A Hint of Witchcraft Read online

  The bus – a wretched little local affair – came at last, drew up with a lurch and almost splashed them with muddy water from a puddle. They had both been obliged to step back smartly. Her own stockings were spattered; the marks still showed though she had done what she could with a handkerchief. Fortunately Linden had got out of the way in time, but in stepping back she had bumped into someone standing against the warehouse wall: a gypsy-looking woman with a pedlar’s tray of goods slung round her neck. The woman lost her balance, the tray tilted and her things were spilled on the pavement: laces, packets of tape and so on.

  She had been extremely offensive, out of all proportion to so small an accident. She had actually sworn at Linden and muttered some kind of threat. Fortunately a policeman was passing, otherwise there might have been more unpleasantness. Of course, there was nothing they could do but get into the bus quickly – the conductor was impatient – and pay no attention. The youth in the cap kept them waiting while he picked up some of the things and put them back on the tray, until the conductor threatened to leave without him.

  The three of them were the only passengers. At the top of Ashlaw’s steep main street the bus slowed down for him, he jumped off and made a rude sign to them from the roadside. Linden had simply turned away: she was always cool-headed and never out of temper. But she herself suffered from sensitive nerves and the incident had upset her.

  And now they waited until the hymn ended and was followed by the National Anthem.

  ‘It’s over, whatever it was.’

  On the other side of the wall there were no houses, only open land sloping to a hollow with trees and clumps of primroses.

  ‘It’s quite pretty really. I thought when you said Mr Humbert was a colliery agent, there’d be.…’

  ‘An agent has a very good position and doesn’t have to live near a colliery. Actually there isn’t one at Ashlaw.’

  ‘There are a lot of people down there and a motor car.’

  To have to manoeuvre one’s way through a crowd was an added inconvenience. Fortunately people were dispersing, though in no particular hurry, except for an athletic-looking, russet-haired boy who came up the hill at an astonishing speed and made for the house with a brass plate, set back a little from the street. The doctor’s? An emergency?

  ‘It’s a big car.’ They had drifted to the turning and could look down the lane. ‘If we had come in a taxi, we wouldn’t have been able to get to the gate.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Mrs Grey’s manner had changed. ‘Come along.’

  They exchanged smiles of understanding and hesitated no longer.

  CHAPTER II

  By one o’clock those who had been famished at twelve were ravenous. According to Alex, who had charge of the decanter, they had remained steadfast to the call of duty, hoping eventually to be rewarded for gallantry.

  ‘We really must be going,’ Mrs Rilston said for the third time. ‘It has been delightful. I envy you, Mrs Humbert, living in the centre of things. I’m afraid we’re out of touch up at Bainrigg.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It was good of you to ask Miles to stay for lunch. He’s away at school most of the time and has no friends here. We know so very few young people.’ She looked round. The presence at such close quarters of even so very few young people had already given her a headache. ‘Margot is a charming little hostess. So natural and unspoiled.’ More thoughtfully her eye turned to the other girl. She was standing just inside the drawing-room door with her mother, Mr Rilston, Mr Humbert and Alex.

  ‘Linden is a little older.’ Mrs Humbert’s gaze had taken the same direction. ‘She’s nearer Alex’s age. Margot had told us about the new girl at school. She was thrilled, and so was I when I realized who it must be. Linden’s mother and I were at the Elmdon High School together as girls.’

  ‘You hadn’t kept in touch?’

  ‘Army people move about a good deal, don’t they? We heard of Captain Grey’s death, but it wasn’t until Margot mentioned Linden’s name that I knew Marian had come back to Elmdon. She hopes to give Linden a more settled background and make suitable friends.’

  ‘That should not be difficult.’

  Linden was apparently a good listener. She seemed at ease, a slim, graceful girl. She had not yet taken off her hat, a brown velour with the broad brim turned up all round to show dark hair framing a face of pale, clear complexion.

  ‘She must miss her father. It can’t have been easy for Marian. But you know what it is.’ Sarah Humbert hesitated. ‘This morning must have been an ordeal for you and your husband – and for Miles too.’

