She Fell Among Thieves (12 page)

‘He doesn’t like Jean.’

My thoughts whipped back to a circle, cut in the blowing turf, perhaps two hundred yards from the foot of an elegant fall. Very soon it would have the look of a fairy ring… I wondered who had liked Jean. Not Lafone, or Jenny: neither Mansel nor I nor his fellows: not Vanity Fair. It seemed I had been the death of a friendless man. Even the dogs were against him…

‘And your dreams, my sweet?’

‘Oh, yes,’ cried Jenny, ‘I’ve remembered some more – a funny noise that went up and then started again.
Gears
it was called in English.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mansel. ‘And it always came when you started out in
the car
.’

The great blue eyes were full of the strangest light, and a little, dripping hand went up to the golden hair.

‘
In the car
,’ breathed Jenny. ‘That’s right. A great, red
car
.’ She caught at Mansel’s arm. ‘Oh, Jonathan, how do you know?’

‘I’ll tell you one day, my beauty.’ He picked up the little hand and put it up to his lips. ‘And now let’s forget the dreams and I’ll tell you a fairy-tale.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll love it. Why do you kiss my hand?’

‘Don’t you like me to, Jenny?’

‘I simply love it. I love everything you do. Please kiss it again.’ Mansel did so. With the air of a queen, she put out the hand to me. ‘And now, William.’

Smiling, I did her pleasure – and mine.

She cosseted her hand contentedly. After a moment she put it up to her lips.

‘You’re Nature’s darling,’ said Mansel.

‘I’m not. I’m yours. I love you. I’d like to kill the devil that made you lame.’ Quickly, she looked at me. ‘I like William very much, too.’

Mansel was speaking very quietly.

‘I wish you could have seen William’s lady. She was a great princess. And at her coming, although the day was grey, it seemed as though the sun had come out. But the gods loved her so much that they took her away. One day I’ll show you her picture, and you’ll fall down on your knees.’

Jenny’s arms were about me and my head was against her breast.

‘Don’t cry, dear William. I can’t bear to see you cry. I’ll always love you – I promise. I always will. And one day you’ll go to heaven and find her there. Like my canary. He used to come on to my hand. And one day he died…’ I felt her tears on my temples. ‘But I know he’s happy in heaven – and one day I’ll find him there.’

‘That’s right,’ said I, somehow. ‘One day.’

There was a telling silence, and after a little we let each other go…

The fairy-tale Mansel told shall speak for itself.

‘There was once a princess,’ he said, ‘who lived all alone in the hills. Although she was lovely and charming, no one had heard of her: nobody knew of her existence, except her duenna and the servants who kept her house.’

‘What’s a duenna?’ said Jenny.

‘A sort of nurse,’ said Mansel. ‘Lafone might be called your duenna. Well, as I say, the princess lived all alone: but the time was coming when she, like all princesses, would have to go out and take her place in the world.’

‘Like going to Carlos?’ said Jenny. ‘Where Julie lives?’

‘That’s right,’ said Mansel. ‘Carlos is out in the world. Well, sometimes she felt she wanted to go, and sometimes she felt she didn’t. She wanted to see it all, but she had no friends outside her little kingdom, because nobody knew of her existence: so when she went out, she would have no one to play with or talk to, who would know the things she wanted and care for her as she was served and cared for in her kingdom up in the hills.’

‘But couldn’t her servants go with her?’

Mansel shook his head.

‘Only her dog could go with her. In fact, so far from going with her, her duenna and servants would try to prevent her going – not because they loved her, but because, though they knew it was right, they just didn’t want her to go out into the world. So that, when she went, she would have to go in secret – and all alone. And sometimes she felt rather frightened… And then one day a man appeared.’

‘A prince?’

‘No, an ordinary man. But he was quite nice, and she liked him – and he liked her. And when she asked where he came from, he said he’d come out of the world. Then the princess was very excited and asked him all sorts of questions about the world, but the more he told her, the more uneasy she got and at last she told him her trouble and asked him what she should do.

‘The man smiled very kindly. Then he took her pretty fingers and put them up to his lips.

‘“I shall care for you,” he said, “when you go into the world.”

‘“You?” cried the princess. “You?”

