Mariana

by Susanna Kearsley

  It gave me a queer feeling to come out of the hollow and see the tumbled, L-shaped wall that was all that was left of the dovecote, when in my mind’s eye I could still see clearly the squat, square building standing there. The queer feeling was replaced by a sinking sense of dismay as I drew closer to the garden.

  It was blooming wildly and more colorfully than ever. Scarlet flax burst forth in loose sprays of vivid flowers, while campion and phlox crowded in among the pinks, and tall spiky blades of larkspur joined the dwindling, nodding heads of monkshood. Even the rose, the lovely, old country climbing rose that Iain had planted along the one wall, was thriving and covered with fat round buds. But the perfect beauty of the little plot had been spoiled. My own feet had cut a swath through the center of the garden, from edge to wall, and the flowers there were crushed and trampled beyond repair.

  Stepping gingerly amid the survivors, I walked to the low wall and stood looking down at the rows of long-abandoned nesting holes. The one with the cracked ledge was still clearly identifiable, and I smiled slightly, tracing the ledge with my fingers. No need for me to keep the key any longer, I thought. It might as well go back where Richard had placed it, those many years ago. I took it from my pocket again and slid it back into its resting place within the niche. The rasp of metal on the worn stone sounded decidedly final.

  I was still standing there, lost in thought, when Geoff came round the side of my house a few minutes later, walking slowly and carefully, as though his feet hurt.

  “Finding more treasures?” he asked me, and I shook my head, summoning up a smile.

  “Nothing new, I’m afraid. How was your visit to Iain?”

  “Fine. I managed to persuade him to stop working for a while,” he said, leaning on the wall. He looked terribly cheerful, if slightly vague. “I even got him to open up a bottle of his twelve-year-old Scotch. We had a grand afternoon.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “It’s a good thing you were walking.”

  “Not necessarily in a straight line,” Geoff admitted, “but I managed. Good God!” He suddenly noticed the state of the garden, and focused his eyes with difficulty. “What’s been into your bleeding hearts?”

  I followed his gaze. “Is that what they were?” I murmured vaguely. Bleeding hearts. And quite appropriate, I thought.

  “Some animal’s made a right mess of that, haven’t they?” he commented, shaking his head. “Iain will have a fit.”

  “He will not,” I countered, with certainty. “He hasn’t thrown a single fit about this garden, not even when I’ve pulled up something I shouldn’t have. He’s a lot more even-tempered than you and Vivien give him credit for.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “Anyway, I didn’t come up here to talk about Iain, or the garden.”

  “You had a more interesting reason?”

  “Two reasons, actually.” He sagged a little on the stone wall, but quickly drew himself erect. “First, to tell you that I’m not going to be able to make our dinner date on Saturday. I have to go to London for a few days. Sorry.”

  “Business again, is it?” I asked, and he nodded. “Well,” I said, “that’s no trouble. We’ll go another time.”

  “You’re not disappointed?”

  “Heavens, no.” I stared at him. “Why should I be? You can’t help having to work. No such thing as the idle rich, is there?”

  Geoff grinned. “Don’t you believe it. This is the first real work I’ve had to do all month, and I’ll be idle again in August.”

  “And what was the second reason?” I asked him.

  “The what?”

  “Your second reason for dropping by to see me,” I prompted, and his face cleared.

  “Oh. I wanted to ask if you would make me a cup of coffee.” He smiled happily. “Iain’s Scotch is terribly strong, you know, and he’s generous in the pouring of it, and I was far too proud to tell him when I’d had enough. He has a habit of reminding me how Englishmen can’t hold their liquor. But I don’t think I’d be able to walk home right now,” he confessed, “without falling into a ditch along the way.”

  “Well, we can’t have that,” I agreed. “With your luck Jerry Walsh would fish you out, and you’d be the talk of the village for sure. Come along, then,” I said, cautiously negotiating my way out of the garden, “I’ll make you some coffee.”

