lead such temptations by the head and hair,
reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,
that so he may do battle and have praise.
the ring and the book.
gardiner was just one second too late. as he reached the back door the police arrived at the front; and they saw him. the wrotham man, who had known him as a wicked small boy, raised a sort of view-hallo and dashed into the hall in pursuit. but tom's broad figure was in the way (not obstructing the police, oh dear, no, nothing further from his mind, just solidly, immovably stupid!); and while cotterill dodged round him, gardiner had time to slip through the back door, slam it and turn the key in his pursuer's face.
he was not one of those unready mortals who are flustered by a sudden strain. on the contrary, it braced him. he dragged tom's bicycle out of the shed, and ran it up the kitchen garden to the gate which led into the glebe; then across the meadow, the mild cows shying and backing with lowered heads as he rushed by to a second gate, giving on the road. nobody in sight yet, the coast still clear. he heaved his machine over the bars, vaulted them himself and rode for his life.
woodlands stands at the end of a trident of lanes, whose left arm points towards otford, its right towards kingsdown, while the shank leads northwards through farningham to dartford. any one would naturally conclude that a fugitive would choose this last road, which for its first four miles is utterly lonely. gardiner turned to the right, by the lane which climbs through woods, with many a twist, to join the london road at kingsdown. how he pedalled up[pg 139] that hill! but after all, as he told himself, breathless, the gradients were the same for them as for him; and if he was hampered by a strange bicycle, cotterill was portly.
level ground at last, and the portobello inn at the crossroads where the lane cuts the highway. here the fugitive fell in with the great stream of motorists and cyclists who frequent this road for the pleasure of spinning down wrotham hill in one direction, farningham hill in the other. on the dartford road he would have been conspicuous to every one he met; here he was a unit in the crowd. he turned towards london. down into farningham, over the bridge, with its magnificent horse chestnut leaning to the darenth, a tower of gold on a field of emerald; up the opposite slope to swanley junction; on through the crays to sidcup, where the suburbs begin, shades of the prison-house; and finally, london itself.
on vauxhall bridge he halted, to consider his course. it was unlucky, most unlucky that cotterill had seen him; his description would be all over the country to-morrow. the first thing was to get money. he must borrow; but from whom? denis was at bredon, his other male friends were in the ends of the earth. yet he knew without hesitation where to go. it occurred to him to wonder, as he asked his way of the policeman outside vauxhall station, what tom would have said to the idea of borrowing from a girl.
strange how much of an alien he felt here in london! his imagination, roving always among woods and mountains, a green thought in a green shade, fell choked among bricks and mortar; his sense of smell, keen like that of a wild creature, was offended by the fumes of motor buses, by hot whiffs from restaurants and cook-shops, by the odor of the horses and of asphalt in the sun. above all, he hated the crowds. city-lovers, city-dwellers all of them, the seedy loafer spitting into the thames, and the girl in magenta and blanc de perle, who threw him coquettish glances from under her lace veil. "i can do with these people for a few hours, or even for a day or two, but to live here!" he thought. and then came the inevitable corollary: "if i feel like this[pg 140] now, what would it be to be boxed up with twelve or fifteen hundred of them, day and night, for years?" he turned his back on that thought. he had to keep a steady hand to ward off panic, which lurked at his heels like a wolf.
he carried himself and his alien feelings across town, and presently arrived at 22 canning street. miss smith was out. that he had expected, and he came in to wait. the little maid preceded him up seventy-five steps to lettice's attic. "oh, them stairs!" she sighed, with a hand at her waist. gardiner wondered how lettice liked the climb. she was not so very fond of hills. but when he was left alone, and had looked out of her window far across the roofs, and seen her glimpse of the river and of the surrey hills, he understood. it was worth it. here, above the world, lettice found the breathing-space which she loved as well as he. there was a pot of violets on the table; he put the blossoms aside with one finger, and buried his nose in the moss surrounding them. that was good! that was the breath of the woods; gardiner would have given all the flower scents in the world for that wet woody fragrance.
sitting down, he discovered that he was tired, very tired. it is deadly demoralizing to be hunted. here for the moment he was safe; and in the blessed relief from strain he fell asleep.
lettice came in from the museum at six; she had her own key, and as it chanced did not meet the little maid beatrice. up the stairs she toiled, with her neat case of papers, came into her room, meticulously noiseless as her pleasure was, and paused by her table, pulling off her gloves, ever so slowly, before she found energy to look round. then she saw gardiner asleep in her chair.
it was one of lettice's principles never to interfere with anybody if she could possibly help it. she saw no reason for waking him; she did not wake him. she set about making tea instead. a spirit stove burns noiseless; crockery deftly handled need not chink. the soft sounds of lettice's business would not have startled a mouse. she cut bread and butter. she carried a bunch of water-cress to[pg 141] the tap on the landing and washed it there. she fetched from her cupboard a shape of tongue, a glass of shrimp paste, fresh butter, strawberry jam, bananas—the usual menu of the dweller in rooms. it was not in the bond that she should lay her own meals, but she often did it to save beatrice's tired legs. lastly, she made the tea. as she replaced the kettle on the stove, the lid fell off; and gardiner awoke.
he sat up and stared.
