The Embroidered Sunset

by Joan Aiken

  Undo coat, dress, find key in little bag. Queer, door not locked. Can Lucy child have left door unlocked that day she came? Not like her, Lucy child very careful, reliable on the whole. No, lock broken, somebody else been here, That Other One? Don’t loiter in porch wondering, go in. Into kitchen. Nobody about. Dear, dear little house, sorry to have left you. Are you pleased to see me? No one in scullery or parlour. Upstairs? Taffy? Taffypuss? Downstairs again.

  Oh . . .

  “What now?” said Goetz.

  “Tie her up,” said Harbin. “Something in her mouth so she can’t call out. Yes. Now fix her in the window-seat, looking out. Half a minute.”

  He walked outside, recrossed the swaying bridge, and halted by the tractor, turning to give the cottage a critical survey. Then he came back, saying,

  “That’s okay. You can see there’s a person sitting at the window. Enough to make anyone curious. Can she move?”

  “No, I’ve tied her to the knob on the shutter.” Goetz giggled. “There’s a poem about something like this: ‘The highwayman came riding, riding, riding, Along to the Dog and Duck, Where Bess the landlord’s daughter, the landlord’s black-haired daughter, Was waiting—’”

  “All right, all right, have you finished? Hurry up, we’d better get back to the tractor.”

  “If you ask me,” said Goetz, rather aggrieved, “I spent my time in jug a sight more profitably than you did, acquiring a bit of culture instead of brooding for eighteen years about my missing right flipper. Want a pull up? Lucky this tractor has an enclosed cab, otherwise we’d be getting pneumonia and pleurisy. Of all the places to wait—”

  “Have you ever driven one of these jobs?” said Harbin.

  “Sure. Easy. Easier than a car. All you have to remember is to keep on an even keel—they’re top-heavy. Why? What’s the idea?”

  Harbin was frowning, peering through the downpour.

  “Somebody else coming up the track. That’s a complication. It isn’t the one we want.”

  Lucy, seeing the tractor still parked where it had been last night, left little PHO down at the bottom by the haunted lavatory and walked up the track. The beck was shouting now in spate, a hollow tenor roar, quite different from its usually clear treble. Rain had increased to what must, surely, amount to a cloudburst. Can’t bring the old girl back in this, have to wait in the cottage till it eases a bit. If she’s there. Hope to God she is. Light a fire, maybe? I wonder if there’s any dry wood in that wash-house place at the back? Still, the rain can’t go on long at this rate.

  She dragged the hood of her duffel coat well forward, sank her chin in the collar, and hurried past the tractor. Annoying place to leave it. Up on to the bridge. Good Lord, the stream was high; already washing over the transverse wooden slats. With so much water pushing against it the bridge was dragged downstream into a bow-shape that shook and swayed under the impact of great rolling eddies.

  “Do I cross or not?” thought Lucy.

  She stared up at the cottage on the opposite bank of the dene and thought she saw—but it was difficult to be sure through the cataracting rain—a white face at the kitchen window. She pushed back her duffel hood. Yes, surely that was a face—Aunt Fennel?—sitting at the window. Silly old juggins, she had got there and now didn’t like to start back. Well, I don’t blame her. I’m not a bit enthusiastic myself, however, here goes.

  Taking firm hold of the wire rail on either side she moved slowly, carefully, step by step over the jiggling, rocking, slippery slats, marvelling, as she had before, that the two old ladies could have used this insubstantial-looking affair as their only access to the village for so many years. I suppose they just stayed home in bad weather, eating own eggs, baking own bread. Must be stronger than it looks, I suppose. Frankly this rusty wire looks as if it were due to part any minute now. Wonder if the onus is on the council to keep it up, or who looks after it—does somebody splice in a new bit of wire from time to time? Oh well, at least I’m halfway acr—

  Behind her she heard a strand of wire snap; the resonant twang was audible even above the rush of the stream. The slats underfoot parted on her left and tipped sharply downstream; instinctively, Lucy dropped to her knees, putting most of her weight on her hands grasping the wire rails.

  The left-hand rail gave.

  It pulled away from the post on the farther bank and, flying back, struck Lucy in the face. She was swung violently backwards against the right-hand rail, but only for a second; the water, grabbing at her back, threatened to force her under. The bridge was now hanging at a crazy tilt by one rail and one wire; Lucy, up to her waist in water, struggled to turn round and face the cottage, clinging with both hands to the right-hand rail. The sag of the bridge was such that it was going to be like climbing a ladder to get to land.

  Duffel coat off, too heavy, if it comes to swimming. Swimming? this beck is only a foot deep as a rule. Ten feet at least now, or I’m the Prince of Wales’s fiancée. Kick shoes off too; try and curl your toes over the edge of the slats, there’s no other way to grip.

  The second wire holding the slats in place parted; this time there was no sound, for it broke under water; but the remaining section of the bridge under Lucy’s feet sank and vanished.

