Fear by Night (19 page)

“Charles, I don't
like
it,” said Ann. Her voice sounded as if she was cold and she shivered a little.

“Nor do I,” said Charles. “Ann darling, don't shake like that—you're all right. I say, you did hear them talking about a boating accident—you're sure of that?”

“I think so. It was all bits and scraps. Oh, I don't know—I thought he said—”

“Gale Anderson?”

“Gale Anderson. I thought it was his voice. I couldn't see either of them. I heard the voices coming up through a sort of cleft in the rock. I think they must have been in a cave underneath—” She broke off suddenly. “You see, Charles, it's all ‘I
think
,' and ‘I
thought
.' I can't be certain about anything.”

“What did you think you heard?”

“I thought I heard Gale Anderson say, ‘You ought to encourage her to learn to swim,' and something about ‘Now it will have to be a boating accident.'”

A sharp involuntary exclamation came from Charles.

“You're sure?”

“No—that's just it. It goes round and round in my head and I can't be sure about anything. Only I think that's what he said, and I made up my mind that nothing on earth would make me go in a boat with him.”

“Has he asked you to?” said Charles quickly.

“They both have,” said Ann. She gave a little shivery laugh. “Jimmy Halliday's begun to make love to me. He's frightfully funny over it.”

Charles said something about Mr. Halliday.

Ann laughed again.

“You needn't. He's like a great lump of a schoolboy and desperately proper and respectful. And Mrs. Halliday told me how she'd saved him from all the girls who had wanted to marry him. It was very, veryfunny indeed.”

Charles was silent. Ann
thought
she had heard Gale Anderson say that it would have to be a boating accident … Hilda Paulett said she was frightened because Gale talked in his sleep about a boating accident … And Hilda was such a babbling fool that nothing she said ought to have the slightest weight with any reasoning human being … And Ann wasn't sure of what she had heard.… He said abruptly,

“You've got to get out of this. I'd like you to come away with me now.”

“
Now?
”

“Now.”

“Oh, I couldn't!”

“Why couldn't you?”

Ann caught about her for reasons. She must find some, and they must be good, strong, sensible ones that Charles would listen to, because the real reason was one that she couldn't possibly tell him. If she ran away with Charles like this in the middle of the night, she would simply have to marry him whether she had any money or not—Charles would see to that. Even now-a-days it would make it difficult to get another job if she eloped with Charles and didn't marry him. And she wanted to be quite sure about the money before she allowed Charles to marry her. She caught at Mrs. Halliday and played her with an air of virtue.

“Oh, Charles—how could I? The poor old lady would have a fit. I couldn't go off like that in the middle of the night. She'd say I was a hussy, and a great deal worse than that. No, honestly, I couldn't do it. And there isn't the slightest need—nothing's going to happen to me to-night. My room is next to Mrs. Halliday's, and Riddle's just across the passage. It's as safe as a Young Women's Christian.”

“I won't have you staying here!” said Charles in a furious tone.

“Darling Charles, I don't want to stay here. Do be soothed. I've got a much better plan. Eloping's too Gretna Greenish—and just think of your relations and the breath of scandal. No—you shall come along in the morning bright and early after breakfast, and we'll both say we're awfully sorry and we hope we're not putting them out, but I've got urgent private affairs that make it absolutely necessary for me to leave at once. After all, they can't stop me—can they?”

Charles stood there frowning in the dark. The shadow of the trees was over them both, a warm pine-scented shadow with the moonlight bright beyond it. What Ann said was entirely reasonable. He had been driving all day over bad roads, and except as a necessity he wouldn't choose to drive back over those same roads all night. Both for Ann's sake and for his own he didn't want to run away with her in the middle of the night. He wanted to marry her with as little delay as possible, and he wanted his relations to accept her and be pleasant about it. The most influential of his aunts was also one of the most strait-laced women in England. His eldest sister was married to a bishop. It would certainly not help Ann's future relations with them if Charles and she eloped. In about seven or eight hours he could present himself openly and remove Ann with the most perfect decorum. Neither aunt nor bishop's wife could censure a day's run in a car. It was all superlatively reasonable and sensible—
but
he wanted to pick Ann up and carry her off, turn the car towards civilization, and step on the gas.

