The Black Mountains Read online

  Rosa’s eyes, dark as sloes, held his with tantalizing directness.

  “If you don’t tell her, she won’t know.”

  “Why do you keep following me everywhere?” he asked furiously. She ignored his question, countering with one of her own.

  “Are you looking for Nipper?”

  He nodded, blinking at the tears that were threatening again. “I’m afraid he might be stuck somewhere,” he said roughly. “Mam thinks he’s gone off after a bitch, but I’m not so sure.”

  Unwavering, her black eyes held his.

  “I could help you, Ted.”

  “Oh yes, and how? You don’t even like Nipper.”

  “I like him better than I did. He’s all right. And you want him back, don’t you?”

  He swallowed. Slowly he was regaining control of himself.

  “Course I do. But what can you do that I haven’t?”

  “I can do anything. I told you, I’m a witch.”

  He laughed, an explosion of humourless mirth. That was the second time she’d said that. It was a pretty strange thing to have in her head—but then, Rosa was a strange girl.

  “A witch, eh? Oh, Rosa!” he jeered.

  The smile left her eyes and her expression became intense.

  “Don’t you laugh at me, Ted, or I won’t do it!”

  “Do what?”

  “Get Nipper back for you.”

  He almost said scornfully, “As if you could!” But for some reason he did not. He damped his teeth over the words, desperately groping for the straw she was offering him. A moment ago he had thought it was hopeless, and so it was. But supposing there was something in what Rosa said … She wasn’t a witch, that was nonsense, but there was something about her that was different from other folk …

  She smiled, looking suddenly older than her eleven years.

  “Go on home,” she said. “Don’t worry no more.”

  He went, glad to get away from the scrutiny of her gaze, and ashamed still that she had seen him cry. When Charlotte asked if he’d had any luck, he simply shook his head, but said nothing about Rosa. He was already full of scorn for himself for even thinking there was anything she could do. But deep down, there was a spark of renewed hope that he could not explain.

  Another day passed, and a night, and the hope began to fade. Nipper had gone, and there was nothing that anyone could do.

  Then, on the morning of the fifth day, he was awakened by sounds coming from beneath the bedroom window. For a moment he lay thinking he was still dreaming, then he identified the sounds as scratching and a thin, intermittent whining.

  He leapt out of bed and rushed to the window pushing up the sash far enough to lean out. And there, below him on the cobbles, was Nipper.

  Joy exploded through his veins, and without stopping to close the window he dashed across the bedroom and clattered down the stairs. The latch was still on the back door; he thought it would never open. But it did, and the dog came bounding into the kitchen, leaping at Ted with the last of his strength. He looked poor and bedraggled, thinner than ever, and half the hair had gone from his back. But he was here.

  “You’re starving, boy!” Ted said, when he could bring himself to stop fondling him. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

  Each day since Nipper had gone he had saved him a plate of bones and scraps, throwing out the stale ones and replacing them with fresh. But even if he had not done so, he would willingly have parted with his own breakfast at that moment for the dog.

  “Well, well, he’s back then!” Charlotte said, coming into the scullery to get the breakfast pans. “Looks as if he’s been fighting over a bitch, like I said.”

  Ted nodded, and said nothing. She could be right, of course. There was dried blood on his face and on his back. But privately he could not help thinking that Nipper’s injuries could have been caused as he tried to struggle out of a fox-hole or from the enmeshing roots of a tree. Of course it was nonsense to suppose that Rosa had had anything to do with the dog’s return—and yet …

  When he took Nipper over to the wash-house to bathe his sores, he glanced at the upper windows of the Clements’s house and saw Rosa looking out. Triumphantly he held the dog up for her to see. But she only smiled, slowly, enigmatically, then turned away. And Ted, too happy to puzzle for long about things he did not understand, only shrugged and turned his attention to Nipper’s sore back.

  CHARLOTTE was as delighted over Nipper’s return as Ted, although she hid her feelings behind a smoke-screen of impatience.

