Dearest Enemy

by Alexandra Sellers

  Elain frowned for a moment, and then began to grin irrepressibly. The author of both books was Diane Middleton. It seemed this was Elain’s time for discovering the pseudonyms of authors! So Davina, the “serious psychic,” the woman who was insulted by the term “medium” and by any implied association with Madame Arcati, wrote cheap books about ghosts for the credulous!

  She turned, but both Olwen and Jan had gone out with the bedding. Maybe it was just as well. She shouldn’t tell them Davina’s secret.

  But she could tell Math. It was the sort of joke he’d appreciate.

  * * *

  By twelve they were all in the kitchen having another cup of tea and laughing the quiet laughter of those who have shared a disaster. “Do you know—thank God your paintbox broke,” Olwen said, pouring Elain a refill. “In those few minutes there wasn’t much damage done, but suppose we hadn’t noticed anything for an hour or two.”

  “Or even all day,” Jan chimed in. “I’d just cleaned the room. Davina and Rosemary took a picnic lunch today, so they wouldn’t have been up there. And the water would only have leaked down into the sitting room, and that’s not much used on a fine day.” She took a breath, shaking her head. “It might have been dreadful. Their clothes ruined and the mattresses and carpets soaked... Thank God for your paintbox, Elain!” she said.

  Elain only smiled and nodded. But she was remembering that if she had not taken the back stairs down that one flight, her paintbox would have come apart on the main stairs, and the burst tap wouldn’t have been found.

  She frowned in thought. She never took the back stairs, yet this morning, something had made her do so. Even as she was doing it, she had thought her own behaviour curious.

  * * *

  The day was beautiful all day. Elain went up to the fortress and worked on the painting she had begun over a week ago, of the watcher and the valley. It was an odd painting, very different from her usual work. It was the sort of thing she had sometimes painted for Stephen, her tutor.

  “You get behind the surface of things, all right,” he had said to her once. “I want to see you also get behind the surface of yourself.”

  She had been uncomfortable working with him, too uncomfortable to admit that what the principal said might be true—she did her best work for Stephen. All she had known then was that she was afraid of him without knowing why. When she insisted on being assigned another tutor, everyone was thunderstruck, and she knew now that they had been right. Her work during her last year at the college, under another tutor, had not lived up to her early promise.

  She had never understood herself why she felt so threatened by Stephen, why she had so desperately wanted to get away from him. But she could see it now. It was the same reason she had been afraid of Math, had imagined him dangerous. She had been sexually attracted to him, an attraction too strong to ignore, almost too strong to disguise. That was what had made her uncomfortable, though if anyone had suggested at the time that her problem was that she “fancied” Stephen, as they put it here, she’d probably have hit them.

  She was more than sexually attracted to Math. From the beginning, she had felt that strange sense of a deeper knowledge of him than time would ever give. He, too, was someone who would, by his presence, encourage her to look beneath her surface. Still, if she hadn’t been fixed here by her job, she might have run away from him, too, and gone on through her life in the same way—protecting herself from rejection by never wanting a man, never loving. By hating and fearing any man she was attracted to.

  And never being artist enough to get under her own surface. Being mediocre, when she might have been a real artist. Waking up one morning to discover that she was doing the illustrations for a book like Ghosts of Britain.

  Elain picked up another canvas and set it on her easel—an unfinished view of the hotel and the valley. There was something else that she had not had the courage to look at. Quickly she squeezed out orange and red and yellow onto her palette, blue and brown and black. With swift, urgent strokes, she began to paint the hotel in flames, a bright, terrible, all-consuming blaze, of the kind her nightmares were composed of.

  Through an upper window, in a few strong strokes, a man took shape, turning away from the window into the flaming room as the roof above began to fall.

  Below, outside, a child in a pink-flowered nightgown, caught in the hold of a large man, stretched her arms longingly to the window above, her tiny mouth open on a desperate cry.

