Money in the Bank (23 page)

"And that made you the hero of the school?"

"Of the other school. Of St. Ethelberta's. But let's get back to your private education. Did your uncle attend to it?"

"No."

"A pity. He has some good ideas."

Anne gave a sudden start. She was facing the entrance of the rhododendron walk, and in it, silhouetted against the evening sky, there had just appeared a large woman, accompanied by a small man. The light, though dim, was good enough to enable her to identify them, respectively, as her employer and Mr. Trumper.

"He told me I ought to kiss you," said Jeff.

His voice shook a little. He was conscious of a strange breathlessness. All through this conversation, he had found himself becoming more and more attracted by the elder man's views on the way in which a woman should be wooed. It needed but the merest trifle to turn him into a wholehearted convert.

"Oh!" cried Anne. "Here she comes!"

Jeff looked over his shoulder, and saw what she had seen.

"Yes," he said. "There she spouts."

He drew in his breath sharply, like Inspector Purvis. His mind was made up. Mrs. Cork's arrival, he saw, had simplified everything. He had been planning to explain to her that it was his love for Anne that had brought him to Shipley Hall, and now there was no need for tedious verbal explanations. She should witness an ocular demonstration which would convince her of the position of affairs.

Anne uttered a wordless cry. She recoiled, but not far enough. To a man trained in boyhood to make flying tackles against the finest talent of St. Ethelberta's, she was still within easy reach. The next moment, Mrs. Cork, sailing up like a great galleon moving into the battle line, halted abruptly, wondering if she could believe her eyes. Then a squeak from behind her told her that Mr. Trumper was believing his.

Anne came hurrying past her, and vanished into the shadows.

"Well!" said Mrs. Cork.

"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Trumper.

They were aware of Jeff approaching them. It was plain to see that he was bathed in modest confusion.

"I really must apologise, Mrs. Cork," he said. "I thought we were alone."

It was not often that Mrs. Cork found herself at a loss for words, but this strange experience happened to her now, and Jeff went on, speaking with a persuasive charm which Mr. Trumper, for one, found touching and full of appeal.

"Miss Benedick had just been telling me that you were aware that I had accepted your hospitality under what I suppose one must call false pretences. She was very upset about it, and I was trying to comfort her.   I told her that, when you knew the true facts and realized that I had come here simply because the strain of separation from her was too great, you would understand and sympathise. It was wrong of us, I know, to deceive you, so that we could be together, but love is love, Mrs. Cork."

"Ah!" breathed Mr. Trumper.

Mrs. Cork's stormy brow cleared. Jeff's manly explanation had not been in vain. She decided to take what Mr. Molloy would have called the big, broad view. The discovery that her apprehensions regarding Anne and her nephew Lionel were groundless had filled her with a relief that left no room for hostile feelings.

"I ought to be very angry with you," she said, still rumbling a little, like a partially extinct volcano.

"You ought, indeed."

"You have behaved very badly."

"Abominably. Nobody could blame you if you ordered me out of the house."

"I had intended to."

"But you won't? Not now that you know the facts?"

"No. You may stay."

" Thank you," said Jeff. " Thank you."

He disappeared and Mrs. Cork stood for a moment in thought.

"A curious young man," she said.

"Most extraordinary," said Mr. Trumper.

"Well," said Mrs. Cork, "this has certainly taken a great weight off my mind. I was so sure that there was something between Miss Benedick and Lionel. I shall now let Lionel have that money he wants for that partnership of his. I will go and tell him at once. I know the dear boy has been worrying about it."

Mr. Trumper accompanied her to the house in silence. There had been no melting of his animosity towards the man who had failed him in his hour of need, and he resented this showering of happy endings on so undeserving an object.

CHAPTER XXII

Lionel Green was in his bedroom, completing his reparations for dinner by sprinkling brilliantine on his hair, when Mrs. Cork came to inform him of her decision. His joy, as he heard the good news, was so intense that he nearly dropped the bottle. Not even the discovery that his benefactress believed in strict business between relations, and that he would be expected to pay a stiffish rate of interest and eventually refund the capital, was able to diminish his ecstasy.

