The Guardian Stones (11 page)

“But who else could those clothes I found belong to?” Edwin asked.

“That's not our problem, is it? I'm sure none of the boys that vanished were wearing them.”

“You're right,” Edwin conceded. “I'm sorry, Grace, you know your job better than I do.”

He felt her hand briefly on his shoulder, her touch as light as one of the birds he'd heard singing in the forest.

“Never mind, Edwin. I know you mean well. It's almost time for Churchill's speech. Come over to the pub with me. I want to hear Churchill but I don't want more trouble from Tom Green.”

Chapter Twenty-one

The prime minister might have been standing behind the bar of the Guardians pub so strongly did his voice ring out from the battery-powered Philco. His words echoed around a room that was only sparsely occupied. Susannah and Emily were there, as well as a group of farmers. Green lounged at a table in the back, scowling in Grace's direction. It was just as well Edwin accompanied her. He had served as chaperone during innumerable university field trips

He caught Green peering at Grace again and gave him his best “I've got my eye on you so don't try anything” look. Green dropped his gaze. Susannah and Emily, although seated side by side, might each have been alone, staring straight ahead. The farmers all craned their heads in the same direction. Everyone peered so raptly at the boxy wireless, it might have been a religious icon. Were they looking to Churchill to save them from the evil of Nazi Germany? Edwin couldn't grasp an evil that large. Yet, he clearly felt evil that was small in the scheme of things—the sort that cut a loved one down prematurely or stalked a child.

Polly, the woman Grace had described as a little slow, sat huddled in a corner muttering about evil forces and “Oh, there are malign powers abroad all right! Evil forces and the evil power of the Guardian Stones!”

“Quiet, Polly,” Duncan said firmly. “Let's hear what Mr. Churchill has to say.”

“Piffle,” added Susannah. “The woman's touched in the head.”

Grace rolled her eyes at Edwin, but Edwin wasn't so sure that what Polly said was a matter for eye-rolling. Standing stones were strange things. Older than history. No one knew why they had been placed here and there, but intelligent human beings had done so for what they considered good reasons.

Edwin heard whispering from the farmers. Were they sneaking glances at him or was he imagining things? He looked at Grace but she was staring past Duncan at the radio. Duncan, an elbow on the bar, was half-turned away from the room. Neither appeared to be paying any attention to the farmers. Emily and Susannah did not turn to look behind them.

When Churchill finished and the BBC announcer came on, Duncan turned the wireless off. The farmers got up and walked over to Edwin and Grace. He didn't take them in as individuals. There was no time. They were like the students rushing into his classroom on the first day. But rather than an undifferentiated group of callow youths these were big, weathered, rawboned men. A huge hand grabbed the front of Edwin's sweater and yanked him to his feet. “Harry Wainman said we ought to welcome you to Noddweir,” the farmer told him. Grace jumped up but another farmer had already put himself between her and Edwin.

“What do you think you're doing?” Grace demanded.

They ignored her.

“Harry says you claim to be studying them rocks on the hill. In the middle of a war,” said the man gripping Edwin's sweater. “He said we might want to show our appreciation for Americans who come over here to live in our houses and eat our food and draw pictures of rocks while this country's on its knees. You think we haven't been watching you?”

“You've been spying on me!” Edwin's outrage overrode his physical fear.

“Spying,” one said. “Now there's a word for you!”

“Stop this immediately,” Grace said.

Revolted, Edwin grabbed the stranger's hand grasping his sweater and tried to pry it off. The fist might as well have been made of stone.

The farmer laughed. “Uncomfortable, Mr. Big Professor? Imagine how we feel over here, left to fight Hitler by ourselves.”

Edwin hadn't been in a physical fight since he was a child. If he had, he might have been more keenly aware he was no match for any of these men, let alone four of them. But his anger and humiliation overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation. He swung at the mocking face.

Blood exploded from his assailant's nose. Obviously, the fellow had been totally unprepared for a counterattack.

