Before the Fact Page 17

  “All right,” said Lina. “All right,” She was not going to grovel for a moment. But she would forgive Ronald very nicely.

  As she put on her frock she looked forward to forgiving Ronald.

  It was a charming frock, if a trifle candid: white satin, cut as low as possible in front, and a good deal lower than that at the back. Women were being candid that season. Lina looked at herself in the long glass from every possible angle. Her face was all right; her fair hair, brushed tightly to her head and unwaved, only curled at the ends round her neck, inwards at the sides and outwards round the back, gleamed under the light; her frock, worn this evening for the first time, was admirably slimming.

  “Well, I’m damned if I look a minute over thirty,” observed Lina contentedly to her reflection, and went downstairs.

  Ronald was waiting in the empty drawing room.

  “Hullo, Lina,” he said casually. “Look here, am I the first or is the party off?”

  Lina went up to him and held up her red mouth. Lip stick could go to hell. “Is that all you’ve got to say to me, darling?”

  “No, not by a long chalk it isn’t.” Ronald put his hands on her bare shoulders and rocked her to and fro. “I want to know what the devil you mean by playing me up like that?”

  “Playing you up, darling?”

  “That’s what I said. I know I played my cards badly. I know I let you know how infernally fond I was of you; so you just thought you could take me for granted and do what you liked about it. Isn’t that right?”

  “I suppose it is, really. Darling, I’m sorry. I won’t take you for granted again. Kiss me.”

  “No, you won’t.” Ronald was rocking her more violently. “I tell you, I’ve had a hell of a time these last few days, and I’m not going to have it again. I know your sort. What you need is a good spanking.”

  “Ronald! You wouldn’t dare!” Lina thought he looked almost as if he meant it.

  “Wouldn’t I?” Ronald said grimly. “Wouldn’t I! Let me tell you, that’s just exactly what I’ve come here to do.”

  “Ronald!”

  Three minutes later Ronald said, a little breathlessly: “Now I’ll kiss you.”

  He hugged her to him, crushing the breath out of her. Lina had never had such a painful kiss before. But she did not protest.

  “That’s the stuff!” she said to herself exultantly, as she ran up the stairs to her room five minutes afterwards. One’s face can always be redone, and three minutes with a needle would repair the tear in her frock quite well enough. “That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff!”

  The name of Miss Ethel M. Dell did not enter her mind: so she could not wonder if it had occurred to Ronald’s.

  Lina had made up her mind at last.

  3

  Lina did not go to tea at Ronald’s flat the next day.

  In the morning, Joyce had a telegram. It was from Robert’s school in Surrey.

  Robert taken ill not serious but would like you both to come. ASKRIGG.

  Lina had never seen Joyce so upset before.

  Nevertheless, upset though she was, she lost none of her efficiency. The car was ordered up from the garage, a telegram dispatched in answer, and within twenty minutes Joyce and Cecil were on their way to Surrey.

  With the empty feeling that follows somebody else’s departure, Lina went up to her bedroom with the idea of washing some stockings. She was worried on Joyce’s behalf and felt tired after only four hours’ sleep instead of eight.

  She had barely put the stockings into the water when the housemaid appeared at the door.

  There’s a gentleman to see you, madam. I showed him into the drawing room.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mary.”

  Lina went downstairs. It did not occur to her that the gentleman could be anyone else but Ronald, though she did wonder vaguely why Mary had not announced him by name.

  She opened the drawing-room door and went in.

  It was Johnnie.

  4

  “Hullo, monkeyface.” Johnnie’s engaging grin was uncertain and wavering.

  “Johnnie!”

  Lina’s knees had gone almost powerless. She managed to get to a chair, and clung to its back, struggling for self-possession. “What on earth do you want?” Her voice at any rate sounded cold.

