“Was it built exactly as it is now? Half ruined? I thought perhaps something had happened to it.”
“Oh no, for there is beauty in decay, is there not? I think I understand what my grandfather tried to do. There are times when I consider a faded rosebud more beautiful than a bright bloom. Such intimations of mortality speak to our souls, don’t you think so?”
Evie ran past them, calling as she went. “Come along, do! I will be first to the top of the tower!”
“Evie, have a care!”
“Oh, Nell, I know well … the stairs are steep and uneven, the wall broken in parts, the drop long, and the water deep. When have I ever so much as stumbled?” She ran on, quickly disappearing through the doorless archway at the base of the building.
“She is so reckless,” Petronella observed.
“Is the folly unsafe?”
“Oh, not really. It appears to be crumbling but is firmly built. Only my sister’s haste makes it dangerous, for the fall into the lake would indeed be perilous.”
Once through the entrance Xanthe could see that the structure was, for the most part, a facade, with very little by way of rear walls or interior. There was part of a keep—which had a small room set into the wall with a gate of iron bars closing it off, putting her in mind of the blind house in Bradford—and then spiral stairs leading up to the turrets, all covered with carefully planted and nurtured ivy. The effect was convincing. If she hadn’t been told otherwise, Xanthe could well have believed this was a remnant of an ancient building. The climb was steep and not made any easier by the long skirts of her dress, nor the tight stays of her bodice that forced her to take shallow breaths. They could hear Evie, already at the top, teasing them for their slowness. Xanthe looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand against the fractured sunlight that sliced between the castellations of the uppermost wall. As they emerged from the shadows of the stairs they were rewarded for their climb with an astonishing view.
“Isn’t it splendid?” Evie demanded, bouncing with excitement.
“It certainly is,” Xanthe agreed. From their vantage point, the landscape flowed away in all directions. To the south lay great swathes of pasture where sheep and cattle grazed. To west and east were further meadows, along with the hillocks and small copses that broke up the more exposed nature of the lower reaches of the parkland. North of the folly sat the house, though partly obscured by trees, the wall of the garden, and the quadrangle of stables and coach house to the rear. From such a perspective, Corsham Hall was reduced in scale, somehow, seen in such an expansive setting, yet still retained its grand presence.
“Such a drop!” Evie exclaimed, leaning over the low wall of the parapet.
“Evie!” Petronella pulled her back. “You will have my hair turn white before you are grown, I swear it! Step back, child, I beg of you.”
“But, Nell, is it not thrilling, to be so close to danger? Do you not love it?”
“Indeed I do not! It is the least appealing aspect of the folly, and I do not believe it is the purpose of the building to terrify.”
Xanthe was not so sure. Given what Petronella had said about the beauty of decay, and taking into account the broken nature of the construction, it seemed to her that everything about it spoke of ruin, of mortality, of death, even. It was, she knew from what she had learned of paintings and literature of the era, what the Romantic movement was all about; to move people to feel strong emotions by reminding them of the frailty of life. She peered over the edge of the wall and experienced a burst of giddiness brought on by the vertiginous drop and the thought of the dark water below.
“Is it very deep?” she asked.
“Father has always said that it is deep enough to save any who might fall in from the folly tower. Happily, no one has put it to the test.”
Evie shook her head. “One might survive the fall,” she said seriously, “but the snatching weeds at the bottom of the lake are so thick they would take hold of you and pull you down until you drowned!”
“Oh, Evie, what morbid thoughts you harbor. Miss Westlake does not wish to have her head filled with such gloom on such a sunlit day.”
“I nearly drowned myself once. Not on purpose,” Evie insisted. “I fell from the rowing boat and those deadly weeds twisted about my ankle. Father jumped in and fetched me out, else I should not be here to tell the tale,” she explained with relish.
They stood awhile, taking in the spectacular view, pondering the ever-present chance of fatal accident, letting the heat of the July sunshine slow their thoughts. Suddenly, Evie cried out, pointing into the distance.
“Look! There is Father, and your brother, Miss Westlake. Do you see?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, squinting against the sun to better make out the two riders. She recognized the brown horse Liam had been given. It was moving swiftly, in front of his host’s heavy chestnut cob. “And there are the others,” she said, noticing Fairfax on his grey, and Henry, out in front, unsurprisingly, galloping hell for leather on his highly strung black thoroughbred. They were all moving fast, going in the direction of a dark, dense wood at the far edge of the estate.
Petronella sighed. “Must men always be in such a hurry? Would that they could learn caution to temper their fearless youth,” she said wistfully.
Xanthe turned back to look at her then, thinking of how painful it must be for her to see a young man living his carefree life while her fiancé had given his for king and country. She was, in that moment, so clearly a heartbroken young woman, not an eager bride, and Xanthe felt a new rush of pity for her.
