Kindling (2 page)

She said, “Oh yes. I’ve asked one or two people in to dinner, so you can tell us all about your trip.”

His face fell. “Who’s coming?”

“Only Violet and Mary, and Sir John and Lady Cohen, and Pamela Allnut. And Jerry Shaw and Lord Cheriton.”

His brows contracted in a frown. “What do you want young Cheriton for? I didn’t know you knew him.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Violet says he’s terribly fun-making. And besides, Sir John wants to meet him.”

It had been in Warren’s mind to tell his wife that he was dropping with fatigue, that he would dine quietly at his club, perhaps sleep there. He changed his mind. If Cohen had chickens to pluck, let him pluck them in his own house.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be home about half-past six. Who’s the other man?”

“What other man, dear?”

His face hardened. “You’ve told me four women, and three men. You’re not having an odd number?”

“Why, no, dear. There’s Lord Cheriton, Sir John, Prince Ali, and Jerry Shaw.”

“Prince Ali Said is coming?”

“Yes, dear. I asked him.”

His face was very hard. “All right. I’ll be home at half-past six.”

He laid down the receiver and pressed the button for his confidential secretary, Mr. Thomas Morgan. “I’ve got to go over and see Heinroth, Morgan,” he said. “I shan’t be back to-day.”

He went walking down Throgmorton Street towards Heinroth’s office, tired and depressed. Two young jobbers on the steps of the exchange stopped tossing for half-crowns to watch him as he made his way through the crowd.

“Who’s that?” said one.

“That’s Henry Warren—Warren Sons and Mortimer. One of the soundest little houses in the City. He runs the business now. Don’t you know him?”

The other shook his head. “Looks as if he’d swallowed a bad oyster,” he remarked.

The other spun a coin into the air, and smiled. “So would you,” he said, “if your wife was sleeping with a black man every other night.”

His dinner party passed before Warren in a blur of fatigue. With Lady Cohen on the one hand and Pamela Allnut on the other he talked mechanically, alternately, and competently about hunting and glass furniture, about schools and ski-ing. At the far end of the table his wife sat facing him, fair, slender and vivacious, between the subaltern callowness of young Lord Cheriton and the grave dignity of the Arab in tails
and white waistcoat. Both of them, he reflected, worth half a million—more perhaps. Lord Cheriton he could tolerate, but he disliked the Arab very much indeed.

He roused himself a little with the brandy, when the ladies had left the room. Cohen had moved up to Cheriton and was talking about industry. “Wonderful opportunities just now,” he was saying. “In almost every line. Every day. One can’t take all of them.”

“That’s very interesting,” said Cheriton. “You think this is the time to buy.”

“I do, most certainly. With discretion—of course.”

Warren set his glass down carefully. “You may be right,” he said carefully. “But it seems to me that you want the discretion of a nun and the vision of an archangel to buy these days.”

“I don’t agree at all,” said Cohen. “Look at gold.”

“No good looking at gold now,” said Warren. “Tell me what to look at now—not what I might have looked at six months ago.”

A shadow passed quickly across Cohen’s face. Warren thought. That got him. He’s got those Bulongo mines on his hands. I wonder if he wanted to shove those off on Cheriton? He might be able to. That boy is fool enough for anything.

Prince Ali Said coughed delicately. “For myself,” he said, “I do not understand the Stock Exchange. I prefer to play with horses. I find that I can make money more certainly in that manner.”

Warren nodded. He could respect competence in all forms. “That is because you act upon your own knowledge. It’s when you start taking tips that the trouble starts.”

Cheriton laughed. “Either on horses or the Stock Exchange,” he said fatuously.

Warren nodded. “I’m a banker, of course. I don’t take tips, and I don’t make any great killings, but in my quiet way I get along all right—even in these times. But I wouldn’t say this was the time to buy.”

“What would you do?” asked Cohen sullenly.

Warren smiled. “I’d get a very big safe, and put it all in that—in gold—and sit on it,” he said. “But real gold, I mean—none of this paper stuff.”

In the dim light beyond the shaded candles, at the back of the room, Evans his butler laid silver noiselessly upon a tray, covered it with green baize, and moved silently, unnoticed, from the room. He took the tray down to his pantry, transferred it to the silver cupboard, locked it up and pocketed the key. Then he went to the housekeeper’s room.

