Laura Possessed

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘Younger?’ he interrupted brutally.

  After a moment she said in a low voice, ‘It would be like throwing his age in his face.’

  ‘But he promised to release you! All you have to do is ask!’

  She smiled a little. ‘Like Soames and Irene? But it didn’t work out for them, either.’

  His eyes refocussed on the photograph—the sweet curving mouth, the broad brow and wide, trusting eyes. What had he done to her? What had they done to each other?

  He waited, holding his breath, for the pain to reach the unbearable crescendo as it always did when he allowed his thoughts to go back unchecked. Incredibly, this time it didn’t come. Instead, like a balm to his tortured soul, came the thought of Laura, peacefully sleeping at Four Winds. Slowly his fingers unflexed and he relaxed.

  Gently he replaced the photograph, locked up the desk and began to prepare for bed. He couldn’t begin to understand the permutations which flickered in his mind, seeming one moment to offer a plausible solution but dissolving before he could grasp and understand them. Slowly, with his head still full of unanswerable questions, he went up the narrow wooden staircase to bed.

  The next morning the rain had gone and grass and leaves glowed with renewed greenness. Lewis awoke with the sun on his face and a feeling of happy expectancy. He had intended driving down to the south coast today in connection with a series he was contemplating on British seaside resorts. There could hardly be a better day on which to put the plan into effect and, he thought on a rising tide of excitement, he could call in at Four Winds on the way and see if Laura would like to go with him.

  She and Caroline were still at breakfast when he arrived, shortly before nine. Caroline was pale and composed, courteously pouring him a cup of coffee as he rather self-consciously put forward his proposal, but Laura was delighted at the prospect of the unexpected outing.

  ‘Oh, Lewis, I’d love to!’ She turned to her sister-in-law. ‘It would be all right, wouldn’t it, Caroline? You haven’t made any other arrangements?’

  ‘No, nothing, but I hope the long drive won’t tire you.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t!’ Laura pushed back her chair. ‘Can you wait just a moment while I get a cardigan? It might be cooler coming home.’ She ran out of the room and his eyes met Caroline’s.

  ‘You do understand—’ he began awkwardly.

  ‘My dear Lewis, if you’re going to apologize every time we meet, we’ll never get back on a normal footing!’ She stood up suddenly. ‘Will you excuse me? I have a meeting in Tonbridge at ten—it’s time I was going.’

  ‘Of course.’ He stood while she left the room and then pulled out his chair again to finish his cup of coffee.

  ‘And did you really have a stag’s head on the dining-room wall?’ Noel had demanded delightedly. ‘I thought that was only in the stately homes!’

  ‘Not at all,’ he’d replied smilingly, ‘many lesser homes had them, I assure you, Four Winds among them.’

  ‘Didn’t you use to run into the hall to see where the rest of it was?’

  It was a moment before he realized that it was Laura, and not his memory of Noel, who had spoken.

  ‘What?’ He stared at her blankly.

  ‘Sorry—I thought—I mean—weren’t you thinking of the old stag’s head? You were staring at the wall just where you said it used to be.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You’re quite right, as always.’ He took her arm and felt her tremble slightly, as she had in the sitting-room the previous evening. His eyes as he looked down at her were oddly tender. ‘Will you be warm enough?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’

  It was a glorious drive through some of England’s most beautiful countryside—fields of hops, white-washed cottages and the quaint, bent roofs of oasthouses. Laura said musingly, ‘You know, I was terribly disappointed the first time I saw Brocklehurst. I guess I hadn’t really wanted to come at all, though it sounds ungrateful to admit it, but I’d at least hoped for a pretty village like some of these we’re passing through.’

  ‘I suppose Brocklehurst hasn’t much claim to beauty. I’ve never really thought about it. It was just home, that’s all. I know every inch of the woods and lanes round about. We used to picnic in them, and collect birds’ eggs and play all sorts of wild games, and then later, when we grew up a bit, we’d walk with our girl friends there.’

