“Smell them. Aren’t they good? They’re from the Laydon woods; old Mrs Brown sent them.”
Laydon’s self-control gave way momentarily. His hands closed hard on her wrists, and the flower-brimmed bowl shook between them.
“Evelyn!”
“Tony, you’re hurting me!”
“Evelyn!”
“You’ll—break—the bowl.”
“Dine with me to-morrow.”
She looked up. It was a look that he could not understand. The sparkle was still in her dark blue eyes; he thought it mocked him.
“Break an engagement, Tony? Oh, no. Ask me some other day.”
His grasp tightened. His hands were very hard; she could not have moved; if she had tried with all her strength, she could not have moved.
“I want to-morrow.”
“No,” said Evelyn with a catch in her voice that was nearly a sob. She would not look away; but the dazzle of her own tears was all that she could see.
“That’s plain enough. I’ve no right to ask.”
“Tony, let me go!”
“I’ve no right to touch you.”
“No,” said Evelyn. It was such a fluttered breath of a word, a sigh almost. He did not know whether the little lift of the breath made a question of it or not.
He let go of her, turned jerkily, and went out of the room without a word and without looking back. The outer door shut heavily.
The jade bowl tilted more and more in Evelyn’s shaking hands. When the door shut, it dropped and the violets were scattered. A silver stream of water began to wind slowly among the winding patterns of the Persian rug. The jade bowl lay on its side. The water made a dark pool and three little winding streams.
Evelyn stood and looked through her tears at the spilt violets.
Ten minutes later Sir Henry Prothero found her with the flowers in her hands, and the jade bowl, full of fresh water, in its place. There was still a damp patch on the floor.
Evelyn pushed all the violets into the bowl, and kissed him.
“Darling, are you early, or am I late?”
“Well, it’s eight o’clock,” said Sir Henry. “I think you said eight.”
“Eightish. Sit down and be good. I won’t take a minute to dress.”
Sir Henry gazed at her benignly.
“My dear, are you not dressed?”
“Darling, of course not. This”—holding out a fold of blue marocain—“this is an afternoon garment.” She came nearer and sunk her voice to a whisper. “If I were to dine in it, Ponson would leave me.”
“Good gracious! As bad as all that? Now, to my unenlightened eyes afternoon dresses and evening dresses all look very much alike nowadays. They all have low necks, and—er—no sleeves, or next to no sleeves; and they come to an end with—er—most surprising suddenness. Run away and put on the evening frock, my dear; and then I’ll tell you whether I can detect any difference or not.”
After dinner, when Ponson had taken away the coffee cups and Sir Henry had settled himself really comfortably in the biggest arm-chair, Evelyn brought what she called a pouffe and sat at his knee. It was an orange pouffe with gold dragons at the corners, and it contrasted vividly with the brilliant emerald of her tea-gown.
“Now let’s talk business,” she said. “I do hate mixing it up with meals—don’t you?”
Sir Henry looked gravely at the top of her head; it was just below the level of his eyes. He felt no enthusiasm at the prospect of talking business; he would certainly have avoided doing so had it been possible. As it was not possible, he made a plunge:
“My dear, the whole thing is very difficult.”
“How do you mean difficult?”
“I mean complicated. It’s very complicated.”
Evelyn laughed lightly.
“It’s not as complicated as Cotty thinks it is. Cotty’d make a nursery rhyme sound complicated. I can imagine his producing a version of Jack and Jill that would be as unintelligible as a Cubist picture.”
Sir Henry did not smile.
“I’m afraid this business is quite complicated enough without Cotty.”
Evelyn patted his knee.
“Don’t worry, darling. We’ll get it all straightened out. Tell me—you went to the Upton Street registry office?”
“Yes.”
“And you looked up that entry? Jim Field’s marriage—is it there? Or did Cotty’s detective invent it to keep him happy?”
Sir Henry looked away from his niece and fixed his eyes on his own big hand, which lay idly on his knee.
“Got to tell her—got to tell her—better not make a song of it—better get it over quick,” was his thought. But the silence grew, and he found it difficult to begin. Half a dozen ways of telling her presented themselves, only to be rejected. And then she was asking:
“Did you go? Did you find it?”
