“Heavens! Can you?”
“Oh, yes.” Don picked up his coat and put it on. “This is trickier and Les Ambassadeurs is trickiest. I’m not sure yet whether some of the score is playable; Bellegarde has been excelling himself. Can you climb hundreds of steps?”
“Yes, why?”
“My room is on a level with the gods. I’ve got to collect a few things.”
They walked through the bar and then round The Grand Tier till they came to a door marked “ Private” and they went through. As they began to climb the stairs Bennie said: “Has there been anything more about the libel action?”
“Let’s see, when did I phone you? Yes. Things are getting under way.”
“It’s going on?”
“Oh, it’s going on.”
“You sound quite cheerful about it.”
“Not cheerful. But it’s what I wanted.”
“I don’t understand, Don. I’m a duffer about the law. Explain.”
He said: “It’s the only way of hitting back at a man who defames the dead. I libel Roger and go on libeling him, calling him a coward and a liar and a disgrace to his profession, on and on, spreading this wherever he goes, until he is forced in self-defence to bring an action against me. That is what he has now done. And I shall plead justification.”
“Justification?”
“Yes. Namely that what I’ve said about him is true, that he is a coward and a liar to malign a dead man—falsely. In the action when it comes off, although I am defending, I force him to bring evidence for what he has said about the dead man in order to prove that he is not a coward and a liar. The case then turns on the evidence that he’s got. If it sticks, if he proves that he had a reasonable cause against the dead man, then he wins his case against me, because my statements about him are unjustified. If he fails to prove that he had a reasonable case against the dead man, he loses his case against me, because it shows him up to have been a coward and a liar.”
Bennie puckered her brow. “Very complicated. Do the lawyers think it will be all right?”
“They’re not enthusiastic. Here we are at last.” Don threw open the door of his room and followed Bennie in.
“But in that case why have you gone on with it?”
“They haven’t got the convictions I have.”
“About Daddy? No, maybe not. But they represent the legal outlook, and it will be the legal outlook which will decide. What’s their objection?”
“I didn’t say they objected, I said they were not full of enthusiasm. They think I’ve gone a bit far, and they regard the proposition as a tricky one. For that matter, so does Joanna.”
“Joanna?”
“Yes, she’s dead against the idea of an action. She thinks somehow it must be settled out of court.”
“And what happens if you go on and Roger wins?”
“He’ll get damages—which might be heavy—with costs—which certainly will be.”
Bennie sat down and took off her hat. “ Once you get into the clutches of the law anything can happen.”
Don said: “Would you rather we took the whole thing lying down?”
“No, of course not. But I don’t like the idea of his being the plaintiff. I don’t like the idea of your putting yourself in the wrong.”
“It’s the cock-eyed way the law works. Anyway, it worked in the Gladstone case.”
“I’ve seen it mentioned. That was the same?”
He offered her a cigarette and when she accepted it, lit it for her. “It’s the same general principle. Whitehouse would be happier if the details were more similar.”
“In that case Gladstone’s character was vindicated?”
“Absolutely.”
“And the case cost Glandstone’s sons nothing?”
“Nothing much.”
Bennie drew at her cigarette. Don thought she never looked really at home with a cigarette; it was that deceptive dark-eyed innocence which made one believe it was the first she had ever had. “Don, dear, I’ve never been fonder of you than I am at this moment.”
“Very sisterly.”
“No … Because this thing—even if you win all along the line and it costs you nothing in money—it’s bound to be a drain on your time and thought and concentration just when you need them most.”
“There are occasions in life when one has to be a spendthrift.”
Don put too much music into an attaché case and tried to shut the lid. The catches wouldn’t click. Bennie said: “I came to ask you something, Don; but now I’m here I hardly like to.”
“Is it about Michael?”
She looked at him quickly. “How did you know?”
“I looked at my horoscope.”
She said after a while: “ I haven’t seen him since all this began, since the night when I found the letter. He’s asked me to meet him several times but I didn’t very well feel I could. He’s asked me again for tomorrow night. Before I say yes or no, I want to know what you think.”
Don took out a chunk of the music and put it on the table. He carefully persuaded the case to shut. “ What I think. Well, just at the moment they’re not my favourite breed. But I’ve nothing specially against Michael. You can’t very well visit the sins of the father.…”
“That’s what he says.”
“Is he in love with you?”
She looked at him and her eyes were more limpid than ever. “Probably.”
“And you?”
She shook her head.
Don said: “Well, thank God for that anyway. If you had Roger for your father-in-law it would give me colic.”
“But I like him,” she said. “ Michael, I mean. I know he knows far too much at second hand, and he’s a bit wild; but really he’s kind and generous and I feel sorry for him. And if I go on refusing to see him I feel a prig and rather a fool.”
Don put on a light raincoat and picked up his attaché case and the extra book of music. “I’ve got the car round the corner. Is it raining much?”
