by E. F. Benson
For one moment his indignation flared up. The next he had mastered it again. But inflamed by this, or by some underlying emotion, he made an error, and allowed himself to say more, when he had (so rightly) intimated that enough had been said.
“It is lucky for me,” he said, “with such fellows round me, that I was business-like in the matter. The cheque Ward drew me for five thousand pounds I passed straight on to my friend when the purchase was concluded, and have his receipt for it. And as for your miserable fifty pounds, you agreed, as you very well know, to make the copy for that sum. You were glad enough to get it, and your gratitude was quite pretty. And that is all I think. I have no more to say to either of you.”
He got up and indicated the door. Neither Charles nor Frank moved. And then a second sign escaped him. His indicating hand dropped, and the one word he uttered to Charles stuck in his throat.
“Well?” he said.
“You have forgotten,” said Charles, “that Ward gave you a cheque for five thousand pounds in payment for some Dutch pictures. There was a Van der Weyde among them. It was from Thistleton’s Gallery, I may remind you.”
“You are very copiously informed.”
“Yes. You see my brother was your clerk there. He well remembers the purchase and the drawing of the cheque. That was in June. The cheque was postdated by a few days.”
Without doubt Craddock was listening now, though he had said he would listen no more. Frank watched him with the same hard devouring interest with which he would have watched a man pinioned and led out to the execution shed. Charles went on in a voice that sounded a little bored. It was as if he repeated some well known tiresome task he had learned.
“It was in October,” he said, “that another cheque was drawn to you by Mr. Ward, under the same circumstances. He wrote it, that is to say, at Thistleton’s Gallery, at my brother’s desk. This time the cheque was larger, for it was of ten thousand and one hundred pounds. Reggie told me of it at the time. I did not connect it then with the Reynolds picture.”
“Lies, a pack of lies,” said Craddock under his breath, but still listening.
“No, not a pack of lies,” said Charles. “You should not say that sort of thing. This morning I asked Mr. Ward how much he paid for the Reynolds. He told me not to tell anyone, but it is no news to you, and so I repeat it. He paid you ten thousand pounds. Also he said to me — you heard that — that he didn’t suppose I would do many more copies for one hundred pounds each. I drew an inference. And the whole cheque is accounted for.”
Suddenly Frank looked away from Craddock, and glanced at Charles, nodding.
“He’s done,” he said, as if some contest of boxing was in progress.
Frank was right. During the fall of these quiet words, Craddock had collapsed; there was no more fight left in him. He sat hunched up in his chair, a mere inert mass, with his eyes glazed and meaningless fixed on Charles, his mouth a little open and drooping. The shame of what he had done had, all these months, left no trace on him, but the shame of his detection was a vastly different matter. But he made one more protest, as forceless and unavailing as the last roll of a fish being pulled to land, dead-beat.
“Lies,” he said just once, and was silent.
Charles got quickly out of his chair and stood up pointing at him. As yet he felt no spark of pity for him, for there was nothing to pity in a man who with his last effort reiterates the denial of his shame. And the tale of his indictment was not done yet. He spoke with raised voice, and vivid scorn.
“You should know a lie when you hear it better than that,” he said. “Do I sound as if I was lying? Did you lie like that when you lied about me to Philip Wroughton last autumn? Not you: you let your damned poison just dribble from you. You just hinted that I was a disreputable fellow, not fit to associate with him and his. You said it with regret — oh, I can hear you do it — you felt you ought to tell him. Wasn’t it like that? Go on, tell me whether what I am saying now is lies, too! You can’t! You’re done, as Frank said. There’s a limit even to your power of falsehood. Now sit there and just think over what’s best to be done. That’s all; you know it all now.”
No word came from Craddock. He had sunk a little more into himself, and his plump white hands hung ludicrously in front of him like the paws of a begging dog. A wisp of his long black hair that crossed the crown of his head had fallen forward and lay stuck to the moisture on his forehead. The two young men stood together away from him on the hearth-rug, looking at him, and a couple of minutes passed in absolute silence.
