At Ledstow she had tea. She had it in a sort of parlour in the village pub. It was very cold, and stuffy with the stuffiness of a room whose windows have not been opened for months. Everything that could be cleaned was very clean, and everything that could be polished was very highly polished. The red and green linoleum shone like a mirror, and a smell of soap, varnish, turpentine, bacon, onions, and old stuffed furniture thickened the air. There was a sofa and three padded chairs upholstered in an archaic tapestry whose original colour or colours had merged into an even drab. There were paper shavings in the fire-place and, on the mantelshelf above, a bright blue vase with a bunch of pansies painted on it, a copper lustre sugar-bowl with a wreath of lumpy pink and blue fruits below the rim, a horrid little ornament displaying the arms of Colchester (why Colchester?), a brass bedroom candlestick, shining like gold, and a pet of a zebra, all stripy, feeding out of a little girl’s hand. The little girl had a sprigged dress with a yellow petticoat, and the zebra carried a pair of panniers, one heaped up with fruit and the other with flowers. Hilary loved him passionately at sight, and by dint of dwelling fondly upon his stripes contrived to forget that the tea was bitter and the butter rancid, and that she was no nearer finding the Mercers than when she had set out.
It was perhaps as well that the room afforded neither warmth nor comfort, because even its cold stuffiness was hard to leave. If there had been a fire and a comfortable chair, Hilary might have found it almost impossible to wrench herself away and go out into the dark. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but it was going to be, long before the lights of Ledlington came into view. And there was certainly going to be a fog. No, there was a fog already, and it looked like getting worse. Well, it was no good staying here, she had better be going. She would just have to give up any idea of finding the Mercers today. She opened the parlour door, and saw Alfred Mercer coming down the passage.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hilary’s mind went perfectly cold and stiff, but her hand shut the door. She stood on the other side of it and waited without thought or movement. She did not know how long she waited.
She began to think again. Was he coming in here? No, he wasn’t. The footsteps went past. She lost them. What was Alfred Mercer doing here? She didn’t know. She wanted to know, but there wasn’t any way of finding out. Had he followed her? She must find out. She went to the fire-place and rang the bell.
It seemed a long time before anyone answered it. Then the girl who had brought the tea came in and said there was eighteenpence to pay. Hilary took out two shillings and a sixpence, put one shilling and a sixpenny bit into the girl’s hand, and held the other shilling between finger and thumb.
‘I wonder if you could tell me the name of the man who came in just now?’
The girl was plump and good-tempered – a heavily built young thing with a high colour. She looked at the shilling and said,
‘Oh, no, miss, I couldn’t.’
‘You don’t know his name?’
‘Oh, no, miss, I don’t.’
‘You’ve seen him before – he’s been here before?’
‘Oh, no, miss, he hasn’t.’
‘You mean he’s a stranger?’
‘Oh, no, miss.’
Hilary could have stamped with rage. Did the girl know anything, or didn’t she? She seemed impenetrably stupid, but you never could tell. And she couldn’t afford to stay here and perhaps be caught asking awkward questions. Whether the girl knew Alfred Mercer or not, it was very certain that Alfred Mercer would know Hilary Carew, and that blighted girl had left the door open when she came in. Hilary Carew had got to make herself scarce, and she’d got to look slippy about it.
She looked slippy, but she didn’t look slippy enough, for just as she got to the end of the passage and had her hand on the outer door, Alfred Mercer came walking briskly back by the way he had gone. Hilary looked sideways and saw him, and with the same movement she pulled the door towards her and slipped out.
There was a recessed porch and some steps. Her bicycle was leaning against the steps, but someone had knocked it down and she had to pick it up. She was very, very quick about it. One moment she was groping for the bicycle, and the next she was wobbling out on to the road and leaning forward to reach the electric lamp and switch it on. Nothing seemed to happen when she did this. It wasn’t as dark as it was going to be later on, but it was quite dark enough, and there was quite a lot of fog. It was her own fault for stopping to have tea, but there comes a point when you care more about having your tea than about doing what you ought to do, and Hilary had reached that point. She now used some bitter expressions about the shock-headed young man who had sent her out on a foggy afternoon with a lamp which had probably died last winter.
When she had gone a few hundred yards and had nearly run into a ditch because the road turned off sharp to the right and the bicycle kept straight on, she got off and had a look at the lamp. Not a glimmer. She shook it, poked it, opened it, and closed it again with an exasperated bang. A beautiful bright beam of light instantly disclosed the fact that she had somehow got into a field. She got back on to the road, mounted, and began to ride as fast as the fog would let her in the direction of Ledlington, hoping passionately that Alfred Mercer hadn’t got a bicycle, too. She felt tolerably sure that he wouldn’t have a car, but he might have a bicycle. And then the voice of common sense, speaking in a very faint and unconvincing manner, enquired why on earth Alfred Mercer should want to follow her. He had already told her about two hundred times that his wife was out of her mind Common sense was of the opinion that this should suffice him. Something that wasn’t common sense kept urging in a low and horrid whisper, ‘Ride, Hilary – ride for your life! He’s coming after you – he’s coming now!’
As a matter of fact Mr. Mercer was drinking beer in the bar. He had recognised Hilary when she turned her head, and he had seen her through the half open door, but he had followed her no farther than the bottom step. The bicycle which he had stumbled into and knocked over was gone. That meant that Miss Carew had taken it. He wasn’t running down any dashed road after any dashed bicycle; not much he wasn’t. He went into the bar, ordered a pint of beer, laced it – deplorably – with gin, and awaited the arrival of his principal, who was late on account of the fog. His principal would arrive by car. If Miss Carew was to be followed, they could follow her comfortably in the car. He expended some profanity on the weather, and addressed a good deal more to Miss Hilary Carew.
About ten minutes later a car drew up in front of the inn, and after no more than five minutes went on again with a passenger. It took the Ledlington road.
The fog was deepening steadily. When she struck a bad patch Hilary had to get off and walk. It was better to walk than to run into a ditch or a tree. The prospect of getting hurt and lying out on a clammy road all night was too repellent. There began to be more and more bad patches, and she began to wish more and more fervently that she had never come on this wild goose chase. Her imp produced an appropriate rhyme:
‘If you want to chase a goose
That’s flying loose,
You really should take care
The goose is there.’