Black Rainbow

Scientists assert
that it is a wholly natural phenomenon —child of storm cloud and full moon, as its bright sister of day is the offspring of sunlight and rain. Megan was not superstitious, but when she reached the top of the ridge and saw the black rainbow framing the huddled towers of Grayhaven Manor, her first impulse was to pick up her wet, clinging skirts and retreat at full speed back down the slope she had so laboriously ascended.

The rainsquall that had drenched her during her walk passed as quickly as it had come, and as the weary girl paused to rest, the full moon burst free of the clouds. The rainbow's hues ranged from palest silver-gray to a black deeper than the moonlit vault of the sky—an ominous portent for a traveler whose destination was the old house under that sinister arc.

It lay in a little cup of hills, whose slopes must be green and pleasant by daylight. The moon robbed them of color, as it did all other objects in view; the trees were sable
plumes, the lawns pale as snow, the little stream a silver ribbon. The scene had an eerie beauty, but Megan found herself wishing she had not beguiled her weeks of enforced
idleness by reading so many of the Gothic romances then in fashion, with their abundance of specters, vampires, and haunted castles. Not that she had had much choice; her landlady's small library consisted entirely of such volumes, and she had not had the money to join a circulating library.

At first glance the ancient walls and towers of Grayhaven appeared to be a perfect setting for one of Mrs. Radcliffe's tales of imperiled maidens and Black Monks. Subsequent glances gave quite a different impression. Sheltered by the enclosing hills, the house clung to the earth like a curled-up cat, blinking yellow windows of eyes in smug content. The suggestion of warmth and light in those amber squares was most welcome to a wet and weary traveler.

Still Megan lingered, tempted to rest awhile before proceeding. They had told her at the station that it was only four miles to the house. The distance had seemed at least twice that long. She had eaten nothing since breakfast, and her wet skirts felt heavy as lead. The ground was damp, and she shivered in the sharp breeze that had arisen to scatter the clouds. The moon rode high above the last wrack of the storm, a silver ball rolling up an invisible path across the sky —chariot of the goddess Diana, virgin huntress of the Romans.

Megan was better educated than most of her class, she knew her Latin and even a little Greek; but she had not learned of pagan gods from the nuns who had provided her formal schooling. Her father had been half a pagan himself; from his tales, and from the books he somehow managed to obtain, wherever their travels led them, she had learned of Zeus and Apollo, grim Pluto and his stolen bride, and the other immortals of Olympus. Under the spell of the black rainbow she remembered things she would rather have forgotten. The black-and-silver landscape was no place for bright Apollo or the harmless nymphs of grove and stream;
but what a night for Diana the huntress, whose other persona is the witch goddess Hecate, and whose pack hunts human prey. Megan's skin prickled as she heard a frenzied distant howling. Another sound, closer at hand, made her glance fearfully over her shoulder. Surely it had been the soft patter of hooves. A harmless deer—or a ghostly stag? The horse of a human traveler—or a great black stallion spurred on by one of the grim, inhuman heroes so popular with the lady authors of the romances . . . dark hair flowing back from a high, noble forehead, grave brown eyes fixed on the horizon . . . ?

Megan gave herself a shake and returned to the real world of wet shoes, soggy garments, and aching limbs. The face of the imaginary rider had not been a product of fiction-induced fancy, it had a living model; and common sense told her to stop dreaming. Edmund Mandeville was her employer. He could never be anything else. She forced herself to stoop and pick up the heavy bag, which she had dropped when she reached the summit of the hill.

She had more strength of character than her fragile form and delicate features suggested. Though the weight of the bag dragged painfully at her weary muscles, she was about to proceed when she saw something that made her breath catch in her throat. Her wild fancies had not been imagination after all—or else they had given solid form to something that should never have existed in the real world. On a great boulder beside the path perched a small bowed hump of a figure. The moonlight glinted off a helmet of sleek dark hair and showed the curve of a pale cheek; there was no dismissing the object as a natural formation.

