The Blackmailer, page 12
‘Do I really seem like that?’ asked Judith. ‘Conventional and straightforward?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Baldwin. ‘Of course, I’ve always held that you’re less intelligent than you seem—you’re well-read and you’ve got a good clear judgment, and that makes one think there’s more behind you—oh, now you’re insulted, I love that.’
It was true that she prided herself on her intelligence and hated to have it slighted.
‘No, but I think you choose to seem conventional because you wish to be—perhaps it’s the Lane influence, I don’t know,’ said Baldwin. ‘You want to seem as if you never have any doubt about what’s right or wrong, and yet I think it’s only by ignoring a moral problem that you make it seem, both to yourself and to outside observers, as if for you it doesn’t exist. It makes you seem strong, but I’m not sure it isn’t a sign of weakness. You have too much moral pride: I believe if something upset it, you might find yourself quite at sea.’
‘You mean I think myself better than I am,’ said Judith.
‘Stronger,’ said Baldwin.
‘And what sort of thing, then,’ she asked, coldly, ‘do you see upsetting this false equilibrium?’
‘Me, for instance,’ said Baldwin. ‘I think I might upset it.’
‘You?’ she said.
‘You think I’m bad and yet you love me,’ said Baldwin, enjoying his own analysis. ‘I think this constitutes a difficult moral problem for you, and one which you are prepared to go all sorts of lengths not to have to face. Of course you knew Anthony wasn’t altogether a worthy person, but you apparently got over that somehow. I am a more difficult case, a little too much more unworthy. You don’t want to face it. That’s what I mean by your equilibrium being upset. You might do something odd and violent. I am not sure, but nothing would surprise me.’
They sat side by side without speaking for some time, then Judith said quietly: ‘I am afraid I hate you for being so over-confident and so mistaken.’
When she looked at him after a moment, she was surprised to see that he had turned red and that his eyes were full of tears; but she was wrong in thinking that her reaction had much hurt him, for he had not expected any other. It was merely that thinking about her had suddenly filled him with emotion.
After a pause he said: ‘You are like your husband, you know. It’s funny, isn’t it, that someone so weak of character should be so powerful of personality? I’ve no doubt he influenced you more than you did him.’
‘I’m sure he did. I never knew what were the influences in his life. There were none that I could recognise.’
‘Perhaps he was always self-sufficient,’ said Baldwin. ‘There was something a little cold about it. Perhaps he never loved anybody enough to be much influenced by them.’
‘Perhaps not,’ she said gently.
Slightly embarrassed, Baldwin went on quickly: ‘He influenced me, of course, enormously. The way I talk, I mean the actual words I use, inflexions, intonations, all come from him.’
‘I know,’ she said.
They talked about Anthony a good deal: neither of them had talked about him much with anybody before. At those times they were not so defensive with each other; but usually their meetings were sharply quarrelsome. Baldwin found them exciting and stimulating, Judith, for the same reasons, frightening. It had not occurred to him that if it was power he was after he might do better by being nice to her. He was delighted to find it out, but she was for the first time really worried by him.
She began to avoid him with more of a sense of oppression and fear than she had ever had while he was blackmailing her.
One evening he came into the office just as she was leaving. ‘I was on my way home so I thought I’d pick you up,’ he said.
Miss Vanderbank fluttered past in a chiffon scarf, smiling blissfully. Baldwin found himself quite grateful for her so obvious blessing.
They took Bertie into the park. Baldwin had just secured an extremely good brief, in fact he had made what could fairly be considered something of a coup. He would have told her about it, but then somehow he did not tell her, and the fact of his silence gave him pleasure, because he knew she thought him boastful and this was surely a proof to the contrary.
When they reached Judith’s house, Thomas Hood was waiting in the drawing-room. Judith was so relieved to see him that she greeted him with too much enthusiasm.
‘Oh, Thomas! How simply wonderful to see you!’ she cried, and stood smiling delightedly at him.
Thomas looked a little surprised, and then shook her hand, and Baldwin’s, in his punctilious way.
