Taken at the Flood Read Online Free PDF Page A

an old man... saying as he did so, “There's nothing to be said - nothing to be said...”
    She had been grateful to him, passionately grateful, for understanding so well, and had been torn with pity for him, seeing him suddenly turn into an old man. With the loss of her boy, something had hardened in her - some ordinary common kindness had dried up. She was more efficient, more energetic than ever - people became sometimes a little afraid of her ruthless common sense...
    Jeremy Cloade's finger moved along his upper lip again - irresolutely, searching.
    And crisply, across the room, Frances spoke.
    “Is anything the matter, Jeremy?”
    He started. His coffee cup almost slipped from his hand. He recovered himself, put it firmly down on the tray. Then he looked across at her.
    “What do you mean, Frances?”
    “I'm asking you if anything is the matter?”
    “What should be the matter?”
    “It would be foolish to guess. I would rather you told me.”
    She spoke without emotion in a businesslike way.
    He said unconvincingly:
    “There is nothing the matter -”
    She did not answer. She merely waited inquiringly. His denial, it seemed, she put aside as negligible. He looked at her uncertainly.
    And just for a moment the imperturbable mask of his grey face slipped, and she caught a glimpse of such turbulent agony that she almost exclaimed aloud. It was only for a moment but she didn't doubt what she had seen.
    She said quietly and unemotionally:
    “I think you had better tell me -”
    He sighed - a deep unhappy sigh.
    “You will have to know, of course,” he said, “sooner or later.”
    And he added what was to her a very astonishing phrase.
    “I'm afraid you've made a bad bargain, Frances.”
    She went right past an implication she did not understand to attack hard facts.
    “What is it,” she said, “money?”
    She did not know why she put money first. There had been no special signs of financial stringency other than were natural to the times. They were short-staffed at the office with more business than they could cope with, but that was the same everywhere and in the last month they had got back some of their people released from the Army. It might just as easily have been illness that he was concealing - his colour had been bad lately, and he had been overworked and overtired. But nevertheless Frances's instinct went towards money, and it seemed she was right.
    Her husband nodded.
    “I see.”
    She was silent a moment, thinking. She herself did not really care about money at all - but she knew that Jeremy was quite incapable of realising that. Money meant to him a four-square world - stability - obligations - a definite place and status in life.
    Money to her was a toy tossed into one's lap to play with. She had been born and bred in an atmosphere of financial instability. There had been wonderful times when the horses had done what was expected of them. There had been difficult times when the tradesmen wouldn't give credit and Lord Edward had been forced to ignominious straits to avoid the bailiffs on the front-door step. Once they had lived on dry bread for a week and sent all the servants away. They had had the bailiffs in the house for three weeks once when Frances was a child. She had found the bum in question very agreeable to play with and full of stories of his own little girl.
    If one had no money one simply scrounged, or went abroad, or lived on one's friends and relations for a bit. Or somebody tided you over with a loan...
    But looking across at her husband Frances realised that in the Cloade world you didn't do that kind of thing. You didn't beg or borrow or live on other people. (And conversely you didn't expect them to beg or borrow or live off you!)
    Frances felt terribly sorry for Jeremy and a little guilty about being so unperturbed herself. She took refuge in practicality.
    “Shall we have to sell up everything? Is the firm going smash?”
    Jeremy Cloade winced, and she realised she had been