The Unicorn (24 page)

She could scarcely believe it, as she dressed herself, trembling and shivering already with excitement, that she, today, was to be the one to break the spell which had dazed and defeated so many. This day, whatever it brought, and whether it would count in the end as victory or disaster, would surely be the last day of the prison and the end of the legend. What would come after would be inconceivably different, would be real life.

That she was on the brink of some terrible act of destruction had at moments occurred to her, but without in any way affecting her resolution. It did at those moments seem possible that the sudden violence might produce, not the vanishing of the dream and the reassuring appearance of the ordinary good world, but some shapes yet more Gothic and grotesque. There might be some terrible shaking to pieces of Hannah, some terrible dissolving of the beloved face; and once late at night Marian shuddered to find herself half believing that by removing Hannah from Gaze she would indeed procure her death. Yet with daylight, and recalling again the cries, the howls, which she had heard on the evening of the music, she told herself that it was leaving her here, not taking her away, which would be the end of Hannah.

Hannah herself had apparently recovered almost at once from the musical upset. When Marian had returned from her brief talk with Effingham she had found her employer in her room drinking whiskey with Violet Evercreech and laughing shamefacedly over her exhibition. Yet Hannah had been somehow exhausted by that overflow of feeling and for the next few days was, with Marian, more touchingly dependent and apologetic than usual. Violet had visited Hannah assiduously, and with something of the air of a doctor, on the two days following, and had then withdrawn again into her isolation. She had ignored Marian.

Effingham was now splendidly firm. Having made up his mind, he was fiercely anxious for action, as if he feared the relentless movement of a clock which might suddenly bring down with a clang some impossible portcullis. Of course, they were both quite straightforwardly afraid of discovery. Their looks, their meetings, must sooner or later suggest that something was afoot. But apart from this, Effingham conveyed to her, infected her with, a dreadful sense of urgency. Half sadly she reflected that in him it was, it must be, the desire, how exquisitely fearful at the last, to gain possession of what he had so long worshipped. What her own role would later on be she did not pause to consider. Her thought ended with the breaking of the barrier.

They had decided to proceed like this. Marian was to accustom Hannah to taking a little walk in the grounds in the late afternoon. This was easily done, as the stroll was already half customary and Hannah never in practice opposed any suggestion which Marian made. On the day in question they were to walk down the drive toward the entrance gates. Effingham would then appear in Max’s Humber and offer them a lift back to the house. The likelihood of Hannah’s refusing a lift back to the house was small, especially as Marian would at once profess exhaustion. Once Hannah was in the car, Effingham would turn it round and accelerate out of the gates.

They would then drive very fast, not to Blackport, which Effingham thought was too obvious and risky, but to a remote little hotel in the mountains which he knew of, which was also reasonably on the road to the airport. There they would stop, lock themselves in a private room and reason with Hannah. It was unlikely that they would be successfully pursued. The hotel, one after all of many possibilities, was hard to find; and they had chosen a day when Scottow and Jamesie would be absent on one of their regular jaunts. ‘Going to market,’ Gerald called these expeditions, but the two usually came back late, smelling of burgundy and not especially laden with merchandise. The Land Rover then would be absent; and the Morris, Effingham explained, could easily be disabled by pouring sugar into the petrol tank. The plan seemed simple enough to be foolproof, provided Scottow and Jamesie departed as usual, and provided it did not rain.

Recalling what Jamesie’s blunder had been on a similar occasion, Marian very carefully and surreptitiously packed for Hannah a small selection of old and out-of-favour clothes whose absence would not be noticed. She then packed for herself a little bag containing the precious minimum of her belongings, and both bags had been conveyed to Riders by Effingham on the previous night. Marian was resigned to losing the rest of her things; for although she tried to be open-minded about what Hannah would want them to do, she could not really conceive of herself returning to the castle, she could scarcely indeed conceive of the castle as, after today’s act, continuing to exist.

Marian got through the morning somehow. She and Effingham had synchronized their watches, but she was terrified that hers would stop, and kept trying to wind it every half-hour. She was so incoherent with Hannah that the latter thought she must be ill and tried to persuade her to go to bed. After lunch, to her intense relief, Gerald and Jamesie left the house together, and she watched through glasses the disappearance of the Land Rover along the road to Greytown. In the dead depths of the afternoon she dealt with the Morris. But when that was securely done and she had returned unseen to the house it was still too early to go back to Hannah. She sat in her room chewing her knuckles and feeling faint.

At last it was time to go. She took a last look round her room, put on her coat and hurried to Hannah’s room. Hannah was not there. After a moment of sickening panic she saw from the window that she was already walking on the terrace. She ran down and they began to stroll with their usual extreme slowness along the winding sunny drive.

Marian had timed it on several occasions and knew exactly how long it would take them to reach the desired point. She kept glancing at her watch while Hannah talked. The timing was perfect. Only let Effingham not fail.

‘I really must try to grow camellias here,’ Hannah was saying. “The peaty soil ought to suit them, oughtn’t it? I just wonder if they could stand the wind. Though there are some sheltered spots. I must ask Alice. Give me your arm, would you, dear, I still feel so tired. Aren’t you hot in that coat? Why not leave it under a bush and we could pick it up on the way back.’

‘I think I’ll keep it,’ Marian mumbled. She could hardly speak.

‘Or shall we turn back now?’

‘A little farther.’ She wondered if Hannah could feel her trembling. She cast a quick look at the wide-eyed rather sleepy face beside her. It was the last drowsy moment for the sleeping beauty.

