Again he stood and listened. There was not the slightest sound in all the house; more than that, there was no feeling of human presence. After a moment Peter was so sure that he was quite alone that he walked boldly to the door of the room in which Hendebakker had trapped him, and flung it open. It was darker here than in the hall, but a faint line defined the shutters.
Peter had come to look for his opera hat. He remembered that it had dropped here, and he had hopes that it might be more or less undamaged. He found it collapsed, but not as opera hats are intended to collapse. It had been smashed in sideways, and as a hat it was no more. He left it lying there, and, making his way to the front door, he opened it and came out into the porch. It seemed like the best part of a year since he and Sylvia had stood there together.
Peter guessed that it was about three in the morning. After the dense gloom of the house it seemed quite light out here. He could see things: shapes of trees; a black belt of shrubbery; the line of the gravelled drive. He shut the front door behind him and took his way towards the road.
He would have to walk into Wimbledon, knock up a garage, get a drink—before anything a drink—and induce someone to drive him back to town. He hoped to get to his rooms before daybreak. It was, in fact, something after four and broad daylight when he tiptoed up the stairs. Peter felt that if Jones or Mrs. Jones were to emerge, his character would be irretrievably lost. He had never really discovered whether the Joneses slept in the basement or the attic. It was with feelings of relief that he reached his own room.
A look at himself in the glass increased this relief immensely. Never had he beheld anything so disreputable as his own appearance; his hair wildly uncontrolled and caked with dust; his face—which he had vainly tried to clean with a handkerchief—greyish and smeared with blood; his clothes beyond description. He shed them hastily, rolled them into a bundle, and consigned them to the depths of his clothes-basket.
His left wrist was a good deal cut and scratched, and his knuckles badly barked. None of the cuts was deep, but there was a general effect of gore and grime. He decided that he must have a bath if the roof fell in. Afterwards he would look up a train for Chark, and perhaps get a couple of hours’ sleep. If he got a train about nine, that would do. Henders would be off on a false scent to Merton Clevery; a train about nine would get him to Chark by eleven. He must pin a paper on his door, asking Jones to call him at eight.
He had his bath; found that the eight forty-five reached Lenton, the station for Chark, at ten-thirty-seven; pinned up a paper asking to be waked without fail at seven-thirty; and in two minutes was deeply, dreamlessly asleep.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Rose Ellen received the Annam Jewel at breakfast. She sat facing a sunny window. The light fell in patches on the polished floor.
“Toppin’ day,” said Major Gaisford for the tenth time. “What I say is, by all means go to the sea if you’re goin’ to have fine weather. If you’re not goin’ to have fine weather, stay at home.”
“But one can’t always tell, dearest,” said Mrs. Gaisford.
“If you’re not sure of fine weather, stay at home,” said Major Gaisford. “Rosie, the marmalade is with you. Pass it along, if you can spare it. I say, it is a toppin’ day, what?”
Mrs. Gaisford said, “Yes, dearest, it is, isn’t it?” And then, in an undertone to Rose Ellen, “Now, what do you think about Jimmy’s tunics? That blue linen you got—if we use the width of the stuff, we could get out four instead of three. Now, don’t you think we could use the width? Nurse says we can’t; but you know how dreadfully obstinate she is about cutting things out. I can’t see why we shouldn’t use the width. Can you?”
It was at this moment that the door opened and Levitt came in with the post. Mrs. Gaisford had a letter; Major Gaisford had a bill; and Rose Ellen had the Annam Jewel.
“Susie says,” announced Mrs. Gaisford—“oh, dear, I do wish she’d write plainly—Susie says—James, you’re not listening—Susie Lamont says that she can come to us from the twenty-ninth to the third—or is it can’t? James, does she say that she can come or that she can’t come? It might be either. I do think people should be made to cross their t’s.”
Major Gaisford began to hum and haw over the letter. Rose Ellen was looking at what the post had brought her. It was a parcel—from Peter. She couldn’t think why Peter should have sent her a parcel—registered too. It wasn’t her birthday.
“I shall have to wire and ask her which she means,” said Mrs. Gaisford, resignedly. “Can—can’t? No, it’s no use, I shall have to wire. She’ll be horribly cross, but it can’t be helped.”
