Touch and Go (9 page)

“A friend of yours, my dear?” enquired Miss Marina. “And I don't know if I quite caught the name.”

“Darnac,” said Sarah—“Bertrand Darnac. He's a nephew of Major Manifold's, and it's like his nerve to come down here without being asked. I hope you really do believe that I didn't ask him.” She spoke to Aunt Marina, but she looked at Uncle Geoffrey. He was frowning.

“If this man is annoying you—”

Sarah's flush was subsiding, but her laugh still sounded angry.

“Oh, he's perfectly harmless. Just a bit of a brat, you know.”

“Darnac?” said Miss Marina. “Now that sounds French. But if he is Major Manifold's nephew—”

“Major Manifold's sister married a Frenchman called Darnac—an old Huguenot family. This lad's over here partly to put a polish on his English, and partly—” She hesitated for a moment and then decided on frankness. After all it was only what everyone knew. “Well, partly because the Darnacs and the Manifolds both hoped that he and Eleanor would take a fancy to each other.”

“My dear—
first cousins!
” said Miss Marina, scandalized.

“Well, it's the property,” said Sarah. “Eleanor will have a lot of money, but the place goes to Bertrand unless the Manifolds have a son. Old Mr. Manifold left it that way. He was very fond of Ran.'

“And are they engaged,” said Miss Marina—“this young man and his cousin?” Her voice sounded disapproving.

Sarah laughed and shook her head.

“Oh no—they don't like each other a bit. Eleanor thinks he laughs at her. She's rather serious. It's aggravating for the family, because Ran falls in love so easily. I should think Eleanor's the only girl he's ever met that he hasn't made love to. He's quite a nice lad, but he wants smacking.” She turned to Geoffrey Hildred. “I'm awfully sorry he's come down here like this.”

She got a benign smile.

“My dear Miss Trent, you mustn't distress yourself—there's really no need to—no need at all. We shall be very pleased to see your friend. Some young society is just what Lucilla needs.”

Sarah's colour rose again. She wasn't going to be responsible for Ran and his behaviour.

“He makes love to every girl he meets,” she said. “That's why it's so annoying about Eleanor. But she's the
only
exception. He's certain to make love to Lucilla.”

“That will be very amusing for Lucilla,” said Uncle Geoffrey.

CHAPTER XI

When they went upstairs Sarah wondered which room she was going to sleep in. She entered the pink room, and Lucilla followed and shut the door.

“Well?” said Sarah.

Lucilla put her hands together after the manner of the infant Samuel.

“Angel darling Sarah—” she began.

“I suppose that means you want to sleep in here again. No one ever calls you an angel unless they want you to do something disagreeable.”

Lucilla looked at her coaxingly. Her black taffeta frock made her skin look very white, and her hair very pale and golden.

“Angel darling Sarah, it won't be disagreeable—not to-night.”

Sarah's eyebrows went up.

“How do you know?”

The joined hands sprang apart and sketched a sort of fluttering movement.

“Just like that—an intuish. Don't you ever have them? What Miss Markleton called an inward monitor. She was the mistress we all hated most. It's a pity you don't know her, because she could have given you splendid lessons in how a govvy ought to talk.”

“Lucilla, do stop talking nonsense!”

“I was only explaining about the inward monitor.”

“Oh—” said Sarah. “And the inward monitor says I shall have a good night if I go and sleep in your room?”

“Yes, that's what it says.”

“Why?” said Sarah.

Lucilla cocked her head a little on one side.

“When I asked you about it out in the woods, you said you pulled back all the curtains and put the light on.”

“Yes.”

“Well—”
said Lucilla, as if that explained everything.

“Well what?”

Lucilla sighed.

“Darling Sarah, you're not being very clever. If you drew the curtains and put the light on, anyone could see that it was you who was in my room and not me.”

“You think there was someone outside?”

“Sure of it,” said Lucilla.

“Why?”

The fair head was shaken.

“Who?”

It was shaken again.

Sarah remembered the ledge that ran round the house at the porch level. Ricky Hildred's room was at the next corner of the house. It was a trick that a boy might play. She said,

“Do you think it was Ricky?”

