Before the Fact (25 page)

“Oh, I don’t know,” he would say carelessly. “I like old Beaky, you know.”

“Yes, but he’s so boring. Sometimes I feel I simply can’t
bear
him a minute longer.”

“We must put up with him for a bit, till this thing’s over. He’s going to be damned useful to us, after all. Be a good little monkeyface and help me out.”

And Lina would remember the early resolutions of her married life and make up her mind to bear Beaky a little longer, in order to help Johnnie.

But when Johnnie was tackled upon the question of how much longer he would need helping in this way, he was still more vague. Things weren’t going well. But things might suddenly go better. One never knew. One just had to see.

Lina, deploring her inferiority in matters of business, was unable to find the searching questions which she felt must be waiting somewhere, if one only knew from experience where to look for them.

Four years is a long time.

Even three months is enough to turn the most mind-haunting horror into something that neither haunts nor horrifies.

Lina could hardly believe, when Joyce and Cecil brought Robert and Armorel to stay at Dellfield for Christmas, that four years ago on that day Johnnie had brought about her father’s death. With the little notebook scattered from the train, she had even managed to persuade herself that she might have imagined the whole thing. In any case, she no longer thought of it as “murder.”

And whether it, rather improbably now, were true or not, it had all happened four years ago. It was absurd, Lina was now convinced, to upset one’s life for something that had happened four years ago.

She had gone back to Dellfield with the knowledge that Johnnie, who had cheated and stolen and forged, had now been proved to have murdered too. He had touched bottom. Things could never be worse. She had found a kind of grim consolation in that reflection. Whatever Johnnie did in the future could never be worse than he had done already.

And in spite of what Johnnie had done, Lina loved him more than ever. That was why she had never even considered seeking refuge with Joyce. At times she thought, with some perturbation, that what Johnnie had done had, in a way, actually increased her love for him, at any rate on its protective side. Certainly it had not diminished it. Lina wondered whether she too might be learning to turn a short-sighted eye on moral realities.

She enjoyed her Christmas.

Beaky she had firmly refused to invite, in spite of Johnnie’s urging, and she was able to have several long and satisfactory conversations with Joyce.

It gave her a good deal of pleasure to be able to tell Joyce, with complete truth, that she really was happy, and to see that Joyce believed her. She was rather superior towards Joyce, adopting the idea that Joyce had very nearly managed to persuade her into making a mess of her life and that only by her own finer perceptions had she saved herself at the last minute. Joyce quite acknowledged now that Lina had not been such a weak fool as she had thought, in going back to Johnnie.

It gave Lina still more pleasure to hear Joyce admit, as Joyce, with her usual honesty, did admit, that Johnnie undoubtedly did love his wife. Johnnie was very sweet to Lina all the time they were at Dellfield, and his attitude was not lost upon Joyce. She asked Lina penetrating questions about Johnnie’s behaviour during the last eight months, and could find no loopholes in it.

“Well, perhaps it all happened for the best after all,” she delivered judgment. “I don’t pretend to admire your Johnnie, and I’d much rather have seen you go off with Ronald; but you weren’t such a fool as I thought. Johnnie certainly does love you. He’s had his shock, and it’s improved him. And so long as he makes you happy, I don’t care. But if he ever slides again, my girl ...”

“He won’t,” said Lina. She had no doubts about that now.

And of course Joyce knew nothing of any other possible directions in which Johnnie might slide. Though of those too Lina had few doubts now.

But she did catch herself once or twice looking at Joyce across the table at Christmas dinner.

Or rather, Joyce caught her.

“Why so solemn, Lina? What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” Lina answered, and smiled quickly. Actually she had been thinking: what would you say, Joyce, if you knew that my husband had killed our father?

But the fact that Johnnie had, only distressed her now when she remembered it. It distressed her almost as much to realize how seldom she did remember it.

And as things turned out, the only lasting difference that her discovery of the notebook made to Lina was the loss of three hundred pounds a year. In a fit of panic at the remembrance of what Johnnie had once done when he was short of money, she had raised his allowance again to five hundred a year.

So Johnnie scored.

