Come to Castlemoor

by Wilde, Jennifer;

  “My brother wrote me about you,” I said. “I’m so glad he had someone like you to take care of him—”

  “A rascal ’e was, always playin’ tricks an’ teasin’. I’ll tell you this, an’ I’m not jokin’: if ’e’d a been twenty years older or I’d a suddenly lost thirty years, that young man wouldn’t a stood a chance. I’d a nabbed ’im for sure. A charmer, ’e was, a regular charmer—”

  “Won’t you come in, Maud?”

  “Cain’t stay long. Gotta go see Fanny Potter, who’s got ’erself pregnant again, an ’er a woman of forty! Mornin’ sickness you wouldn’t believe! I’m takin’ ’er some herbs—”

  “Why don’t we go into the kitchen,” I suggested. “Bella’s just made some tea, and there’s bread and jam—”

  “Ta-ta to your tea, luv! I brought me own nourishment.” She dug into one of the lumpy pockets and dug out a flask. “Old cuss like me needs somethin’ a mite stronger than tea to keep the blood a-boilin’. No offense, you understand.”

  “None taken,” I replied, smiling. I led her into the kitchen.

  During the short time that Maud and I had been talking, Bella had miraculously changed into a jade-green dress with puffed sleeves and a swirling skirt, bits of ruffled white petticoat showing beneath the hem. Glossy brown curls had been hastily piled on top of her head, tied with a ribbon. The change had been accomplished with phenomenal speed, and she had doused herself with cologne water, smelling of mint. When she saw Maud, her face underwent a drastic change. The blue eyes filled with disappointment, and the saucy mouth drooped at the corners.

  “Ah-ha, luv!” Maud cried. “Guess I know who you was expectin’! Consider yourself lucky it was me instead of ’im! ’E’s bad news from the word go, an’ that’s a fact. Should see the way ’e treats ’is poor old aunt. Last night ’e was as surly as a bear, near ’bout snapped me head off when all I did was ask ’im if ’e was feelin’ all right. I knew then an’ there ’e’d met a new filly.”

  “Oh?” Bella said. “Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sure. If you won’t be needing me, Miss Kathy, I’m going to see about those curtains in my room.”

  “Don’t grieve, luv,” Maud said with a lusty cackle. “’E’ll be comin’ ’isself later on this afternoon. Wild ’orses couldn’t stop ’im.”

  “In that case, I wish you’d give him this list,” Bella said, picking up a slip of paper off the drainboard. “It’s things we need, and I’d appreciate it if he’d bring them. Miss Kathy will reimburse him when he delivers the items.”

  She was a parody of primness and decorum. She left the room with her chin at a haughty angle. Maud cackled again, thoroughly amused. “She’s a ripe ’un!” she exclaimed. “Don’t know who’s gonna get ’urt worse—’er or ’im, but I’ll be willin’ to bet she’ll hold ’er own with my nephew. Time ’e met someone who can put ’im down good and proper like.”

  “Bella didn’t mean to be rude,” I apologized.

  “’Course not! ’E’s a dazzlin’ fellow, ’e is, a regular devil with the women. That little filly’s already been marked for disaster.”

  “I’d he more inclined to say Alan has.”

  “It’d be tit for tat,” Maud agreed.

  I poured a cup of tea for myself and handed Maud a glass for her whiskey. She tipped the flask over the glass and filled it full, then jammed the empty flask back in her pocket and drank the whiskey as though she had gone for three days without water in the middle of the desert. She sighed, plopped the empty glass on the table, and looked at me with crackling blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed ruddy. I sipped my tea while Maud told me all about her herb garden, the medicine she made, her farm, her nursing, the four husbands who had preceded her to the grave, and the blacksmith who hoped to be her fifth. She related some salty gossip about the people of Darkmead and then began on the Rodds.