  “You! Monkeyface, it’s no good. I can’t live without you. I simply can’t. Listen – I love you. No other woman means anything to me. I haven’t seen another woman since you went. They make me tired. You’re the only woman in the world for me. I know I’ve treated you rottenly. I swear I’ll be different if you’ll come back to me. Won’t you have a shot at it, monkeyface?”

  He tried to take her in his arms, but Lina resisted him.

  “This is a rather different tale from the one I heard from you last,” she managed to get out, with a fair enough semblance of calm.

  “I know. Darling, I was mad that evening. I can’t think what made me say those things to you. They weren’t true, hardly any of them. I just wanted to hurt you. I was crazy.”

  “Some of the things you said were crazy, certainly.”

  “About Caddis?” Johnnie said shrewdly. “Darling, I know. But I was so infernally jealous.”

  “Jealous! Even if it had been true, you said you didn’t even mind.”

  “I had to pretend not to mind. But you gave me hell over Martin. I was mad with jealousy. Honestly I was.”

  “And so you find you love me after all, do you?” Lina said slowly. “You’re sure it isn’t just that you’re running short of cash, Johnnie?”

  “Oh, damn the money. Lina, if you’ll only come back to me you can dock that infernal allowance altogether. Honestly, I mean it.”

  “That doesn’t sound very like you, Johnnie.”

  Johnnie poured out a torrent of protestations. Lina did not know him, Johnnie had not known himself, he had not realized what she meant to him, he had been utterly wretched since she went, he could not stand it any longer, wouldn’t she give him just one more chance?

  “I’ll be absolutely honest with you, Lina. I did marry you for your money. But, my God, I fell in love with you afterwards. On our honeymoon. I thought you were wonderful. And more every day since. I’ve been in love with you for years. You must know I have. I couldn’t have acted all that time. I’ve been trying to do without you, because I knew what a rotter I’d been to you, and it was only fair to let you have your freedom. But I can’t. I simply can’t.”

  “Sit down, Johnnie. We’ve got to talk this out.”

  They talked it out. But it all came back to the same thing. Johnnie couldn’t do without Lina. Would she not give him one more chance?

  At last Lina said:

  “I’d better tell you, Johnnie. There’s a man here in love with me. We intend to get married as soon as I’m free.”

  Johnnie turned rather white. “Are you in love with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ...?”

  “Not yet.”

  Johnnie got up. He looked very tired.

  “Well, I suppose it’s no good my staying. Good-bye, monkeyface. Good luck. I hope he’s a good ’un, that’s all. You deserve one.”

  He walked past her to the door. Lina saw two tears ooze out of his eyes and run ludicrously down his cheeks.

  “Johnnie!”

  “Hullo?”

  “I will come back to you.”

  She knew now that Johnnie must love her.

  She had known, from the very first moment she saw him, that she loved Johnnie, desperately, and had loved him desperately all the time.

  During the whole interview, Ronald had hardly crossed her mind.

  5

  Lina did her best to keep her head. It was difficult, when all she wanted was to get inside Johnnie’s arms and stop there for good, but she tried hard.

  She did not give way too easily.

  She would go back to Johnnie, but only on terms. He was to find another job, his allowance was to be cut down
to two hundred and fifty pounds, he was to be completely faithful to her until or unless he found he could be so no longer; then he was to tell her honestly and allow her to divorce him. If he would agree to that she would take him back.

  Johnnie did agree. He would agree to any damned thing, he told her, if only she would come back to him.

  He gloated and capered over her return like a small boy.

  “You won’t half catch it from Joyce,” he exulted. “I shouldn’t have stood much chance if she’d been here, should I? Monkeyface, we’ve got to get out of here before they get back. I’ve got the car outside; go on – shove your things in your trunk now, this minute. Off with you! I’ll give you just twenty minutes to pack.”

  Lina actually sang as she went upstairs. Johnnie wanted her: she wanted Johnnie: everything was wonderful. And this time everything was going to be all right. Johnnie had had his lesson.

