The house seemed to beckon her…
Welcome her . . .
As if it knew her . . .
The light had faded, and dark, bilious clouds had taken its place. In the three short weeks I’d spent in Cornwall, I’d learned two things: that the weather was not to be trusted, and that the wind never ceased to blow. Fair weather or foul, it whistled and murmured and moaned, like a living, breathing, tortured being. It had risen since it played innocently among the foxglove blooms earlier stirring the mists along the graveyard gate. Now it was angry, driving the black clouds inland from the sea. Waterfowl raced before it dotting the sky like a blizzard over the mighty house, and I’d scarcely pulled the car to a stop when the rain came.
It was just as I remembered it from my drive-by earlier, like a creature of myth silhouetted against the storm—a huge, rambling, turreted structure of stone and timbers defying its existence in such a setting. Yet, aside from a wounded turret, a few missing boards, and a good deal of broken glass, Cragmoor approached the dawn of another century remarkably intact.
I tried to imagine the house as it once must have been, ablaze with light and life, surrounded by manicured lawns and courtyards and lush, fragrant gardens. Now it rose from a tangled snarl of briar, thorn, and desolation. Row upon row of darkened windows, catching stray glints of the fading light, shuddered in the wind as the gale bore down upon it. The house was asleep, and I was about to wake it.
Rape of the Soul
Dawn Thompson
Highland Press Publishing
Florida
Rape of the Soul
Copyright ©2008 Estate of Dawn Thompson
Cover copyright ©2008 Deborah MacGillivray
Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, please contact
Highland Press Publishing,
PO Box 2292, High Springs, FL 32655.
www.highlandpress.org
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, save actual historical figures. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
ISBN: 978-0-9815573-2-8
HIGHLAND PRESS PUBLISHING
Legacy Imprint
Tribute
Dawn Thompson struggled for years to get in print. People see her over a dozen novels in two years and assume she was an overnight success. Like so many others, Dawn worked for a long time to see her novels published. Rape of the Soul was written twenty years ago, years before the accident that saw Dawn confined to a wheelchair this past decade. This book was written without considering how to make it more commercial. It was written from her heart and it’s a masterpiece. At one point, she tried to make it suitable for mass-market release, trimming its saga length down to a 350 page book. The story suffered, so she put the novel away rather than see it ruined. She loved this book and refused to see the story destroyed by paring it down to fit a smaller mass-market release.
When Dawn fell ill in the autumn of 2007, she said this saga was the book of her heart, that she feared it would never be published because it was too long. One of the biggest regrets of her life. I assured her I would see it put in print and see it done exactly as she wanted. She described this book as Anya Seton meets Stephan King―a perfect description. I promised her before she died this book was going to be published and it made her so happy.
Dawn Thompson was an inspiration to me. She lived her life with extreme hardship and pain, and yet she was never bitter or railed about the injustices life continually dumped on her door step. She was always laughing; always there for me when I needed assurance I could make it as an author.
She
was a beautiful writer and this is her story as she wanted. We lost
this amazing talent on February 8, 2008. She was stolen from us, but
here is her heart . . . exactly as she wanted–word for word.
I
thank Leanne Burroughs, the publisher-owner of Highland Press
Publishing, for helping me see Dawn’s heart, her legacy, brought
into reality.
This
is a promise kept.
Deborah Macgillivray
March 17, 2008
* * * *
People wishing to honor Dawn’s memory may make a donation in her name to Stephen King’s The Haven Foundation, which aided Dawn in the final
months
of her life.
The
Haven Foundation
P.O. Box 128
Brewer, ME 04412
~Chapter One~
“Christ have mercy,” he murmured, the words leaking from his paste-white lips as he ran me through with the most intense pair of amber-colored eyes I’d ever seen. They seemed to see right into my soul.
The whole valley around us was quick with mists the color of sorrow personified. He was nearly invisible kneeling in the midst of them weeding the foxglove and primrose border that hemmed the wrought iron fence around the graveyard behind St. Michael’s Church. At first I thought the alarm in his expression was because I’d surprised him there, but I was soon to discover that something far more terrifying had drained his face to ash and caused his jaw to sag as he stared up at me. That look sent gooseflesh crawling along my spine, and froze me in my tracks.
All at once he began to sway like the tall, shuddering foxglove blooms beside him trembling in the plucking Cornish wind, and I stepped forward quickly, afraid that he might faint by the look of him then. He wasn’t a young man, and his complexion had turned as white as his hair.
“I’m terribly sorry, vicar,” I said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Your housekeeper told me I might find you out here. My name is Jean Maitland . . . we spoke on the telephone. I called about leasing Cragmoor. You made your position quite plain, but…if I could just have a few moments of your time?”
It was almost as though he hadn’t expected me to speak. The sound of my voice seemed to release him, and he smiled through a sigh of what can only be described as relief. “Ahhh, yes,” he said, “forgive me, my dear . . . you did give me a bit of a start just now.”
He gripped the fence and began to pull himself up, and I reached out and lent my hand. He was trembling, but some of his color was returning as he offered his thanks for my help.
“Foxglove,” he said, caressing a stalk of the tall, bell-shaped flowers he’d been grooming. “The untrained eye is content with purple in this hue, but I see garnet in it . . . so rich, and much more regal, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “You might know it by its clinical name . . . Digitalis. It’s used for treating ailments of the heart. This humble herb once saved my great-grandfather’s life, you know. Can you imagine that?”
He rubbed one of the silky leaves between his thumb and forefinger absently. “Everything is all scientifically processed today, of course,” he went on, “but back in the old days, a body’s very life often depended upon a tincture brewed by steeping the dried leaves of this beauty, and it had to be done just so. Too much could paralyze the heart muscle, you see, and not enough was useless. It never ceases to amaze me how thoroughly God has provided for the needs of mankind through nature.”
