He caressed her cheek, drying the tears. Touching his mouth to hers, he kissed her with passionate intensity, wanting to erase the memory of that other kiss, to affirm that she was his and his alone. There was love and desolation in her response, a sudden, desperate cleaving to all that was known and familiar in that lonely, echoing place. Her eyes took in the thinning crowds and returned to him; and, in answer to that unspoken plea, Edward tucked her arm in his, guiding her through the barriers and out towards home.
To avoid the wind, they took the sheltered way through town. With the white mass of the city walls behind them, they walked the narrow streets past the old station to Micklegate. Pausing at the dog’s-leg junction of Tanner Row, only then did Edward pause, suddenly remembering another such night, taking Louisa home in the snow. With startling clarity he recalled wanting to kiss her then and being afraid to do so. It was the night she had met Robert Duncannon for the very first time. Sorrow and regret assailed him. Wishing he had kissed her, thinking it might have changed the course of their lives, he turned his head quickly, and met Louisa’s steady, compassionate gaze.
‘We were different people then,’ she said, echoing words he had used himself. ‘I loved Robert — really loved him, in spite of all I’ve thought or said since. I know that now. But it’s over. He’s gone,’ she whispered, with sad finality. ‘Without him, Edward, I might never have learned to love you.’ Touching his cheek, she added: ‘And without you, my darling, I might never have learned to forgive myself.’
Drawing her into the shelter of a disused doorway, he kissed her with infinite tenderness, aware that this was the place of their beginning, where he had loved and cherished and tried to protect that precious innocence. Like illicit lovers they embraced, and stood for a moment longer, gazing into each other’s eyes. Knowing the ghosts of this place were finally laid to rest, Edward smiled and kissed her again.
‘I love you, Mrs Elliott,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Let’s go home.’
Read on for the opening of Ann Victoria Roberts’s bestselling sequel LIAM’S STORY
LIAM’S STORY
One
All over England the year was dying in a blazed of glory. The shortening days were blessed at noon by cobalt skies and brilliant sun, by a warmth which belied early morning frosts and chilling mists at twilight. Tempted by the weather, groups of late tourists ventured forth to enjoy some lingering views before winter quickened everyone’s step and made the cosiness of tea-shops more attractive.
In York, Americans with cameras exclaimed before the Minster, backing into the road for better shots of the famous twin towers, while a party of Japanese, with the stoic expressions of dedicated tourists on a tight schedule, brushed past as they left by the west door. Clutching her guidebook, Zoe Clifford paused, debating whether or not to go inside. It was not yet twelve and she had the rest of the afternoon, but four or five hours might not be enough to do what she had planned, and the Minster deserved an hour or more to itself, an hour that might be regretted later in the day.
Reluctantly she stepped back, joining those transatlantic cousins on the pavement’s edge, staring up, with them, at fine stone tracery and those soaring white pinnacles, two hundred feet above the ground. In full sunlight and against a cloudless blue sky, the effect was dazzling. And magnetic: she did not want to leave. Half-regretting her decision, she contented herself with a walk around the outside, astonished by the cathedral’s length and size, the way it dwarfed everything nearby. With the massive east window at her back, Zoe stood for a moment in a clear triangle of space, contemplating the long, half-timbered building of St William’s College, the line of trees facing it, and a medieval archway that led into the street beyond.
What seemed a dolls’-house scale of chimney stacks and irregular rooflines marked that narrow thoroughfare, and she thought how satisfying it must be to gaze up at the Minster every day from one of those tiny windows. As she turned, a huge bell began to toll the dozen strokes of noon, the deep, sonorous note reverberating against her breast-bone. Its solemn grandeur was like a knell for the dying year, emphasising the glorious, golden day, and the fact that she was alone.
For a moment she stood quite still, eyes closed. With the dying away of the final stroke she wondered why it was that beauty perceived alone should be so poignant, and why it made loneliness so much harder to bear.
