Henry went away by an early train, and Jane came down to what, as a
child, she had once described as a crumpled kind of day. She remembered
“darling Jimmy” looking at her in a vague way, and saying in his gentle,
cultivated voice:
“Crumpled, my dear Jane? What do you mean by crumpled?”
And Jane, frowning and direct:
“I mean a thing that’s got crumps in it, Jimmy darling,” and when Mr.
Carruthers did not appear to find this a sufficient explanation, she had
burst into emphatic elucidation:
“I was cross, and Nurse was cross, and you were cross. Yes, you were,
and I had only just opened the study door ever so little; and I didn’t
mean to upset the milk or to break the soap-dish; and oh, Jimmy, you
must know what a crump is, and this day has been just chock-full of
them. That’s why I said it was crumpled.”
The day of Henry’s departure was undoubtedly a crumpled day. To start
with, a letter from Mr. Molloy awaited Jane at the breakfast table. It
began, “My dear Renata,” and was signed, “Your affectionate father,
Cornelius R. Molloy.” Mr. Ember remarked at once upon the unusual
circumstance of there being a letter for Miss Molloy, and Jane, acting
on an impulse which she afterwards regretted, replied:
“It’s from my father. Do you want to see what he says?”
“Thank you,” said Jeffrey Ember. He glanced casually at the bald
sentences in which Mr. Molloy hoped that his daughter was well, and
expressed dislike of the climatic conditions which he had encountered on
the voyage. His eyes rested for a moment upon the signature, and quite
suddenly he cast a bombshell at Jane.
“What does the ‘R’ stand for?” he said.
Jane had the worst moment of panic with which her adventure had yet
provided her. She was about to say that she did not know, and take the
consequences, when Mr. Ember saved her.
“Is it Renatus?” he asked. Jane broke into voluble speech.
“Oh no,” she said, “my name has nothing to do with his. I was called
Renata after an aunt, my mother’s twin sister. They were exactly alike
and devoted to each other, and I was called after my Aunt Renata, and
her only daughter was called after my mother.” Here Jane bit the tip of
her tongue and stopped, but she had not stopped in time. Mr. Ember’s
eyes had left Molloy’s signature and were fixed upon her face.
“And your mother’s name?” he said.
“Jane,” faltered Jane.
“And are you and your cousin as much alike as your mothers were?”
Jane stared at her plate. She stared so hard that the gilt rim seemed to
detach itself and float like a nimbus above a half-finished slice of
buttered toast.
“I—I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t remember my mother, and I never
saw my aunt.” Once again she bit her tongue, and this time very hard
indeed. She had been within an ace of saying, “My Aunt Jane——”
“But you have seen your cousin; by the way, what is her surname?”
“Smith—Jane Smith.”
“You have seen your cousin, Jane Smith? Are you alike?”
“I have only seen her once.” Jane grasped her courage, and looked
straight at Mr. Ember. He either knew something, or this was just idle
teasing. In either case being afraid would not serve her. A spice of
humour might.
“You’re frightfully interested in my aunts and cousins,” she said. “Do
you want to find another secretary just like me for some one? But I’m
afraid my Cousin Jane isn’t available. She’s married to a man in
Bolivia.”
At this point Lady Heritage looked over the edge of _The Times_ with a
frown, and the conversation dropped. Jane finished her buttered toast,
and admired herself because her hand did not shake.
Lady Heritage seemed to be in a frowning mood. This, it appeared, was
not one of the days when she disappeared behind the steel grating with
Ember, leaving Jane to pursue her appointed tasks in the library.
Instead, there was a general sorting of correspondence and checking of
work already done, with the result that Jane found herself being played
upon, as it were, by a jet or spray of hot water. The temperature
varied, but the spray was continuous. A letter to which Lady Heritage
particularly wished to refer was not to be found, a package of papers
wrongly addressed had come back through the Dead Letter Office, and an
unanswered invitation was discovered in the “Answered” file. By three
o’clock that afternoon Jane had been made to feel that it was possible
that the world might contain a person duller, more inept, and less
competent than herself—possible, but not probable.
“I think you had better go for a walk, Miss Molloy,” said Lady Heritage;
“perhaps some fresh air....” She did not finish the sentence, and Jane,
only too thankful to escape, made haste from the presence.
