© 2012 Theodora Goss
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2011933427
eISBN: 978-1-59474-557-7
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Illustrations by Scott McKowen
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Quirk Books
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
First Page
Dedication
By the time Evelyn arrived at the inn, she was tired, dirty, and hungry.
“You must be Miss Morgan,” said the woman she assumed was Mrs. Davies, the innkeeper’s wife. “It’s late you are, dearie.”
Evelyn slapped her credit card down on the counter. She had no desire to explain that, through a series of misdirections, she’d ended up on the wrong train and had taken a bus all the way from Portsmouth. A very slow bus that had broken down twice. And the first time, while she was walking around waiting for the man who was supposed to change what was described as a blown gasket, she’d stumbled into a ditch, which explained why her jeans were caked with mud up to the knees. The schoolchildren on the bus had found that very funny, particularly because she was an American. When she told them she was from Boston, they’d asked if she knew any of the Celtics.
“I’ve given you the room at the front, dearie. You’ll be able to smell the sea. And shall I bring up supper? I’ve saved you some apple pasties.”
Whatever apple pasties were, they sounded like food. “Yes, please,” Evelyn said. She picked up her backpack. Mrs. Davies picked up the duffle bag and led her up a narrow flight of stairs. The room at the front was small, but it had a bed piled high with a comforter and pillows. A bed, thought Evelyn. Why didn’t anyone tell me how heavenly a bed can be? By the time Mrs. Davies returned with a plate of apple pasties and a glass of hot milk, she was already asleep.
The next morning, Evelyn woke to the sound of gulls. The window was open, and she could indeed smell the sea. She hadn’t smelled it for several years, since the last time she’d gone to Martha’s Vineyard with her family. Lately, she avoided those family vacations. Too many relatives asking when she was applying to law school. They all assumed she would join her father’s firm. He’d already offered her a position at Morgan & Leventhal, LLP—where he could keep an eye on her.
There was a knock on the door. “Are you awake, dearie?” Evelyn answered in the affirmative, and Mrs. Davies entered, carrying a tray. “I thought you might like a real Cornish breakfast. Unless you’re one of those Americans who just drinks coffee?”
Evelyn was not one of those Americans. Evidently, a real Cornish breakfast consisted of thick slices of toast, dripping with butter and honey, two eggs, and the best sausage she’d ever tasted. The tea was strong and sweet.
After a long bath in a claw-foot tub that must have stood in the small bathroom for the last hundred years, with hot water that was really and truly hot—the water in her dorm at Oxford had never, ever been hot enough—Evelyn felt human again.
“I was thinking of exploring the town,” she said to Mrs. Davies after running down the stairs, quite differently from how she had trudged up them the night before.
“Well, Clews is a fairly small town,” said Mrs. Davies doubtfully. “I don’t know that we have much to excite a young person like yourself. You can go down to the harbor and watch the fishing boats, although at this hour most of them are already out to sea. And there’s a church that’s been around since Norman times. And of course there’s Gawan’s Court. That’s what most tourists come for.”
“I’m not really a tourist,” said Evelyn. All semester at Oxford, she’d felt like an outsider. She didn’t want to feel like an outsider here. “My family comes from here. Came, almost a hundred years ago. The Morgans.”
“Well, then, you’ll want to look at the churchyard,” said the man in overalls who had just come in. He must be Mr. Davies, Evelyn thought. “That’s where all the genealogy people go. You might find your ancestors there, miss.”
“Oh, please, call me Evelyn,” she said. “Is anyone else staying here?”
“Just you, miss. It’s not quite the season, you know. The wife and I were surprised to hear from a young American visitor wanting to stay for a week.”
No more surprised than Evelyn had been to make the telephone call. It had been right after the conference with Professor Lambert. She’d gone back to the dorm room, lain down on the bed without taking off her jacket, and stared up at the ceiling.
“What in the world happened to you?” her roommate Chloe had asked. Chloe was actually Lady Chloe Spencer-Morecott, although she was the least ladylike person Evelyn had ever met.
“He said I should write about something other than fairies.” She could still hear Professor Lambert’s words. Poetry is about what’s real, Miss Morgan. Not this fanciful nonsense.
“Idiot,” Chloe had said. “Even Shakespeare wrote about fairies.”
“Yeah, but he’s an idiot who’s also poet laureate. Maybe my dad’s right, and I should go to law school.” You’re so imaginative, Evie, her mother always said, and not approvingly, either. It seemed as though no one wanted her to be imaginative, not her mother, not Dr. Birnbaum, not Professor Lambert.
“You know what you need?” Chloe said. “To get away from Oxford. You have another week before you fly home, right? Pick someplace and just go. It’ll be good for you.”
The thing about Chloe was, she was usually right. So Evelyn had picked a place and just gone.
Why had she chosen Cornwall? Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that her father’s family had come from Clews. Later, she would go to the graveyard to see if any Morgans were buried there. But this morning she wanted to walk anywhere her feet would take her.
