Chapter 15

It’s astonishing in this world how things don’t turn out at all the way you expect them to!

We’d moved into our house and were living there and we’d got away from everyone just the way I’d meant and planned. Only of course we hadn’t got away from everyone. Things crowded back upon us across the ocean and in other ways.

First of all there was Ellie’s blasted stepmother. She sent letters and cables and asked Ellie to go and see estate agents. She’d been so fascinated, she said, by our house that she really must have a house of her own in England. She said she’d love to spend a couple of months every year in England. And hard on her last cable she arrived and had to be taken round the neighbourhood with lots of orders to view. In the end she more or less settled on a house. А house about fifteen miles away from us. We didn’t want her there, we hated the idea – but we couldn’t tell her so. Or rather, what I really mean is even if we had told her so, it wouldn’t have stopped her taking it if she’d wanted to. We couldn’t order her not to come there. It was the last thing Ellie wanted. I knew that. However, while she was still awaiting a surveyor’s report, some cables arrived.

Uncle Frank, it seemed, had got himself into a jam of some kind. Something crooked and fraudulent, I gathered, which would mean a big sum of money to get him out. More cables passed to and fro between Mr Lippincott and Ellie. And then there turned out to be some trouble between Stanford Lloyd and Lippincott. There was a row about some of Ellie’s investments. I had felt, in my ignorance and credulity, that people who were in America were a long way away. I’d never realized that Ellie’s relations and business connections thought nothing of taking a plane over to England for twenty-four hours and then flying back again. First Stanford Lloyd flew over and back again. Then Andrew Lippincott flew over.

Ellie had to go up to London and meet them. I hadn’t got the hang of these financial things. I think everybody was being fairly careful in what they said. But it was something to do with the settling up of the trusts on Ellie, and a kind of sinister suggestion that either Mr Lippincott had delayed the matter or it was Stanford Lloyd who was holding up the accounting.

In the lull between these worries Ellie and I discovered our Folly. We hadn’t really explored all our property yet (only the part just round the house). We used to follow up tracks through the woods and see where they led. One day we followed a sort of path that had been so overgrown that you couldn’t really see where it was at first. But we tracked it out and in the end it came out at what Ellie said was a Folly. А sort of little white ridiculous temple-looking place. It was in fairly good condition so we cleared it up and had it painted and we put a table, and a few chairs in it, and a divan and a corner cupboard in which we put china and glasses, and some bottles. It was fun really. Ellie said we’d have the path cleared and made easier to climb and I said no, it would be more fun if no one knew where it was except us. Ellie thought that was a romantic idea.

‘We certainly won’t let Cora know,’ I said and Ellie agreed.

It was when we were coming down from there, not the first time but later, after Cora had gone away and we were hoping to be peaceful again, that Ellie, who was skipping along ahead of me, suddenly tripped over the root of a tree and fell and sprained her ankle.

Dr Shaw came and said she’d taken a nasty sprain but that she’d be able to get about again all right in perhaps a week. Ellie sent for Greta then. I couldn’t object. There was no one really to look after her properly, no woman I mean. The servants we had were pretty useless and anyway Ellie wanted Greta. So Greta came.

She came and she was a great blessing of course to Ellie. And to me as far as that went. She arranged things and kept the household working properly. Our servants gave notice about now. They said it was too lonely – but really I think Cora had upset them. Greta put in advertisements and got another couple almost at once. She looked after Ellie’s ankle, amused her, fetched things for her that she knew she liked, the kind of books and fruit and things like that – things I knew nothing about. And they seemed frightfully happy together. Ellie was certainly delighted to see Greta. And somehow or other Greta just didn’t go away again… She stopped on. Ellie said to me:

‘You don’t mind, do you, if Greta stays on for a bit?’

I said, ‘Oh no. No, of course not.’

‘It’s such a comfort having her,’ said Ellie. ‘You see, there are so many sort of female things we can do together. One’s awfully lonely without another woman about.’

