Touch and Go (20 page)

Ricky was apparently not included in anyone's plans for the afternoon. He had stayed away from church, and appeared at lunch to be in what Lucilla characterised as a foul temper. After lunch Miss Marina retired to her room and Geoffrey Hildred to his study. Ricky, after bickering with Lucilla, took out his father's car and made off in it, whereupon Lucilla put on her hat and went down to the gate to meet Bertrand. Sarah caught her up at the turn, and was received without enthusiasm.

“Did we ask you to come too?” said Lucilla.

“I'm not coming too—I'm only going to see you start.”

Lucilla pulled a face.

“Give handy to Nanna and walk nicely, and take care you don't fall and spoil your nice Sunday dress,” she said in a mincing voice.

Sarah looked at her straight.

“Well, you did fall here once, Lucilla,” she said. “And after yesterday—I'll see you start with Ran.”

“A good, trustworthy young man.” Lucilla's voice was meek, but there was a gleam in her eye.

“He'd hate to hear you say so. But I think he is—really.”

Lucilla insisted on holding Sarah's hand to the bottom of the drive, where they found Bertrand waiting. She went off with him in high spirits.

Sarah watched them out of sight and considered what she would do next. She had not said that she would go down to the lower pool, but she went. It was in the Holme Fallow grounds, but the road lay between it and the house. There was a stile which shortened the distance, and a path which ran down hill through the fields and skirted an orchard. A few late apples showed among the leaves, which were yellowing too. A gate led into the orchard, and the path went on dropping until it left the trees behind. There were two pools, fed by the tiny trickle of a stream which ran through the middle of the orchard. Lucilla called them Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured. Penny Plain was used for watering the cattle on the grazing land, but Twopence Coloured was given up to water forget-me-not, and tall yellow flags, with a very old crooked willow-tree standing on the east side, where it only kept the early morning sun off the water. The yellow irises were out of bloom long ago, their tall sword-like leaves beginning to turn, but the forget-me-not still bloomed with careless profusion.

John Brown was not merely sketching the forget-me-not. He was drawing the portrait of a very large and brilliant dragon-fly which hung above the water. He had a long pale green body tipped with blue, poised motionless amid the unceasing and almost invisible motion of four gauzy wings. Every now and then he darted here, there, away, and back again, and at every turn there was a faint clang as the wings touched. The portrait was a very faithful one. Sarah stood looking at it.

“But you can't paint that stillness in the midst of movement,” said John Brown regretfully. “Look how his wings go—and he keeps it up all the time.”

“He's awfully like an aeroplane,” said Sarah.

John Brown looked over his shoulder laughing.

“That's putting the cart before the horse, isn't it?”

Sarah laughed too.

“But you know what I mean. Isn't it awfully late for dragon-flies?”

He nodded.

“That's why I wanted to catch this gentleman. They only show up when it's sunny.”

The dragon-fly dropped suddenly to the point of a dipping iris leaf, hovered a moment, and settled. For the first time the bewildering misty motion of the wings ceased. They stood out straight and stiff, clear as the wings of a gnat but with a bronzy iridescence. The weight of the apple-green body brought the leaf's sword-point down and down until it almost touched the drift of forget-me-not. Turquoise of the flowers, bright pale green and metallic blue of the dragon-fly, green and yellow iris leaves, and all the water colours of the pool, glowed together in the very clear, thin gold of the October sunlight. Sarah caught her breath at the sheer beauty. It stayed like that between that one caught breath and the next. Then the creature was off again, fanning the air with almost invisible wings, now poised, now darting.

“Well?” said John Brown, still with a smile in his eyes. “Are you glad you came, Sarah?”

Sarah nodded. Just for the moment everything was quite simple, and clear, and happy. There were no problems. It was a nice world, with green and blue dragon-flies, and a crooked willow tree, and a fine Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoons ought always to be fine.

She sat down on the bank above the pool and said,

“Why can't things be just like this always?”

