Miss Mary’s Daughter

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Perhaps the visit from his lawyer tired him,’ suggested Sophie.

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Matty noncommittally, looking up as the door opened and Louisa came in.

  ‘Ah, Sophie,’ she said. ‘Your grandfather would like you to go up and sit with him after dinner.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Louisa,’ Sophie replied, but her mind was racing. Her grandfather’s lawyer had been. Did that mean he had done as he’d said and changed his will, making her his heir?

  As soon as the meal was over, Sophie excused herself and went up to her grandfather’s room. When he answered her knock and she went into the room, she was assailed by a sickroom smell that she hadn’t noticed before. Her grandfather was propped up in bed and his gaunt face seemed scarcely less white than his pillows. It was as if, since she’d been with him in the morning, he’d been attacked by some new disease. His breathing was laboured, but his eyes, when he turned them on Sophie, were bright and piercing.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, his voice impatient.

  ‘I came as soon as dinner was over, Grandfather,’ Sophie said, pulling up a chair to the bedside. ‘I see you haven’t eaten any of yours.’ She nodded to the tray that sat on a table by the bed.

  ‘Not hungry,’ grumbled Thomas.

  ‘But you must eat, sir,’ Sophie said. ‘You must keep up your strength.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re a doctor now, are you?’ snapped the old man. ‘One doctor a day is enough for any man. Sit down. I want to talk to you.’

  Sophie did as she was bidden, and reached for the old man’s hand. It lay bony and thin in her own and she had a sudden vision of her mother’s hand as she’d held it just before she had died. She looked up sharply into her grandfather’s face. Matty was right; he looked extremely ill.

  ‘Mr Staunton came to see me today,’ Thomas said without preamble. ‘He’s my solicitor. He brought my new will in which you are named as my heir.’

  ‘Oh, Grandpapa, you can’t—’ began Sophie, but he silenced her with a scowl.

  ‘Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do, young lady,’ retorted the old man. ‘I’ve made my will and there’s an end to it.’

  ‘You’ve made it today?’

  ‘Sent Staunton a letter last week, telling him what I wanted,’ Thomas told her. ‘He drew it up and brought it here today for me to sign.’

  ‘And you signed it?’ whispered Sophie.

  ‘Of course I signed it,’ said her grandfather. ‘That’s why he came. All signed and sealed. Called in Paxton to witness my signature, and that doctor was here, so he witnessed it as well. All done, right and tight, and Staunton’s taken it safely back to his office. When I die, that’s where you’ll find it, safe and sound, and Trescadinnick will be yours.’

  Sophie didn’t know what to say. She gazed, unseeing, at the floor. He had done it. He had left Trescadinnick to her. ‘I can’t believe you’ve cut Charles out,’ she said at last.

  ‘Charles was never in,’ snapped Thomas. ‘He’s not a Penvarrow.’

  ‘He’s a Penvarrow in everything except the blood in his veins,’ cried Sophie.

  ‘And it’s the blood in his veins that matters,’ answered Thomas. He closed his eyes and was instantly asleep, his rasping breath becoming rhythmical, his hand lying relaxed in Sophie’s own. Gently, she replaced it under the covers and turning down the lamp till it was no more than a glimmer, stole quietly out of the room.

  17

  Back in the seclusion of her own room, Sophie lay on her bed, thinking about what her grandfather had told her. Trescadinnick was to be hers. She found it almost impossible to take in the gravity of it. She thought of her home, cosy and familiar, waiting for her in London, but that now seemed far away, part of another life, when she had been another person.

  When Hannah had come to help her prepare for bed, she had almost told her what had happened, but at the last minute had stopped herself. Until she had decided herself what she might do about it, Sophie wasn’t going to let anyone else know about her inheritance. Did Charles know? she wondered. How would he react when he heard he’d been cut out of the will? How would his mother react? Had she suspected something of the sort? Was that why Louisa was so cold towards her?

