Echoes in the Darkness (14 page)

My thoughts skittered wildly. Demelza had warned me to stay away from the man she considered to be hers. Surely, there was only one man she
could
believe was Uther. The man who now wore his face. Had Demelza come back from the grave to warn me to stay away from
Cad?
My mind fumbled wildly around on the edge of comprehension.

“Uther told me himself that murder is never far from the Jago hand. Over the years, it has worn armour, cassock, gown and lace. It has snarled and charmed, poisoned and slashed. Our family is tainted, Dita. It is the curse of Tenebris, our dark legacy. Passed down through generations,” Lucy continued relentlessly. “Tynan and I tried so hard to build a new home, one where the ghosts could do us no harm. Demelza’s only aim will be to be where Uther is. But if he has come back from the dead, his purpose here will be a sinister one.” She paused then, as Cad came into the room.

He noticed the portraits on the table, and came over to us. His expression was unfathomable as he studied Uther’s face thoughtfully. The likeness was so precise that, apart from the scar, he could have been looking in a mirror.

“He was a handsome bastard, wasn’t he?” he joked, but there was no humour in his tone. “Begging your pardon, Mama, of course,” he added in response to his mother’s prim-lipped disapproval of his language. “Have you been regaling Dita with stories of dark deeds and past lives?”

I didn’t turn round, so he came to stand next to me, studying my profile as I gazed out the window. I heard the door click quietly and glanced around in surprise to see that Lucy had left us alone. “Look at me, Dita.” Cad’s voice was low, and I turned my head to gaze into the eyes that belonged to his evil ancestors. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said shakily. “It is all too fantastic for words.”

His laugh was devoid of mirth. “That was not the answer I hoped for. All my life I have waited to hear someone say they believe in me. To tell me that they know I am
not
Uther Jago come back from whatever hell he occupies. Just once I wanted someone to see our likeness and still say those words. Foolishly, I thought
you
might be the person to finally utter them.” Turning sharply on his heel, he walked out of the room.

* * *

In my dream, I returned that night to look at the portraits once more. My eyes were drawn to Uther’s proud, perfect features. The room was empty and black, but as I lifted my eyes guiltily from the painting, one of the shadows moved. I half expected Lucy or perhaps Tynan to march forward and demand an explanation for my nocturnal prying, but instead a dark, indistinct shape drifted toward me. I froze. Abruptly, the shape turned, staring down at me, the face with its all too familiar fiery eyes beginning to take form. He bent, his lips preparing to brush mine in a caress older than time. But this was different. This was not the Uther Jago of my other dreams or his likeness of my waking reality. This spectre’s heart was forged from midnight, and its breath came straight from the crypt. I took one step back, and he vanished back into the night from whence he came.

My dread was not lessened by his disappearance, however, since a glance around me confirmed my fear that I was no longer in the comfortable surroundings of Athal House. Across the hall the weak bluish flame of a single candle illuminated the sweep of a wide staircase. The choice before me was stark. Ascend and follow that dismal gleam, or remain and risk the apparition’s return. Telling myself that it mattered not, it was a dream from which I would soon awake, I advanced slowly to the foot of the stairs. I knew, of course, that I was in the old castle of once-grand Tenebris. Its name alone could strike terror into the hardened hearts of powerful warriors. The flickering flame showed me a gallery of handsome portraits, and I paused before the largest of them all. Arwen Jago, beautiful in his arrogant masculinity, looked down at me in mocking hauteur.

Defiantly, I locked my gaze on his. “I am not afraid of you,” I told him firmly, lifting my chin to emphasise the words. And, because this was a dream and dreams allow for such things, his eyes flashed a fiery promise of retribution back at me.

I looked up to where the stairs divided into two galleries. A woman with a black veil covering her face stood in the darkness, looking down at me. She raised a white hand in a beckoning gesture, and I was inexplicably drawn to her. It was as if she drew my will from me. I had taken several steps before she put back her veil, and I saw too late that it was Demelza Jago. The knife at her side gleamed cold and ready. A look back over my shoulder showed Uther standing next to Arwen’s portrait, leaning his broad shoulders against the panelled wall. The laughter on their lips told of ghastly sin and ancient gore and plans for me that chilled my blood.

When I woke, sweat plastered my hair to my forehead and my every muscle ached with the strain of holding back the screams that rose to my lips.

