Chapter Five

Present

The next day, Tegan woke up in the unfamiliar bed to a sunny late-September morning. She stretched out, then rolled over so she was facing the window. She hadn’t closed the curtains last night — she just loved sleeping with them open. There was something nice about looking out there, whatever time it was, and seeing a velvety dark night full of twinkling stars, or a deep rose-coloured sunset, or a golden sunrise — just like the one out there today.

She took a moment to appreciate the sunlight, then slid out of bed and padded over to the kitchen counter. She never bothered with breakfast and a strong black coffee was all she needed to set her up for the day — her first day in her new job!

And wow, what a great commute it was. She got showered and dressed, pulled her hair back into a smooth, high ponytail, dressed in what she felt was an appropriate outfit — black cigarette pants, white cut-off top, wedge-heeled sandals — and left the apartment. Then she headed along the corridor towards the Grand Staircase.

‘Not using the servants’ staircase today,’ she said to nobody in particular. ‘It’s my first day and I’m making an entrance. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the other stairs.’ She knew, of course, that she would not be using the other stairs at all, no siree . Wait, what? She smiled. She wasn’t in the habit of using Americanisms — she’d obviously spent too long in Sicily with the group of lemon pickers who’d come from all areas of the world. There’d been a particularly nice couple from California, Meg and Jo. They’d laughed about their names the first night they’d all been there, sitting outside the accommodation block around a fire pit, drinking Aperol spritz and bottles of birra . Little Women was one of Tegan’s favourite books. She’d studied it for a degree in Literature, before she’d decided after the first year that the course hadn’t been for her and she’d rather travel.

‘We just need to befriend a Beth and an Amy,’ Meg had said with a laugh. ‘And we’ll have all the main characters.’

‘Oh, I hated Amy!’ Tegan said. ‘She stole Laurie from Jo!’ The Jo she was with joked she’d probably be more interested in a “Laura”, and they all found that hysterical. But Tegan stood by her conviction, even though Jo March was much better suited to Professor Bhaer than Theodore “Laurie” Laurence. ‘And even though everybody thinks it was best for Laurie!’

Today, at Pencradoc, Tegan smiled at the memories, recalling, as well, Angelo — a dreamy, dark-eyed musician who had been part of their group. All she’d originally wanted was a holiday romance, something to enjoy while she was in Italy, and Angelo had ticked all the boxes. But to her surprise, she had felt herself falling under a sort of Sicilian spell and finding it all becoming a little more serious. They’d begun to talk about her staying there, of her moving in with the charming, dark-haired, olive-skinned man and making a life in Italy.

And then one day, over her breakfast coffee of all things, she had, unaccountably, started to overthink things. Was she ready for that sort of commitment? Was she ready to settle down to days and evenings with the same person for, quite possibly, the rest of her life? She knew it happened, that instant connection with people — that feeling that you had found the other half of yourself. And while Angelo and Sicily had been a nice fit for now, that’s how it had suddenly felt that morning — nice “for now”. It had almost seemed as if there was something missing; the other half of her whole.

But what it was, she wasn’t quite sure about. And certainly when Angelo had come in from the garden, smelling of fresh cigarette smoke and a lingering hint of weed and campfires from the previous evening and he’d kissed the back of her neck, she’d metaphorically shaken herself and told herself not to be so stupid.

Luckily, she hadn’t expressed those doubts to anyone else, but when the chance had come up to work at Pencradoc, for reasons best known to her psyche, she had offered to take up the position.

It would, she’d told herself, take her away from this summery dream she was living in Sicily, plonk her back in the UK and force her to take stock of things in her own way.

Cornwall was, of course, a beautiful area to take stock in — especially the area where Pencradoc was. Bodmin Moor was wild, untamed and freeing. The Hurlers neolithic standing stones were there, along with abandoned pumping-engine houses and miles and miles of walks, pools and incredible geology.

And maybe Angelo and Sicily, the scent of suntan lotion and citrus fruit, and the sticky, sweaty feel of temperatures only experienced in the Med, might then end up seeming like prospects she wanted to be part of. If it was meant to be, it would be. They had, after all, been in touch quite frequently over the last few days, so that was good, right?

‘I miss you,’ Angelo had told her, just last night via FaceTime. Although his smiling face filled the screen, she could hear chatter around him, the clinking of glasses and faint music.

‘Are you somewhere fun?’ she asked, settling back onto the bed.

‘Nowhere is fun without you!’ Angelo laughed. ‘I am drowning my sorrows. Is that what you call it?’

‘I guess.’ She smiled at him and her heart skipped a beat as his handsome face mirrored her expression. ‘I went for a pizza earlier. There’s a really nice restaurant in the village. Family-run Italian place. Checked tablecloths and everything.’

