THE BONDAGE OF LOVE (41 page)

you need not fear. You're back home; you're safe here," and she was about to add, " You'll soon get back into your old life," but, oh no, she wouldn't want her to do that. Oh, no. So she added, " And we all want you and are glad you are home again. "

The head was lifted now, the deep fear-filled eyes holding a question, and Fiona answered it by saying, "No, you've got to believe this, never again will anyone harm you. You must try to forget what has happened. And those who have done this to you will be punished."

She felt the thin body shiver now, and she thought she heard Mamie mutter,

"Punished. Punished." But when the word wasn't spoken aloud, she said, "Now come on, get into bed. Nell has put hot-water bottles in. Let me feel. Oh, yes, it's lovely and warm, you'll soon be asleep.

And tomorrow we must think about getting you some new clothes, pretty

clothes, like you used to have. Eh? "

There was no answering smile, just that stare. And again the words, oh, dear Lord, passed through Fiona's head. When the girl lay down on to her pillow, Fiona bent over her but found that she couldn't kiss her well, not as yet.

But she put her hand on her face and stroked it gently; and as she did so the girl closed her eyes as if she were already asleep.

"Good night, dear."

"Good night." Mamie did not add "Auntie Fi," but Fiona hadn't reached the door when she turned quickly to see the girl sitting upright and saying on a gasp, "You ... you won't lock me in?"

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"Oh, no, my dear."

"Can ... can I have it open?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. And if you want anything in the night, well, you know where our room is, just round the corner. Now lie down. Lie down and go to sleep. We'll see you in the morning."

In their room, Fiona said two words in answer to Bill's, "How is she?"

"I'm devastated."

Willie was the first to be woken by the scream. It brought him upright in the bed, blinking and gasping as if he were going to choke. He had been dreaming about something, but there had been no screaming in the dream.

Or perhaps there had.

When it came again, and a voice shouting, he sprang out of bed and pulled on his dressing- gown. On opening his door it was to see his mother running up the corridor towards him with Bill behind her, the while dragging on his dressing-gown. And he was about to speak when the scream came again.

As Mamie had requested, her door had been left open, and when Fiona switched on the light, it was to see Mamie rolling about in the bed, her arms and legs flailing. The bedclothes had piled up at the bottom of the bed, and when Bill, gripping her arms, went to lift her back on to the pillow, his head jerked backwards as she let out another scream.

"It's all right, Mamie," he shouted.

"It's all right. Wake up!

Wake up! It's all right. "

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Of a sudden she collapsed back on to her pillows, muttering, "Don't!

Don't! I . I'll do it. I'll do it. Don't, OwenI Don't! " The last word came out as a wail and Bill, who was still holding her arms, cast his glance towards Fiona and the knowledge it conveyed was repeated in her own.

Gently she pulled the clothes over the now limp form, and as she did so Willie said in an awe-filled whisper, "Somebody must have been at her. She's terrified out of her life."

"Shh!" Bill's warning came as Mamie slowly lifted her lids and, peering up at the group standing to the side of her, she whimpered, "I... I'll sign, I will."

Fiona pressed Bill to one side now and stroked the girl's hair back from her wet forehead, and her eyes, opened wide now, looked into Fiona's face and she said, "Oh! Oh! I... I've been dreaming."

"Yes, dear. Yes. But go to sleep now. You're all right."

"I'm ... I'm here?"

"Yes, you're here. You're back home. You'll be all right."

She watched the small breasts rise upwards; then on a sound like a long, drawn out sigh Mamie said, "Will you leave the light on?"

"Of course, dear. Of course. And I'll push the door wide, so don't worry.

Now go to sleep."

They were making for the door when a small voice came to them, whispering,

"Auntie Fi?"

When Fiona stood by the bed again, Mamie raised herself from her pillow and in a whisper she said, "I... I did see Sammy last night, didn't

I? "

"Yes. Yes, of course you did, dear. He's not dead."

"No, of course not. I thought I had dreamed that I saw him, but he was there, wasn't he?"