  He was definitely looking a little the worse for wear, listing to one side like a waterlogged ship as he crossed the lawn ahead of me. He managed to reach the back door without incident, but misjudged the size of the opening and ricocheted slightly off the doorjamb before swinging himself rather stiffly into the kitchen. I was following him, one foot across the threshold, when from the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow hovering in the hollow, beneath the old oak tree.

  I turned my head quickly, but not quickly enough. The place beneath the oak was innocently vacant, and there was no sound but the whispering voice of the wind in the empty dovecote garden.

  Chapter 26

  The rain lasted four solid days and nights. It fell steadily, drearily, without respite, raising a melancholy mist that settled over the landscape like a shroud and made the world as viewed from my studio window appear uniformly gray and colorless.

  Ordinarily, I liked rain. I liked to watch it, walk hatless in it, listen to its random rhythm on the windowpanes while I sat curled into a cozy chair, reading. But after four days even my nerves were beginning to twitch.

  My forays into the past were no help. Three times I managed to transport myself, and three times I found myself sitting alone, working to finish Rachel’s trousseau, with no one around me to break the solitude. When I returned to the present I was invariably more depressed than before. I hated sewing.

  It was boredom, in the end, that drove me from the house in search of the Red Lion’s more sociable atmosphere. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with that idea. Every table in the bar was jammed with people, all of them talking at once. From a corner came the jovial sound of a darts match in progress, and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of damp and drying clothes.

  Iain had obviously come straight from the fields. He smelled like a sheep wearing aftershave. He shifted to make room for me at the bar, and lit a cigarette.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while,” I told him.

  “You shouldn’t be seeing me now. I’ve a heap of work waiting for me, but this rain’s been driving me round the bloody bend, so I thought I’d come in for a pint or two. I had to pick up the post, any rate.”

  I crooked my neck to examine the flat, narrow package on the bar beside his elbow. “Is that my brother’s writing?” I asked.

  Iain nodded. “Aye. When he was here last we got talking about the poet Robert Herrick, and Tom promised to send me his copy of Herrick’s works, so I could refresh my memory. I expect that’s it.”

  “You mean you haven’t opened it, yet?” Vivien leaned across the bar towards us, frankly incredulous. “Honestly, Iain, you’ve got no proper sense of curiosity. It could be anything…”

  “Go on, then,” he invited, nodding towards the parcel. “Open it, if you’re so eager.”

  “All right, I will.” She tore at the brown paper, lifting the small book away from its wrapping with a lopsided smile.

  “The Poems of Robert Herrick,” she read the cover aloud.

  Iain said nothing, but his eyes were faintly smug as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

  “I don’t think I’ve read any Robert Herrick,” I said.

  Vivien had flipped to the table of contents. “Well, you ought to,” she told me. “He wrote an awful lot of poems about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Well, to Julia. Heaps of them. He’s even got one here about Julia’s clothes.”

  “How fascinating,�
� I said dryly, leaning forward to look. Vivien turned the pages, slowly, scanning the lines.

  “That’s probably why your brother bought the book in the first place,” she speculated. “He is rather fond of you, isn’t he? Oh, look, here’s one for you:

  Then, Julia, let me woo thee,

  Thus, thus to come unto me;

  And when I shall meet

  Thy silv’ry feet,

  My soul I’ll pour unto thee.”

  She read the sentiment with appropriate drama, frowning a little at the end. “What do you suppose he meant by ‘silv’ry feet’?”

  Iain sent her a lazy look. “Would the fact that they’re meeting by moonlight give you a clue?” he asked.

  “Oh. I get it.”

  “It’s lovely stuff, most of it,” he commented, stretching out a hand to repossess the book. “I haven’t read Herrick since Cambridge. Nice of your brother to lend it to me.”

