Poor Caroline (24 page)

He was working alone on Friday night when he was inter
rupted by a sharp rap on the door. Startled, he put down
his pen and sat listening. His first thought was that this must
be Johnson, but then he remembered that Johnson was out
of town. Who could it be? A policeman new to the beat,
unused to seeing his light in that strange place? A tramp?

Again came the knock, persistent, not peremptory.

Hugh rose and shambled slowly towards the door. For a
moment he hesitated, then quickly turned his Yale lock and
pushed the door, which opened outwards into the main
building. The light from the laboratory fell on to the figure
of Eleanor de la Roux, who stood with Miss Denton-Smyth
and the young priest whom Hugh had met at the At Home.

'Gaw!' gasped Hugh.

He had completely forgotten his reluctant invitation.

'Good evening!' smiled Miss de la Roux. 'You did mean
us to come, didn't you?'

Hugh stared and stared.

'Didn't you get my post card? I said we should come
unless you told us not to, you know.'

'Where did you send it?'

'To an address in Penge that Cousin Caroline gave me.'

'I've moved,' said Hugh, and suddenly remembered that he had made no arrangement for the forwarding of letters.

'I'm so sorry. Then we are interrupting you? And had
we better go away?'

He remembered now that this de la Roux girl was an heiress. She put down three thousand as easily as some
people put three pence into the collection-plate on Sunday.
She was interested in the Tona Perfecta. She might be
interested in his other work. She was intelligent - for a woman. She might even be useful to him in other ways.

He continued to stare awkwardly, until Miss Denton-
Smyth took up her tale.

'Oh, Mr. Macafee, it's
so
exciting! I declare it's quite like a scene out of a spy story or something - we made for the
broken door just as Mr. Johnson said, and Eleanor left the
car outside, and then we looked in and saw your light shining from the ruin and knew it
must
be you because it's such
a
very
strange thing to see a light shining out of a
ruin,
and I
always say that castles and abbeys never look really them
selves until their roofs have fallen in, but a
factory
when
it's
gone to pieces looks
really
ruinous!'

'Well, as you are here, you'd better come in,' said Hugh
ungraciously. 'Though I don't think there's much here that
can interest you.'

They entered the lighted laboratory. Hugh's provisions
for his own comfort might be inadequate, but he knew
exactly what he wanted in the way of equipment. The
laboratory was a large room, already provided with gas-
pipes, bunsen-burners, electric lights and sinks. There were
lamps and stoves and cameras. There were delicate in
struments for testing acoustical properties. There was a
draughtsman's desk and revolving lamps. When Hugh
switched on more lights all these were illuminated in a white
dazzling blaze. The room was an oasis of complex and
civilized activity in the middle of dark ruin.

Hugh looked on his work with justifiable pride.

'You can look round. But you must not touch.'

Miss de la Roux at least might appreciate something of all
that he had done. She knew nothing about the possibilities of sound and colour reproduction, but she had received an
elementary grounding in scientific values. She was not quite
a fool. Hugh liked her appearance as she trod with her
quick light step along the room, pausing here and there to
question him about an instrument, bending forward, her
ungloved hands clasped behind her, holding her leather gauntlets. She looked as though she were at home here, as
though she would move nimbly and effectively in this place.
Her quick quiet questions were intelligent. Devil take the
girl! What was she doing with that snivelling young parson
and that half-witted old woman?

Hugh had no use for parsons. Miss Denton-Smyth, on the
other hand, could hardly hide her enthusiasm for Father
Mortimer. When the girl and the priest had moved across the room, Caroline turned to Hugh, bubbling over with
confidences.

'Oh, Mr. Macafee, I can't tell you what it means to me to
be here to-day, and to be able to bring Father Mortimer
with us. You know I always felt that we needed the blessing of the
Church
on this enterprise, and though at Saint Augustine's dear Father Lasseter has always been such a
great
help
and comfort, it's not the same as securing the interest of
a.
really
distinguished
young priest and scholar - Oxford, you
know - New College and
very
brilliant. Greats - I think
they call it, or is it
Smalls? I
always think it's so confusing,
the difference between
smalls
and
shorts,
not having had the
advantage of a university education myself, though I've
often regretted it, but in my day opportunities were so much
more limited, and I'm always telling Eleanor that I really
wonder whether she was
quite
wise to stop short in the middle
of her college course, but the poor child was so terribly upset
losing her father like that, they being
all in all
to one another,
that she could not bear to remain in South Africa, and
though I always say that we must not
let our affections be
our
sole
guide, I do think that a
father
is different, and then
having no
mother
too. . . .'