They left the folly and continued their walk, which took them through a patch of woodland that afforded welcome shade. The last of the bluebells added a shimmer of blue to the ground as dappled light fell through the broad-leafed trees. Two wood pigeons called to each other and a short way off a woodpecker could be heard hammering against hard bark in search of grubs. Even with her hat, Xanthe was glad of the protection of the woodland canopy, as the midday heat was a trial in so many layers of shift, petticoat, and dress. At least the fabric was light and cool, and however tight her stays, the fashions of the day did not call for the sort of corsetry that would, in a few short decades, practically render the wearers handicapped for lack of breath and movement.
After a further thirty minutes’ walking they left the woodland and emerged onto an area of smaller meadows with a lane tucked against one side of the shallow valley. This they followed, rounding a corner in a few hundred yards to see the dower house directly ahead of them. Xanthe had been expecting a modest home, perhaps with a fancy facade and pleasant garden. In reality, the dower house was only modest when compared to Corsham Hall. It was constructed of the same glowing, honey-colored stone, three stories tall, each with long windows, the width allowing six of these and suggesting plenty of rooms for residents and servants. She recalled that such places were, after all, given to the dowager of the big house, and had to be seen to reflect the status of the owner. If the resident had once been the lady of the Hall, she would not happily downgrade to a meager cottage just because the next generation had taken over her previous home. A dower house had to be elegant, imposing, charming, and large. The other thing about it that struck Xanthe, and made her bite her lip with frustration, was that it looked practically impregnable. There was a huge front door beneath a classical portico, and the scale of the home suggested there would be quite a number of servants living inside it. It would never be completely empty, and its treasures and privacy would be well guarded. She chided herself for ever imagining she would be able to somehow just gain entry, sneak about, find the astrolabe, and take it. Even if she could get inside unnoticed, Fairfax was unlikely to leave the thing anywhere other than locked up somewhere secure, and she wasn’t a safe breaker. How had she thought she would be able to steal something so precious? It was an impossible task. As that realization hit home she had to accept that she must find another way to take the astrolabe from Fairfax, and at that moment she was at a
loss to see how it could be done.
* * *
After dinner the same day, Xanthe claimed a headache as an excuse for going up to her bedroom early. On leaving, she signaled to Liam, who interpreted the gesture and arrived at her door a little while later. He was holding a small bottle of liquid and a spoon.
“I asked Petronella for a remedy for your headache and volunteered to bring it to you myself,” he told her. “I explained you often get these and it helps to have someone to talk to you gently as you sit in the dark.”
“You’d make a great nurse,” she said, taking the bottle from him and letting him into the room. She held up the liquid to the candle-light. “I wonder what it is?”
“God knows. Glad you don’t have to actually drink any.”
“I’ll have to pour some away or they’ll notice,” she said, stooping to pull the chamber pot out from underneath the bed. She tipped a little of the medicine into the empty pot, which she then slid back into its place. She replaced the cork stopper in the bottle and set it down on the dressing table. Liam sat in the armchair near the fire, wincing as he did so.
“Wilcox has a wonderful stable of horses but he could do with spending a bit of money on his saddles,” he said. “I ache in places that have never been called upon to do anything before.”
“You looked like you were managing just fine. I saw you galloping into the woods.”
“Actually, the riding itself was fantastic! Who’d have thought single horsepower could be such a buzz? Just needed more padding…” he added, adjusting a cushion in the chair.
“We have bigger problems to deal with than your saddle sores. I’ve seen the dower house.”
“Ah, me too. We rode past it on the way home.”
“What did you think?”
“That we won’t be nipping in and relieving Fairfax of his bloody gadget anytime soon.”
“We need to find another way, and I think I’ve come up with a plan.”
“OK…”
“I’ll offer him a deal. I’ll trade him Spinners for his astrolabe.”
“What?!”
“You don’t like the idea?”
“Let me see … no! How can you think it’d work? For a start, you have told him pretty definitely that he will never get his hands on that book. That it is yours, it is special, it is powerful, and you’ll never let him have it. So he probably won’t believe you are actually going to give it to him.”
“He might if I let him believe that I don’t think he will be able to use the book without the astrolabe; that way it would make sense for me to give it up. Don’t you see? It will play to his ego, if I let him think I can see no other way, that he has defeated me. So, I give him the book because it’s what he wants and then he will leave me alone. But I don’t think he’ll be able to use it without the astrolabe. Then he’d be an ordinary person living in this time and he’d have to make a go of his marriage with Petronella, so it’s better for her too. He knows I care about her. So, he would believe that I think I’m not giving him the power of the book, only he has such an inflated idea of himself he’s bound to think he can find a way to unlock its secrets for himself.”
“Now I have a headache.”
“It’s quite simple, really.”
“OK, let’s assume he buys that part of it. Let’s pretend he believes you are going to give him the book you said you’d never give him.”
“Yes…”
“If I were Fairfax—and thank God I’m not—I wouldn’t risk giving up my astrolabe. It might be the only way I can use the book. He’s not going to give away the very thing that might make all the power in the Spinners manual his. Particularly if you have just told him you think he won’t be able to use it without the astrolabe. You’re shooting your own idea in the foot.”
“I don’t think that’s physically possible.”
