Until the Colours Fade

by Tim Jeal

  Charles put down the report without bothering with the sheets detailing expenses. His head was throbbing and his jaws ached with the pressure of his clenched teeth. He thought for some minutes and then rang for Featherstone.

  ‘Your men have been most diligent, Mr Featherstone.’

  ‘May I assume, captain, that this inquiry is concluded?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Absolute proof cannot be obtained without considerable expenditure both in time and as you will appreciate….’

  ‘I do not require it.’

  Featherstone was looking at him with unconcealed surprise.

  ‘Instruct your men to do nothing for a week, and then to resume their watch the following Monday. I shall call here again in a fortnight.’

  ‘What will you wish to establish, captain?’

  ‘Whether they are still meeting.’

  ‘No more than that?’

  ‘No more than that.’

  Charles smiled icily at Featherstone and picked up his hat. It should be a salutary lesson for him to realise that, clever though he might be, there were still some cases that did not fall within his experience or understanding. Featherstone was smiling again; a knowing, appreciative smile.

  ‘An uncomfortable week for Mr Strickland, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘I am no horse-whipper, Mr Featherstone.’

  As he went out, Charles felt that he had partially repaid the man for his impudent deductions about Sir James. Outside, a slight feeling of nausea surprised Charles. He had momentarily thought his dealings with Featherstone had placed him in. a region beyond the pale of ordinary sensations. Certainly he was unaware of any desire for vengeance as he hailed a hansom and told the driver to take him to Rawdon Road, St John’s Wood. He felt neither elation, nor even a sense of power; his only satisfaction was the feeling that he was about to perform a duty which was necessary and in his father’s interest.

  32

  The shower had stopped, but by the time Catherine reached Magnus’s new address in Jermyn Street, her pink pardessus and matching skirt were covered with dark spots and splashes of mud. She climbed a cheerless uncarpeted staircase and knocked on the oaken outer door of her brother’s set of rooms. Having told the valet who she was, she was led into the sitting-room where Magnus was reading in a chair with a hinged lectern on one arm and a candle-holder on the other. As in so many bachelors’ rooms there was a hob-grate and very little china or ornaments, just two blue Bristol vases with cut-glass pendants on the mantelpiece and a silver fruit-basket on a heavy Gothic side-board. The only pictures were sporting prints. In the centre of the room was a large round table covered with a red velvet cloth and littered with a mass of newspapers, proof pages, notebooks and magazines. Magnus got up and took his sister’s arm.

  ‘You’re wet, Catherine. Shall I have Paul light the fire?’

  ‘Please don’t. I walked here and there was a light shower.’

  ‘Aunt Warren does not allow you her carriage?’

  Catherine undid the damp bow of her bonnet and took it off. Magnus noticed that her fingers were trembling.

  ‘I did not want her to know that I had seen you.’

  ‘See your own brother?’ he asked, astonished.

  ‘She might tell Lady Goodchild that we have met.’

  ‘Must we have that lady’s permission?’

  She gazed at him with a look of entreaty; a plea for patience.

  ‘I have done something foolish and wrong.’

  Magnus smiled tenderly at her and shook his head.

  ‘You do something wrong, Catherine? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘In your last letter you mentioned leaving Mr Strickland’s house but gave no reason. Did you quarrel about something?’

  His smile faded and he said briskly:

  ‘The arrangement suited neither of us. There was too little space, and most of that was taken up by his studio.’ He frowned and came closer to her. ‘If you’ve been worried, why have you waited so long before coming here? I wrote saying where I was over a week ago.’

  She picked up her bonnet and began nervously to straighten the damp fringe of cream lace at the brim. Without looking up she said:

  ‘Charles came to see me … two weeks ago; no, a little less than that. I hadn’t expected him; hadn’t even been aware that he knew I was in town.’ She paused and then went on more rapidly: ‘He was friendly and sympathetic, unusually so. I told him how unhappy I was at Hanley Park and he offered to ask papa to let me return home. I must have been mad to tell him what I did. He was so kind, you see, and I needed somebody to talk to. I’d been demented with worry.’ Magnus was looking at her with protective concern and anxiety. ‘Helen has been seeing Mr Strickland in London; they’re in love, I know they are, Magnus. I was terrified what it might do to father; what it could do to them if father discovered….’

  ‘So you told Charles?’ said Magnus in a hoarse whisper. She nodded and started to weep, covering her face with her hands and dropping her bonnet on the floor. ‘You could have come to me; you knew that, but you went to him. Why? Why?’ His voice had risen to a shout.

  She fumbled in an inside pocket of her pardessus and found a handkerchief.

  ‘I was afraid,’ she stammered, dabbing at her eyes. ‘You were so friendly with him; I didn’t want him to think that I had spoken to you behind his back; I knew you hated father. I was confused and frightened, Magnus.’

  Magnus sat down and shut his eyes. His head was bowed as he asked:

  ‘Did Charles say what he intended doing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will he tell father?’

  ‘He said he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He thought it would kill papa. He thinks if he tells Helen that he knows, she’ll never betray father again. I think he will have Helen watched.’

