John Hildred took the note from her, folded it up again, and put it in his pocket.
“Don’t you want me to come to the theatre with you? I’ve been rather looking forward to it myself.”
“Why does he want you to come?” said Sarah-who-was-afraid.
He laughed a little, looked round the empty woodland, and kissed her.
“Oh, Geoffrey’s playing for safety. He wants to keep friends.”
“Why?” said Sarah, and then “Why?” again. The thing she was listening for seemed nearer. She didn’t know what it was, but it frightened her terribly.
John Hildred did not laugh this time. He said rather seriously,
“Geoffrey’s bound to keep friends with me. If he’s got himself into a mess, I’m the only person who can help him out of it. If he’s overstepped the law, he’s got to reckon on my not wanting to wash the family linen in public.” It was the phrase he had already used to Geoffrey Hildred. He went on speaking. “He’s in a mess all right. He’d not be so conciliatory if he weren’t. But I’m very glad he wrote, because the whole thing is going to be a lot easier if he doesn’t stir up trouble—also I’d like to come to the theatre, and I was being rather worried because I didn’t quite see how I was going to manage it.”
“Is Ran coming?” said Sarah.
“Oh, I suppose so. Why?”
“He and Lucilla have quarrelled.”
“Well, I shouldn’t break my heart about that. I don’t want a French son-in-law.”
“Oh—a son-in-law?” Sarah laughed. “Lucilla isn’t breaking her heart either. She’s a great deal too young to think about being married. But Ran’s rather a darling all the same. John, are you going to tell her about you?”
“Not yet—not till Eversley comes. Better not.”
She nodded, then lifted her voice and called,
“Lucilla-a-a—!”
A faint “Coee!” answered, and presently Lucilla came running.
“Don’t you call me a tactful chaperone? But I thought you wouldn’t want me for simply ages. Do you know, I think I must be growing a halo, because if I hadn’t a simply saintly disposition, I’d be hating the Preserver like poison for taking my angel Sarah away.
“‘I never loved a gazelle of a govvy
To glad me with its bright black eye,
But when I came to know it well
And love it, it was sure to get married.’
Original vers libre by Miss Lucilla Hildred, one of the most daring exponents of the New Realism!”
“Would you like to come and live with us?” said John Hildred lightly.
Lucilla had her arm through his. She drew away a little and with her other hand caught Sarah’s fingers and squeezed them, desperately hard. Then she said in a flat tone,
“That’s not kind.”
Sarah said, “Oh!” and John said, “Why not?”
“Because you don’t mean it,” said Lucilla slowly.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
Her colour ran up brightly and then faded again.
“They wouldn’t let me,” she said, her eyes on his face.
“Well, I think they would. Would you like it?”
Lucilla let go of him. She let go of Sarah, stepped back a pace, and stood there staring blankly. All of a sudden her face twisted as if she were in pain. She gave a queer little choking cry and ran away from them down the path.
CHAPTER XXIX
The lunch party before the play was not the complete success which it might have been a week earlier. Geoffrey Hildred, it is true, made a most charming host. His slightly old-fashioned geniality never flagged, and he had certainly not spared expense. But Lucilla alone responded with a flow of spirits equal to his own. She looked brilliantly pretty in the new grey frock and squirrel coat which she and Sarah had chosen before lunch. Fifty pounds to spend, and everything new, would go to the head of most girls of eighteen. Lucilla talked, laughed, and sparkled as if she had Just come alive and was enjoying it giddily.
But of the others Ricky looked ill and, beyond that, morose and disgruntled to the last degree. Once, half way through lunch, Sarah saw him looking at Lucilla and felt that curious sharp jerk of the muscles with which one sometimes starts awake. She didn’t like the boy, but the look she surprised made her pity him a little. It had a sort of savage misery such as she had sometimes seen in the eyes of a bad-tempered dog. And then she thought, “If I saw a dog look like that, I should say he was dangerous,” and with that a light shiver went over her, and Lucilla said, “Somebody’s walking over your grave.” The Sarah who was afraid became suddenly much more afraid.
