* * *
She couldn’t deny the pleasure that the thought of a family party was giving to the children. They had been somewhat in the doldrums since Miss Pinner had left, and as yet, no other tutor had been employed. Morwen had spent part of every day teaching them herself, but she knew it wasn’t a situation that could continue indefinitely. And very soon now, Luke would have to go to a proper school.
Guiltily, she knew how she had been pushing the thought of it aside, wanting to keep her little ones around her as long as possible. And it had been Freddie and Venetia who had now got Bradley into a good Irish school, where, amazingly, he seemed to be flourishing, and behaving himself.
But she knew she didn’t have the knowledge to instruct Randall Wainwright’s children in the way they should be taught. She could teach them about nature and good manners, and about the intricate family history, and where all the family members fitted into it. She could help them with their reading and writing, but she couldn’t teach them clever, intellectual things, and she knew her own capabilities.
But for today, such things were farthest from her mind. She had set them to their learning tasks that morning, promising that they could help her make the paper decorations and streamers for the party.
While they were occupied in the nursery schoolroom, she wrote brief notes to all the family members, telling them what she and Ran were planning, and inviting them all to a family get-together for Matt’s farewell, providing her Mammie didn’t object. She was careful not to call it a party, since the word might seem too carefree. Gillings was to deliver the notes tomorrow, and wait for the replies.
It was right and proper, she thought, that her brother Matt and his wife, Ran’s cousin Louisa, should have their sendoff here. Despite the way brothers could wrangle, and upsets could split families, there was a strength and charm in the ties of their intricate family relationships.
But today, while the children were occupied in their lessons under the watchful eyes of a trusted servant, she was going to call at Killigrew House. Her mother needed to be consulted before anyone else, and Bess’s eyes were soft as she looked at her anxious daughter.
‘Of course our Matt must have a farewell sendoff, Morwen. It’s the right and proper thing for un, and you can be sure your daddy will be there wi’ us all in spirit, my lamb.’
It was exactly the way she should have known her mother would react, strong and forward-looking. But her simple acceptance of it all brought a lump to Morwen’s throat, just the same. And the two women shared a rare and spontaneous hug that spoke of their affection more than words ever could.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Morwen and Luke and Emma spent a happy couple of hours in the nursery making paper decorations and streamers. And when they began to tire of that, Morwen had another surprise for them. She took them up to the rarely-opened little turret room where Walter and Cathy had once hidden from prying eyes after running away from their objecting parents. They had been so desperately in love, and so wanting to be together.
Morwen opened up a dusty trunk in the turret room, full of the most exciting and amazing things for children’s eyes to see. Old clothes, broken toys, and letters tied with ribbons, were all there for the finding, and Emma was instantly enchanted with a yellowing white bonnet and apron that she tied around herself. The small girl was totally lost in the voluminous folds and creases of the coarse cotton that had once been starched, and was now softened with age.
‘Am I a nurse or a kitchen maid, Mammie?’ she giggled.
‘Neither,’ Morwen said, sitting back on her heels and laughing at the comical picture her daughter made. ‘You’re a bal maiden, my lovely.’
‘What’s that?’ Emma echoed, and Luke spoke up at once, important with his knowledge.
‘I know what a bal maiden is. It’s a lady who works for Daddy and Uncle Walter at the clayworks. I’ve seen ’em wearing bonnets like that.’
‘That’s right, Luke,’ Morwen said, quite calmly. ‘And a long time ago, I used to wear this one myself. Grandma Bess once wore a bonnet and apron just like this one too.’
Luke looked at her in astonishment, his knowledge not having stretched this far. ‘Did you both work at Killigrew Clay like the clayworkers, Mammie?’
She nodded, praying she wouldn’t see the same derision she had seen years ago in Primmy’s young eyes, when the truth had dawned on her. How superior Primmy had been in those days, and how bitterly she had hated Cresswell when he’d blurted out the truth about her background that Morwen should have told her long ago. And how ironically the tide had turned for those two. Now, today, seemed the perfect time to tell these two little ones, so that they absorbed it naturally.
