“All ready?” asked George of the company, and each one took the seat arranged. The chairs were grouped in an irregular curve. Thus Hanaud was sitting almost behind old Mr. Crottle’s shoulder; two daughters, Anne and Audrey, came next; the lawyer, Preedy, sat at the head of the table, and Agatha was at his right. Mr. Ricardo sat at Agatha’s right and beyond her Mordaunt. George occupied the end of the table fronting Alan Preedy, and between George and his uncle was an empty place for James. Thus, in a free space, sat Mr. Septimus Crottle of the Dagger Line.
It was remarkable how clearly that order was established in Ricardo’s mind; for his was not a tidy mind. Yet he had hardly to shut his eyes, before he could see each one of those ten people sitting upright and stiff, side by side. It is, perhaps, still more remarkable that Ricardo grasped exactly why the positions were so accurately registered in his memory.
“All ready?” asked George at the table; and at once, by gesture or word, assent was made. Mr. Ricardo expected that now the book would be opened and the reading begin. But George cried over his shoulder “Go!” and James switched off the lights of the room. There was only one left burning, that of the lamp with the green shade upon the table. James slipped into the empty chair. The room sank to darkness, the ugliness of its equipment vanished. Above the coats of the men and the dresses of the women an arc of faces gleamed, all set towards the one lamp, faces lifeless and pallid as masks; and Mr. Ricardo understood that, however dull the book and however inadequate the reader, not once would his head nod or his eyes close until the reading was finished.
He was conscious of an excitement which ran through his veins and throbbed in his ears. For a moment or two he could not trace it to its source. There was the old man with his wrinkled features in the full bright light and, in spite of his frock-coat and upstanding stock, of some obvious brotherhood with the sea. There was, above the green shade of the lamp, the circle of white dead faces. But to neither of these causes was due the expectancy racing through him. He came to the explanation at last and, though he knew it for an illusion and the merest of accidents, it did not lose its hold. The book which lay upon the table directly beneath the lamp was bound in cloth of exactly the same pale colour as the painted handle of the knife which had caused Horbury’s death. It shone in the gloom of that room; it alone shone: it claimed the eyes; it seemed to Ricardo to make a promise — or perhaps a threat. More likely a threat, since it was with a definite relief that he saw the old man’s thickly-veined hands open the book somewhere towards the end where a ribbon marked the place.
Septimus began to read. For a little while Ricardo did not notice the theme of the book. Words followed words in the rhythm of prose — so much he observed, but he was too surprised by the voice of the reader to take to himself their meaning. The voice was clear and musical and muted to the compass of the room, but it was troubled, so troubled that the reader seemed to find in this far-off story of Marie Antoinette — for here and there her name came and went amongst the words — some quite personal and startling application. Mr. Ricardo began to listen now to what was read, and it was read so faithfully that the stodgy room in Portman Square vanished altogether, and he moved in the squalor of the Conciergerie, amongst ruffianly gaolers and elegant dandies and great ladies awaiting, with a jest to hide their fears, the creak and rumble of the tumbrils at door. Against that background the wail of a boy rose and fell like a tide.
Marie Antoinette had paid for the folly of her and her inadequate life. Septimus read of the Dauphin — a boy, sickly, spoilt, but punished by such drawn-out cruelty as, even in these days, few boys have endured. He needed playmates of his own age, he was allowed none. He wanted fresh air, open fields, sunlight and good food. He was given instead the foul, overbreathed vapours of the Conciergerie, a small cell with a high small window on a hall, and once a day a word or two of abuse from his gaoler as his food and his jug of water were brought in to him. The Dauphin of France was too dangerous a magnet for all that was left in France or abroad of the old regime. But he couldn’t be tried. He couldn’t be sent to the guillotine. Even the rabble shrank from that abominable horror. What the most abject slander could do to asperse his character was done. But it was not enough. He must disappear. So he was left, locked up in his cell, a child without books, without clean linen, without a doctor, without a mother, to get through each day and night and the next and the next as best he could. Finally the gaoler ceased to show his face or utter a word. Once a day a panel was opened, food and water were pushed through, and the panel was closed again. That was all. And after an eternity — of what torrents of tears, of what gusts of passion, of what lonely despair! — neither the plate of food, nor the jug of water were touched. For twenty-four hours, for forty-eight hours they were left, and then for the first time in weeks the door of the dark cell was unlocked.
