“Ricky,” she asked, and her voice was languid, “does the old lady have anything you particularly want?”
“Her place is a treasure house,” he said. “Nothing has been touched for fifty years. You’ll love it.”
And she would. The past was a deep well of mystery to which she was drawn. Even her clothes showed it with a tendency to be slightly out of date. But he liked a woman to look feminine, by which she knew he meant helpless and compliant, and he always maintained that it was the simplicity of her dress, the fitted waist and flared skirt that had at first attracted him. That, and the strange circumstances of their initial meeting.
“Black beads,” he said. “She’s bound to have ebony beads somewhere.”
She chided him at that. “Black beads are Victorian,” she said. “Far too old.” And yet he had struck a chord; she could see herself with a double string of heavy black beads reaching to her waist. It was a childish thought from far back. “You have read my mind once more,” she said.
His smile, which would come and go like a shutter opening and closing, remained open to show the whiteness of his teeth. He was so superbly at ease, stretched out in the shade of the swing’s awning, that her heart gave the strange little skip she had recently learned to live with and then ran away in palpitations that left her gasping. Which made her prettily defenceless, he thought.
“But you don’t actually need anything, Ricky,” she murmured, turning her head away to look across the wide lawn where the trees made tents of restful shadow.
“What I need,” he said, “is what I want. And what I want is to have you with me when I go there.”
“But why?”They sat in the shade of a cypress behind the house, but even there the glare of the sun had made him put on his dark glasses and she could not see the expression in his eyes. “Why, Ricky?”
“Because it would please me.” Beneath his invisible gaze his lips wore a smile. “Because you never let me take you home.”
“But I do.” Enormous weariness made her close her eyes. She did not wish to make yet more excuses for not allowing him to take her further than the entrance to the apartment building. “It’s such a small place,” she said, “you wouldn’t like it.” It was so dark and narrow it had taken her a long time to get accustomed to it. He wanted to know too much, too many of her secrets.
He watched her. She sat upright, except for the gentle curve of her spine, and her hand drooped over the arm of her chair holding her glass by its rim as if it was almost too heavy for her slim fingers. Her pale lethargy emphasized the dark beauty of the eyes which slid away from him to look towards the house. He had never lived anywhere else; there was space for him, and to spare, and it was easier for him to take part in the family’s business if he lived at home—in the style which suited him. He sought to impress her even more. “Mrs Grayson’s house is much larger even than this,” he said, “and we shall have it all to ourselves.”
“But it will be dark.” She did not look at him. She knew what was in his mind. Taking her to a strange empty house in darkness excited him, but he was reluctant to admit it to her. A faint contempt stirred in her that he should hide his desires by pretending to be a thief.
“All you will have to do is hold the torch,” he said.
“But what if we should be surprised?”
“That’s impossible. Mrs Grayson is in a nursing home and won’t be coming back. Ever.”
“I shall be a liability,” she protested. “I can’t climb, I can’t run.” By tormenting him she put an edge to his determination, but she herself tingled with pleasure at the danger and it diminished the dragging tiredness that besieged her.
“There is no need to climb through windows. I can get a key at any time I want. We have known her for years, and she’ll never know what’s missing.”
“I’ll be useless—I get so breathless.” She frowned; it had not always been so.
“You won’t even have to climb the stairs.” The dark lenses looked on her and she knew the expression concealed there. She had seen it before on another face, in another place. She lowered her eyes and allowed him to betray what was in his mind. “A big house all to ourselves,” he said. “I shall carry you up the stairs in the dark.” He hesitated. “If you would like that.”
When she said nothing he sought to justify himself. “You mustn’t forget I have carried you before.” He saw her eyelids flicker as if she did not remember. It was a game they played. “My old dog Wolf found you,” he said. “In the woods lying among the dead leaves. He thought you were dead, too. We both did.”
“I was merely comfortable.” She dipped her eyes. “I was asleep.”
“How was I to know? I lifted you up, and you were as light as air.”
“Not everyone would find me as light as that; you don’t know how strong you are.” She was never sure she should remind him of his strength; she had seen others afraid of it. “Then you woke me.”
“Not by picking you up.” She had remained asleep in his arms.
“Perhaps not, but I felt your breath beneath my chin.”
“I thought I saw a pulse in your neck.”
“I felt your breath, and it was time to wake.”
“Strange meeting,” he said.
He watched as she, remaining silent, raised her glass to drink. The wine had a deeper red than her lips. He became bolder.
“We shall go to old Mrs Grayson’s house. There may be a dress you can wear ... Mrs Grayson had a daughter.”
“Black beads,” she said. “Just black beads; nothing else.”
His sigh was soundless, and they did not look at each other. He was having his way and she was permitting it.
