Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  “And you found other people muscling in?” Ann rinsed out the two mugs.

  “I found that, after all, the whole thing could have been orchestrated by someone else.” Jo bit her lip “And if that’s true, his motives terrify me.”

  Ann glanced up at her. “Can you tell me about it?”

  Jo shrugged. “It’s all so involved. There’s one friend…a colleague really. Tim Heacham. He has been regressed—quite independently. He was one of the people in Matilda’s story.”

  Ann raised an eyebrow. “Could be true, you know. Or it could be strong autosuggestion. Has he gone into the detail you were able to?”

  Jo shrugged again. “I don’t think so. The experience seems to have been very different for him, but he’s afraid of getting any more involved. He wants nothing to do with it. And now I’ve found out there is someone else—a man I’m very fond of. He seems to have been regressed as well.”

  “Sounds as if the habit’s catching.” The dry comment was all but drowned by screams from Bill as his sister tugged a great handful of his hair. Ann calmly picked up a child under each arm.

  “If you were to ask my advice I should say leave your friends out of this. Let them all work out their own problems. And you concentrate on yours.”

  “And go on doing it?”

  Ann straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Do you think you can stop?”

  Jo rescued the box of coffee filter papers from Bill, ruffled his hair absently, and handed the box to his mother. “No, I don’t think I can.” She gave a half-embarrassed smile.

  “Then you must go on with the book idea.” Ann put the pot on the stove. “It’s a good way of approaching it. Writing is one of the best therapies there is, you must know that. And it gives you a justification for following the story on without being afraid it is becoming an obsession. It kind of justifies your actions, forces you to stop and analyze them, and gives you an excuse for doing it all in one. It also gives you a natural cutting-off point at the end.” She looked at Jo closely. “That’s kind of a safety valve. It’s something I think you must have. But there are other precautions you must take—I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t made them clear to you. You must stop either trying or allowing yourself to regress when you are alone. For two reasons. The brain enjoys excursions of this sort. They take on an almost narcotic compulsion and become easier and easier to do, and from what Ben tells me, you are finding that already. All you need now is some sort of trigger—a place, an association even, or, as you told Ben, an electrical storm to stimulate the brain cells. You don’t want to end up finding the past is more compelling than the present! The other reason is self-evident. You are alone and unmonitored. That could be dangerous.” She glanced at Jo and smiled. “If you go into a trance in the middle of the M4 you just might get run over!”

  Jo gave a shaky laugh. “That had occurred to me. But I can’t always stop it happening.”

  “I think I can teach you how. If you let me.” Ann picked the pot off the stove and poured coffee into the two mugs. “I hope you don’t mind me saying all this, but it’s an area that interests me and I had a feeling you might just find it easier to talk to a complete stranger about it all. But if you want me to drop the subject, say so. I won’t be offended—”

  Jo glanced out of the window at the view across the mountains. “No,” she said slowly. “You’re right. I do need someone to talk to. And it’s strange but I feel you know more about this than Dr. Bennet.”

  Ann shook her head. “I doubt it. I think it’s more that I can put myself in your shoes better than he can. He’s a man, after all. He’s probably all excited about the mechanics of what is happening to you and has forgotten that there’s a human being here, getting all screwed up in the process.”

  Jo gave a wry smile. “I haven’t told you the worst yet. The newspapers got hold of the story—perhaps you saw them. If not I’ll show you the cuttings. You might as well read them. Everyone else in England has.”

  “This is not England,” Ann rebuked gently. “As you of all people should know! No, I haven’t seen them. We get papers with the mail, but there never seems time to open them in the summer.” She gave each of the children a glass of pressed apple juice and then threw herself down on a chintz armchair. “Now, sit down and show me before Ben comes in.”

  She found some glasses and read both Pete’s articles without comment. Then she handed them back to Jo. “If this Pete Leveson was a friend of mine, I’d cross him off my Christmas card list,” she said succinctly. “You can do without publicity like that. Your Nick Franklyn must be spitting blood.”

