‘Sit down a little longer,’ said Rita. ‘I know the Vaughans. They trust Ruby. They know she did no harm.’
‘That is something,’ the woman acknowledged, settling back into her seat. ‘They were good people. They never said anything harsh about her.’
‘Mr and Mrs Vaughan would like nothing better than to get to the bottom of this business of the kidnap. Because if your granddaughter had nothing to do with it, somebody else did – and that person must be caught and brought to justice. If that could be brought about it would be a great help to Ruby, in her position.’
The dragon-seer shook her head. ‘They looked into it at the time and found nothing. I suppose it were the river gypsies, and they won’t never be caught now.’
‘But supposing something new were to be tried?’
The old woman looked up and her transparent eyes peered at Rita in perplexity.
‘I believe everything you have told me about Ruby and how good she is, because I have heard it all before, from the Vaughans themselves. It is not fair that she should not marry. It is not fair that she should not have the children she wants and would be such a good mother to. Tell me now, if there was a way of bringing the truth to the surface, of exposing the true culprits and clearing Ruby’s name, would she help? Would she play a part in it?’
The woman’s eyes wavered.
The door to the house opened and the scrawny young woman who had served the bread and honey stepped out.
‘What would I have to do?’
While Daunt positioned Granny Wheeler alongside her hives and beneath the lintel stained by dragon flames, Rita sat with Ruby, their two heads together, explaining the plan.
When she had finished, the girl stared at her. ‘But that’s magic!’
‘It isn’t, but it will seem so.’
‘And it will make people tell the truth?’
‘It might. If somebody knows something they haven’t told yet. Something they didn’t know was important, perhaps. If that person is there, and if we are lucky, yes.’
Ruby lowered her eyes again, to the white-knuckled hands with bitten nails that she clasped tightly in her lap. Rita said no more to persuade her, but left her to her thoughts. The hands fidgeted and twisted and at last came to stillness.
‘What do you need me to do, though? I can’t do magic like that.’
‘You won’t have to do magic. All you need to do is tell me who persuaded you to leave Buscot Lodge that night.’
A feeble light of hope had come into Ruby’s eyes. Now her lip trembled and the hope died. She dropped her head into her hands.
‘Nobody! I’ve said it over and over again and they don’t believe me! Nobody!’
Rita took the girl’s hands and drew them gently away. She kept them clasped in her own and turned to look fully into her tearful face.
‘Then why did you go out?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me! No one would. They would call me a silly liar.’
‘Ruby, I know you are an honest girl. If there is something unbelievable at the bottom of all this, I am the person to tell. Perhaps with two minds we will be able to work it out.’
The years since the kidnap had worn Ruby down to the bone. She was wan-faced and dark circles were carved under her eyes. It was hard to believe she was not yet twenty. The future that had appeared possible when Amelia seemed to be found and she got engaged had been dashed again. She gave no sign that she had faith in Rita’s ability to help her. Unconvinced that the revelation could do her any good, she had nevertheless reached a point where she was simply too exhausted to maintain her position any longer. So, shoulders slumped, her voice flat and at the end of her strength, Ruby told.
The Wishing Well
THERE WAS A wishing well at Kelmscott. The well was reputed to have a great many magic powers, including the ability to cure physical ills of all the well-known kinds, in addition to aiding in the resolution of all sorts of marital and familial dilemmas. Faith in the powers of the well was strengthened by one verifiable and unique feature: whatever the weather, and whatever the season, water from the well at Kelmscott was always ice cold.
With its simple stonework and wooden canopy the well was picturesque and Daunt had photographed it more than once. In spring the froth of hawthorn flower made a good backdrop. Climbing roses scrambled up the posts in summer. He had taken a third picture of it looking starkly beautiful in a wintry cap of snow. He lacked an autumn photograph to complete the quartet.
‘Let’s stop,’ he suggested, pointing at the well, which was wreathed with evergreen foliage into which the villagers had tied ribbons and straw decorations. ‘We have the light.’
He set up the camera and returned to Collodion to prepare the plate, while Rita lingered by the well, drawing up a pail of water and testing its temperature. It was as the legend said: the water was biting cold.
When Daunt returned, he inserted the plate in the camera.
Daunt had not photographed Rita for some time, and she knew the reason. Their photographic sessions had been intimate. To find the pose he would take her head in his hands and tilt it one way and the other, while she observed his face as he watched the light pool and flood according to the contours of her bones. When he found the right position their eyes would meet wordlessly, before he let go of her to return to the camera. And when the plate was exposed, and he was hidden beneath the black curtain, when all was silence and stillness, she nevertheless felt an intensity of communication, as everything she did not say to him in words overspilt into her gaze. Of course he had stopped taking her photograph. It was necessary.
Today’s photograph was a sudden shift, which was puzzling. Perhaps it meant that he had succeeded in freeing his heart, and could now behave with her in an ordinary way. She could not help being dismayed that he might have achieved this so easily, when the current of her own feelings still ran high.
‘Where shall I stand?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘Right behind the camera,’ he said, pointing to the dark curtain.
‘You want me to take the photograph?’
‘You’ve seen me lift the cover of the plate and take off the lens cap. Don’t let the light in under the curtain. Count to fifteen seconds and put the cover back. Don’t start counting till I’ve raised the water and gone under.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You plunge your face into the water and it’s supposed to show you the fulfilment of your wish.’
From under the black cloth, through the glass, Rita watched Daunt dip his fingertips in, then shake off the icy drops with a shudder. It put her in mind of the day at the river when he had stripped almost naked to plunge in up to the neck and help her in the experiment that had demonstrated the very opposite of what she had hoped. His blanched face had been rigid with cold that day, but he had not complained and had remained submerged to his Adam’s apple while she counted to sixty.
‘What are you going to wish for?’ she called.
‘Doesn’t it break the magic if you tell?’
‘Quite likely.’
‘Well then, I’m not telling.’
She had so many wishes she wouldn’t know where to start. To see Amelia’s kidnappers punished for their crime. To care for the girl and keep her from harm always. To find a way out of this eternal to-ing and fro-ing between loving Daunt and fearing pregnancy. To understand what happened to the girl’s heartbeat on winter solstice night.