Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

  Blackstone Cottage sat squat and solid in its winter garb. He had the sudden strong impression that the cottage was a living thing, hibernating in its garden of bare rose bushes and leafless shrubs, waiting for the sun to bring it to life again. It seemed to be settling deeper into the cold earth. He jumped from the car and ran down the narrow path to the green front door.

  Mrs. Wookey greeted him cheerfully and said, no, the young lady hadn’t been back and would he like a cup of tea?

  “No, thanks. If Nina turns up, please call the vicarage. We’ll be having dinner there.”

  “All right. So you’ve met Giles, then? Made such a difference to the parish he has. Started a wonderful choir. Very musical. Did you know that? He’s organised all sorts of things, concerts and shows…”

  Martin nodded and thanked and edged toward the door. “I really must try to catch up with Nina, Mrs. Wookey.” He opened the door. “Thank you.” A black and white cat darted in as he closed it behind him, nearly tripping him.

  “There you are, Maggie,” she said as the door closed. Martin sat in the car and tried to think. Where would she go? Rain drummed on the roof and ran down the windows in a waterfall. He switched on the engine and the wipers began their tireless swish, swish. The Hall? Would she go there? Think! Was she acting as Nina or Miranda?

  Nina might go to the Hall but she wouldn’t go without him and Jessica. She must be acting as Miranda and where would she go? Not to the Hall. It had nothing she wanted. Miranda wanted Piers. Where would Miranda go to meet Piers? Martin heard Giles’ voice in his head as he related the story of the doomed lovers. “They used to meet in a grove of oaks along the Plymouth road.”

  Mud and gravel spurted from under the wheels as he wrenched the Saab around in a tight u-turn and roared back along the road to the vicarage.

  Giles had returned from his commune with God and sat in the living room with Jessica when Martin burst in.

  “The oak grove. Where’s the oak grove?” he demanded.

  “About a mile away in a field.” Giles leapt to his feet. “Do you think she’s gone there?”

  “To meet Piers.” Jessica pressed her hand against her breast. She stared at Martin, horror etched into her features. “That’s where she died. Oh, Martin, save her, save her.” Tears streamed down her face. Giles put a solid arm around her.

  “We’ll bring her back safe and sound, don’t you worry,” he said. “Wait here by the fire, in case she’s simply gone for a stroll and comes back cheery as can be.” He gave her an encouraging minister’s smile. “Don’t forget. God’s on our side.”

  Jessica raised a weak smile in return and settled back into her chair but her fingers twisted tightly around each other.

  “Come on.” Martin was already heading for the door.

  Wind and rain lashed the car as they drove in silence along the road to Plymouth. Martin peered through the watery windscreen hoping for a glimpse of Nina’s little figure taking shelter under one of the occasional trees along the route or perhaps huddled under the hedgerow on the side of the road. He saw no one.

  “She may have gone across the fields. It’s more direct.” Giles thought a moment. “But Nina wouldn’t know that, would she?”

  “No,” said Martin. “But we’re talking about Miranda.”

  “Miranda?”

  “She’s going to meet Piers, the way she always did,” replied Martin grimly, daring Giles to object. But Giles didn’t, he accepted the explanation without further comment.

  “See. Over there.” He pointed at a dark, forbidding patch of giant trees across the barren field on the left.

  Giles parked the car off the road by a farm gate. He buttoned his coat tight round his neck and pulled up the collar before clambering out into the drenching rain. Martin opened the gate with stiff cold fingers and pushed it open. Giles followed clumsily, floundering and sliding on the muddy ground but Martin didn’t wait; he forged ahead as fast as the driving wind and rain would allow, head down fighting against the elements trying to prevent his approach. The wind howled through the treetops. Nina’s words pounded in his head.

  “The trees. They were terrifying. I thought—I knew—I would die there.”

  He struggled on. Twice he slipped and fell to his knees but dragged himself up. The rain soaked through to his skin, his coat hung heavy as lead from his body dragging him down, slowing him, pulling him back. But he fought on.

