There was a very gentle tap at her door. Supposing it to be Kitten she opened it, and Mr Higgin slipped quickly into the room. He was in his pyjamas and a dressing-gown, and with his pink face and small stature he looked like a small boy.
“Shh!” said he, with his finger on his lips. “After such an evening of true friendship I simply couldn’t go to sleep without saying good night to my little pupil.”
He tiptoed to the cot in which Earl lay asleep, and looked tenderly down at him. His thoughts seemed to be too fine for utterance, but he smiled and sighed. Edith, who was somewhat alarmed at being caught in her nightdress, felt reassured, but reached for a kimono.
“Don’t trouble,” said Higgin, “I’m just going.” He looked back at the child. “Your treasure,” said he. “What would I not give to have the right to call him mine as well. Still, it is no small thing to be his ‘Ugga Bev’. I want you to know, Edith, how much I cherish that.”
Ede felt that this demanded something equally fine from her, but she was not ready with phrases. “Well, I want you to understand, Bev, how much it means to Earl, and to me too,” she said at last. “I mean, your influence, and everything.”
Mr Higgin looked at her and his face filled with tender admiration.
“Thank you,” he said, with a more than ordinary simplicity. “You can never know what that means to me. Oh, Edith, to see you standing there, in simple loveliness! It’s a picture; that’s the only expression I can use; a picture!”
Edith was suddenly conscious that she was standing in front of the only light in the room and that her nightdress was thin. She hastily moved toward her kimono again, where it lay on the bed.
“No, no, dear child,” said Mr Higgin, very tenderly, but laughing a little in a disembodied manner. “Don’t misunderstand me. And please don’t put on your gown. Your loveliness, Edith, has not been revealed to any profane gaze. Just slip into your bed, and let me tuck you up.”
Obediently Edith got into bed, and Mr Higgin drew the covers up to her chin, and smoothed them.
“The little mother tucks up her babe, but who is to tuck up the little mother, eh?” said he, tenderly. And then, absent-mindedly, he sat down on the bed. “You know,” he continued, “my life has been a wandering one, and not easy, but I have always cherished the domestic virtues.” He seemed to turn the expression over in his mouth, savouring its fine flavour. “Yes, the domestic virtues. An artist seeks his inspiration where he finds it, but I have always felt that, for me, the richest soil of inspiration was a family and a home. But that was denied me.”
Mr Higgin was speaking now in a rich, actorly manner, and the sigh with which he followed his words would have carried to the topmost gallery of a good-sized theatre.
“I have known love,” he continued. “Love as the artist knows it, fleeting, turbulent, sweet. Love of the sort which life has denied to you, sweet child, though you are framed for it as few women are. But that is past. I find myself now at the age when all that is a lovely memory. I don’t suppose that you have any notion of my age. I am forty-eight.”
Edith said nothing. She would have taken him for considerably over fifty, and she was ashamed to have misjudged a man whose suffering had plainly been so deep.
“Forty-eight,” said Bevill Higgin. “Yet the heart is young. The heart, I may say, feels as young as that of that blessed child yonder. It is, truly, a child’s heart. ‘In the heart of age, a child lies weeping.’ Do you know that lovely poem? Ah, so true, so true of me. In my heart is a child, a child who seeks the mother.”
Edith was awed by the beauty of Mr Higgin’s talk. There was a grandeur and a sweep about it for which she had longed all her life, and now that she actually heard it, addressed solely to herself, she was entranced. Softly but quickly Mr Higgin turned out the lamp, and slipped under the covers beside her. He lay at some distance, and she was not strongly aware of his presence, but only of his voice.
“And where is the mother to be found,” asked Mr Higgin, “but in every loving, understanding heart? Edith, life has not been kind to me. When Fortune frowns on a man, every hand is against him. Misfortune in the Old Country drove me abroad. I could have fought it out there, with small-minded detractors. But there is such a thing as pride. And so I came here, and though I found a haven in this house, my path was not smooth abroad. No, no; not smooth. I found friends” (here his hand stole under the sheet and clasped hers) “and I must say I found enemies as well. Shall I name those enemies? I fear that if I do so I shall wound a heart which has become very dear to me.”
