Nightfall Part 33

Bit by bit it was all coming out, the cruel and sordid drama played before an audience of housemaids, as one admission led to another and her strength revived for the ordeal. Lawrence shuddered and sat silent, trying to gauge the extent of the mischief. "What can I do?" said Laura. She looked down at herself and blushed again. "I do feel so--so disreputable in these clothes. I haven't even been able to wash my face and hands or tidy my hair since I left the hotel."

"Have you been wandering about in the drive all this time?"

"I suppose so. I was afraid to go into the road in such a pickle."

"These infernal clothes!" Lawrence burst out exasperated. Their wretched plight was reduced to farce by the fact that they were locked out of their bedrooms, unable to get at their wardrobes, their soaps and sponges and brushes, his collars, her hairpins, all those trifles of the toilette without which civilized man can scarcely feel himself civilized. Most of these wants the vicarage could supply; but to reach the vicarage they had to cross the road. Lawrence got up and stood looking down at Laura.

"Can you trust your maid?"

"Trust her? I can't trust her not to gossip. She's a nice girl and a very good maid, but I've only had her a year."

"Silly question! One doesn't trust servants nowadays. My man's a scamp, but I can depend on him up to a certain point because I pay him well. Anyhow we must make the best of a bad job. If I cut straight down from here I shall get into the tradesmen's drive, shan't I?"

"But you can't go to the back door!"

"Apparently I can't go to the front," said Lawrence with his wintry smile. He promised himself to go to the front by and by, but not while Laura was s.h.i.+vering in torn clothes under a bush.

"But what are you going to do?"

"Simply to get us a few necessaries of life. You can't be seen like this, and you can't stand here forever, catching cold with next to nothing on: besides, you've had no food since five o'clock this morning--and not much then."

"But the servants--if they have orders--"

"Servants!" He laughed.

"But you don't mean to force your way in?"

"Not past Bernard, dear. Don't be afraid: I shall skulk in by the rear."

It was easy to say "Don't be afraid": doubly easy for Lawrence, who had never known Bernard's darker temper. But there was no coward blood in Mrs. Clowes, and she steadied herself under the rallying influence of Hyde's firm look and tone.

"Go, then, but don't be long. And, Lawrence promise me. . ."

"Anything, dear."

"You won't touch Bernard, will you?" Lawrence was dumb, from wonder, not from indecision. "No one can do that," said Laura under her breath. "Oh, I know you wouldn't dream of it. But yet--if he insulted you, if he struck you . . . if he insulted me. . . ?"

"No, on my honour."

He touched her hand with his lips--a ceremony performed by Lawrence only once beforehand in what different circ.u.mstances!-- and left her: more like a winter b.u.t.terfly than ever, with her s.h.i.+ning hair, pale face, and gallant eyes, and the silver threads of her embroidered skirt flowing round her over the sunburnt turf.

Wanhope was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house, and the domestic premises were much the same as they had been in the eighteenth century, except that Clowes had turned one wing of the stables into a garage and rooms for the chauffeur. He kept no indoor menservants except Barry, the groom and gardener living in the village, while three or four maids were ample to wait on that quiet family. Pursuing the tradesman's drive between coach-house, tool shed, coal shed, and miscellaneous outbuildings, Lawrence emerged on a brick yard, ducked under a clothes-line, made for an open doorway, and found himself in the scullery. It was empty, and he went on into a big old-fas.h.i.+oned kitchen, draughty enough with its high roof and blue plastered walls.

Here, too, there was not a soul to be seen: a kettle was furiously boiling over on the hob, a gas ring was running to waste near by, turned on but left unlit and volleying evil fumes. His next researches carried him into a flagged pa.s.sage, on his right a sunlit pantry, on his left a dingy alcove evidently dedicated to the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of lamps and the cleaning of boots. He began to wonder if every one had run away. But no: a sharp turn, a couple of steps, and he came on an inner door, comfortably covered with green baize, through which issued a perfect hubbub of voices all talking at once.

He listened long enough to hear himself characterized by a baritone as a stinking Jew, and by a treble as not her style and a bit too gay but quite the gentleman, before he raised the latch and stepped in.

