A Bridge Through Time: (Time Travel) (13 page)

“We can steal a few hours from time, my love, but not more,” Jane interrupted him with a kiss, “and we mustn’t forget it. There is danger in forgetting.” Tears slid down Jane’s cheeks. “Lie beside me, Jes – take off all those clothes!”

After undressing, Jestyn blew out all candles except the one by the bed. Then he lay down beside Jane and kissed Jane’s tears on each of her cheeks. He then kissed her mouth so that her sigh was lost in his. He turned slightly and put his right leg over her left leg and his hand on that place he had dreamed of all day.

Jane sighed deeply and put her hand over his. “More, Jestyn,” she urged. Jestyn then caressed her with his hand until she sighed so deeply he sat up and folded up her legs Jane moaned with pleasure and pulled down his head so that she could kiss him again and again.

They should kiss, she thought, until they both bridged the time gap between them.

For a while Jestyn and Jane were lost in each other. Yet lurking in the room was the realization that they were stealing a few hours from time and that no matter how they looked at it, they could never belong to each other. They lay still in each other’s arms, holding tightly, as if already time was pulling them apart.

Very soon she and Jestyn would be making love again. There was no room for sleep when their time together was measured and coming to its end.

“I am happiest when I am with you, darling.”

“Oh, Jestyn!” Jane’s eyes filled with tears.

In the early morning, Jestyn took Jane back to her room and when the sunlight flooded her room she was awakened from only two hours of sleep by Aunt Florinda who had slept for twelve hours and was ready to go down for her breakfast.

They would soon head back to Greywick Hall, and the hours they had spent together would be pressed between the pages of her memory as the happiest she had ever lived.

CHAPTER 16

“Jane!”

On hearing Jestyn call her, Jane rushed out of her room and smack into his arms.

“I’ve got wonderful news, my love,” Jestyn said, glancing down the corridor to make certain they weren’t heard. “I found Father’s diary!”

“Oh mygosh, Jestyn! He might have written something concerning why he rejected your first portrait!”

“That’s what I thought exactly,” Jestyn said, holding Jane close to his side and kissing her temple.

They went to the library and leaving the door open, so that anyone could walk in, they sat side by side at the large table by the window.

Jestyn opened the diary to the first page.

“Did you start to read it?” Jane asked.

“No. Whatever is in there we must discover it together.”

“You’re not afraid your father might have written something embarrassing?”

“Father?” Jestyn laughed. “Not likely!”

“He wasn’t the kind to write anything salacious, eh?”

“He wasn’t the kind to
do
anything salacious, either. The last years of his life he became more and more interested in the history of the Druids and he spend innumerable hours of each day buried in books. Not that the Druids left any history of themselves as they were notorious for their oral history. But other historians wrote about them and Father became immersed in those books. He feared the Druids with a baseless fear, for they had done nothing that would have awakened such animosity from Father.

“I, on the other hand, admired our Druid legacy and took it close to my heart. I read extensively about the Druids and their magic, but always in stealth, for had Father found out my intense admiration for them he probably would have caned me.

“His obsession made the last years of my mother’s life wretched, for he neglected her terribly. He became deathly afraid of the connection the family had to the Druid warlords and believed that the family’s connection to them would destroy his family. Mother tried to dissuade him from his obsession but he was adamant. That may have been the reason he was so upset when Cannidge painted that pendant in my hand.”

“That’s so sad,” Jane replied, shaking her head. “I hope your mom – mother, found other interests to occupy her.”

“She turned to her friends. Lady Elizabeth became closer to her as Father became distant. They were second cousins, you know.”

“Oh. I’m glad,” Jane said. “I’m grateful to Lady Elizabeth for the gift of her sister’s clothes. She must have been saddened by her sister’s death.”

“Yes. It was devastating to her to lose her sister. “I lost a dear cousin to the influenza, too.”

“Influenza is not a problem in our age as it is in yours, Jestyn. People are vaccinated each year for different strains of influenza that appear. Medical treatment for it is readily available for those who contracted influenza because they were not vaccinated and people rarely die of it, unless it’s complicated by age or other illnesses at the same time.”

***

On returning to the house, the butler told Jestyn that there was an urgent message from Mr. Cannidge.

