Tom Tiddler’s Ground, page 7
“Alfred! I’m so sorry!” cried Lavinia, apologetic rather than airy (as she had planned to be) since, by the look on Alfred’s face, the “pretty woman’s privilege” theory did not seem to have worked out well in this instance. “I did mean to be on time, but—”
“O.K.! O.K.!” said Alfred, pulling himself together, and determined to show Wilkins, at any rate, that Lavinia and he completely understood each other. “Pretty little girls like you,” he added loudly, “are never very punctual, I find.”
“And are plain ones?” said Lavinia, delighted at finding the woman’s paper right after all, and snuggling happily into the car beside Alfred. This was just the sort of conversation she enjoyed. (And to think that six months ago she’d been wearing a gym-tunic at school.)
“I don’t know. I’ve never had very much chance of finding out what plain ones are like,” retorted Alfred.
But you’re married to Constance, thought Lavinia. However, even she was not quite naïve enough to put the thought into words.
“Morning, Wilkins,” said Alfred graciously, as they drove past. He was rewarded by a surly stare.
“I don’t think Wilkins likes you,” giggled Lavinia tactlessly.
“Dear, dear! That’s a serious matter, of course! Why not, I wonder?”
“Oh, well, he was awfully cross when Daddy said you might teach me to drive. I think he wanted to. And then, of course, he’d have liked to take me up to London to-day. He loves going to London and hardly ever gets the chance nowadays.”
“I see.”
“As a matter of fact,” confessed Lavinia coyly, “I believe Wilkins is a bit in love with me.”
“In love with you? What damned cheek! Excuse my language, Lavinia, but really—doesn’t the fellow know his place?”
“Oh, he’s never said anything, of course, Alfred, but . . .” (Lavinia giggled again.) “You can sort of tell, you know.”
“Well, I think I ought to say something to your father about it,” said Alfred, after a short pause. (I wouldn’t mind a bit if the old man sacked him, and he might, he’s so hot-tempered. I’ve nothing on Wilkins, and he’s nothing on me, but I don’t like his face.)
“Oh, no, Alfred! You can’t. Poor man! He can’t help it.”
“It’s such damned insolence—a man like that! My dear, I don’t like it, frankly I don’t. It worries me,” said Alfred.
He’s jealous, thought Lavinia ecstatically.
“Oh, but please don’t say anything to Daddy, Alfred. I mean, it isn’t as though poor Wilkins had ever done anything.”
“I should hope not!” said Alfred indignantly.
“But you won’t tell Daddy, will you, Alfred?” coaxed Lavinia, thoroughly enjoying herself.
“Well . . .” Alfred deliberated. Better not rush things perhaps. No use risking making enemies. “Promise me one thing, Lavinia.”
“Yes?” said Lavinia eagerly.
“If ever he—well, insults you in any way,” said Alfred solemnly, “you’ll tell me at once. At once, mind.” (And then I’ll have something on him all right. Unless the kid’s made the whole thing up, which is quite on the cards.)
“Oh, yes, Alfred. I promise I will!” said Lavinia. This was splendid.
“That’s a good girl,” said Alfred, patting her hand.
“And after all, Alfred, you know I’m not a child. I can look after myself,” said Lavinia proudly.
“I’m sure you can,” said Alfred, a trifle absent-mindedly. “What’s that jewel-case you’re clutching so tight, in your hand?”
“That? Oh, that’s Aunt Emmie’s pearl necklace. Look!” She snapped the case open. “She gave them to me the other day. That type of necklace is old-fashioned, of course, and they’re yellow with not being worn, so she said I could do what I liked with them.”
“And what are you going to do with them. Real, I suppose?” added Alfred casually.
“Oh, yes, of course. I thought I’d have them restrung and—well, I haven’t decided really. Have any over made into ear-rings perhaps. I thought I’d ask a jeweller in London.”
“Know a good jeweller?” enquired Alfred.
“No, I don’t think I do. I thought any good West End firm would . . .”
