III
Christina had known in the middle of the night when the police came to search Sault's room. A detective of high rank had been communicative; she heard the story with a serenity which filled the quaking Evie with wonder. If her face grew of a sudden peaked, a new glory glowed in her eyes.
Mrs. Colebrook wept noisily and continued to weep throughout the night. Christina meditated upon an old suspicion of hers, that her mother regarded Ambrose Sault as being near enough the age of a lonely widow woman, to make possible a second matrimonial venture. This view Evie held definitely.
"Oh, Chris—my dear, I am so sorry," whimpered the younger girl, when the police had taken their departure. "And I've said such horrid things about him. Chris, poor darling, aren't you feeling awful—I am."
"Am I feeling sorry for Ambrose? No." Christina searched her heart before she went on. "I'm not sorry. Ambrose was so inevitably big. Something tremendous must come to him: it couldn't be otherwise."
"I was afraid something might happen." Evie shook her head wisely. "This Greek man was very insulting. Ronnie told me that. And if poor Ambrose lost his temper—"
"Ambrose did not lose his temper," Christina interrupted brusquely. "If Ambrose killed him, he did it because he intended doing it."
"In cold blood!" Evie was horrified.
"Yes: Ambrose must have had a reason. He tells me so—don't gape, Evie, I'm not delirious. Ambrose is here. If I were blind and deaf and he sat on this bed he would be here, wouldn't he? Presence doesn't depend on seeing or hearing or even feeling. He'd be here if he was not allowed to touch me. Go back to bed, Evie. I'm sleepy and I want to dream."
Beryl arrived soon after eleven. Evie was out and Mrs. Colebrook, red-eyed, brought her up to the bedroom. Christina was sure the girl would come and had got up and dressed in readiness.
Some time went by before they were alone. Mrs. Colebrook had her own griefs to express, her own memories to retail. She left at last singultient in her woe.
"Do you think you are strong enough to come to the house?" asked Beryl. "I could call for you this afternoon. Perhaps you could stay with me for a few days. I feel that I want you near to me."
This, without preliminary. They were too close to the elementals to pick nice paths to their objectives. They recognized and acknowledged their supreme interests as being common to both.
"Mother would be glad to get rid of me for a day or two," said Christina.
"And I am sending my father abroad," nodded Beryl, with a faint smile. "When shall I come?"
"At three. You have not seen him?"
Beryl shook her head.
"They are taking him into the country. We shall never see him again," she said simply. "He will not send for us. I am trying to approach it all in the proper spirit of detachment. He is a little difficult to live up to—don't you feel that?"
"If I say 'no' you will think I am eaten up with vanity," said Christina with a quick smile. "I am rather exalted at the moment, but the reaction will come perhaps, in which case I shall want to hang on to your understanding."
At three o'clock the car arrived. Mrs. Colebrook saw her daughter go without regret. Christina was unnatural. She had not shed a tear. Mrs. Colebrook had heard her laughing and had gone up in a hurry to deal with hysteria, only to find her reading Stephen Leacock. She was appalled.
"I am surprised at you, Christina! Here is poor—Mr. Sault in prison—" Words failed her, she could only make miserable noises.
"Mother has given me up," said Christina, when she was lying on a big settee in Beryl's room, her thin hand outstretched to the blaze. "Mother is a sort of female Hericletos—she finds her comfort in weeping."
Beryl was toasting a muffin at the fire.
"I wish it were a weeping matter," she said, and went straight to the subject uppermost in her mind. "Moropulos took a photograph of me coming from Ronald Morelle's flat. I had spent the night there." She looked at the muffin and turned it. "Moropulos was—nasty. He must have told Ambrose that he knew."
Christina stirred on the sofa. "Did Ambrose know?"
"Yes: I told him. Not the name of the man, but he guessed, I think—I know the photograph was in the safe. He went to Ronnie. Perhaps to kill him. I imagine Ronnie lied for his life. The police were looking for Ambrose. The—killing of Moropulos was discovered by a man who heard the shot and the car had just passed through Woking after the police had been warned. A detective saw the car outside Ronnie's flat and followed it. I don't know all the details. Father has seen the inspector in charge of the case. Do you like sugar in your tea?"
"Two large pieces," said Christina, "I am rather a baby in my love of sugar. Do you love Ronnie very much, Beryl—you don't mind?"
"No—please. Love him? I suppose so: in a way. I despise him, I think he is loathsome, but there are times when I have a—wistful feeling. It may be sheer ungovernable—you know. Yet—I would make no sacrifice for Ronnie. I feel that. I have made no sacrifice. Women are hypocrites when they talk of 'giving': they make a martyrdom of their indulgence. Some women. And it pleases them to accept the masculine view of their irresponsibility. They love sympathy. For Ambrose I would sacrifice—everything. It is cheap to say that I would give my life. I have given more than my life. So have you."
Christina was silent.
"I have faced—everything," Beryl went on. She was sitting on a cushion between Christina and the fire, her tea cup in her hands. "You have also—haven't you, Christina?"
"About Ambrose? Yes. He has passed. The law will kill him. He expects that. I think he would be uncomfortable if he was spared. He told me once, that all the way out to New Caledonia, he grieved about the people who had been guillotined for the same offense as he had committed. The unfairness of it! He never posed. Can you imagine him posing? I've seen him blush when I joked about that funny little trick of his; have you noticed it? Rubbing his chin with the back of his hand?"
Beryl nodded.
"He said he had tried to get out of the habit," Christina continued. "No, Ambrose couldn't pretend, or do a mean thing; or lie. I'm getting sentimental, my dear. Ambrose was distressed by sentimentality. Mother kissed his hand the day I stood for the first time. He was so bewildered!"
They laughed together.
"Are you marrying Steppe?" asked Christina. She felt no call to excuse the intimacy of the question.
"I suppose so. There are reasons. At present he is rather impersonal. As impersonal as a marriage certificate or a church. I have no imagination perhaps. I shall not tell him. You don't think I should—about Ronnie, I mean?"
Christina shook her red head. "No. As I see it, no. If you must marry him, you are doing enough without handing him another kind of whip to flog you with."
"I told Ambrose: that was enough," said Beryl. "My conscience was for him. Steppe wants no more than he gives."
The clock chimed five.
Ambrose at that moment was passing through the black gates of Wechester County Prison and Ronald Morelle was taking tea with Madame Ritti.