Читать книгу Interference - Roland Pertwee - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Everything was right that evening—wonderful—the choice little dinner at the restaurant made mysterious by the sacrificial fires upon which dish after dish was prepared by the attentive hands of the master waiter; and the play, a simple affair, neither memorable for wit, beauty, nor any unusual display of acting, but right with the time, the spirit and the motive of the evening.

They walked back, and their appetites whetted by the frost sent them on a raiding expedition to the kitchen, where, like children, they sat on the plain deal table, swinging their legs, eating thick slices of bread and dripping and drinking cocoa out of kitchen cups.

Faith awoke next morning feeling she had touched the pinnacles of love and companionship. Because this was so, she decided that forty pounds was not nearly enough to spend on John’s birthday present. He must have something much better than that, and, determined to settle this weighty problem once for all, she hopped out of bed, put on her prettiest frock and carrying a sort of moleskin coat with a collar of silver fox over her arm, went down the apple green staircase to breakfast.

John had finished his breakfast and was sitting in an armchair before a fire, racing through a copy of The Times. On Faith’s plate was a postcard, yellowy buff in colour, with a thin border of bright scarlet. It was addressed to ‘Sir John Marley.’ On the back nothing was written.

The writing was individual, hard, angular and slanting considerably from left to right. There was a Westminster postmark.

‘What’s this for?’ she asked.

‘I do not know,’ said John from behind the newspaper. ‘I thought, perhaps, you could tell me.’

Faith shook her head.

‘I have never seen the writing before, and there is nothing on the back to tell. I expect two postcards must have stuck together and they came apart in the letter box.’

‘Something of the kind, I daresay,’ he answered, and coming towards her, looked over her shoulder. ‘Queer, unfriendly handwriting, don’t you think?’

From the hall outside came the murmur of voices. His first patient had arrived.

‘Till lunch, my sweet,’ said he and went from the room.

It is impossible to explain why the presence of this blank postcard, addressed in the queer unfriendly hand, should have given Faith a sudden sense of nervousness. Yet so it was. Perhaps the feeling sprang from sight or touch, for many people believe in the power of inanimate objects to emanate feelings of good or evil.

Were this not so, certain ladies and gentlemen who practice the art of psychometry, and who sense by this or that strange happenings and associations would be driven to seek employment in some more commonplace sphere of uselessness.

Faith tossed the card aside with an angry resentful shiver.

Her appetite had vanished, and swallowing a cup of coffee, she marched off to the kitchen to give her orders.

From an economical point of view, Faith was not an ideal housekeeper, but she knew what John liked and saw that he had it. It was Mrs. Wain, the cook, who really controlled the details and finance of the Marlays’ domestic department.

Mrs. Wain adored Faith and would not, for the world, have let her know that her daily visits to the kitchen and illegible scrawls upon the slate were of little service. Mrs. Wain would say, after indicating what might be done and pretending that the idea had come from Faith,

‘There never was anyone like your ladyship for thinking of things.’

And then Faith would retire into her own part of the house with a happy consciousness of something well done.

Faith’s mind was too occupied with the important transaction of getting John’s birthday present to allow her to notice that the woman who had been standing on the opposite pavement when she and John had gone out the evening before was again in the same place.

A press photographer attracted her attention by clicking a camera as she closed the front door. Faith smiled a friendly ‘Good-morning’ to him and started off down the street.

Through Lansdowne Passage she went, along the south side of Berkeley Square under its tall, naked trees, towards Hay Hill and thence by Grafton Street to Asprey’s corner.

To Faith, Asprey’s stood for all that was best in presents.

It was a difficult choice to make, for John was a man to whom one must give something useful, and useful things have a habit of being ugly or cheap. What she wanted had to be lovely and very dear. She had been searching two or three minutes, when, all of a sudden, like the coming of a thought, she saw the ideal gift.

