Midsummer's Eve

by Philippa Carr

  “I do want to do this my way. I don’t want to leave it to Mr. Tamblin. I want to be there once more … just to say my final farewell to the old place.”

  “Well, if you want to do it your way, you must,” said Uncle Peter. “But remember it might not be easy to find a buyer.”

  “I expect you want to go through the things you have stored up there,” said Aunt Amaryllis. “And I daresay you’ll want to keep some of them.”

  “Yes, that is so.”

  “You can’t go alone,” said Uncle Peter, frowning.

  “I’ve thought of that. There is a young woman at the Mission. Her name is Kitty. I took quite a fancy to her. I thought I would employ her as a maid and take her with me.”

  “A girl from the Mission!” cried Uncle Peter. “What sort of girl?”

  “She’s had a hard life. She came up to London from the country. She had a job as maid or something. The master of the house was offensive and the mistress turned her out. Frances is looking for a good situation for her.”

  “You want to be careful whom you employ,” said Uncle Peter.

  “I am being very careful. I like Kitty. Frances says she is a good girl.”

  “Frances is apt to have a rose-coloured view of her inmates.”

  “I think Frances is very shrewd,” said Aunt Amaryllis.

  “In any case, I’ve made up my mind,” I told them. “I shall go down to the Mission and put this proposition to Kitty and Frances. And if they are agreeable I shall employ her. I’ll get some clothes for her. I think she would like to go to the country for a while.”

  Aunt Amaryllis nodded, with tears in her eyes.

  I went that very day to the Mission and put my proposition first to Frances.

  She was delighted with it. “Just what Kitty needs,” she said. “She took a great fancy to you from the day she saw you. I’ll send for her. She’s peeling potatoes in the kitchen.”

  Kitty arrived and when I told her what I had in mind, her delight was a joy to see.

  “It will be very quiet where I’m going,” I warned her. “Just a little cottage on the edge of an estate which was once mine. There won’t be any other servants.”

  “When do we leave, Miss Cadorson?” asked Kitty.

  Frances embraced us both—a rare demonstration for her.

  “You’ve made a good choice,” she said.

  And in spite of what lay before me my spirits lifted a little.

  Kitty and I travelled part of the way on the railway, which was a novelty to us both. It seemed so wonderful to travel in such an exciting fashion, but of course the railways were encroaching all over the countryside at this time. It was a great innovation, but nothing could be wholly good, it seemed, and many stagecoach drivers were being deprived of their livelihoods. I had heard many a sad story of their fates from Frances and Peterkin.

  We stayed at night at an inn at Exeter and there heard from the landlord that the railways would in time be the end of the old coaching inns.

  We travelled the rest of the way by coach which dropped us in the town. Mr. and Mrs. Tamblin were there to meet us for they had been warned of my coming. They both greeted me warmly and I introduced Kitty as my maid. She was very demure and I could see how excited she was. She had told me on the night before that she had never had such an exciting adventure in her life and had never thought to travel in a real train. She stood at the window of the inn and inhaled the fresh country air.

  I felt very pleased that I had been able to do something to make her so happy. Mrs. Tamblin told me that she had had certain things taken out of store and put into Croft Cottage, so it could be lived in right away. Then I could decide what other things I wanted. She herself would come along with me to the storage warehouse and explain everything to me. But first we were going to spend a night with them. We could start sorting everything out in the morning. She knew how tired and hungry we must be after that long journey.

  “And you travelled on the train!” she cried, looking at us with wonder. I think she thought we had taken our lives in our hands to travel in such a strange contraption.

  The Tamblins’ carriage had been waiting for us and in a short time we arrived at their house. I was ushered into my bedroom and Kitty was to sleep in a little dressing room attached to it.

  “Now you wash the journey off you and then come down to eat. I’ll go and see that they get it on the table.”

  So I did.

  Kitty was given a meal in the kitchen and I sat down with the Tamblins.