I couldn’t help thinking that he might benefit from a dose himself, but I didn’t suggest it. I made a half hearted attempt at agreeing with him, which he recognized at once as a patronizing gesture. My impatience was showing.
“But you haven’t come to discuss my botanical dabblings, have you, my dear?” he said. “Come . . . the day’s about to turn soft on us; rain’s on the way. I’ll have my housekeeper put on the kettle for tea.”
He showed me to a neat little study at the vicarage beside the church. It was a masculine, book-lined room smelling of leather, pipe tobacco, and lemon polish. A heart-wrenching sorrow lived there and had, my intuition told me, for some time.
We’d scarcely settled ourselves in the antique leather wing chairs, when the tea arrived, along with a plate of delicate, sugar-dusted biscuits. By the time we settled back with our refreshments, all evidence of his earlier strangeness had vanished, but those piercing amber eyes of his still probed me so relentlessly that I couldn’t bring myself to look directly into them.
“Ahhh . . .” he said, having taken a sip from his steaming cup. “Great-grandfather used to hold that tea makes all things civilized. I quite agree, don’t you?”
I nodded, but my mind wasn’t on tea just then. It was on Cragmoor, not too far distant, crouching like a sleeping giant on its bluff above the sea . . . waiting. Somehow, I had to convince him to lease it to me.
“Well then,” he said, settling back in his chair, “this is quite nice, my dear. Lovely young ladies don’t often take the time to call upon me these days, but if you’ve come to try and persuade me to change my mind about the house, I’m afraid you’ve wasted the trip. As I told you on the telephone, leasing Cragmoor to anyone is quite out of the question.”
“But why?” I pleaded, trying not to sound as desperate as I was. I hadn’t told him my real reason for wanting to lease the house, and I wondered if now wasn’t the time to do just that, but something made me hesitate.
“It simply isn’t livable,” he said. “And, quite frankly, I haven’t the funds to set it right for leasing. For one thing, the plumbing is deplorable. Why, there’s only one loo. My father added that during an attempt to begin restoration shortly before he died. He had a tub and toilet installed in a convenient closet on the main floor, and I’m afraid that’s as far as it went.”
“I only need one loo,” I told him.
He smiled. “There’s no heating system or electricity, either,” he said. “Cragmoor is virtually as it was when it was built over a hundred and fifty years ago. It hasn’t been lived in since my great-grandfather was alive.”
“I don’t mind roughing it,” I argued. “There must be fireplaces and oil lamps that would suffice for now, and I wouldn’t be using the whole house right away—only several of the rooms.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t think of leasing Cragmoor without making major repairs. It simply isn’t safe as it is, and as I told you, I can’t afford to make such repairs at this time. Why, the general maintenance alone on the place is more than I can keep up with, which is why it’s in its present state. No, my dear, and I’m afraid that has to be my final word on the matter; I’m sorry.”
I set my teacup down on the little table beside my chair and leaned forward. “Vicar Marshall,” I said, “I’m prepared to pay you a very generous sum for a one year lease on Cragmoor—as is—in advance.”
His amber eyes narrowed. He was clearly studying me now, making no attempt to hide it, but I didn’t care. I had to lease that house.
“Why?” he wondered blatantly.
“I’m an artist,” I told him. “I drove out here to have a look at the house before I called you. The conservatory is perfect for my needs—so is the seclusion. I supply two New York galleries with paintings on a regular basis. I need a place to produce them while I’m here in England. Cragmoor is that place.”
“Surely there are other, much more suitable properties readily available hereabout to meet your needs. A good friend of mine, Jacob Parsonby, is an estate agent in the village. I’ll give you his number and address. I’m sure he’ll be able to find just the thing for you.”
“I’ve found ‘just the thing’,” I said wearily. “Please, won’t you just think about it?”
“Miss Maitland—it is ‘Miss’, isn’t it, or is it ‘Mrs.’?”
“It’s ‘Mrs.’,” I told him, “but ‘Ms’. will do; I’m recently divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not all marriages are made in heaven, Vicar Marshall.”
“No, I suppose not, though we who perform them like to believe it. Can it not be reconciled?”
I shook my head without answering and studied the tea in my cup. All that was in the past—too recent to be relevant to the distant past I needed to probe. Besides, I was in no mood for a fatherly clerical lecture on the evils of divorce.
“Are there children?” he persisted.
“No,” I responded succinctly, hoping he wouldn’t pursue it.
“Well, that’s a blessing,” he said. “Divorce is always so difficult for the young ones. But you’re young yourself. There’s plenty of time to begin again, my dear.”
“I’m twenty-five,” I shot back, answering the question he’d tried to disguise, “and right now, I’m quite content as I am.”
“I’m sorry I can’t accommodate you in regard to the house,” he regretted. “It just isn’t possible—and even if it were, Cragmoor is much too large for just one person.”
“That’s your final word?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
One thing puzzled me. “Vicar Marshall, since, as you say, the house is a financial burden, why haven’t you sold it?”
He gave a start. “I could never do that,” he said emphatically. “Cragmoor is an integral part of my family history. The estate has belonged to the Marshalls since its owner willed it to my great-grandfather, Elliot Marshall. He was the first vicar of St. Michael’s, by the way. The church was, in fact, built for him. For four generations a Marshall has preached from that pulpit next door. You can’t possibly imagine the politics of that. The tradition will end with me, however, since neither of my sons chose to take up the calling. But the Cragmoor tradition as a Marshall holding will never be broken as long as there are Marshalls.”
He got up from his chair then, and I knew that the interview was over. Reluctantly, I stood while he scribbled the realtor’s name and number on a piece of note paper at his desk. He hesitated a moment before handing it to me. He was studying me again, and those eyes boring into me made me more than a little uneasy.
