As for the Biscuit, he picked up his feet and returned to Castlewood on the run.
II
In Lady Vera's flat in Davies Street, Mayfair, Ann, at the time when this conversation was taking place, had paused in the writing of her letters to have one of her heart-to-heart talks with her Conscience. Ever since the night of the Bassinger Ball at the Hotel Mazarin, this incubus had been making itself more than ordinarily obnoxious.
'Tired?' asked Conscience, with affected solicitude.
'No.'
'Then why have you stopped writing?'
'I don't know.'
'To think, perhaps? To muse, maybe? About that affair at the Mazarin, possibly?'
'Well, why shouldn't I?'
'A pretty disgraceful affair, that,' said Conscience with growing severity. 'A very shady bit of work, indeed, I should describe it as. I wonder you don't try to forget it. I suppose you realize that, if Toddy Malling hadn't come along at that particular moment, that man would have kissed you?'
'Would he?'
'You know he would. And you would have liked it, too. That's the part that sickens me. That's the thing that makes me writhe. That's the aspect of the matter that . . .'
'All right,' said Ann, shortly.
Conscience was not to be silenced.
'A nice girl like you! A girl who has always prided herself on her fastidiousness. A girl who could never understand how other girls in her set could make themselves cheap and let themselves be pawed about – Ugh!' said Conscience witheringly. 'Necker!'
Ann shuddered.
'Yes, Necker! And you engaged to a delightful young man, heir to one of the finest titles in England. And a young man, what is more, who is at this very instant writhing on a bed of pain, his only consolation the thought of you. "This may be agony," he is saying to himself as the spasm catches him, "and I'm not pretending it isn't. But on the other side there is this to be said – Ann loves me. Ann is true to me. Ann is not going about the place on private petting-parties with men she scarcely knows by sight." That's what he's saying, this unhappy young man.'
'But he's got mumps.'
'What of it?'
'It seems so silly.'
'Where the heart has been given, the size of the face should not matter.'
'No-o,' said Ann doubtfully.
There was a pause.
'And this other man,' resumed Conscience. 'What do you know about him? Coming right down to it, how do you know he's worthy of you?'
'He must be with a face like that.'
'Statistics show that fifty per cent. of murderers and other criminals have pleasing faces. You can't go by the face.'
'And he is the only man I have ever met who was really romantic.'
'Romantic! That's the trouble with you,' said Conscience, snatching at the point. 'Do you know what you are? A silly, sentimental schoolgirl. Yes, you are. Romance! The idea! Isn't it romantic enough for you to be the future Countess of Hoddesdon? I'm ashamed of you.'
'I've got to get on with my letters,' said Ann.
She resumed her task. It was one she had found laborious of late. All these idiotic people writing to wish her happiness, when they ought to have known that marrying Lord Biskerton wasn't going to make her . . . She checked herself sternly. It was just this kind of reflection which had caused Conscience to maltreat her so much in the last few days.
'Dear Lady Corstorphine,' she wrote doggedly. 'How sweet of you to . . .'
'Oh, gosh!' said Ann.
She laid down her pen. She simply couldn't.
'?' said Conscience.
'Oh, all right,' said Ann.
She worked off the Corstorphine one. Two pages of pretty, girlish spontaneity which made her feel as if she were having teeth dragged out of her. Then she picked up the next in order from the pile.
Castlewood,
Mulberry Grove,
Valley Fields,
S.E.21.
Dear Ann,
I suppose you have quite forgotten me. . . .
Ann looked at the signature.
K. Valentine.
A sensation that was like poignant nostalgia swept over Ann Moon. Kitchie Valentine! The girl who had been such fun on the boat, coming over from America – such ages ago. Ann started guiltily. She was a girl who formed friendships with the eager impulsiveness of a kitten, and she had loved Kitchie. When they had parted at Waterloo Station, they had vowed to have all sorts of good times together. . . .And here she had been in England weeks and weeks and weeks and had never once given Kitchie a thought.
