A Step Back in Time

“Hannah…hey…. Hannah…wake up….”

Groggily I opened my eyes, the room swimming around me. What was going on? One minute I was busily typing up a very complicated will (where somebody was leaving far too much money to their beloved pet dog), and then…well, I wasn’t sure. A hazy memory of a woman wearing a long black gown came to mind, and then nothing…blank….

“Hannah?” Max Reynolds, his expression concerned (for once), appeared in my vision. He stared at me intently, his green eyes narrowed, a lock of blond hair falling onto his forehead which, impatiently, he pushed away with his fingers.

“Oh hi,” I said, my voice just a tiny whisper. What was wrong with me? Had I been drugged? Surely not. Who could have done it anyway? Max? I eyed him warily.

“Falling asleep on the job?” he asked. “Do you realize how serious that is? A sacking offense.” He laughed loudly at his own wit. Oh, so typical of Max. “Methinks maybe you need a good old shot of caffeine.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right—I’ll make some coffee.” As if from a long, long way away noises started to come back; the ringing of phones, Sarah clicking away at her computer in the office next door, the murmur of voices from upstairs.

My legs wobbling slightly, I stood up and began to make my way to the little kitchen that adjoined the office.

“Oh, Hannah, while you’re there, make me a cup, will you? You know how I like it—milk, no sugar?” Inwardly fuming, I watched Max’s retreating back, the laddish swagger in his walk. He grinned cheekily over his shoulder and said, “I’ll be in my office.”

“Who does he think he is?” I asked myself as I thumped on the kettle and began taking mugs from the cupboard, milk from the fridge. While waiting for the kettle to boil I gazed from the tiny mullioned window at the paved courtyard at the back of the offices. Well, it was offices now, but had once apparently been a row of cottages, as had the pub next door, and still held a lot of old-fashioned charm. There were beautiful tiled fireplaces in every room, even in the offices upstairs that would once have been bedrooms, and thick black beams crisscrossed the ceilings. It pleased me to think that the office I worked in would once have been a dining room.

It was April, and bright yellow daffodils, like spots of gold against the dull brown earth, swayed and danced in the massive pots that stood on the paving. Ratty clouds moved quickly around the sun in a patch of blue sky that I could just about see if I craned my neck hard enough.

The kettle shrieked to the boil, bringing me out of my reverie, and as I filled the mugs I thought about the strange dream that I’d had earlier—well, if you could call it a dream. More like an out of body experience, because I really felt as if I had been there—not as an outsider, but one of the people involved, like an actor in some sort of medieval play.

I remembered a lady dressed in a long black gown, and a good-looking man with piercing green eyes and blond hair. Actually, not so different in looks from the “I’m so great” Max Reynolds, who was probably sitting at his desk right now like a king on a throne, waiting for his lowly minion to bring him coffee. Actually, thinking about it, what had Max said earlier? “Methinks you need a shot of caffeine….” Methinks? A sort of ancient, I suppose, medieval saying? Very strange.

Ursula! I suddenly thought. My name was Ursula. I had no idea what the lady in the long black gown was called, but I had a sudden memory of the man—whoever he was…the Max Reynolds look-a-like—calling out to her. I thought he had called her my lady, and she had turned around, and then…nothing. Once again a blank; only a fleeting glimpse of her face. Ursula, though. Why did I think I was called Ursula? A strange, old fashioned name.

Putting one of the mugs on my desk, I went through to Max’s office, automatically ducking my head under the thick beams that knotted the ceiling, and knocked discreetly before I went in. He was sitting at his desk, everything neat and tidy as usual—a laptop open in front of him, his phone at his side, a pen and a pencil in a straight line. Even files and papers were in pristine little piles. It was a fairly large room for a former cottage, its tiny windows looking out onto the old narrow Havant Road, where a car cruised slowly by.

The rough cream painted walls were bare except for one wall, which featured a large painting of The Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali, which I thought suited Max down to the ground. To keep on the same theme, a large oval mirror hung over the fireplace, in which I was sure he preened himself at regular intervals.

Looking at him from under my lashes, I noticed that he looked smart, as he always did for work, wearing a black suit and a white shirt, the top buttons of which were undone, displaying a mat of light curly hair which I studiously ignored, my eyes looking just above his head. Did he really think I was going to fall for that just as all the others did?

I placed the steaming hot mug on a coaster at his side and made to leave the room when Max said, “Feeling okay now, Hannah?”

