Tapestry (42 page)

He looked at her, unnerved, unsure, desperate to understand. ‘Jane?’

‘I came back for you. Please give me a chance to explain. I need you in my life again. I need to feel your kiss …’

‘Again?’ she heard him murmur, and trembled as she felt the tentative and gentle caress of his lips. In that moment she knew that the right threads had crossed and knotted together in the tapestry of her life.

‘I love you,’ Jane said, and, for the first time in either life, she meant it.

J
uliette Granger had read and reread the separate — secret — letter her sister had posted from Perth, desperately trying to make sense of the words. Her parents had accepted the details in the letter that Jane had sent to them and resigned themselves to the knowledge that their daughter needed time, but Juliette suspected whatever Jane had written to them had skipped over the truth.

Where that was, Juliette had no idea. She presumed Australia, for where else could Jane have met someone between Will’s coma and waking up? It had been six weeks now since that letter and spring was giving way to early summer warmth, the Irish Republican Army was promising reprisals and strikes were being threatened. But Juliette was in a summery frock and sandals and she had a new man in her life. Although it was early days, it felt like the real thing. She couldn’t remember a happier time, and she was starting to realise that Jane’s decisions would no longer affect her or her future.
Jane says she’s happy
, she told herself as she waited in the foyer of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Now it’s my turn
.

Her flat sandals sounded gritty on the grey and white tiles, and echoes of other footsteps sounded around her. People spoke softly, but their voices carried and bounced against the hard surfaces, especially their laughter. A woman gave a high giggle and Jane followed its sound, but was immediately diverted back to the main doors, where she could see Pete arriving.

Pete was in furniture design, which made him interesting, and she loved his softer creative qualities, but the downside was that he was always dragging her into museums, even on a delicious day like today.

She tapped the face of her wristwatch and he arrived laughing, giving her a big kiss and pulling a rose from behind his back. ‘Picked it for you this morning.’ She gave a smile of pleasure. ‘Got me plenty of looks on the Tube,’ he admitted dryly as she kissed him again.

‘Thanks — now I forgive you for meeting me in a stuffy museum on a summer’s day!’

‘It’s not officially summer, and I shall take you to a park for a stroll and a cuddle and an ice cream, and whatever else your heart desires, very shortly. Besides,’ he said, looking up into the glorious rotunda of the V&A’s wedding-cake-like, Italianate lobby, ‘how could you ever call this stuffy?’

‘Are you going to lead me round early eighteenth century fabrics or something tedious?’ she bleated, with a deliberate whine in her tone.

‘As a matter of fact, no, but well done on getting the era spot on!’ he congratulated, dark eyes twinkling. ‘I have a surprise for you. It’s bizarre.’

‘Bizarre?’ she repeated.

‘Early Georgian; totally whacky, I promise … when you see it, you’re going to pinch yourself.’

‘All right, I’m intrigued.’

‘Second level. Come on.’ He took her hand. ‘It’s such a crazy coincidence. I have to show you — it will only take a couple of
minutes — and given all the worry you’ve been suffering over your sister, I thought it would make you smile.’

‘My sister?’ she said at the top of the stairs. ‘Is this about Jane?’

He nodded. ‘Sort of. Just something amusing for you.’

Juliette followed her boyfriend into light-filled galleries and was grateful he didn’t pause to explain the gilding on furniture, or the Chinese silk of such and such a fabric that was nearly five hundred years old, or the majestic commode so exquisitely carved, blah, blah.

She realised they were moving through chambers and passing through centuries from earliest to modern.

‘This way,’ Pete urged. He sounded genuinely amused.

Juliette read that they were now entering the Georgian age; they’d just been walking through an exhibition about domestic décor. It held zero interest for her, but she could imagine how learning about home furnishings down the centuries would thrill Pete, so she would indulge him. She was sure only love would have enabled her to do that!

He led her to a cabinet on the furthest wall, passing various chairs, tables, drapes and small vignettes of clustered domestic goods denoting different rooms in an early Georgian household. There were also households of different social levels, so museum-goers could draw an impression of domestic life during the reign of George I in every setting from a London slum to a fine rural household.

‘Here!’ Pete finally said, sounding triumphant. ‘Make what you will of that. I’m sure that’s the name you told me. Sackville, right?’

Juliette peered at where he pointed to two small oval paintings on china. Her gaze was drawn to the man first. He had dark hair and dark-looking eyes with an intense and brooding gaze. He was not smiling. In fact, he looked unhappy to be posing, but he could not, despite his serious expression, hide
the fact that he was a handsome fellow. He was dressed quietly in a long, dark frock coat, she imagined; she could see nothing below mid-chest. A silk cravat was tied loosely at his throat and he wore no wig; his hair was tied back neatly, she noted. She got the impression he had been painted standing in front of a stable. But her gaze was already sliding over to the woman in the painting next to him, seated in a garden setting. She had an infant on her lap and she was smiling.

Juliette blinked and caught her breath. The resemblance of this woman to Jane was unmistakable.

Pete was talking, although she only realised that now.

‘… you see.
Jane
, it says.’

‘What?’ Juliette murmured, her throat suddenly as dry as a desert. Her gaze followed where his finger stabbed urgently.

‘
Lord Julius Sackville, c. 1720. Lady Jane Sackville (née Granger) and the Honorable Miss Juliette Sackville, c. 1720
.’

The information accompanying the pieces went on to explain that painting on china was common in this era and that noble families often had small portraits of themselves commissioned for posterity, but Juliette wasn’t reading any of it. Her gaze fixated on the names. Julius, Jane, Juliette. Née Granger! Married to Sackville. Sackville was the name that Jane had impressed upon her — Julius Sackville, in fact. She felt dizzy.

