by MARY HOCKING
Catherine sat down and rested her hands on the arms of the chair. She was wearing the tight-fitting lilac dress; she had washed and ironed it carefully so that it was quite immaculate. She had taken trouble with her appearance, too. The fine golden hair was drawn severely back; it seemed to draw the skin back, too, so that it stretched tight across the bones of the face. Only the leprous pallor and the extreme brightness of the eyes betrayed the fact that she was now very ill.
Richard Oliver drew up another chair. There was a small table between them on which stood an ash-tray and a cut-glass vase in which Anna had placed some marigolds. The marigolds had been there a long time; they were falling apart at the centre and the water smelt so strong that it left a foul taste in the mouth. Catherine moistened her lips fastidiously; she disliked squalor although it had never occurred to her to do anything positive about it. She looked away from the shredding marigolds. From where she was sitting she could see the garden; a blackbird was pecking for worms in the lawn and the branches of the cedar undulated gently in the noon breeze. It could scarcely have been more different from their first meeting. It had been so dark then and the wind had been strong; and yet this hot, shadowless noon was infinitely worse, it was the still centre of violence. Richard Oliver was lighting a cigarette. Out of the corner of her eye Catherine could see his hand reaching for the ash-tray; she saw the long, powerful fingers, the wrist brushed with black hairs.
‘I want you to tell me what has happened to Anna,’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’ She turned the question aside as she would have flicked away a fly.
‘Something must have happened to make her go away so suddenly.’
‘Yes.’ Catherine concentrated her attention on the faded floral pattern of the curtains.
‘And you have no idea what it was?’
‘No.’ Her eyes followed the outline of a pale pink rose.
‘She didn’t speak to you at all before she left?’
‘No.’ Down the stem, round the edge of a leaf.
‘And she left no message?’
‘No.’ Another rose, slightly bigger but more faded.
He was silent, breaking the rhythm of her affair with the rose. She was conscious of his presence; he had been out all night on the moors and she could smell mud and grass, he was at the nerves’ edge and she could smell that, too. She transferred her gaze to the curtains at the small side window.
‘What is it that you fear, Catherine?’
Her eyes became fixed half-way down the stem of a rose.
‘You have been afraid for a long time, haven’t you? It started when Melita went and it has been getting worse ever since, hasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
He looked, not at her face, but at her hands which had tightened their grip on the arms of the chair.
‘You must not confuse Anna with the things which you fear. She is not implicated in any way.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ The rose pattern had ceased to be helpful. She looked at the bowl of fruit on the china cabinet: the pear was still there, in an advanced state of decay now.
‘Anna knows nothing. She can do you no harm. Do you understand that?’ He was speaking very gently, but strain betrayed itself in the whiteness of the mouth.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Wouldn’t it be wise to straighten out in your mind the things which worry you? You can’t keep them at bay for ever.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Then I must be more specific.’
‘More specific?’ For a moment her eyes glittered in his direction, then they returned to the bowl of fruit.
‘You are afraid of me, aren’t you, Catherine? You are afraid that I may uncover things which are better hidden. Well, you are quite right about that. And unless you tell me what has happened to Anna, I shall have to make public some of the things that I know. I am trying to strike a bargain with you, Catherine.’
She looked at him, at the powerful shoulders, the dark face with its strong, blue jaw and the prominent, ugly nose.
‘Blackmail,’ she said.
‘If you like.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
He lit another cigarette. When he first came here he had lolled in the chair at his ease; now his movements were stiff as though there was a spring coiled tight inside him. He drew on the cigarette before he went on:
‘This fear of yours centres round Melita, doesn’t it?’
‘Melita!’ She gave a parody of her old, assured smile. ‘She went away years ago. Why should I be afraid of her?’
The inane smile stabbed at his self-control. The muscles at the side of his jaw contracted, a flush of blood stained the dark skin.
‘It’s hot in here,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps we should open a window.’
‘I don’t want the window open.’
‘We won’t open it then.’
He spoke with a kind of dull, wounded patience: he was terrifyingly durable. The smell of the flower water was in her throat and the suppurating pear made her feel sick. Perhaps she should have allowed him to open the window. But he was finding the heat oppressive whereas her blood seemed to be draining away, leaving her cold and empty. His discomfort was her only advantage. She tightened her grip on the arms of the chair and suffered the flower water and the pear. The questions began again, only they were worse now. Each word drilled on a nerve in her brain.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened to Melita?’
‘No.’
‘It seems unnatural to be so incurious.’
‘You took her away, I don’t want the details.’
‘Do you really believe that she went with me, leaving her child with people who hated her?’
‘Yes.’
She looked at the rose pattern again, but it was jerking about so much that she had to close her eyes.
‘And Silas? Did he believe that Melita had deserted her child?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what was it that worried him, that gnawed at his mind all those years until he had to go to the police?’
‘Silas was sick. The police realized that, they didn’t take any notice of him.’
‘Oh, but they did; in the end, the police did take notice of him, Catherine. Only they had to proceed rather unofficially.’
