Primmy's Daughter

by Primmy's Daughter (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’ll be there right away,’ he said abruptly now.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need. Tomorrow—’

  But by now Philip was talking to himself, and the connection was lost. Besides, who was he to determine who came and when? It wasn’t his place. He was just the man who had married the granddaughter.

  But he had known Morwen long enough to respect and love her, and he wouldn’t be ashamed to weep for her. When you had seen men scream in agony on the battlefield, shared their pain and wept with them, you disregarded any thought of shame.

  Skye came down the stairs slowly while he was making the last of the telephone calls. The baby sat heavily and awkwardly inside her now, with only a few weeks of her pregnancy left, and she looked tired and lifeless.

  ‘The doctor’s arrived, and he and Nurse Jenkins are seeing to the things that have to be done,’ she said, more composed than he had expected her to be.

  He drew her into his arms, but aware that he was holding her too tightly as he felt the intrusion of the baby between them. He made to pull away slightly, but she held him fast and shook her head.

  ‘No, just hold me. You won’t harm him. In fact, it was the strangest thing…’

  ‘What was, darling?’ he said gently, as she faltered.

  ‘Moments after Granny Morwen had gone, I was leaning over to kiss her goodbye. The baby went rigid and then kicked furiously, right against Gran’s body, and just for a second I thought…’ she swallowed hard, ‘I thought she was the one who moved, that she hadn’t died at all, and it was all a hideous mistake. Isn’t that absolutely stupid and terrible?’

  She suddenly went limp and then she was sobbing in his arms. ‘Oh God, I’m going to miss her so! And don’t start telling me she’s at peace now, because I know all that. She’s at peace all right, but the rest of us aren’t! We all have to go on without her.’

  ‘But not without her legacy, sweetheart, and I’m not being insensitive or facetious. Her legacy is in the family she left, and in the clayworks she fought so hard to keep going against all the odds. There are a great many people who have cause to thank God for the life of Morwen Wainwright. And not the least of them are the men who had the good fortune to marry the Tremayne women.’

  Skye’s mouth shook at the words, said with such simplicity, and accepting that his logical mind could put everything into such beautiful perspective, however temporary the relief of it all.

  ‘Have I ever told you I adore you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Frequently, but I never tire of hearing it,’ he told her. ‘Now let’s sit down quietly while I tell you who’s likely to come to the funeral, and who sends their regrets.’

  ‘Jack and Annie won’t come,’ Skye said, her thoughts diverted at once to the practicalities, as he intended. ‘Freddie and Bradley should, if they’re not too busy. All the others will come, and thank God Mom and Daddy are here. I couldn’t have borne it without them. But it’s sad that Grandpop Matt couldn’t travel from California in time, even if he was well enough, and Gran will miss him sorely—’

  Her eyes widened in distress, realising she had been referring to Morwen at that moment. Philip kissed her cheek.

  ‘So she will, but she’ll also understand,’ he said.

  ‘Then you really think she’ll know?’

  Philip hedged. ‘I don’t think this is the time for a theological discussion, Skye. I simply think we each have to believe what our heart tells us to believe.’

  Primmy and Cress came into the room before she could probe any further. Her mother’s eyes were red with weeping now, but she was still calm. And a short while later Luke arrived, pressing everyone’s hands in turn.

  Skye presumed it was his normal way of dealing with bereavement. Cold fish, she thought. Even now.

  ‘I’ll just go and see Mother, and then we’ll start discussing the arrangements,’ he said, as if this was an ordinary visit and an everyday business occurrence. And so it was, as far as he was concerned, Skye conceded.

  * * *

  The funeral was as large and well-attended as anyone could wish for, Charlotte said with satisfaction after the event. Clayworkers had turned up from every pit in the vicinity, young and old, and a few of the older ones could still sigh over the vivacious girl that Morwen Tremayne had once been.

