Читать книгу The Duke of York's Steps - Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher - Страница 6

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One evening, about a fortnight later, Sir Garth Fratten and Leopold Hessel walked down the steps of the “Wanderers,” in St. James’s Square, of which rather large-hearted club Hessel was a member, and turned towards Waterloo Place. Fratten usually spent an hour or so at his club, or that of one of his friends, in the evening and walked home afterwards across the Park to his house in Queen Anne’s Gate. It was, in fact, the only exercise that he got in the day.

“Thanks for my tea, Leo,” said Sir Garth. “First-rate China tea it was too—I wonder where you get it?”

Hessel smiled. “That’s one of the advantages of being not too exclusive,” he said. “We’ve got members from all parts of the world and in all sorts of business; it’s rather a point of pride with us that each member who can should help the club to get the best of everything. That tea is unobtainable on the market—Rowle gets it for us, he’s a Civil Servant in Hong Kong; we’ve got more than one tea-merchant, but they can’t produce anything to touch it.”

He paused for a moment, then continued: “I wanted to ask you, Fratten, whether you’ve really settled to go into that Finance Company. Inez told me a couple of evenings ago that she was afraid you had, but I hope that she misunderstood you.”

He looked questioningly at his companion.

Fratten, being conscious of unspoken criticism, answered brusquely, “Certainly I have. I don’t know why you all make such a fuss about the thing—it’s quite unimportant.”

“That it certainly is not, in the sense that it endangers your health. But I am afraid it is no use protesting further. You found the Company sound?”

For a second Sir Garth seemed to hesitate, then: “Oh yes, sound, certainly sound—and interesting,” he added with a peculiar smile.

“Exactly,” said Hessel, “and you will throw yourself into it with all your strength and wear yourself out.”

“Nonsense, Leo; don’t be so fussy. Look here, I want to talk to you about Ryland; I want your advice.”

For a few paces Hessel walked on, without seeming to attend to what his friend was saying; then he evidently wrenched his mind back from its wanderings.

“Ryland?” he said. “Not another scrape, I hope?”

The banker frowned. “Scrape is hardly adequate,” he said. “The young fool has got himself engaged to some chorus girl and now—as usual—he’s had enough of her and wants to break it off—naturally she wants money. He wrote to me the other day asking for money—I found his letter when I got back from the Hospital Board the day I had that shock. I sent for him and we had an almighty row—both lost control of ourselves, I’m afraid. I’m rather ashamed of that, but what shocks me so much is that he should have said the things he did. He’d got some queer ideas in his head about entail—he spoke in the most callous and unfeeling way. I was hurt, Leo—deeply hurt. I thought that, at bottom, he was really fond of me.”

“So he is, Fratten, so he is, of course,” interjected Hessel. “You said yourself that you both lost your tempers—one says all sorts of things that one doesn’t mean when one loses one’s temper—then one’s sorry for them and probably one’s too stupid or sensitive to say so. Ryland’s all right really, I’m sure he is—a young ass about women, of course, but his heart’s all right.”

Fratten sighed. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “My God, what a heavenly evening—what a view!”

The two men had reached the top of the broad flight of steps leading from Waterloo Place down into the Mall. Above their heads towered the tall column from which the soldier-prince gazed sadly out over the London that had forgotten him. Daylight had gone, but the lamps revealed the delicate outline of the trees in the Green Park, their few remaining leaves gleaming a golden-brown wherever the light caught them. In the background it was just possible to get a glimpse of the delicate white beauty of the Horse Guards building, its clock-tower illuminated by hidden lights; beyond, on the right the sombre mass of the Foreign Office loomed up against the purple sky. The soft evening fog mellowed the whole scene to one of real beauty.

Fratten stood for a moment drinking it in; his companion waited with him, but seemed to have little eye for his surroundings. He had lighted a cigar and gave some attention to the way in which it was burning.

“Have you ever thought,” he asked as they moved on, “of getting Ryland to take up the stage professionally—either as an actor or producer? He has considerable talent, I believe. It seems to me that real work of any kind, however ... hold up!”

