Mr. Temperley found himself in the vestibule, contemplating the closed door of a room, and the lower treads of the tower stairs. Convinced by the silence that the place was empty, he had turned to close the outer door when a sudden sound startled him. Footsteps on the stairs! The quality of them, their lightness and quick rhythm was like the beating of a heart, and not to be associated with a man of Luce’s bulk.
Mr. Temperley’s face seemed to sharpen. The footsteps were close upon him. He stood looking upwards, his eyes very bright under the rim of his hat. He saw two feet, a skirt, and then, the whole of her. Good God, Rachel Ballard!
He saw her pause, recoil against the wall. Her hands went to her breasts. He was aware of her eyes, large and dark and terrified.
“Mrs. Ballard!”
2
Luce set out with his suitcase, a little conscious of it and its contents. He had made sure that the thing was locked, and yet he could not help reflecting that if the lid were to come open and shoot some of those feminine objects on to the pavement they might take a devil of a lot of explaining. And how had the day passed with her? He had cause to feel anxious over those hours of solitude, and to dread the recurrence of an attack of conscience.
He did not hurry; his leisureliness was studied, and yet he confessed himself glad to reach the lane and the shelter of a high brick wall. He could see the distant woods hazed with heat. A moment later he was between hedges, and beyond the last of the cottage gardens. Thenceforward all gates would be field-gates opening into unsophisticated fields, and the thing that he carried no more than an innocent piece of luggage.
Luce had reached a little spinney on the edge of Brandon Park when he realized that someone was walking behind him. Well, what did it matter? He did not glance round, nor did he quicken his pace, and yet those following footsteps bothered him. They seemed to maintain the same distance; he dawdled, and so did they, but if the linkage was merely casual, it was all the more necessary for him to ignore it. But why not let the footsteps by, and then get a glimpse of the ghost? Coming to a field-gate, he turned aside, put the suitcase down, removed his hat, and leaned upon the gate.
The footsteps approached, and from their quality he concluded that the walker was a woman. Well, he would let her go by, and allow her to take the lead, for most certainly he was prejudiced against human shadows. The footsteps drew level with the gate. They paused, and a voice addressed him.
“Excuse me, but does this lane lead to Beech Farm?”
Luce’s reaction was both impulsive and controlled. He turned, raised a hat, smiled.
“I’m not sure. I’m afraid I am something of a stranger here.”
“Thank you.”
He maintained that smile, but the inner man was not smiling. The woman’s likeness to Ballard was remarkable. His sister? O, probably. Also, it impressed Luce as being a most unpleasant face, like a piece of white board, with two dabs of red paint on the cheek bones.
“I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He was aware of her scrutinizing his suitcase, and then, without looking at him again, she walked on. He stood with his back to the gate, watching her and reflecting that if she was Miss Ballard her asking the way might appear a little superfluous. Meanwhile, her black figure with its high shoulders was becoming a little sinister streak against the dark woods.
Had she any reason for stopping to speak to him, a mere stranger who happened to be carrying a suitcase along a lonely lane? Had it provoked her curiosity? For if this woman with the unpleasant face was indeed Miss Ballard, she might feel herself very much interested in strangers. What might not a vindictive and suspicious woman read into the dark tangle of such a tragedy? Sex, the eternal triangle, the shadow-man behind the curtain? Surely, he had been a little foolish in pretending that he had been unable to direct her? The labourers might talk. She might discover the fact that he had been to the farm, and on more than one occasion. He picked up his suitcase and hurried after her.
He overtook Miss Ballard in the hollow way where the trees and rhododendrons made the place a green tunnel.
“Excuse me.”
She turned and faced him.
“I’m afraid I may have misled you. Is Beech Farm the place where that sad affair has happened?”
“Yes.”
“O, well, then, I do happen to know it. I was there once to buy milk. You turn to the left when you get to the heath. I am sorry I was so stupid.”
She said, “Don’t mention it,” glanced again at his suitcase, and walked on.
Her interest in his suitcase so infected him that when she was out of sight Luce put the case down and examined it to convince himself that no feminine tag was treacherously protruding. But he could find nothing about the suitcase to attract attention, and the inference was obvious. In such a crisis a man could feel so sensitively guilty, so much John Luce contra mundum, that even the persistent buzzing of a fly might assume an exaggerated significance.
3
Luce came to the green door. He put his suitcase down on the doorstep, felt in his pocket for the key, and inserting it, gave a turn of the wrist. Nothing happened, save that the key’s resistance caused him the inward shock of realizing that the door was not locked. He had no doubt at all about his locking of the door, and in making that trivial yet most significant discovery, and the whole human tragedy and its emotions seemed to come tumbling about his ears. Very gently he turned the handle, opened the door a couple of inches, and then reclosed it. He felt that he wanted to stand there for a few seconds, and let this objective fact translate itself into the inevitable inferences. Someone had unlocked the door. The second key had been with her. So, she had let herself out. Her courage had both failed her and dared the finality of surrender. She had gone out and given herself up.