Baldwin, on whom Judith’s unusual enthusiasm had not been lost, answered without much grace, and sat down aggressively.
Judith suddenly unleashed a flood of idle talk, which was received with complete silence by Baldwin and with a polite response but a look of mild concern by Thomas. Baldwin was relieved when the telephone rang, because it put a stop to this chatter which annoyed and puzzled him.
‘Mrs. Lane?’ a husky voice said, with so outrageous cockney cum Scottish accent that Judith thought at first it must be Feliks, who had a liking for that sort of telephoning. She was wrong, however.
‘Sandy’s the name,’ said the voice. ‘Pal of Jimmy’s—Jimmy Chandos-Wright—yes, that’s it. Said you might be wanting me for a job. Well, he did say there’d maybe a spot of delay—I thought I’d just let you know I’m free. Got a job on next month though. Could fit yours in before that if you like? No? Quite sure of that, are you? Always ready to oblige a friend, you know. Tell you what, I’ll give you a number where you can get me, shall I? Then we can cut out the middleman, eh? Not that I mean I’d do Jimmy out of his lick—not an old pal like Jimmy—but saves time, eh? Should you come to be in a hurry, see?’
‘Thank you so much—yes—thank you—good-bye.…’ She put down the receiver. ‘No, really, it’s too much,’ she said. ‘Too much. I can’t bear it.’
‘What’s too much?’ Thomas stood up.
‘The whole thing,’ Judith said. ‘No, I mean everything——No, really, why should I?’
‘Should you what?’ said Thomas.
‘Anything,’ said Judith, ‘I mean, really. …’
Thomas led her to a chair. ‘Take your coat off and sit down,’ he said. ‘You’re talking nonsense. Sit down. There you are. You really mustn’t get so excited. That’s right.’
Baldwin Reeves stood up angrily. ‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘I don’t seem to be sufficiently soothing. Good-bye Judith.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Judith.
As soon as he had gone, she turned to Thomas and cried: ‘Oh, why did you make him go?’
‘You are in a state,’ said Thomas. ‘What shall I do for you?’
‘I’m sorry, Thomas, I really am,’ she said. ‘Oh dear, how awful of me. I don’t know what it is. I ought to go away or something.’
‘What you want,’ said Thomas, ‘is a nice quiet holiday by the sea, with plenty of fresh air, exercise and good food. Isn’t it? So we’ll go down to the Isle of Wight tomorrow. Aunt Susan’s away and you can do whatever you like. I’ll ring up tonight and say we’ll be there in time for tea.’
‘Oh, d’you think so?’ said Judith.
‘Of course,’ said Thomas.
‘Well, yes,’ said Judith. ‘It is kind of you. No, I don’t want a handkerchief thank you.’
‘Bother,’ said Thomas, putting it away.
‘Why?’ asked Judith.
‘I often imagine you crying and me comforting you,’ said Thomas.
‘Oh do you?’ said Judith. ‘I’m sure it’s not in the least like this.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Thomas. ‘Only you cry more.’ He went to telephone his aunt’s house.
In the morning Judith told Feliks that she would like to take advantage of the new secretary’s presence to take a week off, and they went down to the Isle of Wight.
It was warmer than before. There were a few little sailing boats fluttering about the sea, and one great lovely schooner stretching new sails. The trees were all out and some early azaleas. The daffodils were already over. On the sheltered part of the beach, two or three groups of children built sand castles, and three more fortunate ones daily galloped past on tubby uncontrollable ponies. Farther along it was rocky and deserted. They walked there one day, and Bertie chased seagulls and fell into the sea. After that he began to like it and took to sea-bathing with an enthusiasm astonishing in one so luxury-loving. Judith was happy and guilty—guilty about Thomas, about Baldwin, about herself. Baldwin still lurked in her mind, and his presence there made her feel all the more strongly that there was something in what she was doing now, in her respite, in Thomas, to be snatched at while there was still time.