  Magnus smiled with relief.

  ‘Sounds as though he’s showing remarkably good sense. I’m pleasantly surprised. You frightened the life out of me, dragging it out like that.’ He looked at her with sudden puzzlement. ‘What are you so alarmed about?’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid for Mr Strickland?’ she asked with a hint of reproach.

  ‘Whatever his faults, Charles isn’t a murderer.’

  ‘He may have him beaten … his rooms wrecked.’

  Magnus considered this without apparent emotion and at last nodded.

  ‘He won’t send him flowers, will he? After all he loved the woman himself. I’m sure Tom realised there were risks.’

  Catherine took his hands.

  ‘Will you warn him, Magnus? I beg you to.’

  ‘No,’ he returned at once, with a harshness that confounded her.

  ‘But is he not your friend?’

  ‘He told me about Helen of his own free will. If I warn him that Charles knows, he will think I told him. Tom knows my opinion of Helen and that I think him a fool.’ He caught Catherine’s eye and forced her to hold his gaze. ‘If you wish it done, Catherine, you must warn him yourself.’

  ‘It is not for a woman to…’

  ‘When you told Charles, the subject was not too delicate for your womanly nature.’

  ‘I’m not brave enough to tell him to his face. Can’t you understand what he would think of me?’

  She shrank from the cold hostility of his eyes and the ironic curl of his lips.

  ‘Would his thoughts be so different if anybody else told him what you had done?’

  ‘Have you never been ashamed?’ she cried.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied calmly. ‘And afterwards I don’t remember feeling better for having failed to do what my conscience told me I ought to.’

  ‘I never thought you so hard,’ she whispered.

  ‘I gave Tom my word that I would do nothing in this matter, and I do not intend to break that promise.’

  ‘Whatever the consequences?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Bruises heal quickly and leave no marks. Betraya
ls scar for life.’

  ‘Is warning somebody a betrayal?’

  ‘Anything is a betrayal to a man who thinks himself betrayed. I will not have Tom suppose that I gave Charles his secret. The warning would not be worth the hurt it would cause.’

  ‘Tell him I went to Charles.’

  Magnus tossed back his head impatiently and leant forwards.

  ‘And who might he suppose had told you? In his place would you not suspect the one person you had confided in?’ He got up from his chair, bent down and handed her her bonnet. ‘Go to him in person; explain why you suspected him and why you acted as you did; otherwise put it out of your mind.’ He watched her put on her bonnet. ‘Would you like Paul to fetch you a hansom?’

  She shook her head and looked at him miserably, as if appealing for some word of forgiveness, but he merely went to the door and held it open for her.

  ‘It was not easy for me to come,’ she murmured.

  ‘Do you expect me to applaud you?’ Her sad reproachful face framed by the oval of her bonnet with its little frill of lace moved him to anger rather than pity. ‘You were not even honest with me.’

  ‘Because you humiliated me,’ she replied, her eyes flashing with anger. ‘You know I told Charles because I loved Tom. Does it please you to have forced it from me; to degrade me?’

  ‘I degrade you? You call jealousy and spite “love”; and say I have degraded you.’

  ‘Why should you judge me?’ she shouted. ‘You feel nothing and never have; even Charles is more human.’

  *

  When she had gone, Magnus sat down in his reading chair and picked up his book, but the words blurred and merged as his tears blinded him. An hour later the valet brought in his supper on a tray and was surprised to find his master sitting in the dark with a book on his knees.

  33

  Charles paid the cabman and gazed approvingly at the little white Regency villa with its black wrought-iron railings and balconies. He was reminded slightly of a perfectly appointed doll’s house. In front was a trim lawn and to the right a miniature conservatory with numerous panes of coloured glass, dominated by the dark spiky shapes of a monkey-puzzle tree. As he walked up the gravelled path, between narrow beds of dahlias and chrysanthemums, to the small lattice-work porch, Charles felt distinct twinges of envy for Mr Lionel Curtis Q.C., whose financial circumstances enabled him to keep his mistress in such congenial surroundings. He was a little surprised that Mr Kirkup had not commented on the appearance of the house in his report; possibly Featherstone discouraged all mention of architectural or other descriptive details. At any rate, Miss Pike would be sure to wish to retain Mr Curtis’s favour. Charles took off his hat, and after mentally rehearsing his opening lines, rapped on the door with the silver knob of his malacca cane. A maid wearing regulation black with a white apron and muslin mob-cap informed him that Miss Pike had not been expecting anybody and was shortly going out. Charles handed the girl his card.

  ‘Tell Miss Pike that Captain Crawford is Mr Magnus Crawford’s brother and wishes to speak with her on a matter of urgency.’

  The maid returned several minutes later and led him upstairs to a sunlit front sitting-room furnished with gilt chairs and sofas and with a tall Venetian mirror over the mantelpiece. In front of one of the windows was a brightly coloured parrot in an intricately made bell-shaped cage.

  Mr Kirkup’s report had done nothing to prepare Charles for Lydia’s looks. Her pink and white complexion, golden hair and delicate lips took him completely by surprise. She was wearing an open purple jacket bodice revealing a richly figured white shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, a cambric collar and deep green necktie.

