Rosmerta found that the overwhelming smell of toast dispelled any concerns she might have had about William knowing precisely what food would bring her the most comfort. She was given a seat at a broad, polished table and from the depths of the building was delivered of two doorstops of bread slathered with butter and jam.. The old lady who brought the food was wizened in the way that old women are in fairy tales, and as Rosmerta’s day had already taken on slightly surreal tones she saw nothing significant in that fact. Both women watched each other with a mild wariness that indicated neither was comfortable with the situation in which they found themselves.
The toast was too good to be disturbed by questions, so Rosmerta waited until she had munched her way through both slices before turning her serious attention towards the old lady.
“I got lost,” she said by way of an introduction, “out on the moor. I was heading for a place called Jamaica Inn, but must have taken the wrong road. The mist came in and I eventually stumbled on this house. Are you William’s…” She trailed off, not wanting to say grandmother in case the old lady had been a late starter were boys were concerned, but not wanting to say mother either in case that sounded ridiculous to the old woman.
“Housekeeper,” Mrs Fitzroy supplied. “I’ve been housekeeper to the Rashleighs this past fifty years. William, and his father before him.”
“Oh, and you like living out here? I suppose you must to have stayed for so long.”
Mrs Fitzroy regarded her carefully and for a moment considered telling this complete stranger that she hated Bodmin Moor and every inch of its rough, inhospitable ground. How she would gladly have swapped it all for a nice cosy flat in Truro, or something comfortable out on the Scilly Isles. How she would have loved to watch television, have a nice dinner and then pop out to the bingo with a like-minded friend, instead of mopping up after some of Master William’s accidents in the cellars and constantly having to cope with his fear of everything in the world. She pursed her lips and looked into the young woman’s penetrating eyes.
With a sigh she said, “Aye, my dear, that I do. Wherever Master William is, I am happy as a sandpiper.”
It wasn’t overly convincing, but Rosmerta did not have the chance to question her further because her host made his reappearance. He strolled into the room, leaving a faint smell of Dettol in his wake and took a seat opposite her.
“Mrs Fitzroy is taking care of you, I see,” he said quietly.
“Very much so,” Rosmerta replied, sweeping the last few toast crumbs from the corner of her mouth with her tongue. “She was telling me how much she liked it here.”
“Yes, yes.” It was apparent he was not interested in whether Mrs Fitzroy liked it on the moor or not as he immediately dismissed her from the room with a wave of his hand. Alone, he seemed to grow slightly more animated, and even managed a smile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a crocodile.
“I have never met a witch before,” he began, his hands resting palms down on the table before him. “I know all about your kind, of course. When one spends so long alone one reads a great deal. The library here is diverse and old, bursting with texts that one could consider fantastical if one had not spent a lot of time understanding them. Your wand, is it really as powerful as the texts say? Can it perform true magic?”
“Well,” she began, shifting uncomfortably,” yes it can perform magic, but it needs a witch or wizard to do the charm or spell. And we can’t do magic in front of Muggles.” She thought of Nigel ruefully and wished she had kept to that particular rule. “The Ministry will know and I’ll get into trouble.” Again, she thought of Nigel and wondered if the Ministry already knew about that.
“Wonderful!” he enthused, clapping his hands together. “Muggles and the Ministry, I never thought I would hear such things spoken of. Tell me, where is your Ministry?”
“It’s in London.” She could feel herself getting slightly bored. She didn’t want to talk about the Ministry, or magic for that matter.
“London.” The way he said it gave her the impression that he didn’t go to London much. Only someone unfamiliar with the capital could have spoken of it so reverentially.
“Yes, London. So, what do you do for a living?” She had an idea that it must be pretty well paid to pay for the set up he was living in.
“I work here,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “I make things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Machines.”
She blinked at him. “Machines could cover a lot of things. Can you be more specific or is it secret, like military machines?”
“It’s not military,” he said, permitting himself a small smile. “It’s more new things that haven’t been made before.”
“An inventor!” She snorted at the very idea of this other-worldly man inventing anything of use, and in that respect she was almost entirely correct.
“Yes, an inventor,” he said with a nod. It was a proud nod, because now that the thing down in the cellar was working, he felt he had every right to be proud. “I have an invention in my workshop at this very point in time, one which I have successfully demonstrated.” Demonstrated was perhaps a rather understated way of putting what had actually happened, but it would have to do.
“Really? And what does this invention do?”
“Oh, things, you know.” He waved his hand around, as if stirring the air would make everything clear. “Now, do you intend to stay the night because if you do I can have Mrs Fitzroy make up a bedroom for you. I’d advise an overnight stay if you wish to make it back to the road safely. The mist seldom clears until the following morning once it has descended in such dark degrees. One of the delivery men may even give you a lift back towards the Inn on the morrow.”
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay with this mysterious man for any length of time, however she could not deny that the mist outside was extremely frightening in its intensity, and William Rashleigh did not look dangerous. Devilish, perhaps, but not dangerous.
“If it’s all right I think I would like to stay until the mist clears. I don’t want you to go to any trouble, but I have no way of getting back now that ““
“Now that?” He looked at her as if suddenly realising that he had missed an important part of her story thus far. “How did you come to be alone out there?”
“I had an argument with my ex-boyfriend.”
“Your ex-boyfriend? May I presume that he was not an ex prior to the argument.”
“He left me, out on the road. Drove off in his car. Actually, it wasn’t even his car, it was his dad’s.” She was gradually coming to the conclusion that the whole Nigel thing had been a big mistake and she should have stuck to Wizards, or even slightly odd Muggles like the man before her. She wasn’t really the woman for plain, simple souls like Nigel.
“What a complete rotten egg,” he said with some feeling. “Leaving a woman out on a day like this is the behaviour of a Neanderthal.” There was something in the way he said the word Neanderthal that suggested he had some first-hand experience of the matter. “Well, my dear, you will be safe here tonight. And perhaps, “he added, “tomorrow we can talk a little more about your magic.”
She wasn’t sure about the idea of discussing magic, but the safe part of the sentence sounded perfectly good to her.
Once the decision was made, William became surprisingly efficient. He ushered her from the dining room into a less formal room with a large window that faced out into the beginnings of a garden. The space beyond the few rosebushes below the window was lost to the grey mist, and she had to be content with the interior for something to look at. He had left her with a dainty teapot full of steaming liquid and the instruction to make herself at home, which she did by reclining in the most comfortable looking chair and picking up a newspaper that had been left on a small table by the door.
The steady ticking of the clock, the tedium of the day’s news and the warm tea made her feel drowsy and her eyelids dragged downwards. Slipping happily into the arms of Morpheus, she was unaware of anything until a shriek and a panicked voice woke her.
In her sleepy state she could almost have sworn that the voice had cried out something about a soldier in the cellar. But that couldn’t have been right, she thought, as her senses slowly returned, because the voice had almost certainly said a cavalier soldier. Running footsteps could be heard outside the door, swiftly followed by further shouts of alarm, and then to her horror the door opened and a figure strode into the room looking vaguely bemused.
The huge plumes in his hat nodded fretfully as he addressed her.
“Madam, permit me to ask, what madness is this?”
She blinked a few times, taking in his outfit, his long, curling black hair and the fact he had a sword drawn and pointing in her direction.
“I’m not sure,” she muttered, “but I think we are probably about to find out.”
William almost threw himself into the room and then drew up short at the sight of the weapon.
“Ah,” he spluttered. “Yes, unexpected consequences, going off on itself like that. Not supposed to happen at all. No idea why, but, erm, well. What a pickle!”