I am very sorry-I have decided after all not to tell my wife about our outing. So I beg you to keep silent about it. I apologize very humbly for all the trouble I’ve caused you, in this connexion and about the car. I hated leaving you alone - and I hope the car will be all right.
W.M.
Mor looked at this for a while. It satisfied him, and he sealed it up in a plain envelope. He had left out any mention of Demoyte - and thought that he would rely on finding out somehow, from the girl or from Demoyte himself, whether anything had been told. If he found Miss Carter alone he could ask her, if he found her with Demoyte he could rely on the old man’s making some mocking remark on the subject fairly quickly, if he knew anything about it. If he found company at Brayling’s Close, that would be a problem - but one which he would deal with as he found it. Looking at his watch, Mor discovered that he had passed two hours in total absorption drafting the letters. Felicity had come home and had retired to her own room. Nan was still not back. Mor hid the envelope carefully and burnt the fragments of the earlier drafts. He felt as if he had accomplished a good evening’s work. He went to bed and slept excellently.
When Mor awoke in the morning he found himself much less sanguine about the whole business than he had been the night before. He felt regret and distress at finding that not only had he decided to deceive Nan but he had even made complicated arrangements to do so. It also occurred to him now, and shocked him, that he had been entirely responsible for damaging a very expensive car - whereas yesterday evening the fate of the Riley had figured in his mind, absurdly as it now seemed, as part of an adventure. Mor sobered himself considerably by thinking about the bill. As for the course of action which he had chosen, he felt himself, for all his misgivings, to be committed to it, and indeed the tasks of the day left him little time for reflection; and as the afternoon wore on what more and more recurred to his mind, in the intervals of teaching, was the not unpleasant prospect of going over that evening to Brayling’s Close and seeing Miss Carter again, and all this with a certain inevitability.
Mor had supper at home at seven-thirty, saw Nan off to her Women’s Institute meeting, and then, at about a quarter past eight, left the house on foot. He told Nan, who was not particularly interested, that he was going to call on Demoyte, a thing which he often did on evenings when she was engaged. Mor usually cycled over to the Close, but this time he felt more like walking. It was a very clear warm evening. The good weather certainly seemed likely to last, thought Mor, and they could even hope for a fine day for the House Match. He walked along, wrapped in a pleasant pensive veil. The more disagreeable aspects of the task before him were not then in his mind. He seemed to enjoy the warmth and light of the evening with a simplicity which he had not known for many years; and he wondered why so much of his life was passed in fretfulness, and why moments such as these were so very rare. He walked a little way along the main road, and then struck off it across some fields by a path which led him eventually into Demoyte’s garden. As the low stone wall and the mulberry trees came in sight, however, excitement and nervousness replaced his tranquillity. The conveying of a clandestine letter was something which Mor had not done before, and which he hoped he would not have to do again.
He entered the hall without ringing, and was greeted by Miss Handforth, who told him, ‘His Lordship is in the library.’ Mor mounted the stairs, but found the library empty. It was dark now, lowering with books, and melancholy. Its silence caught Mor, and half relieved he sat down for a moment beside one of the tables. Then Handy returned, and sticking her head round the door announced, ‘Sorry, he’s down in the drawing-room with Miss Thingumajite.’
Mor went down, knocked at the drawing-room door, and entered. The drawing-room was softly lit by many lamps and the curtains were drawn across. Demoyte was standing, lean ing against the mantelpiece, and Miss Carter was sitting in a chair, enthroned upon a sort of white sheet beside an easel which was erected in one comer of the room. Mor was surprised and pleased to see the easel. It was the first time that he had had any material evidence that Miss Carter was a painter.
‘Good evening,’ said Mor, ‘good evening. I see the picture has begun.’
‘Begun!’ said Demoyte. ‘I’ve been sitting all day for a portrait of one of my rugs. Come and look at this masterpiece!’