“Absolutely fine, thank you, boss,” I said, edging my way out of the room. “I’ve got work to do though; I was in the middle of typing up that urgent new will for Mrs. Jordan.”

Standing up, Max walked around his desk, although it was more of a prowl than a walk, making me think of a sleek panther. “Hmm. You do know where you are, don’t you?”

“Of course I know where I am,” I replied irritably.

“Yeah, okay, I know it sounds like a silly question. But you were really out of it just now. You were muttering a name—um….”

Ursula? I thought, then said to Max, “What name?”

“Gregory. Yeah, you said Gregory—very clearly, too. Is he your boyfriend, Hannah? Oh, silly me, you have a boyfriend called Andy, don’t you?” A grin swarmed all over his face and his green eyes glittered.

Ignoring the comment about a boyfriend who I’d finished with a while ago, I said, “Max, don’t be silly,” as I turned once again to leave the room, my hand on the door knob. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve work to do.”

He came nearer and nearer, until he was so close he really was invading my personal space. I could smell the cologne that he wore, sort of oriental and spicy. I took a step back, which unfortunately flattened me against the door.

“As you said, I’m your boss; I need to make sure that you’re well enough to be at work. Now just answer a few simple questions, okay?”

Trying to breathe deeply and evenly to calm my erratically beating heart and my temper—which, red hot just behind my eyeballs, was almost at bursting point—I nodded.

“Okay. Now—where are you?”

“I’m at work,” I replied as patiently as I could. “At Reynolds & Rhodes, Solicitors, in Havant, Hampshire, situated right next door to the oldest pub in Havant, The Old House at Home.” And just for good measure, I added, “There are also branches of Reynolds & Rhodes in Waterlooville and Denmead.”

“Great! Correct—with even more information than I needed.”

I gave him a scathing glare.

“Now, who is Reynolds and who is Rhodes?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Max.” I raised my wrist and tapped pointedly at my watch. Well, my Fitbit, actually. With only three thousand eight hundred steps on it at the moment, which was a disaster, I was sure that at any moment the Fitbit Police would be knocking at the door to take me down to the station for questioning.

“Go on….” He nodded his blond head.

I took a deep, huffing breath. “You are Reynolds. Max Reynolds, the founder of this little enterprise. And Stuart Rhodes is your partner; long-time partner, actually, seeing as you’ve known each other since bare kneed at school.”

“Well done, Hannah. Just one more question. Both Stuart and I have very delightful personal assistants. Who are they?”

Still fuming, and wishing I could get back to my desk and my work, I replied in a very clipped accent—similar, I suppose, to a BBC newsreader back in the day. “I’m your personal assistant, Hannah Palmer, twenty-eight years old, and Stuart’s is Sarah Miller, aged twenty-seven, who at this very moment in time is hard at work on her computer—something that I need to be doing right now.”

“Excellent, Hannah, full marks. You may go back to your desk and resume your work now that I know you are fully compos mentis.”

“Thank you, boss,” I snapped.

Max’s laughter echoed in the very air around me as I stalked back to my office.

The will that I’d been typing before my strange experience occurred was still on the screen just as I’d left it. The words in curly black script, “This is the last Will and Testament” jumped out at me, as in this case did the name of the dog that was due to come into a fortune. Mr. Al Pacino—what a name for a pet. Mrs. Jordan must surely be a massive Pacino fan. I supposed, though, that it made a good change from Rex or Tiddles, or border collies named Molly.

I took a sip of coffee, which was now lukewarm, thanks to Max. If he hadn’t kept me in his office for so long, I’d have been enjoying a hot drink now. What an irritating man he could be at times. Admittedly, he was a good boss—very fair, and kind even, and he had a great sense of humor. But when it came to the opposite sex, he turned into some sort of juvenile delinquent. He’d had so many girlfriends in the year I’d been working for him that I’d lost count.

Thank God I didn’t look like his usual type, willowy and blonde with big baby blue eyes. In fact, I was the exact opposite, having shoulder length dark hair and hazel eyes. My figure, while not being fat, was definitely not willowy. Maybe that was why I’d gotten the job as his PA, so he wouldn’t be tempted to flirt with me. Not, as I’d thought at the time, because of my qualifications and experience as a super legal secretary.

Putting that aside, though, and forgetting about his romantic life, it could be said that he’d done really well for himself. Having his own very successful law firm at only thirty-two was quite an achievement, and if I had any other hat than that old decrepit beanie that I wore when the weather was really cold, I would certainly take it off to him.

