Time's Legacy

by Barbara Erskine

  That first evening Abi found herself confronted by a confusing whirl of facts and names and faces. The house, she learned, had been inherited by the three brothers of whom Mat was the middle. Ben, the eldest, her designated mentor, was rector of a parish some three miles away. The youngest brother wasn’t mentioned beyond the fact that ‘he was away at the moment’. Mat and Cal had ‘drawn the short straw’, to actually live in the place and try to stop it falling down. Apart from anything else they were the only ones with children so far. ‘Three. All grown up. All out of the nest. Thank God! All possible heirs to the pile.’ It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that they might sell the place and Abi, hearing the affection for it in their voices, was beginning to understand why. Cal cut a slice of cake for Abi and another for herself. (‘My parents christened me Calliope. Can you imagine! I hope you would refuse if anyone asked you to abuse a child by giving God’s blessing to a name like that!’) Mat had disappeared to do something urgently. The dogs were still gazing at Abi and the cake, dribbling disgustingly. Abi suddenly found herself smiling for the first time in weeks. She was going to enjoy living here.

  ‘The bishop said I’d be able to help,’ she said when she could at last get a word in edgeways. ‘I want to earn my keep.’

  Cal smiled. ‘You will. Just keeping ourselves going is a full time job. I want to you rest and do absolutely nothing for a while. Take time. But when you’re ready I’m going to suggest you muck in with Mat and me and do anything and everything that we do! Honest hard work.’ She raised an eyebrow and gave the deep throaty chuckle which appeared to be her signature. ‘Then if you show an incredible talent for something like painting walls or sanding medieval woodwork we’ll jump on you. Or gardening.’ She looked up cautiously.

  Abi smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a gardener. I did help my mother when I was a child.’ She took a deep breath and steadied her voice with an effort. She could and must talk about her. ‘I loved doing it, but I haven’t had much time or space for gardening in the last few years, to be honest. I can weed with the best, though, and cut down brambles.’

  ‘But not till I’ve had the blackberries.’ Cal poured them both more tea. ‘There is a fabulous garden here. Somewhere. We hoped we might one day be able to restore it. Put it to work. Maybe get people to pay to come and see it. Mat took early retirement, which was a huge mistake as it turns out. He doesn’t have nearly enough pension to support a house like this.’

  Abi wasn’t sure what to say. She hesitated. ‘While I’m here, I should pay you rent –’

  ‘No! No! No!’ Cal looked horrified. ‘Oh my dear girl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. And anyway you are. Didn’t you realise? Dear old David is paying us to look after you, well, his diocese is, so in theory you don’t have to lift a finger. Except I think he feels some sort of occupational therapy would be good. Am I being tactless mentioning that? I’m sorry.’

  Abi smiled. ‘I prefer people who speak out. Then we all know where we stand and it makes life so much easier.’ She liked this family. She had immediately felt at ease with them.

  Cal nodded. She stood up. ‘I’m going to show you your room before I open my mouth and put my foot in it any more than I have already. Make yourself at home. Unpack. Settle in. Explore a bit and show up in here at about seven for a drink before supper. How does that sound? Ben is going to come and claim you tomorrow, I gather, for a bit of praying and retreating and all that, and if you need a church there’s one at the end of the garden. You can’t miss it and we’ve got our own gate which is handy. There’s only a service once a month, I’m afraid. Ben looks after it. It’s part of his parish, but he will explain all that.’

  Her bedroom window looked south-west, across flat meadows and lines of pollarded willows towards Glastonbury Tor. She stared at it, mesmerised, as it rose, an iconic cone of a hill in the distance, against the bright blue of the sky. The house seemed to have been built on an island in the flat green landscape; perhaps it had once been a real island. It reminded her of the fens at home with the long straight drainage ditches, the serenity of the landscape. Turning away at last she sat down on her bed and stared round taking stock of the room. Cal’s non-stop chatter had left her exhausted, but not so exhausted that she couldn’t admire her new abode. It was a good-sized rectangular room with a small double bed, a low, comfortable easy chair, an antique chest of drawers, a dressing table, writing table and a fireplace decorated with dried flowers. The bedspread and curtains were a tasteful, restful, soft blue. It was attractive and welcoming. She found herself smiling with pleasure. She loved it.

