The Echoing Stones (18 page)

Flora shrugged. “More or less,” she muttered, and Arnold struggled against renewed waves of fury against the absent young man.

“Well,” he said guardedly. “And what does he think
about it? Is he going to stand by you? Help you to look after the baby?”

“Oh, I expect so. He’s quite fond of children, actually, so I expect he’ll be all right. In fact, I think he’s quite pleased I’m having a baby. He thinks it’ll be fun. It’s not as if it was his.”

Typical of his generation it might be, but Arnold really wondered if he had heard her right. He got her to say it again, to explain herself; which, to do her justice, she tried to do.

“Well, it’s a bit of a turn-off, isn’t it, when a guy finds he’s got a girl pregnant? It scares the shit out of him, he’s going to run away just as far as there is to run to. Well, he’s not going to stay around and have a paternity order clapped on him, is he? It wouldn’t be sense. But if he’s
not
the father – well, that’s different, no one can get after him. He can stay around seeing the girl all he likes, and they can’t even take away her Social Security money. And he can be around the baby, too, if he wants – buy it toys, that sort of thing. Trev would like that, I know he would. He just doesn’t want to put his head in a noose, that’s all. And
I
don’t want to be the hangman. Hang-
person,
perhaps I should say!” Here she gave a short, mirthless laugh before continuing: “Look, if you love a guy, you don’t want to ruin his life, do you? Well, I don’t, anyway. I realise that in
your
generation, ruining a person’s life was the ultimate expression of romantic love, but for
us
… Oh, Dad, I
wish
I could make you understand!”

But Arnold was glad that she couldn’t. He had to have
some
sort of principles left to hang onto.

And at least she had called him “Dad” and not “Arnold” before turning and rushing from the room.

Mildred dropped the receiver with quite a little clatter of excitement.

“Val! Val!” she cried. “Guess what! Flora’s pregnant! It’s due in April, just the very loveliest time of the whole year, with all the blossom just coming out, and the primroses …”

Val looked up from the pile of envelopes she was addressing for lapsed and non-paid-up members of the Assertiveness Course. As the proud possessor of both a word-processor and copying-machine, she found herself doing quite a lot of this sort of thing, whereas Mildred, who could operate nothing, and made not the smallest attempt to learn, got away scot free. There seemed to be an element of unfairness somewhere, and so Val couldn’t resist this chance to deflate her friend’s
exuberant
spirits.

“Congratulations,” she said drily. “And when do we celebrate the abortion? Soon, I hope. She must be going on three months already.”

“Oh,
Val
!” Mildred’s face had fallen at these unkind words, but the undercurrent of joy was still there and undiminished. “Don’t be so horrid! You
know
I’ve been longing, all this time, for Flora to get pregnant. It’ll settle her down, don’t you see? It’ll give her an aim in life – something worth while to do. It’ll give her someone to love at last. Because she doesn’t love
us,
hasn’t for years. And I don’t believe she’s loved any of these peculiar
young men either: I mean, they are
so
peculiar. But a
baby
…!”

Val was already feeling a little remorseful about her spiteful remark. She pushed aside her envelopes and her stick-on labels, and joined Mildred in discussing the ins and outs of this new development. Blossom time was all very well, but who was going to
pay
?

“
I’ll
pay,” declared Mildred stoutly. “I’ll be getting my half of the money for the house any day now. And perhaps – do you think, Val, possibly – we could have her and the baby
here
? For a while, I mean, till she gets on her feet? If she could rent Rosemary’s old room? I mean, it’s empty, Rosemary doesn’t come home any more.”

It was true. Val’s daughter hadn’t come to see her mother for months, nor bothered to write, either.

“No news is good news,” Val was accustomed to declare, bravely; and so of course it is if the avoidance of trouble for yourself is your absolute top priority. But for Val this was not entirely the case; an uneasiness about her arid relationship with her daughter still nagged at her, on and off. Mildred watched her friend’s face cloud over, and hastened on.

“Still, it’s much too soon to be deciding anything definite. Besides, Flora may have some plans of her own …” even as she said the words, Mildred’s eyes widened in wonder.
Flora
!
Making
plans
!
Instead of stumbling carelessly, irresponsibly, almost indifferently from one unfortunate mishap to another – now, with the baby to think of, Flora would surely change? She would become a concerned and responsible young woman.