  “He’s in the States.” Jo smiled faintly. “He probably doesn’t even know about it.”

  Ann gave her a long shrewd glance over her glasses. “Don’t take this too seriously, Jo. Hysteria is one of the most catching conditions. These men—and it’s unusual for men”—she interrupted herself thoughtfully—“they are fond of you. They see you deeply involved with something they cannot be part of, and they try, consciously or not, to join you in your past.”

  “So you don’t think they’ve been reincarnated too?”

  She shrugged. “I think it’s unlikely. I haven’t met them, so I can’t form an opinion as to how genuine they are. But I still hold by my advice. Ignore them if you can. And work out your own destiny. And leave them to work out theirs.”

  “But supposing my dreams aren’t real either!” Jo stood up restlessly. “This is where all my doubts come back. Supposing Nick’s brother has implanted King John in Nick’s mind. Supposing he has done the same to me with Matilda.” She shook her head wearily. “There’s something almost evil about Sam these days. Something strange. He’s very clever, Ann. He frightens me.”

  “Is he clever enough to have taught you ancient Welsh in three easy lessons?”

  Jo looked down into her coffee mug. “I don’t see how he could have.”

  “Neither do I.” Ann relaxed back into her chair. “I believe you have tapped into another life somehow. Maybe this Sam Franklyn is trying to manipulate you and his brother for some reason of his own, but if he is, he’s working on something that is already there, at least as far as you’re concerned, believe me.” She sat forward suddenly. “Can you hear the geese chattering? They’ve seen Ben. We’ll talk about this some more after lunch, okay?”

  Jo had all the notes she needed on Ann by four o’clock. They had walked the smallholding again, taken more pictures, and Jo had tried her hand at milking. It was in the cowshed that Ann turned to her, leaning against the angular rump of the pretty Jersey cow.

  “Would you allow me to try some regression techniques on you later, when the kids are in bed?”

  Jo hesitated. “I don’t know. I think I’d be embarrassed—”

  She glanced at Ben, who was gently rubbing some ointment into the eye of one of his calves.

  “No need. You are concerned to find out about Matilda’s children and grandchildren. You need to see some of the happy side of her life, if she had any, poor lady. Why not let me try and lead you there? Better than going back to Hay and violently hallucinating in the parking lot all alone.”

  Jo made a face. “Put like that—”

  “You can’t refuse. Good. Listen, go and call your landlady and tell her you are staying here tonight. We’d love to have you, and that way it won’t matter if it gets late. We’ll keep it happy and loose, I promise.”

  They drank homemade wine while Ann prepared the quiche for supper, then, when they had eaten, she led Jo to the sofa and sat her down.

  Ben perched himself uncomfortably in the corner, his eyes on his wife’s face as she talked Jo back into a trance.

  “Hell, Annie, I didn’t know you could do that,” he murmured as Jo obediently raised her arm and held it suspended over her head.

  Ann took off her glasses. “I have a lot of talents you don’t know about, Benjamin,” she retorted. “Now, to work.” She knelt at Jo’s feet. “Matilda de Braose, I want you
to listen to me. I want you to talk to me about your son. Your eldest son, Will, the child who gave you so much pain at his birth. He is grown up now. Tell me about him…”

  “Will had been ill all winter again.” Jo shook her head sadly. “So ill. He wanted to go with his father to fight with the king and Prince John against the French, but he had to stay with me at Bramber. Then, at the end of May, it happened. John came back to us.”

  ***

  Matilda was waiting in the great hall, arrayed in her finest gown, her hair netted in a fillet of silver, with Will, gaunt still, but stronger, at her right hand, when a flurry of activity at the door announced the arrival of their new king.

  King Richard had died on 6 April in the Limousin, to be succeeded, not by Arthur, his elder brother’s child, the true heir, some said, by strict right of primogeniture, but by his younger brother, John. John, the grown man the country needed for its king.

  William had been among the first to kneel to declare his allegiance before the new king set off for England, and Bramber had been their first stop on the road to Westminster after landing at Shoreham.

