Tapestry (23 page)

Sackville stood uncomfortably by the door. ‘I took advantage of —’

‘No, Julius … no, you didn’t.’ She reached for him, held him again. ‘I am my own person. I make my own decisions. I wish I could explain …’

‘Could you try?’

She searched his broken expression. ‘I like it so much when you call me Jane,’ she began, ‘because when I’m with you, I
am
Jane Granger. Winifred Maxwell is someone else. Can you understand that?’ She searched his face, pleading with her eyes that he somehow might understand her cryptic words.

He surprised her by nodding. ‘Curiously, I don’t think of you as Winifred. That name has no meaning for me. You are only Jane to me and I prefer it that way. You are a stranger, you belong to no one, you are the make-believe woman that inhabits Lady Nithsdale.’ At this, Jane gasped, and he frowned with worry. ‘What I mean is that I prefer to think of you as the woman you are pretending to be rather than Winifred Maxwell. There are moments when I think I see you struggle with yourself.’

‘You mean like a few moments ago?’

He nodded, meeting her gaze. ‘When we are together as we were just now, I could almost believe you to be a different person.’

‘Wot’s going on?’ Bellow bleated, still with his eyes closed, but clearly stirring.

‘We must go,’ Julius said, suddenly brisk and withdrawn again. He dug into his pocket and took out a card. ‘We are but an hour from our destination now. We will make it, Jane, I
promise you. And when we reach London we shall part. I likely will never see you again, but should you ever need me, here are my addresses — my club in London and my home in the north. I am … I am yours for —’ He shook his head.

‘Forever is a long time,’ she said, knowing that was what he had wanted to say. It echoed in her mind that Will had once said the same.

‘Nevertheless, I am yours,’ he said, so softly it hurt to hear his tenderness. She didn’t want him to be weakened by her.

She took the card, barely looking at it before slipping it into her cloak. She inhaled a slow, deep breath, unsure of what to say, but letting instinct guide her. ‘Julius, if a woman you don’t recognise should ever introduce herself to you using the name of Jane Granger, will you give her a fair hearing — give her a chance to explain something?’

He blinked. ‘I do not know what you mean by that.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Neither do I. My emotions are in turmoil, but you need not say anything, just make a silent promise to pay attention to a stranger claiming to be Jane Granger.’

He frowned and began to say something, but Jane moved to the door, denying him any chance to query her strange request. The pain of parting was too great, as was the shock of realising that here was the partner she’d searched for her whole adult life, but that she must now turn away from him and deny their love.

Bellow was awake for the final hour of their journey and let them know in no uncertain terms how much this trip was costing him in suffering and pain. They didn’t share another personal word, but kept to polite exchanges about the distance and the weather. When the town finally hove into view an unspoken sense of missed opportunity and a deeper, less tangible loss passed between them.

At the inn they were separated immediately and Jane didn’t see him again until the first group of their fellow travellers had been safely brought into the town, Cecilia and the Leadbetters
among them. Jane used the intervening time to rest but not sleep, her thoughts too ragged.

Julius bowed to the two friends. ‘Hello again, Miss Granger. Miss Evans, I’m glad you’re safe.’

‘The five hours passed easily enough in slumber, Lord Sackville. The carriages fetched us very quickly. I cannot imagine what you paid to get the innkeeper to move so many men and horses at once.’

He waved away her enquiry as if it meant nothing. ‘I am going back with the men to help. But I should warn you, there are no coaches getting through. I suggest you take horses. The roads out of Grantham are a little easier on horseback. I have taken the liberty of reserving two sturdy mounts, should you wish to take advantage. They are the last pair available.’

‘What about you?’

‘Your journey is more urgent. Your husband awaits you, Lady Nithsdale,’ he said, and she heard the underlying sorrow those words cost him. He cleared his throat and shifted his attention to Cecilia. ‘I am presuming you have done enough sleeping for a while,’ he said, infusing the moment with levity for her benefit. ‘But at least you shall be on your way and Grantham a dim memory,’ he said, not glancing at Jane, but the message was there all the same.

Jane spoke before Cecilia could reply. ‘That is very kind of you, Lord Sackville. Cecilia, would you mind fetching our things from the men who brought them? Then we can leave immediately.’

Cecilia nodded and hurried off, leaving Jane alone with Julius; she had to seize what felt like it would be her final opportunity with him. ‘Julius … in another lifetime, perhaps things might have been different … I know you believe in fate, but I wonder, do you believe in other worlds?’

