The Lee Shore Part 21

Urquhart said nothing; his silence was expressive.

Peter stammered into speech incoherently.

"At least--at least--yes, I believe I did tell Peggy the story, months ago, in Venice--but I didn't say it was you. I merely said, if someone had done that ... what would she think? I wanted to know if she thought we ought to have found the old man's people and told them."

"I see," said Urquhart. "And did she?"

"No. She thought it was all right." Peter had known beforehand that Peggy would think it was all right; that was why he had asked her, to be rea.s.sured, to have the vague trouble in his mind quieted.

And she, apparently, had seen through his futile pretence, had known it was Urquhart he spoke of, needed rea.s.suring about (Peter didn't realise that even less shrewd observers than Peggy might easily know when it was Urquhart he spoke of) and had gone and told Hilary. And Hilary, in his need, had twisted it into this disgusting story, and had typed it and brought it down to Astleys to-night, with other twisted stories.

"I suppose the rest too," said Urquhart, "you related to your sister-in-law to see what she would think."

Peter stammered, "I don't think so. No, I don't believe anything else came from me. Did it, Hilary?"

Hilary shrugged his shoulders, and made no other answer.

"It really doesn't particularly matter," said Urquhart, "whether the informant was you or some other of my acquaintances. I daresay my gyp is responsible for the story of the actresses I brought down to the St.

Gabriel's dance; he knew about it at the time, I believe. I am not in the least ashamed of that either; the 'Berks.h.i.+re Press' is extremely welcome to it, if it can find s.p.a.ce for it.... Well, now, will you both stay the night with me, or must you get back? The last good train goes at 10.5, I think."

Peter said, "Come along, Hilary."

Urquhart stood and watched them go.

As they turned away, he said, in his gentle, inexpressive voice, that hadn't been raised in anger once, "Can I lend you any money, Peter?"

Peter shook his head, though he felt Hilary start.

"No, thank you. It is very good of you.... Good night."

"Good night."

Going out of the room, they came face to face with Lord Evelyn Urquhart coming in. He saw them; he stiffened a little, repressing a start; he stood elaborately aside to let them pa.s.s, bowing slightly.

Neither Margerison said anything. Hilary's bow was the stage copy of his own; Peter didn't look at him at all, but hurried by.

The servant let them out, and shut the hall door behind them.

Lord Evelyn said to his nephew in the library, swinging his eye-gla.s.s restlessly to and fro, "Why do you let those people into your house, Denis? I thought we had done with them."

"They came to call," said Denis, who did not seem disposed to be communicative. "I can't say why they chose this particular hour."

Lord Evelyn paced up the room, restless, nervous, petulant.

"It's monstrous," he said querulously. "Perfectly monstrous. Shameless.

How dare they show their faces in this house?... I suppose they wanted something out of you, did they?"

Denis merely said, "After all, Peter is my cousin by marriage, you must remember. And I have never broken with him."

Lord Evelyn returned, "The more shame to you. He's as great a swindler as his precious brother; they're a pair, you can't deny that."

Denis didn't attempt to deny it; probably he was feeling a little tired of the Margerisons to-night.

"I'm not defending Peter, or his brother either. I only said that he's Lucy's cousin, and she's very fond of him, and I'm not keen on actually breaking with him. As to the brother, he's so much more of an a.s.s than anything else that to call him a swindler is more than he deserves. He simply came here to-night to play the fool; he's no more sense than a silly a.s.s out of a play."

That was what Peter was telling Hilary on the way to the station. Hilary defended himself rather feebly.

"My good Peter, we must have money. We are in positive want. Of course, I never meant to proceed to extremities; I thought the mere mention of such a threat would be enough to make him see that we really were desperately hard up, and that he might as well help us. But he doesn't care. Like all rich people, he is utterly callous and selfish.... Do you think Lucy would possibly give us any help, if you asked her?"

"I shan't ask her," said Peter. "Don't, please, Hilary," he added miserably. "Can't you _see_...."

"See what? I see that we get a little more dest.i.tute every day: that the boarders are melting away; that I am reduced to unthinkably sordid hackwork, and you to the grind of uncongenial toil; that Peggy can't afford to keep a cook who can boil a potato respectably (they were like walnuts to-day) that she and the children go about with their clothes dropping off them. I see that; and I see these Urquharts, closely connected with our family, rolling in unearned riches, spending and squandering and wasting and never giving away. I see the Robinsons, our own relations, fattening on the money that ought to have come to us, and now and then throwing us a loan as you throw a dog a bone. I see your friend Leslie taking himself off to the antipodes to spend his millions, that he may be out of the reach of disturbing appeals. I see a world const.i.tuted so that you would think the devils in h.e.l.l must cry shame on it." His cough, made worse by the fog, choked his relation of his vision.

