Touch and Go (24 page)

She crossed her room in the dark and opened the door. Opposite the pink room there was an empty guest chamber whose windows looked out at the front of the house. She slipped across the passage, shut the door of this room behind her, and made her way to the windows, all in the dark. She got one of them open and put her head out, and as she did so, she heard a sound of knocking on the window below.

“What on earth?”
said Sarah to herself. She leaned out as far as she could. She couldn't see anything at all, but the knocking was repeated. This room was over the study. John Brown was knocking on the study window. It was a long French window, opening like a door.

And all at once it was open. The curtain must have been drawn back on the inner side, for a bright slanting rectangle appeared suddenly upon the gravel. The window opened, and there was a low murmur of voices. A man came into the light, stood there a moment, and then passed in at the open window and out of sight. The bright rectangle moved, narrowing quickly until it was gone. There was a faint thud as the glass door fell to. Sarah remained staring down into the darkness.

And then one of those little unexpected things happened. Upon the darkness there crept the faintest, narrowest streak of light. And this streak was not stationary. It moved. Sarah stared at it. It went on moving. A bare inch one way—and back again. A bare inch the other way—and back again.

She drew in her head and straightened up. The moving streak could only mean one thing—the French window was not quite shut. It had closed with that little thud and started again. It was now open, perhaps an inch, perhaps a little more, and the slight draught which came through the crack was moving the curtain gently, rhythmically, and so releasing that moving streak of light.

Sarah has never been very proud of what she did next. In the far away days before the crash she had been taught by her excellent and respectable nurse that there were a number of things which little ladies didn't do. Little ladies didn't bite their nails. Little ladies didn't tell lies. Little ladies didn't listen at doors. Sarah still retained a distaste for people who transgressed this nursery code. She was now, however, about to transgress it herself. Her only excuse is, and always has been, that she simply had to know what John Brown was saying to Geoffrey Hildred.

She went quickly back into the blue room. She could not go eaves-dropping out of doors barefoot and in her night-gown, a mere wisp of yellow
crêpe-de-chine
. Her own clothes being next door, she had to fall back upon Lucilla's. She found a pair of dark stockings and the black cardigan suit and put them on. The stockings would probably get cut to pieces on the gravel, but she couldn't risk the noise that shoes would make. And she would have to get out of the house and go round, because the opening of one of the drawing-room windows might be heard, and of course the front door was out of the question.

She climbed out of the window of the servants' sitting-room and made her way along the back of the house. Miss Marina's light was out, but Lucilla's still burned, throwing a faint rosy glow through the pink curtains.

She turned the corner. Three dark windows here, her own, the bathroom, the spare room, and then one lighted one. Ricky wasn't in bed yet.

She came round the corner to the front of the house and saw the streak of light which she had seen from above. She must go very very quietly now. The gravel hurt her feet. She remembered the story of the pilgrim and the peas. You can't boil gravel.

She came very slowly and cautiously to a level with the nearer hinges of the French window. Two stone steps led up to the sill. The window had two leaves. It was the farther one that stood ajar, and through the glass she could see an inch-wide gap in the heavy crimson curtains which hung within.

Sarah got off the gravel on to the first step. She could not hear a sound of any sort from the room. She had not heard a sound of any sort since she had turned the corner. The silence made her feel cold. There were two men in that room. There must be two men there. She had heard one of them knock, and she had seen the window open to admit him. She had seen John Brown go into the room. If he had gone away, the window would have been shut and locked again. She began to be afraid, and more afraid, and her fear took her up on to the top step and set her right hand on the leaf that was ajar. She pulled it a little and leaned towards the gap in the curtains.

And as she leaned, she heard John Brown say,

“Well, Geoffrey?”

It was John Brown speaking, but it was not quite the John Brown she knew. The gentle, amused tone was gone from his voice. It was quiet, but it rang hard.

