Ray Penvenen’s habits were sufficiently set to make his movements predictable at most hours of the day or night; but tonight, his last night here, he was perversely late going to bed. Old-maidish mannerisms had grown on him, and final preparations for going took the form of innumerable scribbled notes to be left with this servant and with that to remind them of their duties. Caroline stood it until half-past ten and then said:
‘You are working overlate tonight, Uncle. There’s all tomorrow morning to spend before we leave, and it would be the greatest pity if you found no way of spending it. Are you coming to bed?’
He looked first at the clock and then at her over his glasses. ‘I have a little more to do, Caroline. An estate in the country is not like a London house, it cannot be locked up and left unoccupied. It must continue to be – looked to or it will run into chaos.’
‘And are not Garth and the other men you employ capable of doing this? I should have thought so – or you would not employ them.’
‘Oh, they know what to do within their limitations. But they lack initiative and, since we shall be away a month, it is necessary to supply it. For instance …’ He went on to explain some of the decisions which might need to be made. Since she had asked, he supposed her to be interested in the answer; but once or twice he caught her eyes straying, and they were straying in the direction of the clock. ‘Why do you inquire?’ he ended quite suddenly, breaking off in the middle.
Her eyes came quickly back. ‘Why? Shouldn’t I be interested? It’s not unladylike, I suppose? But I am also interested in your health. I don’t think you have been looking so well of late, and it would be a woeful pity to wear yourself out with the effort of making ready to take a holiday.’
He looked at her suspiciously, but his suspicion was only of sarcasm not of deeper motive. When he saw no hint of mockery in her eyes, he patted her hand and said: ‘There, there, I shall not be above half an hour more. Go to bed if you are tired, my dear. I am grateful to you for your solicitude.’
She turned away to hide her frustration, and for the next ten minutes pottered about the room on one pretext or another. But still he remained seated, making no move to go. At length she came back to the desk and said:
‘Well, if you will not leave I must, for my eyes will not stay open. You’ll come now?’
‘Almost finished. Good night, Caroline.’
He put up his forehead to be kissed, and she brushed her lips perfunctorily over it, forgetting in her anxiety that this was her leave-taking of him, certainly for many months, perhaps for ever.
Out on the landing above the hall she remembered, but now it was too late. Her shadow kept her company along the corridor to her bedroom, preceding her like a welcoming innkeeper. In the bedroom she lit a candle and stared at her cloak, her hat, her scarf, her gloves, all waiting. Her bags were downstairs and in the coach, as also was Horace. She pulled the bell twice to show that she wanted her maid Eleanor.
When the girl came, she said: ‘My uncle is late tonight. We shall have to delay a little while. Tell Baker, will you … Are the other servants abed?’
‘All but Thomas, miss. ’E be waiting for the master, to put out the lights and bar the doors, miss. He be grumbling, Baker say, at being kept abroad so late.’
Caroline bit her lip. ‘Tell Baker to make no move until he has gone. It would be a great disaster if Thomas saw the horses being harnessed.’
‘Very good, miss … Will that be all?’
‘No. Make a move as if you were going to bed. If you can, slip out of the house unnoticed and sit in the coach. Thomas otherwise may wonder why you are hanging about. Also I’m afraid Horace will get terrified in the dark. And he yaps loud when frightened. Stay there until I come.’
‘Very good, miss. I’ll go fetch my bonnet and cloak.’
‘But careful! Don’t let anyone see you.’
When Eleanor had left, Caroline paced up and down the bedroom a half-dozen times, still biting her lip. Then she abruptly took up her outdoor things, glanced round to see that nothing was left which should not have been left, propped the letter for her uncle more prominently on her dressing-table, and snuffed out the candle and left the room.
Her shadow was sulking in its corner. As she moved along the passage, it jumped quickly to follow at her heels. The light was still under the door of the big drawing-room. She hesitated and then slipped into the maid’s cupboard on the other side of the landing. Just room for her among the brushes and the dusters, but she was afraid to move lest something should topple over.
So she stayed another ten minutes, stiff and cramped, the door sufficiently ajar to see the lighted angle of drawing-room door. It must be close on eleven by now.
Mr Penvenen came out. He was carrying a candle, and a leather case under his arm. The room beyond was now in darkness. He closed the door after him and walked to the candlelamp in the corner and put it out. Then he came straight across to the cupboard where Caroline was standing.
Hypnotized, like a child caught in a terrible dream, she watched him walk towards her. Then the door slammed shut in her face and she heard his slippers creaking away …
In total darkness she let out a slow breath, began to count, determined not to move too soon. At five hundred she lifted the latch and looked out. The landing was in darkness.
