Joan Smith (3 page)

“I didn’t know what to wear,” I said. “I hope this is all right?”

“You didn’t have to dress up, Belle. That’s fine. I want to give you a little explanation of what you’ll be seeing before we leave.”

I made tea, and she gave me the general outline, most of which I was familiar with: the seating arrangement, the holding of hands, etc. When she had finished, we left. I took my notebook. This writer’s constant companion was already stashed in my purse. We went in her car. At Chêne Bay, the video was being filmed outdoors. Banks of lights had been set up, casting an orange glow on the stone facade of the mansion. There was a small crowd—obviously something was going on.

Mollie drove for about three miles in the opposite direction from Lyndhurst until we came to one of those stretches of road where there were few houses. She turned in at a rutted laneway and bumped along through a tunnel of trees. I felt we were deep in the heart of some primitive country. It seemed a suitable habitat for wolves. Eventually we pulled free of the forest into a clearing. On the left, there was a dense thorn hedge, with gravestones behind it. The irregular white columns and crosses rearing into the darkness above lent a gothic air to the scene. On the right was a low, sprawling farmhouse. Mollie drove into the driveway and stopped. There were four or five other cars there before us.

“Henry Thorndyke is one of us,” she said. “We usually meet at his place as it’s centrally located for our group. Emily Millar will be conducting the séance. She’s very good.”

She tapped at the door and a middle-aged man who looked as if he might be a teacher or civil servant admitted us. Mollie introduced him as Henry Thorndyke. He showed us into an old-fashioned parlor and introduced me to the others. I expected Emily Millar to be a stately woman in black, with an air of affectation. She was a vague little lady with wispy gray hair, bags under her eyes, and a soft voice. She wore a pink blouse and tweed skirt.

“Mollie tells me you are to watch us tonight, Miss Savage. I’m sure you’re very welcome.” She turned to a younger woman who might have walked right out of a Dracula movie. She had jet black hair, worn long and straight. Her tall, lithe body was encased in a closely fitting black turtleneck sweater and slacks. She was not conventionally beautiful, but there was an air of distinction in her proudly held head.

“This is Sappho, our newest member,” she said.

Of course, I wondered about the odd name. Surely her parents hadn’t named her after the famous poetess from Lesbos. Sappho shook my hand without saying anything. There were others, ten in all, ordinary-looking people. I met a schoolteacher and a secretary, a housewife and an accountant.

When everyone was assembled, Emily led the way into a low-ceilinged room across the hall. The only furnishings were a circular table and ten chairs surrounding it. Henry got me a chair from the parlor and set it at the edge of the room. Mollie had explained that they would all sit down in darkness and join hands on top of the table. Emily would act as the medium. Tonight she was trying to get in touch with her late husband. Her “guide” would be a spirit from the other world called Waldo. Emily would go into a trance. The communication would be by means of knocks on the table. Emily would ask questions. One knock meant the answer was no, two for yes.

It all seemed like something from a B movie. After the lights had been turned off and the group took their seats around the table and held hands, I sat peering through the shadows. The outline of their bent heads was visible by the light of a waning moon coming through glazed French doors at the far end of the room. It looked a little spooky, but not frightening. The hair on the back of my neck didn’t lift when Emily began to utter a deep, humming sound that showed she was going into her trance.

“Is that Waldo?” she asked.

As she spoke, a terrible skirling blast of wind battered beyond the windows. It was of near hurricane force. The doors rattled and blew open, letting in the howling wind, demonic in its fury. My hair blew in my eyes, and the notebook was torn from my fingers.

Until that moment, there had been no sense of a storm brewing. The sky had not darkened ominously. The air had not felt oppressive; there had been no little threatening gusts. Just the sudden, inexplicable onslaught of this howling wind. Treetops beyond the window bucketed, and branches bent under its fury. Twigs and small branches were torn from the trees and blew across the patio. A few dead leaves flew into the room. At the table, the group huddled together for protection, not uttering a sound. I thought they would have been shouting.

For a moment, I felt I was the cause of nature’s wrath. My notebook seemed to be wrenched from my fingers by a superhuman presence. It was easy, at that moment, to believe that Emily had indeed called up some force from beyond the grave. I watched warily. Eventually the wind began to subside. As so often happens in ordinary life, it was a man who stepped forth to take charge.