  Some had memories of the lovely young bride of Ben Killigrew, and the way the couple had selflessly taken in the three children of Morwen’s dead brother Sam; others recalled the strong-willed wife of Ran Wainwright who had stood by her man and defied the threat of a flashily-dressed woman clay boss wanting to take over the works, and the husband as well.

  Tributes had poured into the house on Morwen’s account until New World began to smell like a floral hot-house, and was quickly starting to make Skye feel nauseous. But she knew they couldn’t remove any of the flowers until after the family feast and the will-reading that followed the burial.

  ‘It has to be done, and folk will be wanting to get back to their own affairs,’ Theo had said shortly, when Skye exclaimed that the arrangements seemed to be happening with indecent haste. ‘Life goes on for the rest of us, and your own folks will be wanting to book a passage home, I daresay.’

  ‘They will not!’ Skye snapped, hating his insensitivity. ‘They’ll stay to see their grandchild born.’

  ‘Oh ah, I suppose they will. It’s a good thing it’s hanging on until we get this performance over, anyway.’

  * * *

  ‘I hate him!’ Skye raged to Philip later. ‘Uncle Walter was always brusque, but he was a fair man, and never as horrible as Theo.’

  ‘He’s right, all the same. How would you feel, my love, if the baby had started to arrive before Morwen was buried, and you’d been confined to bed all this time? You would have been more upset than ever. You’d have been embarrassed at the joy of seeing our baby come into the world, and you’d have been upset at not being able to grieve with the rest of them.’

  ‘Oh, you’re always so damn logical, aren’t you!’ she raged again. And knowing that he was right, and read her thoughts too well, didn’t help a bit.

  But something else was plaguing her that she couldn’t even tell Philip about. She shivered, knowing she was giving too much credence to something she had once read, but unable to stop herself. The belief that putting fears into words brought them too much into the light, giving them shape and form and possibility. Pagan belief.

  Someone with a logical mind – like Philip’s – would scoff and say that bringing fears into the open and sharing them was the best means of dispelling them. But in her dark mood, she still couldn’t tell him what she feared the most.

  Ever since the day Morwen died, when she had felt the baby kick so vigorously inside her, she had felt nothing. There was no movement at all, no sudden, heart-stopping lurchings to remind her that he was anxious to be born… and she was too terrified of what the inactivity might mean to confide in anyone.

  * * *

  The will-reading held no surprises at first. The lawyer intoned all the monetary bequests to the family members, with no favouritism. All Morwen’s children and grandchildren received handsome bequests. The bulk of her shares in Killigrew Clay were left to Theo, as expected, now that Walter was gone, with minor proportions for her brothers Matt, Freddie and Jack.

  In her own words, she stated that although they had little interest in the clayworks now, they should still share in the profits, and there were murmurs of assent in the well-filled drawing-room. There was a handsome bequest for Birdie, her stalwart companion, who snuffled her way through the entire day.

  ‘To my granddaughter, Skye,’ the lawyer went on, ‘I leave the house known as New World, in the belief that she will care for it as I did. This will come as no surprise to the rest of the family, and I wish them all to show her goodwill. But one last bequest to Skye is an equal share in the pottery venture with my grandson Theo, since no one else has shown the slightest interest. I also leave her my diaries, to do with
them what she will.’

  Skye gasped, resisting the urge to glance at Philip with a great effort. Morwen had once told her about the diaries, but she hadn’t thought about them for years. In an instant, she remembered Philip’s idle comment that one day she should write a novel based on her family’s fortunes. Distressed, she pushed the thought away at once, because this wasn’t the time to be thinking of such matters. She didn’t know if she could even bear to open the diaries at all. Certainly not yet, while she was still grieving for Morwen, if ever…

  When the will-reading came to an end, the lawyer told Skye he would bring the diaries to the house whenever she was ready. At present they were in a safety box in his Bodmin chambers, and without a second thought, she quickly told him to leave them there.

  But when he had gone, Primmy kissed her daughter, and spoke thoughtfully.

  ‘I knew Mammie had started recording everything long ago, though she never showed any of it to us, Skye. But you’re obviously the one she trusted most to have the diaries.’

