“To prejudice Ivor’s reaction to the facts when the inevitable disclosure came?”
“Yes. Ivor learned the facts when he was twenty-one. That was in 1914. They had spent the last two years abroad. You read the description of the scene between the father and the son in Two Lives and a Destiny. It’s amazing. As Trent told Ivor the history of his marriage, he became a stranger—a spiteful, writhing, humiliated being. Fear, hatred, tortured pride, and above all sexual jealousy, were the realities behind Trent’s façade. The fact that it was fourteen years ago; that she was dead; that he was talking to her son—counted for nothing. He flung insult after insult at her, used the foulest language, stamped and gesticulated like a madman. And behind this frenzied figure Ivor saw—in a kind of vision—the woman whose loveliness had haunted his childhood.”
“How did it end?”
“There was a terrible quarrel between them. Ivor cleared out. A few months later the war came. His father refused to see him when he left for the front. And before Ivor had been in France a month, Trent fell dead in the street.”
“And that’s the story of Two Lives and a Destiny?”
“That’s the story, Rendell. The book ends with an analysis of Ivor’s sensations on going into action for the first time. But the significant fact is this. When he was twenty-one, he was confronted by two crises in swift succession: he discovered that the man he believed his father to be was a fake; and a few months later he found himself in the inferno of the war.”
“But you said just now——”
“Here’s the food,” Marsden interrupted. “Let’s eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
They spoke only in isolated sentences during the next twenty minutes. Trent remained in his corner, a crowd of memories stampeding through his mind. Gradually, however, an unreasoning hatred of Marsden possessed him although, simultaneously, he was amused by the discovery that Marsden was one man with his own friends and another with him. There was an independence, a hint of patronage, in his attitude to Rendell which were unknown in their relations. But what chiefly disturbed Trent was the knowledge that he was still unable to leave the tavern. Any attempt to rise instantly provoked a sensation of dizziness. But one thing was definite—he had no curiosity. He knew the limits of Peter Marsden’s knowledge.
“Well, what do you think? Just coffee?”
“That’s all I want,” Rendell replied. “And now I’m going to revert to Ivor Trent.”
Marsden laughed.
“You’re very interested in him.”
“So are you,” Rendell retorted bluntly.
“I’m very full of him at the minute, I admit. But then I’ve been doing nothing but read and re-read his books for the last few weeks.”
“Yes, but apart from that,” Rendell insisted.
“He’s an interesting person, of course,” Marsden replied irritably, after a just perceptible pause.
“You said, earlier on, that you owed him a lot. Any objection to telling me in what way?”
“No, I’ve no objection, but I’d rather you kept it to yourself. It began like this. I’ve told you that Ivor and I were at school together. Well, he delivered me from a bully. I don’t know if you’ve any idea of the fanatical devotion that inspires in a schoolboy?”
“I can imagine it.”
“No, you can’t. It’s one of those things you have to experience. Ivor became my hero. I thought God must be exactly like him. But it was not only that he delivered me—it was the way he did it.”
“Don’t understand,” Rendell said abruptly.
“It was like this. The bully was twice Ivor’s size, but the latter simply obliterated him by the might of his spirit. He gave him a look, told him to clear off—and he cleared off. It was astonishing. I became a fervent believer in miracles.”
“And that was the start of your friendship?”
“Yes. A year or two after the bullying incident we drifted apart. I suddenly became pretty burly and mad-keen on games. Eventually I went up to Cambridge while Ivor was travelling all over the place with his father. I didn’t see him for a hell of a time. In fact, not till 1923—just after Two Lives and a Destiny had been published.”
“What happened to Trent in the war?”
“He was decorated for bravery and was slightly wounded in 1917. Our next meeting was rather dramatic. I’d been badly smashed up just before the Armistice. Since then I’d had treatment of all kinds, operations, and God knows what. Finally, I was told that I’d go on crutches for the rest of my life. It’s probable that I should have done myself in if I hadn’t run into Ivor again.”
“You’d not seen him for years?”
“Not since we left school. I ran into him one night in Regent Street, quite by chance. I was just getting out of a taxi with great difficulty as Ivor emerged from a restaurant with a woman—an imperious lady with a disdainful stare and a magnificent figure. He put her in the taxi I had just left and let her wait while he talked to me. She was very impatient and clearly resented the delay. I believe it amused him to keep her waiting. Anyway, he soon discovered that I was at the end of things. I told him I was living in a cottage in Surrey. A few days later he came down and stayed with me.”
Marsden broke off and remained silent for some moments, then added:
“I admit I was flattered by his visit, Rendell. Ivor was then thirty, very handsome, very much in demand. Two Lives and a Destiny had just been published and had had an instantaneous success. But the real point is this: he brought me back to life!”
“Brought you back to life!”
“Yes. He stayed some weeks. He talked a lot about literature and read a number of books to me. He’s a first-rate critic. I’d always read a fair amount but he opened another world. He revealed the spiritual structure of the books we read. Well—to cut the story short—he eventually got me a job as a publisher’s reader. Later, I became a reviewer. And now I do a good deal of free-lance journalism.”
“You certainly owe him a lot, Marsden. Everything—it seems to me. I suppose you see him pretty frequently nowadays.”
“No, I don’t. I told you, about once a year. For one thing, he frequently goes abroad for long periods to work. He writes a book every two or three years, and, when he’s working, no one hears a word from him.”
“I take it his work means everything to him?”
There was a long silence, then Marsden said slowly:
“I’m damned if I know.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“I sometimes think, Rendell, that his books are only a by-product of an intense interior activity. He never discusses them and he does not mix with literary people. You hear queer odds and ends about him occasionally.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh I don’t know! They are probably all nonsense. I doubt if anyone knows more about him than I do—and I don’t know much.”
“Do you know many of his friends?”
“Scarcely any. I met a woman, quite by chance, a year or two ago in Paris, who knew him. I told her very much what I’ve just told you. Her only comment was that I had a greater gift for fiction than Ivor Trent.”
Marsden laughed, then added:
“And now you tell me that Ivor’s an expert in loneliness. That’s quite a new angle on him. I can only repeat that he knows lots of people in all sorts of worlds. Also, he’s rich and famous.”