The Rose Garden (9 page)

He didn’t answer right away, but after some reflection he replied, ‘That would depend entirely upon where you began.’

Which seemed a logical assumption. I could see no harm in telling him the year that I’d just come from. If he registered surprise, I didn’t notice. ‘Yes,’ he told me then. ‘You have indeed come back in time by some three centuries.’

‘It’s 1715?’

‘It is.’ That did surprise him. ‘How did you know the year?’

‘I did some reading.’

‘You can read.’ It wasn’t actually a question, more a challenge, I could hear it in his voice. ‘A brave accomplishment for a woman, even one who voyages through time.’

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘On the contrary. ’Tis ghosts and walking spirits that I never have believed in, so I must confess I find your tale a singular relief.’ He paused in thought. ‘So, have you learned to work this magic at your will?’

‘And if I had,’ I asked him, ‘do you really think I would have turned up here, like this?’

‘In my own chamber, do you mean, and in the middle of the night?’ I sensed his smile but was more focused on his words.

‘This is your room?’

‘’Tis why I chose to fall asleep in it.’

I said, ‘But when I came in here the last time… when I—’

‘Told me I should go away?’ His tone was openly amused.

I hoped the faint light covered my embarrassment. ‘You didn’t tell me this was your room too.’

‘An oversight on my part, I’ll admit. Perhaps the shock of finding out that I did not, in fact, exist, after a lifetime of believing that I did, had some effect upon my manners.’

I was blushing now in earnest. ‘Look, I’m sorry I was rude to you. I thought that I was seeing things.’

‘I did not take offence,’ he said. ‘It did not trouble me to share my chamber then, no more than it does now.’ He shifted round and sat up slowly as he swung his long legs to the floor. Somehow he looked much larger that way, sitting with his white shirt gleaming ghostlike in the pale light of the moon. There was a silent moment. Then, ‘You’ve changed your clothes,’ he said, as though just noticing.

If he’d asked me at that moment I could not in truth have told him what clothes I
was
wearing. Glancing down myself at my plain T-shirt and pajama bottoms, I said by way of explanation, ‘I was sleeping too.’

He seemed to be deciding something. ‘If you are still here by day, you will need proper clothes to wear.’

I hadn’t thought of that.

He stood and said, ‘Wait here.’ I had forgotten just how tall he was. His shoulder passed me at the level of my eyes as he went through the door connecting with the small front bedroom next to us, returning not long after with what looked to be a bulky length of fabric that he pressed into my hands. ‘Take this and wear it if you will.’

I told him, ‘Thank you,’ and he gave a nod, still standing in the door between the two rooms, his expression too obscured by shadows to be clearly seen. He told me, ‘Sleep well, Eva Ward,’ and with a backwards step he closed the door between us.

There was no way I could sleep. I didn’t even try. Instead I sat and faced the window near the bed, the one that had the most familiar view, and fixed my gaze on the far place where the dark sea was met by sky, and stayed there waiting till the sun began to rise.

Its first rays came, not through that window, but the ones that faced the road and flanked the fireplace. The slanting sunlight, faint at first, chased out the shadows from the corners, falling warm across the floorboards and the surface of the writing desk that sat against the wall.

It touched the fabric that I still held in my arms as well, and I could finally see it was a dress—a bodice and a separate trailing skirt, with something like a nightgown underneath them, and a pair of shoes like slippers that fell tumbling to the floor as I rose carefully and spread the clothes out on the bed to have a better look.

The gown—for that was what it was—was plain but beautiful. The bodice had a low round neck and straight three-quarter sleeves, and was stiffened at its seams with supple boning, like a corset. The skirt was plain as well but full. It ran like silk between my fingers when I touched it, and its color shifted in the light from blue to grey and back again.

It seemed so strange to think of wearing clothes like these, but then again, if I were truly stuck here in this time I couldn’t very well walk round in my pajamas.

