The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  As soon as Mousie remembered it she decided that she would go up to Paradise and take a look. She saw Raymond’s car sweep past, driving up to the house, and realized that she might need to have a plan: she’d say that she’d mislaid a book. After all, she’d spent a great deal of time in Mutt’s bedroom and had more excuse than any of them – except for Joss – for gaining access to it.

  Now, standing at the field gate with the will safe in her bag, she smiled to herself. As it had turned out, Joss had given her all the cover she’d needed, waiting on watch in the hall whilst she, Mousie, had run lightly upstairs and found what she was looking for almost immediately.

  The donkeys came plodding to see her, heads nodding, blinking their extraordinary eyelashes. They jostled each other for prime position and she held out the apples and promised them a walk.

  ‘Later,’ she told them. ‘Joss will be down, later.’

  As she stroked their long ears she wondered how Joss would deal with this new and alarming discovery of her true identity. It was clear that, even whilst she was still attempting to assimilate the facts, Joss was more concerned for her mother than for herself. Mousie felt that this was a good sign; it indicated that Joss was strong enough in her sense of self to accept it. There would be moments, of course, when the sudden thought of it would knock her off balance – as if she were hearing it again for the first time – but these moments would grow fewer and, meanwhile, Joss would have the family and her work to support her through them. She’d had just such a moment when they’d met earlier at the bottom of the path to The Lookout.

  ‘I’ve just been to see Bruno,’ Joss had said. ‘Are you coming up to Paradise?’ – and then, quite unexpectedly, her face had been washed by a tide of vivid colour as if she’d just remembered who she was – and, even worse, that Mousie knew her secret. It was a purely instinctive response to put an arm around the girl and give her a quick, brief hug. She stood stiffly within the embrace, as if too dismayed by her knowledge to return it, and Mousie released her and stepped back a little.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ she said, ‘what a relief it was to read those letters. But I have to apologize. I had no right, of course. It was pure curiosity. I hope you can forgive me?’

  Joss flushed an even brighter red.

  ‘I had no right, either,’ she answered wretchedly. ‘Mutt told me to find them, not to read them.’

  ‘Oh, but what a responsibility.’ Mousie shook her head sympathetically. ‘I didn’t have even that excuse. I saw her writing, you see, and then the signature. Madeleine.’

  ‘That was it,’ cried Joss eagerly, almost apologetically. ‘That’s what got me too. I simply couldn’t help myself …’

  As they set off together towards Paradise, Joss explaining why she’d read the letters, Mousie experienced a deeply intuitive fear that, if the whole truth were not told, Joss might spend the rest of her life in this way: apologizing because she felt that she had no right here, at St Meriadoc, any longer.

  ‘But isn’t it better,’ she asked when there had been a lull in Joss’s explanations, ‘that we should know the truth?’ She felt the girl’s arm tense beneath her hand but continued quite calmly. ‘I, for one, am truly glad to know. It’s been a trouble to me ever since Mutt came back from India.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Joss’s voice was faint, anxious.

  ‘Well, I knew that something was wrong, you see …’

  Gently, quietly, she repeated what she’d told Bruno the previous evening, explaining her misgivings and telling how she’d regretted – but seemed unable to help – the withholding of her trust. They reached the field gate and it was natural to stand there, watching the donkeys whilst they talked.

  ‘I’d felt so guilty about it, you see,’ she told Joss. ‘Putting it down to the childhood jealousy and castigating myself for still being so weak and foolish. Then, once I’d read the letters, I was angry because I felt that I’d been right to be suspicious, after all, and that your grandmother had fooled me.’

  Joss turned then, and looked at her, meeting her eyes bravely.

  ‘And now?’ she asked.

  Mousie chuckled. ‘Oh, my dear, now I just feel a fool for allowing it to come between us all our lives. Once I’d thought about the letters – even whilst I was reading them – I felt a huge sympathy for the position your grandmother was in. She was brave, resourceful and compassionate and I’m sure you must feel very proud of her. Who was it said: “It is in judging people that we most betray them”? I just wish that the shadow of suspicion on my side and the fear on hers hadn’t been between us, stunting our friendship. I think Bruno had the right of it when he told me that Mutt and Emma saved his life. For the last fifty years she looked after us all and took nothing that might have belonged to anyone else.’

  ‘And now?’ Joss asked again.

  ‘Ah.’ Mousie looked thoughtful. ‘Now, things could be rather different.’

  ‘Bruno says you think we should tell Mum the truth.’

  ‘I do. Lies cast long shadows. I think you’ll find that out for yourself before too long.’

  Joss turned away, looking out over the meadow, her face miserable. ‘I don’t think Mum will be able to deal with it,’ she said.

  ‘You underestimate her,’ Mousie answered firmly. ‘Just let her read those letters and judge for herself.’

  ‘She’ll feel we don’t belong here any more.’ Joss was only just able to control the trembling of her lips. She pressed them firmly together. ‘I don’t want her to feel that but, at the same time, it would be wrong for her – or me – to inherit anything.’

