Come to Castlemoor (11 page)

“He was working on the Celtic religions. I did research for him. There hasn't been a really definitive book on the subject. Donald intended to do one. He wanted to explore the subject thoroughly—”

“That's where he went off the track,” he replied. “As you have probably already discovered, Darkmead is an astoundingly superstitious village. The past isn't dead for them. It's alive. It's here and now. Donald was infected with this superstition. It grew and grew, until he actually began to believe the tales and rumors that were circulating. He set out to prove as scholarly fact what is, in reality, mere fantasy.”

“I wish you would be more specific, Mr. Clark.”

“Very well. He believed that the Celts still inhabit the moors, hold ancient ceremonies among the ruins. He believed there was a secret cult of druids in and around Darkmead. Is that specific enough?”

“Specific,” I said, “and—astonishing.”

“The villagers talk about ghosts,” he continued. “They say the druids rise from their graves at night, dance around the stones. People claim to have seen them, just as some people claim to have seen ancient ancestors roam the halls of old houses. It's a curious phenomenon. The mind is capable of imagining something so vividly, with such intensity, that frequently the imagined image is so strong that it actually seems to present itself before its creator, a separate entity, projected by the mind and about as substantial as a dream. Ghosts exist, but they exist only in the minds of gullible people.”

“My brother was a scholar. His mind was like a diamond.”

“Quite true. That made the visions all the more sharp.”

“I don't think Donald was capable of believing in ghosts.”

“Ordinarily, no, but overwork and mental fatigue can do strange things to people. When your brother first came here, he was full of enthusiasm. His energy knew no bounds. He didn't eat properly. He didn't get enough sleep. He worked himself into a state of nervous exhaustion. Donald wasn't a well man toward the end. I'm sorry to have to tell you that.”

I thought of what Maud had told me about Donald's condition during the last month he lived. It fit perfectly with what Edward Clark had just said. I forced back the tears that threatened to spill over my lashes. Donald had needed me, and I was not there. I had been in London. If I had been here, I might have saved his life. He had been weak, tired, his ordinarily alert mind numbed by exhaustion. He hadn't seen the crevasse. His mind had been on other things, and he tripped … I turned away from Edward Clark and stared down at the water. I wasn't sure if I saw it or if I was seeing my own tears.

Edward Clark stood beside me, silent. His presence was somehow comforting.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a while.

“Did you read the manuscript?” I asked, still watching the water flow over the rocks.

“I read it,” he said. “It was rough draft, of course, many chapters unconnected, merely outlined. The early part, the factual reconstruction of the religious rites, was brilliant. The rest was—nebulous. You must have realized that when you read it.”

“I haven't read it,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I—I haven't found it. It's missing.”

“Then he
did
destroy it. He said he was going to. He intended to take a short vacation—the seashore, I believe he said—and then come back and start all over again. I talked to him two days before the accident. He was going to go to London, fetch you, and head for the sea. He realized he was in dire need of a break.…” His voice trailed off. His blue eyes turned cloudy. The lines of his face were solemn.

“Life is like that sometimes,” he said. “Sad, unfair—”

“But we go on,” I replied, calm now.

“It's been hard on you.”

“Yes,” I said, “but the worst is over now. A new life has begun for me. I can't afford to grieve over the old one.”

“Why did you come here?” he asked. Castlemoor is no place for someone like you. In London there's merriment, music, diversion …”

“I'm not looking for diversion. I came to Castlemoor to finish my brother's book. I—I guess that's out of the question now.”

He nodded grimly. “What are you going to do now?”

I didn't answer for a moment. I stood there looking at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, and I thought about Donald, about the book he had intended to write. It had been very important to him. It was important to me now. I knew, all at once, that I had to do that book myself. There was no manuscript to finish, no notes to guide me, but I would start from scratch. I told Edward about it.

“I have a file full of research materials, all the books I need, and the ruins are right in my own backyard, so to speak,” I concluded.

“That sounds like quite a task for—” He paused.

“For a woman,” I finished the sentence for him. “Do you doubt I have the ability to do it?”

“Not anymore,” he said, an amused lilt in his voice.

“You think I should go back to London,” I said in a flat voice.

