Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  “This is my daughter-in-law,” Sir William put in hastily. “Matilda, Lord de Clare has threatened this long time to ride over from his castle at Tonbridge to see my mews, haven’t you, my boy?” The old man was plainly delighted to see his visitor.

  “Lord de Clare.” Matilda curtsied and her heart inexplicably began to beat a little faster as she surveyed the young man’s handsome face.

  He grinned. “Do you enjoy hawking, madam? It should be an exciting day. I’m told there is good sport on these marshes.”

  “Indeed there is!” Sir William put in good-naturedly. “You must join us, Matilda. Watch my birds trounce this young fellow’s, eh?” He chuckled broadly.

  Matilda didn’t hear him. She was drowning in the young man’s gaze.

  ***

  “So it was too late even when they first met,” Sarah whispered softly. “She was already married to that boor! See if she and Richard ever managed to meet alone. Please, Carl. Ask her.”

  Bennet frowned. Nevertheless he leaned forward a little as he put the question. “Did you go hawking with Lord de Clare, Matilda? Did you manage to speak to him again?”

  Jo smiled. Her eyes, open and dancing, were the eyes of a carefree girl.

  “We rode away from the others, south toward Sompting. The forest over the Downs is thick with oak trees there and their leaves were gold and brown with autumn. Richard flew his peregrine when we got to the chalk fields and I pretended to fall from my horse. I knew he would dismount and come to me. I wanted him to hold me in his arms so much…”

  ***

  “My lady! My lady, are you hurt?” Richard’s face was near hers as she lay still on the ground. He glanced behind him for help, then gently he cradled her head on his knees. “My lady?” His voice was sharper now. “For the love of Christ, speak to me!”

  She moved slightly, letting out a small moan. His face was close to hers. She could see, through scarcely opened eyes, the fine hairs growing again on his chin where he had been shaved that morning, and feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. He smelled of leather and horsesweat, quite unlike the musty reek her husband habitually exuded. She nestled a little closer in his lap and felt suddenly his hands inside her mantle. Was he feeling for her heart, or for her breast beneath the pale linen? She stiffened imperceptibly and at once he straightened, moving his hand.

  “My lady?” he said again. “Speak to me. Tell me if you are hurt.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him, her breath catching in her throat as she found his face so very close to her own. “I must have fallen,” she whispered.

  “Can you rise?” He was trying to push her up as, behind them, the sound of horses’ hooves thundering on the hollow chalk announced the rest of the party.

  “I can manage! Thank you.” Crossly she jumped to her feet, brushing leaves from her mantle, then she turned from him in a flurry of skirts and ran to scramble back onto her horse alone.

  ***

  “Why didn’t you let me go on longer?” Jo asked when Bennet woke her from her trance. She glanced down at the spool on her tape recorder, which was barely a quarter used. “I want to know what happened. I wanted to see Richard again.”

  Bennet frowned. “It was going well, Jo, and we have learned a lot from this session. I don’t want you to grow tired.”

  She intercepted the worried look he cast in her direction. “Did you find out if someone tried to strangle me?” she asked. She was watching his face closely.

  He shook his head. “At the period you described today you were scarcely more than a child—you didn’t seem to know quite how old you were yourself. But if anyone tried to strangle Matilda it was at some time far in her future, Jo. Not when she was riding on the Downs with Richard de Clare.”

  “But something did go wrong. Something worried you?”

  “Nothing at all. Nothing.” He smiled reassuringly. “In fact, I would like to pursue our experiment further with you, if you agree.”

  “Of course I agree. I want to know more about Matilda and Richard. And what happened after the massacre…just a bit more.” Jo grinned as she picked up her recorder and stuffed it into her bag. “But I warn you now, I’m not going to chase her story endlessly. There’s no point in that and I have no intention of getting obsessive about all this. But just one or two more sessions as soon as you can fit me in.”

  Sarah rose and went to get the diary. As she did so Bennet came around the desk. He was frowning again. “Joanna. I must tell you that I had a phone call yesterday from a colleague who says he is treating you, a Dr. Franklyn.”

