The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3)

by Mary E. Pearce

  When Linn let them in, Tom was sitting at the table, finishing a meal of bread and cheese. He pushed back his chair a little way and crossed his legs. Darns put the scarf into his hands.

  ‘We found that in the woods, Mr Maddox. Can you tell us anything about it?’

  ‘I dunno what it is, do I? I can’t see it.’ Tom felt the scarf between his fingers. ‘Is it a handkerchief?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a cheap cotton scarf, Mr Maddox, printed red and white, with a stripe at the edge and spots in the middle. Did your wife have such a scarf?’

  ‘I dunno. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Mr Preston said she did.’

  ‘Maybe she did, then. He ought to know. Why ask me if he’s already told you?’

  ‘It appears to be stained with blood,’ Darns said. ‘Does that help you remember?’

  ‘It ent Tilly’s blood, if that’s what you mean. It’s the blood of a dog that got catched in a trap.’

  ‘So you do remember the scarf, after all?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘It’s coming back. Charley Bailey was out after rabbits and his dog, Shorty, got catched in a trap. Charley called on me to help and I took that scarf to tie the dog’s leg with.’

  ‘But the scarf has just been found in the woods.’

  ‘Shorty must’ve shook it off.’

  ‘Laboratory tests will show whether the blood on that scarf came from a dog or a human being.’

  ‘If there’s human blood on it,’ Tom said, ‘that’ll be mine, not Tilly’s, ’cos Shorty took a bite out of my hand when I was trying to get him free.’

  ‘Mr Maddox,’ Darns said, ‘I’d like you to come with us to the police station.’

  ‘Why?’ Linn demanded, stepping between them. ‘Why does he have to come with you?’

  ‘He’s not obliged to,’ Darns said. ‘I’m asking for his cooperation.’

  ‘What if I don’t?’ Tom said. ‘What if I refuse to go?’ He was very pale.

  ‘It’s only for questioning, Mr Maddox.’

  ‘Why can’t you ask your questions here?’

  ‘Yes! Why can’t you?’ Linn exclaimed. ‘He’s blind and helpless. Why do you have to take him away?’

  ‘It’s customary procedure,’ Darns said. ‘A refusal could constitute an obstruction of the law.’

  ‘But you said he wasn’t obliged to go!’

  ‘It’s like the Army,’ Tom said. ‘Our N.C.O.s used to say to us, “I want volunteers for a listening party ‒ you five in front will suit me fine!” ’ He got up and went to the door. He felt for his jacket and put it on. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, and stood waiting.

  ‘Can I come with him?’ Linn asked.

  ‘I don’t advise it,’ Darns said.

  ‘No more don’t I!’ Tom said. ‘That won’t do no good at all.’ His hand rested on Linn’s arm. ‘You stop at home and don’t worry. You must think of the baby ‒ you mustn’t let yourself get upset. They’ll bring me back. You’ll see.’

  ‘But when? When? How long will it take, asking these questions?’

  She was looking at Darns, and he found it difficult to meet her gaze.

  ‘It all depends. But we’ll let you know if any developments occur.’

  ‘What d’you mean, developments? What developments could there be?’

  ‘Come along, Mr Maddox,’ Darns said.

  ‘I asked you a question!’ Linn said, following them out along the path. ‘What developments do you mean?’

  ‘Please! Linn!’ Tom said, in distress. ‘Don’t fret yourself. You must take it easy.’

  ‘Tom, I’m afraid! I don’t think you ought to be going with them.’

  ‘Don’t be afraid. They can’t hurt me. They’re just hoping I’ll let something slip. You go indoors out of the rain and don’t worry. I promise you I’ll be all right.’

  But Linn continued to stand in the garden, her hands clenched in the pockets of her apron, watching as they led him away.

  Outside, when they got to the car, the Prestons were waiting.

  ‘Are you arresting him?’ Emery asked.

  ‘No, we’re not!’ Darns said, snapping. ‘He’s coming to the station of his own free will. He’s agreed to answer some further questions.’

  ‘But you will be arresting him when you get there?’

  ‘Out of the way, please, and let us pass.’

  They got into the car and drove off, and Emery was left swearing. He hurried over to the motor-cycle and sidecar.

