Lady of Hay

  “I’m preparing for a new exhibition.”

  “So soon?” He put his foot up on the seat and clasped his hands around his knee.

  “Not so clever really. I had nearly enough material for two exhibitions anyway. This one is exciting though. It’s going to be in Paris. But I didn’t come to talk about that. Pete, I need your help.”

  “You don’t need my help, Judy. But you’ll have it, for what it’s worth. I enjoyed writing up the last one, and the thought of a trip to Paris to write about the next is not entirely obnoxious to me.” He grinned. “I might even buy a picture myself this time.”

  “I’m not talking about the exhibition!” Brushing aside his intended compliment, she jumped up restlessly and went to stand in front of his bookcase, staring up at the lines of titles. “I want you to…that is…” She turned awkwardly toward him. “You know Tim Heacham, don’t you?”

  Pete concealed a smile in his hand. “Of course.”

  “Did you know he was in love with Jo Clifford?”

  “I had heard rumors to that effect, yes.”

  “He doesn’t just fancy her, Pete. It is something much, much more…” For a moment Pete saw an almost painful sympathy in her eyes and he looked at her with renewed interest. Her short red hair was becomingly tousled, her dark-green shirt and her jeans well cut and for once paint-free. She exuded an air of gamine charm that did not quite conceal the determination which directed all her movements. His eyes rested on her broad, almost masculine hands with their neatly trimmed nails. Scarlet talons were more to his taste, but she certainly had something, some underlying current of sexuality that appealed to him enormously. He stood up and reached for her glass. “Let me get you another,” he said gently. “I take it you feel that I can help their romance along somehow.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yes. And for a start you can tell the world what a mess Nick has made of his business affairs.”

  Pete’s mouth fell open. “Hang on a minute. I had the impression that you were rather keen on Nick yourself.”

  The green eyes clouded. “No longer. The reason he has been ignoring the office more and more is because he has been hypnotized too, like Jo. And in his previous existence he knew her before. And he hated her enough to kill her.” She took the refilled glass from him and gave him a knowing smile. “Surely you could use material like that, Pete, couldn’t you?”

  ***

  Jo stood for several minutes after she had hung up the telephone, staring out of the window at the roof of the tower of Hay Church, almost hidden among the trees. She was numb.

  “Finished, then, dear?” Margiad Griffiths popped her head around the door. “Supper will be on the table in fifteen minutes, if you were going to have a quick bath.”

  Jo looked blankly at the bathrobe and sponge bag she had put down on one of the chairs. Slowly she picked them up. “I’ll pay you for the call,” she said huskily.

  “Bad news, was it, dear?” Mrs. Griffiths came into the room properly. “That white, you are. Here.” She gave a conspiratorial smile. “Why don’t I give you a glass of sherry. That’ll perk you up a bit, so it will. You can take it upstairs with you.”

  Gratefully Jo took the tiny thistle crystal glass of sweet sherry and made her way back upstairs. The bedroom door was still shut. She locked herself in the bathroom and, drawing the shower curtain around the bath, turned on the tepid water before she pulled off her mud-stained jeans and blouse and stepped under the shower attachment, letting the water stream over her face and breasts, soaking her hair until it turned to a jet curtain of wet silk on her back.

  Supper was ten minutes late and Margiad Griffiths was flustered. “It’s the wine, see. I sent my Doreen up the road to get you some from the Swan, but I don’t know if it’s any good. My late husband, he knew about wine, but I don’t like the stuff myself!” She thrust the bottle at Nick shyly and then handed him the corkscrew.

  Nick looked gravely at the label. “That’s very nice, thank you. Will you thank your daughter for going to so much trouble,” he said to her with a smile.

  He grinned at Jo as their hostess withdrew. “Chambré it certainly is, after its voyage back from the Swan, wherever that is. The label says it was a good wine once. But it has been shaken to the point of shall we say sparkling, if not actually frothing.”

