The Daughter Pays Part 40

Gerald ordered such food as the place afforded, and they were taken into a small and stuffy parlour, with a short, horsehair sofa, upon which the lady could rest.

"By the time we have eaten something, the car is bound to catch us up,"

he a.s.serted cheerfully.

The meal took long to prepare, and was, to say the least of it, inadequate when it arrived. Hunger, however, compelled them to eat, and almost to enjoy it. By the time they had done, it was considerably later than Gerald had foreseen. In Virgie's society time had a knack of eluding him. With a hurried glance at his watch he sprang up and went out to inquire about horses.

He came back in a bustle. "They have only one horse, and she has been out all day, and is tired." said he, "but they think she can take us as far as Fittleworth, where we can catch a train to Petworth at 9.20. We should be able to hire a car there, and get back to Worthing or, if we can't, there is a first rate inn at Petworth. No trains later than about 9.30."

"Wouldn't it be safer to wait here for our own car?" she asked doubtfully, as she gazed at the steady rain.

"Daren't risk it," he answered peremptorily. "If we had to stay the night this place is impossible. I suppose they can lend umbrellas, and you have a thick coat. They are putting in the mare now."

When the cart came round, it was found that there was not an umbrella in the house. The September night was cold, and the rain fell unrelentingly. They were very uncomfortable, and there seemed nothing to say except to wonder where Baines and the car could be. The road seemed interminable, and, as the mare ambled along like one moving in her sleep, Gerald began to betray signs of desperate impatience. As they emerged from a rough lane, upon a wider road, they heard a long, sad whistle and the sound of a train.

"I doubt ye've missed her," remarked the lad who drove.

"Impossible! Make haste!" cried Gerald with some urgency. He ordered that the drowsy steed should be whipped up, and she, indignant at such outrage when by all the rules of the game she should have been sleeping in her stable, made a wild spurt.

A quarter of a mile brought them to the little lonely station.

All was still. The lights were out. The door, when Gerald tried it, was shut. They had missed the last train.

When he came back to the side of the trap, and stood looking up at her, Virginia perceived that he was terribly vexed. Up to this moment he had maintained a composure and cheerfulness which was rea.s.suring. Now, he was obviously nonplussed.

In reply to questions, their driver said sullenly that it was of no use to fetch the station-master. He had gone home to bed. He couldn't make a train if there was no train. Gerald shook his cap, from the edge of which the water streamed, for the rain had become a downpour.

"One gets out of the habit of calculating distance when one is used to a car," he said to Virginia, in a voice which was an odd blend of rage and apology. "They were such a time bringing that food--we started too late. The only thing now is to go on to Pulborough, I suppose."

The lad intimated that this journey, if taken, would be made upon their own feet. The mare could do no more. She would just get home to her stable, and that was all.

Virginia could not offer to walk. She would not risk over-exertion, with her return to Gaunt so near. She tried to cheer Gerald with the reminder that, most likely, when they returned to the inn at Dilvington, they would find Baines and the car awaiting them.

As he knew this to be impossible, the thought could not console him. He climbed up at the back of the wet cart thoroughly out of temper, muttering that a wooden horse with three legs could have done two miles in three quarters of an hour.

Their discomfort was now far too great for further conversation. The rain was pitiless, and the horse-cloth over Virginia's knees, though thick, was not waterproof. Her head ached, and she was very cold, though she endured patiently, so as not to increase her companion's evidently acute sense of the pa.s.s to which he had brought her.

She felt a final lowering of her spirits when once more the comfortless inn came into sight. Their host and hostess were apparently no more pleased to see them than were they to return. Nothing had been seen of the car, and judging from their manner, these people did not seem sure that it existed. It seemed, however, that they had half antic.i.p.ated the missing of the train. The only guest bed in the house had been made up.

Gerald somewhat nervously explained to the woman that Mrs. Gaunt would have this room, and he would pa.s.s the night on the horse-hair sofa in the parlour.

At first the reaction from cold and darkness was such that they found it delightful to be seated by a fire, sipping some abominable spirits and water. The circ.u.mstances, however, were too deplorable for Virginia to be able to rally her spirits. The cloak she wore was really a dust-coat, and it had not kept out the rain. She could feel that she was very wet, and was solely occupied with the consideration of how long she ought, in politeness, to sit with Gerald, and how soon she could go upstairs and take off her uncomfortable clothing.

Gerald stood, his foot on the fender, his brow contracted. His state of mind was most unenviable. He had formed this plan for the securing of Virginia's freedom; and that they should spend the night out had seemed a necessary part of the programme.

But anything like this had been far from his thoughts. How could he have been such an a.s.s as to allow himself to miss that train? Had they caught it, all would have been well. He knew it was due at Petworth just late enough to make it certain that they would miss the last train. Then they would have been safe in the warmth and comfort of a first-rate inn. The worst aspect of it all was that to Virginia, to whom nothing could be explained, he must seem merely a hopeless bungler, a person unable to manage a simple expedition like this.

"Need I say," he began, after a longish silence, "that I am repenting in dust and ashes? I am so sorry for such an atrocious muddle. What can I do to help you through with it? Draw your chair close to the fire.

Might I be privileged to take off your shoes?"

"No, thanks, I will do that when I get upstairs," said Virginia wearily. "I don't feel inclined to sit up."

"But the car may turn up at any moment," he urged, hating himself for his deceit.

