Lady of Hay

15

It wasn’t there. The room was silent. And empty. For a moment she sat quite still, completely bewildered, then, slowly, she remembered and with a sigh she flung herself back on the pillows. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Her arms felt empty, desolate; she ached with loneliness. It was as if part of her had been removed. The baby, with his downy hair, his tiny fringed eyelids, the fragments of caul still clinging behind his ears, the pale-blue swaddling bands that had imprisoned his little fists as he lay in her arms, staring up at her with so much love and trust. “Oh, God!” She turned over and buried her face in the pillows. “It was a dream. A stupid, bloody dream!” She groped on the bedside table for a box of tissues, then she pulled her clock to face her. It was half-past four.

She had begun to shiver violently. For a moment she lay back, huddled beneath the covers, trying to get warm, then, miserable, she sat up again. It was no good. She would not sleep again and she was getting colder by the minute. She wished fervently she had allowed Nick to stay now. She wanted someone to talk to. Her head was splitting and her breasts ached. She crossed her arms, trying to ease the discomfort, and suddenly felt a cold wetness on the front of her nightgown. She stared down at herself in horror, then she shot out of bed. After running into the bathroom, she turned on the light and slipped down the ribbon straps, letting the thin cotton slip to the floor, leaving her standing naked in front of the mirror. Her breasts were full and tight, laced with blue veins, and even as she stared in fascinated horror at her reflection she saw a drop of watery blue liquid forming on her left nipple.

Her heart was pounding violently. Desperately she tried to control her tears as she reached for her bathrobe from the back of the door and folded it around her. Knotting the belt, she groped her way into the living room and reached for the phone.

Her hand was shaking so much she could scarcely dial, but at last she could hear the tone. It was several seconds before the receiver was lifted.

“Nick. Oh, Nick, please come. Please.” She struggled to keep her voice steady.

“Jo? Is that you?” The voice at the other end was so quiet it was almost a whisper. It was Sam. “What’s wrong?”

Jo took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I’m sorry to wake you, Sam. Can I speak to Nick, please?”

There was a slight pause, then his voice, very gentle, came again. “He’s not here, Jo. Is something wrong?”

“Not there?” she echoed bleakly.

“I’m afraid not. What is it? You sound frightened. Has something happened? Tell me, Jo.”

Jo swallowed hard. For a moment she could not speak, then she managed to whisper, “Sam, can you come over?”

He asked no more questions. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said at once, then he hung up.

After she had rung off, Jo didn’t move. Slowly the milk was soaking into her robe. Her teeth were chattering in spite of the warmth of the room and she huddled on the edge of her chair, rocking herself gently back and forth, only dragging herself upright at last when she heard the sound of a taxi in the quiet street outside. She reached the intercom at the same moment that it buzzed.

Sam came up the stairs two at a time.

“What is it, Jo? Are you ill?” He closed the door behind him and stood staring at her. She saw with a quick pang of misery that he was wearing one of Nick’s jackets over his dark turtleneck shirt.

She was looking, he thought irrelevantly, more beautiful than he had ever seen her, her long disheveled hair dark against the stark white of her robe, her face pale, her huge eyes accentuated by the shadows beneath them.

“Nick said he’d go back to the apartment,” she stammered. “He said I could phone.”

“I’m glad you did.” Sam steered her into the living room and toward a chair. “Now, tell me about it slowly.”

Hesitatingly she told him about her latest visit to Bennet. She glanced at his face, expecting an outburst of anger, but he said nothing and she forced herself to go on. “Perhaps he knew what would happen. He prescribed sleeping pills for me before I came home, but I never take them. Nick wanted to stay, but I wouldn’t let him, so I suppose he went back to Judy after all.” She glanced down at her hands.

Sam said nothing. He was watching her face closely.

“I woke up,” she went on with a heavy sigh. “The baby woke me with his crying-William, he was to be called, like his father and his father’s father-but he wasn’t there.” Her voice shook. “And then I found-” She stopped. “I found that I’m…” She hesitated again, suddenly embarrassed. Mutely her hands went to her breasts.

Sam had seated himself near her on the arm of another chair. “I am a doctor, Jo,” he said softly. “You’re producing a bit of milk, right?”

She nodded, blushing. He smiled. He got up to kneel before her. “May I see?” Softly he pulled her robe open and looked at her breasts. He touched one lightly. Then he closed the robe again. He smiled. “It’s nothing to worry about, Jo. Spontaneous lactation is unusual but not unheard of. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable for a day or two but it will ease off. Stick some tissues in your bra.” He crossed over to the table and picked up the whisky bottle. “I’ll get some glasses, shall I?”

She followed him into the kitchen, pulling the knot of her belt tighter. “But how is it possible?” she asked huskily. “Is this another of your physiological reactions, like my hands?” She took the glass from him and sipped the neat whisky.

“I suppose so, in a way. You obviously went through all the emotional trauma of childbirth yesterday and in some women that would be enough to stimulate the glands. The breast is far more of a machine than people realize. It doesn’t necessarily always need a pregnancy and a birth to start it working. Adoptive mothers have been known to produce milk for their babies, you know. Anyway, you mustn’t worry about it. It’s perfectly natural. Just leave things well alone and it will calm down on its own in a day or two.” He leaned forward and tipped some more whisky into her glass. His hand was shaking slightly.

