Rebecca

'I shall be all right,' I said. I looked at Jasper who was standing by my feet with ears drooping and sad reproachful eyes.

'Take Jasper back with you to the office,' I said. 'He looks so miserable.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I will.'

'We'd better be off,' said Maxim. 'Old Julyan will be getting impatient. All right, Frank.'

I climbed in the car beside Maxim. Frank slammed the door.

'You will telephone, won't you?' he said.

'Yes, of course,' said Maxim.

I looked back at the house. Frith was standing at the top of the steps, and Robert just behind. My eyes filled with tears for no reason. I turned away and groped with my bag on the floor of the car so that nobody should see. Then Maxim started up the car and we swept round and into the drive and the house was hidden.

We stopped at the lodge-gates and picked up Colonel Julyan. He got in at the back. He looked doubtful when he saw me.

'It's going to be a long day,' he said. 'I don't think you should have attempted it. I would have taken care of your husband you know.'

'I wanted to come,' I said.

He did not say any more about it. He settled himself in the corner. 'It's fine, that's one thing,' he said.

'Yes,' said Maxim.

'That fellow Favell said he would pick us up at the crossroads. If he*s not there don't attempt to wait, we'd do much better without him. I hope the damned fellow has overslept himself.'

When we came to the crossroads though I saw the long green body of his car, and my heart sank. I had thought he might not be on time. Favell was sitting at the wheel, hatless, a cigarette in his mouth. He grinned when he saw us, and waved us on. I settled down in my seat for the journey ahead, one hand on Maxim's knee. The hours passed, and the miles were covered. I watched the road ahead in a kind of stupor. Colonel Julyan slept at the back from time to time. I turned occasionally and saw his head loll against the cushions, and his mouth open. The green car kept close beside us. Sometimes it shot ahead, sometimes it dropped behind. But we never lost it. At one we stopped for lunch at one of those inevitable old-fashioned hotels in the main street of a county town. Colonel Julyan waded through the whole set lunch, starting with soup and fish, and going on to roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Maxim and I had cold ham and coffee.

I half expected Favell to wander into the dining-room and join us, but when we came out to the car again I saw his car had been drawn up outside a cafe on the opposite side of the road. He must have seen us from the window, for three minutes after we had started he was on our tail again.

We came to the suburbs of London about three o'clock. It was then that I began to feel tired, the noise and the traffic blocks started a humming in my head. It was warm in London too. The streets had that worn dusty look of August, and the leaves hung listless on dull trees. Our storm must have been local, there had been no rain here.

People were walking about in cotton frocks and the men were hatless. There was a smell of waste-paper, and orange-peel, and feet, and burnt dried grass. Buses lumbered slowly, and taxis crawled. I felt as though my coat and skirt were sticking to me, and my stockings pricked my skin.

Colonel Julyan sat up and looked out through his window. 'They've had no rain here,' he said.

'No,' said Maxim.

'Looks as though the place needed it, too.'

'Yes.'

'We haven't succeeded in shaking Favell off. He's still on our tail.'

'Yes.'

Shopping centres on the outskirts seemed congested. Tired women with crying babies in prams stared into windows, hawkers shouted, small boys hung on to the backs of lorries. There were too many people, too much noise. The very air was irritable and exhausted and spent.

The drive through London seemed endless, and by the time we had drawn clear again and were out beyond Hampstead there was a sound in my head like the beating of a drum, and my eyes were burning.

I wondered how tired Maxim was. He was pale, and there were shadows under his eyes, but he did not say anything. Colonel Julyan kept yawning at the back. He opened his mouth very wide and yawned aloud, sighing heavily afterwards. He would do this every few minutes. I felt a senseless stupid irritation come over me, and I did not know how to prevent myself from turning round and screaming to him to stop.

Once we had passed Hampstead he drew out a large-scale map from his coat-pocket and began directing Maxim to Barnet. The way was clear and there were sign-posts to tell us, but he kept pointing out every turn and twist in the road, and if there was any hesitation on Maxim's part Colonel Julyan would turn down the window and call for information from a passer-by.

When we came to Barnet itself he made Maxim stop every few minutes. 'Can you tell us where a house called Roselands is? It belongs to a Doctor Baker, who's retired, and come to live there lately,' and the passer-by would stand frowning a moment, obviously at sea, ignorance written plain upon his face.

'Doctor Baker? I don't know a Doctor Baker. There used to be a house called Rose Cottage near the church, but a Mrs Wilson lives there.'

'No, it's Roselands we want, Doctor Baker's house,' said Colonel Julyan, and then we would go on and stop again in front of a nurse and a pram. 'Can you tell us where Roselands is?'

'I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've only just come to live here.'

'You don't know a Doctor Baker?'

'Doctor Davidson. I know Doctor Davidson.'

'No, it's Doctor Baker we want.'

I glanced up at Maxim. He was looking very tired. His mouth was set hard. Behind us crawled Favell, his green car covered in dust.

It was a postman who pointed out the house in the end. A square house, ivy covered, with no name on the gate, which we had already passed twice. Mechanically I reached for my bag and dabbed my face with the end of the powder puff. Maxim drew up outside at the side of the road. He did not take the car into the short drive. We sat silently for a few minutes.

'Well, here we are,' said Colonel Julyan, 'and it's exactly twelve minutes past five. We shall catch them in the middle of their tea. Better wait for a bit.'

Maxim lit a cigarette, and then stretched out his hand to me. He did not speak. I heard Colonel Julyan crinkling his map.

'We could have come right across without touching London,' he said, 'saved us forty minutes I dare say. We made good time the first two hundred miles. It was from Chiswick on we took the time.'

An errand-boy passed us whistling on his bicycle. A motorcoach stopped at the corner and two women got out. Somewhere a church clock chimed the quarter. I could see Favell leaning back in his car behind us and smoking a cigarette. I seemed to have no feeling in me at all. I just sat and watched the little things that did not matter. The two women from the bus walk along the road. The errand-boy disappears round the corner. A sparrow hops about in the middle of the road pecking at dirt.

'This fellow Baker can't be much of a gardener,' said Colonel Julyan. 'Look at those shrubs tumbling over his wall. They ought to have been pruned right back.' He folded up the map and put it back in his pocket. 'Funny sort of place to choose to retire in,' he said. 'Close to the main road and overlooked by other houses. Shouldn't care about it myself. I dare say it was quite pretty once before they started building. No doubt there is a good golf-course somewhere handy.'

He was silent for a while, then he opened the door and stood out in the road. 'Well, de Winter,' he said, 'what do you think about it?'

'I'm ready,' said Maxim.

We got out of the car. Favell strolled up to meet us.

'What were you all waiting for, cold feet?' he said.

Nobody answered him. We walked up the drive to the front door, a strange incongruous little party. I caught sight of a tennis lawn beyond the house, and I heard the thud of balls. A boy's voice shouted 'Forty-fifteen, not thirty all. Don't you remember hitting it out, you silly ass?'