Читать книгу Outrageous Fortune - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 8

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He woke in the morning to the sound of Tom Williams clattering down the stairs and being softly hushed by Min. He was out of bed in a minute and at the door.

“I say, lend me a razor—there’s a good chap!”

He found Tom embarrassed but friendly. The razor was produced, and Min brought him hot water and asked him timidly if he felt better. When he said, “I don’t feel better—I feel well,” she looked pleased; but when he added, “I expect I look like a cut-throat,” she coloured and ran away.

He shaved, dressed himself, and was relieved to find himself no more than just a little shaky. His clothes he discovered in a neat pile upon a shelf screened by a chintz curtain. The suit had been pressed, but it still had a smell of sea-water about it; one or two rents had been neatly mended. He frowned at the clothes. They fitted him, so he supposed that they were his; but he couldn’t remember them—he couldn’t remember anything.

When he was dressed, he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. It was just as if a black gulf of nothingness were cutting him off from everything that had happened to him up till now. On this side of the gulf his mind was working in a perfectly normal manner. Yesterday, for instance, was on this side of the gulf, and he remembered all about yesterday; he could have repeated his conversation with Nesta verbatim. But as to what had happened to him on the other side of the gulf, he had only her statements to go by. He went over them with a sort of puzzled horror.

His name was Jim Riddell.

He was married.

He had married Nesta Williams at the Grove Road registry office on July 25th.

He had been on his way to Glasgow when the Alice Arden came to grief.

He had been going to Glasgow to “get off the map.”

He ran his hands through his hair and asked himself why—and why—and why?

Why had he married a woman who hadn’t the faintest atom of attraction for him? You may marry a woman for her looks, or for money, or for ambition, or for purely animal reasons, or for pity, or because you happen to love her. Not a single one of these reasons applied to Nesta Riddell. She was not an object of pity; the Williams were certainly not well-to-do; and mentally and physically she repelled him. Over and above all this, he had a sense of her strangeness. He could not believe that he had held her in his arms, that they had kissed. She was stranger to him than someone whom he had never met—far more deeply strange than any of the forgotten people on the wrong side of the black gulf which cut him off from his past.

He left that.

Why had he been going to Glasgow?

Nesta had given him the answer—to “get off the map.”

Why had he got to “get off the map?”

The answer to that was somewhere on the other side of the gulf.

He went over everything that had happened yesterday down to the time when he had fallen asleep to the faint sound of Jack Payne’s orchestra through the partition wall. He had slept without waking. He had slept without waking, but not without dreaming. He leaned his head on his hands, and knew that those sleeping hours had not been spent in unconsciousness. The shadows of swift clashing events moved in them. They were like the shadows of fierce darting fish seen through waters veiled by mist. Mist—fog. Fog came into it—fog, and a voice. His voice? Behind the fog, strange violent things, happening at an incredible speed, flashing through his mind too quickly to be grasped..... like beads of light, strung on a dark chain..... like a kid’s green beads. For an instant he saw a small brightly lighted picture. The light came from above, and swinging to and fro beneath it was a string of square green stones. They swung from a man’s hand. There were eight of them—big, square, green stones; a double chain of pearls between every two. He saw the man’s hand, and the square green stones, and the light shining down on them. The voice said, “Like a kid’s green beads,” and everything went dark.

Some time after this Nesta was at the door. He thanked heaven that he was up and dressed. If he had had to lie there whilst she sat on the edge of his bed and talked, he might not be able to hide the violence of his recoil. Women always bullied a man when they had him at a disadvantage. The thought of yesterday set his teeth on edge. To-day they would meet on equal terms, and he would try and remember that the situation was a horrible one for her. For himself it was very nearly intolerable. He hadn’t a job, and as far as he knew, he hadn’t a penny in the world. What was he to do? Live on Nesta——borrow from Nesta? The situation was not only nearly, but quite, intolerable.

These thoughts went to and fro in his mind as they sat at breakfast in the small hot kitchen.

Tom Williams bolted a couple of rashers, gulped down his tea, and was off, saying that he would be late. The chug-chug of his motor-cycle came back through the thin walls of the little house.