This vision of her daughter, suddenly and magically transformed, almost took Mildred’s breath away. It was all mixed up, too, with a confused vision of herself being magically transformed likewise, not through any Assertiveness or Life Transformation classes, but through
the prospect of becoming an adored and adoring
grandmother
, instead of a rejected and anxiety-ridden mother. Enough to transform anybody.

“I must see her – I must talk to her,” she declared. “I must tell her how pleased I am!” and this time Val controlled her irrational little pangs of jealousy and even offered to drive Mildred to the station. Because, of course, this time Mildred would be going to Emmerton Hall by train, on her own. It just wasn’t Gordon’s scene, this sort of thing. Well, probably it wasn’t. Vaguely, it crossed Mildred’s mind that she still knew very little about him; but certainly this was no time to remedy the matter. Her thoughts were focused totally on her coming journey, and the preparations it involved. Some of them tiresome, like looking up the afternoon trains. For the first time in years, she felt no qualms at all about a prospective encounter with her daughter; for was not the Flora of her imagination already miraculously transformed?

*

Mildred had hoped to catch Flora on her own as she left the Tea Room, but already she was too late. The Saturday trains were few and far between, and all of them involved changing at Midford, where five possible platforms lay open to her inspection, all totally denuded of staff or of any informative notice-boards.

“Ack Woo Nubble Ton Freen!” cried an invisible girl from somewhere on a level with the roof; and then, even more emphatically: “Eggle Lan Vootor Tardy Marm!” and Mildred, adapted as she was by nature to obeying instructions blindly, had taken several steps in the one direction, and then several in the other, before she noticed how futile this was, and stood still. At length, she nerved herself to enquire of a fellow-passenger as to the whereabouts of her probable train?

“Across the bridge,” said the first one before hurrying
on, with an expansive gesture of the arm which wasn’t clutching his brief-case. “Over there.”

“You’ve just missed it,” accused her next informant, a dour, middle-aged woman, glowering at Mildred as if she had failed to hand in her geography homework. “There won’t be another till nearly five.”

Which, sadly, proved to be the case, but at least it gave Mildred ample time to collect further opinions as to the most likely platform; and then, in accordance with the majority voting, to be in the right place, wary but undefeated, when the right train came in.

The bus took its time, too, so that by the time Mildred reached Emmerton Hall the afternoon was far advanced. The Tea Room was already closed, and the time for closing the main gates not more than an hour or so away.

Clutching her handbag tightly to her side, Mildred stood on the gravel walk outside the Tea Room and shivered. Not that it was cold, exactly. It had been a lovely autumn day, benign and golden, and the air was still warm, though the red ball of the sun low above the tree-tops presaged rain for tomorrow.

No, it wasn’t the weather that was cold, it was Mildred herself. She had set off on this impulsive journey ablaze with excitement, warmed through and through by a sense of hope and new beginnings. And now look at her! Foiled! Locked-out! Too late! Now that the Tea-Room was closed, there was nowhere else for her to go.

The flat, of course, was out of the question. Arnold would be there and that would ruin everything. She wanted to see Flora
alone
– to embrace her, to talk with her properly, bringing the long years of estrangement to an end. The last thing she wanted was to share this moment with Arnold, an embarrassed and probably disapproving third party, whose presence would make intimate talk impossible.

They would be busy, too, and preoccupied. They would be counting out the money, writing it up in the Tea Book, preparing the evening meal …

There was only one thing to be done: to hang about as inconspicuously as possible until Arnold came out, as of course he would have to do at closing-time in order to set off on his evening rounds. This would be her chance to slip into the flat and with luck find Flora there on her own.

Meantime, an hour or so had to be filled up somehow. The crowds were thinning out now, and a chill had come into the evening air. Aimlessly, and with no purpose other than to pass the time, Mildred wandered disconsolately this way and that, attempting to make herself
inconspicuous
by mingling as best she could with such remnants of the afternoon’s visitors as were still drifting around. Drifting, alas, towards the Exit. Soon, there would be no one to mingle with. She must find some other way of being invisible: a hiding-place, in fact, from which she could nevertheless watch out for Arnold’s approach.

