by Alec Waugh
For a moment or two more they lingered talking; then Christopher rose to go.
“Thank you so much,” he said. “One day soon I’ll be coming back again. In the meantime, can I give you a lift anywhere?”
She shook her head.
“I’m being called for, thanks.”
“Another victim?”
She laughed.
“How should I know? He seems to want my company. When nobody more important needs it he can have it. It’s all he’s likely to get.”
“Ah, Gwen, the eternal Lilith, but tell me now, do you see anything of Graham Moreton?”
“Um, a little.”
“And is that wise?”
She pouted.
“Are you going to assume the responsibility of a long friendship and deliver an address?”
“Have you ever known me moralize?”
“You usen’t to. But the years make puritans of us all.”
Violently above the door the telephone bell began to ring.
“Again,” she murmured. “I’d better say goodbye. These interruptions are apt to be a little lengthy. And don’t worry about your little friend. I’m merely trying to find out whether he’s like all the rest of you or not. At times I almost think he isn’t. But sooner or later I’m sure to find out he is.”
“And if you were to discover that he wasn’t?” Christopher murmured to himself, as he walked down the steps into the sunlight towards the car. Things might happen if she were to discover that Graham wasn’t.
Still, it was scarcely his job, he supposed. The wheels went round, with oneself a spoke in them, but he rather hoped that life was not going to be too cruel to Joan Faversham. Once, after all, Gwen Lawrence had been like that. Young and confident and happy. Fresh and generous-hearted, ready to give with both her hands. Till a man had let her down, and she had had to forge that armour for her own salvation; and forging it, become the thing she was. It would be sad if that were to happen to Joan Faversham. For it might, if Graham were to let her down. She might, as Gwen had done, have given so much that she had not any more to give or, rather, the urge, perhaps, to give would go.
It was all very well for the shallow people: they could make and unmake love as easily as they changed their clothing. But when love once took root in deep natures like Joan and Gwen, it had to be torn out. Joan might become like Gwen if Graham were to let her down.
It would hurt him rather a lot, were that to happen.
Years back, at a moment of not dissimilar indecision, he had made up his mind never, under any circumstances, to take part in any business that was not his. Nor had an occasion ever come to test that resolution. He had listened, but he had not interfered. He was an observer, not a participant. Let other people make of their lives such chaos as they chose. They were their own lives after all.
But now, for the first time since that far and dateless period of adolescence, an impulse not to acquiesce, not to submit to life’s authority, rose gustily within him. What reason might urge of the futility, of the assumption of interference, the desire to protect Joan Faversham from disenchantment mastered it.
What Joan was now Gwen Lawrence had been once. And what Gwen was now Joan Faversham might in her turn become.
“And that’s a thing,” he said, “that is well worth fighting to prevent.”
• • • • • • •
A man of as many tastes, as much leisure and as conveniently proportioned an income as Christopher Stirling’s, not only has a very large acquaintance, but is also able through familiarity with a great many different phases of the social comedy to tell with a tolerable degree of accuracy what any single person is doing at any single moment.
Elias Garlich was, he knew, one of the principal directors of the firm for which Graham Moreton was working. He was also a married man, some sixty-six years old, and a member of the Gregorian Club. He would leave his office, that was to say, shortly after six; he would not be dining till eight. There would be nothing in particular for him to do at his own house, and as he had reached an age and weight at which the encounters of the heart were not likely to require more than an intellectual exercise, he would presumably pass the intervening period in his club; in the card-room probably, but possibly in the billiard-room.
“So I think,” Christopher added to himself, “that I might do worse than avail myself this evening of the privileges to which my annual subscription of fifteen guineas entitles me.”
His prophecy was not unjustified. Slowly, jerkily, and with many pauses for the recovery of expended breath, at twenty-two and a quarter minutes to seven, Elias Garlich completed his climb of the main staircase of the Gregorian Club.
On the landing at its head Christopher Stirling was standing in apparently concentrated study of the afternoon’s fortunes on the turf. As the uneven steps drew close to him he turned.
“Ah. Mr, Garlich,” he said, “what a piece of fortune! I was wondering whether I should see you here this afternoon. I don’t know if a club is the proper place for the discussion of business, but I would be very grateful if I might ask your advice on a particular matter.”
Elias Garlich grunted. He was out of breath, and he was tired, and he did not care to discuss business outside offices.
“Well,” he said, “what is it?”
“Perhaps,” Christopher suggested, “it would be better if we went into the smoking-room annexe. It was empty a moment or two ago.”
Wheezily the old man followed him, to lower himself laboriously into a chair.
“Well?” he growled.
“It’s nothing in particular,” Christopher answered. ” It was merely that I was thinking of taking up a share or two in your company. Oh, I know,” he added hurriedly, “that to you it is a matter of complete indifference who may or may not hold shares in your company. You are independent of shareholders. But I thought perhaps you would be so very kind as to advise me as to the sort of sum I ought to pay for shares. They are not quoted on the Stock Exchange, and though I have, of course, seen your last few balance sheets, it isn’t easy for me to tell.”
