here is my card: it has my City telephone number. If you would care to see me again, I should be delighted—”
Mr. Sundale’s rich, thick voice drawled out a number of commonplace amenities.
Here was a possibility, a shadowy scheme, which appealed strongly to Robert’s imagination. A pleasing fantasy of coral islands, of dusky natives, of busy trawlers industriously sharking, of a life in which periods of delicious ease alternated with shorter periods of vigorous command. A symphony of Heinz-Beckford oil engines rumbled an accompaniment.
John looked up and saw Robert as he was drifting away from Mr. Sundale. Robert’s beaming countenance irritated him profoundly. He thought of Bertha. So he decided to be extremely polite. He went up to Robert and asked him to have a drink.
Giddy with his new vision, Robert eagerly told John all about the steel nets and the sharks and the coral islands. The more John was bored and exasperated, the more amiable his expression.
And Robert Arthur, regretting his momentary impatience with John, became amiable in his turn. He accepted with pleasure John’s invitation to tea on the following afternoon.
3
Kewdingham, when he arrived at John’s quarters in Margaretta Terrace, was not quite at his ease. Although he had every wish to make allowances, he was feeling rather defiant. Yet he would have found some difficulty in explaining his attitude. He could not admit that he was jealous.
He wished that John was not such a good-looking young man, and so well dressed. Without asking himself why he should have resented these advantages, he knew that he did resent them, and he also resented the comfort and the elegance of John’s rooms. The man had too much money. What did he want with all these kickshaws and rotten pictures—and a divan. A divan, of all things! No decent fellow, said Robert to himself, would have any use for such an immoral piece of furniture.
But John was so pleasant, so assiduously attentive and subtly deferential, that he melted the weakening hostility of the other man.
Robert Arthur was readily convinced both of the friendship and of the intelligence of those who agreed with him. Soon he had almost forgiven John for the disquieting divan, the silly pictures. He smiled indulgently. The artistic temperament!
“And how’s Bertha?” John enquired.
Robert sighed, letting the air flow noisily between his teeth. A dim uneasiness moved in his mind, like a shadow in shallow water.
John perceived the shadow. He knew what it meant, even if Robert himself was unaware. It was the shadow of jealousy.
“Oh, she’s all right,” said Robert. “I say, what a fine lot of books you’ve got over there.”
“Review copies, most of ’em. That reminds me—I’ve got a book here for Bertha. Could you manage to put it in your suitcase? It’s quite a small one.”
“Why, you sent her one only the other day! You are much too good to her, my dear fellow—much too good to her.”
“Oh, nonsense, Bobby! I’m always giving books away—and it’s not so easy to get new ones in Shufflecester. This one was only published yesterday. But if you haven’t got room for it—”
“No, no. Quite all right. Very good of you.” He looked at the mottled cover of the book which John handed to him; he opened it and saw the uneven lines of Mr. Peabright’s verse. For a second time he sighed heavily, slipping the book into his pocket, and then giving it a tap as if he was afraid it would bite him.
The landlady, Mrs. Appleton, brought in a very nicely prepared tea, with cherry cake. By degrees, Kewdingham felt more at home. The conversation veered back to family matters.
“By the way, John, what do you think about this affair of Sundale’s? You know—the shark business. We were talking about it at Phoebe’s last night. I have seen Jackson, and he thinks there may be something in it; at any rate he knows of nothing better.”
“Well—there’s not much to go on at present, is there?”
“No, but it does look rather promising. These Van Kloopens, according to Jackson, are very big people. They are understood to be approaching the French Government with a view to concessions in the Marquesas.”
“Would you really care to take up a job so far away from home?”
“Why not? If they make a good offer—”
“And what do you suppose Bertha would think of it?”
“Oh—Bertha!—”
He produced from his pocket, and unfolded with a wide stretching of arms, a fine map of the South Pacific which he had purchased that very afternoon. Certain red pencil marks indicated places mentioned in the course of Mr. Sundale’s conversation. How could Bertha stand in the way of this great enterprise?
Kewdingham’s finger wandered over the blue ocean, the purple deeps, the pale shallows, the rushing arrows of the equatorial stream. “There you are!—right away out here—the Marquesas; that’s as far as we go. The Manihiki—Tuamotu—”
He rambled gravely away, talking of sharks and of trawlers, the boiling-house, the drying-rooms, the oil-refinery, the stores, the dynamos, the huts for the workmen, the manager’s house and all the rest of it. And he spoke with such authority that you might have wondered if the Van Kloopens would have anything to say in the matter, once Robert Arthur was in the Pacific. A bit of crumpled paper was produced; the red pencil was busy.
“I should put a veranda here, facing the works, so that I could see the men coming up from the tannery. Here—the main engine-house. Here—the quay. No doubt it will be necessary to inspect the nets every morning. The coal store—under my immediate supervision. They will have to get my written order before they draw for the bunkers. Fuelling is a very tricky business.”
