“No, thanks. I’ll make myself a sandwich later.”

  “Okay. Oh, I forgot, you had a telephone call. From the vicar. He said, would you call him back.”

  Carla waited until she heard the front door slam before she went downstairs to the telephone. Once she would have been afraid to be alone in the house. Now she welcomed it. The less she saw of Michael, the better.

  Her emotional turmoil, and the decision that resulted from it, had left her drained of emotion. She had to force herself to pick up the phone and make cheery conversation, although John seemed pleased to hear from her.

  “I’m so glad all is well with you, Carla. You seemed rather distracted the last time we met. You mustn’t brood, you know.”

  “Brood?” Carla repeated blankly. He couldn’t possibly know about her decision. She was in no mood to talk about it, the idea of going away was still too painful. Then, belatedly, she realized what he was referring to. She had forgotten the major tragedy of the recent past in her own selfish unhappiness.

  “Oh, that. I’m ashamed not to be more concerned, John. I was fond of Alan, but I hardly knew his sister, and I…. I guess I’m more callous than I had realized.”

  “No, no, it’s perfectly natural that you should feel that way,” John said soothingly. Carla had a feeling he would have produced the same professional bromide if she had expressed a weakness for cannibalism; but it was nice to have someone approve of her.

  “I rang you earlier to tell you I’ve discovered some rather interesting facts about your legend,” he went on. “It’s no longer of imminent importance, of course; but I found it most provocative. I’m anxious to hear your reaction. Perhaps you could come to tea tomorrow.”

  “I suppose there’s no use asking for a hint,” Carla said.

  “You know my little weakness. I had hoped to tell you today, that would have been most appropriate, but I’ve a parish meeting this evening, so it will have to be tomorrow—if that suits you.”

  “Thank you, I’d like that. Just a little hint, John?”

  “That would spoil the surprise. Till tomorrow, then.”

  With a sigh of relief, Carla hung up. Perhaps by teatime next day she would have gotten a grip on herself and be able to take polite interest in John’s revelation. He had sounded so pleased about it.

  As she trailed disconsolately back up the stairs, a faint spark of interest stirred. She had almost forgotten about Caroline during the excitement of the past week. Odd, that both Simon and John had brought up the subject on the same day…. Well, it would be mildly interesting to hear what the vicar had discovered, but she had no intention of spending any more time on the story. She had pored over poor Caroline’s diary till her eyes and brain ached with boredom. Instead she would spend the evening sorting some of the family things she planned to take home with her. They would have to be shipped, and packing would take time. She might as well get started. Nothing was better for self-pity than hard work.

  To her surprise King was still in her room. He had moved from the balcony to the bed. Curled into a ball, his tail tucked in, he looked lazily comfortable, but his eyes were wide open. He was staring fixedly at something on the wall. Carla’s eyes followed his, but there was nothing moving that would account for his interest.

  Then she realized that he was looking at the spot where the portrait had hung.

  The shadows lengthened as the red ball of the sun slid down toward the sea. Carla was suddenly conscious of the silence. She was not afraid, but she found herself cocking her head, as the cat had done, straining to hear some sound that was yet only a faint vibration of the air.

  How silly she had been, to hide Caroline’s portrait. She was tempted to take it and the diary back home with her. After all, she was the last of the family. If she had children, one of them might one day find the old story as absorbing as she had done.

  She went to the wardrobe and took the picture out. It was the work of a moment to restore Caroline to her place. A long ray of deepening sunlight fell across the canvas, giving the blurred features greater distinctness than they had ever had. Or were her eyes playing tricks on her? Carla rubbed them and looked again. The face did look clearer.

  Caroline had had gray eyes. Strange that she hadn’t noticed that before. Carla put out her hand and brushed the painted hair with the tips of her fingers. For a moment she could have sworn she felt, not hard canvas, but a softer, mere pliant substance. The sensation did not recur, though she brushed her fingers across the painting again. Behind her, King gave a sudden, sharp growl.

  “I wonder what happened to you,” Carla murmured. There was no answer in the painted face. The silence deepened around her. Even the cat’s growl sounded echoing, and far away. “You’d be dead now anyway,” Carla went on. “It doesn’t really matter.”

