Hue and Cry (9 page)

Yes, if she could only get away—if she could only get out. There was something more than strange about the whole thing. If she could get to Roger, he would help her.

She had a most comforting vision of Roger and herself leaving London far behind them, slipping through the night in Roger's car and coming safe to Curston. She had a feeling that at Curston she would be safe—if the Moorings stood by her she would be safe. She did not reason about this feeling; but it was all the stronger because it was purely-instinctive. Roger would take her to Curston, and at Curston she would be safe.
But how was she to get to Roger?

On the instant Mally became severely practical. She opened the window and leaned out. The room in which she had been locked was on the fourth floor. On the next floor was a window immediately below her own; and this window had a little stone balustrade.

Mally looked at the balustrade. It enclosed a ledge not more than a foot wide, which might have held three flower-pots. Mally looked earnestly at the ledge. It was ten or twelve feet below her. You can't hang from a window-sill and drop ten or twelve feet on to a ledge three flower-pots wide unless you are a cat, burglar or an acrobat.

Mally wasn't any of these. She had done a certain amount of gymnasium work at school, and she had a good head; but even with prison as an alternative, she did not see herself hanging from a fourth-story sill and dropping gracefully on to a third-story ledge—not without something to hold on to anyhow. She could have done it at a pinch with a rope.

She turned back into the room and looked about it. The small, narrow bed was covered with one of those loosely woven honeycombed counterpanes which have a little knotted fringe all round and are so extraordinarily heavy to sleep under. Mally whisked the counterpane off the bed and measured it along her arm. It was of the size described in catalogues as two by three.

She went to the open window and let the counterpane hang down, holding it by one corner so as to get the length diagonally. The fringe dangled just above the balustrade. She drew it up again quickly. What could she fasten it to? There ought, of course, to have been nice easy window bars; but as there weren't any window bars, she would have to find something else.

She went to the bed, moved it, and felt a horrible conviction that it would tip up the minute any weight came on it. Flimsy, cheap, and light, it might be a last resort, but it would certainly be a horribly dangerous one. She went back to the window, pulled down both sashes, and, wrapping the counterpane about her arm and hand, she very deliberately broke a hole through the glass immediately under the transverse bars of wood, taking care that no splinters should fall down outside.

Now,
supposing any one were to come, what would she do? Mally went to the door and stood there listening, holding her breath. From far away downstairs, a dull booming sound reached her. That meant either the dressing gong or the dinner gong. In either case she was safe for at least an hour. She rather thought that she was meant to go supperless—Paul Craddock had, in fact, said as much. But, anyhow, no one would come near her until dinner was over.

She pushed the corner of the counterpane through the holes she had made in the two sheets of glass, and looked in dismay at the immense thickness which would have to be knotted. Even if she could run the knots tight, they would take up so much of the stuff that what was left would not reach nearly far enough. If she could slit the corner and get two ends which she could tie, it would be ever so much better.

She stooped down to look for a piece of glass with a sharp cutting edge, and as her knee touched the floor, she heard a footstep far away down the passage—a man's step, quick and impatient.

Mally did not stop to think. She was not at all conscious of thinking. She heard the footsteps, and found herself at the other side of the room with her fingers on the switch of the electric light. Darkness rushed down upon her; the walls, the window, the bed, the Turkey carpet, were all one soft blackness. She stood there and heard the handle rattle. If any one came in, it was all up. The handle rattled again, and Paul Craddock's voice said:

“Hallo! Have you thought any better of it yet?”

Mally did not speak, but she went very softly into the middle of the room and waited.

“Sulky, are you? You'd better think it over, you know. You really won't like being in prison.”

“When am I going to have something to eat?” said Mally. It cheered her a good deal to find that her voice was cool and steady, though her heart would beat in an unmanageable way.

“I really don't know. I shouldn't be surprised if you didn't get anything. Fasting's good for the conscience.” He laughed. “See you in the morning. So long.”