‘“That’s right,” said the man. “My friends and I between us will help you to make the journey and will be your friends for ever – out in the world.”

‘Well, the princess was so delighted that she flung her arms round his neck, and all her fear fell away and she simply longed for the time for her going to come.

‘“When will it be?” she asked, with stars in her eyes.

‘The man took out a little picture and put it into her hand. It was a pretty picture, a portrait, very cleverly painted and covered with glass: it showed the head and shoulders of a beautiful girl.

‘“When everything’s ready,” he said, “one of my friends will come to take you away. And the sign they will give will be to show you this picture. When you see that, you will know that they come from me: and that you must do as they say and go with them where they will.”

‘The princess stared at the portrait of the beautiful girl.

‘“But who is this?” she said.

‘“She’s to be your duenna, when you go into the world.”

‘Now when he said this, the princess could hardly believe her ears, for her duenna was old and was often cross: but the girl in the picture was young and had the look of a playmate, and the princess longed to see her and be in her charge.

‘Well, the man went off with the picture, and time went on, and the princess waited and wished for her day to come.

‘And then one night, when the princess was fast asleep, she felt a touch on her arm. This woke her, and when she sat up, there was a man by her side, with a light in his hand.

‘“What is it?” she said. “What d’you want?”

‘“Look,” he said.

‘And when she looked, she saw that he was holding the picture, the portrait the man had shown her of her duenna-to-be.

‘“Do you trust me?” he said.

‘The princess nodded.

‘“Then get up quickly,” he said, “and make no noise. No one must hear you, or else they won’t let you go.”

‘So the princess did as he told her and was quiet as a mouse. When she was ready, he helped her out of a window on to a ladder leaning against the wall: and when they were down, there was a manservant standing, holding her dog.

‘When the princess saw the servant, she thought that her flight had been discovered and nearly cried out with dismay.

‘But the man only smiled.

‘“It’s quite all right,” he said. “That’s one of my men.”

‘“But he’s one of the servants,” cried the princess.

‘“He’s pretended to be,” said the man. “He’s one of my servants, really: or rather one of my friend’s: he sent him to enter your service against this night.”

‘Then they wasted no more time, and she and the men and the dog stole out of her sleeping kingdom into the world. All night they travelled like the wind, and just as the sun was rising, they came to a little white house. And there in the doorway was standing the girl of the portrait, but looking even more lovely because she was really alive.’

The quiet voice stopped, and Mansel’s eyes left the heaven to rest upon Jenny’s face.

‘Oh, that’s not all?’ she cried quickly.

‘That’s all for the moment, sweetheart.’

‘Oh, I want to know so much more. The picture-girl sounds lovely. What was she like?’

Mansel’s hand went into his pocket and brought a miniature out.

‘She was something like that,’ he said. ‘That’s my sister, Jill.’

Jenny stared and stared.

‘And the glass and all,’ she said slowly. ‘I wish that I was a princess.’

‘Let’s pretend you are,’ said Mansel, and got to his feet. ‘This is your pretty kingdom, and you’re sitting there, wondering what you will do when you have to set out all alone and go into the world. And then I’ll be the man and appear. William, you go over there. You’re not on in this scene.’

So the little play was enacted, to Jenny’s delight. Mansel appeared from the bushes, to tell her pretty fortune and show her the miniature: then she went to sleep and I roused her and spoke my lines, while Mansel stood for the servant and Goliath was there in the flesh. Twice over we played the two scenes, because she liked them so well, and when, for the second time, the four of us had stolen to the edge of the dell–

‘Oh, why isn’t it true?’ she breathed. ‘I want to go on, like the wind, till we come to the little white house: and I do so want to see Jill.’

‘We’ll play it out one day,’ said Mansel: ‘right up to where you meet Jill.’

An eager child caught at his arm.

‘Oh, Jonathan darling, when?’

Mansel picked her up and held her high in the air.

‘I’m not going to tell you when. I want it to be a surprise.’

The sun was going down, and Jenny was gone. Lying on the lip of the belvedere, we watched her crossing the meadows to come to the grey, old house. Obedient to Mansel’s counsel, she never looked back.

Mansel sighed.

