Vintage Love (233 page)

By six o’clock she had an excellent dinner ready. Fred was fond of ham, and so she had baked some ham with pineapple, and also prepared a favorite milk dessert he’d commended her for when he came to her apartment in Boston for dinner. Despite the dull, foggy day and the gloom of the house itself, she’d managed to throw off some of her moody feelings.

She went upstairs and had a quick shower and changed into another dress for the evening. Then, filled with pleasurable excitement, she came down to wait for Fred. She checked on the food in the kitchen and decided it would be all right as long as he arrived by six forty-five.

She went to the window several times while she waited, but there was no sign of his car coming up the hill. The fog still lay over the countryside like a gray shroud. With a sigh she turned from the living-room window, and she was pacing nervously when the phone rang.

It was Fred. “Sorry,” he said in a weary voice, “I’ve been held up in St. Stephen. When I get back I’ll have to go straight to my office for an hour or so.”

She was dismayed. “But what about dinner?”

“I’ll get a snack at one of the roadside stands,” he said.

“But I’ve got a wonderful dinner here waiting for you,” she said in despair. “Surely you can take a little time for it.”

“Sorry, darling, it would keep me too long,” he said. “You enjoy it yourself. I should be home by nine. I’ll explain everything then.”

“Nine! That’s hours away!”

“It will go fast enough,” he told her. “For me anyway.” And he hung up.

She put down the phone and stood there in the dark hallway in a mood of complete depression. The tempting aroma of the food came from the kitchen to remind her of her high hopes. And all her work had gone for nothing. It was too much!

She went out to the kitchen and turned off the warming oven. She debated whether to set a single place for herself and have dinner, and then decided against it. She simply wasn’t in the mood to eat yet. And she left the warm and pleasant kitchen for the gloom of the hallway.

While she was standing there she heard a car coming up the driveway. Wondering who it might be, she opened the front door in time to see a boy jump out of the car and come running to the steps with an evening paper folded in his hand.

“Paper, ma’am,” he said, handing it to her. He was about ten years old.

She smiled at him. “Do you deliver it every night?”

“No,” he said. “My brother has the paper route. I’m just doing it for him while he’s studying for his exams. He has a bike, but my dad is driving me around tonight.”

Lucy said, “You’re lucky.”

“I’d rather have a bike of my own,” the boy said as he rushed off to get in the car again.

She took the paper and went inside. The headlines were of no interest to her, so she put it down on the hall table where Fred could find it when he came in. As she stood there alone in the silence of the big house she had a return of that strange feeling of melancholy. It came just as it had before, as if someone were taking her over. And for no reason she clearly understood she began to ascend the stairs slowly, her hand dragging along the railing.

If the house had been silent before, it was surely a good deal more silent now. There didn’t seem to be a single sound. She mounted the stairs as if floating in space. And before she knew it she was at the attic level, with her hand on the knob of the storage room door.

She turned the knob slowly and ventured into the shadowed storage room with its cobwebbed windows. The odor of age and decay was as strong as it had been before. Like a person in a dream whose pattern of movement had been ordained, she crossed the bare floor to the spot where the portraits were leaning against the wall.

Continuing in the same dreamy mood, she touched the frame of the portrait of Graham Woods and turned it around so she could study it better in the small amount of light coming through the dirty window. As she closely examined the handsome face of the long dead young doctor, she had the feeling the painting had slightly changed expression. It was only a fleeting thing, but she felt that the stern lines of the portrait had softened a little so that he looked up at her from the canvas with almost a longing expression.

It gave her a start. Then the painting took on its normal appearance again. She stared at it, thinking she must have gone a little mad. The portrait was a thing of paint and canvas, how could it change its expression? But it was almost as if the dead man had tried to communicate with her. Had tried to tell her something.

A cold chill coursed down her spine as she raised herself from a study of the painting. What was she doing up here anyway? What had gotten into her to bring her up to this isolated room in the attic, a place she truly feared? It was as though some power outside herself had taken control of her and led her there.