“Perhaps I do. Nevertheless, I'm delighted with your decision to stay here. For purely selfish reasons.”

“Gallantry,” I said.

“Sincere gallantry. You can expect a lot of it in days to come.”

“Can I indeed?”

He nodded, his heavy lids drooping at the corners, his mouth stretching in a flat smile. He stood there beside me, so large, so confident. I tried to resist the powerful charm he exercised so casually. I turned away from him. He laid his hand on my shoulder and turned me back around. His hand on my chin, he tilted my face up so that I had to look into his eyes. They were full of amusement, and tender. “Any objections?” he inquired softly.

“I—I'm not sure.”

“I've been waiting for you,” he said, “waiting a long time. I believe you've been waiting, too.”

“That must have come straight out of a novel,” I said nervously, “and a very bad novel, at that. People don't talk that way—particularly when they've just met someone not thirty minutes before.”

“I told you earlier, my life was shaped by the books I read.”

“Perhaps you read the wrong ones.”

“Surely you don't expect a proper Victorian courtship? Stuffy parlors, chaperons, polite, empty words, horsehair sofas, and Sunday concerts and magic-lantern slides and moss roses wrapped with fern—that's not the sort of courtship you want. We're both too adult, too intelligent for that.”

“What makes you think I want any sort of courtship at all, Mr. Clark?”

“It's ‘Edward,'” he said, “and you made me think that, the moment I rode up and you looked at me.”

“You're mistaken,” I told him.

He shook his head. “I think not, Kathy.”

He looked into my eyes for a long moment. Then he stepped back, lifting his shoulders and dropping them in a slight shrug. He jammed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head to one side. A small grin flickered at the corners of his mouth. He was like an overgrown boy delighted with some marvelous toy. I stood at the railing, completely at a loss. I heard wagon wheels on the road.

“They're coming for me,” I said, my voice trembling.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” he informed me.

“Will you?”

“Count on it,” he said.

He stepped over to the horse and swung easily into the saddle, putting his feet in the stirrups and taking up the reins. He walked the horse across the bridge, turned, nodded his head, raised his hand in salute, and rode away, disappearing in the grove of giant oaks that stood on the edge of the moors. The scene that I had found so peaceful and lovely before, now seemed suddenly empty, as though in leaving he had robbed it of all of its warmth and beauty. It seemed deserted now, whereas before it had seemed a restful haven. I waited eagerly for the wagon, anxious to be gone. It rumbled into sight. Bella held the bird cage in her lap, and she and Alan were talking in low, amused voices. Bella gave me a curious look as Alan stopped the wagon and leaped down to help me up.

“Anything wrong?” she asked. “You look kinda—shaken.”

“I'm just tired,” I said.

“We didn't intend to stay so long.”

“That's all right, Bella.”

We drove across the bridge and under the boughs of the gigantic oaks. Bella showed me her birds. They were beautiful, one yellow, one gold, one brown, in a brass-wire cage shaped like a little house. The birds chirped merrily, as though aware of the attention they were getting. Bella dropped a handful of seed in the bottom of the cage and set it down in back of the wagon. We started across the moors toward the house. I was silent, my arms folded across my waist, a pensive expression on my face. Alan and Bella seemed to be silently sharing some pleasant experience. I wondered what
had
kept them so long in town.

I suddenly remembered Bertie Rawlins. I asked Alan if he knew him.

“Aye, Bertie,” he said. “Everyone knows him, more or less. He don't have no particular friends. He works at the factory turnin' a pottery wheel all day long and goes home to an empty cottage that's fulla dirty dishes and old rags. His parents died, you see, and his brother worked at the castle and never came around, and bein' all alone like that sorta unhinged Bertie. He's a harmless lad, but there's those who say stayin' to himself all the time's bad for him. None of the girls'll have anything to do with him, and some of the children laugh at him and throw rocks at his cottage, call 'im a loony. He's a poor sight, Bertie is. Why do you ask, Miss Kathy?”

“I—just wondered. What happened to his brother? You said he worked at the castle. Doesn't he work there anymore?”

