A Hint of Witchcraft (34 page)

‘I heard that you had left Elmdon.'

‘We're living in London. I've been spending a few days here with Mother.' There could not be awkwardness in Linden's presence, not at least on such an occasion as this: her manners were so beautiful. Now, conscious of a touch of impatience on his part, she introduced her companion.

‘You haven't met my stepson, Godfrey. This is Margot Humbert, Godfrey. You remember – from Langland Hall.'

‘How do you do?' Margot succeeded in concealing her bewilderment.

‘How do you do, Miss Humbert?' Godfrey made no attempt to conceal his admiration.

‘I'll sit with Margot for a minute, if I may. Do go and dance.'

‘You'll want to talk. Until later perhaps?' He made a little bow and left them.

‘They ought to have announced us as Mrs Barford and Mr Godfrey Barford.' The lack of correctness was provoking but not to be dwelt on.

For once Linden was the more talkative. In the three years since they had last met, Margot's thoughts of her had become so hopelessly complex that no single thread suitable for conversation could be disentangled: she simply didn't know what to say. ‘So you married Godfrey's father', was too obvious as was the reason for so prudent a choice.

‘You are still at Langland? It must have been a relief to get away from Ashlaw.'

‘You didn't like Ashlaw?'

Linden's long lashes veiled her eyes for an instant as if she might swoon with distaste.

‘I hadn't been used to such a place or such people.' Safely established in Belgravia and with the support of millions of cinema-goers, she need not hesitate to deplore so uncongenial a district and its coarse inhabitants. ‘We knew, the very first day we came to lunch with your parents, that the place was impossible socially. Oh, you know I don't mean Monk's Dene: one felt perfectly safe there.'

‘The very first day? I'm surprised that you ever came again.'

‘You mustn't think me unappreciative of the very pleasant times we had with you.' But later there had been objectionable incidents, typical, she supposed of a district where there were so many ignorant working people. ‘I don't know why but I felt a hostility. Perhaps the people there are always resentful of strangers. Once when I walked down from Bainrigg to send a telegram for Mrs Rilston, women were gossiping on their doorsteps. When they saw me they called to their children and went in and shut the doors. It seemed deliberate. I felt them looking at me as I passed the windows. So rude.'

She fingered a bracelet and looked at her rings. They included a handsome emerald. Margot thought her appearance just a little overdone, especially as to jewellery. Necklaces were not then fashionable and Linden's flashed rather too blatantly.

She murmured something about the people of Ashlaw meaning no harm.

‘I'm not so sure.' She marvelled at the change in Margot: she had been such a quaint little thing, such a chatterbox too. ‘You may not have heard; I didn't want it known but it doesn't matter now: I was attacked one night, at Bainrigg, by two ruffians.'

Margot, silently hazarding a guess as to their identity, looked suitably concerned though judging by Linden's sedate manner, little harm had been done. Whatever the Judds had intended, their intention had evidently misfired like every other attempt to put things right in a situation without precedent where there were no rules for guidance.

‘Fortunately Miles was there to look after me. In fact it brought us together.…'

‘I wonder' – Margot's attitude had hardened – ‘if you had become associated in people's minds with Katie.'

‘Katie? That crazy girl. But why should they?'

‘You were known to be the last person to see her alive that day when you walked down from Bainrigg towards the chimney.' She had looked at Linden repeatedly in the past, with pleasure, admiration, doubt, suspicion and with unacknowledged dread. But she had never looked at her as she did now: directly, deliberately, straight in the eyes. They were beautiful eyes, of shape and size perfectly proportionate to a beautiful face, in colour, between blue and grey, overhung by long dark lashes under delicately arched brows. Whether from some quality of the light or lack of it – from the golden lanterns, or from some slight change in the configuration of the face, she saw them as not merely heavy-lidded but curiously hooded. It occurred to her that she had never seen them brighten or soften or kindle with anger or fun. They reflected nothing: responded to nothing. With Linden the act of seeing was little more than physical: she saw what was there but only as it concerned herself. So that in any real sense she had not seen Katie at all, ever.

