Storm Music (1934) (8 page)

I had no doubt she was right. If I were to sit for four hours, still soaked to the skin, the muscle that I had injured was bound to grow worse.

"I can manage," I said feebly. "Can you take off your tie?"

I did so easily, but I could not put off my shirt, and it was she that stripped me and put on me the one which I had brought.

"Sit down," said Helena, firmly, "and try and believe I'm a nurse."

To my helpless shame she took off my shoes and socks and then, very glad of the darkness, I fought my way into dry trousers as best I could; but the effort left me sweating, for now each movement I made seemed to involve the muscle which I had hurt.

"And now you lie still," said Helena, lighting my torch. "I'm going to get some leaves."

Though to watch her labour for my comfort made me feel sick at heart, I knew it was wiser to let her have her way, for until I was healed I could not serve her, and when I lay still my back did not pain me at all.

Three times she went and came with her pretty coat full of dry leaves. These she poured into a hollow by the side of the beech, and when we had turned out Sabre, who liked the look of the bed, I found there an ease of body which I had not expected that night. And she sat down behind me, with her back to the trunk, with her shoeless feet against Sabre, to keep them warm.

"I wish I could thank you," I said. "I don't see why," she says. "It's very much to my interest to make you well. When we get to Holy Tree, I'm going to borrow some lotion and rub your back. I shall tell them we're brother and sister, so remember to treat me rough. It's really important, John, if you value my name. If you're polite, they'll know that you aren't my brother, and then my reputation will cease to exist."

"It's— it's all wrong," I said desperately.

"Would you rather I said, 'husband and wife'?"

It was a mischievous saying, but she put a sting in its tail.

I picked up the glove.

"I could do that all right," said I.

"Well, I couldn't," said Helena sharply. "I know. I'll say 'mistress and servant.' "

"What could be better?" said I, and got to my feet.

"What are you doing?" said Helena. "Taking my place," said I. "Servants don't lie abed while their mistress sits up."

"John. I beseech you... Your back."

"I shall be within call," I said stiffly. "If you need me, call 'John' or 'Spencer.' I answer to either name."

With that I strode off and left her. My dignity was short-lived, for before I had taken ten paces I stumbled over a root and fell to the ground.

As, I sat up dazed and shaken Helena's arm went about me, and a cool hand slid into mine.

"Don't be silly, John dear. You see, you need someone to help you. And I'd be so proud of my brother. He's very, very stupid, but there's something about him I like."

She seemed to be speaking from a distance, though I heard all the words she said.

"Oh, Nell!" I cried, and held her hand to my heart.

Then the faintness passed, and I was myself again.

As I let her go

'"We both know I'm your servant," I said.

THE fluting of a bird woke me, and a glance at the leaves above me showed that the dawn was up.

At once I rolled on to my side, but Helena's lodgement was empty, and she and Sabre were gone.

Very much ashamed of my manhood, I got to my feet, but I could see her nowhere, and since I was very foul, I determined to find some water before she returned.

My back was stiff, as was natural, but to my relief I found I could walk with ease, so I set off towards the clearing, for there, the night before, I had heard the song of a rill.

When I found this, I bathed my head and my hands, but before I had finished this very simple toilet, Sabre gave tongue beside me and then stood moving his tail and looking the way I had come.

A moment later my lady stepped out of the woods.

"How's his back?" said Helena, taking her seat on a tree stump six paces away.

I wrung the water out of my hair. "Stiff," said I, "but better."

"Rest is the medicine," says she. "We simply must find a farm. Besides, I want my breakfast."

Carefully I got to my feet.

"Heaven send it you quick," said I.

"We must go on walking east, but if after half an hour we don't strike a path or something—"

"I've struck one," says she. "I don't know where it leads to, but I think we might try to find out."

"While your servant slept," said I. "I'm not fit to be your brother."

"But that's just what a brother would have done; but a servant never. You see, if you'll only be natural, you'll play the part very well."

"I'm ashamed," said I. "I should have watched while you slept."

"Must we be on those terms?"

"Always," said I. "We should be on those terms if we were husband and wife."

Helena crossed her slim legs and set her chin in her palm.

"That's very interesting," she said. "You'll have to write and tell me when you get engaged. I should like to see you at work. It might come off, of course. But for your sake I hope it won't. If the girl allows you to serve her she'll make a rotten bad wife."

"It's a question of sex," said I.

"With strangers, yes. But a wife shares things with her husband— the rough as well as the smooth. It's her pleasure and pride, John. She doesn't want to suffer— she's not such a fool, but she'd rather suffer with you than let you suffer alone. Shut her out of that, and if she's a wife worth having you'd break her heart. Well, I'm not your wife, so next time we spend a night out you can watch, if you like, while I sleep; but we are no longer strangers, and when I ask for bread, don't give me a stone. And now come and see the path which your little sister found. It's only wide enough for one, so mind you let me go first."