He gave a rare smile. ‘I have never thought upon it, but I should like to think in a different world we might have …’ and then he stopped as she had.

Jane rushed to fill his awkward silence. ‘Well, in that different world there lives a woman called Jane Granger and she deeply regrets that she is not in a position to know you better. Do not forget her. I think that’s what I was trying to ask of you earlier.’

‘How could I forget her? I believe she has rekindled something in me that I thought was long dead.’ He stared at her and looked on the brink of referring again to their time in the hut …

‘Do not say the word, Julius,’ she pleaded.

‘Then I shall say that I do hope we shall meet again, brave Jane.’

‘As do I,’ she managed to choke out, tormented by a host of new perceptions, and assaulted by feelings she dared not explore. ‘I want to give you this,’ she said, holding out a tiny glass phial. She shrugged awkwardly. ‘I retrieved it from our luggage when it arrived. Perhaps it will be a fond memory for you.’

He could smell from the glass stopper the perfume of violets. ‘But surely you need —’

‘I have another, remember, back at home? May it remind you of me.’

‘I will dab the perfume on my pillow every night and think of you next to me,’ he said, his voice gritty with pent-up emotion.

Just then Cecilia returned and Sackville tore his gaze from Jane. ‘Keep her safe, Miss Evans,’ Sackville urged, pocketing the phial, his voice tight as he bowed slightly to Cecilia.

Cecilia broke all protocol by hugging him.

‘You looked like you could use that, Lord Sackville,’ Cecilia admitted, seeing his surprised countenance. ‘That is from both of us — all of us, in fact — for taking charge.’

One of the men from the rescue party arrived and touched his cap. ‘Ready for you, Lord Sackville.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, and ground his jaw as the man retreated. ‘Well, I should best be off.’

Jane held out her gloved hand, determined to remain demure. ‘It has been a pleasure, sir,’ she said, and dared to twitch a meaningful smile at him.

He took her fingertips lightly and bent over to place a soft kiss upon them. ‘Miss Granger, I shan’t forget you,’ he said, lightly reassuring her of his earlier promise.

She wanted to hug him as Cecilia had, but instead placed her kissed hand inside her cloak — as if to shield it. She permitted herself to look upon Julius once more, and fix his fine features and strapping frame into her mind’s eye, because that was all he could be from now on: a mental image to cling to … a memory of a broken dream.

He nodded and turned away, and Jane watched the man she suddenly knew she loved walk away from her as she gathered up the treacherous memories of his kiss, his hands, his body on her and in her, together with his passionate words, and locked them away in a place not even Winifred could touch.

‘Winifred?’ Cecilia queried, hurrying alongside her as she marched behind the Angel Inn’s servants to its stables. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? The innkeeper told me a snowstorm is threatening to break south of here. Should we not stay overnight at least?’

‘Do not fret on my account. We have come too far. We have no choice but to press forward.’

‘You
must
rest.’

‘I have! Besides, I can rest in the saddle. We are hardly going to gallop, given the conditions.’

‘But —’

She thought of saying goodbye to Julius, and what had resolutely pressed her to do so. ‘They’ll execute William, Cecilia! The Protestant usurper will —’ Her friend made a hushing sound, looking around, worried that they might have been overheard. Jane dropped her voice to a hiss. ‘He will ensure the Earl of Nithsdale and his head are parted.’

And then my Will shall die
. She thought of him hooked up to machines, on the brink of death, and the crushing weight of her guilt over Julius suddenly crowded into that same vision. Was this now a new form of guilt driving her on and on?

Stop it, Jane!
she yelled inwardly.

She let go of Julius’s card and reached for Cecilia’s hand instead. ‘I understand if you would rather not —’

‘Do not be quick to judge my intent,’ Cecilia replied. ‘I set out on this wretched journey so that you need never travel alone and I have no intention of abandoning you or your dear husband now because of a few feet of snow!’

Jane nodded. ‘Let us not even talk about the blizzard that I fear we must yet ride through,’ she admitted, looking out across the pearled and frigid landscape. ‘We must make Lincolnshire before the New Year is out and then we have one hundred more miles to London, which I do hope we shall make by carriage.’

‘It is better not to think beyond the next hour,’ Cecilia counselled. ‘If we survive each hour, the days will take care of themselves … and so also will our journey.’

‘Amen,’ Jane said, beneath her breath. She sighed and looked at her friend. ‘Let us ride bravely for Stamford, then.’

