The fallen snow had frozen, and formed a glittering skin on the road ahead, upon which a new layer of snow was being deposited as the storm intensified. Its beauty was his to appreciate, and his alone. The people of Burnt Yarley were at home tonight, beside their fires, their cattle gathered into sheds end byres, their chickens fed and locked up in their coops for the night.
The mounting blizzard soon turned the scene ahead of him into a white blur, but he had sufficient wits about him to watch for the place in the hedge where he'd previously gained access to the field, and, spotting it, dug his way through. The Courthouse was not visible, of course, but he knew that if he trudged directly across the meadow he'd reach its steps in due course. It was harder going than the road, and his body, for all his determination, was showing signs of surrender. His limbs felt jittery, and the urge to sink down in the snow for a while and rest grew stronger with every step. But he saw the Courthouse now, coming out of the blizzard. Jubilant, he wiped the snow from his numbed face, so that the blaze in him - in his eyes, in his skin - would be readily seen. Then he started up the steps. Only when he reached the top did he realize that Jacob was in the doorway, silhouetted against a fire burning in the vestibule. This was not a piffling blaze like the one Will had fed: it was a bonfire. And he did not doubt for a moment it had living fuel. He could not see what, exactly, nor did he much care. It was his idol he wanted to see, and be seen by. More than seen, embraced. But Jacob did not move, and a terror came upon Will that he'd misunderstood everything; that he was no more wanted here than at the house he'd left. He stopped one step short of the top, and waited for judgment. It did not come. He was not even certain Jacob had even seen him.
And then, out of the shadowed face, a soft, raw voice.
'I came out here without even knowing why. Now I see.'
Will dared a syllable. 'Me?'
Jacob nodded. 'I was looking for you,' he said, and opened his arms.
Will would have gone into them happily, but his body was too weak to get him there. As he climbed the final step he stumbled, his outstretched hands moving too slowly to protect his head from striking the cold stone. He heard Jacob let out a little shout as he fell, then the sound of the man's boots crunching on the frost as he came to help.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
Will thought he answered, but he wasn't certain. He felt Steep's arms beneath him, however, lifting him up, and the warmth of the man's breath on his frozen face. I'm home, he thought; and passed out.
CHAPTER VI
i
Thursday's evening meal in the Cunningham house was in winter a hearty lamb stew, mashed potatoes and buttered carrots, preceded always by the prayer that the family recited before every meaclass="underline" 'For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.' There was very little talk around the table tonight, but that was not unusuaclass="underline" George Cunningham was a great believer in things having their proper time and place. The dinner table was for dining, not for talking. There was only one exchange of any length, which took place when George, observing Frannie toying with her food, told her sharply to eat up.
'I'm not really hungry,' Frannie replied.
'Are you sickening for something?' he said. 'I wouldn't be surprised after yesterday.'
'George,' his wife said, casting a fretful glance at Sherwood, who was also not showing much of an appetite.
'Well look at the pair of you,' George said, his tone warming. 'You look like a pair of drowned pups, you do.' He patted his daughter's hand. 'A mistake's a mistake, and you made one, but that's the end of it as far as your Mum and I are concerned. As long as you learned your lesson. Now you eat up. And give your Dad a smile.' Frannie tried. 'Is that the best you can do?' her father chuckled. 'Well, you'll brighten up after a good night's sleep. Have you got a lot of homework?'
'A bit.'
'You go up and do it, then. Your Mum and Sherwood'll take care of the dishes.'
Grateful to be away from the table, Frannie took herself upstairs, fully intending to prepare for the history test that was looming, but the book before her was as incomprehensible as Jacob's journal, and a good deal less intriguing. At last she gave up on the life of Anne Boleyn, and guiltily pulled the journal out of its hiding place to puzzle over it afresh. She had scarcely opened it, however, when she heard the telephone ring and her mother, having talked for a few moments, called her to the landing. She slid the journal out of sight beneath her study books and went to the top of the stairs.
'It's Will's father on the phone,' her mother said.
'What does he want?' Frannie said, knowing full well.
'Will's disappeared,' her mother said. 'Do you know where he might have gone?'
Frannie gave herself a few moments to think it over. While she did so she heard the gale bringing snow against the landing window, and thought of Will out there somewhere, in the freezing cold. She knew exactly where he'd go, of course, but she'd made a promise to him, and intended to keep it.
'I don't know,' she said.
'He didn't say where he was when he telephoned?' her mother asked.
'No,' she said, without hesitation.
This news was duly communicated to Will's father, and Frannie took herself back to her bedroom. But she could no longer concentrate on study, legitimate or no. Her thoughts returned over and over again to Will, who had made her a co-conspirator in his escape plans. If any harm came to him she would be in some measure responsible; or at least she'd feel that way, which would amount to the same thing. The temptation to confess what little she knew, and be relieved of its weight, was almost overwhelming. But a promise was a promise. Will had made his decision: he wanted to be out in the world somewhere, far from here, and wasn't there a part of her that envied him the ease of his going? She would never have that ease, she knew, as long as Sherwood was alive. When her parents were old or dead, he would need someone to watch over him, and -just as she had promised him - that someone would have to be her.
She went to the window and cleared a place on the fogged glass with the heel of her hand. Snow blazed through the light from the streetlamp, like flakes of white fire, driven by the wind that whined in the telephone wires and rattled around the eaves. She'd heard her father say fully a month before that the farmers at The Plough were warning that the winter would be cruel. Tonight was the first proof of their prophecies. Not the cleverest time to run away, she thought, but the deed was done. Will was out there in the blizzard somewhere. He'd made his choice. She only hoped the consequences weren't fatal.
ii
In his narrow bed in the narrow room beside Frannie's, Sherwood lay wide awake. It wasn't the storm that kept sleep from coming. It was pictures of Rosa McGee: bright flickering pictures that made everything he'd ever seen in his head before look like black and white. Several times tonight it felt as if she was right there in the room with him, the memory of her was so overpowering. He could see her clearly, her titties shiny-wet with his spit. And though she'd scared him at the end, raising her skirt
that way, it was that moment he replayed more often than any other, hoping each time to extend her motion by a few seconds, so that this time the dress would rise up to her bellybutton and he would get to see what she'd been wanting to show him. He had several impressions of what it was: a kind of lop-sided mouth; a patch of hair (perhaps greenish, like a little bush), a simple round hole. Whatever form it took, however, it was wet; of that he was certain, and sometimes he thought he saw drops of that wetness running down the insides of her thighs.