Chapter Seventeen

Present

Tegan tried to put the discussion in the rose garden out of her mind. She didn’t see why she needed to dwell on something so unpleasant when she had something so perfectly wonderful to plan in the shape of a “Winter Wonderland Wedding” exhibition.

She stayed away from Pencradoc for a good couple of hours after she’d had that conversation with Ryan to ensure he and Sybill had left. When she eventually got back to the office, Coren didn’t query her absence but she made a point of telling him exactly what she — well, she and Ryan — had planned.

‘ The Snow Queen idea. I like it.’ He nodded. ‘I’m not sure how you’re going to get that dress replicated though. Am I right in thinking that all we have is a sketch on a letter?’

‘Yes. But I can ask someone. Wheal Mount has had costume exhibitions in the past too. And I know when you did the Lily Valentine event, you got a dress for Merryn’s friend Cordelia from Sybill. My sister told me about it. I found some photos online. So I guess I just need to speak to someone.’

‘You’re best speaking to Sybill. Or Ryan.’ He pulled a face. ‘For a start, we’re having a bit of difficulty keeping Merryn away from the place as it is, and no way do I want anyone delivering babies on this premises if she decides to spend even more time here. And, as I recall, the Lily Valentine dress was kind of wrecked in some incident at the Mill House. Not sure that Sybill will want to give us anything more from her stores, but she might know the details of a seamstress who can help.’

‘I’ll check with her.’

‘Or Ryan.’

Coren’s voice was mild, but Tegan dropped her head anyway so he couldn’t see her expression. ‘Yes. Quite. Right. I’ll get on with this then. Planning and everything.’ She swallowed and managed to choke out, ‘Planning with . . . Ryan.’

‘Good luck. I’ve got every faith you can sort it all out.’

She looked up quickly, wondering whether that comment had a double meaning or not. Coren’s face gave nothing away. In fact, he was looking back down at his desk again, shuffling some paper importantly. She took that as a dismissal. ‘Sure,’ she said.

She checked her phone again subtly. Still nothing from Angelo.

‘Oh — Ryan left some things for you over on the photocopier,’ Coren added, just as she turned to leave his office. ‘I suspect they’re useful for you. He said he’d managed to have a tour of the house as well after your meeting.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Found his own way around, apparently.’

Tegan’s cheeks burned. Yeah, perhaps she should have taken him for that tour. She had no more right to Pencradoc than he had and he needed to know where things were as well. ‘I’ll take him next time. Once I know more about the place myself.’

Coren looked up and half smiled. ‘Believe me. If Pencradoc wants you to know about it, you will.’ Then he looked back at the papers on his desk and Tegan finally managed to grab Ryan’s papers and hurry out of the room.

Ugh.

Embarrassing!

She took herself off to the main office and laid the papers out in front of her. Sure enough, they were the documents they’d looked at in the garden. She flipped the letter over with the sketch of the dress on the back and pulled over the photograph of Elsie and Louis, laying them next to one another. But really, all she had was the top half of Elsie covered by a ginormous winter bouquet and a rough sketch that looked all together . . . thinner than the flounces behind that bouquet.

She stared out of the window. Think, Tegan, think . Her gaze then settled on a copy of Darling! magazine someone had left next to the kettle. On the front was some non-A-lister’s wedding photo. Tegan curled her lip slightly. No matter what Ryan might have implied, she actually had no time for shallow social media influencers, and this person on the front was definitely one of those.

However . . . she sat up straighter in her chair. Elsie was a kind of celebrity in her day, was she not? Would it, perhaps, be plausible, that the Edwardian version of the paparazzi would have lurked near the church to grab some photos? Actually, there had to be some official photos somewhere. The photograph of the couple looked professional and she knew that Elsie’s friend Pearl was one of the “Dollar Princesses” who had travelled over from America and married into the British nobility.

Surely, that was newsworthy — especially if Pearl was a guest there, and Pearl’s sister, Viola, was a bridesmaid?

Her heart pounding, she pulled up a search engine on the computer. Some swift detective work brought up some wonderful American magazines of the era: The Delineator magazine, The Ladies’ Home Journal . . . and, a gem which she thought was worth investigating further — Portrayal magazine.

Whereas, the internet informed her, some of the magazines focussed on fashion, sewing patterns, articles and the like, Portrayal was rather like a Society magazine that ladies in America were fond of, as it told them tales of what their friends over the pond were up to.

Some further digging revealed that some of the issues of the magazine were online — the originals were held at the British Library and had been digitised as part of the American Collection.

‘Bingo!’ Tegan said, clicking into the pages. A little longer and she had located what she wanted . . .

