Two Sisters

Graham Adrian

Description

In 18th century England, life is tough for the Auldfield farming family but they are proud, hard-working people. Nance's sorrow at her sister's death is eased a little by falling in love but this only begins a sequence of devastating events that seem to lead to one place - the gallows! Unknown to her, she is guided by her sister's loving spirit, finding new life and love herself in the afterlife and trying desperately to avert the consequences of Nance's recklessness. The author's debut novel, based on a Suffolk legend, is a brilliant, historically accurate description of Georgian times including genuine dialect. But, far more than this, it is a truly exciting adventure story that also inspires us with beautiful, erudite writing to consider the possibility of an afterlife where our spiritual efforts on Earth are rewarded.

Sujets

• Historical fiction
• Mind
• Body
• Spirit

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910027417
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TWO SISTERS
A Spiritual Legend
Graham Adrian




Two Sisters
First published in 2019 by
Local Legend
www.local-legend.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2020 Graham Adrian
The right of Graham Adrian to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.




For Jan Dower, whose mediumship over the years has provided suggestions for many of the scenes described here.



About the Author
Graham Adrian has walked spiritual pathways throughout his life and the accounts of an afterlife given to him through mediums proved, he says, “so evidential that they just could not be ignored.” He then turned his mind to a dedicated study of spiritual phenomena, becoming a book reviewer and columnist for Mind, Body & Spirit publications and gaining widespread respect for his wisdom, thorough research and profound historical knowledge.
Over the years, the desire grew to make more use of what he had learned and to write something creative of his own. Why not, he thought, write an adventure story from the perspective of both sides of life, the higher world intertwined with this earthly one?
“In our illusory and often violent physical existence, the spirit world can appear remote,” says Graham, “but in reality it is never more than a heartbeat away. And I am convinced that there are consequences for our every thought and action, not just here but also hereafter.”
This, then, is the theme of Graham’s wonderful debut novel Two Sisters , a story set in a true historical context whilst spiritually very much for our times. Every reader will identify with the good intentions, yet passionate recklessness, of our heroine Nance and follow the twists and turns of her adventurous life with baited breath…



About This Book
In 18 th century England, life is tough for the Auldfield farming family but they are proud, hard-working people. Nance’s sorrow at her sister’s death is eased a little by falling in love, but this only begins a sequence of devastating events that only seem to lead to one place – the gallows!
Unknown to her, she is guided by her sister’s loving spirit, finding new life and love herself in the afterlife and trying desperately to avert the consequences of Nance’s reckless, if well-meaning, actions.
The author’s debut novel, based on a Suffolk legend, is a brilliant, historically accurate description of Georgian times including genuine dialect. But, far more than this, it is a truly exciting adventure story that also inspires us with beautiful, erudite writing to consider the possibility of an afterlife where our spiritual efforts on Earth are rewarded.



