Sands of Time
Barbara Erskine
A spine-tingling collection of haunting tales, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lady of Hay.Sands of Time features two intriguing stories that pick up the fortunes of characters from Whispers in the Sand, Barbara Erskine's captivating Egyptian novel. Still haunted by ancient mysteries, and the subject of dark intentions, Anna and Louisa must once more do battle with the past in order to survive the present.Alongside these are a host of other tales, all with a touch of the unexpected. A happily married woman has an affair – with a man who died in the First World War. Who is the little girl on the swing in the garden – and why does only Charlotte see her? And how does a traveller find herself transported suddenly from her airplane seat to the snowy Canadian wasteland below?Suspense, romance, passion, unexpected echoes of the past – vintage Barbara Erskine, and storytelling at its most compelling.
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_c1300236-57b3-5075-a5d9-5e73aacfe621)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in 2000
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Barbara Erskine 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780006512097
Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780007320981
Version: 2017-09-08
EPIGRAPH (#ulink_043bac5a-bc82-5ca4-9440-a25852ce9ea1)
If poets’ verses are but stories, so are food and raiment stories. So is all the world a story. So is man of dust a story.
St Columba
Contents
Cover (#u1e783e59-6e5a-563e-be38-5c3ad720c692)
Title Page (#ue2af9eee-2da3-52f6-acc0-de84fce7087b)
Copyright (#uce1854d7-7b57-521c-8e08-0813cd83e4a9)
Epigraph (#u951713cb-c2ab-58e3-aac5-7b3b5bd9ef88)
Preface (#uabfb2f2f-9f06-51f7-9a32-9f798b292b82)
The Legacy of Isis (#ubf33648a-3de4-5f52-94ff-035abba71ed7)
What Price Magic? (#uc927d169-9279-525c-a727-73165eefb035)
Between Times (#u08a7ef6c-7273-5837-b033-821fbb9afad3)
Sea Dreams (#uf051dd45-c80f-511f-82bb-18ff4d6ba006)
The Footpath (#litres_trial_promo)
Sacred Ground (#litres_trial_promo)
Damsel in Distress (#litres_trial_promo)
The Last Train to Yesterday (#litres_trial_promo)
Party Trick (#litres_trial_promo)
Lost in the Temple (#litres_trial_promo)
Random Snippets (#litres_trial_promo)
On the Way to London (#litres_trial_promo)
Second Sight (#litres_trial_promo)
The Cottage Kitchen (#litres_trial_promo)
The Room Upstairs (#litres_trial_promo)
Moonlight (#litres_trial_promo)
The Girl on the Swing (#litres_trial_promo)
An Afternoon at the Museum (#litres_trial_promo)
Day Trip (#litres_trial_promo)
Barney (#litres_trial_promo)
You’ve Got to Have a Dream (#litres_trial_promo)
First-class Travel (#litres_trial_promo)
Moving On (#litres_trial_promo)
‘You’ve Got a Book to Write, Remember?’ (#litres_trial_promo)
Sands of Time (#litres_trial_promo)
The Storyteller (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading Barbara Erskine’s Novels (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading Sleeper’s Castle (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Barbara Erskine (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PREFACE (#ulink_65b528ab-747e-5c5e-8368-9f7aeca66d16)
This third collection of short stories has allowed me to fulfil, at least in part, my ambition to write a sequel to Whispers in the Sand. One of the hardest stages in the writing of a novel is finishing it. For weeks, perhaps months, I will have been looking forward to writing those two magic words, The End – words that mean a conclusion to obsession, to long hours, to RSI at the keyboard and to saying no to invitations I would so much love to accept. When the moment finally comes, however, saying goodbye to the characters, reconciling the urge to give them a happy ending with the temptation to leave the reader on a knife edge – after all, real life doesn’t provide neat endings – and parting with the characters, people who have become closer in many ways than family or friends, and whom I will miss enormously, is the most difficult and painful time. The close of a book leads to a few hours of euphoria and relief, then to intense post-natal depression! One way of getting over that feeling is to consider, if only for a short time, the possibility of resurrecting the story by writing a sequel – something I have actually gone on to think about seriously with only two of my novels, Midnight is a Lonely Place and Whispers in the Sand.
The result of these thoughts as far as Whispers is concerned is presented in this short story collection. There are two long stories, one of which picks up Louisa Shelley’s life some seven years after we leave her at the end of Whispers. The second continues the tale of Anna and Toby, in this case only days after the end of the novel. It has been a fascinating exercise and not nearly as easy as I thought. I had the novel sewn up pretty well and it was quite hard to unpick a loose end to carry on the narrative. I hope you find that the resultant unravelling and re-ravelling fulfils your expectations and leaves you – well, wait and see …
To be putting together another collection of short stories is an indulgence, an enormous pleasure. Reading through the stories that I have written over the past five years I see the mood has changed. The themes move on, reflecting my own preoccupations and those of the world around me and many of my contemporaries. Almost inevitably most of the stories involve ghosts – partly because they interest me, partly because once one has a reputation for writing about a particular kind of subject that is what magazines ask one to write! In case this is seen as something of an obsession I should point out that many months separated most of them in the writing! And I see I have been travelling by train more than I used to – I have always loved writing on trains; that womblike abstraction from the world is the perfect place to lose oneself in the narrative of the imagination. Although the silence and isolation have alas been spoiled by the advent of the mobile phone, even so the strange hypnotic quality of train travel continues to fascinate. And most of these train stories are based on events that have actually happened to me on my travels. Trains lead to adventures.
In this collection I have for the first time included one or two short poems. I have written poetry since I was at school and have occasionally over the years published individual poems, but on the whole I have always felt poetry too intensely personal a medium to show to people. It is time, I felt, that I came out of the closet.
I hope you enjoy Sands of Time.
The Legacy of Isis (#ulink_f79e8ec8-6492-59a3-934c-91351e648301)
1
‘No!’
Louisa Shelley’s anguished denial was instantaneous. ‘I don’t want to see them!’
The maid’s message had been so innocuous. She had come in carrying a steaming ewer of water as Louisa was standing staring out of her bedroom window.
‘My lady said I was to tell you that we have a treat this evening, Mrs Shelley. Unexpected guests. She understands they are old friends of yours. Mr and Mrs David Fielding?’ The girl smiled, clearly delighted with her news. ‘They arrived while you were out painting.’
Her eyes widened as she registered Louisa’s horrified reaction. She had been somewhat overawed at first by their guest’s fame. Louisa Shelley was an acclaimed water colourist. Her drawings and paintings of her travels in Egypt in the mid 1860s had been exhibited in London galleries, so she had been told, and besides that, Louisa’s elegance and beauty had stunned her. Her hair was glossy chestnut, the colour emphasised rather than spoiled by the threads of silver appearing at her temples. She wore graceful flowing dresses in bright jewel colours quite unlike those of the lady of the house, Sarah Douglas – in fact unlike any dresses Kirsty had ever seen. Her awe had quickly turned to worship as Louisa’s easy charm won her over. But there were no smiles now. None of the eager excitement she had expected. Louisa’s face had gone white. Her features had lost their vivacity.
‘But –’ Kirsty was shocked into indiscretion. ‘Lady Douglas will be heartbroken. She is so excited. She’s ordered a special meal and cook is over the moon. It’s not often we get the chance to entertain properly.’
Glen Douglas House had once rung to the sounds of music and laughter, but Sir James did not care much for company now that the five children were grown up and gone and in the last few years Sarah had found herself often alone. It was on a visit to her eldest daughter’s home in London that she had met Louisa, a friend of a friend, and the two women had taken an instant liking to each other. Sarah had impulsively asked Louisa to come to Scotland for the summer to paint. So far the visit had been a resounding success.
Louisa turned away from Kirsty, defeated. It would be unforgivably discourteous not to come down to dinner. It was only after the little maid had curtseyed and left the room that she gave vent to her true feelings, throwing herself onto the bed, smothering angry tears in her pillow. The very mention of the Fieldings’ names had brought it all flooding back, the memories she had tried so hard to bury of that visit to Egypt seven years before when she had met – and lost – the only man she had ever truly loved.
It had all started after the death of her husband, David.
Nothing but her grief and despair at the seemingly needless suffering of such a good, kind man, of whom she had been so extremely fond, and her own increasing ill health, would otherwise have persuaded her to leave her two beloved young sons with their grandmother to travel in search of the warm climate and relaxation which would, she hoped, hasten her recovery.
Her subsequent adventures, her meeting with Hassan, her love for whom had completely and overwhelmingly eclipsed that which she had felt for her adored David, the gift Hassan had given her of a small bottle, an artefact from an ancient tomb, and the cataclysmic events which had followed that simple generous act, had combined on her return to London to bring back a reoccurrence of her ill health. Her restless sleep had been more and more frequently dogged by nightmares. Nightmares about the ancient bottle and the two ghostly spirits who guarded it; and nightmares about the safety of her two sons.
Sarah Douglas’s invitation had come at an opportune moment. It was an excuse to send the boys to their grandmother’s house – somewhere they needed no second invitation to go, away from the heat and smells of a London summer – and allow her to leave for a complete change of air, in Scotland.
Outside her bedroom window the hot sun beat down on the terraced lawns, driving the aromatic oils from the pines and cedars scattered around the ornamental lake and turning the heather on the distant hills to purple fire. Wearily drying her tears she climbed to her feet. She glanced down at her sketchbook and paintbox lying on the table by the window. The open page showed a delicate watercolour of the eighteenth-century folly, built by her host’s great-grandfather. This summer her sketchbooks and canvasses were full of the colours of Scotland, the purples and greys of the moors and mountains, the dark greens of the forests and the deep peaty browns of river and loch. Seven years before they had been full of the golds and creams and yellows of sandstone and the pinks and rose of arid rock and the incredible, ever changing, colours of the River Nile.
Hassan had been her dragoman, her guide, her interpreter, her mentor and, at the last, her lover. His handsome face and tall figure had featured in many of the paintings she had exhibited in London. None of the captions told his story or named his name and no one asked. He was, after all, only a native, part of the scenery. On the two separate occasions when gentlemen, who were captivated by Louisa’s charm and beauty during these last few years, had plucked up the courage to ask for her hand, both had retired from the field disappointed. They did not know that they were competing with a dream. Neither imagined for a single second that the heart of the beautiful woman whom they so desired was still captive to the tall dark figure who appeared so enigmatically in her paintings.
The Fieldings had known Hassan’s story. They had known who he was and what he meant to her. Their dahabeeyah had sailed in convoy with the Forresters’ boat on which she travelled with Hassan as her servant and they knew how he had died. They had been kind to her – indeed Katherine had named her eldest son Louis after her, following that desperate night on the Nile when she had assisted at his terrifying premature birth.
When they had all parted at Luxor and Louisa had left the Forresters and the Fieldings to take the steamer north at the start of her journey back to England it had been with many tears and hugs and promises to meet again. Augusta Forrester had written to her often over the past years but not once had she mentioned Egypt. She had been tactful. Her letters were full of reassuring gossip and pleasantries and for that Louisa had been thankful. The Fieldings had never contacted her and she had not expected them to. Too much had happened; the memories were too painful to recall.
And now this. With no time to prepare herself, to seal down the emotions which had been reawakened by their name, to rebury the memories and arm herself against the past, she was about to be catapulted back into a storm of reminiscence and nostalgia and grief. Glancing down at the sketchbook again she bent suddenly to the painting, ripped it from the book and tore it across the middle.
The Fieldings were seated in the great drawing room of Glen Douglas House when Louisa finally forced herself to go downstairs. Katherine saw her first. Rising awkwardly to her feet she smiled. Then she held out her hands. ‘Louisa! Dear, dear Louisa, how are you? I couldn’t believe my ears when Sarah told us you were their guest!’ She kissed Louisa on each cheek, her awkwardness explained on closer inspection by the fact that she was expecting a child.
Louisa returned her smile and turned to greet David Fielding. ‘How are you both? I see the family continues to flourish.’ A gentle acknowledgement of Katherine’s condition.
David nodded. ‘We have three children now. They are upstairs with their nurses. And as you see, we await a fourth.’ He glanced fondly at his wife who nodded a little smugly. ‘You must see Louis, my dear. He is the most beautiful child.’
Louisa nodded. ‘I would expect no less.’ She hoped they were not going to launch into a long explanation of how they knew one another for the benefit of their hostess. But Sarah, it appeared, already knew the story of Louis’s dramatic birth. Either out of great tact or by accident she adroitly changed the subject.
‘The gentlemen are going out on the hill with the guns tomorrow, Louisa. So I thought perhaps we would spend a quiet day in the gardens or maybe take a short carriage drive?’ She raised an eyebrow at their newly arrived guest. ‘Only if Katherine feels like it, of course.’ A well-built, attractive woman with elegantly dressed greying hair, Sarah surveyed her guests calmly, her blue eyes shrewd.
Before Katherine could respond to her suggestion the door opened and another woman walked into the room. David Fielding’s sister, Venetia. Louisa sighed. The younger woman’s figure had thickened slightly in the last seven years in spite of her tightly laced corset, her face had hardened, the corners of her mouth were drawn down, the eyes were a trifle deeper set, but she was still a beautiful woman. In spite of herself, as she stepped forward to greet her, Louisa glanced at her hand. No wedding ring. Obviously not, if she was still trailing around after her brother and his wife.
Venetia’s smile did not quite reach her eyes as she greeted Louisa. Her kiss was perfunctory and did not do more than brush the air beside Louisa’s cheek. ‘How are you now?’ Four innocuous words, but loaded with innuendo and dislike.
‘Well, thank you.’ Louisa smiled and turned to find a seat. A dozen spirited questions and retorts flashed through her mind. All were instantly rejected. Silence was the most dignified route.
Venetia sat down next to Sarah Douglas and smoothed the flounced silk of her skirt over her knees. ‘So, your curiosity got the better of you, Louisa. You couldn’t keep away from Glen Douglas.’ Her smile masked considerable venom. ‘You know, of course, that he’s not here. He’s travelling abroad.’
Louisa frowned. ‘I’m sorry? About whom are we talking?’ She glanced at their host who was engaged in animated conversation with David Fielding by the fireplace. Both men held whisky glasses in their hands. The huge hearth behind them was filled with an arrangement of bog myrtle and heather.
‘Lord Carstairs, of course.’ Venetia’s cheeks coloured slightly.
Louisa stared at her, her own face growing so pale her hostess sat forward anxiously, afraid Louisa was going to faint. ‘Roger Carstairs lives near here?’ Louisa whispered.
Sarah Douglas nodded. ‘So you know him as well? But, of course, you must have met him in Egypt. Our estates march together, my dear. Carstairs Castle is but two miles from here.’
