In the Time of Greenbloom (23 page)

“No dear, not yet. I've always tried to let her make her own mind up about everything; and for the most important thing, I think it's most important of all to let one's children decide for themselves.”

“You
are
different from my mother. She says that it is the one thing that parents
must
decide for their children; she—”

The kitchen door opened and they both turned towards it.

Annie Moses, her red cheeks shining, her dark hair and navy mackintosh black with rain, bustled into the light and warmth. She blinked at them and blew out her cheeks. Mrs Blount stood up.

“Oh it's you mum,” said Annie. “Eeh! what a night, and all that way for nowt, not so much as a tizzy in a beggar's 'at, for 'e turned me up at t'end of it.”

“Have you seen Miss Victoria, Annie?”

“Why naw Mrs Bloont, not sin' she passed us in t'car when I was waiting to meet him off t'Scarboro' bus. In't she coom back yet?”

“You saw her? In the car?” Mrs Blount stumbled forwards. “Which way were they going? When was it?”

“This way mum, towards t'farm, 'bout five or ten past seven. Looked as though they was in a tearin' hurry too. Miss Victoria waäved at us as they passed.”

“But that's over an hour ago!” Mrs Blount's voice soughed under the low ceiling. “And she waved at you, she
waved
! (Oh my brave little darling. Where
was
he taking her?)”

Annie took off her mackintosh slowly and hung it on the back of the kitchen door. She shook her wet hair with deliberate movements and circled the kitchen-table to the range.

“Did she look happy?” asked John suddenly. “Did she wave as though she was happy?”

“Happy? I never thought. She joost waäved to us, that wer all.” She closed her eyes. “Coom to think of it Miss Victoria did look kind of freeted—white-like, as I said. ‘'Ees going too faist for Miss Victoria,' I thought to myself, and then I thought it weren't that at all but 'er broken promise about helping me mak t'supper! But bless 'er, she needn't have fretted, I'd finished t'salad and spuds even before you and t'master coom in at quarter to six.”

“Who else was with her?” asked Mrs Blount.

“Only t' driver; saw'm quite sharp, I did, under the light by t'bus stop. Never see
him
before. There weren't no one in t'back of car, it was black empty. But what's oop Master John?”

She gazed at him placidly a moment and then taking a large black comb from her handbag started to rake through her wet hair.

“We think Victoria's been kidnapped by that man she met this morning. He said he'd give her a lift into the village to post a letter but they've never come back and now it's over an hour and a half since they left.”

Annie put her comb on the mantelpiece and went over to the kitchen door. She shook her mackintosh loudly like a carpet and then put it on.

“Then it's Police we want,” she said, looking at the clock. “I've got me bike in t'stable and I'll go and get Sergeant Sanders before
that
wastes any more time.”

“No Annie,” said Mrs Blount, “it's very good of you, but you needn't trouble; Mr Harkess has gone into the village
already and he'll be back any minute, so I think we'd better wait for him.”

“Is he fetchin' Police?” asked Annie squarely by the door.

“No. Well yes—at least I'm sure he will when he realises—”

“He's not,” said John.

“Reet!” said Annie, “Well if he ain't, then I am. I know them tourists in their motor-cars. He weren't up to no good the way he went rummagin' through Corby and Miss Victoria as white as—”

She broke off at the sound of George Harkess's car passing the kitchen door on its way to the stables; and without looking at one another or making the smallest movement, they waited in the silence which succeeded his passing. Before the fire crouching behind its black bars, the cat sat safely in its warm world the tip of its tongue protruding beneath its nose. In the hall the clock struck and their eyes went up to the white face over the kitchen dresser: the minute hand stood at twenty-five minutes to eight.

“Grandfaither's slow,” said Annie flatly and Mrs Blount looked at her wrist-watch. Behind them the door opened and George Harkess came storming in and went straight over to Mrs Blount. His large cheeks were mottled by the cold and he rubbed his hands with unnecessary vigour. They knew at once that he had accomplished nothing.

“The Police'll be up here in a few minutes, Enid,” he said. “They were seen all right at the Post Office. Victoria posted the letter whilst the fellow turned round the car by the Church—told Mrs Lawler that she was getting a lift back to Nettlebed and seemed perfectly happy, and—” he blew out his cheeks, “there's nothing more to tell you.”