Every day I noticed Greta was taking a bit more upon herself, giving orders, queening it over things. I pretended I liked having Greta there, but one day when Ellie was lying with her foot up inside the drawing-room and Greta and I were out on the terrace, we suddenly got into a row together. I can’t remember the exact words that started it. Something that Greta said, it annoyed me and I answered sharply back. And then we went on, hammer and tongs. Our voices rose. She let me have it, saying all the vicious, unkind things she could think of, and I pretty well gave her as good as I was getting. Told her she was a bossy, interfering female, that she’d far too much influence over Ellie, that I wasn’t going to stand having Ellie bossed about the whole time. We shouted at each other and then suddenly Ellie came hobbling out on the terrace looking from one to the other of us, and I said:

‘Darling, I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.’

I went back into the house and settled Ellie on the sofa again. She said:

‘I didn’t realize. I didn’t realize a bit that you – that you really hated having Greta here.’

I soothed her and calmed her and said she mustn’t take any notice, that I just lost my temper, that I was rather quarrelsome sometimes. I said all that was the matter was that I thought Greta was just a bit bossy. Perhaps that was natural enough because she’d been used to being so. And in the end I said I really liked Greta very much, it was just that I’d lost my temper because I’d been upset and worried. So it ended that I practically begged Greta to stay on.

It was quite a scene we’d had. I think quite a good many other people in the house had heard it as well. Our new manservant and his wife certainly did. When I get angry I do shout. I dare say I really overdid it a bit. I’m like that.

Greta seemed to make a point of worrying a great deal about Ellie’s health, saying she oughtn’t to do this, or that.

‘She isn’t really very strong, you know,’ she said to me.

‘There’s nothing wrong with Ellie,’ I said, ‘she’s always perfectly well.’

‘No, she isn’t, Mike. She’s delicate.’

When Dr Shaw next came to have a look at Ellie’s ankle and to tell her, by the way, that it was quite all right again, just bind it up if she was going to walk over rough ground, I said to him, I suppose in rather the foolish way that men do:

‘She isn’t delicate or anything, is she, Dr Shaw?’

‘Who says she’s delicate?’ Dr Shaw was the kind of practitioner that is fairly rare nowadays and was, indeed, known locally as ‘Leave-it-to-Nature Shaw’.

‘Nothing wrong with her as far as I can see,’ he said. ‘Anyone can sprain an ankle.’

‘I didn’t mean her ankle. I wondered if she had a weak heart or anything like that.’

He looked at me through the top of his spectacles. ‘Don’t start imagining things, young man. What put it into your head? You’re not the type that worries usually about women’s ailments.’

‘It was only what Miss Andersen said.’

‘Ah. Miss Andersen. What does she know about it? Not medically qualified, is she?’

‘Oh no,’ I said.

‘Your wife’s a woman of great wealth,’ he said, ‘according to local gossip anyway. Of course some people just imagine all Americans are rich.’

‘She is wealthy,’ I said.

‘Well, you must remember this. Rich women get the worst of it in many ways. Some doctor or other is always giving them powders and pills, stimulants or pep pills, or tranquillizers, things that on the whole they’d be better without. Now the village women are much healthier because nobody worries about their health in the same way.’

‘She does take some capsules or something,’ I said.

‘I’ll give her a check-up if you like. Might as well find out what muck she’s been given. I can tell you, before now I’ve said to people “chuck the whole lot in the wastepaper basket”.’

He spoke to Greta before he left. He said:

‘Mr Rogers asked me to give Mrs Rogers a general check-up. I can’t find anything much wrong with her. I think more exercise in the open air might do her good. What does she take in the way of medicines?’

‘She has some tablets that she takes when she’s tired, and some that she takes for sleeping if she wants them.’

She and Dr Shaw went and had a look at Ellie’s prescriptions. Ellie was smiling a little.

‘I don’t take all these things, Dr Shaw,’ she said. ‘Only the allergy capsules.’

Shaw took a look at the capsules, read the prescription and said there was no harm in that, and passed on to a prescription for sleeping pills.

‘Any trouble with sleeping?’

‘Not living in the country. I don’t think I’ve taken a single sleeping pill since I’ve been here.’