“Hey, Hannah.” Sarah came out of her office, dressed in virtually the same outfit as me—a black trouser suit teamed with a red blouse, the only difference being that my blouse was green. “Hey, you okay?” she asked.

I raised a hand as she disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to make a revitalizing cup of coffee. I followed her and stood in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb as I filled her in on my weird experience that morning.

She chuckled as she put coffee into a mug and added hot water, and then milk. “Hey, ooh…you’re not turning into Margaret Pole, are you?”

I frowned. “Margaret Pole? Who on earth is Margaret Pole?”

“Hey, you don’t know?”

I shook my head, wondering not for the first time why Sarah started every sentence with the word hey! Maybe she thought it sounded hip? But “hey,”

she was a good friend to me, and even though we’d only gotten to know each other through working at the solicitors’ office, we actually lived together.

Don’t get the wrong idea—neither of us were gay. It was just the only way that both of us could afford to buy a house and finally be in a position to leave home. We’d decided to pool our resources, and now lived in an ex-council house on Mitchell Road in Bedhampton—number forty, to be exact. It was all working really well so far, and we shared everything—the bills, the house work, even the gardening. Sarah’s boyfriend, Neil, was a regular visitor, but I was keeping away from men at the moment after the disaster that was Andy just a few months ago. Max had no idea that we had finished, and I still didn’t really want to talk about my ex.

Anyway, I zoned back to the conversation with Sarah, who was valiantly trying to get my attention.

“Hey, Hannah?”

“Oh, sorry, Sarah. Yeah, who was Margaret Pole?”

“Hey, she was the cousin or second cousin—or something like that—of Henry the Eighth.”

“Really? Wow! But why should my experience have anything to do with her?”

“Hey.” Cradling her mug in both hands, she leaned back against the work top, comfortably crossing her legs at the ankles, and said, “Well, local history, you know. She lived in Warblington Castle, or Warblington Manor as it’s usually called—you know, the ruin by the cemetery? —for the last twenty or so years of her life. Henry visited her there, and apparently actually gave her the manor in fifteen thirteen. There’s only a turret left, which was part of the old gate house.”

She took a sip of her drink while I waited with bated breath for the next installment. I looked at her intently—at her pretty face, freckles covering her nose like a dot to dot drawing, her highlighted bobbed hair, and her beautiful, almond shaped eyes.

“Henry the Eighth visited her there?” I said. “That’s amazing.” An image came into my mind of the old ruin near the church at Warblington, just a turret sticking up into the sky. I’d never seen it up close because it was on private land and hard to get to.

“Hey, apparently, he had her executed for treason—his own cousin or second cousin or whatever—and she was really old for Tudor times…sixty-seven and very frail. What a cruel man he was.”

“Well,” I replied, “He had a couple of his own wives executed, so I suppose a cousin would be nothing to him.”

“Hey, yeah, you’re right there. But he had at one time been really close to her. She was royal governess to his kids, and even godmother to Mary—Bloody Mary, as she went on to be. Anyway, better get on.” She took her phone from her pocket and glanced at it for the time—more and more people seemed to not wear watches these days, except Fitbits, of course—and then took a sip of her drink. “Stuart will be back from court soon, and I promised I’d have all his letters ready for him to sign.”

“How do you know all this stuff about Henry the Eighth and Margaret Pole?” I asked as we went back into the office.

“Hey, studied history, particularly the Tudors, at college,” Sarah replied, then went on to say, “Hey, you’ll have to Google Margaret Pole. Interesting reading, particularly because of it being local. I think she had kids too, four boys and a girl. Poor girl, having four brothers.” She made a woeful face and I laughed at her. “Hey, I think her daughter was called Ursula. Cool name, don’t you think?”

I stared after her open mouthed, thinking of the lady in the long black gown—who the good-looking Max Reynolds look-a-like had called “my lady” —and this weird feeling that I was called Ursula! Coincidence or what?

Sitting back at my desk—my interest in Margaret Pole at the forefront of my mind—and being very naughty, I minimized the urgent will for Mrs. Jordan (temporarily of course), and reaching for my mouse, clicked decisively on Google Chrome.

