‘But it may not have been them; surely, all boys use catapults.’
‘Not with pointed flints as ammunition.’
‘Well, tomorrow’s Sunday, so leave it to the beginning of the week…Please.’
The look he gave her and his silence told her he would comply.
But at seven on Monday morning, well before he would have made his way to The Crown Head, he was shouting down from the landing window into the yard, ‘Carl! Billy! Carl!’ and when they appeared, from different buildings, in the stockyard and peered up at him through the early morning light it was Billy who shouted back, ‘What is it, master?’
‘This…my…it’s the mistress. I cannot waken her. When I left her at half past five I thought she was still asleep. You, Carl, ride in for Doctor Wheatley as fast as you can go. Now!’
Carl made no comment but immediately ran to the stables, and Patsy, who had appeared outside the dairy, ran with him and helped to saddle the horse. And it was significant to their understanding that neither of them spoke a word.
Doctor Wheatley’s house lay at yon side of the village, and the shortest way to it was through the village. Carl had galloped the horse as far as the cemetery wall, and was just pulling her into a trot when from a side road there appeared a small gig, which he recognised immediately and he pulled up to the side of it, crying, ‘Oh! Doctor Patten. ’Tis well met. I’m on my way to fetch Doctor Wheatley to the mistress; the master can’t get her wakened.’
Philip Patten leant from the seat, saying, ‘Can’t get her wakened? What d’you mean, Carl?’
‘Well, she was hit by a catapult—’twas a sharp stone—on Saturday when we were all eating in the meadow, and she’s been in bed since. And now ’tis as I said.’
Hit by a catapult stone and now can’t wake up? The Gibsons were the old man’s patients and he was very touchy about trespassing, as he termed it, unless one was invited for consultation, and then who dare express an opinion that went against his? But what young Carl was describing was very like a coma, and by the time his superior could manage to get to the farm after the load he had on him last night, it might be too late to do anything that would be of help. After four hours at The Grange, he wanted nothing but his bed at this moment, having endeavoured to bring Drayton’s grandson into the world, which he had done, although without thanks, for the poor mite was a mongol.
‘Ride on. I’ll follow.’
As soon as Philip Patten looked down on Fanny he gnawed at his bottom lip before he asked Ward, ‘Has she been moved at all?’
‘No.’
He now gently pulled back the bedclothes and began to examine her while Ward stood at the other side of the bed, staring at him as if to extract from his expression the reason why his beloved Fanny was in this state. He watched the doctor go to his bag, open it, then close it again before turning to him, saying, ‘Go and tell Carl to ride for Doctor Wheatley and request him to bring some leeches with him and make it as quick as possible.’
‘What is it? What’s wrong with her?’
‘I don’t really know yet, Ward,’ Philip Patten lied. ‘I would like another opinion. Go now and get him away.’
Ward didn’t respond straight away to the command, but remained for some seconds looking down on Fanny, his lower jaw moving as if he was grinding his teeth.
A few minutes later Annie entered the room and was surprised to hear the young doctor talking away to the mistress, which she thought was silly, because if the poor thing could hear him she would have made some sign, wouldn’t she? Tommy Taylor went like that, but he tapped a finger.
It was only half an hour later when Doctor Wheatley entered the room, which indicated he had indeed answered the call promptly; not so much, perhaps, because of the patient’s need, but because the young snipe was not only on his preserve but had sent him an order, a veiled order maybe, but nevertheless an order, to bring leeches, which suggested he had already diagnosed the trouble. So it wasn’t unusual that he should ignore the young know-all and go straight to the inert figure in the bed.
‘Well! Well! What have we here, Mrs Gibson, eh?’ He took the limp hand and wagged it; then let it go so that it dropped back onto the coverlet, and he turned to Ward and said, ‘How did this come about?’
‘She was hit on the temple by a stone from a catapult on Saturday.’
‘Saturday! It’s now Monday. Why didn’t you inform me before?’
‘She seemed all right until this morning.’
