Leaning out of the window, Daisy waved to Hugo in the road below. He blew her a kiss, flourished his hat, and walked quickly away, a dapper, decisive figure with that effervescent vitality in his gait, looking strangely out of place against the background of slatternly houses and grimed shrubberies. Daisy turned back into the room, fingering the paste brooch he had given her after breakfast. It was a pretty brooch, old-fashioned—Georgian, he had said; but its value to her was not in its age or delicate workmanship. Deliberately she put off thinking about it till she had finished her morning chores. As she washed up and made the bed, her mind played luxuriously with the feeling of being married to Hugo: she imagined him going off to work every morning, waving up from the pavement below, returning at 6.30 p.m. to slippers, a fire, supper, gossip. Daisy knew it was make-believe; but why should not make-believe come true? With her, might he not settle down, make a real home? Perhaps to-day was the start of a new life: she was to meet, for the first time, one of his friends; and she had the brooch.
Daisy made herself a cup of tea and settled down in the basket-chair. Now she could take out her delightful memory, examine it at leisure. As they finished their breakfast, Hugo had said, “I want to give you something for your birthday: something special. Come along.” Taking her by the hand, he led her out into the tiny hall-way, then hooked in position the ladder which gave access through a trap-door to the attic. Her heart beat faster, between anticipation and guilt.
“Are we—am I to come up there?”
“Yes, if you’re not too fat to get through the trap.”
“But I must—isn’t it terribly dirty?”
“Oh, never mind that,” he said impatiently. “I’ll buy you a new dress.” He had scrambled through, and was reaching down a hand for her. She found herself in a cramped, gloomy space, with a cistern in front and a low door on her left which Hugo was unlocking: then she followed him into the attic room. There was just enough light coming through its grimed skylight to show her a sloping ceiling, a floor with several planks missing, and a clutter of trunks and suitcases at the far end.
I must be going mental, she thought, ruefully recalling her disordered fancies of the previous night. Sheer relief at finding this Bluebeard’s room so innocent—but what, she wondered, had she expected to discover here—made her say:
“What do you keep in those huge trunks? The bodies of your wives, darling?”
“Actually, no. Relics of my chequered past.”
Kneeling beside a trunk, he unlocked it and threw back the lid. Daisy moved across to peer over his shoulder.
“What are all those notebooks?”
“Oh, nothing. I used to keep a diary when I was a kid.”
“Can I read them?” she asked eagerly. “And there are some photograph albums.” Her eyes shone at the sight of this treasure-trove, the idea of reading up the back numbers of a life so dear and mysterious to her.
“They’re just adolescent maunderings. You’d be bored stiff.”
“I wouldn’t then. Who is C. H. A.?” Daisy pointed to the gold initials on one of the albums. Hugo had taken out of the trunk an old cricket-cap, a club scarf, a glass-topped box containing butterflies, a notice adjuring gentlemen to Adjust their Dress before Leaving, a ship in a bottle, a fretsaw, a revolver, a pair of running shoes, a tattered brochure on How to Develop Self-Confidence, a boomerang, and an opera cloak, its red silk lining eaten away by moths. Now, rummaging deeper, he brought out a small jewel-case.
“Who’s C. H. A.?” Daisy repeated.
“Friend of mine. He disappeared.” Hugo glanced at the box in his hand, then up at the lovely, intent face of the girl watching him. Straightening himself up, standing curiously rigid now and with his eyes averted from her, he went on, “To be quite precise, it stands for Chester Hugh Amberley… That used to be my name… I changed it a few years ago.” He looked at Daisy again, painfully but intently. “Chester Hugh Amberley has disappeared for good. Sunk without trace. Lost and totally forgotten.” His expression changed, as almost roughly he thrust the box into Daisy’s hands. “These were my mother’s jewels. I want you to choose one, sweetheart, for your birthday.”
