Affinities and Other Stories Part 28

Mr. Harcourt closed the door.

"This is Harcourt Hall," he explained. "It's in bad shape, but we have at least a roof. I think you are alone?" to me very curtly.

I nodded mutely.

"I fancy the best thing under the circ.u.mstances is to wire to Gresham Place, and have them send a car over--providing the telephone is in order."

"The wire is cut," I broke in. And then, like the poor thing I am, I began to cry. I hate lightning. It always makes me nervous.

Both Sir George and Mr. Harcourt stared at me helplessly. And then, still sniffling, I told them the whole story, and how Daphne and the rest would soon be there, and that I wasn't really a Suffragette; that I was an American, and I thought women ought to vote, but be ladylike and proper about it, and that, at least, they ought to be school directors, because they understood little children so well and paid taxes, anyhow.

When I got through and looked up at them Sir George was staring at me in bewilderment and Mr. Harcourt was smiling broadly.

"My dear young lady," he said, "of course you ought to vote. And if voting went by general attractiveness you would have to be what Americans call a repeater--vote twice, you know."

(It was at this point, when I told the story, that Ernestine Sutcliffe looked contemptuous. "We are not _all_ pretty puppets," she said. And I retorted: "No, I should say not!")

All this had taken longer than it sounds, for on the very tail of Mr.

Harcourt's speech came a double honk from the drive. Mr. Harcourt jumped for the hall lamp and extinguished it in an instant. I hardly know what happened next. My eyes were still staring wide into the blackness when he reached over and clutched me by the shoulder.

"Not a word, please," he ordered. "This way, Sir George! The door is bolted, and we will have time to get upstairs and hide. There's a secret room, if I can remember how to get to it. Walk lightly."

I could hear Daphne at the door outside and I opened my mouth to scream.

But Mr. Harcourt divined my intention and clapped a hand over it.

As I was half led, half dragged back through the dark hall I saw Violet enter by one of the windows.

IV

We got upstairs somehow, with Sir George breathing in gasps. I realised then that Mr. Harcourt was still supporting me and I freed myself with a jerk, on which he coolly took my hand and led the way along the musty hall. Once or twice boards creaked and the two men stopped in alarm. But no one heard. From below came a babel of high, excited voices and the crash of an overturned chair. I backed against the wall and held my hands out defensively in front of me.

"How dare you carry me off like this!" I demanded when I could speak. "I am going back!"

But Mr. Harcourt blocked the pa.s.sage with his broad shoulders and struck a match cautiously. First he looked at the walls, then he glanced at me.

"My dear young lady," he said curtly, "we should be only too happy to leave you--but you know too much." Then, to Sir George: "I must have taken a wrong turn," he whispered ruefully. "There ought to be a wainscoting here. Good Heavens! I believe they are coming up."

We could hear Daphne calling "Madge!" frantically from the lower stairs.

And suddenly I was ashamed of the whole affair: of myself, for lending myself to it; of Violet, for thrusting the man beside me out of her life and then stooping to borrow his house; of Poppy, for braining a man with a chair and then being afraid of a bat. I turned to Mr. Harcourt as the footsteps ran up the stairs.

"The door at the end of the corridor is partly open," I whispered. "We may be able to lock it behind us."

With that _we_ I s.h.i.+fted my allegiance. From that moment my sole object was to get the Prime Minister of Great Britain back to his family, his friends and his Sovereign without injury.

We scurried down the hall and closed the door behind us. It did not lock! But there was no time to go elsewhere. We stood just inside the door, breathing hard, and listened. For a time the search confined itself to the lower floor. Mr. Harcourt struck another match and looked around him.

We were in a huge, old-fas.h.i.+oned bedroom with mullioned windows and panelled walls. The furniture was carefully covered, and the carpet had been folded and wrapped in the centre of the floor. I sat down on it in a perfectly exhausted condition.

Mr. Harcourt stood with his back against the door and we all listened.

But the search had not penetrated to our wing. Sir George was breathing heavily and mopping his head. The air was stifling.

"I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Harcourt cautiously; "I could have sworn I had taken the right turn. If I remember rightly there was a pa.s.sage from the Refuge Chamber down to the garden. How many women are downstairs?"

"Six," I whispered, "and I suppose Poppy Stafford would count as two.

She almost killed a man last year." When Sir George heard Poppy's name he began to fumble with the window-lock. "And, of course," I went on, "your--I mean--Violet knows the house perfectly."

"If we could get out of here," Mr. Harcourt reflected, "we could get down to the lodge somehow. Then, when the motor comes back we could stop it at the gates--have them closed, you know--and when the chauffeur gets out to open them steal the car."

Sir George relaxed perceptibly. "A valuable suggestion," he said almost cheerfully. But suddenly I had turned cold.

