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It was midnight. Scarlet had lost count of the times she had climbed into bed and, unable to rest, had climbed out again to pace the floor, her broken mind trying frantically to fit together the pieces of a nightmarish jigsaw. Her thoughts were wild and incomprehensible. She couldn’t breathe! Every breath of air caught thick in her throat, making her panic, causing her to gasp as though each one was her last. What should she do? Dear God, what should she do? There was no safe place, no haven where she might hide from him, from them. She could end it all, here and now, taking Cassie with her. Or she could run, and keep on running. Oh, but they would track her down. Nothing was surer! Her own life was nothing to her. It had never been her own! Why would it matter if it was ended in the next moment?
Who would miss her? Who would grieve? Shelagh perhaps. But not them! Because they would have won. They would have her soul, but still she would not be safe, because they would hound her beyond the grave. There was no sanctuary for her; nor did she deserve it. But Cassie, oh, innocent little Cassie, must not be corrupted or made to suffer what she had suffered. For Cassie there was still time. But how? What could she do to save the child? Scarlet was frantic. There must be a way; there must be!
Suddenly, it came to her. The Thorntons. They were staying for the funerals in two days’ time; after that they would return to America, thousands of miles away from here, from the evil that pursued her and Cassie. Scarlet became excited. The idea persisted. Nancy Thornton adored Cassie. She had said herself, ‘I can’t tell you what I would give for… a daughter like Cassie.’ Scarlet had seen the desperate longing in the other woman’s face. Now she saw the same longing as Cassie’s only hope. Oh, but what of Jonathan Thornton? Scarlet’s heart fell like a lead weight inside her. He would never agree.
Her hopes depleted, Scarlet crossed to the window, where she looked out into the black unyielding night. There must be a way, she murmured over and over; THERE MUST BE A WAY! It seemed as though there was no way. But then, like a flower opening in the dead of night, an idea blossomed in her fevered mind. Smiling, she crossed to the cot on the far side of the room, where at long last the child appeared to be peacefully sleeping. These past days since the awful events that had erupted round her. Cassie had suffered terrifying dreams, when she would wake screaming and sobbing, bathed in sweat and her dark eyes wide with horror. ‘Don’t cry,’ her mammy would tell her softly, holding her close. ‘Ssh, sweetheart… don’t cry.’ And soon the sobs would subside and the child slip back into uneasy dreams. Scarlet herself had moved Cassie’s cot into her own room. She prayed the doctor was right when he told her, ‘Soon, her nightmares will stop. Nature has a way of blocking them out.’ Cassie’s nightmares were the same as hers, thought Scarlet. Yet she believed that nature could never block from her mind the memory of that sinister figure, and the devastating sight of Garrett with the boy, falling into that terrifying empty space beyond the precipice. She could see Garrett’s face now, shocked and wide-open in a scream that she would hear until her dying day. He knew his murderer! Scarlet had seen the look of recognition and disbelief on his face when he cried out ‘YOU!’ She inwardly shuddered. He knew Silas. But then, he knew her father also. In Scarlet’s tortured mind, they were one and the same! Though one would have her love him in a way she could not. The other she loved. Only her fear of him was more compelling.
Going to the bedroom door, Scarlet drew it open and listened. They were still talking, consoling each other. She came out onto the landing and peered over the balustrade. The sound of voices drifted up, quiet, respectful, tinged with grief. The crying was done. Anger had set in. ‘What in God’s name possessed Garrett to take such a treacherous path… and with the boy?’ They did not know that Garrett and the boy had been murdered. Scarlet knew they would never believe her. Instead they would look to her for the blame; and already there were people in this house who thought she was to be feared. Perhaps it was as they said. Yet she did not feel ‘strange’ or ‘different’. Only doomed.
From some way along the landing, Scarlet heard the sound of sobbing. For Edward Summers, the crying was not over; his grief was too bitter. Since the news that two generations of the Summers family had been tragically killed, he had locked himself in his room, alone with the unbearable agony of his bitter quarrel with Garrett, and refusing to see even Jonathan Thornton.
