Fate Cannot Harm Me Page 20

  A chorus of greetings met Monty as he came in. One of the many nieces pushed a chair up for him, and Emily Richards, who for years had been Lady Dormansland’s secretary and companion, poured him out a cup of tea.

  “Lady Dormansland will be down directly,” she said, “and the tea’s quite fresh. A new pot has just come in.”

  Monty inquired about the day’s sport, and received an enthusiastic account from Bobby Hawes and Bertie Blenkinsop. Then Mrs. Hawes asked the fatal question.

  “But you must have lots of news for us, Monty; you left town twenty-four hours after the rest of us. Tell us what’s happened.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact there is one piece of news. Robin Hedley’s new book is out.”

  “Oh, that’s impossible,” objected Bobby Hawes. “I happen to know for certain that it’s not coming out till just before Christmas.”

  “Which doesn’t alter the fact that it was on all the bookstalls this morning.”

  “Do you mean the book he and Mr. Paraday-Royne were talking about so much in the summer?” inquired Mrs. Vanhaer. “How very exciting.”

  “What kind of book is it?” asked Sir Smedley Patteringham, in a patronizing manner.

  “It’s—it’s a monstrous book.”

  “I wish the young men of to-day wouldn’t use words is such a loose manner,” Sir Smedley objected testily. “Monstrous is surely a word quite unsuitable to describe a work of fiction.”

  “Whatever is it all about?” asked Lady Sevenoaks with unwonted animation.

  Monty got up and walked into the outer hall. He returned, carrying his three volumes, which he tossed on to the table. “There you are,” he said, “I brought down these three copies. Look for yourselves, and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll find, I regret to say, portraits of pretty well all of us, sketched with unusual ability and perfectly devilish perversity. The vapid and conceited young man who appears in the first chapter I have identified as myself—the other attributions I leave to you. And I shall be glad, Patteringham, to know later on what epithet you employ as a substitute for the ‘monstrous’ which I have suggested.”

  Not without a grim satisfaction he remembered that no character in the book was more harshly dealt with than Sir Smedley.

  There was a rush to seize the volumes, but Mrs. Vanhaer, having failed to secure one of them, suggested an alternative course.

  “Do let some one read bits out to us,” she cried, “it’s much too exciting to wait.”

  Lady Sevenoaks supported her.

  “Oh, yes. Emily, you must read it out loud to us.”

  Emily Richards was not often prominent in Lady Dormansland’s household, but she cherished certain accomplishments; among them, that of reading aloud. A long career of teaching in the Sunday-school, to which Lady Dormansland gave the sunshine of her patronage, had developed in Emily Richards a voice and manner of which she was secretly proud. Now, therefore, she picked up the volume which was offered to her, and fixed her pince-nez firmly on her nose.

  “Where shall I begin?” she asked.

  “Show her where to start, Monty,” said Bertie.

  Monty has always declared that he opened the book at random, but no one has ever entirely believed him. Be that how it may, the first few sentences which she read were sufficient to make Mrs. Vanhaer upset her cup of tea, and Lady Sevenoaks to open her mouth in unrestrained amazement.

  “Lord and Lady Vandiemensland were preparing to receive their guests,” the secretary read in her precise and high-pitched voice. “They deserved and received attention. Generations of aristocratic forbears had produced Lord Vandiemensland; outwardly he was magnificent, but neither his clothes, which were flawless, nor his features, which were fine and regular, could disguise from the observer that he was in fact a premature though pretentious ruin. The shell of some ancient abbey, whose walls still stand, though within is only emptiness, might have represented him accurately enough. His wife, in a moment of expansion, had once quoted that vivid yet cruel description which Lady Bolingbroke used of her husband in his later days, ‘a stately Roman aqueduct through which the water no longer flowed.’ Very different was Lady Vandiemensland. She was cast in a coarser mould; a creature of the twentieth century. It was the darling wish of her heart to shine as the most successful hostess of her day, and she was wont to say that to her the comfort of her guests was everything. This in a sense was true, provided only that it contributed to her own comfort and to her own glorification. She declared that her tastes were catholic, and that she welcomed men and women of all kinds to her house. ‘I like,’ she said—though it was not quite what she meant—‘to see the lion lie down with the lamb.’ And this, in a sense, was true, too, provided only that there were more lions than lambs, and that the former should only lie down with the latter if they were not required by Lady Vandiemensland herself.”

