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I haven’t told you about A
It was an extraordinary story. How and why had she come into it? She didn’t know at all. To think about it was like pushing at darkness itself. At dense darkness. Memory didn’t come back that way. If it came, it would come naturally-as naturally as she remembered getting up this morning, or what she did yesterday.
After what seemed like a long time she got up and washed her face. She couldn’t make up her mind what to say to him. She would have to write to him. What did she say? It wasn’t that she distrusted him, but he might distrust her. Suppose she told him just what had happened-how she had come down in the night and found Lilian talking to the man whose name she didn’t know. Suppose he didn’t believe her. Her heart beat hard at the thought. Why should he believe her? Lilian was his own kin. If it hadn’t been for that, she could have trusted him, but-She tried to put herself in his place. A strange girl with no background at all telling the strangest tale about the people you had known always. How could you believe her? How could you believe anything she said?
She didn’t know.
CHAPTER 34
Jim Fancourt came down to breakfast after a night of tumultuous dreams. There was a little pile of letters, and he was sorting them through when he came on A
I don’t know what to say. You don’t know anything about me. I don’t know anything about myself. You have sent me some money. I don’t know whether I ought to take it, but I am going to just for now, on the condition that you let me pay it back when I have got a job. You needn’t worry about me at all. Miss Silver knows the girl I’m with, and nobody could be kinder. Please wait a little before you try and see me. I want to think things out. If I could only remember-but it’s no use trying, it only makes everything confused.
He put his head in his hands and groaned. Why wouldn’t she? Because she didn’t trust him? Because she didn’t want to be rushed? That hurt a little less than the other. But there wasn’t a word to explain why she had gone off in the middle of the night. He went over the scene with her on the open slope of the hill. She had told him everything then. How did he know that? The answer came passionately. He did know it, but he didn’t know how he knew it. He just knew that everything was all right between them then. Whatever had happened, whatever had gone wrong, had come afterwards. Something had happened. What was it? Something had happened to make her run away in the middle of the night from Lilian’s house-from Lilian. That was it-Lilian had done something that had driven her away. Now, what had Lilian done?
That she was an idle, mischief-making woman, he had no doubt, but the idlest mischief-maker in the world needs something to start her off. It came to him then and suddenly that the man who had frightened A
Lilian was considerably surprised at his arrival. She had been congratulating herself on the way she had managed. A
She said, ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, ‘What is it? What have I done?’
‘That is what I mean to know. Just what have you done?’
She went back to her ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, in a tumble of words, ‘I don’t know what you can possibly mean. I don’t think you can be well. I don’t know what this is all about.’
‘Don’t you? Are you sure, Lilian? Are you quite sure you don’t know?’
She was begi
‘No, I’ve not been drinking. There’s nothing wrong with me, Lilian. You’d better make up your mind to it and tell the truth. A
He saw real terror in her eyes. Her hand went up to her throat.
‘I don’t know-what you mean-’
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘something happened here in the middle of the night when A
Lilian did the best she knew for herself. She broke into sobs.
‘Really, Jim… I can’t think… I don’t know why! Oh-oh dear! What do you think I’ve done?’
He said, ‘I don’t know. You’d better tell me. That man who came down-I want to know whether you had ever seen him before.’
He didn’t know, then. He wanted to know. Well, she wasn’t going to tell him, and that would serve him right.
There was a sofa by the window. She made her way to it and sat down, moving feebly. It would serve him right if she were to faint. She wondered what he would do if she did, and then decided regretfully that she had better not. And it was quite obvious that he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know that she knew Maxton, or that Maxton had been here in the night. She must remember that he didn’t know, and she must stick to it. She got out her handkerchief and dried her eyes.
‘I don’t know what this is all about,’ she said in the most pathetic voice she could contrive. ‘A
‘What have you got no doubt about in your own mind?’
She wished that Jim would stay farther off. She wished she had not sat down, but her legs were shaking and she had to. She was afraid to say what she had begun to say, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of it now. She spoke in rising agitation.