  Restlessly Sophie got off the bed and paced the floor. Despite the glowing embers in the fireplace, the room was chilly, so she went to the chest of drawers to find a shawl to wrap about her shoulders. The drawer was stiff and she had to jerk hard on the handle to pull it open. As she drew the shawl out, something else came with it, clattering to the floor. Glancing down, Sophie couldn’t see anything at first, but when she had the shawl wrapped safely round her, she kneeled down, feeling about with her hands to find whatever it was. When she did find it she sat back on her heels and stared. In her hand was a key: a door key, similar to the one in the lock of this very room. Slowly she got to her feet, and crossing to the door she removed the key from the keyhole and compared the two. They were different. It was not a spare key for this bedroom. Holding the key she’d found tightly in her hand, she moved across to the wardrobe. Could this be the key that she needed? Could it really be the key to the connecting door, the door to Jocelyn’s room? She’d never thought of searching the drawers for such a key. She’d simply assumed the door had been locked from the far side and the key removed.

  Or perhaps, she thought, it would open the outer door to Jocelyn’s room. Rather than struggle with the old armoire again, she would go out and try that first. She opened her own door and stepped out onto the landing. Unwilling to show a light, she had brought no candle out with her and she had to feel in the darkness for the keyhole of Jocelyn’s door. When her fingers found it, she inserted the key. It fitted into the keyhole, but it would not turn. Sophie pulled it out and tried again. Again it fitted into the keyhole but it was impossible to turn. Not the key to this door then.

  At that moment Sophie heard a cough and saw the flicker of light from a candle being carried along the main landing. Louisa was making her way to her bedroom. Sophie froze, hardly daring to breathe. The slightest flicker of movement might draw her aunt’s attention to her, and how would she explain standing in her nightdress, in the dark, outside Jocelyn’s room, holding a key in her hand? Thank goodness she hadn’t brought out her own candle to give her away.

  Louisa shuffled along the landing and it struck Sophie for the first time that dancing attendance on her father, and running the household, Louisa was slipping into an early old age herself. She had none of the zest that accompanied Matty into the room.

  Sophie remained absolutely still until she heard Louisa’s bedroom door close. Then, with a sigh of relief, she returned quietly to her own room.

  Well, thought Sophie with a flash of excitement, it’s not the key to my door, nor Joss’s door, so it must be the connecting door, mustn’t it?

  There was only one way to find out and it meant shifting the wardrobe again. She put the key down on the dresser and went to lock her own door. Probably unnecessary, she told herself as she turned the key, but she was determined that no one should interrupt her in what she intended to do. Quickly she got dressed again. A nightdress and shawl, she decided, were not the attire for moving furniture. Remembering how she’d manoeuvred the heavy wardrobe before, she braced herself against it and edged it away from the wall. Puffing and red-faced from the exertion, Sophie at last managed to angle it so that she could slide in behind. She took the key from the dresser and squeezing herself into the gap, inserted it into the lock. It fitted. A wave of excitement filled her. It was the key. The right key. She tried to turn it, but the lock was stiff. Surely it must be the right key.

  ‘Come on!’ she urged it in frustration. ‘Turn, will you!’ She jiggled the key and tried again. Nothing. The lock refused to budge. She pulled the key out again and looked at it. It was old and rusty. Creeping back out into the room, she picked up her towel and rubbed at it. She needed oil, she realized, to help release a lock unused for so long, but she had none. She returned to the l
ock. Perhaps if she could use two hands, it would open. She set to work to move the wardrobe a little further out, and then tried again. This time, using both hands, she managed to get better purchase on the key, and finally, reluctantly, with a loud scraping noise, it turned and the lock released. Sophie reached for the handle and pushing open the door that had been closed for twenty-five years, let herself into Jocelyn’s room.

