Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Besides, it if were detected, what would Claude do? Proceed against his wife’s brother? He believed he need not waste time in considering such a possibility, for, to begin with, the possibility itself was so remote.

  Then for a moment some little voice of honour made itself heard, and he had to argue it down. Not to pay such debts — debts of honour, as they were called — was among those very few things that a man must not do, and for which, if he does them, he gets no quarter from society in general. No doubt he could get his debts paid if he went to the Osbornes; but that he could not do. It was much harder for him than that which he proposed to do. So the little voice was silenced again, almost before it began to speak. But it was used to being taken lightly, to be not listened to.

  He was not often at home in the evening, but when he was he usually sat in Claude’s room, which, though small, was cooler than the southward-facing drawing room, and he took his cigar there now. A tray of whisky and Perrier had already been placed there, but since he did not wish to be disturbed he rang the bell to tell Parker he wished to be called at eight next morning, and wanted nothing more that night. And then he took some writing paper from a drawer in the knee-hole table, and drew up his chair to it. He had found there also a carefully written out speech by Claude, designed for his constituents. He read a page or two, and found it dealt with local taxation. Large sums like “five million” were written in figures. Smaller sums, as in phrases “fivepence in the pound,” were written out in full. This was convenient. There was also a frequent occurrence of “myself” in the speech. Part of that word concerned Jim. And Claude wrote with a stylograph: there were several of them in the pen tray. Jim had used them regularly since he came into the flat.

  Dora was to call for him next, morning at twelve, with the design of spending the afternoon at Lord’s to see the cricket, and, arriving there a little before her appointed time, was told that he was out, but had left word that he would be back by twelve. Accordingly, since the heat was great in the street, she came up to the flat and waited for him there.

  She felt rather fagged this morning, for the last week had been strenuous, while privately her emotional calendar had made many entries against the days. That estrangement from Claude, that alienation without a quarrel, and therefore the more difficult to terminate, had in some secret way got very much worse; his presence even had begun to irritate her; and he certainly saw that irritation (it did not require much perspicacity), and spared her as much as he could, never, if possible, being alone with her. Instead he threw himself into the hospitalities of the house; looked after Mrs. Per, taking her to picture-galleries and concerts, until Per had declared that he was getting to feel quite an Othello, and performed with zeal all the duties of a resident son of the house. And bitterly Dora saw how easy it was to him, how without any effort he caught the rôle. Like some mysterious stain, appearing again after years, the resemblance between him and his family daily manifested itself more clearly.

  The sight of the flat caused these thoughts to inflict themselves very vividly on her mind, and, sitting here alone, waiting, it was almost with shuddering that she expected Claude to enter. How often in these familiar surroundings she had sat just here, expecting and longing for him to come, to know that he and she would be alone together in their nest. And now the walls seemed to observe her with alien eyes, even as with alien eyes she looked at them. It was a blessing, anyhow, that they had gone to Park Lane: the dual solitude here would have been intolerable.

  She had not got to wait long, for Jim’s step soon sounded in the passage. She heard him whistling to himself as he went into his bedroom, and next moment he came in.

  “I’m not late,” he said, “so don’t scold me. It’s you who are early, which is the most outrageous form of unpunctuality. Well, Dora, how goes it?”

  She got up and came across the room to him.

  “It doesn’t go very nicely,” she said; “but you seem cheerful, which is to the good. Jim, it is so nice to see somebody cheerful without being jocose. We are all very jocose at Park Lane, and Claude flirts with Mrs. Per.”

  Dora gave a little laugh.

  “I didn’t mean to speak of it,” she said, “and I won’t again. Let’s have a day off, and not regret or wonder or wish. What lots of times you and I have gone up to Lord’s together, though we usually went by Underground. Now we go in a great, noble motor. Let’s have fun for one day; I haven’t had fun for ages.”

  Jim nodded at her.

  “That just suits me,” he said. “I want a day off, and we’ll have it. Pretend you’re about eighteen again and me twenty-one. After all, it’s only putting the clock back a couple of years.”

  “And feel a hundred,” said Dora pathetically.

  “Well, don’t. I felt a hundred yesterday, and it was a mistake.”

  “Jim, I was so sorry about your bad luck at Newmarket. Somebody told me you had done nothing but lose. What an ass you are, dear! Why do you go on?” Jim’s face darkened but for a moment.

  “It’s nothing the least serious,” he said. “I did have rather a bad time, but I’ve pulled through and have paid every penny. In fact, that is what kept me this morning. I hate to give away all those great, crisp, crackling notes! I hate it! And then on my way home I determined not to think about it any more, nor about anything unpleasant that had ever happened, and I get here to find you had come to the same excellent determination. Let’s have a truce for one day.”

  “Amen!” said Dora.

  It is astonishing what can be done by acting in pairs. Dora would have been perfectly incapable alone of watching cricket with attention, far less, as proved to be possible, with rapture; and it might also be open to reasonable doubt as to whether alone Jim could have found any occupation that would have deeply interested him. But together they gave the slip to their anxieties and preoccupations, and Jim did not even want to bet on the result of the match. All afternoon they sat there, and waited till at half-past six the stumps were drawn. Then Dora gave a great sigh.

