FOUR

P atricia had stayed in London with a friend who lived in Mayfair. Roberta Macelhiney had married an Englishman she had met at Berkeley, and she had once invited Patricia to stay with her if she ever came to London. Patricia stopped off for a few days with her while she had several conferences with old Mr. Newell, who looked as if he were a contemporary of the Dowager Duchess, shopped, did the tourist bit around London, and reminisced with Roberta.

She talked on the phone once with Richard Deguy, who apologized for not coming to London to pick her up. But his grandmother had had a setback, he said, and neither he nor his sister thought it wise to leave her until she got better. He would have sent Austin, the chauffeur, down for her, but Austin had recently lamed his leg and would not be driving for a week, if then.

Richard’s voice was a rich baritone, very masculine and masterful, and he sounded sincerely sorry.

Patricia said that it wasn’t necessary to send anyone all the way down from Pemberley. She would take the railway from the Charing Cross Station (she thought that was right but would look it up in the Bradshaw). And she would take a taxi from the Castle Hill Station east of Lambton out to Pemberley House.

“Not at all, my dear,” Richard Deguy said. “I’ll be waiting at Castle Hill for you and will drive you in myself.”

Roberta had lifted the phone in the downstairs hall at that moment, whether by accident or because of curiosity. Probably the latter, since Roberta was nosey. She had said, “Oh, excuse me!” and hung up. Later, she said to Patricia, “That man’s voice sends shivers all through me! He’s got testicles in his voice cords!”

Patricia laughed, but she was beginning to find Roberta’s vulgarity rather wearing. She had forgotten that part of her, or, rather, had allowed time to soften it in her memory. Still, she was sorry to say goodbye to her. She represented the last link with the old world; from now on she would be in a very strange world. How strange she had no way of guessing, of course.

After she exited the taxi at Charing Cross Station, Patricia had been almost flattened by a car that came around the corner as she was crossing the street. She escaped only by throwing herself between two parked cars. The offending car squealed off as if the driver had not seen her. She was unscathed but somewhat shaken up and disheveled with small bruises and cuts as a result of a hard landing on the asphalt between the parked cars.

Getting her legs under her, she tugged her miniskirt to cover a small snag in the upper left thigh of her stocking, got her breasts pushed back into the blouse which had popped the top buttons, and grabbed her luggage. She set off across the street again for the station and the Lambton train, the clacking of the heels on her black leather boots marking her determined stride.

The worst thunderstorm in years, according to the conductor, struck the southern boundary of Derbyshire just as the train crossed it. The lightning opened up the night as if it were trying to rip the lid off of hell itself. Barrages of thunder crossed the black sky, and the rain was so solid that it was easy to imagine that she was at the bottom of a disturbed river. Wind buffeted the cars, making them sway, and whenever the lightning permitted, she could see the trees bending down before the fury of the air.

Patricia sat in a compartment with an old man and his wife and two middle-aged men. The tall thin man with an aquiline face and keen grey eyes smoked a pipe with no objections from the tall green-eyed Chinese-looking man who sat by him. It was not, however, until the train stopped at Matlock that Patricia understood why the two sat so closely together nor why the Chinese, though he often wrinkled his aristocratic non-Chinese nose at the powerful scent of the shag tobacco, did not get up and move. The tall grey-eyed man rose, and with him, willy-nilly, came the tall Chinese. They were handcuffed together.

Before leaving, the Chinese man turned to Patricia, his green eyes blazing in the dim light of the compartment, and said to her, “I knew your parents well, Miss Wildman. They were relentless, although honorable, enemies of mine. Or at least your father was honorable. You have my condolences.” The other man tugged his companion along, but not before piercing Patricia with his grey eyes, as if he knew her—or her parents—as well.

Patricia never saw them again, but she often remembered them. They were a bad omen, she would think later, an indication of the strange things that were to come. From that time on, she had entered, without a passport, a strange country, a weird and nightmare land.