  “It is good to see you back,” said Mrs. Tamblin. “I was hoping you might come when orders were sent to see about the repairs to Croft Cottage.”

  “Is it now in good order?”

  “In perfect order. It’s a pleasant little place,” said Mrs. Tamblin.

  “Your mother did well to buy it,” added her husband.

  “Do you think I shall find a buyer quickly?”

  “Property is not going all that quickly now and it is rather remote. A lot depends on luck.”

  “Perhaps you will like it so much you’ll change your mind about selling,” said Mrs. Tamblin.

  I was silent.

  “I was wondering,” she went on, “how you’d feel about being so close to Cador.”

  “I don’t know … yet.”

  “What a change in that place! Isaacs is very worried about the way things are going. I saw Mrs. Penlock the other day. She was near to tears.”

  “It’s going downhill fast, I think,” said Mr. Tamblin. “Even a big estate can’t stand up to that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “I don’t exactly know. There are rumours. Mortgages and so on … changing things. They’re spending money like water. And there’s nothing done to the farms nor to the house itself. You have to keep your eye on those sorts of places. People forget how old they are. A little crack … and in no time it’s a big crack … and my goodness, then there’s trouble. You’ve got to be on the watch all the time.”

  “I should have thought Bob Carter would have seen to things.” I wanted to ask what Rolf was doing about it, but could not bring myself to mention his name.

  “Bob Carter? Oh, he’s not there now.”

  “Not there? Where is he then?”

  “He went over to the Manor.”

  “Why?”

  “After the marriage, of course.”

  “But I should have thought …”

  “Apparently he never got on with Luke Tregern.”

  “Did he have to? Luke was at the Manor, Bob at Cador.”

  They looked at me in astonishment.

  “Oh, I suppose you haven’t heard about the marriage.”

  “I heard something in London.”

  “So you know then,” said Mrs. Tamblin. “You could have knocked me down with a feather. Of course, being as she is, perhaps it fits. My goodness, it was a bad day for Cador when she took over.”

  “You just can’t do it,” said Mr. Tamblin. “You have to be brought up to that sort of thing … managing a place like that. You can’t take everything out and put nothing back.”

  “But I should have thought Mr. Hanson …”

  “He’s sitting pretty, of course. The difference in those two estates! We used to say that Cador was the giant and the Manor the dwarf. It’s a bit different now.”

  I repeated: “But I should have thought …”

  Mr. Tamblin said: “It is clear you haven’t heard. That woman, Maria Cadorson, as she claims to be, married Luke Tregern.”

  Understanding dawned in me in a blinding flash. I felt suddenly deliriously happy.

  “I thought … that it was Mr. Hanson who had married her,” I stammered.

  “Mr. Hanson! Marry that woman! You must be joking,” said Mrs. Tamblin.

  “I heard it in London. Someone said it was ‘the chap from the Manor’ and I immediately thought …”

  Mrs. Tamblin laughed. “Not in a month of Sundays could I see that coming about
. No, it was Luke Tregern for her, from the moment she got here. She just went for him. He knew which side his bread was buttered.”

  “He was always sly,” said Mr. Tamblin. “He always had an eye for the main chance.”

  “Mr. Hanson always said he was a good manager.”

  “That was when he was managing someone else’s estate. Now he’s gone wild. He’s mortgaged the place up to the hilt, so I heard. He doesn’t work through me. I suppose he doesn’t want me to know too much. I’m too near. But these things get round. Oh, it was a sad day when that woman came to Cornwall.”

  I was not listening. I was savouring the fact that Rolf had not married her.

  I lay in bed that night unable to sleep. I was here, where I had begun to feel I belonged. And I had misjudged Rolf. I had thought he would do anything to get possession of Cador.

  And all the time it was Luke Tregern!

  How happy I was that I had come back.

  I longed to see Rolf.

  The next day we went to the cottage. It looked charming. The workmen had done a good job and Mrs. Tamblin had arranged some things as she thought I should like them.

