Author: Anya Seton
Category: Literature
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In the Jaguar, following Myra’s Bentley, Igor was driving. Celia had asked him to, partly because it obviously pleased him, and partly because she had begun to feel nervous when she drove herself—a condition which she understood no more than the other distressing new symptoms. She had been expertly driving since she was sixteen and she had, by now, driven all kinds of cars; until last month she had loved driving the Jag. And now, she didn’t. But, Celia thought, still glowing from the relief of Richard’s warmth in the library, I’ll feel better now, I’ll dare tell Richard of my jittery nonsense.
Sue Blake sat beside Igor in front and kept up a babble of excitement, directed mostly back to Celia, for Igor was intent on the road.
“Oh, Cousin Celia, England’s so sweet, so green, and those thatched cottages, just like a calendar we had in the kitchen at home! I’ve never seen this many sheep before; the baby lambs are so cute, and what are those funny-looking pointed things in the field?”
“Oast-houses,” answered Celia smiling, and explained something about hops and the making of beer.
Celia noted absently that the Hindu beside her was very quiet, that his eyes were half shut, and that there was an inward listening expression on his lean, bronze face.
“Forgive Sue’s raptures, Dr. Akananda,” she said, laughing. “England must be a very old story to you.”
He turned and looked at her with a brief, compassionate gaze. Not exactly compassion, she thought startled—more like pity, which would be as annoying as it was uncalled for.
“Why do you look at me like that?” she cried involuntarily.
Jiddu Akananda smiled apology. “I’m sorry, Lady Marsdon, I’d like to convey to you my sympathy and offer what help I can give during the trials that may await you. I tried to stop your going here today, but you didn’t hear me.”
“Trials?” she repeated sharply. “What do you mean?”
He raised his slim hand and touched her forehead between the arched dark brows, a gentle touch like a benediction, yet it was also like an electric charge, a quick shimmer of light through her head.
“You must,” he said calmly, almost conversationally, “hold fast to your course, with faith, for you may be badly buffeted in the tempest that I fear is brewing.”
Celia lifted her brows and would have questioned further, but Sue had caught Akananda’s last words and twisted around to say archly, “Tempest? Dr. Akananda. You Hindu gentlemen are awfully poetical, I’ve always heard so. Back in Kaintucky we wouldn’t think this sky looked like a storm comin’.”
“I suppose not, my child.” Akananda’s eyes held an indulgent twinkle. “Yet there are many kinds of storms. Outside in nature; inside in the soul.”
Sue giggled and pouted. “You’re positively bafflin’, Doctor. I’ve always wanted to meet one of you, after Jack—that’s my brother—went all committed to Maharishi and kept doing Yoga an’ meditations. Jack was a real hippie for a while,” she explained. “Mom and Dad were horrified. But, I guess he’s got over it. He’s cut his hair, stopped smoking pot, and is dating a real nice girl.”
“That is splendid,” said Akananda smiling. Sue turned around to answer some comment of Igor’s and the Hindu glanced at Celia. “Your cousin is charming and very young. She’s also fortunate. I believe that for her this life will be easy.”
“Do you predict futures?” asked Celia with a hint of sarcasm. She had not liked the implied warning in Akananda’s speech about tempests, especially as the man attracted her. There came from him a radiation, an effect of light around him. And that’s idiotic, too, she thought.
“I’m not a fortuneteller,” Akananda answered quietly. “But through training and discipline I receive more impressions than most people can. Yes, you’re right in thinking that I was trying to prepare you for a grave ordeal. That much is permitted. I am also permitted, even commanded, to help you as best I can. Though we must all pay our Karmic debts, the Divinity which is above Karma is ever merciful; through God’s help and your own actions you may be able to reduce a sword-thrust to a pin-prick. It depends.”
Celia stared through the open window where the rose-studded hedgerows and the buttercup fields slipped by. She had not been really listening but one word startled her.
