Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time

‘With the baby. I’ve had four of my own and I know how it can be if you get one that cries all night. Staying with you, is it?’ The woman was staring past Jo into the flat.

Jo swallowed hard. ‘He … you heard him?’ She clutched at the door.

‘Oh, I’m not complaining!’ Sheila Chandler said, hastily. ‘It’s just that on these hot nights, with all the windows open, the noise drifts up the well between the buildings. You know how it is, and my Harry, he’s not sleeping too soundly these days …’

Jo took a grip on herself. ‘There’s no baby here,’ she said slowly. ‘The noise must be coming from somewhere else.’

The woman stared. ‘But it was here. I came down – last night, about eleven, and I listened outside your door. I nearly knocked then. Look, my dear, I’m not making any judgement. I don’t care whose baby it is or how it got there, it’s just, well, perhaps you could close the window or something. Have you tried gripe water?’

Jo took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chandler –’ at last she had remembered the woman’s name ‘– but whatever you think there is no baby!’

There is no baby.

She repeated the words to herself as she closed the door. Last night at eleven she had sat here, in silence, listening, and there had been no sound …

She went straight to the phone and rang Sam, then she walked through into the bedroom and looked round. The windows were wide open. The room was tidy – and empty. The only sound was the distant roar of traffic drifting between the houses from the Cromwell Road.

Sam arrived at ten to twelve. He kissed Jo on the cheek and presented her with a bottle of Liebfraumilch.

She had put on some make-up to try to hide the dark rings under her eyes and was wearing her peacock-blue silk dress. Her hair was tied back severely with a black velvet ribbon. He looked her up and down critically and then smiled. ‘How are you feeling, Jo?’ The make-up did not fool him, no more than had her cheerful voice and breezy invitation. She had sounded near to breaking point.

‘I’m fine. My tits are back to normal, thank God!’ She managed a shaky smile. ‘Let’s open that bottle. I’ve drunk all the Scotch. Sam – I think I’m going mad.’

Sam raised an eyebrow as he rummaged in the drawer for a corkscrew. She found it for him. ‘It’s the baby. I’ve heard him again.’

‘I see.’ Sam was concentrating on the bottle. ‘Last night?’

‘No. The night before. But Sam, the woman upstairs has heard him too. She came down to complain.’ Her hands were shaking slightly as she reached two wine glasses from the cupboard.

He took them from her, his hands covering hers for a moment. ‘Calm down, Jo. If the woman upstairs has heard it there has to be a logical explanation. There must be a baby in one of the other flats and you’ve both heard it.’

‘No.’ Jo shook her head. ‘It was William.’

‘Jo –’

‘The noise was in this flat, Sam. She said so. Last night. She stood on the landing outside my door and listened but I didn’t hear him –’

Sam pressed a glass of wine into her hand. ‘May I wander round?’ He strode down the passage into the bedroom and stood looking round, before he went to the window and, throwing up the lower sash, leaned out. Then, slowly and thoroughly he explored the whole flat.

Jo waited on the balcony, sipping her wine, staring across into the trees in the square. It was five minutes before Sam joined her.

‘I admit it is a puzzle,’ he said at last. ‘But I’m not convinced there isn’t a baby – a real baby – somewhere in the building, or perhaps next door.’ He had brought the bottle with him and topped up her glass. ‘Unless – I suppose there is a faint possibility that somehow psychokinetic energy is being created, presumably by you – to project the sound of a child crying, but no, I don’t think so. It is so unlikely as to be impossible. I suggest you put it out of your mind.’

‘I can’t,’ Jo cried. ‘Can you imagine what it’s like hearing little Will cry, knowing he’s hungry, wanting to hold him? Wondering why, if I can’t feed him, someone else doesn’t? Someone who is there, in the past with him!’

‘Jo, I did warn you,’ Sam said gently. ‘You should have stopped while you still could.’

Jo stared at him. ‘You mean I can’t stop now?’ She snapped off a stem of honeysuckle. ‘No, of course I can’t, you’re right.’ Leaning on the balustrade, she sniffed at the delicate red and gold flower. ‘I tried to ring Dr Bennet but he’s still away in the States. Sam, I’ve got to work this thing through, haven’t I? I’ve got to get it out of my system. And the only way to do that is to go on with the story. Find out what happened next.’ She turned to face him. ‘Please, Sam, I want you to hypnotise me. I want you to regress me.’

