Touch and Go (25 page)

CHAPTER XXVII

John Brown came down the two steps on to the gravel before the house. He passed Sarah on the second step, passed her within a foot where she stood as still as a bit of stone and very nearly as cold. There was no feeling in her hands and feet, there was no feeling in her whole body, and she had stopped being able to breathe. But he had passed her. He had stepped down on to the gravel. She heard it grate under his foot as he stepped forward. And then she heard it grate again as he swung round. He had an arm about her before she knew that she was discovered, and if she had not been so set and rigid, she might have cried out. As it was, she caught the breath which she had not been able to draw, and the arm came about her hard and strong, jumped her down from the step, and marched her along to the corner of the house and around it.

Ricky's windows were lighted still.

He took her along the side of the house, down the steps at the end of the terrace, and into the shrubbery, all without a single word. When they were in amongst the bushes, he swung her about, put his other arm round her too, and said,

“Eavesdropping, Sarah?”

Sarah had nothing to say. She had transgressed her own code. She was ashamed. And she would have done it again next minute. She simply hadn't got anything to say.

John Brown shook her a little.

“Well? How much did you hear?” There was the old amusement in his voice.

Sarah had an answer to that. It wasn't a very brilliant one. She said,

“I don't know.”

“Well now, how do you mean you don't know?”

She plucked up a little spirit.

“I don't know how much I missed.”

This time he laughed outright.

“You shameless creature! How did you know I was there?”

“I was looking out of my window—I mean the blue room window, the one that looks this way—and I heard you coming across the gravel.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“I thought it was.”

“And you came down and eavesdropped on the chance?”

“No, I didn't. I went into the room over the study—it's an empty bedroom—and looked out, and I heard you knock on the study window just beneath me. Then Mr. Hildred opened it and I saw you go in. And then I just had to come down.”

“I see. You had to come down. And just how far had we got when you came down?”

Sarah leaned back against the hands that were holding her. She was neither frightened nor cold any more. She had the feeling that they were both being carried down the rushing current of a stream which was taking them fast and far. She abandoned herself to its flow. She heard John Brown repeat the question.

“How far had we got?”

“The door was open,” said Sarah.

“Yes, I noticed that. Where had we got to when you arrived? What were we saying?”

“You were saying, ‘Well, Geoffrey?'”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he didn't recognize you.” She laid her hands suddenly against his breast. “Who was he to recognize? John—won't you tell me?”

He paused, laughed, tightened his hold upon her.

“Oh, you didn't hear that?”

“No, I didn't.”

“But you heard all the rest?”

“Yes.” Her head lifted. “I could hear very well.” Then, with a pressure of her hands upon him. “
Who
are you?”

John Brown used a new voice. She had never heard it before. It touched something that lay deep in her—the cold, hurt place which was afraid of loving because it was afraid of being hurt again.

The new voice said, “Sarah—” very gently. And then, “Sarah—” again. And then, “Does it really matter?”

And Sarah said, “No,” and somehow or other she found that her arms were round his neck and that they were kissing each other.

It was all very confused and incoherent after that. She found that she was crying, and this surprised her very much, partly because she never cried, and partly because it was completely insensate to cry when the most wonderful thing in the world had just happened. And the wonderful thing was not that John loved her, or even that she loved John, but that she wasn't any longer afraid of loving. The cold, sore place was gone and she wasn't afraid of it any more. Wonderful to feel all light, and warm, and whole again. Completely and absolutely idiotic to cry.

There was an interval. John comforted her. She had never had anyone to comfort her since she was ten years old. John did it beautifully.

The interlude lasted rather a long time. Presently Sarah said,

“Aren't you going to tell me who you are? It doesn't matter, of course, but I
would
rather like to know.”

“Who do you think I am?” said John Brown.

“I thought you might be Maurice, but—”

“I told you Maurice was dead.”

“Yes, I know. But you did say in the study that you hadn't made up your mind whether you would stay dead or come alive again.”

“I'm not Maurice, Sarah. Guess again.”

She laughed a little, her head against his shoulder.

“Well, to-night Lucilla was quite sure you were Henry. She was awfully glad, because if you were, she'd get rid of Holme Fallow and all the rest of it.”

His voice came quick and pleased.

“Did she say that? I'm glad.”

