Fourpenny Flyer (20 page)

It was dark out there between the houses for there was no light from any of the surrounding windows. The Sowerby house was black and deserted and Mrs Kirby had closed the shutters on her dining room above the laundry. John lit the lantern and hung it on a nail that was sticking out of the coal shed. Then he and Eb manoeuvred the ladder into position against the shed and under the window, hissing instructions at one another in hoarse stage whispers.

He was so charged with excitement and nervous energy that he didn't think to look up at the window until his foot was on the bottom rung of the ladder and he was starting to climb. And then what he saw made him catch his breath with pain and revelation. Such a little white face gazing at him mutely through the narrow pane, a little white ghostly face, hollow-eyed and disfigured by blue and green bruises, its thin cheeks lined with long eerie shadows from the flickering light of the lantern.

And in the single second, before he began to climb, a second without words or reasoning or even conscious thought, he knew that he loved her and that he would always love her, that he couldn't bear her to be hurt, that he would do anything to protect her, that he wanted to
stay with her for the rest of his life. ‘Hold up the lantern!' he whispered to Billy. ‘Is that treacle spread?' And he began to climb.

As he drew level with the window he saw that she was sitting on the floor wrapped in a blanket, and he signalled to her that she should move away from the glass and was pained to see how slowly she did it. But then he was too busy to look at her, as the sticky cloth was passed up to him and he spread it messily across the central pane and tapped it with Billy's hammer. It broke with a subdued cracking sound, falling into the room, sticky sheet and all, and he pushed in the jagged edges that remained with the palm of his gloved hand and Billy climbed up the ladder after him and stood on the coal shed to hold up the lantern so that he could see what he was doing.

‘It is safe now,' he whispered to her as the last chunk of glass fell. ‘You won't cut yourself, I promise.'

She was sitting on the edge of a low truckle bed, crouching with the blanket pulled tightly about her like an Indian squaw.

‘What have I to do?' she said dully.

‘Climb out of the window,' he whispered. ‘You won't fall. I will hold you.'

But she didn't get up. ‘Where is the good in it?' she said in the same dull tones. ‘They will not let me see you. I might as well stay here and die.'

‘You are seeing me now,' he said, speaking more loudly with the urgent need to persuade her. They were wasting time. Her parents could be back at any moment. Oh, how could he get her to act? He could feel strength flowing through his veins, down his arms, into his hands. His fingers were tingling with it. He stood at the top of the ladder, wishing he could touch her and send it coursing into her veins too. ‘They cannot prevent us,' he said. ‘It is beyond their power. Come out of here, my dear love. Just give me your hand. That is all you have to do.'

But she stayed where she was, looking at the floor.

‘What's amiss?' Billy hissed from below.

‘I can't persuade her,' John replied. ‘She don't move. What is to be done?'

‘Weakness,' Billy said, practically. ‘That's what it is. Well if she can't stand, Johnnoh, she must be carried, that's all. Hold the ladder steady boys. That's the ticket! Now Johnnie. In you go!'

Afterwards John couldn't remember what he'd done or how he'd done it. He had a confused impression that he had caught his dear Harriet in his arms, horrified at how light she was, and that he'd half lifted, half dragged her to the window, and that Billy's hands had reached out of the flickering darkness to guide her feet onto the rungs. He knew that she'd clung to his shoulders for a long time, whispering, ‘I can't! I can't!' and that Claude had whispered up from the yard. ‘Hush! Is that the whistle?' But how they finally managed to ease her down the ladder to the ground he couldn't recall.

Once there it was a simple matter to pick her up in his arms and run. She was hardly any weight at all and in any case love and panic had given him quite amazing speed and strength. He bundled her into the cart as the others followed him out of the house, and Billy flung the hammer and the tinder box down beside her slippered feet, Claude hung the lantern on the cart, Eb jammed the ladder into the remaining space, young Tom scrambled aboard and took up the reins, and they were off, trotting downhill in the September dusk, smelling the smoke from the coal fires all about them, listening to the whinny of horses in Mr Kent's stables, the droning of prayers from the distant chapel, running and running until they erupted into the lovely open space of Angel Square, and Billy threw his cap into the air, chortling, ‘Wheee! We've done it! Wheee!'

