Kirkland Revels (27 page)

I was to discover the meaning of this through Sarah, and the discovery was more alarming than anything which had gone before.

I went to her apartments one day and found her stitching at the christening robe.

” I’m glad you’ve come,” she greeted me. ” You used to be interested in my tapestry.”

“I still am.” I assured her.

“I think it’s lovely. What have you been doing lately?”

She looked at me archly. ” You would really like to see?”

” Of course.”

She giggled, put aside the christening robe, and standing up, took my hand. Then she paused and her face puckered.

“I’m keeping it a secret,” she whispered. Then she added:

” Until it’s finished.”

” Then I mustn’t pry. When will it be finished?”

I thought she was going to burst into tears as she said:

” How can I finish it when I don’t know! I thought you would help me.

You said he didn’t kill himself. You said . “

I waited tensely for her to go on but her mind had wandered. ” There was a tear in me christening robe,” she said quietly.

” Was there? But tell me about the tapestry.”

” I didn’t, want to show it to anyone until it was finished. It was Luke….”

” Luke?” I cried, my heart beating faster.

” Such a lovely baby. He cried when he was at the font, and he tore the robe. All that time it hasn’t been mended But why should it be, until there’s a new baby waiting for it?”

” You’ll mend it beautifully, I’m sure,” I told hter, and she brightened.

” It’s you 1” she murmured. ” I don’t know where to put you. That’s why …”

” You don’t know where to put me,” I repeated, puzzled.

” I’ve got Gabriel … and the dog. He was a dear little dog.

Friday! It was a queer sort of name. “

“Aunt Sarah.” I demanded, “what do you know about Friday?”

“Poor Friday 1 Such a good little dog. Such a. faithful dog. I suppose that was why … Oh dear, I wonder if your baby will be good at the christening. But Rockwell babies are never good babies. I shall wash the robe myself.”

” What were you saying about Friday, Aunt Sarah? Please tell me.”

She looked at me with a certain concern. ” He was your dog,” she said.

” You should know. But I ^shan’t allow anyone to touch it. It’s very difficult to iron. It has to be gophered in places. I did it for Luke’s christening. I did it for Gabriel’s.”

“Aunt Sarah,” I said impulsively, “show me the tapestry you’re working on.”

A light of mischief came into her eyes. ” But it isn’t finished, and I didn’t want to show it to anyone … until it is.”

” Why not? I saw you working on one before you’d finished it.”

” That was different. Then I knew …”

“You knew?”

She nodded. ” I don’t know where to put you, you see.”

” But I’m here.”

She put her head on one side so that she looked like a bright-eyed bird.

“To-day … to-morrow … next week, perhaps. After that where will you be?”

I was determined to see the picture. ” Please,” I wheedled, ” do show me.”

She was delighted by my interest which she knew was genuine.

” Well, perhaps you,” she said. ” No one else.”

” I’ll not tell anyone,” I promised.

” All right.” She was like an eager child. ” Come on.”

She went to the cupboard and brought out a canvas, and held the picture close to her body so that I couldn’t see it.

” Do let me see,” I pleaded.

Then she reversed it, still holding it against her. Depicted on the canvas was the south facade of the house; and lying on the stones in front of it was Gabriel’s body. It was so vivid, so real, that I felt a sudden nausea as I looked at it. I stared, for there was something else. Lying beside Gabriel was my dog Friday, his little body stiff as it could only be in death. , It was horrible.

I must have given a startled gasp, for Sarah chuckled. My horror was the best compliment I could have given her.

S stammered: “It looks so … real.” 166 “Oh, it’s real enough … in a way,” she said dreamily. ” i saw him lying there, and that was how he looked. I went down before they could take him away, and saw him.”

” Gabriel …” I heard myself murmur, for the sight of the tapestry had brought back so many tender memories, and I could picture him more clearly than I had since the first days of my bereavement.

” I said to myself,” Aunt Sarah continued, ” that must be my next picture … and it was.”

” And Friday?” I cried. ” You saw him … too?”

She seemed as though she were trying to remember.

” Did you. Aunt Sarah?” I persisted.

” He was a faithful dog,” she said. ” He died for his faithfulness

” Did you see him, dead … as you saw Gabriel?”

Again that puckered look came into her face. ” It’s there on the picture,” she said at length.

” But he’s lying there beside Gabriel. It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t it?” she asked.

“They took him away, didn’t they?”

” Who took him away?”

She looked at me questioningly. ” Who did?” It was as though she were pleading with me to give her the answer.

“You know, don’t you. Aunt Sarah?”

” Oh yes, I know,” she answered blithely.

” Then please … please tell me. It’s very important.”

“But you know too.”

” How I wish I did! You must tell me. Aunt Sarah. You see, it would help me.”

” I can’t remember.”

” But you remember so much. You must remember some thing so important.”

Her face brightened.

“I know, Catherine. It was the monk.”

She looked so innocent that I knew she would have helped if she could.

I could not understand how much she had discovered. I was sure that she lived in two worlds that of reality and that of the imagination; and that the two became intermingled so that she could not be sure which was which. People in this house underrated her; they spoke their secrets before her, not understanding that she had a mind like a jackdaw, which seized on bright and glittering pieces of information and stored them away.

I turned my attention to the canvas and. now that the 167 shock of seeing Gabriel and Friday lying dead was less acute, I noticed that the work had taken up only one side of the picture. The rest was blank.