The two men left, and the old man and his old wife discussed the policeman and his prisoner in soft tones. The old man had been switching his attention from the peculiar couple to Patricia’s long legs and back to the couple. Now he devoted all of his attention her legs. Patricia tried to catch his eyes to stare him down, but the old man, who looked like a retired vicar, refused to raise his eyes. She crossed her legs and lowered her eyes to the magazine propped on her leg and quit trying to embarrass him. If the old man got a charge out of feeling her legs with his eyes, and God knew what else he was doing in his imagination, why, let him. He couldn’t be hurting her, and he might be doing himself some good. Perhaps, if he became aroused enough, he might even take his wife to bed.

She read several articles in the magazine and decided that it was almost impossible to get away from sex. The first article told of the new variation of the Hump-the-Hostess game current in certain circles in Westchester, New York, and Beverly Hills, California. The second described the circumcision ceremony for twelve-year-old girls in a Central African tribe. Apparently, the local witch doctor bit the clitorises out with his filed teeth. Patricia had read much, and she had never heard of this method of female circumcision. Most tribes, such as the Wantso, prohibited men from being present at female circumcision ceremonies. Patricia looked at the cover of the magazine, which showed a distraught woman holding a baby that seemed to be half-snake. MY HUSBAND’S PET PYTHON MADE LOVE TO ME was spread in big black letters over the gaudy sheet.

She put the magazine, facedown, on the seat and leaned back and closed her eyes. The car swayed with the wind’s hammering. The thunder boomed. The rain was striking the windows by her.

And I suppose, she thought, that old man is having an emotional storm inside himself while he’s looking at my legs and at that part of my derriere which isn’t covered by my miniskirt. You can’t get away from storms. Even if you could get away from Nature’s and from your own, you can’t get away from other people’s. Not unless you go to a desert island, and there aren’t any more desert islands. There are people everywhere, and with them there are storms.

She must have gotten away, though, because she suddenly sat up and knew that she had been sleeping. The train was slowing, and the old couple was getting ready to leave the compartment.

Patricia got her two suitcases down from the racks and carried them out. They were large and heavy, but she was a big girl and in excellent condition. She might have been rendered numb by recent events, she thought, but she was not as helpless as people seemed to think. She’d be coming out of her emotional deep freeze soon, especially now that she was in a new and exciting world. That old man didn’t know, when he was looking at her legs, that they belonged to a future Baroness.

When she got off the coach at Castle Hill, she stepped into a wind that tore at her and a downpour that came close to being a flash flood. The lights from the station house were feeble, and so she could not get a clear view of the face of the young man who helped her off the coach and took her bags. The collar of his coat was turned up, and the brim of his hat was pulled down. But she recognized the deep rich baritone when he spoke to her. And when they got inside the station, he removed his hat, and she could see that he was Richard Deguy. He looked a little older than he had in the photograph and more than somewhat jaded. He breathed the fumes of bourbon at her, but at least they were from a good bourbon.

“Beastly weather,” he said, grinning, “though not fit for beasts. But, therefore, good enough for me. Or does that make any sense? Never mind, this is no night for making sense.”

She held out her hand and said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Deguy. And it was nice of you to come out in this weather and drive me to Pemberley.”

“We’re not all that formal in merry new England,” he said, laughing. “Call me Richard, coz, and I’ll call you Patricia, or is it Pat? We are related, you know, even if my relationship comes only through adoption. Otherwise... well, no use talking about that.”

Richard’s twin sister, Carla, had stayed at the estate with the Dowager Duchess. “She keeps on hanging on. Still sharp at 103. 2 After all, the family motto is Ung Viveray . Means one will survive or one will live. Anyway, come along. She wants to see you as soon as we get there.”

He picked up the bags and started walking toward the back of the station. The only other people in the little building were the station master and a young woman sitting on a bare wooden bench. She looked pretty, though in a cheap way, and Patricia was surprised when Richard stopped in front of her and let the bags down. The woman rose to her feet, and, though she had a coat buttoned around her, she was evidently pregnant. About five months along, Patricia thought.

