Invitation to a Cornish Christmas

by Marguerite Kaye

  ‘You don’t have to explain...’

  ‘I meant only that I’m thirty-six years old. Of course there have been women. But I’ve never been a man to make any sort of false promises, Emily. That’s what I meant. And now it sounds as if I’m propositioning you, which I’m not. I’m simply—I want us to be honest with each other, that’s all.’

  A very refreshing change indeed, if he meant it. All her instincts told her that he did, but her instincts had been catastrophically wrong before. Yet she did feel she could trust him. Was it then dishonest of her to keep her past to herself? No, she decided. All Treeve wanted was her honest opinions, and those she could give freely.

  ‘I honestly think we should turn back,’ Emily said teasingly. ‘Before we’re trapped by the rising tide.’

  ‘I’ve said too much again, haven’t I?’ Treeve said, making no move, pushing his hair, damp from the salt spray, back from his brow.

  ‘We’ve only just met. You are only here until the end of the year.’ She considered this. ‘Though I suppose that is an argument for us to skip the conventional niceties.’

  ‘I think we’ve already done that,’ he replied, indicating their bare feet.

  ‘Very true.’

  They set off back through the lapping waves. The next time their hands brushed, their eyes met, and their fingers clasped. His hand was warm against her icy skin. The sun was bright now, making the sea glitter. Emily’s blood tingled and fizzed in her veins. Any other day she would put it down to the exhilaration of walking on an unspoilt beach in fine weather. Today, it was a whole combination of things: this particular beach; this particular sun; this particular man.

  ‘I’m a silversmith,’ she said, wanting to surprise him, to give him the gift of an unsought confidence, wanting to trust him with it.

  Treeve looked suitably startled. ‘A silversmith?’

  ‘That’s how I earn my living.’

  ‘How extraordinary. You don’t look like a silversmith.’

  ‘What do you imagine a silversmith looks like?’

  ‘A wizened old man wearing spectacles, hunched over a workbench. How on earth did you learn such a trade? Doesn’t it require some sort of apprenticeship?’

  ‘My father was a silversmith of some repute. I lost him six years ago.’

  ‘By the sounds of it, you were very close.’

  ‘Very.’ Emily blinked furiously. ‘I worked with him from an early age, and through a friend of his, also learned the basics of jewellery making—the two are very distinct trades, usually. I combine them. My father made much bigger pieces on a grander scale than I could produce here. My work is not so profitable, but luckily for me, I’ve discovered that I’m most adept at cutting my cloth to suit my purse.’

  ‘By moving to a tiny cottage at the ends of the earth,’ Treeve said. ‘Though you only arrived here in April.’

  He wanted honesty. How to explain that honestly? Emily wondered. ‘London is expensive and I also desperately wanted—needed a change. My resources have been dwindling.’ Which was most certainly true. ‘Though I am quite self-sufficient,’ she added. ‘You must not feel sorry for me.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Treeve said, clearly confused by the challenge in her voice.

  ‘Good. I won’t be pitied, you know.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why you think I would do such a thing. If anything, I envy you your independence.’

  She bit her lip. ‘It has been hard earned, believe me.’

  He eyed her for a moment, struggling, she thought, with whether or not to pursue the subject, whether to ask her the obvious question. ‘All the best things are hard earned,’ he said eventually, a platitude for which she was grateful.

  ‘True. I like to be busy, though the short days at this time of year are problematic. My work requires daylight.’

  ‘Is that a hint that I’m holding you back?’

  ‘No, though I ought to get back to my workbench soon.’

  ‘May I have the privilege of seeing some of your work?’

  ‘You are very welcome to call, though I think you will find that your time is not your own, once it becomes known that you have arrived. Everyone will want to meet you, and you will wish to make yourself familiar enough with your new domain to be able to decide whether or not to entrust it to Mr Bligh.’

  ‘True, but I think you in turn underestimate my determination to become better acquainted with you. Assuming, of course, that you have a similar wish?’