“Ms. Maitland, there’s just one thing . . .” he mused. “You said you drove by the place. How did you know about Cragmoor? It’s not exactly on the beaten path—certainly not something you could have happened upon. The road that leads up to it can hardly even be called a road anymore, all grown over with weeds and pitted with ruts as it is. Why, it’s difficult for me to negotiate, and I know where the potholes are. And . . . how did you know to come to me?”
My heart leaped. I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask me about all that. For a long moment I toyed with the idea of telling him the truth, and I probably would have if I thought it would have done any good. But he was adamant in his decision, and laying my personal family mystery bare under those circumstances wasn’t something I wanted to do. I wanted to handle it on my own. Besides, I’d gotten the distinct impression he wasn’t being all that truthful with me, either.
“I heard about it in the village,” I lied.
He gave a deep nod. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Where are you staying?”
“At Hampton Inn, on the Commons . . . for the moment,” I told him unhappily.
“Ahhh, yes,” he said. “Tell me, when you heard about Cragmoor . . . in the village, did they tell you . . . anything else?”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “Anything at all. It is quite the local curiosity, and it does have a rather . . . colorful history, I’m afraid.”
“No, not that I can recall.”
“Hmmm . . .” he murmured, almost to himself. “Well, good luck to you, my dear. Do ring Jacob when you get in, and let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you while you’re stopping here in Cornwall.”
I had to make a last appeal. “There’s only one thing that you can do for me, Vicar Marshall.”
“Then, my dear,” he said, “I’m afraid I’ve done all that I can.”
~Chapter Two~
I left St. Michael’s without trying to persuade the vicar any further, but he definitely hadn’t seen the last of me. He’d piqued my curiosity more than once that morning, and I was glad I hadn’t played my trump card.
I wasn’t convinced he believed my story about learning of Cragmoor in the village, especially since I didn’t know something I evidently would have known had I gleaned my information from the local gossips. I wondered what that something was, and if it was related to my mystery?
I was uncomfortable with the way I’d handled the last part of our conversation, but I couldn’t have told him that I’d scoured the Cornish coast until I finally located Cragmoor through the Truto Hall of Records. Neither could I have told him I had in my possession a photocopy of the deed bearing his name and address, and copies of the property maps as well. He certainly would have wanted to know why, and that, for the moment at least, was my secret.
Right or wrong, I had escaped without further interrogation. But I wouldn’t accept the outcome. I was determined to have access to that house, and since he wouldn’t lease it to me, I decided to have a little tour on my own. When I pulled out of the vicarage drive onto Cragmoor Cross, instead of turning left at the fork that led to the village, I made a right and drove west up the grade toward the narrow, rut-scarred road that sidled through the thick, dead brush and black heather, and wound its serpentine way straight to Cragmoor.
The light had faded, and dark, bilious clouds had taken its place. In the three short weeks I’d spent in Cornwall, I’d learned two things: that the weather was not to be trusted, and that the wind never ceased to blow. Fair weather or foul, it whistled and murmured and moaned, like a living, breathing, tortured being. It had risen since it played innocently among the foxglove blooms earlier, stirring the mists along the graveyard gate. Now it was angry, driving the black clouds inland from the sea. Waterfowl raced before it dotting the sky like a blizzard over the mighty house, and I’d scarcely pulled the car to a stop when the rain came.
It was just as I remembered it from my drive-by earlier, like a creature of myth silhouetted against the storm—a huge, rambling, turreted structure of stone and timbers defying its existence in such a setting. Yet, aside from a wounded turret, a few missing boards, and a good deal of broken glass, Cragmoor approached the dawn of another century remarkably intact.
I tried to imagine the house as it once must have been, ablaze with light and life, surrounded by manicured lawns and courtyards and lush, fragrant gardens. Now it rose from a tangled snarl of briar, thorn, and desolation. Row upon row of darkened windows, catching stray glints of the fading light, shuddered in the wind as the gale bore down upon it. The house was asleep, and I was about to wake it.
I didn’t park by the double doors that marked the main entrance. I stopped at the conservatory on the northeast corner where I’d noticed a few broken panes near the ground on my earlier visit. It was an enormous room, almost seeming like an afterthought, flung like an arm into the wild heather and scrub that spread waist-deep on the northern rise. I had never seen anything like it.
The outer walls were constructed entirely of glass panes in lead casings, as was the ceiling—almost like a greenhouse. Breathtaking certainly, but far too vulnerable to the elements on that cliff to be practical, I decided. I was amazed that more glass wasn’t broken, and felt certain there wasn’t one original pane in the place if the storm assaulting it then was any example of what the house had weathered over the past century-and-a-half.
The holes in the glass wall seemed smaller than I remembered them, and I wondered if I could slip through as I’d planned. I was slender enough, but the most accessible opening didn’t quite fit my contours, and I had to eliminate a few sharp edges and bend some of the lead in order to climb inside unscathed.
My gray linen slacks and blazer were soaked through, and I’d lost my paisley scarf altogether. The wind had claimed my colors, and it wasn’t likely that I’d see that scarf again. It had held my hair in check. Dampness always turned my hair into a voluminous mass of curls and tendrils. Untethered now, and combed by the wild Cornish squall, it hung in a hopeless tangle of wayward ringlets falling over my shoulders, but I scarcely noticed. This was Cragmoor, and I was inside it at last.
I was standing on the slate floor of the conservatory in a puddle of water and broken glass. Beside me in the northeast corner, a rounded glass door gave access to what once had surely been the courtyard and the heather-studded moors beyond. It was barred from the inside now by the woodbine creepers that had invaded the place. The room smelled of mildew, dust, and dampness, and cobwebs clung to everything, but I couldn’t have been happier if I were standing in Buckingham Palace.
