He heard her on the stairs, and in listening to her footsteps he divined in her mood of the morning a naïve courage. She came into the room and kissed him.
“I meant to have been down earlier, John, but I had to let you dress.”
“This life’s a little complicated. But wait.”
“Breakfast.”
“Wait. You are not going to be afraid, dear?”
“It’s not—like it was, John.”
“That’s brave. Now, keep that window shut. I don’t suppose we shall have any visitors to-day, but you will know what to do. I’m in town and naturally—the place is empty and locked up.”
He was to catch the five minutes past nine train from Brandon; he happened to have the time-table that he had acquired when he was staying at The Chequers, and at eight-fifteen he locked the green door behind him. His last words to her had been “We’re winning. Don’t be afraid.” Smoking his pipe, and carrying the empty suitcase he set out through the woods, feeling somehow sure that his words had not been idle boasting.
Two or three London business-men who had houses at Brandon were waiting on the platform. They were more interested in their morning papers than in a large and anonymous person whose lounge suit certainly needed pressing. Luce travelled third, partly because his petty cash was low, and because to be third was to be more comfortably inconspicuous. At Waterloo he left his suitcase in the cloak-room, and took a taxi to the West End branch of his bank. He wrote and cashed a cheque there for a hundred pounds.
“Do you mind just looking up my balance for me.”
His balance stood at £517 3s. 11d.
“Many thanks. By the way, I may want to open a local account in Surrey. You could do that, yes. I’ll let you know the details later.”
Since time was precious he took a taxi to Edgware. Miss Reubens had written down the address for him, and Messrs. Custs were easily discovered. He told the taxi-man to wait. Messrs. Custs’ motto appeared to be—“Write a cheque and leave the rest to us, sir.” Luce was fathered by a bright young man who could be disconcerted by no difficulty. Luce wanted to hire a car as well as a caravan. Could it be done? Of course it could be done. Messrs. Custs operated a “Drive Yourself Service” in addition to supplying caravans. The young man proposed to supply Luce with a 14 h.p. Mostyn, and one of their new “Arcadian” caravans. Yes, everything would be complete, the outfit included two hot-water bottles and a corkscrew! And the price?
“Eight guineas a week, sir.”
“I can pay you cash for a month’s hire.”
“Our usual terms, sir, are half the money down before taking over, and the other half on handing over. We have a form of contract. We insure you.”
“Splendid,” said Luce; “can you show me the type of caravan?”
It was exhibited to him, a white and green vehicle on two wheels, with chintz curtains at the windows. It contained two curtained bunks which could be folded away, a minute oil stove and etceteras. The young man explained that the equipment could include a small tent for use at night, if the occupants desired more space and individual privacy. The neatness and efficiency of the outfit were astonishing. The equipment was stored in little painted cupboards and lockers; a water-tank was fitted under the tailboard.
“I think I’ll take the tent. By the way, could you have the whole thing delivered to me in Surrey?”
“Certainly, sir. It would be an extra. Our driver’s time.”
“Naturally.”
Luce put down his money, gave his bank as a reference, signed the necessary agreement, and arranged to have car and caravan delivered at The Chequers, Brandon, in three days’ time.
Hurrying back in the taxi he found he had half an hour to spare before lunch at Florio’s, and at Sandersons in the Haymarket he purchased a bijou photographic outfit for developing and printing. He was assured that the G.P.O. could deal with the transporting of this outfit.
“I’m rather in the wilds, you know. Have it sent poste restante to Brandon.”
He hurried on to Florio’s. Florio’s was somewhat old-fashioned. It had known its smart and rapid days when good ladies up from the country could carry back with them the feeling that they had dared things dangerous and improper. Now, Florio’s was very domestic, and not at all à la carte. Women up for shopping used it; women who wanted to entertain dear friends economically found Florio’s three and sixpenny lunch quite adequate. Parents brought to it large, self-conscious, spotty sons. The hats displayed at Florio’s had certainly not been sat upon; they were helmets of wholesome virtue.