“You know what I mean,” he said, sitting forward in his chair, trying to make her see. “It won’t work. In fact, the only reason Fairfax would agree to a trade would be to lure you into a trap.”
“Which is what I would be doing to him.”
“And then what? You meet somewhere, he’s standing in front of you with the astrolabe and you’re standing there with the thing he wants most in the world. You aren’t really going to let him have it, are you? I mean, after all you’ve said about Spinners and not being able to trust him to use the gift as it should be used, you’re not going to risk him being able to use it.”
“To be perfectly honest, the thought of parting with it at all is truly awful. The thought of giving it to Fairfax makes me feel sick. But, and this is the point, it wouldn’t be forever. I will get it back. Right now, I need to stop him, and that means taking the astrolabe. I know I’m a better Spinner than him, even without the book. I’ll figure out a way to get it back. That’s a promise I’ve made myself.”
“OK, well then what about the fact that he’s not going to risk letting go of the astrolabe. So, tell me, how do you see that going?”
“Well, I think you’re right, he’ll have a plan to trick me out of getting it from him.”
“A plan which might well involve violence. He could bring a knife or a gun with him, or a henchman. How are you going to stop him just overpowering you to get what he wants? Is it me? Am I your back-up plan?”
“There’s no way he’d agree to meet me unless I’m on my own.”
“I could get hold of one of Wilcox’s shotguns.”
“He has his own shotguns, and muskets, and swords and, as you put it, henchmen. No, I have to be cleverer than that.”
“I came here to help.”
“Look, if we were going to resort to shooting at people and getting shot at we might just as well have a go at breaking into the dower house, holding a knife to his throat, and getting him to give us what we want.”
“It’s beginning to sound like a better idea than the one you’ve just told me about!”
“Except that we are not Special Forces, and if we succeeded we’d probably end up arrested and hanged for burglary.” She walked over to the chair and knelt on the floor in front of him, taking his hands in hers. “Liam, I’m not going to risk you getting shot.”
“And I’m not going to let you walk into a trap that could get you killed,” he replied, reaching forward to stroke her cheek. “Seriously, why don’t you just let me shoot him.”
“Because you are not a murderer. Crazy as all this is, it’s real, and we don’t kill people. I will find a way to use my gift to outwit him.”
“You think you can find the answer in the Spinners book? Gotta say, it’s been pretty cagey about giving up its secrets so far.”
“I know but it’s showing me stuff all the time. More and more now that we’re here. I just have to make sense of it.”
“How long do you think that’s going to take? The longer we stay here, the worse things get. The wedding is in less than two weeks. Then Fairfax moves into this place, and we have to leave.”
“And Petronella becomes his wife.”
“You still think the wedding dress called you here to stop the marriage going ahead?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t realize what he is, what he’s capable of, but, well, what will she do if she doesn’t marry him? Do I have the right to doom her whole family to a future of poverty? Maybe that’s not what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know. All I can do is press on with putting a stop to Fairfax’s spinning. Maybe everything else will come out of that. Somehow.” She sat back on her heels, rubbing her temples.
Liam gently kissed her brow. “You want me to get you some of that headache medicine?”
She smiled and shook her head. After a moment she said, “I will find the answers. You have to let me do it my way.”
“I came here to protect you. Promised your mother I’d get you home safe.”
“Did you? I promised Harley the same about you,” she said, making him laugh. Then, more seriously, she told him, “I’m really glad you’re here.
”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly. But you have to trust me, OK? Tomorrow, I need you to help me get the chance to speak to Fairfax alone so I can offer him the deal.”
“Xanthe…”
“Please, Liam. I need you to do this for me.”
He looked at her with so much tenderness she felt awful for putting him in such a position. She knew he was frightened for her. If he had been the one putting himself at the mercy of Fairfax, she would have felt the same. At last he managed a small smile and a shrug.
“OK,” he said. “After all, I know you better than he does. He’s the one who should be worried.”
She leaned forward and gave him a grateful hug, relieved that she had his agreement and support, but still uncertain exactly how she was going to make her risky plan work.
15
It was late the following morning before Xanthe succeeded in bringing about the opportunity to talk to Fairfax on his own. Liam had challenged anyone willing to a game of pall-mall, and the Wilcox sisters and Henry happily agreed. Fairfax, who had arrived at the house to take morning tea, condescended to watch the game, in preference to actually playing it which, Xanthe felt certain, he considered a little beneath his dignity. While the players were busily engaged in their sport at one end of the walled garden she invited Fairfax to join her in walking to the other to enjoy the roses. He politely agreed, and Xanthe caught a glimpse of satisfaction in his expression as he did so. It was aggravating to think he believed himself to be so in control of the situation. That, she decided, was about to change.
As they strolled along the grassy paths between the flower beds the pair must have presented, to anyone who cared to notice, the picture of two acquaintances engaged in pleasant conversation, however far from the truth this was.
“Your companion,” Fairfax started, flicking a dismissive hand in Liam’s direction, “appears to enjoy his role rather too well. He may develop a taste for traveling through time and demand more of it from you.”
The Garden of Promises and Lies Page 21