  The Rilstons’ only son, Miles’s father, had been killed at Ypres. The discovery that he and Captain Grey had been in the same regiment had been made just as the Rilstons were on the point of leaving – twenty minutes ago.

  ‘And the auburn-haired boy? Not one of the family?’

  ‘Dr Pelman’s son. His mother died when he was very young and he spends a good deal of time with us.’

  ‘I see now. The resemblance. The same intensely blue eyes as his father.’

  Lance stood with his back to the hall clock. He was forcing himself not to look at it. His obsession with time and not wasting any of it was getting out of hand. It was important not to let anything get out of hand, always to be in control. Self-control was essential in every walk of life.

  Margot, having met the Greys at the gate, ushered them in and made the breathless introductions, had later found Miles stranded at the foot of the stairs and felt sorry for him. He had not yet been introduced to Linden and she must see to it that the privilege was not too long delayed. Meanwhile—

  ‘Lunch won’t be long,’ she said encouragingly. ‘In fact it’s been ready for ages. I’m glad you’re staying.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Like the others, he was older than Margot who thought him delicate-looking. Perhaps he was outgrowing his strength. She racked her brains for a topic that might interest him.

  ‘Alex and Lance are making a crystal set. Wireless, you know. They’ve taken a vow to make it as cheaply as possible. Well, they would have to anyway but it makes it more interesting when you take a vow.’ To her the vow was certainly more interesting than the crystal set.

  ‘I see. I suppose it does.’

  ‘It’s the second one. The first one almost worked but.…’ Why hadn’t it worked? ‘It was something to do with the aerial. Actually I’m not sure that it’s worth all the bother. All I could hear was a sort of whistling and wailing.’

  ‘I expect that’s why they’re trying again. When it works properly there are interesting things to listen to. It’s better if you have a set with valves but more expensive, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You mean – the vow?’

  He smiled. She was a friendly little thing with light-brown hair and dark eyes. They were soft, like velvet, the whites faintly tinted with blue. Usually he felt awkward with strangers, especially girls. For that matter he hardly knew any. To have to stay to lunch had promised to be sheer torture.

  ‘Sometimes there’s music.’ The smile had changed his thin face, his whole self. It gave to the remark a special charm. She was to remember it as one remembers a line of poetry.

  ‘You like music?’ And when he nodded, ‘So do I. I’m.…’ She stopped, remembering Alex’s rule about not bragging.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was going to say that I’m in the school choir but it sounds like boasting.’

  ‘What sort of thing do you sing?’

  ‘“Nymphs-and shepherds-come-away”.’ She looked at him doubtfully, wondering for the first time what it actually meant. Quick and bright, the five words came again and again and nothing seemed to happen until the desperate ‘… come come co-o-ome away’ at the end. ‘That’s what we’re working on now.’

  The clock struck one. Lance relaxed as after an ordeal. Mrs Rilston moved purposefully towards the drawing-room door.

  ‘Frederick dear, we’ve been forgetting the time.’

  ‘I hope
you’ll come again. Your husband and I seldom have an opportunity to talk.’ If Edward Humbert silently added the word ‘alone’, there was some excuse for him. The presence of Marian Grey and her pale-faced silent girl had been a confounded nuisance. There were several topics he would have liked to discuss with Mr Rilston who had considerable influence in the district, where his family had been the principal land-owners for more than 200 years.

  ‘I was meaning to ask you’ – he steered his parting guest to the hall – ‘could you by any chance find a job for one of our Ashlaw lads? Ewan Judd. His father was killed on the Somme and the family are in a bad way. Ewan has never worked since he left school. We haven’t been able to take on more boys of his age at any of our pits. First chance had to be given to family men coming home from the front – not even all of them. Once the Germans are back in the Ruhr, we’re going to feel the difference here. By next year there could be over three hundred thousand miners out of work, taking the country as a whole.’

  In full daylight, Rilston, still in his sixties, looked older, his blue eyes faded, his cheeks sunken. Humbert’s conscience smote him. He was used to arguing with hard-headed directors of the Fellside and District Coal Company and felt the contrast between them and this gentle, courteous man.

