Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  He snorted. “I teach history at a local school. That doesn’t make me a historian, but I have read a bit about the history of the Welsh Marches. The Braose family made a name for themselves around here. And Maude is something of a legend. Moll is a corruption of Mallt, the Welsh for Maude, of course. Walbee, I surmise, comes from St. Valerie, which was her father’s name.”

  Jo grinned. “That at least I know. Reginald.”

  He nodded. “Or it could, I suppose, be a corruption of de la Haie—from her association with Hay-on-Wye, but there must be dozens of parishes up and down the borders that claim stories about her. She was reputed to be a witch, you know.”

  Jo raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know.” She leaned forward and took the bottle out of his hand, refilling his glass and then her own. “I’m not a historian, David. I know nothing about her save what I remember from my”—she hesitated, seeing the disbelief in his face—“my dreams, if you like to call them that. I looked her up in the Dictionary of National Biography, but I didn’t look at any books on Welsh history. Perhaps I should.”

  Janet appeared with a saucer of peanuts, which she put on the arm of David’s chair. “My husband is a bit of an expert on local legend,” she said almost apologetically. “We must shut him up about it, because if he starts, he’ll go on all night.”

  “No, I won’t.” He frowned at her. “All I said was that Joanna does not look like her. She was reputed to have been a giant. She is said to have stood in the churchyard at Hay and, finding a stone in her shoe, thrown it across the Wye, where it landed at Llowes.” He grinned. “The stone is about ten feet long! And of course she built Hay Castle singlehanded in a night. And she was Mallt y Nos, who you can see riding across the mountains with the hounds of hell in the wild of a storm.” He laughed out loud at the expression on Jo’s face. “She must have been a fearsome lady, Jo. Overpowering, Amazonian even, who kept old William in terror of his life. Or that is the way the story goes.”

  Jo said nothing for a moment. Then slowly she began to pace up and down the carpet. “I don’t think she was especially tall,” she said reflectively. “Taller than William, yes. And taller than a lot of the Welsh, but then they are a short people—” She broke off in embarrassment, looking at her host.

  He roared with laughter. “I’m five foot four, girl, and proud of it. It’s power not height that counts in the rugby scrum, and don’t you forget it!”

  Smiling, Jo helped herself to peanuts. “It’s hard to explain what it’s like being someone else, even if only as a vivid dream. She doesn’t inhabit my skin. I find myself in hers. I think and speak and feel as her. But I don’t know her future any more than she would have known it. Now, talking to you, I know roughly what happened to her, but in the regressions I know no more than we know now what will happen to us tomorrow. If in later life she was called Moll Walbee, I don’t know it yet. If later she came to dominate William, I have no clue. As a young woman only a year or so married she was afraid of him. And her only defense against him was disdain.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Janet had seated herself on the arm of a chair near the kitchen door. “Do you really believe you are her reincarnation?” she asked at last, awed. “Really, in your heart of hearts?”

  Jo nodded slowly. “I think I am beginning to wonder, yes.”

  “And are you going to go on being hypnotized to see what happened?”

  This time Jo shrugged. “I’m not too happy about being hypnotized, to be honest. Sometimes I think I must, other times I’m too scared and I swear I’ll never go back. I tried to get the hypnotherapist to make me forget her, but it didn’t work, so now I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Well, that’s honest at least.” David had wandered across to his bookshelves. He picked out a heavy tome. “People who are capable of regression usually, if not invariably, regress into several previous lives,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever read of a case where just one life was picked out like this.” He smiled at her quizzically. “It is most intriguing. Do you think that anyone else from Maude’s lifetime has returned with her?”

  Jo hesitated. “It is as much as I can do to believe in myself,” she said slowly, “but sometimes I wonder…” Nick’s face suddenly rose before her eyes. A Nick she had never known. A Nick, his face contorted with jealousy and anger, who had pinned her to the bed and raped her, and behind his face another, a face with red-gold hair and beard—the man who had tried to strangle her.

  “Jo, what is it?” Janet’s whisper brought her back abruptly to the room where she was sitting.