Somewhere out of sight a car squeezed the pebbles of the drive. “My mother,” he said. “There will be trouble.”
“Because of me?”
“Indirectly.”
Mrs Appian came around the corner of the house and saw them. Peevish lines puckered her mouth.
“I thought you were in the office today, Richard.” She did not glance at Angela.
“I phoned them first thing and told them what to do.”
“But you know your father likes one of us to be there when he is away. It is the only way to run a business.” Mrs Appian, soberly dressed and trim, but with a bright scarf at her throat, looked at the drink in Angela’s hand, and then at Angela’s clothes. The girl’s long dark hair contrasted strongly with her pale skin, and she hardly seemed to have the energy to smile. Why were his girlfriends always so docile? Maybe it was just as well, considering his temper. But this one was a worry. “Are you quite well, my dear?” she asked. “There’s not a scrap of colour in your cheeks.”
Her son got to his feet. “That’s why I gave myself a day off, Mother. I’m looking after her.” He turned the conversation. “And where have you been today—the hairdresser?”
“I have not.” The softly gilded waves of her hair, not as pliant as they appeared, moved in a body with her head. “I have been to see poor Mrs Grayson.”
“Strange,” he said, “we have just been talking about her. Drink?”
“My usual,” said his mother. “And what have you two been saying?”
He looked back over his shoulder as he stepped through the open french windows. “I have been telling Angela that nothing in the world would induce me to go to that gloomy old mansion of hers. I would be far too scared.”
Mrs Appian laughed, and thought it necessary to defend her son. “That’s nonsense,” she said to Angela. “He’s as brave as a lion, especially in dark places. He always has been.”
“He’s far too brave for me.” Angela lowered her eyes. “He frightens me.” And Mrs Appian saw that this strange girl was, in fact, foolishly afraid of her son.
“Let me tell you what he’s really like,” she said as she accepted the drink he had brought for her. “And, Richard, don’t you dare interrupt.” She tugged at his hand as if that would make him obey. “One day when he was still a little b
oy he went missing and we searched and searched until it got dark and he was nowhere to be found. I was frantic. And then, I don’t know why ...” she looked up at her son “... it must have been a mother’s intuition, but I was convinced he must have gone round to Mrs Grayson’s house, even though she was on holiday. And there we found him, inside, sitting at the foot of the stairs in the great empty hall... sitting there in the dark all by himself as though he wanted to spend the night there.”
He laughed. “So you see, Angela, I have the soul of a thief—I broke in.”
“Nonsense!” His mother slapped at his hand. “I had the key and you had borrowed it.”
“Stolen it to break in. That’s what I’d done.”
“Don’t be perverse! You had just heard the dreadful story of Mrs Grayson’s daughter and it had affected you and made you sad. But you told me you had only gone there as a dare.”
Angela had hardly been listening. The heat and light made her head ache and her limbs were limp and lifeless and she wanted to be elsewhere, but she had to ask a question. “What happened to Mrs Grayson’s daughter?” she said.
“Nobody knows,” said Mrs Appian. “She disappeared long ago, more than fifty years now, and has never been seen since.” Once again she turned her eyes on Richard. “But this young man of mine was convinced as soon as he heard the story that she was dead. What a mournful child! And there he was, all alone in that great gloomy old tomb of a house, as if he was waiting for her!”
“Were you?” The words made Angela’s heart rock. They had escaped against her will.
“Maybe.” There was a smile on his lips below the blank lenses. “Who can tell?”
“He was so cold and pale,” said Mrs Appian, “you can’t believe it to look at him now, the great ox.”
“I am the pale one.” Angela knew that her smile was thin and wan, and Mrs Appian responded.
“You don’t look at all well,” she said, but her sympathy had an extra purpose. “Why don’t you take her home, Richard? The poor girl obviously needs to rest. And then you can call at the office—it would please your father.”
He did not attempt to get out of the car when he dropped her at the entrance to the apartment block. There was a sheen of bad temper on his face. “One day you’ll invite me up,” he said.
It was the one thing she could not do. She had to keep something of herself apart from him; if she surrendered too deeply she would lose him. She smiled, but said nothing and waited until he had driven away before she moved. And then she turned her back on the apartments and walked to where a little church brooded secretively among buildings much taller than itself. A bench in the corner of the graveyard had become a haven for her ever since she had met Richard and the heaviness had overtaken her limbs. She would sit there for hours, neither awake nor asleep, and let her mind drift aimlessly.
But today her hazy wash of thoughts slid and circled but was anchored in one place. She was puzzled by the attraction Richard Appian had for her. A hand went to her throat. Once before she had suffered the formidable anger of a powerful man, and bore the marks, yet she was once more being drawn to someone with the strength to lift her as if she weighed no more than a kitten ... someone callous enough to rob an old woman. And she had not the will to refuse to help him.