The wind leaned heavily on the panes, and the rain drummed on the glass roof above where a chandelier dripping crystal prisms shuddered with the vibration. Dangling from a chain attached to the apex of the glass ceiling, the fixture seemed to be suspended from the sky itself. Even dulled by the storm, the room was a riot of glass, the chandelier almost a mockery.
Sheets thick with dust covered the furniture, and a spacious hearth with marble wood nymphs holding up the mantle dominated the south wall. A hand-carved French sideboard stood beneath a mirror and elaborate sconces on the west, beside a double arch with decorated spandrels that led to a shadowy, carpeted hall beyond.
I scarcely noticed anything else. My heart was pounding so violently that I could hardly distinguish it from the thunder rolls echoing through the empty old house. All sorts of strange feelings were racing through me, which I chalked up to excitement then. I felt safe in that room, and something more—something I couldn’t quite identify. Whatever that something was, it filled me with an exhilaration I had never experienced before.
All at once the exotic scent of spice threaded through my nostrils. It was all around me, spread by the draft from the gaping hole in the glass wall at my back. I had no idea where it was coming from, but it took my breath away and turned my skin to gooseflesh. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone taking the panic it had spread over me with it. But it had left something behind—a hushed murmur of whispering sound, like disembodied voices far off in the distance . . . sharing secrets. The strange litany ran me through, and I shuddered in the wake of a fresh chill standing there in my wet clothes and quickly moved on through the arch.
I followed the corridor, lined with closed doors and cobweb-covered sconces, southward to the Great Hall, which was, in effect, a picture gallery. There, the carpet gave way to a breathtaking terrazzo floor laid in a sunburst pattern beneath the vaulted ceiling. An elegant chandelier hung here also, fitted with cobweb-frosted candles and layer, upon layer of amber colored crystals tinkling eerily in a fugitive draft ghosting through the place.
The cognac colored walls were lined with portraits in elaborate gilt frames, but I didn’t stop to look at them then. The only thing that caught my eye was an empty space fitted with a hook where a painting had obviously been removed. I gave it only passing notice. My attention was fixed upon the faded red carpet that covered the staircase. It beckoned like an arrow pointing upward and I began to climb.
I felt it almost at once—a bone-chilling cold unrelated to nature on those stairs. I sensed that something terrible had happened there, and I hurried to the landing above, where it mercifully dissipated, and turned almost instinctively toward the south wing.
The feelings I had excused earlier as excitement were running rampant now. The house seemed charged with a palpable energy. It had awakened extrasensory channels in me that I never knew existed, and I decided to let my instincts lead me.
Halfway down the carpeted hallway, I found myself standing beside a door on the west. The knob was cold to the touch as I gripped it, and somehow I knew what I’d find inside before I crossed the threshold. The room faced the sea, where towering breakers trailing spindrift lashed at the cliff and the rockbound shoreline below. Sheets covered the furniture here as well, but somehow I knew what was underneath them—the mahogany four-poster bed, with its headboard hand carved in an intricate rose pattern—the water closet, and on it the white pitcher and basin, the pitcher having a similar rose motif molded in the porcelain and a fine hairline crack at the base of the handle. I knew before I peeked under the sheets that I would find them there, but how I could know didn’t even occur to me. It all seemed perfectly natural at the time.
The open wardrobe in the corner caught my eye. A frighteningly familiar smell of mildew and cedar wafted from it raising the hairs on the back of my neck, and I shuddered and gave it a wide berth on my way to the window. Below, the wave crests were boiling under a leaden sky. The sight left me cold. I’d never been particularly fond of the sea—especially not then, and definitely not from that window.
As I backed quickly out of the room, I noticed that a large patch of plaster was missing on the wall behind the door where the knob had broken through it just above the wainscoting that paneled the lower section. It didn’t take extrasensory perception to imagine the force behind the hand that had flung it hard enough to do that kind of damage. I could almost feel the rage, and I turned away from there, deciding on a tour of the north wing instead.
One of the doors on the east side of the hall was slightly ajar. It seemed like an invitation to enter and I stepped cautiously inside. I was immediately choked with tears, and something I dared not probe. The room was filled with shadows that seemed alive. They hovered about a little terrace that looked out over the eastern rise and a narrow, overgrown footpath winding through the thorn hedge and bracken toward St. Michael’s. It was a smaller room than the one I’d just fled. No dust covers spared the furniture here. The brass bed stood green with tarnish, shackled to the wall with cobwebs, all but obscured by a murky fog of dust motes that hung above it in the filtered light. Everything in the place was covered with dust. It rose in my throat and choked me, forcing me back. As I turned to leave, another wardrobe caught my eye, but I felt no uneasiness in the presence of this one. I don’t know what possessed me to open it, but I did, and something caught my eye—there was a painting resting against the backboard.
It was facing away from me and I had to remove it before I could turn it around for a look, since the wardrobe wasn’t quite wide enough for me to manage that from the inside. By the dimensions, I presumed it to be the one missing from the gallery. It was heavy, and there was a large oblique tear in the center of the canvas, which I didn’t want to make any worse than it was. Consequently, it took me a few minutes to free it. When I finally dragged it out and turned it around, my knees failed me and I sank down on the edge of the musty bed. The strange whispering sound grew louder around me. My skin seemed hot and clammy-cold all at once, and I felt the blood drain away from my face as I stared at what might well have been a portrait of me.
Though there were subtle differences, my own green eyes stared back at me. Though the lips attempted a forced smile, those eyes had the look of a frightened doe about them. The hairstyle was different, but it was my strawberry-blonde mane fringed with tendrils falling in a mass of ringlets over shoulders bared by the cut of a soft green gown.
