Lonesome Road Page 7

  “It’s all very well, my dear, but good people are scarce, and if no one else will stand up to you and tell you you’re doing too much, well I will. You’re looking fagged out. What you want is a holiday. Why don’t you go right away from telephones, and begging letters, and neighbors who want you to do their shopping for them, and the whole boiling of us? Unless-” He stopped and bent affectionately over her chair. “Unless… Come, Rachel, here’s an idea. What about letting me show you Morocco? We’ll take Caroline to chaperone us, and you shall pay all the bills.” He laughed heartily and dropped a kiss on her hair. “Think it over my dear, think it over.”

  Rachel laughed too and got up.

  “I think I should make a better chaperone than Caroline. And now I’m going to see Nanny, so you must look after yourselves.”

  It was an astonishing relief to get away. At Whincliff Edge everyone was so busy grinding axes that the noise quite deafened her. They pressed about her, exhausting the very air she breathed, always asking, always demanding, always wanting more. And under all this surface clamor and pressure something dark and stealthy moved, and waited to pull her down. In Nanny Capper’s neat kitchen she was in another world-a simpler, kinder world where Nanny herself played Providence and nobody else was more than seven years old.

  “Up in the night he got in his bare feet and nothing on over his night things, and that’s how I caught him, standing a-tiptoe in your father’s dressing-room and tugging at the little top drawer to get it open. Two in the morning it was, and the noise of the drawer that waked me. And ‘Master Sonny.’ I said, ‘for goodness gracious sake, what-ever are you doing?’ And you should have heard how he spoke up. ‘I want a handkerchief,’ he says, and ‘Oh, Master Sonny,’ I said, ‘there’s aplenty in your own drawer, and one under your pillow, for I put it there myself.’ And what do you think he said? Never flinched, but looked me straight in the eye. ‘They’re too little,’ he said. ‘They’re not men’s handkerchiefs. I want a real man’s handkerchief to blow my nose with. And please will you open the drawer, because I can’t reach it, Nanny.’ ”

  “And what did you do?” asked Rachel, who knew the answer.

  Nanny Capper was a very fat old woman in a white Cashmere shawl over a black Cashmere dress, and large shapeless slippers on her large shapeless feet. She never got out of her chair except to go to bed, but she enjoyed life hugely. A stout niece looked after her, and she saw her beloved Miss Rachel once a week. She asked no more. She had four chins, and they all shook when she laughed as she did now.

  “Oh, I gave him one-opened the drawer, and gave him the largest handkerchief I could find. I knew Mr. Treherne wouldn’t mind, seeing he was a visitor and Mr. Brent’s son that was his partner. A very nice gentleman Mr. Brent was, but they had some sort of a quarrel, him and your father, very soon after that, so Master Sonny never came back again. A couple of months we had him that time, and him and Miss Mabel sparred something dreadful. But you was only four months old, and he was mortal taken with you. You’d think he’d never seen a baby before, and I don’t suppose he had, not close to. There-I often wonder what’s come to him. He promised to be a fine man. But first there was the quarrel, and then Mr. Brent went away, and it was after that your father made all the money and we come back to England. Did you never find out anything about them?”

  Rachel shook her head.

  “No. Father wanted me to try, so I tried, and I’ve gone on trying, but it doesn’t seem to be any use.”

