Red Shadow (16 page)

She said, “Jim!” and some of the miracle was in her voice.

There was an utter silence. It came into the room like a darkness. The gold of Laura's joy was dimmed. The miracle began to waver and wear thin like a dream just ready to go.

Laura said his name again, insistently this time.

“Jim—
Jim
——”

Jim Mackenzie said, “Yes?” and then, after a pause, “What is it?”

It was the controlled hardness of his voice that made an end of the miracle. No one can blot out the past. There was an irrevocable separation between them. You cannot die and come alive again; you must stay dead. Jim's voice told Laura that she was dead. She was his dead love speaking to him, and not Laura Cameron, who had been alive and had loved him living. She was dead. But even dead, she had a message for him. She must say her message.

She heard him speak again through a mist of pain.

“What is it—Laura?”

She did not think that anything could hurt her more than she had been hurt, but when he said her name it was as if he had stabbed a wound. She caught her breath with the sheer anguish, and the sound reached Jim Mackenzie.

He said, “Laura—” again; and then, quickly, “Why have you rung me up?”

“To tell you, Jim—to tell you——”

Every time he spoke the pain stabbed again. His voice seemed to come from farther and farther away. She tried desperately to rally the things she had meant to say to him.

She said in a fluctuating voice,

“You're—in danger;” and heard his hard,

“Am I? Why?”

“The paper—the torn piece of paper—from Mr Hallingdon—don't keep it—put it somewhere safe—it's dangerous.”

“I don't think I know what you're talking about,” said Jim Mackenzie.

Laura caught her breath in dismay.

“The torn piece——”

“I can't discuss this sort of thing on the telephone.”

A cold sense of failure froze her words. She remained silent, her head leaning upon her hand. After what seemed like an endless time the voice of the operator, bored and rather sleepy, inquired,

“Another three minutes?”

Laura did not speak. She waited for the click which would tell her that they had been cut off. Instead, Jim said quickly,

“Yes, another three minutes;” and then, “Are you there?”

Still Laura did not speak. She was like an actor who has lost his words.

“
Laura
—are you there?”

She said, “Yes.”

“Are you ill? They said you had been ill.”

“Not now.”

“Where are you?”

“I don't know.”

“
You don't know?
”

“They—haven't—told me. Jim—for God's sake—”

The hall door shut. Not loudly but unmistakably it shut. She had not heard it open, but she heard it close, and she heard footsteps crossing the hall. In a blind panic she thrust the receiver back upon its hook and, reaching sideways with her left hand, turned out the light. The dark was overwhelming in its blackness. There was no fire, no chink of light.

The footsteps receded. She thought they had come to the foot of the stairs and then turned back. After a terrifying minute she got up and felt her way to the door. She had remembered the tantalus in the dining-room. If Vassili were in the dining-room, it might be possible for her to reach and mount the stairs without being seen.

She began very slowly to open the door. The first chink showed a vertical bright line. The hall gas had been turned up. There would be no sheltering dusk to make things easier. A cold dread touched her at the thought of coming out into that bright, unsparing light. If she were to wait here, perhaps Vassili would go upstairs and leave darkness behind him. And then she remembered that she had left the door of her room standing open—standing wide open. She had not thought of shutting it. She had stepped out on to the smooth ice-cold linoleum without a thought of shutting the door behind her. There had been, perhaps, the half-conscious instinct to leave open a way of retreat.

Now
she must get upstairs before Vassili. There was no longer any choice. To wait was to make disaster certain. She caught her shawl about her and passed out into the lighted hall with the drip of its amber fringe about her bare, cold ankles.

When she had taken three steps, Vassili Stefanoff came out of the dining-room. He saw Laura, tall and white, with her black hair pushed back and her eyes wide, and dark, and strange. They looked past him, and she came forward with a slow, rigid motion as if her limbs were frozen. Her hands held the shawl and were hidden in its folds. At the first sight of her he had taken an angry step forward. Words rushed to his lips and died there in a sudden shock of something akin to fear. She looked so strange, so blank, so deathly white. A superstitious shudder passed over him, and as she continued to move forward, he recoiled a step.

She crossed the hall and came to the front door, where she stood still. Then in a slow, wavering fashion one of her hands detached itself from the folds of the shawl and knocked upon the door,

Vassili stood upon the threshold of the dining-room and watched her. It was like watching some one knocking in a silent film. She was all white and gold—and that black hair like a cloud. Her hand went up three times, and made no sound. Then she turned, faced Vassili for a moment with an unseeing stare, and began to move in the same slow, rigid fashion towards the staircase. She had mounted three steps, when his hand fell on her shoulder.

She did not need to play a part any longer. A sleepwalker suddenly awakened would start and shudder just as she started and shuddered when without warning the hand fell. He must have moved as silently as an animal. With a gasping cry she stood still and felt the hand weigh on her.

“What are you doing here?” said Vassili.

Laura shuddered again. Once more there was no need to act; she had only to relax the effort she had made, to let her limbs tremble and her sobbing breath go free.

“What are you doing here?” said Vassili again.

She looked about her wildly.

“Where—am I?”

“You are on the stairs—in your night-gown.”

All at once his hand burned her. A scarlet flush changed her from a ghost to a woman, alive and resentful of his touch.

He swung her round to face him as he stood on the stair below.

“What were you doing in the study?”

“I—don't—know.”

“You'd better think!”

He had her by both shoulders now, and his hands were rough.

“Let me go!”

“What have you been doing downstairs?”

She shook from head to foot and gave a choking cry.

“Are you going to pretend you were walking in your sleep?”

“I don't know——”

From the landing above them came Catherine's voice with a yawn in it.

“If you must come in at midnight, Vassili, you need not wake everyone else.”

Laura sat down on the stair with a sob, and Vassili let her go.

