Ran was not so nostalgically taken. He was more concerned with fighting a way through the crowds for his children so that they wouldn’t be trampled underfoot. But the children had their own ideas.
‘Mammie, can we see the horses?’ Luke shouted. ‘Daddy said he’d buy me a pony—’
‘I said I might,’ Ran corrected. Emma jumped up and down, emphasizing her brother’s words.
‘You said you would, Daddy. I heard you,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to do it now, or God will punish you.’
Ran sighed. Truth was, he couldn’t remember what he’d said. Too many other things had clouded his mind these past weeks to give due consideration to Luke’s demands. He felt Morwen’s hand slide into his.
‘It wouldn’t hurt to look at the ponies, would it, dar?’ she said softly. ‘Leave it until the end of the day, and ’twill give Luke something to look forward to.’
‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Providing you behave yourself, young man, we’ll take a look at the pony sales later this afternoon.’
‘Can we watch the boxing then?’ Luke said doggedly.
Morwen groaned. In the squares there would be wrestling arenas and bare-knuckle fighting, and she disliked all of it. But her brother Jack was coming towards them, in time to overhear Luke’s remark. He was taking his own son to watch the wrestling, so Luke could go with them.
‘Just as long as I don’t have to watch,’ Morwen said. ‘Where’s Annie today?’
‘She’s not feeling up to it, so I’ve left her at home. I’m glad Mammie didn’t want to come. This crowd would be too much for her now.’
Morwen nodded. She’d been only too thankful when Bess said she wouldn’t go to the fair. Apart from the fact that she was becoming quite frail now, it would have stirred up too many memories of past times with Hal and all the family.
‘Can we go and see the gypsies, Mammie?’ Emma said, when Ran said he’d accompany Luke and the others. ‘Can we buy something from the stall? They say it brings you luck.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Everybody! It’s good luck if you buy something, and it’s bad luck if you don’t,’ she recited. ‘They say the gypsies can tell your fortune as well, just by looking at you, or reading your hand.’
‘Well, we don’t need any fortune-telling,’ Morwen said swiftly. ‘But we’ll buy a posy from a gypsy if it will keep you quiet.’
And also because she herself believed in the old superstition only too well. Buy something for good luck, refuse it for bad.
In the distance she could see Albie and Rose Slater, and she waved to them as they became lost in the crowd. Justin was too important now to deign to come to the fair, and Walter was staying away with Cathy and the baby. It was somewhat different from the way all the young and lusty Tremaynes had once flocked down to the town, Morwen thought, but time changed everything.
She felt a shiver at the thought, and hugged Emma closer to her side as a flamboyant seller of quack medicines came swaggering through, shouting his skills and announcing that he had obtained a quantity of a miracle tonic to cure all ills at an amazing bargain price.
‘That man must be very clever,’ Emma said in some awe.
Morwen smiled at her innocence. ‘So he must,’ she agreed, though not with the same meaning as her daughter.
‘Mammie, can we go and see the horses now?’ Emma said later, when they had tired of watching the tinselled ladies perform on a makeshift stage to the tune of a hurdy-gurdy.
‘I didn’t think you were all that interested—’
‘Oh, please! I want to guess which pony Daddy will buy for Luke.’
‘Well, all right then. But I daresay the races are on now, so you be sure and stay close to me, Emma.’
It was a feature of the Truro summer fair for the young bucks to hire the gypsy horses and race among themselves, with their followers putting wagers on the outcome, and also tipping the gypsies handsomely. Some said it was also to bribe the gypsies to give their rivals the slowest horses, but no one had ever proved as much.
And no one really cared. It was all part of the fun of the day, and if the gypsies went away with their pockets jingling, then the daredevil young men who raced their horses went away quite satisfied with showing off their prowess and the exhilaration of it all.
There was no sign of Ran and Luke just now, and Morwen guessed they would be absorbed in the fisticuffs of the boxing matches or the sweaty tortures of the wrestling arenas. She held Emma’s hand tightly and took her to where the roped off short section of road alongside the river was habitually designated for the horse races. There was already a large crowd there, and the races had been going on at intervals all day. The scent of horse manure and heaving bodies was pungent in the air, but it all added to the excitement and atmosphere.
