Chapter III

Further Advance by Watchman

i

“The chief fault in Luke,” said Sebastian Parish, “is that he is quite incapable of letting well alone.”

Norman Cubitt tilted his hat over his eyes, peered from Parish to his canvas and began to scuffle among his tubes of paint. He uttered a short grunt.

“More than that,” added Parish, “he glories in making bad a good deal worse. Do you mind my talking, old boy?”

“No. Turn the head a little to the right. Too much. That’s right. I won’t keep you much longer. Just while the sun’s on the left side of the face. The shoulders are coming too far round again.”

“You talk like a doctor about my members—the head, the face, the shoulders.”

“You’re a vain fellow, Seb. Now, hold it like that, do. Yes, there’s something persistently impish in Luke. He jabs at people. What was he up to last night with Will Pomeroy and Legge?”

“Damned if I know. Funny business, wasn’t it? Do you think he’s jealous of Will?”

“Jealous?” repeated Cubitt. With his palette knife he laid an unctuous stroke of blue beside the margin of the painted head. “Why jealous?”

“Well, because of Decima.”

“Oh, nonsense! And yet I don’t know. He’s not your cousin for nothing, Seb. Luke’s got his share of the family vanity.”

“I don’t know why you say I’m vain, damn you. I don’t think I’m vain at all. Do you know, I get an average of twelve drivelling letters a day from females in front? And do they mean a thing to me?”

“You’d be bitterly disappointed if there was a falling off. Don’t move your shoulders. But you may be right about Luke.”

“I’d like to know,” said Parish, “just how much last year’s little flirtation with Decima added up to.”

“Would you? I don’t think it’s relevant.”

“Well,” said Parish, “she’s an attractive wench. More ‘It’ to the square inch than most of them. It’s hard to say why. She’s got looks, of course, but not the looks that usually get over that way. Not the voluptuous type. Her—”

“Shut up,” said Cubitt violently, and added: “I’m going to paint your mouth.”

His own was set in an unusually tight line. He worked for a time in silence, stood back, and said abruptly:

“I don’t really think Will Pomeroy was his objective. He was getting at Legge, and why the devil he should pick on a man he’d never seen in his life until last night is more than I can tell.”

“I thought he seemed to be sort of probing. Trying to corner Legge in some way.”

Cubitt paused with his knife over the canvas.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s perfectly true. I thought so, too. Trick of the trade, perhaps, Counsel’s curiosity. Almost, one expected him to put his foot on the seat of a chair and rest his elbow on his knee. Now I come to think of it, I believe he did hitch his coat up by the lapels.”

“Characteristic,” pronounced Parish seriously. He himself had used these touches several times in trial scenes.

Cubitt smiled. “But he sounded definitely malicious,” he added.

“He’s not malicious,” said Parish uncomfortably.

“Oh yes, he is,” said Cubitt coolly. “It’s one of his more interesting qualities. He can be very malicious.”

“He can be very generous, too.”

“I’m sure he can. I like Luke, you know. He interests me enormously.”

“Apparently he likes you,” said Parish. “Apparently.”

“Hullo!” Cubitt walked back from his canvas and stood squinting at it. “You said that with a wealth of meaning, Seb. What’s in the air? You can rest a minute, if you like.”

Parish moved off the boulder where he had been sitting, stretched himself elaborately, and joined Cubitt. He gazed solemnly at his own portrait. It was a large canvas. The figure in the dull red sweater was three-quarter life-size. It was presented as a dark form against the lighter background which was the sea and the sky. The sky appeared as a series of paling arches, the sea as a simple plane, broken by formalized waves. A glint of sunlight had found the cheek and jaw-bone on the right side of the face.

“Marvellous, old boy,” said Parish. “Marvellous!”

Cubitt, who disliked being called “old boy,” grunted.

“Did you say you’d show it in this year’s Academy?” asked Parish.

“I didn’t, Seb, but I will. I’ll stifle my aesthetic conscience, prostitute my undoubted genius, and send your portrait to join the annual assembly of cadavers. Do you prefer ‘Portrait of an Actor,’ ‘Sebastian Parish, Esq.,’ or simply ‘Sebastian Parish’?”

“I think I would like my name,” said Parish seriously. “Not, I mean, that everybody wouldn’t know—”

“Thank you. But I see your point. Your press agent would agree. What were you going to say about Luke? His generosity, you know, and his apparently liking me so much?”

“I don’t think I ought to tell you, really.”

“But of course you are going to tell me.”

“He didn’t actually say it was in confidence,” said Parish. Cubitt waited with a slight smile.

“You’d be amazed if you knew,” continued Parish.

“Yes.”

“Yes. Oh, rather. At least I imagine you would be. I was. I never expected anything of the sort, and after all I am his nearest relation. His next of kin.”

Cubitt turned and looked at him in real astonishment.

“Are you by any chance,” he asked, “talking about Luke’s will?”

“How did you guess?”

“My dear, good Seb—”

“All right, all right. I suppose I did give it away. You may as well hear the whole thing. Luke told me the other day that he was leaving his money between us.”

“Good Lord!”

“I know. I happened to look him up after the show one evening, and I found him browsing over an official-looking document. I said something, chaffingly, you know, about it, and he said: ‘Well, Seb, you’ll find it out some day, so you may as well know now.’ And then he told me.”

“Extraordinarily nice of him,” said Cubitt uncomfortably, and he added: “Damn! I wish you hadn’t told me.”

“Why, on earth?”

“I don’t know. I enjoy discussing Luke and now I’ll feel he’s sort of sacrosanct. Oh well, he’ll probably outlive both of us.”

“He’s a good bit older than I am,” said Parish. “Not, I mean, that I don’t hope with all my heart he will. I mean — as far as I’m concerned—”

“Don’t labour it, Seb,” said Cubitt kindly. “I should think Luke will certainly survive me. He’s strong as a horse and I’m not. You’ll probably come in for the packet.”

“I hate talking about it like that.”

Parish knocked his pipe out on a stone. Cubitt noticed that he was rather red in the face.

“As a matter of fact,” he muttered, “it’s rather awkward.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’m plaguily hard up at the moment and I’d been wondering—”

“If Luke would come to the rescue?”

Parish was silent.

“And in the light of this revelation,” Cubitt added, “you don’t quite like to ask. Poor Seb! But what the devil do you do with your money? You ought to be rolling. You’re always in work. This play you’re in now is a record run, isn’t it, and your salary must be superb.”

“That’s all jolly fine, old man, but you don’t know what it’s like in the business. My expenses are simply ghastly.”

“Why?”

“Why, because you’ve got to keep up a standard. Look at my house. It’s ruinous, but I’ve got to be able to ask the people that count to a place they’ll accept and, if possible, remember. You’ve got to look prosperous in this game, and you’ve got to entertain. My agent’s fees are hellish. My clubs cost the earth. And like a blasted fool I backed a show that flopped for thousands last May.”

“What did you do that for?”

“The management are friends of mine. It looked all right.”

“You give money away, Seb, don’t you? I mean literally. To out-of-luck actors? Old-timers and so on?”

“I may. Always think ‘There but for the grace of God…!’ It’s such a damn chancy business.”