The Wild Seed (54 page)

‘Will Bethan agree to a divorce?’ Catherine was doubtful.

‘She will have no choice, I will have her committed to an institution if she won’t see sense.’

Neither of them heard the small sound behind the doorway, or saw a shadowy figure retreating across the street to vanish into the shadows.

‘Soon, Catherine, we will be together, then nothing will separate us ever again.’

Hari was exhausted. She had walked back to the spot where she had been attacked, that she felt was the most likely place for a trap to be laid for Craig. The roadway was empty, silent, the darkness was oppressive, but Hari forced herself to search among the shrubs for any sign of disturbance.

The moon had risen high, its silver glow illuminated the grass, glittering on the marshlands, so that they appeared to be lit by hundreds of fairy lights.

Hari felt helplessness sweep over her, there was so much ground to cover, so many places to search, how could she hope to find Craig by herself?

She paused, trying to think again of the words Bethan Hopkins had spoken so smugly. The woman had emphasized Brutus’s evil temper, she meant Craig to have a riding accident, but if not on the roadway leading into town then where?

Hari froze. Over towards the other side of the hill was a deep woodland and beyond that a yawning precipice, a horse and rider might stumble over the edge in the darkness especially if some kind of trap had been laid. Hari bit her lip, imagining a nightmare vision of Craig, broken and injured, lying on the floor of the quarry.

She turned and made her way through the woods, she was weary, dispirited, but she could not return home to the empty house, she would search until she dropped if need be but she must find Craig. Alive or dead, she must find him.

It took her almost an hour to reach the copse. Here the moon could not penetrate because of the thickness of the trees; the darkness was intense. Beneath the trees it was cool, the rustle of small creatures in the grass was clearly audible in the silence. Hari shuddered, she was living in a nightmare because of the evil of Bethan Hopkins. The woman was not sane, she should be locked away, she was a danger to everyone.

Hari stood for a moment in silence, breathing in the night, listening, fully alert for any sound that might help her to find her husband. He was near by, she felt it in her bones. She strained to look through the blackness and towards her left, she heard the soft whinny of a horse.

‘Brutus?’ The animal came towards her, eyes rolling with fear. Hari patted his neck. ‘It’s all right, boy, it’s all right.’ Cautiously, she edged her way forward towards the edge of the rocky headland.

She lay flat on her stomach in the damp grass, peering downwards, willing the moon to shine, to illuminate the ground below her. She called Craig’s name but her voice echoed distantly, lonely and lost among the rocks.

The sky to the east had begun to lighten, it was almost daybreak. Hari closed her eyes and prayed for the dawn, willing it to come more quickly.

She tensed, she thought she heard a sound of movement below in the quarry. She edged forward so that she was hanging over the cliff and, straining her eyes, she dimly made out a shape spread-eagled below on a flat surface of rock.

‘Craig!’ Her voice was urgent but there was no movement, no sound, and as her eyes misted over, she wondered if she was really seeing a figure among the rocks or if her senses were playing tricks on her.

Slowly, the day lightened, the trees that a few minutes ago were grey flattened shapes became solid trunks with thin branches whipped by the breeze.

Her grasping hands dug into the ground as she hung precariously over the rock-face. Yes! There was someone down there, it was a man. It was Craig.

‘Craig!’ She called his name but there was no movement, no sign that he was alive. ‘Craig, answer me, please answer me.’ She was sobbing, incoherent, and for a moment she rested her face against the cold grass straining for control.

She pushed herself back from the edge, she must be calm, she must do something positive; lying there crying would help no-one. She grasped at a tuft of coarse grass to give herself purchase and her hand encountered something metallic. She lifted it, stretching out her palm, knowing with a feeling of dread what she would see. It was a spent cartridge, someone had been shooting up here.

She closed her eyes against the sudden, overwhelming fear that Craig might be dead, shot through the heart, then pushed down into the quarry. She must get help but the nearest house was at least a mile away. Sobbing with exhaustion, she called to Brutus, he came at once, his soft nose nuzzling her hand. She climbed onto his back, praying the animal would not throw her and, slowly at first, began to make her way towards the town.

