A Penknife in My Heart Page 7

  “No doubt,” she dryly answered. “I can imagine the prospect of having to marry me must have alarmed you terribly.”

  “Oh, damn it, Babs, don’t talk like a schoolmarm,” said Stuart, irritable with relief.

  The girl turned away. She disliked Stuart’s sensual patronizing, disliked being called “Babs”—though it had sounded sweet enough during the brief period of her infatuation for this man. To one brought up in the cultivated but rather strait-laced and humorless ménage of Herbert Beverley, Stuart had seemed at first an exotically attractive personality. His buccaneering air, his flashy spending, his brassy effrontery in love-making had appealed to the inexperienced girl as a merry-go-round at a fair might appeal to an overprotected child. Barbara had been lifted off her feet, whirled round and round, then the whole thing had ground to a stop, and her natural good sense told her how garish it had all been. She was lucky to have paid so lightly for her ignorance and folly, she thought, catching sight of Stuart Hammer’s face in the mirror before her—a pudgy, pinkish, complacent face which, without the beard and the eyeshade, Ned Stowe would not have recognized.

  “Are you trying to tell me that our understanding—that we’re washed up?”

  Turning, the girl faced him squarely. “What understanding?”

  “There was an agreement, you may remember, that we should get married, as soon as—”

  “As soon as it was certain I was going to have your child? Well, I’m not. So that’s that.”

  “My dear girl, what on earth’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to marry me? You were keen enough last time we met.”

  Stuart should not have added that final phrase, but he felt genuinely aggrieved. For Barbara, it snapped the last remaining link.

  “I’ve no wish to marry you at all,” she said, more loudly than she had intended. She bent down to pat the dog and hide her flushed cheeks, so she did not see Stuart’s fists clenching. A cold anger had possessed him, directed not only against the girl but against Herbert Beverley, whose mannerisms and donnish habit of speech she often unconsciously reproduced. It was one thing to learn that he need not marry Barbara, and quite a different thing to be shown so unequivocally that she had no desire to marry him. Stuart Hammer’s sexual vanity was not accustomed to taking such knocks. His immediate response was typical of the man: striding forward, he fastened his arms round Barbara and his mouth on hers.

  “Still not want me?” he said.

  “No, Stuart,” she replied, quite coolly. “You overestimate your fascination.”

  His immensely strong fingers dug into her soft shoulders. She gasped, and the bull terrier began to snarl fiercely. As Stuart Hammer stepped back, the door opened and Herbert Beverley came in.

  “Well, Stuart! Sorry I was not down to welcome you. I’ve had a poor night. I hope Barbara has been entertaining you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Yes, Barbara and I have been having a chat,” replied Stuart, with the manly deference which he always assumed toward his uncle. And if I tore dear Barbara’s clothes off and put her on the floor, he savagely thought, you would have a heart attack and die saying “Tut-tut, Stuart, you are forgetting yourself.”

  Ned Stowe would certainly have recognized Herbert Beverley from the physical description Stuart had given him. Herbert was a small, spare old man, still very erect in carriage; he wore a black, lay-reader’s kind of suit; the eyes behind the pince-nez showed a lively interest in what they saw, though the dark pouches beneath them told their tale. He spoke precisely, pedantically at times, in a not unmelodious voice, and all in all might easily have been mistaken for the old-fashioned type of Sixth Form classical tutor. There was a severity about him, indeed; but it came from his deep, rigorous idealism, not from any meanness of spirit. He was a liberal and nonconformist of the old school, a model employer, an indulgent guardian to Barbara, and a man of keenly analytical intelligence who could have been equally successful in many other walks of life—in fact, the reverse of the domestic tyrant and ruthless tycoon whom Stuart had pictured for Ned Stowe.

