Chapter 9

George seemed not to want to talk to Lizzie any further that day about her discovery and sent his regrets that he would be not be joining her for dinner, preferring to take a tray in his own room.

Lizzie was surprised and somewhat miffed. Having found the new journal pages, she understood why Francis Hatton had wanted to keep it from being published, and she wanted to know more about what he might have said in his will regarding the subject. She wondered if George was now feeling some hesitation about seeing the project through to the end, and was worried that her expectations of enhancing her own career through a publication of Francis Hatton’s collection and journal might be dashed.

All these things raced through her mind as Helen still stood near her, having just delivered George’s message.

“Would you like to join me and Henry in the kitchen for dinner?” Helen asked her. (It was the first time that anyone had acknowledged to Lizzie that “Jeffries” had a first name.) She welcomed the invitation and found herself in a new part of the house for the first time since her arrival more than a week earlier.

The kitchen was set behind the informal dining room in which she had taken her meals with George, and was obviously in a much older part of the house. It had a huge stone fireplace, a legacy of the days when the meals had been cooked over open flames. Set into it at various levels were small ovens for baking bread and keeping food warm, now made obsolete by the big gas range that stood in a corner of the kitchen. The room was enormous, with long tables for preparing food and high banks of glass-fronted cupboards filled with row upon row of dishes and serving pieces. It was obvious that very large parties could be served from this kitchen.

A small pine table near the fireplace was set for four. Lizzie knew that there was at least one other man who worked at Hengemont, but she hadn’t seen him since her arrival, when he had carried her luggage in from the car. Now she was finally introduced to Bob Moran who, Henry Jeffries said, managed the “outdoor affairs” of the Hattons.

Outside of George Hatton’s presence, the three were talkative and amusing. Henry Jeffries had a wry sense of humor, Helen smiled easily, and Bob, who had the broadest English accent Lizzie had ever heard, told story after story about communicative dogs, eccentric farm machinery, and remarkable examples of oddly shaped vegetables that he had encountered over his sixty-plus years. The food was the very same food served on the Hattons’ table, and Lizzie felt more comfortable than she had at any meal eaten in the house.

After dinner, the two men retired from the kitchen and Lizzie helped Helen clean up the dishes. For the first time that evening, talk turned to the Hattons. Though she suspected that the family was often the topic of conversation around their table when they were alone, the servants were very careful not to discuss their employers in her presence. Helen, however, had now clearly left both her discomfort and much of her discretion behind, and Lizzie took it as a compliment to herself. She knew the housekeeper was far too loyal and discreet ever to gossip about the Hattons with outsiders.

Helen asked how Lizzie’s work was going, hoped that Richard’s presence in the house hadn’t been too awful for her, and shared Lizzie’s high opinion for Edmund. About George they were each more circumspect. Lizzie respected him but hadn’t really warmed to him, and she wasn’t sure that Helen Jeffries, after sharing a house with him for many decades, had either.

“How long have you worked for the Hattons?” Lizzie asked, wondering just how far back the relationship extended.

“I was born in this house and have always lived here,” Helen replied.

This took Lizzie by surprise. Though she had suspected the older woman had been here a long time, she was unprepared for the fact that Helen Jeffries had spent her whole life at Hengemont. They finished the dishes and Helen prepared a pot of tea and brought it back to the table, where Lizzie joined her.

“I told you that my grandmother came here as a servant more than a hundred years ago,” she explained, sensing Lizzie’s interest. “There were lots of Irish girls working here then. My grandmother and her sister were only fifteen and sixteen when they arrived, still with the hay in their hair and speaking mostly Irish.”

Helen’s grandmother had married a local fisherman in Hengeport, bore nine children, and come back to work in the house in middle age, eventually becoming the head housekeeper. Most of her children had worked for the Hattons, and her daughter—Helen’s mother—had also become the housekeeper.

Helen described to Lizzie how much Hengemont had changed in the years since her grandmother first arrived in the last decades of the nineteenth century. There had been some twenty servants working in the house then, several men who kept the grounds, and a few hundred engaged in the agricultural enterprises of the estate, almost all in positions that were now gone. The Hattons and Bob Moran were all that were left at the house, except for a few teenagers from Hengeport who came in part time to help with the housekeeping and yard work.

“But the house isn’t any smaller,” Lizzie commented. “It must be an enormous job for you and Henry to do the work formerly done by twenty.” She could have added that neither of them was young, either, but held her tongue. The Jeffries must each be close to seventy—and maybe older.

