A Hint of Witchcraft (31 page)

‘He didn't recognize me.' Her voice had changed. When she had spoken of Linden it was as if her entire personality darkened and she became as she had been when she first came to Langland. On that first night in her bedroom she had been at moments quite frightening. But now Margot was touched by a new softness in her voice. ‘At first I didn't recognize him, he was so smartened up – and I hadn't seen his face that time, only his kind hands picking up my things as I knelt on the ground. Then when he told me – told me my own story without knowing who he was telling it to, it gave me a queer feeling. I felt like a stranger to myself.' She hesitated, a trifle embarrassed. ‘You won't ever tell him, will you, Miss Margot?' And when Margot assured her earnestly that Ewan should never know from her whom he had helped, ‘I don't want him to know how low I once sank.' There was a world of sadness in her dark eyes. ‘I wasn't always as I am now.' The incident in the street had indeed been the last straw. From hunger and exhaustion she had collapsed and had been taken to the Elmdon workhouse hospital where she stayed as a patient and then as an indoor worker until she came to Ashlaw.

‘And now you know what kind of woman you took in.'

‘I know more than you do. You've suffered so much that good news may come as a shock to you.' Margot leaned closer and took Toria's hand in both of hers. ‘Listen. You were not mistaken in loving Steven: he didn't take the money. It was a local man. He must have broken in when you and Steven were saying goodbye on the platform. Miss Bondless heard it from her friend Miss Miller, the clergyman's daughter, but by that time you had left and no one knew where to find you.'

Had she been too sudden? So breathtaking a change of fortune coming so unexpectedly might well be too much for Toria to bear. She didn't say a word. There was no outburst; there were no tears of joy. She pulled her hand away, not urgently, struggled to her feet, paused as if to control dizziness and turning her back on the Hall below, walked slowly away, across the cloister green, the roofless nave on her left, and through the gap where fallen stone marked the outline of the chapter house. Watching anxiously, Margot was soothed by the thought that Toria in her dark dress would not have been unfamiliar to those who had walked there when every stone was in place; her dignity would have matched theirs. Her notions of sin and penance and her capacity for suffering would not easily be surpassed.

She had left the level ground of the priory and went on up the hill until her figure was outlined against the sky. On one hand, green pasture, on the other, the deep foliage of the wood; ahead of her the steep drop to the river. And then she was gone.

Was it a final departure? Where could she go? With momentary dread Margot thought of the river. It would be like her to react to good news in some peculiar way. Taut nerves overstretched for years might suddenly snap. With Toria, anything was possible: she was unique, ungovernable by accepted rules of behaviour. Such thoughts were evidence of a certain detachment on her own part. Once perhaps she would have rushed in pursuit, picturing the swift stream and Toria drowning in it. Now she thought it unlikely that Toria would drown herself though there could have been times in the past when she was tempted to put an end to her misery. She had survived one disaster after another and should now in her gloomy fashion survive happiness, assuming that her restored faith in Steven would comfort her for the now strong possibility that he was dead.

The past half-hour had been enlightening, but it had raised new questions and one of them Margot discovered, concerned herself. What had happened to her that she could think of a person – one quite close to her – with such detachment? What had happened to the girl she used to be? Mentally retracing the inward change, she arrived at Ashlaw on a summer day when warm weather had ripened Miss Burdon's strawberries. She had filled a blue bow with rich red fruit.…

Naturally there had been changes before that day but the shape of things had been thrown out of joint by the wretched affair of the beads. Strange that its aftermath of suspicion, deceit, disillusion and death should have its counterpart in Toria's story. Perhaps every tragedy has its root in some little act. Such an act had altered the course of her own life. A hopeless longing seized her for the old days at Monk's Dene when there were no dark secrets and one could believe what people said. It was a longing so painful that it drove her back to the house in search of some more productive occupation.

The Hall felt unfamiliar. There emanated from the gleaming furniture, the immaculately draped curtains, the asters in the copper bowl on the hall table and from the absence of any intrusive sound, the air of well-being inseparable from a gentleman's residence in the country. Every item in every room proclaimed with confidence that all was well in the servants' quarters. There was nothing whatever for her to do.

