by Jean Chapman
She knelt, with perspiration standing cold on her burning forehead, and thought it served her right for supposing Meg would give her a worthless potion for her money. At least it had some strength, she thought, but the second’s humour passed as she gasped and panted as a wave of unproductive nausea swept over her. Thoroughly frightened, she knew she needed someone - anyone - but even in the moment of panic she realised the one person she wanted to be near was Cato. She staggered to her feet, determined to go to Glebe Farm regardless of consequences, and began preparing her story. She would just say she had been taken ill…. and was frightened, needed to see him… .
Having made up her mind, she hurried towards Glebe Farm, but ever sharper spasms of pain made her stop every few hundred yards. Then she was sick, a little, and it brought a slight relief. She wondered if she should go back and drink more water. Then, as another cramp doubled her over, she involuntarily cried out, the expression of pain leaving her in a long-drawn-out, agonised ‘Oooh!’ Her own cry reminded her of the one they had heard from Mordichi as the thunderstorm raged, and the memory distressed her the more.
She clambered over a stile and on to the graveled part of the bridle-path, where she turned right, heading for the driveway of Glebe Farm. The air grew heavier with the smell of newly turned soil, an earthy dampness — and noise too. For a moment she thought she heard the clink of chains and rattle of harness as of horses ploughing. Then to the left of Glebe Farm she could sec ploughing-engines working on some of the glebe land, the engines either side of the field, a man riding the plough as it was pulled alternately from one side to the other by wire hausers. She was sure that Cato would be one of the men, and now pushed and climbed her way randomly through the nearest hedges to make directly towards the Abbotts’ machines.
There was something in the potion she had so recklessly taken that seemed to be affecting her eyes. She could no longer focus properly; at one moment the field she wished to attain appeared like a vision at the wrong end of a telescope: shiny toy steam-engines chugged in a miniature landscape. Then the horizon tilted dizzily first one way, then another. Sometimes she lifted her foot too high for her next step, and the earth seemed skittishly to move away from her, and she laughed at its antics – and at others it came up to meet her, hard, jarring. It made her retch and vomit again, and as she stood recovering from this bout, shivering in a body that burned and yet was bathed in icy perspiration, she lifted her eyes to try to calculate whether she would ever reach the boundaries of the land being ploughed. Vaguely she realised the man riding the plough mid-field was gesturing in her direction. Someone had seen her! She felt tears of relief running down her cheeks as the operator on the far steam-engine jumped from his machine and began to run towards her.
Moments later Cato caught her, examined her and held her. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘I’m ill. Cato, I think I’m dreadfully ill.’ His face was all perplexity and concern, as his brother came running up to them.
‘What happened to her?’ John asked, and as Cato shook his head he advised, ‘Take her to Mother, she’ll know what to do. I’ll tell Dad.’ He glanced across to Joe Abbott, but he was already within hailing distance.
‘Who is it? What’s the matter?’ His lips parted in exasperation as he recognised Belle. ‘Now what? What’s she doing here? What’s the matter with her?’
‘Belle?’ Cato queried gently, but firmly. ‘How long have you been like this? Have you been bitten or stung?’ As she shook her head languidly again, he gripped her shoulders and asked more forcibly, ‘Have you done anything stupid?’
‘No!’ she retorted as firmly as she could, but the stomach pains made her cry out again.
‘I’m taking her home,’ Cato said, and the next moment she was being lifted, carried, and she leaned thankfully on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
‘To her own home,’Joe Abbott stated, when his younger son reiterated that his mother would know what to do. ‘She has a mother too.’
But Cato called back over his shoulder, ‘I’m taking her to the nearest house, Father - ours.’
‘God damn it, will we never be done with them,’ Joe shouted. ‘It’s probably some act, some kind of trap… .’
‘No, she’s really sick, you can see that,’John reasoned.
With an exclamation of impatience Joe shouted after Cato, ‘Send Abe, I want this field finished tonight.’ He turned away, muttering that Sam Greenaugh was not going to stop him ploughing.
