Flight of a Witch Part 12

'Because it had taken him months to get her even to talk to him again, and he wanted her back, and had just brought her to the point of surrender. It was a triumph that she'd let him work his way in and stay those few days. But he knew he was still on probation, and he was terrified that if he gave it away that he'd lived with her again she'd think he was trying to fix her, force her hand by preventing the divorce from going through. He knew her well enough to know she has a temper, and she was badly hurt the first time. She might very well have turned on him and told him to go to h.e.l.l if she'd thought he was framing her. But when she heard the police were interested in his movements, she came like a fury to protect him. That's one happy ending, at least, even if we only reached it by accident.'

'I'm glad somebody got some good out of it,' said Tom.

'So we were left with a motor-bike that could be one of the three they keep at Cwm, but didn't have to be, and this idea of the man who could pa.s.s for Annet's father. When it turned out that the vicar had brought the message that sent Annet out that night, that seemed to make him a possibility, at first sight. But obviously he spent the whole of Sunday at Comerford he had Communion and two services, and he always puts in an appearance at Sunday School, too and in any case there were immediately other inferences to be drawn. The message he brought was from the choir, so he said, but in practice that meant from the choir-master. Peter Blacklock well, who had such privileged access to Annet as he did? He could and did ride one of the estate three-fifties up and down to the plantations when it suited him n.o.body in his senses would use an E-type Jag for a job like that, where he wanted to be inconspicuous and he could very well pa.s.s for Annet's father. And it was only a startling thought at first sight,' said George, looking back at it sombrely from the light of knowledge, 'and then not for long.'

'But he was at church, too. And at choir practice on the Friday night. He rang up afterwards and asked why Annet hadn't come whether she was ill.'

'That was part of the campaign. He had to know whether they'd done anything decisive, like going to the police. Annet was sure they wouldn't, but he wasn't happy, he wanted to know. He divided his time very delicately. On Thursday he took Annet to Birmingham. On Friday at dusk he left her there and came back to choir practice, and went through that little performance of enquiring after Annet, offering to go round and see her if she was fit to have visitors. And then he went back to her, and stayed with her until Sunday morning. What happened on Sat.u.r.day night you know. It wasn't planned, of that I'm certain. It happened out of desperation and chance opportunity. He never intended murder, but he needed money. He needed it badly, and it was there winking at him, and only this old man in the way. He gave Annet the wedding ring, and neither she nor we will ever know exactly why. It may have been just cover for what he'd done. Or it may be the real reason why he went into the shop, to buy the thing for her, the symbol of the permanence of their love and the secret dream-marriage that was all they would ever have, and the other thing may have happened on a disastrous impulse, because the time and the circ.u.mstances offered, and he was fuller of longing for her than he could bear. I don't know. In some ways I underestimated him, maybe I'd better not even try to guess.

'Well, that was Sat.u.r.day. And on Sunday he came to morning service in Comerford, to be seen, to be fortified by other people's a.s.sumption of his normality until he almost believed himself that everything was normal. He didn't know until he went back that the old man was dead. He'd asked his deputy to play on Sunday evening. That happened sometimes, no one thought anything about it. And he didn't come back until he brought Annet home on Tuesday evening, and parted from her behind the Hallowmount.'

'And it was Annet who hid the briefcase?'

'Yes, that was Annet. She hid it in their old place, and walked over the crest and came face to face with you.'

With difficulty, his face turned away, Tom asked: 'She told you about it?'

'She told us. No reason why she shouldn't now.'

'But she didn't know what it was. He can't have told her.'

'All she knew was that it was their savings, the only funds they had, and they wanted it ready to hand, because soon very soon, they were determined on that now they were going away together for good.'

Tom turned from that because it cut too near, and he could not bear to look at it yet. 'I should have thought it might have been awkward with the servants. I know there was no reason to go closely into his movements, but if you had, they'd have told you he was absent most of the relevant time.'

'What servants?' said George simply, and smiled. 'The days of resident staffs are over, even in houses like Cwm. Hadn't you realised? Well, why should you, come to think of it, it wouldn't be a revolution that hit you, any more than it did me. n.o.body has servants, these days. You have dailies who come in to clean, mornings, and maybe one who cooks if you're lucky, but only during the day, at that, and not week-ends. Week-ends Madam does her own cooking now, and if she's away, her husband eats out. Stockwood had been sent off to his wife, and delighted with the opportunity, Mrs Bell had said she had her daughter and the baby coming over the week-end, so she couldn't oblige, and Blacklock had said that was all right, he could manage. Their regular early girl, who came first thing in the morning to clean, had a key, and most often she never saw him, anyhow. No, there was no difficulty there. One appearance at choir practice and one at church, and everyone had a normal picture of his week-end, and was convinced he'd spent it here.'