They walked their horses — paid for by Sackville, much to their astonishment — out of Grantham and onto the open road. He had not lied: the path ahead did look flatter, less icy. But Jane was in no mood to give herself any false illusions. The way was treacherous and Julius would have only suggested the horses because he knew she would not remain a moment longer. He probably suspected she would have set off on foot had he not made the arrangements for them.

In her pocket, where she was warming her hand, she could feel the card Julius had given her. The details were easy to memorise, but the connection with him was more important. He had touched this, drawn it from his pocket and handed it to her. At one moment they had been linked through this
card — their fingers clasping either side of it. She had allowed this man to make love to her. She was engaged to Will. Winifred was married to William.

‘Cecilia,’ she said suddenly, ‘would you laugh if I told you I have had the notion that someone else has invaded my body? I have not been feeling myself of late. I fear it has prevented me from doing everything for William that I should.’

Cecilia’s expression shifted instantly to sympathy. ‘Shock, I’m told, can make us behave curiously. You could not have done more for your husband. Assure yourself there is no greater love than yours and William’s. Why do you think I have accepted no offers of marriage?’ Jane looked up and met Cecilia’s searching gaze. ‘I want to find what you two have. I want to hear birdsong in my mind when I see the man I love and I want to blush like I see you blush when William whispers something only for your hearing. I want to have that private smile you both reserve only for each other, that silent language that you can use to communicate without words across a room. And until I experience that, I am not giving myself to any man.’

And there it was. Cecilia had managed to say with passion what Jane had been softly prodding her soul for since Will had asked her to marry him.

Those were the elements of a relationship that she wanted as well, and she had finally found them in a man she could not have.

I
t was the afternoon of New Year’s Eve in London, and the world was on the brink of slipping into the last year of the seventies. A Moroccan restaurant, Riad, was offering up couscous as its dish of the day; most Britishers had not even heard of couscous, certainly not tasted it. But the owner, a sixth-generation Berber, was determined to bring genuine Moroccan cooking into the next decade of London’s ethnic fabric.

Tonight he would entertain his patrons with traditional dancing girls balancing trays of fresh mint tea in silver pots and tea glasses on their heads as they gyrated fast and furiously, defying gravity. There would be four of them this evening to ensure a festive atmosphere. They would wear their gossamer-thin, shimmering costumes, tinkling with charms and dazzling with gold ornamentation, while their sinuous bodies moved rhythmically to the drums.

The British thought Arab girls performed ‘belly dancing’! Mahmoud sighed, but if it filled his restaurant, he would have a prosperous Christmas–New Year period and that meant he could take his wife and infant children back to his Moroccan homeland for January and February to escape this vicious winter. The restaurant looked even more exotic than usual, with additional drapes and charms and terracotta tajines to create a
real Berber atmosphere — not that his guests would understand such details. He shrugged. So long as they appreciated the food, he would be happy. He smiled as his nostrils were hit with the aromas of cumin and tumeric, paprika and cinnamon, and he pushed through into the restaurant’s kitchen.

‘Make it special tonight, my friends,’ he said to the staff, as the scent of spices wafted beyond the confines of the restaurant and drifted upstairs to a vacant space that Mahmoud had held high hopes of renting out as an office. It was in a perfect location, especially for an agency — dramatic, literary, PR or even a small advertising agency. He must have shown at least one potential renter through for each week that his restaurant had operated. It was troubling that he couldn’t get any of them to take on the lease, no matter how he’d sweetened the deal.

He’d repainted when they had said they weren’t keen on how dark it seemed; he’d had a team of professional cleaners go through when someone else had complained of a strange smell of decay; he’d even relaid and revarnished the floorboards in a desperate attempt to make the office feel new and fresh. New lights, new doors, even new carpet on the top floor landing, but there were still no takers.

People often shivered when they walked into the office for a viewing. ‘Cold in here, isn’t it?’ they’d remark. Mahmoud would make an excuse that the heating hadn’t been on in months, but he was lying. The heating was on, yet nothing he did could get the temperature high enough for him to admit it was even warm. And when he’d called in the professionals, they’d scoffed at him because the radiators worked perfectly well whenever they were present.

He was clueless as to the meaning of this phenomenon and had begun to let the thought gain purchase that his upstairs office was haunted.

It was ridiculous, but he had no explanation for the footsteps that his staff had heard above them, or the smell of freshly
ground coffee. One person had even remarked that she thought she’d heard a man’s voice.