  I learned that Dorothea Rodd had been the beauty of the county before she married and shut herself up in Castle-moor, that she and her husband had lived in Rome for two years while their son, Burton, was at Oxford, and had adopted a little girl whose mother, their cook, had died of tuberculosis. Nicola was seventeen now, and a bloomin’ beauty from all reports, although being shut up in a castle was no life for a girl, and that was a fact. Dorothea’s husband had died years ago, and her son had taken over the family affairs. Maud said that Burton Rodd had saved Darkmead from industrial disaster when he took over the pottery factory, and was roundly despised because of it. No pretty girl was safe when he was in town, she said, and many a maid had slipped into the castle under the cloak of darkness and come out with a bagful of coins but a maid no more. Maud talked with a lusty relish for each anecdote, but I imagined much of her talk needed to be liberally sprinkled with grains of salt.

  “Wait till ’e sees you,” she said, nodding briskly. “That’s goin’ to be somethin’. ’E’ll go out of his mind.”

  “I see no reason why I should meet Burton Rodd,” I told her. “We may be neighbors, but it’s not likely—”

  “You’ll meet ’im, all right!” Maud cried. “When ’e ’ears about that golden hair and them eyes—you’ll meet ’im. Then look out!”

  “I’m sure I—”

  “He’s a fascinatin’ devil. Cold, ’eartless—irresistible. The girls in Darkmead are all a-pantin’ for ’im, and them that’re proper—the gentry lasses—they all want to reform ’im and save ’im from ’imself. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Not likely,” I said, my voice cool.

  Maud grinned. Her eyes sparkled. “Aye, it’s a situation that promises fireworks,” she said. “I can see that right now. A lad like ’im, a lass like you—”

  “I want to thank you for straightening up before we arrived,” I said, changing the subject abruptly. “It meant a great deal—”

  Maud saw that she had carried the other as far as she could without offense. She sighed and leaned her elbows on the table. “No offense, luv,” she said.

  “Of course not,” I replied. “I am grateful for what you did here. We would have been up half the night if—”

  “Don’t mention it, luv. Glad to do it. Wudn’t no trouble at all. I wanted things to be nice when you got ’ere. Good thing I came, too. That study was a shambles.”

  “Oh?” I said carefully.

  “Place looked like a gale swept through it—which is probably exactly what ’appened. A window was open, you see, and we had a big storm a couple of days ago—wind like you never seen! That big cabinetlike thing where Mr. D. kept all ’is papers had been tumped over, and the papers were all over the floor. Desk drawers were open, too, but I imagine they’d been left open before—took me quite a while to pick everything up and put it back.”

  “A—a window was open, and the wind blew the cabinet over?”

  “Sure, luv. You ain’t seen nothin’ till you’ve seen the wind cuttin’ across these moors. It’s a wonder the whole ’ouse wudn’t blown away.”

  I felt a wave of relief, but at the same time I couldn’t quite accept this explanation for the disorder in the study. There was doubt in the back of my mind, but I wanted so much to accept Maud’s explanation that I shoved the doubt even farther back and managed to forget it for the moment.

  “Did you ever see the manuscript my brother was working on?” I asked.

  “Not close up, I’ll tell you that! He’d a ’ad my ’ide if I so much as touched that precious pile of yellow paper. He kept it in a neat pile in one of the drawers and threatened to blister my rump if ’e ever saw me near that drawer. It was the only thing ’e was fanatical about, them papers.” She grinned. “He could be pretty rough at times, ’e could, snarlin’ and snappin’ when ’e’d been up all night workin’, but most of the time ’e was a lamb, a regular lamb. I usta bake ’im a cake now an’ then—”

  Her eyes were moist, and her lumpy face looked as though it might crumple up. She sniffed once and folded her arms about her and smiled, fond memory overcoming grief.

>   “Those first months, ’e was full of ginger, all eager an’ enthusiastic, talkin’ all the time, and in love with the place. He mentioned you a lot of times, said ’e was gonna bring you an’ the girl out here to live, said you’d love the moors just like ’e did. Then—I don’t know—’e changed. Still a lamb, mind you, but moody—”

  “Moody?”

  “Nervous-like. Lost a lotta weight, an’ ’is face got kinda pale-lookin’, with shadows under ’is eyes. He wouldn’t eat proper, no matter how much I got after ’im, and ’e looked kinda—well, kinda haunted-like, like ’e’d seen some of them ghosts them fools’re always talkin’ about.” Maud shook her head. “He was workin’ too ’ard, that’s all. Many’s the time I come in to find ’im slumped over ’is desk, sound asleep, the candles burned out and the oil lamps still splutterin’ in the middle of the mornin’—”

  “How did the—the accident happen?” I asked.