Morwen recognized a number of acquaintances in the onlookers, smiling and nodding to various ones, and then she glimpsed a scarlet silk gown and bonnet among the crowd. For a moment, she wondered at the vulgarity of such a garb for the daytime, but the wonder lasted no more than a moment before she knew instantly who the person would be. For so long now, she had been able to put the thought of Harriet Pendragon to the back of her mind, and her heart gave a sickening, uncomfortable lurch, just because she was breathing the same air as the woman she despised so much.
‘We’ll go along to where the horses line up,’ she said quickly to Emma. ‘There aren’t quite so many people there, and you can see the winning line quite easily.’
After a few minutes of jostling through the mêlée, she realized too late that it was also where Harriet was heading. But by then, Emma’s excitement was at fever pitch at being close to the horses, and to the bright-waistcoated men with the swarthy skins and gleaming earrings, who controlled them.
‘Stay close to me, Emma,’ she said again. ‘Some of these horses are really wild, and you must stay well back when the race begins.’
She saw Harriet move near to one of the young men and hand him a scarlet ribbon. It was so blatant that Morwen couldn’t even feel derision for her. Since her husband had died, there had been faint rumours of her attentions to young men, but nothing so pathetically obvious as this.
Maybe it was because she was preoccupied with the woman that she saw what no one else saw at that precise moment. Or maybe it was because her fey Cornish instinct told her when something bad was about to happen. Or maybe it was just the rolling whites of the horse’s eyes that told her…
Whatever it was, she seemed to leap forward at the same time as the horse reared on its back legs and struck out viciously with its front hooves. If she hadn’t done so, and if she hadn’t given Harriet Pendragon an almighty push at the same time that sent her flying into the arms of the nearest small crowd of male onlookers, Harriet would certainly have been badly hurt.
Emma screamed as Morwen lost her balance and went sprawling, but by then there had been a piercing warning whistle, and the start of the race had been halted until the trouble was sorted out.
‘I’m all right, really I am,’ she almost snapped at the many enquiries. ‘I’m not hurt, just winded, that’s all.’
Willing hands had hauled her to her feet, and she dusted herself down, mortified by the indignity of falling to the ground, and even more so, at being the unwitting saviour of a woman she actively hated.
She glanced around. If Harriet Pendragon had the gall to thank her, she wasn’t sure how she would react. She wanted no thanks – and she soon saw that she wasn’t likely to get any. Harriet was being escorted away by the solicitous young man who had by now abandoned the horse race for apparently more agreeable pleasures, while the crowd spoke loudly and indignantly of the lady’s ingratitude.
Morwen didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away. She was more shaken than she had thought, and when Ran and Luke came looking for them, suggesting a sojourn to the tea rooms, she escaped her admirers thankfully, and had to listen to Emma’s excited telling of the encounter.
Chapter Twenty-Six
M
orwen had always been able to close her mind to the things she didn’t want to think about. There had been a small report in The Informer about the incident at Truro summer fair, when Mrs Morwen Wainwright had so gallantly come to the rescue of Mrs Harriet Pendragon and saved her from a trampling under the vicious hooves of a gypsy horse. It had been a small report, recorded with verve, and Morwen had screwed up the paper and thrown it on the fire. There had been no word of thanks from the lady herself. If there had, Morwen would have scorned it.
Besides, a week or so later, she had far more distressing things on her mind than the whims of a woman clay boss. She had Emma to worry about. By now, all Luke’s spare time was taken up in being taught to ride the small pony Ran had finally bought him. And Emma had fallen sick.
She had looked like a little waif for a few days, and with what appeared to be no more than a heavy cold. Then the angry red spots had begun to appear, covering the whole of her body so rapidly that she seemed to change overnight from pale to red. Morwen discovered it when she went to waken her one morning, and Emma’s small puffy face had peered from the bedclothes, her eyes almost closed and complaining that the light was hurting them.
