Richard spoke hoarsely. “Is that the truth? Are things really at that pitch?”
“I don’t see how they could be worse. And now that he’s involved with Moore it seems to me it will be impossible to avoid a scandal. If it had been some other means, I should have been inclined to suggest suicide. But that appears to be out of the question.”
“I’d never imagined anything like this,” said Richard, too much appalled to be discreet. “What a scoundrel that fellow is! If they don’t take him for the murder, I hope to God they get him on this count.”
Frobisher regarded him piercingly. “About your own financial position…” he insinuated.
“I came down here hoping to induce my father to give me some assistance. I’m temporarily very much embarrassed.” Even in moments of crisis, he could not altogether shed his rather pompous manner of speech.
“Then that looks bad. Had you asked your father, by the way?”
“For help? I’d told him my position was…” he hesitated.
“And he refused?”
“He said he understood from Moore—who categorically denies most of this conversation—that he was to all intents and purposes a ruined man. I must admit that didn’t greatly impress me. I have heard my father so frequently employ similar expressions when he was up against some quite trivial temporary loss that I didn’t believe this time to be any more serious than the others. I suppose it will be impossible to avoid scandal, as you say?”
“Quite, I should suppose. Not that I imagine there’s any likelihood of your being involved in the murder.” But at the back of his sharp, attentive mind he posed the comment as a question.
Richard looked startled. “I should suppose not. Matters are quite unpleasant enough as it is. Personally, I fancy they’ll drop on Brand. It’s known that he and my father were always at daggers drawn, and that he’s never forgiven him for marrying that abominable wife of his.”
Frobisher was thoughtful, apparently considering the wisdom of some admission to whose nature Richard had no clue. He himself, however, gave the lawyer the requisite encouragement by remarking, “Things would be even worse, of course, if my father had occupied any public position. He’s not in the general eye—a retired country gentleman. That’s pretty cold comfort, though.”
“Colder than you suppose,” agreed the lawyer unsympathetically. “In fact, about freezing-point. There’s something, Richard, that it might be as well for you to hear. I don’t say this will be remembered against him, but you know the condition of the Press. Some of the papers are dignified enough, but there are some scurrilous rags being issued who’re simply out for garbage, and you can trust them to rake up any muck that’s going.”
“And is there any—muck—going where my father is concerned?”
“Yes. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to you, Richard, to be surprised at your father’s quite disproportionate ferocity against your brother as a young man? I’m not holding any brief for loose living, but the lad had no home ties, he was under twenty, he had practically no money, he was living in a strange country—in a word, he’d no background to his life. It’s the background that counts at that stage. When that’s withdrawn…”
“When you deliberately slash it to pieces,” interrupted Richard coldly.
The lawyer looked impatient. “The precise phraseology doesn’t matter. The point is that he did nothing that thousands of other young men don’t do, but your father treated him with a quite abnormal severity. I don’t know whether you know that it was a positive passion of his to discover domestic scandals in the lives of prominent men and attempt to expose them. More than once he has been in danger of libel actions, but, of course, nowadays no one pays any attention to his letters. He’s a monomaniac on that one point. That mania ruined your mother’s married life, and in my opinion it has helped to destroy Brand’s.”
“You mean he had an intense aversion from all forms of immorality?”
“Not all forms, but from immorality in the limited sense in which the word was employed by the late Victorians. It became a craze as he grew older and had no other outlet for his feelings. He was on the look-out for evil everywhere.”
“But why?” asked Richard, in puzzled tones. “Yes, I know he was very bitter against Brand; he could scarcely control himself.”
“Precisely. It was the only refuge he had.”
“Refuge from what?”
“His contemplation of himself. You don’t remember your father as a much younger man. He was tormented by what’s called nowadays the sex urge, and he despised himself unutterably. He despised what he believed to be the weakness of marrying your mother, and he saw to it that she paid heavily for his wretchedness. Did it ever strike you that, with the exception of yourself, he heartily disliked all his children? He couldn’t take a normal view; he saw them all as concessions—or the consequences of those concessions—to what he regarded as something revolting. He girded at your sister, Amy, because she either hadn’t endured his torment, and was therefore in his estimation a finer creature than himself, or, if she had, she’d beaten that desire down. After your mother died he became worse. Of course, he ought to have married again, a sensible woman with a capacity for warm feeling, and they’d probably have got on quite well. But he didn’t. Instead, he took the other way out, and spent all his time nosing into other men’s lives. The war gave him a splendid chance. You remember the outcry there was in 1914 and 1915 about war babies, unmarried mothers, and so forth? Your father, and a number of other men and women of the same sort, got together and formed themselves into an organisation for reporting on immorality and purifying society. They were perpetually on the watch for misconduct.
