‘Oh!’ He now nipped at his lower lip. ‘Miss Sophie. What’s going to happen to her?’
She swallowed deeply. ‘I don’t know. It…it is his responsibility.’
‘He may put her in a home.’
‘No, no,’ she shook her head, ‘that would cost money.’
He gave a small laugh, saying, ‘Yes, you’re right, it would cost money.’ He rose to his feet and walked up and down the hearthrug twice before saying abruptly, ‘Your sister?’
Her voice sounded calm now as she answered, ‘That, too, is his responsibility, and…and I know only too well, in fact I think I have known all along that in the end she will do what she wants to do.’
‘She has already done it.’
She looked startled for a moment, her own misery forgotten. ‘How…how do you know?’
‘I met them just a short while back returning from Newcastle. They had been married by licence. They must have left very early this morning.’
She looked now towards the window and the falling rain, and after a moment said, ‘Yes, she left very early this morning. So ’tis done then?’
‘Yes, ’tis done, and…and I don’t think anything can undo it. No effort that your brother can make…’
‘I don’t think he’ll make any effort in that direction, he is not one for making efforts. No.’ She sighed now a deep slow sigh, and looked up at him. ‘He will say he has cut her off, he will use that term.’ Her head nodded as if in agreement with her statement. ‘And if he meets her in the town he’ll pass her as if he doesn’t know her, as my father would have done. Roland is a hypocrite, as my father was too.’
He could say nothing to this, only continue to look at her and think that it was a damn shame, in fact it was a bloody shame, and that was swearing to it, that a girl like this should have lost her youth slaving after such a worthless family. And they were all worthless, from the father down to the pretty one who had married the drover today. They were worthless and selfish. It was always the one who did the most in a family, worked the hardest, shouldered the responsibility who in the end was handed the dirty end of the stick. And there was no doubt that she had got the dirty end of the stick today. Only one thing surprised him, that she should be leaving the old aunt without apparently showing any qualms as to what might happen to her, for he had noticed that there was a bond between them. Still, who could blame her? Not he, definitely not he. In a way, let him face it, he was glad it was happening. Oh yes, it was like watching her being released from prison, seeing her coming up out of a dungeon, a dungeon of petty class values and prejudices; seeing her going out into the world would be like watching someone having their fetters hacked off them and released into clear open air for the first time since birth.
He watched her now rise to her feet and walk to the window and, standing with her back to him, say, ‘I…I don’t wish you to be sorry for me, doctor.’
‘Oh!’ He, too, was at the window now. ‘Oh, I’m not at all sorry for you, at least not because you have been forced to make a stand and are going out into the world. No. But at the same time I am sorry that you have been treated in such a fashion, for as I see it you have given your young life to the family, and almost…’ He only checked himself in time from saying ‘lost your entire youth’. But that wouldn’t have been true. She was still young, in fact, he had never seen her looking so young. It was as if in throwing off the responsibility of the house she had thrown off surplus years with it. When he first saw her he had imagined her to be anything up to twenty-six. Now she looked a vulnerable girl of seventeen or eighteen.
‘When are you leaving?’
‘First thing in the morning.’ She turned from the window.
‘You say you’re going to the Armstrongs’?’
‘Yes, if, if they’ll have me, for a short time.’
‘Oh, they’ll have you all right; be only too pleased, he’s very grateful to you, very grateful.’
‘He has repaid that many times over. As you said, he knows books.’
‘Well.’ He looked about him now for his bag and hat, then said in a slightly embarrassed tone, ‘Oh, I left them in the hall, I…I must be off.’ He went towards her again, but he did not take her hand, he merely looked straight into her face and said, ‘Consider me your friend, will you?’
Again her eyes were stretching and the muscles of her face twitching. ‘Thank you. Thank you, doctor…I will.’
He stared at her for a moment; then poking his face within inches of hers, he whispered, ‘My name’s Harry.’ There was another pause before he added, ‘Goodbye, Martha Mary. I’ll see you tomorrow either here or at Armstrong’s,’ and with this he turned from her and went out …
In the yard, young Dan said, ‘By! You’re gona be sodden afore you get to the town, doctor.’