It appeared that Tom has a partnership in a small garage. The car that had gone to Elston was out of stock. Tom was hoping to sell her to-day; there was a customer coming in at nine. That was why he was in such a hurry. Tom was a wonderful salesman.

With recovered confidence Min began to tell him how wonderful Tom was at almost everything—“Why, he can cook as well as I can. And every bit of paper in this house is what he hung himself.” It was a great relief to have Min’s prattle to get them through the meal. She had shy smiles for him now and no longer kept her eye on the door. So much for a shave!

When breakfast was over, he spoke to Nesta directly.

“Is there somewhere where we can talk?”

With no more than a nod she led the way into the parlour, with its saddle-back suite in bright shades of red and blue, its crimson Axminster square, and its silver photograph frames. There were three pink geraniums on the window-sill between blue plush curtains, and on the mantelpiece there was a green vase and a blue vase, and a pink and blue china clock supported on either side by a cherub with pink roses in its hair, and a pink ribbon round its waist. The fireplace was full of white shavings in imitation of the white shavings in Min’s mother’s parlour at Southsea, and the lace curtains which hung together inside the plush ones were also a pious copy. Presently there would be an aspidistra. Min was saving up for one. She had already saved enough out of her housekeeping money to buy a white woolly hearth-rug, and the aspidistra was to come next. The paper so fondly hung by Tom displayed a trellis covered with very large sweet peas in shades of sky-blue, lavender and grey. They crowded in upon the little room and narrowed it to the dimensions of one of those boxes with gay linings which are sold to hold sweets or fancy stationery.

Into this room, so new, so garish, so commonplace, there came these two angry, incongruous people; and at once its slight emptiness became charged with strain, pressure, resistance.

Nesta waited for him to begin. She stood with her back to the window, leaning forward over one of the red and blue chairs in a would-be easy attitude. He walked to the woolly mat, turned his back on the cherubs, and said what he had planned to say.

“This is a rotten deal for you. I want to tell you I’m awfully sorry about it.”

Heavens! How incredibly difficult she made it! His words, his efforts to get her point of view, slipped back from the hard surface she turned towards him. It was like seeing a fly slip on a pane of glass. She was angry, hard, resentful, cold. But there was something else. He could feel the pressure of her will. Why should she be putting out her will against him like this? It got his back up. It made it too damned difficult to feel or say the decent thing. What was she to him after all, but a stranger whom he disliked? If she pressed him like this, he would let her see it. But of course he would try not to do that—only she was making it damned difficult.

He said, “I really am sorry,” and the room filled again with her scornful silence.

She stood there leaning over the back of the chair with bright close-set eyes and just a hint of an angry smile breaking the straight line of her lips. There was something secret about that smile, something that said, “Take care—I can be even with you if I like.” Behind his resentment he felt a creeping fear. What was there between them to make her look like that? What was there between them anyhow?

He spoke before he knew what he was going to say.

“Why do you look at me like that? What’s behind all this?”

“Ah!” said Nesta very softly. “You’d like to know—wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I should.”

“I wonder whether you’ll like it as much when you do know?”

“I shall know more about that when you’ve told me.”

She nodded.

All at once the tension was less. She said in an easy, ordinary voice,

“Sure you can’t remember anything, Jimmy?”

“I’ve told you I can’t.”

“Then why do you talk about the emeralds in your sleep?”

It was exactly as if she had come towards him with a smile and then thrown a knife. He had seen knives thrown like that—a dago trick—he didn’t know where or when, but he’d seen it. All right—he’d teach her to throw knives at him.

He looked at her with an effect of wooden surprise.

“Do you mind saying that again?”

She said it again, louder this time.

“Why did you talk about the emeralds in your sleep?”

“What emeralds?”—but in his mind there was a lighted space where eight square green stones swung from a man’s hand—eight square green stones, linked two and two with pearls.

“ ‘Like a kid’s green beads—’ ” said Nesta with her eyes upon his face.

A pulse hammered in his temples. Where did she get that? Someone had said that before ... a voice ... his voice?

“You talked in your sleep,” she said. Then she dropped her voice. “Jimmy—where are they?”

