The Tiger in the Well (42 page)

"Is there any light?" he said.

"No. Not a bit. Are you cold.'"'

"Yes. How many men came down the stairs.'*"

"A footman. The butler, I think. But they were only there a moment before they fell in and then the light went out. I think the whole wall collapsed."

"It should have blocked the stream."

"It must be very deep. All that rain—"

Something crashed into the lift from above, shaking both of them. Sally grabbed him for balance, and then heard a straining, creaking sound as the lift slowly tilted sideways. The cablet Sally thought—and then there was a bang as loud as a gunshot, and the floor plunged downward.

It was only a foot or so, but it sent her sprawling, and then the water surging in knocked her off balance again as she tried to struggle up, and then she gave a little cry, for Ah Ling was under the water and couldn't move.

She found his shoulders, his head, and lifted him in a burst of strength, hauling his head out of the water, gasping, retching, choking. She cradled it on her knee.

When he'd recovered his breath and she'd wiped his face

and eyes with her hand, she said, "I'm going to try and help you sit up. Otherwise you'll die."

Taking care not to let go and drop his head under the water, she maneuvered herself into a kneeling position behind him and tried to push upward. Everything was against her. His clothes were waterlogged; the floor was angled the wrong way so that his head was lower than his feet; her own arms were shaking so much with cold and effort that she could scarcely hold him. She got his shoulders up, but his head lolled sideways, and in trying to hold that she lost her grip on his shoulders. She tried again, but she pushed his head too sharply forward and felt his neck jerk desperately; he couldn't breathe. She rested, cradling his head once more on her lap, holding it tenderly, like a mother.

The water was up to his chin. And it seemed to be coming in faster.

"Is the lift on solid ground.'"' he said. "Not still suspended.'*"

"The cable's broken. It must be resting on something, but I don't know how solid it is. I'd have to let you go to find out."

"It's getting deeper."

"I'm resting my arms. In a minute I'll try to lift you again."

She felt him sigh. He was utterly still; she supposed he couldn't even shiver.

"In the village in China where my grandfather was bom," he said, "they used to fetch water from a well. It was a little outside the village, down a path through the bamboo. It wasn't the only water, because there was a stream as well, but the stream water was no good because of the paper works above the village. So every day the people would be going up and down the path bringing buckets of water to their homes.

"One day a little boy ran up to the village screaming. 'There's a tiger in the well!' he said. All the village people came running with sticks, ropes, anything that came to hand. They crowded around the top of the well to look, and sure enough, there was a tiger. It was a large well, with a little

stone platform partway down, and the tiger was crouched on that, and it couldn't get up.

"They didn't know what to do. While it was there they couldn't get any water, because the tiger was angered by the buckets and smashed them down off their ropes. And if they killed it, it would fall into the well and pollute the water; and, in any case, they had no means of killing it. And they certainly couldn't get it out alive."

He paused. Sally lifted his head a little higher.

"What did they do.?" she said.

"They prayed to the gods, of course. The gods sent rain— lots of rain. The well filled up, and the tiger was drowned. Then they could pull its body out, and the well was safe again."

"I see."

"I was reminded of the story by our present circumstances."

"Which of us is the tiger.?"

He didn't answer.

She sat there, shivering, wondering if she had the strength to lift him again. If she managed to prop him against the side of the lift, the upper part of his body would be clear of the water. She'd have to do something.

"Take a deep breath," she said. "I'm going to make another effort. I'll have to let your face go under for a moment and get a grip."

He nodded, breathed in, nodded again. She found her balance, let his collar go, got a grip on the shoulders of his coat, and heaved upward. It might have been his buoyancy in the water, but he was easier to lift this time; one heave and he was upright.

But then something happened inside him. His great frame convulsed as if someone had caught him in a mighty fist and squeezed, and then he retched and gasped. A hideous, deep sound halfway between a groan and a sob came from him. His head fell sideways.

She held him there propped up partway, off balance, her

heart thumping. She felt around for his face. Her fingers touched his open eyes, and he didn't bHnl^.