‘You said you hadn't seen her by the chimney. Remember? But I think you must have done.'

Linden's raised eyebrows and the faintest possible suggestion of a shrug, no more than a movement of the shoulders, implied that about an incident so remote as to be almost beyond recollection, she had nothing to say. Margot persisted.

‘What a dreadful thing it would have been if you had actually seen her die when you might have been able to save her.'

The devious remark brought a swift response.

‘How could I save her when she was already.…' They both started, Margot quite violently, as with a blare of saxophones the band burst into a jaunty rendering of ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May'. The dancers were changing partners in a Paul Jones. The rest of the sentence was lost, but Linden's lips continued to move. Perhaps she too was changing her tune. The dancers regrouped to the tune of a waltz.

‘Whenever she saw me she ran away.'

The music was softer now but Margot wasn't listening. It didn't matter what Linden said. She had seen Katie in her last desperate moments and had done nothing, said nothing. Linden never did anything: she simply existed as she was. What lay beneath the smooth surface Margot would never know, only suspect the absence of anything but a squalid self-interest. It was Katie who had sensed cruel indifference and had known what it signified; it was as if she knew that where heart and soul were lacking the void they left might harbour a malign spirit which, finding an emptiness, occupied it. Katie alone had felt its presence from the beginning, from the first instant of their meeting under the pear tree; had recognized it and fled from it.

‘She always behaved so strangely. One didn't know what she would do next. I had never come into contact with half-wits and such people. You didn't mind: you were such a good little girl. Do you remember how shocked you were about my not saying my prayers? So quaint.' She smiled. Her smile no longer charmed. ‘You were so earnest that I tried it – and kept on trying. It was no trouble – and it worked.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I prayed for one particular thing. Nothing else. That was all I wanted.'

‘And you got it.' It sparkled in the necklace, gleamed in the heavy ivory satin of her dress and bolstered her superb confidence.

‘Arthur is very generous – and to Mother too. She has a delightful flat in Canon's Walk. You know, those Queen Anne houses overlooking the park.'

A dancing couple turned their heads and smiled: Godfrey and his partner. Margot's heart warmed to him as to a condemned man granted a merciful reprieve.

‘And I see you are engaged.'

‘To Lance.'

‘I'm not surprised. And you won't mind the rigours of a doctor's life' – and, mindful of the correct thing, to say – ‘I hope you will be very happy.'

Judging that the conversation had been of the required length, she rose to go: a beautiful, successful woman whom Margot, that quaint child, had so ardently admired. She watched her as she joined Godfrey at their table. Presently to the tune of ‘They didn't believe me', they glided into a slow foxtrot. Linden was smiling. It seemed to Margot that nothing could save her from the desolation of remaining always as she was then: lacking sympathy and imagination, she also lacked the ability to change.

In the ladies' room later in the evening, Linden studied her reflection in a mirror, carefully removed a soupçon of lipstick and decided to sell the necklace.

Margot never saw her again.

CHAPTER XXVI

Margot pushed open the window so as to be sure of hearing Lance's arrival and settled down to wait. He had telephoned that he must see her: it was important. The other two went on talking. They had been talking ever since Alex came home in December and it was now May. His skin had lost its putty-coloured colonial pallor, he had shaved off his assistant district officer's moustache, had become very friendly with Angela Bavistock and was in every way his old self, only more so, as Lance said.

There had been a good deal to talk about, including the news in January that Mr Ainsley, agent for the Fellside Coal Company, had resigned in order to take up an appointment in Australia. As it happened, the Humberts had not heard the news when Lance arrived at the Hall one morning, hustled Margot into the sitting-room and closed the door.

‘Now listen carefully. This is going to interest you.'

‘Lance! You've heard of a house.'

‘I have heard of a house. I don't know how you will feel about it. It has certain features that you like.…'

‘You're being very cautious. Old or new?'

