The moon had broken through the scudding clouds again as the stable came into view, and in its ghostly light Elliot saw Malcolm dragging Jean toward the brink of the cliff beyond. He could hear her screams over the mournful wail of the wind, and he cracked the buggy whip smartly over Ely's rump and drove straight for them commanding the horse at the top of his voice.
Malcolm was pulling Jean along, but she couldn't feel his biting fingers, nor could she see, for somehow despite the dark, brooding clouds above that let the moon peek through now and then, the black night around her grew suddenly blacker still. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real, she would wake soon, safe in the chair waiting for Colin to come—waiting for him to turn the key in the lock and take her away.
Her eyes wouldn't work anymore, and the pounding in her ears was unbearable—swelling—drumming—drowning out the vicar's desperate cries behind. What was that other dreadful noise—that awful pounding? It seemed to be coming from inside her breast. It grew louder, booming like thunder, and she strained her eyes to see, but nothing but a soft, hazy blur met them. Malcolm was there, but his shape was distorted. He had hold of her arm. She could see the white, hairy fingers hooked like claws around it, and yet she still couldn't feel the pressure that numbed her flesh. For sight and feeling came and went at will then and couldn't be trusted. But that, after all, was the capricious way of dreams.
She stared down at the remains of her gown, barely hanging from her shoulders. She could see nothing but blood—her own and Colin's. She was screaming inside, strange, silent screams of the mind. Her mouth had fallen open, but the constriction in her throat would let no sound come out. ‘Colin is dead. Oh, God . . . Colin is dead.’ She knew.
Malcolm hauled her through the mist of spindrift driven over the brow of the cliff on the wind. It was like splinters of ice against her hot, naked flesh, and her bare feet slipped on the uneven wet ground beneath them. But even that seemed as though it were happening to someone else. Jagged rocks along the precipice cut her feet and legs as he propelled her along, but she couldn't feel their sharpness either, nor could she see their pointy shapes beneath the mist that had begun to rise from the heath.
All at once the sound of angry breakers that she loathed so sparked recognition, and her senses returned with a hot, searing pain in her womb. It wasn't a dream. The nightmare was real! Malcolm was trying to push her over the edge. She fought against him, but all her strength had left her, and it didn't seem to matter anymore. Colin was dead!
The rain had softened the earth where they struggled. As it gave way beneath them, Malcolm jumped back and pushed her off with one last savage shove, but she didn't fall clear. Several feet below the cliff's sheer face, a cluster of petrified roots and branches reached toward her and she grabbed fast and clung to them, screaming at the top of her voice.
Elliot's heartstopping, “N-o-o-o-o-o!” carried on the moaning wind as he saw her go over the edge, turned Malcolm around with a jerk.
Blinded by rage and the frustration of his failure, Elliot whipped the horse relentlessly, driving the animal straight for the dark youth, who hadn't realized the trap coming on at breakneck speed in time.
In the split second as he hesitated on the crumbling edge, their eyes met, and Malcolm's half smile froze in place. Back-peddling from the edge as the earth gave way where he stood, he tried to sidestep the oncoming trap. But when he raised his arms to protect his face in defense of the horse's hoofs—so close—churning the sodden heath into a flying morass of mud and dirt that blinded him, Ely reared and came down forelegs flying, striking him full in the chest, and drove him over the brink.
Elliot stood in the trap and pulled back hard on the reins and the frightened horse reared, spinning away from the edge as more of the crumbling earth gave and spilled down in a shower over Jean. And her blood-curdling screams, amplified by the wind, finally penetrated the numbness that scarcely let him realize what he'd done.
Elliot scrambled down from the seat and the frenzied horse raced off toward the stable dragging the empty trap behind. Running to the edge, he looked below to see Jean clutching the branches along the cliff's sheer face in the moonlight, and he threw himself down on the ground and stretched his arm toward her, but she was just out of reach.
"My God, I found what you put in my pocket. I know what's been going on here! Please . . . you must hold on while I fetch a rope from the stable."
Her screams were unintelligible then, but oddly they seemed more frantic. All that came clear was the distorted wail of Colin's name carried off on the wind, and the vicar's heart sank, as he knew he'd discovered the truth too late.
"Hold on, I say!” he cried.
Scrambling to his feet, he ran back over the heath scarcely noticing the pain that had begun to rip through his chest and biceps again. As he staggered through the wide-flung stable doors, he reached for the bottle in his jacket pocket, but it wasn't there, and he took a chill as his mind's eye saw it where he'd left it—on his nightstand at the vicarage.
Jean knew he wouldn't return. Everything seemed so far away suddenly, as if she were outside herself looking on. Malcolm's twisted shape was waiting on the rocks below. She shut her eyes to the sight of it as the wet scrub slipped from her fingers and let her go.
The darkness then was like a soft, velvet blanket. It wrapped itself close about her, as tender as Colin's embrace, and she could no longer feel the needles of spindrift, though they pierced her more cruelly as she plummeted through them. She was going to sleep at last. That scream came again, so soft now that she could barely hear it, but the echo of it lived after, a plaintive sound trailing off over the heaving breast of the sea.