And it was easier than I’d expected, sorting out how everything went on. First came the undergarment, a simple plain chemise with rounded neck and sleeves that fit quite closely to my elbows and below that widened into tiers of lace, so when I put the bodice on, that lace peeked out from underneath the bodice’s three-quarter sleeves and softened the effect. I ought to have put the skirt on, really, before the bodice, but I managed to get everything adjusted—the skirt tied round my waist and the bodice smoothed down over that, so it all looked like one piece.

Both the slippers and gown fitted me well, which surprised me. I’d thought that I might be too short or not slender enough, but the skirt brushed the floor without trailing too much and the bodice, while snug, was not tight, though I found it a bit of a challenge to fasten. It closed at the front and was held not with buttons but pins, so I pricked myself painfully trying to do it and swore out loud once in frustration. I was sliding in the last pin when the room’s door was flung open and a man angrily asked, ‘Who the devil are you?’

I could not have mistaken the voice of the Irishman, but his appearance surprised me. He wasn’t a large man, as I had expected. He stood average height with black hair and a face that I guessed would ordinarily have been quite friendly.

It wasn’t, though, just at the moment.

He glowered. ‘I said, who the devil might you be?’

‘I’m Eva.’ It sounded inadequate, even to me, and too late I decided I shouldn’t have spoken at all, since the sound of my accent had narrowed his eyes.

‘Eva.’ Planting himself in the doorway, he folded his arms firmly over his chest. ‘Tell me, where do you come from? And how did you come to be here in this house?’

Neither question was one I could easily answer. I didn’t feel safe with this man, like I had with the other one. There was anger and open distrust in his eyes, and no promise that he would behave like a gentleman. Not that I thought he would actually hurt me. I only suspected he wouldn’t much care either way if he did.

I tried calming the waters. My memory raced backward in search of his name. ‘Fergal. That’s your name, isn’t it? Fergal?’

His gaze narrowed further. ‘And who told you that?’

‘He did.’

‘Who did?’ he challenged me, moving another step into the room.

Damn
, I thought. I had no clue what his name was. ‘The man…’

‘Which man would that be?’

‘The man who lives here.’

He took one more step and the black eyebrows rose in a mocking expression. ‘He told you my name?’

‘Yes.’

‘’Tis odd, do you not think, that he’d tell you my name and not tell you his?’

I had no easy answer to that one, and so I said nothing while Fergal advanced.

‘So he told you my name. And he gave you that gown, no doubt.’

Something in how he was looking at what I was wearing felt wrong, but I didn’t know why. ‘Yes.’

He spat the word, ‘Liar.’

I lifted my chin. I was scared and confused but I still had my limits, and deep in me I felt the stir of rebellion. ‘It isn’t a lie.’

I’d surprised him with that. I saw his flash of hesitation and drew strength from it.

‘You go and ask him,’ I said bravely. ‘Go and ask him where I got this gown. He’ll tell you.’

‘Will he, now?’ His tone was still belligerent, but he had lost a little of the righteousness. He tipped his head to one side while he looked at me and thought. And then he said, ‘All right then, if you’ve got a mind to test the devil, we’ll go ask him, you and me together.’

‘Fine.’ I said it bravely, though I didn’t really have a choice. He’d taken such a firm hold on my arm that I could not have broken free of it if I’d been fool enough to try.

The whole way down the stairs he kept on muttering his certainty, as much for his own ears as mine. ‘Haven’t I known him these twenty long years and he’s never once done a thing yet without telling me first, and he’d be burning that gown with his own hands I think before he’d let another woman wear it in his sight, you mark me…’

On and on the tirade went, as Fergal dragged me with him through the hall into the kitchen. He apparently expected me to show the fear appropriate for somebody about to have their lie exposed, but all I really felt as we got closer to our goal was the relief of knowing I would soon be proven right. The fact that I was growing calmer by the minute didn’t help his mood.

‘All right then,’ he repeated, when we reached the back corridor and the door leading outside. ‘We’ll just see who’s telling tales now.’

He had thrust me through the heavy door ahead of him, so when I stopped abruptly on the threshold there was nothing he could do but stop as well and swear an oath, and it was luck alone that kept us both from going down like dominoes.