Here Mr Higgin moved himself nearer to Edith, and in a deft and practised mariner slipped one arm under her head, so that she lay partly on his bosom. He smelled strongly of rye, and his manner suddenly became jocular.
“What a trusting little heart it is,” he murmured. “Working loyally every day to bring comfort to a man who is unworthy of such gifts. What a dear, trusting, silly little heart.” He giggled.
“Who are you talking about?” said Edith. Her voice came tremulously.
“Can’t you guess? About your Mr Ridley, of course.”
“What’s wrong with him, Bev?”
“He has been very harsh to me, dear one. Very harsh and scornful. So have some others. But I think they regret it now.”
“Who do you mean, Bev?”
“The young man at the University. I wasn’t worth his consideration, though I could have helped him. Snotty young pup! And the girl in the Library. I couldn’t use the Library without an introduction. Oh no, I wasn’t good enough. And your Mr Ridley, snapping his scissors at me. I’m not spiteful. I don’t bear a grudge. But I’ve had my little game with them, just the same.”
“Bev, did you!—”
“Aha, what a sharp little thing it is! And you are the only one that knows! Because I think I’m on the upward path now. I think I’ve broken the ice. And when I’m established here, they’ll all feel the weight of my hand, and not in little jokes either.”
He was giggling a great deal now. Edith was much puzzled. Here she was, in possession of the secret which had so much troubled her idol, Mr Ridley, and yet now that she was able to be of use to him, he was no longer her idol. This pink, sweet-talking little man seemed suddenly to have filled her whole being with warmth and comfort and wonder.
“You’d never tell, would you?” said he teasingly.
“Oh, Bev, no—never, never,” she whispered.
Bevill Higgin leaned forward and kissed her, very softly, but for a long, long time. A delicious warmth suffused her. She seemed to melt, to move toward him without any will of her own. Gently, very gently, his hand stole in the front of her nightdress and caressed her breast. She shuddered with pleasure as he slipped the straps from her shoulders, and, pushing the nightdress downward, stroked first her stomach and then her thighs with a touch as light as a feather. She heaved gently on a warm, smooth sea.
“Mommie.” It was Earl’s voice, sleepy but loud. “Mommie, I wanna go to the bathroom.”
Edith came to herself with a start. She pushed Higgin roughly from her. “Get away!” she whispered roughly, “get away from me, you nasty old thing.”
“Edith,” said he, in a very low voice, “don’t be frightened. It’s me! It’s Bev! Be calm!”
Hampered as she was by her downthrust nightdress she nevertheless managed to scramble quickly over him to the floor. Seizing a hairbrush in one hand, and screening her naked breasts with the other, she struck at him, and as he guarded his head from the blows she beat furiously at his hands.
“Get out of here,” she whispered. Earl, concerned only with his own mounting need, wailed from the cot. “Get out,” she whispered, over and over, until Higgin, scrambling from the bed, rushed from the room. She threw his slippers after him.
Later, she sat up in her bed, marvelling at herself. She had as near as a toucher been seduced! She had always thought of seduction as something that happened in fine hotels, or in the backs of very expensive cars. And right
here, in her house and the Morphews’, in this little room, with her hair in curlers, and little Earlie asleep not three feet away! It was staggering. It was shattering.
Yet she could not weep. The experience had been immeasurably stimulating. She felt no shame, only triumphant virtue. She wasn’t anybody that could be had by any slick old fellow with a line of smooth talk! It had been a narrow escape, but the more she thought about it, the more she knew that she would never have let him go the limit.
And she had the secret! How Ridley would thank her! How he’d be grateful to her! For he wasn’t one of the kind that always looked at a woman with one thing in mind. He was above all that. She’d be there extra early in the morning. She’d wake him up with her news.