Sam was watching her closely. Thoughtfully he raised his glass and took a sip of wine. ‘I think that’s a good idea, Jo,’ he said at last.

‘You mean you will?’ She had been prepared for a stand-up argument.

‘Yes, I’ll hypnotise you.’

‘When?’

He laughed. ‘Why don’t we eat that very appetising salad I saw in the kitchen, finish this bottle and relax, then if the mood seems right we’ll have a go this afternoon.’

To her surprise Jo wasn’t nervous. She was relaxed in Sam’s company, relieved not to be alone in the flat any more, and she enjoyed the lunch with him. Several times she found herself talking about Nick, as if she could not avoid the sound of his name, but each time she sensed Sam’s disapproval and, not wanting to spoil the atmosphere between them, she changed the subject. They played music and drank the wine, then Sam made coffee while she lay back on the sofa and listened to the soft strains of the guitar.

She was almost asleep when she felt him sit down on the sofa beside her and gently take the empty wine glass from her hand.

‘I think this is as good a moment as any to start, don’t you?’ he said. He raised his hand and lightly passed it over her face, closing her eyes as he began to talk.

She could feel herself drifting willingly under his spell. It was different from Carl Bennet. She could hear Sam’s voice and she was aware of her surroundings, just as in Devonshire Place, but she could not move. She was conscious of him standing up and going over to the front door where she heard him draw the bolt. Puzzled, she wanted to ask him why, but she could feel part of her mind detaching itself, roaming free, settling back into blackness. Suddenly she was afraid. She wanted to fight him but she could not move and she could not speak.

Beside her, on the sofa, Sam smiled. ‘No, Jo,’ he said softly. ‘There is nothing you can do about it, nothing at all. It never seems to have crossed your mind, Jo, that you might not be alone in your new incarnation, that others might have followed you. That old scores might have to be settled and old pains healed. In this life, Jo.’ He gazed down at her silently for several minutes. Then he raised his hands to her face again. ‘But for now, we’ll meet in the past. You know your place there. You are still a young and obedient wife there, Jo, and you will do as I say. Now, you are going back … back to that previous existence, Jo, back to when you were Matilda, wife of William, Lord of Brecknock, Builth and Radnor, Hay, Upper Gwent and Gower, back to the time at Brecknock after Will’s birth, back to the day when you must once again welcome your husband and lord into your bed.’

17 (#ulink_ba702c51-a806-5c85-8606-dd48ac58369b)

The morning before Jo and Sam had lunch together, the dining room at the hotel in the rue Saint-Honoré had been very full. Judy stared across the table at Nick as he tore his croissant in half. ‘Won’t there be any more time for us to be together? Please?’ she coaxed again.

He had been furious when she arrived five days before; refusing to believe it was Sam’s idea. ‘Why should he, of all people, tell you to come here?’ he had said angrily. ‘He knew how tight my schedule was. It’s not as though I’m here for a holiday, for God’s sake. Oh Judy!’ He had sighed heavily, catching her hands as he saw the tears in her eyes. ‘I am sorry. It isn’t that I’m not glad to see you. It’s just, well –’ He put some papers into his black case.

‘It’s just that you’re beginning to feel a little bit hounded.’ She had picked up her bag again. ‘Don’t worry, Nick. I’m as capable of getting on a plane going in the opposite direction as I was of coming in this.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ He pushed the door closed and took the bag out of her hand. ‘Listen. I’m free about eight o’clock tonight. We’ll go and have a meal, right?’

She grinned weakly. ‘Right.’

‘And tomorrow is Saturday. I’m going to spend the day with one of my clients in Passy. I’ll ring him and ask if I can bring you.’

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, jubilant. ‘Thank you, Nick.’

‘But next week I’m tied up most of the time.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she had said meekly. ‘I shall paint.’

And now it was Tuesday. The dining room was beginning to empty, Nick was immersed in some sketches and Judy was bored. Petulantly she got up and helped herself to some English newspapers discarded on the next table, then pouring herself more coffee she began to leaf through them.

‘God! They’re not even today’s,’ she exclaimed in disgust after a moment.

Nick glanced up. ‘They get the new ones in the foyer. Here.’ He tossed some francs on the table. ‘Get me a Times while you’re at it, will you?’

But Judy was staring down at the paper on the table in front of her, open-mouthed.

‘So, he went ahead and did it,’ she said softly. She chuckled. ‘He actually did it.’