  It was dark and she could see nothing but the faintest outline of the window, so she retreated to her own room and picked up the lamp. Taking it through the door, she held it high and, at last, looked round the room that had been Jocelyn’s. It was the mirror image of her own and equally simply furnished. There was the bed, the corner of which she’d seen through the keyhole. Beside it, was a nightstand on which lay a book, face down to mark the page Jocelyn had been reading. A wardrobe, the twin of the one in her own room, stood against the adjoining wall and opposite was a chest of drawers, and a washstand, complete with bowl and jug, beside which a razor was laid out ready for use. In the window was a desk, its chair at an angle as if its occupant had risen hurriedly to his feet. All were covered in a thick layer of dust. Grey silk cobwebs hung from the ceiling, festooning the curtains and walls in filigree grey lace.

  Placing the lamp on the dresser, Sophie went first to the wardrobe and peered inside. It was full of clothes, some hanging, others folded on the shelves that ran down one side. All Jocelyn’s clothes were here, as they had been the day he’d walked out of the room for the last time. She closed the wardrobe door, picked up the lamp and turned her attention to the desk.

  It was made of oak with a leather inlay; a flat writing desk, with a central drawer. Laid out on the top of it were a steel-nibbed pen and a silver inkwell. Sophie lifted its lid, but the ink had long since dried up. Turning the chair back to the desk, Sophie sat down and pulled open the drawer, revealing a jumble of items: writing materials, papers, a pencil, a small penknife, sealing wax, the stub of a candle and several letters, some loose, some folded together. For a moment she looked at the letters. Her fingers itched to pick them up, but what right had she to read Jocelyn’s private correspondence? She stared at them.

  Jocelyn was long dead, she reasoned; nothing she saw could affect him now. Thus, Sophie allowed her curiosity to overcome her scruples. She lifted the papers out of the drawer and spread them out on the desk. The letters were old and the ink faded, and she had to peer at them in the yellow lamplight to make out the writing. As she turned them over, her hand suddenly froze. There, amongst them, was a letter written in a hand she’d never forget. It was her mother’s careful writing. There was an address on the top, and a date, 4 October 1861. The letter had been written five years before Sophie herself had been born, written from an address in London where Sophie had never lived. She stared at the familiar writing and then she started to read.

  My dear Joss

  What a scrape you’ve got yourself into! No doubt my father has taken it quite as badly as you say. Of course I’ll help you if I can. I have given the situation great thought and think you should encourage Cassie to stay with her sister, if she’ll have her, until we can get things sorted. If the child is not due until December, by then you at least will have come of age and can marry without Papa’s consent. You say that Cassie’s father is a Methodist minister, so I assume he will willingly give consent to escape the shame that her giving birth to an illegitimate child would bring him.

  We haven’t much room here, but John, bless his generous heart, is quite agreeable for you to be married from here and so we will arrange it. In the meantime, I will look round for somewhere suitable for you to live once you are married and the baby is born. I know you have an annuity from our mother’s will, so even if our father cuts you off with a shilling, you will have money to live on until you can find some sort of employment.

  So, my dear brother, don’t despair. I’m sure if you love Cassie, I will too. You can be married from here, the baby will be born in wedlock and all will be well. How I long for a baby to hold. There are days when I fear I shall never have one of my own.

  When you come you’ll be able to tell me all the news from Trescadinnick, how they all go on and how little Charles is growing. How I long to see you, Joss!

  In the meantime, tell Cassie that we are waiting to welcome both her and the baby when it arrives.

  Your loving sister, Mary

  Sophie read and reread the letter. Who was Cassie? A Methodist minister’s daughter? She must be the girl that old Mrs Slater had told her about; the local girl whom Joss got into trouble. It was clear from this letter that Joss and Cassie were to be married and, thought Sophie, how like Mama to have offered the disgraced Cassie a home. How like Papa to have allowed it. Such a very brave thing to do; if it ever leaked out to their friends that they had allowed an unmarried couple to stay under their roof, their reputation would have been ruined as well.

  Thoughtfully, Sophie laid the letter aside. If her parents had been going to stand by Jocelyn and Cassie, why had Jocelyn given way to despair and thrown himself over the cliff? What could have happened to cause such despair?

  She laid the letter aside and picked up another. Not recognizing the handwriting, which was tall and slanting, she looked straight at the signature. It was signed Cassie and dated a couple of weeks earlier than her mother’s. The only address at the top was a scrawled Truro.

