Towards Zero (10 page)

“No, I'm tired. I—I think I'll go to bed.”

She crossed the room and went out. Kay gave a wide yawn.

“I'm sleepy too. What about you, Mary?”

“Yes, I think so. Goodnight, Mr. Treves. Look after Mr. Treves, Thomas.”

“Goodnight, Miss Aldin. Goodnight, Mrs. Strange.”

“We'll be over for lunch tomorrow, Ted,” said Kay. “We could bathe if it's still like this.”

“Right. I'll be looking for you. Goodnight, Miss Aldin.”

The two women left the room.

Ted Latimer said agreeably to Mr. Treves:

“I'm coming your way, sir. Down to the ferry, so I pass the Hotel.”

“Thank you, Mr. Latimer. I shall be glad of your escort.”

Mr. Treves, although he had declared his intention of departing, seemed in no hurry. He sipped his drink with pleas
ant deliberation and devoted himself to the task of extracting information from Thomas Royde as to the condition of life in Malaya.

Royde was monosyllabic in his answers. The everyday details of existence might have been secrets of National importance from the difficulty with which they were dragged from him. He seemed to be lost in some abstraction of his own, out of which he roused himself with difficulty to reply to his questioner.

Ted Latimer fidgeted. He looked bored, impatient, anxious to be gone.

Suddenly interrupting, he exclaimed:

“I nearly forgot! I brought Kay over some gramophone records she wanted. They're in the hall. I'll get them. Will you tell her about them tomorrow, Royde?”

The other man nodded. Ted left the room.

“That young man has a restless nature,” murmured Mr. Treves.

Royde grunted without replying.

“A friend, I think, of Mrs. Strange's?” pursued the old lawyer.

“Of Kay Strange's,” said Thomas.

Mr. Treves smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “I meant that. He would hardly be a friend of the first Mrs. Strange.”

Royde said emphatically:

“No, he wouldn't.”

Then, catching the other's quizzical eye, he said, flushing a little:

“What I mean is—”

“Oh, I quite understood what you meant, Mr. Royde. You yourself are a friend of Mrs. Audrey Strange, are you not?”

Thomas Royde slowly filled his pipe from his tobacco pouch. His eyes bent to his task, he said or rather mumbled:

“M—yes. More or less brought up together.”

“She must have been a very charming young girl?”

Thomas Royde said something that sounded like “Um—yum.”

“A little awkward having two Mrs. Stranges in the house?”

“Oh yes—yes, rather.”

“A difficult position for the original Mrs. Strange.”

Thomas Royde's face flushed.

“Extremely difficult.”

Mr. Treves leaned forward. His question popped out sharply:

“Why did she come, Mr. Royde?”

“Well—I suppose—” The other's voice was indistinct. “She—didn't like to refuse.”

“To refuse whom?”

Royde shifted awkwardly.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I believe she always comes this time of year—beginning of September.”

“And Lady Tressilian asked Nevile Strange and his new wife at the same time?” The old gentleman's voice held a nice note of polite incredulity.

“As to that, I believe Nevile asked himself.”

“He was anxious, then, for this—reunion?”

Royde shifted uneasily. He replied, avoiding the other's eye:

“I suppose so.”

“Curious,” said Mr. Treves.

“Stupid sort of thing to do,” said Thomas Royde, goaded into longer speech.

“Somewhat embarrassing one would have thought,” said Mr. Treves.

“Oh well—people do that sort of thing nowadays,” said Thomas Royde vaguely.

“I wondered,” said Mr. Treves, “if it had been anybody else's idea?”

Royde stared.

“Whose else's could it have been?”

Mr. Treves sighed.

“There are so many kind friends about in the world—always anxious to arrange other people's lives for them—to suggest courses of action that are not in harmony—” He broke off as Nevile Strange strolled back through the french windows. At the same moment Ted Latimer entered by the door from the hall.

“Hullo, Ted, what have you got there?” asked Nevile.

“Gramophone records for Kay. She asked me to bring them over.”