She told them quickly how deeply all her family had been involved in the clayworks, before they themselves had become the bosses. To her relief, the children were fascinated by the picture of it all.
‘I’m going to be a bal maiden when I grow up,’ Emma declared, twirling around in the voluminous apron. ‘I’m going to be just like you, Mammie.’
‘And I’m going to work with Daddy and Uncle Walter,’ Luke said swiftly, and Morwen felt a great lump in her throat.
Afterwards, she could only liken her feelings to one of those elating and illuminating moments that didn’t come along every day. To hear her children speak so simply and unaffectedly of their futures – even if it would never happen as they envisaged – certainly not for Emma – was both humbling and wonderful.
She hugged them both, her heart full, and said that they’d better delve into the trunk and see what other treasures they could find, or they’d be sitting here daydreaming all day and Daddy would be coming home soon and wouldn’t want to find them all dusty.
There were old bits of jewellery that had somehow found their way to the trunk. They were worthless, but great fun for the children to wear, and Emma was soon draped in rows of beads and ribbons. As well as clothes and jewellery there were Chinese lanterns that thrilled both children, and which Morwen said they could hang in the gardens among the paper streamers on the night of the party.
They could rely on the lush Cornish summer evening to be warm and balmy, and they could all spill outside and enjoy the rich bounties of this wonderful county that was their heritage. They all became more excited by the minute, and Morwen was carried along by their enthusiasm.
As they foraged still deeper in the trunk among the old-fashioned clothes that had the children shrieking with laughter, Morwen picked up a small worn box containing a piece of gentleman’s jewellery that made her catch her breath.
‘What’s that, Mammie? Can I have it?’ Emma said at once, seeing how her mother stared at the piece.
‘No, darling. Not this one,’ Morwen said softly. ‘The pin is too sharp, and it could scratch you.’
The children lost interest. There were too many other exciting things in the trunk, and Morwen let them scrabble on among the treasures, while she was lost in the past. She hadn’t been to this turret room for years, nor had she needed to. It was simply a place where forgotten mementoes and memories gathered dust. Everything that was no longer wanted was stored up here, some things too precious to throw away, others that they simply didn’t know what to do with.
By now, Emma had discarded the bonnet and apron, and was enveloped in a white muslin dress that had blue and mauve silk ribbons swathed and crossed over the bodice, and looped around the hemline. Morwen remembered how lovingly Bess had decorated the dress for her, and how she had felt when she wore it at Charles Killigrew’s party. She remembered too, how she had caressed the silk ribbons, given to Bess Tremayne by a lady for whom she did dressmaking, feeling their sensuous softness, and wondered how it must feel to wear gowns made of silk…
And this pin that she held in her hand now… this gentleman’s neckcloth pin… brought back such a store of memories that she almost gasped at the sharpness of it. As sharp as the pin itself, scratching her cheek when Ben Killigrew had automatically put out hi
s arms in a steep St Austell street to stop her from falling.
This was Ben Killigrew’s pin, warm in her hand, forgotten and saved for all these years, and she could hear his voice in her head as clearly as if he stood right beside her. His lovely, tidied and educated Cornish voice, so different from her natural moorland one. So different, and yet so much the same, with the same deep roots.
‘My name is Ben. We have no need to be so formal, especially when I have your blood on my shirt, if only a tiny spot. Surely that fact is of some significance.’
She closed her eyes, breathing him in, wanting him, aching for days that were gone… conjuring up the words they had exchanged in the midst of a Killigrew party of fine folk, when it had seemed, magically and briefly, that only the two of them existed in the world.
‘I apologize for branding you, Morwen. I don’t normally treat young ladies so—’
‘It’s nothing. It will soon fade. It was my fault for not looking where I was going.’