They could think of no questions to frame and he must have sensed the deadness of their disappointment and the vitality of their fear, for he went back to the doormat and started to wipe his shoes thoroughly on its wet surface.

“Thought it would be as well,” he went on, “to check with the Police so I ran down to the Station and had a word
with Sanders; he was most helpful and by this time he'll have telephoned his headquarters at Scarborough and within half an hour some sort of a description of the car and its occupants will have been circulated throughout the whole of the North Riding. In addition, of course, they'll put out every available man in this area, even those who are off duty, and patrol all main roads. All we've got to do is to keep calm and behave as normally as possible.”

Still they did not speak. Mrs Blount in her grey dress watched him hungrily from the other side of the table; only her ineffectual hands with their jewelled rings moved against the stillness of her hips. John watched them writhing like the white fingers of a squid in a fisherman's net. Her lips were slightly parted and as pale as Victoria's. She seemed to have forgotten herself entirely in the desperation of her desire to hear him say something more; for the first time since he had known her she was quite careless of how she might be looking. The remains of tears and mascara sullied her pale cheeks, her carefully tended hair had fallen into disorder on her temples there were one or two drops of milky tea on the bodice of her dress and in her eyes was the same cold hostility which had first appeared in the bathroom half an hour earlier.

George Harkess himself must have observed these things too. Rubbing his feet on the mat he glanced across at her twice, the first time warily, the second time with hot anger.

“Well for God's sake don't stand there like that. I can't tell you more than there is to tell, can I? It's not the end of the world. They'll be somewhere in this area and with all the resources of the Police force, the
modern
Police force, they're bound to be found within a short time.”

Mrs Blount watched him coldly for a moment, her eyebrows manifested surprise that he should dare to speak to her like that in front of Annie. When she spoke it was with an icy care that atoned for all the imperfections of her appearance.

“It is just as well you waited Annie,” she said. “I was quite sure Mr Harkess would be back in a few moments, and
I'm glad that you've been saved that long trip on your bicycle in the rain.”

“Ah, Annie,” said George Harkess walking over to her with great joviality. “Didn't notice you, me dear! you're back very early aren't you? Didn't expect to see you this side of tomorrow morning. What happened? Did your boy friend give you the slip again?”

Annie looked quickly at Mrs Blount and then raised her eyes boldly. “He did, Mr Harkess; but I'm not wurried now about that with all this here that's happened sin' I got out.”

“No, no, of course not; but bless you! things aren't that bad, there's no need for
you
to lose your head, your good North Country common-sense, over it. Bit different for Mrs Blount, we can all see that, but it won't help anyone if you're going to start having the vapours as well.”

“I know that Mr Harkess, but it would tak' a cool yed not to be bothered by a thing like this. You see—”

“Annie
saw
them,” said John.

George Harkess frowned at him and then turned to Annie again quickly.

“You did? When? Where were they?”

“She saw them at ten past seven going very fast up the Stump Cross road towards the farm when she was waiting for the bus—for her friend to get off the bus.”

“Shut up Boy! Don't speak until you're spoken to.” His light brown eyes transfixed Annie again. “Well?”

“It was joost as maister John said. I didn't know anything was oop until I got back Mr Harkess.”

From the other side of the kitchen-table Mrs Blount interrupted them. She drew in a long breath so audibly that even the cat abandoned his immobility and glanced up at her with wide yellow eyes.

“She
waved
! she waved to her, George; the poor little thing waved at her as they passed. Annie saw her, she told us when she first came in that Victoria was frightened to death and that she'd waved to her through the window as she was driven past.” She sat down suddenly on the rocking-chair
and covered her face with her hands. George Harkess hurried over to her, the anger left his face, his mouth sagged into its usual planes; he patted her back and then, with his arm round her, lifted her to her feet.

“I think we must have a discussion in the dining-room,” he said. “There's not much time left, my dear; I expect the Sergeant here at any moment. Did you do what I told you and have a cup of tea in my absence?”

Mrs Blount walked easily out of his embrace and took a handkerchief from the cuff of her long sleeve; she wiped her nose daintily. “I think so,” she said.