‘I don’t know what I am going to do, Elizabeth.’ Bethan was back at Ty Craig. ‘I heard him myself, telling the slut he would have me put away.’ She sat in her chair before the grey of the rock, her face white with anger. ‘They were so busy they didn’t even hear me outside the door of that slum where she lives. I suppose even now he’s having his way with the bitch!’ Her lip curled disdainfully. ‘Women of her sort are always ready to lie on their back for any man.

‘Oh, he’s clever, I’ll give him that. With me in an asylum he could forget me and take charge of all my wealth. Well, I won’t have it, I’ll kill him and her both but I’ll see them suffer the tortures of the damned before I send them to the hell where they belong.

‘I know, Elizabeth, I must make a plan, a plan to get them both here together where I can deal with them. You will help me, Elizabeth. Talk to me, you are so wise, tell me what I must do.’

Bethan began to rock herself to and fro, nodding her head from time to time as though she was listening. At last, she leaned back and sighed with relief. ‘You are right, that is a good plan. I’ll tell Boyo that
I
want a divorce, that way I will put them off their guard.’

She rose and undressed and put on a fresh, clean nightgown, throwing her soiled shoes into the bottom of a cupboard. Boyo must never know she had been out, that she had spied on him and his whore, had listened to everything he had said. He might not come home until morning but he would come, if only to gloat about bedding that bitch again. She had seen them in each other’s arms, why had he never held her with such tenderness?

As she climbed into bed, anger bloomed like a rose within her, it was sharp and painful like thorns. She wanted to beat with her fists at those who had betrayed her but that was not the answer, other weapons must be used, such as subtlety and cunning.

She heard Boyo come in as dawn crept in through the window, she heard him climb the stairs and she lay back against the pillows, closing her eyes. He sat on the edge of the bed and she felt his breath as he leant towards her. ‘Bethan, we have to talk.’ He knew she was feigning sleep. She opened her eyes and pushed herself upright.

‘Boyo, what is it, what’s so important that it can’t wait until a reasonable time? it’s hardly daybreak.’

‘I can’t stand this situation any longer,’ he said. ‘I have to have a divorce, I can’t live with you and all your ghosts or soon I’ll be mad, too.’

‘Mad, do you think me mad, Boyo?’ She concealed her anger with admirable control and he looked at her carefully, as if she was a cobra about to strike.

‘Well, you need help, let’s put it that way.’

‘Why not put it this way: you want to get out of this marriage and any excuse will do, even to suggest there is something wrong with my mind, is that what you are saying?’

‘I can’t live with you, your threats, your tears, your strange ways. I’ve had as much as I can take of your whining and your selfishness, is that plain enough for you?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so.’ She smiled slowly, ‘Strange, isn’t it? If you had waited until I was up from bed and dressed, you would have heard my views first.’

She took a sip of water from the glass at her side. ‘You see, Boyo, I have had enough of this charade too, I know you’ve been out all night and I can guess who you have been with. If you will do this to me when I am pregnant with your child, betray me in exactly the way you did before, then there is no future for us.’

She could see he was taken aback by her words, by her calmness. She pressed home her point. ‘I want a divorce as badly as you do but there is one condition: that I talk to you both calmly about the division of our goods and chattels and of our joint wealth.’

‘No need to discuss anything, you can have whatever you want. You have control of your own fortune, you have this house and I will make a generous settlement on you. There, see, it’s done.’

She smiled thinly, he need not think he was getting away with things that easily. She shook her head, ‘I insist that you bow to my one wish: to talk to you both together before we start proceedings. I feel such a discussion would prevent, shall we say, irregularities, arising later. I shall invite my solicitor to be present if you think I am out to cheat you.’

‘No need for that,’ Boyo said at once and Bethan knew she had shamed him. ‘We can settle matters between us without interference from anyone else. Look, I will sign as much money over to you as you want.’

‘Are you so anxious to be free, then?’ For a moment, Bethan felt a pang of regret that their marriage was to end after all her hopes.

‘It’s over, Bethan, anything we had together is gone, you must feel that too if you want a divorce as much as I do.’