  She hesitated, clearly reluctant to tell me.

  “I want to know,” I said. “Everything—”

  “I understand, luv, but—”

  “Please,” I said firmly.

  “These moors are bad—bogs, quicksand, sudden crevasses in the earth. He stumbled over a rock, seems like, and tumbled into a crevasse, great hole twenty feet deep with sharp rocks at the bottom. He was missin’ about three days, and finally Buck Crabbe found ’im.”

  “Buck Crabbe?”

  “One of the servants at Castlemoor, ugly fellow, vicious, real rough an’ rowdy. He was strollin’ with a village girl, little Jennie Payne—she ain’t so little anymore—an’ they found ’im at the bottom of the crevasse. Real—real banged up, ’e was, but—’e musta died instantly. It was one of them horrible freak accidents—”

  I listened to all this calmly and found that I was able to maintain my calm even as she told me further details of the accident and how the body was placed in a closed coffin and shipped to London. Maud’s wonderful face registered her grief, the blue eyes welling up, the mouth quivering. She frowned and forced back the tears and looked at the empty glass as though she would have gone to the stake for another drop. She stood up, scraping the chair across the tile and tugging at the folds of her old gray sweater. I walked out to the wagon with her.

  “It’s been pleasant, Maud,” I said. “You must come back.”

  “I keep mighty busy,” she retorted. “Don’t ’ave much time to visit. You’re a luv, luv. You take care of yourself, hear?”

  “I will.”

  “And—don’t mind my ribbin’ you about Rodd. I talk too much, always ’ave. Old coot like me cain’t do much but talk—”

  “Nonsense,” I said.

  “One last word, and then I gotta rush—Fanny Potter’s expectin’ me, and she might be ready to burst out all over—if you do ’appen to meet Rodd, be careful, you hear? You’re a luv, an’ I wudn’t want nothin’ to ’urt you.”

  “I haven’t been hurt yet,” I said. “Not in the way you mean.”

  Maud looked at me with shrewd eyes, and she started to say something. She shook her head instead and climbed up on the wagon. I wondered what it was she had been about to say, something about love? I knew that Maud was undoubtedly an expert on that subject that I knew nothing about. Her eyes had conveyed a message far more effectively than words could have. What had that shrewd look meant? I shrugged my shoulders, dismissing it. I had too much to do to worry about something as trivial as love.

  Maud drove away, and I walked back toward the house. I noticed a horseshoe nailed over the door, and I stopped, startled. I felt a chill, and my pulses leaped. It was another evidence of Celtic superstition, a token to the pagan goddess of fertility. I wanted to jerk it down, destroy it, and then I realized how foolish I was acting. Centuries ago the womb-shaped object had been nailed over doorways in hopes that the goddess of fertility would bless the house and keep it from evil, but the original meaning had long since been forgotten by all but a few scholars. Now people nailed them up for “good luck,” and they had no pagan symbolism at all. Foolish of me to have been so startled, absurd to have been frightened. My nerves were on edge, and I was reading evil into the most innocent of things. Nevertheless, I intended to take the horseshoe down. It certainly hadn’t brought Donald good luck. Just the opposite. I didn’t want it over my door, no matter how innocent it might be.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Blue had drained from the sky, leaving it a watery gray expanse over which ponderous clouds, darker gray, rolled menacingly. A brisk breeze scurried low on the ground, ruffling through the stiff brown grass on the moors with a whispering sound. It was after four o’clock, and I was walking aimlessly, hoping the exercise would relieve some of the tension I had felt ever since Maud left. The wind caught the hems of my skirt and petticoats and caused them to billow, and my hair whipped like long golden ribbons about my head. I sensed a certain animosity about the land, as though it were savagely aware of my presence and resented it. Climbing a slope behind the house, I turned to look back. The house seemed frighteningly unprotected in the middle of all these barren acres, while beyond, over the hill, Castlemoor seemed a huge, bulky monster eager to snarl mightily and sweep down to devour the timid little dwelling.

