Fool Errant (18 page)

“You are coming to me to-night, are you not? A quarter to eight. I rely on you.
Au revoir
.

H.
DE
L.

He looked up and saw Hacker's hand clenched on a torn envelope, Hacker's face forced to a dark indifference.

It was Minstrel who asked with a rasp, “What's Hélène writing about?”

“Asking me to dinner,” said Hacker with a shrug.

Minstrel laughed.

“An olive branch! She hasn't asked me. You are favoured—or are you, I wonder? She hasn't the impudence to write to me, so she writes to you. Is that it?” He was tormenting Hacker, and knew that he was tormenting him.

He turned with a sneer to Hugo.

“You also have a
billet doux!
Are you also asked to dinner?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Admirable! The lady is particularly charming and particularly hospitable, and particularly fond of novelty—ladies are, I'm told—this one has a passion for it—hence the olive branch. Hacker and I were out of favour, but as soon as you appear on the scenes we are forgiven—that is, Hacker is forgiven—she throws him a nice little bone—she invites him to dinner. He ought to show gratitude, but I doubt if he will—eh, Hacker? Gratitude's not much in your line—is it? I suppose you won't go?”

“Why not?”

Hacker got up scowling.

“Why not indeed? Why be proud? Why not crawl in behind Ross and lick the hand that throws the bone? I only wish she'd asked me too. I should have enjoyed myself—a most edifying spectacle.”

The door banged behind Hacker. Minstrel pushed back his chair.

“Come and write letters! Hacker's got a damnable temper. Some day it'll get him into trouble. Come along and do a job of work. You won't earn your salary by going out to dinner. I suppose you think you oughtn't to work on Sunday—eh? Well, I can tell you this—my secretary works when I want him to work, if it's in the middle of the night, or forty-eight hours at a stretch. He's a machine, and he works when I want him to work—or he goes.”

There was not, after all, very much work to do. Hacker came in presently and lounged in one of the big chairs with a novel and a cigarette. Minstrel dictated a couple of letters and began a third; but halfway through the first sentence he stopped.

Hugo looked round. He had got used to Minstrel's restless ways and quite expected to see him lost in a book or disappearing into his laboratory. What he saw was this—Minstrel looking at Hacker with an angry questioning stare, and Hacker—no, he was just too late to catch Hacker off his guard. When he looked, Hacker's eyes were on his book. But Hugo knew very well that they had not been there a second before; they had been looking at Minstrel, saying something to Minstrel. It was all over in a moment.

Minstrel swung round, pulling at his beard.

“I can't dictate. Finish the letter yourself, and keep out of my way, or I shall find myself sacking you.”

“Do you want to s-sack me, sir?”

Minstrel swore at him.

“No, I don't. I shouldn't tell you to keep out of my way if I did. It's not you; it's those damned interfering busybodies who think that because they sit in a government office and fatten on red tape they can come down here and hustle me.”

He picked a paper-weight off the table at Hugo's elbow, balanced it a moment, and sent it crashing into the book-case. It splintered the middle panel and fell with a heavy thud. He went striding up the room and stood staring at the damage. Then he laughed his rasping laugh and came swinging back.

“They rouse me. It's folly—but they rouse me. I'd like to smash them—like that!”

He turned on Hugo.

“Did you know we were having company tomorrow?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, you didn't? You don't know very much—do you? D'you still think I've been inventing a submarine?”

“Haven't you, sir?”

Minstrel pursed up his mouth and echoed him in a sort of snarling whine. “Haven't you, sir? Haven't you, sir? How discreet! How secretarial! No, sir, I haven't. And what's more you know very well that I haven't, unless you're even more of a fool than I ever took you for. A submarine!” He ran his hands through his hair and left it wild. “Does one correspond with the Air Ministry about a submarine? Does the Air Ministry send down its experts to haggle with me about a submarine? How much of a fool are you? Why, I believe—” He paused, caught Hugo by the shoulder and pushed him back, looking down at him with a hot, unwinking stare. “Are you fool enough to believe what you see in print? Why, upon my soul, I believe you are—I believe you are!”

