Tommy got up and stretched herself. She said: “Well, it will be your fault if the hotel’s shut and we have to spend the night on the beach. Good-night, Corporal Brown.”
“We’ll row you back,” he said. “It’ll be easier for you than walking back in the dark—it’s on our way. We’ll drop you off at Cairn Harbour—wait a moment, though. We must give them the full time.”
The two prisoners were escorted over the rocks to the spit of rock where the boats were waiting, and Frances noticed that there were five men guarding the boats. (The exercise was being conducted in an exceedingly war-like manner—but of course it would be no use to have the exercise at all unless it was properly carried out.) Melton—the poacher—had made himself responsible for Frances and was holding her firmly by the elbow, and she was glad of his help for it was difficult to see where she was going.
“It’s slippy, isn’t it?” Melton said. “It’s dark too—not much of a moon to-night. You aren’t cold, are you, miss?”
“No, not a bit, thank you,” replied Frances.
“You didn’t mind being kept back, did you?” asked Melton anxiously. “The corporal couldn’t do nothings else. It was orders—Captain Tarlatan’s orders.”
“We didn’t mind at all,” declared Frances with perfect truth.
“I’m glad B Company got through,” said Melton. “B Company’s the best in the regiment, and Captain Tarlatan—well, he’s the best officer. There’s no one like Captain Tarlatan, that’s what I say.”
Frances had thought from the first that Melton was a very intelligent man—she was sure of it now.
CHAPTER XXIV
Sunday was a quiet day at Cairn. Frances had hoped that Guy would come over from the camp, for she wanted to speak to him about the Widgerys, but Guy did not appear. He had been out all night, of course, so perhaps he was resting. On Monday morning Frances walked over to Sea View (she was worried about Tommy and could not keep away). She found Tommy very busy putting her house in order.
“I’m leaving this afternoon,” said Tommy. “I’m going to Aberdeen. I told you about it, didn’t I? You can have the house if I don’t come back—if I’m killed on the road or anything—you can have the house and everything in it, everything except Midge.”
“Tommy, what is the matter?” inquired Frances in dismay.
“Nothing,” said Tommy. “Nothing at all. That’s the ridiculous part of it. Everything has fitted in splendidly. I’ve managed to save enough petrol to get to Aberdeen and I’ve got my petrol coupons for this month to come back with. I’m starting immediately after lunch and spending the night in Glasgow with a friend. Midge is leaving for London tomorrow morning and we’re both coming back on Saturday. Everything has fitted in perfectly—just like a jigsaw puzzle.”
“Well, then, why—”
“It’s fitted in too well,” Tommy declared. “There’s bound to be a snag somewhere. I’ve got a feeling that it’s a horribly big snag. I don’t want to go.”
Frances comforted Tommy as best she could, and they kissed each other when they parted.
“That’s the first time we’ve kissed each other,” said Tommy, smiling a trifle sadly. “Wouldn’t it be—wouldn’t it be strange if it was the last time, Frances?”*
“Nonsense,” said Frances, trying to laugh but not succeeding at all well. “Absolute nonsense, Tommy. We’re friends—”
“Yes, of course we are,” Tommy said.
It was raining hard in the afternoon, but Frances felt so restless, so worried and upset, that she put on her oilskins and went for a walk. She returned late for tea and found Guy Tarlatan in the lounge. He was drinking a cocktail and smoking and turning over the pages of an old and extremely tattered Punch.
“Hallo, Frances,” he said. “Where have you been? I thought you would be in because it’s such a foul day. Do you like walking in the rain?”
“Sometimes,” said Frances. She hesitated and then added: “I wanted to see you, Guy. I wanted to tell you something.”
“Go ahead,” he replied, smiling at her.
Frances sat down beside him. She had taken off her sou’wester, and her hair was in a mess, but she was not thinking about her hair. “It’s Tommy,” she said. “I’m terribly worried about Tommy . . . there’s something wrong.”
