Mariana Page 8

  The thunder sounded again, and my steps faltered for a brief instant. Summoning my courage, I lifted the dripping hem of my dress clear of the grass, and forced myself to walk the final yard to the doorway.

  The man lifted his head a fraction, and I could see his features more clearly—my mother’s eyes, set in a hawklike face that showed no trace of her tenderness. I raised my chin and gazed mutely up at him. I had intended to smile, but for some reason his expression did not seem to invite such familiarity. For a long moment we stared at each other, while the storm rose and swelled behind us and the wind mounted to a frenzied wail.

  “So,” he said finally. “You’ve come.”

  Chapter 8

  It is difficult to describe the sensation of sliding backwards in time, of exchanging one reality for another that is just as real, just as tangible, just as familiar. I should not, perhaps, refer to it as “sliding,” since in actual fact I was thrust—abruptly and without warning—from one time to the next, as though I had walked through some shifting, invisible portal dividing the present from the past.

  When that happened, at the moment that I passed through the portal, I was blissfully unaware that anything had changed. That realization, and the full impact of its significance, would come later, when I had returned to being Julia Beckett.

  But as I stood on the front steps of Greywethers that evening, staring up at the man who blocked the doorway, I was no longer Julia. Julia, and all her jumbled memories, had been stripped from me. My thoughts were someone else’s thoughts, my body not my own, and as I moved, I lived each new experience for the first time. I was Mariana, and it was with Mariana’s eyes that I looked now at my uncle.

  Jabez Howard was a tall man, with powerful shoulders and a heavy bull’s neck. He needed no padding beneath his stockings to give the impression of muscles, and the woolen broadcloth of his narrow breeches and coat stretched taut at the seams, as if the clothing had been made for a much smaller man. His head, shorn close to permit the wearing of the fashionable new periwigs, looked oddly grotesque and inhuman in that strange light. But when, at last, he smiled, I saw again my mother’s face, and my cold misgivings were displaced by a warm sense of homecoming.

  “I did not hear the coach,” he said, peering past me into the darkness.

  “One of the horses went lame, and the coachman would not risk the team any farther on such a night. He set me down at the village inn.”

  “And you came on alone. You should have waited for morning.”

  “I was eager to come to you.” The furtive, insistent voice of the leering coachman and the stench of ale, tobacco, and traveling men had combined to overcome any fears I might have had of walking alone on the open road. The landlord had been kind enough to give me directions, and had promised to hold my box for me until I could collect it. My uncle made a disapproving noise and turned away, motioning me to follow him inside. The wide hall was bright with what seemed like a hundred candles, their flames dancing in the reflecting sconces and gleaming on the darkly burnished paneling. “Close the door,” he instructed me shortly, and I obeyed, shutting out the darkness and the coming storm and sliding the iron bolt in place.

  “You spoke to the landlord of the Red Lion?” he asked.

  I knew what he was asking me.

  “I told him I was your sister’s daughter, from Southampton, and had come to stay with you awhile. It was Aunt Mary’s tale, and her advice that I should use it.”

  Uncle Jabez nodded, satisfied. “My brother John, for all his faults, did marry well,” he said. “Your aunt is a good woman, and a clever one. Mind you remember her advice. There is great fear of the plague here, and travelers from London are not welcome.”

  “I am grateful,” I told him, remembering my manners, “that you do offer me a home here, when you yourself must fear infection.”

  His eyes were mild. “I have no need to fear the plague. I am a righteous man. Come along.”

  He led the way down the narrow passage to the back of the house, and I trailed after him, my borrowed gown dragging heavily at my weary legs. Two days of rough travel had brought me to the brink of exhaustion, my fair hair darkened with dirt and grime, my blue eyes deeply shadowed and rimmed with red. The dust from the road clung everywhere, turning my green dress an ugly gray color and catching at the back of my throat with an irritating tenacity that even repeated coughing could not dislodge.