Bertrand Darnac was being offended and polite. He and Lucilla had not made up their quarrel, and he would have been very glad to be anywhere else. Lucilla’s excitement, her heightened prettiness, and her new clothes all plunged him into an angry despair, but the angrier and the more despairing he became, the more assiduously he produced his politest social small talk. Sarah could have laughed if it had not been for the curious weight upon her mind which took the spring out of everything. She couldn’t laugh, and she couldn’t really talk. She said things, because you cannot sit quite silently beside a genial host, but the words seemed as empty and mechanical as the words of a gramophone record, and even as they sounded in her ears, she was listening for the thing she was afraid of, and knew that it was coming nearer.
John Hildred was really the most normal member of the party. He talked quietly and pleasantly in his pleasant quiet voice. No one would have supposed from his manner that he had any serious preoccupations, yet that he was very much on the alert Sarah was aware.
They had come up to town in the two cars, Geoffrey Hildred driving Ricky, and the rest of them in the Daimler with the elderly chauffeur, who was pledged by Miss Marina on no account to exceed twenty-five miles an hour. Geoffrey had to look in at his office. Bertrand had business of his own, or said he had. But John Hildred accompanied Sarah and Lucilla through their orgy of shopping, displaying a sort of abstracted patience which Sarah found funny and rather touching. He explained that if you went in for photographing birds and insects, you often had to wait for hours without moving hand or foot. Knowing that he was there, and knowing that he would continue to be there, prevented the weight on Sarah’s mind from becoming intolerable. The odd thing was that her personal happiness was quite undisturbed. There were still two Sarahs, the one who was happy and the one who was afraid, but they didn’t seem to have very much to do with each other, though they both lived in her house.
When Lucilla’s shopping was done, John Hildred wanted Sarah to choose her engagement ring. The sharpness of her own recoil surprised her a good deal. She hoped he didn’t see how sharp it was, because how could she explain that this wasn’t their day at all? This was a day that had to be got through somehow before they could think about themselves. It wasn’t a day to be getting their betrothal ring. She was glad that he didn’t seem to be hurt. He just said “Why?” and smiled at her as if her vehemence amused him. And all she had to say was, “It isn’t that sort of day.” At which he laughed outright and said, “When it’s the right kind of day, which would you rather have, an emerald, or a ruby? You’d better be thinking about it.” And Lucilla giggled and said, “In one of Miss Yonge’s books which Aunt Marina made me read there’s a girl called Robina who won’t have any engagement ring except a lock of her young man’s hair—all plaited up, you know. He was a red-haired parson with green eyes, and I’m not making it up—it’s in the Pillars of the House. Now that’s what I call romantic—much more loving than emeralds and rubies. Only the Preserver would have to grow his hair for months, and months, and months before you could get enough to plait into a ring.”
They had all met for lunch, and all except Lucilla were glad when lunch was over. The play was much easier. It was light and amusing, and the intervals were commendably short. Lucilla seemed to be enjoying herself very much. Bertrand’s gloom relaxed a little. In the last
interval he had become definitely less polite, but as they emerged from the theatre, Lucilla hanging on John Hildred’s arm and talking nineteen to the dozen, he had a sudden relapse and made the most formal and courteous of adieux. Lucilla sparkled a little less brightly when he was gone.
Sarah found herself walking with Geoffrey Hildred. Ricky seemed to have disappeared. They were making for the Tube station. It was a cooler evening than they had had, and the daylight had that peculiar flat and chilly tone which disconcerts eyes accustomed to the warm glow of the footlights. The chill was reflected in Sarah’s mood. She looked at the kindly florid face of her host and wondered if its kindness and geniality were all “theatre.” Was it possible that he had attempted Lucilla’s life? Wasn’t there some explanation which would exonerate him? In this cold daylight the thing just didn’t seem possible to her.