  “Nina,” he shouted. “Nina.” But his words were carried away on the wind and drowned by the torrents of water pouring from the sky. Sobbing with fear and exhaustion he staggered between the first of the trees. They resented his presence, whipped their bare branches toward him with animal malevolence. He ducked his head and leaned against a damp knobbly trunk to catch his breath. Giles blundered to his side, gasping and shaking. He gripped Martin’s arm.

  “The centre,” he shouted. “There’s a clearing in the centre.” He ploughed away between the trees, shielding his head from the fury of the branches. Other smaller evergreen varieties had sprung up at random, making visibility even worse. Martin followed as best he could. The pounding of the rain and the howling wind in the trees deafened him still, even though they were partially sheltered from the worst of it.

  He shouted again, “Nina. Nina.”

  Ahead of him Giles did the same but their voices were lost. She’d never hear them. They burst through into a small cleared area. A branch from a huge tree had fallen a long time ago and lay moss-covered and decaying across the middle. Martin struggled around the edge of the clearing calling Nina’s name frantically. If she wasn’t here where would she be?

  Giles circled in the other direction so they reached the opposite side at same time. Nina lay right against the trunk of the fallen branch, face up, eyes closed, features composed in the still mask of death, rain dripping like tears from her face.

  “Nina,” wailed Martin. He flung himself forward to scoop her into his arms and hold her against his breast. “We’re too late. Too late.”

  “Martin. Martin.” Slowly he became aware of Giles kneeling in the mud at his side, trying to prise Nina’s body from his grasp with clawing fingers.

  “No,” he shouted. “Don’t touch her.” He buried his face in her neck and cried tears of misery and despair. Piers had won. He’d taken Nina just as he said he would. Martin had lost, he’d failed Nina. He’d sworn to protect her and he’d failed. He’d promised her father. He’d lost her.

  “Martin!” Giles spoke sharply. “She’s alive. Get up. We have to take her home.”

  “Alive?” Martin stared at Giles uncomprehending, then looked down at the pale face.

  “She’s breathing. Come on, we have to warm her. Put this on her.” Giles had stripped off his coat and together they wrapped it around her lifeless body. Martin rose and carried her like a sleeping baby in his arms through the trees and the driving rain and the wind, stumbling across the tussocky bare field to the gate which Giles unlatched and swung open to allow him to pass through with his precious cargo.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Martin sat in the backseat cradling Nina in his arms, crooning to her as Giles drove fast along the slick and winding road to the shelter and haven of the vicarage. She wasn’t alive. Giles was wrong. Piers had killed his Nina the way he’d killed Miranda all those years ago. Now perhaps he would be satisfied, he would leave them alone. Now Martin would suffer the way Piers had suffered, the difference being Martin was not vindictive like Piers and wouldn’t seek to visit his anguish and grief on an innocent party. The way Piers had. For over a hundred years. What a malevolent, vicious, cruel bastard the man was.

  Martin hugged Nina to him and kissed her lifeless cheeks and then her cold mouth. He gently stroked a wet strand of hair from her forehead and whispered, “I love you, Nina.”

  Giles swung the car too fast around a corner and slewed into a skid. He corrected frantically, called “Sorry” as he straightened. Martin glanced up as he braced himself and Nina against t
he momentum of being hurled across the car. He looked down at Nina. Her eyelids flickered. Two deep dark pools of life stared at him for an instant, then the lids fluttered closed.

  The breath stalled in his lungs. “Nina?” he whispered through a throat gone hoarse.

  Her eyes opened again and this time she shifted slightly in his arms.

  “Cold,” she murmured.

  “You’ll be warm soon, my darling. You’re safe now.”

  The wisp of a smile flickered. “Piers,” she murmured. “My love.”

  “We’ll take her to the doctor,” yelled Giles over his shoulder.

  Martin couldn’t reply. He gazed at the girl in his arms. Who was she? Nina or Miranda? He didn’t know anymore and neither did she. Every inch of her face was familiar and dear to him, every line, every hair on her head. He loved her as he had loved no other. But so did Piers.