I fingered the tear, which ran from the chin down over the breasts in one continuous line as though it had been deliberately slashed. Tears welled in my eyes and my head began to spin. The scent of spice rose in my nostrils again, sapping consciousness away like a drug. Someone was sobbing, “No, Colin . . . don’t!” It was a heartbreaking sound, and I didn’t even realize it was coming from my own trembling lips.
Off in the distance another voice was calling my name, but I was just too overcome to listen. And then there was nothing—nothing but darkness closing in like a womb all around me.
* * * *
I awoke with the Cornish wind drying my tears. The rain had slacked as the squall passed over the coast and moved inland making way for the next system to follow. The terrace doors were flung wide letting in the bold, rain-washed breeze and the glare of an eerie yellow sky. There was no trace of the spice scent then, only the smell of drenched bark and black heather wafting up from the rise below.
Something wet and cold lay across my brow. It was a neatly folded handkerchief, and I tore it away and tried to sit up, but the pressure of a hand planted firmly on my shoulder held me down on the bed, and my vision slowly focused on the piercing amber eyes of the vicar standing over me.
“Are you all right, my dear?” he said softly.
“I . . . I think so,” I replied. It was all beginning to come back to me, and my eyes flashed toward the portrait. It was just as I’d left it, propped against the wardrobe door.
“I believe you owe me something of an explanation,” he said, recapturing my attention.
“I . . . I didn’t break the glass in the conservatory,” I told him. “It was already broken when I came out here the first time. I only snapped off a few of the sharp edges and reshaped the lead framing a little…so I wouldn’t cut myself climbing in.”
“Never mind about that. It’s this, I’m concerned with . . .”—he gestured toward the painting—“and your . . . fixation upon this house.”
Now it was all beginning to make sense. He was, of course, familiar with the face on that canvas. That was why he was so startled when he first saw me.
“Who was she?” I said, knowing exactly who she was.
“Her name was Jean Fowler Chapin,” he murmured. “She died here very tragically in 1886.”
I did vault erect then. “Tell me!” I cried. “You have to tell me.”
He stared at me slack-jawed for a painfully long moment. “So, the two of you are connected,” he murmured. “How?”
I slid my legs over the edge of the bed and brushed my damp hair back from my face. “She was my grandfather’s sister from the coast of Maine,” I told him. “The family lost contact with her after she married and came here to Cornwall to live in 1885. There was some sort of scandal connected with the marriage. It must have been something terrible, because my great-grandfather killed himself before their ship left the harbor. They didn’t delay their departure for the funeral and the family disowned her. That’s all I have to go on. She was never heard of again.”
His cold, blank expression ran me through and I avoided his eyes as I went on. “No one would ever discuss Aunt Jean; her name was forbidden to be mentioned. But whatever it was that happened between my great-grandfather and his daughter didn’t stop my father from naming me after her. My maiden name was Jean Fowler, as well. I never questioned him about it, but I think it might have been his way of affecting some sort of release for her soul. My father had strong convictions that the dead can’t rest in peace without the forgiveness of the living. Vicar Marshall . . . I have to know what happened here—all of it.”
“That’s why you wanted to lease the place,” he said.
“And still do,” I cried. “You must reconsider now. I can’t explain it . . . I don’t pretend to understand it, but I do know I need to be here, I—”
“You need to tell me the truth,” he interrupted me. “You come here and try to coerce me into leasing you a house that isn’t even on the market, then break into it when I refuse you, and unabashedly commence to go through its contents without so much as a by your leave. Forgive me for being harsh with you, my dear, but this simply won’t do. Just what exactly is it that you want here?”
He was right, of course, and my posture collapsed. It was a moment before I’d collected enough of my thoughts to speak. “I needed some space after the divorce,” I began awkwardly. “I wanted to clear up the family mystery, and I also needed a place to paint. I thought if I came here to Cornwall, I might be able to manage it all. I was hoping to locate Cragmoor, if it still existed, and find out whatever became of Aunt Jean. Her mystery has haunted me waking and sleeping since I was a very little girl. I wanted to retrace her steps here in England. I wanted to walk where she’d walked—be where she’d been. I wanted to get to know her, possibly through old records or relatives that I don’t even know exist—something—anything that would shed some light on that dark time in our family history. That’s up to me now; my father passed away two years ago.”
He didn’t seem convinced, and I went on quickly, “Surely you’ve heard of Fowler Plastics? We produce components for the space program. We do have a London branch. It all passed to me when Father died. The board of directors is running things for me while I’m abroad. I’m an artist, Vicar Marshall. I don’t know the first thing about parts for shuttles and space capsules, nor do I want to. The point is, I’ve enough money at my disposal to help you restore this house as it once was. It’s part of my family history, too, evidently. Since Father’s death, finding Cragmoor and solving the enigma surrounding my great-aunt has become my primary concern.”
The vicar sighed. “More at obsession, from what I can see,” he said, “and you seem to have fared well enough in your quest. You have found Cragmoor, and as to records, the contents of my great-grandfather, Elliot Marshall’s, journals should suffice you, though I could just as easily tell you what they contain, since I’ve reconstructed the diaries over the years. The originals, you see, are barely legible now. The ink has faded, and the paper hasn’t held up well in the dampness on this coast.
“As to living relatives, I’m afraid you have none on this side of the Atlantic, my dear. Jean Chapin did not live long enough to give birth to the child she was carrying . . . I’m sorry.”
“She was pregnant when she died?”
He nodded.
“You said she died tragically . . . how? What happened?”
He studied me for a moment. “I don’t think that this is the time to go into it,” he said. “You’ve obviously just come through a bad experience. I don’t want you passing out on me again here. Perhaps all that should wait for a bit.”