Her ideal was triumphantly restored to his throne.
Six
At half-past two on Tuesday, November 7th, Gloster Ridley was arranging his office for the meeting with the lawyers. Miss Green had done all the necessary work well beforehand, but still he fussed nervously with the chairs, rearranged heaps of paper on his side-table, laid pencils conveniently on his blotter, tinkered with anything and with everything. How different was the demeanour of Mr A. J. Marryat, who stood calmly by the window, smiling out at the beauty of the late autumn. But the difference between the two men was superficial; though the one fussed and the other was at ease, both had an air of confidence.
Mr Marryat turned to Ridley. “Gordon Balmer has just come in the front door,” said he. “Now, remember, the important thing is never to lose face. They’ll talk a lot about court, but this is the trial. We’ve got to maintain face.”
Ridley smiled, and concealing his nervousness for the first time, he stood behind his desk in an attitude which was almost debonair. It was not long until Miss Green opened the door to admit The Bellman’s lawyer.
“I’m a little late,” said Mr Balmer. “I wanted to get over earlier in order to do some arranging; there’s a lot in the way these situations are handled.” He made his way directly behind Ridley’s desk, and put his briefcase upon it. “I’ll sit here, if you don’t mind,” said he. “I have a good many papers and I’ll need somewhere to put them.”
“I’ve thought of that already,” said Ridley, “and I’ve arranged a place for you here.” He indicated a chair on the other side of the desk. “You see, I’ve cleared a place for all your papers.”
“Of course I had no intention of taking your chair,” said Mr Balmer, though that was what he had just been prevented from doing. “But as I suppose I shall be in charge of the meeting I more or less unconsciously made for this place. You see,” he said, lowering his voice confidentially, “there’s a certain psychological advantage about dominating the room, on these occasions. And the man who sits behind the desk always dominates the men whose legs can be seen. It’s a funny thing; not one in a thousand thinks of it.”
“Extraordinary!” said Ridley, but he did not budge from his position, which made it impossible for Mr Balmer to get the dominating chair without forcibly pushing him aside. “As a matter of fact, I’ve tried to give you a psychological advantage of another sort; I’ve put you with your back to the window, and Mr Snelgrove will sit facing full into the light. I think that’s rather good, don’t you?”
Mr Balmer muttered something which might have been assent. Certainly he did not seem to think that any advantage of lighting could make up for the loss of the dominating chair, the chair which, by his attitude, he had put in the position of the Bench. With an ill grace he moved to the less desirable chair indicated by Ridley, and began to take some things out of his briefcase.
Ridley looked toward Mr Marryat, who was behind Balmer. Though his expression did not change, his eyes signalled “Face?”, and equally without expression Mr Marryat signalled back “Face, indeed!”
Again there came a tap at the door, and Miss Green ushered in Mr Snelgrove and Professor Vambrace.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said Ridley. “I had expected three in your party. I hope that X has not disappointed you?”
“You may be sure that X will appear at the proper time,” said Mr Snelgrove. “As we are to have this meeting under circumstances which I must say I consider to be very irregular, I must ask for certain necessary accommodations. I have many papers, and I shall want a desk. I presume that there will be no objection if I sit here?” And he also made for Ridley’s chair, but the editor stood his ground.
“I am sure that you will find everything you want here, opposite Mr Balmer,” said he. “Blotting paper, pens, ink, pencils—we have tried to anticipate your wants, but if anything is lacking my secretary will get it for you at once.”
“I would greatly have preferred to hold this encounter in my own chambers,” said Mr Snelgrove, in a voice which temper was already causing to tremble. “I consider it most unusual and undesirable to meet a colleague who may become an opponent in his client’s office.” And he glared at Gordon Balmer in a manner which was intended to make Ridley, as a non-legal person, feel superfluous and intrusive.