  ‘You and Barry and Dave?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  After a moment she said hesitantly, ‘You—did tell me about them, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ And he saw that the worried crease had left her brow.

  ‘We had a letter from Fenella this morning,’ she told him a little later.

  ‘Who’s Fenella?’

  ‘I was forgetting. You never met her, did you? She was poor Mr. Sandilands’ assistant.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. And how is she?’

  ‘Writing steadily, she says. The book should meet the publication deadline despite everything. She was asking how my study on violence was progressing.’

  ‘What shall you tell her?’

  She laughed. ‘Well, we have digressed a bit, haven’t we? The only violence we’ve touched on so far is the smashing of the ormolu clock!’

  ‘True. Unfortunately my intention of fighting as a mercenary in the Spanish Civil War never came to anything. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that I was only nine at the time!’

  She smiled. ‘What was your first brush with violence, then?’

  ‘National Service, I suppose, directly after the war. I don’t know whether that gave me a taste for adventure, but it certainly awoke my wanderlust. Anyway, aren’t you rather jumping the gun? We’ve some way to go yet before we reach that epoch.’

  ‘What was the war like? It seems incredible to think how it must have been, with the Battle of Britain being fought almost directly overhead on beautiful summer days like this.’

  ‘It was pretty grim then, but at least we had no bombing round us. There was a constant fear of invasion, of course, to begin with, but after that faded, the thing that stands out most clearly in my mind is sweet-rationing!’

  ‘But you remember the German pilot, surely?’ She stopped, her eyes dilating, but he said smoothly against the jerk of his heart,

  ‘Of course. He crashed in a field just outside Ledbrook. The all-clear had gone by then and we all got our bikes out and cycled hell for leather down the lanes to find out what the almighty bang had been. He’d bailed out, of course, and we arrived as he was being escorted from the field by the police. I can see him now, not much more than a boy, with close-cropped fair hair and a white, frightened face. You know, I think that was the first time it dawned on me that Germans were actually human.’

  There was a short silence, then she said quietly, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For pretending you’d already told me about it when you hadn’t. Do I ever frighten you, Lewis? I frighten myself quite often nowadays. It’s strange the way it’s all snowballed. At first, you know, I didn’t like you at all, but ever since that night you came to dinner, I seem to have been drawn to you more and more.’

  ‘I know,’ he said gently.

  ‘It happened gradually, though. For a while I only liked you when we were both at Four Winds. Isn’t that ridiculous? As though it’s possible to like someone in one place and not another.’

  ‘And do I improve on acquaintance?’ he asked humorously, but despite his light tone he was tense as he waited for her reply.

  ‘Either that or the influence is getting stronger.’

  The car swerved under his hands. ‘What influence, Laura?’

  She glanced at him in surprise. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘Tell me anyway.’ But after a moment she shook her head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He didn’t press the point, but the wild surmises which had plagued him in the night were back in his head like a swarm of buzzing flies.
>
  By the time they reached Eastbourne, a stiff breeze was blowing off the sea and they were glad to leave the close confines of the car. She went with him into the small cafés and big hotels, into the cheap souvenir shops and ice-cream parlours, listening while he asked questions and jotted down the answers in his own personal shorthand.

  They had lunch in an imposing hotel dining room amid a crowd of happy, sunburned holiday-makers. Lewis watched Laura while she watched their fellow diners. Beside Caroline she had always seemed pale and colourless, but here, in her own right, as it were, he saw that he had underrated her. The silver-blonde hair had an ethereal quality, and although the sun had touched her skin to a pale honey, the blue veins were still clearly visible beneath the surface. There was a kind of fragile delicacy about her which, to his surprise, awoke in him a fierce protectiveness.

  ‘What did you mean,’ he asked before he could stop himself, ‘about the influence getting stronger?’