  ‘Come on, you three. There’s no sense in waiting here. Matthew, you can drop us off at home first, then go on to Chepsworth, to the police station. I want to know what happens next.’

  ‘But I ent even had my dinner yet!’

  ‘You can buy yourself a sandwich when you get to Chepsworth. But mind you remember what I said! ‒ Don’t come away till you know what they’re doing with Tom Maddox!’ And Emery, waiting while Matthew adjusted his goggles, looked back to where Linn still stood in the rain. ‘She should think herself lucky they’ve took him away, before he turned nasty and done for her like he done for our Tilly.’

  Matthew stepped hard on the starter and the engine roared. They drove off towards Huntlip. Behind them, in the woods of Scoate House Manor, the police search continued.

  Linn, going back into the kitchen, was struck by its look of emptiness. Tom’s chair set sideways at the table; his dinner plate with its few crumbs; his empty teacup askew in its saucer: these things cried out to her like ghosts, and she could scarcely bear to see them.

  Sitting upright on the settle, she made herself breathe very deeply and slowly, till the tightness eased from around her heart. She wished with a kind of sick longing that her father were with her, for she felt, as she had always felt in childhood, that he would know just what to do. So intense was her longing that she sprang up and went to the window, convinced she had heard his step on the path. But she was mistaken. He was not there. She knew she would have to go to him.

  She got up and put on her coat. She drew a shawl over her head. She stepped into her rubber galoshes. The clock on the mantelpiece said five to two. She went out into the rain.

  At Cobbs, when the clock on the workshop roof struck the hour, a crow took off from the weathervane and left it swivelling against the wind. Jesse stood at the parlour window. He watched the crow flying off towards Anster.

  ‘That’s two o’clock striking. We’re going to be desperate late, ent we?’

  ‘A bride is expected to arrive late. Granna said so. It’s the done thing.’

  Betony smiled at him, seeing him frowning at his watch. She went forward and took it from him, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, where it belonged. She held his hands between her own, to keep them from fidgeting with his collar and tie.

  ‘Just look at that rain!’ he said to her. ‘That vexes me so’s I could bost! Why did you have to choose October?’

  ‘Today is my birthday. I’m twenty-four. It seemed as good a day as any. What does a drop of rain matter?’

  ‘It’ll spoil your dress. That’s why it matters. Now where’s that cloak you’re going to put on?’

  ‘It’s here, handy, on the back of the chair.’

  ‘Do I look all right in this new suit? Is my parting properly straight? Have I shaved myself nicely, would you say?’ He got his hands free and touched his hair, which was well greased down and shone like straw. He touched his chin, feeling critically for traces of stubble.

  ‘You look very handsome,’ Betony said, ‘and far too young to be my father.’

  ‘The church’ll be crowded. D’you realize that? Folk have been going up forever. I seen ’em as early as twelve noon.’

  ‘I hope there’s room for them all to sit.’

  ‘There won’t be,’ he said. ‘No lections of that! A lot’ll be standing about outside. The rain won’t stop them. You mark my words.’

  He turned from her to the dining-table, extended as far as it would go, caparisoned in a white damask cloth, and
already spread with the wedding breakfast.

  ‘There’s cold roast venison. Have you seen it? Mrs Andrews sent it yesterday.’ He took up a spoon and polished it on his jacket sleeve. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the men’ll be eating in the kitchen.’

  ‘The men from the workshop, do you mean?’

  ‘The table in the kitchen’s more fuller than this one. Your mother and granna have worked very hard, and your sister, too.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll be eating in the kitchen, then, seeing you’re a carpenter just like them? Dicky, too, and Great-grumpa.’

  ‘Not us! Laws, no! Not the bride’s own family!’ And, turning away from her teasing glance, he said: ‘The men’ll be happier, keeping theirselves to theirselves out there. They wouldn’t be properly come-for-double, mixing with the captain and his mother and all the guests on their side.’

  ‘Michael will see that they mix,’ she said, ‘and so shall I.’

  ‘Glory be, just look at the time! Where d’you think that boy can’ve got to?’

  ‘It’s only five minutes past, Father. Try and relax and stop fussing.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Jesse muttered. ‘We should’ve hired another carriage. Ent I been saying so all along?’

