Following Darkness/Chapter 55
CHAPTER LV
When I left Mrs. Carroll I did not go out at once, but scribbled first a note to Katherine, telling her I had gone to the summer-house, and should wait for her there all afternoon. I then went in search of Jim, who had always been my friend, and whom I could rely upon absolutely. I found him working with Thomas in the greenhouses, and, as soon as I could attract his attention, I beckoned him outside. He was a very different Jim from the one who had climbed a ladder to see my skin peeling off, though he had the same round rosy candid face, like a ripe russet apple, and though he still played doleful tunes on his flute. But he had developed amazingly: he had grown into a strapping big fellow, with limbs like a youthful Hercules. When I explained to him that I wanted him to give a note to Miss Dale, but that nobody must see him do it, he promised to try his best.
I went on to the summer-house and lay down among the bracken close by. I had been there fully two hours before I saw Katherine coming. She smiled brightly as I rose from my ferny bed to greet her.
"Why did I come without an umbrella?"she exclaimed gaily. "It's just going to pour!" And she turned to look at the heavy clouds that were gliding up rapidly against the wind.
"You can shelter in the summer-house," I said, laconically.
"I loathe summer-houses, especially when they're like this old thing, crammed with earwigs and spiders."
"The rain is going to be heavy: you'd better come in now," I went on, without attempting to emulate her lightness of manner. I dusted the rough seat for her with my pocket-handkerchief, in silence, just as the first big drops came pattering down on the leaves.
She sat down, and I stood near the door, looking at her. "Mrs. Carroll told me your mother arrived to-day, because of some letter of yours about me."
Katherine coloured a little. "I know," she answered, eagerly. "It's awfully silly of mamma. I've been talking to her about it."
"And you are to go home at once—to-morrow—perhaps this evening."
She laughed. "Certainly not this evening. How could we? And at any rate, we should have been going in a few days. But I told mamma she was taking it all absurdly seriously, and behaving exactly like a furious parent in a novel."
"It is serious to me," I said, quietly, "though to you it may be amusing." That she should laugh in this way hurt me deeply.
It had grown rapidly dark, and now a heavy rain began, cold and sad, sweeping through the trees, very soon making it plain that the summer-house was in need of repair. From the distance there came the crying of a sea-gull, a mournful, solitary note.
"Don't be angry with me, Peter," said Katherine, coming to the door and looking out. "I know it was stupid of me to write, but I never dreamt of mamma coming over like this. . . . . Why has it got so dark?"
Before I could answer there came a blinding flash of lightning, accompanied, nearly instantaneously, by a hideous din of thunder, which seemed to burst out just over us. A blank silence succeeded this ear-splitting crash, and Katherine said, "Some tree must have gone!"
"I wish it had been this summer-house," I muttered bitterly.
She looked at me, her face grown graver. The flash was followed by no other, but the rain continued in a fierce downpour, beating through our flimsy shelter, and streaming down the paths in brown muddy rivulets.
"I can't understand why mamma should have made such a fuss," Katherine went on, but no longer in the same tone, though I knew well enough the alteration in it was due merely to what I had said. " She is usually very sensible."
"How can you be so indifferent?" I asked, in a rough voice, for her calmness exasperated me.
"I'm not indifferent. I'm sorry I wrote. But we should have been going in three or four days, at any rate. You know that."Her manner was tinged with a faint reproach. I answered nothing, and she went on. "It is getting lighter—the rain will soon be over."
"Do you want to go? "I asked furiously. "Don't let me keep you if you do!
"Why do you speak like that, Peter? I told you I was sorry."
"This is the last time I shall see you alone."
"Nonsense"
"If you are going to-morrow, will you promise to meet me to-night somewhere—here—or on the golf-links?
"I can't possibly. There are people coming to dinner. Won't you come—or come in afterwards, at least?"
"Shall I see you by yourself if I do?"
"By myself?"
"Will you come out here with me?"
She sighed at my unreasonableness. "How can I? You know mamma and the others will be there, and how can I leave them? But say you'll come." "I certainly won't," I answered sullenly. " What does it matter to you whether I do or not?"
I felt her lips touch my cheek. Her face was wet and cold with the rain. I put my arms round her very gently, and kissed her hair and her cheek, but no more than that, for I knew her own embrace had been given merely to console me, and because it was for the last time. Her dark eyes caressed me, and she smiled a little. She laid her hand on my shoulder, "Will you walk back to the house with me now, Peter? You are not angry with me?"
"No," I answered.
"I can't stay any longer, because mamma knows I came out, and she will suspect it was to meet you. She is not so bad about it as she was when she first arrived. I managed to convince her that she had been alarming herself unnecessarily."
"Very unnecessarily," I thought, but I said nothing.
I walked back with her, and then on down the drive and home.