“You like this?” He had a little the air of being in his own house and pleased with the pleasure of a guest.

She nodded without speaking.

“Do you feel at home here?”

She nodded again. There was a half smile on her lips, but no words. And then he said,

“Where are you really at home, Sarah? Tell me about your own people.”

And with that the charm broke.

He saw her flinch and lose colour, and at once she was angry because he had taken her unawares. Her voice was clear and hard as she answered him.

“I haven't any people.”

“Then you're like me,” said John Brown.

“I don't think so,” said Sarah. “I should think I'm unique.” She laughed a little. “I've got a mother, but I never see her, and I've got a father, but he never sees me. I'm an entirely independent woman, and sometimes I'm particularly thankful for it, and sometimes it's a bit bleak—when you haven't got a job and wonder how long the cash is going to last. Frankly, that's the only thing that stops me packing up and lighting out of here to-morrow.”

Sarah was not really being frank at all. The consciousness of this made her put her chin in the air and look defiantly at John Brown. He said,

“I don't think that's true. I think you're fond of Lucilla.”

Sarah's colour rose becomingly.

“I don't get fond of people,” she said, still in that clear, hard tone.

He looked at her with the faint air of amusement which always made her angry.

“Is that because of your icy disposition, or because you find us—” He paused for a word, and then said, “unlovable?” He said it quite gravely, and her colour rose again.

“I don't let myself got fond of people,” she said. “It doesn't pay. They let you down, and it hurts—too much.”

They were so near that he could have touched her, but he did not move, only looked at her and said,

“Poor Sarah.”

Sarah looked away across the pool.

“Do you know what happened to me when I was ten years old? My father divorced my mother. I don't blame him in the least—he had plenty of reasons for it. But he said I wasn't his child, and he pushed me out too. He found some old letters and he just turned me out. And we'd been friends. It nearly killed me, and I made up my mind that I'd never love anyone again. It hurts too much.”

John Brown put out his hand and covered one of hers.

“Poor little Sarah,” he said.

She flashed round on him with wet eyes and an unsteady smile.

“Yes—I'm sorry for her too. She was only ten. I don't believe you can break your heart as badly afterwards as you do when you're ten years old. You see, there was nothing left. I had a pony, and a dog—they went too. It was just outer darkness. I'd always hated my mother, and she'd always hated me. We dragged about together for seven years, and then she married the most completely awful of the men who had dragged about after us. I don't know what would have happened to me if it hadn't been for a heavenly American woman who was in the same hotel. She had a cripple child, and she took me on to talk French and German to the poor kid. That was my first job, and when she went back to America she got me another—the same sort of thing. And then I went to the Manifolds. And now I'm here, and if I wasn't an absolute cast-iron fool, I'd leave to-morrow.”

John Brown's hand closed on hers very hard. Just when the pressure became unbearable it relaxed again and he lifted the hand to his lips and held it there.

“I wouldn't let you down, Sarah,” he said.

She felt the words against her palm. He kissed them there, and lifted his head and said them again with just a change of tense.

“Sarah, I won't let you down.”

Tears were running down her face. She felt as if they were taking her pride with them. She dragged her hand away and said,

“You'll never have the chance!” Her voice was rough and angry. No one would have recognised it.

John Brown said quietly, “You're trying to hurt me because you've been hurt yourself. That's not quite fair.”

Sarah dabbed at her eyes.

“You made me—make a fool of myself. I never cry. You made me cry. I've been babbling like a lunatic. I really do hate you a good deal, John!”

He smiled again.

“Well, that will do for a start. It's quite a good start really. I'd like to tell you about following you up to town. You see, it was this way—I didn't see you when you walked in on me the night I was burgling Holme Fallow.”

Sarah stopped wanting to cry. She passionately desired to know why he had been burgling Holme Fallow. Was he Maurice Hildred? He had said he wasn't—but was he?

