Knock Four Times

by Margaret Irwin

  “Is he coming in here? “asked Dicky.

  But Colonel Belamy was merely walking up and down the study as though he were on sentry-go.

  “Very agitating for us. Does he often do that?”

  “It isn’t you that matters most. Something worse has happened.”

  And she told him about the bowl, though she kindly forbore to tell him that that and not his crimes had been the cause of her agony.

  “But oh, Dicky, I can hardly believe I did it. It isn’t a bit like me, I who have never done anything but just keep quiet and let things drift along, and now I’ve done this.”

  “Of course it’s like you. Didn’t you break something parental the first night you came to Rainbow Road and knocked four times for a man you didn’t know?”

  “Yes ; but I’d never done anything like that before either.”

  “You are always doing things you’ve never done before. That is your charm. Now with Leila, and I bet it’s the same with Iris, I should know with mathematical certainty what their next daring impulse will be. They won’t learn that people who are persistently surprising never surprise. But you are the courageous coward, the ingenuous woman of the world, the decorous dare-devil.”

  “What lovely things you say to me! No one has ever seen me as interesting as that. Perhaps I’ve never been as interesting with anyone else.”

  “Oh, let us,” cried Dicky,” always see each other as interesting as we can be.”

  He laughed, his eyes shone, he irradiated life, perhaps created it, for something not there before had sprung up in the heavy dining-room among the solemn and self-righteous beauties of silver and cut glass.

  At their last meeting he had heedlessly swaggered beside her—it was not the same person. Or else she was not.

  “Dicky, I’ve been a fool. I know now.”

  “When did you know?”

  “When you kissed me.”

  He repeated the source of her knowledge, then became stern and rigid, frowning over the top of her head at the wall which concealed Colonel Belamy.

  “You must, of course, fly the house,” he said. “For this evening at any rate. What is the point of telling him? Let him find it out.”

  “That would be cruel.”

  “Not at all. It will give him a chance to slate everyone in turn instead of confining himself to one particular victim.”

  “He’ll do that, anyway. You don’t know Papa.”

  “I know that anything like a mystery will break the fall, so to speak. If you don’t like him to walk in on the broken pieces, let’s clear them up and hide them, then it will be ages before he notices the bowl isn’t there and when he does, he’ll think it’s been stolen ; he’ll have all the fun of ringing up the police, and so before you tell him you’ll have given him the varied and noble emotions of fear, hope, excitement, and pride-of-action-before-his-women-folk.

  “Look here, Celia, you go upstairs and make the quickest change you’ve ever done in your life while I make a parcel of the scraps, and then we’ll slip out of the house together and drop it in the river if we can manage to persuade the policeman that it isn’t a baby.”

  She was about to protest, but Colonel Belamy bumped into the table by the wall and she lost her nerve.

  “I’ve never known him go on like this before,” she said, trembling at the ferocity of his stride.

  It was as though he were angry beforehand, knowing by instinct what had happened to his possession, She opened the dining-room door and was nearly sick when it creaked. Dicky with a piece of brown paper from the sideboard cupboard was already collecting the pieces. “Silence and Speed,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Celia sped upstairs to make the quickest change of her life. Everything went wrong. She put on her frock back to front, she could not find a single pair of stockings that would go with it, she upset all the powder, and she washed in cold water because it was too early for the maid to have brought the hot water and she could not wait to run down to the bathroom. But in less than seven minutes she was creeping downstairs again, past the drawing-room door where Mrs. Belamy sat in ignorance, down to where the study door and the dining-room door stood side by side.

  Again she turned the handle, centimetre by centimetre, pushed back the door inch by inch, and Dicky slipped through with a brown paper parcel under his arm. Quickly and noiselessly they went to the hall door, both tried to open it together, and in the scuffle Dicky dropped the parcel. For the second time that evening Celia heard the crash of broken glass. So, as in a nightmare, the moment came round again, round and round again, and you knew it would continue to happen for ever.

