Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 41

Rosamond lay dreaming. She walked in a spring garden with Craig. The dark wood was a thing of the past, she didn’t seem to remember it any more. This was a spring garden. There were apple trees rosy with bloom, there was cherry blossom. The path where they walked was set on either side with daffodils and coloured primroses. There was a blue sky over head, and the sun shone. She woke to darkness and a voice that called her name.

“Rosamond! Wake up!”

It was Craig’s voice. The sweetness of the dream was still round her. She sat up beside Jenny in the wide old-fashioned bed and called softly,

“What is it?”

“It’s Craig. Come over here to the window. I want to speak to you.”

They kissed with the bars between them. He held her.

“Darling, I hate to wake you like this, but we’ve got to push the time on a bit.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you afterwards. Look here, it’s nearly six o’clock. I want you to wake Jenny and get dressed-both of you. If you’ll let me in by the side door, I’ll be getting you some tea. I don’t want to start our married life by starving you. I suppose there’ll be eggs?”

“There ought to be. But, Craig-”

“My sweet, there’s no time for any buts-you’ve just got to do what I say! Put on your dressing-gown and let me in, and I’ll wrestle up some food while you get packed.”

She did what she was told. It might have been part of the dream-darker than the one from which she had come and full of questioning thoughts. They did not pass her lips. There was a sense of urgency, of fear. If Lydia Crewe should wake-she shrank appalled at the threat of what scene would follow and of what the bitter tongue might say. The thoughts came and went. There was no time to dwell on them. The sense of urgency persisted. It was in Craig’s clasp and kiss when the garden door swung open to let him in. It was in the quiet haste with which he sent her back to dress as soon as she had shown him the way to the kitchen.

Jenny was awake when she got back, and the light was on. There sprang up in her a picture of Lydia Crewe standing at her window to look out and seeing that bright rectangle printed on the path. It was her custom to sleep with windows closed and curtains drawn, but in the picture Lydia stood at the window to watch the light from Rosamond’s room. She might have stood there to listen when Craig spoke from the other side of the bars. Rosamond did not know that Lydia Crewe would never stand at those windows to listen and watch again. She made haste to draw the curtains across her own.

Jenny was stretching and, yawning.

“Darling, it’s the middle of the night. Where have you been?”

Rosamond said soberly,

“It’s after six. Craig wants us to come with him now. Hurry up and get dressed! He’s making tea in the kitchen.”

Jenny stopped yawning to blow her a kiss. Her eyes sparkled, the sleep all gone from them.

“Ooh! Lovely! We mustn’t make any noise, must we? Suppose she heard us and came along snorting out fire and forbidding the bans!”

Rosamond was stepping into her clothes. She said briefly,

“We should go all the same-she couldn’t stop us. But hurry!”

As they turned from the side passage which served their room and Lydia Crewe’s, Jenny looked back. Words came tumbling out of her mouth in a whisper.

“What do you say when you are going away from a place you hate with all your might? It can’t be ‘Good-bye’ because that means ‘Good be with you,’ and it can’t be ‘Farewell.’ It had better be ‘Horrid, horrible place, I hope I shall never, never, NEVER see you again!’ ” She caught at Rosamond’s arm. “Run, before it comes after us and pulls us back!”

Rosamond could feel that the hand was shaking. She steadied her own voice to say,

“I can’t run with two suit-cases. And there’s no need-no one will come after us.”

It was whilst she was saying it that she could feel for the first time that it was true. They crossed the hall. She had left one light burning there. It did very little with the darkness except to show how the shadows clung about the stairway, and how black was the upper landing and the mouth of every passage. Somewhere in the gloom above their heads the ancestral portraits watched them go. It was a relief to pass the baize door at the back of the hall and find bright lights beyond. Craig seemed to have switched on everything as he came to it.

He was fishing eggs out of a boiling saucepan as they came into the kitchen. There was a cloth spread on the table. Cups and saucers, butter and a loaf, stood ready. He called over his shoulder,

“Get out the salt and pepper, and the knives! Oh, and the milk-the kettle is just going to boil!”

It wasn’t romantic, but it was extremely reassuring. When the baize door fell to they had left the haunted shadows behind them. Kitchens don’t have ghosts. Or at least no more alarming ones than the lingering aroma of bygone meals. They ate and washed up what they had used. Mrs. Bolder would miss the eggs and know that the bread and the butter had been cut, but she wouldn’t be able to say that they had left their cups and plates for her to deal with.

It was striking seven when they let themselves out of the side door and walked down the drive to where Craig had left his car. It was a still, cold morning, and the darkness had begun to thin away.