Quickly Scarlet tucked the cord bag inside her coat, lodging it securely beneath her ribs. Another minute and she had emerged into the hall. PANIC! There was a ray of subdued light ahead of her, coming from the open cellar door and illuminating the very spot where she would have to stand on opening the front door. Horrified, she flattened herself against the wall, gasping as the dampness struck cold to the back of her legs. What to do! She could go back, through the kitchen and out of the back door. But no. The door had heavy bolts at top and bottom and the big iron key was normally kept in the pantry. Even if she could quickly find the key, the rusted bolts were probably thrust home and the noise of jarring them back would alert whoever was in the cellar.
It suddenly occurred to her that the one in the cellar might well be Shelagh. She relaxed, then stiffened again as she recalled how, when she came to the house, Shelagh was not to be found. She thought of him, and of how he had looked at her, through her! A curdling shiver rippled over every inch of her being. She went forward hesitantly, coiled like a spring inside and ready to flee for her life at any minute.
The cellar door was open only so far; not far enough for Scarlet to see down the flight of wooden steps and beyond, to the flagged area; yet it was open wide enough for her to slide her body through without making any noise or disturbance. Frightened to her roots, yet curious as to whether it might be Shelagh down there after all, Scarlet paused by the door. All was silent below, deathly silent. She waited a second or two, the longing to see Shelagh and to talk with her almost overwhelming; even though her deeper instincts warned her to get away without delay.
Deciding to follow her instincts, Scarlet moved silently away. But then, as she drew back and passed the open door from a distance, something caught her eye. Lying across the top step and protruding into the hall was a long thin scarf, its green and yellow chequered pattern strangely muted by the yellow glow emanating from the cellar. Scarlet was abruptly halted in her tracks. It was Shelagh’s scarf!. Gingerly, she crept towards it; her stomach turning when, on looking closer, she saw how the chequered pattern was overlaid by a peculiar spreading patch which had dried into a dark violet hue. Blood! The word leapt into Scarlet’s mind. THERE WAS BLOOD ON SHELAGH’S SCARF. Her stomach churned. Through her terror emerged the startling revelation that Shelagh was in danger! Her own safety seemed unimportant. Shelagh needed help. Scarlet was sure of it!
Stealthily, Scarlet descended the stairs, making not a sound that could draw attention to her approach. Below her the candles flickered. She drew closer, almost halfway down. There was something there. Someone! Suddenly she could see it all. A scene so grotesque, so macabre that for the rest of her days would haunt her! There in the arc of candleglow was a dark, sinister figure, cloaked and hooded, half-turned from her and its arms raised high. Now, Scarlet could hear the strange, high-pitched whisper, chanting, chanting. The figure swayed back and forth as though in a trance, spasmodically bending down to scoop from the long low table before it and lifting the hand-cupped offering upwards. Scarlet’s horrified gaze was involuntarily drawn down, down to the table. The spreaded white cloth was a shroud, its limp folds following the lines of the corpse beneath, covering it from head to toe and betraying nothing of its identity.
The dark cloaked figure leaned forward to the mutilated chest cavity, dipping into the sea of whiteness that was now horribly blooded. Raising its cupped hands high, it grew excited, the chanting became ecstatic, the whisper increasingly distorted. Slowly the cupped hands opened to display the misshapen, fleshy mass which was bathed in a crimson sea. The sea broke away in gushing, meandering rivulets, trickling, dripping.
OH NO! NO! Scarlet backed away, her black eyes huge with fear. Instinctively she clamped the flat of her hand over her mouth, to stifle the scream, to quell the rising nausea. Strange twisted scenes tore through her turbulent mind, scenes of Garrett and of the figure which had sprung out, sending Garrett and the boy to their deaths. Footsteps, cold steel eyes. Terror. Blind, crippling terror! She was a child again and there was her father. ‘He eats little innocents like you.’ Silas, dead chickens. Her mother’s face, floating, floating. SHELAGH! Dear God in heaven. They’ve killed Shelagh. Who? Who killed her? Who was that kneeling figure? Her father? Silas? WHO?