‘
Sic transit
,’ he said. ‘And by this time tomorrow I shall have already reported to Vanity Fair.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I needn’t leave before nine, so we’ve plenty of time to go over the ground to be covered and settle what details we can. After those two rehearsals I think the actual abduction should go all right. Which reminds me…’ His hand went into a pocket. ‘Before I forget it, William, I’ll give you this.’

The miniature passed.

Twenty-five hours had gone by, and I was lying alone on the lip of the belvedere, watching and waiting for Lafone to set out for Jezreel.

I had spent a lonely day, for though I had sometimes seen Carson moving below, an attempt by him to meet me might have been remarked by the woman and so have aroused the suspicions we had been at such pains to lull. Three hours of the afternoon I had spent in the woods high up on the mountain-side, for though Mansel had told my lady not to expect us that day, he could hardly request her not to visit the dell – and to the dell she repaired about four o’clock. I make no doubt that she was disconsolate, but offer her comfort I dared not, for if I had made my appearance that afternoon, I must have marred the entrance which I was to make that night. Then she and Goliath had gone, and I had returned.

The shadows were falling, but I should be able to see for half an hour yet. If Lafone had not left before dark, I must wait for a signal from Carson to say she was out of the way.

For a moment I lowered my glasses: as I put them back to my eyes, the woman appeared.

She was tall and gaunt and upright, and looked the wardress she was: though her face was set from me, I could see that her hair was grey and could mark the jut of her chin. Her head was bare and she was dressed all in black, and she made a sinister figure as she entered the fading meadows with the stride of a man.

I put my glasses away and got to my feet, and before half-an-hour had gone by I was standing beneath the chestnuts that softened the face of the house.

Dusk had yielded to darkness when a shadow stole out of the archway and Carson came up to my side.

‘Everything all right?’ I whispered.

‘Perfect, sir,’ says Carson. ‘You can’t go wrong. Miss Jenny’s asleep, and her room looks over the farm: the servants are all on the courtyard, so, even if they’re awake, they can’t possibly see or hear. There’s a ladder behind the byre that I’m going to fetch: I measured it up this morning, and it’ll do us a treat. But first I’ll get Goliath and bring him to you: we don’t want him giving tongue before he can see who you are.’

‘Good for you,’ said I. ‘Are you sure Miss Jenny’s asleep?’

‘She was just now, sir. I listened outside her door.’

Two minutes later Goliath was licking my hand and Carson was gone to the farm.

I left the grove of chestnuts and, moving wide of the archway, strolled the way Carson had gone. The thing was too easy. We might have had the park to ourselves.

Indeed, though from first to last we showed no light, except within Jenny’s room, I believe we might have flood-lit the pleasance without any let or hindrance of the business which we were to do, for the staff belonged to Nature, and Nature had gone off duty until the dawn. Carson told me later that, while Lafone was ‘a caution’, the servants were very simple and their understanding was low.

The ladder was roughly made, but seemed very strong. Together we reared it against the side of the house… One minute later I was astride of the sill of the casement of Jenny’s room.

I listened carefully. Then I took my torch from my pocket and threw its beam on the floor.

The chamber was clear and bare as the cell of a nun. No curtains hung by the windows, no carpet lay on the floor. The chest of drawers and the washstand were of unpainted deal: a tiny, tin-framed mirror hung on the wall, and the clothes which Jenny had been weaning lay on a rude, oak bench. In a corner, on a cheap, iron bedstead, ‘the princess’ lay fast asleep…

I swung myself into the room and stole to her side. There I went down on my knees, as well I might. Indeed, to wake her seemed monstrous: the spell was too lovely to shatter, and Jenny’s shoulder too precious for me to touch. Jenny awake, was all glorious: asleep, she was worshipful.

Her slim left arm was lying without the sheet. After a long moment, I put my lips to her wrist…

She started up and brushed the hair from her eyes.

‘Jenny,’ I breathed, ‘it’s William. See what I’ve brought.’

With parted lips, she stared at the miniature: then she caught my hand in hers and held it close to her breast.

‘Oh, William! Tonight? Is it true?’

‘Quite true,’ said I. ‘I’ve come to take you to Jill.’

Before I could get to my feet, she was out of her bed.

‘Give me some light, please. What a wonderful lamp.’

