Miss Mary’s Daughter

by Diney Costeloe

  When she reached the yard, Paxton was standing, waiting, holding Millie’s bridle.

  Sophie went over to the mare and stroked her velvety nose. ‘Hallo, Millie,’ she said softly. ‘You and I are going to be great friends.’

  Charles appeared a moment later, and taking the bridle from Paxton, led the horse to the mounting block. Once she was in the saddle, Sophie gathered the reins in her hands and waited while Charles swung himself up onto Hector. Her legs gripped the familiar pommels of the saddle, and though out of practice, she found that her body remembered the feel of the horse beneath her, her foot in the stirrup, and she began to relax.

  Charles looked across at her and said, ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ she replied. They exchanged smiles and he led the way out of the yard, onto the track across the cliff. Once they were clear of the house, Charles allowed Hector to trot and then canter along the grey-green turf of the cliff top. Sophie followed him easily, moving comfortably to the rhythm of the mare’s gait. It was as she’d imagined it, sun on her face, wind snatching at her hair, and the remembered feeling of amazing freedom as the horse carried her forward. Charles drew rein and for the next few minutes they trotted companionably, side by side.

  ‘Enjoying it, cousin?’ Charles enquired.

  ‘Oh, Charles, yes.’ Sophie’s eyes were alight with excitement. ‘I’d forgotten...’

  Words failed her, and she simply raised her arms to embrace the world about her.

  Charles led her through a patch of woodland, where the sun filtered through the tangle of branches above their heads, dappling the ground with dancing shadows. Beyond was a stretch of open meadow, and as they turned onto a green pathway, Charles touched Hector with his heels and they were off at the gallop. Sophie kicked Millie into action, and though she was no match for Hector, she galloped gamely along behind him. When they reached the end of the green trail, Charles again drew rein and waited for them. Sophie’s cheeks were glowing with excitement and exertion.

  ‘You’re going to be stiff tomorrow, cousin,’ Charles remarked as she pulled Millie up beside him. ‘But you ride very well.’

  ‘Well enough to be allowed out on my own?’ she asked archly, and he laughed.

  ‘Well enough,’ he agreed. ‘But it isn’t just the riding, cousin. It’s knowing where it’s safe to ride. Some of this ground is extremely rough. It’d be very easy to cast a shoe, or for the horse to go lame. If you’re not sure of the ground, always let the mare pick her own route. She’ll not let you down.’

  ‘Thank you for the lesson, cousin,’ Sophie said with a grin. ‘I’ll remember.’

  ‘The other thing is the weather,’ Charles said, his voice suddenly serious. ‘It can change very quickly in this part of the world. Sun one minute, thick mist the next. If that happens seek shelter if you can. If not, let the mare bring you home.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ she promised.

  As they walked the horses companionably back along the road, she turned to him and said, ‘You know, you should get a pony for AliceAnne. You’re never too young to start learning to ride.’

  Charles looked at her sharply. ‘Are you telling me how to bring up my daughter?’ he demanded.

  ‘Not at all,’ responded Sophie ‘But you yourself know that when living in such a place, being able to ride is essential. She’d love it... especially if you were the one to teach her.’

  ‘You would have to teach her, Sophie,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have time.’

  ‘You would have to make time, cousin,’ Sophie replied. ‘As you’re so quick to point out, she’s your daughter.’ With that she touched Millie with her heels and trotted ahead of him, leaving him staring at her back. No one had ever taken him to task in such a way; not his mother, not Anne. Certainly not Anne. She had been quiet and submissive to his wishes, seldom asserting an opinion of her own, and definitely not one in opposition to his. Sophie’s direct manner of speech still surprised him, but it didn’t upset him, as he knew it did his mother. Indeed, Charles found it quite refreshing. He clicked his tongue to Hector, and trotted on to catch up with his extraordinary cousin.

  The next day was Sunday. When Sophie woke up she found that Charles’s prophecy had proved only too right. She was extremely stiff after her ride, and her legs ached as she went downstairs, but she was determined that she would never admit as much to anyone but Hannah.

