Beggar’s Choice (28 page)

“I don't like leaving you.”

“And why not?” said the old lady very short and sharp.

“You won't be nervous? You're sure? I don't think I ought to leave you.”

“Am I to make my arrowroot myself?” said the old lady in an ominous voice. “I didn't ask you to think.”

Fanny let go of the handle in a hurry. I heard her fuss away downstairs, and I opened my wardrobe door and came out.

The old lady wasn't looking at me. She had gone back to her cross-word.

“Seven,” she said—“it must be seven letters. Now, what's a word with seven letters which means fine-drawn?”

“What about tenuous?” I said.

“Good!” she said. “Good—good—good! Yes—seven letters! That's broken the back of it! I shouldn't have slept a wink if I hadn't got the better of the thing.”

She put down her pencil and beckoned to me.

“Come over here and tell me what you've been up to. Fanny's safe for ten minutes, and I want to know.”

“I really haven't done anything,” I said.

“Nobody ever has. What do they say you've done?”

“I'm not quite sure.”

“Then why did you run away?”

“Because it was the best thing to do.” I thought this sounded rather bad, so I went on in a hurry: “I really haven't done anything, but I mightn't be able to clear myself.”

“Because of some one else?” she said.

I nodded.

“A woman, I suppose? And you're in love with her? Is that it?”

I felt myself getting red; but it was because I was angry, not because I was embarrassed.

“No, it's not,” I said.

“Then why don't you clear yourself?”

I didn't answer that, and she saw I wasn't going to. She took up her pencil again and tapped with it on the writing-block.

“Well, well—what are you going to do next?”

I didn't know. There would probably still be a man in the street, and I didn't suppose they'd finished searching the roofs yet.

“Your best way is to wait till Fanny comes up with my arrowroot. Then you can get out into the yard and over the wall into the back garden of one of the houses in Ely Street. If you go out of the front door, you may just walk into a trap.”

“I say—you're most frightfully good!” I said.

“I hope the Recording Angel thinks so,” she said. Then she put out her hand and beckoned to me.

I came close up to the bed.

“What's your name?” she asked, looking up at me under her queer thick eyebrows.

“Carthew Fairfax.”

“Do they call you all that?”

“No—Car.”

“Is your mother alive?”

“No.”

“Grandmother? Aunts?”

“No.”

“I thought not. Have you got a sweetheart?”

The thought of Isobel came over me like the sun shining suddenly on a dark day.

I said, “Yes.”

“Will you tell me her name?”

“Isobel.”

She laughed in a queer sort of way.

“Mine is Ginevra Cambodia Stubbs. That's funny enough for a cross-word—isn't it? Well, if things turn out all right for you, will you come and see me some day?”

I said, “I'd like to.” I tried to thank her, but she stopped me.

“I live entirely surrounded by old women. My doctor's the worst of them—what Ellen calls ‘a proper old maid.' She's one herself, so she ought to know. So is Fanny. They're all kind, they're all fussy, and they all bore me to death. I like young men, and as I've no sons, and no grandsons, I never see one. I've watched you from the window going up and down—I told you that, didn't I?” She stopped, picked up her pencil, and tapped on the block. “If I don't do crosswords, I should get as soft in the head as Fanny. Now you ought to be going. You'd better go down to the next landing and wait in the drawing-room till you hear Fanny come up with the arrowroot. You can get into the yard through the scullery. There's a box of matches on the mantelpiece, if you haven't got any. You'd better not turn on the electric light, because Ellen sleeps in the basement.”

She shook hands with me, and I did my best to thank her, but I don't think I made a very good job of it. I liked her most awfully, and I hope she knew how grateful I was.

XXXVII

I took the matches and went down to the next landing, which had two doors at right angles to one another just like the one above; they both opened into the drawing-room. I'd hardly got safely in before I heard Fanny coming upstairs. She must have hurried like mad over making the arrowroot.