  As she packed, hurriedly and unmethodically and rapturously, she thought of Ronald. She had not the courage to ring him up herself. She would ask Mary to do so. And she would write to him from wherever it was they stayed that night.

  She was sorry for Ronald. He had been right all the time, when he said she was still in love with Johnnie. She had known it herself, in her heart. That explained such a lot which had puzzled her during the last few weeks – her throwing herself at Ronald’s head, her dithering, the way she had let him and anybody else influence her, her inability to make up her mind, the dull pain that was with her all the time even when she had thought herself at her happiest. She had simply been drifting, not caring really what did happen to her, because she thought she had lost the anchor of Johnie’s need for her; and Ronald’s need had seemed so – well, unimportant, compared with that.

  She was sorry for Ronald. Very sorry. But he would get over it. She would write to him.

  Somehow she got most of her things into the trunk; the others could be sent on later. She put on her hat and coat, and went down.

  Johnnie himself carried down her trunk, with exaggerated caution like a conspirator, grinning at her, over the top of it. He put it on the grid, fastened the straps, and they set off. It was two months since Lina had come to stay in Hamilton Terrace, but she felt that she was leaving nothing of herself in London. She felt it was not she at all who had ever come to stay there, only a pale, gutted ghost of the real Lina.

  Johnnie drove with her hand in his. When he had to release it to manage his gears, he put it on his knee.

  When they were clear of London Lina said to him:

  “Yes, my lad, you were right. If Joyce had been there you wouldn’t have had such an easy job of it. It was just your luck that you came on the very day she had that telegram.”

  “Luck?” Johnnie grinned at her with ingenuous triumph. “I sent that telegram.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER XIII

  Not until she had been back at home for more than three months did Lina discover that Johnnie was a murderer.

  They had been three very excellent months.

  Johnnie had been charming to her, completely devoted. Lina, very suspicious at first and fighting instinctively against his charm, had become convinced. Johnnie did love her. He could not possibly have pretended like that. When at last she allowed herself to believe it, Lina thought she was happier than she had ever been before.

  She had made it up with Janet, in an emotional scene when Janet, the unemotional, wept against Lina’s cheek and implored her forgiveness. But Lina did not see nearly so much of her as before. It was almost impossible now to get Janet to the house at all. She was positively terrified of encountering Johnnie.

  The Newshams Lina had cut clean out. Luckily they lived nearly five miles away, so there was little difficulty there.

  Everyone in Upcottery had been delighted to see her back, but Lina felt that their welcome was tinged with bewilderment. No one ever said so, but it was plain that everybody had thought her quite mad to part from Johnnie, even temporarily. Lina talked brightly about her holiday in London, but she knew that it had been more than rumoured round the neighbourhood that she and Johnnie had parted for good.

  To Ronald Lina had written the very first evening, from Bournemouth, where they stayed a few days while Dellfield was being opened up again and new servants engaged. She had written as nicely as she could, and without saying anything that she knew would make Ronald’s despair worse. She did not tell him that she loved Johnnie and not himself; she let it be inferred that her return was due to duty only. She did tell him plainly that if this last experiment failed, she would become his if he still wanted her. She let it be gathered that in her opinion it probably would fail. It never occurred to her that, given the choice between cake and bun, she was seizing the cake and telling the bun to stay fresh just in case.

  Reading the letter through, she found it cold comfort for Ronald. Ronald had been very, very good to her. And he wanted her so badly.

  Her emotion boiled up, and she added a postscript. Whatever happened, whether she stayed with Johnnie or not, she would go away with Ronald for a week during the summer, if he would like that. Lina, hating to be dishonest, felt she owed him at least that.

  The question of morality troubled her very little. Johnnie, she thought, deserved payment of this debt no less than Ronald did. Besides, love Johnnie as she might, Lina still felt that she could never wholly forgive him until she had got her own back on him. Why should he have had all that amusement, and she no experiences of her own at all? Let her have those, and they could begin again fair. Not for a moment did she look on it as tarring herself with the same brush.

