第49章 CHAPTER THE THIRD(5)

"You men!" said Lady Marayne after a little pause."What queer beasts you are! Here is a woman who is kind to you.She's fond of you.I could tell she's fond of you directly I heard her.And you amuse yourself with her.And then it's Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Great Work, Hands Clear, Big Business of the World.Why couldn't you think of that before, Poff? Why did you begin with her Merkle.The second was to end his ill-advised intimacy with little Mrs.

Skelmersdale as generously and cheerfully as possible.The third was to bring Lady Marayne into social relations with the Wilder and Morris MENAGE at South Harting.It did not strike him that there was any incompatibility among these projects or any insurmountable difficulty in any of them until he was back in his flat.

The accumulation of letters, packages and telephone memoranda upon his desk included a number of notes and slips to remind him that both Mrs.Skelmersdale and his mother were ladies of some determination.Even as he stood turning over the pile of documents the mechanical vehemence of the telephone filled him with a restored sense of the adverse will in things."Yes, mam," he heard Merkle's voice, "yes, mam.I will tell him, mam.Will you keep possession, mam." And then in the doorway of the study, "Mrs.Skelmersdale, sir.Upon the telephone, sir."Benham reflected with various notes in his hand.Then he went to the telephone.

"You Wicked Boy, where have you been hiding?""I've been away.I may have to go away again.""Not before you have seen me.Come round and tell me all about it."Benham lied about an engagement.

"Then to-morrow in the morning."...Impossible.

"In the afternoon.You don't WANT to see me." Benham did want to see her.

"Come round and have a jolly little evening to-morrow night.I've got some more of that harpsichord music.And I'm dying to see you.

Don't you understand?"

Further lies."Look here," said Benham, "can you come and have a talk in Kensington Gardens? You know the place, near that Chinese garden.Paddington Gate...."The lady's voice fell to flatness.She agreed."But why not come to see me HERE?" she asked.

Benham hung up the receiver abruptly.

He walked slowly back to his study."Phew!" he whispered to himself.It was like hitting her in the face.He didn't want to be a brute, but short of being a brute there was no way out for him from this entanglement.Why, oh! why the devil had he gone there to lunch?...

He resumed his examination of the waiting letters with a ruffled mind.The most urgent thing about them was the clear evidence of gathering anger on the part of his mother.He had missed a lunch party at Sir Godfrey's on Tuesday and a dinner engagement at Philip Magnet's, quite an important dinner in its way, with various promising young Liberals, on Wednesday evening.And she was furious at "this stupid mystery.Of course you're bound to be found out, and of course there will be a scandal."...He perceived that this last note was written on his own paper."Merkle!" he cried sharply.

"Yessir!"

Merkle had been just outside, on call.

"Did my mother write any of these notes here?" he asked.

"Two, sir.Her ladyship was round here three times, sir.""Did she see all these letters?"

"Not the telephone calls, sir.I ‘ad put them on one side.

But....It's a little thing, sir."

He paused and came a step nearer."You see, sir," he explained with the faintest flavour of the confidential softening his mechanical respect, "yesterday, when ‘er ladyship was ‘ere, sir, some one rang up on the telephone--""But you, Merkle--"

"Exactly, sir.But ‘er ladyship said ‘I'LL go to that, Merkle,' and just for a moment I couldn't exactly think ‘ow I could manage it, sir, and there ‘er ladyship was, at the telephone.What passed, sir, I couldn't ‘ear.I ‘eard her say, ‘Any message?' And I FANCY, sir, I ‘eard ‘er say, ‘I'm the ‘ousemaid,' but that, sir, I think must have been a mistake, sir.""Must have been," said Benham."Certainly--must have been.And the call you think came from--?""There again, sir, I'm quite in the dark.But of course, sir, it's usually Mrs.Skelmersdale, sir.Just about her time in the afternoon.On an average, sir...."7

"I went out of London to think about my life."It was manifest that Lady Marayne did not believe him.

"Alone?" she asked.

"Of course alone."

"STUFF!" said Lady Marayne.

She had taken him into her own little sitting-room, she had thrown aside gloves and fan and theatre wrap, curled herself comfortably into the abundantly cushioned corner by the fire, and proceeded to a mixture of cross-examination and tirade that he found it difficult to make head against.She was vibrating between distressed solicitude and resentful anger.She was infuriated at his going away and deeply concerned at what could have taken him away."I was worried," he said."London is too crowded to think in.I wanted to get myself alone.""And there I was while you were getting yourself alone, as you call it, wearing my poor little brains out to think of some story to tell people.I had to stuff them up you had a sprained knee at Chexington, and for all I knew any of them might have been seeing you that morning.Besides what has a boy like you to worry about?

It's all nonsense, Poff."

She awaited his explanations.Benham looked for a moment like his father.

"I'm not getting on, mother," he said."I'm scattering myself.I'm getting no grip.I want to get a better hold upon life, or else Ido not see what is to keep ted, blushed, and regretted it.

"Mrs.Skelmersdale," he said after a little pause.

"It's all the same.Who is she?"

"She's a woman I met at a studio somewhere, and I went with her to one of those Dolmetsch concerts."He stopped.