“Best close the door, while we have the chance," Henry said, and rose to do it. He had some trouble. The door seemed to be pushing against him, but eventually he got it shut.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have met on the eve of May Day,” Emily said apologetically “And with a waning moon, too. We’ll forget it for tonight and try again another time.”

Immediately the wind fell calm. The swaying treetops stilled, and stood unmoving once more.

Only a warm, gentle breeze remained. The door was closed now, but I could swear the breeze came from it. It seemed to envelop me, to curl itself around my arms and legs and body, like a lover, bringing an eerie sense of peace. The only sensation even vaguely similar to it occurred when I had once imbibed three margaritas in quick succession. I was not dizzy or intoxicated, but I felt a languorous golden ease seeping through me. I felt if I tried to walk, my legs would turn to rubber beneath me.

I was forced to the obvious conclusion: There was more to this psychic business than I had thought.

Chapter Four

We regrouped i
n Henry’s comfortably shabby living room to discuss what the group were calling the “occurrence." He was a widower. A dreadful red wine was passed, and some cold-cut sandwiches. I wasn’t hungry and I don’t like red wine, but I found myself eating and drinking heartily, like the others. The wine, especially, was welcome to soothe the memory of what had happened in the parlor.

“It’s plain as the tail on a dog that the rest of the area didn’t get the storm,” Henry said. “I took a look down the road. There’s not a branch down except in my yard. That wind came from nowhere and went nowhere, except into the parlor. What do you think, Emily?”

We all looked for Emily’s opinion, as she sat with her fingers massaging her temples. “I have a wretched headache,” she said. “The vibrations were so very strong, I thought there must have been a manifestation. Did anyone see anything? There was definitely a spirit present.”

After considerable discussion, the group agreed they had not seen anything, but several of them
had felt a presence. We all drank a good deal of wine that night. Its rough edge was less noticeable after the third glass. Over the next hour, I had private conversations with as many of the psychics as I could. None of them had ever experienced anything like what we had seen that night.

“What I wonder,” Emily said, “is what spirit came to us, and why. I had no feeling that it was my husband, nor was it Waldo. We must each light a candle when we get home, and see if it burns blue.”

Sappho lifted her hair over her shoulder with a well-practiced gesture and said, “It could be Arabella. I’ve seen her in the meadow, from time to time.”

“Who is Arabella?” I asked.

“She’s a local ghost,” Sappho explained. “She was murdered by a man called Vanejul a hundred and seventy-five years ago. She was the daughter at Chêne Bay. She walks the park, calling to Vanejul, asking him why he killed her, but she wasn’t wailing when I saw her. She was just sobbing softly, and wringing her hands. Reminded me of Lady Macbeth.”

“What meadow does she walk in?” I asked with a shiver. I wasn’t in a mood to shrug off ghosts that night.

"The park at Chêne Bay, near the weir,” she said. “You might see her, Belle, since you’re stopping at Chêne Mow.”

“You didn’t tell me it was haunted, Mollie!” I said accusingly.

“Not Chêne Mow. Chêne Bay,” Mollie said. “And it isn’t the house. It’s the parkland. Arabella haunts the weir, there where they’ve dammed up the water. You must have seen it.”

“Oh, the dam. What does Arabella look like?”

“She’s young and pretty. Fair-haired,” Sappho said. “Of course, she wears old-fashioned clothes. A long dress and a bonnet. The bonnet was trailing down her back, held by its ribbons, when I saw her.”

Emily, not to be outdone, said, “She’s always wearing a flowered muslin gown when I see her—done in the empress style, you know, with a high waist. That would be the Regency period when she was murdered, somewhere around 1815.”

“Around the time of Jane Austen,” I mentioned.

“And Lord Byron and Beau Brummell,” Emily added. “You can get a very good idea of how she would look from any Regency novel. You’ve heard of Georgette Heyer? I have her books, if you’re interested.”

“I’ve read a few of them. All about wicked guardians and runaway marriages and fortune hunters,” I said.

“With fine lords and ladies”—Emily nodded.—“like Arabella. Our Arabella’s lover was a lord. I always wonder why he killed her. Infidelity, I daresay. From what one reads, one would think he was the more likely to stray, for he had a reputation with the ladies. Their story would make a fine novel, only of course, the ending would be tragic, and readers of romance don’t want that.”