‘Well, that’s a good thing.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, my dear. Inclined to worry a bit sometimes, I should say. That’s all. These capsules are mild enough. Lots of people take them nowadays and they don’t do them any harm. Go on with them but leave the sleeping pills alone.’

‘I don’t know why I worried,’ I said to Ellie apologetically. ‘I suppose it was Greta.’

‘Oh,’ said Ellie and laughed, ‘Greta fusses about me. She never takes any remedies herself.’ She said, ‘We’ll have a turn-out, Mike, and throw most of these things away.’

Ellie was getting on very friendly terms with most of our neighbours now. Claudia Hardcastle came over quite often and she and Ellie went riding together occasionally. I didn’t ride, I’d dealt with cars and mechanical things all my life. I didn’t know the first thing about a horse in spite of mucking out stables in Ireland for a week or two once, but I thought to myself that some time or other when we were in London I’d go to a posh riding stable and learn how to ride properly. I didn’t want to start down here. People would laugh at me very likely. I thought riding was perhaps good for Ellie. She seemed to enjoy it.

Greta encouraged her to ride, although Greta herself also knew nothing about horses.

Ellie and Claudia went together to a sale and on Claudia’s advice Ellie bought herself a horse, a chestnut called Conquer. I urged Ellie to be careful when she went out riding by herself but she laughed at me.

‘I’ve ridden since I was three years old,’ she said.

So she usually went for a ride about two or three times a week. Greta used to drive the car and go into Market Chadwell to do the shopping.

One day Greta said at lunchtime: ‘You and your gipsies! There was a terrible-looking old woman this morning. She stood in the middle of the road. I might have run over her. Just stood smack in front of the car. I had to pull up. Coming up the hill too.’

‘Why, what did she want?’

Ellie was listening to us both but she didn’t say anything. I thought, though, that she looked rather worried.

‘Damn’ cheek, she threatened me,’ said Greta.

‘Threatened you?’ I said sharply.

‘Well, she told me to get out of here. She said: “This is gipsy land here. Go back. Go back the lot of you. Go back to where you came from if you wish to be safe.” And she lifted up her fist and shook it at me. She said: “If I curse you,” she said, “there’ll be no good luck for you ever again. Buying our land and raising houses on our land. We don’t want houses where tent dwellers should be.”’

Greta said a lot more. Ellie said to me afterwards, frowning a little:

‘It all sounded most improbable, didn’t you think so, Mike?’

‘I think Greta was exaggerating a bit,’ I said.

‘It didn’t sound right somehow,’ said Ellie. ‘I wonder if Greta was making some of it up.’

I considered. ‘Why would she want to make things up?’ Then I asked sharply, ‘You haven’t seen our Esther lately, have you? Not when you are out riding?’

‘The gipsy woman? No.’

‘You don’t sound quite sure, Ellie,’ I said.

‘I think I’ve caught glimpses of her,’ said Ellie. ‘You know, standing among the trees peering out but never near enough for me to be sure.’

But Ellie came back from a ride one day, white and shaking. The old woman had come out from in between the trees. Ellie had reined up and stopped to speak to her. She said the old woman was shaking her fist and muttering under her breath. Ellie said, ‘This time I was angry, I said to her:

“What do you want here? This land doesn’t belong to you. It’s our land and our house.”’

The old woman had said then:

‘It’ll never be your land and it’ll never belong to you. I warned you once and I’ve warned you twice. I shan’t warn you again. It won’t be long now – I can tell you that. It’s Death I see. There behind your left shoulder. It’s Death standing by you and it’s Death will have you. That horse you’re riding has got one white foot. Don’t you know that it’s bad luck to ride a horse with one white foot? It’s Death I see and the grand house you’ve built falling in ruins!’

‘This has got to be stopped,’ I said angrily.

Ellie didn’t laugh it off this time. Both she and Greta looked upset. I went straight down to the village. I went first to Mrs Lee’s cottage. I hesitated for a moment but there was no light there and I went on to the police station. I knew the Sergeant in Charge, Sergeant Keene, a square, sensible man. He listened to me, then he said:

‘I’m sorry you’ve had this trouble. She’s a very old woman and she may be getting tiresome. We’ve never had much real trouble with her up to now. I’ll speak to her and tell her to lay off.’