She borrowed a map of the town from Mr. Davies and started out, first down to the harbor to watch the water lap against the sides of the boats that had not gone out that day, the men making repairs or shouting to one another about things she couldn’t understand, things that no doubt had to do with fishing. Then she walked up the main street, past the pub and the shops selling tobacco, knitting wool, antiques. She stopped to look into the window of the antiques store, at the china dogs and silver spoons and a collection of walking sticks. That was when she saw it, reflected in the window: THORNE & SON, BOOKSELLERS.
When she opened the door of the bookshop, a bell rang, but no one appeared. All she could see were shelves from floor to ceiling, old wooden shelves that looked as though they’d stood there for at least a century, filled with books. Not modern best sellers or the latest cookbooks or decorating manuals. These had leather spines, with the titles stamped in gilt, or the sorts of cardboard covers that had once been popular, with the illustrations embossed right on the surface. Even the few paperbacks on the shelves looked old, their covers decorated in art deco style.
She picked one of the leather-covered volumes off a shelf and held it up to her nose. Yes, there it was. The intoxicating smell of old books. It was one of the reasons she’d wanted to study literature rather than attend law school.
“Were you looking for something specific?” He was tall, wearing a faded T-shirt and jeans, more like a fisherman than someone she would have expected to find working in a bookstore. She noticed thick brown hair that was overdue for a cut and rather nice eyes.
Evelyn stepped back, startled. “I’m sorry. Here.” She handed the book to him. “I was just looking at it.”
He grinned. “You’re allowed to look at the books, you know. This is a bookstore.” He gestured toward the shelves, then said, “I gather you’re not from around here.”
She laughed, partly with relief. “What gave me away, the accent?”
“Yes, and I already know all the pretty girls in Clews. Where are you from, then?” She could feel herself start to blush. How embarrassing. It wasn’t as though she never got compliments. Although they were rare. The boys she’d dated at Harvard hadn’t exactly been romantic types. But she wasn’t about to let him know that.
“Boston. And no, I don’t know any of the Celtics.”
He laughed. “Have you seen the town yet? I imagine you have, if you’ve been up the main road. There isn’t much more to it than that, except Gawan’s Court.”
“Mrs. Davies mentioned … what is it called?”
“So you’re staying at the Giant’s Head. Not that there’s anywhere else to stay in Clews. Come on, then. It’s only a couple of miles. Are you up for a bit of a hike?”
She was, but hesitated. “What about the store? Won’t you get in trouble for leaving?”
“The store will take care of itself. It’s off-season anyway. No one comes to Clews in the off-season.” Except crazy Americans, thought Evelyn. That was exactly the sort of thing her parents would worry about. If they knew she was here, they would call Dr. Birnbaum, ask if she should go back on the medication. “Anyway, Dad’s in London at an antiquarian book fair. I’m the son, of Thorne and Son. Brendan Thorne, at your service.”
“Evelyn Morgan. All right, where is this Gawan’s Court, anyway?”
It was on top of a hill. By the time they had climbed the steep path Evelyn was breathing hard, although Brendan seemed barely affected. For the last part of the climb he had to help her, pulling her by the hand. “You’d get used to it, if you grew up around here,” he said.
Evelyn concentrated on trying not to slip. She could imagine the headline: American Dies Trying to Climb Hill in Cornwall. What would her mother say? That’s just the sort of thing Evie would do. She never thinks about whom she might inconvenience. Imagining her mother’s voice, speaking to the other members of whichever fund-raising committee she might be lunching with that day, Evelyn almost laughed aloud. But then there they were, at the top of the hill.
“Oh!” she said. The first thing she saw was a circle of standing stones. They were twice as tall as she was. Most were upright but some had fallen over, with grass growing up their sides. Beyond them she could see the sea, sparkling. It was perfectly quiet, except for birdsong.
“There’s a legend about this place,” said Brendan. She could tell he was pleased by her reaction. “Once, when Arthur and his knights were feasting at Camelot, a lady arrived at his court. She was Elowen, queen of Cornwall, and she told Arthur that her country was plagued by giants. She asked if any of the knights of the Round Table were brave enough to ride with her to Cornwall and fight them. The giants were aided by a sorceress named Morva, daughter of Magill, the chief giant. Most of the knights were willing to face giants, but what could a knight do against a sorceress, they wanted to know? However, Gawan, who had fallen in love with Elowen at first sight, volunteered immediately. They fought the giants together, for Elowen was a sorceress herself. Most queens seem to have been, in those days. To protect Gawan from Morva’s sorcery, she gave him a suit of magical armor made of green metal shaped like leaves.” Brendan sat on one of the fallen stones. “Am I boring you?”
“Not at all,” Evelyn said. “I took a class on medieval literature at Oxford. We studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but this story sounds different.”
“Oxford, is it?” he said. “Very impressive.” Evelyn sat on the stone beside him. Both pretty and impressive! Well, she was getting it with both barrels today, wasn’t she? She couldn’t help smiling. “Yes,” he said, “it’s different. This story was written in Cornwall around the thirteenth century. It’s a sort of long poem in medieval Cornish. It was translated into English in the nineteenth century, but it’s still largely unknown outside this area. My dad used to tell it to me when I was a boy.”