  I’m done for, she thought, swept under, still hanging on to the last wire rail. She felt it snap behind her and was whirled and rolled by roaring mounds of brandy-coloured water, filling her eyes like blood, swamping and smothering her. Something struck her, a tree or rock, she felt the wire bite into her hands but clung on frenziedly, kicking out, swimming on her back, her side, her front, as the wire thrashed and the water buffeted. Now I know what it feels like to be a salmon, I always hated watching Wilbie battle with some fighting, gasping creature—

  To her astonishment she hit the bank, one shin crashed painfully against a rock, her toes dug among stones. She thrust herself upward, still hanging on to the wire which, apparently, was still moored to its post. Her head came above water. She found a foothold-rock and crawled out, coughing and shaking, rubbing beck-water from her eyes.

  Dear Max, that was quite a little adventure. I’m really sorry Adnan wasn’t here, he’d surely have had himself a whale of a time. Even better than the Big Dipper. What times we live in. Proposal before lunch, nearly drowned before tea. Now I come to think, I haven’t had any lunch, wouldn’t have minded some of that beef stew.

  Now then.

  Is that Aunt Fennel at the window? You’d think she’d wave or come out? And those men in the tractor—why, for God’s sake, didn’t they do something, instead of sitting there watching me drown?

  Wondering where her duffel coat would come ashore, Lucy started to drag herself up the bank.

  Fiona came to the front door of Wildfell Hall, looking harried.

  “Yes?” she said. “Who did you want to see?”

  “Well, both my niece and my aunt, I guess.” Wilbie gave her a winning smile. “And both called Miss Culpepper, as it happens.”

  “I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Fiona said briefly. “Neither of them is around.”

  “Really? Are you sure?” He looked patently disbelieving. “Would you mind just having a look, to make certain? Surely they wouldn’t have gone out in this weather?”

  She gave a bleak glance past him at the teeming rain.

  “Just the same they have. Your aunt was discovered missing at lunch-time, so Lucy went after her. That was about three-quarters of an hour ago; but we don’t know how long she’d been gone.”

  “Missing? She’d gone out on her own? Why didn’t anybody see her and stop her? Have the police been informed?”

  “Not yet; Lucy thought probably old Miss Culpepper had slipped back to her cottage. Time to get in touch with the police if she’s not there.”

  “It all seems very careless,” said Wilbie disapprovingly.

  “Look, Mr.-”

 
“Culpepper—”

  “I’m taking care of this place more or less single-handed at the moment with a couple of part-time girls; if you’ve any complaint to make, just wait till the matron gets back, would you? She phoned not long ago; she’ll be back sometime this evening.”

  “No—no—that’s quite all right, I’m not blaming you, my dear,” he said hastily. “No, I guess I’ll just nip along to the village; I expect little Lucy was right and the old lady went up to her cottage; she and Lucy will be sheltering there till the rain stops, most probably. So I’ll go up too and give them a big surprise.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Fiona coldly. She shut the front door and returned to the kitchen, where Emma Chiddock had taken down the electric beater and was contemplating it thoughtfully.

  “No, Emma, it is not scrambled eggs for tea. Sardines on toast. You’re getting a thing about that beater. Put it away, for goodness sake, and fetch out the tin-opener. Mrs. Marsham will be back after tea, and I don’t want her to find the place all in chaos. Her son’s died, poor woman.”

  “Oh her son’s died, has he?” Emma showed no sympathy, in fact there was a note of satisfaction in her voice. “Maybe now she’ll have some notion of what it’s like when your best friend’s put out of the world, sudden, just because she didn’t lick somebody’s boots. A taste of her own medicine wouldn’t hurt Mrs. M. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”

  “Oh, do stop being so biblical, Emma, and give me a hand. I’m worried about Lucy and old Miss Culpepper.”

  “Shouldn’t think we’ll see her again,” Emma said darkly. She picked up the tin-opener, but her eyes went back several times to the electric beater with its corkscrew attachment.

  “Mighty odd,” Wilbie said, returning to the hired Land-Rover. “The old girl’s roamed out by herself and Lucy’s gone after her, it seems. What a day to choose for a promenade! Girl who answered the door seemed to think she might have gone along to the old cottage, so we’ll just nip up there and see. I must say,” he added aggrievedly, “it’s a damn nuisance the way she always contrives to wander off just when I’m in the neighbourhood; would have saved so much trouble if I’d been able to see her at that boarding-house place in Kirby.”

  “Telepathy, maybe; she kind of senses when you’re close at hand,” Russ said drily. He started the Land-Rover with a lurch that caused Wilbie to give him a pained look, and added reflectively, “However if she gets pneumonia and dies, you’ll hardly complain, will you? That’d solve one of your problems.”

  “Why, Russ! What gave you the idea I wanted the poor old lady to die?”

  “Well,” said Russ, “for one thing, going to that bank in York and finding the old girls made wills in one another’s favour. So whoever the pictures belong to, they don’t belong to you, right? Whoever this old duck is, she owns the pictures, right? I’ve a notion those pictures are quite a bit more important to you than that piddling little annuity from Culpepper Pharm. And I’ve also a notion that something else is bugging you, that you’re dead keen to get the whole thing sorted out and leave this country fast. Aren’t I right?”

  He shot a keen look sideways at his father.

  “Well, and can you wonder? Who’d want to stay in this god-awful climate?”