‘If you would,’ I said.

He hesitated a minute and then said:

‘I don’t like to suggest things – but as far as you know, Mr Rogers, is there anyone around here who might – perhaps for some trivial cause – have it in for you or your wife?’

‘I should think it most unlikely. Why?’

‘Old Mrs Lee has been flush of money lately – I don’t know where it’s coming from —’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘It could be someone is paying her – someone who wants you out of here. There was an incident – a good many years ago. She took money from someone in the village – to frighten a neighbour away. Doing this same sort of stuff – threats – warnings – evil eye business – Village people are superstitious. You’d be surprised at the number of villages in England that have got their private witch, so to speak. She got a warning then and so far as I know she’s never tried it on since – but it could be like that. She’s fond of money – they’ll do a lot for money —’

But I couldn’t accept that idea. I pointed out to Keene that we were complete strangers here. ‘We’ve not had time to make enemies,’ I said.

I walked back to the house worried and perplexed. As I turned the corner of the terrace, I heard the faint sound of Ellie’s guitar, and a tall figure, who had been standing by the window looking in, wheeled round and came towards me. For a moment I thought it was a gipsy, then I relaxed as I recognized Santonix.

‘Oh,’ I said with a slight gasp, ‘it’s you. Where have you sprung from? We’ve not heard from you for ages.’

He didn’t answer me directly. He just caught my arm and drew me away from the window.

‘So she’s here!’ he said. ‘I’m not surprised. I thought she’d come sooner or later. Why did you let her? She’s dangerous. You ought to know that.’

‘You mean Ellie?’

‘No, no, not Ellie. The other one! What’s her name? Greta?’

I stared at him.

‘Do you know what Greta’s like or don’t you? She’s come, hasn’t she? Taken possession! You won’t get rid of her now. She’s come to stay.’

‘Ellie sprained her ankle,’ I said. ‘Greta came to look after her. She’s – I suppose she’s going soon.’

‘You don’t know anything of the kind. She always meant to come. I knew that. I took her measure when she came down while the house was building.’

‘Ellie seems to want her,’ I muttered.

‘Oh yes, she’s been with Ellie some time, hasn’t she? She knows how to manage Ellie.’

That was what Lippincott had said. I’d seen for myself lately how true it was.

‘Do you want her here, Mike?’

‘I can’t throw her out of the house,’ I said irritably. ‘She’s Ellie’s old friend. Her best friend. What the hell can I do about it?’

‘No,’ said Santonix, ‘I suppose you can’t do anything, can you?’

He looked at me. It was a very strange glance. Santonix was a strange man. You never knew what his words really meant.

‘Do you know where you’re going, Mike?’ he said. ‘Have you any idea? Sometimes I don’t think you know anything at all.’

‘Of course I know,’ I said. ‘I’m doing what I want to. I’m going where I wanted.’

‘Are you? I wonder. I wonder if you really know what you want yourself. I’m afraid for you with Greta. She’s stronger than you are, you know.’

‘I don’t see how you make that out. It isn’t a question of strength.’

‘Isn’t it? I think it is. She’s the strong kind, the kind that always gets her way. You didn’t mean to have her here. That’s what you said. But here she is, and I’ve been watching them. She and Ellie sitting together, at home together, chattering and settled in. What are you, Mike? The outsider? Or aren’t you an outsider?’

‘You’re crazy, the things you say. What do you mean – I’m an outsider? I’m Ellie’s husband, aren’t I?’

‘Are you Ellie’s husband or is Ellie your wife?’

‘You’re daft,’ I said. ‘What’s the difference?’

He sighed. Suddenly, his shoulders sagged as though vigour went out of him.

‘I can’t reach you,’ said Santonix. ‘I can’t make you hear me. I can’t make you understand. Sometimes I think you do understand, sometimes I think you don’t know anything at all about yourself or anyone else.’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I’ll take so much from you, Santonix. You’re a wonderful architect – but —’

His face changed in the queer way it had.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m a good architect. This house is the best thing I have done. I’m as near as possible satisfied with it. You wanted a house like this. And Ellie wanted a house like this, too, to live in with you. She’s got it and you’ve got it. Send that other woman away, Mike, before it’s too late.’