  I didn’t answer immediately. The poet’s call for his lover to come to him still echoed in my brain like a spoken voice, deep and familiar. I shook my head a little to clear it, and smiled up at Iain. “You must have made quite an impression,” I said. “Tom’s usually very jealous of his books. Probably my fault, come to that—I’ve still got volumes in my own shelves that I borrowed from him when we were kids, and never gave back.”

  “And one or two of my gardening books, as well.”

  “Mm, I know.” I took a hasty swallow of gin and tonic and smiled apologetically. “It’s a bad habit of mine, hoarding books. Libraries all over the country shudder at the sound of my name. I promise I’ll get your garden guides back to you soon.”

  “No panic.” He shrugged. “I don’t use them much, anymore, and you seem to be getting something from them. The garden looks good.”

  “You’ve seen it recently?” My voice was a casual probe.

  “Couple of days ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry the bleeding hearts got ruined,” I said, but Iain’s response was philosophic.

  “Not your fault,” he absolved me. “It’s not as if you mowed them down yourself. These things happen. Could I get another?” he asked Vivien, lifting his empty glass a few inches off the bar.

  “Certainly. Julia?” She looked a question at me, but I shook my head. My restlessness had reasserted itself, and I wanted to be on the move.

  “Actually,” I said, “I think I’ll drop in and see your aunt for a few minutes. Is she likely to still be at the Hall?”

  Vivien checked her watch. “At three fifteen? I should think so. Even with Geoff away, she usually keeps at it until supper time. It’s a lot of house to clean.”

  “Should I telephone her first, do you think?”

  “Who, Freda?” Iain’s mouth quirked in amusement. “There’s no need. She’ll have a pot of tea waiting for you when you get there, you just see if she doesn’t.”

  He was, as it turned out, quite right. It was wonderful to walk into that warm, bright kitchen, where the teapot huddled under its checked cozy on the table while the kettle whined a dying whistle on the cooker and the sweet smell of indefinable baking permeated everything.

  “What a lovely surprise,” Alfreda Hutherson said, filling my teacup and setting a plate of warm scones on the table between us. “I was hoping for an afternoon visit.”

  “It’s a visit with a purpose, actually,” I told her, biting into a crumbling scone that dripped with butter. “Are there any tours going on in the house today?”

  “Not on Wednesdays, no.” She tilted her head and looked at me, her eyes shrewd and knowing. “You want to use one of the rooms.” It was not a question.

  “Yes.” I gathered my courage and looked up. “I want to know what it was that Mariana saw through the window in the Cavalier bedroom. All my flashbacks are tied to a physical place, you see, and I have to be standing on that exact spot if I want to go back there.”

  “Yes, I know. But are you sure that you want to go back to that moment just yet? You felt the pain yourself.”

  I was silent a moment, remembering. “I have to know,” I said, finally. “You should understand that. These people, they’re all so real to me… I have to know.”

  “Would you like me to go with you?”

  “No, thanks,” I said hastily, smiling to soften the rudeness. “I’d be embarrassed to have someone watching me.”

  “Well, then,” she said, setting her teacup on its saucer, “you just go on up whenever you’re ready. I don’t suppose you can come to any harm up there. The furniture is all in the same place, I think.”

  “I’ll let you know,” I told her, grinning. I would know soon enough, I thought, if I tried to walk through that huge four-poster bed. A sudden thought hit me and I frowned. “These… experiences of mine,” I said, slowly, “they sometimes last a few hours. If I’m not finished when you want to leave, then…”

  “Then I shall leave the lights on for you and lock the doors,” she promised. “You know how to unlatch the side door, don’t you? Good. I’d rather not interrupt you, once you get going. If you just leave the side-door latch turned to the right, it will lock itself behind you when you leave.”

  I smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you. Well,” I pushed myself to my feet, a little nervous, “wish me luck.”

