Searching For Captain Wentworth (6 page)

The Miss Austens
shook hands, begged that we should meet
again soon and disappeared next door. The lion’s
head knocker on
the door in
front of me looked ready to open its golden mouth to
roar and I had to muster all my courage to take it
up and strike the
door.

I panicked. I
didn’t feel ready; I wasn’t at all certain what to do or
how to react. I willed myself to turn and dashing
back over the
road, I decided
that if I could get back to the gate where it had all
started that would be my best escape. People
walking past me
through the
shaded, dappled paths started to fade, as the present and
past appeared to fuse for a moment, dream-like in
translucent
transparency. I
could see the gate ahead, one moment in sharp
focus, every detail magnified. But, in the next
second it
disappeared,
just as quickly, evaporating like wisps of smoke,
elusive and ethereal. As I reached out for it in
desperation, grasping
at
nothing I could physically hold onto, it appeared in sharp focus
once more. I held on tight, willing myself to feel
the cold touch of
iron, pulling
with all my strength and at last I felt it open.

I found myself
standing in the pouring rain at the bottom of
the steps by the canal side, just as I had been
moments before I’d
passed through
the gate. I must have dropped the glove at some
point and couldn’t find it at first, until I
realized I was actually
standing
on it. I couldn’t begin to think about my strange
experience with anything approaching common sense,
but I knew I
didn’t want to
go back through the gate. Deciding that my best
course would be to follow the canal path, it didn’t
take long before
I reached a set
of steps that led up to the main road with its hum of
traffic and the sight of people going about their
business looking
reassuringly
normal.

I let myself
into the house. My first thought was that I must be
brave and return the glove to its owner. It would
be rude if I didn’t
introduce
myself, so I knocked, but there were no sounds from
behind the immaculate, grey painted door. I’d just
have to try again
later.

Sitting by the
fire to dry out, I kicked off my shoes and
watched my damp socks steam on a footstool before
the flames as
I tried to
understand what had just happened. The time by the clock
on the mantelpiece said half past five, which
surely couldn’t be
right. I’d been
away for at least a couple of hours. But when I
thought about any time travel books I’d read, time
didn’t ever
behave, as it
should. Had I really visited the past and met Jane
Austen and her sister? Somehow, voicing those words
in my head
made it seem so
unreal. I couldn’t explain anything. It was very
unsettling and I wasn’t sure how much I did want to
think about it.

That sense of
unease, and the feeling that somehow I was not alone
made me long for some other company. There were
noises in the
silent flat,
which I know sounds like a contradiction. The creak of
floorboards and scratching in the wainscot I put
down to the
possibility of
nesting mice but, the tread of footsteps on the stairs,
the rustling of silk swishing along the floor and
the click of a door
shutting softly,
were all sounds that I could not easily explain. I
closed the shutters as dusk fell and lit the
candles in the sconces on
either
side of the huge looking glass before settling back into the
winged chair. I felt my eyes grow heavy and sleep
steal over me as
I gave in to the
comforting sounds of the fire crackling and the
ticking of the clock. But not for long: other
noises soon had my
eyes open and
staring into the darkened room. The sound of
footsteps stealing up behind my chair froze my
limbs to rigidity and
pinned me
to the seat. Wide-awake with a thumping heart I listened
intently, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself
that all I’d heard
was a noise from
the flat below or from next door. To my absolute
horror, when I finally plucked up the courage to
look behind the
wing of my
chair, I saw the door move as if someone had just
pushed it open and heard the kind of ghastly
creaking you might
only hear in the
scariest films at the cinema. Acting on impulse, I
grabbed a heavy, gilt candlestick from the
mantelpiece and crossed
the room
at speed to peer into the corridor beyond.

‘Is anybody
there?’ I called weakly. Eerily silent, all seemed
quiet in the dark hallway. The resounding, pounding
beat of my
heart made me
jumpy and I couldn’t get past the feeling that
somehow I was not alone. Scolding myself for
getting carried
away, I put my
sensible head on and considered the fact that in an
old house like this there were bound to be all
sorts of noises caused
by old
timber shrinking and expanding, and gales howling through
the gaps in the antique joinery. Returning to my
chair, I gave myself
a stern
talking to before I sat down and switched on the lamp.

Candlelight was
a little too atmospheric, I decided, and the light
that pooled across the tabletop and over Great Aunt
Elizabeth’s
rosewood box was
comforting. But the reassurance lasted no longer
than the time it took my eyes to alight on a small,
leather-bound
volume, lying
next to the rosewood box as if it had always been
there. I was sure I’d never before set my eyes on
this small
pocketbook that
proved on opening to be an ancient journal, but to
consider what that meant was an idea I didn’t want
to contemplate.
It surely was
the case that I’d merely overlooked it.

Opening the
diary with trembling fingers, I saw three names
inscribed in three very different hands on the
inside cover and then
I didn’t
feel quite so frightened any more.

