The Travelling Man (33 page)

‘Suit yourself.’ Johnson made no move to follow him. Just stood there with her hands on her hips, laughing, the long black coat billowing out in a slight breeze. ‘You’re barmy! Pots for rags,’ she called after him, cupping a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m glad to be shut of you. You’re not a man, you’re a nowt! A weak, smarmy lump of nowt!’

When Kit stopped to catch his breath, turned back to look, shading his eyes from the sun, she was a mere speck in the distance, a bent black figure, for all the world like a Pendle witch. Kit shook his head. They’d burned the Pendle witches, but burning was too good for that one. She should be hung, drawn and quartered.

He stumbled on, leaping from one dry patch to another, as spry and nimble as a mountain goat. She was a bad lot, and he was well rid of her. He wouldn’t try to meet up with her again, not him. Once he’d cut Annie Clancy free then he’d be off. In the opposite direction. South not north. It’d be easier to find a place without Ruby Johnson to hinder him. He’d done the right thing getting rid of her.

At the foot of the hill he risked leaving the field paths and set off along the narrow road. Muttering and cursing
to
himself, he missed hearing the sound of a horse’s hooves and jumped clear only when the rider shouted aloud: ‘Watch what you’re doing, man!’ Kit moved so swiftly he almost fell sprawled into the muddy ditch, regained his balance and looked up into the unsmiling face of the animal doctor.

‘Mr Armstrong!’ He touched his forehead in the gesture that owed nothing to respect. ‘You’re out this way early.’

Seth reined in his horse and nodded. There was something about this swarthy fellow that gave him the creeps. He looked like the type who would steal the pennies from his dead grandmother’s eyes.

‘What are you doing up here at this time, Dailey? I would have thought there would be plenty for you to do today. And wasn’t that Johnson I saw back there? Running like a startled rabbit.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Is something wrong? What’s going on?’

‘There’s nowt going on, sir.’

Kit’s mind was working feverishly as he summed up his chances of making a run for it up and over the stony ridge to the side of the bridle path. He took two shuffling steps sideways. By the time the animal doctor had dismounted he could be away, as far away as he could get. But first …

‘I’d call in at the gardener’s cottage, sir, that’s if you’re going to the May feasting.’ He was backing away. ‘I’d do that, sir. That I would. Indeed I would …’

‘What did you say?’ In one swift movement Seth slid from his horse, caught Kit by the collar of his jacket and swung him round. ‘Why should I call at the gardener’s cottage?’ He lifted the handyman clear off the ground. ‘I’m waiting, Dailey!’

Kit flinched away from the expression in the pale grey eyes. He had seen this man in a rage before now. He had seen him bring his whip down on the shoulders of a cringing stable lad for doing no more than beating an obstinate pony into submission.

‘I’m doing mi best to help, sir,’ he whined. ‘It’s a matter of life and death, sir. The gardener’s girl. Young Annie Clancy. She’s …’ He was being shaken now like a rat held by a terrier’s strong teeth. ‘Go to her, sir,’ he managed to gasp. ‘There may not be much time …’ The words were torn from him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the blow that never came.

Instead, with all his powerful strength Seth flung him to one side, leapt back into the saddle and rode away, as if all the winds of heaven and earth were behind him.

Leaving Kit rolling over and over on the steep and stony path, to lie dusty and bruised, but still alive, thanks be to God!

WHEN SETH CUT
her free Annie moaned and opened her eyes.

Her hands were purple and swollen, the wrists inflamed where the twine had dug into them. One cheek was puffed and discoloured, and her torn blouse revealed scratches as deep and fiery as if a wild animal had clawed her. She was marble cold, her hair matted and sticky with sweat; she was wet and filthy, yet when he trickled water into her parched and bleeding mouth, she couldn’t swallow.

Seth took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. He was filled with an anger so great he trembled with the force of it. Kicking aside the shattered debris of a stool, he carried her out into the bright morning, cradling her tenderly against his shoulder, shielding her face from the sun’s glare.

When Margot Gray saw him coming towards the house, striding out, his face set like a stone mask, she ran towards him.

‘Oh,
mon Dieu
! The poor child! Bring her into the house.’ She called out to a boy with barley pale hair shambling aimlessly across the lower slope of lawn. ‘Toby! Go and fetch the master. He’s down at the stables. Go on boy! Run! Tell him it is necessary he comes at once!’

