AGAINST TIME
Gillian, dashing headlong into Victoria Station, encountered Storran
sauntering leisurely out of it, a newspaper under his arm.
“Where are you off to?” he demanded, stopping abruptly. “You look as if
you were in a hurry.”
“I am. Don’t stop me. I’m catching the boat-train.”
Storran pulled out his watch as he turned and fell into step beside her.
“Then you’ve got a good half-hour to spare. No hurry,” he returned
placidly.
Gillian glanced at the watch on her wrist.
“Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully. “If so, my watch must be
altogether wrong!”
“Unbeliever! Come and look at the clock. And, incidentally, give me that
suit-case.”
She yielded up the case obediently and, having verified the time,
proceeded towards the platform at a more reasonable gait.
Storran, his long legs leisurely keeping pace with her shorter ones,
smiled down at her.
“And now, for the second time of asking, where are you off to?”
“I’m going to France--to fetch Michael.”
He gave a quick exclamation--whether of surprise or disapproval she was
not quite sure.
“You haven’t heard from him, then?”
“No. And unless something happens _quick_, it will be too late.”
“But if he were at his studio he would surely have answered Lady
Arabella’s letter.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Gillian absently, her eyes following the
queue of passengers passing through the gate on the platform. By mutual
consent they had come to a standstill outside it.
“Then if he isn’t there, what’s the use of your rushing over to Paris?”
protested Storran. “It’s absurd--an absolute wild-goose chase. You can’t
go!”
Gillian’s brown eyes came back to his face.
“But I’m going,” she said calmly.
He frowned.
“If Michael’s not at his studio he may be--anywhere!”
She nodded.
“I know. If so, I shall follow--anywhere.”
Storran looked down at her and read the quiet determination in her face.
“Then let me come too,” he said. “Sort of courier, you know. I’d just be
at hand in case of a tangle.”
“Oh, no! I couldn’t let you. There’s not the least need. Good heavens,
I’m not a baby!”
There was a curious softness in Dan’s blue eyes as they rested on her.
“No. I think you’re--a very good friend,” he said. “But I don’t see why
you should have the monopoly! Let me show I know how to be a good pal,
too, if I want to.”
“No--no.” Gillian still protested, but her tone betrayed signs of
weakening.
“We’ll be as conventional as you like,” urged Dan, twinkling. “I’d stop
at different hotels.”
“Well, but--”
“Say ‘yes’!” he insisted.
Gillian smiled.
“You obstinate person! Yes, then!”
“Thank you. Then I’ll go along and buy a ticket.”
He turned and went towards the booking-office, while Gillian, inwardly
much relieved, awaited his return. She could not but acknowledge that
in the “wild-goose chase” upon which she was embarking it would be an
enormous comfort to have Storran at hand in case of an emergency. As to
the proprieties--well, Gillian was far too honest and independent a soul
to worry about them in the circumstances. Her friend’s happiness was
at stake. And whether people chose to talk because she and Dan Storran
travelled to Paris together--or to Timbuctoo, for the matter of that, if
Michael had chanced to depart thither--troubled her not at all.
When Storran rejoined her a much more practical consideration presented
itself to her mind.
“But, my dear man, you can’t fly with me to Paris without even a
tooth-brush! I’d forgotten you’d no luggage!”
Her face fell as she spoke. But Storran dismissed the matter with a
smile.
“Oh, I can buy clean collars and shirts as I go along,” he replied,
entirely unruffled. “The dickens was to get on to the train at all!
They assured me there wasn’t a seat. However, I make a point of never
believing official statements--on principle.”
And as a consequence of such well-directed incredulity, Storran
accompanied Gillian to Dover and thence to Calais.
They had a good crossing--sun up and blue sky. Looking back, afterwards,
it always seemed to Gillian as though the short time it occupied
had been a merciful breathing space--a tranquil interval, specially
vouchsafed, in which she was able to brace herself for the coming race
against time. Just so long as they were on board, nothing she could do
was of any importance whatever, either to help or hinder the fulfilment
of her errand. She could not quicken the speed of the boat by a single
throb of its engine. So, like a sensible woman, she sat on deck with Dan
and enjoyed herself amazingly.
