‘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 civilised.
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 forward 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 panelling 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 colours. Some I recognised from my collecting days: a knobbled 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.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I saw a different side of Fergal in the kitchen than I’d seen before. His roughened edges smoothed a bit and what I’d seen as grumpiness revealed itself to be a dry and entertaining wit. He even smiled now and then, and from the crinkling lines that marked the outer corners of his eyes when he was smiling I imagined that he did it much more often than he’d led me to believe. On top of which, he seemed to be completely in his element in this room of the house. He cooked with skill.
‘And wasn’t I sent off to sea the minute I was walking,’ he replied when I remarked on it, ‘and I proved myself of no great use to anyone except the ship’s own cook, who taught me all I know. ’Tis why I’m better stewing fish than roasting fowl, as you’ll be learning to your cost.’
I didn’t recognise the type of bird that he was now preparing. There were two of them, narrow and lean. Perhaps ducks. I said, ‘But you are not a ship’s cook now.’
‘I am at that, from time to time. Whenever Danny sails.’
‘He has a ship?’
‘The very best of ships.’ He gave a nod. ‘The Sally. She’s away just now with Danny’s brother at her helm, but when he brings her back you’ll likely see her for yourself.’
I took this in. ‘So who’s the captain? Mr Butler or his brother?’
Fergal’s sideways look said I’d amused him. ‘Well now, there’s a question no man yet could answer for you. ’Tis for certain sure that neither Jack nor Danny could, they’ve argued it for years between their own selves. Like as not the Sally knows, but being such a lady as she is she goes as nicely for the one as for the other.’ He skewered the birds with a long spit and set them to roast on the hearth while he dusted his hands and moved on to the vegetables.
There I could help him, at least. I could peel things and chop them and toss them together into the three-footed iron kettle in which he was making what looked to be some sort of soup, richly thickened with barley.
He shot me another glance while I was working. ‘You’re not a woman to complain, I’ll give you that.’
‘And who would I complain to?’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I’ll have to practise being silent, won’t I, now you’ve got the constable convinced that I can’t talk.’
‘Ay, well, I’m sorry for all that,’ he said, not looking in the least bit sorry. ‘But ’twas all that I could think to keep him from discovering the queer way that you talk. He’d have asked questions, to be sure.’
‘No, don’t be sorry. It was very gallant of you.’
‘Was it, now?’
‘It was. And thank you.’
With his head tipped to one side he wiped the blade of his own cutting knife to clean it, while he kept his eyes on me as though deciding something. Then he set the knife down and remarked, ‘I have a thirst from all this work, now. Will you have a drink of cider, Eva Ward?’
I was hesitant, remembering Mark’s scrumpy, but I knew that this was more than just the offer of a drink, it was the offer of a hand in truce. I couldn’t turn it down. ‘Yes, thank you.’
Which was why, when Daniel Butler finally came in from whatever chores he had been doing, he took one look at my eyes – which looked far too bright even from my side – and lifted his eyebrows.
‘Take your boots from under there,’ said Fergal, stopping his friend from taking a seat. ‘Have you no manners at all? We’ve a lady among us, we’ll dine at the table we’re meant to be dining at.’
That turned out to be in the long room beyond the pantry that in my time was a games room, but in this time had wood-panelled walls, not wallpaper, and shutters on the windows, and where Uncle George’s billiard table should have been, right at the centre of the room, there stood a trestle table built of heavy oak, with ten imposing chairs.
Fergal set us three places around the one end. ‘You’ll pardon the dust,’ he said, giving the table a wipe that whirled particles upward to dance in the light. ‘We’d a girl coming up from the village to clean for us, but her da’s fallen ill and
she’s needed at home, so we’ve had to make do for ourselves this last while.’
It was a big house for two men on their own. When I’d visited Trelowarth as a child there’d been a local woman, Mrs Jenner, who had done most of the housework, and even today Mark and Susan had cleaners come in every week.
Daniel Butler took the end seat with a smile and told me, ‘Do not let him stir your sympathies. He charms a girl up here with regularity, and ’tis the rare occasion that one leaves without first taking up a broom.’
‘You’re telling secrets, now,’ said Fergal, but he winked as he went out to fetch our dinner from the kitchen.
I looked at Daniel Butler’s handsome face and asked him, disbelieving, ‘Fergal charms the girls up here?’
‘He does. He is not always so ill-natured, as you seem to have discovered for yourself.’ The smile lingered in his eyes. ‘What were you drinking?’
‘Cider.’
‘Then you have impressed him, for the cider in our cellars here was made by his own hand, and he does guard it as a dragon guards its gold. He would not offer it to anyone he did not feel was worthy.’
‘Yes, well, I’m honoured but I hope he doesn’t make a habit of it. Cider makes my head spin.’
‘Do you have it in your own time?’
‘Cider? Yes. It makes my head spin there, as well.’
‘So there are some things at least that are the same for you.’ Beneath the lightness of his voice I thought I caught a trace of something like a scientific interest. ‘I should think it must feel strange, to step into another age and find yourself so far removed from all you know. Like being shipwrecked in a foreign land.’