Chapter Thirteen

Present

Who indeed was Viola? It was intriguing. And also a little embarrassing, because Ryan had had to tell her, Tegan, that her people from Pencradoc were called Laurie, Isolde and Medora. Tegan really felt she should have known that. But — ah! She did know there had been girls at Wheal Mount too.

It was worth a try and would show off a little bit of knowledge. ‘Might it have been one of the Wheal Mount girls? Elsie’s cousins?’

There was a flicker of a smile at the edge of Ryan’s lips and she knew immediately that she was wrong and he was going to impart a bit more knowledge to her . . . dammit !

‘The Wheal Mount girls were Clara, Mabel, Lucy and Nancy. No — Viola was Elsie’s friend Pearl’s sister. That “P” lady I couldn’t think of before. Pearl.’

‘American Pearl?’ Tegan was surprised — and a little disappointed in herself — she’d remembered that nugget of information, but didn’t know the names of Elsie’s siblings. Again, a quick mooch around the gift shop yesterday had offered up a postcard of Elton Lacy, one of the big stately homes in the area. She had picked it up, immediately drawn to it and curious to know more. It was tucked in her notebook today, as a sort of bookmark, and Tegan was suddenly awfully conscious it was there. It seemed like it would be an awesome place to visit . . .

It sure is! came that weird New York voice in her ear again.

Tegan pushed the odd feeling aside. Viola. Of course. Of course . Of course she was Pearl’s sister. She was the one who loved to dance and perform and travel . . .

She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes to her notebook. She was surprised to see her hands shaking a little. She really hoped Ryan hadn’t noticed that. But regardless . . . ‘I picked this up yesterday,’ she said. She slid the postcard out of her notebook and handed it, almost reluctantly, to him.

As he hesitated, then took the card, a vision came into her mind of a fair-haired girl sitting somewhere that looked like the inside of a church. The girl had clearly started the day with a complicated updo, but by now it was coming loose, her hair still threaded through with red and green ribbon. A dark-haired man turned and looked at her, and Tegan had the feeling that he was desperate to say something earth-shattering to her.

But then the image faded and was replaced with a picture of the two people in the middle of a snowy landscape, a horse behind them, and the man in nothing more than his shirt sleeves, riding breeches and long boots.

Tegan blinked the image away, her heart pounding. She’d always had a bit of an imagination, so it wasn’t surprising that the vibrant Viola had burst into her consciousness.

What was surprising was that the young man she had seen looked exactly like Ryan.

‘Where’s this? Oh — the Lacy,’ the modern-day Ryan said, jerking her back to the present.

‘Yes. I found it in our gift shop.’

‘I went on a visit last year,’ he said. ‘It’s way bigger than our two properties put together. I hear they had some fantastic parties there. Midsummer balls and things.’

‘Like — um — wedding celebrations as well?’ asked Tegan. ‘Perhaps like Elsie’s?’

‘No idea.’ Ryan passed the postcard back to her. ‘But if you recall, Elsie got married in London, so I guess any celebration she had was based at her home down there.’

‘Ah.’ Again, she flushed. ‘So should we not do the solstice wedding thing? I don’t want any Elsie purists complaining.’ For the first time, she began to doubt herself and her idea. Maybe Merryn had been right about the World War I thing . . .

Ryan looked at her oddly. ‘I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t do it. As long as we specify that the wedding was in London, because she lived in Brunswick Square.’

‘How did you know that was her address?’ asked Tegan, hoping, wildly, that he had had a weird moment as well.

‘It’s on her letters,’ Ryan replied smoothly.

‘Ah.’

There was silence for a moment.

Then Ryan spoke again. ‘Want to see what else I have in here? I think there’s something else just at the bottom . . .’

Tegan shrugged. Why not? He took her silence for consent and suddenly grinned. It changed his whole face from a moody emo/goth person to a handsome, cheerful . . . man. One she felt she could actually — like.

No. She couldn’t think of him like that. The image she had just imagined had thrown her and it was Horrible Ryan here. No matter what he looked like, they would never be friends. Colleagues would be more than enough. She had to basically be polite until this exhibition was over.