In their heavily-lidded pouches the grey eyes of Elias Garlich glittered.
“What sort of shares,” he muttered, “preference or ordinary?”
“Ordinary.”
Contentedly Elias Garlich nodded his head. He was always glad to add a friend or at least an acquaintance, to the list of his ordinary shareholders. The preference fellows were all right. They got their money and didn’t grumble. But with these ordinary holders you never knew quite where you were, however well the business might be doing. They always expected more than they were getting. It was as well to have as many friends as possible on the other side of the table. And this young man was not the sort of person to prove troublesome.
“How much should you pay?” he answered. “Between fifty-three and fifty-seven, I should say.”
“Fifty-three and fifty-seven.” Christopher wrinkled his brows as though he were memorizing the figures. “Thank you very much,” he said. “I expect I’ll be getting one or two. Not that it makes much difference to you, sir, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t say that, I wouldn’t say that,” the old man answered. “After all, the shareholders are the proprietors of the business. We’re their employees really. And one prefers to be working for one’s friends. By the way,” he added, as Christopher prepared to rise, “how was it that you got the idea of taking shares in us?”
The reply came casually enough.
“Through a young friend of mine. I don’t know if you know him—Graham Moreton.”
“Moreton? I know him very well, a most capable young fellow.”
Christopher nodded, as though the interest of the incident were completely impersonal to him.
“I’m glad you think so. That’s what I’ve always thought. They tell me that you’re putting him in charge of one of your London departments shortly.”
Closely, as he spoke the words, Christopher watched the face of
his companion. And he was relieved to see that there was no sign of denial or surprise in it. If only Graham could be given that job definitely, so that he could marry Joan: if only that were to happen, Gwen and all that Gwen stood for, would be a chapter that had been read through.
“In charge of a London department?” Elias Garlich was saying. “Well, I don’t know that I’d say that exactly. In time, perhaps, in time.”
“In time? But unless he gets offered it quickly, someone else will be offering him something better, and it would be a pity to lose him, with the connections he’s built up. He’d probably take them with him. I believe he was made a thundering good offer by someone the other day.”
It was quite untrue, but Elias Garlich was not to know it was.
“Eh? What?” he said testily. “Another offer, you say? Who from?”
But Christopher was unprepared to show any signs of more than ordinary interest.
“I forget,” he said, “someone was telling me about it. And I remember thinking to myself at the time, that if you people didn’t freeze on to Moreton pretty quick someone else would. But I mustn’t waste your time,” he finished. “It’s so kind of you to have given me that advice. It’ll be fearfully useful.”
The climax had been reached, the conversation had been carried as far as he could safely carry it. And he knew the technique of the stage too well to prolong a scene that had exhausted its capacities for drama.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “how much I manage to get those shares for.”
And with a smile and a wave of the hand he turned aside to leave Elias Garlich thinking.
He had put the idea into the old man’s head; had started the train of thought that should result in Graham’s appointment to this job in London which would enable him to marry.
“And when once Joan’s got him,” he told himself, “all the other women in the world won’t be able to get him from her. In another three weeks Joan should be safe.”
Chapter XVI
The Enchanted Hours
“Shall I bring you your breakfast in here, darling, or in the dining-room?”
Gwen Lawrence was seated at her dressingtable, heightening the polish of her nails with savage sweeps. She had been restless and slept badly, and had risen only a few minutes after May Julian.
“I don’t care,” she answered irritably, “wherever you’d prefer.”
“But surely, darling——”
Impatiently Gwen tapped the leather pad against the table. There were times when May Julian became positively maddening.
“Whichever you please, I said.”
“Very well, darling.”
A moment later she was back.
“Would you like your eggs poached or scrambled, darling?”
“I don’t care.”
“Surely, darling——”
“Is it quite necessary,” Gwen snapped, “to call me darling every time you open your mouth?”
May Julian’s mouth fell open in a silly gape.
“Darling——” she began.
Gwen stamped her foot.
“For heaven’s sake don’t worry me,” she cried.
Surely the woman could appreciate that there were times at which one wanted to be left alone: when one ’didn’t want to be fussed round and darlinged: when all one asked for was to be left in peace! Wearily she drew the back of her hand across her forehead. How her head ached! And there were red rims of fire round her eyes.
“Would you like kidneys or bacon, darling?”
It was more than she could stand.
“For God’s sake,” she shouted; and jumping to her feet, she swung round towards the door. “Can’t you for one moment leave me alone?” she cried. “You fuss and pester round me. You make yourself a doormat. I’m rude to you. I’m unkind to you. It makes no difference to you. You like it; that’s what it is; you like it!” Her voice rose in a hysterical crescendo, through a bloodshot mist the wide-eyed and pale-faced girl shrunk cowering before her. “You like it,” she screamed. “You like it.” She had no longer any control over herself. Without knowing what she did she struck blindly with her open palm at the white, submissive face. Beneath her hand the cool flesh shuddered. Her finger-tips tingled with a maddening frenzy, again and again she struck. “You like it, you like that too,” she cried, laughing as the pale skin reddened. “You like it, you like that too.”
