Instead of feeling as if she were a trespasser, someone rifling through her mother’s things, Sarah felt as if her mother would approve. Even more than that, she felt as if her mother were in the room here and now, the first time she’d truly felt Morna’s presence at Kilmarin.
Here was the girl Sarah had never known. A child who’d evidently been cherished and treated as a princess. Had it been difficult for her, leaving Kilmarin and never once returning?
She thought about what it would be like for her if she had to leave Chavensworth. What if circumstances decreed that she live somewhere far away? For now, her father was content to have her manage the estate, but perhaps he would remarry and bring another woman home. Would she grieve?
Sarah looked at her reflection in the oval mirror of the vanity. She’d never before thought of leaving Chavensworth, and as Sarah did so now, she felt nosense of deep pain. The memories she had of her home were those involving people. Her early recollections of her father before she’d learned to avoid his presence. The joy of her days with her mother, her governess, the servants she’d grown to love. Without its inhabitants, a house was just a structure, however beautiful it might be.
Was that what her mother had felt about Kilmarin?
All these years, she’d thought she knew her mother, not strictly as a parent, but as a friend, a confidante. As she stared at herself in the mirror, Sarah realized that she didn’t know Morna Tulloch Herridge at all.
She opened the left-hand door, deeper than the one on the right-hand side. Here, the drawer was nearly empty, except for an ornate inlaid box, the dark wood hinting at its age. She placed it on top of the vanity and opened the top.
Inside was a hand mirror, crafted of gold, its handle heavily incised with trailing roses. She turned it over to see that the glass was brown with age.
Something was written on the back, in a language she thought at first was Gaelic, but then recognized as Latin. Her governess had insisted she learn Latin, but it had been years since she’d done any declinations of verbs.
Animadverto vestri, visum posterus.Either the words meant to see the truth of the future, or to view your future, she wasn’t sure which.
Slowly, she turned the mirror and held the brown glass up in front of her face, raising her eyes to her own reflection. The dark surface of the mirror was no doubt due to its age. Behind her, she could see nothing. The only reflection was her face, and it was her but not her at the same time.
The eyes of the woman who faced her were filled with grief, but not the sorrow she still felt, and would probably always feel, for her mother. This was a living, clawing emotion comprised of rage, denial, torment, and loss. As she watched, clouds boiled around her, as if her reflection were in the middle of a storm. Her eyes seemed to be windows into a pain she could not bear to witness.
She lowered the mirror to the dressing table’s surface and placed both hands over the back of it, as if to keep the reflection within the glass.
If such anguish was truly her fate, she didn’t want to know the future.
Chapter 25
Douglas wasn’t at dinner.
When Sarah inquired about his absence, neither Linda nor her grandfather knew of his whereabouts. But Robert was also missing, which made her think the two men were together.
Dinner consisted of a Kilmarin version of kedegeree, a dish consisting of flaked fish, rice, and greens. Served with Kilmarin venison sausages and black pudding, it was a very filling meal. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much of an appetite.
“You spent the entire day with Linda?” her grandfather asked.
Linda nodded. “She did, Grandfather.”
“You’ve shown her all of Kilmarin?”
Sarah spoke. “She has. I’m surprised my shoes have not lost their soles. Kilmarin is larger than it appears.”
“Tullochs have been here seven hundred years,” Donald said. “Each generation has left its legacy. Sometimes that meant more building.”
Sarah stifled her smile. From what she’d seen, Donald was more than willing to continue that legacy. Scaffolding over the exterior of the east wing had been erectedfor workers to add a two-story conservatory built to Donald’s specifications.
“I found something in my mother’s room,” she said.
“I thought she would like to see Morna’s room,” Linda hurriedly explained when Donald Tulloch turned an angry glance on her.
“And I did,” Sarah said. “Thank you, cousin.”
“What did you find?” her grandfather asked.
“A mirror. A hand mirror in a box. It looks to be quite old, and bears a Latin inscription about the future.”
She waited for one of them to explain what she’d seen in the mirror, but both of them appeared confused.