But I paid no attention. I was busy staring at the man who stood not far in front of me, my man in brown who looked as though he’d just been at the stone-built stables set beyond the sweep of yard. His boots were clumped with mud and there were straws still clinging to his sleeve. There was no welcome in his eyes. His gaze had locked with Fergal’s past my shoulder in a wordless kind of warning.

And beside him, dressed in black as he had been before, the constable stood watching us as well. Or, more correctly, watching me.

‘Well, now.’ The constable’s voice was as smooth as the fin of a shark slicing water. ‘And who have we here?’

I’d met people in my life who were pure poison. I had learned to know the look of them—the way their smiles came and went and never touched their eyes, those eyes that could be so intense at times and yet revealed no soul. Such people might look normal, but inside it was as though some vital part of them was missing, and whenever I saw eyes like that I’d learned to turn and run and guard my back while I was leaving.

The instant that I looked into the cold eyes of the constable, I knew what sort of man he was. But here I couldn’t turn and run. I still had Fergal standing solid at my back.

The constable came forwards slowly, sizing up this new turn of events. He looked to be in his mid-forties, not a tall man but a lean and wiry one, his long face lean as well and framed by the uncompromising curls of a white-powdered wig beneath the brim of his black hat. His gaze traveled my length from my loose-hanging hair to the hem of the gown that he too seemed to recognize. The sight of it kindled a new light of interest behind the dark eyes that returned to my face as he said, in a tone that was meant to provoke, ���Butler, you do surprise me. I would not have thought you a man to waste time with a harlot.’

‘Mind your tongue, sir,’ said the man in brown, his voice controlled. ‘You speak of Fergal’s sister, come to help us keep the house.’

I felt the slight reaction of the Irishman behind me, though he barely moved at all, and for a weighted moment I was unsure whether he would play along.

The constable was unconvinced. ‘Your sister?’ he asked Fergal. ‘I was not aware you had one.’

There was silence as the Irishman appeared to be deciding something, then he drew himself up at my back, defensive and defiant. ‘I have seven of them, ay. This one’s next eldest to myself, she is.’

The constable was studying my face for a resemblance. Whether he found any I didn’t know, but I doubted it. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

‘She cannot speak,’ said Fergal, and his hard grip on my arm grew tighter, warning me to silence.

‘Why is that?’

‘You’d have to take that up with the Almighty, for He made her. All I know is that she never learnt the way of it.’ He was a brilliant liar. In his voice I heard no hint of hesitation, and I couldn’t help but admire the speed at which he’d seen the danger and defused it all at once. My voice didn’t fit here. Even if I’d been able to manage an Irish accent, my patterns of speech were too modern, I would have slipped up. Now he’d saved me from having to try.

The man in brown said, ‘Eva, this would be Constable Creed from the village. I do not doubt that, as he is a gentleman, he’ll wish to offer his apologies and bid you welcome.’

It was a daring gamble, but he stood his ground and pulled it off. The constable’s disquieting gaze took in my borrowed gown one final time before he gave an unrepentant nod and said unconvincingly, ‘Mistress O’Cleary, I meant no offence. You are welcome of course to Trelowarth.’ He took a step back and extended his nod to the other two. ‘Gentlemen.’ And then he turned and went out of the yard.

He left tension behind. I could feel it in the man behind me, see it in the squaring of the shoulders of the man in brown, who hadn’t moved a step from where he stood. He was wearing the clothes I remembered: the tight brown trousers ending just below the knee in boots, a full white shirt with what I thought was called a stock tied round his neck, beneath the long brown jacket that he wore unbuttoned, hanging open. But he had shaved, his jawline clean and strongly drawn. It made him look more civilized.

I felt the exchange of looks over my head as he said to his friend, ‘Were you wanting to see me?’ The question seemed careless enough and relaxed, but I knew from his face he was keeping his guard up, aware that the constable might still be listening.

