COUNSEL OF PERFECTION
Lead such temptations by the head and hair,
Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,
That so he may do battle and have praise.
_The Ring and the Book._
Gardiner was just one second too late. As he reached the back door the
police arrived at the front; and they saw him. The Wrotham man, who had
known him as a wicked small boy, raised a sort of view-hallo and dashed
into the hall in pursuit. But Tom's broad figure was in the way (not
obstructing the police, oh dear, no, nothing further from his mind,
just solidly, immovably stupid!); and while Cotterill dodged round him,
Gardiner had time to slip through the back door, slam it and turn the
key in his pursuer's face.
He was not one of those unready mortals who are flustered by a sudden
strain. On the contrary, it braced him. He dragged Tom's bicycle out of
the shed, and ran it up the kitchen garden to the gate which led into
the glebe; then across the meadow, the mild cows shying and backing
with lowered heads as he rushed by to a second gate, giving on the
road. Nobody in sight yet, the coast still clear. He heaved his machine
over the bars, vaulted them himself and rode for his life.
Woodlands stands at the end of a trident of lanes, whose left arm
points towards Otford, its right towards Kingsdown, while the shank
leads northwards through Farningham to Dartford. Any one would
naturally conclude that a fugitive would choose this last road, which
for its first four miles is utterly lonely. Gardiner turned to the
right, by the lane which climbs through woods, with many a twist, to
join the London road at Kingsdown. How he pedalled up that hill! But
after all, as he told himself, breathless, the gradients were the same
for them as for him; and if he was hampered by a strange bicycle,
Cotterill was portly.
Level ground at last, and the Portobello inn at the crossroads where
the lane cuts the highway. Here the fugitive fell in with the great
stream of motorists and cyclists who frequent this road for the
pleasure of spinning down Wrotham Hill in one direction, Farningham
Hill in the other. On the Dartford road he would have been conspicuous
to every one he met; here he was a unit in the crowd. He turned towards
London. Down into Farningham, over the bridge, with its magnificent
horse chestnut leaning to the Darenth, a tower of gold on a field of
emerald; up the opposite slope to Swanley Junction; on through the
Crays to Sidcup, where the suburbs begin, shades of the prison-house;
and finally, London itself.
On Vauxhall Bridge he halted, to consider his course. It was unlucky,
most unlucky that Cotterill had seen him; his description would be all
over the country to-morrow. The first thing was to get money. He must
borrow; but from whom? Denis was at Bredon, his other male friends
were in the ends of the earth. Yet he knew without hesitation where to
go. It occurred to him to wonder, as he asked his way of the policeman
outside Vauxhall station, what Tom would have said to the idea of
borrowing from a girl.
Strange how much of an alien he felt here in London! His imagination,
roving always among woods and mountains, a green thought in a green
shade, fell choked among bricks and mortar; his sense of smell, keen
like that of a wild creature, was offended by the fumes of motor
buses, by hot whiffs from restaurants and cook-shops, by the odor of
the horses and of asphalt in the sun. Above all, he hated the crowds.
City-lovers, city-dwellers all of them, the seedy loafer spitting into
the Thames, and the girl in magenta and _blanc de perle_, who threw
him coquettish glances from under her lace veil. "I can do with these
people for a few hours, or even for a day or two, but to live here!" he
thought. And then came the inevitable corollary: "If I feel like this
now, what would it be to be boxed up with twelve or fifteen hundred of
them, day and night, for years?" He turned his back on that thought. He
had to keep a steady hand to ward off panic, which lurked at his heels
like a wolf.
He carried himself and his alien feelings across town, and presently
arrived at 22 Canning Street. Miss Smith was out. That he had expected,
and he came in to wait. The little maid preceded him up seventy-five
steps to Lettice's attic. "Oh, them stairs!" she sighed, with a hand at
her waist. Gardiner wondered how Lettice liked the climb. She was not
so very fond of hills. But when he was left alone, and had looked out
of her window far across the roofs, and seen her glimpse of the river
and of the Surrey hills, he understood. It was worth it. Here, above
the world, Lettice found the breathing-space which she loved as well as
he. There was a pot of violets on the table; he put the blossoms aside
with one finger, and buried his nose in the moss surrounding them. That
was good! That was the breath of the woods; Gardiner would have given
all the flower scents in the world for that wet woody fragrance.
Sitting down, he discovered that he was tired, very tired. It is deadly
demoralizing to be hunted. Here for the moment he was safe; and in the
blessed relief from strain he fell asleep.
Lettice came in from the Museum at six; she had her own key, and as
it chanced did not meet the little maid Beatrice. Up the stairs she
toiled, with her neat case of papers, came into her room, meticulously
noiseless as her pleasure was, and paused by her table, pulling off her
gloves, ever so slowly, before she found energy to look round. Then she
saw Gardiner asleep in her chair.
