The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (41 page)

'Well, I'd be grateful, sir, if you could find out for me.'

Hadstock had asked Richard--'The man seemed genuinely concerned.'

'Somewhat late in the day,' Richard had said. 'The allotment was made in February.' He was half inclined to add 'Tell him it was because he has a pretty daughter,' but caution prevailed.

'Oh, tell him anything. What has he done with the land?'

'Sold some and started to build a chapel on the rest, sir.'

'Then tell him I made that special allotment hoping he would use it for that purpose. Don't look so sceptical, Hadstock. Do you doubt my altruism?'

So Amos, in taking the land as a gift from God, had been right and Damask wrong. The chapel's collapse was not a rebuke, it was just one more test of faith. And by using the site as a place for displaying notices Amos was showing that he was still full of faith and devotion and loyalty. What should the third wall announce to the world? Suddenly he knew; the message was brief, profoundly true, and voiced a fact of which many people in Clevely seemed to have lost sight and of which they might well be reminded.

'The Earth Is The Lord's,' Amos wrote.

(Soon after the three boards were in place some anonymous wit, profiting by the lessons he had received in Sunday School, scrawled along the lower edge of that one: 'But Skwire grabbed it.')

The carriage, its lights dimmed and yet magnified in size by the fog, was waiting at the gate of the Dower House. The driver, heavily muffled, sat aloft and neither stirred nor spoke as she approached. Mr Mundford himself opened the door, alighted and helped her in. Immediately the carriage set off. Inside the closed vehicle it was quite dark. Mr Mundford had to fumble about in order to find her hand.

'You're cold,' he said kindly. 'Not nervous, are you? I assure you again that there is nothing to be nervous about, nothing in the least. But it has turned cold and we have quite a long drive. So ...' His hand left hers, and she heard him moving about; then his hand found hers again and pressed a small flat bottle into her fingers.

'Take a good drink of that,' he said, 'it will warm you.'

The liquid was itself cold, almost without flavour, and quite unrecognisable. Since the Saunders' depredations had ceased and Miss Parsons' financial situation had improved, such luxuries as wine and brandy had returned to the Dower House; Mr Mundford's draught was something quite unfamiliar, however, and rather disappointing, neither pleasing the palate nor warming the stomach. Soon, however, she felt its effect, a warm lassitude wove itself about her; it was as though she had crept into bed on a chilly night, felt the light weight of the blankets, the softness of the pillows and begun to drift towards sleep. But she must not sleep now, that would never do. She had to help Mr Mundford and in return he would give her her heart's desire. She struggled against the torpor; and then, all at once, was free of it, free of everything, free of her body. The 'I' which was Damask Greenway rose and floated, hovered somewhere in the space enclosed by the hood of the carriage and looked down upon the body which it had inhabited. There it sat with its hair prettily curled, its yellow skirts demurely spread, its little white hands folded together...just like a doll waiting for somebody to pick it up and involve it in a game of make-believe. The real Damask, airy and free, watched with interested approval.

The carriage jolted and swayed, turned several corners; it was, as Mr Mundford had said, quite a long drive, and slow, of course, because of the fog. But it stopped at last and Mr Mundford alighted and held out his hand to the doll which rose with easy grace and stood beside him; the real Damask left the carriage at the same time and hovered, watchful, above the doll's head. The carriage drove away immediately. Mr Mundford took the doll by the arm and led it through a doorway, along a passage, through another doorway and down some stairs into what looked like a cellar, then through another doorway and down a long sloping passage where it was very cold. The doll shivered. They came to a place where a great stone slab had been removed from a wall, leaving a wide gap through which they passed and entered a vast place lined with tall pillars and lighted by candles, and decorated by large white figures which stood at intervals along the walls beyond the pillars. A strange place.

Almost immediately Sir Richard Shelmadine joined them. Mr Mundford said, in an ordinary voice, 'All well?' and Sir Richard nodded and went close to the doll in the yellow dress, regarding it with interest but no favour.

