A reversion to type

by E. M. Delafield

V

The doctor, at Cambridge, found Cecil Aviolet under arrest.

Sir Thomas, summoned by telegram, received him.

“Have you come up about this abominable business?”

“I’m here by chance, come up to give the boy a message from his mother. What’s happened?”

The doctor, consternation at his heart, rapped out his questions as one who had the right to information. But Sir Thomas resented nothing, observed nothing. He was nearly beside himself with fury.

“This—this boy, this young blackguard, has been had up—arrested for theft. By God, if I saw him now I believe I’d kill him. A rotter through and through, that’s what he is. My grandson! He’s a dirty, common thief, the young swine! He’s stolen—stolen!”

The old man’s voice was hoarse with passion, and the veins on his face and neck swelled dangerously.

“Stolen what? Money?”

“The same thing—silver. Silver cups and trophies, from other fellows. The young brute——”

Sir Thomas bellowed invectives and curses aloud.

“It’s impossible. There’s a mistake somewhere.”

“That’s what I said, at first. But it’s true. He owned to it.”

Lucian, utterly sick with dismay, could speak no word.

“You’ll have to tell his mother,” said Sir Thomas brutally. “She’ll be here any minute. She’s always spoilt the lad, from the time he was a little boy, and you couldn’t get a straight answer out of him at any price. I could have told her how it would be. You’ll have to tell her, Lucian,” he repeated inexorably. “You’re used to telling women bad news, and she’ll take it better from you. My wife would have come, but it’s knocked her up utterly. By bad luck, she opened the telegram while I was out. We’ve sent for Diana to be with her, and I shall go back as soon as Ford can get here.”

“Is he coming?”

“Of course he’s coming. We’ve got to do the best we can to save the lad from prison, for the sake of the name. My God, to think this young blackguard of Jim’s ’ll be my only grandchild!” raved Sir Thomas.

Lucian paid small attention to the old man’s violence. In earlier years he had seen Sir Thomas Aviolet moved to a like frenzy of savage and irrational fury over the more scandalous episodes in the ill-starred existence of Cecil’s father. He knew that the very violence of the old man’s display of wrath was shortening its duration and exhausting his never very profound capabilities of emotion.

He was thinking, clearly and swiftly.

“Where’s Cecil now?”

“At the police station, I tell you—in a cell at the police station. They searched his rooms this morning—the police did—and they found these blasted cups and things all over the place. They arrested him then and there. They said he was green with funk—he would be, the little cad—and whimpered out at once that he’d stolen the things. God knows what he’s been doing. Got into a mess, I suppose, and thought he’d turn the stuff into cash somehow. I’d sooner he’d taken money, upon my soul I would, than gone and sneaked the pots and things that other decent fellows had won for straight riding and rowing and the rest of it. I’ll pay up—of course I will—I’d pay up ten times over for the sake of the name—but it’ll come out—it’s bound to.”

“Who is going to prosecute?”

“One of the shops—some silversmith’s. It seems there was a big silver thing that hadn’t even been paid for—one of the men had it up to look at it and order the inscription. And the young thief took it out of his room. That’s what put them on the track. Someone saw him, or suspected him, or something. Anyhow, the police came with a search warrant. They’d taken him away by the time I got here, and I tell you, Lucian, I’m glad of it. I couldn’t answer for myself.”

“Then you haven’t been to him yet?”

“Not I. That’s his poor mother’s job. You know what women are. She’ll go to him fast enough, and believe all the lies he may choose to tell her, just as she always has done.”

“How much does she know?”

“Nothing, practically. I telegraphed to her ‘Come at once to Cecil, very urgent.’ She’ll know the rest soon enough.”

The doctor inwardly cursed the cruelty of the unimaginative. He dared not think of the interpretations that Rose would have had time to put upon that summons during her journey.

“I could meet her at the station and tell her.”

“We don’t know what train she’s coming by,” said Sir Thomas helplessly.

