The Rose Garden

Nor do you, I reminded my face in the mirror.

But somehow the eyes that looked back at me didn’t seem wholly convinced.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mark and Claire were in the kitchen when I went downstairs. Claire glanced around as I came in and said, ‘Got back all right, did you? Oliver telephoned. Something about an old book he found down in his archives that mentions a smuggler who lived at Trelowarth.’

‘Really?’ I felt a small charge of excitement. ‘That was quick.’

‘You’re to meet him at one, if you’re interested. He said he thought it was well worth a lunch.’

Mark said, ‘That’s the line he’s using these days, is it?’ With a grin he reached to take an orange from the basket on the worktop and began to peel it. ‘Good one.’

‘Give it up. He’s helping me do research.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he is.’ He tried to school his features. ‘And you’re sticking to your story, are you, that you spent last night at Claire’s?’

I looked to her for confirmation. ‘Claire?’

But she was smiling. ‘Just ignore him, Eva,’ she advised, and crossed between the both of us to fill a glass with water at the sink. ‘He knows full well you were with me, I rang him up to let him know.’

‘And a good thing she did,’ Mark said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d gone the way of the Grey Lady. Though it’s not really proof, is it, Claire only saying you were with her …’

I interrupted, disregarding that last bit to ask him, ‘Who’s the Grey Lady?’

‘You know. The one who vanished at Trelowarth. Have you never heard about her?’

‘No.’ I had the sudden feeling I was standing in a draught. I moved and asked him, ‘When was this?’

He turned to Claire. ‘When was it? You’re the one who knows the story.’

She considered. ‘Oh, before my parents’ time. I had the story told me when I first came to Trelowarth by an old man in the village who was nearly ninety then, at least, and he had been a young man when it happened. He’d seen it with his own eyes, so he said.’

‘What did he see?’ I had the strange sense that I knew what was coming.

‘He saw a woman disappear.’ She said it very plainly, as though such a thing were possible. ‘Right here, behind the house. A woman he knew well. He said one minute they were talking, and the next she went all grey and then just faded into nothingness, and disappeared.’

The draught returned.

Mark saw me shiver and said, ‘It’s a story, Eva. People don’t just disappear.’ He split the orange into sections, offering a piece to me.

I took it. Forced a smile. ‘I’m only thinking it might be another tale to tell the tourists, that’s all.’

‘Why don’t you ask Oliver?’ he said, his eyes all innocence. ‘He’s good with local history.’

Claire told him, ‘Actually, I’d think it would be more the sort of question that you’d want to ask Felicity.’

‘Why Felicity?’

‘Well, she’s keen on ghosts and folklore. She’ll be in the shop today, Eva, if you’re going down to Polgelly. You ought to stop in for a chat.’

I had hit on a better idea. ‘Why don’t we all go? We could have fish and chips at the harbour.’

Claire shook her head. ‘Susan and I have to go shop for tables and chairs,’ she said, then went on in an offhand way, ‘But Mark will come, I’m sure. He’s always up for fish and chips.’ I saw the glance Claire sent her stepson and I knew that she, like me, had noticed Felicity’s feelings for Mark, even if he hadn’t, and was trying to play matchmaker.

He fell for it. ‘All right. I’ve got some work I need to finish first, though,’ he said drily, ‘on my blog.’

I smiled. ‘Why don’t I go ahead, then? I’ve got banking that I need to do, and I’ll collect Felicity and Oliver, and you can meet us at the harbour. One o’clock?’

With that agreed, I headed out. I wasn’t sure that I was really up to lunching in Polgelly, since I wasn’t quite myself yet and a part of me just wanted to lie down and rest, to find my balance and restore it after all my travelling through time. But overriding my exhaustion was the lure of learning more about the Butler brothers from the book that Oliver had found.

And I did have a bit of business to attend to at the bank. If I surprised Mr Rowe with my request to put a Trust in place, in secret, for Trelowarth, he was too much the professional to let it show. Of course, he said, it could be done. It would take time, preparing all the paperwork and seeing to the finer points, but yes, it was quite possible. And with those wheels set spinning into motion, I moved on to my next stop.

Felicity had customers. I waited by the shelves that held the little dancing pisky figures, picking up the nearest one and weighing it within my hand until she had the time to come across and say hello.

‘You want to watch those,’ she advised me. ‘Tricky things, those piskies.’

With their pointed hats and elf-like clothes and laughing eyes they looked completely harmless, but I knew the tales of piskies and their mischief. ‘I’ll be careful. What is this?’ I asked, and pointed to a little sign among them with the words, ‘Porthallow Green’ carved on it.

‘Don’t you know that story? Well, you know Porthallow, surely? And according to the legend there was once a boy from there sent on an errand by his master, and it was dark before he’d finished and on his way home he heard a voice at the roadside say, “I’m for Porthallow Green.” And the boy thought, well, it might be good to have a bit of company, even from a stranger, so he called out, “I’m for Porthallow Green,” and quick as a wink, there he was, on Porthallow Green, with the piskies dancing round him. Have you really never heard this one?’