‘Go on.’
‘I discovered the truth – that the old promise of everlasting life is exactly that. Death is just a doorway into another plane of existence, and we pass through it many times.’
The two men stared at each other. Then Tom uncrossed his arms and sat up.
‘Religious humbug. Have you joined some kind of crazy Californian sect?’
‘It has nothing to do with religion. I wish you’d rid your mind of all the inbuilt prejudices you’re carrying. Historically, almost every human culture has held such a belief, from the Neanderthals, who buried their dead folded in fetal position, suggesting the belief that the dead would be born again, to the current Hindu faith. Survival after death was the central theme of the Egyptian religion. Reincarnation was taught in the early doctrine of the Christian church, did you know? As for your own Judaism, you must have learned the tradition of the kabala in which reincarnation features. The modern Hasidic sect follows this.’
Tom sprang up. He’d gone from red to white complexion. Even as he recognized that his anger was out of all proportion to the offence, he shouted, ‘Enough! I don’t need you to teach me what I learned in the cradle – and later learned to despise.’
‘Okay. But think of this. Something that has been believed by so many in all times and all places has at least a strong possibility of being the truth. It’s just as logical as the idea that the whole of humanity has been suffering from mass delusion.’
Tom shook his head. He made an obvious effort to be calm. ‘Look, this started out as a friendly consultation between colleagues. What happened? Suddenly we’re caught up in this weird argument about the afterlife. It has nothing to do with my client’s case.’
‘So much for the open mind.’ Phil took up his glass and seemed disappointed to find it empty.
‘All right. You mentioned the empirical method, personal experience. Just tell me what in hell you mean by that.’
Phil’s irrepressibly cheerful face grew solemn, but his eyes still had a mischievous gleam.
‘I had myself regressed, Tom. I actually went back and relived a part of my life as a fifteenth-century Spanish nun.’ He calmly reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink.
CHAPTER FIVE
Running steadily, Karen turned east and slightly south towards the city, hoping to find familiar streets. Instead, almost immediately she entered unknown territory. Without warning, fashionable residential districts fell away into a squalid maze of lanes and courts and alleys - those that were paved so covered in filth that she might as well have been running in a ditch.
In the middle of the streets open kennels overflowed with the most disgusting vegetable and animal refuse, miring her skirts to the knees. She slipped and fell several times, eventually bruising her leg so badly she had to stop. She leaned against a crumbling brick wall to catch her breath, past caring how she looked. The rows of miserable tenement houses crowded in upon her, blocking out the sky. No current of air penetrated to the footway, and she seemed to be breathing in a foul miasma from the stones themselves.
Now that she’d stopped running she felt the cold. It struck through her thin house slippers, numbing her feet and ankles. Her dress was no protection against the bitter air, and her teeth began to chatter of their own accord. The bits of sky she could see between the rooftops looked like swags of dirty washing hanging low and threatening. She pushed herself upright and began to move slowly on.
A woman stood in a doorway opposite, watching her. It had to be a woman – she wore a skirt to which two young children clung, whining. Another baby sat on her hip, its face buried in her bosom, obviously suckling. Looking into the coarse-grained face under lank greasy hair, at the pipe held in broken and blackened teeth, and the whole air of degradation that hung upon the woman, Karen felt and revulsion and pity run through her.
‘Tipstaffs after yer, dearie?’ The woman advanced on her with predatory eyes.
Karen ran.
Each street seemed to lead to a worse one. Some were busy, and she was often forced out of her way by itinerant vendors, beggars, pot menders pushing their tools in barrows, even gangs of half-starved and ricketty children playing wild games of tag, or kicking the blown up entrails of a beast as a football, their little stick limbs scarcely strong enough to carry them.
After an encounter with a drunken man outside a tavern, she avoided the houses with signs above them, even preferring the stinking alleys where the contents of open privies ran down over her feet.
There was a stitch in her side, and he leg felt as though it was on fire. She sobbed as she ran, the tears making runnels in the soot that had settled on her face. She had been wrong about everything. The world she found herself in wasn’t a stage set, nor a cruel trick played upon her. It was horribly real. She hated it. And she’d never been so alone and afraid before.
