Читать книгу The Man Who Changed His Name - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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MIXING a whisky-and-soda in the library, O'Ryan wondered if he might not be imagining things. Clive, when he had greeted him on the terrace, had struck him as in some way different from the calm, self-possessed Clive to whom he was accustomed. He was frowning and seemed preoccupied, and his "Ah, come in, O'Ryan; I want to have a chat with you" was unusually curt.

Probably, O'Ryan decided, he was letting his imagination run away with him. All that talk, of Nita's ... rot, of course. Selby could not possibly have the least suspicion. There was nothing to suspect—so far, and Selby had never raised the least objection to his being with Nita. He had always rather encouraged it, asking him to take her out in the car or play tennis with her while he was busy in his study. All the same, he did seem a bit queer this morning, and it would be devilish awkward if he got any ideas into his head just now....

He glanced across at the older man, seated at his writing desk, and met the gaze of a keen pair of eyes staring at him with disconcerting fixity. O'Ryan forced a smile and raised his glass.

"Cheerio, Selby!"

Selby nodded, but continued to stare. Then:

"You've known Nita a long time, O'Ryan, haven't you?"

The glass rattled noisily onto the table. "Good Lord, yes—pretty well since she was so high, Selby. Why?"

"She's fond of you, isn't she?"

"We've always been good pals, if that's what you mean. Get on well together, you know, and that sort of thing."

"Quite," said Clive absently.

He shifted his gaze from O'Ryan's face and sat for some moments staring into the garden, his fingers drumming on the desk. O'Ryan watched him with uneasy eyes. What was old Selby getting at? You could never tell from his face what he was thinking. Awkward fellow he must be at a poker table. If he had heard every word that had passed between them in the garden his face would reveal nothing—just as it was revealing nothing now. Of course, he hadn't heard, but it didn't follow that he had no suspicion as to what they had discussed. Selby didn't miss much, and if Nita had let slip a hint...

"Any special reason for asking?"

Clive smiled.

"Only a man's natural desire to see his wife happy, O'Ryan. I'm afraid Nita finds things a bit dull sometimes, and I just wanted to tell you that whenever you can come down and run around with her a bit you'll be more than welcome."

O'Ryan glanced at him quickly, but Clive's face was as inscrutable as ever.

"And now about this Tamagari business," added Clive. "Nita has been telling me I'm to lease you the property, and I'd be glad to do anything I can for a friend of hers. Besides, I like you, O'Ryan, and I'd like to do it for you if it can be managed."

"Any hitch?" asked O'Ryan.

"Not exactly a hitch, but just at the moment I can't give you a definite promise. All my Canadian business is in the hands of my lawyer out there. Muller's his name—half the lawyers in Canada seem to be called Muller—and until I hear from him I don't know whether I'm free to lease you the property or not. Muller has my power of attorney and deals with everything as he thinks fit, and for all I know he may already have leased the Tamagari land to someone else."

"Is that likely?"

"I don't imagine so," Clive told him, "but it's as well to be sure before making any promise. I wrote Muller about it as soon as you mentioned it, and I've just had a cable saying he'll be in England towards the end of next week, so I shall know for certain then. If you care to run down the following week, Muller can draw up the lease if everything is all right, and we'll fix it up straight away. Thinking of farming it, are you?"

O'Ryan nodded.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't do well with it," Clive continued. "It'll need capital, of course, but if you've a few thousand to play with——"

There came a tap at the door and Nita, followed by a short, plump, prosperous-looking little man, came in.

"May I come in, Selby?" she asked. "Sorry to interrupt, but this is Mr. Denham. This is my husband, Mr. Denham."

Mr. Denham smiled.

"Charming house, Mr. Clive," he said. "Old-fashioned, of course, but in excellent repair and——"

"This is the library, Mr. Denham," interrupted Nita. "It's all genuine old oak panelling——"

"Charming," said Mr. Denham. "And the panelling is of no consequence. A few coats of paint would soon brighten that up. I'm all for brightness, Mrs. Clive. There'd be room here to build on a billiard room, I should say. A fine game, billiards. I always say no house is complete without a billiard room, but there'd be room here if I did away with the greenhouse... ."

