Souls Dryft Read online

  "Seatbelt," he reminded me briskly, as if reprimanding a child again.

  I watched the dark house through the window as we drove away. With my world turning upside down, voices haunting me and a character from my own book stalking me about the country, Uncle Bob’s house was the one thing of which I could be sure, so I clung to it, as I would to the last raft on a churning sea.

  Chapter Twelve

  The receptionist finally looked up from her magazine. "Double room?" she inquired in the most unwelcoming manner I’d ever heard.

  "No, just a single."

  Elegantly smug, she flipped open the leather-bound register and ran a fingernail along the page, probably looking for the smallest, darkest, dampest room in the Inn. I’d be lucky to get a working light bulb. I glanced at her name tag, just in case I needed to complain later. N. Gawtry – won’t forget that name.

  While I filled out the guest book, Richard impatiently tapped his room key on the counter and pointed at my bloody knee. "Should put something on that. Looks like a nasty cut."

  "As if I would ever take advice from a man who chased me out of a job and now plans on chasing me out of a home!" I grabbed the little brass key dangling from the receptionist’s long, languid finger.

  "I thought we might have dinner," he mumbled, "since we’re stuck here together."

  I waited a moment, not sure if he addressed me, his phone, or the receptionist. Then he tossed me a wince and I realized he definitely meant me. I weighed my options. True, I was hungry and didn’t have much cash until I could get to a bank on Monday. However, he obviously felt obligated to ask me.

  "I have other plans," I said primly.

  "Other plans?"

  "A bath," I sputtered. "And an early night."

  He glanced at the pendulum clock on the wall. "At four o’clock?"

  Under his cynical appraisal, feeling as if I might be frisked for weapons, I gripped the collar of my coat and, in as maidenly and chaste a manner as might be mustered, complained faintly of a headache. He turned back to the receptionist, who handed him a pile of messages. Then, without a word to her, or even a glance, he flipped open his phone and strode away across the lobby.

  "Don’t worry about him," I told her. "He’s an American." As if that might explain everything.

  It was half accurate. Richard’s father was American, his mother English. They were divorced because his father once ran off with a girl not much older than Richard. This I’d learned from Marian, who, like our mother, loved discussing the soap opera of other people’s lives. I was above all that, of course. I just wrote about it.

  Suddenly I was the target of N. Gawtry’s knowing sneer, one thinly plucked eyebrow arched like a boomerang.

  Grabbing the key from the counter, I hurried down into the bar. Maybe that bath could wait.

  * * * *

  I decided to try the local scrumpy cider, a suspect brew after which the Inn was named. It was thick enough to stand a fork up in, with some questionable bits and pieces floating about in its murky depths, but it quickly grew on me, clinging to my insides, just like the dank mustiness of the old tower, that seemed to have stained my hands and spread inside me, taking over. I was oddly still, as if someone flipped open my back and removed the batteries. There was so much going on inside my head that my brain required all its energy to deal with that.

  The creature inside me whispered impatiently in my ear, I am still waiting.

  "You on holiday?" the cheerful barman asked.

  "Sort of."

  "Staying long?"

  "I don’t know." It was wonderfully freeing to have no definite plans and no timetable to follow. The downside, however, was unemployment and an ailing bank account.

  There were only a handful of people in the bar. Richard came in, paying no attention to me. He ordered a drink and a sandwich, then found a corner booth to sit with his newspaper. He looked terribly out of place. They charged an exorbitant fee for their rooms in that quaint, picturesque Tudor manor house, but the floors leaned, the carpet was worn and the curtains were faintly stained. The roof beams were low enough that even I had to watch my head, so Heaven knows how he managed to walk about without a permanent crick in his neck. Once, it might have been a very grand place, but I had a feeling it was never nearly – even on its best day – as grand as Richard.

  Glancing over the barman’s head, I watched the news report on the TV, recognizing the same film I’d seen this afternoon in the hospital waiting room. A plane crash somewhere over water, a burned-out wing section, scattered shoes and suitcases floating in the brine. The sadness threatened to overwhelm me again. We never knew how long we had. Any minute, our lives could be over and all the important things left unsaid.

