‘No, quite some way off, although it was in a puddle.’
‘This means she was making her way to the mill…to me.’ Rosamund looked from the dim outline of her father’s face to Andrew, and then to Jennifer, and she ended quietly, ‘We’d better go in and wait.’
Andrew, taking the lantern from Henry Morley, now led the way back to the house, and as they entered the hall again, Andrew, turning to Rosamund, said, ‘He should know about this.’ He pointed to the slipper in her hand. ‘But if I go out and call he’ll imagine we’ve found her, for that was the arrangement.’
‘We’d better just wait. Come into the kitchen, it’s much warmer in there.’ As Rosamund spoke she startled Jennifer, who was looking around the large hall, surprised no doubt at the elegant pieces of furniture standing out against the undecorated walls.
In the kitchen Rosamund quietly introduced her family to Maggie…She thought of Andrew as one of her family. And she realised that she knew much more about Andrew than she did about the man she had married that day—at least, more good things.
There seemed nothing good to remember about Michael Bradshaw except for the fact that he loved his handicapped daughter. And had not this feeling been created in the first place as a form of taking sides against his wife? If his wife had loved the child, then more likely than not he would have hated it.
But all this reasonable deduction was swept aside a few minutes later when, crossing the hall into the sitting room, a lamp in her hand, there showed up in the perimeter of light the figure of Michael. He was stretched out in a chair just within the French window, and on her involuntary exclamation of surprise he turned his head heavily and looked towards her.
‘You…you startled me. I…I didn’t know you were back.’
He did not rise but said, ‘I’ve just got in.’ And it was the tone of his voice that, for the moment, swept all reasoning and cool thinking aside. There was not a trace of arrogance in it. It was a defeated, dead voice and it drew her to him. His tone did not alter as he added, ‘I heard voices in the kitchen. I couldn’t go in.’ And then, looking up to where she now stood in front of him still holding the light, he ended flatly, ‘None of us had to shout, had we?’
‘My sister found a slipper. It…it is Susie’s.’
‘Where?’ It was as if he had been shot from the chair, and he had to grasp both her and the lamp to steady them.
‘The other side of the wood, but…not near the river.’
‘But she must have been going that way…You went as far as the Goose Pond?’
‘Yes, as far as the wash bank.’ She was not looking at him.
He released his hold on her and turned from her before he said, ‘And your friend Andrew?’
‘He went towards the Wissey right up to the second cattle barrier.’
When he did not speak for some time but stood staring down towards his feet she asked softly, ‘Can I get you a drink?’
For answer he said, ‘They can’t do any dragging until daylight.’ He was gazing fixedly at the carpet as if seeing there a map of the action he must take to fill in the time until daylight, and he went on in the same dead tone. ‘I’ll follow the river to the pond—there’s thick reed along there—then cut over to the dyke, come out at the bridge, then towards the main road, skirt the back of the house here, and down to the river again.’ He raised his eyes to her. ‘Would you ask him if he would phone the police…and tell them?’
‘Yes.’ She inclined her head slowly and there was a catch in her voice when she added, ‘He’ll go with you…Andrew’ll go with you.’
‘I want no-one with me. No-one.’ For a moment there was his old self speaking, arrogance in every syllable. He was facing her squarely now, staring at her, and in only a slightly modulated tone he said, ‘Do you remember what I said about valuing anything? Once I put any value on a thing it is wrenched from me. “It’ll be all for the best,” they’ll say. Can’t you hear them? “Poor thing, it’s a happy release,” they’ll say…A happy release to lose one’s conscience. To lose the only thing that touched the good in you.’
She was trembling so much she had to hold the lamp in both hands, and as she turned to put it on the table his voice, although low-toned, seemed to bark at her as he demanded, ‘Are you just playing the usual female part or are you sorry she’s gone?’
‘Oh!’ She was crying bitterly now. ‘That’s unfair.’
‘Unfair? How do you make that out? You were, and still are, ready and willing to saddle me with a wife that I know is dead. As sure as I know that I’m reluctantly breathing at this moment, I know she’s dead.’
