‘I suppose so.’ Michael nodded briskly. ‘Whoever finds her can shout, just call out. There’s no wind and the voices will carry.’
‘Very good.’
Michael was the first to turn away, and before Rosamund had gone a yard in the direction of the Goose Pond she knew that he was running, and this gave a signal to her own feet. As she ran she didn’t question why she had suggested that she would take the road to the Goose Pond. She only knew that from the Goose Pond she could cross a field towards the flood bank and this would bring her out opposite the sluice, and the boat was lying somewhere near there.
As she passed the swollen Goose Pond the geese scolded her and, with necks outstretched, pretended to chase her for some distance.
She didn’t run across the field that led to the flood bank but walked somewhat slowly, even cautiously and as she went she questioned herself as to whether she was looking for the child or the woman. The answer came to her that she was doing both, for from the moment Michael had said that the child was missing her thoughts had sprung to the woman. The mother of the child—the wife of Michael. For, although she felt that Michael believed he was telling the truth when he reiterated that his wife was dead, she herself knew that she wasn’t. What she had seen was no spirit of evil; it might be evil, but it was in the flesh, and it was a woman.
When she had climbed to the top of the flood bank she saw that there was no boat away up near the sluice gates. To her surprise, when she looked upriver to the left, she saw that the boat was now at the end of the Cut and looking as if it was actually in the field. It must have been brought up the river recently.
She ran now along the top of the wash bank until she had almost reached the Cut again, then going down the bank she picked her way through the flooded field until she came within a few yards of the boat. The little craft was pressed against some tall reeds which indicated the bank of the river. It was not held by any rond anchors and was slightly tilted. But its bows, held tight in the reeds, was the reason, she saw, why it was not going adrift. The boat was about twenty feet over all, and the usual type of cabin cruiser. She was a few feet from its stern when she stopped, becoming almost rigid with an overwhelming sense of fear. In this moment all she desired to do was to turn and speed across the field and over the wash bank. Her thoughts did not take her further; once beyond the bank she would be safe.
Forcing herself to move towards a window of the cabin, she was in the act of bending down when a voice, coming to her from the bows of the boat, transfixed her. In this moment she was incapable of moving a muscle; even her eyes seemed riveted in their sockets as the voice said, ‘Don’t bother looking through the window, come in; I’ve been waiting for you.’
When, at last, she managed to straighten her back she looked along the length of the small boat to the woman, half leaning over the bows. The woman smiled. It was a quiet smile, and she said, ‘Do come in.’
The voice was beautifully modulated; it had a fascinating sound, only the slight clipping of the words betrayed the foreign accent. As if she were hypnotised, Rosamund found herself lifting one heavy boot after the other over the side of the boat into the small well, and then she was standing before the woman, looking up at her, for she was very tall. She was gazing into a face that looked neither mad nor evil. The woman now said to her quietly, ‘Go in, go into the cabin.’
Slowly Rosamund went into the cabin. It was rather dim inside. It consisted of two single berths, one on each side, which formed seats. At the head of each was a cupboard; between these was a door leading, Rosamund surmised, into a tiny gallery or wash-place, without headroom. It was similar in nearly all its details to the boat Clifford usually hired.
Once in the cabin Rosamund jerked round quickly towards the woman, but she could say nothing. Words were impossible; her feelings at this moment were outraged. This was Michael’s wife, and she neither sounded nor looked like anyone deranged; she had even a gentle air.
‘Sit down.’ The woman pointed to the bunk, and slowly Rosamund sat down. ‘You’re small aren’t you? Not a bit like your sister. I’ve seen your sister.’
Rosamund, still speechless, was staring at the woman, and she saw now why she had thought she was like Jennifer—her hair was blonde. But the centre parting betrayed that it had once been brown; auburn, Gerald Gibson had said. But the bone formation of the face was exactly the same as Jennifer’s. Yet there the resemblance ended, for the woman’s eyes and mouth were different altogether from Jennifer’s. What the difference was she did not analyse—she was too disturbed, cut to the heart. Michael had portrayed this woman as a sort of demon, and yet both her voice and manner pointed to her being a gentle creature.
