Mariana Read online

  “I was at the church yesterday,” I explained, trying not to let him see how deeply his words had shaken me. I had known all along that my “flashbacks”—for want of a better word—occupied real space and time; that when, as Mariana Farr, I crossed a room or opened a window, I was also repeating the same action as my present-day self. But I had never fully absorbed the implications of this phenomenon.

  What would people think, I wondered, if I walked past them one day on the High Street, my eyes blank and staring, unresponsive? What if I walked across a road without seeing the traffic, or straight through a fence that hadn’t been built in 1665? The possibility of causing myself injury or embarrassment was very great. If only I could find some way of controlling the process; if only I could choose the time and place…

  “Should be safe now.”

  I looked up at Geoff, my eyes startled, but he was looking back at the deserted front drive of Crofton Hall.

  “The tour should be in the servants’ hall by now, well ahead of us. Are you ready to go back?”

  I nodded and, mindful of my bothersome high heels, followed awkwardly in his wake as he retraced our steps across the wide lawn.

  “I ought to begin this tour properly,” Geoff said, “by telling you that you are now approaching the east facade of Crofton Hall, constructed in 1598 by William de Mornay the Elder.” He swept one arm out in a broad gesture that encompassed the soaring, steeply gabled building with its rows of staring mullioned windows, the ancient plaster of its walls grayed and mellowed by clinging lichen and centuries of exposure to the English climate.

  “My wing of the house is older,” Geoff confided, “and more historic, but not nearly as impressive. This is the view on all our postcards, of course.”

  There were several postcards spread out on a small table near the door, to tempt the waiting tourist, along with a small stack of souvenir guidebooks presided over by a fresh-faced teenaged girl with corn-colored hair and a deliberately ingenuous smile.

  “How’s business?” Geoff asked her.

  “Seventeen in this last group.” She beamed up at him proudly. “We’ve had over fifty people through today so far. Cathy hasn’t even had a break yet, but she said she’s going to let me take the next tour through.”

  “Fine. Cathy’s our regular tour guide,” he explained for my benefit. “Sally here comes in weekends to lend a hand with the extra crowds. Sally, this is Julia Beckett.”

  “The lady who’s just moved into Greywethers? The artist lady?” The girl’s eyes went round with awe, and I’d be lying if I said my ego didn’t swell a little in response. “It’s a pleasure, I’m sure, miss,” Sally told me, shaking my hand with youthful fervor.

  “I’ll be taking Miss Beckett on a tour of the Hall,” Geoff continued, “so keep an eye open for us, will you? We should be far enough ahead of your next tour group that we don’t get in your way, but try not to hem us in, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, Mr. de Mornay.”

  “She’s a good kid,” Geoff told me, as we passed under the great stone porch and through the open front door. “Her mother is the local chemist, quite a formidable woman.” He grinned. “She’s determined that I’m going to marry one of her daughters, so I thought the least I could do was employ one of them.”

  “How very noble of you.”

  “Well, it’s all part of the ‘lord of the manor’ bit. I’m young, I’m well-off, and I’m not married. That makes me fair game in a place like this.”

  I glanced over at him, eyebrows raised. He was either incredibly modest or incredibly thick. He wasn’t simply young and well-off—he was downright gorgeous and a millionaire into the bargain. Small wonder that the mothers of Exbury were maneuvering on behalf of their daughters.

  We emerged from the entrance into a room that rendered me momentarily speechless.

  Walls hung with exquisitely cut velvet soared upward to meet an elaborately plastered ceiling, at least twenty feet above the gleaming oak floor with its covering of priceless Persian carpets. It was a room designed to impress, and it achieved its objective with relative ease; but what clinched it for me was the fireplace.

  I had never seen a fireplace like that before, not even in films. It was large enough for two tall men to stand in with their arms outstretched, fashioned of a glorious white stone. Richly carved, fanciful figures twined their way up the sides and across the heavy mantelpiece, and above the mantel, crowning it, was a beautifully carved and painted coat of arms.