The footsteps went away again. Mally turned on the light, found her piece of glass, and made shift, between cutting and tearing, to slit the corner of the counterpane diagonally for about a couple of feet. She knotted the ends over the cross-bar of the window, switched off the light, and climbed out over the sash on to the window-sill.

The light was all below her now—yellow, unsteady light from the street lamp. The balustrade which she must reach looked small and black against it. She held the sash and let the counterpane fall to its full length; and it was when the limp, heavy folds slid down the wall that Mally's courage went cold in her and she would have given nearly everything in the world to have been able to turn back.

She was kneeling on the window ledge, with its rough granite gritting into her knees through her thin stockings; her feet hung out over the four-story drop to the wet pavement and the spiky railings; her hands clung to the sash as if they would never let go. And from across the square all the lighted windows watched her.

Mally felt herself rocking. The house seemed to sway with her, slowly, monotonously, rhythmically, like the pendulum of a clock. And then all at once she was talking to herself in a hard, angry whisper:

“
Rabbit!
Do you want to go to
prison
? Do you want to fall down
squash
on the pavement? Do you want
Paul Craddock
to find you here and laugh at you? Yes, idiot—
laugh
at you. Stop being an invertebrate jellyfish this instant!”

The house stopped rocking.

“Now!” said Mally.
“Now,
rabbit! Take your hand off the sash and catch hold of the counterpane. Now your left. Get your weight on it. Now shift your knees.”

Mally did just as she was told. If she had waited a second, she could not have done it. But she did not wait. The most frightful moment was when her knee slipped off the edge of the sill and she hung on the loosely woven stuff and felt it stretch, and give, and stretch again. The window ledge pushed her body out from the wall, so that she was not hanging clear. She shifted her grasp a little at a time until her hands touched the sill. Then she had to hang by one hand whilst she felt for a grip on the counterpane lower down. It was so frightfully thick; she could not grasp it all or nearly all. But she got past the sill somehow and came down inch by inch.

When the counterpane became easier to hold she knew she must be coming near the end. And then, before she expected it, her dangling feet just touched the balustrade. She looked down for the first time since she had begun the descent; and instantly she was giddy—so giddy that even when she had dropped into the little space between balustrade and window, she could only crouch there, shaking from head to foot.

Two men passed down the road below. She heard their voices; one of them laughed. Mally roused herself. Any one might look up at any moment and see that dangling counterpane. Fear of discovery drove out all other fear. She slipped off a shoe, broke the window in front of her, and almost before the splinters had stopped falling, pushed through the broken pane into the room behind. The curtains had been drawn, and the glass falling against them made very little sound.

Mally stopped just beyond the curtains; her left hand clutched them together behind her. They were of smooth glazed chintz, very cold to the touch. The room in front of her was pitch-dark. It was one of the spare bedrooms, and she thought that the door was immediately opposite the window by which she had entered. She let go of the curtains and began to feel her way towards it. When her groping right hand touched the panel, she stood still and felt for the handle; and as she did so, the thought came with a rush, “What if the door is locked on the outside?” Careful housemaids did lock the doors of unused rooms on the outside. Suppose she were locked in here, to be tracked and most ignominiously found by Paul Craddock.

In a panting hurry she twisted the handle and pulled. The door opened, and the long, empty corridor lay before her, lit from end to end by softly shaded lights. She stood on the threshold, listening acutely. She was on her own floor now; her room and Barbara's were at the end of the passage. Still breathing fast, she stepped out of the room, shut the door behind her, and ran lightly and quickly down the corridor.

In the darkness of her own room she began to think. She must get away. She must get to Roger. A hat—that was the first thing—a hat and coat. She felt for them and put them on. Her purse was in a hand-bag, and the hand-bag in a drawer with her gloves. The nuisance was that the drawer creaked. She would just have to chance the creak. She must have the money. It was little enough; but she must be able to take a taxi.