  ‘You must be brief, Captain Crawford. I have to be at the theatre in an hour.’

  Her carefully modulated slightly husky voice, which Magnus had considered affected, Charles thought delightful. Nor did her fluttering eyelids or feigned demureness irritate him. He studied his shoes.

  ‘You know Mr Strickland I believe, madam?’

  She looked at him with a sudden piercing directness and Charles sensed an iron will beneath her pretty exterior. The revelation came as a shock.

  ‘Come, Captain Crawford. Mr Strickland is my lover. Your brother will have told you as much.’

  Charles pretended to be calmly scrutinising the parrot’s green and red plumage and beady eye.

  ‘My brother and I do not sit chattering over other people’s affairs.’ He realised with annoyance that he was blushing.

  ‘Why are you here, sir?’

  ‘You demand brevity and I shall oblige you.’ He flicked some imaginary dust from the brim of his top hat and caught her eye. ‘Mr Strickland is at present secretly meeting a lady of my acquaintance – a lady who is apparently as captivated by him as he by her. I wish to end this association.’

  Two glowing red patches had appeared on Lydia’s smooth cheeks; at first Charles thought her embarrassed, but quickly realised that she was violently angry.

  ‘Why you should wish to make trouble for Mr Strickland is your own concern, but you needn’t expect me to believe your tale-bearing. Your brother never liked me, so don’t go trusting his lies either.’ Her velvety musical voice was shot through with a harsh strident edge.

  ‘My brother told me nothing. I engaged a firm to watch Mr Strickland and the lady. Their observations brought me here. You may recall a curate who begged some water….’

  ‘The sneaking bastard,’ Lydia hissed through clenched teeth. ‘A proper goose he made of me with his methodistical chaff.’ She turned on Charles and shouted in a strong Cockney accent: ‘If you don’t hook it smart, I’ll call up those’ll make you.’ Excited by her raised voice, the parrot let out several raucous staccato shrieks.

  ‘Can’t you see how we can help each other?’ replied Charles, horrified by the way matters had gone.

  ‘I can do well enough without help from the likes of you, captain’, she returned vehemently with a stress on the final word that made his rank sound like a vile term of abuse rather than a compliment. His face was brick-red as he moved towards her menacingly. No jumped-up chorus girl was going to treat him like this with impunity.

  ‘That may be so, but I need your assistance and by God I’ll have it, if I have to tell Mr Curtis about your dirty little artist.’

  ‘Not too dirty for your fine lady. Does she like a man who’s more than a pompous bag of wind?’

  Charles turned on his heel and made for the door. Before he reached it she said:

  ‘You have not said what you want with me.’

  With the utmost difficulty Charles contained his rage and faced her. She was smiling with the same innocent but slightly arch expression with which she had greeted him.

  ‘You should not think that your threat changed my mind. There are many besides Mr Curtis who would like to look after me. I am curious though.’

  ‘Then damn your curiosity.’

  He strode out onto the landing but she followed him at once.

  ‘Perhaps we can help each other. I may have been too hasty.’

  Charles felt exultant. That was how to treat women of her class; blow for blow. A woman like her neither understood nor deserved courtesy.

  ‘If you were to write to the lady saying that Mr Strickland has undertaken to marry you, I am sure she would relinquish him.’

  ‘Why not send her your clergyman’s prying rigmarole?’

  ‘I don’t want her to feel forced to give him up. If you write, I believe that she will do so voluntarily. I want their liaison ended and not driven into greater secrecy. Threats and restraints increase passion as often as they remedy it. Your revelations would destroy her respect for him.’

  Lydia shook her head scornfully and compressed her lips.

  ‘Do you think he’d come within a mile of me if he thought I’d written to her? She’d show it him.’

  Charles gripped his cane more tightly. She was right and he had not anticipated her objection. He thought hard and then clapp
ed his hands triumphantly.

  ‘Visit her instead. Say you’re carrying Strickland’s child and beg her to say nothing in case he deserts you.’ He looked at her expectantly convinced that there could be no opposition. He was amazed when he saw her dismissive and contemptuous expression.

  ‘I’ll win him back fairly or not at all.’

  ‘You happily deceive your benefactor, Curtis, but cannot lie to the woman who has stolen your lover? I confess I find your logic hard to grasp.’

  ‘If I see her I’ll say what I please.’

  Charles coughed uneasily.

  ‘I need hardly say that you must not mention my part in this.’

  ‘Or Mr Curtis might be hearing from you?’ she said with a pert little smile; then with an actress’s parody of genteel speech: ‘I shall be as discreet and ladylike as the Queen herself; so please do not trouble yourself on that account, my dear captain.’

  The maid entered with the news that the carriage was waiting.

  ‘I shall be down shortly, Madge.’

  The girl went out and Lydia came up to Charles.

  ‘The lady’s name, if you please.’

  He went over to a davenport between the windows and wrote out the information; she took it from him before he had time to blot it. He saw her eyebrows rise a fraction.

  ‘Does Lord Goodchild know anything?’