The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3)

by Mary E. Pearce

  He was shuffling after her, stooping repeatedly to snatch up the chestnuts, then jumping up to thrust them at her.

  ‘Yes, they’re lovely,’ Linn said. ‘But I must hurry. I’ve got to get home.’

  ‘No need to hurry. The clocks are slow. Stop and help me collect the conkers.’

  ‘Not now, Jumper, I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘You always used to play with me.’

  ‘Not today, however. There’s no time.’

  ‘I shall tell on you if you don’t stop. I know what you done. You’re just as bad as Alice Quinton.’

  And, blocking her way, he made his arms into a cradle, rocking slowly from side to side and uttering croodling noises in his throat Then, his whole body squirming suddenly, he leapt high into the air, his knees going up like the blades of a jack-knife.

  ‘Can’t be helped! Can’t be helped! What’s done is done and can’t be undone!’

  ‘Please let me pass, Jumper,’ Linn said. ‘I’m tired and wet and I want to get home.’

  ‘Not till you let me have my way. I ent so simple as you seem to think.’

  ‘If you don’t let me pass I shall speak to your auntie, Mrs Tupper, and tell her you were behaving badly. You won’t like that, now, will you, Jumper?’

  ‘Play conkers, then. I’ll thread one for you.’

  ‘I told you before. I haven’t got time.’

  She had never been frightened of Jumper Lane. There was no harm in him beyond a boisterous playfulness and the lewdness he learnt at The Rose and Crown. She was not frightened even now but she couldn’t get past him and tiredness was bringing her close to tears. She made a great effort to keep her composure.

  ‘Look here, Jumper, what about seeing me half way home? I’m passing not far from your Auntie Tupper’s. We can walk together as far as the bridge.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But people will talk, you know. People will say I’m to blame for the babby.’

  ‘Never mind. Talk never hurts us, does it, Jumper?’

  ‘They was asking me at the public once if I was to blame for getting Alice into trouble. But I ent saying. Oh, no, not me! I ent so green as I’m cabbage-looking.’

  Walking beside her along the lane, he kept kicking the chestnuts and leaves on the ground, but now and then he would turn towards her, putting both hands on her right arm and giving it a hard squeeze. He was plainly enjoying his walk with her.

  ‘My auntie’s got a mangle. She lets me turn the handle for her. She gives me a penny if I don’t turn it backwards.’

  ‘You’re always very good to your auntie. I’ve heard people say so oftentimes.’

  ‘I want watching, though. I’m a dark horse. Joe Wilkes says I’m as sly as the devil. He wouldn’t leave his missus with me for five minutes. He said it hisself. So did she.’

  ‘People talk a lot of rubbish.’

  ‘They do, they do, they want sewing up!’ Jumper said. ‘They want their gobs stopped, that’s what I say.’

  On reaching the stile at the playing-field, he vaulted over in a single bound, slithering a little in the mud. Linn followed, slowly and awkwardly, and Jumper watched her in some concern.

  ‘The trouble is, you’ve gone too fat. You’re as fat as a landlady, that’s what you are. Now, easy does it, that’s the ticket. Easy and over and down and round.’

  He reached for her hand to help her down, but the moment his fingers closed on hers, he was seized by a sudden spasm of mischief.

  ‘Statues!’ he said, and pulled her headlong off the stile, so that she fell with great force, face forward onto the ground.

  The pain was worse than anything she had ever experienced. The scream of it echoed on and on, in her mind and her body, shrilling along every nerve. She thought she was going to lose her senses, but she lay on her side in the long wet grass and fixed her gaze on a marguerite that hung, drenched with rain, about eighteen inches from her face. She made herself think of it, concentrating with all her will, focusing on it until she could see every clean white petal sprouting from the yellow middle. And after a moment the faintness passed. But the whole of her body shrieked with pain. It was spreading out from the core of her being, where her child lay coiled like a spring in her womb. It made her powerless to move.

  Jumper was bending over her, trying to look into her face. His big clumsy hands were locked together.