She pulled gingerly at the drawer, got it open an inch, and pulled again. Of course the wretched thing must needs creak, and creak loudly. Mally bit her lip, fished out her bag, and was just cramming the gloves into it, when she heard a sound. Some one was opening a door—not the door into the passage, but the one from Barbara's room. With a click the light went on, and there, quite close to her, was Barbara in her nightgown, her face chalk-white, her dark eyes round and staring.

She said “Mally!” in a sort of sobbing whisper, and then ran forward and caught at Mally's arm.

“You're going away!”

“Oh, Barby darling, hush!”

“You're going!”

“I must.”

They were both whispering. Suddenly, above their own voices, there came to them the sound of another voice. It was Jones, outside in the corridor, and she was speaking to some one. They heard her say, “She'll be quite all right.” And then, quick as lightning, Barbara had switched off the light and was pulling Mally with her. They had reached the bed and were standing beside it, when the door into the passage was opened a little way and they could see Jones, the half of a black shadow against the light behind her.

She stood there and listened for a little, whilst Barbara clutched Mally and Mally clutched Barbara. Then she said in a low, cautious voice, “Are you asleep, miss?” and listened again. She said this two or three times, then turned and spoke over her shoulder: “She's fast as fast, ma'am. You come along back to your bed and let me get down to my supper.” She shut the door on Mrs. Craddock's murmured answer.

“Mally,” said Barbara in the darkness, “
are
you going away?”

Mally picked her up, put her into bed, and covered her. It was a cold night and the child was shivering.

“I must.”

Barbara threw off the clothes and sat bolt upright.

“They said I shouldn't
never
see you again.” Mally was silent. Barbara's little hard, cold hands held her wrist. “Why must you?”

“Barby darling, I must. Let me go.”

“Is it because of Pinko? Is it?”

“Yes, it is. He'll hurt me if I don't go quick. Barby, let me go!”

“I knew it was because of Pinko. Wait—I want to give you something—wait just where you are.”

She wriggled out of bed, and Mally heard her bare feet padding on the carpet. She was back again in a moment with something that rustled, something that, pushed into Mally's hands, resolved itself into a packet of papers.

“What is it?”

Barbara jigged up and down on the bed. Her whisper was tinged with triumph.

“It's my drawings, what I hid, so that beastly Pinko couldn't tell about them and get them burnt like he did the others.”

“Did he?”

Barbara stopped jigging.

“It was
murdering
of him. They were mine—I made them my own self. And he told, and they were all torn up and burnt. And I hid these so as even you didn't know. And I want you to take them right away out of the house and keep them safe, and when I'm grown up you can give them to me again. Now go quick, because I'm going to cry.”

Mally caught the little shaking figure in a tight hug; a hot tear ran against her cheek. And then Barbara pushed her away.

“Go quick, quick, quick!” And Mally went.

It seemed like madness to come out into the lighted passage and down the stairs, and yet there was no other way of it. The thought of the back stairs she dismissed at once; they would be far more dangerous. Sir George and Paul Craddock would still be at dinner, and there was a chance that she might be able to pass through the hall and get away without being seen.

She stood by Sir George's bust and looked down at the marble statues and the cold tessellated pavement. The study lay on the left and the dining-room on the right. The hall was empty. Mally ran down the shallow steps and through the swing doors into the vestibule. The front door was before her. She took hold of it to open it, heard the door behind her swing again, and whisked round to face Herbert, the second footman, a tall and personable youth with a fresh complexion and eyes that were inclined to stare. They stared at Mally now, and she gave a little imperious nod.

“Open it!” she said, and waved to the door.

Herbert stood stock-still and considered. He had no wish to lose his place. It was a good place, and as the first footman was thinking of leaving, Herbert had hopes of promotion. He was not quite sure what Mally was supposed to have done, but he knew that she had been locked up, and that Mr. Craddock had given particular instructions with regard to her.