At once, as when she came running panic-stricken from the woods, the barrier of his arm held her safe.
“Frightened? Why frightened now, my darling?”
“Because it’s too good. It can’t last.”
“Nonsense,” said Sir William gently. “It’s going to last all our lives.”
“Then you’ll die first, and I shan’t be able to bear it. Or something will happen to stop us.”
“Nonsense,” said Sir William again. “You’re tired, my dear, and excited. All this business has been a strain on you, and to-morrow I’m going to put an end to it. We’ll be married straight away.”
But Julia did not hear. She had started, turned away from him, and was staring into the shadows by the house.
“Something moved!” she whispered. “There’s someone there!”
Sir William took three long steps from her side and laid his hand against the dark wall.
“No one,” he said. “Come in, my dear; you’re imagining things.”
He led her into the house and turned on the hall lights. Safe within four walls, Julia was able to look up at him and laugh while he chided her for her foolishness. Then she kissed him good night and went into her room and sat down before the mirror. Her reflection glowed back at her, flushed of cheek and bright of eye; her shoulders—
Her shoulders!
“There!” said Julia aloud. “If I haven’t left my scarf outside!”
2
It was a nice scarf—it had been really good—and the dew would ruin it. Julia jumped up and went to the door, meaning to ask Sir William to fetch it in for her; but once in the lobby she paused. She had a feeling that Sir William might not like to be caught in his pants; she fancied him rather particular about that sort of thing. In the end she went out herself, and indeed had not far to go, for the scarf lay just at the foot of the porch steps. Julia picked it up, turned to reascend, and all at once felt her heart stand still.
Something had moved. Something was moving then.
A shadow detached itself from the shadows, took on an outline, showed a face white in the moonlight. It found a bitter and sardonic voice.
“So I wish you joy?” said Bryan Relton.
Instinctively, as though warding off a blow, Julia put out her hand. “Wait!” the gesture said. “Don’t hurt me just yet! Wait!”
But he would not wait. His voice went on, hard and mocking.
“So you’re going to marry him, Julia? You’re going to purge and live cleanly and be Lady Waring? Do you remember what you said yesterday, Julia? Do you remember what you said to me in the vine, and what you’ve been saying to me for weeks—Julia darling?”
His questions pelted her like stones. She retreated before them till she stood with her back to the wall.
“Stop!” she whispered harshly. “Be quiet! You don’t understand—”
Bryan looked at her and laughed.
“I understand very well indeed: when it came to the point he was too big a fish to let go. But don’t think I blame you, my dear, for aren’t we the same sort? Don’t we both take what we can get?”
Julia moistened her lips.
“Not Susan,” she said. “Not Susan!”
“Not if I can get her, darling? Isn’t she still engaged to me? She wouldn’t have been to-morrow, of course—I’ve been running wild all day—thinking how noble you were, Julia!—rehearsing my part for the renunciation scene. I’ve been running wild in the moonlight—and how fortunately it’s turned out! You’ve opened my eyes, Julia; I can see now what a fool you nearly made of me. Why shouldn’t I have Susan, if I can get her?”
“Because it won’t last,” said Julia more steadily. “It wouldn’t last two years.…”
“Then I shall have had them. As you say, my dear, two years will probably be enough for both of us. I believe you’ll miss me more than anyone, Julia; you’ll never find a son-in-law so much your own sort again.”
At last Julia moved. She dragged herself away from the wall and set her foot on the porch step. She had to pass close to Bryan to do so, but she did not look at him.
“You’re not my sort at all,” she said. “You’re bad.”
Then she fled into the house, into her own room, and sat down once more before the table with the mirror.
3
Her reflection looked quite different. In ten minutes it seemed to have grown old. But Julia did not study it long, for she had a great deal to do.
In the first place, she had to pack.
It was strange—this struck her afterwards, when she was back in London—how little difficulty she had in making up her mind. Or rather, she did not make it up at all: she simply saw before her a series of preordained actions, like a part in a play, which had inevitably to be performed. The reasons for them she left aside: even the thought of Susan was colourless and remote.
She had to pack, get out of the house unobserved, and pick up a lift on the Paris road. At that time of year there were always cars making an early start from Aix; one of them—preferably a fast tourer driven by a solitary man—would stop for her at the Muzin fork. It would be just another of her gay adventures.…
“I ought to get some sleep,” thought Julia.
But she could not. The short night passed without her closing her eyes. First, slowly and clumsily, she filled both her suitcases; then, realizing that they would be too heavy to carry, decided to take only one. That meant unpacking both and starting again. She was very slow about it; every now and then she found herself standing motionless, with a stocking in her hand, or a nightgown over her arm; and how long she had been thus transfixed, or why, she did not know. About four o’clock her knees gave under her; she lay down on the smooth bed and turned off the light. But the room was not dark, it was grey with the twilight of early morning, and in a panic lest day should surprise her Julia pulled herself once more to her feet. Fortunately there was something she could do. She was still wearing her taffeta dress; she had forgotten to pack it, and now left it just where it fell, a heap of blackness on the white floor. She bathed her face and arms in cold water, put on her linen suit, and sat half an hour trying to make rouge and lipstick look natural instead of ghastly. Then she was ready. She decided not to take her big coat, as it was rather shabby. She thought she would look gayer without it.
