Touch and Go (2 page)

“Geoffrey—my cousin Mr. Geoffrey Hildred—is most anxious about Lucilla. She was at school—I think I told you she was at school—but he insisted on her being taken away. After such a shock he said she would need great care.”

Sarah's tongue ran away with her.

“I should have thought school would have been the best place for her,” she said bluntly. Good Lord! A wretched girl has a shock, and you drag her away from her normal school life where she wouldn't have time to think about it and put her down in a lonely country house with an old lady who does nothing but rub it in! Well, men were fools enough for anything!

The old lady apparently had a gleam or two of common sense.

“I thought it would have been better if she had gone back—after the funeral, you know—and Dr. Drayton agreed with me at first, but afterwards he thought Geoffrey was right.”

Miss Marina went on talking about Geoffrey Hildred. He was a solicitor with a London practice, and it was very good of him to spare so much time to Lucilla's affairs, but he was so conscientious, and so anxious that Lucilla should have young companionship.

“Of course if Ricky could be here all the time it would be nice. He's twenty-four—just a nice difference in their ages. But he's in his father's office, and of course that keeps him very busy. Geoffrey is
really
my first cousin, you know, and not removed at all, though so much younger—but then of course his mother was my grandfather's second wife, a Miss Mallow of Deeping, a very old family but no money, and she died quite young poor thing, so there were no more children, and perhaps it was just as well. Geoffrey's boy, Ricky, is said to be like her, but I'm not very good at seeing likenesses myself. He's fair, and the Hildreds have always been fair—fair or auburn.” She put up her hand and patted the faded wig a little self-consciously. “Lucilla is very fair,” she said; and then, “I was hoping Geoffrey would have been here by now. I can't think what can have kept them. I know he will be anxious to meet you. They ought to have been here half an hour ago. What train were you catching, Miss Trent?”

“I'm driving,” said Sarah. “A friend lent me a car.”

“All alone—in the dark—all the way back to town?”

Sarah gave Miss Marina's dismay a very surface attention. Was she going to get the job, or wasn't she? As far as the old lady was concerned she was, but it seemed pretty plain that it was Cousin Geoffrey who ran the show. Her spirits, which had risen considerably, sank a little. Would Cousin Geoffrey think her young enough—or too young? Would a touch of lipstick have improved her chances? It might have finished her with the old lady. It was a bitter bad business making a good impression. She smiled at Miss Marina, who was recounting anecdotes of Ricky's infancy.

And then the door opened and Geoffrey Hildred came into the room.

CHAPTER II

Sarah came away walking on air. She was engaged, and she was going to get twenty pounds a year more than she had had with the Manifolds, and that meant that if Bertrand really got a new car, she could make him hand her over
The Bomb
. How little could she decently ask him to take? Fifteen? No, that was too much. Smith only offered him fifteen last year. “
Ten
—and he can take me out to a show on the proceeds.” The ten would have to come out of her precious nest-egg, but the extra twenty would make it possible to run
The Bomb
and still put away what she had always put away. No improvidence for Sarah Trent. She had had a look at being down and out and she wasn't taking any risks. Respectability, and a nest-egg—these were her twin aims. To be able to pursue them and yet indulge herself with
The Bomb
was a miracle of good luck. Her colour glowed and her eyes sparkled so becomingly that Watson shut the door upon her with regret, and reported in the servants' hall that the governess was a looker and no mistake.

Sarah started
The Bomb
with a joyous hand. A feeling of ownership glowed in her. Bertrand could say what he liked, but
The Bomb
always went better for her than for anyone else. Anyhow she'd never actually exploded or laid down and died, like she had with Bertrand's last girl but one.

“Joy!” said Sarah to herself; and then, “Damn!” because
The Bomb
, after starting like an angel or a Rolls and thus enabling Watson to close the door, suddenly coughed, spat, and faded into a discouraging silence just where the drive turned into the straight.

Sarah pressed the starter again. It sounded wonky, but you never could tell with
The Bomb
—she hated getting cold. “And I oughtn't to have sworn at her. She hates that worse than poison.”

“Angel!” said Sarah in her deepest, softest voice. “Angel
Bomb
, don't let me down.”

