by Lorna Gray
Freddy was taking the bicycle from Richard and I hadn’t remembered quite as much as I’d thought. I was asking rapidly, ‘What sort of gun was it? I mean, I realise now I saw it was a handgun. I just forgot.’
My manner of speaking made a brief glimmer of that old warmth appear on Richard’s mouth but his reply came without any humour at all. ‘A Webley, perhaps.’
Freddy was wheeling the bicycle into the shade of a great beech tree and we were following him and the boy was saying on a note of marvel, ‘It was a bit close, wasn’t it? What I don’t understand is why he hesitated like that. It was like he was trying to make up his mind.’ Freddy looked young today. At first, he’d been keen to hang nervously behind Matthew’s heels. Now he looked delighted as he abandoned the bicycle and hurried about retrieving my fallen groceries.
‘Freddy.’ This was a caution from Matthew. The youth turned to look and got a quick suppressive shake of the head.
‘Oh,’ the boy said with a sheepish glance at Richard and then at me. ‘Yes. Sorry.’
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t worrying about what Freddy had said. I still couldn’t really absorb words unless I concentrated hard. I was thinking that I knew why Richard’s reply had been brief. It had been for me. I knew he’d guessed I would know what a Webley was. It was a revolver and the sort of beast from the Great War that always turned up in some old veteran’s effects and made my father curse because members of the public shouldn’t have them at all. Richard meant me to know that this was something more – something to be discussed in a quieter moment when Freddy wasn’t forgetting Matthew’s caution all over again and telling me with an eager kind of horror, ‘He wasn’t aiming at Captain Langton anyway, Miss. I saw him as we were finding a way down from the hilltop. He was standing over you with that gun hanging from his hand. It felt like he was there for ages.’
Freddy was thrusting food items back into their wrappings as he told me all the rest of the ugly details. ‘It was like he was weighing options in his head; as if he wanted to have revenge on you for knocking him over with the bicycle but knew it was mad to do it. He looked hungry enough, anyway. Only then he was there – Captain Langton, I mean – and we thought he was enough to persuade that man to think again. We saw the man dither between letting you go and taking aim. His hand dipped. But then he just shrugged, raised his hand again and pulled the trigger. When he saw us yelling from the top of the ridge, he ran. I think Captain Langton was really brave, don’t you?’
It was clear that whatever forbidding weight the Langton name had carried for this boy, it had all been supplanted now. Whereas I barely knew what I thought; only that I was cold, even in the sunlight, and I really had tipped this thing into violence and I knew Richard would be noticing the way the line of my lips grew taut again with Freddy’s heroic summary. It wasn’t enough that I’d forced Richard into the path of injury for the sake of saving me. I knew now that Richard’s roughness before had been from the shock of nearly losing me.
He was beside me now and taking the clean handkerchief from my fingers that I hadn’t even noticed I’d drawn out of the depths of my handbag for him. He pressed it over his hand before telling me in a hard, serious voice, ‘I should say thank you. As it was, Abbey wasn’t going to shoot me. He didn’t mean to get me at all. I believe he’d pulled out the gun as a kind of display of bravado before his strategic exit rather than with any intention of using it. And even if he wasn’t, I probably could have managed him. But then you appeared and …’ He stopped. Some second thought prevented him from adding anything more. He was as conscious as I was of the others here. But it wasn’t that he cared whether it might seem to them that this was rather too close to apportioning the blame that was due. I thought he had probably been about to attempt to reassure me. It was what he always did. Only something checked him and I didn’t want reassurance anyway. Like him I was feeling grim and hard and braced, and everything still felt strange here and it wasn’t the blood any more or the brief effects of a light concussion or even the sense that Abbey had taken my intervention badly because I was fine, really, and it was impossible to explain this restless energy I was feeling.
