The Stepson (25 page)

Before long her footsteps came shuffling back. Ben, quick and impatient, jumped up from his chair and went to the door. ‘Well?' he asked, and David heard Mrs. Jobson's voice reply:

‘She's not there.'

‘Humph!' There was a silence. Ben seemed to be considering. Then his voice was heard again: ‘Well, I suppose she'll be in soon.' He came back into the parlour and closed the door, shutting Mrs. Jobson out. His face was drawn and anxious.

‘Now look here, David,' he said sternly, going up to his son, ‘there's something going on I don't understand. Now what is it?'

David's face flushed again beneath its sunburn, but his eyes looked straight into his father's. ‘I can't tell you, Dad. All I know is that Kate and I had a … well, not exactly a quarrel but a kind of difference
after dinner. It wasn't my fault. I know nothing more.'

‘What was the quarrel about?' asked Ben sharply.

David hesitated. ‘I — I can't tell you, Dad,' he stammered. ‘You must ask her.'

‘But damn it, boy, you've got to tell me. I must know.' He brought his fist down on the table. His lips had narrowed and his eyes shone hot and blue.

But David looked at him squarely. ‘I can't tell you, Dad,' he repeated. ‘It wouldn't be fair on Kate. It's her business, not mine.'

For a moment Ben stood silent, staring at the window. Then he turned again to his son. ‘Tell me this,' he said, controlling his anger. ‘Have you any idea where she's likely to be now?'

‘None at all,' answered David. ‘I never thought but to find her here when we came in; and that's the truth, Dad.'

Ben turned to the door. ‘Well, I must go and find her,' he said.

‘I'll come, too,' said David, rising to follow him.

The old man stopped and turned round. For a moment it seemed that he was on the point of forbidding it. Then he changed his mind, it seemed. ‘Come on, then,' he said with a sigh, grasping the handle of the door….

It was nearly midnight when Ben and David returned. They had found no traces of Kate and, realizing at last that it was useless to wander about
any longer, they had given up the search till daylight returned. Mrs. Jobson met them, pale-faced and with a hopeless inquiry in her eyes. Ben shook his head. ‘Nothing!' he said, and then, stopping and turning to David and Mrs. Jobson, he added: ‘You two had better go to bed. I shall sit up.'

He walked heavy-footed down the passage and disappeared into the parlour, shutting the door behind him. Going over to the hearth, he sank heavily into his arm-chair, but after sitting motionless for a few minutes he stirred himself fretfully and shivered. Then he rose from his chair and raked out the fire, threw two large logs on it, and returned stiffly to his chair; and as the minutes mounted to hours, and hour by hour crept slowly by, he sat, his blue eyes staring straight in front of him, waiting for Kate's return. He felt tired and old and full of vague doubts. The burning of the barn had saddened him and shaken his nerves, and the strange disappearance of his wife, added to this disaster, made him feel for the first time in his life daunted. It seemed to him, as he sat stubbornly by the hearth, his white head nodding from time to time under the weight of his weariness, that the old ease and security of life were slipping away from him. He recalled, like a half-forgotten dream, the elusiveness of his former wife, Rachel; the feeling that she might at any moment vanish and leave him solitary. Kate, too, had been elusive, holding herself aloof from him,
never wholly giving herself to him and latterly withdrawing herself still further. Now even her bodily presence had been withdrawn. Could it be that this last of all the women he had loved was gone, never to return, and that he would be left to end his days in solitude, sleeping alone in the great red-curtained bed upstairs? He imagined himself lying there dead, his eyes closed and his mouth fallen in. After all, it could not be very long before that fancy became a reality. And even if he were to live on for a few years, his life would be over. For if Kate were to leave him, even if in time he were to grow accustomed to the loss of her, he would never escape from the disgrace. Never again would he be able to face his friends in Elchester on market-days, he who had been known as the Squire and envied by many for his irresistible way with the women. What a laugh there would be when it became known that this new young wife of his, about whom they had chaffed and congratulated him, had run away and left him. ‘Run away and left him!' The phrase brought him back to the desolating uncertainty of what had happened to Kate, and an almost unbearable fretfulness and impatience assailed him. If only the uncertainty were at an end; if only she would walk in, explaining that she had been over to Penridge to see her father and found him ill! He was too upset, too tired, to endure it any longer. But what else could he do? There was no alternative. With a deep sigh he rose from his
chair and filled a pipe, and he sat for an hour with the pipe in his mouth, not noticing that he had forgotten to light it….

