Nothing Venture (10 page)

He was frowning. By now she knew what that meant. Not anger. When he was angry the frown was different; and when he was very angry he didn't frown at all, he smiled. This sort of frown meant impatience, shyness, perplexity. He said, as if with an effort,

“I want to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“I've been thinking things over. Would you object to coming down to King's Weare for a bit?”

Nan's colour played her a trick. It came into her cheeks with the sting of fire. She looked up startled, and found that he was not looking at her at all; his eyes were on the arched doorway through which Rosamund Carew was passing with Ferdinand Fazackerley. She said,

“Why?”

The last gleam of Rosamund's gold dress disappeared. He jerked his eyes away from the doorway.

“That is what I've been thinking about. Do we want to give people something to talk about, or don't we? It's for you to say of course. Personally—” he met her eyes with a kind of gloomy sparkle in his own—“well, personally, I'm for scoring them off.”

“He'd like to score off Rosamund,” said a quick insistent thought; and then, “Well, why not? Why shouldn't I help him score?”

“We took this on as a business arrangement, so—just as a matter of business—will you come down to King's Weare?”

Nan very nearly hated him then. She didn't exist for him except as a retort to Rosamund.

“What is the good?” she said, and got a frown that was all impatience.

“How do you mean, what's the good?”

Her courage failed her. Her thoughts said passionately, “We're not husband and wife—we're not going to live together—so what's the good of pretending?”

She managed to say the last words:

“What is the good of pretending? That's what I mean.”

“I'm not asking you to pretend anything—I'm asking you to come down to King's Weare.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, do you like London in August? Personally I think it's foul. There's a goodish garden. You'll get tennis—I don't know if you play—and there's quite decent bathing.”

“But that's not why,” said Nan. Her lips smiled because she told them to smile. Her eyes stung.

Jervis' face changed suddenly; the angry gloom went out of it. With the look of a teasing schoolboy he said,

“You could see I didn't get run over again.”

Nan felt a ridiculous warmth and softness flow over her. What was the good of pretending to put up a fight when she knew very well that she couldn't say no to him?—“If he wanted your head on a charger, you'd just tumble over yourself to let him have it.”

She did not know how fast her hands held one another. Jervis, looking down, saw the fingers strain and the knuckles whiten—little hands, and rather brown, so that the knuckles showed bone-white. He looked up, pricked to a sudden wonder. He wanted her to come—she'd got to come.

“Well?” he said.

“I'll come,” said Nan, and relaxed with a sigh.

When the music began again they crossed the floor. Jervis had fallen silent. He stopped when they reached the arch, and watched one couple after another leave the side and glide into the rhythm of the dance. Something in Nan said, “He's waiting for Rosamund.”

He had not very long to wait. Nan knew by the change in his face that he had seen her before she heard Fazackerley's voice and saw the gold dress and the heavy dull gold hair. They came up to the arch, passed through it, and stopped. Rosamund passed Nan as if she were not there, stood all but touching her, and spoke to Jervis.

“Are we going to dance?”

Jervis said, “I don't think so.” His face had no expression at all.

Rosamund's faint, smooth laugh sounded.

“It's much too hot really—we'll sit out instead.”

Something hung in the balance. Then Jervis laughed too. It was not quite such a pleasant sound.

“Come along,” he said, and they went back across the room, her hand on his arm—the handsomest couple there.

An extraordinary flatness descended upon Nan.

“Well, that's a motion I'd like to second!” said Mr Fazackerley with some fervour. “If anyone can think up a hotter wear than a clawhammer and a boiled shirt, I'll hand it to him—and, to come down to real steady bedrock truth, I'd appreciate the opportunity of a conversation with you, Mrs Weare.”

Nan felt a little alarmed. What did he want to talk about? She walked beside him through the archway with the feeling that she was walking into unknown country.

XIV

Rosamund Carew settled herself into the corner of a gold sofa and lit a cigarette. The smoke hung about her like a bluish mist. Jervis had not spoken a single word. His lips were smiling, his eyes aloof and dark. For a minute or two Rosamund smoked in silence. Then she said lazily,

“Nonie Carter and Enid Melliter have just come in. I hope we look companionable.”

