Paid In Full/Chapter 22

‘ that’s the real story?’ said Uncle Tony.

He was sitting under the beech-tree on the lawn after dinner, hardly visible except for the glow of his cigar. Mildred, a dim vision in white, reclined in a deep cane chair beside him. The river was audible close by, rippling against the roots of the willows. A boat carrying a gramophone was drifting past on the far side, the raucosity of the instrument mellowed by transmission over water. A mile upstream, over Ripleigh Reach, the sky was intermittently illuminated by fireworks and set pieces. Excited shouts came floating down the soft night breeze.

‘Yes,’ said Mildred, ‘you know it all now.’ She extended a tired hand, and laid it on her uncle’s. ‘Having told you, old friend, I feel that I can go on again. I very nearly gave up this afternoon: if Molly hadn’t dropped in on us from the skies, I should have shrieked out the whole story. I feel stronger now—since I’ve confessed.’

‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved. Hallo, what’s that?’

There was a crash and a shriek in mid-stream, and the gramophone ceased to function. Sounds of an altercation followed, during which one gentleman was heard recommending another gentleman to fry his face.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mildred, as Sir Anthony rose and peered across the river.

‘Nothing serious. Ships that can’t pass in the night, that’s all.’

‘Steering isn’t too easy. The river is running strongly after this week’s downpour.’

‘So I noticed this afternoon, as I watched Master Leo Bagby contending with his punt-pole. It was lucky for the crews they hadn’t to row upstream, or our young lightweights would have had a bad time of it.’ The old gentleman sat down again. ‘Now—what are we going to do about it?’

‘What do you advise, Uncle Tony?’

‘My advice to you is the advice which I have been offering to people throughout the forty years of my extremely undiplomatic career. When in doubt, tell the truth! Tell your children who this man is.’

‘That would involve telling them what he is, and—what their mother is. Uncle Tony, I couldn’t! The shame of it, for them! A father like that, and a liar for a mother—a liar for all these years! I couldn’t! I couldn’t!’

‘I don’t think,’ said Uncle Tony soberly, ‘that you need fear your children’s verdict on that particular count, Mildred.’

‘Still, I can’t do it. I realised that the moment Molly burst in on us this afternoon. They mustn’t know about the—about the—the–’

‘The stock they sprang from—eh? I see your point.’ Uncle Tony turned thoughtfully to his niece. ‘Mildred, what is this man’s price? I am sure he has one.’

Mildred shook her head.

‘I’ve offered him all the money I have, to go away; but he won’t.’

‘Why should he? He knows a soft berth when he sees one. Our job is to make him realise how precarious his position is. If his identity is revealed, he will have to go—to gaol, for all we know. Hasn’t he any proposal to make—any compromise to offer?’

‘Yes. That was what he came about this afternoon. He wants me to take him as my second husband.’

Sir Anthony was fairly startled this time.

‘To marry him—again?’

‘Yes. Go through the ceremony as if it were something quite new to us both.’

‘H’m! It’s an ingenious suggestion. I can see his point of view: your lips permanently sealed, and free board and lodging for life for him. Incidentally, he would find himself in the unique position of second husband to a wife who couldn’t possibly cast up to him the virtues of her first! He’s a humorous rogue. Still, I don’t quite see where you come in.’

‘No. I don’t suppose he thought of that.’

‘I’m quite certain he didn’t. You refused, of course?’

‘Of course. It would be a living lie—and I’ve lied enough.’

‘What then? You said this afternoon you thought there was an alternative.’

‘Yes,’ said Mildred in a low voice. ‘I—I could go back to him.’

‘Back to him?’ ‘Yes—by myself. Not immediately, of course,’ she explained hurriedly; ‘but in a few years’ time. I’ll promise him that—with every penny I have thrown in—if only he’ll go right away and not come back until I have had a chance to get the children settled in life. After all, they’re getting pretty big now—aren’t they? Joan is as good as engaged to Leo, so she’s no anxiety. Denny will soon be able to keep himself. Molly’—her voice shook here—‘Molly will soon grow up, and—and—marry some nice boy. I shall be quite an independent lady then, able to give my whole time to—my husband. I think he needs me, Uncle Tony. I think it’s what I ought to have decided on all along.’

Uncle Tony rose to his feet.

‘My God, Mildred,’ he said, ‘you’re a brave woman!’