“Something wrong?” he said. “There’s always been something wrong. Widgery is selfish.”
“Selfish!” she exclaimed, almost laughing at the absurdity of the description.
“Selfish to the bone,” nodded Guy. “He thinks and cares for nobody and nothing except himself. He admires nothing but himself. He’s the vainest man on earth. I’m just about through with Captain Middleton Widgery if you want to know the truth.”
“Yes,” said Frances, “but the fact is—”
“Tommy hasn’t the slightest idea how to manage him,” continued Guy, “and that’s odd, you know, because—well—because she’s rather clever at managing people—no, that isn’t what I mean. I mean, she has an instinct for getting on with people.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Frances.
“So it’s very unfortunate indeed that her instinct should fail her where he’s concerned.”
“Yes,” said Frances again.
“It’s because,” said Guy gravely—“it’s because she loves him too much. Never love any one too much, Frances. It’s the very devil. It puts you so hopelessly in their power. It makes you such a coward. You’re afraid to—to say anything when you’re with them, and then, when you aren’t with them, you find all sorts of things you might have said. You make up your mind that you’ll say all the things next time—and then you don’t.”
Frances had a feeling that he had forgotten about the Widgerys and she brought him back firmly to the subject. “I wanted to tell you,” she said. “It’s about Captain Widgery. I saw him in the woods. I’m practically certain it was he—” She hesitated.
She had known it would be difficult to tell Guy, but it was even more difficult than she had expected. She felt herself blushing furiously—that absurd blush always made her angry.
“He was with a woman, I suppose,” said Guy.
“How did you know?”
“It wasn’t very difficult to guess. Who was the woman, Frances?”
“I don’t know. It was dark—at least it was half dark. I recognised him by his voice and by something he said.”
“Was it a woman from the village?”
“It might have been. She had a light scarf—or perhaps it was a shawl—tied over her head. I didn’t know what to do,” said Frances earnestly. “I couldn’t make up my mind what I ought to do—so I thought I’d tell you.”
“What can I do?” he asked.
“I thought you’d know what was the right thing,” said Frances.
He smiled at her. He had a very charming smile. “We must do nothing,” he said. “Do nothing and say nothing . . . now that you’ve spilt the beans we can enjoy ourselves. Have a drink, Frances? Well, have a cigarette? I’ve been so busy over that blinking exercise that I haven’t seen you for days.”
“I saw you on Saturday,” said Frances.
“Where?”
“Where do you think?” she asked, smiling at him. “I was so near you that I could almost have touched you—you and your invaders!”
“You weren’t in the woods?”
Frances told him about their adventure, she told him everything that had happened . . . there was only one omission in her story: she did not tell him about her drink at the magic spring . . .
When she had finished and Guy had stopped laughing he took up the tale himself and gave Frances a short account of the night’s operations. “It was a good show,” he said. “It really was a most useful night’s work—not only for the Home Guard but for ourselves as well. The other columns approached the castle from the land—they were supposed to be parachutists. I knew about that path so I said I would approach from the sea. You saw us arrive and disembark; they did it well, didn’t
they? When we got to the chapel we lay doggo for a bit while Mark took a couple of fellows and did a bit of scouting. I was rather amused when one of the fellows discovered the spring—they all had a drink, every man jack of them. I didn’t tell them the awful fate they were bringing upon themselves.” He paused and smiled, and Frances smiled back. “I had another drink myself,” declared Guy. “I thought I might as well do the thing thoroughly while I was about it”
“Yes,” agreed Frances. “If you are going to be married it is better to be thoroughly married—”
“Mark scouted round for a bit and then he came back and said there was a detachment of the Home Guard farther up the path, so we divided the men into two lots. Mark’s detachment was to show itself and draw off the defenders while we nipped past; the plan worked splendidly. We made a detour and came up near the ruins of the old castle; we hid there for a bit and then slipped in at the dining-room window, and there we were. When old MacDonald got back he was a bit chagrined, but he was very decent about it. We were the only people who managed to get through without being spotted; the others were all mopped up before they’d gone half a mile. It was pretty good work on the part of the Home Guard.”