The dark, dank archway from which a flight of stone steps led down to the dungeon looked promising. Already deeply shadowed, it would be more shadowed still as the sun went down. Luckily, she was wearing her dark coat – no need to dress-up, she’d felt, since she wasn’t coming with Gordon. Dark against the dark stone she’d be unnoticeable unless someone was actually looking for her; and anyway, she could retreat further down as soon as she saw Arnold coming out onto the terrace.

*

It was tiring standing there, in semi-darkness with nothing to do but to peer out, scanning each passer-by to make sure it wasn’t Arnold. Her feet were hurting, too, and the steps were too cold and damp and grisly for her to fancy sitting on them. Framed like a picture in the curve of the arch she could see the pinkish haze of evening rising above the trees beyond the park. Nearer the house, the
green of the mown grass seemed brilliant as a dream, as is the way of green things just before the day light dies, in that last hour before colour is stolen away altogether. She caught a glimpse of bright flowers, too, still blooming in the urns along the edge of the terrace; pink and creamy pelargoniums; and petunias, crimson or deep purple, or variously striped. These too, just like the hyper-green of the grass, seemed bathed in supernatural light.

And it was then that she heard, behind her, the groaning of the dungeon door being opened. The rasping of the great bolts: the grinding clang of the great key being turned; and as she whirled round in terror, the massive portal was already slowly opening.

Terror? Yes, indeed. Terror that it might be Arnold, and that all her plans for seeing her daughter alone would be foiled; and an even greater terror that it might not. From that dark and awful place, where ghosts of the tortured were said still to walk – who, or what, might emerge? It was not that Mildred was more credulous than your average tourist; it was that she was in that kind of situation where credulity or its contrary simply aren’t the issue. Reason becomes a sadly feeble and inadequate tool when it finds itself face to face with the totally unknown. Reason demands data, a basis of known rules, standards of comparison; without these, it is ineffectual as a dream.

With a grinding of ancient wood on ancient stone, the door opened wide and a gust of darkness seemed to pour out, bringing with it a figure so gaunt, so skeletal that to an already fevered imagination it could indeed have crawled up from some ancient grave.

Too frightened even to scream, Mildred emitted a weak little gasp – and instantly a bony hand clutched with horrifying strength at her wrist, while another one came over her mouth, and a voice hissed in her ear:

“Silence, your Grace! The hour has come! Silence, if you hope to find your child alive!”

My
child
?
Flora
?
Flora in some terrible danger? What on earth has the girl been up to? Who …? Where …? What …?

Questions cannot be asked in silence, nor answered. When you are totally at a loss, acquiescence can seem like the only option. Like a puppet on a string, or perhaps more like a puppy on a lead, comprehending nothing of his destination, but dimly aware of overwhelming authority, Mildred offered no resistance as the
mysterious
stranger pulled her urgently, imperiously, down the slippery steps into the darkness. Where she would find her daughter? In what unimaginable predicament? “If you hope to find your child alive” – what was
happening
to the girl, down there in the thick dark into which they were now entering?

Stumbling in the wake of her guide, Mildred’s foot struck against something hard, resistant and hundreds of years old. The base of something awful, a big, shadowy something with spikes …?

“Flora!” she almost screamed, but dared not let the sound escape; for what might not happen as the echoes of her voice died away? “If you hope to find your child alive … If you hope to find your child alive …”

And it was in that moment that the skinny hand released its hold on her wrist, there was a little gust of movement. The great oak door swung to behind them, and then she heard the heavy iron key turning slowly, grudgingly in the ancient lock.

For several moments she stood absolutely still, in the grip of an incomprehension so complete that it almost obliterated fear.

And then, suddenly, the lights went on. First, the white unshaded lights of the ceiling, and then, one by one, the little green-tinted lights installed here and there
on the walls to illuminate some ancient bit of writing scratched on the stone by some bored or desperate prisoner long ago.

Blinking in the sudden brightness, Mildred at last had a clear view of her assailant – her guide – Flora’s deliverer – whatever he was: and she recognised him.