When Ben, asleep in his chair, awoke to find Mrs. Jobson setting down a lamp on the table, it seemed to him that it must still be some hour of the interminable night. But it was morning — ten past six, Mrs. Jobson told him, and Kate had not returned. He had an early breakfast alone and then went out into the wintry morning twilight and roamed aimlessly about the farm.

Coming in an hour later, he found David in the parlour. At the sight of his son the thought of his strange discovery on the previous day, when he had found David leaving Kate in tears, flashed into his mind again and he eyed the boy grimly. He was irritated and thwarted by David's refusal to explain what had happened and vague suspicions troubled his mind. ‘You've heard,' he said sternly, ‘that Kate has not come back?'

David nodded. ‘Yes, Dad,' he said.

‘David,' - the old man stood before him, fixing him with his keen blue eyes - ‘you've got to tell me what you and Kate quarrelled about. In the state things are in it's only right I should know.'

David drew a long breath. ‘But if I were to tell you, Dad, it would do no good.'

The old man leaned forward and beat his hand softly and tensely on the table as he spoke. ‘It's for
me, not you, to judge whether it will do good or not. Anyhow, I must know.'

But David was as stubborn as his father. ‘You've got to believe me, Dad,' he said, ‘when I say that if I were to tell you, it would not only do no good, it would do a lot of harm - harm to Kate and harm to you.'

David's words only exasperated the old man the more. There was, he began to see, something ugly about this secret which his son was so determined to keep from him. His features sharpened; his eyes and the stretched red skin of his cheeks shone in the light from the window.

‘Now look here, David,' he said with suppressed fierceness, ‘I'm your father and I'm going to be obeyed. Now, out with it! I want no more bother, please.'

David scowled and his face set stubbornly. ‘I'm not going to tell you,' he said, ‘so there's no good your going on at me.'

Ben stared at the boy, speechless, his eyes burning with the helpless ferocity of a caged beast. He could do nothing, and he knew it. Physically he was no match for the powerful young man who sat before him glowering sulkily at the table. He turned and went to the door. There he paused. ‘I'm going to ride over to Penridge to inquire there,' he said as he went out.

It was not till late on the following afternoon that Kate returned. Ben's ride to Penridge had been fruitless. Kate had not been to the Schoolhouse. After dinner he had driven into Elchester, and David during the day had ridden to inquire at the neighbouring farms; but nobody had seen anything of Kate.

Towards four o'clock Mrs. Jobson was in the kitchen when she heard the gig drive into the yard. Although she had no hope that Ben Humphrey would have heard anything of Kate in Elchester, she looked up as the gig came into view. Ben was alone in it, and one glance at his face was enough to prove that he had heard nothing. Mrs. Jobson saw him pull up, get down from the gig, and begin to take out the mare. When she looked up again he was leading the mare into the stable.

At that moment someone flashed past the window and she heard quick steps in the passage. The boy Peter came into the kitchen. His gay, ruddy face was so changed that he looked like another creature. He was breathless and spoke in a hurried whisper.

‘George says will you open the front door,' he panted. ‘We've found her. We've brought her into the front garden so as not to meet the Master or Mr. David.' His lip trembled. ‘I saw the Master go into the stable just now; he won't come in for
a minute or two yet. There'll be time to get her in.'

‘Run on and unbolt the front door,' said Mrs. Jobson, waddling hurriedly down the passage. The boy ran ahead and she heard him wrenching at the stiff bolts. There was the sharp snap of a turned key and, as she reached the door, Peter opened it.

In the garden, on the grass plot to the right of the path, two men were bending over something, and next moment they rose upright and began to carry the body in. One of them had laid a coloured handkerchief over the face.

‘Bring her in as quick as you can,' said Mrs. Jobson. ‘The Master'll be in any minute.'

‘Where shall we take her?' asked George. ‘You couldn't lay her on a bed yet; all her clothes are soaking.'

‘Bring her to the parlour,' said Mrs. Jobson. ‘I'll go and make it ready'; and she hurried on ahead and set three of the parlour chairs together so as to make an improvised bier. The two men's footsteps shuffled down the short stone-flagged passage. Drippings from the limp burden between them wrote dark dotted lines and arabesques on the whitened stone floor. Mrs. Jobson stood waiting for them in the doorway of the parlour. Her face was white and perfectly calm. It was as if this strange return of Kate had neither surprised nor shocked her, as if she were merely facing and enduring
a thing which, from the moment when Kate was missing, she had foreseen. Even since then, Kate's face, as she had seen it in that brief glimpse when she had rushed past her on the stairs, had remained stamped on her memory. ‘Poor dear!' she thought to herself as she stood in the doorway. ‘There was death in her face.'