And sometimes … rarely … members of the public might walk up those stairs. The office had its own entrance, which couldn’t be seen from the restaurant, but whenever Mahmoud heard someone arriving, he’d dash upstairs — hoping it was a potential renter — only to find the office empty. The most recent visit had occurred only a few days ago. One of the dishwashing staff — a pretty girl, in her late teens, with a punk hairstyle and bright smile — had been running late and told him she’d seen a well-dressed woman entering the side building clutching a lavender-coloured pamphlet. Mahmoud, frowning, duly paid a visit upstairs to an empty office, where an aroma of freshly poured coffee and a curious waft of perfume lingered.

He’d already decided that in the New Year he was going to have a holy man visit the office and bless it … just in case.

Upstairs, where the scent of Moroccan spices wafted, a small, neatly dressed man of indeterminate age stared at an old, tarnished mirror on the mantelpiece as he heard the echo of Mahmoud’s thought.

‘No need,’ Robin murmured to the restaurateur. ‘I shall be leaving now.’ He returned his attention to the mirror, where a woman, with identical features to his own, stared back at him. ‘Has she left?’

The woman, known as Robyn, nodded. ‘She is on her way to London.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Why her?’

‘Why not?’

They regarded each other: one and the same, yet separated by centuries.

‘Tell me,’ Robyn urged.

He shrugged at his reflection. ‘I found her troubling situation touching. She was conflicted and she needed clarity — the sort of objectivity that this experience might deliver her. The challenge of restoring her fiancé using life’s tapestry wasn’t something that her wealth could buy. It required her to move beyond everything familiar and easy in her life, and believe only in herself, for no one could know what she was facing or taking on. Besides, we both like Winifred Maxwell. We could have let Jane’s life run its natural course, but I chose to interfere.’

‘We’re not meant to.’

‘And yet we do … all the time, in little ways.’

‘This is not little. This is changing the course of history. It is forbidden.’

‘Whose history?’

‘Any one of the cast of characters whose lives you are dabbling with.’

‘I’m giving one person a chance to choose, that’s all.’

‘But you are changing her life — and the lives of others — by shutting down her choices. You gave her no choice!’

‘I know you do not believe that. Jane is yet to make the hardest choice of all. I’ve given her a chance to look at her life from a different perspective. What she thinks she wants, perhaps she really doesn’t. What she turns away from, she knows is what she searches for.’ Robin watched his female reflection blink and hold back what she wanted to say. He smiled slyly. ‘What’s more, Julius Sackville could —’

Robyn hissed, cutting him off. ‘Do not play with his life!’

Robin held up his hands in surrender and chuckled.

‘This is not your role,’ she snapped.

‘What is my role?’ he asked, sounding defiant.

‘To offer insight when someone looks for guidance, but not to coerce.’

‘She came to me, searching for answers. When someone actually looks beyond the obvious and is prepared to open
themselves up to a spiritual awakening, I feel it deserves reward.’

‘Do you really see this as a reward?’

‘She could be bleating by her fiancé’s bedside, watching him die.’

‘She could die in a snowstorm on the snow-blocked roads of Britain in 1715!’

‘1716,’ he corrected. ‘The New Year is nearly upon us all. Let it be, Robyn. Jane Granger will make her choice soon enough. Until then, Winifred Maxwell is being given an opportunity like no other and both William Maxwells could live.’

‘Or die!’

He shrugged. ‘That was the situation with or without my involvement.’

‘And Julius Sackville?’

‘I sense you have a soft spot for him.’

‘He doesn’t deserve this, Robin. He’s suffered enough at the hands of women.’

Robin didn’t answer. Hearts were hurt every day. He couldn’t be responsible for every single one of them. He waited, knowing Robyn would move on.

She did. ‘Maybe we should have let Winifred die instead of leaving her dormant within herself.’

‘Perhaps, but occasionally it’s intriguing to see what mortals will do when they’re shown a pathway. Winifred needed Jane’s strength to live. Now it’s up to Jane and Winifred to —’

‘Hello? Is anybody in here?’ came a new voice. It was Mahmoud. He shook the door handle to check it was locked. Robyn heard the sound of keys rattling in the lock and her reflection in the mirror blurred and disappeared as her male self, Robin, winked out of existence.

Mahmoud burst in through the door. ‘I’m warning you —’ he said, to be greeted by silence, an empty space and the sound of the old mirror leaning on the mantelpiece cracking as time stood still.