Primmy's Daughter

by Primmy's Daughter (retail) (epub)

  And if their love-making was slower and less frenetic that it used to be, it was none the less beautiful and emotional and so very dear to her.

  ‘Welcome home, my darling,’ she whispered silently into his shoulder, knowing that because of their self-enforced denial of their marriage, he must leave her before morning, but content enough to have the memories of this special Christmas night to hold on to.

  * * *

  Primmy had other ideas about the sense of her daughter keeping such a secret. Her Christmas letter didn’t arrive until the middle of January, and her words were crisp and to the point.

  “You’re completely mad, my girl. Your father and I can see no reason why there shouldn’t be a proper celebration of your marriage to Philip. Are you ashamed of it? With Mammie’s failing health, don’t you think she’ll be itching to acknowledge Philip as her grandson-in-law? Unless he’s not the paragon you’ve always led us to believe, of course – and knowing you, I can’t think that’s the case. So do the proper thing and bring it out in the open, Skye, while Mammie can still enjoy seeing the shock and disbelief on the rest of their faces at having known the truth of it all the time!”

  Reading her mother’s words, Skye laughed a little and wept a little, knowing she was right. But she wasn’t the only one to be considered. It had to be a decision that both of them made, and she questioned Philip seriously about it when she showed him Primmy’s letter.

  By then they had spent many hours in Philip’s rooms. The secret meetings produced their own excitement and eroticism, and his physical energy had returned to their mutual satisfaction, but Skye longed to be with him all the time. So far, their marriage had been a completely unnatural one, and they were still leading separate lives.

  It wasn’t right, and she still didn’t know how she had been patient enough to let it go on so long. By now Philip was of the same opinion. But once on a treadmill of deceit, it was hard to break away from it. And the timing had to be right.

  ‘Philip, what do you think about our putting an announcement in The Informer giving the date of our marriage? We’d have to tell the family first, but perhaps we could send them all a formal announcement card like Sebastian’s christening card, since there’s bound to be an uproar. What do you think? I know I’m being a chicken in not wanting to face them all…’

  She stopped, for wasn’t she making it sound more of a hole and corner affair than it was? As if she was ashamed? To her relief Philip folded her in his arms.

  ‘It sounds fine, and afterwards we’ll do the thing properly and hold a party at New World, with your grandmother’s permission. The Informer announcement sounds like a good idea to me, and you’ll know how to word it.’

  ‘That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about,’ Skye said carefully, pushing her luck. ‘I’m tired of doing nothing, and I’m wondering if David Kingsley will give me a regular column in the newspaper. What do you think?’

  She held her breath. She had been independent all her life, and never had to answer to anyone, but she needed Philip’s approval on this. Women were already doing all kinds of things they never used to do; driving army vehicles; working in munition factories; working on the land, not only digging potatoes and planting cabbages, but doing the heftier jobs that were once the men’s prerogative.

  Women were proving themselves, and the war had been the catalyst for that, the way war always made changes in people’s lives, she thought.

  ‘If it’s what you want, then it’s fine by me,’ Philip said now. ‘I’ll be taking up permanent duties at the college at the end of this term, and we can start looking round for a house after the April term finishes. Can you bear to wait until then to make it public?’

  Skye thought she could wait for ever, if it hadn’t been a contradiction to all her dreams. But at last they had a goal ahead of them, and she could wait a couple more months. She was sure David Kingsley would let her continue with the work she loved, if only on a freelance basis, and she and Philip would soon be together permanently. After April…

  Morwen approved of their decision, and the party was planned, with no special explanation as to why, though most of the family assumed that Skye and Philip were going to announce the date of their wedding. And not before time, some of them thought, seeing the passionate looks the couple could barely disguise even when they were in company.

  * * *

  In early March there was an unexpected visitor at New World. Morwen and Skye were waiting for Theo’s regular Monday morning visit, with the inevitable report of the minutiae of Sebastian’s progress, and a report on the clayworks. The spring despatches, so depleted now from the heyday of Killigrew Clay, had been safely sent north. They were holding water, just.