‘Belle, are you in pain now?’ Cato asked, as he hurried as carefully as he could over a strip of plough, then stooped to unlatch a gate, and hurried across a meadow towards the house.
She grimaced and nodded, her eyes screwed tight as another spasm of pain tore across her middle. ‘I think I’m going to die,’ she gasped. ‘Don’t leave me, Cato.’
‘Don’t talk such rubbish.’
‘Perhaps I deserve to die.’ She was not sure whether she spoke those words aloud, or to herself.
‘You’re not going to die, and I’m not going to leave you. Just lean on me, and we’ll soon have you comfortable.’
Ruth Abbott met her son at the doorway, and while being told all Cato knew, led the way into her parlour and swiftly let down the end of her sofa to make it easy for Belle to be laid flat.
‘Do you think its appendicitis?’ Cato was asking, but as Belle opened her eyes momentarily she found Ruth bending close over her, smelling her breath. ‘I would say she’s taken something,’ she said. ‘Get a bowl and a jug of salt water quickly.’
‘Belle!’ Cato was on his knees by her side, gripping her shoulders. ‘Have you taken something? What have you taken?’
‘Try to find out…. I’ll get the salt water.’ Ruth hurried to the kitchen.
‘Belle, for Christ’s sake.’ Cato bent low, his lips brushing her face. ‘Tell me, what have you taken?’
‘Hold me,’ she said, as his face wavered first near, then moved away. ‘Hold me!’
There were many and confused impressions then: impressions of being made to swallow vast quantities of strong brine, of people being dispatched with messages - to the doctor, to her mother. Concern in different voices, censure in some, mention of her father ploughing and not listening, and always Cato returning, sometimes his voice sounding angry, trying to force answers from her, but when he asked what she had taken she closed her eyes and shook her head. Sometimes she wondered if she had spoken, for she seemed to wake with half-words on her lips — ‘… not like Tweeny …’ then laughing about ‘strong doses’. There was anxiety, she knew, because still no one came, with Ruth and Cato making hasty worried decisions. Cato was again near, explaining he must go to find another doctor, as one was far away attending a difficult birth. She remembered laughing again, and trying to delay Cato leaving her, clinging, but then as he loosed himself to go urgently on his errand, she felt she sank as swiftly as a stricken boat in deep water.
His mother had harnessed the pony in the trap while Cato stayed with Belle, and now he felt it was a race against time. Whatever Belle had taken was undoubtedly lethal stuff. His mind skittered away from the word — no, not lethal — potent… potent stuff. Perhaps her mother would have some idea what she could have obtained — and why. Why? Why? The few words she had said, ‘not like Tweeny’ and ‘all of them’, seemed like clues in a puzzle which he could not relate.
The road to Rodborough seemed endless, and even though Cato urged the pony ever faster, his weight in the trap did not make for such rapid travelling as when his mother drove alone. He was thankful that he remembered seeing the doctor’s house and knew exactly where it was in the village; thankful, too, that the doctor was in, and that the man wasted no time collecting his bag, saving the more detailed questioning until they were on the way back. A small compact man in brown bowler hat and brown tweed suit, with a gold chain across his waistcoat, his questions were as clipped and precise as his moustache, and soon had Cato feeling curiously defensive as he admitted that Be
lle was thought to have taken something. ‘What for?’
The doctor’s question was sharp, and he certainly took full account of the pause before Cato answered, ‘We don’t know,’ and of the doubt in his voice.
He hummed and ha’ed a little, then pronounced that the most useful thing Cato could do when they arrived was to take himself off to the girl’s home and return with either, or both, of Belle’s parents, and some answers as to what they thought the girl might be attempting.
When they arrived and found Belle had slipped into a deep unconsciousness, the doctor was brusque with Cato’s hovering anxiety. He pressed his fingers between Belle’s jaws, and looked and smelt in her mouth. ‘If she had been a gipsy,’ the doctor began, his glance taking in Belle’s neat suit, ‘I would have said I recognised the smell on her breath immediately. .’