  ‘We all go to church in the morning,’ Louisa had told Sophie as she’d bid her goodnight the evening before. ‘Be ready to leave at half past ten. You and AliceAnne will walk to the village. I shall bring your grandfather in the trap.’

  And Charles? wondered Sophie, but she didn’t voice the question. It was answered next morning when Charles strode into the hall where she and AliceAnne were donning their cloaks ready to set out. AliceAnne stared at him in amazement before asking, ‘Are you coming with us, Papa?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied shortly, and then added, ‘if you’d like me to.’

  AliceAnne broke into a huge smile. ‘Oh yes, Papa,’ she cried. ‘We’d like you to, wouldn’t we, Aunt Sophie?’

  Sophie, thus applied to, also smiled. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘The company would be most welcome.’ She reached out to the little girl and said, ‘Stand still now, AliceAnne, so that I can straighten your hat. Your papa won’t want to be seen walking with a ragamuffin.’

  Together they set off to the village. Today they took the road, not the cliff path. Dressed in their Sunday clothes, Sophie was reluctant to follow the muddy path across the cliff. As they walked she noticed that Charles was making a definite effort to talk to his daughter, asking her what she had done the previous day, suggesting she might like to read to him after luncheon.

  AliceAnne, who had been walking sedately between them, gave a little skip of delight, and seeing this, Charles went on, ‘Aunt Sophie thinks it’s time you learned to ride, AliceAnne. Would you like that, if I find you a pony?’

  The child stopped dead in her tracks and spun round to look up at him. ‘Oh, Papa,’ she breathed, ‘do you really mean it? And will you teach me, so that one day I can ride Hector?’

  Charles met Sophie’s enquiring eyes across AliceAnne’s head and giving her a wry smile, turned back to AliceAnne and said, ‘Yes, I will. But I shall be a hard taskmaster.’

  ‘What’s a taskmaster?’ AliceAnne asked Sophie, looking confused.

  ‘Your papa means that you’ll have to listen to him carefully and do exactly what he says.’

  The little girl’s face cleared and she beamed up at her father. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s all right then.’

  As they reached the village they met Nicholas Bryan coming out of his house, which was set back among trees on the seaward side of the lane. He called a greeting as he strode out to join them walking down the hill towards the church. They paused for him to catch up, and as he reached them his eyes swept over them, apparently a family group. For a second Sophie saw his lips tighten, but then his usual smile was back.

  ‘Beautiful morning,’ he cried. ‘Good morning, Sophie, AliceAnne. Good morning, Mr Leroy.’

  Sophie felt Charles stiffen beside her at Nicholas’s use of her Christian name, but she held out her hand to Nicholas and said, ‘A beautiful morning indeed.’

  As they stood at the side of the road, they heard the sound of a pony and trap coming along behind them and turning, saw Louisa with her father beside her, a rug about his knees.

  ‘Goodness,’ said the doctor, looking at them in some alarm. ‘I hadn’t realized that your grandfather would be venturing out in this cold weather.’ He turned to Sophie. ‘I really don’t advise such a thing, Sophie. His state of health is far more delicate than I think you realize. He should be at home in the warm.’

  ‘I hardly think my cousin is in any position to dictate to my grandfather when he may or may not go out,’ said Charles coldly, watching as the trap went past. ‘Come along, AliceAnne,’ he added. ‘Walk up, or we shall be late for church.’ Reaching for his
daughter’s hand, he set off at a brisk pace.

  Sophie turned to Nicholas. ‘I’m sorry my cousin is a little abrupt,’ she said, ‘but don’t worry. I’ll try and keep Grandfather indoors if you think it best, but Aunt Louisa believes in the benefits of fresh air.’

  ‘And generally I would agree with her,’ Nicholas said, falling into step beside her. ‘But in your grandfather’s case it could prove the opposite. He must not take cold, Sophie. It could go to his lungs. You know he already has some trouble breathing and I’ve left him powders to ease his chest, but I sometimes wonder if he takes them as he should.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Sophie cheerfully, ‘you don’t have to worry about that. Either Aunt Louisa or I insist.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Nicholas smiled, and standing aside, allowed her to pass through the lychgate into the churchyard ahead of him.

