Endless Night

Chapter 5
Well, that's how it began between Ellie and myself. It didn't really go along so very quickly, I suppose, because we both had our secrets. Both had things we wanted to keep from the other and so

we couldn't tell each other as much about ourselves as we might have done, and that kept bringing us up sharp, as it were, against a kind of barrier. We couldn't bring things into the open and say

"When shall we meet again? Where can I find you? Where do you live?" Because, you see, if you ask the other person that, they'd expect you to tell the same.

Fenella looked apprehensive when she gave me her name. So much so that I thought for a moment that it mightn't be her real name. I almost thought that she might have made it up! But of course I knew that that was impossible. I'd given her my real name.

We didn't know quite how to take leave of each other that day. It was awkward. It had become cold and we wanted to wander down

from The Towers - but what then?

Rather awkwardly, I said tentatively:

"Are you staying round here?"

She said she was staying in Market Chadwell. That was a market town not very far away. It had, I knew, a large hotel, three-starred. She'd be staying there, I guessed. She said, with something of the same awkwardness, to me:

"Do you live here?"

"No," I said, "I don't live here. I'm only here for the day."

Then a rather awkward silence fell again. She gave a faint shiver. A cold little wind had come up.

"We'd better walk," I said, "and keep ourselves warm. Are you - have you got a car or are you going by bus or train?"

She said she'd left a car in the village.

"But I'll be quite all right," she said.

She seemed a little nervous. I thought perhaps she wanted to get rid of me but didn't quite know how to manage it. I said:

"We'll walk down, shall we, just as far as the village."

She gave me a quick grateful look then. We walked slowly down the winding road on which so many car accidents had happened. As we came round a corner, a figure stepped suddenly from beneath the shelter of the fir tree. It appeared so suddenly that Ellie gave a start and said "Oh!" It was the old woman I had seen the other day in her own cottage garden. Mrs. Lee. She looked a great deal wilder today with a tangle of black hair blowing in the wind and a scarlet cloak round her shoulders; the commanding stance she took up made her look taller.

"And what would you be doing, my dears?" she said. "What brings you to Gipsy's Acre?"

"Oh," Ellie said, "we aren't trespassing, are we?"

"That's as may be. Gipsies' land this used to be. Gipsies' land and they drove us off it. You'll do no good here, and no good will come to you prowling about Gipsy's Acre."

There was no fight in Ellie, she wasn't that kind. She said gently and politely, "I'm very sorry if we shouldn't have come here. I thought this place was being sold today."

"And bad luck it will be to anyone who buys it!" said the old woman. "You listen, my pretty, for you're pretty enough, bad luck will come to whoever buys it. There's a curse on this land, a curse put on it long ago, many years ago. You keep clear of it. Don't have naught to do with Gipsy's Acre. Death it will bring you and danger. Go away home across the sea and don't come back to Gipsy's Acre. Don't say I didn't warn you."

With a faint spark of resentment Ellie said,

"We're doing no harm."

"Come now, Mrs. Lee," I said, "don't frighten this young lady."

I turned in an explanatory way to Ellie.

"Mrs. Lee lives in the village. She's got a cottage there. She tells fortunes and prophesies the future. All that, don't you, Mrs. Lee?" I spoke to her in a jocular way.

"I've got the gift," she said simply, drawing her gipsy-like figure up straighter still. "I've got the gift. It's born in me. We all have it. I'll tell your fortune, young lady. Cross my palm with silver and I'll tell your fortune for you."

"I don't think I want my fortune told."

"It'd be a wise thing to do. Know something about the future. Know what to avoid, know what's coming to you if you don't take care. Come now, there's plenty of money in your pocket. Plenty of money. I know things it would be wise for you to know."

I believe the urge to have one's fortune told is almost invariable in women. I've noticed it before with girls I knew. I nearly always had to pay for them to go into the fortune tellers' booths if I took them to a fair. Ellie opened her bag and laid two half-crowns in the old woman's hand.

"Ah, my pretty, that's right now. You hear what old Mother Lee will tell you."

Ellie drew off her glove and laid her small delicate palm in the old woman's hand. She looked down at it, muttering to herself. "What do I see now? What do I see?"