She made herself wonder, in fact, whether Angelo would like to come and visit soon — maybe he’d enjoy it. Perhaps he’d like to see where she was living. Meet her family. Stay at Pencradoc for a little while . . .

Force thoughts of a smiling Ryan out of her head, because goodness, Ryan in a shirt and boots and that smile . . .

It was wrong. So very wrong.

She was in love with Angelo and shouldn’t be imagining Ryan like that at all.

Ugh.

However, Ryan didn’t seem to notice her discombobulation. Instead, he looked down and sorted through some documents, then his forehead creased.

‘Okay — apparently I put this in too. I can’t remember doing it — maybe it was stuck to another letter. They must have been filed together after all . . . not sure where though . . . hmmm.’ He looked up at her, looking a little confused. ‘Oh well. It’s appropriate, anyway. It’s the Halloween letter.’ He read it quickly. ‘It definitely fits the scene. I can confirm it’s between Elsie and Pearl. And oh — your friend Viola is mentioned in it too. Look.’

He handed it over to her and she accepted it, half reluctantly. No more weird images? That was good. That was very good.

A couple of lines jumped out at her: I’m desperately hoping Viola will still be here for Halloween. Yes, I agree, let’s show the little ones how we do Halloween properly. I am happy to host it here, but I know how keen you are for that little poppet to spend time at Pencradoc — and to hell with all that snobbery. American Aunt Pearl and Aunt Viola will make sure Marigold is as merry as a grig when she sees our jack o’ lanterns!

‘I still have no idea what those weird words mean,’ said Ryan. ‘But I kind of get the gist.’

Tegan pulled a face. ‘As “merry as a grig”. It means lively, full of fun, sort of thing. They’re implying that Marigold is going to have a jolly good evening.’

‘Well done.’ Ryan smiled at her, quite genuinely, and it made her blink. That was unexpected. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Oh, my friends Meg and Jo,’ said Tegan. ‘They’re American. I learned a lot from them.’

And she had — but what she wasn’t going to tell Ryan, was that Edwardian slang that sounded rather American was never one of the things they’d talked about in Sicily.

She didn’t know how she knew that at all — she just . . . did.

* * *

Ryan was actually impressed at how professional Tegan sounded — and a little stunned at the fact she seemed willing to discuss things with him, but he mentally high-fived himself at the fact he’d managed to correct her a couple of times.

Here, in their new jobs, they were both on an equal footing. In Glasgow, she had been the permanent employee and he’d been, as she had said, just summer staff. She flounced around as if she knew everything and on occasion it was apparent that her enthusiasm and confidence outweighed her knowledge.

‘Tegan,’ he suddenly found himself asking. ‘Why did you leave the gallery in Glasgow?’

‘Why?’ She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s none of your business really, but I got bored. I wanted a change. And . . .’ she glanced at him. ‘That manager really, really pissed me off.’ She held his gaze and there was almost a smile on her lips. ‘Do you think that catalogue was an appalling reflection of the gallery and the staff in it?’

‘What? That one we argued over?’

‘The very one.’

‘Well. Yes. I suppose one could say that. But did it really matter?’ There was a beat. ‘It was a rubbish exhibition anyway and we sold how many tickets?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Twelve.’ Ryan nodded. ‘I was pleased to get of the place that night — he really went to town on me.’ Suddenly he grinned, remembering how he’d glowered at the man silently until he ran out of steam and stopped shouting. Then he remembered again how Tegan had looked when she came out of the office and felt, for the first time, perhaps, a little guilty. ‘You genuinely looked upset though. Sorry. I maybe should have checked on you when you disappeared into the bathroom.’

‘You think I would have let you in there with me?’ Tegan scowled and shook her head vehemently. ‘It was all your fault for playing that crap music. And also, I wasn’t sad-crying, I was angry-crying and there’s a difference.’

‘Fair enough. But my music was great.’

‘Was not.’

‘Was.’

‘You were a weird gothy type and you liked weird music. Do you still like that music?’

‘I do.’

‘So are you still a weird gothy type?’ There was a certain twitch at the corner of her lips that may or may not have been amusement.

‘It was a phase. An art student phase.’

‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows ironically.

