‘I rang you up,’ she said, after a moment, ‘because I thought it just possible you might be able to help me out of it. Jolly cool, I expect you’ll think. But even if you do, I know you’ll listen to me. I simply must tell someone about it. And I could think of no one but you.’
‘Carry on,’ he said quietly. ‘What kind of a mess is it? Money—or a man?’
‘Both,’ she said curtly. ‘It’s simply a shocking mess.’
‘Told your husband about it?’
‘Heavens, no.’
‘That’s bad. Why not?’
‘I couldn’t. I’ve tried to screw myself up to do it—to tell him everything. But I can’t. I know he’d never forgive me … in his heart … even if the outside of him pretended to forgive me. He’s the best—the noblest man I have ever known. You can’t know, Wick, how good and fine he is. But … he’d never forgive … this.’
‘Rot,’ said Gore succinctly. ‘Piffle. Humbug.’
She made a little wretched gesture.
‘Ah, you’ve no idea what an idiot I’ve been, Wick.’
‘I wonder.’
‘You wonder?’
Her face turned to him sharply in the twilight.
‘No, no,’ he assured her quietly. ‘No one has told me anything. My wonder is merely the result of my own, I’m afraid, rather impertinent observation … and, if you’ll permit me to say so, your own infernal carelessness, young woman. I heard—you really compelled me to hear—a remark which you made last night, practically in my ear—not to me—but to … er … someone else.’
‘My God!’ she said in alarm, ‘you heard—What did I say?’
‘Er … something about a door, which might possibly not be open, you thought, but which Mr … er … the gentleman to whom you made the remark … seemed to think would be open.’
‘My God!’ she said again, her hands twisting nervously. ‘Did Lady Wellmore hear?’
‘I hope not. I think not. Though that’s not your fault. Then, the man is Mr Barrington?’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence. Gore rose to his feet abruptly, walked to the door, and flooded the room with light.
‘Well, Pickles, all I have to say to you—and I prefer to say it to your face, please—is this. You’re the silliest kind of silly ass. Mind—I know very little about this chap Barrington—can’t say I care much for most of what I do know. But if he were the best man that ever stepped—and he isn’t that—I should say just the same thing to you. Sorry I can’t be more sympathetic. I presume you expected I should be. But, as a confidant of illicit love-affairs, I’m afraid I’m rather a wash-out.’
She turned back upon him with a movement of exasperation.
‘Oh, don’t be a fool, Wick,’ she said sharply. ‘Good Heavens … I’m not that sort of idiot.’
‘Not that sort of idiot?’ he repeated. ‘Then may I ask what sort of idiot you are?’
‘Sit down. Don’t fidget about that way. I’ll tell you the whole thing—right from the beginning … It began this way. I met Mr Barrington four years ago … and … well, I had an affair with him … I didn’t know Sidney then—I hadn’t met him. He had only just come to Linwood, and I hadn’t come across him. If I had … well, this would never have happened …’
‘Suppose … er … we keep to what did happen …?’
‘I met Mr Barrington—he was Captain Barrington then—at a gymkhana got up by the Remount Depot people at Barhams. There was a Remount Depot out there, you know. He was stationed there then—in the summer of nineteen-eighteen. He won all sorts of things that afternoon—he’s a magnificent horseman—and, well, I was introduced to him and fell in love with him on the spot—that’s the long and the short of it—over head and ears the very first moment he spoke to me. You don’t understand that sort of thing. I know it will seem just silly to you—’
‘No, no, no. I’ve known it to happen before. Carry on.’
‘Well, it lasted for just five months—’
‘Five months is quite a long time. And then … it stopped?’
‘Yes. Something happened—and suddenly I saw what a frightful idiot I had been. It stopped then—very abruptly. He went away for a bit—when the depot was broken up—in the January of nineteen-nineteen. Then, a few months later, when he had been demobbed, he came back here again … to live. He had a flat at first in York Gardens, until he married and moved to Hatfield Place. He married Ethel Melville that spring—the very week I met Sidney. Of course I had to come across him. I couldn’t avoid it. I had known Ethel Melville all my life, and of course I had to call and dine with them and ask them to dine here, and so on. He was always at the Arndales’ house … In fact I ran into him and Ethel everywhere I went. However, he was always just polite—you know?—just like any other man one met. I thought at that time that the whole thing was done with—that he had done with me. But he hadn’t. He hasn’t. And that’s the mess.’
Gore shrugged his shoulders.
‘I suppose I’m more stupid than usual, or something. What, in the name of Heaven, is the mess?’
‘I’m not going into lurid details, Wick. You’ve got to try to understand that girls—even girls who are supposed, by misguided people like yourself, to be quite nice girls—are liable to be swept off their feet absolutely … if they happen just to have the bad luck to come across … a certain sort of man … the sort of man that Mr Barrington is. You can understand yourself, can’t you … that he is the sort of man who would sweep a girl off her feet?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘When I say sweep off her feet … I mean … well … the limit. You’re such an old dear that I know you’ll hardly believe that I could be capable of the limit. I’m afraid I am … or rather, was. At any rate … on a certain night in December, nineteen-eighteen, I got as near to it as doesn’t matter—with Mr Barrington’s kind assistance. Don’t look so unconvincing, Wick. I know you’re shocked to the marrow … However … there it is. By the merest fluke, I stopped there and had a good look at things. And nothing happened. Which was a jolly sight more than I deserved. Delightfully candid, am I not? I assure you there isn’t another man in the world upon whom I would inflict my candour so lavishly … if that is any consolation …’
‘Good. Let’s get to the ’osses.’
‘Well … as I say … nothing did happen. But nobody, you see … as things were … would believe that. That’s the trouble. Most of it, anyhow. I was fool enough … mad enough … to stay a night at a hotel at Bournemouth—with Mr Barrington … just before Christmas, nineteen-eighteen.’
Gore stared at her blankly.
‘Hell, Pickles,’ he said at length softly, ‘what did you do that for?’
‘I was infatuated with him, then. That’s the only word for it. I adored him—I thought of nothing, cared for nothing, wanted nothing … except to be with him. It seems extraordinary to me now … but—Well, that’s what happened, anyhow. I stayed a night at the Palatine at Bournemouth with him … as Mrs Barrington. If you care to take the trouble to go down to Bournemouth and ask them to let you look at the register for the date December 17th, 1918, you’ll see my beautiful handwriting. He was clever enough to make me sign— Trust him.’
‘But … how the …?’ Gore burst out after some