Come to Castlemoor

by Wilde, Jennifer;

  I was glad I was wearing my leaf-green dress. The waist and bodice fit tightly, the puffed sleeves dropped slightly off the shoulder, and the full, swirling skirt was scattered with embroidered white and brown flowers, sewn on at random. The cut and color of the dress showed me off to the best advantage, and it was only by pure chance I had worn it today. My hair was caught up in back with a single green bow, falling in rippling golden waves to my shoulders. I always wanted to look nice, but there was a special importance about it today. I desperately wanted this man to approve of me. It mattered, and I didn’t exactly know why. The sensation was a new one for me. I was not equipped to understand it properly.

  “I really had intended to call on you,” Edward Clark said, standing behind me. “You’ve been here what—three days? Four?”

  “Today’s the fifth day since I arrived.”

  “I wanted to give you time to get settled in. However, I’d have been on your doorstep the first morning had I known what I know now.”

  “What’s that, Mr. Clark?”

  “That you’re unbelievably lovely. Donald always said you resemble a portrait of Barbara Castlemaine that hangs in the National Gallery. You do. Now I can see why Castlemaine enchanted Charles—and half the men in England.”

  “The comparison isn’t flattering,” I said somewhat stiffly. “She was hardly an admirable person.”

  “Wasn’t she?”

  “Surely you’ve read your history books. Why, Pepys said—”

  Edward Clark chuckled. It was a soft, rumbling sound, interrupting me. I turned around to face him, slightly flustered. His amusement irritated me, putting me on the defensive. He was standing so close that I could see the coarse, tweedy texture of his jacket. I could smell the shaving lotion he used, blended with the smells of leather and silk and the male body. I backed away a step or two, the back of my legs pressing against the railing of the bridge. He seemed to surround me, blotting everything else out, yet there was nothing brash or forward about his nearness. My own awareness of him just made it seem so.

  He was aware of my discomfort. He stopped chuckling, even though his eyes seemed to continue the sound silently. He nodded his head, a lock of thick blond-bronze hair tumbling across his tanned forehead. He spread his hands out apologetically.

  “Forgive my gallantry,” he said. “It’s a habit I picked up in college when I was striving to win the favors of all the barmaids. My classmates’d grab and paw, with only a tongue-lashing for their efforts. I found a slow, searching look and a smooth compliment got marvelous results. I had a whole drawerful of garters at my digs, tokens from Dot and Sally and Bess—”

  He grinned, no doubt remembering those easy conquests. I stared at him coolly, not knowing exactly how to react. I knew it wasn’t proper for him to be telling me such things, yet I didn’t want him to think me a typical Victorian prude. Living with Donald and associating with his rowdy friends had long since made me immune to shock at masculine dallying, yet I could feel my cheeks turning pink, despite my efforts to curb the blush.

  “I’m hardly a barmaid!” I snapped, more in irritation with myself than in affront.

  “Hardly,” he said quietly. “Forgive me—it seems I’m apologizing all over the place. No, you’re not a barmaid, and I assure you my gallantry was most sincere.”

  “I don’t even wear garters!” I added.

  The blush burned rosily now. Edward Clark threw back his head, laughing uproariously. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed too. I was acting outrageously. A sense of humor was all that could save the situation. When he laughed, the muscles in his thick neck worked strongly, pumping out the deep, lusty sound. My own laughter joined his, and it helped me to relax. I felt the nervous tension snap, flow, vanish.

  “Tell me,” he said when our laughter had subsided, “what are you doing here? Were you on your way back to the house? Surely you don’t intend to walk all that distance?”

  “No, I came to town with my maid and the boy who’s been helping us. He brought us in his wagon. Bella, my maid, wanted to buy a cage of birds she saw earlier this afternoon. I told her I’d meet them here. I wanted to walk a bit, explore the town.”