I could hardly disobey such an order, for Jenny knew no wrong: and I hope I may be forgiven for finding her simple toilet a precious thing. Wild though she was to be gone, she must wash and plume herself first: and clean clothes must come out of the chest to go on to her back.

One final glance at the mirror, while I lighted her glowing face, and then we were at the window and I was handing her out…

I descended to find her dancing.

‘I’m so glad it’s you and Rah-eet. I never dreamed that Rah-eet was Jonathan’s man.’

To take away the ladder seemed idle…

At a quarter-past nine by my wrist-watch we started across the fields.

It was when we were approaching the bushes that hid the mouth of the cleft that Jenny seemed to falter and then stood still in her tracks.

‘I mayn’t go there,’ she said, pointing. ‘That’s the way to the castle where Granny lives.’

The check was disconcerting. I had not Mansel’s gift for dealing with Jenny’s beliefs.

‘My dear,’ I said, ‘you must trust me. This is the way to the world and the little white house and Jill.’

‘No, no. It’s the way to the castle.’

‘Perhaps. But we’re not going there. We came out of the world, and this is the way we came. Yesterday evening Jonathan went this way.’

Jenny’s finger flew to her lip.

‘You oughtn’t to use this way. You see, it belongs to Granny, and Granny will punish you if you use it without her leave.’

‘I don’t think she minds,’ said I.

‘Oh, yes, she does,’ said Jenny. ‘You see…’

I did what I could to argue, but Jenny stood firm. Indeed, I was very soon desperate, for so surely as I told her a lie which did not agree with some lie I had told her before, she had found me out in a moment and I had to tell her another to save my face. At the end of five minutes, therefore, I had my back to the wall and feared to open my mouth lest she should lose faith in me and seek to return to the house. Then at last I had an idea.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We must go by the other way. But if we do, you’ll have to be blindfolded, Jenny, because it’s a secret path.’

The poor child agreed delightedly.

I covered her eyes and took her small hand in mind. Then I led her through the fields for a furlong before I brought her round and up to the mouth of the cleft…

So we escaped from the pleasance into the
Cirque des Morts
.

As I unbound her eyes –

‘Is this the world?’ said Jenny.

‘Yes, my darling.’

‘Is it far to the little white house?’

‘Quite a long way: we’re going to travel all night.’

‘Which way? I want to get there. I wish it was day.’

To be honest, I blessed the darkness, because it hid a great deal that I did not wish Jenny to see. It would, I was sure, have been better if we had taken her blindfold from door to door. But it was too late now. My one idea was to get her to Anise as swiftly as ever I could.

If Mansel’s theory was good, when Jenny had entered the pleasance her brain had been affected and she had been ‘born again’. And now once more she was to be ‘born again’. But I was no
accoucheur
. Her body, yes: I could take her beautiful fingers and hand her out of her prison and into Jill’s arms: I simply was not able to deliver her eager mind. More. The brain is fragile. I began to be frightened lest this should receive some shock, lest the veil of her memory should be rent by some encounter which I had had no cause to suspect.

We hastened across the circus and took to the horrid country that lay between us and the car. Jenny chattered away about Mansel, laughed at me when I stumbled and moved like a deer herself. Goliath scouted beside us and Carson brought up the rear.

It was just eleven o’clock when I saw before us the spur which masked the bend of the road at which we had made it our practice to berth the Rolls.

I stopped to wipe the sweat from my face.

‘Listen, Jenny,’ I said. ‘You remember how in your dream you used to go out
in the car
?’

I saw her nod.

‘That dream’s coming true, my darling.
The car
is waiting for us on the other side of that spur.’

Jenny put a hand to her head.

‘
The car
. I can’t remember…’

‘It’s a kind of carriage,’ I said. ‘Jonathan’s sent it for you, to bring you to Jill.’

‘A carriage? Oh, William, how lovely.
Can I sit in front?
’

The last words were spoken in English.

If they made me start, they frightened Jenny herself.

‘What have I said?’ she cried. ‘
Can I sit in front?
That’s English. That’s out of my dreams.’ She was clinging fast to my shoulder. ‘Oh, William, don’t say I’m dreaming. I don’t want to wake up and find that it isn’t true.’

