by Henry Wade
“I see.”
Eustace finished his port in silence and declined a fourth glass. Henry Carr rose and pinched out the candles.
“Of course he may not marry again”, he said, “but there’ll be a lot of women after him.”
Chapter Five
Jill Paris
EUSTACE returned to London on Tuesday morning in a much more cheerful frame of mind than when he had left it on Friday. His new-found relations had been charming to him; he had enjoyed the bathing and tennis, and he had learnt a good deal that might be useful and was certainly exciting. Only two lives stood between him and a fortune—not to mention a peerage! One of those lives was practically negligible; only David counted—unless he married again. It was enough to make a fellow think. He had been aware of some odd thoughts coming down in the train, when the position was much more uncertain in his mind than it was now. Insidious thoughts.
Henry and Julia drove him to the junction and saw him off. Blanche, of whom he had seen less than he had hoped, was very sweet to him as she said good-bye, insisting that he should come and see her as soon as she had settled down, whenever and wherever that might be. Eustace believed that she meant it and he certainly intended to keep his side of the promise. The children eagerly insisted that he should come and stay with them next holidays. Such friendliness was a new experience to Eustace Hendel; for an appreciable time he forgot his ugly thoughts.
As the Carrs walked back to their Vauxhall, Julia took her husband’s arm.
“Poor fellow”, she said. “I don’t suppose he’s had much of a chance. His father was a pretty bad lot, and then coming into all that money from that awful woman.”
Henry Carr laughed.
“It was a misfortune that most people would accept cheerfully enough”, he said. “What d’you think of him, really?”
“Oh, I think he would be quite nice if he lived with decent people. All that living in a flat in London and having no work! A wife’s what he wants; if we could find a nice girl. . . .”
“You old matchmaker!”
Carr swung the Vauxhall out of the station yard and slipped into top.
“He’s got some good stuff in him, I believe”, he said. “And some pretty rotten stuff too. A bit unbalanced, I should say. I wouldn’t trust him far.”
“Oh, Henry, that’s hardly fair. You don’t really know him. I like him, really. All the same, I hope he doesn’t succeed.”
Henry Carr looked quickly at his wife.
“Succeed? Why should he? Oh, the title, you mean?”
“Yes, and all that. There’s only David, really.”
Carr smiled.
“I fancy he’s got that idea in his head himself. Apart from anything else, David’s not dead yet . . . and he may marry again.”
Julia’s face brightened.
“Oh, I hope he will”, she exclaimed. “There’s that Hope-Fording girl. He seemed rather attracted by her, I thought, when we met them at the Cannington’s last summer.”
“You thought so?”
Carr took a case from his pocket and dexterously extracted and lit a cigarette with his disengaged hand.
“Well, of course we only saw them for a couple of days, but I’m sure she was after him and he didn’t seem to dislike her as much as he does most women.”
“Hardly sufficient evidence to support a breach of promise case”, said the solicitor with a smile.
“No, but . . .”
“I know. Woman’s intuition. Well, we’ll see what can be done about it. Wonderful how these light sixes take the hills.”
Eustace’s return to his Bloomsbury lodgings were an unpleasant anti-climax. Mrs. Drage came straight up to his sitting-room and closed the door firmly behind her. There was a grim expression on her usually placid face.
“There was a man come here with a writ yesterday”, she said.
“A writ?”
This was Eustace’s first personal experience of that ominous word. It was an unpleasant shock.
“Isaacson, he said the name was.”
The ‘private banker’! So the fellow meant business. This was going to be serious.
“Silly ass”, he said, as casually as possible. “Just because I forgot to send him a cheque and have been away for a few days.”
Mrs. Drage was not deceived.
“I don’t want no brokers’ men in this house”, she said crisply. “Gives it a bad name, it does. You’ve been prompt with your rent; I’ll say that, Mr. Hendel. And no trouble to speak of. But writs and brokers’ men I won’t have. That’s plain.”
“Of course not, of course not. I’ll see about it at once. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Drage.”
