What's Become of Waring, page 10
‘I’d like to come very much if I’m invited.’
‘I believe you know the young lady Mr. Judkins always brings with him now,’ said Lipfield. ‘Miss Payne.’
‘Miss Payne?’
The name conveyed nothing in connection with Hugh.
‘Miss Roberta Payne,’ Lipfield said. ‘My firm has the honour and pleasure of doing a little business for her now and then. Just small investments. But she knows her own mind. I always say there is nothing like a lady when she has an instinct for the Market.’
‘Oh yes. Of course. I know her well. I’d forgotten she was interested in psychical research.’
‘Mr. Judkins introduced her to it. She is keen now. Very keen.’
‘Is she?’
‘It is encouraging,’ said Lipfield, ‘when a really quite beautiful young lady like that takes an interest in such matters. It contradicts all you read in the papers about the Younger Generation.’
‘I agree.’
‘You must come again yourself soon,’ said Lipfield. ‘Let me have your address. I will notify you when we have something interesting.’
‘Do you still meet at Mrs. Cromwell’s?’
Lipfield shook his head.
‘Mrs. Cromwell is away at the moment,’ he said. ‘Between you and me, there was a lot of trouble about that young medium you met there. It seems he got quite a lot of money out of her. Behaved very badly. Of course there were faults on both sides. But he oughtn’t to have acted as he did. She has gone abroad for a long rest-cure. But I expect it won’t be many months before we hear from her again. She is very keen.’
‘She is pretty well off, I suppose?’
‘Comfortable,’ Lipfield said. ‘I look after some of her interests. We have a Dutch medium at the moment. A lady. But—’
Lipfield pursed his lips in the direction of his nose and thrust forward his head.
‘No bonne,’ he said.
‘How is your adjutant behaving? Has he been attending any more sittings?’
‘Captain Hudson?’ Lipfield roared with laughter. ‘No, he did not seem to get on with them somehow. I say it was Miss M’Kechnie. She’s a caution, that lady.’
Lipfield went into paroxysms of laughter again at the thought of Hudson and Miss M’Kechnie. Then, recovering himself, he said:
‘But he’s a fine fellow is Captain Hudson. And a very fine officer too. He knows about discipline. My word! But it’s what you want. No good trying to be a soldier without it.’
‘He keeps you all up to the mark, does he?’
‘I should just about say he does,’ said Lipfield. ‘But I mustn’t delay you any longer. I expect you are just as busy as I am myself.’
He jogged off towards Lothbury, clutching his umbrella and shrinking his shoulders as if to avoid a pursuing cohort of lamenting spirits summoned unwilling from the abyss.
On the way back to the office I reflected on what Lipfield had said. To bring Roberta to a séance was a novel idea. For a shy man it would supply a short cut to holding her hand in the dark for a considerable period of time. I dismissed this unworthy suspicion. Roberta was an intelligent girl and a journalist. She had probably asked Hugh to take her there because she wanted to write an article on the subject. Besides, Hugh was not much interested in the frivolous side of life. He had more than once said that people exaggerated its importance when they wrote novels. He was wrapped up in his work. All the same, he had been in exceptionally high spirits for some weeks.
Back in my room, I settled down to Lot’s Hometown. Considerable excisions had been made already; but it had returned from Bernard with orders for further expurgation. This was the third time through. My interest in the story was waning.
Late in the afternoon the telephone-bell rang.
‘Hullo?’
‘This is Beryl Pimley.’
‘Are you in London?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She sounded pleased about something.
‘The family have taken a flat in Chelsea,’ she said. ‘We are giving a small party tomorrow. Will you come? About six o’clock.’
Before I could answer she went on:
‘It is really to celebrate the announcement of our engagement. Tiger and I are going to get married in September. It will be in the paper tomorrow.’
I made the conventional remarks on this news and said that I should look forward to the party. Beryl told me the address and how to get there. She rang off. A few minutes later the bell sounded again. This time it was Hudson. We had not spoken for weeks. He was gruff.
‘Congratulations.’
‘What on?’
‘I hear the date is fixed for your wedding.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘That. Thanks awfully. Of course it was all decided already. It is only the announcement that is being celebrated. Look here, shall I see you at the party?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because there are some things I want to discuss. I was going to get in touch with you, anyway.’
‘How is the book going?’
‘Pretty well. That’s what I want to see you about.’
He hung up the receiver. It was one of his brusque days, aggravated no doubt by nerves at the prospect of marriage.
When I left the office that evening Hugh was already on his way down the stairs. Outside in the street a warm wind was blowing. We walked together across the square. I told him that I had seen Lipfield that afternoon in the City.
‘Oh yes,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ve been to several sittings recently. I took Roberta Payne to one of them, as a matter of fact—as she expressed interest. By the way, have you heard at all how Hudson is finding the Waring life?’
‘I’m seeing him tomorrow. He wants to talk over some points. Did Roberta mention how their collaboration was going?’
‘I think she has been very useful,’ Hugh said. ‘They meet at stated intervals, it seems.’
