‘So, who are the Trevarrons, now?’ I wiped away a tear and stood obediently as she began lacing up the jumps, adjusting it vigorously. I was trying to orientate myself in this new timeline, but, like the new undergarments, it would take a while to get used to how things were here.
In truth, I was trying to keep a brave face, but it was hard. The jumps felt like they were the only thing holding me together at that moment, quite frankly.
I was so exhausted and worn out from everything that had happened in 1755, all I wanted was to go to bed, pull the covers over my head and have a good cry. But I couldn’t do that; this was Nancy’s house, and she was being kind enough to help me. Itwould have been rude of me to disappear upstairs and wail my head off, though that was pretty much all I wanted to do.
‘Well, there’s Lord Albert Beresford Trevarron and his wife, Lady Hermione Trevarron, and their daughter, Violet. Slip of a thing, she is. She’d be, what? Twelve, now? Something like that,’ Nancy mused. ‘Lord Trevarron’s a bit of an arse, but aren’t they all, really? Lady Hermione’s nice enough. The maids say she’s kind. And that he’s a bit too free with his fists. I’ve heard that Lady Trevarron sometimes spends days in her quarters. Too bruised up.’ Nancy clicked her tongue with disapproval.
‘That’s terrible.’ I was shocked to hear it, but I’d also seen behind the beautiful façade of high society now, and I knew that there was no shortage of brutality in the upper classes.
‘What the lords and ladies do behind closed doors is no different to the common brawlers in the ale houses. Only difference is, they own what they own, an’ eat their dinner off silver plates. I’d rather be me, alone. At least there’s no bully ’ere to blacken my eye whenever he feels like it.’ Nancy finished lacing me up and turned me around, giving me a look up and down. ‘There. Much better.’
Nancy and I caught the omnibus into Tintagel, cramming aboard a large carriage. I found myself sitting next to an elderly gentleman with bushy white sideburns named Sid, who took off his cloth cap as he got on the omnibus, nodding politely to Nancy and I and letting us take our seats before he sat down himself. Nancy sat on my other side, her hands resting on the handle of the basket in her lap, and conversed quietly with the people around her; they seemed to all know her, and as she chattered with them, I could see that she was well-liked.
It was strange, following the same country roads I’d taken with Aunt Bill as a child, from her cottage and past Trevarron, which had been derelict in my day, but was whole and active now. An eerie feeling descended on me as we passed the stonegriffins on the top of the gateposts at the end of the drive. I felt that they were watching me.
I still had no idea exactly how the time portal worked. Did I appear suddenly out of nowhere, flying through the air? Or did I phase in and out of vision, vaguely, like a mist, before I became fully formed? Was I semi-invisible and then whole? I had no idea.
When we reached Tintagel, Nancy jumped down neatly with most of the other passengers, then held out a hand to help me off the omnibus. I climbed down carefully, paranoid that I’d trip over my long skirt and fall face-first into the dirt.
Standing on the small high street was a very odd experience. This was the third time period in which I’d witnessed Tintagel, and it was incredibly strange to think about how it looked in the modern day – full of little tourist shops selling crystals and ice cream, fudge and Cornish pasties – compared to how it had looked in 1755, and how it was now.
The ale house that I had walked into in 1755 – where I’d seen William De Vere Trevarron win a bare-knuckle fight – was still there, but it was called something different. It had been called something like The Red Lion, then – I couldn’t remember, actually – but now it was called The Coachman’s Inn, and the windows were different.
Along the street, there were now a number of cosy-looking little tea rooms, a book shop that boasted leather-bound editions of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’sIdylls of the King– his poems about King Arthur, partially set in Tintagel, which would have come out by now, I realised – and the walkway down to the castle was now signposted. I remembered that, mostly because of the poetry of Tennyson and retellings of the Arthurian legends like Sir Thomas Malory’sLe Morte de Arthur,the Victorians had embraced the romance and adventure of the Arthur myth, and started visiting Tintagel Castle in droves. In William’s day, there hadn’t been much interest and the castle – which was just ruins, and had been for so many hundreds of years – was relatively untouched, visited only by crows and hawks.
‘We’ll pop in ’ere for a cuppa first, maid.’ Nancy led me into one of the tea shops and, once inside, untied her brown shawl. ‘I always comes to see Nettie first. We’ve been friends many years, an’ I always gets the news from ’er.’ She blew her nose neatly in a cream cotton hanky, then folded it and put it in her pocket.