Then an impulse, not yet compassionate for this collapsed rogue, compassionate only for the collapse, came to Charles.
“You had better have a drink,” he said, “it will do you good. Shall I get it for you?”
He received no answer, and went into the dining room next door. The table was already laid for dinner, and on the side-board stood syphon and spirit decanter. He poured out a stiff mixture and brought it back to him. And then as he held it out to him, and saw him take it in both his hands, that even together were scarcely steady enough to carry it to his mouth, pity awoke.
“I’m awfully sorry, you know, Mr. Craddock,” he said. “I hate it all. It’s a miserable business.”
Craddock made no answer, but sip by sip he emptied the glass Charles had brought him. For a few minutes after that he sat with eyes shut, but he smoothed his fallen lock of hair into its place again.
“What do you mean to do, either of you?” he asked.
Charles nodded to Frank to speak.
“I don’t know what Charles means to do,” he said, “because we haven’t talked it over. For myself, I mean to have back my contract with you, or to see it destroyed. When that is done, I shall have nothing more to ask from you.”
He thought a moment.
“You mustn’t do unfriendly things, you know,” he said. “You mustn’t systematically run down my work in your papers. That wouldn’t be fair. I intend, I may tell you, to hold my tongue about you for the future. I shan’t — I shan’t even want to abuse you any more. As for what I have heard about you in this last hour, it is quite safe with me, unless you somehow or other provoke me to mention it. I just want my contract, and then I shall have done with you.”
Craddock got up, and unlocked a pigeon-holed desk in the corner of the room. There were a quantity of papers in it. Of these he took out one from the pigeon-hole A, another from that of L. He glanced at these and handed one to each of the young men. Frank read carefully over what was written on his, and then folded it up, and put it in his pocket.
“Thank you, that is all,” he said.
Charles stood with his contract in his hand, not glancing at it. Instead he looked at the large white-faced man in front of him.
“We have more to talk about,” he said. “Shall we — wouldn’t it be better if we got it over at once? If you wish I will come in later.”
The uncontrolled irritability of nerves jangled and overstrung seized Craddock.
“For God’s sake let us have finished with it now,” he said, “unless you’ve got some fresh excitement to spring on me. What do you want me to do? And why does he wait there?” he said pointing to Frank.
Charles nodded to Frank.
“I’ll go then,” he said.
Charles’ anger and hot indignation had burned itself out. Of it there was nothing left but ashes, grey feathery ashes, not smouldering even any longer. It was impossible to be angry with anything so abject as the man who sat inertly there. It was impossible to feel anything but regret that he sat convicted of such pitiful fraud and falsity. He saw only the wreck of a year’s friendship, the stricken corpse of his own gratitude and loyalty. Here was the man who had first believed in and befriended him, and it was not in his nature to forget that. It had so long been to him an ever-present consciousness that it had become a permanent inmate of his mind, present to him in idle hours, but present most of all when he was at work, and thus wrought into the web of his life and
his passion. In the extinction of his anger, this reasserted itself again, tarnished it might be, and stained, but existent. And with that awoke pity, sheer pity for the man who had made and marred it.
He waited till Frank had closed the door.
“It’s wretched,” he said, “absolutely wretched.” Even to Craddock in the shame of his detection, and in his miserable apprehension of what must yet follow, the ring of sincerity was apparent; it reached down to him in the inferno he had made for himself. And the pity was without patronage; it did not hurt.
“Thank you for that,” he said. “Now tell me what you want done. Or perhaps you have done what you wanted already...” —
He broke off short and Charles waited. He guessed how terribly difficult any kind of speech must be.
“There is just one thing I should like to tell you,” said Craddock at length. “I — I lied about you to Philip Wroughton, but my object was not to injure you. I didn’t want to injure you. But I guessed that you were in love with Joyce. I guessed also that she — that she liked you. You stood in my way perhaps. My object was to reach her. That is all.”
There was no justification attempted: it was a mere statement of fact. He paused a moment.