  ‘I never done it! Oh, no, not me! She was climbing the stile and she tumbled off. It’s not Jumper’s fault she went such a whomper. He warnt nowhere near the playing-field.’

  He ran off, whimpering, back along Cricketers Lane, plunging his hands into his pockets and scattering the chestnuts as he went.

  When Linn got up, raising herself little by little, he had vanished completely. It was useless calling him back to help her. He would be at the marlpits by now, or even at Outlands, hiding in one of the farm buildings. She stood for a time holding on to the bar of the stile, waiting while the sickness ebbed and flowed; waiting till her sight no longer rippled. Then she went on her way, across the playing-field and out at the gate by Millery Bridge.

  Every step she took was a step homewards. Pain must not be allowed to matter. The sensible thing, as she well knew, was to turn into Huntlip and ask for help. Fifty yards off, if she turned left, there was a row of cottages, but she shrank from the thought of appealing to strangers. In half a mile, if she turned right, she would come to Cobbs where she was known, but there, she thought, the wedding party would be under way and her arrival would spoil it all. So she crossed the main street of the village and took the path up through Millery Wood.

  But now a new kind of pain took hold of her, and she stood still, as though listening to it, as though her stillness would smooth it away. It was different from the pain she was already suffering: it was one sort of pain underlying another: the sudden clenching of a savage fist and then the slow, reluctant unclenching, leaving nausea in its wake. There was also a terrible liquid warmth and she knew that the waters protecting her child in the womb were breaking and moving.

  But if animals could hold back their young without any harm coming to them, then so could she, for her will was surely as strong as theirs? And she went on steadily as before, up the steep slopes of Millery Wood, over the open fields at Peckstone, out onto the Norton road. When the pains came she stood quite still, gripping the fence with both hands, breathing great deep measured breaths. Fear and pain were working together. They would pluck her down if her strength failed, and she would be like a hare in its form or a vixen creeping into its hole.

  ‘Please, God,’ she whispered, ‘don’t let my baby be born at the roadside.’

  The Pikehouse was as empty as when she had left it, the fire dying on the hearth. She took a white sheet from a drawer, went out to the garden, and pegged it securely on the line. It was a signal to the midwife, Mrs Gibbs, who lived in a cottage near Eastery church. The cottage could not be seen from the Pikehouse because it was hidden among the trees; nor could the Pikehouse be seen from the cottage; but if Mrs Gibbs stepped out to the churchyard and looked down between the two elms as she had promised to do every morning and evening, she would see the signal very plainly.

  Linn went in and closed the door. She reached for the bellows to revive the fire. But then, since darkness was not very far away, she lit the lamp with the pink-frosted shade, took it upstairs into the bedroom and placed it in the window facing towards Eastery church.

  ‘Please, God,’ she said, as she turned up the flame, ‘make Mrs Gibbs step out to the churchyard.’

  She went downstairs again into the kitchen, to rebuild the fire and shed her wet clothes. The pains were coming more frequently now. Fear could no longer be shut out.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Betony arrived at the Chepsworth police station, she found Matthew Preston sitting on a form in the main hall.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘My father sent me. He said to wait and see what’s happening.’

&nb
sp; ‘Isn’t your father satisfied with the trouble he’s caused already?’

  ‘It ent my dad that’s caused the trouble. It’s him in there ‒ Tom Maddox.’

  ‘Tom never hurt anyone in his life.’

  ‘The police don’t think that. Or why’ve they got him in there?’

  ‘Why indeed!’ Betony said.

  At the desk in the hall sat a uniformed sergeant, writing in a ledger and drinking a cup of tea at the same time. He stopped writing and looked at Betony over his cup.

  ‘Yes, miss?’

  ‘I want to know why Mr Thomas Maddox is being held here.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said slowly, and put down his cup, looking at her with sharper interest. ‘Are you some relation to the man Maddox?’

  ‘Mister Maddox is my foster-brother.’

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Miss Betony Izzard.’

  ‘Well, Miss Izzard, Mr Maddox is here to answer questions concerning the disappearance of his wife. Inspector Darns is in charge of the matter, and Constable Penfold is helping him.’