Elsie, the housemaid, was sewing by the fire. “Where’s Mrs. Higgins?” he asked.

“Gone out to the pictures. Did you want her?”

He took down his pipe from the mantelpiece. “I want a box of matches.”

“I’ve got some, Mr. Evans.” She watched him while he lit his pipe. “Get any tit-bits?”

“They’re trying to swindle that young Cheriton again.”

“Not Mr. Warren?”

“No, Cohen.”

She dropped her sewing on her lap. “What did they want him to do?”

“Buy some dud mining shares, I think. Warren was trying to stall them off.”

“I’d believe anything you told me of that Cohen,” she said. “I think he’s horrible.”

He nodded slowly. “They’re a useless crowd,” he said. “I’ve been in service nearly forty years, ever since I was a little nipper in the stables. But I’ve never been in such a place as this.”

There was a little silence.

“That black man,” she said presently. “He was up there again this afternoon. With the door open, too. I do think it’s beastly.”

“It won’t last for long,” said the butler. “I reckon I know when a place is cracking up.”

He finished his pipe in silence, glanced at his watch, and went upstairs again to carry a tray of glasses, syphons, and decanters in to the big white drawing-room. Two tables of bridge were in progress, but Cohen and Cheriton were both dummy, and were talking earnestly aside, before the fire.

The evening passed for Warren in a blur of fatigue. He played efficiently and lost a little money to his guests by courtesy; one had to do that with Pamela Allnut in the game. Presently the rubbers came to an end; the final drinks, and then his guests were ready to depart.

He helped Cheriton into his coat. “It’s been pleasant meeting you again,” he said.

“A most delightful evening,” said the young man formally.

A thin smile curled round Warren’s lips. “You’ve enjoyed yourself?”

“Why—certainly.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

There was a momentary pause. “Well, I don’t quite know what to say to that,” said Cheriton.

“I’m sorry you came here to-night,” said Warren. “It’s been my pleasure. I hope it won’t be your loss.”

The young man stared at him reflectively. “You mean Cohen,” he said at last. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I’m afraid my guests aren’t quite your sort,” said Warren pleasantly. “I wouldn’t come again, if I were you.”

He saw the young man to the door, and turned back into the house. His wife was talking quietly to their last guest, the Arab, in the hall. They broke the talk off as he turned towards them.

“It’s been a great pleasure to have had you here this evening, Prince Ali,” he said formally. “I hope you’ll come again.” He stared reflectively at the aquiline features, the fine olive texture of the skin. “But there—I know you will.”

The olive darkened into brown. “I have never enjoyed myself so much,” said the Prince. “It was so kind of you …” He took his leave.

Warren turned to his wife. “Did you enjoy your party?” he enquired.

She yawned, a little sullenly. “Not a bit. I think that young Cheriton’s a crashing bore. I wouldn’t have had him, but for Violet Cohen. Said the old man wanted to meet him, or something. Why people can’t manage for themselves …”

Warren glanced at the petulant features of his wife. He smiled a little. “If that’s the sort of entertainment they want,” he said, “I suppose that’s what you’ve got to give them.”

They went upstairs together. “Did you meet anyone interesting in Berlin?” she asked idly.

“I was only there four or five hours. I met Heinroth’s cousin with a couple of Finns.”

“Oh. That must have been terribly fun-making for you.”

Warren went to his own room. The firelight flickered on the walls and ceiling; on a chair before the glow his pyjamas were laid out to warm. He sat down to unlace his shoes, desperately tired. As he leaned forward the stiff collar of his evening shirt cut deep into his throat; his vision blurred, and a pressure grew upon his temples. He leaned back in his chair; the pressure eased and he began to feel more normal, but now there came a persistent drumming in his ears that would not stop.

“Christ,” he said half aloud. “A ruddy nigger …” In that he was unjust, and he knew it; among the six or seven strains that went to make Prince Ali there was no negro blood.

He got up and loosed the collar at his throat, and undressed slowly. His business worries and responsibilities surged in his mind to the surging of the blood that thundered in his ears, Heinroth and Plumberg, the Moresley Corporation and the Finnish Equalisation Account. And Ali Said leering at him down the dinner table … in his own house.

