The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (10 page)

'Where did they find him?' 'In the Lower Road, just by the Lady's Ride.' Genuinely grief-stricken as she was, something professional, automatic still functioned perfectly in the housekeeper's mind. All girls were stupid, it took five minutes and at least one repetition to get the simplest thing into their minds. She always acted on that assumption, and now, in one more instance, she realised how right she was. Damask Greenway hadn't so much as blinked at the first telling of the broken neck, the sudden tragic death-- but now, just five minutes later, she went all pale and gave a great gasp.

'Come to think of it,' said Mrs Hart, 'you'd be one of the last people to see him alive, wouldn't you? That'll be something to remember.' She mopped her face again. 'Did you notice aught...anything to show why he should have a dizzy spell and fall off his horse?'

'No...no. He seemed...quite ordinary.'

(And I told him a lie!)

'Ah, so I said.' Mrs Hart sounded immensely satisfied. 'There's more in this than meets the eye. It'd take something more than a falling branch to make old Bobby rear and shy. And the state he was in! I allust did say that I wouldn't venture along that road after dark--no, not for a thousand ...'

'Mrs Hart, what shall I do with the boots?'

How rude, to interrupt like that!

'Not for a thousand pounds,' said Mrs Hart firmly. 'The boots? I'm sure I don't know."

'Shall I leave them?'

'I don't know,' Mrs Hart said coldly. 'And this is no tune to be bothering with such things.'

Boots...boots! Fancy interrupting her just as she was telling how she had always felt about that dreadful road! Damask Greenway needed to be put in her place; Mrs Hart did it, closing the door firmly.

It was not the first time--it was far from the first time --that Damask had suspected that there was something queer, something quite out of the ordinary about her mind. Most people had minds which dealt with one thought, and then another, one at a time. Hers very often dealt with two, even three, all at the same time. She was thinking now, as the door shut in her face, that it was lucky that Mrs Hart hadn't taken the boots. Father could perhaps sell them as they were, or alter them to fit somebody else, or, if the worst came to the worst, use the leather again. They wouldn't be the dead loss that they might have been had Mrs Hart taken them and put them down somewhere to be forgotten. And at the same time another part of her mind was thinking about the Lower Road...thinking such terrible, terrifying thoughts that no other mind could have held them and any other thought at the same time; thinking that God really did intend to punish her for that lie, to test her faith to the uttermost. And at the same time yet a third part of her mind was capable of standing back and observing what a very strange mind Damask Greenway had, to be able to think all these things together. The whirl of so much thinking made her dizzy. There was the familiar moment of blackness during which all the thoughts came together. Then everything cleared and one thought had come uppermost--the thought of the Lower Road.

As she retraced her steps along the avenue Satan offered her a new and very subtle temptation. Time was of no account now, he said; it didn't matter how late she got back to Muchanger, nobody would scold when they heard the news she brought. Also--he said--by going back by the main road she would pass her home again, and could tell the news there and get rid of the boots.

She argued that she wasn't really going by way of the Lower Road to save time; she was going to punish herself.

Ah yes, Satan retorted, but when she had made her plan she hadn't known that something else horrible was going to happen on that very stretch of road; nor had she known that she would have to carry the boots all the way to Muchanger.

But God had known, she replied--God knew everything; and if He intended her to be this much more severely punished, it would be wrong to try to wriggle out of it.

By doing the sensible thing?

All too often the apparently sensible thing was the wrong thing--like telling the lie this afternoon.

Then, just as she reached the gateway, she thought of Jesus carrying the heavy cross--the cross to which she had added another nail--all the way up the slopes of Golgotha. And the other nail would stay in until God had forgiven her; and she couldn't be forgiven until she had proved her penitence.

Without further parley or hesitation she turned towards the wooden bridge and stepped out briskly.

It was very dark; but all her journeys back to Much-anger in winter were made in the dark; and the blackness itself did not alarm her. Immediately beyond the bridge one lighted window from Bridge Farm cast a cheering ray, and soon after that had fallen away behind her she could catch a glimpse of another lighted window at Wood Farm. After that the darkness thickened where Layer Wood loomed up and the wind changed its tone; it boomed and howled through the trees and the tormented branches creaked and clashed.

