Down Under (16 page)

Whether he released his own weak beam, he never knew, for with the very movement light broke, intense and blinding. A great arc-light drenched him with its glare. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes, was aware of hurrying feet, and dropped his guard again. Someone struck him from behind, and he went down and lay like a log.

CHAPTER XIX

Hearing came back first. He heard Fanny say in a weeping voice, “I don't care what you say.” The words floated round in his mind. They didn't mean anything. They floated in his mind like coloured balloons. They didn't mean anything at all. But he knew that it was Fanny Garstnet who had set them floating there—Fanny Garstnet—Fanny Rennard—and she was crying—her voice sounded as if she was crying—Fanny Garstnet—

And then someone said Rose Anne's name—“Miss Rose Anne.” That was Fanny too—“Miss Rose Anne.” And then, “She'll never look at you if you touch him, Philip, and that I tell you straight.”

Oliver opened his eyes. The blinding light was gone. He was in a room—ordinary room—ordinary light—one of those dangly things with a shade on the end of it—nice soft light—not that hideous glare. He blinked at it and looked again. No, not ordinary room—odd room—green curtains—lots of green curtains—curtains all round—must be a lot of windows—Fanny—Fanny with her red hair flaming under the light—Fanny saying, “All right, Philip, you just try it and see.”

Oliver woke up. What had gone before was like a dream—coming and going—all queer and muddled—but now he was awake. Someone had fetched him a crack on the head and laid him out, and here he was, on a very comfortable couch, looking through half closed lids at two people on the other side of the room. One of them was Fanny Garstnet who was certainly Fanny Rennard, and the other, the man she called Philip, must be Philip Rennard, the Old Fox's son who was supposed to have been drowned. He was also beyond any shadow of doubt the man who had masqueraded as the Rosenkavalier.

Oliver kept his lids down and took stock of him. He saw an amazingly handsome young man attired in light flannel trousers and a silk shirt open at the neck. Dark red hair, rather like mahogany, worn much too long with a most offensive wave in it. It might be natural, it probably was natural, but civilised man doesn't go about with a wave in his hair just because nature has put one there.

“The fellow looks like a film star.” This was Oliver's first impression. And then something happened to change it. Philip Rennard, who had been staring moodily at his own feet, lifted his head with a jerk and looked full at Oliver. He had the dark eyes which sometimes go with red hair—eyes the colour of deep peaty water. Just now they were bright with a dancing spark of hatred, and behind the hatred there was something else—conscious power. The image of the film star registering this and that emotion for effect was wiped out. Here was a very dangerous enemy, who hated him, who had the power to give effect to his hatred.

The look stayed upon him for an intolerable dragging minute and then was turned away. Without another word Philip Rennard lifted one of the green curtains, opened the door behind it, and went out. The door fell to, but Oliver saw Fanny run to it to make sure that it was latched. Then she came over to him and slipped her fingers under his wrist. He felt them tremble a little. He thought she had been crying. He opened his eyes and said,

“All right, Fanny. What happens next?”

Fanny dropped his wrist and backed away. She opened her mouth and clapped a hand upon it. A frightened gasp came through the muffling fingers. And then she said,

“Oh, Captain Loddon! Why ever did you come?”

Oliver sat up.

“To find Rose Anne. Fanny—she's here? Fanny—tell me!”

Fanny's eyes were brimming over.

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, she's here, poor lamb.”

He caught her by the wrist.

“Fanny—for God's sake—is she—safe?”

The tears were running down her face.

“Oh, yes, Captain Loddon—the way you mean—she's safe—poor lamb.”

A weight like the weight of the world was lifted from Oliver. He crushed Fanny's wrist so hard that she cried out.

“Why do you say poor lamb—if she's safe? Fanny—Fanny, tell me! I've been nearly mad!”

She caught her breath.

“I'll tell you. Oh, it doesn't matter what I tell you now.”

