Kindling (3 page)

Wednesday was an easy day. He spent it largely with Heinroth; the Finnish business was going smoothly to a sound conclusion. He felt that he had done a good job of work in that quarter; his visit of the previous week had facilitated matters very much. In the afternoon he rang his house, meaning to speak to Elise, to ask her to dine with him that night and do a theatre. His butler told him she had gone to Paris, with Lady Cohen.

Warren dined alone that night.

Plumberg was with him most of the next day upon his Indo-Mexican agreement, schemed to save something from the silver wreckage that lay strewn about their feet. The Moresley Corporation met, and turned down his proposals. In the evening Heinroth rang him up; his cousin was in Paris with the Finns and would appreciate a further talk. Warren decided to go there next day.

He crossed by the earliest air service, and motored into Paris from Le Bourget before ten o’clock. He sat in conference for an hour with the Finns, then left to lunch with Heinroth’s cousin, and to walk for an hour in the Bois. By four o’clock he was in conference again in the Hotel Splendide; by eight their business was concluded for the day.

“Kom,” said the leading Finn genially. “We will now eat dinner after our great labours.”

They washed and went downstairs to the public
rooms. The lounge was thronged with people; in the great dining-room the tables clustered thickly round a small bald patch of dancing-floor. They were in morning clothes, but the head waiter met them obsequiously and bowed them to a table reserved for them in an alcove, a quiet table where they could talk undisturbed. They settled to their meal, commenting now and then upon the dancers or the cabaret.

Presently Warren called the head waiter to him. “The gentleman of colour at the table over on the other side,” he said. “Prince Ali Said.”

“But certainly,” said the man. “He is a friend of monsieur?”

“An acquaintance,” said Warren carelessly. “He stays in the hotel?”

“But yes, monsieur.”

“And the lady?”

The man smiled gently. “Monsieur …”

“I think I have met her in England,” said Warren quietly. “If you could ascertain her name for me?”

“But certainly.”

He moved away among the crowd. In a few minutes he was back again. “Monsieur,” he said. “Her name is Miss Naughton. She is registered as British.”

“Ah, yes,” said Warren carelessly. “She stays in the same suite?”

“But certainly.”

“I am infinitely obliged.”

The man bowed himself away, and Warren turned again to his companions. “One meets so many people,” he said apologetically.

He stayed with them through a long dinner, to the
coffee and cigars. At the end he made his apologies. “I must catch the morning aeroplane for London,” he said, “and I must get some sleep. We shall meet again in London, on the 20th. I shall look forward to that with great pleasure.”

He bade them good-bye, and went out to the lounge. “Prince Ali Said,” he said. “He is in his suite?”

The man lifted a telephone; Warren waited, idly studying airline and steamship posters. This was the end, he thought.

“The name, monsieur?”

“Ask if he will receive Mr. Henry Warren.”

The man spoke.

“He says, if you will go up, monsieur.”

He mounted swiftly in the lift; in the sitting-room of the suite the Prince received him, swarthy and immaculate in black and white. “This is indeed a pleasure, my dear Warren,” he said courteously. “You are staying in this hotel?”

“No longer than I can help,” said Warren. He glanced around the room, the deep carpets and the garish furniture. “I came to have a few words with my wife.”

The Arab frowned in bewilderment. “Surely you are making some mistake,” he said. “You will not find your wife here.”

“That may be,” said Warren evenly. “Because if I find her here, she will no longer be my wife.”

He stared at the other reflectively. “I suppose if I were half a man I’d be knocking the stuffing out of you,” he said, “or trying to. If you had been the first … But as it is, I think I’m through. I’m not going
to make a lot of trouble over this. I’m going to get out, and leave you to it.”

He smiled. “Perhaps, if my wife is not here, you would present me to Miss Naughton,” he said.

“I am afraid you are completely misinformed, Mr. Warren,” said the Arab. “As you can see for yourself, I am staying here alone. It is true that Miss Naughton dined with me this evening, but she has now returned to her hotel.”