“Oh did she? She didn't tell me.” There was just a moment of constraint between the two, then Nevile strolled over to the drink tray and helped himself to a whisky and soda. His face looked excited and unhappy and he was breathing deeply.

Someone in Mr. Treves' hearing had referred to Nevile as “that lucky beggar Strange—got everything in the world anyone could wish for.” Yet he did not look, at this moment, at all a happy man.

Thomas Royde, with Nevile's re-entry, seemed to feel that his duties as host were over. He left the room without attempting to say goodnight, and his walk was slightly more hurried than usual. It was almost an escape.

“A delightful evening,” said Mr. Treves politely as he set down his glass. “Most—er—instructive.”

“Instructive?” Nevile raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Information re the Malay States,” suggested Ted, smiling broadly. “Hard work dragging answers out of Taciturn Thomas.”

“Extraordinary fellow, Royde,” said Nevile. “I believe he's always been the same. Just smokes that awful old pipe of his and listens and says Um and Ah occasionally and looks wise like an owl.”

“Perhaps he thinks the more,” said Mr. Treves. “And now I really must take my leave.”

“Come and see Lady Tressilian again soon,” said Nevile as he accompanied the two men to the hall. “You cheer her up enormously. She has so few contacts now with the outside world. She's wonderful, isn't she?”

“Yes, indeed. A most stimulating conversationalist.”

Mr. Treves dressed himself carefully with overcoat and muffler, and after renewed goodnights he and Ted Latimer set out together.

The Balmoral Court was actually only about a hundred yards away, around one curve of the road. It loomed up prim and forbidding, the first outpost of the straggling country street.

The ferry, where Ted Latimer was bound, was two or three hundred yards farther down, at a point where the river was at its narrowest.

Mr. Treves stopped at the door of the Balmoral Court and held out his hand.

“Goodnight, Mr. Latimer. You are staying down here much longer?”

Ted smiled with a flash of white teeth. “That depends, Mr. Treves. I haven't had time to be bored—yet.”

“No—no, so I should imagine. I suppose like most young people nowadays, boredom is what you dread most in the world, and yet, I can assure you, there are worse things.”

“Such as?”

Ted Latimer's voice was soft and pleasant, but it held an undercurrent of something else—something not quite so easy to define.

“Oh, I leave it to your imagination, Mr. Latimer. I would not presume to give you advice, you know. The advice of such elderly fogeys as myself is invariably treated with scorn. Rightly so, perhaps, who knows? But we old buffers like to think that experience has taught us something. We have noticed a good deal, you know, in the course of a lifetime.”

A cloud had come over the face of the moon. The street was very dark. Out of the darkness a man's figure came towards them walking up the hill.

It was Thomas Royde.

“Just been down to the ferry for a bit of a walk,” he said indistinctly because of the pipe clenched between his teeth.

“This your pub?” he asked Mr. Treves. “Looks as though you were locked out.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” said Mr. Treves.

He turned the big brass door knob and the door swung back.

“We'll see you safely in,” said Royde.

The three of them entered the hall. It was dimly lit with only one electric light. There was no one to be seen, and an odour of bygone dinner, rather dusty velvet, and good furniture polish met their nostrils.

Suddenly Mr. Treves gave an exclamation of annoyance.

On the lift in front of them hung a notice:

LIFT OUT OF ORDER

“Dear me,” said Mr. Treves. “How extremely vexing. I shall have to walk up all those stairs.”

“Too bad,” said Royde. “Isn't there a service lift—luggage—all that?”

“I'm afraid not. This one is used for all purposes. Well I must take it slowly, that is all. Goodnight to you both.”

He started slowly up the wide staircase. Royde and Latimer wished him goodnight, then let themselves out into the dark street.

There was a moment's pause, then Royde said abruptly:

“Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

Ted Latimer strode lightly down the hill towards the ferry. Thomas Royde stood looking after him for a moment, then he walked slowly in the opposite direction towards Gull's Point.

The moon came out from behind the cloud and Saltcreek was once more bathed in silvery radiance.

VII

“Just like summer,” murmured Mary Aldin.

