The Hireling (18 page)

And if he did not associate Lady Franklin with an anonymous letter, neither did he associate himself. Anonymous letters were against his code.

Leadbitter was a stranger to moral problems, but not to moral habits, he lived by his code. Roughly it was the code that was recognized in the Army, but it was stricter than that: it didn’t allow scrounging, for instance. It couldn’t, for as a warrant officer he had to be looked up to. Anybody’s property was safe with Leadbitter, and not only because it would have been bad business to take it. Customers often left things in his car; sometimes they rang him up about them, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes when they did ring up it was just to make an inquiry: did he remember if they had left anything? It would have been easy to say no, without the slightest fear of being found out: Leadbitter could have made a good thing of a private lost-property office. But he never tried to, because he didn’t see himself as that sort of man. It wasn’t so much that he disapproved of stealing as that he despised the kind of man who stole. If he had stolen he would have had to despise himself, and that he couldn’t do. A habit is harder to break than a resolution; Leadbitter was much more moral, according to his lights, than many men who search their consciences. So cut-and-dried was his code that he was as immune from temptation, in the moral sphere, as on the barrack-square; he could as soon have come on to parade looking like a pox-doctor’s clerk (in army parlance) as have transgressed his own ideas of what was fitting.

It wasn’t fitting to write an anonymous letter, he would have despised the man who did it.

But Lady Franklin had revived in him the faculty of loyalty - loyalty which since he left the Army he had owed to nothing and to no one but himself. Loyalty had been the ruling principle of his nature; loyalty to his side, his regiment, his country, and loyalty demanded he should send the letter.

Leadbitter had no one to confide in; his thoughts went on inside him and his deepest thoughts were secret from himself. In a good mood he was anything but taciturn: he talked a lot and made his hearers laugh. But his conversation was decorative, if not always decorous; it was a game, an exercise in irony. Banter and insult and leg-pulling were the ingredients. Everything must be handled with a light touch. He seldom meant what he said, though he sometimes meant the opposite of what he said. In business talks he listened not so much to the words, which were often misleading, as to the sense behind them, which was usually more apparent in what was not said than in what was said - he listened to hear if the deal was going his way, and his replies were framed accordingly. He seldom spoke his thoughts and still more rarely, and then only in anger, did he speak his feelings, because to expose them made him feel naked, and worse than naked - flayed.

Feelings with Leadbitter were something to keep hidden, something of which, if people knew, they would take advantage, and the deeper the feeling, the more closely he guarded it. If he had been accused of murder, he might almost, from a kind of pride, have withheld the one fact that would have cleared him.

So the conflict between his loyalty and his code was conducted without words and almost without thoughts; guns went off, the battle swayed this way and that, but of rational, articulate argument there was as little as there is on any battlefield. But loyalty held the heavier guns, for Leadbitter knew that discipline - the code - was but a means to loyalty. If circumstances called for an act of indiscipline, as in war they sometimes did, for the greater good of the side, then discipline must go and codes that ruled anonymous letters out must also go. The issues were quite clear: if Lady Franklin married Hughie, she would be making the biggest mistake of her life. Her welfare was at stake; her welfare consisted in knowing Hughie for what he was, and in not marrying him. … Nothing else came into it; facts, not feelings, counted. Lady Franklin must send Hughie packing, and then, and then - Well, then the battle would be over, and with it Leadbitter’s responsibility. Lady Franklin would be free, free as a conquering country, free to think again, and free to choose again.

She would not think of him, of course. Among the forces fighting for loyalty was one that Leadbitter had no idea of -jealousy.

Yet the code did not easily admit defeat, it fought a long rearguard action, the first such action that had ever taken place in Leadbitter’s mind, and it was still struggling feebly, still blackmailing him with the threat that now he would have to think of himself as the kind of man who wrote anonymous letters, when Hughie rang him up. Could Leadbitter call for him at his studio, at seven o’clock in the evening, three days hence? ‘I’m taking a friend out to dinner,’ said Hughie, carelessly. ‘Will you be free, say, till eleven o’clock? And by the way,’ he added, before Leadbitter had had time to answer, ‘I hope that wife of yours is better?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ Leadbitter replied, ‘she’s quite all right now,’

‘And how are you yourself?’ asked Hughie with his easy charm.

