Voices Out of Time, page 6
"It's a matter of pride," Bess said finally. "Grandfather does not want it known that the MacDonneaugh's are far poorer than they seem, and came to end in such an ignominious way."
"But," Alice said, intrigued despite her mind's caution that she was only listening to legend, not fact, "if Morag died without giving birth to children, who is Roderick?"
"A cousin," David said, still at his place by the fire. "When Morag died, the servants contacted a smaller branch of the family up near the Isle of Skye, and one came down to make the claim. Roderick, and Bess and I, are descended from that man, not from the original MacDonneaugh."
Alice considered a moment before asking her next question. "It may sound unpleasant," she said, "but hasn't anyone thought to look for Morag's grave and rescue the ruby? That might have -"
"Indeed," Bess said. "It happens at least once in a generation. In fact, the first cousin did just that, but though he did manage to find the remains of Cullcraig's last Mistress, there was no sign of the jewel anywhere."
"Grave robbers," Alice said then.
"No," David said. He stepped off the hearth and sat down next to Alice, rubbing one hand over his knee until Bess prodded him with a weak but supporting smile. "You see, Alice, we've done a lot of thinking out here, we MacDonneaughs, and we know now that Morag still has the ruby. Wherever she is, she still has it and she's trying to get it back to us. She regrets what she's done, you see and she does not want to be the cause of the MacDonneaughs falling into poverty."
"She tried to come back to my mother," Bess said eagerly, obviously believing Alice's questions meant acceptance of the tale. "On those very stairs outside your door, she saw Morag and, as you did, she fell. She was not so lucky, though, Alice. Not as lucky as you were."
Alice shook her head. "If your mother died in that way," she said, frowning, "how did you know it was . . . it was Morag who appeared to her?"
"Her last words," Bess said. "Grandfather was there when she . . . she . . . " Bess swallowed hard and gripped the armrest tightly. "He was there when she died, Alice, and she told him what she had seen."
"Alice," David said, taking her hand, "Grandfather is in what you would call a bad way. He's no' long for the world, and his only thought is to save Cullcraig fra' the taxmen and give it to Bess and I. We think Morag is trying to get through to us, through you, because you look so much alike in so many ways. If we can reach her ourselves and find out where that ruby is . . . why, I can't begin to think –"
"David," Alice said, "first of all, you're assuming I believe all this."
"But you saw her!" Bess exclaimed. "And you heard the music!"
"I saw something," Alice corrected gently, "and I heard something. Exactly what it was I don't know. I think it might have been what I told you, but remember, it was dark, the wind . . . it could have been a dozen different things. And now you tell me this story and expect me to take part in a séance? That was what you were driving at, wasn't it, David?"
David nodded, but his eagerness had faded in the face of her expressed doubt.
"For Grandfather," Bess pleaded, leaving her chair and sitting beside her, on her left. "Please, Alice, for Grandfather."
"But he tried to kill me today!"
"He's old, as I've told you, Alice," David said, "and he's rapidly coming to an end neither of us wish to think about. Cullcraig is too much for him, and with my own export business in Glasgow, I can't be here as much as I'd like. Finding that gem, Alice, would save us all! "
Save us all? Alice wondered, suddenly suspicious, or just that small company of yours that's in as much debt as Cullcraig. Her face must have reflected her thoughts, because David suddenly left the couch and walked stiffly toward the door.
"Think about it, Alice," he said, and this time there was no plea in his voice, only a faintly veiled threat of displeasure. "Bess, we must go to bed now. It's getting late."
Bess worried at her hands for a moment, then patted Alice's arm with a muttering about how sorry she was for Roderick's behavior. At the door, however, she turned, the little girl look in her face vanished and replaced by a hardened expression that took Alice aback.
