Walking slowly, at the pace of her thoughts, Adelaide came to the Serpentine. There were boats out, propelled chiefly by sailors; one would have thought they had enough of water, but perhaps not, perhaps they were novices, tadpoles, straining towards their natural element; or perhaps they merely wanted to show off an accomplishment before their female companions. A large swan, moving with far less effort, cruised slowly among the reflected branches of a chestnut-tree; and looking at the swan, and the tree, and the water, Adelaide remembered Henry.
“Dear me,” said Adelaide.
It was a very long time since she had thought about him. He inhabited no Bluebeard’s Chamber in her mind; Gilbert, in the early days of their being together, had seen to that. Henry was simply dead, like Belle Burnett and Mr. and Mrs. Culver, like Aunt and Uncle Ham, and though he had certainly caused her great misery, Adelaide bore no grudges. I should never have married him, she thought impartially. And he shouldn’t have married me. But why I wanted to …!
The enigma, after nearly sixty years, was insoluble. It was all too far away: if the young Adelaide had suddenly appeared there on the path—eager; self-confident, her will-power driving like a dynamo, her very hands tingling with energy inside her muff—the old Adelaide would still have shaken her head and asked what it was all about. I was unhappy at home, she reflected, but there was that other young man—what was his name?—who proposed to me; why didn’t I take him? Poor Henry wasn’t even handsome, so far as I remember … Here she paused, for she was aware that the later, the rather dreadful image of Henry in decay, might have obliterated something better; unfortunately Henry in decay was much more distinct than Henry in his prime, who was not nearly so distinct as the Airedale. However, she gave him the benefit of the doubt; perhaps he had been handsome after all. But as for the emotion he must have inspired—she couldn’t recapture a trace of it.
The swan sculled away; Adelaide moved on. Many heads turned to watch her progress, for she was a more remarkable figure than she knew; several young Americans were reminded of their grandmothers, and at the bridge into Hyde Park one wistfully attempted to see her across the road. (Adelaide, misunderstanding their respective roles, kindly informed him that traffic in England took the left-hand side. “Yes, ma’am,” said the American.)
At Hyde Park Corner there were flower-beds—red geraniums, huge ginger-coloured calceolarias, hydrangeas whose unopened buds matched the browning grass. Adelaide admired them without enthusiasm, as the sort of flowers one expected to see in public places; what she did admire was the evident pertinacity of the gardeners—after five years of war, it was a creditable display. A band also still played; the celebrated bomb-hole, now neatly fenced off, distracted no attention from the strains of a piccolo solo. Adelaide, who was beginning to feel tired, paid twopence for a chair and sat down to look and listen—for the eye was amused equally with the ear. It was as good as a play: never before, surely, or at least not since the Great Exhibition, had the park seen so motley a concourse. French, American, Norwegian; the Czechs and the Dutch; ambiguous refugees; the A.R.P. and the N.F.S.; British troops with their air of stolidity, Polish airmen with their despairing swagger; one Chelsea Pensioner, one New Zealander; the music giving all a theatrical unity. Also there were women; Adelaide was particularly struck by the extreme youth of some of the mothers, girls in brightly-coloured slacks, their hair lying on their shoulders, and also by the high standard of their offspring. They’ve done well, thought Adelaide. She was referring to the whole generation of the ’twenties—the “delinquent generation” about whom Jeremiads used to appear in the Press, over whose morals and lack of stamina two elder generations shook despairing heads. And here they were, conscripted, taxed, rationed, bombed, wearing orange trousers and flirting in the park … We didn’t know we were born, thought Adelaide.