Megan's half-suppressed cry was heard. The dwarfish creature bounded up. Balancing atop the boulder, it turned to face the girl.

In the bright moonlight it lost its goblin air and took on a kindlier aspect—that of a brownie or dwarf, one of the Little People who haunt the remote hills and are said, on occasion, to grant wishes to humans. It was muffled in a dark cloak,

whose hood had fallen back to display human features, but it was of diminutive size—though, as Megan was to learn, not so tiny as her startled imagination had made it seem.

At first its round homely face mirrored her own shock. Wide eyes glinted palely.

"Who are you?" The two voices blended in an impromptu duet.

The little woman was the first to relax. Her mouth opened in a wide smile and she broke out laughing.

"You gave me such a start! I thought myself quite alone, and for a moment you had a look of. ... But I had better not tell you what peculiar notions were passing through my mind, or you will think me entirely mad instead of slightly eccentric."

Megan had realized that her "brownie" was only a human female of unusually short stature; but her second theory, that the humbly dressed woman must be one of the servants from the manor below, was negated by the voice and speech, which were those of a lady.

Gratefully she responded to the friendly smile and cordial voice. "If you are eccentric to be out on such a night, then so am I. But anyone might be fascinated by so strange a sight. That is—you did see it, did you not?"

"The black rainbow?" The little woman let out another peal of laughter. "I assure you, it is quite a natural phenomenon. My old nurse saw it once when she was a girl, but it is very rare, and I never expected I would have the good fortune to behold it myself." She fell silent; her smile faded into a look of dreamy wonder, and in a softer, altogether different voice she murmured, "Dark child of falling water and full moon, the road on which the Huntress rides. . . ."

Megan started at hearing her own fantasy echoed by a stranger, though, she assured herself, anyone educated in the classics might think in such terms. However, the little lady's altered look made her uncomfortable, and she said rather sharply, "I suppose the common people hereabouts have invented ignorant superstitions about it."

"To be sure." The other woman's voice returned to normal. "Nurse quite curdled my infant blood with her tales about it; her sister died thirteen months later, and she was convinced the black rainbow was a sign of approaching death. It was partly to dispel my childish terrors about it that I was prompted to inquire into the origin of the phenomenon. But this is an odd conversation for two strangers met in such a place, and so late at night. Have you lost your way? This road leads nowhere except to the house."

"If it be, as I suppose, Grayhaven Manor, I have not lost my way. That is my destination."

"Indeed?"

She said no more; only the rising tone of her voice requested an explanation. Megan appreciated her courtesy, but the fact that the woman was obviously ignorant of her identity made her heart sink down into her sodden boots.

"Am I correct in assuming that you are Miss Mandeville?" she asked.

"You are."

"I am Megan O'Neill."

The same look of polite curiosity met this statement.

"Oh, dear," Megan said, unable to keep her voice steady. "You did not know of my coming? He did not tell you?"

"He? Ah—I think I am beginning to understand. You speak of my brother?"

"Yes, Mr. Edmund Mandeville. It was he who hired me. He assured me he would write in case, as he rather expected, he was delayed in London and I arrived before him. . . ."

Her voice failed her as a great lump seemed to block her throat. It had been bad enough to find herself abandoned at the railway station, like an unwanted parcel, but this was worse than she had imagined. No wonder Miss Mandeville had looked at her questioningly. Indeed, she had received more consideration than she had any right to expect; Miss Mandeville must have taken the bedraggled wanderer for a beggar—or worse. Shame and embarrassment were not the only emotions that struck Megan dumb. Most painful of all
was the realization that she had meant so little to Edmund Mandeville that he had not even bothered to notify the household of her existence.

"My brother hired you?" Miss Mandeville said, after a prolonged silence. "For what position?"

"Governess. I ... he said there was a child."

"His ward. She is three years old."