Ember had been right when he said that the grounds were extensive.
Jane skirted the house and made her way through a space of rather
formally kept garden to where a gravel path followed the edge of the
cliff. For a time it was bordered by veronica and fuchsia bushes, but
after a while these ceased and left the bare down with its rather coarse
grass, tiny growing plants, tangled brambles, and bright yellow clumps
of gorse. The path went up and down. Sometimes it almost overhung the
sea. Always a tall hedge of barbed wire straggled across the view and
spoilt it.
The fact that a powerful electric current ran through the wire and made
it dangerous to touch added to the dislike with which she regarded it.
It was a grey afternoon with a whipping wind from the north-west that
beat up little crests of foam on the lead-coloured waves and made Jane
clutch at her hat every now and then. She thought it cold when she
started, but by and by she began to enjoy the sense of motion, the
wind’s buffets, and the wide, clear outlook. At the farthest point of
the headland she stopped, warm and glowing. The path ran out to the edge
of the cliff. On the landward side the rock rose sharply, naked of
grass, and heaped with rough boulders. A small cave or hollow ran
inwards for perhaps four feet. In front of it, in fact almost within it,
stood a stone bench pleasantly sheltered by the overhanging rock and
curving sides of the hollow. Jane felt no need of shelter. Instead of
sitting down, she climbed upon the back of the bench and, steadying
herself against a rock, looked out over the wire and saw how the cliff
fell away, sheer at first, and then in a series of jagged, tumbled steps
until the rocks went down into the sea.
After a time Jane scrambled down and was hesitating as to whether she
would turn or not when a sound attracted her attention.
The path ended by the stone bench, but there seemed to be quite a
practicable grassy track beyond.
The sound which Jane had heard was the sound made by a stone which has
become displaced on a hillside. It must have been a very heavy stone. It
fell with a muffled crash. Then came another sound which she could not
place. She looked all round and could see nothing.
Something frightened her.
All at once she realised that she was a long way from the house and
quite out of sight. Turning quickly, she began to walk back along the
way that she had come, but she had not gone a dozen paces before she
heard scrambling footsteps behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she
saw the man George Patterson standing beside the stone seat which she
had just left. He made some sort of beckoning sign with his hand and
called out, but a puff of wind took away the words, and only a hoarse,
and as she thought, threatening sound reached her ears.
Without waiting to hear or see any more she began to run, and with the
first flying step that she took there came upon her a blind, driving
panic which sent her racing down the path as one races in a nightmare.
George Patterson started in pursuit. He called again twice, and the
sound of his voice was a whip to Jane’s terror. After at the most a
minute he gave up the chase, and Jane flew on, pursued by nothing worse
than her own fear.
Just by the first fuchsia bush she ran, blind and panting, into the very
arms of Mr. Ember. The impact nearly knocked him down, and it may be
considered as certain that he was very much taken aback.
Jane came back to a knowledge of her whereabouts to find herself
gripping Mr. Ember’s arm and stammering out that something had
frightened her.
“What?” inquired Ember.
“I—don’t—know,” said Jane, half sobbing, but already conscious that she
did not desire to confide in Jeffrey Ember.
“But you _must_ know.”
“I don’t.”
With a little gasp Jane let go, and wished ardently that her knees would
stop shaking. Ember looked at her very curiously.
Jane had often wondered what his queer cold eyes reminded her of.
Curiously enough, it was now, in the midst of her fright, that she knew.
They were like pebbles—the greeny-grey ones which lie by the thousand on
the seashore. As a rule they were dull and hard, just as the pebbles are
dull and hard when they are dry. But sometimes when he was angry, when
he cross-questioned you, or when he looked at Lady Heritage the dullness
vanished and they looked as the pebbles look when some sudden wave has
touched them. Jane did not know when she disliked them most.
They brightened slowly now as they fixed themselves upon her, and Ember
said:
“Do you know, I was hoping I might meet you. We haven’t had a real talk
since you came.”
“No,” said Jane.
Her manner conveyed no ardent desire for conversation.
“Shall we walk a little?” pursued her companion; “the wind’s cold for
standing. I really do want to talk to you.”
Jane said nothing at all. If Ember wished to talk, let him talk. She was
still shaky, and not at all in the mood for fencing.
“Well, how do you like being here? How do we strike you?”
