“It has to be a dicey proposition,” I added, “for a Minister to okay the money knowing exposure would quickly end his career.”
“Her career,” she replied. “Burke was telling the truth about one thing, at least: Hurd’s goal is purely political, and he had no real interest in the outcome…until today.”
I knew what she meant.
“You scared the shit out of him back there; it’s no wonder he left in a tailspin. How many of these bastards even know about Burke’s team; can you tell from their thoughts?”
“Not many,” she answered, “but Burke has put himself on the line, and it will go badly for him if I don’t agree and tell them what they want to know.”
“Why now? Did the fiasco in Scotland leak out or put them in the spotlight with the heavies in London?”
Aline turned in her seat and pulled her ankles up beneath her the way she does when we’re about to go off on another lengthy and wandering discussion.
“I could hear it in their thoughts but mostly from Burke. They’ve had others in this position—people with extraordinary abilities—and all of them went along with it quietly; no one before me has resisted.”
“But you have, and now they’re getting jumpy that others beyond their tight little circle will find out. Maybe the press or some kind of stupid whistle-blower nightmare they can’t keep under wraps?”
“Yes, but I don’t think Burke sees it that way; he really is interested in understanding, whereas Hurd is only looking after himself.”
“None of these assholes suspect your other lives, do they?” I asked warily. I would have been surprised if they had, but Aline just smiled and said, “No, and they never will.”
It was bound to arrive, but Aline’s decision pointed to an uncertain future and I wondered if she already knew.
“You’re going to cooperate with Burke, aren’t you?”
Aline looked at me with a sudden scowl and said, “If you want to stay home, you can.”
She misunderstood my question. I assured her I would go wherever it leads, and I could see her watching me from the corner of my eye. Unable to conceal anything from her when she’s determined to pry into my brain meant no amount of lying skills would ever be enough, and my thoughts would be forever open to her. It was insulting she worried I wouldn’t stick it out, but worse, the sudden and suspicious turn in her mood left me alone and isolated. It brought a disturbing thought, but one I had to consider: could we reach a day so badly at odds that I might become an enemy in her eyes? I hoped she would sense and hear only agitation which, under the circumstances, would be easy to explain away, but again she found something more.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said in a pout.
“Do what?” I asked quickly, but the pretense of ignorance just sounded stupid.
“You know what I mean,” she replied. “Worrying that I might hurt you—that you would even consider it.”
“How should I react, Aline? You can hear my thoughts—any secret I try to hide—but you couldn’t hear and know I wasn’t looking for a way to weasel out of this?”
She turned away in silence, but another possibility surfaced I hadn’t considered. Perhaps she can’t hear my every thought after all; maybe it’s situational and requires focus or concentration. Was her own emotional turmoil clouding that ability? I decided to test the theory. With the cruise control fixed and our car humming along, I looked off into the distance and thought the words “I love you, Aline” quickly in my mind. She didn’t say anything for a while, but when I realized she was watching, I turned to find her smiling again.
“I love you, too, Evan.”
FOR the rest of the week we went about our normal routine, and I kept away from the subject of Burke’s invitation as Aline considered options. I decided the best way to support her was staying out of it unless she asked for help. When she didn’t it seemed as good a time as any to learn again through the images and “moments” from a life lived long ago.
“Tell me about your fifth time through.”
“Jane Mower,” she replied with a surprising grin. “Born the 20th of February 1701 in Llanelli, not far to the west from Swansea. My father and another man were coachbuilders; they made carriages for wealthy customers in the city.”
“Almost four hundred years since Marged,” I noted. “A lot of things must’ve changed in that amount of time.”
“A lot of things changed every time,” she said.
After her first birth in the fifth century, Aline’s lives seemed mostly uncomfortable or brief, and I hesitated to ask further against the possibility Jane Mower had been only the next in a series, but Aline brightened considerably.
“It was an ordinary life,” she began. “My father’s business was fairly successful, and I was brought up in what today you might call an upper middle-class home. We weren’t terribly well-off, but we were never poor, either.”
“How long did you live?”
I was almost afraid to ask, but Aline returned to the big plastic tub and more folders filled with photocopied documents.
“Into my seventies,” she replied with a smile. “It was a better life compared with Marged or Enydd.”
I grinned and asked her what made Jane’s life special.
“It was the first time I used my abilities deliberately…well, since I was first born.”
“Which abilities?” I asked, knowing they were considerable and potentially dangerous.
“Until I was older and settled, it was mostly listening to thoughts,” she answered. “Anything more would’ve been an enormous risk, but as it was in my first life, I could hear them.”
“Passive only,” I replied, “but I’m guessing that didn’t last long?”
“As the abilities emerged—when I remembered and understood who I once was—I began to explore and experiment.”
“Jane met Tegwen.”
Aline glared and her irritation hit me with a sudden, uncomfortable pressure inside my ears.
“I was always there,” she said at a near growl. “Jane didn’t need to be introduced to me!”
The sound of her voice changed and the moment went from merely awkward to frightening. I knew I had gone too far (again), but she looked down immediately with a palm to her forehead. After a moment, I could see she was angry with herself for losing her temper.