  This time there was no mistaking the glow in his eyes. Emily’s cheeks heated. ‘I think I’ve made it plain that I do.’

  They were back where they started on the sands. The tide had all but swallowed The Beasts. The surf was getting higher and the clouds lower. Treeve rescued his shoes and stockings from an incoming wave, and they headed up the beach to the foot of the cliff path, Treeve turning his back without being asked as Emily picked up her own shoes and stockings.

  ‘Why is it,’ she said when she had finished, ‘that damp sand on bare feet feels so delightful, yet damp sand in wet wool is so unpleasant?’

  He laughed. ‘Perhaps every pleasure comes at a price.’

  Now, what was one to make of that remark? He led the way up the path. She allowed herself to enjoy the view of him from behind, the athletic ease with which he negotiated the steep path, and the smile he gave her every time he turned around to check that he had not gone too far ahead.

  When they reached the top, Emily was more breathless than she should be. ‘Are you headed to the village? There’s a path...’

  ‘I know,’ Treeve said.

  ‘Of course you do!’

  ‘Actually, I’m headed back to Karrek House. An appointment with my brother’s lawyer. Or I should say mine, now. I am not looking forward to it, but there’s no point in putting it off. The sooner I understand the extent of my obligations, the better. I’ve very much enjoyed our walk.’

  ‘As have I. I walk on the sands most mornings. If you feel like company. I mean, you don’t have to join me.’

  ‘I’d like that, Emily.’ He caught her hand, covering it with his own. ‘I would very much like to say that I’ll see you tomorrow, but I think you may be right, in the very short term at least. My time is not likely to be my own. Shall we say soon?’

  ‘Soon.’ Their fingers twined. ‘I should go.’

  He nodded. He stepped towards her. She thought he was going to kiss her. He would taste of salt. His hands tightened around hers. Then he let her go.

  ‘Whatever happens with the rest of the day, it has begun very well. Until the next time, Emily.’

  ‘Until the next time.’

  She headed along the path towards her cottage. She could sense him watching her, telling herself she was being silly, resisting the urge to turn around. And then she thought, why not, turning around. And he waved. And though she couldn’t see his face clearly, she was sure he smiled.

  Chapter Three

  For the next three mornings, Karrek Sands was once again Emily’s exclusive domain. She was not surprised, but she was more disappointed than she cared to admit. Replaying her conversation with Treeve, she was astonished by her own frankness, not so much with facts but regarding her feelings. To admit, within such a tiny space of time, so much, seemed to her in retrospect utterly foolhardy. Yet she had done no more than he—had in fact followed his very frank lead. Had there really been the affinity that both of them had professed to feel? How could she be sure that he had not pretended, in order to gain her trust?

  Opening the door of her cottage, Emily shook her head decidedly. Treeve was no dissembler, she simply knew it, in her bones. She had been nineteen when she met Andrew Macfarlane for the first time, a green girl with no experience of life. The second time, she had been grieving and vulnerable in a different way, and ripe for the plucking. Yes, she could admit that. But she was thi
rty-two now, an independent woman who knew her own mind, her strengths and more importantly her limitations.

  She sat down at her workbench, pulled the bonbon dish she had been working on towards her and began to smooth the pierced silver with a wire brush. The light was good this morning. She ought to make the most of it, finish the decoration at the very least.

  Treeve was drawn to her. She was drawn to him. Their attraction was one of the mind, but it was also physical. Yes, she could admit all of those things, and she could relish them too. Why not, when there was absolutely no risk of either of them becoming in any way embroiled. He was going back to sea at the end of the year. And she—well, her heart was well and truly locked away.

  If it wasn’t, or if Treeve ultimately decided to stay, then that would be a very different matter. If he were to remain as lord of the manor, she would have to keep him at arm’s length, for she could not risk their feelings running deeper. She knew what heartbreak felt like. She would not inflict that on either of them.