She closed her eyes and joined her hands tightly in front of her.
‘Look at me.’
She looked at him.
‘You went to that boat, didn’t you? That’s why you jumped at taking the path to the Goose Pond…Well, what did you find?’
She gulped in her throat and twisted her fingers together as she stared through her tears into his grim tortured face. And she knew that if Susie was standing by her side at this minute she could not have said to him, ‘I met your wife in that boat, and tomorrow she is coming to see you.’
The look that he now cast upon her was full of scorn. And the untranslatable sound he made indicated his feelings. When she watched him move quickly towards the French window again, grabbing up the torch from the arm of the chair as he went, she remained as mute as if she had been deprived of speech.
A few minutes later, when she picked up the lamp, she had forgotten entirely what had brought her to the sitting room. She only knew that Michael must not be left alone this night. Andrew must go with him. She was calling Andrew’s name before she left the room. ‘Andrew, Andrew…Andrew, Andrew.’
It was four o’clock in the morning. The kitchen was stuffy, even hot, and Maggie was asleep in a cramped position in the armchair. Sitting opposite to her, Rosamund had succumbed to an overpowering feeling of drowsiness; and although she was sitting upright as if still on the alert for any sound, her head was lolling back against the head of the chair.
Only an hour ago had her father and Jennifer left for the mill. She herself would have gone out then and aided in the search but for Maggie who now expressed real terror at being left alone. ‘Don’t leave me, Miss Rosie, ma’am,’ she had pleaded, ‘for I’ve got the strangest of feelings on me. Like when somebody walks over your grave, you know.’ So she had pacified the old woman with the promise that she wouldn’t leave her until daylight.
Andrew had come hurrying in for a moment around two o’clock when he had asked if there was any whisky in the house. When she had told him yes, he had said, ‘Let me have some. He’ll snap if his nerves are not eased.’ He also told her they had met the police, who had answered the call almost immediately, but, as they said, there was little that could be done until daylight. And Andrew had ended, ‘I wish he would believe that and ease up.’ He had also told her that he had alerted Arnold Partridge from the Beck Farm and he had been with them for the past hour.
It was odd how things turned out, Rosamund thought. Arnold Partridge had been one of the men who had tried to get an order on Michael’s land. But for the pressure of this farmer and Mr Brown from The Leas, Michael would likely still be in Ireland. And from the bottom of her heart she wished that this was so. For how simple life would have remained if he had never come back to this house.
Rosamund’s head lolled to the side now, and her limbs jerked as she began to dream. She was dreaming that she was stepping through the reeds towards the bows of the boat, and when she reached it she turned her back to the little porthole as if to stop someone looking in. It was quite light in the dream, and when a coot began to swim about her feet she felt a surge of pleasure. Coots were rare around here. The bird appeared so friendly that she was stooping to pick it up, when she was pushed forward by a hand coming through the porthole. This brought from her only a mild gasp of surprise, but a sudden startling scream coming from inside the boat made her
jump right into the heart of the reeds.
Rosamund was on her feet now. Her eyes blinking dazedly with sleep. ‘What is it, Maggie?’ she cried, grasping the old woman by the shoulders. ‘Why did you scream? Wake up. Oh, please wake up.’
‘Oh, God in heaven. Oh, have you got her? She’s in there. Oh, Miss Rosie,’ gasped Maggie, clinging to Rosamund as she strove to draw breath. ‘It must have been dreaming I was. Oh, but Mother of God, it was real.’
It must have indeed been real, Rosamund thought, for the scream still seemed to be reverberating round the kitchen.
‘Miss Rosie…that boat, I saw that boat, the boat with the woman in it. I could describe it plank for plank. I can see it now, about so big.’ She pointed to the width of the kitchen. ‘And two beds it had in it, and then in a cubby-hole of a place at the far end, where I got stuck ’cos I couldn’t raise me back, so low it was, there was the child, on a bed affair, not longer than me arm. And I was for picking her up when some fiend-like hands grabbed me round the neck and I was struggling for me life. I screamed an’ I screamed and all the while I was aware that the child hadn’t moved or spoken. She seemed like dead.’
