Invitation to a Cornish Christmas

by Marguerite Kaye

  ‘Play? The piano?’ She looked up, confused.

  ‘Yes. For the cantata. I need a pianist. It can’t be me. I’ll be too busy directing. I have the other instruments accounted for, thanks to your sisters, but I have no one at the piano. Please, say you’ll do it.’

  We could be at rehearsal every day together. I could bask in your talent, in your company that much longer without contriving excuses to see you.

  ‘Of course I’ll do it.’ She smiled and he saw how much the idea pleased her. Good. This was his gift to her, a chance for her to reclaim whatever it was she’d lost in London. When that cad had compromised her, he’d taken more than her virginity. He’d take her opportunity to perform, to find fulfilment through her music. She had not said as much. But she didn’t need to. He was a musician. He knew. How often did he wonder what he’d be without his music? He’d never had to find out, but she had.

  ‘Cade, where will you go when you’re finished in Porth Karrek?’ Rose asked casually, but Cade wasn’t fooled. It was a serious question even if they hadn’t just made love. He needed to contemplate his future.

  ‘Back to London. There’s a new Royal Academy of Music that’s just opened. It would be good to be part of their pantheon of composers.’ It was a pat answer, one that sounded more impressive than it was. In reality, he would have to apply and be accepted as one of their masters. They would have to be impressed with his work. He’d need references. He hoped Falmage might be of use there. Falmage had politely backed off the idea of a private concert. Now, Cade was regretting it from a professional standpoint. He needed all the references he could get.

  ‘You could stay.’ Rose looked up at him with those sharp green eyes of hers, bold as always. ‘Why hurry back to London? It’s months yet before the Season and you can make enquiries by letter.’

  It was the worst, best, most tempting idea he’d heard in a while; to stay meant a chance to steal more afternoons like this, but to what purpose? They would have to end eventually. ‘Stay here and throw myself on Captain Penhaligon’s charity? How long do you suppose he’ll let me stay in the gatehouse once our business is concluded?’ Cade chuckled to ease the sting. There were practicalities to consider. ‘What would I do with myself all day with no work?’ Such things were not part of Rose’s world. In the short term, they didn’t have to take their differing backgrounds seriously. In the long term, however, they did. He might be famous, but he was a working man. She was a baronet’s daughter.

  Rose lifted up to face him, warming to her subject. ‘We could find you work. Reverend Maddern could have you work with the choir, or you could compose some pieces for Sundays. You could give music lessons to the children. We’d keep you busy.’

  ‘I think you’re forgetting something, Rose,’ Cade offered gently, not wanting to be the killjoy she accused him of being. ‘I need to be paid for those services. I can’t perform them for free.’ He wasn’t like Rosenwyn, who could spend her days assembling baskets for the poor or knitting socks for the needy, or working with children because she wanted to. She had no need of money, no need for anything but something to fill her time. He, on the other hand, could not give away his talents for free.

  Even then, his valiant Rose wasn’t deterred. ‘Perhaps that could be arranged, too. You never know until you ask.’ She gave him a worrisomely smug smile.

  ‘Rose,’ he warned, sensing the direction of her thoughts and plots. Rose was a fixer and, while it was tempting to let her fix him, his pride would never recover. He would not have it said that he used her for her dowry, her connections. Those rumours would make him appear no better than Dashiell Custis. He couldn’t subject her to that. Nor could he subject himself to it. If he let her meddle, and if she was successful, one day she would look at him with distaste and she would feel betrayed. ‘I do not beg and I do not take charity. I cannot take another handout from Reverend Maddern again. He sent me to school all those years ago and he was the one who put the word in the good Captain’s ear about the commission. I am a Kitto and we take care of ourselves.’ And he would take care of her, whether she liked his solutions or not. They’d promised themselves this one day, nothing more. He could not let her renegotiate the nature of their agreement.