I nodded, and followed Nancy’s lead. The tea shop was quaint – small, with about six round wooden tables and chairs, the windows steamed up from the inside. At the back, two ladies in white mobcaps and pinnies over brown dresses busied themselves with large tea urns. There was a wooden counter, upon which there were a couple of plates of buns.
‘Nettie, my dear. ‘Ow are you?’ Nancy went to the counter to catch her friend’s eye. I followed, feeling like an obedient dog. ‘If you’re busy, I’ll come back later.’
‘Nancy, my love!’ Nettie looked up from what she was doing and beamed at us both. ‘Is it Thursday already? ‘Ow time flies.’ She walked around the side of the counter and planted a kiss on Nancy’s cheek. ‘I’m well, thankee! Don’t apologise – it’s an excuse to get out of that furnace! ‘Ow are thee?’
‘I’m well, thankee, Nettie. May I introduce my cousin Tegan?’ She indicated me next to her; I bobbed a curtsey. I knew enough now to know that a curtsey never went amiss, whatever time you were in – as long as it wasn’t the modern day, when it would have been weird.
‘Hallo, miss. Excuse me if I don’t shake your ’and. Up to my elbows in bun-makin’ today.’ Nettie chuckled. She had a warm manner; I liked her immediately. ‘Now, I’ll take some of your honey, if you have it, Nancy. An’ there’s a table of girls what want their fortunes read, over there.’ She inclined her head to a table of three young women wearing smart gowns and hats, sipping from delicate little cups. ‘Tourists, but what can you do? They want the Cornish pellar experience, I’m told.’ Nettie rolled her eyes surreptitiously.
‘Right you are. I’ll get to them in a bit.’ Nancy surveyed the group keenly, then turned her attention back to Nettie. ‘Shall wehave a cup of tea first, though? I feels poor Tegan and I could do with it, after our trip on the omnibus. Dear Sid Trenoweth sat next to us, an’ bless his socks, but I don’t know when the man last washed.’
‘Ah, you poor dears. Tea, comin’ up.’ Nettie beckoned us in beyond the counter and I followed her.
I looked around me at the kitchen area we’d come into. There was a hearth, but the main feature was a huge cast-iron range stove. I wanted to go over and stare at it, but I didn’t dare. However, it was a piece of fascinating mid-Victorian craftsmanship and I didn’t know if I’d ever seen anything like it before.
It had a variety of beautifully embossed doors and pull-out grilles, with a flat iron surface top where a number of large pans bubbled and steamed. Above the cooking top there were more doors and what I assumed were cupboard spaces to store food or implements. The whole thing was the size of a small car. I wondered how on earth it had even been installed in the tea shop kitchen.
Nettie pulled out a couple of chairs at a varnished wood kitchen table in the centre of the room. She turned to a young woman who stood at one of the work surfaces, kneading dough. ‘Melza, my precious. Make Nancy an’ her cousin a cuppa, will ye? We can ’ave a break, seein’ as the pellar’s ’ere. Clarrie can mind the shop.’
Melza nodded, patted the dough she’d been working into a round, put it into a bowl and covered it with a cloth. Then, she went to the cast-iron stove and lit one of the hobs under a kettle. I sat down at the table, grateful for the hard wood under me. My leg was jiggling with tension and my heart was racing.
‘Now, then. Let’s ’ave a catch up.’ Nettie sighed as she sat down in one of the high-backed wooden chairs, the same dark wood as the long table. ‘Nancy, how are your folk?’
‘They’re well, thankee.’ Nancy nodded, politely. I got the impression that the two women were dispensing with the formalities.
‘Good. Can’t say I recall you mentionin’ a cousin…’ Nettie looked curiously at me.
‘My aunt’s child. From Penzance. We don’t see much o’ them.’ Nancy had constructed a basic cover story back in the cottage. There was no reason for it not to work as long as we stuck to it. ‘Bad blood.’
‘Oh. You don’t have to tell me about that.’ Nettie sighed. Melza brought a tray of cups to the table on a tray with a jug of milk and a large teapot. In 1775, the maids had drunk beer. By the time of the mid-Victorian era, I knew that tea was much more popular. ‘My sister, Sheba. Gone off wi’ one o’ the Cullen lads. No one’s ’eard from them for weeks. Always was a selfish mare, she was. I don’t mind for me, but our mum’s climbin’ the walls. At ’er age, she’s not fit for the worry.’
