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I could not remember even the dreams started, it seemed it had been almost forever, but lately, they had taken on a new intensity.

They always started the same, I was standing at the bottom of a hill looking across a lawn, bordered by rose bushes, looking towards a very large manor house, three stories tall, with wings.

It was larger than anything I’d ever seen before, a house that was fit for a king or queen, or perhaps a lord.

For someone who lived in a village, son of the flour miller, and among the lower classes, it was a place I could never expect to see inside, nor walk about the grounds, only to look upon and wonder.

At first, the dreams had me looking at the house, whether in awe or dread, I could not say.  I didn’t venture forth, just stood there. 

In some dreams it was a bright sunny day, others overcast and cold, then others again, in pouring rain.  Always the same place, and likely the same time.

Then, after a while, the dreams changed slightly.  I was looking at the manor house at night.  The windows had lights, and shadowy forms moved back and forth in those windows.  Once a carriage arrived, but I couldn’t see who it was in it.  At night the house looked more majestic, but also it had an air of foreboding. 

But underlying every vision I had, I felt there was something familiar about it; that I had been inside, that I knew who the people were who lived there, and that for no particular reason, something awful had happened there.

After the first few dreams, I made a concerted effort to try and locate the place, venturing as far from my village as I could in a day, and could not find it.  It was not within the limits of my world.

When older, and was able to learn about manor houses, and the Lords and Gentry that lived in them, I ventured further afield but always with the same result.  It was as if it existed only in my imagination.

Then, when my mother died suddenly, the dreams stopped and it all faded from my memory.

It was then I learned from my father, that he was not my father.  He told me that my mother had been a lady in waiting for a wealthy family in one of the counties near the Scottish border when her family lived and that he was sending me to live with them.  There was more to that story, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.  He packed my few possessions and put me on the coach.

That trip took many days, and when I finally reached the village where my mother’s sister lived, her eldest son Jacob came to get me and take me to my new home.  It didn’t take long to realize in a small house with six other children, I was just adding to my aunt’s problems.

That first night, banished to an outhouse with two of the other boys, the dreams came back, only different.

I was still looking at the manor house, but it was from a rotunda in the middle of a newly planted rose garden, only a short distance from the house.  I was sitting, waiting.  At first, I was just waiting, and no one came.  I had no idea how old I was or what I looked like, but it seemed I was dressed in child’s clothes.  Was it an early memory of mine?

That didn’t explain why I was sitting in the rotunda.  I could not be a child belonging to the manor house, so I had to wonder if I was the child of a servant.  Several days after arriving, I overheard an argument between my Aunt and her husband, who was angry about me being sent to live with them, his point, there were too many of them to support as it was.  He then said that if my mother hadn’t been so stupid to take their little bastard as her own and they looked after their own problems, this wouldn’t be his.

I had no idea what that meant.  My mother had been my mother, not someone else.  She had always been my mother for as long as I could remember.  But it did make sense why my father, who was not my father, had sent me away.  But they never mentioned it again.

This lasted for a week, and then a new element was introduced.

A young woman.  She was not a servant, but smartly dressed, and appeared to belong to the family who lived in the house.  She was accompanied by a woman I assumed to be her mother or a guardian.  They arrived in a carriage, and I wondered if it was the same carriage I’d seen previously in another dream.  I was close enough to I could see her face, and she was very beautiful but looked very sad.  It was the same each night, reaching to point of her arrival, and no more.

Being old enough to work, I was sent to work in the fields surrounding a manor house some distance from the village.  There were about a dozen boys of my age in the group, supervised by one of the manor houses stewards.  It was hard and physical work, much more than helping my father in the mill.

It took several weeks before we reached a field that was close to the manor house, in fact, just over a hill, and on a break I climbed the hill to have a look.

It was the manor house in my dream.  A different aspect, but the exact house, the lawns, the roses, and the Rotunda.

How could it be possible I knew this place?

One afternoon the steward picked me to deliver a message to the manor house housekeeper, telling me I had to go to the back of the house and avoid being seen.  There was an arch, and passageway that led to a quadrangle where I would find her. 

Up close the manor house was huge.  I remained in the gardens skirting the rose gardens to the rear of the house where there were stables and outhouses.  I found the arch, and then a passageway, wide enough for a wagon to make deliveries.  For some odd reason, I knew exactly where to go.