On the way up the wide oak staircase Seth explained what had happened. His words came out staccato sharp. He flung them at her over his shoulder. ‘She’s half choked and wandering in her mind. The cottage is in ruins. Wicked wanton destruction.’

On the landing Margot moved round him to open a door. ‘In here.’ She pulled back a silk counterpane, turned down the sheets. ‘The first thing we’ve got to do is to warm her. Ring that bell.’ She put a hand to her eyes. ‘No, don’t bother. They’re all across in the meadow setting the trestle tables out …’ Her voice spiralled after her. ‘Dailey and Johnson have gone – taken half our wine cellar with them – today of all days, would you believe.’

Tenderly Seth laid Annie down, smoothed back her hair from her forehead. ‘What have they done to you, love?’ he whispered. ‘How could anyone …?’

The last time, that other time, he had known what to do. His hands had been gentle and sure as he touched her nakedness, feeling for broken bones. So why was he hesitating now? He buried his face in his hands. That had been the time when she was merely a stranger, a young girl he had found wandering in the darkness on the fells. He had tended her as he would a sick animal. Whereas now she was young Annie, a laughing girl he had talked to, argued with, watched blossom like a flower in the atmosphere of his home. He sighed. A girl he had frightened away.

When Harry came blundering into the room, red-faced, treading mud from his boots into the pastel-shaded carpet, Seth spoke to him through gritted teeth.

‘She could have been tied to that chair all day. All
night
and the next day. She might have died.’ He pulled back the top sheet. ‘It wasn’t a wild animal that did that. It was a man. He must have raked his nails so deep he’s gouged the flesh away. He couldn’t have done a better job if he’d taken a knife to her.’

Harry took blustering charge of the situation. ‘The doctor’ll be here in minutes, old chap. Young Toby Eccles went leaping and running to fetch him faster than if the hounds of hell were at his heels. Daft the lad might be, but he cottoned on to Annie here with a devotion that had to be seen to be believed.’

He went willingly from the room when his wife came in with towels and warm water. A sick room was no place for a man. He just prayed that when his turn came he would have the clout to curl up in a ditch, close his eyes and allow himself to stiffen. No funeral neither, with Margot and the girls done up like black crows. As far as he was concerned they could dig him into the soil, stamp it down and leave him be. If anyone wanted to remember him they could do that without crying over a headstone.

He decided to pour himself a whisky, though he never reckoned to start imbibing till midday. His teeth jittered against the rim of the glass as he raised it to his lips. Truth was, seeing that young lass in such a pitiful condition had shaken him to the mothballs.

Armstrong, too. He’d known the animal doctor for a long time. Margot had done a good job of supporting the stricken fella when his wife had died of self-inflicted starvation. They’d had her to dinner, and it had angered him no end to see the way the silly woman had pushed the food around on her plate, reckoning on to be eating it. Grief, they’d put it down to, a broken heart over the death of her baby. Harry refilled his glass and upended it. But the child had never lived, for God’s sake! She hadn’t had to watch it grow in grace and beauty, then have it taken from her. That he could understand – or could he?

It paid not to dwell, or even to think too much. Harry was glad he wasn’t the introspective type. You could store a lot of bother up for yourself that way. Take Armstrong there. Finding the gardener’s girl tied up like that, half dead into the bargain had almost pole-axed him. He’d had a look on his face that bit deep.

Harry shook his big head from side to side. Reached for the decanter again.

Margot noticed it too. The pain in Seth’s eyes made her blink and look away from him for a moment.

‘Dailey must be caught,’ he was saying. ‘I’d string him up myself if I laid hands on him.’ Leaning over the bed he touched Annie’s puffy cheek. ‘It goes beyond me how anyone could … it really goes beyond comprehension.’ He turned to Margot. ‘Her father used to beat her. Did you know that?’

Margot nodded. ‘Life can be very cruel to some.’

‘But the cruelty ends now.’ Seth walked over to the window. ‘I’m taking her home with me as soon as she’s fit to travel. If it’s within my power she’ll never be hurt again. Never!’