“Always there,” I echoed. “I felt it, and all of a sudden you’re very touchy about something you once told me was an equal arrangement—half and half.”
“I shouldn’t have said it like that,” she said.
“But you did,” I replied quickly, “and while I can’t hear your thoughts, it’s pretty clear when you said ‘I was always there,’ you meant Tegwen.”
“I’m sorry, Evan, but you made it sound as if I was lurking around inside, waiting to take control of her!”
“Of her,” I said, just to emphasize the point.
“Of me! Damn it, Evan, you know what I mean!”
The moment had descended into a needlessly heated argument, and yet I couldn’t shake the unsettling truth of her words and a nagging, persistent effect it left on our relationship. I watched her struggle with an impossible dilemma, fighting hard against the duality and unique nature of being two people inside one body. After minutes in silence, I decided to move slowly; there were no easy explanations—how could there be? Instead, I returned to her description of Jane Mower’s life, suddenly fascinating because of her unguarded comments about something more than merely listening to the thoughts of others.
“You’re not living Aline’s seventh life,” I said as softly as I could, “this is Tegwen’s.”
“Yes,” she answered, but her eyes showed equal parts resignation and defiance. It didn’t matter that I understood at last. Instead, Aline wanted it made clear she didn’t give a damn what I thought about it and nothing would change who and what she is. I decided to pull back and shift topics, if only as a measure of self-protection.
“Tell me a
bout Jane,” I said at last. “How far beyond just listening to them did you go?”
Aline waited another moment or two, and I could see she was grateful for an end to the tension and harsh tone.
“When I married, it was during the phase of life when I usually discovered who and what I am,” she began. “It was always that way and it took time to adjust.”
“But once you did…”
“It helped my husband in his business dealings.”
“What did he do?”
“He was a manager in a trading house and was often given the task of entertaining men with whom his masters did business; I arranged afternoon teas or evening dinner parties and the idea was getting closer to those with considerable influence and power.”
“This should be an interesting story,” I said, grinning.
She nodded quickly, and it felt good to know our confrontation only moments before was finished. Despite her assurances she would never harm me, I noticed an increase in our combative exchanges and my own stubborn will pushing its way through. Aline hated our fights (and still does), but I was determined to show her rational concerns for my own safety were not equivalent to timid fear.
She opened a text book about life in the 1700s, waiting as I studied an article describing daily routines for people of her social station.
“I played the part and showed a happy hostess,” she continued. “After enough champagne and gushing attention, their thoughts were easy to hear. I listened and told my husband what they were thinking, and it gave him a considerable advantage when they negotiated terms or struck bargains later on.”
“Your husband knew about your abilities?”
“Not as you do,” she said. “I was always careful to characterize them as merely hunches, but when they proved correct enough times, he began to trust.”
“What about Cadwal’s warning?” I asked. “Didn’t you remember it?”
“Of course!” she replied. “But that was different, and I never revealed the truth behind it. In my first life, such things weren’t strange or frightening so it wasn’t a risk, and Cadwal saw no reason to worry. When I helped my husband, he never suspected it could be something more, and I wasn’t about to tell him.”
“He just put it down to female intuition and left it at that?”
“It was a simpler time, Evan; no one thought to suspect something more, at least not in our sphere.”
“What was your husband’s name?”
“Edwin Clarke. We met in 1719 through mutual friends when I was visiting my mother’s family in Portsmouth. His uncle was a manager for the East India Company, and when a position opened, Edwin was sent from London to learn and gain experience.”
“Your parents were shopping you out for a husband?”
“We didn’t go there for just that purpose,” she replied, “but my mother was always looking by that time in my life; it was the way things were when a young woman with social standing came of age.”
“Did you like him?”
“I wasn’t bowled over in love, but I certainly didn’t protest, either. Edwin was a handsome, rather dashing man, and I loved listening to tales from all the places he’d visited. He was fourteen years my senior, but my mother saw a good match and we were married that same year.”
“How long before you decided to give him special help in his business dealings?”
“Five or six years,” she replied. “It took time for Edwin to rise in importance enough to warrant those meetings I could attend.”
“Eavesdropping garden parties?”
“I didn’t have to work very hard to hear them, Evan.”
“When did you take it further?” I asked.
She returned a sort of smirk, and it was easy to see she carried the satisfaction of applying her own hand to the affairs of her husband’s work in an era when few women could.
“Much later. There was a man who came to our house for tea,” she said. “He represented a group of ship owners and even members of the Lords who supported the Prime Minister in a fight over import taxation.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“1730s,” she replied.
“I didn’t know England had prime ministers back then.”
“Mr. Walpole; he was the first. Authority was starting to shift from absolute power of the Crown to Parliament and a two-party system of government.”
“But this guy who came to tea was a pain in the ass?”
“He favored excise taxation on imports, but Edwin’s firm opposed it. He was a powerful man with influence, and I decided to…encourage him just a little.”
“How little?”
“When he spoke, I sent him sensations of discomfort, you could say, especially when he argued for the tax.”
