Primmy's Daughter

by Primmy's Daughter (retail) (epub)

  ‘What is it?’ Skye asked nervously. She might have felt an almost mystical sense of continuity moments before, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to sense what she saw in Albie’s face.

  ‘You’re so like her,’ he said at last. ‘You have the same mixture of spirit and serenity that she had. The same as my mother, Morwen, had – still has. And that glorious hair… I never expected… most young women these days wear their hair up, and it gives a certain hardness to their features. Primmy never did that. Primmy was always so beautiful, so natural.’

  As he rambled on, unable to stop, Albie was horrified at hearing his own voice becoming clumsy and embarrassed. Knowing he must sound now like an awkward adolescent to this sophisticated girl from New Jersey, instead of the middle-aged and acclaimed artist that he was.

  ‘Please don’t go on so,’ Skye said with a shaky laugh. ‘I assure you Mom wears her hair in a very sophsticated style nowadays, and the good dames of Mainstown who go to hear her piano recitals wouldn’t have her any other way.’

  ‘And she still plays just as sensitively as ever, I’ll bet,’ Albie said.

  This was safer ground, but he turned away before Primmy’s beautiful daughter could guess at the torment he had gone through when she left for America with Cress. It was right and proper that it had happened the way it did. They had been so much in love, and he had been glad for them both that things had turned out well for them. And he had found Rose, and fallen in love himself.

  But some things never diminished, never died. Love was like that, and the artist and the poet in him knew that neither time nor distance could change it. And he had loved Primmy in a way not even he had understood until it was too late. By the time he did, he had thanked God that it was too late. Because not for the world would he have destroyed her innocence.

  But now here was Skye. Here was Primmy. And it was a cruel God who could do this to a man, Albie thought savagely. Testing him once, and now testing him twice.

  ‘Are you two going to poke about down there all day?’ came Rose’s prosaic voice. ‘Bring Skye’s things upstairs, Albie, and let her get settled in. She can see all your arty stuff when she’s had a cup of tea and one of my fruit scones.’

  The uncle and the niece smiled at one another, and the fey moment passed.

  * * *

  Later, having had her fill of fruit scones, rich with thick Cornish cream and Rose’s blackberry and apple jam, Skye felt as though the studio was stifling her, and she knew she had to breathe some fresh air. She told her hosts she would just love to take a stroll during the evening, since Primmy had told her how she and her father had once gone on a tripping boat all the way down the river, and then spent the afternoon lying in the grass and discovering their love for one another.

  ‘I hope I’m not being indiscreet and breaking a confidence, but Mom said you and she always shared everything, Uncle Albie, so you probably know all about it anyway,’ Skye said apologetically.

  ‘Well, sometimes it’s good to be reminded,’ he said without expression. ‘But we’ll take a stroll after tea if you’ve got your land-legs back. Rose won’t come. She doesn’t care for walking. But you’ll be interested in seeing our cathedral and the new college, I’m sure, being a bit of an academic yourself.’

  Skye laughed a little shrilly. ‘Oh, just because I send my work to a busy magazine office, I wouldn’t give myself such a grand title. And anyway, I’d far rather see the river.’

  But in the end, Rose did decide to come with them. Skye wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not. She felt a great and unquestioning affinity with Albie, feeling as if she had always known him. But Rose… Rose was an outsider. She wasn’t a true Tremayne, nor a Killigrew, nor a Wainwright…

  She registered her thoughts with something like panic. She was the outsider, for glory’s sake! She was the one who had to establish her identity with this large family, who didn’t know her at all.

  But she dutifully took a great interest in everything she was shown, knowing now why her mother had loved this town so much. This city, she reminded herself. Knowing just how a renegade brother and sister who didn’t have the remotest interest in the family clayworks business, could set up their own establishment well away from St. Austell. Knowing exactly that feeling of wanting to be independent, and not tied to the past, because it was just why she had insisted on striking out on her own in the commercial writing world.