  Before Theo arrived, Skye and her grandmother were almost gleefully discussing how the rest of the family were going to take the shock news that Skye and Philip had been married before they went to France.

  It was a relief to be able to share the secret with her grandmother, Skye thought, and there was no one she would rather share secrets with – except Philip.

  ‘There’s a young person come to see you, Mrs Wainwright,’ the housekeeper announced. ‘He’s one of those American servicemen and he says he has some connection with your family. If you don’t feel up to seeing un, I’ll send him away wi’ a flea in his ear. I’m told there’s a lot of these so-called Doughboys in Truro now, and probably with nothin’ much to do, so they come bothering folk on the flimsiest excuse, if you ask me – and wi’ Mr Theo due at any minute, you’ve got a good enough reason to be rid of un—’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Arden,’ Morwen said, when she could get a word in edgeways. ‘If he’s one of Skye’s compatriots and far from home, then of course we’ll see him for a few minutes. Show him in, and bring us all some tea, and don’t be so cantankerous, woman.’

  Mrs Arden snorted. ‘I’m only thinkin’ of your best interests,’ she grumbled, leaving with a swish of her skirts.

  Skye laughed at her grandmother. ‘You do love to stir her up, don’t you, Gran? And she may be right. The soldier may be no more than a fly-by-night, trying to get a decent meal with a family instead of eating boring army food all the time.’

  ‘And he may not. If he’s meant to have some connection with us, I suppose he could be one of your brother’s acquaintances, so we should be on our best behaviour.’

  Skye groaned. ‘Lord, I hope not. Sinclair mixes with the stuffiest of Washington folk.’

  She stopped talking as Mrs Arden showed in the tall, rugged-faced young man wearing what she recognised as the American army uniform of a lieutenant. Skye certainly didn’t recall ever having seen him before, but he gave her an admiring glance as Morwen bade him sit down.

  ‘I apologise for intruding, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘But all my life I’ve heard about the Tremaynes and the Killigrews in this area, and it took quite a while for me to realise that a lady called Mrs Wainwright had any connection with them. It was your first name that did it for me, and when I discovered it, I plucked up my courage to come see you.’

  ‘Well, I assure you I’m not at all formidable,’ Morwen told him, waiting for more.

  ‘Oh, but you are, Ma’am,’ the soldier said. ‘At least, your reputation is, and if you’ll pardon my saying so, the young lady here is just how I imagined you to be when my grandaddy spoke of you and your family.’

  ‘Your grandfather?’ Morwen said, diverting his attention, when it seemed as if he couldn’t take his eyes of the vision of her granddaughter.

  She couldn’t blame him for admiring Skye. Now that her glossy black hair had grown long again, she was more beautiful than ever, which undoubtedly came from the fulfillment of her relationship with Philip.

  But there was something about this newcomer that Morwen couldn’t define, something that bothered her… some fey sixth sense that she had always been blessed, or cursed, with. And no matter how she tried she couldn’t dismiss the feeling.

  She didn’t know him, b
ut she supposed it could have been some acquaintance of her brother Matt who had gone to America all those years ago, who had mentioned the Tremaynes and the Killigrews and set him on this track of discovery when a chance billeting in a war had sent him to Cornwall.

  For a few disorientated seconds Morwen felt the room swim. It was almost as if she knew exactly what the stranger’s next words were going to be. He stood up, so that she was forced to look up at him, seeing his smiling face, the rather fleshy lips, and the dark gleam in his handsome eyes and she knew…

  ‘Forgive me, Ma’am, but I was so struck with the pleasure of finding you that I was forgetting my manners. My name is Lieutenant Lewis Pascoe.’

  Past and present came rushing together for Morwen in a single instant. It felt to her as if all the waters of the Atlantic were crushing her at that moment. As if she was one of those tragic victims in the Titantic disaster as the weight of pain threatened to crush her chest and take away her breath and her life.