‘Oh, I’m fine, sir. … But I’m not sure about Thursday -I’ve got a tentative booking for then. Can I find out whether it’s on or not, and ring you back?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Hughie, and Leadbitter resented the happiness in his voice. ‘I could send another man in my place,’ he said. ‘Just as you like, but I’d rather it was you, so come if you can,’

‘Very good, sir,’ and Leadbitter rang off. The tentative booking was fictitious, a ruse for gaining time. Somehow it had never crossed his mind that Hughie would require his services again. He had taken such a strong dislike to Hughie that instinctively he felt it must be returned. Yet how could Hughie know what he felt? And if he did know, why should he worry? To ‘them’ Leadbitter was just part of the car’s furniture, with as little personal feeling as the car had, perhaps less, for the car had its moods and might break down, whereas Leadbitter had no moods, or was supposed to have none, and couldn’t break down, he couldn’t afford to. For at least half his customers, Leadbitter didn’t exist as a man.

But for Hughie, surprisingly, he did. Hughie had asked him, contemptuously no doubt, about his wife - ‘that wife of yours’. Leadbitter had no wife, but if he had had, he would have been gratified to hear her asked about. He had asked about him, Leadbitter, as well. It was rather decent of Hughie: decent of him too, to say he wanted Leadbitter in preference to someone else. Was he such a bad chap after all?

Suppose he put the job out? There was always the risk, if you sent a substitute, that the substitute would steal the customer; they very often tried to. ‘If ever you want me again, sir, here’s my card. Leadbitter’s often pretty busy, sir, perhaps I can help you out when he can’t come,’

Certainly Leadbitter had never wanted to see Hughie and his girl friend again. But was it wise to let his personal feelings get in the way of business? Wouldn’t he be a Billy Muggins to sacrifice a job worth several pounds? He wouldn’t be helping Lady Franklin; on the contrary he would be deserting her, deserting her and the post from which he could best watch her advantage.

‘How’s that wife of yours?’

Most of his customers neither knew nor asked nor cared whether Leadbitter had a wife or not. Leadbitter had no wife; but there was someone, Frances, who had been like a wife to him - all bull, of course, all ballyhoo - and Hughie had asked after her. Few of his customers asked after his health, but Hughie had. Hughie had never done him any harm, indeed he had put money in his way - not his own money, but good money all the same.

A kind word or act from someone you dislike often carries more weight than the same kindness from a friend. And so it was with Leadbitter. He still didn’t like Hughie - Hughie was a clot - but he couldn’t think of him as hardly as he had. He would have to send the letter, of course, but not just now, not for a few days at any rate. Meanwhile - and it was more of a relief than he would have admitted - he needn’t think of himself as the sort of man who wrote anonymous letters.

So out of the very shadow of defeat the code had snatched a momentary victory.

Leadbitter rang Hughie up and said the booking was O.K.

‘Will you drive to 39 South Halkin Street?’ said Hughie. ‘I want to pick up someone there,’

Leadbitter’s heart turned over.

‘South Halkin Street?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, you know, a turning out of Belgrave Square,’

Leadbitter drove off slowly. It had never come into his calculations that Lady Franklin might be the other passenger, and his mind refused to accept the actuality of it. He who had stood up to so many situations involving life and death, felt he couldn’t stand up to this one. Yet how could he get out of it? Deliberately he took a wrong turning and began to drive at right angles to his destination.

‘This isn’t the nearest way,’ said Hughie, irritably. ‘The nearest way’s through Walton Street and Pont Street,’

‘I know,’ said Leadbitter, who even at this crisis resented being told the way. ‘But Walton Street is up. You can’t get through there,’ It wasn’t true but any excuse was good enough.

They crawled up Gloucester Road towards the Post Office, and suddenly Leadbitter had an idea.

‘Do you mind, sir,’ he said as casually as he could, ‘if I stop here and do a telephone call? My wife’s not well and I want to ask how she is,’

‘Oh, look here,’ said Hughie, ‘your wife’s always falling ill,’

‘She’s in the family way,’ said Leadbitter briefly.

