Regiment Of Women Part 51

She waited, swayed back against a tree trunk, the flowers a dead weight over her arm. She held them gently, lest a rough movement should wake the horror they hid. With what was left of sanity she prayed.

The trees encircled her, watching. From far away there came once more a sound of footsteps.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Roger set out at a quick pace for the wood, the basket rattling lightly on his arm; but the track of Alwynne's shoes was lost in the deep gra.s.s of the paddock, and he hesitated, wondering where he should look for her. Followed a cupboard-love scene with Nicholas Nye, who accompanied him to the boundary of his kingdom, snuffling windily in the empty bodge. He brayed disgustedly when Roger left him, his ancient lips curling backward over yellow stumps, in a smile that was an insult. He had the air of knowing exactly where Roger was going, and of being leeringly amused.

For ten minutes Roger wandered about, starting aside from the pathway half a dozen times, deceived by a swaying branch, or the deceptive pink and white of distant birch bark. He tramped on into the thickness of the wood, till at last, through a thinning of trees, a hundred yards to his left, he caught a glimpse of gold, that could only, he told himself, be Alwynne's hair. He frowned. It was just like the girl to go floundering into the only boggy bit of the wood, when two thirds were drained and dry, and thick with flowers.... It was sheer spirit of contradiction!

She would catch cold of course; and he would, not to mince matters, be stunk out with eucalyptus for the next ten days ... and The Dears would fuss ... he knew them! His fastidiousness was always revolted by a parade of handkerchiefs and bleared eyes. He was accustomed to insist that disease was as disgraceful as dirt: and that there was not a pin to choose between Dartmoor and the London Hospital as harbourage for criminals. But he could always dismount from his hobby-horse for any case of suffering that came his way. He could give his time, his money, or his tenderness, with a matter-of-course prompt.i.tude that relieved all but a tender-skinned few of any belief that they had reason to be grateful to him.

Roger, his eye on the distant halo, crashed through the undergrowth at a great rate, emerging into a little natural clearing, to find Alwynne facing him, a bare half-dozen yards away.

The full sight of her pulled him up short.

She was standing--lying upright, rather, for she seemed incapable of self-support--flattened against a big grey oak. One arm, flung backwards, clutched and scrabbled at the bark; the other, crooked shelteringly, supported a ma.s.s of bluebells. Her face was grey, her mouth half open, her eyes wide and pale. Very obviously she did not see him.

"Alwynne!" he exclaimed.

She cowered. He exclaimed again, astonished and not a little alarmed----

"Alwynne! Are you ill? What on earth has happened?"

She flung up her head, staring.

"Roger?" she said incredulously.

Then her face began to work. He never forgot the expression of relief that flowed across it. It was like the breaking up of a frozen pool.

"Why, it's you!" cried Alwynne. "It's you! It's only you!" The flowers dropped lingeringly from her slack hands, and she swayed where she stood. He crossed hastily to her and she clung helplessly to his arm.

She looked dazed and stupid.

"Of course it is," he said. "Who did you think it was?"

Alwynne looked at him.

"Louise," she said, "I thought it was Louise. She's come before, but never in the daytime. A ghost can't walk in the daytime. But this place is so dark, she might think it was night here, don't you think?"

He gave her arm a gentle shake.

"Let's get out of this, Alwynne," he began persuasively. "I think you're rather done for. There's been a hot sun to-day, and you've been stooping till you're dizzy. Come on. What a lot of flowers you've picked! Come, let's get out of this place."

"Yes," she said; "let's get out of this place."

"What about your bunch?" he questioned, glancing down at the hyacinths'

heaped disorder. "Don't you want it?"

He felt her shiver.

"No," she said, "no." She hesitated. "Could we hide it? Cover it up? It ought to be buried. I can't leave it--just lying there----" There was a catch in her voice.

He concealed his astonishment and looked about him.

"Of course not," he said cheerfully. "Here--what about this?"

A huge tussock of bleached gra.s.s, its sodden leaves as long as a woman's hair, caught his eye. He parted the heavy ma.s.s and showed her the little cave of dry soil below.

"What about this? They'll be all right here," he suggested gravely.

Alwynne nodded.

"Yes--put it in quickly," she said.

Without a word, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he did as she asked. Then, rising and slipping her arm through his own, he pushed on quite silently, holding back the strong pollard shoots, clearing aside the brambles, till they reached the uneven footpath once more, that led them in less than five minutes to the further edge of the wood. As they emerged into the open fields, he felt the weight on his arm lessening. He glanced at his companion, and saw that there was once more a tinge of colour in her cheek.

She drew a deep breath and looked at him.

"I thought I should never get out again," she said dispa.s.sionately, as one stating a bald fact.

"Get where?"

"Out of that wood. You were just in time. I thought I was caught. I should have been, if you hadn't come."

Then she grew conscious of his expression, and answered it--

"I suppose you think I'm mad."

"I do rather."

"I don't wonder. It doesn't much matter----" Her voice flagged and strained.

They walked on in silence.

She began again abruptly.

"Of course you thought I was mad. I knew you would. I do myself, sometimes. Any one would. Even Clare. That's why I never told any one.

But it never happened when I was awake before."

"I wonder if you would tell me exactly what happened?"

"I was frightened," she began irresolutely.

"For a moment I wondered if a tramp----"

She laughed shakily.