They turned in at the Tube station and went down in a fairly crowded lift. John Hildred and Lucilla kept ahead in the passages and on the steps, but they all came out on to the platform together. John looked round and smiled at Sarah, and she came up on his other side.
“Where’s Ricky?” said Lucilla over her shoulder, and when no one answered her she began to chatter again, leaning across to talk to Sarah. “Isn’t it noble of it to be cold to-day, so that I can wear my furry coat? You said I’d be boiled, but I haven’t been a bit. It’s the nicest, cosiest thing and as light as light. I wouldn’t know I’d got it on if it wasn’t so pussy warm. The Preserver says I look nice in it, but he can’t tell me whether my hat’s right or not.”
“It isn’t straight,” said John Hildred deprecatingly.
“It isn’t meant to be straight, darling, but it has to be the right sort of crooked. Sarah my angel?”
Sarah laughed.
“Just right,” she said.
And John Hildred said, “Keep back a bit, Lucilla—here’s the train.”
And then it all happened, and so quickly that thought seemed suspended. There were a good many people on the platform. They themselves were in the front row, and Lucilla was leaning across John Hildred with her left hand still resting lightly on his arm. The train came out of the low, dark tunnel on their right, and just before it reached them Lucilla took a stumbling plunge forward and over the edge. She screamed, and a woman in the crowd screamed too on a very high, sharp note. It all passed between one thudding heart-beat and the next. Lucilla was over the edge. John, snatching at her, was off his balance. And Sarah, clutching desperately at his arm, felt the world rock and go black. She didn’t know what had happened in that black moment. The train went by and stopped. The wind of it passed her, and the noise. She could see again and feel. She was still gripping John’s left arm. His right was about Lucilla, whose face was hidden against his shoulder. But he was not looking at either of them. He was looking behind him, looking at the crowd, and Sarah knew very well what he was looking for. He was looking for Geoffrey Hildred.
And Geoffrey Hildred was far back in the crowd. There were at least three rows of people between him and them. The whole thing had been too quick for him to have changed his place. There hadn’t been time. John had caught Lucilla as she slipped. He felt his balance go as her weight dragged on him, felt Sarah catch at him and throw herself back, and in the next instant he had got his balance again and swung Lucilla up.
And Geoffrey Hildred stood three rows back in the crowd.
Lucilla lifted her head and said, “I slipped,” and with that they were all getting into the train.
Geoffrey Hildred wore a look of worry and distress. He found a seat immediately opposite the other three, and kept on regarding Lucilla with an air of anxious concern. Once or twice he seemed as if he were going to speak, then he checked himself and leaned back frowning. When they emerged upon the platform again, he came up to Lucilla and said,
“What happened? What happened, my child?”
The little grey cap and the grey squirrel coat, which had been so becoming at lunch, now accentuated Lucilla’s ghastly pallor. She said without looking at him,
“I slipped.”
And John Hildred said, “We won’t discuss it here, Geoffrey.” After which no one spoke at all until they reached the hotel.
Millington’s Hotel is a relic of the Victorian age. It has what might be described as an hereditary clientele. It stands in a small secluded square, and it is as respectable as the Victoria and Albert Museum. Until a year or two before the war it had no electric light. Rumour says that a gas globe or two still haunt the top landing, and it is sober truth that there is a gas fire in every bedroom.
Geoffrey Hildred was received with a sort of decorous enthusiasm rather suggestive of a welcome from loyal retainers. He had a pleasant word for everyone, and inscribed the names of his party in the register with a pleasing return of his usual geniality.
As he laid down the pen, John Hildred took it up. There was a moment when both men stood there with the register between them. Geoffrey Hildred looked sideways, and saw a face more sternly set than he had seen it yet. He looked away again.
“But I did not know you were staying here too,” he said.
John Hildred’s eyebrows went up a little.
“Didn’t you?” he said. And then he pulled the book towards him and leaned down and wrote his name—“John Hildred.” And in the space for the address—“Holme Fallow.”
