Outrageous Fortune (11 page)

“Are ye sleeping, Margaret?” he says,

“Or are ye waking presentlie?

Give me my faith and troth again,

I wot, true love, I gied to thee.”

The verse came into Caroline's mind. It seemed to float there giving out a peculiar atmosphere of eerie strangeness. It would have been on just such a night as this that Margaret looked from the shot window and saw the dead man come tirling at the pin—no lighter than this and no darker—moon-shadow—moon-dusk. Even a living man might look like a ghost. A faint damp breath moved the trees across the road. Over the edge of the silence came the sound of footsteps coming nearer.

Caroline drew back a little. She didn't want anyone from the village to see her leaning out of her window at midnight. The steps were coming towards the village, not from it. She wondered who it could be that was coming home so late. Hazelbury West kept early hours. She drew back until she was out of sight. When she stopped moving, the footsteps had stopped too. She leaned against the side of the recess and waited for them to pass. She waited a long time, and there was no sound at all. If the footsteps had passed, she would have heard them. They had not passed.

She leaned forward again with a shiver running over her. There was someone standing at the gate. She could see no more than that. A hornbeam hedge divided the garden from the road. It was cut into an archway over the gate, and under this arch someone was standing. Caroline could see nothing but a dark shape standing there quite still

The little breath of air had died away. None of the shadows in the garden moved. And then all at once the shadow by the gate did move. She heard the click of the latch, the gate swung, creaking a little, and a man came a few slow steps along the path. He stopped between the second and third rose-trees and looked up.

In that moment Caroline thought that her heart had stopped. Everything seemed to stop, because, in the dusk that was neither light nor darkness, she thought it was Jim Randal standing there. He had stood like that a hundred times, looking up at the old school-room window when he wanted her—calling, “Caroline!” He didn't call now. It wasn't Jim—it couldn't be Jim. Oh, Jim was drowned. How could it—how could it be Jim? Did anyone ever come back like that in the dead of the night? She felt as if she were drowning too, because she couldn't take her breath.

And then quite suddenly he turned and went down the path and out at the gate. The gate clicked, and everything went on again.

Caroline found herself taking deep choking breaths, whilst her heart raced furiously. The next thing she knew she was on the stairs, running down; and then the door was open and she was on the brick step, listening. There was no sound behind her in the house. Pansy Ann slept deep. There was no sound in the garden, not the rustle of a leaf or the stirring of a bird; but from the road there came the faint sound of footsteps that were going away.

She ran down the path and out of the gate and followed them.

It was cool in the road, and dark because of the elmtrees. The moon was somewhere behind the trees. Caroline ran a little way, and then stopped to listen again. The footsteps were just ahead, and presently she could see a something that was darker than the shadow of the elms moving before her at a steady pace.

It's hosen and shoon and gown alone.

She climbed the wall and followed him

Until she came to the green forest,

And there she lost the sight of him.

The words came and went, and came and went again. What was she doing? She didn't know. Where was she going? Wherever Jim went. It wasn't Jim—it couldn't be Jim. Who was she following? Jim was drowned.
What was she following?
Her mind shuddered away—

They went past the churchyard and past the church. They came to the green, with the pond catching the moonlight like looking-glass. There were trees still along the edge of the road, trees with spaces of moonlight in between. When he crossed the moonlight patches, Caroline was afraid. She could see no more than a tall man walking as if he were tired. It was when he was only a shadow that she felt most sure that he was Jim.

They passed a little row of silent, empty shops. They passed Mrs Grainger's cottage. It had one pale lighted window. Mrs Grainger slept badly, and was inordinately proud of the fact that she often read until past midnight. It was past midnight now.

Caroline looked back over her shoulder and saw the window very small and far away. The village world, other people, firelight, lamplight—the whole of everyday life—they were all small and far away and left behind. The ballad verse drummed in her head:

It's hosen and shoon and gown alone.

She climbed the wall and followed him

Until she came to the green forest,

And there she lost the sight of him.

But it should be
dark
forest—dark; not green—

Until she came to the dark forest

And there she lost the sight of him.

And with that the gate-posts of the Hale Place stood up in front of her in the ghostly light. There was no gate between them, nor ever had been since Caroline could remember. But the posts had always been there—tall pillars of grey stone with a stiff stone pineapple on top of each. The moon shone on the posts and on the pineapples, and on the man who passed between them into the black shadow which lay beyond.

And there she lost the sight of him.

But she mustn't lost the sight of him. She had lost the last light of the village. Whatever happened, she mustn't lose Jim.

Jim was drowned.

She stood for a moment on the edge of the moonlight. The elms stopped here, and the light shone clear across the green. Something clamoured in Caroline's ear: “Jim's drowned—it can't be Jim.” And then she was running through the moonlight and into the shadow.

The trees that bordered the drive had been growing together for thirty years. Old Mr Randal wouldn't have anything cut. It was as dark as the darkest tunnel. It was dark even when the sun was shining. Now it was like a tunnel hung with black velvet. The gravel was so overgrown with moss that it was like running on a soft carpet. Caroline's feet made no noise at all, nor, when she checked and listened, could she hear the sound of any other foot. She went on again, not running now, and with her hands fending out before her. The tunnel under the trees had an empty feeling. It went right on to the corner of the house and there ceased.

Caroline stood still and listened again. She couldn't hear anything at all. It wasn't dark any longer, but all the light came barred and chequered through the branches of the great cedar which stood up against the moon. The house seemed vague and unsubstantial, its tangled creepers dappled with silver. It wasn't a place where people lived any more. There was no fire on its hearth, no light in its chambers. It was a house of dreams.