“Oh, you silly bugger,” he heard Grace murmur as the farmers raised their fists. Suddenly they stopped and retreated, cursing, before vanishing out the door.

Duncan stood behind the bar with a rifle. “I wish you hadn't hit him, Professor.” He lowered the weapon. “They knew very well I was going to bring this out before they had a chance to lay a finger on you. It was just for show.”

Grace wiped fretfully at the blood spots spattered on her blouse. “You were a little slow stepping in, Duncan.”

Edwin suddenly felt shaky, dropping into his chair. “Sorry. I haven't had time to catch on to all your local customs.”

Grace looked around the room.

Edwin realized what she was seeing. Or not seeing. “I wondered why Constable Green didn't help. He must have left early.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Special Constable Tom Green ambled down the path between the sides of the ugly old church with its vicarage and Susannah Radbone's cottage. The church was darker than the graveyard. The fading light of dusk glimmered on headstones above former residents of the village. Every one of them had probably been christened and married in the church and made a final visit to that same chilly building before having dirt piled on them.

Strange that most of Noddweir's residents had probably never set foot outside their own county, except for a prewar holiday in Blackpool. Tom reckoned if he'd been born here he would have run off the first chance he got.

Now of course the handful of the village's young men not in reserved occupations were serving overseas, in places unrevealed in brief letters home so no clues would be provided to the enemy if they captured a bag or two of letters. On the whole Green was happy enough to be in Noddweir, given the circumstances.

Thinking of the enemy reminded him of the American professor. A quick wash of anger heated his face as he paused halfway down the path, noting the Radbone cottage was already blacked out, its thatched roof stenciled against the remnants of the day.

Pity. He would have enjoyed bawling the old girl out. He'd already corrected a couple of villagers who were careless with their blackout curtains, despite it not being totally dark yet.

No good leaving important things to the last moment, was there?

Next time they'd be lucky to get off without a fine.

His thoughts returned to Edwin Carpenter. What right did a foreigner have to come over here and interfere in a bit of harmless flirting? So what if there was a wife and child waiting for Green to visit them in Liverpool?

Now he thought about it, Hilda was not particularly worried when he was appointed as a special constable. Where he was to serve annoyed her.

“Some poky little place where nothing happens except the cows get out and trample someone's cabbages,” she had sniffed. “Forget that. I'm staying here with Mother. Besides, I've got real war work to do.”

And welcome to it, Green thought. Thank God for the withered foot keeping him out of the forces. Though he walked with little trace of a limp, running was awkward and marching long distances well nigh impossible. Now the defect he hated had come to his rescue, taking him away from Hilda and his in-laws, not to mention the fretful baby.

He'd have gone daft if he'd had to listen much longer to it squawking all night.

Not to mention his in-laws quarreling with Hilda. Fact was, if they had not been bombed out they would not have moved in with her parents.

As for Hilda's war work, she liked driving ambulances. Gave her an excuse to get out the house.

Was she as glad to be shot of him as he was of her?

His thoughts returned to the professor. If only he hadn't shown up when he was attempting to cuddle Grace, she would have been obliging. Of course, she'd pretended to be offended, just like all of them, but really she was interested in him. Overdid the dislike act, in his opinion. These country girls were not as subtle in their ways as those in town, going by experience.

Besides, the blackout offered new opportunities in that line.

He paused beside the churchyard to rest his foot.

The evening air carried the grating sound of children's voices quarrelling. From the vicarage, no doubt. The vicar had allowed himself to be burdened with a whole gang of brats.

He shuddered.

Nasty things to have underfoot, children.

Green turned away to retrace his steps when a loud shout from the darkening forest attracted his attention.

Jack Chapman appeared from its depths, coming toward him, unfortunately.

“Constable!” Chapman shouted.

“What's the matter?” Even in the dim light he could see the man was terrified. He must have been, if he would accost Green for help.