  But it did matter to her. The dead girl had cast a spell over her—not the fantastic supernatural possession the legend had suggested, but a more subtle influence, born of sympathy and kinship. The most frightening part of the whole affair, to Carla, was the change in herself. Her parents had been affectionate, easygoing people, but there had never been any profound depth of sentiment in their attachments. Her mother had gone without regret to the plastic, artificial shelter of her retirement town, and none of them had ever had the least interest in the past. She couldn’t remember her father speaking of his family, or wanting to visit the country where his people had lived so long. And here she was, helplessly entwined with old memories—the call of the blood and the soil? Sentimental twaddle she would have called it once, and yet her departure from the old house would hurt only a little less than leaving Michael.

  She would not take the portrait with her. It would stay where it had been from the first. There were too many influences radiating from that painted face to be quite comfortable.

  The diary was different. It had never caused her any qualms of strangeness, and it could be hidden away for a future day. And the wedding dress. It was of no interest to anyone else. She couldn’t let it be sold to some sophisticated young modern, who would giggle over its quaintness and wear it to costume parties.

  Carla opened the wardrobe. The dress hung there, shimmering softly in the gloom. The satin felt stiff and dusty under her fingers as she drew it out. She spread it across the bed. With a muffled yowl of protest the cat sprang away as the heavy folds approached him.

  Carla stepped out of her shoes, untied the bow of her wraparound skirt, and let it fall to the floor; pulled her blouse over her head and dropped it. The rustling satin folds enveloped her.

  For a few seconds she couldn’t breathe. Then her arms found the sleeves and the dress fell into place around her body. It was a perfect fit. Even the length was right. Her fingers moved quickly over the laces and ties. Rotten thread gave way as she tugged, but the gaps didn’t matter; the satin molded itself to her breast and waist as if the dress had been made for her.

  The last thin paring of the sun dipped under the horizon. Carla was unaware of it; she saw only her pale reflection in the mirror. For a moment she saw it clearly—the wide gray eyes and dark hair blending into shadow, so that it appeared longer, thicker, than her own hair. Then, as suddenly as if she had dived down into deep icy water, darkness swallowed her. It was an inner darkness, a horror of the soul. She was choking with revulsion, all the worse because it had no cause.

  Blindly she turned from the mirror. All her senses felt clouded, as if she strained to see through fog, tried to hear through thick walls. She was dimly aware of the cat’s shriek as he threw himself against the door. The howls rose to a crescendo as she walked stiffly toward the animal. Then the latch yielded, and King fled. Carla followed. She began to run, stumbling over the long skirts, down the stairs, through the front door, along the path. She was running away from something; but the terror went with her, step by frantic step, deepening as the shadows deepened around her.

  Her own identity was not overlaid by another; there was no individuality in the thing that gripped her body. It was pure fear, naked and unspecified. Beneath it her mind writhed and twisted, trying to regain control, as her muscles might have strained to guide an imperfectly functioning machine. At the last possible moment some shred of will surfaced long enough to turn her stumbling feet away from the path they had taken—the path toward the western gate.

  Thorns ripped the satin skirt and the skin of her hands as she fled through the gardens, but she couldn’t stop herself any more than she could have stopped a car whose brakes were gone. Her own personality was still aware and thinking; even as she wrestled futilely with the controls of her body, isolated pieces of information began to fall into place. She had lost track of time in the past few days. There had been no reason to note dates or days of the week. But now she knew why the vicar had said this would be an appropriate day for his revelations, why Simon had remembered the legend on this afternoon. This was Midsummer Eve. The sun was gone, and it was twilight, and she was approaching a rendezvous that had awaited her for over ten centuries. Yet she knew she was running, not toward some awaited end, but away from a greater terror than anything suggested by the legend.