Miss Viola Arthur, of Washington Square North, New York, presided as maid of honor at a Society Wedding on 22 December 1911 , the text coyly reported, probably knowing that their audience would be more interested in the American contingent than the English one. The wedding, at St George’s, Bloomsbury, London, also boasted attendance from her sister, Lady Pearl Arthur Elton, wife of Sir Ernest Elton, of Elton Lacy, in Cornwall, England. The happy couple, Lady Elsie Alexandra Teague Pencradoc and Mr Louis William Ashby also hail from Cornwall and have now made their home in Bloomsbury, London.

A couple of clicks more and Tegan had scrolled down to a small collection of photographs.

‘Oh my God!’ She stared at the screen. In front of her was a group photograph of so many people that she wondered how the photographer had got them all to stand still for so long. In the centre was, of course, Elsie and Louis. This time she had a full-length shot of Elsie’s gown, which helped a lot in her quest for a copy of the dress. In front of them were a little girl and, strangely, a dog. Ranged to either side, was a collection of young women and young men. Rarely had she ever seen such a depiction of sheer beauty in those faces — whoever they were they all had bloody good genes.

The girl who seemed to be maid of honour, by virtue of the fact she was standing closest to the bridal party, had dark hair and a striking, if fairly haughty, expression. Something about that didn’t sit quite right with Tegan, though. If this was Viola, she was nothing like she’d imagined.

That’s because I wasn’t maid of honour!

The computer flickered and the lights in the office blinked on and off. Tegan shot out of her seat and stood up.

‘What the hell?’

I wasn’t maid of honour! The press liked to make things up so us New Yorkers sounded more important.

The lights flashed again and then went off completely. Her hands shaking, Tegan managed to right-click on the page and bookmark the link before the computer switched itself off completely.

I mean, I look nothing like the maid of honour! It’s clearly not me!

Out of the shadows in the room, the figure of a young woman appeared, quite small, fair-haired, wearing a long dress and clutching a smaller bouquet, walking slowly towards Tegan.

The thing was, though, it seemed that she was silently laughing. Almost, it seemed, at the ridiculousness of the report.

This is me. This is who you’re looking for . . .

Tegan thought she was going to faint. The room started swimming and going in and out of her vision, then to compound matters, another figure materialised close by the woman — a man, this time. Tall, dark and, even though his back was towards Tegan, she knew he’d be handsome.

Did I tell you how beautiful you looked that day? Tegan heard the man ask. He held his hand out to the girl.

No , she said simply. You didn’t . . .

Then Tegan’s phone rang and the lights came back on, and, thank God , the spell was broken.

Good God . . .

She sat down, shaking. She’d missed the call and for one bizarre moment she thought that it was going to be a voice from beyond the grave speaking to her. When she managed to fumble the phone towards her and saw an unknown number and a voicemail icon blinking, she was almost afraid to listen to it.

Nervously, she clicked the button and had to use both hands to hold it up to her ear. Part of her wanted to run out of the office, but another part of her was frozen to the spot. While she listened to the call connecting, she stared at the area the girl had appeared from. Nothing was there, and, of course, with the lights back on, it didn’t look sinister at all.

‘Tegan. Hi. Um. It’s Ryan. Can you call me back? There’s something I need to tell you.’ There was a beat. ‘Something — weird. Yeah. Thanks. Talk soon.’

It was almost as if he couldn’t find the words to describe what he needed to tell her, judging by the pauses and breaks in the message.

There was only one thing to do. She needed to speak to a human and really didn’t think Coren was the best choice right now. She looked at the call log and her finger hovered over Angelo’s number. But then she moved her finger up, pressed the unknown number and called Ryan back.

* * *

Ryan had found Tegan’s number in the notes Sybill had given him. He hesitated several times before finally calling her. It was work — sort of. Despite how weird it all sounded. And despite that it seemed like he’d lost his mind — or at least himself — for a few minutes as he’d walked through Pencradoc, his feet seeming to know exactly where to go.

His first thought had been to speak to Sybill. She was, to be fair, probably the best-placed person to talk to. Her knowledge of the two families at Pencradoc and Wheal Mount seemed, at times, encyclopaedic. She was bound to know, or at least have a good guess at, the provenance of the note — who, for example, in the Teague or Pencradoc families used to enjoy writing, and who, possibly more importantly, was involved with Viola.

Sybill was, he thought, unlikely to believe his story of where he’d found the notes and would probably know that it was a lie when he trotted out his cover story of how he’d discovered them. There were, of course, tons of hitherto undiscovered boxes and trunks and cases in the attics — part of his job was, he knew, to go through them all and log everything. But even though he was prepared to tell Sybill he’d discovered the papers there, he knew he had one of those faces where he couldn’t lie without it showing.

He actually wondered how he’d managed to keep his Glasgow job application secret from Sybill these last few days.