  She whispered in my ear, I am still waiting. Bring him back to me.

  The words echoed around my head, and I felt my body being sucked backward, like a bird through a jet engine. Bring him back to me.

  "Better watch out," the barman advised, winking. "That stuff creeps up on you."

  I laughed carelessly and ordered another pint so he wouldn’t mistake me for a weak, sheltered townie. He leaned across the bar, flirty and talkative, telling me all the local gossip. I soon forgot my headache. Aware of Richard’s disapproving gaze, I was only incited to further misbehavior, accepting a cigarette from my new friend and personal bartender, when I hadn’t smoked in ten years. What can I say? Something about dictatorial, buttoned-up Richard Downing brought out the wickedness in me.

  Looking around, I was mesmerized by details, as if seeing them for the first time: the complex pattern on a woman’s blouse; the fillings in her teeth, gleaming as she laughed; the intricate, gold links of the watch chain around her wrist, when she raised her glass. Faces came and went, distorted like reflections in a funhouse mirror. Conversations drifted by. A rush of wind blew through my hair, pulling at me.

  It wasn’t the cider; it was Genny. She was too strong for me, too determined. She wanted to show me everything and so quickly that her story threatened to sweep me away like a typhoon. Slow down, I begged her.

  I could hear her breathing hard, trying to calm her temper and be patient.

  I’ve waited so long.

  Now I was moving again, or else the carpet slid away under me. I came up against a wall, face first. I ran my fingers along the flocked wallpaper, fascinated by the velvety curls. The peacock tail colors of a fake Tiffany lamp were overwhelming in their beauty and artistry.

  Then I was in the lobby, the room key shining in my hand. At the reception desk, N. Gawtry’s bright crimson lips throbbed, expanding. She blinked in slow motion, her long, shiny fingernails clicking like a Flamenco dancer’s heels against the fake mahogany.

  The stairs to my room tilted quite severely. Building must be settling. Still? Pleasant landscapes on the wall. And this one – an unflattering portrait of a dour-faced fellow with a pointy grey beard, tiny, soot-black eyes and a thick, bulbous red nose. I leaned closer to read the inscription. Sir Brian Bollingbrooke circa 1536. I snorted with laughter at the massive codpiece he wore with such pride and aplomb. But the picture seemed lopsided suddenly. Perhaps it wasn’t hung straight. Let me see if I can…oops, there went the vase of flowers. I’d better try to….Oh, what a lovely carpet! So soft, smells faintly of ashes.

  "Is there any point asking what you’re doing?" Feet came to a stop at my side. Expensive shoes with dry mud splattered across the toes.

  The brass room key dangled before me, spinning rapidly.

  Will. He was there. After all this time, all this waiting, he came back to me. He kept fading about the edges, like a photo washed-out by time and sun, but I knew it was him.

  There are several things I remember after that. Falling to the edge of the bed, my fingers pulling on his shirt, stroking his hair. The taste of salt on his lips, mingling with the sweet remnants of cider. Then he put his hands around mine, halting their determined progress, and whispered, "Not like this."

  "Woman, have you no
patience?"

  "None. When I see something I want, I generally take it."

  Bring him back to me.

  Genny ran through my blood, along with that supposedly repentant rogue’s brew, and I was empowered. My spirit breathed anew, suddenly brought back to life after years of dormancy.

  A series of images were, once again, rewound and replayed. Faces, scents and sounds revolved in a restless, flickering display, like old home movies, complete with all the odd dark patches in the film that were supposed to be someone’s wedding, and lengthy inexplicable shots of grass, or grey sky. There were voices all around, some agitated and others laughing, just as it would be while we waited for the person at the old projector to untangle the film on the little reel and start again. "Lights out," someone shouted. And then, at last, the jumpy, clattering picture shone up on the wall and we stared, entranced.

  I tried to remember what scene this was – what year. Before me there was a window and I held my hand out to it, reaching for the warmth of the sun, fascinated by the blood glowing in my fingertips.