  The sky in the west was pale blue, with a single star pinned like a diamond on its breast…. Had she written those words, not long ago, in her diary—the diary where she had not dared to write about the thing that drove her…not toward the western gate, it lay behind her now. Ahead was her goal: the tall, leaning stones like charcoal outlines against the sky. A source of knowledge older than Carla or Caroline Tregellas told her the truth; for this had once been a gate too, a gateway to forces that had ruled the world long before the saints brought Christ to the heathen Cornishmen.

  Her bare feet hurt. She had run unheeding over stones and brambles. Then a deeper, tougher set of thorns wound around one ankle and held, biting deep; she fell headlong on the threshold of the ancient stone circle.

  The impact was hard enough to drive the wind out of her, and perhaps it drove something else out, too; for when she raised herself on her elbows she realized that the gripping horror had retreated. It was not gone, not altogether, but she could command her own limbs again, though they moved rustily and reluctantly. She rolled over and clutched at her ankle, which was pulsing with pain. Her fingers slipped in a sticky flow of blood. Then she realized that the rustle in the tall grass behind her was not the wind. The cat had dived at her feet; that was why she had fallen. He was hiding in the grass, but she could hear him growling.

  She pulled herself slowly to her feet. Her strength was gone. She would have fallen without the support of the rough stone at her back. The pointed arch loomed over her. Her hands went to her breast and pulled, wrenching at the fastening of the dress. With the perversity of the inanimate the fragile thread held.

  “No, don’t do that,” a voice from within the circle said. “Come through, Carla. Come all the way in.”

  He was sitting on the fallen stone, as he had the first time she met him. There was not enough light for her to see more than a shapeless outline; some other sense than sight showed her the tumbled golden head and broad powerful shoulders.

  “I’ve been sitting here for the longest time,” the quiet voice went on conversationally. “I knew you’d come. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. Strange, isn’t it? You came so close to ruining all my plans. You and that wretched bastard of old Walter…. Oh, yes, he’s Walter’s son; my father delivered the brat, he knew the whole story. Our two families seem destined to be rivals. But the rivalry will end here, tonight. Do you know I was almost ready to give the thing up? I don’t like killing. I had to kill Fairman; he’d have spoken in another minute, and exposed me. I couldn’t allow that. But I had almost made up my mind not to harm you. I’m fond of you, actually. He was fond of her, too.”

  Carla’s head was clear now, but she still couldn’t move. It was as if the ancient stone held her fast in its magnetic grip. She cleared her throat, and Simon said quickly,

  “Don’t scream, Carla. I don’t like loud noises. It’s so quiet here, so peaceful. Screaming won’t help you. This is the way it was meant to be. It came over me, quite suddenly, this evening, after I had taken you home. I knew that if I came here and waited, you would come, just as she did; and then I could do what had to be done. Come here, Carla. Don’t try to run, you can’t get away, you’ll only suffer. I won’t let you suffer. It will soon be over.”

  Less than half of what he had said made sense to Carla, but she was not inclined to waste time and energy puzzling over incongruities. She forced herself to move, sliding along the surface of the leaning stone, away from Simon; but even as she did so, despair gripped her. Even if she had the full use of her legs she couldn’t hope to escape him. The dress would hamper her, and its rustling paleness would betray her slightest movement. Caroline’s wedding dress would be her bane.

  Still, she had no intention of giving up without a struggle. She threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Simon moved. She saw his dark bulk lift up and drop. A lovely clear light still lingered in the west. The tall grasses along the edge of the cliff looked like a Chinese pen-and-ink drawing, and she stared at them, mesmerized, wondering if they were the last things she would ever see. She screamed again, hearing the grass rustle as Simon walked toward her. He was in no hurry. There was no reason for him to hurry.

  Then the silhouette lifted up over the rim of the cliff. The seal-round, seal-dark head and long, wiry arms, the wide shoulders and tapering body…. It made no sound; or perhaps the sound of its passage over the grass was hidden in the noise of Simon’s movements. Its shape was hidden too, blending with the darkness as soon as it left the cliff edge. But Carla’s other senses, sharpened by the failure of sight, worked only too well. Muffled sodden thuds and hoarse breathing followed Simon’s first cry of startled surprise. Then a voice rose in a piercing, inhuman shriek, and Carla’s stretched nerves finally gave way.