Miss Carter rose and stood aside. Mor came and looked at the canvas. It seemed to be empty, except for one small finely worked square of colour in the corner. A few faint lines were scattered about on the rest of the expanse. It looked odd to Mor, but he supposed Miss Carter knew what she was doing.
‘Well, well,’ said Mor.
Demoyte laughed explosively. ‘He can’t think of anything to say,’ he said. Never mind, missie, they’ll all be crawling to you later on.‘
Mor was irritated. Demoyte was making it look as if he had been rude. ‘Miss Carter knows I have complete faith in her talent,’ said Mor. This sounded idiotic. He tried to help it out by giving Miss Carter a rather rueful and very friendly look. She smiled back with such warmth that Mor was quite consoled.
‘That’s cant,’ said Demoyte. ‘You know nothing whatever about Miss Carter’s talent or anyone else’s. This man doesn’t know a Rubens from a Rembrandt. He lives in a monochrome world.’
Mor felt this was cruel, as well as being unjust. He tried to carry it off. ‘I spoke of faith,’ he said. ‘Blessed is he who has not seen, but has believed! I believe in Miss Carter.’ This was weak, but Miss Carter was still smiling at him in an encouraging way and that seemed to make the words stand up.
‘Oh well,’ said Demoyte, ‘now you’re talking about Miss Carter, not her talent. This conversation is degenerating into imbecility. Have you dined?’
‘Thank you, sir, yes,’ said Mor.
‘So have we,’ said Demoyte, ‘and Miss Carter was painting until a few minutes ago. I suggest we all have some brandy. Miss Carter must be exhausted. She’s been painting, or pretending to paint, for about six hours.’
‘I am tired,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Mr Demoyte doesn’t believe it, but I’ve done a great deal of work today.’
Mor was surprised to hear this. He had vaguely imagined that after the trials of yesterday Miss Carter would have spent today lying down in a state of collapse. He gave her a look of admiration, which he hoped she was able to interpret. Miss Carter was wearing her trousers, and had tossed off her overall soon after he entered to reveal a plain white cotton shirt. With her short dark hair and the strong dusky red of her cheeks she looked like Pierrot, and had, it suddenly seemed to Mor, something of his grotesque melancholy.
Mor and Miss Carter moved to chairs beside the hearth. Demoyte was fiddling in a comer cupboard. ‘Where the hell are the brandy glasses?’ he said. ‘Handy will use them for drinking lemonade out of in the kitchen. I must go and find them. You two can amuse yourselves.’ He turned and went out of the door, leaving it open.
Mor knew that now was his chance to give Miss Carter the letter. He was overcome with confusion and stood up, blushing violently. Miss Carter looked up at him, a trifle surprised. Mor fumbled in his pocket for the letter, and took a moment or two to find it. Then he drew it forth and threw it quickly on to her knee. It fell to the floor, and she picked it up with a puzzled look. As she did this, a movement caught Mor’s eye and he looked over Miss Carter’s head to see that Demoyte was standing at the open door and had witnessed the scene. Miss Carter, who had her back to the door, had not observed him. She put the letter quickly into her handbag, which lay beside her, and looked up again at Mor. Demoyte withdrew for a moment and then re-entered the room noisily bearing the glasses.
‘They were on the dining-room table,’ he said. ‘Handy had got them that far on the way back. Now I must go and see about the brandy.’ He left the room again, closing the door behind him with a bang.
Mor felt acute distress at Demoyte’s having seen the passing of the letter. Everything seemed to be conspiring against him to make something which was really
unimportant look like something important. Now both Tim Burke and Demoyte would be thinking that something was going on, whereas in reality nothing was going on. What Mor had hoped to terminate and bury was being lent a spurious significance by these witnesses. He looked at Miss Carter dumbly, almost angrily.
‘The car is all right,’ she said in a soft voice. She had risen too. They stood together near the mantelpiece.
