Carys peered over his shoulder. It was the same young woman, this time even more ornately dressed, gazing towards the camera and holding a baby almost extinguished in lace and ruffles, at arm’s length on her lap. Obviously just been dumped there by the nanny, or nursemaid, or whoever actually did the looking after of children in Victorian times, thought Carys wryly. The proud husband sat bolt upright in a vaguely military-style jacket, both hands resting on a walking stick, as if about to stride out to inspect his lands. Between them, a young girl, who appeared to be around twelve, bent over the baby, apparently trying to keep it amused.
‘They had just one child,’ said Margaret. ‘A son. The girl is Judith Treverick. She was twenty years or so younger than her brother, so she would have still been quite a child when he married.’
David looked up. ‘I thought Mr Phelps said there was no one to inherit Treverick Hall after William Treverick died?’
‘That’s right,’ said Margaret. ‘There wasn’t.’ She looked down at the photograph. ‘Not exactly a happy family, even then, I’m afraid.’ Her voice was thoughtful. ‘Where was it you said you come from?’ she demanded. ‘Not round here, is it?’
‘No,’ said Carys.
‘North Wales,’ said David.
‘North Wales.’ The guide’s eyes were alight with what could only be described as the joy of intrigue. ‘That’s a fair distance to come looking for someone. Like going to Australia for people in Victorian times.’
Carys caught David’s eye. She hadn’t thought of the logistics like that before. Driving down in a twenty-first-century car plus SatNav had taken long enough. Horse drawn carriages and steam trains. Not to mention an alien language and culture. Margaret was right: it would have been another world. This looked like a wild goose chase, after all.
‘So why are they here?’ she asked. ‘The pictures of the Trevericks. Is the museum going to put up an exhibition about them?’
‘Oh, no,’ replied Margaret. ‘Nothing like that. Jon Phelps would be mortified. She died here, you see. In the asylum.’
‘Who did?’ demanded David sharply. He had suddenly acquired the look of a man considering a rapid tramp over the next hill and down to Penzance, possibly following the coastal path right round to Plymouth at full pelt for the next few days.
Carys shoved the car keys deep into her pocket. Personally, she was staying put, whatever a Meredith chose to do in the cause of avoiding any issue that might be around the corner.
‘Ann Treverick,’ said Margaret. ‘She was confined here for most of her life. She went missing for a short while, according to the records, but she was brought back. And she died here. She can’t have been very old, poor thing. There’s a plaque to her in Treverick Church, but she’s buried here in the grounds.’
Carys shivered slightly. She looked again at the young woman holding the baby so stiffly. Maybe it was her imagination, but there seemed to be a blankness to the eyes that had previously gazed out with such self-assurance. And surely it had to be her imagination, but as she looked, it seemed as if the features of the young woman’s face began to resolve themselves into something that was, after all, familiar.
‘She was an accomplished artist, you know. Ann Treverick,’ said Margaret.
‘Oh?’ said Carys, meeting David’s eyes again.
‘Oh yes. That was a usual young lady’s accomplishment in those days, of course. But Ann Treverick was something a little more. Or at least she became so, in her time here.’ Margaret disappeared into the back room again, this time returning with two flat parcels protected in bubble wrap. ‘These were amongst the things brought in by Laura Phelps. Of course, no one can be absolutely certain, but Laura always swore they had been made here, in the asylum, by Ann Treverick.’
‘Wow,’ breathed Carys, as the bubble wrap fell apart to reveal sheet upon sheet of pencil-drawn portraits. As Margaret spread them out on the table, women’s faces of all ages looked out at them, some fierce, some resigned. A young woman, hair cropped short around her head, stared vacantly into space. An old woman with a face networked with fine lines and huge gnarled hands looked out at the viewer, a challenge in the direct gaze.
‘Pretty stunning, eh?’ said Margaret, proudly.
Carys nodded.
‘Ceridwen,’ muttered David, who was frowning intently at the portrait of the old woman.