Suddenly she dropped Ellie's hand abruptly.

"I'd go away from here if I were you. Go - and don't come back!

That's what I told you just now and it's true. I've seen it again in your palm. Forget Gipsy's Acre, forget you ever saw it. And it's not just the ruined house up there, it's the land itself that's cursed."

"You've got a mania about that," I said roughly. "Anyway the young lady has nothing to do with the land here. She's only here for a walk today, she's nothing to do with this neighbourhood."

The old woman paid no attention to me. She said dourly,

"I'm telling you, my pretty. I'm warning you. You can have a happy life - but you must avoid danger. Don't come to a place where there's danger or where there's a curse. Go away where you're loved and taken care of and looked after. You've got to keep yourself safe. Remember that. Otherwise - otherwise -" she gave a short shiver. "I don't like to see it, I don't like to see what's in your hand."

Suddenly, with a queer, brisk gesture she pushed back the two half-crowns into Ellie's palm, mumbling something we could hardly hear. It sounded like "It's cruel. It's cruel, what's going to happen." Turning, she stalked away at a rapid pace.

"What a - what a frightening woman," said Ellie.

"Pay no attention to her," I said, gruffly. "I think she's half off her head anyway. She just wants to frighten you off. They've got a sort of feeling, I think, about this particular piece of land."

"Have there been accidents here? Have bad things happened?"

"Bound to be accidents. Look at the curve and the narrowness of the road. The town council ought to be shot for not doing something about it. Of course there'll be accidents here. There aren't enough signs warning you."

"Only accidents - or other things?"

"Look here," I said, "people like to collect disasters. There are plenty of disasters always to collect. That's the way stories build themselves up about a place."

"Is that one of the reasons why they say this property which is being sold will go cheap?"

"Well, it may be, I suppose. Locally, that is. But I don't suppose it'll be sold locally. I expect it'll be bought for developing. You're shivering," I said. "Don't shiver. Come on, we'll walk fast." I added,

"Would you rather I left you before you got back into the town?"

"No. Of course not. Why should I?"

I made a desperate plunge.

"Look here," I said, "I shall be in Market Chadwell tomorrow. I - I suppose - I don't know whether you'll still be there. I mean, would there be any chance of - seeing you?"

I shuffled my feet and turned my head away. I got rather red, I think. But if I didn't say something now, how was I going to go on with this?

"Oh yes," she said, "I shan't be going back to London until the evening."

"Then perhaps - would you - I mean, I suppose it's rather cheek -"

"No, it isn't."

"Well, perhaps you'd come and have tea at a cafe - the Blue Dog I think it's called. It's quite nice," I said. "I mean, it's -" I couldn't get hold of the word I wanted and I used the word that I'd heard my mother use once or twice - "it's quite ladylike," I said anxiously.

Then Ellie laughed. I suppose it sounded rather peculiar

nowadays.

"I'm sure it'll be very nice," she said. "Yes. I'll come. About half past four, will that be right?"

"I'll be there waiting for you," I said. "I - I'm glad."

I didn't say what I was glad about.

We had come to the last turn of the road where the home began.

"Good-bye, then," I said, "till tomorrow. And - don't think again about what that old hag said. She just likes scaring people, I think. She's not all there," I added.

"Do you feel it's a frightening place?" Ellie asked.

"Gipsy's Acre? No, I don't," I said. I said it perhaps a trifle too decidedly, but I didn't think it was frightening. I thought as I'd thought before, that it was a beautiful place, a beautiful setting for a beautiful house...

Well, that's how my first meeting with Ellie went. I was in Market Chadwell the next day waiting in the Blue Dog and she came. We had tea together and we talked. We still didn't say much about ourselves, not about our lives, I mean. We talked mostly about things we thought, and felt; and then Ellie glanced at her wrist watch and said she must be going because her train to London left at 5.30.

"I thought you had a car down here," I said.

She looked slightly embarrassed then and she said no, no, that hadn't been her car yesterday. She didn't say whose it had been. That shadow of embarrassment came over us again. I raised a finger to the waitress and paid the bill, then I said straight out to Ellie,

"Am I - am I ever going to see you again?"