‘Mammie—’ the child croaked.
Morwen rushed to her bedside and put her hand on her brow. It was burning, and Emma seemed to have difficulty in breathing. Her throat was sore, and a harsh, dry cough punctuated her words. Thoughts of diptheria or chickenpox swept through Morwen’s mind, but she dismissed them instantly. She knew what this was. She had seen it before, and she knew how deadly it could be.
Frantically, she rang the bell pull by the side of Emma’s bed, and Mrs Enders came hurrying into the room.
‘Call my husband straight away,’ she said. ‘And send Gillings for the doctor. Tell him it’s urgent, and that I believe Emma has a severe attack of measles.’
‘Dear Lord,’ she heard the woman breathe, and Morwen snapped at her, not wanting to see fear on the housekeeper’s face, in case it reflected her own. Measles could be a killer. It had killed so many in the past, including her brother Sam’s wife, the mother of Walter, Albert and Primmy…
‘Please don’t waste time, Mrs Enders, and see that someone brings me a bowl of tepid water and some cloths to bathe Emma. See to it that Luke keeps away from the bedroom. And there are to be no visitors admitted to the house.’
Luke was so sturdy that he may not even catch it, and in any case they had suspected a mild attack when he was younger. But Emma… Emma had always seemed so frail and ethereal, and Morwen had always been aware of that strange sixth sense that she was only loaned to them by the grace of God… she smothered a sob, for if ever she cursed the insight she was born with, it was now.
Dear Lord, she prayed frantically, don’t take this lovely child from me; from us. Don’t tear our family apart still more…
Ran came hurrying into the room, going straight to Emma’s bedside and cradling her small hot hand in his.
‘Have you had the measles, Ran?’ Morwen said swiftly.
‘I don’t know. I think so,’ he said irritably. ‘What the hell does it matter—?’
‘It matters, because it can so quickly become an epidemic. If you were to catch it you could take it to the clayworks—’ she swallowed, not wanting to remember the small cottage on the moors where Dora had died, leaving three orphaned children. ‘Years ago the doctor said I was probably immune to it because of all the times I’d helped with other sick children.’
She spoke jerkily, too concerned with her own child to rightly recall just who it was she had nursed and comforted with her healing hands. Some folk were just too frightened to do it, but Morwen Tremayne had never been afraid of anything. Until now.
‘Then I’ll not go to the clayworks,’ Ran retorted. ‘And why should you think I would, when Emma’s so poorly? Do you think I have so little concern for my own daughter?’
She looked at him dumbly, not understanding how their mutual concern should be making them act like enemies. But fear did that, she thought. Fear enclosed each person in their own little self-contained world, just when they most needed to reach out and help one another.
One of the maids came into the room, her eyes like saucers, a bundle of towels and washing cloths over her arm. She set down the jug of tepid water on the washstand and gave a quick bob, backing towards the door.
‘I ain’t had the measles, Mrs Wainwright, Ma’am,’ she said nervously.
‘It’s all right, Clara, I shan’t ask you to do anything more. But you musn’t leave the house until the doctor says it’s all right to do so, do you hear? Everyone must stay here until Emma’s properly well again.’
‘Can’t I even see me ma? She’ll be that bothered—’
‘We’ll see that she’s informed, but no one must go into the towns until we’re clear of infection here,’ Morwen said clearly, feeling a mite of her own strength return at taking charge. ‘I know the doctor will say the same thing.’
‘Just so long as I don’t have to do no nursin’ then,’ Clara whimpered. ‘I ain’t no good wi’ sickness.’
She fled from the room as Mrs Enders came back.
‘The doctor’s sent for, and will be here directly. Will the little maid be wanting breakfast?’
‘I just want Mammie,’ croaked Emma.
Morwen knelt by her bedside, stroking the fevered brow. ‘I want you to drink lots of water to help cool you down. And I promise I won’t leave you, sweetheart.’
