I crept through the darkened house and out into the garden. Moonlight lay on a wilderness of untrimmed rose vines. The light vanished when a mat of clouds obscured the moon. The darkness then was so complete that I had to wait until my eyes adjusted. I could make out shapes, no more. But soon the moonlight came back, and I made my way out of the garden onto the path behind the house.

  It was an uncanny night on which to be abroad. The air was warm but not still. The wind tore at my skirts and snatched my hair from its covering. Up on the heights above there was a great roaring, where the winds met and clattered together. The moonlight came, and vanished again. When it shone, it cast unearthly shadows, elongated and strange. When it was obscured by clouds, the darkness stifled the senses.

  Tonight the Tower was in its proper element. In the fitful moonlight its scars were invisible. For a moment a mist came over my eyes and I imagined I saw it as it had looked in its prime—with the massive oak doors still in place, ruddy torchlight, shining through the slitted windows, and the shouts of a crowd of rough Highland warriors within. Then I blinked, and the spell was gone. An empty shell, the grim pile loomed above me.

  I came out onto the narrow ledge at the base of the Tower and looked about. The wind made such a noise that it was difficult to hear, and the moonlight was now hidden. Yet I was sure that there was no other human form in sight. Was I early for the rendezvous? Considering my laborious climb, that seemed unlikely.

  I went to the gaping door of the Tower and peered inside. An unpleasant smell of moldering wood met my nostrils. The Tower was roofless, but the height of the walls made the interior black as midnight. I hesitated, aware of an inexplicable reluctance to pass through the empty doorway. It seemed to me that there was something inside. There was no movement; no shape that looked human. But there was a sense of presence.

  In a low voice I called him, by the name I had never ventured to use to his face. “Gavin…” The syllables echoed hollowly from the heavy walls. There was no other answer.

  Suddenly I felt I must get away from the doorway. It was absurd; but I thought that something might come out of the door. There were wolves and other wild beasts in the high hills. One of them might have sought shelter in the Tower. But it was not a beast I feared.

  Skirting the foundations of the Tower, I went around to the part of the platform that overhung the next glen. The wind struck at me like a club; for a moment I swayed, and reached out frantic hands toward the stones to steady myself. There was nothing below except empty space. Across the valley the outlines of the opposing hills were faintly visible against the sky; but the valley floor might have been a bottomless pit, swallowed in darkness.

  As I stood, swaying on the brink of the cliff something caught my eye. Almost directly below there was a small orange square of light. It must come from the window of the shepherd’s shieling, which Mr. Hamilton had mentioned. Clutching my blowing skirts to me, I watched the small light, obscurely comforted by it.

  I didn’t hear any sound of footsteps in the howl of the wind. The instinct that warned me of their approach came from no physical sense; and it came too late. When I turned, a tall shape, featureless and black in the lesser blackness of the night, was already upon me. As I stared in dumb terror it collapsed in on itself, like a bladder when the air goes out of it, and crumpled at my feet.

  I stepped back. I would have done anything to avoid the shapeless paws that seemed to fumble toward my skirts. But I had forgotten where I stood. I stepped back into empty air.

  Briefly my flailing hands beat at nothingness. Then they caught on a rim of rock that edged the platform. The shock upon the rest of my body was terrible; I felt my fingers slip even as they caught hold. One hand loosened, and I made a wild upward grab, groping for something firmer. And I found it—not insensate rock, but the shape of a warm, living hand.

  I remember even now the surge of joy that filled me. Here was help, rescue—life. But even as I thought this, I realized that the unknown was making no attempt to return my clasp. My fingers twisted around a wrist, slipped inexorably down, along a palm that was as unresponsive as wood, and felt five rigid fingers, which did not curve to grasp my own. My right hand, still on the rock, was weakening. Soon its hold would fail. My feet dangled free in space. My only hope lay in that other hand. And it, except for its warmth, might have been the hand of a statue.

