He could not get out of his head the picture of that thin creature, his pale face scrubby with a two days’ beard, underfed and overworked, walking up and down in his old dressing-gown and with a cold-blooded, ruthless malignance delivering himself of his fantastic ideas.
But breaking in upon this, as it were, was the recollection of the little boy with the big dark eyes who seemed to yearn for affection and yet repelled it, the little boy with whom he went to the circus during the Christmas holidays and who got so wildly excited at the unaccustomed treat, with whom he bicycled or went for long walks in the country, who was at times so gay and amusing, with whom it was jolly to talk and laugh and rag and play the fool.
It seemed incredible that that little boy should have turned into that young man, and so heart-rending that he could have wept.
“I wonder what’ll happen to Simon in the end?” he muttered.
Hardly knowing that he had spoken aloud, he almost thought Lydia had read his thoughts when she answered:
“I don’t know the English.
If he were Russian I’d say he’ll either become a dangerous agitator or he’ll commit suicide.”
Charley chuckled.
“Oh well, we English have a wonderful capacity for making our wild oats into a nourishing diet.
It’s equally on the cards that he’ll end up as the editor of The Times.”
He got up and seated himself in the armchair which was the only fairly comfortable seat in the room.
He looked reflectively at Lydia busily plying her needle.
There was something he wanted to say to her, but the thought of it made him nervous, and yet he was leaving next day and this might well be his last opportunity.
The suspicion that Simon had sown in his candid heart rankled.
If she had been making a fool of him, he would sooner know; then when they parted he could shrug his shoulders and with a good conscience forget her.
He decided to settle the matter there and then, but being shy of making her right out the offer he had in mind, he approached it in a round-about way.
“Have I ever told you about my Great-Aunt Martha?” he started lightly.
“No.”
“She was my great-grandfather’s eldest child.
She was a grim-featured spinster with more wrinkles on her sallow face than I’ve ever seen on a human being.
She was very small and thin, with tight lips, and she never looked anything but acidly disapproving.
She used to terrify me when I was a kid.
She had an enormous admiration for Queen Alexandra and to the end of her days wore her hair, only it was a wig, as the Queen wore hers.
She always dressed in black, with very full long skirts and a pinched-in waist, and the collar of her bodice came up to her ears.
She wore a heavy gold chain round her neck, with a large gold cross dangling from it, and gold bangles on her wrists.
She was appallingly genteel.
She continued to live in the grand house old Sibert Mason built for himself when he began to get on in the world and she never changed a thing.
To go there was like stepping back into the eighteen-seventies.
She died only a few years ago at a great age and left me five hundred pounds.”
“That was nice.”
“I should have rather liked to blue it, but my father persuaded me to save it.
He said I should be damned thankful to have a little nest egg like that when I came to marry and wanted to furnish a flat.
But I don’t see any prospect of my marrying for years yet and I don’t really want the money.
Would you like me to give you two hundred of it?”
Lydia, going on with her work, had listened amiably, though without more than polite interest, to a story that could mean nothing very much to her, but now, jabbing her needle in the material she was sewing, she looked up.
“What on earth for?”
“I thought it might be useful to you.”
“I don’t understand.
What have I done that you should wish to give me two hundred pounds?”
Charley hesitated.
She was gazing at him with those blue, large, but rather flat eyes of hers, and there was in them an extreme attention as though she were trying to see into the depths of his soul.
He turned his head away.
“You could do a good deal to help Robert.”
A faint smile broke on her lips.
She understood.
“Has your friend Simon been telling you that I was at the Serail to earn enough money to enable Robert to escape?”
“Why should you think that?”
She gave a little scornful laugh.
“You’re very naive, my poor friend.
It’s what they all suppose.