  ‘I would like to see Inspector Darns.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible at the moment. The inspector is with Mr Maddox now and he won’t relish being disturbed.’

  ‘That’s nothing to me. I insist that you tell the inspector I’m here. It’s very important.’

  ‘Very well, Miss Izzard, I’ll send in a message as soon as I can.’

  ‘When will that be? After you’ve had another cup of tea?’

  ‘If you will kindly take a seat ‒’

  ‘No, no. I’d sooner stand.’

  She walked about the hall, reading the notices on the boards. The station was a big one, newly built. A corridor ran from the back of the hall, with five doors at either side. She watched people coming and going for a while, and, with growing impatience, returned to the desk.

  ‘I’ve got a pony and trap outside. If I’m going to be kept waiting ‒’

  ‘I’ll get someone to see to it for you,’ the sergeant said, and beckoned to a constable who was crossing from one door to another. ‘There’s a pony and trap outside, Simmonds. Drive it round to the stables, will you?’

  ‘I’m obliged to you,’ Betony said.

  ‘All part of the service, miss.’

  ‘Is it part of the service to keep a man in custody when he’s done nothing at all to deserve it?’

  ‘Mr Maddox is not in custody, miss. He came along of his own free will.’

  ‘Did you send in my message to Inspector Darns?’

  ‘Yes, miss, but I doubt if he’ll see you for a while yet.’

  ‘Which room are they in, out of all those?’

  ‘Third on the left,’ the sergeant said, and eyed Betony with some suspicion. ‘You weren’t thinking of just walking in, were you, miss?’

  ‘I might,’ she said, ‘if I don’t soon get satisfaction.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise doing that, miss. It’ll only draw things out that much longer. Why not sit down and wait patiently?’

  ‘It’s very important that I see Inspector Darns.’

  But she went and sat on one of the forms, watched by Matthew Preston, sitting nearby.

  The clock on the wall said ten past three. She thought it was probably rather slow but five minutes later the cathedral clock was striking the quarter. At twenty past four a man in plain clothes emerged from a door in the corridor and stood talking to the desk sergeant. Betony rose and went to him.

  ‘Miss Izzard?’ he said. ‘I’m Detective-Constable Penfold. I gather you’re enquiring for Mr Maddox.’

  ‘How much longer do you intend keeping him here?’

  ‘That depends on what he tells us.’

  ‘And what has he told you so far?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Penfold said, ‘but it’s often surprising what a man will tell us when he’s been here for a few hours, and we’ve had time to wear him down.’

  ‘Perhaps if you wear them down enough, they may even confess to things they’ve never done!’ she said.

  ‘That’s hardly likely, Miss Izzard. We don’t employ the thumbscrew, you know.’

  ‘Tilly went off with a man named Trimble. Why don’t you try finding him?’

  ‘Arthur Trimble is proving elusive.’

  ‘Exactly!’ she said. ‘Because he had an affair with Tilly and doesn’t want his wife to know.’

  ‘Not necessarily. People often take fright for nothing at all. But, of course, it may be that Trimble was indeed having an affair with Mrs Maddox and Mr Maddox took exception to it. In which case, if jealousy was the motive, and provocation could be proved, the charge would be manslaughter, not murder.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a little previous?’

  ‘I was theorizing. Nothing more.’

  ‘Mr Penfold,’ she said. ‘I want to see Inspector Darns. There’s something important I want to tell him.’

  ‘Is it directly concerned with the case?’

  ‘It’s directly concerned with my foster-brother. That’s all that matters to me. But it is important.’

  ‘All right, Miss Izzard, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Penfold went along the corridor and back into the room on the left. He emerged again with an older man and they stood talking in quiet voices, glancing often in Betony’s direction. Then they went off down the corridor and into a room at the far end. Betony took a few steps forward but the desk sergeant stood in her way. She returned in great anger to her seat against the wall.

  ‘Take their time, don’t they?’ Matthew Preston said to her.