Louisa found her mouth had gone dry. For a moment words failed her totally in the rush of emotions which assailed her. Roger Carstairs: the man who, in Egypt, had asked her to marry him, who had tried to seduce her, who had seen and recognised the little bottle Hassan had given as being something of supreme supernatural importance and who, when he was refused the bottle, had finally been responsible for her beloved Hassan’s death. A man so imbued with evil that his very name sent a shiver of distaste through the households of the British aristocracy amongst whom he used to socialise. A man whom Venetia had liked very much indeed.
Somehow Louisa found her voice, aware that Katherine’s gaze was as full of sympathy and kindness as Venetia’s was of spite.
‘I had no idea this was where he lived.’ She took a deep breath. ‘How extraordinary. But I had heard that he never returned to Britain after –’ She found her voice growing husky. ‘After our visit to Egypt.’
Sarah walked over to the table and poured a glass of ratafia. Handing it to Louisa she smiled. ‘He has a certain reputation, I have to admit. And he doesn’t come home often. But he has two sons who live at Carstairs. They have a tutor who is their guardian, I believe, in their father’s absence. And he does return to see them from time to time. We haven’t met him lately. He does not visit his neighbours.’ She glanced from Venetia to Katherine and then back to Louisa, her face suddenly alight with mischief. ‘I have an idea!’ She plumped down on the ottoman next to Katherine. ‘We could drive over to the castle tomorrow. He has a museum. In the stable block, I believe. A friend of ours went to see it. Lord Carstairs’s servants would show it to us. I understand it is very interesting. He spent a year in India quite recently and after that he was in America. He has a collection of fascinating artefacts from the American Indian tribes. Feathered head-dresses. Peace pipes. All kinds of things.’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘Would you like to go?’
Louisa was torn. Part of her shrank from the prospect of going anywhere near the castle. But another part of her was intrigued, both to see where Roger Carstairs lived, and to view the curiosities he had brought back from his travels. Curiosities presumably like the ancient bottle Hassan had given her, which Carstairs had so wanted for his collection that he had been prepared to kill to obtain it; the bottle which lay hidden at this very moment in the secret compartment in the desk of her London home. Oh yes, she would be interested to see it all, just so long as it was certain, beyond all possible doubt, that he was not there himself.
Carstairs Castle was a grey stone edifice, with turrets and battlements surmounting small windows in thick ancient walls. As their coach rumbled up the curving drive through the rhododendrons, brought by his lordship from India and already growing in profusion, the four ladies stared out with eager curiosity. The messenger who had ridden over the previous evening to see if their visit was convenient had returned with an assurance that Mr Dunglass, Lord Carstairs’s factor, would greet them and personally escort them round his lordship’s gardens and museum.
The factor was waiting on the steps at the foot of the main tower. A small, red-haired man wearing the kilt, he stepped forward to greet the visitors.
Louisa climbed out of the coach last and stared round nervously. The place had a prosperous well cared for feel. The paths and driveway were neatly weeded and raked and there were flowers in the beds around the walls. She glanced up and the skin on the back of her neck prickled slightly. Were they being watched? So many narrow deep-set windows, dark and shadowy on this west-facing side of the castle, looked down across the drive and towards the hills. A hundred pairs of eyes could be watching them and they would not know it. She became aware that the others were walking away, following Mr Dunglass around the base of the tower, and she hurried after them, shrugging off her unease. Lord Carstairs was once more in America, so his factor informed them. He was not expected home until next year at the earliest.
A modern stable block and carriage house had been constructed in the early part of the century by Lord Carstairs’s grandfather on the eastern side of the castle. The buildings surrounded a courtyard – a line of loose boxes, all empty as his lordship’s horses were out at grass, on one side, a line of double doors concealing no doubt his lordship’s carriages on the other, while between them, on the south side, rose a small pedimented coach house surmounted by a clock tower. In this building all the windows had been barred. Mr Dunglass headed towards it now, groping in his sporran for a large iron key.
‘This way, Mistress Shelley.’ The man had ushered the others up the steps and through the door as Louisa lagged behind and now he was waiting for her, his eyes boldly on her face. How did he know her name? Standing below him in the cobbled yard she looked up and met his gaze. He did not lower his eyes; his expression was carefully blank but behind the facade there was something else. Insolence? Triumph? The moment passed and he looked away. ‘The others are inside, Mistress Shelley. If you would like to join them I’ll explain some of the items you can see in there.’ His tone was respectful. Even friendly. Surely she had imagined that momentary expression on his face?
The room into which they had been led was large and dark. Standing still they waited while their guide opened the shutters allowing the bright sunlight to flood the room. As they stared round there was a moment’s stunned silence, then at last it was Venetia who spoke first. ‘My goodness.’ She gasped with a nervous laugh. ‘How amazing!’
The items on display nearest to them, the bows and arrows, the huge beautiful feathered head-dress, the beaded jewellery, the bison skins, had been brought back so they were told by Lord Carstairs the previous year. ‘He went right across America,’ their informant told them, clearly awe-struck. ‘He lived with the various tribes he encountered. The Sioux; the Cheyenne. They made him welcome and he smoked the peace pipe with them.’ He indicated the large pipe decorated with coloured bands and feathers. ‘He has been studying their religion and their beliefs. He witnessed the Sun Dance.’ He paused, obviously expecting them to look impressed. ‘Beyond the American exhibits you will see those his lordship brought back from the Indian subcontinent in 1870. Beautiful silks and brocades as you will notice; items from Hindu temples and gifts he received from the maharajahs and British dignitaries with whom he stayed.’
Louisa was not listening. She had wandered past the American items and the Indian, past a huge glass-fronted bookcase and display cabinets of every shape and size, to the back of the room. In the corner, standing upright in the shadows, was the unmistakable painted face and body of an Egyptian mummy case. She closed her eyes, steadying her breathing with an effort.
‘Ah, Mistress Shelley. You have discovered Lord Carstairs’s Egyptian collection.’ The voice beside her was soft and ingratiating.
She gave a nervous smile. ‘He has a great many interesting items.’
‘Indeed.’ The factor glanced over his shoulder. The other three women were gathered around a glass case, staring down at a mass of beautiful shells. ‘Wampum,’ Venetia repeated, baffled, reading from a card inside the case.
Louisa stepped away from him. His presence beside her made her feel uncomfortable. She walked over to a table nearby and stared down at the items displayed on it. One stood out from them all. A small carved statue of a coiled snake. Without thinking she picked it up and examined it. ‘Solid gold, Mistress Shelley.’ The factor was still there at her elbow.
She stared down at the item in her hands, holding her breath. Almost she could hear Roger Carstairs’s voice in her head. ‘So, Mrs Shelley. You came to find me after all …’ The sound was so real she glanced up, shocked. But it was her imagination. Hastily she set the item back in its place and walked away. She glanced again with some distaste at the mummy, then moved on and stopped, staring at the wall. Framed in ebony with a deep terracotta mount she found herself looking at one of her own watercolours. A painting of the temple at Edfu.
She gasped.
The man beside her nodded. ‘You recognise it, of course.’
She spun to face him. ‘Where did he get that?’
‘He bought it, Mistress Shelley. In London.’ He bowed. A minimal movement betrayed a touch of mockery beneath the respect. ‘He has attended all your exhibitions, Mistress Shelley.’
Her stomach tightened with fear as she met his eyes. ‘Indeed, Mr Dunglass. I’m flattered at his interest.’ She managed to hold his gaze unwaveringly.
He looked away first. ‘So, madam, have you seen the next exhibit?’ He smiled again. ‘An example of one of the most poisonous of Egyptian snakes –’ He broke off as her hand flew to her mouth. In the case in front of her on a bed of pale dry sand lay a coiled snake, its head with spread hood rising out of the dry skin, its tiny button eyes fixed balefully on some imagined desert distances.
Louisa turned away with a cry of distress. It was so like the snake that had killed Hassan. The same shape, same length, same colour – its eyes were similar. Unblinking. Beady. Missing nothing.
‘It’s dead, Louisa.’ The hand on her arm was firm. Katherine was beside her. ‘Come away. Don’t look at it.’
‘Katherine –’
‘I know, my dear. They told me all about it. And the way he conjured a snake onto our dahabeeyah. Magic snakes. Evil magic.’ She glanced round the room. Nearby was a wooden statue of a child holding a snake in its hand. The inscription underneath said, ‘Horus of the Snakes’. She shuddered. ‘Dirty magic. All his efforts to make himself a so-called master of the occult, and what for? A small room in the back of beyond and a few boxes of stolen mementoes.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Dunglass had overheard her. He was bristling with indignation. ‘Nothing here has been stolen. Everything was bought or given freely.’
‘Really?’ Louisa looked at him bitterly.
‘Really!’ The man glared at her.
Katherine shuddered. ‘Well, I don’t envy him this. I really don’t.’ She reached over and thumped the glass case with her folded parasol. The snake moved infinitesimally.
Louisa swallowed. Clutching her shawl around her shoulders she moved away from the Egyptian corner of the room to stand in front of the American head-dress with its regal glossy feathers, concentrating on the exquisite workmanship, the detail, the tiny beads.
Katherine moved on too, standing beside Sarah and Venetia, staring at some clay pots, laughing softly as Venetia, oblivious to the earlier exchange, pointed out some detail in the swirling decorations.
The hiss was so quiet Louisa barely heard it. For a moment she didn’t react, then she spun round staring back at the case. From where she was standing she could see an almost invisible film of dust on the glass. Nothing moved. She clenched her fists. Stupid. It was her imagination. Her idiotic, feverish, over-active imagination.
Behind her she heard Venetia’s voice. ‘And Lord Carstairs’s darling boys? Are they at home at the moment?’ and Dunglass’s grunt. ‘Aye. They are.’ He did not sound impressed.
‘We would so like to meet them, wouldn’t we, Sarah?’ Venetia clung to her hostess’s arm for a moment.
Louisa saw the factor’s eyebrow rise almost to his hairline. ‘I have no idea where the boys are, Mistress. You’d have to be speaking to Mr Gordon, their tutor, about them.’ His tone implied that their whereabouts was something he for one would rather not look into too closely.
‘We’ll do that.’ Venetia simpered at him. ‘We know dear Lord Carstairs so well, I’m sure he would wish us to enquire after his sons. Are they not at Eton with your elder boy, Louisa?’ She turned and raised an eyebrow.
‘I don’t think so,’ Louisa returned sharply.
Dunglass shook his head. ‘They’ve been expelled from every school in the country! I doubt his lordship could find one to hold them. That’s why they have a tutor.’ His lips tightened. ‘Believe me, ladies, I doubt you’d want to meet them.’ He folded his arms firmly.
Sarah and Venetia looked shocked. It was Venetia who voiced what was going through both ladies’ minds. ‘I don’t think you should speak like that about Lord Carstairs’s sons, Mr Dunglass.’
‘No?’ The man snorted. ‘I’m thinking their father would agree with me!’
‘Really?’ Venetia simpered at him. ‘Oh my goodness! In which case –’ She fluttered her eyelashes at the man in apology and Louisa turned away sharply. Was it possible that Venetia still had hopes of the odious Carstairs? Surely not? But here she was, still unmarried, still travelling with her brother and his long-suffering wife. Still hankering after a rich titled husband. She gave an involuntary shudder. No doubt the handsome Lord Carstairs would fit her imaginary ideal in every particular. She did not, after all, know what the real man was like!
‘Louisa dear? It’s time we made a move for home.’ Sarah’s gentle hand on her arm made her jump. ‘Have you seen enough?’
‘Quite enough.’ Louisa glanced towards the back of the room where the case containing the stuffed cobra was standing in a patch of sunlight from the high window. There was no movement; nothing at all in that corner of the room. So why did the very stillness make her feel uneasy?
2
In her dream she was standing at the mouth of the cave, staring into the darkness, anxious to escape the glare of the sun. Hassan was beside her, his handsome face eager, gentle, so very loving. He turned with that serious smile she loved so much and held out his hand. ‘Come, my Louisa; we will go in out of the heat.’
She reached towards him. She only had to speak to save his life. All she had to say was, No, come back. Don’t go in. But the words would not come. Her throat was constricted, her mouth full of sand. There was a roaring in her ears like the waters of the cataract in flood and then it happened. In slow motion she saw the sinuous movement of the snake; saw it head towards Hassan, saw it rise up, its hood spread, its mouth open –. Her scream this time, as always, came too late; her waking, alone, in her bed, desolate.
She sat up, sobbing, aware of the moonlight flooding through a crack in the curtains. The room was very quiet. Not a breath of air stirred the wisteria on the wall outside. The night was very hot. Her face still wet with tears, she climbed out of bed and went to push back the curtains. The tall windows opened out onto the balcony which ran the entire length of the first floor of the house overlooking the gardens. Pushing them open she stepped outside and leant on the stone balustrade. The countryside was as bright as day. She could see every detail of the garden with its formal hedges and beds and its vistas across the parkland and the loch to the mountains beyond.
‘So, Louisa. You came to visit my house. You couldn’t resist seeing where I lived. I saw you pick up my golden snake. I felt you call me.’
Lord Carstairs was standing on the balcony half hidden by one of the clipped potted bay trees near her window. Tall, handsome in the moonshadows, his eyes were strangely colourless in the strong contours of his face. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and trousers. Over one shoulder he wore a tartan plaid, fastened in place by a Cairngorm brooch.
Her heart almost stopped beating. ‘I never called you! I thought you were abroad!’ She stepped back towards the window, feeling acutely vulnerable in her nightgown, with her feet bare and her hair loose on her shoulders.
He smiled coldly. ‘And I never thought to see you in Scotland, Mrs Shelley. I am flattered you should come. Very flattered.’ He emerged from the shadows and the moonlight glinted on the yellow stone in the brooch on his shoulder.
She frowned. ‘Don’t take a step nearer. I have only to call out and people will come. What are you doing here?’
He laughed quietly. ‘What if I were to tell you that I am not here, Louisa, I am four thousand miles away, eating peyote buttons with the men of the Cheyenne in a tepee under an arid western sky.’ He took another step forward and reaching out his hand touched her hair with his finger tip.
She shuddered and took a rapid step backward. ‘I don’t understand. Are you trying to tell me that this is a dream?’ She clutched behind her at the heavy curtains of her bedroom window.
‘Just a dream.’ His voice was mocking. ‘Nothing but a peyote dream.’
‘What is peyote?’ If it was a dream she wanted to wake up now. End it. Banish this man back to the depths of whatever hell he lived in.
‘Peyote, Louisa, is a sacred plant; a way of life; an entrance to other worlds where one may travel unencumbered even into the bed chamber of a sleeping woman.’ He moved forward again. She could smell a strange muskiness about him; the scent of woodsmoke and flowers, of bittersweet tobacco and an acrid hint of desert wind.
She took another step back, aware that they were now on the threshold of her bedroom. The moonlight flooded in through the open curtains illuminating the white bedlinen and lace-trimmed pillows. He smiled. He was very close to her now.
‘Aren’t you going to scream?’ His eyes were insolent. Challenging.
