Morwennan House

by Morwennan House (retail) (epub)

  And it did not stop with the house either. I recalled how once I had dreamed I was looking into a mirror, the very twin of the one that hung in the hall, and seeing a face that was so like my own, yet was not me. There had been some force at work that was beyond understanding. I only hoped it had the power to offer me – and those I loved – some protection in the dark days that lay ahead.

  Charlotte came running to greet me and my heart lifted as she threw her arms around me.

  ‘Oh, Charity, I’m so glad you’re home! I’ve missed you so!’

  Home. The word jarred on me. Morwennan would never be home to me. And, I suspected, had never been home to Julia either, for all the years she had lived here. But for Charlotte it was different. This truly was the only home she had ever known, Francis and Selena her family. And I was planning to tear her world apart.

  Charlotte was tugging at my sleeve.

  ‘Come with me, Charity! I’ve something to show you!’

  She led me into Francis’s study. There, laid out on the desk, was an enormous collage of autumn leaves. It was artistically done, and the vibrant oranges, reds and yellows amongst the inevitable brown stood out strikingly against the white background.

  ‘Why, Charlotte, that is beautiful!’ I praised her.

  She smiled proudly. ‘I collected them from the drive and stuck them on with flour-and- water paste. Mrs Durbin made it for me.’

  ‘Well, I do believe you are going to be an artist!’ I said. ‘You must try your hand at something else. Sketching, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, I’d like that!’ she cried eagerly. ‘Could you teach me, Charity?’

  ‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘Oh no, I barely know one end of a chalk from another. Can your father draw?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Her fine brows drew together thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, you certainly inherited your talent from somewhere,’ I said. ‘I think we must find someone to encourage you and give you some tuition. This is quite fine enough to be framed and hung on the wall.’

  ‘Do you really think so? Oh, I’ll find Papa and ask him if it can be done!’

  She ran off, happy and eager, and I was left alone in the study, looking longingly at the attic key on its hook and wishing I could take it now, this minute, and go up to see Julia right away. But I knew I dared not. As before, I must wait my chance and I had no idea how long that would be.

  * * *

  In the event it came sooner than I expected – thanks to Mrs Durbin.

  I was in my room unpacking my things when there was a tap at the door and Mrs Durbin’s head popped round. Her face was a little flushed and she looked anxious.

  ‘Can I have a word, Charity?’

  ‘Of course. Come in,’ I said.

  She did, closing the door behind her. Then she stood uncertainly, her hands twisting in the folds of her apron.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, curious and a little disturbed.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You’ve found her. Miss Julia.’

  My heart gave a great frightened thud.

  ‘She told me,’ Mrs Durbin went on. ‘She said you had told her not to say anything, but she couldn’t keep it to herself, poor lamb. She was asking for you, wondering why you had not been to see her.’

  Plainly there was no point denying what Mrs Durbin knew to be the truth.

  ‘I explained to her that I had to go away for a few days,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure you did, but she forgets. Some days her mind is clear as a bell, others…’ Mrs Durbin broke off, shaking her head. ‘Anyways,’ she went on, ‘she’s longing to see you, I know that for a fact.’

  ‘And I’m longing to see her!’ I said fervently. ‘But I have to wait my chance…’ A sudden awful thought struck me. ‘Francis and Selena are not aware of this, are they? You haven’t told them I know?’

  ‘As if!’ She pursed her lips together. ‘If they knew you knew, I don’t know what they would do. But, my, you’ve taken some chances, Charity!’

  ‘And so have they!’ I retorted hotly. ‘How could they think I could live under the same roof and not discover the truth?’

  She gave a small shake of her head, not even attempting to answer my question.

  ‘All I know is you’ve made her happier than she’s been for years,’ she said. ‘And I just wanted you to know from now on I’ll help you all I can. You’ve no need to steal the key any more and sneak up to the attic behind my back. When the coast is clear I’ll open the door for you myself, aye, and keep watch for you, too. She needs all the company she can get, poor sweeting, and who better than the child she thought she’d lost all those years ago.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Durbin,’ I said gratefully, and wondered for a moment if I should confide in her my plans to free Julia and take her away from this house for ever.

  But I decided it was safest to keep that to myself for the moment at least. I wasn’t sure enough yet of where Mrs Durbin’s loyalties lay. That she loved Julia dearly was not in doubt, but Francis and Selena were the employers and had been for a very long time. She may not even want to lose Julia herself. No, I couldn’t take the risk of my plans being scuppered before they had even been formulated.

  But at least for the first time since I had come to Morwennan I had an ally. And perhaps a friend.

  * * *

  Julia clung to me as if she would never let me go.

  ‘Oh, Nancy, I thought I’d lost you again! I couldn’t bear it if I was to lose you again now!’

  ‘I told you I had to go away for a few days,’ I said gently.

  ‘I thought Francis had taken you. He’s a ruthless man, Charity. He has no heart at all.’

  ‘I don’t think that is quite true,’ I said. ‘I think you hold his heart, and that is the root of the trouble.’

