by Henry Wade
Instead, he had gone round to seek comfort and consolation from his girl and had received instead something very like a blow on the other cheek. Jill Paris was fond of him—so she had frankly assured him—but she could not live on air. If Eustace could not do something more regular and substantial about an income, she would have to return to work. Jill’s profession was the stage, but by preference she ‘rested’, under suitable protection. She was an attractive girl, though not so young as her slim figure, blue eyes and cindered hair made her look. As an actress she had front row legs and ability; as a protégée she had a temper, genuine affection, and a fair appreciation of the ethics of the game. Eustace liked her a great deal better than the much more expensive and less intelligent Sylvia Vaughan and Denise Herron who had preceded her; the idea of losing her—and return to work meant inevitably a change of friend—was almost more than he could bear.
Finally, as he swallowed a boiled egg and scalding coffee at little after seven that morning, Eustace had inadvertently opened another letter from his ‘private banker’ and received a shock from which, as he paid off his taxi at Paddington, he was still struggling to recover.
Coombe, on the south coast of Cornwall, is nearly three hundred miles from Paddington, and in order to get there even by mid-afternoon it was necessary to catch a very early train—very early, that is, for a man of Eustace Hendel’s manner of life. The 8.30 a.m. would reach the junction fifteen miles from Coombe at 2.30 p.m. and from the junction a service of cars had been arranged, the funeral being timed for 3.30. Naturally, it would not be possible to get back that night, so Eustace was taking a suit case, with sleeping things of necessity, and with evening clothes in case by any chance someone asked him to stay with them—though he hardly thought that likely. On the platform there was a fair sprinkling of people in black clothes, and among them Eustace noticed two or three unmistakable Hendel noses—the hooked, rather predatory nose that looked so much more aristocratic than the family history warranted.
Getting into a first-class carriage was an obvious member of the ‘Baron’s branch’—the fair-haired line. This particular one, wearing a brushed-up moustache which suggested a Guardsman, was probably David, the brother of Howard and the new heir to the title. Eustace wondered that he had not gone down sooner. He had not seen David for a number of years, and but for the nose might not have recognized him. With him was a woman of about forty and a boy of, probably, seventeen. Eustace did not know who these were. David’s wife had died two or three years ago and his son was certainly older than this boy and was in any case a chronic invalid. Unwilling to court a snub in his present temper, Eustace passed the carriage without further notice and climbed into a neighbouring ‘first-smoker’ which was occupied by an elderly dried-up man of professional aspect.
Nobody else entered the carriage, and as soon as the train had shaken itself free of the gloom of Paddington Station the elderly man laid down his Times and looked across at Eustace.
“I feel sure that you must be a Hendel”, he said, “and by your dark colouring, one of the younger branch. If I may hazard a guess, you are Eustace, son of Victor, grandson of Clarence, great-grandson of Augustus—and so back to Andrew, the first peer.”
Eustace laughed.
“You know more about us than I do myself”, he said. “I am Eustace, and definitely one of the younger branch.”
“And I am William Christendome, senior partner of Christendome and Booth, solicitors. My firm has been in charge of the affairs of the senior branch of your family since the days of Bevis, the second baron.”
Eustace pricked up his ears. Here was the very man to give him the information he wanted. But he would have to go tactfully; family solicitors did not, he believed, like to be pumped.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Christendome”, he said. “Bad business, this. D’you know at all how it happened?”
“A bad business indeed, Mr. Eustace. A more tragic blow to the elder branch of a distinguished family it would be difficult to imagine.”
Mr. Christendome wiped his gold-rimmed glasses carefully.
“Yes”, he went on, “I think I may say that I know as much of what happened as anybody knows, or indeed is likely to know. Mr. Carr telegraphed for me at once and I got down on Tuesday evening. He . . .”
“Carr?” queried Eustace.
Mr. Christendome looked at him in some surprise.
“Henry Carr”, he said; “husband of Julia, Howard’s first cousin. Your—let me think—Julia would be your third cousin. She is the great-grand-daughter of Bevis, as you are the great-grandson of his brother Augustus. Her mother, of course, was Louisa, who married James Kidd.”