‘Oh yes, I’m going to scream!’ She tried to stop the treacherous trembling of her limbs as she raised her hand towards him, ready to fend him off if he came any closer. ‘If you don’t leave now I shall scream the place down and your reputation, my lord, will be destroyed forever.’
‘My reputation, Mrs Shelley,’ he returned the formality like a tennis partner volleying a ball, ‘was gone long since. I did not value it. It was of no consequence to me. While yours, I feel sure, though blighted by your dalliance with a native –’ he raised his hand to silence her protest – ‘Your reputation, as I was about to say, probably survived at least in Britain, thanks to the loyalty of your friends.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Scream, Mrs Shelley. See if you can make yourself heard. Remember you are dreaming. All this has been conjured by your mind.’ He reached out and stroked her cheek. His hand was very cold.
‘Don’t touch me!’ She backed away into the room. ‘I will call for help.’
‘Call then.’ He reached out and caught her shoulders, pulling her against him. ‘Beautiful Mrs Shelley.’ His words were whispered into her hair. ‘Oh, how much I have desired you. And how angry you have made me.’ She could feel his heart beating against hers. ‘And now I shall have you, Mrs Shelley. And perhaps I shall punish you for rejecting me. For not giving me what I wanted.’ She did not know whether he meant her body or the tiny bottle he had so much desired, and which as far as he knew was lying at the bottom of the Nile. He smiled again. ‘The interesting part of this experience is that you will remember none of this in the morning, Mrs Shelley. None.’
His lips against hers were fierce and eager. She could feel her breasts against his chest as he dragged her nightgown down to her waist. His eyes, so near hers, were slits of silver. ‘Go on. Call, Mrs Shelley,’ he murmured. ‘Call for help. Why don’t you?’ His hands were all over her body now as her nightgown fell to the floor. To her horror she found herself responding to his touch. Her body refused to struggle; with a groan of pleasure she found herself pressing against him, reaching up for his kisses, caressing his back with fingers that had intended to scratch and maim.
Without further struggle she felt herself falling back onto the bed, felt him groping for his belt buckle, felt his weight on her with eager excitement as she arched her body towards his.
He laughed exultantly. ‘So, at last I have you, Louisa. And I shall make you scream.’ He put his hand for a moment across her mouth. ‘But it shall be with pleasure. It will be to beg for more.’ He removed his hand and she felt it travel down her body as he stopped her mouth once more with his own.
She was powerless. Her limbs refused to obey her. The more she wanted to push him away the more she found herself pulling him closer. With a groan of ecstasy she closed her eyes, allowing herself to feel the touch of his skin, the caress of his lips and then finally the full thrust of his passion as he made her his.
The first light of dawn had dimmed the moonlight when she slept at last, lying naked across the bed amongst the trailing bedclothes.
The scream when it came was from Kirsty and was bitten off as soon as it had formed. ‘Oh, Mrs Shelley, I’m sorry!’ The girl had almost dropped the ewer of hot water she was carrying as she turned away, trying not to stare at the beautiful voluptuous body of the woman lying so wantonly on the bed.
Louisa lay still for a moment, not knowing where she was, still hazy with sleep, all memory of her dream gone, then she grabbed for the sheet and pulled it over her, inexplicably amused at Kirsty’s stunned expression.
‘Kirsty! Come in. Bring the water.’ Sitting up she swept her hair back off her face with her hands. ‘Forgive me. It was so hot last night I threw off the bedclothes.’ And her nightdress. She could see it lying in a crumpled heap near the window.
Kirsty had regained her composure. Her eyes fixed on the floor she set the jug down. ‘Do you want me to help you dress, Mrs Shelley?’
Louisa shook her head. ‘Not yet, thank you. I’ll take a moment to wake up. I’ll ring if I need you.’
Her whole body was alive and tingling. She felt younger than she had felt for years. Young and happy and excited.
She waited, swathed in the sheet, for the girl to leave the room, then she climbed out of bed and walked naked over to the open window. The morning air was cool and she shivered as she bent to pick up her nightgown. It was torn almost in two. She frowned, staring down at it. Had she caught it on something? Had she sleep-walked, restless in the heat of the night, and thrown it off without bothering to unfasten the ribbons which held it closed?
She glanced round the room, suddenly uneasy. She had had a strange dream, and in the dream –
But it had gone.
Walking over to the basin she poured some hot water and reaching for the embroidered wash cloth on the wooden towel rail she began to sponge her face and neck. When she reached her breasts she winced. Looking down at herself she realised suddenly that they were reddened and sore. With an exclamation of surprise she went to stand in front of the cheval mirror in the corner of the room and stared at herself in horror. There were bruises on her arms and breasts, her nipples were engorged and there was a mark on her neck which looked suspiciously like a bite. She stood for several moments unable to move, her whole body numb with shock, then slowly she raised her hands and ran them gently over her cold skin. Her body tingled with anticipation. She stroked her thumb over the bruise on her hip and felt herself respond with a leap of desire so overwhelming that she gasped out loud.
She did not call Kirsty to help her dress. Painfully she pulled on her petticoat, her loose cotton drawers and one of her pretty aesthetic dresses, the kind which had so shocked her hosts in Egypt seven years before, but which were now blessedly a fashion item and approved even in The Queen Magazine as an acceptable alternative to tightly corseted waists and the bustle. Around her neck she fastened a velvet ribbon to hide the red mark.
It was as she was slipping on her shoes that she found the brooch on the floor, half hidden by the trailing bedclothes. She picked it up and stared at it. Deeply engraved silver surrounded a large golden topaz-like stone – a few strands of fine red wool were caught in the pin as though it had been torn from someone’s shoulder.
She sat down, turning it over and over in her hands, then leaping to her feet she ran over and dragged the covers back off the bed, staring down at the sheets. They were spotless.
Lord Carstairs. The man who filled her with loathing and horror; the man of whom she was so desperately afraid; she remembered it all now; he had been there, in her room; he had hurt her. And yet – she hesitated even to address the thought – the touch of his hands, his lips – had given her pleasure.
For a long time she stood without moving, trying to understand what had happened. Her body ached; her clothes were ripped. She had his brooch. And yet this man was, as far as she knew, four thousand miles away in America. It had been a dream. But how could it have been?
She tried to force herself to confront what had happened. He had been there. In her room.
He must have been.
She shuddered. No. It wasn’t possible
3
‘We leave for Edinburgh this morning, Louisa my dear.’ David Fielding smiled at her as she appeared at last in the breakfast room. ‘And Katherine was wondering if you would like to accompany us. If Sarah could spare you for a few days I am sure you would enjoy it.’
Louisa found herself giving a deep exhausted sigh. Until last night this place had been a haven; a retreat from her dreams and nightmares. But now everything had changed. Even the thought of spending time with Venetia might be better than living with a dream like last night’s. She turned from the sideboard with her bowl of porridge to take her place at the table, her mind almost made up to accept, but Sarah was already speaking.
‘Bless you, David, for the thought, but I have already planned to take Louisa to Edinburgh later in the month. I’m afraid I can’t possibly spare her now. We have so much planned. So many things to do.’
‘I was right to say that, wasn’t I?’ she said to Louisa later. ‘I could see you and Venetia do not get on. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. I had thought we were all friends. But at least I could spare you the long journey in her company.’ She paused. ‘Are you all right, Louisa? You look a little feverish.’
Louisa and she had watched the Fieldings depart an hour earlier with their nurses and their children and were now seated on the bench in the shade of one of the great cedars on the lawn behind the house. Sarah had brought her embroidery outside with her, Louisa a sketchbook and a box of watercolours and the latest letters from her two sons. All lay untouched on the seat beside her. How could she tell her hostess she would rather have driven on with the others even if that meant tolerating the company of the odious Venetia; that she dreaded another night under this roof because of her dreams. If they were dreams. She pictured again the brooch, now hidden in her own jewel box, and the man who had been wearing it.
As though reading her thoughts Sarah went on, ‘We haven’t talked about our visit to Carstairs Castle. What did you think of the place?’
Louisa was staring down across the grass towards the distant hills. ‘Very impressive.’
‘Do I gather Venetia has a fondness for his lordship?’
‘She has always found him attractive, I believe.’ Louisa smiled grimly.
‘Oh, but he is. Devilishly attractive!’ Sarah giggled. ‘If I were a little younger I might have set my cap at him myself.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘You are still young enough to ensnare him, Louisa. How would you like a title and a fortune? It is such a long time since your husband died. Think what fun you could have. A man with a certain reputation!’ She was setting her stitches with care, not looking at Louisa’s face.
‘He is in America, Sarah.’ Louisa’s voice was so taut that Sarah at last glanced up. Her guest’s face was as white as a sheet. Their eyes met. ‘He is in America.’ Louisa repeated. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Yes, my dear. Of course he is.’ Sarah put down her sewing. ‘What is it? You look frightened.’
‘I dreamed about him last night.’ Louisa bit her lip. ‘It was so real. I –’ She hesitated, shaking her head. ‘It was so real I found it hard to believe it was a dream.’
The brooch was not a dream. Nor were the bruises on her body.
Sarah was still studying her face, her embroidery lying discarded on her knee. ‘And it was not a pleasant experience, if I read your expression aright.’
Louisa blushed scarlet. ‘No.’
Yes. The treacherous word hung between them, unspoken.
For a moment Sarah continued her silent scrutiny. ‘Were you – that is, did he pursue you when you were all in Egypt, my dear?’ She leaned forward and put a gentle hand over Louisa’s.
Louisa nodded.
‘But you didn’t encourage him.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Ah, I see the source of Venetia’s jealousy.’ Sarah sighed. ‘Was he very persistent?’
Louisa nodded. ‘He would not take no for an answer –’ Her voice broke. The memories were too powerful, too painful to bear.
For a moment both women sat without speaking. It was Louisa who broke the silence. She turned to her friend, her face tense with anxiety. ‘Do you believe in magic? High magic, where people can put others under their spell and force them to do things they don’t want to do. To have them in their power.’
Sarah stared at her. ‘You think Roger Carstairs has put a spell on you?’
Louisa saw the conflict in the other woman’s face. Disbelief. Amusement. And then finally horror. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It sounds crazy. Such strange things happened in Egypt. Evil things. Even now I don’t know if they were coincidence or –’ Her voice trailed away. She sat silently for a few more minutes, then she turned back to Sarah. ‘If we could be sure he is in America I would like to go back to that museum of his.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘To lay a ghost.’
Sarah gave a nervous shiver. ‘I am sure we have only to ask Mr Dunglass.’
‘And you would come with me?’
Sarah nodded. ‘Just try and stop me.’
Their excuse was that Louisa would like to sketch the great feathered head-dress which was the centre of Lord Carstairs’s collection and it was arranged that the two ladies ride over early next day escorted by one of the Douglas’s grooms.
Before that Louisa had to live through another night.
Kirsty had removed the torn nightdress without comment and replaced it with a fresh one from Louisa’s trunk. It was lying ready on the bed when at last she came up to her bedroom that night. She had delayed her hosts for hours, begging Sarah to play the piano, asking James to tell stories of his time in India, and again when briefly he was member of parliament for the county. They both looked exhausted when at last they bade their guest goodnight at the top of the main staircase and headed towards their own bedrooms leaving her alone.
The lamp by her bed was turned low, the water in the ewer already cold. She had told Kirsty not to wait up for her; she could undress herself.
The windows were closed; the curtains drawn tightly together. Standing quite still she looked around the room, listening intently. There wasn’t a sound.
The lamplight barely reached the corners of the room. Carefully, holding her breath, she searched every inch; the huge wardrobe, the alcove near the fireplace, the dark shadows behind the cheval glass, under the high bed, behind the curtains. The room was empty. Only then did she turn the key in the door, undress quickly and put on her nightgown then her dressing gown, pulling the sash tightly round her and knotting it securely. Outside, the night was velvet soft beneath the moon. Inside, the room was hot and stuffy and she longed to open the window; to step out onto the balcony. She could feel the perspiration running down between her breasts as she climbed into the bed and sat, her arms around her knees, staring towards the windows she couldn’t see behind their heavy drapes.
After a while she began to doze.
She was awakened by a sharp rapping on the window pane. She was hunched up against the pillows, still wearing her dressing gown, the sheets pulled up over her. Remaining quite still she lay staring round, her heart beating very fast, unsure what had awakened her; she had no idea how long she had been asleep.
There it was again. A sharp knock on the window. Her mouth dry with fear, she sat up and sliding her feet over the edge of the high bed she stood up. Tiptoeing towards the windows she stood immediately behind the curtain, listening intently.
By the bed the oil lamp flickered slightly and she heard a faint popping noise from the glass chimney. Oh please, let it not be running out of oil. Normally she would have turned it off long since. There was a faint murmur of sound from the window and she tensed. Could it be the slither of a snake? Something seemed to be scraping at the glass near her. Then she heard her name being whispered so quietly it could just have been the sibilance of the wind in the creepers.
Suddenly unable to stand the terror anymore she turned and flung back the curtains. The balcony was completely empty as the moonlight flooded past her into the room.
Mr Dunglass was waiting for them once more as they rode into the castle courtyard. He stabled their horses, showed them into the museum and, having confirmed that his master was most certainly still in America, left them with only the minimal of courtesies.
Sarah looked after him as he strode back across the cobbles.
‘He’s not feeling very sociable this morning, it seems.’
‘No.’ Louisa clutched her bag of drawing materials tightly to her chest as she looked round. ‘Just as well. I don’t feel very sociable either.’ She swept off her tall hat with its veil and dropped it with her whip onto the chair by the door.
‘So, what are we going to do?’ Sarah whispered. Neither woman had moved more than a few steps into the room.
‘I don’t know.’ Louisa was staring at the huge headdress. ‘I will have to sketch it. Mr Dunglass will expect to see something, but before I do –’ She was staring towards the back of the room – towards the Egyptian part of the collection.
The eyes of the mummy stared, huge and blank, in a silence broken only by the sound of the skirt of her riding habit dragging on the stone floor, the tap of her high heels. She stopped by the case containing the snake and looked down at it for several seconds before rapping loudly on the glass. It didn’t move.
‘You didn’t think it was real –’ Sarah’s whisper at her side made her jump.
‘No. I didn’t think it was real.’
‘But you’re afraid of it.’
‘He used a snake for his magic, Sarah. In Egypt. It obeyed him. It killed for him.’
Sarah stared at her, horrified. ‘And there was a snake in your dream?’
‘No.’ Louisa felt her face grow hot. ‘But last night, on the terrace, I thought I heard something –’ She paused. ‘I will not be afraid, Sarah. I will not let him bully me. There must be a way of containing him.’
Sarah shuddered. ‘I don’t like it here. Not now. I’d never have thought of this stuff as evil, not really, not before. But now …’ She was looking over Louisa’s shoulder towards the snake.
‘Well, it is evil. Surely you’ve heard his reputation?’
