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

he will lose her. " He laughed. "He's weak. He was too weak to save her then, and he's too weak now. " He picked a few books off the table and collected some loose change off the desk into his pocket. Then he looked up. "You don't believe me, do you, Nick? But it's true, you know. I really did regress you. You were—you are John Plantagenet, " he said.

Nick did not move. The sweat was standing out on his forehead as Sam left the room. He steadied himself with an effort, then with deliberate slow movements, as if he were in a dream, he went to the pile of phone books and reached for A-H.

"Tim?" His mouth was dry. "This is Nick Franklyn. "

"Hello, Nick. " Tim sounded subdued.

"I have reason to believe you may know where Jo is. " Nick controlled his voice with an effort. "She is not at her apartment. "

There was a moment's silence. "She went to Wales. Bet Gunning talked her into doing an interview with some guy about organic farming. "

"About what?" Nick exploded.

"I know it sounds unlikely, " Tim responded. "It was obviously a ruse to get her back there. But I don't think it'll work. She wants to give it all up, you know. She tore up the contract to write the story for WIA. She has decided to have nothing more to do with Matilda or the past. Something frightened her very badly. " He hesitated, and Nick heard the tremor in his voice. "Have you spoken to your brother since you came back?"

"I have indeed. " Nick glanced at the door. He could hear the closets in the spare bedroom opening and closing as Sam took out his clothes and threw them on the bed. "I think you can take it that my brother will have no more say in Jo's affairs, " he said grimly. "No more at all. And neither will you. "

The sun had broken through the haze early and its heat baked the ground. Jo pushed her typewriter away on the table outside the back door and stood up. Ann was dyeing wool, pressing the loose skeins into the onion-skin water again and again. She pushed her fair hair back from her face with the back of her wrist. "Finished the article?"

Jo smiled. "The first draft. I'd like you and Ben to read it and make suggestions. " She took a deep breath of the hot mountain air. "It's so peaceful up here, I'm even amenable to criticism today!"

Ann laughed. She hooked a skein out of the water and began to wring it out. "If your piece is too sweet and nice, won't your editor hurl it back at you and ask you to anoint it with vitriol?"

"You've obviously heard about me!" Jo sat down on the close-cropped grass and after a moment stretched out full length, her arms flopping above her head. "Don't worry. I'm rude enough to upset you both quite a bit if you take it the wrong way. " She sat up again and shaded her eyes. "And I don't want you to take it the wrong way, Ann. You're living a pastoral idyll up here, but you just cannot claim it has any relevance to real life. "

Ann raised an eyebrow as she pegged the skein on the line to drip. "Says who? Why should real life be 'down there' and 'up here' be unreal?"

"Because real is what ninety-nine percent of the population have to live. Mass produced, mass packaged, and mass managed. It's the only way for there to be progress. It's sad, but it's true. "

"So we should conform? Help to starve the land, poison the waterways, pollute the air? No, Jo. We are pioneers, prophets. Leading people back to common sense, health, and sanity. " Ann gave a gurgle of laughter suddenly. "Go on. Write that down, too. "

"What's it like in winter?" Ignoring the comment, Jo wrapped her arms around her knees.

"Lonely. Hard. Sometimes frightening. "

"Like it was eight hundred years ago for everyone. " Jo's voice was suddenly bleak. "The disease then. The squalor, the poverty of life! That is why we have to move on, Ann. To end all that. To make it less hard. You know, I... that is, Matilda, just accepted it. It made her unhappy—she was full of compassion and she used her medical knowledge such as it was, as best she could—but she never questioned. No one questioned anything. It was as God wished. "

"'The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. God made the high and lowly, he ordered their estate, '" Ann recited quietly. "I can still remember singing that in church!"

"God!" Jo buried her head in her arms. "William did everything in the name of God. "

"It is man's blessing that he does learn from his mistakes, Jo, " Ann said gently. "Not all of them, and not fast, but he does learn. And he progresses, as you say. Did Will de Braose have TB? From what you told me it sounds like it. ... We've learned to control that. And you talked about the plague in Aberhonddu. That doesn't haunt the people there anymore. I'd be the first person to praise that kind of progress, but in some things man has been too clever. He has rejected good things as well as bad. Now he has to swallow his pride and retrace a few steps, that's all. Learn to listen quietly to the beat of the universe as his ancestors did. Learn to listen to nature and take her in partnership, not try and make her a robot slave. "

Jo looked up, squinting in the sun. "I stand rebuked, " she said softly. "Write that down, Ann. I'll print it. "

Ann grinned. "It's a deal. " She turned to go into the house, then she stopped and glanced at Polly and Bill, who were playing in a sandpit near them.