There was no answer. There went on being no answer for such a long time that Sarah began to feel quite giddy with the strain. Her thoughts rocked. Who was John Brown that he called Geoffrey Hildred “Geoffrey”? There were two answers that would fit. Either Henry or Maurice Hildred would say Geoffrey, as cousin to cousin.

John Brown spoke again. He used the same words. He said,

“Well, Geoffrey?”

And this time there was an answer. Geoffrey Hildred spoke in a laboured voice. It sounded as if he had his work cut out to speak at all. He said in that hard-come voice,

“I don't recognize you.” And then, “You're a stranger to me—a complete stranger.”

There was a pause. There was the sound of something being poured into a glass. The gap in the curtains was no more than an inch. Sarah leaned very near, and saw a handsbreadth of the writing-table, the corner of a silver ink-stand, and beyond it a couple of inches of whisky in the bottom of a tumbler. The whisky was neat. The fingers of Geoffrey Hildred's right hand came above it on the glass and lifted it out of sight. She could hear that he drank. And then the tumbler came down again empty. The hand withdrew. Geoffrey Hildred must be sitting at the writing-table. She could not see John Brown at all, but his voice had come from her right. It came from there now.

“Feeling better?”

It was obvious that Geoffrey Hildred was feeling better. Whatever shock he had had, he was getting himself in hand again. He spoke rather heavily, but with self-command.

“You know, Brown, this is a most astonishing claim.”

“You seemed to be rather more than astonished.”

“I was very much astonished. I cannot believe that you are serious. And I would like to say that if this is a practical joke, I consider—”

John Brown interrupted him.

“You needn't consider anything at all. I'm not joking. You won't find it a joke, I'm afraid.”

“And what do you mean by that?” said Geoffrey Hildred.

The other man laughed.

“Pretty much what you'd expect me to mean,” he said.

There was the sound of a chair being pushed back. Geoffrey Hildred's voice came louder.

“The whole thing is preposterous! After all these years! Do you imgaine for an instant that you could make out a case? This sort of thing has been tried on before. You may have heard of the Tichborne case. Do you happen to remember that the planitiff got fourteen years for perjury?
Pour encourager les autres
, Mr. Brown. If you're hankering after an opportunity of acquiring first-hand knowledge of English prison life, I advise you to take this claim of yours into court.”

John Brown laughed again very quietly.

“Oh, I don't think it'll ever come into court. There will be an amicable settlement. Think it over and you'll see that that will be best for us all. Joyous reunion, happy family party, and all the rest of it.”

“Take care,” said Geoffrey Hildred. “Take care, Brown.” His voice had thickened. “I'm warning you—that you're on dangerous ground. The whole thing is preposterous—the whole thing! What's your case? Where are your witnesses? They're all dead, I tell you! That's convenient for an impostor, isn't it? Old John Hildred is dead, and Lucy is dead—Lucy Raimond—and the doctor, and the parson. They're all dead. And it's fifteen years since the war came to an end. You're fifteen years after the fair, Mr. Brown. And you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

“Thank you. Now just for a moment I would like you to listen to me. I've got something to say, and I really think you had better let me say it.”

Geoffrey Hildred's right arm came into view—his hand, his right arm, and a bit of his shoulder. He had pulled his chair in again and leaned forward with his elbow on the table. The hand went out of sight. Sarah guessed at it supporting his chin, perhaps covering the line of the mouth. He said with a composure that was now complete,

“Oh, say anything you like. It won't be the first tall tale I've heard, or the last either.”

“What I want to say is this. It is a pity to take a tone which is bound to make things more difficult all round. When I came over here I wasn't sure whether I would stay or not—I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stay. I thought I would just come over and see how I felt about it all. When I walked into your office I was quite prepared for you to recognize me. Are you quite sure you didn't?”

Geoffrey Hildred laughed briefly.

“How should I recognize a man I'd never set eyes on before?”

“Well, well,” said John Brown—“that's what you say. I've never felt sure about it myself. Sometimes I could have sworn you had recognized me, and sometimes I didn't know whether you had or not.”

The shoulder which Sarah was watching went up in a shrug.

