Lisa

by Joan Van Every Frost

  “I think Mark will go along with that,” Mrs. Stephens said. “He doesn’t hate Cynthia, he just can’t stand to be with her.”

  “What has he got against her?” Lisa asked. Somehow she felt that the whole key to Cynthia’s well-being in the end rested with the answer to that question.

  “Hadn’t you better ask dear Cynthia that?” Mrs. Stephens asked, malice bright in her eyes.

  “Yes, I suppose I had,” Lisa said thoughtfully.

  Dinner was early so that the travellers could reach Burresford by dark. There had been quite a discussion over whether they should take the train from Burresford to London, but Jarrell and Eric both were determined to ride, and Mrs. Stephens could see the advantage to having their own equipage once they were there. Mrs. Lewis would drive in the carriage drawn by David and Jonathan, and Eric and Jarrell would ride separately.

  “Ordinarily I’d take Toby along to drive, but he’s needed here; and the more room we have on our return, the better. I gather that there is a deal of shopping Carrie plans to do.” Jarrell winked at Lisa.

  Eric was like a small child before a party. Bright-eyed and over-talkative, he kept pulling out his watch to look at it and hurrying the diners through their meal.

  “For heaven’s sake, Eric,” Mrs. Stephens finally remonstrated, “if we ate as fast as you’d like, we’d all choke. Calm down, I beg you.”

  At last the entourage was ready to go. Jarrell and Cleo led the way at a brisk trot, followed by Christian dancing sideways with Eric, who waved gaily. Next came the carriage with Mrs. Lewis driving, Mrs. Stephens looking very chic in a plum-colored suit with grey fringe on the long skirt, and the travellers’ luggage in back. The little procession disappeared off toward Dunwiddleston at a spanking trot.

  “At that rate, it shouldn’t take them more than four or five hours to Burresford,” Cynthia commented.

  “Be some different from going with Da’s work horses, eh Lisa?” Toby added.

  The draft horses on the road to Burresford ... The pony with the broken legs ... The solitary horseman bearing down upon them. Eric! Eric on Christian was the one who thundered by them, leaving such mayhem in his wake. Just like him, she thought wryly, never thinking of anyone else, and certainly not of a farmer in a cart with a gaggle of young draft horses and ponies. Careless, unthinking Eric on his way to revels in Burresford. She wondered what devilment he meant to engage in when in London, but hurriedly decided that her imagination couldn’t begin to encompass what he intended.

  “All right, Cynthia,” Lisa proposed when they were upstairs once again. “If we really try, you can be down to where you should be by the time they return. And won’t Dr. Jarrell be surprised when he comes back to find you all slender and beautiful again.”

  “I really don’t care if Mark is surprised or — ” Cynthia started to reply. But she stopped, and an almost calculating look came over her face, reminding Lisa unpleasantly of Mrs. Stephens. “You know, Lisa, I think you have a point. Yes, I’d like to see if I can go the rest of the way while they’re gone. You’ll help me, won’t you Lisa?”

  “Yes, of course I’ll help you. But I warn you, it won’t be easy. It means eating even less than you’ve been doing and exercising a great deal more.”

  “I want to try. I really want to try.” Cynthia seemed to have a purpose at last, though Lisa couldn’t fathom what it was. Well and good, though, if it drove her to do what she should.

  That afternoon Lisa and Toby walked Cynthia down to the bottom of the valley behind the stables and then made her struggle back up. Lisa was going to leave it like that, but Cynthia insisted on another trip, though she was sweating like a horse and trembling when she came up the second time. Lisa was afraid that they might have to haul her up the stairs again as they used to, so exhausted was the hefty woman.

  “If you can stick at this,” Lisa encouraged her, “You’ll have no trouble taking off all that extra weight before they come back.”

  “Well, I mean to do it, and I shall,” Cynthia said grimly.

