by Norrey Ford
A tray, laden with plaice and chips, went past, and she stared at it in abashed horror. “How revolting meals look when one isn’t hungry any more. No, Guy. Don’t ask me again.” I will not, she resolved, exchanging Lance’s beautifully civilised cooking for Connie’s.
By judicious organisation, Jacqueline arrived at the Moor Hen early on Friday evening, and at once offered her services in the kitchen or dining-room. Her hosts would not hear of it, but gave her a delicious dinner and settled her in the lounge with a stack of glossy magazines while they coped with the Friday evening rush. Andy, the white poodle, handsomely grown but still a puppy at heart, offered her his rubber bone, and presently, exhausted himself, curled up on her lap and went to sleep.
She had wondered about Alan, hoping yet dreading that he would be at the inn for the week-end. Now she knew definitely he was not coming. He had telephoned to say he was detained in Barnbury. Mollie told Jacqueline so, and immediately marched into the kitchen to her husband.
“Give me back my tuppence, blooksucker. All is not lost—she loves him.”
Lance shouted over the hum of the electric-mixer. “Naturally. She’s engaged to him. I keep the tuppence. Go away, woman. I’m busy.”
“She loves Alan. I saw it in her face when I said he wasn’t coming.”
Lance switched off the mixer and peered at a mountain of whipped egg-white. “Why must women make life so complicated? If she loves A, why marry G?”
His wife sizzled with controlled patience. “That’s the point, you goon. That’s what Alan wants to know. He says she looks unhappy, and wonders if pressure is being applied.”
He folded cream into the mass. “Angel wife, why pressure?”
“I don’t know. If she were the long-lost heir or something—and Guy wanted to make sure of the farm.”
“Why not just assume that he loves her? Listen to the chaps in the bar talking—they’ll tell you the Clarke men marry those little fair women.”
“But why do the little fair women marry them?”
“The fascination of the snake for the rabbit. They’re always unhappy, I’m told.”
“Regular old gossip you’re becoming, my sweet. But this is Jacky we’re talking about. She’s our friend. We can’t let her marry that revolting creature and be unhappy. She’ll be a farmhouse drudge in five years—can’t we save her?”
Lance piled the egg-white and cream on top of delicate meringues and stepped back to admire his work. “When a woman is bent on self-immolation no one can stop her. You’re liable to be squashed flat if you try.”
“Immolation? Sacrifice? Do you mean she’s sacrificing herself for something or someone?”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Examine it from that angle, my little private eye. And per-lease, my angel wife—get out of my way!”
Lulled by Andy’s feathery snores, the warmth of the peat fire, Jacqueline dozed lightly. When someone said her name, she sat erect at once, blinking and not, for the moment, aware of where she was.
“Jacky! It’s Guy. Did I wake you, my bird? I’m so sorry.”
For the space of a quick heart’s leap, she had imagined it was Alan. She tried not to show disappointment. “Guy, what on earth are you doing here? It’s to-morrow you are invited.” Then she noticed he was still in his working clothes. “Is anything wrong?”
“In a way. I’m sorry to butt in, but I can’t help it. I need your help at the farm. It will spoil your precious week-end and I’m terribly sorry, but I’m at my wits’ end.”
“If it’s as bad as that, my week-end is totally unimportant. What has happened?”
“Connie is down with lumbago. She’s had twinges before, but never like this. When I say down, I mean just that. She can’t put her foot to the ground. I can look after myself, but”—he spread his hands helplessly—“I can’t look after an old woman, Jacky. She can’t do a thing for herself.”
“What about a doctor, if she’s so bad?”
“She won’t hear of it. Says it will pass off in a few days, with rest and warmth. But for those few days—”
She pushed Andy gently to the floor and stood up. “No rest for the wicked,” she said lightly. “Will you find Mollie and explain, while I go and pack. I’ll sleep at Timberfold to-night and Saturday, but I have to be at St. Simon’s on Sunday evening. Maybe she’ll be able to fend for herself by then.”
“Thanks.” He added gruffly, “I appreciate it, Jacky. This week-end meant a lot to you and I’m not spoiling it on purpose.”