CHAPTER XXIII

Clint Lane was not much changed. Here and there a gutter sagged and another gate had parted from its hinges. The clutter in the back-yards was if possible more dense. From its pram at No 7 came the mournful wail of a resentful baby. But pigeons cooed contentedly in their loft at No 3 and pink willowherb bloomed gallantly over the way.

Margot shared her chicken sandwiches over a pot of tea with Mrs Roper. Ben was now in the Miners' Welfare Nursing Home at Fellside and was as comfortable there as he would ever be.

‘Dr Lance arranged it. Nothing's too much trouble for him.'

Ben's removal had left her free to take up baking again: she had been a cook before she married. Wedding, Christmas, christening and birthday cakes were her speciality.

‘Likely they'd have asked me to make the wedding cake at the House. Bella Capfield had had a word with the housekeeper and she mentioned it to Mrs Rilston. But it was not to be – and there's the house standing empty with shutters at all the windows. Do you have to go?' Margot had rather abruptly put down her cup. ‘It's been a real pleasure to see you after your foreign travels. If only your mother could have seen what a lovely young lady you've turned into.'

Her twice weekly visit to Ben coincided with the change of programme at the Fellside cinema. She was familiar with the idols of the silver screen: Norma Shearer was her favourite but she wasn't much taken with Greta Garbo. A well-bred, well-dressed young lady like Miss Margot took a lot of beating.

‘So you've got Mrs Beale.' She was naturally interested in the domestic arrangements at Langland. ‘She'd been hankering to go to the Hall ever since that Miss Grey came on the scene at Bainrigg. But I'm forgetting, she's a friend of yours.' She was rather put out at having given offence as Margot now showed firm signs of leaving.

‘Ashlaw was always a place for gossip. Do give my best wishes to Mr Roper.' It was an heroic retreat: she would have liked to hear why Mrs Beale disapproved of Miss Grey.

Mrs Judd's clothes-line was empty but she had been ironing when Margot knocked.

‘I still do a few – the doctors and Mrs Dobie now that she's not so well – but Rob and Ewan are both giving me a bit of help so I don't need to work so hard. And I've never minded ironing. You can think your own thoughts and sort things out in peace.' She motioned Margot to the rocking chair and sat down, uneasily at first and on the edge of her chair. It seemed hardly right to let the iron cool and sit talking in the middle of the day, but it was pleasant, there was no denying. Her guest was welcome and she had soon relaxed sufficiently to say, ‘I found something the other day that reminded me of you, Miss Margot.'

She reached to the top drawer of the dresser and produced a brown paper bag. ‘You gave these to Katie once, on her birthday.'

The two white handkerchiefs edged with tatting had been too precious ever to use.

‘I'll never get over what happened to her, not as long as I live but' – she was embarrassed – ‘I don't know what you'll think, but I've felt better since Nell Bowes told me what she saw. Her that lived in the end house where you can see right across the meadow. They've moved to Fellside.… She saw her, Miss Margot.'

‘Her? You mean…?'

‘Yes. Katie. Early one morning. She was running across the grass. “As sure as I'm sitting here”, Nell said. “She was gone before I fairly took in that it was Katie, fair-haired and in pink, as she was in life. Running, she was”. And then, this is the part that brought comfort to my heart, you remember how she ran, sideways like a lapwing trailing one wing? When Nell saw her, she was running straight and free.'

‘Oh, Mrs Judd.' Tears sprang to Margot's eyes.

‘She was gone in a flash, Nell said, meaning every word of it. Whether it really happened, it's not for me to say. Such a thing would be against all reason. Likely it was a kind of vision Nell had. Be that as it may, it reminded me that Katie has risen above her shortcomings on this earth, as we all do in the end.'

Nell Bowes's story was so engrossing as to exclude other topics. It was some time before Margot looked at her watch and apologized for interrupting the day's work.

‘You'll not have heard – Emily's had her second, another boy, the image of Jo. It was Dr Lance that brought her through it. He's a wonder with babies.'

Margot mentioned that she had seen Ewan.