  ‘Trusted?’ Skye echoed. ‘That’s an odd word to use.’

  Her Aunt Emma hovered near, and added her thoughts.

  ‘No, Prim’s right, Skye. There’s some who would use them to their own advantage, selling bits of information or raking up old scandals.’

  ‘Careful, Aunt Em,’ they heard Theo’s mocking voice nearby. ‘You’re talking to a wordsmith here, so don’t go putting ideas into her head!’

  ‘You know I thought far too much of Granny Morwen to ever sell her out,’ Skye whipped out.

  For once, his wife put in her spoke, however mildly.

  ‘I’m sure Theo meant no such thing, Skye,’ Betsy protested. ‘But we all had great regard for your grandmother, and no one would want to see her words spilled out for folk to pick over. It’s quite right too, that you should be in partnership with Theo in the pottery.’

  ‘Be quiet, Betsy,’ Theo said less than pleasantly, as if he thought she was putting even more ideas into Skye’s head.

  She wasn’t sure he was as pleased about their so-called partnership as Betsy seemed to be. To her relief, no one else seemed overly concerned about her involvement in the proposed venture, though her first thought had been that her extra bequests could easily cause a major family upset.

  But the very last thing she wanted was to make capital out of the diaries. She told her husband and parents so, when the rest of them had finally gone, and the interminable day was drawing to a close. She may have thought about it once, but now that the opportunity was here, she knew that everything had changed.

  ‘It makes you wonder why she made such a point of leaving the diaries to you, though, if she didn’t want folk to know the history of it,’ Cress said thoughtfully. ‘Why didn’t she just burn them?’

  ‘You don’t burn your past,’ Skye said without thinking. ‘It would be like burning a part of you.’

  ‘So perhaps she really did intend you to use them in some way?’ Cress persisted.

  ‘And perhaps she just wanted me to read them and understand how we all came to be the way we are. Daddy, I just can’t talk about it any longer. I’m tired, and I need my bed.’

  Philip stood up, speaking quietly to Primmy and Cress in contrast to their daughter’s brittle tone. ‘She’s had enough for one day, and we’ll see you both in the morning. Everything will look different then.’

  But a few days later, Skye was still pale and drawn, her fears for the baby still undisclosed and preying on her mind. The one person she felt she could have confided in was gone, buried six feet in the ground and never again to offer her wise advice.

  ‘You need some fresh air,’ Primmy told her. ‘You’ve been cooped up in this house for far too long, Skye.’

  ‘What do you suggest I do – run barefoot over the moors for exercise?’ She bit her lip as the words rushed out.

  ‘Hardly,’ Primmy said, refusing to take offence at her daughter’s sarcasm. ‘But I do suggest that we all take a drive up there today. Your father and I want to see the old clayworks and the cottages again, and you can explain the lay-out of the new pottery at Clay Two.’

  ‘Today?’ Skye said stupidly.

  ‘Why not today? Mammie wouldn’t condemn us for breathing fresh air and thinking about the future. And while we’re gone Birdie can get rid of some of these flowers before they overpower us all with their scent. It will give her something else to do besides packing her clothes.’

  Primmy took charge, aware that her daughter was like a leaf in the wind, alternately brittle and limp, and needing someone to direct her.

  ‘All right. If we must,’ Skye muttered, but knowing her mother was right. She needed something to raise her spirits, and the only time she had moved out of the house since Morwen’s death had been to attend her funeral.

  So later that morning the four of them drove to St Austell and up the moorland tracks to where the great sky-tips soared towards heaven. It had rained during the November night, and the gleaming heaps of clay-spoil looked newly-washed and sparkling, with thin slivers of sunlight slanting on them.

  Skye absolutely refused to admit the fantasy thought that it was Morwen’s spirit shining down on them. She was done with omens and charms and anything else that wasn’t normal and logical and easily explained… and if she caught a glimpse of the old witchwoman on the moors, she would simply turn her back on her.