  She awoke with her head on Michael’s shoulder and his arms tight around her. It was pitch-dark, but she did not need to see him; the feel of him was identification enough. She stirred and murmured pleasurably, and Michael said softly, “Everything is all right. Rest a minute.”

  His heart pounded like a hammer under her cheek, belying the calm of his voice. Something brushed against her bare feet, and she started.

  “It’s the damned cat,” Michael said, his control giving way momentarily; she couldn’t decide whether the break in his voice was amusement or relief.

  “He’s not a cat, he’s a guardian angel,” Carla murmured. “Michael, if you hadn’t gone swimming tonight….”

  “Swimming? I don’t know what…. Never mind, we’ll discuss that later. Can you walk?”

  “I think so. If I could just get this horrible dress off….”

  “Not just now, please,” said Michael, with the same quiver of amusement in his voice. “Here we go—upsy daisy, that’s a brave girl.”

  “Oh, my feet hurt,” Carla moaned. She balanced gingerly on them, with Michael’s arm supporting her.

  “Thank God that’s all that hurts,” Michael muttered.

  “Is he—”

  “He won’t bother you again.”

  Leaning on his arm, Carla turned. There was nothing beyond the stones but silent darkness. The tall gateway framed a sky emblazoned with stars, and a cool wind carried the smell of the sea.

  III

  The dress was ruined. Stained with dew and dirt, shredded and torn, it was beyond repair. Carla held it on her lap as she sat enthroned in state in the drawing room, her bandaged feet on a stool.

  The police had come and gone. Carla hadn’t seen them. Michael had shoved her into her room and told her not to come out until he fetched her.

  “We’ve got to get our stories straight,” he explained. “No, don’t argue with me; get into some decent clothes. You look like the madwoman out of Jane Eyre.”

  When he finally came for her she had changed, and worked on her abused feet, but she had not done much about makeup; she was rather avoiding mirrors. She took the dress downstairs with her. As she entered the drawing room, John came to meet her.

  “Michael rang me as soon as he had notified the police,” he explained, his fine face haggard with shock. “This is absolutely frightful! Carla, my dear, what can I do for you? Michael, I think a glass of warm milk, and a sleeping pill, don’t you?”

  “She doesn’t need a sleeping pill, she needs to talk,” Michael said. “Vicar, you don’t realize what a spot we’re in. Neither does Carla, and she had better get with it before she talks to the police.”

  “What do you mean?” Carla demanded.

  “Sit down,” Michael ordered. “You too, John. Tim—I know you’re there. Come take your medicine like a little man.”

  Tim appeared in the doorway, trying to look nonchalant.

  “What are you mad at him for?” Carla asked.

  “Because he’s a rotten bodyguard. He’s never around when he’s needed.”

  “You told me I could go to Penzance,” Tim protested.

  “And I told you to come straight back. Well, never mind; it’s true that I was supposed to be on duty tonight, and I came damned close to—”

  He broke off, and for the first time Carla saw his face without its trained mask. The look he gave her compensated for most of what she had gone through that evening.

  “But you did get there in time,” she said. “My hero.”

  Michael shook his head.

  “We’ll get to that later. First tell me what the hell you were doing out there in the dark in Caroline’s wedding dress. I assume it was hers?”

  “Was is right.” Carla lifted the tattered folds. “I’m going to burn it. It’s beyond repair, and after tonight…. It was natural enough for me to try it on, wasn’t it? I don’t know why I decided to do it tonight. I had forgotten the date.” She turned impulsively toward the vicar, who was leaning forward in his chair, his mouth ajar. “John, I know now what happened to Caroline. She was running away from him—her handsome dream lover. She was terrified of William. She couldn’t refuse to marry him, when her family was so keen on the match, but she hated and feared him. That night, when they sat whispering together in the drawing room…. He was saying terrible things to her. Suddenly she couldn’t stand it anymore. She got up and ran, mindlessly. I don’t know what happened to her after that; probably she jumped from the cliff. But I know how she felt. I felt the same thing when I put on her wedding dress.”

 

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