“I’m sorry about it all,” Jane said, biting her lip. “I came on an impulse to tell Adam about Penny—to try to explain about her change of mind—and Adam asked me to stay because of your mother’s grave illness.”
“I don’t think Adam—or any of us—expected her to get better. He wanted her to die happy.” His blue eyes were deeply troubled as he looked at her. “It’s the sort of thing Adam would do. He’s entirely ruthless when he feels that he has reached the right decision. He wouldn’t think of himself or you. Mother would be his only consideration. Then, when things didn’t go as he had expected, he’d carry on with the whole affair and see it through to the end.” He gave her an odd, shy smile. “All the same, I’m sort of glad it’s happened, y’know. I’m glad you did come to High Tor, Jane!”
His confession struck her with the impact of a blow. She knew that Nigel liked her, but she was in no way prepared for further complications. Nigel was at the stage where he could so easily imagine himself in love.
“I won’t be here for long,” she pointed out. “But I’m glad you know the truth now, Nigel. I have my own life to lead—elsewhere,” she added faintly.
“You told me you were out of a job,” he reminded her. “Why not stay here for a bit, Jane? My mother is very fond of you.”
“All that will be changed, Nigel, when Adam tells her about Penny and me,” Jane said.
“It is rather a complication,” he admitted. “Oh, well, Adam will probably give you a wide berth now that we all know the truth and there’s no need to pretend any more, but you’ve always got me to fall back on!”
“That’s kind of you,” Jane said, her lips stiff as she thought of Adam. “You’ve been very magnanimous about everything, Nigel.”
“Truth to tell, I’m tickled pink!” he grinned. “I don’t take things half as seriously as Adam does—or Marion,” he added. “I’d watch out for Marion, if I were you,” he warned. “She must have it in for you now with a vengeance!”
In some ways Jane considered that she could have dealt with Marion’s antagonism more effectively if it had been shown in open resentment, but instead she found herself face to face with the determination of a silent, waiting policy and the sure conviction that Marion would strike ruthlessly when the time came.
When Nigel had gone out, driving off in the direction of the upper dale, she felt the atmosphere at the farm pressing too heavily on her troubled mind. The grey weather matched her mood and the fact that Adam had not spoken to her since their conversation of the night before made her sure of his anger. Sure, too, of his deliberate desire to avoid her.
After lunch, when Helen slept for the best part of the afternoon, the house would not hold Jane. In spite of the gray skies and the threatening storm she had to get out on to the moor, even if it were only to walk a little way with the clean, cold breath of wind on her cheeks and the feel of the solid rocks beneath her feet.
Walking rapidly, she began to climb the hill. The road was rugged and difficult, but she was less likely to meet anyone by going that way. Less likely to meet Marion, she supposed she meant. Marion invariably rode down the dale in the direction of the Priory and the more gentle stretches of the Aise.
When she came to a fork in the narrow roadway she halted. There was no signpost to tell her which way she should go, if she meant to go on. Almost by instinct she took the path that went straight ahead, and it was several minutes before she realized that it was the way to the Peel Tower on the ridge of the hills where Adam had once made his home. He had gone there a lot recently, she remembered, riding up there alone with his thoughts, perhaps.
She did not mean to violate his privacy. In all probability she would not reach the tower, and it was two years since Adam had used it. She did not even know whether it was furnished or not.
A thin rain began to fall which mingled with the Border mist, but the tower was already looming ahead. She went toward it, wondering if she might find some sort of shelter. She had walked farther than she had ever attempted since her accident, and she was tired. Her injured ankle was beginning to feel the strain, but a short rest would put her right again.
Suddenly, almost belligerently, the Peel Tower came into full view ahead of her, standing squarely and arrogantly in her path. Like all those old Border keeps, it looked exactly what it was—the grim and forbidding guardian of the pass ahead, challenging the stranger and admitting only those who had the right to enter.
Her heart quickened and she pressed forward. There was only one entrance to the tower, a solid, stout oak door, iron-banded and black with age and beaten by storm and scorched by sunlight, yet relentlessly guarding the place within. The Peel Tower rose above it, square and gaunt, with no window breaking the thick gray stonework of its grim facade for some ten to fourteen feet above ground level. There were no out-buildings, no other form of shelter anywhere.
The tower had been built to withstand conquest five hundred years ago when Border forays were common events, and it had still the power to repulse the invader—the uninvited guest.
Jane felt suddenly cold, although she was well enough protected from the rain. She walked round the tower, slowly at first, and then with a quickened step. It was no great distance and it presented the same forbidding aspect whichever way she looked. There was no shelter here.
When she came to the door again something made her try it idly, and to her utter surprise it gave to her hand. It swung slowly open to reveal a stone stairway leading upwards between walls of amazing thickness. The tread of generations of feet had worn the steps in the centre and they led into a dimness she felt must obscure a wild and storied past. What tales that stout old door and these worn steps could tell of love and pillage, violence and death! What legend lay buried among the shadows in the hall above!