Luce was conscious of a sudden anger, not against her, but against all those social forces that had pressed so remorselessly upon her too sensitive nature. This day must have been for her a day of anguish and of self-martyrdom. But was he sure? Had the final and fatal thing happened? Leaving the suitcase on the step, he reopened the door and entered the vestibule. The sitting-room door was wide open. Someone was sitting in a chair by the window with a pipe and a book. There were tea-things on the table.
Mr. Temperley!
He was aware of Mr. Temperley putting the book aside and looking up at him with astonishing serenity.
“No need to look at me, Luce, as though you wanted to cut my throat.”
“Why are you here?”
“Shut the door, my dear man, and lock it, and I will tell you. Yes, she is upstairs. Let her stay there for a little while.”
The blue glare went out of Luce’s eyes. He turned to the outer door, brought the suitcase into the vestibule, and locked the door. Had he indeed felt moved to wring that old man’s neck? Good God, how primitive one could become in such a crisis!
“Well, Mr. Temperley?”
“You will notice, Luce, that she has given me tea. I know everything, and nothing. Don’t glare at me like some mad Norseman.”
“I’m sorry, but——”
“Take your pipe out and smoke, man, while I explain. It would appear that old gentlemen should not carry spare keys with them when they come to call.”
“What were you doing here?”
“Mere friendliness, Luce. I found no one at home, so having a spare key, I trespassed. No, it wasn’t that I had any suspicion. I thought you would not mind if I went up to look at the view.”
“And then?”
“I was standing out there in the vestibule when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Well, the shock was mutual. Why don’t you light your pipe? I shall feel so much more comfortable.”
Luce walked to the window, and threw up the lower sash as though he needed air.
“I should not do that, my dear man.”
Luce turned on him almost fiercely.
“Does it matter now?”
“It
does. Shut that window. It was shut while she told me everything.”
“She told you everything?”
“Yes, poor child. And I believe everything she told me. What you and I have to say to each other, Luce, is so peculiarly intimate that we must take no risks.”
Luce’s big hand lowered the sash.
“What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t it occur to you, Luce, that I may be on your side?”
“You?”
“For goodness’ sake light your pipe, man. Now then, what sort of person do you see sitting in this chair? An old man to whom life has been somehow good, and who is by no means in a hurry to leave it. One is supposed to fear death, public opinion, the man in the wig or the helmet. There comes a time, Luce, when fear of these things dies in some of us. I’m beyond them. The conventions and the commandments are to me like mummy dust in the pyramids. Possibly, you have never explored an old man’s attitude to life, an old man such as I am. One applauds courage and cunning, particularly cunning. One comes to side with the fox, or with the last lion in Africa. One can even take a wicked and benignant pleasure in fooling the human pack. One wants to see life escape and not get caught in a trap. Yes, I am quite serious, my dear man, so serious that I may be able to help you.”
Luce sat down on the window-sill with his back to the window. His large fingers were cramming tobacco into a pipe.
“This business goes to the bottom of life. It is not mere literature. I’m feeling pretty grim.”
“Be as grim as you please, Luce. This secret is safe with me. But it is a damned awkward noose you have slipped over your head.”
“I chose it deliberately.”
Mr. Temperley smiled at him.
“Is such feeling deliberate? Yes, and it is often you quiet and deep people who go over the precipice. But what do you propose to do, Luce? She wouldn’t tell me; you must.”
“Must?”
“Yes, my dear man, for if I am to be a fellow anarchist I must know how to lie as comprehensively as you are lying.”
Luce looked at him for a moment with profound attention.
“All right; I’ll tell you.”
So, very briefly he told Mr. Temperley of his hiring of a car and caravan, and of his ultimate plan to get Rachel Ballard out of the country. He had a passport of his late wife’s, which was still valid, some faking would have to be done, and they would have to accept the risk of the forgery being discovered. But every turn of the adventure implied a risk.
“Even my trusting you is a risk, but you have us cornered. You may be amusing yourself at our expense.”
“Do you really believe that, Luce?”
“As a matter of fact I don’t, sir, though, in your case the motive is less obvious.”
“I am just a mischievous old man, my dear Luce, who, before he dies, may throw his book of the law out of the window. Don’t let my bona fides worry you. I, too, am becoming an accessory after the fact. But this caravan idea?”
“There is one advantage of your being in the secret. I shall not have to come and present you with a parcel of lies. How to smuggle her out of the neighbourhood posed me until I thought of a caravan holiday. I had to make my own disappearance seem natural. I shall get her away after dark, and make for Wales.”
“What about clothes?”
“That was one of our problems. She came to me with nothing. I have just been in London doing some secret shopping for her. The car and the caravan arrive in a day or so. I’m putting them into the Chequers yard for the night. More stage management! My story will be that I’m picking up a friend in Bucks.”
“And starting after dark? Isn’t that rather young?”
“No, I leave Brandon in daylight, and park my machine in the old gravel pit on the lower road. I have to carry down my stores. Also, my friend in Bucks will wire me that he is being kept in town till six o’clock.”
“Is this hypothetical friend necessary?”
“What alternative have I?”
“Why not take me, Luce, at least as far as Shrewsbury?”
“You, sir?”
