The Baker’s Daughter (17 page)

“All right!” echoed her grandparent. “It's a wonder I'm alive. What with the fright and the Laird rushing me down the path like a fire engine…”

“What on earth frightened you?” Sue demanded.

Mrs. Bulloch hesitated for a moment, and then she smiled. “Maybe it was a lion,” she said.

The whole affair was absolutely inexplicable to Sue, and Mrs. Bulloch refused to clear up the mystery or indeed to make any addition to the absurd statement she had already vouchsafed.

“But, Granny, it couldn't have been a lion,” Sue declared, perplexed beyond measure by the extraordinary way Mrs. Bulloch was behaving. “Did you see it in the bushes? Was it a big dog, or what?”

“Maybe it was.”

“Was he frightened too?”

“He ran hard enough,” declared Mrs. Bulloch, “but never mind that now. We'll take a walk around and see the rhodies. What was the Admiral telling ye about them?”

Apparently the Admiral had told Sue very little about the rhodies, and Sue found it difficult to say what it was they had talked about. “He was very nice,” she declared in answer to Mrs. Bulloch's searching inquiries. “He asked what I was doing and all that. I like the Admiral; he's a fatherly kind of man.”

“Fatherly, is he? That's grand,” said Mrs. Bulloch, with a sigh of relief.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Admiral was being led firmly in the direction of the house, his anger rising at every step. “What the hell!” he was inquiring. “Really, Jamie, can I not have a chat with a young woman in my own garden without interference from you.”

“Not that young woman,” declared the baronet firmly.

“She's a very nice young woman. Very nice indeed. In fact, she's charming.”

“All the more reason—”

“But I wasn't saying anything at all—not a blessed thing. I wanted to have a good look at her and see what she was like.”

“Who she was like, you mean.”

“Well, perhaps,” admitted Admiral Lang.

“Did you think she was like you?”

“God forbid!”

“She's like her grandmother,” declared Sir James. “That's who she's like. You think she's like your mother because your mother had red hair.”

“Auburn,” interrupted the Admiral. “It's exactly the same color, James. That rich, dark auburn—”

“For pity's sake! How many of us have hair like that? I could name half a dozen straight off.”

“And her hands—”

“Rupert,” said his friend sternly. “You've a bee in your bonnet about that girl. You'll raise hell if you're not careful. The old woman suspects something—”

“She doesn't!”

“She does indeed. She was scared to death when I found her.”

“Great Scott!”

“Promise me you'll leave the girl alone,” adjured Sir James. “I'll never have a peaceful moment if you don't.”

“I'll promise, Jamie,” said the Admiral meekly.

The warehouse was closed for the night, but there was still work to be done, and Sue was helping Bob Hickie to unpack some cases that had arrived in the afternoon. There were two cases from China, with queer lettering marked upon them in jet black ink, and one from Marseilles, larger but less romantic. Hickie had opened the Chinese cases first, and now he was busy unpacking jars of ginger and handing them to Sue to put away on the shelves.

“Sue,” he said, pausing for a moment and looking up into her face with his soft brown eyes. “Sue, are you liking it here?”

“I like lots of work,” Sue told him.

“You're a good worker,” he agreed. “I like work too, and this is interesting work. I like to see the cases arrive and all the good things come out and fill up the shelves. I've been here nine years now.”

Sue nodded.

“It's nine years since I saw you first,” continued Hickie. “You were just a wee girl.”

“I was fourteen,” Sue told him in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Fourteen,” he agreed. “That's not very old, but you were always awfully serious. You were never one to tease the life out of a person like some I could name.”

Sue was busy wiping the jars and polishing them. She arranged several on the shelf with great care before she answered, “I could never see the fun of that.”

“You're so kindhearted, Sue,” he told her earnestly.

Sue was touched by his words and by the doglike devotion in his eyes. She liked Bob immensely—he was so good and kind and hard working—and she knew that he loved her dearly. It would be the best thing for everybody if she married Bob. It would solve all her problems, and her grandparents would be beside themselves with delight. She was so tired of battling with her misery, of trying to be cheerful and bright when her heart was breaking. It was no use thinking of Mr. Darnay anymore, for he had gone out of her life forever. Why shouldn't she just say yes to Bob and make him happy?
I'll do it
, she thought, and she turned and smiled at Bob. She was aware that a very little encouragement would bring Bob to the point.

Bob Hickie was groping in the crate, so he did not see the smile that had been produced for his benefit. “What a pretty color!” he said, holding up a pale-yellow jar with little blue Chinese figures painted on it. “I like it's shape too. It's queer to think the crate was packed by a Chinese man and it's being unpacked by you and me.”

