The Black Cabinet (15 page)

Chapter XXVIII

Chloe felt very tired before the ball was over. It is a fact that it is a great deal more fatiguing to watch other people dancing than to dance oneself. Chloe could have danced all night, even in Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn's shoes; but to look on, to watch all these people whom she did not know, and every now and then to see Martin pass—Martin whom she had thought she knew so well—this was altogether another thing.

Connie departed at midnight, yawning frankly: “All very well for those who can have their sleep out, but I've got to get up at seven as per usual. So long, dear. I'm sorry for you having to stay till the end, but I suppose it's all in the day's work.” She turned back to add, “Mind you get paid for your overtime—that's a thing you have to be as sharp as sharp about.”

When the last guest had departed, Chloe came down the steps of The Luxe, and began her walk to Hatchelbury Road—it had not occurred to Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn to ask how her secretary would get home. Chloe knew the way, but she was not prepared for the streets being quite so deserted as they were. She had only seen London all stir and bustle; and now that the roar of the traffic was gone, and the pavements empty, there was something strange and oppressive about the silence and the loneliness. Every now and then a belated car went by. Every now and then she passed a policeman on his beat.

She had been walking for about ten minutes when she first heard the footstep. Some one was walking in the same direction as herself, but a little way behind her and on the other side of the road. She came to a corner, turned, and walked on briskly. It was nice to be out in the open air after all those hours in the overheated lounge. Earlier in the night it had rained; the pavements were dark and wet, the air very soft and still.

Chloe heard the footstep again; it was right behind her now, on the same side of the street, coming up fast in spite of her quickened pace. She began to feel, not frightened, but angry. Instead of hurrying, she fell into a slower walk in order to let the person behind her pass on. Without looking, she was aware that it was a man. Midway between two lamps he came up with her and spoke her name:

“Chloe!”

In the darkness Chloe's cheeks burned with the anger which flared in her at the sound of Martin Fossetter's voice.

“Chloe! Thank God, I've found you! Where have you been?”

Chloe walked as far as the next lamp before she answered. There, under the light, she turned on him, bright-eyed and flushed.

“You've no right to speak to me! You've no right to follow me! I don't ever want to see you again!”

He put out a protesting hand.

“But, Chloe—”

“I don't know how you dare,” said Chloe with her head well up.

“Chloe, you don't know what I've been through. I came back to the station and found you gone. I didn't know what to think—I was in an agony about you. In the end I rushed down to Danesborough in case Wroughton— When I found you weren't there I went on to Maxton. And when I saw you to-night—well, you don't know what a relief it was.”

One of Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn's shoes tapped the pavement sharply.

“Look here,” said Chloe, “it's no
use
. You told me lies, and I found you out.”

“Lies?”

“Yes, lies,” said Chloe. She was walking on again, and spoke without looking at him. “Just plain lies. You told me Lady Wenderby was in town—you told me you had seen her two days before. Well, when you had gone to garage the car, I rang up the house because I thought somebody there would be able to tell me of a hostel I could go to. And when I rang up I found that Lady Wenderby had been in Mentone for a fortnight, and wasn't expected back for another two months. I don't know why you lied to me, and I don't want to know. Now will you please go away, because I don't ever want to see you again.”

“I suppose,” said Martin Fossetter in his quiet, charming voice, “I suppose it didn't occur to you that there might be two Lady Wenderbys?”

Chloe stamped again.

“No, it didn't—and there aren't. As a matter of fact, when I was going through all those tickets with Debrett yesterday, I thought I'd just make sure—and there's only one Lady Wenderby.” Her voice broke in an angry sob. “How could you do such a perfectly horrible thing? Please go away, please go away at once! I don't ever want to see you again!”

“Chloe,” said Martin, “don't take it like that, I was a fool, but I swear, I
swear,
I never meant you anything but good. I care for you more than I care for anyone else in the world. I want to marry you more than I want anything in the world. I was a fool not to tell you straight out that my aunt was away. The truth is—”

Chloe laughed.

“The truth!”

“Yes, the bed-rock truth. And that is that I was scared to death for you. Wroughton's a horribly dangerous man. You were set on going back to Maxton; and I knew you wouldn't be safe there. I was every sort of fool you like to call me, but it was because I cared so much. I wanted you to come to London—I wanted you to turn to me for help. Chloe, you know, you know, that I love you.”

Chloe's heart beat furiously. A car came slowly up the road behind them, turned the corner just ahead, and was gone.

“Chloe, you know,” said Martin Fossetter. His voice was full of a deep tenderness; his hand touched her arm.

“I don't,” said Chloe. “How can I? I trusted you, and you let me down—that's what I know.”

“I've been an utter, damned fool,” said Martin. “But I love you, Chloe, I love you. If you don't believe anything else, you must believe that.” Chloe wheeled round on him with a sort of fierce decision.

“Look here,” she said, “it's no good. I don't want you to say these things to me. They
might
have meant something, and they don't mean anything. I don't want to hear them. I want you to go away.”

She put out her hands as if she were pushing something from her.

The street was empty from end to end, the houses curtained, dark, indifferent. Martin caught the outstretched hands in his.

“Ah, but you shall believe me. There's something between us—Chloe, you know there is—, something that calls from me to you, and something in you that answers. Chloe, don't you feel it?—don't you feel it now?”

Chloe felt his hands burn on hers. She felt a wave of glamour beat against her resistance; and she saw Martin's face, darkly agitated, very near her own. She wrenched her hands away and fell back against the railing of the house by which they stood.

“No! It's no use,” she said. “Wait, Martin, and I'll tell you the truth. I did trust you; I did like you; I did come near to caring for you. But it's all gone, and you can't bring it back again. I couldn't ever care for anyone whom I couldn't trust—and I could never trust you again. There—that's the truth. Now will you go away?”