"Of course, my dear, he was. You mustn't trouble your head any more about Sammy."

The girl now lay back on her pillows and she whimpered, "They said he had died, and all through me, and that unless I stayed with grandpa I'd go to prison. But... but he was downstairs?"

"Yes. Yes, of course, my dear, he was downstairs. And now you must try and forget everything but that you are back home. And you'll never be hurt

again."

When the girl's head turned on the pillow and two round eyes were directed at her, Fiona found the expression in them unbearable, and quickly she said,

"There now. There now. Go to sleep, dear. You're home. Nothing can happen to you here. You'll never be hurt again." And this time she did not pat Mamie's face but bent over her and kissed her gently on the cheek, and at this Mamie closed her eyes. Down in the kitchen, it was Bill who put the kettle on and mashed the tea. Fiona sat at the table, one hand covering her face, and she repeated for the third time since sitting down, "You'll never be hurt again." Then, looking up at Bill, she added, "Her look seemed to say, I've no need to be hurt again; I've suffered enough to last me a

lifetime."

"Oh, that's in your mind, woman."

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"No, it isn't in my mind, Bill; you didn't see what was in her eyes.

They looked old. She'll never be a girl again; and yet, in some ways, she's returned to childhood. "

"I know what you mean, Mam," Willie put in.

"I sat looking at her last night and seeing her when she was about seven or eight. She seemed like that one minute and then a stranger the next. And I thought a lot about it before I went to sleep, and it's this. We're all in this, you know about having sent her away. I couldn't stand the sight of her well, I fought with her when she was young she was such a little upstart, and always on about her grandfather's money. And as she grew she seemed to get worse. And then the whole thing came to light, and we nearly lost Sammy. We mustn't forget that, Mam; she had been shoplifting and lying to you in a clever way. And when she took whiffs of drugs she must have known what she was doing. True, she might have just started on them, but she would have gone ahead. So we mustn't blame ourselves for not wanting her back here.

But ... but whatever they've done to her at that end has had a terrible effect. At times last night she looked like an old woman."

"Willie's right." Bill now sat down opposite Fiona, then added, "You mustn't be like that. If it were to happen again I would act as I did then,

definitely, for all our sakes. And we mustn't forget Sammy could have died through her. But at the same time, as Willie said, we mustn't forget that she has been treated in the most terrible way, and it's my guess, and a strong one, that she's been interfered with and bodily abused, besides being starved. So, somebody's going to pay for this, and I'm going to see to it.

I'll have those two hunted down, because the old 'un couldn't have done all this on his own." He took a drink from his cup, then said, "Well, Dr.

Pringle will be here in the morning and one thing I'm going to get him to do straightaway is to get in touch with her doctor at that end. What was that fellow up to, not to know what was happening to her? There's something fishy somewhere.

Well, this time next week we should know a great deal more. But in the

meantime, life has to be lived. There's work to do for all of us. And you, my dear, are going to have your hands full for some time, because it's on you she is going to rely. "

As Fiona rose from her seat, she said, "Strangely, I don't mind. My only hope is that we can get her back to normal, because, as she is now, she is far from it."

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It was a week later and Bill, Fiona and Nell knew most of what there was to know about Mamie's stay with her grandfather, but not all.

Before the doctor's visit on the Monday morning, it had taken some time for Fiona and Nell to convince Mamie that all he would do was examine her

bruises, and that they would be with her all the time.

After his examination he had sat on the side of the bed and patted the young girl's hand, saying, "Now, what you must do, my dear, is to eat big meals, really big meals," - he had nodded at her, emphasising the 're ally big' -

'because you need a lot more flesh on this long frame of yours, And when your cheeks puff out, we'll have a very, very pretty young woman. "

Mamie made no reply to this, but just stared at the grizzled man.

