She touched her lip again, thoughtfully this time. She repeated her own name.
“Rachel. … How do you know that?”
“Perhaps we met in a dream,” said Jeremy in his most serious voice.
She laughed, but her eyes were frightened.
“How could we?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you ever dream?”
The colour came into her face in a rosy wave. Why was she so pale? She ought always to have a colour like that. Why did she have dreams which distressed her and sent her wandering defenceless in her sleep?
She said, “Yes, I do dream.” She caught her breath as if the words frightened her.
“So do I.”
He thought of how he had dreamed of rushing trains, and of Gilbert Denny telling him that he wasn’t in a safe place. He thought that bit of the dream was true enough, but he didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He looked at Rachel and said,
“Please tell me your name.”
“I mustn’t.”
Jeremy’s hand went out and touched hers.
“What did you dream last night?” he said, and felt the little brown hand tremble and withdraw. There was no mistaking the trouble in her face.
She said under her breath,
“How do you know? Who are you? I want to know who you are.”
“Rachel—”
“Oh, won’t you tell me who you are?”
“My name is Jeremy Ware.”
For a moment her face went blank. Jeremy had seen a man look like that when he had had the senses knocked out of him by a very sudden blow. Her eyes stared at him without any expression at all. After a moment her lips parted and a faint sound came from them—one of those purely involuntary sounds which cannot be written down. And then, with a suddenness which took him by surprise, she turned and ran away.
Jeremy ran after her.
When he came up with her, she turned a terrified face upon him and went on running.
“‘Rachel—please—”
She said, “No—no!” She looked as if he had frightened her out of her life.
“Rachel—stop—just for a moment!”
She said, “I can’t—I can’t!”
Jeremy was in despair. You can’t run after an obviously frightened and unwilling girl in a London park without attracting attention.
“Rachel—for the Lord’s sake stop running—just for a moment! I swear I won’t bother you! You don’t want to get us both arrested, do you?”
She stopped running as suddenly as she had begun. Her breath panted and her colour came and went.
“Rachel—please!”
She said after a moment, “It was foolish to run away. You startled me. Will you let me go now?”
“Yes—if you want me to. I want terribly to talk to you.”
She shook her head.
“I mustn’t talk. I oughtn’t to have come. I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Of course not.”
“Then you must let me go.”
“I must see you again.”
“No.”
“Oh, Rachel—why?”
Just for a moment she lifted her head and looked at the sky. The sun shone on the shabby coat, and the faded cap, and the silky black lashes. It made golden pools of her eyes. The fear went out of her face, and the kind, gentle look came back.
“Will you do something—if I ask you?”
Jeremy said, “Yes.”
Then her look clouded again.
“Perhaps it’s too late for that—”
“What were you going to ask me to do?”
She came quite close and touched his arm. Her voice went away to nothing.
“Go away.”
“Now?”
She shook her head.
“No—right away—from your job—from London—if it isn’t too late.”
“I couldn’t do that, Rachel.”
“Couldn’t you? Couldn’t you?”
He said, “I’m sure it’s too late,” and saw the trouble in her face.
She said, “You’re not in a very safe place,” and Jeremy started, because that was what Gilbert Denny had said in his dream.
“I don’t care about being safe or not being safe—I want to see you again.”
“It’s no good. I can’t help you—you can’t help me. Please let me go. You said you would.”
“Will you come here to-morrow?”
“No.”
“The next day?”
“Not any day. I’m going now. If you follow me, it will be a dreadful thing for me. You won’t—will you?”
Jeremy said, “No.”
She put her hand into his, and he felt how cold it was, and how it trembled. He held it in a hard, warm clasp, and wanted to kiss it. As if she knew what was in his mind, she pulled it away from him. Her lips said, “Good-bye.” Her eyes said, “Please, Jeremy.”
She ran down the path into the main walk and passed out of his sight.
