by Jane Ashford
Georgina sighed as the dining room door closed behind them. Like Joanna, she would have liked to flout convention, but in quite another direction. She didn’t want to stay. She wanted to take Sebastian with her, and not to any stuffy drawing room, either. Her bedchamber would be her first choice, she thought, a little shocked at the blatancy of her longings. How delicious it would be if they could repeat all they’d done on a pile of bracken in her comfortable bed. And more. She knew there was more Sebastian could show her. Why, oh why, couldn’t it be now instead of days and days away?
“Georgina?”
She started, and became aware that she’d stopped in the middle of the hall. The others were well ahead. Tingling all over from the fantasy she’d conjured, she hurried after her mother.
* * *
“So you’re saying people come back after death?” Randolph asked as he filled his glass from the decanter of port.
Mr. Mitra nodded as he passed the bottle along without taking any wine.
“But it isn’t like Judgment Day, when all souls are said to arise at the last trump?”
“Not like that, no. We believe a being has to live many lives and have many experiences before becoming perfect and uniting with the Divine.”
“God.”
Sebastian watched Randolph sip his wine. So far, the discussion was comprehensible. He didn’t expect this to last.
“So everyone…ascends, as it were?” Randolph asked.
“Some manage it, some don’t,” replied the Indian gentleman with a shrug.
“Those who lead holy lives?” Randolph said.
“It is rather a process than a…straight line.”
“And those who don’t, what happens to them? Are they damned?”
“No.” Mitra’s smile was kind and understanding. And somehow a little sly as well, Sebastian thought. “They return to the source through the great destruction that occurs at the end of each cycle.”
“Cycle?” Randolph asked. He leaned forward. Sebastian recognized the fascination beginning to gleam in his brother’s blue eyes. If Randolph had his way, they would be here for the rest of the evening. Longer.
“Time begins to end and ends to begin,” said Mitra.
“That is a striking phrase,” Randolph interjected.
Mitra nodded acknowledgment. “Death is but a gateway to the next cycle, to birth. This is also true of the universe itself. Rather like the rhythms of nature, you might say.”
Randolph considered. “So you think the entire universe…er, reincarnates?”
“Ha, I like that,” put in Georgina’s father. “Very neat.”
“It is a bit more complicated than that,” said Mitra.
“Ain’t it always?” said the marquess. “He says that about every point we try to make, eh, Sebastian?”
It was a polite effort to include him in the conversation. Sebastian acknowledged that. And perhaps a sign that Georgina’s father was minded to forgive him at last. He would much rather have been left out of it, however. What with his brother gazing expectantly at him from across the table, and the marquess’s beady eye fixing him from the side, he felt like a bug about to be squashed. He decided on a simple nod. After all, things mostly were more complicated than he wished. Nearly always, in fact.
Randolph acknowledged Mitra’s remark with a gesture. “I’m sure there’s a great deal more to it. But you know, I think the central core of religion is rather simple—whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them.”
“The Golden Rule,” said the marquess.
Mr. Mitra smiled. “Indeed, the Mahabharata teaches, ‘This is the sum of duty; do naught unto others what you would not have them do unto you.’”
“Mahabharata,” Randolph repeated, clearly savoring the sounds. “That is your holy book?”
“It is one of our sacred writings.”
“So our philosophies have that idea in common.” Sebastian’s brother looked pleased at the thought.
“And with many others in the world,” Mitra replied. “The Buddhists say, ‘Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.’ And in China the Confucians teach, ‘Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.’”
Randolph’s face positively glowed with interest, as well as a healthy dose of intellectual competition, Sebastian thought.
“The Jewish Talmud says, ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.’” Randolph sat back as if he had scored a point.
“And the followers of Mohammed that ‘No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself,’” replied Mitra mildly.
Randolph grinned. “You are clearly a very learned man, Mr. Mitra. I am delighted to have the chance to exchange opinions with you.”
“Our traditions are very ancient,” Mitra replied.
“And not all talk,” exclaimed the marquess. He was practically squirming at being left out of the conversation. “We’ll show you. Won’t we, Mitra?”
“I’m not sure it is a good idea…”
“Of course it is. A capital one! Been meaning to get to it for days. We were only delayed by the ‘accident.’” Georgina’s father surveyed Sebastian. “We’ll set things up for tomorrow. Then we’ll see what you’re made of, my boy.”
The relish in his green eyes filled Sebastian with deep foreboding.
Ten
Georgina looked around the chamber her father had been using for his esoteric explorations, at the far end of the castle’s older east wing. She hadn’t been here since her father had taken up these studies; it wasn’t a particularly comfortable part of the building. The walls and floors were stone, the fireplaces large and drafty.
Georgina wondered whether Mr. Mitra or her father had arranged the furnishings. The windows were heavily draped, the only light coming from a great candelabrum on a low table in the center of a thick Turkey carpet, brought from another room, she thought. The candles threw dancing shadows over a circle of eight mismatched armchairs. She recognized some of them from other places. Otherwise, the room was bare.
