“Well, I don’t. And I want to. You can begin at the beginning and go right through to the end.”
“Is that what you asked me to lunch for?” said Winifred with unnerving perspicacity.
“That, and the pleasure of your company,” said James, who had been quite nicely brought up, though he didn’t always remember it.
Miss Lushington gave her odd short laugh.
“All right, then we know where we are. This is very good cocoa. You shall have your quid pro quo. What do you know already?”
“That he’s a famous novelist with a famous profile—that he wrote a book called Links in the Chain—that I tried to read it and stuck half way.”
“Very stupid of you, my dear boy, because it really is a great book. Seven years ago, and it’s still selling. Well, if that’s all you know, I can certainly add to it.” She put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Links in the Chain came out seven years ago when he was about thirty. He had already published a book of travel which was moderately successful, and two novels which were not. Then Links in the Chain came out, and it had the most colossal boom—the sort of boom there’s no accounting for. Mind you, it’s a great book. I read it again the other day, and it’s great. But I don’t know whether it would have had quite such a boom if Ambrose Sylvester had been a plain, scraggy young man instead of the very picturesque person he was and is. He photographs beautifully, and the profile took the public eye.” She paused and refreshed herself with a sip of cocoa.
“Well?” said James.
“Well, his second book was very good too—Janet Sefton. It went very big. Not quite so big as Links—second books very seldom do—but quite big enough. And he wrote about a dozen absolutely first-class short stories. They are bound up under the title of Primrose Hill. And then he stopped. Let me see … Links was seven years ago—and Janet Sefton six—and Primrose Hill came out in nineteen-thirty-one. And that’s all.”
“He doesn’t write now?”
“He hasn’t published anything since Primrose Hill.”
“Why?”
Winifred sat up, called a waitress, and ordered peaches and cream and a slice of fruit cake—“and another cup of cocoa please.” Then she turned back to James and said as if there had been no interruption,
“He can’t.”
“Why can’t he?”
She shrugged her square shoulders.
“Does he say he can’t?” pursued James.
“Of course he doesn’t. He says he’s working on his magnum opus. And can’t be hurried. Mustn’t hurry genius, you know.”
“That all rot!” said James. “What’s behind it?”
“What I said at first—he can’t write now.” She paused, looked brightly through the yellow-rimmed glasses, and added, “If he ever could.”
“And what do you mean by that?” said James.
“I don’t want to get run in for libel,” said Miss Lushington, cutting up a peach very small and putting sugar on it.
“Be a sport, Winifred!”
The fear of figuring in a libel case is no real deterrent to women. They are much braver than men.
“All right, but you mustn’t quote me. Besides I don’t know anything. It’s only putting two and two together, and what Leslie Merrivale said.”
“Well?”
“Well, Leslie always did say that—no, I really don’t think I’d better.”
“Don’t put any names to it, but tell me what they said.”
Winifred brightened.
“Yes, I might do that. Well, what they said was that Ambrose hadn’t written those books at all—he’d pinched them. And Leslie said he’d pinched them from her cousin Tim Merrivale, because he was Ambrose Sylvester’s friend and they shared rooms and did everything together. And she says she knows that Tim had written two novels and a lot of short stories before he died, and nothing was ever heard of them. So it looks rather like it, because Links in the Chain came out six months later. And I’ll tell you something only a few people know,” said Winifred, warming to her indiscretion. “And I only know it because Poole who reads for Ambrose Sylvester’s publishers is a great friend of Fanny Rivers, and he told Fanny, and Fanny told me.”
“Yes?” said James.
“Well, he said they kept pressing Ambrose for another book, and he kept putting them off. And they went on pressing, and at last he sent one in, and it was so bad they simply couldn’t publish it. Poole told Fanny he’d never read such stuff. He said it would have smashed any reputation. So it does look rather as if Leslie was right.”
“I don’t know—people do dry up like that sometimes. Don’t they?”
“Oh, yes, they do.” Her tone was a doubtful one. She ate her peaches.
“Well, that’s that,” said James. “Next instalment please, Winifred. Marriage—domestic relations—money affairs—”
“Oh, he’s married,” said Miss Lushington. She took a deep draught of cocoa. “He’s married all right. I’ve interviewed her.”
“All right, spill the beans.”
“Well, her parents were Belgian refugees, and her name was Hildegarde Niemeyer. I believe her mother was half German. I think there was some talk about them on that account, and I don’t think they were exactly pressed to stay over here. They seem to have gone to South America with Hildegarde. Anyhow, that’s where Ambrose Sylvester met her. The parents were dead by then, and she was said to have a large fortune, but I’m sure I don’t know where it came from, because Agnes Carey knew the Niemeyers, and she says they never had a farthing. Anyhow, there must have been a good deal of money somewhere, because I happen to know that Ambrose was in fairly low water that year, and there’s never been any sign of it since.”
“He must have made pots of money out of his books—or didn’t he?”
“Quite a lot. In fact, James, what you and I would call a fortune. But he’s got fairly expensive tastes, and he bought a big place, and big places take a lot of keeping up.”
“Where is it?” said James.
“In Sussex. Warnley Place it’s called.”
