There was a clock out in the hall which struck the half-hours. Sometimes the minutes between each strike felt aeons long; at others they raced. Seven, half past seven, eight.
She became aware of the need to relieve herself, which grew into a humiliating, insistent pressure in the lower part of her body. Every so often, Charles made a visit to the door. He would turn the key but the door would open only half an inch before jamming against the back of her chair.
‘Margaret?’ He said nothing else, just called her name several times, as if he needed to know she was there. She did not answer.
But now, she wondered, should she call out? She had no need of food – it would have sickened her. But the thought of calling out for a chamber pot was too awful to contemplate. She waited, the cold making the problem more acute. I’m not asking him, she thought.
It had struck nine when she gave in. Stiff and frozen, she got to her feet.
There’s nothing for it, she thought, energized by her rage. Why should I sit here in all this discomfort? She felt her way to the coal scuttle and with fumbling and difficulty, managed to relieve herself into it. For some reason, as well as the immediate relief it gave her, this felt rather satisfactory, as if she had struck a small blow of revenge.
Just as she was pulling Aunt Hatt’s skirt back down, she heard sounds coming from the next room, and she dashed back to the chair to secure it with her weight. But the noises stayed in the room, Charles’s voice raised angrily. Though she listened with every fibre of her being she could not make out the words, but their tone was angry. She heard Elsie Barber’s voice, even more indistinct. There were some lesser sounds, thumps as if furniture was being moved. Gradually, it went quiet.
Margaret covered herself with everything she had, the old blanket smelling of moth balls, the coats. If only she might sleep, to pass through this night more quickly. But she was wide awake, every nerve inside her poised for any sound. Her body was like a cauldron of worry and fear. Whatever must Aunt Hatt and Uncle Eb be thinking? Especially when Annie came home and told them who Charles was, as she undoubtedly would have done. And however was she going to get out of here? Her mind kept returning to methods of escape.
Once, she got up and very quietly tried the door, just in case. Was it really locked? But it would not give. She was a prisoner. She imagined running out of here, along the street, to anywhere. She would walk all the way back to Birmingham if she had to . . . Back to . . . home. It felt like home. She sat thinking of Philip Tallis, his face, his arms around her on those precious few occasions when they had managed to snatch time alone, his gentle, reassuring manner.
I know now, she thought. Any doubts in her mind about the future of her life had been wiped away by these past hours. Her father must have told Charles where she was. And his deceitful intentions and her genuine desire for reconciliation had brought her to this. She boiled with rage. She knew who was worthy of her love and trust now, all right!
Time passed, unevenly tagged by the clock. The night took on a deeper silence. She soothed herself with thoughts of Philip. Comforted, she dozed, or thought she did. Each time she woke it was with a terrible pounding of her heart as she was shocked back into realization of where she was, of what she had allowed to happen to her.
The clock had struck two – she thought. One, half past one . . . ? It was hard to keep track. She heard the door open along the passage, the almost, but not quite, silent footsteps. Gripping the blanket round her, both hands fists, she sat absolutely still, her breathing shallow so that there was hardly a part of her that moved.
The key turned in the lock. She leapt up on to her knees, clinging to the back of the chair, forcing her weight down on it with all her strength. The door crashed against the back of the chair.
‘Margaret. Are you awake?’ His voice was so close: he was whispering in her ear. She waited on her knees, pulsating like a baby bird.
The silence went on for so long she wondered if he had gone.
‘You know I love you, don’t you?’
She waited, hardly breathing.
‘I love you and I want you to be my wife. I don’t know how else to get you to see what you mean to me . . . I’ve kept away from you, though I was longing to see you with every fibre of my being . . . Your father said . . . Look – can I come in? We must talk, properly. I need to explain myself to you.’
She let the silence after this go on. The first sound was a gasp, a cough almost. Gradually she realized he was weeping.
‘You torment me,’ he sobbed. ‘I hardly know who I am when I am near you, Margaret, my love, my darling love.’
There came another long pause.
‘Speak to me – please. I don’t want to have to force my way in, but I shall, if you don’t say something to me. I know you return my love. You tormented me then, with your body, your kisses. I was an innocent when I met you – innocent in love . . . And you . . . you made me feel things – for the first time in my life. You led me – you awakened me . . .’
He rambled on. She listened, staggered by the absurd self-deception of the man. Innocent – he was not far off thirty and she but a girl of nineteen! She had a hard, cold feeling now of certainty. Where before she had wondered so many times whether it had been she who was to blame, now she knew she was faced with something utterly self-centred and deranged. Though she was shaking with fear, this certainty gave her strength.
Eventually, in the face of her silence, he closed the door again and she heard the key turn, the steps receding. She slumped down on the chair, her chest heaving. He’s mad, she thought. How did we not see it before? She tried to reason things out. He had not tried to force his way in. If she stayed here until the morning, then she must make something happen. In the daylight she might see if there was something with which she could more easily break the window . . .
Sinking back she fell into a light doze, only to be wakened again by the turning key, his voice sliding through the crack.
‘You can’t escape me for ever, Margaret. I could come in any time I please.’ He slammed the door against the back of the chair several times, as if to flex his muscles. ‘But I’m not the sort of man to behave like that – you know that, don’t you?’
She could tell that he was foxed by her silence, her refusal to plead any more. He’s going to keep this up all night, she thought, picturing him sitting, waiting and brooding, the other side of the wall while his grandmother lay in her makeshift bed. The fact that he was not immediately trying to force his way in was no reassurance. That was what he was like, she realized. He would wait, biding his time.
