‘Oh, we must look at the shops!’ Aunt Linnie cried excitedly. ‘Everything here must be the height of fashion, I’m sure!’
I did not have any great interest in fashion – so long as I looked presentable, that was good enough for me, and the endless fitting for my wedding gown and my trousseau had used up any enthusiasm I might otherwise have had. But it would have been cruel to deny Aunt Linnie her fun. All too soon she would be buried in the wilds of Gloucestershire again, whilst I…
I pushed the thought aside, and called to Thomas: ‘Thank you. We’ll walk from here.’
He pulled over and handed us down, then followed discreetly as Aunt Linnie and I walked along the colonnade of shops, Aunt Linnie exclaiming in delight at the pretty goods she saw in the windows – hats, gloves, accessories to grace the grandest occasion.
Beyond the shops was the pump room itself, much smaller than the one at Bath, but busy nevertheless with invalids come to take the water for the good of their health, and social visitors, laughing, chatting to friends, and promenading.
When I had paid the entrance fee, we went inside, where a string quartet was entertaining the visitors.
‘Oh will you listen to that music!’ Aunt Linnie cried rapturously. ‘This could be the very same quartet Mr Paterson has engaged to play at your wedding breakfast, Davina!’
‘I should hardly think so. I imagine they are fully occupied here,’ I said shortly.
‘But isn’t this place owned by the Merchant Venturers?’ Aunt Linnie persisted. ‘Mr Paterson might well have arranged for them to play at your wedding instead!’
I said nothing. I was feeling dreadfully claustrophobic suddenly, as if the music had suddenly transported me forwards in time to the day of my wedding. The quartet would not be the same one, I felt sure, but it would be very similar, and the haunting strings seemed to scrape on my nerves, evoking something close to panic.
The throbbing pain was there again, too, in my temple, fiercer than it had been for some time, making me a little nauseous and blurring my vision.
‘Davina?’ Aunt Linnie said. ‘Are you sure you are well? You really are very pale…’
‘I’m perfectly well,’ I said, but my voice seemed to come from a long way off.
‘Oh dear, I do hope you are not going to have a relapse!’ Aunt Linnie said, with some agitation. ‘I have heard of the effects of a blow to the head returning long afterwards, with dreadful consequences… Dreadful! And, of course, none of us knows what illnesses or accidents you may have suffered as a child… It’s most worrying, Davina. I really think it would be of benefit to you to take a glass of the waters…’
The memory of that strange metallic taste made me feel even more nauseous.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s just that this place is so stuffy. It’s fresh air I need.’
‘But we’ve only just arrived!’ Aunt Linnie said petulantly. ‘There’s so much more to see! And look – isn’t that Mrs Jotham who used to live at Uley? It is, I’m sure! She moved to Bristol to be near her son after Mr Jotham died. Yes, it is her! I’d so much like to speak to her! She will be so surprised to see me here, and I can catch up on all her news!’
It was so typical of Aunt Linnie, I thought, professing concern for my health one minute, running off at a tangent the next. It was impossible for her to concentrate on one subject for any length of time – particularly if it was something she found uncomfortable or distressing. Aunt Linnie liked everything to be pleasant and undemanding.
‘Stay as long as you like, Aunt,’ I said. ‘Talk to Mrs Jotham take the waters, listen to the quartet, whatever pleases you. But I have to go outside, in the fresh air.’
‘Alone?’ Aunt Linnie sounded scandalized. ‘Oh Davina, I’m not sure you should go out in the street alone.’
‘No harm will come to me, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘Thomas is nearby with the carriage, in any case. He followed us down here and will be waiting. If I should need him, I only have to call.’
‘I suppose so…’ Aunt Linnie’s look told me she still did not entirely trust Thomas. ‘Oh, Davina, he does make me feel so dreadfully uncomfortable! He’s so big. And so black!’
‘All the better to take care of me,’ I said a little sharply, for Aunt Linnie’s twittering, as well as the wretched pump room, was grating on my nerves. ‘Mr Paterson would never have entrusted us to his care if he were not perfectly reliable. And in any case, I’m quite used to looking after myself.’
