Touch and Go

by Patricia Wentworth

  Sarah said “No” in a little too much of a hurry.

  “Well, you needn’t call it that—it doesn’t matter. But there’s something. I felt as if I knew you very well indeed—well enough to scold, you know. And that’s a very odd, upsetting feeling to have about someone you’ve never seen before. It was absolutely necessary to find out who you were and where you lived, so I followed you to town and watched outside the garage until you came out and went into the the Lizard. Then I parked my own car and sat down at the next table.”

  “Oh?” said Sarah.

  John Brown nodded.

  “I’m afraid I listened to your conversation with Darnac.”

  Sarah’s second “Oh” was a very indignant one.

  “I know, my dear—really shameless behaviour. No gentleman would dream of doing such a thing. I’m not even ashamed of it. I learned quite a lot about you before we’d all finished supper.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I heard you say you were going to marry Geoffrey. You know, I shouldn’t if I were you.”

  Sarah burst out laughing.

  “Really, John!”

  “Yes, really. It was a very interesting evening. You did something to me, Sarah, whilst I sat there watching you. It’s so difficult to get these things into words. I’ve had quite a good sort of life—friends, work, knocking about all over the world, jobs that interested me—but I’d been feeling a bit drab since I came back to England. I don’t think burglary’s my line—I felt pretty mouldy after it. You know how it is when the colour is out of everything and you don’t know why you were born or why you go on living. It was like that. But all the time I was sitting there eavesdropping the colour was coming back. Not just ordinary everyday colour either, but the sort you get when there’s a tremendous sunrise—you know, lashins and lavins. Well, that’s the way it was. Everything got so interesting that I just grudged going to sleep and losing touch with it. That’s what made me go walking in the night. But I wasn’t walking alone. I tell you, my dear, you walked with me every step of the way. You were there so plainly that when you came into the shrubbery two nights ago it seemed the most natural thing in the world. When I put out my hand and touched you, it was like having a dream come true. Now wouldn’t you call that falling in love?”

  “I shall never fall in love with anyone,” said Sarah in the firmest voice she could command.

  “Oh, but I wasn’t talking about you,” said John Brown—“I was talking about me. I thought you might be interested in a genuine case of what is called love at first sight. I should certainly never have expected it to happen to me, but so far as I can make out it has. I don’t see how it could be anything else. Do you?”

  Sarah’s eyes stung suddenly. She felt a hot anger and a cold fear. She felt defenceless and young. She said in the voice of a vexed child,

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Because I love you, Sarah,” said John Brown. He added, “Very much,” and took her hand and kissed it again.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Bertrand and Lucilla walked in the High Woods. There was a bridle path under the trees. The oaks were still green, but beech and chestnut had begun to put on tints of gold and russet. No leaves had fallen yet. Emerald moss and grey lichen showed here and there. They sat down presently on a fallen tree in an open glade. The sunlight made a shining about them. It was warm, and very still. Lucilla was bare-headed, and her hair was like pale flame in the sun. She looked at Bertrand with a gay impudence in her blue eyes.

  “Well, Ran?” she said.

  Bertrand gazed at her with admiration.

  “What is that ‘well,’ Lucilla? If it is that you are very well here, then so am I—very well indeed—what you call at the top of the hole.”

  Lucilla giggled.

  “I suppose you mean top-hole.”

  “That is what I said.”

  She kissed two fingers at him and said in a mocking tone.

  “Why didn’t you ask Sarah to go for a walk with you?”

  “Sarah does not want to walk with me.”

  Lucilla flushed.

  “Did you ask her? Did she say no? Is that why you asked me?” she said all in a breath.

  “To the first question, no. And to the second, no. And to the third, no again.”

  Lucilla was sitting on one of the branches of the fallen tree. She could make it move up and down by touching her foot to the ground. Bertrand sat facing her on the trunk. She swung her branch and said,

  “You came down here to see Sarah.”

  “That is true,” said Bertrand. “Sarah and I are very good friends.”