They had got about half-way down the triple flight of steps, when a man, evidently in a great hurry, running down the steps from behind them, stumbled and fell against Sir Garth, catching hold of his arm to recover his own balance. Fratten did not fall, though he might have done so had Hessel not been on his other side to steady him.

“I—I beg your pardon, sir,” stammered the intruder. “I’m in a great hurry; I hope I haven’t hurt you?”

The speaker was a well-built man of rather more than average height, without being tall. He appeared to be somewhere in the thirties and wore a dark moustache.

“Are you all right, Fratten; are you all right?” asked Hessel, anxiously looking in his companion’s face. Sir Garth had closed his eyes for a minute, and in the dim light he appeared to be rather white, but he soon pulled himself together and smiled at his companion.

“Quite all right, Leo,” he said.

“In that case, sir,” said his “assailant,” “if you’ll forgive me—I’ll be off—great hurry—important message—Admiralty ...” and he was off, dashing down the steps as before and disappearing in the direction of the great building across the road on the left. A small group of people had collected but when they found that nothing really exciting had happened they quickly dispersed—all except one middle-aged lady who fluttered round Sir Garth, chattering excitedly about “dastardly attack,” “eye-witness,” “police,” etc., until Hessel brusquely requested her to take herself off. Hessel himself was not a little excited; he insisted on cross-examining his friend as to his symptoms, begged him to take a cab and, when he refused, took him by the arm and almost led him along, gesticulating energetically with his free hand, in which the lighted cigar still glowed. Sir Garth thought that he had never before seen his friend display so markedly the reputed excitability of his race.

Fratten himself appeared to be very little upset by the incident; he listened with some amusement to Hessel’s exhortations and allowed himself to be shepherded across the Mall. The pair stopped for a second on the island in the middle to allow a car to pass and then crossed slowly to the other side; they had reached the footway and taken a step or two towards the Horse Guards Parade when Fratten uttered a sharp ejaculation, staggered, and then, gasping for breath, sank slowly down into a limp bundle on the ground. Hessel had been quite unable to hold up the dead-weight of the body through whose arm his own was linked; in fact he was nearly pulled to the ground himself. He threw himself on his knees beside his friend and peered anxiously into his face.

What he saw there was deeply disturbing. Sir Garth’s face was deadly pale in the dim light, his eyes stared up, unseeing but agonized; his mouth was open and set as if in a desperate effort to breathe. But the gasping breaths had ceased, the body was quite still.

Hessel clasped and unclasped his hands nervously.

“Fratten;” he said. “Fratten; can you hear me?”

No answer came from the still figure on the ground.

Hessel looked up at the ring of pale faces hovering above him.

“Has anyone got a car?” he asked, “or a taxi?”

“Shall I fetch a doctor, sir?” asked one of the crowd.

“Or a policeman?” asked another.

“Or an ambulance?”

“No, no, a car. I want to get him to his own house—quite close here. His own doctor—knows all about this. Sir Horace Spavage. Heart—I’m afraid ... a car ...”

“I’ve got a car here,” said a newcomer who had pushed his way through the crowd and heard the last words. “A limousine—he’ll be comfortable in that.” (“Not much use to him, though,” he muttered to himself.) “Lend a hand, somebody; I’ll take his shoulders. Put a hand under his head, will you?”

Very carefully the limp form was carried to the car and deposited on the soft cushions of the back seat. Hessel got in beside it and took his friend’s hand, which felt to him deathly cold. The owner of the car got in beside the driver and in less than two minutes they had reached Queen Anne’s Gate. Fortunately, as Hessel thought, Inez was not in and Sir Garth was carried into the morning-room and laid on the big sofa. There was no lift in the house and Hessel did not like, he told Golpin, to risk the climb to the second floor.

Within ten minutes Sir Horace Spavage had arrived. One glance at the white and agonized face was enough.

“Dear, dear!” he said. “So soon?”

Kneeling down by the sofa, he picked up one of his patient’s hands, held the wrist for a few seconds between his fingers and thumb, and laid it quietly down again. Then, undoing the front of the shirt and vest, he laid his hand on the bare chest and tapped it firmly with the rigid fingers of his other hand. Even to Hessel’s untutored ears, the sound produced was curiously muffled and dull. Sir Horace rose slowly to his feet, putting away the stethoscope which he had automatically slipped round his neck.

