the maltese angel (31 page)

He had actually stepped out of the barn and into the dimly lit yard when he turned back and, facing the men, who were now gathered in a bunch, he said, "As for yourselves, you will be well paid when this is over, whichever way it goes."

They replied in chorus, "Thank you. Thank you, sir."

Once in the house. Ward went straight upstairs and to his own bedroom, and there, taking a chair, he sat by the head of the bed and put his hand on the pillow where once her head had lain, and he spoke to her, as he did every day.

"Am I mad, Fanny?" he said.

"Am I mad? What put this idea into my head?" And it was as though he did receive an answer from her, for he said, "Yes. Yes. The minute I saw her, I knew what I intended to do, but didn't know how to

accomplish it. But now I know." He stared at his hand on the pillow for quite some time, and then he said, "You are not for it. I know ...

I know you are not for it, my love, as you are not for Carl going.

What's done's done, you say, as he said too, but I am me, Fanny; I am still me. Even your soft tongue and guiding hand could not keep me from dealing out this retribution."

Again he waited; and then he said, "Well, Carl will be here; and he's going to marry that girl. And you understand that, too, don't you? You have always said she is for him; but I don't see it like that, my love.

Anyway, come what may, he will look after the girls ... What do you think will be the outcome, my love? Oh, don't fade away. Please don't fade away." He now leaned over and laid his face on the pillow.

"And don't

ask why I can't let you go. I've told you I thought I could, because Angela was you're-born; but now, you see what's happened: she shrinks from me. I can't stand the agony of it. Fanny. Fanny, don't go.

Don't go. "

When there was a tap on the door he sprang up, straightened his

neckerchief, stroked his hair back, and said, "Yes?"

Jessie entered, saying, "The doctor has come. He's sorry he couldn't get here earlier."

"I'll be there in a minute." He made small movements with his hands as if waving her away. And he stood now staring towards the door before turning slowly again and looking at the bed and the dent in the pillow where his head had lain; and he asked himself again if he was mad, while appearing sane on the surface, and the answer he gave was: well, if he was he had been mad for some time, and he couldn't see himself returning to normality, because she was with him in this room. He knew she was. She was always waiting, because he willed her to be here. But at times he was made to wonder if it was the sane patches in his mind that made her cry out, "Let me go!"

Where was it going to end? In a like place as the mad bitch who had willed disaster on him? Yes, there was the word 'willed'. You could will things to happen. He had willed Fanny's spirit from the grave, and now he was willing infamy on the village. What he would make

happen would cause that village to stink for generations to come. The pride of the hypocrites would be ground into the dust. As he saw it, in justice he owed it to himself.

As soon as the first two members of the congregation, Mr. and Mrs.

Napier from The Lodden, entered St. Stephen's on this Sunday morning, they not only sensed, they knew something was wrong. Miss Steel, the new assistant teacher at the village school, who had taken over as organist when John Silbum had given it up because of cramp in his

hands, was not doing her weekly duty, and they knew that playing the organ was in her contract, for the school was under the patronage of the church. And then, what was the matter with the screen? Had

something happened to it? The left hand side was completely covered over with what seemed to be a hayrick sheet held away from the top of the screen by poles, but kept in place at the bottom by three large stones.

But why? They hadn't heard that there was anything wrong with the

screen. If some idiot had defaced it, it would soon have been made known around the village.

So too thought the rest of the congregation as they took their seats.

And there were murmurs here and there as people leaned forward or back over the pew and whispered, "What do you think's happened to the screen? And there's no-one in the organ gallery, I notice."

The tolling of the bell seemed to be the only sign of normality in the church.

As was usual, the gentry were the last to file into their pews. There were six of the Hopkinses from Border Manor, an indication that they must have someone staying for the week-end. These days, there were only two of the Bedfords, for their daughter had gone over to the

Methodists years ago. Then there were

the Arkwrights. They were comparative newcomers to the village,

having been here only six years. They had moved into Whiteberg Farm; Mr. Arkwright was what was called a gentleman farmer. And lastly this morning, there were the Ramsmores.

The colonel, it was noted, really was getting doddery, and his son just managed to prevent him from falling as his foot caught the end of the pew.

After the bell stopped tolling there was an eerie silence in the

church. At this point it was usual for the vicar, followed by his

servers, to emerge from the vestry, the choir having already assembled in the gallery; but this morning there was no emergence, no swishing of surplices; the only procession being that of the Youngston family

entering the church and being quickly ushered into a back pew, the mother and father admonishing, as usual, the four children to be

quiet.

But then a series of very unusual events began to occur.

First: the church door was closed with a bang; and when heads turned towards it, they saw a strange man standing there grasping something by his side. Here and there, those near enough to him thought it to be a gun;

but that was surely not the case.

Secondly: the congregation's attention was swung to the opening between the screens and to the two men who had appeared. One of these was

certainly carrying a gun. This man walked down the steps and to the far side of the covered screen. His gun, however, wasn't being held by his side, but in a position that left no doubt as to what he meant to do with it.

The astonishment of the whole congregation had so far kept them silent, but now there was a concerted gasp as the first man made his way

towards the pulpit, for even those at the back of the church, as well as those straining their necks to see beyond the pillars at the left side of the main aisle, immediately recognised him as being the farmer, Ward Gibson.

All through his young days and well into his twenties, Ward had

watched Parson Tracey climb the steps of this pulpit, and now here he was, standing in it, gazing on the sea of faces and gaping mouths. All the week he had known what he was going to do, and at times he had wondered whether he would falter in his purpose;

of how he might react when he was forced to speak of his daughter and of her ordeal. But now, he found he was possessed of a strange

calmness, albeit a smouldering calmness, for he must go beyond telling them, he must drive home into the minds of these staring faces

something they would never in their lives forget.

