The process passed through his mind like a snap of the fingers and so, when Ernest said, ‘There was something else, but if you’re rushed —’
‘Something else?’ Hogarth replied.
‘Perhaps another time,’ Ernest said.
‘Oh, I’m not rushed for the next half-hour. Do carry on.
‘Well,’ said Ernest, ‘it may interest you or it may not. I feel, you know, I’ve brought you up to London on a disappointing inducement — I did think honestly it would please you to be substantially connected with the dancing school — and Eleanor was sure you would — I hope you don’t feel it impertinent on our part.’
‘He is like a woman,’ Mervyn thought. ‘It’s just like lunching with a woman.’ And he assured Ernest that he hadn’t minded a bit: ‘only too sorry I can’t spare a penny. What was the other question you wanted to mention?’
‘Yes, well, that may be of interest and it may not. It’s just as you feel. The lamb was most peculiar, I must apologize. It’s the worst club lunch I do ever remember. I would send a complaint, only I did fire watching with the chef, who is most really nice and almost never has an off day like this.’
‘A very good lunch,’ said Mervyn sadly.
‘Sweet of you to say so,’ said Ernest.
‘This further question —?’
‘Truly you’ve time? I should so like to say a few words, something which you might be interested in. You know my brother Edwin?’
‘I haven’t met Sir Edwin Manders.’
‘He is very rich. You know Helena?’
‘His wife, that is? I know of her.’
‘She’s rather sweet. You’ve met her mother?’
‘As a matter of fact I do know Mrs Jepp. ‘‘Mrs Jepp,’ said Ernest.
‘Fine old lady. Lives quite near my place,’ said Mervyn.
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Ernest. ‘You visit regularly, I hear. ‘‘I hear,’ said Mervyn, ‘that her grandson had an accident.’
‘Only a broken rib. He’s recovering rapidly.’
‘Ah, these young people. I met the grandson.’
‘I know,’ said Ernest.
It was creeping on three o’clock and their glasses had been twice filled. Ernest thought he was doing rather well. Mervyn was hoping against time, but really there was no excuse for prolonging the afternoon. Ernest had made it clear, in the soft mannerly style of pertinacity, that the Manders family had started to smell out the affairs of Louisa Jepp. Mervyn would have liked to hit Ernest for his womanly ways, and he said, ‘I must say, Manders, I can’t reveal any of Mrs Jepp’s confidences.’
‘Certainly not. Are you going abroad soon?’
‘I take it this farce of asking me to lunch in order to ask me for a loan was really intended to create an opportunity to ask —’
‘Oh dear, I can’t possibly,’ said Ernest, ‘cope. I am so — am so sorry about the lunch. “Farce” is the word exactly. I do wish I had made you take duck. Most distressing, I did so think you’d be interested in Eleanor’s academy, it is top-ranking absolutely if she only had the capital. How dire for you, how frightful my dear man, for me.
‘Your questions about Mrs Jepp, I can’t possibly answer them, ‘said Mervyn, looking at his watch but unpurposed, settling into his chair, so that Ernest in his heart shook hands with himself: ‘He is waiting for more questions, more clues towards how much I’m in the know.’ He said to his guest, ‘I mustn’t keep you, then. It’s been charming.’
Mervyn rose. He said, ‘Look here,’ and stopped.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ But as he stood on the top doorstep taking his leave from Ernest he said, ‘Tell Eleanor I shall think over her proposition. Perhaps after all I shall think it over and scrape up a little to help her out. But it’s very grim these days, you realize, and I have my poor boy. He’s a heavy expense.
‘Don’t think of it,’ said Ernest. ‘Please don’t dream.’
‘Tell Eleanor I shall do what I can.’
For about four minutes after his guest’s departure Ernest was truly puzzled by these last-minute remarks. Then he sat back in a cushiony chocolate-coloured chair and smiled all over his youthful face, which made his forehead rise in lines right up to his very white hair.
He was in Kensington within half an hour, and at the studio. He saw Eleanor in one of the dressing cubicles off the large upper dancing floor, and pirouetted beautifully to attract her attention.
She sleeked her velvet jeans over her hips, pulled the belt tight as she did always when she wanted to pull her brains together.
‘How did you get on? Anything doing?’
‘I think so,’ he said.
‘He’ll put up the money?’
‘I think so,’ he said.
‘Ernest, what charm you must have with men. I would have sworn you wouldn’t get an old bit of macaroni out of Mervyn, especially seeing I’m to benefit by it. He’s so mean as a rule. What did he say? How did you do it?’
‘Blackmail,’ Ernest said.
‘How did you do it, dear?’
‘I told you. It isn’t certain yet, of course. And yet — I’m pretty sure you’ll get the money, my dear.’
‘How did you manage it?’
‘Blackmail by mistake.’
‘What can you mean? Tell me all.’
‘I gave him lunch. I explained your difficulties. Asked for a loan. He said no. Then I asked him some other questions about something else, which he took to be a form of blackmail. Then, as he was leaving, he succumbed.’
‘What questions — the ones he thought were a blackmailing effort? —What were they?’
‘Sorry, can’t say, my dear. Something rather private.’
‘Concerning me?’ said Eleanor.
‘No, nothing at all to do with you, honestly.’
‘Nothing honestly to do with me?’
‘Honestly.’
Then she was satisfied. Ernest left her intent on her calculations, anticipating the subsidy from Mervyn Hogarth. She sat cross-legged on a curly white rug with pen and paper, adding and multiplying, as if the worries of the past had never been, as if not even yesterday had been a day of talking and thinking about bankruptcy. Before he left she said to Ernest, ‘Don’t forget to draw on expenses for the lunch.’
‘Helena?’
‘Hold the line a minute.’
‘Helena?’
‘Who’s that? Oh, it’s you, Ernest.’
‘I saw Hogarth.’
‘Already? Where?’
‘At my club. For lunch. Frightful serious little man with a Harris-tweed jacket.’
‘Ernest, you are a marvel. You will let me pay for it of course.
‘I thought you might like to know how things went. Such a glum little fellow.’
‘Tell me all. I’m on edge to know.’
‘Laurence is right. There is certainly something going on between your mother and Hogarth.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘He wouldn’t say, of course. But it’s something important enough to make him most unhappy, most eager to appease us. A bleak little bodikin actually. We had such unfortunate food, lamb like tree-bark, no exaggeration. He thinks we know more than we do. That’s one up for us, I feel.’
‘Certainly it is. Can you come right over, Ernest? You could take a taxi.
‘It would cost ten bob.’
‘Where are you speaking from?’
‘South Kensington underground.’
‘Oh well, come by tube if you like. But take a taxi if you like.’
‘I’ll be with you presently.’
While Ernest was telephoning to Helena that afternoon Mervyn Hogarth climbed the steps of a drab neglected house at Chiswick. He pressed the bell. He could hear no sound, so pressed again, keeping his finger on it for a long time. Presumably out of order. Just as he was peering through the letter-box to see if anything was doing inside, the door opened so that Mervyn nearly stumbled over the threshold into the body of the blue-suited shady-looking man with no collar, who opened it.