“Just a minute, just a minute, Lavinia. You ought to be careful about these things, you know. It’s better if you know some one personally in the trade. There are lots of hanky-panky tricks about a job like this, you know.”
“Are there really?” said Lavinia, wide eyed. “What?”
“Oh, well . . .” Alfred thought rapidly. “They might take your pearls and replace them by inferior ones, for instance.”
“Might they really?” Lavinia was aghast at this revelation of the world’s wickedness. “But surely a good well-known firm wouldn’t—”
“Don’t you be too sure, my child. The head of the firm doesn’t know everything that goes on—not by a long chalk,” said Alfred.
“Oh, dear! Well, what do you think I’d better do?” said Lavinia helplessly.
“You don’t know any one personally in the trade?”
“No, of course I don’t. How could I? Do you?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I do. Known him for years really. I suppose a jeweller seems a funny sort of friend to you, but when one’s knocked about the world a bit one meets all sorts of people,” explained Alfred modestly.
“Oh, of course. I wish I could knock about the world a bit, like you have. Shall I give you the pearls then, Alfred, and you can give them to him and ask him what he thinks he can do?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it? I mean, he needn’t do anything till he’s had your O.K. And anyway they’d be safe with him.” (Safe as houses, as long as I can raise the cash to redeem them later. Oh, well, something will turn up, before the kid starts worrying me about it. She’ll have to have them back then, or her father might get suspicious. What shall I say? Spin her a story about them being too old to re-string or something? I’ll see when the time comes. Now, had I better ask her not to babble about it to every one? No, too risky. Must chance something and this bit of luck’s too good to miss.)
“There’s Mrs. Cameron’s little girl at the gate,” said Lavinia. “Doesn’t she look sweet?”
“Yes, doesn’t she?” said Alfred, slipping the pearls into his pocket, without a glance at Marguerite. (The kid’s not even going to ask me my friend’s name. God, it’s too easy.)
The journey up to London passed off pleasantly. Lavinia was thrilled to hear Caroline was going to lunch with an actor, although a little disappointed to learn it was not John Gielgud. Alfred showed off his driving, and, looking from Lavinia in a smart new grey costume, to Caroline in her mink coat, felt that this was the sort of thing he had been born for.
“Now, where shall I drop you, Mrs. Cameron?” enquired Alfred, as he drove over Westminster Bridge. “Where is your appointment with Mr. Vernon Farron?”
“Oh, that’s not for ages yet,” said Caroline, instantly disliking the way he had brought out the name so pat. She added on the spur of the moment, and chiefly to snub Alfred: “I want to call in on my husband now.”
“Let’s see, he’s a barrister, isn’t he, Mrs. Cameron? Shall I drive you to the Temple?”
“No, he’s a solicitor and has a mouldy little office in the City. Just drop me here, please.”
“Oh, but can’t I—?”
“No, no, thank you very much. Look, the lights are turning red. I’ll get out here,” said Caroline, and did so.
John’s office was, as a matter of fact, quite an imposing place; and Caroline, as she made her way there, gazing curiously from the windows of the bus at sandbags and “Air-Raid Shelter” notices, thought what a nice surprise it would be for John to see her so unexpectedly.
“Oh, hello, Caroline! You! What brings you up to town to-day?” exclaimed John, as Caroline was shown into his office.
He was sitting at a large desk covered with papers, and he was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked the complete solicitor, Caroline thought.
“Hello, darling! How’s life?”
“Bloody,” said John briefly.
“You mean we’ll either be bombed or ruined, as Mrs. Randolph of Chesterford—the village cat, John, I must tell you about her!—says,” enquired Caroline gaily.
“Well, it’s no joke, I can tell you,” retorted John.
“Oh, well, cheer up! Don’t you like my new hat? What’s the matter?”
“My junior partner’s been called up, for one thing. Just had to leave all his work and go.”
“And that’s some of his work on the desk, is it, and you have to cope?”