CHAPTER XIV
JEREMY TURNED, WALKED BACK to the bench, and sat down. He wanted to think. This was the third time that he had seen Rachel, and each time she had come and gone like a puff of wind, or a wreath of smoke, or a dream. Why could she not tell him her name? Why did his name bring that look of terror to her face? Why had she left him and forbidden him to follow?
He had no answer to these questions. He only felt and knew with some deep inner sense that they would meet again. He had never felt such a nearness to any human being. It was the very strangest thing, as if her fear was his fear, and her trouble his trouble. There seemed to be no barrier between them. It was this that made the strangeness, because how could she go away if they were as near as that? She could not really leave him.
When he reached this point, his mind became suddenly clear and confident. Nothing else mattered in the least. The sun shone from a clear sky.
He looked round, and saw that he was not alone upon the bench. An elderly man was sitting at the other end of it reading in a shabby little book. He wore hornrimmed glasses, and had an air of distinction. A shagreen spectacle-case, which had evidently fallen from his knee, lay upon the gravel path midway between Jeremy and himself. Jeremy stooped, picked it up, slid a little nearer, and proffered it.
“Is this yours, sir?”
The elderly gentleman looked up from his book. His manner was courteous but a little abstracted.
“Thank you—thank you very much indeed. Had I dropped it?”
“It was on the path.”
“Very careless of me,” said Mr Smith. “I am afraid I am a careless person. I was enjoying the observations of the Reverend Henry Harte, who, writing rather more than two hundred years ago, is much troubled by the waste of what he terms the ‘Gifts of Providence.’ ‘For,’ he says,”—Mr Smith here turned a discoloured page—“‘we perceive on every Bough such a Quantity of small Fowls wholly occupied in a wanton Chirping and Singing as might with great Profit be made Use of in Pyes.’ He particularly mentions Larks and Nightingales as being ‘delicate and succulent Fare’.”
“Is it a cookery book?” said Jeremy.
Mr Smith looked over the top of his glasses, disclosing eyes of a dreamy grey.
“Er—no. The question would, I fear, have horrified the author, who called his book Candles for the Closet. Being Severall Profitable Discourses and Meditations by the Reverend Henry Harte, M.A. Together with Sundry Comfortable Observations as to the Imminence of a Notable Judgement upon Waste, Prodigality, Lying, Evil Living, and Other Crying Sins, as Proved by Divers Passages of Holy Writ. Long titles were then the fashion. Do these things interest you at all?”
Mr Smith interested Jeremy a good deal. He said, “Yes, they do.” And as he said it, he was wondering whether a distinguished old gentleman
who walked about with eighteenth century homilies in his pocket might not prove an efficient substitute for Jardine. It was quite on the cards that he would know a lot about old London.
“The Reverend Henry,” said Mr Smith, “deplored ‘the Licence of the Young.’ He observes that ‘Children of the Age of Five, Six, or even Seven Yeares are permitted to Rompe, Shoute, and Disporte themselves instead of being kept to their Bookes or set to some Useful Taske.’ He predicts ‘some Great and Manifest Judgement,’ and considers that the end of the world may be expected in from three to seven years from the date at which he wrote. I do not think that he had any children of his own.”
Jeremy said, “I hope not.”
He was wondering at what point he could say, “Have you got such a thing as a map of old London?” It sounded most awfully abrupt when you put it like that. There was always the British Museum, but you had to have some kind of permit to read there. He didn’t want to wait.
Mr Smith turned another leaf of the shabby book. Jeremy said quickly,
“You asked if I was interested in old things. I want most awfully to see a map of old London.”
Mr Smith turned another page before he said in an abstracted voice,
“What part of—er—London interests you—and what—er—date?”
“Well, it’s a question of a house—an eighteenth century house—late eighteenth century, I should say. I want to know what was there before the house was built.”
Mr Smith was so deeply interested that he became more abstracted than ever. He continued to turn the yellow pages of the Reverend Henry’s Moral Work.