  "A man can never be at peace with himself, unless he knows the woman at his side is there by her own choice. I suppose I will know, will I not, when I return?"

  He reached in with his sad words, closing them around my heart.

  Bring him back to me.

  Weakened by the Rogue’s Repentance, I let her out. She needed to feel the air and live again. We needed each other.

  Genny whispered in my ear, "Come back with me, to live again as we once were."

  And so I went gladly, my hand in hers. I let her show me.

  * * * *

  Of course, it was not all high spirits, as it seems to me now. Once in a while, when I am lachrymose and dreary, I let myself wallow a little in those verdant memories: the reasty odor of damp stone walls, dogs and horses; the echoing laughter trailing up the tower staircase, the scratching of bats against the shutters by night, and the deep, sultry coo of the woodpigeons by day.

  Here rests the stump of an ancient apple tree. Deep in that bark, I once carved my name. The moss grows thick and soft over it now, creeping into the cracks made by both man and nature. That mark, over which I once labored, is lost. Only I know it is there still; so I write, in hope that I will not be forgotten beneath the moss.

  Part Two

  Herein Lies a Shiftless Rogue

  Chapter Thirteen

  Genny

  1536

  I never set much store by any gown, no matter how fine the cloth or how fashionable the sleeves, much preferring the liberty of a simple shift, or even breeches, as they would better accommodate my favorite activities. So it was, on that bright morning on the last day of May, I climbed into the branches of the apple tree without a thought for the rip in my gown, except to curse it briefly for hindering my way. This was one of several hiding places I’d claimed for my own, in the three years since I came to live in my uncle’s fortress. Nestled away in various nooks and crannies, I continued scribbling my stories about that ruthless pirate. On this day, hidden amid the creamy blossoms, I hoped to enjoy a moment’s peace in which to finish his latest exploit, but – alas — like a herald of discordant horns, a voice invaded my sanctuary.

  "O, fairest peach, round and sweet,

  Full well have ye grown on yonder tree

  And how I have longed to pluck ye free,

  For ye have ripened thus for me."

  Sir Brian Bollingbrooke fancied himself a poet. Why the fellow imagined that comparing a young woman to a fuzzy peach might win her affections, was quite beyond me, particularly when the woman in question was my cousin Millicent – a brittle, spiny creature, who could not, under any circumstances, be confused with a fruit.

  According to her elder sister, who remembered such tedious things as dates and years, only when it suited her, Millicent was nearing twenty. The man to whom she’d been betrothed for three years had just fallen down dead, while arguing over the price of a hat in Norwich marketplace. She was, therefore, ripe for the plucking, and Sir Brian, childless and fast approaching the winter of his years, was on a desperate mission. He was also forever adjusting his codpiece, whether out of necessity, nerves or habit. Unaware of my presence above, he finished the rehearsal of his poem, adjusted his hose, and then rose on tiptoe, anxiously peering over the privet hedge. At last he saw Millicent – otherwise called Bagobones – approaching along the path.

  I suppose I must tell you a word or two about dear cousin Bagobones, by way of introduction. She was tall and scrawny, delicately pale, light of foot and unburdened by realities, practicalities, or indeed a brain of any kind. She was a shallow creature repulsed by many things, including, but not limited to, dirt, bees, cows, bats, mice, thunderstorms, bright sunlight, darkness, death, wrinkles, pimples and – as she had one day confessed to me – men with hairy knuckles. I trust that is sufficient and you have the picture of Millicent; if not, you soon shall.

  "My lady," Sir Brian croaked through the privet hedge, "how long you made me wait! But see, I am still here, such is my delight in your company."

  She was only there to appease her vanity, but how was he to know that things were about to change? Sir Brian could not have known that Great Aunt Maude was, that very moment, on her deathbed and that my uncle was at her side to collect his share of the spoils from her long, frugally-led life. It is a sad fact for the wealthy, that they are never thought of so fondly by their relatives, as they are when at death’s door.