“She asks one to believe she has been walking in her sleep!” he said in a tone of unrestrained fury.

CHAPTER XX

Catherine came to the top of the stairs and began to descend. She wore orange-coloured pyjamas and her feet were bare. Her usually smoothly lacquered hair was a mere mop. Without make-up her skin was a pale smooth olive. Her eyes were still vague with sleep. She looked younger, more like a masquerading schoolgirl.

When she came to the step on which Laura sat she stopped.

“So you've been walking in your sleep. What made you do that?”

Vassili caught her wrist and swung it.

“She has not walked in her sleep at all! It's a damned lie—and she's a damned liar!”

Catherine unclasped his hand without apparent effort. She flung it back to him so that it struck the banister. Then she wiped her wrist carefully with her pyjama sleeve. In a small restrained voice she said,

“
Moujik!
”

Vassili flushed a dull red all over his face.

Catherine put her arm round Laura.

“Come back to your bed at once! You are like ice.”

Then, as Laura caught at the banisters and pulled herself up, Catherine, from a couple of steps above him, over her shoulder spoke to Vassili in rapid Russian.

When she had covered Laura and stirred the fire into brilliant light, she came to the bedside and stood looking down at the white face on the pillow. Laura's eyes, which had been closed, opened and looked up at her.

“Were you really walking in your sleep?” said Catherine.

A quiver passed over Laura's face. In the shaded light it reminded Catherine of a reflection blurred by a little shivering breeze.

“Well?” said Catherine.

Laura drew a difficult breath.

“I was here—” she said. “And then—I was on the stairs—he touched me.”

She had no need to simulate the sob that shook her. That moment when Vassili's hand had fallen on her shoulder had been pure nightmare. A cold dampness broke out upon her temples and the palms of her hands at the mere thought of it.

“Hm—” said Catherine. “Well—the fat is in the fire, as Sasha would say. Go to sleep if you can.”

She went out of the room, picked up her dressing-gown, and went on down the stairs and into the study.

Vassili was cramming the receiver back on to its hook. His face was wild and dark; he had run his fingers through his hair. He looked the savage peasant she had called him. When he had sworn at length, he brought out angry fragments of speech interspersed with gross gestures.

“In her sleep! She asks one to believe that! The liar!” He flung gutter names at Laura and swore again. “She had been telephoning, I tell you!”

Catherine started, and came to the edge of the table.

“Are you sure of that?”

He banged on the blotter with his fist and shouted.

“No, I am
not
sure! The operator is a fool! He does not know—he cannot say—he cuts me off!”

Catherine put both hands to her head.

“Can one think in such a noise? You make me tired. I am sorry for any woman who has to live with you. Keep quiet and let me see what I can do!”

She reached across the table, picked up the telephone, and put the receiver to her ear.

Vassili stared, his hands lying on the stained blotting-paper—square hands, with blunt finger-tips and spade-shaped thumbs.

Catherine was speaking softly in a dropped voice that might have belonged to any woman.

“Exchange..… I'm so sorry to trouble you. Can you remember that number I asked for just now?.… Oh, I see..… Yes—of course. I'm sorry.”

She hung the receiver up and pushed the instrument back across the table,

“Well?” said Vassili.

“He has just come on duty—he does not know anything at all. Why do you think people will tell you things if you swear at them?”

He beat on the table.

“That is enough!”

“For me—certainly. I am going back to bed.”

“No!” he said.

“My dear!”

He leaned across the table and took her by the arm.

“You are to be serious! This is a most serious matter. You will not go to bed—you will pack! We shall leave this house before it is light. If we are off by five o'clock, we should be safe. I can give you no more time than that, and you must be ready—it is, after all, only twenty-four hours earlier than we intended.”

Catherine disengaged herself, but quietly and gravely.

“And we go—where?”

“All the arrangements stand. You had better give her the sleeping-draught at once.”

“Is it necessary?”

His uncontrolled anger had passed; he spoke now with hard authority.

“You will do as you are told—unless perhaps you wish me to make an adverse report on you. No? I thought not. Then you had better get on with what there is to do!”

“And Sasha?”

“I will ring him up.”

Laura opened her eyes, to see Catherine leaning over her in the firelight.

“Are you awake? I want you to drink this hot milk.”

The thought was a pleasant one—she was still very cold. She raised herself on her elbow and sipped from a tumbler that was almost too hot to hold. After the second sip she stopped.

“It tastes—funny.”

“There is something in it to make you sleep.”

“Oh—I'd rather not.”

“You must drink it, Laura,” said Catherine very seriously.

Laura sat upright in bed. She fixed her eyes on Catherine in a wide, startled look.

“Why?” she said.

“Because it is the best thing you can do, my dear.”

Laura went on looking at her steadily and without any fear.

“And if I say I won't drink it?”

Catherine raised her eyebrows.

“I shall have to tell Vassili—and that will be unpleasant—for you.”

A shade of something like horror troubled Laura's gaze.

“Why am I being drugged?” she said.

Catherine's foot tapped the floor for a moment. Then she went quickly to the door and opened it. The light shone brightly overhead. The landing was quite empty. She shut the door again and came back to the bed.

“Listen, Laura,” she said. “You have been very foolish. You took a great risk when you went downstairs and used the telephone. No, you need not lie to me. The operator gave me the number that you asked for.”

Laura faced her with courage. The hand that held the tumbler did not shake. Her lips said nothing; her eyes implored.

“No,” said Catherine, “Vassili does not know. I lied to him. I think he had rung up the exchange and bullied the poor man who was there, so of course he told him nothing. But I pretended that I was you, and that I had forgotten the number I had asked for. He gave it me at once. To Vassili I said that the operator had only just come on duty, and that he knew nothing. Now will you drink your milk?”