Old Septimus read so far, controlling his voice, but stopping now and again to control it, and bending his head a little lower over the page. Then suddenly he stopped, closed the book, and raised a face so ravaged with horror, so old beyond all age, that it imposed silence upon all that company. It was a silence as heavy as a pall, and it was broken at last by one deep sigh.
Every head had been lowered or shaded by a hand or fixed upon the reader, and all had been a little dazed. That one deep sigh must have seemed to have been breathed by a corporate voice, to have issued from the blended emotions of them all. But it was a shock to all. It jarred upon all except Septimus Crottle at the table. He was still in the Conciergerie, standing at the door of the cell as the key at last grated in the lock. But to the rest it was grievous. There had been no pity in it, no horror, no refusal. Construed into words it meant “At last!” Something long sought for had been discovered.
Septimus finished before his hour was up, but at the end of a chapter, so that it was natural that he should halt there. He closed the book slowly after marking the page with the ribbon, and said in a voice which surprised the audience, so unmoved and ordinary it was once more: “I think we can stop this book here and choose another one for our next Sunday.”
He rose, and the bright sheen of the blue cover moved out of the circle of light, to Ricardo’s relief. Septimus walked to a table which stood under a window at the end of the room. It had a drawer with a couple of gilt handles. Septimus pulled one of them, but the drawer remained closed. For a moment he was puzzled, and a frightened voice cried “Father, it’s locked.”
The cry sprang from the mouth of Agatha. She jumped up and, pushing the chairs apart, hurried to the mantelshelf. But she was too late. For even while she was fumbling in a china box set on a ledge by the mirror, Septimus pulled the handle again. But this time it was a tug, a jerk, and with a crack the drawer burst open.
“It was locked. Why?”
“The key caught in one’s dress.”
Agatha showed the key to Septimus. It was rather long.
“You see how it juts out. I took it from the lock.” But Septimus had still one foot in the Conciergerie. He nodded his head.
“The drawer’s no use to me now,” he said, and Hanaud was already at his side. Cumbrous though he was, no one moved so swiftly, so unsuspiciously as Hanaud when he chose. “Can I help, Monsieur Crottle?” he asked, and he laid his hand upon the top of the open drawer.
“No, the lock’s broken,” interposed Agatha. “It’s a gimcrack affair, anyway,” and as in the room the lights were turned up she shut the drawer so violently that Hanaud had barely time to snatch his hand away.
“Did I catch your fingers?” Agatha asked, staring at him angrily, and obviously hopeful that she had.
“No, no, mademoiselle.” Hanaud returned with a smile. “You would have to be quicker than that.”
He turned towards Crottle, who walked to the one solid piece of furniture in the room — a Chippendale bureau which stood against a wall opposite to the cabinet. It had a bookcase with shelves and glass doors on the top and below it a front which could be let down to make a writing
-table. Septimus Crottle let the front down, pushed the book in, locked up the front again, and pocketed the key. He said in a curious, hard, resentful voice, which astonished no one who had heard him reading, and would have astonished anyone who had not: “I never want to see that book again.”
He was once more Septimus Crottle, the owner of the great Dagger Line. He stepped out to Mordaunt. “You’re off to-morrow, Mordaunt, and I’m sorry to say not on one of my ships. But my ships sail on Fridays, so it couldn’t be helped. I’m going to tell you that your letter put you up a peg or two in my esteem.” A sudden smile made his face very pleasant and friendly. “This is your last night in England, so you will have letters to write. I am to talk with these gentlemen” — he waved a hand towards Ricardo and Hanaud— “so I’ll say good night and good luck.”