  ‘You do belong here,’ Mousie replied. ‘We all love you. Nothing changes that. Try to see what your mother and you mean to Bruno. She couldn’t be more a sister to him than his own would have been and you have been like his own daughter. You and Emma are his family, Joss, as much as I am or Rafe and his brood are.’

  ‘But my father isn’t.’

  Mousie sighed. ‘Raymond has never made any effort to be a member of the family,’ she said truthfully. ‘He has no wish to be. I agree that it would be quite wrong if he were to exert undue influence now over the estate. That’s why I think the truth should be told. Do you know anything about Inheritance Tax, or death duties as it used to be called?’

  When Joss stared at her, puzzled, she explained how Bruno might be called upon to pay it for the second time and the girl looked shaken.

  ‘I think I know where the will might be,’ Mousie told her, ‘but it would be a good idea if Bruno could keep it until he’s ready to let it be made public. Will you cover for me if I go up to Mutt’s bedroom and look for it?’

  Joss was only too ready to assist in the suppression of the will.

  ‘Do you think Goblin Market might be there, too,’ she asked eagerly but Mousie shook her head regretfully; the drawer was too shallow.

  They had gone on together, entering Paradise like two conspirators, Joss punching the air in silent triumph when Mousie finally reappeared on the stairs brandishing the will in its long brown envelope. All the while she was drinking coffee, talking to Emma and Raymond, it had been as if the document were burning a hole in her shabby leather bag, and Mousie had been almost faint with relief when she’d managed at last to escape to the safety of the lane.

  Now, still leaning on the gate, she allowed herself a quiet space to think about Mutt and to grieve for her. In her profession she was accustomed to death and too grateful to witness a peaceful, painless one to wish for anything different. Yet she acknowledged her loss, knowing that she’d miss Mutt who’d been a link to her own youth: to Jessie Poltrue and old Dot and, of course, to Uncle James and her own mother, Julia. How strange, and how moving, it had been to read about them in Mutt’s letters: to see them through the eyes of this stranger come among them. Mousie was seized with a great sadness.

  Often, back from the surgery in the late afternoon, she’d gone to Paradise to see Mutt and they’d shared a pot of tea. If the weather pe
rmitted she’d have been gardening or, during the dark winter days, she’d be sitting beneath the lamp in her parlour stitching away at her tapestry. If she’d ever been lonely or bored she’d never shown it.

  ‘How lovely,’ she’d say, putting away her work or washing her hands under the kitchen tap. ‘Now that’s what I call good timing. I was just about to put the kettle on. So what’s the latest?’

  They’d talk about the health of some of the local people – Mousie’s macabre sense of humour never failed to set her off into fits of laughter – and they’d discuss the latest treatments. Mutt was always able to contribute intelligently and their work had been their most important point of contact. Quite suddenly Mousie realized how very much she would miss those sessions, chuckling together with the teapot between them; two women who had experienced the human spirit at its worst – and at its most courageous.

  ‘Hubert would have been so proud of you,’ Mutt had said impulsively on one occasion – and at once the shadow had fallen across them, tying their tongues.

  Yet how could Mutt have told her the truth? Mousie saw herself, all those years ago, through Mutt’s eyes – young, rather priggish, critical – and recalled that moment at the Christmas party when her offer of friendship had been rebuffed. Those feelings of humiliation and compassion had continued to colour her relationship with the older woman and she saw now that the withholding of the foolish nickname had been a way of keeping a measure of her own pride intact.

  Silently she gave tribute to Mutt, grateful for all she had done for Bruno and for all of them in the valley, and, giving the donkeys a final pat, Mousie set off for The Lookout: the sooner Bruno took the will into his own keeping the happier she would feel. She climbed the steep path, let herself into his kitchen, and was calling out to him before she caught the murmur of voices.

  Bruno met her as she came in, his broad shoulders blocking the other end of the big, light-filled room. His look was warning but his voice was natural and welcoming.

  ‘Hello, Mousie,’ he said. ‘Look who’s here.’ He stood aside and she saw Zoë, sitting by the fire. ‘You’re just in time for a drink.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Emma closed the front door behind Mousie and stood for a moment, giving herself time in which to think. She was still confused by what Raymond had tried to explain to her earlier about the Inheritance Tax, anxious now that with darling Mutt gone, things here at St Meriadoc would change. Misery seized her: how odd Paradise would feel without Mutt. Her heart was squeezed and wrung with grief and she gave a tiny sob, quickly putting her fingers to her lips as if to stifle the noise as Joss came out of the kitchen. Emma braced herself, forcing herself to smile, unwilling to allow her own unhappiness to weaken Joss, who was missing Mutt just as much and managing to be brave about it.

  ‘I thought I’d catch up on some notes ready for tomorrow,’ Joss said. ‘Lunch is nearly ready but there’s just something particularly important I’d like to deal with, if that’s OK?’

  There was something odd about her, Emma thought, something almost secretive but tinged with a kind of low-key excitement. Immediately she dismissed the thought. The poor child was simply overwhelmed by events and Raymond wasn’t actually helping by droning on about how the estate would be divided. If only he could have learned to be tactful with his daughter, been less proud of being the sort of man who called a spade a spade. When once – oh, years and years ago – she’d tried to defend Ray by saying that he always spoke his mind, Bruno had said, ‘Yes, but what makes him think anyone wants to hear it?’

