He at once slipped inside behind the wheel. He was drenched by the rain, his hair plastered on his forehead and the rain dripping down his face. He shut the door and turned to her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said happily. “I’m fine now. How did you get here?”
“The boat.”
“The boat!” she repeated. “I’d forgotten all about it.”
“It wasn’t an easy crossing,” he said grimly.
“I can imagine,” she said. “How did you know I was here? I didn’t tell anyone I was coming.”
“I talked to everyone, and Dr. Boyce mentioned that he’d discussed the island with you. Then as I passed the service station I stopped to check if any of them had noticed the car. One of the attendants had seen your car turn into the Minister’s Island road. It didn’t take me long to imagine the rest.”
“I know I shouldn’t have come here!”
He frowned at her. “What made you stay so long?”
“I came looking for papers relating to Frank Clay and the Woods couple.”
“I realize that. But you have no right trespassing over here.”
“I know,” she said penitently. “I found a rear window open in the house and got in.”
“Then what?”
“I found the library. And it was while I was standing in the library that I became sure there was a ghost in there with me.”
She saw the look of disapproval on Fred’s face.
“I can’t help it,” she protested. “I heard and felt some presence which I couldn’t see.”
“And?”
“It attacked me. Throttled me.”
“That follows the legend.”
“I know,” she said. “I became unconscious. When I revived it was a lot later.”
“You have no idea how long you were unconscious?”
“No. But when I came to, it was almost dark. And as I started to get up I saw someone standing in the doorway.”
“The ghost?”
She shook her head. “Not the same ghost I saw before. This one looked different. He didn’t wear a hat, as the other ghost did. And his hair was long and matted. When I cried out at him he vanished.”
“Not much help there,” Fred said.
“I know,” she said. “As soon as he disappeared I somehow got to the window and came down here. Then I found that the tide had returned and I was cut off from the shore.”
Fred stared at her in despair. “Why couldn’t you have remained safely at Moorgate?”
“Things happened there that drove me out.”
“What was Jim Stevens doing there? What was his excuse for visiting you?”
“He had a letter,” she said. “I don’t suppose Shiela told you anything about that.”
Her husband looked uncomfortable. “Let’s leave Shiela out of this.”
“I’d like to,” she said. “But I don’t know how I can. Jim came to show me a letter his mother found. A letter to Frank Clay from another man. And the letter made it seem almost positive that Graham Woods did murder his wife.”
“That’s been the accepted story all along.”
“But I didn’t believe it until I saw that letter,” she told him. “I still don’t want to believe it.”
“But you do?”
“I must. And then after I read the letter and had that silly quarrel with you on the phone I decided to call on Dr. Boyce to show him the letter. But something happened.”
“What?”
She told him about the noise from the cellar of Moorgate. How she had gone down to investigate it with the letter in her hand. And of how she’d had the frightening experience and the letter had been lost.
She ended with, “Of course the ghost intended to rob me of the letter.”
“You know I don’t believe in ghosts,” Fred said.
“You must believe in this one,” she insisted. “In a way it was he who brought me here. I came over to search for some paper evidence that might prove that letter to be wrong. To back up my views of Graham Woods’ innocence.”
“A fantastic theory and one that’s gotten you into a lot of trouble,” was his grim rejoinder. “Listen to that wind and rain.”
“I heard on the radio. It’s the end of a hurricane.”
He reached over and drew her close to him. “Do you realize all the danger you’ve put us in?”
She said, “You’re responsible too, you know. With your stupid jealousy of Jim. It always frightens me.”
Fred looked ashamed. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything to me now. All I can think of is getting you safely out of here.”
Her eyes met his tenderly. “I don’t care now that you’re with me. You know I love you.”
“And I love you,” he vowed. “Yet there’s something in the air of that old house which makes us turn against each other.”
“It’s the old evil,” she said. “It casts its spell on whoever lives there. For some reason the unhappy ghosts of those three still haunt the place.”
“We’ll leave Moorgate tomorrow if we survive this night,” he promised.
“I’m not sure that’s the answer,” she told him. “Now that the ghosts have cast their spell over us we aren’t likely to escape unless we can set them at rest.”
“How are we supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said unhappily. “It was the search for that secret which brought me over here.”
The car rocked with a high gust of wind and the rain beat harshly against the windows. Fred held her close to him and pressed his lips hard on hers in a kiss that proved his love for her. For just a moment she was able to forget the fear and dangers around them.
When at last he released her, he said, “We’ll have to get away from here somehow.”
“How long before the tide goes out?”
“With the storm we have an abnormally high tide,” he warned her. “There’s no telling how long the road will be under water. We can’t wait for it to be passable.”
“What then?”
“The boat.”
“Where is it?”