The old man now pursed his lips, looked down on Fanny, then again lifted his head sharply towards Ward, and as if he had made a decision he said, ‘Go down and get them to bring up a bowl of very hot water and towels.’ Then he took off his coat as if he meant business.
As soon as Ward had left the room, however, the urgency went out of his actions, and now addressing his partner, he said simply, ‘Coma? What do you think?’ and Philip Patten replied, ‘Yes; through a clot on the brain, I would say.’
‘Would you?’
They stared at each other; then Doctor Wheatley said, ‘She should go to hospital.’
‘I doubt if she would make it.’
‘Would you now? Well, perhaps for once you’re right and so we will try your other notion with the leeches, for what it may be worth in this case. And you know something, Patten? She is one problem, but there’s a bigger one looming up in him, should she go.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’
The old man again stared at his younger associate; that’s what he couldn’t stand about the fellow, that bloody cocksure manner of his.
They had bled her. They had wrapped her in hot, then cold towels, but to no avail; and so the day wore on and it came to six-thirty on the Tuesday morning. Annie was dozing in a chair at one side of the bed while Ward sat close to it at the other side. He was resting on his elbow, his back half bent as he held the limp hand. When his head nodded he gave a slight start and blinked rapidly. Then, his eyes wide, he stared down at the face on the pillow. It had changed. There was no colour in it; it had changed into that of a wax doll. He was now on his feet, muttering, ‘Annie. Annie; come here.’
When Annie reached his side she muttered, ‘Oh my God! No!’ and he echoed her last word, but as a yell: ‘No! No! Fanny! Fanny!’
When the door was thrust open and Jessie’s frightened face appeared, Annie cried at her, ‘Tell Carl to ride for Doctor Patten. He’s nearest.’ Then she almost fell on her back as Ward thrust her aside and, throwing back the bedclothes, lifted Fanny bodily into his arms and rocked her as he would have a child, the while moaning, ‘Love. Love. No, you can’t! You can’t leave me. No! Fanny, don’t go. No! No! I can’t go on. Wake up! Wake up!’
He was still walking the floor bearing her limp body in his arms when Philip Patten hurried into the room and exclaimed, ‘Oh, dear God!’ Then putting out his hands, he checked Ward’s flagging steps and said softly, ‘Come; lay her down…Come.’
As if in a daze, Ward allowed himself to be led towards the bed and to let his beloved slip from his arms, but remained looking down on her, and Annie whimpered, ‘All through a catapult.’
‘Catapult,’ Ward took up the word; then he repeated the word: ‘Catapult! That’s it! That’s what killed her! They killed her!’ And with his arm thrust out towards the doctor, the fingers stretched accusingly, he cried, ‘Bear witness, you! she’s dead! They killed her, and, by God! I’ll finish them.’
The sudden movement of his body as he sprang towards the door startled them all and motivated Philip to run onto the landing crying out to him, ‘Wait! Hold your hand a moment. Wait!’ and then to step quickly back into the room and to address Annie: ‘Who does he mean, they? Who was he referring to?’
As Annie shook her head it was Patsy who answered him: ‘He thinks it was the young Holden lads.’
‘The Holdens? Dear God!’ And on this he dashed from the room; and on reaching the yard, he shouted to where Billy and Carl were standing on the road outside the gate, ‘
Go after him! He’s making for the Holdens and their lads, and the state he’s in anything could happen. I’ll follow on.’ Then he rushed back into the house and up to the bedroom again …
Ward entered the village from the church end, and as he ran alongside the cemetery wall and so into the street, William Smythe, the verger, paused while putting a large key into the vestry door, which he then left in the lock and hurried down the gravel path and into the street to watch Ward Gibson in his shirtsleeves racing along it. And he wasn’t the only one to be surprised by the sight: Fred was loading the van with the early baking and he could not at first believe his eyes. Instead of running after Ward, however, he rushed into the house, shouting his news.
Jimmy Conway was heaving a carcass from the back of the cart. He, too, stopped in amazement; then he shouted across to Hannah Beaton, who was humping a sackload of potatoes up the two steps into the shop: ‘Did you see what I’ve seen? Or am I seeing things? Where’s he bound for?’