  Betony glanced at him but made no answer. He was, with his dark curly hair and thick stocky body, the very image of his father, and she hated him for it.

  ‘Wasn’t you getting married today? I thought the wedding was two o’clock. Did you leave the chap standing on account of Tom Maddox?’

  ‘Don’t speak to me!’ Betony said. ‘There’s nothing I want to say to you!’

  She would not allow herself to think of Michael. Not yet, anyway. Such thoughts would have to wait.

  Tom sat in a room that smelt of hot water pipes and floor-polish. It was stuffy and airless, and he wished they would open the window wider, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. The silence, ever since Darns had gone out, was too sweet to break, and he sat quite still in the chair at the table, his ankles crossed, his hands in his lap, his head turned in such a way that the current of air coming in, teasing though it was, blew directly into his face, bringing with it the smell of rain.

  He knew he was not alone in the room. He knew that a constable sat in the corner and watched him. But so long as the man remained silent, Tom could pretend he was not there; could pretend the room was utterly empty; could picture the walls receding, receding, until they were gone altogether, giving way to open country where the rain blew like smoke on the wind and the clouds rode low on the backs of the distant hills.

  Some little way off he could see the Pikehouse, lonely beside the old turnpike road. He was walking towards it, down the slope from Eastery, across the wasteland known as the Chacks, with the long tawny grasses brushing against him, leaving him dusty with their pollen. He had been on an errand to Mrs Hurst’s shop. He carried flour, yeast, sugar, matches, candles, soap, rock salt, in a sack slung on his shoulder, and a can of paraffin in his left hand. Linn would be waiting for the yeast. It being Saturday, she was going to make bread.

  Now, in fancy, he saw the tiny Pikehouse kitchen, with its scrubbed deal table and two varnished chairs, its oak settle and corner-cupboard and brass-topped fender round the hearth. And yet there was something that worried him. He could not picture what Linn was doing. The fire was burning brightly enough. The kettle, on its hook, was puffing steam up the chimney. The whole place was neat and trim and spoke of Linn’s recent attention, yet she herself was somehow absent, and he heard his own voice calling, ‘Linn? Where are you? Are you upstairs?’ But although he listened carefully, inside his mind, there was no answer.r />
  ‘What time is it?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Half-past-five,’ the policeman said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I’d like to go home,’ Tom said, and when Inspector Darns came into the room, he sat up straight and turned his head. ‘I reckon you’ve kept me long enough. I’ve answered your questions. It’s time I went home.’

  ‘We’d all like to go home, Mr Maddox, but there are just a few more questions I’d like to ask you before we finally call it a day.’

  ‘A few more? Or the same ones all over again?’

  ‘You saw your wife with Arthur Trimble. You walked in and found them, in your own home, in something of a compromising situation. That’s what you said, I think, when I first questioned you some weeks ago?’

  ‘Oh no it ent!’ Tom said. ‘I never said nothing of the kind!’

  ‘What did you say, Mr Maddox?’

  ‘I said I saw them. I never said I walked in. I didn’t walk in. I went away.’

  ‘You mean you spied on them, without their knowing?’

  ‘Not on purpose. It just happened.’

  ‘What were they doing when you saw them?’

  ‘She was seeing him off at the gate. He had his arm around her neck. It looked like they was pretty friendly.’

  ‘That must have made you very angry.’

  ‘Not me,’ Tom said. ‘I was past being angry by that time.’

  ‘But you had been angry in the beginning?’

  ‘When I found out she’d lied about having a baby, that made me angry, right enough. I could’ve struck her.’

  ‘Quite natural, I’m sure. Any man would have felt the same. But when you struck your wife, Mr Maddox, what exactly did you use? A stick? A hammer? A fire-iron snatched from the hearth?’

  ‘I didn’t use nothing!’ Tom said.

  ‘Just your bare hands, is that what you mean?’

  ‘No. It ent. I never touched her.’

  ‘Perhaps you only meant to slap her. Just a light blow with the flat of your hand. Or a bit of a push that sent her reeling, so that she fell and hit her head.’