‘Not new.'

‘I have a feeling you're holding something back. Go on. What are the features I might like?'

‘Spacious – a family home – drawing-dining-morning rooms – two kitchens. Five bedrooms – an old dairy.…'

‘It does sound promising.'

‘A large garden – an orchard.…'

‘Exactly right. Rather like our beloved Monk's Dene. Where…?'

‘It is our beloved Monk's Dene, my darling. The Ainsleys will be moving out – in April or May at the latest. I say.' He had been too blunt: she was pale and speechless. ‘It is what you want, isn't it?'

‘More than anything in the world. I never even dreamed that it was possible. And you?'

‘Sixty seconds from breakfast-table to surgery – or less. What more could I ask? But seriously, Meg, it does seem like an answer to prayer. Monk's Dene has been home to both of us. Where else could we live?'

It was harder than ever to part. Not until every conceivable advantage had been aired and every resource of language expressive of satisfaction deployed, did Lance reluctantly tear himself away, leaving Margot to pass on the news.

The repercussions of Mr Ainsley's resignation were so favourable that according to Alex they should all be grateful to him for having married an Australian. The board of directors had no hesitation as to whom they wanted as his successor.

‘I shall have to think it over.' Edward's air of giving careful thought to the offer was a dismal failure: he was plainly delighted and in time heard to admit that he had been hasty in leaving. He was to take up the appointment on the first of June. The wedding was to be in the same month.

Alex, fresh from Kenya, had made an immediate impact upon the Hall. He approved: the former morgue was now not only a home giving a man the space he needed, its potential usefulness had scarcely been tapped. Tapping would make possible an extension of land use, more cultivation, a small pedigree herd. There would be no problem about extending the lease: as a substantial shareholder in the coal company, Lance would be given a seat on the board and would scotch any attempt to buy the Langland estate or, at the very least, see that it was not put to unsuitable use. In any case they were safe until 1938 and after that could reasonably count on another ten or twenty years without change. The older mines would eventually be worked out: slag heaps would give way to green pastures and there would be a return to agriculture and a revival of rural life.

Meanwhile, (Edward breathed again; gratified though he was by Alex's change of heart, he needed time to adjust to it) there would be divers cultural activities at the Hall: music, exhibitions of local artists' work.

On this May morning they were discussing a series of lectures on local features. Mining for example. His father would open the course with a lecture on the legacy of ancient forests, black diamond, coal: source of all wealth; most precious of all minerals, the power on which all industry depended. In mining there existed both tragedy and poetry as in great works of art.

It soon became apparent, again to his father's relief, that it would be Alex who would be giving the lectures on coal.

‘And I'd tone it down a bit,' he advised, mindful of the possible audience.

‘Don't worry, Dad. I'll underpin it with statistics and stark facts.'

They were outlining the first paragraph and hadn't heard the car.

Knowing that Lance would not want to get involved, Margot went out to join him.

‘Alex is amazing,' Lance said as they drove into town. ‘Imagine his persuading the Bavistocks to take him on after fobbing them off for more than three years – and at a higher salary because he is now more experienced.'

‘Angela is the apple of her father's eye, remember.' Not that Alex's persuasive powers were in need of support.

‘He'll come down to earth: she'll see to that.'

‘Scarcely any of it will happen. Dreams aren't meant to take shape.' It was surely a gift to bring colour and light to mundane reality even if the glow could not last. Clouds had lifted in the past few months. After the long silence everyone was talking again. ‘Is it because we are so happy that other people seem happier too? Everything rose-coloured for a change?'

‘Not everybody. That's one of the things I have to tell you. But first, prepare for a pleasant surprise.'

The Ainsleys had collected the last of their things and the house was now empty. He would collect the keys from the house-agent in Elmdon and they would take possession that very afternoon and explore the house, every inch of which they knew and could find blindfold. As he had patients to see in Hope Carr, Margot said that she would make her own way back to Ashlaw.