Until she stood in the black mouth of the drive and looked at the house, Caroline had been afraid. Part of her had been very much afraid, but she had gone on because she had to go on. Now the part that was afraid stopped being afraid any more. The empty house drew her into its own dream, and she stopped being afraid. She began to run across the bars of moonlight and shadow, and as she ran she called,

“Jim! Jim! Wait for me!”

XIII

Caroline came to the corner, and saw the whole front of the house and the gravel sweep before it unshadowed in a faint moony light. In the middle of the sweep the man whom she had followed stood looking up at the house.

Caroline had done with hesitating and being afraid. Those were things which she had left behind, outside the dream. She came to him, running lightly, and as he turned at the sound of her running feet, she caught him by the arm.

“Jim!” It was her very warmest, softest, deepest voice.

He stood there and looked at her. He had come here because his feet had brought him. At every turning, at each cross-road and bend, he had known his way, yet he could not at any time have said where he was going; he could only have said that he didn't know. Yet all the time he knew that his feet were following a familiar path. In the dark this feeling strengthened. It took him into Hazelbury West with the sure sense of a homing animal, and it had brought him here.

As he stood staring at the house, the strangest sense of forgotten things came to him from the shape of the three pointed gables, the half seen chimney stacks, the blank windows, the ivy, and the falling curtains of Virginia creeper.

And then feet running lightly over the gravel, and a girl holding him by the arm and saying, “Jim!” She said it again, softly, with caught breath. She was bareheaded. The moonlight had stolen all her colour. Her hair was shadowy and dark, her face just a half seen paleness, her eyes dark but catching the light as water does, her hands holding his arms, small and yet strong, her breath coming quickly, quickly, her parted lips dark where daylight would have shown them red.

“Jim
!”

He went on looking at her. The hands on his arm began to shake.

“Jim—why don't you speak? Jim—you're not drowned!”

He said, “I'm not drowned—”

That was an easy thing to say. The pressure of those half remembered things increased. It was like the intolerable pressure of water. It was easy to say, “I'm not drowned.” Just for a moment it eased the pressure. He looked down and saw that her eyes were wide and piteous.

“Jim—what's the matter? Why do you look like that, as if you didn't know me?”

He said in a heavy, shaken voice,

“I—don't—know you.”

The hands let go of his arm; she stepped back. He had a sense of emptiness and loss.

And then she was laughing—such a pretty laugh, low, and full of something that was very young and innocent.

“But I'm Caroline! Darling—didn't you
guess?
I don't call that a bit bright of you. Who did you think I was?”

He shook his head.

“I don't know … Caroline?”

Caroline stopped laughing, because something in the slow tentative way in which he said, “Caroline?” made her stop.

“Jim—what's the matter? Jim darling!”

“Why do you call me that?”

And all at once Caroline began to feel cold. The dream was changing in the way dreams do. One minute she had found Jim and her heart was singing with joy, and the next there was a vague something that was cold and frightening. She didn't know what it was, and that made it worse. She said,

“What do you mean, Jim?” and he caught her up in a loud harsh voice.

“Why do you call me Jim? Jim what?”

Caroline said, “Oh!” and backed away.

“Jim—What's the matter?”

“Jim what?”

“Aren't you well?”—That was just a whisper.

He controlled his voice.

“Tell me why you called me Jim.”

“Because it's your name. Don't you know?”

“No.”

“Jim darling, don't you know that you're Jim Randal?”

He went past her in a blundering sort of way—right past her and as far as the stone steps which led up to the heavy door. He sat down on the second step and leaned over his knees with both hands covering his face. It was just as if a dam had broken. All those things which had been battering against his consciousness came flooding in through the breach. He was giddy and buffeted. He sat there, and knew that he was Jim Randal, and that this was Hale Place where he had grown up. This was Hale Place, and he was Jim Randal. But of course he was Jim Randal. Who was Jim Riddell? “You're Jim Riddell, and I'm your wife.” Who had said that? Nesta—Nesta Riddell. “I'm Nesta”—“I'm Caroline”…… Nesta—Caroline—Jim.… Jim Riddell—Jim Randal.

He lifted his head like a man coming up out of deep water.

“I'm Jim Randal, and this is Hale Place.”

Caroline was sitting on the step beside him. Her hand came out and touched his.

“Didn't you know?”

“No.”

“Oh, Jim! But you know now.”

“Yes.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “It's awfully odd—” He stopped, laughed a little uncertainly, and let go of her. “Odd? It makes my head go round!”

Caroline did not speak. She didn't really want to speak. She wanted to sit quite still and let the knowledge that Jim wasn't drowned soak right down into her. It was like silver water coming in with waves of joy. It was like a tide of light and happiness. She didn't feel dizzy like Jim; she felt safely, blessedly secure and fixed. Everything was right again, and Jim was here; if she put out her hand, she could touch him. But she didn't really want to put it out. Just for the moment she had all the happiness that she could hold. One drop more, and it might brim over the drain away. When he got up, she leaned her shoulder against the stone baluster which flanked the steps and watched him with shining eyes.

He walked to the edge of the grass and, turning, looked again at the house. That was just how she had seen him from her window. How long ago? Half an hour? It was very strange to think that the world could change and be quite a different world to you in half an hour.

Jim stood and looked at the house. He looked at it for a long time. Then he walked to the edge of the gravel sweep and back again. He did this several times, and just at the end a little whispering dread stirred in Caroline's mind. It was like birds talking before daylight. You never know what it is that the birds are saying, or what sort of day they are waking you to. The whisper gave Caroline this feeling, but almost before she recognized it she saw Jim coming back.

She pulled herself up by the balustrade and stood on the step above him. He said,

“Caroline, I'm in a mess.”

So that was why she had begun to be afraid. She said,

“What sort of a mess, Jim?”

There was a pause.