Now she was coming to the bad part. Every story that she had ever heard about this stretch of road rushed back to add its modicum of terror; she could hear again the very voices which had told the tales, culminating in Mrs Hart's saying that she wouldn't walk this way for a thousand pounds.

Nor would she, Damask Greenway I She was here for the only reason powerful enough to make her take the risk.

The twenty-third psalm was an excellent thing to remember when one was frightened. She remembered it. 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'

Satan made himself heard again: You'd be more comforted if someone came along and walked with you, wouldn't you? Even Matt Juby and he a bit tipsy! It'd take more than a falling branch to make Bobby rear and shy--wasn't that what Mrs Hart said? And what about that night when Widow Hayward...Get thee behind me, Satan!

She started the psalm again. 'I will fear no evil, no evil, no evil ...' What a dreadful word evil was, just by itself, when you came to think about it!

But she was getting along; nearly to the place where the Lady's Ride--and that was an ominous name too--opened out into the road. It must have been just about here that Sir Charles...Don't think about that. Nothing has happened yet, and perhaps it is all superstition after all; a good Methodist shouldn't be superstitious. And perhaps she was to be spared the worst. Perhaps the terror which she had inflicted on herself was to be her punishment. 'The wicked flee when no man pursueth.. .

But it isn't man you're afraid of, is it, Damask?

It was then that she heard the sound of hoofs, coming quickly, coming towards her.

Her heart gave a great jolt and then seemed to stop. She stood, paralysed with terror, stock still in the middle of the road.

Nobody not already half-demented by fear could possibly have mistaken the hoofbeats of the Fullers' old carthorse for those of a spirited stallion, even though young Danny Fuller was driving hard, even though the rattle of the iron-rimmed wheels toned so exactly with the roar and moan of the wind as to be indistinguishable. But Damask was already half-demented. Fear had been moving within her when she rose from her knees in" the workroom and it had been rising ever since, pressing against the barriers of reason and determination and faith; now, as she realised her worst fears and knew that she was to be spared nothing, the barriers went down.

She stood in the middle of the road and closed her eyes and thought, 'Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil, evil, evil. Deliver us..."

She could smell the horse; she could feel its breath. She dropped down, mercifully insensible, as the old horse checked and slithered to a halt.

There was a text: Underneath are the everlasting arms! And it was true. So were all the other things people said about Heaven. She'd died there in the dark and fallen--fallen through infinite space and infinite darkness, and now here she was, safely held in those strong everlasting arms. She gave a great sigh of happiness and relief, and lay back in the arms more securely. It was wonderful; it was all over--the struggles against Satan and temptation and sin; all the hard work and the way the cook at Muchanger made fun of her and called her 'Methody'; the long trudging miles to chapel...all over. No more hurry, the whole of eternity, held close like this. Everything had been worth while. Presently all the glory and beauty of Heaven would be there to be enjoyed; for the moment it was enough to lie here. She snuggled closer.

Then a very human, ordinary voice said, 'My God, I thought I'd killed you!' Not the voice of Jesus which had come from Mr Whitwell's lips in the Summerfield barn. So hard on the heels of this realisation that it seemed part of it came the awareness that what her face was pressed into was some rough cloth that smelt of smoke, of cooked onions, of hay, horses and ale.

'Wake up and speak to me,' said the voice. 'Are you hurt?' The voice was not very steady. Danny Fuller had had a fine shock; pounding along like that and having old Short check and swerve, and climbing down to find what looked like a dead girl in the road.

'Are you hurt?' he asked again.

Not without disappointment Damask came to full knowledge. She was still on earth; she must make an effort.

'I'm all right. She didn't touch me. And I kept my eyes shut, so I'm all right. How did you get here?' Her voice was languid and the few words seemed to demand all the strength she had left. She kept her eyes closed and still lay limp in his embrace.

'If we didn't touch you why did you fall down? And why didn't you get to the side of the road. You must have heard us coming.'

'Not you. Her! I heard her and I prayed and God heard me. He sent you.'