Afterwards, in quick succession, came the stir and bustle of landing and
the journey to Paris. They arrived too late to make any inquiries that
night, but ten o’clock the following morning found them outside the
building where Michael had his apartment.
“Oh, Dan!”--Gillian was seized with sudden panic. “Supposing he is here,
after all, and has _deliberately_ not answered Lady Arabella’s letter?”
“I shouldn’t suppose anything so foolish. Michael may be many kinds of
a fool--artists very often are, I believe. It’s part of the temperament.
But whatever he proposed to do regarding Magda, there’s no reason in the
world to suppose he wouldn’t answer Lady Arabella’s letter.”
“No--no. Perhaps not,” agreed Gillian hurriedly. But it was in rather
a shaky voice that she asked to see Mr. Quarrington when finally they
found themselves confronted by the concierge.
“Monsieur Quarrington?” Hands, shoulders, and eyebrows all seemed to
gesticulate at once as madame la concierge made answer. “But he has been
gone from here two--no, three months. Perhaps madame did not know?”
“No,” said Gillian. “I didn’t know. But I thought he might possibly be
away, because I--I have had no answer to a letter I wrote him.”
“What misfortune!”
The concierge regarded Gillian with a pair of shrewd, gimlet eyes while
a stream of inquiry and comment issued from her lips. Madame was the
sister of monsieur, perhaps? Truly, they resembled each other! One could
see at a glance. No, not a sister? Ah, a friend, then? And there had
been no answer to a letter! But monsieur had left an address. Oh, yes.
And all letters were forwarded. She herself saw to that.
At last Gillian managed to stem the torrent of garrulity and interposed
a question concerning the telegram she had sent.
A telegram! Now that was another affair altogether. Yes, the concierge
remembered the telegram. She had opened it to see if it were of life or
death importance, in which case she would have, of course, telegraphed
its contents to monsieur at his present address.
Gillian was nearly crying with impatience as the woman’s voluble tongue
ran on complacently.
“Then you did send it on?” she managed to interpolate at last.
The letter--yes. Not, of course, the telegram. That would have been a
needless expense seeing that monsieur would already have had the letter,
since all the letters were sent on. _All!_ She, Madame Ribot, could
vouch for that.
At the end of half an hour Gillian succeeded in extracting Michael’s
address from amid the plethora of words and, bidding the voluble
concierge _bon jour_, she and Storran beat a masterly retreat.
It appeared that Michael had been commissioned to paint the portrait of
some Italian society beauty and had gone to Rome. Gillian screwed up her
small face resolutely.
“I shall go to Rome!” she announced succinctly. There was a definite
defiance in her tone, and Storran concealed a smile.
“Of course you will,” he replied composedly. “Just as well I came with
you, isn’t it?” he added with great cheerfulness.
Her expression relaxed.
“You really are rather a nice person, Dan,” she allowed graciously. “I
was horribly afraid you’d suggest wiring Michael again, or something
silly like that. I’m not going to trust to anything of that kind.”
Accordingly, the only wire despatched was one to Lady Arabella,
informing her as to their movements, and a few hours later found Dan
and Gillian rushing across Europe as fast as the thunderous whirl of the
express could take them. They travelled day and night, and it was a
very weary Gillian who at last opened her eyes to the golden sunshine of
Italy.
At the hotel whither Madame Ribot had directed them, fresh
disappointment awaited them. The manager--when he found that the
two dusty and somewhat dishevelled-looking travellers who presented
themselves at the inquiry bureau were actually friends of Signor
Quarrington, the famous English artist who had stayed at his hotel--was
desolated, but the signor had departed a month ago! Had he the address?
But assuredly. He would write it down for the signora.
“He’s in Normandy!” exclaimed Gillian in tones of bitter disappointment.
“At--what’s the name of the place?--Armanches. Oh, Dan! We’ve got to go
right back to Paris again and then on to the coast.”
Her face was full of anxiety. This would mean at least a delay of
several days before they could possibly see Michael, and meanwhile it
was a moot question as to how much longer Lady Arabella could restrain
Magda from taking definite steps with regard to joining the sisterhood.