‘Nor will I,’ Ran said gruffly. All this time he had watched and listened silently, as if he was the onlooker in a play, and Morwen knew instantly how helpless he must feel. While she had always been so adept at dealing with illness, he was not. She looked anxiously at her daughter now, but her words were for Ran.
‘We’ll both be here, my darling. We’ll sit each side of your bed. When I’ve bathed you to make you more comfortable, I’ll hold one of your hands and Daddy will hold the other, so that we’re linked together.’
As if obeying orders, Ran brought two chairs to the bedside, and Morwen squeezed out a soft cloth in the tepid water and began sponging down Emma’s feverish body. She was horrified to discover how densely the spots covered her, and how pathetically small Emma looked. Without her usual bright spirit, she seemed to have shrunk overnight, and Morwen willed away the thought. When the comforting sponging was done, she lay a damp soothing cloth on Emma’s forehead, and the mother held one of the child’s hands, while the father held the other, as she had promised.
Ran seemed to have run out of words to say. Morwen ached for him, knowing he was suffering as much as herself, but at such a time he had always seemed emotionally constricted from putting feelings into words. They sat in virtual silence for an hour, broken only by the harsh dry coughs from the child in the bed, and then at last the doctor came, and confirmed what Morwen already knew. He was a new man that she hadn’t seen before, but nonetheless thorough.
He gently peered inside Emma’s mouth, where the telltale bluish-white raised spots on the inside of the mouth and cheeks further confirmed the diagnosis. Emma looked at him dully for a few moments, and then simply closed her eyes and lay still. The doctor looked grave.
‘You’ve obviously done all the right things, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘And I’d advise you to keep the curtains drawn across, so that the light doesn’t hurt the child’s eyes. There’s little more I can suggest, except to keep her warm and comfortable until the fever breaks. And see that she has plenty of fluids.’
It was like reliving her own thoughts. She knew all that; she had done all that; and she felt an impotent anger raging through her. Why couldn’t someone invent some miracle cure, to rid them of this childhood scourge?
‘I’ll send a nurse—’ the doctor said.
‘There’s no need. I’ll nurse her myself.’
‘But you’ll need your rest, dear lady, and this could go on for some days. You need professional help—’ and his unspoken message was that they could obviously afford suc
h luxuries. Morwen looked at him coldly, her eyes large and penetratingly blue.
‘I shall nurse my daughter myself, Doctor Daker,’ she said again. ‘But I would be grateful if you would continue to visit her as often as necessary.’
Their gazes locked, and the doctor’s was the first to fall away. He spoke shortly, but this lady’s reputation had already reached his ears, and he gave a small shrug.
‘Naturally I shall call on you daily, Ma’am.’
‘Thank you.’
Ran had been standing by while the doctor examined Emma, but now he prepared to see the man out.
‘I intend to stay at home until my daughter recovers,’ he said shortly. Morwen knew at once that he didn’t like the man, but it mattered little to her which doctor attended any of the family, as long as they got well again.
‘A wise decision, my dear sir,’ she heard Doctor Daker gush, and she knew Ran wouldn’t like that either. She turned to her daughter as Emma’s cough started up again, and instantly forgot such trivial concerns.
‘Will you bathe my face again, Mammie?’ Emma whispered. ‘I’m so hot.’
She did as she was bidden, and when Ran returned he informed them he’d sent word to all the family to keep away until the infection was over. It simply wasn’t worth the risk, and it isolated them in a world of their own. New World.
By the end of the day, Morwen realized she had eaten nothing, and that hunger pangs were gnawing at her. She agreed to go downstairs for some food when Emma fell into a fitful sleep, and Ran continued the vigil. When Morwen came back, Emma was sleeping more deeply, and her throat filled at the anguished look on her husband’s face. She returned swiftly to her chair on the far side of the bed, linking them all together again.
Although it was still light outside, the bedroom was darkened to soothe Emma’s eyes, and the tension in the room was palpable. They spent the next hours in uncomfortable silence, hearing only the intermittent coughing and scratchy breathing, and it was long into the night before Ran finally found the words he’d been unable to say.
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