romney place slumbered in the afternoon sunshine. most of the blinds of the early-victorian houses were drawn, symbols of quietude within. a persian cat, walking across the roadway, stopped in the middle, after the manner of cats, and leisurely made her toilette. a milk-cart progressed discreetly from door to door, and the milkman handed the cans to hands upstretched from areas with unclattering and non-flirtatious punctilio. when he had finished his round and disappeared by the church, the street was empty for a moment. the cat resumed her journey and sat on a doorstep blinking in the sun. presently a foxy-faced man, shabbily clad, entered this peaceful scene, and walked slowly down the pavement.
it was vandermeer, still burning with a sense of wrong, yearning for vengeance, yet trembling at the prospect of wreaking it. at tommy’s door he hesitated. of his former visit to the young man no pleasant recollections lingered. tommy’s manners were impulsive rather than urbane. would he listen to vandermeer’s story or would he kick him out of the house? vandermeer, starting out on his pilgrimage to romney place, had fortified himself with the former conjecture. now that he had come to the end of it the latter appeared inevitable. he always shrank from physical violence. it would hurt very much to be kicked out of the house, to say nothing of the moral damage. he hovered in agonising uncertainty, and took off his hat, for the afternoon was warm. now, while he was mopping the brow of dubiety, a front door lower down the street opened, and a nurse and a little girl appeared. they descended the steps and walked past him. vandermeer looked after them for a moment, then stuck on his hat and punched the left-hand palm with the right-hand fist with the air of a man to whom has occurred an inspiration. miss clementina wing also lived in romney place. that must be the child, quixtus’s ward, of whom huckaby had spoken. it would be much better to take his story to clementina wing, now so intimately associated with quixtus. women, he argued, are much more easily inveigled into intrigue than men, and they don’t kick you out of the house in a manner to cause bodily pain. besides, clementina had once befriended him. why had he not thought of her before? he walked boldly up the steps and rang the bell.
clementina was fiercely painting drapery from the lay figure—a grey silk dress full of a thousand folds and shadows. the texture was not coming right. the more she painted the less like silk did it look. now was it muddy canvas; now fluffy wool. every touch was wrong. every stroke of the brush since her yesterday’s talk with quixtus was wrong. she could not paint. yet in a frenzy of anger she determined to paint. what had the woman invited to quixtus’s dinner-party to do with her art? she would make the thing come right. she would prove to herself that she was a woman of genius, that she had not her sex hanging round the neck of her spirit. if quixtus chose to make a fool of himself with mrs. fontaine, in heaven’s name let him do so. she had her work to do. she would do it, in spite of all the society hacks in christendom. the skirt began to look like a blanket stained with coffee. let him have his dinner-party. what was there of importance in so contemptible a thing as a dinner-party? but this infernal woman had suggested it. how far was he compromised with this infernal woman? she could wring her neck. the dress began to suggest a humorously streaky london fog.
“damn the thing!” cried clementina, wiping the whole skirt out. “i’ll stand here for ever, until i get it right.”
her tea, on a little table at the other end of the studio, remained untouched. her hair fell in loose strands over her forehead, and she pushed it back every now and then with impatient fingers. the front-door bell rang, and soon her maid appeared at the gallery door.
“a gentleman to see you, ma’am.”
“i can’t see anybody. you know i can’t. tell him to go away.”
the maid came down the stairs.
“i told him you weren’t in to anybody—but he insisted. he hadn’t a card, but wrote his name on a slip of paper. here it is, ma’am.”
clementina angrily took the slip; “mr. vandermeer would be glad to see miss wing on the most urgent business.”
“tell him i can’t see him.”
the maid mounted the stairs. vandermeer? vandermeer? where had she heard that name before? suddenly she remembered.
“all right. show him down here,” she shouted to the disappearing maid.
she might just as well see him. if she sent him away the buzzing worry of conjecture as to his urgent business would flitter about her mind. she threw down her palette and brush and impatiently rubbed her hands together. into what shape of moral flaccidity was she weakening? five months ago all the urgent business of all the vandermeers in the world could go hang when she was painting and could not get a thing right. why should she be different now from the clementina of five months ago? why, why, why? with exasperated hands she further confounded the confusion of her hair.
the introduction of vandermeer put a stop to these questionings. she received him, arms akimbo, at a short distance from the foot of the stairs.
