The Rose Garden

As I drifted with eyes closed, the voice of the constable asked me again, ‘Do you know why he gives you that gown? To give life to a ghost.’

I could have used that ghost for company right now, and so I huddled deeper in the blankets, hugging the chemise all the tighter around me and trying to work the same magic, alone in the dark.

Something clattered downstairs in the kitchen and brought me awake. I had slept through the sunrise, although not by much, for the shadows were still sharply angled across the floor, cast by the daylight that came through the east windows flanking the fireplace.

I sat up to listen.

And then I heard whistling, and booted feet climbing the stairs, and the whistle altered from a tune into a sharper blast, the way Mark whistled up the dogs when they were running wild, and from the hall a stranger’s voice called, ‘Are you yet in bed? You’ve let the fire go nearly out. And why the devil did you lock the doors?’ He had grabbed the handle of my own door now, and swung it open as he talked. ‘’Tis hard to think that my own brother is now turning into an old …’ Then he saw me sitting up in Daniel Butler’s bed, so that his last word, ‘… woman,’ trailed away unsure.

Jack Butler – because from the look of him and what he’d said he could be no one else – shifted in the doorway to a steadier position, his expression changing gradually from pure surprise to something that reminded me of how a man might look when he had seen a friend perform a feat that he had thought impossible. With a slight shake of his head he flashed a quick lopsided smile and said, ‘Good morrow to you, mistress.’

I was not supposed to talk, I knew. According to the plan that Daniel Butler had decided on with Fergal, Jack was meant to think that I was Fergal’s sister, too. I could still hear Fergal saying, ‘Jack can never keep his mouth shut, and he’ll never be convinced she came the way she says she did.’ So I just nodded in reply.

‘And is my brother in the house?’

I shook my head.

‘Can you not speak?’ He asked that jokingly, as though the situation still amused him.

When I shook my head again he looked surprised at first, since it was not the answer he’d expected, then the faintest light of envy touched his eyes. ‘A woman with no voice.’ He swore a cheerful oath and said, ‘My brother always had the better fortune.’

He leant one shoulder on the door jamb, not as tall as his brother, nor to my eyes as good-looking, but with an easy charm that made it plain to me why all the mothers of Polgelly locked up their daughters whenever Jack came home. ‘Well then, can you cook? For on my way here I did stumble on some mutton that was longing to come join me for my dinner, though I’ve no idea myself what I should do with it. Do you?’

My nod was somewhat less than certain, but it satisfied him. ‘Good. Then let me give you back your privacy. Unless you do intend to wear that today? No? A shame, in my opinion.’ And he left me with a friendly nod and one last smile.

Alone, I closed my eyes and raised both hands to hold my forehead for support as I exhaled a sigh. I may not have been relishing the thought of spending one more day alone here at Trelowarth, and having Jack Butler around would indeed make my life that much easier, but he wasn’t quite the kind of company I’d wished for. He was going to be another complication.

Dressing quickly, I went downstairs where I found the joint of mutton waiting for me in the kitchen, on the table by the window that Jack Butler had apparently come in by. He had knocked a chair down in the process, and I set it upright while I tried to figure out how people in this time cooked mutton. I had no clue. In the end the only thing that I could think of was to roast it in the same way I’d seen Fergal roasting fowl, though forcing the spit through the mutton proved harder than I would have thought, and the spit and meat together were a heavy, awkward burden to try hanging in the hearth.

But at least Jack had got the fire going again, and set new wood on top of it, and in the cupboard that the constable had smashed open I found the tin of honey I’d seen Fergal use before, and if I copied Fergal’s trick of basting roasting meat with honey, then I couldn’t go far wrong.

And since Jack had also left a bunch of carrots on the table with the soil still clinging to them, I decided I could add them to the porridge I’d already made and thin it down to something that approximated Fergal’s vegetable and barley broth, if I could find some water.

That problem solved itself a moment later when Jack Butler came in through the back door with a sloshing pair of buckets. ‘We’ve no water in the house at all,’ he said, as though I wouldn’t know it. ‘So I went and fetched us some.’ He set the buckets down and took a seat himself, with an approving glance towards the mutton. ‘’Tis as well that you were here. That would have gone to waste had I attempted it.’ And then he said, ‘I did not mean to hurry you.’

He must have seen I didn’t understand, because he made a gesture at his own head and explained, ‘Your hair. You could have taken time to dress it, I would not have minded. You’ll find me not so difficult,’ he promised, ‘as my brother.’

He was definitely chattier. Some people might have found it awkward spending time with somebody who didn’t speak, but not Jack Butler. While I cooked he rocked his chair back on two legs and, shoulders to the wall, kept up a mostly single-sided conversation, asking questions that he answered for himself. ‘So did he tell you all about me, then? Of course he did, or else you would have feared me as a stranger, though I doubt he would have thought I would be home before him.’