Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

"I've had everything thrown at me by the farming guys who think I'm crazy. Luckily more and more people are seeing it my way now, and I think people of the organic persuasion are slowly winning through. "

Quickly and methodically he showed Jo around the smallholding, supervising her notes and taking most of her photographs for her. Then he led the way back inside and refilled her glass.

"Ann's left a cold lunch for us. Shall we eat outside?" He glanced at her. "I amuse you, don't I?"

Jo smiled. "No. I was just thinking you might as well have given me duplicated notes at the door. You are too used to giving these interviews. "

"Okay, I stand reprimanded. Now, you interview me. " He carried the plates out to a table outside the back door where the blazing sun was partially deflected from them by a trellis hung with honeysuckle. "Ask me all the questions I haven't answered yet. "

Jo sat down. "Does your wife get lonely up here?"

"Shouldn't you ask her that?" His face lit with humor.

"I shall. I just wondered what you thought she felt about it. "

"Well. " He took a huge mouthful of food. "Ann is a remarkable woman. She has enormous inner resources. Of course, I am presupposing her genuine love of the country, but there is more to it than that. She loves the mountains and the rivers and the loneliness. She loves the soil, the joy of making things grow, just as I do. She likes the people, the villages, the towns—we're not antisocial just because we live up here alone, but neither do we miss people when we don't see them for a while. Like me, she came to Wales as a foreigner. I'm a north countryman; she, God help her, is American! But we have both been completely absorbed by this country with its people and its traditions, its history. These hills may look lonely to you, but they are full of life and dreams and memories. Fascinating. What is it? What have I said?" His shrewd blue eyes had noticed Jo's sudden tenseness.

She forced a smile. "Nothing. Go on. "

"You're a skeptic? A townie?"

"No. " Jo met his gaze. "I've lived up here too. "

"Ah. I wondered why they'd sent you particularly. So you understand what I meant. Whereabouts did you live?"

Jo hesitated. Now she had said the words she could hardly retract them, and besides, she had an overwhelming urge to confide in him. After glancing across at his face briefly, she looked away across the falling mountainside toward the misty distance and took a deep breath.

"You'll probably think I am mad. It was a long time ago. In a previous existence. " She paused, waiting for his laughter.

He said nothing, however, watching her intently, and after a minute she went on.

She told him everything. When she fell silent at last he did not speak for several minutes, gazing silently out across the panoramic view.

"That is a truly amazing story, " he said at last. "Truly amazing. I had heard of Moll Walbee, of course. Who hasn't around here? But to have entered so completely into her life, that is extraordinary. "

"You believe me, then?"

"I believe it has happened to you, yes. As for the explanation—" He shrugged. "I think I must seek for a more mundane explanation than reincarnation. " He smiled enigmatically. "To do with the relativity of time perhaps. I would suggest that you have an area of your brain particularly sensitive to what one might call the echo of time. You have tuned in, as you might say, to Matilda's wavelength and can, when in a state of receptiveness, 'listen in. '" He put his head on one side. "How does that theory sound to you?"

Jo grinned. She leaned forward and pulled her plate toward her again, helping herself to a slice of Ann Clements's crumbling stoneground bread. "To be honest, my brain has given up asking how and why. The last few times it happened I wanted to fight it. I don't want it to happen again. And I think I know how to stop it now. One must not let one's brain be distracted into blankness. It is only receptive when it's idling, like a car engine out of gear. "

"Fascinating, " Ben said again. "You know, you must talk to Ann about this. She was a psychology major at UCLA and past life recall was a particular interest of hers. She wrote an article about it for one of your sister magazines some time ago. Your editor might even have seen it. "

Jo stared at him. Then she gave a wry smile. "I think she may indeed, " she said. "It would have been almost too great a coincidence, my coming here otherwise, I suppose. " She sighed. "But I am glad I'm here now. Talking about it has helped. Perhaps Bet has done me a favor after all. "

He glanced at her under his heavy eyebrows. "I'm not surprised that it has worried you, though. It would scare the pants off me!" He reached for some bread and applied a rich lump of cheese to the crust, then, munching thoughtfully, he sat back in his chair. "But from what you have said it's not your journeys into the past that have upset you and put you off repeating the exercise. It is the involvement of other people in the present. If you don't mind my saying so, it sounds to me as if you've allowed yourself to be too much used by people who seem to have points they all want to prove at your expense, from your journalist colleagues to your boyfriend. "

"But they are all involved—"

"Perhaps. " He reached forward and touched her hand. "It's a nice theory, but don't be too ready to believe what others say, my dear. Look in your own heart for the answer. That is the only place you'll find the truth. Now, let me