“No.… You see, Michael says why should I make a feud with him when he’s living on his own, working on his own and hardly ever sees Roger?”
Don said: “My dear, I don’t want to develop a Montague-Capulet thing out of this.”
“Well, your quarrel with Roger is my quarrel. You know that——”
“I know that. But it’s really up to you, Bennie.”
“I’m not asking you to lay down the law. I’m asking you if you mind, really mind.”
Don grinned slowly. “All women are the same; they manœuvre you round until they’ve got you in a position where you can only nod. So you nod. And that’s called free-will.”
He opened the door and waited for Bennie to go ahead of him. She said: “ I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to. Tell me the truth; what do you really feel about it? Come out of your corner. It’s rather important to me.”
“Of course Michael’s right. This is no coffee and pistols for four. But keep underground if you can. The Press might find it an interesting tit-bit.”
At about the time Don said this, Joanna was telephoning Roger and making an appointment to meet him at his flat on the following evening.
Chapter Fifteen
She saw Don off at six-fifteen. A few days ago she had offered to go with him. Sometimes he liked her there, sometimes not. This was a not. He said he’d got prickly heat about the whole thing. It wasn’t Swan Lake that worried him; if necessary he could conduct it from an invalid chair; but from what he had seen of the corps de ballet they seemed only less individual-minded than his twenty-two fiddles; anyway if he was going to make a hash of it he would prefer to do so in front of 2,200 comparative strangers, always supposing so many were so improvident as to pay for admission, not to mention those few critics who might feel it necessary to write a small paragraph for tomorrow’s papers, all of whom, being bored to death with such a bread and butter programme, would no doubt commission their maiden aunts to occupy their seats instead.
&nbs
p; “Yes, darling,” said Joanna. “ I’ve put your spare hankies in your tail pocket. If you don’t use them, leave them there for next time. Can you manage your tie?”
“Before the end of the evening it’ll look like an arum lily that’s been left out of water for a week.”
“Eat your sandwiches. There’s plenty of time.”
“You did get petrol this morning?”
“Six gallons, and they checked the oil. Anyway it’s only two miles.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to run out of juice in Piccadilly in the rain. What will you do while I’m gone?”
She took out his silk scarf and let it fall out of its folds. “Read or sew or something.”
He put on his waistcoat and clipped the elastic round the back. “That sounds a great deal more attractive to me than standing up on a rostrum waving a futile bit of cane at a lot of eccentric-featured men and women with brass tubes and spheroid furnishings made out of trees and the intestines of cats.”
She handed him his coat. “Would you swop?”
He said: “Your eyes have a gold glinty look tonight. I haven’t an idea in the world what you’re thinking.”
She opened her eyes a little wider, to help him.
“Of practically nothing, Don, except a prayerful wish that your Swan Lake will be better than all previous Swan Lakes.”
“It could well be the most original. Phone Leningrad and tell them to watch Tschaikovsky’s grave. If there’s movement, it’ll mean he’s turning over in it.”
He put on his coat and took the scarf from her. “Would I swop? No, but we arrange our lives badly. We hardly ever have our feet in the fender at the same time. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Practically nothing.”
“Book me a seat on the other side of the fire.”
When she had watched him drive away she let the curtains fall and sat for a few minutes at the dressing-table eating the sandwiches he had left. Then she mixed herself a fairly strong Martini and took a bath. After it she brushed her hair quietly and unhurriedly, staring at herself, her face in repose almost as if she were sleeping. When she had combed her hair into shape she put on a black jersey frock with a cowl neck and black suède shoes.
There was plenty of time. It was still not seven-thirty. To Roger she had said eight.
She mixed herself another Martini and picked up her scarlet coat and carried both down to the drawing-room. In the half light she watched the clock on the mantelpiece move to seven-thirty.
The audience at Covent Garden would all be in now, murmuring a little but ready to fall into silence when the lights began to die. The orchestra all there, timing up finished; a few seconds’ silence, then Don would come, wending his way among the players; there’d be a freckle of applause which would grow as he reached the rostrum; he’d face the audience, a bow slightly to the left, one to the right, then he’d turn to the orchestra, glance around and down at the watching faces, assure himself that all were ready, raise his baton.…
Joanna raised her glass, finishing the cocktail, switched, off the electric fire, put on her coat, picked up her bag. It was still raining. She went to the telephone and rang for a taxi; when it came she was at the front door. She closed it behind her, glanced quickly up and down the street. There was no one apparently about, but reporters had a gift for keeping out of sight if they wanted to; she had no intention of providing them with fresh headlines.
“Piccadilly Circus, please. The tube.”
The taxi put her down at the Regent Street entrance. She went down and came out again at Shaftesbury Avenue. There she took a taxi for Belgrave Street.
He was waiting for her and opened the door immediately she rang.
“Darling, this is good of you. I’m enchanted.”
She smiled at him and followed him into his flat, allowed him to slip her coat off her shoulders. He was in a dinner jacket; she watched his sallow but youthful face, its distinguished lines, the keen wrinkles round the narrowed eyes.