  We emerged from the bright glare of the front hall into the quieter light of the long kitchen and the warmth of a real fire. A woman sat to one side of the hearth, nursing a round, red-faced baby. Near them, a younger woman bent over the fire, holding her skirts clear of the flames with an expert hand while she stirred the steaming contents of an iron kettle. Both women turned their heads as we entered the kitchen, their eyes flashing first to my uncle’s face, and then to mine. He nodded towards the woman with the baby.

  “Your aunt Caroline,” he told me.

  She had a pleasant face, firm and youthful despite the white streaks marring the dark mass of her hair. But I found her expression unsettling. It was neither friendly nor malicious; it seemed more an absence of expression, devoid of character, the eyes dull and vacant like those of a sheep. She nodded imperceptibly, acknowledging me, and went on rocking the child.

  “Rachel, my wife’s younger sister,” my uncle said next, as the other woman straightened from the glowing hearth. She, at least, was fully alive, and closer to my own age—a year or two younger, perhaps, than my own twenty years. Her honey-colored hair lay in ringlets against her flushed cheeks, and her quick smile was warm and welcoming.

  “I’ve mulled some ale,” she announced, “and there’s bread on the table if you’re hungry.”

  I was, in fact, ravenous, having eaten nothing since late morning. I gratefully took a seat opposite my uncle at the rough oak table, accepting the earthen mug of fragrant ale and the generous slices of heavy bread that were handed to me. The girl Rachel sat beside me, her dark eyes frankly curious.

  “What news of London?” she asked. “Is it true the king would remove to Hampton Court, for fear of the sickness?”

  “I know not what the king intends,” I said honestly, “but the common people talk much of leaving.”

  Under Rachel’s prodding, I told them of the panic that had gripped the City, the ceaseless whispers and muttered prayers, and of the houses I had seen shut up in Westminster, with the red warning crosses painted on the doors and the words “Lord have mercy upon us” scrawled beneath the crosses by some frantic, hopeful hand.

  My uncle shrugged.

  “London is a godless, sinful place,” he said, “and the hand of the Lord is seeking vengeance. Those who are righteous have nothing to fear.”

  I lifted my chin, my eyes stinging.

  “My mother did not sin,” I told him, “and she is dead.”

  My uncle finished chewing a mouthful of bread, his face impassive. His pale eyes seemed suddenly hard and remote, for all the calmness of his voice. “She disobeyed her father. In the eyes of God, that is a sin.”

  I did not need to press him further. I knew well enough that my mother had married against her father’s wishes, choosing a poor scrivener over the attentions of her local suitor. Having witnessed firsthand the love of my parents, a love that had illuminated my childhood and sustained my mother through nine lonely years of widowhood, I could not bring myself to call her choice a sin. But I did bite back my words of argument, remembering in time that the independence of spirit encouraged by my parents was not to be tolerated in other households.

  I lowered my eyes, and would have lowered my head had my uncle not reached across the table, grasping my chin with one large hand and tilting it to the light of the fire.

  “You do not look like your mother,” he said bluntly, after a moment’s study. “Annie was a comely lass. Nor can I see
your father in you, praise God.”

  “I am told I am very like my father’s mother.”

  He grunted, losing interest, and let go my chin.

  “The girl is weary, Jabez,” my aunt said unexpectedly from her seat in the corner, in a voice as lifeless as her eyes. “Rachel can show her to her room.”

  “Ay,” he conceded. “Get you to bed, child. We rise early for prayers.”

  I made to rise, but he leaned forward suddenly, his eyes fastening on mine with a burning interest. “Do you fear God, Mariana Farr?” he asked.

  “I have been taught to do so.”

  He did not touch me physically, but his eyes held me to my seat, and his voice was almost frightening in its intensity.

  “‘Blow ye the trumpet in Zion,’” he quoted softly, “‘and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble…’” He paused, waiting, and I realized it was a test.

