I followed her down the passage and into the kitchen. It would have been cleaner and better aired in former times. The grimy range and unwashed dishes stacked in the sink implied it wasn’t just her own appearance she’d ceased to care about. She’d been a bright-eyed thirty-year-old back in 1946, with glossy brown hair and a bubbly laugh. But she’d had a son and a sister and a nephew then. And her brother-in-law hadn’t been hanged for murder. Ceasing to care was probably about the only way she could have survived.
She poured me some tea and we sat down at the table. I drank in silence for a moment, aware of her studying me. Then she said, “I got no saffron buns for ‘ee.” I nearly choked, remembering how freshly baked saffron buns had been waiting for us in that room every afternoon when Nicky and I returned from some scramble round the field-end, swinging little Tommy between us. How I’d looked forward then to our promised week at Nanceworthal the following summer. But it hadn’t happened. This was my next visit more than thirty years late.
“I was really sorry to hear about Tommy.”
“You saw his bungalow down the lane?”
“What-half-built?”
“That’s it. No sense finishing it, was there? “Twas meant for him.
Planning to get married, see. Nice party she was, too.”
“How long ago… was this?”
“Seven year.”
I sighed. “How’s Dennis?”
“He’s out in the fields. Don’t trust himself to do much but work these days. When they told us about Nicky… he just nodded and went back out. “Tis either like that or he gets so angry with me…”
She shook her head. “What’s a body to do? You don’t expect it, do
‘ee? Not to lose so many so young.”
“Nicky said … his mother had died recently.”
“March it was when Rose went. A mercy, really. She was that ill.”
“Where was she living?”
“Essex. They didn’t stop when they left here till they got to the east coast and could run no further.” She caught my eye. “They all felt hounded. Then and later.”
“What did they do? I mean ‘
“Rose married again. Feller called Considine. Some sort of lectrician.”
“And … old Mrs. Lanyon?”
“Cordelia died within a twelvemonth of leaving Truro. Cancer, like Rose. Or heartbreak. Take it as you please.”
“Was Nicky living with his mother when she died?”
“She was living with him. Little flat in Clacton. Left her husband last year. Wanted to die with one as loved her proper, I dare say.
That Considine never was a bit of good to her. Always one to rattle the bucket and run.”
“So Nicky was left on his own after Rose died?”
“That he was.”
“No family of his own?”
“Never married, if that’s what you mean. Never settled to nothing, did Nicky.” She gazed dolefully into her tea. “What happened to his father … He couldn’t get the other side of that. “Twas always in his mind.”
“Did you see a lot of him?”
“Less and less as he grew older. Rose’d tell me what he was about in her letters, o’ course. But that weren’t much, seemingly. Had a job in the public library in Clacton for a long time. Gave it up so as he could nurse his mother. Since she died… Well, when I went up for the funeral, I saw the change in him. Turned in on himself. Living more and more in the past. And this family’s past is no fit place to dwell, is ‘un?”
“Was that the last time you saw him?”
“No. He came here last week, see. And how he was… made me fear the worst. When we heard … I weren’t so very surprised. You could tell he weren’t right. Sat where you’re sat now, he was. He’d been on the road a while, I reckon. Clothes all lampered. And he looked so tired. I asked him to stay with us, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said as he had somewhere else to go. And I reckon he did, but you’ll not find it on any map.” She turned away and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she’d plucked from the sleeve of her cardigan. There was a thickness in her voice when she added, “Let’s hope he’s happier there.”
“I spoke to him yesterday afternoon,” I said, unsure how much of our conversation it was wise to reveal. “He seemed preoccupied with …
his father’s death.”
“Like I told you. He never could let go of that.”
“He asked me who killed him.”
She gave me a long thoughtful look. “What did you tell him?”
“What could I tell him?”
She pushed out her lower lip and shook her head in answer, then gathered herself in her chair and glanced up at the clock. “Dennis’ll be bringing them in directly for milking. Best move your car, I’m thinking.” I sensed she wanted to find a reason to be rid of me, though whether she was worried about letting her tongue run away with her or by how Dennis might react to my presence I couldn’t tell.
“I must be going anyway,” I said, finishing my tea at a gulp as I stood up. “I only came … well… you know.”
She looked up at me. “Yes. Reckon as I do.”
“Can you let me know when the funeral’s to be? I’d like to attend, if I may.”
“I’ll do that for you, Christian.”
“You can contact me at Tredower House. Or they’ll pass a message.”
“Your sister’s made a handsome job of running that place.”
“Yes. I think she has.” The remark drew my thoughts back to Nicky and the past he’d dwelled in overlong. “Perhaps if Nicky’s sister had lived, there might have been somebody to … well, I don’t know …
give him some support when he needed it. He mentioned her yesterday, strangely enough. So long ago and ‘
“He mentioned his sister?” Ethel frowned at me.