“She’ll come by whatever train left London soonest after your telegram reached her,” said the doctor grimly.

“I’ve got a time-table here.” Sir Thomas fumbled interminably, pulled out a little paper book at last, and began to flutter the leaves.

The doctor took it out of his hands, consulted it, shut it to again, and took his hat.

“I’ve just time. I’ll meet the train, take her straight to see the boy, and then meet you here again.”

He reached the station as the train drew up at the platform.

He saw her at once, her tall figure swinging itself from the carriage before the train had stopped moving.

Staring at him, she gripped his arm in both hands and said in a voice, toneless, as though she had rehearsed the sentence over and over again:

“Is he dead? Don’t break it to me, but tell me at once.”

“He’s alive and well. But he’s got into trouble and they’ve arrested him for theft.”

“Nothing else? You swear you’re not keeping anything back—there isn’t anything else to tell me?”

“I swear it, Rose. There’s nothing else.”

Her grasp on his arm relaxed, and the set lines of her white face broke.

“Thank God you’re here,” said Rose Aviolet. “I wouldn’t have believed anybody else. Can you take me to Ces?”

“I’ve a taxi waiting.”

She listened to him in unbroken silence while he told her the little that he had learnt from Sir Thomas. He could see from the strained attitude in which she leant forward on the seat, her hands gripping the sides of it, that unconsciously her every muscle was tightened in an instinctive, desperate desire to speed their progress.

“Could they make it out as kleptomania?” she asked once.

“I doubt it. You see, they’d want medical evidence for that, and it would be very difficult to furnish.”

“Will he go to prison?”

“I don’t think so. Not if we can help it, I promise you. Sir Thomas will offer to make full restitution, of course, and we haven’t heard what Cecil’s got to say yet. There may be mitigating circumstances that we don’t yet know of.”

“Are they bound to—to try him?”

“I don’t know, but I’m afraid so. He’ll probably go before the magistrates, and they’ll remand him for a week. They’re sure to accept bail for him, all right, and he’ll be with you till—till his trial. We’ll get the very best legal advice, Rose, directly you’ve seen the boy. Don’t lose heart.”

He purposely kept the immediate practical issue before them both. Both knew that a darker abyss of thought lay in wait, but neither could envisage it yet.

At the police station, Lucian obtained leave from the Inspector-in-Charge for Mrs. Aviolet to see her son.

They were conducted along whitewashed passages, Rose, looking neither to right nor left of her, but walking with her head well up, gazing straight in front of her.

The doctor let her enter the cell alone, and followed the Inspector to the end of the passage, where the man paused.

“Are you going in, sir?”

“I don’t think so. Not unless they call me. What do you make of this business, Inspector?”

“Very sad for the young gentleman’s people, I’m afraid, sir,” said the official, non-committally.

“I’ve known the boy all his life, and his people before him. You know who they are, of course. He could have applied to them for money, if he’d been in difficulties.”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Has he got any excuse—any reason, for what he did?”

The man hesitated, looked at Lucian, and then spoke less guardedly. “It’s my opinion, sir, that young gentlemen in this sort of position don’t have any valid excuse to offer, unless it’s unsound mind. It isn’t the want of money makes them do it. When it’s money they’re after, we get a forgery or an embezzlement, something like that—not just theft. And there’s some very peculiar features about this case, too. Most peculiar.”

“What’s that?” asked Lucian sharply.

“Sir Thomas Aviolet hasn’t been told this. It’ll come out before the magistrates, of course, but we didn’t tell him this morning. In fact, the man who saw him didn’t rightly know about it. But it’s like this: some of those cups that was found in young Mr. Aviolet’s rooms had got inscriptions on them.”

The Inspector paused, as though expecting a comment, but the doctor, professionally impersonal, did not move a muscle.

“Inscriptions to say that they’d been won by C. J. Aviolet, racing, or the like, or presented to Cecil Aviolet, Esq. The big one, that came from the shop—the one valued at thirty pounds, sir—that one had nothing engraved on it. But there was a document found—a rather remarkable document.”