‘Yes.’ He followed her gaze as it swept across his black outfit. ‘I am allowed to like black clothing, you know. There’s nothing weird about that!’

‘Hmmm. Anyway, it’s all ancient history and it was all fine, because I went out that night and drowned my sorrows. Stupid manager.’

‘Ah. Yeah. You did. So did I . . .’

‘Did you? I wouldn’t know.’ Tegan turned away and busied herself with her notebook. The conversation about that night was, Ryan realised, at an end.

But his mind flew back to that night, and even if Tegan didn’t want to remember it, or, less likely given her current demeanour, couldn’t remember it, he did.

He remembered sitting at the bar, on his own as usual, and a movement catching his eye at the door.

Tegan had swept in, looking defiant and confident and swishing that damn ponytail around, as if she was looking for someone.

Whoever it was she was looking for, clearly wasn’t there though, as she sat down alone at a table. Within minutes, an inebriated guy had stumbled up to her and was talking to her, swaying as he did so, indicating the bar and waving a credit card around.

Tegan gave him a confident, dismissive smile and shook her head. Ryan watched as the man seemed to become more animated and implied that he would definitely like to buy Tegan a drink, and here was the card to prove it — right up in her face.

Tegan shook her head again, more firmly, and shifted position so she was turned away from the drunk. The drunk, however, staggered around the table so he was facing her again.

‘What the hell?’ Ryan heard himself say. Regardless of what argument he and Tegan had had that day, watching the behaviour of that guy towards her was unacceptable. He dithered for a moment — Tegan was, as he knew, eminently capable of defending herself; but this guy was going too far for comfort.

By now he was up in her face, as well as his damn credit card, and Tegan was no longer looking confident, but a bit scared.

Which was unusual for her.

So — no more.

Ryan couldn’t sit and watch that.

‘I think that guy needs to be thrown out,’ he said to the barman. ‘He’s causing a bit of a nuisance.’

‘Who? Phil? He’s harmless.’ The barman grinned over in his direction. ‘One of our regulars. He’ll give up in a second.’

‘ What ?’ Ryan was appalled. ‘He’s bothering that girl!’

‘He’s fine.’

Ryan stared at the barman in horror. God, was he going to have to do something himself? Okay — he would. He had to.

Without giving himself time to think, he got up and started to head towards Tegan. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he got there; maybe tell her that her taxi was here; maybe sit down and pretend he was the guy she’d been waiting for all this time . . .

However, he was within a few steps of Tegan, when there was a commotion at the door. Three girls practically fell through it into the bar.

‘ There she is!’ hollered one of the girls, and ran unsteadily across to Tegan.

‘Tasha!’ cried Tegan and stood up. Neatly, she circumvented the drunk who was swaying, apparently confused now as to why his prey had disappeared, and ran over to Tasha. ‘Great to see you! Come on — let’s go somewhere else. I’m bored of this place already.’

She’d linked arms with the girl and they’d turned and hurried out of the bar, the other two girls running after them.

She’d passed Ryan with inches to spare, but apparently didn’t see him, as she didn’t acknowledge him at all.

Ryan stood there in the middle of the bar, staring after her as she left. He felt like a bit of a fool. He was only intending to do something to help her — but she clearly didn’t need his help after all.

And that made him feel rather stupid, and also made him wonder if he’d misinterpreted the whole thing and Tegan had the situation under control the whole time.

He guessed he would never know.

Regardless, he left the bar and knew he would never go back — not if the barman was happy to let people like Phil wander around unhindered.

Tegan turned up at work the next day, seeming absolutely fine, full of her usual confidence, and it made him doubt his perception of the evening all over again.

Ryan often wondered if she’d seen him coming towards her, but he never knew. And it didn’t seem the time or the place to bring it back up today.

Instead, today, in the gothic rose garden, he said: ‘You were right to leave. That manager — he was an utter dick.’

Tegan suddenly smiled. ‘He was utterly a dick.’ Then she looked up at him. ‘At least our managers here aren’t dicks.’

‘No.’ Ryan looked at his hated man-bag. ‘Even though mine makes me carry this thing around.’

‘But it has some really cool stuff inside it,’ replied Tegan.

And that, he couldn’t deny.