She started down. He watched in a kind of appalled fascination.
Then there was the metallic rattle of stair rods. A scream... a crash... as she fell forward and hurtled down the stairs, landing on the tiles of the front hall.
A little moan... then silence...
For a moment Branny stood motionless. One impulse urged him to move forward, another held him back. A sense of triumph warred with a feeling of fear for what he had done.
In the dim light from the gas by the front door he could see the dark figure lying still — very still — at the foot of the stairs.
He felt nothing — only the certainty that Aunt Hilda was there — dead.
Then he heard a sound that made his blood turn to ice. There were heavy footsteps above him and a voice came from the upstairs landing: “Good God, what has happened? Did you have an accident?”
It was a horribly familiar voice. Aunt Hilda’s voice! He became conscious that his Aunt, holding her candle high above her head, was making her way down the stairs, skirting the perilous third and fourth steps.
Aunt Hilda was coming down the stairs. Then it could not be Aunt Hilda who was lying there, a dark pool on the tiles of the hall.
Through his agony of remorse and terror Branny heard Aunt Hilda’s voice again:
“Constance, Constance, are you hurt?”
There was no need for Branny to move closer. In the nearing light from his aunt’s candle, he could make out quite clearly the outlines of that figure lying there, could see the aureole of dark hair framing the beloved face, paler now than death.
“Mother!”
The word came in a groan of agony. Then Branny turned away and disappeared into the darkness.
There is a degree of suffering beyond which the human mind cannot go, even in childhood where suffering is so acute. It is beyond the realm of sanity and verges on the outer darkness beyond which there is no thought, no reason.
Luckily for Branny he reached that point of narcosis immediately. His only instinct was a blind desire to hide — somewhere far away, to fade and quite forget. Up in the attic there was a cupboard whose door he could lock from the inside. It was musty and dirty but he didn’t care. It was dark and as far away from the front hall as possible.
For hours he crouched there in the darkness, his mind mercifully blank. If any conscious thought came to him it was simply that he had killed his mother and if he stayed hidden up there long enough he’d die too and that would be that.
Somewhere in the house were voices and footsteps, the girls returning from their cellar and trooping back to their dormitories. And then someone was calling his name:
“Branny... Branny...”
But he didn’t move. He’d never come out of his hiding place... never... and when they found him, if they ever did, he’d be dead and they could bury him by his mother.
He sat there, dry-eyed, and immobile as a rock. He had no sense of time or place any more. He slept. He was dimly conscious of that when he awoke. He was dimly conscious too of faint light creeping through the cracks in the door which told him it was day. Then the daylight went again. It never occurred to him that he might be hungry. He did not even feel the aching of his body. Noises sounded occasionally, infinitely remote. He heard them but he didn’t try to interpret them. He slept again and awoke again to his stubborn grief.
At some point, it might have been aeons later, he heard Aunt Nellie’s voice and he knew that she was near, actually in the attic.
“The cupboard, Miss Snellgrove. When Miss Foster searched up here yesterday, she never thought of the cupboard. It is just possible...” And then Miss Snellgrove’s tearful voice. “Oh, Mrs. Delaney, hasn’t there been any new word from the police station?”
“Not a word, but it’s hopeless. They have searched everywhere, all over the countryside. I am convinced, Miss Snellgrove that the boy is...”
At that moment the door handle of the cupboard was vigorously shaken.
“See? It’s locked. Branny.” Aunt Nellie’s voice was kind but strained with anxiety. “Branny, I know you are there. Do come out, there’s a good boy.”
Branny crouched deeper into the cupboard and pulled some musty curtains over him. They were not going to get him out by any trick of kindness or anxiety.
They were both tugging at the unyielding door. “He must be there. Oh, Branny, do come out...”
At last they went away. It seemed a long time before anyone came again and then there was the sound of footsteps and a man’s voice. Branny recognized it at once as that of the doctor who had attended his father during his final illness.
“Branny—” this time it was Aunt Hilda speaking — “Dr. Berry is here to talk to you. He has something to tell you.” She added hurriedly: “I’m going away so you can talk to him alone.”
Branny heard her heavy footsteps departing and the doctor’s voice:
“Branson, my boy, won’t you come out? I want to talk to you about your mother.”
Branny did not answer. They were speaking softly and gently to him now but as soon as they got him out, they’d be harsh with him. Perhaps they had guessed what he had done on the stairs and he would be sent to prison.
Then Doctor Berry spoke again. “Branson,” he said quietly, “I want you to come with me and see your mother. She’s asking for you. She needs you very badly, my boy.”
Branny’s heart missed a beat. Through all those long hours in the darkness it had never occurred to him that his mother might still be alive.
Slowly his hand went up to the lock. Then he withdrew it again. No, this might be a trap — to lure him out so they could pounce on him.
“Branson, she’s down in the drawing-room waiting. You wouldn’t want to be unkind to her, would you? She’s had a terrible accident...”
Branny could bear it no longer. He crashed open the cupboard door and stood there facing Dr. Berry. For a moment the physician stared in astonishment at the child. Branny was covered with grime and dust. His hair was full of cobwebs and the expression on his pale face held in it all the misery of the world.
Dr. Berry was strangely touched and, dirty as Branson was, he drew him towards him. The kindness of a stranger was too much for the boy and the pent-up flow of unshed tears broke loose in a torrent.
For a moment Dr. Berry said nothing. He just held the quivering child close and patted his head while Branny wept his heart out. Then the doctor produced a handkerchief, wiped Branny’s eyes, and said cheerfully:
“Come on, now, old boy. You’ve got to be a man. Your mother needs a man to look after her and you’re the only one in the house, you know.”
Then in answer to an unspoken question, he went on: “She’s going to live, Branson, but she may never be able to walk again. That’s why she’ll need a man like you to look after her.”
He took Branny’s hand and led him from the attic. “Now, go on down and have a good scrub and then we’ll take you to see her. Come on, let’s see a clean smiling face and look sharp.”
Aunt Hilda and Aunt Nellie were waiting for him downstairs. They kissed him and Aunt Hilda said “poor little boy” as she produced the best Brown Windsor soap. Aunt Nellie got his Sunday suit and used her own comb and brush to brush the dust and cobwebs from his hair.
And then, when he looked clean and neat, Aunt Hilda said: “Your mother’s in the drawing-room, dear. Her bed is down there now and you can have the little study next door all for your own. So you can look after her. And you can have all your meals together.”
“And,” put in Aunt Nellie with a grim attempt at cheerfulness, “after a few weeks when your mother’s a little stronger, she’ll need you to push her wheel-chair. So you won’t be going to boarding school next term after all...”