"I'll always do that," said I, "but not out of courtesy."

"Why, then?" says Helena, rising.

"Because," said I, "I've no eyes in the back of my head."

Helena made no answer, but set her face to the forest with her chin in the air.

As she went, she glanced over her shoulder— with her eyebrows raised and the faintest of smiles on her mouth.

"You know, you're not trying," she said. "No brother would have said that."

NEARLY an hour had gone by when we saw before us no farm, but a little time-honoured cottage standing in a glade of the forest, with a garden of flowers about it and a hooded well to one side.

From ridge-pole to eaves its respectable roof of thatch was fully twice the height of the snow-white walls below, yet it did not overwhelm them, but only made me think of a hedgehog up on his feet. An open dormer window shone from this jolly pelt, and an old red chimney, pierced it, to send up a wisp of smoke. A second casement and a doorway were set in the wall that we faced, and the fireplace plainly belonged to that on our right, for there the chimney ran down to a sturdy penthouse with a doll's house window high up in its lime-washed side. The borders of the path to the doorway were gay with blooms, and the door itself standing open, the sunshine was bravely rendered by some pot or pan of copper that hung on the wall within.

WE were forty paces away when a young woman entered the doorway and stood looking into the garden alight with the sparkling flowers. For a moment she stared upon them. Then she leaned against the jamb, put her arm up to her eyes and began to weep. Helena and I stopped dead.

Then—

"You stay here," she said quietly, "and I'll go on and see what the trouble is. Perhaps we can straighten it out in return for a meal."

Twenty minutes went by before I saw her again, and then she came out of the garden with the lass that had stood at the door. The latter was smiling now, as she had been sad, and seemed as excited and eager as any child.

For a moment the two stood speaking.

Then the woman dropped a curtsy and started across the forest in evident haste.

Helena beckoned to me, and I got to my feet. As I came towards her:

"The trick," she said, "has been done. Our hostess has gone for petrol, and when she comes back, in two hours, she's going away for good— for three days at least to Salzburg. Our host, however, will remain. He's inside now, in the very best of humours and finding our use of his cottage an excellent joke."

"I hope he's getting your breakfast." "It's ready," said Helena, turning. "Bread and milk and honey, just as I said."

I followed her into the cleanest of tiny kitchens, all bright with old wood and copper, and smelling of sweet wood-smoke. Beneath the open window a table was laid. On the fair linen cloth was our breakfast— a truly scriptural meal, with bowls for cups and saucers, a knife for the bread like a hanger, and two jolly wooden spoons.

Sabre was lying on the flags in front of the hearth, and a pretty, fair-haired baby that might have been two years old was seated beside the Alsatian, trying to stuff a whistle into the great dog's mouth. Sabre suffered him gently,

moving his tail.

Helena sat down by the infant and drew him on to her lap.

"Max," she said, "this is my brother. He's rather nice."

Naturally the child ignored me. His eyes were on Helena's face.

I glanced at the steep stone stairway that led to the room above.

"And our host?" said I.

Helena looked up, laughing.

"This is our host," she said. "If you had any manners you'd come and give him a kiss."

I drank with some violence and set my bowl down on the cloth.

"All right," I said. "I can't help it. Do what you like. If the Countess Helena of Yorick is determined to dwell in a solitary two-roomed cottage with an imitation brother and infant- in-arms and a dog—"

"Till your cousin arrives, she is. Besides, he isn't in arms— he can walk beautifully. And now listen to me: Freda's man is in Salzburg; he's lying in hospital there and gradually getting better of a fever which nearly carried him off. Yesterday she got a letter saying that now she might visit him, but that on no account must she bring with her the child. I imagine there's a risk of infection which a grown-up can safely take. Well, that provision tore it, for she's no one to take the child. And that is why she was weeping. . . .

"I did the obvious deal. This place is just what we want. I offered to care for the baby and give her a present as well if my 'brother' and I might stay here until her return. She simply jumped at the bargain— could hardly believe her ears. As I told you, she's gone for petrol— I thought we'd better have that; and when she leaves for Salzburg she'll take a letter to your cousin, telling him what has happened and where we are. I need hardly say she's promised to hold her tongue."

So I sat down and wrote to Geoffrey, telling him what had happened and where we were. Retired though it was, the cottage was easy to find, for the path which Freda had taken led straight to cross roads in the forest some two miles off. The spot was known as Witchcraft, and was marked on the map.

It was nearer ten than nine when Freda returned; she was heavily laden, for she bore two gallons of petrol which she had begged of the farmer that sold her milk; and as well she had brought two chickens and a basket of new-laid eggs. What tale she had told I know not, but I think that it served her turn, for we were not once molested by curious eyes. Very fine she looked when she was ready to go, in her fair white linen embroidered with blue and gold and a scarlet kerchief binding her pretty, fair hair.

