The Well (17 page)

Hester, knowing what she knew then, or half knew, but clearly understood, did not persist with her questions. She learned early to avoid the unprofitable.

She realized quite soon that all the hours, after she, a little girl of twelve, thirteen, fourteen was in bed, belonged to Hilde and to someone else …

Hester, unable to sleep, turned over in bed. These memories, she thought, were squashed out of her life for ever. Whenever she told Kathy little anecdotes about her beloved Hilde Herzfeld they were happy little stories, the kind of thing Hilde herself would have related accompanying each little re-telling, as if bestowing charming little gifts, with nods and smiles and certain embellishments till there was an ever increasing merging of fact and desired fiction. This was not the case with this memory coming to the surface now with an inexplicable suddenness …

One night, Hester, hearing a noise, slipped from her little bed in the prettiest bedroom in the house and limped, without her special boot, along the passage, steadying herself along the wall, to the bathroom which she shared with Hilde. In the soft candlelight she saw Hilde crouched on the floor, her nightdress spread like a tent, red splashed, round about her. Hester had never seen her like this before and did not know that she had a nightdress patterned with red. They both had white nightgowns with ruffles of lace at the neck and the wrists. They made them together, Swiss cotton for summer and viyella for winter. Hilde, trying to be quiet, was crying. Hester saw that at once.

‘Hilde! What is it?' The tall and angular Hester supported herself in the doorway; ‘Fräulein Hilde, what is the matter?'

Long moans escaped from Hilde and a loud cry seemed to burst from her whole body. ‘Ah!
Ach! Liebchen! Liebste
Hester. Go away from me
Liebchen
. Do not stay here. But …' she groaned again and seemed to fall forward to her knees under the nightdress. Hester, full of love and pity made an awkward movement as if to help her governess to her feet.

‘
Ach nein! Bitte! Liebchen
– to go away. At once! I have to say your fazère. You tell him to come, perhaps, please. Tell him to come. I have to say your fazère.' Hilde's pain, it must be pain, her agony made her unable to keep to the perfection she was usually proud of maintaining when speaking English. ‘
Ach du meine Güte! Mein Gott!
' she cried out. ‘Please dear Hester, go fetch your fazère. I must with him speak. At once! Go please!
Schnell! Ach
, what shall I do! My poor poor little Hester!'

Hester, staring at the blood-stained woman who was her dearest friend, knowing something of the scene already – never having been banned from the sheds and out-houses – began slowly to understand something dreadful. Without really telling herself that she could not reveal to her father what it would seem she knew about him privately, she limped back to her own room, instead of going to his room or her grandmother's. Climbing into bed she pulled the blankets up and round the top of her head. Towards morning she heard her father's car turning on the gravel outside her window. She did not leave her bed to peer out of the window but lay there listening to the car driving away until it was not possible to hear it any more.

Later when she sat at breakfast with her grandmother, the old woman did not offer explanations. She merely remarked that Miss Herzfeld had left sooner than was expected and that she would not be coming back. She added that arrangements were being made for Hester to go away to school, ‘as girls did in books', the words began to pound like the pain of the first headache, the first sick headache, to go away to school, ‘as girls did in books', her grandmother making it sound like a treat. She was already busy with the cakes and scones for the men and left Hester to console herself with the silky ears and the cold nose of one of the dogs.

‘Fourteen,' her father said in the evening, ‘might be a good age to go to boarding school,' but she must remember that the other little girls will have been there for some time and already have made their friends. He was afraid, he said, that she might be lonely at first but he was sure she would manage.

Hester in her pain, remembering, felt now that Hilde, in the car, even though in desperate trouble, must have said something of this to her father. He would never have thought about it himself but Hilde, thinking as usual about Hester, gave him gentle words to pass on.

Girls of fourteen do have lifelong friends, Hester almost bit her pillow, and some do not, and those who have their friends do not want any intruders.