“I hope so.”

She withdrew her cigarette for a moment.

“Hadn't we better talk?”

“Oh, certainly. What shall we talk about—the weather? They say it will be hotter tomorrow.”

She held her cigarette in the hand which rested upon her knee. The smoke went up in a delicate spiral; a fitful spark as fine as a needle-point fretted the edge of the paper.

“I want to talk to you about my money,” she said.

Jervis continued to smile.

“Your money?”

“Yes.”

“What money?”

She put the cigarette to her lips, drew lightly at it, and laid her hand again upon her knee.

“You know as well as I do that Uncle Ambrose would have left me five hundred a year if he had not thought we were going to be married. He had his own ideas about the man having the purse-strings.”

“Yes—very sensible ideas.”

Rosamund's lashes came down upon her cheek. She conveyed without further effort a complete indifference to Jervis' approval.

“Hadn't we better keep to the facts?” she said. “He left me five hundred pounds. That's nothing—I can't live on nothing—and you have married someone else. Those I think are the facts.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Well?”

The smoke went up between them.

“My dear Rosamund, as you say—those are the facts.”

She turned her head for a moment, sent a smile across the room to Lady Tetterley, and, still smiling, returned to Jervis.

“I'm afraid I wasn't listening. Mabel Tetterley caught my eye. Now—about this money. You will of course carry out Uncle Ambrose's wishes.”

“As?” said Jervis.

“Well, I can't
live
on five hundred a year,” said Rosamund.

“I'm afraid you've—miscalculated. There was never any question of five hundred. The original figure was three. Page will tell you that.”

Rosamund's eyebrows rose slightly.

“That is merely ridiculous,” she said.

“I'm afraid I don't follow you.”

“I can't live on three hundred.”

Jervis' eyes hardened.

“I'm afraid we're talking at cross purposes. My grandfather didn't leave you anything at all except a sum down for your trousseau, so neither five hundred nor three hundred a year are in question.”

She lifted her cigarette again. The ash broke and fell, powdering the gold of her dress. She was silent for a moment, inhaling the smoke. In the silence thoughts moved between them—violent, resentful, dominant, resisting. With half closed eyes Rosamund continued to smoke. Whatever happened, he should speak next. If it was a battle between them, she knew where her advantage lay. She sat entrenched in silence. In the end it was he who broke it.

“I don't think there's anything to be gained by this discussion. You played me the dirtiest trick I've ever heard of—and now you want your legacy.”

“And a bit over,” said Miss Carew, her blue eyes veiled.

“I'm afraid you won't get it. You can have the three hundred a year, but I won't discuss the matter with you. You must see Page.”

She held the cigarette a little away and opened her eyes upon him.

“My dear Jervis, what do you expect me to do? One doesn't
live
on three hundred a year!”

“One might work,” he suggested.

Rosamund's riposte was swift.

“I believe Mr Page has a vacancy for a typist. Shall I apply for it?” She smiled her exquisite smile, then leaned towards him. “I'm not clever enough, I'm afraid. What's the good of quarrelling? Make it five hundred, and let's be friends. Family quarrels are so exhausting, and there's a heat-wave coming.” She paused for an answer, and got none. “Come—five hundred—and I'll owe my dressmaker the rest.”

Jervis rose to his feet and offered her his arm.

“Nothing doing, I'm afraid. Shall we dance?”

Ferdinand Fazackerley had taken Nan by way of a long corridor into one of those immense rooms with gilt mirrors and brocaded furniture which are, mercifully, only to be met with in hotels of the more expensive sort. They sat down in a window-seat framed with rose-coloured satin curtains looped with gold. Their feet rested upon a carpet an inch thick, also rose-coloured.

“Well!” said Mr Fazackerley, “If we aren't grand! Now last time I had the pleasure of a conversation with you—”

Nan coloured a little, but her dimple showed.

“Is that my cue? What do I say?”

“You say, ‘
Last
time?'”

“Do I?”

“I should say you do. And I—”

“Yes, you?”

