Maid In Waiting eotc-1

by John Galsworthy

  Dinny dropped the page as if it had stung her, and stood with a transfigured look on her face. Not the words she had been reading caused this change—she was hardly conscious of what they were. No! She had got an inspiration, and she could not think why she had not had it before! She ran downstairs to the telephone and rang up Fleur’s house.

  “Yes?” came Fleur’s voice.

  “I want Michael, Fleur; is he in?”

  “Yes. Michael—Dinny.”

  “Michael? Could you by any chance come round at once? It’s about Hubert’s diary. I’ve had a ‘hunch,’ but I’d rather not discuss it on the ‘phone. Or could I come to you?—You CAN come? Good! Fleur too, if she likes; or, if not, bring her wits.”

  Ten minutes later Michael arrived alone. Something in the quality of Dinny’s voice seemed to have infected him, for he wore an air of businesslike excitement. She took him into the alcove and sat down with him on a sofa under the parakeet’s cage.

  “Michael dear, it came to me suddenly: if we could get Hubert’s diary—about 15,000 words—printed at once, ready for publication, with a good title like ‘Betrayed’—or something—”

  “‘Deserted,’” said Michael.

  “Yes, ‘Deserted,’ and it could be shown to the Home Secretary as about to come out with a fighting preface, it might stop him from issuing a warrant. With that title and preface and a shove from the Press, it would make a real sensation, and be very nasty for him. We could get the Preface to pitch it strong about desertion of one’s kith and kin, and pusillanimity and truckling to the foreigner and all that. The Press would surely take it up on those lines.”

  Michael ruffled his hair.

  “It IS a hunch, Dinny; but there are several points: first, how to do it without making it blackmailish. If we can’t avoid that, then it’s no go. If Walter sniffs blackmail, he can’t possibly rise.”

  “But the whole point is to make him feel that if he issues the warrant he’s going to regret it.”

  “My child,” said Michael, blowing smoke at the parakeet, “it’s got to be much more subtle than that. You don’t know public men. The thing is to make them do of their own accord out of high motives what is for their own good. We must get Walter to do this from a low motive, and feel it to be a high one. That’s indispensable.”

  “Won’t it do if he says it’s a high one? I mean need he feel it?”

  “He must, at least by daylight. What he feels at three in the morning doesn’t matter. He’s no fool, you know. I believe,” and Michael rumpled his hair again, “that the only man who can work it after all is Bobbie Ferrar. He knows Walter upside down.”

  “Is he a nice man? Would he?”

  “Bobbie’s a sphinx, but he’s a perfectly good sphinx. And he’s in the know all round. He’s a sort of receiving station, hears everything naturally, so that we shouldn’t have to appear directly in any way.”

  “Isn’t the first thing, Michael, to get the diary printed, so that it looks ready to come out on the nail?”

  “Yes, but the Preface is the hub.”

  “How?”

  “What we want is that Walter should read the printed diary, and come to the conclusion from it that to issue the warrant will be damned hard luck on Hubert—as, of course, it will. In other words, we want to sop his private mind. After that, what I see Walter saying to himself is this: ‘Yes, hard luck on young Cherrell, hard luck, but the magistrate committed him, and the Bolivians are pressing, and he belongs to the classes; one must be careful not to give an impression of favouring privilege—’”

  “I think that’s so unfair,” interrupted Dinny, hotly. “Why should it be made harder for people just because they happen not to be Tom, Dick and Harry? I call it cowardly.”

  “Ah! Dinny, but we are cowardly in that sort of way. But as Walter was saying when you broke out: ‘One must not lightly stretch points. The little Countries look to us to treat them with special consideration.’”

  “But why?” began Dinny again: “That seems—”

  Michael held up his hand.