‘I’m pretty sodden already, Dan; but my skin’s like leather, it never goes through.’
Dan laughed up at him as he answered, ‘Shouldn’t wonder, doctor. Shouldn’t wonder, all the weathers you go out in. But he knows when he’s on a good thing.’ He pointed to where Fred was snuggling under a sheet of oilcloth, then called, ‘That’s what you should have, doctor, a suit of oilskins like the sailors.’
‘I’ll have to see about it, Dan. Get up there.’ He jerked the reins, nodded to Dan, then put the horse into a trot out of the yard and down the drive, but as always, and more so today, he saw the caution of bringing the animal to a walk when they went onto the rutted road.
As the rain beat into his face and dripped from his collar down the back of his neck, he thought, Leather skin indeed! He’d have to have some real cover come the winter; he’d have to try to get the old man to indulge in a cab of sorts. He gave an inward chuckle at the improbability of this, for a cab would mean a driver if one of them were to remain dry.
When he reached the main road he again cried, ‘Get up there! Bessie. Get up.’ He felt strangely happy, in fact he knew a feeling of slight elation. One man’s meat was another man’s poison; her sorrow would lead to his joy…What! What was he thinking? Aye, what? Was that what he really wanted? Her? Come on, face up to it; did he want her so badly? Aye. Aye, that was it, that was just it, he wanted her badly. It was no good hoodwinking himself any more. But what was it about her that attracted him, and had done from the first, so much so that he had deliberately fought her off with his bawling and rudeness? To this he couldn’t give himself an answer, except to say, well she’s my kind of woman, no…girl; because she was still a girl.
When he was married first he’d had really little experience of women apart from their anatomy, but by God he had made up for it since. There was now no facet of their minds that he hadn’t explored, and had been amazed at how many would have been accessible had he proposed to explore their bodies.
It was a tricky business doctoring. It forbade you to pick where you might fancy. Yet had he fancied any patient over the last eight years or so? No, not one until he had met her, Martha Mary Crawford. And come tomorrow, what would he say to her? Well, he’d say, ‘I’ve got you a post, Martha Mary.’ But what if she refused it?
Aye, that was a point, what if she refused it? It would knock the stuffing out of him, to say the least.
As the trap mounted the hill he rubbed the rain from his eyes and looked to the right, but he couldn’t see the river. Nevertheless, the position recalled the day he had seen Nancy and young Brockdean embracing down there. But now she was married, and to a drover lad. Life was strange.
As he rounded the bend to go down the hill he looked sharply upwards and to the left. Here the land rose steeply, and only last week a number of boulders had rolled down onto the road, missing him only by yards, but causing Bessie to rear and go off into a gallop. When he had managed to stop her he had turned her about and gone back, to find two good-sized lumps of rock lying on the edge of the roadway; a third had tumbled down towards the river. As he had looked at the size of them he could not but help feel what a narrow escape they’d had. The small
landslide, he had surmised, was brought about by dry weather.
Recalling it now, he peered through the rain but couldn’t see the top of the hill, nor yet, he realised, would he be able to hear any rumble because of the noise of the rain and the wind that was carrying it straight into his face.
The trap was down on the level now and he screwed up his eyes to slits as he thought he saw three hooded figures standing in the middle of the road ahead of him. On his journey out he had seen three men with sacks over their heads running across the fell. He had noticed them particularly because he’d thought they were trying to hail him, but they stopped when some way off. Now the figures on the road in front of the horse were, he felt sure, the same three men.
Then, before he knew what was happening, he saw Bessie rear up, then be pulled down to a quivering standstill by one of the men, and when two figures mounted the trap at either side and hands grabbed him he lashed out with both the whip and his fist as he yelled, ‘What’s this, you ruffians! What…d’you think you’re up to?’
As his fist crashed into the side of the hessian hood and one of the men tumbled backwards onto the road, the other got his arm around his throat and he felt himself being dragged downwards, at the same time being aware that Fred was fighting and tearing furiously at the assailant.