“God . . .?” she said hesitantly. “I used to believe in Him when I was very little, now He’s just what somebody said, just an oblong gray blur. I had a peculiar religious upbringing.” She turned to Akananda, yet spoke half to herself, “A year in a Catholic convent as a boarder when I was eleven, while Daddy was traveling on business around the world with Mother.”
“But your parents weren’t Roman Catholics?”
“Oh, no, but Mother’s best friend was, and they thought it a safe place to leave me. I was lonely and bored, really miserable . . . Before that,” she added ruefully, “I was a little Christian Scientist, because my governess was one. I went to Sunday school in Chicago. But the governess left. And Mother took up Theosophy. I devoured all the books she did, and was fascinated by them. But after Daddy died . . .”
“Your father had no interest in religions?”
“None whatsoever, he used to laugh at Mama and say he’d leave all that tomfoolery to the women, common horse sense was enough for him.”
“And you agree?”
“I think so,” Celia said. “As I grew up I got cynical. I’d see Mother enthusiastic and involved with charlatans. Numerologists and astrologists who charged five hundred dollars for a ‘reading’ which was so vague you could twist the meaning any way you wanted. And faith healers who couldn’t seem to heal themselves, and a Yogi in California who preached purity, sublimity and continence, and then tried to seduce me one day while Mother was out. It was awful.”
“Did you tell your Mother?”
“Oh, yes, I did.” Celia considered this with slight surprise. “She’s never shocked, never fusses. I always told her everything. She was very distressed, she soothed me and wrote the Yogi a blistering letter. We never saw him again, of course.”
“And now you fear that Mrs. Taylor has entangled you with another such Yogi?” Akananda asked, amused.
Celia colored, “Oh, I don’t mean that. I don’t know what I mean, and I love Mama, I trust her even when she makes mistakes. She always admits them, and has faith in people just the same.”
“Your mother,” he said slowly, “is a fine woman. She seeks the truth, and often glimpses it. The bond between you is very strong.”
She nodded, half exasperated. She didn’t want to talk about Lily. The whole conversation made her uncomfortable. “Oh, Mother’s all right. My whole life should be all right now. Oh, it will be, I’m sure.”
Akananda sighed. “Yes, there’s something you desperately want, and you are not sure—to understand your husband. There are from the past appalling obstacles, I’m afraid, between you and your desire.” It was an authoritative statement.
Celia started and her jaw tightened, “That’s a ridiculous remark, Doctor! Little tiffs are natural in marriage. I don’t know what you’re getting at anyway.”
Akananda shook his head, “Poor child, your deep self knows very well what I mean. Why do you swallow and gasp so often, why are your hands trembling?”
She clenched her hands tight. “Nerves,” she said angrily. “Everyone gets nervous symptoms, sometimes. Stop probing. You’ve no right to, and I don’t like it.”
“That’s reasonable, and your privilege.” He spoke with patient dignity. “However, I am a physician, trained at the University of Calcutta, then Oxford, and Guy’s Hospital, and after that two years of psychiatry at the Maudesley in London. I am also a disciple of a great world teacher who was at one time called Nanak.”
“Is he dead?” she asked, her anger ebbing.
“He no longer inhabits a body,” said Akananda. “He’s passed beyond the disciplinary Karmic need to reincarnate.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “I suppose it makes sense, or why are innocent babies born crippled, blind—why
horrible injustices? Oh, I know half the world believes in rebirth, and even some things in the Bible seem to point that way. But, why can’t we remember past lives?”
“Remembrance would usually be an intolerable burden, which All-merciful God spares us. For that matter, Lady Marsdon, do you consciously remember the first year or two of this life?”
Celia shook her head. “But what difference does it make?” She was tired, drained, bored with the subject. And there was still resentment towards Akananda, who had disrupted her hopeful mood. “You don’t seem to be the sort of man who would bother to come to a silly weekend house party,” she said crossly. “Especially as you hardly know Mother, and the rest of us not at all.”
He was silent, debating whether to answer her frankly. He read her mood and understood it, but after a moment he spoke what he knew to be truth.