She pressed the starter again, and
The Bomb
got going with bewildering suddenness. There was a horrid noise and a horrid lurch, after which she proceeded in a series of bounds.

“Joy!” said Sarah and accelerated.

The long drive ran down hill.
The Bomb
gathered speed. There was a bank on either side and overarching trees. It was pitch dark, but Sarah's heart was as bright as the headlights. Another twenty pounds a year and a car of her own! Pride of ownership inflated her.

“I hope the brat's not half-witted. I'd like to have seen her before we clicked. Anyhow beggars can't be choosers, and I'm in luck, luck, luck!”

The lodge gates came in sight, with the road beyond them and the dark hedge on its farther side. And then with appalling suddenness someone screamed and fell. It was all just in one flash of time—the sound of a cracking branch, and the fall, and the scream. Something cut the beam of the off-side headlight and went down through it into the dark. The something was registered in Sarah's mind as a head with a nimbus of fair hair. She pulled the wheel over violently and jammed on her brakes.
The Bomb
ran into the left-hand bank and stopped. It all took no time at all to happen. Crash, scream, stop, and the head with the fair floating hair—they were all there together without any time going by.

Time began again when Sarah got the door open and jumped out. Her legs didn't shake. If they had belonged to her, they would probably have been shaking like anything, so perhaps it was just as well that they didn't belong to her. Her hands didn't belong to her either, but one of them had got hold of her pocket-torch and was turning the narrow pencil of light to and fro. The light moved quite steadily. The hand was quite steady. From a very, very long way off Sarah was looking for the head. It was like the worst sort of awful nightmare. When a nightmare was as bad as that, you generally woke up. Meanwhile she had got to find the head.

The ray picked out the gravel of the drive stone by stone. It picked out a dry fallen leaf, the ghost of a leaf, with a shadow like spilled ink. Every pebble had its shadow too. And then the light was on the soft fair hair. The hand that wasn't Sarah's didn't shake at all. It moved the torch, and the torch moved the ray. There was all that fair hair, and a white face, and a body that belonged to the head. The body was clothed in something woolly and black which came right up to the chin and down to the wrists.

Sarah put out her left hand and felt. The head appeared to be quite firmly attached to the body, and the body jerked as she touched it. The ray, crossing the face again, showed the eyes open and blinking. In a fusing flash of rage Sarah's limbs became her own again and Sarah herself ceased to be about a thousand miles away. She was kneeling on the gravel path shaking a black woolly shoulder and demanding in a voice of fury,

“Blithering idiot! What did you do that for?” And then, still at boiling point, “Are you hurt?”

The shoulder heaved and the owner sat up.

“Wh-what happened?”

“Don't you know?” said Sarah.

The shoulder heaved again, this time with a giggle that turned into a sob.

“Of c-course I don't.”

Sarah used some regrettable language.

“You blinking little idiot! Didn't you see my lights—didn't you
hear
me? People who've been stone deaf for
years
can hear
The Bomb
. I suppose you know you're pretty lucky to be alive. You haven't broken anything, have you?”

“N-no,” said the voice with a catch in it, “I d-don't think so.”

Sarah took her hand away and got up.

“You'd know if you had. Get up and see if you can walk! I'm Sarah Trent, and I suppose you're Lucilla Hildred. Now, where did you fall from, and what were you doing there anyhow?”

Lucilla scrambled up, said “Ouch!” and giggled again. “Nothing's broken. I was up on the bank. I wanted to see you pass.”

“And how did you think you were going to see me in the dark?”

“I'd got a torch—I was going to shoot it at you as you passed.”

“Nice child!” said Sarah. “You might have made me run into the bank. If that's what you wanted, you've done it all right.
The Bomb
is probably a corpse, and if I hadn't been pretty nippy with my brakes, you'd have been one too. What's the bright idea?”

“I didn't—” said Lucilla. “I mean there wasn't any idea—I mean I only wanted to shoot you with the torch and see if you'd jump. You see, it takes no end of a nerve to be any good at looking after me, so I thought I'd better find out whether it was any use letting you come. I mean if I really lay down and screamed, I suppose Aunt Marina and Uncle Geoffrey wouldn't make me have you.”

“I don't know. Are you going to try?” said Sarah.

