I snatched up the paper. ‘You burnt it,’ I said.
‘Then why is it here?’ Judith asked gently.
‘I . . . don’t know.’ I put a hand to my head, suddenly uncertain. I could not have imagined the whole incident, but why would Judith lie to me?
‘Let me see.’ Judith held out her hand, and I put the paper in it. As I had done before, had I not? She untwisted the paper and bent to sniff very cautiously, just as I had done on my horse. Aghast, she lifted her head. ‘This is hemlock!’
‘I told you it was.’
‘Isabel . . . what are you planning?’
‘I tell you, nothing!’ I was near tears. I didn’t understand what was happening. ‘I found it under my pillow.’
‘I thought Eliza gave it to you?’
‘That was before. I got rid of the seeds and you burnt the paper.’
‘And now it has appeared again in your bed?’
‘I know how it sounds.’ I shook my head, dull with confusion and fatigue. ‘There must be an explanation.’
‘There is,’ Judith said firmly. ‘You are tired and distracted by the baby.’
She put the paper down, took the candle from me and set it on the chest. Come, get back into bed,’ she urged me, turning back the coverlets and patting the mattress, and for want of anything better to do, I climbed obediently between the sheets. ‘You haven’t been sleeping well, you told me that much, and you have been forgetful lately, it must be said. But that will all change as soon as Edmund comes home,’ she said reassuringly. ‘In the meantime, we must get rid of the hemlock. It is too dangerous to have lying around.’ She picked up the paper with its deadly twist of seeds. ‘Shall I take it for you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll get rid of it myself.’
‘Well, if you are sure.’ Judith put the paper back on the chest. ‘What if . . .’ She started to turn away and then stopped. ‘Oh, do not mind me.’
‘What if what?’
‘What if you forget tomorrow, and one of the servants finds it?’
‘I will not forget. I want to see this thing in full light,’ I said grimly. ‘Put it in the box,’ I told her. ‘I will throw it away tomorrow.’
‘Very well,’ she said, obviously reluctant. She hesitated again. ‘Do not say anything to Edmund, Isabel. You know how he worries for you. And I will say nothing either,’ she promised. ‘It will be our secret.’
Chapter Twenty-six
It is six weeks since I left hospital, and Oliver Raine comes out to assess me. I am nervous about seeing him. I remember his shrewd eyes and the easy way he manages silence, how when you talk to him you end up saying things you didn’t mean to say at all.
He asks where I would like to talk. I’d really prefer to be outside, but the spell of fine weather has blown away on a gusty wind that is bossing the tops of the trees around and splattering rain against the windows. Besides, my leg still isn’t up to walking far. I opt for the Vavasours’ private sitting room instead.
Fiona has a gracious exchange with Oliver, makes sure that we have tea and biscuits and then leaves us to it. I perch uneasily on the edge of a chintz-covered armchair. I don’t like this room. It is not that everything is immaculate or just so – there are old newspapers lying on the sofas and copies of Country Life and Horse and Hound open on the ottoman, the Persian carpet on the floor is faded and some of the chair covers are on the shabby side – but there is an oppressive tastefulness to everything that always makes me feel prickly and obscurely resentful. Apart from one or two books and some recent photographs, almost everything in the room has been inherited. The furniture is antique, the pictures painted by ancestors or collected by some long-dead Vavasour. Nothing so naff as a television mars the restrained beauty of the décor. I and my stick are the only jarring notes.
Oliver picks up on my discomfort. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to talk somewhere else?’
‘No, this is fine,’ I say, and take my tea from the tray. No pottery mugs in here; tea is always served in porcelain cups and saucers.
I can see that Oliver doesn’t believe me, but he sips his own tea and looks around him. ‘This is a beautiful house,’ he says mildly.
‘Yes,’ I say, but with just enough hesitation to make him raise his brows.
‘You don’t think so?’
