The Truant Spirit (11 page)

She sighed and went upstairs to put on her coat and strong shoes. This was a house built for children, she thought, listening to the empty echoes of her own footsteps on the stairs. There were a few forgotten toys put away in cupboards and old books much scribbled over, with fascinating pictures of boys and girls in old-fashioned clothes and little dogs with lolling tongues and eyes like saucers. In the days of large families, the rectory children would have raced through the house, shouting and calling, and played among the tombstones, never remembering that the dead lay there. What had Brock said?
Very salutary to live close to the dead...
It

was the kind of remark one would expect of him, she thought and laughed, dispelling the faint melancholy which had fallen upon her for no known reason.

It was very cold outside, and the sky was leaden, with no break in the grey expanse which met the moor’s horizon. “Cold enough for snow,” Bunny had observed this morning, and even as Sabina climbed the low wall of loose stones which marked the western boundary, the first flakes fell softly on her face and hair. It was as well she had chosen today to visit Penruthan, she thought, for if snow came, the tracks across the moor would be hidden and she would not find the way.

Willie Washer’s tow-coloured head appeared suddenly from amongst the graves.

“Where be to?” he asked. He had accepted her presence at the rectory with caution, but he seemed to acknowledge her now as a not so different counterpart of himself.

“I’m going to find Penruthan,” she said, poised on top of the wall. “Would you come with me a little way, to show me the path?”

“Penruthan?” he said and shook his head. Nay, tes ’aunted. Leave me be with me graves.”

“Not a little way, Willie?” she said, but he turned his back on her.

“Nay, not me. You’m proper mazed, missy. Snow’s a-coming.”

She tried to coax him a little more, but he had sunk into one of his silences and would not respond.

Soon she began to realise that west over the moor was not as simple as it sounded. The rough tracks crossed and recrossed and sometimes petered out altogether, and presently she abandoned them and struck out across heather and boulder, following her nose as best she might. Bunny had said the moor was rough going; one was evidently not meant to follow a path.

When she had walked for an hour or more, Sabina knew that she was lost. It was snowing fast now, and already the countryside was covered with a thin film of white. Behind her all trace of the rectory and the little village beyond had long since vanished from sight, and as far as the eye could see the moor stretched endlessly on every side. She began to grow afraid. She had no notion of how far this rough country extended, and she remembered Brock’s tales of the ancient mines and workings, pitfalls for the unwary; dark places in which to break a limb or be lost for ever from sight.

Her muscles were aching painfully from the unaccustomed exercise and snow blinded her continually, causing her to stumble and fall. But she must go on. Somewhere, sometime, there must be a road; better to go forward and meet what might come than try to retrace her steps in the gathering dusk.

As she plodded wearily on she thought of Marthe, safe now in the heart of London, and of Tante in her brightly lit hotel, even now, perhaps, drinking an
aperitif
with M. Bergerac, happily returned from taking his cure, and at the thought of the unknown M. Bergerac, in her imagination so like the sleek
maitres d’hotel
of her acquaintance, Sabina found herself laughing out loud.

It was quite dark now. She put out both hands instinctively as the blackness ahead looked suddenly impenetrable, and touched the cold solidity of stone. It was a wall, she thought with surprise, as looking up, she saw the paler darkness of the sky beyond. She must be a little light-headed, she decided, for walls do not rise suddenly out of moorland. A faint creaking sound caused her heart to beat faster, but as she moved towards it and came upon an opening, she knew that it must be a door in the wall, left open and creaking a little in the wind that was getting up. She remembered the hidden door in
The Secret Garden,
that cherished book of her childhood, and stepped carefully through the opening, knowing that nothing which lay the other side could surprise her.

At first she could make out little in the darkness. She only knew that the character of the ground had changed, that under the snow lay turf and the slippery smoothness of flagged paths. The ground seemed to rise in terraces and there were broken steps, and a stone balustrade under her hand. As she mounted the last steps her feet crunched on gravel and she saw a house, vast and shuttered, stretching, it seemed, endlessly into the darkness.

“Penruthan.” she murmured and touched the wet cold walls with undoubting certainty. Had she not walked west as she was told, and had not instinct led her home? It was only then that she knew how tired she was, how much her legs ached and how numb with cold were her hands, indeed, her whole body. She sank down gratefully in the snow and, leaning against the wall of the house, thought blissfully of sleep. She must have dozed while the snow piled in a little drift in her lap, for something woke her. She listened; then as she was about to slip once more into sleep she heard it again; a man’s voice shouting.

She thought it was her own name that was called, but the mountains played tricks, she remembered, and if you started imagining things you went mad ...

The shouting came again, much nearer, and this time she knew that it was her name that was called. At the same moment she saw the light of a torch mark somebody’s passage round the end of the house, and she replied at once. It was Brock, of course. She could see his stiff, dragging walk in the light of his torch and the strange shadows of buttresses and pillars sprang out from the house as he passed.

“Where are you?” he called.

“Here,” she replied, making no attempt to rise, and presently he was standing over her and flashing the beam of his torch upon her. She blinked up at him in the light but said nothing. “Are you hurt?” he asked sharply, and when she shook her head, ordered her to get up at once.

She obeyed, conscious of acute pins and needles in her legs. “I heard you shouting,” she said.

“Then why the hell didn’t you answer at once?”

“I thought it was the mountains. The books say that if you’re lost the mountains play tricks.”

“You’re not in the mountains, you crazy little idiot. Did you think a bit of snow gave you an excuse to play games with yourself and everyone else?”