These steamer friendships!
Reading the letter did nothing to heal her remorse. Poor Kitchie! She seemed to be having a wretched time. This uncle of hers might have been the life and soul of the officers' mess of the Loyal Royal Worcestershires, but he was evidently proving a poor companion for a young girl. True, there was some mention of a man next door, a Mr Smith, who appeared to be agreeable; but there was very little about him and a great deal about the absent Merwyn Flock. Merwyn, it seemed, had not written for nearly a month, and it was this that was distressing Kitchie Valentine almost more than her uncle Everard's habit of falling asleep after lunch and making a noise like a bassoon.
Ann put down her pen. She glowed with altruistic fervour. This letter, happening to coincide with the first free evening she had had for a considerable time, decided her. Tonight, by a curious chance, she was engaged to no hostess. She could, therefore, and would, go straight down to this Valley Fields, wherever it might be, and call at Castlewood, and bring Kitchie back for dinner somewhere. And after dinner they would come back to the flat and have one of their long ship-board talks.
Her two-seater was garaged just round the corner. Ten minutes later, having been informed that the route to Valley Fields was through Sloane Square, Clapham, Brixton and Herne Hill, she was hurrying on her way. Half an hour later, she had pulled up outside Castlewood. Thirty-two minutes later, she was being informed that Miss Valentine was not at home. She had gone to the pictures, Gladys-at-Castlewood said, with Mr Smith from Peacehaven.
'Oh, well, tell her I called.'
Ann could not help feeling a little annoyed. She knew that she ought not to be grudging Kitchie any simple pleasures she might be able to snatch from life, but her relief-expedition had undeniably fallen somewhat flat. Her rush to ameliorate the monotony of life at Castlewood seemed to have been wasted on one who, despite the hard-luck stories she told in her letters, was apparently never without a Smith to help her through the long days.
The gleam of water across the road caught her eye. She walked to the railings and stood looking at the swans. They had little to offer her in the way of entertainment. Twilight was falling on Mulberry Grove, and Egbert and Percy had turned in for the night. Each was floating with his head tucked under the left wing; and if there is any spectacle more devoid of dramatic interest than a swan with its head tucked under its wing, it is two swans in that position. Ann turned away, and, doing so, was aware that her sylvan solitude had been invaded. Over the gate of the house named The Nook a young man was leaning. The smoke of his tobacco floated up towards the smiling sky.
Ann started to walk to her car. There was a cosy smugness about Mulberry Grove which somehow seemed to invest the presence there of two persons of the opposite sex with the suggestion of a tête-à-tête, and she disliked this enforced intimacy. She felt almost as if she were shut up in a railway carriage alone with this young man, and had a feeling that he might at any moment open a conversation by asking her if she objected to smoking.
When he did open the conversation, however, it was not to make this inquiry. She had scarcely passed him when he uttered the word 'Gosh!' in a loud and startled voice. And almost simultaneously the gate slammed and he was at her side.
She stopped. She turned. She arranged her features for a withering look – a look which would say 'Sir!' even if she did not say it.
She gave a little gasp. She stared. The withering look went all to p
ieces, and in its place there appeared one of blank astonishment.
'Oh!' said Ann sharply.
The swan Egbert, roused from his beauty-sleep, uttered a crisp oath and dozed off again.
III
Berry Conway had come out of The Nook to lean on his gate and smoke in no idle spirit of dolce far niente. It was not the mere beauty of the summer evening that had drawn him thither. He had come because the Old Retainer had been weeping on his neck indoors and seemed likely, if he remained, to go on weeping indefinitely.
It was immediately on his return from the City that he had first perceived that this woman was not her old, placid self. She appeared to be in the grip of some powerful, though at the moment suppressed, emotion. When she spoke, it was in a low, husky voice. She sniffed once or twice. And as he went upstairs to change his clothes he could feel her eyes fixed on his back in a stare like that of some dumb animal trying to express itself.
