'Richard, it is an enchanted place!' I cried, unable to contain myself.
Mrs Blessington laughed gaily, her dry hand closing tightly on mine.
We found our bedchambers well aired, with snow-white linen on the beds and fires blazing cosily on the hearths. The small, diamond-paned windows opened on a glorious view of the lake and the oaks that enclosed it and the few scattered lights that marked the village beyond.
That night we laughed like children as we supped at the great oak table, our candles giving only a feeble light. And afterwards we had a fierce battle of pocket billiards in the games room and a little too much brandy, I fear.
It was just before I went to bed that I asked Mrs Blessington if there had been anyone in this house since my father left it, years before.
'No, my dear,' she said quickly, fluffing the feather pillows. 'When your father went away to Oxford, he never came back.'
'There was never a young intruder after that?' I pressed her, though in truth I had little appetite for anything that would disturb the happiness I felt. How I loved the spartan cleanliness of this bedchamber, the walls bare of paper and ornament, the high lustre of the walnut-panelled bed.
'A young intruder?' With an unerring certainty about her surroundings, she lifted the poker and stirred the fire. 'No, dear. Whatever made you think there was?'
'Are there no ghost stories, Mrs Blessington?' I asked suddenly, startling myself. Unspeakable horror . But what was I thinking — that that young man had not been real?
'Oh, no, darling,' she said, smiling. 'No ghost would ever dare to trouble Rampling Gate.'
Nothing, in fact, troubled the serenity of the days that followed long walks through the overgrown gardens, trips in the little skiff to and fro across the lake, tea under the hot glass of the empty conservatory. Early evening found us reading and writing by the library fire.
All our enquiries in the village met with the same answers: the villagers cherished the house. There was not a single disquieting legend or tale.
How were we going to tell them of Father's edict? How were we going to remind ourselves?
Richard was finding a wealth of classical material on the library shelves and I had the desk in the corner entirely to myself.
Never had I known such quiet. It seemed the atmosphere of Rampling Gate permeated my simplest written descriptions and wove its way richly into the plots and characters I created. The Monday after our arrival I finished my first real short story, and after copying out a fresh draft, I went off to the village on foot to post it boldly to the editors of Blackwood's magazine.
It was a warm afternoon, and I took my time as I came back. What had disturbed our father so about this lovely corner of England? What had so darkened his last hours that he laid his curse upon this spot? My heart opened to his unearthly stillness, to an indisputable magnificence that caused me utterly to forget myself. There were times here when I felt I was a disembodied intellect drifting through a fathomless silence, up and down garden paths and stone corridors that had witnessed too much to take cognizance of one small and fragile young woman who in random moments actually talked aloud to the suits of armour around her, to the broken statues in the garden, the fountain cherubs who had had no water to pour from their conches for years and years.
But was there in this loveliness some malignant force that was eluding us still, some untold story? Unspeakable horror Even in the flood of brilliant sunlight, those words gave me a chill.
As I came slowly up the slope I saw Richard walking lazily along the uneven shore of the lake. Now and then he glanced up at the distant battlements, his expression dreamy, almost blissfully contented.
Rampling Gate had him. And I understood perfectly because it also had me.
With a new sense of determination I went to him and placed my hand gently on his arm.
For a moment he looked at me as if he did not even know me, and then he said softly, 'How will I ever do it, Julie? And one way or the other, it will be on my conscience all my life.'
'It's time to seek advice, Richard,' I said. 'Write to our lawyers in London. Write to Father's clergyman, Doctor Matthews. Explain everything. We cannot do this alone.'
It was three o'clock in the morning when I opened my eyes. But I had been awake for a long time. And I felt not fear, lying there alone, but something else — some vague and relentless agitation, some sense of emptiness and need that caused me finally to rise from my bed. What was this house, really? A place, or merely a state of mind? What was it doing to my soul?
I felt overwhelmed, yet shut out of some great and dazzling secret. Driven by an unbearable restlessness, I pulled on my woollen wrapper and my slippers and went into the hall.
The moonlight fell full on the oak stairway, and the vestibule far below. Maybe I could write of the confusion I suffered now, put on paper the inexplicable longing I felt. Certainly it was worth the effort, and I made my way soundlessly down the steps.
The great hall gaped before me, the moonlight here and there touching upon a pair of crossed swords or a mounted shield. But far beyond, in the alcove just outside the library, I saw the uneven glow of the fire. So Richard was there. A sense of well-being pervaded me and quieted me. At the same time, the distance between us seemed endless and I became desperate to cross it, hurrying past the long supper table and finally into the alcove before the library doors.
The fire blazed beneath the stone mantelpiece and a figure sat in the leather chair before it, bent over a loose collection of pages that he held in his slender hands. He was reading the pages eagerly, and the fire suffused his face with a warm, golden light.
But it was not Richard. It was the same young man I had seen on the train in Victoria Station fifteen years ago. And not a single aspect of that taut young face had changed. There was the very same hair, thick and lustrous and only carelessly combed as it hung to the collar of his black coat, and those dark eyes that looked up suddenly and fixed me with a most curious expression as I almost screamed.
We stared at each other across that shadowy room, I stranded in the doorway, he visibly and undeniably