'I suppose,' said Tom, staring fixedly at the stiff hem of the sheet, 'it must have been going on for some time between him and Annet?'

'That depends what you mean. I think he must have loved her almost from the moment she began to work for his wife. Certainly very soon afterwards.'

Very soon afterwards! How could he help it, married to that busy public figure whose capacities for private warmth he must have exhausted long ago, and brought into daily contact with that glowing, ardent, conserved potential of beauty and pa.s.sion, whose very extravagance would be like drink to him in a desert?

'I don't know when he made the fatal mistake of betraying it. Probably not long before they planned that first abortive flight together. I think it must have been a new discovery then. She couldn't, I think, fail to respond as soon as she knew. And once she loved him,' said George, weighing the words and dropping them on to the cairn one by one, 'he was done for. Between the two of them he didn't have much chance.'

'She didn't make him a murderer,' said Tom, taking fire. 'I don't see how anyone could blame Annet.' didn't make him a murderer,' said Tom, taking fire. 'I don't see how anyone could blame Annet.'

'I'll go with you on that. So would most people. Everyone probably,' said George ruefully, 'except Annet. She She knew. When it was too late, she knew what she'd done. If she'd failed to respond he would have made himself content with what he had, glimpses of her, proximity, company, the pleasure of working together, until time and his glands eased up on him, and turned the whole thing into a nice, gentle, father-and-daughter affection. She made the mistake of taking him at his word. It was only a very little step from that to loving him. And once she began, knew. When it was too late, she knew what she'd done. If she'd failed to respond he would have made himself content with what he had, glimpses of her, proximity, company, the pleasure of working together, until time and his glands eased up on him, and turned the whole thing into a nice, gentle, father-and-daughter affection. She made the mistake of taking him at his word. It was only a very little step from that to loving him. And once she began, she she was the dominant. She'd dragged him unwittingly into a situation that wasn't beyond her scope, but was more than he could bear. To her love was for loving, not a pa.s.sive thing, and once she'd accepted him he couldn't go on fondly dreaming it, he was forced to turn it into action. The first try was a failure, but the second more cautious this time, just a rehearsal came off. When they wandered past Worrall's shop that Sat.u.r.day evening they'd had just two nights together, and the world was on fire. Once he'd tasted that, how could he let it go? They had to get away together, for good this time. Nothing else would do. But for that he had to have money, a fair sum of money, not the twenty pounds or so for petrol and day-to-day spending he kept in his pockets by Regina's grace, but enough to break free and start again somewhere else. And money in that quant.i.ty was what he hadn't got almost the only thing he hadn't got.' was the dominant. She'd dragged him unwittingly into a situation that wasn't beyond her scope, but was more than he could bear. To her love was for loving, not a pa.s.sive thing, and once she'd accepted him he couldn't go on fondly dreaming it, he was forced to turn it into action. The first try was a failure, but the second more cautious this time, just a rehearsal came off. When they wandered past Worrall's shop that Sat.u.r.day evening they'd had just two nights together, and the world was on fire. Once he'd tasted that, how could he let it go? They had to get away together, for good this time. Nothing else would do. But for that he had to have money, a fair sum of money, not the twenty pounds or so for petrol and day-to-day spending he kept in his pockets by Regina's grace, but enough to break free and start again somewhere else. And money in that quant.i.ty was what he hadn't got almost the only thing he hadn't got.'

'I know,' said Tom, low-voiced. 'It takes a bit of realising. The cars, and the clothes and everything.'

'He was a pretty good solicitor once in his own right, but when he married her the administration of her estates took up all his time. It never occurred to her that she ought to pay him for it, everything she had was his. He only had to admire something, only to like it, much less want and ask for it, and she'd buy it and give it to him. There wasn't anything she wouldn't give him except the solid salary his work was worth to her. She wasn't possessive about her money, she just didn't think about it, and it never occurred to her that he could feel cramped and humiliated by having to ask her for what she never grudged. Maybe he didn't miss it himself until he wanted something he couldn't ask her to buy for him. So like any adolescent kid pushed to desperation, he took the twentieth-century short cut a quick attack and a clean sweep of the most expensive-looking cases in the shop. But like any adolescent kid frightened out of his wits by his own first act of violence, he hit too hard, and there was more than a headache and the insurance money to pay for it. No, between those two he didn't have much chance. But Annet had the honesty and the courage to look squarely at her own part in it, and take rather more than her share of blame on her shoulders. She was quite prepared to give her own life away to save him from making bad worse, to try to make some sort of rest.i.tution to him and to the world. Regina is and will always be injured and blameless.'