"I won't let him die alone or poor, Alice," she said tightly. "I won't let anyone give him that reward." Her first impulse, as soon as the door closed and she was alone, was to run into the bedroom, clear out the wardrobe and call Geoffrey to take her away from the Cullcraig madhouse. Her confusing and conflicting impressions of both grandfather and grandchildren were rapidly beginning to spiral into a tight nimbus of fear that settled around her heart and caused it to accelerate its beating. She could not imagine that a hardheaded businessman like David MacDonneaugh could possibly believe in the spirit world, nor that a shrewd woman like Bess could actually think that holding a séance would return a three-hundred year old woman from the grave, and with her the possible salvation of an estate now too big to handle. Yet it seemed that both of them did believe. Perhaps, she thought, it was the anxiety they felt toward their grandfather's decline that caused them to momentarily lose sight of reality. It would certainly explain their odd behavior in her rooms tonight.
She arose and walked to the fire, holding her palms out to capture some of the warmth that radiated from the flames.
And the storm was not helping her state of mind, either. It screamed across the plains and down the hills toward the sea, thundering everything beneath its awesome fury, making her wish momentarily that she could find some quiet corner someplace to cower and hide. She envisioned the house's limestone tower buckling under the pressure of the wind, its massive stonework crashing through the roof and through the floors below. She herself could be in grave danger lest a cornerstone fall into her own room and pin her helplessly, broken and bleeding –
"Stop it!" she said loudly, suddenly, turning as the shadows writhed to give substance to her waking nightmare. She knew it was the story of Morag that fired her imagination thus, but nevertheless she could not banish the feeling that something was about to happen that would put her in the most extreme danger. She had had the same sensation just before the fire had broken out at the ranch house, and had not listened to it because she thought it the wild imagination of an unattached young woman not yet out of her early twenties. Yet the fire had happened; and the feeling had come again.
Slowly, her eyes unable to keep from glancing at the ceiling and the walls, she moved into the bedroom. She knew she must sleep so that she would have strength in the morning, but as she slipped into her nightgown she also knew that the storm, if nothing else, would keep her awake for hours. It would be the library then, she decided, and a book to calm her until her eyes grew too heavy. Determinedly, she threw on her robe just as a particularly brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the shadows and made her squeal in fright. The electric lamps flickered ominously, died, brightened once before extinguishing completely. She was alone in the dark now, only the fireplace in the sitting room emitting a curious orange glow. Hurriedly, she grabbed a handful of tapers from the top of her bureau and ran into the next room, set them into a brass candelabrum and tipped the wicks toward the flames licking silently around the thick logs. Once the light returned, she sighed deeply and stepped out into the hall, the halo from the candles pushing back the night in warm comfort as she moved toward the stairwell to the second floor.
And there, just as she made to take the first step down, was a woman, the same woman she had seen the night of her fall. She was dressed in the same ancient clinging gown and she seemed to be waiting at the exit. Alice called out before she could stop herself, and the woman drifted away out of sight.
"Not this time," Alice muttered as she rushed down the steps, one hand tight on the bannister, the other holding the candles aloft to the drive the shadows from in front of her like dead leaves before a strong wind. She reached the bottom before she knew it, turned the corner and saw the woman moving down the central corridor toward the front of the house.
"Morag!" she shouted, but there was no response but the wind, and the rain, and an explosion of thunder that trembled the walls and caused the candles in their sconces to waver madly. Alice gave chase at once, feeling beneath her bare feet the rough texture of the carpet and the draughts that eddied about her ankles like tendrils of ice. Yet, as fast as she ran, she could not seem to gain on the mysterious woman, who seemed to be floating above the floor and did not look around at Alice's second call. Alice glowered, then, and redoubled her efforts to catch up with this all-too-human spectre, and might have achieved her purpose had she not stumbled over something placed across the corridor. She cried out in surprise and anger, releasing the candelabrum, spilling to her hands and knees. Immediately, the candles went out, and. the dim glow of the hall lights behind their glass chimneys was the only illumination afforded her. Ignoring the scrapes on her palms and knees, Alice pushed aside the candles she had been carrying and raced to the landing, grabbed onto the railing above the tapestry and would have instantly veered to leap down the steps when she was suddenly aware that there were figures in the great hall below.