‘It’s not that. It’s so old . . . of course it’s beautiful.’ I twist my cup in its saucer, wondering how to explain the feeling I have that the house is crouched and secretive, that the past drags at the air and blurs the light. That I can only breathe properly when I am outside. My good leg starts to jiggle and I force it to stop. ‘I just don’t find it very welcoming,’ I say feebly.
‘The house or the Vavasours?’
‘The house, mainly.’ I don’t find the Vavasours welcoming either, but it doesn’t seem tactful to say that to the man they are paying to help me. ‘I don’t know why I’m still here,’ I say in frustration. ‘I clearly don’t belong. Surely I must have been able to earn my own living and support Felix by myself? But now I can’t remember anything to do with work, so until I do remember or learn to do something new, and my leg is better, I feel trapped. Perhaps that’s why I don’t like the house very much.’
‘Well, let’s talk about what you’ve remembered,’ Oliver says, leaning forward to put his cup and saucer on the ottoman. ‘Lady Vavasour tells me that some of your memory has come back.’
‘Yes. I remember Michael and Felix and coming here for a visit once. And I remember a few things from my childhood, but it’s all so patchy,’ I say with renewed frustration. ‘Flashes of memory that I can’t put together properly. Like, I remember Michael reading Felix a story, but not how we met, or how he died. And nothing about the time I’ve been living here, or what I was doing up that bloody tower.’
I don’t tell him the other memories I have had, of meeting Eliza and finding the twist of hemlock beneath my pillow. It was just a piece of paper, but whenever I think of it, I feel cold and foreboding roils queasily in my belly.
‘It’s possible that you may never remember what happened immediately before your fall,’ Oliver says. As for the other memories, there’s no reason to think they won’t come back eventually the way the others have done. Do you have any sense of what has triggered the memories you have had?’
I force my mind away from the twist of hemlock and think back. ‘Not really . . . sometimes it’s because I’m doing something that I did before, like reading Felix a story, but often they just come. One moment my mind’s blank, and the next the memory is there. It’s weird. They’re not coming in any order either. Seeing giraffes as a child, then walking along a beach with Michael, then my grandmother, then being in some bar in Madrid and laughing . . . Most of the time, they don’t make sense at all.’
‘We like to think of our lives as unrolling in a clear chronological order, but unfortunately our minds don’t work like that,’ Oliver says. ‘Your brain has a filing system but it doesn’t seem to be one that you recognize.’
He pauses. ‘What about the dreams you were having in hospital?’ he says casually, so casually that I know this is what he has been building up to all along. ‘Have you had any more?’
My good leg starts to judder again. I want to lie, to laugh and say: No, I’ve forgotten all about them, but the words clog in my throat. Oliver waits patiently. There’s something about his steady gaze that makes me certain he will know the truth. My eyes slide away from his.
‘One or two,’ I manage after too long.
‘Are they the same as before?’
‘They’re different every time, but I’m the same. Isabel.’
Another pause. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about them, Kate?’
‘Because I’m afraid you’ll think I’m mad.’ The words burst out of me before I’m aware of them, and I bite fiercely down on my lip, still unable to meet his gaze.
Oliver doesn’t seem shocked. ‘Mad is a strong word,’ is all he says.
‘Okay, insane . . . crazy . . . bonkers . . . take your pick!’ My cheeks are burning with humiliation. Why have I started this? I don’t want to talk about it, but now that I’ve begun, I know Oliver won’t let it go.
‘You don’t strike me as irrational,’ Oliver says mildly.
‘It doesn’t seem weird to you that I can remember a life lived over four hundred years ago? They’re not dreams! I’m remembering!’ My voice rises, rattling out of control, and I force myself to stop and breathe. ‘They’re memories,’ I say more calmly. ‘They come when I’m wide awake, and I know that they’re not real, they can’t be real, but at the same time, they are. I can’t explain how vivid they are.’ My hands have bunched into fists and I relax them, deliberately flexing my fingers. ‘It’s not like I think I’m regressing or going back in time or anything like that. I’m aware of where I am the whole time. It’s just like remembering anything else.’
