A man who cried (9 page)

then, Dad?”

”Open her coat and look inside for a pocket in her skirt.”

It was a full minute later when the boy, as if he had found a treasure,cried, ”I’ve found them, Dad

! I’ve found them, the keys.”

”Fetch them here, quick.”

Abel looked at the keys in the palm of his hand. There were four on a ring and one by itself. He

tried that first. Fumbling, he inserted it into the lock of the iron bracelet, then paused for a split second before turning it, and when it moved with ease as if it had been newly oiled and the two

half circles fell apart, he slowly slid to the floor and for a full minute he stayed there as if he

were about to go to sleep while the boy stood looking at him open-mouthed.

When he did move it was almost with a spring, then he was on his feet, and with both hands he

tore at the shackle around his ankle.

Now he was standing over her, and as he gazed down on her a new fear enveloped him. She

looked dead; there was blood running down the side of her face from her hair. Oh my God! He

put his hand tightly across his mouth, then turned his head slowly to-

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wards Dick as the boy said, ”She’s bleedin’, Dad^he’s bleedin’.”

Reluctantly, he lowered himself down on to his knees beside her on the stone floor but he had to

force his hand out to take hold of her wrist. When a pulse beat came to him he closed his eyes

and drew in a long breath. With more courage now, he took her by the shoulder and called to her

as if she were at a distance, ”Wake up ! Come on, wake up!” But the only movement she made,

and that an involuntary one, was when her head fell to one side and the flow of blood oozing

through her hair increased.

He pulled himself to his feet and stood rubbing his chaffed wrist as he looked down on her. It

could be just a surface scrape. . . . But what if there was a gash there and she bled to death ? He

stepped back. Well, whatever happened to her he wasn’t staying to find out. He’d had enough,

more than enough. Staggering now as if slightly drunk, he said, ”Come on, get your pack, we’re

going.” Dick obeyed him immediately by grabbing up his rucksack and ramming his blanket into

it; then he ran to the opening of the barn and there he waited, his body half turned as if on the

point of a

run.

When Abel reached the barn door, his rucksack hitched high on his shoulders, he turned and gave

one last look towards the figure lying now like a dead animal waiting to be carted away; then

turning swiftly, his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he propelled him across the yard at a run. But

having passed through the gate, he stopped. He did not look back but stared ahead. What if she

didn’t recover and lay there all day, perhaps into the night and died of exposure ? They could

have him up.

Don’t be silly. He shook his head at himself. Nobody knew he had been here; it could be days

before anyone looked in again. . . . Aye, it could, and she’d certainly be dead by then.

It was as if the words had been spoken by somebody else and they brought his chin in to his

chest, and when the boy’s hand gripped his and the small voice said, ”What’s the matter, Dad?”

he took no notice but continued to stand, his head bent, until, giving another hitch to the

rucksack, he walked on.

Five minutes later he was standing on top of the hill looking into the distance down on to the

cluster of houses he had noticed the night before last and to the left where lay a narrow strip of

road leading to them. And now, so quickly did he go down the hill that the boy had to run to keep

up with him.

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The first cottage they came to was actually some three hundred yards from the village itself, and

as he passed the gate the door opened and a man came out, evidently a farm worker. He stood on

the step for a moment and gazed at the pair before saying, ”Mornin’.”

”Good mornin’.” Abel stopped and waited for the man to come to the gate and he definitely

surprised the man by saying abruptly, ”Is there a doctor in that village, or ... or a polis . . .

policeman?”

’Aye, there’s one but not t’other. Polis is a good two miles away but Doc Armstrong, he’s in the

first house.” The man nodded along the road.

”Thanks, thanks.” Abel was about to hurry away when the man added, ”But you won’t find him

there this mornin’, he’s over at young Phil Gallespie’s ; his wife’s havin’ her first, an’ hard goin’

with her it is they say. Saw doc goin’ along there past the gate here with his buggy close on ten

last night, hasn’t come back yet, else wife would have heard him. Light sleeper she is, wake half

the night, sleeps half the day. You feelin’ bad or summat?”

