Nothing Venture (15 page)

“Well—” he said. “I've had the men down at the bridge.”

Nan turned to face him. Bran came over to her and put his head in her lap.

“The wood was rotten. The spray from the fall had rotted it. As a matter of fact Benham—that's the carpenter—reminded me that I had spoken to him about having it overhauled, but of course I didn't think there was any particular urgency.”

Nan looked down at Bran and stroked his head. She did not speak. She had a picture in her mind of a lightning flash, and of Robert Leonard against a black background of trees.

Jervis lifted his head a little. Why didn't she speak?

“Benham made a thorough examination of the broken timbers. I think you suggested that they had been tampered with.”

Nan looked up and said, “Yes.”

“You suggested that Leonard had tampered with the bridge.”

“Yes—I did.”

“Then I think you ought to withdraw that suggestion. If the timbers had been partly sawn through, the marks of the saw would show. There aren't any marks. The timbers broke because they were rotten. The ends are all ragged and splintered, and the wood's so rotten that you can break it with your fingers. I can't think how it held so long.”

Nan did not speak. She gave him a steady look, and then went back to stroking Bran.

A little dark colour showed in Jervis' face.

“You made what amounted to an accusation.”

“Yes,” said Nan.

He struck the back of the seat with his hand.

“Are you going to withdraw it?”

“No.”

“After Benham's report?”

Nan flung up her head.

“He tried to kill you!”

“That's nonsense. The bridge fell because it was rotten and I'd put off having it seen to. As a matter of fact it was Leonard who directed my attention to it not a week ago—Benham reminded me. I don't like Leonard—he's not a man I've ever cared about, and he rather put my back up—but he's a family connection, and I think you ought to take back what you said.”

Nan got up. She took a step towards him and stood still.

“This is the third time he's tried to kill you,” she said.

She saw his face darken and then change. He was looking past her, and she turned involuntarily. Lady Tetterley and Rosamund Carew were coming across the lawn.

Nan braced herself. She wasn't ready to meet Rosamund—here, where Rosamund was at home and she was a stranger; she wasn't ready at all. Jervis was angry. She had the picture of the breaking bridge in the back of her mind. She felt taken unawares and defenceless, but she called on her courage, and it rose.

Alfred brought chairs, and presently Monk entered upon the imposing ritual of tea.

Lady Tetterley, a ginger-haired woman with pale eyes and magenta lips painted on crooked, shook hands without looking at Nan, and began at once to talk to Jervis about people Nan did not even know by name. Pogo was broke and was going to have a try for the Winkledon girl, but it wasn't likely she'd look at him, because Snorter was in the running too, and naturally he'd have a pull over Pogo.

Jervis preferring Pogo's chances, they became involved in argument, until Lady Tetterley produced a red herring in the shape of an extraordinary rumour about Bonzo's entry for the Cesarewitch.

Rosamund sat back in her chair with an air of complete detachment. Her beauty, her indifference, the skilful simplicity of her washing-silk dress, made Nan feel as if she herself was all wrong. She spoke to Rosamund, and Rosamund's replies left her with no more to say. Rosamund's manner conveyed perfectly the impression that she was being polite. Nan preferred Lady's Tetterley's frank rudeness.

She poured out tea, and presently Rosamund had joined the others in a quite unintelligible discussion as to whether Juju Fordyce was, or was not, mixed up in the Lansdell affair. Lady Tetterley was of opinion that he was. Her plucked red eyebrows went up into an exaggerated arch as she maintained her contention.

“Jinks told me he was, and Freddy told Jinks—and I suppose you'll admit that
Freddy
ought to know.”

“Because of Dodo?” said Rosamund.

“
Naturally
. And as Tuffy said to me—”

“Dodo's the worst liar in London,” said Jervis.

“Oh, not the
worst
!”

“By worst do you mean cleverest?” inquired Rosamund.

“Dodo hasn't the brains of a weevil,” said Jervis.