She snatched her hand away with horror. An instant later she controlled herself. He was dead; so . . . She found his face again and closed his eyes. Then she tried to lower him gently into the water, but he slipped from her grasp and fell in with a clumsy splash.

She shook the water off her hands and brushed them together automatically, and then sighed so deeply that it turned into a yawn which felt as if it would never stop.

She put out her hand to feel for the side of the lift, and it met the iron grille of the door, twisted and crumpled but firm enough to hold on to. She stood up.

The floor of the lift was tilted toward the gap in the floor where the water was coming in. The weight of the rubble falling down the shaft, which had caused the cable to snap, had driven it down onto solid ground; at least it felt solid, and it didn't rock when Sally moved about, clinging to the wall, trying to avoid treading on the body.

At the shallowest part—the back—the water was already up to her knees. At the open front it was near the top of her thighs. She clung to the door and felt around outside, trying to find a solid spot, but as she leaned out the lift creaked and swayed forward, and rubble fell heavily somewhere above and behind her.

She froze. The Hft held. If it fell forward, she thought, she'd be trapped under it for good.

Gingerly, delicately, she shifted her weight backward and into the lift again. She'd felt nothing underfoot but the swift-flowing water—and now the lift was at an even steeper angle.

Center of gravity, she thought. Get it down so you don't pull the lift even farther out. She lowered herself to a crouching position, up to her breast in the water, and once again felt around for a foothold outside.

Then something soft and massive began to press against her from behind. ...

Ah Ling's body, sliding down on her.

She screamed.

The terror caught her off balance, and the extra weight was too much for her strength. Her hand slipped off the grille and she fell, scrabbling for the edge of the floor, finding it, and being swept off like a fly as Ah Ling's body slid down, down, and down, and then fell with her into the flood.

In a dusty room over a stable in Lambeth, Harriet sat chewing a crust of bread while her guardians toasted some kippers over a smoky fire. They'd ditched the carriage and the horse somewhere in Vauxhall. Liam was bitter about letting them go, but he saw the force of Bill's argument.

"We gotta look after the kid first. That's what we done it all for. All right, we might get a quid or two for the nag, but so what.'' We can always get a nag—there's thousands. If we lose the kid, though, that's it, innit.'*"

So they'd come to one of the many squalid dens they used (one step ahead of the law or the landlord each time) and laid Bridie, still unconscious, on a heap of sacking in the corner, planted Harriet beside her with some bread one of the boys had found in his pocket, and set about cooking the kippers that had been hidden there since their last visit three days before.

Two things were concerning the gang. The first was finding a safer place than a succession of kips and hideouts for Harriet to stay in, and the second was Bridie. It was a long time for her to be unconscious, tough as she was. There'd come a time soon when they'd have to find help for her. Maybe they should have done so already. Maybe she'd die.

Harriet sat stolidly beside her and stared with interest. This lady was asleep, but the men weren't. They were making some breakfast. There was a nice horsy smell in the sacks, like the stable at home. And the breakfast smelled like Mrs. Perkins's breakfast sometimes did.

Then she noticed that the lady's eyes were open and gaz-

ing at her. She'd woken up. Politely Harriet held out her crust for the lady to share. The lady didn't take it, but a slow awakening smile filled her eyes from inside, and she reached out to stroke Harriet's tangled hair.

"She's awake!" said someone.

They were around her in a moment.

"Devil, Bridie, but you scared us," said Liam. "We thought you was about to stick your spoon in the wall."

"Not bloody likely," said Bridie.

"Buddy likely," said Harriet, agreeing. She liked this lady. She especially admired the way she spoke: a warm growl like a big cat. She tried it again. "Bloody likely."

"It's not bloody likely, colleen. Hush—^what's that.'*"

A shouting below, and then a thunderous banging on the trap door.

"Get out of it! Go on, scram, you vermin! I'll set the dog on yer!"

Terrifying growls accompanied the voice. Groaning, the gang collected its half-cooked kippers, helped Bridie to stand, hoisted Harriet into someone's arms, and opened the trap door.