Eustace’s brain reeled before this whirlwind of relationship.
“Oh yes, yes, of course”, he muttered.
“Howard and his son were staying with the Carrs”, continued the solicitor, leaning back and fixing his gaze upon the ventilator. “They—the Carrs, that is—had taken a house at Coombe for their summer holidays and Howard and the boy had come down to stay with them for a week. Cornwall would be a great change for them, for Howard at any rate, from the industrial north. Harold, of course, has only come down from Cambridge a year, but it has been a hard year in the shops and he, too, would welcome the change.”
“The shops?”
“Yes, Harold was to learn the engineering business from A to Z, going through the shops—that is to say, the works—the drawing office, and so on. Sound, very sound. Poor boy.”
Again Mr. Christendome shook his head.
“Was it a boating accident?” asked Eustace.
“No. They were bathing. I attended the inquest on Wednesday, of course. On Mr. Howard’s body, it was; Harold’s had not been recovered. I had to return the same evening to collect various papers and attend to some other business. A long journey; a very long journey.”
“You must be pretty sick of it.”
“It’s all part of my business, Mr. Eustace. As I was saying, I attended the inquest and it appeared that Mr. Carr and his two guests had bathed before breakfast each morning, in Coombe Cove, which is perfectly safe and indeed, as Mr. Carr put it, rather uninteresting. On Tuesday morning, the fifth of their visit, Mr. Carr did not go with them, as he had a slight chill. It seems that the two Hendels, father and son, elected to go further afield that morning, and made their way to another cove, some way beyond, a rocky, dangerous place locally known as Davy’s Cut—possibly some reference to ‘Davy Jones’. A notoriously dangerous place, with a heavy drag at high tide. As ill-luck would have it, these two went there at the beginning of the ebb—the most dangerous time, it seems, of all. A shepherd on the hills actually saw them enter the water. He shouted and waved to them, but could not catch their attention. He saw that they were in difficulties at once and ran down as quickly as he could, but when he got to the shore they were gone. Strong, experienced swimmers, too, both of them. Howard’s body, terribly injured by the rocks, was washed up in Coombe Cove on the flood-tide, but Harold’s has not yet been seen; possibly the fact that he was lighter may be the explanation of that.”
“Good Lord; what a grim business. And Howard’s wife? Was she down there with them?”
“Yes, poor lady. She has been wonderfully brave—astonishingly so, it seems to an old-fashioned man like myself. Naturally the whole business has been a terrible shock to her, but I saw no sign of a break-down, such as I would have expected.”
“Good sort, Blanche”, muttered Eustace. “Was that David I saw getting into the train?”
“Yes, Captain Hendel was on his way to Norway and has only just returned. He is with Mrs. Stone and her son Bernard. You know her?”
“Not from Adam. . . . Eve, I should say. Who is she?”
“She was Patience Wick; her mother Emily was the daughter of Henry Hendel, brother of the present Lord Barradys.”
Eustace pricked up his ears. Henry; that was the man he had been wondering about—him and his descendants.
“I don’t t
hink I ever met any of that branch”, he said. “How many children did Henry have?”
“Only one daughter, Emily”, said Mr. Christendome, quite unaware of the thrill of excitement which this answer evoked in Eustace. “Emily, as I said, was the mother of Mrs. Stone, again an only child, who has the one son Bernard, whom you saw with Captain David.”
So Henry had had no son, and the title, of course, could not descend through his daughter; that had been the point about which Eustace had been doubtful. Then, after David and his invalid son, came he, Eustace! What a thought! Eustace, Lord Barradys! How fine it sounded. And all the money that went with the title. The great engineering business, coal-mines, cash—without a doubt the old man had got a fortune in gilt-edged securities alone. Eustace’s heart pounded. If something happened to David and his son, as it had happened to Howard and his, all that would come to him!