It wasn’t even the strain of knowing that in one simple act I’d abandoned all my ideas of standing firm in that way that had always been half hope and half dread for me – I’d always been capable of acting, just like most people given the right threat of loss. And as I’ve said before, I’ve seen war. I’ve known what it is for a very long time and I was still myself then. But all the same, there was suddenly some increasing sense that something had irretrievably changed here – it wasn’t exactly the culmination of that fear I’d confessed this morning to my cousin of being alienated in the end from Richard by everyone’s cruel interferences, because we were still very much united, but now everything was altered, colder. Perhaps the difference was in Richard’s blunt manner of dealing out his honesty to me; but more probably the change was inside me. And it was almost certainly owing to the sense that Richard had put himself in the way of harm for me.
This was never going to be an easy thing to discuss. So I helped Richard to put off the awful conversation for a moment when I might be able to muster some better self-control than this grimly restrained revulsion, and then we all went down to look at the pump house. There wasn’t much to see behind the greasy pump machinery except a small mess of fresh rubbish belonging to a brief period of daytime occupation and a truly disgusting aroma of urine. There wasn’t much room, either, so I stepped back outside to hug myself in the sunshine without going so far that anyone needed to worry that I was giving way to that old urge to flee the things that frighten me. I went no further than the corner of the pump house where the windows were.
I found that Freddy had come with me anyway. I knew he’d heard the way Richard had addressed his friend as ‘Mr Croft’ as we’d stepped out of the door rather than merely Croft, as perhaps Richard’s status as the squire’s son might have traditionally required him to do. There was a furtive keenness in the boy’s face that did not sit well there. Hero worship was fading and the old distrust was lurking, waiting to be revived.
I said gently, ‘It’ll be all right, you know. They’re both decent people.’
‘I thought,’ remarked the boy, replacing watchfulness with a grin, ‘that I was supposed to be looking after you?’ Then one of the horses, a great dark bay beast, loomed beside my bicycle and he moved to fend it off while a woman joined us.
She was a slight woman with a shy smile who wore slacks and a shirt like this landscape was where true happiness lay, and she was presumably Eleanor Croft. She also had that over-dressed journalist in tow, only he wasn’t a journalist; he was a man by the name of Detective Constable James Fleece and he’d charted his own course here after overhearing the last of my conversation with Mrs Abbey. He already knew both Mr and Mrs Croft quite well. He had a wry quip for Matthew as he caught a greeting from where that man and Richard were now examining the shaded places beside stone troughs that marked the springhead. Richard was tied there by seriousness and the necessity of nodding his agreement to whatever was said to him, but when I moved once, I saw his head lift. Richard was leaving me room in which to breathe, but it seemed to me that he’d let down his guard only so much.
The policeman was speaking to me. He didn’t seem to mind that I’d been particularly rude to him before. Now he heard my description of what had happened here and then he left me too so that he and Mrs Croft could take their own turn at muttering over the mess inside the pump house. Then, finally, Richard was able to return to me.
I saw his brief exchange with Mrs Croft as they passed. I distracted myself from seeming to watch too closely by noticing that her horse was grazing again now and the goats were there as well. I found myself recalling someone’s remarks that Mrs Croft would normally be seen out riding, but this intimidating animal looked thoroughly on holiday and I thought there was probably a correlation between that and the few months since her marriage, if
only the happy gossip in me was alert enough to see it.
Richard approached me. His presence made me ready to unfold my arms and muster a smile when he came to a halt by me. He was standing by my side. I hadn’t realised how tightly my arms had still been clasped protectively about me before. And I made a corner of his mouth quirk when I tipped my head at the space between the pump house and the springhead and said, ‘Do you think Freddy believes he’s looking for John’s treasure?’
Freddy was doing what no one else had. The boy was lifting the manhole cover on the vast underground cistern that was buried beside the pump house and was peering inside.
