She was standing at the window when the second bell rang. The rain had eased a little. It was thinner, the drops discernible and not at such an acute angle. She could see over the garden, and in the far far distance the hazy outline of Mickle Fell. In strong contrast to the inside of the house the outside world was all movement, the trees swaying and bending, the thick, solid yew hedges shivering under the impact of the wind. The very garden ornaments seemed to be leaning back to resist being toppled over. With all this movement why were her eyes brought down to a grey blur at the far end of the drive where it curved away from the house? Perhaps because of it everything else in sight seemed stationary. When it did move it was stiff and straight and it kept close to the hedge that bordered the drive, until it came nearer to the house.

  Bridget’s face was close to the window now, her eyes screwed up as she peered out, and when she recognised the moving blur—more by its height and shape than what she could make out of its features—her breath, exhaling after a long gasp, blurred the pane and by the time her hand had wiped it clean again, the figure had vanished.

  Had she imagined it? No. That figure would be imprinted for ever on her mind. The woman down there was Mrs Crofton. But why was she coming to the house? She must be mad. But mad wasn’t the right word. Bridget felt slightly sick as Bruce’s words came back to her once again: loving like savages.

  She was on the point of turning from the window when her attention was caught again by a movement to the left of her. Someone—a man—was coming from the side of the house. It should have been Laurence, but it wasn’t; it was John who was moving towards the drive. He was enveloped in a raincoat, the collar up, a cap pulled well down over his eyes.

  She watched him enter the drive, his stride characteristically quick, and then she became puzzled when she saw him slacken his pace to a slow walk. She was puzzled further when he stopped once and looked about him. Then with startling suddenness his actions were explained: from out of the hedge stepped the grey figure of Mrs Crofton. For a moment Bridget watched them. They seemed to be talking; then together they disappeared through one of the archways that led from the drive into the garden and were lost to her sight.

  She moved from the window and looked dazedly around the room. John meeting Mrs Crofton? And by appointment? That was no chance meeting. He had known she was there…John meeting Mrs Crofton? There was a sudden sharp stab between her ribs and she shook her head as she said to herself, Don’t be silly, she couldn’t want John too…No, but John might want her. What did she know of John, really? He had known Mrs Crofton a long time, even before Laurence had come on the scene. Was that why he married so quickly, a loveless marriage, made out of compassion? You didn’t do a thing like that unless you were hurt in some way, unless you felt there wasn’t much left in life. She hadn’t thought of it like that before, but now she was thinking, and thinking hard. She remembered that John had never said a word against Mrs Crofton. He had even said, ‘Don’t think too badly of her.’ Thinking back, she remembered him speak of Mrs Crofton. It was a long time ago. His words had been, She is a fascinating woman.

  ‘Oh, that woman! That woman!’ Bridget found herself speaking aloud. And John? What was he thinking about to meet her in the grounds almost under Laurence’s nose, and after what happened this afternoon? But perhaps the meeting had been arranged before that. The thought brought a feeling of anger spurting up in her. She felt she was being betrayed for the second time in a few days. She hated Mrs Crofton…Oh, she hated her!

  When the clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour Bridget went swiftly from the room. Her emotions had moved now to indignation and this was directed towards Sarah Overmeer. It was as she had surmised: she was to have no meal sent upstairs.

  How petty, how utterly petty! She would go and see what Grandma had to say about it. Likely she was to starve, too.

  When she knocked on her grandmother’s door there was no response, and on opening it she found the room empty. This did not lessen her indignation. So Grandma had gone down after all. But why hadn’t she called in to see her first?

  She returned to the landing but did not go to her room. She would go downstairs and into the study. She would have to go to the room anyway before tomorrow, because she had left a number of letters in the writing-table drawer. And should she come across Kate she would say to her, ‘Be kind enough to bring my dinner up to my room.’ And on this she almost marched down the stairs.

  The wall lights were on in the hall, and although the wind was roaring around the house she could hear muffled sounds from behind the closed doors of the dining room, which told her that MacKay was busy with the dishes at the sideboard; whereupon the saliva began to run in her mouth.