‘A gipsy,’ Ruth began, her eyes meeting her son’s in a moment’s speculation. Meg Silver? Cato’s mind leapt to wonder what tricks she might have been up to - and why? Had Meg been told the story of her mother’s stick by Belle? Was this some kind of revenge?
The doctor’s next words brought him back to reality: ‘You had best go and fetch her mother now.’ There was a dire tone and quality in the statement that made his heart leap fearfully, and with one last glance at Belle, whose hand drooped so lifelessly as her pulse was taken, he was away.
He passionately wanted to go straight to the osier beds, to accost Meg- but if the doctor wanted Belle’s mother…. He turned the trap in the yard in a swirl of stones, the pony jerking and protesting at this sudden recall to action. Pushing the pony as hard as he could, he drove to the top of the farm drive and intended to ride as far along the continuing earth-packed path as possible, but was thrown off balance as the pony faltered as it turned and the trap lurched to a halt in the deep ruts of newly turned earth.
‘What the devil…?’ Cato began, but shook his head impatiently - this could only be the work of Sam Greenaugh. He wondered yet again at the man’s state of mind when he did these outrageous things, but did not pause to ponder such mysteries and, throwing the pony’s reins around a branch, ran on. He climbed the new fencing which spanned the gap he had made with the engine at the time of the fire, and made across the fields in as straight a line as he could towards the farmhouse.
He found Mrs Greenaugh and a girl, both in sacking aprons, washing eggs. Both started and turned as his boots clattered loudly on the brick floor of the back kitchen.
‘What’s the matter?’ the woman asked, but the girl smiled stupidly, almost coyly, up at him, running her hands down over her apron and revealing she was quite definitely pregnant.
Belle’s mother listened to his story, her hands going over her mouth, fingers spread in consternation. ‘There’s only aspirin… unless it was rat poison, or… Oh, no, surely she wouldn’t… .’
‘I have to go to see someone else,’ Cato interrupted, ‘You’ll go.
‘At once.’ Mabel was wiping her hands and pulling off her apron all in one swift movement. ‘You go. Tweeny can stay and tell my husband.’
Cato had turned and was leaving the kitchen even as the name of the girl registered. Tweeny was pregnant. He groaned aloud. Had Belle thought … and because…? The questions multiplied, and the answers alarmed.
He sprinted away as fast as he could and, knowing the general direction of the osier beds, took a line almost midway between the Halls’ farmhouse and the path. By the time he came to the white willows, he had to pause to take his breath. He leaned on the first tree, and remembered Belle posing there for his admiration. ‘You fool!’ he admonished her, then without profanity added, ‘God, don’t let anything happen to her.’
Meg had certainly heard him coming, for she stood in her doorway, obviously wondering who was crashing through the undergrowth with such little regard for themselves or the odd branch or two that barred the way. She half smiled as she recognised the tall young man, but as Cato came nearer and she could see his expression, she felt a chill of apprehension.
‘What’ve you done?’ he demanded.
‘Done?’
‘What’ve you given to Belle Greenaugh?’
She was all caution now, all craft for self-preservation.
‘I didn’t do anything. It’s you… .’ Her voice rose with humourless amusement.
‘I’ve no time for games. That girl lies at our farm looking likely to die. Have you given her anything, and if so, what?’
Still the woman bridled, reluctant to speak, until Cato grabbed her wrist with the air of a man prepared to go to any lengths, and use any amount of force, to find out exactly what he wanted to know.
‘Only what she asked for. Nothing to hurt, that’s for sure.’ She tried to pull away, but he held her tighter still.
‘The whole thing, Meg,’ he threatened quietly. ‘Tell the whole thing.’
‘She wanted something to bring her on.’
‘Bring her on… .’ His hand tightened at the crudity applied to Belle.