“Most of the house isn’t in use now,” Helen explained. “There used to be grand parties, continuous guests, and meals and entertaining in the big rooms at the front of the house. Now all we do is dust them. When there is the occasional party, I can get extra help from the village.”

The two women continued to talk for almost two hours. Lizzie was curious about George’s financial situation and asked Helen how the Hattons supported themselves. She couldn’t help but wonder how an old family continued to live in such style without a pretty big influx of cash.

There had been some very hard times in the first half of the twentieth century, Helen told her. Farm land in Somerset and real estate in London had been sold, some of it, she thought, quite valuable. In the last few decades much of the family’s fortune seemed to have been recovered through investments.

“That’s what Richard does,” she said. “He moves the money around and has made piles of it.”

“And Edmund works.”

“Yes, he does. But I think he would have become a doctor in any case. He certainly isn’t in it for the money, and second sons. . . .” She left the sentence hanging, as if it was obvious what happened to younger children in an aristocratic household.

The conversation turned again to the two Irish sisters, and when Helen began once more to prod her for details about her great grandmother, Lizzie felt that she couldn’t carry the pretense of a familial relationship any farther. She was growing too fond of the older woman.

“I don’t think my great grandmother could be related to your grandmother,” she said softly. “Manning was her married name, not her maiden name.”

Helen gave her a look that was hard to read. “And what was her maiden name?”

Lizzie felt slightly uncomfortable giving the answer. “I’m not completely sure,” she said, “but I think it was Hatton.” She gave Helen a wry smile. “Now that is a weird coincidence, isn’t it?”

Helen looked very thoughtful. It seemed that she might have more to say on the subject, but couldn’t easily formulate her thoughts or questions. Lizzie felt, in any case, that she should wrap up the evening; the Jeffries were very early risers. She brought the tea dishes to the sink. Helen got up to see her out of the kitchen, and Lizzie impulsively kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the evening.”

“Maybe you’ll join us again,” Helen answered.

“I’d like that.”

As she was leaving, Helen said her name again.

Lizzie turned around and waited for her to speak.

“Lizzie,” she started again, “We talked earlier about those Hatton girls who wrote the poems I saw today. . . .” She hesitated again. “What is your interest in them?”

“Only curiosity,” Lizzie answered. She could tell that Helen was really concerned. “I wondered if they could be related to something Francis Hatton said in a letter to his sister, but couldn’t find any real connection.”

Helen nodded and seemed satisfied.

“Why do you ask?” Lizzie continued.

“I just think that you need to be careful about following down any path that makes you identify yourself too closely with them.”

Lizzie was completely perplexed by this. “Why would I?” she said.

“It’s an inherited thing, I think.”

“What is?” Lizzie demanded in a stronger tone than she intended.

Helen immediately backed away. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I can’t really give you any more information. I don’t understand what happened to them, I just worry about you getting involved in it.”

Lizzie liked Helen, but was losing patience with the vague gothic quality of the present conversation and again said a warm good night to the woman before leaving.

As she left the kitchen and passed through the Hattons’ family dining room to the grand hallway with its elaborate parquet floor and double staircase, Lizzie felt the change of station in a very pronounced way. She wondered if the Jeffries felt it each time they moved from their part of the house to George’s.

Helen’s comments nagged at her. The woman clearly had suspicions about something, but could not commit to just saying outright what they were. Her implication seemed to be that she thought Lizzie might not only be related to herself, but also to the Hattons. The coincidence of the two names was certainly strange, and Lizzie couldn’t deny that there was surprising satisfaction in contemplating a relationship to this house.

On her second night at Hengemont she had tried to sneak into the medieval hall, but thought that she would be embarrassed if found there. Now she felt a strong desire to see it again, and more comfortable about the distant whereabouts of both George and the Jeffries, and also with her own place as a guest if she encountered any of them. She went boldly and directly to the doors beneath the double staircase and opened both sets, first those that exited the Georgian hallway, and then the big oak door into the medieval hall beyond it.

Except for two small night lights, the massive room was dark. Her steps echoed on the stone floor as she went to a lamp on a table along one wall and turned it on. The light barely penetrated to the ends of the room; this was a space designed to be lit by dozens of torches.

Lizzie walked to the center of the hall and looked in each direction. Her eyes scanned up the tapestries that dominated two of the walls, and across to the musicians’ gallery above where she had come into the room. The details of the carving along its front face were obscured in the dim light.