She and Audrey were sitting on the beach just below the imposing edifice of the Easterhead Bay Hotel. Audrey wore a white swimsuit and looked like a delicate ivory figure. Mary had not bathed. A little way along from them Kay lay on her face exposing her bronzed limbs and back to the sun.

“Ugh,” she sat up. “The water's horribly cold,” she said accusingly.

“Oh well, it
is
September,” said Mary.

“It's always cold in England,” said Kay discontentedly. “How I wish we were in the South of France. That really is hot.”

Ted Latimer from beyond her murmured:

“The sun here isn't a real sun.”

“Aren't you going in at all, Mr. Latimer?” asked Mary.

Kay laughed.

“Ted never goes in the water. Just suns himself like a lizard.”

She stretched out a toe and prodded him. He sprang up.

“Come and walk, Kay. I'm cold.”

They went off together along the beach.

“Like a lizard? Rather an unfortunate comparison,” murmured Mary Aldin looking after them.

“Is that what you think of him?” asked Audrey.

Mary Aldin frowned.

“Not quite. A lizard suggests something quite tame. I don't think he is tame.”

“No,” said Audrey thoughtfully. “I don't think so either.”

“How well they look together,” said Mary, watching the retreating pair. “They match somehow, don't they?”

“I suppose they do.”

“They like the same things,” went on Mary. “And have the same opinions and—and use the same language. What a thousand pities it is that—”

She stopped.

Audrey said sharply:

“That what?”

Mary said slowly:

“I suppose I was going to say what a pity it was that Nevile and she ever met.”

Audrey sat up stiffly. What Mary called to herself “Audrey's frozen look” had come over her face. Mary said quickly:

“I'm sorry, Audrey. I shouldn't have said that.”

“I'd so much rather—not talk about it if you don't mind.”

“Of course, of course. It was very stupid of me. I—I hoped you'd got over it, I suppose.”

Audrey turned her head slowly. With a calm expressionless face she said:

“I assure you there is nothing to get over. I—I have no feeling of any kind in the matter. I hope—I hope with all my heart that Kay and Nevile will always be very happy together.”

“Well, that's very nice of you, Audrey.”

“It isn't nice. It is—just true. But I do think it is—well—unprofitable to keep on going back over the past. ‘It's a pity this happened—that!' It's all over now. Why take it up? We've got to go on living our lives in the present.”

“I suppose,” said Mary simply, “that people like Kay and Ted are exciting to me because—well, they are so different from anything or anyone that I have ever come across.”

“Yes, I suppose they are.”

“Even you,” said Mary with sudden bitterness, “have lived and had experiences that I shall probably never have. I know you've been unhappy—very unhappy—but I can't help feeling that even that is better than—well—nothing. Emptiness!”

She said the last word with a fierce emphasis.

Audrey's wide eyes looked a little startled.

“I never dreamt you ever felt like that.”

“Didn't you?” Mary Aldin laughed apologetically. “Oh just a momentary fit of discontent, my dear. I didn't really mean it.”

“It can't be very gay for you,” said Audrey slowly. “Just living here with Camilla—dear thing though she is. Reading to her, managing the servants, never going away.”

“I'm well-fed and -housed,” said Mary. “Thousands of women aren't even that. And really, Audrey, I am quite contented. I have,” a smile played for a moment round her lips, “my private distractions.”

“Secret vices?” asked Audrey, smiling also.

“Oh, I plan things,” said Mary vaguely. “In my mind, you know. And I like experimenting sometimes—upon people. Just seeing, you know, if I can make them react to what I say in the way I mean.”

“You sound almost sadistic, Mary. How little I really know you!”

“Oh it's all quite harmless. Just a childish little amusement.”

Audrey asked curiously:

“Have you experimented on me?”

“No. You're the only person I have always found quite incalculable. I never know, you see, what you are thinking.”

“Perhaps,” said Audrey gravely, “that is just as well.”

She shivered and Mary exclaimed:

“You're cold.”

“Yes. I think I will go and dress. After all, it is September.”