Hugo felt his colour rise.

Minstrel went on looking at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“My submarine
flies
, Master Ross! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” he said and turned on his heel. The laboratory door banged on him, and the key turned harshly.

Hacker shrugged his shoulders.

“Sometimes I think he's mad,” he said.

Hugo spent the rest of the morning wondering what method there was in Minstrel's madness. That the outburst had been calculated, he was sure. He thought it was to Hacker's order; and he thought that Hacker, for some reason, wished him to know, first, that Minstrel's invention was of the nature of an aeroplane, and next, that there was to be an official visit in connection with it on the following day.

CHAPTER XXV

Hugo walked over to Torring House with Hacker that evening. He found it rather a strange walk. Hacker did not speak once, and the menace which had been present in the night was with them in the dark woods. It seemed to fill them. It seemed as if Hacker was always on the edge of speech, always just about to say something, to do something. There was a sense of violence just controlled.

They came into the hall at Torring House, and all at once Hugo began to feel elated. The feeling puzzled him because, in the ordinary way, a dinner-party reduced him to a state of stammering alarm. Now he felt elated. He followed Hacker with a sense of pleased expectancy.

They came into the little room where he had talked with Mme. de Lara, and saw her standing under the tall lamp with the pale blue shade. The light gave her an elfin look, with her flaxen silver curls and a dress of moonlight blue.

Hugo's eyes went past her to Loveday. He looked at her because he couldn't help it. They had met in a dark lane, in a dark room, on a dark roof, and in a dark garden. He had seen her by the light of a street lamp, pale, ruffled, and dusty. He couldn't keep his eyes from her now. There was colour in her cheeks, and she wore a pink frock. She looked very young. She made his heart beat terribly, and under the eyes of Hacker and Hélène de Lara he felt himself blushing.

With a desperate effort he transferred his gaze and his blush to Mme. de Lara. If he had met Loveday's gaze, the disaster might have been complete. But Loveday was not looking at him at all. She said something to Hélène and she laughed quite naturally. And then Hélène de Lara had her hand on his arm.

“Well, my friend, you have come. Shall I tell you how pleased I am to see you?”

She kept her hand on his arm and just touched Hacker.

“James, you haven't met my cousin.
Chérie
, this is Mr. James Hacker, who is a very dangerous person for you to know, because he invents explosives and things like that, and our dear Emily would not approve of him at all. And this—” She drew Hugo forward and paused. “This, my dear—” She paused again, and Loveday turned and looked at Hugo.

Hugo admired her very much; she did it ever so much better than he; her eyes were as innocently unaware as a kitten's. She saw a pleasant boy, who was a stranger, and she waited for Hélène to introduce him. She could not have done it better.

Hélène introduced Mr. Hugo Ross.

Mr. Hugo Ross said “How do you do?” and Miss Loveday Leigh, who had not been given any name except
Chérie
, looked at him with an air of startled interest and said “Oh” in a very natural girlish manner.

“Oh—is your name Ross?” said Loveday. Then she said “Oh” again, with the effect of being a little out of breath. It was very well done.

Quite suddenly Hugo wanted to laugh. He and Loveday playing at being solemnly introduced! He turned to Mme. de Lara and said, stammering a good deal, that it was a fine night.

“Is it?”

Hélène de Lara still had her hand upon his sleeve. She withdrew it now, rather slowly.

“Perhaps there'll b-be a f-fog later.”

Hugo didn't want to laugh any more. He was making an ass of himself, and his cheeks burned.

They went in to dinner, Loveday with Hacker and Hugo with Hélène, and from the time that they were seated Mme. de Lara kept up a soft, unceasing flow of talk—about music—about flying—about jazz—about the Schneider Cup—about all the cities in Europe—about the world's record flights. Her talk rippled like any stream that runs down an easy slope to an untroubled sea.

