‘Most likely, ay.’
‘Big scary man,’ I called him, low.
He didn’t hide the smile, this time. But he did step back again where he had been before, behind my shoulder, where he could more clearly see the vestry door.
The flickering candles had burnt at least half an inch lower before Daniel came through that door with the vicar beside him – a middle-aged man with stooped shoulders who looked as though he wasn’t fully awake. But he seemed game enough for the task at hand.
‘Have you a ring?’ he asked Daniel, before we began.
Daniel looked an apology at me and started to say something but with a shake of my head I reached over and slipped off the Claddagh ring, holding it out, and his fingers brushed warm on my palm as he took it and handed it on to the vicar.
It was, I thought, a fitting thing to use Katrina’s ring for this. A way to feel her standing at my side, where I had always thought she would be when I married.
With a cough the vicar set the ring with care upon the pages of his open prayer book, ready for his blessing. ‘Since I am told she cannot speak, I’d ask Mistress O’Cleary to—’
‘Her name is Ward,’ said Daniel, and the vicar stopped.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Daniel said, ‘Her name is Eva Ellen Ward, and in this place of God she has a voice. For surely this is not a place where anyone should speak aught but the truth.’ He held the vicar’s gaze directly. ‘Nor where anyone should fear betrayal.’
The vicar paused. Then nodded slowly. ‘No, indeed.’ He turned to me. ‘Now, Eva Ellen Ward, is it your wish that you be married to this man?’
I looked at Daniel, grateful for his giving me the chance to say the words out loud. ‘It is.’
‘Then let us now begin.’
The ring felt strange on my left hand instead of on my right. My thumb kept seeking out its smoothness there and twisting it around to feel the clasped hands and the heart, till Daniel caught my hand in his and held it while we walked.
We were taking the longer way back through the fields, having let Fergal go on ahead of us. The rising sun had just begun to push its way above the hills that lay to the east of Polgelly, and over the wet grass our shadows stretched long.
He’d been right. The words we had just said to each other had seemed much more meaningful, spoken aloud in the church, than they would have done if we’d exchanged our vows privately yesterday. Something of the solemnity of the traditional service still clung to me, keeping me silent till Daniel’s hand lightly squeezed mine.
‘You are lost in your thoughts. May I know them?’
‘I doubt they’d make sense to you.’ Turning, I showed him a smile. ‘I’m still sorting things through.’
‘And what is it,’ he asked, ‘that needs sorting?’
‘You know. How we’re going to manage this.’
His turn to smile. ‘The same as any other married man and woman might. How else?’
‘But we,’ I said, reminding him, ‘are not like any other married couple, are we? We can’t really make plans for our future, not like normal people can.’
‘Why not?’
I answered with a dry look. ‘We’re lucky enough if we make plans for supper. I might disappear before then.’
‘Life is always uncertain,’ he said with a shrug. ‘We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose.’ His fingers twined more tightly round my own.
And then to lighten things, I said, ‘At least I didn’t disappear in church.’
‘No, you did not.’ He swung my hand a little as we walked on further, then his steps began to slow. ‘You did not disappear in church,’ he echoed. Stopping, he looked down at me. ‘Nor when we were on the Sally.’
I knew his thoughts were travelling the same path mine already had, and coming to the same conclusion.
‘I know,’ I assured him, ‘I’ve noticed the same thing. Whatever’s been happening seems to be tied to Trelowarth itself.’ And I told him about the Grey Lady who’d vanished years before me.
He was thinking. ‘So then if you left, it would most likely stop.’
‘It’s possible, yes, but I don’t know for certain. It’s only a theory.’
‘And theories are meant to be tested, are they not?’ Not waiting for an answer he went on, ‘Perhaps we ought to go away for a short while, to Bristol, or to Plymouth. You did say you always return to the moment you left your own time, yes? Then there is no danger. If we have guessed wrongly you’ll merely go back as you would have done had we stayed here. But if we are not wrong …’ There was no need to finish the sentence.
‘We could hardly be sure,’ was my argument, ‘after just one trip away. There’d be no guarantee.’
‘No. But we could repeat the experiment, surely. I gladly would go where I needed to go, if it kept you beside me.’
I looked away briefly, in thought. We were standing where, three hundred years from now, the Quiet Garden would be coming into bloom with Mark’s beloved roses, safely walled to shield them from the sea-blown weather, but just at the moment there was nothing here but sloping field with wildflowers speckled through the bowing grass that tumbled down towards the roof and chimneys of the house below.
I asked, ‘You’d leave Trelowarth?’
‘I can serve the Duke of Ormonde and the king aboard the Sally just as well as I could serve them from on land, mayhap a good deal better. And rebellions all must have an end.’ With a faint smile he brushed back the hair from my eyes where the wind kept on blowing it. ‘Ill or fair, I mean to be alive to see the end of this one. And there has been talk that if this new attempt to set King James upon his throne should founder, he will send the Duke of Ormonde to the Spanish court for aid, and I should think the duke will need assistance there.’