“And if it was Milstead?”
“Then it’s about three miles on.”
“I’d like to make it before the last of the light goes.”
“It’s pretty well gone as it is. It’s nearly four o’clock.”
He looked round at her for a moment.
“What’s the hurry, honey?”
Everything in Rachel protested. Words rushed to her tongue.
“There isn’t any hurry-there can’t be. It was you who said there was, because of the light.”
His eyes went back to the road again.
“I know-I said it all right. But do you think I haven’t felt you sitting here beside me trying to push the car? Even when we were doing fifty I could feel you pushing. A hundred wouldn’t have been fast enough for you. What’s in your mind, Rachel?”
She struck her hands together.
“Nothing-nothing-I just want to get there.”
Gale Brandon frowned.
“There’s no need to tell me if you don’t want to, but we’ve got too close for me not to know when you’re frightened-and that’s what you are right now.”
Physically, they were so near that he felt her shudder. She said quickly,
“Do you believe that? Do you think that what is in someone else’s mind can reach one? Because that-that’s what is frightening me.”
“Then you’d better tell me about it,” said Gale Brandon. “You’ll do better if you don’t have secrets from me, because I shall always know when you’ve got them, and I shall always find out what they are, so it’ll save a heap of trouble if you tell me right away. Now-what is it?”
She slipped a hand inside his arm.
“When we were going to London and I said ‘Stop!’ I told you I didn’t know why I said it, and that was true. Something made me, and I didn’t know what it was. But I know now. Just before I came away from Whincliff Edge Miss Silver asked me if there wasn’t anywhere else that Caroline might be. We’d been talking about her going to London to Cosmo’s flat, and she asked if there wasn’t anywhere else. I told her about Pewitt’s Corner, and when she said what everyone always does say ‘What an odd name!’ I told her about the house being built over an old well, and about Pewitt’s being a corruption of puits. And I told her Caroline couldn’t bear the place and I didn’t think she’d go there. She always did so hate the thought of that well under the scullery floor. There’s a lid of course, but she hated it all the same, and I made sure she wouldn’t go there. But-oh, Gale, it was the well that made me say ‘Stop!’ ” Her hand closed desperately on his arm.
“Yes, honey? Go on. You thought about the well?”
She pressed against him.
“I didn’t know it was the well. Something frightened me and made me say ‘Stop!’ Afterwards, when you had turned the car, I knew that it was the well, I remembered she was afraid of it, and sometimes-when you’re afraid of something-Gale, do you think it was because Caroline was thinking about the well that I thought of it?”
It was out. She sat empty and shaking, with the horror put into words.
His left arm came round her.
“You’re just frightening yourself. Why should she think about the well?”
Her voice came to him, hesitating and stumbling.
“I-don’t know-it-came to me. I didn’t frighten myself-it frightened me. Why should I have thought about the well-suddenly-like that-unless someone- someone else-was thinking about it? And-and Caroline- the well-it always frightened her.”
She was held in a strong clasp.
“That doesn’t sound like sense to me.”
“It’s not sense,” said Rachel desperately. “The things that have been happening aren’t sense at all. They’re like the things in a bad dream-they’re nonsense. But oh, Gale, they’re horrible nonsense-wicked, horrible nonsense.”
“Steady, Rachel! You’ve got to keep to sense, and so have I. Do we go straight on here, or is there a turn?”
“We keep straight on. If that was the turn to Linford, we’re nearly there-another two miles at most.”
“That’s better. Does your cousin come down here much?”
“Cosmo? He lives here most of the summer. He hasn’t been down since the end of September. He doesn’t care about it in the winter.”
“And Caroline?”
“She doesn’t care about it at all.”
“Then I don’t see-”
She steadied her voice carefully.
“She-she’s in bad trouble. I don’t know what it is. That’s my fault-I ought to have made it my business to know. I didn’t like to interfere between her and Richard, but I oughtn’t to have let it go on-so long. Only-” she stopped and looked round at him in a bewildered way- “it-it isn’t really so long, you know. It isn’t really long at all-it’s just that this week has seemed like a year.”
“Well, it’s nearly over now, honey,” said Gale Brandon.
Chapter Thirty-five
The car came to a standstill with the fog thick about it and the last of the light no more than a memory.
“Did you say this was a corner?” said Gale. “Because it’s asking for trouble to leave the car on a corner in this fog. The first thing anyone would know about the lights is where they’d hit them.”
“Yes, it’s a corner. If you turn up the lane, there’s a gate into a field. You can run the car in there.”
It was easier said than done. Astonishingly difficult to find the gate and, when found, to back the car in. A narrow lane; deep ruts; a bramble that scratched her cheek; a smell of straw and cows; the glare of an electric torch reflected back from an impenetrable wall of fog but shining suddenly right into Gale’s eyes as he blundered into her-these things made up Rachel’s picture of the next few minutes. Gale’s eyes-startling and strange to see them like that-looking out of the dark, looking for her.
When the car was in the field, they linked arms and began a search for the wicket gate which led to the house. The ruts were really deep. There was a ditch on one side of the lane, and a holly hedge on the other. They groped their way by the hedge, and found it a safe but uncomfortable guide. At last the gate clicked and let them in upon a paved stone path with rose bushes, wild and unpruned, all their summer growth upon them to fling a spray of damp against the cheek or catch at the groping hand. Rachel discovered that you may know a place quite well and yet feel lost in a fog like this. She knew that they must skirt the house, but they blundered into soft earth on the one hand and a very hard wall on the other before they succeeded in doing it. The torch was extraordinarily little help. It showed the path and nothing much besides, but when they had felt for and found the tool-shed it did pick out the key for them, hanging from a nail in the wall, all rusty-a big, old-fashioned key on a loop of tarry string.
The back door next, and a good deal of fumbling to get the key into the lock. And all the time Rachel keeping back her own fear with the insistent thought, “There’s nobody here. No car. No light. No sound. No anything.” The key went home, and turned easily enough for all its rusty look. The door swung in. Rachel put out her hand for the torch, missed it in the dark, and heard it drop between them on the flagged step. She said “Oh!” on a quick breath, and Gale exclaimed. Their hands met, and she left the picking up to him. But the torch might just as well have been left lying on the step, since prod, poke or push as he would, Gale Brandon could get no spark out of it.
“If I was a smoker, I’d have matches,” he said ruefully. “I’ve never fancied it somehow, but here’s where it would have come in useful.”
“There’ll be matches on the dresser,” said Rachel- “and a candle. Stay where you are and I’ll find them. I know just where they are.” She took a step from the door and stopped, hands stretched out before her, eyes straining against the dark, ears straining too. But there was no need to strain for the sound which had stopped her. It filled the empty room-the homeliest, most comfortable sound in the world, the ticking of a clock.