  I finished the scripture for him. “‘…for the day of the Lord cometh,’” I said, “‘for it is nigh at hand.’”

  “Good girl,” my uncle praised me, relaxing back in his chair with a satisfied smile. “Very good. We shall do well together, you and I.”

  It was a dismissal. Rising, I wished both my aunt and uncle a good night and followed the girl Rachel from the room. She walked a few paces ahead of me, holding aloft a sputtering candle to light our way up the wide staircase to the upper floor. The air was colder here, and damp, and the flame from the candle cast long slanting shadows on the bare plaster walls.

  “Your room is here,” Rachel said, leading the way along the dark passage to a door at the back corner of the house.

  It was a mean and Spartan chamber, with a narrow bed and empty clothespress, and I felt Rachel watching my face as I gazed about the room. “It is a small room,” she said, “but it’s wonderfully quiet, and you’ve a view all the way down to the river from your window.”

  She was so obviously eager to please that I forced a smile, and voiced some unfelt platitude. The girl’s relief was visible, and touching in its sincerity. “I brought one of my nightgowns for you,” she said, indicating the white ghostly shape on the bed. “We did not know if you would have baggage.”

  “Thank you.”

  I picked up the gown and smoothed it while Rachel lit the candle by my bed. It must have been her very best nightgown, made of fine white lawn with tiny carved buttons. I doubted whether it had ever been worn.

  “’Tis no trouble.” She blushed with pleasure, hovering for a moment in the doorway with her hand on the latch. “I’m glad you’ve come to live here,” she said shyly.

  Before I could answer, she had closed the door between us, and I heard her light footsteps retreating down the passage. I was not feeling glad myself. I felt only tired and hollow and hopeless. Stripping off my soiled green gown, I laid it carefully in the clothespress and donned the lovely nightdress, slipping beneath the coverlet of the bed and reaching out a hand to extinguish the candle flame.

  There, in the dark, the full weight of my situation pressed close upon me, and misery rose like bitter gall in my throat, thick and choking. I found myself missing London, and the comfort of my own bed, and the gentle touch of my mother’s lips cool against my forehead. My mother…

  The thought of her brought a fresh dampness to my eyes. This had been her home, once, I thought, when she was my own age. Before she had met my father and followed him away. Small wonder she had fled so willingly. This was a dark and cheerless house, and no fit place for the laughing, vibrant woman of my memory. Had this once been her room, I wondered, and had she ever cried herself to sleep here as I did now, turning her face against the linens to hide the evidence of her despair?

  ***

  I woke to silence and the cold gray light of dawn. It was the silence that most disturbed me. At this early hour of the day, the street beneath my window in the City would already have been alive with humanity—the hawkers with their pushcarts and barrows, baskets dangling from their arms as they filled the clear morning air with a cacophony of sing-song cries, while tired-eyed gallants and their wilted ladies hurried home to bed after a night of exuberant merrymaking.

  I was staring at the ceiling, fighting back the rising ache of homesickness and wondering what had woken me, when a knock sounded at my door and, without waiting for an answer, Rachel wafted into the room. She was neatly dressed in a plain coffee-colored gown, her hair arranged simply and without fuss, her scrubbed face shining and composed. She carried a basin of water and a rough flannel.

  “I thought you might want to wash before prayers,” she greeted me cheerily, setting the basin beside my bed. “Did you rest well?”

  “Very well, thank you,” I lied.

  A cheerful whistle split the silence outside, sounding so much like my father’s whistle that I was out of bed and over to the window before my mind had fully registered my actions. The window looked out over the back garden and the stables, with a view to the river that wound its way between forest and fields, and the soft green downs beyond.

  A man was walking up the hill from the road, carrying my heavy box of clothing on his back as easily as if it had been a sack of feathers. He walked with long, swinging strides, and while his broad-brimmed hat hid his face from view, I caught a glimpse of a square, clean-shaven jawline and a long curl of natural brown hair.