But, if he called Tegan, a) he wasn’t looking right at her when he said he’d discovered the papers in a trunk, and, b) she possibly already knew something of this Viola. Especially if she knew she’d been a bridesmaid at Elsie and Louis’ wedding.

He talked himself in and out of calling her several times before he finally took a deep breath and dialled her number.

Typically, though, there was no answer. He wondered if it was because she knew it was him calling and was deliberately ignoring the call — then logic took over and he reminded himself that they had never exchanged numbers and there was no reason why she’d ignore him when his name didn’t actually come up on the call log. Especially as Tegan did not seem the sort of person who would have already programmed the Wheal Mount contacts into her phone.

She rang back a few moments after he’d left a message and at first he wasn’t sure it was her. She sounded completely different on the phone. Guarded and edgy and insecure. And pretty nervous, actually.

‘Ryan? Sorry, I missed your call — someone — someone was in the office, And, um, we had a — a — power cut — or something. And my computer went off. And, yeah. Sorry . . .’

‘No problem.’ His voice, he knew, was equally odd. He put it down to his own nerves and awkwardness and not being sure he’d one hundred per cent made the correct choice by calling her. But he had made the decision and had to carry it through. ‘There’s — there’s another document that’s turned up. About Viola. Well. I think it’s about her. It’s, like, a story.’ He frowned at the papers. They were carefully placed on the edge of his desk. He didn’t really want them too close. ‘I — I was just wondering if you knew anything that could help me fit the pieces together.’

‘Viola. Right. Of course . . .’ There was a beat. ‘Okay. What pieces do we need to fit together?’

‘Might she have been at a ball in Mayfair? Around about August 1911?’

‘I don’t know — possibly. She was a bridesmaid at Elsie’s wedding and the letter asking her to be bridesmaid is from November, isn’t it.’ There was some rustling. ‘Yes. November. The letter asking her to go and see the dress is December and we know she was around for the Halloween party.’

‘But we’ve got nothing to say she was in England before October?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘And guest lists or invitations to balls? Do you think they would have existed somewhere?’

‘They might have done. But if it was a ball at Mayfair, then I don’t think any of the families we deal with had houses there.’

‘Ah.’ He didn’t really know what to say.

‘I could ask Merryn?’ Tegan said. ‘She’ll maybe know a bit more about the family? Like — who Viola partnered with at Elsie’s wedding.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘I say that, because something turned up here as well.’

‘Anything exciting?’

‘Yeah. I think so. I found an article in an American magazine about the wedding. It names Viola as maid of honour.’

‘Seriously?’ That was pretty exciting, even to him.

‘Yes. But she wasn’t maid of honour. Just a bridesmaid,’ Tegan added hurriedly.

‘Typical press. Lie about everything,’ he said wryly.

‘I guess so. But, anyway, this article. It has photos. The computer crashed. But I can go back onto the site. I think.’ That nervous tone had returned. ‘If we don’t have another power cut.’

‘Do you — do you want to send me the link? And I can have a look as well.’

‘I think that might be a good idea,’ she replied. ‘In case . . . anything dodgy . . . happens here again.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you my email,’ said Ryan.

‘Thanks. I’ll send that on shortly. As far as I can remember, there were a couple of photos and they had full-length shots of Elsie so we could use those to help with the dress design.’

‘We can. I’ll have a look at our stuff as well to see if anything else comes up for Viola and that Mayfair ball. Tammy or Bryony might already have found something and filed it. I think there are some mirrors in storage. I might search them out and we can use them in the Snow Queen display. Reflecting back on stuff, kind of thing. I don’t know — that sounds a bit hipster and arty, doesn’t it?’

‘No, it actually sounds great.’ The relief in her voice was evident and again that seemed pretty weird. The Tegan he remembered from Glasgow could be irritating, but you had to give her points for her confidence.

‘Right. I’ll get on with it. We’ve got each other’s numbers now. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, though, right?’ It was an attempt at humour and he was pleased to hear a nervous chuckle from the other end of the phone.

‘Right now, I think that’s a good thing. Um — thanks for calling. I actually needed to speak to a real, living person this afternoon.’

And Angelo wasn’t available ? he wanted to ask, then thought better of it.

Then Ryan was going to make a joke about the Pencradoc ghosts, but remembering his wanderings earlier that day, he decided not to go there, even in jest.

‘No problem. I’ll let you go and we can pick this up another time.’

‘Yes. Talk soon, bye for now.’ said Tegan.

‘Goodbye,’ he replied, and they rang off.

The phone call hadn’t been as difficult as he’d anticipated, in the end. But, it had been a long day, strange things had happened and he was ready to call it quits.

But perhaps he’d just wait for that email to come through first.