‘Ahh! You miss real Italian food that much, yes?’

‘I do! It wasn’t the same, though.’

‘But there was good red wine, yes?’

‘There was indeed.’

‘Then it was authentic.’

‘As good as,’ she said.

‘It would have been better had we been together. Here. In Sicily,’ he said, and she did feel as if she wanted to agree . . .

But she wasn’t in Sicily, she was here, in Cornwall, ready to try something different, and, although she didn’t want to admit it, she knew deep down she was here to decide what she really wanted.

Thoughtfully, she walked down the Grand Staircase, then made herself concentrate more on the moment and look around her. This was, actually, the first time she’d been down these stairs, but she remembered that she had to watch out for that snaggy bit of carpet or whatever it was, five stairs from the bottom . . .

‘Woah!’ She stopped, foot hovering over the offending stair. The carpet looked to be perfectly fine. But even so, she stepped cautiously onto it and stood for a moment, trying to sort her thoughts out.

Then a cheerful greeting rang out in the hallway, and she heard someone call her name delightedly.

‘Tegan!’

Her attention shifted from the stair and she looked in the direction of the voice. ‘Merryn! God — look at you !’

Tegan was genuinely shocked. At Christmas, Merryn had been — well — Merryn. Merryn-size, Merryn-shape, just Merryn . Now, her older sister looked as if she had a watermelon stuffed down her front. She was enormously pregnant and Tegan was surprised that she was actually standing upright. How had the weight of that baby not made her faceplant the floor?

‘Good to see you too, Tegan.’ Merryn’s voice was wryly amused. ‘Come on. Give me a hug.’

‘Not sure I can actually get my arms around you,’ said Tegan. The odd feeling about the stair was forgotten as she bounded down the remaining steps to greet her sister, arms outstretched.

‘You have to at least try !’ said Merryn with a laugh, catching her sister as Tegan threw herself at her gently yet enthusiastically.

‘I can just about manage it!’ She hugged Merryn and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Oh, wow, it’s good to see you in person.’

‘Isn’t it great?’ Merryn grinned. ‘And you’re here! At Pencradoc. Amazing. Can’t wait for the place to start working its magic on you.’

‘There are no bloody ghosts here, sis, don’t know what you keep going on about,’ said Tegan. ‘I’m here to do a job — a doddle of a job, may I say, and only for a year.’

‘Hmm.’ Merryn was non-committal, then she laughed. ‘A doddle of a job? Okay. Don’t let Coren hear you say that, mind. And ghosts or no ghosts, I’m jolly pleased to see you too. Come on. Let’s go and see the boss. I swear that man sleeps in that study; he’s always in it.’

Merryn linked arms with Tegan and they headed to the office. ‘Did you see Little Elsie last night?’ Merryn asked, patting the marble girl on the head as they passed her. ‘I would love to know what she was thinking when she posed for that.’

‘Do you think it was done while she sat there? Posing?’

‘Not at all. I think it was done from a drawing or a painting. But yes. It would be interesting to know what she was thinking. I bet she would have been full of it. Her little cousins and brothers and sisters wouldn’t have heard the end of it.’

‘And is that her mum? The lady in that beautiful portrait on the staircase? I know you’ve mentioned her to me, but I can’t remember her name.’

‘No.’ Merryn shook her head. ‘That’s Duchess Rose. Sorry, Rose, Duchess of Trecarrow, if we want to give Rose her formal title.’ She paused, looking up at the portrait and studying it, as if she was seeing something far, far away. ‘Rose died and Elsie’s mum, Zennor, married the duke, the guy Rose had been married to first.’

Tegan couldn’t help but notice the small, bitter twist to Merryn’s mouth as she remarked upon the man. ‘You’re not impressed with the duke?’ she asked.

‘No, he wasn’t a very nice person. From what we know, anyway.’

The sisters continued walking.

‘Did the ghosts tell you that?’ Tegan was amused.

‘They didn’t have to. We all knew it,’ replied Merryn — cryptically, Tegan thought. But she didn’t let the thought linger. They were now at Coren’s office and the sisters disconnected their arms, and Merryn knocked on the door. ‘It’s just us!’ she called, and walked in without waiting for an answer.

Coren looked up from his desk and a hint of a smile lifted the edges of his lips. ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming up, Merryn. I know it’s a long way.’

‘It’s worth it to see Tegan, if nothing else,’ Merryn said. ‘I think an hour away is the closest we’ve been for a long, long time.’

‘Well, sit down and we can do this handover — then you can head back. I don’t want to keep you too long. You shouldn’t even be here.’

‘I’m going to be here long enough to go to the Tower Tearoom. And help Tegan for the rest of the day if she needs me to.’

