The Gated Road

by Jean S. MacLeod

“Marion!” she gasped. “Marion, let me go!”

  The wind whipped up the words, carrying them away. There was nothing now but a gathering blackness pressing down on her with increasing force.

  “Adam!” she cried, but no sound came. All she could hear was Marion’s heavy breathing and the desperate beating of her own heart. Then something seemed to give way behind them and there was no more light.

  In the terrible, all-consuming blackness the grip on her wrist relaxed, but already she was falling, plunging downwards into oblivion as the stairs crumbled beneath her.

  When she regained consciousness she was lying against the door leading to the upper hall, wedged there by a cold, heavy object that pressed against her and kept her from moving for many minutes. In the darkness she could no longer see, but when she stretched out a tentative hand it came into contact with cold stone and a powdering of fine dust. The stair or the wall above the arrow-slit had given way.

  She held her breath, listening to the sound which had been there all the time, the sound of the wind—or of someone moaning.

  “Marion?”

  “Over here!”

  The voice was barely recognizable as Marion’s, but Jane found her by crawling over the rubble which had fallen with them. When her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she saw the huddled figure against the wall and the helpless way in which Marion tried to move her arms, and her heart contracted in a sudden panic of fear. What could she do? What could she possibly do in an emergency like this?

  “Don’t leave me.” Marion made an attempt to clutch at her arm but could not reach her. “Don’t just clear out and leave me here.”

  The words held terror and a certain fatality. It was almost as if Marion expected to be left. Left to die, perhaps?

  Jane thrust the ugly thought away and bent nearer.

  “I’ve got to get help,” she tried to explain. “I can’t move you, Marion. The stair or the wall gave way. I can’t see clearly enough to discover which. It’s all so dark. I’ve got to move a lot of debris before I can reach the door.”

  “Don’t go!”

  The note of pleading was weaker now, driven back by the heavy breathing that forced its way between the pale lips, and Jane hesitated for only a second. Marion was almost unconscious. She could not do any more for her. What she had to do was to get out and bring help. Somehow, somewhere, she must find Adam.

  Clawing her way to the door, she almost sobbed aloud in her relief when it opened and she saw the familiar vista of the upper hall clearly before her. It was no longer dark, as it had been in the enclosed stairway behind her, yet the whole Tower seemed full of threatening shadows and the clammy awareness of death.

  Remembering Marion’s horse, she made her way down to the outer door, but Thunderer had gone. If he had been somewhere in the shelter of the outside wall he had probably bolted at the first sound of the falling masonry and was now half way back to High Tor. Although she had no faith in herself as a horsewoman, she had intended to ride as fast as she could toward the road, but now that was impossible.

  Trembling with the aftermath of her nerve-racking experience, she wondered if she should attempt to move Marion, to drag her to the shelter of the upper hall, at least, but when she went back to the Tower it was obvious that she could do nothing. Marion moaned as soon as she was touched.

  I’ve got to get help, Jane thought. I’ve got to find Adam—in time!

  Outside in the grayness, with the rain slanting bitterly into her face, she began to run. She ran blindly, plunging down across the gnarled heather roots and the dead bracken toward the road. It was four miles to High Tor across the moor.

  When she reached the road her breathing had become a sharp pain in her breast, but she could not stop. She was running automatically now, on and on, with only one thought in her mind—to reach Adam.

  He caught up with her as she came to the gated road. Jane heard the clip-clop of the Dalesman’s hoofs ringing on the hard metalled surface behind her and turned toward the sound with a little sob in her throat.

  “Adam!”

  He caught her, holding her close.

  “What’s happened?” His tone was curt and demanding but his arms were sanctuary. He held her from him to look at her, taking in her dishevelled state at a glance, and she felt a shudder go through him, as if he had come face to face with sudden, irretrievable loss. “What’s happened to you?” he repeated. “Where have you come from?”

  “The Tower.” She clung to him weakly for a moment longer before she urged him toward the patient Dalesman. “It’s Marion,” she said. “You’ve got to go, Adam. She’s badly hurt. We fell. We were on the stair leading to the battlements and something gave way.” She could not tell him the truth at that point. She could not condemn Marion in that moment of desperate emergency. “Get to her, Adam,” she pleaded. “I can go on. I can go to High Tor for help.”

