Patricia Wentworth: Beggar’s Choice

“Car Fairfax -I was going to tell you-the most extraordinary thing-Bobby came across Car the other day. You know, we’ve always wondered what on earth had become of him.”

“Oh, I hope he’s getting on,” said Janet. She leaned forward, screening Isobel.

“Now, my dear Janet, was he likely to get on, after having to leave his regiment and being mixed up with that atrocious Lymington man, who was nothing but a common swindler-and if I hadn’t had the gumption to get my money out of his clutches just in the very nick of time, wouldn’t Isobel and I be in the workhouse this very minute?”

“I hope not. But, Willy, you mustn’t say he had to leave his regiment like that-it sounds-”

“Well, he did have to leave it,” said Miss Willy bluntly.

“Only because he hadn’t enough money to stay in it. It wasn’t his fault that his father had been living above his income for years and left nothing but debts.”

Miss Willy tossed her head.

“Pride goes before a fall. Bobby met him in his brother’s office, standing in a queue on the chance of being taken on as twentieth clerk or something of that sort. Rather a come-down for Car Fairfax!” She laughed angrily and looked at Isobel. “He didn’t even get the job,” she added, with malice in her voice. “But there, it wouldn’t have helped him if he had. You can’t help people who won’t take help. He’s gone under, and he’s got his deserts.”

“I thought Carthew Fairfax a very pleasant young man,” said Carrie Lester. “And a friend of Isobel’s-wasn’t he, my dear?”

There was no color in Isobel’s cheeks. She smiled at Aunt Carrie with her eyes and said,

“Yes, a very great friend.”

“He wouldn’t be helped,” repeated Miss Willy. “John Carthew would have helped him-That’s his uncle, his mother’s brother,” she explained to the Markhams.

Bobby Markham nodded.

“I know-rolling. I wish I’d an uncle who wanted to help me. Little Bobby’s not proud!”

“Car Fairfax is a fool,” said Miss Willy. “He offended John, and now, apparently, he’s gone to the dogs, and serve him right.”

“It isn’t actually disreputable to be poor, is it, Willy?” said Janet in her charming voice.

“Who’s talking about being poor? You’re poor-I’m poor-everybody’s poor. But Car’s gone under. First he had to leave his regiment, and then he went as secretary to that dreadful swindling Lymington man-”

“Who had been at school with his father,” said Janet Wimpole firmly.

Miss Willy’s bright, hard color rose.

“And a pretty pair, I must say! Not a penny to choose between them really, though I suppose it’s better to swindle your own family than to ruin total strangers by the thousand- No, Isobel, don’t contradict me! I don’t care what any one says, a man who pretends to be rich, puts his son into an expensive regiment, spends money like water and lives like a prince, and then dies and doesn’t leave twopence halfpenny is a swindler. And as for that Lymington wretch, nobody knows how many people he ruined by going smash and blowing his brains out.”

“What happened to the son?” said Bobby Markham.

She stared at him.

“Car Fairfax?”

“No-Peter Lymington.”

“He went abroad, I believe. You really can’t expect me to take any interest in what happened to him, but I do say this-if Carthew Fairfax had had an ounce of self-respect, he’d have gone too. I’m sure no one wanted him here.”

“His mother did,” said Isobel. Her voice was quick and clear. “She was very ill, and he wouldn’t leave her-”

“And she died at least two years ago. Why didn’t he go then?”

“Why not ask him, Willy?” said Janet.

Miss Willy rapped the table.

“Because I don’t need to ask any one-I know. He’s mixed up in a discreditable entanglement, and he doesn’t want to. I forget who she is. Wasn’t it you who told me about it, Bobby?… No? Then it was Kitty Mason-no, Joan Connell-no, it wasn’t-but it doesn’t matter-some one told me. And if John Carthew wasn’t an old fool, he’d stop hankering after the boy and let him go his own way.”

“Does he hanker?” asked Janet quickly.

“More than Anna Lang cares about-his wife’s niece, you know. She lives with him, and I should say she’d take pretty good care it didn’t get beyond hankering.”

Parker came in. She had a scarlet spot on either cheek. She placed a microscopic tart at one end of the table and half a plum cake at the other. Lunch proceeded.

Isobel’s head ached more and more. Her heart ached too. When the others went upstairs, Janet kept her back.

“Let them go on, and then we’ll go up to your room. I want to talk to you.”

The little chintzy room was deliciously peaceful. Isobel took off her hat, smoothed her dark hair, and drew a breath of relief. She had very soft black hair, the white skin that does not burn, and eyes that were the color of dark blue water. Just now the waters were shadowed. Car told her once that her eyes were full of secrets. As he said it, he was wondering whether she would ever tell him her secrets.

“What is it?” said Janet.

“Car,” said Isobel, simply.

“My darling child, you mustn’t mind what Willy says-it doesn’t mean much.”

“I know-but-”

“What?”

“Oh, Jan, I saw him!”

“Car?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the street. Oh, Jan, he looks-” She put a finger up to her lips because they trembled.

“How?”

Isobel lifted her pretty chin.

“Not what she said. He’s just the same-just Car, but-thin. Oh, Jan, he’s so dreadfully thin and so-” Her voice sank away. She couldn’t tell anyone that Car-Car was so shabby that it hurt.

Janet walked to the dressing-table and stood fingering some of the pretty trifles that lay there-pretty ivory things with Isobel’s golden I on them. Everything in the room was delicately pretty. She wanted to comfort Isobel; but it might be cruel comfort to encourage her in an attachment to Car Fairfax, who had gone under. She wondered how much Willy guessed, and whether it was love for Isobel that had put the angry color into her cheeks and the edge on to her tongue when she spoke of Car.

She said, “My dear-” in a puzzled, distressed voice; and then the door was bounced open and Miss Willy came in. She wore an air of triumph, and she fanned herself with the pink felt hat.

“I’ve just been giving Eliza notice. Carrie would never dare, and she ought to be thankful she’s got some one to do it for her. You can’t think how impertinent she was when I went down for the ham.”

Car Fairfax got up with a sigh, stretched his hand, which was cramped with writing, and went down the narrow stairs to the next landing. He had heard Fay come in an hour ago, and he supposed he had better go and tell her that he hadn’t got the job, and that in all probability Mrs. Bell would be pushing him out to-morrow. Fay had been hipped for days, but it wasn’t much use not telling her. There really wasn’t any reason why she should mind particularly, except that she was used to having him handy.

He knocked at the door and went in in response to an irritable “Oh, come in-come in!” The room was cloudy with cigarette smoke. A half made dress of bright green lace lay across the bed, and snippets and cotton ends littered the worn red carpet. Fay’s little black hat with the diamond dagger was thrown down by the door.

Fay herself, in a short black frock, was lying back in the shapeless armchair smoking. She was a little creature, with the air of being so fragile that a touch might break her. She had reminded Car at first sight of one of those little transparent birds made of spun glass which you sometimes see in the window of a curiosity shop-small, artificial, delicate-a miniature bird of paradise, whose plumage would dissolve at the lightest touch. She had a transparent skin, large pale blue eyes, tiny hands and feet, and hair of the true spun glass texture and hue-the very pale straw-yellow which never darkens. It is possible that her lashes would have been of the same shade if they had been left to nature, but not since her fifteenth year had nature been allowed its tactless way. The lashes were now as dark as Car’s own.