As soon as I heard the old lady's door shut, I came out of the drawing-room and went down the stairs. There was no light below the bedroom landing, but I didn't want to strike a match unless I was obliged to. The house was on the same plan as Mrs. Bell's, so I thought I could manage.

I crawled down the basement stairs, because of course I realized that Ellen would most likely not have gone to sleep again yet. I wasn't quite clear about the kitchen, and the scullery, and her room; but Fanny had left the kitchen door ajar and I saw the glow of the fire, which was a stroke of luck I couldn't have reckoned on.

The scullery had an outer door with heavy bolts, the sort that were simply bound to make a row if I tried to shoot them back. I decided that it would be much safer to get out of the kitchen window.

Well, I slid back the catch, pushed up the window, and was half-way out, when I heard a sort of flapping sound. I recognized it at once, because I'd noticed when she went upstairs that Fanny had on slippers which flapped on every step. I pulled my other leg up, but before I could drop into the yard the kitchen door opened with a push, and there stood Fanny with a waggling candle in her hand and her mouth open all ready to scream. I ought to have cut and run, but like an ass I tried to stop her.

“Miss Fanny——” I began, and then she screamed. It was the most ineffectual scream I had ever heard. I think she was too frightened to put any breath into it. “I say—don't do that! Mrs. Stubbs knows I'm here.”

She screamed again and let the candle fall with a clatter. I think some of the hot wax must have got her on the instep, because her third scream was much louder.

“For the Lord's sake——” I said, but before I could say any more, the light went on in the passage and an amazing fat old thing in yards and yards of white night-gown rushed up to Fanny and caught her by the arm.

“Where is he, the nasty toad?” she cried, and began to let off screams like a steam siren.

I got out on the sill, banged down the window, and dropped.

The yard was one of the sort that has given up pretending to be a garden. I ran into a dust-bin and a clothes-line before I got to the wall at the bottom. I shinned up it, ran along as far as I dared, and dropped into the garden of one of the houses facing on Ely Road. They are rather better houses than the ones in our street. Some of them really have gardens. This one had. There were trees against the wall, and I'm afraid I trod right in the middle of a bed of geraniums; there was an aromatic smell from the plants I broke.

My idea was to lurk in the bushes until I saw what was going to happen. I couldn't hear Ellen screaming any longer, but that probably only meant that she was using her breath to call in the police and tell them all about it.

There were some lilac bushes close up against the house. Lilac makes a very good screen. When I got to the bushes, I wasn't more than a couple of yards from the house. There was a window on the ground floor. I couldn't help thinking how convenient it would be if I could walk through the house and out into Ely Road. I suppose this made me go up to the window to have a look at it.

I wasn't expecting anything—it was just an idle impulse; but, to my extreme surprise, the bottom part of the window was open. It seemed an impossible bit of luck. I thought I must be mistaken. I put out my hand to feel, and touched thick curtains drawn together behind the open sash.

Well, I wasn't wasting any luck. This was a lot better than lurking in a lilac bush, so I pulled myself up over the sill and stepped down into the room.

I was still straightening myself up and wondering who on earth had left the window open, when the curtains were parted and some one said
“Darling”
and threw both arms round my neck. It was so frightfully sudden I couldn't possibly have stopped her. The voice sounded quite young, and the arms were soft. I didn't know if I said anything, or whether she just found out when she kissed me. Anyhow, she gave a sort of stifled shriek, began to push me away, and then slipped right down on the floor in a faint.

It was simply frightfully embarrassing, I couldn't very well go off and leave her fainting, but I certainly couldn't afford to dally. I picked her up, felt round for a chair, put her into it, and then hunted about until I found the electric light switch.

The light went on and showed the room. It was the little third room you sometimes get on the ground floor in a London house. It looked like a girl's sitting-room, rather pretty-pretty, with lots of photographs and nick-nacks. The girl was beginning to catch her breath and open her eyes. They were the large, rolling, pale-blue sort, and she had fair fluffy hair and rather good ankles. She was dressed for going out, all except her hat, which was on the floor. I don't know why girls always throw their hats on the floor, but they do. There were two suit-cases next to the hat.