She turned her attention to Rose Ellen.
“Why, child, who’s sent you a registered parcel? And why don’t you open it?”
“I think it’s only flowers,” said Rose Ellen. “It feels damp and smells mossy.”
Major Gaisford burst out laughing.
“Whoever heard of registerin’ flowers?” he said. “Flowers? Rubbish! Open it, Rosie, and let’s see these precious flowers of yours.”
“They’re from Peter, aren’t they?” said Mrs. Gaisford. “He writes such a good plain hand—I do wish everybody would. I shall have to send that wire, and Susie will be dreadfully annoyed.”
“Peter—ha, ha, from Peter, are they?” said Major Gaisford. “She’s blushin’, my dear, she’s blushin’. They are from Peter. Rose by name and Rose by nature, what?”
“Now, James,” said Mrs. Gaisford. She shook her head at him, but he was spreading marmalade on buttered toast and chuckling to himself.
“Careful young man to register ’em, what? Open ’em, Rosie, and let’s have a look. You have to be dooced careful with flowers, you know. Toppin’ idea sendin’ ’em to a girl and all that; but you have to be dooced careful.”
He passed his cup to his still frowning wife.
“More tea, my dear, and stronger, and less sugar—the figure, you know, the figure. Yes, dooced careful you have to be, Rosie. Why, I knew a girl—what was her name? Somethin’ odd, Anstice—yes, that was it, Anstice Gale—and a feller I knew was gone on her—don’t know why, I’m sure, but he was. Well, this girl was dooced keen on the language of flowers and all that—had a book about it; a meanin’ for every flower—and this feller who was keen on her thought it ’ud be a toppin’ idea to send her some flowers; so he went and did it, and the next thing he knew, she was engaged to another feller. You see, the poor feller had put his foot in it somethin’ shockin’. I forget what he sent her—dahlias or peonies or somethin’—but of course the girl went and looked ’em up in her book; and what do you suppose they meant? The poor feller never knew until it was too late that the meanin’ was, ‘I regard you with loathin’.’ Pretty tall that, what? Shows how dooced careful you have to be, Rosie.” He laughed heartily. “You just open your box, and let’s see what kind of a bloomer this young feller of yours has made.”
“They’ll make such a mess here,” said Rose Ellen.
She got up with the box in her hand. Her colour was deeper than usual. She wanted to open her parcel when she was alone. It was so odd that Peter should send her flowers. It was so odd that he should send her anything that needed to be registered. She held the box tightly, looked at Mrs. Gaisford with rather a startled, pleading expression, and said, speaking quickly and low:
“They’ll make a dreadful mess in here; flowers always do.”
Mrs. Gaisford nodded and smiled indulgently.
“Yes, yes, take them away,” she said. “And, my dear, will you look after Jimmy for an hour whilst Nurse gets settled down a little? I thought perhaps you’d take him out to the end of the garden on the cliff. Nurse’ll fetch him in at half past eleven.”
“Yes, I’d love to,” said Rose Ellen at the door. She shut it after her next moment, and Mrs. Gaisford turned to her husband.
“Now, James,” she said, “you’re not to tease, or look, or make jokes. You’re to leave the child alone. I do really think there’s something in it
with Peter Waring, and you’re to be good and not take any notice.”
“Oh, nonsense! Girls like to be teased about their lovers,” said Major Gaisford easily. He got up and strolled to the window.
“Toppin’ day, isn’t it?” he said.
Rose Ellen took a flat glass dish from the pantry, and went up to her own room. The parcel smelt mossy. The flowers were sure to be wild flowers—people didn’t send garden flowers in moss. She would fill the glass dish with moss and stick the little wild things in it so that they should look as though they were growing. There would be violets and primroses for certain—perhaps anemones and wood sorrel. Major Gaisford was forgotten.
She came into her sunny room, and set the glass dish on the wide window-seat. The window looked across the garden towards the sea. There were pine trees beyond the flower-beds, and beyond the pine trees blue water and blue sky.
