But all that was over now—and from what Richard was saying, a good deal else was over too.
“—And though I’d never done much in the speculating line,” Richard’s voice recalled her to the present, “this seemed something too good to miss. It was intoxicating, Hope. I cleared a hundred and fifty pounds in two days. I knew that if I could lay hands on something really substantial I could make—well, not a small fortune exactly—but enough to feel I’d got real capital behind me. Don’t be too shocked at this bit, but—I handle a good deal of my firm’s money, you know—”
“Oh, Richard, why didn’t you come to me then?” she cried in dismay.
“But it wouldn’t have been any good, would it?” he said in a tone that was almost naive. “You wouldn’t have had it.”
“N-no. Of course not. I’d forgotten that. But at least I’d have warned you not to—Well, what did you do, Richard? Don’t say you—you used the firm’s money to make a private speculation?”
“Darling, it isn’t anything like as bad as it sounds when you put it like that,” he explained eagerly. “For one reason or another, I often don’t pay in certain sums for a few days and—”
“Such big sums as that?” Hope sounded sceptical and dismayed.
“Well—not so big as that, of course. But it was literally only a case of borrowing for a day or two. I thought—”
“Don’t try to minimize it, Richard dear. I—I’d rather you didn’t somehow. The fact was that you took the firm’s money, though you meant to put it back.”
“Is that such a crime?”
“You know it is. I suppose the market slumped, or whatever it does, and you lost the lot?”
He didn’t answer that, but the silence answered for him. “Did you—is there—nothing left, Richard?”
He shook his head.
There was a long pause. Then she said:
“How long have we?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long have we to raise the five hundred?”
“Hope! do you mean you think you can help me somehow?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll try every way I can possibly think of. When do we have to have the money?”
“The—the auditors will be coming a fortnight tomorrow. They’re coming a month earlier than I expected—that’s why I’ve got to hurry.”
“Yes, I see.” Hope looked round the room. “I wonder—what—one could sell.”
“Do you mean—the furniture and things?” He looked, she thought, disproportionately shocked, considering his rather matter-of-fact recital of what had so profoundly shocked her.
“Of course—if it would realize anything like enough.”
“But it’s your home!”
“What does that matter? Material things don’t matter in a crisis like this. Besides, this wouldn’t be my home after we were married, would it?”
Afterwards, she was to remember that he looked blank and put out for a moment, at this point.
“But of course it wouldn’t realize anything like enough,” Hope went on, still too intent on her calculations to notice his slight silence. “And I haven’t any really valuable jewellery—nothing that would raise more than thirty or forty pounds.
“Hope, I hate to hear you talking of selling your possessions like this,” he exclaimed almost violently. “Tell me more about—about what your father left. Isn’t there anything coming to you?”
“Very little, if anything at all. Besides, Errol Tamberly’s taken on the education and maintenance of the twins, and if there were anything, it ought by rights to go towards their expenses.”
“Good heavens, he wouldn’t expect that, would he?” Richard exclaimed.
“I don’t know if it’s what he would expect. It’s what I should expect,” Hope said a little crisply. “I don’t feel justified in taking money from Errol Tamberly if there is any of our own available.”
“No. No, of course not,” Richard agreed. “I only meant—Well, isn’t he the son of old Augustus Tamberly?”
“I believe so.”
“Then he must be a pretty rich man himself. The old bounder left something like a hundred thousand.”
“Possibly so,” Hope admitted. “In fact—yes, of course, they must be very well off,” she added, remembering the casual expensiveness of the Tamberly home. “But, anyway, that’s beside the point.”
“But—is it, exactly?” Richard said slowly, as though a new thought had struck him.
“Is it what?”
“Is it exactly beside the point that Tamberly’s a rich man? It’s a desperate matter, this five hundred, Hope. If we can’t raise it on—on anything we’ve got, don’t we have to consider if there’s anyone we know who would lend it?”
“Lend—?” Hope looked back at Richard in uneasy astonishment. “But you can’t suppose that Errol Tamberly would lend you five hundred pounds, Richard! He’s not at all that sort of man.”
“No—not lend it to me. Of course he wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t even know me. But—to you, Hope. Is there any possibility that he would lend you money if he knew you were in great trouble?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Hope cried in quick protest. “I—I don’t think I could ask him. At least,” she amended, at the change in Richard’s expression, “at least, only as the very last resort.”
“I only meant as a last resort,” Richard assured her unhappily. “But, if he’s undertaken to look after the twins, surely he must have some sense of responsibility towards you too?”
Hope didn’t answer that directly. She was remembering how very deeply she had resented such a suggestion from Dr. Tamberly himself. It was no less disagreeable now that Richard offered it as a reason for begging an enormous favor from him.
“Let’s try to think if there’s any other way,” she urged anxiously.
So they both thought while two or three heavy minutes ticked away. Once more Hope reckoned up in her mind the possible value of her personal possessions. Even at most favorable rates they would not realize anything like the sum needed, and—since any sale would have to be a hurried one—it was unlikely that she would even be able to get good terms.