“Yes. Are you—are you Henry?”

“No, my dear, I'm not.”

“John, aren't you going to tell me who you are?”

He said “Yes.” And then, “Not here. Will you be cold if we go down to the seat by the tennis court? I'd like to get away from the house and the drive.

Cold? She was springing with warm life. There was no such thing as cold. She said with a laugh in her voice,

“Oh no, I shan't be cold.”

They went down to the tennis court under a clear night sky that was bright with stars. The grass court looked like dark water. They found the seat and sat down upon it. He took both her hands and held them. They could not see each other except as shadows, but their hands clung and were warm. He said,

“Sarah, why did you or anyone else think that I belonged here? Why did you think I was Maurice, or Henry? Why did you think I was a Hildred at all?”

Sarah's heart beat hard. Her voice sounded low and confused.

“I don't know. You were in Holme Fallow that night. I couldn't believe you were a burglar. I saw you looking at Mrs. Hildred's picture. And then Ran said he had seen you looking at the pictures too. He said you were like the Hildreds, and he was sure you were Maurice. You know Miss Marina talks about them all until you can't help thinking about them by their Christian names.”

“And why did Lucilla think I was Henry?”

Sarah laughed.

“I've stopped asking why Lucilla does anything. She said she thought you were speaking the truth about not being Maurice, and she said you were like Eleanor Hildred, her grandmother.”

“I see. But why Henry? Eleanor Hildred had three sons, Sarah,”

Sarah caught her breath.

“Three—yes. But you—”

“I'm Jack.”

“John!”

“Yes—John Hildred—Jack—Lucilla's father.”

Sarah said something quite inarticulate. And then her hands were being kissed.

“Sarah—you don't mind? It won't make any difference? It's pretty awful to have a daughter who's nearly eighteen. Do you mind it very much?”

“Silly!” said Sarah in rather a choked voice. “Oh, John, don't! I want you to tell me—I don't understand.”

“My darling, I am telling you. It makes me feel much too old for you, having a grown-up daughter.”

“I'm twenty-eight,” said Sarah. “I'm not really young at all.”

“And I'm thirty-eight, so what about me?”

Sarah said, “Just right.”

There was another interlude.

When it was over, she drew away as far as his arm would let her and said,

“You haven't told me very much yet—have you?”

He answered her with a grave “No,” and paused upon it. He had not been Jack Hildred for seventeen years. Seventeen years is a long gap to bridge. On the other side of it there was the boy not much older than Lucilla was now—eager, young, undeveloped. No wonder he paused. It wasn't easy to think back and be Jack Hildred again. He wondered if Sarah was going to understand.

She waited, leaning against him, and presently he began to speak, so quietly that no one could have guessed at the effort he was making.

“There were the three of us—you know that—Henry, myself, and Maurice. My father was killed out hunting when we were children, I can just remember it. My mother died two years before the war. We lived at Holme Fallow with my grandfather.”

Sarah drew away a little. She didn't belong to those years. She thought it would be easier for him to tell her if she were not touching him.

He went on as if he had not noticed her withdrawal.

“I was nineteen when the war broke out. I was just going up to Cambridge. I had a fancy for the bar.” He laughed a little. “You never can tell—can you? I got a commission instead—Kitchener's Army—Tenth Sandshires. We went out in May 1915, and a week before I went I was married to Lucy Hill. Wickedly unfair of course, but everyone was doing it and the old man pushed it on. Henry was in France already, and he wanted to feel sure that Holme Fallow wouldn't go to Geoffrey. He always hated Geoffrey like poison, though he left all his affairs in his hands. Well, there it was, Sarah. I was twenty, and she was eighteen. She was an orphan. She used to come and stay with cousins at Burdon. We fell in love. If it hadn't been for the war, we should have had to fall out of it again. As it was, we married amidst public applause, and Lucilla was born at the end of January 1916. In July I was blown up. I can't tell you how it happened, because I've never remembered. I suppose it was a mine. Anyhow I was reported killed, though I didn't find that out till afterwards. When I came round I was in a German hospital, and I hadn't the faintest idea who I was or how I'd got there. There was a J. tattooed on my arm, and there was an identification disc knocking about which said I was Private John Brown, 12th East Yorks.”

“Why?” said Sarah.

