Outrageous Fortune (12 page)

“I don't know that it's fair to tell you—in fact it's not. I'm confused still, but I do know that. You oughtn't even to be here.”

“How
dreadful!”
said Caroline. “Where else ought I to be?”

“In bed—and you'd better be getting along, my dear. I don't know how you came here at all.”

“Oh, I followed you. All romantic, darling—it really was. I looked out of my bower window, and you lifted up the latch and came into the garden and stood looking up. And I knew you at once, so I followed you, and about half way I began to think supposing it wasn't you at all, or supposing it was a grimly ghost like the ballad says—so it was most awfully, awfully brave of me to keep on. I've never really liked even hide-and-seek in the dark, and in some ways moonlight's worse, because almost anything might be a grimly ghost by moonlight. And if you think, after that, I'm going back to bed without hearing all about everything, well, you've just got to think again, darling—and quite
differently.”

This was a Caroline he knew—a sweet, imperious, gently obstinate Caroline, with a laugh in her voice and a coaxing hand on his arm. Since she could speak at all he had been “Jim darling.” He said heavily,

“All the same, you'd better go.”

“As if I would! Jim—tell me—what's the matter?”

“Go home, Caroline!”

“You're
home.”

He pulled away from her roughly.

“Don't talk nonsense!” Then, on a changed note, “Caroline—go!”

The laugh went out of her voice as she said,

“You know I won't go. You
know
I won't.”

“I know you ought to.”

“We ought to do lots of things that we don't do—lots, and lots, and lots of things. And this is one of the things that I'm not going to do—not if the Prime Minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Arbuthnot all stood in a row and said go. Darling—wouldn't it be funny if they did? And I should just blow them each a nice kiss—you know, the sort you put on your palm and push up to the top of your middle finger like this.” She pushed a kiss delicately into position and blew it at him. “And then I should say, ‘The answer is in the negative'; or in other words, ‘I'll be Jericho'd if I do!' I've put it very tactfully because of the Archbishop, though I don't suppose he's half so easily shocked as Robert is.”

She came down from the steps and slid a hand through his arm. Her voice dropped on to a deep loving note.

“It's no
use,
darling—you've got to tell me. Better get it over. You can't make me go.”

“I ought to be able to make you.”

“Come and sit down,” said Caroline seriously. “Now, Jim—what have you been doing, and why did you let me think you had been drowned?” Her voice went down into despairing depths.

“Did you?”

“Yes—in the
Alice Arden.
And there was an S.O.S. about a man in hospital at Elston who had lost his memory, and I went to see if it was you, and they said—Jim, they said that he had just been fetched away by his wife. That wasn't you?”

“Yes.”

“How could it be you?”

“It was.”

“How could it be?”

Caroline felt as if everything had begun to shake a little, like a reflection in water when someone throws a stone into it. Everything that had been so safe and steady had become no more than a shaken picture in troubled water.

Jim was silent. He did not know of any answer to her question.

She went on in a trembling voice.

“I went to Ledlington. The sister said you had my letter—a bit of it—the bit with my name—with Caroline—so I went. But it wasn't you, Jim—it wasn't you.”

“You went to Ledlington?”

“I found her. She dropped a bill, and the sister gave it to me, so I found her. Her name was Riddell—Mrs Riddell. She was the most horrible woman. But it was her husband who was in the hospital at Elston—it wasn't you.”

Jim did not speak. He looked through the moonlight to the dark trees. Caroline gazed at him with wide, frightened eyes.

“It was her husband,” she said in a whisper. “It couldn't be you—you're not her husband.”

He spoke then in a loud, harsh voice.

“She says I am.”

Caroline felt the words strike her like stones, like sharp, heavy stones. They hurt so much and weighed so heavily that she could not get her breath.
Jim
had hurt her like that. It was like the most dreadful nightmare. She tried to speak, and could not make any sound. And then all at once she heard Jim's voice, sharp with alarm.

“Caroline—don't look like that!”

Caroline got her breath with a gasp.

“Why did you say it? You oughtn't—you mustn't! Jim darling!”

He caught her wrists and held them in a hard, heavy grip.

“Pull yourself together! Do you hear? Oh yes, you can if you like. You're just making it more difficult for us both.”

She had been straining away from him, her voice broken and her whole body shaking, but at his last words she went quiet and limp. He let go of her, and she drooped forward. It was just as if some spring had failed. She said in a little lifeless voice,

“Tell me.”

A vapour, that was hardly cloud, had passed across the moon. The air was dark between them; he could not see her face. She leaned her head on her hand and waited. Her silence made her seem a long way off.

He began to speak in a strained, level voice.

“I'm going to tell you—but it isn't easy, because I don't know where I am. You see, the last thing I remember is landing at Liverpool on the first of July. I remember getting into the train for London, and after that there's a gap until I woke up in Ledlington.”

“What?”
said Caroline. All the droop went out of her. She sat bolt upright and stared at him through the dusk.

“I was told I'd been rescued from the
Alice Arden
—found on a ledge on the cliffs after she broke up, and taken to the Elston cottage hospital. I was told that my wife had fetched me away.”

“Who told you?”

“She did.”

“That Riddell woman?”.

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“She showed me a marriage certificate.”

“Yours?”

“She said so.”

“And you believed her?”

“I suppose I did—yes, of course I did. I didn't know who I was or how I'd got there—I didn't know anything except what she told me. She said my name was Jim Riddell, and that hers was Nesta Riddell. Her brother and sister-in-law said the same thing. She said we'd been married at the Grove Road registry office. She showed me the certificate. Of course I believed her.”

“But it isn't
true!”
said Caroline in a warm, indignant voice.

He was silent.

“Jim—it
isn't
true!”