Her eyes wandered to the other portrait. The painting of Jennifer which had given her such a start when she’d first seen it. For the face had not been strange to her. The features were the same as those she’d seen pressed against the windowpane of her bedroom. Fred refused to believe it had been anything more than the shadow of a tree branch. But she knew better!

She took a deep breath and gazed at the trunks and boxes haphazardly piled about the room. Surely she should search through their contents some day. Who could tell what she might find in them? Secrets long hidden that could throw new light on the somber history of the old house. But others must have rummaged through the trunks; yet there was always the chance she might come on something they had missed.

This thought was going through her mind when she heard a footstep directly behind her.

Lucy gained enough control of herself to turn around slowly. There, standing in the shadows of the room behind her, was a male figure. For a moment she didn’t recognize who it was. Then he spoke.

“I hope you’ll forgive this intrusion,” he said. The voice was at once familiar. It was Jim Stevens, the young lawyer whom she’d met at the welcoming party given her and Fred by Dr. Matthew Boyce.

She drew a breath of relief. “You gave me a start,” she said.

The pleasant Jim Stevens looked embarrassed. “I didn’t realize I might scare you.”

“I didn’t hear you until you were right behind me,” she said.

“I should have spoken sooner,” Jim admitted. “I came to see Fred and found the front door open. There was apparently no one around, no car in sight. I decided you might have gone away and left the door open by accident. Or that in your absence someone might have gotten in. I decided to investigate. Downstairs was empty, and then I heard you up here and came up.”

She remembered. “I went out to get the evening paper from the delivery boy. I must have left the door ajar when I came in.”

“It was open a couple of inches,” the young lawyer said.

“You did right to come in and investigate,” she said. “I came up to look at these portraits. And I became so absorbed in what I was doing I didn’t hear you when you arrived.”

He glanced at the portraits. “They are interesting.”

“You’re familiar with them?”

“Yes,” he said. “Shiela Farley showed them to me. We made a tour of the place after her father bought it. Moorgate has quite a history. And Dr. Woods and his wife played a major role in it.”

“Of course you know the story.”

“Anyone who lives in St. Andrews knows about Moorgate,” he said.

“Not being a native, it’s all new to me,” she said.

“Naturally,” Jim said. He glanced at the portrait of the blonde Jennifer and added quietly, “She was lovely, wasn’t she?”

“A beauty,” she agreed, studying the portrait again, feeling close to its subject.

“Legend has it that an ancestor of mine, Frank Clay, had a romance with her,” he said.

“So I’ve heard.”

Jim smiled at her. “I can’t say that I’d blame him. If I’d lived in that era and known her, I might have done the same thing.”

Lucy said, “I don’t believe there was a romance. Something tells me there wasn’t.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s interesting.”

“I can’t explain it. But it’s almost as if there were a whispered ‘no’ when I think about it.”

“Interesting,” Jim Stevens said again.

Lucy turned to the portrait of Dr. Graham Woods and studied the handsome, melancholy face. “I hate to think his ideal marriage with Jennifer turned out badly. I refuse to believe it. I’m sure they loved each other.”

“Then how do you explain the drownings? What were they doing out there in that storm unless he’d murdered Jennifer and was trying to get rid of her body?”

She gave a slight shudder as they stood there in the shadows. “It’s such an ugly story. I can’t accept that it happened to them. My inner voice speaks against it.”

The young lawyer looked wryly amused. “You’re a romantic.”

“I plead guilty.”

“Don’t feel bad about it,” he said. “We have far too few romantics left.”

“The twentieth century is a chilling climate for them,” she said.

“Undoubtedly. But then I believe that’s been true down through all the centuries,” he said. “Mind you, I’m no authority.”

“Nor am I.”

“I take it Fred isn’t at home?” he said.

“No. He was held up in St. Stephen and now he has to go straight to the office. He’ll be here about nine.”

“I see.”

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” Lucy told the young man. “I went to a lot of preparations for Fred, and now he isn’t coming. Have you eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Then why not join me? I was so disappointed that I had lost my appetite.”

