The Woman at The Door

by Warwick Deeping

  “I’m leaving nothing to chance.”

  She said that she could wash over the last of the floors, that of the sitting-room, while he was with the caravan, waiting for her and the darkness. And how would he explain his delayed departure, should it be necessary to explain it to some such person as that Paul Pry of a police constable? He had thought of that.

  “They’ll find me pottering about—fussing over the loading—until eight o’clock. Yes, these long light evenings do complicate the business. Then, just before dusk, anyone who arrived would catch me cleaning sparking-plugs. Besides, old T. will be with me.”

  “Might it not seem strange, our travelling at night?”

  “People who use caravans may be credited with a little eccentricity.”

  On the day when the car and caravan were to be delivered Luce walked over to Brandon about eleven in the morning. He had decided to lunch at the Chequers, and in Brandon High Street a telegraph boy got off his bicycle and spoke to him. It was the boy who previously had delivered a telegram at the tower.

  “Mr. Luce?”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.”

  Was the wire from Messrs. Custs to say that there would be some delay in the road-ship’s sailing? He tore the envelope open and read:

  “Coming down to-day—on chance.—Carlotta.”

  Damn the woman! He looked at his watch and wondered whether he would be too late to prevent her coming. What if he tried to get her on the telephone? He had her address but not her telephone number, but the directory would give him that. He was within ten yards of the post office when he saw the car and trailer swinging slowing into the Chequers yard. Damn Miss Reubens! He wanted to tip Messrs. Custs’ driver, and persuade him to take him out on a trial trip, and coach him in the handling of the machine. Miss Reubens could wait for five minutes. He hurried on and into the Chequers yard, where the driver had switched off his engine.

  “Good morning. I’m Mr. Luce.”

  “Morning, sir.”

  “Could you give me half an hour on the road? It’s the first time I have handled a car and a caravan.”

  He produced a ten-shilling note, and Custs’ man smiled at him.

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  “Good. I’ve just got to go and telephone to a friend in town. I shan’t be ten minutes.”

  The London directory was not crowded with Reubens and Luce found his lady. The telephone box was at his service, and he was put through to Carlotta’s flat in Chelsea. Would she be in? She was in. She answered the ring in person.

  “Hallo.”

  “Luce speaking. Just had your wire. Awfully sorry, my dear, but my motor contraption is here, and I hope to be off this afternoon.”

  “Bad man.”

  “Yes, very bad man. We’ll have to postpone the adventure. So glad I’ve been able to catch you. You would have found the tower shut up.”

  Miss Reubens’ voice sounded both gaillard and whimsical.

  “Why didn’t you ask me to come?”

  “What, in the caravan?”

  “Of course.”

  “My dear, a widower, and an old bachelor and a——.”

  “A lady! Quite—triangular! Well, good luck, bad man, and no punctures.”

  “Thanks—so much.”

  “Ring me up when you are back on the Stylite’s stunt.”

  “I don’t throw away charming opportunities. Good-bye,” and he hung Miss Reubens up.

  He returned to the Chequers, where Messrs. Custs’ driver gave him genial advice and a demonstration. The great thing to remember was not to cut your corners too fine, and when braking to allow for the additional weight on your tail. Moreover, if you happened to find yourself in an awkward place and compelled to turn, it was a very simple matter to disconnect the trailer, reverse your car, and manhandle the caravan. The driver showed Luce how it could be done. Finally, he took Luce out on the road, and in a quiet section, gave him the wheel. The Mostyn’s four speed gear-box was a nice piece of work, and Luce found gear-changing easy.

  “Now, swing into this lane, sir.”

  Luce cut his corner too sharply and the near wheel of the trailer bumped over the grass verge.

  “Lucky for you, sir, there was no lamp-post. You—must—swing her more.”

