A Damsel in Distress Part 34

"What do you suggest?" he said.

"It being a rainy evening and everyone indoors playing games and what not,"--Keggs was amiably tolerant of the recreations of the aristocracy--"you would experience little chance of a hinterruption, were you to proceed to the lane outside the heast entrance of the castle grounds and wait there. You will find in the field at the roadside a small disused barn only a short way from the gates, where you would be sheltered from the rain. In the meantime, I would hinform 'er ladys.h.i.+p of your movements, and no doubt it would be possible for 'er to slip off."

"It sounds all right."

"It is all right, sir. The chances of a hinterruption may be said to be reduced to a minimum. Shall we say in one hour's time?"

"Very well."

"Then I will wish you good evening, sir. Thank you, sir. I am glad to 'ave been of a.s.sistance."

He withdrew as he had come, with a large impressiveness. The room seemed very empty without him. George, with trembling fingers, began to put on a pair of thick boots.

For some minutes after he had set foot outside the door of the cottage, George was inclined to revile the weather for having played him false. On this evening of all evenings, he felt, the elements should, so to speak, have rallied round and done their bit. The air should have been soft and clear and scented: there should have been an afterglow of sunset in the sky to light him on his way. Instead, the air was full of that peculiar smell of hopeless dampness which comes at the end of a wet English day. The sky was leaden. The rain hissed down in a steady flow, whispering of mud and desolation, making a dreary mora.s.s of the lane through which he tramped. A curious sense of foreboding came upon George.

It was as if some voice of the night had murmured maliciously in his ear a hint of troubles to come. He felt oddly nervous, as he entered the barn.

The barn was both dark and dismal. In one of the dark corners an intermittent dripping betrayed the presence of a gap in its ancient roof. A rat scurried across the floor. The dripping stopped and began again. George struck a match and looked at his watch. He was early. Another ten minutes must elapse before he could hope for her arrival. He sat down on a broken wagon which lay on its side against one of the walls.

Depression returned. It was impossible to fight against it in this beast of a barn. The place was like a sepulchre. No one but a fool of a butler would have suggested it as a trysting-place. He wondered irritably why places like this were allowed to get into this condition. If people wanted a barn earnestly enough to take the trouble of building one, why was it not worth while to keep the thing in proper repair? Waste and futility! That was what it was.

That was what everything was, if you came down to it. Sitting here, for instance, was a futile waste of time. She wouldn't come. There were a dozen reasons why she should not come. So what was the use of his courting rheumatism by waiting in this morgue of dead agricultural ambitions? None whatever--George went on waiting.

And what an awful place to expect her to come to, if by some miracle she did come--where she would be stifled by the smell of mouldy hay, damped by raindrops and--reflected George gloomily as there was another scurry and scutter along the unseen floor--gnawed by rats.

You could not expect a delicately-nurtured girl, accustomed to all the comforts of a home, to be bright and sunny with a platoon of rats crawling all over her... .

The grey oblong that was the doorway suddenly darkened.

"Mr. Bevan!"

George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration. He was another man. Depression fell from him like a garment. He perceived that he had misjudged all sorts of things. The evening, for instance, was a splendid evening--not one of those awful dry, baking evenings which make you feel you can't breathe, but pleasantly moist and full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.

"I'm here!"

Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes s.h.i.+ning in the darkness, so close was she to him.

"I hope you've not been waiting long?"

George's heart was thundering against his ribs. He could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit a No.

"I didn't think at first I could get away. I had to ..." She broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had made another of its excitable sprints across the floor.

A hand clutched nervously at George's arm, found it and held it.

And at the touch the last small fragment of George's self-control fled from him. The world became vague and unreal. There remained of it but one solid fact--the fact that Maud was in his arms and that he was saying a number of things very rapidly in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody he had never met before.

CHAPTER 19.

With a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelming that it was like a physical injury, George became aware that something was wrong.

Even as he gripped her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and now she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free. She broke away from him. He could hear her breathing hard.

"You--you----" She gulped.

"Maud!"

"How dare you!"

There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch on and on endlessly. The rain pattered on the leaky roof. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dismally. The darkness pressed down like a blanket, stifling thought.

"Good night, Mr. Bevan." Her voice was ice. "I didn't think you were--that kind of man."

She was moving toward the door; and, as she reached it, George's stupor left him. He came back to life with a jerk, shaking from head to foot. All his varied emotions had become one emotion--a cold fury.

"Stop!"

Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was wasting a baleful glare on the darkness.

"Well, what is it?"

Her tone increased George's wrath. The injustice of it made him dizzy. At that moment he hated her. He was the injured party. It was he, not she, that had been deceived and made a fool of.

"I want to say something before you go."

"I think we had better say no more about it!"

By the exercise of supreme self-control George kept himself from speaking until he could choose milder words than those that rushed to his lips.

"I think we will!" he said between his teeth.

Maud's anger became tinged with surprise. Now that the first shock of the wretched episode was over, the calmer half of her mind was endeavouring to soothe the infuriated half by urging that George's behaviour had been but a momentary lapse, and that a man may lose his head for one wild instant, and yet remain fundamentally a gentleman and a friend. She had begun to remind herself that this man had helped her once in trouble, and only a day or two before had actually risked his life to save her from embarra.s.sment. When she heard him call to her to stop, she supposed that his better feelings had rea.s.serted themselves; and she had prepared herself to receive with dignity a broken, stammered apology. But the voice that had just spoken with a crisp, biting intensity was not the voice of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent one, who was commanding--not begging--her to stop and listen to him.

"Well?" she said again, more coldly this time. She was quite unable to understand this att.i.tude of his. She was the injured party. It was she, not he who had trusted and been betrayed.

"I should like to explain."

"Please do not apologize."

George ground his teeth in the gloom.

"I haven't the slightest intention of apologizing. I said I would like to explain. When I have finished explaining, you can go."

"I shall go when I please," flared Maud.

This man was intolerable.

"There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be no repet.i.tion of the--incident."

Maud was outraged by this monstrous misinterpretation of her words.