  Jo straightened abruptly, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. She tightened her lips. “Oh?” she said suspiciously.

  “He has asked me for a meeting to discuss your case.”

  “No!” Jo threw the bag down on the sofa. “No, Dr. Bennet. Sam Franklyn is not ‘treating’ me, as you put it. He is interested in this business because he worked for Michael Cohen years ago. He wants me to stop the regressions because he doesn’t want me to write about them. Believe me, he is not treating me for anything.”

  Bennet took a step backward. “I see.” He glanced at her beneath his eyebrows. “Well, I told him I had to ask your permission, of course.”

  “And I will not give it. I have already told him to leave me alone. I am sorry he rang you, I really am. He should not have bothered you.”

  “That is all right, Jo.” Bennet took the diary from Sarah and frowned at it through his glasses. “Friday afternoon at three o’clock. Would that suit you? I shall make it my last appointment and then we need not be hurried. And I shall tell Dr. Franklyn if he calls again that you would rather I did not speak to him.”

  After she had gone Sarah turned to Bennet. “She is hiding something, isn’t she?”

  He shrugged. “I suspect so.”

  Sarah raised an eyebrow. “So. Will you talk to this Dr. Franklyn?”

  “I’m sure that in the course of events he and I will meet. It is unthinkable that I should not run into him, because a colleague of Cohen’s would be an invaluable person with whom to discuss my work.” He closed the diary and handed it back to Sarah. “I would not discuss Joanna with him, of course, unless I thought it to be in her best interests.”

  Sarah smiled thinly. “Which it would be, of course. Tell me. What do you really think about the bruises she told us about? Do you think they were real? No one else saw them.”

  “I’m sure they were real.” He walked to the window and glanced down into the street.

  “But you think they were of hysterical origin?” Sarah’s voice was hushed. “She’s not the type, surely?”

  “Who can tell who is the type?” he replied thoughtfully. “Who can ever tell? And if she isn’t the type, and the bruises were there…” He paused.

  “If she isn’t,” Sarah echoed quietly, “then the man she was with really did try to strangle her.”

  ***

  As arranged, Jo met Sam on Wednesday evening at Luigi’s. He took one look at her and grinned across the table. “Let’s order before you hit me with your handbag, Jo.”

  “I’ll hit you with more than a handbag if you try a trick like that again,” Jo said. Her voice was cool as she glanced at him over the menu. “I absolutely forbid you to talk to Carl Bennet about me. What I do is none of your damn business. I am not your patient. I have never been your patient, and I don’t intend to be. What I do and what I write is my own affair. And the people I consult in the course of my research have a right to privacy. I do not expect you to harass them, or me. Is that quite clear?”

  “Okay. I surrender. I’ve said I apologize.” He raised his hands. “What more can I do?”

  “Don’t ever go behind my back again.”

  “You must trust me, Jo. I’ve said I’m sorry. But I am interested. And I do have a right to worry about you. I have more right than you’ll ever know.” He paused for a moment. “So you decided to see him again. You’d better tell me what happened. Did you learn
anything more about your alter ego?”

  “A bit.” Jo relented. “About her marriage to William…” She was watching his face in the candlelight. The restaurant was dark, crowded now at the peak evening hour, and very hot. Sam was sweating slightly as he looked at her, his eyes fixed on her face. The pupils were very small. Without knowing why, she felt herself shiver slightly. “Nothing dramatic happened. It was all rather low key after the first session.” Her voice trailed away suddenly. Low key? The violence! The rape! The agony of that man thrusting his way into her child’s resisting body, silencing her desperate screams with a coarse, unclean hand across her mouth, laughing at her terror. She realized that Sam was still watching her and looked away hastily.

  “Jo?” He reached across and lightly ran his thumb across her wrist. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Of course. It’s just a bit hot in here.” She withdrew her hand a little too quickly. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  They waited in silence as the waiter brought their antipasto. As they were starting to eat, Sam said thoughtfully, “William was very close to King John, did you know that?”

