Joan Smith (8 page)

“We don’t know that. Maybe he killed other women, too. He might be a mass murderer for all we know.”

“Not very likely, is it? Surely there would be a record of it if he’d killed off a whole slew of women. Perhaps he’s trying to tell you something, to explain, or justify his actions. There’s no real proof he killed Arabella. They dragged the lake a dozen times, but they never did find her body.”

“He killed her, all right. There was a witness. Vanejul killed
him,
too, to try to prevent him from testifying.”

She shook the trinket lightly in the palm of her hand. “If Vanejul is trying to accomplish something, he’ll be hard to capture.”

“Are you saying there’s no way to get rid of him?”

“The only way is to find out what he wants, and do it.”

I didn’t smirk this time. “Then I’m leaving now. Tonight.”

“Running away?” she asked, blinking her green eyes in disapproval. “Belle, I expected better of you,” she chided. “This could be an unequaled chance to practice your talent.”

“I’m going to phone the airport this minute,” I said, and went to the phone. The phone book moved away from me as I reached for it. Mollie looked on in delight. I made another snatch, and it fell to the floor before I touched it. I picked up the receiver. It flew out of my hand.

“Vanejul wants you to stay,” she said. “Don’t you see what this means, Belle?”

“It means I’m getting out of here and never having anything to do with the supernatural again, ever.”

Mollie picked up the telephone receiver and replaced it on the hook. Nothing tried to prevent her.

“What it could mean,” she said, “is that Vanejul didn’t die in Greece. He died here, at Chêne Bay."

Ghosts usually return to the spot where they met their untimely end. But no, it can’t be that. His fighting and dying for Greece’s independence is documented. Since his mortal remains were returned to Oldstead, then that could explain his presence. He obviously has something very important to say. You can’t abandon him, Belle. He deserves to have his story told, too, as well as Arabella. There must have been a reason why he killed her. You’ll want to know that for your writing. The only interesting thing about her is that Vanejul loved her. Really he is the clue to her story.”

The strange and incomprehensible thing is that I half wanted to stay. I was in a cold sweat at the thought of confronting Vanejul again, but I did not want to abandon Arabella. I felt that if I did, I was condemning myself to a whole future life of cowardice, to chances not dared, roads not taken.

Mollie continued her persuasions. “Come now, where is your gumption?”

“But I’m afraid!” I howled.

“Oh, pooh! Anybody would be afraid the first time. It’s how you handle your fear that determines what sort of a person you are. I’ll stay with you, if you like.”

“Would you?”

“I’d love it. Don’t be frightened. The power you possess is in all of us, but stronger in some than others. You—and I—inhabit what is called the Enchanted Boundary, that area between the visible world and the world beyond, where such wonderful things happen.”

She led me to the table and filled my teacup, while talking in a calming way to soothe my fears. “I can’t tell you the marvelous experiences I’ve had. If you leave, you’ll always wonder what your life would have been if you had dared to stay. We need that touch of wonder in our lives, whether we call it religion or something else.”

“I wanted to write Arabella’s story,” I admitted, “but how can I find out the facts at this late date?”

She studied me with a small, complacent smile. “Why don’t you just write what you feel? Call it fiction. The writing will do you good, and who knows, Arabella might whisper a few truths in your ear as you write.”

“You’ll stay with me?”

“I have to work during the day, but it’s the night’s you’re afraid of, isn’t it? There’s always something about the dark.”

“Yes, so far he’s only come at night.”

“You’ll be fine. Wear Arabella’s locket. It’s good to have something of hers on you, a talisman.”

I put the gold chain around my neck and fastened it. I knew I was doing the right thing to stay. If any shred of common decency remained in Vanejul, he would not harm me when I was under Arabella’s protection.

“If Vanejul is the ghost,” I said, “then it wasn’t Arabella that came at the séance, but I feel she’s here, too.”

Mollie looked at the necklace. “Perhaps that’s what is putting you in touch with her,” she said. “If both Arabella and Vanejul are around, it should be interesting.”

What I was feeling was closer to terror, but from some deep well of strength within me, I summoned courage to carry on.

