Walk with Care (8 page)

CHAPTER XIII

JEREMY WALKED AWAY AT
an angry pace. He was both angry and sore. He had made a fool of himself under the eyes of that damned policeman. Why in heaven's name had Rosalind asked them there together? And what had happened to her? She had hardly spoken a word to him, and she had looked at him as if he were someone whom she might or might not have met before.

He headed for Regent's Park. He wanted to get away from pavements and stretch his legs. That twittering West woman had been right about the fog. It had lifted, and the sun shone from a cloudless sky. There remained only that faint blue haze which gives a touch of enchantment to everything.

When he had walked for a time, Jeremy stopped being angry. He began to puzzle over the snail. It quite certainly came from the same family as the baby owl which Rachel had dropped the first time he had seen her walking in her sleep. There was nothing so very strange about that. If someone was making these models, Rachel might have one, and Rosalind might have one, and so might dozens of people. The thing that puzzled him was why Garrett should have expected him to recognize the thing. He had sprung it on him. He had watched for some sign of recognition, and like an unutterable ass Jeremy had blushed. What was Garrett playing at? Rosalind had said that Garrett was taking an interest in him. Why?

He didn't like it. He sat down on a bench and tried to sort things out.

He didn't get on with it very well. He was reminded of the tangle of silks in his old Cousin Emily's work-bag. When he stayed with her as a schoolboy, she invariably produced it just as he had got well down into a book. She always said the same thing, with that sort of false brightness with which many otherwise excellent people address the young. He could hear her now—“And who's going to be very useful and disentangle my poor silks for me?” And with that she would pull out a jumbled mass about the size of a football. He supposed there must have been hundreds of hopelessly tangled skeins—bright and dark, old and new, pink, blue, yellow, red, green, orange, purple, magenta, and gold.

This business was exactly like Cousin Emily's jumbled silks. There were loops without ends, ends that led into a tangle, and knots which brought you to a standstill. There was the bit of paper he had found in
Anecdotes of the Great,
scrawled all over with his signature. There was the safe that had been left unlocked when he could swear that he had locked it and given Mannister the key. There was the letter which he had left in the safe and found only a few hours afterwards in the locked drawer of his own writing-table. There was Rachel, who came walking through cellar walls in her sleep, who said his name in a grieving voice, and showed him the open safe and the missing letter. There were the little models in blue-green clay. There was Rosalind, who had become a stranger. There was Colonel Garrett, who had the air of having sprung a trap upon him. A moment ago he had been wondering why Rosalind should have asked him with Garrett. Was it in order that Garrett might spring his trap? What a damnable thought! Rosalind wouldn't do that—not the Rosalind Denny he knew. But the Rosalind of to-day was a stranger. How do you know what a stranger will do?

He frowned and pushed the whole thing away. There had always come a time when he shoved Cousin Emily's silks back into their bag with a sort of furious haste because he felt like pitching the whole lot into the fire. He felt like that now. He shoved the whole thing away, banged a door on it, and began to take notice of his surroundings.

There was a wide stretch of green to his left, and a railed-off shrubbery with tall leafless trees rising out of evergreens and bare lilac bushes. Immediately in front a gravel walk separated him from the railing. A girl was leaning against it with her back to him. She had on a very shabby blue serge coat, thin indoor shoes which were quite new and beautifully cut, expensive silk stockings, and an absolute rag of a knitted cap which had once been red. Jeremy noticed her shoes and stockings first because the feet and ankles which they set off were highly commendable. He didn't know when he had seen better feet and ankles. Then his eye travelled upwards, and the blue serge coat struck him all of a heap. It was the sort of coat you simply don't see in London, where the poorest little fifteen-year-old apprentice contrives to look gaudy if not neat. It was of an aged fashion, flowing out to a wide circular hem, and it was worn, faded and stained to an almost unbelievable extent. It might have been salved from an ancient wreck of sea-rotted timber, and there was a shoaling play of colour from blue to purple which suggested prolonged immersion in salt water. The little red cap was its disreputable fellow, and both looked very odd indeed in conjunction with the smart shoes and stockings.

