Nothing Venture

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Mr Weare—”

  He must have been very deep in his own bitter thoughts, for she had to speak again, and louder:

  “Mr Weare—”

  He flung round then, and she saw his face cut with deep lines of pain and rage, his black brows meeting over hot dark eyes.

  “What is it?”

  The hot dark eyes held not the slightest recognition.

  She said, “Mr Weare—I’m from Mr Page’s office.” That was quite an easy thing to say, and she said it easily, the current still taking her on.

  Jervis Weare stared.

  “Well?” he said.

  “I want to speak to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I am from Mr Page’s office. It’s a business matter.”

  He paused, detached, not really aware of her.

  “Mr Page sent you?”

  Nan shook her head.

  “It’s a business matter.”

  Her repetition of the phrase caught his attention. He had not noticed her shake of the head. If Page had sent this girl—well—

  “Where can we talk?” said Nan Forsyth.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are going home—to your house.”

  “Is it mine?”

  For a moment his look disturbed her strange calm.

  “Will you let me speak to you there? I have something that I want to say.”

  He stared for a moment longer. Then he said,

  “Oh, certainly.”

  They went on together. The house rose up before Nan, heavy and square and grey. Jervis used a latchkey, and they went through the hall into a room at the back of the house—a man’s room, littered with a man’s belongings, littered also with what were obviously wedding presents—a handsome standard lamp; a cigar-box with the signatures of several donors sprawling across the crude new silver; half a dozen boxes half unpacked, with glass, china or silver showing here and there. Two windows framed in dark velvet curtains looked out upon a fair-sized garden bordered with trees.

  Nan passed into this room, and felt its atmosphere close about her. When Jervis Weare had followed her and shut the door, she was standing against one of the heavy curtains. The current had brought her here. Now it ebbed away from her. She was Nan Forsyth facing something that was going to decide all the rest of her life, and all the rest of Jervis Weare’s life. For a moment she felt fear as she had never felt it before. And then courage rose in her like a flood.

  He turned from the door and said,

  “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind saying what you want? I’m rather busy.”

  “Yes,” said Nan. She put her left hand behind her and found the window-sill; she felt the need of something hard and firm to hold on to. Then she lifted her eyes to his frowning face and said, “I’m in Mr Page’s office.”

  “Yes—you said so.” There was just the least impatient twitch of the lip as he spoke.

  “I’m in Mr Page’s office. When you came in this afternoon you slammed the door. It didn’t latch. I was in the office. I heard what you said to Mr Page.”

  She had been prepared for anger, but not for quite so bleak a look as this.

  “You listened. Well?”

  The look hurt her beyond bearing. She winced away from it, then gripped the window-sill and kept herself steady.

  Jervis Weare did not see her wince. He was not really seeing her at all. His anger turned a cold edge upon this confessed eavesdropper.

  “Well?” he repeated.

  Nan kept her eyes on him. She didn’t mind his being angry; she only minded his being hurt. He was angry because he was hurt—and in his hurt, what further hurt might come to him? He was like a wounded man staggering blindly toward a precipice. If someone you cared for was doing that, you couldn’t stand aside and let them go on—you had to stop them even if they hated you for doing it.

  A third impatient “Well?” brought stumbling words to her lips:

  “I heard what you said to Mr Page.”

  Jervis walked to the table and stood there. He touched it with one hand and leaned forward a little. It was the picture of him which had formed in her mind when she stood listening and heard him say in his bitter voice, “You have only to find me a wife.” He must have been recalling his own words, for he was looking at her, really looking, for the first time.

  He saw a girl in a neat grey dress and a close black hat, a girl who held herself very straight and looked at him with steady grey eyes. Her face was pale, her lips pressed firmly together. He looked at her and said,

  “Did Mr Page send you?”

  “No,” said Nan.

  “Then—will you explain?”

  “I heard what you said to Mr Page.”

  “So you said. And what did I say?”

  Nan held her head a little higher.

  “You said that you must be married by the sixteenth. You asked him to find a girl who would marry you at twenty-four hours’ notice.”

  The hand behind her drove the edge of the window-sill deep into her palm. She saw the cold anger of his face break suddenly. Something broke it—a different anger, a flash of humour, a something else which she could not define.

  “So that’s it? You’ve got a nerve—haven’t you?”

  Nan said, “Yes,” quite soberly.

  He burst out laughing.

  “Well, why not? I haven’t time to pick and choose. Since you overheard what we were saying, you know that. To be married on the sixteenth, I must put in for a licence today—but it is unfortunately necessary to give the lady’s name, so if you’re really offering to step into the breach, perhaps you’ll begin by giving me your name.”

  “Nan Forsyth,” said Nan.

  He took his hand off the table and swung a chair round.

  “You’d better sit down.”

  He came round, took the writing-chair, picked up a pen, and filled it.

  “Did you say Anne Forsyth?”