“Rosamond Aylward,” Richard said. “Miss Wildman, from the States.”

“Mrs. Verner,” Patricia said. “You forgot I told you over the phone that...”

“Oh, yes,” Richard said. “You did say you were recently widowed. Terribly sorry about that. Well, come along. I hope you don’t mind our going a little bit out of the way, Patricia. I must run Rosie here up to her father’s tavern. It’s only a few miles north of Pemberley, and she’d have to take a taxi, and it’s beastly difficult to get a taxi this time of night and in such hellish weather.”

“No, of course I don’t mind,” Patricia said.

The woman had only nodded when she had been introduced to Patricia, and, from the sullen expression, she was not going to talk at all. Her eyes looked red, as if she had been crying, though the beer fumes she was expelling indicated that the redness might have come from another cause. Patricia wondered what had been going on between these two. Evidently, they had been waiting for her for some time, though not in the station. Probably in the little tavern across from the station, she thought. Whatever they had been talking about, it had angered her.

They ran from under the shelter of the overhang to a large grey car, a Rolls, Patricia thought. Richard opened the back door and motioned for Patricia to get in. She climbed in, expecting the Aylward girl to follow her. But Richard Deguy slammed the back door and opened the left front for Aylward. She drew back, almost as if she were thinking about refusing to get in, but he slapped her on the rear and shouted something which Patricia couldn’t hear because of thunder. Rosamond got in and shut the door herself, because he had run around to the right side.

“The bags,” Patricia said. “You forgot the bags.”

“What?” Richard said, and he turned around to look at her. “Oh, yes, the bags! Well, I’ll be damned!”

He got out again and trudged around the car, opened the trunk, put the bags in, slammed the trunk lid, and got back into the car. Patricia did not say anything, but she wondered if he was fit to drive. Perhaps he had been drinking even more than she thought. Still, his speech wasn’t slurred. He might just be thinking about the girl.

The Rolls started, and they drove out onto a road on which were few cars and few lights from houses. Richard drove faster than she cared for in this driving rain, but she said nothing. He asked her a few questions about her life in America and how she liked London.

“It’s crazy, I’ve been all over the world with my parents, but never spent any length of time in England, although I grew up on stories of many famous and infamous ancestors. I’ve wondered often why we didn’t spend more time here. To be honest, though, everything has been off since I arrived. I was almost hit by a car in the streets of London, a dirty old vicar on the train kept undressing me with his eyes, and two other strange men on the train seemed to know me—and my late parents.” Patricia sank back further into the soft leather of the back seat. “Right now all I want is a hot bath and bed.”

“Gods, what a beastly night you’ve had. Well, I’m sure that bath and bed will be all arranged when we arrive at Pemberley House,” murmured Richard, and then quit trying to make conversation with her.

Rosie had been sitting as far away from Richard as possible, but when he said something in a low tone to her, she moved closer. He continued to talk in a voice too low for Patricia to catch his words. His tone was evident, however; he was trying to make up with her whatever needed making up.

Patricia was disgusted. If he wanted to carry on with this girl, who was not of his class and who was probably carrying his child, that was his business. But he was certainly not showing good manners by ignoring his guest and conducting a love affair in front of her.

She settled back and closed her eyes. She hoped that he wouldn’t get so wrapped up with the girl that he would neglect his driving. The visibility was very poor, and the roads must be slick. And the way the wind was buffeting the car, it could be pushed a little out of its lane just at the wrong moment. There were not many cars on the highway, but one could come along at a fatal time. She was glad they were driving in a big heavy car, which resisted the wind more than, say, an English Ford or Hillman.

Suddenly, Patricia opened her eyes, and she thought, Oh, no!

Rosamond was no longer visible. From the front seat was a sucking noise, and Richard was groaning, though in a very low voice.