“You got through,” Frances said.
“I know, but it wasn’t really very fair. We wouldn’t have got through if I hadn’t known the lie of the land. A real invader wouldn’t have the local knowledge unless he managed to get hold of a Quisling.” Guy rose and looked out of the window—the rain was coming down in sheets.
“This is an awful place when it’s wet,” said Guy a trifle fretfully. “Why don’t they have a billiard-room?”
“We could play some other game,” suggested Frances.
“What sort of game?” he asked. “Can you play shove halfpenny, Frances?”
She saw there was a twinkle in his eye, so she replied gravely: “No, I’m afraid not, but perhaps I could learn.”
“It’s a very difficult game,” declared Guy. “If there had been a billiard-table—”
“There’s a backgammon board,” Frances said.
He laughed. “Well, why not? I haven’t played since I was a child, but we’ll have a shot at it if you would like to.”
Frances fetched the backgammon board (she had seen it lying on the shelf below the Waverley Novels). They put it on the table and set out the pieces. At first Guy was not very skilful—nor very interested—but after two games, which Frances won quite easily, he drew in his chair and settled down to it in earnest. Frances had always been able to beat Uncle Henry two games out of three, but she discovered that Guy was quite a different antagonist. He was cautious—as all backgammon players should be—but his caution was leavened with dashes of recklessness which took her by surprise. In the third game Frances was very nearly gammoned; she only avoided the disaster by throwing double sixes twice running.
He grinned at her and said: “Frances, you prayed.”
“What?” asked Frances in surprise.
“You prayed,” he repeated. “It isn’t fair to pray. When we were small Elise and I used to play golf together, and it was considered exceedingly bad form to pray for your putt to go down—it was almost cheating. You must have prayed for double sixes, I’m afraid.”
“No, honestly,” said Frances, smiling.
They arranged the pieces for another battle. “It’s a good game,” he said. “I’d forgotten what an awfully good game it is. Come on, Frances, I’m going to gammon you this time.”
They were still playing when Elise came into the lounge. She crossed over to the table and watched them. “Look,” said Elise, leaning on Guy’s shoulder and pointing to the board. “Look, Guy, you silly ass, you could have made a point in your inner table.”
“Go away,” said Guy. “Go and play with your baby. We’re busy.”
She laughed and sat down near the fire and took up her sewing. She was making a frock for Jennifer and embroidering it with daisies.
“Where is your baby?” asked Guy. “Where is my beautiful niece?”
“In bed, of course,” replied her mother.
“Is Ned coming over?”
“No.”
“I’ll dine with you if you like.”
“I would like,” replied Elise, smiling at him fondly, “but the fact is I promised to dine with Tillie. Jack is away and she’s feeling dull, so I promised I would go. It’s a frightful nuisance—”
“Oh, damn,” said Guy. “I can’t talk and play backgammon at the same time. You’ve taken me again—I didn’t notice that blot—and your inner table is full. How unkind you are, Frances!”
“Perhaps you would like to dine with me,” said Frances rather shyly.
“Yes,” said Guy. “Yes, let’s dine together and go for a walk afterwards—it has stopped raining now.”
It had stopped raining and the clouds had vanished as if some-one had taken a broom and swept the sky clean. Frances had seen this happen before at Cairn—it was one of the beauties of the place. One never knew from hour to hour what the weather would be; clouds blew up suddenly and filled the sky, and then, just as suddenly they were gone.
“We might walk along the shore,” Guy continued. “It would be rather nice, wouldn’t it? The tide is going out.”
“Are you sure?” asked Frances in significant tones.
“Perfectly certain,” he replied. “As a matter of fact I make it my business, now, to know what the sea is doing.”