The landlady sniffed, hesitated, and weakened.
“Oh well; I’ll say no more now”, she said. “You’d better let Drage have those clothes to press quick, Mr. Hendel. All crumpled they are. And your ’at.”
Mrs. Drage was not only house-proud, but lodger-proud. It was one of her most valuable attributes.
But it was one thing to appease Mrs. Drage, another to pay Isaacson. He could, of course, sell some of his small remaining capital, but that meant loss of income and a further reduction in his standard of living. That would mean cheaper lodgings, with no valeting, which in its turn would result in loss of earning power; he must look tidy and well-dressed if he was to meet and play cards with rich young men. The ‘vicious circle’ of poverty and loss of earning capacity would turn very quickly against him if he descended any lower in his standard of living.
What was he to do, then? A successful flutter was what he needed. Poker was the most paying proposition; skill and experience counted for more there than in any other game, and it was easier to get out or to keep one’s losses down if luck was against one. But to play high enough to win the substantial sum he needed he must at least be prepared to lose; he must have money; a stumer cheque would be absolutely fatal to him—to his reputation. And money, on an adequate scale, he had not got. He had often been in that position before and his way out had been to borrow from Isaacson and pay him back when he won. That was how the trouble had started; at first he had been able to pay back promptly, then luck had gone against him for a spell, rates of interest were high, and he had never been able to catch up—in fact he had been getting steadily further behind. Isaacson had soon realized what was happening, and that no doubt was the reason for this offensive line that the fellow was taking now.
There were other money-lenders, of course, but the blighters knew too much; they seemed to have an information bureau, something like Scotland Yard. Possibly they pooled their information; anyhow it was ten to one against his getting any sort of terms now that Isaacson had got his knife into him. He must find some means of squaring up with Isaacson and starting afresh. But how? There he was back at the beginning again. Better go and talk it over with Jill; she had brains and might be able to put him on to something. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing that he wanted to talk to her about; it would only start her off about her own position again and she had been bad enough about that last week. Still, she was fond of him and hadn’t seen him for nearly a week and might be in a more reasonable and sympathetic frame of mind now. Better take her out to dinner; some place she liked going to, a bit better than the ordinary. At least he had enough ready cash for that and if she produced an idea it would be worth the money.
After changing out of the funeral clothes in which he had had to travel back from Cornwall, Eustace walked round to Jill’s rooms near Cambridge Circus. She called them ‘her flat’, but that was a euphemism. She had no maid of her own but, with two other actresses who occupied the same house, was dependent on the attentions of a landlady who lived in the basement. Eustace had been careful to keep on good terms with Mrs. Hollebone, had tipped her well and often and ‘spoken her fair’; indeed, on any other terms his affair with Jill would have been impossible, because Mrs. Drage absolutely refused to have any good-looking young woman in her house; long experience had taught her tha
t good-looking young women visiting a gentleman meant talk, and talk was bad for the reputation of her house. Fortunately it took all sorts of landladies to make a London world and Mrs. Hollebone ran her house on different lines; respectable of course, nothing casual or promiscuous or rowdy, but no questions asked if all was nice and ladylike.
So tonight Mrs. Hollebone greeted Eustace with a smile but a shake of the head.
“She’s out, I’m afraid, Mr. Hendel”, she said. “Been out a lot the last few days. ’T’s my believe she’s looking for a shop—round the agents, you know. I heard ’er talking to Miss Wilbraham—that’s my second floor—last night; talking about that new show of Lanberg’s at the Cosmopolitan. Miss Wilbr’m was going to an audition this morning and it’s my belief that Miss Paris was thinking of going along too. She’s not been back since she left this morning.”
This was bad news. It was only what might be expected after the way she had talked last week, but it was none the less of a blow for that. Eustace’s spirits sank lower than ever. What on earth was he going to do now? If Jill was taken on by Lanberg . . . quite apart from the fellow’s own reputation, the Cosmopolitan was London’s favourite trout-stream; every rotten fellow who wanted a girl went fishing in it.
