Forgotten Destiny Read online

  The stench of the river seemed to have permeated the very walls, and after the bright sunshine outside it was very dim in the building.

  ‘We’ll go to my office,’ Theo said.

  He led the way up the steep staircase and into a small room which overlooked the quayside. The windows were grimy, but enough light found its way through them for me to see a desk, two or three chairs, and shelves lining the walls, stacked with ledgers. More ledgers lay on the desk, together with writing materials. Theo indicated that I should sit in one of the chairs, and he sat himself down opposite me with the desk between us.

  ‘So, Davina,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and looking at me narrowly. ‘What are these questions that are troubling you?’

  Now that the moment had come, I scarcely knew where to begin.

  ‘You know that I have no memory of my past life beyond the last two years,’ I said, knotting my hands in the folds of my skirts and glancing down at them.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you must realize that it is very important to me that I should regain at least something of what happened to me in the first years of my life.’

  ‘Yes. But I’m afraid I can be of little assistance, Davina. Your mother played no part in our family life during those years. The first time I ever set eyes on you was in our grandfather’s rectory, and that was just two years ago. I am sure our grandparents can tell you more than I. You will have to ask them.’

  ‘Well, I have asked, of course,’ I said. ‘But they are very reticent. So much so that I cannot help but feel they are keeping something from me. Why, I am not sure any more that the little they have told me is the truth.’

  ‘Oh, surely…’ But there was something guarded suddenly in his eyes. ‘What makes you think such a thing, Davina?’

  I glanced towards the window, where a bluebottle buzzed impotently against the sooty glass. Just so was I trapped. Trapped by commitment. Trapped by duty. Trapped by the lack of any real sense of identity.

  I looked back at Theo; caught again that strangely guarded look on his face.

  ‘Something very strange happened this morning,’ I said hesitantly. ‘Aunt Linnie and I were visiting the hot well and a man spoke to me. He seemed to recognize me, and thought that I should recognize him.’

  ‘And did you?’ Theo asked.

  ‘No, not really. I don’t remember having ever seen him before in my life. And yet…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was something. For just a moment… there was something.’

  Theo regarded me narrowly. ‘But why should such an encounter make you doubt what you have been told?’ he asked.

  ‘Because…’ I took a deep breath. ‘Because he did not call me Davina. He called me Rowan.’

  Theo sat forward in his chair, elbows on the desk, very alert suddenly.

  ‘What did he look like, this man?’

  ‘Tall, perhaps thirty-five years old, it’s hard to say, for the lines on his face could have been caused by exposure to the elements. I thought he looked like a seafarer – that is the reason I came to the docks this afternoon. In the hope of finding him again. But you have not answered my question. Does the name Rowan mean anything to you?’

  ‘I have never heard you called anything but Davina,’ Theo said levelly.

  I let my breath out on a long sigh, disappointment and frustration flooding through my veins. But, in all honesty, what had I expected? That Theo was going to tell me that I was not Davina Grimes at all, but some unknown girl who had been given her identity for some inexplicable purpose? It was fantasy, sheer fantasy, born of a desperate desire to find a hidden past and escape a future I did not want. Nothing but fantasy. And yet…

  ‘There is something,’ I said stubbornly. ‘They are keeping something from me, I’m sure of it! And before I can marry Mr Paterson, or anyone, I have to know what it is.’

  For a long moment Theo looked at me. Then he rose, crossing to the window and turning to lean himself against the sill.

  ‘Very well, Davina, since it is clear you are aware you have not been told the whole truth, and it is worrying you, I will tell you all I know. It is not much, but it may well explain to you why your grandparents have been reticent.’

  My nerve endings were all alive suddenly, pricking beneath my skin, and breath caught in my throat. So – I had been right! They did know more than they had told me.

  ‘To begin with, there was a little more to your accident than you have been made aware of,’ Theo said carefully. ‘It was no mere accident in the sense of a misfortune or a piece of bad driving on the part of the coachman. He survived the crash long enough to impart the information that he had been held up by a highwayman. The scoundrel ordered you and your mother down from the coach, thinking to relieve you of your valuables, no doubt, and the coachman did his best to save you. Shots were fired, the horses took fright and bolted. It was then that the carriage left the highway and overturned, killing your mother and badly injuring you.’

  I frowned as a tiny shard of recollection stirred deep within me. Fear. A shot. Yes, for a brief moment in time it felt right, and I thought the mists were about to lift. Then they descended again, impenetrable as ever, leaving me once more frustrated.

  ‘Why did they not tell me that?’ I asked slowly.

  ‘They believed it would cause you more distress and that, if you did not remember, then there was no advantage in your knowing.’ Theo pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead where tiny drops of perspiration had gathered beneath the line of his wig. ‘Whether they were right or wrong to keep it from you, I couldn’t say. But that was their decision, and they requested that the rest of the family should support them in it.’

  I was silent for a moment. This piece of information, though curious, took me no closer to learning any more about myself.

  ‘The coachman,’ I said at last. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘He had been hired, I believe, from somewhere in Somerset. I don’t remember the name of the place. It was probably never mentioned. In any case, as I already said, he died from his injuries, so he would not be able to tell you anything, even if you could find him.’

