The Fingerprint

Chapter XXVIII

JOHNNY FABIAN came back with that lightening of the spirit which comes from the feeling that a lot of very disagreeable and trying things now lie behind you, and that you can get back to ordinary ways again. He considered Sid Turner to be one of the disagreeable things. He was a good and easy mixer, but even on a desert island he didn’t feel as if it would be possible to mix with Sid. He saw him follow Mr. Maudsley into a first-class carriage and wondered how long it would take a ticket-collector to find out that he had only paid a third-class fare. The thought of Mr. Maudsley’s feelings when it happened cheered him all the way back to Field End.

He went up two steps at a time and along to Georgina ’s sitting-room. She had changed into a house-coat and was sitting with her hands in her lap and only one shaded lamp turned on. There was a pleasant small fire, the room felt warm and peaceful. He came over and dropped into a chair on the other side of the hearth.

“Well,” he said, “they’ve gone. Hand in hand so to speak- the revolting Sid and the respectable Maudsley. I don’t somehow feel that a lasting friendship will develop.”

Georgina ’s brows drew together.

“I can’t think why he came down.”

“Can’t you, darling? That’s your nice pure mind. Mine tells me he came down to nose out how much Mirrie had come in for and to cash in on it.”

Her eyes rested upon him with rather a curious expression.

“She is afraid of him.”

“Darling, if she hasn’t got any money, I shouldn’t think he would have any designs. I feel we may count on Sid fading out with or without soft music.”

“I don’t think she is fond of him.”

“I’m quite sure she isn’t.”

“But it isn’t very nice for a girl to feel that a man is only wanting her money. Even if she isn’t fond of him it would leave a kind of bruise, don’t you think?”

Johnny said; “Has she been talking to you?”

“I’ve been talking to her.”

“What did she say?”

“What was there for her to say?”

“That I had made love to her?”

“Could she have said that? Would it have been true?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You’ve always been quite good at making love, haven’t you, Johnny?”

He gave a rueful laugh.

“I suppose I have. And anyhow why not? Girls like it. I like it. A good time is had by all, and no harm done.”

“No one who really knew you would take you seriously. Mirrie doesn’t know you very well. It’s a game to you, but it mightn’t be a game to her.”

There was a pause. After a moment he said,

“Suppose it wasn’t a game to me-this time. It isn’t, you know.”

There was another pause and a longer one. He was sitting forward with his chin in his hand looking away from her into the fire. She couldn’t really see his face. In the end she said,

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“Surprising, isn’t it? I-I’d like to talk to you if you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind, Johnny.”

“It began when Jonathan brought her here. You know how she strikes you, how she would strike anyone-little stray thing trying to ingratiate itself, hoping it’s going to be allowed to stay. It seemed only natural to make a bit of a fuss of her. Then when I saw she liked it I began to have ideas. Jonathan was falling for her like a ton of bricks, and I thought-well, I suppose you can guess what I thought.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Mind you, I’d have been good to her. I mean-”

He found it impossible to say what he meant. He had lived under the same roof as Georgina for nineteen years and there really wasn’t much they didn’t know about each other. She knew very well what he meant, and she said so.

“You thought Uncle Jonathan would set you up in a business of your own and say, ‘Bless you, my children.’ ”

“Something like that. Mind you, I wasn’t in a hurry. I was looking about for a nice little going concern, and I thought he would be getting used to the idea of my being fond of Mirrie. And then all this had to happen. One minute everything was going on all right, and the next it was all in the melting-pot and nobody knew where anybody stood. Mirrie told me that Jonathan had made a new will. She said he had told her he was treating her as if she was his daughter. I didn’t mean to say anything to her then, but the conversation just came round that way. She thought she was going to have a lot of money, and she wanted to give me some of it. I said it couldn’t be done, and-oh, well, I expect you can see the way it went. I suppose I lost my head-I suppose I didn’t try very hard not to lose it-and before we knew where we were we were talking about the flat over the garage I was going to get! I have got old Aunt Eleanor’s two thousand pounds-”

Georgina said, “Oh, Johnny!”

He looked round with a fleeting grin.

“I know, I know. Jonathan gone and Mirrie an heiress, and I don’t even let twenty-four hours go by before making sure of her-that’s the way it looks.”

“It does rather.”

He said,

“It just happened. You know the way things do. You get on a buttered slide and it just runs away with you.”

Georgina was looking at him. He wasn’t putting on an act. She said,

“You must have had a horrid shock when you found that Jonathan had burned the will he made on Tuesday.”

“Yes-in a way. I suppose you won’t believe me, but-”

“Why shouldn’t I believe you?”

He gave an odd short laugh.

“I don’t find it easy to believe myself! When Maudsley said that about the will being burned and your inheriting under the old one it knocked Mirrie right off her balance. She thought it meant that she would have to go back to that infernal Home, and whether you believe it or not, all I could think about was the best way to look after her and make her feel safe. When she said I wouldn’t want to marry her if she hadn’t got any money I knew that I wanted to marry her more than I had ever wanted anything in all my life. And I went after her and said so.”

Georgina put out her hand to him, but he didn’t see it. He was staring into the fire.

“This afternoon at the funeral that horrible chap Sid Turner came up and spoke to Mirrie. I can’t think what possessed him to show up. No, that isn’t true. It was fairly obvious that it was because he thought Mirrie was coming into Jonathan’s money. I’ve just been driving him into Lenton with Maudsley, and he began about it in the car. Mirrie had told him about the will, and he shot off a line about seeing she got her rights. I left Maudsley to cope with him, which he did very efficiently. But all the time he was talking-all the time, Georgina -it was coming home to me that if it hadn’t been for Jonathan there mightn’t have been a pennorth of difference, between him and me. You know I hadn’t the faintest, most shadowy claim on Jonathan. Mama was only about a seventeenth cousin, and I was just a horrid scrubby little schoolboy who was no more relation to him than Adam, but he let her bring me here, and he has always let me treat this as my home. If I’d really had to live by my wits, I don’t expect there would be anything to choose between me and Sid. It came over me pretty clearly that I’d the devil of a lot to thank Jonathan for. And Mama-and you.”

Georgina said, “Thank you, Johnny.” Then, after a little pause, “What are you going to do now? I mean, about Mirrie. Are you engaged?”

“Well, yes, we are. Do you think we ought to give it out?”

“I don’t know. She is very young, Johnny.”

He said,

“Someone has got to look after her. She can’t go back to that uncle and aunt.”

“They won’t want her if there’s no money. You had better wait and let me talk to Mr. Maudsley.”

For the first time he turned round to face her.

“What are you going to say to him?”

Georgina laughed. She put out her hand again, and this time he took it. She said,

“Wait and see.”

The serious Johnny was gone. His eyes laughed back at her.

“You couldn’t be going to give us a nice wedding present, could you, darling?”

Georgina said, “I might.”