by Flora Kidd
Someone was whispering her name! She clapped her hands to her cheeks and stared at the half-open door of Magnus's bedroom. Oh dear, she'd gone mad. She was hearing voices now!
'Eilidh, come in. Stay a while.'
There it was again, deep and strangely husky, like Magnus's voice yet not like his voice at all; hollow-sounding, like a voice she had once heard when she had gone to see the play Hamlet when she had been on holiday in England and had visited the theatre at Stratford-on-Avon. It was like Hamlet's father's ghost's voice. Her skin prickled again and she nearly turned and fled down the stairs.
Then the practical side of her nature asserted itself. Impatiently she shook her head to clear it of fantasy. There were no such things as ghosts. She wasn't hearing a voice speaking to her and there was no one in Magnus's room. She would prove it. Marching forward, she pushed open the door and stepped into the room. It was neat and clean like every other room in the castle, as if Isabel Macleish had been over recently and gone through the place with a new broom, sweeping all before her. But there were no dust covers over the furniture as in the other bedrooms and a slight breeze stirred the curtains at the single lattice window. The door to the battlements was open as if someone had just stepped out on to them.
Helen didn't allow her imagination to take over again. She walked across the room and stepped through the doorway on to the wall-walk and looked first to the right and then to the left. Striped with sunlight and shadow, the wall-walk was empty. Should she walk around the tower to see if anyone was out on the battlements? Remembering what had happened to her the last time she had done that, she decided against it and closed the door firmly, deciding that Isabel Macleish had opened it, possibly to let some air into the room when she had been cleaning it and then had either forgotten to close it or hadn't closed it properly so that it had opened again.
Still keeping a control over her imagination, Helen walked back across the bedroom, averting her glance from the bed where she and Magnus had made love and had slept a few weeks ago, then leaving the room she went down the stairs, all the way down and into the kitchen. No one had come in while she had been upstairs and the room was quiet, glowing with sunlight which was shafting through the window now that the sun was in the west.
With a sigh Helen slumped down on to one of the kitchen chairs. What should she do now? Where was Megan Scott-Murray? Not staying here, certainly. The dust covers in the guest bedroom and the master bedroom were evidence of that. Opening her handbag, she took out the letter and re-read it. At present I am staying at Carroch Castle, Megan had written, and when Helen had phoned Isabel Macleish had been expecting to hear from her, hadn't been surprised that she had been invited to stay at the castle by its owner. And Archie had said nothing today. He hadn't said that Megan had left the castle or would be returning to it later.
Again Helen studied the signature at the bottom of the letter. It didn't look like a woman's handwriting. But then why should she jump to a conclusion like that? Many women wrote boldly, the strength of their characters showing in the way they signed their names.
Had she been hoaxed? Had someone written this letter to her and signed it with Megan's name? She jumped to her feet and went through to the lounge, straight to the desk. In the top drawer there was blue writing paper embossed with the Castle's postal address. On the top of the desk there was a selection of pens. One of them had a thick black point. Helen scribbled with it on the blue paper, then signed her own name. Written by the felt pen, it looked bold and black, unlike her usual neat flowing writing. Had Megan's signature been written by it?
She was just putting a sheet of the paper into the small portable typewriter on the desk to test if the typing of the letter she had received had been done on it when she was startled by a banging sound. She paused in what she was doing and listened. Yes, there it was again—a definite thud, thud, like someone kicking something wooden; like someone kicking at a door!
Leaving the lounge, she raced up the stairs, right up to the third storey, and paused at the top to listen again. Thud, thud. She hadn't been mistaken. Someone was kicking at the door which opened out of Magnus's room on to the battlements. Someone who had been out there when she had come up to his room before. But who? Megan Scott-Murray? Or a ghost?
The door suddenly shook violently. It wasn't being kicked this time. Someone, someone who was solid bone and muscle, had crashed into it as if hoping to burst it open.
'Oh, wait, wait!' cried Helen breathlessly, and rushing across the room she pulled the door open, just as Magnus launched himself at it again. He hurtled through the space where the door had been, crashed into Helen and they both fell to the floor, she being trapped by his weight, all the breath knocked out of her. Pushing up and away from her, he sat glaring down at her with blazing blue eyes.
'Why on earth did you shut that door?' he roared at her.
'I… I…' she gasped, drew a deep breath and sat up. 'I didn't know there was anyone outside,' she managed to get out at last.
He was there, actually there in the room with her. He wasn't a ghost but a handsome, vibrant man who didn't seem to be at all surprised to see her and who was furiously angry for some reason.
He was there with her, in the room where they had made love, and she wanted to touch him, stroke his cheeks, smooth his wind-ruffled hair, kiss the bad temper away from his eyes and lips, show him how glad she was to see him. Then she remembered the feeling she had had that someone was in the castle watching her. She remembered the creaking of a floorboard and a ghostly voice. 'Oh, it was you!' she accused. 'It was you all the time! You've been in the castle watching me. You… you enticed me to come into this room by… by pretending to be a ghost. Oh, you mischievous devil, you! I'm glad I closed the door on you—it served you right to be locked out there!'