  Before she entered the study she went into the cloakroom that was near the front door and from the pegs she lifted two coats, one a lightweight mackintosh, the other a scarlet leather jerkin. She would pack these in her trunk: it would save carrying them tomorrow.

  She had the coats across her arm as she went into the study. The room was almost dark, and the wind here, hitting the front of the house full blast, was deafening. The French windows were rattling and the noise in the wide chimney was like that of a train in a tunnel.

  Dropping the coats onto a chair that stood between the writing table and the French window she pulled open the long top drawer of the table and took out her letters. Bunching them together she closed the drawer and was bending forward to pick up her coats when with the swiftness of lightning the French windows burst open and she was almost knocked off her feet. She leant back against the wall, waiting for the entry of whoever had thrust open the doors, and it was a full minute before she realised there was no-one there waiting to pounce on her, and that the French windows had been blown open with the force of the gale. The room was alive with the elements.

  With her good arm she tried to pull one half of the window closed, while the rain soaked her and the wind threatened to lift her from her feet. Not being able to pull the window forward she went behind it and, putting her good shoulder to it, gradually pushed it into place.

  She was struggling with the other half of the window when the door opened and Kate entered the room. She stood for a moment gaping, then exclaimed in astonishment, ‘Oh, miss! Whatever are you doing?’

  It seemed obvious what Bridget was doing and even if she had had breath with which to reply she saw no need to answer. But after Kate had applied her robust strength to the windows and they were securely locked top and bottom, Bridget lay back against the glass for a moment and closed her eyes, both in fatigue and against Kate, who was saying, ‘Whatever have you been up to, miss?’

  Bridget wiped the rain from her face with her hand and stroked back her wet hair, then picked up the letters and coats from the chair.

  ‘You’ll get your death being out in that, miss, and you just over a shock.’ There was a reprimanding tone in Kate’s voice.

  ‘I haven’t been out; the windows blew open.’

  ‘But you’re wringing wet, miss.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that, but I couldn’t get them closed.’

  Kate, her mouth slightly agape, stared at Bridget, then said, ‘I took your dinner up, miss, and you weren’t in. You shouldn’t ’ave gone out.’

  Oh, what was the use! She saw no point in explaining further.

  She went past Kate and across the hall and up to her room once again, the room that she was beginning to loathe. There was the tray set out appetisingly, but now she seemed to have lost the desire for food. She was picking over the meal when her grandmother at last came into the room.

  The old lady looked rather sad as she sat down and asked, ‘Did you think I was lost?’

  ‘I haven’t known what to think. I haven’t seen anyone but Kate for hours.’

  ‘And feeling a little sorry for yourself?’

  ‘Yes, a little, Grandma.’ Bridget was forced to smile. ‘Where have you been? I went to your room.’

  ‘Well, I went downstairs before dinner to say a personal goodbye to Nancy. I have always liked Nancy; she is a good woman, as MacKay is a good man. I wish I could say the same of Kate and that outside man, Ryder. One is a frustrated spinster if ever I’ve met one, and the man a sensation-monger. That man has always wanted to ingratiate himself into people’s good books. Anyway, as I said, I wanted to say goodbye to Nancy, and as she knew I wasn’t going down to dinner she was kind enough to make me up something which I ate in her room, and later she came in and we sat talking; because I knew, and she knew, that after tomorrow we wouldn’t meet again.’

  Bridget bowed her head at this and said softly, ‘It’s as Aunt Sarah says, I feel I am to blame for all this.’

  ‘Nonsense. Now stop that, Bridget. There’s one person to blame and that’s Laurence, and you know it, and I know it, and everybody in this house knows it. But perhaps the Crofton woman should take some share of the blame in this case…By the way, where’s John?’

  It seemed odd that her Grandma had mentioned John in the same breath with Mrs Crofton’s name. Perhaps it was only coincidence. ‘I saw him going out just before dinner.’

  ‘Just before dinner? It was pelting heavens hard then. Where was he off to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Grandma. He didn’t look in.’

  ‘Well, that was a stupid thing to do. And he should be the first person to know it. To go out in drenching rain like that! What on earth was he thinking about? You have no idea where he’s gone?’

