Vintage Love (235 page)

“It’s not important. I dreamed about a storm, and a quarrel between myself and Graham Woods. Then we were out in a boat, and the boat was tipping. It was then I woke up screaming.”

Fred was staring at her in an odd way. “What did you quarrel about in your dream? Why did he attack you?”

She hesitated. Then, knowing there was no way she could avoid the truth, she said, “In the nightmare he saw me in the arms of Frank Clay.”

“Interesting,” Fred said, almost harshly. “That bears out what I said. Jennifer was an unfaithful wife.”

“It was just a mixed-up dream,” she said. “I was going over all the things I’d heard.”

“So it seems,” he said dryly. “You got yourself in quite a state. Will you be all right now?”

“Yes, I will,” she said nervously as she stared at him in the dimness of the bedroom. “Please go back to sleep. You need your rest. You had such a hard day.”

“I
am
tired,” he said, and returned to his own bed without offering her any tender consolation, or even a brief kiss.

She lay there staring up into the darkness. Fred had behaved so strangely, as he had earlier in the evening. Was it possible he was still having pangs of jealousy about Jim Stevens having dinner here with her?

And then she thought about the dream and how she had lost herself in the role of Jennifer. Was it possible that in her nightmare she had relived the terrible moments in the past that had preceded the drowning of Jennifer and her doctor husband? And was the evil influence of those other days beginning to work on her and Fred now, so that they were starting to behave towards each other as Jennifer and her husband had?

In the week that followed, the fog did not plague the village of St. Andrews again. A period of cool, clear weather had set in, and Lucy was able to appreciate the beautiful scenery and the charm of the area. Fred seemed to have gotten over his strange mood of jealousy and was his usual kind, attentive self. He even managed to take an afternoon off and they drove over to Minister’s Island when the tide was out.

There were no other visitors on the island that sunny afternoon. She and Fred left their car on the beach by the shining, sandy strip of wet road left by the low tide and walked up the path towards the old white house.

“How old would this house be?” she asked Fred.

In sports slacks and open-necked shirt, her red-haired husband looked younger than in his regular clothes. He stood, still holding her hand, with the breeze gently touching his hair. “It’s a few years older than Moorgate,” he said. “I’m not sure how many.”

“No one has lived in it for some time, have they?”

“A long while,” he said. “It’s lonely out here, and the house hasn’t exactly a good reputation.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Not another haunted house?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “Though I shouldn’t have told you, knowing your imagination.”

“That’s not fair,” she protested as they resumed walking up the path, which was grown over in places by tall grass and brambles.

When they were close to the house she saw that it had once had landscaped grounds which had grown up wildly in the years of neglect. Rose bushes which had bloomed in sections of the garden had spread in a mad fashion, and as they approached the house the heady perfume of their crimson blooms filled their nostrils.

She gave Fred a smiling glance. “Isn’t that a gorgeous smell?”

He nodded. “I’ve noticed it when I’ve been over here before.”

Now they were at the front entrance of the colonial house. Its paint was weatherbeaten but was still a passable white, and its light blue shutters were mostly in good repair. The windows had been boarded up with rough boards and there was a “No Trespassing” sign set on the lawn.

She stood there studying the old house. “This is where Frank Clay lived.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder what sort of person he was.”

Fred looked thoughtful. “From all the accounts I’ve read, he must have been personable to win Jennifer from her husband.”

“If he did.”

“Everyone seems to think so,” Fred told her. “The journals indicate he was handsome enough as a young man. But in his old age he became a recluse, and was withered in appearance. His disposition changed completely after the drowning of Jennifer and her husband.”

She said, “And I imagine everyone put that down to a broken heart on his part.”

Fred nodded. “Why not? He obviously loved Jennifer. To lose her that way must have been very hard on him.”

“He lived here with his invalid mother?”

“Yes. She died a year or two after the double drownings, and from then on he lived in the house alone, except for a servant.”

Lucy continued to study the old house with its boarded windows again and sighed. “It hasn’t been a happy house, has it?”

“I wouldn’t say so.”