Oliver steeples his fingers, rests his mouth on them as he studies me. ‘So the dreams . . . memories . . . aren’t frightening in themselves?’
‘No,’ I say, but I don’t sound that certain.
‘But you’re afraid, anyway?’
‘I’m not afraid, exactly . . .’
‘How do they make you feel?’
I think about Edmund, his mouth hot on my skin, the way he smiled when he drew me to him. I think about holding Kit, laughing with Judith. ‘They’re happy memories, most of them. But sometimes I feel sad, remembering. I had a miscarriage . . .’ My voice starts to crack at that, and I hurry on. ‘But mostly I feel urgent . . . as if there’s something I need to do, something about my son.’ I stop, helpless to explain.
‘About Felix?’
‘About Kit.’
‘Kit is the son you remember in this other life?’
‘You see, I told you it sounds mad,’ I say defensively.
‘It certainly sounds disturbing,’ says Oliver, ‘but as you’ve said, you’re aware that these are memories that don’t seem to make sense.’
I moisten my lips. ‘I don’t want you to tell Fiona or Jasper about this!’
‘I’m not going to do that. There’s a little matter called patient confidentiality.’
‘So they can’t have me sectioned?’
Oliver stops steepling his fingers and leans forward, concerned. ‘Kate, is that what you’re afraid of?’
‘I don’t want to be shut up.’ My voice wavers. Is it me who’s afraid, or is it Isabel? ‘I have to be here for Felix.’
‘Why would the Vavasours want to section you?’
I think about Felix. Fiona and Jasper want him to grow up at Askerby. How far would they go to make sure that happens?
‘If they knew I had these extra memories, they might think it made me an unfit mother.’ Great, now I sound paranoid.
Oliver sits back. He looks almost stern. ‘Kate, as far as I can tell, you’re functioning perfectly normally for someone who’s undergone a severe trauma. You’re making a good physical recovery, and you’re lucid and intelligent. You don’t remember everything, but you’ve regained some key memories and you’re working on rebuilding your relationship with your son. All those are very positive signs.’
‘But what about the dreams?’
He tips his head from side to side thoughtfully. ‘They’re more interesting, I agree. Strictly speaking, they’re not dreams, as you’re awake. From what you’ve told me, they seem to be a kind of reverie.’
‘Like a daydream?’
‘If you like. Your mind has created an alternate world that seems perfectly coherent, a world that functions at a subconscious level. How are you getting on with Felix?’
I’m a bit thrown by the sudden question. ‘It was . . . difficult . . . at first, but we’re spending more time together now. He’s starting school in the village in September. Fiona and Jasper aren’t keen, but I think it’s better for him to have a normal routine.’
‘So you remembered him?’
‘Not immediately, and not everything, but yes, I know he’s my son.’ I take a breath. ‘But he doesn’t recognize me.’ I tell Oliver how Felix and I agreed to pretend at first. ‘I don’t know now if that was a mistake. He’s happy to spend time with me, but he never calls me Mummy, never. I haven’t managed to convince him yet that I really am the mother he remembers.’
Just as I haven’t managed to convince Pippin. The little dog is fascinated by me, and follows me around, but if I try to get close, she bares her teeth at me. Nobody can understand it, but I do. She’s frightened of me.
Or she’s frightened of Isabel.
I don’t tell Oliver this.
He has gone back to steepling his fingers. ‘Perhaps your concern about your connection with Felix is finding expression somehow in imagining another mother and child,’ he suggests. ‘Your “memories” could be a way of distancing yourself from a problem that feels too painful or too difficult to deal with otherwise.’
I think about that. It does seem to make a kind of sense. I hope it makes sense, anyway. I wonder about that twist of hemlock and the dull fear that knocked in my throat.
‘So if I’m dreaming about being afraid in the past, it’s because I’m afraid of something now?’
‘Possibly What are you afraid of in your dreams?’
‘Of going mad,’ I say slowly.
Oliver doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. It does make sense.