The tears Hester wept during the night did not relieve her headache. In her feeling of weakness she thought more and more of Hilde and how sweetly she was able to care and to cherish. How she sang
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
without much tune but with unsurpassed tenderness over an earache …

Katherine came to Hester's bedside in the morning with a little tray of dry toast and tea. Hester, who had been dozing, had trouble waking up.

‘Oh Miss Harper, dear,' Katherine's voice flowed like water, ‘I've been out there since daybreak. He says even if he has to stay down in the well for seven years it will only seem like seven minutes if he can hear my voice. He …'

‘Who? Who is here?' Hester raised herself slightly. She saw, when Katherine drew back the curtain, that it was bright daylight. ‘Oh, close the curtains,' she moaned.

‘Why the gentleman in the well Miss Harper, dear, he says he's sure I'm very pretty and he thinks you are too from the sound of your lovely voice. He says he heard us speaking last evening but was settled and did not want to get all roused up and, oh, Miss Harper, guess what! He says he thought I was only about sixteen and he's glad I'm over twenty-one for then we can be married without permission – people can marry at eighteen he says but he say's he's old fashioned and he's going to ask your permission even though he knows you're going to give it. That's the kind of nice person he is Miss Harper. I told him you would gladly give your permission for anything I wanted to do …'

‘Katherine! Please! I am not well today. You know I am not well.' Hester lay back on her pillow closing her eyes aware of the sourness of her migraine. ‘I'll have to stay here,' she said. ‘I can't get up.' She gave a little moan and, in a whisper asked Katherine to see to the fowls. Moving her head caused her great pain and the dizziness was frightening. ‘I'll get up at lunch time, I'll …' she forced herself to speak.

‘Oh of course Miss Harper, dear, I'll draw the curtains again. The light's too bright. I'll come back soon,' she promised as she tip-toed to the door. ‘I must get him a lovely breakfast, he's saying he's dreadfully hungry.'

Hester alone in the dismay of her own illness realized that Katherine was really ill. Perhaps she would need to get a doctor, perhaps proper treatment of some sort would be needed to get her over the shock. Never, she said to herself. No doctor must come near. Katherine in that fake American accent would blurt out the whole thing. It was a pity that the accent had been encouraged, it had been a little joke between them, but now it played an alarming rôle in the representation of unreality. She would have, as they said in modern magazines, to see this thing through – by herself. She blamed the Borden's party but mostly she blamed herself. She hoped that Mr Bird would not come. It would be ludicrous as well as sinister if Mr Bird was to come round the side of the woolshed and find Katherine talking and laughing into the well. She would immediately pour the whole story out to him.

Hester tried to get up. She must get up. The terrible dizziness made her lie down again. She seemed to be turning over and over as the room itself was turning. She lay as still as possible and closed her eyes, trying not to notice the sickening effect of the affliction.

Katherine was at the bedside. ‘Miss Harper, dear, how do you feel now? It's lunch time. Shall you want your lunch now?' The purring voice roused Hester. She tried to raise her head. ‘I'll get up about four,' she said letting her head sink back.

‘Miss Harper, dear, he wants out,' Katherine's hands smoothed the sheet. ‘He must come up, he says he can't stand it another minute. Can I let down the new rope, Miss Harper please? I tried the old rope Miss Harper but it broke, it's no good, it's rotten. I must have the new rope, you did get one didn't you Miss Harper. I must have it. Can I have the key Miss Harper to get the rope now?'

Hester was not expecting a direct demand. This was not the same as the day dreaming about being in love. The keys were on their chain. It reassured her to feel them next to her skin. ‘Oh Kathy,' she said, ‘not now. I'm not fit for visitors. In a little while I'll be better. You know my silly headaches Kathy. When I'm better, Kathy not now.'

‘We've had a long talk Miss Harper, dear. We have to talk; if we don't he says he'll be mad for ever.' Katherine kneeling by the bed smoothed the pillow. Hester closed her own hand over the little keys bunched on her flat breast beneath her nightgown. ‘We had several long talks,' Katherine continued. ‘He's very sorry Miss Harper, dear, that you have a twisted back and that you have to wear a leg iron too, he wants to meet you real bad. I explained about the leg iron and everything so that he could know you real well. I do hope Miss Harper, you'll be better real quick. I'll tell him four o'clock then, four o'clock or as near as possible eh? Miss Harper?' The persistent little voice and the pattering of the hands on the sheet as if they were feeling for something was more than Hester could bear.