  Jo managed to laugh. “The way I feel now, I don’t care how it comes as long as it’s wet and alcoholic.” She watched him draw the cork and gingerly sniff the neck of the bottle. “The food looks lovely,” she said soberly after a minute.

  “And so is the wine, in spite of its adventures. Here’s to the intrepid Margiad—isn’t that a lovely name?” Nick took a large mouthful. “And here’s to you, Jo.” He met her eye, suddenly sobering.

  Jo sat back in her chair. “There was a phone message waiting for me to call Bet Gunning this evening,” she said. Her gray-green eyes studied his face gravely. “I spoke to her just now.”

  “Oh?” Nick picked up his knife and fork.

  “She said she had lunch with you last week.”

  Nick smiled. “Is that why she called? To tell you what happened?”

  “What did happen, Nick?”

  “She told me to keep away from you. She said I was ruining your career prospects and spoiling your literary style. She then offered herself to me as compensation. When I declined her kind suggestion she was a little upset. Though not enough, I should have thought, to report back to you. What was her version?”

  Jo gave a small smile. “Much the same. Bet is nothing if not honest. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been if you had accepted her offer.” She took a tentative mouthful of lamb. “She also told me she thought you hated me.” She did not look up.

  Nick said nothing for a moment.

  “Hated me enough to want to kill me,” she went on, so quietly he thought for a moment he had not heard aright.

  “Jo.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “Bet is a self-confessed troublemaker and bitch. She also had a vivid imagination. For God’s sake—” His expression turned to one of incredulity. “You don’t believe her?”

  She shook off his fingers and put down her knife and fork. “No, of course not.”

  She reached for the wine bottle and poured some more into her glass. “But you have been rather odd, Nick. You admitted it yourself.” Her hand was shaking as she looked up at him. She forced herself to smile.

  He frowned. Then abruptly he stood up, pushing his chair back, his food hardly touched.

  “Jo, we’ve got to have this out. I love you—” He gave her an embarrassed grin. “Not an easy thing for an Englishman to say in broad daylight, but, there, I’ve said it. I think I’ve loved you ever since I first met you.”

  There was a moment’s tense silence as they both considered suddenly the deeper implications of what he had said. With a shiver Jo looked down at her plate. Her throat had constricted so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “Then why did you go to Judy?” she whispered at last.

  He groaned. “God knows! Because you told me to go to hell, I suppose.” He paused. “Because sometimes you make me so angry—”

  “Angry enough to want to hurt me—” She looked up at him.

  “No!” he replied explosively. “It is as if—” He paused in mid-sentence, staring out of the window. “It is as if there is something in my mind that closes down like a shutter. When it happens I don’t know what I’m doing for a while. That’s not an excuse, Jo. There is no excuse for what I did to you. It’s perhaps all the more frightening because it’s like that. I don’t understand it.” He frowned. “But it will not—cannot happen again.”

  Jo ached suddenly to stand up with him and take him in her arms, but resolutely she sat still, staring down at her plate again. “Sit down, Nick, and eat your supper. Mrs. Griffiths will be so hurt if we don’t at least make the effort,” she said quietly. “I expect you’ve been overworking, what with the worry about Desco and everything,” she added,
as matter-of-factly as she could. “That might explain it all.”

  He sat down heavily opposite her. “It might, I suppose.” He gave a weary smile.

  “Why did you come here, Nick?”

  “To Wales?” He paused. “To see you. To be with you.”

  “But why?” She clenched her fists in her lap, waiting for his reply.

  “Because I was worried about you, I suppose,” he replied after a moment.

  “I see.” She bit her lip. “And you’re still going back tomorrow?”

  “I have to. I’m due to fly to New York on Wednesday and I’ve got an awful lot to do first. But I’ll wait and see how you are before I go. It worries me the way you are having these regressions spontaneously. Supposing there had been no one there. Supposing it had happened to you in the street, or driving, for God’s sake!”

