by Gloria Gay
“Does the estate still belong to Greywick descendants, Miss Finchley?” asked a lady.
“Unfortunately no,” Miss Finchley responded. “After Jestyn and Cedric died, a second cousin of the young men, the only known survivor at the time, inherited the estate. However, it was neglected for many decades and was finally taken over by the National Trust, when the last remaining entailed heir died without a will. The National Trust has managed the property since late nineteenth century.”
“These paintings are on loan to the National Gallery year-around,” she went on, quickly, returning to her rehearsed speech, and in order to discourage any more questions, “except for the summer months, when they are exhibited here.”
CHAPTER 2
“How did the Greywick brothers die, Miss Finchley?” A large middle-aged man with an Italian accent asked; he had grey hair and wore tan slacks and a green plaid shirt and appeared to be with his wife and a group of a few other Italian tourists. His wife, a short quiet woman dressed in cream linen and with curved bangs across her forehead, pressed closely against him.
“It says here,” He added, “that neither Jestyn nor Cedric reached the age of thirty, and that they left no heirs.” He turned to his wife who nodded in approval.
“There were no direct heirs at the time of the Greywick brothers' death at the hands of highwaymen,” declared Miss Finchley, “as neither of them had been married. It happened one night on their way home from a masquerade ball at the home of their friends and neighbors, Lord and Lady Halensford. Jestyn and Cedric were robbed of their valuables, slain with daggers and left on the road, where they bled to death, just a short distance from Lord Halensford’s estate, near Mystic Bridge. They had taken off at midnight towards their home after the ball at the Halensford estate and never made it there.
“A groom from Halensford’s estate, on the way to Lydford village, found their bloodied bodies early the next morning, spread out across the narrow dirt road. They had been stripped of their capes, jackets and boots. The groom dashed back to Lord Halensford’s estate, Sevencalls, to inform Lord Halensford. Halensford went back with several grooms and a carriage and supervised the transfer of the desecrated bodies of the Greywick brothers to his estate.”
“How awful,” one of the ladies exclaimed loudly. “Those were dangerous times!”
“The poor boys never hand a chance,” another of the ladies exclaimed. “Were their murderers caught, Miss Finchley?”
“No, unfortunately their murderers were never caught. No one was ever brought to justice for the crime. However,” she added, “that happened a lot in those times. Highwaymen murdered their victims with impunity and without fear of getting caught.”
“When did that happen, Miss Finchley?” one of the tourists asked. Miss Finchley told her the approximate date: early spring of 1803, and that it was on page four of the pamphlet.
There was some page turning while the tourists found the date.
“Maybe if the Greywick brothers had had some grooms with them when they traveled so late at night they wouldn’t have been attacked so easily,” said a man.
“Since the Halensford estate was less than a mile from the Greywick estate,” said Miss Finchley, “perhaps they thought that nothing would happen to them in such a short distance.”
“We can move along now to Mrs. Greywick's portrait,” Mrs. Finchley added, with a glance at her wristwatch.
“Camilla Greywick, Jestyn and Cedric's mother, had died of natural causes some years before her sons’ deaths,” Miss Finchley continued. It was obvious Miss Finchley resented questions that interrupted her well-rehearsed speech.
As they had agreed beforehand, Jane stayed behind with Cybil to take another look at Jestyn's portrait. They moved closer and Jane looked up and into Jestyn’s painted eyes. The young man’s eyes held Jane entranced. Again Jane felt the eerie sensation she had felt the first time she had glanced into his eyes,
“Get in back of me, Cybil,” Jane whispered, “so the guard can’t see what I’m doing.”
Cybil moved and blocked the guard’s view of Jane, as well as the direct line of the camera that was installed on one wall. Jane then touched Jestyn’s hand on the portrait. It was warm!
A blazing light suddenly enveloped her. She felt a piercing pain sear through her as she spun in the bright light which had forced her to shut her eyes. She felt a terrible dread that she would never stop spinning.
What was happening to her?
Jane drifted into unconsciousness.
***
Jane came back to awareness to realize that she was sprawled not in the estate where she had been visiting on a tour with her friend, Cybil, but on the edge of what appeared, under the light of a full moon, to be a rough road, for the pebbles of the road were cutting into her legs. She got up with effort, for she still felt weak from her strange experience.
She glanced at the illuminated dials of her watch – midnight! She and Cybil had been touring the Greywick estate around three or four in the afternoon.
The estate she had been in before was nowhere in sight nor were the tour group or her friend, Cybil. The last thing she remembered doing was touching Jestyn Greywick’s hand and feeling it was warm. Then the blazing light that enveloped her and caused her to start spinning.
That had been her last action in an English estate before being blasted away from it and into an unknown road in the middle of nowhere.
Jane looked down at her closed hand and opened it to find that the pendant that had been on Jestyn’s hand was now in her hand! She gazed for some time at the pendant and the chain that was tightly wrapped around her hand. She took it and put it around her neck. Then she felt her purse, the strap of which was diagonal across her chest as it had been when she had touched Jestyn’s hand.