  Michael and his mother, with his uncle and aunt from Ilton Lye, and his best man, Major Peter Thomas, had gone to the church in the King’s Hill carriage, with a King’s Hill servant in livery driving. The Cobbs family had gone in the trap, and Dicky was returning for the bride and her father.

  ‘What’s the betting Duffer’s cast a shoe?’ Jesse said. ‘Or gone lame, even. It’s always at times like this, ent it?’

  A door slammed at the back of the house, and Jesse snatched up Betony’s cloak.

  ‘Here he is! Here he is! Better late than never, I suppose.’ And as Dicky burst into the room: ‘Good heavens, boy, how’s it you’ve been so long a-coming?’

  ‘It’s Tom!’ Dicky said. ‘The police’ve took him away to Chepsworth.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Betony asked.

  ‘I seen it my own-self. They drove past me as I came from the church. They’d got Tom sitting in the back of the motor.’

  ‘Didn’t you stop them and ask why?’

  ‘There wasn’t no chance,’ Dicky said. ‘By the time I realized what was happening, the motor-car had gone right past. I did draw up straight away and while I was stuck there, wondering what I ought to do, the Prestons came up on that motor-cycle. Seems they was out at the Pikehouse all morning and saw our Tom get took away.’

  ‘Did they say he’d been arrested?’

  ‘No, they didn’t say that, or not exactly.’

  ‘What did they say, for God’s sake?’

  ‘They said he’d got what was coming to him. They said we’d be reading it in the papers.’

  ‘What about Linn?’ Betony asked.

  ‘Left at home,’ Dicky said.

  ‘Laws!’ Jesse said, looking anxiously at Betony. ‘That this should happen on your wedding day! Was ever anything so unlucky?’ He felt he could scarcely look at Dicky. If only the boy had had the sense to keep the news until after the wedding! ‘Never mind, my blossom. Try not to let it spoil your day.’ He moved towards her with the cloak.

  Betony was staring at the clock in the middle of the mantelpiece. Her mind worked with great clarity. The wedding ceremony would take perhaps an hour and a half. It would all be over by four o’clock. Not very long, she told herself, if she went from the church immediately afterwards. And yet it was too long. Some part of her said so. Some part of her had already settled all the questions.

  In fancy now she saw Michael’s face as he waited for her inside the church. He seemed to know what she was thinking; his grey eyes were worried, intent on hers; he was asking her to come to him. Then she saw Tom’s face, his eyes deep and dark and hollow-looking, staring past her, asking nothing.

  ‘Come on, my blossom,’ Jesse said. ‘We’re late enough as it is already.’

  ‘No, Dad, I’m not going. The wedding will have to be postponed.’

  ‘Postponed? Are you mad? You surely can’t mean it! It’s out of all reason!’

  ‘You’ll have to go to the church and tell them. I’ll drop you there on my way to Chepsworth. But first I must go and change my dress.’

  ‘Betony, no!’ he said, outraged, and stepped in front of her, barring the way. ‘You can’t go and do a thing like that! Think of all the people waiting! Think of the captain and Mrs Andrews! What in God’s name are they going to say?’

  ‘Don’t you care what happens to Tom?’

  ‘I care all right. A whole lot more’n he deserves. But what can you do to help matters?’

  ‘There must be something I can do.’

  ‘Well, afterwards, then, when it’s all over. We can go and see about it then.’

  ‘No, Father, I’m going now.’

  ‘I don’t understand you!’ Jesse said, following her out across the hall. ‘I don’t know how you can do such a thing! I’d never’ve believed it! You of all people ‒ my favourite daughter!’ He continued to shout at her as she hurried upstairs. ‘What if the captain don’t forgive you? I’m sure I shouldn’t, in his place! I shan’t forgive you anyway! ‒ You’re making us a byword in this village, you and Tom between you.’

  When Betony descended again, having changed into an ordinary dress, her father sat on the bottom stair and Dicky stood over him, arguing with him. Jesse’s face was averted from her. He had never been angry in his life till today. She could see he was sick with disappointment.

  ‘I ent going to the church to tell them. You needn’t think it.’

  ‘Then Dicky must go instead,’ she said.