  “Quick, bolt,” said Dicky, snatching up the parcel.

  But the study door had already opened and Colonel Belamy stood staring at them.

  Chapter XVIII

  There you are,” said Dicky in a pleasantly triumphant voice as though he were a conjurer and Colonel Belamy a rabbit. He held open the hall door for her, but Celia could not go through it while her father stood and stared.

  He stood leaning a little forward, which was unusual in him, his grey eyes were duller than their wont, either there was a change in him or else she suddenly saw how old he had grown. He had been so much younger than Uncle Charles but he had caught him up at last and gone beyond, for Charles, though eight years older at his death than Henry was now, had never shown the fatigue and isolation of age as did that grey, stooping figure in the doorway.

  It would make no difference in those hostile eyes that they were young, that a moment since they had been desperately happy and were wanting desperately to be so again. That moment which had been eternal was now impossible. Celia saw it disappear behind her father’s head, saw the dining-room as it really was for all their kisses, its majestic solidity unperturbed by her futile attempt to wreck it; remembered that Dicky was a dago, a penniless adventurer, and a boy younger than herself ; knew that it was not merely a question of going with him to Gordon for dinner, but of linking her life to his for good.

  She had been mad, the world revolved about her, grey now not golden, seen with her father’s eyes as they stared dully at Dicky from that massive and protruding head.

  She waited for him to ask what was the crash of broken glass and replied instead to a question as to where she was going.

  “To dinner with a Mr. Gordon,” and moved towards the door murmuring, “Good night, Papa.” The table at the Ivy hung in the air only just ahead of her. Could she reach it?

  There was an astonished sound behind her, she turned and saw Mrs. Belamy at the top of the stairs ; she heard the same question as her father’s and gave the same answer.

  “You were going out to dinner without letting anyone know?”

  “Treating the house exactly like an hotel,” came the bass below, but monotonous, without conviction. He was not putting his heart into this.

  “Are you mad, Celia?” from above.

  Was she mad? She did not know. She could not explain now about the bowl, the thought of its fragments under Dicky’s arm made her feel sick and empty, and what must they think of that incongruously lumpy parcel? That he was carrying his boots about with him? It was terribly unfortunate. She began to mumble something about being late, she had meant to tell the maids but it had all been such a rush. Mrs. Belamy descended the stairs a little way and said : “I think you were brought to our house once for a dance, Mr. Ah——?” and the table at the Ivy floated away through the air, inaccessibly remote.

  Colonel Belamy raised his head, snuffing battle. Ten years fell off his shoulders together with his air of morose dejection, for here was something to prove himself alive.

  “Dictripoulyos,” said Dicky.

  Familiar voices echoed in the minds of three people present.

  “And his name!”

  “What a name!”

  “But his name!”

  In accompaniment to these shrill and derisive cries there rose a chorus of accusations, dim now and indistinguishable, of a nameless
nature, designated not so much by words as by shrugs and wry smiles and evasive phrases such as “rather peculiar,” and “a little curious,” and” really I don’t know, but.” These furtive and obscure furies now floated round Dicky’s head, gibing and sniggering at him. As if conscious of their presence, he turned sharply back to the door and pulled it wide for Celia.

  “Come back, Celia,” roared Colonel Belamy.

  “Don’t,” whispered Dicky, but Celia waited.

  “Where are you going with this young man?”

  “I’ve told you, Papa, to Mr. Gordon’s dinner party at the Ivy.”

  “At this hour! “said Mrs. Belamy faintly, more overcome it seemed by the thought of an unduly early dinner than by any other irregularity of the evening.

  “I have not heard of Mr. Gordon,” said Colonel Belamy. “Is he a friend of Mr. Dick—Ὄ?”

  “Yes, sir, and an editor,” but Dicky was not allowed to impress Colonel Belamy with the full list of Gordon’s achievements.

