The Anchoress of Shere, page 29
As the nurses prepared to move her into the starched white sheets of a bed, she said, “Where’s my brother? I need to see him now.”
The staff were used to the truculent behaviour of patients suffering from shock. A nurse, younger than Marda, said gently, “He’s in intensive care. Don’t worry, we’ll look after him. Please let me help you into bed; the doctors want to have a good look at you. We’ve heard what a horrible time you’ve had and…”
Marda very calmly interrupted her, “I would like to borrow some clothes, please. A dressing-gown or something. I absolutely insist on seeing my brother.”
The young nurse recognised the patient’s determination and went to fetch the ward sister, leaving Marda to sit on the bed, swaddled once again in a blanket. She was even more resolved to break the cycle of her victimisation.
Despite the sister’s remonstrations and the duty doctor’s best efforts, Marda absolutely refused to be admitted formally to the hospital, even though she submitted to a brief medical examination. Legally, she could not be kept against her will. And she did not have to be told that she was malnourished. She showered in the hospital, and was loaned some clothes and shoes by a concerned nurse. In the nurses’ staff room, over a steaming cup of tea, she gave an initial briefing to a very considerate detective inspector.
The briefing was interrupted by a tumultuous welcome from her father and mother when they arrived; they embraced Marda in a tight scrum of intense relief and passionate endearments. Marda enfolded them both, not ever, ever wanting to let them go, while all three cried, talked and kissed at the same time. It was her parents who finally persuaded the doctors to let them see Mark.
They peered through an inspection window in the intensive care unit, and saw that Mark was fitted with a phalanx of tubes and suspended bottles.
A specialist spoke in a soft, assuring tone: “He’s very weak at the moment, but he’s a fit young man and I believe he will pull through. The best thing you can do is to let us get on with it. If you’d like to sit in the waiting room, I should be able to update you in an hour or so.”
For an hour the Stewart family talked intensely about their experiences, although Marda felt she could not disclose the full extent of her horrific ordeal to her parents, anxious as they were about her and even more distracted by Mark’s condition.
Finally, they were told by the specialist that Mark was expected, all things being equal, to make a full recovery.
The jubilation was disturbed by the detective inspector, who apologised for his intervention: “Miss Stewart, I really am sorry to press you at this sensitive time, but we are obviously very anxious to catch Duval. The doctors say I can talk to you, and, if you feel well enough, I would like a few words in private, if possible.”
Marda drank more tea in a quiet corner of the staff room, where she was joined by Professor Gould, who had also been debriefed by the police; she showed obvious pleasure at the American’s arrival.
Marda did not want to argue with her parents, who would surely try to insist that she stay in hospital. She asked the inspector, “Is it safe to return to my flat, if my parents are told to meet me there?”
The policeman tried briefly to persuade her to stay in hospital, but she was adamant. Eventually he said, “I will send one of my officers to your flat, and ask your parents to join you there. We have set up an operations room in Shere police station, so the village will be very safe.”
Gould, who had said very little, spoke directly to the inspector: “If Marda is so insistent on checking herself out of this hospital, may I presume to escort her back to Shere?”
The inspector excused himself to speak to one of his uniformed subordinates.
He soon returned and said, slightly begrudgingly, “OK, Professor Gould, I’ll get a key from Mr. Stewart, and arrange for the parents to go there later, when they are sure Captain Stewart’s on the mend. But please go to Shere directly. We don’t want to lose Marda again. Is that clear?”
“Of course, Inspector, and thank you,” said Gould.
So Marda was released from hospital on the understanding that she would undergo further police interviews and medical examinations later, and she returned with Gould to Shere. For the moment she had done all she could for her brother, but now she wanted to know what had happened to Duval. And she wanted revenge.
It was eight o’clock in the evening as Professor Irvine Gould drove Marda Stewart back to Shere from the hospital in Guildford.
“You really should have stayed in for twenty-four hours’ observation, Marda,” the American said with deep concern.
“Freedom is enough, Professor,” she replied forcefully, as she savoured the lights, the people, the smell of newness in the hired car. “Freedom is enough for the moment.”
“Are you sure you want to go back to your apartment? It’ll be cold. And, even with a police guard there, Duval is still on the loose.”
“No offence, Professor, I appreciate your concern, I really do,” she said, touching his arm, “but I’ve had enough of being told what to do and when. I’ve been living like a robot for too long. I know where I have to go first…Take me back, please, to Duval’s house.”
“Where?” Gould was astonished. “Why there of all places?” He slowed the car instinctively. Like most men, he found it almost impossible to concentrate on two important matters at once.
“There are things I must collect before the police ransack the place.”
“The police will be there now.”
“Precisely,” said Marda, with complete determination.
The professor, reluctantly, did what he was told. He wanted to appease her, to delay the breakdown he thought was inevitable. He had served in Korea, and had witnessed numerous breakdowns caused by stress and trauma.
He parked outside Hillside, next to a police car, and a large lorry from the Water Board which was pumping out the cellar. Gould helped Marda up the stairs; she was still weak, and wearing someone else’s clothes.
