Hole and Corner (14 page)

“Go on,” said Anthony.

“Well, I tucked her up for a rest and went into the study. At half-past four we had tea, and then I wrote some letters for her, and after that I was reading to her. And in the end I nearly lost the six o'clock bus, because she wanted me to look up a telephone number at the last minute, so I had to run, and the brooch kept banging against my leg, and I thought it was one of those weights they put in the hem.”

“And it wasn't,” said Anthony with half a laugh. “Now let's get back to the afternoon. Who was in the house besides you and Aunt Agnes?”

Shirley hesitated.

“I don't really know.… Oh yes—Possett was out—she'd gone to see her mother at Ealing.”

“I'd go bail for Possett,” said Anthony. “But we'll check up on her all the same. Was she back before you left?”

“No, I'm sure she wasn't. She always comes straight through to Mrs Huddleston. She doesn't generally get back till half-past six, but she must have been early, because I saw her when the policeman went in.” A shiver went over her. It was dreadful to remember that she had run away from a policeman. She went on quickly. “I think she must have got back early—just after I left. And the first thing Mrs Huddleston would do would be to tell her about the brooch. And when they found it wasn't there they just
rushed
and sent for the police. And I've been thinking what a coward I was to run away, but if I
hadn't
, they'd have arrested me and I'd be in a prison cell at this very minute instead of here.”

“Rather be here?” said Anthony softly.

“Much rather,” said Shirley with a shaky little laugh.

There was an interlude, from which Shirley emerged in a state of hardened impenitence about having run away. She hadn't been cowardly—she had been clever. She had run away to Anthony, and here she was. It was much, much the best thing she could have done. Anthony said so, and he ought to know.

The cross-examination was resumed. It is not usual for counsel to have his arm round the witness's waist, or for the witness to have her head upon counsel's shoulder, but it may be quite an agreeable arrangement.

“Who brought in the tea?” said Anthony.

“That new girl, Bessie.”

“I didn't cotton to her very much. What's her other name?”

“Wood. She had splendid references. I saw the last woman she'd been with—she said she was a treasure.”

“How long was she there, and why did she leave?”

“Six months. She didn't get on with the cook.”

“Give me the name and address. I'm going to check everything. Old Downie the cook has been with Aunt Agnes ever since I can remember. If anyone's been playing tricks, it's simply bound to be this Bessie. Would you have heard her if she had gone into the drawing-room?”

“I don't suppose I should.”

“Would Aunt Agnes?”

“Not if she was asleep,” said Shirley.

“But was she asleep? That's the point.”

Shirley lifted her head and moved round to face him.

“Anthony—that's where we're
had
,” she said. “She always does go to sleep in the afternoon, and when she's off, a pack of burglars wouldn't wake her—I've never seen anyone sleep so sound. But if you think wild horses would make her admit having slept a single wink—”

“Damn!” said Anthony with simple fervour.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They drove along the black lanes, and never met a soul until they came out on the Ledlington road. They had repacked one of Anthony's suit-cases, and every time Shirley thought about unpacking a large male hairbrush, and yards and yards of jazz dressing-gown, and Anthony's enormous pyjamas she began to have an inward giggle. She hoped it would go on being inward, because the only thing that could be more compromising than her luggage would be to giggle about it under the eye of a reception-clerk or a chambermaid. She dwelt on this horrid possibility, and then, to get away from it, she said,

“Why should Miss Maltby want to get me into trouble?”

“I don't know why anyone should want to get you into trouble,” said Anthony, “but it's a sure thing that somebody does.”

Shirley considered that for a little. The Ledlington road ran wide and straight. The black hedges rushed by. The hands of the clock on the dashboard stood at five minutes to twelve. It didn't seem possible that so much could have happened since they had stood there last. Last time it had been twelve o'clock she had been reading the Stock Exchange news aloud to Mrs Huddleston. Shirley found it very dull, but Mrs Huddleston loved it. Shirley considered it a morbid taste.