He was too intent at the moment to take the meaning of that “now,” but it came back to him afterwards—ominously. She pulled away from him, ran to the door through which Philip Rennard had gone out, and opened it, holding the curtain away with an unsteady hand. When she had shut that door he thought she looked less frightened, but a second curtain was pulled aside and another door disclosed. He could not see where it led to, but he heard her say with relief, “It's all right, Ernie—I just wanted to see if you were alone.” Then she shut that door too and came back to him, drawing a stool to the side of the couch and leaning so close that her words needed only the merest breath to be audible. She began by repeating her first question in a tone of distress.

“Oh, Captain Loddon! Why did you come?”

And Oliver said, “I came to find Rose Anne. Don't waste time, Fanny—tell me.”

“I don't know how you found out she was here.”

“That doesn't matter. Tell me about her.”

She looked up at him and then away.

“You know Philip took her?”

Oliver said, “Yes.”

She swallowed a sob.

“I don't know how you found out. I don't know how you came here, but it's no good. No one gets away from here—no one's ever got away. It's been no good since the very first time Philip saw her photograph, and that's what makes me feel so bad, because he wouldn't never have seen it if it hadn't been for me marrying Ernie and coming down under. And Miss Rose Anne gave me the photo herself, and wrote on it too. We're the same age, you know, and we always played together, and I'm sure there isn't anyone in the world who's fonder of her than I am.”

He had to restrain his impatience. If he didn't let her run on he wouldn't get what he wanted.

She ran on tearfully—“Ernie and me got married just above a year ago. He used to come to the Angel to get the stuff away. There's a lot of food and stuff that has to be got down under, and—that's Uncle's cleverness—he gets it sent where it won't make talk. There's hotels all up and down the country where he has stuff delivered for him in different names. They don't know a thing except that it'll be fetched. Well, Ernie does the fetching with a lorry, and the stuff comes down here by one of the back ways.”

Florrie's black holes! He said quickly,

“There's a back way in through the Angel, isn't there?”

Fanny nodded.

“And that's what I found out,” she said. “Ernie didn't show it to me—I came on it same as poor little Florrie did and got a fright that nearly killed her, and lucky for me it was Ernie I ran into, or I wouldn't be here now. Well, after that we used to meet there. And then it was found out. Oh, Captain Loddon, it was awful, because I thought they was going to do me in—and they would have too if it hadn't been for Ernie being a Rennard and no end useful, and me being Uncle's niece. So they let us get married instead, but I had to come down under, and they never let me out, not a step, not till my baby was born. And they won't let me take him, not when I go up with Ernie—no, they keep him here to make sure I'll come back and not talk. That's more of Uncle's cleverness. They don't call him the Old Fox for nothing, and Philip takes after him.”

“Rose Anne—” said Oliver. “Fanny—Fanny—tell me about Rose Anne!”

The tears ran down over Fanny's face.

“I wish I hadn't got to,” she said in a weeping voice.

“Fanny!”

“It was the photograph she gave me. Philip saw it, and he never said a word, just stood looking at it for ever so long. But afterwards he asked about her—who she was, and where she lived, and all. That was somewhere about last May, and then it seems he got Mother to manage so that he could see her. Poor Mother—you mustn't think too hard about her, Captain Loddon. She's been fair broken-hearted over this, but they work on her about Florrie—say they'll take her away and put her somewhere where she'll never see her again—all that kind of thing. And she can't bear it, Mother can't, so she give in. She sent for Miss Rose Anne to see Florrie, and she let Philip stand in one of the rooms where he could see her go by, and from that minute he laid his plans to get her. He found out there was a dance she was going to with Miss Elfreda—somewhere down in the Isle of Wight it was. It was a fancy dress affair, and he found out what she was going to wear and got his own dress made to match, and he went there and danced with her and come away with his heart that set on her that nothing wouldn't move him. He was bound to have her, and the way he planned it was the way that would make the biggest stir. Philip's like that, you know—he'd rather do a thing dangerous than do it safe. It was just what he wanted, to snatch her away the very day before her wedding and leave everyone talking. And the way he planned it you'd be bound to think she'd run off with someone else.”