‘Well, she’d been off with you, hadn’t she?’ Meg spat with sarcastic spite, as his grip began to hurt. ‘She didn’t want your bastard, any more than my mother wanted …’
Blind rage, more at the thought that Belle should resort to such measures to be sure of not having his child than that Meg should supply the means, made him release her wrist suddenly and throw her from him with an exclamation of disgust. She fell in a huddle in her doorway, and he stood over her, unrepentant, unrelenting. ‘I want to know - exactly what you gave her - and quickly!’
This unexpected, uncharacteristic violence from Cato seemed to convince Meg of the seriousness of the matter. She picked herself up without another word and, going inside, enacted a kind of replay of assembling the potion. She moved around picking up jars, pulling at drying bunches of herbs or roots and repeating their names, which Cato scribbled down. The list seemed complicated but comprehensive, and he was sure she told the truth when she said there had been three doses — and Belle’s ramblings were enough to convince him she had taken all three.
‘What if she took them all at once?’
Meg’s face paled, and she shook her head. ‘She’d not do that.’
‘She has. There’s a doctor with her, but is there anything you can do?’
‘If she was sick when she first took them…. Nothing else.’ Meg seemed to shrink back, as if expecting some kind of further reprisal, but Cato had all he wanted from her. He raced back to where he had tethered the pony and trap.
‘Motherwort, bryony root, arrach,’ the doctor read. ‘There’s more ill-feeling towards the girl, or someone connected with her, than actual harm in those, but… .’ His face became more serious as he read the other ingredients. ‘Someone very knowledgeable has assembled these. The danger is the treble dose.’ His voice faded away as he pondered the problem.
Cato moved to stand behind the sofa. ‘Would she be better on a bed, rest easier?’ he asked, searching still for some way to help her.
‘I don’t want her disturbed now.’ The doctor shook his head. ‘Rest is all important. Everything will now depend on how strong she is. The next few hours will be the telling time. She’s taken overdoses of powerful drugs, and it is no use trying to hide the fact that if her heart is weak… .’
‘She’s a fighter,’ Cato said quietly, adding as he looked down at her, ‘For what she wants.’ Belle’s face was like a pale cameo, looking ever paler as the daylight faded fast from the window and the parlour lamps caught and contrasted the amber halo of her hair. He became so lost in the scrutiny of her whispering breath, of the minutest flicker of pulse he could see in her throat, that he could have been alone with her. His very heart was sick with sorrow, love and bitterness, and the irrevocability of her act could include him among those named sick at heart.
The bitterness, he knew, sprang from the knowledge that what she had wanted was desperately not to be like Tweeny. ‘Oh, Belle,’ he silently castigated her, ‘are appearances more to you than feelin
gs, or even life itself- your life, my life, perhaps our child’s life? I could hate you for risking so much.’ He remembered how she had drummed on his chest declaring she hated him for, as she had thought, risking his life. He bent over her and slid his hand gently under hers, so her hand lay passive in his like an upturned flower, or a hand that was the work of some wonderful sculptor, with no independent vitality of its own. The thought seemed to make the slender thing as heavy as marble on his palm. ‘God damn it, Belle. If you love me, live! Live so I can tell you how I hate you for your foolishness. How dare you risk anything that is so precious to me! I hate you, Belle Greenaugh! Do you hear me wherever you are? I hate you!’ Tears started to his eyes, and only by the rigidity of his own jaw and clenched teeth did he know he had not shouted aloud.
He heard the doctor repeat a question and looked up, surprised to find both his mother and the doctor still so close. Did you tell her mother?’ the doctor asked again. ‘Did you find her?’
Cato nodded. ‘She should have been here before now.’ He remembered the haste with which Mabel Greenaugh had pulled off her apron, and added, ‘Long before now.’ His glance went to the night-dark window, and he suddenly remembered the newly ploughed path. Had she had a fall, he wondered, and twisted her ankle in some unexpected rut? Perhaps she did not even know the path had been ploughed - that, after all, would be typical of Sam Greenaugh’s seemingly irrational behaviour.
I’ll ask your father to go to the end of the drive with the lantern,’ Ruth began. ‘Or John - they’re both in the kitchen.’
