Raising herself on an arm in the darkness, she heard her husband’s even breathing as he slept soundly in the adjoining bed. And then she held her own breath as she heard more than that. From the hallway there came the sound of shuffling footsteps and they were coming nearer. She lifted the edge of the sheet and covered her mouth with it in a gesture to stifle her urge to scream. The footsteps seemed to halt directly outside their door.
Next there was a cough, a gentle cough. But it sounded distinctly enough for her to be sure what it was. She waited, ready to scream in the next moment and ask Fred to investigate what was happening in the hall. And the sound of shuffling footsteps came again, only this time they were moving away. She listened until there was no sound at all.
She was perspiring and her heart was beating much too rapidly. Fred turned in his bed and gave a small, restless moan. The sound was reassuring to her. She no longer felt alone in an eerie world of darkness and terror. What had those footsteps meant? There must be someone in the house. Perhaps someone was hiding in an attic room or in the cellars without Fred being aware of it. She must somehow find out.
At last she forced herself to lie back on her pillow. And in time drowsiness took over and she went to sleep again. But it was a troubled sleep filled with dreams of a dark phantom lurking in the old house and calling out her name, seeming to ask her help, trying to say something to her.
“Lucy!”
She blinked her eyes open in fear, to see that it was a dressed and smiling Fred who was bending over her bed.
“It’s morning,” he told her. “I’ll soon be leaving to make my rounds and visit the hospital in St. Stephen. Do you want to have breakfast with me?”
She sat up at once. “Of course I do. I’ll be down to prepare it in a moment.”
“I’ll get it under way,” he said as he started out of the bedroom.
And by the time she reached the kitchen he had the orange juice on the table, the toast in the toaster, the eggs boiling and the bacon in the frying pan. He was presiding over the bacon like a veteran when she joined him.
“You’re a model husband,” she said, leaning on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Then she took over the preparations for breakfast on her own.
A little later at the table he asked her, “Did you sleep well last night?” It was a casual question, but for some reason she felt he had asked it with a special look of interest on his face.
She hesitated over her coffee. “I did for the most part,” she told him. “But I did wake up once. And I had a strange experience.”
His eyebrows raised. “What sort of experience?”
“I was sure I heard someone in the hall,” she said, staring at him hard to get his reaction.
Fred Dorset frowned. “You must have been dreaming.”
“No,” she said determinedly. “I heard shuffling footsteps. They came to the door of our room and stopped. Then someone coughed. And a little while later whoever it was went away.”
“We’re the only ones in this house,” her husband reminded her. “I thought I’d made that clear before.”
“You did. But you must be wrong.”
“How can I be wrong about a thing like that?”
She stared down at her half-empty cup of coffee. “I don’t know exactly. Perhaps someone has a key to the house without your knowing it. Old houses like this do have keys that might be in other hands. They could be hiding in the attic or somewhere. You know I was sure I saw the face of a young woman in our bedroom window when we first arrived.”
“That was nonsense,” he said, almost angrily.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her pretty face sober. “I’m not making any of this up.”
Her young doctor husband looked distressed. He reached out a hand to caress hers. “I’m the one to be sorry,” he said. “Forgive me for being so touchy. It wasn’t intended. I suppose I’m worried about you. And we’re still both tired after just getting back here.”
“I won’t talk about it any more,” she said.
“That’s not what I want,” he told her earnestly. “I want to know you’re at ease and happy in this house. And it doesn’t seem we’re off to a very good start.”
She saw his troubled face and at once felt guilty. As though she was letting him down. He’d gone to so much trouble to find this house and furnish it beautifully for her, she had no right to cause him the slightest concern about her happiness in the house.
She said, “Forget I mentioned it. It’s not important.”
“It is, if you really did hear footsteps,” he said. “In my opinion, you had a nightmare and the footsteps and the cough were part of it.”
“Maybe,” she said reluctantly.
It was all the encouragement he needed. “Sure,” he said, more confidently. “You had a bad dream, and that was that.”
“Let’s not talk about it at all,” she protested with a wry smile. “When will you be back?”