Storran nodded.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “But all the same, you’ll not start back till
to-morrow--”
“Oh, but I must!” interrupted Gillian. “We can’t afford to waste a
moment.”
He glanced down at her and shook his head. Her face was white and drawn,
and there were deep violet shadows underneath her eyes. Suspense and her
anxious impatience had told upon her, and she had slept but little on
the journey. And now, with the addition of this last, totally unexpected
disappointment, she looked as though she could not stand much more.
“We can afford to waste a single day better than we can afford the three
or four which it would cost us if you collapsed en route,” said Storran.
“I shan’t collapse,” she protested with white lips.
“So much the better. But all the same, you’ll stay here till to-morrow
and get a good night’s rest.”
“I shouldn’t sleep,” she urged. “Let’s go right on, Dan. Let’s go----”
But the sentence was never finished. Quite suddenly she swayed,
stretching out her hands with a blind, groping movement. Dan was just in
time to catch her in his arms as she toppled over in a dead faint.
It was a week later when, in the early morning, a rather wan and
white-faced Gillian sprang up from her seat as the train ran into
Bayeux.
“Thank goodness we’re here at last!” she exclaimed.
Storran put out his hand to steady her as the train jolted to a
standstill.
“Yes, we’re here at last,” he said. “Now to find a vehicle of some
description to take us out to Armanches.”
As he had suggested it would, Gillian’s collapse had delayed them some
time. Probably she had caught a slight chill while travelling, and that,
together with the fatigue from which she was suffering, combined to keep
her in bed at the hotel in Rome for a couple of days.
When the slight feverishness had abated, she slept the greater part of
the time, her weary body exacting the price for all those wakeful hours
she had passed on the train. But it was not until four days had elapsed
that Dan would agree to a resumption of the journey. Even then, consent
was only wrung from him by the fear that she would fret herself ill over
any further delay. He did not consider her by any means fit to travel.
But Gillian was game to the core, and they had reached Bayeux without
further _contretemps_.
“The thing that puzzles me,” she said as they started on the long drive
from Bayeux to Armanches, “is why Michael didn’t send his Normandy
address to Madame Ribot. We should have been saved all that long journey
to Rome if he had.”
“Perhaps he intended to, and forgot,” suggested Dan. “Artists are
proverbially absent-minded.”
But Gillian shook her head with a dissatisfied air. Michael was not of
the absent-minded type.
Armanches was a tiny place on the Normandy coast, in reality not
much more than a fishing village, but its possession of a beautiful
_plage_--smooth, fine, golden sands--brought many visitors to the
old-fashioned hostelry it boasted.
The landlady, a smiling, rosy-cheeked woman, with a chubby little
brown-faced son hiding shy embarrassment behind her ample skirts,
greeted the travellers hospitably. But when they mentioned Quarrington’s
name a look of sympathetic concern overspread her comely face.
Yes, he was there. And of course madame could not know, but he had
been ill, seriously ill with _la grippe_--taken ill the very day he had
arrived, nearly a month ago. He had a nurse. Oh, yes! One had come from
Bayeux. But this influenza! It was a veritable scourge. One was here
to-day and gone to-morrow. However, Michael Quarrington was recovering,
the saints be praised! Monsieur and madame wished to see him? The good
woman looked doubtful. She would inquire. What name? Grey? But there was
a telegram awaiting madame!
Gillian’s face blanched as the landlady bustled away in search of the
wire. Had Magda already----Oh, but that was impossible! Lady Arabella
was in charge at that end, and Gillian had a great belief in Lady
Arabella’s capacity to deal with any crisis that might arise.
Nevertheless, they had wired her the Normandy address from Rome, in case
of necessity. The next moment Gillian had torn open the telegram and she
and Dan were reading it together.
“Magda insists we return to London on Wednesday. She has completed
preliminary arrangements to join sisterhood and goes there Thursday.
Impossible to dissuade her.--ARABELLA WINTER.”
Gillian’s mouth set itself in a straight line of determination as her
eyes raced along the score or so of pregnant words. She was silent a
moment. Then she met Storran’s questioning glance.