She sighed with relief that she still had her bag with her. The bag was large and in it Jane always carried a small but powerful flashlight. As a reporter she never knew when light would be extremely necessary. She was glad of that precaution as she opened her purse and took out the flashlight.
The strong beam of the flashlight illuminated the road and Jane felt less afraid as light now surrounded the quiet place that appeared to be part of the English countryside.
Jane walked on, pointing her flashlight’s circular beam along the rough road. The area was still and eerie under the full moon. The air was crisp and fragrant of grass, gorse bushes and lavender. A little distance away there was a bridge. By it there was a faded sign – Mystic Bridge, it said, and beyond that she could see the huge tors outlined against the moon glow. Further down there were wide fields, probably oats and barley, and hedge rows. She had seen similar landscape when she and Cybil had traveled by car through the countryside that morning.
No cars. No highway – just a narrow dirt road.
Stay calm, she told herself. This road has to lead somewhere.
CHAPTER 3
Jestyn felt a bit tired. He had stayed up late working over the estate’s accounts. He had not planned to go to the Halensford ball but he didn’t want Cedric to go there alone.
The axle of their carriage was loose and had to be repaired before they took off because even though it was a short distance to Lord Halensford’s estate they didn’t want to have their carriage break down in the dark and with no grooms. Their usual two grooms, Jeremiah and Carter, were brothers and had asked permission to attend to their mother, who was very ill. Jestyn had acceded. He didn’t think that in the short distance to Lord Halensford’s house it was really necessary to take the grooms along.
He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantle, sighed and went to get dressed for the Halensford masquerade ball.
“Is Cedric dressed already, Edwin?” He asked his valet.
“He’s waiting for you downstairs, sir,” said Edwin.
“Probably as anxious to be at the ball as I am to not go,” he told Edwin, glancing up at him in the mirror. Cedric’s life ambition, it seemed, was to find a bride for Jestyn
.
A bride.
Insistently and with hurtful clarity, an unpleasant scene pressed into Jestyn’s mind against his will.
The place was a cemetery. He had stood under the drizzle that cut through the mist of the cold February morning and glanced at his fiancé’s parents, Lord and Lady Feehey. They cringed each time a shovelful of muddy soil laced with snow was tossed into the deep maw of their daughter Evaline’s grave. Standing quietly beside them was their son, Tom.
The two gravediggers shoved dirt on each side of the long rectangle, their old boots buried in the dirty snow. It was the only sound in the churchyard.
Thud…thud…thud…
Jestyn was certain the Feeheys had not really known their daughter. He hadn’t. Pain shot through him. He shuddered as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
His black coat felt tight across his shoulders. His hands were wet, as was his face and dark brown hair. He had given his umbrella to Lady Feehey when he noticed her sharing an umbrella with Lord Feehey that was meant only for one.
The grave was finally filled. In time the berm on top would flatten. Lord and Lady Feehey would visit it countless times, but Jestyn would never again visit Evaline’s grave.
Vicar Kainsley, his long neck and half his face wrapped in a grey woolen scarf, finished reading from his worn leather-bound prayer book. The mourners murmured their “Amens.” Then the vicar turned to Lord Feehey and nodded at him. Lord Feehey guided a weeping Lady Feehey through the somber-faced crowd, their son following, out of the cemetery and to the waiting carriage. The mourners followed at their heels.
It was over.
Evaline had died the night before the wedding—in the arms of Sam Lester, the groom that accompanied her when she rode her horse. Sam had also been her lover, a lover her betrothed, Jestyn, never suspected she had. No one but Jestyn, his brother, Cedric and Evaline’s brother, Tom, knew the truth.
For her parents’ sake, Evaline’s memory would be unsullied and would remain buried for Jestyn in the hurtful past.
***
Walking about, looking for some sign of civilization or a road that would take her back to the motorway, Jane heard the sound of horse's hooves in the distance. She shook her head, completely mystified. What was going on?
The pounding sound of horses’ hooves and of carriage wheels over dirt and pebbles became louder and Jane saw dust raised in a cloud in the distance, under the full moon’s glow.
Suddenly two horses and a large yellow carriage emerged from the cloud of dirt on the road, a distance away. The carriage was old-fashioned and there were large lanterns attached to its sides.
She must stop the carriage, Jane thought. Who knew how long it would be before any other vehicle would come by? She had been here for some time already. If she didn’t do something she might be stranded here without food or water and without knowing just what had happened to her.
Jane ran down along the middle of the dirt road, pointing her flashlight ahead of her to try to stop the carriage. If they didn’t see her they wouldn’t stop!
When she was about a couple of hundred feet from the carriage she flashed the light of her flashlight in front of the horses.
Rather than what she expected, that the driver would halt the horses and bring the carriage to a complete stop, the horses became spooked and zigzagged at an uneven gallop, veering toward their left and then swinging wildly to the right.
Jane tried to get off the road to avoid being trampled by the horses as the driver of the carriage struggled to control them. Everything happened in seconds as the horses swung back to the left as they galloped erratically and uncontrolled over the uneven surface of the dirt road.