The lounge was obstructed by a party of women who were kissing and o-my-dearing each other, but Luce, edging round them, found Miss Reubens parked on a settee. She was in black, and wearing a red hat, and the habitual cigarette was stuck in a vivid mouth.
Luce apologized to her.
“Afraid—I’m late.”
She patted the settee.
“Sit down and listen to the old cats all telling each other that they don’t look a day older.”
Luce glanced at the ladies.
“They must have been—— Well, when a woman does fib, she does it thoroughly.”
“No, my dear, she overdoes it, puts on the paint with a shaving brush. I’d love a little drink.”
Luce signalled to the cocktail waiter. He was beginning to appreciate the fact that Florio’s was much too suburban for Miss Reubens. So was his lounge suit. Also, no one at Florio’s would recognize Miss Reubens as the celebrated novelist, and she liked to be recognized.
“I’m afraid this place is a little suburban.”
She supplied an adjective. “Double bedded. But so—stimulating. It simply stinks of blankets and sexual integrity. Yes, I’ll have a side-car.”
“One side-car, one dry Martini, waiter. You know, I’m still feeling—shocked—about that hat.”
She snapped her cigarette case at him.
“Have one. Your conscience, my dear, seems to have a large and very sensitive backside. Conscience has been this country’s curse. Yes, I like to be outrageous. One of my poses. What are we going to do when we’ve lunched?”
“Buy a hat.”
“That will take me—just five minutes. I suggest——”
The waiter arrived with the cocktails. Luce paid him, and began to suspect that he might find the shedding of Miss Reubens none too easy.
“I’m afraid I have rather a terrible lot to do. When a bumpkin comes to town.”
“He gets lost in—Soho.”
“I’m going to see my lawyer.”
“That’s one of my don’ts. Come and be introduced to my pet monkey.”
“Have you a monkey?”
“Christened—John.”
“That’s my name.”
“Well, doesn’t that make it rather more intimate?”
Two chairs at a table seemed less intimate than lounging on a settee, and Luce took her in to lunch. He might not look it, but there was a feminine streak in him that made him wise as to women, and to assume the part of the large, shy boy would only provoke Lottie to more outrage. She was not a sensitive creature, but a sensualist and a bully, and the way to handle her was to play the drover to a mischievous heifer. Almost, Luce blustered. He became autocratic about the lunch, and dictatorial with the waiters. Miss Reubens was delighted. This swashbuckling was stimulating after the amorous potterings of Hugh Pusey.
How seductive he was! And such a woman as Lottie can become fat and sentimental, for when the flesh melts no creature can be more silly than your conscious highbrow. She allowed herself to be ordered about by Luce, to be put into a taxi, and carried off to Lucille’s in Brook Street. She had become utterly and serenely snoopy, and sat on a chair, and tried on hats while her Zeus stood by and thundered.
“No. Take it off. Monstrous.”
At last he found a hat for her. He was sincere about that hat. It really was her hat. He had it put in a box, and he packed box and lady into a taxi. No, he was not coming to meet he
r monkey. Let her wait upon his divine pleasure.
“I’ll send you word when I am back from my expedition.”
She held his hand.
“Promise. I won’t bring H.P. We don’t—need H.P., do we?”
“I should say not.”
And he slammed the door and nodded at the driver.
3
What a woman! Cream bun, and sweetbread, and cascara! He put off his plumed hat and his swagger, and took yet another taxi, for the real business of the day lay before him. He had remembered that poor Norah had done much of her shopping at Terry and Goms, and to Terry and Goms he went. He had memorized his list of necessities, but how much he would dare to buy was quite another matter.
He found himself in the hosiery department. It was very full of women, both buying and selling, and Luce was attacked by a sudden absurd self-consciousness. Why not begin on something more easy in some less crowded department? His vacillation might have led him elsewhere had he not run up against a large and confident man in a bowler hat and spectacles who was buying stockings with supreme assurance.
“You are sure these are tens.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And pure silk? My wife insists——.”