  So why on earth was she here? She suddenly asked herself. Here, where the past was all around her, and there was no way she was going to escape it.

  By the time they had done the riverside walk, then retraced their steps to stroll around the town in the evening air, like so many others were doing on this mellow evening, Skye was beginning to feel very tired. The very air here was soft and somehow draining. And she had been travelling for a long time.

  And now she had seen Boscawen Street and the impressive frontage of the Red Lion Hotel that her mother thought such a landmark; the Lemon Quay where the river boats departed from; the lovely light-grey stonework of the cathedral that made a town a city; and glimpsed the university.

  And despite her resolve, Skye knew that all the time they walked, and the many times they were stopped while she was introduced to various folk as Primmy Tremayne’s daughter from America, her eyes were searching for a tall figure with rugged, intelligent features, who belonged to somebody else.

  ‘Have you seen enough yet, Skye?’ Rose asked her.

  ‘I think I have for the time being,’ she told her aunt gratefully. ‘I pooh-poohed Uncle Albie’s remark about getting back my land-legs, but now and then I feel as though the motion of the ship is still beneath my feet, and it makes my head a little dizzy. Is it normal, do you think?’

  She was talking quickly, to cover her momentary gloom. There was no changing fate, and if fate had thrown Philip Norwood her way and then decided to take him away from her, so be it. And that was the craziest thought she had had yet!

  ‘It’s quite normal, and a well-known phenomenon,’ Albie said, tucking her hand in his arm. ‘A good night’s sleep will set you right, my love, and we don’t want to tire you out on your first night here.’

  As they walked back to the studio, Skye spoke determinedly.

  ‘Look, you’ve both been wonderful to me, and I do thank you, but I feel I should go and pay my respects to Granny Morwen as soon as possible now. Tomorrow, I think.’

  It was odd how she had so wanted to see this place above all, since it was where her mother and Albie had shared such a Bohemian life, by all accounts – and she was sure she had never learned the half of it – but now she couldn’t wait to get away. And Rose wasn’t urging her to stay.

  ‘Quite right, my dear. Morwen will be anxious to know you’ve arrived safe and sound, and we’ll take you to New World whenever you say. You’ll know that they have the telephone installed there now, and so do we, of course, for business purposes. Not that you can ever hear anything properly on the scratchy thing. But I think Albie should speak to his mother this evening to let her know you’ve arrived.’

  ‘Naturally I will,’ Albie said. ‘You don’t need to remind me of my duty, Rose.’

  Not for the first time, Skye sensed the small feeling of animosity between them, and yes, it was time she left. At one time she had thought she might stay here for days, perhaps weeks, absorbing her mother’s past. Now, somehow, she knew she never would. You couldn’t live someone else’s past.

  But the mention of the telephone had directed her thoughts elsewhere. She knew where Philip Norwood would be. The college would surely have such modern methods of communication, and if she ever needed him she only had to pick up a telephone and ask to be connected with him.

  If she ever needed him… she felt her heart miss a beat and then race on at the thought. Needing him was something she knew she must never do, but it was a poignant sort of comfort to know she could contact him if she was desperate.

  What in pity’s name was wrong with her? she
thought later, as Albert asked the operator for his mother’s telephone number, and waited for them to be connected.

  She had had gentlemen friends before, and her parents had seen nothing wrong in her enjoying the company of both sexes. But never had she felt so gauche and out of sorts as she did now. And the sooner she got away from Truro and all its past memories and futile longings, the better.

  Albert handed the telephone to her with a smile.

  ‘Your grandmother wants to speak to you, Skye,’ he said.

  She took the instrument, aware that her hands were shaking. Aware that this piece of crackling, mechanical equipment was about to bridge the generations. They had written to one another many times; exchanged photographs; learned much about one another; but they had never heard one another’s voice.

  ‘Granny Morwen?’ Skye said, oddly husky.