  With all the everyday ups and downs of a family, it didn’t do to attach too much importance to one particular incident, but she had missed Nipper, and missed him mostly for the things that usually made her consider him a nuisance, like having to keep the dinner plates out of his reach when she was dishing up.

  She had been worried, too, about the effect of his disappearance on Ted. He was usually so happy-go-lucky he drove her crazy. But where the dog was concerned, it was a different story—as if all the love he had never bothered to show for anything else was centred on this one creature. The intensity of his despair had almost frightened Charlotte, making her see him in a new light, and now she said a prayer of thankfulness as she watched him fussing over the dog’s sore patches, his face glowing as it had not been since Nipper’s disappearance.

  Yet later in the morning, as she went down the hill to the Rectory to do her daily cleaning stint, Charlotte was still aware of an indefinable knot of disquiet deep within her.

  Perhaps it was that she couldn’t believe the dog had returned. It certainly could not be anything else. James and the boys were at the pit, but there was nothing new in that. Amy and Jack had both broken up from school for the long summer holiday and were at home to keep an eye on Harry. So why did she feel that something dreadful was going to happen? Yet she did—and the feeling persisted as she went about her work: scrubbing the flagstoned passages in the Rectory, cleaning the mats with the newfangled carpet sweeper Caroline Archer had provided.

  The only other possibility was that it had something to do with a remark Mrs Archer had made yesterday, a nasty, sly comment that Jack was doing exceptionally well at school considering the status of his parents. On the one hand, it had made her go hot with indignation, but as it had been cunningly phrased as a compliment rather than an insult, it was difficult to know how to take it. Perhaps Mrs Archer did know what she had said to the Rector in the study that day a year ago, and was no longer able to resist letting Charlotte know.

  It had bothered her at the time, and it still did so, yet the foreboding she was feeling was different somehow, even more insistent and chilling.

  She had to wait to clean the Rector’s study that morning as she usually did. It was her least favourite job, for the desk was always lost under piles of papers, and the carpet around the fire grate was full of burn holes from the bits of coal that rolled on to it unheeded when the Rector lit a fire in winter.

  Now, while she waited for the Rector to vacate the room, she took the pad of water she had used for the hall to the front door, sloshing it over the step and brushing it well down into the peony bushes. Then she took the polish, working away on the bootscrapers until her arm ached.

  While she was doing this, a movement by the gates caught her eye. She looked up casually, then stiffened. It was Jack, coming up the drive! But what was he doing here?

  At once, the sense of foreboding returned, thickened to a choking apprehension. She straightened up, still holding the polish and cloth. At the same moment, he saw her and began to run, and as he drew closer she saw that his face was the colour of putty.

  “Jack, whatever’s the matter?” she asked harshly.

  For a moment he looked at her helplessly, without speaking, his breath ragged, tears glistening in his eyes.

  “Jack!” she said again, a note of panic creeping into her voice as a dozen nightmarish fears flashed through her mind.

  “Oh, Mam, can you come home?” he gasped at la
st. “Amy’s fallen in the tub.”

  “The tub?” Charlotte repeated. “What tub? What are you talking about?”

  “The Clements’s tub, the one they bathe the baby in. It was boiling water. Oh, Mam, it’s awful … awful …”

  Automatically she put a steadying hand on his arm though she had begun to shake from head to foot.

  “You mean she’s scalded?”

  Jack bowed his head, nodding with his face screwed up against the tears. But he could not answer.

  “All right, I’ll come.” She was untying her pinafore as she spoke. “Now you go round to the back and get my bag and coat—you know where I put them. I’ll tell the Rector I’m going.”

  He ran off around the side of the house, glad to have Charlotte to tell him what to do. She went back into the hall and knocked on the door of the Rector’s study, not waiting for an answer, but opening the door and looking in.

  “I won’t be long now, Mrs Hall,” he began, then, as he saw her face, his irritation changed to concern. “ What is it, my dear woman, is something wrong?”

  She nodded, tight-lipped. “I won’t be able to finish, Rector. I’ve got to go. Amy’s had some sort of accident. Jack’s come to fetch me.”

