by Helen Magee
* * *
He stopped and I reached out to him, ‘But
Alexander,’ I whispered.
His face twisted in pain,
‘Do you think I have not been tormented by that?’ he said. ‘Do you think I have not thought every day since of his seeing not his aunt but his mother killed?’
‘Then he knows?’
He shook his head wearily.
‘How can I tell? He knew at the time, that is certain but he put the memory of it from his mind as he put sight for ever from his eyes.’
grasped his hands. ‘But he does remember,’ I protested.
He looked at me in wonder.
‘He does,’ I insisted, and went on to tell him of the afternoon in the Keep when he told me his mother would never come home.
‘I thought he just did not believe that she would return, but I see now that he knew because he remembered her death.’ I was leaning towards him, urging him to believe me and his face was slowly losing some of its pain.
‘Then I was right to go,’ he said. Then, more briskly, ‘These last weeks I have been in Italy. No one could know where had gone lest Carla find out. She hates Alexander almost as much as she does me. I was afraid for him but I had to go myself to obtain documents, statements from Vida’s parents, proof that Carla is not my wife.’
I was puzzled. ‘But why so suddenly?’
My hands were in his and his look turned my bones to water.
‘Because of you,’ he said. ‘When she came back and I saw you together that evening of the ball I knew it was useless, that I could no longer fulfil my promise to Vida.’
‘But you loved Vida still,’ I said, my voice a whisper. ‘I saw you in the Tower Room looking at her portrait. I did not understand until now how you could look at a portrait so and at the woman so differently.’
‘I was saying goodbye to Vida that day,’ he said. ‘When I lost her I thought my life was over, that I would never love another woman, and then you came into my life.’ He bent his head to my hands. ‘Oh, Felicia, you have no idea how jealous I was of Charles.’
I raised his head and looked into his eyes and knew that all he said was true. ‘There was no need,’ I said.
He smiled a smile of such sweetness that I was momentarily startled at the resemblance to Alexander. His left eyebrow went up.
‘No need at all?’ he said.
‘Well, only a little at the beginning,’ I said wickedly.
‘Flissy,’ he said, as his mouth came down on mine.
Later I said to him ‘Does Alison know all this?’
‘She has always known,’ he said. ‘She was Vida’s friend. That’s why I told you to go to her if you needed help. I could not tell you the truth until I had been to Italy, until I had purged myself of the last year, until I was truly free.’
‘And Dorcas?’
‘Yes.’
‘And why you went away?’
‘Alison knows. I spoke to her about it. She has always been like a sister to me since we were children.’
I thought of Alison and her happiness that morning. What exactly had he told her? That he was going to be ‘truly free’ soon? Surely not that it was because of me that he craved his freedom. I looked at him. Did he not know that she was in love with him? But I said nothing.
7
It was almost midnight when we arrived at Dryford in the station pony-trap, and the household was asleep. Lachlan saw me to my room and we stood for a moment looking down at the sleeping form of his son.
‘He did not want to go back to his own room,’ Lachlan said.
I felt tears prick the back of my eyes.
‘I will not leave him again,’ I whispered. Lachlan turned then and his arms went round me.
‘Nor me either,’ he said then he bent and kissed me, not with passion as he had done earlier that day, but with a gentleness that was infinitely more affecting.
‘Till the morning, my love,’ he said and was gone.
I was there in the morning when Alexander awoke.
‘Good morning,’ I said gently.
His voice was uncertain. ‘Flissy? Is it you?’
I went to him. ‘Yes, it’s me.’
He flung his arms round me, his face alight.
‘You’ve come back.’
‘For good this time,’ I said.
‘You mean it? You won’t go away again.’
‘Never.’
He sighed contentedly and I made a solemn vow to myself that never would I let him down again.
‘Now then, breakfast, young man,’ I said briskly to hide my own emotion. ‘How have you been? Has Alison been to see you each day?’