  “Well, I liked Master Sonny, and if ever he does turn up, you’ll know it’s him right enough, because there was a man in the place where we were that did tattooing-and if Mr. Brent didn’t have that poor child’s name pricked out on his arm! The left arm it was, and just above the elbow. A downright shame, and so I told him. But he only laughed, and Master Sonny stuck up his chin and said, ‘I didn’t cry-did I?’ And no more he hadn’t, and it must have hurt him cruel. And how Mr. Brent could have stood by to see that poor child maltreated like that-well it passes me. And that reminds me of little Miss Rosemary March. She used to come visiting to Mr. Frith’s when I had Mr. Cosmo. Half a crown a time her mother used to give her when she had to go to the dentist, and Mrs. Frith, she was wonderful taken with the idea, and I said to her, ‘No, ma’am, if you please. If Master Cosmo don’t learn to bear pain now he never will.’ And with one thing and another that’s how I come to leave and go out to your dear mother that had Miss Mabel on her hands five years old and expecting you every minute. And I took you from the month. But Mr. Cosmo’s grown a fine man, and I’m pleased to think I had him in my nursery, if it was only six months. Often drops in he does when he’s this way. And the stories he’s got to tell, why you wouldn’t believe there was such goings on-now would you? But he ought to get himself a good wife to settle him down, for he’s not as young as he was, and so I told him last time he was here. ‘But Nanny,’ he says, ‘what can a poor fellow do if the one he wants won’t have him?’ ‘Go on asking her,’ I said. And he looks at me very solemn and says, ‘What have I got to offer her, Nanny? A parcel of debts, a tongue that wags too fast, a roomful of pictures that nobody cares to buy, and a heartful of love that she don’t want. She could have had me any time these twenty years, and she knows it.’ And I patted him on the shoulder and told him that faint heart never won fair lady.”

  Rachel got up. Cosmo had been proposing to her at intervals ever since she grew up. It was a habit, and she had come to take it as no more than his rather tiresome way of expressing cousinly affection. But just at this moment to feel that a proposal from Cosmo was lurking among the watercolors which he would certainly insist on showing her either tonight or in the very near future was really the very, very last straw. And Nanny to be coming over all sentimental and trying to plead his cause! Anger put crispness into her tone as she said,

  “It’s a mistake to go on when people don’t want you to, Nanny. Tell him to look for somebody else before it’s too late. And now I must go.”

  “Oh, Miss Rachel, it’s early yet.”

  Mrs. Capper knew when she had gone too far. Her tone was a propitiatory one. It promised, “Sit down and talk, and I won’t say another word about Mr. Cosmo.” But Rachel shook her head.

  “No, I must go. I’ve got someone arriving by the five-thirty-they’ll be up at the house before I am now.”

  “The clock’s fast, Miss Rachel. Did you hear about Mr. Tollage digging out his hedge, and the adders that was in it? Gave me the creeps it did to hear about them.” She kept hold of Rachel’s hand and talked fast to beguile her into staying. “I said to Ellen, ‘I don’t thank Mr. Tollage for nothing, turning all them snakes out to find new lodgings. I’m not letting any,’ I said. ‘And you keep a sharp look out that they don’t come worming themselves in.’ And what do you think she told me she’d seen with her own eyes? You’d never credit it, but those young rascals of boys was selling adders a penny apiece to anyone that was fool enough to buy. They say old Betty Martin bought a good few-and if she isn’t a witch, there’s never been no such thing. And Ellen says two of the boys spoke up and told her they’d sold a couple of lives ones-caught them in a shrimping net and tied it up with string. Though what in the world anyone ’ud want live adders for passes me.”

  Rachel got her hand away, but she was no longer in a hurry to go. Her knees felt weak. She managed enough voice to say,

  “What boys? Who bought the snakes?”

  “They were strangers to Ellen. All they said was a lady in a green scarf had bought the two live adders, shrimping net and all. She gave them a good half-crown too. That was a funny thing, wasn’t it, when you come to think of it?”

  “Yes,” said Rachel. She wondered if her voice sounded as strange to Nanny as it did to herself.

  Mrs. Capper shook her head with its neatly plaited hair and its little lace cap.

  “Because what would anyone want a pair of live adders for?”

  “I can’t think,” said Rachel. “Goodnight, Nanny-I really
must go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rachel stood in the dark by the gate of Mrs. Capper’s cottage and tried to pull herself together. Cherry had gone away that morning in a bright green scarf-a flaring emerald scarf which even in the dusk might catch a child’s eye and be remembered. But anyone could have a green scarf. Caroline had one-jade green, very bright-too bright. Mabel had given it to her for her birthday only a week ago.

  A trembling took Rachel-a sick trembling. Not Caroline. No, no, no-not Caroline! There are things you can’t believe.