  3

  Sudden, summer heat, with the roads ashimmer and the tar sticky and dogs and humans seeking the shade. Brandon High Street was almost empty when Luce walked up it at three o’clock in the afternoon. He did not see Mr. Smith of the Chequers Inn, for Mr. Smith was taking a nap in a hammock under a chestnut tree, but Luce interviewed the young woman in the office.

  “How much do I owe for garage?”

  “Five shillings, sir.”

  Luce paid up, and went out into the yard to begin the great adventure. It was not unlike one of those moments during the war when you left the trenches to go on leave and found yourself wondering whether some chance but malevolent shell would not drop on you just as you were leaving the danger zone. Was he excited? Not a little. The yard gates were open, and as he settled himself in the driving seat and pressed the self-starter button, a large black dog appeared in the gateway and stopped to stare at him.

  Absit omen! He drove with meticulous care into the street, and finding it empty, swung to the right. He was aware of the black road and the blue sky, and the great elms clouding about Brandon church. A little figure in a linen coat showed against the redness of an old brick wall. Mr. Temperley!

  Luce drove on to Mr. Temperley’s gate. A brown suitcase and a canvas hold-all reposed by one of the gate pillars. Also, both of Mr. Temperley’s elderly maids were there to see him off, rather like hens superintending the absurd adventures of a ridiculous duckling.

  Mr. Temperley smiled at Luce.

  “Punctual fellow.”

  It did occur to Luce as he got out to deal with Mr. Temperley’s luggage that he would have welcomed the presence of some representative of the official world. It would have added a cachet to the occasion. Meanwhile, Martha had picked up the suitcase, and Eliza the hold-all, and Luce had only to open the door of the caravan.

  “Yes, in here for the time being.”

  “I’ve put your bottle in, sir.”

  Mr. Temperley looked amused.

  “I’ll have it iced, Martha, I think.”

  But Luce’s wish was to prove the father of reality. Just as Mr. Temperley was inspecting the interior of the caravan P.C. Pook appeared, walking in the shade of the church elms. The passion to interfere was so strong in this petty official, even when it was exercising good-will, that P.C. Pook crossed the road and saluted Mr. Temperley. He had heard of the expedition, and he hoped that good weather would last, and did Mr. Temperley know that no man, woman or child was permitted to remain in the caravan while it was in motion?

  “Yes, thank you, Pook, I do know that. I was just exploring the ship.”

  “That’s all right, sir.”

  P.C. Pook put his head into the caravan to inspect it.

  “Neat little bit of goods, sir.”

  “Yes, most practical.”

  P.C. Pook stood on the footpath to watch them move off, and to salute Mr. Temperley.

  “Quite a useful coincidence, sir,” said Luce.

  “Quite, and unexpectedly so.”

  “Do you mind if I attend strictly to business for a while?”

  “That’s as it should be, my friend.”

  Luce drove out of Brandon with particular care. The slope was against him, but even when the gradient flattened out he kept his speed below twenty miles an hour. There was very little traffic, but when Luce sighted the one-armed signpost marking the turning to the left, he saw the top of a tradesman’s van stationary above the hedge. The van had parked itself with inconvenient precision at this blind corner where Luce would have to swing wide in order to clear the ditch.

  Luce pulled up on his near side about ten yards short of the by-road.

  “I shall have to get that fello
w to move.”

  Mr. Temperley had opened the near door.

  “I’ll do the stimulating, Luce.”

  He found a lad and a girl deeply engaged with each other in the van’s cabin, and Mr. Temperley refrained from sarcasm. After all, the world was human.

  “Would you mind moving your van. My friend has to swing a car and a trailer round this corner.”

  Youth was courteous to Mr. Temperley.

  “Sorry, sir. I’m just moving off.”

  The van and its lovers trundled off down the main road, and with Mr. Temperley watching for possible traffic, Luce swung out and took his corner. Mr. Temperley climbed aboard again, and the way was clear. A furlong from the main road the lane plunged into the high shade of tall trees. Patches of sunlight lay here and there on the green verges. Just opposite a big beech tree the mouth of the old gravel pit opened between banks of young fern. Luce pulled up so that he could unhitch the caravan and manhandle it tail first into the pit. His great strength served on this occasion.