Jeremy could see no more of the girl herself than an inch or two of her neck with a knot of dark hair which met the blue serge collar. She was leaning on the railing, and she was whistling, not any air or tune, but a soft piping call, and just as he became aware of this, the call was answered. There was a splash of grey in the lilac and a squirrel came darting and checking, first to the right, then to the left. Suddenly, with a flirt of the tail, he ran up the railing and sat up not half a yard from the blue serge coat. The girl turned gently round, showing a bare hand with a lump of sugar on the palm, and as she turned, Jeremy caught his breath, for it was Rachel. He would have known the outstretched hand even if he had not seen her face. The lump of sugar lay where the key of the safe had lain last night.

With a little chattering sound the squirrel darted on the sugar and, sitting up, began to eat it, holding the lump delicately between his paws. He sent wary looks right and left as he ate, and as soon as he had finished he began to chatter for more.

Jeremy watched Rachel dive into a pocket and produce another lump. He could see her face in profile as he had seen it last night. But last night she had been in a different world, and what he saw was like a shadow or a ghost. Rachel awake had as many changing expressions as a pool of clear water on a day of wind and sun and racing cloud. Her lips parted in suspense when the squirrel hesitated, smiled encouragement when he advanced, and widened into lovely laughter when he snatched and fled. A very faint pure colour came and went in the cheeks which had been as white as milk in Mannister's library. There were little crinkles at the corners of her eyes when she laughed.

Jeremy had the strangest feeling that he was watching something which was for himself alone. To dream an unbelievable dream, and then to see one of the creatures of that dream at three o'clock in the afternoon in Regent's Park, would be likely to induce that kind of feeling. The rest of the people in the Park had ceased to have any existence at all. He watched Rachel, and Rachel watched the squirrel, who presently returned for more sugar.

Jeremy got up without any conscious intention of doing so, drifted slowly to the railing, and leaned upon it. A distance of about three yards separated him from Rachel. The squirrel was between them. That is to say, he would have been between them if he had remained, but after one lightning glance at Jeremy he chattered, dropped to the ground, and streaked behind a lilac-bush. Rachel's first conscious glance at Jeremy was therefore one of reproach. Her eyes were dark with it.

“Oh!” she said. “You frightened him!”

Jeremy said, “I'm so sorry.” And then he thought what an idiotic thing that was to say, and for the second time that day he blushed, and was furious with himself for blushing.

He could not, as a matter of fact, have done anything that would have served him better. Rachel had spoken without thinking, but a bare instant afterwards she remembered that you can't speak to strangers in London. She would have turned away if Jeremy had not changed colour, but when she saw him blush, she was afraid she had been too severe. If you have the gentleness which brings wild things to eat out of your hand, you do not readily hurt the feelings of a strange young man. So Rachel looked kindly at Jeremy Ware and said sweetly,

“Please don't mind—he'll come back. I'm sure you didn't mean to frighten him.”

Up to this moment Jeremy had been looking on. Last night Rachel had been in her dream, and he had watched her there. To-day he had watched her again, and she was awake. When she looked at him and spoke, he stopped looking on and the dream closed round them both. Nothing is strange in a dream, and there are no conventions. Jeremy met the kind, deep eyes and discovered that they really
were
brown—not the hot brown which makes for trouble, or the bright shiny brown which reminds one of bullseyes, or the shallow greeny brown which is almost hazel, but a clear, soft brown which took the lights and shadows of her mood. Last night they had been as dark as all the trouble in the world, but just now, when she smiled, they were almost golden.

Jeremy went on looking at her and thinking these things.

She did not blush or look away, but gradually the gold died and a faintly troubled look passed over her face. Her lips parted with a slight tremor, and she said,

“Have I seen you before?”

“I don't know,” said Jeremy. “I've seen you.”