It was a small platinum and onyx card-case, a miracle of craftsmanship, a perfect little thing, so perfect, that the window dresser had given it a white velvet tray to lie upon all by itself.

If the platinum and onyx card-case could have looked up from the white velvet tray through the plate glass window and seen the admiration in Faith Marlay’s eyes, it could not fail to have been proud.

‘You are perfect, absolutely perfect,’ said Faith half aloud. As she spoke, she felt a touch on her shoulder.

‘Lady Marlay,’ said a voice, ‘can we go and talk somewhere?’

Faith started, looked round, and found, standing beside her, the tall woman who had watched from the pavement in Curzon Street the night before.

‘You know me?’ she said. ‘I do not know you.’ But a fear came over her that the words were untrue.

The woman laughed, a hard uncomfortable laugh.

‘I hoped my postcard this morning would remind you,’ she said. ‘It is a long time since we met, Faith Marlay, and a good deal’s happened since then. Let’s go into one of these little teashops. They are empty enough at this time of the day.’

Faith drew back a step, her hand pressed against the plate glass window.

‘You are Deborah Kane,’ she said.

The woman nodded.

‘I thought you would hardly have forgotten.’ Then, slipping an arm through Faith’s, ‘Come along, let’s get away from the crowds.’

‘No,’ said Faith, holding back. ‘I have nothing to say to you—nothing.’

‘It’s what I have to say to you,’ Deborah insisted. ‘Don’t be afraid, you little idiot. There’s nothing to fear in drinking a cup of coffee with a friend in a Bond Street teashop.’

‘No,’ Faith repeated. ‘I tell you “No.” ’

The arm through hers tightened compellingly.

‘It would be a mistake for the wife of the famous Sir John Marlay, M.D., who is filling the papers these days, to be concerned in a scene in the West End. You ought to know me well enough to remember that I am not frightened of scenes when there is no other way of getting what I want. Are you coming?’

Without waiting for consent, she moved off with Faith at her side, and turned into an open doorway. Together they climbed a narrow staircase to a back room, which boasted one or two tables with check cloths and coloured cups.

A waitress with a mop of yellowy hair rose from a chair by the window and asked for their order.

‘Some black coffee,’ said Deborah, ‘and if it could be arranged, we should like to be undisturbed for a quarter of an hour.’

‘Bless us! I don’t want to know what you have to say,’ the girl retorted. ‘Two black coffees, you said.’

‘Now I have made sure of your identity there is no more need to hide my own,’ said Deborah removing the motor veil which concealed her features.

A tall, rather bony woman was Deborah Kane, suggesting the scaffolding of what was once a splendid physique. A shock of coal black hair framed a face chalk-white save for the scarlet thread of her mouth and the black caverns of a pair of glittering eyes. Time had erased all trace of feminine softness from face and figure alike, but there was something gallant and arresting in her appearance as if beauty, long dead, had left behind a ghost of its former self. If her eyes had lost the innocence of youth, they had gained some new quality from experience. Her mouth, though thin-lipped, was unusually large, and it is doubtful if there was anywhere to be found a mouth which responded so efficiently to the business of a smile or snarl. Her whole face, in fact, was a mirror of the emotions and, as it were, a chart of the track she had followed through the rough seas of life. By the hard light of day evil currents, whirlpools and hidden rocks could be discerned upon that chart, but it was easy to imagine that, to her men friends at least, a more thrilling message might have been read when the lighting was a little more favourable. In the world of men Deborah Kane had taken and given hard knocks and caresses with equal impartiality. Failure was scrawled over every line and feature of her face, and yet there was something about her to suggest a gallant failure, a fighter to the last, a pirate who might sink, but with her colours nailed to the mast.

Until the coffee was placed on the table she made no attempt to speak, and Faith, shocked into silence by the apparition of this woman out of a past upon which she had prayed the last door had been closed for ever, sat staring, wide-eyed and afraid.