He requested that they were to go to his house immediately upon returning home.

After Aunt Florinda was settled at home Jestyn and Jane boarded Jestyn’s closed carriage again and had their coachman’s under driver take them to the village and on to Cannidge’s house. They said not a word in the carriage, tense as they were as to what information Cannidge had for them.

Upon arrival, Cannidge met the carriage at his door.

“Miss Fielder, Mr. Greywick, come inside at once,” he said in a highly excited voice.

Once inside his house he led them to his study.

“Today, on waking, it suddenly came back to me,” he told them, “the place where I had hidden the journal! I remember going down the stairs I led you through, down into the bowels of the earth. As I told you before, I was in extreme fever and I barely remember that I went down and then up again. I cannot account for how I found the journal in one of the secret niches in the tunnel, or what led me to it.”

“I’m so glad you did,” said Jane.

“May we see it?” asked Jestyn.

Cannidge opened a cabinet in his study with a key and brought out an ancient journal with a crumbling leather cover. He handled it with great care and slowly opened it to a page around its middle which he had marked with a piece of foolscap and motioned for Jane and Jestyn to read where he pointed.

The Greywick life hangs in the balance. A counter balance must be found to oppose the sorceress’s influence. It must have been Marlaek who influenced Grelen into becoming a warrior. There was no sign of this before she befriended him.

“Mystic Stone Bridge. It is where two of the sides of the magic triangle meet and a fissure allows some people to enter into another dimension. You can return to your time only by going to Mystic Stone Bridge at midnight or close to that time and you must not cross on foot. Your feet cannot touch that area because you are charged with the magic and it would incinerate you. You must close your hand around the pendant as you cross the bridge in a carriage.”

Tears slid down Jane’s cheeks as she and Jestyn read the rest of the words:

The magic is bestowed by Grelen and Marlaek. Grelen, an ancestor of Jestyn Greywick, was a Druid warrior and Marlaek was a Druid warrior sorceress that often accompanied Grelen in his combat missions. They were in love and were separated for all eternity by an envious witch who coveted Grelen.”

“We will be separated just as Grelen and Marlaek were, by a cruel witch,” Jane said, as she thought of Lady Millthorpe, who coveted Jestyn.

Jane shook her head, brushing away the tears. “It looks like your father became paranoid–”

“What?”

“Just a clinical term, Jess. I guess this word is not yet too common in your time. Such terms are very common in my time, to describe obsessions. Paranoia means a fear of being persecuted, to the point of obsession.”

“That describes Father’s delusions, all right,” Jestyn said. “Poor father. But, at least he was able to give us instructions on how to get you back to your time. I hope, from Heaven where he is, he may see the good he did for us.”

“There are several pages missing,” said Cannidge. “They seem to have been cut off. There is not a continuation of what your father was writing but there is more writing. Listen:

I took a stroll in the garden a few hours ago. I thought I heard a noise in the library. A
strange
noise that had no basis in reality, like a deep moan from the nether world. The house had been silent until then. I had been reading journals for several hours and had become upset at what I read. Then came the noise. It upset me more than I could have imagined! I slammed the journal shut and went out of the house. It was close to two in the morning.

The moan continued in the garden. I realized then that I was being followed by some ghost or spirit. The noise was not just a house noise of timber readjusting but an actual form that had followed me outside! I knew then that the Druids were unhappy with me for my writings and they were beginning to take action.

“There are no more pages in his diary, said Cannidge,” Jestyn had a worried look in his eyes.

He sat back, shaking his head.

“When did you father die?” Jane asked.

“He died about a year after he wrote this entry,” Jestyn said, pointing to the diary, “two years ago.”

“And what did he die of?” asked Cannidge.

“He became weakened by the depression that had taken a hold of him. He stopped eating regularly, He had sent me to his estate in the north to deal with very serious problems with the tenants and barely had I solved that problem when he urged me in a letter to go to London on his behalf, to speak with his solicitors about a problem with some land dispute.

“I had been there but a week when my father’s valet wrote to me, urging me to return because my father had begun to neglect his meals and had lost weight.

“I hurried back and took over his meals, personally spoon feeding him because he had become weak from lack of nourishment and could not even hold the spoon or fork. Slowly, I brought him back close to his former weight but his mind was not as it had been before. His obsession with the Druids had increased rather than abated.”