"You can rely on me absolutely as regards all that part of it, Aunt Clarissa," he assured her fervently. "Tarvin's shop is a gold mine. You will have your money back in a couple of years. How can I thank you enough? Such a wonderful surprise. From what you were saying the other day, I rather got the impression---"

"At that time I had not made up my mind. I don't see any reason why I should not tell you, Lionel," said Mrs. Cork, deciding to be frank. "Until this evening I had an idea that there was something between you and Miss Benedick, and I wouldn't have permitted any nonsense of that sort for an instant."

Lionel Green laughed gaily.

"What an extraordinary notion, Aunt Clarissa!"

"Yes, I realise that now. It has taken a great weight off my mind. I was not going to have you getting en tangled with a penniless girl, no matter how good her family might be. But now that I know that she is in love with that young man who calls himself Adair---"

"What!"

"I found him kissing her just now in the rhododendron walk, and of course it altered everything. I have no longer any hesitation in letting you have this money. It is a very large sum, but, as you say, Mr. Tarvin's is a prosperous business, and I have no doubt that you will be able to repay me quite soon. We will go into Tunbridge Wells to-morrow and have the papers drawn up at my lawyer's. Well, I must hurry off now. I have to see Mrs. Cleghorn, to tell her to keep dinner back."

She left the room abruptly, glad to escape from what might have developed into an emotional scene, and Lionel, absently sprinkling more brilliantine on his already well-moistened scalp, gave himself up to a survey of the situation.

His feelings were mixed. He resented, and rightly, the fact of his betrothed being kissed by other men in rhododendron walks, but at the same time he could see that it was a very fortunate thing that this had happened. His aunt's words had left no room for doubt that it had just done the trick as regarded the flotation of that loan.

It was not long, therefore, before he had reached the comforting conclusion that all things had worked together for good, and he was humming lightheartedly and considering the question of putting some brilliantine on his moustache, when the door opened and Anne came in.

For the last quarter of an hour, Anne had been walking up and down beside the pond, always her refuge in times of stress, in the grip, like Lionel, of mixed feelings. But, unlike him, she had not found the blue bird. Nothing was further from her mind than to hum lightheartedly.

Reflecting on Jeff and the horror in the rhododendron walk, she vibrated with outraged fury. If she had been the heroine of the thriller to which allusion had been made, she could not have been firmer in her resolve never to speak to him again. She would also have been glad to have the opportunity of hitting him with a brick. But at the same time, oddly enough, quite a good deal of her resentment had spilled over and was directing itself against Lionel Green. In moods of strong emotion, when things have been happening to upset and disturb them, women, endeavouring to fix the responsibility and assign the blame, are inclined to scatter their shots and take in a wide target.

But for Lionel's policy of caution and concealment, she was feeling, all this would never have occurred. Her frank and open nature had long chafed at the degrading tactics which had been forced upon her, and this evening her distaste for Safety First methods seemed to have come to a head. If Mrs. Cork's objections to her as a niece by marriage were so strong as to lead her, if defied, to cut off supplies, then let her cut off supplies. Anything was better than the shifts and subterfuges of a secret engagement.

That was how Anne felt, and she had come to Lionel's room now resolved to have a straight talk and to insist upon his doing the square and intrepid thing, regardless of the consequences. She was alive to the fact that his Aunt Clarissa was a tough egg—prolonged association with her in the capacity of secretary-companion had left her as clear on that point as any native bearer or half-caste trader—but she was feeling militant and reckless, in the mood when women urge their men to desperate deeds.

In the demeanour of Lionel Green, as she entered, there was none of the elation of the ardent lover at the sight of his lady. All the joy which had been thrilling him, as he thought of that visit to Tunbridge Wells on the morrow, was swept away as by a squeegee, to be replaced by dismay and panic. He did not say "She is coming, my own, my sweet," but leaped like a pea on a hot shovel, spraying brilliantine in all directions.

"Good Lord!" he cried, appalled. "What on earth are you doing here?"