“I come in with, ‘Last time we weren't as grand as this.'”

Nan caught the corner of her lip between her teeth.

“Have we met before, Mr Fazackerley?”

“Oh yes, Mrs Weare.”

“Have we? Are you sure?”

“Oh, quite sure. I've been quite sure since twenty minutes past four this afternoon.”

Nan caught her eyes away from his. They were twinkling, but under the twinkle he was dead serious. She looked down into her lap, and then of her own free will she tilted her head and looked back at him.

“Well?” she said. Her lips just parted on the word, and then closed in a firm, sweet curve that was not quite a smile.

“If you'll go back in your mind,” said Mr Fazackerley, “maybe you'll remember that after I'd picked Jervis out of that pool on Croyston rocks, I came back for the plucky kid who'd saved his life by holding him up in the water. She'd got herself out without my help, and she was standing there wringing out her skirt and dripping as if she's just come out of the Flood. Perhaps you can remember what I said.”

“Me?” said Nan. “No.”

“Well,” said Ferdinand, “I put my arm around her and I said, ‘You're the durned pluckiest kid I've ever struck—and that's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' And she said—you know what she said.”

Nan shook her head.

“Supposed to be suffering from loss of memory,” murmured Mr Fazackerley. “She grabbed me with both hands and said, ‘Is he dead?' And I said, ‘Not within eighty years of it, thanks to you.' Come—you remember that.”

“I?” said Nan.

“Yes, you. I said, ‘I'd like to know your name,' and she said, ‘Nan.' And when you said ‘I'm Nan,' this afternoon at twenty past four at Victoria Station—well, I knew you at once—so what's the good of all this in and out fighting? I'm not an inquisitive man, but I'd like to know what's behind all this, and why Jervis don't know you saved his life.”

“Well, I think
you
saved it,” said Nan.

Ferdinand shook his head.

“He'd have been gone long before I got him out of the water if it hadn't been for you.” The bright darting eyes went through her armour. “You were clever at dinner, but I saw the scar before you moved your arm—just where I knew it was bound to be. Well, now I'm being impertinent—but
why
doesn't Jervis know?”

Nan was silent for a moment. He was certainly impertinent, but she wasn't angry. He cared about Jervis, and that was all that mattered. She said quite simply,

“I don't want him to know.” Then, as if putting all that on one side, “Mr Fazackerley, I want to talk to you. I—I must talk to someone, and—perhaps Jervis will listen to you.”

“Won't he listen to you? I should have thought—”

“No. Please don't talk to me like that. It's serious—it's very serious.”

“What is it, Mrs Weare?”

Nan clasped her hands in her lap.

“I'm very frightened about Jervis,” she said. “He's in danger, but he won't believe it.”

“Danger?” said Ferdinand. “That has a very intriguing sound.”

“You're laughing at me,” said Nan in a despairing voice.

“How can I, when I don't know the first thing about the situation? What's the matter with it anyway?”

“You don't believe me,” said Nan. “But it's true. He tried to kill Jervis ten years ago, and he tried to kill him again today.”

“Great Wall Street!” said Mr Fazackerley; and then, “Who did?”

“Robert Leonard did.”

Mr Fazackerley beat with the flat of his hand upon his knee.

“Is that so?” he said. “The guy with the bulging brain-box and the jaw-bone of an ass?”

“Yes, he did,” said Nan.

“Great Bronx!” said Mr Fazackerley with simple fervour. “He
did
, did he? Why?”

“Rosamund would get all the money,” said Nan.

Mr Fazackerley sat back.

“Mrs Weare, you're not handing it to me that that beautiful lady is out gunning for Jervis!”

“I don't think she knows.” She threw out her hands in a passionate gesture. “Oh, she
can't
know!”

They were alone in the huge formal room. Nan's little voice quivered in it, and was smothered by the silence and the emptiness. To say the word murder in this gilded, rose-coloured room, with its soft carpet, its glittering chandeliers, its painted ceiling, was like firing a revolver shot in a puppet show. Mr Fazackerley looked at her. He was in the grip of the most profound curiosity.