* * *

Summer’s flesh had long gone. The trees mourned their lost leaves and forlornly revealed the skeleton of the land. Winter sunshine melted on the fields like butter on warm bread. A flock of geese, wintering in Cornwall from even harsher climes, cried a sorrowful lament. Their V-shaped silhouette was stark against the shredded lace of cloud. It led my gaze away from Tenebris.

I did not pause to consider where my feet took me. The grass crunched beneath my boots and the lurching, shivering darkness of the looming forest reminded me that day was fading. The cottage that Eddie used as his studio was nearby, and I trod heedlessly in that direction. Could my mind really be taking me on a wild journey that involved reincarnation and vengeful ghosts? My own life so far had taught me that the living were more harmful than the dead. Tenebris seemed determined to make me unlearn that simple lesson.

I was surprised to see the cottage door standing open. No one should be in there. As far as I knew, Eddie had the only key. Thoughts of brutalised Amy Winton and missing Nellie Smith crowded in on me, and my feet prepared for flight.

“Dita?” Cad appeared in the doorway and I paused. Was I less afraid now? My pounding heart provided a negative answer. Only the thought of how intensely foolish I would look if I ran away from him like a child from an imaginary ghoul, kept me where I was.

“Why are you here?” I asked, covering the distance between us.

“I was called out this way by my father’s gamekeeper. He suspects poachers have been at work. When I found the cottage door open, I thought they may have been using it as a refuge.” He spoke casually without any lingering trace of the burning intensity of our last conversation.

“And have they?” I asked. Cad leaned against the door frame, his manner casual and relaxed. So why did my feelings of trepidation persist?

“Not that I can see. But I haven’t been in here before, so I wouldn’t know. There is something wrong with the door. When you turn the key it appears to lock, but it can still be opened by turning the handle.” He demonstrated and the door swung open. “I’ll ask one of the estate workers to have a look at it.”

I stepped over the threshold and glanced around. The cottage appeared much as Eddie had left it. Except for one thing. My hand went to my throat in a gesture of horror. Many of the canvasses Eddie had placed around the room had been systematically ravaged. Bright crimson brush strokes criss-crossed my naked form and deep slashes had been gouged into the canvas, obliterating my face. I stared in horror at this wanton destruction of Eddie’s hours of hard work.

“Call me old-fashioned,” Cad murmured, “but I prefer a more conventional approach to portraiture.” Catching sight of my stricken face he immediately abandoned his sarcastic air. “I’m sorry,
bouche,
” he said ruefully. “That was insensitive of me. I take it this is not some new technique Eddie has been pioneering?”

I turned to look at him, indicating the ruined pictures with a shaking hand. “Why would anyone do this?”

“Who knows?” He batted my question back at me. “An extreme form of criticism? Someone who is not enamoured of Eddie’s style, perhaps? Although, thankfully, most critics content themselves with a written or spoken appraisal.”

“But it is only the pictures of
me
that have been destroyed,” I pointed out. There were some smaller paintings, mostly Parisian street scenes, that had not suffered the same fate. “These others have not been touched.” An image of Demelza Jago’s beautiful snarling face and knife-wielding hand appeared in my mind. Could a
ghost
have been responsible for the destruction of Eddie’s paintings of me? Was I actually considering such a possibility?

“Perhaps it is someone who has seen you and was enraged at Eddie’s inability to do you justice?” Cad’s voice was flippant as he studied one of the few portraits that had suffered very little damage. “He has done a reasonable job, but he can’t capture the essence of you,
bouche.
I defy anyone to do so.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. The picture was a full-length nude. I was lying on my side with my cheek propped on one hand. A slight, secretive smile touched my lips. “How well I remember the feel of your body, and the sounds of love upon those beautiful lips.” He reached out and, as though unable to help himself, lightly traced my throat in the painting with the tips of his fingers. Turning to me, he repeated the gesture in reality, his touch feather-light against the column of my neck. My lips parted on a sigh. Helpless to resist, I swayed toward him, my eyelids fluttering closed.

