The heavy door swung shut with a screeching creak and silence fell, the deepest silence that John Blayne thought he had ever known — felt, rather, for he could imagine it almost solid about him. What was it Lady Mary had said? Feel, she had said, and then concentrate on the light at the end of the tunnel, the distant small light, and ask for what was needed. Nonsense, as if he needed anything that he did not have! And yet — and yet — he was beginning to feel that there was something he very much wanted, something that money could not purchase.
He undressed and went to the old-fashioned stand. The huge silver jug standing in the big porcelain basin was full of hot water. He filled the basin, wrung out the steaming washcloth and washed himself all over before he put on his pajamas. It was the sort of thing, he supposed, half humorously, that even kings and queens had done once upon a time, not to mention dukes.
“Not bad, Duke, old boy,” he said aloud and suddenly was in such good humor that he began to whistle softly. He blew out the candle but placed it carefully on the stand by his bed in case the electricity should fail.
“For he’s a jolly good fellow—” He climbed into an enormous bed, raised under a canopy of crimson satin, and then remembered he had left the matches on the table. He’d better have the matches, just in case.
“In case you show up, Duke,” he said conversationally, “and try your tricks again.”
Once more in bed he settled himself deep into the soft mattress and the, enormous down-filled pillows. A faint smell of mildew reminded him of an ancient odor he had smelled elsewhere. He sniffed, trying to remember. Ah yes, Cambodia and the ruins of Angkor! The hotel bed there had had the same faint reek of time and decay. And he had imagined those ruins haunted, too, not by anything as preposterous as ghosts, yet by something as vague, a presence accumulated through centuries of compressed human life. Was it not possible, even inevitable, that the material of the human body, the mass, must leave behind a transmigrating energy?
He felt now as he mused, an uncomfortable awareness, a pressure almost physical, which chilled him, and with something like panic he laughed aloud at himself and ceased his imagining. Let him think of something pleasant at the end of this second curious day! Too much had happened to him in too few hours and what was the most pleasant sight he had seen? Unbidden, he saw Kate smiling at him out of the darkness — a pretty face, sweet and unspoiled, the blue eyes honest and warm. A talisman, proof against dead kings and queens and whimsical dukes, he told himself, and fell asleep upon the comforting thought.
Part Two
… LADY MARY STIRRED IN her wide canopied bed. She opened her eyes and gazed into the darkness and lay motionless. Something had wakened her, a noise, a voice, perhaps. Had Richard called her? She sat up, yawned delicately behind her hand and switched on the lamp on her bedside table. The white curtains at the windows were billowing gently into the room and the air was damp. The expected rain had come and now there must be fog rising from the river. She turned back the blankets and felt for her satin slippers on the floor. She must go at once and see if Richard wanted something. Slipping into her white negligee, she lit the candle to guide her through the passage between her room and Sir Richard’s, the passage that had no light otherwise, and pattered softly through it. Both doors swung open easily, she entered his room and going to the bed, she stood looking down at him, shielding the flickering light of the candle from his face with her hand, lest he awake.
“Richard,” she whispered.
He did not answer. He was asleep, his breathing deep and steady. It was not he, then, who had called. Who could have waked her? She tiptoed out of the room and into her own again, closing the doors. Should she go back to bed? She hesitated, shivering in the damp air. Then as always when she was undecided she gave herself up to concentration, standing with her eyes closed, until at the far end of the long tunnel she saw the shining light of awareness of what she should do. …
The familiar sense of ease, of relief, warmed her body. No, she was not to go back to bed. Put on something warm, her flannel robe, and what then? Just walk about, perhaps, feeling everything, feeling it to be the right moment, perhaps waiting until they told her? She might not hear a voice, but sometimes she was moved by feeling, as though unseen hands, lighter than the mist, were touching her cheeks, her hands, her shoulders, guiding her somewhere. Yes, now she could feel them, leading her down the passage and the corridor to the great hall. She yielded herself until at last she stood under the chandelier, and felt herself stopped. Wait, she felt, wait to hear a voice, King John’s voice, if it were his, poor King John. He had always been one of her favorites, nevertheless. She had come across a description of him once in an old book in the library.
Tall and fair of body, with fierce blue eyes and ruddy fair hair; voracious, always hungered, a young man coming late to love, and having no shame in drinking all day and all night—
It had made her think of Richard when they fell in love—“coming late to love,” so late that she had wondered if there had been a woman before her. She had not dared to ask, and for awhile had been eaten up with unspoken jealousy because he told her nothing of an earlier love. She looked up expectantly into the chandelier and saw the crystals twinkling and shining faintly in the candlelight, like a face with a thousand eyes.
“Very well,” she said softly, “if it’s the moment then say something — please, King John, tell me where the treasure is!”
She gazed upward, head thrown back, her long silvery hair streaming down her back and listened, her face intent.
“Or what is it?” she whispered into the light.
… Kate was asleep, too, but lightly. She had left a candle burning on her dressing table, a small candle set into a deep bowl against possible fire. She kept a candle always burning lest Lady Mary call her at night. She lay quietly now as she slept, her dark hair loosely curling on the pillow, and her bare arm flung upward about her head. The other hand lay open, palm upward, on her breast. She was beautiful asleep, though no one was there to see her, half smiling, dreaming perhaps of recent adventures, the lily pond and the sunshine, the firelight in the great ball and John’s tall figure at the window.
A door creaked and her eyes opened. She waked at the slightest sound, aware even in her sleep of the two for whom she felt responsible because she loved them.
“Yes?” she called.
No one answered. She raised herself on her elbow and saw a dark silhouette, a shadow at the door. She caught her breath, stopping with her hand to her mouth the sound that might have come involuntarily. Lady Mary came into the room.
“It’s only I, Kate. My candle went out and I’d forgotten to put the box of matches in my pocket.”
She walked to the bed and looked down into Kate’s wide eyes. “What’s the matter, child? Have you seen something, too?”
“No, my lady — only I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be here,” Lady Mary said, “but I was called. I got up and waited for instructions and now it’s quite clear to me, Kate, that this is the right moment for us to act.”
Kate, gazing up at Lady Mary, felt suddenly afraid — of what? Not of this gentle aging figure, surely, whom she knew better than she knew her own impulsive self, she sometimes thought, except that Lady Mary looked at this moment so transparent, so fragile, so unearthly, that she—
“Have you heard a voice, my lady?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Mary replied. “I think I did hear someone, but I can’t be sure I really heard anything — or anyone. I was simply pervaded, if you know what I mean—”