The Forgotten Story (26 page)

For a long time he was too preoccupied with his thoughts to feel any sense of his own isolation. Tom wasn't playing fair. This was not a solemn compact to help Patricia as first planned, but a one-sided flow of confidences with nothing in return. Tom, he felt, was using him to obtain this information, and the information was not being turned to Pat's benefit, but to Tom's own. There had been the incident of his last visit to Mount House when the tall grey-haired man was present, a stranger to whom he was apparently expected to speak as freely as to Tom. Now there was tonight with its impression of divided loyalties, its sense of confidences withheld. However it had begun, he was being treated as a child again, as a pawn in a game considered outside his comprehension.

Midnight was past before he reached Swanpool, and until now perplexity and disappointment had been stronger than any childish fear. Only when he began to walk down the long snaky hill which led to the pool did he realise that in a few minutes he would have to pass the cemetery. Only then did he realise with an extraordinary shock of conviction that this was the occasion he had dreamed about; when he would meet Uncle Joe at the gates and walk home with him, and when they reached the restaurant they would find it in ruins and the ball of moss would be in his hand and something unnameable stirring in the shop.

For perhaps half a minute he stopped in his stride and considered turning back. Then common-sense reasserted itself, reason gently unclasped those alien fingers; he smiled unconvincingly and went on his way.

Strange that a simple, tree-rimmed reedy pool which one has seen so many times by day can by night become lonely and fogbound and sinister. All the way round its edge he was pursued by the sound of the waves breaking on the steep, pebbly shore. It was like the tipping of bags of small coal: the first heavy fall when the wave broke, then the rattle of the small coal as the bag was pulled away. It was like the loneliness of life, the loneliness of himself.

He began to climb the hill towards the cemetery, thinking hard of his grievances and mistakes, striving hard to regain that armour of preoccupation which had protected him so far; no doubt his own mistakes far outweighed his grievances; Tom was right to look on the matter of the Will as a cause already lost; his own proper course should have been to have waited until Pat returned for Christmas; and – and then …

And then there was a fight in the cemetery. A white glow like the rising moon below the horizon.

He stopped and told himself that the light came from one of the houses behind. He went on a few paces and stopped again. The light was in the cemetery and near the gate. It was not the light of a lantern or of a torch or of a candle, but just a white glow showing through the fog. An indistinct glow in the swirling mists.

He couldn't understand it. He went on a bit farther, stopped again, biting his finger-nail. Nothing to do with him; run past and don't bother to look. Something perhaps which had no right to be there, but it was not at all his business to inquire what.

On a clear night he would have been able to trust his eyes. The fog had spread its web over the land and even normal things were imbued with enormity and suspicion.

By now he was close beside the cemetery wall. He edged along it until he came near the top corner where Uncle Joe and Aunt Christine were buried side by side. The fog was thicker than it had yet been anywhere. But he was now so near that nothing could hide the exact location of the light. It was beside the gate, about twelve paces inside, and came from behind a wooden or canvas screen which apparently had been erected across the path just there.

A possible explanation suddenly came to him, and his slow breath of relief mingled with the fog. Someone no doubt had died and the sexton, being pressed for time, was working on after dark to prepare the grave. To confirm this view his nearer approach brought the sound of a scraping spade and the thud of heavy earth.

Then he heard the murmur of voices.

There was still no reason why he should have inquired further. He could have walked on up the hill and kept his eyes and his thoughts averted. But a force stronger than fear made him stop at the gate of the cemetery. He felt himself to be in the grip of some compelling attraction. And there was an inevitability about the location of the diggers.

As he went in a figure loomed up, and he ducked down against the first grave-stone with a thumping heart. Tall and dark the figure, with an oddly shaped hat. It was a canvas screen, he saw; there were several figures behind it, and he thought at least six lanterns. The figure which had passed him had taken up its stand by the gate, thus cutting off his retreat. Recklessly he climbed across the stones, striking his boot on one, but there was noise behind the screen and he reached it unheard.