Patricia closed her eyes again but clenched her hands. He had not only talked her out of her anger, but he had talked her into demonstrating that she was truly reconciled. Or perhaps it was her idea. In either case, both must be more drunk than she had suspected. Or else young English people were even more uninhibited than she read they were.

Patricia felt sick, although she had no moral reasons for objecting to fellatio. She had been rather isolated from girls and boys of her own age when a child, but she had always been allowed to read anything she wished. And she had had some of the greatest anthropologists and psychologists in the world as her tutors during the summer. Her father had been willing to pay the high sums they demanded so she could have the very best education. (But she wondered now why, if he were so intelligent, and if the psychologists were so perceptive, they had not made sure that she had more playmates of her age.)

She had read about strange sexual customs when in eighth grade. In fact, she had books in her library which contained many photographs of couples, and sometimes groups, in every conceivable sexual position. These had disturbed her somewhat, though she would not admit that they did so to her teachers. And so, when she had watched her mother performing fellatio on her father, she had not been disgusted by the act itself, but she had been sick with envy. Her beautiful mother, dead now, and so young, younger than her father had been when he had finally married, had possessed her father in every way Patricia had ached to and couldn’t.

In the back seat of the Rolls, thinking of her father, Patricia groaned and moved her fingers back and forth against the slick wetness under her skirt, and slipped a couple fingers in and out, her eyes still clamped shut.

Then she gasped again—or was it Richard?—and she saw the back of Rosamond’s head appear again. The big car pulled up next to a two-story building, and Patricia could barely make out the sign Fighting Cock lit by dim yellow lamps through the driving rain.

Fighting cock indeed, thought Patricia. I’m fighting for my father’s, which is stupid. Even if he was alive, I couldn’t have it.

Richard and Rosamond got out and he walked her just inside the door, and Patricia cleaned herself up. Then he was back behind the wheel, water pouring off his raincoat, and they were driving again.

“Sorry about that, coz,” he said, “not far now, we’ll be there shortly.”

Patricia made some noise in response, and shook her head. Was he sorry for the side trip or his own behavior?

She decided she didn’t care.

She stared out the car window at the passing oaks of the Pemberley Woods, down a deserted road, the headlights penetrating the dark tunnel of trees and overhanging branches. Down the dark tunnel into Wonderland, Patricia thought, with me cast as Alice and Richard as the Mad Hatter.

They descended even farther into the pitch darkness, and Richard took another stab at conversation. “I guess you’ll be the Baroness, eh?”

“I suppose,” Patricia said. “That’s what Mr. Newell said. I really haven’t studied the intricacies of British titles.”

“Well, you’ll learn, you have enough nobility in your bloodline, I guess. For instance, your ancestor, Bess. She wasn’t nobility, but she did start the line.”

“Bess?”

“Of course, coz, Bess d’Arcy.” Richard turned slightly to look back at Patricia and the Rolls slid a little on the slick roadway.

“Watch the road!” Patricia said.

Richard turned back around. “Nothing to it, been down this stretch a thousand times.” He chuckled. “So you never heard of your illustrious ancestress, Bess d’Arcy? Married four times, it’s said, the last to William d’Arcy, the Baron of Lambton. Killed her in a murderous rage, the story goes, the day old Bess gave birth to their daughter, Jane. Except maybe she wasn’t William’s daughter, if you know what I mean.”

Although she couldn’t see him, Patricia could imagine him winking at her. Lecher. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“The curse, Pat, the curse. Didn’t you know?”

“What curse? You’re not making any sense. And it’s Patricia. Would you please watch the road?”

“Sure, coz, of course, no need to get cross.” He grinned. “Besides, didn’t I say this wasn’t the night for making sense? Making love, maybe.” A whiff of the bourbon came drifting back at her.

“Making love, maybe, but you’ve had plenty of that already, and plenty to drink too. Just get us there in one piece, please, it’s been a hell of a day already.”