  Nan came forward. It was very difficult to let go of the window-sill. Her legs felt as if they belonged to someone else. She sat down a little stiffly. It was like being interviewed for a situation. She was being interviewed for the situation of Jervis Weare’s wife. It was like something in a dream. But there was Jervis, looking at her and repeating.

  “Anne Forsyth?”

  “No—just Nan. I was christened Nan.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No, nothing else.”

  He wrote “Nan Forsyth,” and without looking up asked her age.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Parents?”

  “Dead.”

  “Any near relations?”

  “A sister.” She thought suddenly and warmly of Cynthia, and the dream shook a little.

  “Older, or younger?”

  “Younger—” She paused, then added, “Nineteen.”

  Jervis had stopped writing. His pen dug holes in the paper. He didn’t want to know the answers to any of these questions. She had a well-bred voice. If she was in Page’s office, she was likely to be a respectable girl.… What did it matter to him what she was? She was the stone he was going to send smashing through Rosamund’s plan. What did it matter where the stone came from? He looked up, and met her steady eyes. He asked abruptly,

  “Why are you doing this? For money?”

  There was only a moment’s hesitation before she said,

  “Of course. It’s a business arrangement.”

  “Oh, entirely. That ought to be quite clear.”

  “Yes,” said Nan. The hand that had held the window-sill went down and gripped the edge of her chair. She repeated her “Yes.” Then she said, “If it’s a business matter, do you mind discussing the details?”

  She got a curious look, and he laughed again.

  “Mind? Why should I mind? And what details do you want to discuss?”

  Nan’s hand tightened on the chair.

  “I’m earning my living,” she said
. “I’m doing it because I have to.”

  “Yes?” said Jervis.

  “If I do this, I shall lose my job.”

  “You mean you’ll lose your job if you marry me.”

  “I don’t think Mr Page would keep me on.”

  Jervis laughed with a certain hard amusement.

  “I don’t suppose he would. But the law obliges me to support you, you know.”

  She never took her eyes from his face—serious, steady eyes.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If it’s business, it ought to be done in a business way.”

  “I see—you want a settlement.”

  For the first time her colour rose. It flushed her pale cheeks and ebbed rapidly.

  “No, I didn’t mean that.”

  “Will you say what you do mean?”

  Nan gripped the chair and thought hard about Cynthia. Impossible to leave Cynthia unprovided for.

  “I want something now.”

  He did not laugh this time, only looked at her with the hard amusement in his eyes.

  “What—cash on delivery? Is that it?”

  Nan didn’t speak.

  He thought suddenly that she had courage at any rate.

  “Well?” he said. “How much? Five hundred pounds?”

  Nan shook her head.

  “What—not enough?”

  She shook her head again, then spoke.

  “It isn’t enough. I shall lose my job, and I’ve got someone depending on me.”

  She felt better when she had said that. But Jervis was staring at her.

  “Depending?”

  “Yes—my sister. I couldn’t just take this on and leave her.”

  He threw himself back in his chair.

  “Well, how much?”

  “Two thousand pounds,” said Nan, and set her teeth.

  Jervis Weare regarded her with frank admiration.

  “You certainly have a nerve!” he said.

  It was heartening to be told so. At the moment Nan felt exactly like a sawdust doll from which the last grain of sawdust has leaked away, leaving it quite flat, quite empty. She said, in what she was surprised to find was a steady voice,

  “It’s because of Cynthia. I can always get a job.”

  “And she can’t?”

  Nan shook her head. She looked young, mournful, and serious. The contrast between her appearance and what Jervis Weare had just described as her nerve was so extreme as to be ludicrous.

  Jervis pushed back his chair and got up.

  “So you propose to turn two thousand pounds over to Cynthia? And how much do you want for yourself?”

  “I don’t want anything—I can get a job.”

  “And why should I give Cynthia two thousand pounds?”

  Nan looked up at him with a perfectly steady gaze.

  “You won’t give it to Cynthia—you’ll give it to me. Mr. Weare left you a hundred thousand pounds. I’m helping you to keep it. The two thousand pounds will be my commission.”

  “What a business head!”

  “I’ve had a business training.”

  She looked away at last, not in embarrassment, but because she had said what she had come to say. She relaxed a little, let go of the chair, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.

  Jervis Weare walked across the room and back again.

  “All right,” he said, “you can have your commission.”

  VI

  At nine o’clock on the morning of August 16th Jervis Weare was married to Nan Forsyth in the church of St. Justus, Carrington Square. It is a peculiarly ugly church. The heavy old-fashioned gallery which runs round three sides of it induces a perpetual dusk. Nan came out of the bright morning sunshine into the dusk, which smelt of pews and varnish and old age. It was a very depressing smell.

  Mr Page gave her away disapprovingly, and he and the verger were the only witnesses. She looked once at Jervis, and saw him as a tall, aloof shadow. She could guess at the frown she could not see. When he took her hand and put the ring on it, his was hot and dry. He rammed the ring down, and there it was.

  They got up from their knees and went into the vestry. She wrote herself for the last time Nan Forsyth.