"All right, mister," Liam called down. "We'll go. Hold the dog back."

"Hurry up then," said the owner.

They scrambled down the ladder and out through the stables into the dawn light, Bridie staggering a little, Liam chewing a kipper.

The owner of the stables watched them go with narrowed eyes. Was that a child they were carting about.'' Yes, it was.

"Here—" he called, starting after them, but they heard him, saw the dog, and fled.

Bloody nuisance, he thought. For he had a conscience, and he'd heard of baby stealing. Some poor woman would wake up this morning to find her baby missing. Couldn't have that. He locked the gate and set off with the dog to find a policeman.

So when Con and Tony arrived two minutes later, having done the rounds of half a dozen kips already, there was no one there.

"Man, I'm done," said Tony, as they climbed the ladder. "It won't matter if we take a wee nap, now will it? We'll find 'em soon enough."

"We promised the man," said Con. "We have to make the telephone call."

"As soon as we find her," said Tony. "She'll be safe, and we'll find her soon enough. I'm going to have forty winks."

"Hey, they've been here! Look! The fire's still—"

A dog growled below them. They looked at each other.

"There's some of 'em still there!" said a man's voice.

"All right, come on down," said another voice, an official voice, a police voice. "Else I'll come up and get yer, and yer won't like that. I'm not having baby stealing on my beat. You're nabbed, that's what you are. I've gotcher."

For days now, Sarah-Jane Russell had stood outside Orchard House. That odious man Parrish had paid her off, her and Ellie and Mrs. Perkins, and told her to be about her business, find another job—the position of nurse was filled.

And no one knew where Miss Lockhart was; no one knew whether Harriet was safe; no one could help at all. Sarah-Jane didn't know what to do. Ellie was staying in the town, and Mrs. Perkins had gone to stay with her cousin in Reading. Sarah-Jane was staying with her married sister, but there wasn't really room. . . .

There was no law against her standing outside the gate, though. Watching them cart away all the family's possessions. Watching them bring in vanloads of property from somewhere else. Watching new servants appear, take down curtains, change locks, repaint the woodwork a vile shade of red. Sarah-Jane stood there for days, watching, noting, weeping.

Parrish saw her eventually and sent for a policeman to tell her to move away. She knew the policeman: he was Ellie's

sister-in-law's cousin. Both of them were embarrassed. She went away then, but came back later and kept out of sight in the bushes.

She didn't know what she was going to do. But someone had to stay there. Someone had to keep watch. She had vague thoughts of waiting till they brought Harriet there (she had no doubt that they would, in the end; they seemed to be able to do everything they wanted) and kidnapping her, snatching her away, running off somewhere. But she knew she probably wouldn't. She wasn't brave enough, not on her own. That sort of thing only happened in Jim's stories. Oh, if only they'd never gone away. . . .

She arrived outside the house that morning to find that something had changed. There was smoke coming out of the chimney, and a carriage in the drive. Servants were moving about in the dining room.

As she crouched down in the bushes outside the gate and peered through, the front door opened and Parrish came out.

He stood in the doorway, stretching, yawning, scratching himself. He looked as if he owned the place, and he didn't care who knew it. She longed to throw something at him. She longed to run out there and shout at him, attack him, beat him down. She even felt for a stone; but then a woman came out, in an apron like that of a nurse, and said something to him. He nodded and went back inside, closing the door.

Did that mean Harriet was there.? Had they got her after all.?

Sarah-Jane felt tears come to her eyes. That something like this could happen in England, that the law actually helped it on its way . . . She gulped and swallowed hard. Her head sank down into her hands. It was too much.

"Sarah-Jane.?"

Her heart thumped against her throat, and she spun around. Then her mouth fell open, she felt suddenly dizzy, and she put a hand on the wall to steady herself.

For standing in the road, a knapsack over his shoulder and

a straw hat on his head, was a slim young man with bleached hair and a sun-darkened face and clear green eyes.