PC McGregor and the sergeant on duty at the house were astounded to see her back. She explained that she had come to collect Bobby en route to joining the police at her flat.
“Aye, I was wondering what we were going to do with him,” said the amiable constable. “Nice little beggar. I don’t see why you shouldn’t look after him. But you need to leave the crime scene immediately. I’m breaking all the rules because you’ve gone through hell. So be quick, and then, please, go straight home.”
They let her into the house to collect the dog. Alone for a few seconds, she sneaked into the study and saw on the desk a file of papers, amongst them a typescript with a cover sheet saying “Anchoress of Shere by Michael Duval.” Marda hid the papers in her bulky borrowed anorak: Christine Carpenter, too, must be freed from Duval’s evil.
With a sense of utter relief she led the dog to Gould’s car, and away from her prison. She thanked the two policemen, and then impulsively kissed Gould on the cheek.
“Thank you, Professor.”
“For what? For being so dumb? For taking so long to put two and two together?”
“For saving me, Mark…and Bobby here,” she added, hugging the dog.
The professor looked sheepish. “I wish I could have done a damn sight more and a damn sight sooner.”
“I don’t want to go to an empty, unguarded flat. Until the police get there, will you please take me somewhere warm and safe, where I can have a proper bath? I want to get rid of the smell of this place, of him, of that bastard Duval.”
Saying his name seemed instantly to undermine the front she was putting on: she was nearly hysterical.
Gould tried to calm her: “All right, but once we’ve cleaned you up we must go back to the police at your apartment.”
As they drove the half-mile to the White Horse, Marda’s pulse was racing and her body surged once again with adrenaline. Despite her extended trauma, she wanted to get out and see the whole world as soon as possible. She could not believe how alive the outside was, how sweet the air smelt, how wonderful it was to be free. She could now truly relate to how Christine felt when she escaped from the wall. But she also wanted to touch things; she felt the smoothness of the anorak she had borrowed, the plastic of the car seat, and, to Gould’s slight embarrassment, the roughness of the jacket he was wearing.
Gould became aware of her intense femininity, in spite of the pain etched on her face. Despite himself, he wondered whether she would automatically regard him as an old man, even though he was only ten or fifteen years her senior. Mark had talked a lot about his sister, and Gould liked what he had heard about her character. And he felt he wanted to make amends for taking so long to put the jigsaw together, a delay that could have killed both brother and sister. Why were academics so impractical? he asked himself.
Marda’s emotions were too crowded to think beyond the moment. Gould was a friend of her brother’s, and her saviour. And because of, or in spite of, her ordeal, she felt instinctively at ease with him, not least because he was, she sensed, the polar opposite of the loathsome Duval. That was enough, for the time being. Her nerves jangled with all the stimuli which even the dark, cold winter’s night could not disguise: a car-horn beeping, the powerful colours of the traffic lights, the glowing shop windows…she could stop where she wanted, speak whenever she wanted to, cry, laugh, sing, run…Duval had missed out so many little elements of freedom in his book, she thought; he could never have understood how Christine had really felt, not just because Duval was a man, but because he was incapable of genuine empathy.
The car stopped abruptly outside the White Horse, a hundred yards from Marda’s home. The village gossips had already been electrified by the rumours of Marda’s discovery and the police manhunt, so the bar was fuller than usual. Gould’s entry into the pub with a dishevelled and now famous ex-captive, in clothes far too big for her and leading a dog, inspired a swell of excitement not seen since VE Day. The trio ignored the stares and the few cheers, and swept up the stairs into the professor’s room.
“I need a good soak,” said Marda rather imperiously. Seeming to have regained some control, she did not ask his permission as she rushed into the en-suite bathroom.
“Please would you order me some tea and, yes, orange juice, and as many sandwiches as possible,” she called back to him, a little more politely. “I’ll have my bath first, but I just want to see some food.”
“You go ahead and I’ll go downstairs and fix that up.”
She put her head around the bathroom door. “Please don’t be long. I don’t want to be alone, not for a very, very long time. May I use your phone,” she said brightly, “to ring my friend Jenny?”
The professor carefully locked the door to the room and went downstairs. He ordered the refreshments, and spoke to the very attentive landlady: “May I borrow some women’s clothes for Miss Stewart, and may I use your phone to make a quick call?”
“Anything you like, Professor, this is the busiest we’ve been in months. Like Piccadilly Circus.” And then in a soft voice: “How is she?”
“As fine as can be expected. She’s had a very rough ride.”
The landlady led him to the phone in the room behind the bar, and promised to deliver the clothes within minutes. Gould then dutifully rang Shere police station to inform them where Marda was.
Politely refusing the numerous offers of congratulatory drinks from the over-curious crowd at the bar, he trotted up the stairs and unlocked his room. The bathroom door was half-open and the air was hot and steamy.
“Are you OK, Marda?”
There was no response.
He shouted this time, nearer the door: “Is everything OK?”