The Inspector drew out a note-book and read from it:

“To Cecil Aviolet, Esq., in most grateful recognition of his daring achievements, splendid leadership, and indomitable courage and devotion to duty, this cup is presented in grateful admiration by the members of the School Cadet Corps.”

“There you are, sir. That was found in the handwriting of the accused, and no doubt it was meant to be engraved on the cup at his own expense, just as the other smaller cups had been engraved. There were some flowery inscriptions on the other ones, too, all about his prowess at games, and his pluck as a horseman, sir. He’d had them all engraved himself. Some of the cups he’d bought himself, and some of them he’d just taken from other people. In my opinion, the poor young gentleman’s insane.”

The man’s voice was unemotional, giving no hint of any but the most perfunctory compassion.

“No doubt his defence will take that line, sir.”

Lucian nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak.

“The lady’s signing to you, sir,” said the Inspector, and Lucian, in obedience to a gesture from Rose, standing at the door, went in.

Cecil, flushed, his eyes brilliant, leant against one of the whitewashed walls. His hands were in his pockets and he did not remove them at the doctor’s entrance.

Lucian, in an instant, took in the boy’s pose, the tense, hysterical excitement in his bearing, the fictitious defiance that was momentarily nerving him.

He turned to Rose.

“He denies the whole thing,” said Rose, her face ravaged.

“I can explain it all,” Cecil asseverated, wide eyes fixed upon his mother. “The whole thing was a put-up job, a sort of joke. I never thought of its ending like this, and frightening you, Mother. It’s a shame.”

Lucian took two steps forward. “Stop that, Cecil, it’s no good. Remember that you owned up when you were arrested.”

The boy winced at the word, as Lucian had expected.

“I didn’t know—I was frightened then,” he stammered. “Any one would have been frightened. I said the first thing that came into my head. Mother, you believe me, don’t you?”

Rose whitened pitifully at the appeal.

“Stop it, Cecil,” said the doctor again. “If you want to be helped out of this mess, you’ve got to be absolutely open. Be a man. You’ve made a bad mistake, but you can retrieve it, I hope and believe, if you’ll speak the whole truth. Would you rather have it out with me, or with your mother?”

“I’ve told my mother the truth,” said Cecil quietly. “I didn’t do what they think. I’m not a thief.”

“Ces!” wailed Rose. For the first time, tearing sobs shook her.

Dr. Lucian caught his breath. “You don’t understand, Cecil. They know you took the cups, and they know that you had them engraved, at your own expense, with laudatory inscriptions that you had done nothing whatever to deserve, and with imaginary accounts of exploits that you never performed.”

His intentional brutality had its effect.

The boy’s flimsy defence broke down, he turned white and hid his face against his arm.

“Oh, no, no!” said Rose under her breath, her imploring eyes on the doctor.

“My dear, I’m afraid it’s true,” he said steadily. “Ah——”

The boy had suddenly thrown himself on the ground, writhing and sobbing.

Rose was beside him in an instant, her arms round him, her own tears driven back.

“It’ll be all right, Ces. Don’t—don’t. I understand, truly I do. Don’t tell me any more.”

Cecil was screaming under his breath, horribly.

Rose, still kneeling on the stone floor, looked up at Lucian.

“Let him have it out,” the doctor said gently. “Call me, if you want me for anything.”

He stepped outside into the passage once more, closing the door behind him.

He was conscious of a veritable sickness of dismay. It seemed to him, momentarily, that it was himself that was invaded by overwhelming humiliation, that he was openly convicted of that ignoble attempted imposture.

The distant whirr of a telephone struck upon his hearing without penetrating to his consciousness, but in a few moments he was approached by a uniformed figure.

“Dr. Lucian?”

“Yes.”

“Sir Thomas Aviolet has rung up on the telephone, sir. He wishes to speak to you or to Mrs. Aviolet.”

