The Goddess: A Demon/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
A CHECK AT THE START
We looked each other in the face.
"You heard it?" Her voice quavered.
"I heard something. It was only a woman's laughter. She is somewhere close at hand, but is hidden from us by the fog."
"It was That which did it. Do you think I can be wrong? It is with Mr. Lawrence. It is his shadow: it follows close behind him."
She was shivering from head to foot. Her eyes were distended, her face white; I was fearful of I knew not what. Hailing a passing hansom, I had practically to lift her into it. She seemed to have all at once grown helpless. I told the driver to take us to Victoria—fast. An idea had occurred to me. The Ostend boat train left at half-past five. We might be able to catch it. Anything was preferable to inaction. The sooner we were out of London the better it would be. She was still trembling as she sat beside me in the cab. I tried to calm her.
"You are too sensitive. It was only a trick of your imagination, you let it run away with you. If you are not careful you will be ill; then what shall I do?"
She came closer to me still.
"Save me! You will save me!"
It was like the pleading of a frightened child. The contact of her person with mine set me shivering, too; it was as if I were thrilling with a delicious pain.
"At present there is nothing from which to save you. When there is, I'll not be wanting, rest assured."
"Put your arm about me." I did as I was told, wondering if she were mad, or I. "How is it that I only feel safe when I am close to you—and the closer the safer?"
"It is because God is very good to me."
"To you? God is good to you?"
"Has He not put it into your heart to feel safe with me?"
"You think so? Take your arm away. I am better now. I am not—not such a coward. You think it is God who has put it into my heart to feel safe with you. I wonder!"
"I am sure."
"You are a strange man."
"I pray that you may not always think so."
"Have you—have you had many friends among women?"
"Never one; unless I may count you as a friend."
"Oh yes, you may count me—as a friend. Do you care for women?"
"I did not know it until now."
She laughed. I was glad to have lightened her mood.
"You are odd—you are really very quaint." She leaned out of the cab. "Where are we? I have not the least idea where you are taking me.
"To Victoria; to try to catch the Ostend boat."
"Ostend? Are we going there?"
"I think we'd better."
"But Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, but I really was not anticipating a trip to Ostend quite so soon. Just now you talked of Paris."
"And it may be Paris after all; only the Ostend boat goes first."
"And time's the essence of the matter. I see. Between this and the departure of the Paris train I run a risk of being arrested. That is to bring it very close."
I was still, hardly knowing what to say. What she said was true; this was a case in which, at any moment, truth might decline to be trifled with. She, too, was silent. Leaning back in her own corner, as far as possible from me, she looked forward into the fog. Starting for the other end of the world at a moment's notice was a commonplace event with me. An unexpected run to Brussels was to her a thing so strange as to be almost awful. I looked at my watch; called to the driver.
"Can't you press on a little faster? We shall lose our train."
"Why such hurry? Let us lose it."
On that point we disagreed; I was not disposed to lose it. But I said nothing. The man whipped up his horse. Presently he began to insinuate his way into the station yard, which was blocked with vehicles. I saw that for him to thread his way between them would be a work of time. Moments were precious.
"Come!" I said. "Let's get out. We shall reach the pavement quicker than he will, and the train is already due to start."
We descended into the road. Picking our steps between the horses' heads, we gained the station. I tore to the booking-office, she, laughing, close at my heels, as if the whole thing were a delightful jest.
"Two firsts to Brussels!"
"Too late, sir; train's just off." As the clerk spoke a whistle sounded. "There she goes. Platform's closed; you won't be able to catch her."
The lady's face was alive with smiles.
"There! After all our hurry! Isn't that annoying?"
She didn't look as if she thought it was annoying in the least. Boys were shouting out the editions of the evening papers. Placards were displayed on the bookstall close at hand. I saw her glance at one, which had already caught my own attention.
"'Imperial Mansions Murder. Extraordinary Scene at the Coroner's Inquest.' Has the inquest been held? And what has happened there? What does it mean by 'extraordinary scene'?"
I felt as if every one was on the point of calling out, "Here's the man who locked up the coroner's court! Here's the woman he's spiriting away!" The sudden sight of that placard had got on my nerves. I was brusque, brutal.
"Bother the inquest! What we've got to think about's that train."
"Indeed? So you can be bad-tempered if you like, and civil too. I was wondering if you were always a model of lamblike decorum."