“Vicar Marshall,” I pleaded, “I know I’ve been acting strangely since I came into this house, and I’ll admit that I don’t know why, but in spite of what happened here earlier, I assure you I’m not all that fragile. I don’t expect you to tell me the whole story here now, but I do need to know how she died if you expect me to sleep at all tonight. Jean Fowler Chapin was a member of my family . . . I’m entitled to know.”
“Yes, I expect that you are,” he awarded grudgingly. “Forgive me for being blunt, but there is no delicate way to say it. I’m sorry, my dear, but she was . . . murdered. The master of Cragmoor, Colin Chapin, killed her and her husband, Malcolm Chapin, who was his nephew. It was Great-Grandfather Elliot who discovered the grisly mess. He found Colin in the stable, where he’d killed himself after he’d sent them over the edge of the cliff to their deaths. Then Elliot died out there himself in that stable. He had a bad heart. The shock was just too much for him. He and Colin were very close, you see. But you know about Colin Chapin. Evidently they did tell you something in the village, didn’t they? I’m not surprised. After all these years, the infamy of Cragmoor and its inhabitants is still a favorite topic hereabout.”
“No,” I said, “no one told me anything. I haven’t had time to inquire. I never heard of Colin Chapin until you told me about him just now.”
“That’s impossible. You didn’t see his portrait in the gallery?”
“No . . . I didn’t stop to look at any of the portraits.”
“But you called his name, my dear . . . don’t you remember?”
“No! How could I have?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, but you did: ‘no, Colin, don’t’! You were screaming it when I found you here earlier. You don’t remember that?”
Those piercing amber eyes probed me, turning mine away. I vaguely remembered someone screaming something. That couldn’t have been me. But if it wasn’t me, who could it have been? I didn’t know how to answer him. I didn’t want him to think I was mad. But maybe I was mad. I definitely hadn’t been myself since I set foot in this house.
He was waiting for an answer and I had to make an attempt. “You must be mistaken,” I murmured, praying that there was room for doubt.
“No, I think not,” he said, dashing my hopes. “I drove out here for another look at that portrait after seeing you this morning. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t imagining things. I saw your car in the drive, and I came inside and called out to you, but you didn’t answer. I was afraid you’d done yourself a mischief. I told you the place was falling down. Then I heard you sobbing up here and I came up straightaway, certain I was right. Your voice became louder as I approached, and I heard you quite distinctly—‘no, Colin, don’t’! You were screaming it over, and over. By the time I came into the room you’d collapsed there on the bed.”
I was shaking my head in disbelief. “Vicar Marshall . . . you’ve got to tell me what happened in this house,” I cried.
The wind had picked up suddenly and he hurried to close the French doors. “Yes, it’s obvious that we need to talk,” he agreed, struggling with the wind in the doorway, “but not here. It’s getting late. It’s nearly time for high tea, and we’re going to lose the light—what there is of it. You’re in no condition to drive, my dear. That’s a flaw coming on. That’s what the locals call the fierce storms that plague this coast. If you’re unfortunate enough to get caught out in a Cornish flaw, you’ll want to have two companions along just to hold the hairs on your head. We’ll leave your car here. It will be quite safe. I’ll drive you back ‘round to the vicarage. We can discuss all this there. But we need to go now…while we still can. Hear that wind? It will be driving torrents of horizontal rain over the cliff out there any minute.”
I didn’t argue the point. He was right. I wasn’t in any condition to get behind the wheel of a car, especially in the kind of storm he’d just described. I could barely navigate trying to make my way down that bitter cold staircase.
When we reached the gallery below, one of the canvases caught my eye and held it. I knew who he was even before I’d come close enough to read the engraving on the little brass plate affixed to the frame: ‘COLIN RAMSEY CHAPIN, 1885’.
I didn’t want to look at that portrait, but it drew me like a magnet, and I stared helplessly into the face of a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties. He was wearing a black velvet dinner jacket with silk facings, and a tucked blouse with a satin cravat at the throat. His hair, a windblown mass of waves like dark wet sand, curled about his earlobes and dipped low over a slightly furrowed brow. Modest side-whiskers pointed toward his jaw line, framing the handsome cleft in his chin and sensuous lips that bore no trace of a smile. And the eyes. My God, the eyes, deep-set and penetrating, the color of an angry sea, stared back at me with a look that can only be described as intense. A shadow of fatality haunted that stare. There was something terrible in it—some agony that almost possessed the power to speak.
I wanted to look away, but that awful stare impaled me. The hushed whisperings grew louder, and I heard that pitiful voice sobbing again, just as it had done earlier—pleading—calling his name again, and again until the echo of it resounded like thunder in my ears.
I was rocking and shaking and wringing my hands. The vicar was standing beside me with a firm grip on my arm, but I was scarcely aware of his presence.
“. . . That’s right, Ms. Maitland,” he was saying, “Colin Chapin.”
Somehow the sound of his voice broke the spell, and I nearly collapsed against him. Was I having nightmares wide-awake now? I was trembling with raw fright.
“He was a handsome devil, wasn’t he?” he went on, pretending to ignore what was happening to me. But I knew he hadn’t missed any of it. I didn’t have to look into those analytical eyes of his to feel the intensity they generated. “What is it, my dear?” he probed softly.
“The portrait upstairs,” I breathed, “that vicious tear…I feel as though he’s murdered me! I feel . . . savaged, and yet . . . he doesn’t look like a . . . a . . .”
“Murderer?” said the vicar, finishing the thought that I could not. “Ahhh, but he was, my dear, there’s no question of that. He was also a womanizer, a lecherous profligate, a notorious rake, and a disgrace to his good father’s name.”