‘And I’ve got this horrible sense that something’s going to happen,’ I go on, my fingers twisting in my lap. ‘Something terrible, and I should be able to stop it, but I can’t remember what it is. I’m scared, but I don’t know why.’
‘It’s frightening facing the future when you’ve lost so much of the past,’ Oliver says reassuringly. ‘Feeling scared of what’s to come is perfectly understandable, but you’re doing well, Kate,’ he tells me. ‘You’re a lot stronger and more resilient than you think you are. How are you physically?’
Without meaning to, I rub my leg. ‘Better.’ I’m not sorry to change the subject. ‘I’m doing my exercises. Every day I try to walk a bit further. I’m allowed to walk on grass now. ‘I’m not up to long hikes yet, but I’m getting there.’
‘Don’t overdo it.’
‘That’s what everyone says. I’m being careful.’
I am being careful, but I am frustrated with how long it is taking, too. The truth is, I am often bored. Angie thinks it’s a good sign and that it means I’m feeling better, and I am certainly stronger. I don’t have to rest quite so much and going up and down stairs isn’t enough to exhaust me now. Slowly, my body is healing just as the doctors said it would, but until all my memories come back, there is a limit to what I can do. I am stuck, marking time. I can’t go forward until I can look back and see what brought me to where I am now.
I spend a lot of time with Felix. Now that I can walk on grass, we have explored more of the estate. It was Felix who took me to the river during the hot spell. The dogs came with us, as they usually do, the Labradors and Molly bounding ahead, Pippin trailing suspiciously.
The becks tumble down off the moors and gather quickly into the River Aske. There is a special place where the water ripples silver over the rocks and bends into a pool with a matching curve of sandy beach. The river there is shaded by overhanging trees and hidden behind a tangle of undergrowth. Scenting the water, the Labradors crashed through it and down the riverbank, and Felix followed. I could hear shrieking and splashing while I was still trying to catch up. When I got closer, I could see a faint path, but if you didn’t know just where to pick your way through the trees and scramble down the bank, you would never know the pool was there at all.
At the top of the bank, I glanced back at Pippin. ‘Are you coming?’ I asked her, but she just dropped to her haunches and flattened her ears at me.
‘Suit yourself,’ I said, and ducked under a branch, and that’s when I remembered that I knew this place. I had been there many times before.
It is diffe
rent now – the trees are different, the pool is deeper, the riverbank is steeper – but I knew that I had once pulled off my stockings and hoisted up my skirts to paddle there, while Edmund lounged on the grass, his hands beneath his head and his shirt untied. I don’t remember exactly when it was – before Kit was born, perhaps – but I do remember looking down at my toes and marvelling at how strange my feet seemed as the sunlight fractured and rocked over them with the movement of the water. I called to Edmund to look, but he said he was too hot and too lazy to move, so I waded out with my hands cupped full of the cool water and sprinkled it over him.
‘Marry, my lady, you will pay for that!’ Edmund’s hand shot out and grabbed my ankle, tippling me over onto him. Quick as a cat, he rolled me beneath him so that I lay pressed into the grass, pinioned beneath his lean, hard body. ‘How shall I punish you?’ He pretended to growl, but though he narrowed his blue eyes fiercely, I could see how merrily they danced.
‘I am not afraid of you,’ I said pertly. ‘You are too hot and too lazy to do anything, are you not?’ The next moment I was squealing with laughter as he tickled me until I begged, gasping, for mercy.
‘I am never too hot for you, Isabel,’ he said.
The memory is a fierce ache inside me every time I come to the river. Edmund’s hands deft at the laces of my bodice, his mouth hot on the curve of my neck. Our bodies shaking with laughter, then stilling as our eyes met, coming together in a sweet rhythm that left us both shaken again and clinging to each other while the tremors passed. Every moment of that hot afternoon is inscribed on my memory: the sweaty, sticky tangle of our limbs, the smell of the grass that was imprinted on my skin afterwards, the ragged sound of our breath, the tickle of a fly investigating my nose. I was so sated and content I could barely summon the energy to wave it away.
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