“Very queer,” said Sue. The smile of encouragement had faded now, and she could not produce another to save her life.

Afterward, as she lay in bed and thought about the incident, Sue was aghast.
I'm crazy
, she decided.
I'm fit for a madhouse. I ought to be locked up. Fancy if I had taken Bob; we'd be engaged this minute, and I would be lying here wondering how on earth I was going to get out of marrying him!
She thought about it for a long time, pitying Bob out of the pain in her own heart, and suddenly she saw her way clear. Bob could not be allowed to go away, for he was necessary to the business, but she could go herself. There was absolutely nothing to prevent her from leaving Beilford. Why hadn't she seen that before?

Sue broached her new plan to the Bullochs next morning and met with less opposition than she had expected.

“Maybe a wee change would do ye good,” Mrs. Bulloch said thoughtfully.

“Why not go to Bella for a while?” added Mr. Bulloch. “I'll miss ye badly, of course, but Granny's right, and a wee change would do ye no harm.”

She had not thought where to go, and one place seemed as good as another. There was no reason why she should not go to London and stay with Aunt Bella if Aunt Bella would have her.

“Bella will be glad to have ye,” declared Mrs. Bulloch with conviction, “and it's so nice and near the station if ye're wanting home. Do ye remember her, Sue?”

Sue remembered Aunt Bella—a cheerful, bustling woman who occasionally came to Beilford to stay with the Bullochs. “She's not very like Grandfather, is she?” Sue remarked.

“She's only his half sister,” said Mrs. Bulloch. “Thomas's own mother died when he was born…” And she launched forth into a long and detailed account of the Bulloch family.

Miss Bulloch kept a small hotel in London not far from Euston Station. The hotel was situated in a pleasant square, and as it was very comfortable and well kept, it was a flourishing concern. Miss Bulloch welcomed Sue with open arms. She had lived in London for twenty years, but she still felt an exile, and it was a great pleasure to be able to talk to Sue about her own people and to hear the lilt of her own language on Sue's lips. Miss Bulloch could speak “English” with the best of them—so she declared—but the Scots fitted her tongue like a comfortable shoe. She gave her great-niece a little bedroom at the top of the house—a strange little slip of a room rather like a ship's cabin. There was a fixed basin in one corner of the room and a built-in wardrobe in the other, and the divan bed—which was a great deal more comfortable than it looked—hid its real use beneath a gaudy chintz covering. Sue liked the room. It was very small—so small that you could hardly turn around in it, much less swing the proverbial cat—but it was fresh and bright and contained everything necessary to her comfort. The window opened onto a balcony and gave her a vast view of sky and chimney stacks. She put away her belongings tidily in the cupboard, hung her “White Lady” on the wall opposite her bed, and settled down to her new life.

* * *

Darnay had not written again, and Sue did not know whether he had gone abroad or not. She knew nothing about his movements and she found this hard to bear. If he had written occasionally and told her how he was and what he was doing, it would have been so much easier—or so she thought. She found it difficult to visualize Darnay now—the lean figure, the tanned face, the keen eyes—and sometimes she felt as if she must go back to Beilford so that she could see Darnay again. She knew that she would be able to see him very clearly at Tog's Mill, for everything would conspire to bring him before her eyes.

Sue had not been able to speak to her grandparents about her feelings for Darnay, but strangely enough, she found that she was able to confide in Aunt Bella.

It was one evening—a warm May evening—when they were sitting together at the open window in Aunt Bella's own private sitting room. Miss Bulloch had been busy all day, for the hotel was very full, but now she had done everything necessary and was taking her well-earned rest. She sat in an old basket chair, filling it comfortably, and put her feet on a footstool.

“That's better,” she said. “My, it's been a day! You've been real useful, Sue. I don't know what I would have done without you.”

“I like helping you,” Sue told her.

“I wish you'd stay. I'd be glad to have you, and that's the truth. It isn't only that you're useful, but it's having somebody of your own that's nice, somebody you can trust. I'd give you a reasonable salary if you'd consider it.”

“It's good of you, Aunt Bella,” Sue declared. “I don't know what to say. Grandfather wants me to go home soon and help him with the business, but…”

Aunt Bella waited. “But what?” she said at last. “What's keeping you back from going home and helping Thomas?”

Sue told her. She told Aunt Bella all about Bob, and when she had finished that story, she found herself speaking quite naturally of Mr. Darnay and of her time at Tog's Mill. Sue did not speak of the divorce, for she had promised her grandfather to tell nobody about that, but she told Aunt Bella everything else, and Aunt Bella listened enthralled. She nodded and sighed and asked the right questions in the right places, for she was a romantically minded woman for all her bustling, practical common sense.