On a deep breath she turned away and completed her circuit of the Minster. By the south transept she cut across the road to enter a paved walkway which led into the city’s maze of medieval streets. A cup of coffee and a sandwich went some way towards restoring her emotional balance, and, with her mind set on more immediate matters, Zoe consulted her guide again.
Gillygate, the street she wanted, ran, according to the map, just beyond and parallel to the city wall, not far from the Minster. She checked the number of the house against her notes and mentally prepared herself for disappointment. For all she knew, Gillygate could have been a slum, razed to the ground decades ago, or crushingly re-developed in the brave new world of the 1960s. Anything could have happened. The chances of finding her great-grandmother’s birthplace intact were very slim, but looking for the house was one of her reasons for being in York.
According to a birth certificate obtained some weeks ago, Zoe’s great-grandmother had been born in the late summer of 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. She was named Letitia Mary Duncannon Elliott, which was something of a surprise, as no one in the family could ever recall Letitia using the name Duncannon. It did not even appear on her marriage lines, although one Robert Devereux Duncannon had been a witness at her wedding. Was there a mystery here, Zoe wondered, stuffing notes and guide into her capacious shoulder-bag; or was it simply that the Elliotts had wanted to impress wealthy relatives at the birth of their only daughter?
Zoe inclined towards the latter theory, although her mother maintained that Letitia – who was never called Grandmother – had been a walking mystery until the day she died.
Mysterious perhaps; aggressively independent and more than a little eccentric she certainly was. As a child, and contrary to the rest of her immediate family, Zoe had always liked her: probably because the old lady had never given a damn for anyone’s opinion and frequently said so. She had possessed an amazing ability to confound people, Zoe’s mother particularly, reducing that strong-willed but intensely conventional woman to tears of abject frustration. As a child, subject to her mother’s arbitrary decisions, Zoe had admired that; and even now, when time and the beginnings of maturity enabled her to understand something of Marian’s problems, there was still a strong bias towards Letitia.
She was, after all, the only member of her family with whom Zoe felt any affinity. Mother, father, a couple of aunts and a few cousins on her father’s side, shared little in common with Zoe. She liked her father and, had it not been for the divorce, might have been closer to him; but it could hardly be said that they understood each other. And Marian would always be Marian. Not for the first time, Zoe regretted that she could not like her mother more.
For a few brief weeks, albeit for very different reasons, the ten-year-old child and the woman of seventy-three had been like allies resisting a common foe. Those weeks spent with Letitia stood out in Zoe’s memory as amongst the happiest of her childhood. Her biggest regret was that she had not lived long enough to share the secrets of her past. Some deep-seated instinct – or was it mere wishful thinking? – pressed Zoe into believing that her own identity lay amongst the long-dead members of Letitia Elliott’s family in York, rather than her father’s line of Surrey stockbrokers and businessmen. She needed to discover that identity, needed to know why she was the odd one out, the wilful, creative, unconventional child of such conservative parents. Perhaps, understanding herself, she might then learn to understand other people.
Passing beneath the great square mass of Bootham Bar, Zoe made her way round the corner and into Gillygate. Unconsciously slowing her step, she was aware of a sm
ile touching her lips as she realized that structurally at least, the street could have changed little in the past hundred years. But if shop fronts had been restored, their original purpose had changed: less butchers and bakers, more cafes and gift shops with a variety of bijou goods on display. She quickened her step, counting numbers as best she could. Most were missing, which was frustrating; but then she saw the house she was looking for, its number clearly displayed on the door. Three stories high, broad-fronted, windows and doorway compatible with the 1850s – Letitia’s birthplace was still there.
Not merely intact, but a guest-house, clean and bright and apparently newly-furbished, with pretty curtains at the upper windows and draped lace at street-level. Zoe could scarcely believe such good fortune. For maybe half a minute she hesitated, staring up at rusty-pink brick, gleaming paintwork and a bright brass knocker on the dark-blue door. The temptation to be inside that house was too great to resist. She had cheque book and credit cards, and her return rail ticket would be just as valid tomorrow as today. On a surge of anticipation she rang the bell.