  “We have to make Piers understand that Miranda is dead,” he muttered to himself, and then louder, “How much longer?”

  “We’re here.” Giles jammed on the brakes. The car skated across the shiny tarmac and narrowly avoided crushing the doctor’s garden gate. He bundled out and opened the door for Martin.

  Gruff, grey-haired Doctor Krupp listened to Giles’ necessarily partial explanation, took one look at Nina and said, “Bring her through. She needs warmth.”

  He led the way to a small clinic style room with two empty beds. Martin stripped off Nina’s soaked boots and socks while the doctor removed Giles’ coat and her wet sweater. “Take off her other wet things and put her into bed and rub her all over with this.” He handed Martin a towel. “I’ll get some hot water bottles under way.”

  “I’d better tell Jessica,” said Giles.

  Martin nodded absently concentrating on his task. He grasped Nina’s frozen right foot and began rubbing as vigorously as he could. When the skin felt more pliable he moved to the left one, then her hands and arms and torso, her pale body fragile and lifeless under his hands as he worked. The doctor returned with a night gown, thick socks and three hot water bottles. Together they dressed her and tucked her in.

  “Her colour’s a little better. I’ll give her a check up, temperature, pulse etcetera. Perhaps you could fill me in on what happened? Has she been ill? Any medical conditions I should know about?”

  Martin sat on the end of the bed with his hand resting on the quilt covering Nina’s legs.

  “No, no. She’s been having…we’ve both been under an emotional strain lately. Nina’s from Sydney, Australia. We’re trying to trace someone and it’s been traumatic for her. For both of us.” Martin looked at the doctor hopefully. It didn’t sound at all convincing to him but if Doctor Krupp thought his explanation odd he didn’t comment. He nodded and stuck a thermometer in Nina’s mouth while he held her wrist.

  “Pulse is racing. Temperature’s up a bit. Nothing too alarming,” he reported. “Emotional strain.” He cocked a bushy, grey eyebrow at Martin. “Had a fight, did you? She ran off?”

  “Not exactly,” said Martin. “It’s complicated.”

  “Friends of Giles, are you?”

  “More or less. We’re staying at the B&B with Mrs. Wookey.”

  “I see. Leave her here tonight. I’d like to keep an eye on her.”

  “Tonight?” Martin looked up sharply. “No, no. I’d feel better if she were with me.”

  Doctor Krupp studied him from under hedge-like eyebrows.

  “My dear young man,” he said. “Your Nina is severely chilled and in a state of nervous shock. I think it would be best if she remained under my care until she recovers enough to walk out herself. We don’t want to risk pneumonia.”

  “But she mustn’t be left alone,” insisted Martin. “Can I stay? In the other bed?”

  “I’m not running a hotel.”

  “Please. I need to be close to her. If she wakes up she won’t know where she is.”

  The doctor stared at Martin, then at Nina. “All right. But you’ll need to get some things for her.”

  “I’ll send a friend. Thank you, doctor.” Martin grabbed the him by the hand and pumped it up and down. “She’ll be all right, won’t she? She won’t die or anything?”

  “If she’d stayed out much longer it’d be a different story. My wife’s just come in. I’ll tell her we’ve a patient and a guest.”

  “Please. I don’t want to be any trouble. I can eat at the pub but Nina hasn’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “She’ll be hungry when she wakes up then, won’t she?” said the doctor and left the room.

  Martin lay down next to Nina and put his arms around her.

  ****

  Cutting Marsh, 1892

  People were whispering nearby. The low hisses and murmurings turned themselves into words but she couldn’t sort out what they meant. Miranda’s eyes flickered open and her father’s face swam into view then receded. Something deliciously cool was pressed against her forehead. Her skin was burning up. Fingers pressed against her wrist.

  She was cold. Unbearably so. Cold and wet, frozen to the very bone. So cold she wanted to die, couldn’t move, couldn’t make the effort to force the air in and out of her lungs. Frozen.

  Her eyes opened. She was in her bedroom but somehow it was different. The walls had changed colour, the curtains…strange furnishings…of metal?