  She stood quite still. The air was very cold. The trembling passed. She got out her torch and switched it on. The beam was so faint that it hardly showed her the gate against which she leaned. She could scarcely believe her eyes, for the battery was a new one put in that morning. She hesitated as to whether she would take the cliff path after all, or whether it would be safer to go the long way round by the road. But the road was a very long way round, the cliff path safe enough for anyone who knew it. Her eyes had already accustomed themselves sufficiently to the darkness for her to be able to distinguish the outline of the cottage against the sky, and the lighter surface of the road.

  She put out the torch, walked a little way, and found that she could see well enough. It was quite easy to make out the path, and that was all that really mattered. There was just one place where it ran for about twenty yards right on the edge of the cliff with a long drop to the beach. She thought she would save the torch and use it there. This was the one dangerous spot, for the low parapet which guarded it was under reconstruction, most of it having collapsed in the heavy storms of a month ago.

  She had just switched the torch on, and was finding it more confusing than helpful, when she thought she heard a footstep behind her. She stood still to listen, the torch swinging in her hand, making a dancing pattern on the path. There was both relief and warmth at her heart. Twice out of the last three times that she had been to see Nanny, Gale Brandon had appeared from nowhere to walk home with her along the cliffs. She had left early tonight. She did not doubt for a moment that he had found her gone and was following her now. Without appearing to wait for him, she thought that she might dally a little and give him a chance to catch her up. The idea of company was pleasant. She had no wish to listen to her own thoughts.

  She walked a few paces and stood at the edge of the path looking out over the sea. It was a high tide and far in, but only the very highest tide with a winter gale behind it ever reached the foot of the cliffs. Black ridges of rock ran down into black water. There were scarcely visible, darker shadows in a general gloom, but she knew that they were there. Over them and over the cliff the wind blew cold. It had voice enough to drown the sound of the oncoming footsteps. There had been a lull, and there would be a lull again. She waited for it and listened, looking out over the water.

  And then there was the sound, right behind her. She made to turn, received a violent blow between the shoulders, dropped her torch, and stumbled forward over the edge of the cliff. That half turn saved her life. She fell sideways instead of headlong, her right arm flung out, the hand grasping at emptiness, but all her left side in contact with the shelving cliff. Her left leg rasped against rock, her left hand caught at a sod, a tussock. Her foot checked the descent for a moment, and in that moment she had both hands fast in the twigs and branches of some small shrubby bush. She hung there, not dazed but sharply, horribly aware of the rocks below. But she knew that she could not hang there long. The bush would give, or her frantic grasp.

  And then her left foot found a hold again, a little jutting shelf of rock, narrow, oh, so narrow, but firm as the cliff itself. She got the toe of her other foot upon it, and the worst of the strain was off her hands. The bush and her hold of it were enough to steady her.

  For a moment the relief was as sweet as if she had been saved, but on the heels of that came the realization of her position. She could just make out the edge of the cliff. It seemed to be about eight feet above her. She could maintain herself here for a time-but for how long? It was very cold. Her hands were bare-she never wore gloves if she could help it-and this had helped to save her. But if her numbed fingers could hold no longer, if she were to turn faint-the rocks were waiting. The only living soul within call was the one who had pushed her over the cliff. She did not dare cry out.

  As she looked up, there was a sound from above-a kind of grunt and the scrape of stone on stone. Something blacker than the darkness came over the verge and rushed past her. She heard the crash of its fall far down below. The wind of it sang in her ears-and her own cry-and the wind that came in from the sea. Her body shook, and her heart. If she had not remembered the rocks she would have let go.

  She looked up at the place from which the big stone had come and waited for another. There were plenty there, great lumps of rock from the ruined wall-loose too, and not hard to push over. The next would stun her, carry her away… None came. She thought, “I cried out. He thinks I fell.”