  “A shame,” he said. “That they’re coming for you, I mean. I had visions of sweeping you up and taking you back on my horse. A pretty girl, a white horse, a sunset …”

  “You’re being gallant again,” I told him.

  “Perhaps ‘romantic’ is a better word. When I was a boy I read about the cavaliers with their plumed hats and flamboyant mannerisms. I’m afraid it made a deep impression on me. Fortunately, I discovered the Celtic myths a little later on. They made an even deeper impression. I turned them into an academic pursuit that’s a way of life now.”

  “I’ve read your book on Celtic folklore, Mr. Clark.”

  “Have you indeed? I would think the Brontë novels and the poetry of Byron would be more your sort of thing.”

  “You would think that,” I replied.

  “Remarkable,” Edward Clark said, shaking his head. “Donald told me you’d helped him with his book, done research for him, kept his files. It’s hard to imagine a woman doing those things—particularly a woman who looks like you.”

  “I suppose you think doing embroidery and painting watercolors should be enough to fulfill a woman’s ambitions,” I said, ready to launch a tirade about man’s narrow viewpoint and woman’s natural ability. He could see my sensitivity on the subject.

  “Not at all, not at all,” he protested, lifting his hands out again. His blue eyes danced with amusement, and he fought to keep the grin off his mobile lips. “I admire bluestockings.”

  “I’m not a bluestocking,” I retorted. “I hate that term. It implies that any intelligent woman has to be some kind of freak. Women are just as intelligent as men. Society holds them down, and convention—”

  “You were born too early,” Edward Clark said, grinning openly now. “I have a feeling women are going to come into their own one day. When they do, they’ll rule the world, just as they did here until some smart man learned to count to nine.”

  I stared at him icily, wondering if he were trying to shock me. I knew that the prehistoric ruins indicated that woman had ruled society thousands of years ago. She had the ability to create life, and this mystic power endowed her with a natural superiority that made man subservient, her slave. The earliest ruins were womb-shaped, celebrating woman’s dominance. Later on, after man’s role in the creation of life was discovered, the ruins took on an entirely different nature, and woman became the subservient sex. Edward Clark seemed to be amused by this, something that had happened before history began, and he knew I was aware of what he had referred to.

  “Those were the days,” he said, grinning.

  “You’re insufferable,” I told him.

  “That’s just a first impression. After you get to know me, you’ll find me quite charming, full of all kinds of endearing qualities.”

  “I have no intentions of getting to know you,” I said stiffly.

  “You’ll change your mind.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “Attractive, intelligent—and stubborn. Quite a combination! Quite irresistible.”

  “Your horse is waiting for you, Mr. Clark.”

  Edward Clark looked at me, looked at the horse, shrugged his massive shoulders. He backed away from me, jamming his hands in his pockets and staring at me with his head cocked to one side, his brows arched. Then he smiled. It was a radiant smile, and I was unable to resist its power. I smiled too. Edward Clark walked over to his horse, stroked it’s mane, strolled to the railing of the bridge opposite where I stood, and looked down at the water, his back to me. I noticed the way the sun touched the burned-blond hair that curled untidily on the back of his neck, the way the tweed jacket fit so tightly across his shoulders, as though it taxed the material to cover so broad an expanse. He turned around abruptly, faced me with a boyish grin.

  “This is ridiculous, isn
’t it?” he said from across the bridge.

  “Of course it is. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Friends?” he asked.

  “Friends,” I said.

  He leaned back against the railing, his elbows on the ledge, crossing his legs casually. The jacket fell open. The green cravat ruffled in the slight breeze. The width of the bridge was between us, but somehow it seemed he was closer than before. The gorgeous white horse tapped its hooves on the stones at the edge of the bridge, patiently waiting for its master to take command again.

  “Donald wrote about you,” I said. I had to raise my voice a little, and curiously enough, this made the communication between us seem more intimate and direct.

  “Did he?”

  “He said he’d discussed his new book with you.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “You weren’t enthusiastic.”

