by Maggie Hope
‘Please, Alice,’ she asked, ‘try to understand.’
Whatever Alice was going to say was forgotten as Tucker and Kit came running into the kitchen, eyes shining and faces purple with blackberry juice. Tucker had his cap in his hand and it was filled to the brim with large and luscious fruit.
‘Look, Mam. Look, Auntie Alice, see what we got,’ shouted Kit. ‘We got pounds and pounds of brambles.’
‘I did, you mean, me and Walter,’ said Tucker, crushingly. ‘You only picked red ones. You don’t know the difference between black and red.’
‘I do, I do,’ shouted Kit, turning on his brother furiously.
‘Never mind, never mind, don’t fight,’ Alice intervened. ‘I’m sure Kit did his best, Tucker. Now, won’t we have a lovely pudding for supper tonight?’
Meg emptied the berries into a bowl, looking ruefully at the purple-stained lining of the cap. She’d have a job getting that clean. She should have thought and given the boys a bag, they had said they were going brambling.
She gave the boys the rest of the pan hagglety and took the dish into the pantry to soak in cold water. Alice and the boys had fallen silent as they tucked into the meal. Should she ask Alice to mind them? she wondered. If she did she could go to Grizedale Hall this afternoon and seek out Jonty.
‘Alice, are you doing anything this afternoon?’ she asked as she came out of the pantry. Alice looked up, unsmiling.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, nothing, I just wondered,’ answered Meg, feeling intimidated by her manner.
It would be a waste of time asking Alice, she decided. If she was going to see Jonty she would have to take the boys with her. Which was not a bad idea at all, she realised, they would have to know about him sometime.
‘Eat up,’ she said to Tucker and Kit, though they were already eating as though it was their first meal for a week. ‘We’re going out.’
‘Out?’ queried Alice, frowning.
‘Yes.’ Meg smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry, Alice, everything’s going to work out, I know it.’
‘I wish I felt the same,’ her sister replied tartly, but she said no more.
Meg and the boys walked to the grassy knoll first, just in case Jonty was still there, though it was already late afternoon and it was a forlorn hope. In fact, no hope at all, Meg realised as she stood watching Tucker and Kit swooping round and round the ash trees, shouting and laughing.
‘Be careful,’ she called, for they had on their Sunday suits and the ground was very slippery. Too late. Kit tripped over a tree root and was rolling on the wet ground, amid dead leaves and loamy soil. He got to his feet and rubbed dirt from his trousers with his hand and then wiped his face with the same hand, leaving a dark smudge across his cheek.
‘Oh, Kit,’ she said helplessly, but he looked so like a grubby little cherub that she couldn’t be really angry with him.
‘Howay, now, we have to get along,’ she said, taking each boy by the hand and leading them on.
‘Where are we going, Mam?’ they clamoured.
‘Wait and see.’
They left the track and crossed over meadows to the drive of Grizedale Hall. Her heart quailed as she thought of maybe meeting Ralph Grizedale but she took a firmer grip on the boys’ hands and quickened her step. This was no time to be faint-hearted.
‘Eeh, Mam,’ exclaimed Tucker, as the Hall came into sight round the bend in the drive. ‘It’s grand, isn’t it? Is this where the Queen lives?’
The question made Meg laugh and this relaxed her. What had she to be afraid of anyway? She marched up to the house and hesitated, deciding after all to go round to the back. She had to leave the boys somewhere safe until she made sure that Ralph was not in. She wasn’t going to let him frighten them. It was a problem though, she didn’t know what to do.
A nickering from the stable made her go in there and close the door behind her. She and the boys stood looking round them, even Tucker overawed by the smell of straw and horses and leather. Kit’s eyes shone as a horse put its head over a half-door and whinnied.
‘Mam! Mam, look, it’s Mr Dale’s horse,’ he cried, running to it and reaching up to stroke its nose.
So Jonty must be in then, thought Meg with a sigh of relief. It seemed to be the only horse in the stable so there was a good chance that Ralph Grizedale was away somewhere.