If he had studied for weeks, testing and examining every possible conversational opening, he could scarcely have found one less calculated to remove from Anne's mind that feeling of being out of sympathy with him. She started violently, as if she had been stung by a wasp or kissed by a scrum-half in a rhododendron walk, and for an instant stood staring incredulously. Then there fell upon her an ominous calm.

"I do wish you would be more careful. You might have run into Aunt Clarissa. She has only just left."

"I see," said Anne. "I'm sorry."

She spoke so quietly, so meekly, her whole air so like that of a good little girl remorseful for having been naughty, that a wiser and more experienced man than Lionel Green would have climbed the wall and pulled it up after him. But, incredible as it may seem, he sensed no peril. He continued to speak, his always high voice rising higher, as was its wont when he ventilated a grievance.

"I've told you over and over again that we simply must not be seen together. Over and over again. And it's more vital now than ever. Aunt Clarissa has promised me that money. That was what she came to see me about. But I haven't got it yet, and she might easily change her mind. It's too bad of you, risking ruining everything like this. It's not as if I hadn't told you."

"Over and over again?"

"Yes," said Lionel Green, struck by this neat way of putting it. "Over and over again."

Once more, a tremor passed through Anne, as if the wasp had played a return date or the scrum-half kissed her twice.

"I see," she said, still quietly, still meekly, still with that intensely unpleasant suggestion of being Mother's little helper conscious of having fallen short of her duty. "I'm sorry."

Lionel Green pointed out the discrepancy between her words and her actions.

"You keep saying you're sorry, but you still go on standing there.   Suppose she came back?"

"Couldn't I say I had come to borrow your brilliantine?"

Lionel became aware that he was still holding the bottle. He walked to the wash-hand stand and relieved himself of it.

"It's no joking matter," he said, stiffly. "I was only trying to be helpful."

"It wouldn't take much to make her change her mind."

"Or me mine."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that all this secret, snaky stuff has begun to get on my nerves. It makes me feel a worm. What exactly is your idea about that money? To get it and then for us to go ahead and get married?"

"Of course."

"Would you call that playing the game?"

"Eh?"

"I was only wondering if it was quite fair to deceive the poor lady."

"I've got to, or I shan't get the money."

"Money isn't everything."

The revolutionary idea contained in these words startled Lionel Green. He decided, rather belatedly, to be soothing.

"You mustn't talk like that, darling. I know how you're feeling. It's a strain, having to keep things dark, but we've no choice. Aunt Clarissa told me in so many words that she would never give her consent to our marriage."

"And what did you tell her?"

"How do you mean?"

"I should have thought you would have told her to go to the devil, because you loved me and weren't going to have anybody dictating to you about it."

Lionel Green stared.

"Tell Aunt Clarissa that?"

An unwilling tribute forced itself from Anne. No one-eyed Chinaman could have made her feel more hostile towards J. G. Miller, but she was fair.

"Jeff would have done it."

"Jeff?"

"I mean Mr. Adair, though his name is really Miller. But you knew that, of course. By the way, he kissed me just now."

"Er—yes. Aunt Clarissa told me."

"It doesn't seem to have upset you much. I suppose you felt that it was the luckiest thing that could have happened."

This was so exactly what Lionel had been feeling that he found himself unable to reply, and a silence fell.

On Lionel's part, it was an uneasy silence. It had taken him some time to make the discovery, but he had suddenly become conscious that there was an oddness about this girl's manner. She put him in mind of a bomb on the point of exploding, and it disturbed him.

In the relations of Lionel Green and Anne Benedick, there had always been on the part of the former something a little superior, a shade condescending. A charming girl, he had felt, but one who required moulding. He had looked on himself as the wise instructor with the promising pupil. And now, all of a sudden, she had changed into something formidable and intimidating.

Anne, on her side, had become aware that strange things were happening to her this evening, constituting something that amounted to a complete mental and spiritual upheaval. It was as if she had been a Sleeping Beauty, and Jeff's the kiss which had awakened her. She seemed to herself to have come out of some sort of trance, and to have come out of it in a critical and dissatisfied frame of mind.