There remained one other thing to be done, and it was the hardest.
My dearest William [wrote Julia], I am very sorry, but I’m not going to marry you, so this is to say good-bye.
The words looked silly to her, but she could think of no others. She stared at them till they had lost all meaning, then folded the paper in two and went out to slip it under Sir William’s door.
The lobby, because of its shuttered window, was still dark; Julia suddenly remembered the night of the thunderstorm. She had stood in just the same place, outside Sir William’s room, trembling as she trembled now. “What was I so unhappy about?” Julia wondered. “I couldn’t have known then?” She put the puzzle from her mind and performed the next in the series of necessary actions. She walked to the front door, slid back the bolt, and let herself out. The action after that was to take the lower path, beside the kitchen-garden, thus avoiding the village, and pass through its wicket. Mechanically Julia did so. There was no one stirring. She walked the quarter of a mile to where the road from Muzin forked into the highway. Aix lay to her left, Paris somewhere to her right. Julia dropped her suitcase in the dust, and sat down on it to wait.
Chapter 24
1
The Misses Marlowe prided themselves on being expert travellers in general, and particularly, when motoring, on their habit of making early starts. “From six till nine,” Miss Marlowe often explained to an interested circle at Wimbledon, “one gets cool air and a clear road”—in addition to which both she and her sister definitely enjoyed the sensation of leaving their hotel while everyone else was asleep. They felt they had stolen a march on time, and especially on their fellow guests. The French, indee
d, often made early starts too; but the Misses Marlowe regularly led both English and Americans.
It thus happened that at ten minutes to seven Julia, still watching by the Muzin fork, had to change her position and get behind the hedge. The old Daimler was easily recognizable: she had no wish that its occupants should recognize her. They would certainly give her a lift, but they would also want to know too much about her three children. Nevertheless Julia looked after them longingly; her spirits were low, her body was stiff, and so far she had had no luck. Of the three cars that had passed already, one had contained a mutually absorbed couple, one a large family party (with perambulator strapped on top), and the third had been going so fast that it nearly ran over her.
“I ought to start and walk to Belley,” thought Julia; and with the resolution of despair—like a shipwrecked mariner stepping off a raft and beginning to swim—took a few quick steps along the dusty road. But her knees felt curiously weak; she stopped, turned, and took a last look behind. Another car had just rounded the curve and was approaching at no great speed: a disreputable, two-seater Citroën, it was not at all the sort of vehicle she had hoped for; but at least it was driven by a single male. Julia stepped out into the middle of the road and waved an arm; as the car slowed down she saw that this driver was a very young man indeed—younger even than Bryan; his hair, his complexion, and his burberry proclaimed him an Anglo-Saxon. “That’s something,” Julia encouraged herself. “Anyway he’ll understand what I say. He’ll love me. He’ll think I’m an adventuress.”
The Citroën came to a stop. She advanced towards it and put a foot on the running-board.
She said, “Can you give me a lift?”
The young man looked at her. It was a queer look—not fresh, more puzzled; and there was something in it which Julia could not recognize.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“I don’t care,” said Julia baldly. That wasn’t what she had meant to say. She had meant to say “Follow the sun!” or “Your way is mine!”—something gay and adventurous like that; but the three miserable words slipped out before she knew. With a great effort she gave him one of her good-old-Julia smiles, and asked where he was bound for.
“Well, Paris, eventually,” said the young man; “but I don’t quite know when I shall get there. This car isn’t particularly reliable.”
“It’s reliable enough for me,” said Julia, heaving her suitcase on to the edge of the dickey. The young man hesitated a moment, then with another odd glance climbed out, placed the suitcase more securely, and opened the car door. Remarking on the heat, he also took off his burberry; and this surprised Julia, who was shivering, until he clumsily wrapped it round her knees. With a sigh of relief she sank back against the cushions: she had pulled it off, she had done it again; and automatically she felt for her powder-box. But she made no use of it. There was a mirror in the lid, and the sight of her reflected face told her suddenly, brutally, the meaning of the young man’s glance.
He was giving her a lift not because he thought she was an adventuress, but because she looked such a tired, tear-stained, unhappy old woman.
2
It was just after eight o’clock when Sir William in the Daimler turned down the fork from Muzin onto the main road. Julia had thus scarcely more than seventy minutes’ start of him, and the difference in speed between the two cars was considerable. The Citroën averaged twenty-two miles an hour, the Daimler forty-three. Unluckily, from Sir William’s point of view, they were travelling in opposite directions.
Sir William drove towards Aix. He was not at this time unduly anxious; Julia’s note had upset him, because he knew how distressed she must have been when she wrote it; but it had by no means produced despair. He drove at moderate speed, half-expecting to overtake her, either afoot or in a car, on the actual road; knowing Julia to be penniless, and to a certain extent following her thoughts, he had never had a moment’s doubt of her destination. She would try to get to Paris, and thence back to London: therefore she required either money for a railway ticket, or a lift in a car; and Aix (Sir William now knew all about Mr. Rickaby) was her obvious hunting-ground. His mistake, of course, lay in underestimating the simplicity of Julia’s plan: it had not occurred to him that she would merely stand by the roadside and try to get to Paris direct. Even with his knowledge of her, he believed she would need at least half a day to establish, so to speak, her connections, and his chief speculation was as to the sort of company in which he would find her doing it.
