The Feud

by James, Amanda

  ‘I think she must know about us… about the fact we are’ – her face reddens – ‘you know – close. No idea how. Probably spying. She hinted at it when we argued. It’s her worse nightmare, isn’t it? A Trevelyar and a granddaughter of a Penhallow reunited. The feud over.’

  Matt nods. ‘Yes. I think you might be right. But even so–’

  Lavender holds up her finger, turns her mouth into a stiff line. ‘Actually, no, it’s much more personal than that. Her worst nightmare, and what she can’t bear, is that the grandson of two people she despises most in all the world has won the heart of her granddaughter. That the granddaughter who, for years, she’s nurtured, loved’ – Lavender gives a humourless bark – ‘well, supposedly loved, has rejected her in favour of you. It’s Terry and Elowen all over again. Rejection and betrayal. For her, it’s the ultimate insult.’

  Matt sighs. ‘When I was a kid my gran used to say I had a Cornish legacy. I’d been bequeathed the Cornish spirit and fire of my forebears and a bit of magic from Elowen. She said she knew I’d return here one day too, and I have. What a pity the Cornish legacy seems to be one of death and destruction in the end.’

  ‘All because of the old bitch who calls herself my grandmother.’

  Matt hates to see Lavender so distraught. Fury and sadness flit intermittently across her eyes as she stares into the fire. She’s picking at the skin on the side of her thumb and he can only imagine the tangle of thoughts in her mind. He wants to make it all better, but his gut tells him it will take a long time to heal wounds like this. Matt remembers one positive thing she’s just revealed to him. Something that makes him smile inside, despite the situation. He hesitates a while and then says, ‘So, is it true what you said… you know, that I’ve won your heart?’

  A frown furrows her brow as if she can’t remember saying it. Then she shrugs. ‘I guess it is. Not sure what future we have now though.’

  Matt’s not smiling inside now. ‘Why not?’

  ‘How can I be happy with someone who thinks I’m capable of murder?’

  ‘I don’t think that at all! I was confused when I saw the bracelet and was told where it was found. Anyone would be. To be honest, I thought you’d be relieved I didn’t tell the police it belonged to you.’ Matt’s hurt, angry and resentful all at the same time. But most of all he’s worried that he and Lavender’s fledgling relationship is already dead in the water.

  She’s looking a bit sheepish now, puts her hand on his knee. ‘I’m sorry. This whole thing is so hard to take in. I’m not thinking straight.’

  He takes her hand, kisses the back of it. ‘Of course you’re not. And you must be emotionally exhausted. We both are. But the police will turn something up from the CCTV in a few days, no doubt, and we’ll put our heads together in the morning.’ Matt glances at the clock. ‘And much as I don’t want to leave you – I should get into the village and bag a room for the night.’

  Lavender gives him a level stare. ‘I have a spare room. You’re welcome to it.’

  Matt smiles. ‘That would be brilliant. But can you imagine the wagging tongues if someone saw me leaving in the morning? Your gr… Morvoren would have heart failure.’

  Lavender snorts. ‘Yeah, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.’ Then she kisses him and gives him a shy smile. ‘Why not share my bed – might as well? The tongue waggers will say you have anyway.’

  ‘Look, there’s nothing I would like more. But as I said, you’re emotionally–’

  ‘Just shut up and kiss me.’

  Matt looks into her eyes and kisses her. Tomorrow’s troubles can wait.

  Chapter 28

  If Morvoren had the strength to go and strangle that bloody cockerel over the back wall, she would. Not a wink of sleep all night, and now just as she’s dropping off, she’s being tormented by its incessant crowing. She heaves herself higher up the bed and tries to plump the pillows. Even this small action sets off the cough again that’s plagued her for hours. Hawking into a tissue, she examines the blob of black phlegm. The black’s to be expected after the smoke, but it looks like there’s a bit of red in there too. That’s been happening for weeks, but not quite as much as this.

  Outside the window, the early morning light is filtering through the naked tree branches at the end of her garden. October is dying and so is she. Morvoren suspects she’ll not see the leaves returning. A shame, as spring is her favourite time of year. But so be it. Lavender has betrayed her – what is there left to live for? Slumping against the pillows, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, which brings on a fresh bout of coughing. At least the young madam will be punished once they find her bracelet.