  Influenced by this new outlook, she took a good deal more freedom for herself. Those two months at Joyce’s had unsettled her. She found now that she was no longer content to let Dellfield, Johnnie, and Janet form the boundaries of her life. She went up more than once to London alone, staying at a hotel ( Johnnie neither objecting nor questioning), and of course dined with Ronald.

  They discussed the situation very earnestly, and when she was with him Lina still found herself very much attracted to Ronald. It was comforting, too, to feel that she had him to fall back on if ever Johnnie did let her down again.

  For Ronald, in the end, had become resigned into sense, as Lina considered sense.

  He took it hardly at first, as was only natural, and poured out a torrent of protests and appeals to Upcottery, threatening to come down there and carry Lina off from under Johnnie’s nose if she persisted in this insane altruism. Lina had managed to stop that, but Ronald had remained difficult for some time. In the end, however, he did become resigned, gave the experiment six months, and supposed he could wait that time extra; especially if Lina would go away with him during it. He wrote to her every day for the first month, and then two or three times a week.

  Lina told Johnnie she was going away for a fortnight in July.

  She fully intended to spend a week of this fortnight with Ronald. They talked it over and talked it over, dates were arranged, a room almost booked. Yet somehow or other it came about that Lina took Janet with her for that fortnight, to Corsica. She was not quite clear herself how it happened: just that, when it came to the point, she went to Corsica with Janet.

  Ronald was naturally most disappointed, but Lina told him that it had not proved quite convenient after all. They would have their week together later on. No, no, of course they would. It could not be arranged just at present, since she had only just come back after a fortnight’s absence, but they would have their week later on.

  Except for Ronald, and Johnnie’s reduced allowance, Lina might never have been away at all.

  Johnnie never asked her for extra money now.

  2

  Johnnie, it turned out, had plans of his own.

  He had been unable to find the job for which Lina had stipulated, but Lina had to admit that that had not been for want of trying. Johnnie had pulled every string he knew; but it was the summer of 1932, when England at last had to atone
for the third-rate minds that had been governing her since the war by facing the fact that not even a nation can go on consistently living above its income to keep a political party in office; and jobs were impossible to obtain. So Johnnie came out with plans of his own.

  He had got into touch with Beaky Thwaite to finance them, he told Lina exultantly; Beaky had agreed, and they were going to clean up a fortune between them. Johnnie’s eyes sparkled as he expatiated on the fortune they were going to clean up.

  Lina thought the plan sound, but she did not think there was a fortune in it.

  Briefly, Johnnie had been struck by the fact that in a world of tumbling prices, the most catastrophic of all were those for a commodity which above anything else should have remained unaffected. The commodity was property and land.

  “It’s like this, monkeyface,” he explained excitedly. “When the pound goes down, you see, it goes down. It isn’t worth so much. A hundred pounds in notes, or a hundred in stocks and shares, aren’t worth the old hundred ever again; they’re only worth about seventy. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Lina, who didn’t.

  “That’s because money isn’t money at all, really. I mean, it isn’t wealth. It’s only what you change for wealth. Wealth is based on something solid, that you can buy or sell. And, hang it all,” said Johnnie triumphantly, “there isn’t anything more solid than land, is there? I mean, you see that?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lina, who did see that.

  “And what’s more, as soon as the pound is stabilized at a lower value, the very first thing that’s bound to find its real value (I mean, become worth more of these not-so-valuable pounds) is land – sooner than diamonds or anything. Isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “But, darling, I’m telling you it is. So as soon as the pound went down, you’d have expected anyone with any spare cash to plunk it all into land, because that’s certain to recover quicker than anything. But nobody did. I can’t think why, but they didn’t. Nobody wants land. You can’t sell land at all to-day. And the consequence is that land’s gone down more than anything else. It’s worth actually less of these old, not-so-valuable pounds as it was a year ago. Well, the thing’s obvious. Buy land – and you’ll double your money in a year. Do you see now?”