  There were two bedrooms and she had bought beds and put those in because she had thought I would not come alone. She had selected a few items of furniture from those stored and had put curtains up at the windows.

  I thanked her warmly for all she had done.

  “At least,” she said, “it’s habitable. I don’t know how long you’ll stay, but if you’re going to sell the place you want to have it looking like a home. And you can sell the bits and pieces with the place if you want to.”

  “You think of everything, Mrs. Tamblin.”

  I felt as though I were walking on air. I thought: I shall see him again and if he really cares for me … this time I shall not be foolish.

  Kitty worked hard to get the house as I wanted it. Mrs. Tamblin hovered dispensing little scraps of gossip, little realizing how important they were to me.

  Mr. Hanson was away, she told me. He was often nowadays. Mrs. Tamblin had an idea that he deplored the changes. There were conflicts between Luke Tregern and Bob Carter about the land, and it made for an uneasy situation. Mr. Hanson left all the haggling to Bob; it was as though he could not bear to deal with his ex-manager.

  During the first afternoon Mrs. Penlock called. It was good to see her and she was quite emotional at our meeting.

  “Well there you are, Miss Cadorson. My patience me, it is good to see ’ee. What we’m been putting up with since you left. I can’t tell ’ee all of it. It’s ’ud take a book. I’ve never been in such a place. There be nothing a body can do. I had all them maids under control, I did. I had everything as it should be. The polish on that dining room table … well, it would have done for a mirror. But there’s no heart in anything now. They’re drinking and gambling to past midnight … and in the morning there’s all the mess to clear up. Mr. Isaacs he’d be gone in a flash if he had another place to go to. But he won’t leave the Duchy. Can’t say I blame him. Nor would I. Who wants to go off to foreign parts? Well, you have, Miss Cadorson, but I reckon that’s different. Neither Isaacs nor me would wish to work for foreigners.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Penlock,” I cried, “it is good to talk to you again.”

  “Never should have been,” she grumbled. “I know in me bones as she’s no right to this place. I reckon it’s all a put-up job, I do. And that Luke Tregern … what right ’as he … lording it over us all? King of the castle. Squire of the house. It’s ain’t right, Miss Cadorson. It don’t work.”

  “You say there is gambling and drinking. Who joins them in this?”

  “All the riffraff of the countryside. Come from miles they do. Where they find them I don’t know. Villains, all of them. And they quarrel something shocking … him and her. You can hear them shouting. Cador quarrels always took place behind closed doors … in the way of the gentry. I don’t know what we’re coming to. Bob Carter comes in to the kitchen now and then. He’s always been a friend of Mr. Isaacs. Mind you, he don’t want to be seen at Cador. Luke Tregern wouldn’t want him around. He sees too much. But Bob reckons it can’t go on. There’ll be a climax of some sort, he says. That’s what worries us all at Cador, for what’ll become of us? Oh, it was a sad day when you went, Miss Cadorson … and none of us here believe her tale. There’s a bit of trickery somewhere.”

  “The court believed it, Mrs. Penlock.”

  “Courts is crazy sometimes. Some of them people couldn’t see the noses before their own faces.”

  “It is wonderful to be back.”

  I introduced Kitty. “Kitty has come with me from London. I shall need only one maid and Kitty takes good care of me.”

  Mrs. Penlock studied Kitty with the calculating eyes she bestowed on the maids she employed, and I was pleased to see that they took to each other.

  “You must come up to the house,” she said to Kitty. “Some of the maids will like to meet you … so will we all.”

  “Is that wise, do you think?” I asked. “My maid to come to the house?”

  “If I didn’t have control over me own kitchen I’d walk out tomorrow, that I would,” said Mrs. Penlock severely.

  “I’d like to come,” said Kitty.

  “Then that’s it. I’ll send one of them over to fetch you.”

  “I hear Mr. Hanson is away,” I said.