‘Now, now, Maggie. Don’t distress yourself. Sit back and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘No, no. I want no tea.’ Maggie edged herself out of the chair and stood gazing towards the curtained window. And as Rosamund looked at her she realised that the dream must have made a very strong impression on the old woman for her to refuse a cup of tea.
‘When will it be light?’
‘Around about five, I think, Maggie.’
‘It’s no use waiting till then, it might be too late…Miss Rosie.’ Maggie turned and came slowly towards Rosamund. ‘That wasn’t only a dream I had. It was a warning. I’ve had it twice before in me life. On the night before me mother dropped dead, and her hale and hearty. And almost to the very hour me James was drowned. I dreamed I went down with him into the depths of the ocean an’ I screamed; when the boats came back me timing was right…And now I know, as sure I am as there’s a God, that the child is in that boat with…with its mother. But it won’t be there for long—no, it won’t be there for long.’
‘Oh, Maggie, don’t. I…I was in the boat. There was no place to hide Susie. The bows are so small there is just a little washbasin and lavatory in there.’
‘She’s on that boat, Miss Rosie.’
Rosamund saw that Maggie’s eyes were not looking at her, but through her, as if she was actually seeing the boat, and her voice matched her eyes with that faraway quality as she went on, ‘And I saw an omen of death…a bird, black with white on its head. It flew away through a little porthole as if it was bearing the child’s soul with it.’
The coot. The gasp that Rosamund gave brought Maggie’s vision back to the present and she said now in her normal voice, ‘We’ve got to get himself to that boat. You’ve got to find him—if not him, then one of the others. For God’s sake get into your things and find him.’
Rosamund was pulling on her wellingtons even before Maggie finished speaking. The coot and the porthole in the bows of the boat. She was remembering and clutching at the fading points of her own dream. It was strange that both of them should dream about the bows of the boat, the porthole, and the coot. It might just be coincidence; but no, people like Maggie, so near to the earth, had unexplainable experiences. She must find Michael, or someone, and get them to go to the boat.
As she pulled her coat on she said to Maggie, ‘You won’t be afraid to be left?’
‘No, not any more. The fear has lifted from me and now I know why. It is no longer round the house, but it is out there, make no mistake about it—it is out there. Go on now, and God be with you…And…and tell himself to be careful, will you? And be with him if you can when they meet up.’
Rosamund did not answer, for she was already hurrying around the side of the house to the drive.
The darkness now seemed blacker than it had done last night. And the cold was intense enough to suggest winter rather than late July. Rosamund stopped where the broken gate had once leaned and turned her head from right to left. There was no sign of any glimmerings of light. Which way should she go? Towards the mill? That was where they would likely be. Obeying her thinking, she hurried now along the well-known path to the wood, but when she had passed through it and came within sight of the river, there were no flashing torches, or steady beams from Tilley lanterns, indicating the searchers. Nonplussed, she stood for a moment agitatedly questioning. Were they up near the Wissey, or down in the direction of the Goose Pond? If they were near the latter, all to the good, it would be no distance at all to the boat. Would she tell Michael straight away about the woman or tell him of Maggie’s strange dream? She didn’t know. She wouldn’t know what she would say until she met him. One thing she did know. He would not laugh at this tale of Maggie’s, for he had a strange faith in Maggie.
When, stumbling in her running, she reached the Goose Pond it was to find it as deserted as the river bank. Where were they all? What must she do. She couldn’t go to that boat alone. But why not? She had been alone before. But that was different. If the child was really in that boat it meant…What did it mean? She shuddered and walked on, actually towards the wash bank. She would just look down from the top of the bank and see if there was a light in the boat.
There was no light coming from the reeds to indicate the position of the boat, and the distance was too far away to pick it out with the light from her torch.
