Paul felt the muscles of his throat contract, and his pulses quicken, but he kept a tight hold on himself. His voice was still quiet as he responded:
“Having determined to leave sentiment out of the discussion, Veronica, you base your whole argument on it. Dislike is a sentiment as much as affection. Your feeling for me is quite immaterial in a business discussion. I make an offer to you on a business-like basis, and my reputation in the City is that of a man to be trusted in matters of finance. Again – I will pay for the adequate upkeep of this place, and put you and Martin in a reasonable financial position, if you will lease me the east wing as a self-contained unit for my own use. If the thought of living under the same roof with me is so repugnant to you, I am prepared to buy the house, and to pay such a sum for it that you and Martin can be independent elsewhere. It’s quite obvious that necessity will force you to sell – or mortgage – eventually. Why not consider my offer – without sentiment – if you are capable of disembarrassing yourself of that quality.”
She studied him again, with that even, reflective stare, sitting very still; and Paul was aware of her strength, the strong muscles of smooth neck and arms, the physical fitness and nervous control which made her able to stay so immobile, graceful with the grace of a recumbent cat. What was there about her that raised this irritated response in himself, he wondered.
“Yes, you score a point in saying that I am biased by a sentiment of dislike, Paul,” she replied, her voice still even and unemotional. “However, there it is. I will not share the house with you, and I will not sell it to you. That is my final answer. Martin’s will be the same. In any case, he can neither sell nor sublet without my consent. Shall we consider this discussion closed? I am prepared to welcome you here as my guest at any time, provided your stay is not prolonged beyond that of the average guest, and I will do my best to entertain you hospitably as far as my means allow. I make that concession to the ‘blood ties’ to which you referred so feelingly a moment ago.”
She got up, and stood by the sunny window, her hands in the pockets of her tweed jacket, and looked down at her brother.
“How pleasant that we can both express our aversions in a manner so academic, Paul! As a family, our mode of speech is remarkably uncorrupted by either temper or jargon.”
Paul got up too, and came and stood beside her, looking down at the sunny garden, where yellow leaves blew across the lawns.
“Yes. There’s still something to be said for breeding, Veronica,” he remarked dryly. “We don’t descend to face-slapping tactics in practice, whatever the trend of our feelings – but tell me this. How, in the name of common sense, are you hoping to maintain this property on the income remaining to you?”
She smiled. “Paul, don’t make me remind you again that you are here as a guest, and that there are limits to the intelligent inquiries made by such. We shall manage in our own way. Not your way; of course. It’s rather amusing. I told you that the whole family had coincided here. All of them – Richard and Basil, in addition to you, have been taking an intelligent interest in the stock markets. In other words, noting the effect on my income and Martin’s. Basil has suggestions to make, too.” She stretched herself, a tall powerful figure, too tall and too muscular for any woman, in Paul’s opinion.
“Action and reaction,” she mused. “Once, when I was fifteen and you were twenty-five, Paul, you lost your temper and you slapped my face. I probably deserved it, but it was a deplorable episode. Now, twenty-five years later, I haven’t forgotten it. If I am to accept advice and become dependent, I prefer to depend on the brother who did not lose his temper in the long ago. Then there’s this to it. The intelligent interest you advocated just now has led me to make a few inquiries. I don’t think that the paper market was reorganised entirely by the dispassionate action of unknown financial magnates. I think you may have had an interest in the opposition firm, so to speak, Paul. Now having said all that I’ve got to say, I will leave you to unpack. The bathroom in this wing is yours. We dine at 7.30, and tea is a movable feast from 4.30 onwards. I hope you’ll find everything you want here.”
She swung across the room and left her brother to himself. He stared down at the neglected garden, his mind echoing a phrase,” Naboth’s Vineyard.”