  Mat had brought up her two heavy suitcases and left them by the door. There was masses of other stuff left in the car, but she could bring it all up later herself. In fact, as she had given up the Cambridge flat, all her wordly goods were there. Luckily she didn’t have much, at least, not in her present incarnation. She had a room stuffed full of books and clothes and other possessions at home in The Limes, in the room her mother had insisted was still hers, but she hadn’t gone back to collect anything she hadn’t packed already after her abrupt departure following the quarrel with her father. David’s lay secretary had spoken to her father on the phone and explained that Abi would be away for a while and that he wasn’t to worry about her. At Abi’s request she hadn’t told him where Abi was going and he hadn’t asked. Nor, he had said apparently, did he intend to worry one iota.

  No more than she intended to worry about Kier, she told herself sternly. She hadn’t asked David what had happened to him and David had not once mentioned his name.

  Washing her face and hands in the small bathroom across the corridor which Cal had said was for her use alone she stared at herself in the mirror. She had lost a lot of weight in the last few weeks and her cheekbones stood out, giving her face a gaunt beauty. But there were dark rings under her eyes and her hair was looking lank and uncared for. She reached for her brush. She should cut it all off. Tame it. She shivered. That would be a victory for Kier and that could not be allowed to happen. She sighed. It was harder to put him out of her mind than she had imagined. He still haunted her dreams. His eyes were there all the time, watching her, their wild anger and panic terrifyingly real. Firmly she tried again to put behind her the niggling discomfort and fear which even the thought of him caused. With a sigh she dragged the brush through her long hair and pinned it up in a knot. Tonight she would wash it and comb it into some sort of shape and perhaps let it loose to tangle in the autumn wind. After all she was no longer a priest; she was an odd job woman; a gardener; a recluse. And perhaps she was at last going to find out which of these, if any, was the real Abi.

  The house stood in some ten acres of paddocks and orchards, she was told, all sloping, draped around the shoulders of the hill like a cloak and the back garden had been laid out by a friend of Gertrude Jekyll. She wandered out onto the lawn and looked around. It was neatly mowed; the beds were a disaster though, their shape barely visible amongst the nettles and a sturdy thatch of couch grass where only a few more-desirable plants had managed to survive. She walked away from the house, following a path beneath an old pear tree, past a natural pond fringed with reeds, towards a stone arch, hung with yellow, sweet-scented roses. The arch was part of what appeared to be some sort of folly, artfully placed against a background of evergreen shrubs. A wooden bench had been placed near it and she sat down gratefully and took a deep breath of the rose-scented air.

  Seconds later she realised she wasn’t alone. A woman was standing not twenty feet away staring straight at her. She was tall and slender, her dark hair caught into a knot on the back of her neck. She was wearing a long blue dress hitched up into her belt and on her arm there was a basket. She had been cutting flowers. Abi frowned. The dress looked strangely archaic, draped in a Greek or Roman style – but then round Glastonbury with its quota of hippy types she supposed that was not unusual. Perhaps she was a traveller of some kind. She raised a hand and smiled at the woman. ‘Sorry to disturb yo
u. I couldn’t resist sitting here for a moment in the evening sun.’

  The woman didn’t respond. She went on staring, not so much at Abi as straight through her. Abi felt a tremor of unease. She stood up and took a step towards her. ‘I’m Abi. I’ve come to stay for a while.’