  Emily Richards dropped the book, as though she had been stung. “I really can’t go on,” she exclaimed. “I feel sure there is some horrid innuendo there. It’s positively indecent.”

  “Go on,” said Bobby and Bertie in one breath.

  Unaccustomed to resist masculine orders, she obeyed. “Why then had he married her, or rather why had she married him? No one had offered a completely satisfactory answer to that question, but Sir Ernest Paddington, who occupied the position of an almost permanent guest in their house, had suggested a plausible explanation. ‘No man,’ he remarked as he surveyed his host and hostess, ‘no man is wholly wise—below the belt.’”

  With one accord every head turned towards Patteringham.

  “Coo!” exclaimed Mrs. Vanhaer.

  “Monstrous?” suggested Monty dryly.

  Sir Smedley choked for words, and those watching observed a strange phenomenon, unique in their experience.

  For Sir Smedley Patteringham blushed!

  Thirty, forty, fifty years before he had, for all they knew, blushed with the best—but in that company it seemed against nature that he could feel shame or embarrassment. Yet the evidence of their eyes was there to tell them that they were not mistaken. Indubitably, beyond the possibility of denial, the tell-tale colour slowly mantled his withered cheeks.

  What he would have said—if indeed he could have found words at all—will never be known, for in turning towards him the rest observed another figure standing behind him in the doorway.

  Just how long Lady Dormansland had been standing there, or how much she had heard, Monty did not know. Her voice, when she spoke, suggested that she had heard more than enough.

  “What is that that you are reading, Emily?” she asked, in tones which would have caused a stouter heart than her secretary’s to quail.

  Monty rushed to the rescue.

  “It’s just a bit from Robin Hedley’s new book, which came out to-day. Not really very interesting. What about a rubber of bridge before dinner, Daisy? It’s grand to be down here again.”

  In vain was the red-herring trailed!

  “To me it’s of absorbing interest. Why, the book was partly written here, and he and Basil were in constant consultation about it. Emily, read over again what you read out before I came in.”

  “Oh, Lady Dormansland, I can’t, I really can’t.”

  “Nonsense, I’ve asked you to. Begin at once.”

  With trembling hands the miserable secretary picked up the book and began to read, but the clear note of the Sunday-school teacher had deteriorated into a stammering and quavering whisper. Impatiently Lady Dormansland took the book from her and read the passage herself.

  “But this is libellous!” she exclaimed.

  “It says on the first page that all the characters in the book are fictitious,” bleated Emily Richards.

  A noble author has somewhere a passage where he speaks of a despairing traveller attempting to assuage with a few casual comfits the hunger of a Bengal tiger crouching for a spring. Equally efficacious was the secretary’s intervention. It was received with the contempt which it deserved.

&
nbsp; “Don’t be a goose, Emily,” retorted her employer. “I have said that this is libellous, and I shall know how to act.”

  Monty made another attempt to soften the blow.

  “We’re all in it, Daisy, and if it’s any comfort to you some of us cut an even more wretched figure than …”

  “That,” said Lady Dormansland, “is impossible. How dared he do such a thing, and how dared Basil help him to do it. They are vipers,” she added as an afterthought, “vipers that I have nourished in my bosom.”

  “Very improper of you, too,” muttered Sir Smedley Patteringham, who was gradually recovering his aplomb.

  It was at that moment, when Lady Dormansland was hovering between tears and rage, that Basil strolled into the room. In his heart was a great contentment; he had shot even better than he usually did, he had changed so as the better to enjoy his tea, and he felt in all ways at ease with himself and with the world. Glossy, self-satisfied, secure, he seemed almost to smirk as he approached his hostess.