The moment the words were out, I did not know why I had uttered them. In the last two years I had scarcely been allowed out of my grandparents’ sight. Could it be that unwittingly I was referring to my life before the accident? Was this how memory would eventually return to me, in tiny fits and starts, until one day everything fitted together like a puzzle? For though it made no sense, and I could not recall a single instance, yet I had the strangest feeling that I had spoken the truth – I had been quite used to looking after myself.
‘If you don’t go and speak to Mrs Jotham soon, you’ll miss her,’ I said to Aunt Linnie. ‘I’ll be quite safe, I promise. And I’ll see you outside when you’re ready to leave.’
‘If you’re sure…’ But already Aunt Linnie was starting in the direction of her old friend, and I turned and made my way through the thronging crowds to the door.
It was the most enormous relief to emerge into the sunlight and feel the fresh breeze on my cheeks, even if I could still smell the pervasive river stink on it. I could see the carriage drawn up and waiting in the shade of the trees, with Thomas holding the horses, but I turned in the opposite direction. He made me uncomfortable too, though for quite different reasons than those of Aunt Linnie – guilt that another human being could be owned by my future husband, and shame for the outrage that had been perpetrated against him.
In something of a daze I walked towards the shops. Even here, out of earshot of the music of the string quartet, I seemed to hear it still, mournful, painfully sweet, precursor of a future I did not want. A sob rose in my throat. I did not want to marry Mr Paterson, but I was trapped. Trapped by duty. Trapped by guilt. Trapped by honour. Trapped by love…
‘Rowan!’
It was a man’s voice, startled, yet somehow commanding. It must have been commanding, otherwise why would I have taken even the slightest notice of it, preoccupied as I was, and when it could not possibly have anything to do with me. Yet for a brief moment I checked, quite frozen, as if every nerve in my body, every pore, was listening. Then, as suddenly as if it had never happened, I moved on in the direction of the shops.
‘Rowan!’ the voice called again, and a hand caught at my arm.
This time I could not help but stop.
I turned my head and saw him. And in that moment the most dizzying wave of emotion washed over me. Surprise. Confusion. Joy. Yes, most of all, the greatest sense of joy I have ever experienced. And something else, something I could not put a name to, something half-seen through a mist, like those dreams from which I woke with the frustrating sense that I had almost, but not quite, glimpsed my long-lost past.
Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. All gone. The man was just a stranger to me. A handsome stranger, it was true, but a stranger none the less. And there was nothing left but a feeling of loss so dreadfully overwhelming that I wanted to weep.
I lifted my chin. My eyes met his hazel eyes, deep-set in a rugged face. His hair was unpowdered, the clothes he wore suggested quality, but no great interest in fashion. He looked a little like a sea captain, as if that face had been weathered by stormy winds and those hazel eyes were used to staring out over the vast and rolling expanse of the oceans. But just now they were fastened on mine, and the expression in them might almost have been disbelief.
‘I’m sorry, I think there must be some mistake,’ I said.
‘Rowan!’ His voice was raw with urgency. ‘For God’s sake, don’t play games with me!’
I shook my head. My heart was beating too fast; blood was roaring in my ears.
‘My name is not Rowan,’ I said. ‘My name is Davina. I think, sir, that you have mistaken me for someone else.’
‘Oh no!’ His hand tightened on my arm. ‘I couldn’t make such a mistake. Dear God, but I thought…’
I was beginning to be frightened. Panic swelled in me, the little pain in my temple was suddenly the red-hot bolt of the early days following the accident, blinding me, almost, with its intensity.
‘Please…!’ I whispered. ‘Let me go!’
‘Never!’
‘Please…’
‘Is this gentleman bothering you, Miss Grimes?’
Thomas! He must have seen me accosted and come to my aid. Relief flooded me. The big, handsome African was no longer a slave, someone to make me faintly uneasy, but a friend.