  ‘I’m sorry, Humbert. I’d be glad to find him something to do. Certainly I’ll bear him in mind. His father and my son down there together.’ He nodded towards the Dene. The homely little ceremony had touched him. Mrs Dobie’s protest had not been mentioned but watching her trudge away, he had felt his personal grief as part of a catastrophe too vast and irremediable to be borne except in being shared. ‘I’d like to help but I’ve had to turn men away. Can’t afford the staff we once had, indoor or out. To tell you the truth, money is tight: all we’ve got is land. The day may come when we shall have to sell. I dread it. And there’s Langland Hall standing empty; haven’t been able to keep it in repair. All the same – Judd. I’ll remember the name. Thank you, my boy.’ Alex had brought him his stick. ‘You’ve a daughter, too, I see.’

  The silent listener at his elbow was not Margot. Her father, his mind on more important issues, answered vaguely.

  The old gentleman stepped out into a garden alive with nesting birds as into a world he no longer recognized, empty as it was of so much that had been familiar, of clearly marked obligations and expectations and people he had known and trusted.

  ‘I must apologize, Mrs Grey,’ his wife was saying, ‘for taking up so much of the lane with our car. You must have come by taxi. There wouldn’t be room for it to bring you to the gate.’

  ‘There is no need to apologize. It only meant stopping a little further up the lane. We didn’t mind that at all, did we, Linden?’

  Linden smiled. Her smile was charming.

  ‘Perhaps we could make amends. I wonder – how are you getting back to town? We could send the car. It will be coming for Miles in any case. Chapman could take you home.’

  ‘How very kind.’

  Lance heard these exchanges with interest. He wondered what arrangement the Greys would have made if Mrs Rilston had not solved their problem. Mr Humbert had the use of a company car and chauffeur and had kept on his horse and gig. The family commonly used buses, a recent innovation and infrequent but cheap, and occasionally taxis. The station was a quarter of a mile away.

  Later, from his place on the opposite side of the table he was able to take a closer look at the visitors. Mrs Grey must be about the same age as Mrs Humbert, but looked older as if always bothered by some worry or other. It was thus that Lance reacted to the fretful expression on a prematurely lined face and to Mrs Grey’s tendency to fidget – with a gold chain round her neck, with a cuff, with her hair (disarranged when her hat had been snatched at by a briar dangling from that tiresome arch over the gate and coolly disentangled by Linden).

  Linden? What did poor old Alex see in her? She wasn’t bad-looking. Not exactly in the film-star class. Nothing like as pretty as Margot. But Lance could see that there was something about her: a difference from other girls. This time, he thought, without undue concern, Alex had better watch out. He transferred his attention to his plate and dealt with an ample helping of raised pie and cold meats in roughly – he refrained from looking at his watch – three minutes.

  Seated on the same side of the table as the Greys, Margot could not see her friend without leaning forward, nor could she help doing so as inconspicuously as possible. Otherwise everything had gone well. Perfect! The word floated to the surface of her mind and lay there, pure white and shining like a water-lily. Her eyes sought her mother’s. ‘You see what I mean?’ they ardently asked, turning in Linden’s direction.

  Mrs Humbert would have described herself as weary of the very sound of Linden’s name but she rose to the appeal, nodded and smiled significantly. The infatuation could do no harm and it couldn’t possibly last: neither worshipper nor idol could sustain it for long. And the same applied to Alex who could be counted on to fall in love with every presentable girl he met.

  The Greys were lonely, she thought. They must be looked after a little until they found their feet. A weekend visit perhaps. The extra leaves were rarely taken out of the Humberts’ hospitable dining-table. When they were alone, they ate in the morning-room. The round table there seated five comfortably, themselves and Lance who had become one of the family.

  Even to think the word ‘perfect’ is to take a risk: there is always a snag. In this case, for Margot, it was that she couldn’t quite see Linden properly: not fully, not then – or later – or ever.

  CHAPTER III

  As soon after lunch as politeness allowed, Miles made his excuses: he would not wait for Chapman but would walk home. With their crystal set in mind, Alex and Lance took the opportunity of leaving with him. They had got as far as the gate when Mrs Grey and the girls came out on the front steps.