It was one of Lettice's principles never to interfere with anybody if
she could possibly help it. She saw no reason for waking him; she did
not wake him. She set about making tea instead. A spirit stove burns
noiseless; crockery deftly handled need not chink. The soft sounds of
Lettice's business would not have startled a mouse. She cut bread and
butter. She carried a bunch of water-cress to the tap on the landing
and washed it there. She fetched from her cupboard a shape of tongue, a
glass of shrimp paste, fresh butter, strawberry jam, bananas--the usual
menu of the dweller in rooms. It was not in the bond that she should
lay her own meals, but she often did it to save Beatrice's tired legs.
Lastly, she made the tea. As she replaced the kettle on the stove, the
lid fell off; and Gardiner awoke.
He sat up and stared.
"Tea's ready," Lettice announced, with a benignant smile.
"I never heard you come in!"
"I know," said his hostess, "you were _fast_ asleep. Come along, before
the toast gets cold."
She asked no questions, she seemed to want no explanations. Blessed
are the people who take things for granted! Gardiner drew up his
chair, discovering suddenly that he was hungry. Lettice poured out:
soft-toned, placid, soothing Lettice, supplying the needs of his body
with maternal care, and sitting there opposite, delicately fresh and
neat, with those misleadingly soft, derisive hazel eyes! He liked to
watch the slow, accurate movements of her hands, and their funny little
flutter of make-believe agitation, when she hastened to supply his
request for a piece of sugar.
"I don't believe you've had any lunch," she admonished him, pouring out
his third cup.
"Haven't. I came off in a hurry. I don't know that I ever tasted
anything quite so good as this tongue of yours. You are a Good
Samaritan, you know."
Lettice did not tell him he was eating up her Sunday dinner. She
dismissed the subject with her little French shrug.
"And how's Mr. Gardiner?"
"Going strong. I say, would you very much mind if I had a pipe?"
Lettice, who loathed tobacco, shook her head. "Sure? You really have
all the virtues. By the way, can you lend me some money?"
If that did not startle her, nothing would! It did not startle her. She
looked pensive for a moment, then asked: "How much do you want?"
"How much have you?"
"Nine sovereigns, and the change out of another."
"Could you possibly let me have the nine sovereigns?"
Lettice nodded. Getting up without more ado, she unlocked her desk,
strung out the sovereigns in a row upon the white cloth beside him, and
returned to her seat.
"Well, I'm hanged!" said Gardiner. "Don't you even want to know what I
want it for?"
She shook her head as usual, then added a polite but perfunctory "Yes,
of course I'm very much interested."
"I want it because the police are after me."
At that she looked up.
"Yes, the old affair at Grasmere. You weren't in time with that
letter to Denis. Mrs. Trent's been at Dent-de-lion for the last six
weeks--ever since she left Rochehaut; and she's managed to worm the
truth out of Denis. What? Oh yes, the truth; I forgot you didn't know.
I did knock Trent down. Of course he was simply asking for it; but the
fact remains that technically I'm guilty of manslaughter--murder, Mrs.
Trent calls it. Does that give you the horrors?"
"No," said Lettice.
Gardiner's eye lit up. "Ah! it did to Tom. It does to Denis, though
he'd rather die than own it. But I had a sort of feeling that you
wouldn't take it like that.... You know, it gave me the deuce of a
twinge when Tom turned chilly!"
Lettice nodded, accepting that unlikely confidence as a matter of
course. She reverted to his former speech.
"Did you say she got it out of Denis?"
"She did. How, I don't know. He doesn't say: doesn't say much, in fact.
But she knows that if he's put into the witness-box he can't deny it.
You know, she played--well, you might fairly call it a shabby trick on
me; and I never blamed her. I'm fair game. But Denis is quite another
pair of shoes. I don't know how I'm going to forgive her for meddling
with him. You see his letter."
Lettice read the few stiff phrases in which Denis owned that he had
let his friend's secret escape. He said little about Dorothea, not a
word about himself.
"I call that one of the most pathetic things I've ever read," said
Gardiner, with far more feeling than he had shown for his own
misfortune. "I'd have owned up voluntarily, I swear I would, sooner
than have this happen. It doesn't do to play tricks of this sort on a
fellow like Denis. They cut too deep. It's like ill-treating a child.
Oh, it was a beastly thing to do!"
"It was a damnable thing to do."
Strong words, to suit strong feelings. Lettice's soft lips were grim.
Gardiner was disposed to feel sorry for Dorothea. But there was nothing
to be done, nothing; Lettice laid by her wrath in silence and brought
back her mind to Gardiner's case.
"What are you going to do, then?"
"I? Oh, I'm off. Didn't I tell you the police are after me?"
"The police?"
