I thought at first there was complete silence except for the crackling of the fire, but then it wasn’t so. I heard it. I heard his breathing again.
I shut the door behind me. There was a stick behind the door. I picked it up in my sweaty hands, went across the room. I don’t think it was for attack. I needed defence, just as I’d needed it once before, to fend off the unnameable.
A voice said: ‘‘Who is it?’’
Sarah’s voice.
So she had faced it. Gladly, perhaps; welcoming; off with the new love.… I’d known it. Somewhere, some deep laid doubt had known it all the time.
I went in, stood by the door, holding it and the stick. Sarah was standing beside the bed. In an armchair was an old woman. Dim light from a shaded bulb. The furniture made gaunt shadows. With sudden panic I swung to look behind the door. No one.
Sarah said: ‘‘Oliver! How did you …? We didn’t know.…”
The old woman said: ‘‘ You’re just in time.”
It was Mrs. Moreton.
I said: ‘‘Where’s——?’’ And stopped as Sarah raised a sharp hand.
Mrs. Moreton said: ‘‘ Your—wife … your wife has been here two hours persuading me, insisting, dictating terms.…”
Sarah said gently: ‘‘Oh, my dear, you mustn’t say that. Persuading, perhaps.… It couldn’t be more than that, because I knew in the end you would see it as I see it. It’s as much a duty that you have now as ever in the past. Loyalty isn’t something only within a family.…”
It was Mrs. Moreton breathing like that. I stared at her and stared at her and then stared at Sarah. I’d never seen Sarah look so tired, so drawn. Her hair was lank, perspiration on her forehead.…
‘‘Loyalty,’’ said Mrs. Moreton, and coughed, and took a minute to snatch her breath. ‘‘ Loyalty should be in thought as well as in act. Ever since you met this man, ever since he first came to the house, your—your allegiance was divided. You let Tracey down when he most needed help—not in a common way—oh, I know there was no misconduct. But the betrayal of sympathy, of understanding. If he’d had it from you—wholeheartedly—the worst calamity …”
‘‘My understanding,’’ said Sarah. ‘‘Where was his before ever Oliver came to the house? You woke and discovered the first fire and raised the alarm, suspected something, quarrelled with him about it, lied to me about the quarrel, made an excuse. Where was his trust in me, preparing that fire, making me a dupe; or yours, discovering it and then helping to hide the truth. That was before I ever saw Oliver. And——’’
‘‘I hoped it would stop there. He was my son, Sarah. I couldn’t tell you … and I didn’t press him to tell you; hoping as I did …” Mrs. Moreton stopped and sighed, got slowly to her feet. ‘‘Oh, well. We have been over this before. I’m ready to go.…”
It was then I truly saw the ruin that she was. Her hair was colourless, smoky white, like in people of great age. She’d fallen away to bone: cheek-bone and wrist-bone and long jointed fingers. She struggled for every breath.
‘‘Mrs. Moreton.…”
Sarah made a quick gesture to stop me, but Mrs. Moreton turned. ‘‘You’ve come at the end of a battle, Mr. Branwell. Sarah has been fighting hard for you—and only for you. She’s had no one else in mind. I’m tired of fighting, and—so I have lost.”
Vast relief was creeping into me. Like blood coming back. Like hope. I gave room to it reluctantly, scared of being wrong; watching Sarah, trying to get ahead of all that had happened in two hours, to take my cue. My knees felt like jelly.
Sarah said: ‘‘I’ve been trying to tell Mrs. Moreton how it has been with us ever since she sent Tracey’s ring, how one thing has piled on another, so that now you’re likely to be ruined and perhaps arrested too. I’ve been—trying so hard to convince her that I played fair with Tracey and that we’d both do anything to save his good name if it can possibly be done. As she did. As she has done all along.”
I said: ‘‘You were in the house that night?’’
Mrs. Moreton met my look without a flicker. ‘‘It was my responsibility—all of it.”
‘‘Oh, no,’’ said Sarah impatiently. ‘‘It’s not true, and you know it. And the end—that was an accident. The purest misfortune.”
‘‘What happened?’’ I said. ‘‘ Why were you here? Good God, I can’t believe it!’’