‘I’m very glad,’ said Mor, ‘and I’m so sorry I was so hopeless yesterday. Did you tell Mr Demoyte about it?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Perhaps it was silly of me, but I felt somehow I didn’t want to. I just said the car had gone for repairs.’
‘It’s just as well,’ said Mor. He spoke softly too. ‘I haven’t told my wife either. That note explains.’
‘Then it’s to be a secret between us,’ said Miss Carter.
Mor didn’t care for this phrase, but he nodded. ‘I insist on paying the bills,’ he said. ‘You must let me know -’
‘Of course not!’ said Miss Carter. ‘The insurance will pay, that’s what they’re for!’
At that moment Demoyte returned noisily into the room. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘the brandy was in here all the time!’
Mor now felt a deep sadness that what were probably the last words which he would ever exchange tête-à-tête with Miss Carter had been such futile ones. He sat down gloomily and accepted a glass of brandy.
Miss Carter seemed to be in good spirits. She turned to Mor. ‘Do you mind if I draw you,’ she said, ‘as you sit drinking the cognac?’
Mor Was surprised and flattered at this request. He blushed again, this time with pleasure. ‘Please do!’ he said. ‘Am I all right as I am?’
‘Exactly as you are,’ said Miss Carter, ‘is how I want you.’ She picked up her sketch book, produced a pencil from her handbag, and began to draw, sipping brandy now and then as she did so.
Mor sat perfectly still, conscious on the one side of the gentle intent glances of Miss Carter, and on the other of the sardonic covertly amused attention of Demoyte. He felt like a man with one cheek exposed to the fragrant breezes of the spring, while upon the other is let loose an autumnal shower of chilling rain.
Demoyte seemed to have decided not to take any part in the conversation. He sat at his ease looking first at Mor and then at Miss Carter. Mor thought, he wants to force us to talk so that he can observe us, the old fox.
Miss Carter said, ‘What is your son’s name, Mr Mor?’
‘Donald,’ said Mor.
‘I was so sorry I didn’t meet him the other day,’ said Miss Carter, her eyes moving to and fro between Mor and her sketch book. Have you any other children?‘
‘I have a daughter,’ said Mor, ‘about fourteen. Her name is Felicity.’ It gave him pain, somehow, to speak of his children to Miss Carter. She herself must be, he reckoned, no more than eight years older than Donald.
‘What is Donald going to do?’ said Miss Carter.
‘He’s taking College entrance in chemistry in a few weeks,’ said Mor. ‘I suppose he’ll be some sort of chemist.’ Mor wished he could have said something else about Donald.
‘And your daughter,’ said Miss Carter, ‘what will she do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mor. ‘I expect she’ll have another term or two at school and then do a secretarial course next year. She’s not very clever.’
Demoyte could not let this pass. ‘Oh, what rot, Mor!’ he said. ‘You don’t seriously mean that you’re going to let Felicity leave school? She’s just slow at developing. After a year or two in the Sixth Form she’ll be a different person. She ought to go to a university. Even if she couldn’t get into Oxford or Cambridge, she could go to London. Give the girl a chance, for heaven’s sake. Or would you rather see her as a little secretary reading the fashion magazines?’
Mor felt hurt and irritated. He turned towards Demoyte, but turned hastily back again as he saw Miss Carter’s pencil poised. In fact, he was of Demoyte’s opinion. But there was Nan, and the financial situation to be considered. Anyhow, nothing had been settled yet. He had only answered in that way so as to have something definite to say - and also, it suddenly occurred to him, because he had wanted, for some reason, to make everything look as dreary as possible.
He said to Miss Carter, Mr Demoyte has a rather exaggerated view of the benefits of education. He thinks that no one can stand up unless he’s had the stuffing put in by his school and college.‘
Demoyte said sharply, ‘Don’t attribute that cant to me, if you please. Someone like Miss Carter, for instance, could stand up whatever her education had been. It’s people like you and your daughter that need stuffing put into them.’
This was so spitefully uttered that Mor was silent. He felt quite unable to reply. Miss Carter’s pencil was still.