‘What was that?’ demanded Margaret.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said David, sounding embarrassed. ‘It just reminded me of something. But it can’t be. It must be a coincidence.’
Carys followed his gaze. He was right; there was a slight resemblance to the statue of Ceridwen. But there was nothing of the wise woman’s exultant expression as she stirred her potion. And didn’t all old people tend to have a similar look to them, to young eyes, at least? The same sharpness of features and crumpled skin? The sketches of the inmates of Ketterford Lunatic Asylum did indeed have the same step-out-and-talk-to-you qualities as the statues in the little glade, but that didn’t mean they bore any other relationship to each other.
‘Would it be okay to take a couple of photographs?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course, dear. I don’t see why not. You’ll be able to photograph the drawings when they eventually go up on the walls in the entrance here, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t now.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carys, fishing out her camera.
David was still frowning at the portrait of the old woman. ‘Why was she put here?’ he asked, at last. ‘I mean, surely someone who was capable of making these couldn’t have been completely insane. At least not all the time.’
‘Now, that I don’t know,’ confessed Margaret. ‘People were placed in asylums for all kinds of reasons in those days. There are several stories among the older people of Treverick. The ones whose parents would have remembered her. But they’re all a bit ghoulish. Oh, I wouldn’t take much notice of them,’ she added, as David looked up at this. ‘Treverick Hall had been falling apart for more than a century. All kinds of stories grow up around places like that. It’s only human nature. As I said, we’ve only just had the time to start looking at these. I think someone from the Treverick Historical Society began to have a look for some real information, but didn’t get very far. And most of the records seem to have been lost from the asylum itself. It was a reform school for boys for years,’ she added, with disapproval. ‘Much of the old place got trashed, as my grandson would put it.’
‘Oh.’ Carys put down her camera. She had only photographed a few drawings, but it seemed more and more like another dead end, anyhow.
‘You might find some more information in the Celtic Studies Library in the Cornwall Centre in Redruth,’ suggested Margaret. ‘It’s not far from here. Between here and Truro,’ she added, as Carys and David looked at her blankly. ‘I’ve a leaflet here that’ll give you directions. Anyone can use the library, and they’re very helpful. They have most of the local newspapers for the past hundred and fifty years or so on microfilm. You might find something there.’
‘Thanks,’ smiled Carys. David was looking dubious again.
Margaret’s eyes gleamed once more. She bent forward in a slightly conspiratorial manner. ‘And, whatever they say, there is another Treverick, you know,’ she added, in a low voice.
‘Really?’ said Carys.
‘Oh, yes. Been in New Zealand. Only came back a couple of years ago. Didn’t half put Jon Phelps’ nose out of joint. Someone who still had a claim to the family name, that is.’
‘Oh, you mean someone now,’ said David, who was feeling slightly Victorianed-out, and had been waiting for a dark tale of murder, complete with Jack-the-Ripper and Sherlock Homes hanging over some boiling sea, as a group of smugglers brought in the brandy down below.
‘Oh, yes.’ Margaret nodded. ‘She came here once. Left her card.’ Margaret lifted a brightly coloured business card down from a notice board. ‘Runs one of these new local-grown-flowers businesses over near St Austell. Just outside the Lost
Gardens of Heligan. Ethical flowers for weddings, that sort of thing. She doesn’t seem to have shown much interest in the family history, but she might have something that’s been handed down. You never know.’
‘Thank you.’ Carys reached in her bag for a pen.
‘No, no, it’s fine. Take it with you,’ said Margaret. ‘She left a little pile of them. In fact, I’m not sure that wasn’t her main reason for popping in here. No one seems to remember her asking any questions about the family.’
‘Thanks.’ Carys smiled, placing the little card safely into the innermost compartment in her bag.
‘Well, and let me know if you find anything,’ said Margaret, as she turned to help a newly arrived family with two small boys, who were heading firmly for anything remotely related to Vikings, pirates and smugglers.
‘We will.’ David took a last look at the drawing of the old woman as Carys finished photographing the sketches.
