Carfax Abbey

1 RAPHAEL GOMEZ looked at his watch and said, "Now, Warren, we've talked for more than an hour without getting any further. Let us come to business. This is Monday: I give you three days— till Thursday night— to fulfil your part of the contract. If I do not have a letter or a telegram before Thursday night, well, the axe will fall. You know what that means." "Fifteen— forty!" cried a fresh, girlish voice from the tennis court outside the open window. "Those young people will be coming in to tea directly," continued the speaker; ''you clearly understand?" "I've done my part. You wanted to have us as your nearest neighbour so that you would have a clear field with my girl. I agreed, and bought that old ruin of yours on purpose. If you fail with her it's not my fault. I gave you a monopoly; it's up to you now." Gomez flushed angrily. "You've been six months playing with bricks and mortar at the Abbey and still you can't give me a date for what you call my 'monopoly.' No, I'm sick and tired of waiting. I give you three days." "That's a threat. What do you mean to do?" "I'll tell you what I mean to do. On Friday I shall go to a certain Government department that you know of. I shall tell them that it has come to my knowledge that Mr. Joshua Warren, the inventor and manufacturer and the Government contractor during the war for the Warren binocular lens, did, in the autumn of 1917, sell the secret of his invention to n certain agent in Spain for sum out of all proportion to its commercial value, without taking any steps to satisfy himself that the purchaser was not an agent for a Government that was at war with this country. In other words, that he was trading with the enemy in a commodity that was to be used against his country in the field." "Game— and set," cried the same voice from the garden, "and now what about tea?" "Carried with acclamation," said a male. The players had retired into the home, for now the girl was heard in the hall. "Where's Father? Let's come and drag him out to tea. Father!" Warren rose, stifling his indignation. He would fain have got rid of his visitor, but the visitor showed no intention of going. He followed his host into the drawing-room. "Ah, there he is, this recluse of a father of mine," said a bright, fair-haired girl who was dispensing the tea. She was proceeding to chaff Warren when her eye tell upon his companion. Her manner froze. In order to cover her discomfiture, she fell back upon introductions. "Daddy, you don't know Miss Amy Winter. Mr. Bernard Thring you do know, and I think you know his sister, but in case you've forgotten her let me present you to Miss Pamela Thring." She drew forward one of the other players— a tall, slender girl of twenty-four. Though she had not opened her lips, by some subtle magnetism she had become the central figure in the room. Her brother, who was two years older, seemed many years younger in wisdom and understanding; he was a typical young civil servant with the self-confidence and ease of manner that seems natural to clerks in the Foreign Office. The third young woman was older. In her eyes there was a hard look as if she had drunk deep from the cup of experience and was beginning to find a bitter taste in the dregs of it. She was vivacious and good looking, but it was evident that that she owed the brilliance of her complexion to her make-up box. She was trying hard to engage Mr. Warren in conversation; refusing to be daunted by his taciturnity, she gave him a humorous description of the play during the last set in order to provoke her late antagonist into protest. If Mr. Raphael Gomez, the self-invited guest, felt that he was being slighted, he did no show it. He drew as near as he could to Kathleen Warren's tea table, and Boomed to propose himself as a purveyor of bread and butter and cake to the company. He was a sleek and rather over-dressed Hebrew of middle age, with a growing presence beneath his waistcoat that clouded the brow of a certain tailor in Conduit-street whenever ho dropped in to be measured. "We have your measure, sir," the good man would murmur, "but let me just run the tape round the waistband." He seemed to weigh heavily upon the spirits of the little party. Conversation began to flag, until at last Kathleen, who had been talking vivaciously to Pamela Thring, challenged her to a single. "While these greedy people are digesting their tea. Come on, Pam." "May we?" said Pamela, turning to her host, and as he nodded to her the two took themselves off. With the disappearance of Kathleen Warren, Gomez became restless. No one had invited him into the garden; no one seemed to want him, least of all Warren, who had not addressed a single word to him since they had left the library. He rose and said. "Well, I must be going. You know where to find me." "In