“I am not on my home ground, either, Mr Snelgrove,” said Balmer, and went on ostentatiously arranging some papers. It was to be a source of astonishment to Ridley and Marryat, during the ensuing hour, that both the lawyers had brief-cases containing a great many papers which could not possibly have had any bearing on the matter in hand, but which peeped importantly from their satchels as though they might, at any moment, leap forth to prove or disprove something of the utmost importance.
Professor Vambrace said nothing, but took a chair somewhat to the rear of Mr Snelgrove. He had, for the occasion, put on a suit of dark, heavy tweed, and a black tie, and looked more than ever like a tragedian of the old school.
Once again the door opened, and Miss Green showed in Dean Jevon Knapp.
“Sorry to be late, if indeed I am late,” said he, smiling urbanely at everyone. He fixed upon Mr Marryat, as the most amiable-looking person present, and shook him by the hand with great cordiality, to his astonishment.
“I find it difficult to ask the question,” said Ridley, “but I cannot hold it back. Are we to understand that Dean Knapp is X, Mr Snelgrove?”
“I am not in a mood for facetious questions, sir,” said the lawyer.
“I assure you that I have no wish to seem facetious. But you have promised to produce X, and the only unknown quantity here is the Dean. I think my question a very natural one.”
“Quite natural,” said Mr Balmer, who felt that, as a lawyer, he ought to say something as soon as possible, and who was himself puzzled.
“I asked Mr Dean to join me here,” said Mr Snelgrove, “in order that he may be a witness to what I intend to disclose. I have a particular reason for doing so and it is of direct concern to him. I repeat, X will be forthcoming in due season.”
“Very well,” said Mr Balmer. “Now, I think we have wasted quite enough time, and if you have no objection, I should like to clarify one or two points which are still in doubt.”
As he spoke, Ridley sat down behind his desk, and Mr Marryat, moving a chair from a corner, sat down almost beside him. It was a well-timed move, for both the representatives of The Bellman were behind the desk, with their legs concealed; they were on the Bench and the two lawyers were, so to speak, in court. The Dean seated himself in an armchair at some distance, and immediately detracted from the dignity of the proceedings by producing a small and evil-smelling pipe, which he lit with a great deal of noise and sucking. He was the only person present who seemed to have no sense of the importance of face.
“May I ask at once,” said Mr Balmer, “whether you intend to proceed against The Bellman for libel?”
“I shall advise my client on that point when this meeting is over,” said Mr Snelgrove. “I need not explain to you that the law of libel exists as a safeguard of private reputation. I do not think that there is any doubt whatever that the publication of this false notice of engagement places Miss Pearl Vambrace in an exceedingly uncomfortable position, and will t
end to make her avoided and shunned by young men of her acquaintance. A young woman’s good name is her most precious possession; not in a legal, but in a moral sense, it is a major portion of her dower. This affair will unquestionably expose her to a certain amount of ridicule, perhaps to a great deal of ridicule and distress of mind. The refusal of The Bellman to do anything whatever to mitigate the wrong it has done her can only increase the unpleasantness of the situation in which she has been put. If this is not a civil libel, I should very much like to know what you would call it?”
“I should hesitate to call it libel,” said Mr Balmer, very blandly. “After all, it is an everyday occurrence for a young woman to be reported engaged to a young man. Many young women take it as a compliment to be so reported, and laugh it off if the report has no truth.”
“A formal notice of engagement, printed in a newspaper, is something very different from social gossip,” said Mr Snelgrove, raising his eyebrows very high, and tapping his front teeth with his eyeglasses. “It is a deliberate and premeditated untruth, designed to wound and surround the victim with an atmosphere of ridicule.”
The common description of libel is that which exposes the victim not only to ridicule, but also to hatred and contempt,” said Mr Balmer. “You will not pretend that anything remotely resembling hatred or contempt could spring from this prank?”
Professor Vambrace, whose face had grown dark during the foregoing, now spoke in his deepest tones. “I consider that hatred and contempt have been engendered against me,” he said. “Rumours of the most foul and obscene order are being spread against me. They have been thrown in my face by complete strangers. I can call witnesses to prove it.”
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