  “Oh yes, yes, of course. It’s not bad, I hope?”

  She half-closed her eyes against the word, then recovered herself.

  “I don’t know, Rector. I think it might be. Look, I must go now.”

  “Would you like me to come with you, Mrs Hall?” he asked.

  “No, it’s all right, Rector.” Jack appeared again, running around the corner past the study window, carrying her bag and coat. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Mrs Hall,” he said, following her out. “Don’t worry about anything.”

  “No,” she said. “Come on, Jack.” And then, as the thought struck her, “ Where’s Harry while you’re down here?”

  “Mrs Brixey’s got him,” he said.

  She nodded, satisfied. Mrs Brixey was Redvers’s mother, and Harry knew her well.

  Together, mother and son half-ran down the drive and into the street.

  “I knew something was going to happen!” Charlotte muttered. “Something told me it was. I should have stayed home today.”

  “Oh, Mam!” Jack groaned, and she caught at his arm.

  “Now, try to tell me again what’s happened.”

  “Amy went to the Clements’ house to help bath the baby,” Jack said tearfully. “I don’t know what happened. They were playing around, I suppose, and she must have fallen. The first I knew was when she started screaming. I ran out and I met Mrs Clements, and she was screaming, too. But it was our Amy.… Oh, Mam, oh, Mam!”

  “All right,” Charlotte said.

  They were on the hill now, and hurrying, with no breath left for talking.

  Never had the climb seemed so long. Charlotte’s trembling legs felt as soft as marshmallow—and as useless. But at last they turned the corner of the rank. And there, stopped outside number eleven, was a horse and trap.

  “Doctor’s here then,” Charlotte said unevenly.

  Jack did not reply. He trotted along beside her, filled with dread at the thought of going home again, but Charlotte did not notice, any more than she noticed the neighbours standing silently in their open doorways. A moment ago, they had been all agog with curiosity, now, sick with horror and oddly embarrassed, they shrank into their sculleries, holding their own children close into their skirts.

  Outside her own door, Charlotte paused to touch Jack’s arm.

  “You stay here.”

  Gratefully he hung back and she went through the scullery and into the kitchen, her heart in her mouth.

  The first person she saw was Dr Oliver Scott. He was standing in front of the fireplace, rolling down his sleeves, pain and pity clearly written in his pleasant face. Beside him stood Ada Clements. Her thin, veined hands covered her mouth, and above them her eyes were red from weeping. But of Amy there was no sign.

  Fear seemed to explode in Charlotte, driving like white-hot fire through her bones. She sucked her breath in on a sob.

  “Amy!”

  A head bobbed up from behind the sofa, which was turned three quarters away from the door. It was Peggy, hidden by the back of the sofa.

  “Lotty, she’s here.”

  “Oh, my life!” Charlotte ran towards the sofa, but Dr Scott intercepted her.

  “No, Mrs Hall!” he said sharply. “Don’t touch her!”

  “No? But …”

  “Don’t try to touch her,” he repeated more gently.

  Amy lay face down on the sofa, her honey-coloured hair tumbling down over the white bandages that swathed her back. A cushion muffled her whimpers so that she sounded like a small, pitiful kitten.

  For a moment Charlotte gazed at her in helpless horror, then she fell to her knees beside her. “Amy, love, it’s all right now. Mammy’s here. Mammy’s here.”

  “Oh, Mammy!” The child tried to turn her head and the movement made her scream again. Shocked, Charlotte pushed a shaking fist into her mouth, her agonized eyes pleading mutely with Dr Scott.

  “She’s as comfortable as I can make her,” he said grimly. “But her back is as raw as a skinned rabbit. Any movement is very painful indeed.”

  Charlotte laid a trembling hand on Amy’s head, stroking the twisted curb gently.

  “Now lie still, there’s a good girl,” she said evenly. “ I’ll be back in a minute, and Mrs Yelling’s here with you. I’m just going to have a talk to the doctor about what we have to do to make you better.”

  “Mammy, don’t go!” Amy pleaded.