  “Oh—friends?” Lucilla made a face. “Don’t you make love to her?”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Lucilla, you are an enfant terrible. Does one ask that sort of question?”

  “I do,” said Lucilla calmly. “Sarah says you make love to every girl you meet. She said you would make love to me, but you don’t. Why don’t you?”

  “Because I am a very good boy,” said Mr. Darnac virtuously.

  Lucilla made her branch swing again. She said in a pretty, soft voice,

  “Don’t be silly, Ran. I would like you to make love to me—really.”

  “Would you, Lucilla?”

  “Sarah says you do it very well. She says you’ve had lots of practice. Nobody has ever made love to me except Ricky, and he doesn’t count.”

  “This poor Ricky!”

  “He’s not. Don’t let’s talk about him. Show me how you do it. How do you begin?”

  A fleeting grin left Bertrand’s agreeable ugliness free to assume a sentimental aspect. He gazed at Lucilla in a mournful and devoted manner.

  “First of all I look—comme ça.”

  Lucilla giggled.

  “Why?”

  “To soften the heart.”

  “Did it soften Sarah’s?”

  A gleam of animation dispelled the melancholy.

  “Ma foi—no! I have even wondered whether she has a heart at all.”

  Lucilla giggled again.

  “Mine’s like a feather bed, it’s so soft. Go on.”

  “There are different ways. For me, I generally say that she has the most interesting eyes I have ever seen.”

  She made a face.

  “Interesting?”

  He nodded.

  “One must strike out a new line. You see, she has already been told her eyes are beautiful—a hundred times, perhaps a thousand.”

  “But I haven’t.”

  “And you would like me to tell you that?”

  “Are they beautiful, Ran?”

  “Ravishingly beautiful.”

  She gave a pleased sigh.

  “Oh, Ran—go on.”

  “They are like the very young blue spring sky. And your hair is like the sunshine that there is then—all young, with nothing to spoil it.” He leaned forward suddenly and caught her hand. “Lucilla—No, I cannot! That was a game you play with me, but I cannot play at making love to you. It is to me all real, all serious. It is not a game at all. I am in so great a trouble for you that I cannot speak pretty words and play with them. It is yesterday which has shown me that. How do you think that I felt when I saw you go past on your bicycle and I thought that you would be killed?”

  “How did you feel?” said Lucilla in an interested voice.

  He sprang to his feet, pulling her up with him.

  “Ah, you laugh at me! And you say your heart is soft! I did not know that I could suffer as I did in that moment—I did not know that it was possible to suffer like that. In one moment to know that I loved you, and to know that you were going to die, and that there was nothing—nothing that I could do to save you! Oh, mon dieu—what a torment!” He had his arms round her. The words came pouring out.

  As his clasp tightened, she could feel the beating of his heart. She put up her lips to be kissed, and in a moment he was kissing her, murmuring French love-words, holding her tight. When, half sobbing, he released her, she sat
down again on her branch. Her hands gripped it. She looked down at the bright moss and the bare ground. Then, as Bertrand fell on his knees beside her, she met his agitated gaze with a clear look and said in a small, steady voice,

  “You did that very well, Ran.”

  “Lucilla!”

  There was such pain in his voice that she flinched. Her grip on the bough tightened.

  “Lucilla! Did you think that I was playing? I told you it was real! When I kissed you, could you not feel it was real?

  “I don’t know how kisses feel. I haven’t ever kissed anyone like that before.”

  He had the flash of a tender smile for her.

  “Dieu merci!” he said.

  The clear gaze had not left him. The eyes were blue in a very white face.

  “I wanted to know what it was like.”

  “Lucilla! My darling!”

  “It’s so dull to die before you’ve had anything, Ran.”

  Her voice was still steady, but the words only just reached him. Under the shock of their impact his emotion died. She saw his face change and harden. He remained kneeling beside her, but it was about a minute before he said,

  “What do you mean by that, Lucilla?”