Richard was right in one thing—they would have to call in the assistance of someone else. And the choice was strictly—horribly—limited.
“There—there isn’t anybody to whom you could apply, is there?” she suggested tentatively, remembering, even as she spoke, that he had described her, herself, as his only hope.
He shook his head dispiritedly, and Hope desperately tried to think of something with which she could comfort him. He had been terribly wrong, of course—when she was alone once more she would, she knew, experience all over again the shock of learning that he could even contemplate such a thing as he had done—but she never for one moment thought of abandoning him. For one thing, she loved him. And, for another, she felt some sort of personal responsibility because it was, indirectly, for her that he had done this thing.
Hope sighed, and brought her thoughts back to the crux of the matter. Where could they find the money?
“You don’t think”—she turned to him with sudden hope—“you don’t think it might be best to make a clean breast of the whole thing to the heads of your firm, and ask them—”
Her voice trailed off at the short, grim laugh he gave, even before he said dryly, “No, darling, I don’t.”
She bit her lip. It was getting terribly near the one unwelcome possibility.
Reluctantly she tried to imagine the scene.
“Richard, he—he’s a very hard man.”
“Who?—Tamberly? I don’t doubt it. Most rich men are,” Richard added.
“They’re nothing of the sort,” retorted Hope, unable to allow the stupid and envious generalization to pass, even at this moment of crisis. “But, anyway, that’s not the point, of course.”
“No. The point is—what chance of success have you with Tamberly, on the strength of his personal feeling for you?”
&n
bsp; “Oh, he hasn’t got any personal feeling for me.” Hope explained quickly. “At least, he doesn’t even like me much, if that’s what you mean.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“Nonsense. He must. No one could work with you and know you, darling, without being at least a bit in love with you.”
“Oh, yes, they could,” Hope assured him, though she smiled too at this evidence of his charming prejudice. “Errol Tamberly started by thinking me a tiresome little fool—he called me a decorative time-waster, in fact—and though I think he’s revised his opinion about my wits and my work, I don’t expect he likes me any the better for having proved him wrong. Besides”—she paused and considered the point with some surprise—“somehow we always do scrap naturally. I suppose we just resent each other in some way and can’t help showing it.”
“But, Hope, surely you can put that aside for once,” Richard cried, and the anxiety in his tone made her feel how little her prejudice against Errol Tamberly mattered compared with the faint possibility of finding someone who would help Richard in his distress.
“The—the only way I could approach it would be through his rather tiresome sense of responsibility towards me,” she said slowly. “He does seem to think that, in becoming the guardian of the twins, he’s also taken on some sort of responsibility for me too. He’s quite wrong, of course, but—”
“We might make use of it,” suggested Richard, perhaps a shade too quickly, but, after all, his anxiety could be understood. “Would he believe that you could have got into debt to that extent?”
“No,” Hope said very promptly. “And, if he did, he’d expect to see the bills. Besides, Richard, I couldn’t tell an absolute and direct lie, even over this.”
“But it’s useless to tell him the truth,” exclaimed Richard, the faintest note of exasperation sounding through his anxiety. “As you yourself said, there’s not the slightest reason why he should lend the money to me. He’d simply turn the idea down flat, and I can’t say I should blame him.”
“No, of course—I didn’t mean that, exactly. But I should have to put it that I and a friend were in great trouble and—”
“Hope, that isn’t much good.”
“It’s got to be some good,” Hope retorted obstinately. “If I go to Errol Tamberly—and—and I think I’ll probably have to—you must leave it to me to decide what I say. I can’t and I won’t depart from the truth further than I can possibly help. I may not like him, but he’s a perfectly truthful and upright man himself, and I refuse to tell him lies.”
Richard was silent and for a moment he pressed his lips together as though he found Hope’s particular brand of honesty rather trying in the circumstances. Then his good nature and his sense of gratitude evidently reasserted themselves. His face cleared and he kissed her.
“You’re right, of course, dearest, and you must handle this thing your own way. For me the amazing thing is that you’re willing to help me at all. Almost any other girl would be furious and reproachful at being faced with a situation like this. No one but you would understand how it came about. But you do see, Hope, don’t you?—I daresay I’ve been unutterably stupid and—wicked, if you like—but it was because I wanted to be able to give you something really worthwhile. I swear it was. I wouldn’t have taken the risk for anything else on earth.”
“Yes, I know.” She returned his kiss eagerly, though her eyes were troubled. “But, please, Richard, don’t ever again think things like prosperity and luxuries and so on matter to me beside having you safe and—and honest.” She flushed a little as she brought out the last word, but her own uncompromising sense of honesty refused to allow her to call Richard’s lapse anything but what it was.
He made a slight face, but he said quite steadily: “All right. I’ll remember—just as I shall remember the lesson this whole thing has been. You needn’t worry about it ever happening again, my dear.”
