Come to Castlemoor (25 page)

“You're leaving?”

“In thirty-five minutes,” she replied calmly.

“Dorothea is going with you?”

She nodded. “Burton is driving us to the station this afternoon. He's quite eager to get rid of both of us—for reasons of his own. There was a spectacular scene with Dorothea. She had no intention of leaving. Burton insisted. He called her a coward, said she was afraid to face the world. She threw a vase at him—quite priceless, a Ming. She said there wasn't anything in the world she was afraid of, and he said she was afraid of herself, and she called him an unnatural son, throwing his mother out into the cold, and he said cold, my ass, you're going to one of the most exclusive resorts on the Continent—they went on like that for two hours.”

“Wasn't this all—rather sudden?” I asked.

“The decision to leave now? Yes, but when Burton makes up his mind to do something, he wants it done immediately. Yesterday morning he came into the breakfast room and announced his decision. That's when he and Dorothea had their fight. He wanted us to leave then and there; I mean, he actually wanted to put us in the carriage as soon as we'd finished breakfast. After she'd made up her mind to go, Dorothea said it would take at least a week to get ready. He said now or never. She said he was insane. They compromised—he would pay for complete new wardrobes if we would leave today. We are going to spend a week in Paris, buying clothes.”

“He seems anxious to get you both away from Castlemoor,” I said.

“I know. It's not—natural. Something is wrong, but—I don't care about that. I'm leaving. That's the important thing. And Dorothea is radiant. I've never seen her so excited, so happy.”

“And you?” I said hesitantly. “You don't look—unhappy.”

“This is the happiest day in my life. After today, no more Castlemoor, no more dark halls, no more noises, no more Buck. Sunshine, green leaves, fresh air, and people—lots of people. The place will be swarming with men, handsome men, young men, rich, rich men. I plan to pick one out and elope with him.”

“Indeed?”

“I don't think I'll have too much trouble,” Nicola said firmly. “When we get to Paris, I'm going to select a stunning wardrobe—red satin, gold lamé, black velvet, and I'm going to have my hair done in a new way, very chic. I've just been reading about Lola Montez—I look like her, did you know that? She captivated the world. I think I can manage to captivate at least one suitable man. I can hardly wait to get started.”

“If you're leaving in”—I glanced at the clock—“in twenty-five minutes, why did you come here? Surely they don't know you've come?”

She shook her head. “I slipped off. Typical behavior, to be expected of me. I went to my room to say good-bye to my dolls.” She laughed softly. “Dorothea was pleased. They won't miss me. They're busy loading the trunks and making last-minute lists. I'll join them in the courtyard just in time to leave.”

“How did you get away without them seeing you?”

“There's a little side door in the south wall. Everyone else has forgotten about it—the wood's warped, the latch rusted. The boughs of the oak trees bend down and hide it from outside. I discovered it years ago. I've found it very convenient.”

“Why did you come? Not just to say good-bye?”

“Not just to say good-bye,” she replied. “I wanted to show you something.”

She stepped over to the desk and opened the flat brown box. I was nervous and apprehensive, suddenly afraid. Nicola took out the white hood and flowing white robe. A piece of material had been torn out of the robe, a piece the size of the square now hidden in my bureau drawer. She spread the robe over a chair, dropped the hood on top of it. She was calm, but I could see that she was being deliberately dramatic.

“My ghost,” she said simply. “That day on the moors, I told you I saw a ghost slipping down the hall. I—I still didn't understand everything then. I thought it really might have been a ghost, that I really was losing my mind. I know better now.”

I managed to look at the robe without revealing any of the horror that seemed to freeze my blood.

“Where did you get that?” I asked. My voice was quite steady.

“Night before last I saw my famous ghost again, going down the stairs that lead to the dungeons. I didn't panic—for once. I told myself I had to
see
. I waited a few minutes and then started down myself. I was about halfway down when I saw a white blur in a niche in the wall. I reached up and found these.” She indicated the robe and hood. “He'd left them.”

“He?”

“Buck, of course.”