A man stood by the front door. He wore a green-and-black tartan kilt and matching short jacket, his white shirt laced and frilled at the neck and wrists, his Balmoral cap pulled rakishly down toward one ear like a black beret. In one hand he carried a flower Alice could not recognize, and in the other a short dagger she knew was called the sgian-dubh and was usually worn in the right sock that stretched to the knee. Beside him stood another man, shorter and stockier, also kilted and also holding a dagger that gleamed in the soft candlelight drifting outward from the walls.
The woman Morag stood in front of them, obscuring their faces, which Alice did not think she would be able to see at any rate since the light was not strong, and the faces were dark with shadow.
She made to call out, then, stopped when a figure stepped out of the dining hall. His beret-like cap hid his face, but Alice was stricken by something in the manner of the walk, something that sparked a hint of memory. She frowned, gripped the railing more tightly and watched as the newcomer approached the three by the door. The first and larger man took Morag's shoulder and eased her away, stood in front of her and held out the dagger. The newcomer raised a hand, tried suddenly to back away but the dagger flared, flashed, and Alice could barely contain a gasp of horror when the dagger retreated with the unmistakable sheen of blood on its serrated, polished blade. The newcomer seemed stunned, his hands clasped over his stomach. He swayed as the others watched, dropped to his knees and finally, agonizingly slowly, toppled onto his back.
A dark nearly black stain spread over the man's middle, and Alice could not take her eyes from it, could not believe that she had just witnessed a murder. And worse, much worse, was the fact that it had taken place entirely in silence. Not a sound rose from the hall below her, not a hint of breath, not a groan from the dying man. There was only the thunder that echoed down the corridors of Cullcraig, and the wind that pursued it like a demented banshee.
And it was then that Alice realized she was trembling so hard her legs could scarcely hold her. She fell forward against the railing, her head lowered, her stomach feeling as though it would rebel against the sight she had been forced to watch. When she raised her head again, Morag was standing in the center of the hall, looking straight at her, one hand pointing imperiously. Her face was pale, more pale than a woman who had never seen the sun, yet her lips were nearly black, her eyes pits of shadows that refused to catch at the light around her. Alice stared at the finger aimed at her face, followed with her gaze as it directed her to look once again at the fallen, murdered man. And when she saw the man's face, she did cry out this time and sink to her knees.
It was Alex Gordon. His eyes still open, his mouth contorted in pain; but he saw nothing and he felt nothing. Alex Gordon was dead.
"Alice!" a commanding voice said then.
She shook her head. She would not stand, she would not listen, but the voice continued to intone her name until, just to drive the maddening thing away, she hauled herself back up to her feet.
Morag was still there, still pointing.
"Alice MacDonneaugh," she said above the thunder. "One each night, Alice MacDonneaugh. One each night until you come to me."
Alice screamed and shoved herself away from the railing, raced down the corridor until, she reached Bess' door. She pounded with both fists on the heavy wood, calling for her cousin, but there was no response. She froze, then, and looked over her shoulder. Morag was standing at the head of the stairs. She ran to David's door, then Roderick's beside it, kicking now and screaming mindlessly for someone's attention, rising into hysteria when hands gripped her arms and spun her around, shook her until she opened her eyes and saw the panicked concern in David's face.
"Oh my God, David," she said, burying her face in his chest as his arms slipped around her shoulders and held her tightly. She stammered out the story of what she had seen; felt her cousin stiffen at the mention of Morag, and Alex's death. Then she heard Bess' voice and Roderick's, heard someone hurrying down the corridor. A moment passed, and another, and finally she lifted her face and pushed carefully away, one hand still gripping David's to keep her balance. She saw Bess leaning over the railing, and Roderick just descending the stairs; and just as her uncle's head vanished, Bess turned, one hand to her throat to close her robe, the other brushing back her sleep-tossed hair.
"There's no one there, Alice," she said. 'There's no one there."
Chapter Five
Alice stared at Bess dumbly, not believing, then with a gasp shoved David away from her and ran to the railing. The central hall was empty, dark except for a single taper carried by Roderick as he stood at the front doors and tested their bolts and their latches. It's impossible, she thought as she turned to race down the stairs; they couldn't have vanished in so short a time! When she reached the tapestry landing, Roderick had already started back across the floor, his face in twisted shadow as the candle's flame wavered near his cheek; yet there was an unmistakable aura of sorrow about him, and pity. She put a hand to the forest scene behind her, shaking her head, feeling a spiral of dizziness threaten to weaken her legs and slump her to the stone. The storm had abated somewhat, and the thunder's distant grumblings only added to the dull thud of his slippers as he climbed the steps and stood before her.