“What were you burgling?” she asked rather breathlessly.

“Some letters and photographs,” said John Brown. “Never mind about that—I'll tell you some day soon. Well, I heard you run away and I turned the torch on you, but you were too quick for me. By the time I reached the dining-room door you were through the passage door across the hall—I only got a bit of brown tweed skirt. Then I thought I had stayed long enough, so I went away by the west drive and round by Miller's Lane to cut back on to the London road, and when I got round the corner, there you were in the middle of it—” He stopped.

Sarah said, “Well?”

John Brown laughed a little.

“My dear, you had me all mixed up. I was frightfully angry with you for standing out in the road like that, and I could see your brown tweed in the headlights, so I knew you had just come from Holme Fallow. What I didn't know was whether you'd seen enough of me to recognise, and I thought I'd better find out whether you were heading for the nearest police-station.”

“Is that why you followed me?” said Sarah. It was rather a damping sort of reason.

“Probably. Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Sarah said “No” in a little too much of a hurry.

“Well, you needn't call it that—it doesn't matter. But there's something. I felt as if I knew you very well indeed—well enough to scold, you know. And that's a very odd, upsetting feeling to have about someone you've never seen before. It was absolutely necessary to find out who you were and where you lived, so I followed you to town and watched outside the garage until you came out and went into the the Lizard. Then I parked my own car and sat down at the next table.”

“Oh?” said Sarah.

John Brown nodded.

“I'm afraid I listened to your conversation with Darnac.”

Sarah's second “Oh” was a very indignant one.

“I know, my dear—really shameless behaviour. No gentleman would dream of doing such a thing. I'm not even ashamed of it. I learned quite a lot about you before we'd all finished supper.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I heard you say you were going to marry Geoffrey. You know, I shouldn't if I were you.”

Sarah burst out laughing.

“
Really
, John!”

“Yes, really. It was a very interesting evening. You did something to me, Sarah, whilst I sat there watching you. It's so difficult to get these things into words. I've had quite a good sort of life—friends, work, knocking about all over the world, jobs that interested me—but I'd been feeling a bit drab since I came back to England. I don't think burglary's my line—I felt pretty mouldy after it. You know how it is when the colour is out of everything and you don't know why you were born or why you go on living. It was like that. But all the time I was sitting there eavesdropping the colour was coming back. Not just ordinary everyday colour either, but the sort you get when there's a tremendous sunrise—you know, lashins and lavins. Well, that's the way it was. Everything got so interesting that I just grudged going to sleep and losing touch with it. That's what made me go walking in the night. But I wasn't walking alone. I tell you, my dear, you walked with me every step of the way. You were there so plainly that when you came into the shrubbery two nights ago it seemed the most natural thing in the world. When I put out my hand and touched you, it was like having a dream come true. Now wouldn't you call that falling in love?”

“I shall never fall in love with anyone,” said Sarah in the firmest voice she could command.

“Oh, but I wasn't talking about you,” said John Brown—“I was talking about me. I thought you might be interested in a genuine case of what is called love at first sight. I should certainly never have expected it to happen to me, but so far as I can make out it has. I don't see how it could be anything else. Do you?”

Sarah's eyes stung suddenly. She felt a hot anger and a cold fear. She felt defenceless and young. She said in the voice of a vexed child,

“You're laughing at me.”

“Because I love you, Sarah,” said John Brown. He added, “
Very much
,” and took her hand and kissed it again.

CHAPTER XXIV

Bertrand and Lucilla walked in the High Woods. There was a bridle path under the trees. The oaks were still green, but beech and chestnut had begun to put on tints of gold and russet. No leaves had fallen yet. Emerald moss and grey lichen showed here and there. They sat down presently on a fallen tree in an open glade. The sunlight made a shining about them. It was warm, and very still. Lucilla was bare-headed, and her hair was like pale flame in the sun. She looked at Bertrand with a gay impudence in her blue eyes.