  “Oh dear! it’s over,” she said, “and I suppose we’ve got to begin again. What a nice day we’ve had. I — I quite forgot everything.”

  Jim came home rather late that night, and found letters waiting for him in the little room where he had sat the night before. There was nothing of importance, and nothing that needed an answer, and in a few minutes he moved toward the door in order to go to bed. And then quite suddenly, with the pent-up rush of thought which all day he had dammed up in a corner of his brain, he realized what he had done, and his face went suddenly white, and strange noises buzzed in his ears, and his very soul was drowned in terror. But it was too late: his terror should have been imagined by him twenty-four hours ago. Now it was authentic; there was no imagination required, and he was alone with it.

  CHAPTER X.

  CLAUDE, as became the future candidate for the constituency of West Brentwood, was sedulous and regular in reading the House of Common debates, and two mornings later was sitting after breakfast with his Times in front of him, to which he devoted an attention less direct than was usual with him, for he expected every moment to be told that the visitor whom he was waiting for would be announced, and he could form no idea of what the visitor’s business might be. Half an hour ago he had been summoned to the telephone and found that he was speaking to one of the partners in Grayson’s bank, who asked if he could see him at once. No clue as to what so pressing a business might be was given him, and Mr. Humby, the partner who spoke to him, only said that he would start immediately. He had first telephoned, it appeared, to Claude’s flat, and his servant had given him the address.

  In itself there was little here that was tangibly disquieting, for Claude stood outside the region of money troubles, but other things combined to make him, usually so serene, rather nervous and apprehensive. For the last day or two he had been vaguely anxious about his mother, who appeared to him not to be well, though in answer to his question she confessed to nothing more than
July fatigue, while his relations with Dora, or rather his want of them, continued to perplex or distress him. She was evenly polite to him, she went out with him when occasion demanded, but that some barrier had been built between them he could no longer doubt. He had not only his own feeling to go upon, for his mother had remarked it, and asked if there was any trouble. Lady Osborne was the least imaginative of women, he was afraid, and her question had so emphasized it to his mind that he had determined, should no amelioration take place, to put a direct question to Dora about it. He would gladly have avoided that, for his instinct told him that the trouble was of a sort that could scarcely be healed by mere investigation, but the present position was rapidly growing intolerable. All these things made it difficult for him to concentrate his attention on the fiscal question, and it was almost with a sense of relief to him that the interruption he had been waiting for came.

  He shook hands with Mr. Humby, who at once stated his business.

  “I may be troubling you on a false alarm, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “but both my partners and I thought that one of us had better see you at once in order to set our minds at rest.”

  “You have only just caught me,” said Claude. “I am going into the country before lunch.”

  “Then I have saved myself a journey,” said Mr. Humby gravely.

  He produced an envelope and took a cheque out of it. “The cheque came through to-day,” he said; “it was cashed two days ago at Shepherd’s Bank, quite regularly. But it is drawn by you to ‘self’ over a week ago. That was a little curious, since cheques drawn to self are usually cashed at once. Also, though that is no business of ours, it is a rather large sum, five hundred pounds, to take in cash. You have banked with us for some years, Mr. Osborne, and we find you have never drawn a large sum to yourself before. But the combination of these things seemed to warrant us in making sure the cheque was — ah, genuine. The handwriting appears to be yours.”

  Claude looked at the date.

  “June 24,” he said. “I did draw a large cheque about that time for a motor-car.”

  “That has been presented; it was drawn to Daimler’s,” said Mr. Humby.

  Claude turned the cheque over: it was endorsed with his name, but search how he might he could not recollect anything about it. And slowly his inability to remember deepened into the belief that he had drawn no such cheque.

  “If you would refer to your cheque-book,” said Mr. Humby, “we could clear the matter up. I am sorry for giving you so much trouble.”

  “The question is, Where is my cheque-book?” said Claude. “I came over here a week ago, but before that I was at my flat. But I will look.”

  He went upstairs, into the sitting room, which was his and Dora’s. She was sitting there now, writing notes, and looked up as he came in.

  “Claude, can I speak to you for a minute?” she said. “Yes, dear, but not this moment. I have to find my cheque-book. Where do you suppose it is? One must attend to business, you know.”

  “Oh, quite so,” said she, and resumed her letter again.

  Claude’s heart sank. Perhaps she wanted to speak to him about things that were of infinitely greater moment, and he had made a mess of it, repulsed her, by his foolish speech.

  “Dora, what is it?” he asked. “Is it—”

  She must have known what was in his mind, for she made an impatient gesture of dissent.

  “No, if you can give me a minute later on, it will be all right,” she said.

  His search was soon rewarded, but proved to be fruitless, for the cheque-book was a new one, and he had only used it for the first time three days ago. But perhaps she would remember something.