“In that case,” said Warren, “we can take a look at the next room without disturbing her.” He moved methodically from room to room, opening cupboards and examining curtains.

The Arab watched him with a grave smile. “A pleasant suite, is it not?” he said. “I find this a very good hotel.”

“And a complaisant one,” said Warren.

He moved towards the door. “I see that my wife is not here now,” he said, a little wearily. “I suppose I ought to offer you apologies. But I’m not going to.”

He left the Arab standing in the middle of his suite, and went down to the writing-room upon the mezzanine. He wrote a note, and took it to the porter’s desk.

“For Miss Naughton,” he said, and gave it to the man, with twenty francs. “See that she gets it to-night.”

He went up slowly to his room, threw open the window of his balcony, and stood for a time in the cold air looking out over the roofs of Paris. Beneath him in the street the traffic ran, shadowy and remote; a flake or two of snow slipped past him in the night. His marriage had not been real to him for many years, but
now that it was drawing to a close he knew that a great gap was opening in his life, how great he could not say. He only knew that he was coming to great changes, and that itself was difficult for him.

He grew cold at last, and turned back into the room. He unpacked his bag, slowly undressed, and went to bed.

He took three tablets of his allonal to make him sleep.

He rose at eight next morning, had a bath and dressed, and ordered coffee in his room. He was seated at his breakfast when he heard a light knock on the outer door. He went to open it; his wife was there.

“Come in,” he said. “Have some coffee?”

She shook her head, and fumbled with a cigarette. He lit it for her.

“You don’t mind if I finish mine?”

She sat down in a chair, and watched him while he ate.

“Well, Henry,” she said at last. “Where do we go from here?”

He set down his cup and turned to her. “That’s up to you, my dear.”

He considered for a moment. “I don’t know what you’re doing here at all, and I’m not sure that I want to know. I didn’t come here trailing you, or anything like that. I came on business yesterday, and saw you in the dining-room with Ali Said.”

She said, “I might have known you came on business. You wouldn’t take a day from that for me, would you?”

He said, “You’re probably right. In all these sort of things, there are faults on both sides. I know I’ve
worked long hours for the last two years. But things aren’t easy with this slump …” He always felt helpless in his dealings with Elise. In most marriages, he thought, the economic tie must make things easier; the wife had her job for which she drew her pay; she could not lightly give it up. Both husband and wife then had to work, he in the office and she in the home. With Elise it was different. She had her own money—plenty of it; a dissolution of their marriage would mean no material loss to her, no unavoidable discomfort. She was not dependent on her job for her security; therefore she took it lightly. To hold her he would have to live a great deal of her life, an idle life to be spent with idle people, following the fashion. It would be possible for him to do so; he had money in plenty to give up his work and retire. But he was only forty-three years old; his work was dear to him. Surely there was some compromise for them?

He said, “I want you to pack your things and come back home with me to-day. When we get home, I’m going to make some changes.”

She blew a long cloud of cigarette smoke. “What are they?”

“I’m going to sell the house. We’re going to live in the country.”

“Are we, indeed? What part of the country?”

“Somewhere not far from London—Beaconsfield—Dorking—that sort of distance. On my part, I shall spend less time in London, and more at home. We might get some hunting in the winter.”

“Anything else?”

He met her eyes, mocking him. “Yes,” he said
savagely. “A total exclusion of Prince Ali from your list of friends, and Cathcart, and the Cohens. I’ll have no more of them.”

She laughed a little. “I suppose I’ve brought that on myself.”

“I suppose you have,” he said.

“It’s a pretty joyous sort of life that you’ve sketched out for me,” she observed. “You evidently don’t trust me in London, so I’m to live in the suburbs. If I’m good you’ll take me out with the suburban drag on Saturday mornings. I’m to give up all my friends, and sit in the country alone and grow pansies.”

“That’s it exactly,” said Warren. “Those are my terms if we’re going on together. I won’t go on as we are. And on my part, I’ll do everything I can to make you happy—on those lines.”

“And if I don’t accept your terms?”

“I hope you will. If you don’t, I shall divorce you.”

There was a little silence.

