by Iona Whishaw
Ames and Darling, of course! The inspector had said he would be coming out the next day to look around for the vagrant. God, it’s the next day, she thought, but she listened as the car slowed, turned, began to pass on the road at the front, and with a sinking heart, she heard it speed up, pass, and fade. Why should they stop? They wouldn’t be looking for her.
Knowing that it was daytime, Lane resolved to explore the whole of her prison, looking for any crack that might lead to the outside world. She was only now becoming aware of how cold she was and how stiff. The rain added to her sense of hopelessness. And on top of it, she suddenly realized, her remaining shoe was full of dirt. She had a pounding headache and was getting cold. She sat on a step, undid her shoe, and shook it. She could hear dirt cascade out of it. Dusting off her stockings, she slipped her shoe back on, groaning.
She must have been dragged here. Her other shoe could be anywhere. Movement was agony, and standing made her groan, her bruised limbs and ribs protesting. She must, she reasoned, have been out most of the night. A good thing she hadn’t had to spend the night complaining about the cold and damp. Her plan was to explore the whole perimeter, feeling the wall for any clues that might get her out. Moving to her right, the first thing she felt was a pile of wooden boxes.
Of course, bloody apple boxes! She moved her hands along these, exploring how high they were stacked and how far along they went. At least four high and four along, and then her hands hit air, but her feet hit something hard. She bent and reached out. It was a machine of some kind, metal and heavy.
She felt along it, remembering the story she’d heard as a child about the four blind people feeling an elephant, each of them thinking it was some completely different thing. This object had wheels. That was something. Even standing on tiptoe she could not feel the top of it, so it was tall. That meant there was a way out besides the stairs. A large door that swung onto a driveway. Why could she not picture where it was? She must have been dragged through that door. That would mean whoever it was hadn’t pushed her down the stairs. She could have come to sometime in the night and tried to go up them and fallen. She was sure now she wasn’t under the house. Nothing this big would fit in the basement.
She wondered about the barn behind the Bertollis’ house, but that was above ground. She’d never been in it. Was the barn built against the hillside, with big bay doors at the front? She sighed and sat on the wheel of whatever it was and became aware of her thirst and, behind that, her hunger. No point in dwelling on that, but it meant she’d better find a way out soon. Feeling her way carefully around the machine, she held out her hands and began to feel the wall for any sign of a way out.
LANE’S EYES FLEW open. For a minute she was confused, and then the cold and aching in her body reminded her. She had placed several of the wooden boxes in a way that allowed her to lie above the dank dirt floor, intending only to close her eyes for a moment after finding there were indeed large doors—impossible to budge—set into the dark wall she had explored. And further, no cracks were visible, so she still had no idea whether it was day or night. The rain had stopped, and she felt a minuscule moment of gratitude for that. She had intended only to close her eyes for a moment, but she must have fallen dead asleep. It was a noise that had woken her. She sat up, now alert, and tried to attune her ears to the sound. It was a door scraping, and a faint light appeared from across where the stairs were.
With a strangled cry of relief, she jumped up and moved toward it, only to be halted by nausea that folded her over.
“Shh,” whispered a male voice. “I’ve brought you some food and water.”
She wanted to shout, to cry for help. It came on her all of a heap. She was someone’s prisoner. No doubt the very vagrant she had been looking for. If she screamed he would only lock her in again, or worse, tie her up and gag her. The fact that he had not killed her outright was the only good news she had.
She breathed away the nausea and the fear. “Okay, okay. Where am I? Why are you holding me here?” She tried to sound calm and reasoned. She knew that showing her fear and panic would allow him to treat her as he wished. If she reached through to his reason, he might have doubts, waver, be talked down.
“I never wanted to, did I? Now we’re stuck with each other.”
“I don’t understand. Can we not go upstairs into the light? I’m completely disoriented. I’ve no idea what time it is even. And I’m cold.” This last statement veered into actual whining, she thought. But she suddenly felt very hard done by because it was evident now that whoever this was had never had any intention of keeping her prisoner, but now here they were in this ridiculous situation.