‘I’m not totally hopeless, Merryn,’ said Tegan. ‘You’ve already been emailing me lists and lists and idiot guides and all sorts of stuff!’ And by the look of her, she needed to be much, much closer to home in case that child decided to make an appearance. Much as she loved her sister, she didn’t want her to hang around too long with that situation so imminent!

‘Not idiot guides. How-to guides,’ said Merryn defensively.

‘ And you mentioned what you fancied as the next exhibition,’ said Tegan.

‘Yes. I did.’

‘First World War?’ Tegan raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes. It’ll be perfect to work between Wheal Mount and Pencradoc. I told Sybill—’

‘Honey, I’ve been thinking, and actually I’m not doing the War.’ Tegan folded her arms. ‘There’s got to be something more uplifting to do. This is a temporary job for me. It’s your permanent job, so you can do what you like. But for me, I’ll do something else. There’s got to be something Christmassy or festive we can think about.’

Merryn was just staring at her, apparently speechless. ‘But the war . . .’

‘No.’

‘It’s the natural progression for the one we did last time. We did Elsie’s midsummer ball . . .’

‘So we do Elsie’s midwinter something. And why is it a natural progression?’

‘Because it’s the next chronological thing.’

‘No. Chronological is overrated.’

‘Coren . . .’ Merryn turned to Coren pathetically. Coren was sitting back in his chair, his own arms folded, and very clearly trying not to laugh. ‘Oh, Coren!’ Merryn was cross now. It was her turn to fold her arms. They rested on top of her very large bump and she looked ridiculously indignant.

‘I’m not getting involved,’ said Coren. ‘And let’s just take a moment to reassess. You are officially on maternity leave. Your sister has the job at your recommendation. You really need her to make the decisions and allow her to do what she thinks is right. The war exhibition can wait. And actually, I like the idea of something Christmassy.’

Merryn looked even more indignant, but then she muttered something under her breath.

‘What was that, Merryn?’ asked Tegan, leaning forward. If it was what she thought she’d heard, that was rather interesting.

Merryn sighed theatrically, then lifted her head and glowered at Tegan. ‘A wedding. A midwinter wedding. Elsie got married in the middle of winter. And that is all I’m giving you. Your project. Your research. Does that help at all?’

Tegan grinned. ‘Perfect. A midwinter wedding. Coren, does that sound good to you? Are you happy for me to work on that?’

Coren nodded. ‘That sounds great. I’ll mention it to Sybill and we can chat when they come up tomorrow. I’ll see if her archivist can lay his hands on anything to help you. Good call, Tegan. And thanks, Merryn.’ He nodded at Tegan and winked at Merryn. ‘Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end, Tegan, eh?’

‘Coren! I think I sometimes preferred you when you were miserable and weren’t in a relationship with Sybill,’ muttered Merryn.

But Tegan knew her sister, and, looking at Merryn, Tegan knew that Merryn knew that she was well and truly beaten on this one.

* * *

‘Here we are.’ Sybill pulled on the handbrake and looked at Pencradoc, smiling as she apparently took in the grey stone frontage and eager, it seemed, to be getting on with the job in hand.

Sybill looked really happy to be here and Ryan guessed it was mostly because she got to see her partner, Coren, every time she came up under the pretext of “work”.

It was his first time at Pencradoc, though. He’d definitely been sequestered a little at Wheal Mount, and, despite his longing to be back in Glasgow, he did feel a strong attachment to his current place of work. But Sybill had thought it a good idea for him to come up to the edge of Bodmin Moor and visit the place, seeing as he’d soon be working closely with the team — even if, he thought, it turned out to be temporary, if he got that other job.

‘So what’s the plan for today? Remind me,’ he asked.

‘We’re meeting Merryn’s replacement first. And then we can talk about the winter wedding exhibition, which will, of course, be a joint project. That’s it. Nice and simple. Coren said last night that Merryn’s World War One project was definitely off the cards — for now at least.’

‘Yeah. A World War One project sounds a bit daunting, if I’m honest.’

As he looked at Pencradoc towering in front of them, he did think it had a sense of familiarity about it in some ways. Perhaps it was just because they had leaflets and postcards relating to Pencradoc at Wheal Mount. He supposed that Pencradoc would have some sort of merchandise about Wheal Mount too, as the two properties had belonged to the same family members over a century ago. And obviously Tammy and Sybill talked about it quite a lot as the two properties worked closely together, both being arts centres and all that.

But he did think the place looked comfortable and happy, as if he could just walk in there, throw himself into a chair and start leafing through a book or something, perfectly at home.

‘Do you like it?’ Sybill asked. ‘You seem a bit dazed by it.’