Knowing she might yet bump into Thomas on his rounds, she crept along the corridor to the stairs and stole down them. They had never creaked so much before. Once down, she made for the servants’ quarters, which directly adjoined the stables. There was a light in the kitchen and the door was ajar. Baker, her coachman, sat before a low fire in his shirt sleeves and stockinged feet, sharpening a piece of wood. He looked sleepy and ready for bed. If it was assumed, he was acting well.
He got up sharply when she came in. She put a finger to her lips, breathless in spite of herself. These last minutes were minutes of unexpected tension.
‘Thomas?’
‘Gone up, miss, three minutes since. I doubt ‘e’ll be down again.’
‘Wait another five, then get the horses.’
‘I’ll go straight out to the coach. Eleanor is already there. We’ll wait for you to come.’
‘Very good, miss.’
As she turned to go out of the kitchen she looked up at the clock. It was five minutes after eleven. Dwight would be waiting.
Lottie Kempthorne wakened almost as soon as the cold night air fanned her face. She did not move but saw her father quite close to her at the window, peering out.
She heard his lowered voice. ‘’Tis just a fever and I thought to send for ee, surgeon, but then I thought to wait till cocklight afore I give ee the trouble. Maybe tomorrow if you was passing this way—’
A voice outside said: ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
‘I b’lieve it has been brought to an intermission, an’ by tomorrow—’
‘Let me in. I want to speak to you.’
When grumbling to himself her father shut the window and began to pull on his breeches, Lottie still did not stir. She had learned that she must take no heed of her father’s comings and goings, and a question now would be likely to earn her a growl and a cuff. So she lay comfortable enough on the thin hard bed, listening to May’s quiet breathing beside her.
Father went down, taking the candle and she heard him unbar the door below. (Most people in Sawle never locked their doors day or night, but Charlie was an exception.) She heard him talking to the man who came in, and presently sat up, scratching herself in the darkness. She wondered what Dr Enys could possibly be wanting calling so very late and speaking in such a strange voice. Dr Enys had been so kind to her and usually he was very gentle. Perhaps something terrible had happened.
Her curiosity would let her rest no longer, and she slid out of bed and crept shivering to the trap door which led down to the room below. She lifted it a couple of inches and peered down.
Her father was being examined; he was in a chair, hedging and protesting while Dr Enys stood over him, his face white and hard. The first words that came up to her were:
‘You have no fever, man, as you well know. Nor have you had any. Why did you tell people that story?’
‘Maybe ’tis not fever to you, surgeon; but three hours gone I was sweaten like a weed. An’ what with Lottie just free of the pox … And see now! Feel my ‘and. If that edn clammy …’
But the face of Dr Enys, kind Dr Enys, did not change. ‘This is an excuse, isn’t it, Kempthorne, this sham illness – thought up to avoid any part in the tub-carrying tonight? Why did you want to have no part in it?’
Lottie’s father, whom Lottie loved, licked his lips and began to button his shirt. ‘I was all of a shrim. First it comed on me back like cold water, like ice. Then—’
‘For two years or more there’s been an informer about, carrying tales for gold. You know that, don’t you, Charlie?’
‘Course I know. Everyone d’know. Have you caught him?’
‘I rather think I have.’
Lottie shifted her cramped feet and lifted the hatch another few inches. Father had got up.
‘What, me? Dear life, surgeon; that’s a purty notion to get in your head! And not a nice one, I must say! Proper insulting. And all on account of a fever that took me sudden. Why, just afore you came my teeth was rattling—’
‘Where did you get these things?’ Dr Enys asked, pointing angrily about the room, and Lottie was afraid he might see her. ‘How did you pay for them? Curtains, rugs, window glass; all paid for out of sail-making? Or out of selling your friends?’
Her father was smiling, but she who knew him knew it was not a friendly smile. ‘Out of sail-making, surgeon. That’s true as my life. An’ no one can show different. Now ye can go, surgeon, and leave me be, and take your nasty evil suspicion likewise! Coming here in the dark of the night, casting such sneavy untruths—’
‘It is you who’ll have to go, Charlie; and go quickly if you care for your life. You’ve informed on your friends tonight, haven’t you? What time is the run to take place? Is there still time to warn them?’
‘And what shall I say ‘bout you, surgeon? That you’ve coveted Rosina ever since ye laid eyes and hands on her, eh? That ye suspicion me to try and stop the wedding, eh? I know. I know all the things ye’ve done to her, all the fingerin’ and fumblin’ there’s been – on the quiet like, when her mother warn’t there. She’s telled me, Rosina has. Ye should be grateful that somebody’ll still marry her—’
Dr Enys made a swift movement, and her father broke off as if he expected violence; but the surgeon had turned towards a side table where she and May had been playing that evening. She craned her neck to see what he had picked up, and saw with astonishment that it was a picture book of hers called The History of Primrose Prettyface.
‘Where did you get this, Charlie?’
‘I buyed it.’