Fergal no doubt was aware of that too, but he had his own questions to ask, in his own way. He nudged me a half a step forwards and said, ‘She’d a mind to come show you the gown and to have me tell you how she does appreciate the gesture. ’Tis most generous.’

With a glance at Fergal’s hold upon my arm, the man in brown turned his attention to my clothes, and for a moment in his eyes I thought I glimpsed a fleeting darkness like the passing of a pain, but it was so swift I wasn’t certain. It had vanished by the time his eyes met mine. He said to Fergal, ‘Tell your sister I am pleased she finds it to her liking, for in truth it suits her well.’

I sensed a challenge had been made and answered, and with what seemed like reluctance Fergal let me go. He grumbled, ‘Sure you can tell her that yourself, she’s got her ears.’ And without waiting, he turned on his heel. ‘Come have your breakfasts then, and perhaps one of the pair of you can tell me what the bleeding Christ is going on.’

***

The kitchen window had a different view than I was used to. There were no walled gardens, neatly kept and tended, to look out on—only two old apple trees that grew close by the house, both beaten by the unforgiving coastal winds into hard twisted shapes that reached towards the hill as though in search of refuge.

And the kitchen itself was a much different room. There were no fitted cupboards, no worktops, no stove, just the fireplace and stone hearth and iron hooks hung with a motley collection of pans and utensils, the purpose of most of which I didn’t know.

But the table, although it was smaller and rougher, was in the same spot, pushed up under the window. And sitting there having a breakfast of dark ale and bread felt familiar enough that it calmed me a little.

Fergal had calmed a bit too, though his face betrayed his open incredulity at what he’d just been told. He filled his tankard for a second time and said, ‘So you’re telling me then, that you’ve come from the future.’

‘That’s right.’ I didn’t care if he believed me. My only defence was the truth.

He was looking at me strangely. He shifted his attention to the man in brown beside me, who’d been sitting back in silence while I’d talked. ‘And you believe this?’

‘I have seen it.’ With his booted legs stretched out beneath the table and his folded arms across his chest, he said, ‘I’ve seen her pass between the worlds. ’Tis not a trick.’

‘It might be witchcraft.’ But he said it without any true conviction.

‘Other men than you and I believe in witches,’ said the man in brown, and Fergal gave another nod.

‘Ay. But if not witchcraft, what then?’

‘Why not truth?’

‘Because the two of us both know it is impossible.’

‘And men once thought the sea had limits that could not be sailed beyond for fear of dragons,’ was his friend’s reply. He turned his head to look at me, his clear eyes thoughtful on my face. ‘I would submit that she is her own proof that it is possible.’

Fergal set his tankard on the table. ‘See now, all that this is doing is to make my head ache like the devil has a hammer to it, so if you’ll both excuse me I have work I should be seeing to.’ With a scrape he pushed his chair back and went out, and left us sitting there together by the window.

It was open, and the morning winds from off the sea were coming in by gentle gusts that crossed the sill and brushed my hands, a reassuring touch. Unseen within the tangled branches of the nearest apple tree a songbird had begun to trill, a carefree sound that seemed in contrast to my troubles.

At my side the man in brown said, ‘Fergal is a good man. But he does not lightly give his trust.’

‘I’ve noticed.’ I gave my arm an absent rub, remembering.

‘I give you my apologies if you were roughly handled.’

‘That’s all right. He thought I was a thief. Besides, he’s more than made it up to me, coming up with that story for your constable.’

He gave a shrug, acknowledging the truth of that, and as he turned his head away the silence started settling between us once again.

I said, ‘I didn’t know your name.’

His eyes came back to me. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That’s why Fergal thought I was a thief,’ I said. ‘Because I didn’t know your name.’

A moment passed, and then with the suggestion of amusement in his voice he tossed my own words from our meeting in the bedroom last night back at me. ‘You never asked me.’

Two could play that game, I thought. I met his gaze with one as steady. ‘Do you have one?’

No denying the amusement now. It briefly lit his eyes inside as he said, ‘Daniel Butler. At your service, mistress.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Butler.’