The fact that I was really upset may have touched her some way. Her gaunt face looked a bit softer. ‘‘You can tell him about it, Sarah, when this is all over.”
‘‘No,’’ said Sarah. ‘‘You tell him now—as you told me.”
Mrs. Moreton put her hand on the bed. ‘‘You’ve gained your point. What more is there you must insist on?’’
‘‘No.… It’s because he’s come,’’ said Sarah. ‘‘You’ve said you like him. Really, at heart. Tell him.”
‘‘He’ll hear it. He knows all that it’s necessary to know. I’ll trouble you for my stick, Mr. Branwell.”
I held it out to her, still stupefied. ‘‘Where are you going?’’
‘‘To London. Sarah wishes me to make a statement to the police.…”
The old lady went out. As Sarah came up to me she stumbled and I caught her arm. ‘‘Oh, darling.…”
She shook her head. ‘‘Not now. I’m all right.”
At the second door Mrs. Moreton was waiting for us. ‘‘ What else is it you want him to know?’’
Sarah said: ‘‘ That it was my letter that brought you back before the fire. I’d written to her, Oliver, on the Thursday saying we were going away for a holiday. I thought nothing of it; I didn’t know Tracey hadn’t told her. It made her suspect.… Ever since that first fire she’d been anxious, watching him, afraid he might attempt it again. So she came back on the Saturday, got here about seven, found Tracey here, just leaving.…”
There was a short silence. The bones in Mrs. Moreton’s face were so strong they might have been a man’s. Her face had a kind of nobility, a hard, unattached look, like a death mask.
She said: ‘‘When I got here, he had his coat on, was going to the stables for the car. I almost knew then by his face when he saw me. I told him I had come back for the weekend. He said it was impossible, there was no staff, no food in. I said I could quite easily get Elliott back—he lives only four miles away. Tracey stayed on with me, trying to hide his impatience, thinking perhaps I could still be persuaded to go. He pretended to telephone Elliott and then came back and said he couldn’t come. I know that wasn’t true; Elliott has never refused me anything. We were here more than an hour. I went upstairs to my room. Tracey followed me, wanted me to go to Yorkshire with him. I refused. By then my asthma was coming on. He said I must be—out of my mind to risk my health for a silly fad. I said my fad was my suspicion of what he intended to do.… Then he—lost his temper, said—unforgivable things and shouted at me that he had already done it, that the fuses were already lit when I came in; in another hour.… I think he thought I might give way then, but I didn’t believe him. I didn’t understand. I thought he was trying to frighten me. Still in anger he went into his own bedroom, began dragging out some curtains which had been in a drawer. I followed him, almost as angry as he—in the end I caught his arm—I’m strong … was strong and have a strong will. We struggled and fell. We both fell. Tracey underneath.” She stopped for breath. She was telling it as if it didn’t any longer belong to her, was something held at arm’s length in her memory, beyond emotion. ‘‘I think I fainted.… At least when I could move it was nearly dark. The lights wouldn’t work. I’d hurt my arm. I—struggled into the kitchen to try and find the main switch. Then you rang the bell. My only regret since is that I didn’t stay in the house with the fire.…”
I cleared my throat. ‘‘And after?’’
‘‘Does that matter?’’
‘‘You’d hurt your arm.”
‘‘I walked over to Elliott’s cottage. He dressed it for me. I spent the night there.”
‘‘What
did you tell him?’’
‘‘I told him the truth.…”
We stood in complete silence for a minute. I looked at Sarah. You could see the strength in her to-night.
I said to Mrs. Moreton: ‘‘ I wish it had been almost anyone else.”
She didn’t speak but turned and went slowly down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty Nine
I got the car somehow, brought it round to where the front of the house had been.
Thinking of it, I suppose I should have realized it couldn’t be as easy as that. I should have taken charge, have done it my own way. Then perhaps we might have avoided the rest. But I didn’t have time to query the play; the pieces had been set for me when I walked in. And just at that moment I felt as if nothing mattered except that the thing I feared was not true. I felt as if I’d come from some Harley Street physician with a new life in my pocket.
