She opened her big eyes.
“But I’ve got an order.”
“That’s the worst of it. They’ll take orders from no one. Once they’d caught sight of it, you would have been blindfolded and led back to the village by a circuitous route.”
“Nonsense!”
“It’s a fact. But I’ll show you round, all right. Anything I can tell you about the place before we move?”
She regarded me suspiciously. Then:
“Is there a billiard room?” she said.
“Certainly. And a table complete with three balls, one of Attenborough’s latest models – slate bed, pneumatic cushions. Be careful of the top one; it bust the other day. The butler had pumped it up too tight.”
“Servants’ hall?”
“Every time. All the domestic offices are noble.”
“Telephone?”
“Of course. In case of fire, call ‘Fire Brigade.’ No number required. Speak direct to fire station. Give address of fire.”
“That’s useful.”
“Rather! You’ll have them up under the hour, if they can get the horses.”
“All the same, I don’t think we shall come here. You see, I didn’t know it was an asylum.”
“It’s very cheap,” said I. “I can do it at ten guineas a week – without the inspection-pit, that is.”
She leaned forward and laughed.
“Oh dear!” she said, “what a thing it is to be really silly sometimes!”
She got up and smoothed down her dress.
“And now, please, can I be shown over the house?”
“With pleasure,” I said, getting up. “That is, unless you’d rather see The Grange first.”
She stared at me for a moment, then she snatched the order out of my hand.
“What’s this place?” she demanded.
“White Ladies.”
“Are you trying to let it?”
“Well, we haven’t thought—”
“And you’ve let me sit here all this time making a fool of myself, when you knew perfectly well—”
“Five and three-quarters, was it?”
She stamped her foot.
“Dear pretty Girl Blue, don’t be angry.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“I know, but I’m so busy just now that it’s done for me. My sister is ashamed of me every evening at eight-fifteen. Matinées on Wednesdays at two. Could you come one day?”
She laughed in spite of herself. Then:
“And now where is this Grange place?”
“Next but one on the right, but it looks rotten in the evening.”
“It’s only just five.”
“Besides, they had measles there last May – stacks of them.”
“Stacks of what?”
“Measles. One of them escaped one day and was brought back by the village corner-boy. He said he’d have kept it, only he hadn’t got a dog licence.”
“But The Grange has got a ghost, hasn’t it? And I love ghosts.”
“The Grey Lady? My dear, she’s gone. Always used to walk the back stairs on third Fridays, and one night the servants left the lights on. She gave notice the next day. Wanted a change, I think. You see, she’d been in one place nearly two hundred years. Besides, the stairs were bad.”
“It’s a nice house, isn’t it?”
“Pretty well. But it hasn’t got a priest’s hole.”
“What does that matter?”
“Well, where are you going to keep the gorgonzolas?”
She leaned on the back of a chair and began to laugh helplessly. Presently:
“You wretched man!” she said. “I’m really awfully angry with you.”
“I knew it.”
“Be quiet. You’ve wasted my time here until it’s too late for me to see The Grange, and what on earth I shall tell father I don’t know.”
“He’s not outside?”
“In the car? You don’t think I should still be here if he was? No, I came over alone.”
“That’s all right. Now you’ll be able to help me with this jigsaw.”
She gave rather a good gasp at that.
“Girl Blue, please. You’ve heaps of time, because, if you’d gone to The Grange, you wouldn’t have got away yet. And it’s a nice jigsaw, quite one of the family.”
“Eats out of your hand, I suppose?”
“Rather. And sits up and barks for Baldwin and all the rest of it. ‘A Young Diana’ it’s called. Appeared in last year’s Academy, and—”
But she was down on her knees on the lawn, staring at the tray by now. I joined her, wondering a little.
“That’s a bit of Merrylegs,” she said, picking up one of the pieces, “and there’s another. That’s a bit of her dear nose, and there’s her white stocking. Look here, we’ll do her first.”
I sat down on the turf and looked at her.
“Either,” I said slowly – “either you’re a witch, and that isn’t allowed, or else you’ve had to learn this picture some time as a punishment.”
She laughed. “I sat for it,” she explained. “That’s all.”
It was my turn to gasp.
“It’s hanging in the dining-room at home now. Come along. There’s a bit of my habit. Keep it with Merrylegs. I’ll fit them together in a minute.”
I took off my coat, kneeled down beside her, and began to receive Merrylegs piecemeal. When she had picked out all of the mare, she cleared a little space, and began fitting the bits together at a rate that was astonishing. Then she turned her attention to the background. Laid upon its side, the mysterious ladder became a distant fence, and little by little a landscape grew into being under her small fingers. Suddenly she caught my arm.
“Somebody’s coming!” she whispered.
I heard footsteps crunch on a path’s gravel, then all was silent again. Whoever it was, was coming towards us over the lawn. A clump of rhododendrons hid us from them, and them from us.
“Behind there!” I whispered, pointing to three tall elms at our back, which grew so close together that they formed a giant screen. She was out of sight in a second, and I had just time to throw my coat over the jigsaw and sit down upon the glove she had dropped before Berry appeared.
