"I like William," she said, decisively. "After all, as he says, one must live. Let"s leave the cloak under this hedge. Shall we? It"s like getting rid of the body. And I"ll buy a flaxen wig to-morrow. And do you think it would be a help if I rouged a little and wore blue spectacles?
It will be the saving of us, of course."
"I hope to heavens we get a motor in Tunbridge," said he. "You must be tired out."
"I"m not in the least tired," she said. "I"m stepping out like a man, don"t you think? I"ve enjoyed everything beyond words. What a world it is for adventures once you step outside the charmed circle of your relations. Look at all the things that have happened to us already!"
"I didn"t mean anything to happen except pleasant things," said he.
"Ah!" she said, with a fleeting seriousness, "life isn"t like that. But there"s been nothing but pleasant things so far--at least, almost nothing."
"Won"t you take my arm?" he said.
"What for?"
"To help you along, I suppose," he said, lamely.
She stopped expressly to stamp her foot. "I don"t want helping along,"
she said. "I"m not a cripple or a baby--and--"
He did not answer. And they walked on in silence through the starry, silent night. She spoke first.
"I don"t want helping along," she said. "But I"d like to take your arm to show there"s no ill-feeling. You take an arm on the way to dinner,"
she a.s.sured the stars, "and why not on the way to Tunbridge?"
The way to Tunbridge was short. They found a car, and the night held no more adventures for them.
But in a sheltered nook in the weir stream below Jezebel"s Lock a candle set up on a plate illuminated the green of alder and ash and the smooth blackness of the water, shedding on a lonely supper that air as of a festival which can only be conferred by candle-light shining on the green of growing leaves. There, out of sight of the towing-path, Mr.
William Beale, charmed to fancy and antic.i.p.ation by the possession of a golden milled token, made himself a feast of the "broken vittles" in the derelict Midlothian basket, and in what was left of the red wine of France toasted the lady of his adventure.
""Ere"s to "er," he said to the silence and mysteries of wood and water.
""Ere"s to "er. She was a corker, for sure. Sight too good for a chap like "im," he insisted, adding the natural tribute of chivalry to beauty; drank again and filled his pipe. Edward, from sheer force of habit, had smoothed the parting with tobacco.
"Not but," said William the Silent--"not but what I"ve known worse than "im, by long chalks. Ten bob a week--and "e"ll send it along, too--good as a pension. "E"ll send it along."
He did. William the Silent had not misjudged his man.
XI
THE GUILDHALL
"WHERE is Charles?" she asked next day.
Edward had called for her early, had paid the Midlothian"s bill and tipped the Midlothian"s servants, and now they were in a taxi on their way to Paddington. She had definitely put her finger on the map that morning, and its tip had covered the K"s of Kenilworth and Warwick. She was still almost breathless with the hurry with which she had been swept away from the safe anchorage of the hotel, "and couldn"t we have the hood down?" she added.
"Charles," said Edward, "is at present boarded out at a mews down Portland Road way, and I think we"d better keep the hood up. Look here!
I never thought of the newspapers. This is worse than ever."
He handed her the _Telegraph_. Yesterday"s advertis.e.m.e.nt was repeated in it--with this addition:
May be in company with tall, fair young man. Blue eyes, military appearance. Possesses large, white bull-terrier.
"Oh dear! They"ll track us down," she said, and laughed. "What sleuth-hounds they are! But they can"t do anything to me, can they? They can"t take me back, I mean. I"m twenty-one, you know. Can"t you do as you like when you"re twenty-one?"
She looked at the paper again, and now her face suddenly became clouded and her eyes filled with tears. "I never thought of that." She hesitated a moment and handed him the paper, pointing to the place with the finger that had found Warwick and Kenilworth. Below the advertis.e.m.e.nt touching the young man and the bull-terrier, he read:
SILVER LOCKS--Come back. I am ill and very anxious.
AUNT ALICE.
"That means... ?"
"It means me. I"m Silver Locks--it"s her pet name for me. I called my aunts the three bears once, when I was little, in fun, you know. And the others were angry--but _she_ laughed and called me Silver Locks. And she"s called it me ever since. I never thought about her worrying. What am I to do? I must go back. I thought it was too good to last, yesterday," she added, bitterly.
He put the admission away in a safe place, whence later he could take it out and caress it, and said, "Of course you must go back if you want to. But don"t do it without thinking. We meant to talk over our plans yesterday, but somehow we didn"t. Let"s do it to-day."
"But I can"t go to Warwick. I must go back to her--I must."
"If you do," he said, "you won"t go back to just her--you"ll go back to the whole miserable muddle you"ve got away from. You"ll go back to your other aunts and to your father. Besides, how do you know who put that advertis.e.m.e.nt in? Think carefully. Is the advertis.e.m.e.nt like her?"
"It"s like her to be anxious and kind," said she.
"I mean, is she the sort of woman to advertise that she"s ill? To advertise your pet name--and her own name--so that every one who knows you both and sees the advertis.e.m.e.nt will know that you are being advertised for? Is that like her?" He ended, astonished at his own penetration.
"No," she said, slowly, "it isn"t. And it isn"t like her to say she"s ill. She never complains."
"She wouldn"t use her illness as a lever to move events to her liking?"
"Never!" she said, almost indignantly.
"Then I think that this advertis.e.m.e.nt is some one else"s. Where does she live."
"Hyde Park Square."
"Let us telegraph her, and not go to Warwick."
They stopped the taxi and composed a message. He despatched it.
Did you put advertis.e.m.e.nt in paper to-day? And are you ill? I am quite well and will write at once. Wire reply to Silver Locks, General Post-Office.
Then they told the man to drive around Regent"s Park, to pa.s.s the time till there should be an answer.
In the park the trees were already brown, and on the pale, trampled gra.s.s long heaps of rags, like black grave-mounds, showed where weary men who had tramped London all night, moved on by Law and Order, inexorable in blue and silver, now at last had their sleep out, in broad sunshine, under the eyes of the richest city in the world. Little children, dirty and poor--their childhood triumphant over dirt and poverty--played happily in the gra.s.s that was less gra.s.s than dust.
"What a horrible place London is!" she said. "Think of yesterday."