“Our dog had a phantom pregnancy once, when I was a child. Is that what I’ve had?” She managed a grin.

He laughed. “Something like that. But I don’t expect you to produce any puppies.”

“You are sure Nick wasn’t there?” Her smile had vanished already as she turned away from him. “You checked in his room?” She paced up the small kitchen and then back, her arms wrapped around herself to stop herself shaking, the glass still clutched in one hand. “I still love him, Sam. That’s the stupid thing. I love the bastard.” She stopped in front of the sink, staring at the pink geranium in its pot on the draining board. Absently she leaned forward to pick off a dead leaf and so she did not see Sam’s face. The cords in his neck stood out violently as he stared at Jo’s back.

With a little laugh she went on without turning. “You won’t tell him I said that, will you?”

“No, Jo.” Shaking his head, he recovered himself with an effort. “I won’t tell him. That I promise you.”

Sam was whistling softly to himself as he nodded to the janitor at Lynwood House, where Nick had his apartment, and let himself into the elevator. It was still not quite eight o’clock. He pushed open the apartment door and stood for a moment, listening.

“You’ve been out early.” Nick appeared at the bathroom door, razor in hand. “Pour out some juice will you? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Sam smiled. “Whatever you say, little brother. I trust you slept well?” He pulled Nick’s jacket off and hung it up.

Nick was looking at his watch. “I’m going to give Jo a ring to see if she is okay. I half expected her to phone last night, the state she was in-”

“No!” Sam said sharply. He withdrew the copy of the Daily Telegraph he had under his arm and held it up to scan the headlines. “Leave her in peace, Nicholas, for God’s sake. If everything you told me last night about her session with Bennet is true the last thing she will want is to be wakened at this hour of the morning by the telephone.”

Nick had turned back to the bathroom. He unplugged the razor. “I suppose you’re right…”

“I know I’m right.” Sam raised his eyes for a moment from the paper to give his brother a penetrating look. “I suggest you go down to see our mother this morning as arranged and let Jo alone for a couple of days. In fact, leave her alone until you get back from your wanderings across Europe. She does know you are going away?”

Nick shrugged. He was buttoning his shirt. “Scotland I can’t cancel, but the trip to France I could postpone.”

“Don’t.” Sam walked into the kitchen and rummaged on the shelf for the jar of coffee. “It isn’t worth it. Jo has made it clear enough it is over between you. Don’t let a temporary wave of sentiment because you saw her unhappy and emotional undo all the good you achieved by walking out on her. You’ll just make the poor girl more neurotic than she already is.”

“Why did she ask me to go with her yesterday then, if she doesn’t want to see me anymore?” Nick followed him into the kitchen, tucking his shirt into the waistband of his trousers.

“Did she, though?” Sam glanced at him.

He fished a loaf out of the bin and began to cut meticulously thin slices, which he tossed into the toaster. “Have you any marmalade? I haven’t been able to find it.”

Nick sat down at the kitchen table. He reached for the paper and stared at it unseeing. “She shouldn’t be alone, though, Sam,” he said at last.

“She won’t be,” Sam replied. “I’ll call her later. Remember, I am a doctor as well as a friend. I’ll give her a quick check over, if necessary, and make sure she’s in good spirits and while I’m at it read her the riot act about ignoring our warnings.”

“And you’ll phone me if she wants me?”

“She won’t want you, Nicholas.” Sam looked at him solicitously. “Get that into your thick head before you are really hurt.”

Judy stared morosely beyond the reflection of the dimly lit bar, through the indigo windows, at the rain-washed Pimlico Road. “I never thanked you for giving me such a good write-up,” she said at last to Pete Leveson, who was sitting opposite her. She turned her back on the window. “I’m sure it was thanks to you that the exhibition went so well.”

“Rubbish. You deserved success.”

Pete was watching her closely, noting the taut lines between her nose and mouth, the dullness of her eyes. “It is a bit of an anticlimax, now that it’s over, I suppose,” he said tentatively.

Judy sighed. She picked up her glass, staring around the wine bar with apparent distaste. “That’s probably it.”

“And how is Nick?” His voice was deliberately casual.

She colored. “He’s in Scotland, on business.”

“And Jo? Is she still dabbling in the paranormal?”

Judy drank her Buck’s Fizz, then with a grimace she asked, “Does the name Carl Bennet mean anything to you?”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Possibly. Why?”

“Jo went to see him on Friday afternoon, and the thought that she was going there was enough to scare Nick to death. He shot off after her as if she had left a message that she was having tea with the devil himself. Can I have another of these?”

Pete raised his hand to beckon the waitress without taking his eyes off Judy’s face. He gave the order and tossed a five-pound note on the table. “Bennet is a hypnotherapist,” he said. “One of the best, I believe. And among other things he takes people back into their previous incarnations to treat them for otherwise incurable phobias.”

Judy’s mouth dropped open. “You mean that is what Jo is doing? Jesus! She doesn’t believe in that sort of thing, does she?”

“You are not a believer, I take it?” Pete was looking amused.

“No, I am not! No wonder Nick is worried for her sanity. Anyone who believes that kind of thing is certifiable. No wonder she freaked out when I told her Sam thought she was schizoid.”

Pete was sitting back, still watching her closely. “She is doing it for a story, Judy,” he said tolerantly. “I think you should watch what you say, you know.”

