X
THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES
"Toye's gone back to Italy," said Cazalet. "He says he may be away onlya week. Let's make it the week of our lives!"
The scene was the little room it pleased Blanche to call her parlor, andthe time a preposterously early hour of the following forenoon. Cazaletmight have 'planed down from the skies into her sunny snuggery, thoughhis brand-new Burberry rather suggested another extravagant taxicab. ButBlanche saw only his worn excited face; and her own was not at its bestin her sheer amazement.
If she had heard the last two sentences, to understand them at the timeshe would have felt bound to take them up first, and to ask how on earthMr. Toye could affect her plans or pleasures. But such was the effect ofthe preceding statement that all the rest was several moments on the wayto her comprehension, where it arrived, indeed, more incomprehensiblethan ever, but not worth making a fuss about then.
"Italy!" she had ejaculated meanwhile. "_When_ did he go?"
"Nine o'clock last night."
"But"--she checked herself--"I simply can't understand it, that's all!"
"Why? Have you seen him since the other afternoon?"
His manner might have explained those other two remarks, now botheringher when it was too late to notice them; on the other hand, she was byno means sure that it did. He might simply dislike Toye, and that againmight explain his extraordinary heat over the argument at Littleford.Blanche began to feel the air somewhat heavily charged withexplanations, either demanded or desired; they were things she hated,and she determined not to add to them if she could help it.
"I haven't set eyes on him again," she said. "But he's been seenhere--in a taxi."
"Who saw him?"
"Martha--if she's not mistaken."
This was a little disingenuous, as will appear; but that impetuous Sweepwas in a merciful hurry to know something else.
"When was this, Blanche?"
"Just about dark--say seven or so. She owns it was about dark," saidBlanche, though she felt ashamed of herself.
"Well, it's just possible. He left me about six; said he had to seesome one, too, now I think of it. But I'd give a bit to know what he wasdoing, messing about down here at the last moment!"
Blanche liked this as little as anything that Cazalet had said yet, andhe had said nothing that she did like this morning. But there wereallowances to be made for him, she knew. And yet to strengthen herknowledge, or rather to let him confirm it for her, either by word or byhis silence, she stated a certain case for him aloud.
"Poor old Sweep!" she laughed. "It's a shame that you should have comehome to be worried like this."
"I am worried," he said simply.
"I think it's just splendid, all you're doing for that poor man, butespecially the way you're doing it."
"I wish to God you wouldn't say that, Blanche!"
He paid her the compliment of speaking exactly as he would have spokento a man; or rather, she happened to be the woman to take it as acompliment.
"But I do say it, Sweep! I've heard all about it from Charlie. He rangme up last night."
"You're on the telephone, are you?"
"Everybody is in these days. Where have you lived? Oh, I forgot!" Andshe laughed. Anything to lift this duet of theirs out of the minor key!
"But what does old Charlie really think of the case? That's more to thepoint," said Cazalet uneasily.
"Well, he seemed to fear there was no chance of bail before theadjourned hearing. But I rather gathered he was not going to be in ithimself?"
"No. We decided on one of those sportsmen who love rushing in where afamily lawyer like Charlie owns to looking down his nose. I've seen thechap, and primed him up about old Savage, and our find in thefoundations. He says he'll make an example of Drinkwater, and Charliesays they call him the Bobby's Bugbear!"
"But surely he'll have to tell his client who's behind him?"
"No. He's just the type who would have rushed in, anyhow. And it'll betime enough to put Scruton under obligations when I've got him off!"
Blanche looked at the troubled eyes avoiding hers, and thought that shehad never heard of a fine thing being done so finely. This veryshamefacedness appealed to her intensely, and yet last night Charlie hadsaid that old Sweep was in such tremendous spirits about it all! Why washe so down this morning?
She only knew she could have taken his hand, but for a very good reasonwhy she could not. She had even to guard against an equivocallysympathetic voice or manner, as she asked, "How long did they remand himfor?"
"Eight days."
"Well, then, you'll know the best or the worst to-day week!"
"Yes!" he said eagerly, almost himself again. "But, whichever way itgoes, I'm afraid it means trouble for me, Blanche; some time or otherI'll tell you why; but that's why I want this to be the week of ourlives."
So he really meant what he had said before. The phrase had been nocareless misuse of words; but neither, after all, did it necessarilyapply to Mr. Toye. That was something. It made it easier for Blanche notto ask questions.
Cazalet had gone out on the balcony; now he called to her; and therewas no taxi, but a smart open car, waiting in the road, its brassesblazing in the sun, an immaculate chauffeur at the wheel.
"Whose is that, Sweep?"
"Mine, for the week I'm talking about! I mean ours, if you'd only buckup and get ready to come out! A week doesn't last forever, you know!"
Blanche ran off to Martha, who fussed and hindered her with the bestintentions. It would have been difficult to say which was the moreexcited of the two. But the old nurse would waste time in perfectlyfatuous reminiscences of the very earliest expeditions in which Mr.Cazalet had lead and Blanche had followed, and what a bonny pair theyhad made even then, etc. Severely snubbed on that subject, she took topeering at her mistress, once her bairn, with furtive eagerness andimpatience; for Blanche, on her side, looked as though she had somethingon her mind, and, indeed, had made one or two attempts to get it off.She had to force it even in the end.
"There's just one thing I want to say before I go, Martha."
"Yes, dearie, yes?"
"You know when Mr. Toye called yesterday, and I was out?"
"Oh, Mr. Toye; yes, I remember, Miss Blanche."
"Well, I don't want you to say that he came in and waited half an hourin vain; in fact, not that he came in at all, or that you're even sureyou saw him, unless, of course, you're asked."
"Who should ask me, I wonder?"
"Well, I don't know, but there seems to be a little bad blood betweenMr. Toye and Mr. Cazalet."
Martha looked for a moment as though she were about to weep, and thenfor another moment as though she would die of laughing. But a thirdmoment she celebrated by making an utter old fool of herself, as shewould have been told to her face by anybody but Blanche, whose yellowhair was being disarranged by the very hands that had helped to imprisonit under that motor-hat and veil.
"Oh, Blanchie, is that all you have to tell me?" said Martha.
And then the week of their lives began.