James sat up.
“Warnley?” He was remembering coming over Warnley Heath in a fog, and losing his way, and finding Sally.
“Yes. Do you know it?”
“I’ve been over Warnley Heath.”
“Well, it would be thereabouts. I think I’ll have another piece of cake just to finish my cocoa.”
James ordered the cake.
“Go on,” he said. “What’s she like, Mrs. Sylvester? You interviewed her.”
“A very vivid personality. The sort of woman who never lets anyone find out how plain she is. Very smart, very up-to-date, very fine eyes, painted like a poster. The day I interviewed her she was wearing that hideous mustard shade which French women love, and she was made up a sort of Red Indian colour, with bright orange lips and orange finger-nails.”
“It sounds beastly.”
“A bit dazzling, but I’m bound to say it was effective. It so to speak hit you in the eye.”
“When I’m hit in the eye I want to hit back. Go on—tell me everything you know.”
“Well, I don’t know very much—only what she told me herself. The usual blurb, you know. There was an enormous photograph of Ambrose at her elbow, and she said she adored him, and there was a Peke in her lap, and she said she adored the Peke, and there was an enormous conservatory opening out of the drawing-room, and she said she adored her flowers and she was quite sure she would die if she had to do without them. And I said there seemed to be plenty to be going on with, and she said, ‘How clever!’ and told me she adored clever people.”
“Is she as stupid as that sounds.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Miss Lushington. “Some people are of course, but not Mrs. Ambrose Sylvester. I thought it was make-up, like the lips and nails, and I thought she was putting it on a bit thick, and I didn’t feel flattered.”
“I see,” said James.
“There’
s a cousin who hangs about—a Niemeyer. There’s some talk about them, but of course there’s always some talk about everyone. And there’s a ward of Ambrose’s, a girl called Sally Something-or-other—oh, yes, West—Sally West—but I don’t think there’s any talk about her.”
“Thanks,” said James.
XVII
There was a letter waiting on the mat when James got back to the Mews that evening. He hadn’t ever seen the writing before, and his heart gave a jump, because he guessed at once that it was from Sally.
He ran upstairs, switched on the light, and sat down on the edge of the trap to read the letter. It was from Sally, and it began: “Oh, James—” And then there was a blot, and James’s heart gave another thump, but not such a pleasant one, because the blot had every appearance of having been made by a tear, and why should Sally cry if everything was all right? And what sort of letter was it that began “Oh, James”? He went past the blot and found out.
“Oh, James, we mustn’t—I know we mustn’t really, and then you kissed me, and everything felt different, and I thought we could”—there were three little blots here very close together—“but we can’t, and we mustn’t see each other again, and you mustn’t write. It can’t go on being so bad when we’ve only seen each other three times. You’ll meet someone ever so much nicer than me. I ought to have told you I was practically engaged to Henri Niemeyer. Goodbye. You mustn’t write.” There was a very large blot, and the signature was smudged and ran away off the paper as if she hadn’t been able to see what she was doing.
James was so angry that he would probably have shaken her if she had been there. Engaged to Henri Niemeyer, was she? The cousin who hung about after Hildegarde Sylvester. No, she didn’t say she was engaged, she said she was practically engaged. How could you be practically engaged? Girls just flung words about without stopping to think what they meant. She was either going to marry the man or she wasn’t.
She wasn’t.
James felt perfectly sure of that. He intended to make it his business to see that she didn’t marry anyone except James Elliot. It was all fixed and settled. Letters like this were just a waste of time.
He considered the position. In his present job at Atwells he couldn’t very well marry. He might stay on with them on a different footing if he decided to put his Aunt Millie’s legacy into the business. There might be a branch managership going. Or he might set upon his own. He wanted to discuss these things with Sally in a sensible, comfortable way instead of replying to insensate letters in which she told him that she was practically engaged to someone else.
He went downstairs and called up his cousin Daphne. The footman whom he disliked answered the telephone and said languidly that Madam was in, but Madam had given orders that she was not to be disturbed.
James grinned. That meant that Daphne was lying down and reading a novel. He said,
“That’s all right—it’s urgent. Put me through to her room please. Mr. Elliot speaking.”
“Madam gave orders—”
“Kindly tell her that Mr. Elliot wishes to speak to her urgently.”
There was a pause, and after some time a click. And then Daphne’s voice, rather peeved.
“James, is it you? Because really—”
“Of course it is. Look here, Daphne—”
“Darling, I do really think I might be allowed a little rest! I was up till four last night, and—”
“Dry up, Daph, and listen! I want you to help me.”
“Darling, I don’t see how I can if I have a nervous breakdown.”
“You won’t. Look here, what I want you to do is this. If I write to Sally and send the letter to you—”
“If you what?”
“Daph, you’re not listening. If I write a letter to Sally—”
“Sally who?”
“Sally West, of course.”
“Why don’t you ring her up? I mean, darling, really—I mean, why ring me if you want Sally?”
James gritted his teeth, and he hoped Daphne could hear him doing it.
“I don’t want to ring her up, I want to write to her.”
Daphne giggled.