Curiosity and a deepening sense of the inevitable took her through the half-open doorway and up the narrow stair. It went straight to the hall, a high raftered place with a vast stone fireplace at its far end and tall lancet windows set in walls that were more than three feet thick.
The hall was sparsely furnished with rugs on the square stone flags and a solid old refectory table halfway to the fire. There were sconces on the walls that had held candles, and one or two comfortable chairs scattered around, well worn by frequent use.
It was a man’s stronghold, Jane thought, as it had always been down through the ages. There was no gentleness about it, no softening touch.
It was minutes before she realized how tired she was and how great the strain she had imposed on her weakened ankle by walking so far, yet she could not bring herself to rest in the chill atmosphere of the hall.
Instead she turned to a door set in a pointed archway, pushing it open to reveal a second stairway of rich, dark oak which led to an upper hall. The windows here reached almost to the floor, letting in much more light, although the outside world was still damp and gray.
She crossed the hall in half a dozen steps, for it was barely the width of the tower, and found herself facing three doors. They were all securely closed against intrusion.
Am I going on, she wondered, hesitating with her hand on the latch of the central door, or should I really turn back now?
Her fingers tightened over the latch and she pressed it down. The door would not give immediately and a strong, cold draught swept against her feet, as if the wind that must always whistle about the tower was beating directly against her on the other side.
She pushed again and as the door opened, was nearly swept off her feet by the rush of wind. It tore past her through the house and there was a clang as another door closed somewhere behind her. It could only be the heavy main door of the tower, she realized, as she hastily closed the one she had just opened.
No use going that way, she thought. It had led to a winding, narrow stair that went up in a spiral into the tower, possibly continuing to the exposed battlements, with a long, lancet window halfway up which must command a view of all the surrounding hills and the gentle
dale beneath.
The door on her right led to a bedroom, sparsely furnished with an old four-poster bed, stripped of its draperies, and a serviceable chest. There was no chair, no concession to comfort of any kind, and she wondered if Adam had slept here.
The second room was a revelation. It had been fitted out as a small sitting room, with a boudoir grand piano in one corner and comfortable armchairs round the open stone hearth. There was an exquisite little writing bureau between the windows and an expensive carpet on the floor. The piano and chairs were shrouded in blue dust-sheets, but the room had an unmistakable air of waiting about it that caught at her heart.
Was it the room that Adam had prepared for his bride four years ago when he had meant to bring Angela here, to the Peel Tower? She stood looking in at it with a hard constriction in her throat, seeing Angela there and Adam happy, discovering for the first time the sort of person Angela Denholm had been.
A little pile of books lay on the bureau, possibly just as Angela had left them on the day of her tragic death, and one by one Jane picked them up, reading their titles with a sense of coming face to face with Adam’s love for the first time.
She imagined Angela as gentle and kind, but spirited, too; a small fragile girl, perhaps, who would call forth all the protectiveness in a man like Adam Drummond, yet a girl who would meet his every need because she had been born and brought up no more than a stone’s throw from High Tor and knew the dale and its ways.
Wistfully Jane turned away, taking that picture of Angela with her. No wonder Adam had found it difficult to love again, she thought. But then there had been Penny—Penny whose wide eyes could melt with kindness, impulsive, head-strong Penny who could not help being a little selfish into the bargain.
Slowly, almost despondently, she retraced her steps to the hall below. The wind was rising and the mist had begun to clear, but it was already almost dusk. She could not afford the time to rest now. She had spent too long in that upstairs room that should have been Angela’s.
Going quickly down the stone steps, she tugged at the big main door, but it refused to move. A heavy bolt at the top had fallen into place as it had slammed shut and there was no way of reaching it.
She looked back into the hall, where the shadows were already gathering, but there was nothing there to help her. She could never have moved the heavy armchairs nor got them down that narrow stairway to the door, and the smaller chairs in the upstairs sitting room would not let her reach the bolt.
She could not climb because of her ankle, which was already aching from her long walk; even if she had been able to climb, there was little foothold anywhere on the sheer gray walls on either side of the door.
Clutching the heavy iron ring that served as a handle, she tugged and tugged with the growing conviction in her heart that nothing she could do would move that stout, effective barrier that had stood between the inmates of the Peel Tower and the outside world for hundreds of years.
No, she was trapped in the tower and dusk was falling, and back at High Tor, Adam would think that she had simply walked out on him without a word!
Slowly, stealthily the dusk crept in across the hall. The mist seemed to have seeped insidiously into the tower, making her shiver although she still wore her thick coat.
She tried not to panic, but more than once she found herself back at the main door, tugging at it and eventually hammering with her fists against the unresponsive wood. Visions of being trapped there forever assailed her, of being found by Adam after days, dead and cold.
Ridiculous, of course, but the whole environment of the tower inspired a strongly primitive fear in her. Action, she knew, was her only hope, but she could not stumble about in the half dark for long. Already the shadows were everywhere, lurking in the corners, lengthening, reaching out toward her. What had happened to Angela here?
She tried to thrust the question aside, but it kept recurring. She knew that she must not dwell on Angela Denholm’s untimely death, here in this lonely place.