They were waiting for me in the fine drizzle. Trixie yelped and wagged her tail. In the half light Mrs. Moreton was gaunter than ever—a curious look of fatality about her—as if she was going to the gallows. I opened the door for her, but for a minute she didn’t move, grasping her stick and looking at me.
She said: ‘‘We’re an old family, Mr. Branwell. In six hundred years we were not distinguished except in a certain standard of behaviour, something handed down, grown with us. We’ve kept to that standard—with surprising fidelity. Such a family is like an old tree—it has, I believe, a—a value, inherent, that’s always greater than its parts. Its honour is worth something by any assessment—even to-day. I tried to preserve it. If you think badly of me, try to remember that.”
She got in. Sarah made a move to follow, but Mrs. Moreton waved her to sit in front. Trixie scrambled in at the back.
For a second when I got in I didn’t start the engine. Sarah looked at me. I said in a low voice: ‘‘How did you work it out?’’
‘‘Henry Dane mentioned the breathing. You should have told me. Please start.”
As we turned out of the gatehouse I saw her put her hand to her face. ‘‘What’s the matter?’’
‘‘Nothing. I’m about all in.”
‘‘Shall we stop?’’
‘‘No.…”
‘‘Can’t we go to Tonbridge or even Sladen?’’
‘‘No. Mrs. Moreton—it was the only condition, that it shouldn’t be anywhere local.”
We came out at Sladen. Through the moving screen-wipers our headlights made the houses moon-faced, peering. In the mirror I could see the tall quiet figure in the corner of the back seat. I didn’t know how much she could hear or what she thought. Especially what she thought.
‘‘This asthma. She never had it before …”
‘‘Oh, yes, if she was in Kent in the pollen season. May and June. Not otherwise. But now, it’s been like this ever since, she says. The shock, I suppose. Her father had it all his life.”
On the better road I put my foot on the accelerator. Sarah’s sense of urgency had passed itself on to me. Sarah turned. ‘‘ Is your breathing better?’’
Mrs. Moreton said: ‘‘It will do.”
I suppose that was the moment when I should have had some hunch, should have realized and foreseen.
Sarah said to me in the same undertone: ‘‘I went to Shanklin first. She left Victor’s on Monday. I suppose she called at our flat then, took Trixie. Victor thought she’d gone to the Isle of Wight. Coming here afterwards was a guess. I only got here at seven. I knew the one chance—the only chance was to get her alone.”
‘‘I still don’t know how …”
‘‘At first she denied everything. But I knew her. I knew that if she could be made to understand … fully—all that I felt, that we felt, all that was at stake. She and I had been very fond of each other until this happened. I’d never seen her since my marriage to you, to explain, to put things straight in her mind. She’d got it all so twisted. There’s no evil in her, Oliver. She sent the ring, I know; that was the one thing done in bitterness and resentment. But that was Clive’s fault. She’s often visited him since Tracey’s death, and after we were married he tried to put all sorts of suspicions into her head. She’d no idea of his part in the fraud, nor he of her presence at the fire. But I think he got to know there was something wrong, and played on that. It’s been her tragedy more than anyone else’s.… The one thing I didn’t count on was Victor.”
‘‘Victor?’’
‘‘He was always her favourite. She says that if this comes out it will affect his career—in Parliament—or his chances of becoming a judge. All along her greatest anxiety has been for him, to protect him. I thought I’d lost. I thought I couldn’t move her.”
‘‘How did you in the end?’’
‘‘I knew too much. So much fitted. I threatened that if she didn’t go to the police and tell the truth I’d make a statement myself—to the papers as well as to the police. I said that if you were going down she would as well—and Tracey’s memory and Victor’s good name. I’m not very proud of what I said.”
I put my hand over hers for a moment.
She said: ‘‘I made her see that this way would mean the least publicity. I promised her that this way we’d do all we could. Need it be made public, Oliver?’’
‘‘It’s a police matter. But I don’t see why it should. They can hardly prosecute her. If I make a statement as well, I don’t see what more need be done.”
