The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story Read Free

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
.
    That was what she’d just written when Mrs. Davies called up. “Your young man is here, dearie!”
    “He’s not my young man,” Evelyn muttered under her breath. She set aside the notebook, threw on a cardigan—having found that a cardigan was always a necessity in Cornwall—and ran down the stairs.
    “Ready?” he asked. He was standing at the bottom of the staircase, holding a picnic basket.
He does have nice hair
, Evelyn thought. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, having a “young man,” as Mrs. Davies had called him.
    “Ready! Let’s go visit the dead.”
    The church was more interesting than she’d expected, and they did find some Morgans in the graveyard. “Gwynne Morgan, Morwenna Morgan, Trevor Morgan. They’re great names. I should write them down in case I ever have kids.” She walked among the gravestones. “Nothing after the nineteenth century. Well, that’s when they went to America, I guess. My great-grandfather arrived before World War I.”
    “I’d like to go to America someday,” Brendan said.
    “Would you? Why?”
    “For the adventure of it. It must be fascinating, living in a country where everything is new. Here, we’re still talking aboutGawan and Elowen. I hope you like the book, by the way.”
    “I do. Lots of gory bits, giants being disemboweled and all that. You know, if you ever do come, you could stay with me in Boston.” She felt almost shy saying it. After all, she’d known him less than a week. But he just smiled in a way that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. She was starting to like how he smiled, as though the smile were a secret he was sharing with her.
    That week, they went out with one of the boats and watched the men catch fish in enormous nets, with gulls wheeling overhead. She was proud that she threw up only once. They took long walks around Clews, visiting farms where they tried different cheeses. She helped him catalog books, and he laughed at how dusty they both became. As the days passed, she became increasingly conscious that her visit was ending, that she would have to return to Oxford and then fly home. She didn’t want to leave Cornwall … or Brendan.
    On her last day in Clews, they went to the nearby