Demoyte was sorry at once, and said, ‘There now, Mor, I didn’t really mean it, but you provoked me.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ said Mor.
There was a moment’s silence. Miss Carter then said, ‘If you’ll both excuse me, I think I’ll be off to bed. I really am very tired indeed, I can hardly keep my eyes open.’
Demoyte was obviously upset. He seemed to think that Miss Carter was retiring as a protest against his rudeness. She tried gently to convince him that it was not so. Mor looked on. He felt intense disappointment that Miss Carter was going away so soon. It was the last time he would really see her. He drained his glass.
‘May I at least see the picture of myself,’ he said, ‘before you go?’
Miss Carter looked into the sketch book and then closed it. She looked rather oddly at Mor. Then she said, ‘No, I don’t think so. It’s not very good. Sorry, I’d rather not show it to you, it really isn’t anything.’ She moved away towards the door. Mor stood by the mantelpiece while she lingered in the doorway, still disputing with Demoyte. Then she said ‘Good night’ abruptly, and disappeared.
Demoyte came back to the hearth, shuffling his feet. Without a word he refilled Mor’s glass. They both sat down and looked at each other irritably. Mor thought it quite likely that it was Demoyte’s rudeness that had driven Miss Carter away, and he felt correspondingly annoyed with Demoyte. They sat for a while, glumly.
‘You haven’t got to rush away, have you?’ said Demoyte.
Mor knew that, for all his irritation, the old man badly wanted him to stay.
‘No, sir,’ said Mor. ‘This is Nan’s Women’s Institute night. I’m in no hurry.’ They settled down to their brandy. Mor wondered if Demoyte would mention the incident of the letter. He was sure he was thinking about it.
‘She is so small,’ Demoyte began thoughtfully. ‘What is she like? A small boy, of course, but what else, with her small hands and her big eyes, and the way she togs herself up in bright colours? She’s rather like a clown or a performing dog-in fact, very like a performing dog, with a pretty check jacket on and a bow on its tail, so anxious to please, and doing everything as if it were not quite natural, and with those eyes.’
Mor thought this disrespectful. ‘She seems very serious about her painting,’ he said.
‘You’re a dull dull fellow, Mor,’ Demoyte said suddenly.
‘What’s that one for, sir?’ said Mor patiently.
Demoyte smiled. ‘I saw you pass her a letter, he said. ’I ask no more about that. I just wonder whether you can really see her.‘
They looked at each other. Mor thought to himself, the old man is a little bit in love with her - and he wondered what Miss Carter would think if she knew of the tenderness she had inspired in this unexpected quarter. He felt he should disillusion Demoyte. ‘The letter had no sentimental significance,’ he said.
Demoyte looked at him critically, a little sceptically. ‘Then so much the worse for you, my boy,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about something else - Felicity for instance. You didn’t mean what you said just now about the secretarial course?’
‘Not altogether,’ said Mor, ‘but it’s not so
easy to see what to do. An academic career would be a gamble for Felicity. She might develop-I believe she would - but she might just bungle it, and not be happier in the end. And there’s the question of financing her. Even with a county grant, it’ll cost a packet to put Donald through Cambridge. And I just don’t know that I can manage it for both of them.’
‘Mor,’ said Demoyte, ‘are you going to be an M.P.?’
‘I’m going to be a candidate,’ said Mor. ‘Whether I’ll be an M.P. depends on the electorate.’
‘It’s a safe seat,’ said Demoyte. ‘So you’ve decided at last. Nan came round, did she?’
‘I haven’t told her yet,’ said Mor. He spoke tonelessly, swinging his brandy round in the glass and looking down into it.
‘I take back what I said just now,’ said Demoyte. ‘I only said it to hurt you anyway, as you well know - and because I was for a moment - never mind that. I’m immensely glad that you’ve decided. My only sadness is that I may lose your friendship when you’re an important man.’