With the family happily sent in the direction of ‘The Smugglers of St Ives Bay’ for the children, accompanied by ‘Daphne du Maurier’s Cornwall’ for their mother, Margaret turned her attention back to the drawings. ‘Wales, eh?’ She began to put the sketches back in their folder. ‘Funny that.’
‘Oh?’ said David.
‘Someone was asking about Ann Treverick, not so long ago. On the phone, they were. Didn’t say where they came from, but I could have sworn the accent was Welsh. We used to stay with my aunt in Betws-y-Coed when I was little,’ she added in explanation. ‘It was nice, hearing the old accent again. Never gave a name, and I never thought to ask. You never do, at the time, do you? Rather strange, it was. Something to do with statues,’ she added, folding bubble wrap around the folders once more and tearing off new strips of sellotape from the roll on her desk to secure it. ‘Ring any bells?’
‘When was this?’ demanded David.
‘Some time ago.’
‘Twenty years?’
She laughed. ‘Good Lord, no. Whatever made you think that? A year or so ago, maybe. No; maybe not that long. It was just after the museum opened. I’d only just started as a volunteer. Six months, perhaps? A year, at most.’
‘And they definitely mentioned statues?’ said Carys.
‘That’s right. It seemed such a funny thing to be asking about.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, it wasn’t just about them. It was about the making of them, and if there were any in the grounds. Of course, there are no statues here. I mean, I can’t see any of the women here being allowed anywhere near a hammer and chisel, can you?’
‘No, not at all,’ said David slowly.
‘It could be someone just researching statues,’ said Carys, as she followed the SatNav’s directions to the Cornwall Centre. ‘Ketterford doesn’t exactly advertise that it was once a lunatic asylum, and people ask museums all sorts of things.’
‘Bit of a coincidence,’ David muttered.
‘Just because someone speaks with a Welsh accent doesn’t mean they live in Wales now.’
‘Yeah. Right,’ he returned. ‘You don’t believe that either.’
Carys grinned. ‘Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind. And, anyhow, don’t you find it just a little bit exciting? I could get into this chasing down of clues, like a proper history detective. I don’t care if this Ann Treverick has nothing to do with Plas Eden at all. Now we’ve started, I want to know what happened to her.’
David smiled. He’d been vaguely irritated by traipsing from one place to another without it seeming to lead anywhere. And especially with blue sky and miles of cliff waiting there, all ready to walk. But this was Carys on a mission. Carys on a mission, he remembered, had always shown an unexpectedly stubborn streak.
He’d believed that side of Carys had gone, banished by the grown-up duties of career and mortgage. And he was, he had to confess, as he watched the green roll of the Cornish countryside pass by, rather enjoying having it back again. When Carys got the bit between her teeth, it was best to just lean back and go along for the ride. David relaxed into his seat feeling strangely liberated by the prospect of not being responsible for once. It felt almost like being a teenager again.
With the SatNav determined to take them down the narrowest and most winding lanes it could find, and an alarming tendency to go round in circles in the cause of following the shortest route, Carys concentrated fully on driving. This was more like it. She’d forgotten how much fun they’d had, the two of them, before hormones and the seriousness of life had kicked in.
When they’d been kids, the lawns and the cherry trees around the house – where Rhiannon could keep an eye on them – had become a jungle of dens and secret encampments. The neglected part of the house had been a world of mystery in itself. In summer this had expanded to major expeditions in the rowing boat, discovering dragons and America in equal measure, while remaining within shouting distance of home.
They’d tried their best to include Huw, but he’d squirmed at their more outrageous flights of imagination, preferring instead to build dams in the stream feeding the lake.
She missed that sense of life being an adventure. It was probably a sign of getting old and viewing the past through rose-tinted spectacles, she told herself with an inward sigh. She should get a grip before she landed herself into all sorts of trouble. Grown-up trouble. The kind that doesn’t go away with a sticking plaster and a slab of homemade chocolate fudge cake.
