Page 80 of The Book of Lost Stories
We made a fresh cafetière of coffee and took it into the sitting room. Neither of us is a tea drinker, unlike Uncle Ambrose, who is a dedicated Orange Pekoe addict.
We sat next to each other on the plushy velvet sofa while Tilly arranged herself in a dead pose on the window seat, although I noticed she opened one eye from time to time and looked at Tris, presumably to check he was still there.
‘You’re obviously a better Ambrose substitute than me, because she always ignores me when he’s away.’
‘I’m honoured, although it’s a bit hot when she drapes herself around my neck, not to mention disconcerting when you turn your head and find yourself face to face with her. She’s so inscrutable!’
He leaned forward and pressed the plunger on the cafetière with all the concentration of someone demolishing a building and then poured out the coffee while I fetched my pretty little wooden desk, in which I now kept the original journal and put it on the table next to the tray.
‘Here you are,’ I said, handing him Alys’s journal. ‘Unks says board-covered notebooks would have been quite a luxury item back then, so that’s probably why she crammed every page with such tiny writing.’
‘I see what you mean,’ he said, opening it and scanning the first couple of pages, which were solidly written in minute handwriting with the tiniest of spaces between the words. ‘I think my eyes are still too blurry to cope with it! Still, it’s nice to hold the genuine thing in my hands.’
‘I know, it’s like a direct connection with the past, with Alys herself, isn’t it? And although I ended my novel with Lord Rayven’s proposal, it’s good to have that final journal entry shewrote later, because it helped me fill in some of the details of what happened.’
I took the journal back and went to the final pages, reading aloud:
I have since learned much more about the events of that dreadful night, mainly from Lord Rayven himself.
Despite all attempts to suppress the rumours of what had occurred, they still got about and caused such a huge scandal that my own unmasking as the infamous author Orlando Browne – which I was still resolutely denying – dropped quite out of everyone’s minds, so a little good came from it …
‘I can see all the detail would be useful, Cleo, but I think you were right to end the novel where you did … But did she really make it a condition of accepting Rayven’s proposal that he take her down the Roman sewers in London, or did you make that up?’
‘No, it’s there in the journal,’ I told him. ‘And I have a little more information for you too, which I only discovered a couple of days ago – or rather, Unks discovered it for me.’
I opened the lid of the little desk and drew out a small drawer at the back. ‘It’s a secret drawer, a very simple one. You just stick something thin through this tiny knot hole …’ I demonstrated and revealed a small compartment containing a sheet of folded paper filled with the same handwriting as the journal, although mercifully not as tiny and cramped.
‘Alys wrote a final postscript several years later and put it into her desk, then perhaps forgot about it.’
‘Ambrose’s birthday present seems to be a gift that keeps ongiving,’ Tris commented, pouring us both the last of the coffee and settling back with his. ‘Go on, read it to me: you must be able to make her writing out with no problem after transcribing the journals.’
‘I can,’ I agree. ‘OK, here goes.’
Priory Chase
July 1826
Recently, reading my old journal again after so many years – more than ten – it was as if I was reading a Gothic novel, albeit one more in the modern style than those I used to pen as Orlando Browne.
My last novel was published after my marriage, by which time it appeared to me that the Gothic genre was past its zenith and my sales were decreasing with each subsequent book. But also, having lived through quite a Gothic experience of my own, I was quite written out, although this has not been entirely the end of Orlando Browne.
My marriage has been very happy. What wonderful battles Rayven and I have had, to be sure! They do add spice to life.
Just as he promised, he has indulged my passion for the secret underground places I love to explore and together we have visited so many, from the wonderfully constructed Roman ways below London, to all manner of caves and the catacombs of Paris and Rome – and Orlando Browne has written a whole series of books describing these wonders!
I have not, however, described the cellars and ancient passages below Priory Chase, now my home, or the ancient secret that is celebrated there each year …
This secret must one day be confided to Vicky, my eldest daughter, who fortunately takes after me and is an intrepid explorer, besides being interested in ancient earthworks and other antiquities,while her small sister, Louisa, is of a more domestic turn of mind, although a lovable and cheerful child.
When we are not travelling, we like best to live quietly in Yorkshire, with visits from our old friends to enliven things – although, given my husband’s naturally autocratic nature and my own independent one, things are often quite lively enough!
I mean to put my journal into Vicky’s hands at some later date, but probably not into dear Louisa’s, for I suspect when she is a young lady it would quite shock her.
No, solely to Vicky will this be entrusted, together with the secret of my authorship and to her will I also bequeath the entire works of the infamous Orlando Browne, sumptuously bound in dark blue calf leather.
‘The journal itself must be published too, of course, along with Alys’s postscript, even if I have to do it myself,’ I said. ‘Alys Weston must be recognized as the true author of the Orlando Browne books at last.’
‘Agreed. It’s an important historical document and I’m glad you found it, even if it does mean it boosts the argument inyourthesis and undermines part ofmine!’ said Tris.