I thought it would be perfectly awful if she began to scream, so I weighed in at once:

“Please don't be frightened—I'm not a burglar.”

“I thought you were Tom,” she said.

“Did you?”

“Of c-course I did. And you're n-not!” She sounded as if she thought it was my fault that I wasn't Tom.

“I'm awfully sorry,” I said.

She put her head on one side and listened, and she said “Ssh!” though I wasn't making any noise. After she'd listened again for a minute she whispered,

“Did you hear anything?”

I shook my head.

She was sitting up and quivering with fright. She said,

“Are you s-sure?”

I nodded.

“If he w-wakes, we're d-done for.”

I really never have seen a girl look so frightened. It wasn't about me, which was something to the good. I was only some one she could shiver at and say “Ssh!” to. I said,

“Who is he?”

She said “Ssh!” again; and then, “My f-father. T-Tom and I are running away.”

“Well—why don't you run?” I asked.

She said “Ssh!” every time I spoke, though I didn't make a bit more noise than she did. It was most awfully annoying, and I could have shaken her. I thought I had better go before I lost my temper, so I said in a frightfully polite whisper,

“Can I get out of the front door—or would a window be better?”

She said “Ssh!” and made reproachful eyes.

“You're not g-going to
leave
me?”

I thought that was the limit. I said,

“Suppose your father wakes up and finds me here?”

“I'd rather he f-found you than T-Tom.”

“Where
is
Tom?” I asked.

And just as I said it, there was a scrambling noise at the window and Tom fell into the room. He made about twice as much noise as I had done, but she didn't say “Ssh!” to him. She jumped up and said “Darling!” and flung her arms around his neck just like she had done to me. I thought she might have managed to think out something different, but she was evidently a creature of routine. I felt sorry for Tom, because I could see he'd got years and years of being called “Darling” stretching before him, and I thought that after the first few thousand times he'd get bored, especially if she always said it in exactly the same way. The time she said it to me and the time she said it to him were as much alike as if you'd been playing the same gramophone record over twice.

She said it again, and Tom glared at me over her shoulder. He was a dark, stocky fellow about my own age. He looked at me as if I'd been murdering her.

“Who's this?” he growled.

“I d-don't know,” said the girl.

“I want to get out into Ely Road,” said I.

Tom unhooked his young woman and put her behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Wasting my time,” I said.

“He came in through the w-window,” said the girl. “He f-frightened me d-dreadfully, and I c-couldn't scream because of F-father.”

I thought I'd never heard anything so mean in my life.

“Did he hurt you?” said Tom.

“No, I didn't,” I said. “Don't be a fool! I want to get into Ely Road. And you want to elope—don't you? She said you did. Hadn't we better all get on with it, instead of doing our best to wake the house?”

That fetched her, and she said “Ssh!” again. And just as she said it, there was a loud thud overhead. It might have been a piece of furniture falling, or it might have been a heavy man getting out of bed in a hurry. I didn't wait to see, nor did Tom. I had started for the door, and as I went through it, he shoved a suit-case at me and I clamped on to it.

The hall door was not bolted—I suppose the girl had seen to that. I got it open, and Tom and the girl and I all went tumbling down the steps. I don't know which of us banged the door. It made an awful noise, and through the noise I could hear a military voice of the first magnitude roaring for “Maisie!”

Tom had a suit-case and I had a suit-case, and Tom had Maisie as well. She was simply dithering with fright, and we hadn't gone half a dozen yards before she wonked and said she was going to faint. She was the sort of girl who'd have done it too.

“My car's at the corner,” said Tom. “Maisie—
darling!”

The door we had banged behind us had been violently wrenched open. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large man in purple and yellow pyjamas come hurtling down the steps. He had red hair and a red face, and a considerable command of language.