Master of the Moors (8 page)

"I'm sorry. I know how it
sounds, and before you remind me: yes, I am a mad old fool." He
replaced the crystal cap on the decanter and returned to his seat
with the brandy. "I'm not even sure
I
believe it anymore."

"But it's preposterous,"
Kate declared. "Beasts on the moor? Father used to tell us such
things to scare us!"

"He was right in tryin' to
scare you. Perhaps he thought if he could make you fear the moors,
you'd keep away from 'em."

"I mean, such a fanciful
tale belongs in the pages of
The
Strand
, not in real life!"

"I'm only tellin' you what
I saw. Maybe the fog was to blame fer blurrin' things, but whatever
it was, it killed Royle with one swipe of its claws and cut my poor
horse to ribbons."

"A wolf then, or a wild
dog?"

"Maybe," he said, making
no attempt to hide the doubt in his voice.

"Didn't anyone try to run
it down after what happened? Didn't they try to find out what it
was?"

"No. Why would they?" He
took a sip of his brandy. "No matter how brave a man might be, he
won't go tryin' to chase down the devil fer fear he'd return
without his soul, and nothin' scares a man more than
that."

Kate glanced at the
mullioned window and the fog pressing against the pane. "Then it's
still out there."

"It hasn't been seen
since," Grady reassured her, even though that was not altogether
true, but he felt, given the fear that had possessed her, that this
small white lie was justified; anything to spare her the kind of
permanent dread that had made its home in his heart ever since the
day of the search.

When she looked at him
again, sadness had replaced the fear. "What did it do to
Father?"

Grady slowly shook his
head. "I don't know. It hurt him, infected him somehow."

Her lower lip trembled,
and tears filled her eyes. "With what?"

He offered her a feeble
smile. "I don't know that either, but whatever it is, I know he's
strong enough to beat it. And when he does, he can answer fer you
all the questions I can't."

"I won't care by then,"
she said, her voice wavering. "If...
when
he comes back to me, I won't
care what made him ill. It won't matter anymore."

A heavy silence descended
and hung between them and after a while, Grady composed his best
smile and said, "Do you still want to go to the October Dance
tonight?"

She nodded. "I have to, or
go mad thinking about these things."

"Then we best get
prepared. I'd rather not have the wrath of Mrs. Fletcher on me for
keepin' you talkin'.

Grady stood, took her
hands and gently brought her to her feet.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed,
and slipped her arms around his neck. "I would never cast you out.
You and Mrs. Fletcher are all I have."

He stroked her hair and
hushed her tears. "And you'll always have us."

She nodded, obviously not
convinced, and pulled away from him. He understood her reluctance
to accept his promise. After all, she'd lost her mother, and now
her father would in all likelihood succumb to whatever disease had
him in its grasp. Promises meant nothing to her anymore. Not when
she'd long been aware of the transience of life.

"I'd better get cleaned
up," she said, averting her eyes so he wouldn't see the fresh
tears. As she walked toward the door, Grady wondered when she'd
gotten to be such a young woman. He'd been here all along, watching
her grow, and yet somehow it felt as if he'd missed it, as if she'd
hidden herself away in some secret chrysalis and emerged a
beautiful young lady. He smiled at her when she looked over her
shoulder at him. But the swell of affection he felt soon faded
beneath a black cloud of worry. Perhaps it was the master's waking,
All Hallows and its inherent superstitions, or the awareness that
soon Kate would leave to face the world beyond their little haven,
but an ominous feeling had nestled in his chest, as if a storm was
coming, a storm so fierce it might tear them all
asunder.

***

The nerve of that little
wretch
thought Campbell, as he wiped his
nose on his sleeve and studied the glistening trail that remained
on the fabric. The morning chill breathed against his bones, even
though his coat was wrapped so tight around him a sneeze would rend
it apart. Nevertheless he was possessed of a trembling that set his
teeth clicking; he could feel the fingernails of winter splitting
his lower lip, a discomfort he would not fully appreciate until he
reached The Fox & Mare and the heat aroused it. He did not
relish the thought of removing his ungloved hands from the warmth
of his pockets, but since one of them held a flask of whiskey, it
was a sacrifice that would have to be made. Tensing his shoulders
and pausing by the cold stone wall that separated the road from the
rolling moors, he fished out the flask, quickly unscrewed the cap
and drank deeply, until he felt the fire filling his belly. A belch
of appreciation and he was on his way, hands and flask returned to
pockets.

Insolent cur.

He'd delivered that little
whelp from her mother's womb, clothed the fluids from her tiny body
and slapped the first breath out of her. Now, as he remembered the
insults she'd cast his way earlier, he wished that damn fool
groundskeeper had permitted him an opportunity to do it again. The
way her eyes had bulged with fury at him, the way the veins in her
throat had stood out like cords beneath a cape, her mouth twisted
into a hateful sneer, and all because he'd opted to tell the truth
rather than deceive her into believing anything but grief lay
ahead. Her impertinence clung to him like a shroud. Why, had he
dared to show his tongue at that age it would have been pulled from
his mouth, and rightly so. Had he been alone with her, he might
have attempted that very thing. With Grady there however, he'd have
been asking for trouble. The groundskeeper was like her loyal
hound.

He sighed. At least he
could delight in remembering the confusion on her face when he'd
showed her the blood. That had shut her up in a hurry, as he had
known it would, though he was just as puzzled by the oddly colored
serum as she had been. It wasn't at all natural for something so
metallic in hue to come from a living creature in place of blood,
but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what had caused
it.