Holding in her palm now the little paste brooch she had chosen, Daisy drifted into a daydream. Hugo’s gift gave her a pleasure all the more exquisite because it seemed to admit her into the inner circle, the hitherto closed circle of his family life, his past. Though he had sometimes talked to her about them, what he said never made her feel that she knew them. His father—a country clergyman still alive, somewhere in Somerset now; the mother who had died when Hugo was eight; the one brother, with whom he had quarrelled ferociously as a boy: these figures at last took on some reality in Daisy’s mind. Hugo had always talked about his early life as an exile might talk about his native country—painfully, allusively, with bitterness at times, giving the impression that it had somehow rejected him and that, for revenge, he was seeking to obliterate its values in his own heart. Yet he talked about it jealously, too, grudgingly, as if the sharing of it with her would create between them a bond he might resent.
All this was over now, the simple girl reflected. To-day was the beginning of a new life, a fully-shared one, without reserves or secrets. She pinned on the brooch again, a badge of respectability far more reassuring than the gold ring on her finger: a symbol of his trust. Surely he was committed to her now, absolutely, as she was to him? “Chester Hugh Amberley,” she murmured several times, as if the knowledge of his true name gave her a strong magic over him.
At four o’clock Hugo returned in a taxi, with a hamper of food from Fortnum’s and a case of bottles. He looked so boyish in his excitement, as she opened the hamper, that she could not reproach him for such extravagance.
“No cooking for my Daisy on her birthday. All you’ll have to do is sit still and turn the glamour on old Jacko.”
Daisy had almost forgotten that Hugo’s friend was invited to supper. But her nervousness at the prospect was soon dissipated by Hugo’s announcing, in his whirling way, that he had just booked a room for them at the Ritz, and to-morrow they would buy her a lot of new clothes—everything she wanted—he was in the money again.
And when Jacko arrived, there was nothing about him to revive her nervousness. He created at once the impression of being an old family friend who was always dropping in for meals, yet he treated Daisy with a deference, a respect which put her all the more at ease with him and with herself. She had expected to be patronised, made allowances for, or politely ignored. But John Jaques went out of his way to show interest in her, plied her with questions about her domestic arrangements, her neighbours, her own family: it was more like talking to another woman. He was certainly no oil painting. His clothes, which were good, hung loosely about him as though he had shrunk inside them; his face was all folds and wrinkles, the head poking forward over a scrawny neck—Daisy could see why Hugo had said he looked like a tortoise. With that baggy face and white hair he might have been any age: but the eyes, large, limpid, almost girlish, were not those of an old man. Spaniel’s eyes, she thought, catching them fastened upon her with an attentive, imploring sort of look, as if willing her to take him for a walk or give him a lump of sugar.
“You mustn’t mind my staring at you,” he instantly said. “I don’t see the likes of you every day. Why, Hugo my lad, she’s a great beauty, a Renoir. You’ve been keeping her to yourself too long.”
“I’m keeping her to myself for keeps,” said Hugo.
“Oho. Good for you.” Jacko’s voice was high, rather throaty, with a croon in it. “And when is the happy event to take place?”
Hugo, for once, was quite put out of countenance. “Oh well, I—”
Daisy rescued him from his floundering. “We’re not thinking of getting married just yet, Mr. Jaques.”
“How right you are,” he said, beaming at her. “What’s the hurry, after all? You’re still so young. Both of you. Marry in haste and repent at leisure.” It was adroitly done—the temporary embarrassment at once smoothed over. Jacko’s whole attitude was so cosy, so solicitous, that Daisy could not understand why she began to feel a faint uneasiness, as if a sore spot had been deliberately probed.
“Well, it’s a nice little hide-out you and Hugo have,” Jacko was saying. “I like these seedy bits of London myself. And have you ever thought what a beautiful name it is?—Maida Vale.” He crooned the name again. “Maida Vale. So pastoral. Just the spot for an idyllic romance. Daphnis and Chloe. You really ought to have a flock of sheep, Miss Bland. Or was it goats?—you should know, Hugo old boy, with your classical education. I wonder is there any law against keeping sheep in Maida Vale. Wouldn’t they be useful for drawing wool over people’s eyes?”
Daisy laughed. She had not followed much of this; but a swift glance at Hugo showed her that his silence was not a disgruntled one. He looked happy, approving—the smaller brother proudly showing off the big brother to an admiring audience. She gazed at the thin, swarthy face, the eyes that could communicate to her such a current of recklessness, and was contented because he was. With Jacko here, she seemed to be seeing Hugo afresh, from another angle: this is what he is like when I’m not there, she thought. It was like getting another birthday present—this new picture of him, and she felt a little rush of warmth towards his friend.