Judy laughed again. Her third Buck’s Fizz on an empty stomach was going to her head. “I don’t have to in front of you, do I?” she said archly. “Or do you think there is a gossip columnist under the table? But seriously, who needs one of those when I’m having a drink with one of the most prestigious reporters in Fleet Street.” She glanced at him provocatively under her eyelashes. “You had a thing going with Jo once, didn’t you?”

Pete leaned back in his chair. “I don’t believe it was a secret.”

“And you still like her. Everyone who has had an affair with Jo seems to still like her. What a likable person she must be!” she added sarcastically. “Well, why don’t you find out exactly what it is she is doing? It would make a good story, surely?”

“Jo is researching her own story, Judy.” His voice was carefully neutral.

“It sure as hell wouldn’t be the same story if you told it, though, would it?” She ran her finger round the inside of her glass and sucked it pointedly. “Yours would be much more…sensational!”

She had huge eyes-light gray, with radiating streaks in the irises, fringed with dark-red lashes. Pete contemplated them for a moment as he thought over what she had said. Jo was a friend and yes, he was still fond of her, but the story, if there was a story, would not hurt her. On the contrary, it would counteract that bit in the Mail. In fact, why not sell this one to the Mail ? Give the real version of what was going on. Sensational, Judy had said. It was a word Peter could not resist.

Leaning forward, he put his hand over Judy’s and squeezed it gently. “Why don’t I get you another of those,” he said quietly. “Then you needn’t lick the glass. Later I’ll drop you back at your place and we’ll talk about this some more.”

Two days later Dorothy Franklyn rang the bell of the apartment in Lynwood House. “I hope you don’t mind, Sam, dear. I did so want to see you before you went back to Scotland.” She dropped three green-and-gold Harrods bags on the floor of the hall, then she straightened, looking at him for a moment. Reaching up to kiss him, she rumpled his hair affectionately before walking past him into the living room. “When are you going back?”

Sam followed her. “I’ve a few things to do in town and Nick said I could use the flat while he’s in France, so I’ll be here a week or so, I expect.” He threw himself into a chair and looked up at her. “You’re looking very spry, Ma.”

She smiled. “Thank you, dear,” she said. “Now tell me, how is Jo?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “What did Nick tell you?”

“Enough to make me very worried. This reincarnation business, Sam, it is all rubbish, isn’t it? I don’t like the sound of it at all. I didn’t like it when you were working on your thesis under that creepy man Cohen, and I don’t like it any better now. I think it’s dangerous. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with medicine, or science. And to think that Jo has got involved with mumbo jumbo like that!” She shuddered visibly. “Can’t you do something, Sam?”

Sam turned away from her and looked out of the window. In the distance he could see a solid wedge of traffic sitting in the broad sweep of Park Lane. “I’m not sure that I can,” he said slowly. “I think Jo has already become too involved to extricate herself even if she wanted to. I believe that we are dealing with a genuine case of total recall of a previous incarnation. There are too many facts, too many details.” He sighed. “Too many things fit into the picture, Ma.” He glanced down at the books on the table. “I’ve been thinking about all this very hard over the past week. When I heard the tapes of Jo’s first regression a lot of things began to make sense.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “It has forced me to change my views. I believe now that maybe, once in a while, if a person-or people-have left things undone, or perhaps made a terrible mistake in one life, it is possible that when they are reborn they are given a second chance.”

“And you think Jo is being given a second chance?” Her face was inscrutable as she watched him.

Sam smiled. “Jo. Or someone else.”

“You don’t really believe that?” she said after a moment. “That there is some kind of karmic replay?” She frowned. “That is an Eastern philosophy, Sam, not one that sits easily on Western shoulders.” She paused. “But how is Jo in herself, Sam? Nick was very worried about her. Especially when you called and said she didn’t want to see him before he went off to France. She did say that?” She was watching him carefully again.

“She was badly shaken by what happened last Friday and a bit confused. I think she felt she had made rather a fool of herself in front of him. It will all have blown over by the time he gets back and they will both be glad they didn’t meet again to prolong the embarrassment.”

“This theory of yours.” She went to stand near him. “Does Jo believe it too?”

“Jo is still fighting it.” Sam frowned. “And until she accepts it she is unlikely to accept the wider implication that others must have been reincarnated with her, so that they can work out their destiny together with hers. It has to work like that.”

“So you think now that Jo is not the only one.” Thoughtfully she walked back into the living room. “Do you think Nick is involved?” She looked at him suddenly. “He wasn’t someone in this past life of hers?”

“Oh, yes, Nick is involved.” Sam’s voice had suddenly lost its lightness.

“How do you know?” she asked sharply. She sat down, putting her cup on the coffee table. “And you?” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you involved too?”

“I rather think I am.” Sam sat down opposite her. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He gave her a disarming smile.

“And do you have any proof for this theory?”

“Proof?” He looked at her in astonishment. “How can there be proof? Don’t be obtuse, Ma.”

“I mean, have you or Nick had this hypnosis thing done to you, to find out?”

He shook his head. “Some things one knows. One remembers…”

She shuddered. “You’re giving me the creeps, Sam! I have never heard such a load of nonsense in my life. You’ve let your imagination run away with you. I suggest you go back to Scotland and imbue yourself with a good dose of Scots common sense!” She looked at Sam. “Who do you think you are-or were-in her story?”