‘Nobody has lumbago on purpose, and I do understand your predicament Don’t worry, it’s just one of those things.”
Mollie was waiting when she came downstairs with her case.
“Guy has explained. It’s disappointing, but I do see that you must go. If she improves, promise you’ll come back. Take this basket, you won’t want to cook on that huge old range. There’s a cold roast chicken, a trifle, and a cake. Lance made the trifle for to-morrow’s lunch, but he’ll just have to make another.”
Jacqueline accepted the basket gratefully. “You are the most understanding person I know, Mollie. I could howl with disappointment.”
“Duty can be a sickening nuisance, but when it calls, it calls. Don’t feel guilty about us—we’ll hope for better luck next time. I’ll say good-bye to Lance for you, he’s busy in the bar just now.”
Connie lay in the middle of a huge bed in a cavernous room heavy and dark with red wallpaper patterned in deeper crimson pineapples. She appeared to be in pain and accepted Jacqueline’s ministrations with a minimum of complaint. Indeed, she seemed to find some ease in being supported by pillows and hot-water bottles. The bottles were of the stone-jar type, shaped like a two-pound loaf with a screw stopper on top; they were awkwardly angular and uncomfortable, but the only alternative was a hot brick wrapped in flannel or an oven shelf.
“Let Guy fetch a doctor, Aunt Connie. This may not be lumbago.”
“Tis. I’ve had it before, never so bad, though. A few days’ rest ’ull shift it, but you see how awkward ‘tis, for a lad. I’m right sorry I’ve browt you away from your holiday.”
“Don’t fret about that. Now, if we had you in hospital there’d be all sorts of things we could do for you.”
“I don’t doubt. But in a place like Timberfold we have things like back-ache and stomach-ache and babies and get along as best we can with what we have on hand. My Saul had his tonsils out on yon kitchen table when he wor a lad. You’ll take your own room—you know the one. Bed’s aired.”
So, instead of the pretty room at the Moor Hen, Jacqueline unpacked in her father’s great old chamber with the windows opening on to the moor. She hung her silk dress in a shadowy wardrobe, and placed the precious snapshot of her parents on the bedside table. Since she had slept here last there was a slight change in the room, which puzzled her vaguely, until she spotted it. Her grandmother’s portrait had been removed from its position over the chimneypiece and now hung over the bed.
She crossed the room and stared up at the painted face. It was crudely done, looking more like an inn-sign than a portrait; the figure was stiff and clumsy. The curved mouth drooped, the shoulders sagged slightly.
“Poor little Granny! When they painted you, you weren’t even a mother, and here I am, your grandchild. I’m Peter’s girl. You always loved Peter best, didn’t you? Saul was never really your boy.
“I’m going to marry Saul’s son, Granny. Shall I be happy? You must help me to make my home here, because I gave my promise and I won’t run away from it. Tell me how you managed my grandfather?”
It was a pity the portrait was so bad. It was hard to make the wooden flesh, the oddly-jointed hands, live and move. Only in the lips had the painter caught a flicker of life. In the waving candlelight, the mouth almost moved.
“I believe Peter grew up to be awfully like you, Granny. Let’s have a closer look.” She moved the candle to the little table, took up the laughing snapshot of her father and, kicking, off her s
hoes, stood on the bed to stare closely at her painted grandmother.
She moved to catch a better light, and stubbed her toe on one of those awkwardly shaped hot-water bottles which she had thrust into her own bed to air it She staggered, clutched and fell. She sat down with a bump on a goose-feather mattress and was not hurt in the least. But the picture came down with her, the heavy gilt frame crashing on to her pillow.
Horrified, she tried to lift the heavy object There was no glass, but she discovered the painting was on wood, not canvas, and astonishingly heavy. Nothing appeared to be broken, but when she examined the cord, it was rusted away, and the few remaining threads had parted quite easily; it had obviously been hanging on a rusty nail for years.
She glanced across to the chimney-piece. But when I came last, it hung there, so it has been moved fairly recently. Whoever moved it was shockingly careless not to replace the frayed cord. Why, I might have been killed if it had fallen on my head in the night.