Bessie was waiting for them at the front door, with Rosie from the laundry standing beside her, with a black cloak over her arm and her odd round face as yellow as the moon in the light from their little lantern. And then there was another scramble as the cart was unloaded and Bessie handed up the cloak and Rosie trotted off to get a hot brick wrapped in a cloth which she put beside Harriet's feet, and the pony snorted and scraped his hooves on the cobbles with impatience.

And then the door was shut and Billy and his friends were gone and John and Harriet were alone in the cart and heading east along the narrow tracks towards Beyton and Drinkstone and Rattlesden. By now it was quite dark and the moon had risen, a milk-white crescent in a sky scattered with hard-edged stars. They drove in silence between the tangled hedgerows as a little owl shrieked in the woods above them.

It puzzled John that she was so quiet. During the rush and excitement of the rescue there had been no time for anyone to say anything, but now, out here, in the rustling peace of this empty lane, ambling between hilly fields washed silver by the moon, surely, surely they should talk. Yet she sat beside him as still as a statue, saying nothing.

‘You are safe now, Miss Sowerby,' he said, trying to encourage her.

But she was still silent, the hood of the cloak hiding her face.

‘We are going to Rattlesden,' he said, trying again. ‘You will be safe there with Annie and Mr Hopkins and the children, will you not?'

‘Safe?' she whispered. ‘Safe?' She turned to face him then, and he saw to his astonishment that her eyes were blazing with a hard-edged frantic intensity about them, like an animal caught in a trap. ‘You will not send me back to them, will you, Mr Easter?' she begged. ‘Oh promise me! Please promise me! I should die if you sent me back.'

‘You have my word,' he said, answering passion with passion. ‘You shall never go back. I swear it!'

‘They will beat me if you send me back,' she said wildly, ‘and oh, Mr Easter, I could not bear to be beaten again, indeed I couldn't.' Then she tried to regain control of herself and spoke more calmly. ‘Forgive me. I should not talk like this. I have eaten nothing but bread and water for such a long time, I scarcely know what I am saying.'

‘They starved you?' he said, struggling to control the rage and pity that the news had aroused in him. ‘Why? Oh Harriet, my dear, why?'

‘Because I would not promise never to write to you or see you again,' she said and now she spoke with pride,
lifting her battered face and looking at him with calmer eyes. Now that she was sitting beside him again she knew beyond any doubt that he was a dear kind man, just as she'd remembered him, and that her mother was wrong; he would never ruin anybody, only rescue them. But these were thoughts that couldn't be expressed. That would be improper. And she looked away from him, once more hiding her face and her emotions behind the black cloth of her hood, afraid that weakness would betray her into saying too much.

He, too, was far more moved than he appeared to be. He looked fixedly at the pony's ears to prevent the tears starting into his eyes. To have suffered so and all on his account.

‘You shall never be beaten again,' he promised huskily. It was too soon to tell her how much he loved her. Better to wait until she was recovered. She must be treated tenderly after such an ordeal, that was clear. But he wanted to speak. Oh, how he wanted to speak.

With their thoughts in turmoil, he concentrated on guiding the pony through the dark lanes and she remained hidden in her hood, and neither of them said another word until they reached the pair of wattle and daub cottages that stood at the edge of Rattlesden village. They could hear the stream splashing beside the track and see the great dark shape of St Nicholas's church rising above them on its hillock like the ark on Mount Ararat. And there was the dark, stooping figure of dear old James waiting at the lych gate with a lantern.

He called to them as John turned the pony's head towards the rectory. ‘Welcome! Welcome! We have stayed dinner for you. Pray let me assist you, Harriet my dear.'

And then Annie came tripping out of the door and flung her arms about Harriet's neck with such violent affection that they both burst into tears. Annie helped Harriet into the house, which gave John a chance to talk to his brother-in-law while they led the pony to the stables and removed the harness.