  “I’m not going to offer to help, Luce.”

  “No need, sir.”

  “So I see.”

  Luce backed the car in and connected it up with the van. Both vehicles were so well screened by brambles and young birch trees that they were almost invisible from the road. Any casual person who happened to pass might go by without noticing the radiator and wings of the car.

  “Not so bad, sir. O, by the way, I tried that trick last night.”

  “Rash of you, Luce.”

  “I think it was worth it. No trouble at all. Now, if you don’t mind I will leave you in charge, sir, while I go up for my first load of stores. What do you make the time?”

  “Twenty to four, Luce.”

  “When I come back we’ll manage some tea.”

  Luce set out to climb the hill by a forest track that left the road about fifty yards from the gravel pit. It had been scoured into deep gullies by centuries of rain, and the branches of the trees met overhead. This old pack-horse trail brought him to the plateau upon which the tower stood, and ten minutes’ fast walking took him to the green door. He opened it to find two suitcases and a wooden packing case in the vestibule.

  “Rachel.”

  He heard her on the stairs. She came down to him with her sleeves rolled up, and he saw that her hands were wet.

  “I’m just washing over the bedroom floor.”

  “All’s well. Our stage coach is safely in the gravel pit.”

  She gave him a breathless kiss.

  “Am I really going? It seems too good.”

  “Yes, open country, my dear. I am going to give Mr. Temperley some tea down there.”

  “O, don’t leave me, John, more than you can help.”

  He divined her horror of being alone.

  “I’ll carry down that case and come back at once. And put out some tea and sugar and a tin of milk. He will understand.”

  “And a slice of cake, John?”

  “Yes.”

  She made up three little parcels and slipped them into his pockets, and he hoisted the case on his shoulder and went out, locking the door after him. He found Mr. Temperley sitting on a waterproof cushion, with a map on his knees, and flicking a handkerchief to keep off the flies.

  “I did not know I was so succulent, Luce.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I don’t expect you to apologize for Beelzebub.”

  Luce put the wooden box down close to Mr. Temperley.

  “Do you mind if I leave you to make your own tea? She’s a little afraid of being alone.”

  “Poor child, I’m not surprised. Don’t worry about me, Luce. I’ll hold the fort.”

  “There is a stove in the caravan, and water in the tank, and here is some tea and sugar and milk, and a piece of cake.”

  He turned out his pockets, and Mr. Temperley folded up his map, and smiled at him.

  “Did she think of the cake?”

  “As a matter of fact she did, sir.”

  “Bless her! I’ll forage for myself, Luce. I suppose you will be down again?”

  “In about an hour.”

  Luce went out into the road to assure himself of its emptiness, and then took to the woods. He found that last sacramental meal ready laid for him in the tower. Her mood was one of pale quietism. Had he been less sensitive to impressions he might have said that she was tranquil and resigned, and that the prospect of escape moved her not at all. That it was not so was evident by reason of the trembling of her hands when she filled and passed him his cup. But he did understand that at this moment in her life she did not ask for emotion. She was too secretly surcharged with it, and oppressed by the finality of the occasion.

  He was casual, kind, reassuring. They might have been waiting for a train to take them away on their yearly holiday.

  “You will have plenty of time to wash up. No hurry.”

  She sat very still, looking at the tree tops. She was going away with him to strange places, and for ever. Would he always be kind to her, would he tire of the tyranny of their mutual exile?

  “It’s so final, John. Think, for the last time.”

  “My dear!”

  He took her on his knees.

  “It is not a question of thinking, but of feeling.”

  “I’m so frightened.”

  “Of me?”

  “Going away may be easy. It’s the afterwards. You, everything will be in my hands.”

  “You don’t quite know me yet, Rachel. I’m a rather stolid, habitual old thing. Because all this has happened to us so suddenly, it doesn’t mean that I don’t know what life is, and what we can make of it.”

