Read Online Green Darkness by Anya Seton - Free Book Online Page A

about the Gunpowder Plot. The Selbys lived here for three hundred years, but it can’t have been Dame Dorothy, because we have an authentic portrait of her hanging in the stairwell, and
that
shows her as an old woman. As for ghosts, I know how you Americans dote on such tales.”
    “Of course we do!” Sue cried. “They’re interestin’, aren’t they, Cousin Lily!”
    Lily nodded. “Most people are interested in the psychic. I’m really sorry that Medfield Place—that’s my son-in-law’s place in East Sussex—doesn’t seem to have a ghost. But I’ve heard there are a lot
here.
”
    “I daresay,” said the guide. “Never seen anything myself, but there was supposed to be a cold presence in the tower room, it was exorcised, I believe. There are other legends, armored knights, ghostly hoofbeats, a black monk with a rope around his neck, that sort of thing, but I never heard mention of the walled-up girl.” She determinedly shooed the two women back into the vestibule.
    Celia remained on the window seat with Akananda. The flush had drained from her face, which was now pale and glistening with sweat drops. She slumped against the doctor’s shoulder. “I feel sick,” she whispered. “Deathly sick. Can’t breathe.”
    Akananda put a firm hand on her forehead. Through mists of nausea she felt the sustaining pressure.
    She straightened slowly, opening her eyes. “Where’s Mother gone?” she said. “Mother and Sue?” She spoke in a wondering little-girl voice. Her languid gaze roamed about the Hall, it passed over the niche without pausing. He saw that her pupils were so widely dilated that her eyes seemed as black as his own.
    “They have gone with the guide to see the rest of this place,” he said quietly. “I think you had better come outside with me. We’ll go find the Duchess in the garden.”
    “This place,” she repeated, frowning past him at the wainscoting. When she spoke again he was startled by a different inflection. Her voice sounded higher, there was no trace of American accent, yet the tonal quality was not the English that he knew either. There was an unfamiliar cadence as she said, “This is a place abhorrent. Yet I cannot flee. For I must see him. My love awaits me in secret.
Jesu
, forgive us!”
    She crossed herself with a wavering uncertain motion.
    Akananda shook his head. He guessed something of what was hidden from her or any one of the struggling souls who were blindly meshed in the results of a bygone tragedy. But since these souls had free will, he could not foresee the outcome. His thought sped to the exalted
ashram
in the Himalayas where he had passed some of his boyhood, under the guidance of several enlightened ones, and especially of Nanak Guru. With the yearning memory went a humble prayer for wisdom.
    “Come out into the garden, my child,” he said, putting a hand on Celia’s arm, for she had started up. “You’ve had enough. Already the protective veil is torn.”
    She shook his hand off. “Let me be!” she cried angrily. “Always I must go to him. I must tell him.” She stroked her belly. “It hath quickened. I felt it move this morn.”
    Akananda stared at her and saw a subtle change, as though another face were shedding a wavering reflection on that of Celia Marsdon. The contours had become more oval, the lips fuller and more seductive, the brows more arched and the eyes held a passionate willful glint.
    “Lady Marsdon,” he said in a calm cold tone designed to reach through to her, “do you mean that you are pregnant by Sir Richard?”
    She made an impatient gesture. “Will you mock me?” she said. “I know not any Sir Richard, Stephen is my dear love . . .”
    She whirled around and ran through the door. Akananda followed her close behind. She flew up the heavy Jacobean stairs. On the landing she paused, putting her hand to her lips. “I hear voices. None must know.
She
found us once.” Celia flattened herself into a corner.
    The voices were