In rushing past Jane, who barely managed to jump out of their way, one of the horses gave Jane a glancing blow and she was tossed to the side of the road, on her left leg. Had the horse hit her in a frontal way rather than with its side Jane would have been trampled under the horses’ hooves.
Both horses and carriage sped past her within inches of her body, showering her with a cloud of dirt that filled her mouth.
The man holding the reins tried to control the panicking horses as they galloped toward a mass of bushes. From the ground to which she had been thrown Jane directed the light of her flashlight toward the area where the carriage had gone, barely visible through the cloud of dust and saw the carriage driver struggling to contain the horses. Even as the carriage slowed, it stopped so suddenly on the cluster of bushes that the driver was thrown off the carriage, to the left of it. Fortunately he had landed on the thicket of gorse bushes.
Jane saw him stand up again and turn to the carriage, which had come to a stop, prevented from continuing by the thicket of bushes. The horses neighed and nickered in protest but were now standing almost still.
The man ran toward the carriage once it stopped and now appeared to be checking on the condition of another man on the carriage. The other man had fallen across the wide driver’s seat.
Jane felt a piercing pain down the side of her left leg and on her right temple but even so she was directing her light toward them and saw that there was blood dripping down the side of the head of the man in the carriage.
The driver of the carriage placed his injured passenger in a comfortable position and after that walked back toward the road to where Jane was, half sitting up by the side of the road.
The man reached Jane, who was directing her flashlight at him as he worked his way toward her.
“What the devil did you think you were doing, flashing that light on the horses?” he yelled. “It's a wonder you didn't kill my brother and me – and yourself, as well,” he said.
The man’s attire matched his carriage! Jane vacillated between believing this man and his carriage belonged to an estate nearby or that the carriage belonged to a tourist company that staged make-believe scenes for tourists.
Jane could barely make out the man’s features but her flashlight revealed his old-fashioned clothes very well.
The man wore a long dark cape and a similar outfit to the ones Jane had recently seen on the portraits of the Greywick brothers except of an earlier more flamboyant era.
When Jane said nothing and only stared at him, the man knelt down and looked at her and at the blood dripping from her temple. She changed her flashlight to her other hand as she raised her right hand to her temple and touched the blood that was dripping to her chin.
She stared at him. Now that he had leaned toward her she could see his face clearly. This was the second time she had seen this man. The first time had been when she had stared at his portrait. Electricity zig-zaged through her body, clear down to her toes. What did this mean?
Jane took out a tissue from her front jacket pocket and pressed it against her cut, mopping up the blood that had trickled to her chin and neck all the time the man was speaking to her in an irate tone:
“My brother is hurt and it appears you were also injured and it serves you right!”
Jane shifted her leg to ease the shooting sparks of pain going up her side and on her right arm.
“What's your name?” Jestyn asked when Jane just stared at him.
“What's yours?”
“Of all the insolent…I have a good mind to give you a thrashing.”
“So you beat women?”
“You're a woman? A woman wearing breeches?” His voice was incredulous as he continued asking, “And what kind of strange breeches are these? And where did you get this lantern? Is it magic?” The man looked keenly at the strong light coming from the flashlight. “Did you use magic?”
“Magic?” said Jane looking down at her flashlight. A flashlight was magic to this guy?
“Listen,” she added when he just stared at her, “this pain is more than I can bear. I – could you help me up? My leg – something’s wrong with my left leg. I can’t get up.”
“It’s either sprained or broken,” the man replied. “You cannot walk on that – uh – limb for now.” His to
ne had changed on hearing she was a woman rather than a rascally youth spooking his horses on purpose.
“My name is Jane Fielder,” Jane said, in a more appeasing tone, I’m a reporter for CBS and I – I seem to have lost my way.” If this man was the only one that could help her, in spite of his strange attire, she should try to ask nicely.
“I’m Jestyn Greywick, miss,” he replied.
For a stunned moment Jane said nothing. Then she dragged out a few words. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This whole thing…” Jane said, “…your costume, dressed as Jestyn Greywick…the carriage…were you – are these scenes arranged for tourists?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Fielder,” he said.
“What I mean is you can’t really be serious about your name unless you’re – oh, I get it. You’re pretending to be Jestyn Greywick. That was the name of the man in the portrait I saw moments ago.” Jane felt dizzy and probably wasn’t making sense, judging by the look in the man’s eyes.
“We can’t talk about that out here. You are injured, madam,” Greywick said. “Allow me to take you to the carriage. We can sort this out when you have been made comfortable.”
“No,” Jane insisted. “Even if I’m injured I must clear up things. I was on a tour of your estate with a friend and when I touched your hand on your portrait a blazing light blasted me to here. We are still at the Greywick estate, aren’t we?”
“You have not been at my estate, madam. This is the first time I have seen you.”
“Where am I, then?” Jane asked, confused and dizzy and trying to deal with her aching body as she tried to sort out her whereabouts with the costumed man.
