Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver Deals With Death

It hurt too much for that. He was Giles come back from the dead, and he was a stranger. He was looking at her just as he had looked the first time they met, at Kitty Van Loo’s. And all of a sudden the frozen feeling went and her heart was warm again, because he had fallen in love with her then, at first sight, and if he had done it once, why shouldn’t he do it again? What did it matter that he had forgotten? He was Giles, and she was Meade, and he was alive. “Oh, God, thank you, thank you, for letting Giles be alive!”

He saw the light and colour come back. It gave him the strangest feeling, as if he had created something. He said in a different voice,

“Who are you?”

“Meade Underwood.”

He repeated it, “Meade-Underwood-It’s a pretty name. Did I call you Meade?”

Something flickered and went again, like the flash of light off a bird’s wing. He couldn’t catch it. She said,

“Yes.”

“Have I known you long?”

“Not very long. We met in New York, on the first of May, at Kitty Van Loo’s. Do you remember her?”

He shook his head.

She looked at the bright blue eyes, at the crisp fair hair above the ruddy brown skin, and thought, “He’s well-he’s alive. What does anything else matter?” But she was glad that he didn’t remember Kitty Van Loo.

“I don’t remember a thing, except about the job I went over there to do. I don’t remember going out there, or anything after Christmas ’39. Everything since then has just run into a fog as far as my personal recollection goes. Why”-his voice changed-“I didn’t even remember about my brother Jack being killed. He was with me at Dunkirk, and somehow I knew he was dead, but I couldn’t remember a thing about it-not a thing. I can’t now. I’ve had to get it all from a chap who was there with me. I can remember being in France, and getting away from Dunkirk, and the job I had at the War Office, but none of the personal things. I could tell them all about my job in the States-all the technical part. Funny, isn’t it, but I can remember a fellow in my first regiment, an extraordinarily fine bridge player. He used to get canned every night, but it never affected his game. I’ve seen him so that he couldn’t take in a word you said outside the play, but he knew every card that was out- never made a mistake. I suppose it’s something like that. Well, we met at Kitty Van Loo’s-and where did we go from there?”

He saw Meade sparkle. It went to his head a little. The whole thing was going to his head-this blend of the strange and the familiar. She said,

“Oh, we went places.”

“Nice places?”

“Yes, nice places.”

“Lots of them?”

“Lots of them.”

“And when did you come back?”

She was watching him. She said,

“In June.”

She saw the blood run up under his skin.

“But so did I-at least that’s what they tell me. That is to say, I started to come, and we were torpedoed.” He laughed. “I was picked up by a tramp a couple of days later. I’d got hold of a grating, and I believe they couldn’t get me to let go-had to more or less prise me off it. I don’t remember anything about it myself. I’d been hit on the head, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital ward in New York, and nobody knew who I was. Well, that’s me. But you said June. I suppose the Atlantic wasn’t by any chance one of the places we went together… Oh, it was? Well, I hope I saved your life.”

Meade nodded. For a moment she couldn’t speak. It was all too horribly, too vividly present again-the darkness, the noise, and those rending crashes-the rush of the water, coming in, sucking them down-Giles lifting her, heaving her into the boat. She said,

“You put me into one of the boats.”

“You were all right-not hurt?”

“My arm was broken, and some ribs. They’re all right now.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure.”

They looked at one another. There was a silence. Just as it became unendurable, he said,

“How well did we know each other, Meade?”

She closed her eyes. The lashes lay dark against her cheek. In three months she had not heard him say her name. When she had dreamt of him he had not said it. Now he was saying it like a stranger. It hurt too much. He said in a quick, anxious voice,

“You look all in. Can’t I take you somewhere? Where would you like to go? I say, you’re not going to faint, are you?”

The lashes lifted. She looked at him. It was very disturbing. She said in a whispering voice.

“I won’t if I can help it. I think I had better go home.”

They said good-bye on the steps of Vandeleur House, with the taxi ticking away in the road on the other side of a massive Victorian shrubbery. There was daylight still, daylight falling into dusk-grey daylight-no colour, no sparkle, no sun. There would be a mist again tonight. Meade was in the very mood of the mist, so tired that she could hardly stand. Reaction from the shock of finding Giles, only to find that she was forgotten, had left her as dull and lifeless as the day. They had met, they were saying good-bye, and perhaps they would never meet again. The pain of that came through the dullness and pierced her. He might just go away back to his job and think no more of their meeting than that it was a queer sort of business and best let alone. She must face it. It might very easily happen. He had been landed with a stupid fainting girl-for all he could remember, a total stranger. Men hated girls who cried and girls who fainted. He had been kind. Giles was kind. She had seen him being kind to stray dogs and tiresome old women-but once you got rid of the wretched lost creature you didn’t go out of your way to look for any more trouble. So here she was saying good-bye to Giles. She mustn’t cry, and she mustn’t faint. She must go through with it decently.

She put out a hand and he took it. Then he took the other one and held them both. Giles always had such strong, warm hands. He said in a serious tone, halting a little over the words as if there was some strong feeling behind them,

“This is-all wrong-we oughtn’t to be saying good-bye. It’s hurting you, and I’d give anything not to hurt you. Will you please not be hurt, and let me go away and get hold of myself a bit? It’s knocked us both endways. What’s your telephone number?”

This was so exactly Giles that she caught her breath on a laugh that hurt.

“You asked me that in New York, the first time we met.”

“I expect I did. Did you give it to me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, you’ll have to do it again. What is it?”

She repeated the number, and watched him write it down just as he had done that first time. But he’d got a new notebook. The other must be somewhere bobbing about in the Atlantic with her New York telephone number washed out of it as completely as she had been washed out of Giles’ memory.

He put the notebook back in his pocket and took her hands again.

“I’ll go now-but I’ll ring you up. You won’t mind?”

No, she wouldn’t mind. She said so.

He held her hands for a moment longer, and then went away to where the taxi was waiting, his footsteps crunching cheerfully over the gravel.

Meade watched him go. If he was going to ring up, it wasn’t really good-bye. Her heart warmed a little. She went up in the lift and got out at the first landing. The Underwoods’ flat was No. 3. She would have to tell Aunt Mabel, and the sooner she did it the better. She wished with all her heart that she had never told anyone about Giles. When you are all smashed up in hospital and a very kind uncle comes and holds your hand, things come out. Besides, she had to know about Giles. Uncle Godfrey had been most awfully kind, but of course he had told Aunt Mabel and Aunt Mabel had told everyone in the world, so now she had to tell Aunt Mabel that Giles was alive and that he had forgotten her, so of course they were not engaged any more. She must get it over.