"Chasing me out of Woodlands on bikes. You see this letter of Denis's,
which was evidently written post-haste after Mrs. Trent got the truth
out of him, is dated Tuesday, the eighth; which was the very day I got
Tom's wire calling me home. It must have gone out to Rochehaut and
lain there nearly a week, till I wrote for my mail to be forwarded. In
the meantime I presume Mrs. Trent took her tale to the police. She can
be quite temperate and convincing when she likes; besides, she has an
uncle in the Home Office, Sir Thomas Felton, who's no end of a swell--I
heard that quite by accident the other day--and he no doubt pulled
some wires. The magistrates would grant a warrant; then I imagine a
detective started for Rochehaut, found me gone, got my address in
England and came straight back. At any rate, this morning, not ten
minutes after I'd got Denis's bomb-shell, a couple of bobbies turned
up at the vicarage to arrest me. I evaded out of the back door as they
came in at the front, and got away on Tom's bike. They don't know
I'm riding, so I hope they'll waste time looking for a pedestrian.
I'll stay here till it's dark if you'll put up with me, bike on to
Southampton to-night and work my way out to South America. I'm no
amateur, you see--I've done it before."
Lettice's face did not usually express her feelings, but as Gardiner
proceeded with his tale, it woke up. She said:
"Then do you mean to say you're running away?"
"_Claro._ What else would you have me do?"
"You might stay and face it."
He shook his head. "Not good enough. I did knock him down, and he did
die. I should pretty certainly be convicted of manslaughter, and might
get quite a stiff sentence."
"Not if you explained the provocation."
"I think so, even then." Gardiner could not tell her, as he had told
Tom, that on the vital point his tongue was sealed. She knew too much.
He temporized. "You see, it was the wrong sort of provocation. All
I could say would be that he was telling stories that weren't very
pretty, and you'd never get a British jury to sympathize with a fancy
scruple of that sort. Besides, I've damaged my own case by not owning
up at once. That would tell against me very heavily--very heavily
indeed. No, I'm afraid there's nothing for it but to clear out."
Lettice said nothing, but her face continued to express complete and
solid disagreement. She rose to clear the table. Gardiner, who had
his chair tilted back and his fork balancing on one finger, after one
glance at her, proceeded to develop his argument.
"It would, as I say, mean prison; and prison is precisely the one thing
I'm not prepared to stand. It's not the hardships--they're luxury
compared to what I've put up with in my time--it's the confinement, the
restraint, the--the utter beastliness of never being able to get away
from somebody's eyes! I assure you it gives me the blue divvles even
to think of. I am convinced it would drive me off my head. I should
go _must_, and brain a warder--no, I think it would be the doctor for
choice: I met him once, he was a sympathetic little brute as ever
stepped. I'd far rather be hanged out of hand."
Lettice, still mute, took away his fork. Gardiner perseveringly glanced
up into her small pale face for a change of opinion. The more she
disapproved, the more he wanted to win her over to his own way of
thinking. He was growing quite absurdly anxious to propitiate this
exacting critic.
"Don't you think, in view of all the circumstances--the feelings of my
family, the unpleasant scandal, and my own state of blue funk--don't
you think the best thing I can do is to clear out?"
Lettice had to speak now, and she spoke.
"If you're afraid of a thing, I should think you'd want to face it and
prove to yourself that you aren't."
"Prove to myself that I'm not afraid of prison? But I am!"
"Then that's all the more reason for not running away."
Uncompromising! Lettice, who could bend her supple mind to look through
the eyes of tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor or any one else even down
to the thief, and could sympathize with all, could not sympathize with
Gardiner: could not believe, or even pretend to believe, that cowardice
might ever be more expedient for him than courage. It was not so much
the immorality of running away, it was the stupidity of it: the fact
that he was destroying his own future happiness, making it impossible
for himself ever again to live at peace with his own soul. All very
well for weaklings to be weak; but Gardiner--she couldn't understand
how he could think twice about it! Her dissent was so acute that it
made itself felt through all her reticences and evasions. Gardiner
stared, his own eyes opening to see his future as she saw it; but he
shut them again at once, and willfully turned away.
"Oh, that's idealism," he said, with a short laugh, "and this is a
world of compromise. I can't get so high as you. If I'm afraid of a
thing, I want quite simply to run away. Talking of which, I'd better be
off; it's dark enough now."
He went to the window, and came back. Lettice was sweeping up the
crumbs; she moved the nine sovereigns out of her way. Gardiner picked
them up and let them slip one by one into his pocket.
"You aren't going to reclaim your loan, then, and force me to face my
bogy?"
She shook her head, twice, slowly. Gardiner had singed himself once
already at the fire, yet he returned again, fluttering round the
dangerous subject. He would have given anything to drag some sort of
approval, or even condonation, out of Lettice. It seemed to him that
she must be persuaded, if he could only put his case convincingly
enough.
"Of course it's just on the cards that I might be hanged for murder,
you know," he pointed out--not believing it, but for the sake of
argument. "Come now; won't you at least admit for my father's sake it's
better not to take that risk?"
Lettice lifted herself, straightening her shoulders. Tray in hand,
brush in the other, a domesticated sibyl, she faced him and delivered
her final judgment.
"I should think Mr. Gardiner would rather have you _hanged_ than
running away!"