She backed away until the tapestry stopped her, her eyes caught by the flame, by the yellow centered in blue and the thin tendril of smoke that writhed above its tip.
"Alice," he began, but she only turned away from him, more to hide from the hypnotic flame than his voice, but the movement served to silence him, to reduce him to patting her arm as he looked up and shook his head at David, who was leaning over the railing with an anxious expression clouding his face. A moment later Bess had joined them, had snaked an arm around Alice's shoulders and was leading her back upstairs.
"To my room, dear," she said, hugging her tightly. "You don't have to go back to that dreadful attic." Alice wanted to protest, to insist that she would like nothing better than to go back to "that attic" where she knew she would be safe from the spectres that had risen to haunt her. But she said nothing at all as Bess gently murmured reassurances about nightmares now gone as was the storm that had surely produced them. She softly chided David for allowing the family to fill the American girl's head with stories of women coming back from the dead, and only snapped a Gaelic curse when David reminded her it was she who had spun the tale in Alice's room, not him.
After David and his grandfather had bid them a solicitous good night, Bess closed the door and took Alice immediately into the bedroom – her apartments being the same as Alice's in plan, though much less comfortable, more stark and stiff. Alice shook her head when Bess offered a glass of brandy. She wanted nothing then, but a ration of quiet in which she could think, and Bess was instantly aware of it. She muttered something about an early day and slipped beneath the blankets, pointing to the pillow beside her head and smiling. And finally Alice shook herself out of her daze long enough to come round the bed and lean over her cousin.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to cause such a fuss."
"You wouldn't be the first one in Cullcraig to have bad dreams, Alice," Bess answered, patting Alice's hand on the coverlet. "Nor the last." As Alice made to pull away, however, Bess gripped her hand tightly and pulled her down until their faces almost touched. "But dreams," she said, "are sometimes messages, too. Remember what I said, Alice. You're needed."
Alice snatched her hand back and stalked away from the bed, stood in front of a dimming fire with her back to her cousin, saying nothing, listening only to the girl shifting on the mattress, her breathing slowly but steadily falling into a rhythm that meant a deep, undisturbed sleep. Then she gathered her robe about her neck and left the room, left the apartment and made her way down the corridor toward the front hall. It was impossible that she could have been dreaming, no matter how persuasive her cousins had been; she had seen Morag at the foot of the stairs, had seen the shadow-faced man plunge that dagger into Alex Gordon's stomach. She knew that there were dreams people had that were of such a vivid nature that the sleeper, upon awakening, would swear even to a priest that what she had witnessed had actually happened. Alice herself recalled one or two that fell into that vivid category, but always, always she had recognized within moments after waking that she had in fact only been dreaming. She was awake now, feeling the draughts of the old house brush past her cheeks and neck like ghostly fingers searching for a hold, and in knowing that she was awake, knew too that the scene that had transpired in the hall was real!
She groped along the wall as she descended, her eyes alternately widening and squinting so that she could pierce the thick darkness that had settled over the house. But when her hand brushed against the tapestry and she could not make out a single soft thread therein; she knew she would have to find a light from somewhere, or else give it up and return to her bed. She closed her eyes, then, and summoned a vision of the hall in daylight, marking each turn, each doorway, then nodding to herself. She moved down the last flight and made her way to the right, her hands outstretched until they came up, an eternity later, against the library doors. She breathed a silent prayer that they were unlocked, slid one aside and slipped in, heading for the fireplace and the long sulphur-tipped matches she knew lay in a wooden box on the mantle. Twice she stumbled over chair legs, stifling a gasp just in time, and twice she slammed her shins against bookcase corners. The noise, she was sure, was loud enough to rouse everyone within a hundred miles, but when her feet found the cool brick of the hearth she had not yet been discovered.