“Hullo!” he said.
“Hullo!” said I.
“What are you doing?”
“Doing?”
“Yes, you know – executing, performing, carrying out?”
“Go away!” I said. “You are trespassing upon a private reverie. Didn’t you see the notice?”
He shook his head.
“You have, as it were, burst rudely open the door of the brown study in which I am communing with Nature and one or two of my imagination’s friends. Kindly apologise and withdraw, closing the door as you go.”
“All right, Omar. Where’s your Thou?”
“You frightened her away.”
Berry grinned.
“Heard the pattering of my little feet, I suppose!”
“Yes. She wouldn’t believe it was only footsteps, but let that pass. If she were to hear the same noise – forgive me – retreating, she would probably return.”
“Really think so?”
“That is my steadfast conviction.”
“Well, you go indoors, and we’ll see. If I don’t follow you in five minutes, you’ll know you’re right.”
“Friend,” said I, “the indecency of your suggestion is almost grotesque. To impose upon a timid, trusting Thou is either base or dastardly – I forget which. I am glad none of the others were here to hear what I feel sure to have been but a thoughtless, idle word. I shan’t say anything about it, so no one, except you and me, will ever know; and even if I cannot ever forget, I shall come to forgive it in years to come.”
“Time will heal the wound, brother. Till then, where’s the jigsaw?”
“An evil beast hath devoured it. It is, without doubt, rent in pieces.”
“In which case I shall prefer a
bill of indictment against you as accessory for mutilation next autumn assize. I warn you.”
“Thanks! I shall see you at dinner, shan’t I? Not that I want to, but I just shall.”
Berry sighed.
“From your manner, more than from what you say, anyone would think you wanted me to go, old chap. Of course, I know you, so it doesn’t matter; but you ought to be more careful. No, I’ve not taken offence, because I know none was meant; but I’m going to go just to teach you a lesson. Yes, I am. Give my love to Thou, won’t you?”
“Certainly not! She’s had one shock already this afternoon.”
“Oh, was today the first time she’d seen you?”
He strolled back to the house.
When I heard his footsteps on the gravel again, I got up and peered through the rhododendrons. I watched him go indoors, and turned to see the girl once more on her knees by the jigsaw.
I kneeled opposite her and watched her at work. After a moment she glanced up and met my eyes.
“You’ll see the picture better from this side,” she said.
“Which picture?”
“Round you come!”
I crawled to her side with a sigh. On she went at a wonderful pace. Old elms rose up in the background, a splash of red and brown resolved itself into a sunny farm, and four pieces which Berry had recognised as water went to make up a sheltered haystack. When it was nearly finished, she leaned across me and looked at my wristwatch.
“I’ll just have time,” she whispered half to herself.
“Only just?”
“Only just. Did you speak?”
“Yes, I did. I said ‘Damn!’ And I’ll say it again.”
She leaned on my shoulder and laughed for a second. Then:
“I’m sure you wouldn’t find that in the Rubáiyát.”
“Perhaps Thou didn’t have to be back in time for dinner.”
She fell to work again, but I could see she was smiling. The loose pieces left were very few now. A tuft of grass fell into place, a wisp of smoke stole out of the farmhouse chimney, a quick-set hedge sprang up in the distance, landscape and sky merged on the horizon, and the thing was done.
She sat back on her heels and regarded it for a moment. Then she slipped sideways on to the lawn, smoothed down her frock, and looked at me.
“Not bad, is it?” she said.
“It’s sweet!”
“You ought to see the original.”
“I have. That’s why I love it. I shall have it framed and keep it in memory of this private view.”
“Sentiment, with a vengeance.”
“What if it is, Girl Blue?”
For answer, she began to pull on her gloves. I watched her in silence. When they were both on, she rose, and so did I.
“I’ll go as I came,” she said. “Don’t come with me to the gate.”
I bowed. She put out her hand. I bent over it.
“Goodbye,” I said.
“Goodbye, and – and thanks for—”
“For what, Girl Blue?”
“For not asking any questions.”
I smiled and turned away. Then I kneeled down suddenly and kissed the face that looked up out of the picture, the face that would have meant nothing two hours before, the face that looked out into the clear breeze and over the open country, the face that –
“As this is quite a private view,” said the original, speaking very slowly, “and as tomorrow you won’t be able to—”
I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence.
Before I had finished my second cigarette, Berry, Daphne, and Jill came round the bank of rhododendrons.
“Why, Boy,” said Jill, “have you been here all the time?”
A cry from Daphne interrupted her.
The next moment they were all down on their knees poring over my late companion’s handiwork. A moment later, as with one consent, they all looked up and stared at me. I looked away and smoked with careless deliberation.
“How on earth have you done it?” gasped Daphne.
“Done what?” said I. “Oh, that? Oh, it wasn’t very hard!”
“You must be better at them than you were on Saturday,” said Jill. “Have you been practising at the Blairs?”
I felt Berry was looking at me, and waited.
“Then it was a glove you were sitting on,” he said slowly.
