Endless Night (7 page)

“I've brought over a certain amount of legal stuff which you'll have to go through with me, Ellie. I shall want your signature to many of these things.”

“Yes, of course, Uncle Andrew. Any time.”

“As you say, any time. There's no hurry. I have other business in London and I shall be over here for about ten days.”

Ten days, I thought. That's a long time. I rather wished that Mr. Lippincott wasn't going to be here for ten days. He appeared friendly enough towards me, though, as you might say, indicating that he still reserved his judgment on certain points, but I wondered at that moment whether he was really my enemy. If he was, he would not be the kind of man to show his hand.

“Well,” he went on, “now that we've all met and come to terms, as you might say, for the future, I would like to have a short interview with this husband of yours.”

Ellie said, “You can talk to us both.” She was up in arms. I put a hand on her arm.

“Now don't flare up, ducks, you're not a mother hen protecting a chicken.” I propelled her gently to the door in the wall that led into the bedroom. “Uncle Andrew wants to size me up,” I said. “He's well within his rights.”

I pushed her gently through the double doors. I shut them both and came back into the room. It was a large handsome sitting room. I came back and took a chair and faced Mr. Lippincott. “All right,” I said. “Shoot.”

“Thank you, Michael,” he said. “First of all I want to assure you that I am not, as you may be thinking, your enemy in any way.”

“Well,” I said, “I'm glad to hear that.” I didn't sound very sure about it.

“Let me speak frankly,” said Mr. Lippincott, “more frankly than I could do before that dear child to whom I am guardian and of whom I am very fond. You may not yet appreciate it fully, Michael, but Ellie is a most unusually sweet and lovable girl.”

“Don't you worry. I'm in love with her all right.”

“That is not at all the same thing,” said Mr. Lippincott in his dry manner. “I hope that as well as being in love with her you can also appreciate what a really dear and in some ways very vulnerable person she is.”

“I'll try,” I said. “I don't think I'll have to try very hard. She's the tops, Ellie is.”

“So I will go on with what I was about to say. I shall put my cards on the table with the utmost frankness. You are not the kind of young man that I should have wished Ellie to marry. I should like her, as her family would have liked her, to marry someone of her own surroundings, of her own set—”

“A toff in other words,” I said.

“No, not only that. A similar background is, I think, to be desired as a basis for matrimony. And I am not referring to the snob attitude. After all, Herman Guteman, her grandfather, started life as a dockhand. He ended up as one of the richest men in America.”

“For all you know I might do the same,” I said. “I may end up one of the richest men in England.”

“Everything is possible,” said Mr. Lippincott. “Do you have ambitions that way?”

“It's not just the money,” I said. “I'd like to—I'd like to get somewhere and do things and—” I hesitated, stopped.

“You have ambitions, shall we say? Well, that is a very good thing, I am sure.”

“I'm starting at long odds,” I said, “starting from scratch. I'm nothing and nobody and I won't pretend otherwise.”

He nodded approval.

“Very frankly and handsomely said, I appreciate it. Now, Michael, I am no relation to Ellie, but I have acted as her guardian, I am a trustee, left so by her grandfather, of her affairs, I manage her fortune and her investments. And I assume therefore a certain responsibility for them. Therefore I want to know all that I can know about the husband she has chosen.”

“Well,” I said, “you can make inquiries about me, I suppose, and find out anything you like easily enough.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Lippincott. “That would be one way of doing it. A wise precaution to take. But actually, Michael, I should like to know all that I can about you from your own lips. I should like to hear your own story of what your life has been up to now.”

Of course I didn't like it. I expect he knew I wouldn't. Nobody in my position would like that. It's second nature to make the best
of yourself. I'd made a point of that at school and onwards, boasted about things a bit, said a few things, stretching the truth a bit. I wasn't ashamed of it. I think it's natural. I think it's the sort of thing that you've got to do if you want to get on. Make out a good case for yourself. People take you at your own valuation and I didn't want to be like that chap in Dickens. They read it out on the television, and I must say it's a good yarn on its own. Uriah something his name was, always going on about being humble and rubbing his hands, and actually planning and scheming behind that humility. I didn't want to be like that.

