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THOMAS RAYFIEL is the author of several novels, including The Eve Trilogy: Colony Girl (a Los Angeles Times Notable Book of the Year), Eve in the City, and Parallel Play.

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William, the Seventh Earl of Upton, is dying. His grandson, Seabold, has given him a journal in which the old man—unwillingly at first, but soon with a strange compulsion—begins to record the last months of his time on earth. But a daily account of life at Upton Hall, the decaying estate in which this late-Victorian lord has spent his entire life, is quickly overtaken by violent recollections of William's childhood, a past he has heretofore managed to repress, as well as even stranger intimations of the future, of ourselves, the readers, chancing upon this document some hundred years later, and of the predicaments we find ourselves in today. These three strands, past, present, and future, are braided together as our unlikely hero speaks to both himself and to the not-yet-living, finally seeing his life whole and extracting from it the lessons he has learned, lessons learned for our benefit as well as his own. Time Among the Dead conjures up the lost world of the English countryside, with its eccentric aristocracy, stolid tenant farmers, and striving middle class. Romantic love and a mystical appreciation of nature vie with the gloom of family secrets and the growing apprehension that a time, a way of life, is passing irrevocably away. A figure by turns tragic and screamingly funny, William proves to be a sage guide, reminding us that the human condition changes little over the years. By the end, it is unclear who has visited whom, only that we have made—and lost—a friend.

Aus dem Klappentext

William, the Seventh Earl of Upton, is dying. His grandson, Seabold, has given him a journal in which the old man unwillingly at first, but soon with a strange compulsion begins to record the last months of his time on earth. But a daily account of life at Upton Hall, the decaying estate in which this late-Victorian lord has spent his entire life, is quickly overtaken by violent recollections of William's childhood, a past he has heretofore managed to repress, as well as even stranger intimations of the future, of ourselves, the readers, chancing upon this document some hundred years later, and of the predicaments we find ourselves in today. These three strands, past, present, and future, are braided together as our unlikely hero speaks to both himself and to the not-yet-living, finally seeing his life whole and extracting from it the lessons he has learned, lessons learned for our benefit as well as his own. Time Among the Dead conjures up the lost world of the English countryside, with its eccentric aristocracy, stolid tenant farmers, and striving middle class. Romantic love and a mystical appreciation of nature vie with the gloom of family secrets and the growing apprehension that a time, a way of life, is passing irrevocably away. A figure by turns tragic and screamingly funny, William proves to be a sage guide, reminding us that the human condition changes little over the years. By the end, it is unclear who has visited whom, only that we have made and lost a friend.

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TIME AMONG THE DEAD

The Permanent Press

Chapter One

Morocco-bound, gilt-edged, with a ribbon to mark one's place, a journal reeks of obligation, which is, I am sure, precisely what Seabold intended, that I should wile away the precious time left me distilling whatever "wisdom" six-and-eighty summers have supposedly deposited in my brain. Faugh! I say to that. I would rather muck out the servants' privy than try extracting from the private nature of my life any such lessons as could be useful to posterity.

Nevertheless, I must pretend to write something, as he is here in the room, overseeing the production of my Maiden Entry. I just looked up and caught him smiling, so glad is he to have finally got the old duffer engaged upon some meaningful pursuit. Would that I had the skill of a Gilray or Hogarth to portray him in the margins of this work, a vain youth, stopping to admire himself before any passing reflection, standing sideways to better trace the cut of his trousers. I have even seen him, unaware of my presence, blow himself a kiss in the glass.

He nods that I should return to the business at hand, patronizing pup. I try scowling back but fear all the venom I pour into the look only raises it to the level of an old man's bluster. Such are the indignities of age.

How much more do I have to scribble here before I can decently close this volume, tuck it under my arm, and accidentally drop it in the Reflecting Pool?

He wants memories. I refuse to look back. The moment one looks back, one falls flat on one's face. To you, I may appear at the end of my journey, but for me the journey begins afresh with each step. The short climb from armchair to bed, for example, is an adventure fraught with risk, a perilous expedition that sets my heart pounding, screws my courage to its highest pitch, one that I intend to embark upon ... now.