  ‘Gran, for pity’s sake, what’s wrong? Please say something. Please don’t die!’

  She seemed to hear Skye’s panicky voice from a great distance. It sounded thin and shrill… it sounded like her friend Celia’s terrified voice, coming at her from another age. But pretty, foolish Celia had drowned long ago, in the milky waters of a Killigrew Clay pool…

  The thoughts in her head struggled to make some kind of sense, but it was difficult to think at all when she didn’t even know where she was. She thought she had been sitting upright on a chair, but now she was lying crumpled on the Chinese carpet, and four faces were staring down at her.

  Her tortured Skye, the anxious Birdie and the resident nurse who was feeling her pulse and thumping her chest, and a stranger she didn’t know… yet knew only too well.

  ‘What the devil’s going on here?’ came her grandson Theo’s roaring voice. ‘Get away from her, all of you, and let her breathe. She’s trying to say something.’

  He leaned over Morwen as the others backed away, hearing the authority in his voice. Even the nurse, resentful at him taking charge, stood silently now, after muttering that if her patient had had a stroke, then she was the best one to deal with it, and not some amateur quack.

  ‘A stroke? Is that what you think this is?’ Skye whispered to her in agitation.

  ‘Could be. The doctor would have more knowledge about that. Birdie, go and send for him – and fetch a blanket to cover her so she doesn’t get chilled,’ she ordered.

  ‘Right away,’ Birdie said, clearly distressed, but glad to get away from the reprimand in Theo Tremayne’s eyes. Nasty piece of work he was, and always had been, she thought savagely, as she pushed past the American soldier and rushed out to the telephone.

  ‘She’s coming round,’ Theo said. ‘Can you hear me, Gran?’

  ‘Of course I can hear you. I’m not deaf,’ Morwen’s voice said feebly. She tried to get up, but the nurse insisted that she stay exactly where she was until the doctor came.

  In the small silence that followed, accompanied only by Morwen’s ragged breathing, the soldier spoke directly to Theo.

  ‘Say, I’m real sorry if it was my visit that upset the lady in any way, Sir. It was certainly not my intention, and I only wanted to make contact because of family connections.’

  ‘Who the devil are you anyway?’ Theo said, never one to waste time on graciousness.

  The soldier drew himself up to his full height, towering over Theo, which Skye could see annoyed her cousin even more.

  ‘Lieutenant Lewis Pascoe, Sir—’

  ‘What! Pascoe, you say?’ Theo bellowed. ‘Don’t you know that’s a bastard name that’s never mentioned in my grandmother’s presence?’

  ‘Theo, how could he possibly know?’ Skye said nervously, appalled at the swiftness of his rage, and wondering from the way the ropy veins stood out on Theo’s forehead now, if he was going to be the next one to collapse. She knew she should recognise the name as well, but somehow she couldn’t.

  She had been told something about a man with that name that was too terrible to remember… it had to do with a visit she had made to the witchwoman on the moors, Skye thought desperately. But because of the narcotic drug old Helza had given her, and her own desire to forget, most of the horrific memories of what she had been told that day were as totally wiped from her mind.

  ‘Look, I’d better go,’ the soldier said, backing away. ‘The lady’s ill, and my presence is obviously not helping.’

  ‘Hindering, more like. And if you take my advice, you’ll stay well away from any member of the Tremayne and Killigrew family. You’re not wanted here,’ Theo said savagely, as Birdie returned with a blanket to cover Morwen who had regained a considerable amount of colour by now, to everyone’s relief.

  But Theo’s last words had obviously riled the soldier.

  ‘Why the hell not – beg pardon, ladies,’ he said angrily. ‘The Killigrews were my kin, and Mrs Wainwright’s first husband, Ben Killigrew, was my grandaddy’s cousin. Is this the way the Cornish folk treat strangers? I’d heard they were an insular race, but I hadn’t expected such a welcome.’

  ‘No one who bears that name will get a welcome here.’