  “Am I too late for a cup of tea?” he inquired.

  “Oh, my!” exclaimed Mrs. Vanhaer, who had a sense of the dramatic. With a great effort Lady Dormansland controlled herself.

  “Mr. Hedley’s book is published,” she said.

  “Already? I’d not expected it for another month.”

  “I expect you will like to look at it, though of course you know all about it already. You helped him again with it a great deal, didn’t you?”

  Blindly the wretched man rushed upon his doom.

  “Well, it was not exactly verbally inspired, dear lady, but still I think I may claim my small share of the credit. Yes, I’m sure that Robin wouldn’t mind my saying that. I was able to help him a great deal, in fact he consulted me constantly whilst he wrote it.”

  The smile of a famous statesman was once compared to the silver plate on a coffin; in some such manner Lady Dormansland smiled now.

  “How clever of you! And you helped him all through, with the characters, and the conversations and everything?”

  Did some inkling of his danger cross his mind? Did the silence of the others warn him of impending disaster? It may be so, for he seemed to hesitate. But he had gone too far to draw back, and the lie tripped easily off his tongue.

  “Why, yes, I helped him in all those ways. But you mustn’t make me blow my own trumpet. The credit of course is Robin’s.”

  “Emily,” said Lady Dormansland, in a tone of voice which brooked no denial, “read to Mr. Paraday-Royne the page at which that book is open.”

  Yet a third time the fatal page was read.

  Amazement, horror, consternation were mirrored on his face as he listened. He began to stammer an apology, but Lady Dormansland quelled him with a glance.

  Majestically, like Britannia outraged, she rose and rang the bell. The butler appeared.

  “Mellins,” she said, “Mr. Paraday-Royne is called away; have his things packed, and a car at the door in a quarter of an hour.”

  “But, but—I assure you, Lady Dormansland … if you will allow me to explain …”

  “Such explanations can be offered to my solicitor, Mr. Paraday-Royne. I will not detain you. The car is ordered.”

  “But … there’s no train till half-past eight.” At that moment Lady Dormansland was superb.

  “At Critton station there is a waiting-room, Mr. Paraday-Royne,” she said—and swept from the room.

  Monty will tell you, if you ask him, that just then he felt a complete cad. He alone knew that Basil was in fact ignorant of the contents of the book, but how could he say so? He could only defend Basil by pointing out that he was not really an ingrate and a slanderer of his friends but only a very accomplished liar. On the whole, it seemed safer to keep silent. He pulled up a chair beside Mrs. Vanhaer. She, at least, behind her ridiculous pretence of a Schwärmerei for modern literature, represented sanity and good sense.

  “What do you make of all that?” he inquired.

  “Some scene, I’ll say!”

  “You know Basil didn’t really know what Robin had written. He just wanted to get the credit for it, because he thought it was sure to be a good book.”

  “I wasn’t born blind, and I was here in the summer,” she retorted. “Jealously makes some men pretty mad, and then they do some damfool things.”

  “Well, they’ve both done for themselves now. You really can’t expect people to forgive either of them for what they’ve done—not for a time, anyway.”

  “All men are idiots,” said Mrs. Vanhaer with fine comprehensiveness. “They can’t see an inch beyond their noses. And when I say that,” she added with extreme vigour, “I’ll have you know that I’m not referring only to those two poor poops.”

  She got up and left him wondering just exactly what she did mean.

  Chapter XIV

  “The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday:

  the Queen died on Sunday. What a world is

  this! and how does Fortune bunter us!”

  BOLINGBROKE

  Monty swallowed the last of his toast and marmalade and drained his coffee-cup. After the excitement of the previous evening it was pleasant to feel that life had returned to its normal course; pleasant also to anticipate a good day’s shooting. Of course they would be a gun short without Basil, but that, he reflected philosophically, was not entirely a loss, for Basil had a knack of securing the best places and a tiresome habit of shooting a little better than anybody else.