  She smiled and gave another shrug. “Just something I thought of, someone who’s been behaving rather strangely.” She bit her knuckles for a moment. “But if he is the reincarnation of someone from my—from Matilda’s past—who is he?”

  David let out a little chuckle. “Don’t worry about it too much, girl. I’m sure it will come to you. Either that, or you’ll regain your wits. Now, why don’t I find a bottle of wine so we can celebrate your visit, then while we eat I’ll help you plan an itinerary so you can follow Matilda’s footsteps, starting at Hay, where most of her legend is centered. That is why you’ve come to Wales, isn’t it? To follow her footsteps?”

  “I suppose it must be,” Jo said after a moment.

  “You know,” he said, his hand to his cheek. “You could be like her, at that. I suspect you’re a very determined lady when you want to be!”

  Jo laughed. “I have that reputation, I believe.”

  “And you’re not superstitious or anything?” he went on, almost as an afterthought.

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “Good.” He handed her the book. “Some bedtime reading for you, Jo. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  ***

  Nick let himself into his apartment with a sigh. He dropped his case to the floor and picked up the mail from inside the door, then he stopped and looked around, listening. “Is someone there?” he called.

  An inner door opened and Sam appeared, lifting his hand in a laconic greeting.

  “Sam!” Nick threw down the letter.

  Sam raised a cynical eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve had so ecstatic a welcome for years!”

  “Shut up and listen!” Nick pushed past him and went through into the living room. “I hurt Jo.”

  Sam had followed him and was about to help himself to a drink. He swung around and stared at Nick. “You did what?” he said.

  “I hurt her, Sam. Last night. We were talking about the regressions and she began to tell me about things that had happened to her in that life—things she hadn’t mentioned under hypnosis. She began talking about de Clare—describing how they had made love…” He went to the tray of drinks. “I grabbed her, Sam. I saw red and grabbed her. I wanted to punish her. I wanted to hurt her. I might have killed her.”

  Sam was very still. “Where is she?”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. I called a dozen times this morning and went back at lunchtime. Her car had gone. I went up to the apartment and looked around. She’d taken her typewriter and a suitcase. There wasn’t a note or anything.”

  Sam pushed him aside and poured out two glasses of Scotch. He handed his brother one, then stood watching him thoughtfully. “How badly did you hurt her?”

  Nick shrugged. “She knocked the tray off the coffee table and cut her arm. That was an accident, but I was pretty rough with her—”

  “Did you rape her?”

  Nick could feel Sam’s eyes on him. He straightened defiantly. “Technically, I suppose I did.”

  “Technically?”

  There was something in the coldness of Sam’s voice that made Nick step back. “She and I have been living together on and off for years, for God’s sake!”

  “That is hardly the point.” Sam sat down slowly. “So you forced her. Did you beat her up?”

  “I hit her. She was covered in bruises. I don’t know what came over me, Sam. It was as if I wasn�
��t me anymore. I couldn’t control myself. I knew I was hurting her, and I didn’t want to stop!” He fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for a pack of cigarettes, extracted one, then threw it down with a curse. “Christ! This is all such a mess. I was jealous, Sam, of a man who died God knows how many hundreds of years ago. I thought for a while it was Jo going out of her mind. Now I think it’s me!” He threw himself down opposite his brother. “You’ve got to help me. What the hell do I do?”

  Sam leaned back in his chair. He was gently swirling his Scotch around in his glass. “You really want me to help you?” His voice had softened slightly. “I can, Nick. But you’ll have to trust me. Have you ever considered,” he said thoughtfully, “that Jo might not be the only one among us who is living again?”

  Nick snorted. “You’re not suggesting I am the reincarnation of her husband, or something?”

  “No, I am not suggesting that. But I think it possible that you were perhaps someone close to her in the past.”

  Nick stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Oh, come on! Don’t hand me that crap. Jo might have been persuaded by all this. In fact, she actually asked me if I thought I’d lived before—”

  “Perhaps she recognized you.”