I was ready enough to boast a bit with the chaps I met or to put up a good case to a prospective employer. After all, you've
got
a best side and a worst side of yourself and it's no good showing the worst side and harping on it. No, I'd always done the best for myself describing my activities up to date. But I didn't fancy doing that sort of thing with Mr. Lippincott. He'd rather pooh-poohed the idea of making private inquiries about me but I wasn't at all sure that he wouldn't do so all the same. So I gave him the truth unvarnished, as you might say.

Squalid beginnings, the fact that my father had been a drunk, but that I'd had a good mother, that she'd slaved a good bit to help me get educated. I made no secret of the fact that I'd been a rolling stone, that I'd moved from one job to another. He was a good listener, encouraging, if you know what I mean. Every now and then, though, I realized how shrewd he was. Just little questions that he slipped in, or comments, some comments that I might have rushed in unguardedly either to admit or to deny.

Yes, I had a sort of feeling that I'd better be wary and on my toes. And after ten minutes I was quite glad when he leaned back in
his chair and the inquisition, if you could call it that, and it wasn't in the least like one, seemed to be over.

“You have an adventurous attitude to life, Mr. Rogers—Michael. Not a bad thing. Tell me more about this house that you and Ellie are building.”

“Well,” I said, “it's not far from a town called Market Chadwell.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know just where it is. As a matter of fact I ran down to see it. Yesterday, to be exact.”

That startled me a little. It showed he was a devious kind of fellow who got round to more things than you might think he would.

“It's a beautiful site,” I said defensively, “and the house we're building is going to be a beautiful house. The architect's a chap called Santonix. Rudolf Santonix. I don't know if you've ever heard of him but—”

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Lippincott, “he's quite a well-known name among architects.”

“He's done work in the States I believe.”

“Yes, an architect of great promise and talent. Unfortunately I believe his health is not good.”

“He thinks he's a dying man,” I said, “but I don't believe it. I believe he'll get cured, get well again. Doctors—they'll say anything.”

“I hope your optimism is justified. You are an optimist.”

“I am about Santonix.”

“I hope all you wish will come true. I may say that I think you and Ellie have made an extremely good purchase in the piece of property that you have bought.”

I thought it was nice of the old boy to use the pronoun “you.” It wasn't rubbing it in that Ellie had done the buying on her own.

“I have had a consultation with Mr. Crawford—”

“Crawford?” I frowned slightly.

“Mr. Crawford of Reece & Crawford, a firm of English solicitors. Mr. Crawford was the member of the firm who put the purchase in hand. It is a good firm of solicitors and I gather that this property was acquired at a cheap figure. I may say that I wondered slightly at that. I am familiar with the present prices of land in this country and I really felt rather at a loss to account for it. I think Mr. Crawford himself was surprised to get it at so low a figure. I wondered if you knew at all why this property happened to go so cheaply. Mr. Crawford did not advance any opinion on that. In fact he seemed slightly embarrassed when I put the question to him.”

“Oh well,” I said, “it's got a curse on it.”

“I beg your pardon, Michael, what did you say?”

“A curse, sir,” I explained. “The gipsy's warning, that sort of thing. It is known locally as Gipsy's Acre.”

“Ah. A story?”

“Yes. It seems rather confused and I don't know how much people have made up and how much is true. There was a murder or something long ago. A man and his wife and another man. Some story that the husband shot the other two and then shot himself. At least that's the verdict that was brought in. But all sorts of other stories go flying about. I don't think anyone really knows what happened. It was a good long time ago. It's changed hands about four or five times since, but nobody stays there long.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Lippincott appreciatively, “yes, quite a piece of English folklore.” He looked at me curiously. “And you and Ellie are not afraid of the curse?” He said it lightly, with a slight smile.