March 19

It appears to be morning. I say appears because, for all the rain beating on the windowpanes, I can make out only a grudging luminescence. I hate being trapped indoors. The worst of it is that, even should the sky clear later, the grounds will resemble a swamp, and with my leg continuing to worsen there is no way I will be able to take my customary ramble. So I sit, while Seabold amuses himself with a deck of cards. I had thought he was playing solitaire but just now he offered to tell my fortune, so I suppose he is dabbling in the juvenile mysteries of the Tarot. I could tell him a thing or two about the Hanged Man and the Queen of Cups, but with his hairs so carefully curled I doubt he would like to see them stood on end.

"Fortune, at my age?" I snorted. "I don't need a gypsy's mumbo-jumbo to tell me what lies in wait."

"Perhaps I will cast mine, then, although it is said the cards do not speak directly to the one whose fate they foretell. There is need of an intermediary."

"You shall leave when the roads clear and go to London. There!"

"By whose munificence?"

"Your sainted mother's," I answered evenly.

"Saints are not often in the habit of bearing children, are they? Although one could argue giving birth is the result of that ultimate martyrdom, for a woman."

I did not have my stick, but my fingers gripped the sides of the chair just the same, as if to thrash him.

"The funds you refer to," he went on, "have, alas, vanished along with the bubble in which they were invested."

"That was rash."

He had, the whole time, been laying cards out. Now he turned one over.

"Oh dear."

"I wondered what explained your sudden appearance. Filial piety seemed, from the start, a rather tattered veil to mask your true intentions."

"Not at all. You needed caring for. You still do."

"I need peace."

"Well," he gave an exaggerated look round at the portrait-choked walls and timbered ceiling, "if you cannot find peace here, Grandfather, I sincerely doubt you will find it anywhere this side of the grave."

March 20

He has gone riding. With barely concealed envy I watched him pull on his boots.

"Is it all right if I take Episkidon?"

"By all means. He needs the work."

The storm has reduced itself to a drizzle, but the vista from the terrace, where I have had a chair set out, is still that of an interregnum season, what is left when winter departs and spring has yet to arrive. The lawn seems a bare canvas. I imagine down by the Tym it is different. Swollen from rains, the river becomes swift and chocolatey. As a lad, despite warnings to keep away, I would roll up my pant legs or dispense with such encumbrances entirely and test myself against its current, stand first ankle, then knee, finally waist deep, bracing myself against that enormous brown muscle. It is amazing I was not swept away.

Is he simply waiting for me to die? I go over the facts and find that the most likely conclusion. The alternative theory, that he remains out of dutiful affection, is betrayed by his restlessness and mockery. Yet there are moments when I see in him ... call it a spark of his mother, vying with darker elements for possession of his soul. I try to remember myself at twenty-one. Was I just as noxious a cad? I fear so. The question is: have I, in the intervening years, become a creature so much better?

These morbid reflections are the result of being served potted eel for lunch. I must tell Cook to scour the larder for items less unsettling.

March 21

Seabold did not return last night. I waited, first delaying dinner, then, afterwards, smoking a cigar in the library. When I finally heard the sound of a rider it was a boy from Greenwillows announcing that the Young Master, as the tenantry persists in calling him, met up with the Thomases in late afternoon, had been pleased to sup with them, and was now to be their guest.

Greenwillows! Well, if he is in search of diversion he can do no better than a visit with Squire Thomas, whose rustic brood no doubt kept him entertained till cockcrow. He is not back yet, at eleven o'clock the following morning, and so I find myself rejoicing in regained solitude.

My mother once said, "Billy, you are a queer lad, always shutting yourself up, engrossed in imaginary pursuits. Nurse worried about you, but I never did. It was Angela who was the object of our concerns, your father's and mine. You we regarded as a changeling, a visitor from some frosty clime, rather than a child it was our duty to raise."

I know not my reaction, if any, to these words when I first heard them. I do ponder their significance now. Strange confidence to make a child. And Angela, what on earth could they be concerned about with her? She was the cynosure of beauty for miles around. I still recall a dress she asked me to help her with—when I was young enough to be entrusted with such innocent tasks—that necessitated being sewn shut in back. God knows where her maid was. Helping with preparations, no doubt. It must have been our turn to host the Hunt Ball. I had never touched needle or thread before, and hear, even today, her laughing and crying out at my clumsy attempts to bind together the edges of taffeta.

"You are poking me," she protested. "You have drawn blood!"

... all while a marvelous scent rose. Which I wonder at, for Father did not allow perfume of any sort. Yet the fragrance,...