Touch and Go (5 page)

Sarah said, “Nonsense!”

“No, it is the truth. And besides I do not think it is eugenic for cousins to marry. I have written to
maman
about that. I am very strong for the eugenics.”

“You wouldn't have thought about them if you'd liked Eleanor. And she's not in the least like a fish.”

“For me she is. And
vois tu
, Sarah, I do not ask the impossibilities. It is necessary that I should marry a girl who has money—that is understood. I do not demand that I should be love waith her passionately, as for example I could so very easily be in love with you.”

“The kind compliment is noted!”

Betrand frowned at her levity.

“I do not demand that—I have said so to
maman
. I ask only that she should not remind me of cold fish.” Quite suddenly his gravity broke up into a grin. “Why should I not marry your Lucilla Hildred?” he said.

CHAPTER VI

Sarah Trent arrived at the Red House in the middle of a fine October afternoon. She drove herself in
The Bomb
, with her luggage crammed to the roof behind her. Having studied a map commandeered from the reluctant Mr. Darnac, she had discovered a new and much shorter way to the house. When she came down to interview Miss Marina, she must have driven in circles round the village of Holme instead of coming through it. She had no idea that the entrance to the Red House was only a stone's throw from the last cottage in the village street.

The house itself stood high, and the drive sloped sharply. She looked with dislike at the banks on either side of it. They were thickly overgrown with trees and shrubs. Dark drives appeared to be the fashion in the neighbourhood of Holme.

The house was a square building in the Georgian style, the red brick which had originally given it its name being almost entirely covered by Virginia creeper, which flamed in every shade from scarlet to deep maroon. Coming on it suddenly at the turn of the drive, it was almost as if the house was on fire.

The Bomb
was allotted a stable, and Sarah a room next to Lucilla's. It was a pleasant room, if a little too pink for Sarah's taste. As she gazed at it, she felt as if she had known Mrs. Raimond all her life. She knew just what type of woman has a rose-coloured carpet on the floor, a wall-paper with pink and mauve sweet peas profusely interlaced, and pink and white striped curtains at the windows. There was a pink wash-basin with hot and cold water laid on, a rose-coloured shade over the electric light, pink candles on the dressing-table, a pink pin-cushion, and a bright pink eiderdown.

“Golly!” said Sarah.

It appeared that Miss Marina was resting, and Miss Lucilla was down on the tennis-court. Sarah proceeded to the tennis-court by way of a lawn, a rose-garden, and a flight of steps.

Lucilla was playing tennis with a young man, and Uncle Geoffrey was watching them. In the sunlight she thought him even better looking than she had done before, and most undeniably pleased to see her. He said,

“Well, well—this is great!”

And then, before he could say anything else, Lucilla came up with her partner and he was introducing them.

“This is Lucilla, and this is my son, Richard. But perhaps you've already met.”

Sarah opened smiling lips, but she looked at Lucilla before she spoke. The child was wearing a white shirt and a short black skirt, with black stockings and white tennis shoes. Her face, which had been so pale in the light of Sarah's electric torch, had the prettiest wild-rose flush. Her hair, as soft and fine and fair as a baby's, stood out all round her head like a halo. Her round innocent eyes met Sarah's and said a very plain and insistent no.

Sarah's smile widened. She beamed amiably at the little group and said,

“I think Lucilla was out.”

“So you didn't meet?” Uncle Geoffrey's tone was very pleasant.

“I was out with Ricky,” said Lucilla abruptly, and then suddenly the colour ran right up to the roots of her hair. She dropped her racket and stooped to pick it up again.

“Odd child,” thought Sarah. She took a look at the third Hildred, and decided that he wasn't nearly so good-looking as his father. If Lucilla was having an affair with him, she was a little fool and it was high time she had someone to look after her. She thought Master Ricky looked a good deal of a milksop, a pale watered down edition of his papa—tall, slight, fair, and very well pleased with himself, with the pale blue eyes which make you think of skim milk.

Presently, while Lucilla and Ricky finished their game, Geoffrey Hildred talked very sympathetically about his ward.