Chapter Nine

No
visitations or nightmares disturbed my sleep in the blue room that night. In the morning, a shaft of sunlight filtered through the filigree of leaves outside my window, dappling the counterpane and walls with a mosaic of sun spots, like a Monet painting. Mollie tapped at the door and appeared with a cup of coffee in her hand.

“Mollie, you shouldn’t have done that. I’m supposed to be the hostess.”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right before I left, dear. I have to nip home and change. You won’t be gone when I return after work, will you?”

The idea seemed absurd. I was no longer afraid, but eager to get to work. I palmed the talisman around my throat. “No, I’ll be fine. I’m going to do as you suggested—just plunge in and start writing, and see what happens."

“You might be surprised,” she said, setting the cup down on the table. “There’s more coffee on the stove. Enjoy.”

She waved and left. I plumped up the pillows and enjoyed the luxury of coffee in bed, while pondering at what point in Arabella’s life I should begin her story. She would have lived a life of wealth and privilege at Chêne Bay, in that fine mansion overlooking the countryside. Her activities, however, would have been confined by the era’s notions of what befitted a lady. Until they were married, young ladies were guarded like vestal virgins. That unavailability must have added to their allure. We do not value highly what we can have for the taking.

I knew from my reading of Jane Austen that the dowry was of more importance than beauty. Arabella was doubly blessed: beautiful as well as rich. Had her dowry been her main attraction for Vanejul? He would, presumably, have had wealth of his own. But then his lifestyle was no doubt extravagant. Was he a gambler, as well as a womanizer? The book had not mentioned that, but it was a common failing in those days. I had read that the Regency bucks would bet on anything, even the progress of a fly along a windowpane.

My writing wasn’t to be a full biography but an account of Arabella’s doings with Vanejul. I would not start at her birth, nor even at her parents’ death, but at her fifteenth birthday. That was about the age at which she would have caught Vanejul’s interest, and William’s, and it was the part of her life that interested me—especially her murder by Vanejul.

I finished the coffee, washed up, and slid into jeans and a clean shirt. It was a white shirt of my dad’s that was too small for him and really too large for me, but it was my security blanket. I always felt he was looking out for me when I wore it. An odd fancy, that. Had I always had an intimation of some invisible power lurking at the periphery of normal life? I made the bed and ran down to the kitchen. Breakfast was the rest of the grapes, a bun, and another cup of coffee.

When I went to the typewriter, it seemed wrong. The banging of the keys against the platen disturbed me, although it hadn’t before. My fingers kept striking the wrong keys. A pen seemed the proper writing tool. I got out a fresh sheet of typewriter paper, unfortunately not lined, and began to write. I would begin on Arabella’s fifteenth birthday, June 9, 1800, according to the book. And I would put her at the only spot at Chêne Bay I knew well, the weir. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see her there, an innocent young girl-woman, warm and happy in the sunlight of her youth. I wrote:

The fruit trees were in bloom at Chêne Bay on that lovely day in June. They looked like giant balls of cotton wool against the azure sky. Arabella felt grown-up in her pink sprigged muslin gown. Her new kid slippers had a small heel, and a silver buckle that winked in the sunlight as her feet flew over the park, down to the stream.

Her hired companion, Mrs. Meyers, had given her a new netting box for her birthday, despite repeated hints for a pair of blue silk stockings seen in Allyson’s Drapery Shop. Mrs. Meyers was a good woman, but sadly lacking in romance. She would not have let herself fall into flesh at forty years, and she would not have worn those horrid old gray gowns, if she had any notion of romance. In her hand Arabella carried the present Cousin William had given her, a copy of Mr. Wordsworth’s poems. But Uncle Throckley had given the best present of all. He was having a rout party that evening, with all the young ladies and gentlemen of the neighborhood coming to honor her birthday.

“Now that you are all grown-up, it is time to introduce you to the young gentlemen. Mind you don’t let any of them steal your heart away,” Uncle Throckley added waggishly. “We don’t want to lose you yet, do we, William?” He leveled a commanding eye at his chinless son.

“No indeed, Papa,” William replied dutifully.

The whole household was in on the secret of the party; for days the servants had been preparing raised pies and hams and macaroons. They had turned out the whole downstairs of Chêne Bay. The carpets were lifted and hung over the clothesline and beaten; beeswax and turpentine were applied to the furnishings, and even the windows were cleaned with vinegar and water.