“Yes. He did. I thought it odd at the time. After all, she’s been dead for years.”
“Who’s to say she’s dead?” Ethel’s frown was turning hostile, affronted somehow.
“Sorry?”
“Rose talked herself into believing she was dead, and I suppose Nicky went along with her until he believed it too. But nobody can be sure.”
I stared at her in amazement. “I don’t understand. Freda died of whooping cough, didn’t she?”
“Oh, Freda did, yes.” She coloured. “I see what you mean.” Hurriedly, she stood up and moved towards the door. “I’d best see you out before they cows dabber up your car.”
“Hold on. A second ago, you said nobody could be sure. What did you mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” She looked at me, pleading, it seemed, not to be pressed. “I didn’t rightly understand.”
“What didn’t you understand?”
“Which …” She looked away. “Which sister you meant.”
“But there was only one. Wasn’t there?”
“No. Rose had another daughter, see. After they moved to Essex.”
“What happened to her?”
“Disappeared one day on her way home from school about fifteen year ago. Vanished without a trace. Rose convinced herself she was dead, but no body was ever found. She could be alive to this day.”
“And she’d be Nicky’s half-sister?”
“No. They were brother and sister, fair and square.”
“I still don’t understand. Surely, if Rose had a daughter by this man Considine ‘
“Tweren’t by Considine. Michaela was born before Rose even met that whit neck
“Michaela?” Before Ethel could respond, I guessed what the name must signify. “You mean … she was Michael Lanyon’s child born posthumously?”
Ethel hesitated for a moment, then nodded in solemn confirmation.
“Good God.”
“Yes.” Her eyes held mine. “But sometimes I wonder if he is so very good. When I look at what he allows.”
CHAPTER THREE
Pam was waiting for me when I got back to Tredower House. I felt so taken aback by what Ethel Ja
go had told me that I found it difficult to remember where she’d been and why. Another more distant memory plucked
at my thoughts and whispered inside my head: Nicky as he’d been that long-ago summer when we’d had the run of Nanceworthal and the run of the world to look forward to; Nicky as he’d been before fate chose him as its perpetual victim. My own misfortunes were so much more trivial than the tragedies he’d tried and failed to endure. A father hanged for murder; a mother dying for want of love; a sister missing for year upon vanished year. How was he supposed to win against such odds without a friend to turn to?
“How were the Jagos?” Pam asked.
“Bowed down. Beaten by life, more or less.”
“As bad as that?”
“I’d say so, yes.” i “Perhaps you shouldn’t have gone.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”
“But you hardly know them.”
“True. But I do know them slightly. Why is that, Pam?”
“Because you spent a week with them when you were ten.” She frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” I tried to shrug off the niggling doubt my visit to Nanceworthal had left me with. Now I’d been lured into thinking about it, setting up a farm holiday with Nicky for me seemed a strange way for my parents and grandparents to demonstrate the disapproval they’d expressed of the Lanyons. “How are Mum and Dad?”
“Fine. Rather shocked, of course, but… they want to talk to you about what happened.”
“Do they?”
“Yes. I told them you were staying on for a few days. They suggested you go down there for lunch tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“Shall I phone them and say you’ll be there?”
“Why not? It’ll give me a chance to ask them.”
“Ask them what?”
“The question you didn’t understand.”
Pam’s frown deepened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, but they will.”
The ability of my family to edit its own past has always been marked.
The origin of my friendship with Nicky Lanyon was one example. My grandfather’s exemption from military service during the First World War was another. The ill health that dogged him during those years had seemingly relented by the time I knew him and it certainly didn’t prevent him living to a hale and hearty old age. Could it be that my grandmother, though the most strident of patriots, took a poor view of his chances of survival and decided she couldn’t spare him? If so, I doubt it would have been beyond her to manipulate the medical facts to that end. Which might explain, among other minor mysteries, why Dr.
Truscott went on receiving a lavish complimentary hamper from us every Christmas long after he’d retired from general practice.
Archie Lanyon didn’t have the benefit of Gran’s farsightedness He went off to war in good health and excellent heart, returning well before the Armistice with the brain of a child and the body of an invalid. He didn’t die for many years, but his life was over. Cordelia must have been as close to destitution as despair. She had a young son to rear as well as a helpless husband to care for. And the steadily more prosperous premises of Napier’s Grocery in River Street to pass whenever she needed reminding how much kinder life could have been to her if it had seen fit. I don’t know how she coped from day to day, nor whether she ever asked Gran for a favour or a loan or a helping hand. Maybe she was too proud to. Or maybe she knew what answer she’d get. Gran owed her nothing, and Gran made a point of paying only what she owed. Either way, Cordelia must occasionally have thought of Joshua Carnoweth. But never, I imagine, as her potential saviour.
