Randalls Round (20 page)

I remember practically nothing of that dinner, except the vivid, fascinating face of the old lady, surmounted by the terrible dark glasses. I don’t remember even what we talked of; though I have a dim impression that the old lady did most of the talking and that her talk was extremely good. Adela, I think, said not one word. I remember nothing at all of her presence, except one glance, when, her guardian having turned aside to speak to a servant, I caught her eyes across the table and was shocked by the sheer despair of their terror.
Why?
What on earth was the matter with her? I felt impatient, almost angry; but the next moment I had forgotten her very existence in the charm (I use the word in its old sense) of the old lady’s presence.

After I went to bed that night I could not sleep for thinking about this odd household. I lay for hours, it seemed to me, turning it over in my mind – that enchanting old lady, with the vivid face and blank eyes, the touch of her soft, wandering fingers on my face, the wonderful talk in the shallow, sweet, meaningless voice; Adela, scared, quivering and drab; the secretive, passive maid with that one malignant glance…

It had been a chilly month, but my room felt curiously close and warm. At home in Ireland, I always sleep out of doors, and, when I can, I get my bed out on a balcony even at college. I missed the cool freedom, I thought; so I got up to see if there were, by any chance, a balcony or even a ledge where I could sit for a bit.

There was – a narrow one, but wide enough to stand on. I got out of my window and stood there, enjoying the coolness. There must be central heating in the house, I thought, to get that oppressive heat… And then I heard voices.

“…Midsummer. You must bring her, do you hear?”

“Oh, I can’t! I
can’t…”

That, I knew, was Adela, though I had never before heard her voice so loud or so urgent. It was almost a wail.

“Be quiet, you fool! It’s either that, or you…”

I stepped over my sill again. I couldn’t stand and listen. But I was more wide awake than ever. The other voice, though it had been only a whisper, was, I felt sure, the old lady’s. There had been in it something chill, menacing, that made me feel cold even now.

What could it all be about? I, no doubt, was the person who was to be “brought” at Midsummer. But
why?
And why had Adela broken through her scared neutrality to cry, in that anguished wail, “I
can’t?”
And what would happen if she didn’t?

What was the choice suggested by that “It’s either that, or you…”?

I am, I admit, curious by nature, and now I was thrilled, consumed by curiosity. My repulsion was gone in the sheer love of a mystery. For I felt sure that there was a real mystery here – it was not my imagination, but something real, actual, in this house – a mystery that concerned me, as well as Adela and the old lady. I
must
find out what it was. Adela was so docile, so entirely without the power of resistance; surely I could get it out of her? Surely I had a right to try, when it concerned myself? I determined, anyhow, that I would. Dawn had come when I fell asleep with that resolution.

Breakfast was brought to me in bed. I gathered, from the matter-of-fact way in which this was done, that it must be the rule of the house. I wasn’t sorry; I was tired after my wakeful night, and besides I wanted to think things over, sort out my impressions, and, if it seemed necessary, get some sort of idea of what my plans should be. When I finally came down to the hall, I found the old lady in sole possession, established in her chair as she had been when we arrived. She might never have moved. I greeted her as cheerily as I could, and she called me over to her chair.

“Miss Yorke,” she said, “I’m so glad to have you alone. I want to ask you something. You must forgive my springing things on you, but I don’t want Adela to hear and I might not have another opportunity.”

I murmured vaguely.

“Tell me,” said the old lady – and her voice was urgent – “has Adela ever said anything to make you think that she might marry?”

“Why no!” I cried, astonished.
Adela
marry! You might as well suspect a faded lettuce of falling in love.

“Never? Not a hint?”

“Never. But we aren’t at all – intimate, you know,” I said. “She’s never spoken at all of – of her personal affairs, her family or anything like that.”

“No? No, perhaps she wouldn’t. She’s very shy,” said the old lady, “and she had – a shock.”

Her voice was quite ordinary, sweet, compassionate a little; but for an instant her lips were parted in a tiny smile, furtive, malicious and cold, and her little scarlet tongue flickered over her lips. “Listen, Miss Yorke,” she went on, very earnestly. “I’m anxious about Adela. She has no relations – no one but me. I can’t explain now, there isn’t time. But, you see, I’m very old. I want Adela to marry – to marry
soon’,’
she added, and I could see her little wrinkled hands clutched on her stick.

