She changed the topic of the conversation. "What were you saying about Chivers? Something about his past life? I didn't know you believed in such things." She forced a smile as they entered the dining room and took their places at the table.
"Past lives?" Lady Regina looked up. "Well, of course there's no proof of such things, but there are cultures that believe in them." She chatted gaily about a notion popular among certain of their friends.
"Naturally the church is against such thinking, but I've always thought it to be a most fascinating notion that we don't die but merely pass from one life to another. A lot like cats with their nine lives." She placed a damask napkin across her skirt.
"I wonder if that's how the saying came about?" she added. "Perhaps someone had proof of multiple lives. Wouldn't that be marvelous?"
Her grandmother took a sip of wine. "Think of all the people you could meet. I suppose a person might love someone different in each lifetime. Good heavens! I had a marvelous marriage to your grandfather, and now I have Ceddy. If I kept that up through several lifetimes, it could be quite confusing trying to keep track of all those men."
In spite of the shock she'd had over Jerrold's note and her uneasiness about the next few days, Elyse laughed until her eyes watered. Past lives, future lives... and lovers in each one. It was an interesting notion, of course, and her grandmother managed to make it all seem quite humorous.
"Or perhaps it's the same person in all those lifetimes," she suggested.
Lady Regina thought long and hard about that one. "Then that would mean I might possibly find your grandfather again in the next life," she concluded. "Oh, dear!" Regina looked faintly bemused. "However am I going to explain Ceddy to him? He just won't understand at all."
The wine with their supper was having a calming effect on her badly shaken nerves. "But it's an interesting thought. Once you've found the person you truly love, you would never be parted. Two people would simply find each other again."
"Of course, the opposite might also be true," Regina suggested. "You might keep meeting up with the wrong person and never be happy. Such a dreadful thought."
Elyse was suddenly very quiet. "Yes, there is always the possibility that we could just go on and on, through one lifetime after another, never finding the person we truly love."
What if people were destined to meet over and over again, time after time? she thought. Did that mean that she and Jerrold were destined to be together not only in this lifetime but in others? And if so, would her feelings always be the same?
She hoped that it wasn't true. If she couldn't have what Lucy shared with Andrew or what she knew her grandmother felt for Ceddy, then she didn't want to go on to another lifetime with that same person.
The trip took over five hours by coach, but the time passed quickly. Jerrold rode with Elyse and her grandmother. He kept up an animated conversation, pointing out places of interest as the city gave way to rolling green countryside. He seemed to be in a particularly amiable and attentive mood. Elyse vaguely wondered if the events at White's had anything to do with it. Nothing he said or discussed gave any indication that he knew she had been anywhere except at Lucy's home that evening.
Though she would have dearly loved to see the expression on Jerrold's face at finding out she was at the club, that would lead to other questions she couldn't afford to have asked. Even with Jerrold's past indiscretions, she couldn't risk his knowing where she'd actually spent the night.
She wasn't fooling herself. Surprisingly, it wasn't because of any regret that he should find out. Like her grandmother, she didn't give a fig about what other people said or thought. What did matter to her was her grandmother. She wanted only to make her happy, and if this marriage would accomplish that, then so be it. And as for the night she had spent with William St. James, that was for her to keep secret.
Gazing out the window of the coach at the lush countryside, Elyse hoped she would be more fortunate in love in the next lifetime and her thoughts wandered where they shouldn't have. What might her life be like with a man like St. James if the circumstances were different?
Early afternoon, they passed through a small town lined with shops and houses and cobbled streets. Townspeople stared with curiosity at the gleaming coach and the accompanying carriages and wagons. It was obvious the Barrington family held a position of great importance there.
Beyond the town, the coach turned off the main road and swung up a long drive lined with mulberry and yew trees, then swept past a lazy stream and lush meadows, the storm of the night before gone.
"Elyse, you must see Fair View from here." Lady Regina urged her from the corner of the coach where she'd carried on a lively conversation with Jerrold for most of the journey.
"It is rather magnificent, Elyse," Jerrold boasted, insistently taking her arm and drawing her forward so that she could look out the window.
Fair View, the Barrington family's country estate, lay like a magnificent crown at the end of a small, verdant valley. Elyse stared at it as if transfixed. It was a massive Tudor creation of stone and leaded glass. Intricate pathways crisscrossed gardens and led to sprawling lawns, while the house seemed to go on forever in wing after imposing wing, each like a different facet of the crown.
A glass-walled conservatory lay to the right; it was attached to the main house. To the left, the lawns rolled to the stables and beyond them was open pastureland and a heavily wooded forest. They circled a large pond to reach the main entrance. It was filled with graceful black and white swans and inquisitive geese. This was by far the most impressive house Elyse had ever seen, easy rivaling any of the great estates in London for size and magnificence.
Their coach slowed and came to a stop before the wide stone steps. Jerrold's father had preceded them by two days, and he now came down the front steps followed by several servants. Jerrold was the first to descend from the coach. After greeting his father, he turned back to assist Elyse's grandmother. As she gazed at the imposing stone facade of the house, Elyse realized that several guests had arrived earlier. They appeared from the gardens. Atop horses, they called greetings to the new arrivals.
For some inexplicable reason Elyse hesitated, held back in the cool seclusion of the coach. She wanted just a moment longer to look at this wondrous house before the peacefulness and beauty of her first moment here was completely shattered.
Her gaze wandered over the intricate stonework and the expanse of leaded glass that formed the massive front wall of the main part of the dwelling. The bottom rows of glass were made up of the smallest panes, probably only two feet by three feet. The next rows were made up of panes that appeared to be twice those dimensions. And the very top pane of glass spanned the entire width of the opening.
Brilliant sunlight glistened, in prisms of color, off the glass.
Shading her eyes, Elyse realized the profusion of colors wasn't caused by the sun at all. In several panes, stained glass could be clearly seen. And the largest pane was of such intricate design it could only be considered a work of art. It was by far the most impressive thing Elyse had ever seen. Without conscious thought, Elyse found herself searching the bottom row of smaller panes. At this distance the smaller designs of stained-glass were almost indiscernible, and yet her gaze was drawn to the bottom left corner.
It has to be there, she thought to herself. It has to be! Her gaze fastened on the last pane. She held her breath as wispy clouds passed before the sun, momentarily darkening the entire wall of glass to a somber, slate shade, obliterating the colors. Like an expectant child she held her breath, waiting for the sun to emerge and light the wall of color. And, as if moved by her desperate hopes, the clouds skittered past, and the sun illuminated the windows once more.
"It is there!" Elyse whispered joyously, tears coming to her eyes. "The rose. I knew it would be there." She stared, transfixed, as the image of a single crimson rose appeared in the leaded design of that last pane. It was like a gift, just waiting to be found by her, a gift of memory and something more.