He shook hands with Mordaunt, but for a few seconds did not move. Then he said “Yes,” and took a step or two towards the door; and again he said “Yes,” adding, as once more he moved on, “If there’s anything we can do for you, write to me,” and this time he reached the door. But there he turned, having made up his mind. He came straight back into the middle of the room challenging them all to blame him if they dared. “Meanwhile, Mordaunt, you might perhaps do something for me.”
His voice was now firm but gentle, and Ricardo wondered afterwards whether something of the pity which he had felt and imposed upon his audience for that young victim of a nation’s revolt was still working within him.
“My youngest daughter — Rosalind. She was lovely to look at. She said she was stifled in this house. I didn’t understand that. She married against my will. Leete, the name was. She may be still where you are going. I think the marriage has turned out ill. God knows, I take no pride in that! So, if you meet her, will you tell her that her place is here — and empty.”
So it was not pity which had moved him, not even compunction, Mr. Ricardo thought, but just the patriarch’s feeling that, owing to the wrong-headed folly of one of the family, there was an uncomfortable gap which should be closed.
“Of course I will, sir,” said Mordaunt, and at once voices broke out in a babble. The only words Ricardo distinguished were spoken by George Crottle enthusiastically: “It would be fine to have Rosie back again.”
Septimus turned with an apology to his two new guests, and he included in his smile Mr. Alan Preedy. “But these are family matters. You have something to say to me, Monsieur Hanaud. Will you and your friend come along with me to the smoking-room? George, and James too, perhaps, since in so much they take my place. To everyone else, good night.”
He led the four men to a room along the corridor behind the drawing-room.
CHAPTER 16
HANAUD SMOKES A CIGAR — OR DOES HE?
IT ALWAYS GAVE Mr. Ricardo a pinch, as it were, of malicious pleasure to see Hanaud’s discomfort when he drank a whisky and soda; and a still stronger and more satisfactory pinch to watch his inability to cope with a big cigar. Hanaud would so much sooner have smoked one of his own black abominations. Thus Mr. Ricardo’s spirit, which had been undoubtedly depressed by the reading in the drawing-room, rose with a bound when Septimus, standing by a tray which held bottles of soda-water and a black, pot-bellied bottle of whisky, invited his guests to drink.
“A whisky and soda, Monsieur Hanaud?”
“What would be an English evening without it?” Hanaud returned with a flourish. He took a tumbler from the tray and held it out to Septimus. But, even so, there was a twisting of his nostrils as the smell of the liquor reached them, and a gentle writhing of his features, as he realised that he must actually drink it, which was reminiscent of the Christian martyrs. Worse, how ever, was to come. As Hanaud stood with the tumbler in one hand and the other fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette, Septimus produced a large box of cigars from a cabinet.
“But that is a big box, Monsieur Crottle!”
“They are big, big cigars,” Ricardo replied gleefully.
“They look wonderful,” said Monsieur Hanaud. He stared doubtfully into the box, advancing and withdrawing a hand; rather, Ricardo thought, like a young lady in the days of his youth on the steps of a bathing machine dipping her toes into the water on some bleak summer morning.
“They’re the best,” Septimus explained. “They are mine.”
Hanaud quivered as he took a cigar of a length associated with one English aristocrat and two English statesmen.
“You’ll spoil me,” he said, holding up a warning finger to Septimus; and, indeed, Mr. Ricardo fancied that that might really happen before Hanaud had reached the end of his cigar. However, diplomacy meant doing a good many repugnant things with an air of extreme pleasure, for the sake of establishing a position, didn’t it?
“Have a light,” said Septimus, and he struck a big wooden match. “You wouldn’t, I am sure, insult that cigar with a briquet.”
“I would not, indeed,” cried Hanaud, hastily withdrawing his hand from his pocket. He carried his cigar and his tumbler to a chair which really was easy and settled himself into it with deliberation. He was marking time. Certainly there was a little noise outside the room for which, indeed, Hanaud was to blame. He had been the last of the five to enter the smoking-room and he had not latched the door. The front door closed once, gently, as Alan Preedy, quiet, as gentlemen of the law should be, departed. Then followed a rustle of skirts and a couple of high-pitched voices on the stairs. The ladies were going to bed — or two of them, at all events.
