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

"But it is such a god-awful picture! It makes me look—" Words failed her.

"It makes you look quite lovely, Jo. I did try to call you, as it happened, to check, but you were away. "

"I was in Suffolk. I went to look at Clare while I was there. "

"Clare?" Tim's voice sharpened. "Why?"

"Didn't you read the article?" Jo was staring at it as she spoke. "'The handsome man whose love had come too late ... The passionate Richard who had to turn away and leave his lady to her fate... '" She grimaced. "He came from Clare. I went to see his castle. "

"And did you find him there?" Tim's voice was curiously flat.

"No, of course not. Is something wrong, Tim?"

"No, " he said quietly. "Why on earth should anything be wrong?"

That night the baby woke her again. She was deeply asleep, the sheet thrown back because of the warm humidity of the night, the curtains and the window wide open. She woke very suddenly and lay still, wondering what it was she had heard. Then it came again, the restless mewling cry of a hungry baby. She felt herself grow rigid, her eyes wide in the darkness, not daring to breathe as the sound filled the room. Slowly she forced herself to sit up and grope for the light switch. As the darkness shrank back into the corners she stared around. She could still hear him. Hear the intake of breath between each scream, thin pathetic yells as he grew more desperate. She pressed her hands against her ears, feeling her own eyes fill with hot tears, rocking backward and forward in misery as she tried to block out the sound. At last she could bear it no longer. She hurled herself out of bed, then ran to the door and dragged it open, closing it behind her with a slam. Then she ran to the kitchen. With the two doors closed she could no longer hear his anguished cries. Her hands shaking, she filled the kettle, banging it against the taps in her agitation. The Scotch was in the living room. To reach it she would have to open the kitchen door. She stood with her hand on the handle for a moment, then, taking a deep breath, she opened it. There was silence outside in the hallway. She ran to the living room, grabbed the bottle, then she hesitated, looking at the phone. Any time, Sam had said. Call any time....

She knelt and drew it toward her, then she stopped. The apartment was completely silent, save for the sound of the kettle whining quietly in the kitchen. She could not ask Sam to come to her in the middle of the night a second time, because of another nightmare.

She made herself some tea, took a slug of Scotch and the last three sleeping pills, then she lay down on the sofa in the living room and pulled a blanket around her shoulders in spite of the hot night. There was no way she was going back into her bedroom until morning.

Tim was in his studio, staring at a copy of the photo of Jo and Nick. He had blown it up until it was almost four feet across and had pinned it to a display board. A spotlight picked out their faces with a cold, hard neutrality that removed personality, leaving only feature and technique behind.

Thoughtfully he moved across the darkened studio to the tape deck and flipped a switch, flooding the huge, empty room with the reedy piping of Gheorghe Zamfir, then he returned to the photograph. He stood before it, arms folded, on the very edge of the brilliant pool of light, the only focus in the huge vaulted darkness of the studio.

Beside him on the table lay a small piece of glass. As he tapped the powder onto it and methodically rolled up a piece of paper, his eyes were already dreamy. He sniffed, deeply and slowly, then he walked back to the picture.

It was some time later that, with a felt pen, working with infinite care, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth, he began to draw a veil and wimple over Jo's long, softly curling hair.

It was about ten o'clock the next morning that a knock came at the apartment door. Jo opened it to find Sheila Chandler, one of her upstairs neighbors, standing on the landing. She was a prim-looking woman in her late fifties, the intense unreal blackness of her iron-waved hair set off by a startling pink sleeveless chiffon dress. Jo barely knew her.

She gave Jo an embarrassed smile. "I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Clifford, " she said. "I know you're busy. We can hear you typing. It's just that I thought I must look in and see if there is anything I can do to help. "

Jo smiled vaguely. "Help?" she said.

"With the baby. I've had four of my own and I know how it can be if you get one that cries all night. Staying with you, is it?" The woman was staring past Jo into the apartment.

Jo swallowed hard. "He... you heard him?" She clutched at the door.

"Oh, I'm not complaining!" Sheila Chandler said hastily. "It's just that on these hot nights, with all the windows open, the noise drifts up the well between the buildings. You know how it is, and my Harry, he's not sleeping too soundly these days.... "

Jo took a grip on herself. "There's no baby here, " she said slowly. "The noise must be coming from somewhere else. "

The woman stared. "But it was here. I came down—last night, about eleven, and I listened outside your door. I nearly knocked then. Look, my dear, I'm not making any judgment. I don't care whose baby it is or how it got there, it's just, well, perhaps you could close the window or something. Have you tried