Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (27 page)

Then it seemed to Scott Ettley, suddenly, as if the walk here with Orpen had meant something after all. Orpen had been preparing him. But for what? Scott began organising the trend of Orpen’s questions. Rona...his father...when had Scott seen his father? This evening? How was his father? Still friendly?... A silly question, a question Scott had only shrugged off with bitter annoyance. How could he explain his father’s emotions tonight? Orpen wouldn’t have believed them. But now, lighting his third cigarette, he began to wonder. And as he began to wonder, he felt the coldness of fear beginning to chill his excitement.

The door opened. Bill’s heavy white face, expressionless, looked into the room. Bill’s short broad forefinger beckoned him. He was on his feet at once, grinding out his cigarette under his heel, following obediently. All speculation, all fears and hesitations left him. He entered the next room. He was quite calm. He even enjoyed this feeling of cold fatalism. This was it.

The room was almost as small as the one Scott had left. It was as barely furnished, as poorly lit. The window, too, was tightly shaded. And it must have been closed, for the air was warm and heavy with tobacco smoke. Four men were grouped round a card table, three of them talking quietly. There was Orpen who didn’t even glance up at Scott, as if he were disowning him, and two men in early middle age, as sedately dressed as Orpen, unplaceable. The fourth man, small, solidly built, sat a little apart. He held his cigarette in a strange way, thumb uppermost. His face was quite expressionless; his eyes missed nothing. He was saying nothing at all, but he dominated the room.

Scott Ettley, at a quick gesture from Bill, took an empty chair. It creaked as he sat on it, creaked with each deep breath. He was embarrassed and he sat motionless, trying to control his breathing so that the uneasy noise would stop. How ridiculous, he had time to think, to be facing one of the most important steps in my life, and to be worried only by a loose-jointed chair.

And then Bill began to talk. It was a thorough examination. They knew everything about him, but they still asked questions. Orpen was silent, as if his job were already over. And the man from Czechoslovakia said nothing at all. It seemed as if he were examining the examiners.

Scott answered promptly, without hesitation. He could thank Orpen for that. The others seemed satisfied. There was a short pause, almost an unspoken agreement.

Then the man called Bill said quietly, “Here is your assignment. You will leave the
Morning Star
, where you have gained four years of useful experience. You will go to your father. You will tell him that you’ve reconsidered your decision, that he was right and you were wrong, that you now want to work on the
Clarion.

Scott Ettley stiffened involuntarily. The chair creaked ominously. He controlled himself. I have already accepted the assignment, he told himself. I have already accepted it.

“You will tell your father that you’d like to have a chance to work in the field of foreign news. He will be pleased by that choice. By the end of next year, his present editor of foreign news will be ready to retire. You understand?”

Ettley nodded. There is no turning back, he thought, no turning back. I’m too deep in, too deep in. He looked at the watchful faces. He said slowly, “I understand. Completely.”

Bill’s factual voice went on. “You will leave New York, live in Staunton, work hard and efficiently, justify every promotion that comes your way. That is all you have to do. Meanwhile.”

Ettley nodded again. He could say nothing. He could not even regulate his own thoughts.

“You will dissociate yourself from all your present political contacts,” Bill said. “You will express no political opinions of any kind. Is that clearly understood?”

There was a pause. “Yes,” Ettley said, “yes.”

The visitor from Czechoslovakia leaned forward. He spoke in English, correctly, not too distinctly, but forcibly. “Comrade Ettley does not want this assignment?”

Ettley faced him frankly. “I have said I will do it. I will do it.” He looked at Orpen. How long had Orpen known that this would be his job? How long? Four years ago, when Orpen had persuaded him to work on the
Morning Star
?

“These are your instructions,” Bill said. “Simple, but difficult. We rely on you. We consider this assignment of prime importance. Start on it at once. There’s no time to waste. You will report to us on your father’s reactions to your proposal by the end of this week, at the latest.”

Again there was a pause. Again the visitor leaned forward to speak. “Does Comrade Ettley find some difficulty we have not thought of?”

Scott Ettley looked at Orpen again. The other eyes followed his. Orpen was studying the stains on the card table.