A middle-aged woman answered, inviting her into a narrow hall. The reception desk was no more than a half-moon table with a vase of chrysanthemums and a visitor’s book, but after a cursory glance at her booking-plan, the woman said yes, she could offer a single room. It was small and on the second floor, but, she added with a smile, it had the advantage of quietness and a view of the Minster.
The stairway ran across the house, dividing front from back, doubling back ion itself at a half-landing. On the first floor the corridor was broad, with a modern glass fire-door leading to a second staircase. On the upper floor the landing was small, with just three doors opening off.
‘Here we are. You’ll be nice and quiet, there’s nobody to trouble you next door. Bathroom just across the landing and all to yourself.’ The landlady, who had introduced herself as Mrs Bilton, opened the door of a single room and went across to a low-silled window, bending her head to look out. ‘There, you can see the Minster now the leaves are falling. Trouble is, in summer, the trees form too thick a screen – people complain. I keep telling my husband we should have them cut down.’
Zoe was horrified by the idea. ‘Oh, no, you mustn’t do that! Tell people to come in the winter instead.’
‘Well, perhaps we should have them thinned out – then everybody’s happy!’
Warming to Mrs Bilton’s amusement, Zoe was almost tempted to reveal the significance of her visit, but to start talking now would waste too much time. Confidences, with perhaps a tour of the house, would be better left until later. While the sun lasted, she wanted to be out, seeing as much of the city as possible. Above those grassy, wooded ramparts, the white city wall divided Gillygate’s back yards from the Minster precincts. It was hard to believe that she was just a hundred yards or so from where she had stood at noon.
‘Can you walk on those walls?’ she asked, noticing heads bobbing between the crenellations.
‘Yes, of course – but I should hurry if you want to do it this afternoon, dear. They close the walls at dusk.’
Zoe was given the times of breakfast and a front door key, and, with a cheerful wave, set forth again down Gillygate. Returning to Bootham Bar, she could barely contain her elation as she climbed the steps. Inside the great room above the archway, she touched ancient limestone blocks and wondered how old they were; ran her fingers over the wooden portcullis and pictured it being lowered to bar the road beneath. She looked down on medieval Petergate, a huddle of projecting gables and tiny windows against the backdrop of the Minster’s great west front.
The people walking below made her think of Letitia, who must have passed beneath the Bar innumerable times. No doubt with her parents – and her brothers. Zoe tried to imagine them in this room, wondering if, as children, they had enjoyed pretending to be soldiers defending the city…
A sudden shiver reminded her that the afternoon was slipping away. So easy to be side-tracked, she thought, making her way out into the open air. At street level the picture was a close and detailed one, but from the height of the city walls she saw at once that it was the broad sweep of the canvas which took the eye. Above a sea of roofs and chimney pots the Minster rose like an enormous ship in full sail, catching the falling light of late afternoon, shadowing the narrow streets around it.
Couples passed her, and a large party, complete with guide, politely excused themselves as she lingered, entranced by the views. There was fascination on every side, from the undisguised age of the backs of houses on Gillygate, to the elegant expanse of the seventeenth-century Treasurer’s House within the walls, its tree-shaded grounds carpeted in bronze and gold. Autumn was a season for nostalgia, she always felt, the scent of dying leaves so evocative of the past. As the shadows lengthened she thought again of Letitia, leaving this place for London and her tragically brief marriage; could not help wondering why she had settled for Sussex and a house her parents-in-law had ensured she would never own, when York in all its beauty was here, waiting. Her family too. The parents she never talked about, the brothers she had mentioned but once. Why did she leave, Zoe wondered; and why did she never come back? And what had happened to those brothers of hers, two handsome young men in a photograph sent from France in the summer of 1916?
In a cloudless sky, the sun was setting, no more than a fiery rim of gold low down in the south-west. There was a damp chill in the air and above the chimney-stacks and pan-tiled roofs, an orange haze was deepening to red.