'And yet she thought the world of him,' said Tom, honestly baffled. 'And she is is a good woman.' a good woman.'

'A good woman, but not a good wife. She was kind but not considerate,' said George reflectively, 'lavish but not generous, intelligent but without imagination.'

Chilled by the rounded knell of the falling phrases, Tom said: 'It sounds like an epitaph.'

'It turned out to be an epitaph,' said George, 'only not hers.'

Miles and Dominic came, brought him fruit and cigarettes and dutiful greetings from their parents, and sat by his bed making somewhat constrained conversation for half an hour. They told him the ordinary things, sc.r.a.ps of news from school and the harmless social calendar of the village. They were punctilious in addressing him as 'sir,' and retaining, with an effort they hid, on the whole, very well, traces of the schoolboy in their own phraseology. He understood, as once he would not have understood, that this was a delicate device on their part to restore the distance between them that would make life easier for him.

And he played their services back to them neatly, and was grateful, as once he would not have been grateful.

The Becks came, side by side in tacit truce, united by the catastrophe that had overtaken them. Whether Mrs Beck had lied or told the truth, for all practical purposes Annet belonged to both of them, and for her sake they were compelled to draw together. They explained to him that they planned to give her and themselves a fresh start by moving south to a new home. They had found a small house in a village near Cambridge, which was Mrs Beck's native district. There'd be a job for Annet there, within easy reach, and new friends, new scenes, a new life would soon set her up again. But of course he must come back to them when he came out of hospital, next week; they would still be at Fairford for several weeks yet, and he would need time to look round and find fresh lodgings.

He breathed the more easily for knowing that they were leaving. But for that he would have had to hand in his resignation and get away to fresh fields himself. It would be impossible to live in daily contact with her now, having witnessed what he had witnessed. There are things that should not be seen.

He asked after her; it was like devouring his own heart. He didn't, after all, need their answers, he could see her plainly enough moving through her sunless days, the sh.e.l.l of Annet, silent, secluded, drained deep in unhappiness, surviving her loss because she must. Life can't just stop. Their version softened the picture, made it more encouraging. They offered him a sad little greeting from her; he did not believe in it, but he could not imagine why they should make it up.

Only after they had left did it occur to him that they regarded him as blessedly safe, as one who would be good for her, as the means of turning their perilous liability into a tamed, respected, domesticated schoolmaster's wife. They wanted him to take her off their hands, and provide her with the halo of a real wedding ring.

Oh, no, he thought, not me. I've drawn back into my depth. I've given up. I know when I'm licked. On Annet's plane of love there are precious few of us can operate with dignity, and, G.o.d help me, I'm not one.

And Jane came. Jane came oftenest. She was as off-hand as ever, didn't make any great fuss of him, didn't try to tell him he'd done anything heroic when he knew he'd done something stupid and short-sighted, of which he was ashamed. She told him that Regina, shocked beyond words in her respectability, but surely in her heart, too for there was a heart somewhere under all the crust of offices had taken up her roots for a while and gone abroad.

'And the Becks have got a cottage somewhere down south Cambridges.h.i.+re, I think. They hope to be in before Christmas.'

'I know,' he said, 'they told me. It's the best thing they could do, for Annet and themselves.' He hesitated over what he wanted most to ask, but it came out of itself before he was aware: 'Have you seen Annet?'

'Yes,' said Jane, giving him one of those slightly disconcerting looks that had once made him speculate on whether she had designs on him, but now only warned him that she was probably making allowances for him.

'She'll live,' she said shortly, before he could feel himself forced to ask. And as quickly she looked up again, herself startled by the brusque sound of it. 'Not being flippant about it,' she said crossly. 'I meant it literally. She will will live a hundred per cent, some day. Well, ninety, say. Which is more than most people manage. She's far too positive and alive ever to have wanted to die, no matter what debts she conceived she owed and was willing to honour. If you think the stuff she has in her can be battered out of shape by this or any other experience, my boy, you can think again. Don't worry about Annet. And don't feel sorry for her. But don't kid yourself, either,' she added honestly, 'that you'll ever get her, because I don't think you will. Sorry, but there it is.' live a hundred per cent, some day. Well, ninety, say. Which is more than most people manage. She's far too positive and alive ever to have wanted to die, no matter what debts she conceived she owed and was willing to honour. If you think the stuff she has in her can be battered out of shape by this or any other experience, my boy, you can think again. Don't worry about Annet. And don't feel sorry for her. But don't kid yourself, either,' she added honestly, 'that you'll ever get her, because I don't think you will. Sorry, but there it is.'

