“By Jove,” shouted Snubs—for the wind had risen to add to the noise, “this is getting rather awkward! I’m afraid it’s coming in rather a lot.”
Still no answer from the motionless figure by his side. But a sudden rumbling roar that might have been a train—if they were anywhere near a railway—or might have been thunder. Only where was the lightning?
Zip! Gertie shot sideways and straightened out again, as the whole countryside was illuminated by a blinding flash. Was anyone asking where the lightning was? Well, that was the lightning. And that. Rumble—boom—crash. And that.
“Oh, Snubs! Oh, please go slower!”
“What?”
“Oh, Snubs! Do be careful. I don’t like this at all. Oh, Snubs, I’m sorry I was so rude, but——Oh!”
“It’s all right, Noodles.”
“It isn’t! I know we’re going to be struck.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Oh, I’ve always hated this sort of thing. Oh, do look out where you’re going!”
“Of course I’m——”
He set his teeth. He held that savage, jerking steering-wheel with all the strength of which he was capable. He pushed with both his feet until he was right off the seat. “Sit tight!” he yelled, as Gertie bounced and leapt over the grass. There was a scraping and crashing noise as her front axle and undershield demolished a pile of flints. Then she seemed to leave the ground altogether. She lurched to the left; bounced again; lurched to the right; tipped forward; hit something else; tipped backward; oscillated violently with a protest from every spring, nut and rivet in her entire anatomy. And as a very beautiful display of forked lightning once more lit up the trees and hedges and the sheets of streaming water, a small branch came in and whipped off Mr. Tipton’s hat. Looking angrily round, he was amazed to see the road on the level of his shoulders, and the bush which had just attacked him between himself and the road.
A reasonable deduction seemed to be that Gertie and Noodles and he were in the ditch.
“We’re in the ditch,” he said.
“I know,” said Noodles.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Snubs.
“I prefer it,” said Noodles. “I feel far safer here. May we stay till it’s over?”
From the general look of things it seemed to Snubs that Gertie, at any rate, would stay considerably longer than that. On the other hand, if she were ever going to get out under her own power, it was better to make the attempt at once—before the ground became even softer than it was at present.
“Wait a second,” he said. And he trod on the starter.
Nothing happened.
“Dash!” he observed. “I’ll have to hop out and swing her.”
“Oh, don’t get out, Snubs! I know you’ll be struck.”
“Rot,” said Snubs; and clambered out with some difficulty; and swung the starting-handle. And went on swinging it. And stopped suddenly—not because the engine had shown the slightest response to his efforts, but because it had just occurred to him that the track of the front wheels was in a very unusual condition.
He bent lower. He felt among the grass and the mud and the grease and the stinging-nettles. He came out again holding one end of the steering-rod to which the foreman at his London garage had taken such a profound and, as it now seemed, justifiable dislike.
“What is it, Snubs? What’s the matter? What are you smiling at?”
Had he smiled? Well, it was something to know, or at any rate to hope, that it was Gertie and not her owner who had sent them off the road like that. But he doubted, somehow, if Noodles would appreciate this rather academic distinction, and in any case it had very little bearing on the next step.
“I wasn’t smiling,” he said, moving out of the glare of the headlights. “I’m awfully sorry, Noodles, but I’m afraid we’re stuck.”
“Oh?” said Noodles. “Well, come inside, then. You’ll get simply soaked out there.”
“I think it’s stopping,” said Snubs, putting out a rather superfluous hand.
Rumble. Boom.
“Snubs! Come inside at once!”
“No, honestly——”
“Well, take your coat, then.”
The coat sailed out and hit him, and he flung it back.
“You keep that on,” he said, menacingly. “Do you think I want you to catch cold?”
“I’ll put it on again if you come inside.”
Snubs looked up and down the road. But nothing had come along yet, and it seemed very unlikely that anything would come along, for as far as he could judge they were miles from any main route.
“Will you?” he asked, less threateningly.