“But I was not sorry,” he said, “even when I found that I had not advanced my own suit.”
“I didn’t seem to matter, I suppose,” said Charles in a sudden flash.
“Exactly that,” said Craddock. “But I ask your forgiveness. I always liked you.”
Charles did not answer at once, because he did not know whether he forgave Craddock or not. Certainly he did not want to injure him, he felt he could go no further than that.
“I intend to forgive you,” he said. “That will have to do...”
Even as he spoke all the innate generosity of the boy surged up in rebellion at this shabby speech, and the shabbier hesitation of thought that had prompted it.
“No, that won’t have to do,” he said quickly. “I should be ashamed to let that do. Forgive you? Why yes, of course. And now for the rest. You owe Mr. Wroughton five thousand pounds. There is no reason, I suppose, why you should see him and explain? I take it that you will send him his money. Is that so?”
“That shall be done.”
“Right. About me, what you said about me, I mean. You must write to him, I think. You must withdraw what you said. Perhaps you had better do that at once.”
“Yes.”
Charles got up.
“I will go then,” he said. “My properties shall have left your studio by to-morrow evening. There is nothing more to settle, I think.”
He held out his hand.
“Goodbye,” he said. “I — I can’t forget we have been friends and I don’t want to. You have been awfully good to me in many ways. I always told Frank so. Goodbye.”
Craddock was perfectly capable, indeed he had proved himself so, of the depths of meanness and falsity. But he was not in natural construction, like the villain of melodrama, who pursues his primrose path of nefarious dealing, calm and well-balanced, without one single decent impulse to clog his tripping feet. And when this boy, for whose gifts he had so profound an admiration, who knew the worst of him, could not forget as he said that they had been friends, he felt a pang of self-abasement that shot out beyond the mire and clay in which his feet were set.
“I wonder if you can possibly believe I am sorry,” he said. “I know it is a good deal to expect.... If that is so, may I ask you, as a favour which I should so much appreciate, that you do not take your things away from my studio just yet anyhow? Won’t you do that as a sign of your forgiveness? I won’t come there, I won’t bother you, or embarrass you with the sight of me. It isn’t so very much to ask of you, Charles.”
Charles had an instinctive repulsion from doing anything of the sort. He wanted to wash his hands clean of the man and of all that belonged to him, or could awaken remembrance of him. But, on the other hand, Craddock was so “down”; it was hardly possible to refuse so humble a petition. Besides he had said that he forgave him, and if that was not fully and unreservedly done, he might at least prop and solidify what he desired should be true in material and compassible ways. His mind needed but a moment to make itself up.
“But by all means, if you wish,” he said. “I should be very glad to.... And perhaps soon, not just yet, but soon, you will come and see my work, if I ring you up? Do! Or when you feel you would like to see me again, you will tell me.... Goodbye.”
Craddock heard him go downstairs, from Frank’s door, and continue his journey. Not till then did he see that Charles had left on the edge of the chimney-piece the contract concerning options which he had given him back. For half-a-second the attitude of mind built and confirmed in him by the habit of years asserted itself, and he would have put it back into the dark from which he had taken it half an hour ago. But close on the heels of that came a more dominant impulse, and he tore it to bits, and threw the fragments into the fender.
Then he sat down at his table, drew out his cheque-book and wrote a cheque payable to Philip Wroughton for five thousand pounds. There was no difficulty about that; Mr. Ward’s amazing friend who had carried off the complete night-mare decoration of post-impressionists from the walls of Thistleton’s Gallery had enabled his banking-balance to withstand an even larger call on its substantiality than that. But there was a letter to be written with it....
An hour later his servant came in to remind him that in half an hour he expected two friends to dinner. Already the waste-paper basket was choked with ineffectual beginnings, implying palliations, where no palliation was possible, telling half the truth and hinting at the rest, and still Craddock sat pen in hand, as far as ever from accomplishing this epistolary effort. And then an illuminating idea occurred to him: he would state just what had happened, neither more nor less, saying it in the simplest possible manner.... It took him a full half-hour always to dress for dinner, but he was ready to receive guests who were almost meticulously punctual, so short a time had his note taken him.