“Yes; as I thought,” he said. “The aneurism has burst.”

........

The funeral of Sir Garth Fratten took place on the following Monday. The actual burial was at Brooklands and was attended only by members of the family and a few close personal friends. Ryland and Inez were the chief mourners, Ryland looking very subdued and unhappy, and Inez worn out with misery but erect and calm—and very beautiful in her black clothes. A few distant cousins had come to establish a relationship which the dead man had allowed to remain distant during his life, whilst Leopold Hessel, Laurence Mangane, Sir Horace Spavage, and Mr. Septimus Menticle, the family solicitor, were also present.

In London a memorial service was held at St. Ethelberta’s, one of Wren’s most beautiful—and threatened—City churches. The church was packed with City men of all types and standings. A Director of the Bank of England was present to represent that august institution officially, together with members of the committees of Lloyds and the Stock Exchange. All the directors of Fratten’s Bank, except of course Hessel, were there, and Major-General Sir Hunter Lorne, a notable figure even among men of note, represented the Victory Finance Company. Every member of the staff of Fratten’s Bank, which was closed for the day—a unique circumstance—was there, from the chief cashier to the latest-joined stamp-licker. The City felt that one of its big men had gone—one of the fast-disappearing pre-war type—and it was, beneath its inscrutable surface, genuinely moved.

When the burial at Brooklands was over, the party returned to Queen Anne’s Gate. Inez, with quiet dignity, poured out tea and then excused herself and retired, leaving Ryland to act as host to the rather uncomfortable and ill-assorted gathering. When tea was finished a move was made to the dining-room and as soon as the gloomy committee was seated round the big mahogany table, Mr. Menticle produced the last will and testament of his late client. Placing a pair of gold pince-nez upon his aquiline nose, he cleared his throat and, in a precise voice, read the contents of the crisp document in his hand. The distant cousins were all agreeably surprised by what they heard, the staff of Fratten’s Bank were remembered to a man—and girl, various charities were mentioned, though not unduly, and the residue of the estate was divided equally between “my two children, Ryland and Inez Fratten.” Leopold Hessel was appointed sole executor with a generous legacy and the instruction that Sir Garth’s private and business papers should be in the first place scrutinized by him and their disposal left to his sole discretion.

“There, gentlemen!” said Mr. Menticle, when the reading was over, “that represents the attested wishes of a very big and generous man; if, as one who has known him and his family and affairs for many years, I may be allowed to say so, it represents also a very reasonable and well-balanced distribution of the goods which he largely created himself and which, as we know, it was as impossible for him as for any other to take with him out of this world. With your permission, gentlemen—yours especially, Mr. Fratten—I will now withdraw. I have, I am sorry to say, other work awaiting me at my office which this sad occasion has caused me to neglect.”

When the last of the ghouls had left, Ryland Fratten returned to the dining-room and sank again into the chair he had just left. For minutes he sat there, motionless, staring at the polished surface of the table, his face an expressionless mask—except for the eyes, in the depth of which a look of some agonized emotion seemed to lurk—sorrow, remorse, fear?

The door opened quietly and Inez’ wistful face peered round it.

“There you are, Ry!” she said. “I’ve been hunting for you everywhere, since I heard the front door slam. I thought perhaps old Menticle had got his teeth into you about the will or something. What are you doing in here all by yourself, old man?”

Ryland turned his haggard face towards her, an attempt at a smile quivered on his mouth, and then his head sank into his folded arms and a deep sob shook his body.

Inez slipped on to the chair next to him and threw her arm across his shoulders.

“Ry,” she said. “What is it? My dear, tell me.”

A look of anxiety and almost more than sisterly tenderness came into her eyes as Ryland sat motionless, unanswering.

At the same time, back at his office in Lincoln’s Inn—where also he lived, in considerable bachelor comfort—Mr. Menticle emptied his dispatch-case on to the table before him. From the heap of documents he selected one, a parchment, less soiled than most of the others. He ran his eye over its brief contents, looked for a minute out of the window, as if in deep thought, then slowly tore it across and across.