by Mary Stewart
‘I wasn’t going to. I’m going to bed. Good night.’
It didn’t even seem strange at the time that it was Lisa who should go unconcernedly upstairs, and I who should look for Con.
He was in the kitchen, sitting in the rocking chair by the range, pulling on his gumboots. His face still wore that blind, shuttered look that was so unlike him. He glanced up briefly, then down again.
I said: ‘Con, don’t pay any attention. She’s upset because she and Donald quarrelled, and she missed seeing him tonight. She didn’t mean a thing. She doesn’t really think those things, I’m sure.’
‘It’s my experience,’ said Con woodenly, thrusting his foot down into the boot and dragging it on,‘that when people are upset they say exactly what they do think. She was quite startlingly explicit, wasn’t she?’
I said, without quite realising what I was saying: ‘Don’t let it hurt you.’
‘Hurt me?’ He looked up again at that. The blue eyes held an odd expression; something puzzled, perhaps, along with a glitter I didn’t like. Then he smiled, a deliberately charming smile that made goose-pimples run along my spine. ‘You can’t know how funny that is, Annabel, my sweet.’
‘Well, my dear,’ I said calmly, ‘funny or not, try to see the thing in proportion. I don’t know if anyone told you, but Julie and Bill Fenwick were involved in a sort of minor accident tonight. That’s what made her late, and distressed her so much. Bill, too – his car was damaged, so he wouldn’t be in too sweet a mood. It’ll blow over.’
‘What makes you explain to me?’ He stood up and reached for the jacket that hung on the back of the door. ‘It’s none of my business. I don’t belong here. Lisa and I are only the hired help.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the buildings.’
‘Oh, Con, it’s late. You’ve done enough. Aren’t you tired?’
‘Flaked out. But there’s something wrong with the cooler, and I’ll have to get it put right.’ That quick, glittering look again. ‘I suppose even Julie would be content to let that be my business? Or would it be interfering too much with the running of her home?’
‘Con, for pity’s sake—’
‘Sweet of you to come and bind up the wounds, girl dear, but I assure you they don’t go deep.’
‘Are you sure?’ His hand was already on the door-latch. I said: ‘Listen. I ought not to tell you, but I’m going to. You’ve no need to worry any more.’
He stopped, as still as a lizard when a shadow falls across it. Then he turned. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘You do belong here. You’ve made your place . . . the way you said . . . with your two hands; and you do belong. That’s all I – ought to say. You understand me. Let it go at that.’
There was a silence. The shutters were up again in his face. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking, but I should have known. He said at length: ‘And the money? The capital?’ Silence. ‘Did he tell you?’
I nodded.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know if I ought to say any more.’
‘Don’t be a fool. He would have told us all, himself, tonight, only that damned girl made a scene.’
‘I still don’t think I should.’
He made a movement of such violent impatience that I was startled into remembering the perilous volcano-edge of the last few days. I had gone so far; let us have peace, I thought.
He was saying, savagely, in a low voice: ‘Whose side are you on? By God, you’ve had me wondering, you’re so thick with Julie and the old man! If you’ve started any thoughts of feathering your own nest –! How do I know I can trust you? What right have you got to keep this to yourself?’
‘Very well. Here it is. It comes out much as you’d expected, except that, nominally, very little of the capital comes to you.’
‘How’s that?’ His gaze was brilliant now, fixed, penetrating.
‘He’s divided it between Julie and me, except for a small sum, which you get outright. He didn’t say how much that was. With you inheriting the property over our heads, he thought that was only fair.’ I went on to tell him what Grandfather had said to me. ‘The major part is divided into three, as we’d expected, with two thirds of it nominally mine. That can be passed to you, just as we planned.’ I smiled. ‘Don’t forget the blackmail’s mutual.’
He didn’t smile back. He hardly seemed to be listening. ‘Julie. Will she fight the Will? She’ll have grounds.’
‘I’m sure she won’t. She doesn’t want the place.’
‘No, she just thinks I should be out of it.’ He turned away, abruptly. ‘Well, since the boy’s not afraid of hard work, he’d better go out and get on with it, hadn’t he?’
‘Con, wait a minute—’
‘Good night.’