  The great, echoing rooms of the manor house felt even more cavernous than usual, empty and yet not empty. I could feel the press of unseen bodies crowding me as I climbed the staircase, and anticipation hung like cobwebs from every corner. Expectantly, silently, the spirits of Crofton Hall waited, watching me approach the doorway of the Cavalier bedroom.

  It was a darker room without the sunlight. Raindrops chased each other down the windowpanes and clung to the casement before falling to the lawn below. The church tower was little more than a dark, square shadow rising above the paler shadow of the churchyard wall, before which lawn and rose garden blended into a watery blur, green and mauve and dull, dull brown. Keeping my eyes fixed on that view, I stepped farther into the room, clenching my fists without thinking.

  The feeling, when it came, hit me with the force of a tidal wave and brought my chin up with a jerk. Anxiety, and pain, and panic, emotions tumbling one over the other with a soul-searing urgency. No, my mind pleaded of its own accord, racing madly, no, no, no…

  The ringing in my ears increased to an unbearable pitch, my every nerve vibrating with the feel of it, and then suddenly, as suddenly as if a door had been slammed upon it, the noise stopped, and I was left in peaceful silence. I opened my eyes.

  The lawn stretched out before me in the sunlight, distorted slightly by the panes of window glass, green and lush and level, broken only by the sweep of dusty drive to the right and the intricate meanderings of the rose garden to the left. Not far from the house, in one of the high spreading oak trees, a bird was singing the same sweet, wavering notes, over and over, nature’s plainsong.

  Behind me, Richard shifted his position on the bed. I could feel him watching me.

  “What are you thinking?” His voice was low, tinged with sleep. The voice of a lover. I gathered the rough folds of the shawl more closely round my naked shoulders and shrugged, a tiny gesture.

  “Everything,” I told him, “and nothing.”

  “And which am I?”

  Everything, I could have told him, but the word caught in my throat. I turned from the window to look at him, lying there with his shoulders propped against the bolster, his chest wide and brown above the white linen, his hands laced neatly across his flat stomach. It was an attitude of masculine self-satisfaction, and yet his eyes looked oddly vulnerable, uncertain.

  I misinterpreted that look. “Is it your wish that I should leave you now?”

  “Why would you think that of me?” His eyebrows rose, the vulnerability gone. “You are not a servant, Marian
a, to be thus ordered from my sight.”

  “No,” I admitted, looking down at my feet, “I am not a servant. I am a mistress. A minor difference, I’ll grant you.”

  His eyes were steady on my face. “You are my love,” he corrected me, softly, “and there is no shame in that. Do you wish this afternoon undone?”

  I raised my head. “No,” I told him honestly.

  “I will not force you to my bed,” he said. “I do not want a frightened woman, nor a coy one, but one who gives me love because she wills it so. If I make no promises, it is because the world is an uncertain place, and words matter little. But if you doubt the honor of my love, come,” he stretched his hand towards me, palm upward, “let me renew my pledge.”

  I went to him, as blindly as a flower seeking sunlight, and the shawl fell forgotten from my shoulders as he drew me down to his embrace. It was a tender lovemaking, with none of the urgent passion of before, and when it was over he held me close, my head against his heart, his hand tangled in my hair.

  “And what think you now?” he asked me, lazily.

  I smiled. “I think my uncle’s absences may not be frequent enough.”

  He laughed, twisting a strand of my hair round his fingers. “Your uncle returns tomorrow, you said?”

  I nodded. “He left soon after you did. I have forgotten to ask you, how was your journey? How is the king?”

  “He was well when I left him yesterday,” Richard replied. “He kindly recalled my father’s service, and bid me sup with him, but I was tired and eager to return home, and besides, the Court is no place for a gentleman.” I sensed his smile. “Faith, you worry about the propriety of having one lover. At Court you would be considered uncommonly prim.”

  “One lover is all I need,” I said, snuggling deeper into his chest.

  “’Tis all you’ll have.”

  “And when my uncle promises me in marriage to some merchant?” I shifted my head, curious. “What will happen then?”