“Not until dinnertime,” Fred said. “I hate to leave you all day, but this is my first day back at my practice.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured him. “I have plenty to do here. Some unpacking, and then I want to do some grocery shopping.”
He smiled as he got up from the table. “You’ll have your own car. I’ll stop by the garage this morning and see that it’s brought up to you at once. It’s a good sturdy sedan and easy to drive. I’ve used it as a second car.”
A few minutes later he left and she went out to see him on his way. It would have been wrong to say that she had that overwhelming sense of melancholy again as soon as she was alone. But as she stood waving good-bye to him she did feel strangely desolate. More so than she should have. It was a common thing to see one’s husband off to his day’s work. Why should she be so disturbed by the experience?
Back in the kitchen, she sat down to make a grocery list. It was a fine day and the sun streamed in on her as she sat at the table in the breakfast nook with pencil and pad. When she completed the list she went to the sink and began washing the dishes. As she finished rinsing them she placed them on a counter next to her to dry.
It was as she was rinsing the last cup that she suddenly had the feeling she was not alone in the kitchen. That someone was standing beside her. She tried to contain her fear and tell herself it was nonsense. The big room was filled with sunshine, she hadn’t heard a sound, and yet she was trembling as she lifted the cup from the dishpan and she was thinking of ghosts.
She grimly forced herself to continue on as if nothing were bothering her. Carefully she placed the cup on the counter with the others. But as she did so a startling thing happened. The cup actually seemed to rise up from the counter, and it toppled off the edge and fell on the floor, to break into a dozen small pieces. It was as if it had been lifted by an invisible hand and dashed on the tile floor. She gave a frightened little gasp as she stared at the broken cup in dismay.
The sound of a car horn out front brought her out of her frozen shock. She quickly ran from the kitchen to the front door and opened it to see that her car had arrived and there was a grinning young man at the wheel.
“Mrs. Dorset?” he asked, poking a tousled head out the side window of the car. He was freckled, and was probably about nineteen.
“Yes,” she said faintly.
“Doc asked me to bring your car around,” the young man in the garage mechanic’s uniform said. “But you’ll have to drive me back to the garage.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, still flustered. “How far is it?”
“Only three minutes’ drive,” the youth said. “We’re on the main highway just before you get to town. It’s the only gas station and garage in that section.”
She came down the steps. “If it’s that handy I’ll go back with you right now.”
“Okay,” the youth said. “I’ll move over and you can take the wheel.” He put on the brake, opened the door on the driver’s side, and slid over.
Lucy got in and released the brake and started driving down the narrow private road to the highway. “Is the car filled with gas?” she asked. In her upset state she hadn’t looked at the indicator.
“Ready to drive,” he said. “You’re new here.”
“I just arrived,” she said.
“You’re going to live in Moorgate?”
“Yes.” She glanced at him. “Does that surprise you?”
“I guess the Doc knows what he’s doing,” the youth said as they reached the highway. “Though the last one who owned it before the Farleys bought it said he didn’t like it.”
“Why not?” she asked, as she headed along the highway.
“I heard him talking to the boss one day,” he said. “And he told him he didn’t sleep good at night. The way he put it the place was too old, full of creaks and groans.”
“That’s an odd description,” she said.
“It’s a pretty odd house, lady,” was the young man’s comment. “There we are. Just ahead — that’s the garage.” He pointed to a rambling, shabby structure that had the sign “Garage” over it. Out in front of it were a couple of red, white, and blue gas pumps.
She brought the car to a halt and let the young man out. Then she turned the car around and started back to Moorgate. Her conversation with the youth had been a strange one, and it had left her with the impression that he must have heard more about the house than he had said. She found herself not at all anxious to go back to it, and this distressed her. She had to come to terms with the place for Fred’s sake.
When she got back she parked the car in front and ran up the steps and went inside. She hurried to the kitchen and saw the shattered fragments of the cup still on the floor. Finding a dustpan and brush, she cleaned up the mess and put it in the garbage container. She tried to force herself to believe that the cup had not been properly placed on the counter and had fallen off of its own accord. But she knew this just wasn’t so.