"So young as that? Mr. Mandeville did not mention—"

"He may have forgotten," Miss Mandeville said drily. "He has scarcely seen her since she was an infant. Well, but this is not a suitable time or place for conversation. The night grows cold, and you are shivering. Come along."

Gathering up her skirts she jumped from the rock and started down the graveled drive that descended the slope into the valley. Mutely Megan followed. Her head ached and she had the sensation of walking not on solid earth but on some boggy surface that dragged at her feet.

After a few strides Miss Mandeville stopped and waited for her companion to catch up. "I beg your pardon, I did not mean to run away from you. I was thinking of Edmund. It is not like him to be so thoughtless. I only pray he has not had a relapse. He was ill, you know—very ill."

Megan hastened to give what reassurance she could. "He looked in good health when I saw him two days ago. A little thin and pale, but in excellent spirits. Was he in the Crimea? I did not like to ask."

"Yes. At Inkerman. It was not his wound that brought him so near death, but the typhoid, which he caught while in hospital. It is a mercy he was spared."

"From what I saw of him I am sure you have no cause for present concern."

"It is good of you to reassure me. I suppose we must forgive him an occasional lapse, after all his troubles. But my dear Miss O'Neill, you were most unwise to set out alone, on foot, and in the rain. Was there no one at the station whom you could have hired to drive you?"

Megan did not want to tell her the truth—that she lacked
the money to hire transportation. Not only would this force the further disclosure that she had been abruptly dismissed from her last post, without a reference, but it would reflect further on Mr. Mandeville. She had hoped he would give her an advance on her salary, or at least the price of her fare, but he had not offered—perhaps because he had never been in the position of having only a few shillings in his pocket. Men could not be expected to think of such trivial matters. And men, Megan devoutly thanked Heaven, were more apt than women to forget about such trivialities as references.

She realized that her companion was awaiting an answer, and said quickly, "It was not raining when I set out; and the porter assured me it was only a short walk. After the cramped hours in the train, I looked forward to the exercise. I left my trunk at the station—"

"I should hope so! That bag looks very heavy; if you wish to leave it here by the gate, I will send one of the footmen to fetch it."

"Thank you, I can manage. I hope, Miss Mandeville, that you will accept my apologies for—"

"Nonsense. Apologies are due you, not me. Enough of that; once you are warm and comfortable, we will talk."

She said no more during the remainder of the walk, for which Megan was grateful; she concentrated on dragging one heavy foot after the other. They squelched with each step and felt as if they weighed fifty pounds apiece. She was vaguely aware of the bulk of the house looming up before her and of a great central tower, whose crenellated roofline stood out blackly against the sky. Miss Mandeville marched up to the front door and flung it open. A flood of warmth, light, and comfort clasped Megan in supporting arms.

The arms were actually those of a stout old woman wearing the neat black gown and ruffled cap of a servant. Her face was as wrinkled as a withered apple, but her arms had a blacksmith's strength; they had propelled the dazed girl up
a flight of stairs and along a lighted corridor before she came fully to her senses.

Megan muttered something—she scarcely knew what— and attempted to demonstrate that she could walk unassisted. The brawny arms only tightened their hold.

"Don't fret yourself, poor child," the old woman crooned. "Lizzie will take care of you; you came all over queer just now, and small wonder, wet and tired as you are. It's a shame, it is, but just like Master Edmund, he always was a careless lad—handsome as a little lord, but never thinking. . . ."

Megan had not the inclination nor the strength to resist. Her wet garments were removed and she was helped into a bath filled with steaming water. Drowsy and content, she was carried back to a time when other hands had tended her and other voices had murmured soothingly. Nurse. . . . She had forgotten the name, but the once-loved face was clear in her mind—apple-cheeked and smiling, framed by snowy white frills. And another face, dimmer and less distinct—a pearly oval and a drift of sunny bright hair, a light laughing voice crooning endearments in that language that makes any sound like music.