“Not but what Miss Paris couldn’t do better than the Cosmo”, continued Mrs. Hollebone, evidently reading Eustace’s thoughts. “With her figure and legs, and sings a bit too, and personality, mind you; that’s what gets across, as I tells ’er myself. If she was me it’d be Cochrane and no one less, so I . . . why there she is!”
There was a sound of voices outside and a girl ran up the steps into the hall.
“H’llo, Big Boy; if it isn’t you!”
An expression that Eustace particularly detested, and only used by Jill in her more irritating moods.
“Hullo, Jill. I’ve just got back from Cornwall.”
“Well, I didn’t suppose you were still there. Holly darling, I shall be out to supper. We’re all going to the Réchauffée.”
“I came along to ask you to come out with me”, said Eustace doggedly.
“Bit late, aren’t you? I must go and tidy up.”
She moved to the staircase and ran lightly up it. Eustace followed, but more slowly.
On the first floor, the door of a sitting-room was open. It was an untidy room, over-furnished and full of photographs of impossibly lovely girls and dark-eyed men with thin moustaches. Eustace took no notice of it; the door of an inner room, evidently a bedroom, was open. He did not follow Jill in there; he was no stranger to it, but in her present mood Jill would bite his head off. He waited gloomily, listening to the snatches of light-comedy song that came through the door. Presently the girl reappeared, passing a comb through her thick cindered-blonde hair. Eustace felt his heart turn over. Well as he knew her he was always liable to be overwhelmed by her beauty and grace. Jill Paris was well into the thirties, but she had taken care of her complexion, and her figure was perfect. Her blue eyes were conventional, but she had had the intelligence not to mess about with her eyebrows, with the result that she looked less like a chorus-girl than a general description would lead one to expect. She had a short nose, with finely cut nostrils. Her mouth was her weak point; the most skilful use of a lipstick could not conceal the fact that it was thin.
“Jill, you’re lovely.”
“I know, dear; so Lanberg told me this morning.”
“Damn the fellow; you’re not going to that dolls-house?”
“I might. I’m going out to dinner now.”
“I wanted you to come to Valtano’s.”
The combing arm stopped. Jill looked at him quickly.
“Come into a fortune?”
“No, but I haven’t seen you for a week and I want to talk to you.”
The girl hesitated.
“Valtano talks to me”, she said. “And none too often. Think I’ll come. Mind if I bring Kitty Lovelace?”
“Of course I mind”, said Eustace with a grin. It would be all right now. Jill was hooked; greedy little devil, she couldn’t resist good food.
“Pig. Well, all right; I’ll tell Kit I’ve had a telephone message from a Viscount; she can’t resist them. She’s waiting outside, or talking to Holly. Hold hard while I get rid of her.”
It did not occur to Eustace, any more than it had to Jill Paris, to look at this arrangement from the point of view of the girl whose evening was being spoilt. They lived for themselves; not for other people. Eustace’s spirits, always volatile, had jumped up again at the prospect of a dinner with Jill. His week’s absence, coupled with the growing fear that he was going to lose her, had made him acutely conscious of what she meant to him. She was lovely, but he had known other lovely girls. She was sometimes rather common—he hated that ‘Big Boy’ stuff—but she was Jill and he loved her. As Mrs. Hollebone had said: ‘it’s personality that gets across’.
Dinner at Valtano’s was an unqualified success. The little Italian had the priceless gift of being able to make each customer feel that his or her presence in his restaurant gave him real personal pleasure. He advised them what to eat and what to drink with the delicious food he provided. Price was of no moment; it did not come within his consideration, and, to do Eustace justice, when he was giving anyone a good time he did not pay undue attention to price either.
Jill was in her best form, ‘bubbling’—as Jack Point so admirably expressed it—‘with wit and good humour’, affectionate, eager to hear what Eustace had been doing, and looking more lovely, the poor fellow thought, than ever. The thought of losing her . . . no, put it aside; sufficient unto the day should be the enjoyment thereof.