Nightmare-like now, he was gripped with an urgent necessity to know the worst; so inimical did delay seem that he might have taken out his knife and slashed at the canvas to see what was happening within. But there was already an inch-long tear through which he could peer.

There were five lanterns and seven men and a number of grave-stones. So bright were the lanterns that he could see the lettering on two of the grave-stones, words which he had come to know by heart. One of them had only just been put up. Two men in shirt sleeves were in one grave almost up to their shoulders and partly screened from view by the pile of mineral-yellow soil which they had dug up. Another grave was also open, and beside it and beside an even larger mound of rubble was something Anthony had seen before. Two men with masks and aprons were bending over it. A third, in a silk hat, was standing well back from them. Two policemen made up the party.

Anthony turned and ran, ran careless of noise and stumblings towards the outer gate. He ran as if the Devil and all Hell were after him. He ran on wings of fear, while ice-cold sweat stood out on his face and hands. He reached the gate and was through it while a figure turned and grasped at him. He ran along beside the cemetery blindly and wildly, turned away from the other gate and up the hill. No dreams troubled him now, no fear of dreams. He would gladly have gone back to all the bad dreams in the world. What he was running away from was reality. All his life as a result of this experience he would do the same.

He ran up the hill and across the main road and down the hill, with the thick mist closing in behind him and the hand of Fate heavy on his shoulder. Twice he almost fell, and in the wider spaces of the Moor where the landmarks were less easily seen he strayed across and lost his sense of direction.

Had he come to a stop there his instincts and fears might have been brought to a stop as well. Even a short pause might have set him thinking. But he found the next narrow street just in time and fled on towards his home. In no time, though his breath was coming in great gasps, he was before the back-door of the shop. Panting, he stood on the mat and tried the handle. It opened and he saw that the kitchen was lighted. Before he could withdraw Aunt Madge caught sight of him. But he was not sure that he wanted to withdraw. He was too far gone for manoeuvre or temporising.

They were clearing away the remnants of the evening's feast.

‘Anthony!' said Aunt Madge. ‘I … Bed, I thought you. How have you …?'

He sat on the nearest chair and panted for breath; in this warmth there was less air. The perspiration under his cap was still cold, as if it were a part of the mist and not of his own body. He put his head down.

‘Disobedience.' Aunt Madge's voice came through walls of fear and nausea. She began to talk, to scold, to chew the cud of her grievance. For a time her words glanced off unheeded, only one or two coming through like solitary survivors of an attacking army. They kept him in touch with his surroundings, they and the grip of his chair. His normal boyish mind kept struggling to revert to its own preoccupations; solid, decent, homely things; the smell of new bread and kicking a ball in a narrow street, the feel of the ball in his fingers; lemon pudding and sleep; rowing across the harbour, Pat's laughter, his mother's voice: thoughts that were his brain's warmth and refuge. But not yet, not yet could he escape. This other thing was too near, it blocked everything else from view. Life it seemed never would be the same again, for how could the ugliness and horror ever grow smaller? His dreary existence of these last weeks seemed golden with health by comparison with what the future must be.

He heard his aunt call something and Perry emerged from the scullery, an apron still about his waist.

A hand touched his cap, lifted it off, and his head was turned up towards the light.

‘Hell's hounds! Where've you been, boy? Been swimming? Your hair's as wet –'

Anthony looked up and his voice came back.

‘They're taking them away! I saw them. The police it is! I don't understand!'

‘Who are? Taking who away?' said the voice on a different note.

‘Uncle Joe. Aunt … Christine. I came past. They were digging. They'd put a screen round. The …
It
… was on top. They'd … the lid … they'd …'

Tears choked further words. Tears streamed down his cheeks for about a minute. The hand had left his head. Uncle Perry went away and sat on a chair.

The tears were a safety valve letting out dangerous accumulations of terror. He constantly smeared his face with his sleeve and the back of his hands. When the tears began to stop he groped for his handkerchief and wiped the last of them away. He saw a drop or two fall beside Perry's chair and thought that perhaps he too was crying. Then he saw liquid trickling down the side of his chin and Aunt Madge withdrawing a glass which she had been trying to put between Perry's teeth.