  “Oh yes … so we’re told. He’s away quite a lot. Mind you, he knows what’s going on but he does give Bob Carter a free hand. Bob says how lucky he was to have stepped into the Manor estate. There wouldn’t have been room for him at Cador with Luke Tregern.” She gave me a sly look and went on: “Bob says Mr. Hanson is not a very contented man lately. I reckon it’s time he settled down.”

  I had been at Croft Cottage a week when Rolf returned.

  I had been living in a state of euphoria which meant that I was a good deal happier than I had been for a long time. I had thought that being here, where there were so many memories of my family, I should have been desolate; but this was not the case. They were constantly in my thoughts; I felt their presence here; and it was as though they were urging me to make something of my life—which I knew was what they would do if they were here.

  I took pride in the cottage. I had not yet put it up for sale and hesitated to do this. I kept telling myself that there was plenty of time. Kitty and I went into the town to buy a few things which we needed. I was greeted almost ecstatically by the people whom I had known. Jack Gort scratched his head and said that things weren’t what they used to be; and he was not referring to his catch. Mrs. Pendart shook her head and said that it wasn’t natural for some to step into shoes that didn’t fit … not by a long chalk.

  I guessed that they all deplored the change at Cador and, of course, they would all be very much aware of it. My father and his family before him had exerted a benevolent influence over the community; local troubles were brought to them; their role was that of caring parents.

  “Things are different now,” was the general comment.

  Many of them were uneasy. They knew the great estate was in decline. Farmers were complaining at the lack of repairs to their homes; the place was going to rack and ruin, it was said.

  Kitty was often in the Cador kitchen, but I supposed the new owners did not concern themselves much with what went on below stairs; and Isaacs and Mrs. Penlock, much as they disliked the lowering of standards, were still despotic rulers in their own domain.

  Kitty had made a friendship with Mabel Tucker whom I remembered as a kitchen maid. She used to come to the cottage on a return visit. I was very pleased to see Kitty so contented.

  Then Rolf came over to see me.

  He looked older, I thought. There were a few lines on his forehead which had not been there before, and he looked rather solemn. But his face lit up with pleasure when he saw me. He took both my hands and held them firmly.

  “I heard you were back,” he said. “I’m so pleased to see you.�
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  “It’s good to see you too, Rolf.”

  “I hear you have come back to sell the cottage.”

  “That was my intention.”

  “That mean you’ll be going away … permanently.”

  “I really don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s hard to say … so much depends.”

  He nodded.

  “All this …” He waved his hand. “Such changes. Sometimes it seems quite unbelievable.”

  “Yes, I know. One goes on for years expecting nothing to change and then suddenly it does … drastically. Come into the cottage. We’re making it quite a pleasant place, Kitty and I. I brought her with me from London. She is out at the moment. I expect she is at Cador. She gets on very well with the maids there and Mrs. Penlock graciously allows her to visit the kitchen.”

  Rolf looked round the little sitting room.

  “Very pleasant,” he said and looked at me sadly. “My dear Annora, what you have gone through! I wish …”

  I looked at him appealingly. I wanted him to hold me tightly. I wanted to say: This time, Rolf, I would not run away. I want to say I’m sorry. I was so foolish. I just couldn’t believe you weren’t there that night … and now I simply don’t care if you were.

  He said: “It was brave of you to come back.”

  “One has to go on living. The people here … they talk all the time about the change at Cador.”

  “It’s a tragedy. They are ruining the place. I can’t understand it. Tregern knows a good deal about management. He always worked well for me. I never quite trusted him, but he was a shrewd manager.”

  “Why didn’t you trust him?”

  “I imagined he was not strictly honest. I think certain sums may have found their way into his pocket.”

  “Didn’t you tax him with it?”

  “I had to have something I could prove first. And he really did a very good job. It was just vague suspicions.”

  “What do you think he is doing now?”

  “I’m not sure. I know he is raising mortgages on Cador. It seems as though he is short of money. Yet he is doing nothing in repairs. The place is running down at an alarming rate. I can only think it is due to his gambling.”