Nothing Venture (7 page)

He turned half round, frowning.

“Can't you tell me at dinner?”

“No, I can't. It's urgent.”

He stopped, faced her, and said,

“What is it? Page
will
curse me”

The colour burned in Nan's cheeks. How can you tell an impatient, champing man that you believe someone is going to try and kill him in the open street in broad daylight?

She said with a gasp, “It's no good—you won't believe me”; and could have said nothing that would so instantly have caught his attention.

“Why—what's up?”

“Will you believe me?” said Nan.

“Well, you might give me a chance one way or the other.”

They were within a few feet of an empty bench. Nan put her hand on his arm and pointed to it. They went over to the bench and sat down.

“I don't see how you're going to believe me,” said Nan desperately.

Jervis stared at her. What on earth was she going to say? He decided that it wouldn't hurt old Page to wait.

“Go on!” he said.

“People do get run over,” said Nan breathlessly.

“Oh, constantly.”

“Someone's going to try and run you over.”

“What for?”

“Five hundred pounds,” said Nan in a shred of a voice.

Jervis stared harder. She was awfully pale. Her eyes were wide, and solemn, and frightened.

“My dear girl, what are you talking about?”

Nan began to tell him as well as she could. Now that she had to put the thing into words, it set not only her voice but the whole of her shaking.

“I don't understand,” said Jervis. “You heard these two men talking?”

Nan nodded.

“How could you? Why didn't they see you?”

She showed him with a finger set at right angles to another finger.

“It was a c-corner. I came up behind the t-taxi. The driver had his b-back to me.”

“Tell me exactly what you heard.”

She said it all over again.

“He said, ‘It's the four-fifteen all right. You'll have to hurry.' He said, ‘Let him come out of the station and get well away.' He said you were sure to walk because you had a craze for exercise.”

Jervis was bending forward looking at her intently.

“You heard my name?”

“No—not your name.”

“Then what does all this amount to?”

“Please,
please
listen.”

He moved impatiently.

Nan went on.

“The driver said, suppose you took a taxi; and
he
said, ‘Then you must do the best you can.' And the driver said he wasn't keen; and
he
said, ‘Take it or leave it!' And the driver said that five hundred pounds was five hundred pounds, and that ‘jug' was ‘jug'—that's prison, isn't it? And then they talked about his getting two months for dangerous driving; and the driver was afraid it might be a lot more, but in the end he said, ‘All right, I'll do it,'” She stopped and clenched one hand upon the other.

“And what's all this got to do with me?” said Jervis.

“I knew they were talking about you.”

“But why? What made you think of it? Who were these people? Did you know them? What made you listen to what they were saying?”

“I knew them,” said Nan in a small steadfast voice.

“Who were they?”

It was like being pushed when he spoke in that quick, impatient way.

“She got out of the taxi. I knew her at once.” Nan didn't look at him; she looked down at her clenched hands.

“She? This is the first time you've mentioned a woman.”

Nan nodded.

“She got out of the taxi and went into the house.”

“But who?”

“Rosamund Carew,” said Nan.

Jervis sprang to his feet, then, as suddenly, sat down again.

“What d'you mean by saying a thing like that?”

Nan lifted her chin a little. She wasn't a bit afraid of him when he was angry.

“I'm telling you what happened.”

He threw back his head and laughed incredulously.

“Go on with the fairy tale!”

A fire of pure rage burned in Nan's cheeks and brightened her eyes. She stopped looking at her hands and let Jervis have the full benefit of the blaze.

“Mr Leonard got out after her and went into the house. That was when I got behind the taxi. I wasn't going to listen—I wasn't thinking about listening—I just didn't want him to see me. Then he came out of the house and talked to the driver. I told you what they said—and I told you before I began that you wouldn't believe me.”

Stinging tears rushed to her eyes. Jervis saw the blaze go out, saw the grey darken, soften, deepen. He said in an angry voice,

“What have you got against Leonard? Good Lord—the thing's absurd! Why, you admit that I wasn't even mentioned.”