  He shook his head. “He was way off course.”

  “I find that hard to believe. My brother—”

  Edward Clark came across the bridge and stood beside me. He spoke in a deep, serious voice, all frivolity and boyish charm subdued. “Your brother was a brilliant man. I admired him. I even envied his scholarship. He was capable of astounding work, but this time he was all wrong.”

  “He was working on the Celtic religions. I did research for him. There hasn’t been a really definitive book on the subject. Donald intended to do one. He wanted to explore the subject thoroughly—”

  “That’s where he went off the track,” he replied. “As you have probably already discovered, Darkmead is an astoundingly superstitious village. The past isn’t dead for them. It’s alive. It’s here and now. Donald was infected with this superstition. It grew and grew, until he actually began to believe the tales and rumors that were circulating. He set out to prove as scholarly fact what is, in reality, mere fantasy.”

  “I wish you would be more specific, Mr. Clark.”

  “Very well. He believed that the Celts still inhabit the moors, hold ancient ceremonies among the ruins. He believed there was a secret cult of druids in and around Darkmead. Is that specific enough?”

  “Specific,” I said, “and—astonishing.”

  “The villagers talk about ghosts,” he continued. “They say the druids rise from their graves at night, dance around the stones. People claim to have seen them, just as some people claim to have seen ancient ancestors roam the halls of old houses. It’s a curious phenomenon. The mind is capable of imagining something so vividly, with such intensity, that frequently the imagined image is so strong that it actually seems to present itself before its creator, a separate entity, projected by the mind and about as substantial as a dream. Ghosts exist, but they exist only in the minds of gullible people.”

  “My brother was a scholar. His mind was like a diamond.”

  “Quite true. That made the visions all the more sharp.”

  “I don’t think Donald was capable of believing in ghosts.”

  “Ordinarily, no, but overwork and mental fatigue can do strange things to people. When your brother first came here, he was full of enthusiasm. His energy knew no bounds. He didn’t eat properly. He didn’t get enough sleep. He worked himself into a state of nervous exhaustion. Donald wasn’t a well man toward the end. I’m sorry to have to tell you that.”

  I thought of what Maud had told me about Donald’s condition during the last month he lived. It fit perfectly with what Edward Clark had just said. I forced back the tears that threatened to spill over my lashes. Donald had needed me, and I was not there. I had been in London. If I had been here, I might have saved his life. He had been weak, tired, his ordinarily alert mind numbed by exhaustion. He hadn’t seen the crevasse. His mind had been on other things, and he tripped … I turned away from Edward Clark and stared down at the water. I wasn’t sure if I saw it or if I was seeing my own tears.

  Edward Clark stood beside me, silent. His presence was somehow comforting.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a while.

  “Did you read the manuscript?” I asked, still watching the water flow over the rocks.

  “I read it,” he said. “It was rough draft, of course, many chapters unconnected, merely outlined. The early part, the factual reconstruction of the religious rites, was brilliant. The rest was—nebulous. You must have realized that when you read it.”

  “I haven’t read it,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “I—I haven’t found it. It’s missing.”

  “Then he did destroy it. He said he was going to. He intended to take a short vacation—the seashore, I believe he said—and then come back and start all over again. I talked to him two days before the accident. He was going to go to London, fetch you, and head for the sea. He realized he was in dire need of a break.…” His voice trailed off. His blue eyes turned cloudy. The lines of his face were solemn.

  “Life is like that sometimes,” he said. “Sad, unfair—”

  “But we go on,” I replied, calm now.

  “It’s been hard on you.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but the worst is over now. A new life has begun for me. I can’t afford to grieve over the old one.”

  “Why did you come here?” he asked. Castlemoor is no place for someone like you. In London there’s merriment, music, diversion …”

  “I’m not looking for diversion. I came to Castlemoor to finish my brother’s book. I—I guess that’s out of the question now.”

  He nodded grimly. “What are you going to do now?”

