THE RESCUE
At the very moment that Millie was knocking on Peter's door Henry
was sitting, a large bump on his forehead, looking at a dirty
piece of paper. Only yesterday he had fought Baxter in Piccadilly
Circus; now Baxter and everything and every one about him was as
far from his consciousness as Heaven was from 1920 London. The Real
had departed--the coloured life of the imagination had taken its
place. . . . The appeal for which all his life he had been waiting had
come--it was contained in that same dirty piece of paper.
The piece of paper was of the blue-grey kind, torn in haste from a
washing bill; the cheap envelope that had contained it lay at Henry's
feet.
On the piece of paper in a childish hand was scrawled this ill-spelt
message: "Please come as quikley as you can or it will be to late."
Mr. King's factotum, a long, thin young man with carroty hair, had
brought the envelope five minutes before. The St. James' church clock
had just struck five; it was raining hard, the water running from the
eaves above Henry's attic window across and down with a curious little
gurgling chuckle that was all his life afterwards to be connected with
this evening.
There was no signature to the paper; he had never seen Christina's
handwriting before; it might be a blind or a decoy or simply a
practical joke. Nevertheless, he did not for a moment hesitate as to
what he would do. He had already that afternoon decided in the empty
melancholy of the deserted Hill Street library that he must that same
evening make another attack on Peter Street. He was determined that
this time he would discover once and for all the truth about Christina
even though he had to wring Mrs. Tenssen's skinny neck to secure it.
He had returned to Panton Street fired with this resolve; five minutes
later the note had been delivered to him.
He washed his face, put on a clean collar, placed the note carefully in
his pocket-book and started out on the great adventure of his life. The
rain was driving so lustily down Peter Street that no one was about.
He moved like a man in a dream, driven by some fantastic force of his
imagination as though he were still sitting in Panton Street and this
were a new chapter that he was writing in his romance--or as though his
body were in Panton Street and it was his soul that sallied forth. And
yet the details about Mrs. Tenssen were real enough--he could still
hear her crunching the sardine-bones, and Peter Street was real enough,
and the rain as it trickled inside his collar, and the bump on his
forehead.
Nevertheless in dreams too details were real.
As though he had done all this before (having as it were rehearsed it
somewhere), he did not this time go to the little door but went rather
to the yard that had seen his first attack. He stumbled in the dusk
over boxes, planks of wood and pieces of iron, hoops and wheels and
bars.
Once he almost fell and the noise that he made seemed to his anxious
ears terrific, but suddenly he stumbled against the little wooden
stair, set his foot thereon and started to climb. Soon he felt the
trap-door, pushed it up with his hand and climbed into the passage.
Once more he was in the gallery, and once more he had looked through
into the courtyard beyond, now striped and misted with the driving rain.
No human being was to be seen or heard. He moved indeed as in a dream.
He was now by the long window, curtained as before. This time no voices
came from the other side; there was no sound in all the world but the
rain.
Again, as in dreams, he knew what would happen: that he would push at
the window, find it on this occasion fastened, push again with his
elbow, then with both hands shove against the glass. All this he did,
the doors of the window sprang apart and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that he saved himself from falling on to his knees as he had
done on the earlier occasion.
He parted the curtains and walked into the room. He found a group
staring towards the window. At the table, her hands folded in front of
her, sat Christina, wearing the hat with the crimson feather as she
had done the first time he had seen her. On a chair sat Mrs. Tenssen,
dressed for a journey; she had obviously been bending over a large bag
that she was trying to close when the noise that Henry made at the
window diverted her.
Near the door, his face puckered with alarm, a soft grey hat on his
head and very elegant brown gloves on his hands, was old Mr. Leishman.
Henry, without looking at the two of them, went up to Christina and
said:
"I came at once."
Mrs. Tenssen, her face a dusty chalk-colour with anger, jumped up and
moved forward as though she were going to attack Henry with her nails.
Leishman murmured something; with great difficulty she restrained
herself, paused where she was and then in her favourite attitude,
standing, her hands on her hips, cried:
"Then it is jail for you after all, young man. In two minutes we'll
have the police here and we'll see what you have to say then to a
charge of house-breaking."
"See, Henry," said Christina, speaking quickly, "this is why I have
sent for you. My uncle has come to London at last and is to be here
to-morrow morning to see us. My mother says I am to go with her now
into the country to some house of his," nodding with her head towards
Leishman, "and I refuse and----"
"Yes," screamed Mrs. Tenssen, "but you'll be in that cab in the next
ten minutes or I'll make it the worse for you and that swollen-faced
schoolboy there." There followed then such a torrent of the basest
abuse and insult that suddenly Henry was at her, catching her around
the throat and crying: "You say that of her! You dare to say that of
her! You dare to say that of her!"
This was the third physical encounter of Henry's during the months of
this most eventful year: it was certainly the most confused of the
three. He felt Mrs. Tenssen's finger-nails in his face and was then
aware that she had escaped from him, had snatched the pin from her hat
and was about to charge him with it. He turned, caught Christina by
the arm, moved as though he would go to the window, then as both Mrs.
Tenssen and Leishman rushed in that direction pushed Christina through,
the door, crying: "Quick! Down the stairs! I'll follow you!"
As soon as he saw that she was through he stood with his back to the
door facing them. Again the dream-sensation was upon him. He had the
impression that when just now he had attacked Mrs. Tenssen his hands
had gone through her as though she had been air.
He could hear Leishman quavering: "Let them go. . . . This will be bad
for us. . . . I didn't want . . . I don't like . . ."
Mrs. Tenssen said nothing, then she had rushed across at him, had one
hand on his shoulder and with the other was jabbing at him with the
hatpin, crying: "Give me my daughter! Give me my daughter! Give me my
daughter!"
With one hand he held off her arm, then with a sudden wrench, he was
free of her, pushing her back with a sharp jerk, was through the door
and down the stairs.
Christina was waiting for him; he caught her hand and together they ran
through the rain-driven street.
Down Peter Street they ran and down Shaftesbury Avenue, across the
Circus and did not stop until they were inside Panton Street door. The
storm had emptied the street but, maybe, there are those alive who can
tell how once two figures flew through the London air, borne on the
very wings of the wind. . . . In such a vision do the miracles of this
world and the next have their birth!
Up the stairs, through the door, the key turned, the attic warm and
safe about them, and at last Henry, breathless, his coat torn, his back
to the door:
"Now nobody shall take you! . . . Nobody in all the world!"