‘Your uncle,' said Mrs Veal. ‘Been took queer. Been – been drinking too much. This excitement. I never. What have you been doing, Anthony? Hi wish to know the truth.'

Even in this crisis he knew that the whole truth would not do.

‘I – I sneaked out, Aunt Madge. I wanted – wanted to see where the swans slept at night. Jack told me – Jack told me they didn't nest like other birds –'

‘Yes, yes.'

He realised she was not interested in this part of his story. Her eye-glasses were not quite still; there was a tremor moving through them, as a newspaper will quiver when there is machinery beating somewhere below. Her small eyes seemed to have disappeared behind them, as if they were hiding themselves in the folds of her puffy face. Anthony went on to tell what he had seen. While he was doing so Uncle Perry belched and a thin trickle of saliva joined the driblet of whisky on his chin.

Abruptly Aunt Madge set down the tumbler and took out her own handkerchief.

‘Envy, malice, hatred, all uncharitableness,' she said in a high-pitched voice as if it were being squeezed out of her. ‘My life … All my life. Pursued. Said, Saul, why persecutest thou me? All my life. People. Evil tongues. My dear mother. My dear sister. Always the same.' She put an uncertain handkerchief waveringly up to her small snub nose. ‘People, evil people, whispering. The way they insinuate. All the wickedness of this world. My mother, one of the noblest of women. Never loved any one more, unless it was my dear husband. Persecuted by evil tongues. Always the same. I have been. Bearing my cross of loneliness. And now. Desecration of the hallowed dead. Wicked evil tongues. They know I'm all alone. Poor widow. They think they can do anything. But they can't. I'll see them prosecuted. I'll see them … utmost letter of the law. My poor husband. Insinuation …'

Perry lifted his head from the side of the chair. His face was the colour of Aunt Madge's pastry before it went in the oven. His skin was the same texture too, thick and soft and slightly pitted; his face was twitching persistently.

‘Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips,' said Aunt Madge, hoarsely and rapidly, ‘and from a deceitful tongue. Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar. Remember, Anthony, when you are grown up. A lesson in the wickedness of the world. Remember your aunt.' She waved her hand. ‘Calumny is her lot. She has bore herself with Christian fortitude. When thy enemy, smitest thee upon the one cheek … Remember a delicate woman broken upon the wheel. Never have pity, Anthony, for Philistines shall put out your eyes. They will stop at nothing, dragging even the bones mouldering to dust.' Her voice quivered higher. ‘
Dragging
them, I say, out of the … The Serpent has them in his power. Wicked evil that they are! Won't even let the dead, the blessed dead, rest in peace. Interfering,
dragging
them out of their sleep. Vile, vile in your sight! The light of the wicked shall be put out!'

Perry's hand closed round the glass and slowly transferred it to his mouth. It clicked against his teeth and the liquid disappeared as down a drain. He tried to get up from his chair, but failed.

‘Why should they do it, Aunt Madge?' Anthony asked. ‘ Why should they do it? And who is it, anyway?'

Perry's next attempt put him upon his feet, and he reached the cupboard in the corner where the whisky bottle was kept. Aunt Madge lowered herself into a chair and took off her pince-nez and wiped them. When next she spoke her voice was lower. Her eyes had reappeared.

‘Being unwell does not entitle you … Perry, not neat alcohol. We must act. We must take steps … restitution of our rights. We must see Mr Cowdray. We must –'

‘I said this'd happen!' Perry drained his glass and glanced sidelong at the boy. ‘God! I said this'd happen. All along.'

‘You should be in bed, Anthony,' said Aunt Madge. ‘ You must have been … Yes, upset, I'm sure. Go to bed. Better in the morning.'

‘But what are they doing?' he demanded.

Aunt Madge put on her pince-nez. ‘A dispute. Over the … your dear uncle. The Veals have a vault in the old church-yard … the parish church. That woman, your Aunt Louisa, wished him to be buried there. We did not. They have made a lawsuit of hit. They have acted while we … We must do something. Something must be done in the morning.'