by Sandra Heath
The click had been the recorder switching off, and the second door was that of the apartment across the landing, where the occupants had just returned noisily from a party.
Chapter Nineteen
Conflicting feelings ran endlessly through Summer the next morning. First there was joy because Brand loved her, then came conscience because she may have provided Jeremy with the means to abduct Melinda. As a result she was in a very restless, oddly talkative mood.
Andrew left early for his heavy day of appointments, so it was just Chrissie who sat at the breakfast table as Summer chattered nonstop and toyed with a knife so it kept clinking against her plate.
At last Chrissie could stand no more. “What is the matter with you today?” she cried. “Your mouth hasn’t taken a rest since you sat down, and if you rattle that darned knife once more, so help me I’ll stick it into you!”
Summer put the knife down. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t remember you ever going on and on at the table like this. Usually it’s a case of dragging a word out of you!”
Summer shifted uncomfortably. “I know. It’s just that I feel good today—I think,” she added.
“You act like you’re still high after spending a night of unbridled lust with Hollywood’s biggest male star, big being the operative word!”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Summer murmured, but had to look quickly at her toast, for Chrissie’s analogy wasn’t all that far off the mark. She did feel high, and she had been with a man—one whom she loved beyond reason.
Chrissie studied her. “I haven’t seen you like this since Jack.”
“I haven’t been like this since Jack.”
“Someone’s got your hormones going. Who is it? Did one of the doctors at the hospital take your fancy? It has to be, unless of course you’ve met someone on one of your walks.”
Summer looked at her, suddenly on the very brink of confessing what had been going on. The words hovered on her lips.
“Well, tell me, before I burst from the suspense,” Chrissie implored.
“There is someone, but—”
The phone rang, and Chrissie reached over. “Yes? Oh, hi, honey.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Andrew,” she whispered unnecessarily.
“I’d never have guessed,” Summer murmured, sitting back a little weakly as Chrissie talked on the phone. She’d come within a heartbeat of blurting out the whole business. What a disaster that would have been, for she’d have had to confess about the recording. All thought of confession receded ashamedly into the wide blue yonder, and Summer wished she’d held her tongue completely.
Chrissie put the phone down and looked expectantly at her. “Right, you were about to tell me all about it.”
“Well, there isn’t really anything to say,” Summer replied unconvincingly.
“What? Oh, come on!”
“No, it’s truly something and nothing, Chrissie, so you’re not missing anything juicy.”
“Like hell I’m not. There’s a guy involved, and I want to know all about him, so give, honey,” Chrissie begged.
Summer sighed. “I know I was going to, Chrissie, but I’ve had second thoughts.”
“You skunk! Getting me all wound up, then—”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry.” Summer held up her hands in submission.
Chrissie searched her face. “It’s serious, isn’t it?” she said suddenly.
Summer nodded. “I love him.”
“But you won’t tell me who he is?”
“Just that his name is Brand.”
“So what’s he like? What does he do?”
Summer didn’t want to answer, but knew she couldn’t wriggle out of it entirely. “Well, he’s tall, blond, and far too handsome for my peace of mind,” she murmured.
“That’s you running true to form. You never could resist that type, could you? I’ll bet you fantasize about being ravished by a Viking marauder.”
Summer gave a weak smile. “Sure do, horned helmet and all.”
Chrissie smiled. “So why haven’t you mentioned him before? What’s the big mystery? Is he married or something?”
“No, he’s not married.”
“Then what is it?”
Summer bit her lip and said nothing.
Chrissie got up and flung her napkin a little crossly on the table. “All right, keep it to yourself, I just wish you hadn’t said anything at all rather than hint at it like it’s some kind of state secret!”
Summer hurried tearfully around the table to hug her. “Please don’t be angry with me, Chrissie, for I couldn’t bear it! I love you, and I’m not holding out simply to be annoying, truly I’m not!”
Puzzled, Chrissie put her arms gently around her. “Okay, honey, okay, calm down,” she murmured, resting her cheek against Summer’s hair.
Summer blinked back tears, then searched in her robe pocket for a handkerchief. “I just want you to know that whatever happens, I love you and Andrew very much.”
Chrissie was immediately anxious. “Whatever happens? What do you mean? Oh, Summer, is something wrong? Did they tell you something awful at the hospital?”
Summer seized her hands. “No, nothing’s wrong,” she said earnestly. “In fact, everything’s right, as right as it could possibly be.”
“Have you taken something you shouldn’t?” Chrissie asked suspiciously.
“I’m not into that sort of thing, and you know it.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“I’m clean, Officer Marchant.”
Chrissie smiled. “So, you really love this Brand guy, mm?”
“Completely.”
Chrissie shrugged and spread her hands. “Then I guess there’s not a lot I can say, except I wish I knew more.”
“All you need to know is that he makes me happier than I’ve ever been before, and that being with him is like ... like ... Oh, I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Good lord, you have got it bad,” Chrissie said.
“Yes, I have. I’d like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with him.”
Chrissie’s jaw dropped. “Really? Does he feel the same way?”
“Yes.”