Sam grinned. “Never you mind, Ma. I think we should stop talking about this.” His tone changed. “Now, what have you been buying? Are you going to show me?”

She refused to be distracted. “Did this Matilda have many men in her life?”

Sam grimaced. “At least two. Probably three.”

Dorothy was watching him closely. “Were they brothers?” she asked bluntly.

He laughed. “No, they weren’t brothers! Come on. Let’s stop talking about this.”

She continued, irritated. “Have you told Nick about this idea of yours?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

Sam shrugged. “That depends. I think it would be better if Nick concentrated on his advertising at the moment-and the delectable redhead in Fulham. There is no point in stirring things up needlessly.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Dorothy stood up briskly, trying to ignore her increasing panic. “Sam, I have to go. I’ve got one or two things to do before I catch my train.” She reached up to kiss him on the cheek, then she hesitated. “But tell me one thing first. You said you thought you had remembered things from the past. That is such a strange, frightening idea. What have you remembered?”

“It was when I was listening to the tape of Jo’s first regression,” he replied slowly. “I remembered a ring. A ring on the finger of a man.” He stared at the ceiling over her head. “I have remembered that ring for eight hundred years.”

There was silence in the room.

Dorothy licked her lips uneasily. “Why?” she whispered at last.

“Because he was my guest. And I murdered him.”

It was several days before Jo’s breasts returned to normal. Grimly she worked, typing up her notes, using every ounce of willpower she possessed to put Carl Bennet and Matilda de Braose out of her mind. She springcleaned the apartment, filled the storage closets, arranged to go back to Suffolk by train on Saturday morning to collect the MG, and less and less often had to remove the soggy tissues from her bra. Sam had told her that Nick was in France and she was glad. Nick was a complication she could not handle at the moment. Dutifully each night she took the two sleeping pills Sam had prescribed, went to bed at eleven, and slept heavily. Unpleasantly heavily.

She saw Sam only once more. He checked her over with quiet professionalism, ruffled her hair as if she were a naughty child, and went. She wished he had stayed longer.

When Pete Leveson called out of the blue she accepted his invitation to dinner with alacrity. He took her to the Gasworks and they sat in the huge, dimly lit reception room idly playing with the ornate chess pieces laid out in front of them while they waited for their table. Pete watched her covertly as he sipped his gin and tonic. “You’re looking great, Jo. Really great. How is work?”

She smiled. “It’s going quite well actually.”

“How did you get on with Carl Bennet? I hope the introduction was useful.” He moved a king’s pawn, not taking his eyes from her face, and saw her wary look at once.

“It was very interesting. Thank you, Pete.”

He waited for her to say more as she leaned back, staring idly around the room.

“Did you find out anything revealing?” he prompted at last.

She reached for her glass. “The woman never turned up that first time.”

“First time?” He picked her up at once. “So you’ve been again? Did he use hypnosis on you?” He moved one of her knights for her with a malicious grin.

“Three times now.” Gently she took it back from him and replaced it. She moved a bishop instead.

“And?”

She laughed uneasily. “It appears I have an alter ego. I still don’t believe I am her reincarnation-I can’t bring myself to accept that-but this woman is living a life somewhere there inside my head and it is so real! More real in some ways than the life I’m leading here and now.”

“Check.” Pete drained his glass. “You always were useless at chess, Jo. Why didn’t you let me help you? We could have made the game last at least ten minutes. Tell me about her, this lady who lives in your head.”

Jo glanced at him. “You’re not laughing?”

“No. I told you. I find it fascinating. I have always hankered after the idea of having a past life. It’s romantic, and comforting. It means if you fuck this one up, you can have another go. It also means that there might be a reason why I’m so unreasonably terrified of water.”

Jo smiled. “I expect your mother dropped you in the bath.”

“She swears not.” Pete raised his hand to the young man hovering in the background and ordered fresh drinks. “So shoot. Tell me about your other self.”

It was a relief to talk about it again. Relaxed and reassured by Pete’s quiet interest, Jo talked on. They finished their drinks and moved to their table in the grotto dark of the restaurant and she went on with the story. She kept back only one thing. She could not bring herself to mention her baby, or what had happened after his birth. When at last she had finished Pete let out a long, low whistle. “My God! And you’re telling me that you intend to let it go at that? You’re not going back?”

Jo shook her head. “If I go back again, I’ll go a thousand times. I’ve got to make myself drop it, Pete.”

“Why? What’s wrong with knowing what happened? For God’s sake, Jo!” He grinned. “I wouldn’t stop. I’d go back again and again till I had the whole story, whatever it cost. To hell with where she comes from. Whether she’s a spirit from the past or a part of your own personality fragmenting for some reason, or you in a previous existence, she is a fascinating woman. Think of the people she might have known.”

Jo smiled wryly. “She knew King John.”

“Bad King John?” He rocked back on his seat. “What a story that would be, Jo. Think-if you could interview him, through her! You can’t leave it there. You can’t. You must see that. You have to go back and find out what happened next.”

Judy was in the shower when Sam called the next morning. Wrapped in a towel, she picked up the phone, shaking her wet hair out of her eyes, watching the drops lying on the studio floor. The water was still running down her legs making pools around her feet. She dropped the towel and stood in the rectangle of stark sunshine from the window.