There was a silence after this. Even though the door to whatever room was at the top of the stairs was open, precious little light came through. Suddenly she was blinded by a shock of light. He had a flashlight, which he was now pointing at her.
“I found this in your car. Here’s some food. It’s not much, just what I had when I came here, and my Thermos of water. I’ll throw down that rug you keep in the back.”
Now she could see the shadow of his body, and then he shone the flashlight onto the top stair, where he deposited the food and water. She longed to reach for the Thermos, a round metal affair—army issue. She tried to glance at him. Had he been a soldier? Was he one of the unhappy ones who had never been able to settle? She wished she could see his face, read in it who he was, what he intended.
“Who are you? Why are you keeping me here? I see you have an army-issue Thermos. Are you a soldier?” Anything to try to get him to talk.
“Look, it’s no good. Don’t try gabbing at me. You should have kept your nose out. I’ve been watching you, coming and going, snooping around. If only I could have explained to Mabel . . . now it’s too late. I can’t let you out, do you understand? They’re going to think I did it, aren’t they?”
“Mabel?” she asked in surprise. “You know Mabel. You know about the dead child. Do you have something to do with that? Did you . . . ?” She was going to say, “Kill the child,” and then thought his response might not do her any good, and so let the question hang.
“God, no. I did not kill him. I’m the one who rescued him in the first place. But no one will ever believe that, will they?” Suddenly he sobbed, “It’s all so bloody, bloody, bloody. Now shut up. I’m leaving. Someone will find you any time now. There have been cars driving around.” With that he turned, lit the stairs, and began to climb them.
Panicked, she hurried after him, but he pushed her back so she had to drop down to her knees on the stair to keep from tumbling down to the bottom again. “Bob” she cried. “Are you Bob Anscomb?”
This stopped the man. “You took the boot?” He shined the flashlight in her eyes so that she recoiled and almost fell backward.
“I . . . we are just trying to understand about the child.”
“Those never did fit him proper, the poor tyke.” The man turned and began to close the door.
Feeling that keeping him talking was her only way of not being left behind in this dank hellhole, Lane called, “Are you Bob Anscomb? What do you mean, ‘he’?”
“We was none of us any kind of Anscomb at all.” The man paused, holding the door open before stepping through it, and then he disappeared into the darkness and the door closed with an awful, resounding bang.
Her heart sinking, Lane shouted after him, “You’ll only get into more trouble! If you’ve anything to do with this and you didn’t kill her, you must tell me . . . the police . . . someone!”
She could hear the footsteps coming back, heard the door open, and felt the flashlight blind her again. This time, though, she could see him coming down the stairs fast, coming at her. The hand with the flashlight was raised, the light playing crazily on the walls and ceiling, strange parts of monster equipment coming into view and disappearing in the wild dance of the flashlight. She backed away, tripping over something, hitting her head on something made of metal.
The man pulled his hand back a
s if to strike her, and she threw her arm up to protect her head. Then he uttered an oath and kicked savagely at whatever had tripped her. “I did kill someone once. I didn’t mean to, but I did, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. He had it coming to him. I could have talked to her, reasoned with her. Helped her understand. Help me make it right. But you got to her, didn’t you? She would have talked to me. She was sweet on me once, you know.” He stepped backward, shining the flashlight into her face. “Isabel was pretty like you,” he said. He turned quickly, leaving her in the darkness. She watched the flashlight mark his progress up the stairs, saw him momentarily throw his arms out for balance as the stairs swayed, watched his hand reach for the door.
“Wait, Bob, is that Isabel in the grave? Did you bury her? I could see you tried to make it right for her. I could see that.”
At this the man stopped. “I did try to make it right.”
He pushed the door open and then he was gone. She was left again in total darkness. She heard the door slam and then a key turning.