Then suddenly she felt weak; weak and faint, as though she were going to be sick. The floor swung up towards her. She did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. There was a softness, a reeling softness under her. Eau-de-Cologne was being splashed upon her torehead. May Julian’s arms were round her. A tear-stained voice was murmuring in her ear:
“You didn’t mean it, darling, you didn’t mean it.”
“No, no,” she was answering between her sobs. “No, no, I didn’t mean it.”
“You’re all I’ve got,” the voice was murmuring. “I love you. You don’t know how I love you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing, nothing, I love you so, I love you.”
Gradually under the gentle impact of those murmuring words the shuddering succession of sobs sank to an even breathing.
• • • • • • •
With a soft thud the front door closed behind May Julian, and with a sigh of relief Gwen Lawrence lifted herself out of bed, and walked over to her dressing-table. From the three-flanked mirror a palefaced reflection looked at her.
“Can that be me?” she asked herself. “Can I be that: that woman who was screaming and yelling in this room an hour ago? Can that be me?”
In all her life she could not recall one occasion when she had behaved in a manner anything approaching that. But then, never in her life before had she been the centre of so exacting a set of circumstances. The strain was becoming too tense for her. If only she had not met Graham Moreton. It was only since Graham had come into her life that she had found so inexpressibly distasteful the conditions that had governed it.
Yes, Graham was different. At first she had thought he wasn’t. And she had meant to make him suffer for not being.
She had made him suffer right enough. A man may lie with his lips, but his eyes will tell the truth, and Graham’s eyes had told her that, if he were not actually in love, he was near enough in love to be wretched for the loss of her.
Yes; she had made him suffer; but at the cost of suffering herself.
And as she leant forward, her forehead pressed against her hands, the loneliness of which she had only recently been conscious, the loneliness for someone who could understand and love her, that someone who would let her be herself, with whom she could be herself, rose stiflingly within her.
As a drowning sailor desperately, without reflection, snatches at the spar that drifts across him, she flung out her hand sideways towards the telephone; and with lips that quivered repeated the number that five months back Graham had scrawled for her on a piece of cardboard.
• • • • • • •
For Graham, too, the morning had been passing slowly. There are easier places than London in midsummer, when blue skies and sun-splashed spaces are evocative every hour of the day of mystery and romance: easier places when the key to adventure is a number of the telephone that is at your side.
So far he had managed to succeed. For a month now he had not seen her. “I will not go,” he told himself, “to Ciber Crescent. Florida Asiatics may rise or fall. Contango days may come and go. I will not go there. When the time comes for a decision I will ring her up.”
For at the present time he knew he was not strong enough to ring her up. His resolution before the sound of that voice along the wire would subside. He would find himself stammering out the suggestion that he should call and discuss the problem with her. And once again, like a net, the spell of her fascination would be cast about him. If, however, he had the power of will to allow six weeks or perhaps a month even to pass without his seeing her, he would be able to accustom his mind
to the idea of not seeing her. One could save, as one could kill, oneself by habit.
The bell at his elbow tinkled. He took up the receiver.
“Graham Moreton speaking,” he answered.
“How terribly formal that does sound,” and from the other end of the line came that short, broken, so fatally familiar laugh.
“Gwen,” he gasped.
“Graham,” she echoed in half-mocking imitation.
But he was incapable of reply. He felt weak and frightened and irresolute. And at the same time resolute. And at the same time indescribably at peace.
“I suppose,” Gwen was continuing, “that I’ve interrupted you in the middle of some fearfully important conference!”
“Oh no,” he said. “As a matter of fact, at the moment there isn’t a great deal on.”
“Splendid! I was picturing you with a circle of venerable gentlemen round you, wondering who on earth it was that was having the impertinence to interrupt them. I’m glad that there’s not much on, because in that case you’ll be able to leave your office early and take me for a drive. It’s a shame to waste a day like this in London.”
“But,” he began, “but——”
“Now, now,” she said, “you aren’t to start pretending that you’ve got no more independence than an office-boy. You’ve often said to me that as long as you get your work done your people don’t in the least mind when you do it. So you can cut your lunch to-day. Get four hours’ work done in two, and pick me up at Ciro’s at ten past three. I’ll be lunching with a Mr. Fortescue. So that’s settled, Graham, isn’t it? À bientôt” and the receiver was replaced.
Helplessly Graham drew his fingers through his hair.
“Oh, well,” he thought, “sooner or later I suppose it had to happen.”
• • • • • • •
Like most busy people. Graham was invariably punctual. At eight and a half minutes past three he steered his car into the narrow passage of Orange Street.