“I’ll go.”

He was taken to a small waiting-room, where yet another uniformed official sat at a table writing, and where a telephone, with receiver unfastened, hung against the wall.

“Dr. Lucian speaking, Sir Thomas.”

The answering voice uttered painstaking shouts.

“I can’t hear. Could you speak lower?”

“... hate these instruments ... what? ... think where you’d got to ... What? Rose come yet...? at once ... solicitor ... best man in ... what?”

“Mrs. Aviolet is with the boy. Do you want me to take any message?”

“... can’t hear a word ... What? ... buzzing going on all the time ... tell Rose ... come here as quickly as possible ... solicitor ... no time to lose.”

“Tell Mrs. Aviolet to come and meet the solicitor who is advising you on the case? Is that right?”

“No time to lose ... hours finding you ...” shouted the angry, inarticulate voice.

“She shall come,” said the doctor, ringing off.

He did not, however, summon Rose, but waited until she came to find him.

“Sir Thomas has telephoned,” he told her. “He’s found a solicitor, the best man available probably. He wants you to come as soon as possible.”

“I’m ready now. They’ll let me come to Ces again.”

As they walked along the street, the doctor eyeing every taxi that passed, Rose said in a choked voice:

“It’s like a nightmare. I keep on thinking I shall wake up out of it all. At first, when you told me what it was, it seemed less awful than all the things I’d been imagining. You see, the telegram only said ‘come at once,’ so I didn’t know.... But prison—oh, it’s awful! Is Sir Thomas frightfully angry?”

“He was very angry when I saw him first, but he’ll have had time to cool down. There’s nothing to be gained by being angry, and I think by-and-bye he’ll see that. He’s sent for Ford.”

“Oh, Ford! What can he do, except jeer and sneer? He won’t even be angry. I believe Ces will go clean off his head, if Ford’s allowed near him.”

“Can you tell me anything about Cecil? Did he give you any sort of explanation at all?”

“He doesn’t deny it any more. That was the worst of all, almost, before you came in, when he kept on saying it was all a mistake, and he hadn’t done it, and wouldn’t I believe him. It was like when he was a little boy, and used to cheat at games, and look up at me with his great soft eyes, with his little hand actually on the counter that he’d moved, and say, ‘But I didn’t, Mummie. I didn’t touch it, truly.’”

She put her handkerchief to her mouth, stifling a sob.

“He can’t help it, you know. It isn’t the same for him as it is for other people—I know it isn’t. I can’t explain it, but I know he’s different, somehow. Jim was bad, and then I suppose marrying someone like me, who wasn’t the same class—Oh, stop that cab quickly!”

She had already signed to the driver.

“Listen, Rose. I want to ask you something. I don’t know, but I imagine, that this solicitor fellow will want to put up a defence of instability of mind. I don’t see what other line he can take. The theft is proved up to the hilt, and the boy will have to plead guilty. If they want medical testimony, are you prepared to hear me take up the line that Cecil is more or less mentally unbalanced?”

“But he’s not mad!”

“I know he isn’t. But the alternative, in the eyes of a jury, will be that he’s a criminal. That would mean—imprisonment.”

“Ces in prison!”

“I know. It would break him, utterly. We’ve got to keep him out of that, somehow.”

“Yes,” she said tonelessly.

“Did Cecil tell you anything? Could he say why he did it?”

“I asked him if it had anything to do with his writing to Uncle A. for money, and he said he wanted the money to pay for the—the silver trophies. He’s had some of them for weeks. I couldn’t ask him about the inscriptions—I couldn’t——”

“No, I see. You know, I think that was part of the same thing as the way he used to talk about imaginary adventures when he was a little fellow. I don’t think he wanted to deceive other people—only himself. He must have had those inscriptions done to try and convince himself that he was something that he wasn’t, and never could be.”

“What were they?” said Rose. “No—don’t tell me. I couldn’t bear it.”

