“I hope you don’t mind, Simon,” said Garnet. “I brought my boarder. This is Faith.”
The girl was tall and slender, with a long neck and short-cropped hair that set off her delicate features. She was also, Simon realized as she moved past him into the entry hall, quite visibly pregnant, and not much more than a child. “Faith?” he repeated. “Just Faith?”
“Just Faith.” The girl turned serious dark eyes on him, with no hint of a smile. What, Simon wondered, had Garnet got herself into?
And if he had had any doubts about young Nick Carlisle’s sexual preferences, they were resolved the instant Faith walked into the drawing room. Both men rose, but Nick was clearly riveted. The girl seemed unaware of her effect, regarding them all with the same solemn gaze.
As Simon introduced Garnet, Winifred said, “Garnet Todd, the ceramist? I love your work! I’ve been hoping one day to have you restore the tiles in my church.”
“Your church?” Garnet’s worn face creased in a smile.
“I’m vicar of St. Mary’s, Compton Grenville,” Winifred answered, and they were soon deep in discussion of the church’s tile work.
Trust Garnet to monopolize the conversation, Simon thought acidly as he served drinks. When he could get a word in edgewise, he said, “Nick tells me you have a particular interest in the history of the Abbey, Mr. Montfort?”
“You might say that. Call me Jack, please. And I understand that you’re the expert where the Abbey is concerned. I’m especially interested in the eleventh-century period and in Aethelnoth’s abbacy.”
“Aethelnoth? That’s not a name most people know. Not exactly a shining star in the Abbey’s history, that one.”
“I wondered what happened in his time that the monks would have seen as bringing God’s wrath upon their House?”
“Among other things, Aethelnoth removed the gold and silver from the Abbey’s holy books and sold it for his own profit, and he appropriated Church lands. His rather disreputable career ended when he was formally deposed and sent into confinement at Christ Church, Canterbury.
“In fact,” Simon continued, warming to his subject, “neither of the last two Saxon abbots was anything to write home about. Aethelweard, Aethelnoth’s predecessor, hacked up King Edgar’s remains and tried to stuff them in a reliquary, after which he became incurably insane—small wonder—then fell and broke his neck. But I don’t know that any of their misdeeds was worthy of calling down God’s wrath upon the Abbey.”
Montfort and Nick Carlisle exchanged a look of disappointment. “Those sorts of things were fairly common, I take it?” Montfort asked.
“Unfortunately. Abbatial election usually had more to do with political astuteness than religious vocation, but those two lacked either quality. Of course, Frederick Bligh Bond came up with a much glorified version of Aethelnoth through his automatic writings, but in this case I’m inclined to believe the historians.”
“Bligh Bond?” Nick echoed huskily, then cleared his throat. Again he and Montfort exchanged a loaded glance.
“You’re familiar with Bond?” Simon asked.
Montfort’s reply made it clear that he was. “Are you saying that you accept Bond’s … um …
“Do I believe that Bond had a direct line to former monks of the Abbey?” This was turning out to be a good deal more interesting than Simon had anticipated. “Not likely. But Bond’s knowledge of the Abbey’s history and architecture was extensive. I think it highly probable that he communicated it somehow to his friend, Captain Bartlett.”
“Oh, really, Simon!” broke in Garnet. “Why not say ‘telepathy’ if you mean ‘telepathy’? And if you’re willing to admit that possibility, why rule out the idea that Bond—and Bartlett—might have tapped into some sort of collective memory? You certainly know the importance of collective memory to the Celts—”
“That’s an entirely different matter. Their collective—and racial—memory was based on the transmission of myth and tradition through highly stylized storytelling, ritual, and ceremony.”
“And it was an extremely powerful force, in ways we can’t even begin to understand,” Garnet challenged, reddening. “Why is it impossible that there are other things that operate beyond our understanding?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Faith, speaking for the first time. “What’s automatic writing?”
Jack Montfort gave her an encouraging smile. “It’s when someone writes things down without being consciously aware of what they’re writing, or knowing where the information originates.”
“You mean like ghosts? Or a seance?”
Wincing, Montfort said, “Not necessarily. It could be the person’s subconscious seeking … well, I suppose you could call it an unusual outlet.”
“Is that what you think happened to Mr. Bond—whoever he was?”
“It was Bond’s friend who actually did the writing,” Simon said tersely. “So whether the information came from Bond’s subconscious or another source, he still had to transmit it in some way to Bartlett. Unless, of course, the two were total charlatans, and that I
“It seems odd, don’t you think,” Montfort mused, “that the one question no one ever asked was ‘Why John Bartlett?’ Bond’s connections to the Abbey were obvious—was Bartlett chosen simply because of his friendship with Bond, or was there something more? Bartlett was retired military, an intelligent and fairly well-educated man, but there was nothing to indicate a natural facility for automatism.”
“When you say Bartlett was ‘chosen,’ I take it you favor the collective-memory hypothesis?”
“I’m inclined to, yes,” Montfort answered with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh. “Speaking from my own experience, I find anything else highly improbable.”