  So every day they went riding further and further afield in the morning, Cynthia on Twinkle, Lisa on Dancer, and Toby on Samson when he didn’t have to go to Dunwiddleston for supplies. Every afternoon they scrambled further over the steepest hills they could find, the object being to exhaust Cynthia until she could only just make it back. Lisa had cut out the sleeping medicine long since, for Cynthia slept like the dead, though her gentle snoring continued. Her diet was down to a piece of meat and an apple for every meal — morning, noon, and night. Lisa had to hand it to her, she stuck to the rigid regime, showing a strength of character she had never before exhibited.

  As the moon began nearing full, Toby took to calling Lisa out for a run. She would put on Toby’s clothes and together they would lope for several miles across the hills in the brilliant moonlight. They couldn’t down birds at night, but rabbit and wild hare began to appear on the table with some regularity. Priddy was a wonder at baking wild hare with wine and onions, and she praised Toby no end for bringing in the game, not knowing that he was not alone on his hunting trips.

  For Lisa the months were a time of waiting, of expectation. Strangely, it was her rides with Jarrell she missed the most. It was fun to run with Toby, but she couldn’t talk to him, and Cynthia was so preoccupied with herself that the range of subject matter was limited pretty much to diet and exercise and clothes. Eric was fun to talk to, but she couldn’t ride with him alone without a scene that left them both angry and frustrated. Though she no longer fancied herself in love with him, her body craved his no matter how much she would have had it different, and she was tormented often by the memory of the day on the moor when he had very nearly taken her. He still thundered through the corridors of her dreams.

  With Jarrell she could talk about anything from abortive attempts to explore the South Pole to why it was still better to be treated at home than in a hospital. They had many sharp exchanges over human values and relationships, she arguing from a poor rural standpoint that was realistic as well as romantic, and he from a monied educated standpoint tinged with the bitterness and disillusionment of his own experience. Her past avid reading of newspapers stood her in good stead but was hardly a substitute for his far wider reading in history and philosophy. Again and again a heated discussion would end with her saying, “I can see the reasons for your stand being right, but I know it’s wrong.” He would throw up his hands in disgust but could not budge her.

  One morning she decided that she would go to Dunwiddleston with Toby. She had some thread she wanted to try to match and several small articles to buy as well. Annie tried to talk her out of it, saying she would be glad to go instead.

  “Oh Annie, it’s been months since I’ve been anywhere but in the house or on the moor. Surely no one still thinks young Master Jarrell or I had anything to do with the murders. Hallie was so kind to me; I’d like to see her and the family as well.”

  “Ay’m feared they do be thinking evil still, Lisa. Take care.”

  With these ominous words ringing in her ears, she and Toby set off in the cart drawn by Samson. The morning was brilliant and windy, with mare’s tails of clouds streaking across the sky. The bright vermillion of a Dartford warbler flashed low across the road, causing Lisa to exclaim in delight, for these bright little birds were becoming scarcer. A smooth snake whipped from the edge of the road into the shelter of gorse, and there were tracks of a fox who had ventured down from the moor above. Here and there slashes of red marked the ominous presence of the scarlet dodder, a parasite that eventually throttled the gorse and heather it grew upon. Now late in May even the bracken was green, and the first blue flowers of the milkwort were becoming apparent in clearings where the yellow flowering gorse did not grow. Soon they would form patches of bright blue that would hardly have faded before being upstaged by another yellow, the blossom of the trailing tormentil. Higher up where the true moorland began, the pink flowers of the bilberry shrub could be seen among the heather,
promising the plovers, curlews, skylarks, and grouse a feast of the blue-black berries during the summer.

  They went to the outlying vegetable fields on the near side of Dunwiddleston. Old Granny Fiddle sold them onions, cabbages, carrots, and potatoes. “It be a far time ago Ay seen ye, Lisa Price. Tis right sorry Ay be about yer folks.”

  “Ay do be thanking you, Granny. They allus ’ad good words to say about you.” The country vernacular came hard after all this time, but she didn’t want anyone saying she was putting on airs.

  “ ’Appen them in the village no be saying good words about you,” Granny Fiddle warned, the hairy mole on her chin bobbing up and down. “Ay’d not go there, wus Ay you.”