‘Yeah. No. It’s good. I’ve just never been before and it’s weird seeing it in real life, I guess.’ He reached around and grabbed a document case from the back seat. A document case! When had he become the sort of man who transported a document case?

Sybill had told him it looked professional and it was the best way to present the information they’d found for the wedding. She’d given it to him this morning and told him to fill it before they left.

While Sybill had waited, he’d quickly stuffed it with copies of letters and photographs relating to the 1911 wedding of Lady Elsie Pencradoc and Louis Ashby. He’d found the documents, thanks to Tammy’s excellent system and his recent, timely discoveries in those old boxes, but, to be fair, there wasn’t a great deal to actually present today. However, he thought there would be more if he had the time to rummage.

There was, at least, a copy of a wedding photo of the bride and groom Sybill had provided — she said the original was at Pencradoc — the letter Elsie had sent to her brother Laurie to ask him to come to London and see her wedding dress, and a letter to her sisters asking if they would be her bridesmaids along with their cousins and a friend — or rather, telling them that was the case.

‘You’ll get used to Pencradoc.’ Sybill undid her seatbelt and opened the door. ‘You might find yourself working between the two properties a bit, especially with having their archives at our place. Honestly, it’s not scary at all once you’re in there.’

‘I don’t think it looks particularly scary at all,’ said Ryan.

‘Really?’ Sybill paused, the door half open, and looked at him curiously. ‘That’s a good sign. Come on then.’

‘Whatever.’ He grinned and got out of the car. Ryan followed Sybill up the steps. ‘I’m glad we’re not doing the War,’ he said. ‘There’s so much in those archives about that. It’s a lot of information to pull together. I—’ Ryan halted as he set foot inside the big hallway. ‘Wow.’ He looked around. The place seemed familiar — weirdly so. He could have sworn he’d been in a place like this before. That staircase . . . His gaze was drawn to a step about five up from the bottom.

An image shot into his mind of someone falling . . . someone lying at the bottom of the stairs . . . No. No, it must have been a film he’d seen. He honestly had never been here before.

‘You okay?’ asked Sybill curiously.

‘Yeah. No. Sorry. Just — wasn’t what I was expecting in here. That’s all. This way?’ He pointed towards the back of the hall.

‘Yes, that’s right. You sure you’re okay? You’ve gone a bit pale. Seen a ghost or something?’

Pale was Ryan’s default colour. And he didn’t believe in ghosts. So . . . ‘Nope. I’m good, thanks.’

Sybill just laughed and headed towards where the study — no, the office — was. ‘One thing you need to know about Pencradoc, Ryan — this place gets a hold of you, you know, and it’s not always easy to let it go.’

‘Sure, sure.’ But his mind was elsewhere — had anyone actually called Coren’s room the “study”, or had he thought that one up as well?

As if she was reading his mind, Sybill said, ‘This is Coren’s office. It used to be Louis’ study — Elsie’s husband.’

Okay. He, Ryan, didn’t think that anyone had mentioned study or office before now, so he clamped his lips shut and tried to stop his brain whirring so hard that it was genuinely making more things up. He must be more nervous about this trip to Pencradoc than he had thought.

They were met just before the door by Coren, and Ryan spotted the wedding photograph hanging up on the wall as he greeted them. That was good. It was a link of sorts — something familiar. Ryan vaguely knew Coren of course — how could he not, the amount of times the man had been to Wheal Mount. But still, it was different seeing him on his home turf as it were.

‘I saw the car pull up,’ said Coren. He welcomed Sybill with a kiss — fair enough. They were having a child together after all. Yet they still didn’t live together. Tammy had commented that she thought it was a bit late in the day to take it slowly, but that was Sybill and Coren all over.

‘Liar,’ said Sybill. ‘You couldn’t see us from the office, so you must have been lurking in the morning room or something.’

‘Or something,’ he said and smiled. ‘Good morning, Ryan, good to see you. Come on — come and meet Tegan.’

Ryan hesitated. Tegan? That name rang a bell as well. No. It couldn’t be. Could it? Oh, God, he hoped not. It wasn’t that common a name, in his experience. But no — absolutely not . . .

Then Coren opened the door and stood back. Sybill entered first. ‘Hey, Tegan, good to meet you!’ she said cheerfully.

‘Hello. You must be Sybill. Nice to meet you too,’ said a voice that was all too familiar to Ryan. And not in a good way.

His heart pounding, Ryan followed Sybill in.

Then . . .

‘Oh, God! Not you !’ said Tegan, staring at Ryan.

Ryan shook his head. ‘Good God. Spare me this ! Not you!’

The pair of them glared at one another for what seemed like a lifetime.

‘Umm — anything we need to know?’ asked Sybill. ‘Anything at all?’