She read my thoughts immediately, which was a reminder that her speculations—if speculations they were were those of a woman who could be astute.

” That’s for you,” she said; and in that moment she was like a seer from whom the future, of which the rest of us were utterly ignorant, was only separated by a semitransparent veil.

As I did not speak she came close to me and gripped my arm; I could feel her hot fingers burning through my sleeve.

” I can’t finish,” she said peevishly. ” I don’t know where to put you that’s why.” She turned the canvas round so that I could not see the picture and hugged it to herself. ” You don’t know. I don’t know.

But the monk knows. ” She sighed. ” Oh dear, we shall have to wait.

Such a nuisance. I I can’t start another until I finish this one. “

;

She went to the cupboard,” and put the canvas away. Then she came back to peer into my face.

” You don’t look well,” she said. ” Come and sit down. You’U be all right, won’t you? Poor Claire! She died, you know. Having Gabriel killed her, you might say.”

I was trying to shake off the effects of seeing that picture, and I said absently: ” But she had a weak heart. I’m strong and healthy.”

She put her head on one side and looked quizzically at me.

“Perhaps it’s why we’re friends …” she began.

” What is. Aunt Sarah?”

“We are. friends. I felt it from the first. As soon as you came I said,” I like Catherine. She understands Hie. ” Now I suppose they say that’s why …”

” Aunt Sarah, do tell me what you mean. Why should you and I understand each other better than other people in the house?”

” They always said I am in my second childhood.”

A wild fear came into my mind. ” And what do they say about me?”

She was silent for a while, then she said: “I’ve always liked the minstrels’ gallery.”

I felt impatient in my eagerness to discover what was going on in her muddled mind; then I saw that she was telling me and that the minstrels’ gallery was connected with her discovery.

” You were in the minstrels’ gallery,” I said quickly, ” and you overheard someone talking.”

She nodded, her eyes wide, and she glanced over her shoulder as though she expected to find someone behind her. ” You heard something about me?” She nodded; then shook her head.

“I don’t think we’re going to have many Christmas decorations this year. It’s all because of Gabriel. Perhaps there’ll be a bit of holly.”

I felt frustrated but I knew that I must not frighten her. She had heard something which she was afraid to repeat because she knew she should not, and if she thought I was trying to find out she would be on her guard against telling me. I had to wheedle it out of her in some way, because I was sure that it was imperative that I should know.

I forced myself to be calm and said: ” Never mind. Next Christmas”

“But who knows what’ll have happened to us by next Christmas … to me to you?”

” I may well be here. Aunt Sarah, and my baby with me. If it’s a boy they’ll want it brought up here, won’t they?”

“They might take him away from you. They might put you …”

I pretended not to have noticed that. I said: “I should not want to be separated from my child. Aunt Sarah. Nobody could do that.”

” They could … if the doctor said so.” I lifted the christening robe and pretended to examine it, but to my horror my hands had begun to shake and I was afraid she would notice this. ” Did the doctor say so?” I asked. ” Oh yes. He was telling Ruth. He thought it might be necessary … if you got worse … and it might be a good idea before the baby was born.”

” You were in the minstrels’ gallery.”

” They were in the hall. They didn’t see me.”

” Did the doctor say I was ill?”

” He said Mentally disturbed.” He said something about It being a common thing to have hallucinations . and to do strange things and then think other people did them. He said it was a form of persecution mania or something like that. “

” I see. And he said I had this?”

Her lips trembled. ” Oh. Catherine,” she whispered, ” Fve 169 liked your being her . B don’t want you to go away. I don’t want you to go to Worstwhistle.”

The words sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell, my own funeral.

If I were not very careful they would bury me alive.

I could no longer remain in that room. I said: “Aunt Sarah, I’m supposed to be resting. You will excuse me if I go now?”

I did not wait for her to answer. I stooped and kissed her cheek.

Then I walked sedately to the door and, when I had closed it, ran to my own room, shut the door and stood leaning against it. I felt like an animal who sees the bars of a cage closing about him. I had to escape before I was completely shut in. But how?

I very quickly made up my mind as to what I would do. I would go and see Dr. Smith and ask him what he meant by talking of me in such a way to Ruth. I might have to betray the’ fact-that Sarah had overheard them, but I should do my utmost to keep her out of this. Yet it was too important a matter to consider such a trifle.

They were saying, ” She is mad.” The words beat in my brain like the notes of a jungle drum. They were saying that I had hallucinations, that I had imagined I had seen a vision in my room; and then I had begun to do strange things-silly unreasoning things and imagined that someone else did them.

They had convinced Dr. Smith of this—and I had to prove to him that he and they were wrong.

I put on my blue cloak—the one which had been hung over the parapet—for it was the warmest of garments and the wind had turned very cold. But I was quite unaware of the weather as I made my way to the doctor’s house.

I knew where it was because we had dropped Damans there on our way back from Knaresborough. I myself had never been there before. I supposed that at some time the Rockwells had visited the Smiths, and that in view of Mrs. Smith’s illness, such visits had not taken place while I was at the Revels.

The house was set in grounds of about an acre. It was a tall, narrow house and the Venetian blinds at the windows reminded me of Glen House.

There were fir trees in the front garden which had grown rather tall and straggly; they darkened the house considerably. 170 There was a brass plate on the door announcing that this was the doctor’s house, and when I rang the bell the door was opened by a grey-haired maid in a very well starched cap and apron.