Invitation to a Cornish Christmas

by Marguerite Kaye

  ‘I thought you could use the reminder. You might have been raised here, but it’s something you work hard to forget. I wager you’ve been successful at it.’ She organised his sheets of music and handed them to him. ‘You can’t write the cantata because you’ve forgotten what Cornwall sounds like. You’ve forgotten its story and perhaps your own.’ She strode to the hook by the door where his greatcoat hung with his muffler and took them down. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where to?’ He hadn’t time for anything other than composing, as she’d already highlighted. There were fourteen days before the choir was expected to start rehearsal. Every hour was precious.

  ‘To remember Porth Karrek and I won’t take no for an answer, Mr Kitto.’ She probably wouldn’t. If he refused, she might stand in his parlour arguing all day and then where would he be? Another day lost. There was always the chance she might have a point and that was the only reason he was going on a walk with her. He needed inspiration and he couldn’t afford to overlook any opportunity to find it. Walking with her had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to match the challenge in her green eyes, or curiosity as to what those pink lips might say next. This had nothing to do with the fact that she seemed inordinately capable of getting a rise out of him. He had no time for an infuriating woman...unless, of course, she inspired him.

  Reluctantly, he took his greatcoat from her. ‘Where might we be going, Miss Treleven?’

  ‘To Budoc Lane for the gin and cake progression. It’s early this year on account of celebrating the rescue.’

  He hesitated, his arm halfway into the sleeve of his greatcoat, but it was too late to withdraw now. He’d already committed. It would be crowded on Budoc Lane. With people, with memories and with ghosts of Christmases long past.

  * * *

  ‘Stand here, boy.’

  His father’s grip was hard on his shoulder, his instruction strict as he thrust a parcel of pamphlets into Cador’s chilled hands outside the Chegwins’ shop.

  ‘When they come out of the store, you give them one of these and what do you say?’

  ‘Gin is a sin, sir.’

  Cador shivered. The sky was overcast and it was frightfully cold outside. He could feel every gust of wind through the thin fabric of his breeks. From where he stood, shaking in the December cold, gin didn’t look like a sin. It looked warm and fun. People were having a good time. He wanted to argue it wasn’t just gin, but cake, too. He’d loved cake, the one time he’d had it. Couldn’t they deliver their pamphlets inside?

  He knew better than to ask. He’d asked before. One cuffing was enough to learn his lesson. Jesus wanted him to suffer. This life was suffering. That was what his father said.

  The door opened, a little bell jingling as a couple came out carrying paper-wrapped packages tied with string. Laughter wafted out behind them, along with the delicious scent of cinnamon and soap, the briefest smell of heaven. Some day, when he was older, when he had money of his own and his father couldn’t tell him what to do, or who to believe, he would go inside and buy his mother a bar of French soap.

  ‘Look alive, boy!’ his father snapped. ‘That be the devil’s workshop in there.’

  * * *

  Cador opened the door to the Chegwins’ shop, letting Miss Treleven step over the threshold first before following her into hell. The store was busy. It was a time for shopkeepers to thank their loyal customers with gin and cake, and everyone came out for it, good customer or not. He stood for a moment, eyes closed, and breathed it in. No place in the world smelled liked Chegwins’—tea leaves and spices mixed with candlewax and soaps and a hundred other fantasies. To a boy of seven, it had smelled like hope.

  ‘It’s a good smell, isn’t it, Mr Kitto?’ Beside him, Rosenwyn Treleven smiled, her eyes dancing as she took in the shelves loaded with goods specially brought in for the holidays; some legal, some likely not. Silk stockings lay side by side with woollen mittens, copper pots beside durable, affordable pewter.

  He followed her down a narrow aisle as she selected items for her shopping basket. ‘There was a time when I thought this shop was a dream come to life, a place full of anything a person could want. During the Christmas season it was magical.’

  She cocked her head to one side, studying him for a moment as she shopped. ‘Is that no longer the case?’