  I thought of calling for help; but I couldn’t spare the breath. So in deadly silence the drama was played out. My hand, surely, was more eloquent than speech. Its grasp was cruelly tight; but the owner of the other hand made no move, nor any outcry. I could see nothing. The moon was veiled; over me the rim of the cliff hung like a wall, and my eyes were too dim with terror to see anything even if there had been noonday light.

  My right hand gave way, and for a moment I hung only by the failing grasp of my left hand on those stiff, denying fingers. Then, with a twitch so slight that it was scarcely felt, the fingers removed themselves. I fell into the bottomless pit of the valley.

  The last of my breath came out in a shriek that sounded loud in my ears; but I suppose it couldn’t have been heard more than a few feet away. I lost consciousness at once, from fright, so I felt no pain when my body struck the rock.

  Rain woke me, gentle, inquiring fingers of rain on my upturned face.

  I lay still while my senses came back to me. With the rain, the wild wind had died down. The skies, though still cloudy, gave off a dim light that let me see my surroundings. Directly above me was the edge of the cliff from which I had fallen. The Dark Tower seemed to lean dangerously over the rim, but it wasn’t far away. I had fallen only a short distance. My feet had struck another ledge of rock that lay not far below the cliff. The ledge was so narrow that one of my arms dangled, unsupported, over its edge.

  I brought the arm back, noting with idiot content that one limb at least seemed to respond to my directions. One by one I tested the others. My legs were stiff, and my back ached, but my body was intact. One side of my face felt bruised where it had struck the cliff, and that was all.

  Painfully I got to my hands and knees on the narrow ledge. I couldn’t climb straight up from where I was; the slope was almost vertical. But somewhere there was a path from the valley to the Tower. It was a dangerous path, but passable; and it must be near the ledge, since the shepherd’s cottage was almost directly below. If the path could be reached from my ledge I was saved.

  At first I could make out no trace of a path. The ledge widened, though, as I crept along it; and at its end I saw that the slope just above might be climbable. I started up, still on hands and knees. My heavy skirts gave my knees some protection from the sharp rocks, but they hampered my climbing. I knew I had been lying in the rain for some time, since all my garments were sodden with water. At first the wetness was pleasantly cool, but after a while my teeth began to chatter.

  Time lost its meaning. The rain continued to fall, and I continued to crawl. When I pulled myself up onto the platform I wasn’t even aware of having reached my goal. I continued to crawl, around the Tower and down the path toward the house. I didn’t faint. Consciousness simply trickled out of me in a slow stream, and at some point, when the last drop of it was gone, my limbs stopped moving and I lay still in the mud and the rain.

  Chapter

  8

  WHEN MY SENSES CAME BACK I WAS IN MY OWN bed, in my own room. I knew where I was; but at first I couldn’t understand how I had gotten there, or why I was so hot. I was covered with heavy blankets that weighed like stones. When I tried to push them off I found I was too feeble to move. I opened my eyes. Hanging above me, like a worried pink moon, was Mrs. Cannon’s face.

  “Thank the Lord!” she exclaimed. Then she said over her shoulder, “I told you, sir, she was not badly hurt.”

  “Can she speak?” The voice was Mr. Hamilton’s.

  “I’m too hot,” I muttered.

  “You are feverish,” said Mrs. Cannon. “Small wonder; you were soaked to the skin. What were you doing out of the house in a storm, and at such an hour?”

  “She’s still too weak to speak,” said Mr. Hamilton, still only a disembodied voice. “Give her that whisky, Mrs. Cannon.” Then he said softly, “She must speak. I must know what she remembers.”

  “No whisky,” I gasped. Memory was returning now, and with it a misery that drowned physical pain. “Leave me alone—go away!”

  “I think not whisky, sir,” said Mrs. Cannon professionally. “Betty, where is the broth I sent you for?”

  “So you’re here, too,” I murmured, as the maid’s face swam into view. “Quite a social gathering. How are you, Betty?”

  “Oh, miss—I’m so glad you aren’t dead!”

