She was still brooding by the electric fire when she heard a car stop outside, and the bell rang.
Young Croom looked chilled and pale. He stood as if so doubtful of his welcome that she seized both his hands.
“Well, Tony, this is a pleasure!”
“Oh! darling!”
“You look frozen. Have some brandy!”
While he was drinking, she said:
“Don’t let’s talk of what we ought to have done; only of what we’re going to do.”
He groaned.
“They must have thought us terribly green. I never dreamed—”
“Nor I. But why shouldn’t we have done exactly what we have done? There’s no law against innocence.”
He sat down and leaned his forehead on his hands. “God knows this is just what I want; to get you free of him; but I had no business to let you run the risk. It would be all different if you felt for me what I feel for you.”
Clare looked down at him with a little smile.
“Now, Tony, be grown-up! It’s no good talking about our feelings. And I won’t have any nonsense about its being your fault. The point is we’re innocent. What are we going to do about it?”
“Of course I shall do whatever you want.”
“I have a feeling,” said Clare, slowly, “that I shall have to do what my people want me to.”
“God!” said young Croom, getting up: “To think that if we defend and win, you’ll still be tied to him!”
“And to think,” murmured Clare, “that if we don’t defend and win, you’ll be ruined.”
“Oh! Damn that—they can only make me bankrupt.”
“And your job?”
“I don’t see—I don’t know why—”
“I saw Jack Muskham the other day. He looks to me as if he wouldn’t like a co-respondent who hadn’t given notice of his intentions to the petitioner. You see I’ve got the jargon.”
“If we HAD been lovers, I would have, at once.”
“Would you?”
“Of course!”
“Even if I’d said ‘Don’t’?”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Well, anyway, it doesn’t arise.”
“Except that if we don’t defend, you’ll feel a cad.”
“God! What a coil!”
“Sit down and let’s eat. There’s only this ham, but there’s nothing like ham when you feel sick.”
They sat down and made motions with their forks.
“Your people don’t know, Clare?”
“I only knew myself an hour ago. Did they bring you this same lovely document?”
“Yes.”
“Another slice?”
They ate in silence for a minute or two. Then young Croom got up.
“I really can’t eat any more.”
“All right. Smoke!”
She took a cigarette from him, and said:
“Listen. I’m going down to Condaford tomorrow, and I think you’d better come over. They must see you, because whatever’s done must be done with open eyes. Have you a solicitor?”
“No.”
“Nor I. I suppose we shall have to have one.”
“I’ll see to all that. If only I had money!”
Clare winced.
“I apologise for a husband capable of asking for damages.”
Young Croom seized her hand. “Darling, I was only thinking of solicitors.”
“Do you remember my answering you on the boat: ‘Often more damnable, things beginning.’”
“I’ll never admit that.”
“I was thinking of my marriage, not of you.”
“Clare, wouldn’t it be far better, really, not to defend—just let it go? Then you’d be free. And after—if you wanted me, I’d be there, and if you didn’t, I wouldn’t.”
“Sweet of you, Tony; but I must tell my people. Besides—oh! a lot of things.”
He began walking up and down.
“D’you suppose they’ll believe us if we do defend? I don’t.”
“We shall be telling the exact truth.”
“People never believe the exact truth. What train are you going down by?”
“Ten-fifty.”
“Shall I come too, or in the afternoon from Bablock Hythe?”
“That’s best. I’ll have broken it to them.”
“Will they mind frightfully?”
“They won’t like it.”
“Is your sister there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s something.”
“My people are not exactly old-fashioned, Tony, but they’re not modern. Very few people are when they’re personally involved. The lawyers and the judge and jury won’t be, anyway. You’d better go now; and promise me not to drive like Jehu.”
“May I kiss you?”
“It’ll mean one more piece of exact truth, and there’ve been three already. Kiss my hand—that doesn’t count.”
He kissed it, muttered: “God bless you!” and, grabbing his hat, went out.
Clare turned a chair to the unwinking warmth of the electric fire, and sat brooding. The dry heat burned her eyes till they felt as if they had no lids and no capacity for moisture; slowly and definitely she grew angrier. All the feelings she had experienced, before she made up her mind that morning in Ceylon to cut adrift, came back to her with redoubled fury. How dared he treat her as if she had been a ‘light of love’?—worse than if she had been one—a light of love would never have stood it. How dared he touch her with that whip? And now how dared he have her watched, and bring this case? She would not lie down under this!
She began methodically to wash up and put the things away. She opened the door wide and let the wind come in. A nasty night, little whirlwinds travelling up and down the narrow Mews!
‘Inside me, too,’ she thought. Slamming-to the door, she took out her little mirror. Her face seemed so natural and undefended that it gave her a shock. She powdered it and touched her lips with salve. Then, drawing deep breaths, she shrugged her shoulders, lit a cigarette, and went upstairs. A hot bath!
CHAPTER 21
The atmosphere at Condaford into which she stepped next day was guarded. Her words, or the tone of her voice on the telephone, seemed to have seeped into the family consciousness, and she was aware at once that sprightliness would deceive no one. It was a horrible day, too, dank and cold, and she had to hold on to her courage with both hands.
She chose the drawing-room after lunch for disclosure. Taking the document from her bag, she handed it to her father with the words:
“I’ve had this, Dad.”
She heard his startled exclamation, and was conscious of Dinny and her mother going over to him.
At last he said: “Well? Tell us the truth.”
She took her foot off the fender and faced them.
“THAT isn’t the truth. We’ve done nothing.”
“Who is this man?”
“Tony Croom? I met him on the boat coming home. He’s twenty-six, was on a tea plantation out there, and is taking charge of Jack Muskham’s Arab mares at Bablock Hythe. He has no money. I told him to come here this afternoon.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“No. I like him.”
“Is he in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“You say there’s been nothing?”
“He’s kissed my cheek twice, I think—that’s all.”
“Then what do they mean by this—that you spent the night of the third with him?”
“I went down in his car to see his place, and coming back the lights failed in a wood about five miles from Henley—pitch dark. I suggested we should stay where we were till it was light. We just slept and went on up when it was light.”
She heard her mother give a faint gasp, and a queer noise from her father’s throat.
“And on the boat? And in your rooms? You say there was nothing, though he’s in love with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Is that absolutely the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Of course,” said Dinny, “it’s the truth.”
“Of course,” said the General. “And who’s going to believe it?”
“We didn’t know we were being watched.”
“What time will he be here?”