  “I know, Dinny, I know. And this seems to me the psychological moment when Bobbie, out of the blue as it were, might say: ‘By the way, there’s to be a preface. Someone showed it me. It takes the line that England is always being generous and just at the expense of her own subjects. It’s pretty hot stuff, Sir. The Press will love it. That lay: We can’t stand by our own people, is always popular. And you know’—Bobbie would continue—‘it has often seemed to me, Sir, that a strong man, like you, ought perhaps to do something about this impression that we can’t stand by our own people. It oughtn’t to be true, perhaps it isn’t true, but it exists and very strongly; and you, Sir, perhaps better than anyone, could redress the balance there. This particular case wouldn’t afford a bad chance at all of restoring confidence on that point. In itself it would be right, I think’—Bobbie would say—‘not to issue a warrant, because that scar, you know, was genuine, the shooting really WAS an act of self-defence; and it would certainly do the country good to feel that it could rely again on the authorities not to let our own people down.’ And there he would leave it. And Walter would feel, not that he was avoiding attack, but that he was boldly going to do what was good for the Country—indispensable, that, Dinny, in the case of public men.” And Michael rolled his eyes. “You see,” he went on, “Walter is quite up to realising, without admitting it, that the preface won’t appear if he doesn’t issue the warrant. And I daresay he’ll be frank with himself in the middle of the night; but if in his 6 p.m. mind he feels he’s doing the courageous thing in not issuing the warrant, then what he feels in his 3 a.m. mind won’t matter. See?”

  “You put it marvellously, Michael. But won’t he have to read the preface?”

  “I hope not, but I think it ought to be in Bobbie’s pocket, in case he has to fortify his line of approach. There are no flies on Bobbie, you know.”

  “But will Mr. Ferrar care enough to do all this?”

  “Yes,” said Michael, “on the whole, yes. My Dad once did him a good turn, and old Shropshire’s his uncle.”

  “And who could write that preface?”

  “I believe I could get old Blythe. They’re still afraid of him in our party, and when he likes he can make livers creep all right.”

  Dinny clasped her hands.

  “Do you think he will like?”

  “It depends on the diary.”

  “Then I think he will.”

  “May I read it before I turn it over to the printers?”

  “Of course! Only, Michael, Hubert doesn’t want the diary to come out.”

  “Well, that’s O.K. If it works with Walter and he doesn’t issue the warrant, it won’t be necessary; and if it doesn’t work, it won’t be necessary either, because the ‘fat will be in the fire,’ as old Forsyte used to say.”

  “Will the cost of printing be much?”

  “A few pounds—say twenty.”

  “I can manage that,” said Dinny; and her mind flew to the two gentlemen, for she was habitually hard up.

  “Oh! that’ll be all right, don’t worry!”

  “It’s my hunch, Michael, and I should like to pay for it. You’ve no idea how horrible it is to sit and do nothing, with Hubert in this danger! I have the feeling that if he’s once given up, he won’t have a dog’s chance.”

  “It’s ill prophesying,” said Michael, “where public men are concerned. People underrate them. They’re a lot more complicated than they’re supposed to be, and perhaps better principled; they’re certainly a lot shrewder. All the same, I believe this will click, if we can work old Blythe and Bobbie Ferrar properly. I’ll go for Blythe, and set Bart on to Bobbie. In the meantime this shall be printed,” and he took up the diary. “Good-bye, Dinny dear, and don’t worry more than you can help.”

  Dinny kissed him, and he went.

  That evening about ten he rang her up.

  “I’ve read it, Dinny. Walter must be pretty hard-boiled if it do
esn’t fetch him. He won’t go to sleep over it, anyway, like the other bloke; he’s a conscientious card, whatever else he is. After all this is a sort of reprieve case, and he’s bound to recognise its seriousness. Once in his hands, he’s got to go through with this diary, and it’s moving stuff, apart from the light on the incident itself. So buck up!”

  Dinny said: “Bless you!” fervently, and went to bed lighter at heart than she had been for two days.

  CHAPTER 35

  In the slow long days, and they seemed many, which followed, Dinny remained at Mount Street, to be in command of any situation that might arise. Her chief difficulty lay in keeping people ignorant of Jean’s machinations. She seemed to succeed with all except Sir Lawrence, who, raising his eyebrow, said cryptically:

  “Pour une gaillarde, c’est une gaillarde!”

