Men of Affairs Part 34

Her thoughts flew back to her first meeting with Barraclough during the war. She was nursing then at a hospital in Eastbourne. He had had a bullet through the foot and was sent to the sea to recuperate. Strange how instantly they had liked each other. His good nature, pluck, generosity, were splendid a.s.sets in a friendship which went floundering loveward after the fashion of those crazy days. There was the fortnight they spent together in Town--perfectly respectable if a little unorthodox. He had money to burn and she helped him burn it.

He had never asked more of her than companionship. Of course they kissed each other--everyone did during the war--that was understood; and he bought her presents too--ripping presents--and took her everywhere--theatres, undreamed-of restaurants, dances. A glorious time they had. He had denied her nothing except the offer of his name.

After all there was no particular reason why he should have asked her to marry him--theirs was a mere partnership of gaiety added to which she knew well enough that it would not have been practicable. They were of a different mould. His blood was of the Counties and hers--Lord knows where she came from--"the people" is the best covering phrase to employ. She had been a mannequin in a Bond Street shop before the war. But was it fair--was it just to engender a love of luxury--to introduce her to all that her nature--vulgarised by unfamiliarity--coveted most! If he had proposed likely enough she would have been generous and refused him. But he didn't propose--he took it for granted that they were no more to each other than the moment dictated. There was a kind of long headed caution in his diffidence with regard to the future. He was exigent too in his demands and would not tolerate her being pleasant to anyone else. It was her nature to be pleasant to all men and restraints were odious and insulting. That was how the row came about. It took place on the night before his return to Prance. It was her fault no doubt because really he had been a ripping friend and loyal and trustworthy but the little climber felt that for once she had failed to climb. She was left, so to speak, in mid air, inoculated with the germs of all manner of new ambitions no longer realisable. Wherefore she forgot her affection for him and forgot all the lessons of politeness so studiously acquired in the years of climbing and let him have her opinions hot and strong as a simple uncultivated child of the people.

The expression on Anthony Barraclough's face read plainly enough relief at his escape. He packed his valise and departed wondering greatly at the intricacy and unreasonableness of women. It did not occur to him that he was greatly to blame for having given her such a good time.

Such a consideration was as remote as the thought of congratulating himself on his generosity. He was only awfully sorry she should have turned out as she did and rather perplexed at the apparent want of reason. And Auriole with the disposition to like him better than any man of her acquaintance suffered an entire reversal of feeling and went headlong to the other extreme in a spirit of unbecoming revengefulness.

And in the valley below, under the shadow of a cloud, this man was being tortured.

"I never meant that," Auriole cried. "I never meant that--did I--did I? I just wanted to pay him back. I just wanted----" She bit her lower lip and choked. "What a fool I am," she gasped. "Haven't I won a millionaire out of it? What's it matter if he does suffer a bit--he wouldn't be the only one. A millionaire," she repeated, "a millionaire--the wife of a railroad king. That's worth something surely."

A couple of unruly tears trickled out of her eyes and fell on her lap.

It is really too absurd that even the thought of a million pounds cannot prevent a girl from crying.

CHAPTER 18.

HOLDING OUT.

Richard Frencham Altar had a sense of humour but never before in his. .h.i.therto easy going life had he so earnestly needed it. A sense of humour in a queer abstract way provides a quality of companionship--it gives a man the power to be a pal to himself--to talk to himself aloud--to laugh at adversity--to spot the comic side in the most pathetic predicament. Each day provided something new in the matter of discomfort or alarm. The calls he was obliged to make upon his resources of humour were therefore severe and exacting. Over and over again he had need to remind himself that there was something cla.s.sically funny in three financial giants demanding from him information of which he was entirely ignorant and, technically speaking, putting him on the rack in order to obtain it. The fun was grim but it existed. No one ever thought of mentioning what it was they wanted to find out--doubtless a.s.suming that to do so was waste of time. For his own satisfaction Richard would dearly have loved to ask point blank what it was all about, but to indulge curiosity to that extent would be to imperil the safety of the cause he represented.

To keep a record of days he made a scratch on the wall paper each morning with his finger nail. There were seventeen scratches in all and he was as proud of them as an old campaigner of his medals for they stood for seventeen successful engagements. Whoever it was had charge of arranging his persecution lacked nothing in the way of imagination.

Methods of destroying his repose and a course of rigorous fasting were prominent features but these were varied with details of a terrifying and sometimes abominable kind. On one occasion thirty or forty rats were introduced into his apartment where they fought and squeaked and scurried all night long. But Richard's experiences in France had robbed him of any particular fear of rats. If anything he welcomed their appearance and devoted the short periods when the light was on to shooting at them with a catapult fashioned from the elastic of a sock suspender and a piece of angle iron detached from the underside of a broken armchair. For ammunition he used a few bits of anthracite coal which he found in the sitting room grate. Altogether he accounted for seventeen before the servants arrived and deprived him of his weapon.

