‘Apart from his loss, and I was very fond of Gordon—and proud of him too,’ said Gordon Cloade’s elder brother, ‘his death was a catastrophe for me. It came at a moment—’
He stopped.
‘Shall we be bankrupt?’ Frances asked with intelligent interest.
Jeremy Cloade looked at her almost despairingly. Though she did not realize it, he could have coped much better with tears and alarm. This cool detached practical interest defeated him utterly.
He said harshly, ‘It’s a good deal worse than that…’
He watched her as she sat quite still, thinking over that. He said to himself, ‘In another minute I shall have to tell her. She’ll know what I am… She’ll have to know. Perhaps she won’t believe it at first.’
Frances Cloade sighed and sat up straight in her big armchair.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Embezzlement. Or if that isn’t the right word, that kind of thing…like young Williams.’
‘Yes, but this time—you don’t understand—I’m responsible. I’ve used trust funds that were committed to my charge. So far, I’ve covered my tracks—’
‘But now it’s all going to come out?’
‘Unless I can get the necessary money—quickly.’
The shame he felt was the worst he had known in his life. How would she take it?
At the moment she was taking it very calmly. But then, he thought, Frances would never make a scene. Never reproach or upbraid.
Her hand to her cheek, she was frowning.
‘It’s so stupid,’ she said, ‘that I haven’t got any money of my own at all…’
He said stiffly, ‘There is your marriage settlement, but—’
She said absently, ‘But I suppose that’s gone too.’
He was silent. Then he said with difficulty, in his dry voice: ‘I’m sorry, Frances. More sorry than I can say. You made a bad bargain.’
She looked up sharply.
‘You said that before. What do you mean by that?’
Jeremy said stiffly:
‘When you were good enough to marry me, you had the right to expect—well, integrity—and a life free from sordid anxieties.’
She was looking at him with complete astonishment.
‘Really, Jeremy! What on earth do you think I married you for?’
He smiled slightly.
‘You have always been a most loyal and devoted wife, my dear. But I can hardly flatter myself that you would have accepted me in—er—different circumstances.’
She stared at him and suddenly burst out laughing.
‘You funny old stick! What a wonderful novelettish mind you must have behind that legal façade! Do you really think that I married you as the price of saving Father from the wolves—or the Stewards of the Jockey Club, et cetera?’
‘You were very fond of your father, Frances.’
‘I was devoted to Daddy! He was terribly attractive and the greatest fun to live with! But I always knew he was a bad hat. And if you think that I’d sell myself to the family solicitor in order to save him from getting what was always coming to him, then you’ve never understood the first thing about me. Never!’
She stared at him. Extraordinary, she thought, to have been married to someone for over twenty years and not have known what was going on in their minds. But how could one know when it was a mind so different from one’s own? A romantic mind, of course, well camouflaged, but essentially romantic. She thought: ‘All those old Stanley Weymans in his bedroom. I might have known from them! The poor idiotic darling!’
Aloud she said:
‘I married you because I was in love with you, of course.’
‘In love with me? But what could you see in me?’
‘If you ask me that, Jeremy, I really don’t know. You were such a change, so different from all Father’s crowd. You never talked about horses for one thing. You’ve no idea how sick I was of horses—and what the odds were likely to be for the Newmarket Cup! You came to dinner one night—do you remember?—and I sat next to you and asked you what bimetallism was, and you told me—really told me! It took the whole of dinner—six courses—we were in funds at the moment and had a French chef!’
‘It must have been extremely boring,’ said Jeremy.
‘It was fascinating! Nobody had ever treated me seriously before. And you were so polite and yet never seemed to look at me or think I was nice or good-looking or anything. It put me on my mettle. I swore I’d make you notice me.’
Jeremy Cloade said grimly…‘I noticed you all right. I went home that evening and didn’t sleep a wink. You had a blue dress with cornflowers…’
There was silence for a moment or two, then Jeremy cleared his throat.
‘Er—all that is a long time ago…’
She came quickly to the rescue of his embarrassment.
‘And we’re now a middle-aged married couple in difficulties, looking for the best way out.’
‘After what you’ve just told me, Frances, it makes it a thousand times worse that this—this disgrace—’
She interrupted him.
‘Let us please get things clear. You are being apologetic because you’ve fallen foul of the law. You may be prosecuted—go to prison.’ (He winced.) ‘I don’t want that to happen. I’ll fight like anything to stop it, but don’t credit me with moral indignation. We’re not a moral family, remember. Father, in spite of his attractiveness, was a bit of a crook. And there was Charles—my cousin. They hushed it up and he wasn’t prosecuted, and they hustled him off to the Colonies. And there was my cousin Gerald—he forged a cheque at Oxford. But he went to fight and got a posthumous V.C. for complete bravery and devotion to his men and superhuman endurance. What I’m trying to say is people are like that—not quite bad or quite good. I don’t suppose I’m particularly straight myself—I have been because there hasn’t been any temptation to be otherwise. But what I have got is plenty of courage and’ (she smiled at him) ‘I’m loyal!’
‘My dear!’ He got up and came over to her. He stooped and put his lips to her hair.
‘And now,’ said Lord Edward Trenton’s daughter, smiling up at him, ‘what are we going to do? Raise money somehow?’
Jeremy’s face stiffened.
‘I don’t see how.’
‘A mortgage on this house. Oh, I see,’ she was quick, ‘that’s been done. I’m stupid. Of course you’ve done all the obvious things. It’s a question then of a touch? Who can we touch? I suppose there’s only one possibility. Gordon’s widow—the dark Rosaleen!’
Jeremy shook his head dubiously.
‘It would have to be a large sum… And it can’t come out of capital. The money’s only in trust for her for her life.’
‘I hadn’t realized that. I thought