  I went down the other side of the slope, and both places disappeared. I walked carefully over the hard grayish-brown earth with its chalky patches. Small rocks and bits of shell crunched beneath my shoes. I wondered about the shell but assumed there was a geological explanation for it. Once, ages ago, this whole land had probably been the surface of the ocean. Even now it retained some of the bizarre features—cracks, crevasses, huge boulders with water-worn smoothness and deep holes through which dark sea creatures might once have sailed. At the bottom of the slope the land stretched flat and empty, undulating at the edges and twisting up distant slopes, curving around great boulders. The gray-and-brown and chalky-white drabness was relieved only by the occasional moss-green growth on a boulder or the stark black stretches of tarlike peat.

  I walked carefully, overly aware of quicksand and bogs. I knew cattle had vanished before the very eyes of their herders, sinking from sight in a matter of seconds, and I had heard gruesome tales of wagonloads of people who had come to the moors on outings, never to return. Many of the most treacherous stretches had been marked with poles and roped off for safety, but I carefully avoided any ground that didn’t look firm. The wild terrain was desolate, full of menace, but it had a kind of barbaric splendor, something prehistoric, older than time. The land seemed to defy man and challenge his civilization. I seemed to feel some primeval power watching me, tolerating my presence here but warning me not to look too closely. It was an eerie feeling, almost tangible in the air around me.

  I walked for perhaps half an hour, letting the wind tear my hair and sting my cheeks, enjoying the sensation of movement and the feel of muscle used. Overhead the clouds rolled heavily and massed together, gray lined with black, weak white rays of sunlight spilling over their edges. I could smell the sea, miles away, a faint salty tang in the air, and the stronger, earthier smell of the peat. I came to a great cluster of rocks protected by a grassy brown slope that rose behind them. A gnarled oak tree grew in front of the rocks, a dwarf oak with crusted bark and bare, tormented limbs. The back of my knees ached, and I was breathing heavily. I decided to rest for a few minutes before starting back to the house.

  I sat down on a low, flat rock, leaning my back against another. I had enjoyed the walk, and it had been good for me. All the doubts and worries that had plagued me earlier were gone. The manuscript would turn up. There was nothing to be alarmed about. It would be foolish to work myself into a state over nothing. So it wasn’t in the study? Well, I would find it. My brother had had rigid work habits, but they weren’t entirely inflexible. He may have—he may have put the manuscript in a suitcase, or in a cupboard. It didn’t necessarily have to be in a certain desk drawer. Maud’s explanation of the confusion in the study was a perfectly logical one. Donald left a window
open when he went out for—for the last time, and a storm caused the damage, knocking the cabinet over, scattering the papers. There was no reason to make a mystery of it all.

  I was thinking about this when I heard the first growl. I thought it was thunder and paid no attention. Then it came again, followed by a fierce bark. I jumped to my feet, terrified. A huge greyhound stood at the top of the slope, his strong, sleek body rigid, his hair bristling. He growled again, and another greyhound, as strong, as fierce, came up behind him. I was petrified. My pulses leaped, and my throat went dry. The dogs snarled and snapped at the air, their vicious eyes burning at me with savage fury. I could see the tensed muscles under the silver-gray coats and the gleaming white teeth like monster fangs. The air was charged with hot animal rage. I was too terrified to scream. I watched with horrified fascination as the first dog pawed at the ground, leaped up on its hind legs, threw its body into a rigid stance, and flew down the slope, a live silver arrow streaking through the air toward me.

  I closed my eyes. I saw death.

  I felt the thud of the heavy body against my legs and heard the shrill ripping noise as my skirt was torn. In an explosion of horror I saw flashes of red, felt black wings flapping inside my head, heard the sharp command shouted, staggered, opened my eyes, saw the dog crouching beside me, body quivering. My skirt was torn, but I was unharmed. The dog whimpered and looked up at me as though in apology, abject now. A girl came rushing down the slope toward me, the other dog leaping beside her.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “They didn’t know—”

  I was still too stunned to speak. My knees felt weak, and my wrists were limp. I took a deep breath, pressing my hand against my heart. The black wings grew still, receded. The orange flashes vanished, and I began to focus again. My heart stopped pounding so rapidly. I made a jerky little gesture with my hand and had to curb an impulse to break into hysterical laughter.