Thorley Weir

"I can't and won't believe it," he said.

There was still an hour to spare before he need go home to dinner, and he bustled out for a walk in the Park in the fading day. Spring was languorous in the air, but triumphantly victorious in the spaces of grass, where she marched with daffodils and crocuses for the banner of her advancing vanguard. The squibs of green leaves had burst from their red sheaths on the limes, and planes were putting forth tentative and angled hands, as if groping and feeling their way, still drowsy from the winter's slumber, into the air, under the provocation of the compelling month. All this did Charles good: he liked the sense of the silent plants, all expanding according to their own law, minding their own business which was just to grow and blossom, and not warning each other of the untrustworthiness of their neighbours. Frank ought to be planted out here, with a gag in his clever mouth, and an archangel or two to inject into his acidulated veins the milk of human kindness… Charles smiled at the idea: he would make a cartoon of it on a postcard and send it to him.

And then suddenly his heart hammered and stood still, and out of his brain were driven all the thoughts and suspicions that he had been stifling all day. Frank and his cynicism, Craddock and his clung-to kindnesses, his art, his mother, his dreams and deeds were all blown from him as the awakening of an untamed wind by night blows from a sultry sky the sullen and low-hung clouds, leaving the ray of stars celestial to make the darkness bright and holy again, and down the broad path towards him came Joyce. Until she had got quite close to him she did not see him, but then she stopped suddenly, and suddenly and sweetly he saw the unmanageable colour rise in her face and knew that in his own the secret signal answered hers.

"Oh, Mr. Lathom," she said, "is it you? Grandmamma telegraphed for me to come up this morning: I am here for a night."

"Not ill, I hope?" said Charles.

Joyce laughed.

"No, I am glad to say. She was not in when I got to her house, and I had to come out… Spring, you know."

Their eyes met in a long glance, and Charles drew a long breath.

"I discovered it ten minutes ago," he said. "Spring, just Spring: month of April."

For another long moment they stood there, face to face, spring round them and below and above them, and in them. Then Joyce pointed to the grass.

"Oh, the fullest wood!" she said. "I don't know why Grannie sent for me. I must be getting back. I am late already: is there a taxi, do you think?"

Charles' ill-luck prevailed: there was, and he put her into it, and stood there looking after its retreat. As it turned the corner not fifty yards away out of the Park most distinctly did he see Joyce lean forward and look out… And though not one atom of his ill-defined troubles or suspicions was relieved, he walked on air all the way home instead of wading through some foul resistant stickiness of mud… The great star, the only star that really mattered, had shone on him again, not averting its light.

But though he walked on air, the mud was still there.

"A visitor to tea, Charles. I wish you had been home earlier. Three guesses."

"Mother lies," remarked Reggie. "You do – you enjoyed being asked those things. That would never have happened if Charles had been at home."

This was rather like the uncomfortable though not uncommon phenomenon of feeling that the scene now being enacted had taken place before. Charles experienced this vividly at the moment.

"My first guess and last is Lady Crowborough," he said. "Right, I fancy."

"Near enough," said Reggie. "And her questions?"

Charles felt himself descend into the mud again. It closed stiffly about him, and he thrust something back into the darkness of his mind.

"Perfectly simple," he said. "She wanted to know exactly all about me, as if – as if she was going to engage me as a servant, and was making enquiries into my character."

"Very clever. How was it done?" asked Reggie.

"Never mind. It is done, isn't it, mother?"

"Yes, dear, but how did you know?"

"It had to be so, that is all. Oh, I've had a tiresome day all but about half a minute of it. And my portraits have to go in before the end of the week, and they will all be rejected."

"Dear, there's not much conviction in your voice," observed Mrs. Lathom. "Aren't you being Uriah-ish, as Mr. Armstrong says?"

"Probably. But Frank was sitting to me this morning, and his tirades put me out of joint. The worst of it is …"

He had stuck fast again in the slough, and again things with dreadful faces and evil communications on tongue-tip looked at him from the darkness. The sight of Reggie also had given birth to others: there they stood in a dim and lengthening line, waiting for his nod to come out into the open.

"You may as well let us know the worst," said Reggie encouragingly. "I can't bear the suspense. What is it Akroyd says: 'It – it kills me.' That's over the fourth turning. Much the funniest. What did Frank tirade about, Charles? I wish I had been there. I love hearing his warnings about the whole human race. It makes me wonder, when I can't account for a sixpence, whether you haven't taken it out of my trousers pockets while I was asleep."

"I suppose that's the sort of thing you really enjoy thinking about," said Charles savagely.

"Yes: it's so interesting. Sometimes I think you are rather bad for Frank. He said to me the other day 'You can always trust Charles.' I asked him if he didn't feel well. It wasn't like him."

Mrs. Lathom got up. It was perfectly evident that something worried Charles, and it was possible he might like to talk alone either with Reggie or her. If she took herself upstairs, Charles could join her, and leave his brother, or wait with him here, if he was to be the chosen depository.

"Don't be too long, boys," she said, going out.

Charles did not at once show any sign of the desire to consult, and Reggie, who had left Thistleton's Gallery in the winter, and obtained a clerkship in a broker's office in the city, politely recounted a witticism or two from the Stock Exchange, with a view to reconciling his brother to the human race. They fell completely flat, and Charles sat frowning and silent, blowing ragged rings of smoke.

At length he got up.

"Reggie, I've been worried all day," he said, "and seeing you has put another worry into my mind."

Reggie linked his arm in his brother's.

"I'm so sorry, Charles," he said, "and I've been babbling goatishly on. Why didn't you stop me? Nothing I've done to worry you, I hope?"

Reggie went anxiously over in his mind a variety of small adventurous affairs … but there was nothing that should cause the eclipse of his brother's spirits.

"No, it doesn't concern you in any way, except as regards your memory. If you aren't perfectly certain about a couple of points I want to ask you, say so."

"Well?"

"The first is this. Do you remember last June an American called Ward drawing a cheque at your desk at Thistleton's? I want you to tell me all that you remember about it."

Reggie leaned his arm on the chimneypiece.

"Ward and Craddock came out together," he said after a pause. "Ward asked for my pen and drew a cheque for five thousand pounds, post-dating it by a day or two. I'm not sure how long – "

"It doesn't matter," said Charles. "The cheque – "

"The cheque was for some Dutch picture he had bought. There was a Van der Weyde, I think – "

"But Dutch pictures? You never told me that. Are you sure?"

"Quite. Is that all? And what's wrong?"

Charles was silent a moment. One of the figures in the shadow leapt out of it, and seemed to nod recognition at him.

"No, there's one thing more. Didn't the same sort of affair happen again?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, much later: I should say in October. Ward did exactly the same thing, drew another cheque out at my desk, I mean, for rather an odd sum. What was it? Ten thousand, ten thousand and something – ten thousand one hundred I think. He drew it to Craddock as before. Yes, I'm sure it was for that. But how does it all concern you? Or why does it worry you? May I know, Charles?"