Nan poured out tea. It was a useful function; apart from it, there seemed to be no reason for her existence. A spate of gossip swept past and left her on the bank. If it had not been for Jervis, she would not have minded. It would have amused her to watch Lady Tetterley, who was so thin that each of her restless movements threatened to break something. Having achieved a miraculous slenderness by the complete sacrifice of health, colour and bloom, she was inordinately pleased with the result. At intervals of ten minutes or so she opened a vanity case, peered into the glass which lined its lid, and applied powder to her bony features, and another touch of magenta to her thin lips. She talked without ceasing, and had something faintly unpleasant to say about everyone she mentioned. She appeared to amuse Jervis.

Rosamund sat, for the most part, lighting one cigarette from another and talking little. Once when Nan looked up she found herself meeting Rosamund's eyes. Behind their beauty and their wonderful dark blue a definitely hostile something met and then instantly evaded her. Nan felt a little shaken; she did not quite know why. She did not expect Rosamund to like her. An armed neutrality was the best that could be hoped for between them.

Lady Tetterley did not make a long visit. As they got up to go, Rosamund drew a little nearer to Jervis.

“I've got things all over the place here. I thought I'd blow in whilst I'm with Mabel and do some sorting and shedding.”

“Oh, whenever you like.”

“You don't mind if I leave some things here?”

“Won't you be wanting them?”

She made a very slight gesture with the hand which held her cigarette.

“Where can I put them? I've only got the Leaham Road house for another month. I shall have to look out for an attic in a slum, I suppose.”

“My cue?” said Jervis. “I take it that this is where I ask, ‘Why a slum?'”

“You needn't ask—because you know.”

They had lowered their voices, and Lady Tetterley was listening with interest. It was not until Rosamund turned away that she made a restless movement towards Nan.

“Oh, by the way, Basher told me to be sure to ask you about your people.”

Nan gazed at her. She did not repeat the word Basher, but she contrived to produce the impression of having done so.

Mabel Tetterley jerked her emaciated shoulders.

“Basher's my husband. He's got it into his head that you may be related to some Forsyths he used to know. I told him it was most improbable, but he said I was to ask. I believe he was in love with one of them. They used to live at a place called Glenbuckie, and one of the sons went off digging up Old Testament places in Chaldea. Basher says he was quite well known in his own line.”

“Nigel Forsyth,” said Jervis.

Mabel Tetterley nodded.

“That's it. He wrote books about it. You know—all sherds, and cuneiform, and bits of the Tower of Babel, and Abraham's cooking-pots, and Japhet's wife's nose-ring. I don't read them myself, but Basher gloats over them, and he particularly said I was to find out if you were related to these Glenbuckie Forsyths.”

Nan's colour rose.

“Yes, I am.”

“Not
really
!” Her tone made this an impertinence.

“Nigel Forsyth was my father.”

Lady Tetterley knocked the ash off her cigarette and said, “Damn!” Then she repeated her “Not
really
!” and added, “Basher will be thrilled.”

After which she turned with one of her abrupt movements and declared that they ought to have gone ten minutes ago.

Neither she nor Rosamund took any leave of Nan, who was left uncertain of whether to cross the lawn with them or to remain where she was. She made a tentative movement to follow them, but they were already some distance away; she would have had to run to catch them up. No one of the three looked around. She hesitated, stood looking after them for a moment, and then returned to the tea-table with a growing certainty that she had done the wrong thing. When, a few minutes later, she saw Monk and Alfred advancing to remove the tea things, she got up and walked to the house, her cheeks burning and her courage very low.

She met Jervis in the hall, and he looked at her with cold anger.

“Why didn't you come to see them off?”

“You went without me.”

“You should have come too.”

She said, with a simplicity that checked him, “I am sorry. You went off so quickly at the end, and I thought it would look foolish if I ran after you.”

He passed on without another word, and she did not see him till dinner.

XX

The evening was very hot. Monk brought them iced coffee in the library. It was still broad daylight, the terrace and the long slope to the ravine in full sun, and the shadows on the lawn dead still.