“Yes, I swear I will. Only do be quick!”
So Snubs climbed in again, and again put the coat over Noodles’s back. And as there was no point in wasting the batteries, he switched off the lights.
“I suppose you’re rather sick with me,” he suggested.
“Oh, no. I was, but I know you didn’t mean to be unkind. And I don’t care in the least how long we stay here. As long as the lightning doesn’t start again. I’m perfectly happy.”
Snubs tried to look at her, though there wasn’t a trace of irony in her voice.
“Are you?” he said. “Well, I don’t know that I am.”
“You mean about your poor car?”
“No,” said Snubs. “I mean, about you.”
She seemed to be thinking this over, and he rather wished he hadn’t said it.
“About me? Oh, you mustn’t worry about me. I—I was rather absurd.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“And anyhow, now we’re going to spend the night here——”
“But we’re not,” said Snubs. “My dear Noodles, we can’t possibly do that. Something’s bound to come along, sooner or later, and——”
“Oh, do you think so?”
“Well, even if it doesn’t, we can’t stop here. We must walk to the nearest village. When the rain stops, I mean.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Noodles, “but I don’t think I can. You see, I’ve hurt my heel.”
“What!”
The pale beam from the dash-lamp suddenly shone down into the cockpit, and Snubs was trying to get on his knees.
“Do you mean just now?” he snapped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, no,” said Noodles, twisting her legs away. “I did it this afternoon—with my shoe, I mean. It sort of rubbed it.”
“Oh,” said Snubs, sitting up again and turning off the light. “But you could come a little way, couldn’t you?”
“But, Snubs, can’t we——”
“That’s impossible. I can’t tell everybody that we sat all night in a ditch.”
“Why can’t you? And why’ve you got to?”
Snubs ground his teeth.
“Well, good-night,” said Noodles. “I’m going to sleep.”
Snubs clenched his fists.
“Don’t you understand—” he began, forcibly. And that was just as far as he got. Because if Noodles didn’t understand, then no one but a cad would tell her. Equally, no one but a cad would give way and spend the rest of the night here. And, similarly, no one but a cad would leave her alone by the roadside. The chances of not being a cad in these difficult circumstances seemed about one to a million. Philosophy was strained almost to the breaking-point, and even if the main anchor still held, one of the lesser cables had just snapped. For three years he had been loyal to Gertie in spite of everything, but this was the end. This time she had gone too far. The long thraldom was over. He definitely hated her.
“If it wasn’t for this confounded car,” he started again; “if it wasn’t for this ghastly old bundle of broken-down scrap-iron that never goes two yards without doing something stupid; if it wasn’t for this hideous old horror that’s gone and landed us here; if it wasn’t …”
Words seemed to fail him, and he began kicking Gertie from where he sat. Later he discovered that she had retaliate
d by scraping a large slice of leather off the top of his right shoe, but for the moment his ungallant behaviour brought enormous relief.
“Take that!” he growled. “And that. And that.”
“Oh, Snubs!”
“What?”
“Oh, please don’t mind so much. It was all my fault, really.”
“No, it wasn’t!”
“It was, Snubs. You wouldn’t be here except for me.”
This was true, but Snubs denied it with equal fervour.
“Yes, I should,” he said. “You’re not to talk like that, Noodles. It was all my idea to come chasing after you, really, and I ought to have had the sense—— Hi! What’s the matter?”
For she had caught his arm again.
“Oh, Snubs—don’t you want me, either?”
And again he tingled.
“What? Of course I do, Noodles. I mean—— Well, I don’t know what I mean, but—look here—well, you don’t understand, but——”
This wasn’t going to do, either, and he checked himself by the old expedient of coughing.
“Oh, Snubs! Now you’ve caught cold, and it’s all my fault.”
“I haven’t. It isn’t. Nothing’s your fault. Only if you hold my arm like that——”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She let go, and he wished she hadn’t.
“Noodles!”