Ward soon reached where he was bound for, and it wasn’t for the front of The Crown Head but round to the back of it.
At the kitchen door he stopped for a moment, his chest heaving, and he gulped in his throat before banging on the door, and which he continued to do until the voice from behind it cried, ‘All right! All right! What is it?’
The door was pulled open; and he stood staring at Holden for a full ten seconds before bringing out on a growl, ‘You satisfied then? You’ve let your breed act for the village, eh? You meant to do her in one way or another, didn’t you?’
‘In the name of God! What are you talking about, Ward? Are you drunk or daft? What’s up with you?’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t know. They came running in, didn’t they, after they had shot their bolt? Well, it’s the last catapult they’ll use. By God! They’ll pay for this, or you will through them.’
But as Ward’s hands came out to grab him Holden struck out at him, the while he yelled, ‘You’re mad! That’s what you are.’
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Winnie Holden was now standing beside her husband, and Ward answered her: ‘The matter is, you’ve spawned two murderers, missis. Your devils have killed my wife,’ he cried at her.
‘Oh my God!’
He watched the big woman put her hand over her mouth, and then turn and look back into the room before saying, and quickly now, ‘Come in. Come in, Ward.’
He seemed to need no second bidding: he almost thrust them aside because he had caught sight of the two lads who had been sitting at the table but who were now standing against the far wall of the room and close together, and he was himself now thrust aside by the Holdens and held against the wall, all the while hearing the older man shouting, ‘They never hurt your wife! Listen to me, Ward! But I know who did.’
‘Shut up! Mike. Shut up!’ It was his big brawny wife yelling at him now.
‘I won’t, woman, I won’t. It’s our lads he’s trying to get at, as if you didn’t know.’
They were talking now as if they were alone in the room together and not struggling with a man who was behaving like a maniac.
Again Holden cried at Ward, ‘Stop it, man! Stop it! Quiet! Listen to me, and I’ll tell you who it was. The same one as set fire to your crops, and crippled your cattle, the one you threw over for your wife.’
Suddenly Ward became still. His face was close to Holden’s and he whispered a name: ‘Daisy? No.’
‘Aye; Daisy Mason. Well, what did you expect, lad? What did you expect? Haven’t you ever given it a thought?’
Slowly Ward pushed their arms from him and straightened up; but a doubt still remained and he continued to stare at the two boys who were crouched close together, until their father said, ‘Sit down, lads, and finish your breakfast.’
As Ward watched them come slowly, even furtively to the table, some part of him was saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Then he muttered as if to himself, ‘It couldn’t have been her, not the fire. She was away at the time in Fellburn.’
It was Winnie Holden who now spoke, and quietly: ‘She was wily,’ she said. ‘She had it all planned out, like everything else. She’s been goin’ mad these last years, but nobody would let on ’cos John and Gladys are a decent couple, and they’ve had enough on their plate trying to keep her under lock and key most of the time. But everybody in the place seemed to know who was the culprit for your misfortunes, except you, and we’ve often wondered why it hasn’t dawned on you. And on Saturday gone the lads were in the Hall wood. They shouldn’t have been there, but there’s some good bleeberry bushes and that’s what they were doing, gatherin’. They saw her. She had a catapult, they said, and through the bushes they saw her fire it. She caught sight of them and whether she meant to chase them or not, they were so scared they took to their heels and didn’t stop running until they reached this kitchen.’
There was silence for a matter of thirty seconds, and it was broken by George Holden saying in a fear-filled voice, ‘Don’t tell me, Ward, that your wife’s dead!’
