The burial had been arranged by my uncle—my father’s brother—who had also inherited his estate. As a nun, I was debarred from any inheritance. I didn’t mind that, of course. What crushed me was never having had the chance to say goodbye.
I ran my hand across the smooth surface of Jack’s father’s stone, wondering if that relationship had been better, warmer, than the one I’d had with my dad. Things had improved for us after the bitter row we’d had over Dan. He hadn’t wanted me to become a nun—but he’d come to see me take my vows. He’d told me how proud my mother would have been. That had made me cry.
I stepped away from the tombstone. The one next to it was the same size and shape, but older. Lichen had grown in the crevices, making Jack’s mother’s name more difficult to pick out. She was Hermione Mary Foxton, Viscountess Trewella. She had died in 1910. I stared at the inscription. I didn’t know Jack’s exact age. I’d guessed that he was in his early thirties. The date suggested that his mother had died giving birth to him.
I went farther into the churchyard, to smaller, more ancient stones. Some leaned at precarious angles. Others had toppled over. Some were so worn the inscriptions were impossible to decipher. But I recognized some of the names Merle had mentioned when we were walking through the village. There were several Badgers, including a father and son who had both drowned during a storm at sea. An ancestor of George Retallack had met the same fate. There was another more recent Retallack gravestone: HILDA, MOTHER OF GEORGE AND MOLLY, HOUSEKEEPER AT PENHELIGAN. She had died the year before Jack’s father. As I read the inscription it dawned on me that this woman must be the person Rita had mentioned when she’d been quizzing me about Jack. Molly Retallack must have repeated gossip her mother had passed on about him having a secret wife.
“Alice!”
Jack’s voice made me jump. I hadn’t seen him coming across the grass. And if I had, I might not have recognized him. He was a vision of elegance, in a chocolate-brown double-breasted suit and matching fedora. A mulberry-colored silk tie with a paisley pattern was knotted precisely at the neck, with a handkerchief of the same design tucked into the jacket pocket. I felt a treacherous surge somewhere deep in my belly.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you.” He lifted his hat in a greeting.
“I . . . wasn’t sure if you’d be coming.”
“I should have left a note for you—but there wasn’t time.” He adjusted the fedora, pulling it down to shade his eyes. “I had to go away.”
I wondered where, and why, but he was already walking back toward the church. I followed him inside. There was a low door behind the pulpit, which he had to duck to get through. It led to a tiny circular room with paint flaking off the walls and three ropes hanging down through holes in the wooden ceiling. Jack took off his hat and jacket and hung them on a hook beneath a mildewed handwritten sign.
“What’s the drill?” He glanced up at the ropes. “Which one do we pull first?”
I was looking at the sign, trying to decipher the smudged letters. “The silencer’s on,” I replied. “We’d better have a practice before we take it off. You might want to tuck your tie into your shirt—it could get caught in the rope. You’ll probably need to roll up your sleeves, too.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” I caught the glint of tigereye cuff links as his hands went to his collar. While he was getting ready, I looked around for something to stand on. There were a couple of apple boxes by the door. I stacked them on top of each other in front of one of the ropes.
“What’s that for?”
“I need to be higher than you to show you what to do,” I replied. “If you stand on the other side of the rope, I’ll explain.” I stepped up onto the boxes. My chin was level with his nose. “Take the tail end of the rope and hook it over your hand. Grip it tight between your thumb and your index finger, then put both hands around this.” I pointed to the woolen grip, striped red, white, and blue, that encircled the rope at his eye level. “It’s called a sally,” I went on. “The idea is that you pull down on the sally, and when it shoots up, you keep hold of the tail end and pull the rope back down again.”
“That sounds easy enough.”
“It’s not as easy as all that.” I smiled. “It’s more about technique than strength. It’ll come to you with practice. But I’ll start you off. Ready?”