Wicked Angel (11 page)

She saw the dark-red curls and the round head pressed against the fence; she heard the boy’s mingled screams and sobs, and his incoherent exclamations of hatred. Very, very carefully, she joined the ends; it was torture. Her fingers were wet and slippery. But finally, after an eternity of moments, the belt was clasped.

Now, he must not see. She called up to him. “Run away, quick! If they catch you here, they’ll know! Run, Angelo, run!”

His eyes, blurred and almost sightless with tears, stared down at her. Then he was gone, and she could hear his running feet on the grass. She cried aloud, “Thank you, Father!” The stone he had dropped fell into the gulf below her, and she heard its dull crash on the rocks.

She carefully tested the belt. Yes, it was strong. But she must not completely trust it. It must be only an aid to her right arm, to relieve some of the tormenting drag on it. She thrust her left arm through it; her body wheeled slightly, and her right fingers slipped on the stake, and encountered the edge of a sharp rock in the soil. She hardly felt it; she concentrated on what she must do. Her elbow rested in the loop of the belt; the leather squealed slightly on the stake. Then she lifted her body upwards as much as possible and dug her toes into the earth of the bluff. It gave her the slightest of purchases. She pressed her body close to the surface of the bluff; inch by inch now, she pushed her arm through the loop; now the leather was under her armpit. She was blinded by sweat and agony. She was forced to rest; the leather, which seemed like a kind and sentient thing to her, engrossed in helping her, gripped at the soft underflesh of her arm. The torture in her right arm faded slightly.

Then she knew that she could do no more; she would have to remain like this until help came; she leaned on the looped belt. It helped her; she could now grasp the stake with her left hand, also. She longed most terribly to loosen her right fingers, but dared not do so; she needed all the aid, the frail aid, at her disposal.

Birds flew above her head, looking down at her inquisitively. The sun burned her eyes; her hair was as wet as though it had been dipped in water. Rivers of sweat ran down her body; she was slimy with it. There was not a muscle anywhere that was not torn with anguish. Drops of blood dripped from the deep cut on her right hand; they slowly wound down her arm.

She became dizzily nauseated; her head was a globe of flame; her heart struggled in her breast and her lungs labored. One foot slipped out of its tiny aperture; she had been leaning too heavily on it for an instant, and her right fingers moved on the stake. But the belt held her under the left arm, and the left hand clutched at the wood. How lone, God, she prayed, how long?

Who was screaming? The noise sounded hollow and very far away, in a gathering darkness. The screaming was repeated over and over. And now there were snouts. Mark was shouting, calling! Dear Mark was here at last! She did not know she was screaming also, wild peal after peal, hoarse and panting. She heard, somewhere, the shrieks of a woman, and then other shrieks, also feminine. And then there were running and pounding feet. Through her sweat and tears Alice looked upwards into Mark’s white face and horrified eyes.

“Allie, Allie!” he cried. “Hold on, Allie!”

He leaned far over the fence, as far as he dared. He grasped the hands on the stake. She saw his fingers in a terribly clarified light, his brown strong fingers. They moved downward to her wrists, and clutched them. Now he was lifting her slowly; she could see his muscles swell under the thin light cloth of his coat; he was intent on only one thing; his eyes were fixed and unblinking.

Inch by inch, for he was at a disadvantage, and Alice was not a slight girl, he pulled her up; her cheek brushed harshly against soil and the sharp edges of little rocks. Then her eyes were on the level with the first log.

“Can you help a little, Allie?” Mark grunted. “Just a little? When I get your knees to the level of the edge of the bluff, will you lean on it, bending your legs?”

She nodded; she was beyond speaking. But then there was the belt, and Mark uttered a furious cry. It was impeding him, just as it had saved her.

“Grab the stake with your right hand again,” he said. “That’s right, higher up. Now I’ll have to let that hand go. Hold on!” He tightened his grip with one hand on her left wrist, and used the other hand to unfasten the strap. It fell. He seized her right hand once more and pulled her up. She gave no thought to anything now but obeying him; when her knees reached the tearing and crumbling edge of the bluff she thrust them into the soil. Now her head was on the level with the log below the top one. Her face was close to Mark’s; they looked into each other’s eyes. He smiled. “Good Allie,” he said. “Brave, dear Allie.”

