The strange countess
ethereal loveliness which was all her own might be true, but to the
lawyer she was a girl clerk who received thirty-five well-grudged
shillings every week of her life, minus the cost of her insurance.
“You go down to Telsbury.”
He had a minatory manner, and invariably prefaced his remarks with the
accusative pronoun. “You’ll get there in an hour and a half. Take
those two affidavits to the woman Desmond, and get her to sign the
transfer form. The car’s there----”
“I think Mr. Dorling had it----” she began.
“The car’s there,” he said obstinately. “You’ll have a dry trip, and
you ought to be thankful for the opportunity of a breath of fresh air.
Here, take this,” as she was going out with the foolscap. It was a
little slip of paper. “It is the Home Office order--use your senses,
girl! How do you think you’ll get into the gaol without that? And tell
that woman Desmond---- Anyway, off you go.”
Lois went out and closed the door behind her. The four faded,
middle-aged clerks, sitting at their high desks, did not so much as
look up, but the snub-nosed girl with the oily face, who had been
pounding a typewriter, perked her head round.
“You’re going to Telsbury, by the so-called car?” she asked. “I
thought he’d send you. That old devil’s so mean that he wouldn’t pay
his fare to heaven! The juggernaut will kill somebody one of these
days,” she added darkly, “you mark my words!”
Attached to the firm of Shaddles & Soan was a dilapidated motor-car
that had seen its best time in pre-war days. It was housed in a
near-by garage which, being a property under Mr. Shaddles’ direction
as trustee, exacted no rent for the care of the machine, which he had
bought for a negligible sum at the sale of a bankrupt’s effects. It
was a Ford, and every member of the staff was supposed to be able to
drive it. It carried Mr. Shaddles to the Courts of Justice, it took
his clerks on errands, and it figured prominently in all bills of
cost. It was, in many ways, a very paying scheme.
“Ain’t you glad you’re going?” asked Lizzy enviously. “Lord! If I
could get out of this dusty hole! Maybe you’ll meet your fate?”
Lois frowned.
“My what?”
“Your fate,” said Elizabetta, unabashed. “I spotted him out of the
window this morning--that fellow is certainly potty about you!”
A cold light of disfavour was in the eyes of Lois, but Lizzy was not
easily squashed. “There’s nothing in that,” she said. “Why, there used
to be a young man who waited for me for hours--in the rain too. It
turned out that he wasn’t right in his head, either.”
Lois laughed softly as she wrapped a gaily coloured scarf about her
throat and pulled on her gloves. Suddenly her smile vanished.
“I hate Telsbury; I hate all prisons. They give me the creeps. I am
glad I’m leaving Mr. Shaddles.”
“Don’t call him ‘Mister,’” said the other. “It is paying him a
compliment.”
The car stood at the door, as Mr. Shaddles had suggested, an ancient
and ugly machine. The day was fair and warm, and once clear of the
London traffic the sun shone brightly and she shook off the depression
which had lain upon her like a cloud all that morning. As she sent the
car spinning out of Bedford Row she glanced round instinctively for
some sign of the man to whom Lizzy had made so unflattering a
reference, and whose constant and unswerving devotion was one of the
principal embarrassments of her life. But he was nowhere in sight, and
he passed out of her mind, as, clear of London, she turned from the
main road and slowed her car along one of the twisting lanes that ran
parallel with the post route and gave one who loved the country and
the green hedgerows a more entranced vision than the high road would
have given her.
Seven miles short of Telsbury she brought the car back to the main
thoroughfare, and spun, at a speed which she uneasily recognised as
excessive, on to the tarred highway. Even as she came clear of the
high hedges she heard the warning croak of a motor-horn, and jammed on
her brakes. The little machine skidded out into the road. Too late,
she released the brakes and thrust frantically at the accelerator. She
saw the bonnet of a long, black car coming straight towards her, felt
rather than heard the exclamation of its driver.
“_Crash!_”
In that second she recognised the driver.
“Say it!”
The girl, gripping the steering wheel of her ancient Ford, stared
defiantly across a broken windscreen, but Michael Dorn did not accept
the challenge. Instead, he put his gear into reverse, preparatory to
withdrawing his running-board from the affectionate embrace of the
other guard. He did this with a manner of gentle forbearance which was
almost offensive.
“Say it!” she said. “Say something violent or vulgar! It is far better
to have things out than to let bad words go jumping around inside!”
Grey eyes need black lashes to be seen at best advantage, he thought;
and she had one of those thinnish noses that he admired in women. He
rather liked her chin, and, since it was raised aggressively, he had a
fair view of a perfect throat. It struck him as being extremely
perfect in spite of the red and yellow and green silk scarf that was
lightly knotted about. She was neatly if poorly dressed.
“Nothing jumps around inside me except my heart,” he said, “and, at
the moment, that is slipping back from my mouth. I don’t like your
necktie.”
She looked down at the offending garment and frowned.
“You have no right to run into me because you disapprove of my scarf,”
she said coldly. “Will you please disengage your strange machine from
mine? I hope you are insured.”
He jerked his car back, there was a sound of ripping tin, a crack and
a shiver of glass, and he was free. Then:
“You came out of a side road at forty miles an hour--you’d have turned
over certain, only I was there to catch you,” he said
half-apologetically. “I hope you aren’t hurt?”