“If madam is not satisfied, we will change them for her.”
Luce was inspired by this confident person. He waited and approached the same saleswoman.
“Curious coincidence, two husbands buying stockings. Can you serve me?”
She happened to be a pleasant person with a sense of humour.
“What colour, sir?”
“Black.”
“And what size does madam take?”
“Nines.”
“Silk?”
“Yes, silk. And perhaps I ought to take a pair of utility hose. Country, you know.”
“Quite so, sir.”
His conquest of the hose department had proved so easy that he departed from it with his parcels and an access of confidence. Why not dare shoes? He did so. He found that a smiling and confidential address gave results. His wife had been ill, and she had commissioned him to buy a pair of walking shoes for her, yes, black leather, suitable for the country, size three. The saleswoman was a little bothered. Was he sure that the shoes would suit the lady without a try-on? And Luce smiled. “My wife has normal feet, no etceteras. And—of course—if they don’t fit, you would let me change them?”
His confidence and his parcels were increasing. He passed on and up into the dress department. He stood and explained that he needed a simple costume and a coloured jumper for an invalid wife. The way three women came to his assistance should have restored his faith in human nature. Yes, his wife was a little on the small size. He was shown various garments, and he selected a yellow jumper and a simple beige-coloured frock.
“Can’t we have the parcels sent, sir?”
“No, I can manage. I was in the great war!”
He passed on decorated with parcels. He had to wear his hat. He found himself in the lingerie department, but there his courage failed him. Rachel would have to do some surreptitious shopping in a country town. But he did dare to buy her a collection of toilet articles; hair brushes, a comb, face gloves, a sponge, nail scissors, etcetera. He explained again that his wife had been ill; yes, she was laid up in the country and had asked him to buy her a new outfit. Hung around with parcels he managed to reach Messrs. Terry and Goms’ main entrance, and there a sympathetic commissionaire came to his assistance.
“I want a taxi, please.”
The commissionaire procured him a taxi, and piled him and his parcels inside. Luce gave the man two shillings.
“Thank you, sir. Where to?”
“Waterloo station.”
The commissionaire pocketed the florin, and wished that more gentlemen came shopping for their wives.
At Waterloo he retained the porter who opened the door of the taxi. “You might help me with these parcels.” He paid the taxi-driver, and marching to the cloak-room withdrew his empty suitcase, and assisted by the porter, stowed the parcels away in it. He was jocular. “Married man, porter?” “Yes, sir.”—“Then you’ll sympathize!” Seated in a corner of a third-class smoker, and recapitulating the day’s doings, he suddenly remembered that he would require a licence to drive a car. He possessed a licence, but it needed renewing, and in Brandon he could call at the post office and obtain the appropriate form. Also, he warned the young lady in charge that he was expecting a parcel, and that he would call for it when he happened to be in the village.
His next visit was to the Chequers Inn. He asked for the landlord.
“No, I haven’t come to stay, Mr. Smith, but to ask a favour—at a price.”
“What can we do for you, sir?”
“A friend and I are going caravaning. I wondered whether you would let me garage a car and a caravan in your yard for a couple of nights. My place doesn’t welcome cars.”
“It’s just a question of room, sir.”
“It could stand in a corner of your yard. I expect my friend to join me here, and I think he will want you to put him up for a couple of nights. I want to get a little practice with the van before starting out.”
Mr. Smith was ready to oblige him.
XVII
On his way to the station that morning Luce had called at Mr. Temperley’s, only to be told that Mr. Temperley was still in his bath, and Luce had left a message. “Please don’t trouble him. Tell Mr. Temperley I will look in again another day.”
At lunch Mr. Temperley was reminded by his parlour-maid that Mr. Luce had called.
“Thank you, Martha; I haven’t forgotten.”