Ember spoke quite casually, and Jane thought it was strange that he and
Henry should both have asked her the same question. Her reply, however,
differed.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t you? My dear Miss Renata, what a really extraordinary number of
things you—don’t know! You don’t know what frightened you, and you don’t
know whether you like us or not.”
Jane’s temper carried her away.
“Oh yes, I do,” she said viciously, and looked full at the bright pebble
eyes.
Ember laughed.
“What do you think of Lady Heritage? Wonderful, isn’t she?”
“Oh yes,” said Jane. “She’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
Too beautiful, don’t you think?”
If she desired to interest Jeffrey Ember, it appeared that she had
succeeded. His attention was certainly arrested.
“Why too beautiful?”
Jane had an impulse towards frankness.
“I think she’s too ... everything. She has so many gifts, it does not
seem as if there could be scope for them all.”
Ember looked at Jane for a moment. Then he looked away. In that moment
Jane saw something—she could not really tell what. The nearest that she
could get to it was “triumph.” Yes, that was it, triumph.
As he looked away he said, very low, “She will have scope enough,” and
there was a little tingling silence.
He broke it in an utterly unforeseen manner. With an abrupt change of
voice he asked:
“Ever learn chemistry?”
“No,” said Jane, and then wondered whether she was telling the truth
about Renata.
“’M—know what a formula is?”
Jane put a dash of ignorant conviction into her voice:
“Oh, I think so—oh yes, of course.”
“Well, what is it?”
She looked puzzled.
“It’s difficult to explain things, isn’t it? Of course I know
‘formulate,’ and er—‘formal.’ But it’s—it’s something learned, isn’t
it?”
Ember’s sarcastic smile showed for a moment. With a horrid inward qualm
Jane wondered whether she had overdone Renata’s ignorance.
“A formula is a prescription,” said Ember slowly. “If you remember that,
I think you’ll find it all quite simple. So that Formula ‘A’ is simply a
prescription for making something up, labelled ‘A’ for convenience’
sake.”
Jane let her eyes become quite round.
“Is it?” she said in the blankest tone at her command. “But ... but what
is Formula ‘A,’ Mr. Ember?”
“That, my dear Miss Renata, is what a good many people would like to
know.”
“Would they? Why?”
“They would. In fact, some of them—person or persons unknown—wanted to
know so much that they have gone to the length of stealing Formula ‘A.’
That, at least, is Captain March’s opinion, and the reason for his visit
here. So I should be careful, very careful indeed, about betraying any
knowledge of Formula ‘A.’”
Jane whisked round, stared blankly, and said in largest capitals:
“ME?”
Then, after a pause, she burst out laughing. “What do you mean?”
“You either know, or you don’t know,” said Jeffrey Ember. “If you don’t
know, I’m not going to tell you. If you do, I have just given you a
warning. A very valuable Government secret has been stolen, and if
Captain March were to suspect that you were in any way involved—well, I
suppose ... I need not tell you that the consequences would be serious
beyond words.”
Jane gazed at him in a breathless delight which she hoped was not
apparent. The day had been singularly lacking in pleasantness, but it
was undoubtedly pleasing to receive a solemn warning of the dreadful
fate that might overtake her if Henry should suspect that she knew
anything about Formula “A.”
“But I haven’t the slightest idea what Formula ‘A’ can be,” she said.
“It sounds frightfully exciting. Do tell me some more. Was it stolen?
And how could anything be stolen here?”
“Who frightened you?” he said suddenly.
Jane caught her breath.
“It was a stone,” she said. “I don’t know why it frightened me so. It
fell over the edge of the cliff and gave me a horrid nightmare-ish sort
of feeling. I started running and then I couldn’t stop. It was
frightfully stupid of me.”
They walked on a few paces. Then Ember said:
“Captain March will probably come down here again. I managed to save you
from an interview with him this time, but if he comes again, and if he
sees you, remember there is only one safe way for you—you know nothing,
you never have known anything, as far as you are concerned there is
nothing to know. You shouldn’t find that difficult. You have quite a
talent for not knowing things. Improve it.” He paused, smiled slightly,
and went on, “You said just now that it was frightfully stupid of you to
be frightened. Sometimes, Miss Renata, it is a great deal more stupid
not to be frightened. Believe me, this is one of those times.”
They walked home in silence.