She was curious about whatever Papa had planned. She was also worried that he seemed to see it as some sort of test for Sebastian. Despite everything, Papa continued to eye her betrothed with suspicion.
Her mother had flatly refused to participate. Emma and Hilda had not been invited, to Hilda’s vocal chagrin. And so their party consisted of herself and Joanna Byngham, Sebastian, his brother, and Papa. Also Mr. Mitra, of course, who hadn’t yet made an appearance.
Georgina looked at Sebastian, standing tall next to his brother on the other side of the circle. He gave her a warm smile, meant to be reassuring, she was certain. And she was reassured. She had begun to feel that when she was with Sebastian, she was safe, shielded from disaster. It was silly. No one had that power. Yet the feeling persisted.
Joanna was clearly excited. Tonight was a culmination of all her hours of study, Georgina supposed. Papa bustled about like the host of an evening party. He looked so happy. Georgina was touched to see it, even as she wanted to laugh. Who else had such a father? He was unique. She hoped the coming hours lived up to his expectations. As long as none of it distressed Sebastian, she was prepared to be amazed.
Mr. Mitra entered. He wore his customary narrow trousers and long tunic-like shirt, but tonight these garments were white. He carried a small cloth bag over one shoulder. Pausing beside the low table, he put his palms together and bowed to the group.
Joanna mimicked him. The rest of them, caught by surprise, managed more conventional acknowledgments.
In one smooth movement, Mitra settled cross-legged on the carpet. It looked entirely natural to him and, at the same time, made him seem alien. He�
�d been politely pretending to be just like his hosts since he arrived, Georgina realized, but he wasn’t. He was the product of an entirely different society. Candlelight illuminated his hawk-like features.
“Everyone take a seat,” urged Papa cheerfully.
He and Joanna chose chairs. Georgina sat in the one nearest her, and was glad when Sebastian strode over to sit beside her. Randolph was on her other side. “This is a ritual of your religion?” he asked Mr. Mitra.
“No. It is a… Call it a meditation of my own invention.”
“Your own? Fascinating.”
Mr. Mitra opened his bag and drew out a small drum, placing it on the floor before him. He reached in again and pulled out a small openwork brass elephant. Extracting a cone of incense from inside, he lit it from one of the candles and replaced it, setting the elephant on the table. The scent wafted upward, heady and aromatic. It was like what one smelled in church—and not like, Georgina thought.
Mitra began to tap out a rhythm on the drum. “I invite you to concentrate on the candles,” he murmured. “Fire is a messenger, and a vehicle. Clear your minds of everything except the flame.”
Georgina watched his face at first. Mitra’s eyes were closed. He looked serene. It occurred to her that he had depths that none of them had been allowed to plumb. He’d hidden much of himself with cordiality and smooth courtesy. Still, over the weeks of his visit, she’d come to like him and had discovered no reason not to trust him. She fixed her gaze on the dancing flames.
Mitra began to chant, repeating one phrase over and over. “Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha.”
“What’s that?” asked Randolph.
Mitra paused, opening his eyes. “I am appealing to Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. I speak to him in Sanskrit.”
“Sanskrit. Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s said to be one of the oldest human languages, isn’t it? I’ve often wanted to study…”
“Do be quiet, Gresham,” said Georgina’s father. “We’ll get nowhere if you keep interrupting.” Joanna made a sound of agreement. Randolph subsided, and Mr. Mitra took up his drumming and chanting once again.
Georgina watched the flames and listened to the rhythmic sound. The rich scent of the incense surrounded her. She began to feel a floating sensation—not at all unpleasant—as if the edges of the room had faded, or expanded somehow.
“Let go of time,” murmured Mr. Mitra. “Time is an illusion of the senses. If you release it, you can be free. To move among ages, to see another lifetime.” He took up the chanting once more.
Enveloped by the sound, the scent, the bright dancing images, Georgina experienced an odd dislocation. On the one hand, she felt as if she was drifting, like a leaf floating on the wind in autumn. Space opened around her; she could go anywhere. At the same time, she knew she was seated in an armchair in her home; she could feel the cloth of her gown beneath her fingertips. She could smell incense and hear small movements from the others in the room. The unusual double sensation went on, and on.
Next to her, Sebastian muttered incomprehensible words.
And then Georgina was looking down at a pair of gnarled, work-worn hands, which somehow were, and were not, at the ends of her own arms. One held a mass of raw wool, while the other teased out strands and twisted them into thread, aided by a whirling drop spindle made of polished stone.
One part of her mind wondered how she’d identified that unfamiliar object. Others lost themselves in the pull, twist, stretch of the task. It was lulling, like the chant, which she still heard, as if from far away. She’d just begun to get a sense of a different, much shabbier room surrounding those aged hands when Joanna gave a triumphant squeak. The governess threw up her arms and snapped her fingertips against her palms in a quick, sharp tempo.
Papa grunted as if he’d taken a blow.
Randolph sprang to his feet so suddenly that his chair tipped over backward and bounced on the carpet. “Incredible!” he cried. “I must set down a complete record of this at once.” Nearly stumbling over the downed armchair, he hurried out of the room.