“Well?” asked the man who had come from Czechoslovakia. There was a harshness, a coldness, in his voice that startled Ettley.

He blurted out, “A difficulty has arisen. I met my father tonight. We almost quarrelled. He refused all explanations I tried to give him about—about the end of my engagement to Rona Metford.”

Orpen looked up then, his lips compressed. He stared at Ettley.

“Your father is an ally of this girl?” Bill asked quickly.

“Sentimental nonsense, comrades. We waste our time,” the foreign voice said. “We have no place for weakness, Comrade Ettley. “

“Comrade Ettley’s good faith need not be questioned,” Orpen said unexpectedly. “He thought this girl would be an asset in his work for the Party. We decided she would be a liability. I advised him of this, last night. He accepted the decision. As he has accepted all our decisions. I do not pick men who are weak, Comrade Peter.”

Bill was watching the foreigner’s face. “But you weren’t such a good judge of the girl’s usefulness,” he said worriedly, angrily. “Wait in the next room,” he told Scott Ettley abruptly.

Ettley rose and walked stiffly to the door. He closed it quietly as the argument began. He was remembering the way Orpen had stared at him, unbelieving, almost accusing, challenging disloyalty. And then Orpen had defended him when the Czech had criticised. Or had Orpen been defending Orpen? There’s some hidden battle going on, Scott Ettley thought suddenly, there’s a struggle for power, a...”

He looked over his shoulder swiftly. It had seemed to him, there, as if a door farther along the passage had closed quietly. For a moment he halted, wondering if he ought to go and investigate. Then he thought that it might be another candidate for another assignment, another man waiting for examination in another small room. Or it might have been a draught of air from an open window. In any case, he must not hang about this corridor, he must not appear to be eavesdropping on the argument he had left behind. He imagined the comments of the Czech comrade if he were found loitering here. Ettley’s face still burned with the sting of those last remarks. He opened the door of the room where he was to wait, and he entered quickly, leaving the corridor without another glance behind him.

A struggle for power, he was thinking again... And then he discarded that notion as ridiculous, nonsensical. Men such as Orpen or Bill were not interested in personal power. They were caught up in something bigger than that. Personal politics did not enter into the picture at all: they couldn’t. Just as personal wishes, personal desires couldn’t. Then he began thinking about himself, about this job on the
Clarion.

When the door opened at last, it was Orpen who came into the room. “All right,” he said briskly, “you can leave, Scott. The next meeting which you will have to attend will be on Friday. Here, same time. We’ll come separately. Take care, won’t you? You will then report the results of your talks with your father. We expect to hear good news. And then, you’ll get final instructions.” He turned as if to leave. At the door, though, he looked back at Ettley. “Why didn’t you tell me about this attitude of your father’s toward Rona Metford? I gave you the opportunity.”

“I didn’t realise—” Scott halted awkwardly. He couldn’t find an explanation. “I don’t know,” he said frankly, unhappily. And then, to change the subject, “Friday? But will you be in New York on Friday?” Last night, Orpen had said he was leaving on Thursday. For abroad, Scott had guessed. Whenever Orpen travelled abroad, he gave few details; you could measure the importance of his trips by the casual way he’d mention them.

“That’s been cancelled, meanwhile.” Orpen’s voice was expressionless. “And, by the way, so are my instructions to you about giving up Metford.”

“Cancelled?”

Orpen studied the younger man’s face for a moment. “You look like a man reprieved,” he said, almost sadly. If only he had accepted my decision, Orpen thought, he would have spared himself a lot of pain in the future. Better to break with the girl now, instead of in a few months or a year—as soon as her usefulness was over, anyway. “Slip out quietly,” he advised abruptly. “Don’t speak to Thelma.” And he left the room at once, as if he didn’t want to stay away from the meeting next door any longer than he had to.

* * *

Scott Ettley reached the main hall to the apartment. It was empty. He walked quietly toward the front door. The music, which had stopped for the last few minutes, was beginning again. This time, Brahms was under Thelma’s attack and defending himself vigorously. Scott glanced behind him. He thought, but again he couldn’t be sure, that he saw a brief movement far down the hall near the library door.