He was on the ground now. The man still had his arm tight around his neck and he realised, if dimly, that in another minute it would be all over with him and he would choke to death. As he heard a sharp cry he was only just aware that Fred’s teeth had entered some part of the man who was holding him. With a twist of his body and kicking out with one leg after the other he managed to free himself. As he swung round to rise to his knees he saw that the man who had held him by the throat was now fighting Fred who had a grip on his leg. The sack had fallen back onto his shoulders, his mouth was wide open as he yelled in agony, and Harry recognised the toothless gap. Then the breath seemed to be shot from his body as a foot caught him in the ribs under the armpit. He rolled over, took one agonising deep breath before the foot came at him again. In one last desperate effort he grabbed at the leg, and as the man toppled onto him he was completely winded for the moment, but also had the satisfaction of knowing that this particular assailant was also out of action for, rolling off him, he lay prone on the road now. Somewhere in his mind he was telling himself that only one was left, for Fred was still dealing with the ringleader; and he had recognised the ringleader.
He was heaving himself upwards when he heard Fred give an agonising yelp; the next moment a blow on the back of the head carried him into blackness.
Dan Holland usually left the yard at six o’clock and by taking short cuts and running most of the way he could reach home in under the hour, but his short cuts meant crossing low lying fields that were soggy at any time, but were almost impassable during a heavy rainfall such as now, and so under these circumstances he kept to the main road for the first two miles.
He walked with a steady untiring swing; he had a sack round his shoulders, and his cap was resting on his ears. He had reached the bottom of the hill and was hugging the drystone wall for partial shelter when he tripped over something. It became entangled in his feet, and when he looked down he recognised the yellow piece of oilcoth that had covered the doctor’s dog. Stooping, he picked it up, thinking to himself, By! It must have been a wind to lift that off him ’cos he was lying on half of it.
He stood for a moment and peered about him; then he noticed something else, and he thought it strange it should be lying at the other side of the road right opposite the dog’s cover. When he picked up the butt end of a whip his face crinkled in perplexity. Then his eyes travelling downwards into the ditch, he saw two more pieces of splintered wood. It looked as if somebody had broken a whip into smithereens.
He lifted his hand now and wiped the rain from his eyes. This was funny, odd. It could be anybody’s whip, but that over there was the piece of oilcloth that had covered the doctor’s dog.
The bank beyond the ditch was clear of scrub and rolled down straight to the river. He screened his eyes and peered through the rain, but he couldn’t see very far. Should he go down? No, no, nowt could have happened the doctor. He looked down at the pieces of wood again, then along the ditch to his left where the scrub began to border the road and form a hedge.
Dropping down from the road into the ditch, he reached the hedge, then pulled himself up and walked behind it. Again he shaded his eyes and peered into the distance. There was nothing there. Anyway, he asked himself, what did he expect to find? The doctor had been driving a horse and trap and if there was a horse and trap lying about he would see it, wouldn’t he? A blind man couldn’t miss that.
It was as he turned to retrace his steps towards the road that he heard the faint whine, more like the wheezing of a puppy. He hurried forward now towards the sound. The shrub hedge curved at this point and when he rounded it, his step was checked and he became stock still, There, not five yards distant, lay the doctor and across him lay the dog.
Eeh! God Almighty!
He was bending over the two forms now. They were both covered with blood, but it was the condition of the dog that brought his thumb into his mouth. It had been cut in several places. It looked as if its legs were hanging off, yet it was still alive for it looked up at him and made that weak little sound again.
My God! What was he going to do? The doctor was bleeding from a wound somewhere under his hair. The rain had washed the blood over his face and it appeared like a pink mask. One knee was pulled up almost to his chest. Tentatively, he touched his shoulder then shook it gently, saying, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’
When there was no response he stood up and looked about him in trembling agitation. He could do nothing on his own, he’d have to get help. He’d have to get a door or something. Which was the nearest house? Back where he had come from, of course. Aye. Aye.