He wrenched away from the picture of the square green stones.

“Will you tell me what you are talking about?”

“Will you tell me you don’t know?”

“Yes, I will. I haven’t an idea what you are talking about.”

Nesta was smiling. When she smiled, she showed sharp uneven teeth, too small, too close, too pointed. Her brows still frowned, and her eyes were as cold as steel. He had never seen a woman with a sharper, colder look. And all the time she was putting out her will against his. It angered him, like being pushed in a crowd.

“You wouldn’t know an emerald if you saw one, I suppose?” Then, with a change of voice, “Jimmy, we’ve been partners all through—you simply can’t go back on me like this. Where have you put them?”

He stuck his chin in the air.

“What’s the good of talking like that? I don’t remember anything. You say, where have I put them—and I keep on telling you I don’t know what you’re talking about. How much farther do you think that’s going to get us?”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“No, I don’t.”

Something hung in the balance. He saw her checked, hesitating, uncertain. Then with an impatient movement she came round the chair.

“You want me to tell you things?”

“If there are things I ought to know.”

She laughed then.

“Well, we might as well sit down.”

“Thanks—I’d rather stand.”

“And I’d rather sit—and I’m hanged if I’ll get a crick in the neck talking up to you.”

She dropped into one of the blue and red chairs, and rather unwillingly he took the other. Nesta threw herself back, lit a cigarette, and smoked for a minute in silence. He was determined not to speak to her. At last she said, with an edge to her voice.

“If you’re playing a game with me, you’ll be sorry for it.”

He lifted his hand from the arm of the chair and let it fall again.

“I’ve got nothing to say to that. I thought you were going to explain what you were talking about.”

She said, “Explain!” on an acrid note of scorn.

“If you’re not going to explain—” He made as if to rise.

“Oh, I’ll explain. I hope you’ll like the explanation! Do you really need one? If you do, it may come as a bit of a shock to you.”

“Do you mind coming to the point?”

Nesta laughed.

“Have you never heard of the Van Berg emeralds?”

He shook his head.

“Sure? Because you’ve got them somewhere. You took them, you know.”

He experienced a horrible sliding sensation. It was as if the room had tilted. The chair in which he was sitting tilted. His thoughts slid, but only for a moment. Then he was looking fixedly at a point a little to the left of Nesta’s head and saying quite quietly,

“Hadn’t you better begin at the beginning?”

She drew at her cigarette and blew out the smoke.

“The beginning? That’s before my time. I can’t go any farther back than March.”

“Then perhaps you’ll begin there.”

She hesitated again, bent a suspicious glance upon him, and said angrily.

“If you’re making game of me—”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. This was the sort of woman who might very easily get herself brained. She exasperated him as much as she repelled him. And he had married her! In heaven’s name—why?

“All right, I’ll begin. And don’t blame me if I’m telling you what you know already. Every heard of a place called Packham?”

He shook his head, and then was aware of the name playing hide-and-seek with his thoughts.

“Well, that’s funny—because that’s where we ran into each other. You don’t remember that?”

He shook his head again.

“Well, we did. Mr Entwhistle was abroad, and the Hall was let to Mr Van Berg—Mr and Mrs Elmer Van Berg. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“No.” The hide-and-seek went on.

“Mr Van Berg had just given her the emeralds. His uncle, old Peter Van Berg, left them to him. He was the second richest man in America, and he’d spent half his life collecting emeralds. His nephews got the lot, and he took Packham Hall and gave them to his wife, and she was going to be presented in them and splash about London with the most valuable set of emeralds in the world. She was crazy about them.” She stopped, tilted up her chin, blew out a cloud of smoke, and added, “So were you.”

He did not allow himself to move.

“Well?” he said.

Nesta laughed.

“Well, that’s where I came in. You tried pretty hard to make me believe you were crazy about me, but you needn’t imagine I was such a fool as to believe you. You were crazy about the emeralds, and you needn’t have troubled to make love to me, because I’d taken the length of your foot in the first five minutes.”

“But you married me.”

“Did you think I was going to trust you? I married you because I meant to get my share.”