For a while he allowed his gaze to roam over them;

then he spoke, and quietly.

"Some of you may not know why I am standing in this pulpit, here in place of your hypocrite of a vicar.

Well, I shall tell you. I am standing here because there are three men, all churchgoing, God-fearing citizens, who are so vile that they do not deserve to live.

"As you all know, I have two daughters, and I have tried to protect them since that mad woman, Daisy Mason, killed my wife; but although she was put away, the threat hanging over myself and the children did not abate. Your opinion, as a whole, was that I deserved all I had got because I dared to marry someone other than that mad bitch, to whom I had never offered marriage in the first place. The girl I married ..

the woman I married was superior in all ways to anyone I am looking on now. She was an intelligent, cultured woman. Yes, she was a dancer; but that was her career, as it had been that of her parents before her.

They were artists, of which profession you, neither the high nor the low among you, would know anything. "

He now passed his glance over the front rows as he went on, "It should happen that last Monday night I allowed my daughters to attend Parson Noble's lantern show. I had them escorted there, and my man was on his way to fetch them, but it being a bright moonlight

night, they did not wait for him, they dared and now he leaned over the pulpit 'they dared to walk alone on the outskirts of this village.

Do you hear me? They dared to walk alone. And the first time they

walked alone they were confronted by three men. " He drew himself up now and took in a deep breath before going on.

"My daughter, Angela, a replica of her mother, but even smaller his voice now faltered a little as he said, 'has just turned fifteen, and therefore had already reached her womanhood." Now he again bent over the pulpit, but further this time and, his head swinging from side to side, he allowed his gaze to rest on different women, and he repeated,

"She had just come into her womanhood. Well... she was torn from her elder sister and dragged into a field while her sister was also being attacked and the clothes torn off her back. She, thankfully, managed to escape. But what of my little Angela? Many of you, in fact, all of you, have seen her at some time or other. She is tiny, fragile, no semblance of a fifteen-year-old village girl about her. She was from another sphere, as was her mother." He stopped now, and there wasn't a murmur in the church, not a cough, not a movement. And then, his voice became so loud, so high-pitched, almost a scream, so that many of the faces were screwed up against it as he cried, "She was raped by three men! Not one ... not two, but three." His head was now bowed and he was gripping each side of the pulpit. When he raised his head he

wasn't a little surprised to hear women crying. But it did not touch him in the least; and he went on.

"She was found by a young man who was so shocked at the sight of her that he said he will never forget it to his dying day. And this young man helped to carry her home." He now looked down to where Gerald, his face white, his lower lip drawn tight between his teeth, was staring at him. And he went on, "She did not open her eyes for two days, and from the moment she was laid on the bed until this very morning she has not spoken a word, and Doctor Patten can give me no hope that she will ever recover normality. What is more, she is terrified to death of the sight of a man ... even of me' he now thrust his finger into his chest

" I who love her as I did her mother daren't go near her. "

Again bending forward, and in a rising voice he said, "But this is not the end, is it, ladies? This is not the end. We will not know for

two, or perhaps three months, will we, what her body holds, if anything but the feeling of torture."

A man now stood up and cried at him, "Enough! Enough!" then looked down on his wife who was bent double: and Ward answered him, "No, not yet," and when after a moment he added, "I have only just begun," an actual shiver passed through all those present.

He now took one step back as if he were about to leave the pulpit, but then stopped and said, "I would advise you, every one of you, not to make any move at all," and he pointed now to the man at the church door, then to the one standing by the screen. And then he did turn and descend the steps of the pulpit.

Having walked across the front of the screens, he knocked on the vestry door, all eyes having followed him. When it opened and there stepped out another man with a gun and, following him and almost tottering on his feet, there came Parson Tracey, the whole congregation gasped when it could be seen that his hands were bound behind his back and that he was gagged. Behind him came four servers.

They were all young boys, and they cast pleading glances towards their parents in the congregation, bringing forth cries of, "Oh! Oh!" from here and there. Then followed seven members of the choir, and the lady organist.

The men looked sheepish, but it was noted that she held herself

straight and looked defiant. Lastly came the bell-ringer. He was an oldish man and he was actually smiling as if he considered the whole thing a joke;

that was until a few minutes later, after they had been lined up along the steps at the foot of the uncovered

right-hand side of the screen when, as did everyone else, he watched two of the men go behind the screen.

It soon became evident that they had loosened something, for the great heavy sheet began to slip, together with the poles that had prevented it from hanging straight down and close to the front of the screen.

The men quickly reappeared and were just in time to gather up the sheet and the poles as they fell. These they laid aside in a tumbled heap

..

What was revealed now caused, first of all, a horrified, blank, utter silence, then a great combined gasp, followed by cries of loud protest; and here and there a moan. Some women actually collapsed in their

seats or on to the floor, far there, strapped to the screen by their ankles, their arms, waists and their necks, and their mouths gagged, were three naked men. Their heads could not hang in shame, so tight were they held against the ornamental ironwork, but their eyes roamed, wild with fear.

Great shouts and cries now came from different parts of the church, some calling on God, others, mostly from men, shouting that enough was enough. But when the latter cries came to Ward's ears he yelled back at them, "Not yet! Not quite," and with this he leapt up the steps and put his hand behind the screen, and when he brought it forth he was holding a splay tailed whip, and on the sight of which a great roar came from the colonel. But when he stepped into the aisle with the intention of making for Ward, Mike Riley's voice rose into a shout above the melee, crying, "Stay where you are!" He too had stepped forward, with his gun at shoulder level; and fixing his gaze on the colonel, he said, "Another step, Colonel, an' I'll splatter your knees with so many pellets you'll be pickin' 'em out for months."