But wait, what about Fulman’s cottage? That was just across on the further bank. Don’t be daft, he told himself; if the river hadn’t risen and covered the steppy stones he would have used them as a short cut, wouldn’t he? There was nothing for it but to hare back to the house.
One last look downwards, and then he was running with almost the swiftness of a hare along the bank, over the ditch and onto the main road, and he didn’t stop to gasp for fresh breath until he turned into the lane, and then his pause was only a matter of seconds before he was off again.
When he burst into the kitchen Peg let out a thin scream and she hung on to the end of the table as he yelled at her, ‘’Tis the doctor! The doctor an’ the dog. They’ve been murdered on the road. Tell miss and the young master. Go on, fetch them, quick!’
‘The doctor? My God! No, no. Where?’
‘Just beyond the rise. Go on; don’t stand there!
Peg went. She scrambled out of the kitchen, across the hall and up the stairs, crying as she did so, ‘Miss Martha Mary! Master Roland! Miss Martha Mary!’
Martha was in her bedroom; Roland was in the drawing room; but so desperate was Peg’s cry that they both appeared at once.
‘What is it, Peg?’
‘’Tis the doctor, miss. Dan has just come back; he’s found them on the road; murdered he said.’
Martha’s two hands went up and cupped her face as she whispered, ‘Murdered?’
‘’Tis what he says.’
When she reached the bottom of the stairs Roland was there, and he followed her towards the kitchen, saying, ‘What is it? What’s the matter? What’s this about a murder? What is it?’
Martha was now standing over Dan. ‘The doctor; he’s hurt you say?’
‘Looks dead to me, miss.’ He shook his head slowly, then bit on his lip. ‘An’ the dog’s done for, cut up to bits. He…he was still breathing but’—he screwed up his eyes now—‘he’s an awful sight.’
‘Where?’
‘Yon side of the rise. I could do nothing; you’ll have to have a door.’ He now looked towards Roland, then re
peated, ‘You’ll have to have a door, Master Roland, or…or the trap. Aye, the trap. Will I get the trap ready?’
‘Yes, yes, do that. Quick!’ It was Martha who answered; then almost pushing aside Roland who seemed slightly bewildered, she ran into the hall, grabbed her cape from out of the cupboard, dragged on a pair of old shoes she used for the garden; then, encountering Roland as he entered the hall, she said, ‘Don’t stand there, get into something. You heard what the lad said.’
A few minutes later when they reached the stable, Dan was bringing out the horse and trap, and they mounted in silence; and the silence continued until they entered the main road when Martha cried at Roland who was driving, ‘Don’t just trot her, hurry!’
‘And have us all in the ditch? The road’s like glass.’
‘Belle is surefooted.’
‘Nothing is surefooted in weather like this…And stop it!’ He hissed the last words at her and she knew that they weren’t meant only in answer to her present urgency, but were in protest at her overall attitude towards him.
A few minutes later Dan said, ‘He’s just there, miss, beyond those bushes, to the right of you.’ Then he added, ‘I’d stop here, Master Roland. You’ll have to bring him along the back of them until the way’s clear to get him up the bank.’
Even before the trap had actually stopped Martha was on the road and she was side by side with Dan as he scrambled over the ditch. Then she was running behind him until, as he had done, she stopped dead.
She made no sound at all as she gazed down in horror on the mutilated animal now lying with his head at a strange angle, which spoke of death. Its mouth was open and its tongue was lying against the edge of Harry’s chin.
The soft ‘Oh my God!’ from Roland behind her seemed to bring her out of a horrified daze and then she was kneeling on the boggy ground, repeating between gasps, ‘Doctor! Doctor!…Doctor! Doctor!’
As the dog was drawn slowly away, she put her arm under Harry’s head and raised it, and now, her face close to his and her fingers wiping the blood from his cheeks, she bent hers close to his and again she said his name, which now had the sound of a plea, a forceful plea, a plea for him to be alive. ‘Doctor! Doctor!’
Miss Martha Mary Crawford Page 25