“And yet you say that your great-grandfather was his friend. That makes absolutely no sense.”
“Elliot Marshall was a vicar, don’t forget,” he reminded me. “He was in the business of saving souls, and obsessed with saving Colin’s from the time they first met. Yes, he was Colin’s friend—probably the only real friend Colin Chapin ever had, and in the end, my dear—in the technical sense—Colin killed him, also. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and the storm is getting ahead of us. Come . . . we have to go.”
* * * *
I don’t remember much of the drive back to the vicarage. I was preoccupied. My thoughts were clouded with haunting visions of Cragmoor, and of Colin Chapin. I had a face to go with that name now. Every contour of it was etched in my mind, and the image filled me with a sorrow so devastating I could scarcely bear it.
The vicar didn’t offer much in the way of conversation, and I was grateful for that. It was obvious that he was observing me, and I could certainly understand why, considering my bizarre behavior in the house, but that didn’t make me any more comfortable with it.
When we reached the vicarage, he instructed his housekeeper to set another place at the table. It was decided that I would stay the night, or rather, he decided it; all of my protests fell upon deaf ears. I got the distinct impression I was more of a hostage than a houseguest. It was quite clear he wasn’t about to let me out of his sight.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something lay hidden beneath the surface of the man. I had made my motives quite plain, but he had not. I was hoping that whatever he was holding back would come to light during the telling of his story. I was in no state to analyze him then. I was far too occupied trying to analyze myself, whom I hardly recognized any longer.
Whatever the vicar’s secret was, it didn’t seem to affect his appetite. High tea, I was to find, was quite a satisfying experience. He explained that for some time it had been his customary choice instead of a formal dinner. It consisted of soup, a variety of savories served cold, along with an equally impressive array of tasty little sandwiches made with meats, fish, cress, cheeses, herbal butters, and delicate spreads. Then there was a variety of biscuits, dainties, fruits, and scones with clotted cream, and, of course, the tea, all of which he consumed with gusto and great ceremony. I, on the other hand, forced mine down to be polite. Everything tasted like sawdust to me then.
Finally, we took what was left of our tea to the study. He lifted a large, leather-bound journal from his desk drawer and laid it on the blotter before him caressing it gently.
“This is my own journal,” he said. “I shan’t read from it. I simply mean to use it as a reference as we go along. You see, Elliot Marshall made daily entries in his diary. These writings were, of course, his own experiences and observations. As time passed and related situations became clear through the accounts of others, he entered those events as well. These second-hand entries, if you will, often spanned months—even journals as they finally came to light, and so his writings were often fragmented and out of sequence. As a result, I have spent nearly twenty years of my life piecing the puzzle of Cragmoor and its inhabitants together in the most accurate chrono-logical order possible, and, even at that, it’s . . . incomplete. You may, of course, peruse the originals at your leisure if you wish.”
I’d scarcely heard what he’d been telling me. I had something else on my mind. “Vicar Marshall . . . do you believe in ghosts?” I said with caution.
“I believe in the supernatural, my dear,” he said, clearly choosing his words carefully. “Our God Himself is supernatural. As to believing in ghosts in the fictional sense . . . rattling chains and moaning in the night, no, of course not.”
“But you are willing to concede that something out of the ordinary . . . something unnatural, if you will, might be going on here, aren’t you?’
He cleverly avoided the question by phrasing one of his own. “Ms. Maitland,” he said, “I know that it’s presumptuous of me to ask you on such short acquaintance, but if we are going to get into this, it is rather important . . . do you trust me, my dear?”
Should I trust this man? Vicar or not, I was certain he wasn’t being completely honest with me, and yet he seemed so sincere. He was just as drawn to Cragmoor as I was and just as obsessed, and he had those journals. I had to know what was in them. Nevertheless, I answered him honestly.
“I don’t know,” I regretted.
He smiled. “Well, we shall have to make do with that then, shan’t we? I thank you for your honesty, at least. This story cannot be told in one sitting. That, and the storm, of course, is why I suggested you stay the night. My schedule is clear for the most part tomorrow. I’ll tell you as much as I can this evening and finish after breakfast in the morning, if that’s all right with you? Then we’ll go ‘round and fetch your car.”
“Agreed.”
“Good, then. Have you any questions before we commence?”
I had a million questions, but I didn’t voice them then. I was anxious to get on with it. “No,” I lied. “Please . . . feel free to begin.”
“Some of what I’m about to tell you might not seem relevant, but I assure you that it is. If you are to have it at all, you must have it from the beginning, just as Elliot recorded it, in order to understand the history and the people involved, Colin Chapin in particular, and, of course, your ancestor’s husband, Malcolm. It is Elliot’s tale, after all.”
I was afraid to admit it, even to myself, but I desperately wanted to learn more about Colin Chapin, and I was almost afraid to ask myself why. Mercifully the vicar didn’t give me the chance.
I settled back then with my teacup in the old leather wing chair beside the hearth trying to tuck my thoughts away—trying to blot out the haunted look the artist had captured when he’d painted the portrait of Colin Chapin—trying to erase the gruesome images of his victims, which had been implanted so vividly in my mind.
Across the way, the vicar had flipped open the cover on his leather-bound journal and begun his narrative. His soft, resonant voice was pitched to put me at ease, and it did just that. My guard was slipping as the story began to unfold, and I relaxed, listening to the rain beating hard on the vicarage, unaware that the emotional net he’d so cleverly cast out was slowly beginning to close in around me.
London, September, 1863
~Chapter Three~
Hail pelted down with the rain over the city that late afternoon. The young Anglican priest had hoped to reach his vicarage at Holy Martyrs Church ahead of the thunder squall, but that was not to be. Even though he’d taken a shortcut along the park, the storm had overtaken him, and it was all he could do to control the frightened horse pulling his carriage at breakneck speed over the cobblestone street.