“I hope you'll rouse her—take her about, get her out of some of this heavy black. Miss Hildred is old-fashioned and she doesn't realize how bad it is for Lucilla to live under a perpetual reminder of her loss. It's all very sad, very regrettable, but everyone has his own life to live. I don't mind telling you I have been very deeply concerned about Lucilla. There have been times when I have been afraid, but—well, it isn't necessary to go into that now. You will, I am sure, do her a world of good. But there's just one thing—”

Sarah gazed at him in the manner of the earnest neophyte awaiting instruction. As she did so, she felt quite sure that she was receiving full marks for tact and womanly sympathy. Uncle Geoffrey's fine blue eyes dwelt on her with approbation.

“Just one thing,” he pursued. “You have your own car, I believe. Well, I am afraid that at first—yes, at any rate at first—Miss Hildred would rather you did not take Lucilla out in it. There is an old Daimler, and a very trustworthy chauffeur who will be at your disposal whenever my cousin is not requiring him, but for the present she is much alarmed at the idea of your driving Lucilla.”

Sarah's face fell. It sounded unutterably stuffy and hum-drum.

“There are many pleasant expeditions which you could make,” said Mr. Hildred consolingly. “It is really no distance to the sea. It is a pity you were not here earlier, but really the weather is so wonderful that bathing is still quite possible. That would be excellent for Lucilla, quite excellent. I hope you swim.”

Sarah swam. She had swum with Eleanor Manifold. They talked about the Manifolds.

When Lucilla had finished her game, she took Sarah round the garden. As soon as they were out of sight, she looked sideways out of those round blue eyes of hers and said,

“They're all potty about cars. If they'd known you had nearly run me over, you'd have been in the soup.”

“
I
?” said Sarah indignantly.

Lucilla's gaze became full, wide, and innocent.

“Of course,” she said. “Tearing down the drive like that and knocking me over!” She began to giggle. “You know, Aunt Marina thinks cars ought to be forbidden to go more than five miles an hour by Act of Parliament. If you're ever really desperately keen on stroking her the right way, you try saying you think so too. It's never been known to fail.”

“Thank you,” said Sarah.

“You needn't. Look here, you didn't go and promise only to take me out in the Daimler with Morris driving it as if it was a hearse, did you? A push-bike's better fun than that. I've got a new one, but the other's still quite rideable. Here—this is supposed to be the spot view, if you're keen on views.”

They had come suddenly from a path between crowding bushes to the open top of a knoll. It was surprising to see how far they were above the village. The thatched roofs looked like a line of haystacks grouped about the church. You could see the road with its hedgerows and elm trees, and you could see woodland, and yellow reaped fields, and pasture where the grass was green again after the rain, a stretch of pleasant, peaceful country losing itself towards the horizon in the autumn haze.

“That's Holme Fallow,” said Lucilla, and pointed. Her voice changed on the name as if she forced it a little.

Sarah looked first at her and then along the line of the pointing finger. An odd child Lucilla. She saw the road running on away from the village, and, perhaps a mile away, the chimney-stacks of a house lifting from amongst trees. It looked to be a big house with a park about it. The road forked and enclosed the park as a stream divides to encircle a rock.

Sarah looked at the chimney-stacks, and had thoughts. She said,

“What is Holme Fallow?”

“It's mine,” said Lucilla.

“
Yours
?”

Lucilla's hand dropped to her side. She went on looking at Holme Fallow.

“Yes, it's mine, but I've never lived there. I shall some day. I hate this house—don't you?”

“No—why should I? Why do you hate it?”

Lucilla gave a laugh which was not in the least like the schoolgirl giggle of a little while before. It had a dry, unmirthful sound.

“Oh, it's a first-class house—central heating, hot and cold water in all the bedrooms, and every modern convenience, like the house-agents' blurb always says. It doesn't belong to me, thank goodness. It was my step-father's, and the Guardians have taken it on from the nephew who came in for everything. He's in India, so he doesn't want it himself.”

“Would you like to live at Holme Fallow?” said Sarah idly.