  Toby looked worried, and Lisa wondered briefly if they should go around. But surely no one could say she was a murderess after all this time. After all, she had joked with every one of them in the marketplace. It had been months, and not a word from the police. They said goodbye to Granny Fiddle and continued on into the village. At the outskirts, a small boy saw them and took to his heels, shouting something down the street. Almost simultaneously a crowd of shoving, grinning boys of all ages gathered and began to yell at them.

  “Watcher doin’ with Toby? Be ’e yer sweetheart, too?”

  “ ’Owed you kill ’em? With a knife like they say?”

  “Murderess, murderess, murderess!”

  “A ’ore, that’s wat she be, a blinkin’ bloody ‘ore!”

  Toby urged Samson to a trot, but on the slippery cobbles they could not outdistance their tormentors, who were growing bolder. With a chill she remembered the boys who had stoned Toby all those years ago.

  “Killed ’er own folks, she did!”

  One of the boys picked up a stone and hurled it at the horse, making him plunge wildly. The next stone hit the side of the cart. Lisa saw Harry Barnes who sold tobacco and candy standing in the door of his shop watching it all, but as soon as he saw she was looking at him, he disappeared inside. The street was strangely deserted, as if word had gone ahead of them of what was happening. A stone hit Toby in the back and another just missed her head.

  “Get to Ames’ house!” she shouted at Toby, who was white and shaking.

  They were almost to the corner near the police station when a shower of rocks made both of them flinch and cringe.

  “ ’Ere now, ’ere now!” came Ames’ welcome shout.

  The boys broke and fled. Toby had a runnel of blood down the side of his head by his ear, and he was shaking uncontrollably. Lisa herself felt bruised and battered, by the words as much as by the stones.

  “Better come in the ’ouse,” Ames advised. “The doctor’s inside playing draughts with me, and ’appen ’e can look ter the boy’s ’ead. Wat in tarnation made you come into the village? The farm folk’re willing ter wait and see for the sake of John and Sary, but the village folk want ter put the blame on you.”

  Inside, a game was set up on the checker board with its red and black squares, and a fire snapped brightly in the fireplace despite the sunny day outside. Dr. Curry was in his sixties, with gold-rimmed glasses and a heavy gold watch chain stretched across his middle. As always, he was dressed in black, and this along with his flowing grey mustache and mouth like a post box slit made him a somber figure indeed, more like a man to usher a patient out of life than to keep him in it. He rose heavily to his feet and with a sigh fetched his bag from the corner.

  “Give us a basin of water and a cloth, Dick. I’ve got to clean off the blood before I can see what’s what.”

  Impatient with Dr. Curry’s slowness, Lisa took the cloth and basin when they appeared and sponged off the side of Toby’s head, revealing an inch-long gash.

  “I’d best put a couple of stitches in that,” the doctor observed, opening his bag. “Here, hold this wad of dry cloth against it to hold the bleeding for a moment.”

  Toby never flinched during the sewing, nor did he stop shaking, either.

  “Will the horse be all right out there?” Lisa asked.

  “They’ll not bother you more,” Ames assured her.

  “Do they really think I would do that to my aunt and uncle? Do they seriously think that?”

  “That and more, my lass,” the doctor said. “That house is cursed and all in it. They not only think you were behind it all somehow, but that you are Master Jarrell’s mistress, and that the two of you did in John’s brother Henry and his wife in Burresford as well. If they could figure out how, they would have that arrogant snob Dr. Jarrell in the midst of it besides.”

  “I know that the Jarrells have kept to themselves, but surely that doesn’t excuse such wicked tale bearing. Lisa was aghast at the sheer wanton hostility shown by stories like these.

  “I could tell you some stories I have of my own knowledge that alone would warrant such conjectures,” the doctor snapped.

  “Such as what?” Lisa demanded belligerently.

  “All right, you asked for it.” Curry was openly angry. “That baby I delivered up there, the one born dead, well, he died of syphilis before he ever was born.” As he noted with satisfaction the white look of shock and horror that came over her face, he added maliciously, “And Dr. Mark, Jarrell has the effrontery to call me a butcher!”

  “You must be wrong,” she managed finally. “He isn’t the one who goes to Burresford.”