Ward didn’t answer him, but he moved from the wall, then turned and looked towards the fire. There was a pot on the hob with porridge bubbling in it, but he wasn’t seeing it: he was back near the cemetery wall and her hands were coming out and clawing his face. Why hadn’t his suspicions touched on her? They had on one family after another in the village: the Longstaff twins, Mike and Adam. He had never frequented The Running Hare, which seemed, in his state of mind, reason enough to feel they had it in for him. Or it could have been one of Kate Holden’s lot? His suspicions had even touched on the McNabs in the Hollow. Then there were the Wainwrights. They were Methodists, and they had four sons, all married and scattered round about the countryside. No; that was daft thinking: just because he was the Methodist pastor. Why! He had always spoken to him, he had even bought his milk. No; he had been blind, stupid, not to put his finger on Daisy, after her parting shot. He remembered her actual words.
‘I’ll have my own back on you, Ward Gibson. I swear before God I will. You and yours. Do you hear me?’
And she had carried out her threat. She had killed Fanny, his beloved Fanny. Oh! Fanny, Fanny. There was a strange feeling in his head. For a moment he felt as though he might burst into tears like a woman, or howl like some animal, such was the pain of her loss. And he realised that this was only the beginning …
He turned his gaze from the fire towards George Holden, who had caught his attention with the words, ‘You and yours will never be safe, Ward, as long as she’s about. She should be put away where she cannot do any more harm.’
You and yours. These were her words again. He had two girls, he had two daughters…you and yours will never be safe as long as she’s about.
He swung round as if he were going to leave the room, but, turning again, he said simply, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right, Ward. That’s all right. We understand.’ And they moved to the door with him, and on its being opened they were as surprised as Ward to see, standing in the long dray yard, Philip Patten, Carl, Fred and his father, and a number of other villagers.
It was the doctor who moved towards him, saying, ‘Come on home, Ward.’
Ward looked at the doctor and around the small crowd and when he spoke to Philip Patten his voice gave no indication of the rage that was rising in him, as he said, ‘I’m going home, Doctor; just leave me alone for the time being…Come, Carl.’ And with that he walked through the villagers, seeming not to notice Fred’s outstretched hand.
Ward did not now run back through the village, but his step was quick and firm, as was Carl’s. Once past the church and well out of sight of any of the villagers, however, Ward stopped and, looking at Carl, said, ‘Go back home and see to things.’ And before Carl had time to put any kind of question to him, such as, ‘Can’t I come with you, master?’ Ward had jumped a ditch to the side of the road and was once more running across his field of stubble …
The work so far at Beacon Farm had been
carried out according to the usual daily routine: the first milking had been done, the byres swilled out, and Seth Mason had just finished harnessing the two shires and was leading one from the stable, when the sight of Ward Gibson stopped him in his tracks. And after glancing swiftly about him as if looking for someone, he left the horse and began to run to where Ward was nearing the kitchen door, crying as he ran, ‘Here! Wait a minute. Don’t go in there. What d’you want, anyway?’
And to this Ward answered grimly, ‘You know what I want,’ which impelled Seth to spring forward and confront him, the while yelling, ‘Pete! Pete! Here!’
As Ward’s forearm thrust Seth staggering back against the wall of the house, Pete Mason came racing across the yard, and as he barred Ward’s way to the kitchen door, he cried at him, ‘Get yourself to hell out of here, and quick!’
Again Ward’s arm came out, straight this time, but the blow just grazed Pete Mason’s cheek, and now he retaliated with his own fists, only to be stopped by the kitchen door being dragged open and his father’s hands on his shoulders pulling him back, as he yelled above the mêlée, ‘Stop it! For God’s sake! What’s come over you all?’
The two combatants were now glaring at each other when Mr Mason again spoke. ‘What brings you here, Ward?’ he demanded. ‘You’re not welcome; you know that.’
‘Huh! In the name of God! Listen to the man: I’m not welcome. And what brings me here, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you, Mr Mason, what brings me here. Just a small matter of having your daughter put away for murdering my wife. That’s all. That’s all.’ The last words seemed to rattle in his throat, and the three men looked at him aghast and in silence. Then Pete and Seth Mason turned to look at their father, who first put one hand to his head, then with the other felt, as if for support, for the stanchion of the door, and there was a note of both fear and disbelief in his voice as he said, ‘No! No! What d’you mean? What d’you mean?’
The Maltese Angel Page 18