“That’s it,” said John gloomily. “I never get home before about nine o’clock in the evening and the blackout in London isn’t a bit funny, really.”
“Oh, dear. I hope our Florence has an appetizing little meal waiting for you?”
“I say, don’t muddle up those papers, Caroline. Florence? Oh, yes, she’s being very decent about it.”
“Has she washed the bathroom curtains yet?” enquired Caroline.
“What? I really haven’t noticed. Anyway, it’s decent of her to stick to her job in the circumstances.”
“Well, you needn’t talk as if I’d scurried first off a sinking ship,” said Caroline, who was finding her reception disappointingly cool. “It was only because of Marguerite I went at all.”
“Oh, of course. How is she?”
“Marguerite? Fine, thanks.”
Conversation languished.
“Can you lunch with me?” said John. “Then we’d have time to talk a bit.”
“No. No, I’m sorry I can’t. As a matter of fact, I’m lunching with—”
“You might let me know in advance next time you come up,” suggested John.
“Sorry. Well, I must be going.”
“It’s been nice seeing you,” said John, politely rising.
Caroline giggled. “Not very, darling, not very. Not the moment, I see, to tell you all about my comic crew at Chesterford. Oh, John, they are funny! All right, darling, don’t say it! You’d love to hear about them some other time, I know! Good-bye.”
“I’m sorry, Caroline, but—”
“All right! I understand!” Caroline moved to the door. (Poor old John, he did look a bit haggard. She paused.) “I say, John, would you like me to leave Marguerite with Nanny and come back to London for a bit?”
“What? Oh, no, thanks. I’d never see you anyway. I just come home and have my dinner and go straight to bed.”
“Oh, I see.”
“My one comfort is that you at least are safe and out of all this trouble,” explained John.
The old, old irritation! There was John treating her again in that infuriating, chivalrous, protective manner. How stupid, how boring, how subtly insulting of him.
“Well, good-bye, John,” said Caroline, presenting a rather cool cheek to be kissed.
“Good-bye, darling. Don’t trip over the sand-bags as you go out. Everybody does.”
“Not a great success,” murmured Caroline to herself, as she made her way out.
There was nothing stupid or boring about Vernon. As a matter of fact, there was nothing very chivalrous about him either.
“Darling, how marvellous to see you again, and what a divinely silly little hat! Come and have two Martinis, quick. You’ve got to catch up on me. I’ve been here ten minutes. No, darling, look this way, please.” Vernon took Caroline’s face between the palms of his hands and neatly twitched it a half-circle to the left. “You’re staring straight at my ex-wife over there, and it’s rude to stare.”
“Sorry, darling. I didn’t know it was your ex-wife. I don’t know her from Adam.”
“Well, you’d know her from Eve because she’s wearing a really rather nasty ginger-coloured frock. She was never very strong on colour.”
“Is that why you divorced her?”
“Don’t be tactless, my sweet. She divorced me. Isn’t that the way they do things in Chesterford? How is Chesterford, Caroline? I laughed a lot at your letters and read them aloud to every one—perfect strangers in buses and trams and things—every one. Well, not all of your letters, of course.” Vernon’s voice dropped a halftone in the manner Caroline knew so well. It was only a trick, of course—he did it on the stage, it didn’t mean a thing—but all the same he had got an attractive voice. An attractive voice, broad shoulders, marvellous hands (she always looked at a man’s hands)—was there really anything else to him? Well, of course, there was the fact that he was in love with her and (as far as she knew at any rate) with nobody else at the moment. And then his manners were perfect, his conversation pleasantly outrageous, his popularity universal. But Caroline knew him well enough now to be pretty sure that there was a good deal of sensitiveness under all that flippancy. Vernon had been badly hurt in the past by that ex-wife of his—Caroline had guessed it first, and then had her guess confirmed from several sources—and in consequence Vernon had evolved a full-time defence-mechanism of his own. Laugh at everything, what did anything matter?—oh, it was a common enough pose and cheap, if you like. But he wasn’t like that underneath. He was rather a dear, really. And anyway, he was a marvellous companion for an hour or two.