No! No, I’ve not got to think about it, she told herself, shivering as if with cold.
And it was growing cold. Even within the shelter of these thick walls, there was a damp sort of chill that struck directly into her bones, numbing her.
Desperately she penetrated beyond the shadows to the dim interior of the kitchen premises, where, after an intensive search, she found a small amount of fairly dry wood. Then, searching again, she came upon matches, almost sobbing with relief at her discovery.
It took her the best part of an hour to light a meager fire between the rusted andirons in the vast grate in the hall, but it did no more than warm the blackened stonework and send even more fantastic shadows flickering up to the heavy oak beams above her head.
She crouched over it, flinging on wood, aware that it could not last for any great length of time and, afterwards, the tower would seem colder and darker than ever.
Then, in an iron-banded chest by the side of the fireplace, she found something which she supposed must be peat and tried to burn it. Eventually it gave off a sullen glow, but there was very little added warmth.
She was tired now and thoroughly chilled in spite of the fire. Tears stung her eyelids, but she would not let them fall. What, she wondered, was happening at High Tor?
Suddenly she thought that she might be able to climb out of one of the upstairs windows.
She made the journey to the floor above, but long before she got there she had realized how futile such an attempt would prove. There was a sheer drop of at least thirty feet to the ground below.
Back in the hall she peered at her watch. Twenty minutes to seven. She had been in the tower for three hours.
Cold and hungry now, she returned to her chair and what heat there was from the fire. She had never seen peat burning before, and when she stirred it it seemed to glare resentfully at her, but at least it stayed alight and would burn for a longer time than wood.
The minutes ticked away. There was nothing she could do. The glow from the peats strengthened and crept over her and she slept.
In seconds she awoke, seconds that might have been hours. A thin white light had penetrated the hall and somewhere a door had opened. She felt that she had to scream, but no sound came. Her lips remained parted and dry with fear.
The thin stream of silver was moonlight. She noticed that automatically as she rose trembling to her feet. Someone was coming down the inside stair from the battlements.
In that split second of waiting her mind became a blank. She could neither think nor move, and then the door at the far end of the hall opened and she saw who it was.
“Adam!”
He covered the distance between them in half-a-dozen swift strides and she hid her face in her hands in sheer relief. She was trembling from head to foot, needing his comfort, needing his reassurance. This could so easily be some wild fantastic dream!
“All right!” he said harshly, taking her in his arms. “All right, Jane. You’re safe enough now.”
She clung to him as a child might have done, feeling the strength of his heavy body against her own, aware that his arms had tightened about her and that she was, indeed, safe. This was what she had longed for. This moment to keep in her heart forever.
Adam held her without speaking. She could not see his face, although it was light enough in the hall now. The moonlight had filled it with the glow of silver, but she would not break the magic of her moment even to look at Adam. It was hers to cherish against the future, against the heartbreak and despair of going on alone.
He put her from him gently enough, but when she looked at him his face was full of anger.
“Why did you come here?” he demanded.
“I walked up over the moor.” Jane was speaking like someone in a dream. “I came too far and grew tired. Then I found the door open and I came in. I’m sorry, Adam.”
The sense of trespass was so strong now that he might have accused her openly, and her heart began to beat slowly and with
difficulty against her breast.
Adam was still frowning, the dark scowl she remembered so well spreading across his face until all his former tenderness had gone.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said harshly. “I suppose I ought to keep the door locked.”
“I went up into the tower.” It seemed imperative that she should fill in the silence between them with words—any words. Words of contrition, of hope. “There was a high wind and the door slammed shut. When I got down the bolt had dropped into place and it was too high for me to reach. I realize I shouldn’t have gone up into the tower, Adam. I don’t know why I did, but it wasn’t—just out of curiosity. Please try to believe that, if you can.”
He had been looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, the anger still struggling in his eyes, the line of his mouth still harshly drawn, and then some of the anger seemed to drain away and there was pain in its place.
“You’ve given us a nasty few hours,” he told her briefly. “Nobody knew where you had gone, and it was difficult trying to explain to my mother. She has come to depend upon you, I suppose, and there were so many things that might have happened.”
He turned toward the fire, stamping it down with his stout riding boot, the orange glow of the peats flickering over his lean, brown face and throwing the high-arched nose into bold relief. It was a stern face, dark and unapproachable now, Jane felt, thinking that she could not apologize again. Adam did not want her to say that she was sorry because she had come here. Her intrusion was inexcusable. He had told her in so many words that she should not have come.
“I saw the smoke from your fire,” he said brusquely. “I had no idea you would come as far as this.”
She felt guilty and ashamed.
“I realized what had happened, I think, as soon as I found the door barred.” There was a peculiar restraint about the clipped sentences which seemed to accentuate his displeasure and impatience with her. “It was no use knocking to try to make you hear once the wind had sprung up,” he went on “I got in through the window underneath the battlements. When we were youngsters Nigel and I used to climb up there after birds’ eggs when the inside of the tower was forbidden to us. There’s a dangerous stairway up there which I meant to get mended.”
The Gated Road Page 10