  ‘I don’t want his heart!’ she cried passionately. ‘I never wanted it – never! He forced me into marriage, he forced me to have his child – I hated him! Hated him! And I still do!’

  It was the first time she had ever spoken of the past.

  ‘Why did you marry him?’ I asked softly.

  And she told me.

  When she had finished I understood just why she loathed this man with such vehemence. But I felt too a stab of sympathy for him which surprised me. To be as obsessed with a woman as Francis was with Julia, to love her to distraction – to madness – and never to have that love returned…

  That, I thought, was the measure of Francis’s tragedy.

  * * *

  I was living on the edge of my nerves. How I had managed before to visit Julia with no assistance at all I could not imagine. Now every creak of the boards made me start. As for Francis and Selena, I was convinced a hundred times that they knew that I knew – I could read it into the most innocent remark or expression. Yet nothing untoward occurred at all. Life continued just as it always had at Morwennan.

  A few days after my return Tom came to the house. When he had finished his business with Francis he sought me out.

  ‘Fancy going off for days on end and not even telling me you were going!’ he chided me.

  ‘Why on earth should she tell you?’ Selena, busy with her embroidery as usual, asked.

  And Charlotte, making a tea party for her doll before the roaring fire, chirped up: ‘I missed her too, Tom. Tell her she must not go away again!’

  ‘You must not go away again, Charity,’ Tom repeated obediently, his eyes holding and teasing mine.

  In spite of my preoccupation with all my worries, my heart fluttered wildly. Tom had lost none of his attraction for me, it seemed.

  ‘Why, surely I’m entitled to visit my family sometimes!’ I said, striving to keep my voice level.

  ‘Not if it means you deserting us,’ Tom said, mock sternly. ‘As a penance I think you should accompany me tomorrow evening.’

  My eyes widened. ‘Accompany you…? Where?’

  ‘To the village. Where else? A group of strolling players are performing there. You wou
ld enjoy it, I think.’ He turned to Selena. ‘You have no objection, have you?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Selena said, but she looked disapproving, as though she did not think such entertainment quite proper.

  Charlotte jumped up, scattering the small china cups and saucers she had set out in her haste.

  ‘I’d enjoy it too! Oh, can I come with you to see the strolling players, Tom?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Selena said sternly. ‘It will be well past your bedtime, miss, before it is over. And the night air might well give you a chill in any case.’

  ‘It would not! I can wear my new cloak and fasten it right around my neck! Around my mouth if you like, so I couldn’t breathe in any of that night air!’ she added for good measure.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea to fasten it around your mouth right this minute,’ Selena said acidly. ‘Then we might hear a little less of your nonsense.’

  Charlotte subsided, crestfallen.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it,’ I promised her.

  ‘Then you’ll come?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Yes – if Selena will allow it…’

  ‘You are not a prisoner in this house, Charity,’ Selena said coldly. ‘So long as you fulfil the duties for which you were employed you may come and go as you please.’

  My cheeks burned suddenly, my nervous mind latching on to her words. Did they have hidden meaning? Oh, perhaps not. I was simply reading into them something which was not there.

  But I could not escape the irony of them all the same.

  Twenty

  The barn where the performance was to be given was brightly lit with lanterns swinging from the rafters and, by the time Tom and I arrived, crowded with excited village folk. Some wooden blocks had been erected at one end to form a small stage and a corner was curtained off with some lengths of heavy plum-coloured chenille.

  Tom led me through the crowd, nodding a greeting or exchanging a friendly word with many of them, but I felt very conspicuous as their eyes followed me, frankly curious.

  We found a seat on a wooden bench and Tom took my hand, threading it through his crooked arm.

  ‘So, I have you to myself at last, Charity!’

  ‘Hardly to yourself!’ I retorted. We were squashed between a plump elderly village woman and a gangly youth whose bony elbows dug into my ribs each time he moved.

  ‘But afterwards…’ Tom’s mouth was very close to my ear, his warm breath tickling my cheek, and I felt a little twinge of excitement spiral deep within me.

  For all my doubts about Tom, for all the anxiety for Julia which made me want to be near enough to know all was well with her even if I could not actually be with her, yet I could not help but be glad I was here, squashed up close to Tom and breathing in the heady anticipation of the villagers and the smell of the burning lamps.

  Very soon the performance began. I had never seen strolling players before and had no idea what to expect. The first half took the form of a short play, an extract, Tom told me, from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and entitled, aptly enough, The Fairies. I found myself admiring the beautiful shimmery costumes and laughing heartily at the antics of poor Bottom in his grotesque ass’s head, and enjoying the lyricism of the words I had so far only read in books.

  Then, when the cast had taken their final bow, a motley crew of entertainers followed. There was a girl who sang folk songs so sweetly to the accompaniment of a mournful fiddle that tears sprang to my eyes; a so-called ‘mathematical dog’ who barked out the answers to simple sums, and a contortionist who twisted his body into the most amazing shapes. I have to confess it made me feel quite ill to see a head poking through a pair of spindly legs, for all the world as if it had been chopped off and was resting there between the knees. I shuddered and turned my head away. Tom’s warm fingers squeezed mine and he laughed softly.