  “Rachel,” I said, motioning her to the window, “who is that man below? He’s talking to my uncle, now.”

  Rachel came and looked, obediently, then turned away again, her cheeks curiously flushed. “That is Evan Gilroy,” she told me. “He lives at the manor in the village.”

  “He has brought my box up from the inn.”

  My uncle, who had come out from the kitchen to meet the man, did not appear pleased by this favor. By standing on my toes and pressing myself close against the glass, I could see both men quite clearly as they stood below me. My uncle’s face was dark and unfriendly, and though I could not hear his words, the tone of his voice was clipped and harsh. The stranger said something in reply, and I saw the flash of his smile as he swung the box to the ground and turned away, walking in that same jaunty, unhurried pace towards the village.

  My uncle stared after him a long moment, then said something to himself and lifted my box lightly onto his shoulder, impressing me again with his great size and strength. I heard the kitchen door slam below me and lifted my eyes, intending to come away from the window, but my attention was caught by a shadow under the large oak in the hollow at the edge of the field. A shadow that shifted and became a man, a dark man on a gray horse, staring boldly up at my chamber window.

  As I stood there watching, the landscape shifted subtly, becoming fluid, the colors running into one another like paints upon an artist’s palette, and then the entire picture began to vibrate and I found myself clutching desperately at the windowsill as the world went black.

  Chapter 9

  As a child, I always kept my eyes screwed tightly shut when I woke from a nightmare, afraid that if I opened them I might find some truly terrible apparition beside my bed. The same childish instinct made me keep my eyes shut now. I lay still as the dead, curled to the wall, and the blood sang loudly in my ears as I reached out beside me with a tentative hand.

  My searching fingers touched the cool, faintly textured surface of a wooden floorboard, skimmed across an abrasive wool carpet, and came to rest on a reassuringly familiar bit of cold tubular steel. Either my drawing board had somehow transported itself back in time, I reasoned, or I was lying on the floor of my studio. Gambling on the latter, I cautiously opened my eyes, blinking a few times to focus.

  The room quivered once, and then stood still, and with a rush of relief I saw the solid twentieth-century clutter surrounding me—packing crates and papers and paintbrushes scattered untidily across the floor. Liftin
g my head a fraction, I craned my neck for a better look round, then sank back onto the hardwood with a ragged sigh.

  I had fallen on a clear patch of floor directly beneath the bare west window, which accounted for the cool draft I felt on my face and neck. Outside, the first faint rays of daylight illuminated a sky so pale that it appeared almost colorless. I was still wearing the same clothes I had worn to Vivien’s the night before, my cotton sweater and skirt crumpled and creased as though I had slept in them.

  I was alone in the room.

  I pushed myself slowly to a sitting position, paused for breath, and rose carefully to my feet, leaning on the drawing board for support. I felt as dazed and disoriented as Ebenezer Scrooge must have done, when he finally awoke on that famous fictional Christmas morning. There was the corner where my bed had been, I thought, looking around; there the place where I had undressed and laid away my dusty green gown; there the doorway where the girl Rachel had stood, smiling her quick, shy smile.

  Wandering into the hallway, I descended the stairs on unsteady legs. The kitchen seemed smaller than I remembered, and I stood frowning a moment until the explanation struck me—the kitchen I had been in last night had had no pantry. My kitchen had probably not been divided in two until Victorian times, if the pantry’s cabinets and wood trim were anything to go by.

  I moved into the pantry for a closer look, and stopped to run a hand over the north wall. There were no windows here, and the plaster felt rough and uneven, as if it had been slapped on over some existing architectural feature. An open hearth, perhaps…

  “What is happening to me?” I barely whispered the words, but they echoed in the silent space.

  Feeling suddenly suffocated, I stumbled back into the kitchen and yanked open the back door, nearly falling into the yard in my rush to get out of the house. A short distance away from the building I stopped, wrapping my arms around my shivering body and taking deep, sobbing breaths of the damp morning air.