Lonesome Road

Chapter Thirty-one

The car moved away. Rachel Treherne leaned back with relief. She had taken her way, and she was past caring where it led her. The strain lessened and she could relax. Whincliff Edge was left behind and its problems with it. London lay ahead, and problems there to meet her. But between Whincliff and London for the space of an hour or two there was only herself and Gale, in a swift moving world of their own. All that mattered was that they were here together-shut off-shut in.

As they turned out of the drive on to the Ledlington road, she looked at him, and found pleasure in the strong set of his head. Everything about him was strong. She thought, “If he hadn’t been so strong, I shouldn’t be here now.” And that gave her pleasure too. She said, without any effort at all,

“Are you Gale Brent?”

The road was empty. He took a look at her and smiled with his eyes.

“Now fancy your asking me that! Who’s been talking?”

“Cosmo. It was in a letter that my mother wrote to his-Gale Brent. Nanny only remembers him as Sonny. Are you Gale Brent?”

He laughed a little. It was a very unembarrassed laugh.

“I’m Gale Brandon sure enough. That’s my real name. I haven’t come courting you under false pretences. At least-well, in a way I suppose I have. But I was going to tell you-I just wanted a clear start. You know, I fell for you the moment we met-again. And I was going to tell you all about it as soon as I’d got you safe.” Her heart beat hard. He put out his left hand and dropped it on her knee, covering both of hers. “Have I got you?”

She said rather inaudibly, “You seem to think so.”

The hand closed in a harsh grip that made her gasp.

“It’s for you to say-at least that seems to be the idea. I don’t know that I’m dead struck on it. I’ll get you one way or another, but”-his grip tightened-“you can say it if you like.”

Rachel found herself laughing without much breath.

“And if I don’t like?”

His voice changed, too on a boyish, coaxing note.

“Maybe I’d like to hear you say it after all. I’ve got an idea it would sound good. Have I got you?”

Rachel said, “Yes,” and the hand that was gripping hers let go and came about her shoulders. The car described a rather odd curve and narrowly missed the ditch. The hand came back to the wheel, and the voice said ruefully,

“That was a bad break. I’ll have to put off making love to you till we get some place. It’s liable to go to my head, and I wouldn’t like to get sent to jail for disorderly driving, or being drunk in charge of a car, or anything like that. I’d better tell you about being Gale Brent.”

Rachel said, “Oh!” Her mind felt perfectly light, bright, and empty-a house stripped but not yet garnished. The light was very bright indeed. She heard Gale say, “I’d better tell you about being Gale Brent,” and in that light, empty house which was her mind she thought, “Then I’d better listen.”

He said, in the voice she knew best,

“Well, it’s this way. My father’s name was Sterling Brandon. He quarrelled with his father about marrying my mother. So then he went away-cut the old folks right out-didn’t write-didn’t so much as tell them when I came along-wouldn’t use the name. They must have said things he couldn’t get over. Anyhow he called himself Sterling Brent. My mother died when I was about four years old, and that made things worse. He kind of set up the quarrel for a monument to her. Well, about a year after that he met your father. They were partners for a bit- something like a year, I think it was-and that’s when I got acquainted with you. I’d never seen such a little baby before. I can remember standing there looking at you and wondering if you were real. I expect I fell for you then. Your mother was mighty good to me, but I never rightly got on with Mabel-I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. But I was mighty happy. And then it all came to an end. My father quarrelled with your father, and I’m bound to confess it’s the likeliest thing in the world that it was my father’s fault. The fact is he’d a genius for quarrelling-couldn’t see anyone else’s point of view, and always thought the other man must be disagreeing with him out of spite. Then he’d go all hot and kick up a fuss, and the next thing would be you couldn’t see him for the dust. Well, we went off to some other place-I forgot where. Then he picked up a paper one day and saw that his father had had a stroke, so he went back. The old man was head of a big real estate business, and as he didn’t live long enough for them to get quarrelling again, my father came in for everything. So now you know.”

Rachel wondered whether she did. The words seemed to float round in her mind without meaning very much. She said vaguely,

“My father was sorry about the quarrel. He found oil after they broke the partnership. He wanted your father to have his share. It doesn’t matter now, does it? I’ll tell you some time.”

He said, “No, it doesn’t matter. But there are other things that matter very much. Look here, could we pull up and talk, becuase there’s plenty to talk about.”

It came to Rachel then with an absolute shock that she had forgotten Caroline. But she remembered her now. Caroline, and her fear for Caroline-they both came back to her together. She said only just above her breath,

“No, no, we mustn’t stop. I must find Caroline. I don’t know what is happening, and I’m-frightened-”

He put his hand down over hers again, but this time the clasp was gentle as well as strong.