At that moment, as though to point her words, the familiar rumble overhead, the familiar silence heralding disaster, filled the high summer air. But disaster fell to the south; few heads so much as lifted. Like rabbits in a field, thought Adelaide, when the stoat’s out; we go on nibbling. And why not? What else was there to do? The next moment she herself sat up, suddenly alert, her attention far more urgently caught by nothing more than a familiar tune: the band was playing Gilbert and Sullivan. Now, there was something that had lasted! Tunes might come and tunes might go—ragtime, jazz, boogie-woogie—but Gilbert and Sullivan went on for ever. Adelaide felt a personal gratification, for this was the music of the Victorians, and what body, what vitality, it still possessed! Looking round, she saw the same emotion reflected on the face of every person over fifty; and even the young listened with tolerance. “Who’ll play Mairzy Doats fifty years from now?” demanded Adelaide—the name having lodged in her memory by reason of its sheer inanity. She made a mental note to ask Dodo this when she got home; and at the thought of going home suddenly realized that she was extremely tired. Moreover, it was nearly five o’clock; she would have to take a taxi.
The nearest exit was Stanhope Gate; Adelaide stood up, judged the distance carefully, and put herself in motion. The stiffness of her limbs annoyed her, and she forced herself to walk briskly; but each step became more and more a matter not of physical strength but of will-power. Her will-power, however, had never failed her yet; Adelaide passed out between the stone pillars and took up her station on the curb—leaning indeed rather heavily on her umbrella, conscious of a curious weight about her neck and shoulders. For the first time in eighty years she was being forced to give all her attention to her body; the task of holding it decently erect demanded all her powers. She succeeded, or nearly; would have succeeded completely—but that just then a very strange thing happened. She thought she saw her mother. Mrs. Culver was on the opposite side of the road, smiling at her rather coldly; she raised her hand in a gesture of summons, and Adelaide looked quickly aside—just as she might have almost sixty years before, caught walking in Park Lane alone—in a foolish attempt to conceal her identity. The illusion lasted only an instant before she realized the truth: that a lady of rather old-fashioned appearance was waiting, like herself, to catch a taxi; but the shock had been great. Adelaide had to steady herself against a pillar; the constable on point-duty looked at her uneasily. “Taxi!” mouthed Adelaide; and forced herself back to the curb.
A minute later, she saw Belle Burnett.
A car had slowed down to turn in at the gate; Mrs. Burnett was in the back, very smartly made-up, in a hat gay with flowers; when she saw Adelaide she leaned forward and smiled. This time Adelaide was not deceived, she cut Belle Burnett dead; but her physical senses were bewildered, she turned sharply, clumsily, and blundered into the path of a gentleman who had just crossed the road: He stepped aside and courteously raised his hat; Adelaide, taken by surprise, bowed back before she remembered that Mr. Vaneck too must be long dead. The heavy figure passed on—massive, well-groomed, exuding the familiar air of power and possessions: a figure not uncommon in that place, at that hour. Adelaide took out her handkerchief and pressed it to her lips—and suddenly, at that gesture, smelt the sickening odour of new varnish. Had she cried out, or not, when the taxi drew alongside? She did not know, she thought perhaps the policeman had stopped it for her; thankfully she crept in. But taxis were scarce, and just as the flag went down a hand was laid on the door, a face appeared in the window. Debonair, brown-eyed—of course, of course that was what Henry looked like! “Henry!” cried Adelaide. Though to her own ears her voice sounded shrill and piercing, neither Henry nor the driver appeared to hear it. She fumbled at the door-handle, but Henry turned away, only the driver’s stolid face stared through the panel. Automatically—her brain working as it were on two levels at once—Adelaide gave the address, yet still, as the cab started, tried to open the door; till the lock, snapping back, caught her fingers in so sharp a pinch that pain blotted out all else.
3
When Adelaide had not returned by five, and then by six o’clock, Dodo went across to the Gardens, walk
ed as far as the Serpentine and back, and returned to find Gerhardi openly anxious. “She would not like to be away so long from her husband,” said Gerhardi. Treff, who never liked to bother himself, thought Adelaide might have gone to see Iris O’Keefe. “I’ve rung her up,” said Dodo. “There was no reply.” She now rang again, and was answered by Miss O’Keefe’s housekeeper: Madam was away for the week end, and there had been no callers; she, the housekeeper, had been out only between five and six. “Then that was when Adelaide called,” said Treff comfortably. “She’ll be on her way back now.” Dodo looked at the time; it was nearly seven.