This was at six-thirty. Descending the stairs at six-forty-five, he found her waiting in the hall. There could be no doubt now that something momentous had occurred. The Old Retainer was plainly in what, if he had been a cross-word puzzle enthusiast, he would have described as a state of excitement, a flurry, a twitter, tremor, pulsation, palpitation, ruffle, hurry of the spirits, pother, stew (colloq.) and ferment.
At six-fifty it had all come out. Sergeant Finbow, until that morning Police-Constable Finbow, had celebrated his promotion by making her an offer of marriage.
At seven-fifteen she was still saying that she would not dream of deserting Master Berry. At seven-twenty, arguing forcibly, Berry had begun to try to convince her that, even lacking her protective care, he would manage to get along somehow. At seven-thirty, the weeping had set in. And at seven-thirty-five, he had broken from the clinch, lit his pipe, and come out to lean on the gate and adjust his mind to this extraordinary piece of good fortune.
With the Old Retainer satisfactorily settled and off his mind, he could at last begin to come to terms with this business of life.
She had always been the great obstacle. The future now opened out before him, rich and splendid. No more Nook. No more Frisby. He could start fair, with the world as his oyster and an intense and all-conquering determination as his oyster-fork.
He leaned on the gate, planning great things. Mulberry Grove, now that he was so near to parting from it, had taken on quite an attractive air. There was a girl across the road, inspecting the swans. The sight of her turned his thoughts to their favourite theme, and for some moments a mist hid Mulberry Grove and the rest of the world from his sight.
It cleared away, and he saw that the girl was coming towards him.
IV
Ann was the first to speak. She was still feeling a little breathless. She had just become a convert to the doctrine of Predestination, and was finding the experience somewhat overwhelming. It was, she realized, evidently Fate's intention that, wherever she might happen to be, this young man should materialize out of thin air at her side, so there was nothing to be done about it. Conscience could not blame her for what was Fate's fault.
She spoke with a childlike wonder.
'Is there any place where you aren't?' she said.
Berry continued to stare. The idea of Predestination had not yet occurred to him. His theory, as far as he was capable of evolving any theory, was that this extraordinary occurrence had something to do with will-power. His tense meditations about this girl had evidently had the effect of drawing her from somewhere in the centre of London to Mulberry Grove, Valley Fields. Which, considering that the distance was about seven miles, was not bad going.
'Is it really you?' he said.
Ann said it was.
'Well, I suppose all this is happening,' said Berry, 'but I can't believe it. What . . . ?'
'What . . . ?' said Ann, simultaneously.
'I beg your pardon.'
'Go on.'
'I was going to say, "What are you doing here?" '
'So was I. I came to see a friend who lives here.' Ann paused, trying to assimilate an idea. 'Do you live here?' she asked, surprised. Of course, one knows that Secret Service men must live somewhere, but one somehow does not associate them with fragrant backwaters in the suburbs.
Berry would have given much to deny it. He glowed with shame for Mulberry Grove. Beastly, smug, placid, prosaic place. Black Joe's opium-dive in Deptford was the only fitting address for the man he would have liked to be.
'Yes,' he admitted.
'But why?'
Berry was frank about it.
'They don't pay us much in the Secret Service,' he said.
'What a shame!' cried Ann. 'Considering all the dangerous things you have to do.'
'Oh, well!' said Berry.
There was another pause.
'What . . . ?' said Ann.
'What . . . ?' said Berry.
'I beg your pardon,' said Berry.
'Go on,' said Ann.
'No, you go on,' said Berry.
'What became of you the other night, at the dance?'
'I was ejected by a man with a walrus moustache, who seemed to be someone in authority.'
'That was your host.'
'Not mine.'
Ann's eyes widened.
'Do you mean to say you were not invited?'
'Only to get out.'
'But why . . . ?'
'To see you, of course.'
'Oh!' said Ann.
'I was in the lobby. I saw you getting into the lift.'
'The elevator?'