‘Be good boys and stay here a few minutes,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long, I just have to see someone.’
‘Is it Mr Dale?’ asked Tucker shrewdly. Had he heard something? she wondered.
‘Never mind. Just you wait here. Stay on this side of the door mind. And watch that horse doesn’t bite.’
‘Aw, Mam, he won’t bite,’ said Kit with disgust. ‘He likes us, see?’ He rubbed the horse’s nose, quite enchanted with it.
‘Well, be careful any road,’ she said, and left them. It wouldn’t be for long, she told herself.
Meg went round to the front of the house and knocked at the door. There was no reply, no sound at all, though she knocked again and waited. Tentatively, she tried the huge knob and the door swung open on to the large, square hall with its curving staircase at the far end. There was no sign of life.
‘Jonty?’ she called softly, but no welcome answering call came. All was quiet.
Well, she thought, she wasn’t going to give up now, not when she’d come this far. She stepped into the house and looked around. All the doors leading off the hall were shut so she walked to the bottom of the stairs, debating whether to risk going up. Jonty might not have heard her call if he was upstairs with his grandmother.
She was still hesitating when a muffled crash followed by a curse came from behind one of the closed doors and she raced up the stairs and along the passage to the room at the end, Jonty’s room, bolting inside and closing the door. It was blind instinct which made her run, for the voice had filled her with dread.
Twenty-Nine
‘Bloody hell!’ the voice had said, and it had been Ralph Grizedale who had said it. The voice resounded over and over in Meg’s head, reducing her to a shivering panic.
‘The candyman!’ she breathed. All the dread of her nightmares was beginning to swamp her, paralyzing mind and body.
Dear God, she thought, her heart racing and threatening to choke her as she leaned against the closed door. It was Ralph who was home, not Jonty, even though she had been sure the horse in the stable was Jonty’s. She cowered behind the door, all her old fears returning to her. The terror she felt was as strong as that she’d felt as a child when the candyman came and chased her and Mam and little Jack up the old line.
Where are you, Jonty? she cried in her heart. I need you, I need you now! She tried to imagine where he could be. If she could picture him well enough and cried to him he would come, she knew he would. She closed her eyes tightly and concentrated. She never knew how long she crouched there, behind the bedroom door. It could have been hours or just a few minutes.
Her eyes flew open as she heard someone on the stairs, heavy footfalls coming nearer and nearer. It had to be the candyman. He had reached the head of the stairs and was coming along the passage and Meg’s heart pounded with every step. Did he know she was there? The footsteps stopped. Was he just playing with her, dragging out the thrill of the hunt as long as he could? Ralph Grizedale was a huntsman. Meg remembered the story Auntie Phoebe had told them when she was a child of how cruel he was in the chase. Oh, how she could identify with the hunted fox now, she could.
But no, he was moving again, going into another room. She breathed again before a new fear came to torment her.
The boys! She had to get back to the stables before Ralph found them there. He could go downstairs any minute. She couldn’t let him get to her boys. The new fear was paramount, overcoming all others. Her limbs unfroze themselves, her brain began to work again.
What a ninny she was, she berated herself, full of selfcontempt. Here she was hiding from Ralph Grizedale, and all the time her boys were in dange
r. Bracing herself, she opened the door a little and peered down the corridor. No sign of anyone. Taking off her boots and hanging them round her neck by the laces, she tiptoed out of the room, freezing to a halt as she heard Ralph say something. She could hardly hear what he said from here but she thought she caught the word ‘Mother’. He was asking his mother something. It must be her room he was in and the door stood open. Now, if she could only get past the old lady’s bedroom without attracting attention, she could reach her boys . . .
Meg forced herself to stay still until she had got her breathing under control. It was essential Ralph did not hear her.
Mrs Grizedale was saying something, her voice so thin and weak that Meg couldn’t catch what it was. But she heard Ralph’s reply, savage and threatening as it was.
‘You bloody old witch,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll put paid to you, I will. I’ll get those shares one way or another, I’m telling you.’