“Seen it…up there by the stones…horrible, it were….not natural…” Chapman gasped.

“You saw something?”

“Said so, didn't I? Weren't human…a white thing…”

“Calm down and tell me what happened,” Green ordered.

“You stupid bugger! I'm trying to tell you! Stop interrupting!”

Green clamped his hand on Chapman's arm and shook it. “Get on with it then, you fool!”

Chapman recovered his breath. “It were like this, Tom. I been working on one of Wainman's machines and since it's getting dark I took a shortcut back through the forest—”

“Yes?”

“Just listen, will you?” Chapman said. “I was going along the path past the Guardians when I heard what sounded like singing.”

“Singing?”

“Just said so, didn't I?”

“What kind of singing?”

“Can't say. Strange singing. Like church hymns, but it wasn't. Point is, I looked up and I seen a figure that weren't…well, it weren't quite right, you know? A white figure. Like a ghost.”

“Is that why you carry that rifle, to protect yourself from ghosts?”

Chapman glanced down at the weapon. “Oh, no, not ghosts. You never know who you'll meet.”

“Poaching, was it?”

“No,” Chapman snapped. “You have to be prepared for anything these days! Spies, for instance.”

“Well, you better get home then and meet your dinner, hadn't you? I'll go up and look around.”

***

Night had already claimed the forest as Green climbed up the path from the village.

Chapman was an idiot. He'd obviously been poaching. Next time he'd not let him off. Still, Chapman owed him a favor now, which would likely be useful.

Rustlings in the undergrowth sounded strangely loud under the vast bowl of a starry sky glimpsed here and there through the overreaching limbs.

Green was uneasy. This wasn't Liverpool where the night was never as quiet as it was out here in the back of beyond. After a while the sound of traffic and the noise from docks and factories, all hard at work in the war effort, blended into the background, hardly to be noticed.

Here the quiet kept him awake.

He did not like the forest—too wild, too mysterious. Give him paved streets and raucous singing as the pubs turned out, foghorns hooting mournfully in the mist, hammering and crashing and shouts of men at work on the river, even air raid sirens. Not the smothered rustling of this mysterious dark place.

Walking along the narrow path, hemmed in by solid walls of shadowy vegetation, felt like walking into a dark alley.

And walking into dark alleys was dangerous.

Now stop that, he chastised himself as he stepped with relief into the open space surrounded by the Guardians. You're as big a fool as Chapman, listening to the ravings of a drunk like him.

Nothing different here, is there?

No?

Right.

Back to blackout patrol.

Green escaped thankfully down the path to the village.

Chapter Twenty-three

The sound of a door closing woke Edwin. Or so he decided when he tried to pinpoint what had interrupted his sleep. It was the middle of the night. His bedroom was pitch black. His heart pounded as if he'd had a nightmare.

Had someone gone out or come in? Front door or back? Was it someone who had a right to be in the house?

Or had he only dreamt the sound?

No, he was sure he had heard something. He sat up in bed and listened for noises from downstairs—footsteps, voices. He heard only the ringing in his ears.

There was nothing suspicious about a door closing at night, he told himself. Besides, this wasn't his house. Grace, or Martha for that matter, could come or go as they pleased. Still, with everything that had been happening…

He'd best go and see.

He wished he had a proper weapon, although the bedroom fireplace poker would do. He'd never had any use for guns. In Rochester he kept a baseball bat under the bed. Where the bat had come from, he couldn't remember. He'd had about as much interest in baseball as in firearms.

Unfortunately, the bat was still in upstate New York.

Groping in the dark, he found his dressing gown at the foot of the bed, pulled it on, padded to the bedroom door, and quietly opened it a crack.

A pale glow from downstairs partially illuminated the hallway.

It was unlikely an intruder would have lit a lamp.

Edwin went slowly downstairs, holding his breath. Grace, fully dressed, sat in the armchair by the fireplace. The clock on the mantelpiece showed ten minutes to midnight. Not as late as he'd imagined.

