Laura Possessed by Anthea Fraser Page B

night Lewis came for dinner—’
    â€˜Oh, for God’s sake, Caroline!’ Edward exclaimed impatiently. ‘Don’t bring up all that rigmarole again!’
    Richard leant forward. ‘What rigmarole? I’d like to hear.’ He fixed his clear, impersonal gaze on Caroline and even then, confused and upset as she was, a part of her registered and resented his indifference. In as few words as possible she told him, almost sulkily, about Laura’s conviction that she’d seen a child upstairs and the conversation which followed at dinner. Then, with a defiant glance at Edward, she mentioned the episode about the trees in the garden.
    Richard sat motionless for some time after she’d finished, staring down into his empty coffee cup. At last he said, ‘Doesn’t it strike you that there may be some odd kind of link between them?’
    â€˜Link?’ Caroline repeated sharply.
    Edward said, ‘Now for heaven’s sake, Richard, don’t start working out one of your complicated plots round all this. Young Denver had a perfectly reasonable theory to explain the tree bit, though I can’t for the moment remember what it was, and as for the rest—well, she’s tired and run-down and she overreacts, that’s all.’
    â€˜And what is it she overreacts to?’
    â€˜Hell, I don’t know! Atmosphere, attitudes—’
    â€˜Let’s get it straight. According to Laura, the boy had actually done what this Lewis bloke had himself done on the same night thirty years before. J. B. Priestley, here we come!’
    â€˜It does sound a bit odd, put like that, but—’
    â€˜And the fact that he lived in this house, I think, is very relevant.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜Well, he actually remembered the trees. Therefore that part could have been unconscious telepathy. In the other instance, it is more as though—and I admit this sounds way out—as though
she
reminded
him
about it.’
    â€˜That’s ridiculous!’ Edward said, but there was a note of hesitancy in his voice. ‘And I don’t see how it could have been telepathy, either, since at that stage they hadn’t even met.’
    â€˜Yes, I’d forgotten that point. Look, Edward, one thing’s obvious. We must get her away from this house. For some reason it seems to be harmful to her.’
    â€˜My God!’ Edward said abruptly.
    â€˜Now what?’
    â€˜I’d forgotten all about it—I only put it down to weakness at the time, but the day she came. I had a hell of a job to get her inside the house at all.’
    The other two stared at him. Caroline said slowly, ‘I remember now, you did say something about it.’
    â€˜Tell me exactly what happened,’ Richard demanded.
    â€˜Well, she was all right in the car, right up to the time we got out. I took her arm and opened the front door, and suddenly without any warning she went rigid. Then she started to gasp and struggle and fight to shake me off, for all the world as though I were trying to inflict some ghastly injury on her. I could hardly control her. After a minute she simply went slack and I carried her in.’
    â€˜And that was all?’
    â€˜Isn’t it enough?’
    â€˜It certainly is. That settles it. We’ll take her back with us. She certainly mustn’t stay here.’
    Edward said slowly, ‘I doubt if she’d go. If you’d come a week ago, she’d probably have leapt at the idea, but now that she’s got her head full of this book—’
    â€˜At least I can try. I must admit I’m consumed with curiosity about this man. Is there any chance of meeting him while I’m down? I’d like to watch their behavior towards each other, for one thing. Quite apart from anything else, she’s in a vulnerable condition emotionally and I feel we should vet anyone she comes into regular contact with.’
    Caroline said