Lonesome Road (16 page)

Rachel drew away at last. She had not known that she could feel like this—to be two people and yet one, to have a double strength and a double joy, to be the giver of joy and the giver of love to someone whose only thought was to give and give again. A line of Browning’s came to her and stayed: “Men have died, trying to find this place which we have found.” She felt the triumph of that, and its disregard of death.

She wrenched herself as from a dream, putting him away with her two hands.

“Gale, we must go on—we must.”

He said reflectively, “I don’t know what you want to go on for, honey.”

She shook his arm.

“I’ve got to find Caroline.”

“And you don’t know where she is, so how are you going to find her? See here, if she left while you were at lunch, that would be somewhere before two o’clock.”

“We went down to lunch at a quarter past one. Her tray went up about five minutes after that. She wasn’t undressed— she could have got away easily by half past one. She had had a note telling her to go. It said, ‘Better get away while we’re all at lunch—you’ll get a good start,’ and something about Miss Silver being a detective. And then, ‘They’ll make you speak if you don’t get away. We can talk things over and decide what had better be done.’ And a bit half torn off, with, ‘I’ll make an excuse and—’ I thought it meant I’ll make an excuse and come after you.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Miss Silver found the bits all torn up. Some of the pieces were missing, Richard’s name was on one piece— just the name by itself. That doesn’t mean he wrote it. It was typed—on his machine. But that doesn’t mean he wrote it. We don’t know who wrote it, and we don’t know who she’s gone to meet, because just those bits were destroyed. I suppose she took care about that.”

“But Treherne followed her. He did just what the note said—he made an excuse and followed her.” He was starting the car as he spoke. “Would you worry about her if you thought she was with Treherne?”

Rachel looked at him.

“I’m frightened,” she said. “I’ve been frightened all the time. But what frightens me most is that I can see Miss Silver is frightened too. And I oughtn’t to be frightened if Caroline is with Richard, because he loves her.”

Gale Brandon looked straight ahead of him. Visibility was not too good. He thought, “There’s a fog coming up. It’s a bad business.” He said out loud,

“I liked Treherne a good deal, but I don’t know him. Miss Silver said two things to me, and I’m going to tell you one of them. She said not to let you out of my sight, so I’d like you to bear that in mind.”

“What was the other thing?”

“I’m not telling you that yet. Let’s get back to Caroline. If she got off by half past one, she wouldn’t be far off getting to London now. It’s after three, and I suppose she’d make it in two hours at the outside.”

“Not if she had to wait for the person who wrote that letter. And if it was Richard, he—it must have been quite two o’clock before he got away.”

“And you don’t know where he would take her?”

“No—Cosmo thought…She has the key of Cosmo’s flat. We thought—”

“But wasn’t that when you were thinking she had gone alone? Would Treherne take her there? That’s the point.”

Rachel hesitated.

“He might—if they wanted to talk—if he wanted to get her away. She knows something—my poor Caroline—and she’s frightened of being made to speak. Oh, if I could only find her! She needn’t be frightened—she needn’t be frightened about anything. She’s got such a tender heart, and she’s easily hurt. I’m blaming myself terribly, because I’ve seen for some time that she was upset. But I thought that it was Richard, and I didn’t like to interfere.”

“And he’s in love with her you say?”

“But she has refused him. That is what I can’t make out. I’ve been so sure that they cared for each other.” Gale Brandon was thinking of the second thing which Miss Silver had said to him—the thing which he had refused to tell Rachel. “Miss Caroline is in great danger.” That was what she had said, and that was what had made him wonder if she was crazy. If she was, then they could have the laugh on her. But if she wasn’t—well, in that case things didn’t look too good. And one of the people they didn’t look too good for was Richard Treherne. He said abruptly,

“Are you sure she’s not crazy, that Miss Silver?”

“Quite, quite sure.”

He accelerated sharply. The hedgerows became a mere streak on either side, with the fog smudging them.