‘No, I’m not. I’m a fearful coward, really; but I happen to be a mother, I suppose.’

‘Well, I don’t happen to be a mother, but I know courage when I meet it.’

Mildred sighed.

‘It’s terribly hard, being courageous, Uncle Tony. I suppose to a man it comes natural; but—’

‘Man? Don’t you believe it! The average man is the most pusillanimous creature alive; the average woman has seven times his pluck.’

Mildred shook her head.

‘It’s sweet of you to try and cheer me up,’ she said, ‘but I can’t believe that. Look at the things our men did in the War.’

‘Yes; and I bet most of them were in a blue funk while they were doing them. In my young days I had to do them myself, and I know.’ Sir Anthony sat down again. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Mildred, to consider why men do brave things—or, for that matter, honourable things?’

‘Because they are brave and honourable men, I suppose.’

‘Stuff and nonsense! Most of us are arrant cowards or natural rapscallions. Such efforts as we make in the direction of courage or virtue are prompted as often as not by a childish desire to live up to a standard set for us by some one else. That’s what it comes to. Believe me, Mildred, many a man has won the Victoria Cross with his heart in his boots, simply because some fuzzy-headed little nonentity in a jazz jumper at Tooting has taken it for granted from the start that he was going to win it, and he didn’t dare go home without it. It’s the same with our morals. We keep straight—we do the big thing—not because we’re naturally virtuous or generous, but from a foolish pride in living up to some still more foolish person’s estimate of us.’

Mildred rose to her feet.

‘Dear Uncle Tony,’ she said softly, ‘I believe you’re talking all this nonsense just to get me out of my black mood.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Sir Anthony indignantly. ‘It’s golden truth! I give women up!’ He took her hand in his, to prove his words. ‘And you would renounce everything—your pleasant position, and your pleasant neighbours—to go back to that fellow?’

‘Yes, if it would help.’

‘Does he want you?’

‘He says so.’

‘Do you think

he loves you?’

‘I don’t see how he can. I know too much about his character. A man can forgive a woman anything but that. But he seems to need me.’

‘May I ask one more impertinent question? Do you—love him?’

Mildred’s grip tightened.

‘When I married him,’ she replied steadily, ‘I gave him everything; and I’m not the sort that asks for things back again, Uncle Tony.’

Uncle Tony gently released her hand, and nodded.

‘I understand,’ he said—‘so far as a man can. Is that some one talking?’

‘Yes. It sounds like Denny and Miss Harding. The backwater runs up this way, just beyond those laurels. I think they’re getting a boat out.’

Denny’s voice broke clear, close by—Denny’s voice of ceremony.

‘Take my hand, Miss Harding: it’s pretty murky here.’ There came a rustling sound, as of chiffon brushing against foliage. ‘That’s right: here we are! Now, shall we have the canoe, or the electric punt? The punt is the safest; the canoe the snuggest.’

‘Let’s have the canoe,’ replied the demure voice of Miss Phyllis Harding.

Considerable commotion followed—the commotion of extreme solicitude.

‘There we are!’ said Denny at last. ‘Here’s a cushion for your back, and here’s a paddle for you. You needn’t use it if you don’t want to. I’ll do the donkey work.’

Miss Harding spoke again.

‘I think it’s wonderful, all you know about boats, Mr. Cradock,’ she said.

‘I should be a pretty fair rotter if I didn’t. I’ve spent all my life on the river, you know.’

‘I see. Were you rowing in the Regatta to-day?’

‘Oh, in a small way.’

‘I like him for saying that,’ murmured Sir Anthony.

‘Now for a cigarette,’ continued Denny, ‘and we’ll push off. I think you said you didn’t smoke?’

‘No. I’m afraid it’s stupid of me.’

‘I think it shows great character.’

‘Oh, do you, Mr. Cradock?’ Miss Harding was plainly gratified—and surprised.

‘Yes,’ said Denny firmly. ‘Half the girls I know only smoke because they’re afraid to refuse. It’s the same with cocktails, and things like that.’

‘I don’t like them, either.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it. I hate to see women drinking.’

‘Then’—Miss Harding’s voice sounded more demure than ever—‘you don’t think me old-fashioned?’

‘Old fashions,’ announced Denny with intense solemnity, ‘are the best.’

‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ inquired Sir Anthony of his niece.