After dinner the couple returned to Jill’s flat in Pearl Street. Eustace had told Jill a good deal of the story of his cousins’ deaths, but he had had the sense not to talk about his ‘dreams’ in a crowded restaurant. Back in the little untidy sitting-room, lounging on a sofa with his arm round Jill, he let himself go. Not bothering to explain all the intricacies of the family tree or of the entailed estate, he told her that practically only one life stood between him and a fortune, to say nothing of a title. He did not know how much the fortune was, but it must be substantial; there were engineering works, coal mines, subsidiary companies, and without any doubt a large holding of gilt-edged stock; trust the hard-headed old north-countryman to tie his money up safe. Eustace had little conception of the effect of these last years of worldwide trade slump upon such businesses as Hendel Brothers; the Baron’s branch had always been stinking of money and he did not doubt that that was still substantially their happy lot.
Jill listened to the story with close attention. If Eustace had been looking at her face while he talked he might not have found its expression quite so attractive as usual. It was not only for good food that Jill Paris was greedy. But Eustace was not looking at anything except the future. Good food and wine had warmed his blood and sent his spirits soaring. In his present mood the Hendel fortune and title were as good as his; much wishing can obliterate almost any obstacle—in the wisher’s mind.
Jill Paris was of a more practical temperament. As soon as Eustace’s flood of optimistic narrative had subsided she wasted no time in counting unhatched chickens but came straight to the point.
“Who is this man that’s in the way? How old is he? Is he married?” she asked.
“David? Oh, he’s something over forty. He was a Guardsman but he retired after the war and doesn’t do anything now except hunt and shoot and that sort of thing. Pretty well off already, I should imagine, but nothing to what he’s going to be—if he succeeds.”
“But is he married? Why hasn’t he got any children—a man like that?”
“Oh, he has; he’s got a son—Desmond. He’s . . .”
“Got a son?! Then how can there be only one man in the way?”
Eustace felt the girl stiffen under his arm. He gave her a squeeze.
“Oh, you needn’t worry about Desmond”, he chuckled. “He’s as good as dead; can
cer of the spine, poor devil. He can’t have children and he’s not likely to live much longer. Rather a bore if he did succeed, of course, because it would mean another set of death duties, but it would be bound to come to me after him.”
Eustace was already beginning to forget some of the less convenient qualifications of Henry Carr’s explanation of the entail.
“But mightn’t there be more sons? Is his wife alive? Is she too old?”
“No, that’s the snag. She’s dead. David might marry again. There’ll be a lot of women after him, Henry Carr says.”
“Who’s Henry Carr?”
Eustace explained. His spirits had sunk a little, or at least sobered, at this reminder of awkward realities. The girl was silent for a time, for so long a time that Eustace gradually became aware of her silence and was beginning to wonder what was wrong when she sat up abruptly.
“Eustace”, she said sharply, twisting round so that she could look at his face; “d’you want to go on . . . with me, I mean?”
“My God, you know I do, Jill.”
His voice was thick; there was no doubting the sincerity of that answer.
“Then you’ve got to do something about it.”
“About what?”
“This cousin of yours—David. If you’re right about all this fortune, you’ll be mad if you let him marry again . . . and have children who’ll cut you out. You’re nearly on the rocks now; I know that as well as you do and I’m not going down with you. If you want me you’ve got to get this money.”
Eustace stared at her. His dark, rather handsome face was spoilt by the occasional weakness of his mouth, especially when he was taken by surprise, as he was now.
“But how can I? How can I stop him breeding? I can’t . . .”
“You can if you want to. Put something in his tea—or whatever he drinks.”
Eustace’s jaw dropped.
“You mean . . . kill him?”
“Of course I do.”
Eustace stared at her. It was only what he had thought himself, in the train and on the shore, but it sounded so much more terrible when spoken aloud, in this calm way—so much nearer to reality.