  Chapter Five

  Morwen put the telephone receiver back on its hook, her hands shaking slightly. Silly old fool to get so het up over hearing a voice, she told herself. It didn’t even have the remotest touch of a Cornish accent. The accent was quick and bright – after the initial huskiness – an accent that was similar to Ran’s. But, that apart, the voice still had more than a touch of Primmy in it, her darling Primmy…

  She gazed into space, looking somewhere where Birdie couldn’t follow, and the pragmatic companion gave a loud sniff. For all that she was Cornish-born, Birdie didn’t have a fey bone in her body, but she could respect the fact that other folk did, providing it didn’t send ’em off into the realms of fantasy.

  And seeing Morwen’s pale face now, she decided there was no time like the present for a drop of brandy. Knowing there would be no objection, she went to the decanter on the side table, to pour them both a tot.

  ‘She’s come, then,’ she stated, rather than asked.

  Morwen started. ‘Yes, she’s come, and she’ll be here tomorrow, so tell Mrs Arden to make sure her room’s ready.’

  ‘What’s to do? The room’s been ready for days, as you very well know, and no amount of fussing and fretting over it will make it look any cleaner,’ Birdie said tartly.

  Morwen gave a slight smile. ‘You’re a hard-hearted woman, aren’t you, Birdie?’

  The woman gave a grimace that was meant to be a smile, not taking offence. ‘That’s as mebbe, but I’m also a practical body, missus, and not so soppy as some.’

  ‘Yes, well there’s times when a bit of soppiness never hurt anyone. And if you can’t feel a bit of a heart-tugging over seeing a grand-daughter you’ve never seen since she was a babby, then when can you? I just wish—’

  She stopped abruptly. For one wild, impossible moment she had been going to say she wished Skye’s natural grandparents could have been here to see this day.

  Sam, her adored brother Sam, and Dora, his wife – and the two of them having been dead for nearly half a century now… Morwen’s face whitened still more at her own stupid thoughts, and she gave an unconscious shiver as if she was looking at her own mortality.

  ‘Hand me that brandy, you old goat,’ she went on roughly to Birdie. ‘I’m in dire need of a warming. And this is a celebration, so let’s look cheerful and not as though the world was falling in on us.’

  ‘You won’t be saying that if all the rumours be true,’ Birdie muttered, turning away. But not before Morwen had heard her. She may be old, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing, nor her senses.

  ‘You’re not going on with these scare-mongering war stories, are you?’ she said in exasperation. ‘I tell you, ’twon’t happen, and don’t you go alarming Skye with your nonsense. I want no such idle talk while she’s here.’

  ‘Oh? And I thought you were meant to be the one wi’ the second sight,’ Birdie mocked her.

  ‘I never professed to have it, nor wanted it, and if I did, I’d be sure and keep such thoughts to myself, and not scare everyone in sight with such talk,’ Morwen snapped.

  Sometimes, just sometimes, she thought, she could wish Birdie Hawkes back where she came from, on the borders of Cornwall and Devon, which was practically upcountry. But she immediately retracted the thought, just in case wishing could make it come true. Her friend Celia had always believed that it did… and she didn’t really want to lose Birdie.

  They frequently rubbed each other up the wrong way, and her stuffy preacher son Luke thought it appalling the way Morwen allowed the other woman to bait her. But they suited one another, and that was all that mattered. And they sometimes behaved particularly badly whenever Luke was around, just out of cussedness.

  Morwen switched her thoughts. She supposed she had best let the rest of the family know that Skye had actually arrived in Cornwall now. They would all want to meet her – well, probably not her brother Jack and Annie and their girls, who lived somewhere on the Sussex coast now, and never came home to Cornwall.

  They had moved as far away as possible after the death of their son, transferring their thriving boat-building business, just as though a different location could take away any of the hurt and the memories. Morwen could have told them all about the futility of that, if they’d cared to listen.

  But they were hardly family any more, she thought, with a sense of sadness. They didn’t keep in touch, except for sending an obligatory card at Christmas. So she could discount them. But the rest…

  She was glad Skye had gone to Truro first of all, knowing how Albie had been dying to meet Primmy’s girl. Rose might not have been so keen, she thought, knowing how possessive Rose had always been over Albie, even to the extent of being pointlessly jealous of all the years Albie and Primmy had shared at the studio.