The woman now sat down on the edge of the bunk and asked quietly, ‘So you know why I’m here?’
‘No. I only know that you are supposed to be dead.’ Rosamund’s voice cracked in her throat. ‘Why did you pretend to be drowned?’
‘Why did I pretend to be drowned?’ The woman looked away from Rosamund now and out of the window, and she gave a little laugh before she said, ‘You don’t know Michael very well or you wouldn’t ask that. I would have gone mad, yes mad, if I hadn’t got away, and it was no use just walking out. He would have found me and brought me back to look after…’ She paused and turned her head away…Now she was looking at Rosamund again. ‘Perhaps you don’t know that Michael is, in a sane sort of way, mad. I didn’t realise it until he began to have an obsession about…Susie.’
‘Did…did you ever beat the child?’ She had to ask this question.
‘Did I beat the child?’ The eyes were wide now, looking into Rosamund’s. ‘Do I look a person who would beat a child?’
Rosamund, looking back into the deep soft brown eyes, thought, No. No, you don’t look like a person who would beat a child. A part of her mind was crying loudly now. Oh, Michael! Michael! And it came to her you could both hate and love a person at the same time, hate and love with an intensity that was unbearable.
‘Why didn’t you come openly to the house and confront him?’
‘Confront Michael?’ The woman laughed quietly again and it had a sad disillusioned sound. ‘It’s so evident that you don’t know Michael. My husband is capable of doing anything, anything he sets his mind to. He brooks no interference, he will sweep everything from his path to get what he wants…and at present he wants you. It is as well I realised this almost at once…it may have saved my neck.’
If you don’t come I will take you…As his words came into her mind again, she was filled with a shuddering fear. And a deep embarrassment filled her as she looked at the woman whose husband she had married that morning. It was with an effort that she asked, ‘Then why have you come back?
‘We…ll.’ The word was drawn out, and the woman cast her eyes sideways towards her hands which now lay palm upwards, one on top of the other on her lap. ‘I might as well be truthful. I can be truthful, there’s no reason to be otherwise now. Michael has come into some money, hasn’t he? It is evident that I knew about it before he himself did, for as soon as I read about his uncle’s yacht being wrecked I knew he would inherit. I haven’t any money and I hate not having money.’ She lifted a rather shy glance towards Rosamund, and Rosamund thought, At least he spoke the truth on this point, anyway. And now the woman went on, ‘He used to talk to me about the house, and these rivers, until I grew tired. But my enforced listening wasn’t wasted, because when I came here I seemed to know them as if I’d been born here. The only thing I was surprised about was that they’re not so isolated as he said. I didn’t expect anyone to see me, or to notice me, but they did, and that has been the trouble.’ Again she cast her eyes downwards. ‘Whoever would have thought that I would have run into Gerald Gibson? You know Gerald, of course?’
‘Yes, I know him.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen you talking to him. I thought perhaps that you and he…Well, well, it wasn’t like that at all, was it?’ She shook her head and waited for Rosamund to comment, and
when she didn’t she went on. ‘I was really glad that Gerald was about. You see, I will be quite frank with you at this point. I really didn’t know what I was going to do when I first came here, except about one thing: I had no intention of living with Michael again. Nor, I am sure, would he want me to. I was just interested to know how much money he had come into, and what he intended doing with it. With this knowledge I could gauge how much he would be likely to pay to keep me dead…I knew I would have to prove my identity to him, writing wouldn’t do, and yet I was afraid to face him on my own in case he tried to kill me…Oh yes, he’d be quite capable of it; he’s threatened to more than once. So then I saw that it was as well I had come across Gerald, for he could be the bearer of the news that I was alive. Also he could witness the meeting between Michael and myself, and be present while we came to some settlement, such as would keep a wife in comfort abroad. It was a better way out than playing dead really.’ She paused for quite a while, staring at Rosamund, before she added, ‘That’s how it would have worked out if it hadn’t been for you. You rather complicated things…Not that I hold that against you. You weren’t to know that you were treading on…well, a sort of mine. Because Michael is a mine, you know, and he’s liable to go off at any minute, for the pin to the detonator is Susie…You…you think I’m a bad woman because I…I deserted my child?’