  I laughed feebly, and choked on the broth she was trying to feed me. Between my weakness and her agitation we made a pretty mess of the food, but when the warm liquid was inside me I did feel better. I could see Mrs. Cannon standing at the head of the bed, in an incredible dressing gown with writhing red dragons all over it. Behind her, in the shadows, was the Master.

  “Now can she talk?” he demanded, when Betty removed the empty bowl.

  By now I was feeling well enough to be angry. He wanted me to talk? Very well; I would.

  I told the whole story, including the note which had taken me outdoors. At this point Mrs. Cannon gave her employer a startled look, but she made no comment. Betty was rapt. When I mentioned the black figure she jumped, and looked at me with bulging eyes. The effort of speaking exhausted me. When I was done, I let my head fall back onto the pillows and there was a long silence, broken only by the hiss of the fire as the raindrops touched it.

  “I think,” said Mr. Hamilton at last, “that you had better go to bed, Mrs. Cannon. Your patient will do well enough with her maid.”

  I didn’t want to be left alone with him. I opened my eyes, and my lips, to protest, but Mrs. Cannon had already gone. Betty stood by the bed. I reached out and caught at her skirts.

  “Don’t leave me, Betty. Please don’t leave me!”

  “I’ll not leave you, miss,” she said steadily; but her eyes rolled fearfully toward Mr. Hamilton.

  “You need not leave,” he said coldly. “But stand over there by the door and don’t turn your ears in this direction, or you’ll be sorry for it.”

  Betty scuttled away, with a last look at me that was meant to be reassuring. I could hear her breathing heavily at some distance.

  Mr. Hamilton stood with his hand on the bed curtains, looking down at me. His face was grim but controlled. He drew up a chair and sat down.

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Yes, you are. Do you think what you saw was a ghost?”

  “That hand was solid.”

  “Yes…I sent you no note.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “But—I thought—”

  “Never mind what you thought. How could you be such a fool as to go out at night, alone?”

  I couldn’t tell him the real reason: that love extinguishes common sense, and desire overrules caution. So I gave him only part of the truth.

  “What should I be afraid of? No one would want to hurt me; I have no enemies.”

  His control slipped for a moment; the result was a livid glare. “God save you from your friends, then, if you have no enemies,” he said violently.

  “Amen to that.”

  “Listen—listen, and try to understand. It is possible to be an inconvenience, to be in someone’s way….”

  “If—someone—wants me to leave Blacktower House, he has only to say so,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “This makes no sense. Do you want to frighten me? Is that why you speak so wildly?”

  “Frighten you?” His hand darted out, toward the pillow—toward my face. “Damaris…”

  His hand, in its black silk glove. I couldn’t help it; I shrank away, with a gasp of fear, before it could touch me.

  There was an unpleasant silence. Mr. Hamilton sat motionless, his hand still outstretched.

  “Now it comes,” he said. “You believe the black figure was I, that the hand that cast you off was mine.”

  I was paralyzed, speechless. He read my answer in my face. He nodded, as if his neck hurt him.

  “Of course you would think that. It’s what you were meant to think, if you survived your fall. Damaris—the hand wasn’t mine. I swear it.”

  “What good is your oath? You don’t believe in God.”

  “I believe in some virtues, though. It’s important that you believe this. How can I convince you?” He mused a moment. “Ah, I have it. The hand—the famous hand. You held it for some time. Was it a right or a left hand?”

  “How can I possibly remember?”

  “Of course you can. You hung there, clutching it, for moments prolonged by terror. Close your eyes; feel it again. The wrist, the thumb and fingers, the palm. Do you feel it? Is it a right or left hand?”

  “No—no! I don’t want to remember…”

  “The wind is howling, the moon obscured. Your feet hang over emptiness. Your hand—your left hand?—holds stiff, resistant fingers. Where is the thumb in relation to the palm? Right or left, Damaris? Which?”

  I closed my eyes and turned my head from side to side, trying to resist the picture that forced itself back into my mind. The wind, the darkness, the terror of the abyss beneath my feet…I groaned aloud, but the voice said remorselessly, “Right or left? Which?”