He went. I stayed where I was for a moment, frowning after him. For heaven’s sake, I thought, suddenly irritable, did I have to add to the tangle by feeling sorry for Con as well? Con was perfectly capable of taking care of himself; always had been; had always had to be . . . I shook myself impatiently. Con, let’s face it, was a tough customer. Keep that straight, and keep out of it . . .
I went slowly upstairs, and stood on the landing for a few moments, wondering if it would be better to see Julie now, or wait till morning.
I had tried to set Con’s mind at rest, with no very conspicuous success; had I the right to give Donald’s confidence away, in an attempt to do the same for Julie? More urgent still was that other problem; how much to tell her of the truth about my own situation. Something had to be told her, I knew that; I hadn’t yet decided how much, but it was imperative that she should be made to realise, a little more clearly, the kind of person Con was, and of what he was capable.
I hovered there for some time, between her door and my own, before it occurred to me that, by seeing her now, I could probably kill two birds with one stone: if her mind were cleared with regard to Donald, she would happily leave the Whitescar field open for Con. Let us have peace . . .
I went to the door of her room and knocked softly. There was no reply. No light showed under the door, or from the adjacent bathroom.
She could surely not be in bed yet? I tapped again and said softly: ‘Julie; it’s me, Annabel.’
No answer. As I stood irresolute, I heard a soft step in the passage beside me. Lisa’s voice said, calmly:
‘She’s gone.’
I looked at her blankly. ‘What?’
She smiled. ‘“History repeats itself,” he said, didn’t he? She’s run out on us.’
‘Don’t be absurd!’ I was so shocked that I said it very angrily. She only shrugged, a slight uncaring gesture of the heavy shoulders.
‘I found her room empty. Look.’
Reaching past me, she pushed the door open, and switched on the light. For a second it felt like an intolerable invasion of privacy, then I saw that, indeed, the bedroom was deserted. Julie had made no attempt to get ready for bed. Even the curtains were undrawn, and this emphasised the vacant look of the room.
‘Look,’ repeated Lisa. I followed her pointing finger, and saw the pretty high-heeled sandals tossed anyhow on the floor. ‘You see? She’s changed into flat ones.’
‘But she may not have gone out.’
‘Oh yes, she has. Her door was standing wide when I came upstairs, and then I saw her from my window. She went over the bridge.’
‘Over the bridge?’ I went swiftly to the window. The moon was not yet strong, and the narrow footbridge that led from the garden gate could barely be seen in the diffused lights from the house. ‘But why?’ I swung round. ‘Lisa, you were joking, weren’t you? She can’t possibly really have – oh, no!’ This as I pulled open the wardrobe door. ‘Her things are here.’
‘Don’t worry. She won’t have gone far. No such luck.’
So the scene in the drawing room had gone home. I shut the wardrobe door with a sharp little click. ‘But where can she have gone? If she only wanted to escape – go for
a moonlight walk – surely she’d have gone into the river-meadows where you can see your way, or along towards Forrest Hall?’
‘Heaven knows. Why worry about a silly girl’s nonsense? She’ll have run off to cry on her young man’s shoulder, as likely as not.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’
She shrugged again. ‘Girls are fools at nineteen.’
‘So they are.’
‘In any case, I saw her go.’
‘But it’s miles to West Woodburn!’
Something sharpened for the first time in her gaze. ‘West Woodburn? I was thinking of Nether Shields.’
‘Good heavens,’ I said impatiently, ‘Bill Fenwick never came into it, poor chap! I thought you understood that, when you prodded her about Donald Seton tonight.’
‘I didn’t know. I wondered.’ Her voice was as composed and uninterested as ever.
Something I didn’t yet recognise as fear shook me with a violent irritation. ‘Wherever she’s gone, I don’t much care for the idea of her wandering about the countryside at this time of night! If it was either West Woodburn or Nether Shields, you’d think she’d have taken the car!’
‘When Con has the key in his pocket?’
‘Oh. No, I see. But if she’d waited to see me—’
‘And with you,’ said Lisa, ‘talking to Con in the kitchen?’