What would it be like to know a thousand years of your own family’s history? It was a powerful notion for Lizzie, more powerful than a connection to wealth or position. To be one of these Hattons, rather than one of her Hattons—who couldn’t remember back two generations—that would be something.

 

• • • • •

 

Despite the excitement of having found the missing pages to Francis Hatton’s logbook, Lizzie did not feel that she had a clear direction of where to take the project next. Francis Hatton’s story was disturbing, and his response so poignantly sad. George’s response had also taken her by surprise. His discomposure the afternoon before, when he learned about the corpse of the young Chief Eltatsy, had kept her from asking about other references in Hatton’s text, especially his odd reference to another corpse “that could not be buried in the family tomb.”

By the middle of the morning, George had made no appearance and Helen informed Lizzie that he would not be coming down to lunch. Despite their warm exchange in the Jeffries’ kitchen the night before, Helen was all business again this day, as she offered to bring Lizzie a tray in the library.

The day was spent transcribing and studying the missing pages of the journal, and Lizzie looked forward with eager anticipation to Edmund’s return. He would, she felt, be her best source of information for solving the puzzles in the text, especially since his father seemed to be avoiding the subject.

When she heard the sound of his arrival in the hall, she collected the papers and returned them to their hidden compartment in the box so that she and Edmund could share the whole experience of discovery. The latch on the box was just snapping shut when the wrong brother entered the room. It was Richard.

Lizzie felt a knot form in her stomach, the bile well up in the back of her throat. She nodded at him curtly, he ignored her, and she turned back to her work. The atmosphere in the room could not have been more uncomfortable. Richard poured himself a drink and sat in one of the wing chairs opposite the fireplace. Lizzie could sense his clenched jaw moving tensely back and forth. Once again she asked herself where the hostility toward her could possibly come from, and there seemed two possible explanations. The first was that he was just an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who disdained anyone below his class, a “snotty twit,” as Helen had called him. The second possibility was that he did not think she was either important enough or smart enough to put the material from Captain Cook’s voyage into a package that would be publishable or exhibitable by the British Museum. According to Tom Clark, George had made the decision to hire her, apparently without hesitation and without consulting his son, when he saw her book. Admittedly there were a number of scholars better known in the field than Lizzie—including Tom Clark himself—who must have been preferable to the snobbish Richard.

After several minutes of tense silence, George arrived. He was obviously surprised to see his son. “Mrs. Jeffries just told me you were here, Richard,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you back again this winter.”

“I’m still concerned about this British Museum project.”

Lizzie gave George a little wave of greeting and turned back to her computer, though her attention was focused behind rather than in front of her. She didn’t think that there was any physical exchange of greeting between the two men, not even a handshake; certainly there was not any sort of embrace.

“Have you asked Lizzie about her progress?” George asked his son.

Richard drained his drink and set the glass on the table beside him.

“No,” he said cooly, “she’s your employee, not mine. I thought it was best to ask you.”

Lizzie was hoping that George would put Richard in his place, but to her disappointment he once again acted as if there was nothing amiss in the relationship between Richard and herself.

“She’s found some wonderful things, Richard,” he babbled, “and she’s shared everything with me.” He brought the decanter of brandy and two more glasses to the table. “Let’s have a drink,” he said, “and then Lizzie you can show Richard what you found yesterday.”

He poured the drinks and Lizzie took a gulp. She felt the heat of anger retreat and be replaced with the flush of alcohol. She forced herself to calmly show Richard the missing logbook pages.

He read them without any change of expression. “Interesting,” he said, “but I don’t think you should include any of this in an exhibition or book.”

Lizzie was speechless for several seconds before she was able to sputter a response. “What?” she said, shocked by his response. “It’s the best part of the story. It should definitely be included.”

“I don’t think so,” Richard responded, clearly working hard to control his rising anger. “You weren’t hired to expose our ancestor as a thief and a grave robber.”

“I thought I was hired to find out what Francis Hatton did on his Pacific Voyage and describe it.”

George finally began to show his son that he was upset by the direction of the conversation.

“I don’t see what your problem is Richard. This happened more than two hundred years ago, and there is every indication that Francis was filled with remorse for his actions.”

“I just don’t like it,” he said.

“Well, this whole conversation is premature anyway, because Lizzie hasn’t finished her research.”