A thought struck Chrissie, and her eyes brightened. “He’s English, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then that means you’ll stay over here? Oh, Summer, that will be great!” Chrissie glanced at the kitchen clock. “Gee, is that the time? I’d better get going. Are you quite sure you’re all right to leave? I mean, you’re not exactly normal this morning, and I’ll gladly stay if you want me to.”
Summer grimaced. “What, and be subjected to the third degree for hours on end? No, thank you. Go to your real estate, Chrissie; it’s quite safe to leave me.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Summer smiled.
Chrissie hesitated. “Guess that’ll have to do,” she said, then kissed her on the cheek before hurrying out to fix her hair and makeup.
When Summer was alone, she went through into Andrew’s study to search among the detailed maps of the United Kingdom he’d amassed on various vacations. She was sure he had one of the part of Gloucestershire she was interested in, and sure enough there it was. “Ordnance Survey, Outdoor Leisure Number Fourteen, you little beaut!” she declared, kissing the shiny yellow cover, but then she paused to look at the colored photograph on the front. There, set familiarly against the wild beauty of the Severn estuary, was the chapel!
She stared, for it was still exactly the same as it had been in 1807. Well, perhaps not exactly the same, for the ivy was more overgrown, and some of the stonework at the back had clearly collapsed. But it was still the chapel as she knew it. The scene was identified at the bottom right-hand corner: Monastic Chapel, End of the World, Severn Estuary.
Slowly, she returned to the living room to spread the map on the floor. Then she lay on her stomach with her chin on her hands to study it. All the names from the past leapt o
ut at her. Berkeley, Bevincote, Oakhill House, the Severn estuary and embankment, and the End of the World. It was weird to know everything seemed to have changed very little over the years; and even more weird to realize that she—as her modern self— felt no urge to go take a look.
Puzzled about this, she sat up, crossing her legs and then leaning her chin on her hands again. Why didn’t she want to go there? She stared at the map and suddenly knew the answer. Brand wouldn’t be there now, nor would Caro and Uncle Merriam. Brand belonged in the past. “And so do you, Summer Stanway,” she whispered to herself.
Slowly, she straightened. Yes, she did belong in the past. She’d meant every word when she told Chrissie there was nothing she’d like more than to spend the rest of her life with Brand! She closed her eyes. He was her destiny. Love was making her want to cross the Rubicon and return to him forever.
She opened her eyes again and stared across the room toward the wind-whipped sea, which today the sun had turned to the same deep blue as Brand’s eyes. Was returning to him forever really such a wild fantasy for her? Because she was extremely susceptible to hypnosis, she had single-handedly been able to relive a past life, and not only relive it, but experience it with an intensity that surely went beyond mere memory.
And because she was also diabetic, she had discovered that those experiences in the past were not interrupted by falling into a coma. After coming around in the hospital, she had felt almost certain that if Summer Stanway had died here in the future, she would still exist in the past as Olivia. Now, as she sat here alone, that feeling began to harden into an overwhelming desire to test the theory.
She scrambled uneasily to her feet, for until this moment that desire was something that had lurked on the edge of her thoughts and had never been allowed into the spotlight. The full glare was on it now, though. She went to the French windows and opened them. As she stepped to the balcony, the noise of the sea seemed to leap at her after the quiet of the double-glazed apartment.
It was a breezy September morning, sunny but with that edge of coldness that heralded autumn. Sailboarders skimmed the waves, and far out on the water she could see one of the large white ferries that sailed between Portsmouth and Brittany. What was it Andrew said they were called? Ro-ro ferries? Yes, that was it, because vehicles rolled onto them at one end at the start of a voyage, and rolled off at the other when it was over. Sailboards and ro-ro ferries. There weren’t any of those back in 1807. In fact, there were a hell of a lot of things that didn’t exist back in time, but one all-important thing did exist—Sir Brand Huntingford.
If she left this present life, whether to go to an idyllic previous life with him, or to end up six feet under because her hypothesis was harebrained after all, her only regret would be leaving Chrissie and Andrew. Oh, there were friends back in the States, good friends most of them, but Chrissie and Andrew were her only relatives. She would hurt them, but if she could somehow make them understand ...
She put her hands on the balcony railing and watched the waves racing over the wet sand past the breakwaters. She could leave a letter or a cassette recording, explaining absolutely everything and begging them to understand why she’d taken such an irrevocable step, but all they’d see would be her lifeless body. Hallucinations followed by another diabetic coma, they’d think, only this time she hadn’t been so lucky. It would break Chrissie’s heart, unless of course the theory was correct, and that after the event the fact could be proved. But how? How?
Summer dwelt upon the problem for a long while, before she suddenly felt cold and went back inside. The closing of the French windows eliminated the sound of the sea again, and silence descended. She sat down on the sofa, still trying to puzzle a way of letting Chrissie know if it was indeed possible for her to travel back in time forever. Gradually, her attention was drawn to the table where Andrew’s precious piece of medieval pottery lay on some of his papers.