“You’re angry,” she said with surprise, and he took her by the shoulders and shook her.

“Of course I’m angry,” he retorted. “What possessed you to run away again without a word to Bunny?”

“I didn’t run away. I came to find Penruthan. This is Penruthan, isn’t it?”

“Yes. How did you get here?”

“I came across the moor—going west.”

The light threw strange shadows on his face. He wore no hat and snow had settled on his hair, giving him the look of an older, kindlier man.

“Brock ...” she said, using his nickname for the first time. “Don’t be angry ... I had to find Penruthan by myself, didn’t

I?”

She rested her head on his breast, because she was too tired to remember that they were strangers, and for a moment he held her there, recognising a spirit that had once been his

own, then he pushed her away with an impatient gesture.

“You might have known that Bunny would have been alarmed,” he said. “Really, Sabina, you haven’t much consideration for your hostess, have you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, humbly. “But she said Penruthan lay west over the moor, and I didn’t think I would get lost.”

“I don’t suppose she imagined that a town-bred girl would venture on the moor without a little more knowledge,” he retorted. “Do you know west from south or north from east?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Well, that’s debatable. I think luck brought you here— and, possibly, an endurance that we neither of us had suspected. Would you have stayed here all night?”

“I suppose I would. I was so tired, you see, and after the moor it seemed shelter. How did you know where to look?” “We didn’t until Willie came out with some garbled story,” he said with grim rebuff; “but Penruthan seemed worth a visit. Now, if you’ve had enough of your adventure, we’d better be getting home. Bunny is worried.” He turned to retrace his steps along the terrace without waiting to see if she followed, and at her first attempt to walk the cramps in her legs almost made her fall.

“Wait .” she cried, “I’ve the most terrible pins and needles ... I can’t move.”

He turned and flashed his torch on her again, but his voice was hard and unsympathetic as he replied:

“That’s not surprising. Exercise will get the circulation back. Come along—I’m not prepared to carry you.”

She moved towards him and the pain in her legs made her cry out. He put an impatient hand under her elbow and together they walked slowly to the front of the house, where his car was standing.

He had left his headlights on, and in the twin beams Sabina could see the outlines of the great house, the porch with its studded door, the stone supports of mullioned windows reaching high above her.

“It’s so big,” she said. “How queer to think I should own it.”

“Not the best moment to have chosen to inspect your property,” Brock observed dryly, opening the door of his car.

“Oh, yes, it is,” she said, gazing at the house with eyes that were hypnotised by the snow and the sudden light, “It will never again seem quite the same, will it?”

“Get in,” he replied, unfeelingly, and, when she still stood there as if he had not spoken, he picked her up in a grip that was none too gentle and pushed her into the car.

Tears came as he turned down a short drive and out on to the snowy road, tears of exhaustion and the emotional reaction to a new and strange experience.

“You cry very easily,” he remarked, and she expostulated with the indignant shame of a child:

“I don’t. But I’m not used to days like this—being lost in a blizzard and discovering an inheritance at the same time.”

She thought he smiled in the darkness, but the snow could play tricks as well as the mountains and she was not sure. “Hardly a blizzard,” he said, “though it may be one before morning. You are not at all fitted for the future your aunt has planned for you, Miss Sabina Lamb.

“Why?”

“Because you will expect miracles—or, at least, romantic manifestations—and a marriage of convenience is not likely to provide either.”

“Oh,” she said a little blankly, then, aware suddenly that she had received little consideration from him, she added severely:

“I don’t think you’ve been very kind, Mr. Brockman. I haven’t been attempting a difficult mountain, I know, but the experience was quite gruelling enough for a first attempt.”

“Yes, for a first attempt I think it was,” he replied with unexpected agreement, “but don’t let it give you exalted ideas. Your path is set in ordered places. Initiative is not for you.”

“I might have got another chill,” she said, trying to assert her own importance.

“If you have,” he returned, unimpressed, “you will be tiresome rather than interesting. Bunny’s P.G.s are not expected to give trouble.”

She was silent after that, and it was not long before they reached the rectory. Bunny herself was standing at the open door while the snow drifted gently over the threshold.

“Thank God!” Bunny said fervently, and her face looked old and pinched. “Did you find her at Penruthan, Brock?”

“Yes. She’d taken a bee-line straight across the moor. She seems to think that was quite an achievement.”

Over Sabina’s head, Bunny met his quizzical look with

raised eyebrows.

“I think it was,” she replied quietly, and as Sabina began to cry, she led her away into the warmth of the living-room.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHEN Sabina awoke the next morning the character of her room had subtly altered. A hard snowlight touched the white walls with cold brilliance and the mountains in the photographs stood out, clear and defined. Sabina ran to the window to look out on the changed countryside and caught her breath at the sudden beauty of the landscape. The bleak savagery of the moor was hidden by the unbroken expanse of snow, and blue shadows gave the hollows the semblance of glaciers to her enchanted eyes. The tors on the horizon looked like distant mountains with their covering of snow, and even the graves beyond the garden had taken kindlier shapes.

Sabina dressed with feverish haste, not wanting to miss a moment of such delight, and she reached the little back parlour where they breakfasted before Bunny had made the coffee.

“You were meant to breakfast in bed,” Bunny said, sounding quite flustered. “I trust you have not taken another chill after your experience yesterday. You should have waited until I called you, dear.”

Brock, glancing up from his morning’s mail, observed dryly:

“You sound like the proverbial hen with one chick. Such concern!”

“Well, it’s more than
you
showed me,” Sabina retorted somewhat tartly, and he grinned.