“Why—why would he have done that?”

“Following instructions, I suppose.”

“Whose instructions?” I asked carefully.

“Burton's.”

“I see.”

“No,” she said calmly, “I don't believe you do. I don't know why it should be so important to me that you understand, but it is. Perhaps it's because you tried to be kind to me and because I was rude to you. I know I wasn't making sense for a while. No wonder you thought me mad. They almost succeeded.”

“Succeeded in what?”

“In driving me mad.”

I didn't say anything. Nicola perched on the arm of the sofa, spreading the light-blue silk skirts out. She was beautifully composed, her face registering no emotion. Her voice was cool and controlled.

“I know what that sounds like,” she said. “I know a doctor would say I was suffering from delusions, that I had a feeling of persecution, but there's no other explanation for it. I
did
see those things. I
did
hear those noises.”

There was another explanation, but Nicola could not know about it. By accident, she had been exposed to a tiny part of a great intrigue, and she could only relate it to herself.

“Burton was trying to drive me mad,” she said. “Buck was helping him do it.”

“Why—why should Burton want to do that?”

“I don't know. I suppose he thought Dorothea was going to leave me her jewels—what few there are. Perhaps there's some other reason I don't know about. Anyway, there's my ghost—a white robe and a hood with holes cut out for the eyes. Quite real. Everything else was real, too.”

“What about Jamie?” I asked. “You said you saw him.”

She shook her head slowly, and her eyes were sad. “I don't know what happened to Jamie,” she said quietly, “but I—I didn't see him.”

“You imagined it?”

“I saw someone who looked like Jamie,” she replied.

She glanced at the portrait of Donald. I remembered Bertie's words. I understood them now.

Nicola talked on, not aware of what she had just told me.

“I don't understand it,” she said. “I won't even pretend I do. Burton is a strange man. He always has motives for everything he does. If he wanted to—to send me away, he had his reasons. Well, I'm going now. I will be out of his way. He can have Dorothea's jewels. He can have everything. I only want to get away.”

She stood up, pensive, her fragile face suddenly very young. She began to put on the dark-sapphire cloak, adjusting the heavy folds about her shoulders, pulling the hood over her head. I watched as though in a trance. The room seemed to spin around, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and I was amazed that I could stand quite still and watch her so calmly and not fall over. Pushing a jet-black curl away from her temple, she took my hand and peered into my eyes.

“I must go now,” she said.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Is something wrong? You're pale. Your cheeks …”

“No,” I said, my voice steady now.

Nicola looked relieved. She smiled.

“I'm going to be happy, Kathy,” she said. “I wanted you to know. I haven't been happy before—not really. I'm going to forget Castlemoor and start a new life. I was quite serious about eloping with a millionaire. Of course, I'd like a title, too. Maybe I'll find a duke or marquess, or even a Russian prince. I know I've read too many novels, and happy endings are supposed to be bunk, but you just wait and see. I'll write.”

I walked to the front door with her, still in a trance. I opened the door for her, and Nicola stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek, then hurried toward the slope, her dark-blue cloak billowing behind her. I did not know if I could make it back into the study. I braced myself against the wall and closed my eyes. After a moment the dizzy sensation passed, and I was able to reach the sofa. I sat there for a long time, my eyes closed, my cheeks burning, my whole body limp and empty. Only the monotonous clicking of the clock broke the silence that settled over the house.

The giant jigsaw puzzle that had been haunting me for so long was fitting together. Each piece, mysterious in itself, fit neatly with another to form the complete picture. It was horrifying, but as I sat there in the silent house, shaken, stunned, I realized that the picture was real. As I worked on the puzzle, a curious calm came over me. I wanted to cry, to swoon, to resort to every known feminine trick in order to avoid the truths that presented themselves, but I couldn't. My mind was cool, sharp, pushing me toward the inevitable conclusion, and I knew I must act. I sat, and I thought, and all weakness dropped away.