  I knew then, Elain realized sadly as she painted. I knew when I heard that roar that they would never come back. All the rest was just pretending.

  * * *

  She was just opening the door of her room when she heard Davina and Rosemary’s arrival at their own door on the floor below.

  “That’s strange,” she heard Rosemary say as the key turned in the lock. “The—”

  “Rosemary!” Davina interrupted, her voice shocked. Elain bit her lip. Somehow the two sisters had managed to return without anyone waylaying them to tell them what had happened, although she knew Olwen had meant to be on the lookout for them.

  “What?” Rosemary demanded, prepared to be horrified. “What is it, Davina?” Her voice was loud with shock, so Davina’s face must be something to behold. Though there wasn’t that much to see. Just a carpet missing and the beds stripped. “Good God!” she exclaimed after a moment.

  “Something happened!” Davina said.

  “Yes, indeed. I wonder what?” Rosemary returned.

  Elain shoved all her stuff inside her room, closed the door and started down the stairs. Olwen had just arrived, and all three women were inside the room, the door open.

  “I’m so sorry. I meant to catch you before you came upstairs. Fortunately there was little harm done.”

  “Jessica again,” said Davina flatly. “She certainly meant harm, I know. Did our things get spoiled?”

  “No, only the carpet and some of the bedding suffered. A tap burst. The water was shooting up, but we caught it almost as soon as it began. We’ve moved you into a room on the other side of the hall. The Nursery. It has a view over the valley.”

  There was a stony silence. “But we always have The Chapel,” Davina said, horrified. “Every time we’ve been. We always book this room!”

  “Yes, but Math thought—”

  “We must go and check out the other room, Davina,” Rosemary spoke over Olwen.

  “But—” The sisters exchanged a look, then Rosemary turned calmly to Olwen.

  “My sister is rather restricted at times as to the places where she feels comfortable. This room, of course, was the old chapel, and there are rooms in this hotel she simply cannot be expected to stay in, the more especially now that the ghost is in transition. If the other room is satisfactory, of course we will be happy to move. Come, Davina.”

  But Davina wasn’t to be soothed out of her negative vibrations. As soon as the door of the other room was opened, she shuddered and turned away. “No,” she wailed, looking pitifully at Rosemary. “Please, Rosemary.”

  Rosemary bit her lip. “Perhaps for one night, Davina. If you’re still of the same mind in the morning...” She turned to Olwen. “I expect The Chapel can be made habitable again in the morning.”

  Olwen glanced at Elain, her face expressionless. “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “I won’t get a wink of sleep,” Davina promised herself heavily.

  * * *

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?” Raymond demanded. Elain had just told him about the incident of the burning coal on the carpet.

  “Because I didn’t think it was significant. But now something else has happened, and it’s starting to look a little weird, to say the least.” She told him about yesterday’s burst tap. “Now that was serious, Raymond. No one would have got hurt, but there would have been maximum damage and another insurance claim.”

  “Mmm,” she heard down the wire. “I see your point.”

  “It can’t be him. No one w
ould be so stupid. It might make the insurance company even more suspicious, mightn’t it? And less likely to pay.”

  “You think there’s somebody sabotaging this guy?”

  “I don’t know. If you believe the psychic, the ghost in the house is turning, or something. Did I tell you that? Becoming sinister and dangerous after centuries of humorous tricks.” When the sisters had recovered from the shock, Davina had explained to Math how she felt “the hand of Jessica in this.”

  “I don’t believe the psychic,” Raymond said succinctly. “All right, you’ve sold me. We’ll investigate the others in the place.”

  She felt like a traitor, giving him the names and what she had learned of the other guests and the staff. Never before had she got so close to those she was investigating. She told him everything she had gleaned over the past two weeks, including the fact that Vinnie’s husband had died at Arnhem; that Jeremy, cousin of a noble house, was also a poet who might be published in a small, pretentious magazine; that Davina might be the author of popular ghost books under the pseudonym Diane Middleton; that Jan was married to a local farmer; that Gwen from the pub had a cousin who used to work for Math, and numerous other little facts.