George Harkess turned to John. “Did you have a cup of tea?” he asked.

“Yes sir, yes Mr Harkess, but I don't think Mrs Blount drank all hers.”

They watched her as she walked out into the hall.

“Well this time she's going to have a strong one,
and
something in it.”

He turned to Annie. “Make a fresh pot of tea, Annie, and fetch the decanters from my study. Don't bother with the syphon.” He followed Mrs Blount to the dining-room, and in a few moments John joined them as they sat there at the supper-table.

Annie brought in the tea and the whisky and George Harkess helped himself to a half-tumblerful and then stocked up his plate at the sideboard.

Returning to the table he pushed the potatoes off his plate on to the white cloth. “These potatoes are overcooked,” he said, and raising his glass, he looked over its rim at Mrs Blount and then, distastefully, at John before draining it. He filled his mouth with a large slice of ham and chicken and began to chew automatically his eyes directed at a space somewhere just in front of John.

“You there,” he said. “When the police come, you're to say nothing about the—trouble upstairs. Have you got that quite clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good! We shan't want you here much longer tonight. I don't imagine there's much more you can usefully contribute at this stage, though you'll almost certainly be wanted in the morning.” He chewed for a moment longer. “I only want to be quite certain before you leave this room that you understand what questions it will be necessary for you to answer, and to be sure that you will not start volunteering useless information as you did in the kitchen a few minutes ago.”

At the far end of the table his moustache twitched and he darted a glance at Mrs Blount, grey and silent as a cloud as she sat beside him. His hand slid across the table to the decanter as his eyes resumed their duty at the empty space before him. “You're to say,
if
you are asked, that Mrs Blount and I were talking business in the study and that being possessed of
some
manners, you didn't like to—that on your return from this damned outing you decided not to interrupt us, but to wait until we had done.”

John said nothing. He picked a piece of egg out of his salad with the sharp prongs of his fork and studied it carefully. Another ‘Toad', he thought; it would make no difference even to Mrs Blount or to Kay still at the Abbey, so many miles away, if they were changed round. Neither of them would ever know the difference as long as you remembered to change their clothes as well.

“D'you
see? Answer me Boy
!”

Mrs. Blount stirred, she plucked at her cup of tea. “George! I don't think I can stand it if you are going to go on shouting at him. My nerves simply will not stand the strain.”

“I'm not shouting at him,” he roared. “I'm simply demanding an answer to my question.”

Mrs Blount's cup clattered into its saucer; with her hand to her ear she leaned away from him like a tree in the wind and he lowered his voice.

“I'm only thinking of you, Enid. I simply cannot understand your behaviour over this wretched business. You seem
to have thrown all your normal horse-sense to the winds. Don't you realise that if this young fool starts behaving as hysterically as he did in the bathroom before I went out, we're going to have a first-rate scandal in the village? It doesn't matter to me, but there are certain things that are sacrosanct, and I'm damned if at this stage in my life I'm going to be the means of ruining a woman's reputation. We've got to make sure that this boy doesn't refer to the—situation upstairs. It's of no possible connection with the object of Sergeant Sanders's visit this evening, and it's just the sort of thing that will spread like wildfire through the county if it once gets out.”

Mrs Blount pushed her chair back from the table. “You may find
my
behaviour difficult to understand,” she said, “but yours, your utter selfishness, your brutality and cowardice—Good Heavens! Do you really think that any mother could care about her reputation at a moment like this. If it was only your behaviour that bewildered me I should not feel as I do; but it's this new
you
, this complete change in someone I had wanted to respect and of whom I hoped I was beginning to be fond, it's
this
that I don't understand. You're not interested in me or my reputation; you're not even interested in Victoria, she doesn't enter into your considerations at all. You're only interested in yourself and the opinion of the village, and I was utterly foolish ever to think that at your age and in your circumstances you could possibly care for me in my own right.” She stood up, “But it doesn't matter any longer; if Victoria isn't found tonight, if I don't see her again soon and take her in my arms and kiss her sweet forehead, nothing that you or anyone else can do to me will ever matter again. You can do what you like, George! bully the boy, lie to the Police, make love to the maid; whatever happens, whatever this terrible night may bring, you have ended something for me which had never really begun—”