‘The fact is,’ continued Denny, with all the zeal of the recently reformed, ‘you get to know the modern girl so quickly that, before you know where you are, you know her too well—and there you are! Why, Miss Harding, some of them get quite ratty if you don’t call them by their Christian names right off.’

‘Oh, Mr. Cradock!’ replied Miss Harding in a shocked voice.

‘Now,’ continued Denny, warming to his work, ‘I simply can’t express to you what a treat it has been to meet you. It is seldom in these days that one en counters a girl with so much—er—. You are so beautifully natural—so content to be yourself, and so on. You are so—stop me if I’m annoying you.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Miss Harding hurriedly.

‘The trouble with the average girl,’ continued Denny, reassured, ‘is that she is deadly afraid of being thought simple, and—er—normal. She has to go about all the time pretending to be dissipated and blasée [sic] when she isn’t a bit, really.’

‘You’re terribly critical of us, Mr. Cradock.’

‘Oh, I’m not criticising one sex alone. Men are just as idiotic. Miss Harding’—Denny’s voice dropped to a very creditable imitation of Uncle Tony’s most pontifical rumble—‘there are far more good people walking this earth pretending to be bad than bad people pretending to be good. There’s nothing makes a wolf—sheep—feel so safe as making a noise like a sheep—wolf! Scratch a devil—’

There came a faint squeak from Miss Harding, accompanied by strangled sounds from beneath the beech-tree, as of an Elder Statesman fighting for breath.

‘Anyhow,’ concluded Denny, floundering to safe ground, ‘I think you’re the most exceptional girl I’ve ever known in my life.’

‘Oh, do you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh!’ A gentle sigh followed; then prolonged silence.

‘We appear to be eavesdropping,’ murmured Uncle Tony. ‘Perhaps it would be kind to do something about it.’ He rose, and coughed laboriously. ‘I’m going into the house for another cigar,’ he proclaimed.

‘All right, Uncle Tony,’ replied Mildred. ‘I’ll wait here for you.’

Sir Anthony shaped a cautious course through the soft darkness, and presently arrived upon the little landing-stage which projected into the tree-girt backwater. Here a certain amount of illumination was provided by a row of Chinese lanterns on a string. He found two extremely self-conscious young people, reclining at opposite ends of a Canadian canoe.

‘Hallo, Denny!’ he said. ‘Enjoying the fireworks?’

‘Rather, Uncle Tony!’ replied Denny, with great heartiness.

‘You don’t get a very good view from here.’

‘No, you don’t. The fact is, we’re a bit late in starting. Miss Harding, we must bustle about. What about it?’ Denny hurriedly unmoored the canoe. Uncle Tony, having had his little joke, departed contentedly across the lawn; but Mildred appeared in his place.

‘Take care of yourselves, children,’ she said.

‘We shall be all right, Mother,’ replied Denny.

‘I feel so safe, Mrs. Cradock,’ remarked Phyllis, ‘with Mr. Cradock.’

Mildred smiled, and was upon the point of following Uncle Tony, when Denny, with a hurried apology to his passenger, scrambled out of the canoe and followed her.

‘Mother,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you this afternoon. I lost my temper.’

‘That’s all right, dear,’ said Mildred, with a sudden access of happiness. She placed her hands upon her tall son’s shoulders, and reached up to kiss him. Denny responded readily enough; then stood hesitating, as if trying to bring himself to say something further. Finally, he turned away.

‘Now, then, Miss Harding,’ he said, ‘full speed ahead!’

Grasping a gunnel in each hand, he took a running push. Next moment the canoe was gliding riverward, with an extremely well-satisfied passenger seated at either end.

Mildred watched them out of sight; then turned, to find Sir Anthony standing beside her.

‘I’m glad he did that,’ remarked the old man.

‘So am I. You saw, then?’

‘Yes. Does it mean that the expedition to Paris is definitely relinquished?’

‘I’m afraid not. It was on the tip of his tongue to give it all up just now, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to speak.’

‘Perhaps Miss Phyllis will help him to decide.’

Mildred smiled. ‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘It seems to be developing into a severe case,’ observed Sir Anthony. ‘She’s infectious, all right!’

‘She’s a very nice girl,’ said Mildred; ‘and, what’s more, she’s tall and dark. He’s always liked them fair and fluffy before.’