Mr Mundford moved away a little and came back carrying two glasses and gave one each to the doll and Sir Richard; then he fetched a little plate upon which lay three tiny biscuits. They each took one. Mr Mundford turned away again, and when he joined the group he too held a glass and a little biscuit. The real Damask was rather afraid that the doll's porcelain fingers would break the biscuit, and that would be a bad thing because this was a ceremony. Before they ate or drank Mr Mundford said something which reminded Damask of Amos's 'Grace before meat', but this was in a language she did not know. The doll managed beautifully: drank its wine, which was heavy and sweet, and ate the biscuit, which was so frail that it seemed to melt in the mouth. Then Mr Mundford lighted some other candles which immediately gave off a horrible, stifling odour; the reals ones he extinguished, saying some more of the unknown words as each one went out. In the subdued light one noticed the ' fire for the first time; a red, glaring fire like a sunset on a stormy evening. In its glow the doll began to take off its clothes, and there was no more embarrassment or any other feeling attached to that disrobing than there would have been to the undressing of a doll. After one glance the real Damask, hovering high under the groined roof, paid no more heed but turned her attention to what Mr Mundford was doing to some birds which looked like pheasants, but more brightly feathered, more beautiful than any pheasants could ever be.

In the best bedroom at Fuller's--now the young couple's--the atmosphere grew stuffy and then foetid. Mrs Fuller had started off with four good stout wax candles--quite enough to see the job through--but they had burned out and been replaced, and then, anxious to do something to help. Danny had fetched up his lantern. The lights, the heat that came from the good roaring fire in the kitchen immediately below, and the heat of three sweating bodies combined to raise the temperature in the room to a point only just bearable.

Mrs Fuller wiped the sweat from Sally's face and then from her own.

'I can't make it out,' she gasped, too much distressed to remember any longer to be tactful in front of the sufferer. 'Coming on like that so sudden and then taking this turn. Granted thass come feet first, but then many do; but they move nonetheless. Oh, what wouldn't I give to see old Widow Hayward walk in that door?'

Danny unclenched the teeth that gripped his lower lip.

'They say Mrs Sam Jarvey is knowledgeable.'

'So'm I. But fetch her, do.'

Danny blundered away and Mrs Fuller turned back to the bed.

'You gotta try to help yourself, Sally. This ain't your first; you know the worst wrench is the last. One good go and it'll be over. Come on now, take aholt of this and give a good heave.'

But she knew she was wasting her breath. Sally was past hearing or understanding; she just lay there, almost as though she were dead already, and the spasms had practically ceased.

The baby wasn't due for another month, that was the queer part, and babies that came early, though difficult to rear, usually came easily. Mrs Fuller had said as much to Sally when the pains started suddenly midway through the afternoon. 'Thass took us by surprise, like,' she said, 'and it may be a pingler; but you 'on't hev the trouble with it you had with him, bless his heart! Keep on the move, my dear, for a bit, and count on it being all over by suppertime.'

But here it was long past supper, long past bedtime; the middle of the night had come and it looked as though Sally would die. In one blinding flash Mrs Fuller realised how fond she really was of the girl, and how unfair she had been to her. She'd not made enough allowances for her faulty upbringing, not appreciated her good nature or her anxiety to please; she had even withheld the quilt with the true-lovers' knots. If Sally died ...

Dashing away a fresh burst of sweat from her forehead, Mrs Fuller racked her brain in an effort to remember any old wives' trick that she hadn't tried.

Danny, too, was suffering from remorse. This was a judgment on him. He'd been forced into marrying the girl and he had always held it against her. In retrospect. it seemed easy to have defied Matt: he'd never have dared use that gun! Weak and flabby, that's what he'd been, and then spiteful, obstinately refusing to be pleased by anything Sal did or said. He'd been daft too, hankering after that cold little bitch Damask Greenway, who'd treated him like dirt all along. Fool, fool, fool.

When he reached the inn and learned from a shouted and not altogether amiable conversation with Sam, who leaned out of the window to conduct it, that Mrs Sam was herself bed-ridden, a cask having slipped and crushed her foot that morning, Danny knew that there was no hope. Sal'd die just as he was getting set on her--and it would serve him bloody well right!

When Linda and Hadstock left him Simon howled for a while, just as he had howled when Richard had had him dragged away and shut in the shed. Then he tired and lay down to wait patiently until is mistress should come and set him free again; he dozed and waked and dozed again in the timelessness that only animals know. Then he woke again and leaped up, all his age-old instincts shrilling out their danger signals. Out there in the night the enemies were prowling; all was not well with the fold!