  Jo stared up at him. “You’ve been looking it up?”

  “A bit. I have a feeling William was much maligned. Historians seem to doubt if the massacre was his idea at all. He was a useful pawn, the man at the sharp end, the one to carry it out and take the blame. But not quite as bad as you seemed to think.”

  “He enjoyed it.” Jo’s voice was full of icy condemnation. “He enjoyed every moment of that slaughter!” She shuddered violently and then she leaned forward. “Sam. I want you to do something for me. I want you to do whatever you have to do to lift that posthypnotic suggestion that I forget that first session in Edinburgh. I have to remember what happened!”

  “No.” Sam shook his head slowly. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?” Jo put down her fork with a clatter.

  “I won’t. But I probably couldn’t anyway. It would involve rehypnosis, and I’m not prepared to try to meddle with something Michael Cohen did.”

  “If you won’t, I’ll get Carl Bennet to do it.” Jo’s eyes were fixed on his. She saw his jaw muscles tighten.

  “That wouldn’t work, Jo.”

  “It would. I’ve been reading up about hypnosis. Believe me, I haven’t been sitting around the last few days wondering what is happening to me. There are hundreds of books on the subject and—”

  “I said no, Jo.” Sam sat back slowly, moving sideways slightly to ease his long legs under the small table. “Remember what I told you. You are too suggestible a subject. And don’t pretend that you are not reacting deeply again, because you have proved you are. Not only under hypnosis either. It is possible that you are susceptible to delayed reaction. For instance, Nick has told me what happened at your grandmother’s house.”

  Jo looked up, stunned. “Nick doesn’t know what happened,” she said tightly. “At least—” She stopped abruptly.

  “Supposing you tell me what you think happened.” Sam did not look at her. He was staring at the candle flame as it flared sideways in the draft as someone stood at the next table and reached for her coat.

  Jo hesitated. “Nothing,” she said at last. “I fainted, that’s all. It had nothing to do with anything. So are you going to help me?”

  For a moment he did not answer, lost in contemplation of the candle, the shadows playing across his face. Then once more he shook his head. “Leave it alone, Jo,” he said softly. “Otherwise you may start something you can’t finish.”

  13

  May I have the Maclean file, please?” Nick’s assistant’s voice was becoming bored. “For Jim, if it isn’t too much trouble!” Behind her the office door swung to and fro in the draft from the open window.

  Nick focused on her suddenly. “Sorry, Jane. What did you say?”

  “The Maclean file, Nick. I’ll try to get Jo again, shall I?” Jane sighed exaggeratedly. She was a tall, willowy girl whose high cheekbones and upper class accent were at variance with the three parallel streaks of iridescent orange, pink, and green in her short-cropped hair. “Though why we go on trying when she is obviously out, I don’t know.”

  “Don’t bother!” Nick slammed his pen down on the desk. He bent to rummage for the file and threw it across to her. “Jim has remembered that I’m supposed to be going to Paris next Wednesday?”

  “He’s remembered.” Jane put on her calming voice. It infuriated Nick.

  “Good. Then from this moment I can leave the office in your hands, can I?”

  “Why, where are you going until Wednesday?” Jane held the file clasped to her chest like a shield.

  “Tomorrow the printers, then lunch with a friend, then I said I’d look in at Carters on my way to Hampshire.” He smiled. “Then the blessed weekend. Then Monday and Tuesday I’m in Scotland.” He closed his briefcase with a snap and picked it up. “And now I’m playing hooky for the rest of the afternoon. So if anyone should want me you can tell them to try again in ten days.”

  ***

  Each time Nick had phoned her Jo had put the phone down. The last time she slammed the receiver down she switched off her typewriter and walked slowly into the bathroom. After turning on the light, she gathered her long hair up from her neck and held it on top of her head. Then she studied her throat. There still wasn’t a mark on it.

  “So. That proves he did not touch me!” she said out loud. “If anyone really had tried to strangle me the bruises would have been there for days. It was a dream. I was delirious. I was mad! It wasn’t Nick, so why am I afraid of him?”