As Mr. Denham rattled on, though Selby's face betrayed no surprise, his glance sought Nita's eyes questioningly but failed to find them.

"Library, eh?" the little man was saying. "Well, I'm not much of a reader myself. Never found a book that could tell me anything I didn't know already. But the wife has always said we ought to have a library. Gives tone to a house, she says, and what she says goes. I daresay the house furnishers will fit us up with a nice handsome set of books. Well, I like your house, Mr. Clive, and if you don't make the price too stiff I'm prepared——"

"Price?"

It was Clive's voice, like the crack of a whip. Nita turned and faced him.

"Mr. Denham has been sent by Truman's, Selby," she said. "He's thinking of buying the house."

"Ready to talk business, anyway," said Mr. Denham. "Brass tacks and no haggling, eh? That's my way. Name your figure and I'll take it or leave it. I understand I can have possession within a month of completion, but if you can let the workmen in sooner——"

"The house is not for sale," said Selby in a voice that seemed to have a ring of steel in it.

"Eh? What's that? Truman's told me——"

"You were misinformed, Mr. Denham."

"But, my dear sir, your wife distinctly gave me to understand——"

"The house happens to belong to me, Mr. Denham, and not to my wife, and I'm telling you that it is not for sale."

"Selby——" began Nita, but he waved her to silence.

"I'm sorry you should have wasted your time, Mr. Denham," he said, "but there has evidently been some misunderstanding."

"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Mr. Denham in evident confusion. "I shall tell Truman's exactly what I think of them. Most embarrassing! No ill-feeling, I hope, Mr.—er—Clive. Not my fault, you know. Wouldn't have butted in for worlds. I always say that an Englishman's home is his castle——"

Nita opened the door, and Mr. Denham, still apologizing, followed her from the room.

In a few moments she returned, closed the door behind her, and stood, with flaming cheeks and defiant eyes, her back against it.

"Do you mind, Frank?" she said, with a nod towards the garden. "I want to talk to Selby."

As O'Ryan went out through the French windows, she strode quickly forward and paused in front of Clive's desk.

"Well, Nita?"

"Selby—how dare you!"

"Isn't that rather a question for me to ask?"

"In front of Frank—with Mr. Denham here—to insult and cheapen and humiliate me——"

"I had no intention of doing that."

"'The house is not for sale!'—when I'd just been showing him round the place! You might as well have hit me in the face, Selby: it would have been just as dignified, just as considerate, just as much the action of a gentleman."

"If you were insulted and cheapened and humiliated, Nita," said her husband calmly, "you must admit that you have only yourself to blame. You knew that I had no intention whatever of selling the house, but because you wished to get rid of it you seem to have gone behind my back and placed it in the estate agents' hands, hoping, I suppose, that when a prospective purchaser turned up I might give way to you and sell. It was an attempt to force my hand, but you should have known better than that. You should have known me better. Why you should be so anxious to sell the house, I can't understand."

"Because I hate it!" exclaimed Nita. "I've always hated it. Oh, for heaven's sake, Selby, don't remind me that it was I who persuaded you to buy it. I know I did. But I didn't imagine that buying Sunningbourne Lodge would mean living here year in and year out with nothing to do but—but to watch the antirrhinums grow. I imagined you'd have a place in town as well, and that for some part of the year we'd be living like civilized beings. But I just have to mug along here, going to bed at ten o'clock because I'm too hopelessly bored to sit up any more, with nothing to do after breakfast but wait for lunch——"

"And because of that, Nita," interrupted Clive, "you considered yourself justified in going behind my back and trying to force me into doing as you wanted."

"That isn't the point now, Selby. The point is that you refuse to do as I want. You've refused a dozen times, either because you didn't care how I felt about it or didn't understand that I was getting to the point where I could stand no more of it. But you do understand now. I shouldn't have gone to Truman's if I hadn't been feeling desperate. I shouldn't have been crazy enough to imagine I could force you to do anything you didn't want to do. And now that you do know how I feel, what are you going to do about it?"