After Christmas promptly arrived Beaky, for a week’s visit. Johnnie had invited him, without saying anything to Lina about it. Lina was annoyed and told Johnnie so.

“It won’t be for much longer,” Johnnie soothed her.

Lina, who had meditated a week’s banting following the usual Christmas overeating, had to content herself with buying a most expensive belt instead. She had to be really careful about her figure now.

It was during the first day or two of this visit of Beaky’s that a faint suspicion crept into Lina’s mind. She began to fear that Johnnie’s real reason for keeping Beaky in such close touch with him was that, having a rich man at his disposal, he was determined not to let him go; so that if the land scheme did fall through, he could find some other way of separating Beaky from some of his unneeded thousands. And as soon as the suspicion was really lodged in her mind, she began to fear too that Johnnie was actually meditating some such plan already. Knowing Johnnie, Lina took it for granted that the plan, if plan there was, would be an unscrupulous one.

She did not know quite what to do about it.

Of course it was quite useless to ask Johnnie outright, but she did ask him one night in the bedroom if he was short of money.

“Short?” said Johnnie. “How do you mean?”

“Well, have you run up any more debts, or anything like that?”

“Are you offering to pay them for me, if I have?” Johnnie grinned.

“No, I’m not. I just wondered. Have you?”

“Not a one,” Johnnie said blithely. “Your husband’s a reformed character, Mrs. Aysgarth. Thanks to you.”

“Darling!” said Lina, almost mechanically fond.

But she was not altogether satisfied. There was a glib air sometimes about Johnnie which she mistrusted.

She debated whether she ought to warn Beaky.

It is not a pleasant or an easy thing, to warn a guest that one’s husband is not quite to be trusted in matters of finance; but Lina, nagged at by her conscience, did her best.

One morning when Johnnie was busy with his cows she tackled Beaky about it.

“Beaky, how are things getting on with you and Johnnie?”

Beaky looked up from the book he was reading by the drawing-room fire. “Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Leave all that to the old bean, you know.”

“Yes; that’s what I mean. Why are you so slack, Beaky? You shouldn’t leave everything to Johnnie like this. You ought to keep an eye on things yourself, too.”

Beaky laughed his enormous laugh. “Hullo! What’s this? Pi-jaw, what? Reminds me of being hauled up in front of the old chief. ‘You’re getting slack, Thwaite, what?’ What? Eh? Damned good.”

“No, I’m serious, Beaky.”

“Are you? What? Top-hole. I say, have you read this muck? What? Got it off your shelves. Can’t make head or tail of it. Friend of yours, I expect. You know all these comic birds, don’t you? Good God! What?”

“Beaky,” Lina said patiently, “do you mind just listening to me for a moment?”

“Rather. Like to have these things explained to me. Bit weak in the top story, I expect, what? Don’t be too highbrow, though. Well, what’s it all about, what? Sorry I called it muck. Friend of yours, and all that sort of rot, I expect. What? Eh? Well?”

“I’m not talking about that book.”

“Oh, aren’t you? Sorry. Thought you were. Here, I say! Not carrying on with the pi-jaw still, are you? What?”

“You can call it a pi-jaw if you like. Beaky, I want to know. How much money are you putting into this scheme?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The old bean said we’d want about fifteen thousand. Probably lose it all, but who cares? Here, I say. You at a loose end this morning, Lina? What about a walk or something? I feel a bit lousy myself, too. Eh? What about it?”

“No, thank you,” Lina said with forbearance. “I don’t want to go for a walk. I want to talk to you.”

“Carry on, sergeant,” said Mr. Thwaite amiably.

“Beaky, I don’t think you’re being fair to Johnnie,” Lina began, and paused to admire the inspiration of this opening. By pretending to put the blame on Beaky himself, she would be able to convey her hint much more delicately. “I don’t think you’re being
fair
to him,” she repeated. “You must remember that—”

“Here, take a pew, what?” interrupted Mr. Thwaite. “I know some old beans yap better on their pins, but it puts the wind up me. What? I mean, standing over me like a beak. What? Sorry. You know what I mean. Take a pew, what?”

Lina sat down and began again.

It was unfair to Johnnie, because Johnnie, compared with Beaky, was a poor man.

