Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 69

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She took it from her shivering body and threw it from her. Carolan picked it up and ran back to Kitty, put the cloak about her, and then, turning away, was violently sick.

She thought of all this as she lay there, and as she was wide awake now, she was fully aware that this was no evil dream.

Yesterday this place had been only a name to her; she had heard whispers of its horrors, but had she ever really believed them?

Had she ever bothered to inquire what happened to people who were brought here, some of them as innocent as she was herself?

She closed her eyes and saw the face of Marcus clearly. Some time-she did not remember when-he had said to her: “It is a mistake not to be interested in your fellow men!” Was it? she wondered. Was it better to have known nothing of this, so that when ill chance brought her here it should find her bewildered and unprepared? But. she thought, had I known of it I should never have been at peace. I shall always, at a moment’s notice, be able to call up this frightful stench and remember Newgate.

She raised herself with an effort and leaned over Kitty. The faint light from a whale-oil lamp on the high window-sill showed her vaguely the outline of Kitty’s face.

“Mammal’ she whispered.

“Mamma!”

There was no reply. She put her hand on Kitty’s heart; it was fluttering feebly.

There was a movement close to her, and turning sharply, filled with suspicion, for it seemed to her that all were her enemies in this evil place, but Kitty and Millie, she saw a shape rise up close beside her. She stared. It was a girl, and all she wore was a bit of rag wound about her like a loin-cloth. The light was dim, but Carolan could see a youthful, shapely outline and a mass of waving hair.

Carolan sprang to her feet with an effort, her fists clenched, anger, which now came so easily, rising within her.

“Please,” said a voice that was neither strident nor cruel, but gentle and cultured.

“I… I would like to talk to you.” The girl sat down: there was something so disarming about her that Carolan’s suspicions gave way to curiosity.

“What do you want?” she asked ungraciously.

“Only to talk to you. Is… she… your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Poor soul. She is of gentle birth, I see. This must have been horrible… horrible… for her!”

“Yes,” said Carolan and moved closet to the girl.

“Have you no clothes?”

“No. They took them. I could not pay garnish. Besides…”

“Are you not cold?”

“At first I was very cold; you do not feel it so much after a while.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I do not know for certain. As far as I can calculate about a month.”

Carolan shivered.

“How do you endure it?”

“God helps me,” said the girl.

“He gives me wonderful comfort.”

“Comfort?” said Carolan.

“Spiritual comfort.”

Carolan laughed bitterly.

“I will give you more than spiritual comfort. I with give you my petticoat.”

The girl did not answer and Carolan moved closet to her.

“Did you heat me say I would give you my petticoat?”

The girl was weeping softly.

Carolan, tactless, impulsive, and ready to suspect all, said harshly: “Now what does this mean? You are happy when you are given comfort which is cold, hunger and other frightful things I have yet to discover, but the offer of a petticoat sets you weeping!”

“Forgive me!” whispered the girl.

“It is so long since anyone has been kind.”

Now Carolan was ashamed, for she saw that the girl was very frail. She stood up, slipped off her tattered dress and the petticoat beneath.

“There!” she said in an outburst of generosity.

“You have the dress; the petticoat will cover me.”

“I cannot take either.” said the girl.

“You are a fool; you will freeze to death!”

“Yes,” said the girl slowly, ‘in the winter, if I am still here, I shall freeze to death. I shall not be the first.”

“You may not be here,” said Carolan, her spirits rising through contact with someone more wretched than herself, new strength coming to her at the sight of another’s weakness. There is no point in freezing to death before winter!” The girl put out eager fingers and stroked the petticoat.

“If I had it.” she said, ‘they would have if off me tomorrow. I saw the way you stood up to them; you were magnificent; I cannot tell you how I admired you. You got strength from God.”

“No,” said Carolan, ‘from a more reliable ally anger!” The girl caught her breath, and folded her arms across her bare breasts. She looked, thought Carolan, like a saint, and felt humbled and feigned anger to hide her shame.

“Now do not be so foolish,” she said.

“Put on this petticoat at once. And if they try to take it from you tomorrow, they will have me to deal with.”

The girl raised her eyes to the oil lamp, and Carolan saw that she was beautiful.

“I prayed this day for a miracle,” she said.

“I believe it.has come.”

“Rubbish!” said Carolan.

“And if you think that my coming with my mother and our poor serving-maid to this hell is a miracle, I can tell you we do not look on it as such. There, are you warmer?”

The girl looked up at her shyly, for Carolan was several inches taller.

“How kind you are!” she said.

“It is wicked of me to be glad you have come to this dreadful place, but I cannot help it.”

Carolan was happier then than she had been since that nightmare moment when she had stood on the threshold of the shop parlour and seen her father lying on the floor.

There is not much warmth in that petticoat, I fear,” said Carolan.

“There is a good deal of warmth in it. And will you really let me keep it? And will you stop them from taking it from me?”

“I will!” said Carolan.

“Sit down beside me.”

“I… I am unfit to sit too close.”

“Come close.” commanded Carolan.

“Is there nothing we can do for your mother?”

“What can we do? I would bathe the blood from her face, but there is no water. I would like a little spirit to revive her, but where can I get it?”

“You cannot get these things if you have no money. Have you friends … outside?”

Carolan said: “Certainly I have friends friends who will see that justice is done. But they are far away in the country. I must get a message to them.”

“How will you get a message to them without money?”

Carolan said in a frustrated tone: “Do not let us speak of my distressing affairs! Tell me of yours; what is your name?”

“Esther March. What is yours?”

“Carolan Haredon.”

“May I call you Carolan?”

“Of course!”

“Why are you here, Carolan?”

“On a false charge,” burst out Carolan.

“I would not have believed there was such wickedness in the world!”

Esther touched Carolan’s shoulders timidly, “Do not despair.”

Despair!” cried Carolan angrily.

“How can one but despair of this wicked place; in the country it was so different …” She stopped. Was it so different? She thought of Jim Bennett, the farm labourer who had stolen a rabbit from Squire Haredon’s fields. What had happened to him? She had heard vague talk of fourteen years … Transportation of course; there had seemed nothing unusual about that; she had not given the matter a thought. There was a sob in her throat now.

“I have been blind,” she said.

“Blind!” She cried out: “Do not talk of me! Later I will tell you; but now I would hear of you. What brought you here? You stole nothing! You did no crime!”

“It is good of you to believe that, and even before I have said a word.”

“I am no fool!” said Carolan, and laughed inwardly at herself, for was she not the biggest, the most easily duped of all fools who had ever led themselves and others to destruction!

“I would like to tell you of myself,” said Esther.

“It is an ordinary enough little story, I fear. My father was a curate, and we were very, very poor. There were six of us. But he taught me, and when I was sixteen I was given a post as governess in the family of a squire… and the squire had a son.” She looked down at her hands, and Carolan was aware of the deep shame that beset her.

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