Fool Errant (2 page)

“L-look here,” said Hugo.

“I won't go back.”

“All right—don't. Only don't go telling strangers how much money you've got.”

“I don't.”

“You told me.”

“Oh—
you!
”

Hugo burst out laughing.

“You needn't laugh! I can take care of myself. Why are you laughing? I
did
only tell you.”

“And I—how many years have you known me?”

Something curious happened—silence; darkness; and a queer electric thrill. A whispering voice broke the silence. It spoke in the darkness quite close to him, and it said,

“I—don't—know.”

Hugo went on trying to feel middle-aged, and become very much aware that he was only twenty-six and that for the first time in his life he was speaking to a girl without feeling shy. Susan, of course, didn't count.

They walked on.

She was quite right—you couldn't reckon by time.

She said, with a quick note of indignation, “Of
course
I told you.”

“I see.”

“You won't tell—will you?”

“Why did you run away?”

“Oh—because—”

She was walking about a yard away from him. Every now and then she turned in his direction—he could tell that by the sound of her voice. Her movements were all quick; her step was quick and springy; when she held his arm, her hand moved, quivered, and was alive. The yard of darkness between them was full of little live, warm, dancing things. Her voice was full of them too.

“I just
had
to run away. You know, she's only my cousin. She
says
it's second cousin three times removed, and you can't really count that sort of relation—can you?”

Hugo had not the faintest idea who
she
might be. He said so.

“Her name's Brown—Emily Brown. Isn't that frightful? And she's almost the only relation I've got. And her husband is a solicitor, and they're both most frightfully respectable and worthy, and managing and kind in a feather-bedy sort of way. If I'd stayed, they'd have smothered me into a sort of swoon, and I'd have waked up to find I'd married James.”

“Who is James?”

“Another feather bed, just like them. They love him—he's Andrew's cousin. He used to come and play bridge every night and sing
Onaway, awake beloved!
and
Somewhere a voice is calling
. I suppose you think I ought to have married him?” The question came swiftly, lightly, eagerly.

There seemed to be nothing between marrying James and running away. All the cousins in the world cannot drag a girl to the altar.

“They couldn't have made you,” said Hugo.

She laughed.

“They could have. But they can't now!” There was an excited triumph in the words. “What's the good of saying they couldn't make me? If you live on ditchwater and dulness, with feather beds all round you, and someone saying ‘Oh!' in a shocked voice every time you want to do anything at all, and James asking you to marry him about seven times a week and twice on Sundays, and cold beef and pickles every day for lunch because Andrew likes them—and Emily would
murder
anyone if it would please Andrew—well, you wouldn't talk nonsense about their not being able to make you. I believe Emily said ‘Oh!' at me a thousand times every day. And I used to wake up at night dreaming I was being married to James—you know, the perfectly awful sort of dream where everybody else talksound you can't say a word. And when the parson said, ‘Speak now, or else forever hereafter hold your peace,' I couldn't. And the next thing I knew, he was saying, ‘I pronounce you man and wife'—only just then I woke up. It was so frightful that I wrote straight off to Cissie and said I'd run away. Oh, look here, this is where I left my bag. I must just see if it's safe.”

She made a dart into the hedge, then came running back.

“It's all right. The station's just round the corner. And I don't want to go there till the very last minute, till the train's in, because, you see, Emily will think I've gone to Ledlington—she'll never, never dream of me walking seven miles across the fields. You see, trains stop here because of Mr. Minstrel at Meade House. I don't want anyone to see me and tell Emily. We'll walk up and down till we see the train coming, and then just make a dash.”

They had reached the corner; the lights of the tiny station showed below them at the foot of a sharp slope. The girl put a hand on his arm and pulled Hugo round.

He said, “Who is Cissie?” and did not stammer over the name.

“She was a girl I knew when I lived with old cousin Catherine—she went to London. And I wrote and told her about James, and she said, had I any money? And when I said I'd got lots, she said come along and she'd find me a job.”

“How much money have you got?” said Hugh.

“Twenty pounds.”

“Did you tell her how much you'd got?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Who is she? What does she do?”

“I don't know. Cousin Catherine didn't like me to know her—but she was a very disapproving sort of person. I think Cissie was on the stage, or danced, or something like that. I should
love
to dance.”

Hugo began to feel appalled. Twenty pounds—I told her I had lots of money—Cousin Catherine didn't like me to know her—

“I say, you know—”

“I can dance a little,” the eager voice went on. “Of course I don't know if Cissie
is
dancing. I really knew her awfully little—only just for a fortnight last winter when Cousin Catherine and I were at Brighton. I got to know her because she dropped her bag and I picked it up, and she told me then she could get me a job if I ever wanted one. And she gave me an address to write to, so when I got desperate about being pronounced man and wife with James—
James
, I wrote.”

“I say, you know, twenty pounds isn't such a lot of money.”

“Oh it
is
—for me—it's a tremendous lot. Cousin Catherine gave it to me out of her silver teapot the night before she died. Emily got everything else because she was a niece and I was only an umpteenth cousin. Emily got the teapot. But I didn't mind about that, because it was a frightfully ugly one. I didn't tell her about the twenty pounds, and I didn't tell Cissie how much it was. So you see I don't tell everything, though you think I do.”

“Why do you tell me?”

They turned and began to walk back towards the station.

“I don't know. It doesn't matter, does it? You don't mind?”

“No, I don't mind. But—”

“I don't even know your name, and you don't know mine. And if you met me to-morrow, you'd never, never know who I was. And perhaps some day you'll see me dance, and you'll never know that you nearly knocked me down in a dark lane and carried my bag and were very, very kind.”

It was frightfully embarrassing; the whole situation was frightfully embarrassing.