  “No! Oh, no, I don’t believe it. I’ve got enough problems in this life, and I’d have thought you’d have more sense than to encourage her. You of all people who saw the danger right from the start!”

  “I saw the danger.” Sam swung his feet up onto the coffee table. “But as Jo would not sidestep it, neither can we.”

  Nick glanced at him sharply. “What do you mean exactly?”

  Sam had closed his eyes. “There is one easy way of finding out whether you were involved in her past, Nick,” he said.

  “How?” Nick paused. “Oh, no! You think I’m going to Bennet to let him try his regression on me?”

  “There’s no need.” Sam took a sip from his glass. “I can do it if you’ll let me.”

  Nick’s mouth dropped open. “Are you suggesting that I let you hypnotize me?” he said incredulously.

  “Why not? I can do it, Nick. And I have a feeling you might be surprised by what we find out.” Sam smiled gently. “Have you ever wondered why Jo and you were so instantly attracted when you first met? Could it not have been that you were lovers once before? Is it not possible that the Richard she loved so much was your alter ego, eight hundred years ago?” He was watching Nick’s expression closely. “It might be fun to find out,” he went on persuasively. “It couldn’t do any harm, and it might explain a lot of your ambivalence toward Jo now.”

  Nick sat down on the edge of a table, one foot on the carpet, the other swinging slowly back and forth. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You actually think I am the reincarnation of Richard de Clare?”

  Sam shrugged. “When dealing with anything like this, Nick, I keep an open mind. I think for Jo’s sake you ought to as well. You owe it to her, if only to find out why you attacked her.” His eyes narrowed.

  “But why,” Nick said slowly, “if I was Richard de Clare, would I be so jealous of him?”

  Sam smiled. “Good question. Shall we find out?”

  “You are serious?”

  “Perfectly. If you don’t regress, fair enough. Not everyone does by any means. At least we will have tried. If you do, it will be interesting.”

  “I don’t know that I do trust you!” Nick looked at him suspiciously. “After what happened to Jo.”

  “What happened to Jo? She is a deep trance subject, Nick; you are not. The experience would not be the same for you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Nick said coolly. “There are one or two things you never explained, Sam.” His knuckles tightened on his glass. “Like why it was necessary for Jo to take off her clothes the other night when you regressed her.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Is that what she said happened?”

  “That is what she said.” Nick was watching him closely.

  Sam smiled. “She experiences the trances so vividly she finds it hard to differentiate between that state and reality, at least for a time, as I told you.”

  “It was reality, Sam, that I found her clothes that night, hidden in the living room—”

  “Perhaps she put them there before I came.” Sam crossed one knee over the other, his whole body relaxed. “I’m not sure what you are implying, Nicholas, but may I remind you that it is you who raped Jo, not I. It is you who asked for help, and I can give it because I’m a doctor. And I think you need to try hypnosis.”

  Still uncertain, Nick hesitated. “I suppose it would do no harm to try. And I’d rather you did it than Bennet,” he said at last, reluctantly. “But I hate the idea. And I doubt if it would work on me, anyway.”

  “Why don’t we try?” Sam sat up slowly. “In fact, why don’t we have a go now? You’re worried. You’re tired. If nothing else, I can help you to relax.” He smiled. “Come and sit down over here, little brother. That’s right, facing the window. Now. Relax. Put the glass down, please. You’re clutching it like a lifebelt! Now, let’s see whether you can do one or two little experiments for me. We’ll start with the lamp.” Sam leaned forward and switched on the lamp at Nick’s elbow. “No, don’t look at the light. I want you to look past it, into the corner of the room.”

  Nick laughed suddenly. “It’s like having the ‘fluence’ put on you by someone at school. Why don’t you use a watch and chain?”

  “It may have escaped your notice, Nicholas, but I don’t wear a watch and chain.” Sam moved silently from his chair and gently put his thumb and forefinger on Nick’s eyelids. “Now, look toward the lamp again and start counting slowly backward from one hundred.”

  Several minutes later Sam stood up. He was smiling. He walked toward the window and threw it open, staring out for a minute up the narrow street opposite toward the traffic in Park Lane. Then he turned to Nick, who was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed.