She didn't look at me, she looked down at the table. She said,

"I shall be in London for another fortnight."

I said,

"Where? How?"

We made a date to meet in Regent's Park in three days' time. It was a fine day. We had some food in the open air restaurant and we walked in Queen Mary's garden and we sat there in two deck- chairs and we talked. From that time on, we began to talk about ourselves. I'd had some good schooling, I told her, but otherwise I didn't amount to much. I told her about the jobs I'd had, some of them at any rate, and how I'd never stuck to things and how I'd been restless and wandered about trying this and that. Funnily enough, she was entranced to hear all this.

"So different," she said, "so wonderfully different."

"Different from what?"

"From me."

"You're a rich girl?" I said teasingly - "A poor little rich girl."

"Yes," she said, "I'm a poor little rich girl."

She talked then in a fragmentary way about her background of riches, of stifling comfort, of boredom, of not really choosing your own friends, of never doing what you wanted. Sometimes looking at people who seemed to be enjoying themselves, when she wasn't. Her mother had died when she was a baby and her father had married again. And then, not many years after, he had died, she said. I gathered she didn't care much for her stepmother. She'd lived mostly in America but also travelling abroad a fair amount.

It seemed fantastic to me listening to her that any girl in this age and time could live this sheltered, confined existence. True, she went to parties and entertainments, but it might have been fifty years ago it seemed to me from the way she talked. There didn't seem to be any intimacy, any fun! Her life was as different from mine as chalk from cheese. In a way it was fascinating to hear about it but it sounded stultifying to me.

"You haven't really got any friends of your own then?" I said, incredulously. "What about boy friends?"

"They're chosen for me," she said rather bitterly. "They're deadly dull."

"It's like being in prison," I said.

"That's what it seems like."

"And really no friends of your own?"

"I have now. I've got Greta."

"Who's Greta?" I said.

"She came first as an au pair girl - no, not quite that, perhaps. But anyway I'd had a French girl who lived with us for a year, for French, and then Greta came from Germany, for German. Greta was different. Everything was different once Greta came."

"You're very fond of her?" I asked.

"She helps me," said Ellie. "She's on my side. She arranges so that I can do things and go places. She'll tell lies for me. I couldn't have got away to come down to Gipsy's Acre if it hadn't been for Greta. She's keeping me company and looking after me in London while my step-mother's in Paris. I write two or three letters and if I go off anywhere Greta posts them every three or four days so that they have a London postmark."

"Why did you want to go down to Gipsy's Acre though?" I asked.

"What for?"

She didn't answer at once.

"Greta and I arranged it," she said. "She's rather wonderful," she went on. "She thinks of things, you know. She suggests ideas."

"What's this Greta look like?" I asked.

"Oh, Greta's beautiful," she said. "Tall and blonde. She can do anything."

"I don't think I'd like her," I said.

Ellie laughed.

"Oh yes you would. I'm sure you would. She's very clever, too."

"I don't like clever girls," I said. "And I don't like tall blonde girls. I like small girls with hair like autumn leaves."

"I believe you're jealous of Greta," said Ellie.

"Perhaps I am. You're very fond of her, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am very fond of her. She's made all the difference in my life."

"And it was she who suggested you went down there. Why, I wonder? There's not much to see or do in that part of the world. I find it rather mysterious."

"It's our secret," said Ellie and looked embarrassed.

"Yours and Greta's? Tell me."

She shook her head. "I must have some secrets of my own," she said.

"Does your Greta know you're meeting me?"

"She knows I'm meeting someone. That's all. She doesn't ask questions. She knows I'm happy."

After that there was a week when I didn't see Ellie. Her stepmother had come back from Paris, also someone whom she called Uncle Frank and she explained almost casually that she was having a birthday, and that they were giving a big party for her in London.

"I shan't be able to get away," she said. "Not for the next week. But after that - after that, it'll be different."

"Why will it be different after that?"

"I shall be able to do what I like then."

"With Greta's help as usual?" I skid.

It used to make Ellie laugh the way I talked about Greta. She'd say

"You're so silly to be jealous of her. One day you must meet her. You'll like her."

"I don't like bossy girls," I said obstinately.

"Why do you think she's bossy?"