When she held the baby close she bowed her head. Then she set him down in his pen and wiped a tear from her cheek.

"The half of my heart," she said simply, "I leave with you. And I am content, my lady, because of the look in your eyes."

Two minutes later her kerchief was out of sight.

I took my ease for the most of that day, but while I am sure the repose did much for my back, it was Helena's use of the lotion that actually healed the strain. What the liniment was, I know not, and I do not think Freda knew, but I think it came out of the country and that some wise woman had made it that knew no pharmacopoeia. Be that as it may, by that evening I felt no pain when I stooped, and as far as I know from that time my back was well, for it never hurt me again.

Now Freda had advised us that a lad brought her milk every evening at six o'clock, but that he was well accustomed to finding no one at home; we therefore put out our pitcher at half-past five and, taking the baby with us, made our way into the forest and sat ourselves down out of view.

As I lighted my lady's cigarette:

"Tonight," I said, "I am going to get the Rolls. I'll fill her up at some pump and then find some place near Witchcraft and park her there. Her value apart, we simply must have that car. Without her we're tied by the leg."

"I shall come, too," said Helena. "Sabre can mind the baby and keep the house."

"I think," said I, "that you've done enough today. You've fetched and carried and nursed me and played with Max."

"It's been one of the laziest days that I've spent for years. I've idled and dreamed over everything that I've done. But you'll only have eggs tonight. I'll have to think over those chickens before I start upon them."

"I'm more than content," said I. "I never felt so fit in my life. That bread. . . ."

"It is good, isn't it?" said Helena. "And it is so easy to make. I thought it was terribly hard, but Freda's shown me the trick, and I don't think I can go wrong. Of course I can cook a little: Mother was awfully good and she made me learn." She lay back and looked at the sky. "Oh. John, why wasn't I born to a life like this? The life I lead is a duty— and that's the truth."

"We're not born to idylls," said I. "We've no such luck."

Helena crossed her ankles and laced her delicate fingers behind her head.

"D'you find it idyllic, too?"

"I tried to say so this morning."

Helena knitted her brows.

"Then you said it very badly," she said. "I thought you were jibbing at being alone with me."

"For me, that's the idyll," said I.

Helena turned her head and gave me a dazzling smile.

"John," says she, "that's very prettily put."

It was when we had eaten our supper and the infant was fast asleep that Sabre was given his orders and we set out with the petrol to seek the Rolls. The dusk would come in, I judged, by the time we had crossed the clearing and gained the track, and that was just what we wanted, for so we could use the daylight, yet be wrapped in the cloak of darkness by the time we came to the road. For all that, I was none too easy, for if, by some evil chance, friend Pharaoh had found the Rolls, his instinct might well have suggested that we should return at nightfall to try to recover the car. And if he was lying there, waiting ... The nearer we drew to the road the more I wished for Sabre, for he at least would have saved us from walking into a trap.

At length I could bear it no more.

"Helena," said I, "when we see the road before us, I want you to let me go on. It isn't very likely, but someone may be in the bushes, keeping an eye on the Rolls. And if they are, I must draw them, for touch that car I will not till I know that the coast is clear. It isn't as if we could start her and let her go. I've got to open the bonnet and fill up the vacuum tank."

"When you say 'draw them,' John, just what do you mean?"

"Make them declare their presence. I won't let them see me or hear me I promise you that."

"You won't fill up without me?"

"No," said I. "I'll leave the petrol with you."

Five minutes later, perhaps, the darkness ahead was lightened, and I knew we were approaching the road.

Gently I set down the cans.

"Will you wait here, Helena?" I whispered.

"Tell me exactly what you are proposing to do."

"It may be half an hour before I come back. I'm going to stand still and listen most of the time. When I move, I shall move in the shadows, always this side of the road. If I hear and see nothing at all, an acorn is going to fall from the oak tree above the car. It's going to fall on to the bonnet and it's going to make quite a noise. If anyone's there, that'll fetch them ... Acorns don't fall in June, but I'll bet Pharaoh doesn't know that."

Helena sighed.

"I wish we'd got Sabre. Never mind. I don't mind how long you're gone, if you'll only take care."

With my right hand upon my pistol, I moved like any shadow along the side of the track ...

Arrived at its mouth. I waited, straining my ears. So for perhaps three minutes. Then I stole round the corner and on to the edge of the road,

Since my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness which reigned in the track, when I looked down the road I could see very well, for the trees stood back from its sides and the starlit heaven above was shedding a definite light.

I could see the lovely indenture of the treetops against the sky; I could see the bulwarks of foliage, still as hangings of tapestry, walling the smooth highway; I could see the grey road, fading from substance to shadow and leading, it seemed, to the very realm of darkness, where even the stars were quenched.

And that was all I could see. The Rolls was gone!