“Well,” she said, “you’d better go ahead and do it.”

“You wouldn’t like to have another try at carrying on together?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want me, and you know it. All you want is your work. That’s all you ever think about, your work and your business friends. It’s not as if you had to work as you do in order to live. You do it because that’s what you like. You’re never at home because you’re away on business; you never take a holiday. What sort of a life do you think I lead, married to you? And now you want to shove me away down in the suburbs, away from all my friends and everyone I know. I’m certainly not going to agree to
that. If that’s the way you feel, the sooner we bring it to an end the better.”

“You mean that?”

“I most certainly do.” She paused. “I shall be staying here till Monday; then I shall be going down to Cannes, to Nita Menzies. You can send the papers there.”

He stood and stared out of the window at the leaden roofs beneath a leaden sky, the running traffic in the street below.

“As you like,” he said at last. “I’m sorry that we had to come to this.”

H
E
crossed to London by the midday air service, and went straight to his office. He got there about four o’clock in the afternoon and plunged into his work. He had a long conversation on the telephone with Heinroth, and another with his banking associates in Stockholm. He cleared two days of correspondence in half an hour’s dictation; his typist left him with a sense of grievance and a batch of work that would keep her back an hour and spoil her evening.

“Half-past five!” she said to her companion in their room, “and all these letters to be done! It’s too bad! But my dear, have you seen him? He’s looking simply awful! Wonder what’s been happening?”

In his own room Warren sat with Morgan, his confidential secretary. “That’s the Finnish business, then,” he said. “We’re practically home on that. Get the agreements drawn in draft, and we’ll get Heinroth to look over them. Then you can circulate them to the Board. You’ve got it on the agenda?”

“I have arranged that, sir.”

He passed a hand wearily across his eyes. “We shan’t hear much of Plumberg for a time. The Moresley Corporation thing is dead, I think. I’m not going to do anything with that chap Cantello.”

“There’s the Laevatian Oil Development.”

“Let it sweat. I may be irregular at the office for
the next week or so. I’ve got some personal matters to clear up.”

The secretary hesitated. “If I may say so, why don’t you take a holiday? You’re looking very tired. I’m sure the Board would wish you not to overdo things, sir.”

“That’s all right,” said Warren irritably. “I may be away for a day or two. Tell Miss Sale to let me have those letters as soon as they’re ready. I’m going home then.”

Morgen left him, and he sat alone in his empty office, his fingers drumming nervously upon the leather of the empty desk in front of him. He had said that he was going home; to what sort of home was he going? He pressed a key and spoke into the desk telephone; they were to ring his house and say that he would be in to dinner. He must sell that house, he thought. He must discharge the servants. He would live in a flat, perhaps in Pall Mall or the Albany. He must write to Elise to remove her things. He must see his lawyer. He must go through the tedious, intolerable formalities of a divorce to win a freedom that he did not want. He must start in middle age to build up another life, new interests.

“It’s going to be lots of fun,” he said bitterly.

He got up from his desk, and paced up and down the office. In a minute or two he rang irritably for his letters; one or two appeared, which he signed; the remainder were unfinished. He spoke to Morgan on the internal telephone.

“I’m going now. You’d better sign those letters for me.” He put on his hat and coat and left the office.

He dined alone that night in his deserted house, sombre in dinner jacket in the empty dining-room, with shadows flickering in the corners from the candles on the table. His butler served him silently, efficiently; Warren ate very little. He took his coffee in the library before the fire; when he had served it Evans waited for a moment by his side.

Warren looked up. “What is it, Evans?”

“Could I have a word with you, sir?”

“Certainly. Go ahead.”

The man coughed. “I am afraid I must give you my notice, sir. I am sorry to inconvenience you, but I would like to leave in a month’s time.”

Warren was silent for a minute, sipping his coffee. Then he said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Evans. Why do you want to go?”

The man hesitated, and then said awkwardly, “No particular reason, sir. Just that I can’t feel settled here.”

“Is the money all right?”

“Oh, quite all right, sir. But I feel that I should be better for a change.”