We walked on in silence for a time. Then Hugh said:
‘With regard to Roberta Payne’s contribution, I thought the simplest thing would be for her to have a royalty of five per cent.’
‘Five per cent? Hudson himself is only getting ten, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, and quite enough too,’ Hugh said. ‘After all, he has never written a book before. He is very lucky to have been commissioned at all. He is quite agreeable to that distribution of a fifteen per cent. royalty, which I suppose we should have had to pay if we had employed a professional author. Really, I don’t think he would have been able to write the book at all if Roberta Payne had withheld her information.’
‘She has produced a lot, has she?’
‘It was a remarkable thing that meeting of hers with T. T. It has its moving side.’
‘It certainly has.’
One day I hoped to find out what sort of a story Roberta had told Hugh, that differed so much from the version she had considered suitable for myself.
‘She is a very useful find, that young woman,’ Hugh said. ‘She has promised to send me some articles of hers that have appeared in various papers, with a view to reproducing them in book form. I thought it might be decorated by that artist friend of Shirley Handsworth’s—I can never remember his name—and done at six shillings. Or possibly five.’
Hugh knew as well as I did that a book of Roberta’s collected newspaper articles would not sell a dozen copies. He was trifling with her girlish optimism if he had held out any hope that they would appear under the Judkins & Judkins imprint. Alternatively, he had already decided that he would publish them because he was in the palm of Roberta’s hand.
‘What does Shirley Handsworth think about not getting the job to do himself?’
Hugh coughed and frowned.
‘I am looking about for something else, to prevent him from being disappointed,’ he said. ‘We don’t want disappointed authors. Of course he would never have done, really. I was rather surprised that you were keen about it Besides, Bernard was against him. One has to consider Bernard’s opinions even when they sometimes differ radically from one’s own. After all, he is my elder brother.’
‘And I suppose he will settle Minhinnick?’
‘Minhinnick was never a serious danger,’ Hugh said, chuckling, ‘even from the start. But I hope I have found the right man now. I think somehow I have.’
The Pimleys had established themselves in a small, dark, red-brick block of flats in a side street off the Embankment, not far from Battersea Bridge. Beryl had insisted on being married in London, in the face of some opposition from her parents on account of the additional expense. A relation of Mrs. Pimley with a house in Oxford Square had offered to lend it for the reception, so in the end Beryl had her way. Winefred, on the other hand, had wanted to stay by herself in the country, coming up only on the day of the wedding. She was not allowed to do this, as the Pimleys thought it would be a good thing for her to enjoy the tail-end of the season in London. When everything was arranged the grandfather gave out that he too wished to come to London with the family. Efforts were made to dissuade him. These were unsuccessful. Captain Pimley gave as his reason that it was his last chance of seeing Piccadilly again. Although the probability of his getting so far east as Hyde Park Corner was remote, he met every argument by repeating this. That was why he was now sitting in the corner of the drawing-room, half facing the wall, with his tartan rug wrapped round his knees. These details were supplied by Hudson.
The other guests consisted of two cousins of the Pimleys large bony girls who worked in some charity organisation; one of Hudson’s Territorials; and two middle-aged men in black coats and striped trousers whose names were not revealed but who behaved as if they were relations. Captain Pimley seemed to be enjoying himself. He was nodding his head and sometimes beating time with his finger, as one who hears distant music. Winefred stood near the piano, an upright one, watching the room as if she hoped that the earth would open and engulf it.
‘So that is why they are all here,’ said Hudson, coming to the end of his account of the Pimley family’s movements, ‘and while they stay I am expected to amuse them.’
‘What steps are you taking to do so?’
‘That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. My Territorials are giving a subscription dance in their drill-hall. I’ll explain all the details about it later, if you are interested. The point is, can you help me out by joining my party for it?’
‘When is it?’
‘Today fortnight.’
‘I think I can come.’
‘I can’t pretend it will be very amusing,’ Hudson said. ‘In fact, so far as you are concerned the only bright spot will be the spectacle of Lipfield in mess kit.’
‘And you are taking a party?’
‘I am taking Beryl and Winefred. Between you and me, I am fed up at having to go to the damned show at all. But it’s unavoidable.’
‘Why not take Beryl alone?’
‘I’ve let myself in for taking the whole lot of them now. It’s too late to get out of it.’
‘Including the grandfather?’
‘Oddly enough, no. The General won’t come either. It would be doing me an awfully good turn if you could join us.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘You realise you will go as Winefred’s partner?’
‘I’ll make my will. How is the book getting on?’
Hudson, who had been drumming on the wall with his knuckles, stopped suddenly.
‘That was the other business I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said. ‘I’ve discovered a rather curious thing.’
‘About T. T. Waring’s private life?’
‘In that direction I’ve made absolutely no headway. Where he came from I can’t imagine. I’ve tried all the Waring families in the telephone-book and lots of others. None of them seem to know anything about him. I can’t even find out what his initials stood for. This is in regard to his books rather than him.’
‘He always liked it to be hinted that Waring wasn’t his real name.’
‘I don’t think it can have been.’
‘You’ve heard all Roberta has got to say by this time?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you make of that?’