With a gallant nod he pushed his own chair back and stood and stretched and said, ‘Now, by your leave, I have some work myself I must attend to. I’d advise you keep within the house, but you may have the freedom of it.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Oh, and Eva?’

‘Yes?’

He’d stopped within the doorway. ‘I should think a woman who had slept in my own bed might properly presume to call me Daniel.’ With the smile still in his eyes he left before I’d had the time to form a suitable reply.

***

It felt so strange to walk the rooms I knew so well and find them different.

The furniture was more austere and harder in its lines, though I could sense a woman’s hand had tried to soften the décor a little, likely the woman whose gown I was wearing. There were cushions on a few chairs and woven rush seats on some others, and long hanging curtains in calico prints at the sides of the windows. The downstairs hall hadn’t yet been plastered over and the rich wood paneling made everything seem darker, but the rooms themselves were brightened by their carpets and their picture frames with lively prints of country life hung all round on the walls, and everywhere I looked were candles, set in sconces on the walls or shielded by glass chimneys on a table or a mantelpiece, all waiting to be lit against the darkness come the evening.

Some downstairs rooms were used for other purposes—the dining room from my own time was used here as a sitting room—but in the big front room I’d always known as the library there were still shelves and books, and in the place of the piano was a cabinet full of china cups and plates and curiosities that trembled with a tinkling sound in rhythm with my footsteps on the wide-planked floor.

Intrigued, I took a closer look.

The cups and plates and saucers were a delicate design of whorls and rosebuds on an ivory background, carefully lined up in proud display. And on the shelf below were seashells, gorgeous things of varied shapes and colors. Some I recognized from my collecting days: a knobbed murex, pink and white, the iridescent rainbow lining of an abalone, and the broad flat fan of a Japanese scallop. And set in their midst was a little glass box, hinged and shaped like a scallop-shell too, and inside was a tightly wound curl of dark hair tied with blue ribbon.

Only that, and nothing more, and yet it was enough to speak to me. It told me Daniel Butler had lost someone too, as I had.

Other footsteps shook the cabinet as they came into the room and then they stopped, and Fergal’s voice behind me said, ‘You’ll not find anything in there of any value, save the dishes.’

‘I’m not going to steal your dishes.’

Coming up beside me, he glanced at my face with curiosity then looked down at the little shell-shaped box that held my interest.

‘That was his wife’s,’ he told me, in a voice turned clipped and hard.

I’d guessed as much. Just as I’d guessed the dress that I was wearing had been hers as well. I smoothed it with a hand and would have turned, but Fergal’s sharp eyes had caught sight of something else with my small movement.

‘That’s an Irish ring,’ he said, and gave a nod towards the Claddagh ring I wore. ‘I’ve seen its like in Galway.’ With a narrowed gaze he asked me, ‘May I?’ and I put my hand within his rough one while he turned it to the light. ‘I’ve never seen one made so small. How did you come by it?’

‘It’s been passed down from my grandmother,’ I told him. ‘She was Irish.’

‘Was she, now? And where was it she came from?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘No doubt from Galway, if she had a ring like this.’

I said, ‘It’s called a Claddagh ring. A lot of people have them.’

Fergal raised an eyebrow slightly at the name. ‘A Claddagh ring? ’Tis as unlikely a name as I’ve heard for a token of love. Have you been to the Claddagh? No? It is the finest place to fish in all the western shore of Ireland, and yet you’ll not get near it if you come there as a stranger, for the fishermen of Claddagh are a fierce breed to themselves. They’ll sink your ship as soon as look at you.’

I couldn’t help it. ‘So are you from Claddagh then?’ I asked him.

Fergal, not expecting that, stared down at me a moment. Then he smiled. ‘Nah. Me, I come from County Cork, where all the men are soft and mannered, don’t you know.’ He let me have my hand back. ‘Are you hungry, Eva Ward?’

‘A little.’

‘Can you cook?’

‘A little.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘then come along with me if you’ve the courage to. We’ll put you to the test.’