The sense of cold that had accompanied my full understanding of the way that Richard had shielded me had eased a little now and become a little more reasonable. He was looking fit enough but tired. The fall had hurt him too. He had removed his jacket and folded it over his arm. It was the arm with the bloodied hand. He was close beside me and I was conscious of his stealthy examination of my face as I watched the policeman join the boy. Richard had noticed that calm good sense was fully in charge of me now and it seemed he approved. At least, I thought he did.
Then, while Richard was nodding in reply to my comment and likewise watching the unnecessary inspection of the underground cistern and drawing breath to begin what really needed to be said and what would presumably become that very bruising discussion about my actions and his, my self-control slipped a bit. This was because I was still myself, really, and not terribly practised at speaking what I felt.
The slip didn’t take me into pride. I wasn’t distancing myself here. I was turning my eyes suddenly to meet his and lurching headlong into saying rather too desperately, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said back there. I don’t know what came over me to make me speak to you like that. It was reaction, I suppose. And I’m sorry because now you’re hiding your hand from me as if I’ve got a real phobia, but I haven’t. It isn’t anything like it. It’s not really the sight of blood that affects me. I can’t really explain. I’m sorry.’
I stopped. This much-needed apology was too naked and too close to concealment as well, because I realised I could explain how the sight of blood affected me, I just really didn’t think I should. He probably knew anyway. I’d told him enough about my feelings to make him capable of guessing that the difficulty arose as much from my mind’s deep, instinctive aversion to the evidence of a person’s cruel intent as it did from any real fear of the blood itself. But if I repeated that claim now, he might grow to believe I really had been shying away from him as though he and his profession were tied up in the core of my fears. Only they weren’t, and to say something like that would only cause pain when the instinct didn’t obey any conscious rules anyway.
I shook it away and began to say something else that was better but equally earnest, only to stop when I realised that I needn’t have been worrying about what he thought at all because I wasn’t actually sure Richard was listening. He was watching Matthew Croft as that man cheerfully debated something with Freddy and the policeman. The boy was probably being teased about his disappointed search. Then Richard’s eyes slid left to catch me watching him. He caught me as I was biting my lip a shade doubtfully and I quickly released it for the sake of a brief uncertain smile, expecting to draw a smile in return. It would have been a simple way of dismissing anxiety and, with it, establish relief in that usual pattern where I borrowed a little bit of his assurance.
Instead, Richard’s brows lowered. I heard his breathing check. Then his left hand – the unbloodied one – reached to gently take hold of mine. Even that simple act surprised me with its suddenness, but he seemed to pause a while to weigh it in his palm, as if considering the details. We were very near. It was instinctive to watch the way my hand lay in his as closely as he did. Then his fingers tightened and he turned my wrist as he had once before, so that my hand was held between the warmth of his grip and the soft texture of his clothing. Only this time, instead of completing the act by closing my fingers over a neatly folded note, he briefly raised the back of my hand to his lips.
His gaze lifted to meet mine across the grip he had upon my hand. It was like being touched with a bolt of pure energy. Every nerve focused on the intensity of the few inches of space between us, on the glimpse of the mind behind those eyes. He was grave, as though he’d been abruptly startled yet again with a mark of my care, only I knew I hadn’t done anything of the sort at all. The bewildering stillness was released a moment later by a brush of his thumb across the back of my hand, which left its own trail of sensation.
Then a noise from those other people beyond his shoulder drew his head round. They were about to rejoin us. Richard let his hand fall into the space between us, but he didn’t let me go. His grip was firm. I still didn’t know what he thought I’d done. He didn’t wish to explain here. I might have believed this brief expression of his need for me had been a swift means of settling my unease without openly acknowledging the disturbing truth that something really had been altered by my arrival in this place. But this wasn’t about me, at least not in that way. This was something strong and immediate that was contained within his own feelings. This was disconcertingly like an impulsive gesture of respect.
It was the steadiness of his attention on the people by the pump house that gave me the clue that something might have happened in the space of those minutes alone with Matthew Croft. I had the peculiar moment of thinking that this feeling might relate to the simple fact that I was here and by his side, amongst all these people who might have every reason to distrust him.