"Most valuable," I said from the darkness, "save for one thing: Mr.

Harcourt has forgotten, no doubt, but there are no gates at the lodge!"

He gave a quick movement in the darkness. "Then we will have to manage without gates," he said quite calmly. "I had forgotten, for the moment, that they had been taken down. What's the conundrum? When is a gate not a gate?"

But his lightness did not rea.s.sure me. Why had he taken the wrong turning in his own house? And what man in his senses would forget whether his own lodge had gates or not! But there was no time to puzzle it out. The search had abandoned the first floor and was coming up the stairs. The Prime Minister threw open the window. From down the hall came a babel of voices and Daphne's soap-box and monument voice. "I think I had better tell you," she was saying "that Violet and I have found traces of two men--muddy footprints that lead up the stairs.

Bagsby says he brought Sir George alone. I do not hazard a guess, but--something unforeseen has happened. I only hope----" Here she broke off, and there was a rattle of metallic objects that sounded like bra.s.s fire-irons.

The search came our way slowly but certainly. I sat on my carpet and s.h.i.+vered. Mr. Harcourt stood braced against the door, and Sir George had got the window open and was testing the roof of a conservatory with his foot. Footsteps came down the hall and we sat motionless. I remembered suddenly that somebody always sneezed at crises like these, and then I realised inevitably that I was going to be the person. Somewhere I had heard that if you hold your breath and swallow at the psychological moment you may sneeze silently. So I tried it in desperation and almost strangled, and felt very queer about the ears for an hour after. And at the best there was some sound, for the footsteps outside turned and ran toward the stairs, where there was a hurried colloquy.

At that, Sir George put the other foot over the windowsill, and in a moment we were all in headlong flight. Luckily, the very top of the conservatory was boarded on top of the gla.s.s, but it began to slope sooner than I had expected, and I lost my hold on Sir George's hand and slid without warning. I landed on the ground below, standing up to my waist in shrubbery and very much jarred. Sir George was not so lucky. He put a foot through a pane of gla.s.s with a terrible crash, and it took all of Mr. Harcourt's strength to release him. Standing below, I could see a flare of light in the room we had just left, and the silhouettes of the two men struggling on the roof. Somebody came to the window just as we were united on the soggy ground. I think it was Violet, but the crash of the rain on the gla.s.s of the conservatory had covered the noise of our escape. Mr. Harcourt picked me out of my bush and we darted into the shrubbery.

V

I have only a sketchy recollection of what followed. The rain beat on my face and my bare shoulders; the drive was a river. Once some one came to the entry door of the Hall behind us and waved a lamp, which the wind promptly extinguished. And on either side of me, in gloomy silence, ploughed the Prime Minister and Mr. Harcourt. Once Sir George left the drive, seeking better walking on the turf, and came back after a moment with a brief statement that he had collided with a tree and had loosened a tooth. And twice Mr. Harcourt touched my elbow to guide me and I shook him off.

He got into the gatekeeper's house through a window and opened the door for us. The interior was desolate enough, but it was at least dry. Mr.

Harcourt produced a candle from his pocket, evidently from the room we had left, and it revealed two packing-cases, one small keg, and a collection of straw and rubbish in a corner. It also showed that Sir George had struck his nose and that it was bleeding profusely. I got a glimpse, too, of the wreck of my gown, and that and the blood together brought my responsibility for the whole thing home to me. I sat down on the keg and buried my face in my hands.

When I looked up again a fire was crackling on the hearth and Sir George's boots were steaming in front of it. Mr. Harcourt had taken off his coat and was drying it. The smell of wet woollen cloth filled the air. He smiled at me over his shoulder.

"This is for you," he said cheerfully. "Go into the back room and strip off that draggled gown and put this on."

"I'm very well as I am," I said, and s.h.i.+vered.

"Nonsense!" He came over to me and held out the coat. "That white satin is saturated. Don't be idiotic. This is certainly no time to stand on propriety."

"I--I can't," I stammered.

"Now, look here," he persisted. "I've got sisters--lots of 'em, and Sir George is a grandfather. Put this on over your petticoat."

Now, of course, anybody who knows anything about clothing to-day knows that petticoats don't belong with it. And even if they did, there were about eighty-seven hooks on the back of my gown, and only four that I could reach.

"I am very comfortable as I am," I said stubbornly. "Please don't bother about me. I sha'n't make any change."

He flung the coat angrily on to a box and turned his back squarely on me. It was maddening to have him think me some prudish little schoolgirl who would say limbs for legs, and who, after showing them for years in very short frocks, suddenly puts on her first long gown and is for denying she has any limbs--that is, legs. Sir George sneezed and drew a long, shuddering breath.