Her foot met something slimy, and she slipped and fell, for the last time, landing on her hands and knees in a pool of filthy stagnant water. It was too much. The pain, her fear, the awful lost feeling, lay on her like a ton weight. She stayed where she was, an inert huddle, just another piece of refuse in the gutter.
*
‘My dear, you are nigh frozen through! Oliver, give me your coat.’
Swaddled in a smart cutaway that provided little enough warmth, Karen found herself lifted and deposited onto the padded seat of a closed carriage. The woman followed and sat down beside her, wiping her face gently, chafing her hands and uttering small soothing sounds, interspersed with commands to her companion to place the lady’s feet so, and mind that he directed the coachman straight to Park Crescent.
Karen opened weary eyes and forced herself to sit upright. There was a terrible smell in the coach, which she couldn’t locate. The gentleman whose coat she wore sat opposite in his shirt sleeves, his chin buried in a cravat of enormous proportions. From the delicate yellow hue of his pantaloons, and the extravagance of his waistcoat, she knew she was in the presence of a dandy, or one who aspired to the term. Even his hair, as yellow as his thin legs, displayed the severe cut back from the face and down-drooping lock over the forehead that proclaimed him a Regency pink. But his eyes were kind, and he appeared to bear no malice for the appropriation of his coat, even on so cold a day. Of course, the carriage was warm enough inside. Where was that awful smell coming from?
The Samaritan lady said, gently, ‘Lady Caroline, pray allow me to present Mr. Oliver Stamford. ‘Tis not every gentleman who would emulate Sir Walter Raleigh with such good grace. I am Amanda Crayle. We have met, of course, but infrequently, and I doubt you will recall my name.’
Karen blinked. The woman was even more noticeably turned out than her companion, and would be memorable for that alone. Scarlet velvet predominated, with a white fur trim, giving her the appearance of a sweet-faced, blimpish little Santa Claus. Her sleeves looked like nothing more than two strings of salami , caught together at the elbow, and ending in a ruffle that hid the small gloved hands. Her hat resembled a red cake tin adorned with a white rabbit or two.
This extraordinary little figure leaned forward, her face falling into a dimpled pout. ‘Oh, you really do not recollect our meeting. What a set-down for me.’ Her smile peeped out again. ‘Mama would say I was well served for my temerity.’
‘No, no. I never would… I mean…’ Karen put a hand to her aching head, and realized with horror that she was the source of the revolting odor in the carriage. She seemed to have put her hand in something indescribable that had once been alive. ‘Omigosh! Your carriage! Your clothes! They’ll be filthy.’
Amanda Crayle remained calm. ‘Both may easily be cleaned. Pray do not disturb yourself. Only explain to me how you come to be in such a distressing situation, Lady Caroline. I give you my word I have never been so astonished in my life as I was to see you in the gutter of Chicken Lane. How very fortuitous, to be sure, that we should chance to be returning from the Holborn dispensary at that very time.’
Karen thought
quickly. While most of her seemed numbed by pain and cold, her mind worked well enough. She could clearly remember Sybilla’s horrified exclamation on the staircase of Rothmoor House.
‘I guess I must have lost my memory. I had an accident and hit my head, and now I can’t remember people or places, or even who I am.’ Karen heard the half-truth come out quite easily. After all, she had to say something believable, and it looked as though she’d be repeating it for some time to come.
‘You poor dear!’
‘Demmed awkward!’
The two spoke in unison. Amanda frowned at her escort and took Karen’s hand in her own.
‘I am so very sorry for your situation. I will not tease you further. But tell me if you recall you name and place of residence.’
‘They say I am Caroline Marchmont, of Rothmoor House. I don’t know where that is. I think I must have run for miles.’ She heard the resignation in her voice. If she must remain in this strange world for the time being, she’d far sooner belong to its privileged ranks, after having glimpsed what lay behind the façade of elegant Georgian London. The misery and squalor she had witnessed sickened her.