‘Oh, is she? Well, I don’t know whether to congratulate you or not. But don’t be long: I’m a bit late already,’

Slowly, and almost for the first time in his life with a bent head, Leadbitter entered the Post Office. Passing the telephone box with scarcely a look he asked for the London Trades Directory and taking it to a window began to turn the pages, to give himself a pretext for delay.

Was he so yellow that he couldn’t face seeing Lady Franklin again?

The imputation of cowardice, even self-inflicted, put him on his mettle. And was he to go throwing away jobs like this? Hughie wasn’t a good man, maybe, but he was quite a good customer. What business was it of Leadbitter’s how Hughie behaved? And at this eleventh hour he couldn’t find another driver. For a moment his business self, on the side of courage, got the upper hand. He gave the Directory back to the girl at the counter, and started for the door. Of course he would go through with it.

But no, he couldn’t. How easy it had been, with only himself to think about, to make up his mind! But Lady Franklin - how would she take it? How would she like meeting him? Not very much, not very much, he told himself. She was nervous; she might tremble, she might even faint. She had spoken kindly of him, that he knew; but at heart she must regard him as a renegade. A vision of what he must mean to her pricked him with self-loathing. No, he couldn’t expose her to his second shock: Hughie must find another means of transport.

Braced to say this, he pushed open the door. But on the threshold another thought attacked him - attacked him so violently that it drove all other thoughts like chaff from his mind.

He wanted to see her again, didn’t he? Wasn’t it what he wanted most, to see her again? Wasn’t there something he wanted to say to her? And how could he hope ever to see her, except this way? He thanked his stars he hadn’t sent the letter. If she couldn’t face him that was her look-out; he could and would face her.

‘My wife’s all right, sir,’ he told Hughie, and had an odd feeling that he was speaking of Lady Franklin.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Hughie said perfunctorily. ‘Well now, let’s get on,’

This time Leadbitter took the nearest route and drove at his usual pace. That clot in front was doing some fierce braking. … In the mirror he could see Hughie fidgeting on the back seat. He’s nervous, thought Leadbitter: he’s as nervous as a kitten, he’s more nervous than I am. And just as though he had been going into battle he tried to clear his mind of hopes and fears, of any preconception of what might be going to happen, so that he would be free to deal with the situation as it developed. It was laughable to be taking these precautions; could any enemy be less dangerous than Lady Franklin, the mildest creature in the world? And yet excitement stirred his blood and try as he would to unify his faculties he was divided between the hope and fear of seeing her.

The car swung into the octagon of Belgrave Square. Only a minute or two now to zero hour. He stiffened his face and pressed his shoulders against the back of the seat, while behind him Hughie bounced about as though he was on springs.

How strange yet how familiar it was to be pulling up at her door, the door he had passed so many times, but had never expected to stop at again. How long ago was it, the last time he had called for her? Over a month; but not so long ago as the last time he had brought her back. What had happened to her on the road from Winchester? Did she have far to walk before she got a lift? Did she thumb a lorry? Sometimes he had pictured her trudging for miles, carrying her heavy bag - pictured her at first with glee, then with mixed feelings, and lastly with remorse. She must have got home somehow; how, he would never know, unless -

‘That will be all, Leadbitter,’ But it wasn’t going to be all; he was to take her out this evening, unless -

Unless she refused to let him drive her.

He pressed the bell, and after some delay the door opened.

‘It’s a long time since we saw you,’ said the butler. ‘Never since the day of the accident,’

‘What accident?’ said Leadbitter. ‘I’ve never had an accident,’

‘You’ve a short memory then,’ the butler said. ‘The last time you took her ladyship out, you had an accident, and her ladyship came back in a taxi. Properly frightened she was, all trembling. It upset her ladyship for days. And yet you say “No accident”,’

‘Oh that,’ said Leadbitter. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten that - that little spot of bother that we had,’

‘Her ladyship hasn’t forgotten it,’ said the butler. ‘That’s why she didn’t want to trust herself to you again,’

‘Gangway, please,’ said a voice behind and below them, and Hughie strode impatiently up the steps.