Jervis went out on the terrace, and Nan picked up a book. As long as Monk was in the room they had talked quite easily and pleasantly; when Monk was gone there seemed to be nothing to say—or too much. It was a relief to go through the pages of a book into another world. She had read no more than half a chapter, when she heard Jervis come back.

He rang to have the coffee taken away, and stood by the window smoking a cigarette until the door had closed behind Monk. Then he came over to where Nan sat by a window facing the shadowed lawn. He stood looking down upon her.

“Rather unwise of you to commit yourself like that to Mabel Tetterley.”

Nan looked up. If she was startled, she did not show it. Her eyes had the wide, steady gaze which roused something in him. Anger? He took it to be anger.

“Dashing of course—but a bit unwise, don't you think?”

“I don't know at all what you mean,” said Nan.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I'm afraid you've a bad memory. It was quite amusing to see you call Mabel Tetterley's bluff, but I think you'd better have held your tongue. You see, she's only got to look up an old
Who's Who
to score you off rather badly. And as it happens, Basher is the sort of fellow who would be sure to have cartloads of old encyclopedias and
Debretts
and
Who's Whos
knocking about the place.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

He sat down on the arm of a big chair and leaned towards her.

“Oh, I think you do. Mabel's as inquisitive as they're made. She'll go home, and she and Basher will look up the appropriate volume—I forget what year Nigel Forsyth died?”

“Nineteen-nineteen,” said Nan.

“Oh, you've mugged it up?”

“You didn't finish what you were saying.”

“Need I?”

“Please.”

He laughed, got up, crossed the room, bent to one of the lowest shelves, and came back with a red book in his hand.

“All right—you've asked for it. Here we are! My grandfather was a bit of a collector too. Here we have
Who's Who
for nineteen-eighteen.”

He flicked over the leaves. “Here goes!—‘Forsyth, Nigel Darnaway. Third son of Alistair Darnaway Forsyth of Glenbuckie. Forfarshire. Born 1875. Education Winchester—Cambridge. Fellow King's Coll:—'”

“Why are you reading all that?” said Nan.

“You mean that it isn't news to you—you've been there already—you know all about the ‘British Ass:' and ‘Excav: Chal:'”

Nan had turned pale. She said.

“I would be likely to know.”

He laughed.

“Meaning that it was premeditated, and you naturally got up the documentary evidence! But now we come to the important part—‘Married 1908 Constance Lavington.'”

“Yes,” said Nan—“my mother.”

He clapped the book to and dropped it into the seat of the chair beside him.

“It won't do,” he said. “You were a little fool to think you could pull it off.”

Nan stood up.

“You don't believe me?”

He smiled.

“Why don't you believe me?”

He laughed.

“Let's drop it! But if I were you, I should leave the ancestry vague. Nigel Forsyth is just a bit too well known.”

Nan put her hands behind her back. They were shaking, and she didn't want him to see them shake.

“Nigel Forsyth was my father, and Constance Lavington was my mother. My father's people were furious about the marriage because my mother was on the stage. She died when Cynthia was six months old, and my father never forgave his father for the things he had said about her. He went out to Mesopotamia, leaving us with a sort of aunt. Her name was Mrs Whipple—she was my mother's half-sister and the widow of a Major Whipple of the Indian Army. She brought us up. My father only came home once after the war. He died at Baghdad in nineteen-nineteen. There was only a very little money. Mrs Whipple—” She hesitated. “I can't be fair to her, because she made Cynthia very unhappy. I think she tried to do her duty. There was only a little money, and she wasn't fond of children. She wasn't fond of us, and she didn't understand Cynthia. That's why I went to Solano's as a dancing partner—I simply had to get Cynthia away.”

The ash from Jervis's cigarette fell and powdered the carpet. He had been looking at her hard. His expression changed suddenly.

“You mean it's true?”

“It's quite easy for me to prove that it's true. I have my father's letters—I can show them to you.”

His face changed again. The momentary embarrassment passed. He looked like a triumphant schoolboy.