She put a finger up and touched her lip.

Jeremy wondered how old she was. Eighteen—nineteen—twenty? She could not be more.

Her hand came down to the railing again. She went on looking at Jeremy.

“I thought I knew your voice. Do you ever begin to remember, and then it stops and you can't get hold of it? It was like that when you spoke to me—I thought I knew your voice.”

“I've spoken to you before,” said Jeremy.

They were side by side now. If he had moved his hand three inches, it would have touched hers. They were speaking low and as if they had known each other for a long time. She looked up at him like a puzzled child. Her eyes were wide and clear.

“Where have I seen you?”

“I don't know whether you saw me or not.”

“But you spoke to me. What did you say?”

Jeremy hesitated. Was she really remembering? What would she do if he said, “My name is Jeremy Ware”? He did not want to say that yet. He wanted first to know her name, and where she lived, and how he could see her again. He said,

“Please tell me your name.”

The very smallest possible smile showed in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. For the first time her lashes came down and hid the colour of her eyes. They were dark lashes, very fine and silky.

“Please tell me your name,” said Jeremy. After a pause he said, “Please, Rachel.”

The lashes flew up again. She looked at him with a mixture of fear, astonishment, and something which he could not define. He thought it was recognition—not recognition of him, but of some tone in his voice when he spoke her name.

She touched her lip again, thoughtfully this time. She repeated her own name.

“Rachel. … How do you know that?”

“Perhaps we met in a dream,” said Jeremy in his most serious voice.

She laughed, but her eyes were frightened.

“How could we?”

“I don't know. Don't you ever dream?”

The colour came into her face in a rosy wave. Why was she so pale? She ought always to have a colour like that. Why did she have dreams which distressed her and sent her wandering defenceless in her sleep?

She said, “Yes, I do dream.” She caught her breath as if the words frightened her.

“So do I.”

He thought of how he had dreamed of rushing trains, and of Gilbert Denny telling him that he wasn't in a safe place. He thought that bit of the dream was true enough, but he didn't know what he was going to do about it. He looked at Rachel and said,

“Please tell me your name.”

“I mustn't.”

Jeremy's hand went out and touched hers.

“What did you dream last night?” he said, and felt the little brown hand tremble and withdraw. There was no mistaking the trouble in her face.

She said under her breath,

“How do you know? Who are you? I want to know who you are.”

“Rachel—”

“Oh, won't you tell me who you are?”

“My name is Jeremy Ware.”

For a moment her face went blank. Jeremy had seen a man look like that when he had had the senses knocked out of him by a very sudden blow. Her eyes stared at him without any expression at all. After a moment her lips parted and a faint sound came from them—one of those purely involuntary sounds which cannot be written down. And then, with a suddenness which took him by surprise, she turned and ran away.

Jeremy ran after her.

When he came up with her, she turned a terrified face upon him and went on running.

“‘Rachel—please—”

She said, “No—no!” She looked as if he had frightened her out of her life.

“Rachel—stop—just for a moment!”

She said, “I can't—I can't!”

Jeremy was in despair. You can't run after an obviously frightened and unwilling girl in a London park without attracting attention.

“Rachel—for the Lord's sake stop running—just for a moment! I swear I won't bother you! You don't want to get us both arrested, do you?”

She stopped running as suddenly as she had begun. Her breath panted and her colour came and went.

“Rachel—
please!”

She said after a moment, “It was foolish to run away. You startled me. Will you let me go now?”

“Yes—if you want me to. I want terribly to talk to you.”

She shook her head.

“I mustn't talk. I oughtn't to have come. I didn't know you would be here.”

“Of course not.”

“Then you must let me go.”

“I must see you again.”

“No.”

“Oh, Rachel—why?”

Just for a moment she lifted her head and looked at the sky. The sun shone on the shabby coat, and the faded cap, and the silky black lashes. It made golden pools of her eyes. The fear went out of her face, and the kind, gentle look came back.