But once out of the room, the doctor's note had changed. He had walked

smartly down the stairs and into the drawing-room, where coffee was awaiting him, before he said, "Bad business that. Very bad. Oh, yes," he nodded at Fiona, 'she's been

interfered with, and roughly. The scars on her back are old, but not those on her thighs. And they weren't made with the strap. I fear that whatever has happened to her has affected her mind in some way. I don't know who her doctor was, but I mean to find out, and this very day. I shall come back to you with what he has to tell me. And if what I have to tell him doesn't come as a surprise to him, then there has been great negligence on somebody's part. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. "

After he had gone, the two women had looked at each other, and it was Nell who said, "God in heaven!" She added, "Well, we half expected it, didn't we?

But, you know, Fiona, I feel sick."

Fiona had said nothing. Sick could not have described her own emotions at this moment.

Again guilt was sweeping through her. Yet she reminded herself of what

Willie had said last night and of what Bill had said before that, and of what she had told herself. But all this didn't help much when your imagination gave you a picture of what the doctor had described.

On Tuesday, Bill had sent his accountant off to Wales, and on Wednesday afternoon Fiona had a phone call from Dr. Pringle. He had been in touch with the doctor, who was apparently attending the old man Pearson, and the story he had to tell was that he had first been called to the house when the girl was covered with a rash. This would have been about six months after Mamie's arrival. In his opinion the rash wasn't contagious, but the cousin

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could not be convinced other than it was. And they kept her away from the school and the chapel for some long while.

The next time he was called to the house to attend the girl was when she was supposed to have fallen down the stairs and was badly bruised and concussed.

It was following this that she had what he termed slight epileptic fits, and also that her personality seemed to have changed. They had pooh-pooh ed the idea of another opinion, impressing on him that they were quite capable of seeing to her themselves.

Dr. Pringle had said that the doctor had intimated that he hadn't been happy about the girl. But what could he have done? She was under her

grandfather's care and she definitely needed looking after. At this point Fiona had put in, of course she did, but had he had no inkling that she was being interfered with?

And to this, Dr. Pringle had replied that the man had been astounded to hear it, but that the girl had given him no inkling. Anyway, it was emphasised that the old woman and the younger one were always in the room when he

attended her. But he did admit that they were a very odd and secretive

family and, in a way, were religious fanatics.

Dr. Pringle had then asked, "Has she talked to you at all about her life there?" To which Fiona had replied, "No, and she can't be drawn either. She seems afraid to speak about it."

"Well, in that case," he had replied, 'she definitely does need treatment, because she is carrying a

heavy load, and she'll be no better until she gets rid of it. I think we'll have to have a psychiatrist to see her. I'll pop in at the weekend and we'll talk about it. "

As a result of this phone call, Fiona had felt that no new light had been thrown on the subject, and any news Bill's accountant would bring back with him, would be mainly about money. In a way, this seemed of little importance now, for money wasn't going to help that girl who at the moment was sitting upstairs playing with Angela. It was only when she was with the child that there was a semblance of a smile on her face, and a slight lightness in her tone. Outside, it was as much as Fiona could do to get her to take a short walk in the garden. But she wouldn't go out alone, it had to be with either her or her mother or Nell.

So she agreed with the doctor; a psychiatrist was indeed needed.

On the Friday afternoon Bill almost bounced into the house. His accountant had returned from Wales, and with such a story to tell.

The capital of Mamie's inheritance was intact. The 100,000 paid by the

insurance company following the death of her parents and brother, and the 60,000 from the selling of the house, together with 2,100 from the sale of furniture and effects, was intact, but not a penny of what would have been interest was left, the accumulation of which over the past twelve to thirteen years, when

.

This sum had been drawn on before Mamie's arrival, presumably for her upkeep with her adoptive parents and her allowance. Bill ground his teeth as he said, "I could go through there and murder that fella, I really could. But he's on the point of snuffing it; the other two, though, if they hadn't flitted. God knows what I would have done to them. He was down with the old man as a trustee and every year they've picked up the interest. As it is, she now has only what was left to her in the beginning. Although it is quite a bit, it isn't worth half as much as it was thirteen years ago."