'The elevator,' said Berry, accepting the emendation. 'They told me there was a dance going on upstairs, so I went up.'
An odd shyness had taken possession of Ann. She was annoyed to find herself trembling. A sense of something momentous about to happen was making her feel strangely weak.
To counteract this, she endeavoured to keep the conversation on a light, chatty note.
'What a lot of people there were at that dance,' she said brightly.
'Only one, for me,' said Berry.
The light, chatty note seemed to have failed. And Ann began to see that, if this interview was to be kept within bounds which would meet with the approval of a rigid New England Conscience, she would have to be more adroit than she had been up to the present. She remembered expressing to her Uncle Paterson over the trans-Atlantic telephone some weeks earlier a desire to become acquainted with one of those men who meet a girl and gaze into her eyes and cry 'My mate!' and fold her in their arms. She seemed to have found him.
'I couldn't think what had become of you that night,' she said.
'You mean you missed me?' said Berry hungrily. 'Do you mean you missed me?'
Ann's Conscience, which up till this moment had been standing aside and holding a sort of watching brief, now intruded itself upon the scene.
'I don't want you to think I am always shoving myself forward,' said Conscience frigidly, 'but I should be failing in my duty if I did not point out that you are standing at a Girl's Cross Roads. Everything depends on what reply you make to the very leading question which has just been put to you. I don't know if you have been observing this young man at all closely, but I ought to inform you that there is a gleam in his eye which I don't at all like. The slightest encouragement at this point will obviously be fatal. I would suggest some such answer as "Oh, no" or "What makes you think that?" or even a wordless raising of the eyebrows. But, whatever you do, let me urge upon you with all the emphasis of which I am capable not to drop your eyes and say "Yes." '
'Yes,' said Ann, dropping her eyes. 'Of course I did.' She raised her eyes again and looked straight into his. She was a girl who was lost to all shame. 'You had just begun to tell me something, you see, and naturally I wanted to know what it was.'
Berry clenched his hands. He coughed. And, having coughed, he uttered a sort of high-pitched bark. The swan Percy woke up and hissed an opprobrious epithet at him.
'It was only this,' said Berry, choking over each sy
llable. 'I've loved you from the very first time I saw you.'
'I thought that was it,' said Ann.
He was gazing into her eyes. He now folded her in his arms. He did not cry 'My mate!' but Ann received the impression that the remark was implied. She hung limply to him. What had become of her Conscience she did not know. It appeared to be dead or unconscious. In a situation where she should have been feeling nothing but shame, she felt only a happiness that seemed to be tearing her asunder. At a moment when the face of Lord Biskerton, swollen and wrapped in flannel, should have been hovering reproachfully before her eyes, she saw only Berry.
She drew away and gave a little sigh.
'I knew this would happen,' she said. 'That's why I ran away that day.'
Berry caught her in his arms again. The swan Egbert turned to the swan Percy and said something in an undertone. Percy nodded and both birds then sneered audibly. Swans, like sub-editors, are temperamentally incapable of understanding love's young dream.
'Of course, we oughtn't to,' said Ann reflectively. 'It's all wrong.'
'It isn't.'
'But I'm engaged,' said Ann. It sounded silly to her, even as she said it. Such a trifling objection.
'I love you,' said Berry.
'I love you,' said Ann.
'I knew I loved you the moment I saw you that day at the Berkeley.'
'I suppose I did, too.'
'Some day I'm going back to the Berkeley and I'm going to ask the management if I can put up a tablet on the wall. When I came out of the inn that afternoon and found you gone, I nearly died.'
'And now you've found me again, you probably will,' said Ann. A happy smile lit up her face. 'The row there's going to be about this!'
'Row?' said Berry. In his exalted mood, it seemed incredible to him that the whole world would not greet this wonderful consummation of all his hopes and dreams with cheers and enthusiasm. 'Do you mean,' he demanded incredulously, 'that you think anyone's going to object?'
'I do.'