‘Oh yes, she’s been very kind,’ he said carefully, ‘but it wasn’t the same. I don’t think Fergus liked her quite as much as you.’
I laughed and scolded him for using Fergus as an excuse.
‘Let’s see how Fergus enjoys working,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve been doing your lessons since I left, but it’s work as usual today.’
He grinned and my heart lifted at the sight of him so boyish once more.
‘We’ve had the most frightful storms,’ he said. ‘Thunder and lightning and the rain has been amazing. Redpath says the river has risen so much it threatens to burst its banks, and he’s got rheumatism again.’
He chatted freely as he dressed and I looked out of the window. It had been too dark to see last night but the sky was heavy still with rain; and the river, so placid and shining in my memory, was now a turbulent muddy mass swift-moving and angry.
‘Redpath says there’s more to come,’ Alexander said complacently.
‘You weren’t frightened?’ I asked.
‘Of thunder?’ he scoffed. ‘Not a bit. Fergus didn’t like it much though. He woke me up growling the night before last but I gave him a biscuit and talked to him for a while and he was all right after that.’
My heart lurched uncomfortably and I hoped that it had only been the storm that had disturbed Fergus. I could not help it. I found myself saying, ‘That was the night your father came home.’
‘Yes,’ said Alexander, ‘and what a rage he got into when he discovered you’d gone. Dorcas said we were lucky murder wasn’t done.’
Araminta came to my room whilst Alexander was at breakfast.
‘Lachlan told me to come,’ she said, scuffing her foot on the carpet like a naughty child come to apologise. ‘I suppose you’re absolutely wild,’ she went on.
Curiously enough I found I was not even angry, ‘Why don’t you tell me about it, Araminta?’ I said.
Tears welled-up in her blue eyes and sparkled on her lashes.
‘I was so cross,’ she said, ‘you looked so beautiful at the ball, everyone said so. I know I wanted you to look nice but I didn’t expect you to look quite as nice as that.’
I tried to suppress a smile as she looked accusingly at me from under her lashes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Oh it wasn’t your fault. I don’t suppose you could help it.’ At this I did smile and her eyes flashed at me warningly. ‘Not in that gown at any rate,’ she said, tossing her head. Then, ‘But when I told Vida Lachlan had paid for it he was angry with me and Charles too and it was my ball and then Charles wouldn’t even speak to me and if it hadn’t been for Douglas I would have been utterly miserable and all because of you.’ She stopped.
‘Are you really in love with Charles?’ I said gently, ‘for you know there’s only friendship between us, nothing more. You had no cause to be jealous.’
Once more her eyes flashed as she tossed her head.
‘Charles,’ she said scornfully. ‘I really quite dislike Charles now. He’s been positively hateful ever since he found out what I did and I didn’t really mean to. It just sort of happened. I really did lose the pendant, you know, and Vida said you’d probably taken it for she’d seen the way you looked at it, just the way you looked at Charles she said, and then when I found it was in your room a
nd I remembered being there last time I’d been wearing it and it seemed so easy just to take the diamond and leave the chain.’
All at once her face crumpled and she came and sat beside me. ‘I’m truly sorry, Felicia,’ she said miserably.
I put my arms round her. ‘It’s all right, Araminta. I’m not angry. I understand.’
And I did understand. Vida (or must I now call her Carla?), had worked cleverly on Araminta’s imagined slights, on her little jealousies. She was at the root of it. And what else was she at the root of, I wondered. Then Araminta said, mopping her eyes.
‘You’re truly not cross?’
I smiled. She was such a child still. ‘I’m not cross,’ I said.
She gave a great sigh. ‘Douglas said you wouldn’t be but I didn’t believe him. I would have been furious.’
‘Douglas?’ I said, amused.
She nodded.
‘He was so kind when I told him what I had done, well I had to tell someone. Lachlan was coming home and I knew he would find out the truth and Douglas was so sweet and he wasn’t cross at all and he told Lachlan for me. I couldn’t have told Lachlan.’
I patted her hand.