“L-look here—”

“I've taken you frightfully out of your way. You needn't come any farther—there won't be any tramps now. I'll go close up to the station and wait. And you can go to wherever you're staying. They'll think you're lost.”

“I'm not staying anywhere.”

“You must be.”

“I'm not. I've come down to look for a job. I came down to-night because I wanted to get in before anyone else to-morrow morning; but I had my pocket picked in the train, so I haven't any money till I get back to town.”

He would not have any then, but this was a fact which he did not feel bound to explain. The lost pocket-book had contained his last fiver.

“They left my return ticket,” he concluded cheerfully.

“Oh, I
hope
you'll get your job.”

“So do I.”

“What is it?”

“Secretary to an inventor.”

He heard a little startled gasp:

“Not Ambrose Minstrel! Oh—you mustn't!”

“I say—”

“You mustn't! Oh, what shall I do? There's my train—I can't miss it! Quick—my bag!”

She was off. He heard the bag bump on the road; his hand, groping for it, met hers, bare like his own. He caught at the bag, and they began to run.

The train was coming into view along a raised embankment; the lighted windows seemed high up and very far away. A cloud of orange rosy smoke was blown backwards from the engine; it hung above the dead whiteness of the low fog.

“Run!” said the girl.

She took his left hand, and they raced down the hill. They reached the station whilst the train was still some hundreds of yards away.

“Get my ticket! Oh, I'm so glad I thought of that! Here's a pound—get it quickly!”

When he came back to her with the ticket, the train was in the station. Two men got out.

The girl took her ticket and the change, snatched up her bag, and ran across the platform. Hugo followed. The door slammed on her. The train began to move. She leaned out.

He felt an overwhelming desire to see her face. But she was only a slim black silhouette against the carriage lamp; it shone behind her head like a yellow aureole. She leaned out.

“Don't go there—you
mustn't
go there!”

“Why not?”

He walked beside the train, walked faster, began to run.

“I heard—there's no time—what's your name?”

He was being left behind. The engine snorted, and a great puff of steam came drifting back.

“Hugo Ross.”

He seemed to be shouting it, but the wind took the words away. He heard her voice very faintly:

“You
mustn't
.”

The steam hid her. The train went on.

Hugo turned and walked out of the station into the darkness. How astonishing! How extraordinary and astonishing! What on earth did she mean?

He walked to the corner from which they had seen the train. Its row of lighted windows had for a moment lighted up the sloping field from which the embankment rose. Six foot of fog and two black humps rising out of it—barns or haystacks. He thought he would go and prospect.

They were haystacks. Coldish comfort, but better than walking about all night. He sat down in the warmest spot he could find, leaned his back against the hay, and fumbled in an inside pocket.

There came out the two halves of a flute, his pride and his despair, practised by stealth, often abandoned, and as often resumed. The secret passion which drove him to make music was outraged by his lack of skill. Yesterday's exercise had been a teaser. He determined to get the better of it. For half an hour slow, melancholy notes followed one another into the fog.

At the end of half an hour he stopped playing the exercise and began to copy the high clear notes of a girl's laugh.

CHAPTER II

At half-past nine next morning Hugo walked between the white gate-posts of Meade House and up the drive beneath the over-arching trees. The grounds were large and untidy. The house, when he came to it, was just such a house as he expected—square, flat, slate-roofed, and hung with leafless creepers. There were no curtains showing at the windows, and discoloured blinds hung unevenly, some up, some down, and one at least askew.

Oddly enough, Hugo's spirits rose. He was feeling quite horribly conscious of being unshaved, and it was a relief to find that the house did not set an exacting standard. As a matter of fact, no one would have suspected him of a night in a haystack. To their last thread Hugo's clothes would keep their shape and look neat, whilst his fair hair and fresh complexion gave him the air of having just emerged from a cold bath. His daily shave was a rite, not a necessity.

He rang the bell, and heard it clang far away in the recesses of the house. It had a hoarse, deep sound like a cracked gong.

Almost at once a middle-aged woman opened the door. She had a smudged face and a dirty apron. She carried a pail of water which slopped over on the step and wetted Hugo's shoe. He moved his foot and said politely,

“I've come to see Mr. Minstrel.”

The woman set down the pail of water and left him standing at the open door. A minute passed—two minutes—quite a number of minutes. Hugo thought how cold the house must be getting. On any other morning his courage would have been cooling too. If he had been paying a call, now, and they had left him like this at an open door, he would probably have wanted to run away, and he would probably have stammered dreadfully when he began to speak. On this morning, unshaven and breakfastless, he had a feeling of assurance which was delightfully new and very supporting. He could have whistled; he could have played the flute openly and without a blush.

A door opened upstairs. Someone came running down into the hall—a man, large, young, with a blue chin, thick eyebrows, and a black moustache clipped short. He said, “Hullo!” in a tone of surprise; and Hugo said,

“I've come to see Mr. Minstrel.”

The dark young man stared. He had eyes rather like bull's-eyes without the stripes; the comparison just passed through Hugo's mind.

“By appointment?”

“I'm applying for the post of secretary.”

The dark young man laughed rather noisily.

“That's quick work! Did you come by wire? The advertisement's hardly out. All right, first come, first served. My name's Hacker. I'm Minstrel's assistant, and I shall be damn glad when he gets a secretary, because I've had all the correspondence on my hands since Mayhew left. Come along!”

He led the way to the back of the hall and threw open a door on the right.

Hugo came into a large, littered room with a faded carpet on the floor and ugly green curtains drawn rigidly back from a window which looked upon a straggle of leafless rose bushes. The walls were lined with bookshelves. There were two writing-tables and a cabinet gramophone.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Hacker.