‘No, no.’ The words struggled past Rosamund’s lips. She didn’t think that this woman was a bad woman; weak perhaps, vain perhaps, mercenary, but not bad. But Susie…The name of the child dragged her mind back from the pit of sadness and she muttered, ‘Susie…Susie is lost. You…you haven’t seen her?’
‘Lost!’ The woman rose from the opposite bunk. ‘Since when?’
‘This evening. She must have left the house about an hour ago.’
‘Oh, an hour ago.’ The woman smiled knowledgeably. ‘She’ll come back. She was always disappearing, but she always came back. One time she disappeared for a full day and Michael went wild. He had the village out looking for her, and she walked out of a fishing hut. She had been asleep among the nets.’
Rosamund looked up at the woman. Her face had darkened, and her eyes were gazing beyond the boat into the past, and as she watched her Rosamund cried out bitterly inside herself, Michael. Oh, Michael, how could you? Her bitterness brought her to her feet, and she asked, ‘When are you going to see him?’
‘Tomorrow. I’ll leave it until tomorrow now. Things will be more straightforward then.’
Rosamund couldn’t see how they would ever be straightforward again. She said now, ‘I must go. They…they may have found her.’
‘Yes, most likely.’ The woman opened the cabin door and, looking with an almost tender look down on Rosamund, said, ‘I’m sorry this has had to happen to you, because you are nice. There are not many people one can say that to on such short acquaintance. Michael always went for the best.’ As Rosamund jerked her gaze away, she finished, ‘Don’t worry about the child, she’ll turn up. Never fear, she’ll turn up…somewhere.’
‘Can you manage?’ The voice was quietly solicitous as Rosamund stepped up out of the well and into the half-submerged reeds.
‘Yes, yes.’ She wanted to say something more to the woman but she couldn’t.
‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’
‘Be careful how you go.’
Oh, dear God! Rosamund groaned the words to herself as she stumbled through the water towards the wash bank. What must she do? Go and find him and tell him, or let him wait until tomorrow, when the woman—she could not even think the term—his wife, would confront him.
By the time she reached the Goose Pond there was only one point clear in her tortured thinking. If they had found Susie when she got back she would tell him, otherwise she would leave events in the hands of the woman. She showed some knowledge of Michael in this decision, for he was unlikely to make any demands on her, even to insisting that she stay at the house, if Susie was not found …
It was dark when Rosamund came out of the wood and saw the lights shining from the house. Stupidly she had forgotten to bring a torch with her, and so the light was doubly welcome. Doubly because it seemed to bring warmth into her numbed being. Also, for the first time to her knowledge, she was actually afraid of the fenland in the dark.
She was stumbling in her running as she went up the drive, tripping as it were, over her twisted thinking. She wanted Susie to be found. Oh, she did. But that would mean she would have to tell him…If the child was still lost she would be relieved from the hateful task.
As she burst in through the open front door Maggie confronted her from the foot of the stairs and brought out, ‘You haven’t…?’
‘No.’ Rosamund shook her head as she stood gasping and holding for support on to the back of a new wing chair. ‘Have—have they been back?’
‘Yes. Himself and a young farmer who’s lending him a hand.’
That would be Andrew. Rosamund moved round the chair, still holding on to it for support, and sat down on its edge, and she did not raise her eyes to Maggie when the old woman said, ‘He’s nearly out of his mind. It’s too much to happen to a man all at once. God knows I thought he was in for a little peace, and him getting the windfall an’ all. But it’s touched with the evil finger he is, for nothing’s gone right for him since the day he was born. For how other would a man be confronted on his wedding night with the tale that the wife he had buried three years gone was on his doorstep…Did you go down to that boat?’ Maggie asked this question under her breath as she moved quietly towards Rosamund.