Edwin drew his dressing gown closer around him.

“Oh, Edwin there you are. Can't sleep?”

“No, I…er…was on the way out back…” Edwin lied.

“Hold on a moment.” Grace blew out the lamp. “We don't want Green coming round telling us to put that light out at this time of night, do we?”

Edwin gave a feeble smile, unseen in the darkness, and fumbled down the hallway to the back door, returning a few moments later having indeed found need to use the facilities.

“You can put the light on again.” He popped his head into the room where Grace sat.

“Yes. Come in a moment, would you?”

Edwin fumbled his way to a chair and sat down.

Grace made no move to re-light the lamp. “I've been sitting here for a while. I keep thinking about those missing kids,” she said. “Where in God's name could they be? I've prayed for them. I suppose we all have.”

Edwin hadn't, but he didn't say so. He couldn't see Grace in the darkness, yet she was more than a disembodied voice. He could feel her presence, could hear the faint creak of the armchair as she moved, could smell a hint of…what? Perfume, powder?

“You might as well pray as depend on Green,” he said. “He's a fool. A dangerous fool. I wouldn't be surprised to be arrested one of these days.”

“You don't believe in prayer then?”

“Well…I have nothing against it.”

“I like to think that there is a reason for everything that happens. That, however terrible, in some mysterious way, everything is God's will. It makes things more bearable, don't you think?”

“What does it mean? Bearable? I suppose we have no choice but to bear things, bearable or not.” It hadn't occurred to Edwin that Grace might be a religious person, but then why not? And what possible difference could it make to him?

She must have sensed his nervousness. “Don't worry, Professor. I wouldn't have taken you for a religious man. People who think with their heads rather than their hearts don't tend to be religious.”

“I always thought of you as a hard-headed young lady.”

“Always? You've been here less than a week.”

“Oh…well…it seems longer, what with everything…”

“You should talk to your friend the vicar. He's an intellectual himself, but it doesn't stop him from praying for the children.”

The subject of religion had never come in Edwin's correspondence with Wilson. “I would like to believe there is something…more…something beyond all this…something better than this world,” Edwin offered.

“It can be hard to accept that what goes on here is part of God's plan. The wars, the horrible things that happen to ordinary people for no reason we can understand.”

“Yes, that's true.”

He felt a touch, light as fluttering wing, as Grace bent forward and patted his knee. “I'm sorry. I made you think of your wife, didn't I?”

“Don't worry about it. I think of Elise all the time.”

“I hope she wasn't ill for long.”

“No. It wasn't illness. It was one of those stupid things.” He nervously pushed his glasses up his nose even though the room was dark. The intimacy he felt from their sitting alone in the darkness and quiet had loosened his tongue. “It could have been prevented so easily,” he went on. “We'd gone to New York to see a new musical. Elise loved musicals.” He did not mention he did not particularly like them and had been reluctant to take the journey from Rochester to New York.

“We saw
Cabin in the Sky.
We'd come out of the theater and I heard someone shouting. Looked back to see what was happening and just at that instant Elise walked out into the street between two cars. It was a taxicab. Killed her instantly.”

“How terrible, Edwin.”

“It could have been avoided so easily. If I'd kept my hand on her arm, or walked in front of her. If I hadn't looked round. If I'd reacted more quickly, I could have saved her.”

“All ifs are followed by buts. It was an accident. There was nothing you could have done about it.”

“But that's not true.”

“You mustn't blame yourself. I'm sure Elise wouldn't want you to do that.” After a pause during which the ticking of the clock sounded louder than usual, she continued, “I'm going for a walk. It may help me sleep.”

Edwin offered to accompany her if she would wait a few moments while he dressed.

“I'll be safe enough,” came the reply. “I'm not going far and I've got a police whistle if I need help. You sound tired. Don't wait up for me.”