  Morvoren will make an anonymous phone call about it all in a few days, once she’s feeling a bit better. She’ll say Lavender broke down and confessed to her dear old gran about the killing of Trevelyar and the manslaughter of Jessica Blake. She’d burnt down his house with him in it because he rejected her after stringing her along. Jessica Blake just happened to be there. She was distraught about that bit, and she’d left her bracelet at the scene of the crime, but Lavender had begged Morvoren not to say anything. Even though she adored her granddaughter, she decided she had to speak out – her conscience wouldn’t allow her to keep silent any longer.

  She thinks again about Jessica and her stomach rolls. Such a shock to see her coming out of the smoke like that yesterday. What the hell the schoolteacher was doing there, Morvoren had no idea. Maybe she and Trevelyar had a thing? Typical of him to have more than one woman on the go. This would be the perfect motive for Lavender, wouldn’t it? Yes, Morvoren would say Lavender found out that Trevelyar was two-timing her, and so wreaked vengeance. Morvoren smiles. She’ll change manslaughter to murder. Lavender Nancarrow murdered two people in cold blood because of betrayal. How fitting. Happy with the way things are slotting into place, at last she drifts off to sleep.

  Someone’s calling her name. No. Go away… She’s tired. Morvoren pulls the pillow over her head, but then she hears someone hammering on the front door. Opening one eye, she sees the bedside clock flashing a digital 12.23am at her. No. That must mean she’s been asleep five hours. It only feels like a few moments since she closed her–

  ‘Morvoren! Mor! You okay? All your curtains are shut… Mor?’

  ‘Bloody Annie,’ Morvoren grumbles. What does she want? She tries to call down to her, but it starts her coughing, so she hauls herself up and slips her dressing gown on. All the while Annie continues to shout through the letter box. Because she feels so rough, Morvoren has to take the stairs even slower than normal, and when she arrives at the bottom, Annie’s stopped. If she’s bloody gone after all that I’ll… Morvoren opens the door just in time to see Annie going through the gate.

  ‘Oi! I’m here,’ she wheezes.

  Annie turns and hurries back. ‘Oh, Mor. You look terrible, maid. Come on back inside.’ She takes Morvoren’s arm and guides her to the kitchen. ‘You poorly?’

  ‘No. I always stay in bed until past noon,’ Morvoren snaps and starts coughing.

  ‘Here, sit yourself down. I’ll light a fire and make you some tea. Or soup? Soup’s good for a cough.’

  ‘Not sure it is. Besides, I’m not hungry – tea will do, thanks.’

  Annie makes her comfortable on the sofa and tucks a blanket around Morvoren’s legs. She’s about to light a fire but Morvoren tells her to put the heating on instead.

  ‘It’s no trouble, Mor. There’s kindling right there and–’

  ‘Leave it, Annie. I can’t be doing with the smoke with this cough. Make the tea and I’ll tell you how I got it.’

  Annie’s eyes light up with excitement. ‘I’ll tell you a story about a fire! Someone’s house burnt down last night. Wait ’til you hear whose it is!’

  Morvoren smiles to herself as she listens to Annie humming while rattling about making tea in the kitchen. She can’t wait to pop her little gossip bubble with a big story of her own. When Annie comes back in with two mugs a
nd a packet of biscuits under her arm, Morvoren says gleefully, ‘I bet I can tell you whose house burnt down.’

  Annie pulls a face. ‘Hmm. You always seem to know everything before I do. But I’ve no idea how, you being ill and in bloody bed.’

  ‘I wasn’t as ill yesterday.’ Morvoren blows across the surface of her tea. Then she winks at Annie. ‘In fact, I’d not felt so good in years.’

  Annie settles herself in the armchair across from her old friend and raises an eyebrow. ‘Bet you don’t know about the body though, eh?’

  Morvoren doesn’t like the sound of this. Shouldn’t she have said ‘bodies’? ‘I do, as a matter of fact… both of them.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s only one, as far as I’ve heard.’ Annie purses her lips and looks a bit unsure.