Sarah looked abashed. ‘I’m afraid I thought it rather daring knowing him. I never believed it all to be true. He has always been so utterly charming I thought that the talk of his interest in the occult must be exaggerated.’
Louisa pursed her lips. ‘Charm is something that exudes from every pore of the man. But if you look closer, right into his eyes, then –’ She broke off suddenly, staring round.
Sarah stepped back. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘He’s here. I can feel him watching us.’ Louisa caught the other woman’s arm.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sarah whispered back. ‘He can’t be.’ She too was staring round the room.
‘He is. I can smell the pomade he uses; and that strange smoky scent I smelled in my dream.’ She gave a shuddering sigh suddenly. ‘Can you hear drums?’
‘No.’ Sarah shook her head adamantly. ‘No, I can’t. Come on. Let’s get out of here.’ She tried to pull Louisa away but Louisa tore her arm free and put her hands to her head. ‘Drums! I can hear drums!’
‘No, you can’t. You’re imagining it.’
Louisa was shaking her head, her eyes closed. ‘He’s trying to get into my head. I can see him. He’s coming closer.’
Sarah was near panic. She pulled at Louisa’s arm again, then she turned and ran towards the door. ‘Mr Dunglass, come quickly!’ She pulled at the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. She pulled harder, rattling it desperately but again it wouldn’t turn. ‘Oh, my God!’ She ran to the window but the windows were high up and barred on the outside. Spinning round she ran back to Louisa. ‘Lou, are you all right? Lou, listen to me! It’s all in your head. He’s not here. He’s not. He can’t reach you. He’s in America. It’s your imagination. It has to be! Fight it, Lou!’
Louisa could see him clearly now. He was sitting in a circle of Indian braves. In the centre of the circle a fire burned, lighting the darkness of the prairie night. The men were passing a pipe one to the other, each taking a long slow draw of the aromatic smoke before passing it on to his neighbour. Like them, Roger Carstairs wore buckskin trousers and a loose shirt stitched with beads; his hair was long, swept back from his forehead and held in place by an embroidered band, hung with feathers and beads. His eyes were closed.
Louisa stepped closer to him, feeling the warm prairie soil under her bare feet, smelling the fragrant smoke, the sharp wind across the grass cold on her naked skin. Slowly he opened his eyes and he was looking straight at her.
‘So, I have brought you to me, Mrs Shelley. How convenient.’ He stood up slowly stepping away from the circle into the warm scented darkness beyond the reach of the firelight.
He held out his hand towards her. She stepped back quickly, aware suddenly that she was after all still wearing her green riding habit, the train now securely looped to her waist, out of the way, and her feet, a moment before bare, were encased in her high-heeled riding boots. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ It was only in his dream that she was naked.
He smiled. ‘I won’t touch you. Not here, Mrs Shelley. Not in front of my brothers and – who is that with you?’ He peered past her. ‘Ah, Lady Douglas. My trusty and oh so incurious neighbour. So, you have drawn her into my web with you. No matter.’ He reached towards Louisa and ran his finger lightly down the buttons of her habit. ‘We will meet later, my dear, when we are both alone. You have to admit you will look forward to that as much as I shall. Our love-making was spectacular, was it not?’
‘Louisa! Wake up!’ She realised suddenly that Sarah was shaking her arm. ‘Lou! Can you hear me?’
Louisa blinked. He had gone. There was no sign of him or the Indian braves or the camp fire. She was once again in the high-roofed room in the outbuilding at Carstairs Castle with Sarah.
‘Louisa?’ Sarah seemed near to tears. ‘Please, listen to me!’
‘I’m listening.’ Louisa’s mouth was dry, her head spinning.
‘Oh, thank God! I thought you had gone mad. What happened? You were in some sort of a trance.’
‘I was in America.’ Louisa put her hands to her face. She took a deep shaky breath. ‘I was there, where Carstairs is. Near his camp fire with lots of Indian warriors. He was dressed like them –’ She was trembling violently. ‘But I wasn’t there, was I? I couldn’t have been. It was all a dream. A horrible dream!’ She caught Sarah’s hand. ‘How did he do it? He is using some kind of trance-inducing drugs. Opiates. I don’t know what. But I’m not! How did he make me go there, to him?’
The two women were staring round the room as they spoke. One wall was covered in books, safely encased behind glass, and for the first time Louisa became aware of their titles. Most were accounts of travel to distant lands, but some were about magic; drugs, shamanism, occult studies, in several languages. That was how he had done it. To Lord Carstairs oceans were no barrier. There was nowhere he could not go; nothing he could not do if he so wished.
They were suddenly aware of footsteps outside on the cobbles. Feet ran lightly up the steps to the door and it was flung open. ‘Did I hear someone call?’ A boy stood in the doorway – tall, red-haired, handsome, his eyes transparent grey. Louisa gave a gasp of recognition. This must be one of Lord Carstairs’s sons.
‘Indeed someone did call.’ Sarah pushed in front of her and confronted him indignantly. ‘I couldn’t open the door. It was locked.’
‘Locked?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Indeed no. I opened it just now without any bother, Lady Douglas.’ He gave a gentle apologetic smile. ‘Why would it be locked?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Sarah stepped towards him. ‘Would you ask Mr Dunglass to fetch our horses. We have seen enough.’
‘But Mrs Shelley doesn’t want to go yet.’ The boy looked straight at her. ‘Surely she hasn’t had enough time to sketch the head-dress which she came to see. My father told me to come over specially and make sure she had everything she needed.’
‘Your father,’ Sarah drew herself up to her full height, ‘is not here. I fail to see how he could have done any such thing.’
‘I assure you he did, Lady Douglas.’ The boy smiled, and suddenly Louisa could see the likeness to his father and understand, perhaps, Dunglass’s obvious antipathy. The outward charm, the handsome good looks, masked an icy watchful control. This boy was dangerous.
It had taken her several seconds to compose herself enough to speak, but now she stepped forward. ‘You are quite right, young man. I haven’t had time to do all I wanted. Perhaps you would allow us a few more minutes and then we will call Mr Dunglass ourselves.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You are very like your father. He must be very proud of you.’
The boy looked startled, and for the first time they saw a hint of doubt in his eyes. ‘I don’t believe so, Mrs Shelley. He constantly complains of my behaviour and that of my brother.’ He shrugged. ‘It is only when we do small services for him, such as passing on this message, that he recognises our existence.’ He looked so crestfallen for a moment that she felt quite sorry for him, but then the self-confidence returned and once again she saw his father’s arrogance looking out from those young eyes. With a small bow, he turned and retraced his steps across the yard. To Sarah’s relief he left the door open.
‘Give me a few minutes. There is something I want to find,’ Louisa whispered, ‘and I must do a few quick notes which I can work into sketches later, then we’ll go.’ Leaving Sarah standing by the door she ran back into the Egyptian section of the room. There must be something there she could take. Something she could use as a lever against him; something he would really care about. She glanced along the shelves at statuettes and pots, carvings and pieces of broken tile. It had to be something valuable but something that would not immediately be missed. Although Dunglass did not look like the kind of man who knew or cared about what was in his master’s collection beyond the few show pieces he had described for them, that shrewd young boy would not be so easy to fool. She glanced at the glass cases around her. In one there was a selection of jewellery. Gold and enamel necklets and bracelets. Rings. She tried the lid of the case. To her surprise it wasn’t locked. It lifted easily. Reaching in she took a heavy gold ring – small and half hidden by a larger item she doubted if it would be missed by anyone except Carstairs himself. With a grim smile she lowered the lid gently back into place, slipped the ring into the pocket of her habit and turned back towards the door.
4
It was late before Louisa made her way at last to her bedroom that night. Two neighbours of the Douglases had come to dine and entertained them at the piano with a succession of Scots songs before riding home at last under the brilliant moon. Tired and content Louisa let herself into her bedroom. The lamp as before had been trimmed and lit and the soft light fell across the bed where earlier Kirsty had turned down the bedclothes.
Curled up on the pillow was a huge snake.
Louisa’s scream brought the Douglases running, closely followed by several maids, a footman and the housekeeper. Sir James strode into the room, a silver-topped cane raised in his hand. ‘What is the matter? What is it?’ He was staring round enquiringly.
Louisa pointed at the bed. Her heart was thudding so hard she could barely breathe.
‘What? Where?’ Sir James marched across and stared down at the bedclothes as his wife put her arm around Louisa’s shoulders.
‘A snake!’ Louisa could hardly speak.
‘Snake?’ Sir James took a step back.
‘There.’ She pointed, but already she knew they would find nothing. Carstairs was far too clever for that.
‘Look, James.’ It was Sarah, gently pushing Louisa aside, who stepped up to the bed ‘There, on the pillows. You can see the indentation where it lay. And there –’ She pulled the covers back. ‘Sand.’
‘Sand?’ Sir James looked bewildered.
‘Mr Graham.’ Sarah turned to the butler who had appeared somewhat belatedly, his jacket awry as if he had hastily pulled it on. Judging by the slight aroma of whisky on his breath the disturbance had caught him relaxing in the servants’ hall. ‘Take two of the lads and search the room. How big was it?’ She turned to Louisa.
‘Big.’ Louisa’s mouth had dried. She could barely speak.
‘We’ll put you in another room.’ Sarah hugged her again. ‘Kirsty can make you up a bed, can’t you, Kirsty? You can’t possibly stay in here.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, how horrible.’
‘I don’t understand this at all.’ Sir James was staring round the room thoughtfully. ‘The windows are shut. How on earth could a snake get in here? What kind of snake was it, Louisa? An adder? A grass snake?’
‘It was a cobra,’ Louisa whispered.
‘A cobra?’ Sir James glared at her, clearly disbelieving. ‘What nonsense. Are you sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing? Perhaps you had fallen asleep and were dreaming.’
‘She can hardly dream on her feet, James,’ Sarah put in quietly. Behind them the servants were staring round, Mr Graham clearly of the same opinion as his master, the young women looking frightened. ‘And we had said goodnight only moments before, if you remember.’
Sir James snorted. ‘All right. Go and make up another room for our guest, girls, and the rest of you search in here. Carefully. If it’s a cobra they are poisonous.’ His glance heavenwards was not missed by the others in the room. Clearly Sir James did not believe in the creature’s existence.
It was an hour later when Louisa found herself alone once more. She was in another of the plentiful guest rooms, comforted by two lamps and a cup of hot milk and the knowledge that the room had been searched as had the rest of the house. Nothing had been found in her original room, nor anywhere else, save for those few enigmatic grains of sand.
Before she returned to her room Sarah had caught her hand. ‘Will you be all right?’
Louisa nodded. ‘He took me by surprise. This time I shall be ready for him.’
‘Be careful.’ Sarah eyed her doubtfully.
‘I will.’ Louisa leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Goodnight.’
Once the others had left her, Louisa glanced round nervously. This room too looked out over the back of the house. This room too had tall windows opening onto the long balcony. Taking a deep breath she walked over and throwing back the curtains she pushed open the casement. The moon was shining across the garden and parkland throwing deep shadows under the tall trees. Nothing moved.
‘So, my lord,’ she whispered. ‘Have you used the last of your strength with that performance? Have you nothing else to frighten me with?’
In the distance she heard the eerie cry of an owl. She shivered. The night was uncannily still. She held out her hand, touching the stone balustrade. On her forefinger she was wearing the heavy gold ring she had taken from the case in Carstairs Castle. It gleamed softly in the moonlight.
‘I have one of your treasures here, my lord, do you see? It’s very beautiful. Very valuable no doubt.’
There was no response from the darkness. There was no sign that anyone had heard her challenge.
Taking off the ring she weighed it in the palm of her hand. ‘Do you remember my little scent bottle? The one you wanted so badly for your collection? You thought it contained the tears of Isis and I threw it in the Nile to stop you getting it.’ She paused turning the ring over in her hands. ‘But someone rescued it, and it came back to me. I still have that little bottle. And now I have your ring as well. And tomorrow perhaps I shall return to the castle and take something else. And then something else. And then again.’ She paused and smiled, staring out into the darkness. ‘Checkmate, my lord.’
The stonework was cool under her hands, fragments of lichen catching against her skirt as on a far away plain a white man stepped out of his tepee and bowed to his hosts before sitting down by their fire. The elders of the tribe bowed back and silently resumed their scrutiny of the flames. This was a man with whom they felt at ease. A walker between the worlds like themselves, a medicine man of extreme power. A man comfortable in the presence of the Great Spirit. They did not know where it was their guest travelled under the influence of the peyote god nor did they care. That was his business and his alone.
He wasn’t coming. Leaving the windows open onto the hot night Louisa went back inside the room. She drank her milk, then, turning off the lamps which were surrounded with fluttering moths she began to undress, half of her relieved that all was peaceful, half angry and tense with nervous anticipation. Pulling on her nightgown she unpinned her hair and reaching for her hairbrush she wandered towards the window, attracted by the beauty of the moonlight. She had put the ring on the table by the lamp; it lay there, gleaming gently as she stood drawing the brush through her long hair.
This time when she saw him his chest was bare. He wore the buckskin trousers and there were strings of beads around his neck as he stood staring in through the double windows with those strange colourless eyes. He bowed. ‘Tonight you were expecting me, I think.’
The ring. She had taken off the ring. Squaring her shoulders she looked him in the eyes. ‘Why did you send a snake to my room?’
He smiled. ‘To act as your body guard should you need one. You knew it wouldn’t hurt you.’
‘So, you still serve Isis? For all your wanderings in India and in the Americas, your heart is still in Egypt?’
He was watching her intently, his eyes probing. ‘As is yours, I suspect, or have you at last forgotten your native paramour?’
Clenching her fists, she took a deep breath. ‘I shall never forget Hassan, my lord. Nor the fact that you killed him.’
He laughed, the sound quietly chilling. ‘He was killed by a snake, Louisa. Even my worst enemy would find it very hard to believe I could have arranged such a deed, and you surely are not my worst enemy.’
‘No?’ She looked at him through half-closed eyes. He wasn’t real. This man, solid as he appeared, was some kind of phantasmagoria conjured by his mind and perhaps hers in a strange drug-induced union. His body was far away in the Americas, or perhaps in Egypt or India. Wherever it was, his soul had learned to step outside it and travel around the earth. And his soul was nothing but a shadow; a ghost; a dream.
She smiled, reassured by the thought.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Something amuses you, Mrs Shelley?’
‘It does indeed. I was reminding myself of your insubstantial nature.’ She drew herself up to her full height.
‘Insubstantial, but nevertheless satisfying,’ he said. There was a mocking gleam in his eye and she felt herself blush violently.
‘A dream, my lord. Nothing more.’
‘But what a dream!’ He took a pace forward and reflexively she stepped back away from him. ‘A dream of ecstasy and abandon,’ he went on, ‘one would find very hard to resist.’
‘Don’t take another step!’ She put up her hand to ward him off and her fingers met hard smooth skin.