”No, no.” Abel shook his head. ”It’s . . . it’s the lady over . . . over at the pig farm; she’s had an accident.”

”Ah, Miss Tilda.” The man smiled broadly now. ”What’s happened Tilly-the-touched now ?”

Abel paused before answering. Tilly-the-touched, he had called her; it must be common

knowledge that she was barmy. ”She . . . she had a fall.”

”Well, I shouldn’t worry about her, the doc will see to her when he gets back. Related he is to

her, half-cousin he is ; the only one that bothers about her . . . ’cos he’s the only one she’ll allow to bother about her. Barmy, barmy for years. She should be locked up, everybody says so. ...

Speak of the devil, there, look ! there’s the buggy. That’s the doc comin’ back. See, round the

end of the road there. You’d better go and tell him, although he won’t thank you ’cos he’ll be

wantin’ his bed.”

Abel nodded, then hurried along the road with Dick following him towards the advancing trap,

and just before coming abreast of the horse he hailed the driver and, looking up at the man sitting

on the leather-covered seat, he said, ”Excuse me, sir.”

The doctor drew the trap to a stop and, gazing wearily down at Abel, asked, ”Yes, what is it?”

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r

”It’s . . . it’s the lady over at the pig farm.” He didn’t say your relative. ”There’s something I

must tell you.”

He watched the doctor ease his soft trilby from off his brow and push his fingers through his hair,

then almost sigh, ”What’s happened now ?”

”Well, sir, I stopped there the night before last and asked if we could sleep in the barn, my son

and I” - he nodded towards Dick ”an’ she said, yes, if... if I worked for a night’s rest and some

food. This I did all day yesterday. Then she got it into her head that she wanted me to stay on.

She . . . she tried to make me promise and I said I couldn’t, we ... we were leaving in the

morning. You see I am making me way North. Well. . . well -” He shook his head as if he

couldn’t believe the substance of what he was about to say and he brought the words out at a

rush; ”Believe it or not, sir, she had me chained up. When I woke up I found meself chained both

by the ankle and the wrist.” He held up his hand to show the chaffed skin. ”She must have put

something in the cocoa she brought last night because I remember nothing until, as« I said, I

woke up. Then she kept at me to swear by the Bible. I would have sworn on anything to get

loose, but when I promised she just left. Well” - he again shook his head - ”to cut it short, sk, I

got my boy to look for a piece of wood or anything with which I could hit out at her. He found an

iron rod and . . . and I used it on her, but only on her arm. As she fell she must have struck her

head against the stone floor for it split open somewhere at the back. I tried to get her round, but I couldn’t. Anyway, all I wanted was to get away from that place but. . . but I thought. . . well, she might peg out lying there. I’m sorry. I ... I didn’t mean to hurt her but to find meself chained up, well, I nearly went mad, I ...”

”It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t harass yourself.” The doctor sighed. ”But I think you’d better come back with me.”

”Back there ?” Abel stepped on to the grass verge in protest, saying, ”Oh no! sir. I don’t want to

go back there ever; I don’t want to see that place again.”

”Well, from what you’ve told me I’m afraid I’ll have to insist. What if she’s dead ? Come on,

don’t worry, get the boy up, the sooner we get there the sooner we’ll see what damage has been

done.”

Abel hesitated for a moment before swinging Dick up into the

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back of the trap; then pulling himself up, he sat in the corner of the seat, his body bent forward,

his hands hanging between his knees, the rucksack still on his back. . . .

It seemed to him it was only seconds later when there he was again standing in that awful barn

looking down on the woman while the doctor examined her.

”Well, she’s not dead. It’ll take more than a fall I’m afraid to kill Matilda, but she’s got a nasty gash in the back of her head and I’m afraid you’ve managed to break her arm. Now we’ve got to

get her into the house. Give me a hand. There’s nothing of her, she’s as light as a feather.”

And Abel found she was indeed as light as a feather, he could have carried her himself, all her

weight seemed to be in her clothes.