“Smoked salmon!” cried Jacko, as she brought in the first course. “My favourite food. How clever you are!”
“It was Hugo’s idea,” she said in her forthright way, smiling at him. “But I can cook.”
“A good plain cook, Daisy is,” said Hugo.
“Plain cook? My dear chap! What do you call a beautiful cook, then?” Jacko rubbed his hands in glee. “Don’t you realise you’ve got a treasure, a pearl, you base Indian?”
“Oh! Hugo’s not an Indian, are you, pet?”
“But I know a pearl when I see one.”
“I should hope so,” chuckled Jacko, with a flick of a glance at his friend. Hugo found this an excellent joke. He was laughing a lot now, and Daisy realised that, unusual for him, he was getting a bit tiddly. What with all the gin and french before supper, and the champagne now, Daisy herself felt muzzy enough. Jacko kept refilling their glasses, having appointed himself, as he said, wine-waiter to the snowy-breasted pearl of Maida Vale. He raised his own now.
“The time is ripe for a toast. To Daisy! Many happy returns. You’re the luckiest chap in the world, Hugo!”
She saw her lover’s eyes, full of tenderness, regarding her over the rim of his glass. “Don’t I know it,” he said, to her alone. For a moment they were enclosed together, the two of them, in the circle of their love. Then, flushing, Daisy turned to Jacko. She wanted desperately to do justice to this moment, draw him into it, express her gratitude for everything; but it overflowed any words she could think of. With a little, self-conscious toss of the head, in a voice shy and quaintly dignified, she said:
“Thank you very much. It’s very kind of you. To come here, I mean, and”—she tried again—“I don’t deserve—it’s really Hugo you ought to—”
“No, I mean it,” said Jacko, in an earnest, confidential way, his large soft eyes beseeching her. “You’re obviously wonderful for him. I’ve never seen him look so well and happy. The whole thing’s perfect.”
“I’m glad you’re the first—the first of Hugo’s friends—”
“Am I really?” He took the point quickly, eagerly. “I say, old boy, you have been keeping her close.” Hugo frowned a little, and Jacko went on, “Quite right too. One shouldn’t put temptation in people’s way.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“I see I’m even more privileged than I’d thought.”
“Oh, she’s safe enough with you, Jacko.”
“Thank you kindly, sir, for those words. Those famous last words. But not in this case.”
Jacko’s tone remained light and droll. Daisy thought she must have imagined the momentary change of expression on his face just now: too much champagne was playing tricks with her eyes.
“I think the wine must be going to my head,” she remarked, with somewhat owlish grandeur. “Will you have some more game pie, Mr. Jaques? I do beg your pardon—Dr. Jaques, I should say.”
“Mister is correct,” said Hugo. “He’s a surgeon, you see. Sort of.”
“Oh, good,” she remarked vaguely, beginning to clear away. “Can you eat iced pudding, Mr. Jaques?”
“I can and will. If it kills me.” Jacko’s hand sketched a distended stomach in front of his own.
“Not that it’ll be very iced,” Daisy went on. “Hugo brought it back hours ago, and we haven’t got a frige.”
“Anent which,” said Jacko in his droll manner, as she took the plates out, “did you see Paula Lamerle lost her ice last night, Hugo?”
“It’s terribly runny,” said Daisy, when she returned with the pudding. “We’d better pretend it’s soup. Who is Paula Lamerle?”
“Cabaret star,” said Hugo shortly.
Jacko was watching him with an expression which, under other circumstances, might have been described as an egging-on look. Since Hugo vouchsafed no more, Daisy asked:
“What d’you mean, ‘lost her ice’?”
“Ice means diamonds, in the circles Jacko moves in,” Hugo explained.
“Someone, to put no finer point on it, pinched them.” Jacko enlarged upon it, gazing interestedly at the girl. “While she was doing her cabaret turn. Midnight last night.”
“Oh. Do you know her?” Daisy asked him. “Is she very famous?”
“I’ve met her.”
“Jacko could probably get you her autograph. He has attended her professionally.”