He looked down into her eyes. ‘An excellently real dream, Mrs Shelley, you must acknowledge.’ He was so close now she could feel the touch of his breath on her cheek and smell the bittersweet smokiness of that distant ceremony. ‘You enjoyed our encounter last time, did you not?’ His hand came up to stroke her hair and suddenly she found herself unable to move. Desperately she tried to step away from him, but she couldn’t. She wanted nothing so much as for him to touch her, to hold her and pull her close once more. Slowly she felt her ability to fight him die. She raised her face to his and closed her eyes as he bent to kiss her. Her whole body responded to the touch of his lips with a thrill of excitement; her knees grew weak; she longed to give herself to him, to throw herself down and pull him with her, to abandon herself totally to the ecstasy of his love-making.
His quiet chuckle as he sensed how close he was to victory brought her to her senses. With a small exclamation of alarm she ducked away from him and ran to the bedside table. Scooping up the ring she turned with a cry of triumph. ‘No, my lord. Winning me over is not that easy. Do you see this? One of your treasures, my lord. Egyptian gold. Something no doubt you value highly.’ Behind him the moonlight had moved from behind the great cedar on the grass outside her window. It streamed in across the floor throwing his shadow before it, a shadow that was as substantial as hers.
‘So?’ He looked amused. ‘My treasures are at your disposal, my dear.’
‘Indeed.’ She was taken aback. ‘Yet you were prepared to kill for my little bottle.’
His eyes held hers for a moment. ‘That was not quite the same, Louisa. The tears of the goddess, prepared by her temple priests, were irreplaceable. You destroyed not only a piece of history but a powerful link to the goddess herself. Something of inestimable value; something of power so great that it would have given its owner the keys to the world! It was an unforgivable act.’
‘But you seem to have forgiven me now?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘No, I haven’t forgiven you.’ His voice hardened. ‘You amuse me. It is always a pleasure to take a beautiful woman; the more so if it makes her despise herself.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, blanking out the sudden hatred she saw in his face; shocked at how much the knowledge that he had merely been playing with her hurt. ‘What if I told you the tears of Isis still exist?’
He froze, staring at her. ‘What do you mean? I saw you throw the bottle in the Nile.’
So. He was not all-seeing. The confirmation of the fact comforted her. ‘The bottle was wrapped in a piece of cloth which floated. My servant saved it and returned it to me.’
She saw how every muscle in his body tensed. ‘And where is it now?’
It was her turn to smile. Her weakness of a moment before had turned to something like triumph. ‘Nowhere you could find it, my lord. That is my secret.’
His cry of fury was cut off short as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her violently against him. ‘If that little bottle still exists, I will have it. This time, Mrs Shelley, I will have it.’
She found she could look up at him almost unafraid as she spat her defiance at him. ‘No, and that is my revenge, my lord. For Hassan’s death. You say you were not responsible for killing him, but we both know you sent the snake to that cave. It will give me enormous pleasure to know you realise the bottle still exists, but that you will never, never see it again. If I choose to destroy it, I shall. If I choose to keep it, I shall. But you will never set eyes on it.’
She gave a small cry of fright as he pushed her violently backwards onto the bed, and climbing onto it after her, straddled her body with his knees. ‘I think I know how to persuade you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She was still clutching the ring. ‘I’m not afraid of you any more, my lord.’ To her surprise she realised suddenly that it was true. ‘And I have discovered your weakness. You say your treasures are at my disposal, my lord, but I doubt if you would be happy to see them lost or destroyed. In fact I think that would make you very angry. And very sad. And I suspect, if you are really in America, they are beyond your reach. You see this?’ She thrust her clenched fist up into his face. ‘Your ring. I am going to throw it into the loch. See how easy it was to steal? And you can’t stop me, because as you have said you are not really here. And tomorrow I shall go back to your museum and I shall simper at your Mr Dunglass and flutter my eyelashes at your son and ask to paint more of your collection and they will let me in. And one by one I shall destroy your treasures. Your gold and silver. Your feathered head-dresses, your fragile mummy, and above all, that dry hollow skin which was once a snake! And you will be able to do nothing. Nothing! Because you are four thousand miles away!’
He was staring down at her, his face impassive. Only his eyes seemed alight in the shadowed sockets. He smiled coldly. ‘So, don’t you believe I can communicate with my sons or my factor to warn them? Believe me, I can. Not easily, I grant you with Dunglass – the man is an idiot – but my sons have promise. They are receptive. They will listen to me.’ He was still, looking down at her almost thoughtfully. ‘But on the whole I prefer to deal with you. You are so open, so –’ He paused. ‘Eager.’ Releasing her wrist he put his hand to the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown and gently pulled it open. ‘You are still beautiful, for an ageing woman.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly then his expression changed to a cold sneer. ‘But your charms have suddenly diminished. You have revealed yourself to be a spiteful witch. And witches have to be dealt with.’ His hand dropped away and he sat staring down at her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I wonder how. There are so many possibilities. So many ways to contain that spite.’ His weight held her immobile. She could feel the muscles of his thighs gripping her legs. He touched her cheek lightly. ‘Did you dream of revenge, Louisa, as Hassan died in the dust? Did you watch the poison from the snake bite spread through his veins and think of me? How gratifying.’
Unable to bear his gloating expression for another instant she tried to wrench herself free, throwing herself sideways, but she couldn’t move. Smiling he reached down and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him again. ‘I have an idea. You like my museum. I think we will visit it together. Would you like to travel with me through the secret byways of the medicine man, the dark tunnels of the shaman, the hidden paths of the witch doctor? I know them all.’ He laughed quietly. ‘I know how to enter them and I know how to leave them and I know how to entrap someone’s soul forever in the mists and shadows of their darkness. All I have to do is to suck your soul into mine with the time-honoured seal of possession, the traitor’s kiss.’
Desperately she tried to wriggle away from him, pushing frantically at his chest, but he grabbed her wrists in one hand and with the other again forced her to look at him. Slowly, smiling all the time, he leaned forward and pressed his lips once more against hers.
She held her breath, fighting him, trying frantically to squirm away from him, kicking, wrenching, but it was no good. Her strength was failing; the world was starting to spin and at last, unable to stop herself, she drew in a long gasping breath of the smoky essence of the man above her and immediately she was whirling away into the dark.
When she opened her eyes all was black. Her head was throbbing and she was very cold. She tried to speak but no sound came and all around her the silence was profound. Cautiously she tried to move her limbs. Her body felt stiff and bruised and she was very afraid.
‘So, you came with me.’ The voice in her ear was very close.
‘Where is this? What’s happened?’ She managed to speak at last.
‘I have brought you to see my museum.’ She heard a movement beside her. ‘Wait. I’ll light the lamp.’
She sensed him move away, heard the rattle of matches, saw a flame. Seconds later a gentle light filled the room as he settled the glass chimney over the wick.
‘How did we get here?’ She found she was standing in the middle of the floor near the case of Egyptian artefacts. A glance down told her she was still dressed in her nightgown. The ring was still on her finger.
‘We flew.’ The sardonic look in his eyes did not escape her.
‘I see.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming. Did you drug me?’
He put his head on one side. ‘All it would have taken was a few drops of laudanum in your milk.’
She groaned. ‘And you’ve been here all along? Skulking somewhere in this great castle playing games? No! I don’t think so!’ She was suddenly furious at her own fear. ‘So, what are you going to do with me now? You’ve made it clear you see me as ancient and ugly so no doubt my virtue is not in danger.’
‘I seem to remember that your virtue is already lost.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘But I would be more inclined, Louisa, to wonder if there is a threat to your life.’ He folded his arms. ‘No one knows where you are. And I am in America.’ He gave a laconic smile. ‘Should you disappear no one would ever find you. No one would even know where to look.’
She stared at him. His eyes were like clear glass, the pupils pin pricks in the lamplight, the sensuous mouth set in a thin hard line. ‘Are you saying you want to kill me?’ Her brow creased with puzzlement but her fear strangely had eased a little. She felt distanced from him; unreal.
‘Your life or death is a matter of indifference to me, Louisa. As it should be to anyone who understands the nature of the soul and its journeyings. The thought of death merely serves as a lever to lesser mortals who value this transitory life.’ He gave a cold smile. ‘I am prepared to bargain. The tears of Isis for a human life.’ He was watching her carefully. ‘The gods of the underworld may not take my bargain so lightly when they weigh your soul in the balance and find it was you who stole the sacred ampulla.’
‘I have stolen nothing.’ She managed to straighten her shoulders. ‘The tears of Isis as you call them are safe. As is your ring. So far. You on the other hand appear to be planning robbery with violence. Something which I would have thought would weigh heavy when your turn comes.’ She turned away from him and walking towards the case of Egyptian treasures she lifted the lid and stared down at them. ‘And your threat means little to me, my lord. You forget that if you kill me, you send me to join Hassan. I can think of no greater joy.’ She glanced up at him and it was her turn to smile. ‘You care so little for human life. That makes you fundamentally evil, in my book.’ She turned away again. ‘Take care, my lord, for your soul. I can see demons hovering round you ready to drag you screaming down to hell.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Well done, Mrs Shelley. You are learning fast.’ He stepped towards her and stood for a moment looking down at the artefacts inside the case. Gently he ran his finger over a small statue, a smile on his lips. Then he moved back and carefully closed the lid. ‘Alas, I can’t spend much longer debating this point with you. Where is the ampulla?’
‘In London.’ She returned his smile. ‘In safe keeping.’
‘We’ll go there. Now.’
‘Now?’ She stared at him. ‘I don’t think so. How do you propose to transport us there?’
‘The same way we came here.’ His voice was grim. He reached for her wrist, but she jumped back. ‘No. No more. I’m going nowhere with you.’ She grabbed at the lamp base and lifted it high. ‘Stand away from me, or I will throw this in amongst your precious collection. I mean it. Stand right away.’
His face went white. ‘Be careful! Some of these things are priceless. Please put that down.’
‘I don’t think so.’ The lamp was heavy. She wasn’t going to be able to hold it much longer.
As he lunged towards her with a cry of fury, she half dropped half flung it into the glass topped cabinet. The glass shattered and a stream of burning oil ran between the priceless artefacts in the case. In seconds the more fragile had caught alight and a sheet of flame shot up. She heard Carstairs shout, saw him leap towards the flames, then she turned and ran towards the door.
It was locked. Dragging at the handle she heard herself beginning to sob as the heat engulfed her and slowly, for the second time that night, all went black.
‘Mrs Shelley? Mrs Shelley! I’ve brought your hot water.’
The voice was persistent, dragging her into wakefulness. ‘Mrs Shelley, it’s late. Lady Douglas was worried.’
Opening her eyes Louisa stared into the anxious face of the little Scots maid who, having pulled back the curtains, was leaning over her bed.
‘Kirsty?’ Her head was thumping, her eyes and throat sore. ‘I’m sorry. I had such a nightmare.’ Somehow she managed to lever herself into a sitting position. She stared round the room. Outside the sky was overcast.
‘There is a storm coming.’ Kirsty reached down and picked Louisa’s dressing gown off the floor. ‘Thunder, can you hear it? That’s the nice weather gone for a while.’ She glanced at Louisa’s face. ‘Would you like me to bring you something, Mrs Shelley? You look terrible.’
Louisa managed a painful smile. ‘I feel terrible. I expect it’s the storm. And the bad dream.’
She was remembering more and more. Carstairs. His threat to kill her. The fire. She stared down at her hands clutching the sheet. The huge gold ring was still there on the forefinger of her right hand.
‘Louisa?’ Sarah’s voice in the doorway made both women look up. Sarah bustled in, took one look at her guest and turned to the maid. ‘Would you bring some coffee please, Kirsty.’
Kirsty bobbed a small curtsey and disappeared as Sarah pulled herself up onto the bed. ‘Well? How did you sleep? Not well, judging by the look of you.’ She leaned forward and pushed Louisa’s hair back off her flushed face. ‘Did anything happen?’
‘Oh yes.’ Louisa gave a grim smile. ‘I dreamed about him. He came here and threatened me … and then …’ She hesitated. ‘We were back in the museum. He said he was going to kill me and I overturned the lamp and set fire to his precious collection.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘Oh, Sarah, it was awful. I can’t tell you how awful.’
‘My poor dear.’ Sarah squeezed her hand, then she stood up and walked over to the windows. ‘Look, it’s beginning to rain. I’ll shut the windows for you.’ She paused. ‘How strange. Look at this.’ She was unhooking what looked like a necklace from the wisteria around the door. ‘Is this yours? How pretty. It’s all made of shells and beads.’
Louisa slid from the bed. Padding barefoot across the floor she took it in her hands, staring down at it. ‘It’s his. He was wearing native American dress.’ She glanced up at Sarah. Her face was white. ‘It’s his, Sarah.’
The two women looked at one another.
‘So, he was here?’
Louisa bit her lip. ‘He can’t have been.’
‘Then it was a dream.’
Louisa looked up, her eyes huge and frightened. ‘I don’t understand it. I thought it was a dream, but …’ She paused looking at the necklace. ‘He said he had drugged me with laudanum. He could have bribed Kirsty –’
‘Rubbish!’
‘In my milk. She could have put it in my milk.’
‘Absolutely not. She wouldn’t. She is completely loyal.’
‘Then it was a dream. All of it. But where did this come from?’
They stared at each other in silence. Louisa was remembering the brooch. ‘When I see him he is always dressed in strange garb,’ she said at last, thoughtfully. ‘In Egypt too he always affected the dress of the natives. And last night he was dressed in skins and beads.’ She shook her head. ‘Why does he do it? Is it to frighten me?’
‘I’ve never seen him wear anything other than formal dress,’ Sarah said. She gave a wry smile. ‘He’s a good-looking man.’
‘I suppose he is.’ Louisa’s reply was reluctant. They both glanced at the door as Kirsty came in with the tray of coffee. She set it down on the table then turned to them, her eyes bright. ‘My lady, have you heard? The news is all over the servants’ hall. There was a fire at Carstairs Castle last night. Lord Carstairs’s museum and all the outbuildings and stables were burned out. There were no horses hurt, but all his wonderful things are gone!’
Louisa gasped. She staggered back to the bed and sat down. Kirsty stared at her. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Shelley? Of course!’ She clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘You were both there only yesterday. Oh, my lady!’ She turned to her mistress, distraught. ‘It’s so terrible. I don’t know what his lordship will do when he finds out.’
‘The servants would know, would they not, if he had returned unexpectedly?’ Sarah asked with a thoughtful glance at Louisa.
Kirsty nodded. ‘Oh yes, we’d know. Catriona has a great fondness for his man, Donald, who went with him to America. They are not expected back until next spring. Mr Graham says they are blaming the factor, Mr Dunglass. He left a lamp burning in there and it was knocked over in the night.’
‘How?’ Louisa asked sharply. ‘How was it knocked over? Was there someone there?’
‘I suppose there must have been. I don’t know, Mrs Shelley.’ Kirsty shrugged.