“Yes, my dear, I went,” Extraordinarily difficult business this.
“And you found the entry?”
“Yes, I found it.”
“Oh! Do you know, I really did hope it was a mare’s nest. I should love to catch Cotty out.”
“No, the entry’s there. I made a copy of it. The date is December the seventh, 1914. There was certainly a marriage between James Calthrop Field, bachelor, and Pearl Harriet May Palliser, widow.”
“Widow?”
“Yes, apparently. Why?”
“I didn’t know she was a widow.”
“Do you mean you know her?”
“N—no. I know of her.”
“You say you know of her. Do you know—do you happen to know whether she and Jack Laydon were at all friendly?”
Evelyn did not start, but she drew back a little. It was as if a cold breath had passed between them; there was a little chill upon the easy friendliness of their relation.
She said, “Yes, they were friendly,” in the same non-committal tone in which one says “It’s a fine day.”
An awkward business—a damned awkward business—must get on with it. Poor girl—poor Evelyn—afraid she did care for the fellow after all. Sir Henry lifted the big white hand on his knee.
“Evelyn, my dear, it’s a much more complicated business than you imagine. I think I’d better tell you the whole thing from the beginning.”
“Yes?” said Evelyn. She threw him rather a startled glance. “Yes? What is it?”
“Well, my dear, I found the entry, as I said. But I found another one first.”
“Another one?”
“I was turning the pages—working back, you know—you said you weren’t sure of the date—and I found—another entry.”
“Uncle Henry!”
“Yes, my dear, another entry. It was the name that attracted my attention—the man’s name. Evelyn, I’m afraid it’ll be a shock—it was Jack Laydon’s name.”
There, the worst was over; he had got the name out.
“Jack.”
Evelyn was leaning forward, her hand on his knee, her eyes very wide, very dark.
“John Murray Laydon—that’s right, isn’t it? Wasn’t his mother a Miss Murray?”
“Yes. But Jack—married—Uncle Henry, I can’t——”
“I know. But there it is—John Murray Laydon, bachelor, to Harriet May Edwards, widow.”
“Edwards—who is Harriet May Edwards?”
Sir Henry spoke slowly, letting each word drop separately into the silence, “Pearl—Harriet—May—Palliser.”
“Oh!” said Evelyn. It was a very sharp cry of protest. She sprang up as she uttered it.
“Yes,” said Sir Henry, “there’s no doubt about it.”
“Oh,” said Evelyn again more gently. Then she moved to the hearth and stood there with her back to him. “Please go on. Please tell me everything.”
Sir Henry looked at her with raised eyebrows for a moment. Lacy—yes, after all Lacy must have been right. One never expected Lacy to be right somehow; but in this case——
He gave her a moment, and then began t
o speak in his quiet, assured voice.
“Of course I didn’t realize any of this at first. I was naturally very much taken aback. I made a copy of the entry with the date, and then I went on looking for the entry about Jim Field.”
“What was the date?” said Evelyn quickly. She held back a fold of vivid emerald green, and pushed a log down into the fire with the point of a golden shoe; it was a hard, almost a savage little thrust. The log splintered and flared as Sir Henry said:
“The date? March the twenty-seventh, 1915.”
Evelyn bent over the fire. March the twenty-seventh—that was just a week after she had broken her three days’ engagement to Jack. A week.
Sir Henry went on after a short, uneasy pause:
“I went on looking for the other entry; and I found it, as I told you, on December the seventh, 1914. I was at once struck by the similarity, the odd similarity, of the bride’s Christian names. If it had been Harriet by itself, or May by itself,—but Harriet May in conjunction—well, I could not fail to be struck by the singularity. Jim Field had married Pearl Harriet May Palliser in December, and Jack Laydon had married Harriet May Edwards in March. I had another look at the March entry, and the woman’s handwriting settled the matter—large, emotional writing—letters about three quarters of an inch high—quite impossible to mistake. It left me without the slightest reasonable doubt that Harriet May Edwards and Pearl Harriet May Palliser were the same person.”