“A seventeenth century map …” he murmured. “I have one of course—or early eighteenth century—yes, yes. … Here is what the Reverend Henry has to say about flowers: ‘These Gaudy Weedes aiforde an Ill Example in their Flaunting Colours and Wanton Growth. Like the Wicked, they exhaust the Soyle wherein they grow, and offer only an Empty Show in Place of Goodly Fruites.’”
“He seems to have been a bit of a kill-joy,” said Jeremy.
“He was domestic chaplain,” said Mr Smith, “for forty years to Selina, Countess of Brockington, a lady who atoned for a somewhat scandalous early life by an old age of considerable asperity. Er—if you would care to see the map of which I spoke, I should be—er—delighted to show it to you.”
“That’s most awfully kind of you, sir.”
Mr Smith produced an old Russia leather pocket-book, from which he extracted a card which he handed to Jeremy. The card was inscribed:
MR BENBOW COLLINGWOOD HORATIO SMITH.
There was an address in the right-hand bottom corner.
“Any evening this week,” said Mr Smith vaguely,
“Thank you most awfully, sir. My name is Jeremy Ware, I’m afraid I haven’t got a card. I’m in a secretary’s job, and I never quite know when I’m going to get off.” He paused. Mannister would be at the Albert Hall to-morrow night. He could be tolerably sure of getting away. He said on the impulse, “I might be able to come to-morrow, if that would be all right.”
“To-morrow? Oh certainly—any time after half-past eight. I have—er—a number of old maps.” He put away his pocket-book, set his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose, and returned to the Reverend Henry. When Jeremy Ware got up and walked away, he was not however too much absorbed to follow him with a long, considering gaze. A feeling of satisfaction pervaded his mind, He had had a flair, and it had not misled him. He felt a pleasant conviction that at some time in the near future he would be able to say “I told you so” to Garrett.
It amused him to imagine Garrett’s comments upon the events of the past half-hour. He had seen Jeremy Ware accost a shabby, frightened girl, pursue her when she ran away, hold a brief agitated conversation with her, and retire discomfited. Garrett would certainly put the worst possible construction upon this. To Mr Smith’s absent, peering gaze it had been quite plain that there was some strong attraction between these two young people. He had observed the gentle kindness of Rachel’s look before it was drowned in fear, and though he had no idea of what Jeremy Ware had said to frighten her, he did not for an instant suspect him of behaving to her with anything but respect. Those dreamy eyes of his missed very little. They observed every change in the young man’s face. Even the incongruity between the girl’s shoes and stockings and her shabby coat and hat had been registered. There again Garrett would produce a very obvious explanation—someone had given her the shoes and stockings, and doubtless someone else would in due course supply the other deficiencies of her wardrobe. Mr Smith did not entertain this explanation. In his somewhat old-fashioned manner of speech, he set her down as a modest girl. He had not the slightest doubt about this. It may be said that he had a habit of jumping to conclusions, but it should be added that these conclusions were very generally correct.
He sat a little longer and enjoyed the sunshine. He felt pleased with himself, and grateful to the Reverend Henry for having so successfully introduced him to Jeremy Ware. He hoped that Jeremy would come and see his maps.
“I wonder what Ananias will make of him,” he said to himself.
Ananias also had a flair.
CHAPTER XV
ROSALIND DENNY LUNCHED NEXT day with Mimosa Vane. Mimosa’s parties were the most ill assorted in London. Each guest wondered why the other had been asked, and why he himself had come. She had, to be sure, an admirable cook and an ever fresh supply of scandal.
Rosalind found herself sitting next to Mr Geoffrey Deane. He was small and neat, with fair hair that looked like a wig, and a dull precise manner. He wore steel-rimmed pince-nez. She could imagine that he was an industrious secretary. She did not want to speak about Jeremy, but every topic seemed to lead in his direction, A harmless remark about the weather induced Mr Deane to respond that it had indeed been very cold, and to volunteer the information that he had been laid up and obliged to go away for a change—it was very good of Mr Mannister to spare him.
Rosalind could do no less than comment on this.
“Oh yes—you’re Mr Mannister’s secretary, aren’t you?”