‘You’re better,’ Thomas said. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she smiled.
‘You remember you were going to let me know when you felt like love?’ he said.
‘Was I?’ she said.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I think it’s probably about now, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. But she let him kiss her, and the love which she recognised in him touched her, and made her realise how much she needed it, how much difference already, in spite of her other unhappiness, his love had made to her. She meant to feel ashamed of herself, but somehow could not, and returned his kiss.
He got up, took her hand, and led her out of the room.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, but he did not answer and led her upstairs to her bedroom.
‘You can put your clothes on that chair,’ he said, shutting the door. ‘And I’ll have this one.’
She meant to laugh, or protest, or ask questions, but before his solemnity she said nothing, but undressed quietly and got into bed.
After that the figure of Baldwin Reeves did not retreat but became less menacing. She felt it all to be only a suspension of time, but she could not deny that for the moment she was happy, and that everything Thomas did helped to make her more happy.
Thomas himself was wholly in love. Obscurely he felt he should not tell her: he hardly knew why—it was perhaps an attempt at what he felt was sophisticated behaviour, perhaps a dim fear which he would not yet admit to himself that words might show up the difference in their states of mind. So sometimes tears would run down his face and though he might sob, or hurt her, or stare enraged into her eyes, he still said nothing. Partly, of course, he did not know the words. His experience of love, though it was more extensive than that of his contemporaries who had not been brought up, as he had been, abroad—that is to say, though it included having once been to bed with a woman—had not taught him its vocabulary. He could say ‘darling’ but when he once said ‘my darling’ he blushed furiously and never tried it again.
Judith never knew the extent of his feelings. She realised that he loved her, that he was very moved, that he had known nothing like it; but she never knew how all his life was now in terms of her, how he quite took it for granted that when he had been to Oxford he would marry her and live happily ever after. If she had thought she might have known, but she was, after all, fairly self-centred, and besides she did not want to think.
She was relieved that Thomas’s questionings seemed to have come to an end, and that he said nothing about the future, nor did it occur to her that this was because he imagined there was no doubt about it. Sometimes lying beside her in the big spare bedroom he simply laughed, thinking about it. She would ask him why and he would refuse to tell her. Then she would take him by the shoulders and say: ‘Tell me, tell me.…’ and he would kiss her again, sometimes too roughly, so that she had to stop him, and then he would be sorry. Then he would make love to her again more gently, and then quite suddenly he would be asleep.
Behind his confidence there did lurk a small uncertainty, but he wanted to be confident, and nearly all the time he was.
They stayed longer than a week. Judith rang up her office, but was unable to take business problems in the least seriously. Hanescu, talking to her, sounded a little puzzled: indeed she spoke as if she were in Timbuctoo, not ninety miles away in a big Victorian villa in the Isle of Wight. But Aunt Susan came back, Thomas’s mother and sister had finished their visit to America, and nothing could wait.
They travelled back to London and parted at the station, with peace of mind on Thomas’s part and a great sense of loss on Judith’s. She took a taxi to Chelsea, and as it turned into the street she saw the familiar figure of Baldwin on her doorstep. He was asking when she would be coming back, and she saw him, having been turned away by Jean-Claude, come down the steps and walk into the King’s Road, preoccupied, passing her taxi without noticing who was in it.
10
‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ Mrs. Lane said. ‘To which you needn’t of course reply if you don’t want to. But I feel you will, because I don’t think, really, we’ve many secrets, have we?’
She was smartly dressed, as she always was, in London, and had had her hair done that morning—it was naturally wavy and fitted her fine small head in blue-grey exactitude. Her dark eyes bent their kind distant smile on Judith, a smile as controlled and calm as all her other manifestations.
A little frightened, Judith said: ‘Of course we haven’t.’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Lane, leaning back in her chair and accepting a cup of tea. ‘It’s just that poor old Fa—well, you know, really he’s a bit past.’
Already anxious about what was to come, Judith wished her mother-in-law would not look so grand. Harris, Heaven knew, was shabby enough, yet for some reason Mrs. Lane always made Judith feel the little Chelsea house was hopelessly inadequate.