“And is there anyone…?” I hesitated.

“Yes. There is. And I want it settled – at once.”

Her voice was tense with her urgency.

“I want to lay my hands on her children,” she added, in an extraordinary voice – “gloating” was the word that occurred to me. It ought to have been pathetic, her anxiety to feel, since she could not see, the children of the girl she had brought up; but it wasn’t. It was sickening – nauseating. Why, I don’t know – something in her voice or tone, or the greedy way in which her tiny aged hands tightened till the knuckles stood out like white pebbles.

“She’s never said a word to me,” I said, stupidly and coldly.

“No? Well, perhaps she will. If she does, Miss Yorke, urge her – urge her. Tell her she must, for her own sake.”

It was the same voice I had heard last night – silky, cold and menacing. The voice that had said “It’s either that, or you…”

I said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say. And in the stubborn silence I felt – enmity. It seemed to last for minutes. Then, “Thank you,” said the sweet, shallow voice. “Thank you very much, Miss Yorke. I am counting on you.”

She smiled again, and again her smile sickened me, it was so triumphant and so ruthless. Or so it seemed at the time. A few seconds later, when, with a muttered excuse about looking for Adela, I had escaped into the damp garden, I thought I was a fool – over-tired, probably, with term – ready to read mysteries into the most ordinary things. For after all, what was more natural than that the old lady should wish to see Adela’s future safe before she died? – to touch, since she could not see, her children? What was there malignant in that? On the contrary, it was benevolent, rather pathetic. I felt very penitent over my own moodiness and (I feared) rudeness.

In fact, the more I thought of it, the more I saw how right the old lady was. Clearly, Adela’s future would be pretty hopeless when her guardian was gone. Shyness, with her, was almost a mania. She would simply retire into herself, shut herself up here in the Bedfordshire house with the odd maid – go off her head, as likely as not. Myself, I should have thought marriage was an impossible idea for her; I could not imagine any man… But apparently there was one. She might be an heiress, you never knew. Not a very good motive for anyone to want to marry her, perhaps; but even so a marriage that was at all reasonably happy would be better than solitude and craziness. Why on earth had I so loathed the idea when the old lady mentioned it? Why had I been so utterly repelled by her? I could not imagine. What a fool I had been!

I wandered about the neglected garden, vaguely, with no purpose. I was trying to sort things out in my mind, and I hardly noticed where I went. It was not a very big garden, but it seemed so because it had been allowed to run wild; the long, wet grass and overgrown borders and dripping evergreens gave a depressing effect of decay and neglect and age. There were tall hedges and clumps of laurestinus and box and elder that would have made it a fine place for hide-and-seek – only no one could imagine children laughing and romping there. It was dead, as gardens are when houses have long stood empty – dead, and yet somehow furtive. I disliked it more and more; but still I strayed there simply because I hated the house, and the blank-eyed, sweet-voiced old lady, even more. Things are never so bad out-of-doors, I thought; and I also thought that I could not imagine anyone ever feeling really terrified out-of- doors – for I now admitted, although unconsciously, that in the house I had felt, suddenly and inexplicably, real fear such as I had never in my life known before.

The very next moment, I knew that I was wrong. Quite suddenly, without the least reason, I was cold and sick with sheer panic. It clutched my heart so that I could not breathe; sweat started out on my forehead and lips and arms. I heard my breath rasping in my throat, and the heavy, irregular thudding of my heart…

I stared round me wildly. If only I could
see
something, no matter how appalling – it would not be so bad. It was this terror of
nothing
that was so dreadful.

But there was nothing. Nothing. Long rank grass, hedged in by dark, dripping evergreens; a stone seat, low and broad and flat, the charred ring left by a weed fire, black in the long, rain-grey grass. Nothing else. Not a sound but the melancholy drip of the leaves – nothing. I stood there as if bewitched – I could not move, I could not even cry out. I felt soaked in evil…

And then, as suddenly, the charm was snapped. I heard a sound – a hurried, furtive, stumbling step, a little whimpering sobbing noise – and I could move again. I turned and ran, gasping and shaking, out of the silent, evil enclosure – and ran straight into Adela.

