Everything I write on this page comes from real memories I have of one of my previous lives that is very much present with me today. I am convinced - because I experience it on a day-to-day basis - that we have all had many lives, and each new life we have is to close a loop, rectify mistakes, or finish something that we were not able to before. Having such memories is not necessarily a good thing...it is all too easy to become caught up in who we were rather than we are...these memories need to be used to live in the present, which is no mean feat. My page is my way of externalising my past, leaving me able to focus on the present in everyday life.
A long driveway sweeps round from the left in front of the entrance to the manor. Once beautiful, it now looks delapidated through neglect and lack of money. It is a summer afternoon, but the weather is cloudy, and cool enough for a fire to have been lit in the entrance hall, where I am waiting nervously, a knot of excitement tinged with apprehension in my stomach. I have one hand on the mantelpiece of the creamy-white marble fireplace; the marble feels cool, yet I can feel the heat of the fire through it at the same time. From my position, I can see the driveway through the high window; often I glance up anxiously. Any moment now....the hands of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece approach 4 o'clock....
I was eighteen years old. I was not beautiful, but not unattractive; neither my appearance nor my self-confidence was helped by the fact that my father never allowed me to dress in anything other than drab, dark and old-fashioned clothing. My mother died when I was still a baby; I had always felt that my father blamed me for her death, and had always seen me as a marriage investment, nothing more. When I was a young child, I was left very much to my own devices, spending much of my time in the kitchens of the house with the cook, who was the nearest to a mother I had ever known; but my favourite place was a small field just behind the house, that was full of poppies in the spring and early summer. I loved lying in the grass, and seeing the red of the poppies against the blue sky and the lush green of the trees surrounding the field. But when I was five years old, this all changed...my father decided that it was time for me to learn to behave appropriately for a girl who could one day marry into a wealthy family. I was no longer allowed outside without a chaperone, and no longer allowed to go to the kitchens, although whenever I could I'd sneak down to visit Cook, breathe in the warm smells, and catch up on the servants' gossip. But even at the age of five, I could feel that my childhood was over...