  Rose slid down beside him. ‘Understood.’ Her hand slipped beneath the covers, seeking until she found him lying in a state of semi-readiness, a state she easily remedied, his shaft jumping to her touch like a well-trained hound to heel. She stroked him until he was hard in her hand and whispered, ‘Except perhaps in bed, Cade. You might find begging has its uses.’ As long as one of them wasn’t begging to stay, he might just survive this.

  Chapter Thirteen

  December 15th, 1822, Rose Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent

  Rosenwyn found the solution to all of Cade’s needs in church of all places, in the middle of Reverend Maddern’s sermon on joy. She would beg Eaton’s empty house for Cade. It wouldn’t really even be begging if she framed it right. It would be doing Eaton a favour. The lovely estate stood empty most of the year and Eaton himself had complained about the property going to waste on several occasions. Eaton was always looking for a way to ‘improve’ Cornwall, as he liked to put it. This just might be the way to keep Cade here while still fulfilling his need for purpose, for work.

  If she was being honest, the solution suited her, too. She was loath to part from him and she feared the reason for that. She was falling in love. Perhaps she’d already fallen. It had become clear to her on the way home from Penzance that she hadn’t made love with him simply to exorcise the ghost of a lover past. This affair between them had deviated from its original purpose long ago. She kissed him, she made love with him, because she wanted to, because she needed to. Being with him fulfilled something deep at the core of who she was. That fulfilment was joy on the level of which Reverend Maddern addressed today: the deep, abiding joy of being understood by another human being and of being able to understand that person in return. She might not know everything about Cade, but she understood him. She knew what drove his moods. She knew how he thought.

  Her gaze overtly watched him in the Penhaligon pew. She didn’t bother trying to hide the fact that she was looking at him. When she saw him, she saw his beauty and his flaws. She loved him for both. They were part of who he was. She would lose him over those same qualities, too, if she wasn’t careful. He had his father’s stubborn pride.

  To her surprise, Cade did not come to her after church, perhaps because rehearsals started afterwards. Her sisters had brought their violins and violas. Ayleth had brought her cello. The Treleven girls made up a large part of what passed for an orchestra in Porth Karrek. But he was nowhere he ought to be in preparation for rehearsal. Rosenwyn stepped outside for a breath of air and found him quite by accident in the graveyard, his golden head bare and bowed before a gravestone.

  ‘Cade.’ She went to him instinctively, her heartstrings tugged by the sight of him, so alone among the graves. She wasn’t certain if he’d heard her. He didn’t turn at her approach. She slipped her hand into his and looked down at the gravestone.

  Maida Kitto

  1 March 1764—24 December 1794

  Beloved wife and mother

  It was crudely carved, hardly an expensive marker—perhaps it had been painstakingly done by hand. But it was the date that riveted her. His mother had died on Christmas Eve.

  Pieces of the stories he’d told her on the beach slipped into place, the picture becoming complete. He’d seen his mother the day before she died. He’d left Porth Karrek on the twenty-third and spent Christmas on the road as an eight-year-old child.

  No wonder he hated Christmas...no wonder he hadn’t wanted to come home and write a piece to celebrate what must be the darkest time of the year for him. She caught his profile and saw his tears. Cade was crying and she could not ease him, could not take away his pain.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t
want to go. Let me stay,’ he begged. ‘Until you’re well, Mama.’

  The baby had been born dead in the night. The doctor had carried it away.

  It was clearly an effort for her to shake her head. He had never seen her so weak.

  ‘No, you need to go while you have your father’s permission.’

  He’d heard his father promise when he’d knelt beside the bed. A deathbed promise while his father was in the throes of his own grief.

  ‘I will not last long. A day...perhaps not even that. You needn’t worry about me.’

  ‘But it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,’ he protested, snuggling up against her. ‘No one should die on Christmas Eve, Mama.’

  Her hand found the strength to stroke his hair, blond curls unruly already after the Reverend’s effort to slick them down.