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN Veronica Mallowood went downstairs again after she had left Paul, she heard voices in the hall, deep voices, like Paul’s – and like her own for that matter – but there was merriment in their tones, and she paused for a minute at the top of the stairs for the sheer pleasure of hearing the cheerful tones below. After Paul’s heavy pomposity the sound of Richard’s flippant, light-hearted staccato was tonic in effect.
The hall door was still open, and Veronica’s twin, Martin, was just coming in, after examining Paul’s car which still stood in the drive. He glanced up and saw his sister on the stairs and called cheerfully:
“Hallo, Ronnie! His Opulence has come then. Some car. Wish I dared pinch it. He doesn’t need it, and I do.”
“I was just suggesting to Basil that he should drive his own outfit into it and cash in on the insurance for a new one,” put in Richard, and Veronica ran downstairs saying:
“Do be a bit sensible, all of you! Paul’s upstairs, and we don’t want to enliven the family reunion by more rows than necessary. Tea is in the drawing-room, or ought to be. Basil, go and put those guns away in the gun-room, and for goodness’ sake take the cartridges out before you put them away. You’re a menace with a gun. No one would ever think you’d been brought up in the country.”
“He can shoot straight, Ronnie, all the same. We’ve got a couple of brace, of wild duck and a hare, not to mention the bunnies. Enough to help the larder out for a day or so.”
It was Richard Mallowood who spoke, he whom Paul had called the “nomad” of the family. Standing beside her tall brothers, herself lacking very little of their height, Veronica completed a striking family group. Richard, next in seniority to Paul, was deeply bronzed, his face lean and healthy, his figure upright, lithe and powerful. Some years back he had achieved not a little fame as a climber in the Himalayas, and the hardiness and powers of endurance which still carried him through hazardous journeys in the world’s most solitary places were patent in his face and frame. Basil Mallowood, now forty-five years old, was as tall as Richard: like all the family, with the exception of Martin, he was dark headed and dark eyed, finely built and in good muscular trim, but his face was tired and sallow, with pouches below his eyes and heavy lines on his sagging skin. Basil was the product of a lifetime spent in a city office, Richard of a life spent in the open air. The one strove with his brains over the complexities of international finance, the other strove with his bodily energies against the forces of nature, and each carried the signs of their careers.
Martin, the youngest brother, was of more slender build; his fair hair and grey eyes masked the strong family likeness existing between all the brothers. He was inclined to weediness, justifying Richard’s description of him as “a couple of yards of twine,” and when he was tired his left foot dragged a little – heritage of the boyhood’s disease which it had taken him half a lifetime to outgrow. Martin’s face still twitched nervously at times, and the family liability to furious temper tended to break out in him even more fiercely than in his brothers. It was Martin who answered Veronica’s last sentence.
“Tea? That’s not a bad idea. I suppose we shall have Paul to cheer us up, looking down his nose at the family china. I hope you’ve had the Woolworth set put out, Ronnie. That’ll get his goat. Does he still want to buy us out?”
“Shut up, you young ass,” said Richard cheerfully. “If we’re doomed to spend an evening en famille, do for God’s sake let it be an evening without rows. We’ve had enough of that sort of thing in times past. The very thought of it makes me inclined to vomit. Basil, leave that gun alone. It’s mine, and I’m not going to give it away. Lord, I’m thirsty! Come on, Ronnie. Hustle with that tea!”
; He left the fireplace where he had been standing and with his arm through Martin’s walked across to the drawing-room door and stood on the threshold for a moment.
“Ye Gods! Marvellous how this room’s unaltered. It does bring things back… Teas for cricket teams, teas after a day’s hunting, teas at Christmas… muffins and cream and Buzzard’s cakes.”
The long room looked very charming in the mellow light of the westering sun. The faded chintz and worn carpet had a charm not lost in their old age. The creamy panelling was light and gay in contrast to the sombreness of the hall. Cabinets holding silver and china behind gold trellised fronts showed the elegance of fine craftsmanship, and though carpet and curtains and covers were old “to the verge of dissolution” as Veronica said, the beauty of fine cabinet work, of noble proportion and beautiful wood, lent dignity to a room which contained nothing that was not fine of its kind.