Half-crazed with grief and terror, Scarlet stumbled out of the front door and into the woods. Imagining every sound to be the dark figure pursuing her, she ran blindly on, not knowing in which direction, not caring. Desperate only to escape, she fled into the dawn of a new day, her mind assailed by phantoms that would destroy her, making her delicate sanity that much more fragile.
On seeing the bedraggled figure running out of the undergrowth, the carriage-driver thought it must be a wild animal pursued by poachers. When two startled black eyes looked up into his coachlights, he was astonished to see that it was no animal, but a woman! White-faced and terrified, as though she had seen a ghost. For a moment, he hesitated to stop; there was always danger in picking up lone women, especially frightened women, barefoot women, and those who came out of nowhere like this one had done. He’d heard many a tale of how women deliberately laid charges against some innocent man, or they might pretend to be alone, then, when you were foolish enough to stop, a rogue or two would leap out from the hedges and rob you!
On this occasion, though, the carriage-driver had little choice. The frantic woman had positioned herself right in his path. He either had to grind to a halt and offer her a lift, or he had to keep going and let the horses’ hooves trample over the top of her. Reluctantly he tugged the reins back, shouting and heaving until the startled horses came to a halt. ‘What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing, woman?’ he demanded, as Scarlet began climbing up beside him. ‘Are you desperate to get yourself killed, or what?’
‘Drive on… please drive on!’ Scarlet glanced furtively about as, still cursing and moaning, the driver clicked the two cobs into motion. He felt nervous. She made him feel nervous. He cast a sly glance towards her. Wild she was. And magnificent. ‘What’re you doing… wandering the moors at such a God-forsaken hour?’ He looked down, wincing at her torn legs and feet. ‘Lost your shoes? Been running, have you?’ His anger gave way to curiosity. ‘Somebody chasing you, eh?’ he chuckled. It was easy to see how a full-blooded man might want to chase such a primitive beauty.
When Scarlet gave no answer, but kept her gaze lowered to the platform, he became bold enough to study her with a long, sweeping look. Still she made no move, so, being suitably encouraged, he reached out, touching his fingertips softly against her leg. She bristled and flashed her eyes on him; black, stabbing eyes, wild and murderous. Startled, he snatched away his hand, quickly returning his full attention to the road ahead.
Scarlet inched away, afterwards remaining motionless, her dark haunted gaze fixed on the place where her bruised feet rested. The driver also kept his gaze ahead. He had been shaken by the look she had given him. She was wild, alright, and magnificent, yes. But she was trouble! He could sense it. He could see it too, in her eyes. But there was something else in those haunted black eyes; something he wanted no part of. There was terror there. And madness!
‘This is as far as I go. I’m waiting for two passengers… coming in on the next train.’ The carriage pulled into the yard at Minehead Railway Station. ‘You’ll have to make your own way from here.’ The driver watched Scarlet climb down. He was visibly relieved to be rid of her.
Some time later the train arrived, bringing with it his passengers. As they climbed into the carriage, the portly gentleman was heard to remark to his colleague, ‘Poor dishevelled creature… a real beauty, though.’ He shook his head and tutted. ‘Shame… a terrible shame. I wonder why she was taking great pains to hide herself?’
‘Don’t be soft-hearted, you old fool,’ chided the thin moustached fellow, ‘no doubt she’s brought her ill-fortune down on her own head! There are such women… and more often than not, it’s the ones with the most striking looks that fall the furthest.
’ He waited patiently while the portly gentleman clambered into the carriage. ‘Let that be a lesson to you… stay away from handsome females, or, like as not, they’ll drag you down with them.’ He chuckled. ‘She probably didn’t want to be seen because she’s been up to no good. No doubt she’s on her way to some unsuspecting man this very minute. Can’t think why she would board a train headed for Weymouth, though… I should have thought there’d be better pickings in a livelier, rowdier place.’