“The best romances end in tragedy,” Sappho declared.
“Romeo and Juliet.
You’ve got the legend wrong, Emily, as usual. Arabella wasn’t Vanejul’s lover. He killed her because she didn’t love him. She was engaged to another man. I’ve researched the story quite thoroughly. I’m thinking of writing a book about them."

A stab of anger pierced me. I put it down to Sappho’s rudeness to Emily, but as I listened to them argue, I realized that what I resented was Sappho’s taking over of the legend. I didn’t want her to write that particular book. I wanted to write that book myself. I was living on Arabella’s estate, if not in her actual house. The idea intrigued me.
Rebel Heart
was stalled. I needed something completely different.

“I really should get writing the book,” Sappho said.

Emily said sweetly, “And illustrate it with your little stick drawings, Sappho?”

“Those children’s books are merely potboilers to pay the bills,” Sappho retorted. “We weren’t all born rich, Emily.”

“Nor was I, dear. I married money. But then I was extraordinarily pretty.”

“Long ago, when you were young, you mean,” Sappho said.

It was after two o’clock when we parted. I was invited to call on some of the psychics, and invited them to call on me in turn. When we stepped out of Thorndyke’s house, I thought of Ellie Duncan, and wondered if she was enjoying the pea souper that shrouded the countryside. The low-lying fog looked as if clouds had fallen from the sky and enveloped the earth in their airy mist. We passed only a few cars on the narrow road. Their approach was heralded by a sudden diffused glow in the fog.

“I gather that Sappho’s a writer,” I mentioned.

“She’s best known for her illustrated children’s books under the pen name Rosalie Lawson, but she also writes about the occult. She dresses dramatically in hopes that they’ll interview her on the telly”

We were soon back at Chêne Mow. I invited Mollie in, but was glad when she refused. I was tired, and I had a lot to think about. I waved her off, then stood a moment, inhaling the fragrance of the English countryside—new-mown hay and sweet clover and blossoms. As my head was spinning from the wine, I decided to take a little fresh air before going indoors. Thinking about Arabella, I chose a moonlight stroll up toward the weir to see if I could catch a glimpse of her. I had no expectation of seeing a ghost. I thought the sightings might be due to some flowering bush that resembled a human shape in the mist. There were flowering shrubs in the park. The wailing voice could be caused by wind, or perhaps a cat or bird, or even by the viewer’s having drunk too much.

I walked back to the roadway leading up the incline to Chêne Bay. The gravel crunching under my feet sounded loud in the stillness. Fog drifted in patches. The big house loomed high on the hill above the mist, its cupola etched in black against the silver sky. There were a few lighted windows downstairs, but no sign of the video makers outdoors. A faint echo of music reached my ears as I drew closer to the house. The rippling sound of the waterfall echoed in the distance.

I enjoyed the fog and the quiet music. It wasn’t the raucous noise of Roarshock, but a waltz. Perhaps the businessmen preferred that more peaceful music. It didn’t occur to me to be afraid, probably because of all the wine I had drunk. I soon caught a glimpse of sparkling water to the right. The long grass wrapped itself around my ankles as I left the road and hurried forward, scanning the park for Arabella, or a bush of vaguely human shape.

I was soon at the waterfall. It was no Niagara, but a sedate man-made affair, the barrier below the water as straight as a ruler. The water did not gush, but flowed. Still, there is always some enchantment in moving water, and I stood gazing at it, then to the dammed water above it. I wondered how deep the water was. At night it looked black, fathomless. Was it deep enough to drown? Was this where Arabella had met her fate? The reports of people having seen her here suggested it.

If so, I was definitely not psychic, for to me the spot seemed enchanted, in spite of the dark water and shadows all around. The shadows were not frightening, but friendly. It was a romantic spot for a lovers’ tryst.

The fog shifted, and suddenly the water disappeared from view. I was in the middle of an earthbound cloud. I felt one fleeting instant of panic, then a strange calm came over me, like the eerie peace I had felt when the wind calmed at the séance. The moist air had that same gentle warmth, as it hugged me close in its embrace. The fog shifted again, and through a lingering veil of mist, a human form appeared. The outline firmed to reveal a young man.