Nor had he, though what it was that moved Mr. Temperley to think of walking to the Signal Tower was perhaps no more than an old man’s restlessness. People like Miss Ballard made you claim a veritable provocation, and possibly Miss Ballard had roused in Mr. Temperley strange and primitive urges. He could say that he was in one of his palæolithic moods, a mood that antedated Sumer and the cuneiform script. He wanted exercise, wildness, trees, the potent and vigorous phantasms that solitary places invoke, those mysterious and wild tricks of nature that can thrill the eternal boy in an old gentleman of seventy-three. Yes, he was in a mood for the heathlands and the pines, and for the fantasies of the fern. He would walk over to the tower and perhaps take tea with Luce. The tower itself attracted him, suggesting the climbing of those hundred-odd steps, to find the woodlands surging round you like the sea. But what if Luce should happen to be out? Mr. Temperley rubbed his chin, and opening a cupboard door, contemplated two rows of hooks upon which hung a collection of estate keys. He was a believer in spare keys; keys were objects, the loss of which, caused waste of time and temper, and an appeal to some local locksmith. There was a third key to the tower, and it hung upon one of those brass hooks. Mr. Temperley took it down and pocketed it. Well, if the tenant did happen to be out, would a large and easy person like Luce seriously object to an old gentleman trespassing in order to enjoy the view? Also, let it be confessed that he was feeling vaguely mischievous, and not a little interested in the eccentricities of this modern eremite, who, as he had confessed, took his bath upon the leads, and was also something of a Chaldean.
It was a day when Mr. Temperley saw the green world as a young man sees it when first the eyes of his soul are opened, yet Mr. Temperley could look upon all this loveliness and be content with it. At seventy-three did one desire to mortgage a mystery, or rush to express it in paints or words? Was any country more beautiful than England in June? Admittedly, there were other and different beauties, Norway with the birches in young leaf; the Tyrol where each upland meadow was a great basket of flowers; some Italian tower set on a high hill against the sunset. When Mr. Temperley thought of England it was the England of the Down country and the Weald, or the Cotswolds or the Welsh Marches, or Northumberland and the Wall. And so much of it was passing. Suburbia was the new flood, and Mr. Temperley might feel like God and Noah.
Brandon a
nd its parkland, fields and woods had on this perfect day a new and yet familiar beauty for him. There were groups of trees which could cause him to stand and stare, gentle fields that made him linger at a gate and feel the lucid landscape to be a smile on the face of God. The wine of the woods! Why should such phrases come into an old man’s head like word patterns of mystical meaning? Yes, friend Luce was one of the few who understood these things.
But in this very beautiful world Mr. Temperley could divine other poignancies, and ask of life inevitable questions. Why were there people like the Ballards, souls with sore and contorted faces; brutalities, stupidities? This green world held a secret. Somewhere, a poor mad Ophelia might be floating, or lying bleached and still amid the fern. The woods themselves seemed to have a peculiar silence. The tall trees looked down mistrustfully upon this little creature, man. Mr. Temperley could excuse himself to trees. “Have no fear, my friends. I do not come with an axe.” And presently, as he climbed the hill, that curious tall building became visible. Its five windows caught the sunlight.
Mr. Temperley paused by the fence. He noticed the freshly-turned earth where Luce had been digging, and it provoked in him a question. Were some men superior to human contacts and content with the solace of the soil? But, surely, human contact was essential, some good-man Friday in a Crusoe world? Mr. Temperley passed on under the ragged laurels to the gate. The green door at the top of the flight of steps was shut. Was Luce at home? Apparently not, for Mr. Temperley had noticed that all five windows were closed, and as he stood there, this silent and solitary place provoked him. It was like a mysterious ruin to be explored.
Mr. Temperley opened the gate, walked round the building, and returned to the steps, stood savouring the silence and the solitude. Undoubtedly, friend Luce was not at home. But why not prepare a surprise for the gentleman, slip into his shell and wait for the return of the hermit? Mr. Temperley climbed the steps and tried the door. Locked. He brought out his key and inserted it. There was the click of the mechanism and a faint creaking of the hinges, sounds that seemed tremendous in the tower’s silent interior.
The Woman at The Door Page 17