Peter had nothing to say to it: he could only sigh over it. The Haves and the Have-Nots--there they are, and there is no getting round the ugly fact.

"Denis," said Peter, "would lend me money if I asked him. You heard him offer. But I am not going to ask him. We are none of us going to ask him.

If I find that you have, and that he has given it you, I shall pay it straight back.... You know, Hilary, we're really not so badly off as all that; we get along pretty well, I think; better than most other people."

The other Have-Nots; they made no difference, in Hilary's eyes, to the fact that of course the Margerisons should have been among the Haves.

Hilary said, "You are absolutely impervious, Peter, to other people's troubles," and turned up his coat-collar and sank down on a seat in the waiting-room. (Of course, they had missed the 10.5, the last good train, and were now waiting for the 11.2, the slow one.)

Peter walked up and down the platform, feeling very cold. He had come away, in his excitement, without his overcoat. The chill of the foggy night seemed to sink deep into his innermost being.

Hilary's words rang in his ears. "I see that we get a little more dest.i.tute every day." It was true. Every day the Margerisons seemed to lose something more. To-night Peter had lost something he could ill afford to part with--another degree of Denis Urquhart's regard. That seemed to be falling from him bit by bit; perhaps that was why he felt so cold. However desperately he clung to the remnants, as he had clung since that last interview in Venice, he could not think to keep them much longer at this rate.

As he walked up and down the platform, his cold hands thrust deep into his pockets, he was contemplating another loss--one that would hurt absurdly much.

If Hilary felt that he needed more money so badly, he must have it. There were certain things Peter declined to do. He wouldn't borrow from the Urquharts; but he would sell his last treasured possession to soothe Hilary for a little while. The Berovieri goblet had been bought for a lot of money, and could at any moment be sold for a lot of money. The Berovieri goblet must go.

That evening, in the tiny attic room, Peter took the adorable thing out of the box where it lay hid, and set it on the chest of drawers, in front of the candle, so that the flame shone through the blue transparency like the setting sun through a stained-gla.s.s window.

It was very, very beautiful. Peter sat on the bed and looked at it, as a devotee before a shrine. In itself it was very beautiful, a magic thing of blue colour and deep light and pure shadow and clear, lovely form.

Peter loved it for itself, and for its symbolic character. For it was a symbol of the world of great loveliness that did, he knew, exist. When he had been turned out of that world into a grey and dusty place, he had kept that one thing, to link him with loveliness and light. Peter was a materialist: he loved things, their shapes and colours, with a pa.s.sion that blinded him to the beauty of the colourless, the formless, the super-sensuous.

He slipped his fingers up the chalice's slim stem and round its cool bowl, and smiled for pleasure that such a thing existed--had existed for four hundred years--to gladden the world.

"Well, anyone would have thought I should have smashed you before now,"

he remarked, apostrophising it proudly. "But I haven't. I shall take you to Christie's myself to-morrow, as whole as you were the day Leslie gave you me."

It was fortunate that Leslie was out of reach, and would not hear of the transaction. If he had been in England, Peter would have felt bound to offer him the goblet, and he would have paid for it too enormous a price to be endured. Leslie's generosity was sometimes rather overwhelming.

When Peter took Hilary and Peggy the cheque he had received, and told them what he had received it for, Hilary said, "I suppose these things must be. It was fortunate you did not ask my advice, Peter; I should have hesitated what to say. It is uncommonly like bartering one's soul for guineas. To what we are reduced!"

He was an artist, and cared for beautiful goblets. He would much rather have borrowed the money, or had it given him.

Peggy, who was not an artist, said, "Oh, Peter darling, how sweet of you!

Now I really _can_ pay the butcher; I've had to hide from him the last few mornings, in the coal-hole. You dear child, I hope you won't miss that nice cup too much. When our s.h.i.+p comes in you shall have another."

"_When_," sighed Hilary, who was feeling over-worked that evening. (He did advertis.e.m.e.nt pictures for a weekly paper; a sordid and degrading pursuit.)