  “The Great Hall,” Geoff said, beside me. “Quite something, isn’t it? That’s a Genoa cut velvet on the walls, late Elizabethan and rather rare, I’m told. We had a conservator come in and patch it up for us—it’s amazing the whole thing didn’t fall to shreds centuries ago.”

  I lifted my hand involuntarily, then let it fall to my side again. I knew better than to touch it. One of my neighbors in London had worked as a guide for the British Museum, and had frequently bemoaned the irreparable damage done by ignorant hands and flash photography. Clasping my hands behind my back, I looked round in awestruck, appreciative silence.

  “The fireplace, of course, is absolutely unique,” Geoff continued his commentary. “The white stone comes from Compton Basset, just a few miles from here, and the carving was done by a local mason.”

  “Is that your coat of arms, above it?” I asked.

  “Yes. Well, my family’s, anyway. The arms were granted to William de Mornay, the Younger, in the seventeenth century. As a direct male descendant, I’ve a right to use them if I want—put them on my stationery, that sort of thing. But it always seemed to me a little snobbish. Besides, there’s the matter of differencing to think of.” To my blank look, he explained. “Arthur de Mornay—that’s my ancestor—was, by his own account, William’s grandson, but without proper records we’ve no way of knowing whether Arthur’s father was a first or second son, or even a third or fourth. They’d all have had to use different marks on their coats of arms—roses and crosses and crescents and such—depending on order of birth. Cadency marks, they’re called. Only the head of a family is entitled to use the full coat of arms.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I confessed, moving closer for a better look. “I’m afraid I’m a little rusty on armorial bearings. I had a teacher at art school who did work for the College of Arms, so I learned a little about the design and terminology…”

  “Well, let’s see how you do, then,” Geoff said, stepping up behind me. “What can you tell me about the shield?”

  It was a direct challenge, and I had never been able to resist a direct challenge. I clasped my hands harder and gazed thoughtfully up at the painted carving. I knew enough to know that the shield was only part of the coat of arms, and that the two terms were not synonymous.

  “Well,” I began, “it’s been split along the middle horizontally, which in heraldic language is party per something, isn’t it?”

  “Party per fess.” He nodded.

  “And the bottom color is gold, but I don’t recognize the top color.”

  “Sanguine,” Geoff supplied. “Bloodred. It’s not common.”

  “So the bottom part would be ‘Or a rose gules, barbed and seeded proper,’” I told him, looking up at the red rose with its green thorns and gold center, bright against the gold background. “How am I doing?”

  “Wonderfully well,” he admitted. “What about the top half?”

  I frowned, studying the two hooded hawks gleaming gold against the deep bloodred, their hoods a shining silver, their wings and talons outstretched. “Sanguine, you said? Then it would be ‘sanguine two hawks Or displayed… hooded argent’?”

  I was less sure of that one, but his approving smile gave me confidence.

  “I am impressed,” he said softly. “The rose symbolizes the family’s patriotism and loyalty to the crown, and the hawks our
blind faith and tenacity. Hood and talons. Try a little more,” he urged. “What does the helmet on top of the shield tell you?”

  That one I knew.

  “That the owner of the arms is a knight or a baronet,” I said with certainty.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because the helmet is facing forward and the visor is up, with no bars on it.”

  “And the helmet’s steel,” he added, “not gold or silver. Well done. And the crest?”

  “It’s that thing on top of the helmet, isn’t it? The hawk’s head on the twisted wreath.”

  This hawk was also hooded, and very fierce looking.

  “Now,” Geoff folded his arms across his chest, “tell me what the scrolled bit framing the shield is called, and I promise I’ll fall over backwards in astonishment.”

  “Sorry.” I grinned. “I don’t remember what it’s called, but I do know that it’s supposed to represent the mantle of cloth that knights wore to keep the heat of the sun off their armor.”