'Umph,' grunted Hugh, but he was thinking rapidly.

There across the room stood the South African heiress
talking to the parson. She had neither father
nor mother to advise her. Sorrow had driven her to England, and sorrow
or loneliness had forced her into the arms of Caroline Den-
ton-Smyth. She had given up her university work, but she
was obviously fitted by nature to be an inventor's assistant.
Had she herself not said that she preferred the honest work of a laboratory? It was all wrong that she should waste her
youth and intelligence among the confusions and falsities of
propaganda and uplift. She was too good for it. It must be
stopped. Was not this the solution to the problem caused
by his dismissal of Campbell?

Missionary zeal consumed Hugh. He had to save Miss
de la Roux's soul, and to enrol her as a worker in his own
service. He left Miss Denton-Smyth without an explanation
and strode across the room. Eleanor bent over the diagram on which he had been working when she interrupted him.
Now he interrupted her. 'I want to talk to you!'

'Well?'

'Why don't you come back to laboratory work!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You're still messing about with this Christian Cinema
Company?'

'Not as much as you are, I understand.'

'What d'you mean?'

'You're a director, aren't you?'

'They say so.'

'Well, I'm not. I'm only a shareholder - pretty well the only shareholder, I believe.'

'Well, being a shareholder can't take all your time.'

'No, it doesn't.'

'What do you do with the rest of it?'

'Work. Drive a car. Explore London. Listen to Labour
speeches. Learn how to be a business woman.'

'Business. Why business?'

'I want to make money,'

'Is that why you gave up your university work before you
got your degree?'

She paused. 'I suppose you could say that.'

'You're throwing yours?:it' away!'

'Thanks! I think I'm me best judge of that.'

But she smiled as she said that, She was not rude or
snubbing.

'Give it up!'

'For what?'

'Come and give me a hand here. I need an assistant. I
don't suppose you know much, but I dare say you can obey
orders, and you look as quick as most/

"Are you asking me to be your assistant?'

'Oh, I know it's faking a lot tor granted. You may be as
much of a nuisance in a laboratory as most girls. But I could
start with you tor a week on trial.'

'Well.' She stared at him, amused, surprised and quizzi
cal. 'You are an amazing person' Is this a serious offer?'

'I don't waste time making offers I don't mean.'

'How much could you pay me?'

'Do you mean a salary?'

'Naturally.'

'You wouldn't be worth a salary for a long time. I should
have everything to teach you. It would be a great opportunit
y for you. You really ought to pay me a premium.'

'Do you talk like this to the men who work here with
you?'

'What do you mean?

'Aren't you a little precipitate?'

'Well, if
you want time to think it over, you can take it.
But I warn you that you're running the risk of ruin while
you hang about with Miss Demon-Smyth and her friends. How can anyone preserve their capacity for honest thought
in that atmosphere? They all lie and compromise and pre
varicate. They sell the truth if a lie can be of any use to their meetings and wretched causes. It's all-it's all dis
honest - rotten. There's nothing in it."

Hugh had not the eloquence of Johnson. He was unac
customed to the missionary's task. He stumbled and fought
for words, dominated by an unfamiliar emotion. He saw
Eleanor de la Roux swept down into the whirlpool of Miss Denton-Smyth's activities. He saw her honest brain denied
and muddled by sentiment, her clear vision darkened by
confused emotions. It was not good enough. She would be
destroyed. She would become just like all other women, feeble and sentimental, incapable of rational thought. She
watched him with grave wonder, opening wide her hazel
eyes, surprised, but neither embarrassed nor wholly dis
pleased. When at the end of his tirade she said quietly,
'Don't you think I'm the best judge of my own interests?' he
stammered:'No. No. Of course you're not. No woman is.'