Vintage Love (245 page)

When at last he released her, he said, “We’ll have to get away from here somehow.”

“How long before the tide goes out?”

“With the storm we have an abnormally high tide,” he warned her. “There’s no telling how long the road will be under water. We can’t wait for it to be passable.”

“What then?”

“The boat.”

“Where is it?”

“Tied down at the wharf. At least it was. I couldn’t see very well in the dark and storm, but I think I made it fast.”

She shuddered. “You know how frightened I am of the water.”

“We’re in danger here.”

“It’s a terrible storm to attempt a passage back in that small boat,” she protested.

“The boat is stout enough,” he said. “It’s only that I’m not sure how good a skipper I am. And you’re so terrified.”

“I can’t help it.”

He gave her a troubled look. “Still we must try.”

She gazed up at him in horror as a new thought crossed her mind. “If we try to reach the mainland in that boat I know it will capsize and we’ll be drowned!”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s the legend and Moorgate,” she told him. “They want the same thing to happen to us. They want us to drown out there!”

“They?”

“The ghosts!” she said loudly to keep her voice above the wild moaning of the wind.

He shook his head. “Nonsense!”

His grip on her arms became rougher. “Listen to me,” he said. “You must do as I say. Leave the car and come with me. I’ll get you safely back to the mainland.”

“Please, Fred!” she begged.

“No use,” he told her.

At the same time he swung his door out against the storm and slid off the seat. Then he pulled her across and out into the driving rain and wind with him. He slammed the car door shut and took a flashlight from his hip pocket and shone its beam ahead of them.

“The wharf is down there,” he shouted in her ear.

She leaned against him for support and protection from the hurricane strength of the storm. His arm was around her as he started down along the beach to the spot where he’d brought in the boat. She felt that each step was taking them closer to death. That they could never make a safe passage of the bay in the storm.

Looking up at him, she asked, “How far?”

“Not far,” he shouted back. “Down this way.”

They stumbled along the beach without coming on the wharf and the boat. She prayed that he might change his mind and would decide to wait on the island. But she knew there were stronger powers than hers at work. That the evil spirits of Moorgate wanted them to take the boat and drown.

She could imagine the awed stories that would be told about them. It would be the tragedy of Graham Woods and Jennifer repeated today. Only this time the principals were herself, Fred, and Jim. They would whisper of the quarrels between her and Fred over the young lawyer. Tell how she came to the island by herself and that her angry husband had come in search of her. Those who wanted to season their gossip a little wouldn’t hesitate to suggest that Fred aped the long-ago doctor’s crime and strangled her before taking her in the boat. There would even be the marks of those phantom hands on her throat to substantiate the story! It would be a seven-days’ wonder. And the legend would live on forever. Moorgate would remain a cursed place.

Fred was scanning ahead of him with the flashlight. “Can’t find the wharf!” he shouted.

“Go back!” she cried.

“No!” His voice was stern.

She knew there was no reasoning with him in this mood. So she stumbled on at his side as they made a vain search of the beach again. She was wet through and shivering with cold.

Then he suddenly came to a halt. And in the beam of his flashlight she was able to make out the wharf with the waves beating up against it and over its black shining surface. Fred was staring at it with a stunned expression on his face.

The boat was gone!

“What now?” Lucy shouted.

Fred’s hair was streaming madly in the high wind. His handsome face was stern. “Nothing for it but the car!”

She shook her head. “No. The house!”

He frowned at her. “Why?”

“Safer from the storm,” she cried.

“I doubt it,” he said.

“Please!” she begged him.

“Very well,” he said. And still protecting her with his arm he started back up the hill towards the cottage.

She was grateful and at the same time afraid. From her point of view it was a lucky accident that the boat had come loose from the wharf. She was still convinced if they had gone out there they would have surely drowned. She was not sure what might happen, now that they were returning to brave the dangers of the old house. But at this moment she preferred that prospect to the wild waves of the bay.

