Lonesome Road

Chapter Thirty-four

It’s pretty thick ahead,” said Gale Brandon. “How much farther is it?”

“I think that last village was Milstread. We ought to have asked. Everything looks different in a fog,” said Rachel doubtfully.

“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.