We turned out into the main London road. There was silence then for a while, except for the hum of the car and the hiss of the tyres on the wet road. It was a strange drive, the strangest I’ve known. I was uncomfortable, ill-at-ease. It came in my head then to query whether this was the safest way or the only way to have done it; but I decided it was all right. Sarah knew what she was about. And she knew Mrs. Moreton better than I did, sensed perhaps that her victory might not last.
In the back Trixie began to whine. I looked in the mirror and saw that Mrs. Moreton had moved to the other corner.
I said: ‘‘Sarah … that note you left.”
‘‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t—explicit. But it couldn’t be. I couldn’t be sure then. This was something I had to face alone.”
‘‘I thought …”
‘‘What? That I’d let you down?’’
‘‘No.”
‘‘Won’t you ever feel sure about that? Have I failed you in some other way?’’
‘‘No. Good God, no. I was afraid—that Tracey was alive.…”
‘‘Oh, Oliver.… I thought when you——’’
‘‘That was the chief thing—like a nightmare. Now that hasn’t happened nothing else seems to matter. So long as I haven’t lost you.”
She said: ‘‘ In no possible case would you have lost me. That’s what I want you to know.”
I looked at her. ‘‘I think I realize that. For the first time. Sometimes it’s fantastically hard to believe what you most want to believe. Well, there’re no doubts any more—and there never will be, Sarah. Can I promise you that? Can I try to—tell you about it later?’’
There wasnt much traffic about, and I know it happened just above Farningham. The rain had stopped and the road was straight and wide, and I suppose we were doing about fifty. Some flicker of light from a cottage made me glance in the mirror to see if it was a car behind. Then I saw that Mrs. Moreton was no longer in her corner. I shifted my head to see the other. As I did so there was a violent gust of wind, a scared yelp from Trixie; a cry—and then a cry from Sarah—the car swerved even before I braked, the open door like a sail; braking skid and scream of tyres; let off brake, too late; we’d spun right round, were going off the road. Hedges and a tree rushed at us; through them and over; something smashed into the engine and the night turned in a somersault of flying fields; then crash.
I’d got out of the car somehow, and what I heard was Trixie barking. I got up on my hands and knees and saw the bulk of the car lying on its side—and the dog barking. The grass, in the field was heavy with rai
n, and I know I wanted to he down in it to stop my head from throbbing. I crawled to the car and it was all dark. Trixie was still inside.
‘‘Sarah!’’ I said.
The wing had been wrenched off, and the front wheel looked like the wheel of a racing car. I pulled myself up by it, and it turned in my hands. I moved round the front of the car. Through the starred windscreen I could see Sarah’s face. I had a sudden impulse to be sick.
I crawled round to her side, but there seemed no way to get at her because her door was now undermost. Trixie was scuffling in the back, and I saw her lick Sarah’s face. The sunshine roof.
I groped about and found a big stone and began blindly to hack at the roof. After a couple of minutes I’d made a big dent but no break in the metal. I hadn’t got the strength. I was struggling under some weakness that seemed a part of the fatality of the moment. Events had come full circle. I’d first met her in a car and was to lose her in a car—in darkness and futility and pain. This and not Tracey was to separate us; a blind accident, frustration at the last. Something was running down my face and I didn’t know if it was sweat or tears.
I got another stone, sharper, and tried again. The metal split; I could see the wood strips of the frame. I pushed my hand in and wormed my fingers round, but couldn’t reach the catch. I hacked at the wood but could not budge it, attacked the roof in a new place, made a second hole.
Even then it wasn’t easy. The catch was rigid, as if jammed; my wet fingers slipped on it. At last it turned; but then the roof had to be lifted before it would slide back. I couldn’t get the right leverage. Somebody was panting in the darkness. I pushed my other hand through and pulled with all my strength and the thing moved. Then it slowly slid open, and in another second my hands were on Sarah’s hair. Not dead. In fact she stirred as my fingers touched her face.
In a queer way that shook me out of my own shock. I knew then there was everything still to lose. In a panic I began to talk to her, stroke her face, try to revive her; shouted angrily at Trixie because she wanted to wriggle through, at last got my hands under Sarah’s armpits, tried to drag her out. She wouldn’t come. The second time I pulled at her she groaned.