  Unfortunately for Herbert, though he had few illusions about his nephew, his idealism disqualified him from seeing really deep into Stuart Hammer. He believed that every man is capable of improvement. He had given Stuart a responsible job in the conviction that responsibility would steady him, bring out the best in him, and would never have admitted there was no best to bring out. Stuart was doing well enough in the job: but, even if he had done less well, Herbert would have stood by him, for his Victorian family feeling made it unthinkable that Beverley’s should pass into the control of anyone else as long as there was Beverley flesh and blood available. It was Herbert’s dream that Stuart and Barbara should prolong the Beverley dynasty. He had thrown them together, and looked for the signs of an understanding between them; the eyes behind the pince-nez lost their shrewdness when, as now, he was observing these two.

  At lunch, Barbara was more than usually silent. Stuart Hammer, who always felt oppressed by the huge dining table, the Georgian silver, the somber Dutch oil paintings, and the parlormaid, whose starched Victorian cap and apron consorted so ill with her slovenly Midland speech, tended to show off on these occasions. He was telling them how, during his recent sailing holiday, he had by skillful seamanship averted a collision with a cargo liner at night. From this, he moved on to certain war episodes in which he had figured prominently. The disabused look in Barbara’s eye was a challenge; Stuart still had no doubt he could bring her to heel again, if and when he wanted. Herbert Beverley, on the other hand, listened with an almost childlike raptness. Delicate health had always prevented him from taking part in active physical pursuits; and, though Stuart did not realize this, it was the adventurer in him which appealed to his uncle most. From time to time, Herbert glanced at his ward: but, if she was feeling any Desdemona-like response to Stuart’s tales of “moving accidents,” she showed no signs of it.

  “Barbara seems rather distrait lately,” said the old man, when he had taken Stuart into his study after lunch. “I hope there is nothing wrong between you.”

  “Wrong? How do you mean?” It annoyed Stuart that with his uncle he should so often find himself behaving like a schoolboy on the defensive.

  “My dear boy, I have always hoped that you two would come to an understanding,” said Herbert in his melodious, rather fluting voice. “And recently it did seem that you were interested in each other. However, I have no wish to force you into confidences, if—”

  “Quite, sir, quite. Babs is a fine girl. But perhaps she is too young yet to know her own mind.”

  “I doubt if women are ever too young to know when they are in love,” replied Herbert Beverley, with a dryness of irony which frequently disconcerted his nephew.

  “Well, you know, she’s lived a sheltered life, and I’ve always been a rolling stone.”

  “Are you suggesting,” said Herbert with a twinkle, “that contrast of experience makes for incompatibility in marriage?”

  Stuart was nettled, but strove to conceal it. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about marriage. I’m only saying that maybe I’m not Babs’s type.”

  “And who would you say is her type?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Someone more like yourself, perhaps.”

  “A safe, hard-working, dry old stick, eh? I don’t think you can know much about women, my boy, if that’s what you believe.”

  Stuart frowned. Not know much about women, indeed! He could tell the old fool a thing or two about Babs that would knock him off his perch.

  “Well,” said Herbert, “we must let that lie on the table for a while. Now, I’d like your views on another matter. I’ve been thinking of modifying our pension scheme for the office staff. With the falling value of money, it seems to me that our present arrangements are not altogether satisfactory.”

  They discussed the matter for some time. Stuart Hammer, who saw himself taking over a controlling interest in the firm before long, did not at all wish to be saddled w
ith higher contributions to the staff’s pensions. On the other hand, his reluctance must be carefully concealed, for his uncle’s good will toward him depended partly upon Stuart’s assumed interest in the welfare of their employees.

  “It’s a question of our profit margin, I suppose, sir. Of course, I don’t pretend to be an authority on the financial side. But raw-material costs are likely to go on rising, and wages won’t stay pegged at their present level. Unless we can increase the gross profits—”

  “And how would you propose to do that?” asked Herbert, with the quizzical look of a don listening to a not overtalented pupil reading an essay. This was, of course, Stuart’s opportunity; he had worked for it, he thought, rather neatly.

  “Well, there’s Meyer’s proposal, for instance. He’ll take as much as we can supply, and he’s definitely willing to offer ten per cent above what we get from any of our established clients. I believe we could bump him up to fifteen per cent.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Sorry, sir, I don’t get you.”