  “I’m sorry Cynthia isn’t here,” he remarked to Bobby Hawes, who was sitting next to him, “she usually turns up at this time of year.”

  “She’s staying with friends somewhere on Southampton Water,” said Bobby.

  I had been a little surprised that Monty’s story had not ended with the discomfiture of Basil Paraday-Royne and the fulfilment of Robin Hedley’s revenge. To me it seemed inartistic to risk the anticlimax of continuing his chronicle. So now I saw an opportunity of turning the conversation into the channel where I wished it.

  “I suppose she was staying with Lady Dennison, wasn’t she? I remember she had a house down there.”

  “Lady Dennison? Her aunt, who used to take her about when she was a girl? Oh, didn’t you know? But of course you wouldn’t—it must have happened after you left England. Poor old Lady Dennison died very suddenly of a heart attack—let me see—it must have been somewhere about the beginning of 1933. She was a dear, and Cynthia was devoted to her. But I’d no idea that you knew her.”

  For a moment all my confidence left me. That was why I had had no letter—no warning from her! Once more I was seized by a gnawing fear that, after all, Cynthia was lost to me. And yet, no—that was surely impossible, for the second safeguard still remained. I had been promised a happy ending. I forced myself to speak quietly.

  “Yes. I was fond of the old lady, and in a sort of way I trusted her a good deal. But go on with the story. I’m curious to hear what more there is to be told.”

  Monty glanced at me a little questioningly, and for the first time since he had begun he seemed to find some difficulty in choosing his words. But he continued the narrative.

  “What a pity. Cynthia’s such fun; it’s a pity when these engagements clash.” He left the dining-room, and filled his pipe. Just time for a comfortable smoke before the day’s shooting began.

  Then, suddenly, a horrible, menacing thought entered his mind. Southampton Water! And Robin Hedley sailed from Southampton that afternoon! With miserable clarity he saw it all now—how blind, how criminally blind he had been! Hadn’t he always guessed that Cynthia was impressed by Robin’s talk of real work and life and the hollow shams of the Society in which she lived? She was going away with him! The Gargantua would sail that afternoon with Cynthia as well as Robin among the passengers. He saw it all as clearly as though he had himself made the plan, and persuaded her to it, and taken the tickets! Probably they had come to an understanding already at Critton in the summer. It was just the kind of mad, reckless advent
ure that would appeal to her. But what a cad the man must be to do such a thing! Even Basil would never have stooped to that. Well, Robin was a cad, if you came down to brass tacks, and he was capable of an act of that kind. Could he have persuaded her? Women were fools about matters of that kind, even the best of them. The glamour of a kind of modern elopement, the sheer enjoyment of defying conventions and her social world—yes, such things would appeal to her. But somehow, anyhow, by fair means or foul, she must be stopped; must be made to see that an act like this was not just a wild and thrilling adventure but social annihilation—that it was an act irrevocable, destructive of all her happiness, suicidal. Perhaps there was still time! Breathlessly Monty charged into the smoking-room, seized a Bradshaw, and pored over its pages. Curse these cross-country journeys! There wasn’t a hope, try it whichever way he would! He dropped the Bradshaw in despair.

  On the drive outside Bertie Blenkinsop passed in his car. He felt the responsibility of owning the fastest car in England, and since manufacturers were constantly making improvements he was compelled to change his car with some frequency. A new one had just been run in, and Bertie was now demonstrating it to a couple of the nieces. Monty made up his mind in an instant. He walked round to the front of the house, and shouted to Bertie, who had just come to a stop, and was climbing out.

  “May I look at her, Bertie, she seems to be a screamer?” For five minutes the gratified owner explained the merits of his car.

  “Do you mind if I give her a run to see how she goes?”

  “Of course, you’ll find her an absolute peach to drive.”

  Monty jumped in, and started down the drive. Southampton! In a car like this he’d do it easily with an hour and a half to spare. Lucky that Bertie wasn’t the sort to make a fuss. They’d be two guns short now instead of one. He changed into top, and began to work out a route in his mind.