“I don’t want to annoy you, my dear child, but I believe I’ve known you and your mother before this lifetime, though I don’t know where. There’s a reason for my presence. Also, you have known some of the people at your house party before this. I’m quite sure of that. The great Karmic Law has now brought you to the brink of a precipice where a battle will take place.”
“Indeed,” said Celia shrugging. “I hope the good guys win.” She fished in her bag and brought out her pink lipstick, applying it carefully. Her hand did not tremble, her throat was not constricted. She was only tired. “Sue, look!” She touched the girl’s shoulder. “Down there in the hollow, that must be the house we’re going to. Why, it really does have a moat!”
The girl looked where Celia pointed, and her mouth fell open. “Fabulous . . .” she breathed, and then for once was speechless.
Myra turned her car and drove slowly through the opened gates. Igor followed her in. The cars stopped by a graveled path. The occupants got out, and joined forces. They were all quiet for a while, gazing at the manor house, which was gilded by the afternoon sun into the garnet of bricks and tiles, the topaz of lichen-covered stones, broken here and there by stretches of half-timbering—striped ivory between oak beams. Secluded, solitary, enchanted, Ightham lay dreamlike within its encircling moat, and on first sight gave all beholders a sense of romantic peace.
Igor spoke first. “Marvelous, Mrs. Taylor, utterly fantastic! I’d no idea such a place existed—and so near London. It takes the Americans to show us our country! Look at those colors, mellow yet vibrant above that ribbon of liquid emerald. If I could only get those tones in fabric . . .” He squinted, framed off sections with his hands. “Good thing I brought the Polaroid.” He sauntered back to the car to fetch his camera.
Harry and Myra also turned to Lily. “Most picturesque,” Harry said. “Quite worth seeing, must cost a fortune to keep up though.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Myra, surveying the house, the shaven lawns, the rose and peony gardens with a practiced eye. “Charming. I wonder how the owner gets enough staff. I shouldn’t want to live here myself, give me a convenient flat in Eaton Square every time, but this is very pretty.”
Lily was gratified, no longer defensive about her expedition. “Aren’t you glad you came, darling?” she asked Celia, and broke off. “Oh, this must be the guide, they said one would be waiting.”
A middle-aged woman in a floral print dress came briskly over the stone bridge towards them. “Mrs. Taylor’s party?” she inquired smiling. “As a rule we only show the place on Friday afternoons, but the owner is generous and allows exceptions when he’s not in residence. Particularly for Americans, since he is one.”
“It’s very kind of you.” Lily smiled back. “As a matter of fact, we aren’t all Americans, this is the Duchess of Drewton, and Sir Harry Jones, and Mr. Igor—they’re English—and Dr. Akananda, then Miss Susan Blake and my daughter, Lady Marsdon, we’re the Americans.”
The guide looked faintly startled, though she knew that Americans were given to elaborate introductions. She glanced with interest at the Duchess, whom she had seen pictured in the Illustrated London News and wondered at her presence here. For that matter it seemed a peculiar party, with a brown-faced doctor, and a Sir Somebody, and a golden-haired youth with a queer name, and “my daughter, Lady Marsdon,” who had drawn away from the others and was staring at the stone tower with extraordinary intensity.
“Now,” said the guide shrugging, “we’ll start our tour here on the bridge, while remembering that the original fortified manor house was built by either a Cawne or a deHaut in the reign of Edward the Third, somewhere about thirteen-seventy, we think. It has not been possible to identify all the early owners, but you will find a list on the back of the leaflet. You might like to look at it before starting the tour.” The guide handed out pamphlets. “That’ll be sixpence each if you wish to keep them,” she said.
Myra declined her pamphlet graciously. “I’m afraid I’m not all that keen on crawling over old houses,” she said. “Are you, Harry?” He shook his head. “Then we’ll wait for you outside,” she added to Lily. “I’m quite fond of gardens.” She glanced at her diamond wrist watch, “The pubs won’t be open yet, and I could do with a gin and bitters; but we’ve got the tea flask in the car. Will you fetch it, Harry?”
Myra wandered off with her admirer. Igor also preferred to stay outside, enthusiastically snapping sunlight effects as he pranced around the edge of the moat.
