Lady of Hay (24 page)

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.