  ‘I’m no longer a boy, Miss Treleven. Is it so shocking I no longer have a boy’s view of the world?’ He’d seen the great shops that lined the Parisian boulevards, where one made private appointments and drank champagne with the shopkeepers eager to curry favour. He’d purchased mere trinkets for lovers that cost a month of his father’s income. Chegwins’ and its cheap gin was just a small, crowded shop. The bubble was off the wine in that regard, and yet Miss Treleven, a woman of means, who had been to London, who surely knew better, still found pleasure in poring over the shelves.

  ‘It’s the ritual that matters, Mr Kitto. Gin and cake is tradition. This is Porth Karrek at its best; the fishing boats are in, the men are gathered around a stove, the women chatting as they browse the festive offerings.’ She tossed him a breathtaking smile and he thought perhaps she was at her best when she was defending her town. She saw a Porth Karrek he’d never known. Her voice dropped and he had to lean close to hear her, to breathe her in. ‘Ezerah Chegwin made me feel special when I was younger and I’d bring my single penny to buy sweets. Now the tables are turned. He is a man bordering on old age, who struggles to keep a shop open when the economy is poor and I am the one who has pennies aplenty. Now, he needs me. So, I come and I spend them here. I’d far rather give my money to the Chegwins than to a fancy shop on Bond Street.’

  They turned down another aisle, this one smelling like springtime. She picked up a bar of soap and breathed deeply. ‘When I was little, I could hardly wait until I was old enough to come to the gin and cake progression. I remember the first time I came and bought sweets for my sisters who were too young to attend. How grown up I felt when I made my purchases and Mr Chegwin carefully wrapped them in paper as if I were the grandest customer he’d served all day.’

  Cade gripped a nearby shelf to steady himself. Memories threatened, of a boy standing in the cold who’d wished to do just that—buy a simple bar of soap for his mother. How different her memories were than his. How much happier her endings. It was hard to breathe. He had to get out of the store. He was starting to panic. ‘Miss Treleven, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll wait outside.’

  He pushed past shoppers to the exit, taking deep gulps of fresh air, and leaned against the windows he’d spent his childhood peeping through. His father was probably laughing at him from the afterlife. He’d waited so long to go into that store, only to rush out, sick and disappointed. His father would think it served him right. Maybe his father was right about other things, too. This life was suffering even though Reverend Maddern argued otherwise. Cade pushed his hands through his hair, steadying himself. This was why he hadn’t wanted to come home. Ever. He had not wanted to remember. He had not wanted to walk in the footsteps of his past and face the ghosts of everything that hadn’t been.

  Chapter Six

  Rosenwyn stood at the counter while Ezerah Chegwin tallied her bill. She was impatient to be outside. She hoped Mr Kitto was all right. Inviting him to the gin and cake progression had seemed the right thing to do at the time. He needed inspiration. He needed to remember Porth Karrek. Now Rosenwyn wasn’t so sure her efforts to fix his problem hadn’t led to other consequences. Something had upset him dreadfully. One moment they’d been chattering about Chegwins’ and the next he’d been pale as a ghost. That wasn’t the inspiration she’d been hoping for.

  ‘Mr Kitto didn’t get any cake. I’ve had the wife wrap some up for him.’ Mr Chegwin winked and added a parcel and a flask to the top of her basket as she handed over her coins. ‘He might be hungry later. Let him know we are honoured he is here.’

  Outside, she
found him leaning against the windows. His colour had returned and he looked once again his elegant, insouciant self, even when she knew better; beneath his greatcoat he was in dishabille. That was Cador Kitto in a nutshell—presentable on the outside, naughty on the inside. ‘Why don’t we walk on the beach? The fresh air will do you good and there’s a path we can take up to Karrek House at the end of it.’ Based on his reaction to Chegwins’, it would be best if she waited to do the rest of her errands another day.

  He took her basket as they walked down the lane. ‘What is in here? It weighs a ton.’ He laughed, hefting the basket in exaggeration.

  ‘A few things for the church baskets.’ There was great need this year. A few more mines had closed and those that were still open relied increasingly on machine power, not manpower. When mines failed in this part of Cornwall, everyone failed.