  “Why is Meyer willing to cut his own profits? That’s what it amounts to. From what I know of him, it doesn’t sound at all in character.”

  “Presumably he’s got a good market for the stuff lined up.”

  “In the Middle East?”

  Stuart Hammer shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Does it matter? We’re not in business for our health.”

  “That’s a phrase which always puzzles me,” said Herbert mildly. “Our health is just what we are in business for, I should have thought—ours, and our employees’. And the country’s.”

  “If we don’t supply Egypt with the stuff, Russia will collar the market. I call it a patriotic—”

  “So it is Egypt?”

  Stuart bit his lip, looking surly. Herbert continued:

  “And you consider it would be a patriotic action to let Egypt and the Arab countries have our components so that they can broadcast more effectively their propaganda against Israel—and against Britain? My dear Stuart, you are altogether too subtle for me.”

  “The Yids have had it coming to them for years.”

  “What a pugnacious chap you are!” said Herbert, with a smile which his nephew misinterpreted as a sign of yielding. Encouraged, he went on to paint a highly colored picture of the Beverley products winning a monopoly over the whole of the Middle East. “We break into a new market, which is capable of great expansion. We rake in the profits. We can increase the pensions and other amenities for our employees,” he concluded.

  “I see. Yes.” Herbert Beverley gave Stuart a frosty glance through the pince-nez, and his small mouth primmed. “And what do you make out of all this, Stuart?”

  “Me? If the firm prospers, I prosper.”

  “I mean, how much is Meyer going to slip you if the contract goes through?”

  Stuart was too astute to bluster a denial. Anyway, it was too late now. He assumed the gay buccaneer personality, for which he knew his uncle had a soft spot.

  “Oh, I shan’t lose by it. Meyer will see to that,” he said with a rollicking laugh.

  “It’s lucky someone in this firm has some morals. But leaving aside the morality of it, your scheme is a wildcat—”

  “Meyer is good for his commitments,” protested Stuart.

  “I daresay. And good for nothing else. My poor boy, you’re an innocent in these matters. Let me tell you a little about Meyer.” Herbert Beverley proceeded to do so, revealing a detailed knowledge about the enterprising Mr. Meyer’s practices and associations which quite alarmed Stuart. Stung by being called “an innocent,” he lost some of his veneer of deference.

  “You can’t tell me you’ve never done business with any man who has overstepped—”

  “When I do business with crooks,” Herbert icily interrupted, “I make sure it’s they and not I who suffer for it.”

  “Well then, do business with Meyer and let him suffer.”

  “How much money do you need, my boy?” The unexpectedness of the question took Stuart utterly aback.

  “Need? I’m all right!” he stammered, forgetting for a moment the manly-frankness line he had set for himself.

  “To pay off your creditors,” pursued the old man, with gentle remorselessness. “A thousand? Five thousand?”

  Stuart realized that he had only to say the word, and his uncle’s family pride would foot the bill. But he could not say it. How often, as a boy, he had sat like this while his father catechized him about his pocket money, making him give an account of every penny he had spent. Now he was seething with the same humiliation and sullen anger. His father and this uncle were the only two people who had the power to demolish Stuart’s image of himself, to make him feel small—and he hated Herbert with the rancor he had once felt for his father.

  “You can’t live on your salary at the rate you do live, my dear boy. I haven’t spoken to you about this before, but it’s beginning to be talked about in Norringham, and that doesn’t do the firm any good.”

  “I can manage perfectly well, thank you,” Stuart stonily replied.

  His uncle raised a hand in a gesture of resignation, suddenly looking more than his seventy years. “I have always believed you to be honest,” was all he said. Stuart, with his detestable flair for spotting human weakness, at once heard the appeal in Herbert’s voice, and saw how frail were the old man’s defenses. His confidence came flooding back. He spoke lightly, almost contemptuously.