  And, at Dinny’s limpid glance, added: “Quite the Botticellian virgin! Would you like to meet Bobbie Ferrar? We’re lunching together underground at Dumourieux’s in Druary Lane, mainly on mushrooms.”

  Dinny had been building so on Bobbie Ferrar that the sight of him gave her a shock, he had so complete an air of caring for none of those things. With his carnation, bass drawl, broad bland face, and slight drop of the underjaw, he did not inspire her.

  “Have you a passion for mushrooms, Miss Cherrell?” he said.

  “Not French mushrooms.”

  “No?”

  “Bobbie,” said Sir Lawrence, looking from one to the other, “no one would take you for one of the deepest cards in Europe. You are going to tell us that you won’t guarantee to call Walter a strong man, when you talk about the preface?”

  Several of Bobbie Ferrar’s even teeth became visible.

  “I have no influence with Walter.”

  “Then who has?”

  “No one. Except—”

  “Yes?”

  “Walter.”

  Before she could check herself, Dinny said:

  “You do understand, Mr. Ferrar, that this is practically death for my brother and frightful for all of us?”

  Bobbie Ferrar looked at her flushed face without speaking. He seemed, indeed, to admit or promise nothing all through that lunch, but when they got up and Sir Lawrence was paying his bill, he said to her:

  “Miss Cherrell, when I go to see Walter about this, would you like to go with me? I could arrange for you to be in the background.”

  “I should like it terribly.”

  “Between ourselves, then. I’ll let you know.”

  Dinny clasped her hands and smiled at him.

  “Rum chap!” said Sir Lawrence, as they walked away: “Lots of heart, really. Simply can’t bear people being hanged. Goes to all the murder trials. Hates prisons like poison. You’d never think it.”

  “No,” said Dinny, dreamily.

  “Bobbie,” continued Sir Lawrence, “is capable of being Private Secretary to a Cheka, without their ever suspecting that he’s itching to boil them in oil the whole time. He’s unique. The diary’s in print, Dinny, and old Blythe’s writing that preface. Walter will be back on Thursday. Have you seen Hubert yet?”

  “No, but I’m to go with Dad tomorrow.”

  “I’ve refrained from pumping you, but those young Tasburghs are up to something, aren’t they? I happen to know young Tasburgh isn’t with his ship.”

  “Not?”

  “Perfect innocence!” murmured Sir Lawrence. “Well, my dear, neither nods nor winks are necessary; but I hope to goodness they won’t strike before peaceful measures have been exhausted.”

  “Oh! surely they wouldn’t!”

  “They’re the kind of young person who still make one believe in history. Has it ever struck you, Dinny, that history is nothing but the story of how people have taken things into their own hands, and got themselves or others into and out of trouble over it? They can cook at that place, can’t they? I shall take your aunt there some day when she’s thin enough.”

  And Dinny perceived that the dangers of cross-examination were over.

  Her father called for her and they set out for the prison the following afternoon of a windy day charged with the rough melancholy of November. The sight of the building made her feel like a dog about to howl. The Governor, who was an army man, received them with great courtesy and the special deference of one to another of higher rank in his own profession. He made no secret of his sympathy with them over Hubert’s position, and gave them more than the time limit allowed by the regulations.

  Hubert came in smiling. Dinny felt that if she had been alone he might have shown some of his real feelings, but that in front of his father he was determined to treat the whole thing as just a bad joke. The General, who had been grim and silent all the way there, became at once matter-of-fact and as if ironically amused. Dinny could not help thinking how almost absurdly alike, allowing for age, they were in looks and in manner. There was that in both of them which would never quite grow up, or rather which had grown up in early youth and would never again budge. Neither, from beginning to end of that half-hour, touched on feeling. The whole interview was a great strain, and so far as intimate talk was concerned, might never have taken place. According to Hubert, everything in his life there was perfectly all right, and he wasn’t worrying at all; according to the General, it was only a matter of days now, and the coverts were waiting to be shot. He had a good deal to say about India, and the unrest on the frontier. Only when they were shaking hands at the end did their faces change at all, and then only to the simple gravity of a very straight look into each other’s eyes. Dinny followed with a hand-clasp and a kiss behind her father’s back.