‘How can I upset Ellie?’

‘That woman’s got you where she wants you,’ said Santonix.

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I don’t like Greta. She gets on my nerves. The other day I even had a frightful row with her. But none of it’s as simple as you think.’

‘No, it won’t be simple with her.’

‘Whoever called this place Gipsy’s Acre and said it had a curse on it may have had something,’ I said angrily. ‘We’ve got gipsies who jump out from behind trees and shake fists at us and warn us that if we don’t get out of here, some awful fate will happen to us. This place that ought to be good and beautiful.’

They were queer words to say, those last ones. I said them as though it was somebody else saying them.

‘Yes, it should be like that,’ said Santonix. ‘It should be. But it can’t be, can it, if there is something evil possessing it?’

‘You don’t believe, surely, in —’

‘There are many queer things I believe… I know something about evil. Don’t you realize, haven’t you often felt, that I am partly evil myself? Always have been. That’s why I know when it’s near me, although I don’t always know exactly where it is… I want the house I built purged of evil. You understand that?’ His tone was menacing. ‘You understand that? It matters to me.’

Then his whole manner changed.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘don’t let’s talk a lot of nonsense. Let’s come in and see Ellie.’

So we went in through the window and Ellie greeted Santonix with enormous pleasure.

Santonix showed all his normal manner that evening. There were no more histrionics, he was his own self, charming, light-hearted. He talked mostly to Greta, giving her as it were the special benefit of his charm. And he had a lot of charm. Anyone would have sworn that he was impressed by her, that he liked her, that he was anxious to please her. It made me feel that Santonix was really a dangerous man, there was a great deal more to him than I had ever glimpsed.

Greta always responded to admiration. She showed herself at her best. She could on occasion dim her beauty or else reveal it and tonight she looked as beautiful as I’d ever seen her. Smiling at Santonix, listening to him as though spellbound. I wondered what lay behind his manner. You never knew with Santonix. Ellie said she hoped he was staying for several days but he shook his head. He had to leave on the following day, he said.

‘Are you building something now, are you busy?’

He said no, he’d just come out of hospital.

‘They’ve patched me up once more,’ he said, ‘but it’s probably for the last time.’

‘Patched you up? What do they do to you?’

‘Drain the bad blood out of my body and put some good, fresh red blood in,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Ellie gave a little shudder.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Santonix, ‘it will never happen to you.’

‘But why has it got to happen to you?’ said Ellie. ‘It’s cruel.’

‘Not cruel, no,’ said Santonix. ‘I heard what you were singing just now.

 

‘Man was made for Joy and Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the World we safely go.

 

‘I go safely because I know why I’m here. And for you, Ellie:

 

‘Every Morn and every Night

Some are born to Sweet Delight.

 

‘That’s you.’

‘I wish I could feel safe,’ said Ellie.

‘Don’t you feel safe?’

‘I don’t like to be threatened,’ said Ellie. ‘I don’t like anyone to put a curse on me.’

‘You’re talking about your gipsy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Forget it,’ said Santonix. ‘Forget it for tonight. Let’s be happy. Ellie – your health – Long life to you – and a quick and merciful end to me – and good luck to Mike here —’ He stopped, his glass raised towards Greta.

‘Yes?’ said Greta. ‘And to me?’

‘And to you, what’s coming to you! Success, perhaps?’ he added, half quizzically with an ironic question in his tone.

He went away next morning early.

‘What a strange man he is,’ Ellie said. ‘I’ve never understood him.’

‘I never understand half of what he says,’ I answered.

‘He knows things,’ said Ellie thoughtfully.

‘You mean he knows the future?’

‘No,’ said Ellie, ‘I didn’t mean that. He knows people. I said it to you once before. He knows people better than they know themselves. Sometimes he hates them because of that, and sometimes he’s sorry for them. He’s not sorry for me, though,’ she added meditatively.

‘Why should he be?’ I demanded.

‘Oh, because —’ said Ellie.