  Morwen’s voice took them all by surprise. It was slightly stronger now, and almost venomous. She pushed aside Nurse Jenkins’ restraining hand, and propped herself up against the sofa where she had been sitting previously.

  Lewis Pascoe’s face took on a dark red hue, and Skye felt sorry for him. She didn’t know the full reason for her grandmother’s violent reaction to the soldier, but there was surely only one person who could produce this amount of hatred. She was slowly remembering the witchwoman’s tale of the girl who had drowned herself after being raped and left with a child. The witchwoman had told her more than she had gleaned from Morwen, or the old newspaper reports at The Informer, and it was all coming back to her now.

  The name too, was one she had seen before in the family’s tangled history. So this soldier had to be related to the man who had raped Morwen’s dearest friend. But to harbour such violent hatred all these years was frightening. Skye had never considered how such hatred could fester in a person’s soul for so long without forgiveness.

  But she had never known the closeness and friendship of two simple bal maidens who had lived in a very different world from the one she knew, and she conceded that too.

  ‘I’ll show you out,’ she said to Lewis Pascoe now, as he seemed unable to know what to do. It wasn’t his fault, and she felt a brief pity for him. He had apparently come here in all good faith, presumably knowing nothing about his namesake’s part in the turbulent family history she was still discovering here. To be met with such rage must be devastating to him.

  ‘I never meant to upset her so, and you surely must believe that.’ He told Skye in great agitation once they were outside the house. ‘You don’t sound Cornish any more than I do, Miss, but you must be one of the family, so do you have any ideas on it?’

  ‘A few,’ Skye said reluctantly. ‘But I never gossip about my family business.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to explain that it’s my business too. My grandaddy was Ben Killigrew’s cousin. His name was Jude Pascoe, and he went to America years ago with one of the lady’s brothers, Matthew Tremayne—’

  ‘So it was him,’ Skye said unthinkingly. She was completely shaken now, trying to unravel the truth of it all in an instant. ‘Matt Tremayne is my grandfather, so we’re – we’re sort of related, I guess.’

  She wasn’t keen to acknowledge it, after seeing the effect that his name had had on Morwen. Then she saw the doctor’s car approaching, and brought the awkward discussion to an end.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go inside now.’

  ‘But we must meet again. I feel that you and I have much to discuss, if only to untangle the mess that I don’t understand at all. Look, I haven’t seen these clayworks yet. Couldn’t we meet later – please? I have a boneshaker of a car, so maybe we could go see them toge
ther?’

  All Skye’s instincts told her to refuse. The guy’s hand was on her arm, and she didn’t want it there. He had a roguish look in his eyes that she didn’t like. He certainly wasn’t oafish like Desmo Lock, but she’d met his sort before. Charming, dangerous, sexually attractive… yet he was right. They both had a stake in this family, and there were still things neither of them understood.

  ‘I’ll meet you at Killigrew Clay around three o’clock this afternoon,’ she said swiftly. ‘Clay Two is deserted, and you’ll find it easily enough. Then we’ll talk to someone who may clarify things for us both.’

  She went into the house with the doctor, her heart beating sickly, still wondering why she had agreed to it. Philip wouldn’t like it, but then Philip wasn’t going to know. Morwen wouldn’t like it either, but there was no way she could question her on her reaction at present. And Skye had been born curious and questioning.

  But there was one person who knew everything. Her so-called witch-sisters had passed down the knowledge to her, and she would know why the name of Pascoe was so evil to Morwen. Helza would know, and she must be made to tell, without dulling the senses of her listeners as she had done so effectively the last time Skye had spoken with her. This time, Skye intended her brain to be clear.

  * * *

  ‘How is the lady now?’ Lewis Pascoe greeted her when she reached Clay Two that afternoon to find him already waiting.

  ‘The lady is my grandmother, and she is recovering,’ Skye said crisply. ‘But she suffered a slight stroke, and her speech has since become impaired.’

  ‘Say, I’m sorry to hear that—’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Well, of course! Do you think I intended this to happen? What kind of a guy do you think I am?’