She leaned across to pick it up, then sat back to study it carefully. I, Gerald of Salisbury do curse Thomas of Winchester. May he never profit from that which he stole from me, may he... May he what, she wondered? Posterity would never know now, but posterity did know that the highly annoyed Gerald had put a curse on him. Just some words scratched into clay before firing, but they’d lasted over the centuries to be found in that modern plowed field. Gerald and Thomas were recorded forever.
A new light entered her eyes as she thought of the graffiti in the chapel. S & S. Stephen and Susannah. They too had carved themselves into immortality. She knew from the map cover that the chapel was still there, virtually as it had been in the past, and if she went there now as Summer Stanway to carve her own and Chrissie’s name into the stone, it would look freshly done. But if, as Olivia, she were to carve those names in 1807, by now they would look old and weatherworn! Such a centuries-old message would surely prove she’d successfully gone back in time!
She replaced the pottery on the table, then got up to retrieve the map, which she carefully and painstakingly folded in order to leave the area south of Berkeley uppermost. Then she took a red pen and ringed the chapel as vividly as she possibly could, with a note that the same chapel was illustrated on the main cover.
After that she paused to inhale deeply, for she was trembling a little. The only thing that was needed now was the nerve to do what was necessary to bring about exactly the same conditions as before—a diabetic coma while she was in a trance—except this time she had to be beyond recovery. All it would take was a suitably large overdose of insulin.
She felt suddenly cold. There’d be no coming back if she did it. Summer Stanway would be no more within a very short time. Then she had another unsettling thought. What if Chrissie came home at midday, just to check up on her? That wouldn’t do, for there mustn’t be any chance of being rescued at the eleventh hour. This had to be done properly, or not at all.
Almost automatically she reached for the phone. “Hi, Chrissie, it’s me. Yes, I’m fine, so fine I’ve called a cab to go to Chichester to shop till I drop. I’ll leave the answering machine on in case someone tries to get in touch with Andrew, so don’t panic if you call and I don’t answer. Okay?”
The conversation was over almost before it began because someone came into the office to inquire about a seafront property and Chrissie had to ring off to attend to them.
Summer replaced the receiver slowly, then switched the answering machine on. She’d started it now. Coolly she went into Andrew’s study, selected a blank cassette, and then began to dictate the full story of what she’d been doing over the past few days, and what she would have done by the time the recording was played. She also told them the words she would carve in the chapel—Chrissie and Summer—then she removed the cassette from the recorder and took it into the living room. She put it next to Andrew’s piece of pottery and the deliberately folded map, together with a note she wrote in urgent red capital letters. “PLAY THIS RIGHT NOW, AND PLEASE TRY TO UNDERSTAND. SUMMER.”
Tears pricked her eyes as she left the living room again. Her hands shook as she prepared the insulin. There was no careful measuring this time. She intended to finish the bottle; that way she’d be sure of speedy dispatch to the hereafter. Or rather, to the hers before ... Again her nerve almost failed her, but then she thought of Brand, and her courage returned tenfold.
It was easy to administer the dosage in the end, and she didn’t feel any different when it was done, except perhaps unnaturally calm. She got the recorder out of the drawer and carefully wound the recording on past the commencing instructions and music, then wiped the rest of the cassette clean.
She didn’t want to take any chance that Andrew’s closing prompts might awaken her. When all was done, she rewound the cassette to the beginning, and resolutely pressed the button. Lying back, she let Andrew’s voice drift persuasively over her. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly in and out, in and out... Gradually the voice and the music faded gently away into oblivion, and there was just a long silence.
Chapter Twenty
She opened her eyes to find she was standing alone by the drawing room window at Oakhill House, watching the January sun beginning to sink beyond the distant Welsh hills. She was again wearing the cream woolen gown, and her thick dark hair was pinned up loosely on top of her head. Footsteps approached across the hall, and she knew they belonged to Brand because she’d just watched him urging his horse up the drive. She turned as the door opened and he entered. There was snow on his boots, his cheeks were ruddy from having ridden with all speed from Bevincote, and his golden hair was windswept.
It was the day after they’d been together in the carriage, and she now knew that their fears about an elopement had been realized. He and Francis had returned to Bevincote to find that Melinda had gone out for a ride. Men were immediately sent to search the grounds, and her horse was discovered by a little-used gate in the boundary wall. On the other side of the wall there were carriage tracks in the snow, which were followed south until they were lost on the main Bristol highway. Then it was found that her maid had disappeared with much of her young mistress’s clothing and jewelry, so there could be no doubt what had happened.
Summer hurried anxiously toward him. “Is there any news?”
“Yes. She has been found in Bristol and brought back to Bevincote, thanks to an innkeeper who sent word to me.”
“I’m so very sorry that I gave Jeremy the carriage, Brand. I would never have—”
He put a finger to her lips, “You do not need to say it again, my darling, for I swear I do not hold you to blame.”
“I’ll warrant Lord Lytherby does, though.”
He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. His lips were cold upon hers for a moment, then he looked down into her eyes. “Well, I have to say he did at first, but he has now been persuaded that Fenwick took you in. Besides, if you hadn’t said what you did yesterday, no suspicion of elopement would have been aroused until much later, and my foolish runaway sister might have been beyond reach.”