Berry’s a nut – every time.
It was the first week in October, and we were back in town. They were all out but me. Sunday afternoon it was, and I was alone in the library finishing a little work. I do work sometimes. Suddenly the telephone went. I picked up the receiver.
“Is that the garage?” said Girl Blue.
“No, dear. It’s me. How are you?”
“Why, it’s you!”
“I know. I said so just now. You’re looking splendid. Oh, I am glad! I’ve waited such a long time!”
“You must thank the Exchange, not me.”
“Don’t rub it in!”
“Well, goodbye.”
“I don’t think you’re very kind, Girl Blue.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t! I’ve got the gloves, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll send them to you, care of Charing Cross Post Office, if you like, unless you’d rather I buried them six paces due east of the fourteenth lamp post on the west side of Edgware Road.”
“I think,” she said slowly, “I think I may as well take them with me.”
“Certainly, madam. Sign, please! But when, dear?”
“Well, I shall be at the Albert Hall next Friday.”
“Girl Blue!”
“I don’t suppose you’re going, but perhaps you could send them by someone who—”
“Under what symbol shall I meet her?”
“Wait a moment! You shall have the seventh waltz—”
“Only seven? Where is he? What is his name?”
“You heard what I said. And we’ll meet under – oh, under—”
“Mistletoe,” said I.
“Goodbye!”
“Goodbye! Oh, Girl Blue, I forgot to say—”
“Number, please!” said Exchange.
“You’ve cut me off!” I roared.
“Sorry.”
A pause. Then:
“Here you are.”
“Hullo, dear!” I said.
“Is that the cab rank?” said a man’s fat voice.
“No, it isn’t,” said I. “And you’ve got an ugly face and flat feet, and I hate you!”
Then I rang off.
15: All Found
I had seen her but once before, and that was at the Savoy on New Year’s Eve. She had been with her party at one table, and I with mine at another. And in the midst of the revelling I had chanced to look up and into one of the great mirrors which made a panel upon the wall. There I had seen the girl, sitting back in her chair, smiling and fresh and white shouldered, in a dress of black and gold, her fingers about the stem of her goblet. Not talking, listening, rather, to the words of a man at her side, whose eyes were watching her smiling lips somewhat greedily. He had red hair, I remember, and a moustache brushed up to hide a long upper lip. And, as I looked, she also had looked up, and our eyes had met. There and then I had raised my wine and toasted her – her of the looking-glass. The smile had deepened. Then she had raised her glass, and drunk to me in return. That was all. And when Berry had leaned across the table and asked:
“Who’s your friend?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Pshaw!” said my brother-in-law. “I say it deliberately.”
“I drank to a thought,” said I. “Believe me.”
After all, a thought is a reflection.
And now here she was, sitting in the grass by the wayside.
“She’s brown, isn’t she?” said I.
“As a berry. I like his breeches.”
I bowed.
“Thank you. And for you, ‘picturesque’ is the wor
d – one of the words. Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?”
“I’d rather you collected that cow. She’s getting too near the river for my liking. I’m looking after the dears.”
“Are you?” said I. “But—”
“But what?”
“Quis custodiet—”
The apple she threw passed over my shoulder.
Mountains and valleys, swift rivers and curling roads, here and there a village shining in the hot sun, and once in a while a castle in the woods, white-walled, red-roofed, peaceful enough now in its old age, but hinting at wild oats sown and reaped when it was young. Hinting broadly, too. At nights shaken with the flare of torches and the clash of arms, at oaths and laughter and the tinkle of spurs on the worn steps, at threats and blood-lettings and all the good old ways, now dead, out of date, and less indebted to memory than imagination. And then at galleries with creaking floors, at arras and the rustle of a dress; whisperings, too, and the proud flash of eyes, hands lily-white, whose fingers men must kiss and in the eyes mirror themselves. But these things are not dead. Old-fashioned wrath is over – gone to its long home: love is not even wrinkled. Yet again it was before wrath…
I set out to describe the province of Krain, and now I have strayed from the highway up one of those curling roads to one of those white castles, only to lose myself in the thicket of Romance beyond. Perhaps it does not matter. Anyway, it was on the slope of a green meadow all among the mountains of Krain that the girl was sitting, herself unminded, minding her cows. And out of the woods above her a round, white tower proclaimed a château set on the shoulder of a hill.
Her dress was that of the country, and yet, perhaps, rather such as Croatian peasants wear. All white linen, embroidered ever so richly, cut low and round at the neck, and with the skirt falling some four inches below her knee: short sleeves, a small, white apron, and over her thick, fair hair a bright red kerchief. But her stockings were of white silk, and small, black buckled slippers kept the little feet. Clear, blue eyes hers, and a small merry mouth, and a skin after the sun’s own heart. It was so brown – such an even, delicate brown. Brown cheeks and temples, brown arms and hands, brown throat. Oh, very picturesque.
I rounded up the cow errant, returned to my lady, and took my seat by her side.
“Thank you,” she said. “And now, who are you and what do you want?”
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