It took them a little while to reach the cottage. The tall trees around it were swaying in the wind like saplings. A shutter had come loose and was making a great clatter. She tugged at Fred’s arm to direct him around to the back where the unshuttered window was. They found it, and he helped her in and then followed her.

Though the noise of the storm was still high it was better inside the sturdily built old house. As he closed the window against the wind and the rain and they stood wet and shivering in the darkness, she knew they had done the best thing.

“There’s a fireplace in the kitchen,” she said. “See if you can find some wood and a dry match.”

“We’ll see,” Fred said. And he let the beam of the flashlight show them the way to the big kitchen.

“There’s another fireplace in the library,” she told him. “It’s a smaller room, and maybe we could heat it easier.”

“Let’s try it,” he said.

They moved down the dark hall, with the old house creaking and moaning around them. Though the sounds of the storm had been dimmed, they were still bad enough. She thought of her terrifying experience when the invisible hands had strangled her into unconsciousness, and she shuddered. The apparition of that figure in the bushes in the beaver hat and long coat also returned to haunt her, and then that other later phantom with the long, matted hair and beard that had appeared in the doorway of the library.

Fred led the way into the library. He beamed the flashlight on the fireplace and said, “There’s a few logs. We may be able to manage a fire.”

He gave her the flashlight and she held it for him in trembling hands as he looked about for paper and matches. He found some old newspapers in a rack, and he had matches in his pocket. She watched, praying the matches wouldn’t be soaked through. They weren’t, and in a moment there was the welcome sight of flames rising in the fireplace. Fred lingered over the fire long enough to see that it would continue burning.

Then he got up from his knees and turned to her. “We may be able to dry out some if we can keep this fire going. We haven’t much wood.”

“We’re lucky to find any,” she said.

He nodded as he glanced around. “So this was Frank Clay’s study.”

“Yes.”

He took the flashlight from her and ran its beam over the ceiling. “No electric lights here,” he said.

“I’m not surprised.”

“There should be lamps or candles,” he mused. “I hate to think of the fuss old man Farley may make for us trespassing in here.”

“I don’t think he’ll mind at all,” she said, leaning down before the welcome warmth of the blazing logs.

Fred stood above her with a strange expression on his face. “Perhaps not,” he said.

She gave him a wry smile. “In any case you can be sure Shiela will defend you and talk him out of any anger.”

His face was highlighted by the reflection of the flames. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she was in love with you before I ever came to St. Andrews. And I’m sure she hasn’t given up hope of winning you away from me yet.”

Fred looked uneasy. “We can talk about that later. Right now I’d like to see us more comfortable here.”

She hugged her arms around her. “I feel better already.”

He took a step over to the shelves and shone the flashlight on them. Then he glanced over his shoulder at her. “According to you this place is as haunted as Moorgate.”

“I believe it is.”

“You say you were attacked by a phantom in this very room?”

“Yes. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. And the day we came over here for that picnic and I wandered into the garden to pick some roses I saw the ghost of Frank Clay in the bushes. I recognized the beaver hat and long coat from your description.”

Fred came back to stand over her again, his face grim. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I didn’t want to spoil our day. I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“So you kept it to yourself?”

“I had to tell someone. I told Dr. Boyce about it.”

“What did he say?”

“He believes I’m psychic. That I’m more sensitive to ghosts than most other people. In the same way that a spirit medium is.”

“I have never put any faith in spirit mediums,” her husband said in a harsh, strained voice.

She looked up at him appealingly. “Just because there are things we don’t understand we shouldn’t deny their existence.”

A great gust of wind shook the old house and caused a billowing of smoke in the fireplace. Fred quickly bent to preserve the fire, shifting the logs with old iron tongs he’d found there. The rain continued pounding against the windows.

He finally stood up again. “I’m going to look for some wood and candles,” he said. “You stay by the fire.”