They came to the ugly outskirts of Ledlington, and had to drop again to thirty. Rows and rows of little new houses, with names like Happicot and Mon Abri. Then the older streets, with the older, dingier houses. And ultimately the narrow High Street with a big new multiple store or a cinema crammed in here and there among the relics of an Elizabethan, a Georgian, or a Victorian day.

Right through the town and out on the other side to the London road. Away from the lights of the shop windows dusk and the fog darkened the landscape. Flat fields, cropped hedges, a row of bare elm trees marching on either side of a lane, a signpost with the words “To Slepham Halt.”

They were five miles out of Ledlington, and in that five miles neither of them had spoken. Rachel said suddenly,

“Stop, Gale!”

He glanced round at her, his foot on the brake.

“What is it?”

She said, “I don’t know. I feel as if we were going the wrong way. Do you believe in that sort of feeling?”

“I should call it a hunch.” The car slowed down and stopped. “Well, I don’t know. They’re very unreliable things hunches. I’ve had them and I’ve acted on them and they’ve come off, and I’ve had them and I’ve acted on them and they’ve let me down flat. The only sure thing about them is that you never can tell. What’s your hunch?”

Rachel looked at him rather helplessly. The impulse which had made her say “Stop!” had spent itself. She felt lost and rudderless. She said uncertainly,

“I don’t know. I felt we were going the wrong way. I can’t explain it, but you know—when you wake up in the dark and you don’t know where you are, and you move, and run into something, and it comes over you that you’re all wrong—well, that’s the nearest I can get to it.”

“We haven’t run into anything yet,” said Gale, with a laugh in his voice.

“It was a very strong feeling,” said Rachel.

“Haven’t you got it still?”

Her voice sounded forlorn as she said, “I haven’t got anything—I’m all lost.”

He put a consoling arm about her.

“What do you want to do about it, honey?”

Through the lost feeling something pricked.

“I think I want to go back.”

“To Whincliff Edge?”

“No—no, I don’t think so.”

When he had turned the car he said, “All right, where do we go?”

“Back past the turning for Slepham Halt, and then take the left-hand fork instead of the one that goes to Ledlington.”

“And where does that take us to?”

“It takes us to Pewitt’s Corner,” said Rachel.

When Miss Silver had gone out of the room and shut the door Caroline Ponsonby sank back upon the pillow and hid her face. She could shut out the light and her own power to see, but she could not shut out Miss Silver’s words. She kept on hearing them just as if they were being actually spoken: “What is it that you know? It would be better for everyone if you would say… It will be better for everyone if you will make up your mind as quickly as possible.” The same words over and over, and over and over again. And the door shutting softly. Her mind was tormented, and through the torment the senseless repetition went on, and on, and on.

When the door was opened again she pressed her face deeper into the pillow and brought her hands up over her ears so that she might not hear. She was past coherent thought and at the mercy of the oldest instinct in the world. Hide your eyes, and stop your ears—make yourself very small and very still, and perhaps they will think you are dead, perhaps the hunt will go by. Every muscle tensed as she pressed herself down against the bed, eyes darkened and ears hearing only the beat of her own blood. She held her breath and waited. No voice came through the silence. No one touched her.

With an infinite strained caution she slackened the pressure upon her ears and listened. There was no sound of breathing but her own. She waited a long time, or what seemed to her a long time, before she lifted her head and looked about her. There was no one there. She was alone in the room and the door was shut, but on the table beside her head there was a folded note with her name typed across it—just Caroline. She stared at it, and then sat up and pushed back her hair. Everything in the room stood out very hard, and sharp, and clear. Her name on the note was black and distinct.

She took up the paper and opened it. There were some lines of typing but no beginning. She read:

Better get away at once whilst they are all at lunch. You’ll get a good start. That woman is a detective.