It led to a quadrangle inside the manor, at least I think that was what it was called but I was not sure how I knew.  Once there you could see inside.  At one end a door was open, but no one was about.  As soon as I stepped into the open, a vision came to me. 

It was at night, but the quadrangle was lit by many torches.  A carriage and four black horses were waiting, and then I came out with a woman, my mother.  There were two other ladies, one old and the other the housekeeper, Mrs Giles.  The old lady referred to her as that.  After the old lady spoke to my mother, we got in the carriage, and then I looked out to see the woman in white, looking out the window, looking very forlorn.  I could never forget that look of utter despair on her face.

The quadrangle was different now, in daylight.  An empty wagon was sitting not far from the door having no doubt just been unloaded with the weeks’ supplies from the surrounding farms.

I could hear voices, so I put my head in the door and said, “Is there anyone here?”

I waited until a lady came up the passage and saw me.  It was Mrs Giles.  How did I know that?

“Are you the housekeeper?”

“I am.”  She came out the door into the square. And stopped suddenly, looking at me curiously.  “Why are you here?”

“The steward sent me with a message.”  I took the piece of paper out of my pocket and held it out.

She took it but didn’t read it.  “Where are you from?”

“The village.  I live with the Halls.”  I realised after I said it she probably had no idea who they were.

“Her sister was Josephine, your aunt?”

I remembered my father called her Jo, rather than Josephine.  “Jo, yes.  She was my mother.  She died a while back and I was sent here.”

“My.  That’s a story, isn’t it?  Well, off with you.  Message delivered.”

A shake of the head and she went back inside.

That day the dreams stopped.  Perhaps now that they all made sense, there was no need for me to see them again.

There was no doubt the manor house was a place I had been to before, my mother had come from these parts and might have worked there at one time before she came down to marry my father, which meant now I was old enough to understand, my father was not my real father.  The only part I didn’t understand was what the lady in white represented.

I continued to work in the fields for another month, when I came home, as I always did, at sundown.  It had been a long, hot day.

When I turned onto the lane that led to our house, I saw there was a carriage parked out front.  It looked familiar with the livery of the two men sitting up front, and the four black horses.  It looked a lot different in daylight.

The men paid no heed to me as I looked at the horses, patted one, and then went on to the house.

Inside, the housekeeper, Mrs Giles, was there with another lady, not in white, but pale blue.  She looked a lot happier than I’d seen her before in my dreams, but it was the woman in white.

She gasped when she saw me.

My aunt looked from her to me, then to Mrs Giles.  “This was not supposed to happen.  My sister up and died, and her no-good-for-nothing husband sent the boy here.”

The woman in white spoke, “That is irrelevant now.  He is here, and he will come to live with his family.”

“Who might they be Miss,” I asked.  This conversation was a little hard to follow or understand.

My aunt looked at the housekeeper, “If I may explain to the boy.  It might be better coming from me.”

The housekeeper nodded.

“My sister, Jo, whom you knew only to be your mother, was, but she was not your real mother.  A few years after you were born it was necessary to take you away and be raised.  It was never intended that you were to return here, but you have.  Your real mother is that lady in blue, the Lady Westmoreland, now the owner of the manor.  Since the circumstances that required your departure no longer exist, you are free to return.  If you want to.  I know it’s a lot to understand Leonard, but in my opinion, you would be better off going to live in the manor.”

I looked at the lady in blue.  “I know you, but I don’t know how or why.  I have seen you in my dreams.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you.  You were sent away without anyone telling me where or who or with who.  That you have come back to me is a miracle, an answer to many prayers.”  She held out her hand and I went over to her and took it in mine.  I looked up into her eyes and knew instantly that she was my real mother.

I turned to look at my aunt.  “I will go with them if you don’t mind.  I can always come back and see you.”  Another glance at my mother, “Can’t I?”

“Yes, you can.”

The housekeeper said, “WE will complete the arrangements we agreed to earlier.  Does the boy have any possessions?”

“None that would be of use to him.”

“Then you should keep them.  We should be on our way.”

Once in the carriage, on the way to the manor, my mother said, “Your name isn’t Leonard, by the way.”

“I know,” said.  “It’s James.  And your name is Harriet Montague, is it not?”

“How do you know that?”

“My other mother, Jo, told me one day but said never to tell anyone else.  Ever.  Unless Harriet came for me.  She knew you would, one day.  Either that or I would find you.  Now, it no longer matters.”

I was back where I belonged.

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©  Charles Heath  2023