It was Jonathan Thornton’s voice that rang out now, telling his wife, ‘I’ve got to see him… try at least one more time.’
‘You go ahead,’ came the reply. ‘I’m not ready for bed yet… I’ll stay awhile, to keep Miss Taylor company.’ There was the soft sound of a door clicking shut, followed by the slow muffled tread of footsteps coming up the stairway.
Quickly Scarlet returned to her room, leaving the door open wide and throwing back the curtains so that the moonlight cascaded in. Slipping off her nightgown, she came forward, her naked form silhouetted between the light from the landing and the silvery glow of moonlight behind. He was drawing closer. Now he was almost at the door. She caught her breath, stiffening her body, aware of her own bewitching beauty. What if he went right by? She began to panic. No! He must see her there. He wanted her. She had known that all along.
Outside, the footsteps paused. He had seen the door was open. He started walking forward at a gentler pace, hesitant, curious. It was enough. Their eyes met: his opened in astonishment, hers sultry, dark, entrancing. She sensed the struggle in him, but she kept her gaze locked into his. She could not let him go. There was too much at stake. Slowly, tantalisingly, she came forward. He ventured into the room, his eyes greedily devouring the proud slim curves of her nakedness. His tongue came out, slithering over the rim of his lips and painting them dewy wet. Inside he was churning, fighting all that she awoke in him. And losing. For a moment everything was frozen in time, with her oval face and dark eyes the focus of his senses. He had known that this temptation would come, from the very first trembling moment when she had taunted him with her wild dark beauty, and those sullen moody black eyes. He was intimidated by her magnificence, rendered weak by the thought of his hands on her silken flesh. Softly he closed the door. With gentle deft fingers she undid the buckle of his belt. His own frantic fingers grabbed and clawed until there was no barrier between them. Groaning out loud he pulled her down, falling on her, smothering her with his hot sweating body and growing feverish with delight as their nakedness fused. He felt no tenderness; no romance. He stroked at her and laid his moist mouth over the nipples at her breast, licking, teasing, until she shivered and sent him into a frenzy.
Scarlet clung to him, surprised that she was also hungry for love. His touch was shocking, awakening. A strange pleasure crept over her. She felt his fingers dig into the soft flesh of her thighs, pulling her into him and taking her along with the urgent rhythm of his body movements. She was aware of his tongue in her mouth and the weight of his body, pushing, thrusting, forcing her open, making her buck up to him and exciting her in spite of herself.
In a cruelly short time the tide burst, coursing through her and bringing with it a painful guilt. The thought of Cassie tempered that guilt. It was for her, for Cassie. To buy her peace.
‘You’re a witch,’ he murmured, grappling with his clothes and evading her eyes. Jesus! What a fool he was! If Nancy should find out… The thought made his blood run cold. What he and Nancy had was special. After all these years, she mustn’t find out!
‘Nancy needn’t know,’ Scarlet slipped the nightgown over her head, lifting her black hair over it so that it spilled round her shoulders like a mantle. Her dark eyes were smiling, satisfied.
‘What d’you mean?’ He feared the worst and – hell! – it served him right!
‘I want you to take my daughter back to America with you… raise her as your own.’
‘Never!’ His eyes were bright with loathing and disgust, of her, of himself.
‘Very well.’ She went to the door and opened it. ‘You’d better go,’ she softly laughe
d. ‘Sleep well, Mr Thornton.’
Striding forward, he pushed her aside and closed the door. ‘You little whore! You want Nancy to know! I could kill you… right now.’
‘Go ahead.’ There was no fear in her eyes, and he was taken aback. He was also beaten.
‘What game are you playing?’ he wanted to know. ‘How can I be sure that if I do take the girl back… you won’t keep coming at me… making me pay? What other reason could there be for you wanting to turn her over to strangers?’
‘I have my reasons. And you have my word that you’ll never hear from me again.’
‘Your word!’ His soft laugh was cynical.
‘If you’re not satisfied, I’ll sign any paper you want me to. I don’t like you, Mr Thornton… but your wife is a good woman. I know she will love my Cassie as though she was her own daughter.’
