But they might have wondered who the devil / was. Geoff had sounded so formal on the telephone yesterday that I had unconsciously ascribed that same formality to the tour itself, and had selected from my wardrobe a dignified paisley skirt, cream-colored silk blouse, and ridiculously expensive Italian shoes with foolish heels that sank into the soft lawn with every step. To keep from getting stuck, I had to adopt a slightly stilted walk that put most of my weight on the balls of my feet. I silently blessed Geoffrey de Mornay, who, chivalrous to a fault, had slowed his gait to accommodate mine.
The rose garden, I learned, occupied a goodly portion of the lawn against the northern boundary wall that divided the churchyard from the manor lands. Stretched tall against the sky, the square tower of the church peered at us over the high stone wall as we walked along the tranquil pathways. The garden itself had an aura of the Renaissance about it— very neat, very precise, very orderly; yet all the geometrically laid-out beds with their neat edges could not disguise the delightfully tangled growth that they contained.
'Of course,' Geoff conceded, 'it's more impressive in the summer, when things are in bloom....'
'It's lovely,' I assured him. 'I don't think I've ever seen a garden design this intricate before'
'Yes, well, we had a devil of a time restoring it until Iain figured out that it followed the pattern of the dining-room ceiling.' Geoff smiled. 'I'm told there was a maze around the west side of the house that was planted in the same design—big yew hedges, quite impressive—but one of the Victorian owners chopped it all down. Built a rather ugly fountain in its place. Italianate. Lots of statues.'
'What a shame.' I had a childish fondness for mazes. I still remembered getting lost in the maze at Hampton Court on one of our memorable family holidays. My father had led us round and round in increasingly elaborate circles until Tommy, feeling hungry and not wanting to miss his dinner, had taken charge and steered us all unerringly back to the entrance....
'What's so funny?' Geoff wanted to know, so I shared the memory with him.
He had an engaging laugh—a deep, resonant baritone— and I liked the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners.
'Do you only have the one brother?' he asked me.
I nodded. 'Just the two of us. I don't think my parents could have stood any more children, quite frankly. We were enough of a handful.'
'Really?' He looked down with interest. 'You don't look like someone who was a difficult child.'
'Looks are deceiving,' I assured him. 'If I wasn't in the headmistress's office, I was in the hospital casualty ward being stitched up. See this?' I tilted my chin up and showed him the scar. 'I got that falling off the roof while playing Mary Popping. And this one'—I pushed up my sleeve and exposed my left forearm—'was from a barbed-wire fence that came between me and a football. And my brother was even worse.'
'And now you're a highly respected artist,' Geoff pointed out, 'and your brother's a vicar.'
'Yes.' I grinned up at him. 'My parents are still in shock, I think.'
'Everything's all right with your family, is it? Iain said that you'd been called away to Hampshire for some sort of emergency.'
'It turned out to be nothing,' I said quickly—a little too quickly. Funny how one small lie could make you feel so damnably guilty. 'Everyone is just fine, thanks.'
'Good.'
We walked a few more paces in silence, and then I cleared my throat and tried a new tack. 'Did you enjoy your trip up north?' I asked.
He smiled at his feet. 'I'm not sure "enjoy" would be the proper word for it,' he said, 'I had to sort out a minor labor dispute at our plant in Manchester, so I've spent the past few days locked in stale boardrooms with irate people, drinking coffee by the gallon. But it all worked out in the end.'
'You came back yesterday?'
He nodded. 'Yesterday afternoon. I must have just missed you, actually.'
I looked up, surprised. 'I'm sorry?'
'You didn't come to the house yesterday? No? I rather flattered myself you had.' He smiled again, his eyes warm. 'You were walking back toward your house, through the fields, when I drove up. I called out to you, but you must have been too far away to hear me. So I telephoned, instead.'
'I was at the church yesterday,' I explained, trying not to let him see how deeply his words had shaken me. I had known all along that my 'flashbacks'—for want of a better word—occupied real space and time; that when, as Mariana Farr, I crossed a room or opened a window, I was also repeating the same action as my present-day self. But-I had never fully absorbed the implications of this phenomenon.
What would people think, I wondered, if I walked past them one day on the High Street, my eyes blank and staring, unresponsive? What if I walked across a road without seeing the traffic, or straight through a fence that hadn't been built in 1665? The possibility of causing myself injury or embarrassment was very great. If only I could find some way of controlling the process; if only I could choose the time and place....
'Should be safe now.'
I looked up at Geoff, my eyes startled, but he was looking back at the deserted front drive of Crofton Hall. 'The tour should be in the servants' hall by now, well ahead of us. Are you ready to go back?'
I nodded and, mindful of my bothersome high heels, followed awkwardly in his wake as he retraced our steps across the wide lawn.