Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

I said, “A little man with glasses?”

“He had gray hair and a pointed ferrety nose,” said Anna. “He said, ‘Mind you, I shall test him very carefully before I use him. To begin with, I have made an appointment with him for to-night. But I shall not keep it-I shall leave him to kick his heels, and then make another appointment. That will test his temper and his keenness.’ ”

I was getting interested. Anna stopped, so I said,

“Go on.”

“There isn’t any more,” she said. “The tall man looked round, saw how near I was, and said something that I didn’t catch. They began to talk about other things, and a moment later they separated.”

I thought about that. It might have happened. A month ago I was walking down the Strand, and a man and a girl in front of me whom I had never seen before in my life were talking about Billy Rogers who was at my prep school. Things like that happen.

Anna went on looking at me as if she expected me to say something. After a bit I said,

“Why did you keep that appointment?”

She said “Oh!” as if I had made her angry.

“Well,” I said, “it seems to me it’s a very natural thing for me to ask. What made you butt in on a business affair between me and some one you didn’t know anything about?”

She lifted her hand and let it fall again on to her knee.

“I hadn’t seen you for three years.”

That’s the sort of thing that’s most frightfully difficult to answer. It made me angry, and she said quickly,

“You don’t believe that.”

I let that go.

“And what made you think of asking me to forge a check?”

“Hush!” she said. “Car-you promised-you promised!”

I thought she was frightened. She was acting of course. I don’t think she can help acting-but under the acting she was frightened. I came to the conclusion that she really had been monkeying about with Uncle John’s money, and I did just wonder whether she hadn’t told me about it in confidence so as to shut my mouth. I didn’t see how it could have come to my knowledge-but Anna would have known more about that than I did. Well, I thought that was about enough. I pushed back my chair, but she caught hold of my arm.

“You promised, Car! You’ll keep your promise, if you won’t help me in any other way.”

“I won’t forge,” I said, “and I won’t do seven years, if that’s what you mean by helping you,” My temper was getting up a bit.

She still had her hand on my arm. She clenched her fingers down on it, and she said in a sort of whisper,

“You would do it for Isobel.”

I pulled my arm away and got up. She had lost her temper first after all.

“Leave Isobel out of it!” I said.

“You’d do it for her-you would-you would!”

She was one of her rages, all white and shaking. I emptied the watering-pot over her once when we were about eight. That’s the only thing I’ve ever known stop her.

“Isobel would never be in a position to need that sort of help,” I said.

Anna seemed to pull herself together when I said that. She went quiet and still for a minute, but she was frightfully white. I hoped to goodness she wasn’t going to faint-it would be just like her to score off you that way and make you feel what a brute you’d been.

Just as I was thinking that, she said, “No?” She said it under her breath, holding on to the word and making a long question of it.

I’d had enough. Anna’s one of the people who think no one has any nerves, or a temper, or feelings except herself. I turned round and went away. Honestly, I was afraid of what I might do if I stayed.

I danced again with Isobel. I didn’t mean to, but she came up and asked me in front of Fay. I only danced about one round, because she wanted to talk to me about my uncle. That’s why she asked me to dance.

We went and sat down at a table, and I ordered her some lemonade-she wouldn’t have anything else. She told me I ought to go and see my uncle, and when I said I couldn’t, she said she thought I would feel different if I were to see him. She says he’s changed a lot, and that several times lately he has spoken about me to her and to Miss Willy.

“You know, Car,” she said, “one doesn’t like to say things like that-but I have thought, and so has Aunt Willy, that he isn’t-” she stopped. “Car, I feel as if it was horrid of me.”

“Never mind about being horrid. What isn’t he?”

The color flew into her cheeks.

“Not-not quite-a free agent.”

“What do you mean, my dear?”

“Anna’s devoted to him, of course,” said Israel, “and she’s run the house and done everything for so many years-she couldn’t have been more than sixteen when Mrs. Carthew died-so it’s natural he should lean on her, but-”

She stopped and looked at me in distress.

I laughed.

“My dear child, if you’re trying to be tactful about Anna, it’s a bit late in the day as far as I’m concerned! I’ve no doubt at all that by this time Uncle John can’t call his soul his own!”

“You’re not quite fair to her. I mean-Car, I don’t think I’m fair to her-at least I hope I’m not-oh dear, I’m getting so tied up! But I do hate saying this sort of thing.”

“I don’t think you need mind what you say about Anna- it’ll always fall a good bit short of the truth.”

“Don’t, Car! And don’t let’s talk about her. I really only wanted you to see that Mr. Carthew needs you.”

“I don’t see it.”

“He does, Car.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he told me.”

“He told you?”

“Yes, he did-really. It was the first time I’d seen him alone for a long time. I was coming up from the village, and I overtook him. He was walking so slowly, not a bit like he used to, and he said, ‘Ah, you young people!’ And when I told him how wonderful I thought he was, he said, ‘That’s all very well, but one wants some one to hand things over to. There’s no one to take an interest, and no one who really cares.’ We were walking along, you know, and talking as we went. I’m only telling you bits.”

“Well-I don’t see where I come in.”

She blushed.

“Don’t be angry, Car. I did say, ‘If Car were here, he could help you.’ ”

I laughed again.

“Jesuit!”

“I’m not. You should have seen how he jumped at it. He looked very gruff, like he always does when he’s feeling anything, and he said, ‘I’m nothing to him. We quarreled, you know. He wouldn’t come near me now. He’s got his pride like the rest of us.’ ” She blushed again, and looked at me in an undermining sort of way.

When Isobel looks at me like that, I would give her the whole of my kingdom if I had one.

“What did you say?” I asked as sternly as I could. I tried to frown, but I don’t know whether I managed it or not. Isobel is frightfully undermining when she blushes.

She looked guilty.

“I said I was sure you’d be ready to make up your side of the quarrel if he really wanted you to.”

“Oh, Isobel!” I said.

“You would-wouldn’t you, Car dear? Because he’s old, and he’s lonely, and he really, really wants you.”

“He’ll have to tell me so,” I said.

“And I thought,” said Isobel, “that if Aunt Willy were to ask you to come and stay-”

I said “No!” and pushed back my chair. Go and stay- see her every day-see Heron making love to her, and not break down and say things that I’ve no business to say to her… I couldn’t do it.

I don’t know what she thought. Her color was all gone. Perhaps she thought I was angry with her-I don’t know. I felt I must get away, because if I didn’t, anything might happen. I didn’t realize that the music of the next dance had begun until Isobel put her hand on my arm.