The pool of St Branok

I smiled. I cherished every aspect of normality, of the return to the old days.

I heard my mother whisper to my father: "Better not say anything about the accident. It seems to upset her."

I was glad of that. I didn't want to have to talk of it. I did not want to have to lie more than was necessary. That was a great help.

I learned that I had been very ill for three weeks.

"Jack has been so upset," my mother told me. "He's been wanting to bring you his train and you know that is his dearest possession. You should have seen the glum faces in the kitchen. Mrs. Penlock is full of ideas as to what she is going to give you to eat. She says she is going to 'build you up' as though you are some sort of edifice. You would be the size of a house if she could have her way. We've all been so worried ... every one of us, and we are so happy now that you are getting well. But don't think you are going to rush it. You're going to spend another week in bed; and then we are going to take it very slowly."

"I must have been very ill."

She nodded, her lips trembling.

"You thought I was going to die."

"Pneumonia is very serious ... and there was a fever. You seemed to be so disturbed. But it is all over now."

All over? I thought. It will never be all over. He will always be there ... lying at the bottom of the pool.

I said: "How is Ben?"

"Oh, he has gone. He waited to see if you ... he waited until he knew you were going to recover. He couldn't go till then. Well, you know, he was only coming here for a month or so."

"He didn't come to say goodbye."

"No. I didn't want you to have visitors ... and you seemed a little upset when he came."

"Didn't I speak to him?"

"No ... not really. You muttered something we couldn't understand ... and I said that I thought too many people in the room was not good for you. He went back to London about a week ago. There is a lot to tell you when you are stronger."

I was feeling a little better every day. Nothing had been discovered then.

How right Ben had been! It had happened. It was over, and we had to forget.

I was very weak and was surprised how tottery I felt when I got out of bed. "It will take time," said my mother.

She would sit with me during the afternoons. Sometimes she read to me; at others she sat at her sewing ... and we talked.

It was some little time before I could bring myself to say: "Mama, I haven't heard anything about ... that man ... that convict who escaped."

"Oh him. That all died down. They never caught him."

"What ... what do they think happened to him?"

"They think he must have got out of the country."

"Would he be able to do that?"

"Oh yes, it's possible. I expect he had friends to help him. There was quite a little bit of news about his background. It was most extraordinary. He was apparently quite a well-educated young man. He had been tutor to a family not far from Bodmin, Launceston way. Crompton ... I think was the place. How dreadful to think he had been in charge of children! I think his late employers must be feeling very grateful just now."

"A tutor," I murmured.

"Yes ... to a young boy about your age. There was a little girl in the family, but I think she had a governess. There was quite a story about them. His employers were astounded. They had always thought so highly of him."

"You don't think he might have been ... innocent?"

"Oh no ... no. No question about that. He was caught red-handed as it were. It was some local village girl."

I shivered.

"Apparently something suspicious had happened to him before ... but it hadn't been proved. That was a pity. If it had been, that poor girl's life might have been saved."

"And he escaped?"

"Yes. He had a knife. They don't know how he managed to have that. They think it must have been cleverly smuggled in to him. He attacked a warder with it. The poor man was badly hurt and is now slowly recovering. He got keys from him and just calmly walked out of the jail. They traced him to Carradon ... not very far from here. Then they lost the trail and he disappeared into the blue."

Oh no, Mama, I wanted to say. Into the pool.

"It was a nine days' wonder. I think it is something the authorities would rather forget. But the press won't let them ... not until people get tired of the case. They do of course get tired of reading about chases that go on and on and never get anywhere. It's rarely mentioned now. They accept the fact that this was one who got away. I think it is almost certain that he left the country."

There was no need to worry, I thought. He will never be found. Ben is right. We have to forget. We did nothing wrong. He was a man who was going to die in any case and we had made it easier for him.