  She turned back to him and answered calmly, ‘Only that at first she could only reach you at Four Winds. You must have described it for her so well that she was quite at home there. Those twisted trees, the first day I arrived, they were what she would have expected to see, weren’t they?’

  He gazed at her, dumbfounded by the explicitness of her explanation. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Not now. She was so desperately unhappy. I was aware of it all the time. Now that I’m doing what she wants, she’s much happier.’

  ‘What does she want?’ He wondered briefly, crazily, how this conversation would sound to Edward, even to Caroline.

  ‘Only to be near you again. It was really very clever, the way she arranged things, making me want to write about violence—perhaps even putting pressure on Edward to suggest you as a guide. How he’d resent that! Of course, it was really only an excuse for me to be with you, to find out everything I could about you, for her.’

  ‘Couldn’t she have found out for herself?’

  ‘No, she couldn’t reach you directly. I think she must have been trying all the time. By the time I arrived at Four Winds she was desperate. She latched onto me straightaway and luckily for her, this time it paid off. I’ve no idea why. Perhaps I’m what’s known as a “sensitive.”’ She smiled a little. ‘She’s very determined, ‘I suppose you know that. She gave me no peace until I accepted her.’

  He leant across the table towards her. ‘Laura, what about you in all this?’

  ‘I?’ She looked bewildered.

  ‘Mightn’t it get rather out of control?’

  ‘No, of course not. She won’t need me much longer. She’s in touch with you again and because of me she’s able to move about more freely now. She doesn’t have to wait until you visit Four Winds.’

  ‘But—surely it’s rather more than that. She—actually speaks through you sometimes, doesn’t she?’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  He stared at her with mounting disquiet. So after all she didn’t realize the full extent of Noel’s power. For it was hardly likely that Noel, whose forceful personality had already made use of Laura’s frail, compliant body, would ever be content to let her go, to be merely a spirit again without a body to enter at will.

  He said harshly, ‘You’re playing with fire, you must realize that.’

  ‘I hadn’t much choice. Shall I tell you something else? I dreamt about you before I met you that day at the Howards’ party. You called me—Noel.’

  It was the first time she had spoken the name and he saw the ripple that passed over her face. He had an absurd impulse to cross himself—he, to whom the name of God was no more than a convenient oath. Instead, he said softly, ‘You’re very brave, Laura. Thank you, from both of us.’

  It was almost laughable, he thought distractedly, that this conversation, more suited to a churchyard at dead of night, should be taking place in the relaxed, midday sunshine of a holiday hotel. Bell, book and candle. He shuddered, wrenched his attention back to the waiter and called for their bill.

  It was after six when they left Eastbourne and they stopped at a small roadside hotel for dinner an hour later.

  ‘Do you intend to carry on the farce of writing my memoirs?’ he enquired idly over coffee.

  ‘Oh, it’s not a farce. I didn’t mean to imply that. After all, I am supposed to be a writer and we’ve put a lot of hard work into it already. It’s extremely interesting and anyway, Edward would never forgive me if I backed out now!’

  Lewis said reflectively, ‘On the contrary, I think he would probably be vastly relieved.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Didn’t he and Richard try to persuade you to go back to London to get away from me?’

  ‘Oh, they’ve got over that by now.’

  ‘Do you get on well with Edward—and Caroline?’

  She hesitated. ‘They’re very kind.’

  ‘You said earlier that you hadn’t wanted to go to them.’

  ‘I guess I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that—well, Richard has always been my favourite brother, though I love them all, of course. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always had to stick up for him!’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Your brother Richard struck me as being well able to stick up for himself.’

  ‘Oh, he is, of course. I meant when he’s not there. The others don’t approve of him, especially Caroline and Janet, Toby’s wife.’

  ‘And couldn’t you have stayed with Richard?’

  She shook her head decidedly. ‘No, it just wasn’t on. For one thing he has a tiny flat and then Gillian, the girl he’s living with, well, she’s very sweet, but you could hardly expect her to welcome the thought of a sister as a permanent addition to the household!’