“They were talking about you,” said Nan. “They
were.
”

He burst out laughing.

“My dear girl—what a mare's nest! What conceivable motive could there be?”

Nan looked up at him, white and steady.

“Who would come in for your property if you were killed in an accident today?” she said.

Jervis did not start, he stiffened. There was a tingling pause. Nan felt as if she had hit a lump of dynamite. She waited for the explosion, but it did not come. The silence went on. She could not take her breath while it went on like that; and just as she was feeling as if something must give way, he said in a low, concentrated tone,

“What a perfectly foul thing to say!”

This time Nan felt as if it was she who had been hit. She said,

“Yes, it's foul—” She paused. “But not because I said it.”

He became vividly aware of her. There was a bright stain of colour high up in her cheeks—a round bright stain. Her eyes were bright and wide. There was something in them that winced and yet held firm. In his own consciousness an impulse flared—the impulse to beat down that wincing, resisting something. It flared, and went out.

He rose abruptly to his feet.

“I expect there's some explanation. Bits of a conversation are very misleading. Thank you for taking so much trouble about it.”

Nan got up too. His being polite was worse than anything. It made her feel giddy with pain. The colour went quite out of her face. She said,

“Good-bye—I'd better not come tonight.”

It was a relief to see him frown.

“Of course you'll come! We settled that. Give me your address, and I'll call for you.”

He wrote it down on the back of an envelope with a scrap of pencil which he fished out of a trouser pocket.

“Old Page
will
be cursing me!” he said, and turned to go.

When he had gone a couple of yards he became aware of Nan running to keep up with him.

“I'm sorry—but what's a tuxedo?”

He looked over his shoulder at her and said,

“Dinner-jacket.”

“Oh—but he said something about a clawhammer. What's that?”

“American for tail-coat. I must be getting along.”

She was still running.

“Yes, I know—but—oh, you
will
be careful, won't you?”

This time she got a black frown. And then suddenly he laughed.

“I'll take a policeman along to pick up the bits!” he said, and was gone.

X

Nan had had no answer to her question. She did not need one. She knew very well what would happen to Jervis Weare's property if he died without children. Everything would go to Rosamund Carew—Rosamund Veronica Leonard Carew. She had typed old Ambrose Weare's will, and she remembered its provisions. If Jervis wasn't married within three months and a day of his grandfather's death, everything went to Rosamund. And if Jervis died without leaving a child, everything went to Rosamund.

Rosamund Veronica
Leonard
Carew.…. Nan was unshaken in her conviction that she had heard Robert Leonard arranging for an accident to happen to Jervis. Perhaps Rosamund didn't know. She had gone on into the house, and Robert Leonard had come back to speak to the driver. A faint cold shudder ran over Nan. Rosamund Carew
couldn't
know. Only a week ago she and Jervis were engaged—they were going to be married. They must have planned their life together—they must have kissed. The shudder came again. She saw Jervis stooping his dark head to kiss beautiful Rosamund Carew. Rosamund could not know.

She began to walk, and came out of the station. What was she going to do next?

There wasn't anything for her to do. The affair had passed out of her hands. She had warned Jervis, and he didn't believe her. She wondered if he truly didn't believe her, or if he just wouldn't believe her. Whether he believed her or not, he couldn't un-know what she had told him. A man who has been warned can never go back to where he was before the warning. The weight that had been upon her lifted. A little of Jervis' own scepticism touched her. After all, she might have made a mistake.
No, she hadn't
. Then again, chill and reasonable, that “Suppose it was a mistake.”

She had a vehement revulsion. She had been a fool to be frightened. There was nothing to be frightened of. She began to think about the evening. If she hadn't got to be frightened about Jervis, how frightfully exciting it would be to look forward to dining at the Luxe with Ferdinand Fazackerley. How extraordinary to meet him after all these years! She had always wondered whether she would know him again.