“i must apologise, miss wing, for this intrusion,” said he, “but perhaps you may remember——”
“yes, yes,” she interrupted. “ham-and-beef shop, which you transmogrified into a restaurant. also mr. burgrave. what do you want? i’m very busy.”
the sight of the mean little figure holding his felt hat with both hands in front of him, with his pointed face, ferret eyes, and red, crinkly hair, did not in any way redeem her remembered impression.
“a very grave danger is threatening dr. quixtus,” said he. “it is impossible for me to warn him myself, so i have come to you, as a friend of his.”
“danger?” cried clementina, taken off her guard. “what kind of danger?”
“you will only understand, if i tell you rather a long story. but first i must have your promise of secrecy as far as i am concerned.”
“don’t like secrecy,” said clementina.
“you can take whatever action you like,” he said, hastily. “it’s in order that you may act in his interest that i’m here. i only want you to give me your word that you won’t compromise me personally. i assure you, you’ll see why when i tell you the story.”
clementina reflected for a moment. it was a danger threatening quixtus. it might be important. this little weasel of a man was of no account.
“all right,” she said. “i give my word. go ahead.”
she took a pinch of tobacco from the yellow package and a cigarette paper, and, sitting in a chair in the cool draught of the door opening on to the garden, with shaky fingers rolled a cigarette.
“sit down. you can smoke if you like. you can also help yourself to tea. i won’t have any.”
vandermeer poured himself out some tea and cut an enormous hunk of cake.
“i warn you,” said he, drawing a chair within conversational distance, “that the story will be a long one—i want to begin from the beginning.”
“go ahead, for goodness’ sake,” said clementina.
vandermeer was astute enough to conjecture that a sudden denunciation of mrs. fontaine might defeat his object by exciting her generous indignation; whereas by gradually arousing her interest in the affairs of quixtus, the climactic introduction of the execrated lady might pass almost unrecognised.
“the story has to do, in the first place,” said he, “with three men, john billiter, eustace huckaby, and myself.”
“huckaby?” cried clementina, startled. “what has he to do with you?”
“the biggest blackguard of us all,” said vandermeer.
clementina lay back in her chair, her attention caught at once.
“go on,” she said.
whereupon vandermeer began, and with remorseless veracity—for here truth was far more effective than fiction—told the story of the relations of the three with quixtus, in the days of their comparative prosperity, when he himself was on the staff of a newspaper, billiter in possession of the fag-end of his fortune, and huckaby a tutor at cambridge. he told how, one by one, they sank; how quixtus held out the helping hand. he told of the weekly dinners, the overcoat pockets.
“not a soul on earth but you three knew anything about it?” asked clementina, in a quavering voice.
“as far as i know, not a soul.”
he told of the drunken dinner; of quixtus’s anger; of the cessation of the intercourse; of the extraordinary evening when quixtus had invited them to be his ministers of evil; of his madness; of his fixed idea to work wickedness; of his own suggestion as regards tommy.
“you infamous devil!” said clementina, between her set teeth. in her wildest conjectures, she had never imagined so grotesque and so pitiable a history. she sat absorbed, pale-cheeked, holding the extinct stump of cigarette between her fingers.
vandermeer paid no attention to the ejaculation. he proceeded with his story; told of billiter and the turf; of huckaby and the heart-breaking adventure.
“oh, my god!” cried clementina. “oh, my god!” he told of the meetings in the tavern. of the hunger and misery of the three. of the plot to use a decoy woman in paris, who was to bleed him to the extent of three thousand pounds.
“what’s her name?” she cried, her lips parted in an awful surmise.
“lena fontaine,” said vandermeer.
clementina grew very white, and fell back into her chair. she felt faint. she had worked violently, she had felt violently since early morning. vandermeer started up.
“can i get you anything? some water—some tea?”
“nothing,” she said, shortly. the idea of receiving anything from his abhorrent hands acted as a shock. “i’m all right. go on. tell me all you know about her.”
he related the unsavoury details that he had gleaned from billiter, scrupulously explaining that these were at second hand. finally he informed her with fair accuracy of huckaby’s latest report, giving however his own interpretation of huckaby’s conduct, and laid the position of billiter and himself before her.
“you see,” said he, “how important it was for me to obtain your pledge of secrecy.”
“and what do you get out of coming to me with this story?”
vandermeer rose, and held his hat tight.
“nothing except the satisfaction of having queered the damned pitch of both of them.”
clementina shrank together in her chair, her hands tight over her face, all her flesh a shuddering horror. then she waved both hands at him blindly.