‘Nonsense, man. Are you blind? That young woman was not of the streets… too much quality about her. No!… if you ask me, the poor thing has suffered… probably at the hands of a callous bugger such as yourself!… I reckon she’s been frightened. She looked frightened.’
‘Deranged! That’s what she looked, old man… deranged!’
As the driver eased the horses round to depart, he reflected on what the thin moustached fellow had said. And he agreed. The black-eyed beauty did look ‘deranged’. He had been glad to be shut of her but, when all was said and done, he was a family man. And he couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for her. Weymouth, eh? He wondered what in the world would become of such a tragic soul.
Part 5
1930
Sanctuary
Flesh perspires, I live on,
…Leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
…That is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.
Thomas Hardy, from ‘Heredity’
15
‘It’s a pity you never learned to read, Hannah.’ The nurse stroked the brush through the woman’s long black tresses for the twentieth time, the pleasure evident in her rosy face. Her own hair was quite mousy and fine, whereas her patient’s magnificent locks were thick and luxuriant, bouncing beneath the brush and framing the pale lovely face in the most exquisite way. ‘There’s so much exciting news in the papers,’ she went on, thinking how eagerly she herself would have taught this reluctant pupil the rudiments of reading and writing, if only she had shown the enthusiasm to learn. During the four years and more that she had been an inmate in the mental institution, the woman called Hannah had shown no such enthusiasm; and not only where elementary schooling was concerned. In the early years she had been a most unwilling patient, morose and withdrawn, prone to terrible nightmares and highly nervous of strangers. She had revealed almost nothing of her background or identity. More recently, however, she had begun to respond to long-term treatment and therapy, and the nightmares had become less persistent. About herself, though, she remained reticent, giving only the name Hannah. When she had first arrived here, via the hospital where she had been taken after collapsing in the street, it was evident that she had no real memory of either her own identity or of the reason as to why she should be wandering the back streets of Weymouth, barefoot, dishevelled and in an extreme state of distress.
‘There!’ Nurse Dixon patted the wayward tresses, her kindly face beaming. ‘After you’ve had your breakfast, don’t forget that Doctor Taylor has asked to see you. I’ll be coming to collect you at ten forty-five… he will expect you in his office at eleven a.m. sharp!’ She gave her patient a gentle nudge, bending sideways to peer into the quiet dark eyes. ‘It’s a special day today, Hannah,’ she reminded her. ‘If he thinks you’re ready for the wide world, it’s likely you could be released within the week.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Is that all you have to say?… “Thank you”? My goodness me! You should be dancing up and down this ward.’ Realising that the other woman was in no mood for conversation, she placed the hairbrush on top of the bedside cabinet and went across the ward to the long narrow window. Here her smiling gaze wandered over the high-walled grounds below, and she thought how, though the wall was virtually unsurmountable, making the gardens a prison, it was a pleasant prison. And the sky promised another glorious July day. ‘I hope it doesn’t get uncomfortably hot,’ she remarked, returning to her patient. ‘I read in the newspaper this morning how seventy-two people died in a heatwave in Chicago!’ She shuddered. ‘Dreadful!… it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ For a few moments longer she bustled about, making the bed, refilling the water jug and plucking from a vase the dead flowers which had been left behind by another inmate, one who had a family and was fortunate enough to be cherished. She had especially requested that the flowers be given ‘to that poor woman… so quiet… so alone’. She had tried hard to make friends, she explained, ‘but she seems so afraid to let anyone near her’. Nurse Dixon knew exactly what she meant. ‘Now then, Hannah… let me look at you.’ She stood before the seated woman, eyeing her up and down, from the blue full-skirted dress, which had also been a gift, to the neat black patent shoes, crossed over at the ankle by a dainty strap. As usually she noticed how perfectly slim and attractive the dark-eyed woman was. ‘It’s not fair!’ she said, good humouredly. ‘You must have been at the front of the queue when they were giving out the beauty… I was at the back!’ She chuckled, but it struck her how, if she could change places with this lovely-looking young woman, she would not. It would mean suffering loneliness and terror of a kind she herself could never envisage, and seeing into such a tortured mind that would make life too unbearable. No, she would not want to change places with the one who called herself Hannah.
