Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

She walked to the bed and stared through swimming tears at the green lace dress which lay across it. Then suddenly, passionately, she threw herself down and broke into a flood of unrestrained weeping.

Carthew Fairfax’s diary:

September 14th.-I’ve had a scene with Fay. She seems to have got herself into a perfectly beastly hole. I was losing my temper, so I came away. It looks as if some money has got to be found somehow. She talked as if you could pick it up in the street. I’m writing this to-night because odd things keep happening and I want to write them down. It’s simply ages since anything happened at all and now it’s just one damn thing after another. I’m not going to write about the scene with Fay-it riles me too much, and she’s got into the sort of mess that’s better not written about. It’s bad luck on Peter. She says he’s pretty well got her passage money saved. He didn’t say anything about it in his last to me-but then, come to think of it, I can about count on my fingers the times he’s ever mentioned Fay at all. He did ask me to look after her, but he left it to her to tell me so and that they were married. I’m afraid he won’t think I’ve looked after her very well.

I hope I got away without losing my temper-I don’t know whether I did or not. I got back to my room, and the first thing I saw was that paper that was shoved into my hand in the street, and staring at me in big print at the top of the cutting that was pasted on to it: “Do you want five hundred pounds?” Do I want five hundred pounds? I thought it was a pretty odd coincidence. As far as I can make out, Fay’s got to get five hundred pounds or else- well, I won’t go into that, but she’s scared stiff. She can’t speak the truth if she tries-she don’t try of course-but she’s scared all right, and I don’t think she’s scared easily.

I read the newspaper cutting all through again: “Do you want £500? If you do, and are willing to earn it, write to Box Z.10, International Employment Exchange, 187 Falcon Street, N. W.”

Do I want-I looked at the thing, and I thought it was a bit of a coincidence. I’m still no end puzzled as to why I should have had “Do you want £500?” shoved into my hand, when everybody else was getting “Eat more Fruit.” Anyhow, I wrote to Box Z.10 and said I’d like particulars, and then I thought I’d walk out to Falcon Street and have a look at the International Employment Exchange. I should save a stamp, but I suppose I should take more than a penny-halfpennyworth out of my boots. You’re pretty near the bottom when you have to consider pennorths of shoeleather- but if your boots go, you’re done,

I was just getting up to go, when I heard Mrs. Bell come puffing up the stairs. You can’t mistake her. She sounds exactly like a steam-roller. Well, she knocked and burst in. I don’t know why she knocks-you can’t stop her anyhow. She came in, very red in the face and very short of breath, and pushed a letter at me, and then stood fairly bulging with curiosity.

“District messenger,” she said; and then, “Perhaps there’s an answer.”

I looked down and saw Isobel’s writing-Carthew Fairfax Esq, and the address. Now how in the name of all that’s wonderful did Isobel find out my address? It doesn’t matter of course, because I probably shan’t be here to-morrow unless Box Z.10 sends me that five hundred pounds by return.

“Perhaps there’s an answer,” said Mrs. Bell. She looked at me as hard as if I was something in a circus.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

And then she started fanning herself and telling me how she once got a proposal by post-“registered, if you’ll believe me, and me thinking as how me aunt in Dorset had sent me half a sovereign in a postal order, which she did once in a way when she done well with her chicken. But no such thing, and I give you my word when I see what it was you could ha’ knocked me down fair and square with a burnt match. ‘Herbert Hopkins!’ I says out loud, and never so much as turned my head to see if the other girl was listening. It was when I was in service with Mrs. Murgatroyd, and if ever I come across a nasty, jealous, spiteful, two-faced toad, it was that girl Maud Jones, and well I knew she’d been a-laying for Herbert herself-and welcome to him as far as I was concerned, for I wouldn’t have touched him with the kitchen tongs, and so I told the two of them!”

I did get rid of her in the end, and then when I’d heard her clump down off the stairs on to the landing, I opened Isobel’s letter. She said:

Oh, Car, why did you go off like that? I had such heaps and heaps to say-three years of things all bottled up-and you went off like a flash of lightning before I’d said more than about two and a half of them. Please, Car, don’t hide from me. I won’t tell any one if you don’t want me to. But I must see you-I want to tell you things you ought to know. There are things, but I can’t put them in a letter. I really must see you. If you knew what I want to tell you, you’d come at once. No, that sounds silly and Irish. But, Car, do come. Write to me at Linwood and say where we can meet. I thought we were staying with Aunt Carrie for another week, but she and Aunt Willy have just had the most terrible row, so we’re catching the four-thirty. They’ll be all right in a day or two, but for the moment they’re simply not safe, so I’m taking mine away and leaving Janet Wimpole to soothe Aunt Carrie. Aunt Willy sacked the cook, and Aunt Carrie turned. Family scenes sound amusing, but they’re not. I feel like a sparrow on a housetop, and I want to cry.

Isobel

Please, Car, don’t hide.

I made a fool of myself over Isobel’s letter. How she stands Miss Willy I never could make out. Any one else would have stopped trying to stand her years ago. I made a fool of myself because I daren’t see Isobel again-I can’t answer for myself. She must just think me a low brute who hasn’t the manners to answer her. Of course I might write and tell her-No, you don’t, you fool! If I wrote a single line to her, I should give myself away. I put her letter away. I meant to destroy it presently. I really did mean to destroy it-but not just at once-not till I’d got it by heart.

And then I took my letter for Box Z.10 and went out to look for Falcon Street.

It was a longish walk, and I had plenty to think about. Part of the time I thought about Fay, and what a knock-down blow it would be for Peter if she got run in-because he felt old Lymington’s crash a good deal more than he let on, even to me, and if he were to get another facer over Fay, it might knock him out altogether. What fools women can be! Peter doesn’t talk about things, but he feels them a lot. He doesn’t write about Fay. I don’t think he’s mentioned her more than two or three times since he went out, but to my mind that only shows what he feels about her goes too deep down to talk about. Well, I thought about Fay and Peter, and I thought about Isobel’s letter, and I wondered what she wanted to say to me. And I thought about my boots and how on earth I was going to get another pair, and I wondered whether Mrs. Bell would let me stay on for a week, and whether the advertisement about the five hundred was a take in. I thought there was bound to be a snag, but even if it only ran to five hundred pence, it would be worth having a shot at it. And then I thought a lot more about Isobel.

I hadn’t any idea how to find Falcon Street. People who hadn’t any more idea than I had told me to turn to the left and then to the right and keep straight on for half a mile and turn sharp to the left by the policeman. When you ask a man the way, he never says he doesn’t know. I went a good bit out of my way after listening for about five minutes to an old gentleman with a beard and a string bag full of lettuce.