Richard threw himself down in an armchair beside the fire, which groaned under his sudden onset, and Martin said:
“Here, steady on with the furniture! The springs are all ready to drop out. Ronnie and I will have to turn upholsterers if we’re to have anything to sit on.”
Richard stretched his long limbs and looked round the room:
“It all looks the same, on the surface, but it’s a bit worn… like an old car. Why not let Paul stump up, Martin? He’s simply rolling. He could put this place in order again without even noticing the cheques he’d have to write. Spoil the Egyptians. I’m all in favour of letting other people pay for my repairs.”
“I’m not, not if you’ve got to give them house-room and tolerate their uppishness,” replied Martin. “I know we’re in a mess, Ronnie and I, but the one thing we’re not going to do is to let Paul in on us. The minute he gets the chance he’s going to treat this place as his own, and then life would be pure hell. We had enough of Paul and his ways before the old man died. You remember. When I was a kid I remember you saying you’d rather be a deck hand on a stinking cargo boat than live at home here and be badgered by Paul and Basil.”
“Yes. I remember, and I’ve stuck to what I said,” said Richard ruminatively. “Basil used to be a fair-sized pest, too, but he’s improved with age. Don’t look so hipped, Martin. Something will happen to straighten things out. It always does. I’ve never been in a tight hole without something unexpected happening to help me out.”
“I feel such a damned, futile, incompetent ass!” burst out Martin. “I’ve just gone on living here, enjoying life in a vague sort of way without bothering about the future. I suppose I ought to have gone into a bank, or a stockbroker’s office, or something. Then I might have been in a position to put things straight for Ronnie. As it is, I suppose we shall have to start selling things, and go on selling things, until there’s nothing left but the house, but I’m damned if I’m going to let Paul have his way, no matter what happens.”
While Richard and Martin had been talking in the drawing-room, Veronica went up to Basil, who was still fiddling with Richard’s heavy shotgun in the hall.
“I’ve been taking your name in vain, Basil,” she said. “When Paul was lecturing me about the impossibility of keeping this place up and all the rest of it, I told him that you had offered to help, and I’d rather be beholden to you than to him. No. Don’t interrupt. I’m not asking you for money. I wouldn’t accept it if you offered it to me. I just used your name on the spur of the minute, mainly to annoy Paul. It’d make him livid to think of you acquiring the mantle he wishes to don himself.”
Basil chuckled, but there was little merriment in the sound. His face was getting a sardonic expression as he grew older – the pronounced Mallowood profile tended to harshness rather than geniality.
“All right, Ronnie. Glad you warned me. We’re a queer lot, aren’t we? I wonder if all old families have the same quality of exasperating one another. We all used to quarrel like lunatics; you and I did, for that matter, but Paul baited the lot of us. As to the actual money question, that can wait.” He frowned heavily for a moment, staring at the fire. “I suppose I ought to have come along before and seen how things were going with you and Martin.”
“Thanks,” cut in Veronica coolly. “After the entertainment we had here when father’s will was read such magnanimity was hardly to be expected. I told you all then that the sooner you cleared out of my house, mine and Martin’s, the better. I haven’t asked you for help, and I’m not likely to ask you in future, but I used your name as a means of scoring off Paul. I don’t trust him an inch, and I’m not going to let him think I’ve got to accept his help.”
Again Richard chuckled. “Trust him? I’m with you there,” he replied. “I know a thing or two about Paul and his ways. All on the right side of the law, sans dire, but he’s not above playing a low-down game to get his own way. Right oh, Ronnie. I’ll play up. I owe Paul a few backhanders for benefits received. Hallo, another car. Who’s this?”
A small car had just come up the drive and pulled up beside Paul’s gleaming Rolls. Veronica went to the open door, calling: “Hallo, Cynthia! Jolly of you to come. We’re a family party. I warned you.”