  A strange face appeared, clean shaven, young and kind with gentle eyes and a sad, worried expression. He loved her. She knew that without his saying a word. She tried to smile at him. He lay beside her and put his arms around her and held her. She was safe and warm in his embrace.

  Music poured into the room and enveloped her, taking with it the bone-chilling cold, tearing her from the arms that held her—a soaring, passionate violin, the like of which she’d never heard before. The melody called to her, wakened something in the depths of her soul so that she wanted to follow and give herself up to the very essence of it. It was part of her, it was part of her destiny and her life. The throbbing violin became louder, closer. Miranda strained for a glimpse of the player.

  She was in a garden, a rose garden, heavy with scent from the rich, sensuous blooms lining the pathway, velvet petals fallen like blood red drops on the gravel beneath her feet. She walked and all around her the music sang and caressed and seduced her senses. The she saw him. A tall, dark-haired figure standing, waiting. He turned as she approached. His eyes burned into hers. She knew him. She’d always known him. He was her destiny. He was Piers. He held out his arms and she ran to him.

  “At last I have found you,” he whispered. He kissed her and his mouth was urgent, his body hard, filled with desire. He drew back from the embrace and gripped her arms tightly with strong fingers. “I will come for you, Mira,” he said. “Soon. Very soon.”

  He left her then and she was unable to follow as he disappeared between the arching boughs of a willow growing by the ornamental pond. The music faded and she was alone with just the perfume of the roses.

  “Miranda?” Her father’s voice came to her through a fog. He must be very far away. She struggled to open her eyes. His dear face appeared with the wrinkles around the pale blue eyes and the tufts of greying hair springing from his head. But his face was shiny with perspiration and he was in shirt sleeves.

  “Is it raining yet?” she murmured.

  “No, my dear, not yet. How do you feel?”

  “Tired.”

  “You’ve been ill with a fever for several days. Sleep now. The worst has passed.” He laid a cool hand on her brow. Miranda closed her eyes and smiling, slipped into sleep.

  ****

  Nina’s eyes flicked open. Her right arm was pinioned beneath her and she shifted to free it. Pins and needles made her grit her teeth and grimace. She sat up and stared around, rubbing her arm vigorously. This wasn’t their bedroom at Blackstone Cottage. It was a newer building and had the feel of a hospital. The bed and the small grey cabinet by the window were clinical and sterile looking. A second bed in the room had been s
lept in but there was no sign of its occupant.

  Where on earth was she? And where was Martin? And Jessica? She threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, heart thudding. An unfamiliar pair of thick, red, woolly socks adorned her feet and not only that, she had on someone else’s pink nightie. Nina padded across to the door and carefully eased it open. Voices came from farther down the passage to the right. She listened, straining her ears to hear, trying to ascertain the source. Martin? Jessica? No, not Jessica. The woman’s voice was younger. A chair rasped on a tiled floor.

  Nina fled back into her room and jumped into bed, heart pounding. She dragged the covers up to her chin and sat fearfully watching the door as two sets of footsteps clumped along the passage.

  “Martin?” she called, her voice wavering.

  The door flew open and he rushed in. “Nina. Thank God.”

  His body trembled in her arms as he hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “What happened Where are we?” she asked when he released his grip enough for her to speak.

  “Martin and the Vicar brought you here last night, half frozen,” said a deep, gruff voice. “I’m Dr Krupp. Would you mind telling us what you were doing running about in a storm in the dead of winter with no coat, getting drenched and scaring your friend here half to death? Not to mention our Vicar and the other poor lady.”

  Nina stiffened in Martin’s arms as the implications of the Doctor’s summation sank in. He held her away and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Where was I?” she whispered.

  “In the grove of trees. The oaks we passed on the way in.”

  He didn’t need to add “where you passed out yesterday”. Nina shuddered and closed her eyes as a memory flitted through her mind. A sharp chill of pain, darkness and despair, an overwhelming crippling fear.

  “That’s where she died,” she said softly.

  “Miranda?”

  Nina nodded and rested her cheek against his shoulder as he drew her into his arms again.