Margot went to stand beside him, laying a hand on his arm. Didn’t he realise, this lovely man with the build of a wrestler and the heart of a tender woman, that his feelings were plain to see? Feeling as he did, why in God’s name had he ever let young Annie Clancy out of his sight? Annie had said she had left because he told her the truth.

For Margot, to think was to act. ‘God knows how you came to let her go. Adam said he found her wandering the road like a tramp woman, escaping from the hill farm where young Toby Eccles used to live. You know that place, Seth. Come to think, it was because of what you told us of the conditions there that we had the lad brought here. How could you have let Annie go to a place like that?’

Seth stared down at the young-old face with its powdered wrinkles and misplaced rouge. He glanced behind him at the bed.

‘Between us – Mrs Martindale and I – we frightened her away,’ he said slowly. ‘But I never knew she had gone to work for Barney Eccles.’ He pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Do you think I would have left her there, knowing? Barney Eccles expects to bed any servant girl foolish enough to stay. I called one day, not realising Annie was there.’ His eyes darkened. ‘She could have been only yards away, in the farmhouse, and I didn’t know.’

‘But she ran away. No harm came to her. Adam Page found her wandering the road and took her into his cottage. He was a kindly man. Over-thrifty, maybe, but kind.’

‘Kinder than me.’ Seth would not be comforted. When the doctor came into the room, Gladstone bag held out before him, Seth walked quickly out on to the landing and down the stairs, into the drawing-room where Harry sat slumped in his chair, third whisky to hand on the pedestal table by his side.

On the third day Annie swallowed a little of Cook’s chicken broth in the morning, and in the afternoon managed a good two tablespoons of calves’-foot jelly. She was hazy in her mind about what had happened since the animal doctor had found her and brought her here.

Tincture of iodine had been painted on the deep scratches down her front. She remembered the sting of it going on, and she remembered a cold poultice being laid against her right eye, and the smell of linseed oil being gently massaged into her wrists and ankles.

There had been a man’s voice; the sense of someone sitting by the bed, hour upon hour – day after day, for all she knew. She had called out and he had laid her back on the pillows, smoothed the hair from her forehead, trickled water into her mouth. She had been
conscious
of him being there, of feeling desolate when he went. Of waking in the night for what seemed like brief but terrible moments of fear when Johnson stood over her with the bread-knife in her hand, holding the tip of the blade against her throat, eyes blazing as she promised what she would do unless she was told the hiding-place of Adam’s hoarded money.

Where was she now? Shuddering, Annie recalled the set face and the staring eyes, lived again the blind terror as Johnson’s finger-nails had torn at her skin. Screamed again, but in her mind this time, at the memory of Kit Dailey’s dark face as he forced the gag into her mouth.

On the seventh day Dorothea came into the bedroom and told Annie that Kit Dailey had been arrested by the police as he tried to sign on a ship leaving Liverpool Docks for Belfast.

‘A small cargo ship,’ she said, sitting down in the bedside chair with her knees apart, her skirts all rucked between them. ‘He won’t be sailing anywhere for a long time to come.’ She gave an uncanny replica of her father’s loud laugh. ‘It’s a pity they’ve stopped shipping criminals like him to Australia. Do him good to be clapped in irons below decks.’

She thought Annie looked a damn sight better than she had a few days ago, but the bruises on her face had faded to a sickly yellow, giving her a jaundiced look, and her mouth was still a bit lopsided where the gag had bit deep into the soft tissues of her mouth.

‘You’re looking splendid,’ she lied, because there wasn’t a mean bone in the whole of her big body. ‘Doc says there’ll be no lasting scars.’

She didn’t add that the doctor had said it would be the mental scars that would take more time to heal, but she didn’t really believe that sort of talk. You fell down, you developed a bruise. You cut yourself, it bled. Your head ached, you put a lavender-soaked handkerchief on your forehead, and you had a bad monthly pain and you
cursed
and wished for the umpteenth time that you’d been born a boy.

‘The May feasting was a bit of a washout with all this excitement.’ She laughed noisily, with her mouth open. ‘You were lying up here on what looked like it could have been your deathbed, but we had to carry on with it or half the village maidens would have gone home in tears. Would you believe that some of them had been up at dawn to chase about the meadow kissing the dew?’

‘Did you and Abigail do it?’