The Rose Garden

Oliver nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Colonel Maclean. He came down to Cornwall and met all the people preparing to fight on the side of the Jacobites, and then … hang on.’ His mobile was ringing. He took it out to check the number while I looked away, and just for an instant I saw in my mind’s eye a man in a dark-green coat standing in the stable yard with Daniel, the both of them laughing and shaking hands.

Oliver put his phone back in his pocket.

‘And then?’ I made the prompt quietly.

‘Then he betrayed them,’ was Oliver’s answer. ‘He knew all the names of the people he’d met, and he gave every one of them right to King George.’

It wasn’t the knowledge itself that was hardest to bear, it was knowing that I could do nothing about it, that even with all that I knew I was powerless. Useless.

I’d felt this before, while Katrina had battled her illness. I hadn’t been able to stop that from happening, either. I hadn’t been able to save her. I would have paid any price then to be able to do something, anything, not just stand helplessly by. And I would have paid any price now. But the truth was that, once again, I could do nothing.

I couldn’t warn Daniel. I couldn’t save Jack. I was trapped here in my own time and I couldn’t simply leap back into theirs by force of will alone, however much I wanted to. I had to wait. And worry.

I was grateful when the day of Susan’s opening arrived, because it kept me moving constantly, with no real time for thinking about anything except the task at hand. Things went splendidly well – the first coachload of tourists arrived spot on time and the weather held fair and Trelowarth looked beautiful, and the photographer sent down by House & Garden got the whole thing very brilliantly recorded for her magazine. The interviews with Mark and Susan went off like a dream, and when the visitors all crowded into the Cloutie Tree to sample their Cornish cream teas before leaving, their chatter was glowingly positive.

By the day’s end even Mark was admitting that Susan had proved him wrong.

‘Say it again,’ Susan challenged him, mischievous.

Crossing the carpeted floor of the big front room, Mark sank with visible weariness into the big armchair by the piano and leant his head back. ‘You were right,’ he repeated, with slow perfect diction. ‘And I was …’

‘Yes?’

‘Less right.’

I looked up from my magazine. ‘That’s all you’re going to get,’ I said to Susan. ‘And be happy with it, because it’s more than I got.’

Mark partly opened his eyes. ‘When were you right?’

I sent him a calmly superior look. ‘Falmouth.’

‘Oh.’ His eyes closed again. ‘Well, yes, all right. I was wrong about that, I’ll admit it.’

Amazed, Susan said to me, ‘Sorry, am I delirious, or did I just hear my brother say that he’d been wrong?’ Her gaze swung, curious, to Mark. ‘What have I missed?’

He said, ‘None of your business.’

I knew that he’d gone out a few times since then with Felicity, and though they weren’t yet what I’d call a couple they were at least making a start on it. Susan, who knew and approved of their changing relationship, wasn’t aware that I’d argued with Mark. We had kept that a private affair, between us, and we’d settled it in the same way that we’d made peace when I had been little – the day after going to Falmouth, Mark had set up the badminton net on the side lawn and brought me a racquet, and though I was rusty at playing he’d graciously let me win two of the games. That, I knew, was the way he said ‘sorry’.

We traded glances now as Susan sighed and said, ‘Fine, be like that. You can’t dampen my mood, I’m too happy.’

I told her, ‘You ought to be. Today was perfect.’

‘Can’t rest on my laurels,’ she said. ‘We’ve still got the coach tour from Cardiff tomorrow.’ She turned again to look at Mark. ‘By the way, you don’t know what’s become of Dad’s display stand, do you? The one we unearthed when we cleared out the greenhouse? I thought we might salvage the sign from it, if nothing else.’

‘Sorry,’ Mark said. ‘I’m painting it.’

‘Painting it? What on earth for?’

‘Well, I’ll need it for Southport,’ he said.

Susan stared at him as though she didn’t know him. ‘What?’

‘The Southport Flower Show. You want to read my blog more often. I announced last week that we’d be going.’

‘But you never go to shows. Not any more.’

‘A man can change.’ A glance at me. ‘Besides, like Eva said, we need to raise our profile.’

For a moment Susan looked at him in silence, then she said, ‘Right. Now I know I’m delirious. Eva?’

‘I’ll get us drinks, shall I?’ Setting my magazine down as I stood, I asked, ‘Is there wine in the fridge, still?’

Mark thought that there was. ‘Need some help?’

‘Susan’s delirious, and you’re knackered. I’ll manage.’

I wasn’t sure where Claire had got to, but the house was quiet when I crossed the hall. The kitchen door stood slightly open. Pushing it, I felt it thud on something that not only stopped its inward swing but bounced it back towards me. Damn, I thought. One of the dogs must have decided to stretch out behind the door to take a nap, and now I’d clouted him, poor thing.