A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(46)
The sheer number never ceases to astound me—in fact, I think I’m even more in awe than when I first arrived, because now I fully appreciate just how many there are and how long it will take to put this place in order. No wonder poor Estamond Guest gave up on her ledgers.
Saint makes a soft noise that could almost be a laugh, and I jerk my head up, hoping to catch a smile. No such luck, but I am treated to the vague tilt of amusement to his eyes as his long fingers flip through the pages of the book he’s making notes on. It’s a younger book—at least, compared with most of the books in here—with a tattered paper jacket showing a clumsy illustration of a clapper bridge and a river.
“What’s so funny?” I can’t help but ask. I want to know everything he’s thinking all the time; it’s like some weird supply-and-demand thing where he keeps himself locked so tight that anything from him feels like a gift of gold. And even though these last two weeks between us have been strained and chaste, we can’t seem to stop seeking each other out. I can’t seem to stop wanting to kiss him. Or right now, wanting to straddle him and lick his neck.
“Our friend Estamond,” Saint says, his eyes sparkling as he pushes the book toward me. “She was quite the scandal back in the day.”
I reach for the book and tug it toward me. It’s a motorist’s guide to Dartmoor, published sometime in the fifties, and there’s an entire chapter about Thornchapel, which back then was open to visitors one day a week. I start reading at the top of the page.
Visitors will find the grounds enchanting, especially the maze to the south of the house. Originally constructed in Tudor times, it’s said that it was built atop the ruins of a medieval labyrinth, but this seems mostly to be local legend, as the housekeeper said there’s no family record of that being true. In any case, the maze was given new life under the dashing and vivacious Estamond Guest. Born Estamond Kernstow to an ancient and worthy family here in the moors, she was only nineteen when she caught the eye of the much older Randolph Guest. By all accounts, however, it was a happy marriage, and Randolph indulged his young wife by letting her host extravagant house parties with some of the best and brightest of the day. Poets, painters, thinkers, and novelists all came to spend quiet days and cheerful nights on Thornchapel’s inspiring grounds.
Estamond’s bohemian taste in company, however, led to unpleasant rumors about her character. These rumors only grew after she commissioned a full repair of the overgrown Tudor maze—and commissioned new statuary for the middle. The centerpiece in question was a depiction of Adonis and Aphrodite in an unmistakably amorous embrace, leading to speculation about Estamond’s personal morals.
Despite the gossip, however, Estamond carried on with her parties and changes to the house, and over the course of their short but happy marriage, she bore Randolph four children. She died after delivering their fifth. Visitors today can not only see her legacy in the maze and the walled garden to the southeast, but in her great personal collection of paintings still on display inside the house.
I look at Saint. “Quite the scandal,” I repeat faintly.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, looking closely at me. Very closely. “You seem . . . upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I say quickly. “I’m intrigued, actually, because if Estamond commissioned that statue, then surely she’s the one who built the tunnel we found as children, right? A hidden way out to the thorn chapel—it seems like exactly the kind of thing she’d like.”
Saint keeps examining me. “Okay.”
I shut the book and slide it back to him, and then I turn back to my monitor and the entry I was working on before he interrupted. There’s no point in telling him what really unsettled me, what was like seeing a ghost curl up from the page. There’s no need, because it’s simply a coincidence, and he would agree with me that it’s just a coincidence, and then it would have been a waste of breath for both of us.
It doesn’t matter that Kernstow was my mother’s maiden name. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never come across it anywhere else, ever in my entire life. It doesn’t mean anything.
Unless it meant something to her. Unless she has a connection to Thornchapel I never knew about, not by interest or archaeology or friendship, but by blood.
Unless coming to Thornchapel for my mother was coming home.
Over the next few days, a warm wind buffets in from somewhere, the sun burns off the mist, and I can pretend I remember what spring feels like. I wake up one day feeling less sleepy than normal, less haunted by dreams, and I decide to take a short walk before I go to the library to work. It’s been the first day really nice enough to do so, and I want to see the maze and Estamond’s walled garden. If I’m honest, I’d really like to visit the chapel ruins too, but there's not enough time between work and the early sunsets here.
This weekend, I promise myself. I’ve been here almost three weeks, and I still haven’t gone to see it. And I’m not entirely sure why—it’s certainly been prohibitively cold and nasty, but I’ve spent twelve years dreaming about the place, surely I'm not deterred by some rain?
Mind made up that I’ll go on Saturday, I get dressed for my walk. I check my phone after pulling on a jacket and my bright blue rain boots, but my dad still hasn’t responded to a text I sent him asking about the name Kernstow and if my mother had any family here.