  He turned without a word, but she had seen the look on his face. It was harsh and bleak with remembering.

  When she stumbled through the final gate into the farmyard Nigel came running toward her.

  “Good heavens, Jane!” he exclaimed in concern. “What’s happened to you?”

  “Marion has fallen. She’s badly injured. Will you get help and go after Adam?”

  He led her toward the open door of the kitchen. “Where are they?”

  “At the Peel Tower.” Her throat was dry, but she managed to force the words out. “The stairs gave way and Marion fell. Adam has gone up there.”

  Her sentence hung between them, unfinished. Nigel was staring at her with a terrible conviction in his eyes.

  “Is she dead?” he demanded stonily.

  “No!” Jane drew in a quivering breath. “She couldn’t just die up there alone, Nigel,” she protested unsteadily.

  “Couldn’t she?” he said slowly. “There’s such a thing as retribution, Jane.”

  She did not understand him and he left her abruptly. In a minute or two she heard his car draw away and the roar of the engine as it raced across the moor, where she had left all the gates open behind her.

  It seemed an eternity before she heard the sound of the car again. When she had telephoned for help and brewed tea and found blankets and brandy for an emergency, she stood with Penny in the kitchen listening to the storm. It was the worst she had ever experienced. The wind had increased to a savage fury and bright shafts of lightning scarred the angry sky, illuminating the moor for revealing seconds, with the rain slanting obliquely across it. Peal after peal of thunder echoed and rolled among the fells.

  Penny, who hated thunder, was afraid, but tried not to show it.

  “I wish Nigel would come back,” she said once or twice, but that was all.

  When he did come she ran toward him with the utmost relief in her eyes. Jane stood very still. Nigel was wet through and seemed to have aged considerably in the past two hours. He looked straight at Jane.

  “They’ve taken Marion to Newcastle, to the Infirmary,” he said, “Old Fenwick says her back’s broken.”

  The shock silenced them. Penny went through to the hall to build up the fire. She was crying. Penny never could bear the impact of bad news without some visible sign.

  “Adam went with the ambulance,” Nigel said. “This is the worst thing in the world that could have happened to Marion.” He sat down helplessly beside the kitchen fire, burying his face in his hands. “I wish I didn’t have to think that it was some sort of punishment.”

  He was deeply distressed and his voice had sounded harsh and dried up.

  “We’re not ‘punished’ like that Nigel,” Jane tried to assure him.

  “I wish I could think so,” he repeated, the words coming in a rush now. “Jane,” he said tersely, “Marion was there when Angela fell from the tower window.”

  Jane gasped.

  “You can’t believe that!” she cried.

  “I know,” he said. “I saw her coming away. If she had picked Angela up she might have sav
ed her life. Instead of that, she did nothing.”

  “You can’t be sure.” Jane’s voice was trembling. “You can’t really be sure of that, Nigel!”

  “Marion knew I had seen her,” he said as if he had not heard her protest. “But she threatened me with all sorts of things if I mentioned it. I had been going to the cock-fights in the dale and gambling a lot—getting into a mess generally,” he added shamefacedly. “She lent me money and she swore she hadn’t noticed Angela lying there, but it would have been awkward if it had become known that she was riding up on the moor at the time. No,” he added when Jane would have protested once more, “Marion didn’t kill Angela—not quite. She died of exposure and a fractured spine. We’ll never know the truth—whether she left Angela alone up there deliberately or not,” he added, “but I believe Marion was capable of it.”

  Jane shivered.

  “Does Adam know?”

  Nigel looked up at her.

  “Do you think he would have allowed Marion to stay here if he had even guessed?” he asked.

  After the barest of pauses Jane said, “You must never tell him. It’s no more than a suspicion, Nigel.”

