Tapestry

by Fiona McIntosh

  It was from Julius. She had forgotten about it until now.

  My beloved Jane,

  It was very difficult to look upon you at Westminster, and the cowardly part of me found it easier to walk away than torture myself. I fear, Jane, that I can never escape the memory of you, which will haunt me wherever I go.

  I don’t know if we shall meet again. I heard of your part in your husband’s daring and brilliant escape and I swear I could not be more proud had I broken him out of the Tower myself. What a woman you are. What fire must burn in that belly of yours! Will Maxwell is a lucky man and once again I ask your forgiveness for my intrusion.

  Be safe, my beloved Jane. That is how I shall always remember you. My Jane. Think kindly of me over time and perhaps the tapestry of life will not be so cruel as to deny me a chance to see you once again.

  To this end I will visit Terregles in the hope that you may be there. I shall come for the last leaf-fall of autumn. By then you may know your future, and if it is with William Maxwell I shall not trouble you again. Either way, I wish you only happiness, and pray the threads that bind us might cross again. Until that time, I am yours.

  JS

  She was crying by the time the brief letter ended, but there was nothing more to be done. She had to go home. She would re-enter her body and become Jane Granger again … she was here right now, waiting for it.

  Of course, Cecilia had erupted into protestations at being left behind at Traquair House with Anne and the in-laws, but Jane had begged her to understand.

  ‘I promised William,’ Jane had lied, and knew Winifred forgave her that lie.

  ‘Why would the Earl want you to visit such a barren spot?’

  Jane had thrown a look at Mary, William’s sister. ‘He visited it once as a child and perhaps he believes something spiritual occurred. He did not explain.’ Mary returned Winifred’s glance with one of pure confusion, and mercifully held her tongue.

  ‘But what has that got to do with what you wish to do today, dearest?’ Cecilia persisted. Her concern was genuine, Jane knew, and it was why she showed her friend none of the exasperation she felt.

  ‘Simply this. William is certain he will not set foot in this fair land again, and for that reason has asked me to visit this place, his earliest and most vivid memory of childhood.’

  Mary shook her head, as if to say she no longer desired to keep up with such whimsy.

  ‘Well, if it is important to him …’

  Jane had smiled. ‘Thank you, dearest. If you would have Anne readied, we shall leave as soon as I return. I shall be gone only for the day.’

  ‘I shall organise for young Angus, our grieve’s son, to drive you there,’ Mary had offered.

  And so here she stood, alone in a small circle of stones. Angus had been sent to the nearby village to fetch some ale and cheese for their journey home: an excuse Winifred had helped concoct to ensure she was left by herself.

  Well, not entirely by herself. Jane saw a familiar figure approaching. Robyn covered the small path, flanked by bracken, effortlessly. None of the thistles or spurs of woody plants snagged her boots or clutched at her skirt. It was as if she were passing over the land rather than upon it.

  ‘Such a lonely spot,’ Robyn said.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The locals call it Eynsof. Mostly it has no name. You would have to have been born within a few miles to know it, and that is why I provided you with a drawn map. As to the name’s meaning, I suspect it has been bastardised since ancient times. It is connected with the spiritual world and means essentially “No Beginning, No End”.’

  ‘Infinity?’

  Robyn shrugged in answer.

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘You understand the ancient ley lines?’

  ‘Not really. Will did try and explain.’

  ‘And you trusted him enough to test the theory.’

  She gave an uncertain expression. ‘Trust had nothing to do with it. It had more to do with desperation and fear.’

  ‘Fear of losing Will, or of loneliness … of being left unmarried?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘It strikes me as odd that you do not cut across my words, yelling that it is because of love.’

  Jane regarded Robyn. ‘It is such an overworked phrase, such an overwrought emotion.’

  Robyn appeared unmoved. ‘And yet it is the emotion that preoccupies the lives of probably everyone you know. And arguably most of the lives of the people in the world you come from.’

  Jane said nothing. She was tired of this argument. She was tired of her test. She had done her best for Will.

  ‘You mentioned we are on a ley line?’ she said, keeping her voice even, but changing tack firmly.

  ‘Indeed. We straddle a track that connects Montrose on the east coast of Scotland with the inner Hebrides isle of Iona. It runs through places of great spiritual significance, including the Fortingall Yew, Glenlyon, and Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, which translates as the Well of Mary.’

  ‘Is the track as powerful as the one running through Ayers Rock?’

  Robyn smiled as one might at an innocent. ‘No, dear Jane. And it is why you need me here with you.’

  ‘Are you taking me back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jane could feel the relief sighing through her host.

  ‘How?’

  Robyn dug into the small knitted pouch she wore slung diagonally across her body and from it retrieved a tiny vial. ‘Winifred, I must ask you to drink this. And I am addressing Winifred, Jane, because it is her permission I seek, not yours.’

  Jane took a breath. Go ahead, she said to her host, wondering if Winifred were able.

  It felt surreal. Winifred required no further encouragement and seized her moment to reclaim full control of her body. Jane felt herself being squeezed out, the vacuum filled effortlessly by Winifred, taking control of her limbs, while Jane retreated. Initially Jane felt a flash of irritation at the sense of yielding, but then she gave herself up to it as she knew she must.