  ‘That’s up to him. I can’t stop him. My children take no account of me.’

  ‘If you won’t go to the church, will you go to the Pikehouse and see Linn? She must be worried out of her mind.’

  ‘Not me. Oh, no! That young woman is nothing to me. I’m just stopping where I am.’

  ‘Come on, Dicky,’ Betony said, and Dicky followed her out to the trap.

  Driving briskly through Huntlip, they passed little knots of villagers, who turned and stared as the trap went past them. Further on, when they got to the green, she could see the people gathered in the churchyard, standing under the yews and birches, sheltering from the rain. The bells were ringing out loud, and the rooks, disturbed, were floating in circles round the tower. Betony stopped to let Dicky down, then she drove on towards Chepsworth.

  Linn walked as fast as her heavily burdened body would allow. She tried to keep fear from clawing at her mind. It was three miles by road from the Pikehouse to Huntlip, and another two and a half from Huntlip to Blagg, but by taking the footpath to Millery Bridge and the old drove road over Puppet Hill, she was able to cut off a mile.

  The rain was now a steady downpour, and she felt glad of it, soaked though she was, for it meant her father would surely be at home, sitting with his leg up, beside the fire. He hated wet days, for his bad knee became swollen and caused him much pain, and only the heat of a good fire brought him any measure of relief.

  So strong was her faith that he would be there, reading his paper and smoking his pipe, that when she found the cottage empty she stood for a moment in shocked disbelief. A terrible weakness flooded through her, and a great anger. Why couldn’t he be there when he was needed? What business had taken him out of his home on a wet Saturday in October? A boy scaring birds in the field below came to the hedge and gave her the answer.

  ‘Mr Mercybright’s gone to Upham. The master sent him to look at a boar.’

  ‘How long’ll he be, Godwin, do you know?’

  ‘He said he’d be home by six o’clock. He said for me to light his fire and he’d give me tea when he got in. He generally does on Saturdays.’

  ‘Then I’ll write him a message,’ Linn said.

  She went into the cottage and sat for a while, shivering in her wet clothes. She felt sick and giddy, hot
and cold at the same time, and pain burnt in the small of her back, as though her spine were splitting and breaking. She thought of putting a match to the fire; of resting and warming herself for an hour; even waiting for her father; but she was afraid the police might return with Tom to the Pikehouse and that he would be worried at finding her gone. Or, she thought, they might call to say he had been arrested. So she got up, found paper and pencil and wrote her message, and went out again into the rain.

  Just past the farm, at a bend in the lane, where it was narrow, she had to stand aside for a herd of bullocks. They had just come down from Puppet Hill, and the man in charge of them, Frank Kendrick, was driving them too fast down the steep track. Linn, though she pressed herself close into the hedge, was bumped and buffeted several times and had to hold tight to a hawthorn branch to avoid being spun out into the lane and trampled under the cloven hooves. But the last bullock lumbered by, and Frank Kendrick came panting behind, his stick on his shoulder, his dog at his heels.

  ‘Bloody cattle!’ he said as he passed. ‘I could shoot them sometimes. I could. Honest.’

  Linn walked on, up the steep track and through the wicket, out onto the open hill. At the top of the rise she stopped to rest, leaning with her back against a tree, her hands on her stomach, seeking to still the throbbing there; seeking assurance that all was well within her womb. Then, having felt her child moving vigorously under her hand, she walked on over the hill.

  All the way along Cricketers Lane, where the horse-chestnut trees hung over the hedge, the ground was strewn with the fallen chestnuts, bursting out of their spiky shells. Passing that way earlier she had met not a soul, but now a ragged figure crouched there, shuffling along low on his haunches, the skirts of his overcoat trailing in the mud. Although a man of forty or more, Jumper Lane had the face of a schoolboy, smooth-skinned and pink, with little arched brows over eyes a brilliant china blue. He looked at Linn with a gap-toothed smile and sprang upright, showing her the chestnuts crammed to the tops of his overcoat pockets.

  ‘Yes, Jumper, they’re beautiful. You’re going to be busy, collecting all these.’

  ‘Look at this one!’ he said, and snatched up a chestnut still in its skin, pressing it open to show her the dark-shining nut inside. ‘Look at this one and this one and this one and this!’