  “All the same, I’m glad to get rid of it.” He drew in a deep breath of relief. “Unburdening to you like this has helped. I’ve been Marion’s prisoner too long. She’s been the evil spirit of High Tor for four years, Jane. If she pulls out of this Adam will have to know. We couldn’t go on living here with any hope of happiness while Marion was around.”

  Penny came back and they could say no more.

  Toward midnight a car drew up on the cobbles of the yard and Nigel went to the door. The storm was still raging and a shaft of lightning lit up the havoc outside. In it Jane saw Adam striding toward the house as the strange car and its occupant drew away.

  The brothers exchanged no more than half a dozen words, but even before Adam came into the kitchen Jane knew that Marion was dead.

  “She died in the ambulance,” he said. “It was the best way. She would never have walked again.”

  Penny began to cry and Nigel bent to comfort her. Silently Jane took Adam’s coat. It was soaking wet.

  “There’s not much left of the Tower,” he said briefly, making his way into the hall. “I’ve known the battlements were unsafe for a long time. That’s why I warned you to keep out, Jane. Marion knew it too. Now this storm has ripped away the west wall. The Peel Tower, and all it stood for has gone.”

  He halted before the fire, staring down at the glowing brightness of the half-burned logs.

  “I’m sorry,” Jane said. “It was once your home.”

  “It has held nothing but tragedy and unhappiness for me,” he answered, turning slowly to face her. “And tonight I could have lost you.”

  For the first time since she had known him, his voice was unsteady, his gray eyes unsure.

  “But you didn’t,” Jane said. “I’m here, Adam. I shall always be here.”

  He took a step toward her and halted, as if he dared not believe what he saw in her eyes.

  “Do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve always loved you. I’ve never loved anyone else,” she told him truthfully.

  He caught her to him without speaking, covering her hair and her face and her throat with hungry, ardent kisses that left no doubt in her heart about the future.

  “I thought that—you and Nigel...” he said, at last. “But now I see what a fool I was! Nigel and you have nothing to offer each other. He’ll marry Penny and they’ll be happy together whatever they do.” He kissed her again, looking deeply into her eyes. “What I thought I had found in Penny never actually existed,” he mused thoughtfully. “I had to wait to find it in you. I knew that as soon as we met, Jane. Penny is only your paler reflection. I was angry, though, and bitter. I had lost the power to trust when you came to High Tor.”

  “It comes back again,” Jane said, clinging to him for one perfect moment before Nigel and Penny came in. “This time, Adam, it must have come back to stay.”

  Nigel said in some surprise, “Are you two engaged?”

  Adam would not allow Jane to draw away from his encircling arm.

  “We’re going to be married,” he said with all the old finality in his tone. “We’ve been engaged long enough.”

  They told Helen their decision in the morning.

  “There’s no need for you to wait,” she said, looking happier than Jane had ever seen her. “I’m well now. It’s the best thing that could happen for High Tor and all of us!”

  Adam bent to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Do you still want your ‘wedding in June?” he asked teasingly.

  “I’m a greedy sort of woman!” Helen confessed with a twinkle in her eyes as the red sports car shot off from under her window. “I would like two weddings. Maybe they could both be in June,” she added reflectively. “After all, Jane and Penny are twins!”

  “She’ll get her weddings,” Adam said when they had left his mother to rest. “She generally gets what she sets her heart on. I’d like to see Penny and Nigel at the Priory one day.”

  They went out and stood beside the paddock gate, surveying the scene of the storm that had ravaged the countryside the night before.

  “It’s over now,” Jane mused thankfully. “Is there much damage, Adam?”

  He shook his head.

  “Only the Tower,” he told her. “We’ll barricade that up now. It should have been a closed chapter in my life long ago.”

  Jane drew him with her round the end of the house to where they could see the road.

  “Adam,” she said, “I’m going to open all the gates and we’ll walk through and not close one of them behind us!”

  He smiled indulgently.

  “You’re going to make a poor farmer’s wife. I can see that!” he said. “But, Jane, Jane, I love you!”

  He caught her up in his arms, although they were still in view of the windows, and kissed her long and passionately on the mouth.

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted you to say!” Jane whispered as she kissed him in return.