  She had no sense of time, could not tell whether seconds or minutes had passed. But when she regained her awareness, she had a curious feeling of weightlessness, as though floating in a bubble. She could hear Robyn’s voice, but it sounded as though it were speaking down a long, tinny tube. It reached into the hollow where she existed with a metallic ring.

  ‘Winifred?’ Robyn asked.

  ‘Yes?’ Winifred replied.

  ‘Bienvenue,’ Robyn said, welcoming her in French. She had obviously known it would make Winifred smile.

  ‘Benvenuto may be more appropriate, given that I am fleeing to Italy.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Italy?’

  Winifred must have shaken her head, Jane thought.

  ‘Well, do not fear. You will fall in love with Rome. It is more exciting than Paris, and William will, I suspect, prefer it.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘I shall let you and him discover. Thank you for being such an indulgent host to Jane.’

  ‘She has more than repaid my kindnesses,’ Jane heard Winifred reply in her usual magnanimous way.

  ‘I understand she has left you a special gift.’

  Jane sensed that Winifred must have looked down at this point. She couldn’t tell whether her companion was simply embarrassed at the forthright way of Robyn, or whether she felt genuinely shamed. She would never know, for Winifred did not reply and Robyn did not press her.

  ‘The contents of this vial will not hurt the child.’

  ‘Will they hurt me?’

  Jane thought she heard Robyn chuckle. ‘They will free you of your burden. You will sleep, but only briefly. Drink them now, for Angus will not be long in returning.’

  Distantly Jane heard the sound of swallowing and remotely felt the sensation of drowsiness laying itself around her. She felt inclined to travel with it, ride the slope into unconsciousness, but Robyn’s voice was with her.

  Come with me now, Jane.
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  I don’t know how to do this.

  Yes, you do. Let go. Remember the wind on Ayers Rock? Remember how it pulled at you, urging you to let go? That’s me now. I am the wind. I am asking you to trust me and to let go.

  Robyn, will everything be as it was?

  Nothing ever is.

  Shall we meet again?

  I cannot say.

  Can I meet you again? she pressed, not really wishing to, but determined to get a definitive answer to one of her questions.

  Can you? Probably. Should you? No. Will you? I have no idea.

  How would I? She refused to let it go.

  A crack through the mirror, came the nonsensical, typically whimsical answer.

  Take me home, Robyn. Farewell, dear Winifred.

  When Jane regained her wits, she could feel herself bumping and thumping over a deeply ridged surface. Impossible though it seemed, she was being driven in the front seat of a vehicle; she could tell that much. Opening her eyes to slits, clear harsh sunlight hurt her head. She could see only the burnished red of a central Australian desert, interrupted by scraggy, greyish eruptions of gorse-like bush.

  She slid surreptitiously to her left and turned her head slightly to regard, through her still-slitted vision, whoever was at the wheel. He was dressed in a washed-out, flinty, grey-green uniform that echoed the vegetation they were passing. His swarthy arm reached over and pushed a bottle at her.

  ‘Drink!’ he said, fully aware of her scrutiny. ‘Get as much water into you as you can.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she croaked.

  ‘Jimbo. One of the rangers. One of the dozens of rangers who’ve been out looking for you.’

  His colouring wasn’t all from the sun; was he Aboriginal? She didn’t think it was polite to ask. He was half grinning at her: rich coffee-coloured eyes above a generous mouth full of white, well-spaced teeth that would never need flossing, she was sure.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to him.

  ‘What the hell happened, mate?’

  Mate? ‘I don’t know.’ Well, at least that was the truth. Now came the lies. ‘I did the climb …’ She swallowed several gulps of water. ‘I climbed, the wind came up out of nowhere … and I can’t really remember much else.’

  ‘You’ve been gone days, mate. Do you know that much?’

  They were thundering along. She recognised nothing.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’re on the road out of the Olgas.’

  ‘The Olgas!’

  ‘Yeah, though how you got there is beyond me. You walked about fifty kilometres and you’re saying you don’t remember any of it?’

  She shook her head, stunned. Robyn had brought her back. Given the time and distance, fifty kilometres off was an amazing feat.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated.

  The car radio crackled, and he grabbed it and began explaining that Jane was ‘compos’ again. The scrambled voice on the other end seemed to make sense to Jimbo, but it was a torrent of nonsensical sound to her. His side of it was equally unrevealing.

  ‘Yeah … yeah … nah. Nah, she’s got no idea, mate. Yeah … yeah, right. Aw … ’bout thirty minutes?’ He said it as though he were asking a question, even though she realised he was answering one. It was a quirk of Australians, she’d noticed. She liked it. They were so easy to pick because of it.

  He threw the radio back into its holder. ‘You feelin’ okay? Not goin’ to spew or anything?’

  She barked a laugh. ‘I’m feeling relieved. Thank you for finding me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you should have sunstroke, mate. You had us all guessing. Your folks must be tearing out their hair.’

  ‘You didn’t give up on me … thanks.’

