But I had left all that behind now. I had come face to face with horror. I knew a little of what that man would have done to me before he killed me. The awful realization had come to me. It could have happened to me!
My mother would not let me look in the glass for some time, and when I did it was a stranger who looked back at me. Pale and thin, my eyes seeming bigger, but my hair … it was short like a boy’s.
My mother touched it gently. “It will soon grow. And look, it is wavy. We had to cut it off because of your fever.”
I could not stop looking at that face in the mirror. There were secrets there. Those were not the innocent eyes of childhood. They had looked on the fearful realities of life.
I felt older. My illness had changed me. While I had lain there in limbo, I had grown up. I knew now that what we did was the only thing we could have done. Ben had been right. He had killed a man but it was something which had had to be done; the man was a murderer; he would have committed more murders. It was not like killing an ordinary person.
But I had to stop going over it. I had to accept what was done. Ben had said I had to believe what we had said had happened and he was right.
I was feeling better. I was sitting up now.
My mother said: “Watson was down at the quay this morning and found this John Dory. He thought it would be just the thing to tempt you. Mrs. Penlock has done it in a special way. You’d better eat every scrap of it. You know what they are.”
I smiled. I cherished every aspect of normality, of the return to the old days.
I heard my mother whisper to my father: “Better not say anything about the accident. It seems to upset her.”
I was glad of that. I didn’t want to have to talk of it. I did not want to have to lie more than was necessary. That was a great help.
I learned that I had been very ill for three weeks.
“Jack has been so upset,” my mother told me. “He’s been wanting to bring you his train and you know that is his dearest possession. You should have seen the glum faces in the kitchen. Mrs. Penlock is full of ideas as to what she is going to give you to eat. She says she is going to ‘build you up’ as though you are some sort of edifice. You would be the size of a house if she could have her way. We’ve all been so worried … every one of us, and we are so happy now that you are getting well. But don’t think you are going to rush it. You’re going to spend another week in bed; and then we are going to take it very slowly.”
“I must have been very ill.”
She nodded, her lips trembling.
“You thought I was going to die.”
“Pneumonia is very serious … and there was a fever. You seemed to be so disturbed. But it is all over now.”
All over? I thought. It will never be all over. He will always be there … lying at the bottom of the pool.
I said: “How is Ben?”
“Oh, he has gone. He waited to see if you … he waited until he knew you were going to recover. He couldn’t go till then. Well, you know, he was only coming here for a month or so.”
“He didn’t come to say goodbye.”
“No. I didn’t want you to have visitors … and you seemed a little upset when he came.”
“Didn’t I speak to him?”
“No … not really. You muttered something we couldn’t understand … and I said that I thought too many people in the room was not good for you. He went back to London about a week ago. There is a lot to tell you when you are stronger.”
I was feeling a little better every day. Nothing had been discovered then.
How right Ben had been! It had happened. It was over, and we had to forget.
I was very weak and was surprised how tottery I felt when I got out of bed.
“It will take time,” said my mother.
She would sit with me during the afternoons. Sometimes she read to me; at others she sat at her sewing … and we talked.
It was some little time before I could bring myself to say: “Mama, I haven’t heard anything about … that man … that convict who escaped.”
“Oh him. That all died down. They never caught him.”
“What … what do they think happened to him?”
“They think he must have got out of the country.”
“Would he be able to do that?”
“Oh yes, it’s possible. I expect he had friends to help him. There was quite a little bit of news about his background. It was most extraordinary. He was apparently quite a well-educated young man. He had been tutor to a family not far from Bodmin, Launceston way. Crompton … I think was the place. How dreadful to think he had been in charge of children! I think his late employers must be feeling very grateful just now.”
“A tutor,” I murmured.
“Yes … to a young boy about your age. There was a little girl in the family, but I think she had a governess. There was quite a story about them. His employers were astounded. They had always thought so highly of him.”
“You don’t think he might have been … innocent?”
“Oh no … no. No question about that. He was caught red-handed as it were. It was some local village girl.”
I shivered.
“Apparently something suspicious had happened to him before … but it hadn’t been proved. That was a pity. If it had been, that poor girl’s life might have been saved.”
“And he escaped?”
“Yes. He had a knife. They don’t know how he managed to have that. They think it must have been cleverly smuggled in to him. He attacked a warder with it. The poor man was badly hurt and is now slowly recovering. He got keys from him and just calmly walked out of the jail. They traced him to Carradon … not very far from here. Then they lost the trail and he disappeared into the blue.”
Oh no, Mama, I wanted to say. Into the pool.
“It was a nine days’ wonder. I think it is something the authorities would rather forget. But the press won’t let them … not until people get tired of the case. They do of course get tired of reading about chases that go on and on and never get anywhere. It’s rarely mentioned now. They accept the fact that this was one who got away. I think it is almost certain that he left the country.”
There was no need to worry, I thought. He will never be found. Ben is right. We have to forget. We did nothing wrong. He was a man who was going to die in any case and we had made it easier for him.
My mother went on: “Grace has been wonderful. She is more than a seamstress. She is an educated girl. I always think it is hard for those who have been brought up in a genteel family suddenly to be confronted with the need to earn a living. She dressed my hair the other night. She has quite a flair for it. Not that I need a lady’s maid. But when we go to London I always feel I could do with one. And she was wonderful … so wonderful when you were ill.”
“She seems such a pleasant woman.”
“I am so glad we were able to help her. She is so very grateful and can’t do enough for me.”
“It has been a case of casting your bread upon the waters.”
“I am glad to see you remember your Bible,” said my mother, lightly planting a kiss on my forehead.
When Grace came to see me she told me how pleased she was by my recovery.
“Praise be to God, you are on the mend now.”
“Thank you for what you did. My mother said you were very helpful.”
“It was the least I could do after all your kindness to me. I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you have been getting a little better every day.”