“Yes, Dr. Franklyn, of course I remember you,” she said, grinning. “What can I possibly do for you?”

Sam heard the grin at the other end of the phone. “I want you to do something for Nick,” he said slowly. “He was feeling pretty low last week-I expect you know. And now he is in France and he could use some company. Supposing I gave you his address. How soon could you be at Heathrow?”

“You mean he wants me to go to him?” Judy’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Shall we say I am sure he would be pleased if you were to turn up unexpectedly. I owe Nick a favor. I’ll even pay for your ticket. My present to you both.”

Judy raised an eyebrow. “It’s very kind of you, Dr. Franklyn, and I’d love to go.” She was staring at her naked reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall in front of her. “I never need to be persuaded to go to Paris. Especially is there’s a free ticket! But if I weren’t such an innocent, I might just ask myself what the real reason behind this sudden philanthropy was.”

He laughed out loud. “Then I’m glad you’re an innocent, Miss Curzon. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

Ceecliff met Jo at Sudbury on Saturday morning and bore her home in an elderly Land Rover. The old house was full of dappled sunlight, every door and window open onto the garden, and Jo looked around her with enormous pleasure and relief. Somewhere deep inside she had been afraid the tension of that weekend two weeks ago might return.

Triumphantly Ceecliff produced a bottle of Pimms. “Nick is in France, you say?” She poured out two glasses as they sat down beneath the willow.

Jo nodded.

“And did you make it up before he went?”

“We parted friends, I suppose,” Jo said cautiously. What was the point of telling Ceecliff that he had left her frightened and alone in her apartment and gone straight to Judy? That he hadn’t been there when she needed him and that she hadn’t seen him since? She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her face and forced a smile. “I’ve decided to go back to the hypnotist again. No more hysteria, no more involvement. Just to find out, objectively, what happened.”

Ceecliff pursed her lips. “That is madness, Jo. How can you possibly be objective? How could anyone?”

“Because Dr. Bennet can tell me to be. That is the beauty of hypnosis, one does what one is told. He can use my own mind to hold everything at arm’s length.”

Ceecliff raised an exasperated eyebrow. “I think you’re being naive, Jo. Extraordinarily naive.” She sighed. Then after heaving herself out of her chair, she turned toward the house. “But I know better than to argue with you. Wait there. I’m going to fetch Reggie’s papers for you.”

She returned with an attaché case. Inside was a mass of papers and notebooks.

“I think you should have all those, Jo. The Clifford papers. Not much compared with some families’ archives, but better than nothing. Most of it is about the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. You can look at that another time. Here. This is what I wanted to show you.” She unfolded an old letter, the wax that had sealed it still attached to the back, the spidery scrawls of the address faded to brown.

Reverently Jo took it and screwed up her eyes to read the unfamiliar copperplate hand. It was dated 12 June 1812. Jo read aloud. “‘My dear Godfon and Nephew’-he’s using long s ’s!-‘I was interested in your remarks about Clifford Castle, near Whitney-on-Wye, as I too visited the place some years back. I have been unable to trace a family connection with those Cliffords-Rosa Mundi, you will remember, was poisoned by the indomitable Eleanor, wife to King Henry II, and I should dearly have wished to find some link to so tragic and romantic a lady. There is a legend, however, which ties us with the land of Wales, so close to Clifford. I have been unable to substantiate it in any way, but the story has persisted for many generations that we are descended from Gruffydd, a prince of south Wales-though when and how, I know not. Let it suffice that perhaps somewhere in our veins there runs a strain of royal blood-’” Jo put down the letter, laughing. “Oh, no! That’s beautiful!”

Ceecliff grimaced. “Don’t go getting any ideas above your station, my girl. Come on, put it all away. You can look at it later. Let’s eat now, before the food is spoiled.”

While her grandmother rested, Jo drove to Clare. She parked near the huge, beautiful church with its buttresses and battlemented parapets and stood gazing at it, watching the clouds streaming behind the tall double rank of arched windows. Had Richard de Clare stood looking at the same church? She could picture him now, the last time she had seen him, in the solar at Abergavenny, his hazel eyes full of pain and love and courage, the deep-green mantle wrapped around him against the cold, clasped on the shoulder by a large round enameled brooch.

She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and stared at it morosely, then, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder, she let herself in through the gate and began to walk toward the south porch.

Richard de Clare had never stood in this church. One look around the fluted pillars and high windows told her it had been built long after Richard’s time. Disappointed, she began to walk up the broad aisle looking around her. There were several other people wandering around with guidebooks, talking in muted tones. Ignoring them, she made her way slowly up the chancel steps and stood staring at the altar, thinking of the last time she had stood before a shrine-was it at Brecknock?-with Gerald saying mass. She remembered the mingling of the incense and the candles, their acrid smoke blown by the cold wind off the mountains that filtered through every corner of the castle. She remembered looking up at a carved, painted statue of the Holy Virgin and praying for her unborn baby, praying with a faith suddenly so intense, so absolute, that it had filled her at the time with a calm certainty that her prayers would be heard. I wonder how long Matilda kept that faith, she thought grimly, her eyes on the cross that stood on the altar. Did she still have it when she died? She had not told Pete Leveson that she already knew the end of the story, nor Ceecliff.