  “And now your father’s name here, Mrs Weare.”

  It was the two things coming together that took her off her balance. Mrs Weare—and her father dead in a far country, not knowing. There wasn’t anyone to know or care. She had not told Cynthia, because there would have been too much to tell. Tears stung in her eyes; the register disappeared in a mist.

  “Your father’s name—just here, please. Full Christian names.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment hard, then, opening them, bent and wrote, “Nigel Forsyth,” and stood aside whilst Mr Page and the verger signed.

  They came out into the sunlight again. Mr Page shook hands with them both and walked away. They watched him go. Then, as he turned the corner, Jervis Weare became aware that his wife was addressing him. Her voice had reached him, not her words. He saw her standing there in her grey dress and black hat, and said,

  “I beg your pardon—I didn’t hear what you said.”

  “I said good-bye,” said Nan.

  He looked a little startled. Since their first interview they had not met till now. He said,

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Cynthia,” said Nan. “I haven’t told her yet.”

  Jervis was not interested in Cynthia. He frowned and said,

  “I think we must talk first.”

  “Nan said, “Why?” and got a hard look.

  “One talks because one has things to say. I’ve got things to say, and I don’t propose to say them here. If you’ll come over to the house—”

  They crossed the square in silence. Nan wondered what he was going to say to her. She had got hold of herself again. There was a blue sky overhead and a light fresh wind; the sun shone. She wished that they could have talked to one another under this clear sky.

  Jervis’s room was not dark like the church, and the two windows were open to the garden. The air that flowed in had been warmed by the sun. She went and stood by the window so as to get as near to the garden as possible. Nan was always friends with a garden.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” she said, looking across to where he stood on the hearth, one foot on the fender and an arm lying along the mantelshelf.

  “I wanted to tell you that Mr Page is seeing about that two thousand pounds. Have you a banking account?”

  He saw her smile for the first time.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “You will have to have one. You’d better see Mr Page about it, and when you have opened the account he will pay the money in. Then, as regards yourself, I have signed a settlement which gives you five hundred a year.”

  The colour flamed into Nan’s face.

  “Oh, you mustn’t!”

  “Did you imagine that I shouldn’t make you an allowance?”

  “I don’t want you to. I can get a job.”

  Mr Jervis Weare assumed a lordly tone.

  “As to that, you can please yourself. A hundred and twenty-five pounds a quarter will be paid into your account.”

  The colour flamed higher. Women are strange creatures. She would take two thousand pounds for Cynthia without a qualm—it seemed a very right and just arrangement—but to take an allowance for herself was a thing that shamed her through and through.

  “I can’t take it,” she said in a voice whose distress pierced Jervis Weare’s self-absorption.

  He reacted with a feeling of acute annoyance.

  “Do you mind considering my position for a moment? Do you really expect me to marry a girl and leave her penniless? For heaven’s sake be rational! Why should you have married me if you were going to take up a position like this?”

  Why! Nan could have laughed and wept at the question. If they had been in the Palace of Truth, she would ha
ve said, “Oh, my dear! Why? To save you from being robbed. To save you from the sort of girl you might have married. To save you from picking someone up off the streets.” But since these were things to be hidden at any cost, she frowned, looked at him gravely, and said,

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

  He jerked an impatient shoulder.

  Nan looked away. Such a large creature. And how many years older than herself? Eight at least. But that jerk had put him back into the nursery before her eyes—a hurt, angry child; hurt and angry past his power of concealment. Her heart went out to him with a rush, and she looked away for fear he would see what was in her eyes. Her heart said, “Oh, my dear!” Her lips spoke quickly,

  “I quite see your point of view; but it is too much—really.”

  The hurt, angry child disappeared. A rather lofty stranger said in tones of icy politeness,

  “The deed is already signed. I would prefer not to discuss the matter any more.”

  Nan looked up with a sparkle in her eyes. And then the sparkle died, because she saw him suddenly so tired, so done. She could guess that he had not slept for nights, and, because she loved him very much, she could guess how his anger had ridden him at this fence of marriage and now had left him bogged upon its farther side. He had had one aim—to defeat Rosamund; to score in the game of wits; to keep what she had planned to take from him—and in order to win he had mortgaged all his future. Now that the game was won, he had no pleasure in it. He did not care whether he was a beggar or not. He saw himself tied to a stranger, and all that he wanted was to be rid of her as quickly as possible.

  Nan gave a little nod.

  “Very well,” she said.

  Then she came up to him with her hand out.

  “Good-bye.”

  For the second time that morning their hands touched. He said “Good-bye” with an air of relief. Then, with her hand still in his, she looked past him and saw the photograph. It hung with other groups above the mantelshelf. Nan did not see the other groups at all. She saw a lawn set about with trees; an old man in a chair—Mr Ambrose Weare, whom she had seen once; a woman standing beside him—Rosamund Carew, whom she had never seen at all; and a third figure—a man walking across the lawn, his back to the camera.