She gave her husband a searching look. “And I suppose like all the old houses here it has some ghostly legend associated with it.”

His sensitive face shadowed. “You shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

“Please tell me,” she begged him.

“I think it’s a lot of nonsense.”

“You think the same thing about the haunting of Moorgate, but I don’t agree with you,” she reminded him.

Fred looked worried. “People of your type quickly supply phantoms if given the idea they should be there. All the talk about Moorgate made you jittery, so that you’ve imagined the ghostly happenings.”

“That’s really not so.”

“I think it is,” he said. “If I tell you what they say about this house you’ll be seeing ghosts here.”

She smiled ruefully. “I’m not all that impressionable. You may as well tell me what they say about it If you don’t, someone else will.”

Her husband laughed. “You’re hard to discourage. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to stretch out on the grass here and get some sun.”

He pulled off his sports shirt, to reveal his bronzed, well-muscled chest. He wore no undershirt, and now he stretched out on the grass on his face to get some additional tan on his back. She felt a moment of tenderness as she gazed down at him. His slender young figure and tousled red hair gave him an air of boyishness. His forehead rested on an arm crooked for a pillow and he seemed completely relaxed.

She knew how much he needed this rest, and sat silently beside him. She was wearing yellow slacks, with a crimson top. Her dark sun-glasses shaded her eyes from the brilliant light as she stared across at the distant mainland and located Moorgate on its hill. Frank Clay, she decided, must have often gazed across at the old stone house and thought about the lovely girl who was its mistress. And the sight of Moorgate must have turned to a torment for him after her drowning.

Sitting there with her hands clasped around her knees, her mind went back to the legend, the tragic story of the three involved in a romantic triangle. Once again she wondered if the accounts had been true. Perhaps so. There were strong hints that Jennifer and Frank Clay had been in love, yet she didn’t want to believe it. She lost herself in thoughts of the past.

After a while Fred stirred and sat up sleepily. “I dozed off,” he said.

She smiled. “I know.”

“You should have wakened me.”

“Why? We have plenty of time to drive back before the tide gets high, don’t we?”

“Yes. But I haven’t been much company to you.”

“I don’t mind.”

Fred leaned close to her and touched his lips to her knee. “I take the day off to be with you, and then fall asleep! It would be comic if it weren’t so sad.”

“That’s true of many things in life,” she said.

Now he was staring at the distant hills of the mainland. “You can see Moorgate plainly from here.”

“I know,” she said. “What a torture that must have been for him after Jennifer’s drowning!”

He gave her a wry glance. “You’re sympathizing with Frank Clay?”

“Doesn’t he deserve it? He must have loved her.”

“No question of that.”

“Well, then?”

“I haven’t any respect for a man who breaks up a marriage, or attempts to,” he said, his handsome face shadowing.

He was so stern in his statement that she at once wondered if he might be sliding back into that unfortunate mood of jealousy. Whether he was thinking about Jim Stevens and her. She’d been careful to avoid any meeting with the young lawyer since the evening when he’d dined with her at Moorgate.

She said quietly, “You’re assuming Frank Clay did break up the Woods marriage. I think the evidence may be strong, but it isn’t conclusive. So you may be judging him unfairly.”

“I doubt it,” Fred said with a stubborn boyish look.

Lucy wanted to change the subject. She said, “What about the ghost? You haven’t told me the story about this house yet.”

Fred sighed. “You won’t rest until I do.”

“I think you’re being childish about it. I’m bound to hear it sooner or later.”

“Very well,” he said. “People who have been over here claim they have seen the ghost of Frank Clay. Some of the young people used to come over here by boat for bonfire parties on the beach. The parties became less popular after several reports that the figure of Frank Clay had been seen on the fringe of the group seated around the bonfires.”

“How would they know it was a ghost? And
his
ghost?”

Her husband frowned. “In his old age Frank Clay wore a distinctive long coat with a flare at the bottom of it, and a beaver hat with a narrow brim. He clung to the fashion of a half-century earlier. It was his bent figure in the beaver hat and long coat which they claim they saw silhouetted against the darkness.”

