Taken At The Flood

He said unconvincingly:

‘There is nothing the matter—’

She did not answer. She merely waited inquiringly. His denial, it seemed, she put aside as negligible. He looked at her uncertainly.

And just for a moment the imperturbable mask of his grey face slipped, and she caught a glimpse of such turbulent agony that she almost exclaimed aloud. It was only for a moment but she didn’t doubt what she had seen.

She said quietly and unemotionally:

‘I think you had better tell me—’

He sighed—a deep unhappy sigh.

‘You will have to know, of course,’ he said, ‘sooner or later.’

And he added what was to her a very astonishing phrase.

‘I’m afraid you’ve made a bad bargain, Frances.’

She went right past an implication she did not understand to attack hard facts.

‘What is it,’ she said; ‘money?’

She did not know why she put money first. There had been no special signs of financial stringency other than were natural to the times. They were short-staffed at the office with more business than they could cope with, but that was the same everywhere and in the last month they had got back some of their people released from the Army. It might just as easily have been illness that he was concealing—his colour had been bad lately, and he had been overworked and overtired. But nevertheless Frances’ instinct went towards money, and it seemed she was right.

Her husband nodded.

‘I see.’ She was silent a moment, thinking. She herself did not really care about money at all—but she knew that Jeremy was quite incapable of realizing that. Money meant to him a four-square world—stability—obligations—a definite place and status in life.

Money to her was a toy tossed into one’s lap to play with. She had been born and bred in an atmosphere of financial instability. There had been wonderful times when the horses had done what was expected of them. There had been difficult times when the tradesmen wouldn’t give credit and Lord Edward had been forced to ignominious straits to avoid the bailiffs on the front-door step. Once they had lived on dry bread for a week and sent all the servants away. They had had the bailiffs in the house for three weeks once when Frances was a child. She had found the bum in question very agreeable to play with and full of stories of his own little girl.

If one had no money one simply scrounged, or went abroad, or lived on one’s friends and relations for a bit. Or somebody tided you over with a loan…

But looking across at her husband Frances realized that in the Cloade world you didn’t do that kind of thing. You didn’t beg or borrow or live on other people. (And conversely you didn’t expect them to beg or borrow or live off you!)

Frances felt terribly sorry for Jeremy and a little guilty about being so unperturbed herself. She took refuge in practicality.

‘Shall we have to sell up everything? Is the firm going smash?’

Jeremy Cloade winced, and she realized she had been too matter-of-fact.

‘My dear,’ she said gently, ‘do tell me. I can’t go on guessing.’

Cloade said stiffly, ‘We went through rather a bad crisis two years ago. Young Williams, you remember, absconded. We had some difficulty getting straight again. Then there were certain complications arising out of the position in the Far East after Singapore—’

She interrupted him.

‘Never mind the whys—they are so unimportant. You were in a jam. And you haven’t been able to snap out of it?’

He said, ‘I relied on Gordon. Gordon would have put things straight.’

She gave a quick impatient sigh.

‘Of course. I don’t want to blame the poor man—after all, it’s only human nature to lose your head about a pretty woman. And why on earth shouldn’t he marry again if he wanted to? But it was unfortunate his being killed in that air raid before he’d settled anything or made a proper will or adjusted his affairs. The truth is that one never believes for a minute, no matter what danger you’re in, that you yourself are going to be killed. The bomb is always going to hit the other person!’

‘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.’