Branded… it was the way she had felt from the moment she fell into his arms. And she’d had the ridiculous feeling, that if he dared, he would have leaned over and kissed the tiny mark on her cheek, then and later. Kissing a bal maiden, here on sufference in his father’s fine house, just because old Charles Killigrew had taken a whim to invite the whole crazy Tremayne clayworking clan to his gathering…
Morwen felt as shivery now, all these years later, as she had felt then. Knowing that as surely as the sun rose and set, hers and Ben Killigrew’s paths had been destined to cross. She moved her fingers gently over the pin, and her eyes were clouded with memories.
A movement behind her made her jerk up her head, and her heart stopped for a moment. Surely… surely, she hadn’t done the impossible… conjured up Ben’s image so completely that he had come to her at last…
‘Morwen. What the hell are you doing up here?’ she heard Ran’s angry voice say.
None of them had heard him open the door and step into the room. But as Morwen blinked and started, she knew he must have seen the way she held the pin, and the lost, longing expression in her eyes. And she felt the most enormous guilt for putting this defensive note in her husband’s voice. She scrambled to her feet, but before she could get her feelings in working order again, the children had rushed at him.
‘Daddy! Daddy! Look what we’ve found!’ Emma shrieked. ‘All these things for dressing up were here all the time, and we didn’t know!’
‘Did you know our Mammie was a bal maiden?’ Luke shouted, trying to outdo his sister in noise and information. ‘And Grandma Bess was a bal maiden as well. Emma says she’s going to be one when she grows up.’
‘She most certainly is not!’ Ran snapped, diverted.
‘And I’m going to work with you and Uncle Walter,’ Luke babbled on, neither hearing nor heeding his father’s words in his excitement. Ran grabbed his arm and shook him.
‘You will not work at Killigrew Clay, Luke. And Emma will most certainly not have anything to do with those uncouth women. She will learn how to become a lady, and you will have a proper education and learn how to be a gentleman, and I’ll hear no more about such nonsense.’
He let him go just as quickly, and Luke staggered a little, his eyes frightened at such an unexpected and violent reaction. There was a sudden palpable silence in the turret room. The children stared with wide, uneasy eyes at their father, while Morwen’s face went scarlet, and her heart pounded with rage.
‘Are you saying that my mother and I are not worthy to be called ladies? Or that all my menfolk are less than gentlemen?’ she said in a shrill voice, vibrant with fury.
Ran cursed forcefully and loudly, using words that he rarely did in front of the children. Luke sniggered, and Morwen pulled him to her, as if afraid that Ran would strike him for his insolence. Emma was already clinging in fright to her skirt and starting to whimper.
‘You know bloody well I’m not saying that, woman,’ Ran stormed on. ‘I’ve always held you and your family in the highest esteem—’
‘Oh, really? It didn’t sound like that a few minutes ago. And when you sneer at those hard-working folk who put money in your pockets by long hours of work in appalling conditions, up to their necks in slurry and muck in the winter, and choking with the clay dust in the summer, then you also sneer at Mammie and me, and Daddy, and Sam, and all my brothers, and Walter—’
She had no breath to go on. Besides which, her throat was so tight with pain, and her eyes so full of tears that she couldn’t see straight, and she couldn’t think straight.
‘For God’s sake, get things in perspective, Morwen. I’m not sneering at anybody, but just listen to yourself, will you? You’ve described a clayworker’s life quite graphically enough, and I hardly think you can condemn me for wanting a better future for my children.’
Emma was snivelling loudly now, where minutes before she had been so happy. Luke said nothing, but his young mind was clearly absorbing everything that was going on between his parents, and both children looked utterly bewildered at the way their parents were hurling insults at one another. Hurt though she was at what she still saw as Ran’s sneering, Morwen knew she must swallow her pride for the moment, if only for the sake of these little ones.
‘I can’t argue with that last statement,’ she said stiffly. ‘And in any case, I think we’ve had enough arguing for today. We came up here to see what we could find for the party, and we thought it would be cheerful and bright if we hung these Chinese lanterns in the garden. What do you think?’
