‘I’m afraid that tea must be cold by now,’ she said. ‘Would you like some more?’
Mutt made a faint negative shake of her head on the pillow and Mousie moved back to the bed, sitting in the low upholstered armchair so as to be nearly on the same level as the sick woman in the high bed.
‘Poor Mousie,’ the words were barely stronger than a breath and Mousie had to bend closer to catch them. ‘What a nuisance I am.’
‘Not a bit of a nuisance.’ She took Mutt’s weakly outstretched hand and held it warmly between both of her own. ‘You’re getting better by the minute. And Joss will be up soon to read to you.’
There was a little silence whilst the logs crumbled together in a soft ashy explosion of flames and the shadows streamed across the ceiling.
‘Odd, wasn’t it,’ Mutt murmured, ‘both of us being nurses?’
‘It was all Hubert’s fault,’ Mousie answered lightly. ‘You know how he was my hero when I was small. Once he’d qualified as a doctor I was determined that I would train to be a nurse. I was always foolishly pleased that he knew I’d started my training before he died. It was as if it made some kind of connection between us.’
Mutt stirred restlessly, turning onto her back and pulling herself higher up the bed.
‘I might try to sleep again,’ she said.
The tranquil moment had passed, although there was no sign of fever, and Mousie watched her thoughtfully for a moment before putting the handbell beside her on the quilt, and going quietly away.
CHAPTER TWO
The Porch Room, given its name because it was situated directly above the front door, looked south across the secret, sheltered garden to the lane and the hillocky, gorse-edged little fields beyond. A sturdy wisteria grew beneath the window, so that in early summer the scent from its grey-blue flowers drifted into the room through the open casement. Here Mutt had placed a wicker chair at an angle from which, on a June evening, she could be ravished by the exotic crimson and white flowers of the rhododendrons and watch the full moon, egg-yolk yellow, rise above the distant thorn trees at the head of the valley.
As she entered the room later that evening Joss felt a sense of pleasure at its peaceful, elegant comfort, although, privately, she preferred her own room at the back of the house, which looked north towards the high rugged cliffs. At night she could hear the restless, rhythmic sighing of the waves, as they pried and dragged at the resisting rocks with foamy fingers, and tumbled hugger-mugger into the caves to carry out the grey shaley sand with them as they retreated. Now, the cold, frosty night was closed out behind thick, velvet curtains and her grandmother’s room was as quiet and self-contained as a little space ship rocking on its way through a silent universe.
She glanced towards the bed and its motionless occupant and, seized by sudden terror, moved quickly. Mutt opened her eyes as Joss stooped beside her, feeling for the thin wrist, checking the light, fast pulse. She grimaced, as though guessing at her granddaughter’s momentary fear and mocking it.
‘I’m still here,’ she murmured.
‘Yes.’ Joss silently expelled a little gasping breath of relief. ‘So you are.’
They smiled at each other, the deeply special love that had defined their friendship from the earliest days flowing between them. Mutt’s frail grip tightened a little on Joss’s warm hand. Nothing now must harm her plans for this dearly beloved grandchild: the natural inheritor of Paradise. She and Joss had always been a team: occasionally defying the middle generation and making their own fun. Joss touched the thin hand lightly with her lips and smiled at her grandmother.
‘It’s nearly time for your medicine,’ she said, ‘but I wondered if you’d like some massage first?’
‘Mmm.’ Mutt acquiesced readily, accepting what she recognized was an offering of love as well as relief and comfort. It was she who had enabled Joss to heal – taking her side against her father’s prejudice and helping out financially – and now she reaped the benefits. ‘Did I hear the telephone?’
‘You did.’ Joss edged her carefully into position so as to be able to treat the lower back and spine. ‘Mum’s coming down tomorrow.’ She took a small bottle from the bedside table, tipped a little oil into the palms of her hands, let it warm for a moment and then began to knead the muscles and soft tissues with dextrous, confident gentleness. ‘She’ll stay down at The Lookout with Bruno but she’ll be up to see you as soon as she can.’