The agony of that touched Oliver again. He said,

“Fanny—where is she?” And even as the words passed his lips he heard a hand move on the door behind the green hangings.

Like a flash Fanny was on her feet, the stool picked up and swung out of reach, Fanny herself away on the farther side of the room. All this while the door was opening.

It was Philip Rennard who held the curtain back, but it was Rose Anne Carew who came first into the room, and the sight of her brought Oliver to his feet. His head was dizzy and his heart knocked at his side. The room swam before his eyes. Rose Anne's face came and went.

And then his sight cleared. They were facing one another in the little room. Philip Rennard had come in and shut the door behind him. He was aware of this, and of Fanny breathless in the background, but his eyes were for Rose Anne.

She had come a little inside the door and stopped there. She had on a white dress which he had never seen before. It hung heavy and straight to her feet, and it made him think of a shroud, because she might have looked like this if she had risen up from a grave. Her hair hung loose. There was no colour in her face, no colour at all. Her eyes were fixed, not on him nor on anyone in that room, but on some distance of her own imagining. He did not think she saw him, or any of them. She stood there quite still, her lips set in the faint smile of sleep or death. Through the dreadful intensity of his own watching gaze he was aware that Philip Rennard watched her too—watched with a like intensity, a like passion. And Rose Anne between them, walking and breathing, but as unaware, as withdrawn, as the lovely marble figure from a tomb.

The ground rocked under Oliver's feet. Fanny had said she was safe—but what had they done to her to make her look like this? He said her name in a voice which sounded strangely in his own ears.

“Rose Anne—”

Rose Anne said, “Yes?” She turned her eyes upon him and looked at him as sweetly and indifferently as a child might look at a stranger.

“Rose Anne—”
He came forward, and would have taken her hand, but she went back a step.

Philip Rennard laughed.

“We're in the same boat, you see. She doesn't like me to touch her either. She doesn't like being touched—do you, my lovely Rose?”

And like an echo Rose Anne said, “I don't like being touched, do I?”

Oliver stood where he was. He heard Fanny catch her breath. He said,

“Don't you know me, Rose Anne?”

She gave him a clear, blank look.

“Oh, yes—you are Oliver.”

In his mocking voice Philip said,

“And isn't it kind of Oliver to come and see you? He's taken a great deal of trouble about it, you know. Aren't you going to say thank you?”

Rose Anne said, “It's very kind of you, Oliver. Thank you very much.”

She wasn't there at all, not his Rose Anne. This was a simulacrum, an empty echo. There was no life or breath. It wasn't Rose Anne at all. No use to touch her, not under Philip Rennard's eyes—to see her shrink away and hear him laugh. It was no good, and it hurt too much.

Philip Rennard came and stood beside her.

“Come, Rose, you're disappointing Captain Loddon. I'm afraid he expected a warmer welcome. It's a pity to have come so far and risked so much, and then be disappointed in the end—isn't it? This is Captain Oliver Loddon, you know, and if I hadn't run off with you, you would be Mrs Oliver Loddon by now, and so I think he expects you to say something a little more—effusive.”

She turned her head and looked at him with a faintly puzzled air.

“I did say, ‘Thank you very much.'”

“Perhaps he thought you would be pleased to see him.”

She turned back.

“I'm very pleased to see you.”

It was quite heart-breaking. Her words were like wind blowing through an empty room. There was nothing there but an empty blowing wind. She said what was put into her mouth to say, and it meant nothing at all.

Fanny Rennard broke in.

“What do you want to torment her for? I won't have it, Philip! Why can't you leave her alone? Anyone can see she isn't herself, poor lamb. Why can't you let her be?”

“Am I tormenting you, Rose?” said Philip.

She was a yard away, and he made no movement to come nearer, but his eyes dwelt on her and his voice caressed her. She said,

“No, Philip.”

“
There
, Fanny—you see! I don't torment her—I'm very kind to her. Don't you think I'm very kind to you, Rose?”

She echoed him again—“Very kind.”

“You're very fond of me?”

She echoed that too—“Fond of you.”