Lucilla flushed and was silent. Then she said,

“Nobody's lived there since the war. I was born there, and then—my great-grandfather died—and Mummy married my step-father—and Uncle Henry never came home.”

“You mean he was killed?”

“No, he wasn't killed, but he never came home. He had shell-shock and he couldn't keep still. He had to go on travelling all the time, and he never came home. He died about six months ago.” She had spoken in a low, expressionless voice. Suddenly it changed and came alive again. “Would you like to go over and see the house? They won't let me go alone, because Aunt Marina's an old fusty-fuss, but no one could object to my going with my chaperon.”

“Am I a chaperon?” said Sarah laughing.

“You ought to know. You're either a chaperon or a governess, and we might just as well get it quite dear at the very start that I'm not going to be governessed.” She shook back her hair and tilted an impudent head.

Sarah laughed again.

“I'm not really set on being a governess,” she said.

“No—you don't look like one, thank goodness. I was going to make your life a hell on earth, but I'm calling it off for the present. We'll go and look at Holme Fallow to-morrow and sleuth the burglar.”

Sarah had more thoughts—very quick, disturbing ones. She hoped her voice was all right when she said,

“What burglar?”

Lucilla clutched her arm and swung it to and fro.

“Why, it was the day you were here. You know, when you came down to see the Guardians and nearly killed me. Whilst you were doing all that, someone was burgling Holme Fallow. You see, there's a caretaker called Snagge, and he went out at six and he didn't come back till eleven, because he'd been in to Ledlington to the pictures. And he didn't notice anything that night, but next day he came up here all of a doodah and said the place had been burgled. There were damp footmarks up the steps to the side door, and in the passages, and all over the parquet, and a desk had been broken open and what not. Aunt Marina was in a most frightful fuss. A car had been driven right up to the house, which was pretty fair nerve, but I suppose they knew Snagge would be out. Everyone in the village knows that he and Mrs. Snagge go in to Ledlington on Thursday evenings. They've been doing it for years, so I expect the burglar knew. And the village policeman, who is a nice fat old grampus called Minnow, says he thinks it was a gang, because another car had been standing by the west drive and there were marks where petrol had been spilt.”

Sarah breathed an inward “
Golly!
” Then she opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. The suspicions which had come to her when she first beheld the chimney-stacks of Holme Fallow were being most painfully confirmed. She had most undoubtedly seen the burglar at his burgling. But would it really be a good plan to say so? Would it really give her what you might call a good start with the Guardians? She had a horrid feeling that it would not. They would probably think, and say, that she ought to have sought out Mr. Minnow and told him what she had seen instead of blinding off to town to meet Ran. Silence looked very golden to Sarah Trent. She closed her lips firmly and let Lucilla go on talking.

CHAPTER VII

They went next day to Holme Fallow. It took much longer on a bicycle than it had done in
The Bomb
. Sarah remembered where she had turned, but instead of following the left-hand fork of the road Lucilla kept straight on until they came to a lodge and a pair of iron gates.

Mrs. Snagge came out of the lodge to let them in. She was a little woman with a long sharp nose and a tight mouth.

Lucilla leaned on her bicycle and said good morning.

“This is the way the burglar came in,” she said to Sarah.

Sarah looked at the big gates which Mrs. Snagge was opening.

“Aha! That's where the fun comes in!” said Lucilla. “I say, Mrs. Snagge, did you tell Minnow how the burglar got in?”

Mrs. Snagge pursed up her lips.

“There's no saying—” she began, but Lucilla cut her short.

“Oh yes, there is. You know, and Snagge knows, and I know, that you left the gates open.”

“I'm sure, Miss Lucilla—” The woman's voice shook, but Sarah thought it was with anger. Her eyes were resentful too.

“So am I,” said Lucilla sternly—“quite, quite sure. You always do leave them open when you go into Ledlington, because it saves trouble when you get back late.” She laughed a little. “You needn't be afraid—I shan't give you away.”

Mrs. Snagge sniffed and gulped.

“And what difference could it have made when all's said and done, with the other drive that's never had no gates to it, not in my time nor in Snagge's anyway, and nothing to stop anyone going up it day nor night?”