‘You shan’t. I promise. You see, I’m flesh and blood. And there’s Goliath besides you, as large as life. And now we’ll go over the spur and down to
the car
.’

The shoulder was steep and wooded: we scrambled up it in silence with Carson panting behind. At the top I rested a moment. Dark as it was I could make out the curve of the road. It occurred to me how contrary a dame was Fortune. On Friday, when time was against us, it had taken us all we knew to discover the way: but now, with the night before us, we had found it without a thought. And now for Anise…

The descent was easy enough. When I came to the bank I leaped down into the dust: then I stretched out my hands to Jenny and she leaped into my arms. And both of us laughed and she kissed me, and Goliath began to bark.

‘Where is
the
car
, William?’

‘Somewhere just here,’ said I, and began to go down the road…

Two frightful minutes went by before I could believe I was wrong. But the bend of the road was empty. The Rolls was not there, Bell, who never was late, was more than three hours overdue.

The quarter of an hour that followed taught me something which Mansel already knew – that Jenny at heart was a woman and by no means a child.

You can, no doubt, if you are so evilly disposed, to some extent bend to your will another’s body or mind: but with instinct you cannot tamper: that sense is out of your reach. For this I shall always thank God, for the fact that the car was missing had thrown me upon my beam ends and my heart, like that of the Psalmist, was melted in the midst of my bowels: but if to this dismay had been added the instant duty of soothing a disappointed child, either my wits must have left me or I must have committed some folly which could not have been repaired.

But it was not so.

I certainly made no secret of my distress. Mansel’s plan was in ruins. Without the Rolls we were stranded, and that in desolate country, with a strikingly beautiful creature who must neither see nor be seen. Take her back to the pleasance we could not, for Lafone was nearing Jezreel and the mine was about to be sprung: to walk to the nearest townlet would take us at least four hours: that there they would sell me a car was most improbable. (To hire a car with a driver was not to be thought of. Abduction is a business in which witnesses have no part.) And the dawn was coming, to wake a work-a-day world – a world Jenny must not inspect, save through the peephole of Anise: and Anise, and waiting Jill, were two hundred miles off… It must be remembered that I had a brain in my charge – a highly delicate member that must not be overwhelmed.

A child could have seen that I was troubled: but only a woman could have comforted me.

For a mile we had searched the road, in a hope which we knew was vain, and I was sitting down with my head in my hands, when an arm came to rest upon my shoulders and I felt Jenny’s breath upon my cheek.

‘Don’t worry, please, dear William. It’s sure to come right. Don’t think I mind about
the car
not being here. I know it isn’t your fault. And please tell me how to help you. I can’t bear to see you sad.’

I turned to look into her eyes.

‘You pretty darling,’ said I, ‘you’ve made me well.’ I stood up, with her hand in mine. ‘Let’s walk down the road, shall we? If
the car
doesn’t come to us, we must go to
the car
.’

Brave words, if you please. For all I knew, the car was two hundred miles off. But Jenny’s understanding had lifted up my heart.

The nearest townlet was Gobbo, the something slovenly servant of the villages round about, sprawling at the head of a valley fifteen miles off. Gobbo commanded cross roads: of these the east led to Lally, the north to Bayonne, the west to Spain and the south to the rugged country in which we stood. It follows that, going or coming, we always had threaded Gobbo: and though, I believe, we might have avoided the place and passed through Carlos instead, that way would have been far longer and much more rough. It was, therefore, a hundred to one that by setting our course for Gobbo, we were setting our course for Bell.

What had happened I could not divine and feared to surmise. Bell was no fool. If the Rolls had failed, by hook or by crook Bell would have contrived to replace her: he carried plenty of money against any such mishap. One thing only I knew – that whatever had happened had happened since Bell had left Mansel, for, cost what it might, Mansel would have had a car waiting at the bend of the road.

I thrust speculation aside, and tried to think what to do…

To my great relief, Jenny seemed more than content. She stepped by my side, exultant – a lovely creature enlarged. She found the world brave and spacious, the countless company of heaven a glorious thing. She revelled in the magic of the darkness: she drew deep breaths, commending the sweet, cool air. She had never before been abroad on a summer night.