She gave a little shudder.

“There are no parties here at night anymore, I can tell you that,” said her husband.

“Perhaps someone made up the story to keep trespassers off the island,” she said.

“I doubt it. The Farleys own the property now. They wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“So it’s a Frank Clay in old age who haunts the island,” she said. “And a young Jennifer whose ghost appears at Moorgate. I suppose that’s to be expected, since one died in old age and the other in youth.”

Fred gave her a cautioning look. “I don’t believe either story. I hope you understand that.”

“I do. I accept that you’re a skeptic.”

“You’d better be one too.”

“I wish I could be,” she said. “But there is something about all this which makes me wonder.”

“Just as long as you don’t start seeing more ghosts,” he said.

She smiled wistfully. “I don’t try to see ghosts.”

“You let your nerves govern your reason. That always means trouble. I know your type. As a child you were afraid of the dark. You were sure phantoms lurked waiting for you in every shadow.”

“Aren’t most children the same way?”

“No,” he said. “Though that may be hard for you to believe.”

“It is. And whatever my fears as a child, I’ve grown up with a healthy contempt for the dark. At least ordinary darkness. But the things that have been going on at Moorgate at night are something special.”

“You’ll never convince me,” her husband said as he stood up and slipped his sports shirt on over his head.

She got up. “I don’t expect to.” She glanced at the house. “Is there any way of getting inside?”

“Not unless we broke in. And I don’t think the Farleys would approve.”

Lucy gave him a teasing glance. “And you are anxious to have Shiela’s approval. I know.”

He raised a protesting hand. “Don’t start that.”

“Don’t you like my being healthily jealous of you?”

“No.”

“You should remember I feel the same way about you,” she said, thinking of the incident involving Jim Stevens.

A grim look came to her husband’s face. “Don’t give me cause,” he said.

She was shocked by this statement from him, and by the sudden change in his mood. It was an extension of the unexplainable tension which came between them lately without warning or reason. It was something she couldn’t account for.

Feeling uncomfortable, she said, “I want to pick myself a bouquet of roses before we leave.”

Fred was standing there scowling, looking over at the mainland and Moorgate, and he made no reply, nor showed that he had heard her. He seemed lost in some kind of deep thought. She hesitated a moment, and then turned away from him and strolled to the end of the house where many of the rose bushes grew. She regretted that she had ever brought up the subject of jealousy, and she hoped that he would come back to himself before they left the island.

His swift changes of mood were frightening. She’d never noticed this in him when she’d first known him. It was a new and terrifying development which coincided with their taking up residence in Moorgate. She was beginning to wish she’d never set eyes on the old stone house.

Filled with these worrisome thoughts, she began picking some roses. Gradually she wandered a little distance from the house. There were outbuildings to the rear of the main house and a kind of summer house at the side. She judged this had once been in the middle of an open lawn which had grown up with tall grass and bushes now. Still the circular summer house kept its character. She had gathered an ample bouquet, and now she stood there studying the worn white paint of the summer house.

Her eyes wandered to the bushes near it, and then she gave a startled little gasp. For there, almost hidden by the bushes, was the weird apparition which her husband had described to her only a few minutes before, the bent figure of an old man in a beaver hat and long, flaring coat. The outline of him was faint amid the thick bushes, but it was unquestionably there. She stared at the ghostly figure of Frank Clay in horror. And then it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

She was trembling, and was filled with a desire to rush back to Fred and tell him what she’d seen. But she knew she couldn’t do that. He would only jeer at her and complain that he should never have told her about the ghost, that she had conjured up the figure from her too active imagination. She stared with frightened eyes at the spot where the apparition had been and debated what she should do.

It gradually came to her that she could do nothing without opening herself to ridicule. It would be useless to tell Fred what she’d seen. He would never believe her. And now as she stared across at the bushes in the warm sunshine she almost doubted the incident herself. Perhaps the bushes had formed an illusion for a moment so that she thought she saw what her mind had anticipated. She tried to tell herself that and calm her fears. But it was several minutes before she had regained sufficient poise to go back and join her husband.