She was conscious suddenly of someone watching her as she gazed at the cross and, embarrassed, she turned away. In this so Puritan, so Spartan, church, the memories of her Catholic past seemed almost indecent, and to the agnostic, twentieth-century Jo, the urge to go down on her knees and then cross herself as she turned away from the sanctuary was like a primeval hangover of some strange superstition.

Hastily she retraced her steps and let herself out into the churchyard. She drove slowly through Clare, savoring the beautiful medieval buildings of the Suffolk town, and turned to follow the signs toward the country park and the castle.

After parking once more, she stood and stared around her. Where the huge castle of the Clares had once stood were now the hollow remains of a ruined railway station. The Great Eastern Railway had come, destroyed most of what remained of the castle, and in its turn had gone, leaving only the empty shell of the station, trimmed and manicured, with mown grass between the platforms where the track had been. Only a few fragments of wall remained of the castle that had stood for nine hundred years. But the motte was still there-the high, tree-covered mound on which the original keep had stood-and determinedly Jo climbed it, following the spiraling path to its summit. From there she could see the whole of Clare spread out in a shimmering panorama before her. The air was soft. It smelled of new-mown hay and honey. She stood there for a moment and rested her hands on the surviving chunk of flint-built wall, as if by touching the stones she could reach back over the years, but nothing happened. There were no vibrations from the past. Nothing at all.

That night Jo went through her grandfather’s attaché case. Sitting in her bedroom, the windows thrown open to the scented garden, she felt absolutely at peace. The small table lamp was attracting the moths but she didn’t notice as she pulled out the old letters and diaries and his notes. Never before had she felt even the remotest curiosity about her ancestors. Like Ceecliff, her interest was in the present, perhaps because her father had died while she was still too young to remember him properly. Her mother Jo rarely saw now. They met from time to time, felt a rush of warm emotion as they kissed, then slowly sank into mutual incomprehension as they tried to find some common ground. At present Julia Clifford was in San Tropez. A fond smile touched Jo’s mouth for a moment as she thought of her mother. They would meet again in the autumn or at Christmas, probably here, at Ceeciff’s, exchange gifts and a little bit of gossip, then their paths would once more diverge. Jo looked back at the letter in her hand wondering suddenly how much of her own tartness was a direct reaction against her mother’s vapid fluttering. But Julia, she knew, would have no time for the past either. For her the past, like Jo’s father, was dead.

There was only one mention of the distant past in the letters. The mysterious Gruffydd of Wales. Was Matilda somehow an ancestor of hers, through him? But how was that possible when William was so implacably the enemy of the Welsh? She wished she had noted the names of Matilda’s children more closely now, and what had happened to them. Only one name lived in her memory. Little William. Her baby.

She got home very late on Sunday evening, exhausted by the long drive through the heavy traffic, and she slept soundly, untroubled by dreams, to be woken by the phone.

“Jo? Is that you?” It was Bet Gunning. “What the hell are you up to, giving that story to Pete Leveson?”

“What story?” Jo yawned. She looked at her clock sleepily. “God! Is it really nine? Sorry, Bet, I overslept.”

“Then you haven’t seen today’s papers?”

“No.” Jo could feel her stomach beginning to tighten. “You’d better tell me the worst.”

“ Daily Mail exclusive-a whole page-by Pete Leveson. Entitled Clifford’s Secret Life. It’s all here, Jo. Your hypnosis. Matilda de whatever-her-name-is…bloody hell! I thought we had a deal. I thought this was one of your articles for W I A .” Bet was furious. “I know we’re a monthly. I know Pete is a friend of yours, but you could at least have given me an option-”

“Bet.” Jo interrupted. “I know nothing about this. That bastard took me out to dinner on Friday night. We talked off the record, as friends.”

“Off the record?” Bet scoffed. “That’s just what it’s not. He’s got you verbatim. ‘Imagine my terror and confusion,’ Jo said to me last night, ‘when I found myself alone in an alien world…’”

Jo could feel herself shaking with anger. “I never said any such thing!” she said furiously. “I’ll sue him, Bet. How dare he! I’ll call him now, then I’ll get back to you-”

She slammed down the phone and dialed Pete’s number. It was several minutes before he answered.

“Jo, how nice. Have you seen it?” His voice was laconic.

“No, I haven’t seen it, you turd!” Jo stamped her bare foot on the carpet like a child. “But I’ve heard about it. Bet Gunning is hopping mad-but not as mad as I am. Everything I said to you was in confidence-”

“You never said so, Jo,” Pete put in gently. “Sorry, but not once did you ever mention the fact that you wanted all this kept secret. If I’d known that-”

“You could have guessed, Pete. You used our friendship. That was the most cynical piece of underhanded behavior I have ever witnessed. And the fact that you didn’t tell me what you wanted to do proves that you knew it.”

There was an exaggerated sigh on the other end of the line. “Cool it, Jo. It counteracts the item in the Mail Diary the other day. It establishes that you’re into something interesting, and it keeps you in the headlines. Three plus factors, if you ask me. When your own story comes out they’ll be out there baying to read it!”

“Did you use Carl Bennet’s name?” Jo was not to be appeased.

“Of course-”

“He’ll be furious! You had no right without asking him.”

“So, if he wants, I’ll apologize, but he won’t object to some free advertising. The Great Public will beat a path to his door. Look, Jo, love, it’s super talking to you, but I’ve got to get dressed. When you’ve thought about it a bit you’ll realize it’s all good publicity. See you!” Blandly he hung up.