Well, that was only twelve hours ago. It really didn't seem possible.

She said suddenly, “Anthony—didn't you ever think I had taken those things? You really don't know very much about me. Suppose I turn out to be a thief, or a kleptomaniac or something.”

“I hope you won't,” said Anthony. “I mean, it would be a bit embarrassing.”

Shirley laughed breathlessly.

“The embarrassed barrister! It would—wouldn't it? That's why we oughtn't to be engaged—not till we've found out who's been doing all this.”

“We
are
engaged,” said Anthony. “You can't not be engaged once you are.”

“I can break it off.”

“Then I'd run you in for breach of promise.”

“You couldnt'!”

“Oh, couldn't I? You just wait and see! I should conduct my own case, and have the jury sobbing into their pocket-handkerchiefs at my description of how you lured me on, and promised to marry me, and then turned me down.”

“Have I promised to marry you?” said Shirley.

Anthony's left hand shot out and caught her by the wrist.

“If you haven't, you'll do it now!
Swear!
”

Shirley began to laugh.

“Anthony, do let go—it isn't safe!”

He set the car on a zig-zag course, and said “
Swear!
” with a floe rolling “r” and the voice in which the villain of a melodrama presents the virtuous heroine with his well known ultimatum.

Shirley gave a little shriek as they skimmed the edge of the ditch on one side of the road and then headed for the bank on the other.

“Anthony—
don't
! I'm going to scream!”

The grip on her wrist tightened. The villain's voice became more villainous.

“It is useless to shriek—there is none to hear you. Swear that you will marry me—by all that you hold sacred
swear it
!”

They shaved the bank and took a long diagonal towards the ditch again.

“I swear,” said Shirley with a terrified giggle. She screamed as they escaped the ditch and came back into the middle of the road again. “Oh, Anthony, what a fool you are!”

Without stopping the car he pulled her close, kissed her lightly, and let her go.

“Don't forget you've sworn,” he said.

Shirley thought about that. Her head was whirling, and it wasn't easy to think at all. She couldn't marry him if they sent her to prison. He wouldn't want her to. Or would he? It came dimly into her mind that there might be something behind his fooling. There had been something in his voice when he said, “Don't forget you've sworn.” But he hadn't answered her question. She said that aloud.

“You didn't answer my question.”

“What question?”

It had been so hard to say it at all. She didn't want to say it again. She said piteously,

“I don't want to say it again.”

His left hand came out once more. This time it rested on her knee with a heavy, comforting pressure. He said,

“Don't be silly, my dear.”

There was an everyday matter-of-fact sound in his voice that was more convincing than many protestations. She knew that he had never thought, and could never think, anything about her that wasn't true. Something in him knew what was true about her, and what wasn't true. If two strings are close enough together, one vibrates when the other is touched. It is the same with people. If they are very close to each other, not with their bodies but with their selves, there is something which sees, and knows, and is sure without any words.

Shirley gave a deep satisfied sigh and said in a sleepy voice,

“Then that's all right.”

Then she went to sleep in her corner, and woke with a start when they stopped at the Station Hotel. She got out blinking and a little bewildered.

Anthony was very high-handed with the hotel. He was going straight on to London, but his sister wanted a room for the night. He registered Shirley as Miss Alice Lester to correspond with the A.L. on his suit-case, and adjured her in a last private moment not to forget and relapse into Shirley Dale, and to sit tight till he came for her.

“And I'll try and get down for lunch, but if the Blessed Damozel's having hysterics I may have to stop and see her through them.” And with that and a grip of her arm he was back in the driver's seat.

Shirley stood clear and watched the red tail-light draw away and then go out suddenly like a dead spark as the car turned out of the station yard.

She went up to her room. Her face was even dirtier than she expected, but the night-porter who had brought up her suit-case—no, Anthony's suit-case—didn't appear to notice anything. The bathroom was just opposite, and he seemed quite sure that the water would be hot. It was boiling. As Shirley wallowed in it, she blessed the name of Ledlington, and its station, and its Station Hotel.