The little dinner was perfect in every way. Even Hacker's gloom lifted, and by the time coffee was served he had vouchsafed at least one observation. Loveday was plainly enjoying herself. Emily never gave parties like this. Emily only had people to tea. It was thrilling to wear a pink dress for Hugo to see, and to eat the most amusing things with names that kept you guessing.

Hélène stopped talking about record flights. As the servants left the room, she lit a cigarette, looked through the faint veil of smoke at Hacker, and asked,

“Now why didn't you bring Ambrose?”

“You didn't ask him,” said Hacker rudely.

“Didn't I?” She laughed. “Did he expect that I would? He's like royalty—he says he will come, or he says he won't come—one doesn't ask him—especially when he is inventing something. What is it now?”

Hacker leaned back in his chair.

“Don't you read the papers?”

“Never. Why should I? They contain all the things which are not true, or which one knows already. When they are indiscreet, they lie—and when they tell the truth, they are as dull as ditch-water.”

“How picturesque!” said Hacker with a sneer.

She turned to Hugo.

“He is rude because he is afraid of me. He is afraid that I shall ask him to be indiscreet. He is in the sulks, so I shall ask you instead. Tell me about Ambrose's invention.”

“I don't know anything to tell,” said Hugo.

“And do you think that I believe that?”

“It's t-true.”

She waved away the smoke that hung between them and made an odd little monkey face.

“Then I shall tell you—and you shall tell me whether I'm telling true or not.” She kept her eyes on him; dark, sad, malicious eyes. “I'll tell you this, but I won't tell you how I know—Ambrose has invented something that is going to sweep all the other flying things out of the air and leave it bare for him. Now isn't that true?”

“I don't know,” said Hugo.

“Isn't it true, James?”

“Ask Minstrel.”

“I don't need to—it's true. And I'll tell you what I heard, and that's this—they sent experts down from London to see a test, and he showed them a little model that they laughed at for a child's toy, and home-made at that—for it's true, isn't it, that he and you and Leonard made the parts?”

“Some of them,” said Hacker.

Loveday was listening with all her ears and looking with all her eyes. Hélène laughed at her.

“Look at this child! Her eyes will fall out. She's admiring you, James, and thinking how clever you are. And she's wondering how your great clumsy fingers can make anything so fine and delicate as the sort of toy that Ambrose plays with.”

Hacker looked at his hands with a certain complacency. Hélène blew him a mocking kiss.

“How nice to be so pleased with oneself! Perhaps, now that you are pleased, you will tell me if what I have heard is true. I have heard that the experts laughed until they saw what the little toy could do, and that then they didn't laugh any more. I have heard that they came away with long, grave faces. I have heard—”

Hacker frowned again.

“What have you heard?”

“What I have heard comes straight out of a fairy-tale. But that is just what inventors are doing, is it not? They are stealing all the things out of the old wonder-tales and making them come real. One day we say it's impossible, and the next day we are buying the magic over the counter and taking it all as a matter of course.” She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward whispering, “James—is it true that it rises up quite straight without a run? Ah now, tell me!”

Hacker laughed.

“That's nothing!”

“Isn't it now? Listen to him,
Chérie!
Ah, James, be indiscreet and tell us about it! What can it do?”

Hacker pushed back his chair and stood up.

“What can't it do?”

“Tell us.” She was whispering again.

“Not a word.” He went to the door and opened it. “If you want to know anything, you'll have to ask Minstrel yourself.”

“But we've quarrelled.”

“Make it up.” There was contempt in his tone; and all at once there was offence in hers—offence and dignity.

“I think we will go into the next room. Mr. Ross, has Ambrose ever shown you his collection of Chinese snuff bottles? He hasn't? Well, they're worth seeing—and if you can catch him in a really good temper, he likes showing them. But of course that's only when the sun shines in the middle of the night. You wouldn't expect him to have artistic tastes—would you?”

“I don't know,” said Hugo.

She laughed.

“What a lot of things you don't know!” Then, on the threshold of her little room, she patted Loveday on the shoulder. “Go and talk to James. I am offended with him. Talk, or play the piano, or show him photographs—whichever he likes least. I wish to punish him.”