FROM THE POST-SINAI JOURNALS OF LADY ASHLEE GRANVILLE-DEVERE
Those who have known me during my life would tell you that it is highly appropriate that I was born in 1817, at the dawn of the steam age. I never had a problem letting off steam, getting steamed, or steaming right on ahead.
As the only daughter of the Baron of Suffolk—the Honourable Lord Granville—you would think my youthful days would have left me with little to complain about. Had I been born the conformist my parents desired, I would have had no grievance with them and I would not have shamed them as I did. Had I been the son and heir my father desired, I would still have spent my life at loggerheads with him, and my name would still be Ashlee Granville, except my first name would end in a ‘y’. I dare say I would have loved the freedom of speech that being male would have awarded me, but even so my perceptions and opinions would still have been swept under the carpet.
For what I once thought was my father’s disapproval I now know was his fear and guilt, which no amount of impressing could have dispelled.
It was not my fault that I was born with the gift to hear the unsaid in everyone and everything. Furthermore, it was a prerequisite of my breeding not to suffer bigots, liars, cheats and hypocrites: who could sit idly by and watch such creatures make fools and sport of good people? Certainly not I.
Let me explain.
As a young child I assumed that anyone could tune in to the inner thoughts of those around them and to the impressions that people left on objects they came into contact with, so that everything said and done in the course of the waking hours seemed to me to be a comical charade for the sake of pleasantness. You thought one thing and then said precisely what everyone else wanted to hear, even if it meant betraying your own judgement. If everyone could hear what you were really thinking, then why not say it out loud? In fact, why bother speaking at all? My attempts to rectify this silly process always ended in many gasps, arguments among the adults, being sent to my room, and tears—usually my own. I learned that the everyday verbal charade of lies did keep the peace, and so I too mastered how to play the game to appease and please my betters.
Thankfully, there was one person in my world who truly cared for me and had my best interests at heart and that sentinel was my Nanny, Beat—shortened from Beatrice. She was the first to realise I had a gift, one of an otherworldly nature that only last century would have seen me burned as a witch. Nanny Beat was not a well-educated woman, yet she was smart enough to teach me to keep my observations to myself. Had my talents been limited to just the one ability, it might have been possible to keep my psychic talent hidden. But, as any good psychic will tell you, otherworldly phenomena come in myriad forms, and at the most unexpected moments. How can a child choose between what is commonplace and what is not, when, for a child, every experience is new and extraordinary?
For as long as I can remember all I ever wanted to do was explore. Until I mastered the art of reading, and even of sitting still long enough to listen to a story, all my adventures took place in the great outdoors on our estates—my father had several, and we moved from one to the other, at the right season, as was the custom of the socially ambitious. I adored the creatures of nature: the unusual creatures tending the land, and the others that fed and lived off the land. Most people thought the former were but characters in fables, because when I spoke of them to the adults, I received vague smiles and a pat on the head. I later discovered that my mother, assuming Nanny Beat to be filling my head with fairytales, had often spoken sharply to her on this subject. Nanny never let on that the true source of my inspiration was my own perception.
I was aware that a large number of disembodied spirits dwelt on our estates, both in the manor houses and in their grounds. I chose to ignore them as they were, in the main, bitter spirits and not very good company. I