The gravel drive was bordered on each side by black soft boggy soil, and there was only one place about half way along the drive where the car could turn, where there was a circle of gravel and a little sundial. They were just passing this, Marian the slightest bit urging Hannah onward with her supporting arm. Effingham was exactly due.

‘You were right to put your coat on after all,’ Hannah was saying. There’s a cold wind. Ah, my dear, I wonder how you’ll stand us all in the winter time. I mustn’t start taking you for granted just because you fit in so beautifully. You must have plenty of holidays, you know, as much as you want. And I feel you ought to be doing more of your own work. I’m so glad about the Greek. We must make it pleasant for you -‘

‘I love it here,’ muttered Marian. Effingham was half a minute late.

‘Why, how nice, there’s Effie in Max’s old car.’

Thank God. Marian drew Hannah a little aside off the drive. Their shoes sank into the soft soil as the car slowed up.

‘Can I gave you two a lift back?’

Effingham’s face was so white and his eyes so bulging that it seemed that Hannah must notice. But she said gaily ‘Splendid!’ and got into the back of the car at once. Effingham had thoughtfully piled a lot of books on to the vacant front seat. Marian gave him a hard encouraging look and stepped in after her. The door banged, for better or worse, upon their enterprise.

According to a plan which they had arranged beforehand Marian began immediately to complain of having hurt her foot. It had been hurting all the way down the drive, she said, and, see, she must have cut it without noticing on some glass for it seemed to be bleeding. She leaned down, dropping her head below the back of the seat. With an exclamation of concern Hannah leaned right down too to examine the wounded foot in the gloom of the back of the car. Head well down, Marian could feel the car turning in a circle.

Hannah must have felt it too, for she immediately straightened up. But by now the Humber was moving with swiftly increasing speed in the direction of the gates. Hannah stared for a moment and then cried out in a shriek, ‘Effie, don’t!’

As she leaned forward to tug at Effingham’s shoulder Marian seized her in her arms and rolled back embracing her into the back of the car. The Humber was going very fast.

The next things that happened happened very fast too; Marian recalled them afterwards with a strange photographic clarity with which she could scarcely have perceived them at the time, locked as she was with her face half hidden in Hannah’s shoulder. Hannah moaned and struggled, but Marian was far stronger. Then when they were about sixty yards from the gates another car appeared in the gateway. It was the red Austin Seven driven by Alice.

The Austin, going fast, bore straight down on the Humber as if it meant to collide with it head on. Effingham did not slacken speed, but put his hand on the horn and kept it there. As the cars rushed upon each other, the Austin keeping its coarse, Effingham swerved slightly, skidded on the loose gravel, and the Humber left the drive and careered across the soft earth into a clump of fuchsias. It was twenty yards short of the gateway. The engine stopped.

In the silence that followed Marian could hear the engine of the Austin. Alice had braked hard and had put it into reverse. She reversed until she was level with them and then switched off the engine, leaning on the steering-wheel and looking at Effingham. Effingham did not look at her. He got out slowly and opened the rear door of the Humber. The wheels were sunk into the black earth and it was clear that a tractor would be needed now to move the car. The enterprise was over.

Effingham thrust both his hands through the door and supported Hannah out. She was deadly white and uttered little gasps as he gently drew her out of the car. Then she leaned against him in silence. He put his arms right round her and clasped her very closely to him, closing his eyes, and they stood there absolutely still in silence. Marian got out.

The enterprise was indeed over. It did not for a second occur to Marian that, even now, she and Effingham might have hustled Hannah out through the gates. But if she had had that thought she would have had to dismiss it soon, for yet another car appeared in the gateway. It was the Land Rover.

The Land Rover drove in slowly and stopped just behind the Austin. Gerald and Jamesie got out. Jamesie stayed on the far side of the car, leaning on the bonnet, while Gerald advanced to the edge of the drive. He surveyed the scene: the Humber embedded among the fuchsia, with scored earth and scattered gravel behind it, Marian standing beside it, and Effingham on the other side holding Hannah in his arms. Effingham slowly released her.

Gerald said, ‘Hannah.’

She moved towards him like a sleep walker, and as she almost stumbled he moved to give her his arm, and led her to the Land Rover. He handed her in, and then quietly started the car again, nosed it slowly round the Austin, and proceeded up the drive in the direction of the house, leaving Jamesie still motionless at the edge of the drive.

‘Effie.’ Alice opened the passenger door of the Austin.

Effingham looked vaguely across at her. His face was empty and flattened as if the outside layer of expression had been removed. Then he frowned, shook his head almost absently, and went across to the car. He got in and the door banged. The Austin briskly started, ran up to turn at the sundial, and then shot back down the drive and out of the gates.

Marian began to pick her way back to the gravel. Her shoes were covered with black soil.

Jamesie was still standing where he had been left, and as Marian looked at him he seemed to be glowing with some sort of secret pleasure. He stood, a hand poised, like one who wishes to retain before him the vision of some rapturous scene. He slowly turned his head towards her and smiled. ‘Marian!’

‘Hello,’ said Marian. One of her shoes came off. She began to cry quietly.

‘Ah, don’t!’ He moved at last and put an arm round her, supporting her as she dealt with her shoe. He still clasped her as they began to walk back toward the house. ‘Here’s just you and me left behind. That’s nice, isn’t it? Here, let me show you some pictures of yourself. I had them specially done in colour at Greytown.’