"By the way you talk about her. She's always busy arranging something."

"She's very efficient," said Ellie. "She arranges things very well. That's why my stepmother relies on her so much."

I asked what her Uncle Frank was like.

She said, "I don't know him really so very well. He was my father's sister's husband, not a real relation. I think he's always been rather a rolling stone and got into trouble once or twice. You know the way people talk about someone and sort of hint things."

"Not socially acceptable?" I asked. "Bad lot?"

"Oh, nothing really bad I think, but he used to get into scrapes, I believe. Financial ones. And trustees and lawyers and people used to have to get him out of them. Pay up for him."

"That's it," I said. "He's the bad hat of the family. I expect I'd get on better with him than I would with the paragon Greta."

"He can make himself very agreeable when he likes," said Ellie.

"He's good company."

"But you don't really like him?" I asked sharply.

"I think I do... It's just that sometimes, oh I can't explain it. I just feel I don't know what he's thinking or planning."

"One of our planners, is he?"

"I don't know what he's really like," said Ellie again.

She didn't ever suggest that I should meet any of her family. I wondered sometimes if I ought to say something about it myself. I didn't know how she felt about the subject. I asked her straight out at last.

"Look here, Ellie," I said, "do you think I ought to - meet your family or would you rather I didn't?"

"I don't want you to meet them," she said at once.

"I know I'm not much," I said.

"I don't mean it that way, not a bit! I mean they'd make a fuss. I can't stand a fuss."

"I sometimes feel," I said, "that this is rather a hole and corner business. It puts me in a rather bad light, don't you think?"

"I'm old enough to have my own friends," said Ellie. "I'm nearly twenty-one. When I am twenty-one I can have my own friends and

nobody can stop me. But now you see - well, as I say there'd be a terrible fuss and they'd cart me off somewhere so that I couldn't meet you. There'd be - oh do, do let's go on as we are now." "Suits me if it suits you," I said. "I just didn't want to be, well, too underhand about everything."

"It's not being underhand. It's just having a friend one can talk to and say things to. It's someone one can -" she smiled suddenly,

"one can make-believe with. You don't know how wonderful that is."

Yes, there was a lot of that - make-believe! More and more our times together were to turn out that way. Sometimes it was me. More often it was Ellie who'd say, "Let's suppose that we've bought Gipsy's Acre and that we're building a house there."

I had told her a lot about Santonix and about the houses he'd built. I tried to describe to her the kind of houses they were and the way he thought about things. I don't think I described it very well because I'm not good at describing things. Ellie no doubt had her own picture of the house - our house. We didn't say "our house" but we knew that's what we meant...

So for over a week I wasn't to see Ellie. I had taken out what savings I had (there weren't many), and I'd bought her a little green shamrock ring made of some Irish bog stone. I'd given it to her for a birthday present and she'd loved it and looked very happy.

"It's beautiful," she said.

She didn't wear much jewellery and when she did I had no doubt it was real diamonds and emeralds and things like that but she liked my Irish green ring.

"It will be the birthday present I like best," she said.

Then I got a hurried note from her. She was going abroad with her family to the South of France immediately after her birthday.

"But don't worry," she wrote, "we shall be back again in two or three weeks' time, on our way to America this time. But anyway we'll meet again then. I've got something special I want to talk to you about."

I felt restless and ill at ease not seeing Ellie and knowing she'd gone abroad to France. I had a bit of news about the Gipsy's Acre property too. Apparently it had been sold by private treaty but there wasn't much information about who'd bought it. Some firm of London solicitors apparently were named as the purchasers. I tried to get more information about it, but I couldn't. The firm in question were very cagey. Naturally I didn't approach the principals. I palled up to one of their clerks and so got a little vague information. It had been bought for a very rich client who was going to hold it as a good investment capable of appreciation when the land in that part of the country was becoming more developed.

It's very hard to find out about things when you're dealing with really exclusive firms. Everything is as much of a deadly secret as though they were M.I.5 or something!

Everyone is always acting on behalf of someone else who can't be

named or spoken of! Take-over bids aren't in it! I got into a terrible state of restlessness. I stopped thinking about it all and I went and saw my mother.

I hadn't been to see her for a good long time.