"tea's ready," lettice announced, with a benignant smile.
"i never heard you come in!"
"i know," said his hostess, "you were fast asleep. come along, before the toast gets cold."
she asked no questions, she seemed to want no explanations. blessed are the people who take things for granted! gardiner drew up his chair, discovering suddenly that he was hungry. lettice poured out: soft-toned, placid, soothing lettice, supplying the needs of his body with maternal care, and sitting there opposite, delicately fresh and neat, with those misleadingly soft, derisive hazel eyes! he liked to watch the slow, accurate movements of her hands, and their funny little flutter of make-believe agitation, when she hastened to supply his request for a piece of sugar.
"i don't believe you've had any lunch," she admonished him, pouring out his third cup.
"haven't. i came off in a hurry. i don't know that i ever tasted anything quite so good as this tongue of yours. you are a good samaritan, you know."
lettice did not tell him he was eating up her sunday dinner. she dismissed the subject with her little french shrug.
"and how's mr. gardiner?"
"going strong. i say, would you very much mind if i had a pipe?" lettice, who loathed tobacco, shook her head. "sure? you really have all the virtues. by the way, can you lend me some money?"
if that did not startle her, nothing would! it did not startle her. she looked pensive for a moment, then asked: "how much do you want?"
[pg 142]
"how much have you?"
"nine sovereigns, and the change out of another."
"could you possibly let me have the nine sovereigns?"
lettice nodded. getting up without more ado, she unlocked her desk, strung out the sovereigns in a row upon the white cloth beside him, and returned to her seat.
"well, i'm hanged!" said gardiner. "don't you even want to know what i want it for?"
she shook her head as usual, then added a polite but perfunctory "yes, of course i'm very much interested."
"i want it because the police are after me."
at that she looked up.
"yes, the old affair at grasmere. you weren't in time with that letter to denis. mrs. trent's been at dent-de-lion for the last six weeks—ever since she left rochehaut; and she's managed to worm the truth out of denis. what? oh yes, the truth; i forgot you didn't know. i did knock trent down. of course he was simply asking for it; but the fact remains that technically i'm guilty of manslaughter—murder, mrs. trent calls it. does that give you the horrors?"
"no," said lettice.
gardiner's eye lit up. "ah! it did to tom. it does to denis, though he'd rather die than own it. but i had a sort of feeling that you wouldn't take it like that.... you know, it gave me the deuce of a twinge when tom turned chilly!"
lettice nodded, accepting that unlikely confidence as a matter of course. she reverted to his former speech.
"did you say she got it out of denis?"
"she did. how, i don't know. he doesn't say: doesn't say much, in fact. but she knows that if he's put into the witness-box he can't deny it. you know, she played—well, you might fairly call it a shabby trick on me; and i never blamed her. i'm fair game. but denis is quite another pair of shoes. i don't know how i'm going to forgive her for meddling with him. you see his letter."
lettice read the few stiff phrases in which denis owned[pg 143] that he had let his friend's secret escape. he said little about dorothea, not a word about himself.
"i call that one of the most pathetic things i've ever read," said gardiner, with far more feeling than he had shown for his own misfortune. "i'd have owned up voluntarily, i swear i would, sooner than have this happen. it doesn't do to play tricks of this sort on a fellow like denis. they cut too deep. it's like ill-treating a child. oh, it was a beastly thing to do!"
"it was a damnable thing to do."
strong words, to suit strong feelings. lettice's soft lips were grim. gardiner was disposed to feel sorry for dorothea. but there was nothing to be done, nothing; lettice laid by her wrath in silence and brought back her mind to gardiner's case.
"what are you going to do, then?"
"i? oh, i'm off. didn't i tell you the police are after me?"
"the police?"