The waitress set down the tray with a clatter, shot a glance at these two ill-assorted women, and with a toss of her head, vanished into the little kitchen across the landing.

Faith was the first to speak, as Deborah intended, pushing away the coffee that Deborah held out with a left hand.

‘What do you want of me?’ she asked.

Deborah Kane did not reply at once and her eyes travelled critically over Faith’s small, agitated face.

‘I haven’t entirely made up my mind. There hasn’t been much time to work things out. I only placed you three days ago.’

‘Placed me?’

‘As this man’s wife. You have gone up in the world, my dear.’

‘What’s that to you?’

Deborah lifted her left shoulder, and smiled.

‘A great deal, perhaps,’ she said. ‘After all you owe me a great deal, Faith.’

‘I owe you nothing.’

‘Would you call it nothing if someone whistled away the only man you ever cared a damn for and threw him overboard? Is that nothing, Faith?’

‘What man?’

‘Don’t be a fool, my dear; Philip, of course, Philip Voaze.’

At the sound of that name that Faith had deliberately shut out of her memory, her hand went to her throat, the fingers burying into the collar of silver fox.

‘It is a lie,’ she said, ‘you know it is a lie. When Philip took me away, I never even knew of your existence. I told you so, all those years ago.’

‘What difference does that make?’ said Deborah in a tone as hard as flint.

‘All the difference.’

Deborah Kane snapped her fingers.

‘Rubbish! none at all. If some woman came between you and this man Marlay, you wouldn’t want to know how to hate her.’

Faith’s head moved from side to side.

‘But why should you hate me? Not that it matters whether you do or not; but why should you? I never did you intentional harm. Do you think I didn’t pay for marrying Philip? It has been a nightmare to me, a nightmare.’

‘You enjoyed it well enough at the time,’ Deborah answered, ‘besides, if it wasn’t for that nightmare, you wouldn’t think so highly of what you have now.’

‘That’s true,’ Faith admitted. ‘But what’s the use of digging up the past? We were both hurt, terribly hurt, by the same man. That’s no reason for hating each other now.’

‘Hate’s the wrong word perhaps,’ said Deborah slowly. ‘Hate and love and passion are emotions one leaves behind. But they help us to learn common sense, my dear, and how to make the most of our opportunities.’

‘Have you made the most of yours?’ said Faith, and there was a touch of contempt in the way she put the question.

‘That’s what you will have a chance to judge,’ Deborah answered. ‘At our last meeting you held the best cards. You were married to the man I wanted and my chance of getting him back wasn’t one in a thousand; but now, my dear, the tables are turned and all the best cards are with me.’

Faith rose.

‘If you are trying to frighten me,’ she said, ‘you are wasting your time. I have nothing to be afraid of.’

‘Still I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to run away,’ said Deborah. ‘Perhaps you have more to be afraid of than you think. I don’t suppose this John Marlay would be over-pleased if it came to be known that his wife had started life as the mistress of a man with a reputation like Philip’s.’

‘You beast,’ said Faith. ‘I told him everything before we were married, everything.’

‘You misunderstand me,’ said Deborah, ‘I said, if it came to be known. Eminent men are never enthusiastic about their wives’ little peccadilloes being made public.’

Faith’s lower lip trembled.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Why not? I never set much store on reputation. After all, when one has ceased to take an active part in life one has to use whatever weapons one’s wits, and other people’s lack of wit, provides.’

‘Do you think your word would be believed against mine?’

Deborah shrugged her shoulders.

‘Perhaps not, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to expect that. But my word, backed up by a few rather indiscreet letters might produce a different effect.’

‘What letters?’

Deborah Kane pushed back her chair, and stared at the ceiling.

‘Letters that you wrote to Philip before he married you. I suppose he must have gone away for a change or something and you were afraid he might not come back. There wasn’t a great deal left to the imagination in what you wrote. Let’s see now, “Philip, Philip, I believed you when you promised to make me your wife. The thought of what we are now is killing me with shame,”—and a lot more like that.’