She shivered, imagining the crash, the sudden waking to pain and terror, a moment of consciousness perhaps, then a plunge into oblivion in the suffocating darkness.
Panic took her in its grip. She had to be out of this house, away from its age-old passions and sorrows, generation upon generation of them, and out under the clean sky, the cold, serene stars. Like a blundering moth, she rushed to the window and leaned far out The roof of the ancient cart-shed was below, but she could not gauge the distance in the near-darkness and was afraid to plunge into the unknown.
The air was cool, and she was conscious for the moment of a great relief. Her heart was hammering madly. She leaned on the window frame recovering her breath.
Nothing, she knew, would induce her to sleep in that bed. The picture was down, there couldn’t be any more danger. Yet a thought as yet unformulated, nagged. A thought about the bed.
The bed’s aired. That is what Connie had said. So—Connie had been expecting her, the bed had been prepared.
Picture and all? She pushed that thought away with a shudder and concentrated on the other. How did Connie know she would come—before the lumbago? She couldn’t have aired the bed after the attack began. So the whole thing was a trap!
She pulled herself together. Her imagination was running away with her. She would find Guy’s room, explain about the picture and ask him to remove it. After he’d gone, she would wrap herself in a blanket and sleep in a chair by the open window.
As she drew the heavy door open gently, another thought struck her. A thought so frightening that the bedroom, a moment ago terrifying, became a refuge. She closed the door again and groped for a lock, a bolt. There was none.
No one, planning to injure or murder a guest, would trouble to air the bed first
So, if Connie aired the bed, who moved the picture and left it poised on a single torn and rusted thread? It must have been moved to-day, for the cord could not have lasted many hours.
She flicked a nervous tongue over dry lips. If not Connie, who? Not—oh, please Heaven, not Guy.
She brought a heavy old chair and propped it under the door handle; pulled a couple of blankets from the bed and took them, with a pillow, to a wicker chair by the window. Night duty had already taught her to snatch a wink of sleep with senses alert ready to wake at the slightest sound.
She watched the great stars wheeling over the moor a long time before she fell into a troubled sleep.
Dinner at the Moor Hen was over. Mrs. Fairbody, the washer-up, had hung a neat row of clean tea-towels before the gleaming white stove, left the sink as clean as a hound’s tooth, and pattered to her cottage on flat feet. The farmers and shepherds in the-bar were going home one by one, and Lance rolled down his sleeves, put on his .coat and went to find his wife and their guest.
Mollie was placidly darning socks in their own sitting-room, which did duty also as office, store-room and occasionally bed-room. “Where’s Jacky?” he asked. “Gone to bed, poor mite? She’s on night duty, isn’t she?”
Mollie explained. Lance listened carefully, a frown growing between his eyebrows. “You say Connie has been laid up all day with lumbago? Couldn’t get out of bed this morning?”
“That’s right. It’s sickening for Jacky, but you do see Guy couldn’t do everything for her. She needs a woman for a day or two—at least until she can walk.”
Lance reached for the telephone.
“What are you going to do? Guy says the old girl is nearly hysterical about not having a doctor.”
“Old girl, my foot. I’m ringing Alan. He’s got to come out here.”
“But he has an emergency operation—he told me so when he telephoned. It was to start at ten.”
“H’m. Twenty to. He’ll be at the hospital. With luck, I’ll catch him there. And if he can’t come out to-night, he must come first thing in the morning.”
She knelt on the end of the sofa and tugged at his coat. “Fiend! Don’t be so exasperating. You were laughing at me for being over-imaginative. Now you’re behaving as if it’s serious.”
“It is serious. Remember I drove to Elton Bottoms farm this morning, to collect those ducklings they promised me? The road passes Timberfold lane end, doesn’t it?”
She stared at him apprehensively. “You went to Timberfold?”
“Not likely! But who should hop off the bus at the end of the lane but Connie, with a shopping basket over her arm? She’d been to Winkford, I dare say—it’s market-day there, Fridays. She scuttled off down the lane towards the farm as lively as a flea.”
“This morning? But, Lance—lumbago can attack you in a minute. This doesn’t mean Guy’s story isn’t true.”