Glorious thoughts flashed through his brain. Back to his old flat, his shooting syndicate, his Bentley—perhaps two Bentleys, a ‘sports’ and a limousine. Horses—no, perhaps give them a miss; he hadn’t really enjoyed hunting; shooting and motoring were more his line. A yacht, perhaps—a steam one, of course, that you could cruise round the world in—the Mediterranean and lovely women in pyjamas. Jill! It meant Jill his own for a certainty. He could get Sylvia or Denise back if he wanted them, or even some real tip-topper, like Catherine Dawne, or Cantolina. But he loved Jill. She wasn’t in Sylvia’s class, but she was worth six of her, for all that. He might even marry her, though that was hardly necessary.
Eustace’s thoughts came back to earth with a bump. What was the use of talking like that? David would inherit the title and the money and everything else. His son, Desmond, was a wash-out, of course; it wasn’t likely he would ever succeed and he certainly couldn’t get a son. But David was still a young man, and handsome in his stupid, Guardsman way. Now that he was heir to the estate he would be certain to marry again, and there would be no shortage of candidates.
From boiling point, Eustace’s spirits dropped to zero. That was always the way with him; he got worked up into a great state of excitement and enthusiasm and then something went wrong and he flopped straight into black depression. His thoughts flew back now to all the troubles that surrounded him: that damned letter from Isaacson; how the devil was he going to find the money to pay his arrears of interest, let alone redeem the capital? How was he going to go on living even in his present wretched way? His capital had dwindled to a few thousand pounds; it brought him in a hundred or so a year—just enough to keep him in clothes and tobacco. All the rest had to come from what he could pick up with his wits—cards and so on. And the supply of suckers was running low; what’s more, they didn’t seem to be such fools as they used to be; one of them had actually taken a cool seventy off him only two nights ago. Off him, Eustace Hendel!
Then there was Jill; she had as good as chucked him. Jill! Eustace felt a pricking at the back of his eyes as he thought of losing Jill. Damn it, he couldn’t; he loved her!
Mr. Christendome, noticing that his companion’s attention had begun to wander from his dissertation upon the Hendel family tree, had dropped the subject and buried himself in the Times, blissfully ignorant of the ugly thoughts that had begun to form in Eustace Hendel’s brain. The train rushed on through the gleaming countryside and in this first-class carriage two men sat immersed in their several problems; Mr. Christendome sought for a word of six letters to fit the clue ‘Dramatic in Mayfair’, unaware that the answer was to be found in his companion’s heart.
Chapter Three
One Hendel is Buried
THE party from London reached Coombe with fair time to take their places in the little church. A large crowd of sympathetic onlookers—natives and holiday visitors—watched the final scene in the churchyard, their interest centred on the beautiful woman who had suffered this terrible double loss and who now bore herself with such quiet dignity and self-control. As the little party of mourners moved from the grave to the lich-gate, hats were doffed and tears trickled down the cheeks of complete strangers who had been moved beyond their own control by this tragedy of the sea.
The cars which had brought the London party from the junction to Coombe now carried the women to Henry Carr’s house, while most of the men walked the short distance up a country lane. On the way, Mr. Christendome introduced Eustace Hendel to a handsome, fresh-complexioned man, with a dust of grey on his black hair and clipped moustache.
Henry Carr was a solicitor, with a sound practice in a London residential suburb. He was still on the right side of fifty, but life had not been too rosy for him, and it was to his credit that only those grey hairs were the outward evidence of the trials and difficulties through which he had fought his way. Only two years after the war his firm, of which he was then the junior partner, had been broken up by a financial scandal which had ended in the suicide of one partner and the disappearance of another. Carr had struggled to clear up the mess, had sacrificed all his own savings in an attempt to recoup the clients who had suffered; he had earned great respect for himself, but the firm’s credit was ruined and he had had to start again on his own to build up a new business. After fourteen years he was, as he called it, ‘on his legs again’, and few people realized now the bitterness of the struggle which he and his wife had faced, to keep up the appearance necessary for his business and to give their two children a good education and a fair chance in life.
“Mr. Hendel tells me that he has not had the pleasure of meeting you before”, was Mr. Christendome’s tactful version of Eustace’s declaration of ignorance.