“go away! go away!” she said, in a hoarse whisper.
vandermeer’s shifty eyes glanced from clementina to a stool beside his chair. on it lay the great hunk of cake which he had cut but had not been able to eat during his narration. she was not looking. he pocketed the cake and turned. but clementina had seen. she uttered a cry of anguish and horror.
“oh, god! are you as hungry as that? you’ll find some money in that end drawer—” she pointed to an oak dresser against the gallery wall. “take what you want to buy food with, and go. only go!”
vandermeer opened the drawer, took out a five-pound note, and, having mounted the stairs, left the studio.
clementina staggered into the little garden; her brain reeling. she, who thought she had fathomed the depths of life, and, scornful of her knowledge thereof, rode serene on the surface, knew nothing. nothing of the wolf instinct of man when hunger drives. nothing of the degradation of a man when the drink fiend clutches at his throat. lord! how sweet the air, even in this ridiculous little london garden, after the awful atmosphere of that beast of prey!
quixtus! all her heart went out to him in fierce love and pity. generous, high-souled gentleman, at the mercy of these ravening wolves! she walked round and round the little garden path. things obscure to her gradually became clear. but many remained dark—maddeningly impenetrable. something had happened to throw the beloved man off his balance. the marrable trial might well be a factor. but was that enough? yet what did the past matter? the present held peril. the web was being woven tight around him. she had hated the woman intuitively at first sight. had dreaded complications. it was a million times worse than she had in her most jealous dreams conceived. if he were lured into marriage, what but disaster could be the end? and sheila! her blood froze at the thought of her darling coming into contact with the woman. all her sex clamoured.
before she acted, every dark corner must be illuminated. there must be no groping; no false movement. one man would certainly be able to throw light—huckaby, the trusted friend of quixtus. the more she thought of him the more she was amazed. here was one of the ghastly band, an illimitable scoundrel, the one who had openly suggested to quixtus the most despicable, yet the most fantastic, wickedness of all, now the confidential secretary, the collaborator, the fidus achates, of the sane and disillusioned gentleman.
with sudden decision she marched into the studio and took up the telephone and gave a number. quixtus’s voice eventually answered. who was there?
“it’s me. clementina. is mr. huckaby still with you?”
huckaby had left half an hour ago.
“can you give me his address? i want to ask him to come and see me. to come to tea. i like him so much, you know.”
the address came through the telephone. she noted it in her memory. quixtus inquired for sheila. clementina gave him cheery news and rang off. all this was arrant disingenuousness and duplicity. but clementina did not care. what woman ever does?
she ran up to her bedroom, thrust on a coat; pinned on the hat with the wobbly rose, and went out. in the king’s road she found a taxi-cab. a quarter of an hour brought her to huckaby’s lodgings.
he had spent a happy and untroubled day, and was finishing the “ph?do” with great enjoyment, when clementina burst into the room. he leaped from his chair in amazement.
“my dear miss wing!”
“you infernal villain!” said clementina.
huckaby staggered back. to such a salutation it is difficult to respond in the ordinary terms of hospitality.
“will you take a seat,” said he, “and explain?”
he drew a chair to the open window. she plumped herself down.
“i think it’s for you to explain,” she said.
“i presume,” said huckaby, after a pause, “that something in connection with my past life has come to your ears. i will grant that there was in it much that was not particularly creditable. but my conscience now is free from reproach.”
clementina sniffed. “you must have a very accommodating conscience. what about dr. quixtus and mrs. fontaine?”
“well, what about it?”
“you know the kind of woman mrs. fontaine is—you introduced her to him—and yet you are allowing her to inveigle him into marriage. oh, don’t deny it. i know the whole infamous conspiracy from a to z.”
huckaby stifled an oath. “those brutes vandermeer and billiter have been giving the woman away to you!” he clenched his fists. “the blackguards!”
“i don’t know anything about van-what’s-his-name or the other man. i only know one thing. this marriage is not going to take place. i might have gone straight to dr. quixtus; but i thought it best to see you first. there are various things i want cleared up.”
huckaby looked at the woman’s strong, rugged face, and then his eyes wandered round the little cool haven that was his home, and a great fear fell upon him. if quixtus learned the truth now about mrs. fontaine, he would never be forgiven. he would be put on the same footing as the two others; and then the abyss. of course he could lie, and mrs. fontaine could lie. but what would be the use? the revelation of the true facts to quixtus would fit in only too well with his past disingenuousness and with his urgent insistence on the heart-breaking adventure. and his iron-faced visitor would soon see to it that the lies were swept away. his face grew ashen.