“Whoa!” he called to the animal, meanwhile tugging on the reins, “easy, boy . . . hold there.”
But the horse galloped on in a frenzy of terror through the curtain of rain and hail pellets.
Overhead, lightning speared the sky and thunder rumbled heavily. The carriage had just rounded a bend in the road when a lightning bolt sheared off the lower limb of an old oak tree on the opposite side of the lane. Startled by the sizzling tree limb flung in their path and the crackling white lightning that had severed it, the horse bolted and reared pulling the carriage up short, and it careened on its side, rolling horse, priest, and all, over the manicured lawn of Ramsey House, the Mayfair Town residence of magistrate, Sir John Chapin.
The racket of the crash and the horse’s agonized shrieks brought Sir John running down the drive with his butler on his heels. The magistrate hadn’t taken time to throw a cloak over his brocade smoking jacket and it was soaked through when he reached the carriage which had jolted to a stop upside-down, its wheels spinning crazily in the air, shooting out water like fountains as the hard-falling rain drummed against them in slanted sheets. He spotted the semiconscious young priest at once, pinned under the seat where it had caught his shoulder and driven it down in the spongy wet sod.
“My God,” he cried. “Help me, Soames . . . there’s a man underneath there!”
Three other house servants had come running to lend a hand and collectively they tilted the carriage on its side, away from the horse, for the animal floundered there helplessly, thrashing the rain splinters with churning forefeet.
“It’s a clergyman,” said Sir John, feeling for a pulse, meanwhile brushing mud from the priest’s face. “He’s alive. I don’t know how from the look of this. Get him up to the house. Lift him gently. We don’t know what’s broken.”
He turned to the youngest of the servants. “No, not you, Peter,” he said, arresting him. “They can manage that. I need you to go ‘round and fetch Dr. Smythe. Tell him to come at once.” A slap on the shoulder sent the servant on his way, and the old man turned back and called after his butler, who was helping the others carry the young priest toward the house. “Soames,” he shouted over the rumbling thunder, “when you’ve seen to him, fetch me my pistol. This animal’s hind legs are broken.”
* * * *
The doctor had come and gone before the young priest fully regained consciousness. He lay heaped with quilts in a mahogany sleigh bed. The draperies were drawn at the windows, and the room was in semi-darkness; the only light issuing from the hearth and a small porcelain oil lamp on the table beside the bed.
Under the quilts, he’d been stripped to the waist, and his upper chest and left shoulder had been tightly bound with linen strips. He tried to raise himself, but a deep, stabbing pain in his neck and shoulder ended the attempt, and he sank back down with a moan.
“Here now. Oh, pshaw, none o’ that,” said a stern but pleasant voice from close by, and his eyes slowly focused on the plump, middle age, rosy-cheeked face of a woman wearing servant’s black twill and white linen. “You’ve broken your collarbone, that’s what you’ve done,” she told him, tucking the bedclothes back in place. “You’ve got to lie still or it won’t mend proper.”
The young priest brushed a lock of damp chestnut hair back from his eyes and bandaged forehead, and blinked, trying to sharpen his vision for a better look at the woman and his surroundings, but it was no use. His eyes were dilated, and now that the hair was pushed aside, the stingy flicker of light begrudged by the oil lamp hurt them.
“W-where is this place?” he murmured.
“Why, ‘tis Ramsey House,” she said, as though he should have known, “Sir John Chapin’s residence. I’m Rina Banks, his housekeeper and your nurse, so you better mind, or I’ll have to take ya in hand won’t I? He’ll be up in a bit. Sir John and old Soams pulled ya out from under your carriage out on the front lawn. Ya took a nasty spill. It rolled right over on top o’ ya. ‘Tis a miracle that you’re alive.”
“Sir John Chapin?” he puzzled.
She gave a crisp nod. “None other, and ya couldn’t be in better hands, reverend, sir. The master is a very respected magistrate here in London. Why, he was knighted by Her Majesty, the Queen herself, under the Order of the British Empire . . . him bein’ such a fine, upstandin’ servant o’ the people and all. Ya needn’t fear for farin’ well in your little mishap.”
The young priest groaned. It was all starting to come back to him—the storm, the lightning bolt, the musky odor of lathered horseflesh, and the severed tree limb sailing toward him through the rain and hail pellets. He was about to speak again when a voice from the shadowy doorway broke the silence instead.
“Rina, go and fetch some hot broth for Reverend Marshall. It seems he’s decided to rejoin the living after all.”
The voice belonged to a tall, good looking man in his sixties, with a full compliment of light, graying hair, and strong features. His chin was clefted handsomely, and though his sharp, teal-colored eyes bore a stern look about them, they weren’t unfriendly.
The housekeeper gave a crisp curtsy and obediently disappeared through the open doorway, but the young priest scarcely noticed. He was studying his host, wondering how the magistrate knew his name, since they weren’t acquainted.
Sir John seemed to read his thoughts, and he almost smiled as he strolled closer. “Your credentials were in your pocket,” he explained. “I took the liberty.”
The young priest’s eyes flashed. “Vicar Carlisle!” he cried. “He’s expecting me and I’m overdue. I must get back to Holy Martyrs.”
“Easy, young man,” Sir John warned, “you aren’t going anywhere until those bones mend. You have a severed clavicle; you’ve broken it in three places. ‘Tis a wonder it wasn’t your neck. My personal physician will be tending you here until you’re fit to travel. And don’t fret about your superior. My man took a note ‘round to Holy Martyrs vicarage an hour ago. Vicar Carlisle will be calling upon you tomorrow.”
The young priest breathed a ragged sigh. “H-have I done much damage to your lawn, sir?” he wondered.