‘You’re a shrewd, cunning bitch!’ He knew she was right about Nancy. It was her dearest wish to have a child, and she would idolise him all the more for it. A rush of love and guilt surged through him. But then it was swallowed by his hatred for this woman, and for the girl she had thrust on him. He had no choice. For a while he stared at her, hoping she could feel that hatred in him. Then, reluctantly, he nodded.
‘You’ll let Nancy take her?’ For the first time in a long while, Scarlet experienced a burst of happiness. But it was tinged with regret. She loved Cassie so. How could she live without her?
‘You leave me with no choice. I’m not about to let a conniving little whore like you destroy my marriage! But make no mistake… you sign what I put in front of you, and you’ll keep to it… or rue the day!’ After making sure that he would not be detected, he went quickly away down the corridor, his shoulders stooped and the spring gone from his step. He cursed himself bitterly for his own shameful weakness.
All traces of the recent snowfall had gone. In its place had come the bitter frost and sharp biting gales of March. On such a day, with the wind howling and shrieking, ravaging the treetops and buffeting the mourners as they filed into the churchyard, Garrett Summers and his son were laid to rest.
Throughout the service, and afterwards when the sombre figures encircled the yawning pit, sprinkling earth and flowers onto the splendid coffin below, Scarlet forced herself to think of those things that had given her pleasure. They were shockingly few. The ‘pleasure’ in her life had been as scarce as the peace she had known. Only two people had given her both. They were her mother and her daughter. Looking back over the years, she realised that the greatest source of her small contentment was the moors. Raising her cold dark gaze, she stared into the distance, beyond the churchyard and out over the low sweeping landscape beyond. An involuntary shiver ran through her, tempered with a thrill of excitement. The moors never changed. Their elusive and fascinating quality was timeless. It was a comforting thought amidst all the shifting elements of her life. The moors were in her blood. Silas was, also. His name seared her mind, painful, clinging. She thought of Cassie, his daughter, their daughter, and the tears rolled down her face, warm and salty against her chilled skin. Garrett was gone, and so was the boy. Soon, oh so very soon, Cassie also would be gone. Her departure would be just as devastating.
‘You’re doing fine, my love… just fine.’ Shelagh was close by, watching Scarlet and thinking how pale and nervous was Vincent Pengally’s daughter. Her gloved hand briefly touched Scarlet’s arm. ‘Come on… time to go,’ she murmured, ‘time to leave them.’
The black, bent shadows brushed by. Scarlet made no move. They did not look at her, nor she at them. They were Garrett’s people, not hers. She could hear the wheels of Edward Summers’s chair grinding down the hard nodules of earth as it passed her.
‘You blame me, don’t you?’ she thought bitterly. And you’re right. I killed him! On that day when he brought me to your house and I was heavy with another man’s child… Silas’s child… I signed his death warrant then. My punishment is that now I must lose Cassie, or the same black vengeance that took my mother, that took both our sons, will seek her out. May God forgive me. May Cassie forgive me.
‘No, Mammy!’ Cassie’s sobs were like knives to Scarlet’s heart. ‘Stay with you… Cassie… stay with you!’
‘Ssh, sweetheart.’ Thrusting the struggling child form her, Scarlet fought back her own tears, saying sternly, ‘You mustn’t cry. Big girls don’t cry.’ The big tearful eyes stared up at her and, beneath Scarlet’s gentle touch, the small figure ceased its trembling. ‘Oh, Cassie!… it’ll be so wonderful… you’re going to America, with Nancy. You like Nancy, don’t you?’ The fair tousled head slowly nodded. ‘Well then! You’re a lucky girl. Nancy will be your new mammy… and she’ll show you such wonderful places. Has she told you about the big ship that will carry you across the great ocean?’ Again the tiny head nodded, tears hovering and threatening to spill over. Encouraged, Scarlet injected a new note of enthusiasm into her voice. ‘My, isn’t that exciting? You’d better hurry, though, sweetheart, or it will sail away without you.’ She flicked her sorrowful gaze towards the trim anxious figure of Nancy Thornton, who was standing some way off, her own eyes bright with tears. With a nod of her head, Scarlet suggested that Nancy should quickly take the child.