“Tied down at the wharf. At least it was. I couldn’t see very well in the dark and storm, but I think I made it fast.”
She shuddered. “You know how frightened I am of the water.”
“We’re in danger here.”
“It’s a terrible storm to attempt a passage back in that small boat,” she protested.
“The boat is stout enough,” he said. “It’s only that I’m not sure how good a skipper I am. And you’re so terrified.”
“I can’t help it.”
He gave her a troubled look. “Still we must try.”
She gazed up at him in horror as a new thought crossed her mind. “If we try to reach the mainland in that boat I know it will capsize and we’ll be drowned!”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s the legend and Moorgate,” she told him. “They want the same thing to happen to us. They want us to drown out there!”
“They?”
“The ghosts!” she said loudly to keep her voice above the wild moaning of the wind.
He shook his head. “Nonsense!”
His grip on her arms became rougher. “Listen to me,” he said. “You must do as I say. Leave the car and come with me. I’ll get you safely back to the mainland.”
“Please, Fred!” she begged.
“No use,” he told her.
At the same time he swung his door out against the storm and slid off the seat. Then he pulled her across and out into the driving rain and wind with him. He slammed the car door shut and took a flashlight from his hip pocket and shone its beam ahead of them.
“The wharf is down there,” he shouted in her ear.
She leaned against him for support and protection from the hurricane strength of the storm. His arm was around her as he started down along the beach to the spot where he’d brought in the boat. She felt that each step
was taking them closer to death. That they could never make a safe passage of the bay in the storm.
Looking up at him, she asked, “How far?”
“Not far,” he shouted back. “Down this way.”
They stumbled along the beach without coming on the wharf and the boat. She prayed that he might change his mind and would decide to wait on the island. But she knew there were stronger powers than hers at work. That the evil spirits of Moorgate wanted them to take the boat and drown.
She could imagine the awed stories that would be told about them. It would be the tragedy of Graham Woods and Jennifer repeated today. Only this time the principals were herself, Fred, and Jim. They would whisper of the quarrels between her and Fred over the young lawyer. Tell how she came to the island by herself and that her angry husband had come in search of her. Those who wanted to season their gossip a little wouldn’t hesitate to suggest that Fred aped the long-ago doctor’s crime and strangled her before taking her in the boat. There would even be the marks of those phantom hands on her throat to substantiate the story! It would be a seven-days’ wonder. And the legend would live on forever. Moorgate would remain a cursed place.
Fred was scanning ahead of him with the flashlight. “Can’t find the wharf!” he shouted.
“Go back!” she cried.
“No!” His voice was stern.
She knew there was no reasoning with him in this mood. So she stumbled on at his side as they made a vain search of the beach again. She was wet through and shivering with cold.
Then he suddenly came to a halt. And in the beam of his flashlight she was able to make out the wharf with the waves beating up against it and over its black shining surface. Fred was staring at it with a stunned expression on his face.
The boat was gone!
Chapter Twelve
“What now?” Lucy shouted.
Fred’s hair was streaming madly in the high wind. His handsome face was stern. “Nothing for it but the car!”
She shook her head. “No. The house!”
He frowned at her. “Why?”
“Safer from the storm,” she cried.
“I doubt it,” he said.
“Please!” she begged him.
“Very well,” he said. And still protecting her with his arm he started back up the hill towards the cottage.
She was grateful and at the same time afraid. From her point of view it was a lucky accident that the boat had come loose from the wharf. She was still convinced if they had gone out there they would have surely drowned. She was not sure what might happen, now that they were returning to brave the dangers of the old house. But at this moment she preferred that prospect to the wild waves of the bay.
It took them a little while to reach the cottage. The tall trees around it were swaying in the wind like saplings. A shutter had come loose and was making a great clatter. She tugged at Fred’s arm to direct him around to the back where the unshuttered window was. They found it, and he helped her in and then followed her.
Though the noise of the storm was still high it was better inside the sturdily built old house. As he closed the window against the wind and the rain and they stood wet and shivering in the darkness, she knew they had done the best thing.
“There’s a fireplace in the kitchen,” she said. “See if you can find some wood and a dry match.”
“We’ll see,” Fred said. And he let the beam of the flashlight show them the way to the big kitchen.
“There’s another fireplace in the library,” she told him. “It’s a smaller room, and maybe we could heat it easier.”
“Let’s try it,” he said.
They moved down the dark hall, with the old house creaking and moaning around them. Though the sounds of the storm had been dimmed, they were still bad enough. She thought of her terrifying experience when the invisible hands had strangled her into unconsciousness, and she shuddered. The apparition of that figure in the bushes in the beaver hat and long coat also returned to haunt her, and then that other later phantom with the long, matted hair and beard that had appeared in the doorway of the library.