Mutt showed no change of expression at this proposed treat; her concentration was fixed elsewhere.
‘Did someone call here earlier?’
Joss hesitated, wondering if her grandmother knew about the American and his photograph, realizing that she must have heard the ringing of the doorbell. It was not in her nature to dissemble, however, and she could see no harm in a truthful answer.
‘There was an American here who’s trying to trace his great-aunt. He has some idea that you might have known her during the war.’
She was turning her again, so as to deal with the lower leg, and saw a spasm of pain pass across the old woman’s face. Joss paused, watching her anxiously.
‘Did that hurt?’
Mutt shook her head, frowned and began to cough convulsively. Joss lifted her, cradling her thin frame in one arm whilst pouring medicine into a plastic measure with the other hand. Presently, the attack over, Joss laid her back carefully, supporting the injured leg on a pillow.
‘I must wash my hands,’ she told her. ‘Shan’t be long.’
Left alone, Mutt rolled her head on the pillow, staring across at the table where Mousie had been sitting just a few days ago; opening the morning post and reading, at Mutt’s request, the messages and letters that she was too weak to deal with herself.
‘Great grief!’ she’d said, amused. ‘There’s a letter here from a young fellow who wants to know if you’ve ever met his great-aunt. He’s enclosed a photograph.’ There’d been a moment’s silence and when she’d next spoken, her voice had been different, tender and hedged about with emotion. ‘How extraordinary,’ she’d said. ‘Remember this, Honor?’ and she’d got up and come over to the bed, holding out the paper.
The shock had been very great: to see her own youthful, merry face laughing out of that little group of friends, recalling with a sharp twist of painful joy that happy day and the grief and fear that followed after – these sensations had deprived her momentarily of any rational thought. It was some moments before she’d remembered the letter Mousie had read aloud to her.
‘I can’t see him,’ she’d cried apprehensively, cutting across something that Mousie was saying. ‘I simply can’t. It’s all too painful, too long ago,’ and Mousie had calmed her, agreeing that she wasn’t fit enough yet for visitors, and had given her some medicine to soothe the wretched cough that racked her. Alone afterwards, she’d eased herself out of bed, making her trembling, uncertain way to the table, but neither the letter nor the photograph were to be seen and she’d had barely enough strength to climb back into bed.
Now, waiting for Joss to return, she thought of something else – a foolish, secret thing, long forgotten – and fear crept and tingled in her veins. Her muscles flexed involuntarily, as though she might rise from the bed, but the medicine was beginning to have an effect and, instead, she grew drowsy. She imagined she was in India again, visions and noises jostling her confused memory: the sounds of rumbling wheels and the carters’ cries, shuffling footsteps and shrill voices; the pungent, acrid smells; brown bodies and bright bougainvillaea; soft, warm dust and the relentless heat.
The telephone bell shrilled suddenly, muffled but insistent in the hall below, and was silenced abruptly as Mousie lifted the receiver. Mutt mumbled and cried out in her sleep and Joss, sitting beside her, raised her eyes from time to time from her book and watched her.
‘I’ve just been thinking whether I ought to stay up at the house,’ Emma’s quick, light voice was saying into Mousie’s ear, ‘instead of with Bruno. If Mutt really is, well, really poo
rly with this chill, Mousie, perhaps I should be a bit more available. It’s just that I don’t want to butt in on Joss. I feel it’s her territory at the moment, not just because she’s living there while she’s renovating her little cottage, but also because she’s actually been in charge since her grandmother broke her ankle. She and Mutt have always got on so well, haven’t they?’
Mousie smiled to herself, picturing Emma hunched over the telephone, gesturing with her free hand: warm, scatty, lovable.
‘You’ll be fine with Bruno,’ she assured her. ‘Great grief! It’s only ten minutes away and Honor isn’t in a dangerous condition …’ She remembered the doctor’s words and bit her lip. ‘Although, given her age, we should be prepared—’
‘That’s what Raymond’s been saying,’ Emma cut in, anxiously. ‘That I should be with her. You know he doesn’t have much confidence in Joss. He can’t be doing with all that alternative medicine stuff and he feels that we’re relying too much on you.’