Still angry, Jo dragged on her jeans and a sweater. After catching her hair back from her face with a scarf, she grabbed her purse. Outside Gloucester Road subway station she bought a paper from the news vendor, then she sprinted back to the apartment.

As Bet had said, it was a whole-page feature. There were no less than three photos of her-one a glamorous, misty picture taken three years before at a ball with Nick. He had been blocked out. The picture made her look dreamy and romantic and very beautiful. It had been taken by Tim Heacham.

Jo had to dial three times before she got through.

“I am sorry, Jo, I really am. I didn’t know what he wanted it for.” Tim was contrite. “Hell, what was I to think? Pete was back in favor as far as I could see. I had no reason not to give it to him.”

“But it is such a god-awful picture! It makes me look-” Words failed her.

“It makes you look quite lovely, Jo. I did try to call you, as it happened, to check, but you were away.”

“I was in Suffolk. I went to look at Clare while I was there.”

“Clare?” Tim’s voice sharpened. “Why?”

“Didn’t you read the article?” Jo was staring at it as she spoke. “‘The handsome man whose love had come too late…The passionate Richard who had to turn away and leave his lady to her fate…’” She grimaced. “He came from Clare. I went to see his castle.”

“And did you find him there?” Tim’s voice was curiously flat.

“No, of course not. Is something wrong, Tim?”

“No,” he said quietly. “Why on earth should anything be wrong?”

That night the baby woke her again. She was deeply asleep, the sheet thrown back because of the warm humidity of the night, the curtains and the window wide open. She woke very suddenly and lay still, wondering what it was she had heard. Then it came again, the restless mewling cry of a hungry baby. She felt herself grow rigid, her eyes wide in the darkness, not daring to breathe as the sound filled the room. Slowly she forced herself to sit up and grope for the light switch. As the darkness shrank back into the corners she stared around. She could still hear him. Hear the intake of breath between each scream, thin pathetic yells as he grew more desperate. She pressed her hands against her ears, feeling her own eyes fill with hot tears, rocking backward and forward in misery as she tried to block out the sound. At last she could bear it no longer. She hurled herself out of bed, then ran to the door and dragged it open, closing it behind her with a slam. Then she ran to the kitchen. With the two doors closed she could no longer hear his anguished cries. Her hands shaking, she filled the kettle, banging it against the taps in her agitation. The Scotch was in the living room. To reach it she would have to open the kitchen door. She stood with her hand on the handle for a moment, then, taking a deep breath, she opened it. There was silence outside in the hallway. She ran to the living room, grabbed the bottle, then she hesitated, looking at the phone. Any time, Sam had said. Call any time…

She knelt and drew it toward her, then she stopped. The apartment was completely silent, save for the sound of the kettle whining quietly in the kitchen. She could not ask Sam to come to her in the middle of the night a second time, because of another nightmare.

She made herself some tea, took a slug of Scotch and the last three sleeping pills, then she lay down on the sofa in the living room and pulled a blanket around her shoulders in spite of the hot night. There was no way she was going back into her bedroom until morning.

Tim was in his studio, staring at a copy of the photo of Jo and Nick. He had blown it up until it was almost four feet across and had pinned it to a display board. A spotlight picked out their faces with a cold, hard neutrality that removed personality, leaving only feature and technique behind.

Thoughtfully he moved across the darkened studio to the tape deck and flipped a switch, flooding the huge, empty room with the reedy piping of Gheorghe Zamfir, then he returned to the photograph. He stood before it, arms folded, on the very edge of the brilliant pool of light, the only focus in the huge vaulted darkness of the studio.

Beside him on the table lay a small piece of glass. As he tapped the powder onto it and methodically rolled up a piece of paper, his eyes were already dreamy. He sniffed, deeply and slowly, then he walked back to the picture.

It was some time later that, with a felt pen, working with infinite care, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth, he began to draw a veil and wimple over Jo’s long, softly curling hair.

It was about ten o’clock the next morning that a knock came at the apartment door. Jo opened it to find Sheila Chandler, one of her upstairs neighbors, standing on the landing. She was a prim-looking woman in her late fifties, the intense unreal blackness of her iron-waved hair set off by a startling pink sleeveless chiffon dress. Jo barely knew her.

She gave Jo an embarrassed smile. “I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Clifford,” she said. “I know you’re busy. We can hear you typing. It’s just that I thought I must look in and see if there is anything I can do to help.”

Jo smiled vaguely. “Help?” she said.

“With the baby. I’ve had four of my own and I know how it can be if you get one that cries all night. Staying with you, is it?” The woman was staring past Jo into the apartment.

Jo swallowed hard. “He…you heard him?” She clutched at the door.

“Oh, I’m not complaining!” Sheila Chandler said hastily. “It’s just that on these hot nights, with all the windows open, the noise drifts up the well between the buildings. You know how it is, and my Harry, he’s not sleeping too soundly these days…”

Jo took a grip on herself. “There’s no baby here,” she said slowly. “The noise must be coming from somewhere else.”

The woman stared. “But it was here. I came down-last night, about eleven, and I listened outside your door. I nearly knocked then. Look, my dear, I’m not making any judgment. I don’t care whose baby it is or how it got there, it’s just, well, perhaps you could close the window or something. Have you tried gripe water?”