A shaft of terror pierced her to the very quick. The hard, clear outlines were blurred. The typed lines wavered in a mist. She said, “I won’t faint—I won’t—I won’t!” She fought the mist until it went away and left the paper clear again. She forced her eyes to the sheet and read:

That woman is a detective. If you don’t get away, she’ll make you speak. Take your car to Slepham Old House. I’ll make an excuse and meet you there. We can talk things over and decide what had better be done. You’ll have some time to wait, but you must get out of this or they’ll make you talk. Drive right into the stable yard and wait.

There was a line or two more which terrified her. She sat staring at these lines and at Richard’s name. Richard— Richard—Richard—No, she mustn’t think about Richard, she must only think about getting away.

She ran to the door and locked it, and as she stood there with her hand on the key she heard the lunch bell ring. Suppose someone came to ask her how she was. Suppose it was Rachel. It would surely be Rachel. And at the thought Caroline’s heart stood still. This was misery—to feel an anguish of dread at the thought that it might be Rachel who would come. “But I’ve locked the door. Nobody can come if I’ve locked the door.” She leaned her forehead against it and closed her lids over eyes which were hot and dry. They burned behind the lids. She heard Ernest’s voice, and Mabel’s, and Miss Silver’s. She heard Rachel’s step, she heard it pause. Then the footsteps went past and the voices died away.

She unlocked the door and went back to the bed. Ivy would come up with a tray, and she mustn’t find her up.

She began to tear up the typewritten note, but her hands were shaking so much that she bungled it, and before she had finished Ivy came.

As soon as the girl was gone she jumped up. The torn pieces of the letter spilled. She found some of them and crammed them into her pocket.

A coat—something to cover her head—that old brown hat—some things in a bag—brush—comb… No, what did it matter? Her hands shook too much. Just her handbag then. Money—it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except to get away. A scarf? Yes. Only hurry, hurry, hurry! . Then along to the end of the house, past Richard’s rooms, and down the stair that gave on the garage door. No one there. Rachel’s car—Cosmo’s—Richard’s—her own little Austin. And the tank was full.

She got in, and found her hands were steady on the wheel. The garage slipped away. The drive slipped away. The empty Ledlington road began to slip away. The worst of the terror that had been gripping her relaxed. She was no longer trapped there in that room for anyone to find, to question, to torture. She was out of the trap and away. If she was to be hunted she had a good start, and no one would look for her at Slepham. That was clever. They would make sure that she had gone to London. She had talked of going there—was it yesterday or the day before? She couldn’t remember. Everything was such a long way off… She stopped thinking and watched the road.

It was just after half past two when she turned into the lane with its bordering elm trees which led to Slepham Halt and the Old House. There is a deserted lodge on the right-hand side about half way between the line and the London road. Caroline drove in through moss-grown pillars and along a moss-grown drive to the stable yard.

Slepham Old House had stood empty for twenty years. It was a big ramshackle place of no particular period, and entirely lacking in modern conveniences. Since there is nowadays no market for an ugly house which has thirty bedrooms, one bathroom, no electric light, and a range which takes a ton of coal at a gulp and asks for more, it was likely that it would continue to stand empty until it fell down.

The stable yard was much enclosed. It had that peculiarly chill, deserted feeling which settles about places which have been used by men and left for a long time derelict. There was nothing to bring anyone there, and so from year’s end to year’s end no one came. The house was stripped, the out-houses empty and locked, the stables falling down.

Caroline leaned back in the car and closed her eyes. It was very cold, and it was dreadfully still. She had wanted to be alone, and now she had her wish. The loneliness of the place began to rise about her like a tide.

It’s pretty thick ahead,” said Gale Brandon. “How much farther is it?”

“I think that last village was Milstread. We ought to have asked. Everything looks different in a fog,” said Rachel doubtfully.

“And if it was Milstead?”

“Then it’s about three miles on.”

“I’d like to make it before the last of the light goes.”

“It’s pretty well gone as it is. It’s nearly four o’clock.”

He looked round at her for a moment.