"Suppose, Nita," he said, "my answer to that is 'nothing'?"

She shrugged.

"In that case, you must take the consequences." Clive's mouth hardened.

"In all my life," he said, "I've never yet allowed myself to be threatened or bullied into doing anything. It has always been a matter of principle with me. However inclined I might be to do a thing or to refrain from doing it, I have always felt that to surrender to a threat is a sign of weakness far more contemptible——"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Selby," she interrupted impatiently, "don't be so old!"

It was cheap. She knew it was cheap. She saw Clive wince as if she had struck him, and despised herself. The words "I'm sorry, Selby" trembled on her lips, but she could not bring herself to utter them.

He smiled rather wistfully.

"Very well, Nita," he said quietly, "we'll put it down to the obstinacy of old age. I'm too old to be able to do without principles."

"You mean that you refuse to sell?"

He nodded. Nita turned abruptly and strode from the room.

For the rest of the afternoon she saw neither Selby nor O'Ryan. She remained in her bedroom, curled up in the corner of the couch, thinking. She felt mean and contemptible; and her outburst, after all, had only made matters worse. Selby would certainly not sell the house now, and she had only anchored herself more firmly than ever to the sort of existence from which she had been trying to escape. She should have known her husband well enough to realize that with him tactics of that kind were bound to fail.

But she knew so little of Selby. When she came to consider it, she was surprised to discover how meagre was her knowledge of him. When first she had met him, she had known what everyone knew of him—that he was wealthy, that he had lived most of his life abroad, that he was highly thought of as a man of business, and that, having made more than enough money, he proposed to settle down in England; and since then she had added practically nothing to her stock of knowledge about him.

Of his past life he had never spoken, and she had never questioned him. Looking back, she realized that she had taken him very much for granted. He had asked her to marry him, and because it had all seemed eminently convenient and satisfactory, she had married him. She had liked him and admired him, and she had not paused to consider if admiration and liking were a sufficiently solid foundation on which to build her happiness. Often in the early days of her marriage she had asked herself if she loved him, and the very fact of her asking gave her an uneasy feeling that her feelings towards Selby must be something less intense than love. If she were in love with him, then love was not the burning flame she had imagined it to be.

But she had striven hard to fan her feelings into a blaze, and it was not her fault that the blaze was not forthcoming, and that what little warmth there was had gradually faded away so that fanning was only wasted effort.

She knew now that Selby drew nothing from her but friendliness and respect. Entering the room, he had never caused her to feel that acute little stab of pleasure which marked the entrance of Frank O'Ryan; a touch of Selby's hand never brought that quickening of her pulse which she felt at contact with Frank's. She had never ached to run her fingers through Selby's hair. Frank had been right when he had said that he would be taking nothing from Selby. All that she gave her husband now she would always give him—admiration, respect, friendship, a recognition of his worth. Even now, when she felt that he had humiliated her and treated her unfairly, the respect remained. She would have thought less of him if he had surrendered to her threats and allowed her to force his hand against his judgment.

But there was so much that she could give to Frank that she had never given to Selby and never could give to him, so much that Frank could give to her that Selby could never give. And the thought that it was only Selby who stood between her and this fullness of happiness increased her bitterness against him a hundredfold. The more she thought of that scene in the library, the more humiliating it became, the more unreasonable Selby's attitude, the more callously selfish his refusal.

The sound of Selby's footsteps in the corridor as he went towards his room reminded her that it was almost time for dinner, and she embarked listlessly on the process of dressing. But half an hour later she was still sitting, clad in her flimsy wrap, at the dressing table, gazing thoughtfully into the mirror. A tap on the door aroused her, and in response to her "Come in!" she saw in the mirror the door open and Selby, already dressed, step into the room. She did not turn her head.

"Well, Selby?"

He came slowly across the room and paused beside her, watching her as she combed her hair.