Rose Ellen cut the string of her parcel, and sat down on the window-ledge to open it—first brown paper and string; then Mrs. Merewether’s box; and then Peter’s letter, rather damp and mossy. Rose Ellen picked it up, but before she read it she looked for a moment at the sea, and the sky, and the pine trees. It was such a blue day. There was so much light. The air moved as if it were alive.
Rose Ellen held the letter very tightly. After her storm of tears and bitter pain there had come a calm. And now, quite suddenly, she felt that something was going to happen, something big. She was not afraid, but she felt awe. She sat with Peter’s letter in her hand, and could not read it. It seemed a long time before she could read it. When she lifted it she was rather pale, but her eyes shone. She read:
Dear Rose Ellen,
Don’t unpack this box until there’s no one there. It is in a bit of paper under the moss. Keep it safe for me till I come, and don’t tell anyone. I’ll come as soon as I can.
Peter.
PS.—The primroses and violets are out of a wood, but the forget-me-nots were in the post office garden. The woman says the pink ones are called “No-never”.
“Oh!” said Rose Ellen, when she had finished reading. She laughed a little, happy, shaky laugh. Then she said very softly, “Oh, Peter de—ah.”
The blue sky and the light seemed to be in the room with her; it was such a sunny, sunny day. And the scent of the pines—Rose Ellen would always love the scent of the pines.
She took out the blue forget-me-nots and the pink no-nevers. Next came the wood violets and primroses, very sweet. She laid each bunch by itself, and began to lift the moss. It was fern moss, very green, the sort she loved best of all—perhaps Peter remembered how much she liked it. She lifted the moss, and found something doubled up in an old envelope.
“Keep it safe till I come, and don’t tell anyone.” What was she to keep safe for Peter? Her hand shook a little as she tore away the sodden paper. Then she cried out. The Annam Jewel slipped between her fingers, and lay upon the moss. She cried out, and shut her eyes. The room seemed to tremble a little. She caught at the edge of the window-seat, bent forward, and looked again.
It was the Annam Jewel. Peter had sent her the Annam Jewel. It lay there on the moss, and the sun shone on it. It was living colour. It was sky, and sunset, and golden moon.
A great many thoughts came into Rose Ellen’s mind as she looked at the Jewel. Quite suddenly she pushed it down into the moss and covered it. Her eyes went back to the sky and the sea.
After a little while she got up, and filled the glass dish with water. Then she laid the moss in it, and made the little bunches of flowers stand upright in the moss as if they had roots and were really growing. When she had finished, the Annam Jewel lay alone, with the light upon it. Without looking at it, Rose Ellen carried her little moss garden to the other side of the room and set it down on a table out of the sun. Then she went back.
Peter had said, “Keep it safe for me till I come.” Peter had said, “I will come as soon as I can.” She must keep it safe for Peter.
She picked up the Jewel, knotted it in a little handkerchief with a net border, and pushed it down inside the front of her brown holland dress. She put Peter’s letter there too. Then she put on a shady rush hat, and went to find Jimmy.
CHAPTER XXXV
Peter arrived at Lenton at a quarter to eleven, and took a taxi out to Cliff Edge. The driver took a sharp turn to the right just before reaching Chark, and for the last half-mile they followed an unmetalled track across the rising moor. Cliff Edge had a right to its name; the space of the garden beyond it, the cliff fell sheer to the sea.
Peter paid and dismissed his taxi, and was prepared with an apology when Mrs. Gaisford came into the drawing-room. She wore the air of a woman who had been torn from her unpacking.
“No, not a bit too early, if you don’t mind looking after yourself,” she said. “After all, it’s Rose Ellen you want to see, isn’t it? Now, do you mind finding your own way down the garden? She’s out on the cliff, beyond those trees, with Jimmy. I’m just going to send Nurse for him.” She stood by the open glass doors and pointed. “Straight down the path past the tulip beds,” she said.
Peter walked down the path between beds of orange, and lilac, and rose-coloured tulips. Where the flower-beds ended there was a shrubbery. Beyond the shrubbery there were seven pine-trees. The path took a winding turn and came out on the real edge of the cliff. The ground was very uneven; yellow patches of sand showed between the tussocks of coarse grass. A heaped parapet of rough stones guarded the dangerous edge. Beyond it was the sea.