“All right, why don’t you? I don’t mind, and I don’t suppose she will. It’s 18 Messenger Square, if you want the address. She’s Ambrose Sylvester’s ward, but I suppose you know that.”
“Her brother was my fag at Wellington.”
Daphne yawned.
“Yes—she said he was. Is that all, because—”
“No, it isn’t. I said I wanted you to help me. If I write to Sally, can you give her the letter without anyone knowing?”
“Darling, how thrilling! Are you proposing to her? And why so hush-hush if you are? She probably won’t have you—she’s supposed to be engaged to Henri Niemeyer.”
James said in a tone of concentrated fury,
“Daphne, will you dry up and listen! I want Sally to get this letter, but I don’t want anyone to know about it. She won’t let me write to her, but she’s got to have this letter. I want her to have it as soon as possible. I can’t tell you any more than that. The question is, can you do it?”
“Darling, of course. It sounds too romantic. She’s practically sure to be at Marcella’s tonight.”
“Well, mind you don’t muff it,” said James ungratefully. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Trust your Daffy.”
“All right,” said James, “I’ll come round with the letter. I’ll put it inside one addressed to you. And mind you don’t give the show away.”
He went back to the studio and wrote to Sally. There was no beginning to the letter. He wrote:
“I do wish you wouldn’t send me letters which don’t mean anything and are simply a waste of time. And I do wish you wouldn’t write letters that make you cry. I don’t mind telling you that your letter made me very angry. The bit about your being practically engaged to Niemeyer doesn’t seem to me to mean anything at all. You are not going to marry him, so what is the sense of saying you are practically engaged to him? It just doesn’t mean anything. Daphne is going to give you this, so you needn’t be afraid that anyone will know.
“Now I want to tell you about myself, because if we are thinking of getting married, I should like you to know where I stand. I told you my father was in the army. He is at present commanding his regiment, and will probably retire next year. He has about five hundred a year private means, but he won’t expect to give us an allowance, as he and my mother will want it all, but I suppose it will come to me some day, though not for a very long time, I hope. I should like you to meet my mother. She is very easy to get on with. Last year my great-aunt Millicent Elliot left me two thousand pounds. I have been considering whether I would put it into Atwells’ business—that is the motor firm I am working for. They might put me in as manager of a new branch. I should try to get a month’s holiday, as I didn’t get one at all last year and I should be putting money into the show—that is to say if I did decide to put it in. I don’t know what you feel about this, but I would like you to think it over, and then we can have a talk. If you tell Daphne when and where you will meet me, she will pass it on. She’s quite safe really. She talks a lot, but she doesn’t give much away.
“Don’t talk any more nonsense about our not seeing each other. You make me want to smash someone.
“You’re not to cry any more.
“I love you very much.
“When you write your next letter tell me that you love me.
“James.”
He put this letter in an envelope and addressed it to Miss Sally West, then he put it inside a larger envelope which he addressed to Mrs. Strickland, and then he walked round to the Stricklands’ house and gave the letter to the supercilious footman.
XVIII
When James arrived at Atwells next morning he was greeted by Miss Callender in a manner which immediately suggested that there had been happenings, and that she desired nothing better than to impart them. She wore an air
of importance just tinged with melancholy. It was such an air as would befit a person of decorum who has suddenly been bereft of a wealthy relative and finds himself down for a substantial legacy.
James came into the little office, made some routine enquiry, and waited to see what would happen.
“No, they haven’t written,” said Miss Callender. “They always take longer than anyone else. Oh, Mr. Elliot, I’ve broken it off with Lenny—last night.”
“Much better than going on with it if you’re not sure,” said James, feeling stubbornly sure that he was going to marry Sally and that Sally was going to marry him.
Miss Callender heaved a dutiful sigh.
“That’s just what Mother said. And I’m sure I can’t be too thankful, because really, Mr. Elliot, you’ve no idea how he went on—last night, I mean. And in front of his mother too part of the time, and she didn’t say anything, but she sat there pursing her lips and knitting a black shawl with a purple stripe at the edge. And all at once I saw just how it was going to be for hundreds and hundreds of evenings, Mrs. Rowbotham knitting black shawls and Lenny being jealous if I didn’t want to knit them too, and I said, ‘That’s enough, Mr. Rowbotham—there’s no need to say another word, because we’re not engaged any longer, and what I do and what I don’t do is no concern of yours,’ and I took off his ring and put it down on one of the tidies Mrs. Rowbotham made the year she was married. She’s got the whole room full of tidies, and very single thing has to be put down on one of them, so I put the ring there, and I said, ‘Goodbye, Lenny,’ and I ran out quick, because I didn’t want them to see me cry. Only when I got outside I didn’t want to cry any more, and besides, it wouldn’t have done, because Bert Simpson happened to come along, and he asked if he could see me home, so I said yes, but we went to the pictures instead. And oh, Mr. Elliot, you can’t think what a weight off my mind it was to feel that I could go out with Bert—he’s ever such a nice boy and he’s always wanted to be friends—and that we could enjoy ourselves, and no business of Lenny’s and no scenes afterwards. It just brought it home to me what an escape I’d had.”
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