“Spring cleaning, missy,” Mrs. Meyers had said in her stern way when Arabella inquired why these unusual exertions were going forth. But it had all been for her party. The world seemed a delicious place to Arabella that morning.

I wrote like a demon for two hours, filling page after page, while the coffee grew cold in my cup. The pictures were all there in my head, of Arabella’s excited little face, and the sprigged muslin gown with the high waist. I could feel her excitement pulsing through my veins as the words came pouring out. William Throckley joined her in the park, and tried to steal a kiss behind the cherry tree. I felt her fearful excitement, and knew it was her first kiss. I knew, too, that while she was disappointed at the lack of fervor, she was not repelled by the experience. She liked William then. And she was a passionate creature.

I followed her through her day. She received three letters wishing her a happy birthday, and read them at her desk, the little apple green desk now in Emily’s study. In the afternoon, Arabella and Mrs. Meyers, that stout, unimaginative lady with a heart of marshmallow, drove into Lyndhurst and had an ice, then examined the wares in Allyson’s Drapery Shop. In vain the eager owner had brought down the ells of muslin and contraband silk to tempt the heiress. Arabella bought only new blue ribbons for her hair. The villagers bowed and smiled at the young heiress. Her gentleness had won her a place in their hearts.

At eleven I stopped only long enough to stretch my cramped limbs and have a glass of juice, then I returned to my writing. I felt Arabella was with me. Quaint words whose meaning I scarcely knew were appearing on those pages. Words like
reticule
and
pelisse,
meaning purse and cloak. The writing had put me in touch with that deep well of memory amassed over years of reading. This had been a wonderful idea of Mollie’s.

She was right to urge me to stay and develop my talent, for I felt, deep inside, that what I was writing was not just imagination. It was what had happened on that June day nearly two hundred years ago. I felt fifteen years old, with all the trembling wonder of a child becoming a woman. I did not feel shackled by the constraints placed on Arabella as I would if I were required to have a companion for a run into the village. It seemed natural and right.

The boundaries of time were blurred, allowing me to sense past happenings as if they had been recorded in some magical element into which I had access. I was a part of the past, while still living in the twentieth century. I was a part of the universal wisdom of the ages. I even had a glimmering of why Fate, or Arabella, had chosen me as her intermediary, despite my timidity of the unknown. Why was I timid, unless I was afraid of it? And if I was afraid, then I believed. That, I felt, was the sine qua non of being chosen. One had to believe or be capable of belief in unseen forces.

Two days ago I would have called myself a non-believer, but after recent occurrences, I was open to doubts. The writing continued at a feverish pace.

The hour of the rout party drew near. Arabella donned a white deb’s gown, trimmed around the ruched skirt with small silken rosebuds. At her ears she wore pearl teardrop pendants. She went, proudly but shyly, down the gracefully curving staircase of Chêne Bay to take her place at the door of the ballroom with her uncle Throckley and William, to be presented to society as a new belle. A pressure was building in her as the guests began to come forward to be greeted. Her eyes flickered down the waiting line, assessing the ladies’ toilettes and the gentlemen’s faces, until she met the sardonic gaze of Lord Raventhorpe. Then her heart began to flutter out of control.

His jet black head towered proudly six inches above the country squires and their wives. At his throat he wore an immaculate cravat, arranged in intricate folds. The jacket on his shoulders fit as smoothly as the skin on a peach. While he waited, inching forward in the line, his sloeberry eyes never left Arabella’s face. They gazed on her unblinkingly, until she blushed in annoyed pleasure. She thought him bold—but so handsome! She must not encourage him. Miss Meyers said he was fast. She said Uncle Throckley ought not to have invited him, but then he was visiting the Percivals, and one could hardly not invite such old friends as the Percivals.

After five minutes that seemed a decade, he was bowing with easy grace over Arabella’s fingers. He lifted her hand to his lips, stopping the ritual inch away from them. At the touch of his warm fingers, the fluttering in her breast increased to a pounding so loud, she feared he could hear it. No one else had done that! No one else gazed at her with such blatant admiration. When he spoke, his dark eyes scrutinized her face, darting from hair to eyes to lips. His accent was the honeyed silk of the gazetted flirt.