‘Can I go into the garden?’
‘Of course you can. But not until you’ve had some breakfast. Good Lord! You never eat enough to keep a bird alive.’ She pointed to the long table in the centre of the ward, and drew attention to the fact that, already, other patients were leaving their beds and seating themselves at the table. In the distance, the clatter of metal wheels on polished floor and the distinct tinkling of crockery indicated that the breakfast trolley was on its way. ‘Off you go then, Hannah… have some breakfast, and afterwards I’ll take you down to the gardens.’ She wagged a finger. ‘I shall ask Nurse Raymond whether you ate a hearty breakfast, mind you!’ she warned.
As always the dark-haired woman known as Hannah seated herself at the corner of the table, as far away from the other women as possible. She listened to their aimless chatter and, when it was directed at her, she responded with a wan smile, reluctantly eating the boiled eggs and toast put before her. She said very little. She had nothing of value to add to their conversations. After a while they isolated her, regarding her with suspicion and disliking her for making them feel uncomfortable. One woman in particular, a small, bent creature with a serious mental affliction and a wicked disposition, scuttled round the table at one point, to grab a hank of Scarlet’s hair, which she then spasmodically yanked and clung on to with such determination that it took two nurses and a ward orderly to pull her away.
Some short time later, Nurse Dixon arrived to collect her patient from the gardens where earlier she had escorted her, following the unfortunate experience at the breakfast table. From a distance she observed how deeply engrossed in thought was the dark-haired Hannah, and how sad she looked, sitting there by the fountain, her troubled black eyes following the flow of water as it tumbled down the cold marble status to the frothy pool below. She sensed the woman’s great pain and she was also saddened, wondering what manner of thoughts were churning in that lovely head.
‘Can’t I stay here a while longer?’ she asked the nurse. ‘It’s so beautiful… so tranquil.’ When the answer had been no, and she was given the explanation, ‘Doctor Taylor is waiting to see you,’ there was no resistance. She followed the nurse out of the warm July sunshine, on up the open stairway and along the winding narrow corridor, the sound of their footsteps reverberating from the wood-block flooring and the smooth pale green walls that hemmed them in on both sides. Footsteps! FOOTSTEPS. The sound struck fear into one tremulous heart.
Doctor Taylor studied the dark eyes, cleared his throat and said with deliberation, ‘There’s nothing to be gained by containing you here any longer… we’ve done all we can. Your memory is impaired, of that there’s no doubt.
But otherwise you’re recovered enough to cope in the outside world. Do you agree, Hannah?’ He regarded her closely, the sunlight stemming through the window and flashing on the lenses of his spectacles. The patient glanced up, was temporarily blinded and quickly lowered her gaze. He shifted his position. ‘I said… do you agree, Hannah?’ he insisted.
The dark eyes became intense, searching for his eyes behind the reflection of his spectacles. Hannah!… Why did he call her Hannah, when her name was Scarlet? But then, he didn’t know her, did he? None of them knew her. They were all strangers… enemies. She struggled to see the images in her mind. But always they hid from her, lost in a shifting fog that moved this way and that, allowing her only fleeting glimpses of people and places. The thick grey fog never cleared long enough for her to see whether the faces were those of friends or strangers. This man, this ‘Doctor Taylor,’ he was a stranger. They were all strangers here. She must not let them see how frightened she was. Nor must she give her name. What was he asking now?
‘Hannah… do you feel able to cope with the outside world?’ She smiled and nodded her acknowledgement. He was relieved. ‘Good!… We feel you are well enough to leave this place, but of course you will need help to find somewhere to live. You do have a considerable sum of money. Hannah… the two thousand pounds you brought with you in the cord bag… together with the interest it has accumulated. And of course… there are the jewels, which must be worth a tidy sum.’
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