Lucilla did not shake her head this time. She spoke instead. She said, “No,” and then, “Not Ricky. It happened when he was away.”

“Then who?”

“Someone who wanted to frighten me.” The words were hardly audible. Lucilla's eyes watched her. They said, “Do you believe? Do you?”

Sarah didn't know what she believed. She believed that Lucilla had been frightened. She didn't like the feel of things. There was something horrid, something that moved just out of sight. She didn't like it at all. Lucilla was hiding behind a door which sometimes opened a very little way and then closed again. She thought Lucilla had been frightened because she was not sure that the Thing which had come dashing against her window in the night was a real thing or some horror of her own imagination. Her fear had been allayed as soon as she knew that Sarah had heard just what she herself had heard, and now she seemed quite sure that whatever it was it would not come again. Someone wanted to frighten Lucilla, and it wouldn't come again if it was Sarah Trent who was there to be frightened and not Lucilla Hildred.…

Sarah couldn't get any farther than that. She said briskly, “All right, sleep in here if you want to,” and let it go at that.

In the blue room she left the side windows shut and locked, and opened the other two windows an inch or two at the top and bottom. She slept all night without moving or dreaming.

It was next day that she had a very disturbing conversation with Geoffrey Hildred. Lucilla and Ricky were playing tennis. Sarah had expected to play too, but on being very pointedly invited to go for a walk with Uncle Geoffrey, she thought that she had better comply. She changed therefore into tweeds and came down to find him waiting for her with rather a serious expression. He talked to her for a time about her life with the Manifolds, about books, and about the changing tints of the countryside.

They took a path which led by way of stile and field-gate through open meadow land, very green with the grass that had grown after the heavy September rainfall. It was an afternoon of bright sun and scudding cloud. The wind must have been very high up, for where they walked it was hardly noticeable.

Geoffrey Hildred pointed out to her how the Holme Fallow woods dipped down to the meadow land on the one side and spread out towards open heath upon the other. Pines mixed at first with deciduous trees, then marched alone, becoming more and more scattered until they finally disappeared. The chestnuts were golden, the oaks deep bronze, and the beeches brown. The pines stood dark among the other trees, and black where they cut the sky.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” he said. And then, “Lucilla has a beautiful home.”

Sarah said, “Yes, lovely,” and wondered what was coming next. She didn't think she had been brought out here to admire Lucilla's woods. She hoped earnestly that Uncle Geoffrey hadn't led her here to give her the sack. She didn't think so, but you never could tell. She lent an attentive ear.

Geoffrey Hildred was looking at her very seriously.

“Miss Trent—last night you asked me a question about Lucilla. I didn't answer it, partly because you took me by surprise and I did not want to say anything which I might afterwards regret, and partly because it didn't seem to me that either the time or the place lent themselves to any serious talk.”

“Golly!” thought Sarah to herself.

Mr. Hildred proceeded.

“Now, however, after having had time to think it over, I have decided to have a talk with you. I don't really think it is quite fair to keep you in the dark. You are young, but you appear to me to be sensible and practical.”

“Dear sir, these kind words—” murmured Sarah to herself. She continued to regard her employer attentively.

“You are, in fact, just the friend whom Lucilla needs and whom we hoped to secure for her. She does need a friend, Miss Trent—” He broke off to fix a distressed gaze upon Sarah.

Sarah said “Yes?” very quietly. The word was a question, and Geoffrey Hildred nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “She's had a shock, you know, and she needs steady, cheerful companionship—and care.”

“What kind of care, Mr. Hildred?”

He went on as if she had not spoken.

“Miss Hildred has doubtless told you that she considers it a great pity that Lucilla should have been taken away from school.”

“Yes.”

“Miss Trent, I am going to tell you in the strictest confidence why Lucilla was taken away from school. Miss Hildred doesn't know what I am going to tell you, and I don't wish her to know. It would only worry and upset her, and she feels the responsibility of being one of Lucilla's guardians quite enough as it is. But I think you ought to know that I removed Lucilla from school because the head mistress asked me to remove her.”

“Why, Mr. Hildred?”

“Because, Miss Trent, on two separate occasions the girl's room was found to be on fire.”