It was something he
imagined the boys in London---his former colleagues---would have field
day with, if he chose to share it, and he had not yet decided if he
was willing to take that step. There was every chance that the
serum might prove to be a significant find, an anomalous precedent
that might make him a fortune, and return him to the level of
prestige and respect his nocturnal imaginings told him he'd once
commanded. The prospect filled him with excitement. But reality, as
had been proved today, was often quick to bring him down to
earth.

The world was going to
hell. Was it any wonder then that he frequently sought the solace
of oblivion, the panacea whiskey offered against the seething
contributions of the impudent, the pious and the treacherous? Not
at all. His own microcosmic existence had imploded at the
realization not so long ago, that his days were a blur, his nights
a time for febrile dreams and haunted recollections. His wife had
cast him off like an old suit and quickly found another, better
tailored than he. He'd become a pale empty shell with spidery
cracks for veins and a mouth used only to dictate diagnoses and
consume the fuel necessary to ensure he remembered to breathe, or
more accurately, to fool him into believing he
wanted
to breathe when another
morning came around to cast its spiteful light across his
eyes.

And Lord, how angry it
made him. Angry that he had wasted so much time trying to fit the
mold of the caring husband when all the while he'd known he didn't
care at all. Marriage, to him, had been an institution in the
literal sense. There had existed no middle ground, no fairness,
only the gradual emergence of dominant and submissive roles between
two people locked in a cage of fake smiles and dutiful intimacy.
Worse still, the dominance had not been his, and soon his role had
been relegated to that of a silent observer, forever watching but
scarcely understanding just what it was he had wed. Overnight it
seemed as if Agnes's natural reticence had vanished, replaced by an
inexplicable temerity he was not capable of sharing. She became a
chattering whirlwind concerned only with her appearance and social
standing, and frequently taken by a maddening need to be free of
Brent Prior and what she termed 'its grubby underlings.' A woman of
airs and graces, of lofty aspirations; a woman with striking beauty
and no depth at all. Over the years, as he listened without word to
her tirades and feverish monologues---all spoken as if she addressed
a theater crowd and not her husband---the hard shell of irritation in
him had cracked, producing shoots that spun upward into dislike,
which in turn branched out into loathing.

Then the jewelry began to
appear.

At first it was a brooch,
an inexpensive---by Campbell's estimation, at least---cameo he assumed
she had picked up on one of her increasingly frequent trips to
Devon. But as the months went by, more lavish accoutrements began
to gather in her nightstand. At first, perhaps at the behest of
deliberate ignorance, he'd told himself she was buying these things
for herself, but this excuse, flimsy to begin with, shattered
completely the night she came home drunk, reeking of gin and a
musky, manly stench, and wearing a pearl necklace she made no
attempt to conceal from him.

"Who is it?" he'd
demanded, sure he wouldn't know the name she gave him, but unable
to stop himself from asking. The lack of anger he felt shamed him.
He didn't even rise from his seat as she danced,
flaunted
her betrayal in
front of him as if he were her brother, or friend, a confidant,
anything but a husband. He simply sat, hands hanging between his
knees. Her response should have enraged him. It didn't, but merely
ran stiffened fingers over heartstrings gone taut with
age.

"His name is Simon, and
he's a gentleman."

What bothered him the most
was not the treachery itself, but the complete lack of guilt she
displayed. She seemed almost proud, and acted as if he should have
known of her affair all along, or at least expected it.

Four days later she was
gone, no note, no farewell, just the lingering scent of her in a
cold dusty house.

It took weeks for the
anger to come. To quench the flames, he returned to drink after
fifteen years of abstinence at Agnes's request. In some small way,
it felt like a betrayal of her, and he relished it, latched onto
it, until it became his sole reason for being. Until he could no
longer clearly remember why it was he hated his errant wife, only
that he did and would continue to do so.

"Who's that?" someone
asked, jarring Campbell from his reverie. He leaned against the
wall and squinted through the fog of his breath at the boy slowly
making his way toward him.

The Mansfield boy. Another
young pup, uncouth and undisciplined, using his blindness as an
excuse to insult whomever he wished without fear of
reprimand.

Bloody children. Bastards, all of
them. They should all be left to choke on their first
breaths.

The boy, white eyes rimmed
with silver, frowned as he tapped a long thin stick against the
gravel surface of the road, one hand outstretched, grubby fingers
reaching. "Announce yourself."

He has his father's eyes
now
, Campbell thought, and smirked even as
he recoiled. Cold stone knuckled his spine as the blind boy's
fingers swept through the air inches from his face. He remained
silent, hoping the child would move on.

Neil sniffed the air, a
slight grimace passing over his face. "Oh, it's
you,
" he said and continued on along
the path toward the monolithic sandstone manse that overlooked the
village from its perch on Barrow Hill.

Campbell watched him for a
moment, then spat and reached into his pocket for the flask. The
Mansfield boy had always repulsed him, and it was something more
than the child's disposition that inspired that disgust. It was not
the blindness, for Campbell had been too long a doctor for such
things to bother him. It was something else, something he couldn't
quite identify. With a shrug and a long slug of his drink, he
capped the flask, stowed it and hurried to The Fox & Mare,
where, he hoped, less unnerving company awaited him.

7

The stick thwacked against
the foot of the oak tree. Neil ran his fingers over the warped bole
and turned left, the antenna-like probing of the cane leading him
off the gravel and on to the carpet of leaves and dirt that would
bring him home.

A low breeze hissed
through the trees, carrying with it the scent of wood smoke, and
making bare branches tap together like old bones. Dead leaves
scratched across the path. The chill increased.