Getting to her feet, she straightened her blouse and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. Magnus stood up too and went over to the dressing table to look at his reflection, while he smoothed his wind-ruffled hair back and at the same time to watch her reflection in the mirror, although she didn't know he was doing that. 'I didn't know you were here,' said Helen, more quietly. 'I was beginning to think there was no one here.'
'Really?' He turned to look at her. 'Then why have you come here?'
'I was invited to come by your mother. She wrote and asked me to come and stay with her for the weekend.'
'My mother?' he exclaimed, and laughed rather jeeringly as he turned back to the mirror. 'Oh, come on, Helen, you can do better than that, surely? You can come up with a better excuse than that for following me here. My mother is in the South of France right now, staying with friends. She hasn't been to Carroch all year.'
'I did not follow you here!' retorted Helen, her temper beginning to rise again and she glared at his back.
'No?' His tone was sarcastic.
'No. I don't chase after film stars, or rock groups or… or any other kind of popular entertainer. I… I'm not a groupie, or whatever it is you call that sort of person who hangs about everywhere you go.' She drew a deep shaky breath, then burst out, 'And I'm not like… like that woman in Hollywood either. You won't find me committing suicide just because you… you'd seduced me and then dumped me. I really didn't know you were here.' She spun round towards the doorway. 'And I'm leaving now. I've no wish to stay with someone… as cynical and warped as you are!'
'Eilidh, wait! I…'
'No!'
She marched through the doorway. Everything wavered in front of her eyes, shapes distorted because she was seeing everything through the tears that had welled in her eyes. Disappointed and angry because this first meeting with Magnus since she had parted from him at the airport was not going as she had hoped it would, she went right down the stairs without looking back, but when she reached the kitchen she didn't snatch up her bag and stalk out through the back door as she had intended to do. Instead she paused by the table to stare down at the letter which still lay where she had left it, remembering bela
tedly that she couldn't leave the island unless Magnus himself took her to the mainland in the motorboat.
A sound at the doorway leading to the hall drew her attention and she looked round. Magnus was standing in the doorway leaning with one shoulder against the jamb, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and she noticed for the first time how tanned he was; tanned by a sun much warmer than the sun that shone in Scotland. His skin was an attractive teak brown and was shown off by the plain white shirt he was wearing, unbuttoned almost to the waist, its sleeves pushed up casually to the elbows. The tan made his eyes seem bluer than ever as he stared at him from under frowning brows.
'Who told you about Rachel?' he demanded abruptly.
'Rachel?' she queried, puzzled.
'Rachel Marsh, the woman who committed suicide. Did you read about it in a movie magazine? Because if you did, you read a distortion of the truth.' His voice grated bitterly.
'No, I didn't read about her. Wanda told me.'
'When?'
'When I took her clothes back to her in Glencross.'
'What did she tell you exactly?' he demanded, frowning even more fiercely.
'She… she was telling me how glad she was that you'd gone to Rome because she and your mother had been worried about you staying on Carroch for so long. She said she'd told you about her problem with Blair to take your mind off your own trouble and I… well, I asked her what trouble, and she told me about the woman you'd been friendly with in Hollywood who'd taken her own life and left a note more or less blaming you for the way she felt. She said that although it probably wasn't true and you weren't to blame for the woman's suicide you'd let it get to you and were behaving as if you were to blame by brooding over it and becoming a recluse here on Carroch,' Helen paused, then whispered, 'Was it true? Were you to blame, Magnus? Did you seduce that woman… Rachel… and then dump her?'
'No, I didn't,' he replied, and let out a long hissing breath. 'It's a long story,' he added, pushing away from the door jamb and coming over to the table, 'and not a very pretty one.' His glance flicked up from the letter to her face.
'I… I wish you'd tell me your version,' she whispered.
He stared at her for a few moments with narrowed eyes, obviously considering the pros and cons of telling her.
'Please, Magnus. I… I'd like to know.'
'All right,' he capitulated suddenly. 'But not like this. Not here, not standing here, staring at each other as if we're enemies.' He stepped towards her. 'Eilidh, I'm sorry for what happened upstairs and for what I said. I guess you're right and I am a mischievous devil. My sense of the dramatic tends to run away with me at times and I couldn't help leading you on up the stairs. I was hoping to lead you out to the battlements and surprise you there.'
'I really didn't know you were here,' she said again. 'I thought you were in Rome.'
'We had to stop shooting the scenes in Italy because of a strike of film technicians. We'll have to wait until the strike is over, and heaven knows when that will be. I came back to Scotland last Friday. I went to Glencross Hospital to see you and was told you were away on holiday.'
'Oh, I didn't know. No one told me,' Helen muttered in surprise. 'Why did you go to the hospital? Why did you want to see me?'
'I just wanted to see if you were like I remembered you being.' His mouth curled in the half sweet, half malicious smile and his eyes glinted mockingly. 'You know, cool and sharp-tongued,' he added provocatively. He shrugged, his glance going to the letter on the table. 'But you weren't there, so I came on here. I didn't enjoy being here on my own over the weekend, so…' he paused and flicked the letter with a long forefinger. 'I wrote this and sent it to you, not my mother,' he said flatly. He looked at her again, but not apologetically. Mischief danced in his eyes.