Lizzie sat silently through the exchange, wishing she was home in Boston or anywhere besides this room.

George turned to her. “Lizzie, my dear,” he said politely, “you go ahead with the work as you see fit. When you have finished your research we’ll have a chance to look at everything together and decide what to do next.”

“Thank you, George.” She replaced the papers in the box and closed the latch, turned off her computer, picked up all of her file folders and, clutching them in her arms, excused herself and went to her room.

 

• • • • •

 

Lizzie sat in her room for more than an hour fuming. She wiped at tears of frustration as they welled up in her eyes, determined not to let them roll down her cheeks and start her sobbing. She would not give Richard the satisfaction of making her cry.

Her earlier analysis of Richard’s hostility and what lay beneath it seemed somewhat more understandable after his recent outburst. He was both a snotty twit and unimpressed with her credentials. She had never thought that another scholar would do a better job than herself, and she did not think that Tom Clark or any other potential candidate for the job (almost certainly male and English) would bow to Richard’s ridiculous demands to hide information once it had been uncovered. His expectation that he would be able to control the story once he made it public was completely arrogant and unrealistic. And why would he want to?

George had said that Richard hoped to enhance his position on the London cultural scene through the presentation of Francis Hatton’s collection and journal. Lizzie figured that the Hatton name was old enough and distinguished enough to put Richard in the right social circles, but perhaps new money and foreign money, which he would want to attract for his investment business, required that he bring himself to attention with the sort of splash and cachet that was assured with a big new exhibition that had the Hatton name at its center. If that were the case, she thought, then he would want his family to appear noble and important, and the corpse of Eltatsy could come back to haunt him.

Lizzie did not return downstairs again until Helen came to tell her that dinner was almost ready and that Edmund had arrived. His presence would, Lizzie knew, lighten the mood in the house. Unfortunately, when she got to the dining room, only Richard was there.

“Do you always eat your meals with my father, Miss Manning?” he asked peevishly.

“Yes, of course,” she answered, “and I would prefer it if you would call me Dr. Manning.”

“Just what are your intentions here?” he demanded.

“I’m here to work on a project for your father and then leave,” she answered, matching his tone. “What’s your point?”

“Well, I’ve seen secretaries set their sights on their employers in the past,” he said, “and all this ‘Lizzie’ and ‘George’ business seems more than casual.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” she said. “Grow up.”

“I guess you’re finally noticing that I would be a rather old son for you.”

“Thank you so much for pointing that out,” she said with mock seriousness. “My husband and I were considering adopting an upper-class twit, but now that I notice, you are too old for consideration.”

Edmund had entered the room behind his brother and now he laughed out loud. “Touché, Lizzie,” he said. “And for God’s sake, Dick, don’t be such an ass!” He smiled at Lizzie and she relaxed a bit.

George arrived to hear the last exchange and ordered Richard to apologize, which he did in the most perfunctory manner. “So you’re married,” he said, as if a superficial attempt at civility would make up for his horrendous rudeness. “And where is Mr. Manning?”

Edmund came and graciously took Lizzie’s arm and lavished consideration on her during the meal to make up for his brother’s crass behavior. After dinner, the two of them went to the library where Lizzie showed him her discoveries of the previous day. His response was exactly what Lizzie expected and wished for: enthusiasm, regret, sympathy for both Francis Hatton and for the family of Eltatsy, and curiosity about what had happened. He had none of his brother’s concern about reputation, no hesitation that the story should be told as found, no doubts about Lizzie’s judgment in handling the information.

Edmund and Lizzie were admiring the miniature when George and Richard joined them. They were deep in conversation, but Lizzie heard George shush his son as they entered the room.

“Enough!” he said angrily, “I won’t have it discussed further.”

“But is it her maiden name or her married name?” she heard Richard whisper.

Lizzie and Edmund pretended to be engrossed by the tiny portrait that they were putting back into the Chinese box, but the tension in the air was palpable. George resorted once again to liquor as the cure for the room’s bad temper. In addition to whiskey, brandy, and sherry, he even offered to order up some tea or coffee from Mrs. Jeffries.

“What do you fancy, Lizzie? We have some liqueurs in the salon, if you would prefer one of them.”

“Actually, I’d prefer wine, if there is still some left from dinner,” she said.

“I think there was,” George said graciously. “Richard, would you please go see?”