“It would be very useful camouflage. Everybody could be made to know that you and I had gone exploring Roman sites. They think me sufficiently mad for that.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Most certainly I do. And if you have any doubt about my sincerity, consider how seriously I shall be compromised.”
“It’s an inspiration, sir.”
“You can drop me on the Welsh border, and I can dawdle about up there for a few days. I want to see Viriconium again, and that rather charming person, Mr. Francis Jackson.”
“Aren’t you rather an extraordinary person?”
“No more extraordinary than you are, Luce. We, the eternally young, are attracted by acts of piracy. In the seventeenth century I might have helped Morgan and his buccaneers to sack Panama.”
For some seconds Luce was profoundly silent. He remembered reading in some book that old age is cowardly and pusillanimous, but in Mr. Temperley’s case the dogma did not appear to apply. Moreover, he was realizing that his acceptance of Mr. Temperley’s help was an act of faith, and that as such it had to be humoured. Meanwhile, he had left the suitcase in the vestibule, and he went to carry it in.
“If anyone had had eyes to see through a sheet of fibre, I might have found myself in Queer Street.”
He put the suitcase down behind the door, and returning to the window, stood there relighting his pipe. His impulse was to throw the spent match out of the window, but the window was shut, and suddenly he stood quite still, the match between finger and thumb, his left hand supporting his pipe. Mr. Temperley, who was watching him, thought for a moment that Luce was lost in the contemplation of things visionary.
“Do you mind coming here, sir?”
“Someone there?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Temperley joined Luce at the window. His sight was as good as Luce’s, and the figure standing by the garden fence, and just clear of the shadow was easily recognized.
“Hah, the good woman!”
“I fell in with her in the lane. Who is she?”
“Ballard’s sister.”
“I thought I had spotted the resemblance. She spoke to me. She seemed to be peculiarly interested in my suitcase.”
“What did she want of you, Luce?”
“To know if the lane would take her to Beech Farm.”
“Ingenuous creature. She knows that as well as I do. Miss Ballard, Luce, is a self-appointed Nemesis, and completely and suspiciously vindictive. We must settle this coincidence.”
Luce turned quickly.
“Just a moment.”
He left Mr. Temperley at the window, and climbing the stairs to the upper floor, knocked gently at the door.
“You there, Rachel?”
“Yes, John.”
“Don’t go near the window. Yes, everything is merciful and right. I’ll be with you in five minutes.”
He returned to Mr. Temperley—a Mr. Temperley who had put on his hat.
“We will confront her together, Luce.”
“But she has gone, sir.”
“I rather think we shall find her at your gate.”
When Luce opened the green door and stood aside for Mr. Temperley to pass, he saw Miss Ballard standing there with her hands upon the gate. He closed the door and, following Mr. Temperley down the steps, made it appear that they had been engaged in an archæological argument.
“I don’t think I agree with you, sir, on Massingham’s theory.”
“Why not?”
“After all, the finding of an Egyptian blue beard isn’t completely satisfying.”
“It strikes me as being good evidence. Hallo, there is someone at your gate, Luce.”
It was evident that Miss Ballard had not expected to be surprised in that particular situation. Luce saw her turn away, and disappear behind the laurels, but Mr. Temperley was moved to pursue. “You’ll excuse me, Luce. Yes, l
et me know finally about the caravan idea.” Luce went to the gate with him, and watched him walk with engaging briskness in pursuit of Miss Ballard. They were out of Luce’s sight before he overtook her, but Luce could hear the sound of their voices.
“Ah, Miss Ballard, taking a walk?”
He could be charmingly and cheerfully obvious, a gentlemanly old clown who had to be allowed his patter. Miss Ballard observed him obliquely with the air of a woman who had secret curiosities, and for their assuagement might leave this old fool to do the talking. Yes, it was a quite remarkable building, the Signal Tower, and occupied at the moment by a quite remarkable person, his friend Mr. John Luce. Had Miss Ballard happened to have read any of Mr. Luce’s books? She had not. She could have said, “I’ve never heard of the fellow.” But Mr. Temperley ignored both her ignorance and her wooden and supercilious face, and still making magpie conversation, walked with her as far as the track leading through the woods.
“I think we part here, Miss Ballard. O, by the way, I think I owe you an apology.”
Did he? And for what? Genial senility?
“I quite forgot during our interview that I could not in any event have acted for you. I can’t think how the thing slipped my memory. I am joining Mr. Luce in a caravan tour.”
A caravan tour! At his age! Silly old creature. And as if, after savouring his silliness, she would have wished to employ him as her castigator of uninspired officials!
“Don’t mention it.”
He took off his hat to her.
“But, courtesy insists. You might have thought it rather disingenuous of me, Miss Ballard.”
He had persuaded her to think him an amiable old ass.
XVIII
Luce climbed the tower stairs, reflecting that if he had suffered from the shocks of life’s ambuscades, how much more terrible must this betrayal have seemed to her. He could picture her running down the stairs to welcome a lover, and to find, in lieu of the lover, an old gentleman who might have appeared dressed as the very judgment of Minos.
The Woman at The Door Page 18