He rushed around the small kitchen, throwing his full weight against the door and uttering his deep, full-throated bark. Sometimes just that indication that a dog was awake and wary was enough. He was afraid of nothing now--the thing which had terrified him, which stank of evil and the dreaded unknown, had proved to be only flesh and blood after all. If only he could get out of this place. He jumped on to the table, scattering Hadstock's tea-things, and there found himself level with the window. One bounding leap carried him through, the small panes and rotten woodwork giving way before him. Over the gate, across the glebe, over the ditch and into the park he went like a white streak, his nose dripping blood and the taste of it on his tongue raising his fierce spirit to a frenzy. Thus and thus would the blood of the enemy taste.

He ran straight to the side door of the house and was there baulked again. Madness came upon him; he threw himself at the door, reckless of bruises, retreated, threw up his head and howled and barked, and renewed the assault. The servants heard him and cursed or shuddered according to their sex and disposition and buried their heads in the bedclothes. No one stirred. They all knew that the dog had been locked up for attacking Mr Mundford. And a dog howling in the night boded no good anyway.

Linda heard him. She had not gone to bed and was still huddled by the fire in her small sitting-room, half paralytic with a fear she dared hardly examine or name to herself. Despite the fire which roared and crackled and blazed, the room grew colder and strange draughts troubled the candles. Closely woven into the fear was a sense of guilt. She'd known, really, and tried to take refuge in incredulity; had seen and turned away, muffling her eyes with disbelief. But what could I have done? she asked herself again and again. What can I do now?

She knew what she must do when she heard the dog. Somehow or other Richard had found where he was, and her imagination shuddered away from the thought of what was happening now. She got up on legs that felt stiff and hollow, as though they were made of bamboo, and took one of the flickering, unreliable candles. She went out into the hall, where the stairs climbed up into the darkness and the cold came to meet her, walked resolutely across it and opened the door on its farther side. It led to the gunroom, disused since Sir Charles's death. Here the dog's noise, a rising crescendo of yelps and barking, reached her more clearly--she was on the right track; but then she'd known all along. As she crossed the room she looked at the neatly ranged guns and for the first time in her life wished that she had learned to use one and thought of Lady Fennel, by repute the best shot in Suffolk. If someone were torturing Lady Fennel's dog and there were guns within reach...But it was no good, she wasn't Lady Fennel; she knew nothing of guns, not even how to load one...

On the far side of the gunroom was the door to the little lobby which was just inside the side entrance. She opened that door and was making steadily along the passage towards the cellar door when Simon, who had momentarily ceased his noise, taken a run back and turned for one more attempt to batter down the door, threw himself against it and snarled as it resisted him. So he wasn't down there in the cellar with them; he was outside. She turned and threw open the door, dreading what she might see. Simon, with his crazy eyes and his fur on end and his face and chest all splattered with blood, was a horrid sight, and he bounded in like a mad dog, pushing against her and sniffing (all right so far, all well with the flock) and then rushing off along the passage towards the cellar door. She cried out, put her hand to the door to steady herself from the impact of the dog's passing, and dropped her candlestick. At the same moment something else moved out there in the darkness, and something low down, near the ground, glimmered.

She would have screamed then, but she was voiceless as one is in a nightmare and no sound came.

'It's all right, my lady. I'm here,' said Hadstock, and raised his lantern.

She could speak then and said 'Oh Hadstock, oh Hadstock.' over and over again, laughing and crying at the same time.

Miss Parsons woke suddenly, as the old do, and was immediately conscious of something wrong. No pain, and her breathing was certainly clear; not too hot or too cold. What then? She raised her head and looked about her. The candle in its perforated china cover, specially designed to burn safely and slowly through the night, gave out its steady muted glow, but the fire was out. It must be very late. She reached for her watch and held it at arm's length near to one of the holes in the candle cover and squinted and scowled until she had it focused and could see the time. Just after midnight. Then she must have been asleep. It was ten when she was settled for the night. Ah yes, now she knew; she remembered. Mrs Bennet had settled her for the night because Damask was out. And she'd meant to stay awake until the child came home, but she'd fallen asleep. That was what was wrong. Or was it? Wasn't it rather the feeling that the next-door room was still unoccupied?