  ‘Somerset. That is another of the counties that borders Bristol, isn’t it?’ I mused. ‘So if the accident happened in Gloucestershire, then we must surely have been on our way to visit my grandparents.’

  ‘You had already been to visit them,’ Theo said. ‘Your mother had fled to them to ask for their help, and they had turned her away. I don’t suppose I need to explain why they were unwilling to tell you that. Naturally, they blame themselves for what occurred. If they had taken you in, as she asked, then you would never have been on that road on that fateful night. Your mother would still be alive, and you would not have suffered the injuries that have left you with this terrible memory loss.’

  Again I was silent, thinking. Yes, I could well imagine how much my grandparents must blame themselves. No wonder they had lavished such love and care on me. They had been making a belated effort to put things right. But what had my mother done that was so terrible that they had refused her shelter in her hour of need? And why, after all the long years that she had been estranged from them, had she been so desperate that she had hired a coach to take the two of us to the only sanctuary she could think of, without even being certain of the reception she would receive?

  ‘Did you never hear the reason why she needed my grandparents’ help?’ I asked. ‘If she had the wherewithal to hire a coach, then we could not have been destitute, surely? Unless she hoped Grandfather would pay the coachman. But, in that case, he would not have been driving us away again. He would have parked himself on the rectory doorstep until he got his money.’

  Theo sat down again, leaning towards me across his ledger-strewn desk.

  ‘It seems, Davina, there was trouble with a man.’

  ‘A man? My father, you mean?’

  ‘Not your father, no. I don’t know what became of him. Dead, perhaps.
Or maybe he abandoned you and your mother. He was a strolling player, as I think you have been told, and they are a notoriously fickle breed. No, there was another man she had taken up with. A dangerous man – and one who had led her a merry dance. She had stayed with him, she told her parents, because she had no choice. Well – no choice she cared to make, anyway. Leaving the security he offered would have meant the poorhouse – or going on to the streets to make enough to buy a crust and put a roof over your heads. To be honest, I think there may well have been more to it than that. He was, by all accounts, an attractive devil, as his sort so often are. I believe she was in his thrall, and could not bring herself to leave him. Until… until for your sake she felt she had to.’

  ‘My sake?’ I repeated, puzzled. ‘What do you mean – for my sake?’

  Theo took out a cigar. He did not light it, but rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers as if he needed some prop to allow him to continue.

  ‘It seems, Davina, that this man, who had to all intents and purposes been a father figure to you, suddenly became aware that you had grown into a beautiful young woman. He transferred his affections from your mother to you. He became totally obsessed with you. Your mother was very afraid of what harm he might do you, and at last tried to escape his lecherous clutches. But he became deranged, saying, even, that if he could not have you, then he would ensure that no one else did. Afraid for both your lives, she fled to her old home.’

  ‘But my grandparents refused to forgive her and take us in.’

  ‘That is so. They told her that her troubles were of her own making. I believe they feared, too, that this man might follow and find you, and they would become embroiled in yet more scandal of the kind that had shamed them so, all those years before, and which they had tried so hard to live down.’ He hesitated. ‘You must not blame them too much. Good reputation matters to them so very much. Their lives are nothing without the respect of your grandfather’s parishioners.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. My head was spinning with all that Theo had told me, and with trying to remember. ‘But he never came, this man, did he? He never found me.’

  ‘I’m not so certain of that,’ Theo said.

  I looked up at him, puzzled – and frightened suddenly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Theo set the cigar down on the desktop and spread his hands.

  ‘I have wondered, sometimes, if the man who held up your carriage was in reality a highwayman at all. I have wondered if perhaps…’

  ‘You think it was him?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes. Oh, I have no proof, of course. But it could be that he followed you – and when he held up the carriage, his intention was to make off with you.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Things went amiss. Shots were fired, the horses bolted and the carriage went over the side of the hill. Two people died that night, Davina. It could well be that he believed you had died too. God only knows, it was a miracle you did not. And if he believed you died, then that would have been an end to it. He would not have come looking for you again. But now…’

  ‘Dear God!’ I whispered as his meaning dawned on me. ‘And now you think…’

  ‘That this man and the one who accosted you this morning may be one and the same. Yes, Davina, that’s the way my thoughts are leading me, and that is why I felt I should acquaint you now with as much of the truth as I know. You might well be in danger from him if you were unaware of the threat he posed.’

  ‘Oh!’ My mind raced back to my encounter with the stranger outside the hot well. I thought of the proprietorial way he had caught at my arm; of his words, spoken so harshly: Don’t play games with me! Certainly there had been something close to aggression in his manner and in his tone, certainly he had looked like a man who might, with reason, be described as ‘dangerous’. And yet…

  In that first moment my instinctive reaction had not been fear or loathing, but joy. I could remember it still, with every fibre of my being, that brief singing happiness that had suffused me before the mists descended once more and I knew nothing but confusion and alarm. It made no sense. None at all. And besides…

  ‘But why should he call me Rowan?’ I asked, more of myself than of Theo. ‘If I truly am Davina, and if he knew me once, then why would he use another’s name?’