He must sleep. He crossed to his dressing-table and took up a small white box, opened it and took out the little vial. It was empty. He threw it in the grate and took a fresh packet from a drawer, shook out three tablets of allonal, and swallowed them.

“Sleep,” he said, half aloud.

He got into his bed. Already he could feel his mind at ease; his worries were no longer the sharp torments they had been, but had become mere incidents of the day. Even Prince Ali was—an incident. He thought drowsily, as he settled in his bed, that cuckold was the word. It seemed to be the right word. He was not quite sure what a cuckold was, but it seemed probable that he was one. Even that had now no power to worry him. It was an incident, merely an incident of the day.

He did not see his wife before he went down to the office in the morning, went in the car with Donaghue, his chauffeur, as was his habit. It was a Saturday but in the years of depression that meant little to him; he had been absent from his office for two days during the week, and might have to go away again. He settled down to clear up his arrears of work with Morgan, his girl secretary, his chief accountant, and three clerks. In the middle of the afternoon he ate a sandwich, drank a whisky and soda, and went on.

Hours later he stopped, suddenly, irrationally, in the middle of a sentence as it were. “That’s enough,” he said to Morgan. “We’ll go home now.”

“As you like, sir,” said his secretary. “There are only the Czech payments to transfer. We can do those on Monday.”

“When do they fall due?”

“Not till the fourteenth.”

“Let me have them on Wednesday morning. I shan’t be here on Monday. I’m going to Hull to-morrow night with Collins—the East Yorkshire thing. Ring me ten-thirty
Monday morning at the Paragon, and give me the post.”

“Very good, sir.”

Warren glanced at his watch; the winter dusk had fallen long ago; it was half-past seven. “I had no idea it was so late,” he said. On his way out he passed through the outer office; his three clerks and the girl were putting on their coats. He stopped and spoke to them. “I’m sorry I’ve been so long,” he said with formal courtesy, “and on a Saturday. Thank you for staying.” He passed on, out through the swing doors into the deserted City street.

“That’s all right, far as it goes,” said one of the clerks. “But look what time it is! Seven-thirty!”

“More hours, more money,” said another. He was a married man, and Warren paid his office overtime.

The girl pulled on her little hat. “I think he’s looking terribly tired,” she said. “Do you think all this they say about his wife is true?”

Warren went home and dined alone. His wife, he learned, was dining out, the butler did not know with whom.

He left for Hull after lunch next day, Sunday. As the train swept northwards Warren dozed uneasily in his empty compartment, twitching in his sleep from time to time and becoming suddenly awake. He reached Hull in the evening and dined alone in the hotel. Because he wished to form his own impression of the city he had not told his business associates of his arrival. He wished to be alone that night.

It was part of his routine. He liked to be alone for his first night in a new town, especially a town where
he was to do business. He walked out in the windswept, empty streets after dinner, savouring the place, the broad streets, thin alleys; the gaunt factories and the mud-filled docks. He was not pleased with what he found. After an hour’s walk he returned to the hotel having followed no conscious train of reasoning but entirely resolved that he must be careful; this was no place in which to take a chance. He felt the dominant psychology to be that of the town at the end of the road, stagnant and insular; the through traffic of the shipping, he felt, had not enlivened the place.

He went to his bed and lay restlessly awake till the small hours. Then he got up and took an allonal.

All the next day he was in conference in Hull, a difficult, unsatisfactory day spent upon a difficult and unsatisfactory business. Towards evening he delivered an ultimatum which he knew would stay the wheels of progress for six months, and left on the night train for London, tired and depressed. His car met him at King’s Cross in the winter dawn, and he went home to bathe and change, and drink a cup of coffee. Then he went down to the office.

In India, a few hours previously, a small brown man had stood in Congress for two hours and said his piece. That morning the Silver Conservation Pact lay in ruins; by eleven o’clock Warren had Plumberg in his office, a Plumberg who talked eloquently about adjustments of a minor nature to the scheme, and whose thin hands twitched nervously as he was talking. Warren spent the day in a welter of Indian politics broken by distracting snatches of his other work; in the afternoon he went with Plumberg to the India Office
and sat in conference for two hours. In the evening he got rid of Plumberg and dined with the Secretary of State for India, quietly at a club. They talked far on into the night.