“I do not admit that there was anything to recognize.”

“Well, as it happens, there is. I want you to understand that I can prove who I am. I can prove my case right up to the hilt. I think you will remember Eversley—Ronald Eversley.… Yes, I see you do. Well, I've been in touch with him all along. He has always known where I was and what I was doing. We corresponded quite regularly. I saw him in Philadelphia just before I came over—in fact he came there to see me. He said it was time I came home, and—well, I came. He had other business in the States, so I didn't wait for him. He's due in London at the end of this week. You see, I'm putting my cards on the table. Eversley's an unassailable witness. When you didn't seem to recognize me, I thought I'd wait till he arrived.”

Sarah, watching all she could see of Geoffrey Hildred, received an impression of rigidity. His voice came hard from a dry throat.

“And you are not waiting. May I ask why?”

“I don't think I should,” said John Brown.

“Don't you? What do you mean by that?”

“I shouldn't ask that either, Geoffrey. Let us say that when I first came over I hadn't made up my mind, and that now I have. It might have suited me to stay dead, but since I came down here I have decided against it. I naturally hasten to inform you of my decision—as Lucilla's guardian,
and in Lucilla's interests
.” He stressed the last words so sharply that Sarah's pulses leapt.

Geoffrey Hildred made a movement which took him out of her field of vision. She thought he leaned forward. She heard him repeat the words that had been so stressed.

“Lucilla's interests?” His voice was smooth again. The thought came to her that it was too smooth.

“Oh yes,” said John Brown. “Lucilla's interests must of course be your first concern—and mine. You may trust me to safeguard them in every possible way. It is on this account that I thought it would be best to have an informal talk with you now, instead of waiting till Ronald Eversley arrives at the end of the week. In order to satisfy you personally of my identity I want to ask you to carry your mind back to the holiday we all spent at Woolacombe in 1913. We were all there. Ricky was a baby of three. Do you remember the little Jap we used to call Koko, and how people were tumbling over each other to be tattooed by him? He was a wonderful artist.… Ah, I see you remember him. You had a butterfly done on your left arm just above the elbow. We boys couldn't run to butterflies, but each of us had his initial done on the fore-arm. Here's mine, Geoffrey—and I think you'll admit that it's evidence.”

Sarah would have given almost anything she possessed to have been able to see through the curtain. She couldn't see, but she could hear—and how inadequate it is to hear when you want to see. The rustle of cloth—a sleeve being pulled up. A rustle of paper—Geoffrey Hildred bent forward, straining across the table, crumpling some bill or letter. A step on the carpet, a forward step—John Brown coming forward with his bare arm held out. She made that much of it. And then Geoffrey Hildred came suddenly into sight. He had sprung up. She heard his chair go over with a crash. She saw a narrow strip of his face between the crimson of the curtains, and what she saw was almost as darkly red. The angle of the brow, the eye cheek and chin were all blood-shot and suffused. The glimpse horrified her and was gone. In the silence which followed he spoke in a voice of controlled rage.

“Evidence? A faked initial! The easiest fake in the world! You'll have to do better than that, Mr. Brown.”

John Brown laughed a little.

“Why, so I can—a great deal better. I told you that was just for your private edification. It edifies you all right—doesn't it? Now listen to me, Geoffrey. I've given you what is proof to yourself. You know it, and I know it. And you know why I've come forward to give it you now. If you don't, sit down and think it out, and then get hold of this. I have no desire to wash the family linen in public. I am considering Lucilla's interests, and I should like you to conclude that they are your interests too. Goodnight.”

He came straight to the window. Sarah, leaning there, one hand on the frame of the open leaf, was off her balance and off her guard. She had to straighten up, swing round, and spring aside. She reached the lower step as the red curtain lifted and the light came past her in a broad shining beam. John Brown came out with the light. It shone past him and he was black against it. She could see his face like a silhouette She did not dare to move, or breathe, or think, lest he should be aware of her. The curtain dropped. The light went out. The window was banged and harshly locked from within.