"Nita, my dear——"

She combed more rapidly, leaning forward and gazing intently at her reflection.

"Yes?"

"Nita, it seems such a terrible pity. Can't we do something?"

"About what?"

"About everything, my dear," he said. "We're drifting—further and further apart. We've been drifting for a long time. It's difficult to explain, but I think you feel it as much as I do. We've lost something that we used to have."

Nita laid down her comb and began to apply her lipstick.

"Is that my fault?"

"I'm not saying that, Nita. I've an idea I'm to blame. I've a feeling that I'm failing somewhere, but I'm puzzled to know where. It's not easy for a man of my age to see things from the point of view of a girl of twenty-five, and perhaps that's where the trouble lies. I don't know. All I know is that we've drifted apart, and I want to stop the drifting before we lose each other entirely. It's worth an effort, Nita, isn't it?"

"Do you imagine that I haven't made an effort?"

He shook his head.

"It's not that, my dear. I want to tell you that I'm going to make an effort. All this misunderstanding—I feel there's no need for it. If we'd only be frank with each other—try to keep close to each other, to understand and make allowances——"

"Be frank? My dear Selby, when husband and wife start being frank with each other, one of them usually gets murdered. Has Lane rung the gong yet?"

She rose from her chair and slipped off her wrap; and as she did so he stepped forward, laid a hand on each of her shoulders, and turned her towards him.

"Nita darling," he said, "what I really want to tell you is that I've never loved you as much as I love you now."

And then, as his arm slipped round her and drew her eagerly towards him, she suddenly wrenched herself free and stepped quickly back.

"Selby—please—I don't want to be mauled!"

For a moment he stood motionless, staring at her with pained, puzzled eyes; and then he turned and went quickly from the room.

Dinner that night was an ordeal to Nita. Sir Ralph Whitcombe was there—sixty, a retired K.C., with a talent for prosiness which, if merit received its just reward, so his colleagues said, should have swiftly raised him to the Bench; and after listening for an hour while Sir Ralph discoursed on the intricacies of ecclesiastical law, while Selby sat watching her with the eyes of a dog reproaching her for having kicked him, and Frank O'Ryan was blatantly bored, she was thankful when the meal was over and she could slip out onto the terrace and soothe her frayed nerves in the quietness of the garden. And there, a little later, O'Ryan found her.

"Well, Nita? Is the genuine old oak panelling to have a coat of paint? Thank God for the Denhams! He was the one bright spot in a dreary scene."

"For heaven's sake, Frank, forget it."

"Is Selby selling the house?"

She shook her head.

"So Act Four of the farce will now begin, eh, Nita? You'll go on being the dutiful little wife who'd rather be bored than bad."

"You needn't rub it in, Frank. I don't need reminding of what's in front of me. I know the whole dreary business from beginning to end. How I'm going to stand any more of it——"

He grasped her arm and turned her towards him. "Listen, Nita," he said. "You're not going to stand it any longer. Nor am I. You don't love Selby——"

"Frank—please—I don't know—I can't think——"

His arms went round her and crushed her to him. "You do know," he insisted. "You don't love Selby. You've never loved him. You love me, and you're mine, and here and now you're going to tell me that you'll keep me waiting no longer. Good God, Nita, how much longer do you want me to wait? I'm not going to wait." His lips were crushed against hers, and just for a moment she lay in his arms, inert, unresisting. And then she suddenly strove to free herself, but he held her fast.

"Promise me, Nita," he begged. "Darling, promise me now that the next time you want to come to me you will pack your bag and come. Just forget all about cheating Selby, and remember that if you don't come you'll be cheating me, cheating yourself——"

"Frank, I—I can't promise," she told him. "Not yet, I mean. I want to think. I've made one mistake, and I don't mean to make another. But I will think, Frank. I'm going to Scotland tomorrow, and next week—when I get back—I'll tell you. And if it's Yes——"

His arms tightened around her and again his lips found hers.

"It must be Yes, Nita," he whispered.