  Staring at the doorway, Matilda felt a slight constriction in her throat as John appeared, surrounded by his followers; but with every ounce of courage she possessed, she stepped forward to greet him, curtsying to the ground over the hand that he held to be kissed.

  His blue eyes, as she glanced up, were inscrutable, but he retained her fingers in his for a moment longer than necessary. “I trust you remember, my lady, that I invited you, many years ago, to be at my coronation.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace, I shall be there.” Her glance shifted to William, who was beaming at the king’s side. Behind him, the king’s retinue were crowding into the great hall: nobles, officers, captains of his guard, all travel-stained and weary after the Channel crossing, but eager for the refreshment that Matilda’s cooks and butlers had been preparing since dawn.

  With the king ensconced on the high seat of honor, reaching out for the goblet of wine that Will, on one knee, passed him, Matilda gave a little sigh. This should have been a moment of great pride and happiness, with her husband so obviously high in the favor of the new king, so why was she uneasy? She glanced at John and found he was watching her over the rim of the goblet. In spite of herself she felt the heat rising in her face and she looked away again.

  Then he was speaking and she knew that, over the hubbub of talk and the intervening crowds who fawned and crowded around him, John was talking to her.

  “We look forward to our coronation and to services from our loyal and devoted subjects, as we know you all to be. We know there can be no treachery among those of you who stay our friends.” He rose and flourished the cup and William, delighted, responded pledge for pledge.

  Matilda thought of the coronation to come at Westminster Abbey, lit with a thousand candles, thick with incense, and then of the ceremonies that would follow, and tried to put her worries out of her mind. John was king now. He would almost at once, Will assured her, be returning to France. With William so high in favor the next years should be good. Forcing herself to be calm and to share the excitement and good humor of the gathering, she at last took up her own cup and held it out to be filled.

  ***

  “That’s good,” Ann put in softly, almost afraid to speak as the silence stretched out in the room. “But I don’t want you to think about the king too much. Tell me about your children. About their marriages. Talk about Reginald and Giles and Will. Talk about the good times, if you can…”

  For a moment Jo stayed silent and Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes leaving her face at last to stare out of the window to where the last pale-green reflections of the sunset were slowly merging into true darkness. From the hillside he could hear the occasional contented exchange between his grazing sheep, and involuntarily he felt himself clutching at the arms of his chair as if to reassure himself of its solidity.

  ***

  The Christmas celebrations had already begun when, in a flurry of lathered, muddy horses, William arrived at Hay and greeted his wife. He was in a high good mood as he kissed her. And, uncharacteristically, he had brought her a gift, a milk-white mare with a mane and tail like pure watered silk, trapped out in gilded harness.

  “It’s a horse such as the infidels ride in the Holy Land,” he claimed proudly as he led Matilda out into the windswept bailey to see. “See how she carries her head, and the set of her tail? She will make a queen of you, my dear.”

  The mare nuzzled Matilda’s hands, blowing gently as she stroked it and Matilda bent to kiss the silky nose. Her heart had sunk, as always, when her husband returned. But, for the horse, she felt instant and unqualified love.

  William called for mulled wine to be sent up to their chamber that night. As his wife sat clad only in her loose, fur-lined bedgown, William, still dressed, perched on the high bed, sipping the steaming drink. He watched as she sent away her women and she herself started to unbraid the long copper hair. Now there were silver streaks in the tresses that reached to the floor.

  Favor with King John had brought yet more power to William, and Matilda, as so often, found herself looking secretly at him as he sat preening himself, wondering apprehensively at the pride and confidence he displayed.

  He was becoming increasingly unpopular in the country, and part of this unpopularity was, she knew, due to jealousy. The king had favored him, a border baron, above many another man of far higher birth and better claim to the monarch’s favor, and she often asked herself secretly why John gave William so much trust. He had favored him from their first meetings when the king was but a boy, seeming to prefer the bluff, stocky baron to the more effete of his earls, and yet she wondered sometimes whether John really liked him at all. She had seen those intense blue eyes studying William as the older man grew drunk and incautious at banquets and festivals; it was always after that that the cold gaze would stray to her and she would look quickly away, refusing to meet John eye to eye.