  “It’s just the climate? It isn’t anything to do with that Harold Marsham?”

  “Who the hell is Harold Marsham?”

  “The guy who was squashed by sixteen tons of falling newsprint; there was a picture of him in this morning’s Yorkshire Post. Son of the matron at the home. Not expected to survive.”

  “Why should I worry about him? I never even heard of him.”

  “Oh,” said Russ calmly, “just because he was so uncommonly like me. I wondered if he could be another of your little by-blows, dear old Dad? That’s the track to High Beck up there, isn’t it? Seems to be something parked dead in the middle, halfway up. We’ll have to leave the truck here and walk.”

  “No, can’t leave the truck here; too many nosy people about,” Wilbie said hastily, looking up and down the deserted main street of Appleby-under-Scar. “No, I’ll tell you what, Russ. There’s a Water Board metalled track that leaves the village a quarter of a mile to the east, cuts up behind High Beck cottage, and runs on over the moor past the reservoir; it’s quite a good short cut to Kirby. Couldn’t do it in this weather in an ordinary car, it’s not metalled the whole way, but we certainly can in that thing. Why don’t you go along that way—you’ll have to open a gate or two, and there are some cattle grids, but don’t worry about the ‘Private’ signs, no one will be about in this weather—and I’ll meet you up top; there’s a little Ordnance Survey cairn where the path up from the cottage hits the track. Wait for me there.”

  “You seem to know this part of the country well for a guy who hasn’t been back in twenty years.”

  “Oh, these parts don’t change in generations,” Wilbie said easily.

  “Sure you wouldn’t like me to come along with you and add to the family atmosphere?”

  “No, don’t you worry, Russ, boy; in many ways I think it’ll be easier if I’m on my own. All I’m going to do is pass the time of day and see if the old girl is Aunt Fennel. No use in both of us getting soaked through,” Wilbie said virtuously.

  “But shouldn’t we offer to drive them back to the Hall?”

  “Have some sense. How could we, with all that stuff in the back? No, I’ll see you at the cairn.” Wilbie zipped up his gay tartan parka, pulled down the flaps of his client-watching cap, and set off briskly up the track. Russ, after a last doubtful look at his stocky retreating figure, turned the truck and drove eastwards along the Appleby village street.

  Lot of water in that brook, Wilbie thought, striding uphill. Couldn’t be handier conditions, really. Anybody might have an accident: steep bank, bad visibility, slippery steps, so easy to tumble down and hit your head on a rock. So what. The other one did it too, the place is still just as dangerous, isn’t it? And if the old lady were to fall, of course our brave little Lucy would go in after her and she’s got a dicky heart—it all adds up as if it had been worked out by computer. Suppose they aren’t in the cottage, though? But they must be, where else could they be?

  Hark to the stream; considerable lot of water coming down there. Nuisance about trouser legs getting wet.

  And he thought resentfully: What a lot of trouble to dispose of an old lady who ought to have died a long time ago. Anyone would think I had nothing better to do than drop all my other commitments and come trailing over to England; it’s always the way.

  Want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Wilbie has to see to it. Wilbie Culpepper. Wilbie the winner. Will be finally recognised as having more to him than anybody realised. Wilbie will show them. As for little know-all Lucy, with her bare toes and her threadbare jeans, setting herself up for an expert on art, princess of culture, squinting through her hair and despising me, like some scrawny supercilious little bird with her snide remarks and her offhand ways, as for that capsy little brat, just wait till I let her know—

  He came up to the tractor, passed it without particularly regarding it, and went on to stand in outraged disbelief by the broken bridge. It’s bust. Can’t get across. That’s rubbish, there must be some way across. House and church on that side farther down, you reach them by going back to the village and up the other side of the stream. Yeah, but then there’s that bit of cliff in between. Path from the back of the cottage up to the moor? Sure, but that’s three miles round, take me an hour, meanwhile Russ wondering where the hell I’ve got to. How long’s the bridge been broken? Maybe old Aunt F. didn’t get to the cottage either. In which case, where is she?

  He stared at the bridge; dangling slats, strand of wire trailing downstream, might have been broken five minutes or five hours ago. Stared at the cottage; its little dark windows stared back at him impassively. Might be someone insid
e, might not. Well, if they are in there, they are cut off; yet, but they won’t starve, Lucy can walk up over the moor, down the Water Board track for help, and anyway the beck will go down in twelve hours or so.

  I can’t stay here twelve hours though.

  He turned, moved away indecisively, trying to think of some plan, and came face to face with Harbin.

  “Hullo, Fred.”

  Wilbie stood motionless, except that his round head on its bull neck tipped slightly backwards as if his gyro control had shifted a point or two. He licked his lips slightly, then said, “Excuse me,” and made to move past Harbin. But the pause had lasted too long.

  “Oh no, Fred,” Harbin said. “You know who I am.”

  “Sorry, no idea. Look, I’m in a hurry—”

  “You don’t remember Flight 507, Liverpool to Boston? You were the drinks steward, wearing a canvas corset with thirty thousand quid’s worth of gold slung round your waist in three rows of dear little pockets. Don’t you remember that, Fred? You must have a rotten memory.”