“Well,” she said at last. “Well, it's no use telling you to take Hickie. That would be the sensible thing. Maybe you'll come to it in time.”

“No,” said Sue in a low voice.

“No?”

“No, Aunt Bella. I've known Mr. Darnay, you see, and nobody is any good after that. I love him,” continued Sue, lured into this extraordinary confession by her great-aunt's sympathy and the twilight hour. “I'll always love him. I know he doesn't think of me anymore, but I'll think of him till I die.”

“Another woman's husband!” commented Aunt Bella, not shocked but shaking her head sadly.

“She doesn't want him!” Sue cried, sitting up very straight in her chair. “She treated him badly. She went away and left him. Besides, I'm doing her no harm in thinking of him.”

“It's yourself you're harming,” Aunt Bella said, sighing. “For what good can come of it, Sue?”

“Nothing… I don't
want
anything except to see him sometimes. I'd be satisfied with that.”

“That's poor comfort. Are you going to give up your life to thinking about the man? It's a man by your side you're needing, a flesh and blood man to bear the burdens of life with you and share your sorrows and joys. Dreams…” said Aunt Bella in a low voice. “Dreams are useless, Sue. It's living that matters, everyday living.”

“I've thought that too sometimes.”

“I've lived in dreams,” continued Bella Bulloch softly. “My man was killed in the war, and I never fancied another, so I just stayed single and worstled through alone, but it's a lonely road, Sue, and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.”

“I didn't know.”

“It's a long time ago. I was young then, and not bad-looking either,” declared Aunt Bella more cheerfully. “I could have had my pick of one or two—though you may not believe it—but it's your life we've to think of now, and it seems a real pity that you couldn't make up your mind and take Bob.”

There was silence for a few minutes, and then she added, “Och, well, it's no use. I'm not telling you to marry one man with the other in your head. There would be no good in that.”

“What are you telling me then?” asked Sue in bewilderment.

“I'm telling you to put the man
out
of your head,” said Aunt Bella firmly, “and the way to do it is to fill your head with other things. I'll take you to the theater tomorrow.”

Sue liked London. She was seeing it at its best, for the sun shone and the trees were green, their new leaves as yet ungrimed with soot. The chestnut trees with their waxy flowers were beautiful—more beautiful than flowers that grow upon the ground, for their background was the soft blue sky. Sue wandered about London by herself. She liked looking at the shops and the people, and she watched the children in the park—beautiful children, beautifully dressed, who sat in their prams like kings and queens or ran about playing and calling to each other in tiny shrill voices. She remembered what Darnay had said about cities, but, unlike him, Sue did not mind being invisible; in fact, she found it rather amusing and she wondered why Darnay had hated it so. These people, all so busy with their own small affairs, did not look at her, but she looked at them and wondered about them and made up stories about their lives. It was not only the people who interested her; the city itself was fascinating. She went and looked at the river and saw the ships pass up and down. She visited the docks and wandered down side streets into little old-fashioned squares and terraces where the roar of London could be heard afar off—like breakers on a distant shore. Sue enjoyed this solitary wandering even more than the round of sightseeing Aunt Bella inaugurated for her entertainment.

One day when she was exploring in the vicinity of St. James's Palace she came across a shop window full of pictures, and, because she was always interested in pictures, she stopped and looked at them. How strange they were! How vivid in color! How entirely unlike the objects that they were supposed to represent!

Sue looked at them all carefully, and then, just as she was turning away, she saw the name on the wrought iron grill below the window.
Hedley.
It was Mr. Darnay's agent! She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should go in. It would be rather awful of her, of course, for she had no intention of buying a picture, but perhaps Mr. Darnay's pictures would be inside, and if so, she would see them. Suddenly, she felt that she must see those pictures again—they were a part of him. She pushed open the door and went inside.

She had expected to find herself in a shop, but this place was not like a shop at all. It was a large room with a thick fawn-colored carpet and walls of the same hue. On the walls were a few pictures—not many—and they were all vividly colored and queer. There was nobody in the room except a young man in a business suit who sat at a table, writing. He was so busy that he took no notice of Sue.

She stood for a few moments looking around timidly, and then she walked across the thick carpet and stood in front of one of the pictures. It was a very odd picture, Sue thought. The painter had chosen for his subject a china frog and a lemon and an ugly blue glass vase with one tulip hanging out of it sideways. What a funny collection it was! She was still looking at it and wondering about it when she was startled by the young man's voice at her elbow (he had approached so silently that she had no idea he was there). “Very interesting, isn't it?” he said.