Having failed to overtake Julia on the road, Sir William breakfasted in Aix, outside a pâtisserie, where he could watch the passers-by, and spent the next hour in a methodical survey of the chief cafés and streets. It was therefore not until half-past ten that the Daimler, at full speed, once more passed the Muzin fork and took the Paris road.
3
About thirty miles out of Bourg the Misses Marlowe, being driven at their usual placid rate of twenty-seven miles an hour, overtook a small and very noisy Citroën. The time was half-past ten, for they had stopped in the town to sustain themselves with a good breakfast.
“I shouldn’t like to drive in that,” observed Miss Marlowe. “It sounds as though it’s going to break down.”
With unusual agility her sister twisted round on the seat to stare out of the back window.
“But did you see who was in it?” she cried. “That nice woman we took into Aix!”
“Well!” said Miss Marlowe, also pulling herself up for a look. “That’s surely not her husband driving!”
“No, he’s quite young. Besides, we saw them go off in a Daimler—from the Pernollet. How very odd!”
The incident afforded them an interesting topic of conversation all the way to Saulieu, where they lunched rather too well at the Hôtel de Poste.
4
Lunch at the villa was served to Susan and her grandmother alone. They were both rather silent; the curious tale brought by Claudia occupied their thoughts but tied their tongues. The young Madame Packett, said Claudia, must have left very early indeed, she was not in her room at half-past seven, and her bed had not been slept in; the Monsieur did not leave till eight o’clock. She, Claudia, had had to wake him up to give him his early tea, and the note she found on the floor.…
“And he left no message?” asked Mrs. Packett.
None at all, said Claudia. He went like a gust of wind. He enquired was the big car still in the barn, and she ran down and looked, and ran back to say it was, and there!—he was ready to depart!
“It sounds like a paper-chase,” said Susan, with a rare attempt at lightness. Something had happened which she did not understand, and instinctively she was trying to minimize it. But in truth she was deeply disturbed; there had been another incident,—of which her grandmother knew nothing,—the implications of which she herself was not yet ready to face. Bryan had been with them in the hall while Claudia started her tale; without a word he had gone straight to Julia’s room, flung open the door, slammed it to again, and walked out of the house. Susan had waited till Mrs. Packett was gone, and then repeated his actions; she saw nothing but a blue taffeta dress lying in a heap on the floor. The sight did not strike her as odd,—Julia was always untidy,—and for a moment she stood puzzled: the look on Bryan’s face had prepared her almost for Julia’s corpse. Then, without quite knowing why, she ran out through the house, and down the drive, and seeing Bryan at the gate called to ask where he was going.
“To look for Julia,” said Bryan shortly.
“But—but it’s absurd!” cried Susan. She was quite close to him now, there was only the gate between them. The sound of her raised voice startled her; she lowered it, and tried to speak reasonably. “It’s absurd, Bryan! Julia isn’t a lost child!”
His answer was completely irrelevant. As he turned and hurried on, over his shoulder, he said brusquely:—
“By the way—I’ve had a cable. I’ve got to go home to-night.”
That was all. Susan went back to
the house and occupied her morning, as usual, with the plays of Racine. She was not quite certain that she had heard aright. In any case, when Mrs. Packett, at luncheon, enquired why Bryan was not there, she said merely that he had gone off for one of his long walks.
But she knew, all the same, that something had happened to her.
5
Julia and the young man lunched at a small café at Arney-le-Duc, and the young man paid. Julia let him. There was nothing else she could do. She hadn’t spirit enough even to tell him a tale or two in exchange. She had so far made not the slightest attempt to account for herself, nor did she do so during the long, hot, dusty afternoon. She simply sat, tongue-tied and wretched, not even hearing when her companion produced one of his brief, uncomfortable remarks. She sat like a woman in a trance, or a woman half-dead; her face was so queerly blank that the young man, in his alarm, turned off from the Paris road at Auxerre and drove into the town to procure her a cup of tea. He had great faith in tea where women were concerned—his own mother, the widowed head of a large family, was regularly revived by it five times a day. The idea was a sound one, but from his own point of view unfortunate, since Sir William’s Daimler was now only twenty miles behind. Had the Citroën kept to the main road, it would have been overtaken in less than an hour, and the young man’s responsibility would at once have come to a welcome end. But he turned aside; Sir William drove on; and the chance was lost.
Outside the Café de la République Julia drank her tea in silence. It did her a certain amount of good; it made her a little more able to comprehend, if not to take an interest in, her immediate surroundings. These were highly picturesque; they had been admired (the young man told her) by Walter Pater. Something in his voice made Julia look, not at the roof-line, but at him; and for the first time she realized that he was extremely worried.
The Nutmeg Tree Page 20