  “It’s called the lambrequin,” he told me with a triumphant smile. “At least there’s one thing I know that you don’t. ‘I’m a little rusty on my armorial bearings,’” he mimicked me, his smile broadening. “Are you angling for a job as a tour guide?”

  I blushed a little, shaking my head. “No. I just have a good memory for details. I see things, or read them, and I remember them.”

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He frowned. “I was just teasing. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about having brains.”

  “I’m not, really, I—”

  “I like smart women,” he told me with a good-natured wink. “Intelligence is very sexy.”

  I blushed deeper and concentrated fiercely on the coat of arms above my head. “What does the motto mean?” I asked him.

  “You’re a little rusty on your Latin, as well?” He moved closer until I felt the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my blouse. His voice was a low, pleasant rumble beside my ear.

  “Everti non potest.” He read the words aloud, slowly, reverently, solemnly. “It means ‘Indestructible.’”

  The word hung in the air between us for several seconds before the excited murmur of voices approaching jolted us out of our contemplation. We had lingered too long in the Great Hall, and the next tour was about to begin.

  “Bloody hell,” Geoff swore without violence, looking round for an escape route. “Come on,” he said, and grabbing my hand, fairly hauled me through a doorway to the left of the fireplace and into the narrow passage beyond.

  Chapter 13

  “And this is the west passage,” Geoff said. Pulling the door shut behind him, he leaned back against it with a wolfish grin. “I couldn’t wait to show it to you.”

  “It’s lovely,” I said, laughing. “Are all your tours like this?”

  “Usually,” he admitted. “I don’t much like crowds. You ought to count yourself lucky—when I took Vivien round to show her the restored rooms a couple of years ago, we had to hide in a cupboard for twenty minutes.”

  Lucky Vivien, I almost said, but I caught myself in time. Instead I asked him, tongue in cheek, “There’s a name for that, isn’t there? A pathological fear of crowds?”

  He nodded. “Privacy.” He gestured to the door directly opposite. “That’s the servants’ hall across there, but since the tour will be going there next, I think we’ll skip ahead to the kitchens, if you don’t mind.”

  I trailed after him down the long passage with its sloping flagstone floor. “Does it bother you,” I asked him, “having all those people tramping about your home?”

  “Not really.” He shrugged, his tone amiable. “As I said, I kept the best part of the house for myself, and that’s my home—those are the rooms I grew up in. All this is just… superfluous, I suppose. It’s too much for one family to live in, let alone one person. Most of these rooms would probably never see the light of day if it weren’t for the tourists. Besides, it’s all a bit much, don’t you think? I mean, can you honestly see me whipping up a midnight snack in this?”

  He stopped walking and raised a hand to indicate a kitchen of truly baronial proportions, all brick and polished copper, with a monstrous hearth. The late Victorian stove planted in one corner looked as if it could hold twenty roasting turkeys with room to spare.

  “I see your point,” I told him, raising my eyebrows.

  We toured at leisure through the kitchens, the brew-house, the dairy, the buttery, the larder, and finally the scullery, built round an unusual indoor well. From the scullery a small, heavy door gave onto a square courtyard, open to the sky and surrounded on three sides by the house itself. The fourth side of the square was closed by a high stone wall, overgrown with trailing ivy and surmounted by imposing iron spikes.

  Rather like having a private park in the middle of one’s house, I thought. Except that it was dreadfully overgrown. You couldn’t see the ground at all, in some places, and a tangled mass of weeds and wildflowers had choked off the stone walkway that angled across the courtyard. I was surprised that Iain hadn’t done anything with the place, and said as much.

  “Make it into a sort of secret garden, you mean? Yes, well, I suggested it to him once, but he wasn’t keen on the idea. He doesn’t like the courtyard,” Geoff said. “Says it feels like a tomb.”

  It did, rather, come to that. The air within the walls was still and lifeless, the silence palpable, and though the sun beamed brightly down upon us, beneath my feet the grasses sighed from sadness and neglect.

