Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

It was now she needed Carl Bennet's expert's advice on hysterical and psychosomatic manifestations! Yesterday she had produced none, but now! She bit back a sob, burying her face in a towel. Now she had produced a beauty!

Painfully she dressed. Then she wandered, still feeling strangely disoriented, to the front of the apartment. The balcony doors were open, the remains of a meal spread on the coffee table. She must have gone into a trance quite suddenly after Nick had left. She picked up the three placemats—then she frowned again. Sam. Sam had been there too. When had he left? He had not gone with Nick—she had made him some coffee—or had she? Frowning, she carried the things through into the kitchen and stared around. All the paraphernalia for making coffee was spread around on the worktop, the jar of instant still open. She screwed the lid on automatically; she would never normally have left a coffee jar unsealed. Had it happened then, while she was busy? It didn't make sense. Nor did the spoonful of coffee in the bottom of each cup, the kettle unplugged, full, standing on the worktop, the milk—sour—out of the refrigerator. She sighed and plugged in the kettle again, then thoughtfully she made her way to the phone. She dialed Nick's apartment.

There was no reply. She glanced at her watch. It was after nine. Nick could already be on his way to the airport and Sam must have gone out. As she slammed down the receiver, she winced at the pain in her shoulder.

After making herself a cup of coffee, she carried it back to the bedroom thoughtfully. At least there would be no baby crying today; he had gone, faded, like the strange discarnate dream he must have been, now that her children were all grown up.

She put the cup down on the mahogany chest of drawers in the corner, then she frowned. Her tape recorder was sitting there beside a pile of magazines and she distinctly remembered putting it in the drawer in the living room the day before, after they had come back from Devonshire Place. She clicked it open and looked down at the unfamiliar tape. Then, puzzled, she slotted it back into position and switched it on. For a moment there was silence, then the haunting, breathy sounds of a flute filled the room.

"No!" She clapped her hands to her ears. "No, it's not possible! It was in the castle, not here! No one could have recorded it! Not from my dream!"

The sound filled the room; the sound the old man had made, sitting in the corner of the bedchamber as William humiliated her; the sound that had gone on without ceasing even when he had raised the leather thong and brought it down across her shoulders. Shaking her head, she desperately tried to block out the sounds, then she grabbed the tape recorder and switched it off, ejecting the cassette and turning it over and over with trembling hands. It wasn't a commercial recording. On the blank label someone had written perpetuum mobile. Nothing else. There was no clue as to the player or the instrument. Dropping the tape as if it had burned her, she stared around the room, trying to calm herself. Was this some joke of Sam's? Some stupid trick to make her regress even when she had no wish to? Some way of hypnotizing her without the preliminaries—even without her knowledge? She pushed her hair out of her eyes with both hands and took a deep breath. But surely he wouldn't do such a thing! Why should he want to? And if he had, why hadn't he stayed with her and woken her himself? Her eyes fell suddenly on the torn dress in the corner where she had thrown it across the chair, and she felt the breath catch in her throat. "Oh, no, " she whispered out loud. "No, Sam, no! You wanted to help me! Why should you want to hurt me, Sam? Why?"

For a moment she thought the sharp sound of knocking was from inside her head and she winced, putting her hands to her ears, then she realized suddenly that the noise came from the hall. There was someone knocking on her front door. For a moment she couldn't bring herself to move. Then slowly she turned.

It was Sheila Chandler from upstairs. The woman smiled tightly. "How are you, dear? We haven't heard the baby lately. "

Jo forced herself to smile back. "The baby has gone, " she said.

"I see. Look, I don't want always to seem to be complaining"—Sheila looked down sideways as if overcome with embarrassment—"and we never would on a weekend, of course, that would be different, but, well, it is only Wednesday, and it really was so terribly loud—and it was one in the morning!"

Jo swallowed. "I know. I'm terribly sorry. I don't quite know how it happened. "

Sheila nodded. "I expect your boyfriend had had a bit too much to drink. He doesn't seem to have been himself lately, does he?" she said pointedly. Her eyes were busy, darting past Jo into the apartment. "Harry said he heard him leave. He must have missed his footing on the stairs, Harry said, because he swore so dreadfully! So it echoed up and down the stairwell. My dear, I know blasphemy doesn't mean any- thing to you younger people these days, but really, to swear by Christ's bones! What in the world is it, dear? Are you all right?"

Jo had grabbed at the door jamb for support as the blood drained from her head and a strange roaring filled her ears. She felt the other woman's fingers on her elbow, then an arm was around her shoulders as slowly Sheila helped her back inside the apartment and pushed her gently down onto the sofa. She realized Sheila was bending over her, her face full of concern. Her mouth was moving; she was still talking. With an enormous effort