"chasing me out of woodlands on bikes. you see this letter of denis's, which was evidently written post-haste after mrs. trent got the truth out of him, is dated tuesday, the eighth; which was the very day i got tom's wire calling me home. it must have gone out to rochehaut and lain there nearly a week, till i wrote for my mail to be forwarded. in the meantime i presume mrs. trent took her tale to the police. she can be quite temperate and convincing when she likes; besides, she has an uncle in the home office, sir thomas felton, who's no end of a swell—i heard that quite by accident the other day—and he no doubt pulled some wires. the magistrates would grant a warrant; then i imagine a detective started for rochehaut, found me gone, got my address in england and came straight back. at any rate, this morning, not ten minutes after i'd got denis's bomb-shell, a couple of bobbies turned up at the vicarage to arrest me. i evaded out of the back door as they came in at the front, and got away on tom's bike. they don't know i'm riding, so i hope they'll waste time looking[pg 144] for a pedestrian. i'll stay here till it's dark if you'll put up with me, bike on to southampton to-night and work my way out to south america. i'm no amateur, you see—i've done it before."
lettice's face did not usually express her feelings, but as gardiner proceeded with his tale, it woke up. she said:
"then do you mean to say you're running away?"
"claro. what else would you have me do?"
"you might stay and face it."
he shook his head. "not good enough. i did knock him down, and he did die. i should pretty certainly be convicted of manslaughter, and might get quite a stiff sentence."
"not if you explained the provocation."
"i think so, even then." gardiner could not tell her, as he had told tom, that on the vital point his tongue was sealed. she knew too much. he temporized. "you see, it was the wrong sort of provocation. all i could say would be that he was telling stories that weren't very pretty, and you'd never get a british jury to sympathize with a fancy scruple of that sort. besides, i've damaged my own case by not owning up at once. that would tell against me very heavily—very heavily indeed. no, i'm afraid there's nothing for it but to clear out."
lettice said nothing, but her face continued to express complete and solid disagreement. she rose to clear the table. gardiner, who had his chair tilted back and his fork balancing on one finger, after one glance at her, proceeded to develop his argument.
"it would, as i say, mean prison; and prison is precisely the one thing i'm not prepared to stand. it's not the hardships—they're luxury compared to what i've put up with in my time—it's the confinement, the restraint, the—the utter beastliness of never being able to get away from somebody's eyes! i assure you it gives me the blue divvles even to think of. i am convinced it would drive me off my head. i should go must, and brain a warder—no, i think it would be the doctor for choice: i met him once, he was a [pg 145]sympathetic little brute as ever stepped. i'd far rather be hanged out of hand."
lettice, still mute, took away his fork. gardiner perseveringly glanced up into her small pale face for a change of opinion. the more she disapproved, the more he wanted to win her over to his own way of thinking. he was growing quite absurdly anxious to propitiate this exacting critic.
"don't you think, in view of all the circumstances—the feelings of my family, the unpleasant scandal, and my own state of blue funk—don't you think the best thing i can do is to clear out?"
lettice had to speak now, and she spoke.
"if you're afraid of a thing, i should think you'd want to face it and prove to yourself that you aren't."
"prove to myself that i'm not afraid of prison? but i am!"
"then that's all the more reason for not running away."
uncompromising! lettice, who could bend her supple mind to look through the eyes of tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor or any one else even down to the thief, and could sympathize with all, could not sympathize with gardiner: could not believe, or even pretend to believe, that cowardice might ever be more expedient for him than courage. it was not so much the immorality of running away, it was the stupidity of it: the fact that he was destroying his own future happiness, making it impossible for himself ever again to live at peace with his own soul. all very well for weaklings to be weak; but gardiner—she couldn't understand how he could think twice about it! her dissent was so acute that it made itself felt through all her reticences and evasions. gardiner stared, his own eyes opening to see his future as she saw it; but he shut them again at once, and willfully turned away.
"oh, that's idealism," he said, with a short laugh, "and this is a world of compromise. i can't get so high as you. if i'm afraid of a thing, i want quite simply to run away. talking of which, i'd better be off; it's dark enough now."
[pg 146]
he went to the window, and came back. lettice was sweeping up the crumbs; she moved the nine sovereigns out of her way. gardiner picked them up and let them slip one by one into his pocket.
"you aren't going to reclaim your loan, then, and force me to face my bogy?"
she shook her head, twice, slowly. gardiner had singed himself once already at the fire, yet he returned again, fluttering round the dangerous subject. he would have given anything to drag some sort of approval, or even condonation, out of lettice. it seemed to him that she must be persuaded, if he could only put his case convincingly enough.
"of course it's just on the cards that i might be hanged for murder, you know," he pointed out—not believing it, but for the sake of argument. "come now; won't you at least admit for my father's sake it's better not to take that risk?"
lettice lifted herself, straightening her shoulders. tray in hand, brush in the other, a domesticated sibyl, she faced him and delivered her final judgment.
"i should think mr. gardiner would rather have you hanged than running away!"