No answer.
“Noodles—listen.”
“What? Oh, I’m so tired. Oh, what is going to happen to me?”
“Nothing!” shouted Snubs, for it would be the last straw if she started crying on top of everything else. “It’s all going to be all right—if only you’ll listen to me. But you’ve got to do what I say. You’ve got to get out and try to walk a little way. Look—it’s quite stopped raining. And there’s the moon.”
There, as he said, was the moon—apparently racing through a rent in the remains of the big, dark cloud. For an instant it showed them each other’s faces, and they both looked away as if they had seen something that surprised and terrified them. The same startling mixture of youth and age; of innocence and experience; of piercing interest and impenetrable mystery. Something had happened, or was just going to happen, but they couldn’t tell whether they were friends or enemies—only that there was danger in either case. The moonlight faded, and they trembled in the blackness.
“I say—Noodles.”
“It’s all right, Snubs. I—I’m trying to open the door.”
“Let me.”
He leant across her, and the danger seemed so near that every muscle was braced to meet it. But the catch gave, and the crisis had passed.
“Wait a second,” said Snubs. “I’ll bring the suit-case, because—well, you may need it.”
He started marching down the faintly glistening road.
“Snubs! Wait! I’d forgotten my heel.”
He turned round, and ran back.
“Hang on to my arm,” he said.
“You—you don’t mind?”
“Do what I tell you!”
She did what he told her. At first she seemed far lighter than the suit-case, but with every yard she became more difficult to steer and support.
“Like a rest?” he suggested.
“If you don’t mind.”
But as she still clung to him, he felt bound to cut the rest as short as possible.
“Ready? Come on, then.”
“Where—where are we going, Snubs?”
“We’re going to find a house.”
“Are we?”
Well, he hoped so. But the dim perspective of trees and hedges seemed to stretch on for ever, and the rests became more and more frequent.
“It seems an awful shame,” said Noodles, once, “that you should be punished for my silliness.”
“Don’t talk tripe,” said her escort. And on they went.
“I’m not being punished,” he added.
“Aren’t you? I think you’re an angel, Snubs.”
“Well, I’m not,” he replied. “How’s the heel?”
“It’s all right if you don’t ask about it.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Oh, Snubs, I didn’t mean that. I only meant—— Oh, Snubs, do you think we’ll ever have any fun again?”
“Oh, Lord, yes. Lots.”
“Do you really? I mean, can you possibly go on liking me?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Snubs!”
“Now, look here——”
Oh, gosh, there was the moonlight again, and this time she looked about seven years old. He slammed the suit-case down on the road.
“Sit there,” he said. “I’m going on by myself. If I can’t see anything from the top of this hill——”
“But what have I done?”
“Nothing. But I can’t——”
“Oh, listen! What’s that?”
They both stood still and listened. A faint, nasal music, which not even the summer night could disguise as the horns of elfland, came drifting towards them from the darkness ahead.
“A gramophone!” cried Snubs. “Come on! It’s the last lap.”
He seized up the suit-case, he caught hold of Noodles’s arm, and he hurried forward. The top of the hill was nearer than he had thought, and there—just beyond it—was a pitch-black cube, with a light in one of its windows, and an almost invisible sign creaking from an iron bracket over the door. Snubs ran under it and hammered with his fists.
“It’s a pub,” he said, over his shoulder. “Perhaps they’ll have a car we can hire.”
But the Fox and Hounds, a little, isolated half-way house that catered for a few scattered agriculturists, and represented such a continuous loss to the brewery company which owned it that they would have abandoned it years ago, but for the fixed policy which says: “Never surrender a licence”; the Fox and Hounds, we say, merely shook its middle-aged female head at this suggestion of a car.
Well, a horse and trap, then? Or a couple of bicycles?
It shook its head again.
How far was the nearest village?
A matter of four mile to Inaudible, and of three and a bit over to Unintelligible.
It hadn’t got a telephone, Snubs supposed.
