The Rose Garden
Page 35This was where he and Fergal had been talking when I’d overheard them, in this narrow bedroom filled with soft light from the single window at the front. The bed here was not quite as big as the one he’d turned over to me in the room next door, but it was also high and canopied with curtains of a soft sky blue. A long-lidded blanket box sat at the foot of the bed, and a chair had been placed by the window so someone could sit looking out at the view of the green hills that rolled to the changeable sea.
It was a woman’s room. I didn’t need to ask whose it had been because her presence was so tangible I all but saw her sitting in the chair beside the window. I imagined he did, too.
I wondered how long she’d been dead, but didn’t like to pry, and so I turned my gaze instead towards the closed door in the wall between this room and mine. He looked as well, and said, ‘I do not doubt that I could find a lock to fit that latch, if it would ease your fears.’
I turned to him. ‘My fears?’
‘You surely have them, being far from home among strange men. And you were frightened when we met.’
‘You had a knife, and you were angry,’ I reminded him.
‘Did it seem like anger to you? For my part, it felt like cowardice. I’d never faced a ghost.’
‘Well, any ghost that saw you come at them like that would likely take off running.’
I shook my head.
‘And I’ll admit you do not seem afraid.’
I said, ‘I’m not afraid at all.’ The words surprised me when I said them, for I knew that they were true. I said them over, to be sure: ‘I’m not afraid.’
He watched my face a moment, then he gave a nod and told me, ‘Good. For that is a beginning.’
Sleeping was impossible. I rolled my face into the pillow, eyes closed tightly.
I did not belong here. This was not my room, and not my bed. And yet, a part of it felt right to me, and somewhere deep inside my mind a tiny voice kept speaking up to say that Daniel Butler had been wrong to tell me I was far from home.
It was a voice I couldn’t quiet, and I rolled again and dragged the covers with me, staring out the open window at the moonlit sky shot through with stars that danced against the blackness of infinity. The sea had a voice tonight, rolling and whispering on the dark shore as though trying to give me advice. I ignored it at first, but when other sounds, equally furtive and low, rose to join it, I gave in and rolled from my bed, crossing barefoot to stand at the window.
Tomorrow, when I would see Daniel and Fergal, I would be shown what to do with my hair so that Daniel could take me outside, as he’d promised, and give me a tour of the property.
From where I stood now at the front of the house I could see the broad slope of the hill rolling down to the cliffs and the sea, with the darkness of the Wild Wood pressing closer to the house and looking larger than my memory of it, shot through in places with the ghostly white of blackthorn still in bloom. The sounds continued, and I saw a stir of shadows in the woods.
They slipped out one by one and left the path to turn uphill and climb towards the house, a silent line of darkened figures, moving in the moonlight. Well, not wholly silent. I could hear the rustle of their footsteps and the heavy tread of two dark horses being led in single file behind, with bundles piled on their backs.
The floorboards in the next room creaked as Daniel Butler rose as well, and stealthily went out and down the stairs. A moment later from my window I could see his shadow going out to join the others, and to clap the shoulder of the man in front in greeting, and to guide the line of men and horses up around behind the house.
It didn’t in the least surprise me that he was a smuggler, I had guessed already from the things he’d said about his less-than-honest trade, and from the character he’d painted of the brother who shared the command of his ship. Besides, this was Cornwall, and every house here had its smugglers.
I wondered what the men had carried up tonight, then I decided that I didn’t need to know. It didn’t matter.
It felt colder on my feet now standing there beside the window, so I turned away and headed back to bed.
Because the bed had started wavering. Across the blankets shadows played and shifted as the hanging curtains caught the breeze that blew in from behind me like a long, regretful sigh.
Another breath and it had faded like a swirl of smoke in wind, and I was once more in the corridor, just crossing from the bathroom and a few steps from my bedroom door, while all the house around me went on sleeping as though nothing had changed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘You’re quiet this morning. You feeling all right?’ Mark had already been up and out and hard at work for hours by the time I ventured outside. There’d been a sharp change in the weather, and all round the flowers were ducking in front of the wind, gusting damp and chilly for this time of year. Even the dogs hunched their backs to it, keeping their tails down and gathering closely around Mark and me as we walked to the greenhouse.
The truth was, I wasn’t too sure how I felt. I was glad to be back. But if things had gone differently I might be taking this same walk with Daniel right now, and not Mark, and for some reason that left me feeling a little bit … well, a bit cheated, though I knew that didn’t make sense.