“Ann—come now!”

“No,” said Ann.

“
Ann!
”

“No, no, no, no, no!”

“Ann—
darling
!”

Ann snuggled up to him.

“I won't. And you're wasting time. It's such a lovely, perfect, heavenly dream of a night. Wouldn't you like to make love to me?”

Charles made love to her.

CHAPTER XXII

At the moment when Charles Anstruther stepped out of his boat and pulled it up on to the sandy beach of the island, the man who had passed him a few hours before on a motor-cycle was lying out on the heather of the headland which overlooked the strait. It was the same headland from which Ann had watched the night before and had seen something move in the water and leave a foaming wake behind it.

As soon as Charles had landed, the man got up and made his way noiselessly to where the path went up to the house. He moved at the loping trot of the Highlander—a small, spare, wiry man with a forward thrust of the head and shoulders. Charles had already passed when he came to the path. He followed him, and stood in the bushes at the edge of the lawn until Ann and Charles went down the path and turned off it amongst the trees. Then he went round by the back of the house and in by the kitchen. He knocked on the dining-room door and went in without waiting for an answer.

Gale Anderson was playing patience. Jimmy Halliday did not appear to be doing anything at all. His pipe had gone out and his glass was empty. He may have been asleep. He looked up as the man came in, and said,

“What do you want, Hector?”

Gale Anderson looked over his shoulder. He had the knave of clubs in his hand. When Hector said, “He's come,” he turned back to his game and laid the knave on the queen of diamonds.

“Who's come?” said Jimmy Halliday. He blinked, stretched, and ran his hands through his hair.

“Him,” said Hector.

In the light he showed a swarthy skin and the high cheek-bones which give a look of savagery to the face. His black eyes were restless and wary as an animal's. His right hand fidgeted at his hip as if it expected to find the hilt of a knife there.

Jimmy stretched again.

“He's landed?”

Hector nodded.

“How did he come?”

“He had a boat.”

Jimmy whistled. Gale Anderson turned up the seven of spades.

“A boat, has he? One of those canvas affairs it'll be. That's what he went away for. What's he doing now?”

“Talking with the girl among the trees.”

Jimmy swore.

“How did she know he was coming? I'd like to know that.”

“He was throwing stones up at her window.”

“And they're in among the trees?”

Hector nodded.

Gale Anderson turned up the queen of hearts.

“Then you'd better get back and watch them. He's not to get away till you've heard my whistle. I don't know how you'll stop him, but you're as full of tricks as a monkey—you must think of something.”

Hector snapped his fingers.

“I will not have to think of anything. The girl will keep him. It is you that will have to wait.” He smiled a little.

Jimmy scowled at him.

“Get along and watch them! And speak properly about that young lady, because I'm going to marry her! Get along with you and keep an eye on them! A nice time of night to come sneaking round a man's house and getting a young lady out of bed—by gum it is! Get along with you!” He put a hand upon Gale's shoulder and shook the cards from his hand. “Are you coming or are you staying? You can please yourself, but if you want to come you've got to look lively, because I'm not waiting for you. Do you hear?”

“Oh, I'm coming,” said Gale Anderson. He pushed the cards together and got up without haste.

“Then look sharp and stir those lazy stumps of yours, for I'm not waiting for you nor for nobody—by gum I'm not!” said Jimmy Halliday. He struck the table a blow which made the glasses jump and went off down the passage to the old part of the house, swearing in a vehement undertone at all skulking blackguards in general and at Charles Anstruther in particular.

Gale Anderson followed him.

About half an hour later under the trees in the pine-scented dusk Charles Anstruther said,

“I must go.”