  “Understand, Celia, that I will not have you going with this young man to his friends’ dinner parties.”

  “But, Papa, I met Mr. Gordon weeks ago and it was arranged then.”

  “You can tell me about that when Mr. Di—when this young man has left.”

  At Dicky’s protesting movement, something clanked and crackled under his arm.

  “It’s no good,” muttered Celia to him, paralysed at the guilty noise so that Colonel Belamy, seeing himself faced with success, became twice as indignant.

  Dicky’s voice glided into the heavy air as smoothly as a fish through a ruffled pond.

  “I think I should let you know,” he said, “that I intend to try to persuade Celia to marry me.”

  So they were right, after all. That moment in the dining-room was quite impossible. If Dicky could choose this absurd, this unnecessary, this preposterously flamboyant occasion to announce his intention, then he could be nothing to do with her.

  “Really, I don’t think——” she began, and checked herself on hearing her mother say the same words in almost the same voice.

  Colonel Belamy did not wait for what his wife did not think. He told the young man his opinion of him and his last remark in pleased and incisive tones, so that Celia at once understood why Dicky had done it. He had been ignored, and there he was in his new suit on his way to Gordon’s dinner, on the eve of success, and of course he wanted to show he was someone, that they must deal with him direct, not just suppose he would go like an errand-boy who had brought a parcel. It was a dreadful way to call attention to himself, it was always dreadful to call attention to oneself ; but what was Papa doing with those heavily polished sarcasms? “Showing off,” decided Celia with the cruelty of Goneril, “that’s all it is.”

  Dicky knew that she had come round to him again, he did not care if he were a mountebank, he had drawn the Colonel’s fire on to himself and he was the master of the situation.

  There was Celia, shimmering like a pearl inside her cloak, fluid and reflective as water, seeing everything that everybody thought, afraid of her father, anxious for her mother, and he would pull her away from them both, conquer them in front of her and carry her off. Busily he prepared his defence, taking all the Colonel’s points on his shield, but at the first gap Mrs. Belamy was there before him.

  “Celia, you cannot possibly mean——”

  “No, Mamma, we hadn’t even considered it. All I wanted was not to break an engagement for dinner to-night.”

  “Impossible,” said Colonel Belamy.

  “Even you, Celia,” came the treble echo, “can see that it is impossible now.”

  Yes, she supposed it was. What a mess Dicky had made of it. Whatever you thought about it, he had rushed in with that idiotic announcement and spoilt everything.

  “Celia!” he cried, amazed. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “It’s no good now, Dicky, I can’t.”

  She faded before his eyes. She was no longer a pearl; she was shrivelled, chilled by centuries of cold storage.

  “And why not? Has Colonel Belamy so convinced you of my iniquity?”

  “You know he hasn’t. But it’s no good, Dicky.”

  “Come away, dear,” said her mother.

  “Yes, go along upstairs,” came the deeper echo.

  “You are nothing but an echo yourself,” said Dicky to Celia. “Nothing, and I thought you were alive, perhaps it was only because for a little time you echoed me.”

  “Oh, Dicky, do go now.”

  “Yes, I’m going.” But he would get in his answers to Colonel Belamy. “I’m going because I’m a foreigner as all the English have been at one time or another. At least I can claim to have become naturalized quicker than your Norman-French ancestors.

  “You also accused me, sir, of being young, but this defect is one that some, I think, would be glad to share again with me.

  “Your only charge that I protest against is that of poverty, since I shall shortly be earning a yearly income of five thousand eight hundred and forty guineas.”

  “Of what?” exclaimed Colonel Belamy, startled by this unusual sum out of his victorious endurance of the fellow’s tub-thumping speech. Mrs. Belamy heard nothing but a creak on the kitchen stairs. If the door at the top were not closed, the servants were sure to be listening.

  “Don’t, Dicky,” whispered Celia, but it was too late, there he was waving that cheque at her father.

  “Eight guineas, sir, is what I get for two hours’ work.”