‘It doesn’t throw much light on the situation. After all, it is quite in keeping with the rest of his behaviour that he should cloak his identity under the name of Robinson.’
‘But what about the engagement?’
‘My explanation of that,’ said Hudson, speaking very slowly, ‘is that he was carried away on impulse. After all, I suppose Roberta Payne is one of the most beautiful and attractive women one could possibly meet.’
He said these words in a tone that surprised me. His manner often became unexpectedly serious. He spoke now with such exaggerated conviction that for a moment it sounded like irony.
‘In the creed of an artist like T. T. Waring,’ he went on in the same tone, ‘women had no place. But when he met Roberta Payne his self-mastery left him for a space. He became as other men. Then he saw that such things were not for him. Before any irreparable damage was done he went on his way.’
‘Perhaps that was it.’
After all, Hudson had to compose the book out of the material at hand. There was no point in his publishers’ representative making tendentious criticisms of the subject. No doubt it was easier to write about someone thought of always in these heroic terms. Perhaps that was how Stendhal should be tackled. It was interesting to note the effect of soaking in the works of T. T. Waring on Hudson’s conversational style.
‘But what is the thing you wanted to discuss? I’m afraid I got you off your subject.’
‘Are you two ever going to stop talking shop?’ said Mrs. Pimley, pouring out for both of us a second dose of some brackish cocktail kept in a jug. ‘Since Tiger became an author none of us ever see anything of him at all. It’s too bad.’
She was distracted from us by her father-in-law, who had begun to make signs to indicate that he wanted to be moved further from the gas-fire, which was alight in spite of the comparative warmth of the day. She turned away across the room. Hudson began again.
‘There were views expressed in the first book about Ceylon,’ he said, ‘that I wanted to compare with those of some other writers on the subject. I went to the British Museum.’
‘But there were probably hundreds of books about Ceylon there. Did you get them all out?’
‘Quite a lot of them. Among others, I sent for one that had been published in India in the ‘seventies. I can’t imagine why I picked it out.’
‘Well?’
‘It was in a dilapidated state with paper covers and printed in Bombay. I was glancing through it when I came across a passage that seemed familiar. I went on reading and was struck by the way the author—who was anonymous—seemed to agree with all T. T. Waring wrote about the same place. I had T. T. Waring’s book with me. I compared the two passages. What do you think?’
‘How should I know?’
Hudson again began to drum on the wall. He said:
‘The fact is, chunks of this book were incorporated almost bodily into the T. T. Waring.’
‘What was the book called?’
‘Something non-committal, like A Traveller in Ceylon or Memoirs of a Journey in Ceylon.’
‘So he added plagiarism to his other eccentricities?’
‘Of course I don’t mean to say the book was reproduced word for word. On the contrary, all the interesting parts, the thoughts on life, and so on, are all T. T.’s. And the descriptions of scenery are put into finer words and better English. But the places dealt with are the same. Some of the incidents are very similar.’
‘After all, most of Stendhal’s first book was copied from a work that had already appeared in Italian.’
‘Oh, was it?’ Hudson said. ‘Well, I don’t see why not, really. If the author is big enough. And to my mind T. T. is big enough. But it just raised the question of what I should say about it, having made the discovery. I don’t want to give something away to the public that will make them think badly of T. T. Waring. On the other hand, it seems only honest to mention it in a book that is supposed to deal comprehensively with his life and work.’
‘I should do just whichever you feel like.’ no
‘It’s sailing a bit near the wind to use a lot of another fellow’s book.’
‘It certainly is.’
‘I shall have to think it over,’ said Hudson. ‘I just wanted to get your view. Meanwhile, I can rely on you to come to this ghastly hop?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dinner is here. At a quarter to eight.’
We were joined by General Pimley.
‘I’ve been thinking about that stamp collection of yours,’ he said, ‘and it seems to me that you and I might be useful to each other. If you feel like selling it you will get a better price from me than you would if you went to a dealer, and I shall get the stamps cheaper than if I bought them in the ordinary way. Of course it is true you might get a fancy price in auction, but that is always a gamble.’
‘Shall I bring the album along for you to look through?’
‘That would be perfectly splendid.’
‘I’ll bring it on the night of the Territorial dance.’
‘I’ll look through it. Then we can meet again and have a good haggle.’
‘Very well.’
Mrs. Pimley reappeared. She said:
‘I’m so glad to hear that you can join us for the dance. Will you come over and have a word with my father-in-law? He noticed you were here and remembered meeting you in the country. He really is a wonder, isn’t he?’
She led me across to where Captain Pimley was sitting. He showed no interest and appeared to have forgotten his demand during the period that had elapsed between asking to speak to me and my arrival at his side. A chair, carved in the Spanish manner, and exquisitely uncomfortable, was moved up. Mrs. Pimley left me beside the old man. At first he was silent. Then, without turning his head, he said:
‘Beryl is to get . . . married.’
‘Yes. Quite soon.’
‘What. . . .’
‘Soon. Quickly. She is to be married quickly.’
Captain Pimley nodded his head. The answer seemed to please him. He said:
