What's Become of Waring, page 19
‘Have a look at these,’ she said.
The envelopes had French stamps on them. For some reason the handwriting looked familiar. I unfolded one of the letters and began to read it.
‘My dear Grandfather . . . long since I heard from you . . . your last ten pounds . . . living simply as I do . . .’
The letter was signed ‘Your affectionate grandson, Alec.’
The address was Poste Restante, Nice. I read several of the letters. They all asked for money in the style upon which every professional begging letter is modelled.
Beryl said:
‘Have you discovered what they are yet?’
‘I gather they are from your brother, sponging on your grandfather.’
‘You knew I had a brother, then?’
‘Tiger told me.’
‘Did you know before?’
‘No.’
‘That was why I asked,’ she said, ‘because a lot of people don’t know. Have you got to the one where he mentions a change of address?’
‘Not yet.’
‘It begins: “The sea looks very blue from my window this morning . . .”’
‘Here we are.’
The letter was much the same as the others. The passage Beryl pointed out came at the end.
‘. . . if you could spare a small cheque, my dear grandfather, send it to Monsieur Robinson to the above address, for that is the name under which I pass here in Toulon, where I live in a very modest way, not wishing that one of our family should be known to have fallen on such evil days . . .’
‘Do you see now?’ said Beryl.
‘Your brother used to call himself Robinson.’
‘Robinson was T. T. Waring,’ said Beryl. ‘You know that. Or if you don’t you ought to. Or rather T. T. Waring and Alec are the same person.’
‘But how did you know about T. T. Waring being Robinson?’
‘Tiger told me, of course.’
‘I see.’
‘I should have found it anyway, from the letters.’
‘Does he admit it in so many words?’
‘Practically. But that is not all.’
‘What else?’
‘In one of the letters Alec says he can never be grateful enough for Grandfather’s silence about the memoirs. I don’t know what that means exactly. But with the letters are two or three copies of an old book. Father saw them and said that it was a book Grandfather had written as a young man.’
‘Memoirs of a Journey in Ceylon?’
‘Why, have you heard of it? Father said he hadn’t seen the book for years. He had forgotten all about it. Grandfather must have hidden all the copies of the book he had with the letters.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘No.’
‘It was because your brother had copied most of it out to make his first book under the name of T. T. Waring.’
‘But the reason that I am telling you all this is because Tiger ought to know it for the book he is writing. I want you to take the letters to him. He can do what he likes with them. Burn them if he likes. But he ought to know.’
‘The rest of your family haven’t seen these letters?’
‘No.’
‘Not even Winefred?’
‘I was alone when I found them. I hid them at once.’
She did not seem specially surprised to find that her brother was T. T. Waring. Authorship is only impressive to those in the book business. All she wanted was that Hudson should benefit by the information.
‘The book is off, as a matter of fact.’
‘Off? Why?’
‘For the reasons you have just given me. It was discovered that your brother was T. T. Waring. We met him in Toulon, as a matter of fact.’
‘Who did?’
‘Tiger and I.’
‘Tiger was with you abroad? But how could you meet Alec? He is dead.’
I told her what had happened when we were in the south of France.
‘Then Tiger is not going to write the book at all?’ she said at last.
‘He can’t very well.’
‘What is he going to do?’
‘He has given up his adjutancy. He is trying to get sent to the King’s African Rifles or something like that.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said. Then she began to cry.
Later in the evening I went through the stamps with General Pimley. This was the most enjoyable part of the visit. Mrs. Pimley seemed disappointed that nothing better had resulted from my meeting and talking with Beryl. I told them that I had to dine in London on Sunday night, and cut the week-end as short as possible.
Bernard called through on the house telephone as I was preparing to leave the office on Monday evening. It was unexpected that he should not have gone home by that time. He said that he wanted to see me and I went down to his room. Bernard was sitting at his desk breathing heavily. He looked old and tired.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said—and paused for some moments as if reconsidering this desire—‘about Hugh.’
‘Yes?’
‘Sit down,’ said Bernard. ‘Bring the chair up close.’
I pushed the arm-chair across the worn carpet, leaving a trail in the dust. One of the legs buckled, but the chair did not break. It was fairly safe if you kept your weight on the left side. After we had sat opposite each other for a while Bernard said:
‘Have you noticed anything about my brother since he came back?’
He said this loudly.
‘He doesn’t seem to have been quite himself certainly.’
‘What sort of thing have you noticed? You need not fear to speak. He has left the office.’
It was like being cross-questioned by a stage detective.
‘He doesn’t show the same interest in manuscripts. He always seems preoccupied with theological questions whenever I go in to see him.’
‘Exactly,’ said Bernard, seizing on to this as if it was the clue to the whole situation, ‘exactly. He is preoccupied with theological questions. Have any of the authors complained to you?’
‘Not very much—at least—’
‘Well?’
‘Shirley Handsworth seemed cross about something.’
‘What did he complain about?’
If he were prepared to listen to the story of Shirley’s troubles Bernard must think things were in a very bad way.
‘Apparently Hugh said that he did not care for the style of Handsworth’s work. He suggested that he should try something of a more serious nature.’
‘Read these,’ said Bernard.
He handed me three letters. All were addressed to himself. The first was typewritten and the other two were in thick illegible handwriting.
The first letter said:
DEAR MR. JUDKINS,
I cannot see what my having been divorced three times has to do with my books, but as I have had several better offers from other publishers I shall be glad to concur in the suggested dissolution of my contract with yourselves.
Yours sincerely,
CE. GULLIVER-LAWSON.
The other two letters were from Redhead and Minhinnick respectively. They were long and querulous. It appeared that Hugh had written to Redhead, warning him that unless his next novel contained less about illicit love Judkins & Judkins would be unable to see their way to accepting it. Redhead was angry. He had written to Bernard for an explanation. Precisely what Hugh had said to Minhinnick was not apparent. The substance seemed to be that Minhinnick was an old man who would be better occupied with thoughts of the next world rather than with such vanities as the writing of an autobiography. Minhinnick was definitely angrier than Redhead.
‘I take it the letter to Mrs. Gulliver-Lawson was from Hugh too?’
‘You don’t suppose I wrote it, do you?’ said Bernard. ‘She must have misread the signature when she answered to me. Why should I care how often she gets divorced?’
There was a long silence.
‘I wanted to ask you whether you had any idea what has caused this,’ Bernard said.
‘It is very hard for me to say.’
‘You know,’ said Bernard, ‘even as a small boy he was strange. Paul and I could never make anything of him. What about all the jiggery-pokery with spirits? Is that at the bottom of it?’
‘He’s been interested in that for a long time.’
‘I know.’
‘He always used to laugh about the séances.’
‘That sort of thing plays Old Harry with a man,’ Bernard said. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if that fellow called Lipfield hadn’t influenced him.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Do you think it was something that happened when he was away?’
‘It looks rather like it.’
‘Who did he go with?’
Bernard said this hoarsely. He leant forward. His bleary eyes became almost cunning.
‘He went on a cruise. As a matter of fact, Roberta Payne, who was going to help with the T. T. Waring book, went on the same cruise.’
‘Do you think she had something to do with it?’
‘What can she have done?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Bernard, speaking as if he were at the same time pushing a heavy piece of furniture across the room, ‘perhaps it was what she did not do.’
‘Possibly.’
‘And then,’ said Bernard, ‘this story about T. T. Waring. Hugh tells me some extraordinary stuff about T. T. Waring being a fake. Said you brought it back with you.’
‘It is true.’
‘We can go into that later. But whatever has happened it can’t be so bad that a biography cannot be brought out about him.’
‘I am afraid it is.’
Well, I was never keen on the idea,’ Bernard said, ‘but Hugh thought a lot of it. Now he shows no disappointment at all. He told me this extraordinary yarn. Then said it was all for the best.’
‘It is an amazing story.’
‘Not only that, he says we can’t publish the new T. T. Waring manuscript that came in recently from Peppercorn. Why, it is already in hand.’
Bernard sat back in his chair. He said:
‘That doesn’t prevent him from insisting on producing a book of collected newspaper articles from this young woman Payne just because he says he has given his word that they should appear.’
There was another long pause. It was hard to know what to suggest. Then suddenly Bernard banged the pile of weekly papers on his desk. He said in a voice that came from right down inside him:
‘This—can’t—go—on. We shall be in Carey Street before we know where we are. I shall tell Hugh it has got to stop.’
I took this to mark the end of our conversation and got up to go. While I was crossing the floor there was the sound of scrambling steps in the passage outside. The door was opened violently. Hugh walked quickly into the room.
‘If you have got anything to tell me,’ he said, ‘you’d better say it now.’
He was white in the face and shaking a little.
‘You seem very fond of saying things behind my back,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to repeat them to my face.’
Bernard sat in his chair looking as if he were going to be sick. Hugh said:
‘I suppose you think I can’t hear when you make these criticisms of me at the top of your voice. Or perhaps you thought that I had left my work at the early hour you usually see fit to leave yours.’
These assaults began to sting Bernard slowly to life.
‘I was only waiting to confirm certain conclusions,’ he said, ‘before I approached you.’
‘What conclusions?’
‘That we shall be bankrupt if you go on behaving in this way.’
‘What way?’
‘Sending letters to authors that make them write back to me in these terms.’
Bernard held up the three letters he had shown me. He fluttered them in Hugh’s direction. Hugh took them from him and glanced at them. While he did this he grinned to himself.
‘Well?’ he said.
He handed the letters back to Bernard.
‘What on earth do you mean by referring to Mrs. Gulliver-Lawson getting divorced three times?’
Hugh clenched his teeth.
‘We have got to have this out sooner or later,’ he said. ‘Now you have raised the matter perhaps it had better be sooner. We are going to change the tone of the books we put out. We can’t go on flooding the market with what is at best trash and at worst filth.’
‘Filth?’ said Bernard. ‘Filth? What do you mean? And anyway, if it was, who would be to blame? Haven’t I always complained that you liked sailing near the wind?’
‘Never mind what happened in the past. I speak of the future.’
‘I don’t know what you are driving at.’
‘Decency,’ said Hugh, ‘that is what I am driving at. It is a quality that some of the authors on our list seem to have forgotten the meaning of.’
‘Being rude to them won’t help them to remember it,’ said Bernard.
He was getting very angry.
‘It might do you good yourself,’ said Hugh, ‘to have a spiritual overhaul, Bernard.’
Bernard fetched a sound that gave some hint of his irritation.
‘What about you?’ he said; ‘and this young woman you took to Norway?’
Hugh began to tremble all over. The skin of his face went quite blue. He might almost have been about to have a fit. He said:
‘What do these continual efforts to insult me mean? I insist on an explanation.’
He kept on opening and closing his mouth. His halo of reddish hair, which he had somehow ruffled, stood forward on his forehead like a comb. Bernard said:
‘Insult you?’
‘Why did you point at me in Great Russell Street yesterday?’
‘I—’
‘You did. You know you did. You were walking with Peppercorn.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘There you go,’ said Hugh, taking a step nearer to Bernard and swaying backwards and forwards so that it looked as if he were about to fall to the ground. ‘Because I want to bring decency into this cursed profession which you forced me into by your own sloth, because I have begun to tire of battening on human weakness, because the things that are good seem to you less saleable than the things that are evil, because the whole edifice of your business has its foundations in the rottenness and corruption of human flesh, you see fit to point at me and make a mock of me in the public way, and, not content with this, you moist add a foul and unjust libel that strikes not only at my good repute but that of a girl who—who—who—’
Hugh, whose forehead was covered with sweat, staggered to the arm-chair. He threw himself down in it. The leg, which had cracked under my weight, instantly gave way. Although the list sent Hugh heavily over to the far side of the chair he continued to sit in it, leaning forward with his head in his hands.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he said.
Bernard stood up.
‘Telephone for a taxi,’ he said.
Hudson rang up the next day.
‘Everything is arranged,’ he said. ‘I’ve been pretty busy. We must meet before I leave London. What about dinner tomorrow?’
‘I can’t manage it. The next night?’
We discussed dates. For one reason or another there was difficulty in finding an evening when we were both free. I suggested the end of the following week.
‘That will be my last day,’ Hudson said. ‘I may have to stay down here fairly late.’
‘There are some things I’ve got to tell you.’
Hudson thought for a moment.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘why not come to these headquarters for a drink? We can have a talk here. Then I’ll get away for dinner if I can. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to dine alone.’
‘How do I get there?’
‘I’ll tell you if you don’t mind making the trek. It’s a bit much to ask. Only I’m leaving England quite soon.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Ride a camel.’
9
THE line of approach taken by Bernard to the subject of Hugh’s outburst in the office was that his brother had been overworking.
‘Then he goes on a holiday and sits in the sun all day,’ Bernard said. ‘Naturally he gets a nervous breakdown. I don’t believe in all this sun myself.’
‘I suppose he is in bed now?’
‘The doctor says he must stay there for some weeks,’ Bernard said. ‘Then he goes to Scotland. We have relatives there. The air will do him good. Poor fellow, he has always been highly strung.’
Bernard added nothing of the prospects of Hugh remaining in the business. If he thought these remote he kept his thoughts to himself. I was in a weak position for making further enquiries because I had heard from the advertising agency that they had an opening. Sooner or later the news would have to be broken to Bernard that I myself was to leave Messrs. Judkins & Judkins. Bernard, who had bought a new suit and allowed his beard to grow into a more decided point, seemed no longer worried by what had taken place. No doubt he was delighted at the prospect of getting back into his own hands the control of the business. Possibly his plans had been laid for years to cope with an eventuality of this sort.
That afternoon I set out for the Territorial headquarters. The expedition took the best part of an hour from Piccadilly Circus. It was not one to be embarked on lightly. The last lap of the journey was completed by tram. When I arrived at the gates, Hudson was walking briskly across the yard.
‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘I’m still up to my neck in work. Come along to the Mess. I’ll get you a drink. We can talk later.’
‘What about dinner?’
‘We might eat something at about half-past nine or ten. I shall probably be finished by then.’
‘If I don’t die of starvation in the meantime.’
‘You can wait. It will do you good. I can’t possibly get through my mopping-up and get back to London before then.’
We went up some stairs to the Mess ante-room. Hudson rang the bell.
‘What will you drink?’
‘Sherry.’
A depressed character in shirt-sleeves and a green baize apron appeared and took the order.
‘I’ll be back in seven minutes,’ Hudson said. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
He went away. I examined the surroundings. The room was narrow and contained several leather arm-chairs and some small tables on which a few papers lay. There was a shiny black clock on the mantelpiece. Above this hung the reproduction of a picture by Lady Butler. The figure in shirt-sleeves reappeared, carrying a glass of sherry, and then retired through a half-open door at the end of the room. Beyond this a long table could be seen with chairs set on either side of it. I moved over to the fireplace and was making a closer study of the picture above it, which was called Floreat Etona!, when the door opened and someone came in.