  ‘No, Grandma. Perhaps…’ Bridget paused, ‘not wanting to go down to dinner he might have gone to the Stag.’ She did not look at the old lady as she spoke.

  ‘Well, I should have thought he would have preferred an empty stomach to a drenching. Anyway, he could have gone in to Nancy. She would have seen to him: he knows that.’

  ‘May I come in?’ This request was accompanied by a tapping on the door and caused Bridget and her grandmother to exchange quick glances. It was the old lady who called, ‘Yes, come in,’ and it was she who demanded, ‘Where have you been?’

  John, now dressed in grey slacks and a thick wool sweater, repeated, ‘Where have I been? What do you mean. Grandma?’

  ‘Just what I say: what possessed you to go out in this?’

  ‘Oh!’ He paused and jerked his head back as if nonplussed by the question. ‘Oh! I just wanted some fresh air, bracing air; I was being stifled in here.’

  ‘You didn’t go out for a meal?’

  ‘A meal?’ He brought his head down to hers.

  ‘Yes, you’ve had no dinner, have you?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, Grandma. And what is more, I don’t feel hungry.’

  ‘Nonsense! You haven’t had a bite since lunch. Go down to Nancy and she’ll get you something. You need fortifying in all ways after that business this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t, Grandma, not at this time. Look’—he showed her his watch—‘it’s turned eight-thirty; she’ll be cleared away.’

  ‘You go down to Nancy and get something to eat. Go down by the back stairs so you won’t run into anyone.’

  For answer, John turned and, smiling faintly at Bridget, asked, ‘What can you do with her? Isn’t she a dominant old fishwife?’ It was evident he was trying hard to be his old self.

  Bridget found herself staring unsmiling at John. When she didn’t answer him he came to her side, and sitting down beside her asked, ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He screwed up his eyes at her. Then turning to the old lady, he asked, ‘Anything happened since I last saw you, Grandma?’

  ‘What makes you ask that? Nothing further has happened to my knowledge…you…you don’t know of anything do you, Bridget?’ The old lady was also peering at Bridget now, and she, facing her grandmother in preference to looking at John, replied, ‘Nothing that I know of.’

  Whatever reasons John had for meeting Mrs Crofton he wanted to hide them, and whatever she felt personally about his underhand conduct she couldn’t give him away.

  ‘What prompted you to ask her if anything had happened?’ The old lady had turned her narrowed eyes on John who, smiling quietly, replied, ‘Just my sense of diagnosis.’

  ‘Your sense of…?’

  The old lady’s voice was cut off by a quick discreet tapping on the door, and it was she again who called, ‘Come in.’

  It was MacKay who entered, saying, ‘Excuse me, madam, but there’s a call for the doctor.’

  John had risen to his feet. ‘Where from?’ he asked, ‘London?’

  ‘They didn’t say long distance, sir. It’s a gentleman, but he wouldn’t give his name.’

  When John followed MacKay from the room, the old lady, looking hard at Bridget again, said, ‘He thinks something happened and we’re keeping it from him.’ Her thin neck stretched forward now from out of her dress. ‘He was quizzing you. Nothing has happened, Bridget…Look at me.’

  ‘I’m looking at you, Grandma.’

  ‘Has anything happened?’

  ‘No. No, of course not.’

  ‘You were stiff with John, now I come to think of it, and he noticed it.’

  ‘I’m not feeling very fit or playful at the moment, Grandma.’

  The old lady bent forward now, catching Bridget’s hand and patting it.’ I know, my dear, I know. This business has been simply awful for you and you have behaved remarkably well, remarkably well, and you won’t have to put up with it much longer. A good night’s rest and then tomorrow we’ll be off. I’m going to bed now myself. I’ll just wait until John comes back and then I’ll away to my room. And I’m going to tell you something. You won’t believe it, but it’s true. Very soon you’ll have put this all behind you…It’ll hardly be a memory.’

  ‘I’d like to believe you. Grandma.’

  ‘And why not? Because what I tell you is true. You’ll look upon this as a lucky escape, my dear.’