A flood of the most disturbed feeling surged up in Sarah's mind.

Geoffrey Hildred met her look with one of grave concern.

“I felt as you do,” he said—“I felt that it was impossible. I told the head mistress that I really could not believe such a thing. She told me that she could not argue about it. She had thought the first occurrence an accident, and she would join me in hoping that the second fire was also accidental, but she thought that Lucilla would be better at home for a time, and she begged that I would remove her at once. I had of course no choice. I brought her home, and she has seemed to me quite natural, quite normal.”

“Mr. Hildred, was she very fond of her mother?”

He looked a little surprised.

“It is rather strange that you should ask me that. You mean, was she so fond of her mother that the shock of her death might have had an unbalancing effect? Well, the point is, I think, well taken, and I think that my answer would be no. I don't mean to say she wasn't fond of her mother, but they were very little together. Mrs. Raimond's second marriage set up rather a difficult situation. Raimond was a very jealous man. He disliked anything that reminded him of the fact that his wife had been married before. Lucilla went to school early, and spent her holidays with Miss Hildred or with school friends. She came down here only for a few days at a time. You see what I mean—there was no very strong bond. Mrs. Raimond was one of those people who—” He stopped himself. “Well, well, she's dead, so I won't say what I was going to say.”

“I see,” said Sarah. “Mr. Raimond was jealous, and so Lucilla—What a shame!”

“Yes, it's been hard on the child,” said Geoffrey Hildred. “And her holidays with Marina—well, you know she's the soul of kindness, but it can't have been exactly lively for a young girl. That is why I shall be pleased if you will bring some young life about the house. I'm letting Ricky off as much as possible, and if this young fellow who followed you down here—this young, what did you say his name was, Darnac?—well, if he's a nice young fellow, we shall be very pleased to have him come about the house. There's tennis, and there are some quite good expeditions all round, and you can run into Ledlington and go to the pictures. You see what I mean, my dear? I want you to take the lead a bit if you will—treat yourself a little more as if you were a daughter of the house—Lucilla's elder sister in fact—and make up pleasant little parties. Marina and I will be really grateful. There—that's what I wanted to say to you.”

Sarah looked at him with frank pleasure.

“I think you're most awfully kind,” she said, and meant it.

CHAPTER XII

Bertrand Darnac did not let the grass grow under his feet. When Sarah returned from her walk with Geoffrey Hildred, they found him making agreeable conversation to Miss Marina, who was quite obviously a good deal smitten. Like most old ladies she had a great indulgence for agreeable and personable young men. Bertrand's ugliness was of the attractive kind, and he could make himself very agreeable indeed.

Mr. John Brown was also there, paying a polite call.

Miss Marina was not as pleased as usual to see her cousin and her dear Miss Trent, because she was in the middle of explaining the whole network of the Hildred family relationships to “that nice Mr. Darnac and that pleasant Mr. Brown.” She did not at all want to be interrupted, and of course two fresh people coming into the room cannot help causing an interruption—gentlemen (this was still Miss Marina's phrase) must rise to their feet, and there must be introductions; the atmosphere is changed and the thread of interest broken.

No, Miss Marina was not at all pleased. Her pince-nez dropped and became entangled in the long steel and jet chain which went twice round her neck and slid down into her lap. By the time she had pushed them back on to her nose, to which they always clung very precariously and with a decided tilt either to one side or the other, she found that the party had split into two groups, and that she was left with Mr. Brown as sole auditor.

“Yes, Miss Hildred—you were saying?”

His attention placated her somewhat. The trouble was that she was not quite sure what it was that she had been saying. She had certainly got past the cousinly relationship between Lucilla's great-grandfather, herself, and dear Geoffrey—“my cousin, Mr. Geoffrey Hildred”—and she had narrated at length the marriage and premature decease of Lucilla's grandfather, John Hildred the second.—“Such a shocking accident, Mr. Darnac.” But she was a little uncertain as to how far she had proceeded with the characters and fates of poor John's sons, “my nephews, Henry and Jack.” She liked talking about Henry and Jack, but she couldn't talk about Maurice, because even after all these years it still made her cry.