  She clung to him for a moment.

  “O, my dear, I’m so afraid of failing you.”

  “I’m not the least afraid. Get that idea into your head.”

  He let her go, and with sudden calmness she began to clear away the tea things and to prepare for washing up. He understood this cherishing of her self-control. He filled and lit a pipe, and remembered one last precaution.

  “Keep the cloth between your fingers and things when you give them the last polish. I think I ought to be going now.”

  She answered him calmly.

  “Yes, John.”

  “When you leave the gate for the woods, remember the ground goes down all the way. There are only a few clumps of rhododendron, and the bracken. Keep on going downhill till you reach the wire fence above the road, and stay there till you hear me whistle.”

  “Yes, John.”

  He kissed her on the forehead, picked up the two suitcases and went out.

  4

  As Luce walked down through the woods he heard voices coming from the direction of the gravel pit. He recognized Mr. Temperley’s voice. The other voice was a woman’s, and somehow familiar, and associating itself like an unpleasant odour with some particular person. Luce came to a stand under a beech tree whose branches swept the ground, and putting down his suitcases, waited upon circumstance. The voices had ceased, and Luce could hear the footsteps of someone who was climbing the trackway. The beech tree under which he stood was about fifty yards from the sunken path, and he was able to distinguish the head and shoulders of a woman moving above the near bank. He recognized her. It was Miss Ballard.

  Assuredly, this confounded woman was a kind of universal ghost manifesting everywhere, and at all hours, and Luce stood still and watched her. She did not appear to be sensitive to the strange compulsion an observer’s eyes may exert upon the person who is watched, and she went by without looking in his direction. Damn the woman! But to Luce her prowlings appeared so sinister and so charged with potential danger that he left his suitcases under the tree, and broke back through the woods and away from the sunken track. He wanted to assure himself that Miss Ballard did not spread her curiosity about the tower, and reaching the brow of the hill and coming to a clump of rhododendrons within view of the gate, he took cover there. Nor had his inspiration been wasted, for in a minu
te or two he saw the black figure walking up the path in the shade of the laurels. She paused at the gate and stood contemplating the tower. And Luce cursed her. What if she were to sneak up to the tower and stand listening under a window? The slightest sound from within, the moving of a chair, might be sufficient to stimulate her curiosity. And what would she infer? That he, the official tenant, was still in occupation?

  She did not venture through the gate, but turned back along the path. Yes, damn the woman! What if she had appeared at that gate at the very moment when Rachel had opened the green door? The thing did not bear thinking about, but so potent was his dread of any such contretemps that he left his shelter and, keeping to the open woods, shadowed Miss Ballard down the hill. He was able to catch glimpses of her black figure moving among the trees, nor did he cease from shadowing her until he was satisfied that she was on her way to the farm.

  He realized that he was sweating, and that he still held between his teeth a pipe that had gone out, and knocking the pipe out against a tree and pocketing it, he went back to collect his suitcases. Emerging upon the road he found it as empty as the woodlands. The gravel pit showed him Mr. Temperley sitting on the steps of the caravan, reading a copy of The Times which the good Martha had slipped into his suitcase.

  “Hallo, my dear Luce, you look hot?”

  Luce was conscious of being assailed by a momentary and vile suspicion. Surely, this old man was not amusing himself at their expense.

  “I am feeling hot, sir.”

  “I’ve had a visitor, Luce.”

  Luce put his suitcases down beside the steps.

  “I both heard and saw the lady.”

  Mr. Temperley was looking at him with quizzical amusement.

  “What would you do, Luce, if you caught me double-crossing you?”

  “I might wring your neck, sir.”

  “Good man! I believe you would. But Miss Ballard appears to be a most energetic walker. A very restless person, Luce, a woman with a soul that pinches. I showed her the caravan.”

  “Was she interested?”

  “Quite.”

  “Well, I followed her over the hill to make sure that she paid no other unwanted calls.”