Mousie’s lip curled. She could well imagine that Raymond Fox would prefer it if his wife were to be very much on the spot at this critical time.
‘Tell him not to get too stressed about Honor,’ she answered drily. ‘He can certainly rely on me to know my place on these occasions.’
‘Honestly, Mousie,’ Emma was almost breathless with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement, ‘he doesn’t mean to, dear old Ray, but he goes on a bit, sometimes. It’ll be heaven to see you all. My dear brother is only quite pleased at the prospect of my arrival; he’s wrestling with a tricky bit of the book, apparently, and I can tell by his voice that he’s totally wrapped up in it. Never mind. It’ll do him good to have a bit of distraction.’
‘If you say so.’ Mouse felt a fleeting sympathy for Bruno. ‘I think you’re very wise to leave Joss in charge here. You can assure Raymond that she’s more than capable and Honor feels very comfortable and safe with her. This is very important just now.’
‘Bless you, Mousie. I’ll tell him. The trouble is that he can’t take on board that she’s grown up, and it’s not as if she’s a qualified nursing sister like you are, although I keep telling him that she’s done brilliantly. But she was always such a caring, sensible child, wasn’t she? Not like me at all. Of course, Father was a doctor and Mutt trained as a nurse so I expect she gets it from them…’
‘Joss is fine,’ said Mousie firmly, ‘and Raymond should be proud of her. She’s been to Truro Hospital to check Honor’s X-ray results with the physio and she knows exactly what she’s doing. I promise you, she’s extremely professional.’
‘You are such a comfort,’ said Emma fervently. ‘I’m hoping to be down in time for lunch. Give everyone my love.’
Mousie replaced the receiver with the familiar sensation that she’d been for a brisk run, and returned to the drawing-room. Two small, comfortable sofas were set at right angles to the fireplace and a third, longer, sofa made the fourth side of the square. Mutt’s love for quiet, formal elegance informed each room in the house and nowhere more than here and in the small parlour where she sat to read or work. She was well known locally for her beautiful needlework and had received many important commissions; lately, however, her failing eyesight had made her reluctant to take on too much, although the tapestry in the small rectangular frame, which she stitched away at each evening by the fire, still lay half-completed on the rosewood table that stood behind the long sofa and on which she kept magazines and a few books.
Mousie sat down in the corner nearest the fire and leaned to open her big carpet-work bag. Carefully she drew out the photograph with its accompanying letter and looked at the four laughing faces: Hubert and his wife and another couple.
The American had written:
It was a double wedding because the four of them were such close friends. My grandmother remembered that both girls were nurses but thinks my great-uncle ran some kind of company in India. It’s all a bit vague but my great-aunt’s maiden name was Madeleine Grosjean. I know that the two sisters were very close, but shortly after my grandmother moved to the States there was a complete silence from the Indian end. From enquiries made at that time it seemed that Madeleine and her family had just disappeared. We suspect that they died during the unrest in 1947.
Perhaps, by that time, you and Dr Trevannion had already returned to the UK. It would be terrific to find out the truth and I hope you might spare me a moment if I were to visit next weekend, say on Saturday round three o’clock?
She folded the letter and stared ahead, remembering Honor’s arrival at St Meriadoc. By 1947, Hubert’s mother was dead, his father rather frail, but they’d all done their best to make the travellers feel at home: the small Bruno, so like his father, dazed by the events of the last two months, and sweet Emma, too young to understand what had happened but good-naturedly ready to embrace her new family. From the first moment Mousie had adored the children – but as for Honor … Mousie sighed regretfully. There had always been some kind of barrier between them, a reservation that Mousie had found impossible to breach. She’d feared it might be the result of her own love for Hubert, and had worked hard to overcome it, but she had never succeeded. She hadn’t even been able to use the silly nickname that the children used: to Mousie she was always ‘Honor’.