“Why?” asked Elise, looking up from her work.
“Because,” said Guy. “Because—oh, just because it’s a good thing to know. Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”
“So you reconnoitre the sea?”
“Daily,” nodded Guy.
CHAPTER XXV
Frances and Guy dined together at the little table in the window, and as there was nobody else in the dining-room they were able to talk freely. Guy seemed different to-night; he was quiet and graver than usual—it was almost as if he were thinking of something, as if he had something on his mind—but in spite of this their conversation was more intimate and friendly, and Frances felt more at ease with him than she had ever felt before. He began to tell her about his boyhood and his school days and about the miseries of never having a settled home. Frances had heard something of this from Elise, and now she was hearing the same story from Guy’s point of view.
“It was like a dark cloud on one’s horizon,” said Guy. “The other fellows at school looked forward to the holidays—they counted the days—but I didn’t. They went home to their parents, they had ponies and dogs, they looked forward to seeing their familiar haunts. I never knew where I was going—sometimes to one set of relations and sometimes to another. Very often there was a muddle over it. I used to worry and worry. I lay awake at night for hours when all the other fellows were snoring away like foghorns. It was the same for Elise, of course—she was at a school at Bournemouth—but somehow or other I don’t think she worried quite so much as I did.”
“It must have been very bad for you,” said Frances.
“It made me a freak,” he replied, smiling at her. “It made me different from the other fellows—boys don’t like freaks, they like people who are the same as themselves. I suppose it was because I had a different background. At any rate it took me a long time to learn to behave like other people . . . and I’m still different inside,” added Guy, laughing.
“Don’t you think every one feels like that—different inside?”
“Not every one, but I believe you do.”
“Of course I do,” cried Frances, “and I haven’t learned to behave like other people. I’m still a freak.”
He looked at her rather strangely, so strangely that Frances dashed into hasty speech. “Didn’t your parents understand?” she asked. “Didn’t they write and arrange about your holidays?”
“Of course they wrote,” said Guy; “but letters from India take weeks to come, and sometimes Elise and I had no idea where we were going to spend our holiday
s until the very last minute. That was bad enough, but what was worse was the feeling that our relations didn’t want us, that they were just having us because there was nowhere else for us to go. Sometimes we spent the holidays with an aunt at Beckenham; she had three girls, lumpy, uninteresting girls. There was one occasion when a dreadful thing happened!—at least it seemed dreadful at the time. It was arranged that we were to go to this aunt and then one of the girls developed whooping-cough. Elise had just had whooping-cough at school, so it didn’t matter for her, but I hadn’t had the foul complaint. At the very last minute everything was upset, and I was packed off to another aunt at Margate—I shall never forget what I felt like. You see, Elise was all I had and I was all she had; we scarcely knew our parents. It seemed the end of the world to be going to Margate and not to be seeing Elise. The cousins at Margate were much older than I was and made no secret of the fact that I was a confounded nuisance—I’ve no doubt I was. At any rate I was miserable and I got miserable letters from Elise. Suddenly I felt that I could bear it no longer; I felt I had to see Elise, so I just walked out of the house and went. I got a bus part of the way and I walked and got lifts. I arrived in the middle of the night and threw stones, at Elise’s window and she came down at once. She wasn’t a bit surprised to see me, in fact she was expecting me. The Margate people had telephoned to say I had vanished, and Elise was quite certain I was on my way to see her. Of course there was a tremendous row between the two aunts—they didn’t like each other much at the best of times—but fortunately the Beckenham aunt took our part and said I was to stay there for the rest of the holidays and risk the whooping-cough and, as I was there already and possession is nine points of the law, the other aunt couldn’t do anything about it. The fact was the Beckenham aunt was rather pleased because I had walked out on the other aunt,” declared Guy, laughing.
“I don’t wonder you’re devoted to Elise,” said Frances.
“She’s a splendid person, isn’t she?”
“And so beautiful.”
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