‘It’s all over now and you don’t have to worry about it any more,’ I said. ‘It’s forgotten.’
She smiled up at me. It really was unfair that Nature had endowed her with the kind of face that could cry itself silly and still look so lovely. Her smile was like sunshine after rain. No wonder Douglas hadn’t been ‘cross’.
After lunch Alexander and I thought we’d take a walk. The sky was still threatening, but if we didn’t go far we’d get our walk before the rain began again. Lachlan met us as we turned the corner of the house. Alexander was playing with Fergus a little way off. He looked at his son for a moment before taking my hands in his.
‘I have to go into Greenholm’, he said urgently, ‘to see my lawyers and lodge the papers I brought from Italy with them.’
I nodded.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘I daren’t leave the papers in the house.’ His eyes were grave. ‘Soon it will all be over, Felicia, I promise you.’ And he bent swiftly and kissed me.
I watched him go round the house to the stable block and as he disappeared a shadow fell across me. I looked up and there, towering above me on her great black stallion, was Carla. There was no confusion in my mind as I looked into her eyes. This was not and had never been Lachlan’s wife. I had not heard the horse’s hooves on the wet grass and my thoughts betrayed me as my eyes went at once to Alexander. I saw her lips curl and she turned her mount without a word and set it to a gallop across the lawn, straight for the boy. The words froze in my throat but at that moment Fergus leapt more boisterously at his young master and they rolled together over the wet turf. The hooves of the great black horse pounded past, inches from them. Alexander’s face turned towards the sound and I saw fear contort his features.
‘Alexander,’ I heard my voice, unnaturally calm. ‘You’ll catch cold if you roll about on the wet grass.’ My calm transmitted itself to him and he rose and came towards me putting his hand in mine.
‘Where shall we walk?’ I said.
‘To the Keep,’ he replied at once. ‘Redpath says the moat’s really full now and I want you to paint the picture for me.’
It had become something of a game with us on our walks. Alexander would describe the calls of birds and make me listen for them and then he would say,
‘Paint me the picture, Flissy,’ and I would describe the scene in detail while he listened.
‘We’ll go to the river,’ I said, ‘but not to the Keep, not today. The culvert’s choked and the foundations are unsafe.’
‘Then the bridge near to the Keep, please Flissy.’
I agreed. It was extraordinary how drawn he was to that place and yet how unwilling to enter it.
We stood on the bridge and I leaned on the low parapet and watched in fascination the water below.
‘It sounds like some great roaring beast,’ said Alexander. ‘I can imagine it’s a dragon and not a river at all.’
‘It’s like a dragon,’ I said, and described the torrent that poured under the bridge carrying with it the debris of the recent storms. The sticks and twisted branches hurtled past, submerging and re-emerging in its turbulent depths. At first I thought it was one of the sounds of the river but then I realised that it was not. It came again, a low laugh that chilled me to the bone. I turned to find Carla standing not a yard from me. She was still dressed in her black riding habit and her eyes glittered with the fire of insanity. But it was not that which caused me to tremble and caught the breath in my throat, for behind her was the black-suited figure of evil that had haunted me for so long. My stepfather. I felt all colour drain from my face and I was aware that I was shaking violently. The thought passed through my mind – was it I who was mad? Was this a ghost, a figment of my imagination? Carla laughed again.
‘So it is true,’ she said.
I opened my mouth but no words came. I stretched out my hand and felt Alexander’s fingers close around it, warm and comforting.
‘I met him in the stable yard,’ she said, and the look she cast him was one of utter contempt. He stood there, his lips parted to show those pointed teeth, his hairy hands plucking at his coat. I could not tear my gaze away. I was once again a terrified child fascinated by this loathsome creature. Carla was speaking. Her words came to me distantly.