All vestige of colour had left Faith’s cheeks. They were pale as old ivory.

‘How have you seen those letters?’ she said, ‘you can’t have seen them.’

‘My dear Faith,’ said Deborah, ‘during the last few days I have handled them a score of times. You see by mere chance I saw your photograph on the illustrated page of The Cable last week and determined that you and I should have a little talk. I suppose you are fairly well off these days?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it will be pleasant for you to do something for a sister sinner who hasn’t been so lucky.’

‘Blackmail,’ said Faith, and then with unexpected force. ‘All right. Use those letters. I have turned my back on the past and neither you nor those letters nor anything else shall revive it. There’s not a newspaper in the land would publish them, and not a decent person who would believe any rumour or any lies which you tried to spread.’

‘It is a pity to take up that attitude,’ said Deborah, ‘a great pity, Faith. If you had used your wits about this it would have saved you a good deal of unnecessary pain.’

Faith picked up her handbag and fastened the collar of her coat.

‘I am going,’ she said. ‘Please understand, if you try to threaten or expose me, you will have yourself to blame for anything that happens. I shall tell my husband what you’ve said, and after that I think you might find it safer to leave me alone.’

‘Your husband?’ said Deborah. ‘Which husband? The man with whom you are living now or Philip Voaze?’

‘Philip’s dead,’ said Faith, ‘he was killed in France at the end of the war.’

Deborah Kane shook her head.

‘You believe that?’

‘I know it.’

‘Then how, I wonder, did I come to see him in a Paris theatre with a woman less than two years ago.’

‘It’s a lie,’ said Faith, but the hand at her throat fell to a chair and clutched it. ‘It’s a lie.’

‘No, the truth,’ said Deborah simply. ‘I have made a good many mistakes in my life, but that was not one of them. I waited in the foyer at the end of the play and spoke to him. There are not two men in the world like Philip Voaze. He looked at me with that drooping cynical smile of his. The woman who was by his side said, “Who was that who touched your arm?” and he answered, “A ghost, my dear, from an Australian graveyard,” then to me, “Still faithful, Deborah. Constancy is the most tedious characteristic in the feminine calendar.” The sound of his voice, seeing him so near, touching him, made me dizzy, I suppose, and, for the moment, I could say nothing. Then the crowds pushing out of the theatre swallowed him up and he was gone.’

Faith sat motionless with a hand over her eyes, swaying.

‘How awful,’ she cried suddenly.

Deborah’s voice took fire.

‘Awful that he should be alive? To you perhaps, but not to me. To me it was a miracle that re-made the world. Awful, you cry! That’s what your love’s worth, is it?’

Rising she struck the little table bell with the palm of her hand.

‘You’re naturally upset,’ she said. ‘You are happy with this new man of yours. But you’ve no right to him, understand. I have made that clear, I hope—helped you to see that your continued happiness depends on keeping on the right side of me.’

The waitress approached.

‘Take the bill out of this and keep the change.’

As they descended the staircase and came out into the pale winter sunlight, Deborah spoke again.

‘I have some bills to settle this week; quarter day, you know. I suppose you have your own private banking account?’ She fumbled in her bag for a card. ‘That’s my address, 44, Beaufort Hall Court, Westminster. Send me a couple of hundred pounds to go on with. I’ll let you know, later, what permanent arrangements are necessary. And Faith, do try and keep your head. It won’t do Sir John Marlay’s practice any good if his patients get to know that he has married a bigamist. As a reminder that I am on the map I shall send him one of those blank postcards each day. Of course, if you show any signs of being troublesome, I may be driven to write a few sentences on the backs of them. Good-bye.’

But Faith scarcely seemed to see the left hand that was held out to her. Deborah turned, and with a rakish stride mingled with the crowd upon the pavement. A tall, gaunt figure, her right hand tucked in the belt of her jacket, her left arm swinging.