  “Right!” I shouted. I felt the perspiration burst out across my brow. “It was the right hand!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  I began to cry. There was a rush of skirts and Betty dropped to her knees beside the bed, reaching out to wipe my wet face.

  “Stop it, sir! How can you be so cruel?”

  I tried to sit up then, fearing his anger for the girl.

  “I’m finished,” said Mr. Hamilton. “Go back calmly to the door, Betty.”

  She didn’t move, bless her. Her eyes met mine, and I smiled at her.

  “I’m all right, Betty. Do as Mr. Hamilton says.”

  I hated him thoroughly at that moment, even if he had been oddly gentle with the maid. As soon as she went away his eyes caught mine again, and there was no weakening of purpose in their dark depths.

  “The right hand,” he repeated, as if the interruption had never happened. “And you think it was mine. Look.”

  Holding both hands out before my face, he stripped the glove off the right one.

  It was scarred, as I had thought it might be. There were deep healed grooves across the palm, like wounds made by a jagged knife. But that wasn’t all. The hand had only three of its five fingers. The last two were only rough stumps, amputated below the first joint.

  I looked at the glove, which he had flung onto the coverlet. Two fingers, and the thumb, were limp, empty shapes. The padding with which the other two fingers were filled rounded them out into an uncanny imitation of flesh and bone.

  “You said the hand was warm and ungloved,” said the Master, without expression. “Even if you had mistaken that, you could not have mistaken cotton padding for flesh.”

  My eyes went back to the pitifully deformed hand, held rigidly in the full strength of the candlelight. It had been rigid; now, suddenly, the fingers began to tremble. Then it was gone. Mr. Hamilton rose from his chair and walked to the door. I heard him speak briefly to Betty, but I don’t know what he said. There was a rushing in my ears and a fog before my eyes. I think I must have fallen asleep.

  I was ill for a long time. When I awoke one morning, free of fever for the first time, I was weak as a kitten. The hand I put out to pull back the bed curtains was almost too frail to accomplish the task. But I managed to separate them a few inches, and saw blue skies outside my open window. The breeze that came in was sweet and cool, with autumn in its touch.

  Footsteps came running. The curtains were pulled back, and Betty stood beaming down at me.

  “Miss, you’re better! Do you know me?”

  “I ought to know you, when you’ve sat with me—how long, Betty?”

  “Ten? No, eleven days.” She counted on her fingers and nodded decisively. “It’s September, miss.”

  “And there are great dark circles under your eyes. You must go and rest.”

  “I can now, miss; I was too worried to sleep before, except in snatches, here on the cot. But you truly are better, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, much better. Thanks to you, Betty. I remember your being here; whenever I called, your hand was there, ready. I wish I could tell you—”

  Her full cheeks turned red. “Now, miss, how could I leave you, with you so sick and afraid? Could you take something to eat now?”

  She scampered out, evading my thanks, and when she came back with a loaded tray I didn’t attempt to renew them. We understood one another. I told her again that she must go and rest, and she promised to do so when I had finished eating. I saw by the way she settled herself in a chair that she wanted to gossip a little.

  “They’re all glad to hear you’re better, down in the kitchen,” she informed me—with more courtesy than truth, I thought. “And I took the liberty of mentioning to the Master that you were awake; he was so glad. There were tears in his eyes when he thanked me for telling him.”

  I doubted the tears, and the thanks, but I didn’t contradict her. It was a pleasure to talk to someone who thought the best of people. Mr. Hamilton had been attentive. His face, and Betty’s, were the only coherent memories I had of the long nightmare of illness and fever.

  “He has been very good,” I said warily. “And how is Mrs. Cannon? And Miss Annabelle?”

  “Both well. They’ve asked after you daily; and Sir Andrew and Lady Mary sent often to inquire. Not to mention Ian. If you weren’t a young lady, and he only a groom, I’d be jealous.”

 

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