Her voice was choked.

Presently she said: “I suppose, even if we—get him out of this—it’s the end of Cambridge and all that stuff, for Ces?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“We’d better go to the Colonies, he and I. There’s one thing, we can be together. He’s always happy with me, and he’s always loved me best,” she said proudly. “No thanks to them at Squires, either.”

“There’s a pretty considerable chance, Rose, of a job for him when he’s a very little older.”

“You mean the war?”

He nodded.

“I haven’t been able to realize about the war, yet,” she said thoughtfully, and by-and-bye added, with her curious directness: “I suppose a good many people might say that it would be the best thing for Cecil to be killed in the war, before he’d had time to make a worse hash of things.”

The drive appeared to have steadied her, and when the taxi stopped she got out at once, only saying earnestly to Lucian:

“Promise not to go. You won’t leave me?”

“I promise.”

They found Sir Thomas alone. Lucian noted with relief that he seemed to be calmer, as though his fury had spent itself in shouts and denunciations.

“How d’ye do, Rose. This is a dreadful business. I’ve had Calvert on the telephone—first-class man, very clever fellow, I’m told. We’ve got an appointment with him at his office in an hour’s time. Did you keep your cab?”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “It’ll wait. We’ve come from the police station, Sir Thomas.”

The old man groaned. “Sit down, Rose, you look done up,” he said not unkindly. “No wonder, either. What d’you make of this affair?”

Rose sank heavily into a chair. “Ces is broken up,” she said piteously.

“The young——” Sir Thomas caught himself up. “It’s a hard thing to say, perhaps, but I’m afraid he’s a hardened young scamp. Either that or he’s off his head. Upon my soul, I don’t know which is worst.”

The doctor thought rapidly.

Beyond the sweeping alternatives that he had just suggested, Sir Thomas was incapable of seeing. The insidious mergings of the psychical into the physical, the encroaching of the nervous system into the domain of moral control, would for ever remain utterly unapprehended by him. He would not only fail to understand; he would never, even dimly, perceive.

Lucian took his decision. Sir Thomas must be approached upon his own plane of reasonings. But he did not look at Rose as he spoke.

“Better face it, Sir Thomas. The boy has never been wholly normal. We shall have to tell this lawyer so.”

Sir Thomas emitted a sort of bark.

“What d’ye mean?”

“I know what he means,” said Rose, her face rigid. “I don’t suppose we’ve any of us forgotten all the trouble there’s been with Ces, one time and another, because he couldn’t speak the truth.”

Lucian inwardly paid passionate homage to her courage and her directness.

“But that’s nothing to do with his being wrong in the head,” said Sir Thomas, bewildered; “if he is.”

“It’s not far off it,” the doctor assured him grimly. “It would go a very long way towards proving that the boy has never possessed the average stability of mind.”

“I suppose you medical men understand your own jargon,” Sir Thomas ungraciously conceded. “But to a plain man of ordinary horse-sense, which is all I’ve ever pretended to be, a liar is a liar and a thief is a thief.”

“Even a so-called criminal may not be morally responsible for his own acts.”

“Then he’s a lunatic.”

Sir Thomas made his assertion with all the positiveness of essential ignorance and stupidity combined.

“It amounts to this,” Rose said suddenly, “either Ces will be proved a thief and sent to prison, or they’ll say he’s mad.”

“Good God!” Sir Thomas groaned. “I only hope he is mad. In fact, I’m inclined to think he must be.”

The doctor glanced swiftly at Rose, seeking to convey to her that Sir Thomas, under the obsession of Cecil’s insanity, would be rather less impracticable than when infuriated by the conviction of Cecil’s depravity. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Call me when it’s time to start. I’m going to telephone for a room at the hotel.”

The doctor let her go. He had something else to say to Sir Thomas Aviolet.

“I learnt an additional fact at the police station—rather a painful one, I’m afraid.”

“Everything about the whole damned business is painful. What was it?”