There came a rush of wind . . . a murmur of surf . . . and . . . sleep.
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Epilogue
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The sound of my own sobs woke me. The litany of whispering voices that had buzzed in my brain since I entered the house had ceased and become conspicuous in its absence. I was lying on the sofa in the conservatory. The vicar sat beside me. He had dragged the upholstered chair alongside the hearth, and a comforting fire burned in the grate. As my eyes focused upon him, pale and fatigued, resting his head against the heart-shaped chair back, I vaulted upright.
"We have to get Malcolm out of that grave!” I cried, in terror at the thought of their bodies embracing for all eternity while Colin lay alone beyond the churchyard gate in unconsecrated ground.
Dazed, he gave a lurch and dropped his tape recorder. “W...we shall, my dear, at once, of course,” he soothed, easing me back with a firm hand on my shoulder.
He picked up the recorder and tucked it into his pocket.
"You recorded it all?” I asked him.
He nodded. “You're welcome to listen to the tapes if you wish. I added to your account from Elliot's journal as you . . . spoke, and what's on them quite boggles the mind."
I shook my head and it reeled with the sudden motion. “I don't need to,” I said, “I remember it all—everything. I only wish I didn't. What happened to me here, Vicar Marshall? Do you know?"
He took a spastic breath, and I could tell by his expression that he wished I hadn't asked that question. “You seem to have experienced some sort of...psychic episode, my dear,” he said. “If I wanted to subscribe to your school of thought, I would have to agree that somehow the restless spirits of those who died so tragically in this place have reached out to you to set things to rights. If that were so, it would mean that you have suffered a rape of inexplicable magnitude—not of the body, but of the soul, so that the dead may find peace here at last."
"But you don't . . . subscribe to my thinking?"
"Ms. Maitland—Jean, if I may still take the liberty, whatever the phenomenon I'm grateful for it. Elliot's last entry in his journal took place just before the tragedy, as you know. The actual circumstances were not known, only arrived at through conjecture after the fact. Marshalls have been trying to so
lve the Cragmoor mystery for four generations, my dear. That you have seemed to put closure to it at last is enough for me, and a thing I must accept as a grace from God. Beyond that, I'm not prepared to speculate."
I decided to leave that for the moment and go to something else that puzzled me. “You told me that Marshalls have preached at St. Michael's since Elliot's day. That would mean that Ted Marshall took Holy Orders as well. He never followed his dream of a maritime life, then?"
"Ted Marshall was my grandfather,” he said. “Oh, he had a brief seafaring adventure of sorts, but he entered the seminary soon after and became the second vicar of St. Michaels as a tribute to Elliot. The tragedy devastated him, my dear. He was overwhelmed with guilt. He never recovered from the loss of his father, and his ‘Uncle’ Colin. His wasn't a particularly successful ministry I'm afraid. His heart wasn't really in it. He saw it as a duty rather than a calling, always longing for the sea, and what might have been if he had followed his dream. He was a very unhappy man.
"He kept a journal for awhile, but he lacked his father's discipline in that resolve as well, and it soon fell by the wayside. It is from those writings, however, that we learn of George Howard's visit to the vicarage on the morning of May eighteenth. When the good doctor discovered that the vicar's bed hadn't been slept in, and that the trap was missing, he came straight to Cragmoor and discovered the carnage. From the look of things, he and the constable concluded that Colin had thrown Malcolm and his wife off the cliff and then taken his life, and that Elliot, upon finding Colin's body, had finally suffered the seizure that Howard had been warning would kill him.
"Malcolm and Jean lay on the rocks in such a way that they appeared to be locked in a last passionate embrace, which is why they were buried that way. It was Howard who took on that task, as I told you earlier, and Howard who saw that Colin was buried outside the churchyard . . . so close, and yet denied the sleep of the just . . . almost like a waif pressed up against the pane of a candy store window. His jealousy and hatred of Colin remained painfully evident.
"Howard never recovered from Elliot's death, either. He lived long enough to see Ted become vicar of St. Michael's, and he tried to transfer his affinity for the father to the son, but it wasn't the same, and Ted's uncanny resemblance to Elliot only made matters more unbearable for the doctor. Tragically, it wasn't only Howard who felt that strongly about Elliot Marshall. In all his preoccupation with Cragmoor and the Chapins, Elliot never actually realized how loved he was in this community."
I was almost in tears, but there was one question that still remained unanswered, and I hesitated to address it. “Vicar Marshall, was Malcolm some sort of demon do you think?"
"Elliot was convinced of it as you know,” he said cautiously, “and Malcolm was evil certainly . . . but the Church is very careful whom it calls demon, my dear. Even these days."