At last he retreated again. Soon, she heard the clock striking three.
Her senses woke her. He was coming back. She leapt up to kneel on the chair. The shock and the sudden drumming of her heart made her feel sick.
She could hear movement somewhere outside. Straining her ears, she sat absolutely still, unsure whether she could hear anything or not. There was something: a shuffling noise. With no warning, the key turned and she gasped, clinging to the back of the chair as if on a storm-tossed boat. Would he be able to push his way in this time? Or had he come to pour more vile nonsense into her ears?
‘Miss?’
It wasn’t him!
‘Yes!’ she hissed, leaping from the chair. Through the crack in the door she pleaded in a whisper. ‘Yes – oh, don’t lock it again, please don’t!’
‘Let me open the door,’ Elsie Barber said. She seemed to be speaking alarmingly loudly. ‘You want to get out of here, miss.’
Hauling the chair from the door, Margaret thought, surely he can hear, he’ll be out any moment! But she had to take this chance if it was being offered. If it was not a trick . . .
Elsie Barber stood in the darkness of the passage.
‘Come on – out of the front.’ Now that she could see Margaret, she was whispering.
‘Thank you . . . Oh, thank you . . .’ Margaret seized her coat and rushed out into the hall. Elsie Barber was shuffling along towards the front door. Margaret looked back fearfully as the old woman undid the bolt.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘’E’s asleep at long last. And he’s not going anywhere – I’ve locked ’im in.’
‘But . . .’ Margaret was hugely reassured by this. ‘What about in the morning?’
‘Oh, never mind ’im,’ Elsie Barber said. ‘I’ll deal with ’im. ’E’s another of ’em – just like my pig of a husband was. You want to get as far away from ’im as you can while you’ve got the chance.’
She thrust Margaret out on to the step with surprising strength. The street was almost invisible in the morning mist.
‘Go on. ’E don’t want anything off me – it’s you ’e wants. You clear off out of ’ere. I won’t be unlocking that door for a good few hours yet.’
‘What time is it?’ Margaret looked about her, confused.
‘Gone four.’
‘Which way is the railway station?’
‘Down there and turn right – past the canal basin and on you go.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Barber,’ Margaret said. ‘Thank you for helping me.’ She felt sorry for the old lady.
But she was already shutting the door.
Margaret was so full of tense energy that she felt she could run and run endlessly. But even a hurrying walk away from that house, that street – from him – was all she could manage, since the mist was so thick and the dark still unbroken by dawn. But it felt wonderful to be outside, as if she had been locked in the little house for days instead of just a few hours. She walked as fast as she could manage, straining her legs, intent on getting as far away as possible.
It was hard to believe that he would not follow, that the old lady had really locked him in. It felt, as she hurried through the gloom, as if he might have the power to break out of any confinement and come after her.
Reaching the end of the street she turned as instructed, walked further, turned again and became unsure. Had the old woman left out a turning she should have made? They had come a different way before and she had no clear sense of the right direction. She slowed, feeling her way through the gloom. It’s all right, she tried to reassure herself. He can’t leave the house. He can’t find you. And yet it still felt as if he was everywhere, might at any moment jump out on her.
She wandered, hoping for the best. Nothing seemed to matter now that she had got out of there. She was on her way. She would get home today!
Turning a corner, she heard the clopping of hooves moving towards her. A sturdy brown-and-white horse emerged out of the gloom pulling a cart.
‘Please!’ She raised her hand and hurried towards it. ‘Could you stop a moment?’
‘Whoa.’ The middle-aged man reined in his horse. The animal’s aroma was reassuring, damp breath issuing from its nostrils, as was the bitter smell of coal from the cart. Its driver was well wrapped up in a coat and muffler, above which a kindly, sagging face looked out from under a cap.
‘I’m trying to get to the railway station,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost my bearings.’
‘The railway station? Well – you’re not too far.’ He looked carefully at her. ‘Are you all right, miss?’
Only then did Margaret realize that she still had Elsie Barber’s blanket bundled round her under her coat which was hanging open. She pulled the sides of it together, realizing she must look very dishevelled.
‘I . . . Yes. Thank you.’ She tried to sound in command of herself. ‘I need to leave Oxford.’
He stowed the reins and climbed off the cart. He had a fatherly air and she was not afraid of him.
‘You won’t get a train for a good while yet, m’dear,’ he said. ‘It’s Sunday morning – I’m not sure if they run ’em, least not ’til church time is over.’ She could see him wondering why a young woman like her was running about on the streets at this hour.
She stared at him. ‘I’ll just have to . . . to wait, I suppose,’ she said.
‘’Ave you got your fare?’
She looked at him, this reality not having occurred to her. She had a little money, but she had no idea how much the fare was.
‘I . . . I don’t know . . .’ She felt very cold suddenly and close to tears.
‘Look – you could go and wait for a bit in my house – my missus wouldn’t mind. It’s only just along there.’ He pointed back along the street.
‘Oh – thank you. That’s very kind. But no.’ The thought of entering another strange house filled her with desperation. She needed to know she was on her way. ‘If you could just tell me the right direction?’
He pointed, explaining. Just as she was about to thank him, he fished in his pocket. ‘Here, miss – take this. Can’t give you more, but you look as if you could do with it.’
He handed her a two-shilling piece, backing away when she tried to return it, protesting.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Good luck to yer.’
‘Bless you,’ she whispered as he flicked the reins and the cart moved away. ‘May God bless you abundantly.’ His kindness brought her to tears.