  “And how many have you had of them?”

  There was a brief pause.

  “Exactly. I thought so. And so it is on a capital of eight guineas that you propose to marry my daughter.”

  “Hush, Henry, the stairs,” came an agonized whisper from his wife.

  “I wish you would speak out. What do you mean by the stairs?”

  “He hasn’t proposed,” from Celia. “Dicky, do clear out.”

  Dicky turned a look of hatred on her and deliberately let his parcel slide to the ground.

  The moment had come round again, and staring into her father’s face she heard for the third time that evening the crash of broken glass.

  Mrs. Belamy cried, “What’s that?”

  She answered : “It was broken before.”

  Nobody spoke.

  She said, “Your big bowl, Papa. It’s been—I mean—I broke it. On purpose.”

  It was no wonder that he looked at her dully as though he did not understand. But soon he would, he would begin to ask questions. She began again desperately, “It was because you wouldn’t let me go with Dicky. Oh no, that hadn’t happened then. But I knew it would, I knew you wouldn’t. What does it matter which happened first?”

  “Are you mad, Celia?” asked her mother.

  Was she mad? She did not know. She was caught up in a monstrous vicious circle in which certain moments came round and round again dragging other moments in their train and no one could say which came first.

  She stared at her father who stared, not at her, not at Dicky, not at anyone or anything. He seemed to have retreated so that he was back again where he was when he had stood in the study doorway, leaning a little forward, his head protruding, sunk.

  “Quite right,” he said, “quite right. I’m glad it’s broken. Break all the glass, I don’t care ; I’d do it myself if it were worth while.” Suddenly he was looking at her. “Go with your young man, what does it matter?”

  The study door shut behind him. Dicky seized Celia’s hand, pulled her through the front door, out on to the steps.

  “Is he mad?” she gasped.

  “What does it matter? We’ve got clear.”

  Still holding her hand, he was running down the road.

  “Dicky, I must go back. I must see what it was. I don’t believe he was just angry. Something is wrong. I must go back.”

  He ran faster. The railings round the church whirled past them. The high heels of her evening shoes beat a frenzied tattoo
on the pavement and tried to throw her over. One of the maids at number twelve was looking out of the window. She wrenched at her hand and could not get it free. She was dragged at the wheels of his triumphal chariot, breathless, struggling.

  “Stop, Dicky. You are hurting my hand. I will stop.”

  Suddenly he stopped ; he was handing her into a taxi just behind her. Now was her chance to break away, he could not make too much of a scene in front of the taxi driver. But she did not break away, she was in the taxi, she heard him give the order to the driver, she saw him lean forward and shut the door as they passed the policeman at the corner, and then she saw nothing but his face and then not that for she was in his arms and he was kissing her triumphantly, savagely, crushing out her fears and indignations, all her personal feelings, blotting out even the image of her father as he stood in the study doorway, leaning a little forward, his grey eyes duller than usual, his massive head protruding, sunk, beneath the fatigue and isolation of age.

  The policeman said to himself : “So there’s a new one at number seven. And not a patch on the other. Foreigner, I should say. That young lady’s going downhill.” He decided he would drop round and have a word with Cook there this evening.

  Mrs. Belamy found the study door locked. She was relieved for she did not know what to say to Henry, his behaviour had been so extraordinary.

  As for Celia, she could not believe that she had really broken the bowl; she must have made it up. Everybody was behaving utterly unlike themselves. What could be the matter with them all? She remembered that she also had behaved unlike herself. Then she told herself that this was just one of those dreadful days when everything went wrong ; she went back to the drawing-room and looked out of the window and saw Celia and Dicky plunging into a taxi in full view of all The Borehams. She thought that after all what was the point of having children?

  She rang up Iris who at any rate had never disappointed her. But Iris was in a hurry because a lot of people were coming to dinner and it was inconsiderate of people to ring up at that time when they hadn’t anything particular to say.