“One or two of the cups had been inscribed as having been won by poor Cecil for his successes at various games——”

“Never won a cup in his life. The boy’s a perfect fool at any kind of sport. Always has been.”

“Yes. And he hadn’t really won them. But he’d had them inscribed himself.”

“But they couldn’t have been,” Sir Thomas repeated obtusely. “He wasn’t any good at games.”

“It was he who’d had them engraved at his own expense, Sir Thomas. He—he invented the inscriptions.”

“But what for?”

The old man’s utter lack of comprehension was baffling in its completeness.

The doctor told him of the document that the Inspector had read to him, and which they had thought to be the draft for an inscription on the big thirty-pound cup. Sir Thomas listened, his heavy face more and more deeply discoloured, his mouth half opened, his eyes startled and incredulous-looking.

At last he appeared to take in the meaning of the doctor’s carefully chosen words.

“But then—the feller’s mad. He paid for having his own name engraved on cups and things that he’d stolen—he went and bought cups, and then had them engraved? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“Then that settles it,” said Sir Thomas simply. “He’s mad. It’s a ghastly thing but I suppose one ought to be thankful that he can’t be held responsible. God knows where he gets it from! Not the Aviolets, nor yet the Amberlys. I’ll go bail on that. The wretched feller’s mad.”

He was now as deeply convinced of Cecil’s madness as he had previously been convinced of his deliberate wickedness.

“We must get the lawyer man on to that,” he repeated, with an almost child-like pride in his own astuteness. “That’s the line for him to take, d’you see, Lucian? He must tell them the wretched boy’s mad. I—I’m even willing to undertake that he shall be placed under proper restraint. But, for God’s sake, don’t let his mother know that. You know what women are.”

The doctor could have groaned aloud.

Just before they were due to start for the solicitor’s office, Ford arrived.

His sallow face was a shade sallower than usual, his breathing very slightly hurried. He shook hands with his father, and said, “Ha, Lucian?” to the doctor with an interrogative inflexion and raised eyebrows.

“You’ve been quick,” grunted Sir Thomas. “How’s your mother?”

“Di telephoned me that she’s all right, only a bit shaken. Very anxious for news, of course.”

“There’s only one piece of news they can get, can’t they see that? The boy’ll be tried for theft. He’s in custody now.”

“What steps have you taken?” said Ford coolly.

“I’ve got an appointment now with a man called Calvert. I’m told he’s the best feller to go to.”

Sir Thomas seemed eager to convince his son that he had taken prompt and efficient action.

“We’d better go to him at once, then,” said Ford.

“There’s Rose——”

“Rose—is she here? What for?”

“Damn it, Ford, she’s the boy’s mother.”

“All the more reason she should keep out of it. She can’t do the slightest good, and we don’t want melodramatic scenes.”

Sir Thomas looked troubled and angry.

“Well, she’s here now, and behaved perfectly well, poor thing. She’s been to see him.”

“She has also got a full confession out of him,” Dr. Lucian interposed. “Until she’d been with him for a bit, the poor boy was persisting in senseless denials of the whole thing. He owned up, when he was with her.”

“I imagine that the hysterical confessions or denials of a person of Cecil’s mental calibre will hardly affect the point at issue,” said Ford drily.

Sir Thomas fastened upon the wording, rather than the meaning, of the speech.

“Mental, yes. That’s it, Ford. He’s deficient, you know. Not responsible. I saw directly that was the line to take.”

Rose came in.

There was an interchange of looks between her and Ford Aviolet. No more.

“Come along,” said Sir Thomas.

Ford, opening the door for his sister-in-law, nodded at Lucian.

“We’ll let you know if there’s anything to be done. Very much obliged to you, Lucian, and all that.”

Rose looked over her shoulder, her wide, scornful eyes passing over Ford and seeking Lucian only.

Walking past the stiff, narrow-chested figure at the door, he answered the wordless summons, and came.