She followed his footsteps across the floor above her. Then heard another door slamming somewhere and a car, her own car, starting up. She leaned back where she had fallen, feeling the cold damp earth through her clothes, and took a shuddering breath of relief that she was no longer trapped in this dark hellhole with that man.
Later, sitting on an apple box with her car rug wrapped around her and the Thermos still in her hand, tried to pull herself together. She had hoped when he threw the blanket down that he would leave her the torch, that he would talk more. She’d been right, she knew, with her sudden insight that this must be Bob Anscomb, though why had he said he was “no kind of Anscomb”? Was he trying to deny his name because of his brutal act? But he said he’d “rescued” the child. What did that mean? From what? Clearly the child had not been rescued. And he kept saying “he.” It must be one of the two smaller boys, then, not Isabel.
Her own rescue seemed further away than ever, and despair at being alone in the dark nearly overwhelmed her again. She began to cry, shivering and gulping air. She knew she was in danger of giving in to panic. With an effort of will she pulled herself together. She had to get out.
At the top of the stairs she felt the whole length of the door, looking for any weakness. Nothing. She banged furiously and impotently on the door with her fists. “Damn you!” she shouted. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Spring, 1904
The train station was a maelstrom of confusion and noise. Isabel clung to Charlie’s arm and pulled Andrew in close. A group of five children sat on the bench behind them, a boy of four asleep against the oldest girl, who was perhaps fourteen. A child somewhere was crying; Isabel found it unbearable and wanted to block her ears, but in a few moments she began to hear other sounds, shards of sentences, the scraping of bags and boxes along the wooden platform, the train issuing explosive little puffs of steam, as if trying to catch its breath after the long run to Manitoba from Halifax.
She had only been aware of the children as they were bundled off the train, but now she could see grown-ups, some disappearing into the station, their journey done, others coming out of the station and standing, confused, on the platform. They seemed to be looking for someone, their faces cast in shadow in the late afternoon.
“Faraday?” a woman called, her eyes scanning the groups of children. Other people began to call out names, McClintock, Arthur, Ellison. There was a commotion behind her, by the bench. The children had stood up; a man and a woman were talking to them and began to usher them impatiently toward the door. Isabel looked away, frightened. What if the people that came for them were angry and rough like those people?
She could hear the girl cry out from inside the station, and then the noise of other meetings closed over her cries. “Charlie, what if no one comes for us?” she asked.
“They will, won’t they? Whoever it is already knows you’re coming. They’ll be here. See, them other kiddies is leaving with people.”
“I wish we were going to the same place.”
“I know, but you’ll come and see me, you and young Andrew, or I’ll come to you.” Isabel, clutching at any comfort, nodded, but she felt a weight on her heart that seemed like a warning, a premonition.
She felt as abandoned as the night they had spent in the doorway before they had been taken up by the police and sent to the children’s home. The memory, long buried, returned to her, and she dropped Charlie’s arm and pulled Andrew into her skirts with both arms.
“Isabel Thomas? Isabel?”
“There now,” said Charlie. “Here’s someone for you. Go on. Wave, let him know you’re here.” But Charlie himself waved his arm and called out, “Over here!”
A man in a frayed jacket and a pair of greasy black trousers approached. He wasn’t old, Isabel saw, but he looked weary.
“You her?” he asked tipping back a dark blue cloth cap. “You’re kinda small.”
Isabel nodded, and the man looked at Andrew. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s my brother, Andrew,” Isabel managed, her voice sounding strange and tentative to her.
“There’s nothing about no brother,” he frowned, in a tone that suggested she should solve the problem. Isabel could hear a child crying again, a frightened rising sound that made her heart clamp inside her.
“He’s my brother,” she said again. She looked at Charlie, hoping he’d explain, but Charlie was looking toward the bench, his eyes wide. Isabel turned. The four-year-old boy was standing alone, crying, snot running out of his nose, looking desperately toward the door of the station. He turned, wailing, looking for anyone. She felt a wave of horror. He’d been left behind.