‘Yes,’ I said. My voice was shaking, along with my knees. ‘Yes, he is. He seems to think he knows me, but that is quite impossible.’
‘Unhand the lady.’ Thomas spoke quietly, but with an authority that would not be denied.
‘Rowan, for the love of God…!’ For a moment longer the stranger’s fingers bit into my flesh, hard enough to bruise it, and there was something like desperation in that rugged, weatherbeaten face.
Somehow I managed to stare him out defiantly, and suddenly, with an oath, he released me.
‘Do you truly not know me?’
‘I have never met you before in my life. And I told you, my name is not Rowan, but Davina. I’m sorry, but I am not the person you thought me to be.’
‘If I am mistaken, then I, too, am sorry. But I am not mistaken! How could I be! I thought her dead, but you…’
He was still staring at me, staring as if he were seeing a ghost. Suddenly I could bear his scrutiny no longer.
‘Thomas,’ I said. ‘Please find Aunt Linnie and tell her I am waiting in the carriage. I want to go home.’
I turned and walked away from the stranger, but I could feel his eyes following me. At the carriage step I turned back. He was still there, tall, handsome, enigmatic – and totally disconcerting. For a brief moment I wanted desperately to run back to him, ask him exactly who he thought I was. But my heart was pounding too fast, the pain in my temple was too sharp, I was too afraid.
Yes, most of all, without understanding why, I was afraid. And the fear swallowed me up, draining my strength, robbing me of coherent thought.
I sat in the carriage waiting for Aunt Linnie with the world around me fluid and nebulous, a kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns and formless emotions. When I dared to look around again, the man was gone.
Three
I could not forget him. Try as I might, I could not forget him. As I sat in the carriage waiting for Aunt Linnie I seemed to see him still, his tall muscular frame, his rugged, weatherbeaten face, his eyes – yes, most of all those hazel eyes, regarding me with surprise that bordered on disbelief and yet, at the same time, seeming to reflect that stab of pure joy which I had experienced in the first moment when I turned and saw him. As we drove back to Queen’s Square through the busy streets, I seemed to hear his voice in every hawker’s cry.
Rowan.
The name, as well as the voice that had spoken it, seemed to stir some echo deep within me. But for what reason? I was not Rowan, whoever she might be. I was, as I had told him, Davina Grimes. Of course I was! And yet…
I had only my grandparents’ word for that. Dear God… a shiver of ice ran across my burning skin. I had only their word for it that they were my grandparents, or indeed any relation to me at all! The whole of my life before I had opened my eyes in the bedroom of the Cotswold rectory was a complete blank to me. They could have told me anything, anything at all, and I would have believed them because I knew no different.
But why would they do such a thing? Certainly they had nothing to gain by it – if anything, taking me in and caring for me had cost them dear. They had nursed me with loving kindness, they had kept me, and I had been a drain on their meagre resources. And I had been able to give them nothing in return. No, it made no sense that they would take a desperately sick and penniless stranger into their home, give her a new identity and feed her a pack of lies about her past. No sense at all, even if I could believe them capable of such a deception. I was who they said I was – Davina Grimes, the child of their own disgraced daughter. I had to be! It was the only identity I knew. If I did not trust them, then who in the whole wide world could I trust?
But still the doubts niggled at me, flapping around and around inside my head like a flock of wheeling ravens. And my grandparents’ evasiveness worried me. They had, when it came down to it, told me very little about my past. Was it possible they knew more, far more, than they were willing to admit to?
I thought again of the strange conversation I had had with Aunt Linnie just this morning when she had referred to things she was not supposed to discuss with me. I had put it down to Aunt Linnie being Aunt Linnie – enjoying game-playing as much as any child, finding a sense of self-importance in having secrets that she must not share with anyone, least of all me. Now, instead of seeming amusing, if frustrating, her reticence seemed to me to be almost sinister. She knew something she must not tell. But what?