It was dusk when he picked her up outside the apartments. There was a tense excitement in him about what lay ahead, and he only briefly asked her how she felt.
“I spent the afternoon resting,” she said. “Sitting among the leaves.”
“Like when I first found you.” He enclosed her cold fingers in the heat of his hand and she shuddered. “Are you afraid?”
She nodded, but nothing would have made her turn back. It was necessary for her to be with him. “Where is the house?” she asked.
“You must have seen it . . . it’s big enough.” And when they drove down the broad avenue with the arching trees it seemed familiar to her. “But we can’t park here,” he said, “we may be recognized.”
He drove on and parked in a side street, and as they walked back beneath the shadows of the trees he put his arm around her so that they would be taken as .strolling lovers. But he did not kiss her and it was not until they had found the gate into the grounds and were moving through a tunnel of overgrown shrubbery that she made him pause and look down at her. “Leaf mould,” she murmured, “can you smell it?”
The scent was in his nostrils. She held her face up to him and their lips met.
“You found me lying in leaf mould,” she said, and as their lips lingered she added, “It was like a bed.”
He sensed the thrill of fear and longing in her and spoke softly. “There are rooms with beds in the house.”
“I shall choose,” she murmured.
The moon had dipped near to the horizon, but enough light filtered from the sky to make the grey housefront stand out from the shadows. The windows were deep set in heavy stonework and the door was hidden within a porch. He had a key. “But no one will suspect us,” he said, “because I shall smash a window when we leave. It will look like a break-in.”
She hardly heard him. Now that there was no turning back she was reckless, and her heart churned. The empty hall opened around them like a dark church, and even though he took care that the heavy door should close softly at their backs the sound was picked up and ran away, echoing across the marble floor.
“It is all ours,” he whispered. “You can pick and choose whatever takes your fancy.”
“Black beads,” she said. “I want black beads.” Her heart clamoured in her breast as though she had come to the end of an exhausting journey, and he turned to find her clutching at the wall and barely able to stand.
“There is no need to be afraid,” he said with the gentleness he was capable of when his will was being obeyed. “We are alone.”
“Take me upstairs.” She was aware that her gasping breath told him that she had not the strength to climb.
He picked her up and, cradling her in his arms, carried her across the hall. He trod so softly there was no sound, and as they stirred the quiet air she surrendered. She allowed her head to fall back so that her long, black hair brushed the banisters as he carried her higher. She had dreamt of this as she lay in the woods and the autumn leaves had drifted down. Long ago.
He felt her limbs quiver. “What is it?” he asked.
She did not answer. Long ago she had been in a man’s arms, resisting him, thrusting him away but unable to prevent him holding her closer and closer until his lofty forehead and the piercing eyes beneath the heavy eyebrows loomed over her and his mouth had found hers. And then, too weak to struggle, she had gazed up through the dark branches of trees while his lips, softly and moistly, had lain against her neck. A sudden sharp pain had made her cry out, and then the trees had stooped and watched her slide into blackness. It had happened long ago.
“You woke me,” she said.
He grunted, not knowing what she meant.
“I was asleep in the wood for a much longer time than you could ever guess.” The leaf mould had taken her down into darkness, and she had lain still for year after year as the tree roots explored her and held her fast in the earth. A man had put her there. “And then you came and woke me, Ricky,” she whispered.
They came to the landing and a long passage stretched ahead. It was she who, like a child, let her fingers trail along the wall until they found a door.
“Here it is,” she said.
The silence of the house was focused on the click as the handle turned and the door swung open. They went through. A sly patch of moonlight stood against the wall at the corner of a dressing table as though it had been waiting for them.
She put her arms around his neck and kissed his ear. “Black beads,” she whispered.
She slid out of his arms and went to where the moonlight lay. He heard a drawer open and her little chuckle of surprise. He moved towards her, but she ordered him to wait as she stepped into the shadow of a corner. H
e heard a soft sigh of garments and then the mirror of the dressing table tilted and the dying moonbeam fell on her where she stood.
She was unclothed, pale and vague, but against her skin two long loops of black beads hung down between her breasts to the shadows of her belly. She allowed him to carry her to the bed.
“The beads,” he said, “you knew where they were.”
She laughed softly and drew him down. “This is my room,” she said. “You have brought me home.”
He did not understand, and she did not tell him of the slow revival of memory as he brought her through the hall and up the stairs. His hand touched her cool skin and felt the warmth beneath, and all questions fled from his mind. He was above her and joined to her, and her hands held his head and brought him closer as if to kiss him but, as his head tilted back in a spasm, her lips touched his throat.
The Mammoth Book of Dracula - [Anthology] Page 48