  They reached the beach that marked the boundary between the town and the sea. Behind them, at the other end of Budoc Lane, St Piran’s steeple rose white in the clear, cold sky. Before them, the ocean was a foam-crested dark blue. Gulls circled and cried overhead. In the distance to their left were the Karrek headlands. She wouldn’t give up. She was determined that Cador Kitto find inspiration. It was a perfect day to show him all Porth Karrek could be, if one knew where to look. Rosenwyn drew a breath. ‘Do you hear it, Mr Kitto? Do you hear Cornwall? The gulls, the waves, the cries of the fishermen?’

  ‘There aren’t any fishermen out today.’

  ‘No, but I can imagine what they call to each other and so can you,’ she persisted. ‘Surely you remember the fishermen from your childhood?’ She paused, realising her mistake. They’d been talking about her childhood when he’d frozen in Chegwins’. Did he not want to remember his childhood? Was that it? Was there something about growing up here he was so eager to forget that he hadn’t been home in two decades?

  ‘Come on, there’s a cove just a little way down the beach. It will be warmer and out of the wind.’ She started out over the sand, but it was soft and deep here. Her half-boots sank into it, making it hard to walk. She turned to look back at Kitto. ‘Are you coming or are you afraid to get your boots dirty?’ She’d meant to tease him, but the distraction was a mistake. Her own foot turned in the deep sand. She lost her balance and went down with an undignified yelp. Getting up gracefully from the soft sand proved something of a challenge. But it earned her a smile from Mr Kitto, a real smile.

  ‘Here, Miss Treleven, let me assist you.’ Mr Kitto strode towards her, offering her a hand. ‘I must insist you take my arm.’

  Take his hand? Now it was her turn to be reluctant. It was only a helping hand, but putting her hand into his seemed more intimate when done from the position of looking up into his blue eyes from her seat in the sand.

  ‘Come, Miss Treleven, don’t be stubborn. I don’t want to explain to your father how you broke your neck on my watch. You’ll be in good hands.’

  ‘At least one hand, anyway,’ Rosenwyn quipped to cover her embarrassment over being so clumsy. His hand was warm as it closed around hers, his grip firm and confident, strong. It was the grip of a man to whom touching others came easily and it conjured up other images of other touches: those fingers skimming a woman’s cheek with the same skill they skimmed the keys of a piano, fingers that played bodies as if they, too, were instruments. Those were images she’d promised herself not to contemplate. She felt like Marianne with her girlish musings. Marianne didn’t know better. But she did. Handsome men should be ascribed no more nobility of character than any other man.

  They struck out for the shoreline where the waves met the beach and the sand was firmly packed, and turned for the cove. Despite the crisp weather, the cove was sheltered and warmer without the wind. Rosenwyn raised her face to the sun. ‘This is lovely. It’s a promise that summer will come again. For just a moment, I can imagine that it is summer, can’t you?’ She tossed him a smile and settled on the sand, arms wrapped about her knees, the toes of her walking boots a safe distance from the waves.

  ‘Summer is months away.’ Mr Kitto bent and picked up a flat pebble to skip over the waves. The breeze pushed his hair back from his face, putting his sharp features on dramatic display.

  ‘Must you always be a killjoy?’ She watched him skip another pebble, covertly indulging in the sight of his body moving through the motions, all fluid, easy grace. What a spectacular dancer he must be with his ease of movement and sense of rhythm. To be his partner on the dance floor would be...nothing she was likely to experience. She had to stop these daydreams. ‘Surely you have memories of childhood picnics on the beach, bonfires at sunset.’

  ‘My childhood was much different than yours and much shorter.’ He turned from the ocean to look at her, his blue eyes filled with warning that said this way be monsters. She would do best to hold her questions.

  Rosenwyn did not heed the caution. She patted the sand beside her. ‘Come, sit and tell me about it. I would have been barely two years old, so you can’t expect me to know your reference. You’re a legend in these parts; a prodigy spirited away when he was eight to train and lead a life of fame. Come tell me what is legend and what is fact?’

  ‘A legend? I don’t remember it quite like that.’ He did come sit, his legs stretched out before him as he leaned back on his hands. ‘There’s not much to tell that would be interesting, certainly not the stuff of legends.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that. Your reluctance only makes me twice as inquisitive and twice as persistent, in case you haven’t noticed.’ She unwrapped the plum cake from Mrs Chegwin and offered him a piece, a sweet bribe perhaps in exchange for a story.

