“Mabel!”

“I knew Rachel would try and put it on Maurice! She has never made the slightest effort to understand him or appreciate him. It isn’t any good her saying she has, because she hasn’t. If she had the slightest feeling for a mother’s anxieties she would have given him the money when I told her how necessary it was that he should have it and be prevented from going to Russia, where he might catch anything, and if he brought me a Bolshevist daughter-in-law, it would break my heart. But what does Rachel care about that? She only cares about the money. And it isn’t even as if it was her own money-it was my father’s, and morally half of it is mine! Are you going to send me to prison, Rachel, for taking some of my own money in order to save my only son from getting shot in a cellar or poisoned with bad drains?”

“Mabel,” said Ernest in a shaking voice-“you can’t know what you’re saying. Rachel, she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Mabel-”

“Be quiet!” said Mabel at the top of her voice. “I know perfectly well what I’m saying. I did the whole thing myself. I thought of it the minute I saw the cheque Rachel had given you. And how she had the nerve-what was the good of a miserable hundred pounds when Maurice wanted ten thousand? So I made up my mind what I was going to do, and I did it very well.” Mabel actually preened herself. “I got another cheque, and I copied the hundred pounds one, only I put ten thousand instead of a hundred. And nobody could possibly have told that it wasn’t Rachel’s signature, so I can’t imagine what all the fuss is about.”

All this time Rachel Treherne had been sitting back in her chair, her face quite without expression, her eyes raised to her sister’s face. She might have been watching a scene in which she had no concern. She spoke now in a cool and level voice.

“Banks are not usually asked to pay so large a sum across the counter on an open cheque. The manager asked Maurice to wait, and rang me up.”

Mabel’s face became convulsed.

“What have they done to him?” She caught at Ernest, and he put his arm about her.

“To Maurice? Nothing at all. Hadn’t you better sit down, Mabel?”

Mrs. Wadlow allowed herself to be piloted to the most comfortable armchair. She clutched her side and inquired eagerly,

“Then you told them it was all right?”

Rachel’s eye brows went up.

“Certainly not. I stopped the cheque.”

“But Maurice-Rachel; have you no feelings? Can’t you see that you are torturing me?”

“I told the manager there was some mistake,” said Rachel coldly.

Ernest bent solicitously over his wife.

“My dear, I beg of you-you will suffer for this.”

“What will he think?” said Mabel with a rending sob.

“That you or Ernest have forged my name.” Rachel’s tone was extremely dry. “I am afraid that Maurice will not get that ten thousand.”

The sound of the lunch bell came up from the hall below. Neusel, who throughout these agitations had remained plunged in slumber, sprang up instantly and trotted to the door.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Civilized life is at the mercy of its own routine. Whatever may be happening in a household, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner follow one another inexorably. Birth, marriage, divorce, meetings, partings, estrangements, love, hate, suspicion, jealousy, battle, murder, and sudden death- through all these comes the sound of the domestic bell or gong, with its summons to eat and drink. Whether you die tomorrow or today, another meal is served.

Rachel Treherne paused at Caroline’s door, heard no sound, and followed the Wadlows downstairs. She was glad to concern herself with ordering a tray to be sent up, and when she turned to the room again discovered that there would have to be two trays. Mabel had disappeared, and Ernest, with reproach in eye and voice, informed her that an attack of palpitations was imminent, and that he had taken it upon himself to insist upon a recumbent position and perfect quiet.

“She over-taxes her strength. We should not have allowed her to excite herself. She will be prostrated for the rest of the day. Yes, certainly some lunch-her strength must be maintained. Light and nutritious food at very frequent intervals, and she should never be thwarted or allowed to over-tax her strength-those are the exact expressions used by Dr. Levitas. No one has understood Mabel’s constitution as he did. I blame myself, but I cannot exonerate you, Rachel-no sisterly kindness, no attempt to calm her, no concern about her health.” All this in low, agitated tones, with a nervous polishing of the pince-nez and small fidgeting movements.

Actually, the arrival of Ella Comperton was a relief. Ella’s range of subjects, from leper colonies to slums, might not be ideal as table topics, but they were at least preferable to a discussion of Mabel’s health and the unsisterly harshness with which she had been thwarted in her maiden attempt at forgery.

Richard and Cosmo both came in extremely late. Richard cut himself a plateful of cold beef and ate it in silence. Cosmo, on the contrary, made an excellent lunch and was in quite his best vein-social anecdotes, art gossip, the Surrealist exhibition in Paris. The flow was easy and continuous, and Rachel blessed him in her heart. She never felt fonder of Cosmo than when she had just refused him. No scowls, no sulks, no lowering of the social temperature. Not like poor Richard. What had gone wrong between him and Caroline? Some stupid little thing. Lovers did quarrel about stupid little things. It couldn’t be anything more. It-couldn’t-be-anything-worse-

She jerked her thoughts away and heard Cosmo say,

“Nightmare, not art, my dear Miss Silver.”

Miss Silver crumbled her bread.

“I speak under correction of course-but is it not the aim of the Surrealists to present those ideas which are commonly submerged in the unconscious mind?”

Cosmo laughed.

“And very unpleasant minds they must have, if the ideas are a fair sample.”

Miss Silver gave a slight cough.

“Just a little like the Day of Judgment, if I may say so without irreverence-the secrets of all hearts being opened.” She continued to crumble the bread. “If our thoughts-our intimate, secret thoughts-were to take shape and stand before us now, I wonder what we should think of them.”

Cosmo smiled his most genial smile. It was turned upon Rachel.

“You at least would be safe, my dear. I can imagine that your thoughts would make charming pictures.”

Rachel felt an almost physical pang. “My thoughts? Oh, God!” There was a horrified moment when she wondered if she had spoken the words aloud. Her thoughts- fear, suspicion, agony, resentment, terror-how dreadfully might these take shape.

Cosmo was still leaning to her and smiling.

“Singing birds and lilies, my dear.”

Ernest Wadlow straightened his pince-nez.

“It is an interesting theory. I remember discussing it with Dr. Levitas. He compared the balance of Mabel’s mind, I remember, to a chime of silver bells. She was very much pleased with the image. We both thought it a very apt one. The least disturbing element, and the delicate tuning suffers. I remember quoting Shakespeare’s ‘Sweet bells jangled out of tune.’ ”

Ella Comperton fixed him with an offended stare.

“Good heavens, Ernest-what will you say next? That was Ophelia, and she was mad. There has never been any madness in our family.”

Richard Treherne pushed back his chair, excused himself briefly, and went out. Rachel, listening, heard him go up the stair. Ernest was still talking, but she had lost the thread. Her mind seemed to have closed, and what came through was meaningless sound which made no sense.

The telephone bell rang, and she got up to answer it with relief. With the receiver at her ear, she heard Cherry’s light laugh, like the echo of a laugh from a very long way off.