  But now they had already met Skye, and would be bringing her to New World tomorrow. She mentally ticked off the other names in her head, knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  ‘Find me my book of telephone numbers, please, Birdie, and then you can ask for the numbers so I can let the family know she’s here.’

  She began the calls, knowing she would be exhausted by the end of them. Walter and Cathy were naturally delighted at the news, and promised to be here after supper the following evening. The welcome party was as good as planned, Cathy told her, exhausting her immediately… Theo would surely come with them tomorrow evening, Cathy added, providing he didn’t have anything else planned, and giving the neatest excuse on Theo’s behalf.

  ‘I knew Cathy wouldn’t waste any time over this party,’ Morwen said drily to Birdie. ‘She was always an organiser of the social graces, just like her mother.’

  Preacher Luke Wainwright was unavailable at the present time, his housekeeper said grandly, giving him his full title, even though she knew very well who was calling. He was out giving comfort to a dying parishioner, but she would be glad to pass on the joyful message when he returned home.

  ‘Pompous loon,’ Morwen muttered when she put the receiver back. ‘The pair of them would make good bedfellows – or at least, they would do so if Luke was that way inclined.’

  Birdie laughed, and Morwen laughed with her. There was no one else in the world that she could make such outrageous remarks to now, but sometimes it was good to forget that you were the part-owner of one of the biggest china clayworks in the county, and remember that you were once a young bal maiden, running wild and barefoot across the moors, and as cheeky and free with your words as any kiddley-boy.

  God, how she sometimes wished you could go back, she thought, with a sudden ferocity that shook her bones. To be young again, and full of the spirit and vivacity that everyone knew was in Morwen Tremayne.

  ‘All right, so who’s next?’ Birdie’s voice broke into her useless dreaming.

  ‘Charlotte and her brood. I doubt that they’ll want to visit until the party, but we’ll let them know in advance what Cathy’s arranging. Skye will be glad to meet Charlotte’s girls. The rest of us will seem like ancients to her.’

  She hadn’t thought of it like that before, and she didn’t want to think of it now. But true to expectation
s, Charlotte said she would be in touch with Cathy and they would all certainly want to be at the reunion.

  ‘’Tis hardly a reunion, since none of ’em have ever met the maid before, is it?’ Birdie said, pedantic as ever.

  But by then, Morwen was tiring. She didn’t like the telephone and never had. It was alien to her, even though she often thought you could sense folks’ feelings from their voices, even when you couldn’t see their faces. Sometimes their words said one thing, while their tone said another.

  ‘Just one more call,’ she said. ‘I’ll write to Bradley and Freddie, because I don’t suppose we’d prise them away from their beloved horses. But I want to speak to Emma.’

  She waited with fond anticipation while Birdie asked the operator for the number of the farm. Emma was the youngest of the Wainwright brood, and living over Wadebridge way. Morwen’s sweet, ethereal Emma. As a child she had always seemed only on loan to her.

  But she couldn’t have been more wrong. And now Emma was a strapping, red-faced farmer’s wife, and devoted to her pigs and sheep in place of the children the couple never had. And another surprise was that the brawny farmer husband, Will, was quite besotted with his flower-beds and glass houses.

  At the spring shows where they sold their livestock for a pretty penny they also displayed their daffodils and herbs, and made a handsome profit on them.

  Morwen still found it incongruous that two country folk with such fat, sausage-fingers, could tend such delicate flowers and produce such glorious blooms.

  ‘Emma, ’tis me, Mammie.’ No matter what the rest of them called her, to Emma, at forty-three, she was still Mammie. The world might change for the worse or the better, but in that respect, Emma remained the same. It cheered Morwen’s heart to know it.

  ‘Mammie! We were just talking about you, and wondering when you were going to give us the news. Is she here yet?’