Dawson to give you some breakfast.And you might as well have a wash, too, perhaps - unless you object to that as well as to shaving."Dunn rose without answering, made his toilet by shaking off some of the dust that clung to him, and followed his new employer out of the tool-house into the open air.
It was a fresh and lovely morning, and coming towards them down one of the garden paths was Ella, looking as fresh and lovely as the morning in a dainty cotton frock with lace at her throat and wrists.
That she could possibly have spent the night tearing across country in a powerful car conveying a dead man to an unknown destination, appeared to Dunn a clean impossibility, and for a moment he almost supposed he had been mistaken in thinking he recognized her voice.
But he knew he had not, that he had made no mistake, that it had indeed been Ella he had seen dash away into the darkness on her strange and terrible errand.
"Oh, my daughter," said Deede Dawson carelessly, noticing Dunn's surprise."Oh, yes, she's back - you didn't expect to see her this morning.Well, Ella, Dunn's surprised to see you back so soon, aren't you, Dunn?"Dunn did not answer, for a kind of vertigo of horror had come upon him, and for a moment all things revolved about him in a whirling circle wherein the one fixed point was Ella's gentle lovely face that sometimes, he thought, had a small round hole with blue edges in the very centre of the forehead, above the nose.
It was her voice, clear and a little loud, that called him back to himself.
"He's not well," she was saying."He's going to faint.""I'm all right," he muttered."It was nothing, nothing, it's only that I've had nothing to eat for so long.""Oh, poor man!" exclaimed Ella.
"Come up to the house," Deede Dawson said.
"Breakfast's ready," Ella said."Mother told me to find you.""Has the woman come yet?" Deede Dawson asked."If she has, you might tell her to give Dunn some breakfast.I've just been telling him I'm willing to give him another chance and to take him on as gardener and chauffeur, so you can keep an eye on him and see if he works well."Ella was silent for a moment, but her expression was grave and a little puzzled as though she did not quite understand this and wondered what it meant, and when she looked up at her stepfather, Dunn was certain there was both distrust and suspicion in her manner.
"I suppose," she said then, "last night seemed to you a good recommendation?" As she spoke she glanced at her wrists where the bruises still showed, and Deede Dawson's smile broadened.
"One should always be ready to give another chance to a poor fellow who's down," he said."He may run straight now he's got an opportunity.I told him he had better shave, but he seems to think a beard suits him best.What do you say?""Breakfast's waiting," Ella answered, turning away without taking any notice of the question.
"I'll go in then," said Deede Dawson."You might show Dunn the way to the kitchen - his name's Robert Dunn, by the way - and tell Mrs.
Barker to give him something to eat."
"I should think he could find his way there himself," Ella remarked.
But though she made this protest, she obeyed at once, for though she used a considerable liberty of speech to her stepfather, it was none the less evident that she was very much afraid of him and would not be very likely to disobey him or oppose him directly.
"This way," she said to Dunn, and walked on along a path that led to the hack of the house.Once she stopped and looked hack.She smiled slightly and disdainfully as she did so, and Dunn saw that she was looking at a clump of small bushes near where they had been standing.
He guessed at once that she believed Deede Dawson to be behind those bushes watching them, and when she glanced at him he understood that she wished him to know it also.
He said nothing, though a faint movement visible in the bushes convinced him that her suspicions, if, indeed, she had them, were well-founded, and they walked on in silence, Ella a little ahead, and Dunn a step or two behind.
The garden was a large one, and had at one time been well cultivated, but now it was neglected and overgrown.It struck Dunn that if he was to be the gardener here he would certainly not find himself short of work, and Ella, without looking round, said to him over her shoulder:
"Do you know anything about gardening?"
"A little, miss," he answered.
"You needn't call me 'miss,'" she observed."When a man has tied a girl to a chair I think he may regard himself as on terms of some familiarity with her.""What must I call you?" he asked, and his words bore to himself a double meaning, for, indeed, what name was it by which he ought to call her?
But she seemed to notice nothing as she answered "My name is Cayley - Ella Cayley.You can call me Miss Cayley.Do you know anything of motoring?""Yes," he answered."Though I never cared much for motoring at night."She gave him a quick glance, but said no more, and they came almost immediately to the back door.
Ella opened it and entered, nodding to him to follow, and crossing a narrow, stone-floored passage, she entered the kitchen where a tall gaunt elderly woman in a black bonnet and, a course apron was at work.
"This is Dunn, Mrs.Barker," she called, raising her voice."He is the new gardener.Will you give him some breakfast, please?" She added to Dunn:
"When you've finished, you can go to the garage and wash the car, and when you speak to Mrs.Barker you must shout.She is quite deaf, that is why my stepfather engaged her, because he was sorry for her and wanted to give her a chance, you know..."