‘Richard, I—’
I’d been about to gravely break that other rule of mine – the one about not claiming a little bit more of his strength by adding to his list of responsibilities. I’d been about to admit just how much I needed him to be on my side too. But it was a raw thing to confess in this hurry of speaking before we were swept up in the bustle of meeting the others. I’d only have said it wrong. Then the policeman appeared before us and it was too late anyway.
Detective Fleece gave stern instructions about going to the doctor and getting Richard’s wound properly recorded. Then he hurried us through the woods in a crowd to the Lagonda with the bag of groceries but without the bicycle. They all stood there to watch us get in. Then they watched us get out again when it became clear that Richard couldn’t comfortably handle the car.
Now I was turning the great machine – I really could drive, it hadn’t been a reckless boast in the midst of an argument – and I was setting it sedately at the climb out of the woodland, and Richard was finally asking in the peace of being alone together, ‘Emily? What are you thinking?’
He surprised me into speaking the truth and for once it wasn’t any worry about Abbey or powerlessness or the weight of realising just how much every ounce of me ached for this man beside me.
In this instance, amazingly, I was able to observe, ‘That horse was John’s, wasn’t it?’
We were passing the first of the rough cottages into the village and I’d surprised him. My comment drew a laugh. He remarked, ‘Dark thoughts indeed. What has led you to conclude that it was John’s?’
‘Freddy was trying to lead it away before you could notice, but had to give it up as a bad job.’
‘Ah.’
There was a pause while Richard gave every appearance of being one who was watching for the brass sign that marked the doctor’s house. But then he confided to the window beside him, ‘If the horse was John’s, it’s probably valuable and probably still ours, officially. I believe Mrs Croft offered to buy the beast when John died, but since my father couldn’t exactly engage in business with her or her husband without risking accusations of trying to influence the witness, I imagine he just denied the horse was ever ours. It was a solution of sorts, I suppose. And yet,’ he added after a slight hesitation, ‘the truth is, I still can’t help thinking that this discreet way of settling an exchange was rather too similar to a gesture of thanks.’
He told me, ‘The whole world delights in dissecting the horrors of what my brother did and the lies he spread and yet they’ve never quite turned upon my father. The way the Crofts tell it, my father did nothing more serious than believe my brother’s tomfoolery and allow himself to be led into attempting the arrest of the wrong man for various crimes at a very wrong time.’
I steered the enormous car to a halt outside the shop. I knew Richard had always been clear about his family’s past, but this ran deeper than any necessary honesty. It felt like the sort of thing that should never be voiced. It was for Richard’s sake and his alone that I asked quietly, ‘You think there’s more to it?’
Richard waited while I silenced the engine before he turned his head. ‘The way Father is now? I just don’t know. But knowing the aversion he has to hearing Matthew Croft’s name and the sentence my uncle is serving these days, I think it must take a harsh toll upon the spirit of a man like my father, who for all his faults has a strong sense of honour, if he even partially owes his freedom to the generosity of a man he once tried to have hanged for murder.’
This was the lie the Colonel had given me a glimpse of on his first wretched day home. Now Richard let me absorb the full scale of its hold on the old man and the hard trust Richard had in my fitness to share his secrets. And then we went into the doctor’s surgery.
Chapter 26
‘I’ve got to tell you something, even though I know you don’t want me to, and I’m sorry.’
We were in the car again. We’d spent a long time with the doctor. My own session with the man had been brief on account of the fact my concussion wasn’t interesting enough to require me to sit for a week in a darkened room, but Richard’s session had been longer. When he had finally emerged it had been with a hand that had been recorded in every conceivable way and was now smothered in bandages and dressings to the point of madness. Just the very tips of his fingers were protruding. Needless to say, I drove us home and now Richard was directing me to draw the car to a halt outside the kitchen door rather than its usual place in the shade of the machine barn.