She went against every warning feeling in her body when she quietly slid down the wet surface of the wash bank facing the river, and when she was in the waterlogged field she directed the torch towards her feet. Sometimes she slipped into a hollow that brought the water almost to the top of her wellingtons, at others she could see the toecaps glittering in the torchlight. It was as she stood on one such piece of raised ground that she knew she was near the boat. Slowly she moved the torch to reveal the reeds, and there, just showing above them, was the superstructure of the little cruiser. Even the hairs on her neck indicated her fear as, lifting one heavy foot slowly after the other, she made her way, not towards the well, but to the point of the bows where the porthole was. She was about four feet away when she realised that either the boat had moved its position, or that the water had risen; for she was standing on, or rather sinking into silt, and another step might bring the water into her wellingtons. This could prove serious, as she only too well knew. Caution directed her step to the side, and it was as she slid her foot tentatively into the reeds that the bird rose squawking almost into her face. As she thrust out her hands to ward it off and at the same time to keep her balance, its fluttering, petrified body was revealed for a second in the light of the torch, and the marking on its head brought a convulsive shiver to her whole body…A coot. Both Maggie and she had dreamed of a coot, and here it was. She had pressed her hand over her mouth to prevent any sound escaping her, and now she waited, the torch switched off, listening for any movement from the boat…There was no movement, no sound, except for the coot, that was still spasmodically expressing its fright from the far side of the river. The woman, if she had been on the river for some time, was likely to be used to night noises and they would no longer startle her, or even disturb her sleep.
Rosamund shivered now with both cold and fear as she stood in the water peering towards the darker blackness of the boat. Now she had got this far she couldn’t go back—not now, not after seeing that bird. But she must get her wellingtons off. Slowly she wriggled her foot out of first one, and then the other boot, and she was on the point of stepping forward when the sound came to her. It was a sound she had become used to in the past few weeks. It was the half-moaning, half-whimpering sound that Susie made in her sleep. It stopped, then after a second or two it came again. The child—the child was in there, in the bows of the boat. It was unbelievable, fantastic…Maggie was right…But the woman? The mother? She could not be evil; she could mean no harm to th
e child. Perhaps she had found her later. Then why hadn’t she brought her to the house? Well, how could she? She was just keeping her until daylight…Oh, she didn’t know what to think.
‘What do you want?’
The voice coming out of the blackness startled her more than the coot or the sound of Susie had done, and she almost fell forward into the water.
‘It’s me…Rosamund Morley.’
‘Yes. I know it is. What do you want?’
The question, repeated so flatly, so unemotionally, left Rosamund entirely at a loss. Automatically she picked up her wellingtons, then, pushing through the reeds, made her way towards the voice. She knew that the woman was standing in the well of the boat, and she played the torch over the deck into the well, and not on to the woman’s face, before saying quietly, ‘I’ve come for Susie.’
There was no retort from the woman. It must have been a full minute before she even moved. Then she said as she had done last night, ‘Come in.’
Rosamund found herself hesitating. She wanted to say, ‘No. I’m not coming in. Hand the child out to me.’ But then, as if impelled to obey this flat-sounding voice, she waded towards the deck and pulled herself over into the well. And now she did play the torchlight on the woman’s face, and what she saw turned her shivering into a violent shudder. The face was no longer the one she remembered. The brown eyes held a blank dead look that was in some way akin to the voice. The curving mouth was now a thin tight line, and the cheeks seemed to have sunk in, like those of an old woman.
‘Put that out.’
After a slight hesitation Rosamund switched off the torch and the woman now opened the cabin door to reveal a night light burning.
‘Don’t stand there. Come in.’
When Rosamund slowly entered the cabin, the woman clicked the door shut behind her, then in a subtly soft tone she murmured, ‘Sit down…dear, dear Rosie.’ Both the words and the voice had a really blood-chilling effect. ‘You know you are very foolish to come back here, don’t you?’
The Fen Tiger (The House on the Fens) Page 19