She pushed the parlour door open as wide as it would go. ‘I've put some chairs ready,' she said.

But just as the men were going to carry Kate through the parlour door Mrs. Jobson turned her head sharply and held up her hand.

‘Listen!' she whispered. ‘That's him.'

She had heard footsteps entering the house from the yard.

‘Take her in,' she whispered. ‘I'll stop him for a moment.' She hurried past them down the passage and met Ben outside the kitchen door. ‘Come in here, Mr. Humphrey,' she said. ‘I want to speak to you.'

Ben stood for a moment and stared at her with his keen blue eyes. He saw the tragedy in her face and he had seen the shuffling figures, followed by Peter, carrying something into the parlour; and, as if grasping the meaning of these signs, he pushed past the old woman and made for the parlour.

Mrs. Jobson followed him. In the parlour they had just laid Kate on the row of chairs. Half-way between the door and the bier Ben stood still and
glanced at the two men. He looked hard, alert, and self-possessed as usual.

‘Where did you find her?' he asked coldly and sternly. ‘In the river?'

George nodded. ‘Yes, sir,' he said. ‘In the pool just beyond the first bend.'

Mrs. Jobson, standing behind Ben, signed to George, and he and the other man and Peter went out.

When they had gone it was as if they had left the room empty, for Ben still stood motionless and Mrs. Jobson behind him, as motionless as Kate herself on her bier. Then the old man stepped forward and stood gazing down at the soaked body, and Mrs. Jobson crept up and stood beside him. After a moment he stooped and, taking the coloured handkerchief that covered Kate's face by one corner, he turned it slowly back, and he and Mrs. Jobson gazed incredulously at the changed face below them. A strand of wet black hair was streaked over one of the eyes and Mrs. Jobson stooped, as though bending over a sleeping child, and tenderly put it back. Then with a glance at Ben she turned and softly went out of the room, leaving the door ajar so as to hear when he came out.

For a long time everything was quiet. Though she listened with all her ears, not a sound came from the parlour, and becoming anxious she crept down the passage and peeped into the room. Ben Humphrey
had sat down at the table. His arms were spread on the table and his head was bowed on his arms. The old woman crept back to the kitchen and it seemed to her that again an age passed without the smallest sound from the parlour. Then she heard the noise of a chair pushed violently back, as though Ben had risen to his feet with a sudden resolve, and next moment she recognized the familiar creak of the cupboard door. The cupboard was shut again and Ben's footsteps came resolutely down the passage towards the kitchen. He passed the kitchen door and Mrs. Jobson reached it in time to see him go out into the yard with his gun under his arm. It was a familiar sight, but now it terrified her. What was he going to do with a gun at such a time as this? Without a moment's hesitation she followed him.

It was already getting dusk, and she crept along as quickly and as quietly as she could, following him out of the farm-yard gate and across the grass to the right. There he stopped and stood watching, his gun held ready. Determined to see what he was after, she crept up a little closer to him. His attention was so sharply fixed that he did not notice her. His eyes were fastened on one of the sheds, the one opposite the charred ruins of the barn. It was the shed in which David kept his horse, and Mrs. Jobson could see that the door was open. A pail clanked inside the shed and something moved in the dark doorway, and in a flash of horrified realization she
knew what the old man was waiting for. She rushed at him, and at the some moment the gun went up to his shoulder. Then the silence was shattered by a violent report and she found herself struggling with Ben in the half-darkness. The gun fell to the ground as he turned upon her. Whether she had reached him before or after he had fired she did not know. All her attention had been concentrated in the one act of rushing at him and wrapping her arms round him. She clung to him with a fierce and desperate tenacity, but when he had dropped the gun he had succeeded in wrenching himself round in her grasp. For a few moments they struggled together. She instinctively felt that he was trying to fling her off and get at the fallen gun, and as she clung to him it crossed her mind that if she could heave him forward she might be able to set her foot on it. But now she became aware that it was not only she and Ben who were struggling. There was a third. And then, as if out of an uproar, she heard David's voice: ‘It's all right. Leave him to me, Mrs. J.'