CHAPTER VI
1
At seven Dodo began ringing up the hospitals. They had no information. “We must try the police,” said Gerhardi. “She would not like it, but we must try.” At the Police Station the Inspector, to whom Adelaide’s name was well known, promised to do what he could, and suggested ringing up the hospitals.
At eight, leaving Gerhardi at the phone and Treff upstairs, Dodo went back into the Gardens. This time she beat steadily from the Broad Walk to Hyde Park Corner, and enlisted the aid of two keepers. One of them had seen Adelaide, or a lady very like her, much earlier; walking slowly, he said, and attracting a good deal of notice. “What do you mean by that?” asked Dodo sharply. “Did she seem … lost?” The keeper hastened to reassure her: it was simply that the lady was generally striking-looking: people noticed her as she went by; if any of them were still about, no doubt they would recollect her. But the afternoon strollers were all gone, it was after sunset and the gardens were emptying rapidly. Dodo completed the circuit of the riding-track, returned past Albion Place, and at the corner of Chester Street encountered Treff. He had come to look for her with the news that the police had rung up again, to say one of their men had seen Adelaide at Stanhope Gate.
“What time?”
“About five. She took a taxi.”
“A taxi!”
“Yes. So that’s all right, isn’t it?” said Treff persuasively.
For a moment Dodo was too angry to speak. All right—when it was then after nine! Only Treff, compact of selfishness, could so blind himself! She said curtly:—
“You needn’t have come out to tell me that.”
This time Treff kept silence. She had walked on so fast that he had almost to trot to keep up with her, and Dodo suddenly observed that he was shambling a little. She could not remember ever having noticed this before; and with better understanding her anger melted. For Treff was in fact shaken, and badly; he had come out not believing that his news could reassure her, but in the hope that she would reassure him—because there was no reassurance to be found with Gilbert and Gerhardi, or simply because he had grown despondent and tired of waiting in the company of those two old men. Even Dodo’s curtness was welcome to him; he kept close to her side like an old dog.
“I thought you’d know what to do,” explained Treff.
They reached the Mews. As Dodo hurried in Gerhardi called out to her from the stair, but she went straight to the foyer and rang up the police for herself. They could tell her no more: the constable on point-duty at Stanhope Gate had seen Mrs. Lambert, apparently waiting for a taxi. He managed to stop one for her, and she got in and the cab drove off in a perfectly normal manner. He knew Mrs. Lambert by sight, having once visited the Puppet Theatre. He thought she looked fatigued, but not ill, or likely to faint.
“And that was about five o’clock?”
“Five-ten, to be exact.”
“If the taxi had been in an accident, would you know?”
“I’ve made enquiries, Miss Baker, and there’s been nothing up to eight o’clock. And no incidents. We’ll try to trace the cab for you, but that will take more time. Have you rung the hospitals?”
“Yes,” said Dodo bleakly.
“If any further information comes in, I’ll ring back.”
“Thank you,” said Dodo.
She hung up the receiver and for a moment sat with her head on her hands, trying to think clearly and reasonably, to weigh possibilities and judge what to do next. But the one fact so far to hand, that Adelaide had taken a taxi, simply bewildered her. From Stanhope Gate to Britannia Mews was a journey of ten minutes—fifteen at the very most; Adelaide should easily have been home by half-past five. What had happened, what could have happened, in that quarter of an hour? She became aware of Gerhardi calling her again, more urgently, and went out to find him still leaning from the iron steps.
“Dodo! Will you come up to Mr. Lambert?”
Reluctantly enough Dodo climbed the iron stair and went through to the bedroom. She knew how brief, when Adelaide was away, were Gilbert’s periods of full consciousness: as she hoped, he had already dropped back into a half-sleep. But at her step he stirred, and opened his hand on the coverlet. Dodo laid her own within it: his fingers—dry and light as dead leaves—moved over her palm and at once withdrew. Without opening his eyes Gilbert said bitterly:—
“Where is Adelaide?”