Richard made a bow to his father and left the room. When he returned several minutes later he had a bottle in his hand and offered to pour for Lizzie. She thanked him, the four acted civilly for ten minutes, and then Richard departed for his own room; George followed soon after.

Lizzie took advantage of the time alone with Edmund to return one more time to Francis Hatton’s letter to his sister.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, pointing to the passage about the Crusader.

Edmund poured himself another drink and held up the bottle of wine to Lizzie. She nodded and he filled her glass again as well.

“Sit here by the fire,” he said, “and I will tell you a story.”

Always somewhat susceptible to the effects of alcohol, Lizzie seldom drank this much. After two glasses of wine at dinner, this now made her fourth for the evening. She was finding it particularly potent, but it was also giving her a nice buzz; she felt slightly flirtatious with Edmund and, most important, Richard was entirely gone from her thoughts. She stretched herself out comfortably in her chair as Edmund began to speak.

“One of my ancestors, whose name I can’t remember, lived in this house in the middle of the thirteenth century,” Edmund began. “He had two sons, Richard and John. Richard, the oldest, was engaged to marry a young woman named Elizabeth something-or-other.”

He stood beside the fireplace and Lizzie looked up at him.

“The last name doesn’t matter,” he explained before continuing. “Elizabeth came to Hengemont to meet her husband-to-be and ended up falling madly in love with his younger brother.”

“A scandal,” Lizzie said, “and true love. Good elements of a story.”

Edmund nodded and continued. “But John, the younger son, was pledged to go on a Crusade with his father, and anyway the fair young maiden was supposed to marry Richard, and so it didn’t make any sense for her to change horses as it were.”

Lizzie made a snort of laughter. “Excellent metaphor,” she said. She was really feeling the effect of the wine, but did not decline when Edmund drained what was left of the bottle into her glass.

“As luck would have it, Elizabeth had a younger sister with her, and she was pretty cute too, and eventually Richard was persuaded to marry her.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, actually I think the father of these two girls had a substantial amount of cash on hand, and I think that the father of the boys needed it to make his Crusade.”

“Aha!” she said. “Then this is not really a story of true love.”

“Oh, as I have always heard it, between Elizabeth and John it could not have been more powerful.”

“This story is fairly canonical in your family then?”

“In what way?”

“It gets told the same way generation after generation without elaboration?”

Edmund paused a moment. “I’m not sure about that,” he said, “but I believe the details have remained basically the same for many centuries.”

“Who told it to you?”

“My Aunt Bette, my father’s younger sister.”

“Okay,” Lizzie said. “Go on then, the two sisters married the two brothers.”

“Yes, Elizabeth married John, and her sister Margaret married Richard. There was feasting and a tournament with games of war, etc., and then John and his father set out to go to the Crusades.”

“This must have been terrible for the new bride Elizabeth.”

“Devastating! She thought that their marriage would keep him from going. She tried everything to make him stay, but John’s father was adamant, and now that he had all the money he needed to pay his troops and such, he was determined to leave the very day after the weddings.”

Lizzie stared into the embers of the fire as Edmund described how Elizabeth pleaded with her new husband, how he, still just a teenager, struggled with his father to stay with his new bride, but in the end was forced to tell her that he had to go.

“The house then consisted of just the central stone tower and some outlying walls,” Edmund continued, “and the two of them went up to the roof. There they wept together, then made love, and then he made a stupid promise that he would come back.”

“Why was it so stupid?”

“Because almost no one came back from the Crusades, including him, of course.” He paused for a moment and finished his brandy. “It turned out that Elizabeth had become pregnant from that one night of lovemaking. Richard and Margaret were also pretty fertile young people, and within a year there were two babies at Hengemont, a son for Elizabeth and a daughter for her sister. But Margaret died in childbirth.”

Lizzie listened with heightened concentration to the end.

“Richard thought that he and Elizabeth should now marry, but she insisted that she had to wait for John.”

“Was he still alive?”

“No.”

“Was there proof?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And how does her story end?”

“She killed herself.”

This was not what Lizzie had been expecting. Edmund’s romantic and somewhat jocular story had suddenly taken a turn that made her profoundly sad.

“She went up to the top of the tower and threw herself off,” he said softly. “Years later the son of Elizabeth and John married his cousin, the daughter of Richard and Margaret, and their son was my ancestor.”

“This is a very sad story Edmund.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I thought it was going to be a romance.”

“Romances are often sad.”