“Well, I've often tried to figure it out. I was stark naked when they picked me up—one of the orderlies told me that. I can only suppose that the identity disc was there, and that someone thought it belonged to me. I couldn't contradict them, because my memory was clean gone. I was quite sane and I wasn't badly damaged, and presently they drafted me off to a German prison camp, and there I was for the best part of two years.”

The grimly compressed narrative gave Sarah a feeling of horror. War. The things that happen in war. The blowing up of a mine. “I was stark naked.” “The identity disc happened to be there.” And the man to whom it had belonged—the real John Brown.… She shuddered away from the pictures which floated on that dark background of horror.

He went on speaking.

“That's where I met the man I've been working with all this time. He was an American bug-hunter who'd enlisted in our army quite early on. He said it was because he wanted to study insect life in France, and as there were a lot of armies messing about all over the map just where he wanted to go, he thought the best way of getting there was to enlist. He'd been about a month in the camp when I came along, and we palled up at once. His name was George Eckhard and he is one of the very best. I'd always been keen on birds and beasts and insects, and he got me a lot keener. He said if the war ever did come to an end, we'd go round the world together and write a book. He was pretty useful with a camera, but he couldn't draw a line. When he found that I wasn't a bad hand with a pencil and brush, he got frightfully keen. We used to yarn away about it for hours and plan where we'd go. It made the time pass. I'm telling you this so that you'll understand what happened afterwards.”

“Two years—” said Sarah. “How awful!”

“Oh, it wasn't a bad camp as camps went. We were treated quite decently. But of course prison is prison, and we didn't want to stay there. I escaped once, and George escaped once. He got shot in the ankle, and I didn't get very far. After that we thought we'd make a try at it together, but we had to wait for his ankle to get right, and it took a long time. We got away in the end and over the Dutch frontier—I'll tell you about it another time. We got back to England. It was August 1918, and we both got pushed off to France before we had time to turn round, George to some umpteenth battalion of his regiment, and I to mine—to John Brown's. I needn't go into all that. I was in a lot of scrapping, but I never got a scratch, and I went on being John Brown.”

“You didn't remember anything?”

“Not a thing. My memory began in that German hospital. That identity disc said I was John Brown, and the J. on my arm bore it out. I don't think I bothered about it. Well, the Armistice came along. After that we were waiting to be demobbed. In January I ran into George Eckhard again. He reminded me about going round the world with him and gave me an address in London that would always find him. We fixed to meet there when we got out of the army. I got out in May.” He paused. A long minute went by.

Sarah said, “When did you remember?”

“In London, when I got back. It was awfully odd—there I was in a suit of civvies walking along Piccadilly. I'd written to George, and we were going to meet next day. Meanwhile I was at a loose end. I didn't know a soul, and I hadn't got anyone in the world belonging to me, so far as I knew. I was thinking about that, but not really worrying about it. And then I don't think I was thinking at all. I must have had a sort of lapse of memory, because the next thing I knew I was walking up the steps of the Junior Services Club. It all felt quite natural and clear, and I knew that I was Jack Hildred. I used to go there a lot with Henry before we went out to France. I'd got into the hall before I remembered about John Brown. Well, it made me feel a bit giddy. I went into the writing-room and sat there in the darkest corner I could find. When I'd got my mind straightened out again, I could remember everything that had happened to me both as Jack Hildred and as John Brown, except the bit round about being blown up—that's never come back. I realized that I had been dead for just on three years. I supposed that they would have thought that I was dead. When I'd got it all sorted out I went into a telephone-box and rang up Holme Fallow. That's where I got my first jar. They said the house wasn't on the telephone any longer—it was shut up. I thought a bit, and I asked them to put me on to the Vicarage. The girl in the Holme post-office was very chatty. She told me the old Vicar was dead, and there was a new man, and would he do? I said yes, because I was getting pretty desperate. Well, I got the new man, very pleasant and willing to oblige. I didn't want to spring my resurrection on a stranger, so I said I was a friend of the Hildreds just demobbed, and that I would be very glad to have news of them all. He asked my name, and I said John Brown. And then he got going. My grandfather was dead—I guessed that when I heard the house was shut up. Maurice was dead—missing since August '17. Henry had been badly shell-shocked. He was in a private hospital on the Riviera.” He stopped speaking.