Free Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns

great push and shouted, “You are the Devil—you bloody devil!” and rushed away leaving part of her nightgown in his hand. Toby helped the baker from the ground and they both ran after the yelling woman, who leapt and staggered through the village, as if she was on wires. People screamed and ran into their houses. Others put their heads out of windows; children started to cry. But no one came to the baker’s aid. When she reached the bridge she stopped for a moment by the White Lion, where only yesterday she had been drinking and laughing with the journalists. One of these journalists was standing by the swing doors of the saloon bar; and he took one startled look at the wild and terrible woman and ran into the closet and locked the door. She stood tottering and put her hands to her stomach and started to retch; then she saw her husband and Toby bearing down on her and yelled in a dreadful deep voice, “Leave me alone, you devils! Oh, leave me alone!” She lurched off down the street towards Willoweed house. When she reached the huge green back-gates she clawed at them like a demented animal, and suddenly they burst open and she staggered into the yard.
    The white cat, which had happily been playing with a leaf, rushed away and tore up a trunk of a beech tree and, as the baker came running into the yard, leapt to a branch, missed and fell. It fell on the unfortunate screaming woman below and clawed her bare shoulders. A look of such demented horror came over her face; then her jaws began to clamp and she fell to the ground in a fit with the cat below her. The husband, followed by the old, scarred man, stood at the gates and saw her long white legs writhing; and then she was quite still. The baker seemed dazed, stumbled to her assistance; but there was little he could do except send Toby for the doctor. He took off his apron to make some kind of pillow for the poor creature’s head and tried to pull the torn nightgown to cover the still legs; and he carefully wiped the foam from her lips with his floury handkerchief. While he was looking hopefully at the house windows and wondering if anyone would come to his assistance, Norah came running from the kitchen crying.
    “Oh, Mr. Emblyn, I’ll come and help you in a moment; but my sister has fainted. She saw it all from the window and is that shocked. Oh, dear!” And the girl ran back to her unconscious sister lying on the stone kitchen floor. Then there was a sound of stumping boots and Grandmother Willoweed appeared in the yard and exclaimed, “Good God! Whatever is all this? Is the woman drunk?”
    The overwhelmed baker tried to give an account of what had happened, which was difficult because the old lady constantly interrupted him, and he had difficulty with the ear trumpet. He ended his muddled explanations with, “Oh, ma’m, if only I could have a blanket for my poor wife, she feels so strangely cold.”
    “Dead most likely!” she replied, shaking out her ear trumpet. “But she needs a blanket to cover up those shocking legs. My son had better help you carry her into the house.”
    She eyed the dazzling and shapely legs with sullen disfavour and shouted to Norah when she appeared again from the kitchen, “Fetch a blanket and the Master, the blanket first and use one from your own bed.”
    Ebin arrived before the blanket and stood staring in appalled horror at the beautiful body and coarse face of his old mistress. He was filled with pity and disgust. “How could I have ever touched her?” he thought; but he helped her husband carry her to the kitchen with the utmost care. As she was lifted from the ground the bloodstained body of the squashed cat was revealed.
    “That woman has killed my cat,” the old woman declared, as she examined the pitiful little body; and she noted with interest that one eye had been squashed right out of its head, while the other remained almost normal.
    “Quite remarkable!” she said as she trod purposefully towards the