‘Yes.’ Rosamund kept her head down as she murmured her reply.
‘I thought you would. And, like him, you found nothing?’
‘Maggie.’ Rosamund was on her feet gripping the old woman’s arm. ‘I must tell you, I must tell someone or I’ll go mad. Come…come into the kitchen.’ She looked around her distractedly before hurrying Maggie towards the green-baize door, and as soon as they were through it she faced the old woman, and in a low breaking voice she began to speak rapidly. ‘She’s there…the woman, and…and she’s his wife, Maggie.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. There are evil spirits indeed.’
‘She’s not evil, she’s not bad, she’s…she’s nice in a way, charming…’
‘She was a fiend.’
‘No, no, Maggie.’
‘He said so. Name of God, he told me all about her…dreadful things. Things she did to the child…God help her wherever she is this minute…he was never a liar, whatever else he was.’
‘He…he is a liar, Maggie.’ The words were dragged out of her. ‘She…the woman told me why she had pretended to be dead. She was afraid of him. And if she had just left him he would have brought her back to look after Susie. She says he is mad where Susie is concerned.’
‘Then why has she come back now? Tell me that?’
‘For money. She read about his uncle’s family being drowned.’
‘That won’t wash. If she’s the same woman, why isn’t she still afraid of him?’
‘She is, but she wants money, she hates being poor. She was very honest, Maggie. You only have to listen to her to know that she is speaking the truth.’
Maggie, after staring at Rosamund for a long moment, suddenly raised her hands heavenwards and cried, ‘Holy Mother, sort this out, will you? Will you sort this out?’ Then, bringing her eyes as quickly down to Rosamund again, she demanded, ‘What of the child? Had she seen the child?’
‘No. She seemed amused that I was worrying as Susie had only been missing an hour or so. She seemed sure she would turn up on her own.’
‘With the water covering everything. Yes, she’ll turn up on her own…she’ll float up…’
‘Oh, don’t, Maggie, please.’ Rosamund turned away and, closing her eyes, held her head between her hands, only to turn swiftly again at the sound of footsteps coming from the hall. As she made her way towards the kitchen door, Maggie, thrusting out her hand, checked he
r, and the old woman’s tone was beseeching as she whispered, ‘Don’t give him any more to carry the night, will you.’
‘I won’t, Maggie, if Susie isn’t found, but if she is, I must. Listen. There’s someone knocking.’
‘Standing in the hall doorway she saw Andrew, and before she could speak he said, ‘Any news?’
‘No, Andrew.’
‘Has—has he been back?’
‘No, I don’t think so, not since you came together.’
‘This is serious, Rosie; unless she has wandered on to the main road…well…’
He left the sentence unfinished and they stood looking helplessly at each other.
‘What’s that?’ Andrew had turned to the door again. ‘There’s a light.’
Rosamund, standing at his side, looked towards the oncoming bobbing light and before she could make any comment her father’s voice hailed them saying, ‘Hello there.’
As she and Andrew hurried to meet him he killed any spur of hope by shouting, ‘Have you got her?’
Neither of them answered until they came up with him, and it was Andrew who said, ‘No. No sign of her,’ and then, seeing who was with him, ‘You shouldn’t have come out, Jennifer.’
‘I…I had to. And look I found this.’ She held out a mud-covered slipper. ‘It might not mean anything, it could have been lost some time ago, for it was half buried in the mud.’
‘Let me see.’ Rosamund grabbed the slipper from Jennifer’s hand, and, holding it close to the lantern, examined it. Her fingers touched the pompom on the front, and separating the wool she disclosed a tiny clean core of blue.
‘It’s one of a pair she was wearing tonight. They were new last week. Where…where did you find it?’
‘On the far side of the wood, just off the path leading to our place.’
‘Near…near the water?’ Rosamund asked the question quietly.
The Fen Tiger (The House on the Fens) Page 18