'I think you must have had a crack on the skull,' Danny said practically. The hood of her cloak had fallen back on to her shoulders and he put his hand to her head, running his fingers through her hair with a touch which made a thrill of voluptuousness move over her. She shuddered a little.

'No bump that I can find,' he said. He was sure of her identity now, having touched the hard bunch of plaits; no other girl wore her hair that way. 'You're Damask Greenway, aren't you?' Unconsciously his manner cooled. His susceptibility to girls was the greatest trouble as well as the greatest joy of his life, but his feeling for Damask was tinged with the same reserve and resentment which Sir Charles had experienced earlier in the afternoon. She was so prim and strait-laced, and she could have been pretty, but deliberately made herself plain; and that, besides being a pity and a waste, was in some curious way a rebuke to Danny and his kind. His brown, good-looking face twitched into a mischievous grin as he said: 'I'm Danny Fuller.'

That'd make her sit up I It certainly did. She opened her eyes and pulled away from him, thankful that the darkness hid the hot blush which scorched her face as she remembered how she had lain in his arms and pressed her face to his coat and thrilled to the touch of his hand in her hair. Danny Fuller, who had the worst name for running after girls of any boy in six parishes.

'I'm quite all right now, thank you,' she said in the prim way he detested.

'Well, I'm glad of that. What the hell did you think you were doing, walking in the middle of the road with your eyes shut? Isn't it dark enough?'

'I was frightened,' she said. 'She was so near me I could feel the horse's breath on me.' 'Who was?' 'Lady Alice.'

He broke into laughter. 'Only horse came near you tonight was my old Short! There were we spanking along and there you stood. If he didn't have better sense than you do we'd have run you down. Fancy you, of all people, believing those daft old tales.' He was pleased to find this proof of weakness and human feeling in her.

'Well, maybe it was silly.' She thought for a second. 'Yes, it was silly...but all alone, in the dark...And I had another reason. Squire was found dead just here only a little while back.'

'Squire? Good God! Is that really true?'

'Mrs Hart herself told me. I went up to the house with these...Oh, where are those boots?' She felt about in the darkness while Danny said slowly: 'That's wonderful; the very best thing that could happen.'

'I don't see why.' she said, stooping to gather up the parcel. 'My father'll miss his custom; so will a lot of other people.'

'There'll be a new Squire, silly. Younger and not so set in his ways. Nobody could be so pig-headed as the old man was. Ha ha; now we can all go ahead and get on.'

'That's what I must do now. I was late to start with, and I've still got a long way to go.' She pulled the hood of her cloak into place.

'Where are you now?' Danny asked.

'The same place. Muchanger.'

'Then what are you doing on this road? The Turnpike's shorter and doesn't have ghosts.'

'This is a bit shorter from the Manor end of the village; I told you, I went up with these boots. And I have another reason.'

'Meeting somebody?' He wasn't yet aware that the answer to that question mattered to him; he asked it teasingly.

'No, I wasn't. That's just the sort of thing you would think, Danny Fuller.'

'I only asked,' he said, 'because I thought you might get scared again...alone, in the dark, with all these ghosts about. Lady Alice, dead and buried hundreds of years I I am surprised at you.'

'I'm surprised at myself. But...being frightened was part of it...part of why I was on this road, I mean. And perhaps...Well, I must get along now.'

'I tell you what,' he said. 'You hop up and I'll turn round and drive you to Muchanger.'

'That's very kind of you. Thank you very much, but I'd rather walk.'

'Why?'

She stood silently, trying to put her reason into words that would not sound too offensive. 'You aren't afraid of me, surely.'

'Not afraid,' Damask said. She added, speaking slowly, so that what she said should be precise and unmistakable, 'But somebody might see us. And any girl you ever look at is talked about, you know that. I don't want people saying that I'm one of your jilts.'

'Don't talk so daft,' he said. 'Who's to see us? You can't go lugging that great parcel all the way to Much-anger and getting scared again. If you don't get in the cart I shall turn round and drive slowly alongside; then, if there was anybody to see, you would be talked about. Come on, now, hop up.'