John himself was almost carried away by this measured enthusiasm, this convincing knowledge of detail.
“Well, Bobby—I wonder—”
“You see? Now tell me what you think of it.”
“Really, it’s not easy to say.” A vague, irrational hope came into his mind. There might be something in it, after all. It might be the salvation of Bertha. It might be the means of preventing some dreadful catastrophe. “I think you are the right man for a job of that kind. Your present life—it’s quite all right, I know—but it’s not good enough. A man with your technical knowledge and your experience…”
“Yes, I agree with you. Only, of course, as you were saying just now, there’s Bertha and Michael.” He was unconsciously preparing the line of retreat.
“Probably you could take them with you.”
“H’m, well—I don’t know—” There was a cloud somewhere.
“Not at first, perhaps; but later on, when you were settled.”
“That’s not quite the point. Bertha loves the old home, you know. She might not care to leave it. She’s very happy there.”
“She might be quite as happy in the Marquesas. No doubt she would like to meet some French people. In fact, she would be extremely useful to you in such a position.”
“Do you think so?” He was relieved (for more than one reason) though undecided.
“Of course.”
“But she—she’s rather a funny girl, you know.”
“Ah!”
“Quite happy; but she takes a bit of managing, I can tell you. They all do. You may give them all they want, and they still go on crying for the moon.”
John put the lid on the bubbling broth of his indignation. He said cheerily:
“Well, I think it ought to be most carefully considered. I know some people in the City, and if I can be of any use to you, do let me know at once. I should be very glad to help, if I can.”
And that night, in Robert Arthur’s Pacific dreams, John played the part of a gentle islander, dusky but recognisable, pointing with a faithful forefinger to the sharks in the offing, and loyally devoted to the Kloopen interest.
4
Two days after this conversation, John was lying awake in bed, thinking about the Kewdinghams. It was half an hour before getting-up time.
He thought about his memorable talk with Bertha. A woman’s words, he said to himself, have to be translated, not from one language to another, but from one sense to another. You must form your opinion of a woman (if you think an opinion is necessary) by observing what she does, not by listening to what she says. Obviously Bertha was very fond of him. Suppose that Bobby really did go to the Marquesas? No!—it was impossible. Anyone could see the shark business was only a piece of bluff. And yet—was it only bluff? The Van Kloopens were solid people with a big reputation. He would see Jack Wainwright and find out if he knew anything about Mr. Sundale and his Pacific fishery.
Again he thought of Bertha. He was no professional Don Ju
an, in spite of his lurking cynicism, and he was really fond of this poor woman, really falling in love. She had a lot of intelligence and she was quick and responsive. Thirteen years of virtuous married life—and with a husband like Bobby Kewdingham! It was positively tragic. The best years of her life miserably wasted. Who would blame her if she contemplated a little diversion?
John tumbled luxuriously in his warm bedclothes. The landlady knocked at the door.
After breakfast he rang up the garage and told them to get his car ready and bring it round. Soon after twelve o’clock he was in Shufflecester.
That was on a Friday. On the following Tuesday he was in Shufflecester again.
God bless the family! It’s a fine institution; you ought to keep in touch with it. Mrs. Poundle-Quainton was delighted with John. So nice of him, she said, to take Bertha out in his car; it wasn’t often that she got a treat. Which was perfectly true.
And where had they been? Oh, such a long way!—all over the South Downs. That was a slight exaggeration, for the car had been standing for three hours in a disused gravel-pit.
Then Bertha went up to stay in London for a day or two with her sister-in-law, and of course she had lunch with John in Margaretta Terrace. Was there a mild suspicion, faintly discernible, in the attitude of the Shufflecester family? “Rather eccentric, my dear,” Aunt Bella said with a glint of disapproval, “but things are so different nowadays.”
Robert Arthur was clearly disturbed, and yet he could not admit the nature of his disturbance. He was jealous in a perverted, peppery way, a dog-in-the-manger way.
He did not know what to make of John. After all, John had been as good as his word; he had made enquiries about Mr. Sundale and the Van Kloopens, and the result of those enquiries had been moderately reassuring. Indeed, he had been far more active than Robert in this matter; he had procured books from the steamship companies and had found out all about the Marquesas. But then, John had a Dutch grandmother. When a man has a Dutch grandmother, you cannot very well be too careful.
Instead of returning to Shufflecester after her two days’ visit, Bertha was persuaded by Phoebe to stay in London for another night. Phoebe had three tickets for the first performance of Sulzer Bollard’s new comedy, The Apricot Uncle, and so she took John and Bertha to see the play, and they had supper at the Gilded Lily afterwards, and everything was delightful.
Family Matters Page 7