“Oh, rot,” protested Mr. Thwaite. “Here, I say. Draw it mild, what?”

A poor man, repeated Lina firmly; and it was not fair to put on a poor man the responsibility of a very large sum of money belonging to somebody else. Supposing things went wrong. Supposing Johnnie made an error of judgment. He was not a business man. He might quite possibly lose a large proportion of the money. And how would he feel then? Very perturbed indeed. Very upset. Especially since, if the error was a particularly gross one, he would not be able to repay what he had lost.

It was not fair. Beaky ought to take an equal responsibility. He must look into things for himself, and decide for himself whether Johnnie’s advice was always sound or not. Now did Beaky understand?

“I get you,” Beaky nodded sagely. “I get you, old bean. Sorry! Lina, I mean. What? You mean, the old bean’s a proper old mutt, what? You’re afraid he’ll be twisted right and left.”

“I don’t mean anything of the sort,” Lina snapped, wishing Beaky were not quite so obtuse.

She tried to explain herself further, but still without giving Johnnie away.

An hour later, when she was powdering her nose before lunch, she heard Beaky and Johnnie in conversation just under her window. Beaky’s loud tones carried themselves without difficulty to her dressing table.

“Hullo, old bean. Been looking for you. Here, I say, what’s the matter with Lina? What? Eh?”

Something inaudible from Johnnie.

“Why, she’s been trying to persuade me for the last hour that you’re soft in the head. What? Good God! I mean, all the land sharks in Bournemouth are going to see you coming a mile away. She says I’d much better pull out while the cash is still there, before you’ve been twisted out of it. Eh? Damned good. What? Good God! Thank the Lord I’m not married. What? Oh, sorry. Putting my foot in it again, what? Didn’t mean that. Lina’s one of the best, and all that sort of rot. But she seems to think you’ve got a screw loose, old bean. Suppose all wives think that about their husbands, though, what? Otherwise they wouldn’t have married ’em. Eh? Good God!”

Johnnie was very angry.

“What business is it of yours?” he demanded. “That’s what I want to know. What business is it of yours?”

Lina was never slow to flare up when someone else was already alight. “
You
ought to know what business it is of mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, would you rather I asked Captain Melbeck to say a word to Beaky?” Lina was sorry for the sentence as soon as she had uttered it.

It seemed, however, to roll off Johnnie’s back. “Good Lord, if you’re going to be forever bringing up that old stuff,” he said with angry disgust.

Already Lina was penitent for bringing up that old stuff. “But, Johnnie, you remember what you used to be like.”

“Oh, yes, I know all that. But have I been like it lately? That was years ago. You know I’m quite different now. And here you are, practically warning Beaky that I’m not fit to be trusted with twopence-halfpenny of anyone else’s.”

“Johnnie, I didn’t put it like that. You know what an idiot Beaky is. He got it all wrong. All I said was that it isn’t fair of him to leave everything to you: he ought to take responsibility for the decisions too. That’s all I said.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. You
know
what an idiot Beaky is.”

Johnnie grinned. “All right. Sorry I blew you up, monkeyface. I thought you’d got it into your head that I was trying to twist him, or some damned nonsense. Kiss me!”

“Darling!” said Lina. “Now come along. We must go down to lunch.”

Not for quite a couple of hours did she realize that this was precisely what she had imagined – and still did.

The Aysgarths’ position in the county was a curious one, typical of the transition period in which they lived.

Connected as Johnnie was with most of the old families living in Dorsetshire, the Aysgarths were on intimate terms (so far as it is possible for terms among old families to be intimate) with houses into which Lady Fortnum was not received at all. On the other hand, the Lady Fortnums of the county, and there were plenty of them, looked down on Johnnie as definitely below their social level because he had worked for his living. He and Lina were invited to Whinnies on little more than sufferance. And yet it was on little more than sufferance that they went.

The Aysgarths, in fact, at Dellfield, were neither quite of the old order, nor of the new. The more the land of England is changing hands, the more do the former holders by right of birth look down on the new owners by right of purchase; and the more do the latter scoff at the former. For one who takes pleasure in despising his neighbour more than himself, the English countryside of this decade offers exceptional opportunities.