  He kept himself in hand until he reached her name, but then a shudder went over him. It shook Lucilla too as he leaned against her knee. He was aware of that, and aware that she was stiffening herself against it, using a force which somehow horrified him. He stared up at her in great uncertainty of mind, his thoughts racing confusedly. Such a young girl. So much control. If she wept, it would be natural. “Is it her tears that she controls like this?” And all the time, deeply and persistently, his heart called her name : “Lucilla—Lucilla—Lucilla!” He had seen her face change as he stared up at her. It was like a little, set mask in the sunlight, with eyes that were like shallow blue pools. He repeated his question very urgently.

  “Mon dieu—what do you mean by that?”

  Lucilla’s tight pale mouth opened. The lips parted and stretched into a smile. He had the feeling that some horrible force was being used, that without it she could not have moved her lips at all. She said in a small toneless voice,

  “I—nearly—died—yesterday—Ran.”

  He put his arms about her as he knelt. The bough swung a little.

  “Why, Lucilla—why?”

  It was then that she looked down at him and he saw in her eyes what Sarah had once seen there—fear, naked and shuddering.

  “Lucilla, qu’a tu—what is it?”

  In a flash it was gone. She bent towards him.

  “Kiss me, Ran—kiss me again!”

  She kissed him back this time, pressing against him, but without relaxing at all. Then in a minute she leaned back, pushing him away.

  “Don’t kiss me any more! Tell me you love me! Say all the things people say when they’re in love! I want to know them all!”

  Bertrand steadied himself.

  “Lucilla, what is all this? You talk about death—mon dieu, I cannot bear it. What do you mean? You say too much, and not enough. You are afraid—I see it in your eyes. What are you afraid of? What are you hiding?”

  She smiled again. This time her lips moved easily.

  “Do you call that making love?”

  “I am not making love. I am tormented about you. It is true that yesterday you were so near death that when I think about it I shudder. And not only once but twice. Will you tell me now that we are alone why it is that you fall on the stairs at Holme Fallow?”

  “I told you,” said Lucilla, drawing away.

  “What you told us, it was not true. It was a lie, and it was not even a clever lie, my darling. You see, you had not time to think. You had to make up a story all in a hurry, and the one you made up, it had not the common sense. Vois tu, my little angel, if you had fallen as you said, you would have gone down five, six steps before you could hit the balustrade. But you are on the third step when I come up, and I ask Mr. Brown and he tells me that is where you fall over, and he is on the second step, by the pillar, and he catches you. And I say—I—that it is not possible. No—jamais de la vie—as you would say, not on your life!”

  “Take your arms away, Ran. If you’re not going to make love to me, I don’t want them there.”

  “My darling, tell me what happened! See, Lucilla, I love you with all my heart, and I ask you to tell me—just me, your Ran who loves you!”

  Her smile flickered and went.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he pushed you.” His arms were still round her, and he felt her faint movement as she said,

  “Who?”

  “That sacré Brown.”

  And all at once Lucilla laughed. She took her hands off the branch and set them on Bertrand’s arms.

  “Oh, Ran—you silly boy! Mr. Brown is my Noble Preserver.”

  “Lucilla—someone pushed you. Who was there to push you except this Brown? And who was it who fetched your bicycle before it ran away with you down the hill? I saw him fetch it, and the one who fetched it was the one who removed those screws. I say that he has tried to kill you twice, and I have my own idea why it is that he tries to kill you.”

  Lucilla pushed him away with sudden vehemence and slipped down from the branch. As he got on his feet, she went back a pace or two, the colour bright in her cheeks.

  “Oh, Ran, how silly you are! Why should he try to kill me?”

  “Because he is Maurice Hildred.”

  Lucilla’s eyes opened like those of a startled kitten.

  “My goodness gracious me, Ran—are you mad?”

  “I? No, no! But perhaps he is mad—I do not know.”

  “But Uncle Maurice—Ran, he’s dead!”