"I beg your pardon, but—the fact is, I'd made up my mind to catch that train."
"Had you? And you'd also made up your mind that I shouldn't know what was in the papers. You're very considerate, Mr. Ferguson."
I glanced round, startled. Her outspoken mention of my name took me aback. No doubt all the world was talking of John Furguson; looking for him; wondering where he was. I did not want that crowd to learn that he was in its midst. My appearance of discomfiture she seemed to find amusing.
"Might I ask you just one question?"
"You are too hard on me; you may ask a thousand."
"Did you propose to take me all the way to Ostend without giving me anything to eat? Perhaps you're not aware that four o'clock is the actor's dinner-hour. I've not had a morsel of food all day."
"Miss Moore!"
Mine was the blunder then; I could have bitten my tongue off for uttering the name. A man behind turned towards us as if he had been struck by it—or I thought so. Had he known it, he was never so near having his head twisted off his shoulders. Had he allowed a sign of recognition to have escaped him, there would have been murder done. But he was a mild-looking, grey-haired person, and the sight of the expression with which I regarded him seemed to fill him with such astonishment, to say nothing else, that he retreated precipitately backwards, as if fearful that I was about to devour him then and there. I stumbled on.
"I entreat your forgiveness, but I—I hadn't the faintest notion you were hungry."
"No—you wouldn't have."
"Meaning that I am the sort of person who never does know anything? You are right; I am. But where shall we go? I believe there's some sort of place in the station where we can get something to eat."
"The nearest, please."
"But—I'm afraid that's horrid."
"Don't you know any place which isn't horrid?"
Scarcely ever before had my constitutional stupidity been so much to the front. The missing of the train, the discovery that I had actually proposed to take my companion to Ostend foodless, and in a state approaching to starvation, the fact that the paper-boys were repeating, under my very nose, their parrot cry, "Extraordinary scene at an inquest!"—these things, joined to the confusion around, seemed to addle my brain. For the moment I could not think where I could take her to get something decent to eat. Still doubtful, I was making for the station restaurant when some one caught me by the arm. It was Mr. Isaac Bernstein. He seemed to be half-beside himself with excitement; he grasped me with a vigour which was perhaps unconscious.
"Have the goodness, Mr. Bernstein, to release my arm."
He burst into voluble speech.
"This is more than I can stand, and I'm not going to have it. Don't touch me, or I'll call for help. There are policemen close by and I'm not without protection! Even a worm will turn, and now I'm going to; so just you listen to what I've got to say."
"Your affairs, Mr. Bernstein, have no interest for me. Did you hear me ask you to release my arm?"
"It's as much your affair as it is mine—every bit as much." He waved his umbrella. "There's Lawrence there."
"Who?"
"Lawrence! He's been trying to do a bolt—to Ostend or some infernal place or other, the other side of the world, for all I know—meaning to dish me as he's done the rest of you. But I was on to him. He'd have been off in spite of me only he was drunk, or mad, or something, and they wouldn't have him in the train. Now he's behaving like a howling lunatic." Releasing my arm, Mr. Bernstein took off his hat to wipe his brow. "I believe he's raving mad. That's him! Did you ever hear anything like the row he's making?"
As a matter of fact, while the excited gentleman was speaking, I had become conscious that something interesting was taking place on the platform from which the boat-train had departed. The thing was becoming more obvious every second. Apparently the railway officials were taking more or less vigorous measures to induce somebody to quit the station precincts. This person, who was the centre of a curious and rapidly increasing crowd, was announcing his opinions on divers subjects, and on the subject of railway men in particular, at the top of his voice and in strident tones with which I seemed familiar.
A sudden premonition swept upon me that matters were rushing to a head; that a few hours, a few minutes, even, would see the whole mystery made clear. Though even then I had not an inkling of the form which the explanation would take. As my eyes wandered I saw, peeping at us from out of the crowd, my companion's precious relative, Mr. Thomas Moore. For some reason the young gentleman looked as if he were half beside himself with fear; he was pasty white. When he perceived that I had recognised him he slunk out of sight like a frightened cur.
I glanced at the lady to learn if she also had observed her brother. From her bearing I judged not, though as I eyed her I understood that she also had seen the signs of the times, the shadows which coming events were casting before, and that she, too, realised that the hour, the moment, was big with her fate and mine.