Fay began to cry. Quite gently and slowly the tears brimmed up in her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. It was an immense relief. Car was always sorry when she cried, and if he would only be sorry, it would be all right. The worst of being very frightened was that you couldn’t always cry.
“What on earth did you do it for?” said Car in an angry, puzzled voice.
“You,” said Fay with the tears running down her face.
Car made a violent movement.
“What are you talking about?”
“You,” said Fay again.
He actually shook her a little then, lightly, and let go of her in a hurry because the impulse came on him to shake her harder, harder, harder.
“What are you talking about? What in heaven’s name made you do such a thing? Were you engaged to Peter?”
She shook her head dumbly.
“Did he ever make love to you?”
She shook her head again.
“But, good heavens-are you mad? It’s sheer raving lunacy! What was the good of telling me you and Peter were married-what was the point? It’s so utterly crass!”
Fay shook her head again. She gathered her hands up under her chin. She stood there drooping, weeping, not saying a word.
Car felt a primitive desire to beat her. He took a hasty step back towards the door. It was beastly to be so strong and to want to beat people.
“Why did you do it?” he said in an exasperated voice.
Fay, seeing him recede, found her voice. She was still frightened, but there was a sort of delicious thrill about being frightened of Car. She didn’t at all want him to go away. In a voice full of tears she said,
“I did it for you.”
Car felt as if he had been struck again.
“For me? I suppose you’re mad.”
She shook her head.
He thought if she shook her head again, that he would probably throw something at her. He drove both hands deep into his pockets and glowered.
“Will you kindly explain-all right then, I’m going.”
Fay sprang forward.
“Don’t go, Car! I did it for you-I really did! I don’t care twopence for Peter! He asked me to go out with him, and I went, because sometimes you were there too. It was the only way I could get to see you. And when the smash came and Peter went to the States, I thought I should never see you any more.” The words came tumbling out half choked with sobs.
“That’s enough,” said Car. “Don’t talk like that!”
He reached for the door handle, but she caught his arm with both hands.
“Car-listen! Don’t be angry. It was for you. I thought I’d never see you again, and I was desperate. And I knew you’d look after me if you thought I was Peter’s wife, so I said I was.”
“Yes,” said Car-“beautifully simple! I see. Let me go, Fay.”
“Car!”
“You’d better let me go. I might”-he took a deep breath-“I might-hurt you.” Then with a sudden jerk he had the door open, pulled free of her, and was gone.
She heard the front door slam so violently that the house shook. She put her hand on her own door and pushed it to. She was sobbing as she whirled round and ran to the hearth.
Peter’s photograph looked down at her. She snatched it and flung it across the room. It struck the window-sill and fell with a tinkle of broken glass.
Fay began to laugh.
XXV
Car Fairfax ’s Diary:
September 23rd-I think Fay’s mad. She’s simply been lying all this time. She’s no more married to Peter than Mrs. Bell is. She must be off her head, because it’s the most absolutely pointless show. They weren’t engaged-he didn’t even make love to her-they just went about together a bit. And when he’d gone, I suppose she thought she was going to be at a bit of a loose end, so she said they were married.
She said she thought I’d look after her if she was Peter’s wife. It’s absolute lunacy.
Corinna and I went to see her. She gave the whole show away at once. After Corinna had gone, I lost my temper and came away too.
I’ve been looking through Peter’s letters. He says things like, “You and Fay seem to be seeing quite a lot of each other,” and, “Fay says you’re looking after her.” I can see now that he must have thought I was getting keen on Fay myself. Of course he’d think that, when I kept writing about how she looked and what she was doing. It makes me boil to think of the rot I’ve written to poor old Peter just because I thought he must be dying to know everything I could tell him about Fay. I used to think how grateful I should feel if any one would write to me and tell me all the little everyday things about Isobel, and then I used to fire away. Poor old Peter must have been bored stiff.
Well, I slammed out of Fay’s room and out of the house, and went for a walk to get myself in hand. I’ve got a beastly temper.
On the way home I began to think about Fay. I’d been a bit brusque with her, and it worried me in case she got worked up to the point of doing something silly. She must be a bit mad, and it’s no good going off the deep end because a crazy person does a crazy thing. I wasn’t a bit keen on seeing her again, but I thought I’d better just blow in and make sure she was all right. After all, I’ve been looking after her for three years, so it’s got to be more or less of a habit.
I knocked at the door, and nothing happened. It was getting darkish, because I’d been a good long way. I could hear Mrs. Bell striking a match to light the hall gas, but I couldn’t hear anything from Fay’s room. I got the most awful panic and fairly banged on the panel. And then I felt like a fool, because the door opened, and there was Fay, got up to the nines and all ready to go out. She’d drenched herself with scent, and she’d made up her face till she looked like one of those dummy figures they put clothes on in shop windows.
“Were you coming to see if I was dead?” she said.
I said, “Don’t be an ass, Fay!” and she laughed.
“Have you come to console me for being divorced from Peter? Have you, Car?”
“I wish you’d talk sense, Fay,” I said.