As the girl closed the door behind her Sarah went and sat next to Louisa on the bed. ‘Your revenge at least was real, it seems.’
Louisa nodded. ‘And I escaped, Sarah. But did he?’
5
For the next few days the countryside could talk of nothing but the fire at Carstairs Castle. As far as could be ascertained no one was hurt in the catastrophe; no one had been found amongst the wreckage, but the collection itself, estimated to be worth countless thousands of pounds, had been totally destroyed. Urgent messages were despatched by telegraph and by letter to Lord Carstairs himself, but no one it appeared knew quite where he was. He had left New York in the late spring, travelling west, and no one had heard from him since. Mr Dunglass was interviewed by the police, as were his lordship’s two sons and their tutor. All denied ever having taken a lamp into the museum, never mind lighting it, and Louisa’s hastily drawn sketches were scanned as evidence of what had been there. She pointed out that she could hardly have bothered to paint such an everyday item as a lamp – but then before the police could question her and Lady Douglas further about their visits, news came that Mr Dunglass had packed his bags and fled. His panic confirmed his guilt in many eyes.
Louisa moved back to her original bedroom and continued to paint the gardens and the moors as the storms passed and the good weather returned. Her dreams remained untroubled. She had no nocturnal visitors. But the fear was still there. She had locked the ring and the string of beads away in her jewel case with the topaz brooch and tried not to think about what had happened. Until one morning she received a letter. It was from George Browning, her sons’ tutor. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but we seem to have had an intruder in the house. A very thorough, I would say almost professional, search has been made of every room. I cannot ascertain that anything is missing – certainly nothing obvious, but I am worried that a particular search was made of your studio and some sketches and paintings may be lost. Also there appears to be something there of which I have no recollection. I have checked with the boys and they do not recognise it either. A small paperweight of what looks like solid gold carved in the shape of a coiled snake was left on the table in your studio. Beneath it was a paper inscribed with hieroglyphics of some sort. The boys feel it is a message from some person you met on your Egyptian travels and are much excited by it. I should reassure you that they have not been in the least alarmed by these occurrences and are indeed very reluctant to return to their grandmother’s care next week …’
Louisa passed the letter to Sarah. ‘I have to go home. Today. He’s back. He’s left me a message.’
Sarah went with her. On Louisa’s urgent instructions George had removed the boys at once back to their grandmother’s house so it was to a depleted household that they made their way from the station in a hansom cab. Louisa’s cook housekeeper, Mrs Laidlaw, and one maid, Sally Anne, were there to greet them.
Louisa went straight to her studio. There on the table as George Browning had said sat the gold serpent. She had last seen it in the museum at Carstairs Castle.
‘Am I never to be rid of him?’ Louisa turned to Sarah in anguish.
They had taken off their hats and coats and settled into chairs in the pretty drawing room overlooking the small garden of Louisa’s terraced London house.
‘Has he taken anything?’
‘I don’t know.’ Louisa was staring round the room. ‘I haven’t noticed anything. There is only one thing he wants.’
‘And is it there?’
Louisa shrugged. Standing up she led the way back into her studio and stood in front of the davenport where she did her correspondence. The studio was very cold; there was a strange smell in there she couldn’t immediately identify – not paint. Not linseed oil, or charcoal. Something sweet and slightly exotic. She shivered. ‘I put it in there. In the secret drawer.’
‘See if it’s there.’
Louisa put her hand out to the polished wood of the desk lid. Then she shook her head. ‘Supposing he’s watching me.’
‘Watching?’ Sarah glanced over her shoulder uneasily. ‘How could he be watching?’
‘How could he do any of the things he does?’ Louisa replied crossly. She moved away from the desk. ‘He has been in this room. How else could the snake have got here? It is a message. A warning. Oh, Sarah what am I to do? Can’t you feel it? There is something here. Someone.’ She picked up the piece of paper with its strange illegible message and stared at it, then with it still in her hand she turned on her heels and swept out of the room with Sarah behind her.
In the drawing room where Mrs Laidlaw had brought them a tray of tea Louisa threw the piece of paper with its scrawled hieroglyphics down onto the table.
‘What does it say? Can you read it?’
Louisa shook her head. Bending over it she ran her finger lightly over the symbols which had been inscribed there, then drew her hand away sharply.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Sarah’s blue eyes were fixed on the paper.
‘Nothing. It felt hot. My imagination.’
Sarah glanced up sharply. ‘Are you sure?’
Louisa shrugged. ‘I’m sure of nothing. I don’t know why he’s left this. He must realise I can’t read it.’
‘He’s just trying to frighten you. Tear it up.’
Louisa shook her head. ‘Supposing it’s important. These symbols. They have power.’
‘Exactly.’ Sarah stood up. She reached for the paper. ‘If you won’t destroy it, I will.’ About to throw it into the fireplace she stopped with a gasp.
The figure in front of them was no more substantial than a wisp of mist but both women saw it. Both shrank back. The paper dropped from Sarah’s hand and she fell back into her chair, white-faced.
‘Dear God!’ Louisa’s whisper was barely audible. ‘The djinn. The evil djinn!’
Already the figure had gone. It had been no more than a shadow.
‘What was that?’ Sarah’s voice shook.
‘Hatsek. The priest of Sekhmet. Two priests follow my ampulla and fight over it.’ Louisa’s voice was dreamlike. ‘Hassan called them djinn. The paper that came with the bottle was inscribed with their names. I don’t read hieroglyphs but I suppose this is what is written here.’ She took a deep shaky breath.
She bent and picked up the piece of paper. ‘You were right. It must be destroyed.’ Without giving herself time for second thoughts she walked across to the fireplace and threw the paper down. Then she reached for the box of Vestas on the mantelpiece. In seconds the paper was a pile of ash.
She gave a deep sigh. ‘I hope that is the last we shall see of him!’ She shuddered.
Sarah gave a shrill laugh. ‘You hope! Louisa. Do you realise what happened just now? We saw a –!’ She paused, at a loss as to how to describe it. ‘A ghost? A spirit? An ancient Egyptian! And you hope it won’t come back!’
‘It was a warning.’ Louisa shrugged.
‘So, will the fire stop it coming again?’ Sarah stared down at the small heap of ashes.
Louisa nodded. ‘I think so.’ She gave a grim laugh. ‘Fire would appear to have a cleansing effect on most things.’
And so it seemed. In the days that followed the household settled into calm. Louisa unpacked. She forced herself to check the house minutely. There was no sign of anything missing. The only place she did not look was the davenport. There was no need.
News came from Scotland that Mr Dunglass had been arrested in Glasgow. He had, it appeared, been quietly salting away a fortune in cash and valuables from the castle and the authorities looked no further for a cause of the fire. The case was closed. The two Carstairs boys, they heard, had been sent to a distant relative in the far north of Scotland for the rest of the summer. There was still no news of the absent lord.
In October came a letter from Augusta Forrester. The Fieldings had returned home, it said, with the wonderful tidings that Venetia had met a widower in Edinburgh and agreed to marry him. He had both a title, although not one as exalted as that of Lord Carstairs, and a small fortune as well as a goodly estate and she was content. Reading the letter Louisa smiled. Poor Venetia. If only she knew the fate she had been spared had she won her noble lord.
With many hugs and kisses and promises that they would meet again in Scotland the following year Sarah said her farewells and left and Louisa’s two boys returned from their grandmother. Her eldest son David was beginning his second year at Eton; his brother John returned to the schoolroom with George Browning. The staff was completed by the return of Louisa’s man servant, Norton, from a holiday with his family in Hertfordshire.
The day after Sarah left, Louisa’s nightmares about Egypt returned. But this time she did not dream about Hassan. Instead she was standing on the banks of the River Nile, the scent bottle in her hand, about to throw it into the water, when she realised there was a man standing in front of her. A tall, swarthy man dressed in the skins of a lion. ‘Do not dare to throw it!’ His mouth did not move but she felt the strength of his thoughts as though he had screamed them at her. ‘Do not throw! What you hold is sacred.’
She woke up with a start and sat up, shaking. The priest of Sekhmet had returned in her dream. His face was stern and forbidding, his eyes piercing, as he stood over her. The following night she was not on the banks of the Nile; he was here, in her room, bending over her bed.
Her screams brought Mrs Laidlaw and Sally Anne running from their bedrooms, just above hers in the attic. Luckily John and George Browning had not heard her and were not disturbed.
The next morning she went into the studio and stared at the davenport. Why had he returned? What did he want her to do? The answer to that came very swiftly. Two nights later she was preparing for bed, standing dreamily in her room, brushing her hair by the light of a bedside candle, when she became aware of someone standing near her in the shadows. The brush fell from her hand as she turned.
‘Egypt. Take it back to Egypt.’ The voice rang in her ears. ‘The tears of Isis belong in her own land; the ampulla must return whence it came.’ She could see him in the shadows.
‘How can I? How can I take it back?’ she stammered, but already he had gone.
As the autumn nights drew in Louisa felt her strength waning. She found it hard to eat and coughed incessantly, but she returned to her painting. Day after day she retired to the studio and embarked upon a new series of pictures of Scotland. The magic of loch and mountain could not however drive her demons away and at last she found herself painting the priests of ancient Egypt, Hatsek and his one time colleague and eternal enemy, Anhotep, who haunted her dreams, as though by capturing them on canvas she could exorcise them from her brain.
It didn’t work. Still they returned, sometimes apart, sometimes together, arguing with each other, arguing with her, every time coming closer, appearing more threatening, more inexorable. In her misery she wrote to Sarah, to the Forresters, even to the Fieldings. Then one night as sleep failed yet again to come and she sat up in bed reading, the one person who had not haunted her dreams in London appeared once more. Carstairs came back.
She looked up from her book to see him standing at the end of the bed watching her. He was dressed in an open necked voluminous white shirt and baggy trousers with a broad sash into which was thrust a scimitar.
‘So, clever Mrs Shelley. So devious. So cunning. You have hidden the ampulla from me, set a priest to guard it and you have destroyed my life’s work into the bargain. But don’t think you can continue to outwit me. I shall have that bottle. I know it is here.’
Louisa clutched her wrap around her shoulders, shivering. ‘If you have not found it by now, my lord, I think it unlikely you ever will,’ she said defiantly. She held his gaze. ‘So, where have you been? Where are you now? Still in America? Or have you returned to Scotland? Or are you really here, in the flesh, having walked up the stairs like a mere mortal? Did you ring the bell and ask Norton to show you up? I must confess, I did not hear a knock at my door.’
‘A walker between the worlds does not knock.’ He folded his arms. ‘Anymore than does a priest of the old gods.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘When I leave here I shall set something to guard the sacred bottle from you and from the priest. Wherever it is my serpent will protect it. I cannot guarantee the safety of your household or your children, Mrs Shelley. Please do not sacrifice another life for the sake of something so trifling. You have no interest in my bottle save to thwart me. Is that not so?’
She shrugged. ‘You are probably right. It is just that I cannot rid myself of the notion that whatever power lies in that bottle should be used for good, if it is used at all. And you, my lord, intend to use it for your own evil purposes.’
‘So, you would risk your sons’ lives?’
‘There will be no risk.’ She continued to hold his gaze defiantly. ‘I can send John back to his grandparents at any time. He will be safe there –’
He shook his head. ‘Do you still underestimate me so grievously, Louisa?’
‘I don’t underestimate you. Far from it. But I have realised that I can fight you. Remember your priest of Sekhmet, my lord? Remember the lion goddess? The lioness is invincible in the protection of her children. You threaten my children and I will unleash more rage than you can ever contemplate.’
Without realising it she had risen to her knees on the bed. He took a step backwards. ‘If there is a snake in my studio I will banish it. If there is evil in this house I will destroy it and you with it.’ She paused. ‘Where are you, Lord Carstairs? Are you still in America with your Indian braves?’ And now she realised that she recognised the costume he was wearing. ‘No, of course, you are in Egypt.’ She smiled. ‘Is the call so strong?’
‘The priest of Sekhmet wants his ampulla returned. Tell me where it is and I will leave you in peace.’
‘No! Hassan gave me that ampulla. It was his gift. It contains all I have of his love. So, you will never set eyes on it. Never!’ Her voice had risen desperately almost to a shout and seconds later there was an urgent knock at her door. ‘Mrs Shelley? Is something wrong, madam?’ It was Norton’s voice. ‘Shall I call Mrs Laidlaw?’
‘Thank you, Norton. I am all right. I am sorry to have woken you. Please go back to bed,’ she called over her shoulder. When she turned back towards the room. Lord Carstairs had gone.
And so had the golden snake. The next morning when Louisa went downstairs into her studio the statuette had vanished from the shelf where she had put it above the table where she worked. She did not even bother to call the staff to enquire as to its whereabouts. She knew who had taken it.
She searched the studio from top to bottom, not for a golden snake, but for a live one, alert every second to the possibility of the sound of scales slithering on the floor or over the shelves. None came and slowly she settled down to her day’s painting, conscious of the sounds around the house – the servants going about their business, John and George working in the small morning room which had been set aside for their studies, the distant rattle of wheels and hooves upon the roadway outside and the rustle of wind in the golden leaves in the garden.
The figure of Lord Carstairs cast no shadow as he stood between her and the sunlight flooding through the window. ‘Where is it?’ His voice was a hiss of fury.
She did not make the mistake of glancing at the davenport. Slowly she stood up, the paintbrush still clutched in her hand. ‘Nowhere you will ever find it!’
She realised suddenly that they were not alone. Two other figures hovered in the room. Two priests. The guardians of the bottle. He spotted them almost as soon as she did and whirled to face them. ‘So, the moment of confrontation has come! I am sure, my lords of the ancient world, that you are as anxious as I to return the sacred ampulla to the place it rightfully belongs. I can take it there. I can transport it over time and space.’ He stepped closer to Louisa. ‘Only one person stands between us and our hearts’ desire, my lords.’
‘Do not touch her!’ The voice seemed so loud it appeared to fill the spaces of the room, the house, even the sky outside.
Carstairs shrank back. Then he put his hand to his belt and Louisa realised that a wickedly curved broad-bladed sword hung there. As he pulled it free she dropped her paintbrush and fled towards the door. Her shout for help died on her lips. Glancing round as she groped for the doorknob she saw the raised scimitar catch the sunlight in a blinding flash. There was a huge crash. It was not her he had attacked, but the two priests, spirits from another world, and as suddenly as they had come, all three men disappeared.
Shaking with fear she took a step forward. Then another. Nothing in the room appeared to have been touched. The only sign of the interruption was the small splash of bright colour on the thick watercolour paper, where her hand had smudged it, and the paintbrush lying on the floor.
She never saw Lord Carstairs again. Nor the priests, and if a snake appeared in her studio to guard the sacred ampulla she was never aware of it.