“So it wasn’t anything connected to what he had become obsessed about,” Jane sighed in relief.

“Father was saddened after my mother’s death. I think he felt he had contributed to her death by his obsession with the family’s history.”

“That was probably why he rushed over here with the journal and gave it to my keeping. He didn’t want it to be in his house,” said Cannidge.

“Were you and Cedric as affected as your mother was by your father’s behavior?” he asked.

“Yes. Very much. Cedric more than I. He’s five years younger. I tried to comfort Mother, telling her that Father’s obsession was a passing phase. Yet even as I said the words I knew it wasn’t a passing phase because his obsession had taken him over. I believe his death was his release. I tried to tell him that the family’s connection to the Druids was a good one, as I felt it was. I was proud of our connection to Druid warriors that were leaders in their time, yet Father would shake his head and walk away.

Jestyn and Jane thanked Cannidge profusely and boarded their carriage.

Jane broke the comfortable quiet in the carriage.

“It must have been awful for you and Cedric, to see your father sinking into despair and you being unable to pull him out of it, Jes.” Jane pressed Jestyn’s hand.

“Cedric vowed he would never marry, because he felt he would pass on Father’s obsessions to his children.”

“He is now engaged to be married, Jes. What made him change his mind?”

“He met Lorraine,” said Jestyn with a broad smile. “Isn’t that always the case? Love changes everything. I, too, vowed never to marry after my experience with tragedy. Then I met you. Yet no matter how much I turn it over in my mind, I will choose your safety above all else.”

***

Jestyn reached over and taking Jane’s hand in his own kissed it tenderly.

“The fair is coming to town,” he told her. “It’s to start tomorrow. I would love for you to go with me.”

“Would you?” he pressed, when she remained quiet.

“We may be tempting fate,” said Jane. But even as she said the words a feeling of elation at the thought of being with Jestyn one more day was coursing like fire through her. She would not be able to deny them one more day. Besides, they had the instructions for her getaway from the past. She would soon be safely transferred out of the past and one more day with Jestyn would be pure heaven.

“We now have the way for me to return to my time,” Jane said. “I guess one more day will not make a difference and it will mean the world to me.”

“And to me,” Jestyn said, glad that Jane had agreed to go to the fair. He could not stand the thought that now she had the means to leave his time, even though they had fought so hard to find the way.

“Yes, we
are
tempting fate and she might turn around and slam us both,” Jestyn agreed. “But the thought of spending another full day with you, my love, just means heaven to me. How can I not desire it?”

“I, too, need another day with you, Jes. And I would like to see the bridge again with you.”

“We’ll go there, Jane, so that you will become familiarized with it. But first I want to give you a few driving lessons in the curricle, which is the carriage you will be driving when you cross the bridge. I want you to be able to drive the carriage across the bridge confidently and not have the bays bolt on you.”

Their coachman got down from his perch and put the step for Jane to get down.

***

They would look over the area, Jestyn told Jane, so that she would familiarize herself with it. So, soon, Jestyn, Jane and Aunt Florinda were ensconced in Jestyn’s curricle, on their way to Mystic Bridge. The curricle had a wide driver’s seat and all three fit smugly, with Jane in the middle.

“That bridge used to be called the Mystic Stone Bridge, my dears,” Aunt Florinda looked up from her embroidery, “back when Mother was a child.”

“Mystic Stone Bridge!”
Jane said, her eyes wide with astonishment. “That’s what it was called in the journal!”

“Why was the name changed, Aunt?” Jestyn asked.

“It was too long, I think. They just shortened it to Mystic Bridge because that was what people called it.”

When they reached the bridge Aunt Florinda stayed in the carriage, saying her legs hurt from the humidity of the day and Jane and Jestyn walked hand in hand over the bridge.

***

Next morning, Jestyn asked Jane if she would like to ride a horse to the fair. Her leg was almost healed and she might enjoy riding a horse a lot more than being again cooped up in the carriage. As it was not the sprained leg that she would fold around the lady’s mount Jane readily agreed. She had learned to ride a horse as a teenager and had done some horse riding in upstate New York at a friend’s farm, so she looked forward to it now.