CHAPTER XXX
Sarah and Lucilla went upstairs together. Two single rooms had been booked for them, and in reply to Sarah’s enquiry the stout grey-haired chambermaid was sorry but they had no double room available.—We’re that full, miss. But there—you’re ever so close together. Mr. Hildred was most particular about that—asked special for these two rooms he did. They’re what Miss Hildred and her maid always had, and we’ve kept them special. Here you are, miss—29 and 30, with just the bathroom between you. Miss Hildred she always says it’s so good as having her own private bath.”
The rooms were small but comfortable. The luggage was already there, the chauffeur having deposited it earlier in the day. The two bedrooms and the bathroom had communicating doors, the bathroom being obviously a converted bedroom. Sarah tried both doors and found them locked. She went into the bathroom and had a look from that side. There was no sign of a key anywhere. The chambermaid said, no, miss, there wasn’t a key—“and you won’t find it only a step to go round.” And with that she went away and shut the door.
Lucilla had been standing at the window with her back to the room, but as the latch clicked she turned round and laughed. The sound struck Sarah’s heart and jarred it. She said involuntarily, “Don’t!” and immediately Lucilla laughed again.
“My angel Sarah—if you could see your face! Grim!”
Sarah came up to her and took her hand.
“Lucilla—how did you fall?”
“It seems as if you were always asking me that. Sort of habit, isn’t it? Bad habit, I think. Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I slipped, my angel.”
“Why did you slip?”
“Just did. Dunno why.”
Sarah let go her hand and stepped back.
“Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
Lucilla’s face worked for a moment. Then she went to the wash-stand and began to pour hot water into the basin. The hot-water can was brown picked out with black, and the basin an immense and solid affair wreathed in brightly painted roses.
Lucilla plunged her hands into the hot water with a little shriek.
“Boiling I Absolutely boiling! Darling, don’t you simply love putting your hands in water that’s just not quite boiling enough to scorch your skin off? I can feel it squirling right down to my toe-nails and up to the roots of my hair. It’s lovely!”
Sarah stood irresolute. That cold doubt which had come to her once or twice before just touched her again. She had hoped for something that would exonerate Geoffrey Hildred. Had she found it?… She recoiled, as she had always recoiled. Yet whatever there was
to know, Lucilla must know it. Then why didn’t she speak? John said she was afraid. Afraid of what? She risked death by remaining silent. And she had courage.
Sarah went out of the room and into her own room and shut the door. Presently there came a knock on it. John Hildred stood there.
“I want to speak to you. Where can we talk?”
She said, “I don’t know—not here, I suppose.”
He shook his head.
“They’d have a fit. There used to be a little hole of a sitting-room along here. We can see if it’s empty.”
Empty it was—a small gloomy room, with heavy maroon curtains, a drab carpet, and the more unyielding kind of Victorian chair. A debilitated electric bulb shed a kind of wan twilight in the contracted space.
John shut the door and took her as far from it as possible.
“What docs she say?” he asked.
Sarah made a gesture of despair.
“What does she ever say? Just nothing.”
“You asked her?”
“Of course I asked her. She said she slipped. She said she didn’t know how.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said,
“She slipped. And Geoffrey was three rows back in the crowd—wedged. I saw him.”
“Yes, I saw him too.”
“There was no general push forward—it wasn’t done that way. I wasn’t pushed at all. It was her weight that nearly took me over. Sarah, he’s damned clever. If you hadn’t held on just long enough to give me time to get my balance, we’d have been gone and out of his way—both of us, Lucilla and I. Do you realize that?”
Sarah looked at him steadily. Her eyes were dark and her face very pale. She said,
“Yes, John.” And then, “How did he do it?”
“I think I know, but knowing isn’t proving. If we’d gone under the train, it would have been an accident or—or suicide—and the way all nice and clear for Geoffrey. I think it was done with his stick. I think he was watching for a chance, and he got it. That stick he always carries would have done the trick. One good hard shove would be enough. Everyone was looking at the train—”
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