Виктория Холт - The Shadow of the Lynx

He made me stand up.

“No bones broken,” he said. He frowned at the balustrade.

“How could such a thing be allowed!” he demanded.

“They’ve been hammering away for weeks,” said Lucie.

“We ought to have thought something like this might have happened. When you think of an old place like this suddenly being knocked about … In any case the kittens shall be brought down. The cat may not like it but she’ll have to put up with it. I’m sending Evans up to bring them down and put them somewhere in the stables.”

“You can walk down to your room,” said Dr. Hunter to me.

“But I think a few days’ rest would be good … just so that we can make sure. Feet up, eh?”

“I’ll see that she does that,” said Lucie firmly.

So no harm was done but Lucie insisted that I rest. She needn’t have worried. I was determined to carry out the doctor’s orders, thinking of the safety of my child. But two nights later I had a dream. I was in the tower and suddenly the terror I had experienced there came upon me. I peered about me but could see nothing. Yet there was something there-some faceless thing which was trying to force me over the parapet.

I awoke with a start and for a few moments thought I was actually in the tower. Then I was aware of my warm and comfortable bed. I was alone in it. Stirling slept in another room now. He had said something about its being better for the baby.

I lay thinking and remembered that time when I had mounted the stairs to the tower and had thought that someone was following me and the fear that I had felt then was like that which I had experienced in the dream. Maud had been below. But suppose she had not been down below. I thought of myself clutching that stone balustrade, the evil presence coming close behind me . and no one below! This was an example of the nonsensical imaginings of a pregnant woman who so feels the need to protect her unborn child that she imagines people are trying to kill her. Why? For what purpose’ I shook myself fully awake and laughed at myself. The first incident had been pure imagination; the second an accident which could have happened to anybody. There was no reason why anyone should want to harm me.

But soon I was to discover that there could be a reason Stirling wanted to give a dinner-party a rather elaborate one. He reckoned that we were no longer a house of mourning; we had been unable to entertain as he had wished at Christmas and he wanted to do something now.

I know that he was upset by Nora’s intention to leave u; and I particularly wanted to please him. He planned to us the minstrels’ gallery and as it was years since we had player; up there I went up with two of the maids to make sure every thing was in order. Later I discovered that I had lost a stone from a garnet and pearl brooch which had been my mother’! and it occurred to me that I might have lost it in the gallery I went along to search and that was how I came to be then and overheard the scene between Nora and Stirling. Then were red velvet ruchings over the lower woodwork of th gallery and heavy curtains of the same material which could be drawn back when the musicians were playing. I was of my hands and knees looking for the stone, completely hidden from anyone in the hall below by the red velvet ruchings, where someone came into the hall and I was about to stand at when I heard Stirling say in a voice which I had never heart him use before: “Nora!”

Nora said: “I came to see Minta. I stood up but they didn’t see me and before I could cal to them Stirling said: ” I’ve got to talk to you, Nora. I can’t go on like this. “

She answered angrily: “Shouldn’t you have thought of that before you married Whiteladies?”

I should have called to them but I knew that only if the) were unaware of me could I discover something of what could well be of the utmost importance to me. On impulse I shamelessly played the eavesdropper. I knelt to conceal myself from them.

“Oh God,” he said, and I hardly recognized his voice, so different was it from the way in which he ever spoke to me ‘if only I could go back.”

She taunted him.

“And then? You would listen to me? You would have seen the folly of marrying for the sake of settling old scores?”

I put my hand over my heart. It was making such a noise. I was going to learn something terrifying unless I stood up at once and announced the fact that I was here. I couldn’t. I had to know.

“Nora,” he said.

“Oh Nora, I can’t go on like this. And you’re threatening to go away. How could you! It would be heartless.”

“Heartless!” She laughed cruelly.

“Heartless … as you were when you married. How did you think felt about that?”p>

“You knew it had to be.”

“Had to be!” There was great scorn in her voice.

“You talk as though you were under some compulsion.”

“You know why …”

“Lynx is dead,” she said.

“That died with him. I shall go back to Australia. It’s the only way. You chose this marriage. Now you have to meet your obligations.”

“Nora, don’t go. I can’t bear it if you go.”

“And if I stay?”

“There’ll be a way. I swear I’ll find some way.”

“Don’t forget you have to see your children playing on the lawns of Whiteladies. How will you do that? You thought it was going to be so easy. All the golden millionaire had to do was make the family bankrupt.”

“That was done before.”

“And we suspect how. It’s nothing to be proud of. But it didn’t work out as you thought it would. Only the family could inherit this place so you had to marry into the family.” She laughed bitterly.

“All this for these stones, these walls. If they could laugh they’d be laughing at us. No. I’m going to Australia. I’ve written to Adelaide.

You’ve made your bed, as they say. Now you have to lie in it. “

“I love you, Nora. Are you going to deny that you love me?” She was silent and he cried out.

“You can’t deny it. You’ve always known it.

That night of the fire . “

“You let me marry Lynx,” she said.

“But that was … Lynx.”

“Oh yes,” she said, almost viciously, ‘your god. “

“Yours too, Nora.”

“If you had loved me …”

“You two were the most important things on earth. and if you had loved me enough . “

“I know,” she said impatiently.

“But it was Lynx then, and it’s Lynx now. We can’t escape from him. He’s dead but he lives on. You had a choice, though. When you found out you couldn’t buy this place you could have come back with me to Australia. Or we could have stayed here. It wouldn’t have mattered to me if …”

“If we were together,” he said triumphantly.

“But it’s too late. You’ve married. You’ll stay married.” Her voice was cruel again.

“You’ve got to see those children playing on the lawn. Remember?”

She spoke as though she hated him and I knew how deeply he had wounded her. I knew so much now. In the last few minutes everything had fallen into shape. Dominating all our lives was his father who had once lived here and who had been deeply wronged—a great, powerful man, whose influence lived on after he was dead.

“Too late,” she said.

“And you’ve no one to blame but yourself. When you told me … I wanted to die. I hated you, Stirling, because …”

“Because you love me.”

“It’s too late. You chose. Now you must live with your choice.”

“It can’t be too late,” Stirling said.

“There’s always a way and I’ll find it, Nora. I swear it. Promise to be patient.”

“Patient! What are you talking about? You’re married. You’re married to Whiteladies. This wonderful, marvelous unique old house is your bride. You can’t just walk out, you know.”