In the garden a magpie flashed across the lawn and young thrushes scattered into the branches of the cedar. In the room there was complete stillness. Catherine’s body was motionless but cracks appeared in the grey mask of the face.
‘Silas was sick,’ she finally repeated.
‘What made him sick?’
‘You can ask that?’ There was some contact between them at last. She stared at him with a strange entreaty and he looked back at her with weary compassion. ‘You took his wife away from him.’
‘That isn’t true,’ he said gently.
‘You took her away, you said yourself that you took her away.’
‘That was just a move in a game. The game is finished now.’
‘You took her away!’
‘How could I, when she never left here?’
The cracks ran under the eyes, around the nostrils, down the sides of the mouth; the face was beginning to disintegrate but for a while something behind the eyes held it together.
‘She never left here,’ Richard Oliver went on quietly. ‘Perhaps she intended to leave. She was pregnant. In nine months’ time she might have presented Silas with a son . . . or at least with a boy whom he would have accepted as his son. Did you know that? Or did you think it was only the fear that she would persuade Silas to sell the farm that made Hester kill her?’
Catherine’s lips jerked like the lips of a puppet.
‘No proof,’ the lips said.
‘The proof is out there,’ he answered wearily. ‘Beneath the cedar. Hester was strong in those days; she worked all through the night. The b
ranches of the cedar gave some cover and with luck—and an absence of curiosity—no one would notice the disturbed earth. As far as I know, no one ever did, unless it was you.’
The mechanism that held the face together was losing its grip. The lips jerked again, ‘Lies! Wicked lies!’
‘Did you look out of the window that night and see Hester down there? Or was it later that you began to suspect her, when she protested so vehemently against having cables laid across the garden; when she took to sitting in the shade of the cedar, did you think that she looked like a sentinel?’ His own control was beginning to give. ‘Or was it your senses that told you? You have lived in this house all these years, you have watched Hester rotting away until she reeks of death; you know, beyond the need for proof, that she killed Melita. But you wouldn’t admit it. Why? Because you wanted Silas?’
‘Lies!’ She put her head back and screamed on a high, sustained note that was not at all human. Her face seemed to fall apart, cracks scored the skin until there was no relation between the stabbing eyes and the gaping mouth. ‘Lies!’ She sprang to her feet.
‘You can’t escape this, Catherine.’ He was on his feet, too. ‘But I will try to help you if . . .’
‘Lies!’ she screamed again on that high inhuman note.
He made a movement towards her and she picked up the glass vase and hurled it at him; it shattered against the fireplace and broken glass rebounded on to the carpet. He came towards her.
‘Keep away from me!’
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I promise I won’t hurt you.’
‘Keep away!’
‘LISTEN to me!’
He reached towards her, caught his foot against the table leg and stumbled. Something glittered at Catherine’s feet. She bent down. Before he had regained his balance she was on top of him; he saw the glint of jagged glass in her hand but could do nothing about it. She stabbed at his face but he twisted his head to one side and the glass tore his neck and shoulder. Blood gushed on to her hand. The sight of so much blood exalted her, it was as though some spring within her own body had been released, and she began to stab frenziedly at his chest. All the passion muted over the years was released and she was transformed; her flailing arm slashed through all barriers of restraint, of piety and convention, carving a way to ecstasy. Around her the room disintegrated, the sombre pictures crashed from the walls, the china cabinet toppled over splitting in two the table with old Martin Jory’s picture on it, the curtains came down and the heavy serpentine clock was swept from the mantelpiece. Her feet were torn by broken glass and splintered wood, but she did not care. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness and she fought as though she was living her whole life in one savage minute. It was only when her foot slipped on the pulped mass of pear that the man had a chance to control her. He hit her hard in the stomach and she jack-knifed on to the floor. He took the broken glass from her and hurled it away; it crashed through the window, cutting a diamond-edged star in the pane. It was quiet in the room. Catherine lay crumpled as a sawdust doll, the man slumped against the wall. The sun sparked on the broken glass and somewhere in the garden a blackbird was singing; in the hall, a long way away it seemed, people were talking.
‘No,’ Rhoda was saying. ‘I don’t think he’s here.’
The drawing-room door opened and they stood in the doorway, Rhoda, Hester and the police sergeant, frozen in incongruous attitudes. Hester was the first to recover. She looked round the devastated room and all that she said was, ‘Ah, well . . .’ just as though it was a moment at which she had always expected to arrive. The police sergeant went to Richard Oliver.
‘What happened, sir?’
‘I told her the truth.’
‘The truth’s no good to her,’ Hester said. ‘She ain’t used to it.’
Catherine, who was propped against the wall staring with dreadful astonishment at the shattered window and the sunlit garden beyond, began to chatter.
‘The rain came down so hard it washed all the earth off the graves; I read that in some paper. And the frost, the frost, making those great cracks. Silas . . . Silas . . . we must go, Silas, before the frost comes.’ Her fingers scrabbled on the floor. ‘Silas, where are you? . . . No matter now. It’s summer . . . We used to put lavender between the sheets . . . so fresh.’ Her hands twisted her skirt, rubbing the material between her fingers. ‘I washed this, Silas; I washed it, I washed it, I washed it. Silas? And I baked some bread. Fresh . . . But it doesn’t matter any more. There’s a water-lily there now. So pretty . . . Ah, God!’ She jerked her head back as though she was in pain.