"Why, so it may; we could get home then," she replied, with a dawning of hope. "You see, I have to travel to-morrow; it is so inconvenient for me to be detained, that is why I am so grumpy!"

He renewed his apologies, and she asked him to talk about something else. He made a hesitating attempt to revert to the key in which they had conversed at Bignor; but obtained no response from her. At last, after another long silence, he could bear it no longer, but went down on his knees beside her, and cried impulsively: "Virgie, you must forgive me! Don't be so unhappy, dear!"

She had been lost in the mazes of her own thoughts, which wandered always to Gaunt and her return to Omberleigh. She turned to Rosenberg with a start, and said hurriedly: "Oh, don't! What are you talking of?

Get up, those people might come in."

The words were hasty, the tone so void of all warmth, all friendliness, that it froze the genial current of his soul into something like consternation. If the result of his escapade was to be that Virgie took a dislike to him, things were indeed hopeless. She rose, and picked up her steaming shoes.

"Good night! I am going upstairs to lie down. If the car comes, you must call me."

He made no objection at all, but held open the door in silence.

The ungracious woman, summoned from the kitchen in the act of yawning prodigiously, ushered her into a room as cold as a well, with a mingled perfume of pomatum and apple-garret which turned her what Tony would have described as "niffy." She took off her skirt, and asked that it might be hung before the kitchen fire. She could not, however, undress, since she had with her no necessaries for the night, and the landlady volunteered no a.s.sistance.

She lay down in wretched discomfort, thinking that Gerald downstairs, with a fire, had far the best of the bargain; but she was determined not to go down to him. Until the last quarter of an hour, though she was acutely alive to the inconvenience of the situation, it had not struck her as awkward. Now this aspect had presented itself, and she felt a new mental disquiet which greatly increased her physical suffering. In view of her late ill-health, and the care which her husband had exercised in order that she might recover completely, the accident was most unfortunate. From that point of view, if from no other, she felt certain of Gaunt's displeasure; and a creeping terror, vague and formless, prevented her from resting. She hardly slept until after dawn, when she dropped into heavy sleep, only to wake, affrighted, about seven with a sore throat and a burning forehead.

She sat up, dizzy and sick. Yet if there was one thing more certain than another, it was that she could not possibly stay where she was.

Somehow or other she must get back to Worthing at once, even though she could not stand upon her feet.

She flung herself out of bed, animated with the strength of desperation. Peering into the small, cracked mirror, she was encouraged by finding that she did not look ill. Her temperature was, as a matter of fact, 101, and her colour was the flush of fever, but she did not know that.

There was no bell in her wretched room, and she had to call repeatedly before she could make anybody hear. At last the woman appeared, and she begged soap, hot water and a towel. After a long interval, an earthenware jug, containing about a pint of liquid, was produced. With this, and a tiny comb which she kept in her vanity bag, she made what toilette she could.

It was somewhat consoling to find a good fire burning, and a cloth spread for breakfast, when she crawled downstairs, stiff and aching.

Gerald had gone out for news of the car, and presently returned with milk, b.u.t.ter and eggs, neither of which commodities seemed to be kept in stock at the inn. He had found at Bignor a telegram from Baines, announcing a bad breakdown, but saying he hoped to be along at about 9.30. Gerald had left instructions for him to come on straight to the inn at Dilvington; and, with a great a.s.sumption of cheerfulness, hoped that their troubles were over.

Virginia hardly answered him. In spite of her desire that he should not know how ill she felt, she found it impossible to keep up appearances, and could not eat. He attributed all to her sense of the unpleasant position in which she found herself. He was acutely conscious of the fact that the car, when it arrived, would bring Ferris with it; and he now felt himself an unutterable hound to have consented to such a plan.

At a few minutes to ten, the welcome horn was heard. The girl's eyes cleared a little, she rose, and eagerly put on her hat and coat, filled with the one wish to be out of the place and away. She was at the door when the motor appeared; and as it came to a stop, she started and shrank back with a momentary loss of self-control. She had quite forgotten Ferris.

Though he had plotted and arranged the moment, Gerald was hatefully embarra.s.sed now that it was upon him. There was a knowing, confidential flavour about Ferris's manner which was detestable. He seemed to be metaphorically winking at Gerald, who believed he would have done it actually, could he have caught his eye when Mrs. Gaunt was not looking.

To Virginia a new thought presented itself. Since Ferris was here, and saw their plight--since he knew they had been there all night--he would, of course, tell Gaunt. This necessitated her telling her husband herself the whole vexatious story--a feat of daring which it made her head swim to contemplate.

She hardly spoke to Ferris, but entered the car without delay.

Gerald did all he could. In view of what he knew her opinion of Percy to be, he would not sit beside Baines, but came inside with them; and was obliged to accommodate himself on the small seat in front, doubled up with his knees almost to his chin, unable to smoke, restless and irritable.

At first he was almost angry with Virginia. She might buck up and help him to carry off these infernally awkward moments. Her listless silence was the worst demeanour she could possibly a.s.sume. As the miles pa.s.sed, he became aware that she was feeling physically ill, and remorse made him frantic.

Oh, d.a.m.n the whole thing! He had done what he was ashamed of, blundered unpardonably; and, as far as he could see, he would gain nothing by it.... One idea gave him some consolation. If Virginia were really ill--if the doctor could be persuaded to keep her in bed for some days--then Ferris would go back to Derbys.h.i.+re with his tale; and it was dimly possible that Virginia might never return thither at all.

CHAPTER XXIII