  ‘It’s only a trick. You can look again now.’

  I did. The man was standing to take his bow, rubbery, as if he did not have a single bone in his body.

  When at last the entertainment came to an end we filed out of the barn with the rest of the audience.

  It was a bright clear night as cold as if it were Christmas already, the stars very bright in a sky of ebony velvet, a dusting of frost sparkling on the ground and the bare branches of the trees. There was no wind at all; the air was crisp and still. A good night for smugglers, I thought. A perfect night to unload a cargo of contraband. Would there be a privateer at anchor in the bay when I returned to Morwennan? Had Tom been detailed to take me to the entertainment to get me out of the way? I shivered.

  Tom, who had been turning up the collar of his cloak around his ears, turned to fasten the ties of mine for me.

  ‘It’s bitter enough to freeze a brass monkey! But at least it’s good and clear. No ships will founder on the rocks tonight,’ he said, as if he had somehow read my thoughts. And then, when we had left the crowd of villagers behind and were alone: ‘Charity, I have to ask you this. Have you had any opportunity to search further for the ship’s bell I spoke of?’

  All my pleasure in the shared evening melted away, as the frost on the trees would melt in the morning sunshine, while all my doubts about Tom’s motives came flooding back.

  ‘No,’ I said, a little stiffly. ‘I’ve been away, if you remember. And in any case I have other, more important, matters on my mind.’

  Tom did not ask what it was that concerned me so. He stopped walking, turned and gripped my forearms with his hands so that I was facing him.

  ‘Nothing could be more important than this, Charity.’

  I was angry suddenly – angry and hurt. In that moment I truly believed the whole reason for Tom’s interest in me was this bell he was so anxious to find. He was using me, I felt sure, and had been from the very outset. Why, he had in all likelihood only asked me to the entertainment tonight in order to get me on my own and pursue the matter further! Joshua had been right to tell me to be careful of him.

  ‘Why?’ I asked harshly. ‘What is it about this bell that makes it so important? Is it solid gold? Is something valuable hidden inside it? Is that it?’

  ‘No – it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Then what?’ I asked impatiently. ‘You can’t expect me to look for it unless I know the reason why.’

  In the moonlight Tom’s face was all planes and shadows.

  ‘There are some things it’s better you don’t know.’

  ‘Oh fiddle!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve had enough of being fobbed off with that one. Whenever I ask awkward questions of anyone, I am told it’s better for me that I don’t know. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. I’m not a child and I’m not a fool, and I can only assume that it’s for your good, not mine, that I am being kept in the dark.’

  ‘That is not true,’ Tom said vehemently. ‘I’m trying to protect you, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, you have a strange way of doing it – asking me to snoop around my employer’s house!’ I retorted. ‘It seems to me as if a falling-out between thieves is behind this. You are one of ‘the Gentlemen’, whatever you may say to the contrary. You help Francis in some way with his business enterprises. He’s cheated you, I suppose, failed to give you what you consider to be your dues in some shady deal, and you intend robbing him of what is hidden in this bell to set matters right. Well, I’ve no intention of helping you. Settle your scores with him yourself or not at all. I won’t be a party to it. I have enough problems of my own.’

  Tom sighed. ‘You have it all wrong, Charity. But I can understand your reasoning. I can see I shall have to tell you the truth.’

  ‘I should warn you I am not given to believing in fairy tales,’ I said tartly.

  Tom ignored this. Though we were quite alone he looked round as if afraid of being overheard.

  ‘If I tell you this I put my life and the lives of many others into your hands. I am trusting you to keep what I tell you to yourself, and to breathe a word to no
one. Have I your word on that?’

  ‘How can I promise anything of the sort when I don’t know what it is you are going to tell me?’ I asked, still hurt and annoyed, but his expression was so serious I could not ignore it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Of course you have my word.’

  Tom nodded, unsmiling. ‘Very well. Firstly, I told the truth when I said I am not one of Francis’s gang. Not one of “the Gentlemen” as you call them – though such a term is flattery indeed for this unsavoury crew. I am not, and never have been, a smuggler, though I have gone out of my way to make Francis think I am. Evil lurks on this coast, Charity, and I am determined to put a stop to it and bring the perpetrators to justice.’

  A chill shivered over my skin. ‘You’re talking in riddles, Tom.’

  He faced me urgently and the look on his face made me shiver again.

  ‘Have you ever heard of wreckers, Charity?’

  * * *

  Tom’s words stopped me in my tracks. It was almost beyond belief that he should be raising the subject of wreckers after what I had learned in the last few days from Joshua. ‘Indeed I have,’ I whispered. ‘But…’

  ‘There is a gang of wreckers who operate along this coast when conditions favour their evil intent,’ Tom went on. ‘They have been active here for many years. On foggy nights they silence the bell-buoy and show false lights to lure unsuspecting ships on to the rocks. I believe that Francis and his cronies may well be the ones behind it. But before I can act I need to be sure – and to have the necessary evidence in my possession too. The bell is the evidence I need – and I must locate it quickly, before the fogs of winter close in. Time is short if more lives are not to be lost to this devilish crew.’