  She was a traitor, and yet...what else could she do? If she quit the job, the insurance company would probably just send someone else in, someone who might be more dedicated to the theory that Math was an arsonist. What good would that do Math? If someone else had committed arson, Elain was more likely than anyone else to find the proof of it—she at least was looking for it.

  And if she quit, she would have to leave and go back to London. Elain knew she couldn’t bear that. She didn’t ask herself why; she didn’t want to examine it too closely. She wanted to stay, that was all, and why shouldn’t she want to? Wales was absolutely beautiful; it was the home of her ancestors. She was painting well. There were lots of reasons for staying.

  * * *

  “Look,” she said.

  They were at dinner in the hotel restaurant. Math obediently reached out and took the thick sheet of artist’s paper from her hand. He looked at it, and his eyebrows went up. He picked up the candle on the table and held it to get a better light. “How on earth did you manage this?” he asked in surprise.

  It was a watercolour reproduction of the tapestry “Dream of Rhonabwy.” “It’s the tapestry,” she said, like a child.

  “I see it is. I’m—”

  “Is it good?” she demanded.

  “If it’s not a perfect copy, it must be very close,” he said. He gazed at it again. She could see that the sight of it pleased him. “You found a photo of it?” he asked. He glanced over to the table where Vinnie and Rosemary and Davina were eating. “Or are the psychic capacities contagious?”

  Elain giggled. “Vinnie found an old black and white—not of the tapestry, but of somebody standing in front of it. She’d forgotten she had it. Most of the detail showed. She only had to remember the colours, and of course the descriptions in the story helped a lot.”

  Math smiled, turned and set the sketch on the edge of the wainscot just above the table. He propped the salt and pepper shakers in front of it, leaned back and looked at it again. Then he reached for her hand and dropped a kiss on it. “I don’t suppose copying is very satisfying to an artist. But I would like a mural-size copy of this in oils. Would you be interested in the commission?”

  “I’d be interested, but if I do it, it won’t end up a perfect copy. There’ll be too much of me in it, and you’d notice the difference.”

  “All the more reason,” said Math.

  * * *

  They climbed through the sun-speckled forest to the top of the ridge. They had left the public footpath some time ago, Math promising to take her to see something special. The last few hundred feet were steep enough to make Elain pant, and then suddenly they were there, and she drew in an enchanted breath and gazed around.

  It was a magical place—a small sunlit glade with a huge oak at the centre, and the ancient trees of Wales sprinkled over a thick bed of grass and moss and wildflowers.

  Near the tree, rough, splotched with white lichen, was a standing stone. It was no more than four feet high, a couple of feet square. Yet somehow it had power. Standing stones always had that—the ability to capture the attention—but this one had more of whatever quality it was than most. It drew her gaze immediately.

  “This is magical,” Elain breathed. “How long has this place been here?”

  Math shook his head.

  “They must have worshipped here. You can feel it! Do you think they worshipped the tree, too?”

  “The White Goddess was certainly associated with trees in pre-Christian times,” Math said.

  Elain crept across the grass and under the spreading canopy of branches to touch the stone, unsurprised to feel the thunder of the Earth’s power under her hand. “Do you come here?” she asked. She felt the curious compulsion to speak quietly, as if she were in a church.

  Math nodded.

  She was still receiving timeless messages from the stone. “What do you do?”

  He shrugged. “Read, or write, or just sit and think.”

  “Are we going to eat our picnic here?”

  “If you like.”

  “As long as it wouldn’t be sacrilegious.”

  “I suppose they might have feasted here on the holy days. Hard to say.”

  So they spread their blanket and their meal in the sunshine and shadow at the edge of the oak’s spread, and ate the Earth Mother’s bounty in her holy place. When the edge was taken off their hunger, Elain refilled their wineglasses from the frosted bottle of delicate white wine and lay back against a knotted root that thrust up out of the earth. “I think you should tell me a story from the Mabinogion,” she said.