She got into a bus and sat there thinking how strange life was, and how interesting. Ten years ago Ferdinand Fazackerley, walking on Croyston rocks, had chanced on an unconscious young man and a frantic child of twelve. She shut her eyes and saw the rocks, the low grey sky, and the sea coming up, coming nearer, with its frightful irresistible force. It was a picture that had never faded. Like the scar on her arm, it no longer hurt. If she looked at the scar, she could see its triangular shape and the white crinkling of the skin; and if she looked into her mind, she could see the flooding pool, Jervis ghastly white, the stain of his blood on her shoulder, and her straining agonized efforts to keep his head above water. Then F.F.—Ferdinand Fazackerley—and the high, kind voice with its unfamiliar accent going right on through her half-consciousness … She was most terribly pleased to have met him again. But not for the world was he ever to guess that they were meeting
again
. a grown-up Mrs Weare couldn't possibly evoke any memory of the half-drowned child of ten years ago.

Having settled this to her satisfaction, Nan got out of the bus. If she was going to dine at the Luxe with Mr Ferdinand Fazackerley in a clawhammer, it was quite certain that she must buy herself a dress for the occasion, and she knew just what dress she was going to buy. Cynthia had not been married without a modest trousseau. To buy pretty frocks for Cynthia had been balm to Nan's own heartache. She had bought for Cynthia, and had resisted the tempetation to buy for herself; but there had been one temptation which it had been very difficult to resist. She had got as far as trying the pretty filmy thing on. It had given her a delicious sense of being somebody else, someone who hadn't a care in the world.

She opened the door of the shop. Suppose it was gone..… The pleasant dark girl who had been so interested in Cynthia came forward.

Nan had a sudden brilliant idea.

“May I telephone?”

“Oh, certainly.”

She gave Mr Page's number, and then had a nervous reaction. Suppose Villiers didn't answer the telephone. Mr Watson must be back from his holiday. Suppose it was he who answered. It was so difficult to realize that Mr Watson no longer mattered. She heard the click of the receiver, and the voice of Miss Villiers.

“Hello!”

Nan felt a difficulty about giving her name. She said quickly,

“Oh, Villiers—don't tell anyone I rang up. I only wanted to know if Mr Weare had arrived.”

“Just come, dear.…. Yes, that's all right.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Nan. A feeling of happy relief bubbled up in her. Even to her own ears her voice sounded warm and soft. She hoped it didn't sound like that to Villiers.

She rang off and turned to the now all-absorbing question of the grey dress.

Grey—any dull thing can be grey—hodden grey, field grey—grey sky, grey water, grey cloud. There ought to be a different word to give to beautiful things. Nan's dress was beautiful, and it had that last subtlest quality of beauty—it made her feel beautiful too.

She put it on and looked, half frightened, at her own reflection.

“I'm going to rather a special party tonight,” she said to the nice dark girl.

The nice dark girl smiled.

“Well, you couldn't have anything that suited you better,” she said.

Nan looked at herself rather solemnly. The dress gave her a slim elegance. There was just a hint of silver about it. She must have silver shoes to go with it, and she must have her hair cut and waved.

She bought the dress, and the coat that went with it, heard the amount of the bill without a tremor, and wrote her first cheque on the account which Mr Page had opened in her name. It was not only the first cheque on the new account, it was also the first cheque she had ever written. The dress wasn't a dress at all; it was a symbol. It meant that she was Nan Weare, and not Nan Forsyth any more. It stood for a plunge into the unknown.

This was all rather solemn; but under the solemnity there were little warm currents of excitement and anticipation. Would Jervis like the dress? Would he like
her
?

At half past seven she was ready and waiting. Her hair had been cut and done in loose waves. It was so becoming that she had arranged then and there to have it permanently waved next day. She had silver shoes. Her dress was like a silver mist. It darkened her eyes and hair, and brought out the fine quality of her skin. The excitement put a rose in each cheek. She knelt in front of the low dressing-table to see her head in the very small mirror, and then mounted insecurely upon the bed to catch a glimpse of her silver feet. She practised a dance-step, and then stopped for fear of getting hot. It would be dreadful if the wave didn't last through the evening. She wondered if they would dance. No, of course they wouldn't. It would be marvellous to dance with Jervis.