‘Say something, Jules.’

But Juliette was still staring at the likeness of Jane, who looked out from the china oval with a serene smile.

‘I’ll leave you be a moment,’ Pete said, sensing his girlfriend’s response was not amused awe but genuine shock.

‘It’s her,’ she breathed. Juliette placed her hand against the cabinet, her fingers touching her sister through the glass. ‘Jane … I can see him. Julius Sackville. You made me promise,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve found you both.’

She didn’t realise she’d begun to weep silently. Pete was back, concerned.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean …’

‘No, no, you did the right thing. This is so exciting. But now I have to find out more. I need to know where these were found.’

‘It’s the summer of 1979. You know it can’t be her, right?’ he said, smiling bemusedly.

‘Sure,’ Juliette lied, straightening. ‘Come on, let’s get some sun. You said something about ice cream?’ she said, diverting him. As Pete wandered away, Juliette made a private promise that she would return and learn the provenance of these china paintings once owned by Lord Julius and Lady Jane Sackville.

You look happy, Jane
, Juliette cast out in her mind, and as she took a final glance at her sister she could have sworn she caught the fragrance of violets.

I
t is accepted that truth is often stranger than fiction, which is why the true story of the Earl and Countess of Nithsdale at the Tower of London is so powerfully romantic and helplessly attractive to a novelist. Nevertheless, I have taken liberties in this tale and twisted reality to suit my story. I must assure my readers, however, that some of the most incredible passages of the tale — those connected with brave Lady Winifred — are based wholly on facts learned from the history tomes.

I wrestled long and hard with how to write this story — should I try to recreate the language of the era, ignore it altogether, or attempt a hybrid form? Again I came back to what I am, and that’s a storyteller. For me to risk cramping the tale with clumsy attempts to deliver the dialogue in a wholly early-Georgian style seemed pointless. Instead, I have aimed to give readers a simple ‘sense’ of the style of speech, but mostly I’ve kept it modern so both sides of the story can flow.

Help came from unexpected quarters and perhaps the most exciting was a visit to the Tower of London, where I fully expected to be a common-or-garden tourist as I braved the autumn rains. I’d seen the Tower many times previously, particularly in my youth, but felt it was necessary to see it again, this time trying to imagine it in the early 1700s. What I didn’t expect was to meet the Constable of the Tower — Sir Richard
Dannatt, former Brigadier General of the British Army — and his wonderful and generous wife, Pippa, who welcomed me like a member of their family. Not only did I eat a scrumptious home-cooked meal in the dining room of the Queen’s House, but I also had the rare opportunity to see the very chamber of the Tower where William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale, spent his final days in England, and from where he was meant to be escorted to his hanging, drawing and quartering. The room is now a spare bedroom — cosy, cute and thoroughly everyday. But to see it meant everything to me for this novel. I’m indebted to the Dannatts for allowing me to tread in the footsteps of the real William and Winifred, as well as countless kings and queens of the realm. I walked the rooftops where Elizabeth I took a daily stroll on her parapet when kept at the Tower, and I explored the bowels of the Queen’s House (previously the Lieutenant’s Lodgings) where Sir Thomas More suffered at Henry VIII’s behest. None of these areas are open to the public, so it was a rare privilege. I enjoyed a private showing of the Crown Jewels and was a very special guest during the Ceremony of the Keys … I almost gave a royal wave to the shivering tourists. ☺ And all of this came about because of my agent, Charlie Viney, who not only pointed me to a book about the history of the Tower of London that prompted me to pursue this story, but also made it possible for me to meet the wonderful Dannatts. Thanks, Charlie, and for your energy and love for this story.

Everywhere I turned required research, which took me from the Guildhall Library in London to Saint-Germain-en-Laye just outside Paris. Even though I was working in London at the end of the ’70s, I was not paying enough attention in my late teens to know what all the locations looked and felt like in much detail, and I dared not rely on memory. So thank you to David Bieda from the Seven Dials Renaissance Partnership, a charity that has invigorated that area of London, for his assistance with historical details. Any historical errors are mine alone.

Sincere thanks to Stephanie Smith for her guidance as she edited, and especially to Emma Dowden for her fabulous work, and to the team at HarperCollins for embracing this new style of fantasy from me so enthusiastically.

I am deeply grateful to my husband, Ian, who gave so much of his time to the research of this book and took as much pleasure as I did in finding out nuggets of information, whether it was trawling through the London Museum or the V&A, or reading everything on the Battle of Preston, or even making contact with the present-day family at Traquair House in Peebles, where Winifred enjoyed happy times.

The Tower of London is, for most of us, a cheerful tourism experience. But over the course of researching and writing this book, I came to appreciate what a forbidding, frightening place it surely was in centuries past for anyone brought beneath Traitors’ Gate as a ‘guest of the Crown’. What Winifred — as a gentlewoman of 1716 — achieved cannot be underestimated. Her defiance of the Hanoverian king alone was astonishing, but the courage she found to take the action she did surely ranks her as one of the most romantic heroines of all time.

Enjoy!

F

Fiona McIntosh left the UK at twenty to travel, discovered Australia and fell in love with it. She has since explored the world working in the travel industry but now writes novels full-time and roams the globe for her stories. She has written over twenty adult novels in various genres, as well as six children’s books. Fiona lives with her husband and twin sons in Adelaide.

You can find out more information about Fiona on her website:

www.fionamcintosh.com