This Was Ivor Trent полностью

“You must be a nice person. Only a nice person could have said something so stupid. Listen, listen! I’ve got to trust you. There’s something you must do for me. But promise—promise—you’ll never tell anyone.”

“I do promise.”

“Get me a piece of paper—and a pencil. Quick!”

She scribbled a word and some numbers—then tore the paper to shreds.

“No! Tell him—directly you can—that he must ring up Rosalie Vivian. Directly! Tell him it’s terribly urgent—terribly!”

Again she sank into the chair and buried her face in her hands.

“Oh no, no, no!” she moaned, “that’s no good. He’s delirious—delirious! My God, I can’t stand this—I can’t stand it another second—I——”

“For God’s sake——”

But she was on her feet again, quivering from head to foot.

“They don’t take any notice, do they—doctors, nurses!—of what a man says in delirium. They don’t, do they? They know it’s all nonsense—lies—don’t they? Do answer!”

“Yes, of course they do.”

She seized his arm and gripped it with a sudden nervous strength that amazed him.

“You—they—you haven’t heard—they’ve not told you anything he’s said——”

“No, no, of course not! You need not fear that. Doctors and nurses are used to all that. It doesn’t interest them.”

“You’re certain?”

“Certain!”

A long silence, which reminded Rendell of a respite during a thunderstorm. He stood, braced and taut, believing himself to be prepared for anything.

“What’s your name?”

The tone was nearly a normal conversational one. Rendell reeled. He had not been prepared for this.

“Rendell—Arthur Rendell. I only came to this house last night. I don’t know Trent. But do believe that you can trust me. I’d—I’d help you in any way I could. Please believe that.”

“I do believe it.”

There was a deep resonant note in her voice. The words might have been spoken by a serious child—giving the whole of her confidence to someone who had earned it.

A long silence followed.

She had sat down again and was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in her hands.

Possibly she was thirty—dark, lithe, and deceptively frail-looking. Her hands and feet were perfect. She had large very blue eyes, which, in moments of tranquillity, looked at the world with an expression of frightened wonder. But, as Rendell had seen, they could flash with extraordinary power when she was emotionally moved. She had the rare quality of creating—by her mere presence—a sudden tension in the atmosphere surrounding her. Rendell was aware of it now, as he stood looking down at her.

She seemed to have forgotten time, place, and circumstances as she sat, leaning forward, staring into vacancy with bewildered eyes. This swift alternation from hysteria to inertia was so mysterious to Rendell that it reduced him to impotence. He stood like a slave awaiting the next demand of a capricious master. He had not to wait long.

The sound of footsteps descending the stairs stabbed broad awake in her that spirit of passionate hysteria which had so suddenly become quiescent.

In a second she was on her feet.

“Who’s that?”

“Only one of the lodgers.”

“Lodgers!”

“Yes, didn’t you know that this was a lodging-house?”

She stared at him incredulously.

“Then why is Ivor here? I saw him on Saturday,” she raced on, “only Saturday! He was well. He was going abroad the next day to work. I must see him! I must, I tell you! I’m in terrible trouble. And he’s here—delirious! You don’t know what that means to me.”

A pause, then on again, the words rushing from her in a torrent:

“I did not sleep for one second last night. I read that paragraph in the paper again and again. I couldn’t believe it. I daren’t believe it. And then, to-day, I couldn’t get away to come here. I had to come, although I was terrified of coming. And yet I ought not to be here. Anything might happen. And I’m telling you all this—you, a stranger! I shall go mad to-night when I think of it. But I can’t stay—not another minute! And God alone knows when I shall be able to come again.”

Tears blinded her eyes and she was trembling violently.

“Look here, you really can’t go on like this,” Rendell announced firmly. “You’ll make yourself ill.”

“Ill!”

“Yes—ill! And that won’t help. I promise you that, directly I can, I will ask him to telephone you. I’ll do anything else I can.”

“Wait, wait! I must think. Suppose someone saw me come in here? You’d say that I was a friend of yours. You’d do that? You remember my name? Rosalie Vivian. A friend of yours. You understand? And you’d tell them that I did not know Ivor was here. That’s what you’d say, isn’t it—isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’ll say that. How can I convince you that I only want to help you?”

“I believe it—now I’m here with you. But, when I’ve gone—to-night?—alone? Wait, wait!”

She went to the mirror, dabbed her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief, then studied her reflection critically.

“Yesterday seemed like a month. To-day has been a year. I shall soon be old.”

“Things will come out all right and——”

She turned and looked at him—and his platitudinous phrase died in middle age.