The latter was worst of all.
As she unfastened the door of the Studio a deep menacing melancholy seemed to hover there from the shadowed walls, empty easel, and still a few scattered remains of the portrait.
I must have a glass of my tonic, she thought, then I’ll feel better.
She went to the small cupboard where an odd mixture of articles were stored – a few paints, and a row of bottles on a shelf containing various potions mixed from herbs and other simple ingredients suggested in the old-fashioned book which contained as well, recipes for wines, and certain spells used in ancient times for stimulating love for the heart-sick.
Cassandra had bought it all, during the past year, from a roving pedlar who had discovered her one day in her forest retreat. He was one on his own – a ‘mumper’, half-bred gypsy whom the true Romanies camping with the vardos and horses in Burnwood would have nothing to do with. But he had captivated Cassandra’s interest with his wily tongue and ways, and quite soon after his first visit she’d tried a sip of the golden liquid in one of the bottles. It had appeared to do her no harm; the taste savoured slightly of elderflower, although she had not recognized it, and after the first few sips a happy sense of elation had possessed her. It was tonic indeed, dispelling the fits of strange depression that had threatened her at times since childhood.
She’d told no one, of course, and since her marriage to Jon had been more careful than ever to keep the medicine or ‘tonic’ as she called it hidden away. At the present time she had only three small bottles left, but soon, when the summer fairs were winding through the countryside, she knew the old ‘mumper’, in his long, black, flapping coat with wizened face and bedraggled hair under his squashed-down top-hat, would be around and call on her. She would be ready with money to pay him well, after which he’d mutter some sort of foreign blessing and be gone, fleet as a sly old fox disappearing through the trees.
He knew by keen watchfulness and an uncanny instinct when the Gorgio lady would be alone, and how to avoid detection from others.
The gypsies hated him and would have harmed him, if they hadn’t taken such care to cause no trouble with the police or with the natives, especially the gentry, and farming folk of the district.
So the understanding between the Gorgio lady and the despised and cunning mumper had continued and on that certain summer’s day following Cassandra’s upsetting encounter with Jon and Kate, she was more than ever grateful for the insidious help offered by his liquid concoction.
She took three good sips, and in no more than half a minute felt the familiar sense of well-being spread through her veins and nerves. Her intuitive sense that told her the gentle figure – the wanderer of the forest who had been her model and secret companion for so many months – would be there that day, intensified to certainty.
The weather was already mild and dewy bright as she took off her cape, laid it over the chair and set off along the familiar thin path to the place that had become for her a sanctuary.
In a few minutes she had reached a point where the glitter of the ancient pool was visible. There was no stirring of air through the undergrowth, only the transient light of lifting sun and shade patterning the massed slender trunks of birch and oak.
Feeling the morning’s sweetness on her face, Cassandra lifted her head, and shook her long pale hair free.
She stared intently through the tracery of branches, and then she saw her – a static shape swathed in draperies with arms outstretched as though to embrace the iridescent sky.
Cass held her breath.
It was as though communion flowed between them. There was no darkness any more – no constant inner battle to forget – forget. Because the ‘thing’ she’d always had to live with unconsciously was no longer there. All was purified and clean.
Her whole body relaxed, and with it the form near the waiting pool moved slowly, gracefully, in an aura of strange peace, one hand extended as though in welcome.
In a second of time, the face looking towards Cassandra was sweetly smiling, beatific. Then the long robes became a mere shadow on the green surface of the pool before the water claimed it and it was gone.
In a daze, but still strangely elated, Cassandra pushed her way through the undergrowth. This was the end, she knew, and also the beginning. There would be no more Jon – no more earthly presence claiming what she could not give.
Very deliberately she stepped over the bordering rocks and rough earth, and fell.
There was a splash as her body hit the water, a faint gurgling sound, followed by the flutter and crying of a lone bird.
Then silence.
It was not until late afternoon she was found, her long skirt caught on a jagged spike of rock which had prevented her completely sinking. Nothing of her body was visible except one small white hand reaching through the clear green like a waterlily opening to the sunlight.
*
One of the gypsies out gathering wood and on the watch probably for a rabbit, had first spotted an unusual reflected shape immersed in the pool. He’d returned to the camp immediately, untethered one of the horses and ridden to the nearest large house which happened to be Beechlands. It was already late afternoon, and Emily was getting worried as Cassandra had not returned from her day’s painting. She instantly called Walter from the study and he got in touch with the police. By the time they’d arrived dusk was falling, and the day’s faint mist turning to fog; so activity had had to be suspended until the following day. Meanwhile a message was got through to Jon who was present when the bedraggled corpse of his wife was eventually recovered.
‘That’s her,’ he said to a police officer, ‘that’s Cassandra.’ His voice was hard, without emotion, his face bleak and expressionless.
‘Your wife, sir?’
‘Yes. You could call her that. We were married – in church – if that’s what you want to know.’
He walked away before the sheet was put over the dead face, got into the waiting chaise and drove back to Charnbrook.