She heard footsteps on the stairs and bundled the letter and photograph back into the capacious bag so that by the time Joss opened the door Mousie was sitting with the newspaper open, apparently absorbed, relaxed and comfortable beside the fire.
CHAPTER THREE
Travelling the familiar road past Launceston, turning off at Kennards House, waiting for a sight of the distant, shining sea, Emma – bored with the radio and her tapes – talked aloud for company, encouraging herself: nearly there now, nearly home. Despite the very early start she felt alert, full of energy and looking forward to seeing her family – especially Joss and Bruno.
‘And dear old Mutt,’ she said aloud. She was anxious and miserable about her mother’s condition but her anxiety sprang from the fact that she felt so useless with ill people: not like Mousie, who had the knack of being caring and practical without getting worked up.
‘She looks terrible,’ Emma had cried privately to Mousie, the last time she’d seen Mutt. ‘She looks so frail and old.’
‘She is frail and old,’ Mousie had answered with her typically sharply humorous look that always comforted Emma. ‘She’s nearly eighty and she’s had a bad fall. What did you expect?’
‘She’s always been so …’ Emma searched for the right word, ‘… so independent.’
‘True,’ agreed Mousie wryly, ‘but independence is tricky when you can’t walk and you’re in a very confused state.’
The thing was, thought Emma, as she drove through Delabole, that it had been much more than a shock to see the cheerful, capable Mutt confined to her bed and under sedation. It was as if a secure, reliable point of reference had been destroyed overnight and she’d found herself adrift, untethered. There was no question that Mutt loved her children but there was on occasions a strictness to her love and the odd thing was that she, Emma, always needed Mutt’s approval. However old she grew, she felt a glow of pleasure when Mutt smiled that loving, warm smile of approbation upon her daughter.
‘Crazy, isn’t it?’ Emma would cry over the years, down at The Lookout with Bruno, as she helped him to prepare a meal in his kitchen, getting in his way. ‘I’m twenty … thirty-three … forty-two … and I still need to feel that she approves of what I do.’
At intervals in her busy social life – the daily round in Henley and entertaining Ray’s business clients at lavish dinner parties in the London flat – it was always a bit of a relief to be with Bruno, to kick off her shoes – metaphorically speaking – and indulge in an orgy of unburdening: oh, what stories that strange stone house could tell.
She passed through St Endellion and Porteath, turned right into the lane that led down to St Meriadoc and pulled abruptly into a gateway. Opening the car door sh
e stepped out into the pale sunlight, delighting in the familiar scene. Startled sheep with lambs at foot stampeded away over the field, their cries echoing in the cold, clear air as she gazed across rough, open land to the cliffs that ran north to Kellan Head and west to Rumps Point. By climbing a few rungs of the gate, so that she could stare down into the steep valley, she could make out the slate roof of the house surrounded by tall shrubs and trees; to its west lay the tiny, scooped-out bay with the disused boatyard and a row of cottages which, together with The Lookout perched on the cliff above it, made up the estate known as St Meriadoc. She realized that she was listening for the sound of the lark’s song, although she knew it was far too early in the year. Mutt referred to this quiet, secret valley as ‘the golden cup’; a phrase taken from George Meredith’s poem about a lark, which she’d read to them as children. Emma could still remember a few lines of it:
And ever winging up and up
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows …
She’d always loved to look down on it like this, coming home from school or, later, from London; this scene was one she carried in her memory.
‘Why on earth do you want to stop?’ Raymond Fox would ask impatiently, on visits during those early years of marriage. ‘We’ll be there in a minute.’
And there was no answer, she told herself. At least, no answer that she could give to him. Bruno understood that moment of glorious anticipation when, for a brief moment longer, you’d postpone the excitement of being a part of that scene below: looking down on all the promise to come.
‘Never mind,’ she’d mutter, acceding as usual to his will – Raymond was so mature, so sensible – and he’d reach to pat her hand or knee, unaware of her instinctive shrinking, her momentary absolute rejection both of his physical presence and of his values.
The Golden Cup Page 2