The Rose Garden

She wouldn’t know him then, of course, because for her it would be their first meeting, but Oliver would recognise her. On that day she walked into the pub, he would approach her, and he’d offer her the cottage, and he’d share with her the story of the Grey Lady he’d once seen disappear before his eyes, here at Trelowarth. Eventually, he’d tell her more.

He’d be as good a friend to her in her own time as he would be in this one, after they sat down and talked tonight, and I was pleased to know that by my leaving I was bringing them together.

‘It does make a world of difference,’ Claire had told me, ‘having someone to confide in.’

She would have that soon, I thought.

But for the moment Oliver was still in total ignorance of what was yet to come.

He looked down at the bottle he was holding. ‘Yes, it’s only the one bottle, I’m afraid, but—’

‘That will do,’ Claire told him, ‘for a start.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She didn’t explain. She only reached to take the bottle from him. ‘Here, you’d better let me hold that, dear.’

And just in time. The air around me had already started changing, and the breeze had stopped, and at the edges of my vision all the colours of the landscape had begun to run, the honeysuckle vine washed grey against the stone walls of Trelowarth House.

I had the sense of movement to the side of me and, turning, I could see a shape that might have been a man approaching. Unaware of me at first, he nearly passed me by before he stopped, and I could see that it was Fergal now. I saw the quick flash of his grin as his head lifted slightly and, although I couldn’t hear him, it appeared that he was calling out to someone in the house.

Oliver’s voice seemed to come from a very great distance. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Eva …’

Claire calmed him, ‘It’s all right. She’s fine.’

A sudden brightness flashed behind me and I turned instinctively towards it, blinking, watching it resolve itself into a shape I recognised: the warm light of the open doorway, with one shadowed figure framed within it.

Daniel.

Looking at him then I knew there was no need to wonder, any more, where I belonged. There lay my home, I thought, and all the comforts I could want, and come the spring when all the Duke of Ormonde’s plans to raise a great rebellion in the west of England had been set aside for schemings of a newer sort, the Sally would raise anchor on the turning tide and sail towards the south, to Spain perhaps, or the Canary Isles, where no one would remark upon my accent and where Fergal could indulge his taste for sack and maybe find a Spanish woman who could match his wit and temper.

What did it matter that our lives would leave no mark upon Trelowarth? That the path through the woods which had led to the cliffs where the Sally lay moored would be needed no longer, and little by little the years would reclaim it, the trees growing over the trails of our feet until no one would know we had walked there at all?

I would know, and remember, and that was enough.

A breath of wind brushed past my face and brought the scent of woodsmoke with it from the kitchen hearth.

I looked back once at Oliver and Claire. Claire’s cheeks were wet but she was smiling as she gave a nod and mouthed the word ‘Goodbye.’

I thought I heard the words ‘Come back’ as well, but whether it was Oliver or Daniel who had spoken them I couldn’t tell. My face by then was turning to the warm light of the open doorway and the man who stood within it, waiting for me.

Gaining substance by the second.

Wordlessly he stretched his hand towards me, and I saw his smile.

And with a smile, I went to him.