Well, that just seemed to set her off. You wouldn’t have thought any one could talk such rot, even if they were balmy. I felt as if my temper might go again, so I thought it would give it a safety-valve if I put it across her a bit about the harm she might have done Peter, and the mischief she might have made by pretending to be married to him like that.
She jerked and flounced, and lit cigarettes and threw them about, like she does when she’s annoyed. She kept trying to speak too, but I was determined to let her have it, so I just went on. When I stopped, she asked me if Corinna was going to marry Peter. It’s extraordinary how women’s minds work. I said I didn’t know, but I hoped so.
“I don’t mind if she marries Peter,” she said. She edged up to me.
One of the things that has always annoyed me about Fay is the way she tries to flirt. It drives me wild. She does it because she thinks she can get round me that way. It’s a most extraordinary thing that most women seem to think that they can get their own way by wriggling their shoulders and doing tricks with their eyelashes. I suppose it gets round some people. It makes me angry. Fay’s most awfully bad about it.
“I shouldn’t like her to marry you. Are you in love with her, Car?”
I said, “No, I’m not,” and I scowled.
Fay did tricks with her eyelashes.
“No-it’s Isobel you’re in love with-isn’t it? She’s engaged to some one else. She’s going to marry Giles Heron. He’s awfully good-looking-much better looking than you, and much better off. She’ll marry him, and what will you do then? Car, don’t look like that. Oh-ooh-you frighten me! I only wanted to know. I don’t believe you’re in love with any one really. Are you? Are you in love with Isobel?”
“Yes, I am,” I said, and I went out of the room, because, honestly, I felt as if I should murder her if I stayed there another second.
That’s enough about that.
I wrote yesterday to Z.10 Smith to say I couldn’t go on like this. Another fifty pounds dropped in by registered post this morning. I can’t possibly take about a hundred pounds a week for doing nothing. I said if he’d really got a job for me to do, I’d like to know what it was and get down to it. I’ve thought till my head goes round, and I can’t arrive at any possible reason why any one should throw money at me like this-which looks as if it might be a lunatic, because if you’re mad, you are liable to do things without having any reason for doing them.
XXVI
September 24th-I was just writing about lunatics, when Mrs. Bell came up with a telegram. She disapproves most frightfully of telegrams.
“I don’t know what things is coming to,” she said. “Posts come in regular, and you do know where you are with them, but telegrafts I can’t abide nor see any use in, because if it’s bad news, you’re bound to get it sooner or later, and the later the better.”
“But supposing it’s good news?” I said. I wasn’t in a hurry, because Z.10’s the only person who wires to me now-a-days, and I’ve got past having heartthrobs over being told to ring him up at some unearthly place, or to be sure to send him back his last envelope, or something of that sort.
Mrs. Bell snorted.
“Nobody worries about sending you a telegraft when it’s good news,” she said. “If it’s anything that’s going to worry a pore soul into her grave, nobody don’t grudge a shilling to send the bad news along. But if some one was to leave me a fortune, or something of that sort, it’s my opinion the first I’d hear of it ’ud be on a post-card-and they wouldn’t hurry themselves too much about that. And did you say there was any answer, sir? And I hope as it isn’t bad news for you this time anyhow.”
I said, “No, it wasn’t bad news, and there isn’t any answer.”
Then she went away.
This is the telegram:
Meet me to-night ten-thirty far end crescent. Z.10.
Well, there it was. The crescent would be Olding Crescent.
Z.10’s an odd creature. He has his queer moments of caution, like making me send back envelopes and not putting the name of the place in full-which is one of the things that make me wonder which side of the law he’s on. I’m not going to quod for Mr. Z.10 Smith, so if that’s his dream, he’d better wake up quick.
The telegram had been sent from the G.P.O., so I didn’t get any help out of that. Telegrams aren’t very helpful anyhow. A letter does give you something about a man- you can tell whether he got it straight off the bat, or whether he dawdled about, trying to make up his mind what he was going to say; and you can tell whether he was pretty well bucked with life or in rather a Weary-Willie frame of mind-but a wire doesn’t give you any help.
I wondered what on earth he wanted, and whether he’d really got a job for me, and what sort of a job it was likely to be, and I wished that ten-thirty wasn’t about seven hours away.
It came along at last. I got to the Olding Crescent about ten minutes before the time and walked along to the end of it. By the “far end” I supposed he meant the end that was farthest from Churt Row. I walked in the shadow of the wall where he and I had talked before. It was absolutely pitch-black under the trees. The other side of the road was just visible. There weren’t many lamp-posts, only one every two hundred yards or so-a pretty poor allowance for a suburb.
I had the long brick wall of somebody’s big garden on my left, and the trees on the other side of it hung over and made dense shadows. I felt my way along the wall. After about three hundred yards I came on a door. It was set flush with the wall, and it was locked. The wall went on and on. It seemed to me that there weren’t going to be any houses on this side of the crescent at all. I thought I would cross the road and prospect, so I made for the next lamp-post.
All the lamps were on the other side. I was standing under the lamp looking about me, when a car with a rug over its bonnet went slowly past and came to a stand-still on the wrong side of the road under the trees. As it stopped, the lights went out. I heard the door open, but I didn’t hear any one get out.