Hester moved forward and Catherine began to whimper. Rhoda put her hand on the old woman’s arm.
‘Better leave her.’
‘Perhaps you?’ the sergeant suggested.
Rhoda said, ‘Catherine, will you come with me?’
‘No, no!’ Catherine got to her knees, then crouched, watching their feet. ‘No, I’ve finished with you now; finished with all of you . . . All in the oven!’ She gave a high rippling laugh and suddenly wagged a finger at Rhoda’s horrified face. ‘I saw the way you looked then! You’re bad, Oh, my dear, you’re very bad. Don’t think I don’t know. I know all about all of you.’ She began to ease herself up against the wall. No one moved. Catherine chanted, ‘ “We have a little sister and she hath no breasts . . .’ Slowly she edged round the devastated room, keeping her back to the wall. ‘ “What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?” ’ There was a lot of blood on the carpet by now and she held her skirt tight against her. When she neared the door she began to breathe very quickly and within a few feet of it she suddenly crouched on all fours like a runner waiting for the starter’s gun to be fired. The sergeant took a step towards her; she let out a shriek of laughter and flashed into the hall. He went after her, but the back door slammed behind her before he reached the kitchen. For a time they heard his heavy body crashing through the shrubbery in the garden and then it was quiet.
‘She’s making for the headland,’ Hester said without emotion. ‘He’ll not catch her.’
Rhoda said, ‘I’m going to look after Richard.’
The old woman made no reply. She had seated herself on a chair, her hands folded on her lap, her skirts falling neatly around her; she looked oddly prim and orderly in the chaos of the room, as though she had contrarily decided at this late stage to conduct herself in an acceptable manner. The sun fell full on her face, but she did not flinch from it. She did not look at Rhoda or seem to hear her.
Rhoda said to Richard Oliver, ‘You had better come to the kitchen.’ He was very weak now and she had to support him as he walked. Blood stained the carpet as they passed Hester, sitting quietly like an old dry lizard in the sun.
‘We’ll have to get this shirt off,’ Rhoda said. ‘Do you think you can help?’
‘Anna! I must . . .’
‘Just try to help me a little.’
‘I must go . . .’
‘You must get this shirt off!’
‘Anna . . .’ He spoke to himself, brokenly, and swayed forward.
Rhoda said gently, ‘Try to keep still if you possibly can.’
Hester sat in the sun. People crossed the hall, went up the stairs, into the bathroom; later their feet tramped more slowly as they carried Catherine’s body, broken on the rocks. Hester took no notice, nor did she draw attention to herself when the spasms came. The bones of the skull showed sharp beneath the withered flesh, the mouth caved in and a trickle of saliva ran down the chin.
Towards evening a policeman ran up the path with a message. Rhoda came to tell the news to Hester.
‘Thank God for that at least! They have found Anna. A fishing-boat saw smoke from a fire . . .’
When Hester took no notice, Rhoda felt her pulse; it was beating steadily, but the eyes had lost their brightness. When the doctor spoke to her, she showed no sign of hearing. The pulse continued to beat, but the last echo had died in the mind.
Cha
pter Nineteen
Dawn came. Serene and unselfconscious, it established its ascendancy over the night. There was no stress, no strain, none of the vaunting passion of sunset: the transformation was delicately done. Across the luminous void of the sky pale bands of pink spread out as though an unseen hand had flicked open a fan; a soft green gauze was stretched over the land, taking away all harshness of colour, all abruptness of contour. Only the air was sharp and clear as crystal.
In the room at the top of the house Anna thought how beautiful it was, this slow, gentle birth. Terrible things had happened. Catherine was dead and in the room below Hester lay mute and motionless, the nurse hunched by her bedside. It was wicked to be happy, to feel so free. Wicked. And yet, her heart sang, “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” She lay still so as not to wake Richard who needed this short respite: they had a long way to go. The light deepened. “As the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
The cliffs and the sea were rose-red. Later the birds came, seagulls, sparrows, an oyster-catcher. Anna was dressed and her packing nearly done. She knelt in front of her suitcase. Her hair was loose and she put up her arms and drew the dark mane back so that it rested between her shoulder-blades. Richard, watching her, felt a shiver of pain and pleasure at the familiar gesture. Already he was accumulating memories. A little frightened, he realized how much he had invested in her already. Would she be a trustworthy custodian? His eyes searched her face. The line of temple, cheek and jaw was drawn with immaculate clarity, a miracle of art. But something, not art, had softened the face; the eyes had more depth, the mouth more tenderness. Nevertheless, it was a resolute face.
‘This is all,’ she said.
She stared at the bundle of neatly folded clothes, at the little pile of tattered books, the oddments of cheap pottery: the whole of her past life in one small case. She looked down, marvelling, and then she looked up, beyond him to where the topmost branches of the cedar were still against the deepening blue sky. She gazed at the old tree, confidently asking what life had in store for her.