  I didn’t answer for a moment. I stood there looking at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, and I thought about Donald, about the book he had intended to write. It had been very important to him. It was important to me now. I knew, all at once, that I had to do that book myself. There was no manuscript to finish, no notes to guide me, but I would start from scratch. I told Edward about it.

  “I have a file full of research materials, all the books I need, and the ruins are right in my own backyard, so to speak,” I concluded.

  “That sounds like quite a task for—” He paused.

  “For a woman,” I finished the sentence for him. “Do you doubt I have the ability to do it?”

  “Not anymore,” he said, an amused lilt in his voice.

  “You think I should go back to London,” I said in a flat voice.

  “Perhaps I do. Nevertheless, I’m delighted with your decision to stay here. For purely selfish reasons.”

  “Gallantry,” I said.

  “Sincere gallantry. You can expect a lot of it in days to come.”

  “Can I indeed?”

  He nodded, his heavy lids drooping at the corners, his mouth stretching in a flat smile. He stood there beside me, so large, so confident. I tried to resist the powerful charm he exercised so casually. I turned away from him. He laid his hand on my shoulder and turned me back around. His hand on my chin, he tilted my face up so that I had to look into his eyes. They were full of amusement, and tender. “Any objections?” he inquired softly.

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, “waiting a long time. I believe you’ve been waiting, too.”

  “That must have come straight out of a novel,” I said nervously, “and a very bad novel, at that. People don’t talk that way—particularly when they’ve just met someone not thirty minutes before.”

  “I told you earlier, my life was shaped by the books I read.”

  “Perhaps you read the wrong ones.”

  “Surely you don’t expect a proper Victorian courtship? Stuffy parlors, chaperons, polite, empty words, horsehair sofas, and Sunday concerts and magic-lantern slides and moss roses wrapped with fern—that’s not the sort of courtship you want. We’re both too adult, too intelligent for that.”

  “What makes you think I want any sort of courtship at all, Mr. Clark?”

  “It’s ‘Edward,’” he said, “and you made me think that, the moment I rode up and you looked a
t me.”

  “You’re mistaken,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “I think not, Kathy.”

  He looked into my eyes for a long moment. Then he stepped back, lifting his shoulders and dropping them in a slight shrug. He jammed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head to one side. A small grin flickered at the corners of his mouth. He was like an overgrown boy delighted with some marvelous toy. I stood at the railing, completely at a loss. I heard wagon wheels on the road.

  “They’re coming for me,” I said, my voice trembling.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he informed me.

  “Will you?”

  “Count on it,” he said.

  He stepped over to the horse and swung easily into the saddle, putting his feet in the stirrups and taking up the reins. He walked the horse across the bridge, turned, nodded his head, raised his hand in salute, and rode away, disappearing in the grove of giant oaks that stood on the edge of the moors. The scene that I had found so peaceful and lovely before, now seemed suddenly empty, as though in leaving he had robbed it of all of its warmth and beauty. It seemed deserted now, whereas before it had seemed a restful haven. I waited eagerly for the wagon, anxious to be gone. It rumbled into sight. Bella held the bird cage in her lap, and she and Alan were talking in low, amused voices. Bella gave me a curious look as Alan stopped the wagon and leaped down to help me up.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked. “You look kinda—shaken.”

  “I’m just tired,” I said.

  “We didn’t intend to stay so long.”

  “That’s all right, Bella.”

  We drove across the bridge and under the boughs of the gigantic oaks. Bella showed me her birds. They were beautiful, one yellow, one gold, one brown, in a brass-wire cage shaped like a little house. The birds chirped merrily, as though aware of the attention they were getting. Bella dropped a handful of seed in the bottom of the cage and set it down in back of the wagon. We started across the moors toward the house. I was silent, my arms folded across my waist, a pensive expression on my face. Alan and Bella seemed to be silently sharing some pleasant experience. I wondered what had kept them so long in town.