He said: “ Drink, smoke?”
“Drink, please.… A Martini if you have one.”
“I’ll mix you that special one. Sit down, darling; don’t look lost and hesitant.”
The electric fire was on, and she folded herself on the edge of an easy chair beside it. There was silence while he mixed the drink.
She said: “This is a lovely room.”
“I’m much prouder of it since you came.”
He brought die drink to her and she nodded her thanks. All his senses were at a stretch, trying to make out what her feelings were for him in the immensely changed situation since they had last met. So far there was no lead.
He picked up his own drink and took the seat opposite her, sipped his drink.
“Have you had dinner?”
“I had sandwiches with Don. It’s all I want.”
He said: “ You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who has ever made my heart miss a beat in this particular way. I wish I knew what it was; it’s not just beauty and charm—though I give them top marks. It’s perhaps a feeling for your intellect and a subtlety that goes along with my own.”
“Birds of a feather,” said Joanna.
There seemed to be no danger signals for him here. “You don’t know how delighted I am to hear you say that. And relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“Well.…” He made a disclaiming gesture.
She sipped her drink. “In a way it’s a relief to me too, being in your company again.”
“I imagine Don can be rather trying.”
“I don’t find him trying—only different.”
Her eyes were down, he could only see her eyelids. She said: “Tell me, darling, did you sleep with me that time in Sussex just for the joy of going through John Marlowe’s private papers?”
Here it came. “ You ask me that?”
“Should I not?”
“Certainly you should not.”
She said: “Well, you have to admit it was a very convenient way of combining business with pleasure.”
“Darling, don’t be silly. It’s true I lied to you about John Marlowe. I was interested in him, and had been interested in him before he died. I always suspect that kind of holy eminence. But I did nothing until my editor indicated that he didn’t hold a high opinion of him either.…”
He offered her a cigarette but she shook her head. She had her legs crossed above the knee and bent so that she was sitting sideways. His eyes travelled over the line of her thigh and hip.
“We soon found our suspicions about him were well founded. He was a sinful old devil. When I met you at the Colcutts’ I drove you round that way because I wanted to see the Old Millhouse again for myself, and because I wanted you to myself for as long as possible. I always want you. That’s not my fault.”
“Keep to the point.”
“That is precisely the point. I was interested in you that night. John Marlowe was only an excuse to stop.”
“But these letters you refer to—you got them then?”
“Would you hate me for it if I said did?”
“I’m chiefly interested in your motives.”
“My motives were what I’ve told you. But I made some use of a sudden opportunity. It just happened that way.”
“You happened to be able to steal the wife and the letters as well.”
“Oh come, darling,” he said. “I didn’t exactly steal you.”
“No.… It was almost a gift, wasn’t it?”
“Why analyse? Let’s be grateful that it happened; and for the other times that it has happened since.”
“Oh, the other times,” she said. “ In this flat. March the 9th and March 19th. I remember quite well.”
“It’s been too long.”
While he topped up her glass he put his other hand on her arm just above the wrist. It was a warm light pressure.
“This libel action,” she said.
“Ah.”
“I want it withdraw
n, Roger.”
He had finished with her glass. His fingers closed round her wrist. He kissed her. She turned her mouth slightly away.
He said against her face: “ Do you think I want it to go on?”
“Well, you’re the plaintiff.”
“Ah … I’d settle tomorrow if I could, but it’s gone beyond the point of no return.”
“Why?”
He took the bottle back to the cupboard. “In the first place, Don won’t withdraw his threats to go on abusing me all over the town. Will he? Can you persuade him to?”
“No.”
“In the second place, I have my reputation to consider. I can’t afford not to accept the challenge.”
“Can you afford to accept it?”
“Why do you want the libel action withdrawn?”
“Isn’t it to everyone’s advantage?”
“Not to mine now.”
She uncurled herself and stood up, brushing her hands down the front of her fock. “Don hasn’t a bean outside the money he makes—and that’s hand-to-mouth existence. If he loses this case it will break him—literally. He’ll go bankrupt.”
“Isn’t that an argument to put to him, not to me?”
She said: “ It’s even possible, if this libel comes to court and everything is dragged out and pawed over, that our affair may come out.”
“Oh, so that’s it, is it?”
“Not more than a proper part of it.” When he did not speak she said: “I don’t want this to happen, Roger. I think it would be a bad thing for all of us if this quarrel was fought out in the open.”
He hesitated. They were still fencing with each other, but he began to suspect that they were fencing for different things. “Darling Joanna, I wish I could help.”
“You still can.”
He shook his head regretfully. “No. It’s just not possible.… Is it his knowing about us that worries you?—would it make so much difference. Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“I think I have,” she said.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Roger, d’you find me very difficult?”
“At times only.”
“I grew up in an odd way, I suppose. My family life was never quite ordinary, as you know.”
The Tumbled House Page 14