“Don’t be frightened, honey-it’ll be all right.”

“It’s like a bad dream.”

“Well, you’re going to wake right up. Like to tell me about it?”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Perhaps I know some already. The little woman in brown, that Miss Silver-what is she, a detective?-she told me some.”

He felt her start.

“But-but when-you’ve never met-”

He laughed.

“That’s where you’re wrong. You went up to put on your hat, your cousin went after you, and she came down.”

Rachel stared at him.

“But there wasn’t time.”

“You can say a lot in five minutes if you don’t waste time handing bouquets. She got off the mark quicker than anyone I’ve ever known, and first I reckoned she was crazy, and then I reckoned she wasn’t. She’s got a way of looking at you that makes you take notice of what she says, and the first thing she said to me gave me one of the worst jolts I’ve ever had. She said you didn’t fall over that cliff last night. She said you were pushed. What have you got to say about that?”

She drew a long sighing breath.

“It’s true.”

“Any guess who did it?”

The color rushed into her cheeks. She dragged her hand away and leaned back into the corner of the car.

“That’s the horrible part of it-it might be anyone. It’s been like that every time, only of course some of the things were just Louisa trying to frighten me.”

“Rachel-what are you saying?” He brought the car to a standstill and turned to face her. “We’ve got to have this out. What is all this? You know, I can’t drive a car and listen to this sort of thing. You’ve got to tell me.”

Rachel told him with simplicity and relief.

The money. That was the first thing-the burden of the money-the responsibility which she was not allowed to pass on or to share.

The family-always there. “And it’s nice to have a family, but they oughtn’t to be always there. One ought to have a life of one’s own. I didn’t see that in time, but I see it now. You can’t live all those other people’s lives, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve drained myself, but I’ve never satisfied them. I don’t mean just the money, but because of the money they’ve looked to me, depended on me. They’ve expected more and more. It’s all been wrong, and it’s kept on getting worse-like something out of focus. And then this last week it’s been a nightmare. When I couldn’t bear it any longer I went to see Miss Silver. She helped someone I know, so I went to her. She came down here yesterday evening, and she found out right away that Louisa had been playing tricks on me. She really is clever, you know.”

“Why was Louisa playing tricks, and what sort of tricks did she play?”

He saw her color fade and her eyes darken. Her voice went to an uneven whisper.

“She wanted to make believe that someone was- attempting my life.”

“And how did she do that?”

“A slippery step-my curtains on fire-chocolates doctored with ammoniated quinine-snakes in my bed-”

“What?”

“Two of Mr. Tollage’s adders. Noisy killed them. But Louie didn’t mean to hurt me-she only wanted to make me believe that someone else was trying to hurt me. Gale, she swears that there was another slippery step before she polished hers, and that one of the chocolates had been tampered with before she touched them. She swears someone was really trying to kill me. And, Gale, she was right. It wasn’t Louie who pushed me over the cliff.”

She saw his face hard with anger.

“How do you know that? She was there, wasn’t she- came along with the lantern just as soon as I’d pulled you up.”

She shook her head.

“She loves me. It couldn’t be Louie any more than it could be you.”

He nodded slowly.

“Yes-I was there too-wasn’t I? Sure it couldn’t have been me?”

Their eyes met. Time stayed. Then she said,

“You see. That’s all I’ve got-the people I love. That’s something secure. When that is shaken I can’t bear it. Outside that it’s all suspicion-no one trusting anyone else-Louie trying to make me believe it was Caroline, or Richard, or both of them-Cosmo trying to make me believe it was you-and I, God forgive me, only too ready to believe it might be Maurice or Ernest, because, you see, I don’t love them.”

He put the Wadlows aside with an odd sweeping gesture.

“So Cosmo thinks it was me. I’d like you to tell me why.”

He caught the flicker of a smile.

“Revenge of course-because of your father and my father-the real full-dress, old-fashioned feud-”

She had the feeling of having stepped over the edge of an unseen drop. She got a quite unmistakable jolt. It stopped her. She saw his face harden. There was as sudden an effect of change as if she had looked from him to his presentment cut in stone. The light was bad. It might have been an illusion, for before she could draw a breath it was gone and he was saying.

“So I pushed you over. But why did I pull you up again?”

She said rather breathlessly, “Because you saw Louisa’s lantern of course. Or you might have had a brain-storm and then felt sorry about it.”

“I see-”

He looked up and down the road. Three young men on bicycles flitted noiselessly by, bodies stooped, heads down, hands gripping. Gloom swallowed them.

Gale Brandon said roughly.

“That’s enough about that. I haven’t kissed you yet.”