  “You needn’t worry about me. I can look after myself. I don’t want charity; but it’s a bit riling when I bring business to the firm and you won’t even look at the proposition.”

  Herbert Beverley rose from his chair and stood very erect, tapping his pince-nez on Stuart’s lapel. “No, Stuart. I appreciate your efforts on the firm’s behalf, but let this be understood—under no circumstances will I touch Meyer, and as long as I am head of the firm my policy decisions are to be obeyed.”

  “So that’s that. Very well.” Stuart Hammer went up on the balls of his toes, adding, “I hope you won’t live to regret it.” He could not help smiling. Herbert Beverley would not live, either to regret this decision or to see it justified.

  6 The Faithless Wife

  For Ned Stowe, the next three days were a desert. Time seemed to be clogged, crawling from minute to minute, crawling like a slug and leaving behind it a long smear over the memory, so that he could hardly recollect what he had been doing a day or an hour before. They had eaten, then had slept; in a meaningless way they had talked. Helena was in a strange mood; or perhaps it was his own mood—the necessity to keep his heart hardened, not so much against her as against the implications of what was now irrevocable—that made her seem so strange.

  Twice he had been almost shaken out of his unnatural calm. At breakfast on Monday, reading the paper, Helena exclaimed, “How extraordinary!”

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “Here’s a woman who killed her husband in their bedroom, and locked the door, and went on living in the house for a week afterward, having friends in to parties.”

  “She must have been mad,” said Ned dully, in order to say something, in order not to say that it was even more extraordinary to share a house with a living corpse.

  On Tuesday, Helena found something else in a newspaper deserving of comment. Glancing down to the Personal column of The Times, she remarked:

  “Here’s a cryptic note. The evenings are drawing in. What do you make of that?”

  “I don’t make anything of it. In the Personal column, is it? A nice change from Lady of title wishes to dispose of her fourth-best mink, anyway.”

  “Don’t criminals communicate with one another in code like this?”

  “So they say.”

  “And clandestine lovers?”

  “Probably.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Ned was seized with alarm. The receipt for the postal order he had sent—it might arrive while he was away, Helena
might open it and put him through one of her suspicious questionings.

  No, of course, she would be dead before he got back from Bristol.

  He had watched her eating a hearty breakfast. There was a suppressed excitement about her which he could not account for, unless it was a projection of his own state of mind. The horror of Sunday night, all the mud which had been stirred up then, seemed to have subsided and left her crystal-clear, sparkling. Perhaps these outbursts, so hideous to him, were therapeutic for her. His eyelids still felt leaden, and his skin crawled as if it had bred vermin.

  For the last two days, Ned had suffered continuously from indigestion. At dinner tonight, catching Helena’s eye fixed upon him with a curious, speculative expression, he suddenly conceived the notion that she was poisoning him. It would be a wonderfully ironic situation. Some slow poison: arsenic probably. She was capable de tout. Why, otherwise, this unusual solicitude for his health? Yesterday, when the pain had been so bad that he distractedly told her he couldn’t face the idea of going to Bristol, she had urged him to take a double dose of his indigestion cure, and had prepared it for him herself. A white powder. Like arsenic. But didn’t arsenic have a bitter taste? Ned felt a mounting panic, and pushed away his plate of veal.

  “Sorry, I just can’t eat any more. It’s this foul indigestion.”

  “You really should see a doctor, my dear.”

  “Perhaps I’ll go to one in Bristol, if it doesn’t get better.”

  “Are you sure you oughtn’t to cancel your lecture?” Helena asked with an anxious look.

  “Oh, no. I can’t possibly. It’s too late now.”

  “Well, don’t forget to pack your indigestion powder.”

  A physical and spiritual nausea racked him the whole evening. After an almost sleepless night, he dragged himself out of bed, shaved, packed, tried to swallow some toast and coffee. He had arranged to drive to London and catch a Bristol train from Paddington; that way, Helena at least would not be able to use the car if she should take it into her head at the last moment to go somewhere else for the night. Ned felt a strong revulsion now from this planning.