  “There is no reason it should happen again, Nick.” Jo gave up her attempt to eat and laid down her knife and fork. “I don’t think what I had today was a regression anyway. I just fainted—like I did at Ceecliff’s. As I told you, the doctor said it was probably something to do with the thunder we’ve been having so much. It happened before in a storm, remember? He thinks it’s an allergic reaction to electric force fields, or something.” She gave a little laugh. “He said I’d probably be the sort of person who pukes under pylons.”

  Nick managed a smile. “But you didn’t tell them about the regressions, did you?”

  She shook her head. “They’d have locked me up, Nick. And kept me in for a month for psychiatric tests. If anyone is going to do any tests on me, it’s going to be Carl Bennet.” She glanced up at him under her eyebrows. “Would you come with me, Nick, if I went back to him?”

  Nick frowned. She saw his fingers clench and unclench around the handle of his knife. “As an observer, Jo,” he asked quietly after a long pause, “or as another patient?”

  ***

  She went up at about nine. Nick did not stop her. Nor did he suggest he go to bed too. Instead he let himself out into the street and began slowly to walk toward the church.

  The churchyard was shadowy. It smelled of new-mown grass in the evening twilight as he sat down on the wall and lit a cigarette, feeling the dew soaking into his shoes. He could see the bats flitting in and out of the darkness of the yew trees around him and once or twice he heard their faint sonar squeaks. Slowly it grew dark. He knew he ought to go back. Mrs. Griffiths would probably be waiting to lock up, but somehow he did not want to leave the quiet velvet night. He ground out his third cigarette into the grass with his heel, conscious that the dew was striking chill all around him now. Moths had begun to crawl over the streetlight near by, fluttering desperately in its harshness. He watched as the bats swooped through the pool of light, taking the mesmerized insects in quick succession before wheeling out into the darkness again and circling for another swoop. In the distance he heard a clock chime eleven.

  Reluctantly he stood up.

  ***

  Jo was asleep. He clicked on the lamp beside his bed but she did not move and for a moment he stood looking down at her. He had described the strange thing in his mind as a shutter. It was more like a shadowy incubus, lying sleeping in his brain, that every now and then shook itself and stirred and murmured. And when it spoke he had to obey. He felt the prickle of fear touch the skin at the back of his neck as his mind skidded obliquely away from the lurking suspicion that had begun to haunt him. But there was one thing he had to face. Whatever it was, this alien part of him, Bet was right, it threatened Jo. Gently he pulled the sheet up over her shoulders, touching a strand of her hair as he tucked it around her. Asleep she looked so vulnerable. Why should any part of him want to harm her? Bet had seen it. Her bantering and flirting had stopped the moment she had seen the other being in his eyes. And Judy. What was it she had said to him? You weren’t regressed. Sam told you who you were and then he told you what to do. He sat down on his bed thoughtfully. But his first attack on Jo had been before Sam had hypnotized him. And Sam would never want him to hurt Jo. Angrily he pushed away the echo of his mother’s voice. You must never let Sam hypnotize you, Nick…Did he find out who you were in Matilda’s past? What did he let you remember?

  He remembered suddenly Judy’s expression as he had moved toward her in the living room of his apartment, intending to take her glass and refill it. She had backed away from him, and he had seen in her eyes the same fear and uncertainty he had seen in Bet’s; Judy too had glimpsed the stranger in him.

  Jo stirred on her bed and flung out her arm, but she did not wake. Nick looked down at her, then he walked away to the other side of the room. He did not dare let himself touch her again.

  ***

  She woke at dawn. Her eyes strayed sleepily around the unfamiliar room focusing on the open window for a moment, then she started to shake.

  She sat up, clutching her pillow to her chest, burying her face in it as she tried to control the terror that flooded through her. The memory had returned all at once, just as it had before, the details three-dimensional in their clarity. Castel Dinas in the threatening storm, Prince John, the drunken men, and her own vulnerability and fear as the king’s brother made his intentions clear.

  She clutched the pillow tighter, seeing again the handsome, drunken face above her, feeling his brutal hands on her breasts, feeling her absolute powerlessness before his determination.

  “Are you all right, Jo?”