***

The carriage lurched and swayed its way along the deeply rutted road to Warblington Manor. Thank God the rain had kept away, otherwise the day’s journey from Havant to Langstone would have been virtually impossible, and I would never have reached home tonight. Two gleaming black horses pulled the carriage, the muscles in their necks straining with the effort, their hooves slipping and stumbling on the slippery mud. They neighed anxiously as the driver’s whip arched through the air, slicing into their sweating backs.

A strong smell of horse flesh hung in the air, mingling most unpleasantly with the ripe odor of the driver who held tightly to the reins, his fingernails black as coal. I held a crisp starched handkerchief over my nose, my initials UP—for Ursula Pole—monogrammed in tiny swirling stitches in one corner.

Hanging on for dear life to the stout leather straps fixed to the carriage roof, I peered from the tiny window at the pretty Hampshire countryside, at the green fields that, because it was spring, were a mass of golden daffodils and rapeseed, at the leafy green trees, and at the arching blue sky dotted with patchy grey clouds. I cranked the window down a little and took a deep breath, inhaling air that was fresh and sweet after the musty interior of the carriage.

The carriage rattled along the driveway now, slightly flatter and smoother than the pot holed turnpike, trees curving above us making a mysterious leafy green tunnel. I caught glimpses of the house between the trees; solid, four storied, with imposing turrets at each corner and tiny mullioned windows glinting in the sunshine.

Suddenly the gardens opened up around us, showing clipped lawns and borders filled with a mass of forget me nots and black-eyed Susans. We passed a lone gardener digging into the earth with a shiny spade. He glanced up, eyes narrowed, as we lurched past, a breeze tousling his blond hair and flattening his white shirt against a hairy muscular chest.

My mother, Margaret Pole, appeared in the shadowy doorway to welcome me. An imposing figure, she wore a square necked richly embroidered scarlet gown, her dark hair hidden beneath a hood that rose slightly on her head like a little house, making her appear taller than she actually was. She walked regally down the front steps, silken scarlet shoes peeking from the hem of her gown.

“Ursula, darling.” She hugged me so close that that I could detect a sweet rose scent emanating from her skin and her clothes.

“My lady.” I curtseyed, giving a tiny bow of my head as I did so.

“Lovely to see you, sweetheart. Come, come….”

She grasped my hand and led me inside and into a dark stone flagged hallway, and from there into the great hall where my father, Sir Richard Pole, stood in front of the massive fireplace.

A fire burned in the grate, sulky and smoking, filling the huge room with a grey haze. The tantalizing smell of roasting meat wafted from the kitchens. Two of my brothers, Reginald and Geoffrey, sat on hard wooden benches dressed in doublet and hose, looking as extravagantly bright as a couple of strutting peacocks. My father’s dogs, Gilbert and Sturdy, slumbered as close to the fire as they could possibly get.

“Ah. Little Bear.” My father held out his arms, into which I gladly fell before stepping back and curtseying deeply, my somber gown belling around me like a pool of dark water.

“My lord,” The meaning of the name Ursula and my father’s use of my nickname “Little Bear” made me smile.

“Did you have a good visit with Abigail?” he asked, Abigail being a childhood friend who I’d been staying with in nearby Emsworth.

“Yes, Father—” I began, when I was rudely interrupted by my brother, Geoffrey, who looked up quickly at the mention of my friend.

“Abigail? When is she visiting here?”

This question was met with wild laughter from Reginald, and the statement, “Ah yes, the fair Abigail, eh Geoffrey?”

I knew that Geoffrey was sweet on Abigail and she on him, as she had mentioned him many times throughout my visit. I had no doubt that if of benefit to both families a match would be made there. Geoffrey blushed to the very roots of his hair, making Reginald laugh even more.

My mother touched my arm and said, “Come, Ursula, I’ll go with you to your room before dinner is served.”

Picking up my travelling bag, I followed my mother’s swaying figure up the wide stone staircase to the floor above, stopping briefly on the large rectangular landing to peer from the tiny slit of a window. The gardener was still out there busily digging, his spade glinting in the sunshine and the muscles in his strong arms working furiously. I stood on my tiptoes so that I could get a better view. I wondered who he was and what he was called. I’d never seen him working in our garden before.

He must have felt my gaze on him, for suddenly he stopped working and, brushing a lock of blond hair from his forehead, stared up at me, his eyes narrowed and glinting green. Quickly I turned away, expecting to see my mother waiting for me at my bedchamber door, but instead was met with darkness. I reached out a hand but there was nothing—only the dark, a deep, deep blackness—and then my stomach rolled and twisted as I began to fall.