“Now, Monsieur Hanaud, in what way can I help you?” said Septimus, upright in a straight-backed chair.
“I shall tell you frankly,” Hanaud replied, and he felt in his pockets. He looked at Ricardo. “You can oblige me. I left, or I think I left, a little diary in a topcoat in the hall.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Ricardo answered readily. He had, in truth, not needed the quick glance which Hanaud had thrown at him. He was really wanted now!
“It’s the grey coat,” said Hanaud.
“I remember,” said Ricardo.
He didn’t remember at all, but he went out of the room. In front of him stretched the long corridor to the inner of the two hall doors, empty — but not quite silent. A strange sound made itself faintly heard as he listened. What it was that Hanaud wanted of him, he could not imagine. All the more reason, therefore, to miss nothing, however infinitesimal. The strange sound was rather like the bleating of a sheep. And it came from the drawing-room just in front of the smoking-room, through the open door. And the room was still lit, although the girls, as Septimus had called them, had gone up to bed.
But Ricardo had only heard two voices. Was the third bleating in the drawing-room, and which of the three would it be? He advanced stealthily, noiselessly. He, Julius Ricardo, of Grosvenor Square, was primitive man-trapper, Redskin with the scalping-knife — Mr. Ricardo loved the picture — or perhaps not primitive man at all, but the man of to-day, acute, erudite, the sleuth — Mr. Ricardo liked the picture still more. He held his breath, he moved on tiptoe — and stopped. From the spot where he stood he stared through the doorway into a long oblong mirror against the drawing-room wall. He saw reflected in it the gimcrack table with the gilt handles, and the drawer once more open and, in front of it, seated in the chair which she had used during the reading, Agatha. But not the Agatha of the reading. This was a woman stricken. She sat with her hands to her face, shuddering. At times the shuddering mounted to a sob of horror and so stopped altogether. But it began again, and again so ended. Ricardo noticed that there lay upon her lap a card which had been torn across in two pieces; and even from where he stood he could see that there was writing on the card.
As he watched, he was aware of a change in her. Instead of the horror there was now uneasiness. She moved her shoulders, the hands fluttered upon her face; and he was warned. People who do not know that they are watched, sometimes by some instinct suspect it. He himself was the cause of her uneasiness. He stooped low. He had time to see her snatch her hand
s from her face, stare with a violent shiver at the torn pieces of the card, and then drop them into a wastepaper basket by the side of the cabinet. The carpet was thick and he made no noise. He stood straight up now, pulling down his coat. He said in a voice no louder than was natural: “The grey topcoat? All right.”
He walked forward past the door of the drawing-room, humming a little tune to himself. He was extremely careful not to direct one glance into the lighted room; and as he reached the contraption by the hall door, with its hat-and-coat-rack and its tin trough for umbrellas, he so rattled it that only the most obsessed people in the world could have been unaware that he was pretending with every artifice that he was not pretending. However, it was one of the most obsessed people whom he had to deceive; and whilst he was fumbling in the empty pockets of a coat, he heard a click as a light was switched off, and a moment later the hiss and rustle of a dress upon the stairs.
“There’s nothing,” Mr. Ricardo was saying aloud. Really, he was playing his part admirably. “I can’t understand it.” He heard a door shut upstairs. Then he stopped at once his untheatrical piece of theatre. But he waited, listening for that door perhaps to open again; it did not. Now he hurried back along the corridor. He slipped into the dark drawing-room. Enough light crept in from the hall to define the plan of the room. But he must not stumble over furniture and he must be quick. He slid between the chairs to the wastepaper basket. A great fear was troubling him that the basket might be full with the litter of the day. But his fingers assured him that, except for two small pieces of pasteboard, the basket was empty. He snatched those pieces up. Above his head he heard a woman’s heels tapping. He slipped out and returned to the smoking-room.
“I can’t find it,” he said. “I am very sorry.”
“Oh!” said Hanaud, disappointed. “Well, I’ve no doubt that I can remember all that’s necessary,” he added encouragingly, and Ricardo, with confidence, shut the door.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 162