  ‘Why not Christmas Eve, my boy?’ she comforted him. ‘I think it would be the very best of nights to come into God’s holy kingdom and sing with the hosts of angels. What a wondrous thing that will be.’

  ‘I will write you songs, I will have choirs sing, Mama. You don’t have to go. I will be the grandest composer of them all. Better than Handel, better than Bach. Just wait and see. Just wait with me, Mama.’

  It was a selfish request. The new baby was already in heaven. The baby would need Mama to look after him and Cade had already had Mama for eight years.

  ‘Sweet boy, you know I can’t. But I will look down on you from the stars and I will hear every note.’ She pressed a kiss to his curls. ‘Reverend Maddern is here. He will see you to the London coach. Stand up and let me look at you, my darling Cador, all grown up and off to the big city.’

  ‘I’m only eight. I’m not grown up.’

  But he was, deep inside. Childhood had died a long time ago. Maybe it had been when the first baby had died. Maybe it had been when he’d started accompanying his father to the mines to work a man’s hours. Or maybe it had been when he’d realised there was no real hope in the world.

  If God was taking Mama, it must be true.

  He felt Reverend Maddern’s kindly hand at his shoulder, helping him to be strong. His mother squeezed his hand one last time.

  ‘Don’t cry. Be happy. This Christmas, Cador, we will both be reborn. You in London and me in heaven.’

  * * *

  Why did it still hurt so damn much? Cade didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to see the tombstone. He was aware of Rosenwyn beside him, her hand in his, lending him strength. He clung to that strength. ‘I miss her.’

  ‘These last weeks must have been hell for you,’ Rosenwyn said softly.

  In her understanding, he found the courage to open his eyes, to set the memory aside. He held her gaze. ‘It would have been, if not for you.’ Thanks to her, he would now remember Porth Karrek no longer only as the boy who’d lost his mother, but as the man who’d found an extraordinary woman and, for a time, she’d loved him. He would carry the echo of that love with him, a ghost of his present, wherever he went.

  Rosenwyn smiled at him and his heart swelled. ‘Your mother would be proud of the piece you wrote. Shall we go in? Everyone is waiting.’

  * * *

  Rehearsal ended, marking a full week of practice and progress. The cantata was coming along well, and it needed to with just three days to go before Christmas Eve. Rosenwyn folded up her music and watched as Cade made a point of shaking each choirboy’s hand as they filed out. He offered each boy a personal comment as he’d done every day since rehearsals had started. ‘That’s a very impressive ritual,’ she said as the last boy left.

  Cade made an excellent teacher. He’d patiently instructed the tenors on a difficult passage. The boys had sung the passage several times, making the same mistake, yet he had not lost his temper although she could see his shoulders tighten each time the passage went awry. He would be good with children. But teaching children would not impress him. He did not want to be a music tutor. He would need to be something more substantial. She might have an answer for that.

  Cade smiled at the compliment. ‘It teaches them manners without them knowing it. Everyone can be a gentleman whether they are born to it or not and it shows them I appreciate their efforts.’ He cocked his arm. ‘Shall we go?’ The Trelevens were hosting a solstice bonfire on the beach tonight and she was pleased Cade seemed excited about it. With the rigour of rehearsals and his own personal memories of the season, Cade had been under stress this week. He hadn’t been himself, but at least she better understood why.

  ‘Are you going to dance with me in the sand?’ Rosenwyn slipped her arm through his as they stepped out into the night air. She breathed deeply of the fresh air as they strolled down Budoc Lane with other couples and families to where the street gave out to the beach.

  ‘If you would like.’ He smiled and she took it as a good omen. Already she could see the flames from the solstice bonfire. This was one of her favourite nights. It was fun to be out of doors in the winter. She’d been down earlier, helping set up impromptu benches and tables made from planks of lumber on trestles. They were simple arrangements, but in the flame-lit darkness, everything became magical. There was food on the tables now: breads, pastries, a pile of Menhenick buns from the bakery, cakes and pies. Phin Bosanko roasted meat from the butcher’s over a spit at the cooking fire and casks of ale stood at the ready.