“He was a stable boy. They say Rodd discharged him because he showed too much interest in the Italian girl. Wouldn't surprise me none if it was true. Jamie was a fine lad, quiet, polite, but he seemed to smolder, sorta. You know what I mean? He seemed to be fulla somethin' that threatened to burst out, wudn't content to work in the stables, wanted to do somethin' better. Maybe he thought the girl could help 'im. I don't know. Anyway, he lost his job and came back to Darkmead, Jamie did, and stayed with Bertie a few days. The arrangement didn't suit 'im, though, and he left for other parts, thinkin' he could find better employment somewhere else, I guess, as Rodd wasn't about to let him work at the factory.”

“He left?”

“Just up and left one night without a fare-thee-well to anyone. He was like that. Independent as all get-out.”

“I see,” I replied.

I dismissed the subject from my mind. Everything was explained now. I was able to fit the pieces together. My brother had worked himself into a state of mental fatigue, and he had allowed the superstitions of the local people to take root in his mind. His work suffered from this, and he destroyed the manuscript. That's why I hadn't been able to find it. It didn't exist any longer. Jamie had been a robust stable boy who had undoubtedly tried to take advantage of a disturbed young girl, and after his dismissal he had stayed in Darkmead just long enough to see that it didn't have much to offer a lad with his ambitions. His brother shrouded the whole incident with his delusions, weaving it into a fantastic tale. Everything was perfectly clear.

I looked at the moors we were passing over, marveling again at their terrible power. They seemed to have the ability to seep into the minds of people, distorting, building fantasy. The inhabitants of Darkmead, Nicola, Bertie Rawlins, my own brother—they had all been affected by this curious terrain. Even Bella had imagined a ghostly figure in white. I closed my eyes, upset, exhausted, wanting to shut everything out.

I couldn't shut out the image of Edward Clark. I found myself looking forward to seeing him again, and at the same time I hoped he wouldn't come. My calm, orderly life had just recently been thrown into an emotional confusion by my brother's death and all that followed, and I was just now taking hold again, restoring order. I wasn't sure I was ready to welcome the kind of joy and anguish I knew, already, Edward Clark was capable of bringing into my life.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Edward Clark came to call the next day, and the next. When he came through the door, the narrow entrance hall seemed to diminish in size, and the sitting room, clean and comfortable with its beige wallpaper and white-painted furniture, seemed to take on the proportions of a doll house. He sat on the lime-green sofa, and I feared it would collapse under his great weight. He walked about the room, examining the black-and-white etchings on the walls, touching the white milk-glass vases, and the room seemed like an elegantly appointed cage designed to confuse and confine a panther. On the first day he brought me an autographed copy of his book on Celtic folklore, on the second he brought a bunch of long-stemmed yellow roses which I promptly put in one of the milk-glass vases.

He was charming and completely at ease, yet I sensed a certain restlessness about him, as though his energy was so great he had to repress it, keep it under careful control when he was engaged in something as sedentary as talking with a young woman. His large hands with their broad palms and strong sinuous fingers seemed to have a life of their own. They gripped the edge of the sofa, stroked the worn nap of the cloth, rubbed the hard, polished surface of his leather boots. They didn't merely touch, they made contact. They were capable of crushing, capable of caressing with silken gentility. Even in repose, resting at his sides, they seemed eager to leap into action. I thought again how incongruous it was that such a man should have chosen the academic life full of books and quiet and thoughts when he would seem to be more suited for digging canals or building stone houses or fighting the enemy as a professional soldier.

Edward discussed his work. He brought manuscript copies of several of the folk songs he had collected here, each carefully annotated with a history of its origin. They were very similar to Elizabethan ballads, with an earthier, more direct quality than those smooth-flowing, prosaic pieces. He told fascinating stories about how he had collected them. He had heard a group of children singing one as they played around the blacksmith's shop, had bought candy for them, and had them recite all the verses while he hastily transcribed them into his notebook. A drunken factory worker bellowed one of the songs at the inn, hurling the Anglo-Saxon phrases about the room in a blustering, whiskey-sodden voice. For the price of a few drinks he sang the song over and over again until Edward had every word captured on paper. The songs reflected the interests and attitudes of the people who had lived here hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and when the collection was finished and published, Edward's book would be a valuable contribution. He was doing something worthwhile and, apparently, having a great deal of fun with it.