  ‘Such a lovely day.’ Mrs Grey’s glance moved from the three youths to her daughter. ‘A walk would do you good, dear,’ and to Margot, ‘Linden doesn’t often have a day in the country.’

  ‘We could have gone with the boys,’ Margot said, ‘only Chapman will be coming for you. There wouldn’t be time. But Linden and I could have a walk on our own, just to the river and back. It’s pretty down by the bridge.’

  ‘A pity.’ Mrs Grey might not have heard. ‘Of course, I must wait here but perhaps we could pick up Linden somewhere on the way home.’

  ‘Not if we go with Miles. Bainrigg isn’t on the way to town. But – oh yes – there’s Clint Lane.’ Margot explained. There was a short cut from the Rilstons’ land to the Elmdon road. ‘We could come back that way and you could pick up Linden at the end of the lane.’

  While Linden was saying everything that was proper to her hosts, Margot dawdled to the gate and found Katie Judd crouching by the hedge just outside, beside her a basket of the Humberts’ freshly laundered linen. No need to ask why she was hiding there instead of delivering the laundry as usual: she had seen strangers in the garden and had taken fright.

  ‘There’s nobody about, Katie. You can go up through the orchard and round to the back door.’

  Cautiously Katie uncurled herself, nodded and almost smiled: with Margot she was safe. Unfortunately, before she reached the point where garden merged into orchard, Linden came down from the house. They met midway down the path under a low-hanging bough of a pear tree. Both stopped – Linden composed, hatless, her thick dark hair shining, her dress and jacket of fine worsted without a crease: Katie instantly distraught, in cast-off navy-blue serge too big for her, draggled stockings and scuffed shoes, with a handkerchief pinned by one corner to the front of her dress as if she were still a little girl. When she was afraid, as now, her pale eyes grew prominent as if they would start from her head.

  Momentarily, Margot’s admiration for Linden gave way to sympathy for Katie. She had always known but never fully realized that Katie’s impoverishment was not just a matter of awful clothes: she had also been
given faulty equipment with which to do battle against the bombardment of terrors that life inflicted on her. It wasn’t fair. The worst of it was that Katie was excelling herself. She gaped, clutching the handle of the basket, her knuckles white, her knees bent. She might have been expecting the lash of a whip or a sentence of death. Whatever would Linden think?

  ‘Give me the basket, Katie, and you run home.’

  By the time Margot came back, Katie had gone.

  ‘You mustn’t mind Katie. She can’t help being like that.’

  ‘I suppose she’s what’s called the village idiot.’

  ‘Well, no. Oh, no.’

  Katie needed to be explained. She was simple-minded and, according to Dr Pelman, her development had been retarded by the ill effects of measles and under-nourishment. What she needed was good food, care and understanding. The Judds and their neighbours took a less rational view. If there was such a thing as a changeling, that was what their Katie was. Margot had not yet come across the word but anyone could see that Katie was different from her two older brothers and her sister. She was fair-skinned and almost thin enough to be seen through. Her fine light hair radiated from her head like the gossamer of a seeding dandelion and with a similar suggestion of being at the mercy of the wind.

  The other Judds were broad-shouldered, big-boned, strong-jawed and dangerous when roused, like crocodiles. Whereas Katie existed in a state of anxiety bordering on panic, they were fearless. It was possible that, unintentionally, they were responsible for her nervousness. Any creature of the least sensitivity must, even in the cradle, have quailed from a domestic atmosphere that smouldered and could, on occasion, ignite.

  On the other hand, the fiercest of their outbursts would most likely be on Katie’s behalf. Let anyone lay a finger on her and the Judds would rise up and smite the offender as Judah and Simeon smote the Canaanites. So far no one had risked – or wanted – so to offend; the girl was harmless. As Mrs Judd said, Katie had never needed to be smacked. Whatever she was told to do, she did, not only from fear of the consequences if she did not, but because she didn’t know what else to do. Her forté was running errands: she never forgot a message. Once a thing got into her head it remained and could not be dislodged. Her dim wits were remarkably retentive.