“She’s gone out, dear.”
“That’s what they tell me.” The old hand moved helplessly, irritably, plucking at the quilt. “That fellow … and her brother … they’ve no sense. They said you’d know. Don’t you?”
Mentally cursing both Treff and Gerhardi, Dodo nevertheless replied steadily,
“She’s at Iris O’Keefe’s. I think it’s a big party …”
At once the hand, Gilbert’s whole body, relaxed. For a moment he was silent, as though giving himself up to relief. Then he said crossly:—
“She shouldn’t be so late. You’d better go and fetch her.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Take a cab.”
“Of course.”
For the next few minutes the small room was very still. Gilbert Lambert lay motionless, his short beard pointing at the ceiling; but his expression was once more troubled, and Dodo could not bring herself to leave him. She sat down on the end of Adelaide’s bed—glad enough to rest; and presently, on a long sigh, Gilbert spoke again.
“Dodo?”
“Yes, dear, what is it?”
“If she’s enjoying herself … don’t hurry her.”
Almost immediately, it seemed, he was asleep. The trouble had passed, leaving instead a look of peculiar childishness. Like a child, he was helpless; in the hands of others; and therefore the look was also innocent, and demanding of pity.
“If she is not found soon, I think he will die,” said Gerhardi.
He had come quietly into the room and now stood at Dodo’s elbow; she nodded without speaking. Breath, indeed, hardly stirred in Gilbert’s frail body; the bed-linen, between the peak of his feet and his jutting beard, was hardly mounded; there was no more substance to him than his bones. Suddenly Dodo became aware that she was crying—and of Gerhardi’s arm round her shoulders; and that the strangeness of this was only part of a general strangeness, as though the withdrawal of Adelaide had shattered a whole order of being and feeling in which they had all known their places and been content.
There was no comfort in Gerhardi’s embrace: like Treff, it was he who sought comfort from her; they were all three, Treff, Gerhardi, Gilbert, instinctively turning to her, pathetically trusting, as Treff had said, that she would know what to do. She had to think for all of them; and now, though her head lay on Gerhardi’s shoulder, her brain could not rest. Against all logic, the idea that Adelaide was still somewhere in the Gardens persisted: they were the only part of London, except the Mews, for which she had ever shown an attachment. Dodo knew she had played there as a child, walked there as a young woman; not only Adelaide had spoken of the Gardens, but Treff as well—and Alice Baker; so that from a hundred jig-saw pieces gathered over a number of years, Dodo could build up a very clear picture of young Culvers and young Hambros in the Gardens of seventy years before. If she could have formulated the thought that haunted her, it would have been this: that perhaps Adelaide had somehow slipped back in time, returned to her old playground, and mi
ght now be wandering there in search of the others.…
There was the taxi, of course; but by this time Dodo had ceased to think coherently; and indeed the business of the taxi was so thoroughly incomprehensible that she simply rejected it.
She said softly:—
“I’m going out again.”
“What can you do?”
“I think she may be still in the Gardens.”
“But this about the taxi—”
“It must be some mistake.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No. Stay by the telephone. Tell Treff to stay here, in case Uncle Gilbert wakes. Say—”
Dodo broke off. What was there to say? Nothing. She pulled herself to her feet and went out.
2
There were more people in the Gardens at night than she expected. When the railings were taken down a whole nocturnal population had moved in: tramps asleep, amorous couples who at her step blotted themselves against the grass; a couple of runners padded past, ghostlike in their white clothing. The silence, which was very noticeable, made them all slightly unreal; Dodo wondered whether she were as unreal to them—the ghost of a warden, in a coat of shadows. This idea of her own invisibility worried her; for it meant that Adelaide, all in black, could pass unseen at no more than a few yards; only blind chance could bring them together. It would have been reasonable to call out, but Dodo felt a reluctance to raise her voice in that stillness; her first attempt was answered by a half-mocking, half-inviting whistle, and she did not call again.
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