Though she could not have put her finger on any reason for it, the girl felt dimly that the two men were ganging up on her. She was accustomed to being teased by Hugo, but this was somehow different: they were like two schoolboys with a private joke, using it to unnerve a third. Rather miserably, she turned to her liquefied ice. Hugo was spooning his up, and at the same time reading the account of the burglary in an evening paper which Jacko had brought.
“One advantage of being poor and humble nowadays,” the latter remarked to her affably, “is that one is spared the visitations of these burglarious gentry.”
“I suppose so,” Daisy replied, feeling stupid and inadequate.
“No doubt, like artists, they feel the world owes them a living.” The little man’s tortoise head turned and poked forward at Hugo. “Do you do any painting nowadays?”
“What? Me? No.”
“I never knew—” Daisy began.
“Oh, Hugo’s a versatile chap. Turn his hand to anything.”
Daisy, needing comfort, got up and stood behind Hugo’s chair, leaning over him. His hands made the beginning of a movement, as if to close the newspaper, then desisted. She read it over his shoulder. Cabaret Singer’s Flat Burgled. Paula Lamerle in an interview with our Crime Reporter said… on returning after the show I found my bedroom had been ransacked… £5000 diamond necklace stolen… the thief must have entered by climbing.
The print jigged in front of Daisy’s eyes. There was a photograph of the block of flats, a dotted line indicating the burglar’s supposed route up the back wall, along a ledge, then using a drainpipe—the sight of it made her feel dizzier than ever, and she suddenly gripped Hugo’s shoulders.
“Steady, old girl! What is it?”
“He might have broken his neck.”
Hugo laughed. “Served him right if he had.”
Jacko’s face, swimming before her as she looked up, for an instant resembled that of a woman she remembered at an all-in wrestling match to which Hugo had taken her—mouth open, eyes drinking in the sweat and pain.
“A glutton for punishment,” she heard herself incredibly saying. “Oh dear, I have drunk too much.”
“Go and make some black coffee, love. We all need it.”
“All right. I hope they don’t catch him.”
“Catch whom? Oh, the burglar. Don’t you worry about him. Off you go.” Hugo slapped her smartly on the bottom.
Jacko said, “Criminals always get caught, sooner or later. They’re so damned stupid, most of them.”
“They get caught because they can’t keep their traps shut,” said Hugo, “and because they won’t vary their methods. Leave the same old trade-marks every time, silly mugs.”
Daisy heard Jacko chuckle, as she went into the kitchen. She put the kettle to boil and set the cups on a tray, aware of the men’s voices through the door, which she had not quite shut behind her, as a confused burble. She wondered what they were talking about. What did men talk about when they were alone together? Hugo’s friend was very nice to her, really—not a bit stand-offish or disapproving. But did she like him? Why didn’t she like him?
Daisy warmed the jug, spooned in the coffee, poured boiling water over it slowly, stirred. When she had finished, the sound of conversation from the next room came back, amplified but still blurred. Perhaps they were talking about her. What would Jacko be saying about her? On an impulse she moved to the door. Jacko’s voice:
“… give you a sweet alibi.”
“No, I wouldn’t drag Daisy into it. Not on your life.”
Hugo’s voice, though he had spoken not much above a whisper, sounded unnaturally loud in her ears, like a noise heard at the moment of waking. And Daisy had awoken. At last. The wheel stopped whirling and the balls fell exactly into their slots: yes, everything that had puzzled her, disquieted her, intrigued her—everything fitted in. The pattern was now clear, but she dared not yet look at its detail. She was beyond any emotion—fear, resentment, pity, shame; beyond mortification at her own blindness or the way he had consistently deceived her. She was, quite simply, stunned. The dream had fallen about her ears: and like a survivor picking her dazed way over the rubble, she walked into the other room, set down the tray on the dining-table, held out her hand to the guest, and said:
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Jaques, but I must go and lie down. I’m not feeling very well. No, you mustn’t think of going yet. Stay and talk to Hugo. No, it’s all right really—I’ll just take some aspirin. I’m not used to so much drink”
She moved like a pale sleepwalker past Hugo, who had risen from the table, his face full of concern, and walked carefully over the debris into her bedroom.