The Secret Kiss of Darkness by Christina Courtenay Page A

with anything?’
    ‘They have a great research centre and they’ll order in microfilms for you but, as I said, we won’t need to go there.’
    Kayla wasn’t really listening to this explanation, however, but watched intently as Jessie extracted the film from the box and threaded it deftly onto the two reel-holders.
    ‘I can see you’ve done that before. It would have taken me ages to figure out which way it was supposed to go.’
    ‘Ah, yes, practice makes perfect, right? Okay, here goes.’ Jessie wound the film forward. It contained a number of different villages, since they were quite small and consequently didn’t have too many records, and soon Jessie found the right one. ‘Here’s Marcombe, look.’
    Kayla peered at the screen and the barely decipherable and decidedly spindly handwriting on the faded documents. ‘How on earth can you read that? Looks like Greek to me.’
    ‘Oh, you get used to it, although some are worse than others. I hate when they’re really faint. Anyway, let’s see, sixteen hundreds, seventeen, seventeen fifty-one, two, three and … four. Right, here it is.’
    Kayla’s eyes were now glued to the screen and she held her breath. This was it. The moment of truth. Now that they had actually found it she was suddenly not sure she wanted to know. If her brain had invented the whole story she would feel like a complete idiot, but on the other hand, if it turned out to be true, wouldn’t that be even more scary? It was too late for regrets, however. Jessie gave a whoop of delight, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
    ‘Oops, sorry, we’re supposed to be quiet in here. But look, Kayla, there it is.’ She pointed to a line of old-fashioned writing on the screen and read out, ‘
Baptisms, 1754. Jago Kerswell, son of Lenora Kerswell, a Traveller. Baseborn. June 24th.
’
    ‘Wow, I don’t believe it,’ Kayla whispered and let out a shaky breath. And she didn’t. Somehow she’d counted on the fact that it was all something her mind had dreamed up. But there it was, in black and white, right in front of her eyes. It was for real. She swallowed hard and added, ‘So he was right.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘What? Oh, just one of my relatives. Uhm, can we look for the rest of the things I wrote down?’
    ‘Sure, let me see. “
Sir John Marcombe
”, you want to find his christening? You haven’t written down a date.’
    ‘I know, but it should be around the same time, perhaps slightly before or after.’
    ‘Let’s check from 1740 onwards and see what we find. We’ll write down any Marcombes and then puzzle out their relationships later.’
    They found the christening of ‘
John Marcombe, son of Sir Philip, gent. and his wife Martha, Lady Marcombe
’ in 1750, then the baptism of another baby called Margaret roughly a year later. A week after the christening, both baby Margaret and Martha, Lady Marcombe, were buried, presumably together.
    ‘Oh, how sad,’ Kayla said. ‘So Sir Philip was left all alone with a one-year-old son, poor man.’
    ‘Yes, Lady Marcombe probably died of puerperal fever. A lot of the midwives didn’t know the meaning of hygiene in those days.’
    ‘How awful. We’re so lucky nowadays, aren’t we?’
    They continued their search and the parish registers revealed that Sir Philip had died in 1774 and a year later, in 1775, his son, Sir John, married a Miss Mary Ashford.
    ‘They don’t seem to have had any kids though,’ Jessie commented when they found no children of that union. ‘And look, this Lady Marcombe is recorded in the burial register in 1778 having apparently succumbed to a fever of some sort, and barely a year later Sir John, widower, remarries a Miss Elizabeth Anne Wesley.’
    ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Kayla could hardly believe her eyes. Everything Jago had said was true. Every last thing.
Damn! How can that be?
    ‘Let’s see if they had any children then,’ Jessie muttered, scrolling the film slowly forward, not noticing that Kayla had gone