“I’m too frightened to stay here alone,” she said, half rising.

“You must,” Fred told her firmly. “It could be more dangerous for you wandering around in the dark with me. And not nearly as warm and comfortable.”

“Every minute I’ll be thinking something awful has happened to you,” she said.

“I’ll manage nicely as long as you stay here,” he said.

“The ghost may come back,” she pleaded.

“Call out to me. I’ll not be far away.”

“Please don’t be long!” she begged him.

“I won’t,” he said, and left the library.

She huddled before the blazing logs. The benefit of the warmth was balanced by her fears, and she remained cold and dejected. She tried to make her mind a blank until her husband returned. She kept recalling Dr. Boyce’s comments about her being psychic without knowing it, or even wanting to be. And she worried that now she had come to make contacts with ghosts she might never be free. Certainly she wouldn’t be as long as she and Fred lived in Moorgate in the shadow of that long-ago tragedy.

The wistful face of Jennifer seemed to take shape for a moment in the flaming logs, and then vanish. Lucy had tried so hard to understand the message the unhappy spirit of the girl had been trying to tell her, but it seemed that she’d failed.

One of the logs in the fireplace tumbled suddenly and gave her a start. She glanced around fearfully. But beyond the creaking and groaning of the old house in the storm there was nothing to suggest a restless spirit.

She gave her attention to the fire again. She felt that her clothes were drying a little, and she was more comfortable. She began wondering how long it would be before the stormy waters of the bay receded to the point where they could drive back over the road between the island and the mainland.

A footstep sounded in the hall and she turned quickly in apprehension. But it was Fred returning. He came back into the library carrying some logs and two candles.

“I made out pretty well,” he said, placing the logs by the fireplace. “These should see us through the night. And I found these candles.”

“There are candle holders on the library table,” she told him.

“Good,” he said, and he went over and put the candles in them. Then he lit the candles and came back with one of them. “We’ll put this one up here,” he told her, and sat it on the mantel above the fireplace.

“You didn’t see anything, did you?” she asked.

“No. What about you?”

“I’ve been terrified,” she confessed. “But nothing happened.”

He knelt with her by the fire. Studying her tenderly, he said, “I think you allow your imagination to make you believe strange things. Things that have never taken place.”

She shook her head. “No. There was no imagination about my being shoved in the cellar at Moorgate.”

“You stumbled, that’s all.”

“It was more than that. I felt a pressure at my shoulder blades!”

Fred’s smile was grim. “Because you wanted to.”

“Not at all. And what about my being strangled here?”

“That could have been an attack of hysterics brought on by extreme fear,” he explained. “We know such cases in medicine. People are sure they have been attacked when all the while it’s the product of their own fears.”

“Too easy,” she said. “I’ve also seen shapes and shadows which I can’t easily explain.”

“Again your imagination,” he said. But he gave a worried glance about the room. “My feeling about this old house, for instance, is not that it is inhabited by ghosts but that it may have recently been lived in by humans.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen certain evidence as I wandered about the place,” her husband told her. “Ashes which can’t date far back. Several newspapers of recent date. And most important of all, some cigarette butts crushed under heel.”

“Mr. Farley may have a caretaker who comes over here occasionally,” Lucy suggested.

“I hope you’re right.”

“It has to be that,” she said.

“This island would make an ideal spot for anyone hiding out. I’m thinking of criminals,” he said by way of explanation.

His remark caused another ripple of fear to go through her. She had bargained only for evil ghosts. Now Fred was suggesting they might have evil humans to fear as well.

She said, “If there had been anyone here I’d have seen them when I was here earlier.”

“You did see something,” he reminded her.

She gazed nervously at the library doorway where the weird figure had so briefly appeared. “That wasn’t anyone human,” she said confidently. “It was another of my apparitions.”

Fred looked worried. “I think Dr. Boyce has ruined you with his talk of your being psychic.”