‘My dear, are you sure?’ Nancy Thornton stepped forward. She had witnessed the tender tragic scene between mother and daughter, and she wondered at the enormous sacrifice Scarlet had undertaken. Since Scarlet’s intention was made known to her, she had been torn two ways. She desperately wanted the child. A child she could raise as her own, and who would call her ‘Mommy’. With Cassie her life would be complete. But what of Scarlet? A tragic, tormented woman who could see no future for either herself or her daughter. ‘I must go away… build a life for myself and do the best for Cassie,’ she had told Nancy, ‘and I could do no better for my child than to entrust her to your care. I know you will love and protect her always.’ Only when Nancy had given such a promise to Scarlet did she sign the papers that Jonathan Thornton put before her. As she made her mark on the document, Scarlet did not reveal that she could not read. Instead, she looked deep and long into the other woman’s candid green eyes and what she saw there gave her great courage. Afterwards, when Scarlet put down the pen, it was as though she had put down her own life.
‘Take her… please take her!’ Scarlet gave the child over. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, and she feared that now, in the final moment, her resolve would crumble. Then she remembered! To weaken now would mean danger for the girl.
At this point, Jonathan Thornton intervened. Impatient and quietly fuming at the manner in which he had been duped, he got from the motor vehicle and came towards his wife. ‘Get her into the car,’ he instructed, ‘or leave her behind!’ His contemptuous gaze fell on Scarlet’s unhappy face. It gave him a rush of pleasure to see how she was suffering.
Distracting Cassie’s attention with a large smiling teddy bear bought especially for the purpose of enticing Cassie away, Nancy lost no time in persuading her into the back of the vehicle. For a moment it seemed as though the child had forgotten Scarlet, who wisely hid in the shadows. But then the door was closed behind Nancy and the motor fired into life. Through a misty veil of tears, Scarlet glanced at the note which Nancy Thornton had earlier thrust into her hand, saying, ‘Keep this safe, Scarlet. It’s Cassie’s new address.’ The words written there meant nothing to Scarlet; they were just dark meaningless shapes. All the same, she would sew it safely into the lining of her coat as soon as Cassie was gone.
Too soon, the long black vehicle was pulling away, taking with it Scarlet’s only source of joy. Now, when she realised the enormity of what she had done, Scarlet was tempted to run after Cassie, to bring her back. It took all of her courage to restrain herself. In the distance she would see the small white face at the rear window, the dark eyes searching for her. Through the mist of blinding tears, she saw Nancy Thornton reach up to take Cassie in her arms. She saw how the child took a moment to scan the drive and gar
dens for the familiar figure that was her mammy; when she saw nothing to comfort her, she turned to the woman and let herself fall into loving arms. Scarlet turned away. The pain was too much.
Night was falling. For hours Scarlet had wandered the moors, dazed and hurt. When Cassie had gone from her sight, she had gone back indoors. But she was restless and hopelessly lost. After a while she had sought refuge in the wild primitive haunts of her childhood. But, unlike then, she could find no solace there. No peace of mind, no contentment. Only memories that tore at her and made her fearful. She listened to the birds, watched the cold frothy waters of the brook as they rushed and tumbled headlong towards the river; she saw the creatures play and was spellbound by the fragments of scintillating light that peeped in and out of the overhead branches. But none of it brought joy to her heart. It was as though everything that had made life worth living was denied her. It haunted Scarlet to think that somewhere, somehow, she had committed a crime so heinous that God saw fit to punish her in such a cruel way.
After a seemingly endless while, when she had sat, hunched and dejected by the water’s edge, Scarlet began making her way towards the churchyard. There she stood over the newly disturbed earth, her mind filled with images of the two who lay beneath. The man, Garrett, who had been her husband, yet had never known her. And the boy, David, who had struggled into this world from her own body, yet had never been a part of her. She had been a curse to them both. A curse to herself. Why was it, she wondered, that in the face of everything, she still clung to life? Was that all part of the punishment? And what now? Where did she belong? Scarlet answered her own question. Nowhere! She belonged nowhere.
Scarlet Page 26
