He did sing, after all, softly and in French. He had a deep and pleasant voice, and his warm breath fanned my cheek as he twirled me round and round the deserted, echoing room. It was a sinful feeling.
I coughed a little to clear my throat. 'What is that air you sing?' 'Aux plaisirs, aux delices bergeres,' he replied. 'My mother used to sing it when I was a boy.'
'It sounds a happy song.'
'It is. It tells us to pass our lives in loving, for time is lost, hour by hour, until only regret remains.' He whirled me wide beneath the long windows. 'A Vamour, aux plaisir, aux boccage,' he quoted softly, then turned the words to English: 'In love, in pleasure, in the woods, spend your beautiful days....'
I stared up at him, dumbly, my heart rising in my throat. I was not aware of the precise moment when we stopped dancing, when he turned those deep, forest-colored eyes on mine and traced the outline of my face with a delicate touch.
'These are your beautiful days, Mariana Farr,' he said gently, and then his shoulders blocked the sunlight as he lowered his head to mine and kissed me.
He must have known that it was the first time I had been kissed by a man. I had no idea what to do, no idea how to respond to the flood of strange and new sensations. His touch was sweetly, exquisitely, achingly wonderful, and when it ended I felt robbed.
He looked down at me and laughed, and took my face in his hands and said something, low and in French, some phrase I couldn't catch, and his face blurred before my eyes as he bent to kiss me again....
My vision cleared. I was standing, quite alone, by the tall windows of the Great Hall, gazing out over the lawn where the gathering shadows of late afternoon were growing longer. I could see Geoff and Iain, still standing in the rose garden by the churchyard wall, the dark head bent to the russet one, listening, while Iain leaned on his spade and talked.
I saw them only for an instant, really, and then my vision blurred a second time, this time with tears. As quickly as I could blink them back, they rose again from some seemingly endless spring inside me, welling hotly in my anguished eyes. It was foolish to cry, I told myself firmly. Utterly foolish. It was only a kiss, after all, and it had happened so long ago ... so very long ago....
I heard a small, tentative footstep on the floor behind me, followed by an uncertain cough. 'Excuse me, miss, but ... may I help you?' It was a girl's voice, and I suddenly remembered the tour guides.
I turned, and saw the girl's face relax as she recognized me. 'Oh, it's you, Miss Beckett. I couldn't think who it ... I say,' she said, frowning, 'are you feeling all right?'
I raised my hands to my burning face and felt the tears come spilling over onto my cheeks, horrified that I could do nothing to stop them. It was a relief to hear the calm, crisp voice of Mrs. Hutherson speaking from the doorway of the room.
'Nothing to worry at, Sally,' she said evenly, dismissing the young girl. 'Miss Beckett's just had a bit of a shock, that's all. You can get on with the locking up, now.'
She might have been my mother, taking me firmly by the arm and leading me out of the Great Hall and down the long corridor to the kitchen, all the while keeping up a steady stream of cheerful talk. I didn't really hear anything that she said to me, but the quiet strength of her voice calmed me, and by the time she deposited me in one of the kitchen chairs my tears had subsided into small, hiccuping sniffles.
"There, now.' She patted my shoulder reassuringly. 'What you need is a nice strong cup of tea.'
A nice strong cup of tea would, I felt certain, be Alfreda Hutherson's first reaction to any crisis.
She put the kettle on the stove and looked at me, her eyes sympathetic. 'Bit of a jolt for you, I expect, having it happen like that.'
'He kissed me,' I said, as if that explained everything.
'Yes, dear, I know. Now, give your face a wipe with that,' she instructed, handing me a damp cloth. "The men will be in from the garden any minute.' I wiped my face and dried it, pulling myself together with an effort. I suddenly remembered something, and looked up sharply, troubled by the thought. 'I couldn't stop it from happening,' I told her. 'I've been able to stop it before, but this time I just couldn't stop it from happening.'
'Well, now.' Her blue eyes were very wise. 'You've learned a valuable lesson from this, then, haven't you? You can't cheat fate, Julia. If you don't go looking for the lessons of the past, then the past will come looking for you.'
Twenty-four
I remembered those words often over the next few days, and thought long about their meaning. Not that I had any idea, then, what the lessons of the past might be. I knew only that the past—my past—would not be ignored, and that the longer I delayed the journey the more difficult the trip back would be, both physically and emotionally. And after my most recent experience, I wasn't sure I wanted to delay the journey any longer. However disturbing it might be, I had to admit that the memory of a man long dead had a more powerful influence over me than anything I could touch in the modern day.
If the thought disturbed me, it horrified Tom. I could feel the force of his disapproval over the telephone line.
'It's too dangerous,' was his judgment.
'Well, it's hardly my decision anymore, is it?' I challenged him bluntly. 'It's going to happen whether I like it or not.'
'I thought you said you could control it. You said you'd found some way of blocking it out, making it go away.'