“Come on, then,” the man said impatiently. He took Andrew’s suitcase and took Isabel roughly by the arm to steer her to the door, allowing Andrew to follow.
“Charlie!” she called, “Please come like you said,” but Charlie was kneeling by the little boy, his hands on his shoulders, speaking softly to him.
Isabel and Andrew sat up next to the man, their two little suitcases, issued by the lady in London, banging about in the back of the cart. The road from the station had a fine film of mud on it that kicked up from the hooves of the horse. It had been raining earlier in the day, but now the sun shone in a sky so vast that Isabel wanted to shrink away from it. The great dark horse pulling them rocked from side to side, giving the appearance of fatigue. She longed to ask where they were going, but fear kept her from speaking. The man driving had not said anything unkind but he had frowned at Andrew, and she was afraid he would make her leave him if she made him angry. The fear and horror at the sight of the abandoned boy had not left her and so she sat, collapsed in on herself.
They passed through a small town that seemed almost abandoned, it was so quiet. There were wooden buildings with wagons and horses parked in front of them, but she saw only one person.
A man, who leaned on a green wagon as though he was waiting for something, spit onto the street in front of them and watched them go by. He nodded at the man sitting next to her. She was aware of being hungry but had no idea what time it was.
The sun was high and beginning to become hot. Isabel closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift into sleep. A sudden jolt woke her, and she opened her eyes to a landscape unimaginable to her. Land stretched out in all directions, terrifying in its vastness. Rolls of low hills, ploughed fields, sparse lines of trees in early summer green. They passed a group of men and boys eating next to idle ploughs. Horses grazed under trees. Every creature stopped and looked up as they passed, some lifting a chin in greeting.
“Those are from the farm. You’re lucky you aren’t a boy or you’d be going there too.” Isabel turned to stare at the boys in particular, looking for Charlie. But he wouldn’t be there yet. She didn’t even know if that was where he was going.
“Is that where Charlie will be?” she asked, finally able to find her voice.
“How should I know?” the man answered. �
�You better learn to talk right. The missus ain’t going to understand a word you say. And don’t think about those other kids. You’ll never see them again. You coming here to work.” At this the man looked at Andrew and shook his head. “That’s not going to go well,” he muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MABEL KNEW SHE HAD TO tell someone. She felt like she was in a state of shock since she’d seen him again, as if her sudden spate of memories had caused him to materialize out of the past. She had worked with Gwen and her mother digging in the peas, feeling nothing of the joy she generally felt at this annual ritual. Especially on a day like this. The rains of the morning had stopped, leaving the air clean and glistening. The sun flooded their garden, as it wouldn’t a little later when all the leaves were in full strength. The lake below glimmered with the warm promise of the summer to come. Shoots of perennials climbed out of the ground, and snowdrops bobbed, oblivious to human drama, glorying in the warmth of spring. The afternoon wore on. Clouds began to bank behind the mountains across the lake, and the temperature dropped. The Hughes ladies were getting ready to go in and were packing up their tools and peeling off their muddy gloves.
The phone call came that Miss Winslow was still missing.
There’s nothing I can do, Mabel thought. Nothing I say will be of any use in finding her. She felt enveloped in a kind of mental confusion she never remembered having before, playing over and over in her mind the conversation she had had with Bob, searching for any clue about the missing Lane and the dead child, desperately convincing herself that she could keep it secret because nothing she knew would help. The phone jangled again from inside the house. All the doors had been opened to let in the new air of spring.
“I’ll get it,” she said. It took time for her to get from the garden to the house, and she worried whoever it was would ring off. “King’s Cove 553, Mabel here.”
It was Eleanor. “Yes, hello, Mabel. You are to come here, all of you. The inspector is asking to have everyone in one place so that we can try to piece together what’s happened to Miss Winslow. We’ll make search parties as well. Can you come right down? Even the Mathers have agreed to come.”