The remainder of the rats were corralled and carried away rejoicing.

This little entertainment took place during the first week of his imprisonment and served the unhappy purpose of convincing his captors that Richard's nerves were not susceptible to frivolous attacks.

Thereafter they concentrated on sterner measures. Food was reduced to a minimum and frequently doped with chemicals that caused him acute internal suffering. When the pain was at its height either Van Diest, Laurence or Hipps would pay him a visit and over and over again the question would be asked.

Times out of number sheer desperation and want of sleep almost induced him to give away the secret but something inside his nature--some fourth dimensional endurance over which he appeared to have the most astounding control--checked the impulse. Often he wondered at himself and questioned how he contrived to face the pressure put upon him, but the only motive he could trace beyond the stalwart desire of every decent man to take his gruel without squealing was an ambition to be able to meet Auriole Craven's eyes squarely when she came to see him and say "I'm afraid your friends haven't got my strength just yet."

She would shake her head at that and reply cynically--"It's only a matter of time, Anthony." But at the back of her eyes was a light that seemed to read "Well done you."

He was in a sad enough plight on the morning of the seventeenth day when the door opened and Van Diest followed by Laurence entered the room.

Van Diest was chanting a German hymn, a habit greatly affected by him in moments of perplexity. With thumbs tucked in his waistcoat and fingers drumming upon the resonant rotundity of his waist line he marched slowly up and down moaning the guttural words in a melancholy and tuneless voice. Richard had learned to hate that song as cordially as its performer.

"Take it down another street," he implored.

Van Diest stopped singing long enough to shake his head and Laurence who had seated himself with crossed legs on one of the hard upright chairs said "Barraclough" with a note of pseudo-friendly warning.

"Why not have a shot at 'Avalon,'" Richard suggested sleepily. "Suit you, that would, and make a nice change for me." His throat was burning and talking was painful.

"Hm! A change," said Van Diest. "I wa.s.s thinking you would want a change very soon. It is tired you look this morning."

"That's queer, for I had a splendid night." Richard's hollow, dark rimmed eyes gave a lie to his words.

"Hm! Laurence, they use the siren--yes?"

Laurence nodded.

"Had it going every ten minutes. Didn't give him much of a chance last night."

"So! But to these young boys sleep comes very easily--I think--think it wa.s.s a goot idea to take away his bed--yes."

Richard rolled his eyes threateningly toward the speaker and checked a sudden torrent of abuse that sprang to his lips.

"It iss bad for these boys to have too much comforts--s'very bad; with the sleep fogged brain a man loses so much the intelligence. You will arrange--yes?"

"Of course I will if he insists," said Laurence.

"Oh, you swine," said Richard staggering to his feet. "You rotten blasted swine. Aren't you satisfied with what you've done--isn't it enough that you make the nights into a h.e.l.l for me--a screaming h.e.l.l.

Sleep? How can I sleep? How can I sleep when----"

A violent, paroxysm of coughing seized and shook him this way and that.

"Tut, tut, tut! You haf a very bad cold there," said Tan Diest sweetly. "You must eat one of these lozenges."

Richard struck the box out of the hand that proffered it and fell heaped up into a chair beside the table.

"No pleasure to us you stay awake, eh, Laurence, eh?"

"'Course not. Now don't look at me like that, old fellar, I was thundering decent to you when first you arrived. Barring smoke, literature and alcohol it was a home from home. It's your own pigeon things have got a bit tight. Doesn't pay striking out against the odds."

"You little rat," said Richard turning a bit in his chair. "I'd like----" and he closed his fist.

"Silly talk, old chap, waste of time."

"I could waste a lot of time that way."

Laurence humped his shoulders.

"What are you to do with a fellar like this?"

Van Diest drew up a chair and smiled over the rims of his gla.s.ses.

"Of course we let you go to sleep if you waas sensible. Consider now the small shareholders that look to us for their little incomes. All these widows from the war. You speak and you wa.s.s a rich man all at once. Very soon forget the discomforts of these three weeks. S'no goot--no goot to make a fuss."

"I have nothing to say."

"Ach!" said Van Diest and rose. "I'm afraid, Laurence, we must take away this bed."

But Richard raised no further protest and somewhere below stairs a gong rumbled for lunch. It was part of the programme to emphasise the arrival of meals and in spite of himself he could not resist starting hungrily. Such signs and tokens were watched for. Laurence laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered:

"There's a fourth place laid, old friend."

"Why not join us to the lunch," said Van Diest coaxingly, "just a word spoken and--oh, it's goot the lunch."

"Thanks, but I'm rather particular who I sit with," said Richard and moved unsteadily toward the fireplace.

"It's rather a special menu," Laurence remarked. "There's a lobster Americaine--that was in Hipps' honour. But perhaps you don't care for sh.e.l.lfish, Barraclough."