The last log of any size on the fire broke apart and fell onto the grate. Edmund put his glass on the table and began turning out the lights around the room. Lizzie wobbled a bit as she stood up.

“Do you need help getting to your room?” he asked.

“No, but thanks. Five glasses of wine is way over my limit though, and I’ll probably suffer for it tomorrow.” They walked together to the door of the library and up the staircase.

“Lizzie,” he said earnestly. “I really want to apologize for Richard. He is such an ass sometimes.”

“Why?” she asked. “Do you think he made Elizabeth kill herself?”

Edmund laughed softly. “No, you silly woman. Richard, my brother!”

Lizzie was startled for a moment and then burst into almost hysterical laughter. “See what a good storyteller you are,” she joked. “I forgot all about him.”

He put his arm around her as they reached the staircase. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

She shook her head. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“If you are up early enough. I have rounds at the clinic and have to be back to Bristol by noon.”

“When am I going to get my long-promised tour?”

He slapped his head. “Oh damn,” he said apologetically, “You’re still waiting for me to see the house?”

She nodded, disappointed that he seemed to have forgotten.

“This weekend without fail,” he promised, lifting his hand up in a pledge.

He removed the steadying arm from her shoulders and they moved up the stairs, separating with a chaste kiss on the landing before he went up the opposite staircase, toward the older wing of the house.

She held tightly onto the railing as it wound its way around to form the balcony. It was a long drop to the floor beneath. Opposite her was the big painting of Francis Hatton and his siblings, and the three of them seemed to move a bit within the frame. Lizzie felt dizzy and nauseous, and chided herself for taking that last glass of wine as she moved unsteadily down the long hall and around the corner to her room.

 

That night she had a dream of falling in love with Edmund. There were vivid, swirling images. They were dancing, they were at a party surrounded by chattering guests, they were running up stone steps, hand in hand.

The stairs went round and round, turning a tight corkscrew around a center stone pillar. There were narrow windows above every dozen or so steps, sending a shaft of light that brightly illuminated their passage for a moment, which then grew dimmer and dimmer until the first hint of the next window could be seen, and then they were suddenly in another shaft of light. She began to pant a bit, but he encouraged her. “We’re almost there,” he said, squeezing her hand. Finally they burst through the door at the top. The bright light blinded her for a moment and then, as her eyes adjusted, the whole countryside swept away beneath her. She reached up to straighten her hair, it was caught up in loops of braids, one circling each ear. As the wind caught softly at her dress, she looked down and felt the deep green velvet.

He pulled her toward him and she put her hand up to touch his face, his hair, his beard. He leaned down to kiss her for the first time. His lips were soft and warm, his tongue moved gently across her mouth. His hands explored her body and she reciprocated, stroking and pulling at odd male garments.

When they were naked, she lay upon the cold stones of the tower’s floor and he lay upon her. The sex was quick and hard and left her breathless. In the distance a bell chimed the hour three times. By the third bell, she could no longer feel his weight upon her. The sun faded and the stone began to feel colder until she was shivering.

 

Lizzie woke with a start. She had no idea where she was, but a clock was chiming just above her head and she was lying on something hard and cold. She felt around her and found the edges of two cut stones with a line of mortar between them.

Her eyes finally began to pick dim patches of light out of the darkness and she sat up. She was wearing her usual nightwear, one of Martin’s undershirts and a pair of panties. It took her several minutes to realize that she was in the great medieval hall of Hengemont’s Norman tower. She stood up, very unsteadily, and went to one of the chairs that stood along the wall. It had a velvet seat and as she sat on it she thought momentarily about the dream. She had been wearing a velvet dress.

Lizzie trembled violently from a combination of cold and fear. She had no idea how she had gotten to this part of the house. She had never experienced anything like this before and it was terrifying. When she was fully conscious, the enormity of her situation overwhelmed her. She moved quickly to return to her room, hoping that no one would see her along the way. She went from the medieval hall through the door into the Adam wing. She looked carefully in all directions and then moved quickly up the staircase. She wrestled to pull her shirt down to cover herself, but it was too short for real success, and she could not even cover her panties. All the residents of the all the paintings seemed to watch her disapprovingly as she slunk down the hall, stopping frequently to listen for any sounds. When she finally came to her own room she raced into the water closet and vomited.

Her warm bed was so welcome that she pulled the covers over her head; she was still shivering and now she also began to cry uncontrollably. She had no idea what had happened to her.