I stared at her for a moment, uncomprehendingly. Then I said: ‘For goodness’ sake, Julie couldn’t be so stupid? Do you mean to say she thought I was ganging up on her? With Con? Just how young and silly can you get?’
My sharp exasperation was partly induced by the fact that I hardly understood my own motives in following Con to the kitchen. When Lisa laughed, suddenly and uncharacteristically, I stared at her for a moment, blankly, before I said slowly: ‘Yes, I see that that’s funny.’
‘What did you say to Con?’
‘Nothing much. I wanted to apologise for Julie, but he was in a hurry.’
‘A hurry?’
‘He was on his way out.’
The toffee-brown eyes touched mine for a moment. ‘Oh?’ said Lisa. ‘Well, I shouldn’t wait up. Good night.’
Left to myself, I crossed again to the window. There was no sign of movement from the garden, or the river path. I strained my eyes for the glimpse of a light coat returning through the trees. Down to my right I could see the reflection of the lights from the byres where Con was working, and hear the hum of machinery. The garden below me was in darkness.
I believe I was trying to clear my mind, to think of the problem as it now faced me – Julie and Donald, Con and Lisa – but for some reason, standing there staring into the dark, I found I was thinking about Adam Forrest’s hands . . . Some seconds later I traced the thought to its cause; some memory of that first sunlit evening when I had seen the cat pounce in the long grass, and some creature had cried out with pain and fear.
There had been bees in the roses, then; now it was the steady hum of machinery that filled the darkness, unaltering, unfaltering in its beat . . . ‘History repeats itself,’ Lisa had said.
Something tugged at the skirts of my mind, jerked me awake. A formless, frightening idea became certainty. Julie, running to change her shoes, seizing a coat, perhaps, creeping softly downstairs, and out . . . Con, in the kitchen, hearing the door, seeing her pass the window . . . Then, the girl running along the river in the dark, up the steep path where the high bank shelved over the deep pool . . . that pool where the rocks could stun you, and the snags hold you down . . .
‘He was on his way out,’ I had said, and Lisa had given me that look. ‘Well, I shouldn’t wait up.’
The machinery ran smoothly from the byre. The lights were on.
I didn’t wait to grab a coat. I slid out of the room, and ran like a hare for the stairs.
15
O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?
Ballad: Lord Randal.
I didn’t even look to see if Con were in the buildings after all. The something that had taken over from my reasoning mind told me he wouldn’t be. I had no time to make assurance double sure. I ran across the yard, and down the narrow river path towards the bridge. The wicket at the end of the bridge was standing open, its white paint making it insubstantial in the dusk, like a stage property.
It was really only a few minutes since Julie had left the house. Con would hardly have had time to go up-river as far as the stepping-stones at the end of the lane, where he could cross, and wait to intercept her on the path above the pool. But the impression of haste that he had given in the kitchen, stayed with me as a spur. I ran.
The path sloped up steeply, runged like a ladder with the roots of trees. The ground was dry and hard. Above me the trees hung in still, black clouds, not a leaf stirring. It was very dark. I stumbled badly, stumbled again, and slowed to a walk, my outstretched hands reaching for the dimly seen supporting stems of the trees. Julie would have had to go slowly, too; she could not have got so very far . . .
I thought I heard a movement ahead of me, and suddenly realised what in my fear I hadn’t thought of before. There was no need for silence here. If it were Con, and he knew I was coming, it might be enough.
I called shrilly: ‘Julie! Julie! Con!’
Then, not far ahead of me, I heard Julie cry out. It wasn’t a scream, just a short, breathless cry, almost unvoiced, that broke off short as if she’d been hit in the throat.
I called her name again, my own cry echoing the same sound of fear and shock, and ran forward as fast as I dared, through the whipping boughs of alder and hazel, and out into the little clearing above the pool.
Julie was lying on the ground, at a point where the path skirted the drop to the pool. She lay half on her back, with one arm flung wide, and her head at the brink of the drop. I saw the loose fall of her hair, pale in the moonlight, and the still paler blur of her face. Con was beside her, down on one knee. He was stooping over her to take hold of her.
