It was 1867, over a hundred years later.
I had met William when I accidentally travelled back in time in the grounds of the ruined Trevarron House. The portal had opened in the same moment I had climbed the wrought-iron fence surrounding a derelict rose garden, and into the arms of the man I had been dreaming about for years.
The realisation hit me, hard. I had been so intent on saving him by bringing him back to my own time through the portal, and, because I had failed, William was dead. The man I had fallen so deeply in love with would have died of natural causes by now, if not in prison or even execution if things had gone badly. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what had happened to him, and it broke my heart, not knowing what his life had been. I only knew one, crushing fact: that he was dead now, and that I would never see him again.
‘William!’ I let out a sob and covered my mouth, my eyes wild.
Nancy regarded me kindly, and reached over the table for my hand.
‘I’m sorry, maid,’ she murmured. ‘Time is cruel. It’ll take everyone from you in the end.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I sobbed. ‘I just… It hadn’t occurred to me. I… woke up lying on the grass at Trevarron House, by the rose garden. The house was still intact. It wasn’t a ruin, so I knew immediately that I hadn’t made it home–’
‘Back to your time,’ Nancy prompted.
‘So I thought that I was still in 1755. I thought that it hadn’t worked, but then William wasn’t there. I thought I had to get away as soon as possible. If the police were still there, they’d be looking for me, and him…’ I trailed off. My heart ached deeply.
I had loved him. And we had been separated, just as we had found each other, across time.
I thought of my recurring dreams of William: of standing on the rock dais at the edge of the cliff with Trevarron House behind us, silhouetted in the sunset. He had dreamed of me, too. He’d told me that later; he’d been scared of it, scared of our connection, just like I was. It was so intense: when we kissed, when we made love, I felt as though I was dissolving to become part of the ocean of him. That I was part of the Cornish Sea beneath us; its white-tipped waves crashing on the black rock. Hungry, relentless, full of a wild power that neither of us could fully comprehend.
‘Don’t cry, maid. I’ll try to get some peace for you. And then I’ll look at this.’ She touched Evelyn Willcock’s journal on the table next to her with some reverence. ‘I never thought this morning when I woke up that I’d have a traveller come. Not that I ever know when one will come. But you’re the first one to bring me something like this. From my own family.’ She shook her head. ‘’Tis a lot to understand.’
‘I can imagine that it must be,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you.’
‘Let us find out what happened to William, Lord Trevarron, then,’ Nancy said, closing her eyes again. She let out a long breath. I waited, expectantly, wiping the tears from my eyes.
‘Oh…’ Nancy opened her eyes, focusing them on the glass ball in front of her. ‘How strange.’
She stared at the ball intently for a moment, then looked at me.
‘’Ee’s not ’ere,’ she said. She closed her eyes again; there was another silence. ‘I can’t find ’im.’
‘What do you mean?’ I frowned.
‘What I say.’ Nancy squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I don’t see ’im,’ she repeated. I watched her face; her expression was confused, andshe moved her head from side to side as if she was trying to see through a crowd.
‘He was the Lord of Trevarron,’ I repeated. ‘We were running from the police. He was injured. Is he dead? He must be, by now.’
‘I know, maid. I wouldn’t see him on earth if he had passed, but spirit would show me ’is grave, or ’ee’d speak to me, disembodied, like. But… nothin’.’ She opened her eyes. ‘It’s like ’ee never existed at all.’
FOUR
It was Nancy’s idea that I should go with her ‘into town’.
‘They know me, in Tintagel,’ she said, packing a wicker basket with various medicines and herbal remedies folded up in squares of brown paper and tied with thread. ‘On Thursdays I go to sell remedies an’ tell fortunes. We can say you’re my cousin, come visitin’. You can ’elp, rather than stay in the ’ouse.’ She shot me a look that suggested that, though she was sympathetic to my cause and happy to help, she wasn’t quite ready to leave me there alone.
‘All right. But I don’t know anything about your remedies,’ I warned as I changed into one of Nancy’s gowns. I was still desperately upset and panicky, feeling as though I didn’t know what was up and what was down, but I had to do something, or I felt that I’d go mad. Nancy’s plan was as good a suggestion as any.
As a lady’s maid in 1755, I’d worn silk and damask gowns in lovely colours – creams, pinks, baby blues – all worn with cotton underskirts, with a white chemise underneath. The dress bodices were inserted separately and pinned to the edges of the dress’s jacket, and the skirt was added separately, on top of a number of underskirts and usually on top of a pannier, or what people had called a ‘false rump’ – a kind of cushion that tied around our waists to give more volume and width to the skirt over the top.
At Trevarron House, money hadn’t been an issue. Gowns and all the necessary extras had just appeared in my room as if by magic, once Mrs Cottingley, the housekeeper, had taken my measurements.
Nancy, by contrast, was a pellar, so the material of the dress she gave me was much rougher and more worn and patched in a few areas. It was dark blue, a thick cotton, and the hems were frayed, but I took it gratefully anyway. Unlike the ladies of this era who stayed at home – the ‘angels in the house’ that I remembered learning about in my history studies – Nancy didn’t wear tight whalebone stays – a rigid construction aimed at keeping ladies upright, but instead offered me what she called ‘jumps’, which was a softer sort of mini bodice which laced up the front but wasn’t boned. I was grateful for that, and the bloomer-type pantaloons she gave me that I assumed passed for knickers. It had been strange, in 1755, to be naked under my petticoats.
Nancy rummaged in a cupboard and pulled out a jar of some kind of syrup, adding it to the basket.
‘You don’t ’ave to know anythin’. Just ’and me things an’ keep quiet. Turn around,’ Nancy instructed me, leaving the basket on the bed and surveying my efforts so far. ‘Anyone would think you’d never put jumps on before. You’ve made a right pig’s ear of that.’ She tutted, unlacing the top.