  “Jean?” asked Hubert, very low.

  “Quite all right, sent her dear love. Nothing to worry about, she says.”

  The quiver of his lips hardened into a little smile, he squeezed her hand, and turned away.

  In the gateway the doorkeeper and two warders saluted them respectfully. They got into their cab, and not one word did they say the whole way home. The thing was a nightmare from which they would awaken some day, perhaps.

  Practically the only comfort of those days of waiting was derived by Dinny from Aunt Em, whose inherent incoherence continually diverted thought from logical direction. The antiseptic value, indeed, of incoherence became increasingly apparent as day by day anxiety increased. Her aunt was genuinely worried by Hubert’s position, but her mind was too plural to dwell on it to the point of actual suffering. On the fifth of November she called Dinny to the drawing-room window to look at some boys dragging a guy down a Mount Street desolate in wind and lamplight.

  “The rector’s workin’ on that,” she said; “there was a Tasburgh who wasn’t hanged, or beheaded, or whatever they did with them, and he’s tryin’ to prove that he ought to have been; he sold some plate or somethin’ to buy the gunpowder, and his sister married Catesby, or one of the others. Your father and I and Wilmet, Dinny, used to make a guy of our governess; she had very large feet, Robbins. Children are so unfeelin’. Did you?”

  “Did I what, Aunt Em?”

  “Make guys?”

  “No.”

  “We used to go out singin’ carols, too, with our faces blacked. Wilmet was the corker. Such a tall child, with legs that went down straight like sticks wide apart from the beginning, you know—angels have them. It’s all rather gone out. I do think there ought to be somethin’ done about it. Gibbets, too. We had one. We hung a kitten from it. We drowned it first—not we—the staff.”

  “Horrible, Aunt Em!”

  “Yes; but not really. Your father brought us up as Red Indians. It was nice for him, then he could do things to us and we couldn’t cry. Did Hubert?”

  “Oh! no. Hubert only brought himself up as a Red Indian.”

  “That was your mother; she’s a gentle creature, Dinny. Our mother was a Hungerford. You must have noticed.”

  “I don’t remember Grandmother.”

  “She died before you were born. That was Spain. The germs there are ext
ra special. So did your grandfather. I was thirty-five. He had very good manners. They did, you know, then. Only sixty. Claret and piquet, and a funny little beard thing. You’ve seen them, Dinny?”

  “Imperials?”

  “Yes, diplomatic. They wear them now when they write those articles on foreign affairs. I like goats myself, though they butt you rather.”

  “Their smell, Aunt Em!”

  “Penetratin’. Has Jean written to you lately?”

  In Dinny’s bag was a letter just received. “No,” she said. The habit was growing on her.

  “This hidin’ away is weak-minded. Still, it WAS her honeymoon.”

  Her Aunt had evidently not been made a recipient of Sir Lawrence’s suspicions.

  Upstairs she read the letter again before tearing it up.

  “Poste restante, Brussels.

  “DEAR DINNY,

  “All goes on for the best here and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. They say I take to it like a duck to water. There’s nothing much to choose now between Alan and me, except that I have the better hands. Thanks awfully for your letters. Terribly glad of the diary stunt, I think it may quite possibly work the oracle. Still we can’t afford not to be ready for the worst. You don’t say whether Fleur’s having any luck. By the way, could you get me a Turkish conversation book, the pronouncing kind? I expect your Uncle Adrian could tell you where to get it. I can’t lay hands on one here. Alan sends you his love. Same from me. Keep us informed by wire if necessary.

  “Your affte

  “JEAN.”

  A Turkish conversation book! This first indication of how their minds were working set Dinny’s working too. She remembered Hubert having told her that he had saved the life of a Turkish officer at the end of the war, and had kept up with him ever since. So Turkey was to be the asylum if—! But the whole plan was desperate. Surely it would not, must not come to that! But she went down to the Museum the next morning.