There was a silence. Evelyn stood quite still, one hand hanging at her side, the other resting lightly on the mantelpiece.
“Why?” she said at last. She turned quickly and came back to her seat on the pouffe. “Uncle Henry, why?”
“My dear, how can I tell?”
Evelyn was composed and pale. She propped her chin on her hand and looked straight in front of her.
“It seems so senseless. I mean, if I were going to commit bigamy, I wouldn’t go back to the same registry office only four months afterwards—would you?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever considered the matter—er—seriously. But I see your point. As a matter of fact, it occurred to me almost immediately. I was inclined to think that the marriage with Jim Field might prove to have been invalid but on making some discreet inquiries at the Ministry of Pensions, I discovered that the lady enjoys a pension as the widow of Jim Field. Now if she married Jack Laydon, why in heaven’s name didn’t she take her pension as Mrs Jack Laydon?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said Evelyn slowly.
XX
Evelyn Laydon stood on a dingy landing, and knocked for the third time on the door which faced her.
“All right,” said a voice from within. There was the soft thudding of stockinged feet, and as the door opened, a lively smell of cheap scent rushed out and mingled with the smell of cooking on the stair; onions, patchouli, cabbage and Irish stew met in a horrible blend.
The open door disclosed Miss Palliser in what she called a négligé. It had been pink once. Its satin folds were unimaginably creased and faded, and the wisps of chiffon which clung to it here and there resembled, both in colour and limpness, the cobwebs which festoon a neglected room.
“Oh, come in. I can’t see who you are, but come in just the same—I’m sure you’re welcome.”
Evelyn stepped into a room whose untidiness fairly took her breath away. An eiderdown, a pair of stays, and a hot water bottle were the first objects that met her eyes. They were all on the floor, whilst the rest of Miss Palliser’s wardrobe appeared to be heaped upon the six chairs and the sofa-bed. The table held the remains of a meal, a pile of fashion papers, a comb, a pair of scissors, a very large powder puff, and a pot of rouge.
Miss Palliser whisked a pair of torn purple satin pyjamas off the nearest chair, and said,
“Do sit down, won’t you? I’m all upside down. But what’s the use of worrying? If you’re caught in a mess, you’re caught, and there’s an end of it. Nobody’s going to believe you if you swear yourself black in the face that you were as tidy as pie yesterday, and will be again to-morrow.” She laughed a fat, jolly laugh, kicked the stays under the eiderdown with rather a deft twirl of the foot and subsided on to a chair which already supported a pair of flame-coloured tights and the remnants of an opera cloak.
Evelyn looked at her with intense interest. Ten years ago she must have been awfully pretty. The large dark eyes; the masses of curly dark hair; the white, even teeth—these were still beautiful. But Pearl Palliser was beautiful no longer; she was a very pink pearl indeed, and there was far, far too much of her. Stout, florid, untidy, and good-natured, she sat beaming at Evelyn and waiting to hear her business.
It was very difficult to begin.
“You must be wondering who I am,” said Evelyn.
“Well,” said Miss Palliser, “to be frank, I am wondering a bit. You see, dear, when I heard your knock I thought you were the wardrobe dealer that I was expecting—a new one that I haven’t done business with before. But as soon as you came in out of that beastly, dark passage, I began to think I had made a mistake. You’ve not got the business look about you, so to speak.”
“I’m Mrs Laydon,” said Evelyn,—“Mrs Jim Laydon.”
Miss Palliser regarded her with undisguised curiosity.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat the band!” she said. “Mrs Jim Laydon, are you? Well, I did think there was something about your face that I ought to know. But after all, ten years is ten years, and I only saw you once; and when all’s said and done, there’s a lot of difference between what you’ve got on now and what you had on then. Orange blossoms and a white veil is one thing, and a plain black felt’s another—well, there, isn’t it?”
“When did you see me?” Evelyn felt rather bewildered.
“Oh, I saw you married—set my heart on it. I had reasons of my own, you see.” She stopped short and threw a quick look at Evelyn.
Reasons of her own. Yes, if she had really married Jack Laydon, she might very well have had reasons of her own for wanting to see the girl whom—Jack——Evelyn’s thought broke off. She hoped that her face had shown nothing.