  ‘Kitto, there you are!’ Her father came over and pressed a pewter tankard into his hand. ‘Drink up, the night is young!’ He clapped Cade on the shoulder. ‘How are rehearsals? Will everything be ready for Christmas Eve?’ It was meant as polite small talk—her father didn’t know the first thing about music despite his daughters’ proclivity for it—and Cade responded, keeping the answer simple and positive.

  ‘You make it sound so easy, but I see those rehearsals. I know otherwise. You are a magician.’ Rosenwyn laughed up at him. ‘You look very handsome in firelight, did you know that?’ The fiddles started up, playing a bright, lively folk dance. ‘This is one of my favourites, come on!’ Rosenwyn tugged at his hand, giving him only enough time to set down his tankard before they were taken up by a group forming for the set.

  Rosenwyn laughed her joy out loud as she passed Cade in the line, moving to a new partner. Oh, this was living! Dancing beneath the stars, the wintry air tinged with the hint of salt and bonfire, the waves just feet away, foamy chaperons to the party, and to be here with Cade, well, that was a wonder beyond all else. She partnered Eaton next, who danced in the sand with surprising dexterity for a big man. ‘I must talk to you after this.’ She had plans and hopes to set in motion.

  ‘Absolutely, but not for too long.’ Eaton winked. ‘I’ve got someone special waiting for me, and you, too, it looks like.’ He nodded in Cade’s direction. Eaton was in a good mood, that boded well, and Cade would be surrounded by others, he would hardly notice she was gone. But she would notice. Any moment not with Cade seemed wasted with the clock ticking so perilously close to his departure. Unless these moments with Eaton changed that.

  * * *

  This would have been his life if things had been different. If he’d been born to a normal family. Tonight, everyone mixed, miners with landowners, merchants with the local peers. Tonight, no one cared for rank and class, only for celebrating the season. There’d been bonfires on the beach since Cade could remember, but not for him. His Methodist father had not approved of marking the solstice or of music and dance. Put the two together and it was the devil’s own cause, worse even than gin and cake. This was the Cornwall Rosenwyn wanted him to see and it was a better one than the one he’d known.

  He knew what she was up to—she wanted him to stay. She thought she could make him love Porth Karrek. But how could he with ghosts around every corner? He’d be walking in the past every day, constantly fighting memories.

  Cade let a pretty young girl pull him into another dance, while he waited for Rosenwyn. She’d disappear
ed after the last set. That was fine. He needn’t be possessive, he told himself. Jealousy was not part of their bargain, although much of that bargain was in jeopardy since Penzance. He would be leaving in a few days, there was no other choice. He had to go and he’d always been honest about that. His work was elsewhere. His ghosts were here. Rosenwyn was here.

  On the periphery of the dancers, he saw Rosenwyn and Eaton Falmage emerge from the shadows. Falmage made his way towards him and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘May I cut in?’ His partner blushed, excited to be trading up from the local star to one of the local heirs. It was well done of Falmage, freeing him up to return to Rosenwyn’s side.

  ‘Did you want to dance?’ He was a little breathless from the exertion.

  ‘No, I wanted to walk along the beach. Will you come?’ She held out a tankard. ‘I brought you something to drink since you didn’t get to finish the last one.’ The spark in her eye suggested she had plans for that walk.

  It was quiet further down the beach away from the crowd where it was just them, the moon and the waves and some rocky clefts an intrepid soul might make good use of. Rosenwyn tugged him towards one. ‘In here, Cade, it’s a cave.’ Oh, so not just a cleft, but a whole little room. He heard a match strike and a lantern flared to life, proof it was a room used to being occupied.

  Rosenwyn flashed her lantern about the space, showing the empty cave to him. ‘It used to be for smuggling, but it’s not used much now.’