Kirkland Revels by Victoria Holt

all so lifelike, those pictures, that the lips seemed to move as I watched.

    ” And that,” went on Luke, ” Is John who, about a hundred years after, decided he’d die the same way. He jumped over the balcony in the north wing. Strange, isn’t it. Although I think he got the idea from that Luke,” I turned away. This talk made me feel uneasy. I was not sure why.

    As I moved towards a woman in a feathered Gainsborough type hat, I heard Luke’s voice at my elbow. ” My great-great great-grandmother.

    Only I’m not sure of the number of greats. ” I went on walking along the gallery.

    ” Oh, and here’s your father-in-law himself,” he added.

    A younger Sir Matthew looked back at me; his flowing cravat was the essence of elegance as was his green velvet jacket; his complexion was ruddy, rather than port wine, his eyes slightly bigger than they were now, and I was sure that 53 I had not been mistaken when I had judged him to have been something of a rake in his day. And beside him was a woman whom I knew to be his wife; she was beautiful in a frail way and there was an expression of resignation on her face. Gabriel’s mother, I thought, who had died soon after his birth. And there was a picture of Gabriel himself, looking young and innocent.

    “You’ll be beside him,” said Luke.

    “You’ll be captured like the rest and held prisoner on canvas … so that in two hundred years’ time the new lady of the house will come to look at you and wonder about you.”

    I shivered, and was conscious of a great desire to escape from him, to get out of the house, if only for half an hour, because the talk of suicides had oppressed me.

    ” Friday is impatient for his walk,” I said. ” I think perhaps that I should take him now. It is very good of you to have taken so much trouble to show me everything.”

    ” But I have not shown you everything There is a great deal more for you to see.”

    ” I shall enjoy it more another time,” I replied firmly.

    He bowed his head.

    “When,” he murmured, “it will be my pleasure to continue with our tour.”

    I went down the staircase and, half-way, turned to look back. Luke was standing by the portraits watching me, looking as though he had but to step up into one of those frames to become one of them.

    The rest of the day I spent with Gabriel. We went for a ride in the afternoon, right out on to the moors; and when we came back it was time to change for dinner, and the evening was spent like the previous one.

    Before we retired for the night Gabriel took me out to the balcony, and as he stood for a while admiring that superb view I remarked that I had not yet visited the Abbey ruins and decided that I would do so the next day.

    During the morning which followed, Gabriel was again with his father and I wandered on with Friday; this time I went to the Abbey.

    As I approached those ancient piles I was struck with wonder. It was a sunny morning; and here and there the stone glistened as though it had been set with diamonds. I could have believed that this was not a ruin, for the great tower was intact and so was the wall which was facing me; it was not until I came close that I realised that there was no 54 roof but the sky. The Abbey nestled in the valley close to the river and I guessed that it would be more sheltered from the storms than the Revels was. Now I saw clearly the high Norman tower, the ancient buttresses and the nave which, like the tower, was almost intact, apart from the fact that there was no roof. I was surprised at the vastness of the ruins and I thought how interesting it would be to make a plan of the Abbey and try to rebuild it in the imagination.

    Friday was running to and fro in great excitement as though he shared my emotions about the place. Here, I told myself, was a shell; yet there were enough stones to indicate which parts were the kitchens for instance, the cloister, the nave, the transept, the monks’ quarters.

    It was