  “Comfortable, little brother?” he said softly. “No, don’t try to answer me. You can’t. I don’t want you to speak at all. I want you to listen.”

  19

  Janet knocked on Jo’s door as she was undressing late that night. Pushing it open, she hovered for a moment, staring at Jo, who, wearing only her bra and briefs, was sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “God, I’m sorry! I didn’t think—shall I come back?” Flustered, Janet backed away. “I brought us some cocoa. I thought you might like to chat a bit. Old Welsh custom!”

  Jo laughed. “Come in.” She reached for her thin silk bathrobe hastily and drew it around her.

  Janet sat down on the stool in front of the kidney-shaped dressing table, maneuvering her heavy body with difficulty. “Jo, I wanted to apologize for David. He can be a bit belligerent at times. He shouldn’t have given you the third degree like that. He tends to think all Welsh history is his special province and he almost resents anyone else who is interested in it, besides which, as you can’t have failed to gather, he is a rabid nationalist—”

  “Quite apart from thinking that I am completely mad anyway.” Jo smiled wearily. “He could be right at that. I’m glad he didn’t order me out of your house. I really did want to know about Matilda, though—his Moll Walbee.” She reached for the mug and sipped it slowly. “It was so odd to hear him talk about her with such knowledge. He knew so much more about her than I do, and yet at the same time he didn’t know her at all.”

  Janet gave a rueful laugh. “That could apply to David on a lot of subjects.” She was silent a moment, watching as Jo sipped again from her mug. The pale-blue silk of Jo’s sleeve had slipped back to her elbow, showing clearly the livid bruising around her wrist and the long curved gash on her arm. “Jo,” she said tentatively. “I couldn’t help noticing—the bruises and that awful cut—” She colored slightly. “Tell me if it’s none of my business, but, well…you sounded in such a state when you called this morning.” She groaned sl
ightly, her hand to her back. “There is more to this sudden trip than just research, isn’t there?”

  Jo set down the mug and pulled her sash more tightly around her waist.

  “A bit of man trouble,” she admitted reluctantly at last.

  “And he did that to you?”

  Jo sighed. “He was drunk—far more I think than I realized. I’ve never seen Nick like that before.”

  “Nick?”

  Jo laughed wryly. “The man in my life. Correction, the man who was in my life. We’d been having lots of fights and we split up a couple of times, then we got back together and I thought everything was going to be all right. Then suddenly—” She paused in midsentence. “It was to do with my regressions. He doesn’t approve of my doing it and he became a bit uptight about a lover I—Matilda—had had in the past…”

  “Richard de Clare?” Janet nodded. “I remember him from the article. He sounded really rather a dish. Every woman’s fantasy man!” She broke off with an exclamation. “You mean this Nick knocked you about because you talked about a lover in a previous life while you were being hypnotized?”

  Jo lay back on the bed, her arm across her face. “I think that was what it was about. The awful thing was, I think I wanted to tell him about Richard. I wanted him to know.”

  “And this is the man you mentioned earlier, the one you said had been behaving so strangely you wondered if he had lived before too?”

  Jo nodded. She rolled over so that she could see Janet’s face. “Isn’t it strange? You and I used to talk in school about how it would be. You were the one who was never going to marry or have kids. Now look at you. Elephantine! And I was going to be a woman alone, without men.”

  “I always thought that was a stupid idea,” Janet put in humorously. “One has to have men. Lovers.”

  Jo stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “We were so idealistic, so naive! Do you know, I found out through Matilda what it was like to be forced to marry a man you hated. Forced, by a father who doted on you yet who, by custom, because you were a mere woman, had to hand you and your inheritance on to another man. I became a man’s property, Janet. He could do what he wanted with me. Threaten me, lock me up, treat me like a slave, and order me into his bed and expect me to obey him. It’s been like that for women for centuries and only now are we fighting for liberation. It’s unbelievable.” She sat up. “The only way I—I mean Matilda—could keep him out of her bed was to tell him when she was pregnant that a witch had foretold doom for the baby if he touched her.”