Cold and shivering as I was I felt better. Ben was so convincing. I began to believe that if he decided what we must do was the best thing for us, it would be for everyone else too.
There was nothing I wanted more than to get away and forget.
He was talking coaxingly. “You see, Angel, how awful it would be for us and our families if it were known. I don’t know what they would do to us. They wouldn’t let us go off scot free. When people are killed there is always trouble. But we mustn’t stay here. What are we going to do? You’re wet through … and so am I. We can’t say we’ve been in the pool. We’ll have to say we were wet through by the sea. Look. It happened this way: You were galloping along the beach. You know how you like to do that. Glory stumbled over a boulder and threw you. You were close to the sea and the waves washed over you. You hurt yourself on a rock. That will account for the blood. You just went over Glory’s head. You lost consciousness for a few seconds. Thank goodness I was with you. That’s how it will have to be. Can you do it?”
“Yes, Ben, I think I can.”
“Then let’s get away from here. The sooner the better.”
He took my hand. I was still trembling.
“You’d better not ride,” he said. “We’ll get you up on Glory and I’ll walk you home.”
He was right. I realized I could not have ridden. There were times when it seemed as though the earth were coming up to meet me and I was shaking all over.
Ben murmured soothingly to me as we walked along. “The thing is not to talk too much about it. Make yourself believe it happened the way we said it did. You can come to believe it. …”
“I’ll never forget it … the way he looked at me. Oh, Ben, it was so horrible.”
“You’ve got to forget it. It doesn’t do any good to go on remembering that sort of thing. We did the best possible thing … the only possible thing … and now we’ve got to forget it and make our story the real one. When the truth is too distressing to contemplate it’s not a bad idea to substitute it with fancy.”
“You’ll be there to help, Ben?”
“I’ll be there.”
“I think I can do it then.”
“Angel,” he said, “you know I love you.”
“Oh really, Ben? I love you, too.”
“When I think of that man … and you … dear innocent Angel … I’m glad I did it.”
“I wish someone else had. I wish he had never escaped out here.”
“It’s no use wishing it away. It won’t go that way. It’s our secret and, dear Angel, you will be all right. It will be better as time passes.”
“I feel very strange, Ben. Everything seems far off.”
“It will be all right.”
He held me firmly. I was hardly aware of the road as we traveled along.
I vaguely remember my mother as she rushed out crying: “What is it? What’s happened?” And Ben replying: “Angelet’s had an accident. Glory threw her.”
“My darling child!”
I was so relieved because my mother was there.
My father came running out, fearful and horrified to see the state I was in.
“We’ll get her to bed quickly,” said my mother. “She’s had an accident … riding.”
“Riding? Riding Glory?”
“I don’t think she’s in a fit state to talk,” said Ben.
My mother took me up to my room. She took off my coat and for a second or two studied it in consternation, and putting my hand in the pocket of my skirt, I felt the ring I had picked up.
“What’s that?” asked my mother.
“Oh … nothing … something I picked up.”
“Never mind that now,” said my mother, and I opened a drawer and put the ring into it, vaguely wondering why I had bothered to pick it up except that I had always been interested in things I found and did it automatically.
“We’ll soon have you comfortable,” said my mother. “You’re soaked to the skin. We’ll get you out of just everything.”
She wrapped me in a blanket and put me into bed. I still could not stop trembling.
“Your father has sent one of the men to get Dr. Barrow,” said my mother.
“I’ll be all right.”
“The doctor is going to have a look at you. You never know when you have a fall like that. I don’t think anything can be broken.”
I lay in my bed. My mother sat beside me and in due course the doctor came.
He examined my head. There was now a vivid bruise on my cheek. “Did you fall on your face?” he asked.
“I … I can’t remember. It is all so confusing.”
“Hm,” he said. “Open your mouth. You’ve bitten yourself, I think. You must have done that as you fell. You’ve got some good bruises.”
I was terrified that what he discovered would not fit in with our story.
“On the beach …” he murmured, looking puzzled.
“I can’t remember much about it. Suddenly I was down …”
He nodded and turned to my mother. “Might be a little concussion. It’s a good thing she fell on soft sand. It’s the shock more than anything else. Keep her warm and I’ll give her a sedative that will ensure a good night’s sleep. Then tomorrow we’ll see.”
A good night’s sleep! I thought: I shall never sleep peacefully again. I shall dream of that awful moment when he had his hands on me … and when he fell down … the trail of blood as we dragged him to the pool … and that moment before he went down when he seemed to stare at me with his dead eyes and the water was pink with his blood.
I knew I could never forget and nothing would ever be the same again.
I did sleep deeply, due to what Dr. Barrow had given me, and when I awoke next morning my head was heavy. I felt dizzy and very hot. Memory came back to me and hung over me like a stifling cloak. I just wanted to get back to blissful forgetfulness.
My mother was alarmed when she saw me and Dr. Barrow was immediately summoned.
It was a blessing in a way. It saved me from too many questions and I believe that if I had had to face them while the incident was fresh in everyone’s mind, I might not have been able to support our story.
I had a cold which, during the next few days, developed into bronchitis and then pneumonia. I was very ill and there was a possibility that I might not recover. I lived through the days in hazy dreams. For a lot of the time I was floating in a strange world. I was not sure where I was. I would see my mother’s face watching me so tenderly that I felt I must get well. Then I would be back at the pool. I would see that face floating on the water and I would cry out “No, no.” Then I would hear my mother’s voice: “It’s all right, darling. I’m here. Everything is all right.”
There was a great deal of activity in the room. Through the haze of unreality I saw Grace Gilmore. She seemed to be there often. Ben came to see me. I was aware of him as he was standing by my bed; and I thought we were at the pool together. I started up.
I heard my mother say: “I don’t think she should have visitors … yet.”
Then they were talking about the crisis. There were many people in the room … faces which swam vaguely before me … voices which came from a long way off. My mother was trying to smile, but I knew she was crying and I thought: I am dying.
And then the fever had gone and everyone was smiling and my mother was bending over the bed and saying: “How are you feeling, darling? You are better. You will soon be well.”
I was like a new person—not a child any more. I had grown up. The world in which I had complacently lived before that day at the pool had evaporated. It was a different place now—a world in which terrible things could happen. The fears of the past had been shadowy … something one only half believed; they were for other people; not for me. I had my parents, my secure home, and nothing could harm me. Ghosts and witches, cruelty and horror, pain and murder, that might happen to other people, but not to me and those around me. They were something to talk about, to frighten oneself about … but with the delicious fear of childhood … when you terrified yourself knowing that mother was close behind and you could run to hide yourself in her skirts and the bogey would go away.