Then Kathy appeared at the fence, deathly pale, and Mamie. Kathy reached over and grasped her sister’s hair; Mamie seized her under the right armpit. That was all she remembered clearly about her rescue.

She was standing in safety now, in Mark’s arms, sobbing desperately on his shoulder, clutching him. Then her knees bent under her and she fainted for the first time in her life.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Alice lay in peace in Kathy’s pretty rustic bedroom. Her right arm was in a plaster cast, for all the ligaments were torn, the muscles wrenched. She had slept. She had been given a sedative by the doctor. But now she was awake in the twilight and Mark was alone with her, sitting by the bed.

She watched him a moment or two through her lashes. He looked old and weary, and his face was gray and spent, the cheeks fallen in. He was smoking and staring at nothingness.

He knows something! was Alice’s first coherent and agonized thought. He suspects something! But he mustn’t know, he mustn’t suspect. She let herself moan a little, and moved her head, as if awakening. Instantly, his hand was on her forehead. “It’s all right, Allie,” he said quietly. “You’re safe, Allie. Just rest.”

Her arm throbbed with fire; the shoulder ached like death itself. She whispered weakly, “Where’s—Bruce?”

“The doctor gave him a sedative, too,” he replied, and stroked her damp hair. It had an ashen gleam in the twilight. And now he bent over her and looked into her eyes. “Tell me about it, Allie.”

“Didn’t Bruce tell you?” she said feebly. “It seems all confused to me.”

He spoke without any emphasis or emotion, and he watched her. “He said you were sitting on the fence, and that was a damn fool thing to do, Allie, and he was on the porch, and then the next minute you had lost your balance and you fell over. He—he said he tried to help you, but couldn’t.”

Mark paused. His eyes were closer to hers; she could not shut her own; his gaze held her and she could not turn away from it.

“He said he tried, and then you told him to go and call the police.” Mark paused. He said flatly, “And he did. He was at the telephone just as we pulled into the drive. He was hysterical. The police arrived as you fainted. They stayed around for a little while. Don’t you remember talking to Chief Hanley?”

But, terrified, Alice could not remember. She had a vague memory of strange faces floating about her in a shifting pattern of light and shadow. What had she said? She moved her head in assent, and watched Mark with distended eyes.

“You told him the same thing; you said Bruce tried to help, but he was too small to reach you. And then you sent him to telephone—for the police.”

Alice gave a great, sinking sigh.

“The only thing,” said Mark, in a strange and awful voice, “is that the doctor said that from your injuries he would judge you’d been hanging there for a considerable time, and not for about five or ten minutes. If Bruce had called the police just as we got home, after you had sent him away, right after you fell, the time element would not have been long enough to hurt you like this. The blood was crusted on your arm; your wrist was enormously swollen and purple. That takes much longer than a few minutes, Allie.” He paused. “Are you going to tell me the truth, dear?”

But the truth will kill your heart, thought Alice. She tried to smile. “It was just as—we—told you.”

Mark slowly shook his head from side to side. He looked at the floor between his knees. “I don’t believe you, Allie,” he said, and her heart jumped. “Do you know what I think? I think that you fell over that fence at least half an hour before we and the police came. I think that Bruce saw you fall, and heard you scream; I think he—I think he lost his head, and that when you sent him away he hid himself in his room. He does that often, when he’s confronted with an emergency. I can’t forgive him, Allie. He’s a bright boy; he should have known better. If he’d called the police immediately. they’d have rescued you long before we arrived. Am I right, Allie?”

“I—it was so awful; I don’t remember just how long—” Alice whispered. The relief made her feel sick and faint again. “But I don’t think it was half an hour; perhaps only a quarter, if that long. Don’t blame Bruce too much, Mark. He’s only a little fellow, after all.” Her words were slow and painful. “Just because he’s so—intelligent—we forget his age. We expect his actions to match his mind. Children—aren’t like that. They grow—kind of lopsided, even the most intelligent.”

But Mark was silent. He was still staring at the floor, and then he lifted his eyes and she saw, even in the dusk, that some horror lay at the bottom of them, some fearful suspicion. She forced herself to look at him steadily; her white lips were stiff and unmoving.

“Allie,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. “Tell me the truth. After you fell—do you think Bruce deliberately ran away, and waited as long as he could before calling the police?”

