The Empty Frame (14 page)

Almost exactly a year later, Magnus went swimming on his own, at the hidden bathing place by the river. In the last twelve months he had practised whenever he could, and he'd won two certificates. He was confident now, and didn't at all mind going out of his depth, but he'd never had another chance to swim in a river pool. He'd been planning to do this ever since they'd known they were coming back to the Abbey. He regarded it as a private challenge.

That morning, there had been a ceremony down at the church to which the three children had been invited. The vault underneath the Neale memorial had been opened up and the child's skeleton buried inside it. The experts had told them that nobody would ever be able to say for certain who the child was, and whether or not he had been cruelly treated by his mother, or by both his parents, or indeed by persons unknown. He might have died by accident. No explanation was given at the ceremony and the child was not named. But Colonel Stickley had wanted the anonymous bones laid to rest. Only then, he believed, would permanent peace come to the Abbey.

Miss Adeline, frail and more bird-like than ever, sat by the Colonel's side in the front pew, and next to her sat Magnus, Floss and Sam. None of the children doubted that they were saying goodbye at last to little William Neale, and neither did the old lady. In this very church Sam had seen the child's mother, in her old age, point to the Neale memorial, silently entreating him to perform this last office for her son. He had talked to Miss Adeline about it. She had a strong belief in God. She told him he had been granted this special meeting because, like the disciple Thomas, he had doubted most. She told them all that she had always known that the mother would walk in the Abbey until her little son was found and given his peace.

Magnus found that he missed the Lady Alice. It was as if the business between them was not quite finished. He wished he, and not Sam, had seen her up in the minstrels' gallery, because he believed she knew that he had suffered too, like her own son. That was why they had come to the Abbey in the first place, it wasn't mere coincidence.

Magnus had liked the simple service in the church and he'd thought old Father Godless would have approved of it too. David Stickley had read from the Bible and had quoted the Neale family motto: “
Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear.
” They had chosen this reading because, as Colonel Stickley explained to the congregation, far too many people had been afraid of
the Lady Alice, both when she was alive and long after she was dead.

Magnus had become a special friend of David Stickley, mainly because of Arthur who, shortly after the three children had left for home, had given birth to a litter of kittens. David had been right about the kitten being “too fat”. He'd looked after them and found people to take them. One of these was the children's mother. Their kitten was most definitely male, and gingery, like “Mother” Arthur, who had broken all the rules, being a female marmalade cat. Cousin Maude, embarrassed at her mistake, had wanted to re-name her Guinevere, after King Arthur's wife. But nobody wanted that, it was much too fussy a name and besides, Magnus had informed them that the real Guinevere had gone off with Sir Lancelot. So she remained “Mother Arthur”, had more kittens and became very matronly.

It smelled sweet and fresh by the river. The summer had been hot again, though not so scorching as the year before, and the day the children had arrived the weather had broken, bringing a lot of heavy rain. The river was flowing quite fast today, and the water was a tawny yellow colour.

All was calm in the clearing by the wonderful pool. Magnus took a deep breath, bracing himself for the shock of the cold water, and stepped in. The stones on
the bottom were slimy and he slipped about, so he moved forwards, deliberately getting out of his depth. Then he began to swim methodically from one side of the pool to the other, counting. He could cross from one bank to the other in thirty-five strokes, which was the same as doing a length at their local pool. He decided to do at least thirty lengths, before getting out. It would be a long time before he had such a marvellous place to swim again.

At first he loved it, lazily sculling up and down, occasionally edging up to the waterfall which, after the rain, was crashing down quite forcefully into the pool, making a churning yellow-brown foam. He would have liked to have sat underneath it and let the water run over him, as Floss had done last year, but he was nervous of being pushed under, by the force of it. He knew you should treat all running water with respect.

Eventually, he found himself moving more into the centre of the pool. Here, it was absolutely still, so still that insects had gathered in clouds and he saw dragonflies take off silkily from the glittering surface, and disappear towards the shore. But he was getting cold. He realised that swimming here was very different from a heated indoor pool with a hot shower afterwards. He mustn't take any risks. He began to strike out for the bank, where he'd left his clothes.

But he found, suddenly, that he couldn't make
headway. He was doing perfect strokes, exactly as before, except that he had to do them much more vigorously, to propel himself forwards. But he was not moving. He could feel water running strongly against his legs, water that felt like a wide, solid leash, knotting itself round him, pulling him under. The deceptive, still centre of the pool had become the centre of some current, active only, perhaps, after torrential rain. Yet this pool always looked so safe, so innocent.
Why on earth had nobody warned him
?

In panic, he flipped over on to his back and kicked hard, trying to get out of the whirlpool that way. But it was worse than before. The minute he turned over and faced the sky the water pulled him down more forcefully. He knew he was losing his strength, and he went right under, swallowing mouthfuls of brackish water. Now he began to struggle, kicking out desperately, not thinking about swimming any more, doing anything to keep himself afloat. But he was going down a second time. Once more and it would be over.

As he began to drown, the faces of the people he most loved passed across his vision: Father Godless, the children's mother, David Stickley – and Arthur, “Mother” Arthur surrounded by her kittens. Then there was another face, not in his mind but actually on the river bank, the ancient care-worn face of an old woman dressed in widow's black, who stood there
motionless, her thin white hands clasped together as she stared out across the water.

Magnus cried, “Help me, somebody, oh
help me
!” and a voice came to him across the seething yellow water, “I am coming, child, I am coming, little bird.”

He heard nothing more and he saw nothing. Afterwards, he remembered nothing except that, as he was going down into the water for the last time and it was closing over his head with a great singing noise, he felt himself being wrapped round by strong arms, wrapped round and lifted up. And he felt himself being taken slowly across the pool, leaning backwards, so it seemed, against the breast of a mother, before being carried out of the water and laid gently to rest in the sunshine.

He was to dream many times about this escape from death, but he told no-one about it, ever, except that, years afterwards, he tried to describe what had happened in a letter to Father Godless, telling him also about the service in the church, the service for the little boy whose skeleton he had found, who had at last been laid to rest, and how that boy's mother had saved his life.

And he always remembered what the old man wrote back to him. How strange and unexpected it was, he said, that saying in the Bible, the one which told us that it wasn't courage that cast out fear, it was love.