Oliver Stamford’s timid smile was clearly meant to be reassuring, and she knew how lucky she’d been to fall in with her two rescuers. A bitter wind had risen, driving rain against the windows of the carriage. She shuddered, and pulled the meager coat more tightly about her, closing her eyes against further interrogation.
Their arrival at Rothmoor House and her re-entry turned into a progress, with so many people pressing around her to exclaim and scold and question that she was deafened. It was noticeable how quickly they backed off when they detected the smell of fetid rookeries that hung about her.
The main entrance was meant to be imposing – its floor laid with chilly tessellated marble, the walls arched and pilastered with more of that cold stone. Each niche held its bust or urn, or a high-relief carved bouquet; and presiding over all a great ice-crystal chandelier, its prisms clinking and swaying in the wind from the open door. Karen had already dubbed the place porridge – neutral, bland, colorless and unwelcoming. Now, in her present frame of mind it felt like the anteroom to hell – a cold and echoing bedlam.
The redoubtable Miss Crayle took immediate charge, pushing Karen through the crush, ruthlessly elbowing aside those who would stop her. One figure, however, was immovable. He turned out to be Charles Hastings, secretary to Lord Antony, and very much ruler of the household in his lordship’s absence. He and Amanda faced one another – the little red turkey hen versus the stolid mastiff.
‘I tell you candidly, sir, the Lady Caroline is in the most urgent need of rest. She does not require to be brow-beaten and questioned and driven by a horde of importunate persons.’ She swept a red velvet arm in an arc, almost connecting with Lady Oriel’s out-thrust jaw.’
The secretary nodded. ‘I am perfectly in agreement with you ma’am.’ Turning on the crowd he dismissed all the servants, barring the butler, then contrived to usher the other ladies and gentlemen in the direction of the drawing room. He did it without giving offence, which, in the case of Lady Oriel constituted a remarkable feat.
Karen silently applauded. Handing back Oliver Stamford’s coat, she thanked him, and accepted his stuttered good wishes for her recovery. He seemed embarrassed by his unconventional and uninvited appearance in a nobleman’s home, and immediately trotted back out to the carriage.
Amanda nodded approval, explaining to Charles Hastings, ‘He is not very comfortable in society, you know. He will be happier waiting in the carriage. I expect he will want to see the horses walked so they do not take a chill from standing.’
The secretary bowed, quietly giving orders for men to be sent after Lord Antony and the other searchers, and a tray of suitable refreshments to be taken in to Lady Oriel’s interrupted whist afternoon. He left Karen to Amanda’s care.
As she was supported towards the stairs, Karen looked back at this competent man and decided she liked what she saw. Of no more than medium height and neither dark not fair, but an indeterminate sandy coloring, he impressed her with his air of civil assurance and his ability to command the respect of all. In just a few hours she’d grown tired of the class demarcations she’d encountered. It was refreshing to see someone who knew who he was and respected himself without reference to his station in life.
However, when Amanda whispered in her ear, ‘What a fine looking man, to be sure. Is he not a very Apollo in form?’ she looked again, and wondered at the extravagant phrase.
‘He’s reasonably good looking, and has a pleasant manner.’
Amanda stared, then laughed. ‘Of course, you are wedded to Jove himself. I daresay he has spoiled your taste for men of gentler mien.’
It was Karen’s turn to pause on the stair. ‘You mean Lord Antony? Do you call him handsome? I’ve never seen him without frowning brows and his mouth a grim slash. Maybe you’re right. He has the graceless arrogance of power.’
‘I am persuaded you are not serious! Why, half the female society of the ton fell into mourning when he wed again last year. He is held to be a very proper man in every respect.’
‘He’s a bully,’ said Karen waspishly, and saw Amanda’s expression change to one of concern.
‘My dear, never say such a thing. Now come, let us send for your maid and have you laid down on your bed.’