  ‘I was not entirely honest with you, Davina,’ Theo said.

  ‘What?’ I looked up; saw the indecision in his face.

  ‘I did not lie to you,’ Theo said, ‘but I did not tell you the complete truth either. I never have heard you called anything but Davina; it is the name your grandparents always refer to you by. But I have heard them say your mother called you by another name. I never heard what it was, only that, in your grandmother’s words, it was “quite unsuitable for a young lady”. They decided you should be known as Davina, I believe, and that the other “unsuitable” name should be laid to rest with your rather insalubrious past.’

  ‘And now you think…’

  ‘That the man who accosted you called you by the name he knew you by. Yes.’

  ‘Rowan.’ I said it softly, listening to the sound of it, waiting for it to strike some chord of familiarity within me. Surely – surely! – if it was indeed my name, I should feel something? And perhaps I did – a faint echo of sweet sadness in the mist-filled caverns of my mind. Or was that simply wishful thinking, a fervent hope that something was stirring my lost memories? I could not be sure. In fact, I could not be sure of anything.

  ‘Oh!’ It was a cry of sheer desperation, frustration, anger, even, at myself for my own feebleness, my inability to find what I was seeking. I balled my hands to fists, beating them against my thighs, and the tears ached in my throat. ‘It’s hopeless! Hopeless! What am I to do, Theo?’

  I meant, of course, what was I to do about my stubborn foggy brain, but Theo, typical man that he was, took my question to relate to the practical, the danger this unknown man posed to me if he was indeed the one who was obsessed with me so much that he had attempted to abduct me, and thereby caused the terrible accident.

  ‘The first thing to do,’ he said, ‘is to get you away from here. If I am right, he now knows that you did not die in the carriage accident. You were fortunate this morning that you had a worthy champion in Thomas, ready to come to your aid. And even more fortunate that you did not run into this man when you came down here to the docks, alone, this afternoon. If he is, as I believe, a seafarer, he may well still be in the vicinity. If you had found him, or he had found you, I dread to think what might have become of you. I shall accompany you home at once, to ensure you are safe, out of his reach. But do not think of creeping out alone again, I implore you. For if you do, you could once again be in his clutches – the very thing from which your mother was trying to protect you when she met her sad end.’

  ‘Oh Mama…’ The tears were there in my eyes suddenly for the mother who had died for me, but was nothing but a sweet shadow in the dark recesses of my mind and senses.

  ‘Thank God you will soon be John Paterson’s wife,’ Theo went on. ‘His name alone should protect you. He is a powerful man – the one who goes against John Paterson would be a fool indeed.’

  His words reminded me of my imminent marriage – the marriage I wanted so little – and the tears pricked again at my eyes.

  ‘Theo – I don’t think I can go through with it,’ I said urgently. ‘The thought of marrying Mr Paterson…’ I bit my lip, fighting to regain my composure and failing. Suddenly it was all too much for me. And after the confidences Theo had just shared with me, he felt like an ally. Surely I could share some confidences with him too? But as I opened my mouth to speak, I saw Theo’s expression. His jaw had set, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘You are not going to change your mind, are you, Davina? You are not going to renege on the agreement? This marriage is of the greatest importance – to all of us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr Paterson is a very important man in this city. I
f we were to get on the wrong side of him it would mean ruin for our family,’ Theo said. ‘You cannot do this to us, Davina!’

  ‘But…’

  ‘And besides, it would break your grandparents’ hearts,’ Theo said, and it was only afterwards that it occurred to me that he had realized he was on safer ground, with a stronger argument, if he brought my grandparents into it, for though he was a cousin of sorts, and Great-Uncle Charles was Grandfather’s brother, Theo must have known that I owed no great allegiance to them. ‘Your grandparents feel so guilty already, and want so badly to see you settled,’ he went on. ‘Why, I think it would be the death of them if you were to bring down more disgrace on their heads by calling off your marriage at this late stage. Don’t think of such a thing even for a moment, I beg you!’

  A solitary tear rolled down my nose. I wiped it away.

  ‘Come on now,’ Theo said, more encouragingly. ‘It won’t be so bad. You’ll want for nothing ever again. And you’ll see as much of us, your family, as you wish. It can’t be as bad, surely, as being shut away in a country rectory in the Cotswolds with no company but an ageing cleric and his wife? You’ll have fine clothes and servants, you will be mistress of your own house – and a grand house at that, in the finest part of town. Everyone who is anyone will live in Clifton soon – why, I’d like to think I shall live there myself, well away from this stinking river. And I will, too, if everything goes according to plan!’

  His arguments were the same ones I had heard so many times before. Each one of them was valid, yet they did nothing to convince me. How could they, when they were all founded on reason, and my objections came from my heart?

  ‘But I don’t love him,’ I said wretchedly. ‘And I never will.’

  ‘Never is a long time,’ Theo said. ‘Love, as you mean it, is a fickle and fleeting thing; the kind of love that comes from sharing a life together is worth far more. John Paterson will treat you with kindness and consideration, I’m sure, and in time you will grow to love him.’