“No!” said Martin. He stood in front of her about half a yard away, and repeated the word more quietly. “Are you so angry with me that you won't let me see you home?”

“I want you to go,” said Chloe. She gripped the railing with her left hand for a moment; then she straightened herself and began to walk on without looking round.

Before she had gone a yard Martin was speaking again, close to her, setting his pace to hers:

“Chloe, how can I leave you alone in the streets at this hour? Be reasonable. Let me take you back to wherever you're staying.”

“No!”

Martin's voice changed a little; it became tenderly indulgent.

“How are you going to get rid of me?”

Chloe walked on without replying. At the next corner she stood still.

“If you don't go, I shall speak to the next policeman we meet.”

“I shouldn't,” said Martin. “You'd have to go to Bow Street, or somewhere like that, and give evidence that I was annoying you, after which your address would be public property, and you'd probably have Leonard Wroughton dropping in to tea. Better let me see you home.”

Chloe didn't answer for a full minute. Suppose he wouldn't go away. Well, they would just have to go on walking until daylight came and found them, he in evening dress, and she bareheaded, with her old tweed coat over Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn's expensive dress. She wondered which of them would look the sillier. But go back to Hatchelbury Road with Martin at her heels she would not. She crossed the road and walked straight on, and as she did so, a car came down the left hand turning, going dead slow. As it came up behind them, Chloe realized that she had no idea at all where she was. If this were a passing taxi, she felt reckless enough to sacrifice a whole day's salary in return for escape from this intolerable situation. As the thought passed through her mind, Martin's arm came round her shoulder.

“Ah, Chloe, be friends,” he said. And as he spoke, the car slid up to the kerb ahead of them under a lamp, and stood still. The driver jumped out.

Chloe twisted herself free, and ran forward. In a breathless voice she said:

“Can you take a fare?” And then suddenly she saw the driver's face, and uttered a sharp little cry of, “Michael! Michael Foster!”

Michael put out his arm rather as if he were going to take her in to dinner; it was a curious, instinctive movement. And, as instinctively, Chloe caught at his rough, damp sleeve with two little shaking hands. Up to this very moment she had been quite steady; but now she began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered.

Michael put his arm right round her, and said in the nice, ordinary voice which hadn't an atom of glamour in it:

“Can I drive you anywhere?”

It was the nice ordinariness that pulled Chloe together—that and the hard strength of the arm that held her. She said, “Please” only just above her breath, and in a moment the door was open and he was putting her into the car. As the door slammed on her and she leaned back, she heard some rapid interchange of words between the two men. She was so nearly done, so taken off her balance by the sudden release from strain, that it was only an impression, not of words, but of some violent, wordless clash. Then Michael was at the window again.

“Where do you want to go?” he said, his voice so cheerful and unruffled that Chloe lost that impression of having heard it blurred with fury a moment ago. “Where do you want to go?” said Michael.

Chloe braced herself. She felt as if she was slipping down a long, steep hill. She mustn't do that; she mustn't slip. She made a great effort, and said slowly and stiffly:

“Will you go—half a mile—down the Vauxhall Road—and then stop?”

“Right-o,” said Michael. He climbed into the driver's seat and started the car.

Chloe began to slip again.

When the brakes went on and the car stopped, she opened her eyes, with the curious feeling that she, too, had come to a standstill. Michael's voice reached her rather vaguely:

“Are you sure I can't take you any farther?” She roused at that with a start, and looked out into the empty Vauxhall Road. It was so very, very queer to see it all empty and alone like this, with the lamps shining down on the blank pavements.

She said, “No, I can walk from here quite easily,” and half expected that he would make some protest. Instead, he opened the door and held out his hand to help her.

She stood in the road, steadying her voice to say “Thank you,” and “Good-night”—one must say something, and one mustn't,
mustn't
make a fool of oneself. The words came just above a whisper, and it may be said that they tried Michael's self-control a good deal. Chloe, of course, did not know this. She heard him say pleasantly, “Goodnight. And if there's anything I can do for you at any time, you know where to find me; and you know how awfully pleased I should be.”

She heard this, and, nodding because she couldn't trust her voice any more, she turned away and began to walk slowly and falteringly in the direction of Hatchelbury Road.

The idea that Michael might follow her never entered her head. She was only conscious of an intense desire to reach the little, cramped room, with its hard, unyielding bed. Every now and then a dreadful doubt as to whether she could reach it pierced the dullness of her mind. At the first crossing, doubt became certainty. She turned the heel of her shoe on the kerb and came down; and being down, she did not know how to get up again.

It was Michael who picked her up. She had really only gone a dozen yards. He picked her up, held her firmly if a little stiffly, and said:

“I say, do let me drive you the whole way.”

“I'm all right,” said Chloe, in a little, halting voice.

“You're as right as rain; but what's the sense of walking when I can drive you? If you don't want anyone to know where you're staying, I'll forget about it the minute I've dropped you there—I'm an absolute nailer at forgetting things.”

Chloe found herself in the car again without quite knowing how she had got there.

“It's 122 Hatchelbury Road,” she said, and shut her eyes.

When they stopped again, she had revived a little. Michael at the window was just a shadow, but it was easier to talk. She leaned towards the shadow and spoke, pleased to find that her voice was under control again.

“You will forget—really?”

“If you want me to.”

“Please.”

“All right, I've forgotten.”

She gave him both her hands as she got out. She liked the nice, steady grip he gave them. Suddenly she said:

“Why didn't you come to Danesborough?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“On Wednesday week.”

They stood facing each other on the narrow pavement hand in hand.

“Oh!” said Chloe. “That was the day I ran away.”

“Yes, I know. They told me you had gone away and hadn't left any address. They seemed a good deal peeved.”