Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Aunt Bill surveyed the gatehouse. ‘Now, this is adorable, ain’t it? I ain’t never been ’ere before. I can’t leave Miss Violet for long, but the master went up to London straight after the party, so we ’ave a little bit more freedom than usual.’
It was a few hours after we’d sung at Violet’s birthday party and William and I had gone back to the gatehouse, arranging to meet Aunt Bill there when she could get away.
It was more private than trying to hide in the main house.
Mrs Feathers had allotted us accommodation for the evening as a thank-you for the performance, and since we hadn’t asked for payment.
She’d found us after we’d snuck away from the little library room where we’d spoken to Aunt Bill, and congratulated us on a good show.
I could tell that she was surprised we’d been so good, but she said, milord enjoyed the performance greatly, and told her that we should be allowed to enjoy the party for the rest of the evening and be put up at the gatehouse.
Apparently, Lord Albert hadn’t been upset enough by my questions to deny us accommodation for the night.
‘Arrogant bastard,’ William had muttered, once Mrs Feathers was out of earshot.
‘Lord Albert, that is. Like I care what he thinks.’ He was still bristling about Albert’s assumption that William might have been an illegitimate ‘by-blow’ of his father’s.
‘It’s my house. My estate. My property. He doesn’t get to condescend to me, to tell me we can stay here. ’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know who you are, and we need to keep it that way,’ I reminded William.
Not for the first time, I wondered why it was that there seemed to be certain places that held a particular resonance through time; places that I was continually drawn back to.
Aunt Bill’s cottage. This place. Trevarron House itself. Even the bedroom that I had slept in when I’d been a lady’s maid in 1755 had also been Aunt Bill’s room, years before. Why? It was like an echo through time.
However, I wasn’t going to tell my aunt that William and I had made love in the gatehouse before, when we were together in 1755.
‘Please, take a seat, Miss Penrose.’ William pulled out one of the dark wooden chairs at the table; Aunt Bill settled into it with a sigh.
‘Thank you, milord,’ she said; I was amused at her deferential word.
‘You can call him William,’ I said. William nodded.
‘I am not a lord here,’ he commented dryly.
‘William, then.’ She nodded. ‘Old ’abits.
I been in service for so long in my life, in different ways.
It just comes natural to call a lord a lord.
’ My aunt shook her head in wonder. ‘Though I been travellin’ time for many years now, it never fails to amaze me what ’appens in the past. Fact is, I’ve ’eard about you for so long, an’ ’ere you are.
’ She chuckled softly. ‘Lord William De Vere Trevarron, thank you very much.’
‘Heard about me?’ He smiled quizzically.
‘Oh, yes. The legend of your disappearance.’ My aunt nodded. ‘Course, now I know what ’appened.’
‘I must confess, all this… slippage, between the years… it’s a very new idea to me. Please forgive me if I am slow to understand everything,’ he said. ‘There was a… legend of my disappearance?’
‘Oh, yes.’ My aunt nodded again. ‘You were quite the enigma. In St Nantes they used to warn kiddies not to go an’ play at Trevarron, or lovers to go there at night, cos Old Willie’d get ’em.’ She chuckled.
I sat down opposite her.
‘And what about Lady Hermione and Violet? You said that they’re in terrible danger?’ I asked, but my aunt shook her head.
‘I’ll get to that. But I want to talk to you about the travellin’ first.’ She looked shrewdly at us both, and then around us, at the gatehouse with its bare walls and basic wooden furniture.
‘I believe that the Penrose women ’ave the ability to time travel,’ Aunt Bill began, slowly. ‘I wrote to you in my letter that my own mother did. In fact, she never came back.’ My aunt fixed us both with a gimlet stare. ‘Still waitin’ for her to turn up at my door one day.’
‘That’s so strange.’ I ran my fingertips over the rough grain of the table we sat at, remembering the furniture that had been here before. ‘I can’t imagine what that must be like. To have lost your mother, and to know that she’s still out there, somewhere. In time.’
‘’Tis a strange thing, indeed.’ My aunt nodded. ‘And if someone is in another time, are they alive or dead? Both, maybe, dependin’ on what time it is. That’s something I don’t know the answer to, anyway.’ She tapped her fingers on the table.
‘I believe that we come back to the same places, at different times. I don’t know why, but I’ve done it enough to know I have recurrin’ places, an’ so will you,’ my aunt continued.
‘You know already that Trevarron House an’ my cottage sits on the same ley line?
Makes them power places. An’ there’s somethin’ about livin’ on those power lines, dunno.
Makes us supercharged, or somethin’. Able to pass through time. ’
‘Would that follow for the Trevarron family, then?’ I turned to William. ‘If you did it…’ I trailed off.
‘Would the other Trevarrons be able? Maybe, maid. ’Tis possible.’ Aunt Bill looked thoughtful. ‘I ’ave yet to meet a Trevarron in another time, apart from William. But if he can, then it stands to reason, others could.’
‘Annie Willcock – she was a pellar who lived in your cottage in 1755 – she gave me a journal belonging to her ancestor, Evelyn.’
‘I’m aware of the Willcock family,’ Aunt Bill replied. ‘I’ve met some o’ them. What was the journal?’
‘It’s here.’ I reached into my pocket and set the journal on the table. ‘I keep it with me.’
I had offered it to Nancy, but she had demurred, saying that if it had been given to me then it should stay in my possession. But, she had taken a good look through it.
‘What a labour o’ love. I could’ve done with this many moons ago, let me tell you.’
‘She talks about the portal being more active during eclipses. See, the Latin.’ I pointed it out to Aunt Bill.
‘Something like, when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, the door opens. The doors are many, the paths are infinite. The way is for the few; tread carefully if you are gifted, for the lines of power lead to heaven and hell.’
‘I didn’t know you could read Latin.’ Aunt Bill was always a surprising person.
‘You don’t know a lot o’ things, missy.’ My aunt shot me an unreadable look.
‘In your letter, you said you just sensed when the time slip was going to happen. Is that still true? You just… winged it?’ I asked her.
‘Well, in the beginnin’, yes. After some time I got the hang o’ bein’ able to control things a bit more,’ Aunt Bill said. ‘Every time I’m away, I wonder whether I’ll make it back. I always ’ave, so far. But there’s always that worry. What if I get lost forever. Like my mother.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘’Ere. What’s this?’ Aunt Bill had been looking carefully at some of the back pages in Evelyn’s journal, and she held a page at the back up to her eyes.
‘What?’ I frowned.
‘Don’t you think it’s strange that there’s nothin’ written on these pages?
’ My aunt’s curious eyes flicked to mine.
‘Look. This whole section, blank. An’ here.
’ She showed me a variety of blank pages that were at odds with the others where Evelyn had doodled, drawn and painted all kinds of diagrams and illustrations; some of the pages were like religious books handmade by monks and nuns, with illustrated letters and beautiful copperplate penmanship in vivid coloured inks.
I suppose that I had thought it was strange, but I hadn’t had time to think about the blank pages.
‘I just assumed Evelyn had a bit of a scattergun approach to the journal.’ I shrugged. ‘It was just something she made for herself. I dunno. She didn’t like those pages.’
‘No, I don’t think it’s that.’ Aunt Bill held up the page to the lamp and squinted at it. ‘Look. There are marks there.’ She beckoned to both of us; William crouched down to see the book that Aunt Bill held up to the oil lamp. ‘See? It’s writing.’