Basil Mallowood went out behind his sister, and opened the door of the small Morris saloon. Its driver slid out a neatly shod foot and then gave a cry of surprise as she looked up.
“Basil… Heavens above! I thought Veronica said that Paul was coming.”
“He’s here, and Richard’s here, too. In fact the whole family! It’s good to see you again, Cynthia! You look well.”
Cynthia Lorne stared at him afresh before replying, her face puzzled and a little worried. Then she got out of the car and held out her hand to Basil.
“Thanks. I’m very well. What a surprising family you are. Hallo, Veronica. It’s nice to see you!”
Composed of face again, she ran up the wide stone steps to greet Veronica with a kiss. The two women presented a striking contrast to one another; Cynthia Lorne was of average height, fair, soignée, her hair curled in the latest mode, her face delicately rouged with carmine lipstick emphasising the full curves of her mouth. In her short fur coat of bleached squirrel over a tailored beige suit, her impeccable legs garbed in the finest of silk stockings, she looked unsubstantial as she stood beside Veronica, and very much younger than her years. Cynthia was herself in the late thirties, but her corn gold hair and blue eyes made her look considerably younger.
Basil Mallowood had lifted out the suitcase from the back of the car and was carrying it up the steps when Paul came forward from the shadowy end of the panelled hall and held out his hand to Cynthia Lorne.
“This is a pleasure all the greater for being unexpected, Cynthia,” he said. “It was a happy thought of Veronica’s to ask you to enhance my last evening in England.”
He held her hand as he spoke, looking down into her upturned face with an expression very different from that previously on his face. Basil, still holding the suitcase, caught a glimpse of all three faces – Paul’s, Cynthia’s and Veronica’s, and their expressions gave him food for thought. Paul’s, he thought, was merely fatuous. “Amorous old dolt,” he said to himself. Cynthia’s face was half-startled, half-amused. Veronica was smiling, with that strange unmerry smile of derision, not untinged with disgust. Basil felt a sudden heat of anger rising in him. Veronica had done this on purpose – had asked Cynthia Lorne to come to stay in the house when both Paul and he himself were there, too. Veronica must have known, he meditated – known that both he and Paul had pursued Cynthia before she married that matinée idol, Cecil Lorne. She had got rid of him now – the divorce case had been undefended, and Cecil Lorne was now at Hollywood with his latest love. Basil was not devoid of a sense of humour in a cynical way. Angry though he was, he could see the humour of the present situation: himself and Paul and Cynthia, with Veronica looking on. Funny, if you looked at it dispassionately.
Meanwhile Paul, with his mannered courtesy, was leading Cynthia into the house.
“I believe tea’s waiting for us somewhere,
” he said. “I expect you’re longing for it after your drive.”
Veronica’s voice cut in, curt and incisive.
“Come upstairs and find your room, Cynthia, and we’ll dump the baggage. I’ve put you in the blue room, because you said it was the only one you could find your way to without getting lost.”
Taking the suitcase from Basil, Veronica led her guest upstairs. Cynthia Lorne flashed a smile at Paul before she followed her hostess, and Paul turned away, after gazing at her figure as she walked upstairs, and found himself facing Basil, who was grinning sardonically.
“Afternoon, Paul. Quite a while since we’ve met. I hear a good deal about you in the City, one way and another, though we don’t often coincide at the same places.”
Paul nodded to his brother off-handedly, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
“Quite as well, perhaps. Our interests might not always coincide, either. Was it Veronica’s idea of humour to have a family party?”
Basil moved away across the hall to the drawing-room, talking as he went:
“Hardly. Ronnie doesn’t find the family good value in the entertainment line. Richard just blew in a few days ago, as though he’d just run down for the week-end, and he phoned me to come along for an exchange of views, so to speak. He picks up some useful information in the course of his travels.”
Rope's End, Rogue's End Page 2