*
An autopsy revealed only a slight amount of alcohol in Cass’s stomach which could not have been responsible for her death and was possibly that of a certain amount of the herbal brew found by the police in the Studio. At the following inquest a verdict of Accidental Death from drowning was recorded. It was thought the girl had gone for a walk in the mist, wandered mistakenly from the footpath, lost her footing, and fallen into the ancient slate pit. The adjoining ground was common land, but directions were given to county authorities to have that certain patch of ground safely sealed off to prevent further accidents of a similar nature.
At the beginning of the official proceedings the gypsies had been interviewed concerning their knowledge of the habits of the tragic young wife, including questions concerning the non-poisonous but insidious herbal wines in her possession. Had she brewed them herself? Or possibly obtained them from the travellers?
All had denied any such connection. They were Romanies. They kept to themselves. They would have no such dealings with Gorgio fine ladies from big houses. Only one – an ancient crone, Sarah Boswell, let out that the poor young rawni had met her one day by chance when she was out mushrooming, and had tried to get a cure from her; she thought she was with chavi, and didn’t want the baby. But she’d refused. They were a law-abiding tribe – the Boswells, and didn’t want the gavvers on their track. To act in such a way would be mochardi – unclean and against the law of O Del.
There was no sign medically that Cassandra was pregnant or ever had been, and the police had let the matter rest there, leaving the old woman muttering to herself.
Cassandra’s funeral was held shortly following Rick’s return from the States. It was a sad quiet occasion, with only the Barringtons, Wentworths, Ferrises and Ellen Blacksley present. Jon’s and Kate’s eyes met once before she was laid to rest in the family vault at Charnbrook. The glance from Jon was direct, cold, yet enigmatic. What he was trying to convey Kate did not know. But a shiver mom
entarily stiffened her spine, and she wanted only one thing – for the morbid occasion to be over and herself back at Woodgate with Rick’s arms comfortingly round her.
6
Cassandra’s tragic end and the events immediately following, had a subtle but sobering effect on what should have been a joyful period for Kate and Rick after his sojourn in America. Their lovemaking was as intense as ever; whenever he appeared in a doorway, passed on the stairs, or was in any close proximity, her whole being became momentarily electrified. His touch set her body and nerves on fire. She hadn’t realized completely before how vital and necessary his presence had become in her life. And yet, a faint shadow was apt to cloud her spirits in periods when she was on her own – the memory of Jon’s gaze at the funeral – something hard and unforgiving – of what, she didn’t know – a condemnation that was like a mental sword thrust, blaming her.
For what?
And why?
She began to sleep badly, and one morning early, when Rick had departed for his offices in Lynchester, she called to see the local doctor in Woodgate who, making an examination, after taking details of her vague aches and pains and slight nausea, told her with a smile that in his opinion, although at an early stage, he was as certain as he could be that she was once more pregnant.
Kate left the surgery in a daze. Such a possibility had simply not occurred to her, overshadowed as the past two months had been by Rick’s departure, and all the other problems concerning Jon and Cassandra. But when she counted up the weeks combined with certain physical signs that hadn’t seemed important at the time she recognized that the doctor’s diagnosis was not only possible but probably quite right.
The night before Rick left, had been one of intensified passion between them.
But – another baby! So near the twins.
Three children in two years!
The idea made her mind boggle.
Still, she told herself optimistically, Rick would probably be pleased. She’d always felt that however much he loved Marged and Felicity, he’d secretly hoped for a son. So perhaps this time his wish would be granted.
As she’d anticipated, her husband was elated when she told him that evening as she sat brushing her hair at the dressing-table. She was wearing a lacy wrap over a chiffon embroidered nightdress that had flowing bell-shaped sleeves and a flimsy collar tied at the neck with a bow.
He came through from the dressing-room in his wrap over a long nightshirt, went to the back of her chair, stooped, put a hand round each breast and planted a kiss on her neck.
‘You look so beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘My lovely wife.’
‘And “a fine figure of a woman”,’ she remarked teasingly. ‘That’s what you said before.’
‘I should have been shot for being so unchivalrous.’
She stared up at him, smiling. ‘But it’s true – or will be presently—’ She broke off.
He knitted his eyes together. ‘Presently? What does that mean?’
‘I saw the doctor today, and I’m having another baby, Rick, in about six – or seven months. I’m not quite sure of the date, but it must have happened that night before you went away to America. Remember?’
He stared at her and smiled with a look almost of wonder on his face she’d never seen before, and before she quite knew what was happening, he’d lifted her up and was holding her close, with his lips on hers. She smelt sweet and rich, he thought, like a rose from the garden, and her luxurious russet hair rippled over his left arm like a silken cloak.
‘Oh, Kate,’ he murmured, ‘how lucky we are. This news is a hundred times more precious than all the deals I’ve made in America.’
‘I should just think so, and don’t you dare compare me with any commercial deal,’ she cried. ‘Having a baby’s no fun, you know.’
‘I don’t know, but I’ll take your word for it.’
She sighed happily. ‘I hope it’s a boy.’