That wasn’t the end of the story of course, for the ampulla remained in her desk. She never forgot it, but neither did she think about it. If one day her sons or one of their descendants wanted to take it to Egypt that would be up to them. The portrait of the two priests she pushed into a dark corner. It was not shown in any of her exhibitions. It never occurred to her that someone, some day long after her time, might think the little bottle a pretty trinket suitable to give to a child.
What Price Magic? (#ulink_b6dbf198-4871-5c8a-9d14-da04ed52ff42)
‘Why move?’ they had said. ‘Let him be the one to go. He’s found a new life, a new woman; let him find a new home somewhere else.’ But she knew she couldn’t do it. The house was their house; the garden their garden; the furniture mostly their furniture that they had chosen together. She wanted to move on, to start again with nothing to remind her of the past and how happy they had been.
It had been very hard when she knew she was losing him. Shock, pain, outrage, anger had all taken their place in the queue with loss of self-esteem, but she had forced herself to come through it, and now here she was in a small Victorian terraced cottage instead of a large modern house, in a town instead of the country, with new furniture and even – especially – a new bed. She had defiantly chosen a huge king-size bed. It took up most of the bedroom and came with a gloriously comfortable mattress – not the iron-hard orthopaedic job Steven had needed for his back. She smothered it in a bright duvet and dozens of pillows, and had a TV in the bedroom.
That part of being divorced was good. She could watch her choice of programmes all the time and take her supper to bed if she felt like it. Or breakfast. Or lunch. And she had independence and freedom. And a new-found ability to make decisions and realise that they were perfectly valid. And time for herself. And money.
It might have been better had she needed to work, but Steven had been generous – guilt, she supposed – and that was the problem. A delightful town, a picturesque street, pleasant neighbours, but no friends. She was lonely. She should have stayed where she was, where her friends had been supportive and sympathetic and angry on her behalf. But they had been too angry. Angrier than she was. They kept on about Steven and what he had done, and they wouldn’t let her move on. She wanted new friends who hadn’t known him. People who would show her how to get over that one last hurdle: the feeling that she hadn’t been good/beautiful/successful/young enough to keep her man. But how to meet them? And how to feel a different person?
She stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and surveyed herself critically. Figure – not bad. Skin – quite good. Legs – still definitely an asset. Eyes – beautiful, or so Steven used to say, and presumably they had not changed. Hair – neat, quite attractive. But even naked the overall effect was demure. How could one look demure naked? She tried a few un-demure poses. No, she had to admit, demure seemed to come naturally.
She went into her bedroom and threw open the cupboard. Smart/pretty. Mid-length hems. Court shoes. Demure. And – she had to face it – middle-aged! But she wasn’t middle-aged! It came out as a wail inside her head. Was she?
Steven obviously thought she was. The new wife was twenty years younger than she was. But also, to her astonishment when she had finally seen (not met, not allowed to meet) her successor, she, too, was demure. So that proved that she had been the wife Steven had wanted her to be. The wife he had conjured out of the malleable young girl she had been. He had made her demure, and she, Janet, didn’t want to be demure any more. She went back to the bathroom and stared at herself again. What could she do about it?
Strangely, it hadn’t occurred to her to throw out her clothes when she began her new life. They had escaped the blitz intact, to every last Jaeger sweater and Jacquemar scarf. The trouble was, how did she want to look? She wasn’t sure.
She put on some clothes – a sensible skirt, tailored shirt, double row of cultured pearls – brushed her hair neatly, and slotted her handbag on her arm. She set out purposefully for the centre of town, where she veered away from the stores she usually frequented and headed for the network of medieval lanes behind the cathedral, looking for the smart ‘little shops’.
Meeting Annette was providential.
Janet was staring at a strikingly attractive narrow window display on the corner of St Anne’s Lane, featuring a dress of the kind she secretly coveted but had never had the courage to buy, when she noticed another woman apparently rapt in admiration of the same dress. She gave her a shy glance. ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’
The other woman was, Janet saw in the quick scrutiny she allowed herself, stunningly attractive. She was slim, dressed in a style not dissimilar to the clothes in the window, and had an enviably relaxed elegance. Janet gave her another surreptitious, admiring look. The woman smiled. ‘I’m glad you like it. I’ve just finished arranging it. That’s why I was checking what it looked like.’
Janet felt herself blush. ‘It’s your shop?’
The woman nodded. ‘I’m Annette.’ She indicated the sign on the fascia. ‘Do come inside and look round if you like.’
It was the first shop Janet had entered on her quest for a new identity and she looked round curiously, made an instant assessment of Annette’s obvious grasp of style, and, as the shop was small and empty at that moment of other customers, and the smallness and emptiness fostered a feeling of confidence and confidentiality, she told Annette everything.
And found herself trying on long, soft dresses with plunging necklines, shoes with platform soles, ropes of beads and fringed scarves. She was made to bend from the waist and comb her hair up the wrong way until it stood round her head in a wild ruff which made her look – and feel – twenty years younger. She was bullied into trying new eye-shadow and lipstick out of Annette’s own cosmetic bag, and at last she was allowed to look at herself in the full-length mirror. She was speechless.
‘Pleased?’ Annette tried to hide her own delight. The transformation was stunning.
Then Janet hit a problem. The trouble was she couldn’t bring herself to wear her lovely new clothes outside the house. However much the image was one she had dreamed of, she just didn’t have the courage to step outside dressed like that. Disparaging phrases like ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ floated through her head, phrases which she was sure no longer made sense in a world where everyone, except perhaps her, could please themselves as to how they looked. The image just did not fit her, however much she longed for it to.
She did wear the dress when Annette came over to see her – their bond in the dressing-room had gelled instantaneously into friendship – and she felt exotic and free in a world full of new possibilities. But when Annette and her bubbling enthusiasm went home Janet, crossly aware that this was Steven’s legacy but finding herself incapable of overcoming her inhibition, guiltily crept back into the boring anonymity of her demure image.
On one visit Annette showed Janet how to rinse her hair with nettles and rosemary and how to scent her skin with rose and jasmine (making herbal potions was her hobby when the dress shop was shut), but when she had gone home Janet angrily brushed her hair back into its neat, permed order, and with the neatness came her old submissive, demure personality. And it made her furious with herself.
Her life might have gone on like that were it not that one Saturday Annette persuaded her to go to the natural healing exhibition in the town hall. It was not at all the sort of thing Janet would normally have gone to, but Annette was selling some of her prettily bottled mixtures there. Janet desperately wanted to wear her new dress and was perplexed as to why it felt so wrong. She took it off and decided that, as it was so hot, Annette wouldn’t find a floaty summer dress – demure, but cool – too odd. But she went convinced she wouldn’t enjoy herself.
The place was packed. She began to wander around and was soon lost among the crowds whose dress, she noticed, was completely eclectic. Jeans, dresses, skirts. Long, short, mini. Anyway, you could hardly see what people wore because of the crowds. Comforted by the lack of conformity and the general bonhomie, she forgot to be demure and soon found she was enjoying herself enormously. She loved the sheer dottiness of it all. She loved the people and the things. She bought herself a beautiful ring with a healing amethyst set in knotted silver, a book of cookery recipes to keep her young, and, when at last she found Annette in a small corner stall between a man selling biorhythm charts and another selling runes, she bought herself some bath-oil in a blue bottle tied with a pale pink ribbon. She watched demonstrations of Tai Chi, yoga and Japanese sword-fighting, and stood absorbed by an Adonis who was practising inversion therapy by hoisting a beautiful woman, mercifully clad in jeans, upside down into the air and balancing her on his hands while he lay on his back and peered up into her cleavage with a look of serene transcendence. She had a cup of herbal tea and a flapjack with sufficient roughage to pave the town square, and then wandered over to look at the Buddhist stand.
The tall man in charge sported the ubiquitous ponytail favoured by many of the stall holders, but his face was a contrast to the rest of his appearance. There was an aesthetic set to his features that intrigued her. She watched him surreptitiously for a moment. He was being assisted by a pretty young girl. Unconsciously, Janet ran a wistful hand through her hair, ruffling it from neat and demure to wild and untidy before she drifted closer.
‘Are you interested in singing bowls?’
She suddenly realised he was talking to her. She blushed and looked down at the small pinky-pewter-coloured bowl he was holding out to her. ‘Go on. Have a go.’ He smiled, a grave, soul-searching smile which seemed to link his eyes to hers. She felt a flicker of sexual excitement in the pit of her stomach – something that had not happened for years, even with Steven.
She smiled back. ‘How do you have a go at a bowl?’
He shook his head. ‘I knew you weren’t listening.’ He produced a short wooden baton and, balancing the bowl on the palm of his hand, tapped it smartly. It gave off a deep bronze note like a bell. Then, as she watched and listened in amazement, she saw him draw the baton around the rim of the bowl, stroking the metal until the note caught and rose and steadied, on and on and on, weird and wild and beautiful.
She listened, enchanted.
He stopped abruptly, silencing the bowl with his other hand. ‘Do you want a go?’
‘You mean I could make it sing?’ She felt breathless and strangely emotional.
He nodded. He handed her the bowl and the stick, and for a moment she felt the warmth and power of his fingers over hers. And then the bowl was singing. She could feel the vibration of the metal through her palm, up her arm, into her very soul. She went on and on, stroking out the different sounds, until at last she was too tired to go on and she let the singing die away.
He was watching her again, having served another two customers in the interim. ‘So?’ He smiled.
She wasn’t sure whether the spell had been cast by him or his bowl. ‘I want to buy it.’
Instead of looking pleased, his expression clouded. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ It was expensive – she had glanced at the price on the little sticker – but not that expensive. Anyway, what price that kind of magic?
‘What did it do for you?’ He still seemed doubtful.
‘It transported me. I could see oceans and mountains. Snows. Skies. Towering clouds.’ She paused, embarrassed, wondering why she had said all that, and then realised it was true. For several long minutes the noisy, stuffy hall with its crowds of people and mingled smells of incense and vegetarian hot dogs and talking and laughter and music and Tannoy announcements had faded into non-existence. She shrugged. ‘It would be coming to a good home.’ Why did she feel she had to justify wanting to buy it?
He had put out his hands for the bowl but she didn’t want to let it go. She cradled it against her chest possessively.
He laughed. ‘It’s all right. I was only going to wrap it for you. Look, they come in their own special bag.’ He glanced up and their eyes met again.
That was all. He put the special striped bag inside a white carrier bag. She signed the credit card slip, filled in her name and address for his mailing list and at last, with no excuse to stay longer, fled the exhibition, exhausted but strangely triumphant.
The bowl was alive. She stood it on the chest in the corner of her living-room and looked at it in awe, then, gently, tapped it with the wooden stick. The note rang on and on, vibrating down through the wood of the chest, up into the air, into the very walls of the cottage. She sat looking at the card which had come with it, describing its history in Tibet and how it was made of a secret amalgam of seven metals, then she picked up the bowl, held it on her hand and made it sing. Later she put on her new dress, ruffled her hair, kicked off her shoes and danced alone in the vibrating silence of the room.
It was almost no surprise when he knocked on the front door. ‘I’m sorry to call round. My daughter forgot to give you back your credit card. I thought you’d like it back at once.’
He paused, eyeing her, and she realised he had been expecting to see the demure ex-housewife who had bought his bowl. She laughed in delight. The woman he was seeing instead was barefoot, beautiful, exotic, a confident goddess with eyes that shone and skin that glowed.
There was a moment of silence. He couldn’t see the bowl but he could feel the vibrations in the air. It had been singing to her. Ten years before, when his wife died and he had made his first trip to Nepal, he had felt that excitement himself for the first time and he had been hooked.
He held out his hand with the credit card. As she took it their fingers touched.
‘You looked so …’ He floundered. ‘So unlikely a person to own a bowl. But now …’
She laughed. ‘But now you’ve caught me as my real self. Thank you for bringing me my card. It was silly of me to forget it.’ She couldn’t leave it at that. Not now. ‘Can I offer you a drink to say thank you?’
He hesitated. For a moment she thought he was going to say yes, then, regretfully, he shook his head. ‘Perhaps another time. There’s so much packing up to do.’ He stepped towards the door, then stopped and turned round. ‘May I say something?’ His smile was gentle. ‘You should dress like that all the time. It suits you.’ He smiled again and was gone.
She stared after him, then slowly pushed the door shut. Picking up the bowl, she carried it to the mirror and, her eyes fixed on her image, began to make it sing.
She was seeing herself as he had seen her. Confident. Attractive. A complete whole. Slowly, sensuously, she began to dance again.
When the doorbell rang she knew that she had called him back. That was how it would be in the future. She had liberated something in her soul. She liked men. She might even like this one very much indeed. But her destiny was in her own hands now. And from now on she would call the tune.
Between Times (#ulink_6b38c1ab-f119-546f-a3c0-32282bd87646)
Heat fell across the garden like a blanket. Sighing with relief Helen turned her back on the now spotlessly tidy chalet and carrying her cup of tea, a fat paperback novel and a rug she stepped out of the French doors onto the grass. Tim had taken the children to the beach. Ahead of her lay two or three hours of perfect peace.
‘Come too, Hen.’ Tim had dropped a kiss on the top of her head. He tried bribery. ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream?’
No contest. Two hours alone – completely alone – versus thousands of people, shouting children and, the final turn-off, runny ice creams dripping stickily down sun-sore skin. No thanks!
She spread out the rug in the shade under the small cherry tree, kicked off her flip-flops and sat down cross-legged, the mug on one side of her, the book on the other. The silence was total.
She adored the children – there were three of them, Jack, Felix and Polly – and she adored her husband, but they were all so noisy, so demanding, so overwhelmingly there all the time, that moments like this were almost non-existent now. Thoughtfully she picked up her mug and sipped at the tea. It was delicious; cooling, even though it scalded her mouth. Cupping her hands around the mug she gave a wry grin. Had she really forgotten how to savour tea; how to sit down in silence?
This was their first real holiday all together and Tim was being marvellous. Putting thoughts of the office for once behind him and ordering her to do the same, he had marshalled the children; they had tidied their toys, helped wash up, each found towel and bathing costume, and then suddenly there was silence and there was nothing – blessed nothing – to do!
She took another sip of tea and gazed lazily around her, unwilling even to make the effort to pick up the book. Each of these chalets had their own garden and they had been there long enough to have established hedges and flower borders, ornate trees, neat handkerchief-sized lawns. Nearby she heard the sharp alarm call of a small bird and she screwed up her eyes, trying to see it. The neighbouring gardens were totally silent too – no doubt the other families also on the beach. And then she saw it, the tiny brown bird with its ridiculous pert tail and bright eyes watching her from its hiding place in some ivy clinging to the fence near by. She smiled. Finishing her tea she lay back on the rug with a sigh of blissful contentment.
Did she fall asleep then? Afterwards she always wondered. But of course she had. How else was it all possible?
As she lay looking sleepily up through the lacework of the leaves, feeling the sun dappling her face, she realised there was someone in the garden with her.