Mr. Mitra fell silent. Georgina’s father cursed even as Joanna Byngham gave a forlorn moan. Georgina blinked at the candle flames. She felt as if she was returning from a great distance, and yet had never moved from her seat in this room.
Only Mr. Mitra seemed undisturbed. Calmly, he put the drum back in his bag and extinguished the incense. He moved from the carpet to one of the chairs. When he sat down, it was as if the stranger Georgina had glimpsed in him had disappeared once more. Or retreated from public view, she thought. Papa’s pleas had lured him out, but the…exposure had been temporary.
“We must each recount our experiences at once,” said Georgina’s father. “If we do not, they will fade and be forgotten, like dreams.”
Joanna didn’t wait for a further invitation. Leaning forward in her chair, eyes burning with a wild enthusiasm Georgina had never seen there before, she spoke. “I was the high priestess of a temple built from great blocks of buff-colored stone. It was hot. I could see palm trees through the archway. I had long, black curls and a band of gold around my forehead. I wore red skirts that swung out wide as I danced before a painted idol. There were bells on my hands.” She clapped her fingers against her palms again, looking…exalted. That was the word for it, Georgina thought. And here was an unexpected side of her former governess. Meeting Sebastian’s startled gaze, she decided it was a good thing Randolph had gone.
The others gazed at Joanna in silence. She ignored them, staring at the ceiling as if she could see right through it. Mr. Mitra was frowning. He seemed about to speak, then didn’t.
“I was in a battle,” said Georgina’s father after a while. “I had a sword—not a saber, an old-fashioned long sword—and I wore a sort of chain-mail shirt.” He took a deep breath and grinned at Mitra. “I think we did it, my friend. I returned to the age of Offa! Inhabited my former self. King of Mercia.” He shook his head. “It was astonishing. Quite immediate. I took a heavy blow to my ribs in the fight.” He put a hand to his side, then turned to glower at Sebastian. “If your brother hadn’t disrupted the process, I daresay I would have found out a great deal more.”
“Sorry,” muttered Sebastian, wondering why everything was always his fault. Georgina’s father might have expected that a churchman wouldn’t care for…whatever that had been. He rubbed his forearms, hair still prickling with unease. It had been surprisingly unsettling.
The marquess turned to Georgina. “What about you, my dear?”
Georgina blinked and let out a long breath. “It was strange, Papa.”
“In what way?” He leaned forward as if to draw the details out of her. “Just tell us anything your remember.”
She gazed at the wall opposite. “I was spinning. I have never done so, but I’m sure, somehow, that’s what it was.”
“In a dance of some sort?” asked Joanna. “Was there a sacred enclosure?”
“No, spinning thread, I mean,” Georgina replied. “From wool.” She held up her hands and examined them. “My fingers were gnarled and wrinkled, as if I was quite old and had worked very hard for many years. And then just before Randolph left, I seemed to see a stone hearth and a battered wooden table, perhaps some bunches of herbs hanging from the beam above.” She looked up, cocking her head. “It was rather like those cottages over near our northern borders, Papa. The ones you said needed rebuilding because they’re so old-fashioned and run down.”
The marquess frowned at her. “That can’t be right,” he said.
“It sounds like a peasant dwelling,” commented Joanna. “Spinning has been a constant activity in such places for thousands of…”
“It can’t have been real,” their host interrupted.
Sebastian wondered what the marquess’s definition of real might be in this case. He’d noticed that Mr. Mitra looked more interested in Georgina’s story than th
e others.
“The Stanes have no peasant blood,” declared the marquess. “None whatsoever. Georgina is simply too inexperienced to have done the thing right.”
“I have said many times that this has nothing to do with family inheritance,” Mitra said. He sounded weary.
Georgina’s father ignored him. Turning to Sebastian, he barked, “What about you?”
Sebastian would have preferred to skip his turn, particularly now that the older man was clearly irritated. He knew he’d have even more trouble than usual putting this odd experience into words. But there was no avoiding it. Everybody was looking at him, waiting.
He held out his arms, clothed in his familiar blue coat. Of course they were. What else would they be? “I thought I saw…designs painted on my arms,” he began. “Bare arms, I mean. All over them, wrist to shoulder. They were like the things sailors get. What are they called? Tattoos? Only these weren’t pictures, just lines that rather…swirled.”
That sounded daft, but he’d gotten the distinct sense that they moved as he watched. It had threatened to make him queasy. He’d had to look away. “Felt like there was a heavy bit of metal around my neck. Couldn’t see that. And I had on really awful trousers. Some kind of hideous red-and-blue check.” He looked at Georgina. “Not the sort of thing I’d ever wear,” he assured them both.
Georgina’s father, whose frown had been deepening, leaped to his feet, fists clenched. “A damned Welshman, by God! The kind of savage Offa fought off all his life.”
Sebastian gazed up at him with no idea in the world what to say.
“I might have known! Dragging my daughter off into the wilderness.”
“He did not drag me, Papa. I have told you and told you…”
“I had my suspicions, and now we see… Well, your engagement is at an end. I forbid it! We can’t have a barbarian in the family. Out of the question.”