“Of course not,” I said. “Neither Ellie nor I would believe in
any rubbish of that kind. Actually it's a lucky thing since because of it we got it cheap.” When I said that a sudden thought struck me. It was lucky in one sense, but I thought that with all Ellie's money and her property and all the rest of it, it couldn't matter to her very much whether she bought a piece of land cheap or at the top price. Then I thought, no, I was wrong. After all, she'd had a grandfather who came up from being a dock labourer to a millionaire. Anyone of that kind would always wish to buy cheap and sell dear.

“Well, I am not superstitious,” said Mr. Lippincott, “and the view from your property is quite magnificent.” He hesitated. “I only hope that when you come to move into your house to live there, that Ellie will not hear too many of these stories that are going about.”

“I'll keep everything from her that I can,” I said. “I don't suppose anybody will say anything to her.”

“People in country villages are very fond of repeating stories of that kind,” said Mr. Lippincott. “And Ellie, remember, is not as tough as you are, Michael. She can be influenced easily. Only in some ways. Which brings me—” he stopped without going on to say what he had been going to. He tapped on the table with one finger. “I'm going to speak to you now on a matter of some difficulty. You said just now that you had
not
met this Greta Andersen.”

“No, as I said, I haven't met her yet.”

“Odd. Very curious.”

“Well?” I looked at him inquiringly.

“I should have thought you'd have been almost sure to have met her,” he said slowly. “How much do you know about her?”

“I know that she's been with Ellie some time.”

“She has been with Ellie since Ellie was seventeen. She has occupied a post of some responsibility and trust. She came first to the
States in the capacity of secretary and companion. A kind of chaperone to Ellie when Mrs. van Stuyvesant, her stepmother, was away from home, which I may say was a quite frequent occurrence.” He spoke particularly dryly when he said this. “She is, I gather, a well-born girl with excellent references, half-Swedish half-German. Ellie became, quite naturally, very much attached to her.”

“So I gather,” I said.

“In some way Ellie was, I suppose, almost too much attached to her. You don't mind my saying that?”

“No. Why should I mind? As a matter of fact I've—well, I've thought so myself once or twice. Greta this and Greta that. I got—well, I know I've no business to, but I used to get fed up sometimes.”

“And yet she expressed no wish for you to meet Greta?”

“Well,” I said, “it's rather difficult to explain. But I think, yes, I think she probably did suggest it in a mild way once or twice but, well, we were too taken up with having met each other. Besides, oh well, I suppose I didn't really want to meet Greta. I didn't want to share Ellie with anyone.”

“I see. Yes, I see. And Ellie did not suggest Greta being present at your wedding?”

“She did suggest it,” I said.

“But—but you didn't want her to come. Why?”

“I don't know. I really don't know. I just felt that this Greta, this girl or woman I'd never met, she was always horning in on everything. You know, arranging Ellie's life for her. Sending post-cards and letters and filling in for Ellie, arranging a whole itinerary and passing it on to the family. I felt that Ellie was dependent on Greta in a way, that she let Greta run her, that she wanted to do everything that Greta wanted. I—oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Lippincott, I
oughtn't to be saying all these things perhaps. Say I was just plain jealous. Anyway I blew up and I said I didn't want Greta at the wedding, that the wedding was ours, that it was just our business and nobody else's. And so we went along to the Registrar's office and his clerk and the typist from his office were the two witnesses. I dare say it was mean of me to refuse to have Greta there, but I wanted to have Ellie to myself.”

“I see. Yes, I see, and I think, if I may say so, that you were wise, Michael.”

“You don't like Greta either,” I said shrewdly.

“You can hardly use the word ‘either,' Michael, if you have not even met her.”

“No, I know but, well, I mean if you hear a lot about a person you can form some sort of idea of them, some judgment of them. Oh well, call it plain jealousy. Why don't
you
like Greta?”