I stared into the dark, but I couldn’t see a thing. Then I heard my name.
“ Fairfax -is that you?”
It was Z.10 all right. I knew the sound of him at once. He has one of those dry, breathless and soundless sort of voices. You can do a very good imitation of it if you pitch your voice just above a whisper and see how far you can make it carry without putting any real life into it. It had struck me from the beginning that it wasn’t at all a bad way of disguising one’s voice. He called again, and I stepped out across the road.
The car was a saloon. I couldn’t tell the make. The front door was open, and as soon as I got level with it he spoke again from the driver’s seat.
“Get in-I want to talk to you.”
I put one foot on the running-board and kept a hand on the door.
“Are you going out of town?”
He said “Why?” in rather a surprised sort of way.
“Well, last time-” I began. And then I realized I was making a break, because he took me up most uncommonly sharp.
“Last time? What do you mean by ‘last time’?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said-“nothing.”
Really I wasn’t sorry I’d made a slip of the tongue. I’d never felt sure how much Z.10 knew. He’d given me an appointment at the corner of Olding Crescent and Churt Row, and he’d written afterwards to say that he’d been prevented from keeping it. And some one else had kept it for him. Anna Lang had kept it. And Anna’s account was that she’d overheard a conversation between two men whom she didn’t know. One of them said that he had an appointment to meet me at his place-mentioning me by name- and that he wasn’t going to keep it because he was putting me through some sort of test.
Speaking broadly, I should expect anything that Anna said to be untrue. She doesn’t tell the truth if she can help it-I thinks she finds it dull. But on the other hand, bits of her story do fit in very well. So I couldn’t make out whether Z.10 knew that Anna had met me or not, and I thought I should rather like to find out, because if Anna was in with Z.10, I was through.
“I think you must have meant something,” he said, and from the sound of his voice he was leaning towards me.
“Well,” I said, “last time-”
He interrupted me.
“Last time I met you at the corner. We walked up and down beside the wall and settled your salary.”
“I didn’t mean that time-I mean the time before.”
“There was no time before.”
“Oh yes, there was. You made an appointment to meet me at the corner at ten o’clock.”
“And I did not come-I was prevented.”
“Somebody came,” I said.
I swear he was taken by surprise. He made some sort of a movement and drew his breath in quickly.
“What do you mean?”
“What I say-somebody met me.”
“Somebody met you here?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how. I thought perhaps you did.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said,
“Who met you, Mr. Fairfax?”
“A lady,” I said.
“You don’t know who she was?”
“Oh yes, I know; but if you don’t, I can’t very well tell you.”
“A lady? A lady?”
I thought it was a blow to him. Then he seemed to pull himself together.
“What happened?” he said.
“She took me for a drive.”
“She took you for a drive?” There was the extreme of surprise in his voice.
“For a nice country drive,” I said.
“At ten o’clock at night?”
“From ten to eleven,” I replied.
I could hear him beat on the wheel with an exasperated hand.
“Mr. Fairfax, you’re not serious!”
“Oh, but I am.”
“I’ll take an affidavit if you like.”
He said, “Well, well-” and made a clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth. Then he asked me point-blank “Who was this woman?”
I didn’t say anything.
He hit the wheel again.
“Where did she take you?”
I thought I’d let fly at a venture. If he didn’t know anything, I shouldn’t be telling him anything; and if he knew already, there wouldn’t be anything to tell.
“She took me to Linwood Edge,” I said-and I’d have given a good deal to be able to see his face.
There was a complete and hollow silence. I could hear two branches rubbing against each other somewhere overhead where the trees crossed one another along the wall, and I could hear the sound of traffic on a main road a long way off. It’s funny how town things and country things sound alike in the distance. That noise of cars and lorries and trams passing each other on a tarred road had just the sound of waves coming in on a pebble beach after a storm. I thought of that whilst I was waiting for him to speak. I had to wait a long time.
When he did speak, I could tell by his voice that he had turned away from me and was looking into the dark ahead of him. He said,
“Get in, Mr. Fairfax, and sit down. We shan’t be driving down to Linwood to-night.”
XXVII
I hesitated for a moment. then I got in.
There was one curious thing about these talks with Z.10 Smith-I would go to ring him up or to meet him, feeling how damned fishy the whole thing was, but the minute I began to talk to him, the oddest interview seemed to be perfectly ordinary and respectable; before I had been talking to him for half a minute I felt as if I was being interviewed by my bank manager or my solicitor. I suppose it’s partly something dry and prosaic about his voice, and partly the little jerky way he has of putting his pince-nez straight-but there it is, and it must be a tremendous asset to him if he’s on the cross.
Well, I sat down and waited for him to begin. He’d got his glasses off, and I think he was polishing them-out of sheer habit, I suppose, for the place was nearly as dark as a shut room. I could just see the spokes of the wheel and his hands fidgeting to and fro, and once or twice his pince-nez caught the very little faint light there was. He finished polishing them and put them on. He was sitting well into his own corner facing me.
Beggar’s Choice Page 15