Beggar’s Choice

XXIV

When she heard the knock on her door, Fay Everitt turned slowly without the least suspicion that she was turning to meet a reckoning. She had spent a lazy afternoon- first a hot bath; then a little sleep; then a novel, chocolates, and some of those cigarettes which Car so unreasonably disapproved of. She was one of those people who could be desperately unhappy or desperately frightened at one moment, and the next forget, for the time at least, that there was anything to be unhappy about. She could come to the surface of her thoughts and move about there with, as it were, a thin sheet of ice between her and the things that moved darkly below. At any moment the ice might break. It was breaking now, though she did not know it.

She turned, blew a little puff of smoke into the already hazy air, and called,

“Come in!”

Even when the door opened and Car stood aside to let Corinna Lee pass him, her only feeling was one of sharp annoyance because he was not alone.

They came in, and Car shut the door. Corinna spoke at once. She had no intention of shaking hands with Fay. She stood a yard from the door, small, determined, purposeful, with round gray eyes that were very brightly aware. They took in the room with its green curtains-the bed, low and couch-like, with a green spread which was just out of key; the shabby carpet; the old chair, with one very new cushion, gold and green with a black spider embroidered on it; the mantelshelf, dominated by a large framed photograph of Peter. Peter’s eyes in the photograph looked straight at Corinna.

She spoke at once in a little composed voice:

“I’m very pleased to find you in, Miss Everitt, because there’s something I want to ask you. And I don’t think I’ll sit down, thank you”-this as Fay waved her towards a chair-“because it won’t take you any time at all just to answer what I want to ask.”

Fay stiffened. She was standing in the middle of the room with her book in her left hand and the right at her lips replacing her cigarette. She paused, stared, lifted her eyebrows at Car, and remarked,

“Americans are always in a hurry, I suppose.”

“Well, I’m in a hurry,” said Corinna briskly. “I’m in a hurry to know whether it is true that you say you are Mrs. Peter Lymington.”

The book fell out of Fay’s hand with a crash. She jerked round to face Car on Corinna’s right.

“You told her! How dare you?” And then and there she stopped, choked down the anger that was carrying her out of her depth, and faced Corinna again. “I have never called myself Mrs. Peter Lymington!”

“Have you ever said you were married to him?” The hand with the cigarette fell to Fay’s side. “Did you tell Car Fairfax you were married to Peter?”

There was no answer.

Corinna did not move. Her small gray-gloved hands rested one on either side of the big lump of rose quartz which covered the catch of her gray lizard bag. Her small gray-shod feet were planted firmly. Her stern young gaze never left Fay’s frightened face. It had been angry at first, but it was frightened now. The ice had broken and let her down amongst all those dark fears which sometimes came out at night and brought a reign of terror with them.

Corinna spoke again in the same clear voice:

“Did you tell Car Fairfax that you were married to Peter? Car says you did. Is he telling a lie?”

Fay looked at Car. For three years she had looked to him whenever there was anything unpleasant to be done. She looked to him now.

He came forward and put a hand on her arm.

“Haven’t you got anything to say, Fay?”

She shook her head.

“You’re not married to Peter?”

She shook it again.

“Why did you say you were?”

Fay moved back a step, freeing herself. She spoke for the first time since the questions had begun; and she spoke to Car, not to Corinna:

“Tell her to go away,” she said only just above her breath.

“Well, I don’t want to stay,” said Corinna soberly. She turned and went out of the room without another word.

Car followed her down the stairs.

“Do you want a taxi?”

“No-I guess I’d like to walk.”

“I must go back. This has got to be cleared right up.”

She nodded, and on an impulse put her face up to be kissed.

He kissed the soft round cheek, and both of them felt a certain comfort. The kiss seemed to bring the pleasant ordered ways of family affection into sight again. He patted her shoulder, and she went out, her eyes not stern any longer but vaguely troubled. Why should any one tell stupid lies like that? Why should they?

Car went back. He was shocked, and he was beginning to be angry. He didn’t understand what had happened, or why it had happened. He felt rather as if some one had struck him in the face; he would be angry as soon as he got over the first shock of surprise.

He found Fay just where he had left her, standing in the middle of the room staring at the door, waiting for him to come back. The end of her cigarette had scorched her thin green dress. A faint smell of burning crept through the smell of her cigarette.

Car was glad enough to have something to be angry about.

“Good Lord, Fay, what are you doing? You’ll be on fire in a minute!”

She dropped the cigarette then, as she had dropped the book, just opening her fingers and letting it go.

“Now!” he said. “What’s the meaning of this? What did you do it for?”

Fay began to cry. Quite gently and slowly the tears brimmed up in her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. It was an immense relief. Car was always sorry when she cried, and if he would only be sorry, it would be all right. The worst of being very frightened was that you couldn’t always cry.

“What on earth did you do it for?” said Car in an angry, puzzled voice.

“You,” said Fay with the tears running down her face.

Car made a violent movement.

“What are you talking about?”

“You,” said Fay again.

He actually shook her a little then, lightly, and let go of her in a hurry because the impulse came on him to shake her harder, harder, harder.

“What are you talking about? What in heaven’s name made you do such a thing? Were you engaged to Peter?”

She shook her head dumbly.

“Did he ever make love to you?”

She shook her head again.

“But, good heavens-are you mad? It’s sheer raving lunacy! What was the good of telling me you and Peter were married-what was the point? It’s so utterly crass!”

Fay shook her head again. She gathered her hands up under her chin. She stood there drooping, weeping, not saying a word.

Car felt a primitive desire to beat her. He took a hasty step back towards the door. It was beastly to be so strong and to want to beat people.

“Why did you do it?” he said in an exasperated voice.

Fay, seeing him recede, found her voice. She was still frightened, but there was a sort of delicious thrill about being frightened of Car. She didn’t at all want him to go away. In a voice full of tears she said,

“I did it for you.”

Car felt as if he had been struck again.

“For me? I suppose you’re mad.”

She shook her head.

He thought if she shook her head again, that he would probably throw something at her. He drove both hands deep into his pockets and glowered.

“Will you kindly explain-all right then, I’m going.”

Fay sprang forward.

“Don’t go, Car! I did it for you-I really did! I don’t care twopence for Peter! He asked me to go out with him, and I went, because sometimes you were there too. It was the only way I could get to see you. And when the smash came and Peter went to the States, I thought I should never see you any more.” The words came tumbling out half choked with sobs.

“That’s enough,” said Car. “Don’t talk like that!”

He reached for the door handle, but she caught his arm with both hands.

“Car-listen! Don’t be angry. It was for you. I thought I’d never see you again, and I was desperate. And I knew you’d look after me if you thought I was Peter’s wife, so I said I was.”

“Yes,” said Car-“beautifully simple! I see. Let me go, Fay.”

“Car!”

“You’d better let me go. I might”-he took a deep breath-“I might-hurt you.” Then with a sudden jerk he had the door open, pulled free of her, and was gone.

She heard the front door slam so violently that the house shook. She put her hand on her own door and pushed it to. She was sobbing as she whirled round and ran to the hearth.

Peter’s photograph looked down at her. She snatched it and flung it across the room. It struck the window-sill and fell with a tinkle of broken glass.

Fay began to laugh.