  She stifled a scream as Nick’s hand closed over her wrist, and, tearing herself from his grasp, she threw herself to the far side of her bed. “Don’t touch me!” She slid out of the bed, still holding the pillow, and backed away from him. She was trembling violently.

  “I’m not going to touch you, Jo.” Nick moved back. He sat on the side of his own bed, his eyes on her face. “You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all.”

  “A dream!” Her face was white as she stared at herself in the dressing-table mirror. “Do you think a dream did this? And this?” She thrust her wrists at him and then her shoulder in the thin silk nightgown with its ribbon straps. Both were bruised and there was a long scratch on her neck near her collarbone. Her throat was bruised and swollen.

  Nick stared at her in horror. He had become suddenly very cold. “Jo! I hope you don’t think I did that, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t do it!”

  “Didn’t you?” She was like a trapped animal, her shoulders pressed against the wall. “How do I know it wasn’t you?”

  “It wasn’t, Jo.” Nick moistened his lips nervously with his tongue. “You were asleep last night when I came back from my walk. I didn’t touch you. I slept here in this bed, until just now when you woke me. For God’s sake, Jo! Do you think I could do that to you in your sleep and you not wake?” He was breathing heavily. “You’ve had a dream. Another regression in your sleep. It wasn’t anything to do with me, Jo.”

  She was a little calmer now. He saw her arms still defensively clutching the pillow, her face pinched and white. “No,” she breathed at last. “It was at Castel Dinas, I remember now.” She took a deep painful breath. “We rode there with the prince’s men. There was a storm and the castle guard was terribly frightened—of the ancient gods. I don’t know who they were. Celts, or Druids, I suppose, but they still walk the hills. John and I were there. Alone.”

  “John?” Nick whispered. He could feel the goose bumps rising on his skin.

  Jo looked at him directly for the first time. “Prince John,” she said. They stared at each other in silence.

  Nick tried to swallow the sudden bile that had risen in his throat. “And he did that to you?” he said slowly.

  She nodded. He could see the accusation in her eyes. “It was you, Nick—”

  “No!” He launched himself from the bed. “Jo, get a grip on reality! It was not me! You were in a trance. No one touched you except inside your head. I took you to the hospital and they kept you there for hours while they examined you. There wasn’t a mark on you. Not yesterday, not last n
ight. It happened in your sleep, Jo!” Gently he took the pillow from her and put it back on the bed, then he caught her hands. They were ice-cold. “Jo. I think we should see Bennet. As soon as possible.” He pushed her into a sitting position on her bed.

  She was looking up at him. Tentatively she raised her hand and traced her fingers lightly over his eyes and nose. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Nick, don’t let it be true. Please,” she cried desperately. “Don’t let it be true.”

  ***

  After-dinner cigar smoke wove around fluted silver candlesticks and drifted up to the high ceiling, curling beneath the plastered moldings. Ponderously Sam stood up, a glass of port in one hand, and walked down the long table to a vacant chair near its head. He put down his glass and extended his hand. “Dr. Bennet? My name is Samuel Franklyn.”

  Bennet looked up and surveyed him briefly, then he indicated the empty place beside him. “Please, sit down, Dr. Franklyn. I hoped we might meet here this evening,” he said. He reached for the decanter. “We have a patient in common, I believe.” He glanced up once more, his eyes narrowed. “One of the most interesting cases I have ever come across. Cigar?”

  Sam shook his head. “She has finally changed her mind about our conferring—now that it is too late for me to stop your becoming involved—did she tell you?”

  Bennet raised an eyebrow. “She did not. But I did intend to have a word with you anyway, I must confess.” He was studying Sam’s face with interest. “When did you last see her professionally?”

  “On the twelfth. You were away, I believe.”

  Bennet nodded slowly. “I saw her the following week. We had a very disturbing session during which I tried, at her request, to suggest to her that her interest in her past life would lessen or be lost altogether. She rejected the suggestion and became very disturbed. It was necessary to sedate her. I have not spoken to her since then. She missed her next appointment.” Thoughtfully he kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s face.