When she was most beautifully clean and warm, she arrayed herself in Anthony's blue and white pyjamas. The legs trailed on the floor and the sleeves flapped down over her hands, but she got back to her room somehow by clutching at the knees and taking up handfuls of stuff. Then she locked the door—Aunt Emily had been very particular indeed about locking your door in a hotel—and got into bed.

She had wondered what the bed would be like. Beds in country hotels are chancy, but she went to sleep so quickly that she had no time to find out. One minute she was climbing into bed and switching out the light, and the next, sleep rushed down upon her with the darkness and swept her away. At first she didn't dream at all. She lay on her left side with her hands doubled up under her chin and slept like a baby. The very ugly yellow wall-clock on the hall landing struck two, and three, and four, and five, and six. Then Shirley began to dream. It wasn't light yet, it wouldn't be light for a long time, but the night was passing. People were beginning to wake and turn over, and go to sleep again because it was Sunday morning. Without waking, Shirley came up out of the deep waters of sleep into its shallows and began to dream.

She dreamed she was in a cave. It was quite dark there, and she knew—because in a dream you do know that sort of thing—that the cave ran deep into a cliff, and that the mouth of it was blocked by the sea. So that she could never get out. She was in prison, and she couldn't ever get out. Then the sea came roaring in with a noise like thunder, and she ran away from it, deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the cave.

The dream broke. She was in a swing, and Anthony was in a swing. The two swings crossed one another, so that for one flying instant she and Anthony were close together, and then swooped apart again, and up with a rush to the top of the arc, and down with a rush again. Every time they passed Anthony called to her, but she couldn't heat what he said, and he put out his hands and caught her as she flew, and the swing broke and they went crashing down into another dream.

It was a very odd dream. At first she didn't know where she was. Then she saw old Aunt Emily in her night-gown, and her cap, and the woolly shawl with the blue crochet border which Shirley had knitted for her the Christmas before she died. She had her bedroom candle-stick in her hand, an old-fashioned white one with little bunches of flowers on it. The candle was lighted. Shirley was very glad not to be in the dark any more. And then she saw her mother's picture, just as she had seen it hanging above the drawing-room mantelpiece in Acacia Cottage, and all of a sudden that was where they were, she and Aunt Emily, and Aunt Emily gave her the candle and said “Be a good girl, Shirley,” just as she had said it a little before she died. And then she wasn't there any more, but Miss Maltby was letting herself in with a key as long as her arm. Shirley wanted to run away, but her feet wouldn't move. Her heart thumped with terror, her feet stuck to the carpet, and Miss Maltby stood in the doorway and said in a horrible hating voice, “It isn't fair. Why should you have it all?” And then Anthony came running like the wind and caught her hand, and she ran too, and the candle turned into a star, and the wind carried them away.

She woke up then and thought it was a pity, and turned over and went to sleep again.…

When she waked, the wall-clock in its hideous case of yellow maple had just finished striking ten o'clock, Shirley got up. She was hungry. She dressed, had breakfast, and wondered how soon Anthony would come. She packed away the pyjamas, and the dressing-gown, and the compromising hairbrush before she left the room, but as the suit-case had no key and she couldn't very well take it down to breakfast, she would have to hope for the best. If the chambermaid was inquisitive, it was all up—the breath of scandal would certainly blow. No one brought up by old Aunt Emily in a village could be quite indifferent to the breath of scandal, but with prison so to speak looming, it didn't seem to matter as much as it would have done before she started running away from the police. Anyhow she had done her best for Mrs Grundy, and if she didn't like it she would have to lump it.

After breakfast she went upstairs again. The suit-case didn't seem to have been moved. She extracted her coat from the vast emptiness of an old-fashioned wall cupboard and looked it over for possible damage. She had rushed out of Acacia Cottage with it bundled up anyhow over her arm and then gone blundering into Jane's shrubbery. There might be stains, or even a tear. Stains would sponge, but a tear would be a calamity.