“Well,” said Lily a trifle disappointed, “we want to see everything.” She looked at Dr. Akananda and Sue, then more carefully at Celia. “What’s the matter with you, dear?” she said laughing. “You act moonstruck.”
Celia jumped. She gazed hastily down at the moat. “I was watching the swans.” Two of them were gliding under the bridge amongst the flowing green weeds.
“Oh, yes,” said the guide, “the Queen herself had us sent a pair, after swan-upping day. Now this entrance tower has an interesting feature. You see the zigzag stone slit here, it’s really a device to let those inside the manor safely see anyone trying to get in. Quite ingenious. And now the courtyard, entirely enclosed by the buildings, rather small as these things go. Those stocks over there by the Great Hall were often in use for punishment.”
“Punishment?” repeated Sue, wide-eyed. “And is there a dungeon too, where they tortured people?”
“There is a dungeon,” answered the guide patiently. “Almost under the entrance tower, but we don’t show it, it’s too dark and dangerous.”
The guide led her party across the cobblestones to the eastern part of the quadrangle and unlocked a massive oaken door. “This entrance leads into the vestibule outside the Great Hall. There were structural changes made in the last century on this side of the Hall, otherwise it has remained much as you see it for five hundred years.”
Lily, Sue, Akananda and Celia filed into the Hall, which was suddenly flooded with sunshine through the tall mullioned windows to the left. The guide continued to point out features—the original oak roof timbers, the grotesquely carved fourteenth-century corbels, the Flemish tapestries.
Lily and Sue made delighted exclamations. Akananda watched Celia. Her face had flushed, her mouth opened, and her uneven breathing was audible. The doctor quietly took her arm and pushed her down on the cushioned bench below the window, noting that her pulse was pounding.
“That bit of armor over the fireplace,” said the guide impressively, “was found when they drained the moat many years ago—a Roundhead soldier the experts say. Now we’ll proceed to the old crypt, then upstairs. Is there something wrong, Lady Marsdon?” she asked as she turned. “You seem unwell—the heat perhaps?”
Celia heard the question from a vast distance, like a poor connection over a transatlantic phone. She licked her lips. “I’m all right,” she said. “I guess it’s the heat.”
Lily made an impulsive move and would have gone to her daughter. She was stopped by a small commanding shake of Akananda’s head. “I’ll take care of her, Mrs. Taylor.”
Lily at once obeyed the prohibition in his eyes. She was reassured
as he wished her to be, and turned back to the guide. “I can’t wait to see the rest of this fascinating place.”
“Me, too,” said Sue. “What’s the little door next to the big door on that wall? It doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, that.” The guide smiled. “That’s a niche where they found the skeleton of a girl when they reconstructed this south wall in eighteen-seventy-two.”
“Skeleton!” cried Sue rapturously. “What was she doing in the wall?”
“I’m afraid she was put there. It’s rather disagreeable, but this happened in many old houses, centuries ago.”
“You mean she was walled up alive?” Sue gaped at the low empty niche. “Where’s the skeleton now?”
“Ah, that we don’t know,” said the guide, bored with a question she had so often been asked. “No doubt the bones were dispersed . . . Now, if you will kindly step this way—”
Sue was not yet satisfied. “But don’t they know when she was walled up, or who she was? And doesn’t her ghost do some hauntin’?”
The guide answered a trifle curtly, “It has been said that the skeleton might have been Dame Dorothy Selby, who is supposed to have warned the Parliament about the Gunpowder Plot. The Selbys lived here for three hundred years, but it can’t have been Dame Dorothy, because we have an authentic portrait of her hanging in the stairwell, and that shows her as an old woman. As for ghosts, I know how you Americans dote on such tales.”
“Of course we do!” Sue cried. “They’re interestin’, aren’t they, Cousin Lily!”
Lily nodded. “Most people are interested in the psychic. I’m really sorry that Medfield Place—that’s my son-in-law’s place in East Sussex—doesn’t seem to have a ghost. But I’ve heard there are a lot here.”