“you have me in your power,” he said, humbly. “once i was a gentleman and a scholar. then there were years of degradation. now, thanks to quixtus, i’m on the way to becoming my former self. if you denounce me to quixtus, i go back. for sheer pity’s sake don’t do it.”
“let me hear what you’ve got to say for yourself,” said clementina, grimly.
“what are quixtus’s feelings with regard to mrs. fontaine i don’t know. he has never spoken to me on the subject. but he certainly admires her for what she really is—a charming, well-bred woman.”
“umph!” said clementina.
“suppose,” continued huckaby, “suppose we were drawn into this conspiracy. suppose when we came to put it into practice both our souls revolted. suppose she began to like quixtus for his own sake. suppose her soul also revolted from her past life——”
“fiddlesticks!” said clementina.
“i assure you it’s true,” he said, earnestly. “let us suppose it is, anyhow. suppose she saw in a marriage with a good man her salvation. suppose she was ready to make him a good wife. suppose i thoroughly believed her. how could i, clinging to the same plank as she, do otherwise than i have done—keep silent?”
“your duty to your benefactor should certainly outweigh your supposed duty to this worthless creature.”
huckaby sighed. “that’s the woman’s point of view.”
clementina made an angry gesture. “i suppose you’re right. always the confounded woman’s point of view—when one wants to look at things judicially. yes. you couldn’t give the woman away—a man’s perverted notion—i see. well—let us take it; for the sake of argument, that i believe you. what then?”
“i don’t know,” said he. “mrs. fontaine and myself are at your mercy.”
“umph!” said clementina again. she paused, glanced shrewdly at his face, as he sat forward in the chair on the opposite side of the window, twisting nervous fingers and staring out across the street.
“tell me your story—frankly—of dr. quixtus,” she said at last, “from the time of the marrable trial. as many details as you can remember. i want to know.”
huckaby obeyed. he was, as he said, at her mercy. his story confirmed vandermeer’s, but it covered a wider ground, and, told with truer perception, cast the desired light on dark places. she learned for the first time—for hitherto she had concerned herself little with quixtus’s affairs—the fact of his disinheritance, quixtus having, one raging day, revealed to huckaby the history of the cynical will. she questioned him about will hammersley. his account of quixtus’s half-given and hastily snatched confidence was a lightning flash.
clementina rose, aghast, and walked about the room. the idea of such a horror had never entered her head. hammersley and angela—it was incredible, impossible. there must have been some awful hallucination. that hammersley, bayard without fear and without reproach, and angela, quiet, colourless saint, could have done this thing baffled all imaginings of human passion. it was inconceivable, ludicrous, grotesque. but to quixtus it was real. he believed it. it lay at the root of his disorder. even now, with his disorder cured, he believed it still. she was rent with his anguish.
“my god! how he must have suffered!”
“and in spite of everything,” said huckaby, “he is as tender to hammersley’s little daughter as if she were his own.”
she swooped upon him in her abrupt fashion.
“thank you for that. you’ve got a heart somewhere about you.”
she sat down again. “when do you think this suspicion, or whatever it was, crossed his mind? let us go back.”
they talked long and earnestly. at length, huckaby having ransacked his memory of things past, they fixed as a probable date the day of the hostless dinner. quixtus had sent down word that he was ill. the excuse was entirely false. nothing but severe mental trouble could have stood in the way of his taking the head of the table. obviously something had happened. huckaby had a vague memory of seeing quixtus, as he entered the museum, crush a letter in his hand and stuff it in his jacket pocket. it might possibly have been a letter incriminating the pair.
whether the conjecture was right or wrong did not greatly matter. clementina felt now that she held the key to quixtus’s mad conduct. blow after blow had fallen on him. those whom he had trusted had betrayed him. he had lost faith in humanity. the gentle nature could not withstand this loss of faith. there had been shock. he had set out to work devildom. the pity of it!
she uttered a queer, choking laugh. “and not one piece of wickedness could he commit!”
the summer twilight began to creep over the quiet street, and the darkness deepened at the back of the room. a long silence fell upon them. clementina sat as motionless as a dusky sphinx, absorbed by strange thoughts and wrung by strange emotions that made her bosom heave and her breath come quickly. a scheme, audacious, fantastic, romantic, began to shape itself in her mind, sending the blood tingling down to her feet, to her finger-tips.
at last she made an abrupt movement.