Brushing back a lock of her blonde hair, she sat down in the breakfast nook with the list she’d written for her grocery shopping. She went over the items on the list, but her mind kept wandering and she found herself looking up every now and then with frightened eyes, almost expecting to see someone standing in the middle of the kitchen watching her. But whenever she looked up the kitchen remained empty.
At last she locked the doors and set out for the town in her car. She felt easier once she was in the vehicle and away from the house. She drove directly to the town’s main street and located a good-sized grocery store.
Inside the bright serve-yourself store she picked up a shopping cart and began wheeling it between the shelves of groceries, choosing items along the way. She’d only gone a little distance when she came face to face with Mrs. Stevens, who was wearing a gray knit dress.
The mature woman gave her a good-humored nod. “I see you are settling down to your chores at once.”
“We needed groceries,” she said.
“This is a good place to get them,” Mrs. Stevens said. She had a well-filled tray of her own.
Lucy glanced around. “So it would seem.”
“Dr. Dorset won’t be too hard to cook for,” the older woman assured her. “He is one of those rarities, an agreeable man.”
Lucy managed a smile. “I had no idea they were so rare.”
“Consider yourself a lucky girl,” Mrs. Stevens said, bending near her in a confidential manner. “I’m sure Shiela Farley thinks you are.”
“Oh?”
Mrs. Stevens nodded in a conspiratorial fashion. “I can vouch for that. She’s at a loss to find a suitable husband, for all her money. She first tried to get my Jim interested in her, and then when he wouldn’t have anything to do with her she tried to latch onto Dr. Dorset.”
“Do you think so?” Lucy tried to speak casually.
“I know,” Mrs. Stevens insisted. “And you’ll do well to keep an eye on that nice husband of yours still. Don’t think he’s all that safe from Shiela even though he’s just married you.”
“Do you mean it?” Lucy asked in astonishment.
“Yes, I do,” the older woman said. She was watching Lucy closely. “How do you like Moorgate?”
“Everyone is asking me that, but I’ve been there so little thus far,” she said.
“It’s a handsome old house,” Mrs. Stevens went on. “You know that years ago a Dr. Graham Woods and his wife, Jennifer, lived there.”
“I knew a doctor had lived in the house. But I hadn’t heard their names before.”
“That was long ago,” Mrs. Stevens said, with a reminiscent look on her face. “In the time of my ancestor, Frank Clay. He was the squire of St. Andrews in those days. And he lived in that white house you can see on Minister’s Island.”
“I’ve seen it,” Lucy said. “And this Frank Clay who was your ancestor was a friend of the doctor and his wife who lived at Moorgate?”
“I guess you could say they were friends,” the older woman agreed.
“Dr. Boyce has promised to come by for a visit and tell me about the history of the house,” Lucy said.
Mrs. Stevens nodded. “And he can do it. He knows the history of this town as well as anyone alive.”
“He seems so alert for his age.”
“He is,” Mrs. Stevens said. “But he’s not well enough to look after all the people in the town now. So your husband taking up practice here has been a real help to him.”
“So he told me,” Lucy said.
“You must come and visit Jim and me,” Jim’s mother said.
“Thank you,” Lucy responded.
Mrs. Stevens gave her a knowing look. “And don’t forget that I warned you about that Shiela Farley.”
Embarrassed, Lucy replied, “I won’t.”
“And another thing before I leave you,” Mrs. Stevens said, still standing in the aisle beside Lucy with her grocery cart.
“Yes?”
The older woman leaned forward with that conspiratorial air once more. “If you’ll take my advice you won’t ever go down to the cellar of Moorgate by yourself.”
Lucy felt a thrill of fear at these words. “Why not?”
Mrs. Stevens looked grim. “I’ve been told that people have seen things in that cellar. Ghosts, if you want me to put it plainly.”
Lucy stared at Mrs. Stevens in astonishment. She’d hardly expected her to be so blunt, and she found herself at a loss in trying to decide on an answer. What the older woman had said only confirmed the fears which had gradually been forming in her mind. But she didn’t want to tell of her own eerie experiences at this time. First, she must discuss the house with Fred.