She looked at the letter. Her suspicions that maybe Megan Scott-Murray hadn't written it had been right, then, but she had never expected Magnus to admit he had written it.
'But why? Why did you sign your mother's name?' she demanded.
'Because I was afraid you might refuse the invitation if I signed my own name. I was afraid you might think I was playing some sort of trick on you again by asking you to come and stay here with me, and me alone. I figured you were much more likely to come if you could be led to believe my mother would be here and that everything would be above board and sensible.' He grinned at her mockingly. 'And you did believe it. You fell for it and you came, Eilidh. You're here, and you're not leaving until I let you go.'
'Oh, you're mad, quite mad,' she retorted shakily, 'And you were wrong.'
'I was? How?' He frowned at her.
'You were wrong to think I wouldn't have come if you'd invited me yourself. I'd have come because… because…' She broke off, suddenly shy because of the way he was looking at her, her glance faltering away from the expression of desire that blazed suddenly in his eyes.
'Go on, Eilidh,' he urged, stepping close to her. 'You'd have come because?'
'Because I've also been wanting to see you again,' she went on in a whisper, aware now of his closeness, of the warmth and scents of his body radiating out to her, encircling her, bewitching her. 'I wanted to find out if you… if the man I met here in June… was real. I'm here now… I only accepted your mother's invitation because I thought she might be able to tell me something about you, tell me what you were doing.' Suddenly unable to stand the torture of being close to him but not touching him, she reached out and flung her arms about him and laid her head against his bare chest, hearing his heartbeat change rhythm, throb with excitement. 'Oh, Magnus, I've missed you so much. I've wanted to be with you. I've wanted to write to you. I've wanted to fly to Italy and find you.'
'Then why didn't you?' he whispered, his arms going around her. 'You'd have been most welcome, Eilidh. Every day when I finished work I wished you'd been there to help me unwind and relax.'
'I… I was afraid you might think I was chasing you… like other women have.' She raised her head to look at him accusingly. 'And you did think that, didn't you? You accused me of following you just now in the bedroom.'
'I know I did, and I've said I'm sorry. I said that to test you.' His lips twisted wryly. 'You see, Eilidh, I've never known a woman who liked me for myself, and even now it's hard to believe that I've at last met one who doesn't care that I'm a film star.' He smiled down at her. 'Upstairs you reacted as I hoped you would, but you're not leaving, Eilidh, are you? Not yet, anyway.'
'No, I'm not leaving… yet, because I've remembered I can't unless you take me over to the mainland,' she said teasingly. 'I'll have to stay, at least until Sunday afternoon.'
'Only until then?' He frowned at her.
'Yes. I'm a working woman, remember? I have to be back at the hospital on Monday morning. How long are you going to stay here?'
'Until the strike is over. I could come with you to Glencross on Monday… and stay with you there, if you would like that.'
'Oh yes, I would like that,' she said, smiling up at him, her eyes shining. 'But the flat is very small,' she added, thinking more practically. 'And there's only a single bed, and—well, you might get very bored during the daytime with nothing to do.' She paused and then made her sacrifice. 'I think it would be best if you stayed here and… and I came to stay with you again, next weekend.'
'Perhaps you're right,' he replied. 'There is something I have to finish while I'm here, a play I've been writing. But let's not make plans, Eilidh love. Let's just take it as it comes. You're here now and we're together for a while, so let's not waste a moment. "In delay there lies no plenty, Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure,"' he quoted, then began to laugh. 'Oh, Eilidh, do you think you could endure living with a man who's going to quote Shakespeare and other writers of plays in which he's acted to you every time he makes love to you?'
'Yes, I could endure it, as long as you mean what you say. Oh, please do it, Magnus, please kiss me. I've been longing for you to kiss me this past half-hour.'
'Then why the hell couldn't you have said so in the bedroom? Why did you have to rush down here?'
'There's always the lounge,' she, whispered, linking her hands behind his neck and pressing herself against him.
'So there is,' he murmured, his eyes blazing with blue fire, and as his lips took hers he lifted her in his arms and carried her from the kitchen into the lounge, where they lay together on the sealskin rug.
Later, several hours later, when the sky was dark and pricked with stars, they walked along the beach in front of the castle, hand in hand, enjoying the soft mild air, while Magnus told her about the play he had been writing while he had stayed on Carroch in the months before he had met her.
'Wanda was right, I'd let the whole business of Rachel's death get to me, so I decided to write a play about it, as a sort of therapy, if you like, but also because I wanted to say something about the film industry and the awful and mostly false publicity which is put out about film celebrities and how sometimes it can destroy their lives,' he' explained. 'I first met Rachel when I was a student at R.A.D.A. in London. She was older than me and a year or two ahead in her studies, but already a damned good actress destined to make a name for herself. Soon after she had appeared in a couple of plays on the London stage and had received rave reviews she went to Hollywood, made two or three films and then seemed to disappear.' He paused, then added slowly, 'When I went to Hollywood to act in films for Max Fiedler, she had a small part in one of them, but she had to be dropped.'
'Why?'