“I stood in the crowd, and I saw you go in, and I saw you come out,” said Miss Palliser. “I might have been in the church, and pretty high up too, but I was never one to push myself or to make unpleasantness. If I’m not wanted, I’m not wanted, and I stay away. I never think pushing’s worth while—do you?”
Evelyn made an effort. If only there were not such a smell of scent in the room.
“Miss Palliser,” she said, “why did you come to my wedding? Don’t think me inquisitive; but I really came here to see if you could help me. I think you must guess what I mean, because didn’t—didn’t Mr Laydon come and see you the other day?”
“Ah!” said Miss Palliser. “Now we’re getting there.”
She leaned forward with her hands on her knees On the third finger of her left hand there was a broad gold wedding-ring, so much too tight that it threatened to disappear from view. A passing wonder as to whose ring it was made Evelyn’s lips twitch. She had a dreadful feeling that at any moment she might begin to laugh.
“Mr Laydon did come to see you, didn’t he?”
Miss Palliser opened her mouth to speak, shut it again, stared hard at Evelyn, and inquired:
“What d’you want me to say?”
Evelyn did laugh at that; it was so unexpected. After a moment Miss Palliser laughed too.
“Well, you know what I mean, dear. It’s all pretty queer, isn’t it? I don’t know when I got such a turn in my life; I give you my word, I don’t—and I was in most of the air raids too. Talk about bombs dropping! I’d rather have a bomb than a ghost any day of the week. You don’t catch me going to any of these mediums and people—not me. Leave well alone’s my motto.”
Evelyn touched the over plump hand with the wedding-ring.
“Do you mean that you recognized him?” Her voice was low, but very insistent.
“Well,” said
Pearl Palliser, “that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. But I want you to tell me.”
“Well, it’d be easier if I knew what you wanted me to say. Now that chap that came bothering me yesterday—regular little Nosey Parker—he was keen as mustard for me to say that the first minute I laid eyes on him I knew him for Jim field, which would have been a good old lie—and so I told him. ‘I don’t care if you’re Mr Cotterell Abbott a hundred times over’—that’s what I said to him—‘If you want me to tell lies to oblige you, you’ve got to show me the reason why.’ Not a friend of yours, I hope, dear?”
Evelyn bit her lip, but it was no use. She laughed again. The vision of Cotty being asked to show good reason why Pearl should tell lies for him was too much for her.
“Well, I’m glad if he isn’t.”
Miss Palliser crossed her legs and leaned comfortably back in her chair. A length of silk stocking of a bright nude shade sprang into view. Several holes in the stocking disclosed the much lighter colour of Miss Palliser’s leg.
“I give you my word he looked shocked,” She drew her brows together, pulled in her cheeks, and mimicked Cotty’s stiff drawl. “‘I—er—really, Miss—er—Palliser, I merely inquired if you—er—recognized this—er—person.’” It was very well done.
“That is what I wanted to ask—did you recognize him?”
The dark eyes considered her. There was a pause.
“Oh, well, perhaps I did,” said Miss Palliser easily. Then, as Evelyn’s colour rose and Evelyn’s lips parted, she laughed and added, “Perhaps I didn’t.”
“Oh,” said Evelyn. It was rather a piteous little gasp.
“You see,” said Miss Palliser, “there’s a good deal mixed up with it that you don’t know. And that’s where my difficulty comes in. I’m sure I’m quite willing to oblige, and as I said to Nosey Parker—I’m glad he’s not a friend of yours, dear for I don’t know when I took such a dislike to anyone right at the very first go off—well, as I said to Nosey, I’m not at all sure it wouldn’t suit me best to have him Jim Field—my own private reasons, you know, dear. Come to think of it, it would suit me better, because there’s a gentleman that’s a great friend of mine, and in a very good way of business, and nothing he’d like better than for me to say ‘Yes,’ and we’d be married in church and all, and a proper wedding-cake and a reception. I’m through with registry offices. They’ve got a bit common, don’t you think, dear?”
The Amazing Chance Page 14