  “Dora, did I give you a rather big cheque for household bills or anything, while we were in the flat?” he asked.

  “Yes, I remember that you did,” she said. “And I remember endorsing it as you drew it to me. Why?”

  “Only that there is a cheque that I appear to have drawn for five hundred pounds, just before I left the flat, and for some reason my bankers want to be sure that I did draw it.”

  “You mean they think that it may be forged?”

  “Yes.”

  “But who can have got hold of your cheque-book?” asked Dora. “You have found it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but this is no use. The cheque in question was drawn before I began this book. I suppose I left it at the flat.”

  Dora had continued writing her note as she talked, for it was only a matter of a few formal phrases of regret, but at this moment, her hand suddenly played her false, and her pen sputtered on the paper. And though she did not know at that second why this happened, a moment afterward she knew.

  Below his cheque-book in the drawer lay Claude’s passbook. It had been very recently made up, for his allowance from Uncle Alfred, paid on June 28, appeared to his credit, and on the debit side a cheque to Dora of £150, cashed on the previous date. That, no doubt, was the cheque for “books” of which she had spoken.

  She had gone on writing again, and Claude apparently had noticed nothing of that pen-splutter.

  “Yes, here are cheques I have drawn up till the 29th,” he said, “and none of £500. It looks rather queer. I’ll be back again in five minutes. I must just see Mr. Humby, and tell him I can’t trace it.”

  Claude went rather slowly downstairs again. The matter was verging on certainty. He had drawn a cheque for five hundred pounds, on June 24, and it had not been presented till two days ago. The cheque for the car was entered, and the cheque for books to Dora. He hated to think that Parker had forged his name, but if he had, good servant though he was, there was no clemency possible.

  “May I look at the cheque again?” he asked.

  He examined it more closely.

  “I can find no trace of drawing any such cheque,” he said, “and I believe it is a forgery. It is very like my handwriting, but I don’t believe I wrote it.”

  “That is what we thought,” said Mr. Humby.

  “Then what are you going to do?” asked he.

  “Find out who presented the cheque, and prosecute. I am very sorry: it is an unpleasant business, but the bank can take no other course.”

  He folded up the cheque again, put it in his pocket and left the room. But Claude did not at once go back to Dora. There had started unbidden into his mind the memory of a morning at Grote before they were married, of a game of croquet, of a sovereign. Next minute he too had left the room, and the minute after he was in the road, walking quickly to Mount Street. His old cheque-book no doubt was there, and he would be able to find it. And all the way there, he tried desperately to keep at bay a suspicion that threatened to grip him by the throat. And upstairs Dora waited for him: the same doubt threatened to strangle her.

  Jim was out, but was expected back every moment, and Claude went into his small room, and began searching the drawers of his writing table. There was a sheaf of letters from Dora in one, a copy of his speech on municipal taxation in another, and in the third a heap of old cards of invitation and the butt end of his chequebook.

  Sun blinds were down outside the windows, the room was nearly dark, and he carried this out into the large sitting room and sat down to examine it. There was a whole batch of cheques, most of which he could remember about, drawn on June 22. Then came a blank counterfoil and then the last counterfoil of the book, bearing a docket of identification as cheque to Dora for £150. That was drawn on the 27th.

  He heard a step outside; the door opened and Jim entered. He was whistling as he came round the corner of the screen by the door. Then he saw Claude, his whistling ceased, and his face grew white. Once he tried to speak, but could not.

  Claude saw that, the blank face, the whitened lips; it was as if Jim had been brought face to face with some deadly spectre, instead of the commonplace vision of his brother-in-law sitting in his own room, looking through the useless but surely innocuous trunk of an old chequebook. And instantaneously, automatically, Claude’s mind leaped to the co
nclusion which he had tried to keep away from it. But it could be kept away no longer: the inference closed upon him like the snap of a steel spring.

  In the same instant there came upon him his own personal dislike of Jim, and his distrust of him. How deep that was he never knew till this moment. Then came the reflection that he was doing Jim a monstrous injustice in harbouring so horrible a suspicion, and that the best way of clearing his mind of it was to let the bank trace the cheque and prosecute. But he knew that it was his dislike of his brother-in-law that gave birth to this, not a sense of fairness. And on top of it all came the thought of Dora and his love for her, and mingled with that a certain pity that was its legitimate kinsman.

  The pause, psychically so momentous, was but short in duration, and Claude jumped up. His mind was already quite decided: it seemed to have decided itself without conscious interference on his part.

  “Good morning, Jim,” he said. “I must apologize for making an invasion in your absence, but I had to refer back to an old cheque-book.”

  Jim commanded his voice.

  “Nothing wrong, I hope,” he said.

  Again Claude had to make a swift decision. He could tell Jim that a cheque of his had been forged, and that the matter was already in the hands of the bank: that probably would force a confession, if there was cause for one. But it would still be his dislike (though he might easily call it justice) that was the mover here. There was a wiser way than that, a way that, for all the surface falsehood of it, held a nobler truth within.