FOLLOW YOUR HEART

Chapter 21 - A Sense of Earthy Freedom

Camila helped Shawn return the bookcase to close off the passageway, making sure the cat was on the right side of it this time.

"I think I need to go and sit down, somewhere warm too, is the fire still on in the drawing room? It was freezing in that passageway." She rubbed her hands together.

"Yep, let's go." He sounded a bit shaken, he was so insistent he had heard her scream, or at least, he heard SOMEONE scream. She sat on the sofa, sitting cross legged, while Shawn stoked the fire. There was a slim blue bound volume on the side table and she picked it up to read it.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's one of a heap of volumes on the family history. Garry commissioned it years ago."

It was opened to a page and she read it with surprise. "Clair de Lune! Isn't that why you were playing on the piano earlier? I've never heard you play classical music before."

He looked at her strangely. "I haven't played the piano since we were writing this morning. I found the music for Clair de Lune, and a hand-written version of the poem it's based on, but I didn't play it."

She frowned. "But I heard it...." Now SHE was imagining things. What was going on? Had Tally put hallucinogenic mushrooms in the pies? Shawn hearing screams, she hearing music, and she was sure there had been someone or something in the dark passageway, she had heard it, felt it. She shivered, then thought of the portrait she had seen.

"How far back does the history go?" she asked. She just wasn't going to think about the music, maybe Tally had left a radio on somewhere....

"I don't know, I'll show you where they are though." He led her to two whole shelves full of the blue printed books. "Was there any particular time you were interested in?"

"I saw a portrait of a woman during Tudor times, so I'd say fifteen hundreds?"

He pulled out a volume that covered that period and she took it and went and sat back down. Shawn went into the kitchen and made tea while she searched for Anne Barrington. She found it easily, partly because there was a lot about her, but also because a bookplate of the painting she had seen in the passageway was included in the book.

"Anne Barrington 1555-1568"

Anne was the only daughter of Barrington of Unger Hall and her mother died in childbirth. She was said to be angelic in appearance, so beautiful people could not look away, with round cheeks and perfect skin. She was allowed to run wild as a child, and was often seen spinning around through the woods in bare feet, singing fey songs and was said to be able to converse with the wildlife. It was the greenkeeper during this time who built the Secret Garden at her father's insistence, so he knew where she was and that she was safe.

When she was eleven years old, her father remarried to a childless widow named Elizabeth Hillier. She was not fond of Anne and insisted she be betrothed when she was twelve years old to a widower who was a court favourite and owned adjoining lands. Anne, who was accustomed to doing as she pleased, went mad, screaming and yelling and cursing at Elizabeth.

It was said Elizabeth herself notified the authorities and what happened next can be told in the words of Anne's father, who penned a letter to his cousin, Wilfred.

(Translated for ease of comprehension)

"Dearest Wilfred,

It warms me to hear that you and the Lady Margaret are indeed well, and enjoying your time at court. Unfortunately, here in the countryside times are not as idyllic, and I have some most tragic news to impart. I was discussing matters of land maintenance with my groundsman during Hallowtide when a raggedy bunch approached Unger Hall and demanded my daughter Anne be handed over to them to be tried as a witch. Of course I laughed at such ridiculous claims but my wife appeared holding most firmly the arm of my struggling child and against my wishes she handed her to the mob.