“What’s the hurry, honey?”

Everything in Rachel protested. Words rushed to her tongue.

“There isn’t any hurry—there can’t be. It was you who said there was, because of the light.”

His eyes went back to the road again.

“I know—I said it all right. But do you think I haven’t felt you sitting here beside me trying to push the car? Even when we were doing fifty I could feel you pushing. A hundred wouldn’t have been fast enough for you. What’s in your mind, Rachel?”

She struck her hands together.

“Nothing—nothing—I just want to get there.”

Gale Brandon frowned.

“There’s no need to tell me if you don’t want to, but we’ve got too close for me not to know when you’re frightened—and that’s what you are right now.”

Physically, they were so near that he felt her shudder. She said quickly,

“Do you believe that? Do you think that what is in someone else’s mind can reach one? Because that—that’s what is frightening me.”

“Then you’d better tell me about it,” said Gale Brandon. “You’ll do better if you don’t have secrets from me, because I shall always know when you’ve got them, and I shall always find out what they are, so it’ll save a heap of trouble if you tell me right away. Now—what is it?”

She slipped a hand inside his arm.

“When we were going to London and I said ‘Stop!’ I told you I didn’t know why I said it, and that was true. Something made me, and I didn’t know what it was. But I know now. Just before I came away from Whincliff Edge Miss Silver asked me if there wasn’t anywhere else that Caroline might be. We’d been talking about her going to London to Cosmo’s flat, and she asked if there wasn’t anywhere else. I told her about Pewitt’s Corner, and when she said what everyone always does say ‘What an odd name!’ I told her about the house being built over an old well, and about Pewitt’s being a corruption of puits. And I told her Caroline couldn’t bear the place and I didn’t think she’d go there. She always did so hate the thought of that well under the scullery floor. There’s a lid of course, but she hated it all the same, and I made sure she wouldn’t go there. But—oh, Gale, it was the well that made me say ‘Stop!’ ” Her hand closed desperately on his arm.

“Yes, honey? Go on. You thought about the well?”

She pressed against him.

“I didn’t know it was the well. Something frightened me and made me say ‘Stop!’ Afterwards, when you had turned the car, I knew that it was the well, I remembered she was afraid of it, and sometimes—when you’re afraid of something—Gale, do you think it was because Caroline was thinking about the well that I thought of it?”

It was out. She sat empty and shaking, with the horror put into words.

His left arm came round her.

“You’re just frightening yourself. Why should she think about the well?”

Her voice came to him, hesitating and stumbling.

“I—don’t know—it—came to me. I didn’t frighten myself—it frightened me. Why should I have thought about the well—suddenly—like that—unless someone— someone else—was thinking about it? And—and Caroline— the well—it always frightened her.”

She was held in a strong clasp.

“That doesn’t sound like sense to me.”

“It’s not sense,” said Rachel desperately. “The things that have been happening aren’t sense at all. They’re like the things in a bad dream—they’re nonsense. But oh, Gale, they’re horrible nonsense—wicked, horrible nonsense.”

“Steady, Rachel! You’ve got to keep to sense, and so have I. Do we go straight on here, or is there a turn?”

“We keep straight on. If that was the turn to Linford, we’re nearly there—another two miles at most.”

“That’s better. Does your cousin come down here much?”

“Cosmo? He lives here most of the summer. He hasn’t been down since the end of September. He doesn’t care about it in the winter.”

“And Caroline?”

“She doesn’t care about it at all.”

“Then I don’t see—”

She steadied her voice carefully.

“She—she’s in bad trouble. I don’t know what it is. That’s my fault—I ought to have made it my business to know. I didn’t like to interfere between her and Richard, but I oughtn’t to have let it go on—so long. Only—” she stopped and looked round at him in a bewildered way— “it—it isn’t really so long, you know. It isn’t really long at all—it’s just that this week has seemed like a year.”

“Well, it’s nearly over now, honey,” said Gale Brandon.