  The woman turned away. She walked towards the arch and out of sight behind it without a word. Abi followed her and stood staring round. The shrubbery opened out into another area of lawn and more flowerbeds. The woman had vanished. With a shrug Abi went back to the bench. It wasn’t compulsory to be friendly. She didn’t feel much like talking herself, but it was odd that Cal hadn’t mentioned anyone else being there. She shivered. Seconds later she was startled to see a girl standing in almost the same place as the woman had earlier. She too had picked some flowers; a spray of blooms hung from her hand. ‘Where are you?’ the girl called towards the archway. ‘Mama?’ She moved away and Abi saw she was limping badly. Her face was pale and even from that distance she could see the child was unwell and in pain. She was about to stand up when a man ran past. He was dressed in rough trousers and a loose tunic. ‘Petronilla! Come in at once. You will catch cold! Mora is here. She has brought your medicine.’

  ‘I was looking for Mama!’ The girl stopped. She turned to face him and smiled. Abi felt a lump in her throat as she saw the girl hold out her arms to him. ‘Let me collect some more flowers, Papa. I’m not cold.’ But he swept her off her feet, carrying her as though she was much smaller than she actually was, and infinitely precious, and turning, he walked with her towards the hedge. Abi stared after them, puzzled, watching the girl’s head droop on her father’s shoulder as another woman appeared. Younger, with coppery hair, she also held a basket over her arm. Her dress too was long. Beside her a boy of about thirteen was gazing up at her adoringly.

  ‘Mora!’ The girl had raised her head from her father’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for coming.’ The younger woman smiled. She seemed to radiate kindness as she reached out to the girl and touched her head lightly. And then they had gone, the boy running after them as they disappeared through the hedge.

  Where was it they were going? Abi didn’t attempt to stand up and go after them this time. The small family group seemed so close, so warm together in their affection and she felt suddenly excluded. Swallowing the wave of loneliness which swept over her as they disappeared she stood up and turned sadly back towards the house. It would soon be seven and she could join the others in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Mat pressed a glass of wine into her hand and urged her towards an old wooden rocking chair beside the fire. ‘You’ve only been here about ten minutes and already you’ve met our ghosts!’

  Apparently Cal had been the first to see them when she had visited the house shortly after she and Mat were married. Mat’s grandfather lived there then, an irascible old man, long widowed, whose only condescension when anyone visited was to allow them to cook him a meal. Cal and Ben’s wife, Janet, took it in turns, stoically producing a roast and two veg week after week for years. Their prize, their husbands had declared later, was the inheritance of Woodley Manor. Millstone Hall as Mat and Cal’s eldest son, Rory, called it. Cal had been in the garden picking mint and parsley and, straightening up with her bowl in her hand, had found herself looking at a slim tall dark-haired woman dressed in a blue floor-length gown standing only yards from her. The woman was looking past her, focusing on something in the distance. Inevitably Cal had turned to see what she was looking at with such concentration. When she turned back the woman had gone. Cal was puzzled, even indignant. As if Grandfather hadn’t got enough problems living here alone, spaced out trespassers were visitors he just did not need. A few weeks later she saw the woman again, from the house this time. She was standing staring out of the kitchen window, lost in her own thoughts when she saw the same woman walking – drifting – across the lawn. This time she was not alone. A boy was following her and they looked as though they were arguing. Cal tapped sharply on the glass. They took no notice. She ran to the back door but when she emerged on the grass they were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘There are some gypsies parked down on the other side of Wookey,’ Mat said when she told him about it. ‘I expect they come from there. They’ve probably come to nick something from the vegetable garden.’

  The next time she had seen them was after she and Mat had moved in and were living here. The family were standing in the ruins which formed the base of the rockery and the archway which she and Mat reckoned was an eighteenth-century folly. They were with a man and when Cal accosted the group they disappeared in front of her eyes, one moment there, the next vanished without trace. When she had got over her shock she had studied the ground where they had been standing, muddy, rain-puddled earth, and there were no foot-prints and it was only then that she realised that though she was wet through as the rain beat down on the garden, the three visitors had been bone dry and she had had the distinct impression that where they were, wherever that was, the sun had been shining.

  Mat’s younger brother Justin had been staying in the house then and he saw the figures the next day. ‘Don’t worry, Cal. They are harmless. Just stuck between worlds. They can’t see you. I’ll see if I can talk to them, find out why they are still here, help them to move on.’