Once in the safer territory of urban streets, the SatNav came into its own, locating the Cornish Centre without fuss. David and Carys soon found themselves in the Cornish Studies Library, in possession of adjacent microfilm readers.
‘So what, exactly, are we looking for?’ whispered David, as they scrolled their way through separate years of the Treverick Times, captured for eternity on microfilm.
‘No idea,’ replied Carys. ‘Anything to do with the Trevericks, I suppose.
‘They seemed to have judged plenty of flower shows and opened their fair share of fetes,’ he complained.
‘Trust you to go straight to the Lord of the Manor stuff,’ she retorted, forgetting to whisper. A couple of fellow researchers looked round at this, but appeared more amused than irritated. Clearly taking this exchange as a lover’s tiff, thought Carys, fighting the sudden colour down from her face. She glanced at David. But he was deep in the petty thievery and advertisements for tooth powder of Victorian Cornwall and seemed not to have noticed. Apart from the faint smile on his face. Male vanity, thought Carys, trying to be indignant.
Just for a moment, her mind went back to Joe. A subject she had been almost-successfully keeping out of her mind since they had left Chester. She could just see him settled into his new office in central London and already at the centre of things. And no doubt smiling that gentle smile of his at the young women around the water cooler.
Damn all male vanity. Even if it was nothing to do with her any more. It was still close enough in her memory to be personal.
She turned back to the microfilm, determinedly focussing on scanning the lines of newspaper print and grainy photographs. They would, they had agreed in the car, work in opposite directions from the date Margaret had told them Ann Treverick had been first admitted to Ketterford Asylum. Carys had bagged going backwards, on the principle that it was her idea in the first place and there was more likely to be information before the time of Ann’s committal. Apart – as David had pointed out – from the fact that she was supposed to have escaped from the lunatic asylum for a while, and that sounded like a story in itself.
Several hours of fruitless searching later, Carys was feeling decidedly cross-eyed, and not a little hungry. The centre was busy, and once in possession of a microfilm reader, it seemed uncharitable to abandon it for more than a quick dash to the loo.
‘Anything?’ she murmured to David.
He blinked and shook his head. ‘Not a dickybird. There’s plenty of mention of William Treverick, and a couple of his sister opening things. But nothing about anyone call
ed Ann. Or the asylum. I suppose they wouldn’t exactly have broadcast the fact that she was there. Or that she had left. Or escaped, for that matter. Especially not if she escaped. And definitely no mention of paintings, drawings, or statues. What about you?’
‘The same. Apart from nothing really about Judith Treverick. I suppose she’d have been too young in these ones to open things. It’s weird. It’s as if Ann Treverick didn’t exist at all.’
David yawned. A couple of students, of the vaguely Goth variety, had walked past the now fully occupied microfilm readers at least twice in the past ten minutes, with meaningful glares in the general direction of the occupiers of the chairs. Tough. They were probably local and could come back tomorrow, and anyhow there was a sign telling all and sundry of the need to book your reader to be assured of one. All the same, the glares were a reminder of just how long they had been sitting there.
‘Ten more minutes?’ he suggested. ‘Then perhaps we should go and get something to eat. I don’t think my eyes will take much more. We can always book a couple of readers and come back tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Carys. Her brain had stopped taking in information she realised, as she came to the end of yet another year. She began to scroll through faster, trusting her eyes would pick up any mention of the Treverick name, or that the image of the Hall would catch her eye. She could always go through more systematically tomorrow.
When it came, she nearly missed it. She shot several pages forward before she could stop and retrace her tracks, not quite certain where the headline had been. Or even if she had read it correctly. Then there it was. ‘Dreadful Events at Treverick’, accompanied by the familiar view of Treverick Hall. Carys settled the page in front of her on the microfilm and began to read.
She was still sitting there, unmoving, when David finished with his reader and came to join her.
‘Carys?’
‘I’ve found her,’ replied Carys, her eyes still on the screen. ‘Ann Treverick. It’s all here, in the article.’
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