Ann said “Yes,” but she did not lift her head from his shoulder. Perhaps it would never be there again. The world can change in a night. This was their enchanted hour. Perhaps when they had come back to civilisation, and ordered ways, and what the world would think—perhaps then she would find that she mustn't marry Charles however much she loved him or however hard he pleaded with her. Those early days of being on sufferance in someone else's house had left their ineffaceable mark.

Charles tightened his hold.

“I must go.”

Ann said “Yes” again. The enchanted hour was over. The dawn waited cold and grey on the other side of it. A little shiver went over her.

“How I hate this money business!” she said with something piteous in her voice. “I don't want that wicked old man's money. He let my mother kill herself with work. She might have been alive now if he had helped her. I hate his money, and I hate the feeling that we are waiting for him to die. It's horrible!”

“But, Ann—”

“It's horrible!”

“But, Ann, my blessed darling child, we're no doing anything of the sort. I don't care whether you've got twopence-halfpenny or a million.”

Ann pulled back as far as she could and stood there straining against his arm.

“Don't you care if you have to sell Bewley?”

His clasp did not exactly relax, but something happened to it. Ann did not have to strain against it any more.

He spoke soberly.

“I shall keep Bewley if I can.”

“And if you can't—if you have to sell, and if I let you marry me with twopence-halfpenny only I haven't even got that, you
will
have to sell. Are you going to say you don't care?”

“No, I won't say that,” said Charles.

“He mustn't marry me—he
mustn't
! I mustn't let him!” Ann said this desperately to herself.

Charles gave her a sudden shake.

“What's the matter? Are you planning to be noble and give me up? Look here, let's have this out once and for all. I can't keep Bewley unless I can keep it up. I'd rather sell the place than see it go to pieces. If this money comes to you, we'll be able to keep it up. If it doesn't, we'll have enough to live on, and I'm going to have an experimental fruit farm. What I am not going to do is go round cadging for an heiress. Now say, ‘Charles, I love you enormously, and I'll marry you as soon as we can get a licence'—or whatever it is you do get in Scotland—we shall have to find out. Say it—say it quickly! Because I ought to be going.”

“I can't,” said Ann in a mournful whisper.

Charles picked her up, kissed her, and set her down again.

“It doesn't really matter whether you say it or not—you're going to do it all right. Now I'm going, and I want to see you back into the house first.”

“I thought I'd come down to the beach to see you over the strait.”

“Nothing doing. I want to see you safe indoors before I go. There aren't going to be any accidents in this scene. You go in, and I'll wait on the edge of the lawn till I see you wave out of the window. And in about seven or eight hours I'll be back here to take you away, so you'd better pack before you go to sleep.”

As they stood on the edge of the lawn, there came upon the air the strange booming sound which Ann had heard before. It shook the silence and was gone again. Ann caught at Charles' arm.

“Listen!”

“What is it?”

“I don't know. I heard it last night, and afterwards—there was something—swimming in the loch.”

“How do you mean, something swimming in the loch?”

“I don't know. I didn't see it—not really—only a sort of foamy track. And Mary said, ‘It comes—swimming—in the water.' She said I must keep away from the water. And oh, Charles darling, I hate your going over in that little boat!”

By the time that Charles had convinced her that she might have seen a seal, and that seals were of all creatures in the world the most peaceable and harmless, Hector had become impatient. He, no less than Charles, had had a long day's run, and, unlike Charles, he had nothing to compensate him for the loss of his night's rest.

At last he saw Ann cross the lawn. She got in by the parlour window, and presently she leaned from her own window and waved. Charles at once turned on his heel and went down to the beach. Instead of following him, Hector ran out along the face of the slope and so back to his old look-out place upon the headland.

Charles pushed off his boat and rowed out upon the strait. The moon was high overhead and the air a little thickened by a light haze which veiled the hills and gave to the water a blurred and softened look The far reaches of the loch were of a ghostly whiteness, and as his oars rose and fell, they dipped into a hands-breadth of mist and came up through it again.