He hesitated. His first impulse was to investigate. But his instructions had been to keep away from the front of the apartment:
Don’t speak to Thelma.
He opened the massive front door, and then he closed it without leaving. He stood motionless beside it, his eyes on the other end of the hall. He saw Charles slip out of the library, moving quickly and silently on slippered feet. And Charles saw Ettley. He checked himself for a moment, stared down the broad hall with that stupid expression on his blank white face. Then he moved on. But this time Charles was walking unsteadily. This time, Charles was drunk.

Scott waited until Charles disappeared towards his bedroom. Then he went back into the narrow corridor, his decided footsteps sounding their warning. Bill was out to face him in one moment. “What is it?” Bill asked. He had his butler’s coat half-drawn over his shoulders.

“Charles. He’s wandering around. He isn’t drunk.” He had spoken softly, but, from the silence in the room behind Bill, Ettley knew that his words had been heard by all of them. He might be accused of sentimental nonsense but no one could say he wasn’t alert.

Bill regained himself. He closed the room door quickly, and moved quickly toward the hall. “Did he see you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Naturally,” Ettley said. “He’s probably seen all of us.”

Bill swore under his breath. He looked back at the room worriedly, as if he were trying to imagine the reactions of the visiting comrade to all this. “Better get out,” he told Ettley, his voice sharpened by sudden fear. Then pulling his coat into place, he strode angrily up the hall.

As Ettley slowly closed the front door behind him, Bill was entering the music-room. Thelma’s startled voice was saying, “Martin, what’s wrong?” And the notes she had been playing changed to a harsh discord.

15

“But I must see you,” Scott was saying anxiously. “Rona, I’ve got to see you. I’ve news for you. I ’phoned you three times this morning before you left for the office. Rona—Rona... Are you there? Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” She looked down at the telephone on her desk. It had been impossible, in the office, to leave it unanswered. At home, she had let it ring. Odd that yesterday she had waited desperately for a call from Scott. Today, she wanted to avoid it.

“Rona, we’ll have lunch together. When shall I meet you?”

“I—I don’t think it’s of much use.” Not now, not remembering last night and Mr. Ettley’s worried arguments. Did Scott really think of her in that way? “Scott, it’s no good. I saw your father last night.”

“Look, Rona, don’t let any of his ideas worry you. Dad jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions. I saw him this morning before he left for Staunton. He’s feeling different about a lot of things, now.”

“Are you feeling differently, too?” she asked bitterly. “And if so, which way?”

“Rona! For God’s sake—listen, we’re getting married next month. How’s that for news?”

“Next month?”

“And we’re going to live in Staunton.”

“What?”

Scott laughed. “Yes. No more damned apartment hunting. We’re going to live in Staunton and I’m joining the staff of the
Clarion.
How’s that for news?”

She couldn’t answer at all, this time.

Scott said, “I’ll wait downstairs for you at twelve-thirty. Goodbye, darling.” There was a click as he hung up at the other end of the line.

“Scott!” she said, and then she replaced the receiver slowly. At first, she could only stare at the books in front of her, at the coloured plates and photographs piled on her desk, at the few notes she had jotted down this morning.

If only Scott had given me that news on Sunday, even yesterday, she was thinking. How differently I’d have felt about it then. I would have been as excited, as happy as he is. But now—all I feel is nothing, nothing at all. I’ve gone numb. I’ve been shuttled around too quickly, I’ve lost all sense of direction, I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. I don’t want to see Scott today. Or tomorrow. I need time to get my balance again. I need time to forget what I felt last night as I listened to his father, I need time. For I still love Scott. That’s my trouble.

And then, as she pulled her notes before her again and lifted her pencil, she stopped thinking about herself. She was thinking about Scott and his news. What had made him change so completely? If there was one thing she could have sworn was true, it was simply that Scott would never have gone to his father and admitted that he had been wrong for four years. Did she understand him as little as he seemed to understand her?

“Busy?” Miss Guttman’s voice asked. “I won’t disturb you, but I do need some advice. You’re the interior decorator around here, aren’t you?” She laughed gaily. “It’s the dining-room. I like chartreuse, but Hubert, he doesn’t see it at all in chartreuse. What would——” Her eyes fell on Rona’s left hand. “Why, your ring! Did you leave it in the washroom?”