  “He was not dead—he was missing. I think that he has come back and found that there is no place for him. And see, Lucilla, if you were not here, he would have everything. And perhaps he is mad—how do I know? Only I am sure that he is Maurice Hildred. I tell you I have watched him, and I have seen in him something that comes and goes—something of all of you—of Mr. Hildred—of Miss Marina—even of Ricky, and of you. And when we were at Holme Fallow and he thought that he was alone in that dining-room with the portraits—when we all went out and left him there—I tell you I turned back and I looked at him, when the door was a little open.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He looked at the pictures.”

  Lucilla burst out laughing.

  “Oh, Ran!”

  “Wait a little. He looks at the old man’s picture, and he says something under his breath. I do not hear what he says, but I see his face. It is, how shall I say, émotionné—it is not the face with which one looks at the portrait of a stranger. It is his grandfather he looks at, and whilst he is looking I see the likeness very strong and clear. I tell you that he is Maurice Hildred, and that he is dangerous.”

  Lucilla brought her hands together. She held one with the other. She held it hard. She said in a little clear voice,

  “That is nonsense, Ran.”

  “And I say that it is not nonsense. It is the truth.”

  “Someone is trying to kill me?”

  “I say that this Brown has tried to kill you.”

  “Do you know what they say if you think people are trying to kill you?” Her voice dropped to a breathless whisper. “They say you’re mad. Ran, they say you’re mad.”

  “Lucilla!”

  She lifted the hands that were holding one another so hard and pressed them against her breast. There was a kind of desperate, quivering tenseness about the whole of her. He had the feeling of something strung to the limit, and it came to him that only at this pitch could she have said what she was saying now. The words came with a rush, yet with hardly any sound. It was as if all her effort went to say them quickly, lest they should not be said at all.

  “Do you know what they do to mad people, Ran? They shut them up. Do you know what they do if they think you’re mad? They bring two doctors to see
you and then they can shut you up. If I said that someone was trying to kill me, they would say I was mad. They would say I had tried to kill myself, and they would shut me up. And I’d rather be dead than shut up. Do you hear, Ran? I’d much rather be dead. Do you hear? You’re to leave me alone—you’re not to do anything—you’re not to interfere. It’s my game, and I’m going to play it my own way. You’re not to butt in. Do you hear?”

  “I am to stand by and see you in danger and do nothing? Is that what you are telling me?

  “Yes—yes—yes!”

  “But, Lucilla—”

  “What can you do? You can’t do anything. I’ve kept alive for three months.” She suddenly unlocked her hands and flung them out towards him. “Three months—and it will go on for three years unless they get me first! It will go on till I’m twenty-one, and that’s more than three years. I don’t know if it will stop then, but I should be able to go away.”

  He tried to take her hands, but she pulled away from him.

  “Lucilla, what is this? What do you know?”

  There was a change. She relaxed. Her hands went up to her hair and pushed it back—the age-old gesture of the tired woman. Her voice came slow and hesitating.

  “That’s just it—I don’t know anything.”

  He put an arm round her and made her sit beside him on the tree trunk. She was quite docile and gentle, letting him hold her, letting him stroke her hair and kiss her hands whilst she leaned against him and drew long sighing breaths.

  Presently he said in a coaxing voice,

  “Lucilla—little one—tell me—tell your Ran! I will be very clever indeed—very discreet. But you are afraid without cause, my little one. See then, we can all speak for what happened at Holme Fallow—Sarah, Ricky, I myself. It is true that I did not see you fall, but I came so soon afterwards and heard at once what Sarah and Ricky said. And about the affair of the bicycle—the screws they were gone. They did not remove themselves. How can your uncle not believe if we tell him these things? It is to him that we should address ourselves. It is he who is your guardian, your protector.”

  Still leaning against him, Lucilla began to shake with laughter.

  “Darling angel Ran!” she said, and kissed his cheek and went on laughing. There was no hysteria in the laughter. The unnatural strain seemed to have passed.