Never, I strongly suspect, as a wanderer who was about to return.
But, in the spring of 1920, he did precisely that. To a city scarcely altered from the one he’d left twenty-three years before. The cathedral was complete, of course, and there were a few private cars and motorized taxis to be seen, but otherwise all was much as it had ever been, with most road transport horse-drawn, the River Kenwyn not yet covered and the streets still lit by gas. The war had brought significant economic changes, though. The cost of living had soared, which was good news for my grandparents, who could build a little extra profit into rising food prices, and a matter of no consequence whatever to a man of such practically limitless means as my great-uncle. But for somebody in Cordelia’s precarious circumstances, it posed a real threat. The rent of her home had doubled since before the war, but her ability to pay had plummeted.
Uncle Joshua’s reunion with his family seems to have been a cool one.
Gran always said he took a dislike to Grandad and let them know he thought mere shopkeepers beneath him now he’d acquired wealth and status. It’s a version of events my father always went along with, but, frankly, it’s never stood up to examination. The Joshua Carnoweth I knew could be prickly enough, it’s true, but he was no snob. The extent of his wealth was all the more surprising for its lack of effect on him. He owned a big house, but he lived simply and dressed plainly.
He was the least ostentatious of men. I don’t doubt there was a rift between brother and sister, but it had nothing to do with Uncle Joshua’s opinion of my grandfather, poor though it undoubtedly was. It had to do almost entirely with his employment of a housekeeper. Because the housekeeper he employed was Cordelia Lanyon.
What was their reunion like? How did Cordelia greet the man who’d come back to find, as he must have expected, that she hadn’t waited for him?
How did Uncle Joshua explain himself his tardiness, his transformed circumstances, his distance from the lovesick tinner he’d once been? I imagine them, standing awkwardly in the tiny front parlour at the house in St. Austell Street, looking at each other, fumbling for the words to encompass the experiences their diverging lives had comprised, while Archie lolled in a chair in the corner, dribbling and mewling, and young Michael gaped at them from the doorway. Cordelia was still beautiful. Even in old age, as I remember her, her looks were pale and gentle, imprinted with the beauty that had been. Uncle Joshua was strong, handsome and well-dressed. They looked at each other and saw what might have been. If he’d come back sooner; if she’d followed him; if Archie had died, instantly and mercifully… But she loved her husband. She didn’t wish him dead. And Uncle Joshua admired her for that. Nothing would have been said outright, nothing declared, but they came to an understanding.
The Lanyons moved into Tredower House within the month. Cordelia took charge of the domestic staff. Uncle Joshua engaged a nurse to care for Archie and a tutor to bring out the cleverness he detected in Michael.
To those who knew nothing of their past association, it must have seemed unremarkable enough, though singularly generous on Joshua Carnoweth’s part. Cordelia’s duties as housekeeper were genuine and demanding, even if her rewards were lavish by the standards of the day.
But some took a less charitable view. They suspected and whispered and implied… that Joshua Carnoweth’s relationship with his housekeeper was not that of an employer with his employee. They were right in one sense. And in the other sense … I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
Not while Archie Lanyon lived, at any rate, and he lived a long time.
Michael Lanyon turned out to be a bright boy. At twelve, he won a scholarship to Truro School. Uncle Joshua would presumably have paid his fees if he’d had to. He certainly supported him financially when he went up to Oxford in 1928, and during a post-Oxford year spent broadening his horizons on the continent. I assume he also eased his subsequent passage into a junior partnership at Colquite & Dew, the long-established Truro estate agent and auctioneer. There’s really no room for doubt that Uncle Joshua did everything he could to help and encourage Michael. He came to look on him, I suppose, as the closest to a son he was ever likely to get. Which only gave the rumour-mongers more to chew on, and my grandparents more to resent. The grocery business was doing better and better, but it didn�
��t run to an expensive private education for my father. His university was the shop in River Street, his destined profession not auctioneering but the world of bacon, bread and flour; of matches, mustard and soap; of thirteen trading hours per day, six days per week. It must have galled him as it galled Gran to see Michael Lanyon swan king past in his office suit.
My father had married my mother by then. Pam had been born. The enlarged family had moved to the house in Crescent Road where I was to arrive on the scene. They weren’t doing badly. In fact, they’d have thought they were doing as well as anyone but for the unavoidable comparison with the occupants of Tredower House.
In April 1935, Michael Lanyon married Rose Pawley, the elder daughter of Truro’s stationmaster. My parents and grandparents were invited to the wedding. It was a gesture of reconciliation they weren’t inclined to reject, however many resentments they were obliged to stifle. The future had to be considered. As Uncle Joshua grew older, their doubts about who he meant to bequeath his wealth to assumed disturbing proportions. Gran knew when to put pragmatism before principle, and this was such a time. So they went, and wished the happy couple well.
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