‘He had a great deal to tell me. Of your mother and your life after you left his house. You did not tell us that you had such an interesting past, my dear, but of course I should have known that any friend of Charles would be bound to be interesting.’ She made the word sound evil. ‘It was clever of him to pass you off as a governess but a pity that you had to look further. Charles I should not have minded but Charles was not enough for you, was he? You had to have Lachlan too. What a lot of practise you must have had in that . . . what was it you called it, Mr Petheridge, ‘hotel’?’
My lips were dry, my voice cracked. ‘It’s not true,’ I whispered.
Again her laugh, but I was still watching him. He was mouthing words now and I did not need to hear them to know what they were. Flecks of foam flew from his lips and I watched, mesmerised, as they settled in his beard. His eyes were alive with hatred.
‘Look at me,’ she said suddenly and I was jerked as from a dream. Slowly I turned to her and I was not surprised to find her face so close to mine.
‘And what do you think Lachlan will say when he hears of this? Has he told you that I am not his wife?’
My face must have shown some trace of emotion for her eyes snapped then narrowed.
‘I see that he has,’ she hissed, ‘and you believed him. Yes, I can see you believed him. Tell me, my dear, does it sound likely? Would any man do what he claims to have done? There had been others before you, others who have left this house shamed and humiliated. Have you been shamed yet?’ She brought her face even closer. ‘But then it would not be a new experience for you, would it?’
‘No, it’s not true,’ I repeated and then, for I could not help myself, I turned once more to him. ‘How did you know? How did you find me?’
He spoke for the first time, and his voice struck me like a blow.
‘He left his calling card, didn’t he, when he came to see you. I waited, I waited a long time. I saw you leave. I picked up the card. I was on the same train, not in the First-Class, oh no, I had to make do with the Third but I suffered the journey gladly, do you hear, to catch up with you.’
My mind reeled. Rose and her mutterings about a guest. It had been no guest. It had been him, then the thought of him on the train, waiting, hating all the way. I could not bear to think of it. My hands came up to cover my face but Carla’s hands were almost as quick. I looked deep into her eyes. They were black. There was no light in them anywhere.
‘Slut,’ she said and I felt her spittle on my face and flinched. ‘Charles picked you up in so
me tawdry gambling den and you lured my husband back there. Slut.’
I was hypnotised. Her voice went on, unceasing, mesmeric – saying things I could not even understand and I found myself moving under her hands until I was standing by the parapet of the bridge and the water churned its murky, chaotic way beneath me.
‘You almost did it once before, didn’t you? I know your story. I know all about you. Do you think he’ll have you now, even as his mistress?’
I was barely listening to her. All I could feel was despair. Was she not right? Had he lied to me? Was she indeed his wife? Had my love for him blinded me to all reason? I felt the pressure of a hand on my back. This time, this time, I thought. She murmured words. They came to me low and clear and they were not English words but I understood them. I felt myself sway and the water rose and fell before me, then the world was full of light and in my ears a roar as of a great beast waiting, but above it all a single word uttered in a child’s highpitched scream.
‘FLISSY!’
And I turned, and there before me was Alexander and he was looking at me. My foot slipped and I fell to my knees. I sprawled there, trying to make sense of it. He was looking at me, really looking at me. His eyes were on mine. He could see me. It seemed an eternity as we stood there, all of us turned towards the boy then the lightning flashed again, the thunder rolled and the first drops of heavy rain began to fall and the spell was broken.
‘Alexander,’ I said in wonder.
There was another flash of lightning and Fergus gave a howl and streaked for cover. Alexander whirled round as the little brown body hurled itself towards shelter.
‘No Fergus,’ he cried, ‘not the Keep,’ and then he too was running, his feet flying along the bridge towards the Keep. I wrested myself from the arms that clutched at me and threw myself after them while behind me feet pounded on the cobbles of the bridge. Fergus had disappeared down some bolthole into the Keep. Alexander was at the door now wresting it open with both hands. I called to him but my voice was lost in another clap of thunder then I too was in the Keep and swinging back the barelyclosed door to the cellar, stumbling down the steps in the darkness and Alexander’s voice was saying,