Page 13 of Kept 3
Panic sets in. I realise he will report back to Nicholas that I left the manor, and all exits will likely be blocked to me in the future. This is my only chance. Steeling myself and clenching my jaw, I decide instantaneously to make a run for it. Shoving him hard in the chest, I knock him backwards and shoot towards the nearby woods.
Swearing he lunges after me, but just misses, his fingers literally brushing my hair.
I run, full tilt, harder and faster than I have ever run before. My wheezing breaths sound like tiny screams of fear as I imagine the man right behind me. But he is not. Rather than pursue me on foot, I hear him start his motorbike, just as I reach the trees.
Panting like a woman in labour, I dodge around trees and shrubs and head in the general direction I know Ereston Village to be, vaguely East, where I’d seen lights on the horizon through my massive bedroom windows. As I run deeper into the forest, where the trees and underbrush are thicker, it slows me down, but I am also aware that the sound of the bike is retreating, and I hope to God the gamekeeper has given up and returned to the manor where, fingers crossed, I won’t be pursued until the sun sets.
Slowing down to a fast walk to catch my breath, the motorbike now way in the distance, I try to take my bearings. But the woods are so deep, and even though the trees are in Autumn foliage, they are blocking much of the sunlight, and I have no innate sense of direction.
“Jesus, fuck, I hope I’m not running in circles,” I whisper as I set off once more at a jog.
Slowing only to push myself, here and there, through thick underbrush, ease my feet out of muddy bogs, or clamber and scramble over logs, I continue for what seems like several hours before I finally notice the woods are thinning. Late afternoon I abruptly find the trees end in bright sunlight and a small bitumen road.
It has not rained, as the gamekeeper predicted, although many times over the past day I wished it would. I am so thirsty and flushed; I would kill for a drink. As I think this, it comes to mind that this is exactly what Nicholas does, and I remind myself I need to hurry.
Standing in the treeline, I look left and right to ensure no one is around, before stepping out onto the road. I have no idea which direction to take, but I know I only have an hour or two before the sun sets, and my heart begins to beat faster at the thought of Nicholas’ anger, and his possibly imaginative retribution when he discovers I have run away. Images of Kathy Bates and having my legs broken swim before my eyes, and panic begins to grip my chest.
“Which way? Far out, which way?” I whisper as I stand on the road, chewing my lip and clawing my wayward hair out of my eyes.
“Back, lass,” a deep voice says.
I shriek and spin around. In the trees not 20 metres further down from where I have emerged, is the gamekeeper, gun slung across his shoulder, dog at his feet, shaking his head at me.
“Stop chasing me!” I scream, turning to run down the road away from him, no longer caring where it leads, as long as it was away from him and his boss. I hear the motorbike start, and I begin to sob as it gains fast and then idles behind me, keeping up but not trying to run me down, or pass.
“This road goes for 40 miles,” the gamekeeper shouts over the noise of the engine.
I ignore him and continue to jog, my heart is pounding, my lungs feel like I’m breathing fire, my feet are blistered and bleeding from half a million splinters and cuts. But I keep going, one foot in front of the other, praying a car will come past and rescue me.
Twenty minutes pass, I’m slowing, but still running, the motorbike still idling along behind me.
“You’ve been running all day. Give it up, lass,” the deep voice says again.
I glance to my side and see his dog, the big, floppy red setter, grinning and running along as though it is having the time of its life, and I know; I have nothing more to give. I’ve had no water all day, my legs feel like they are made of jelly, and my face feels so hot it might explode. I know I can’t go on and, sobbing, finally spent, I collapse and fall to the grass by the roadside and give in to my disappointment and disgust at my own weakness.
The engine stops. I hear heavy footfalls, but I don’t struggle as strong hands pull me up from the grass and carry me to the bike, lying me across the back in the carrier where earlier I’d seen the fawn.
Without speaking, the gamekeeper whistles for his dog and turns the bike around, heading back to Ereston. I say nothing, but continue to cry quietly for much of the bumpy journey. When we finally pull up to the front steps of Ereston, I scramble out of the carrier, rise on weak legs and turn to my captor. Wiping swollen eyes, I raise them to him in one last pleading attempt at salvation.
“Will you at least post a letter for me? Is that too much to ask?”
“Now that, I can do,” he says, taking the letter I withdraw from my pocket and hold out to him with a trembling hand.
“I don’t have any stamps on it,” I add, apologetically.
“Never you mind,” he says, “I’m going into Ereston Village in the morning, “I’ll send it off for you. Now be a good girl and go back inside.”
Shoulders slumped, I nod and walk up the wide steps to where the butler is waiting, door open, face impassive.
“His Lordship wishes to see you in his study,” he says in his low monotone.
“His Lordship can fuck off,” I mutter, dragging my sore legs up three more wide, winding staircases and along two long, torturous corridors, to my bedroom.
Staggering to my bedside table, I pour myself three glasses of water from the crystal jug, one after the other, and down them, glug, glug, glug, not spilling a precious drop, before spinning towards the bathtub and lowering myself in, dress and all. My body is so sore, so completely spent, I can’t even rise to reach the taps, and instead, flick them on with my toes.
Lying fully clothed, the water gradually rising, I stare at the ceiling and send my will, every tiny bit of it, into the universe, begging it, pushing it, forcing it, to have my letter delivered – and have James find me.
“The universe will provide,” I whisper to the ceiling, “it always does.”