“So, what happened? Did they win?”
“Oh, they won, all right. The giants gathered on this hill, surrounding Gawan and Elowen. Gawan fought bravely, but even he couldn’t conquer them alone. Finally, fearing that he would be defeated despite his magical armor, Elowen cast a spell. It was the strongest she had, and it turned the giants to stone. Then Gawan lopped off their heads. One is supposed to have landed in Clews, right where the Giant’s Head stands today. There’s a rock in the garden that Mrs. Davies claims is the giant’s head itself. But after lopping off all those stone heads, Gawan noticed that Elowen had collapsed. The spell had taken all her strength, and she lay dying. She promised him that they would be together again, that death could not defeat their love. But Morva had fallen in love with Gawan as well, and she was unaffected by Elowen’s magic. Upon seeing them pledging their love to each other, she shrieked with anger and cast her own curse: Elowen could not be with the man she loved for a thousand years. With her last breath, Elowen told Gawan that she would be with him again after the thousand years had passed:
Have patience, love, and we shall meet again
As surely as wild roses have their thorns
For weary years eventually pass.
It’s not a great translation. Very Victorian.”
“That’s terrible!” said Evelyn. “Not the translation, I mean. The idea. A thousand years!”
“Well, at least she’d know he truly loved her, after that.” Brendan looked out toward the sea, a serious expression on his face. Oh, so he was one of those romantic types!
“I suppose,” said Evelyn. “Still, who wants to wait around that long for a boyfriend?”
“Oh, you’re a cynic! How American.” He stood up. “Come on, I’m going to take you to the pub for some real Cornish cider.”
“That’s not American!” she said. “That’s just … me.” She stood too and looked around one last time at Gawan’s Court, with its circle of standing stones. It had definitely been worth the climb.
Evelyn worried that she was spending too much time with Brendan. Hadn’t she come to Clews to rest, or to find herself, or something like that? Instead, she seemed to be losing herself. And, despite how much she disliked her father’s worrying, the way he always tried to protect her from the world, she knew that losing herself was not something she wanted to do—not again. Although she hadn’t had an incident for years …
That was what her mother called it: an “incident.”
It had started when Evelyn was a child. One day, she had told Consuela, the maid, that she saw fairies in the garden. Small green and brown things, with wings like an insect’s. Her mother had dismissed it as childish imagination. But, as Evelyn had grown older, she had continued to see them: women with long leafy hair who lived in the trees, a man in the river who looked at her with fish eyes. The more she came to understand that no one else saw them, the more frightened she became. She’d been eight years old the first time her parents took her to see Dr. Birnbaum. He’d prescribed the medication, and it had made the fairies go away—until she was fifteen and no longer taking the medication because he’d decided that she had probably grown out of whatever it was. One day, a teacher at Wallingford, the girls’ school Evelyn was attending, had found her sobbing in the bathroom, insisting there were trolls in the forest around the school. That time, Dr. Birnbaum had sent her to the hospital. She’d stayed there a week. When she got back to school, all the notebooks in which she’d written poetry, sketching trolls and fairies in the margins, were gone. You’re so imaginative, Evie, her mother had said. I think it’s time you focused on the real world, don’t you?
She’d focused on the real world of high school, and then Harvard. When she’d told her parents th
at she wanted to study literature, her mother had stared at her with obvious disapproval, and her father had asked if she’d considered international relations. But there had been no incidents since. Dr. Birnbaum had even taken her off the medication again. She’d never tolerated it well. It had always given her nausea, and she was glad not to have to take it anymore, glad that the whole ordeal was over. “If you’re under stress, come see me,” he had told her. “Otherwise, live a normal life. All right, Evelyn?” That’s what she was trying to do, live a normal life. She just wished people would stop worrying about her.
Brendan had given her a copy of The Tale of the Green Knight, the Victorian translation of the story of Gawan and Elowen. The book had a green cardboard cover with a pattern of vines embossed in gold. The translator was the Right Rev. Ewan Tregillis, and on the title page was the date 1865. Brendan had been right, it wasn’t exactly great poetry. But it was fun to read, or at least more fun than the other books in her room: the King James Bible and Bird Watching in Cornwall.
She found herself reading it when she wasn’t out with Brendan. One morning, while waiting for him to pick her up for a tour of the Norman church and its graveyard, she opened a notebook she’d brought with her, jotted GREEN THOUGHTS at the top of the page, and began to write.
For the first time since Gerard Lambert, poet laureate, had told her that her poetry was fanciful nonsense, she was writing a poem. A rather long poem in the form of a dialog: Gawan speaking to Elowen, and Elowen speaking back. About being reborn at different times in history, coming together but never being able to stay together. Always, something would separate them. Always, they would long for each other, call to each other across the years.
(Gawan) When my hands reach
into the darkness, do they find your hands?
Or do they close on air?
(Elowen) Reach into the darkness,
my beloved. I am there,
even if you cannot feel that I am there.
The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story Page 1