Sweat broke out on Meg’s forehead as she listened and heard the black menace in his tone. She had to get past the door, she had to get to her boys and take them away from here, yet she was paralyzed with fright once again, a fright summoned up by that long remembered terror of the candyman.
But Mrs Grizedale was saying something now. Her voice was stronger and more firm than it had been earlier so that Meg could hear clearly.
‘Ralph, please don’t speak to me like that. I have no intention of giving you anything more, so you may as well stop threatening me. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m your mother, after all.’
‘You will give me those shares,’ he said savagely. ‘One way or another, I’ll get them out of you.’
‘Ralph, I’ll tell you something I’ve kept from you before. But now I am almost at the end of my life. Oh, Ralph, I always thought you would realise how much you hurt me and Jonty. If your father knew, how he would grieve for you . . .’
‘Sod my father, I tell you, I got the better of him and I’ll get the better of you. Believe me, old woman, I will.’
Mrs Grizedale sighed. ‘Well, Ralph, maybe you will. But I could not go and leave John Thomas with nothing, my conscience would not let me. What I have is left to him, there is no way you can get at it. But, my dear, Jonty would never let you starve, he will look after—’
She stopped talking as Ralph howled with rage, startling Meg in her hiding place in the passage so that she began to shake uncontrollably.
‘Ralph, Ralph—’
The pleading cry was barely above a whisper and was cut off abruptly but it was enough to cut through Meg’s terror. What in the name of Heaven was Ralph Grizedale doing to his mother? She stepped forward and looked into the room.
He was standing over the great four-poster bed, a pillow in his hands, pressing down with it on the tiny figure in the bed, the veins standing out on his forehead and his eyes glittering with rage. He was trying to smother her! Even as Meg flung herself into the room and raced for the bed, the thought flashed through her mind that she had witnessed this scene before. But instinct and action had taken the place of thought. She launched herself at him, the surprise of her attack catching him off balance so that he fell to the ground.
He was down for only a few seconds. Howling and screaming with rage he clambered to his feet, his red-rimmed eyes glaring at her. But before he could do more, she was at him, tearing at his face with her nails, kicking, scratching, riving at him so that he gave ground, grunting in shock.
Meg was screaming at the top of her voice without realising she was. The scream seemed to come from a long way away.
‘Candyman! Candyman!’
It was the old scream of fear and warning she had first heard as a child in the back street of the old railway houses, a scream which had haunted her all her life. But now she was doing something about it. She could fight back, and fight back she did.
She was not simply defending his mother, she was kicking him in the shins, kneeing him in the groin, she was paying him in kind for all he had done to her family, her father. Her hair had come down over her face and as she put up an impatient hand to brush it away she caught hold of a boot, still strung round her neck. Steel toecaps it had, a strong leather boot, heavy and hard-wearing and with a new steel heel plate put on by the cobbler only the week before. She drew her arm back and with all her strength she swung the boot, catching Ralph Grizedale on the side of the head with the heel.
For a moment she thought it had had no effect on him for he took hold of her shoulder and held her away from him, and lifting one hand high, brought it down on her head with a force which knocked her to the ground.
Meg lay there, winded, her hair falling back from her face. The room was going round and round, darkening and then lightening again, and in the centre of her vision was the violet-hued face of the candyman, and he was talking, saying something, what was it he was saying? She tried to shrink away as he fell to his knees and lifted her head. And a great cut opened up on the side of his face and blood began to flow, falling faster and faster on to her dress, her face, her hair.
‘Hannah! Oh, Hannah!’
In the distance, she heard him call her mother’s name. He was bending over her, crying and slobbering, lifting her head and kissing her on the lips, and she was powerless to stop him.
‘Hannah, Hannah, I didn’t mean to do it. Hannah, you made me do it. Hannah, Hannah, my love, I wouldn’t hurt you, I could not. Hannah, Hannah, why did you not have me, why did you make me chase you away? But now you’ve come back to me, I knew you would come back to me. Oh, Hannah, my love . . .’ His voice faded as he was drawn abruptly out of her vision and Meg blinked.