  ‘Well, you’ve not heard right, then. There were two bodies – Jessica Blake’s and Matthew Trevelyar’s.’ Morvoren puts her mug down, folds her arms, gives Annie the hard stare.

  ‘No. It’s you who’ve heard wrong. As much as I know you’d wish he was, Mor, Trevelyar’s not dead.’ Annie crunches into a biscuit, triumph in her eyes at getting one over on Morvoren.

  ‘He has to be.’ Morvoren snatches her mug up, then bangs it down again on the coffee table.

  ‘Well he’s not.’ Annie jabs a half-eaten biscuit at her. ‘Betty told me this morning he’d had a bloody lucky escape. Last night he’d gone to meet your Lavender at the pub. On his way, he’d popped in for some sweets at the shop and they had a chat.’

  No, no, no! Trevelyar’s alive and Lavender was in the pub? That’s buggered everything right up. Damn it all! Morvoren puts her hands over her face and tries to keep hold of her sanity. How could this be happening? She looks at Annie in bewilderment and then anger pulses through her veins. ‘The jammy bastard must have gone out just before I set the fire. Must have been by the skin of his teeth – he’s the luck of the devil that one!’ The outburst sets her coughing so she grabs her mug, slopping tea on the carpet as she tries to take a drink.

  Annie’s mouth has fallen open and when Morvoren’s coughing abates, she says, ‘You started the fire? I can’t believe it.’

  ‘And I can’t believe Trevelyar is alive.’ Morvoren shakes her head. ‘I mean, there he was in the window – I could see him washing up just a few minutes before I poured petrol all over everything.’

  ‘You poured petrol over everything. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Best way to torch a house.’

  ‘You torched the house. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘What are you, a bloody parrot?’ she fires at Annie.

  Annie shakes her head and puts a trembling hand to her lips. ‘I know how much you hate that man, Mor… but if anyone asked me if I thought you were capable of trying to murder him, I would have laughed in their face.’

  ‘Really? Then you don’t know me too well, do you?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t do.’ Annie’s voice is hushed, bewildered.

  Morvoren wants to slap her. Annie knows what she’s had to put up with over the years. ‘Oh, come on. My ancestors suffered at their hands, don’t forget. And I was betrayed in the worst way by Terry and that bitch Elowen. If Matt Trevelyar had died in that fire, the world would be better off.’

  ‘And what about the schoolteacher? What had Jessica Blake ever done to you?’

  Regret and guilt kick Morvoren in the gut. ‘Nothing. That was a mistake and I’m sorry for it. But she just appeared from nowhere. She was wearing stupid high heels and must have tripped over. Hurt her leg.’

  ‘Dear God, Morvoren. I can’t take it all in.’ Annie’s eyes fill, and she covers her mouth as if trying to stop her words, but her voice escapes through her fingers. ‘You’ve actually killed one person and wanted to kill another.’

  ‘As I’ve just said – I’m sorry for the death of the teacher. It was an accident, okay?’ Morvoren coughs again and spits into a tissue.’

  Realisation dawns in Annie’s eyes. ‘You’re coughing because of smoke damage… You don’t have an infection at all.’

  ‘Yes and no. I think I do have an underlying something or other, but the smoke’s brought the cough out something awful.’

  ‘Righteous punishment on you.’ Annie’s expression is not one Morvoren’s seen before. She looks like she hates her, and Morvoren doesn’t like it.

  ‘Never knew you were religious, Annie.’ Morvoren gives a wry smile.

  ‘You don’t care about what you’ve done at all, do you? You’re just sitting there, poking fun at me.’ Annie’s voice is trembling with emotion.

  ‘Hey, change the record. I told you the teacher was a mistake. Bad luck. I’ve had a run of bad luck, to be honest, because I was going to pin the whole thing on my mare of a granddaughter. That was until you told me she was in the pub, so of course she has a sodding alibi. Loads of people will be able to confirm it. I found Lavender’s mermaid bracelet on the floor over there.’ Morvoren inclines her head to the doorway. ‘I grabbed her wrist the last time she visited. And this bracelet was “conveniently” left in the hand of the dying Miss Blake yesterday… Genius, if I do say so myself.’