  But the next day he had had one of his monumental rows with Mat and packed his gear and left. They had no idea where he had gone. They hadn’t heard from him in months. But that was Justin all over. And it meant that no-one had tried to talk to the ghosts. She had seen them again only a few weeks ago. This time she had tiptoed away and told no-one, not even Mat. Better that way.

  ‘The ruins out at the back there are part of a Roman villa,’ Mat went on, squatting down opposite Abi to throw a couple of logs onto the fire. ‘We thought it was a folly dating from the time when some ancestors of ours had pretensions to grandeur a couple of hundred or so years ago, but apparently not. A local archaeologist came up and showed us how it all worked. There has been a settlement here for a couple of thousand years at least, probably longer – since the Iron Age. We’ve dug up all sorts of bits of pottery and coins in the flowerbeds, most of them Roman or medieval, but some of the pot-sherds were even older. They match up with stuff found in the Lake Villages out there on the levels.’ He waved an arm vaguely towards Glastonbury. ‘Exciting, really.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve no idea when our ghosts lived here, but we’re pretty sure they were Roman or Romano-British. Their clothes seem to fit into that era, according to Cal.’ He glanced up at Abi and she saw his eyes narrow briefly as though he were trying to make up his mind whether to confide in her. ‘I’ve discovered the clergy fall into two more or less distinct groups,’ he went on cautiously. ‘Those who believe in ghosts and those who don’t. Ben does, but doesn’t believe in interfering, I’m glad to say. If any exorcisms are needed in his parish he will go and pray with people but if anything more complicated is needed he passes it over to the relevant authorities who have health and safety clearance and follow EU guidelines on spirit disposal and recycling.’ He smiled again. ‘Do you have strong views on any of this?’

  Abi grinned. She thought for a minute. ‘Up to a few weeks ago I had never knowingly seen a ghost. I think I have always been aware of them. I’ve sensed them, maybe glimpsed them, but never enough to be sure. Then I saw a whole church full of them in my last parish.’ Her last parish! It made her sound as though she had had dozens of parishes. ‘I don’t really know what I think, to be honest. None of them looked as though they needed exorcising. And neither did the lady and the little girl here. They just looked as though they were getting on with doing their own thing.’

  Cal turned away from the stove on the far side of the room and nodded. ‘I think that is exactly what is happening. They mind their own business and we mind ours. They have never done us any harm.’

  ‘Do you see them often?’ Abi cupped her glass of wine in her hands and stared down into it thoughtfully.

  Cal shook
her head. ‘Every few months perhaps. When I am busy and concentrating on what I am doing either I don’t notice them or perhaps they aren’t there, I don’t know. When I have seen them it has been when I have been standing with my mind a blank.’ She chortled. ‘I do that less now. There is so much to get on with all the time.’ She turned back to the cooker and lifted off a heavy pan, taking it to the sink to drain. ‘Mat has never seen them.’

  ‘Why do I take that as being a criticism?’ Mat said mildly.

  ‘It’s not meant that way,’ Cal called. She had dropped a lump of butter into the pan with some creamy milk and was energetically beginning to mash the potatoes.

  ‘They spoke English,’ Abi said after a moment. ‘It sounded like normal English to me. The little girl with the limp was called Petronilla.’

  Mat and Cal stared at her. ‘You spoke to them?’ Cal said after a minute. Her voice had dropped to an awed whisper.

  Abi shook her head. ‘No. Or at least I did but they didn’t seem to hear me. I just listened to what they were saying. The little girl was calling her mother.’

  ‘I never saw a little girl,’ Cal said. She had abandoned her potatoes. She pulled a chair away from the table and dragged it over to Abi. Sitting down she stared at Abi’s face with such intense concentration that Abi looked away embarrassed. ‘And I never heard them say a word. They spoke English with no accent?’

  Abi nodded.

  ‘So much for the Roman theory,’ Mat said. He seemed disappointed. ‘They must be far more recent.’ He didn’t seem to doubt that they were ghosts.