She threw the question at him, bringing him into their day. And begging him with her eyes to let the quarrel lie alongside the dusty memories in this turret room. As if to underline her words, she replaced Ben’s neckcloth pin back in its box, and closed the lid. Ran didn’t speak for several long moments, and then he shrugged.
‘Just as you wish,’ he said curtly, ‘and if you’ve finished up here, I suggest that you make yourselves presentable and come down to the drawing room. I’ve got some news for you, and the children might as well hear it too.’
He went out of the turret room, and Morwen wilted for a moment. But not for long. The children were looking to her for a lead, worried and wondering what was to happen next. She forced a smile to her lips.
‘Well, that was a bit of a storm in a teacup, wasn’t it, my lambs? Daddy has obviously had a bad day, and wondered where we’d all got to. I daresay it gave him a fright to find us all hidden away up here.’
It didn’t exactly pacify them, and Luke, especially, wasn’t fooled by her forced brightness.
‘But we didn’t do anything to give him a bad day, did we, Mammie?’ he said belligerently, more perceptive than Morwen had expected. ‘He shouldn’t come home and blame us for things we haven’t done.’
She gave him a hug. ‘Unfortunately, that’s the way grown-up people sometimes behave, Luke,’ she said sadly. ‘When they have something worrying them, they often act badly to those who are closest to them. That’s why we musn’t be too worried about it. It just proves that we’re the closest ones to Daddy, do you see?’
It was just about the most appalling piece of logic she’d ever tried to explain, and it didn’t come out at all in the way she wanted it. But such clumsiness seemed to be enough for the children, and Emma wriggled away from her, climbing out of the muslin dress and letting it drop to the floor.
‘Can we go down now then, Mammie? My nose is all dusty and tingling,’ she complained.
‘Yes, I think we should. Let’s go and wash ourselves and put on clean clothes, and go and see what Daddy has to say. It’s nearly time for tea, anyway,’ she said in relief.
She bundled the Chinese lanterns into a box to take down to one of the nursery closets in readiness for the party. And when she had seen the children safely down the narrow, winding stairs leading from the turret room, she glanced back, just once, and then closed the door on the memories.
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time the family me
t in the drawing room, freshened and tidied and wearing clean clothes, Mrs Enders had brought in a tea trolley with buttered buns and drinks for the children, and a steaming pot of tea for the adults. Ran looked slightly less huffy now, and was pleasant enough to the housekeeper, though still cool towards his family. Always quick to sense any atmosphere, Morwen was pained by it.
How could he be so jealous of a past love?, she mourned. And yet, how could he not, when she herself had been so swept up in the memories of Ben Killigrew that she felt as though she could have reached out and touched him at any moment? She pushed away the thought, and poured the tea for them both, glad of this civilized little ritual.
‘What did you have to tell us?’ she prompted. So far he had confided nothing, and after his outburst the children had become momentarily too tongue-tied to speak.
‘The Pendragon woman came to Killigrew Clay this afternoon,’ he said, without expression.
‘What!’ Morwen’s cup clattered on her saucer, the tea spilling onto it. Emma ran to her mother, clearly expecting another quarrel to erupt between her parents.
‘It’s nothing to get excited about,’ he went on irritably. ‘She came to see Walter and me at the clayworks, informing us grandly that she assumed she wouldn’t be welcome if she called on us here.’
‘I hope you told her she wasn’t welcome at any place to do with Killigrew Clay,’ Morwen snapped, wondering if this was going to be suitable for the children’s ears.
‘I did. Though you won’t object to her being in Justin’s office with us, I presume, to sign the documents in the presence of witnesses,’ he said sarcastically.
Morwen said nothing for a moment.
‘You’re not telling me she’s agreed to it just like that, are you?’ she said at last. ‘I thought David Meadows told you in his letter that it would be a month before anything was decided.’
Family Shadows Page 29