Henry Carr smiled.
“That has been my misfortune and certainly not Eustace’s fault”, he said. “You’ll forgive my calling you by your Christian name?” he continued; “after all, my wife’s your not very distant cousin.”
Privately thinking it rather cool, Eustace agreed that Christian names broke a lot of ice. At least this man didn’t suffer from the damned stand-offish superiority of his wife’s family.
“I wish we could put you up tonight”, went on the younger solicitor, “but the house isn’t big and even with Dick and Helen on sofas we can only just squeeze in David and Patience . . . oh, and I believe her boy’s in my dressing-room”, he added with a grimace.
“I am sure Mr. Hendel will be very comfortable with me at the Boatswain’s Mate, where I slept on Tuesday night”, put in Mr. Christendome tactfully. “Ah, here we are at your house. Mrs. Howard has been very wonderful all through this time; I hope that she will retire now and not consider it necessary to be present at the reading of the will.”
Blanche Hendel, however, was of the generation of women that had learnt, in four terrible years, not to retire in the face of trouble. She met Eustace in the garden of the Carr’s holiday house and thanked him for coming all that long way to her husband’s funeral.
“I do think it’s wonderful of you, Eustace”, she said. “We’ve seen so little of each other in all these years and I feel that it’s been a good deal our fault. I always told Howard that the family hadn’t got the clan spirit that one expects from north-countrymen.”
Eustace was touched by this confession and felt a good deal of his resentment melt away, but after all, he reflected, Blanche wasn’t a Hendel; she had always been pleasant to him; it was her husband and his family who had been such insufferable prigs. He was confirmed in this view a few minutes later when his cousin David, answering to Blanche’s call of “David, here’s Eustace”, greeted him with a curt nod and “Yes, we travelled down together.”
Blanche Hendel flushed and Eustace made an effort to relieve her obvious distress by enquiring after David’s son.
“Desmond’s an invalid”, replied David shortly. “Blanche, oughtn’t you to go and rest?”
“I’m perfectly all right, thank you, David”, replied Blanche, with a touch of anger in her voice. “Come and have tea; Julia said it would be ready in a minute.”
The two men, in silent antagonis
m, followed her into the house, where Eustace was introduced to yet another cousin, Julia Carr, and her two children, Richard, a sturdy boy of fifteen, and Helen, a hardly less sturdy girl of twelve. Julia Carr, though she possessed the Hendel nose, had none of the other family characteristics which Eustace so much disliked. Perhaps the troubles through which she had passed had rubbed off the sharp corners of pride and self-satisfaction so noticeable in David and his dead brother, Howard. Certainly her figure had no such angles; she was rather short and definitely plump, in keeping with a gentle and placid manner. Quite evidently she was a mother and a housewife before anything else; Eustace quickly came to this conclusion as he noted the care with which she presided over her excellent Cornish tea and saw the affectionate glances which she exchanged with her husband and her two jolly children. A throw-back to the north-country working-class from which her family had sprung, thought Eustace with amused contempt.
As soon as tea had been cleared away, Henry Carr, after exchanging glances with David Hendel, courteously bowed Mr. Christendome into the armchair at the head of the table. The old lawyer extracted some papers from the attaché case which never left him, unfolded a thick bundle of parchment, cleared his throat and began:
“Mr. Howard Hendel, when he made this will in 1929, thereby cancelling his former will and codicils, expressed the wish that at his death it should be read aloud to those members of the family who attended his funeral. I agree with him in thinking that that is a very proper procedure, though I realize that it is rapidly falling into disuse. The will is not long; the estate, as many of you are doubtless aware, was settled by the second Lord Barradys upon his son Chandos, the present Lord Barradys, for life, and thereafter upon the heirs of his body. Upon the death of Chandos’s son, Albert, in 1893, his son, the late Mr. Howard Hendel, became tenant in tail. In the absence of any break in the entail, the estate would normally have passed in due course to Howard’s son, Harold, but in the circumstances of this tragic occurrence, the settled estate now passes automatically to Mr. Albert Hendel’s second son, Captain David Hendel.”