He didn't say that he agreed with her, or that he had already withdrawn from the field and acknowledged defeat. He didn't say that he was just becoming reconciled to the idea of setting his sights, some day, on a less impossible target. There was only one Annet, now and forever out of reach; but in his new humility he was prepared to listen respectfully to the small, dry voice deep within him, a.s.suring him that he could think himself d.a.m.ned lucky if some day he was able to settle for someone like Jane.

When he came out of hospital and returned to Fairford it was already November. The Hallowmount withdrew itself at morning and evening into mist, shrouding the Altar and its ring of decrepit trees. He wondered if the small, unaccountable ground-wind had abandoned, until next spring, its nightly ascent by the old paths to the old places where Annet had vanished for a while into her secret world, and whether the reverberations of her tragedy had already seeped away like spilt blood into that already saturated soil.

He had found new lodgings in Comerford, and he began to a.s.semble his belongings in preparation for the move. He was in the hall one evening, digging out his windjacket and climbing boots from the cupboard, when the knocker rapped gently to announce a visitor.

Tom dropped his boots and went to open the door. Miles Mallindine looked at him across the threshold, composed, dogged, dignified, with a handful of late roses. In the sheltered garden close to the river they bloomed until Christmas unless discouraged.

Not everyone knows when he's beaten. Not everyone can recognise when he's out of his cla.s.s. There was wasn't there? an obligation. In pure kindness someone ought to warn him.

'May I come in? Mrs Beck said I could drop round tonight.'

He was in already. He had a very un.o.btrusive way of moving, that took him where he wanted to go, even against opposition, without actually looking aggressive or even noticeably determined. And he held the roses as one neither embarra.s.sed nor ashamed at displaying his intentions. He wasn't smiling; sieges like the one he was contemplating are no joke.

'Oh, of course! Annet's in the study, doing some typing for her father, I think.' Never had she been so gentle with his pretensions, or so willingly segregated herself behind the clacking of the keys, over his interminable notes.

He let Miles go halfway across the hall, and then he couldn't let him go the rest; not without a word of caution, at least, because he was heading gallantly in full armour for a sickening fall.

'Miles-'

Miles halted and turned, surprised and wary, brown eyes wide. The curled lashes arched towards his brows. Faint colour came and went in his thin, shapely cheeks. He looked like his mother; Eve disarmingly young and apparently vulnerable, but already, beyond mistake, a dangerous person.

'Miles, I shouldn't. There's nothing there now for you. The best's gone.'

'I know,' said Miles, not retreating a step.

He was doing this badly, but he couldn't stop now. The detachment they had so considerately restored to him he was endangering again, but at least this was between himself and Miles, man to man again with no witnesses.

'She won't want to look at any man, not for a long time yet. And even if she ever does, what she's got left to give-'

'I know,' said Miles, honestly, ruefully, even gratefully, but without the slightest intimation that it made any difference.

It was something in the voice that made Tom pause. He caught the maturing intonations of patience and forbearance, and turned with the sudden shock of recognition to confront himself. Here we go again, he thought. You were going to save Annet, weren't you? You, without a clue to what went on inside her, or what she was capable of! Now you're setting out to save Miles, and just about as likely to find him in need of it, and just about as well-equipped to make a hash of it. How do you know what he has it in him to do? Just because you've bitten off more than you can chew, and been forced to own it, does he he have to give up, too? Wake up and stand by for a shock: you have to give up, too? Wake up and stand by for a shock: you can can be outdone! be outdone!

He drew back into silence, carefully, respectfully, and looked at the whole set-up again. But what future was there in it? Next week Annet was going with her parents to Cambridges.h.i.+re, and if there was one thing certain it was that they'd never come back to Comerford.

Well, next year Miles was going to Queens', wasn't he? Not that the issue depended on such small, convenient accidents as that, he thought, studying the boy's courteous, wary company-face. There was nothing here now for Tom Kenyon, no. But might there not be something for Miles Mallindine? Some day, if his patience held out?

For Miles there'd have to be. Because he had no intention of ever giving up. He knew what he wanted, he meant to have it. The whole, or half, or whatever there was to be won at last. He was never going to settle for any subst.i.tute.

And Annet, whole or broken, sick or convalescent, had her values right. Sooner or later she'd recognise what it was she was being offered.

'All right, forget it,' said Tom. 'You go ahead your own way. And good luck!'

Miles said: 'Thank you!' and for a moment it was touch-and-go whether he would add: 'sir!' It was on the tip of his tongue, but he s.n.a.t.c.hed it back generously, flas.h.i.+ng for one brief instant the engaging and impudent smile he had inherited from Eve. Then he turned, patient, stubborn and profoundly sure of himself, and went in to Annet with his roses.