‘Tim? Have you forgotten something?’ Her initial reaction was extreme irritation. Could they not allow her just this one small window of peace?
There was no answer and she turned her head, her arm shading her eyes against the glare of the sun.
From where she lay she realised suddenly that she could see through a gap in the hedge into the next door garden. A man was standing there watching her. She sat up hastily, knocking over her mug as she did so.
‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’ He stepped forward between the laurels and she saw that he was a man of middle height, handsome, tanned, his hair bleached almost white by the sun. ‘The children are on the beach and Mary is asleep. How are you?’ He sat down opposite her on the grass and leaned across to lay his hand for a moment over hers. It was a curiously intimate gesture. Not in any way threatening. He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back. Her initial indignation at his presence had disappeared. He wasn’t a stranger. She knew him well.
‘It’s blessedly peaceful without them for a while, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. Her eyes were, she realised, still staring into his; she was drowning in his gaze. Drowning. She had read that expression in one of her novels, and not quite understood what the cliché meant. Now suddenly she knew. She could see into the depths of his soul and she could see that he loved her. He loved her with tormented, agonising, passion.
‘My dear.’ She turned her hands upwards to meet his and their palms touched, their fingers intertwined. ‘How long will they be away?’ She couldn’t remember his name, this man whom she had loved forever and to whom she realised suddenly she was going to make love, here in the back garden of a rented holiday chalet in a place she had never been to before.
He smiled at her. ‘Long enough.’ His hand strayed to her shoulders and he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. ‘I go back tomorrow. This will be our last chance to be together. Perhaps for ever.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ll come back; we’ll both come back.’
He was wearing an open-necked shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and she found herself reaching for the buttons, unfastening them one by one. Her hands, resting on the hot skin of his chest, encountered a rough, newly healed scar. She touched it gently and leaning forward, kissed it. ‘My poor darling. I had hoped it was bad enough to keep you here. Safe.’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s make the most of the time we’ve got.’
As he drew her to him she remembered thinking with some distant part of her brain, How strange. I still don’t know his name, before she surrendered to his urgent kisses, pushing his shirt back from his shoulders, helping him undo the leather belt and the buttons of his trousers, slipping down the straps of her own brief sundress, until they were lying together naked on the grass. Once or twice she seemed to glimpse a huge tree overshadowing them, sensed its shade, its privacy, then she was lost in the ecstasy of their love-making. When at last they lay exhausted side by side she looked up into its spreading branches with a long contented sigh and realised she was smiling. Her body felt heavy and unutterably content.
‘Helen?’
The voice seemed to come from hundreds of miles away.
‘Helen, darling?’
She turned her head lazily towards the man beside her. Her hand touched the closed pages of her book, lying on the grass.
‘Helen! For goodness’ sake!’
It was Tim’s voice she could hear, and then the children’s giggling. ‘Mummy’s got no clothes on!’ It was Felix. She heard the rush of feet.
‘Mummy, you’re getting burned.’ It was Polly, solicitous, a little embarrassed, gathering up Helen’s dress and pushing it at her. ‘The man in the next chalet could see you!’
Grabbing the dress, Helen pulled it over her head. She didn’t remember taking it off. She must have been sunbathing, taking the opportunity in the solitary little garden for an all-over tan. She glanced at Tim and shrugged, but Tim was staring at her strangely. He looked angry. She looked back towards the hedge, and suddenly she remembered. The man in the next chalet, Polly had said. The man to whom she had been making passionate love only minutes before. Was he still there? Had Tim seen him? Or had the whole thing been a dream?
The hedge looked solid from here. There was no possibility of someone seeing into the garden from the windows of the single storey building next door, nor of coming through the hedge without doing both themselves and the hedge considerable damage.
‘You said there was a man?’ Helen pushed the hair back from her face. She frowned at her daughter. ‘What man? No one can see me from here.’ She was agitated. Uneasy.
‘The man next door. I saw him walking away from the gate.’ She pointed at the hedge.
‘There’s no one there, Pol,’ Tim said sternly. ‘Your mum was asleep. No one could see her. I was just worried she would be sunburnt, lying spread out like that.’ He held Helen’s gaze for a moment and she saw the puzzled hurt in his face.
‘Polly’s making it up.’ Felix could sense that something was wrong. He pinched his sister’s arm. ‘There’s no gate there.’
‘Well, I saw him!’ Polly stamped her foot, rubbing furiously at the spot her brother’s small fingers had so expertly tweaked. ‘He was getting dressed; he put on a white shirt and brown trousers and he had blond hair like mine!’ She was by far the fairest of the three children and Helen found herself staring at her daughter. No, the little girl was wrong. He had been fairer than Polly. Much fairer.
‘Who was he?’ It wasn’t until the children were in bed that evening and the dishes washed and put away that Tim broke his tight-lipped silence.
‘There wasn’t anyone, Tim.’ She had pulled a cotton shirt on over her dress as the sea breeze, coming in through the window, turned cooler.
‘Don’t give me that!’ Tim’s voice was hard. ‘If you could have seen yourself lying there, your legs apart; it was disgusting. You reeked of sex!’
She shook her head. ‘Tim! It’s not true. There was no one there. I swear it.’
‘So, Polly was lying?’
‘She has a good imagination, Tim. You know there’s no gate. How could there have been anyone there?’
But Polly had described him.
‘It was so hot and peaceful in the garden I thought I could sunbathe. What’s so wrong with that?’ Suddenly she was indignant. ‘No one could see me! If I hadn’t fallen asleep I would have made sure I was dressed before you all came back. Not that it matters. The kids have seen me with no clothes on before –’ They both wandered round the house at home nude in front of the children from time to time. They had discussed it and decided that probably it was the right thing to do – to demonstrate modesty, but no shame in the human body.
‘You had love bites on your neck, Helen.’ His voice was so cold she felt herself shiver. ‘I didn’t put them there.’
For a moment she stared at him in silence, then she walked over to stand in front of the mirror which hung over the sideboard. Pushing back the shirt she lifted her hair off her neck and stared at herself in the glass. The two flaring red marks were obvious and unmistakable.
Charles.
Charles Douglas.
The name came to her suddenly out of nowhere.
‘He was going back to the front,’ she said, frowning, puzzled by her own sudden unexpected remembrance. ‘It was our last meeting. He was killed three weeks later. On the Somme.’ She turned back to Tim. ‘I remember now. He was so young. So handsome.’ She shook her head, dazed, aware of the anger and incomprehension on her husband’s face. ‘It was a dream, Tim. I was dreaming about him. It wasn’t real.’
But the marks on her neck were real. Silently she turned back to the mirror and raised her fingers to touch them. They felt bruised. Painful.
‘And you dreamt those into being I suppose.’ He was still angry.
‘I suppose I must have.’ She shrugged. ‘Tim, please. You know there’s no one else. I love you!’
‘I thought so.’ The hurt in his voice was palpable.
But she had known she was cheating on him when she had turned to Charles and unbuttoned his shirt even as Charles had known he was cheating on his own wife and children.
She sat down, realising suddenly that she was shaking. ‘It was so real.’ She shouldn’t talk about it. She shouldn’t say any more, but suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. ‘He was so frightened. So lonely. He knew he was going to die. They must have all known they were going to die. He was living on borrowed time and his wife didn’t understand him. She was a stupid, vain woman, who was only interested in herself and her own imagined ills. She wasn’t there for him, Tim, when he needed her. When she saw the terrible scars on his body she shuddered and turned away.’
How did she know all this?
Tim was staring at her. His face was white. He said nothing as she went on: ‘There was no one there for him. That was why he came. Just to talk. Just to describe a little of what it was like; to try and defuse some of his nightmares. It was so harmless at first. He was little more than a boy and he loved his Mary so much, but she was lonely too. They married just before he was posted overseas and when he left she was pregnant. She didn’t see him for more than a year. He came back on leave to a stranger with a young baby. When he came back again a year later on a stretcher she had another child. That one wasn’t his. She said it was his fault. She stormed and raged at him and tried to justify herself. What was he to do?’
‘That seems to have been some dream!’ Tim said drily as she lapsed into silence. ‘So, exactly where do you fit in?’
Helen shrugged. ‘I was the other side of the hedge.’
‘A neighbour?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And you comforted him.’
She looked away. ‘So it would appear.’
‘And he left you radiant. Sated. Covered in love bites.’ He moved towards the door.
‘Tim, please. You have to believe me –’
But he had gone. She heard him open the door, pull it closed behind him and walk away down the quiet road towards the sea.
She sat still for a long time, staring out of the window. Slowly it grew dark. She didn’t bother to turn on the lights, aware that the tears had long since dried on her face. It was all so stupid. A dream. How could they quarrel like this over a dream? Then she touched the bruises on her neck again and she sighed. They were not part of a dream.
There was no sign of Tim. Where had he gone? She pictured him walking miserably on the beach, alone in the dark and she ached to follow him, comfort him, explain. But how could she when she couldn’t explain it herself?
It was nearly midnight when, still sleepless, she pushed open the door and stepped out into the garden. The moon had risen, bathing everything in silvery light. Faintly she thought she could hear the gentle shush of the sea on the sand in the distance. She could smell the sharp salt of it over the soft sweetness of the honeysuckle and roses in the flowerbeds near her. The grass was wet with dew as she stepped down off the step. She could see the china gleam of her mug lying where she had left it. No one had thought to pick it up. Or her book, which was lying open, the pages damp and wrinkled.
Quietly she walked towards the hedge. The gate was there as she had known it would be. She put her hand out to the cold wood and pushing it open she stepped through. The house across the lawn was large, imposing in the moonlight. A cedar tree stood in the centre of the lawn, throwing stark black shadows slanting over the grass. The silence was intense. She could no longer hear the sea.
She walked slowly towards the house, staring up at the windows. They all looked strangely blank, blinds shutting out the moonlight in every one. Beyond the house more hedges bordered a deserted country lane. There was no sign of the row of little holiday homes which in her world lined the road to the sea. She turned round in sudden fear, looking for the gate through which she had come. It was there, standing open as she had left it. Beyond it she could see the huge oak tree under which she and Charles had lain. There was no chalet there now. No cherry tree. No washing line with small swimming costumes and brightly coloured towels hanging where she had forgotten to take them in.
And suddenly she was crying. Crying for her dead lover, buried so long ago somewhere in the mud of northern France, and for her husband walking in lonely misery on the beach in the moonlight and for her children who had gone to bed puzzled and unhappy at the sudden atmosphere between their parents on what had up till then been a holiday of total happiness.
Almost as though the thought had conjured her out of the night Helen was aware suddenly of a small girl walking towards her across the grass.
‘Don’t be sad, Mummy.’ Polly slipped a small warm hand into her cold one. ‘Is it that house that makes you sad?’ The little face looked up at hers earnestly. ‘I don’t like it. The windows can’t see.’
So, Polly was aware of it too, with its blinds and its aura of unhappiness.
‘Someone has drawn the blinds, darling. That is why the windows can’t see. It is a sad house because someone has died.’
‘The man I saw kissing you?’
Dear God! What else has she seen.
‘He was an old friend, darling. From long ago.’
‘Why did he die?’
Helen frowned. Her mind was wheeling between times and she didn’t know how to answer. ‘He lived a long time ago, Polly, and he had to go to fight in the war.’
‘So he’s a ghost.’ The child was still staring up at her trustingly.
‘I suppose he is. Yes. At first I thought he must be a dream, but if you saw him too then he can’t be.’ Helen glanced back over Polly’s head towards the neighbouring garden and suddenly it was as it had been; the large house was gone. The great trees had vanished. In their place the line of small holiday bungalows with defining hedges and fences once more stretched away in the moonlight.
‘That’s better.’ Polly sounded more confident suddenly. ‘It’s all gone back to normal now. Silly dream.’ She reached out for Helen’s hand again. ‘I’ll tell Daddy and he won’t be cross any more.’
‘You think so?’ Helen smiled sadly. ‘I hope you’re right, darling.’ She glanced back over her shoulder in spite of herself. The garden was as it should be still.
When they walked back into the house Tim was standing just inside the front door. He appeared to be lost in thought.
‘Tim?’ Helen went over to him. Hesitantly she put her hand on his arm.
He frowned. ‘Where have you been?’
‘In the garden, Daddy.’ It was Polly who answered. She threw her arms around her father’s waist. ‘I saw the dream house where the ghost lived. It looked all strange in the moonlight. The man Mummy saw is dead. He’s gone now. He was a ghost!’
‘A –’ Tim stared at Helen.
‘I seem to have got mixed up in someone else’s tragedy, Tim; someone else’s life, long, long ago. You have to believe me at least about that one thing. It wasn’t real.’
For a long moment they stared at each other in silence, the little girl looking anxiously up first at one then the other.
‘We’re never going to understand what happened, Tim. It was a slip in time.’
Tim sighed. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to believe you.’ He shrugged. ‘Largely because I can’t bear the alternatives.’ He walked past her into the room and sat down. Putting his elbows on his knees he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘As I walked up and down that beach I realised I couldn’t live without you. You mean everything to me.’
Helen smiled uncertainly. Kneeling in front of him she reached up and put her arms around his neck. As she kissed him Polly jumped onto the sofa next to him and burrowed between them into the shelter of their arms.
Outside in the moonlight Charles stood on the lawn staring towards the lighted windows of the bungalow unseeing. In his own time he was standing under a spreading tree in the dark. Behind him the house of his dreams lay shuttered and empty. His wife and the children had gone. Only one person had ever made him feel loved and happy and in his cold, lost loneliness he drifted across the grass looking for her, the warm gentle kind woman he had found lying in the sunlight under the tree. He was resolved, if necessary, to search forever until he found her again.
Sea Dreams (#ulink_ec2b55ee-286d-559e-ab61-fabd35a49c77)
How was she going to tell him? Rachel looked across the table at Alex, watching fondly as he poured out his breakfast cereal and reached for the milk jug. No children, they had said. Or not for years. Too busy. Too poor. Too stressed. Too soon.
He glanced up and grinned back at her. ‘OK?’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
How had it happened? Well, she knew that. Gastric flu. She’d puked up the pill. As simple as that. And now she was feeling sick again.
Alex stood up and, dropping a kiss on her head, made for the door. ‘You’ll be late for work, Rachel.’
She nodded. ‘Just going.’
The door closed behind him and she put her head in her hands. Perhaps it was a false alarm. Perhaps it was still the flu after all.
That Saturday was the second time Rachel went to the yoga class. Alex, seeing her tenseness, her strange, unaccustomed unhappiness, had suggested she go. Slowly and gently Eileen took her twelve pupils through the series of asanas and breathing exercises then, as before, at the end they all lay down on their mats, covered themselves with blankets and closed their eyes for a period of relaxation.
‘Picture yourself in your favourite place in the country.’ The deep, melodious voice seemed further away than the low stage of the hall. ‘Feel your bare feet in the grass, hear the birds, the wind in the trees, smell the flowers.’
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