‘She will be safe here with us, you may depend on't,' James said, as they walked back towards the house, ‘for we
are quite hidden away in this valley.'

And that was true enough, John thought, for the hills rose on either side of the village like protective walls and the rectory was hidden behind a holm gate and a screen of yews and hawthorns.

‘Howsomever,' James said, smiling his slow, teasing smile as they reached the front door, ‘you do seem to be making a habit of delivering your Miss Sowerby to our door, if you will allow me to say so.'

‘Yes,' John confessed. ‘I do.' It was warm in the panelled hall and the light from the candles was quite bright after the darkness of the journey.

‘If this continues,' James said, opening the door to his study, ‘I shall begin to wonder as to your intentions towards the lady. For' – still teasing – ‘I am bound to say that stealing her away from her parents' home could easily be misinterpreted.'

‘I mean to marry her,' John said.

‘I'm uncommon pleased to hear it. Does she know of your plans?'

They could hear the two women coming downstairs. ‘No,' John said hurriedly. ‘Not yet. Say nothing I beg you. I will speak when she is well, you have my word.'

‘And you my blessing,' James said, wondering how his mother-in-law would take the news. ‘And now to dinner. We must feed our poor Harriet well, must we not, and, God willing, restore her to health as quickly as may be. And what could be better for such a task than a little dish of boiled beef and pease pudding?'

Mr and Mrs Sowerby came back from the Saturday meeting in a state of rapturous elation. The chosen readings had been so apposite to their present difficulties with Harriet that they were plainly providential, and the preacher's conclusion had filled them with the most gratifying righteousness. ‘We must fight against evil,' he had said, ‘throughout our lives, my brethren, not once, not twice, not ten times ten times, but constantly and for ever.'

They discussed the readings at length once they were in bed, speaking loudly so that Harriet could hear every word and understand that they had heavenly approval for their actions.

‘'Twould be a poor thing, wife,' Mr Sowerby said unctuously, ‘if we were to allow this evil to possess our own dear child, whom the good Lord has given to us for guidance and protection. No, hard though it is for us, we must continue to mortify her flesh until her rebellious spirit is tamed. That is our plain Christian duty.'

It was a blessing to sleep so sound. And another to wake knowing that it was the Sabbath.

‘I will speak to her directly,' Mrs Sowerby said as she opened the shutters on to the Sunday emptiness of the street. ‘This time I do not doubt she will see sense.' And she unlocked Harriet's door.

The shock made her gasp. ‘She's gone, Father,' she said. ‘The wicked, wicked girl!'

‘Gone?' Mr Sowerby said, jumping from the bed to join her. ‘Impossible! You locked the door did you not? How could she be gone?'

But the cold wind was blowing its answer through the
empty window pane and the chill of it made them feel afraid, for the same thought was occurring to them both. By now people would have seen her bruises and noticed how thin she was. Tongues could be wagging about their affairs at that very minute.

‘This is not to be endured,' Mr Sowerby said. ‘We must find her and bring her back at once.'

‘
Somebody
broke in,' Mrs Sowerby said, looking at the sticky sheet and the fragments of glass. ‘
Somebody
came here in the dead of night and stole her away.'

‘'Twill be that Mr Easter as sure as Fate,' Mr Sowerby said. ‘She'll be ruined, Mrs Sowerby. Ruined!'

‘Oh, how I'll whip her when we get her back!' his wife said grimly.

They went next door to enquire of Mrs Kirby as soon as they were dressed, but that lady was no help to them at all. She had heard nothing, seen nothing, locked her door as always ‘the very minute our supper was done, ma'am'.

Mrs Sowerby was enraged by the duplicity of it. ‘And don't 'ee tell
me,
' she said to her spouse when they were safely back in their own parlour. ‘Don't 'ee tell
me
he could have dragged a great ladder through that passageway – and he
must
have had a ladder, Mr Sowerby – and she none the wiser.'

But it was time for chapel, so they had to compose themselves and leave their anger to stew.

‘We will see what Miss Pettie has to say,' Mr Sowerby decided. ‘She lives next door to the Easters, don't 'ee forget, and the woman is a powerful gossip.'