“It’s almost dark. We had better get back.” I opened my eyes in confusion. Cad did not seem to have noticed my plight. Day retreated like the gates of heaven slamming closed as we walked back to the house in silence. In the courtyard of Athal House, the lamplights wore shawls of evening fog and lecherous, leering shadows beckoned. When we mounted the steps of the house, I noticed a splash of blood-bright red staining Cad’s grey trousers. It gleamed wet in the welcoming candlelight. Cat’s whiskers of fear brushed the surface of my skin. Could it have been Cad who had destroyed the portraits? It was an act that resonated with hatred and violence. Beneath his desire for me did there lurk a darker emotion?

* * *

Because Lucy and I had become friends, I felt that despite her outward reserve, I could ask her the questions that troubled me. She regarded me steadily. I was grateful that, if she wondered why her second son should interest me more than her first—particularly when I was supposedly engaged to marry the latter—she did not voice that curiosity.

“When they were growing up, Cad was always the wilder of the two boys. Eddie, in contrast, was shy and sensitive.”

“Why do they hate each other so much?”

“I have often pondered that question, but I’ve never really found an answer. I believe it was the same with Tynan’s father, Ruan, and his younger brother, who was, of course, none other than Uther.” The distant yearning look that crossed her features whenever she spoke of Uther dawned then. I knew how much she loved Tynan, but it was clear that Uther exerted some hold over her that he had not taken to his grave. “They, too, had a younger sister in Demelza so, unwittingly, Tynan and I recreated their family structure. It didn’t matter what we did when they were children, Eddie and Cad just never got on. And it was somehow worse when Eleanor came along. Eddie was content to play her gentler games, but Cad wanted adventure and excitement so the tension between them was heightened.” She hesitated for a moment. “But you wanted to know about Cad and Uther? Yes, Tynan and I would be startled sometimes at how very like Uther Cad was, even from an early age. But you have to remember how close we were then to the horrors of what had befallen us at Uther’s hands. He was still very much in our minds. And Tenebris itself has the power to make even the most practical mind believe that the past is still at work on the present. But I had hoped we never allowed Cad to see those fears.” She sighed. “As he grew up, of course, and his likeness to Uther grew even more striking, the neighbourhood began to remark on it. People said he was Uther reincarnated. I’m sure he must have heard those rumours. But, knowing Cad, he either laughed them off or played the part even more just to scandalise the busybodies.”

“On the contrary, I think it hurt him very much,” I said quietly.

She gazed at me thoughtfully. I felt that she wanted to say more and waited patiently. In the end, she said simply, “At first all I wanted was for my children to be untainted by the Jago legacy, Dita. But for a long time, my only hope has been that at least one of them will remain free of it.”

Neither of us had heard Tynan come into the room, so we both started slightly when he spoke. “You know that one of them is not tainted, Lucy-love.” She held out her hand to him gratefully and I slipped quietly away, leaving them alone together. Tynan’s cryptic statement bothered me. If only one of his children was free of the Jago legacy, what did that mean for the other two? And who was the one?

* * *

For several days a silent, unrelenting rain had bent the grassy stalks double and tinted the sky with ghost-grey desolation. When at last the rainfall stopped, purple crested clouds hinted at forthcoming snow. Regardless of this ominous sign, I was heartily glad to escape the confines of a house whose secrets were etched in blood. As I walked toward Port Isaac, sleepy waves half-heartedly stroked the shore. My mind was on Cad, as it so often was these days. I could not seem to shift my thoughts away from the briefly tasted, never-forgotten delirium we had shared. No matter what the future held, I could not bring myself to feel regret.

My dreams now and then took me once more on that wild night ride on a black stallion with the rider I now knew was Uther Jago. I had not seen Demelza or Arwen again, and the house had, thankfully, made no further attempts to revert to its medieval splendour. I had finally convinced myself that it really was influenza and not the supernatural that was responsible for my strange experiences. If I kept telling myself that, I might even come to believe it.

I reached the little bay where Tristan lived and paused to enjoy the magnifying effect of the clear water on the pebbles and shells. The brown shelves of rock that fascinated Tristan housed miniature worlds in each of their tiny pools. Tearful gulls wheeled gracefully across the tearful sky. I paused in surprise to see Eleanor sitting with Tristan on the wall. Something about the scene made me reluctant to interrupt them, and I stepped back slightly out of their view. Eleanor was chuckling over something Tristan had said and, as the laughter died from her eyes, another look—half pride, half agony—replaced it.