He heard the lavatory flush.
“Yes, I’m cleaner, but still starving and parched.”
“Oh, good. I’ve scrounged some clothes for you. Much more your size. They’re on their way. I’ve rung the police and told them where we are. I don’t want them to think you’ve disappeared again. A respectable professor taking a beautiful young lady and a dog to his room is not something I could hide for long-if I read you English correctly… Especially when I asked the landlady for some women’s clothes.” He hoped a little levity would help the girl.
The professor knew that Marda should be in hospital, where she would have received expert attention, yet he also admired her pluck. He was trying to jolly the girl along, hoping he might help to stop her collapsing. He knew that such anguish could not be suppressed for long, especially at the moment of safety, when the body, so long enduring, often gives up in abject surrender. One remedy was to keep talking, because it helped to let it all out, bit by bit. His job was to calm her down until she could receive proper medical help.
She came out, wearing a towel wrapped turban-style around her head and another large one around her body.
“Two big towels; you are spoiled, professor. Mostly they have a single little one in English hotels.”
She retreated into a small armchair. She had been obsessed by her starved frame when she was in her cell, but now the elation of freedom helped her transcend such concerns.
“I look like Twiggy, don’t I? I’ll have to eat six meals a day for a month,” she said, a little self-consciously, and with a slight tinge of suppressed hysteria in her voice.
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Marda jumped slightly.
“Don’t worry. You’re safe now,” Gould said reassuringly. “Come in.”
The landlady came in with the clothes that Gould had requested, and a large tray of sandwiches, tea and orange juice, which the ex-captive fell upon.
The landlady said, “Hope everything will be all right now that you’re free. If there’s anything you want-make-up or anything of that sort, just ask me, love.” And, before leaving, she gave Marda a little hug. Marda wanted to say thank you but her mouth was too full of food, so she just nodded her appreciation.
After she had demolished five or six more sandwiches over the next twenty minutes, Marda began to ask a thousand questions. She begged for a cigarette, and Gould gave her one of his Marlboros. She was smoking, eating, drinking and talking in a frenzy.
“Take it easy, Marda, you’ll be sick,” Gould warned.
She tried on the borrowed clothes, gabbling all the time. “They fit reasonably well; they’ll do until I get to my flat; presumably my clothes will still be there, don’t you think, Professor? Might be a bit damp, though.” Her words were barely comprehensible through the thick ham sandwich wedged in her mouth.
“Marda, seeing as we’re sharing a bathroom, at least call me Irvine. My friends call me Irv.”
“OK, Irv.” She got up, and walked back into the bathroom to remove some food stuck in her teeth.
“Why did you call the police?” she asked distractedly through the open door.
“Well, for one thing, because the police need to know where you are right now, especially since Duval hasn’t been caught. I wanted to check that there is a policeman in your flat. And they mentioned again your not staying in hospital.”
“Professor, I couldn’t stand to be locked in any more, even in a hospital.”
She came out of the bathroom again and faced him squarely. “I will go to the hospital tomorrow, and every day, to see my brother. I’ll have a check-up, but I can’t be ordered to be in one place. I have to be physically free. Free. Free. At last.” She hiccupped as a result of her hasty eating, put her hand to her mouth, swallowed, and added very plaintively, “Don’t you understand?”
“Slow down, Marda. The police will have to ask you lots of questions.”
She lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and coughed. “I have a question for you, Professor, I mean Irvine. Irv. Mark mentioned that you knew Duval. What exactly is your connection with him?”
“My research on Christine, the Anchoress of Shere.”
It was the very last thing that she wanted to hear at that moment.
“You’re not another maniac who’s obsessed with locking people up, are you?” She said this without alarm in her voice, because her brother had spoken highly of the professor during their shouted exchanges in the cellar.
“No, no,” replied Gould. “I’ve been working on an article on her life in France, but you don’t want to hear any more about an obscure fourteenth-century religieuse, I’m sure. And, incidentally, I didn’t know Duval at all really. Just read a few of his articles and met him briefly.”
The slightly defensive tone in the professor’s voice prompted Marda to indulge in a small smile for the first time since her release: “Actually, I’m a world authority on the subject of Christine Carpenter,” she said. “That’s what the pile of papers there is about. It’s Duval’s book. The only copy, I think. The one he forced me to read again and again while he kept me in his awful prison.”
“To be honest, I can understand you returning for the dog, but going back into that prison just for a book…I don’t get it.”
Marda took another bite from a sandwich. “I can’t really explain, but somehow I wanted her-Christine-to be free of him as well. We both had to get out of his clutches. In some way I identified with her. Who knows? You can take it to read. But look after it.”
“I can see it’s precious to you. I will read it, and presumably so will the police.”
“No,” said Marda emphatically. “The police would take it and keep it as evidence. It’s private, and it’s mine. Some of the stuff he wrote was absolutely mad, but she is-was-separate from him. I’m sure she was a good person. I think I deserve to keep the book after all I’ve gone through.”