  Emily stared down at the bonbon dish in dismay. She had brushed so hard, she was in danger of wearing through the design. Was she still heartbroken? She must have loved Andrew, that other, gullible Emily. If she had not loved him, he would not have succeeded in his deception, and if she had not been so determined to turn a blind eye, he would not have continued to succeed. She most certainly didn’t love him now. His betrayal had been so callous and the extent of it so shocking that he had destroyed not just her faith in him, but in human nature. She was determined to recover from that, despite the fact that a separate part of her was broken irreparably. But she couldn’t blame Andrew for that. His only crime had been to inadvertently highlight an unpalatable but inescapable fact.

  Casting her work in progress aside, Emily got to her feet. This morning’s paddle had not eased the restlessness she’d woken with. She was tired of being cooped up here, alone. Pulling her cloak back on, she hurried out once more into the fresh air.

  The gatehouse had been built at a later date than Karrek House, though in a sympathetic style, with a sharp pointed roof and mullioned windows. It had lain empty since Emily’s arrival, but now the windows on the top floor were open, presumably to give the place an airing. Treeve’s doing perhaps, or possibly a signal that a new tenant was imminent.

  There were two stone lions standing guard just beyond the gatehouse on the path leading up to Karrek House. The salty Cornish air had eaten away their features, leaving the pair with bizarrely broad smiles, no noses, and manes that had long lost their shagginess. The Penhaligon family home was beautiful, an Elizabethan manor built of Cornish granite with five distinctive Dutch-style gables. Three narrow protruding wings formed an ‘E’ shape. Was Treeve inside, going through his estate account books? Or was he outside, making a tour of his inheritance in Jago Bligh’s company, eager to be reassured, eager to get back to his ship, and the life he loved?

  A seagull came to a squawking halt on one of the lions’ heads, making Emily jump. The last thing she wanted was to be caught gazing forlornly up at Treeve’s house. Emily turned on her heel and headed for the village.

  * * *

  Budoc Lane, the main street of Porth Karrek and the hub of village life was narrow, steep and cobblestoned, the whitewashed shops which lined both sides protecting those going about their business from the worst of the elements. The door to the butcher’s shop stood ajar, but there was no sign of Phincas Bosanko. Phin, as he was known, though Emily never dared address him as such, was a very fine specimen of a man, if you valued brawn—and a fair few of the local maids certainly seemed to. As far as Emily had been able to deduce, the butcher dispensed his favours evenly, treading a fine line between flirtation and commitment to cannily keep all his options open. It amused her on one level, but on another, the idea of him assuming he had the right to break as many hearts as he wished made her hackles rise—though she knew she ought not allow her own pathetic history to colour her view.

  The mouth-watering smell of fresh-baked bread wafted from the baker’s yard at the rear of the shop. ‘We’ve no pasties ready yet, if that’s what you’re after.’ Eliza Menhenick eyed Emily with her customary reserve.

  ‘Thank you, I would like a loaf of that delicious-smelling bread, Mrs Menhenick.’

  ‘What size of loaf would suit you, Miss Faulkner?’

  ‘The smallest one you have, as usual.’ Emily forced a smile. She’d been buying her bread here for nigh on seven months, yet each time Eliza Menhenick asked the same question, determined to remind Emily that she was a stranger in Porth Karrek, and a solitary one at that. How long would it take, she wondered as she left the shop, the bread tucked into a fold in her cloak, before she was accepted as one of the locals? A lifetime most likely, and for the likes of Eliza Menhenick and Jago Bligh, even that probably wouldn’t be enough.