  ‘Grandma.’ Bridget shook her head as she murmured, ‘Don’t forget I was to be married shortly.’

  ‘I don’t forget, Bridget, dear…But sh!’ She lifted up her finger. ‘Here’s John.’

  The door was opened, but only slightly, and John stood there, saying, ‘May I see you for a moment, Grandma?’

  With her eyebrows slightly raised Hester Gether rose stiffly to her feet and went out of the room, pulling the door behind her. And Bridget waited. What was the matter? John looked awful, white and stricken. Then the sound of anguish in her grandmother’s voice, exclaiming, ‘Oh no! Oh no!’ brought Bridget to the door.

  ‘What must I do?’ Again her grandmother’s voice. And then John’s tense whisper, ‘Do nothing yet. Go in with her. Stay there until I get back. Dickenson’s at the phone box on the main road.’

  As the door was pushed slowly open Bridget asked, ‘What is it, Grandma? What is it? Oh, be careful! You’ll fall. Come and sit down.’ She put her arm round the old lady and helped her faltering steps towards a chair. ‘What’s happened? What did John say? I heard him mention Dickenson. Oh, what’s happened, Grandma? Tell me.’

  ‘Wait a minute, child, wait a minute. Look.’ The old lady closed her eyes. ‘Ring for Frances. No…no, don’t do that, she gets excited…Get me a glass of water.’

  Bridget rushed to the bathroom, and returning with a glass of water, held it to her grandmother’s lips. The wrinkled skin looked like parchment now. Her mouth was loose and her lower lip trembling, as were her hands.

  ‘Something dreadful has happened, hasn’t it?’ Bridget was crouching over the old lady and Hester Gether, her eyes full of what Bridget would not countenance as fear, whispered, ‘Yes, something dreadful has happened.’ She caught hold of Bridget’s hand as she gasped out, ‘Laurence is lying outside the cedar hut: he has been shot. Bruce Dickenson told John on the phone that…that he’s dead.’

  Bridget felt her whole body sagging. She began to shake her head from side to side. No, not that! Oh, not that! Her mind was gabbling now. I wouldn’t wish him dead. Oh no…! And Aunt Sarah? Oh, Aunt Sarah! She said in a thin whisper, ‘Aunt Sarah.’

  ‘Yes…Aunt Sarah. Sarah…Poor Sarah.’

  ‘But who? Who would do it?…Bruce? Oh, no! No!’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything further, Bridget. I can only tell you what John said. We must sit here and wait. Get me another glass of water, please.’

  They sat without speaking for at least twenty minutes. The old lady did not move from her chair but Bridget felt compelled, every now and again, to walk about the room; it was as much as she could do not to dash downstairs. Whenever any sound came from the landing, or the hall, she would stop and strain her ears, and her grandmother, head to one side, would also listen.

  But when the terrible news burst on the house there was no need to strain their ears to hear, for Sarah’s voice came loud and shrill, crying, ‘Leave me alone! I must see him.’ Then someone cried, ‘Oh, my God! My God!’ This, Bridget knew, was Frances, and the words were uttered in swift repetition as she approached the bedroom door and unceremoniously thrust it open. And she stood clutching the front of her dress. Then, meeting the waiting eyes of her mistress, she tried to regain some control over her emotions, as she whispered, ‘Oh, madam, madam, something dreadful has happened. Dreadful, dreadful.’

  ‘Close the door, Frances. We know, Frances, we know.’

  ‘You do, madam? But they’ve only—’

  ‘Yes, yes, but the doctor told us some time ago.’

  ‘Mrs Overmeer’s in a dreadful state.’

  ‘I’ll come down…You stay here, Bridget.’

  ‘No, Grandma, I’m coming with you.’

  The old lady did not argue and Bridget followed her out of the room and across the landing, and when they were at the head of the stairs she took hold of her grandmother’s arm to steady her descent. The hall seemed crowded with people, all men. There was Ryder and MacKay and John and her Uncle Vance, but there was no sign of Laurence, or Sarah Overmeer, but the eyes of the men looking in the direction of the study explained where the mother and son were.

 

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