Property of a Lady

Back at the Black Boar, Michael arranged to have an early breakfast and to check out afterwards, then went up to his room. He would probably reach Oxford around mid-morning tomorrow, and providing he could find Jack’s mobile number he would phone him then. In the meantime, there was Harriet Anstey’s journal.

He would not have been surprised if it had vanished like the chimera it probably was, but it lay as he had left it in the locked suitcase. Michael looked at the papers for a moment, trying to work out why he had not told anyone about them – in particular why he had not told Nell. He frowned, shook his head impatiently and took the papers out.

16th February 1939 7.00 p.m.

Tomorrow I shall finally see the house that lay at the heart of all father’s stories. And – more to the point – that lay at the deepest point of my own nightmare. The nightmare Father and I shared and that we never repeated to Mother.

Charect House itself won’t hold any nightmares – how could it when I’ve never seen the place? But it feels remarkable to know I’m about to see it, and that’s why I’ve decided to keep this journal. There are moments in one’s life that one wants to erase for ever, but there are also moments – whole experiences – one wants to preserve. So that, a long way in the future, it will be possible to unwrap the memories and the experiences, and relive them and think – oh yes, that was the day I was really happy. You can’t preserve those things by coating them in isinglass like eggs, or putting a glass case over them like waxed fruit, but you can write them down while they’re still fresh. I wish I had done that on the night Harry asked me to marry him. I wish even more I had done so after that night in the old gardens with the air heavy with the scent of lilac and the grass soft under us . . . I have no regrets about that night – it was sweet and sinless and he was being sent to the front the next day and we both knew he might not come back.

And if I had written it all down, that marvellous cascade of astonished delight, I could occasionally reread it and recapture fragments . . . How he looked and felt, and how, afterwards, he propped himself up on one elbow and smiled down at me, and traced the lines of my face with his fingertips as if he wanted to absorb every detail of how I looked, not just with his eyes, but with his skin and nerves and mind . . .

But I promised myself I would not become sentimental in this journal and I won’t! Instead I’ll tidy myself for supper in the Black Boar’s dining room – and admit privately I’m a touch nervous about walking in there by myself, because no matter how emancipated we’re supposed to be, ladies don’t very often stay in hotels by themselves. I wonder if the locals will be curious – if they’ll see me as a mysterious lone traveller, or even think I’m an adventuress (ha!).

Adventuress or not, I’ve been given a very pleasant room. Chintz curtains and matching counterpane, and a writing desk in one corner. The window overlooks what I think might have been the old coach yard – I can see the cobblestones and the big wide doors. Beyond that are gardens, fringed by whispering trees and with an old sundial half covered in moss at the centre of a velvety lawn.

She stayed here, thought Michael, looking up from the slanting writing. In this room? There was a writing desk in the corner – had Harriet written these pages there? He went to the window and opened the curtains a little, and even in the darkness, he could see what was unmistakably the old tilt yard. The cobblestones had been replaced by a patio with wrought-iron chairs, but beyond that were the whispering trees and the mossy sundial. He returned to the bed and began to read.





FOURTEEN




16th February, 9 p.m.