“it’s getting dark. what can the time be? i must go home.”
she rose.
“before i go,” she said, “we must settle up about mrs. fontaine.”
“i suppose we must,” groaned huckaby. “all i ask you is to spare her as much as you can.”
“we must think first of quixtus,” she replied, shortly. “what we’ve got to do for him is to build up his faith in humanity again—not to give the little he has left another knockdown blow. see?”
huckaby raised his head with swift hope.
“do you mean that he must not know about her?”
“or about you. that’s what i mean.”
“god bless you!” gasped huckaby.
“all the same, this precious marriage project has got to be put a stop to—for ever and ever, amen. i hope you realise that thoroughly.”
huckaby could not meet her keen eyes. he hung his head.
“i suppose you mean me to break it gently to her that—that the game is up.”
“i don’t mean anything of the kind,” she snapped. “now look here. pay strict attention. if you obey me implicitly and scrupulously, i’ll still see whether i can’t be your friend—and i can be a good friend; but if you don’t, god help you! i’ve given a pledge of secrecy to my informant this afternoon. of course i’ve broken it, like a woman. so you’ve got to keep it for me. see? you’re not to let those two blackguards suffer in any way on my account. promise.”
“i promise,” said huckaby.
“then you’re not to breathe a single syllable to mrs. fontaine. best keep out of her way. leave me to deal with her. i’ll let her down gently, i’ll give you my word on it. is that a bargain?”
“yes,” said huckaby.
she put out her hand frankly.
“good-bye.”
he accompanied her to the front door.
“can i get you a taxi?”
“lord, no. when i’m a lady you can. i’ll walk till i find one.”
clementina sped to romney place with shining eyes, and a smile lurking at the corners of her lips. the first thing she did on arrival was to rush down to the telephone.
“is that you, ephraim?”
“yes,” came the answer.
“i’ve changed my mind, and i’m coming to your dinner-party.”
“delighted, my dear clementina.”
“good-bye.”
she rang off, and rushed upstairs to make a fool of herself over sheila, who, already put to bed, lay awake in anticipation of clementina’s good-night cuddle.
“when you go to stay with your uncle, i wonder whether he’ll spoil you like this.”
“you’ll come too,” said sheila, sedately, “and then you can go on spoiling me.”
“lord preserve us!” cried clementina. “what a scandal in russell square!”
towards ten o’clock tommy made his appearance. the daily calls to inquire after her health and happiness had grown to be a sacred observance. but as the studio was rigorously closed to him during the daylight hours his visits were vespertilian. if she wanted him, she told him to stay. if she didn’t, she sent him about his business. he had got into the habit of kissing her, nephew fashion, when they met and parted. she liked the habit now, for she felt that the boy loved her very dearly. and in an aunt-like, and very satisfying and comfortful way, she, too, loved him with all her heart.
“can i stay?”
she nodded. he removed the set palette from the chair on to which she had cast it when vandermeer was announced, and sat down.
“what have you been doing with yourself?”
he entered upon a long story. some picture or the other was shaping splendidly. his uncle had taken etta and himself to lunch at the savoy.
“said he was thinking of going to dinard for august. rum place for him to go, isn’t it?”
clementina repressed manifestation of interest in the announcement. but it set her pulses throbbing.
“i suppose he can go where he likes, can’t he?” she snapped. “what kind of a lunch did you have?”
tommy ran through the menu. it was his own selection. he had given the dear old chap some hints in gastronomy. it was wonderful how little he knew of such essential things. seemed to have set his heart on giving them pheasant. in july. after that they had gone to see the new futurists. his uncle seemed to know all about them. wonderful work; but they were all erring after false gods. he thanked heaven he had her, clementina, to keep him orthodox. it was all absinthe and morphia. he rattled on. clementina, leaning far back in her chair, watched the curls of cigarette smoke with shining eyes and a leonardesque smile lurking at the corners of her lips.
“why, clementina!” he cried, with sudden indignation. “you’re paying not the slightest attention to me.”
“never mind, tommy,” she said. “you go on talking. it helps me to think. i’m going to have a devil of a time—the time of my life!”
“what in the world are you going to do?”
“never mind, tommy. never mind. oh, what a fool i was not to think of it before!”
