Potterism Part 17

'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they are. I do hate bazaars.'

Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many things now, poor child.

I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview with Mr. Juke.

'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if he's guilty, he won't bring one.'

'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.'

'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do you. Never know anything at all.... On the other hand, he may have lost his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.'

I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the _Weekly Fact_ if its editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder.

PART IV:

TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK

A BRANCH OF STUDY

1

People are very odd, unreliable, and irregular in their actions and reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one.

You never know when greediness--the main element in most of us--will stop working, checked by something else, some finer, quite different motive force. And them checking that again, comes strong emotion, such as love or hate, overthrowing everything and making chaos. Of course, you may say these interacting forces are all elements that should be known and reckoned with beforehand, and it is quite true. That is just the trouble: one doesn't know enough.

Though I don't study human nature with the absorption of Laurence Juke (after all, it's his trade), I find it interesting, like other curious branches of study. And the more complex and unreliable it is, so much the more interesting. I'm much more interested, for instance, in Arthur Gideon, who is surprising and incalculable, than in Jane and Johnny Potter, who are pushed along almost entirely by one motive--greed. I'm even less interested in Jane and Johnny than in the rest of their family, who are the usual British mixture of humbug, sentimentality, commercialism, and genuine feeling. They represent Potterism, and Potterism is a wonderful thing. The twins are far too clear-headed to be Potterites in that sense. You really can, on almost any occasion, say how they will act. So they are rather dull, as a study, though amusing enough as companions.

But Arthur Gideon is full of twists and turns and surprises. He is one of those rare people who can really throw their whole selves into a cause--lose themselves for it and not care. (Jukie says that's Christian: I dare say it is: it is certainly seldom enough found in the world, and that seems to be an essential quality of all the so-called Christian virtues, as far as one can see.)

Anyhow, Arthur's pa.s.sion for truth, his pa.s.sion for the first-rate, and his distaste for untruth and for the second-rate, seemed to be the supreme motive forces in him, all the years I have known him, until just lately.

And then something else came in, apparently stronger than these forces.

Of course, I knew a long time ago--certainly since he left the army--that he was in love with Jane. I knew it long before he did. It was a queer feeling, for it went on, apparently, side by side with impatience and scorn of her. And it grew and grew. Jane's marriage made it worse. She worked for him, and they met constantly. And at last it got so that we all saw it.

And all the time he didn't like her, because she was second-rate and commercial, and he was first-rate and an artist--an artist in the sense that he loved things for what they were, not for what he could get out of them. Jane was always thinking, 'How can I use this? What can I get out of it?' She thought it about the war. So did Johnny. She has always thought it, about everything. It isn't in her not to. And Arthur knew it, but didn't care; anyhow he loved her all the same. It was as if his reason and judgment were bowled over by her charm and couldn't help him.

2

The evening after Oliver Hobart's death, Arthur came in to see me, about nine o'clock. He looked extraordinarily ill and strained, and was even more restless and jerky than usual. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all.

I was testing some calculations, and he sat on the sofa and smoked. When I had finished, he said, 'Katherine, what's your view of this business?'

Of course, I knew he meant Oliver Hobart's death, and how it would affect Jane. One says exactly what one thinks, to Arthur. So I said, 'It's a good thing, ultimately, for Jane. They didn't suit. I'm clear it's a good thing in the end. Aren't you?'

He made a sharp movement, and pushed back his hair from his forehead.

'I? I'm clear of nothing.'

He added, after a moment, 'Is that the way _she_ looks at it, do you suppose?'

'I do,' I said.

He half winced.

'Then why--why the devil did she marry the poor chap?'

There was an odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness of Jane.

I told him what I thought, as clearly as I could.

'She got carried away by the excitement of her life in Paris, and he was all mixed up with that. I think she felt she would, in a way, be carrying on the excitement and the life if she married him. And she was knocked over by his beauty. Then, when the haze and glamour had cleared away, and she was left face to face with him as a life companion, she found she couldn't do with him after all. He bored her and annoyed her more and more. I don't know how long she could have gone on with it; she never said anything, to me about it. But, now this has happened, what might have become a great difficulty is solved.'

'Solved,' he repeated, in a curious, dead voice, staring at the floor. 'I suppose it is.'

He was silent for quite five minutes, sitting quite still, with his black eyes absent and vacant, as if he were very tired. I knew he was trying to think out some problem, and I supposed I knew what it was. But I couldn't account then for his extreme unhappiness.

At last he said, 'Katherine. This is a mess. I can't tell you about it, but it is a mess. Jane and I are in a mess.... Oh, you've guessed, haven't you, about Jane and me? Juke guessed.'

'Yes. I guessed that before Jukie did. Before you did, as a matter of fact.'

'You did?' But he wasn't much interested. 'Then you _see_ ...'

'Not altogether, Arthur. I can't see it's a mess, exactly. A shock, of course ...'

He looked at me for a moment, as if he were adjusting his point of view to mine.

'Well, no. You wouldn't see it, of course. But there's more to this than you know--much more. Anyhow, please take my word for it that it _is_ a mess. A ghastly mess.'

I took his word for it. As there didn't seem to be any comment to make, I made none, but waited for him to go on. He went on.

'And what I wanted to ask you, Katherine, was, can you look after Jane a little? She'll need it; she needs it. She's got to get through it somehow.... And that family of hers always buzzing round.... If we could keep Lady Pinkerton off her ...'

'You want me to mix a poison for Lady P?' I suggested.

Arthur must have been very far through, for he actually started.

'Oh, Heaven forbid.... One sudden death in the family is enough at a time,' he added feebly, trying to smile.

'Well,' I said, 'I'll do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I didn't want to b.u.t.t in. But I will.'