Throgmorton-st." "No, no, I shall be down in the country— you know where— to-morrow, and shall stay there over the week-end." He bowed to the two young people and went out ; in a moment he was back at the door. "There's one thing I forgot to say, Warren. Come and see me to the door." Warren rose with surly acquiescence, and the two young people were left alone. "Who is that greasy-looking Jew?" said Bernard. "Qui sait?" said his companion; "If I knew many of him, I should become a Zionist." "And set him to hoe the ground under the walls of Jerusalem? That would take his fat down; but he wouldn't go; they're no tape machines in the Holy City." "Now, Bernard, swallow your tea like a good boy and find a quiet corner far us somewhere in the house. I have a tale to unfold to you." She had become suddenly serious. "The others will be coming to look for us." The girl went to the window. "No, they won't. They're playing serious tennis, and your sister is knocking spots out of poor Kitty. Come along." Thring led the way into the smoking room; it was one of those large houses in Hampstead, built in imitation of a country house. "No one ever comes in here." "You seem to know your way about." "Yes, I often come here." "Sit down there and listen. I'm in trouble." "You're always in trouble, Amy." "I am, but this time it is serious, and I don't know whom to go to except you. I'm being blackmailed." "Are you serious?" "Deadly serious, but if you're going to take the high moral line, I've done, I "won't tell you another word." "Of course not. We all do silly things at some time, and if you didn't do them you wouldn't be Amy Winter." "Shut up, Bernard. Well, I did do a silly thing. You remember I went off to Normandy last year all on my own in any little two-seater? I had a lovely time, but I met an Italian painter in the hotel at Rouen, and, like a fool, I let him talk nonsense to me. He seemed quite nice; I let him paint me, and now the creature if blackmailing me." "I shall understand the situation better, Amy, when you put in all the things you have left out. You let the creature paint you. There's no material for blackmail in that." The girl flushed under her make-up. "I wrote some letter— in answer to some silly letters from him." "Which you tore up, while he kept yours. That's a very old story. Were yours very—compromising?" "I'm afraid so. And you know, if he does what he threatens to do— show them to my mother— it will kill her. She didn't want me to go off alone at all." "Why did you?" "I can't understand myself. I suppose it is the love of adventure. I must have had an explorer among my ancestors." "But it's only one kind of adventure." "I know. You see, by taking me abroad all those years when I was small, poor mother had me taught to speak French like a native. It amuses me to air the accomplishment, and when foreigners begin to cast sheep's eyes at me I can't resist the fun of seeing how far they will go. Now. Bernard, I've never told this weakness of mine to any living soul but you, because I know I can trust you; you know I'm not bad really. What am I to do?" "I shall want the man's name and address, and the blackmailing letter that he wrote to you before I can do anything." "Can you do anything? Oh, you are a brick! It will be a tremendous load off my mind. The letter's at home, but you shall have it. If you can free me from this scoundrel. I shall have learned a lesson that will last me all my life." "Until you meet another fascinating artist of the Latin race." "Amy, where are you? She's beaten me." It was Kathleen calling through the house. "Promise you won't tell any one, Bernard. I can trust you?" whispered Amy. Bernard nodded silently. "Oh, here you are; I've been looking for you everywhere." Kathleen stood in the open doorway; after a pause, in a rather cold little voice, she said, "I hope I'm not interrupting you." All the tennis news with which she was bursting seemed to have frozen on her lips. She knew that Amy Winter and the Thrings had been friends since childhood, when they first begun spending their holidays together at the French seaside, but she wished Bernard and Amy weren't quite so friendly. "How went the singles?" said Bernard. "We were just coming out." There was still daylight for another set, but Kathleen pronounced that it was too dark, and there was nothing for the others but to take their leave. I shall carry the memory of this afternoon to Paris," said Amy Winter, "you know I'm off to Paris on Thursday?" GLOOM descended upon the Hampstead house whenever it was left to itself. When Kathleen Warren's mother was alive, in the days before Joshua Warren had made money, life at home had been different. It was she who had forestalled every domestic storm; who had soothed away her husband's worries and kept his uneasy nerves in quietude. In those