  “But if it’s gardens you’re after, come take a look at this,” Geoff offered. He led me back along the pathway to the main body of the house, and drew me once again into the west passage. Opposite the kitchen wing a short flight of steps led down into the conservatory, a wonderfully formal Victorian room filled with glass and light and painted wicker, and the smell of lilies hanging over everything.

  For the second time, the sound of approaching footsteps sent us scuttling for cover. Geoff shepherded me across another passage and into a darkened stairwell that was saturated with the cool, dank scent of stone. Halfway up the stairs he held me back with a hand on my arm, and pointed to a spot near our feet.

  “See that? That bit of carved stonework below the paneling? That’s twelfth century. It dates from the time of the Benedictine priory. Apart from a few ghosts and some Gothic arches in the west wall, that’s all the monks left us.”

  I stooped low for a closer look, tracing the carving with my fingers. “Left you a lot of ghosts, did they?”

  “Oh, one or two. I think they’re the only respectable ones I have. The ghosts of Crofton Hall are a rowdy lot.”

  “So you believe in them.”

  “I admit the possibility,” he clarified. “After all, when a dozen or more people, who don’t know each other or the house, claim to have seen the same thing, you have to concede that there’s something there. They can’t all be crazy.”

  “And are there any ghosts upstairs?” I asked, gazing up the staircase with blatant curiosity.

  Geoff laughed. “A baker’s dozen,” he informed me. “That’s where the bedrooms are, you see, and ghosts seem to like bedrooms. My ghosts do, at any rate. There’s one in particular—not so much a ghost, really, as a feeling—that seems to get a lot of people… but I’ll let you find it for yourself.”

  “Oh, thank you very much,” I said dryly. “This isn’t an ax-murdering sort of ghost, is it?”

  “No, nothing like that.” He shook his head, smiling. “It’s rather difficult to explain, especially since I’ve never felt it myself. Here we are.” He paused on the top step to push open the solid oak door. “After you.”

  The upstairs chambers were lovely, and richly furnished with an eye to detail. Heavy embroidered curtains and spreads made the massive four-poster beds look e
ven more stately and luxurious, like miniature rooms unto themselves, and the fifteen-foot ceilings made me feel very small and plebeian.

  I particularly liked the huge King Charles bedroom, where the ill-fated king himself reputedly passed a few nights while mustering his troops against Cromwell. The bedroom was directly over the Great Hall, and had the same massive proportions, with a beautiful ceiling plastered in curvilinear ribs that gave the room an almost continental gracefulness.

  “And this is the Cavalier bedroom,” Geoff went on, leading me through the final doorway. “It used to be called the crimson bedroom, but ‘Cavalier’ sounded much more romantic for the guidebooks, and seemed to tie in with the King Charles room next door.”

  The original name was the more logical, I decided, letting my gaze roam the faded red fabric-covered walls and the deeper crimson color of the heavy draperies hanging from the imposing Jacobean bed. And then I felt the cold.

  Geoff continued with his narrative, but I was no longer listening. Some force, some irresistible, unexplainable force, was drawing me towards the room’s only window, a large mullioned and transomed window that looked out over the wide front lawn and the walled churchyard.

  He stopped talking, watching me, and then I think he said, “So you feel it, too,” or something like that, and my body was suddenly invaded by a tidal surge of powerful emotions that I was powerless to control. First a longing, so deep and wistful that it tore at my soul, and then a kind of frantic praying, a desperate litany that raced round and round in my fevered brain, and finally a stab of sorrow as deep as a twisted knife. I sagged against the window ledge, my eyes brimming with sudden tears.

  “Are you all right?” Geoff clasped my shoulder with a warm, strong hand, his voice concerned.

  I blinked back the tears and showed him a reassuring smile that only wobbled a little. “I’m fine,” I said. “So that’s the ghost, is it?”

  “Yes. Look, I really am sorry.” He gazed earnestly down at me. “I should have given you some warning—told you what to expect—instead of being so damned secretive about it.”