She shook her head.
“I am not,” she said, “but I think my employer will be when he sees
the wreckage. Anyway, your end is served, Mr. Dorn, you have made my
acquaintance.”
He started and went a shade red.
“You don’t imagine that I manœuvred this collision with the idea of
getting an introduction, do you?” he almost gasped, and was
thunderstruck when the girl with the grave eyes nodded.
“You have been following me for months,” she said quietly. “You even
took the trouble to make up to a girl in Mr. Shaddles’ office in order
to arrange a meeting. I have seen you shadowing me on my way
home--once you took the same ’bus--and on the only occasion I have
been to a dance this year I found you in the vestibule.”
Michael Dorn fiddled with the steering wheel, momentarily speechless.
She was serious now, all the banter and quiet merriment in her voice
had passed. Those wonderful eyes of hers were regarding him with a
certain gentle reproach that was hard to endure.
“Well, the truth is----” he began lamely, and found himself at a loss
for words.
She waited for him to finish his sentence, and then:
“The truth is----” A faint smile trembled at the corner of her red
mouth. “The truth is, Mr. Dorn, that it isn’t a very terrible offence
for any nice man to wish to meet any girl--that I recognise. And it
would be stupid in me if I pretended that I am very much annoyed. But
as I told your ambassador, Miss Lizzy Smith----”
He blinked rapidly.
“I really do not wish to know you, and I have no doubt that she has
conveyed that intelligence to you. Therefore your position is a
little--what shall I say?”
“Offensive is the word you’re wanting,” he said coolly. “I’ll admit
that it bears that construction.”
He got down slowly, walked to the side of her car, and stood, his
hands resting on the arm of the seat.
“I want you to believe, Miss Reddle!” he said earnestly, “that nothing
is farther from my wish than to annoy you. If I hadn’t been a clumsy
fool you would never have known that I was----”
He stopped, at a loss for a word. It was she who supplied it, and in
spite of his seriousness he laughed.
“‘Dogging’ is an ugly word. I’m trying to think of something
prettier,” he said.
She liked the ghost of a smile that shone in his blue eyes, and had
they parted then, without another word, she might have thought more
kindly of him. But:
“Where are you off to, on this bright autumn day?” he asked, and she
stiffened.
“Will you start my car, please?” she said with dignity.
He cranked up the engine and stood aside. She could not resist the
temptation:
“If you follow me now you’ll have a shock,” she said. “I am going to
Telsbury Prison.”
The effect on the man was startling; he stared in amazement and fear.
His jaw dropped, and into his eyes came a queer look of wonder.
“Where are you going?” he asked huskily, as though he doubted the
evidence of his ears.
“I am going to Telsbury Prison--please.”
She waved him out of her way. The car with the broken wind-screen went
noisily along the broad high road, leaving the man to stare. And then:
“Good God!” said Michael Dorn.
Chapter Three
The grim entrance of Telsbury Convict Establishment is mercifully
hidden behind a screen of thick-growing pines. Its red walls have
mellowed with age, and but for the high tower in the centre of the
prison a traveller would pass it unnoticed. Hiding all the heartache
that has made the word “Dartmoor” synonymous with sorrow, Telsbury has
missed the fame of its fellow-prison.
Lois had already made two visits to the prison on her employer’s
business. A client of the firm had prosecuted a woman who had been
engaged in systematic fraud, and she had been sent down for five
years. It had been necessary to secure her signature to certain deeds
transferring back to their lawful owner stocks which had been
fraudulently converted.
Stopping her car broadside on to the high black gates, she descended
and pulled a bell. Almost immediately a grating was slipped back and
two watchful eyes surveyed her. Though the gatekeeper recognised her,
it was not until she had shown him the Home Office order which she
carried that he turned the key in the lock and admitted her to a bare
stone room, furnished with a desk, a stool, two chairs, and a table.
The warder read the order again and pressed a bell. He, his two
reliefs, and the governor were the only men who came within those
walls, and his sphere of operations was restricted to the room and the
archway, barred with steel railings, which cut the courtyard off from
the rest of the prison.
“Getting tired of coming here, miss?” he asked with a smile.
“Prisons make me very tired and very sick at heart,” said the girl.
He nodded.
“There are six hundred women inside here who are more tired and more
sick than you will ever be, I hope, miss,” he said conventionally.
“Not that I ever see any of them. I open the gate to the prison van
and never catch a sight of them again, not even when they go out.”
There was a snap of a lock, and a young wardress in neat blue uniform
came in and greeted Lois with a cheery nod. The girl was conducted
through a small steel gate, across a wide parade ground, empty at that
moment, through another door and along a passage into the governor’s
small office.
“Good morning, doctor,” she said. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Desmond,” and
displayed her papers before the grey-haired governor.
“She’ll be in her cell now,” he said. “Come along, Miss Reddle, I’ll
take you there myself.”
At the end of the passage was another door, which led into a large
hall, on either side of which was a steel alleyway, reached by broad
stairs in the centre of the hall. Lois looked up, saw the netting
above her head and shivered. It was placed there, she knew, to prevent
these unhappy women from dashing themselves to death from the top
landings.