days he had been a playmate to his little girl, and if he had been eccentric, and had always shown a childish greed for money, it had not affected the happiness of his family. Working as an optician on a weekly wage—and working well, and later, when he had opened a shop and prospered in it, his piety had always been turned to one end— petitions to the Deity for money. It was a harmless obsession, and when he knelt by his bedside and said aloud, "Oh, Lord, grant me an annuity, and if Thou dost not know what an annuity is, it is ten thousand a year paid quarterly in advance," his wife had not thought it worth while to reason with him. When in the turmoil of the war and after it, he had grown rich, there were cynics who said that they were not surprised— the Powers above had yielded because they were weary of him. His wife had never liked his association with Raphael Gomez, though everything that her husband touched at his suggestion turned to money. And then the mother, who had been more than mother to Kathleen, died, and all the human side of Joshua Warren died with her. The accumulation of wealth became an obsession with him, and at each acquisition his temper had grown more suspicious and difficult. Kathleen was accustomed to his bouts of silence at meals. For a few moment she persevered bravely In the effort to make conversation, but it was like talking to a dead wall; there was something new in the grim set of his lips, and when the silent meal came to an end, the doer had shut behind the servants and he spoke for the first time, she shivered, knowing from his manner that in some way she had offended him. "I don't like those friends of yours, Kitty." She gazed at him in astonishment. "Which of them, dad? I thought you liked them all— unless you mean Amy Winter; you had never seen her before." "Pshaw! I shouldn't know her by sight if she came to-morrow. It's not the women I'm speaking of; it's the young men." "There's only one, dad. You can't mean Mr. Thring. You used to like him." She had flushed to the roots of her hair. "I do mean this very same 'Mister Thring,'" he said, mimicking her. "What is he always hanging about the house for? If he's hunting a fortune he'll have a rude awakening one of these days." She knew him in these moods and let him run on. "I can't understand you modern girls. It's time that you were thinking about getting married. I ask you to be civil to a particular friend of mine, a man who would be just the thing for you— and you haven't a word to say to him." She saw the signal of rising passion; a vein over his temple began to swell and throb; his voice was rising to a crow. "In my own house, too! I can't get my daughter to be civil to my friends. When I invited Mr. Gomez to tea this afternoon―" (Gomez would have opened his eyes at this description of his welcome) "―you looked at him as if he were some slimy sort of insect. Oh, you needn't look so innocent. I was watching you. Now look here, my girl, Mr. Gomez is coming again—again and again—and I'll stand no nonsense. You've got to be polite to him, and what's more, if over he asks you to be his wife you've got to say 'Yes!' " "Daddy!" "Well, What's the matter with the man? He's got the regulation number of eyes and arms and legs, I suppose." "But I don't like him." "What does that matter? How many women like the men they marry? It's just a contract— like any other matter of business." He waved his arm with a sweep to indicate the unimportance of her point of view. "I don't happen to like my wine merchant, but I like his wine, and so I deal with him. Now this man Gomez―" The girl shuddered. "I've never seen a man I dislike so much. I wouldn't trust him with a dog. Daddy, it would be better for us both to come to an understanding. Never, under any circumstances, could I think of marrying him." Her father gripped the arm of his chair and leaned forward. He looked like a man on the verge of an apoplectic seizure. will come to an understanding. "You ye got to marry him to save your father— to save us both— from ruin. Do you understand ?" The girl was stung to courage. She asked the question coldly, "Why. Daddy? Explain yourself." "I'm not going into details. It's enough for you to know that if I cannot send him a favourable answer before Thursday night we shall be ruined." "I'm sorry, Daddy." "And you still say 'No'?" He was in a white fury now and she shrank from him. She slipped from her chair and went towards the door. "I can never say anything else, daddy―" "Come back, you little fool, and sit down." "If you don't mind, I think I'll go to bed. Good-night." The door closed upon her. The face of Joshua Warren was not good to look upon at that moment. In his present temper he knew that he would not be master of himself if he went to his daughter's room. He rose heavily and rang the bell.