  Annie’s aghast. ‘Your own flesh and blood? I know you’ve had your differences and you say she’s betrayed you – but how could you want to do such a terrible thing to her?’ She heaves herself up and makes for the door, dabbing a tissue at the tears now pouring down her face. ‘I’m going to tell the police what I know. There’s no way I can live with this.’

  Morvoren can hardly credit it. Annie’s been her friend for nigh on seventy years and she thinks she’s going to grass on her? Well, she can fucking think again. ‘You’ll do no such thing, Annie, or your precious Jamie will be looking at the inside of a prison before Christmas.’

  Annie stops in the hallway, looks back at Morvoren, fear in every line of her face. ‘W-Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Come back in here and sit down. You’re giving me a crick in my neck.’

  Annie comes back and perches on the chair arm. ‘What’s my Jamie got to do with it?’

  Morvoren gives her a slow smile. She’s enjoying this, having the upper hand after her plans have gone so badly wrong. ‘Jamie got me the petrol. I managed to drag it there in my trolley, and was going to do it by myself, but the cannister was just too heavy to pour safely. I didn’t want it all over me too, or I’d go up like a firework. So I called him and he came and helped.’

  Annie’s ashen. ‘My Jamie… no, he wouldn’t.’ A sob escapes on the last word.

  ‘Oh, he would, and he did. It’s a good job too, because the smoke overwhelmed me at one point. He had to lift me from harm’s way. Then he went and investigated Jessica Blake. She’d hurt her leg and was dragging herself along with her lower half afire, apparently. I didn’t see her. Heard her screaming though. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.’

  Annie’s shaking her head, sticking her chin out. ‘Jamie might be a bit of a lad, but he would never do something like that!’

  ‘A bit of a lad who’s been betrayed by my granddaughter. It’s amazing how love can turn so swiftly to hate, isn’t it?’ Morvoren treats Annie to a knowing smile. ‘Once I’d told him that Lavender and Trevelyar have been at it like rabbits, he just wanted revenge. Got guts, that boy. Such a tragedy he and Lavender didn’t get together. I gave him Lavender’s bracelet and told him to put it in Jessica’s hand. A pity it was all for nothing as Lavender has an alibi.’ She holds up her forefinger and frowns. ‘The weird thing was that Jessica apparently seemed to think Jamie was Trevelyar – called him Matt. Might have been her mind playing tricks as it closed down…’

  Annie slumps in the chair and sobs as if her heart is breaking. Morvoren can’t get any sense out of her at all, so gives up trying. She finishes her tea and contemplates a biscuit. But she decides against it, as the crumbs might make her cough. Looking up at Annie, she sees her staring vacantly into space, her face puffy and red, tears still
silently coursing. Eventually, she says in a small, faraway voice, ‘I’ve never felt so completely hopeless in all my life.’

  Morvoren thinks she looks pathetic and wants to laugh. She just manages not to and says, ‘Come on, old girl. Let’s not fight and put this down to experience… My plans went wrong, and I’m sorry the schoolteacher got mixed up in it. Jamie did his best, and you should be proud of him. I can see you’re not, mind.’ A shrug. ‘Obviously you won’t be telling the police now… I need another sleep, I think, if I’m to shake this bloody cough. I’ve got a strong herbal remedy in the freezer which should help. It should be freshly picked stuff, but beggars, choosers and all that.’

  Annie gets to her feet and gives Morvoren’s face a disgusted sweep as she walks past. At the door, she says over her shoulder, ‘Goodbye, Morvoren. I hope never to set eyes on you again.’

  Morvoren jumps as the door slams behind her and sticks two fingers in the air. ‘Up yours, Annie! Who bloody needs friends like you, anyway?’ The defiance in her heart is absent from her voice, however. Her words spoken out loud, sound small and hollow and empty. An uncomfortable thought slithers to the forefront of her mind. Her life is like the words, isn’t it? Small, hollow and empty. Her husband’s dead, her son and wife don’t bother with her much, her oldest friend has deserted her and the one true hope, the one she was going to pass the torch of folklore and nature to… the one who she would live on through, has forsaken her. And we all know whose fault it is, don’t we? Once she’s fit enough, she’ll make him pay. Trevelyar might have escaped death this time, but Morvoren will have her vengeance.