  He took the cake with a wry smile. ‘Do you know how often as a boy I yearned for Christmas cake? How many years I looked in the window of Chegwins’ and wondered what it would be like to go in, to have the money to purchase something?’

  ‘I did not mean for my story to upset you.’ She passed him the flask, but he waved it away.

  ‘I don’t drink gin. My father was Methodist. He didn’t believe in gin.’

  ‘I think it’s hard cider.’ She offered it again and took up the slender thread of conversation he’d given her. His father. ‘Tell me about your family. Did you have any siblings?’

  He took the flask and sipped cautiously, his steely blue eyes warning her, an indecipherable half-smile on his mouth, a mouth she shouldn’t be noticing again. She apparently hadn’t learned her lesson the first time. ‘I had nine brothers and sisters. Three plus myself who were alive when I left. The others died young. Robbie was two, Sarah was five, Addie was four, Peter when he was nine, and the baby died at birth.’ He rolled out the names and ages without emotion in his voice, but he turned away from her, giving his gaze to the sea instead. ‘The winters were too cold. There wasn’t enough food. A simple fever could carry them off. A catarrh was fatal. Definitely not the stuff of legends.’

  ‘I’m sorry the doctor couldn’t save them, that medicines failed,’ Rosenwyn offered softly, feeling her heart go out to him. She loved her large, noisy, often nosy family. She couldn’t fathom the concept of losing even one of her sisters, let alone half of them. What would her life be like without Ayleth’s companionship or Marianne’s giddiness? Violet’s quiet bookishness or the twins’ boisterous antics?

  ‘Doctor? Medicine?’ Kitto shook his head. The harshness of his laugh froze her. ‘We didn’t have money for food let alone those luxuries. There was no doctor, no medicine. There were cold rags for fevers, tea and broth if we were lucky. Beyond that, the sick in my home were on their own.’

  ‘The church did nothing? Was there no help from charity? I can’t believe Reverend Maddern offered nothing.’ It sickened her to think of children in such want. She was not naïve. She knew life was hard for many folks. She saw it when she went out with her baskets, but always there was help for the worst cases. ‘I can’t imagine there was no help at all.’

 
He laughed again, this time at her and it stung, a reminder that he thought her pampered, she with pennies to put on the counter at Chegwins’. ‘My father was a proud man. There was no help from the church since my father had put himself and us beyond it. Even if there had been help, he would have turned it away. “A Kitto helps himself,” he liked to say. As for what you can’t imagine, Miss Treleven, I am sure there’s quite a lot of that. So, forgive me if this attempt at inspiration hasn’t succeeded in reminding me of all that is good about Porth Karrek. While you played on the beach, flying kites with your sisters and building bonfires, I was working. The mines, before they shut down, had use for little boys. I could scrabble into small places, I could carry heavy loads. I would sort rock from ore until my hands bled, and for an hour or two a week, I would sing in the vicar’s choir, although I had to sneak away to do it because my father disagreed with the Anglicans. But my mother insisted on it and the Reverend was kind.’

  Never had it been put to her so bluntly. To have a childhood boiled down to whatever joy could be stolen from singing in the vicar’s choir seemed the greatest of tragedies. Childhood should be spent in sunlight and fresh air, taking romps outdoors, yet the man beside her had spent his childhood in the darkness of a mine. ‘I am sorry, you deserved better.’ What else could she say? She’d meant well today but she’d ended up apologising for those efforts at every turn.

  He gave her a piercing look that said her sympathy was not enough. ‘Every child deserves better, Miss Treleven. A man should not bring up a child if he cannot support it. A man should not marry at all if he cannot care for his wife.’ The sentiment behind those two simple sentences was rife with open emotion and unescapable conclusions even a stranger like herself could see. He blamed his father for the fate of his siblings. There was guilt there, too, that he had survived, that he’d been given a chance when others he’d loved had not. She was not obtuse. He wasn’t merely disclosing, pouring out his soul. He was trying to shock her with his story, a punishment for her probing. This was what she got when she opened the cages of a man’s demons. Perhaps she deserved it.