  Inside the church, Sophie walked down the aisle to join the rest of the Trescadinnick party where they sat in the front pew. Nicholas stepped aside into another pew, halfway back.

  During Dr Osell’s long and very dull sermon, Sophie’s eyes wandered round the memorials that lined the grey stone walls. Several commemorated the lives of earlier Penvarrows, but one, newer than all the rest, simply said: In loving memory of Sophia Alice Penvarrow, wife and mother 1805–1855.

  My grandmother, thought Sophie. Nothing of course for Jocelyn, but, as she read all the memorials, she wondered where he was buried. Mrs Slater had said that his grave was in the churchyard, as his suicide had been accepted as a dreadful accident, and Sophie decided to wander round the churchyard after the service and see if she could find it. She glanced across at the rectory pew on the other side of the aisle. Sitting alone was a woman dressed severely in black coat and bonnet, and Sophie remembered that Hannah had told her that the rector was widowed and his daughter, Miss Sandra Osell, kept house for him. At first sight Sophie took her for a lady approaching her forties, but when Miss Sandra turned her head and looked back at Sophie, Sophie could see that despite her old-fashioned mode of dress, the rector’s daughter was only in her early thirties. Sophie smiled at her, but Miss Sandra simply looked away, returning her attention to her father’s rambling discourse.

  After the service the congregation gathered outside in the pale October sun, chatting to one another, before dispersing to their Sunday dinners. Sophie realized from the covert glances that came her way that she was the topic of many a conversation; Miss Mary’s daughter come home to Trescadinnick.

  It was Nicholas who introduced Sophie to Miss Sandra, as she came out of the church. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Miss Ross,’ he said, ‘Mr Penvarrow’s granddaughter?’ He turned to Sophie, saying, ‘Here is Miss Sandra Osell, our good rector’s daughter.’ His tone was gallant, but it sounded insincere to Sophie’s ears. Miss Sandra, however, coloured at his attention, and it was clear to anyone with eyes that she looked at the young doctor with something akin to adoration. He, apparently unaware of his effect on Miss Sandra or indifferent to it, was smiling at Sophie.

  Sophie held out her hand to Sandra and said, ‘How nice to meet you, Miss Osell.’

  Miss Sandra took the proffered hand and answered, ‘A pleasure, Miss Ross. Will you be making a long visit to Trescadinnick?’

  ‘I don’t know how long I shall be here,’ Sophie answered, smiling, ‘but I shall be returning to my home in London in due course.’

  Miss Sandra nodded and turned her attention back to Nicholas. ‘It’s always nice to see new faces here, isn’t it, Dr Bryan?’

  Nicholas agreed, absently, that it was, but it was clear that his attention was elsewhere as he looked over her shoulder and watched Thomas and Louisa coming slowly out of the church.

  Sophie excused herself and moved away from those gathered by the church door. Beside the path that led up from the gate there was a large sarcophagus tomb, and she’d guessed, rightly, that it was the Penvarrow family grave. The single name Penvarrow was engraved on the capstone, and then on each side were the names and dates of departed Penvarrows. Sophie walked round the big stone tomb, looking at the names of her ancestors. As in the church, the latest was her grandmother, Alice. There was no mention of Jocelyn. While she was reading the inscriptions Charles came up beside her.

  ‘I see my mother’s brother, Jocelyn, isn’t buried here,’ she said. ‘Why’s that?’

  Looking startled at the directness of her question, Charles said, ‘He’s buried over there.’ He pointed to a quiet area at the edge of the churchyard, where under the spreading branches of an oak tree, there was a single grave.

  ‘But why?’ asked Sophie. ‘Why isn’t he with the rest of his family?’

  ‘I was a small child when he died,’ said Charles, as if that answered her question.

  ‘But you know why?’ asserted Sophie, and before he could reply she walked away from him and, threading her way between old grey gravestones, crossed to the solitary stone under the tree. When she reached it she stared down at the inscription carved into the stone: Jocelyn Thomas Penvarrow 1838–1861 – his name and the date, that was all.

  ‘It’s time to go home, Sophie.’ Charles was standing beside her.