Fred led the way into the library. He beamed the flashlight on the fireplace and said, “There’s a few logs. We may be able to manage a fire.”
He gave her the flashlight and she held it for him in trembling hands as he looked about for paper and matches. He found some old newspapers in a rack, and he had matches in his pocket. She watched, praying the matches wouldn’t be soaked through. They weren’t, and in a moment there was the welcome sight of flames rising in the fireplace. Fred lingered over the fire long enough to see that it would continue burning.
Then he got up from his knees and turned to her. “We may be able to dry out some if we can keep this fire going. We haven’t much wood.”
“We’re lucky to find any,” she said.
He nodded as he glanced around. “So this was Frank Clay’s study.”
“Yes.”
He took the flashlight from her and ran its beam over the ceiling. “No electric lights here,” he said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“There should be lamps or candles,” he mused. “I hate to think of the fuss old man Farley may make for us trespassing in here.”
“I don’t think he’ll mind at all,” she said, leaning down before the welcome warmth of the blazing logs.
Fred stood above her with a strange expression on his face. “Perhaps not,” he said.
She gave him a wry smile. “In any case you can be sure Shiela will defend you and talk him out of any anger.”
His face was highlighted by the reflection of the flames. “Why do you say that?”
“Because she was in love with you before I ever came to St. Andrews. And I’m sure she hasn’t given up hope of winning you away from me yet.”
Fred looked uneasy. “We can talk about that later. Right now I’d like to see us more comfortable here.”
She hugged her arms around her. “I feel better already.”
He took a step over to the shelves and shone the flashlight on them. Then he glanced over his shoulder at her. “According to you this place is as haunted as Moorgate.”
“I believe it is.”
“You say you were attacked by a phantom in this very room?”
“Yes. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. And the day we came over here for that picnic and I wandered into the garden to pick some roses I saw the ghost of Frank Clay in the bushes. I recognized the beaver hat and long coat from your description.”
Fred came back to stand over her again, his face grim. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I didn’t want to spoil our day. I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So you kept it to yourself?”
“I had to tell someone. I told Dr. Boyce about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He believes I’m psychic. That I’m more sensitive to ghosts than most other people. In the same way that a spirit medium is.”
“I have never put any faith in spirit mediums,” her husband said in a harsh, strained voice.
She looked up at him appealingly. “Just because there are things we don’t understand we shouldn’t deny their existence.”
A great gust of wind shook the old house and caused a billowing of smoke in the fireplace. Fred quickly bent to preserve the fire, shifting the logs with old iron tongs he’d found there. The rain continued pounding against the windows.
He finally stood up again. “I’m going to look for some wood and candles,” he said. “You stay by the fire.”
“I’m too frightened to stay here alone,” she said, half rising.
“You must,” Fred told her firmly. “It could be more dangerous for you wandering around in the dark with me. And not nearly as warm and comfortable.”
“Every minute I’ll be thinking something awful has happened to you,” she said.
“I’ll manage nicely as long as you stay here,” he said.
“The ghost may come back,” she pleaded.
“Call out to me. I’ll not be far away.”
“Please don’t be long!” she begged him.
“I won’t,” he said, and left the library.
She huddled before the blazing logs. The benefit of the warmth was balanced by her fears, and she remained cold and dejected. She tried to make her mind a blank until her husband returned. She kept recalling Dr. Boyce’s comments about her being psychic without knowing it, or even wanting to be. And she worried that now she had come to make contacts with ghosts she might never be free. Certainly she wouldn’t be as long as she and Fred lived in Moorgate in the shadow of that long-ago tragedy.
The wistful face of Jennifer seemed to take shape for a moment in the flaming logs, and then vanish. Lucy had tried so hard to understand the message the unhappy spirit of the girl had been trying to tell her, but it seemed that she’d failed.
One of the logs in the fireplace tumbled suddenly and gave her a start. She glanced around fearfully. But beyond the creaking and groaning of the old house in the storm there was nothing to suggest a restless spirit.
She gave her attention to the fire again. She felt that her clothes were drying a little, and she was more comfortable. She began wondering how long it would be before the stormy waters of the bay receded to the point where they could drive back over the road between the island and the mainland.
A footstep sounded in the hall and she turned quickly in apprehension. But it was Fred returning. He came back into the library carrying some logs and two candles.
“I made out pretty well,” he said, placing the logs by the fireplace. “These should see us through the night. And I found these candles.”
“There are candle holders on the library table,” she told him.
“Good,” he said, and he went over and put the candles in them. Then he lit the candles and came back with one of them. “We’ll put this one up here,” he told her, and sat it on the mantel above the fireplace.
“You didn’t see anything, did you?” she asked.
“No. What about you?”
“I’ve been terrified,” she confessed. “But nothing happened.”
Vintage Love Page 196