“Are we speaking of intense pain, like you gave me?”
“Not pain,” she replied, “but very unsettling feelings of dread and doubt. Through the entire afternoon I watched and listened, applying pressure until he declared an illness and asked us to excuse him.”
“He left the party early?”
“Yes, and he withdrew his support for the Prime Minister’s excise scheme only days later. He came to our house once or twice after, but I left him alone.”
“Did it make a difference to Edwin’s business?”
“I can’t say with certainty, but that man had a lot of power, and when he turned away from the PM, others did as well. I think it just helped them stand against the tax.”
“As a woman in that time, it must’ve been awfully nice to know you had the power to steer things better than the boys could hope for?”
“It was,” she said, grinning. “When I first tried, and it worked, I helped Edwin whenever the opportunity presented itself. It probably sounds arrogant now, but my efforts helped his career in ways no one else could.”
“Did you ever lay down the law on one of Edwin’s opponents?” I asked. “Let them know what they were dealing with the way you did with Andre Renard?”
“No,” she replied, “nothing like that. I never felt compelled to it, but also, I was afraid of going too far; I remembered Cadwal’s warning.”
Aline’s mood was light again, and she described Jane’s life differently than she had of her earlier lives and the hard times she’d endured. When I asked her if there were moments or memories more prominent than others, she laughed and said, “It was the first time since Tegwen’s life I never went to sleep hungry.”
She described life in Jane Mower’s era: knee-length breeches and waistcoats, three-pointed hats and cloaks. Her dresses were elegant, she said, but heavy and forever in the way. Stays and corsets were uncomfortable, but the echoes of Tegwen’s voice was always there to remind her it could be a lot worse. On her wedding tour, she could barely contain herself at the prospect of visiting France and Italy. I hadn’t considered it, but Aline announced with noticeable pride the weeks-long event was also the first time she’d ever traveled overseas. The society splendor of Paris gave way to the ancient majesty of Florence and Naples until his work responsibilities forced Edwin’s return to Portsmouth.
They took up residence in North End on Kingston Road and remained there for ten years. During this time, Aline said, her first child—a boy they named Gerald—was born on a warm August day in 1722. Another son, Elias, arrived two years later.
Aline’s detail and the clarity of those moments were astonishing, and she took me there so I could see for myself while it poured down rain outside. It was a mild time, politically at least, and the Empire that would grow in strength and influence until it spanned the planet was guiding the course of western civilization. Edwin struck out on his own with two partners and they bought their first ship, a cargo packet making regular stops between England and the bustling French seaports at Brest and Le Havre.
Their position in society was at the upper echelon, but she spoke with regret that too much of the work raising Gerald and Elias fell to a governess while she kept a close eye on Edwin’s affairs,
always ready to twist the silent, unseen thumbscrew should a deal became threatened. As Edwin’s business expanded, he opened his own trading house on the western reaches of London. Jane was hesitant to move away permanently, but their proximity to the city was both exciting and convenient, so they settled near Wimbledon Village. She showed me old photos of their house taken almost a century later, and it would’ve been considered a mansion in any era.
Their sons grew to manhood, and Gerald decided on a career at sea, awarded a commission in the Royal Navy during the autumn of 1740. Jane wiped tears as they watched him board a coach bound for Plymouth and his position as a junior officer aboard a newly built ship of the line. He wanted to become a navigator, and Aline reported proudly the vessel carried 80 cannons, but she went suddenly silent and I could guess the reason why.
She told me a man came to see Edwin at his offices a year later with the terrible news their eldest son had been killed in action against the Spanish fleet somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. They told of a fierce battle and Gerald’s steadfast bravery, but a musket ball took his life where he stood on the quarterdeck of his burning ship, struggling to maneuver in tight quarters. I imagined the scene, and even if it was a contrived story to make grieving parents feel better, neither wanted to know and they preferred instead to hold the memory of their son’s life as one of nobility.
“And Elias?” I asked.
“He read law at Cambridge and took a position in the Foreign Office,” she said with a smile. “He became a diplomat, advising our ambassador in Vienna to the court of Empress Maria Theresa until 1752 when he took a posting in Lisbon at the court of Joseph the First.”
Her voice trailed off suddenly.
“Elias was badly burned in Lisbon during a terrible earthquake in the autumn of 1755. He recovered and came home, but never married. My son’s face and upper body were slightly disfigured by the fire and because of it, unsuitable to further diplomatic work. Elias retired from service and worked in Edwin’s firm until his death in 1786.”
I waited quietly, and Aline said nothing for a while. Lost in her thoughts, I saw her brow furrow suddenly as she endured old memories and Gerald’s untimely end. There’s no effective way to describe it, but I felt myself shifting again and the way I thought of her previous lives. Before, it felt like hearing the history of distant people I could never know, sitting out the hours while she let the wash of memories ease past. But in that moment, I suffered with her because Jane was no longer a name. Instead, she lived again in Aline’s voice and it didn’t matter that Tegwen was the hidden force allowing me to see and feel for myself. Finally, she stood and told the last chapter of Jane Mower’s life.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 31