  The village shop run by the Chegwin family was at the bottom of Budoc Lane, facing directly on to the harbour. Besides groceries, the shop stocked a bit of everything, from rope, needles, cotton, and the rough-spun, oiled wool used to knit fishermen’s jumpers, to nails, ink, pencils, herbs and spices, and cooking pots. There were everyday candles of tallow, more expensive ones of beeswax, and the most beautiful carved and scented candles made by Cloyd Bolitho, a melancholy candlemaker who looked as fragile as his creations. The Chegwins also stocked flagons of rough cider, the strong fermented apple drink that Emily suspected would crack her head open with one taste. There were other, unmarked barrels in the shop too, which it didn’t take a genius to work out contained contraband. She had enjoyed a glass or two of Bordeaux in the past, but she couldn’t afford such a luxury now, and in any case knew better, as an incomer, than to suggest to the Chegwins that they would be able to sell her such a thing. The shop smelled of a particularly pleasant combination of tea leaves and coffee beans and cheese and—for some reason—wood shavings, but Emily had no purchases to make there today.

  The harbour beach, a mixture of sand and stones, sloped steeply down to the water. The tide was still out, leaving the limpet-covered harbour wall exposed. A number of the smaller boats were beached on the sand, their moorings at full stretch, though the bigger pilchard boat belonging to Jago Bligh was tied up close to the wall, and still afloat on the water. The air was rich with the tang of the sea, the remnants of yesterday’s catch, and that distinctive smell of brine-soaked nets and rope which Emily had never been able to put a name to, but which was another reminder of happier times, watching the catch come in on her grandfather’s herring fleet at Stornaway harbour.

  She wandered out along the harbour wall to stand at the furthest point gazing out beyond the headland to the sea, where The Beasts were only just visible, the waves cresting white as the incoming tide broke over them. Beyond the wall the sea was grey-blue, but inside it was calm, turquoise, the sandy seabed visible, shoals of tiny fish darting about in the seaweed.

  Picking her way back through the ropes, creels and nets, she saw a tall figure striding down Budoc Lane, recognising him immediately. Treeve didn’t get far before he was waylaid by the butcher. The two men struck up what looked from this distance like a friendly conversation.

  Emily stood in the lee of the Ship Inn, curious to see what the other villagers would make of their new landlord. Phin was laughing at something Treeve had said. The two men shook hands. The butcher, in her view, had an inflated opinion of himself but there were no sides to him, from what Emily had seen, and she liked that about him. When she’d arrived in the village back in April, Phin had been openly curious rather than hostile, his blunt questions as to where she had come from and what she was doing in Cornwall a refreshing change from the mutterings and speculation of most of the others. She had, of course, answered none of his questions, and to his credit he’d not persisted either. A man who liked plain dealing. He and Treeve would likely do well together.

  How the Menhenicks received Treeve, she had no idea, for he disappeared
into the shop for a good ten minutes. Several other villagers watched his progress towards the harbour front, some answering his ready smile with a doffed cap, a curtsy, a handshake, others a sullen look, one or two with a pointedly turned back. She could have avoided him altogether and headed back up Budoc Lane while he was in the Chegwins’ shop, clearly on a mission to make himself known to one and all, but that would be to attach an importance to him she had decided she didn’t want to encourage. So Emily waited, intending to bid him a polite good day, before heading home.

  ‘Ah, the very person!’ Treeve exclaimed, emerging from the shop. ‘If I hadn’t bumped into you here, I’d have called at your cottage. I’m afraid I haven’t had a moment to call my own since I last saw you.’

  ‘I did warn you that would be the case.’

  ‘You’re on your way home,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can wait for half an hour or so, then I can walk back with you? No, it’s wrong of me to ask. The light is good. You’ll be wanting to get back to your workbench, so I won’t detain you.’

  ‘I can spare half an hour,’ Emily found herself saying, which she wouldn’t have, had not Treeve acknowledged that she too had other claims on her time.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling. ‘I appreciate that. I’m told I can get a decent cup of coffee at the Ship, will you join me?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’ll be welcome there. As a female, I mean.’

  ‘This is not London, Emily. The Ship has always been the hub of the village, a place for men, women and children to relax—not in the taproom, obviously, but there is a parlour.’ Treeve pursed his lips. ‘But you must know that, you’ve lived here long enough. What you mean is that you don’t think you’d be welcome as an outsider. I’ll let you into a secret. I am not convinced I’ll be welcome either, and I own the place. Shall we step inside and find out?’