Jo took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Chandler”-at last she had remembered the woman’s name-“but whatever you think, there is no baby!”

There is no baby.

She repeated the words to herself as she closed the door. Last night at eleven she had sat there, in silence, listening, and there had been no sound…

She went straight to the phone and called Sam, then she walked through into the bedroom and looked around. The windows were wide open. The room was tidy-and empty. The only sound was the distant roar of traffic drifting between the houses from the Cromwell Road.

Sam arrived at ten to twelve. He kissed Jo on the cheek and presented her with a bottle of Liebfraumilch.

She had put on some makeup to try to hide the dark rings under her eyes and was wearing her peacock-blue silk dress. Her hair was tied back severely with a black velvet ribbon. He looked her up and down critically. “How are you feeling, Jo?” The makeup did not fool him, no more than had her cheerful voice and breezy invitation. She had sounded near the breaking point.

“I’m fine. My breasts are back to normal, thank God!” She managed a shaky smile. “Let’s open that bottle. I’ve drunk all the Scotch. Sam-I think I’m going mad.”

Sam raised an eyebrow as he rummaged in the drawer for a corkscrew. She found it for him. “It’s the baby. I’ve heard him again.”

“I see.” Sam was concentrating on the bottle. “Last night?”

She nodded. “And, Sam, the woman upstairs has heard him too. She came down to complain.” Her hands were shaking slightly as she reached for two wineglasses from the cabinet.

He took them from her, his hands covering hers for a moment. “Jo, if the woman upstairs has heard it there has to be a logical explanation. There must be a baby in one of the other apartments and you’ve both heard it.”

“No.” Jo shook her head. “It was William.”

“Jo-”

“The noise was in this apartment, Sam. She said so. Last night. She stood on the landing outside my door and listened, and heard him!”

Sam pressed a glass of wine into her hand. “May I wander around?”

Jo waited on the balcony, sipping her wine, staring across into the trees in the square. It was five minutes before Sam joined her.

“I admit it is a puzzle,” he said at last. “But I’m not convinced there isn’t a baby-a real baby-somewhere in the building, or perhaps next door.” He had brought the bottle with him and topped up her glass. “Unless-I suppose there is a faint possibility that somewhere psychokinetic energy is being created, presumably by you-to project the sound of a child crying, but no, I don’t think so. It is so unlikely as to be impossible. I suggest you put it out of your mind.”

“I can’t,” Jo cried. “Can you imagine what it’s like hearing little Will cry, knowing he’s hungry, wanting to hold him? Wondering why, if I can’t feed him, someone else doesn’t? Someone who is there, in the past with him!”

“Jo, I did warn you,” Sam said gently. “You should have stopped while you still could.”

Jo stared at him. “You mean I can’t stop now?” She snapped off a stem of honeysuckle. “No, of course I can’t, you’re right.” Leaning on the balustrade, she sniffed at the delicate red and gold flower. “I tried to call Dr. Bennet but he’s still away in the States. Sam, I’ve got to work this thing through, haven’t I? I’ve got to get it out of my system. And the only way to do that is to go on with the story. Find out what happened next.” She turned to face him. “Please, Sam, I want you to hypnotize me. I want you to regress me.”

Sam was watching her closely. Thoughtfully he raised his glass and took a sip of wine. “I think that’s a good idea, Jo,” he said at last.

“You mean you will?” She had been prepared for a stand-up argument.

“Yes, I’ll hypnotize you.”

“When?”

“After lunch. If the mood seems right we’ll have a go this afternoon.”

To her surprise Jo wasn’t nervous. She was relaxed in Sam’s company, relieved not to be alone in the apartment anymore, and she enjoyed the lunch with him. Several times she found herself talking about Nick, as if she could not avoid the sound of his name, but each time she sensed Sam’s disapproval and, not wanting to spoil the atmosphere between them, she changed the subject. They played music and drank the wine, and she lay back on the sofa, listening to the soft strains of the guitar.

She was almost asleep when she felt him sit down on the sofa beside her and gently take the empty wineglass from her hand.

“I think this is as good a moment as any to start, don’t you?” he said. He raised his hand and lightly passed it over her face, closing her eyes as he began to talk.

She could feel herself drifting willingly under his spell. It was different from Carl Bennet. She could hear Sam’s voice and she was aware of her surroundings, just as in Devonshire Place, but she could not move. She was conscious of him standing up and going over to the front door, where she heard him draw the bolt. Puzzled, she wanted to ask him why, but she could feel part of her mind detaching itself, roaming free, settling back into blackness. Suddenly she was afraid. She wanted to fight him but she could not move and she could not speak.

Sam sat beside her on the sofa. “No, Jo,” he said softly. “There is nothing you can do about it, nothing at all. It never seems to have crossed your mind, Jo, that you might not be alone in your new incarnation, that others might have followed you. That old scores might have to be settled and old pains healed. In this life, Jo.” He gazed down at her silently for several minutes. Then he raised his hands to her face again. “But for now, we’ll meet in the past. You know your place there. You are still a young and obedient wife there, Jo, and you will do as I say. Now, you are going back…back to that previous existence, Jo, back to when you were Matilda, wife of William, Lord of Brecknock, Builth and Radnor, Hay, Upper Gwent and Gower, back to the time at Brecknock after Will’s birth, back to the day when you must once again welcome your husband and lord into your bed.”