I cried: ‘Julie! No!’ and ran out from under the trees, only to stop short as a shadow detached itself from the other side of the clearing, and crossed the open space in four large strides. Before Con could so much as turn his head, the newcomer’s hand shot out, and dragged him back from Julie’s body. There was a startled curse from Con, which was swallowed up in the sounds of a brief, sharp struggle, and the crashing of hazel bushes.
After the first moment of paralysing shock, I had run straight to Julie. Her eyes were shut, but she seemed to be breathing normally. I tried quickly, desperately, straining my eyes in the dimness, to see if there were any bruises or marks of injury on her, but could find none. Where she had fallen, though the ground was hard, there was a thickish mat of dog’s mercury, and her head lay in a spongy cushion of primrose leaves. I pushed the soft hair aside with unsteady gentle fingers, and felt over her scalp.
Her rescuer trod behind me. I said: ‘She’s all right, Adam. I think she’s only fainted.’
He sounded breathless, and I realised that he, too, had heard the cries, and come running. The noise that I had made must have masked his approach from Con. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Is this your cousin Julie? Who’s the man?’
I said shortly: ‘My cousin Con.’
‘Oh.’ The change in his voice was subtle but perceptible. ‘What’s he done to her?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know. I think you’ve probably jumped the gun a bit. Is there any way of getting water from the river?’
‘Are you trying to tell me—?’
‘Be quiet,’ I said, ‘she’s coming round.’
Julie stirred, and gasped a little. Her eyes fluttered and opened fully, dark and alive where her face had been a sealed blank. They turned to me. ‘Annabel? Oh, Annabel . . .’
‘Hush now, it’s all right. I’m here.’
Behind me came the crash and rustle of hazel boughs. Julie said: ‘Con—’
‘It’s all right, Julie, nothing’s going to happen. Mr Forrest’s here with us.
Lie quiet.’
She whispered, like a child: ‘Con was going to kill me.’
I heard Adam draw in his breath. Then Con’s voice said, rather thickly, from behind us: ‘Forrest? What the hell was that in aid of?’
He was on his feet, not quite steady, perhaps, with his shoulder against a tree. He put the back of his hand up to his mouth. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing here? Have you gone mad?’
Adam said quietly: ‘Did you hear what she said?’
‘I heard. And why you should choose to listen to crap of that sort, without—’
‘I also heard her cry out. Don’t you think that perhaps it’s you who’ve got the explaining to do?’
Con brought his hand away from his face, and I saw him looking down as if he could feel blood on it. He said violently: ‘Don’t be a damned fool. What sort of story’s that? Kill her? Are you crazy, or just drunk?’
Adam regarded him for a moment. ‘Come off it. For a start, you can tell us why she fainted.’
‘How the devil do I know? She probably thought I was a ghost. I hadn’t spoken a damned word to her, before she went flat out on the path.’
I said to Julie: ‘Is this true?’
The scarcely perceptible movement of her head might have meant anything. She had shut her eyes again, and turned her face in to my shoulder. Con said angrily: ‘Why don’t you tell them it’s true, Julie?’ He swung back to the silent Adam. ‘The simple truth of the matter is, Julie and I had words tonight, never mind why, but some pretty hard things were said. Afterwards I found out that she’d been involved in a car accident earlier in the evening, and I was sorry I’d made the scene with her. I’d seen her go flying out of the house, and I knew how upset she’d been when she went upstairs earlier . . . Annabel, blast it all, tell him this is true!’
Adam glanced down at me. ‘Apart from Con’s feelings,’ I said, ‘to which I’ve never had a clue, it’s quite true.’
‘So,’ said Con, ‘it occurred to me to come across and intercept her, and tell her I was sorry for what had happened, only no sooner did she see me in the path than she let out a screech like a frightened virgin, and keeled clean over. I went to see what was the matter, and the next thing was, you were manhandling me into that damned bush. Don’t worry, I’ll take your apologies for granted, I suppose it was quite natural for you to think what you did. But you—’ he addressed Julie on a scarcely conciliatory note – ‘it’s to be hoped you’ll see fit to stop making these damned silly accusations, Julie! I’m sorry I scared you, if that’s what you want me to say, and I’m sorry if you’ve hurt yourself. Now for pity’s sake try to get up, and I’ll help Annabel take you home!’
