The Vengeance of She by Peter Tremayne

Author:Peter Tremayne [Tremayne, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2018-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bosbradoe lies on the north coast of Cornwall overlooking a rugged stretch of cliffs. It always took Beth’s breath away every time she swung her car off the main road from Bodmin Moor and down the tiny B-road towards the little village which stood on top of a hill some four hundred feet above sea level. She passed the small whitewashed cottages, passed the old road which circled perilously behind them, down to the tiny harbour set under the thick granite cliffs. The road wound upwards, passed the old Norman castle of Breaca surrounded by guest houses, shops or show places which were now shut up until the tourist invasion of the summer.

It was dark now and Beth switched on her headlights to pick her way carefully along the tiny road which ran along the cliff tops towards a solitary cottage.

A man was waiting at the door, watching the progress of her car by the twist and dip of its headlights over the moorlike terrain.

‘Beth!’

Man and woman grabbed hungrily at each other’s arms.

‘How have you been, Charles?’

Charles Colley helped the girl with her suitcase into the cottage.

‘O.K., I suppose. But I’ve been getting some odd dreams of late, Beth.’

The girl screwed up her face.

‘I’m trying to escape that sort of thing, Charles.’

Charles Colley grinned.

‘Don’t worry. I shan’t ask you to psychoanalyse me. It’s just enough your being here. Did you have trouble?’

‘No, not really. There was one incident … I’ll tell you about it later. I have to go back Sunday evening, but we’ve got the weekend to ourselves, darling.’

She leant over and hugged him.

‘Great. It’s been a long time. Come on.’

Excited by the open desire in his eyes, the girl allowed herself to be led across the lounge into the tiny bedroom.

*

In a darkened room in the Laing Clinic Noreen Pemberton sat up in bed with a jerk, her eyes staring widely into the darkness.

‘So!’

The syllable was vibrant yet soft.

*

Hugh Strickland finished his fourth cup of coffee and continued to stare at the case notes of Noreen Pemberton. It was the most puzzling case he had encountered. He still had no idea what the root cause of the dissociation of personality could be. And why should the secondary personality manifest itself as a fictional character, showing a considerable knowledge of the four books about that character? He sighed, picked up one of the volumes from the table, and idled through the pages.

It was Wisdom’s Daughter. What was the connection between Noreen Pemberton and Ayesha? What had made Noreen in her subconscious recreate a part of her personality as the fictional priestess of Isis? Firstly, importantly, what was the symbolism of Ayesha — She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed? Was it to signify the eternity of love, the never-ending war between the spirit and the flesh, or was she merely an exercise in vanity?

Haggard himself admitted that the greatest fault of Ayesha was a vanity so colossal that, to take one of many examples, it persuaded her that her mother chose to die after

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