‘If they take Sophie nothing could make things worse for me, Johnny.’
‘ But it’s not just that, dear. Once they are satisfied that we are out of the district we’ll be someone else’s responsibility, and they’ll not bother much more about us. But if Strorm were to lose his boy there’d be hue and cry for miles around, and I doubt whether we’d have a chance of getting clear. They’d have posses out everywhere looking for us. We can’t afford to increase the risk to Sophie, can we?’
Mrs Wender was silent for some moments. I could feel her fitting the reasons into what she had known already. Presently her arm tightened round me.
‘You do understand that, don’t you, David? Your father would be so angry if you came with us that we’d have much less chance of getting Sophie away safely. I want you to come, but for Sophie’s sake we daren’t do it. Please be brave about it, David. You’re her only friend, and you can help her by being brave. You will, won’t you?’
The words were like a clumsy repetition. Her thoughts had been much clearer, and I had already had to accept the inevitable decision. I could not trust myself to speak. I nodded dumbly, and let her hold me to her in a way my own mother never did.
The packing-up was finished a little before dusk. When everything was ready Mr Wender took me aside.
‘Davie,’ he said, man to man, ‘I know how fond you are of Sophie. You’ve looked after her like a hero, but now there’s one more thing you can do to help her. Will you?’
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘What is it, Mr Wender?’
‘ It’s this. When we’ve gone don’t go home at once. Will you stay here till tomorrow morning? That’ll give us more time to get her safely away. Will you do that?’
‘Yes,’ I said, reliably.
We shook hands on it. It made me feel stronger and more responsible – rather like I had on that first day when she twisted her ankle.
Sophie held out her hand with something concealed in it as we came back.
‘This is for you, David,’ she said, putting it into my hand.
I looked at it. A curling lock of brown hair, tied with a piece of yellow ribbon. I was still staring at it when she flung her arms round my neck and kissed me, with more determination than judgement. Her father picked her up and swung her high on top of the leading horse’s load.
Mrs Wender bent to kiss me, too.
‘Good-bye, David, dear.’ She touched my bruised cheek with a gentle forefinger. “We’ll never forget,’ she said, and her eyes were shiny.
They set off. John Wender led the horses, with his gun slung across his back, and his left arm linked in his wife’s. At the edge of the woods they paused and turned to wave. I waved back. They went on. The last I saw of them was Sophie’s arm waving as the dusk beneath the trees swallowed them up.
The sun was getting high and the men were long ago out in the fields when I reached home. There was no one in the yard, but the inspector’s pony stood at the hitching-post near the door, so I guessed my father would be in the house.
I hoped that I had stayed away long enough. It had been a bad night. I had started with a determinedly stout heart, but in spite of my resolutions it weakened somewhat when darkness fell. I had never before spent a night anywhere but in my own room at home. There, everything was familiar, but the Wenders’ empty house seemed full of queer sounds. I managed to find some candles and light them, and when I had blown up the fire and put some more wood on, that, too, helped to make the place less lonely – but only a little less. Odd noises kept on occurring inside and outside the house.
For a long time I sat on a stool, pressing my back against the wall so that nothing should approach me unaware. More than once my courage all but gave out. I wanted painfully to run away. I like to think it was my promise and the thought of Sophie’s safety that kept me there; but I do remember also how black it looked outside, and how full of inexplicable sounds and movements the darkness seemed to be.
The night stretched out before me in a prospect of terrors, yet nothing actually happened. The sounds like creeping footsteps never brought anything into view, the tapping was no prelude to anything at all, nor were the occasional dragging noises; they were beyond explanation, but also, luckily, apparently beyond manifestation, too, and at length, in spite of them all I found my eyes blinking as I swayed on my stool. I summoned up courage and dared to move, very cautiously, across to the bed. I scrambled across it, and very thankfully got my back to a wall again. For a time I lay watching the candles and the uneasy shadows they cast in the corners of the room, and wondering what I should do when they were gone, when, all of a sudden, they were gone – and the sun was shining in. …
I had found some bread for my breakfast in the Wenders’ house, but I was hungry again by the time I reached home. That, however, could wait. My first intention was to get to my room unseen, with the very thin hope that my absence might not have been noticed, so that I would be able to pretend that I had merely overslept, but my luck was not running: Mary caught sight of me through the kitchen window as I was slipping across the yard. She called out:
‘ You come here at once. Everybody’s been looking all over for you. Where’ve you been?’ And then, without waiting for an answer, she added: ‘Father’s on the rampage. Better go to him before he gets worse.’
My father and the inspector were in the seldom-used, rather formal room at the front. I seemed to arrive at a crucial time. The inspector looked much as usual, but my father was thunderous.
‘ Come here!’ he snapped, as soon as I appeared in the doorway.
I went nearer, reluctantly.
‘ Where’ve you been?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve been out all night. Where?’
I did not answer.
He fired half a dozen questions at me, looking fierier every second when I did not answer them.
‘ Come on now. Sullenness isn’t going to help you. Who was this child – this Blasphemy – you were with yesterday?’ he shouted.
I still did not reply. He glared at me. I had never seen him angrier. I felt sick with fright.
The inspector intervened then. In a quiet, ordinary voice he said to me:
‘ You know, David, concealment of a Blasphemy – not reporting a human deviation – is a very, very serious thing. People go to prison for it. It is everybody’s duty to report any kind of Offence to me – even if they aren’t sure – so that I can decide. It’s always important, and very important indeed if it is a Blasphemy. And in this case there doesn’t seem to be any doubt about it – unless young Ervin was mistaken. Now he says this child you were with has six toes. Is that true?’
‘No,’ I told him.
‘He’s lying,’ said my father.
‘I see,’ said the inspector calmly. ‘Well, then if it isn’t true, it can’t matter if we know who she is, can it?’ he went on in a reasonable tone.
I made no reply to that. It seemed the safest way. We looked at one another.
‘ Surely, you see that’s so? If it is not true -‘ he was going on persuasively, but my father cut him short.
‘ I’ll deal with this. The boy’s lying.’ To me he added: ‘Go to your room.’
I hesitated. I knew well enough what that meant, but I knew, too, that with my father in his present mood it would happen whether I told or not. I set my jaw, and turned to go. My father followed, picking up a whip from the table as he came.
‘That,’ said the inspector curtly, ‘is my whip.’
My father seemed not to hear him. The inspector stood up. ‘ I said that is my whip,’ he repeated, with a hard, ominous note in his voice.
My father checked his step. With an ill-tempered gesture he threw the whip back on the table. He glared at the inspector, and then turned to follow me.
I don’t know where my mother was, perhaps she was afraid of my father. It was Mary who came, and made little comforting noises as she dressed my back. She wept a little as she helped me into bed, and then fed me some broth with a spoon. I did my best to put up a brave show in front of her, but when she had gone my tears soaked into my pillow. By now it was not so much the bodily hurts that brought them: it was bitterness, self-contempt, and abasement. In wretchedness and misery I clutched the yellow ribbon and the brown curl tight in my hand.