  My dearest Jocelyn

  Please don’t worry so. I am quite well here with Henrietta, and though she is mortified at my disgrace, she will not throw me out like my father and Edwin. (Edwin has since been to see me but was extremely disagreeable and I told him to go away!)

  Hetty’s husband, Albert, is not happy with the situation (I am not allowed out of the house or even out of my room if there is company), but he has agreed to let me stay until my confinement, after which, I understand, the baby will be given away. I had thought it would be better for him... or her, do you mind which? to be born here among family rather than in lodgings somewhere, so I’ve been behaving as Albert and Hetty require, but, as I have now learned their plan, dear Joss, do come and fetch me as soon as you can. I will not

  – Sophie paused when she saw how the not was underlined three times –

  give up our child to strangers. I am determined that we three shall be together as a family. Surely your father will eventually come round to our marriage, but if not, well, you will be of age in November, and I am already cast out by my father, so we should be able to marry before the child is born without anyone gainsaying us.

  If it’s a boy I would like to name him after my father. It might make him look on his grandson with more favour than he does in prospect. If it’s a girl, perhaps we could call her Emma, after my grandmother. I loved her dearly and it’s such a pretty name. I long to hear from you, Joss, and for the time when we’ll be together again.

  I send you all my love, and that of the little creature that is kicking away inside me.

  Your Cassie

  Cassie hadn’t heard of Mary’s offer of a home when she’d written this letter, thought Sophie as she read this letter through again. A plan had been in place, but was now being altered. Cassie was safely with her sister and could stay there until Jocelyn could fetch her away and bring her to Mary in London. They would be married and when the baby was born they could live as a perfectly respectable family.

  What changed? Sophie wondered. Did something happen to Cassie? Did she die? Is that what changed and brought Jocelyn to despair? And the baby, had that died too? A third letter was not in the bundle, but pushed underneath the others. It was only half finished, undated and unsigned, but addressed to Cassie, and as Sophie held it up to the light and read it, tears sprang to her eyes as she guessed why that was. My darling girl, it began.

  It is all arranged. As I told you, my dear sister Mary has offered us a home, at least for a short while, and we can be married from there. She is already cut off from Trescadinnick as she married someone of whom my father di
sapproved, so she understands our situation very well. Her home is not big enough for us to stay for more than a few weeks, but the baby can be born there, so still among family. And once you have recovered from the birth we should be able to move into our own home.

  I shall come and fetch you from Truro as soon as I am twenty-one and can obtain a special licence for our marriage. What a wonderful day that will be.

  I think

  But whatever it was that Jocelyn had been thinking, Sophie would never know, for here the letter broke off as if he had been interrupted. He had not even finished his sentence. It was, Sophie thought as she looked at the abrupt end to the letter, as if he’d been afraid of being caught writing it. Had he pushed it hurriedly into the drawer when someone had knocked on his door, or even walked unannounced into his room? Had he been writing it when for some reason he’d had to go to the village, and on the way back he’d been caught in the mist? Surely he had no intention of committing suicide when he’d begun to pen that letter. He was optimistic about their future; plans had been made, and it was only a question of time until all would be well. Surely Jocelyn’s death had indeed been a dreadful accident. Sophie felt suddenly cold as she knew the terror he must have felt as he slipped and found himself falling, wrapped in a shroud of mist, to his death on the rocks below.

  There were other letters in the drawer, most of them in Cassie’s distinctive hand, but Sophie did not want to read any more. She knew now the story of Jocelyn and his love, Cassie, his ‘Cassie’, and she was suddenly desperately tired. Everyone thought they knew that Jocelyn had killed himself, and it had been hushed up to hide the further disgrace, but it had indeed been the terrible accident that they pretended it was. She ought to set them right; but even as she had this thought, she knew it was impossible. How could she explain, even to someone as sympathetic as Aunt Matty, that she had, against an express prohibition, let herself into Jocelyn’s room and having rifled his desk, read his private letters?