  Then she was aware that someone was looking at her-looking down at her as she looked up. She could see nothing that could be called a shape, but there was a place where the darkness was solid. It was the same place from which the stone had come. Someone who hated her was there-someone who wanted her to die-someone who wanted to make sure that she was dead before he went on his way. She said “he,” but she did not know that it was a man. There was someone there who desired her death. That was all. It might have been a woman That scrutiny was worse than anything that had gone before. It seemed to last a long time. Then the blackness moved. She did not know which way it went, but it was gone. The worst horror left her. She shut her eyes and tried to pray.

  She never knew quite how long it was before she saw the light. She must have been aware of it through her closed lids, because she stopped in the middle of a verse from a psalm and opened her eyes. And there, not a dozen feet away on her left, was the dancing ray of a torch. It was not on the same level as she was, but four or five feet above the path, swinging easily in a man’s hand. Through the sound of the wind Gale Brandon’s voice came to her, singing a snatch of a negro spiritual:

  “Look down, look down that lonesome road

  Before you travel on-”

  She called with the strength of agony,

  “Help, Mr. Brandon-help!”

  He stopped, and she heard her name spoken roughly.

  She called again, the strength going out of her.

  He said, “Rachel!” with a sort of angry shout, and the beam came down and struck her upturned face and open eyes.

  He said, “My God!” and then, “Can you hold on?”

  “I don’t know. Not very long.”

  “You can. I won’t be long.”

  And that was all. The light swung back to the path, and she heard his running feet.

  She tried to think how far it was to Nanny’s cottage. Not very far, but there was no one there who could help. Ellen wouldn’t be back till seven.

  The wind was chilling her, and she was getting stiff. There was only just room for the fore part of her feet on the narrow ledge. From the arch of the instep outwards they had no support. She could not move at all. Her left palm was cut from its desperate clutchings at the rock when she fell. Her head began to fell dizzy. She shut her eyes.

  And then a lull, and the sound of running feet again, only this time they were coming nearer, and she heard Gale Brandon shout, “Hold on! I’m coming! It’s all right!”

  He was above her now, with the torch cunningly tilted to show him her position without dazzling her. He had a white bundle in his arm and he began paying it out.

  “Nanny hadn’t any rope-I had to tear up her sheets. That’s why I’ve been so long.”

  The linen fell dangling beside her against the face of the cliff.

  “Now, Rachel, can you let go at all with either hand?”

  She said, “No.”

  Gale Brandon said, “You must!” The light slipped to and fro across her hands
. He said in an encouraging voice, “You’ve got quite a good bunch of stuff in that right hand. Does it feel firm?”

  She couldn’t really feel anything at all, but she said, “Yes.”

  “What sort of foothold have you got?”

  “Rock-but I’ve only got my toes on it.”

  “That’s fine. Now I’m going to swing the sheet close up to you on your left. It’s knotted into a sling at the end. I’ll try and pull the sling up under your elbow. The minute you feel it there let go the bush with your left hand, push your arm through the loop, and catch the sheet above it. That’ll bring the sling under your armpit. Now do that quick, and then I’ll tell you what to do next.”

  Rachel did it, she never quite knew how. She found herself holding to the linen rope and feeling it cut in under her armpit as her weight came on the sling.

  Gale Brandon said, “That’s fine.” The light slid over her again. “Now you’ve got to put your head through. It’s quite easy. And then your right arm, so that the sling will be under both armpits.”

  Rachel said, “I don’t think I can.”

  She heard the sharpest tone of command that had ever been used to her.

  “Do what you’re told, and do it at once!”

  She did it.

  She was holding the linen now with both hands, and the sling was round her body.

  He said, “Now we’re all right. I’m going to pull you up, but you must help yourself as much as you can. It’s nothing like sheer-there’s a good bit of slope in our favor. Take advantage of every bit you can. And don’t be frightened I’ll let you go, because I won’t. You’re quite safe now.”

  Safe! The next few moments were the most terrifying she had ever known. If she had been less afraid she might have fainted. It was a very poignancy of terror which kept her conscious. It would have been much easier if she could have swooned. No use thinking about what would be easier-she had got to help Gale.