Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

Isobel looked back to the moment at breakfast when Miss Willy had opened his letter and announced that he wouldn’t come. It didn’t hurt now, because nothing hurt any more; but in that moment it had hurt so much that she did not know how she had kept herself from crying out. It didn’t hurt now, because nothing hurt any more; there was only an emptiness and blackness where the pain had been. And she must come down out of the woods, and go back to lunch and hear Miss Willy say all over again the things which she had said at breakfast, and would say again at tea.

The stillness of the woods was broken by the sound of footsteps. Isobel began to walk on at once and quickly. She had nothing that she could say to any one at this moment. She felt a sort of faint panic at the thought of voice and words echoing in this emptiness. But she had not heard the footsteps soon enough. Mr. Carthew had almost caught her up, and when she began to walk on, he called after her:

“Isobel-wait a minute! Where are you off to in such a hurry, young woman?”

He was about the last person she would have chosen to meet, but there was no help for it. When you have been properly brought up, certain things become automatic. Isobel turned at once and, turning, smiled with her usual sweetness. She did not consciously make an effort. She smiled and waited for Mr. Carthew.

“Well, where are you off to?” he said again.

“Home to lunch.”

“Well, there’s no hurry about that. Miss Willy’s never been in time for a meal in her life-what? I can’t think how she ever gets a cook. I know she doesn’t keep ’em-she told me herself the other day she’d had thirteen since Christmas. And what beats me is, how does she get ’em-what? How does she get ’em? That’s what I want to know. You wouldn’t think there were so many cooks left in England -that is, you wouldn’t if you listened to the twaddle every one talks about the servant question. And the moral of that is-don’t listen to it. Least listened to, soonest ended-what? Did you ever hear that proverb before?”

Isobel went on smiling. Her lips felt a little stiff, but it was easier than saying anything. You didn’t really have to talk to Mr. Carthew. He liked people who would listen whilst he told long stories about things which couldn’t ever really have been very interesting to anybody, or said what he thought about the government and the condition of agriculture. He liked talking on these subjects to pretty young women who did not answer back or have views of their own.

Isobel prepared herself to listen, but for once in a way he fell silent and walked beside her, flicking at the pine needles with his stick, his broad shoulders stooped, his weather-beaten face wrinkled and puckered, and his bushy eyebrows drawn together in a frown over the small, rather sunken gray eyes.

He looked sideways once or twice at Isobel, and just as she became aware of this, he stopped dead, cleared his throat, and said gruffly,

“I wanted to see you.”

The trees were thinning out to the edge of the wood. A patch of sunlight touched Isobel’s cheek.

“She’s been crying,” said Mr. Carthew to himself. “Bless my soul, she has!”

Isobel stepped back into the shade. She looked faintly startled. Her heart beat a little faster.

He cleared his throat again.

“About that nephew of mine-” he said, and saw the color spring into the pale oval of her face.

“About Car?” Why should any one want to speak to her about Car? Car wouldn’t come-Car didn’t want to come. Why should any one want to speak to her about Car?

“Car-yes, Car. I’ve only got one nephew, and that’s been one too many. I suppose I may be thankful I never had a son, for a nephew has been as much trouble as I’ve wanted, and a bit more.” He spoke as if he were working himself up to be angry, bringing out each short sentence with a kind of jerk that reminded Isobel of Dr. Monk’s car starting up on a cold morning.

She did not say anything. What was there that she could say about Car to Car’s uncle? “He doesn’t care-he won’t come.” She couldn’t say that.

“Well?” said Mr. Carthew explosively. “Well?”

“What is it, Mr. Carthew?”

“That nephew of mine. Have you been seeing him?”

“Yes,” said Isobel, with her red flag flying.

“Ah, I thought so! Then you can tell me what I want to know. When did you see him last?”

“A day or two ago.”

He looked at her sharply under his bushy brows.

“A day or two ago? What does that mean? That you don’t remember-or that you don’t choose to tell me? It’s not my business-what? Well, if you can’t tell me when you saw him, can you tell me where you saw him? Carrying a pair of sandwich boards-or fetching up taxis after the theater-what?”

Isobel’s smiling ceased to be a convention. It became delightfully tinged with malice.

“Oh no, Mr. Carthew-it was at Leonardo’s. I danced with him.”

“And what’s Leonardo’s? You don’t expect me to know the name of every disreputable fourth-rate dancing hall in London, do you?”

“Now you’re being rude to me,” said Isobel-“because I’ve been very nicely brought up and I don’t go to fourth-rate dancing halls. Leonardo’s is the latest place to dine and dance at. You know-the sort of place where a cup of coffee costs as much as a whole dinner does in one of those little Italian places in Soho.”

“H’m!” said Mr. Carthew. He dug holes in the ground with his stick, making a vicious punch at each. “Car’s come up in the world, then! The last I heard of him, he couldn’t have risen to Soho. Splashing his money about, was he? Or sponging on a rich friend-what?”

A little vivid flame of anger burned suddenly in the cold empty places of Isobel’s thought. She said, quickly and warmly,

“You know that’s not true!”

“What was he doing there then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pretty shabby-eh?”

The flame burned higher.

“No, he wasn’t!”

Mr. Carthew punched another hole and gazed at it earnestly.

“Some one who saw him a while ago told me that he looked down and out.” He prodded the hole with his stick. “Down and out-that’s what he said-a friend of mine, old Beamish- not at all the sort of man to exaggerate. That’s what he said to me in so many words. ‘I saw that nephew of yours the other day,’ he said, ‘Car what’s-his-name-Fairfax- and by Jove, he looks as if he’s got down to his uppers,’ he said. ‘Looked as he wasn’t getting enough to eat, by Jove.’ That’s the way he put it. Matter of fact sort of fellow, Beamish-didn’t mean to be offensive-said he thought I ought to know.”

“Yes,” said Isobel, still with that warmth in her voice.

“How do you mean ‘Yes’?”

“I think he was quite right-I think you ought to know.”

“Oh, you do, do you? And what am I to believe? He says Car’s down and out, and you say he’s flourishing around dining and dancing at one of the most expensive places in London. What am I to believe?”

“I think his employer sent him there,” said Isobel.

“Then he’s got a job-what? Why didn’t you tell me that at once?”

“Because that’s all I know. He just told me that-he didn’t tell me anything else.”

“H’m!” said Mr. Carthew. “Well, he’s coming to stay with you, isn’t he, and I can ask him about it myself. Sounds fishy to me-very fishy. But I can ask him about it when he comes.”

“He isn’t coming,” said Isobel in a low voice. It was as bitter to say it as if all those tears had not washed her clear of feeling.

“Not coming?” said Mr. Carthew sharply. “How do you mean ‘not coming’? Your Aunt Willy told me herself she’d asked him down. A couple of days ago she told me she was going to ask him, and yesterday she told me she’d done it.”