“How’s that divine Marguerite of yours, Caroline? I wish you’d brought her up with you. I’d rather talk to Marguerite than to almost any one—except her mother.”
“Marguerite? Oh, she’s very well, thanks. She feeds the ducks about twelve hours a day.”
“I wish I could see her again,” said Vernon.
He means it too, thought Caroline. He’s perfectly sweet with her, in the funniest way. And (best maternal touchstone of all) he really looks at snapshots of her, bless him.
“Couldn’t I come down one day and see you all in the country?” suggested Vernon.
“No, darling. No, much as I’d like it, I really don’t think you could. Do you know anything about country villages?”
“Well, not at the moment, Caroline—except from your letters, of course. Stop flapping that menu and trying to spot the third cheapest item, or whatever your method is. I’ve already ordered our lunch. No, darling, just at the moment I’m sufficiently of a success on the London stage not to have to pretend that I’m spending six months in a cottage, with an outside lavatory, in Cornwall, because the doctor ordered me a rest and I like the country.”
“Oh, yes—tell me, Vernon! What about that new piece you’d got a part in just before the war? Is that all off?”
“Well, it was, when we all thought we were going to have to pick our way from bomb crater to bomb crater along the Strand. God, those first days of war were pretty grim for the whole profession, you know. We were all running about in tears trying to buy up shoe-blacking pitches—or else join up, but that turned out to be much more difficult still.”
“Oh, I know. They insult you, if you try. But it’s coming on again now, is it—your piece?”
“Yes, thank God. Going into rehearsal in a fortnight’s time. Opens in London on November 12th. I’ll get you a ticket, Caroline. You must come to the first night.”
“Oh, Vernon, I’d love to. What’s your part like?”
“Second lead, of course. They haven’t realized yet how really good Vernon Farron would look in the largest print.”
“No, but when there’s a war on, people always are supposed to get their real values straightened out, aren’t they? So perhaps London will sort of realize in a flash what you really mean to them,” suggested Caroline.
“Yes. Posters all over the place.” Vernon wrote in the air: “What are we fighting for? The British Empire and (in slightly larger letters) Vernon Farron.”
“Tell me what the play’s called and what your part’s like.”
“All right. I wanted to ask you about the title, as a matter of fact. There are two alternatives. Don’t eat so fast, Caroline. One would think you were starved, and I’m trying to spin this meal out as long as possible. I’m enjoying myself. Besides, don’t forget you’ve got to give me the latest instalment of your Chesterford serial. How’s Alfred Almost-a-Gentleman Smith? Has he seduced the beautiful and silly Lavinia, daughter of the squire, yet? I’m longing to know. After, of course, I’ve told you all about myself.”
“So you really did read my letters then?” said Caroline, enchanted by Vernon’s interest.
“Read them? Darling, what do you think! Of course I read them, through and through. Look in my eyes and read your answer there.”
Caroline, amused, raised her eyes to Vernon’s face. He was looking intently at her and, to her surprise, she did not find much laughter in his gaze. There was something else in his expression—something that caused her to catch her breath suddenly and look away again.
“Yes, as I said—darling! Definitely darling,” said Vernon softly.
Caroline went back to Chesterford by train that evening. She had told Alfred she wouldn’t dream of keeping him waiting for her.
As soon as she entered the hall she heard Alfred’s voice in the sitting-room. She could tell at once, by the tone he was using, that it was Constance he was speaking to. It was a peculiarly nasty tone. Caroline purposely made a clatter with her feet in the hall. Alfred’s voice stopped.
“Hello, Constance!” said Caroline, opening the door. “I’m back, you see.”
“Oh, hello, Caroline!” Constance was struggling hard for control. Alfred appeared to be very busy looking for something on the mantelpiece.
“Had a nice time, Caroline? Have you had any dinner, because I can easily—” Constance was half-way up from her chair at the thought.