‘Fancy him going down the pit. Choosing to, when most of them would do anything to get out of it. He's turned serious.' His mother lowered her voice respectfully. ‘It was as if he took himself in hand. “You'll miss the motor bike”, I warned him, seeing as it belongs to the Hall. “What's a motor bike”, he says, ‘'in the war against capitalism? They weren't worried about motor bikes in Russia”, he says. I'm not sure what he meant.'

Bella, it seemed, was losing heart: Ewan's mind was not on matrimony.

‘But she likes it at the doctors'. Anyone would like working for Dr Lance. When he comes along the Lane all the bairns run out to meet him. It's as good as a tonic just to see him at the door. Let's hope he'll stay here and not try to better himself elsewhere.…'

Margot's leavetaking had been cordial but brief. Naturally she hoped that he would not try to better himself elsewhere. Such a thing had never occurred to her. Insensibly her brisk no-nonsense pace grew slower. He had always been there or close at hand, never talking much; yet his empty chair at the table or his absence from a walk had left a noticeable gap. In schooldays he had helped her with geometry and Latin. And earlier still there had been the time when she took one of the chessmen out into the garden and lost it in the long grass beyond the orchard. It was the white knight. She had spoiled the set, they told her; chessmen were not toys to be played with carelessly. The long hopeless search had ended in tears at bed-time.

And then at breakfast there it was – by magic – on her plate. They said he must have got up at first light to look for it. She smiled now, recalling the awe and delight there had been no words for. Her throat tightened at the thought of the young lady in Elmdon.

‘Don't do anything silly, like getting married', Alex had said. She would never marry. Miss Crane's nephew, who had prolonged his stay in Cannes indefinitely, might as well have gone home so far as she was concerned. Girls must be self-supporting, her father had insisted (but not for a long time). It was too late for Oxford.…

At the far end of the lane she hesitated, wondering whether to go back and call on Mrs Dobie whose cottage was in the main street or to go on to the farm as she had intended. The dilemma was solved by the appearance of Mrs Dobie herself on the path ahead. They had met once before in the same place.

‘I was sorry to hear that you haven't been well, Mrs Dobie.'

She had shrunk a little. The long black coat hung on her more loosely. Her hair had thinned and the deep-crowned black hat now touched her eyebrows. The vivid colour of the face beneath had declined into a network of red veins.

‘I'm well enough to get about and that's the main thing.' She was a little short of breath. ‘I heard tell that you were staying in the south of France. It's very nice there, they say.'

‘You mean nicer than here?' Margot was aware of her dry scrutiny. ‘I'm glad to be back where I belong.'

‘There are worse places. Only' – she drew the collar of her coat more closely to her neck as if feeling cold. They stood near the chimney in the shade of the ash tree – ‘there's been something gone wrong here. I've known these fields and paths ever since I could walk. You get a feeling when there's anything amiss.' She moved into the sun and sat down heavily on the grassy bank. ‘Dobie and I used to come up here when we were courting. It was different then, just trees, and larks singing, and buttercups and daisies. There wasn't this feeling of death.'

For a chilling moment Margot felt it too. She glanced unwillingly at the chimney in its contortion of barbed wire. The elders and ivy at its base had been uprooted. A single green branch, thin as a wand, pointed outward through a gap in the wire.

‘Two young people gone to their graves and not through illness – and the house up there empty. It's no wonder there's talk of ghosts and evil-doing. Idle talk. There's no such things as ghosts. Evil's another matter. There's no stopping that: it's bound to come in one shape or another.' She was silent, recovering her breath and then, ‘It's as if Satan chooses some people to do his work. They used to call them witches, but I dare say they were just women who didn't know any better. There'll likely have been a few of them in Ashlaw. My grandmother used to tell of one that lived in a dirty-broken-down place no better than a pig-sty. It was pulled down when they opened the Lucknow Drift.' She looked away, beyond the chimney and into the blue distance. ‘Yes, Ashlaw's been here a long time. Close on a thousand years, they say. People come and go – and we're well rid of her, there's no gainsaying. But it shouldn't have happened that sad way. There should have been a better way.'