She flung her arms round him and hugged him gratefully for this assurance. For the first time that evening she felt she had her old familiar Richard back.
“When are you going to make the attempt?” he asked, at last taking up his neglected cup of coffee.
“Tomorrow,” Hope said promptly. “He comes to the Laboratory on Mondays and I shan’t wait a moment longer than I need.—Oh, Richard, don’t drink that. It must be cold.” She hastily provided him with fresh coffee, though he protested with a smile that she bothered about him too much.
“I probably shan’t get a chance of speaking to him privately until the end of the afternoon,” Hope went on, thinking aloud and making her arrangements as she did so. “He isn’t the kind of man to let you bring up private matters during official hours, so he would consider the whole thing more—tolerantly”—she felt that was too optimistic a word as soon as she had uttered it—“if I went to see him after hours. More as the sister of the twins than as an assistant in the Lab., if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.” Richard nodded his approval.
She thought he was waiting to hear just how she meant to tackle the problem, but as she really had no idea herself at that moment, she said as much quite frankly.
“I’ll think it over very carefully,” she promised. “But a lot will have to depend on his mood and—and his first reactions.”
“I leave it entirely to you,” Richard told her, and though he smiled, his eyes said so plainly that his fate was practically in her hands that Hope felt more than ever responsible for bringing off her effort successfully.
For the short time longer that he stayed Hope devoted herself to trying to cheer and reassure him. He needed it—badly. She could see that. And in trying to raise his hopes she raised hers temporarily.
After all, Errol Tamberly was a very rich man—he did seem to entertain some sort of guardianly feeling towards her—he might be persuaded to help a friend of hers, so long as she could represent herself as being personally involved as well.
Not until Richard had bade her an affectionate goodnight and gone did Hope begin to remember the exact terms in which Errol Tamberly had spoken of Richard the previous day. Certainly she would have to conceal the identity of the “friend who needed help”! It was not going to be easy, from any point of view.
Not unnaturally, Hope spent a restless and broken night, and set out for the Laboratory next morning feeling singularly unprepared for the tackling of a crisis. She even found herself hoping in a cowardly way that some reason would prevent Dr. Tamberly from coming that day. But then she remembered that delaying the unpleasant interview would also mean delaying the solution of Richard’s problem. The sooner she got it over, the better.
Unaffected by her hopes one way or the other, Dr. Tamberly made his appearance in the Laboratory at the exact time when he might have been expected. He was, as one of the other junior assistants had once put it, almost terrifyingly punctual, and very correct in all the minor virtues.
His curt “Good morning” included Hope as merely one of the staff. And then he disappeared into his office, to which his shorthand-typist was almost immediately summoned.
When she emerged again, he came out too—on his way to a conference, and Hope realized that she had indeed been right when she had said there would be no chance to speak to him until the end of the day.
The reprieve both relieved and dismayed her. If only the whole dreadful business were over, one way or the other!—But it had to be one way—not the other. She simply could not face the prospect of going back to Richard to confess failure. During the night and this day she had had time to look realities in the face.
Failure to find that five hundred pounds would mean ruin for Richard—probably prison. It was impossible even to contemplate that. A prison sentence was something that happened to people one read about in the newspapers. Not to people one knew and loved. Not to Richard!
As the afternoon lengthened she grew calmer—perhaps with the calmness of despair. And when at last it was time to put away her work and go home, she too
k off her overall, smoothed her hair with an absent, nervous gesture, and went along to Dr. Tamberly’s private office.
She could not remember ever having hated anything more, but, calling on all the courage she had, she knocked on the door and, in answer to his abrupt “Come in,” entered the room.
He was sitting at his desk writing, but glanced up as she entered and spoke in some surprise.
“Hello! What do you want? Come on in and sit down.”
He was, Hope thought with faint amusement, decidedly more the guardian than the employer at the moment and, however much she might have resented that a few days ago, now she only hoped it might augur well for the interview.
He continued to write for a few minutes. Then he flung down his pen and gave her his entire attention.
“There, that’s finished. Well, what is it Hope?”
The guardianly mood again! He was certainly not in the habit of calling her by her Christian name.
“I wanted to talk to you about something quite—personal—”
“Yes?” He seemed surprised that she paused there. “Something about the twins?”
“No. Oh, no. Something about me and—and money.”
To her astonishment, he smiled with an air of grim indulgence.
“Money, eh? You want some, in fact?”
She flushed deeply.
“H-how did you guess?”
“Come, that’s not very difficult, surely? I suppose you outran the constable a bit while your parents were away, in the expectation that an indulgent father would pay up when he came back, and now you’re stuck. What’s the damage?”
Hope found that she was trembling. The fact that, within limits, he was prepared to be tolerant—even indulgent both disconcerting and unnerving. It made her all the more certain, somehow, that, outside those limits, he would be extremely hard to deal with.
“It isn’t—quite—as you imagine,” she got out, rather jerkily.
Away Went Love Page 5