‘Of course, you are right.’ She had to be careful, she must not let him see the hate that was burning in her. He rose to his feet, he meant to leave at once, that much was obvious. He could not wait to get away from her.

He paused at the door. ‘I really think you and I should settle this between us without bringing Catherine into it, what we have to discuss is nothing to do with her.’

‘I will have my way on this,’ Bethan forced a smile. ‘Surely it is not much to ask that you both spare me half an hour of your time before you rush off to a wonderful new life together?’ A new life in Hades, she thought bale-fully.

‘I suppose not.’ She could see he was not convinced. ‘What harm could it do to talk?’

‘None,’ he replied, ‘but I would rather the meeting take place on neutral ground.’

She hid her dismay. ‘Where would you suggest?’

‘The tearooms of the Mackworth Hotel perhaps.’

‘That sounds very suitable.’ It was not suitable at all but she would cross that bridge when she came to it, for now it was enough that Boyo was agreeing to bring that bitch to meet her. ‘Shall we say a week today? We can have tea at the hotel.’ She was playing for time and she wondered if he knew it.

She looked down at her hands. ‘Last night, you said you would speak to the doctor, bring him to see if I was all right; you were anxious, angry that I had been attacked. Have you forgotten that so soon?’

She had touched a raw nerve, Bethan saw him flinch. ‘I will send Cara for him at once and, if it means so much to you, I will wait to see what he has to say. In the meantime, I am going to bathe and shave and pack some clothes.’

She turned her face away as the door closed, she wanted to scream and rant and rage against him, she longed to plunge a knife into his black heart. After all they had been together, the pain they had endured, he meant to walk out of her life. Well, she would not let him walk away from her like that, she would wait and plan and then, when the time was right, she would spring her trap.

It was some time later that Boyo stood with the doctor at the curved doorway of Ty Craig. He watched the man climb onto his horse and canter away down the drive and his mind was whirling with confusion. Bethan had not been lying, she was expecting a child.

He remembered again the strange dream, the dream that he was making love, falling into a softness. He remembered with a thrill of horror the nail marks on his back. Somehow Bethan had tricked him, had put something in his drink. He lifted his head and stared up at the grey rock, his fists bunched. It made no difference, he intended to leave her and there was nothing she could do about it.

Hari rose to her feet as a white-coated doctor came along the corridor towards her. ‘How is he?’ Her mouth was dry with fear.

‘Not too bad considering the fall and the hours of exposure to the cold and damp.’ The doctor smiled reassuringly. ‘He has a few cracked ribs but apart from that, he is remarkably fit.’

‘When can I take him home?’

‘You can take him home at once, nothing we can do here, it is up to nature now. Just let him rest, spoil him a little and in no time your husband will be as fit as a fiddle again.’ He paused. ‘He’s been extremely lucky, a riding accident was it?’

Hari fingered the cartridge in her pocket and after a moment, nodded her head. ‘It looks like it, perhaps when I speak to my husband he can tell me exactly what happened.’

‘I expect so. Fortunate for him that you managed to find him in that God-forsaken place though.’

‘I know.’ How could Hari explain that a mixture of instinct and the putting together of the threats Bethan had made had led her to the spot where her husband was found? It all seemed too foolish for words.

‘Right, then, I have work to do.’ The doctor became brisk. ‘I suggest you take a cab home, he’s in no state to ride a horse or to walk far.’

Hari had thought of that, she could not afford a cab but she had appealed for help to Arian Smale. Arian had readily agreed to give her the use of a pony and trap.

Hari hurried towards the ward where her husband was sitting on the edge of the bed. He smiled when he saw her, his old, teasing smile, and she leaned over him, kissing his face, his eyelids, his mouth with butterfly strokes.

‘My love, thank God it wasn’t worse. When I saw you lying there, I thought I’d lost you.’

‘Can’t kill a tough nut like me that easily,’ he said and as he rose to his feet, she saw him wince.

‘I’ve got a pony and trap to take us home.’ Her lip trembled, home was not Summer Lodge, not now Bethan Hopkins had rented it for the duration. Home now was a dingy few rooms in the slum area of Swansea. But they would get used to it, they would have to.