“Of course, Patricia. But I’ll finish telling you about the Pemberley Curse.”

Lightning flashed and thunder shook the car. Crooked branches reached for the Rolls but the vehicle raced by, just out of grasp.

Richard continued. “Perfect night for it. Anyway, William had killed Bess’ lover, a sea captain named Fermier, and nine months later he killed Bess herself. Jane d’Arcy grew up right here at Pemberley House, a poor unhappy creature. On the night of her twenty-second birthday, back in 1592, happiness was finally in sight as she celebrated her engagement—and escape from her lunatic father, by the way—when lo and behold a relative of Fermier’s, a self-styled sorcerer named Baron de Musard, shows up and curses the old man.” Richard chuckled again as another round of lightning struck nearby. “All a bunch of rot, but fun rot at that.”

“If you think that story is funny,” Patricia said, “I’d hate to hear you tell a sad tale.”

“But Patricia, it gets better. You see, old William d’Arcy in his madness—or maybe in his cups—killed his daughter Jane that night, the night of her birthday, mistaking her for the ghost of Bess, and now the curse is passed from generation to generation.

“A few months later, de Musard was found in his château in France, with every bone in his body shattered. By all accounts, the sorcerer was beaten to death by a chap called Sir John Gribardsun—that’s a mouthful!—some distant relative of Jane’s fiancé.

“Interesting, but what’s the curse?”

“Oh, that. Gloomy dead Bess appears on the anniversary of her murder, but only to family members in her direct line of descent, and only in Pemberley House itself. The Baroness’ ghost appears at twelve o’clock midnight for three nights in a row: the night before, the night of, and the night after the anniversary.”

“Now you are telling ghost tales,” Patricia said. “How could the curse be passed to subsequent generations if William d’Arcy killed his own daughter, before she had children?”

“Silly girl, the whole family was cursed. It was passed to the children of Jane’s older brother, Christopher d’Arcy, and their descendants. You can look it all up in Burke’s Peerage tomorrow, we have a copy in the library. You really should familiarize yourself with your own ancestry.” He paused and then added, “I have.”

“Are you trying to say I’m a direct descendant, that I’m subject to this so-called curse?” Patricia asked.

“Come now, Patricia, you shouldn’t worry about it. Yes, you’re in the direct line, but it’s just a beastly legend. It’s just on all our minds because the anniversary is in two nights.” He laughed.

“Anyway, there’re more serious matters to worry over. There are some poachers about, and the gamekeeper, Parker—Parker, get it?” Richard laughed at his own joke.

It was a bad habit, Patricia thought. And the deep baritone of his voice wasn’t so attractive anymore.

“Parker is out looking for them now. In fact, as I told you earlier, the chauffer, Austin, is down with a lame leg. Two poachers came after him and he was hurt getting away. The police have been to the estate but have done nothing.”

They went around a bend in the road, and lightning struck again. Ahead of them on the road, two masked people were mounted on motorcycles, with guns.

“Shit!” Richard sent the car off the road, avoiding the two people, and gunshots exploded, although none hit the Rolls. Richard skidded the car around, turned, and came back the opposite way.

“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Patricia. “Keep going, you idiot.”

Richard’s car hit one cycle, but the rider was only slightly hurt. As the Rolls sped by in the direction opposite to which it had come, the masked cyclists shot out the tires. The car spun out on the rain-slicked surface and hit a tree hard. Patricia’s head collided against the side window and she was knocked out.

Patricia woke up briefly as the two cyclists dragged her out of the car. Richard was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had fled into the woods. One of the cyclists hefted her over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry and they headed up a hill. Half-blinded by the sheets of rain, Patricia made out a dim shape, tall and narrow, jutting out of the top of the hill like a dark, swollen phallus. She vaguely remembered that this must be the ruined structure behind Pemberley House, Mary’s Tower, and then passed out again.