‘This mist can be confusing,’ he says, his accent lilting and softly Welsh, taking the hard edges off his words and giving the slightest hiss to each ‘s.’ ‘And you were running very quickly.’
‘I run most days,’ she tells him.
‘At such a speed? My goodness. How wonderful to be so strong and nimble. My own running days are over, I fear,’ he adds, and then, with a broadening grin, ‘unless I was being chased by something, of course. I like to think fear could still lend wings to my heels.’
Tilda tries to read the expression of this stranger.
What did he see? Did he see those … people, too? Does he know I was running away from them?
She cannot decide whether this notion makes her more anxious than the idea that the trio in the boat was the conjuring of her own imagination alone.
‘I…’ She hesitates; she cannot discuss what she has seen, what she thinks she has seen, with this apparently sensible, normal person. He will think her mad.
Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am losing my mind.
The man’s voice cuts through her thoughts.
‘Are you quite all right?’ he asks. ‘Forgive my saying so, but you look a little upset.’
Tilda shakes her head and tries to pull herself together. This is her new home, where she will have to live with her neighbors. She does not want them writing her off as the loon on the hill just yet.
‘I’m fine, thank you. I think I overdid it a bit, that’s all. Made me a little … light-headed.’
‘Strong, sweet tea. That’s what my late wife would have recommended.’ He raises his walking stick, pointing into the mist along the path behind him. ‘We are very close to my house; won’t you come in for a moment? I’m a poor cook, but I am quite capable of brewing a reasonable pot of Darjeeling.’
‘Oh no, thank you, I couldn’t possibly…’
‘Of course you couldn’t, what was I thinking? I haven’t even introduced myself.’ He offers her his hand. ‘Professor Illtyd Williams, local historian and keen bird-watcher, resident of the Old School House these past thirty years. Delighted to meet you.’
Tilda manages a weak smile. ‘Tilda Fordwells, ceramic artist, resident of Ty Gwyn cottage about five weeks.’ She takes his hand and shakes it in what she hopes is a firm and sensible way.
‘Well, there we are, then,’ says Professor Williams. ‘Now that we are acquainted it seems only good manners that we take tea together.’ So saying, he turns and begins to stride out with surprising vigor.
Tilda hesitates, hearing her father muttering about not taking sweets from strangers, but then reasons that this gentleman must be eighty years old at least, and is, after all, a neighbor, not a stranger. And besides, she is still unsteady, shaking a little, and there is something so very comforting in the thought of tea with this real and sensible person. On top of which, the idea of returning to the cottage, of more time alone, does not appeal to her. Not yet. Ordinarily, she welcomes solitude but this morning has not been ordinary. Tea, no doubt out of china cups and accompanied by light conversation, is possibly exactly what she needs.
In less than a minute they have reached the stile and climb over it to step onto the lane that winds up from the lake. The tarmac feels firm beneath Tilda’s feet, and with each passing moment she begins to doubt what she saw, to find it easier to believe that the mist and the eerie light were playing tricks with her feckless eyesight and overwrought mind. The narrow road takes them past the church and immediately to the little dwelling next to it. Even as a newcomer to the area, Tilda can see that Old School House is unusual, and not built in the conventional architecture of the region. It is constructed of the same blue-gray stone as the church and is roofed with slates, but there the similarities cease. Every window, up and down, is mullioned and set in deep sills. There are pointy arches above the front door and the door set in the wall to the side. The house is approached via a little iron gate and a short path that leads through the most flower-filled garden Tilda has ever seen. Climbing roses scramble up pergolas and walls, as do wisteria, clematis, and jasmine. Even so late in the year and so early in the damp day, the air is filled with the aroma of flowers. Fine examples of hydrangeas and mock orange bushes vie with all manner of shrubs for space between the low wall that runs along the lane and the front of the house itself. Tilda can see that the garden continues around and behind the cottage, with tall and ancient trees to the rear adding shelter and shade and a sense of an enclosed and secret place. A place of beauty, of peace, and of safety.
‘Come in, come in.’ The professor drops his stick into an umbrella stand and drapes his coat over it. Tilda wriggles out of her waterproof running jacket, hands it to him, and then pulls off her muddy sneakers. ‘The sitting room is through there,’ he says, waving a hand at a door to their right. ‘You make yourself at home and I’ll make tea.’ With that he disappears into what Tilda assumes is the kitchen and soon she can hear a kettle humming and china being put on a tray.