His appearance produced a perfect hush. Except Barry and his own valet they were all there, the entire domestic staff of Wanhope: and to face them was not the least courageous act that Lawrence had ever performed. It was a large, comfortable room, lit by large windows overlooking the kitchen garden; a cheerful fire burnt in the grate this autumn morning, and in a big chair before it sat a cheerful, comely person in a print gown, in whom he recognized Mrs. Fryar the cook. Gordon the chauffeur, a pragmatic young man from the Clyde, in this levelling hour was sitting on the edge of the table with a gla.s.s of beer in his hand. Caroline, the Baptist housemaid, held the floor: she was declaiming, when Lawrence entered, that it was a shame of Major Clowes and she didn't care who heard her say so, but apparently Lawrence was an exception, for like all the rest she was instantly stricken dumb as the grave.

Lawrence remained standing in the open doorway. He would have given a thousand pounds to be in morning attire, but no constraint was perceptible in the big, careless, impa.s.sive figure framed against the sunlit yard.

"Are you Mrs. Clowes's maid?" he singled out a tall, rather stiff, quiet-looking girl in the plain black dress of her calling. "Is your name Catherine? I want to speak to you."

She stood up--they were all standing by now except Gordon--but she looked at him very oddly, as if she were half frightened and half inclined to be familiar. "I suppose you can tell me where my lady is, sir?"

"She is waiting for you," said Lawrence. "I say that I want to speak to you by yourself. Come in here, please." Catherine continued to look as if she felt inclined to flounce and toss her head, but under his cold and steady eyes she thought better of it and followed him into the pantry. Lawrence shut the door.

"I'd have gone to my lady, sir, if I'd known where she was."

"You're going to her now," said Lawrence. "I want you, please, to run up to her room and fetch some clothes, the sort of clothes she would wear to go out walking: you understand what I mean? A jacket and dress and hat, walking boots, a veil--" Catherine intimated that she did understand: much better than any gentleman, her smile implied.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "what you would like is for me to pack a small box for her, sir? My lady will want a lot of things that gentlemen don't think of: underskirts and--"

"Good G.o.d, what do I care?" said Lawrence impatiently. "No, nothing of that sort: take just what she wants to change out of evening dress into morning dress. It'll be only for a few hours.

Go and get them, and be as quick and quiet as you can. Say nothing to Major Clowes." He laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you a decent girl, I wonder?"

She drew up and for the first time looked him straight in the eyes. "If you mean, sir, that you're going to take my poor lady away, why, I think it's high time too. I was always brought up respectable, but when it comes to a gentleman calling his own married wife such names, why, it's time some one did interfere.

I heard him with my own ears call her a--"

"That'll do," said Lawrence.

"And struck her, that he did, which you ought to know," Catherine persisted eagerly: "put his arm out through the door and gave her a great blow! and it's not the first time neither. Many's the night when I've undressed my lady but perhaps you've seen for yourself--"

She stopped short and put her hand over her mouth.

"Go and get the things," said Lawrence, "then wait for me in the yard."

Catherine retired in disorder and Lawrence followed her out. He found Barry waiting to speak to him. "Where's my man?" Lawrence asked. "Send him to me, will you?"

"Beg pardon, sir, but are you going to speak to Major Clowes?"

"Why?"

Barry looked down. "His orders was that you weren't to be admitted, sir."

"How is Major Clowes?"

"Very queer. I took it on myself to send for the doctor, but he was out: but they sent word that he'd step round as soon as he came in. I'd have liked to catch Mr. Val, but he slipped off while I was waiting on the Major."

"But Major Clowes isn't ill?"

"Oh no, sir. But I don't care for so much responsibility."

"Shall I have a look at him?"

"Oh no," a much more decided negative. "I wouldn't go near the Major, sir, not if I was you."

"Why, what's the matter with him?" Lawrence asked curiously. But Barry refused to commit himself beyond repeating that the Major was very queer, and after promising to send Val to the rescue Lawrence dismissed him, as Gaston came hurrying up. Something suspiciously like a grin twinkled over the little Frenchman's face when he found his master waiting for him on the sill of Caroline's pantry, silhouetted against row on row of s.h.i.+ning gla.s.s and silver, and wearing at noon-day the purple and fine linen, the white waistcoat and thin boots of last night. But his French breeding triumphed and he remained, except for that one furtive twinkle, the conscientious valet, nescient and urbane.

Lawrence did not give him even so much explanation as he had given Catherine. "Is there a back staircase?" he asked, and then, "Take me up by it. I'm going to my room."