  All she had to do was see him. Even his anger was better than this limbo without him, and once he was there in the flesh, and she reminded herself what he really looked like, surely this strange terror would go. The memory of those eerie, piercing eyes kept floating out of her subconscious, haunting her as she walked around the apartment. And they were not even Nick’s eyes. She found she was shivering again as she stared at the half-typed sheet of paper in her typewriter. On impulse she leaned over and picked up the phone to dial Nick’s office.

  The phone rang four times before Jane picked it up.

  “Hi, it’s Jo. Can I speak to Nick?” Jo sipped her juice, feeling suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted off the top of her head.

  “Sorry. You’ve just missed him.” Jane sounded a little too cheerful.

  “When will he be back?” Jo put down her glass and began to pluck gently at the curled cord of the phone.

  “Hold on. I’ll check.” There was a moment’s silence. “He’ll be back on the twelfth.”

  “The twelfth,” Jo repeated. She sat bolt upright. “Where has he gone?”

  “Scotland on Monday and Tuesday, then back and straight over to France on Wednesday morning for a week.”

  “And today and tomorrow?” Jo could feel her voice turning prickly.

  “Out. Sorry, I don’t know where exactly.”

  Jo put down the phone thoughtfully. Then she picked it up again and dialed Judy Curzon.

  “Listen, Judy, I need to see Nick. Will you give him a message please? Tell him I’m seeing Carl Bennet again tomorrow afternoon. That’s Friday—at three. Tell him I’m going to find out what really happened on Sunday, come hell or high water, and if he wants to know he’d better be there. Have you got that?”

  There was a long silence on the other end. “I’m not a message service,” Judy replied eventually. Her tone was frosty. “I don’t give a damn who you’re going to see tomorrow afternoon, and obviously Nick doesn’t either or you wouldn’t have to call him here, would you!”

  Jo sat looking at the phone for several minutes after Judy hung up, then she smiled. “Hoist with your own petard, Miss Clifford. You walked right into that one!”

  ***

  “Pidwch cael ofon.” The voice spoke to Matilda again as she stood once more outside the moon-silvered walls of Abergavenny. Then it tried in w
ords she understood. “Do not be afraid, my lady. I am your friend.” His French was halting but dimly she recognized before her the dark Welsh boy who had brought her food the night before. But he was no longer afraid; it was her turn for terror.

  She did not speak. She felt the hot wetness on her face and she felt him brush the tears away with a gentle hand.

  “You did not know then?” he stammered. “You did not know what was planned at the feast?”

  Wordlessly she shook her head.

  “It is not safe for you here, whatever.” The boy spoke earnestly. “My people will seek revenge for the massacre. You must go back into your castle.”

  Taking her elbow, he tried to turn her back but she found her feet scrabbling agonizingly on the sharp stones of the river path as she fought against him on the slippery ground.

  “No, no. I can’t go back there. I’ll never go back there, never.” She broke from him and ran a few steps farther on, toward the moon. Before it lay the mountains.

  “Where will you go then?” The boy caught up with her in three strides and stood in front of her again.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.” She looked around desperately.

  “I will take you to Tretower.” The boy spoke, suddenly making up his mind. “You will be safe there.” He took her firmly by the hand and strode out along the river. In a daze, oblivious of her torn and bleeding feet, she followed him.

  She never knew how long she stumbled on behind him. At one point her strength gave way and she sank onto the ground, unable to go farther along the steep rough bank of the river. The water ran mockingly pure and silver near her as though no blood had ever stained it. Bending, she scooped some of it, icy and clean, into her mouth, and then she lay back on the wet grass, her eyes closed.

  The boy came back for her and coaxed and pleaded, but she was unable to rise. Her back pained spasmodically. She realized suddenly that she was going to lose her baby and she was glad.

  The boy tugged at her hand, begging her to go with him, continually glancing over his shoulder, obviously worried that they were being followed. Then suddenly he seemed to give up the struggle and disappeared as quickly and silently as he had come.