‘That’s the most cheering piece of intelligence I’ve heard to-day. My godson inoculated against fluff—it’s almost too much to hope! Hallo, here come the other two creatures: I wonder what their symptoms are.’

Joan and Leo appeared, from the direction of the towpath and Ripleigh Reach.

‘Hallo, Mother!’ cried Joan; ‘we’ve been hunting for you. We’ve got a seat for you in the Enclosure.’

‘The set pieces are just coming on, sir,’ announced Leo to Sir Anthony. ‘I’ll tell you how they work.’

‘I was afraid you would,’ replied Uncle Tony resignedly.

‘Where’s my Littlest?’ asked Mildred suddenly.

‘Your leprous child?’ said Joan. ‘She was with us until about half an hour ago, making a public nuisance of herself on the towpath—pestering young men in blue blazers for their autographs, and probably giving them mumps in return!’

Mildred smiled indulgently.

‘She ought really to be isolated,’ she said. ‘I must go and find her.’

‘She’s all right, Mrs. Cradock,’ announced Leo reassuringly. ‘She’s on the water at present; so the risk is limited to one gentleman.’

‘And who is the poor gentleman?’ asked Mildred.

‘Captain Conway.’

‘Captain Conway?’

‘Yes.’ Leo was brimming over with information, as usual. ‘I saw them push off together from the Committee landing-stage, in his punt.’

‘Oh!’ said Mildred, in dismay.

Joan turned to her. ‘They’ll be all right, Mother,’ she said quickly.

‘But I don’t think she ought to be on the river at all, at this time of night—with anybody!’ said Mildred, with agitation in every note of her voice. ‘Please run and look for her, Leo, and tell her to come at once. Take a boat, or something—anything!’

‘Righto, Mrs. Cradock.’

‘You go, too, Joan: you’ll pick her out sooner.’

‘All right, Mother!’ said Joan; and the pair ran off together.

Mildred took Sir Anthony’s arm. She was trembling violently, and he helped her to a seat—a rustic bench on the little landing-stage. There she sat—shaking, despairing, almost beaten—with her dull gaze fixed on the glimmering surface of the backwater.

‘It’s happened,’ she whispered—‘what I dreaded most of all! Molly!’

‘They were bound to come together sooner or later, dear.’

‘But not like this—when he’s in this mood! He knows his position is desperate. He’ll do anything—anything—to enlist her on his side. I know him: I know the sort of story he’ll tell her! And she’s so innocent—so credulous—so impulsive!’ Mildred flung a frightened glance out towards the dark waters of the river. ‘She’s at his mercy out there! She’s at his mercy! We’re all at his mercy! Uncle Tony, he’ll take her away from me!’

‘No, he won’t. No one can ever take her away from you.’

‘Yes, he will! It’s no use going on any longer; I’m beaten. There’s no way out! There’s no way out!’ Mildred buried her face in her hands, and broke into hysterical sobbing. Her iron self-control had gone at last.

Uncle Tony took his niece’s hand, and spoke, in quite a new voice—the steady, even tones of a thoughtful man who is weighing his words, and who believes implicitly in what he is saying.

‘Yet a little while!’ he said. ‘You’ve been so splendid so far. Listen to me, and to my confession of faith. I have been young, and now I am old: I have had my share of the perplexities and sorrows of this world; and they have taught me just two lessons. The first is that where human nature is concerned you never can foretell anything. A clever man is never infallibly clever; a bad man is never utterly vile. There is a white spot on the blackest of us, and one never knows when it will not be revealed. That is one lesson; the other is this. There is always a way out of every difficulty.’

‘Not always.’

‘Yes—always. You and I may not be able to see it, but it is there. If that had not been so, the human family would not have survived for so many centuries. So long as God’s writ runs on earth, there will always be a way out, even though sometimes a miracle be required to reveal it to us. We are only gropers—sometimes merely because our eyes are shut—but the light is there all the time. Courage!’

Mildred looked up. Her face was wet—at last.

‘Bless you, dear!’ she said softly. She rose, and took the old man’s arm. ‘Shall we go into the house—and wait?’

They passed slowly through the laurels, across the lawn, and out of sight.

A moment later, a long, narrow racing punt, skilfully propelled, turned into the backwater from the river outside, and came gliding up to the little landing-stage. It contained a tall man in a dinner jacket, and a little girl in a short pink frock. They were Denis Cradock and his daughter Molly.