”We won’t get in the front door, we’ll have to go round the back.”

Having pushed their way through the back door, then through a large kitchen, a hall and now into

a sitting-room, Abel’s mouth almost fell into a gape with surprise, because the contrast between

the inside and outside of the house was amazing. Everything here was shining; the furniture and

the floors were polished to a high intensity, the curtains were white; there were even flowers in

the vase on the table.

”Just lay her on the couch here.”

”I can’t believe it.”

”What?” The doctor looked to where Abel was standing gazing round the room, then said, ”Oh,

the spruceness. Oh, that’s all part of Tilda . . . ah, she’s coming round. Look, help me to get these coats off her before she becomes fully conscious else I’ll never get them off. I’d better give her a jab ; then set her arm too, for they won’t have her in the hospital, they’ll send her over to the

asylum and if she goes in this time she’ll never come out again. Poor Tilda.”

Abel stood back from the couch. The woman had opened her eyes and though they were levelled

on him they seemed expressionless, until their gaze took in the doctor; then there came into them

a look of bright eagerness and she made to raise herself, saying as she did so, ”Oh, John! John!”

”It’s all right, Matilda, it’s all right. You’ve just had a fall.”

”John, make him stay.” Now she was clinging on to the doctor

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It’.

and gabbling, ”He was sent by God to see to trahgs and get the place ready for Arthur coming

back, but. . . but he wouldn’t stay. He wouldn’t stay, John. M ... make him stay, John. Make him

stay.”

”All right, my dear, all right. Now just you lie back; you’ve hurt your arm and your head. I’m just

going to give you a little jab and you’ll go to sleep, and when you wake up Molly will be here to

see you. You don’t mind Molly, do you ?”

”I want him to stay, John. I want him to stay.”

”There you are. There you are.”

When she closed her eyes and her body went limp the doctor turned to Abel and said, ”You

certainly made an impression on her. Now let’s get her fixed up. Just hold her arm, so. . . .”

It was not until half an hour later, in the kitchen, that the doctor, having poured out three cups of tea, was handing one to Abel and another to Dick, asked, ”Where do you hail from?”

”Sussex.”

”Oh, Sussex. Nice county Sussex. I know it well. Which part?”

Abel hesitated a moment before saying, ”Hastings.”

”Oh, Hastings. I know Hastings and roundabout. What’s your name? In all the excitement I’ve

forgotten to ask.”

Abel hesitated. He had said that he came from Hastings and the man had said he knew Hastings

and roundabout. Perhaps that was why in the next fleeting second he decided to give a false

name. Well, it wasn’t exactly false, he told himself, for it was his mother’s maiden name.

”Gray,” he said. ”Abel Gray.”

As the doctor turned again towards the teapot, nodding as he said, ”Gray. Oh, Gray,” Abel

glanced swiftly at Dick and with an almost imperceptible shake of his head warned him to

silence.

”I knew some Grays ; they lived in Rye. Have you any relations there?”

”No, sir.”

”Well, now, Mr Gray, what am I going to say to you for all the trouble Matilda has put you

through ? I can understand it was a very frightening experience.”

”It was that. Yes, it was that.”

”You’re not going to make anything of it, report her or anything?”

”Oh, no, no, sir. All I want to do is to be on my way.”

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”That’s good of you. She’s to be pitied you know; she’s had a very sad life. We are related way

back. Her mother and my father were second cousins. But there’s been insanity all along the line

on her mother’s side. The poor woman ended up in the asylum and Matilda was left to bring

herself up. All this business of the shining house, the waiting, goes back to a hand they had here.

She fell in love with him and the young swine he was, he would have married her just to get the

place and the money, only he got one of the village girls into trouble and so that put paid to the

romance. Then he went to France and she’s still waiting for him coming back.”

”Yes, she told me; she said he was missing.”

”Missing!” The doctor laughed. ”It would be better for his wife if he was; she’s just given birth

to her eleventh.”

”He certainly came back then.” There was a suspicion of a chuckle in Abel’s voice and the