  ‘Is she permanent herself?’ asked Lewis with some amusement.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. Richard’s rather fickle. You should hear Caroline on the subject!’

  ‘I can imagine!’ he said treacherously, and they both laughed. ‘Well, we’d better be pressing on. We’ve still quite a lot of mileage to cover.’

  As he switched on the ignition, he leant over on impulse and kissed her lightly on the mouth. Her lips tasted of salt from the winds of Eastbourne. Neither of them made any attempt to prolong the kiss, but Lewis found it inexpressibly sweet. She settled back in her seat with a contented sigh as they turned out onto the road again. He became aware that she was humming very softly under her breath. The tune knifed into him, but after a moment the spasm passed. After all, it only meant that as Laura relaxed Noel rose to the surface. He felt closer to her than he had done for five years, and the sensation was one of deep, enveloping peace.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Outwardly, Lewis’s relationship with Laura had not really changed, but he was aware, and he thought she was too, that the day in Eastbourne had been a landmark for them, that the deliberately superficial kiss had sealed the bond between them.

  However, there were also times when he bitterly regretted letting Caroline go while their attraction for each other was still at its height, and perhaps unfairly, he blamed Laura for this. During the hours he was away from her, he was constantly racked with recurring doubts about the whole affair and when he looked back on their conversation at lunch that day, it seemed completely preposterous. He was at a loss to understand how he had even for a moment accepted it.

  Yet when he was with her, she had only to use some American expression or suddenly look at him sideways under lowered lids in a manner so entirely Noel’s and his heart would begin to pound and he’d be floundering again.

  During working hours he did not come into contact much with Edward since, although he did submit articles to the Courier, he was freelance and largely his own master. Without the convenience of an office in which to exchange news and views, he had fallen into the habit of dropping in to the Three Bells most evenings, where journalists from several of the local papers generally met over a drink.

  One evening towards the end of June he was later
than usual coming away from Four Winds and arrived at the pub just as a crowd of his friends were leaving.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyone still inside?’

  ‘Yes, Steve said he’d hang on in case you showed up. The advantages of bachelorhood!’

  Lewis nodded and pushed his way inside. The little room was crowded as usual, but Steve Barton was the only member of his crowd still there. Lewis joined him at the far end of the curved bar where Caroline had found him that time with Harry. He accepted the beer Steve put on the bar top in front of him, but his mind was still reeling from the combined impact of Laura and Noel.

  ‘Lewis?’

  He looked up. ‘Sorry, did you say something?’

  Steve looked at him worriedly, his face creased with concern. ‘What is it, old lad? Something’s obviously on your mind these days. Anything I can do?’

  It was exactly the right psychological moment for such an offer, and Lewis succumbed. The relief of being able to talk the whole thing over with a sympathetic but disinterested outsider would, he felt, be boundless.

  ‘You could listen, if you wouldn’t mind,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Glad to. Fire away.’

  ‘The devil of it is, I don’t know where to start.’ He looked up, straightened his shoulders and met Steve’s eye squarely. ‘What would you say if I told you I thought the spirit of someone I once knew, and loved, was trying to get in contact with me?’

  He waited, more tense than he realized, for Steve’s reaction. If it were one of outright scepticism, he would laugh it all off and change the subject, but to his untold relief Steve replied quietly, ‘I should be extremely interested. Has she succeeded?’

  Lewis said abruptly, ‘You don’t think I’m going out of my mind?’

  ‘Not at all. As a matter of fact it’s a pet subject of mine. I did a lot of research on it once for some articles that had been commissioned, the whole caboodle, ouija boards, mediums (or is it media?), even poltergeists. And the more I studied it, admittedly in the first instance with my tongue in my cheek, the more I became convinced that there’s something in it. That was several years ago, and lately of course there’s been a whole spate of magazine articles and television programs on the occult. People are beginning to realize that what they had written off as a lot of cranky make-believe ought to be taken seriously.’