He said, “I can't remember anything after the first of July.”

“Not anything?”

She saw him wince. He said,

“Bit of things broken up..… It's worse than not remembering at all—much worse.”

“You wrote to me on the seventh of July,” said Caroline quickly.

“Where from?”

“London. But you didn't give any address—you said to write to your bank.”

“And you wrote?”

“I wrote, and Aunt Grace wrote. I was staying with her at Craigellachie. She asked you to come up, and you didn't answer for three whole days—and then you didn't write to me, only to Aunt Grace.”

“What did I say?”

“You said you might be able to come later on. And then you didn't write again till a fortnight ago, and you said you might be able to get off on the seventh if Aunt Grace could have you, and you would take a steamer up the coast. And then—and then—you never came.”

“That was the last you heard?”

“Yes. Don't you remember anything about it?”

“No.”

“You said you remembered—bits.”

He shook his head impatiently.

“I don't remember writing to you at all. The things I remember—” He broke off. Vividly before his mind there appeared, like the broken bits of kaleidoscope, the things that he remembered—a decanter and two glasses; a syphon with the light striking through it; Elmer Van Berg lifting his glass; the bubbles rising in it—tiny bubbles racing upwards to the brim. That was one sharply coloured piece.

The sweat came out on his forehead. He said, quick and uneven,

“I remember drinking with Elmer Van Berg.”

XIV

The vapour passed from before the moon, and he saw Caroline like her own ghost, looking at him with wide, startled eyes. She could not have told why the words startled her so—“I remember drinking with Elmer Van Berg.” Why shouldn't he remember it? What was there to startle her in that?

He went on speaking.

“There wasn't anything about that in the papers—I read them all this morning. But the tray and the glasses must have been there.”

A light nervous shudder passed over Caroline.

“The papers?” she said.

He nodded.

“I read them all. The tray and the glasses must have been there when they found Elmer.”

“Jim! What are you saying?”

He said, “I wonder if they've got my finger-prints.”

Caroline flung herself towards him and caught his hand.

“Jim—I'm frightened. What are you saying?”

“I'm telling you what you wanted to know. That's one of the bits I remember—drinking with Elmer Van Berg the night he was shot. Do you want to hear any more?”

Caroline's hand clung to his.

“Yes,” she said.

He laughed.

“You won't like it. You'd better go home.”

“Tell me.”

She felt his hand twitch. His voice changed.

“It's not like remembering really—it's like seeing a lot of little pictures—broken. There's one of a fog. And I can hear someone talking—I don't know whether it's me or someone else. It's beastly. The voice keeps saying, ‘Like a kid's green beads—no one knows but me—no one knows where they are—a kid's green beads—'” He stopped. She felt the muscles rise as he clenched his hand.

She came nearer, pressing against him as if she could protect him from this something which threatened. Whatever it was, he was Jim, and hers. She had a passionate conviction that she could keep him safe whatever happened.

“There's another bit about the emeralds. I can see them under the light. I can't see Elmer—only his hand under the light, and the emeralds hanging from it—eight of them, with little pearl chains between them—‘like a kid's green beads.'”

Caroline put her arms around him.

“Don't, darling!”

“Do you think I shot him?”

“No!” said Caroline, in a quick, fierce voice.

“She said I did—to get the emeralds.”

“That woman?”

“Yes, Nesta. She said Jim Riddell shot him and took the emeralds. She was in it too. And he hid the emeralds and went off up to Glasgow by the
Alice Arden
—only he never got there, because she was wrecked.”

“What has that got to do with you?” said Caroline, still in that new fierce voice.

“She says I'm Jim Riddell.”

“You're
not
! Why should you be?”

“I don't know—Caroline, I don't
know.”
She felt a shudder pass over him. “If I could remember—but I can't remember.”

“You will.”

He was silent. Her words went echoing through the empty spaces of his mind: “Remember—remember—you will remember.” They repeated themselves endlessly and died away. Suppose he didn't remember. There was a six weeks gap in his life. Suppose he never remembered what had happened in those six weeks. Suppose he did remember. Suppose he had really shot Elmer Van Berg ……

“You
didn't
!” said Caroline. She pressed against him and laid her cheek to his. “Jim—
darling
—don't go all away by yourself. Talk to me. We'll find a way out.”

He put her arms away from him.

“Suppose there's no way out. Suppose I did it.”

Caroline sat back a little. She put her hands in her lap and lifted her face to the sky. She had a clear, untroubled look that was very comforting. She spoke softly and steadily, as if she were reasoning with a child.

“Why
should
you have shot him, darling?”

“I don't know—I was there—I remember drinking with him—”

“You wouldn't have shot him without a reason. You don't just go about shooting people for nothing—nobody does.”

“The emeralds are not exactly nothing.”

“That's rubbish!” The words were touched with a light scorn.

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is—you know it is, really, Jim. Do you remember anything at all about the Nesta woman?”

“No.”

“Well, wouldn't you have, if you had married her?”

“I don't know.” His voice sounded hopeless.

“She didn't touch a chord? I mean, sometimes you meet a total stranger and you don't know where they come from or who they are, but something goes click inside you and you feel as if you knew them. You didn't feel anything like that?”

He laughed grimly.

“I loathed her,” he said.

“So did I,” said Caroline happily. “Well, there you are—if you loathed her, you wouldn't have married her.”

There was rather a horrid pause. Then he said,

“Perhaps I loathed her
because
I married her.”

Caroline cried out quickly.

“Oh, you didn't!”

The silence fell again. She had to break it herself.

“Jim, listen—I've got an idea. You can look up your signature in that registry office. No, it's
not
your signature—it
can't
be! It's Jim Riddell's signature. You can look it up, and then you'll know that it isn't yours.”