  “Well, I don’t know where he got it, but his wife surely did produce a child with the pox.” Seeing how real was her dismay, he went on, “Don’t worry, when they’ve had it that long, they can’t give it to anyone anymore — or get it again themselves, either. But I’m surprised he would have let a local man deliver the child under the circumstances. Had it been me, I’d have done the delivery myself.”

  “Did he see the baby?” Lisa asked.

  “I don’t know. That housekeeper of his took it off to have it buried in the private cemetery near the house. I made out the death certificate and left. I never put the cause of death on it, but later when I heard what that hypocrite was saying about me, I was sorry.”

  “Then he knows,” she said in a flat voice. As a nurse, Mrs. Lewis would surely have recognized signs of the pox. All her ideas of Jarrell shifted painfully. The worst of it was that he was, as Curry had pointed out, such a hypocrite, looking down on Eric who was at least honest, and playing the holier-than-thou with the entire household. Tainted indeed. She felt sick.

  “With things like that happening at Hartsite, you can’t really blame the village people if they jump to conclusions, now can you?” Dr. Curry was almost amiable in the completeness of his victory.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” Lisa answered icily, her eyes bleak. “I’m sure you couldn’t wait to tell everyone.”

  “Come now, lass, I’m not as unethical as all that. Ames here is the only one I’ve ever said anything to in case there was some kind of inquiry to come up later on. Proof of it is that you haven’t heard the story before. I could tell you some hair-raising stories about others around here as well, had I a mind to, but a doctor doesn’t last long if he goes about telling all he knows.”

  Ames escorted them to the edge of the village and once again warned Lisa. “Ay no be saying you did, and Ay no be saying you didn’t, because Ay don’t know and that’s a fact. But until Ay do know, ’tis best you don’t come again.”

  The trip back was like a terrible dream in which the new knowledge cast a grey veil over the sun and the gorse and the birds until she and Toby might as well have been driving along the bottom of a cloudy sea. The wall of hostility in the village, and her disillusionment with Jarrell, reduced her to a state of numb misery. Not even when she had belatedly refused Eric up on the moor had she felt so wretched. Sadly she realized that Jarrell’s callous dislike of Cynthia was made up, in large part, of guilt. She found that now she viewed the return of the travellers with a singular lack of the anticipation she had felt so keenly only that morning; the plain fact of the matter was that she thoroughly dreaded their homecoming, already
several weeks overdue.

  That night Lisa was in Jarrell’s study looking for a book to pass what she knew would be many wakeful hours. Even after so long a time, the study smelled faintly of cigars and a masculine essence that could only have been Jarrell himself. The curtains weren’t drawn, and she walked idly over to the window through which she had thought she saw a single, unexplained flash of light on the dark drive. She was standing aside by the curtains when all at once there came a familiar dreaded face looking at her through the window: the white, bloated visage of Henry Price stared startled into her very eyes before disappearing into the darkness.

  Her mind reeled, presenting her with a series of images so confused — of picture plates, dark streets, a storeroom, an angry face beyond Henry’s broad back — that she could make nothing of them. She only knew that she was terribly, terribly afraid. Had he perhaps beaten her? There was no other way to account for the depth of her terror. He was supposed to be dead. Could this have been his spirit seeking some gruesome kind of revenge? She shivered. Certainly the apparition had disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as it had appeared. For the first time, she seriously entertained the idea that she might have been guilty of some unspeakable unknown crime, that perhaps she had gone mad and in truth had done them all in. The thought of the long dark trip up to Cynthia’s room was a repellent one, but to stay here alone where she had seen him was impossible. Even after she had made it to bed, she shivered for a long time under the blankets, afraid to close her eyes for fear she would find him lurking there in the dark behind her eyelids.

  The next morning she woke convinced that the spectre had been a creature of her imagination, and she said nothing to Cynthia, who was babbling as usual about why they hadn’t returned. The night before, she had wondered if she were losing her mind; today she thought that she had merely suffered a temporary aberration. She and Cynthia and Toby went riding as usual that morning, finding the wind to have an edge of winter chill more reminiscent of March than of the middle of May. The horses felt frisky, and even little Twinkle snorted and pranced as they headed down the little valley behind the stables.