Fighting to regain control of her senses, she struggled up to a sitting position, only to fall back as the room swirled once more and her eyelids drooped. But someone had caught her and was holding her close, murmuring her name over and over. Her name, not her mother’s. And Meg relaxed, slumping against him, for it was Jonty. Her Jonty had come at last. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her lovely, lovely man, and she smiled.
‘I knew you would come,’ she murmured. And at that moment she saw behind Jonty’s head the face of Ralph, black and bloody, coming down on top of them, eyes fixed in a terrible stare. And then there was a great weight on her and she descended into the dark.
Meg woke tasting the salt of blood in her mouth. She moved her tongue around gingerly, feeling her teeth. They were sore but not loose. There was a gash on the inside of her cheek. She winced as the tip of her tongue found the place. Wesley must have really laid into her that time, she thought groggily.
‘Meg! Meg, my love.’
Jonty, it was Jonty. What was he doing here? Alarmed, she opened her eyes. Had Wesley gone? Jonty was lifting her up in his arms. She looked around the room and remembered.
‘Jonty! Jonty, is she all right? The candyman was trying to smother your grandmother. Where’s he gone? Jonty, he’s evil, he’ll kill us both, he will.’
‘No, no, it’s all right, Meg, it is. He’s gone now.’ Jonty lifted her up and on to the chaise longue by the window. The room gradually settled as she clung to him, her panic lessening as she found herself safe in his arms.
‘Gone? Gone where? The boys! Jonty, the boys, they’re in the stable—’
How had she forgotten her boys? Ralph could be down there this minute. He would find Tucker and Kit in the stable and God knows what he would do to them. She scrambled to her feet and stood swaying, fighting to regain her balance. Jonty too sprang to his feet and held her.
‘We’ll go and get the boys, Meg, in a minute, when you feel better. It’s all right, he won’t hurt them. He won’t hurt anybody ever again. He’s dead, Meg.’
‘Dead?’
She looked around the room, at the old lady on the bed, lying back on her pillow, very white but still definitely alive as the bright, interested eyes showed.
‘So you are Hannah’s girl, are you? You look like your mother, my dear.’ The old lady’s voice was soft and frail, barely more than a
whisper.
‘This is Meg, Grandmother. My Meg. I love her.’
‘Yes, dear, I know. Meg was everything to you when you were children. Just as Hannah was to Ralph.’
Meg looked away, hardly able to stop herself denying that Ralph’s feeling for her mother could possibly have been anything like Jonty’s feelings for herself. She couldn’t even bear to hear Ralph’s and her mother’s names mentioned in the same breath. And then she saw him, lying by the door. She started, poised for flight. For a split second she thought he had moved, but Jonty had seen her reaction and came to her and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her away, holding her face to his chest as they skirted the body and left the room.
‘Come now, Meg, it’s over. We’ll go and get the boys,’ he said softly, before turning to the old lady. ‘You will be all right for a few minutes, will you, Grandmother?’ And when she nodded her assent they went along the corridor and down the stairs and out the back way to the stables.
‘Mam, mam, where’ve you been, Mam?’ Tucker came running towards them but Kit was standing holding the reins of Jonty’s horse and was not about to give up his proud position so easily. He hopped from foot to foot, his face bright and happy, and the horse put down its head and nuzzled him on the shoulder.
‘I’m going to be a horseman when I grow up,’ he cried.
Meg helped Mrs Grizedale sit up in bed and handed her a cup of tea.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said the old lady. Meg mumbled, hardly able to look at her. For now she realised what she had done. She had killed Ralph Grizedale and this was his mother. How could she look her in the eye? She took up her own cup and drank nervously.
‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Grizedale,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry he’s dead, I didn’t mean to kill him.’
‘Oh, my dear, don’t ever say that! You didn’t kill him. Why, it was an accident. I know it was an accident, didn’t I see it myself? Ralph fell and hit his head on that sharp corner of the bedpost. Can’t you see the mark?’
Surprised, Meg looked at the bedpost. There was a mark on it. Dried blood and a few matted hairs.