“Exactly!” He spoke dryly. “Let’s hope it is true. In the meantime, I’ll ring Alan. He asked us to be watchdogs for him, and I guess this is one time the watchdog barks.”
In the sane light of a fine morning, Jacqueline took her grandmother’s portrait and leaned it against the wall; stripped the bed, made it up again, and went downstairs to prepare breakfast for herself and Connie. She had heard Guy go out, whistling for Gypsy, some time earlier. He was whistling as he crossed the yard and did not glance up at her windows. She did not believe a man could plan evil at night and whistle so gaily in the morning.
In the kitchen the fire was alight, wood stacked on the hearth to dry, the heavy copper kettle filled and singing on a hook high over the flames. He had left everything as conveniently as he could for her, and she felt thankfully that such care exonerated him.
She decided to make scrambled egg on toast for Connie, and was hunting for pepper when Guy came in.
“Hello, darling! You look as fresh as the morning. Sleep well?”
“Not particularly. My grandmother nearly fell on me.”
“What? How come?”
“There’s a picture of Grandmother Clarke over the bed. At least there was—I propped it up by the wall. It dropped on my pillow.” She was watching him narrowly as she spoke.
“But that ghastly thing is over the fireplace. It’s heavy—we always used to say it was painted on the back of a barn door. Jacky, you might have been stunned. Hey, wait a minute.”
He tore upstairs two at a time, and came down soberly. “You might have been killed. How on earth did that thing get over the bed? And look at the picture cord, brittle as tinder. Oh, darling!” He took her in his arms and held her closely, pressing his cheek to her hair. She stood rigidly in his embrace, desperately sorry for him because, although he was so deeply moved, she felt nothing—nothing at all.
“Lucky for me I wasn’t.” She moved lightly away. “I must finish Connie’s breakfast tray, poor thing. She’ll be famished. Where does she keep pepper? I can’t find any.”
“I dunno. Try those drawers in the dresser, she keeps all sort of tranklements in there. I must get on with my work now. You all right?”
“Perfectly. I only need pepper to be completely happy. Run along.”
In the dresser drawers she found nothing but a dirty and faintly revolting magp
ie collection of the objects usually hoarded by a sluttish housewife, but a tiny cupboard between the drawers was more rewarding. At least she found half a nutmeg, some dusty dried herbs bundled together and tied with string. She sniffed them inquisitively—thyme, sage—and what was the other? She sniffed again, but there was no scent to the tiny flat pods tumbling out of a crumpled envelope. Yet I ought to know them, she pondered. They look so familiar. Black-ripe, opening to reveal a row of round flat seeds. In her mind’s eyes she saw the little pods hanging on a tree, but could not place them. How tantalising!
No pepper yet! But the next cupboard gave her what she sought. She made toast, finished the eggs and went upstairs.
If Connie was surprised by her appearance she gave no sign, did not ask how her guest had slept.
“I’ve had a terrible night,” she said at once. “Never closed my eyes.”
Jacqueline was used to this gambit, and assumed Connie had been awake about half an hour longer than usual.
“How’s the lumbago? Let me raise you up a bit, then you can eat your breakfast. Gently does it.”
Connie gasped and groaned, but eventually heaved herself into a position to eat. “Tell you what—there’s only one thing ‘nil shift this lot, and that’s the oil owd Michael mixes for the sheep. Uses all sorts o’ herbs and such, in the oil. He understands them things—his mother was half a gypsy. Very clever wi’ cures, his mother was. Could you go to his cottage and fetch me some this morning?”
“Sheep oil? Are you sure—”
“Nay, they wouldn’t use it up at t’hospital. But there’s a sight o’ healing in herbs and natural stuff that doctors reckon nowt of.”
“But there’s poison, too.”
“Who said I was going to drink stuff? I want it to rub into my back. Aye, there’s poison...” She seemed to dwell on the idea, and in the huge bed she looked witchlike and threatening. “But for them as understands the herbs, they’re safe enough. Will you fetch it? No use sending Guy, he laughs at me for believing in Mike’s stuff. He’d as lief chuck it down t’sink.”