Firstly, in a
flowing style in brown ink, neat and perfectly
formed, were the words:
This book belongs to
Sophia Elliot of
Monkford Hall, Somerset, January 1st 1802
.
She was the namesake
my Great Aunt had mentioned, and I felt for sure it
had been her
body I’d
inhabited earlier though just thinking about it had me
doubting that my strange experience had really
happened. I
remembered my
mother talking about this ancestor, telling me that
I’d been named for her. I’d often wondered what she
was like, but
I knew nothing
more. Mum always said there had been portraits of
Sophia in the family, but sadly they’d all been
lost or sold many
years ago before
she was of an age to save them.

Secondly, in
pencil, with many flourishes on the capital
letters, my grandmother had written:
This book
belongs to Dorothy
Elliot, Mandeville House, Stoke Road, Crewkerne,
April 7th, 1950
.
Keeping the name of Elliot in the female line, my grandmother had
declared, was a family tradition that had been in
place for hundreds
of years passing
from daughter to daughter. Thankfully, each
generation had married happily to understanding men
who never
baulked once
when their own names were rejected in favour of
their own. Elliot women could trace their ancestry
back to Tudor
times according
to Dorothy Elliot, but whether those first ladies
had felt as passionately about their heritage, we
would never know.

Thirdly, written
by my mother in an expressive, artistic style
in blue fountain pen ink:
This book belongs to
Caroline Elliot, Flat
3, 36, Lennox Place, London, December 11th, 1976
, but was clearly
written when she was young, the letters larger and
expressed with
a creative
flourish. Perhaps written when she was at art school, I
wondered. Seeing mum’s handwriting brought back
memories of
her shopping
lists, the recipes she’d copied out on scraps of paper
that still fall out of cookery books to this day
and, of course, all
those precious
birthday cards I’d collected. I stroked the ink, held
the page to my face, knowing that her hand had been
there and had
touched the
page. I wanted to add my own name, to feel a kind of
kinship with the known and unknown Elliot women who
had
cherished this diary before me. I
dug out my pen from the large bag
at my feet and wrote my name with pride.

I skimmed
through the entries, turning the pages and admiring
Sophia’s perfectly formed handwriting. January and
February
seemed to have
been fairly dull months for her, I noted. The
weather that year had been cold and it had not been
possible to go
out very much in
the Somerset countryside. The family coach had
once become stuck in the snow after a ball which
meant they had
all walked home
in their evening clothes, resulting in Sophia being
put to bed for a week with a head cold. There were
a couple of
entries about
her father and sister Emma leaving for London with a
Mrs Randall, and one at the end of February that
intrigued me.

February 22nd:
My sister has a new beau; we are told, in a
letter received this
morning. Mrs Randall thinks it will be a good
match and predicts a wedding
by Easter. I am so pleased that I
managed to persuade my father that I could be left
behind. The
thought of being paraded about at all the drawing
rooms of London
like a prize cow fills me with horror. I hope for
Emma’s sake it is a
love match, but I fear in such a short courtship,
this cannot be the
case.

So, Emma Elliot
had been taken to London to find a husband.
I could quite understand Sophia’s horror at the
thought. To be
introduced to a
stranger and married in a month or two before you
knew anything about your partner seemed a barbaric
practice. But
their whole way
of life was something I couldn’t relate to and it was
hard to imagine the lives of my ancestors. My
family had enjoyed
a life of
leisure, privilege and wealth, but in my Great-Grandmother’s time the First
World War changed everything. The
family fortunes dwindled along with the estates, which had had to
be sold. Now, all that remained was a black and
white print of

Monkford Hall,
the manor house that the first Elizabethan queen
had given in recognition of services to the crown,
which my mother
had framed and
put in pride of place above what she had jokingly
called her other “seat”, in the loo. I’d always
wondered about the
house. My mother
said she’d visited it once as a girl, a very long
time ago, but there was no one living there now
that we knew.

I turned the
page and started to read the next entry, completely
absorbed in this fascinating little book. To think
that Sophia had
written the
diary was incredible and the fact that she shared my
name made me feel an instant connection.

‘Sophie,’ whispered
a voice with warm breath in my ear.

I literally
jumped out of my chair. Spinning round I could see
no one. I knew there could be no physical being
attached to the soft,
female
voice I’d heard coming from the alcove where the corner
cupboard, with its shell-shaped recess, stood. Was
it my
imagination or
was the display of teabowls and silver teapots
gleaming with a ghostly glimmer?

‘There is no one
here,’ I said out loud to myself. ‘I’m just not
used to being alone in a big, old … quite scary
place, now it’s dark.’

I plumped up the
cushion on my chair, thought about sitting
down again, but instead picked up my bag.

‘I think I’ll
just pop out for a walk,’ I announced to the room
as calmly as I could, not wanting to admit to
myself that I just
couldn’t stay
there a moment longer.