I almost felt sorry for him. He was clearly struggling with the situation. He was still inflexible in his conservative posture, and in spite of the obvious, he continually tried to play it down. But I wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily. “Then you think—"
"I didn't say I think anything,” he interrupted defensively. “The truth is I simply don't know what to think, and I hardly consider myself qualified to venture a guess, educated or not. But again, if we are to subscribe to your theory of restless spirits seeking help from the living, I might point out to you that Malcolm Chapin's spirit is not now, nor has it ever been reputed to stalk the halls of Cragmoor."
He was right, of course, and I did think that rather off at the time, but that was the least of my concerns then.
A rape of the soul—an invasion of the most private essence of self in order to right a terrible wrong by those who had suffered it, indeed it did boggle the mind. But I knew if I knew nothing else—just as they did—that the love Colin and Jean bore each other was eternal. It was, indeed, stronger than death, I had just proven that, whether the good Vicar Edward Marshall, Esq., chose to admit it or not. I say ‘admit', because I honestly didn't see how, after all we'd just been through, he could possibly doubt.
We reunited the lovers in the graveyard two days later, once the spring squalls gave way to the sun. Colin's remains were exhumed from the unconsecrated heath beyond the graveyard gate and laid next to Jean's in the churchyard.
Vicar Marshall did finally give in and allow me to occupy the house. One day I hope to persuade him to let me buy it. But for now we've struck a bargain. I agreed to invest in the resurrection of Cragmoor, with a bed-and-breakfast in mind, in exchange for occupancy in it whenever I'm in England. Fowler Plastics’ holdings in the UK allow me access to both countries, and I'm in no hurry to get back to the States just yet. Instead, I've become a member of St. Michael's parish, and a frequent visitor to the churchyard, fair weather and foul. And obviously, I've even taken up the practice of keeping a journal just as Elliot Marshall did so long ago.
I haven't done much painting as yet, I'm sorry to say. There has been just too much going on in the way of restoration to think about that. I need to court the muse for inspiration, and just now restoring Cragmoor is what's inspiring me. We're still running the place on candlepower and kerosene lamps, thanks to the weather.
I'm going to plant an herb garden outside the conservatory, just as it was in Amy Croft's day, and a glorious floral display on the northern rise where the gardener's cottage once stood. Vicar Marshall has kindly consented to donate some foxglove, rose hips, and wild poppy plants from his own garden along the churchyard fence. The harebell and meadowsweet have already arrived; a gift of the strange Cornish spring. I've hired three servants who will assist with all that. I know I should have more help out here, but I'm afraid I'll have to import them. So far none of the locals will come near the place and the three I do have are wary. I'm afraid the infamy of Cragmoor may take another century or two to dispel.
So far there have been no more strange episodes or occurrences. There is, however, something . . . else, something in the dark that wasn't there before. If it's a presence it hasn't chosen to make itself known. But sometimes in the night when the angry sea is restless in her bed and the wind howls about the old house rattling the shutters and moaning in the eaves, I can almost hear a strange, misshapen laughter in it, and a chill comes over the place that no fire seems brave enough to chase.
I've questioned the servants about it, but they haven't noticed anything unusual, and I certainly can't afford to upset them by bringing it up too often. Nevertheless, whenever the phenomenon occurs, I drop whatever I'm doing and go wherever it leads me. So far, nothing has come of my adventures that could prove my theory. It may, of course, just be my imagination, but still . . . on nights such as this, when the drafts threaten to blow out the flame in the amber glass lamp on my bed stand, and that eerie laughter rides the wind, the one thing that still troubles me invades my thoughts . . .
I wonder if it was the wisest thing to bury Malcolm's remains inside the ring of stones beside the footpath? Vicar Marshall felt that, since all of the evil that befell the Chapins began at the ring, Malcolm should be returned to the place from which he'd come. I went along with that at the time. It was his land, after all, and all that mattered to me then was reuniting Colin and Jean, but now I'm not so sure. I was frightened of the unknown here before the episode, but I was never afraid of the spirits in this house—not the way I am of what I sense here now. I'm wondering if removing Malcolm from consecrated ground and the Celtic cross that stood atop him for over a century was the right thing to do, considering his strange reaction to churches while he lived. It was, after all, his only vulnerability—the only thing he really feared.
I wonder what Elliot Marshall would make of it? I wonder if he would approve? Unfortunately I can't seek his counsel. I do have Edward Marshall's ear, however. He'll probably think me mad, but I'm going to ask him to put Malcolm's coffin back in the churchyard—sacrilege or not. When I see him tomorrow, I think I'm going to insist that we do it now,
while there's a break in the weather, before th . . .
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About the Author
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Dawn Thompson wrote historical fiction—worldly and other-worldly romance through the ages. She was primarily a Regency Romance novelist, writing both traditional Regencies, and Regency-set historicals. Some of her other works include historical paranormals, and Celtic and Norse Medievals, incorporating the history, theology, legend, and lore of her heritage, which had been the ongoing focus of her research over the past thirty-five years.
Dawn passed away in February, 2008.
May she rest in peace.
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Praise for
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