“We can just do it,” she said sternly. “To-day is Wednesday. By crossing
to Southampton to-night, we can make London to-morrow.”
Without waiting for his reply she entered the inn and ran quickly up the
stairs which the landlady had already ascended.
“But, madame, I am not sure that monsieur will receive anyone,”
protested the astonished woman, turning round as Gillian caught up with
her.
“I must see him,” asserted Gillian quietly.
Perhaps something in the tense young face touched a sympathetic chord
in the Frenchwoman’s honest heart. She scented romance, and when she
emerged from the invalid’s bedroom her face was wreathed in smiles.
“It is all arranged. Will madame please to enter?”
A moment later Gillian found herself standing in front of a tall, gaunt
figure of a man, whose coat hung loosely from his shoulders and whose
face was worn and haggard with something more than _la grippe_ alone.
“Oh, Michael!”
A little, stricken cry broke from her lips. What men and women make each
other suffer! She realised it as she met the stark, bitter misery of
the grey eyes that burned at her out of the thin face and remembered the
look on Magda’s own face when she had last seen her.
She went straight to the point without a word of greeting or of
explanation. There was no time for explanations, except the only one
that mattered.
“Michael, why didn’t you answer Lady Arabella’s letter?”
He stared at her. Then he passed his hand wearily across his forehead.
“Letter? I don’t remember any letter.”
“She wrote to you about a month ago. I know the letter was forwarded on
to Rome. It must have followed you here.”
“A month ago?” he repeated.
Then a light broke over his face. He turned and crossed the room to
where a small pile of letters lay on a table, dusty and forgotten.
“Perhaps it’s here,” he said. “I was taken ill directly I arrived. I
never even sent this address to the concierge at Paris. I believe I
was off my head part of the time--‘flue plays the deuce with you. But I
remember now. The nurse told me there were some letters which had come
while I was ill. I--didn’t bother about them.”
While he spoke he was turning over the envelopes, one by one, in a
desultory fashion.
“Yes. This is Lady Arabella’s writing.” He paused and looked across at
Gillian.
“Will you read it, please?” she said. “And--oh, you ought to sit down!
You don’t look very strong yet.”
He smiled a little.
“I’m not quite such a crock as I look. But won’t you sit down yourself
while I read this letter? Is it of importance?”
“Oh! Please read it!” exclaimed Gillian with sudden nervous impatience.
It seemed to her an eternity while he read the letter. But at last he
looked up from its perusal.
“Well?” she asked under her breath.
Very deliberately he refolded the sheet of notepaper and slipped it back
into its envelope.
“It would have made no difference if I had received it earlier,” he said
composedly.
“No difference”
“None. Because, you see, this letter--asking me to go back to Magda--is
written under a misapprehension.
“How? What do you mean?”
“I mean--that Magda has--no further use for me.”
Gillian leaned forward.
“You’re wrong,” she said tersely--“quite wrong.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not blaming her. Looking back, I’m not
even very much surprised. But still, the fact remains, she has no
further use for me.”
“Will you tell me what makes you think that?” With an effort Gillian
forced herself to speak quietly and composedly.
He was silent a moment, staring out of the window at the gay blue sea
beyond, sparkling in the morning sunlight. All at once he swung round on
her, his face wrung with a sudden agony.
“I _know_,” he said in a roughened voice. “I know, because I wrote to
her--six months ago. I was hard, I know, brutally hard to her that last
day at Friars’ Holm. But--God! I paid for it afterwards! And I wrote
to her--bared my very soul to her. . . . Wrote so that if she had ever
cared she must at least have answered me.”
He stopped abruptly, his face working.
“And she didn’t answer?”
A wry smile twisted his lips.
“I got my own letter back,” he said quietly. “After all, that was an
answer--a conclusive one.”
Gillian was thinking rapidly. Six months ago! A momentary flash of
recollection came to her. So Lady Arabella, that wise old citizen of the
world, had been quite right after all! She had given Michael six
months to find out his imperative need of Magda. And he had found it.
Only--something had gone wrong.
“Magda never had that letter,” she said quietly at last.