As she came to Monk Bar, a uniformed attendant was waiting, looking out for stragglers on the walls before he locked up for the night. With a sigh of resignation he held the heavy oak door open for her to pass; and, as she stepped inside the stairwell, closed it behind her. It was very dark and the limestone walls within the Bar were smooth and cold like those of a dungeon. The attendant’s feet, in heavy boots, echoed behind her. With no light but that of the tiny doorway below, Zoe felt her way gingerly down age-worn steps, and with some relief emerged into the everyday bustle of the street.
Goodramgate was busy, home-going shoppers edging along narrow pavements, avoiding traffic which passed alarmingly close along that ancient and idiosyncratic thoroughfare. A pharmacist’s brightly-lit window, already dressed for Christmas, reminded her that she had brought no luggage. Pausing to buy some essentials, she crammed her purchases into an already bulging bag, tucking it beneath her arm for safety as she wove her way between traffic and passers-by.
In the darkening sky, a vestige of natural light remained. Above the jettied buildings of that winding city street, it had deepened to an astonishing colour, like the French blue in Renaissance paintings of the nativity. Gazing up as she walked, Zoe stopped as she reached a junction, arrested by an unexpected view of the Minster, the whole of its east end floodlit against the dark blue sky. White and perfect as ivory, intricate as lace, it stood in mighty gothic splendour, dwarfing all that stood before it.
With some surprise, Zoe realized that she was facing the spot where she had stood at noon, and across the street was the little archway leading into Minster Yard.
Standing beneath its shelter, she simply stood and stared, knowing this to be a perfect moment and wanting to preserve it in her memory. The traffic had eased and the flow of pedestrians dwindled to a few hardy strollers who paused to look for a moment before passing on. It was numbingly cold, but Zoe hardly noticed. Her keen artist’s eye was absorbing colour and light, the vastness of the picture and its tiniest details. Intent upon the whole, she suddenly noticed a strange phenomenon. What appeared to be thick white smoke was billowing from the Minster roof and curling around pinnacles and piers. Alarmed, thinking it was caused by fire she darted forward at a run along the cobbled path, stopping short by St William’s College. There was no smell of burning, no sign of flames, but like smoke from some bloody but silent battlefield, the moving cloud drifted slowly towards her.
Roofs and chimneys which had stood in stark silhouette moments bef
ore were rapidly obscured. The carved relief of gothic masonry faded, insubstantial as a dream in that swirling mist. Images of death replaced it, so real she could almost hear the boom of the guns, smell the cordite. Men advanced and fell before her eyes, their silent cries an obscenity. She cringed, screwing her eyes tight shut against it. When she dared to look again, they were gone. White light dazzled her, and all over her body her skin was tingling with tiny shocks. Surrounded by that drifting mist, the whole of the east end seemed to be moving, advancing and receding, pulsing with some great inner power. In the silence nothing else moved, time was irrelevant, past and present were one, divided only by the pitiful awareness of five human senses. And it seemed those limitations were melting…
For a moment, drawn forward, Zoe was convinced that if she walked into that mist, she would simply be absorbed by it, that she would cease to exist. For an instant the idea was tempting. Hesitating on the verge of acquiescence, she shivered, and the moment was gone.
The touch of the mist was like a cold, damp shroud. Trembling violently she turned away, fighting weakness and an urge to sink to her knees. Her eyes were stinging and her steps uncertain as she retreated towards the reassuring bustle of the everyday world.
A tall man, wearing a light-coloured coat, gave her a searching glance as she paused beside him at the kerb. Meeting his eyes, Zoe lifted her chin and glared, every muscle tensed against inner trembling and a ridiculous desire to flee.
With another quick glance, Stephen Elliott took in the line of high cheekbones and dark, tumbling curls, and, despite the fierce look she had just bestowed, thought she was the prettiest young woman he had seen in a long time. The road cleared and she stepped across before him, a determined set to her shoulders and aggression in her stride.
Louisa Elliott Page 78