The Condemned and the Visionary
Nance Auldfield had dreaded the crowd even more than being hanged. But now her growing fear was not that there would be ‘nothing’ beyond the drop, but that there might indeed be another world, a parallel existence where her sufferings would continue and perhaps increase. In the twilight, she had glimpsed something in the water basin, before shrieking and sending it flying with a fist. A face! In the moonlit cell, a disembodied face gazed back. Yet it was no reflection but her sister’s face – a sister dead for many years.
Her tortured mind shifted back to the crowd as the noisy chatter from below, wafted on the evening breeze, told her that people were already gathering. In a few hours she would be paraded before the whole of Ipswich and the very people with whom she had lived and worked. Yes, there may be a friend or two to offer a prayer, but most would be ‘honest citizens’, there by right to see justice done. The truth was that they wanted their morbid curiosity satisfied and their pious expectations fulfilled, by way of entertainment. After all, executions were intended to draw spectators. “If they do not,” Dr Samuel Johnson had declared, “they do not answer their purpose.”
All day the gaol had rung with hammer blows as the gallows was erected. She heard they were building it high up beside the outer gate to give everyone a better view, and she knew that as she dropped her skirts would open… That would surely amuse the crowd, that raucous, unruly, derisive, gawking multitude. Throughout her life people had stared at her, whispering, nudging and drawing their own false conclusions. Now they were determined to accompany her to the bitter end, having witnessed her trial and stalked the carriage returning her to gaol. Tomorrow they would be standing shoulder to shoulder, clinging to treetops and clambering onto roofs, to watch her swing.
The balladeers and poets would be out in force too with their usual moralising doggerel as the black bag was placed over her head and the noose about her neck. There would be a prolonged drum roll, a brief silence and then the local Jack Ketch would complete his dreadful work.
How had it all come to this? Had her family’s love, toil and sacrifice and a life of poverty and servitude been for this? Had the sincerest love for another, dearer than self, been for nothing, nothing but this? In the past, the family had been together and there had been security of sorts, a sense of belonging and a purpose in living however hard life was at times. There had always been an expectancy of something better. And then, one mistake – stealing a horse – which her mistress had long since forgiven.
The family was almost all gone now and she missed them terribly, especially her elder sister, dearest Sarah. She was the first to go and it had been a sobbing Nance who held her as she breathed her last. At first Sarah had seemed so calm as though resignation had gently prepared the way for her. But then she had fixed a moist, quizzical eye on Nance that seemed to penetrate to her very soul, her expression inexplicably changing to one of unbridled horror – a look that still haunted Nance. What had she seen, she for whom death held no terrors? Sweet, spiritual Sarah. Her second sight had offered many warnings to Nance. If only they had been heeded, she would surely not now be living out her final hours in the condemned cell.
As the light faded, she heard the turnkey’s footsteps as he began his evening rounds. She lit the stub of a tallow dip to read aloud the chaplain’s prayer for forgiveness, but only heard again his stern, unfeeling words.
“Oh Nance, had you but served your God with half the passion you served another, He would not have led you into temptation and abandoned you when most you needed Him.”
The spluttering flame wreathed a smoky, sulphurous aura about her as she knelt in prayer. Moonlight filtered through the barred window, the rays lengthening on the flagstones as she read aloud. Then the tallow-flame gave up the ghost and the scrawled inscriptions of former and late guests of His Majesty on the stone walls faded from view. The turnkey’s footsteps, the rattling of keys and rasping of bolts grew distant and ceased. Between the gloaming and the murk, a solemn stillness reigned as though the very world itself was in repose.
A calming, otherworldly presence now descended, bringing a certain peace and consolation. Had Nance the inner eye to see, the form of her sister, insubstantial yet pulsating with life, had appeared beside her. So many times she had tried to show Nance that life is forever continuous and that, come what may, all would be well. Now, fearing that she had only made matters worse by revealing her face, she sought to ease Nance’s torments in subtle ways by placing an incorporeal hand on her shoulder. There it remained as Nance felt its healing influence, bringing her rest, her moist eyes closed in slumber, her head pillowed on the straw-covered stones.
Sarah was left to contemplate ruefully the events of the last years: a rejected true love and a blind, unquenchable passion for one unworthy of it, that had led to so much suffering and finally imprisonment.
One day in Georgian England, the parson pronounced Zebedee and Beth man and wife, and they made their home in a tied cottage not far from Amberslea and a few miles from Ipswich. In those days, the lanes wound their narrow, unhurried way around blind corners, between tall banks and weather-worn fences. On the approach to Piper’s Vale a canopy of majestic, towering elms shaded the sand and stone cart-way, gaps between the trees offering views over glebe, meadow and pasture of the beautiful blue Orwell. There, deep in the Valley of Alneshbourne, was the Harvey estate where the Auldfields worked; further on, nearer the river and encircled by more elms, lay the Abbeyfield Farm where Nance would later work. Originally a priory, the farm still retained many medieval features including an encircling moat, fed by a stream that flowed onwards through a waterlily mead by the Orwell. Nearby was a white gothic-style barn from an earlier century, fashioned from the ruins of the old priory chapel.
A crooked pathway led from the lane through a vegetable patch to the Auldfield’s white, lath and plaster cottage. Twin oaks towered above its sagging roof, their branches entwined in a protective embrace. Amberslea was then a cluster of cottages in front of the parish church of St Mary, its rubble exterior like Abbeyfield Farm, a