“Very,” agreed Sue politely. Perhaps it
was
interesting when you really thought about it—interesting that anybody should bother to paint an ugly vase and a frog and a lemon and should paint them in that queer way so that it looked as if they were all tumbling forward out of the picture.

The young man was busy pointing out the especially “interesting” features of the picture in extremely technical terms and Sue listened and agreed with him. She agreed with everything he said, and the young man—who was by no means as foolish as he looked—realized quite soon that she was not a potential buyer.

“Are you interested in the work of Masserage?” he inquired hopefully, pointing to another picture at the far end of the room.

“Not awfully,” admitted Sue sadly.

“Is there anybody?” he asked, waving his hands as if he were offering her the World of Art. “Is there anybody at all?”

“Well, I'm interested in…in John Darnay's work.”

“You are, are you!” he cried. “Now that's very—er—interesting. We have one or two Darnays here—er—perhaps if you wouldn't mind waiting for a few moments—er—I think—er—I think Mr. Hedley himself would like to see you.”

“Oh,
no
!” exclaimed Sue. “I mean, I couldn't think of bothering him,” she added hastily. She was rather frightened now at what she had done; it was dreadful to have entered the premises on false pretenses. The young man was not so bad, for it was easy to agree with all he said, but Mr. Hedley would see through her in a moment and would realize that she was an impostor, absolutely ignorant of everything to do with painting. She thought regretfully of the book that Darnay had burned, and so vivid was her recollection of it that she could actually see it burning—the blackened leaves curling up and withering in the flames.
If only I had read it
, Sue thought,
I would know exactly what to say.

“Mr. Hedley will be delighted to speak to you,” the young man reassured her. “It will be no trouble at all. The fact is we are very—er—
interested
in Darnay just now.” And with that somewhat enigmatic statement he vanished through a door in the wall—a door that did not look like a door until it was open because it was covered with wallpaper the same as the rest of the room.

Sue was still gazing at it and wondering why a door should be thus disguised when it reopened very hastily and a small, fat man appeared. He had a round red face and a bald head, and his eyes were bright and sharp like the eyes of a robin.

“Good afternoon, Miss—er—”

“Pringle,” said Sue.

“Miss Pringle,” repeated Mr. Hedley, smiling at her with his head on one side. “Miss Pringle, yes. You are interested in Darnay's work?”

“Yes,” said Sue, “but I don't want to buy anything.”

“Dear me, no, of
course
not,” agreed the little man as if that were the last thing he expected or desired. “You don't want to buy anything, but you're interested; that's what we like to hear. We have one or two Darnays in the gallery, but they're all sold. Fetch them down, Edward.”

The young man departed on his errand with silent speed.

“They're sold?” Sue inquired.

“That's right,” said Mr. Hedley.

Sue was surprised to hear that they were sold, but she tried not to show it, for she was conscious that the little man was watching her intently. There was something here that she did not understand, and she must get to the bottom of it without giving herself away.

Edward returned laden with pictures. He lifted one onto an easel that stood against the wall and stepped back with the proud air of a conjurer who has produced a rabbit out of a hat. “Very, very interesting,” he murmured.

It was more than interesting to Sue, for it brought back Darnay and the life at Tog's Mill in a wave of remembrance. She remembered the day he had painted it in the snow and how she had tracked him down by his footprints, and she could hear his voice, that lazy teasing voice, saying, “It is your brain tells you snow is white—not your eyes.” The last time she had seen the picture was in the studio at Tog's Mill. She had helped to pack it (or rather she had packed it herself, for Darnay, like most men, was not much use at making parcels), and now here it was again—an old friend in alien surroundings.

“You like it?” Mr. Hedley inquired.

“Yes,” said Sue. “Yes, I think it is wonderful.” She hesitated for a moment and then added, “But I thought—I thought you said—”

“You thought what?” prompted Mr. Hedley, his eyes watching her face.

“Only that I thought you said it was sold?”

“It is sold,” Mr. Hedley declared. He made a sign to his assistant, and the young man whisked the picture away and produced another in its place. Sue stood before it in silence, drinking in the beauty of the pale sky with its flying clouds and the delicate tracery of the bare trees upon Biel Hill. Mr. Hedley was silent too, and even the tall Edward forbore to make his usual remark, for there was something in Miss Pringle's face that tendered him dumb.

There were five pictures in all, and each was displayed in turn, and it seemed to Sue that Darnay was here in the room with them—for there was a strange, wild beauty in the pictures, a brave freedom, and a vitality that were typical of Darnay's self. It amazed Sue to think that there had been a time when she saw no beauty in these canvases.
I must have been blind
, she thought.