  “Very fitting,” Math agreed.

  “One that you want me to paint.”

  “There’s the story of Math ap Mathonwy, or the story of Elen of the Hosts. Any preference?”

  She hesitated, charmed into indecision. “We’re both in the Mabinogion?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it. Shall I tell you about Maxen’s dream? That has Elen in it.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Maxen the ruler,” Math began in a deep, mellow voice, as she lay looking up at the tree and the perfect sky, “was Emperor of Rome. He was handsome and wise and well fitted to his rule. One day, Maxen called together all the kings of his realm, and with them he went hunting into a river valley near Rome. When the sun was high overhead, and it was very hot, Maxen grew sleepy and lay down to rest.

  “In his sleep, he had a dream. He dreamt he travelled across mountains and plains, following a great river, until he came to the sea. There he boarded a magnificent ship and sailed to an island, and crossed the island to the farther sea. Here he came upon a great fortress. The fortress had a roof and doors of gold, and the walls were studded with jewels. Inside, on a golden chair, was the most beautiful woman Maxen had ever seen. He embraced the woman and lay down with her, but just then the stamping of the horses and the clanging of shields in the wind awakened him.”

  “Ah.”

  Math laughed. “So in love with this woman was Maxen, and so unhappy to find her not with him when he awoke, that he soon fell into a melancholy. He would neither go hunting with his men, nor listen to songs and entertainments, nor drink. He only slept, in order to dream of his mistress.

  “At last his chamberlain came to him and told him that his men were unhappy, for he gave them nothing to do and never spoke to them. He urged the emperor to action. So Maxen summoned his wise men and told them what case he was in, in love with a woman he had seen in a dream and unable to take any interest in anything else.

  “The wise men advised him to send out couriers to try to find the woman of his dream, for then at least he could live in hope. Maxen sent messengers to roam the world, but at the end of a year they returned having found nothing.

  “Then one of his subject kings advi
sed Maxen to try to find the place of his dream himself. Maxen journeyed until he had found the river of his dream, and then sent his messengers along that river. They travelled and found all as he had described it, coming at last to the distant island and the fortress. They entered the fortress and found Elen, daughter of Eudav, with her father and her brothers, Kynan and Avaon, sitting in a golden chair. They knelt before her and called her Empress of Rome and told her they were to take her to Maxen. But Elen would not go with them. She said that Maxen must come to her.

  “So the messengers returned to Rome and delivered their news, and Maxen set out with his army. He conquered the island of Britain as he went, and then arrived at Eudav’s fortress. Here he went in and saw Elen, as she had been in the dream.

  “That night they slept together, and in the morning she asked for the gift that was her due, as he had found her a virgin. When Maxen told her to name her own gift, she asked for the island of Britain for her father, and the three offshore islands for her own, and for three strongholds to be built at Arvon, Caerleon and Carmarthen. Later she had these three fortresses linked by roads.

  “Maxen stayed with Elen seven years, and then word came to him that a new emperor had been elected in Rome in his place. He set out to reconquer Rome, but after a year of laying siege to the city, he still had not succeeded.

  “Then, in Britain, Elen’s two brothers rallied a host to Elen’s name and came to Maxen’s aid, and when they had conquered Rome, they gave it to Maxen. Maxen accepted his throne and gave the two brothers the freedom to conquer whatever territory they wished.

  “The brothers went and conquered castles and cities, and then Avaon and his men went home to Britain, while Kynan and his men stayed in Brittany, the land they had conquered. To preserve their British language, they cut out the tongues of the women, and that, the story says, is why they still speak the Celtic language in Brittany.

  “The three roads linking the three fortresses of Elen were always called the Roads of Elen of the Hosts. She was given that name because the men of Britain would not have assembled for anyone but her.”