No, that it hadn’t.
Well, was there a garage anywhere near?
What was that?
A garridge.
No, sir. But Mr. Indistinguishable at the saw-mills might have some petrol to spare, if that was what the gentleman wanted. About a mile away, that would be; over towards Incomprehensible.
“Noodles!”
“Yes?”
“It’s no good. You’ll have to wait here.”
“I don’t mind.”
A mystic smile passed between her and the Fox and Hounds, yet they completely misunderstood each other. For Noodles’s smile simply meant: “You look rather kind, and your house looks rather cosy”; but the landlady’s smile …
“Well, sir,” she said, leaning forward over the threshold, “if you’d like a nice room, I could easy clear my nephew’s things out of it. They’re away, you see, and I don’t see how you’re going to get on to-night. You’d be on a holiday, I reckon? There! Isn’t that a shame! But I’d only charge you three-and-six, and if your lady’d fancy a nice cup of tea——”
“What? Oh, thanks awfully, I mean. But she won’t—I mean, I’ve got to go back to the car. But she—— No, it’s all right, Noodles; leave it to me. I’ll come back in the morning.”
“But wouldn’t she have another——”
“No. You’re not to ask her. Do you hear me?”
“But you can’t possibly——”
“Yes, I can. Shut up.”
“But where are you going to——”
“I’ll be all right, I tell you. Here, let me have my coat And I’ll give you the suit-case. You’ll find Beaky’s pyjamas in it, and some other things. You’ll be all right; only don’t try and explain anything. I’ll be along in the morning. Do you
understand?”
“No, I don’t. Why can’t you——”
“Oh, please, Noodles. Can’t you see she’s staring at us? Look—here’s some money, in case you want it. No, take it, or I swear I’ll fling it on the road. There! Goodnight, and for Heaven’s sake don’t answer any questions. And for Heaven’s sake don’t start till I come for you.”
“Oh, of course not, Snubs. But——”
“There. Now I’m off.”
He’d gone. He’d left her. She could hear his footsteps scampering away in the night.
“Snubs!” she screamed.
There was no answer. She looked round, and it was true that the landlady was staring at her. She stared back.
“Don’t you mind, dear,” said the landlady. “Lots of gentlemen get sharp like that when they’re worried about their cars. Don’t you pay any attention, I say, and he’ll be back soon enough, and I’ll be there to let him in. Now, just you wait down here while I get the room a little straight, and …”
She bustled away with the suit-case, leaving Noodles gazing at the flame of an oil-lamp—her eyes growing larger, and heavier, and sleepier every moment.
“Poor Snubs,” she thought. “He’s been awfully noble to-night, and I’ve done nothing but make it more difficult. And he’s really been perfectly marvellous, but he seems to hate anyone thanking him. And he’ll always dislike me after this, I expect, and I like him better than anyone in the world. But I don’t see why he couldn’t have asked if there was another bedroom, because I mean to say it was almost too noble to be as noble as all that.”
She yawned, and sank on to a hard chair.
“Almost too noble,” she repeated, musingly. “But I adore him for it—even though he was a bit cross—because he did really treat me as if I was quite absolutely grown-up.”
She went on staring at the lamp.
“I wonder,” she murmured, presently, “if he thinks I am.”
Having blown the remnants of the big dark cloud far out to sea, the wind dropped, and the moon shone down on a pale landscape where Nature herself seemed to be sleeping in utter calm and peace after the violent scenes which she had been through. And Noodles slept also—the sleep of complete exhaustion. And the landlady slept—steadily, too, though under self-imposed orders to wake instantly when the young gentleman should return. But the young gentleman wasn’t thinking of returning, for he was wrapt in slumber as well. It must have been galling for Gertie, after all that she had planned and achieved, to find herself being treated no longer as an individual, or even as a motor; but as a mere arm-chair or sofa on which her honourable owner was relaxing his weary limbs.
Another Part of the Wood Page 24