  Shortly after his coronation, at which Isabella of Gloucester had not appeared, John had had his marriage annulled on the pretext that as he and his wife were second cousins and he had never had the papal dispensation required to marry her, the marriage was invalid. Matilda had at first been angry beyond all reason, but quickly she realized that such an end to the marriage could only bring relief and happiness to the poor, scared child. She had ridden to Cardiff to see Isabella, putting her arm around the girl, who had become as thin as a skeleton and was wearing a robe of penitential sackcloth. “Poor darling,” she murmured. “The king has dishonored you most horribly. You should be our queen.”

  But Isabella shook her head. “I am happy now. It’s what I always prayed might happen. That or the release of death.” She lowered her eyes, toying with the rosary beads that hung at her girdle. “Be pleased for me. Pity the new wife, whoever she may be.”

  She, as it turned out, was another Isabella, Isabella of Angoulême, a lady well able to cope with John and his rages.

  When John heard of Matilda’s visit to Cardiff he was irrationally angry. “Your wife, Sir William,” he hissed at the trembling baron, ignoring Matilda, who was standing calmly beside her husband, “takes it into her head to meddle in matters that do not concern her.” His face was white with anger and his eyes glittering slits in the mask of his face. “The lady to whom I was formerly associated does not require her attentions.”

  “Isabella was and is my friend, Your Grace,” Matilda interrupted before William could mumble an embarrassed apology. “I like to visit my friends when they are in need of comfort.”

  “And you found, I am sure, that she needed no comfort.” John’s voice dropped a fraction lower.

  Matilda smiled. “Indeed she didn’t. She was happy at last, Your Grace. Happier than she had been since the day of her betrothal. But I was not to know that. I did not realize you had spared Isabella what you did not spare me!” Incautiously she rushed on: “I have witnessed for mysel
f, after all, the form Your Grace’s attentions can take. I know the suffering they can cause.” Her eyes held his for a moment, blazing with anger, before realizing suddenly the foolishness of betraying her feelings. She turned abruptly away. It was not before, however, she saw John’s pale cheeks suffuse with blood until his face was nearly purple.

  On that occasion, however, he had controlled himself with an effort, and William and Matilda were curtly dismissed from the royal presence without another word. It was only as she was leaving the room, curtsying one last time as they reached the doors, as protocol demanded, that Matilda raised her eyes again to the king’s face. The expression that she saw there made her stomach turn over with fear.

  Once outside, William had been beside himself with fury. “Do you want to jeopardize my position, you stupid woman!” He raised his hand as if to strike her, and then thought better of it. “Have you no idea how much rests on my friendship with the king? How much he may do for me—how much money I owe him!”

  This last he added in an undertone. He was becoming increasingly worried by the vast debts he was building up. Starting with the five thousand marks he owed for the Honor of Limerick, which the king had granted him after his uncle Philip’s death, and followed by other honors and the large feudal reliefs, a thousand pounds each, he would have to pay for the marriages of his two sons. Matilda could do much to maintain him in the king’s favor, of that he was sure, and yet every time she was within earshot of her monarch she seemed determined to anger him.

  William had often puzzled over the strange relationship between his wife and John. He knew John was attracted to her. He knew that he had once made an approach to her, out hunting in the New Forest, and he had, in spite of his laughter, been flattered and pleased by the prince’s attentions to his wife. It had seemed harmless enough at the time, and it had occurred to William once or twice over the years to wonder if he owed his favor with King Henry to John’s interest in Matilda. Then the interest seemed abruptly to have cooled, and William was, in spite of everything, relieved at the time; John had a reputation in some quarters for making very free with the wives of his followers. Now he was not so sure. The king’s interest would have been all to the good. Hostility was the last thing William wanted, and now he found himself wondering increasingly if he maintained his friendship with the king in spite of Matilda, not because of her, and he resented her bitterly for it. And was it because of her antagonism John still withheld the most tantalizing prize of all, the gift of an earldom?