Donald had come to Castlemoor to do a book on the Celtic religions. He had intended to send for Bella and me, but something had changed his mind. His last letters were mysterious. Maud had told me that he had worked himself into a state of nervous exhaustion, and Edward had verified that, adding that my brother had given way to delusions about cults and ghosts. The “accident” happened on the moors, and my brother's body was sent to London in a sealed coffin. The coffin had never been opened.

I came to Castlemoor, and on my first day I encountered the overwhelming superstition of the local folk. Was it just superstition? Alan thought so. He had recounted the story of Ted Roberts, the local drunk, who saw figures in white chanting and dancing among the ruins where a girl was tied to one of the phallic columns. Milly Brown's body was found shortly thereafter, and although Alan was convinced she had been murdered by her lover, others were not willing to accept this explanation. Neither was I. Not now. I did not believe in ghosts. I did not think Milly had been butchered by a band of phantoms who walked the ruins at night. I believed Ted Roberts had seen his figures in white, and I believed them to be as tangible as flesh, as tangible as the figure I had seen down at the river's edge.

The first time I saw Nicola, she had told me of her “nightmares.” She told me of seeing a figure in white moving down the halls of the castle and going down the steps to the dungeons. She told me about Jamie, the golden-haired young stable boy who had been discharged and, subsequently, disappeared, leaving Castlemoor without a word to anyone. Later, at the bridge, Bertie Rawlins made a curious sign, frightening me, and, convinced that I was not “one of them,” told me about his brother. “They got Jamie,” he told me. He mumbled about “the secret of the stones,” and I had passed him off as a harmless eccentric. He had been eccentric, and harmless, but he had possessed knowledge that no one would listen to. It had led to his death. I cringed, remembering the smell of moss and mud, the cry in the night, the figure that moved through the mist. I remembered the twisted body, one leg folded beneath it, the head hanging loosely on the rubbery neck. The image would not go away. I could not avoid the truth, no matter how ugly it might be. That murder was part of the truth, as was the other, earlier murder.

I found an amulet among my brother's things. It was valuable. It belonged in a museum. I had wondered how Donald could have obtained it. On my first day at the ruins, I had stumbled across an identical amulet, old, priceless, the leather thong quite new. How many such amulets were there? Ted Roberts had seen several figures in white. Had each of them worn one? I believed now that Donald had found the amulet at the ruins, dropped there accidentally by one of the men, just as the one I had stumbled over had been. Burton Rodd had been looking for the amulet that day.… Burton Rodd had been in the woods immediately after Bertie's death, and he seemed to be in league with the strange men who had come to Darkmead, the men with coarse, brutal faces. I wondered who they were. I wondered if they frequently wore white hoods and flowing white robes, if they had secret signals known only to each other, if they chanted and danced by moonlight and performed ritual ceremonies.… It seemed very likely.

I was calm, analytical. Such cults had existed over the centuries. I had read of several of them. There had been one centered around Stonehenge, and human sacrifices had been performed, people butchered on the stones. A similar cult had existed in Monmouthshire, and there had even been one in Scotland. All had been disbanded, the cultists imprisoned, and supposedly such bizarre religious cults ceased to exist. In the course of his research here in Darkmead, my brother had discovered just such a cult actively surviving in our civilized age. It seemed incredible.

It was like something out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels of mystery and romance. I could hardly believe it. This was the age of Victoria and Disraeli, the age of steel and steam and industry, and yet I had proof that the cult actually existed. I glanced at the hood and robe still draped over the chair. In this day and age … And yet, I thought, the vast moors offered perfect cover, far from the eyes of the civilized world. The superstition of the local people was an asset. They were ready to believe in the “ghosts” that danced among the ruins at night, and sophisticated outsiders would only smile and pass the whole thing off as a rather charming example of native nonsense. Yes, I could see how the cult could exist, and I no longer doubted its existence.

Nicola had seen a man coming up from the dungeons. He had dark-golden hair, brown eyes, a pale, tormented face. She had thought him Jamie, but just now she had said he was someone who looked like Jamie. She had glanced at the portrait of my brother. The last piece of the puzzle fit into place. The picture was complete.