‘He likes to make a mystery out of things,’ Mrs. Lane went on. ‘I suppose it’s because, poor old thing, he hasn’t much to occupy him these days.’
‘No,’ said Judith, now sure of what was coming.
‘It was just a letter which he asked me to open for him,’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘One of yours. And there was some mention in it of Anthony, and a sum of money, which I didn’t quite understand, and when I asked him he became so secretive that I thought the best thing was to ask you. I didn’t want to worry him about it.’
‘No, of course not.’ Judith paused. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, it is something, not really—well, which you might not like.’
She looked at the woman sitting opposite her. There seemed to be so much strength in her face that Judith wondered whether she had not been foolish in not telling her before.
‘If you want to know, of course I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t before because it’s rather unpleasant.’
‘If it concerns Anthony I should like to know it,’ said Mrs. Lane.
‘Well,’ said Judith, reluctant to remind herself. ‘I suppose I must.’ She sighed. ‘Anthony wasn’t a very brave man. You probably know that. He had many more important qualities and it doesn’t alter the fact that we all loved him. But the reports of how he behaved in Korea were not quite truthful.’
‘They were perfectly well authenticated,’ said Mrs. Lane.
‘Somebody who had been with him the whole time came to see me,’ said Judith. ‘And told me the whole story—about how frightened Anthony had been.…’
‘Frightened?’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘I imagine they were all frightened.’
‘Somebody else had to take over the command,’ said Judith. ‘And Anthony kept back the order to retreat because he thought it was an order to stay where they were. And then in the prison camp some of them were treated very badly. Anthony gave away a plan to escape and so someone was shot. Anthony didn’t die of wounds as it was said. He wasn’t wounded.’
‘He was shot trying to escape?’ asked Mrs. Lane.
‘He was killed by the other prisoners,’ said Judith. ‘Because he gave away their plan to escape and one of them was shot by the guards.’
Mrs. Lane put down her tea cup.
‘Who told you this?’ she asked.
‘Someone who’d been with him,’ said Judith. ‘He blackmailed me, saying that he would make a public scandal out of it by telling the whole story to the newspapers. So I had to give him money.’
‘Was it the man you told me about? Reed?’ Mrs. Lane asked.
‘No no, not him,’ said Judith. ‘Another man.’
‘But this man Reed was with him,’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘He can deny the story.’
‘Reeves,’ said Judith. ‘He said the same thing.’
‘He was jealous,’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘He was always jealous. I knew at the time. He should never have been allowed in the regiment.’
Judith, who had not looked at her mother-in-law while she was speaking, now raised her eyes and saw that Mrs. Lane had turned a yellowish white. She did not meet Judith’s eyes, but turning her face away said: ‘Why did you not tell me at once?’
‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ said Judith. ‘I couldn’t see any point in upsetting you.’
‘Upsetting me?’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘Upsetting me? What an extraordinary thing to say. It doesn’t upset me in the slightest.’
‘It doesn’t?’ said Judith, amazed. ‘Then you knew—we all knew—oh, how strange!’
‘Of course I knew my son,’ Mrs. Lane said. ‘I knew him better than anyone else. I was the only person he cared for. I knew him, and I know him now.’
Judith said nothing.
Mrs. Lane went on, in a hard rasping voice that trembled frighteningly.
‘I know that no amount of slander can make any difference. He was always brave and true and honourable—all his life. He came of a decent family, and he upheld its traditions. It was unthinkable to him to do anything dishonest. He was an English gentleman.’
Judith gave a sort of moan.
‘You know it as well as I do,’ said Mrs. Lane, in her new voice. ‘How dare you take our money to pay some slanderer for his lies? It was wicked of you, wicked. The man must be punished. I shall go round to the War Office at once—yes, now.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to put a stop to it at once. What is the name of this man? He wasn’t there at all. I knew all of them who were with Anthony. What is his name?’