  As Philip drove the car slowly through Clay One and the clayworkers recognised the occupants, they fell silent and removed their caps respectfully. The sight of the milky green clay pool, so beautiful and so treacherous, could still tug at Primmy’s heart, and Skye’s too, knowing of Morwen’s anguish when her friend had drowned herself there.

  Primmy was glad when they had passed through, and paused outside the little row of clayworker’s cottages at the top of the moors. She didn’t deny that this trip was as much a rite of passage for her as to get Skye out of that sad, morbid house for a couple of hours.

  ‘That was the Tremayne cottage,’ she said, pointing ahead to where a curl of grey smoke drifted skywards out of the chimney now. ‘Walter and Albie and I didn’t live here, because by the time they adopted us Morwen had married Ben Killigrew and gone up in the world. But this is where our roots are, and people should never forget their roots.’

  Skye squeezed her mother’s hand, feeling that she should be sharing her obvious emotion. But she was numb inside, and seemed to have no feelings left.

  ‘Do you want to see how dismal Clay Two looks now, or have you had enough journey down Memory Lane?’ she said. But she bit her lip, knowing how cynical she sounded. ‘I’m sorry, Mom, but I can’t concentrate on anything for very long.’

  ‘It’s all right, honey,’ Primmy said, patting her hand. ‘I was just the same when I was expecting you. The baby takes up all your energy, but yes, while we’re here, drive us over to Clay Two, please, Philip.’

  He complied at once, and when they approached the burned-out buildings and the forlorn-looking site, he exclaimed angrily as they saw several more cars there.

  ‘Oh no, not him today,’ he said. ‘Skye, if you’d rather stay in the car while your parents look around—’

  ‘Do you think I’m incapable of dealing with my own cousin?’ she said contrarily. ‘I’m a match for him any day, in case you hadn’t noticed. Just help me out, before I get stuck in this blessed seat forever, will you?’

  Theo came striding across to greet them, his eyes wary as he saw Skye, but she said briefly that it was clear that they all had the same idea that life had to go on.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, to her surprise and annoyance. ‘Then let me introduce you to Harrison Dean. You had to meet him soon, anyway, and we were just going over some of the finer details on the plans, as it happens, so you can give us your thoughts on it.’

  ‘I don’t think Skye’s in any mood to deal with business matters in her present condition,’ Philip said sharply, but she brushed him aside.

  ‘Please don�
��t molly-coddle me, Philip. I’m having a baby, not in imminent danger of expiring from some fatal disease. And I’m perfectly capable of looking at a few plans, providing somebody finds me something to sit on.’

  Theo fetched a wooden cask on which she sat as elegantly as she could, considering. And only then did she take proper notice of the handsome young architect walking towards her, his arms full of blueprints.

  She felt a mild shock. If she’d thought about it at all, she supposed she had expected him to be elderly and staid, like a lawyer or an accountant. She hadn’t envisaged this dashing young man with a mane of dark hair, and deep brown eyes, and a mouth that seemed always about to smile.

  Her own ludicrous thoughts almost made her laugh out loud. Here she was, as large as a whale, within days of giving birth – and madly in love with her husband – and she was practically registering the sight of this stranger with the predatory eye of a man-hunter!

  She put such temporary insanity down to the gloom of the past weeks, and the fact that she had hardly been outside the house to see anyone but her sad-faced family. All the same, when Harrison Dean shook her hand she almost snatched hers out of his grasp, and concentrated instead on business, while he explained the plans in layman’s terms for their benefit.

  His accent, although still Cornish, was well-educated, and from his expertise she guessed he had been to university. She found herself wondering how anyone so young could have learned so much. He couldn’t be more than in his mid-twenties, she thought, not much older than herself.

  As if to offset her sudden and unwanted rush of interest, she turned her attention to the blueprints almost feverishly. Harrison Dean was making additional suggestions to the general lay-out of buildings and showrooms, including a considerable advertising campaign once the place was up and running, as he put it.