Bed, again! Karen had a vision of herself cowering against the pillows while her jailer brought up blisters on her with his tongue, and her whole nature rose in rebellion. He wasn’t getting the chance to treat her like that again. She was a modern woman, liberated in every way. Not even Humphrey at his worst had succeeded in making her cringe, and he had quite a physical method of extorting obedience. At least this Regency rogue used his tongue alone. If she’d been feeling herself yesterday she’d have given him a good match. Now, of course he’d be furious with her for causing such uproar, with visitors in the house, too. She’d be darned if she’d hide away in her bedroom awaiting retribution.
‘I’m not going to bed. I’ll take a bath and change, and then I’m coming downstairs.’ She raised her voice. ‘Mr. Hastings, would you please tell Lord Antony when he comes in that I’ll meet him in the library?’
He bowed, and she saw that she had surprised him. Amanda’s reaction was interesting in that she seemed torn between deploring such physical exertion after shock, and admiration for Karen’s clear challenge.
‘My dear Lady Caroline, you are a woman after my own heart. I see that I should have paid less attention to gossip and made my own judgments. You will pardon my plain speaking, but I had no notion that you were one of the new breed of female determined to challenge society’s dictates and force recognition of our equality.’ A decidedly martial glint had appeared in the brown eyes, and Karen realized she’d misjudged Amanda’s temperament every bit as much as Amanda had hers.
She smiled with real friendliness. ‘I welcome your honesty, Miss Crayle. There seems to be little enough of it about in these times. Please come with me to my room while I freshen up, I’d like to talk to you. Oh, and by the way, don’t give me my title. I’d rather be Kar – Caroline.’
‘You know they think I’m mad.’ Having dismissed Lucy, Karen sat squashed in the hip bath before the bedroom fire, soaping herself, while she discovered how much she liked Amanda Crayle and wanted her friendship.
‘It is always the first solution to cross the commonplace mind,’ Amanda observed. She had removed the terrible hat and the even worse coat, and emerged as a young woman in her mid-twenties, of normal bodily proportions, although plump, and clad in a gown of slate blue twill which actually enhanced her complexion. Dark curls, cut modishly, clustered around her cheeks, now pink and blooming from the cold. Her vitality gave her a freshness that surpassed mere prettiness, thought Karen.
‘I can’t really blame them for thinking it. The things I’ve said must seem quite crazy. But it’s so bloody frustrating.’ She threw the bath sponge down,
splashing water over the rug. Blue eyes flashed fire as she gripped her folded legs and sank her chin moodily onto her knees. ‘Amanda, you’re the first normal person I’ve struck since I arrived. Do you think… Would you help me?’
Amanda regarded her thoughtfully. She sat so prim and neat with skirts arranged about her, Karen wondered if she’d made a mistake, after all.
‘Your speech is unusual, and you talk of having “arrived”. Pray tell me what meaning is attached to that word.’
Karen searched for an explanation that would be credible, and gave up. ‘Look, I’ve only told this story once, and the reception it got scarcely encourages me to tell it again. But I must have help. I’ve just got to get back to my own time. It’s vital!’ She looked up at Amanda’s intent face. ‘I’m not Caroline Marchmont. My name is Karen Courtney and I live in the twentieth century. Last night I went for a walk in the country, and woke up in a strange bed, in another woman’s body. This place, these people, they’re all totally foreign to me. I’m trapped in the wrong time, and I don’t know how it happened, or how to get out of it. He doesn’t believe me. He says if I tell anyone else I’ll be taken for mad and clapped up in an asylum.’ Her voice cracked. ‘He insists that I’m his wife, Caroline, and it’s obvious that he hates her… me. What can I do? Just tell me where, in God’s name, can I turn for help?’
She lowered her head and wept, not just for herself, but for the child she loved, and who depended on her.
Amanda let her cry for a minute, then picked up the big bath sheet and brought it to her, encouraging her to leave the cooling water and dry herself. ‘For you do not need to contract a chill to add to your troubles. My dear, I am perfectly willing to listen to your tale, and help you if it lies within my power. Now, dry your eyes and wrap yourself warmly. I shall help you to dress. It was sensible of you to dismiss your maid so that we might converse more privately.’
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