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Je
She took her bag and considered the other things. There was the case which she had put under the counterpane on the chair by the window. Oh, she couldn’t leave the room like that-untidy! She must put the bedspread back. Then she took up her things, the parcel with the shoes slipped over the handle of the little case, and her left hand free for the handbag. She stood with the open door of the room in her hand and looked round. Everything was quite tidy. Now she must go.
She lifted the hand with the bag in it and switched off the light. With the door shut, no one would come near her until half past seven. She had seven and a half hours’ start on any search that might be made. She felt her way to the head of the stairs and began to go down.
It was like going down into deep waters. Deep, dark waters. The darkness wasn’t frightening. It felt very safe. And behind the darkness there were all the people of her blood and her name who had lived in this house since it was built. That made her feel very safe indeed. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do, but she knew who she was. She wasn’t any longer a nameless come-by-chance brought up by charity. She was Je
She was half way down the stairs, when the moon came from behind a cloud. The house faced south-east, and the moon was full. The moonlight shone in through the windows above the door and to either side of it. It was so bright that it made the portraits on which it fell look as if they were alive. Je
Chapter XI
The young man in the car was enjoying himself. It was a fine night very heartening to behold. The moon was out now, quite clear of the clouds. He would have liked to switch off his lights and drive through all this country by moonlight. He shook his head a little mournfully. There were so many things he would like to do, and he couldn’t do them. Not because they were difficult or impossible, but simply because you had been brought up hedged in by laws and by-laws until they had got you down. He laughed a little and considered what a modern world would be like with everyone doing as he pleased. Come to think of it, no one was ever free. Different times had their own restraints, personal, political, what have you. You were brought up in a certain code, and you kept to it. If you kicked over the traces you came to a sticky end. Each generation made its own rules, and the next one altered them. What was quite unacceptable in one generation was the fashion in the next, and so you went on.
He liked driving alone, and he liked driving by night. If you kept off the beaten track you didn’t meet anyone much after twelve o’clock. His plan was to drive within a strategic distance of Alington House and sleep out the night in the back seat of his car. Then in the morning, when a country i
He had turned rather an abrupt corner just out of a sleeping village, and a long flat stretch of road lay before him. Quite suddenly there was someone in the road. It stretched flat and open at one minute, and the next there was something there. Something? No, someone. He braked and brought the car to a standstill.
The someone was a girl. She had a case in one hand, and with the other she had signalled him to stop. He leaned out, frowning.
“You shouldn’t do that, you know.”
“But I wanted you to stop.”
“Why?” He was terse because for a moment he hadn’t been sure that he could stop in time and the road was narrow.
The girl moved from the front of the car and came round to the door on his side. In the moment that she stepped across the lighted patch of road in front of the car he saw her, and he saw that she was young and pale-or perhaps that was just the lights of the car. She came up to the window on his side and said,
“Will you please give me a lift?”
The anger had gone out of him. He said,
“Where do you want to go?”
“It doesn’t matter. I mean, just anywhere will do.”
“Are you ru
It was quite obvious that she was. What does one do with a stray girl who asks one to help her? He said,
“You’re ru
The moonlight shone on her face. It looked sad and rather tired. There were dark marks like smudges under her eyes. She said very earnestly,
“I’ve got to-I really have.”
It was the sort of thing that any girl would say if she had had a row with her people or with her school.
He said, “Why?” and she came nearer and dropped her voice.
“I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me.”
“You might try.”
Je
“Will you get out for a moment? I want to see you.”
“Why do you want to do that?”
He had a nice voice, but she must see him. She said,
“I want to know whether I can trust you.”
“Do you think you would know?”
“Oh, yes, I should know if I could see you.” There was a confident ring in her voice.
Without a word he pushed open the door and got out. He shut the door behind him, leaned against it, and said,
“Well, here I am. Take a good look and make up your mind.”
She said,
“It’s you who have to make up your mind, isn’t it?”
They stood looking at one another in the bright, clear moonlight. He heard her draw in her breath.
“Who-who are you?” she said.
“My name is Richard Forbes.”
She echoed him in a faint whisper, “Richard Forbes-”
“That is my name.”
Je