Peter saw Rose Ellen. She was leaning against the parapet with one arm about the infant Jimmy, who had fallen asleep. He slept, as many children do, with his eyes only half shut; some of the blue showed through the lashes, and looked all the bluer because his cheeks were so red. Rose Ellen’s head was bent so that the shade of her hat fell upon Jimmy’s face.
Peter stood still for a moment, and looked. Something tugged at his heart. Rose Ellen looked up and saw him.
There was just a moment of silence, and then Rose Ellen said, “S-s-h!” and held out a little, brown left hand. Before Peter could say anything, there was a sound of footsteps and a rustle of starched linen, followed by the appearance of Jimmy’s nurse. She removed Jimmy, still sleeping. Peter sat down on the grass beside Rose Ellen.
“Did you get it?” he said. “My parcel, I mean. It ought to have come. Did you get it?”
Rose Ellen looked at him with a very little smile which began by being teasing, and then trembled into sweetness.
“I got your flowers,” she said.
“You did? Did you like them? Did you find the Jewel?”
Rose Ellen nodded.
“Why did you send it to me?” she said.
Peter frowned. He might tell Rose Ellen that he had sent her the Jewel because he wanted her to have it—he thought of doing this—he began to dig little holes in the sand and to frown at them ferociously. Or he might tell her that he had sent her the Jewel because he knew that it would be safe with her. But then she might not understand—even Rose Ellen might not understand.
“Oh, Peter, your hands, your poor hands!” said Rose Ellen in a quick, distressed voice. “What have you done to them?”
Peter’s indecision passed. He rolled over, with his elbows on the ground and his chin in his hands.
“It’s nothing,” he said, “only scratches. But I’ve been going rather strong in the adventure line ever since I left Merton Clevery. It doesn’t feel like two days; it feels like years. And I want to tell you all about it. That’s why I’ve come.”
“Is it all about the Jewel?” said Rose Ellen.
“Some of it’s about the Jewel.”
Peter was not going to commit himself. He had made a plan. First of all he was going to tell Rose Ellen about the Jewel and his adventures; and then he was going to tell her how frightfully he loved her. He couldn’t think how he hadn’t known it all the time. There was something so dear about Rose Ellen. Now that he was with her he felt as if nothing could ever go
wrong again. Rose Ellen made you feel like that.
“Tell me, Peter de—ah,” she said.
“I want you to read my father’s notes first. I got them when I was twenty-five, with a sham Jewel. Read it, and you’ll see.”
He dragged the exercise-book out of a pocket and laid it on her lap. Rose Ellen opened it and read in silence. While she read, Peter watched her face. Rose Ellen was frightfully fascinating to watch, because her colour kept changing; all the changes were beautiful. It came to Peter as a sort of surprise that Rose Ellen was beautiful.
She finished reading, and looked at him across the open page.
“Peter, it’s dreadful,” she said. “Oh, Peter, I hate it.”
She put her hand to her breast, took out the little knotted handkerchief with the net border, and set it on the grass at arm’s length.
“Yes, it makes you feel like that,” said Peter. “It’s all rather beastly, really. I want to tell you about it—the rest of it. These two men whom my father speaks of—Henderson and Dale—well, one of them is this man Hendebakker that the papers are so full of, the new millionaire; and the other is Mr. Coverdale.” He paused, and then added, “Sylvia’s father.”
Rose Ellen cried out softly. Her hands took hold of one another.
Peter began to tell her the whole story. It was always easy to talk to Rose Ellen, because, even if she didn’t say a single word, you felt that she was going with you all the way.
The beginning was the most difficult part. Sylvia—he didn’t want to talk about Sylvia, but he couldn’t leave her out, not to Rose Ellen. The scene at The Luxe when Sylvia gave him the Jewel, got three short sentences. The scene in the beech-wood, when he saw Rose Ellen’s tears and knew how much he loved her, did not get a sentence at all. He went on with a rush to his visit to Sunnings and Roden Coverdale.
“He was awfully decent to me. He told me things. I’d like to tell you all about it, if you don’t mind.”
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