‘I've looked everywhere for the rope Miss Harper, dear. Did you bring a rope Miss Harper? I must have it!'

‘Let me rest a while longer,' Hester said. ‘I'll get up at four o'clock. I promise.' She heard Katherine go from the room.

She had not finished going through in her mind her suffering over Hilde Herzfeld. Often she had tried to comfort herself by praying for Hilde.

She tried now. It was the only thing left to her knowing as she did know that she had slipped away, had avoided Hilde's terrible pain and loneliness. She had done something Hilde would never have done to her. Please God help Hilde,

This is the prayer Kathy said she heard from the well. Hester knew that she could not use this prayer for Hilde or for Kathy or for herself. She had been comforted at times during the years by thinking that her prayers could help Hilde in some way. But if the prayer came from the well …

She must have been dozing for Katherine was again beside the bed.

‘Miss Harper, Miss Harper, dear, he says he's very sorry you're poorly and he says he's sorry he took your money. He wants out Miss Harper. I'm scared Miss Harper. He's going to kill us both. If we don't get him out he'll find a way out and then he'll get us both. Miss Harper are you feeling better? I've been all afternoon trying to calm him down. He says Miss Harper that he needs a better light than the torch and he wants better food. I don't know what to do Miss Harper, I wish you were well, I do really. He's had all the meat and the cheese and the fruit; he says he never touches eggs. Should I do a duck Miss Harper? Should I roast a duck? Would you feel like some roast duck? No? He says he must have oysters and a fresh salad as his gums are sore. I can't really do a duck Miss Harper because we don't have one dressed do we. And I can't get all that done and the cooking and stay by the well and talk and sing to him because that's what he wants, he says, to stop him going crazy. I can't get all that done before …'

‘Katherine please. This must not go on!' Hester sat up and held her head in both hands. ‘Katherine. Please. Stop this.'

‘Oh but Miss Harper, dear.' Like an over-wound clockwork toy Katherine chattered on. ‘You'll like him. Honestly! You will like him. It's only that he gets mad and angry and yells and shouts and uses language. It's then that I get scared, real scared. He's got a terrible shout, Miss Harper, and he know some words. Most of the time he's sweet. A sweety pie. I told him he was a sweety pie. I can't help loving him when he's being sweet. He's been singing for me this afternoon. He called and called while I was so busy in the kitchen. He said he'd sing for me.'

‘Oh really Katherine, and what did he sing for you?' Hester asked, her weariness sounding like sarcasm.

‘He sang,' Katherine said, ‘something we know, something you taught me. He likes good music he says to tell you he knows a lot of classical tunes. He's been in lots of plays he says to tell you this too he's done practically everything there is to do in his life.'

‘I'm sure he has!' Hester gave one of her little smiles which really only twisted one side of her face. Perhaps it was better to keep Katherine away from the well. She tried to think of ways of detaining her so that, so that, she stumbled in her thoughts, so that he might, if left unattended for long enough, die – again.

‘This is what he sang,' Katherine said smoothing Hester's hair back from her sweating face, ‘I'll sing it for you.'

Come away, come away death
. Her piping voice was sweet and close to Hester.

And in sad cypress let me be laid

Fly away, fly away, breath;

I am slain by a fair cruel maid

‘And then he cried Miss Harper and couldn't sing any more except for one line and it was this line:
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown
.

‘It's been a lovely afternoon Miss Harper, dear, I sat by the well with the sun on my back. If you could feel better Miss Harper, dear, you might like to walk in the air and come to the well too. Would you like that? You know, I'm thinking he's not such a young man either. He might prefer you to me. Imagine! I shall be jealous, but. Imagine! Jealous! If he does. Just a minute, I think I can hear him calling. I'll have to go Miss Harper. Will you be okay? I'll be right back.'