  Sophie turned, startled. She hadn’t heard him approach across the grass. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘that that’s all there is left of him.’

  Charles took her hand. ‘It’s all that’s left of any of us in the end,’ he said gently, ‘a name on a stone.’

  Sophie looked at him quickly, realizing that in all probability his wife Anne must be buried somewhere in this churchyard under a similar stone. Wishing she had said nothing, Sophie allowed him to draw her hand through his arm as together they walked to the gate where AliceAnne stood, waiting for them.

  ‘All that’s left of him’ she’d said. But as Sophie walked back along the road with Charles and AliceAnne, she thought about the locked room and said to herself, But that isn’t true.

  *

  As the days passed, Sophie gradually became absorbed into the pattern of life at Trescadinnick. In the mornings, after breakfast, she gave AliceAnne her piano lesson. Then, while the child sat in the schoolroom to do her other lessons with Louisa, Sophie went upstairs to be with her grandfather. Sometimes she read the papers that Paxton collected twice a week from St Morwen, occasionally she read to him from a book or magazine, and at others they simply talked. But very often they just sat; the old man lying in bed, Sophie sitting beside him doing some mending her aunt had given her. Thomas did not mention his will again, and as his lawyer had not come out from Truro to visit, Sophie was happy enough that Charles had not, after all, been displaced as her grandfather’s heir.

  Towards the end of the morning Thomas would send for Paxton to help him dress, and Sophie was at leisure to go into the drawing room and play the piano. She had worked on several new pieces, and had already been able to lighten the after-dinner evenings with music and the occasional song.

  If the weather was fine her afternoons were usually spent with AliceAnne, either walking to the village, or exploring the countryside that surrounded it; if wet, they went into the schoolroom and Sophie read to her, or they played some of the simple card games she had loved herself as a child. She encouraged AliceAnne to draw, and entertained her with sketches she made of other members of the household.

  Aunt Matty was a regular visitor to the house, and Sophie recognized a growing closeness between them. They were comfortable in each other’s company, probably, she admitted to herself, because Aunt Matty was so like her mother; alike in many ways, and yet different in so many others.

  So far she had not ventured out on Millie by herself, but once or twice Charles suggested they ride together, usually when he had to visit an outlying farm, and she’d enjoyed these outings immensely. She loved the feeling of freedom as they rode through country that was gradually becoming familiar to her. She found she enjoyed Charles’s company too. There was little opportunity for conversation as they cantered across the open countryside, bu
t as they walked the tired horses home at the end of the day, they talked comfortably together. She told Charles about her life in London, about her father’s accident and her mother’s last illness. He was a good listener and she found it comforting to talk about her parents, to bring them back to life again in her heart as she tried to bring them to life for Charles. Charles himself was more reticent; he spoke only a little about his wife, Anne.

  ‘She was the daughter of one of the tin-mine owners, Sir Francis Shelton, over towards Camborne. We’d met on and off during our childhood and always got on well. We didn’t see much of each other while I was away at school, just occasionally in the holidays, but when I left I met her again.’ He spoke of his life at Trescadinnick, but only in generalities. Once Sophie had asked him if he remembered his Uncle Jocelyn, and he shook his head.

  ‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘Well, I remember incidents, you know, as you do as a child. One day he built me a sandcastle that was taller than me, and dug a moat round it.’ Charles smiled at the memory. ‘He had me digging the moat deeper and deeper as the tide came in to wash the castle away and we tried to keep it out.’

  ‘But his accident?’ prompted Sophie.

  ‘No, not really. I was only six or seven. I do remember being shut away in the nursery for several days. I didn’t really know what was going on, and when it was all over everything went back to normal. Only of course it didn’t. Uncle Jocelyn was never mentioned again, and I was warned by my mother not to ask about him. So, as I imagine children do, I soon forgot about him.’ He looked across at Sophie, riding easily at his side. ‘And I suppose one way and another, Trescadinnick’s remained rather a sad household ever since... until now.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘And now we shan’t be in before dark unless we hurry,’ he said. And urging Hector into a smart trot, he moved ahead of her, a strong, dark figure in the gathering gloom.