The Fingerprint

Chapter VIII

IT WAS NOT until the rest of the party met at lunch that Jonathan Field’s journey to town became generally known. Mrs. Fabian had apparently encountered him in the hall and delayed him to the point of frenzy whilst she considered whether it would be worth his while to go to the Army and Navy Stores and enquire whether a certain kind of rice was now available. As they settled themselves round the diningtable, now reduced to its smallest proportions, she proceeded to relate the incident.

“They always used to stock it before the war, so I thought it would be a good thing if he went and asked. The other sort is not really any good for milk puddings-at least that is what Mrs. Stokes always says, though I don’t see why. But the trouble is that I never can remember which is which. There is Indian, and Carolina rice, and one of them is good for milk puddings and the other isn’t. There wasn’t time for me to go and ask Mrs. Stokes. Really men are terribly impatient when they are starting for anywhere, and I don’t see that it could possibly matter as he was going by car, and I thought if he were just to ask them at the Stores they would be able to tell him-about which was which and the milk puddings, you know. But he seemed to be in such a hurry. Really he might have had half a dozen trains to catch instead of going all the way in his comfortable car! So I thought it would be best to leave it-especially when he said he had an appointment with Mr. Maudsley! Of course solicitors are very busy people, and I am sure they must make a great deal of money-at least my Uncle James always said they did. He was my father’s brother but they didn’t get on very well, and he kept on having lawsuits, so when he died there wasn’t any money at all. He used to get quite worked up about lawyers. I remember his getting a terribly large bill after a lawsuit he had over a dispute about some property on the borders of Wales which had come to him from his grandmother. I know he quoted a verse about it, and my mother was quite distressed. Now let me see if I can remember it-

‘Find me a parson that will not lie-’ She broke off and cast a deprecating look round the table. “Really that was very rude and uncalled for, but the person who wrote it may have had some unfortunate experience. Perhaps I had better begin again-

‘Find me a parson that will not lie,

And a webster that is leal,

And a lawyer that will not steal,

And lay these three a dead corpse by,

And by the virtue of these three

The said dead corpse shall quickened be.’

“But I’m not sure that I’ve got the lines in the right order, because after all it is quite a long time ago.”

Johnny Fabian burst out laughing and said,

“A bit hard on websters, don’t you think? I should have thought weaving was a most respectable trade-poor but honest and all that sort of thing. So Jonathan has gone up to see his solicitor, has he? Who is he going to cut out of his will?”

It was purely a matter of luck that Stokes at that moment should have been out of the room. No one who knew Johnny could have deceived himself into imagining that the mere presence of a butler would be any check upon his tongue. Mrs. Fabian said, “My dear boy!” in a tone of indulgent reproof, Georgina looked across the table at him. But he only laughed.

“Hush-not a word! What an inhibited lot we are. The more passionately interested you are in a subject, the worse form it is to mention it. Everyone is passionately interested in wills, but we mustn’t mention them.”

Anthony said, “Dry up, Johnny!” and Stokes came back into the room bearing a covered silver dish. With the ease of long practice Johnny accomplished a dexterous verbal slide.

“Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave. If you’ve got any you’ve got to keep it breeding, and if you’re not interested enough to do that you wake up one day and find it’s gone and left you! If you haven’t got the stuff you have to work frightfully hard to get it, and if I’ve got to tell the truth and shame the devil I don’t mind saying it’s a rotten prospect. When you’ve got to do a twelve-hour grind every day, what’s the good of being rich? You just end up like the millionaires who live on tabloids and spend their vacations having a rest-cure in some expensive nursing home. On the other hand there’s something dreary about being poor.”

Mrs. Fabian was beginning to help a dish of chicken and mushrooms which had been placed before her. She said,

“ Georgina, my dear-this is always so good. Mirrie-Anthony-I am sure you must be hungry, and I don’t have to ask about Johnny.”

She had an odd slapdash way of wielding a spoon and fork. Stokes, already outraged by not being allowed to hand the dish, watched gloomily whilst what he afterwards described as drips and drabs clouded the surface of a carefully polished table. When she had come down to helping herself, and he had been permitted to hand artichokes and potatoes, he was dismissed.

“Thank you, Stokes-you can just leave the vegetables in front of Mr. Anthony.” Then, when he had gone out of the room, she broke in upon the general conversation with a heartfelt, “Oh, yes, that is so true-what Johnny was saying about being poor. My father had a very good living, but he hadn’t any private means, so when he and my mother died in the same year there wasn’t anything left, and I went to live with my father’s aunts. It was very good of them, because they hadn’t really enough for themselves, but they took me in and brought me up, and when they died I wasn’t young and I had never been trained for anything. What they had been living on went to another branch of the family, so it really was quite a frightening prospect. One should not concern oneself with money, but it is very difficult not to do so when people keep sending in their bills and you haven’t anything to pay them with.”

Johnny, who was sitting next to her, leaned over, patted her arm, and said,

“Darling, desist. We shall all burst out crying in a minute.”

She met his laughing look with an astonished one.

“Oh, no, my dear, that would be foolish-and there is no need, because everything turned out for the best. Your father was a widower and you were only four years old, so of course he needed someone to come and run the house. But after a little he engaged a housekeeper and asked me to marry him, because he thought it would work out better that way. And so it did, and we were all very happy together until he died. And even then we should have been quite comfortably off if he had not put so much of his money into a South American mine. Dear me, I am keeping you all waiting and letting my chicken get cold! Won’t anyone else have some more? It is so good.”

Anthony and Johnny responded by passing up their plates, and then Mrs. Fabian thought she would have a little more herself, and perhaps another artichoke and just one potato.

On a formal occasion Georgina would play hostess, but when it was just a family party it was customary to allow Mrs. Fabian the place of honour. Today Anthony Hallam was in Jonathan’s place, Georgina on his right with her back to the windows, Mirrie and Johnny on his left. He leaned toward Georgina and said,

“You have been warned! Don’t buy South American mines or listen to the confiding stranger with a gold brick or buried treasure. It’s better to go through life thinking what a wonderful chance you’ve missed than to have to go on telling yourself all the different sorts of fool you’ve been.”

She looked up, and down again. He had a glimpse of something, he wasn’t sure what. Why on earth had he said a thing like that? If he had wounded her, made her angry- She said, “I don’t think it arises as far as I am concerned,” and he knew that she was reminding him and herself that she was no longer likely to have a fortune either to keep or throw away. It had gone down the wind of Jonathan’s new fancy, and what he had seen in her eyes was a proud reproach.

On his left Mirrie asked in a small ingenuous voice,

“What is a gold brick?”

Whilst Johnny was enlightening her Stokes came back into the room bearing an apple tart.