  ‘Nah, trackers don’t give up that easily. A few days in this weather is dangerous, though. Even one of us rangers would find it tough and we have all the equipment.’ He gave her a look, scratching his curlyish, rich brown hair, which had golden tips in some places. She was so glad it was Jimbo who’d found her.

  She laughed. ‘They breed us tough in Wales, I guess.’

  ‘They must do, wherever that is. What did you eat, drink?’ He scratched his head again.

  ‘I think I had some food and water with me,’ she lied. ‘That’s right. I had bread from the breakfast, fruit, bars of chocolate. I had a water bottle — I do remember that now,’ she said, clearing her throat and sipping more water from his bottle to cover the gargantuan fib.

  ‘Ah, that makes sense, then. I mean, three days without food is tough for someone not used to it, but without water it’s impossible.’

  She hoped he would let it drop, but she also realised this question was probably going to be asked a hundred different ways as soon as she hit civilisation. She might as well finesse her story now, get it sounding plausible, because only a lie was going to work.

  The truth was ridiculous.

  THIRTY-SIX

  London was misted with the kind of nearly invisible drizzle that rarely tempted an umbrella, tending more to show itself as tiny crystals on the shoulders of dark overcoats and irritating the hell out of women.

  Jane smoothed down her damp, darkly golden hair, which had immediately frizzed in the misty atmosphere, and stared at herself in the mirror. She realised it was still something of a novelty not to see Winifred looking back at her. She’d lost weight. Can’t complain about that! she thought, with a small spark of triumph flashing in her eyes. She could now see the apples of her cheeks — her mother’s term, not hers — sitting high and round, pinched slightly with a blush of colour that was not make-up, but nervous anticipation. Jane licked her dry lips. She’d not bothered with colouring or glossing them; she wanted to be able to kiss Will without having to apologise for the gluey sensation and coloured residue every man must loathe when kissing lipstick. He’d always said that her lips were perfect cupid bows and that they had been searching for his lips all of her life. She blinked slowly at this memory. Will had enough romance in his imagination for both of them.

  Whether it had been the weeks as Winifred, or just a new mindset, make-up and fashion felt suddenly trivial. This was how she truly looked. And she liked her face, especially now that she had it back. The gene pool had been kind to her and she knew she was pretty in every conventional way: an oval face, symmetrical features, well-shaped teeth, and eyebrows that were neither bushy nor invisible, arched in an artist’s sweep above eyes that people invariably mentioned for their startlingly pale grey. She knew her eyes attracted people to her — made her seem, sometimes, ‘otherworldly’. That used to please her. It didn’t now … not since she’d experienced otherworldliness first-hand and knew how cruel and bloody it could be.

  She didn’t want to remember any of it, and yet her time as the Countess of Nithsdale remained vivid. Moving through London in 1979 now felt strange, the city almost clinical by comparison in its cleanliness, though she didn’t believe a single Londoner would agree with her! In spite of the filth, the disease, the poverty — fortunately little of which she’d had to experience personally — the London of the early eighteenth century had felt infinitely more romantic than the careless, hard-nosed metropolis of today. Jane had reflected more than once that if you fell over during the afternoon rush hour, then heaven help you, because you would surely be trampled by commuters streaming down into the bowels of London, desperate to be rushed away to the south’s green belt and released from the city for a few hours. It was dog eat dog down there in the Tube stations, where no one made eye contact until the first soupy gust of wind told commuters that a train was imminent. It would roar toward them, pushing the air before it, which gradually flowed over waiting passengers like a warm metallic-scented breath. Only then would gazes connect, and more often than not in a gladiatorial look. Where will the door stop? Can I get on before you do?

  Yes … even if flushing toilets were now, in her opinion, the single greatest advance in human technology, she realised that she was genuinely missing the polite, elegant
lifestyle of the eighteenth century. Why had she thought that women were subdued, whispering creatures whose single preoccupation was marriage? She could name so many of her contemporary friends who suffered that angst. No … women of that time just knew how to achieve their influence while working behind the façade of that polite, tea-sipping atmosphere.

  Now she was assaulted by music in the street — new romantic, punk and other styles jarring with the deeply smooth harmonies of the Carpenters. It had seemed fabulously modern just a short while ago, but now, after her experience in history, it almost saddened her that her children — if she ever had any — probably wouldn’t learn the piano in quite the same way as Winifred’s memories told her Anne would have, nor would a daughter of hers easily learn to dance the quadrille — would she even want to? Would she sew well? Jane wondered whether she would teach any daughter of hers from a young age how to set about managing a large household. She had glimpsed a world where the phone was yet to be invented, and now she was living in a world where it seemed plausible — if you believed the technology experts — that people would soon be able to make calls on a phone that could be carried around in their pocket! Really? The art of letter writing would surely be lost, she thought, remembering the two notes from Julius Sackville, in his sloping handwriting, which she’d memorised because she’d been unable to bring them back. They were buried at Peebles on an ancient ley line, along with the precious phial of Ashes of Violet.

  Her parents had met her at Manchester Airport, expecting to whisk her back to Wales in a couple of hours on the motorway. But they didn’t seem surprised when she refused and demanded they hit the motorway for central London. They’d even packed for that eventuality.