Laura Possessed Read Free Page A

mind transposed them. I’ve often done that myself when I’m tired. Come on now, slip off your dress and get under the covers. Shall I help you?’
    â€˜No, I can manage, thank you. And, Caroline—’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜I do appreciate it, you and Edward having me here.’
    â€˜It’s the least we could do,’ Caroline said briskly. ‘Lie down now and rest and I’ll give you a call half an hour before dinner. Sleep well.’ She left the room, closing the door behind her.
    Laura stood in the middle of the floor and drew a deep, quivering breath. In spite of what Caroline had said about transposing the image of the fruit trees, she was not convinced. It was not fruit trees she had seen down there against the far wall of the garden but dark, oddly twisted trees huddled close together like a crowd of small, crippled old men. She shuddered and, unbuttoning her dress, stepped out of it and laid it over the chair, but instead of getting straight into bed, she crouched down on the rug by the gas-fire, welcoming its warm rays on her thin bare arms. The last hour had been quite traumatic. She tried to fight down the memory of the sensation she had experienced as she entered the house, and yet it was impossible to blot out completely because, to a lesser extent, it was here in the room with her now, an undeniable sense of desperate, hopeless waiting. Once again she thought she caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, again she turned her head sharply, though this time she knew there could be no one there.
    She was not aware how long she stayed crouched on the rug in her petticoat, but at last, unsteadily, she made her way over to the bed and gratefully inched between the warm sheets, drawing them up over her shoulders. She had forgotten to turn off the gas-fire and it popped and hissed gently against the far wall, but she was too warm and drowsy to get out of bed.
    So here she was, at Four Winds. Once again the little tremor ran down her spine as it had each time she heard the name of this house, ever since Edward had bought it months ago. Everything is all right, she told herself confusedly. She was in a warm, comfortable room, surrounded by normal people doing everyday things. If she strained her ears, she could hear Mrs. Baines moving about in the kitchen below. Edward and Caroline would be in the pleasant sitting-room she had just left, and soon nine-year-old Peter would be home from school. How, in the midst of all this happy bustle, could she—and apparently only she—be aware of this strange undercurrent, this pervading sense of tragedy? And whether that tragedy lay in the past or the future, or whether it straddled them both, there was no way of knowing.
    Then, from one instant to the next, she must have slept, for she was in another room that she had never seen before, and there was a man with her, a man who held and kissed her with increasing urgency while she clung to him with eyes open so as to miss no moment of his closeness. He moved his head away slightly to look down at her and every feature of his face imprinted itself on her mind in her frenzied desire to memorize each detail, as though she knew that inevitably they must soon part.
    It was an attractive, though self-indulgent face with heavily lidded eyes of a slaty grey-blue, a broad nose and full, sensual mouth. His chin had a slight cleft in it and his dark hair, shaggy and over-long, fell forward over his broad forehead. Smilingly he endured her intense scrutiny. He lifted a hand and almost reverently touched her face.
    â€˜I worship you, Noel,’ he said softly. ‘Do you know that?’
    Slowly, as her eyes strained towards him, his features began to blur and fade and she cried out with a sense of unbearable loss. She could hear her own voice clearly and then, still in the coils of the dream, Caroline’s: ‘Laura! Are you all right?’
    â€˜Laura’? The name was