Philip Wroughton had become, so he often said to himself and Joyce, a perfectly different man, owing to his salutary wintering in Egypt, and in consequence (thinking himself, perhaps a differenter man than he really was) had just been knocked flat by an attack of lumbago, owing to a course of conduct that a few months ago he would have considered sheer insanity for one so physically handicapped as himself.
In consequence it was Joyce’s mission to take his letters and morning-paper up to him, after breakfast, hear his account of himself, and any fresh comments on the origin of this painful attack which had occurred to him during the night, open his letters for him — there was seldom more than one — and entertain him with such news out of the paper as she thought would interest him. To-day the pain was a good deal better, and he had remembered a new and daring action of his own which quite accounted for his trouble.
“No doubt it was what I did on Thursday evening,” he said, “for if you remember you called me to the window after dinner, saying what a beautiful night it was, and that the moon was full. I am not blaming you, my dear, I only blame myself for my imprudence, because if you remember I went out on the gravel path, in thin evening shoes, and dress-clothes, and stood there I daresay a couple of minutes. I remember I felt a little chilly, and I took a glass of hot whiskey and water before I went to bed. I had already had a glass of port at dinner, which in the old days was sufficient to give me a couple of days of rheumatism, and the whiskey on the top was indeed enough to finish me off. Do you not think that it was that, Joyce? Sometimes I feel that you are not really interested in this sort of thing, which means just heaven or hell to me; I am sure if a mere look at the moon and a glass of whiskey and water, without sugar, put you on your back for three days in agony and sleeplessness, I should show a little more curiosity about it. But I suppose you are accustomed to my being ill; it seems the natural state of things to you, and I’m sure I don’t wonder considering that for years that has been my
normal condition. Well, well, open the paper and let us try to find there something, which appeals to you more than your father’s health; aviation in France, perhaps, or the floods in the Netherlands.”
Poor Joyce had not at present had a chance of speaking.
“But I am interested, father,” she said, “and it was rather rash of you to take port, and then a stroll at night and the whiskey. I don’t know what Dr. Symonds will say to you if you tell him that particularly when you told him yesterday that it was the draught in church on Sunday.”
“It all helps, Joyce,” said her father, now contentedly embarked on the only interesting topic. “As Dr. Symonds himself said, these attacks are cumulative, all the little pieces of unwisdom of which one is guilty add to the pile, and at last Nature revenges herself. I wonder if coffee should go too: I should miss my cup of coffee after dinner. But I used to take it in Egypt without the slightest hint of ill-effects. Perhaps if I had saccharine instead of sugar.... I will ask Dr. Symonds. What letters are there for me?”
“Only one. I think it’s from Mr. Craddock.”
Philip Wroughton frowned.
“Really what you told me when you came down from town yesterday about his slandering that young Lathom,” he said, “seems to be quite upsetting, if true, if true. Certainly it took away my appetite for lunch; at least if I had eaten my lunch I feel sure it would have disagreed and so, briefly, I left it. But on thinking it over, Joyce, — I thought a great deal about it last night, for I slept most indifferently — I do not see why we should let it influence our bearing to Craddock. After all, what has happened? He said that young Lathom was not a very nice young fellow, and my mother has heard from his mother and his great friend that he is a very nice young fellow. What would you expect his mother and his friend to say? It is Craddock’s word against theirs. As for flying out, as you did, into a state of wild indignation against Craddock (it was that which upset me for my lunch, I feel convinced) that is quite ludicrous.... And your grandmother’s letter to me, giving me what she called a piece of her mind, I can only — now I am better — regard as the ravings of a very old and lunatic person. And on the top of that tirade, saying that she wishes to come down here next week, and bring her precious young Lathom with her! Luckily this attack gives me ample excuse for putting off a proposed visit from anybody.”