She shrieked – such a shriek as I never wish to hear again – and immediately clapped both her hands to her mouth, crushing back the sound. Her eyes stared, terrified, over her hands.

I caught at her as if she were my salvation.

“Adela,” I gasped – I could not speak – “Adela – what is it – in there – in this house?
What is it?”

She stared dumbly back. I shook her arm, dragging her hands down from her shaking lips.

“Tell me,” I urged. “Who is she? What is it?”

“Oh, Honor, don’t – I don’t know – what do you mean? Oh, don’t ask me – don’t – I don’t know…”

“You do know. What is it? What is going to happen at Midsummer?”

She still stared back, horror in her eyes, her white lips moving inaudibly.

“What do you know?” she whispered at last. I could only just hear the words.

“I know there’s devilry going on in this house,” I said, “and I know that I’m in it… Look here, Adela; we must work together. You must help me. We can stop it – we will. Only we’ll have to be quick. Tell me. Who is she? What is it?”

She still stared back, too scared to speak.

I don’t know what put the words into my head.

“It isn’t only me,” I said, “it’s you, Adela – and your children.”

She gasped at that, and her cold hands clutched at me.

“I know, I know!” she babbled in a whisper I could hardly hear. “She will, I know… Honor, what can we do? She’s listening even now. She can hear and see everything we do… We can’t ever get away from her. She – she wants another, Honor. It’s the year – it’s five years since… Listen. She got us when we were babies, my brothers and me. I don’t know why. I was only three. Two years, later…”

She broke off, gulping.

I shook her arm again.

“Go on,” I said.

She glanced at me, and then away, her eyes staring before her.

“He died – Phil, the youngest. He – they said he fell – on the shears – there, in the enclosure there. His throat – they said it was pierced. I think I knew even then – I was a baby, but I think I knew – it wasn’t as they said… I knew things, even then. Afterwards…”

Again she broke off, shaking all over.

“Five years after that,” she went on – and again she stopped. “Yes? Yes?” I urged her.

“It was Leslie next,” she whispered. “It – an operation, she said

- her own doctor – it satisfied people… But I knew, Honor, I
knew

- and he did, I think… And then, five years ago, Stephen… the one just older than me… They said it was suicide… Honor, oh, Honor, it wasn’t, it
wasn’t.
She…”

She sobbed, one deep, heavy sob.

“It was there – where you came from just now – oh, you frightened me so – I thought it was… It was there, Honor, one Midsummer night. I saw smoke. I guessed. I knew it was Stephen

- the five years were over. I knew it was danger – oh, horrible, you don’t know. I knew a good deal then… I was in bed, but I ran and ran… Stephen – I thought – I ran, hoping all the time… My feet were all cut next day…”

Her voice died away in a little sobbing whisper. “It was – over… I saw her – and the fire – and the stone bench… Oh, Honor!”

She clutched at me again, staring as if she still saw that horror.

“She knew I was there,” she went on at last. I could hardly hear her shaken whisper. “She never hid anything after that. I’ve seen – everything… And now – she – the next five years are up.” I felt cold and very sick. “It’s to be me,” I whispered. Adela nodded.

“That’s why I was sent,” she said at last, “to get someone. I tried not to, Honor, I did try. I couldn’t help it. I had to do it… You see - she wants to keep me – she wants children – little children – ready…”

We stared at each other in hopeless horror.

“She knows everything I do and say and think,” Adela went on in the same hurried gabbling whisper. “She knows we’re here now, talking of it. She knows everything, Honor. We can’t ever – oh what can I do? What can I do?”

Her despair roused me.

“We have till Midsummer,” I said. “We’ll be ready by then.”

But she shook her head hopelessly.

“You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t understand. She sees your thoughts. You can’t plan against her.”

“We can,” I asserted, “and we will.”

She looked up, a glimmer of hope in her questioning eyes.

“It’ll be all right,” I said. “I’ll get you out of it.”

And linking my arm in hers I led her back to the house.

I can’t find words to say how I dreaded entering it, facing the old lady who, according to Adela, knew all we had done and said. But Adela’s presence made it easier. Anyhow I knew what I was up against, and I knew that someone weaker than I depended on me. You can’t have better incentives to courage. So when we met the old lady face to face in the porch I was able to open my attack right away. I was astonished to hear how natural my voice was as I spoke.