Gould it be that once I had been a girl named Rowan? And had I known a tall, weatherbeaten man with challenging hazel eyes? A man who had evoked a strong, if unidentifiable response in me, brief, yet frighteningly powerful, before it flickered and was gone like a lantern light in the fog?
Who was I?
For the last two years I had had no past, and I had almost grown used to it. Now, suddenly, I felt as if I could no longer be sure, even, of those two years. The whole of my world had shifted beneath my feet once more. I felt as if I stood on quicksand and it was sucking me in.
Somehow I had to learn the truth. Somehow I must find the weatherbeaten man and ask him just who he had thought I was. Maybe by now he would have realized his mistake and I would find I had simply run into another blind alley.
But if he had not made a mistake… A tremor ran through me, and the pain in my temple was so piercing it almost made me cry out.
Perhaps I was on the verge of discovering the truth about my past. A past my grandparents – if indeed they were my grandparents – had been at great pains to keep from me. And I must find out before I married Mr Paterson. I owed it to him. And, more important still, I owed it to myself.
* * *
The carriage came to a stop outside the house in Queen’s Square. Thomas handed us down and went to ring the bell for the maid to let us in.
About to follow Aunt Linnie into the palatial tiled hall, a feeling of panic suddenly overcame me, a feeling that, if I went inside the house, the door would close behind me, not just against the outside world, but also against the opportunity this morning had offered me to discover my lost self.
I turned and ran after Thomas, who was climbing back up on to the driver’s seat of the landaulet.
‘Thomas!’ I called urgently.
He paused, looking down at me.
‘Thomas…’ I hardly knew how to begin. ‘Thomas, the man who accosted me outside the pump room… Do you know who he was?’
For a brief second Thomas’ dark eyes narrowed and an expression that might almost have been wariness flickered over his sculpted ebony features. Then: ‘No, Miss,’ he said.
‘You’ve never seen him before?’
‘No, Miss.’
Disappointment flooded me. Why, oh why, had I not pursued the matter when I had had the chance? But the man had startled me so – and, to be truthful, frightened me. Now it was too late.
‘Will that be all, Miss?’ Thomas asked respectfully, and on an impulse I heard myself ask: ‘Was he a sea captain, do you think? Do you think if you drove me back to the docks we might find him?’
‘I do not think Mr Paterson would approve of that,’ Thomas said. His face was as expressionless as ever, but the disapproval in his voice was unmistakable.
Aware, suddenly, of
how far I was straying beyond the bounds of propriety, I felt the colour flood my cheeks.
‘No. Of course not. Yes, that will be all. Thank you, Thomas.’
He inclined his head slightly, a small, majestic tilt, and turned to climb into his seat. Confused by my own churning emotions I, too, turned away, and walked back towards the house. But the throb in my temple was sharper than ever, and the fog that surrounded me had never felt thicker or more impenetrable.
* * *
The front door still stood ajar, though both Aunt Linnie and Johnson, the maid, had disappeared inside. I went into the hall, shrugging off my thin wrap, and heard voices coming from the parlour. Great-Uncle Charles’ thin, reedy tones, and another voice, much younger, which I recognized instantly, and with a rush of pleasure.
Theo! Theo was home!
I started towards the parlour door to greet him, then stopped in my tracks.
‘Damnation, Theo, how could you be so stupid!’ Great-Uncle Charles was saying, his querulous voice high and shrill as a girl’s. ‘If this got out it could ruin us!’
‘It won’t get out,’ Theo returned. He sounded angry – and defensive. ‘You make such a song and dance of everything, Papa.’
‘Is it any wonder?’ Great-Uncle Charles railed. ‘I have spent my entire life building this business, and I won’t stand by and see you destroy it! I might be old now, but I still have my wits about me. You, on the other hand, seem to have lost yours!’
‘You handed the reins to me, Papa,’ Theo said, and I could tell his anger was barely under control. ‘You handed the reins to me because you had lost your nerve and that was leading to certain disaster. Now you seek to blame me for doing what I must. Well, I won’t have it. You must allow me a free hand.’
Forgotten Destiny Page 4