“And why did I marry you?” said Jim Riddell pleasantly.

Nesta coloured high.

“For what you could get out of me,” she said. “You wanted my help, and you thought it was safer.”

“It’s very interesting,” said Jim. “Won’t you go on?”

“Interesting!” She struck her cigarette against the arm of the chair and sent the ash flying.

“Very. Do you mind telling me how you helped?”

“I was staying with old Caroline Bussell. I’ve known her all my life—she’s some sort of twenty-eighth cousin. She’s been housekeeper at the Hall since the year one, and she does what she likes with Mr Entwhistle. When you spoke to me that day in the drive—”

“Yes?”

“I was going to go next day, because the Van Bergs were coming. I will say you had a nerve.”

“What did I do?”

She stared at him resentfully.

“Why you got me to work it so that I stayed on. It was quite easy for old Caroline. She said I was her cousin and the Van Bergs didn’t care. And then—”

“And then?”

She reached out for another cigarette, struck a match, and looked at him over the little yellow flame.

“Are you trying to make me believe I’m telling you something you don’t know?”

“I can’t make you believe anything,” said Jim.

She threw the match into the grate just short of the spangled shavings.

“Oh, have it your own way! Do you want me to tell you how you pinched the emeralds?”

He had himself well in hand. He said coolly,

“I stole them?”

Nesta laughed.

“You make me tired, Jimmy Riddell! I stole them!” She tried to mimic his voice. “Do you think you can act the innocent with me like that after the way I’ve heard you talk in your sleep? Why, you’ve never stopped talking, and if I hadn’t got you out of that hospital in double quick time, we should all have been inside.” She laughed again at his blank look and flung out, “Jug—quod—stir! Haven’t ever done time, I suppose? Well you will over this if you don’t cure yourself of talking at night.”

He leaned forward with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand.

“You say I took these emeralds?”

“I say you did—and I’ll say it was a pretty nippy bit of work. Pity you shot him, though.”

He jerked away from the word.

“What are you saying?”

“You shouldn’t have carried a gun,” said Nesta maliciously. “I said so all along.”

He got up. His spine had gone cold. He felt the sweat break out upon his temples.

“What’s that you’re saying?”

Nesta got up too.

“I’m saying that you shot Mr Van Berg.”

He went over to the mantelpiece, leaning on it with his two hands, his head bent between them, his eyes staring blankly at the spangled shavings in the grate. What damned nightmare was this? He had broken into a house, stolen property, shot a man for a handful of green stones ..... eight square green stones—chained two by two with pearls—swinging from a man’s hand. Whose hand? Van Berg’s hand? He could see it under the light. It was as plain as anything he had seen in all his life—a powerful hand, with spatulate fingers and an old healed scar running from the lower knuckle of the first finger to the root of the thumb. He didn’t see Min’s carefully polished grate with the dazzle of shavings and the small bright blue tiles; he saw Van Berg’s hand with the scar on it, and he knew how the scar had come there. Out of all the things that he had forgotten he remembered this one—that Van Berg had got that scar playing with a pet monkey. No, it wasn’t a bite. The monkey had got fooling with a razor. It was a clean cut. He had forgotten everything in the world, but he hadn’t forgotten Van Berg’s monkey.

His head swam for a moment. Then he straightened up and half turned, still leaning on the mantelpiece. He caught a curious look on Nesta’s face, a watching look, but it went past him.

“Is Van Berg dead?” he said.

“Not yet,” said Nesta.

“Is he bad?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“If he doesn’t die for a year and a day they can’t hang you.”

His voice came at her with an angry leap.

“Is he bad?”

“So so.” And then, “It’s not your fault he’s not dead. You let him have it all right.”

He went over to the window and threw it up. He had to push past the pink geraniums; one of the bright blooms snapped off. The room had suddenly seemed crowded with used air. Outside, a light wet wind blew veeringly. There was rain in the wind, but it would not fall yet awhile. It struck damp and cool against his face, and he was glad of it.

Nesta’s voice came from close behind him.

“Where did you put the emeralds, Jimmy?”

He turned blindly, pushed past her, and went blundering through the door and out into the street.