  So my cousins expected, very soon, to be rich again, which would mightily increase Sir Brian’s competition. As far as the gouty old lecher knew, however, Bagobones was practically penniless, with nothing but her beauty to bargain. Her eyes, close set and green like old, weathered copper, now assumed a familiar, glazed look. A superiority to her surroundings and boredom in her present company. I might have felt sympathy for Sir Brian, had he not recently accused me of trampling his crops, while taking a shortcut across his fields. It was, I assure you, a wretched, dirty lie, and I did not forgive an injustice lightly, if ever.

  On that spring morning, I was feeling particularly wicked. It was highly unlikely that my Uncle would return from Great Aunt Maude’s deathbed in any mood to punish. Weighty pockets always made him too good humored and excessively hospitable, which is why they seldom remained so for long. Thus, certain I might get away with considerable jiggery pokery, I readied my trusty catapult.

  They were about to move out of my range, so, with no time to wait for a clearer target, I took aim between the blossoms. My uncle, had he seen it, would have congratulated me heartily on the speed and balance with which that pebble traveled to clip the side of Sir Brian’s ear. A moment later, the second shot hit him in the buttocks and he spun around, presenting a perfect target for my third pebble. The most enormous, ostentatious codpiece I’d ever laid eyes upon.

  Bullseye!

  Sir Brian leapt in the air, so many colorful curses flying off his tongue that they ran into each other and made new ones. Finally he fell back into the hedge, caught up in it, like a fly in a spider’s web.

  Bagobones knew who it was up in the apple blossoms and shrieked my name in unladylike fury, while Sir Brian, in a fruitless effort to preserve a little dignity, cried breathlessly, "Satan finds work for idle hands."

  I laughed down at him. "As your codpiece might bear witness."

  "I am ruined! My manhood, destroyed!"

  "Nonsense," I exclaimed. "The only thing I hit was padding. Lucky for you there was so much of it."

  * * * *

  "What is all this damnable fuss?" My uncle paused in the entrance, his barrel-like form filling the breadth of the arch. "There weren’t much good seed left in Bollybrooke’s wizened pickle, even before it fell foul o’ my niece’s temper." Throwing down his gloves, he reached for the wine jug, turning his back to our long-suffering governess. "Ol’ Bollybrooke were lucky the Scrapper meant no true harm. She’s got the aim of a real marksman!" he added proudly.

  "Yo
ur niece’s prowess with a catapult is sadly not at question, my lord."

  "Out with it then! Say what you must and be gone about your business. I don’t pay you to stand about idle." His eyes glistened beneath those heavy brows. "You’re neither use nor ruddy ornament."

  Even from the distance of the minstrels’ gallery, I could see our governess was furious, her expression one of which I was too oft on the receiving end. "A fine marksman she may be, but such behavior is unbecoming for a gentlewoman. Something must be done to curb her antics and her temper. She has such a willful mind that I begin to think her possessed by an evil spirit."

  "Aye, Mistress Spooner, like all young wenches, she works in league with Beelzebub."

  She knew he made sport at her expense, of course. "You may laugh at her antics, my lord, but daily she wrecks havoc upon this household." She paused. "And I hear from Master Rufus Carver that she has been to Souls Dryft again."

  "Carver?" He spat. "Why, in damnation, are you talking to the likes o’ Rufus Carver?"

  "He caught her trespassing on his property—"

  "His property? His property?" My uncle’s cheeks, already colored by the fresh air and brisk pace of his ride, now grew crimson beneath his beard. His hair, still adrift from the hasty removal of his hat, stuck straight out like the bristles on a dog’s back. "That crook stole Souls Dryft from me and don’t you forget it!" Thus he was off on a familiar tirade, one we could all recite by now, word for word. "Rufus ruddy Carver is a shiftless rogue, who stole that house from me with a pair o’ crooked dice. He took advantage o’ my good will, sidled into my life like the serpent in Eden, stole that house away and then stole my bride-to-be likewise. Now, I’m stuck with him at the end o’ my lane, prying into my business." He paused for breath at last, but briefly. "And I shall get Souls Dryft back from the bugger one o’ these days."