“How can you think that?” she cried, and sat up in spite of the blaze of pain in her arm. “It wasn’t that way at all! Why should he do that?”

Truth rang in her voice, but it was not the truth he understood.

He wiped his face with his palms, and sighed. “Bruce doesn’t like you, Allie. Wait. Let me finish. I’ve known for a long time that he didn’t, ever since the day he smashed the things in your purse. Don’t you see I’ve got to know the truth about this, for Bruce’s sake? I’ve got to know if, after he saw you fall, and heard your scream, that he thought that was the end of you, even though he came running to the bluff where he never usually goes. And then he saw you hanging, and you told him to go to the police, and he—he waited, hoping you’d have to let go. And die. Allie, if that is so, then he attempted to—”

The frightful word hung between them, unspoken. Then Alice shook her head. “It wasn’t that way, Mark. You know I don’t lie. But I swear to you, in the name of God, that it wasn’t as you say. I swear to you.”

They looked at each other in another silence. Then Mark sighed once more, and smiled faintly. His forehead was wet. “I believe you, Allie. If—it was as I thought originally, I don’t know how I’d stand it. My son. I’d know, then, that he was sick, sick beyond any help.”

Kathy opened the door and came in. She was still very shaken. She ran to Alice, put her arms about her sister, and burst into tears. “Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Oh, my little sister! Oh, what would have happened if we hadn’t come home then? Oh, and my poor little boy! He’ll never forget this. He’ll have nightmares! Oh, you poor children!”

“How is Bruce?” asked Alice faintly, feeling her sister’s tears on her face, and attempting awkwardly to pat her back with her left hand. “Hush, Kathy dear. How is Bruce?”

Kathy sat down on the edge of the bed; she clutched Alice’s left hand tightly. She sobbed with helplessness. “I don’t know! He woke up an hour ago, and I brought him his tray, and then he cried and couldn’t stop. I had to feed him like a baby, and then I had to rock him in the rocker until he fell asleep again. And Alicia! Do you know what he asked me to do? He asked me to find out how you were, just before he fell asleep, and he sent you his very best love!” Kathy wept again. “Doesn’t that break your heart?”

Alice leaned against her sister and closed her eyes, and the nausea was a great and swelling lump in her throat. “It’s all right,” she murmured thickly. “Please, Kathy dear, don’t cry so. It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”

It was very early the next morning when Mamie came into the bedroom with the breakfast tray for Alice. But Kathy was already bathed, and out of the room. She had promised Angelo to get him some of the red raspberries he particularly loved, and she had gone down to the village, “to get them early and sweet and fresh, before they’ve been handled by others.” Mark was still sleeping in exhaustion on his couch in the living room. Mamie put the tray beside Alice’s bed, and smiled at her encouragingly. “Want me to feed you, Miss Knowles? My, that was an awful day, yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“I can feed myself, thanks,” said Alice, with a grateful smile. “I’m ambidextrous, you know. That means I can use each hand equally well. Yes, it was a bad day.”

Mamie looked about the room cautiously. Then she tiptoed to the door, opened it and glanced at the sleeping Mark at the end of the living room. She came back to the bed and her pleasant face was stern.

“Mrs. Saint said you insisted you would leave this morning, and that Mr. Saint would drive you into the city,” she said. “And Mrs. Saint says that’s nonsense, with your cast and all, and you’ll be here for a week or more, until you can use your right arm.”

She paused. Alice shook her head, and drank the orange juice. “No, I must go back, I really must, just as soon as I’ve finished this good breakfast and can get dressed. Will you help me, Mamie?”

“You mean, you’ll leave before Mrs. Saint gets back?” The woman’s eyes were inscrutable. “She says she won’t be here until about lunchtime. She’s shopping in the village.”

“I’ll have to leave, I’m afraid,” said Alice, making her voice sound regretful. She could not stay here and see Angelo again. She asked about the boy. “Oh, he’s still asleep. Doped up.” At the curious sound in Mamie’s tone Alice looked up alertly. Mamie’s mouth had taken on a hard line. She began to whisper.

“They don’t fool me any, Miss Knowles. I can put two and two together. You know what I think? I think you were sitting on that fence and he pushed you over! He wanted to kill you!”