‘Where did you buy it?’
‘You lie. This book first belonged to Hubert Vercoe, the Customs Officer’s boy. I saw it first in his house.’ The doctor was flipping through the pages.
‘Nay, that edn clever at all, surgeon. It proves naught. There’s many such books on sale in Redruth. Why—’
‘I doubt if there’s one. But here is the identification, here on the first page. Hubert Vercoe coloured the wings of this angel red. He told me so himself and I saw it in his hands.’ Dr Enys shut the book and slipped it in his pocket.
In the silence that followed Lottie could hear May turn over in bed and whimper, as if aware that her company and her warmth had gone. Below the two men watched each other like dogs Lottie had seen, bristling and tight-muscled.
‘What are ee going to do?’
‘You shall know when I’ve done it.’
The doctor picked up his riding crop and made a move towards the door, but her father was quicker and was there before him. Even Dr Enys couldn’t believe that that smile was friendly now. ‘Stay, surgeon. What are ee going to do?’
‘Get out of my way! ‘
Neither of them moved.
Dr Enys said: ‘What time is the run?’
‘Midnight. Ye’re late, surgeon. Too late by a long chalk. Go home and go to bed. That’s the proper place for ee.’
‘What made you do it, Charlie? What made you a traitor to your own folk?’
‘Nobody’s my folk, surgeon! Who did ought for me? My first wife was drownded before folk’s eyes. None of the women made move to save ‘er. Not one! They left her drown. And me? Who put forth a hand t’elp me when I was low? Not one. Everyone looks only for theirselves in this life.’
‘Not to betray. Not to sell other men for money. Judas was no worse.’
Lottie saw Father’s hand close round the wooden stake he used for barring the door. It was behind his back, but she saw it.
‘There’s naught I care for your fancy names, surgeon. I looks to myself just the same as you. An’ ye’ll get no admission more’n that. When me and Rosina’s wed, we’ll clear out of this place—’
‘If you did this to gain Rosina, you’re likely to lose her by it—’
‘I done what I done, surgeon. You cured me of the consumptives, but ye don’t order me life. Oh, no …’
Lottie cried out as her father jumped at the other man with the wooden bar raised. Dr Enys must have seen it coming, for he jerked his head back and the stick cracked on his shoulder. The pain creased across his face and he fell against the table behind him. Transfigured, unrecognizable, her father leaped after him, swinging the stake again; but the doctor’s fall saved him. Crash went the table, Dr Enys rolled into the corner, sat up while her father was picking a way towards him among the legs of the table. The surgeon clutched a stool, raised it, and the stick jarred against it, hurting her father’s hand for he almost dropped it. The doctor pulled himself up, caught the stick; they grappled, reeled against the wall.
Lottie swung the trap, let it fall back, went down a few steps into the room, tears trickling unheeded down her pockmarked cheeks. She called to them but they did not hear, these two men who meant more to her than all the rest of life; they were fighting to kill, to maim, you could see it in their eyes. She wanted the courage to come between them, to stop them, to put life back where it had been an hour ago. A terrible nightmare, worse than any of her fever, worse than personal pain.
Father had his hands on the other man’s throat, but seemed to lack the strength to do what he wished. She saw his bloodshot eyes, murder still in them but fright also. Crash to the floor again, he under.
Behind her own crying Lottie heard a thin echo. May was awake now. May often cried if she woke in the night, without reason, without good cause. Lottie took two more steps down, nearly tripped over the ragged edge of her night shift, her mother’s once.
Father had kicked himself free, was crawling again towards the stick; but the surgeon caught his ankle, pulled him flat. Her father kicked with his free foot, caught the surgeon’s face, just grasped the stick. Dr Enys freed him, started forward, leaped at his back; down again. A familiar sound; something Lottie had known all her life; her father coughing. It seemed to affect the doctor at the same time. He released his grip, straightened, a look of concern, something not to do with tonight, out of other nights, other days. Her father was down, stayed down, climbed slowly to his knees, then did not move. For a few seconds both children had stopped crying and the only sound was the familiar rustling cough. Dr Enys pulled himself shakily to his feet. Blood on his face, his neckcloth torn.
Her father looked round. Then he leaped up, clutched a knife lying on the side under the crockery. As he took it up, Dr Enys saw his danger, moved after him. The knife up, but the doctor struck at the same time. The knife clattered. The doctor seemed to measure his distance and hit twice more. Father coughed again just once; he might not have been hurt, but he crumpled up, went on his knees, rolled over, and was really still.
Lottie had her hands to her ears now, helplessly, as if words and sounds would hurt more than sight, the tears beginning to trickle again. Her mouth grimaced to speak, but she could not. She stood and wept bitterly for a lost illusion. A great desolation was in her, a sense of being forsaken as no one had ever been forsaken before.