Mr Deane smoothed his hair.
“One of his secretaries. He is an exceedingly busy man. I’m afraid my absence has thrown a great deal of work upon my colleague, but I hope to be back tomorrow. I should have been back to-day, but Mr Mannister has himself been away and does not return until late this afternoon. You know, of course, that he is speaking at the Albert Hall to-night.”
Why should she know? She felt provoked and bored. Dullness surrounded Geoffrey Deane like a fog. He had a flow of conversation which never flagged. He had an even, rather high-pitched voice and a meticulous and unnecessary regard for accuracy. He told Rosalind an interminable story about a speech which Mannister had delivered at Dulwich, and delayed his narrative indefinitely in order to resolve the knotty question whether the date was the fifteenth of February four years ago, or the twelfth of February the year before that. Mr Deane seemed a good deal worried over not being certain of this. He had as a rule, he assured Rosalind, a remarkably accurate memory. He hoped his illness had not affected it. It would be a most serious matter if it had. He told Rosalind all about his influenza, and then returned to Mannister’s speech at Dulwich and told her all about that. She was thankful when lunch was over.
Mimosa pounced on her.
“Darling, were you too bored? I don’t know why I asked him. You know how it is—I met him somewhere and said ‘Do come and have lunch with me,’ and when he said, ‘Thank you—what day shall I come?’ well, there we were. Of course he’s too bromidic—but rather quaint, don’t you think? And, darling, I knew you’d be nice to him, whereas if I’d given him to Vinnie, he’d probably have passed out before lunch was over. My dear, too embarrassing! Did he tell you all about Bernard Mannister?”
“He did,” said Rosalind.
“And Jeremy Ware? But of course you kno
w all about him already—or do you? Such a secret face, don’t you think?”
“What nonsense!” said Rosalind. “Mimosa, you do talk nonsense!”
Mimosa blew out a puff of curiously scented smoke. Her eyes were sharply malicious behind the haze.
“Darling—how too unkind! Of course I’m no judge—I was just thinking of what Gilbert said about him.”
“Gilbert? About Jeremy?”
Mimosa nodded and drew at her cigarette.
“What did he say?” said Rosalind. (Why, Gilbert had thought the world of Jeremy.)
Mimosa laughed her little sharp laugh.
“Darling—how too horribly serious!”
“What did Gilbert say?” said Rosalind.
“Darling, I can’t remember. I only know it gave me the feeling that he was just the least little bit distrustful. Of course I’m all for trusting people—it brings out the best in them, don’t you think? Asphodel always says that. Have you been to see her yet?”
“No,” said Rosalind.
“I wonder what she said to Gilbert. Too strange of him to go and see her and not tell you about it. Men are so secretive, don’t you think? If you do go and see Asphodel, don’t give your name or anything like that, and then you’ll be quite sure that she isn’t being disturbed by outside impressions. I don’t suppose she ever knew who Gilbert was. I don’t think I could rest without finding out why he went to her if I were you—but then you’re too self-controlled. Darling, I must go and talk to Vinnie. Doesn’t she look terrible in green with those scars? Too unselfconscious of her to come. I don’t suppose she’ll ever lose them. Now, will you have Cruffles to talk to, just as an antidote? He can tell you all the bits the censor cut out of his last play. My dear—too sultry!”
“Thank you,” said Rosalind. “I’m just going.”
Mimosa embraced her.
“Asphodel’s number is Park 000686—just in case,” she said.
She walked back to the flat. She was a fool to have lunched with Mimosa. She always left you rubbed up the wrong way. There was a dreadful oppression on her spirits. It had been deepening for days. She had gone to Mimosa’s because any company was better than her own. Everyone and everything seemed to combine to thrust her back and set her face to face with the tragedy that had broken her life. The anguished questions which had rung in her ears ever since were now so loud that she could listen to nothing else. Why had Gilbert died? Who had driven him to his death? Why had he gone to see this fortune-teller, and what had she told him?
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