  “I won’t be a minute, Amy. I’m right here in the house.” She got up, nodding to Dr Scott, and led the way to another door in the corner of the kitchen. This one gave on to a narrow, linoleum-covered hall, and beyond it was the front room.

  In contrast to the rest of the house, the front room was the epitome of Victorian tidiness. Around a central carpet square, the floor was of tiled Italian mosaic, laid on the tightly staffed armchairs were cream, lace-edged antimacassars. The fire-irons and fender were polished, and gleaming family likenesses stood in their frames on the top of the piano that had once belonged to Charlotte’s mother, and a magnificent aspidistra on a wooden stand took pride of place beside the window.

  It was a room used only for special occasions—family gatherings, christenings, funerals and weddings, and for entertaining special visitors. Now Charlotte led the doctor in, and closing the door behind him, faced him squarely.

  “Well?”

  “She’s in a bad way, Mrs Hall,” he said bluntly.

  “You mean she’s scalded bad?”

  “Not so much scalded—more parboiled, I’d say.” Then, seeing her expression, he said, “ Her buttocks took the worst of it. She must have more or less sat down in the tub. But luckily the kidney area’s not too bad. If it was …”

  “But, as it is,” Charlotte interrupted, “she will be all right, won’t she, Doctor?”

  For a moment he did not answer, and nausea rose in her throat, making her go hot and cold.

  “There are two main dangers, Mrs Hall,” he said at last. “One is the possibility of infection. A large part of Amy’s body is without its protective covering of skin. You understand?”

  She nodded. “And the other thing?”

  “Shock. It’s bound to be severe. I wouldn’t really like to commit myself as to the outcome of this, but a week should give us some indication as to whether or not …”

  His voice tailed away and Charlotte put all her weight on to the back of the chair.

  “You mean she might not get over this, Doctor?” she asked.

  His eyes dropped from hers, and he thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

  “I’m afraid that is what I mean,” he said.

  “Oh, my God,” Charlotte said quietly, but inside she felt as if she were screaming.

  Not Amy! Oh, no, not
Amy! Not my little girl! Dear God, what has she ever done …

  Dr Scott seemed a long way off now, separated from her by swirling mists of unreality. Death of her babies she had accepted—many people lost their babies, and, although that did not lessen her grief, at least it eased the shock. Danger to her men she lived with—the danger of them meeting a violent end was built into her like a defence system. But Amy … Amy was past the age when she was in most danger from the illnesses that killed little ones—she had had whooping cough and measles, and even scarlet fever. It was years now since her health had given Charlotte more than a moment’s worry.

  And besides … Amy was sunshine and showers, precocity and innocence, laughter and tears. Although not as pretty as the round and rosy Dolly, there was something about her sharp little features that could stir feelings of tenderness and love, and her personality could fill a room.

  If Amy died, nothing would ever be the same again. I couldn’t bear it, thought Charlotte.

  She lifted her head, and Oliver Scott’s face came into focus, full of pity, concern and strength. Since he had come to Hillsbridge to join Dr Froster’s practice two years ago, she had been one of the many people who had treated him with suspicion. He hardly seemed older than Jim or Fred, too young to be a doctor and entrusted with the family’s health, and certainly too young to advise on personal matters.

  Now, however, she found herself looking at him through new eyes: he was someone she could lean on, and on whose wisdom and courage she could draw. She swallowed the nervous lump rising in her throat, and lifted her chin.

  “Just tell me what to do, Doctor,” she said.

  He nodded, relieved. “You’ll need dressings—plenty of white dressings. Torn up sheets would probably be the best as long as they’ve been washed at least once. No new cloth. We’ll treat the scalded area with carron oil. There must be as little movement as possible, so she’d better have a bed made up downstairs, It would be nice and quiet on the sofa in here …”

  “No,” Charlotte said sharply, and then, seeing his look, added, “Out there, Doctor, if she must, but not in here. This is where … I lost two other children, you know, and they were laid out in here. I suppose it’s stupid, but it wouldn’t seem right”.