She was gradually beginning to piece together the separate parts of the
puzzle. All letters that came for Magda had been forwarded on to the
sisterhood, and had she herself readdressed this of Michael’s she would
have recognised the handwriting. But probably she had been away from
home, or had chanced to be out at post time, in which case Melrose, or
old Virginie, would have readdressed the envelope and dropped it in the
pillar box at the corner of the road.
Then--as was the case with any correspondence addressed to one of the
Sisters of Penitence--the letter would be read by the Mother Superior
and passed on to its destined recipient if she thought good. If not----
Gillian had learned a great deal about Catherine Vallincourt by now,
both from Lady Arabella and from Magda herself, who, before leaving
the community, had discovered the identity of its head. And she
could visualise the stern, fanatical woman, obsessed by her idea of
disciplining Magda and of counteracting the effects of her brother’s
marriage with Diane Wielitzska, opening the letter and, after perusal,
calmly sealing it up in its envelope again and returning it to the
sender.
“Magda never had that letter, Michael,” she repeated. “Listen!” And
then, without preamble, but with every word vibrant with pity for the
whole tragedy, she poured out the story of Magda’s passionate repentance
and atonement, of her impetuous adoption of her father’s remorseless
theory, mistaken though it might be, that pain is the remedy for sin,
and of the utter, hopeless despair which had overwhelmed her now that
she believed it had all proved unavailing.
“She has come to believe that you don’t want her--never could want her,
Michael--because she has failed so much.”
There was more than one reproach mingled with the story, but Michael
made no protest. It was only when she had finished that Gillian could
read in his tortured eyes all that her narrative had cost him.
“Yes,” he said at last. “It’s true. I wanted the impossible. I was
looking for a goddess--not a woman. . . . But now I want--just a woman,
Gillian.”
“Then, if you want her, you must save her from herself. You’ve just
twenty-four hours to do it in. To-morrow she’s still Magda. The next day
she’ll be Sister Somebody. And you’ll have lost her.”
Half an hour later, when Michael’s nurse returned, she found her patient
packing a suit-case with the assistance of a pretty, brown-haired girl
whose eyes shone with the unmistakable brightness of recent tears.
“But you’re not fit to travel!” she protested in horrified dismay. “You
mustn’t think of it, Mr. Quarrington.”
But Michael only laughed at her, defying her good-humouredly.
“If the man you loved were waiting for you in England, nurse, you know
you’d go--and you wouldn’t care a hang whether you were fit to travel or
not!”
The nurse smiled in spite of herself.
“No,” she admitted. “I suppose I shouldn’t.”
As the Havre-Southampton boat steamed through the moonlit night, Dan and
Gillian were pacing the deck together.
“I’m so glad Michael is going back to Magda without knowing--about
June,” said Gillian, coming to a standstill beside the deck-rail. “Going
back just because his love is too big for anything else to matter now.”
“Haven’t you told him?”--Storran’s voice held surprise.
“No. I decided not to. I should like Magda to tell him that herself.”
They were both silent for a little while. Gillian bent over the
rail, looking down at the phosphorescent water breaking away from the
steamer’s bow. Suddenly a big hand covered hers.
“I think I’m--lonely,” said Storran.
“Gillian,” he went on, his voice deepening. “Gillian . . . dear. We’re
two rather lonely people. We shall be lonelier still when Michael and
Magda are married. Couldn’t we be lonely--in company?”
Gillian’s hand moved a little beneath his, then stayed still.
“Why, Dan--Dan----” she stammered.
“Yes,” went on the strong, tender voice. “I’m asking you to marry me,
Gillian, I’d never expect too much of you. We both know all that’s
in the past of each of us. But we might help each other to be less
lonely--good comrades together, Gillian.”
And suddenly Gillian realised how good it would be to rest once more in
the shelter of a man’s affection and good comradeship--to have someone
to laugh with or to be sorry with. There’s a tender magic in the word
“together.” And she, too, had something to give in return--sympathy, and
understanding, and a warm friendship. . . . She would not be going to
him empty-handed.
“Is it yes, Gillian?”
She bent her head.
“Yes, Dan.”