It would have given her the greatest possible pleasure to box Lucilla's ears. They appeared to be rather above the level of her own and temptingly near. She swept the ray across her face instead. Pale face, pale hair, round pale blue eyes that blinked against the light. A long thin slip of a girl in heavy black. She let the torch fall again.

“You haven't told me what happened,” she said. The anger had gone out of her and she felt rather cold.

There was an odd little silence, rather a breathless little silence.

“I fell,” said Lucilla in a small uneven voice.

“How did you fall?”

“I don't know—I just fell. I didn't mean to.”

That was what Sarah had been wondering. A good deal depended on it. If Lucilla had meant to fall, no extra salary was going to drag Sarah Trent into her affairs. And then quite suddenly she was sure that Lucilla hadn't meant to fall. Her every instinct told her so. Lucilla's giggle told her so, and Lucilla's really brazen cheek. She might be a little beast, but she wasn't a would-be suicide.

Sarah gave a laugh of pure relief.

“Well, are you going to lie down and scream?” she said.

Lucilla giggled in the dark.

“I don't think so. You can come on appro if you like. I suppose they've engaged you. Uncle Geoffrey wanted a young one, and Aunt Marina's hated everyone she's seen so far. Can do.”

“How do you know I'll come?” said Sarah.

“Well, you wouldn't let a little thing like this put you off—I mean, would you? I knew you'd do as soon as you called me a blinking idiot. A real proper governess would have said ‘
My dear child!
'” She broke off and gave a whistle of dismay. “Oh golly! I shall be late for dinner! I say, they've not let you go without any food, have they?”

“I'm supposed to be dining with a friend,” said Sarah. “Sometime, you know, in the remote future, if I ever do get back to town.”

“Will she wait for you?” said Lucilla.

“Oh yes, he'll wait,” said Sarah.

CHAPTER III

Bertrand could wait, and Bertrand certainly would have to wait. If she got back by nine,
The Bomb
would be doing her proud. The picture of Bertrand Darnac waiting for his dinner till nine o'clock made Sarah feel warm and pleased all over. “
So
good for you, Ran darling,” she murmured as
The Bomb
turned the corner into the main road.

She felt at peace with all the world. Aunt Marina was a pussy old thing. When Sarah stroked her, she would purr. Uncle Geoffrey was going to eat out of her hand. She knew the symptoms. Lucilla was undoubtedly a little devil, but she would probably be quite an amusing little devil. Over and above all this, and the twenty pounds, and the prospect of acquiring
The Bomb
, there was the heady exhilaration which is natural when you think you have killed someone and then find that you haven't. It was amusing to be alive, and it was going to be very amusing to see Bertrand's face when she arrived hours late. If
The Bomb
hadn't behaved like a perfect saint after being run up the bank, Ran might have waited till closing time. “Noble, angel
Bomb
!” said Sarah in a much more affectionate voice than she had ever used to Mr. Bertrand Darnac. And with that
The Bomb
spluttered, slowed down, and stopped dead. The most horrible suspicion assailed Sarah. Bertrand had sworn that the tank was full. It now appeared probable that he had been thinking about last week. It was a waste of time looking for a spare can. You drove
The Bomb
on luck, not on good management.

Five minutes later Sarah was convinced that her luck was out.
The Bomb
was dead to the world, and no motorist ever stopped for you now, because if they did, you would probably turn out to be a bandit. The days were gone by when any young woman could stop any passing car however lordly. No, the only chance was a house, and it didn't seem to be a very good chance. It wasn't a housey road. It was dark, and straight, and overshadowed by trees.

Sarah took out her torch and flashed it about. On this side of the road the trees bordered an open common—two or three of them, and then a gap, and half a dozen more and some gorse bushes. “Blasted heath!” said Sarah viciously, and turned the torch across the road. Here the trees were much bigger. They bulged up against the sky and hung low down over the grass verge. She went across to have a nearer look, and found that under the drooping branches, all black and shadowy, there ran a high stone wall. “Somebody's park. That means a house, and that sort of house means a garage, and a garage means petrol.” Pleasant visions of an obliging young chauffeur rose before her. Chauffeurs were always very obliging to Sarah.