‘It would be rather gratifying, but if it’s not – there’s still plenty of time.’
‘You’re insatiable.’
‘Yes – where you’re concerned.’
And so the evening passed, filled with endearments and plans and promises without either of them contemplating that fate might hold a hidden card of its own to play in their destiny.
For the present Rick and Kate decided to keep their news of Kate’s condition to themselves, feeling that on top of Cassandra’s death any show of celebration might appear hurtful and out of taste to Ellen Blacksley who stayed on at Beechlands for a short time following the funeral.
She was a practical, stolid type of woman with, nevertheless, a certain sensitivity that she’d struggled successfully, so far, to hide under a brave veneer of common-sense. And she had been genuinely fond of her adopted daughter.
Emily recognized, without bringing the hurtful topic up that she had something to discuss or impart about Cassandra, and on the evening of her departure for the North the next day, it came out.
The three of them, Ellen, Emily and Walter, were seated in the large lounge after dinner with the fading early summer light slanting through the french windows across the tasteful, rather old-fashioned but luxurious, interior. Walter was about to retire to the billiard-room for a smoke, then take an evening stroll out with his dogs, Sam, an Irish terrier, and Joe, the bulldog.
‘No, don’t go, Walter,’ Ellen said, as he got up from his chair. ‘Not yet for a bit. I’ve something to say to you about Cassandra.’
‘Oh?’ Walter returned to his chair. ‘That’s all right then. What is it? Emily and I will be grateful to hear anything you’ve got on your mind. It’s been a tragic time for you, especially after all you’ve done for the girl – you and Wilf. It was through Wilf that you first got to hear of her, of course, or should I say his work as a man of God?’ He cleared his throat. ‘No matter. Speak, love. We’ve often wondered about her.’
Ellen was quiet for a moment, then she said, ‘Yes, you must have. In the ordinary way, when a young child’s adopted, not much is said of its background to the new parents. But with Cassie it was different. If it hadn’t been for Wilf being a minister nothing to this day might’ve come out and Wilf and I wouldn’t have heard of her. But the poor little thing.’ There was a pause before she continued. ‘She was only four, you know, when my husband came upon her in that orphanage place. She was sick at that time – not physically, or exactly deranged, but in a kind of shock. She hadn’t spoken or communicated in any proper way for months since it – it happened.’
In the short silence that followed only the buzzing of a bee could be heard as it flew through the half-open window and out again. Then Emily said gently, ‘Go on, dear. Tell us. After what?’
‘The murder,’ Ellen said bluntly. ‘Cassie’s mother was murdered by her second husband, Cassie’s stepfather, and the child witnessed it all. She was there.’
‘Oh,’ Emily gave a little gasp. ‘How dreadful.’
‘Yes. When they broke in – neighbours had heard screams and got the police – the child, little more than a baby – was just standing staring at her mother lying in a pool of blood. The husband, a large brute of a man, had come home drunk that night and there’d been a row of some sort. He’d violated his wife first then stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He was lolling half senseless in a chair, quite naked. Oh, it was in all the papers at the time. He was tried later, and sentenced to death, of course, but died of a stroke before the sentence was carried out. To the public the story ended there. The little girl was taken to hospital first, then after a time to the home where Wilf visited. That’s how we came by her. Her true name and identity had been kept secret from everyone but the doctors and one or two officials and, of course, Wilf, being a trusted and devout Christian.’ Ellen hesitated, then continued, ‘That’s the way it was. You know, Walter, how Wilf and I’d wanted a child, and how, somehow, it hadn’t come about – well, when this awful thing happened Wilf saw the hand of God pointing our way, and we adopted h
er as ours, signed everything all legally, and moved to another town to give all three of us a new beginning away from gossiping tongues and any chance word that might leak out. After all, you can never tell when a peeping Tom might be listening at a keyhole. It wasn’t easy, mind you. For a year, though she could speak, it was as though she was mute. That’s why we didn’t bring her to see you when you invited us. But by degrees we won her confidence, and she grew to be a docile, gentle and apparently normal child. Events before her real mother’s death were never discussed. If she remembered anything she never said. But we rather imagined – Wilf and I – that the shock and maybe God’s will, had sealed the horror off from her mind. Though sometimes I wondered—’ Ellen’s voice faltered vaguely.
‘Yes?’ Walter asked quietly. ‘You wondered what, Ellen?’
‘Well, she did have times when she wanted to be alone sometimes as I said. And she never seemed to laugh or want to have fun like other children. A vivid imagination, Wilf said it was, p’raps he was right. Anyway, when Wilf died I’d too much on my hands making a living for the two of us to brood on what Cassandra might be thinking about or fretting over in her ‘alone’ periods – that’s what she called her solitary fits. It was always a relief to me when she came to you for holidays, because I knew Kate was a lively girl, and that she’d be well looked after, with a few of the comforts I couldn’t give. Not that she wasn’t fond of me, bless her, she was. But—’ Ellen’s voice suddenly grew tired, holding a hint of tears.