“It’s bad enough to intrude as I have, without staying for a meal,” the young lawyer said

Lucy smiled as she started out of the attic room. “I insist. You’ll be doing me a good turn. I get very jittery here alone.”

They went downstairs and within a short time she was serving dinner in the paneled dining room. She lit the candles she’d had ready for Fred’s arrival, and the dinner progressed in a pleasant atmosphere.

Jim Stevens looked up from his plate with an admiring smile. “The dinner is great. You’re not only a romantic but an excellent cook.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I never expected to feel relaxed and at home in Moorgate,” Jim confessed. “But this meal and the atmosphere you’ve created has worked miracles. I’ll make a prediction. You and Fred will be happy here.”

She paused with her fork in hand. “I wonder,” she said wistfully. “There seem to be forces in this old house I can’t understand. I’m afraid they may be evil. And I worry what effect they might have on two people living here.”

He said quietly, “You’re talking about the ghost?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever seen anything to make you feel this way?”

She nodded. “Several unexplainable things have happened since we arrived.”

The flickering flame of the candle cast a roseate reflection on his pleasant, intellectual face. He said, “I’m sure you’re aware that the ghost of Jennifer is supposed to roam through this house and the garden.”

“I’ve heard some stories about her ghost,” she agreed.

“Do you go along with them?”

“I think I’ve seen her ghost at least once,” Lucy said. “And there have been other manifestations.”

“If you disbelieve the murder theory, how do you account for the ghost?” Jim wanted to know. “Unless Jennifer was her husband’s unhappy victim, why should she haunt Moorgate?”

“Perhaps because of that ugly story,” Lucy suggested. “She may not be resting easy because she wants to dispel the evil rumors. Have you thought about that?”

Jim took a sip of his coffee. “Frankly, no.”

“You might do well to,” she said. “I think Jennifer haunts this house because the story that has been told about her and her husband and your ancestor, Frank Clay, is wrong. That she wants the truth to be known.”

“So her apparition continues to appear.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure no one knows what really happened. And unless it comes to light, Moorgate will always be under a curse. Jennifer’s unhappy spirit will never leave it.”

The young lawyer looked interested. “I’m amazed that you’ve been so caught up by the legend. That you have also formed your own opinion about the whys and wherefores of the events.”

She sat back in her chair with a resigned smile. “I warned you that I was a romantic.”

“I believe it,” he said. He drank the last of a glass of wine she had poured for him. Putting the glass down, he told her, “I’m almost grateful Fred was delayed. It gave me the opportunity of enjoying an excellent dinner and of getting to know you better.”

“I’m happy that you stayed,” she said. “Won’t your mother be expecting you home for dinner?”

“She’s out of town for the day,” he said. “Visiting with some of our relatives in Saint John. For her age she’s a very active woman.”

“And a nice one,” Lucy said. “She was the first to warn me to keep out of the attic and cellar here. That I might meet up with something I couldn’t fully understand. Of course I didn’t take her advice.”

“You might be wise to,” Jim said rather earnestly. “If you’re nervous about the house, those are areas in which you’re sure to feel the most uneasy.”

“Yet they present the most challenge if I’m to solve that long-ago mystery,” she reminded him.

Jim frowned. “I’m not sure there was any mystery. It’s easier to accept that Frank Clay and Jennifer Woods fell in love, and that Graham Woods discovered the romance and in a fit of rage throttled her.”

“I refuse the easy explanation.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

She considered. “I haven’t planned any precise campaign. Perhaps by just going on living here I’ll come to understand how things were. I feel this old house has a story to tell, if only I’m able to tune in on the right wave length and listen.”

The young man’s eyes were fixed on hers soberly. “Suppose, on the other hand, there is a lurking evil in the house as the result of the murder. What then?”

“I should find out about it.”

“I wonder,” he mused. “Isn’t it possible you could come under the malevolent spell of Moorgate without being aware of it?”