“Well,” said Mr. Hedley at last, “that's the five pictures Darnay brought me, and I've sold them all.” He looked at Sue piercingly as he spoke, and then, as she made no comment, he continued earnestly. “Miss Pringle, I can see you are surprised to hear that the pictures are sold. Does this mean that you know Darnay? Does it mean that you are in communication with him?”

“I know him,” said Sue faintly.

“Do you know where he is?”

She shook her head.

“I don't know what to do,” declared Mr. Hedley with a helpless gesture of his small, fat hands. “I really am at my wit's end. It is quite against my principles to discuss the affairs of my clients, but I feel sure you know something about Darnay. Shall we be frank with each other, Miss Pringle?”

“We might be,” Sue said cautiously.

He smiled. “I think I can be frank with you,” he told her. “It is not every lady—but no matter. I only ask you most earnestly that you will regard what I say as being in strict confidence.”

They sat down on a small sofa in one corner of the room, and Edward returned to his writing. “Now, Miss Pringle,” said Mr. Hedley. “I'm going to tell you the whole story, and all I want in return is your help. Is that a bargain?”

“I'll help you if I can,” she replied slowly.

Mr. Hedley smiled again. “You're Scotch, aren't you?” he said. “It's another word for cautious—but no matter; it's better that way. Now, listen to me. John Darnay was a popular painter. He had developed a certain technique, and a great many people were interested in his work. I was able to sell his pictures without the slightest difficulty. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, Darnay gave up the whole thing. He went off to Scotland and started painting in an entirely different style. It was bad enough, from a business point of view, that he should change his technique, for the people who had been interested in his work were interested no longer—they wanted the old type of ‘Darnay.' But even worse was the fact that the new pictures were so strange, so stark and cold and unsympathetic, that nobody would look at them. People like bright colors, you see. I wrote to Darnay several times, begging him to return to the old technique, but it was no good.”

“I know,” Sue said. “But how could he go back to something he had outgrown?”

“He did go back to it, and most successfully,” declared Mr. Hedley.

“Yes, but he hated it,” she replied. “It was a dreadful thing for him to have to do; he only did it because he needed the money so badly.”

“Oh, well, if you know
that
!” Mr. Hedley exclaimed, considerably relieved to find that so far he had violated no confidences. “I got him the commission for the portrait because he wanted the money, and, as I said, it was a tremendous success. Personally, I thought he had flattered his sitter
too
much—a little flattery is permissible, of course, but Sir Archibald was charmed, positively charmed with the portrait. I was very much relieved, I can tell you, because I was a little doubtful what Darnay would do—he was in a strangely bitter mood.”

“You needn't have worried,” Sue told him. “Mr. Darnay had gotten the money so he was bound to give them what they wanted.”

“Well, yes, I suppose if you look at it in that way.”

“It's the way he would look at it,” declared Sue.

“Hmm,” said Mr. Hedley. “Anyhow, they were more than satisfied. Darnay was offered several other commissions—good ones—but he wouldn't look at them. He simply vanished,” said Mr. Hedley, throwing out his hands. “Simply vanished, leaving me with the five pictures that he had brought from Scotland. I held out no hope of selling them (for I didn't believe they would sell), but I told Darnay he could leave them here if he liked. Last week a gentleman called in to see me, a very rich American who is celebrated for his interest in modern art and has an amazing collection at his house on Long Island. He always calls on me when he comes over here to see what I've got. I told him about Darnay's latest craze and had the pictures brought down to show him—just to see what he would say.”

“What did he say?” asked Sue eagerly.

“He bought the lot,” replied Mr. Hedley significantly.

There was silence for a moment after this remarkable statement, and then Mr. Hedley continued, “Perhaps you don't realize what this means. It means that Darnay is a made man. The fact that Hiram B. Tollemacher has bought five Darnays is News with a big
N
. America will buy as many pictures as Darnay can paint—that's what it means. But Darnay has vanished off the face of the earth…”

“Oh, I'm glad!” Sue cried excitedly. “Oh, Mr. Hedley, we must find him and tell him about it. Surely we can find him.”

“We
must
find him,” Mr. Hedley agreed. “But how are we to do it; that's the question. I've tried his wife and his bank and his lawyer, and they all declare that they don't know where he has gone. I thought, perhaps, when I saw you were interested in Darnay, that you might have some idea…”

“He told me he thought of going to Italy or Germany,” Sue said doubtfully, “but that's not much help.”

“Very little. I might put an advertisement in the Italian and German newspapers, of course. Can you suggest anything else?”