  Emma saw that Joss had hesitated at the foot of the stairs, watching her, and she pulled herself together.

  ‘Of course it is,’ she answered. ‘I can manage lunch. Work must come first, even at times like these. I’ll give you a shout.’

  On an impulse Joss crossed the hall and gave Emma a quick hug.

  ‘It’ll be OK, Mum,’ she said seriously, rather as if she were making a promise, and Emma smiled back at her; grateful for that warm, unexpected gesture, filled with tremendous love for her pretty, clever daughter who was so like dear old Mutt.

  ‘Of course it will,’ she agreed bravely.

  She watched Joss leap the stairs, two at a time and, taking a deep breath, went back into the kitchen. Raymond was standing at the dresser, moving and folding a pile of newspapers, his face set into frowning, angry lines.

  ‘The damned thing’s gone,’ he said abruptly as soon as he saw her. ‘It’s simply disappeared. Did George take it, after all?’

  She shook her head, looking puzzled, but her heart jumped anxiously. ‘Do you mean the parcel? No, George didn’t take it. He offered but I didn’t think you’d be particularly pleased about it.’

  ‘He suspected something.’

  She could see that he was mentally reviewing the little scene with George, his broad pale lips compressed, his eyes speculative.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ She decided to allow herself a hint of censure. ‘You were a bit odd about it, after all, weren’t you?’

  ‘Odd?’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘Do you think he could have guessed what it might be?’

  She shrugged, collecting knives and forks together, beginning to set the table for lunch.

  ‘Why should he guess? None of us knows what’s in it. Why are you looking on the dresser? I thought you had it on the table.’

  He looked slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘When Mousie and Joss came in I thought it was best to put it out of sight. I turned round and put it on the dresser. Just here. Now it’s gone.’

  ‘Perhaps Mousie saw it and decided to deliver it.’ She raised her eyebrows at his instinctive gesture of irritation at the suggestion. ‘Well, why not? It was clearly addressed. And, anyway, what did you intend to do with it? You could have hardly opened it yourself.’

  The silence went on for far too long. She stared at him, pretending disbelief, and he coloured a little.

  ‘I’ve already explained how sensitive this could be.’ He almost sounded defensive. ‘I was merely going to check that the will hadn’t been put in with other things, that’s all. Don’t forget you have just as much right to see Mutt’s will as Bruno has. A quick glance would have forewarned us and nobody would have been the wiser.’ He could sense her resistance. ‘The sooner we decide how the tax is to be paid the better. At least, I imagine you don’t relish the idea of selling Paradise to meet it, do you?’

  Emma hid her twinge of fear, raising her chin as if in defiance at his threat.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that and I still don’t quite see what could be done about it, even if we knew the contents of her will. It’s horrid, talking like this when we should be mourning Mutt.’

  Before he could answer her Joss came in and Emma braced herself again; an automatic reaction to the joint presence of Raymond and Joss. Instinctively her voice lightened, her lips smiled and smiled, as if this air of determined cheerfulness might act as a restraint to their natural antagonism.

  ‘Lunch,’ she announced brightly, as a further distraction – but already Raymond was questioning Joss about the parcel.

  ‘Did you see a package,’ he was asking, ‘wrapped up in brown paper and string? It was here on the dresser.’

  ‘A package?’ Joss shook her head indifferently. ‘No. Was it going to the post?’

  ‘No.’ Raymond sat down again at the table. ‘Your mother came across it when she was looking for something else. It contained something your grandmother had wrapped up long ago by the look of it. It was addressed to Bruno.’

  Emma set the fish pie on a mat in the centre of the table and began to divide it up.

  ‘To Bruno?’

  Joss’s voice was sharp and Emma hid a sigh. Now it would all come out and there would be an argument.

  ‘Perhaps Mousie took it down to him,’ she suggested quickly. ‘Never mind about it now. Is that enough for you, Joss?’

  ‘It was … oh,’ Raymond was measuring the size o
f the parcel, squaring the air with his hands, ‘about so big. You didn’t see it, then? It’s rather important that we know what’s inside it.’

  Joss shook her head. She looked shocked, almost frightened, and Emma snorted with silent indignation, in sympathy with her daughter. No doubt she’d already guessed that her father had intended to open it.

  ‘But where did you find it?’ Joss didn’t seem interested in her lunch. ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘Your mother was looking for Mutt’s will,’ answered Raymond smoothly. ‘It has to be found, you know. Well, she came across this parcel and we wondered if the will might be inside it.’ He was getting on well with his pie; nothing deflected Raymond from his food. ‘Now it’s disappeared.’

  ‘But where was it?’ Joss asked again.

  ‘It was in Mutt’s desk.’ Emma answered the question. ‘She kept our old school reports in one of the drawers and it was in a folder that had Bruno’s stuff in it.’

  She saw that Joss was staring at her in some kind of horror and she was obliged to remind herself that she had every right to sort out Mutt’s things. Nevertheless, she felt a kind of creeping guilt in the face of Joss’s reaction.

  ‘We do have to find the will, darling,’ she said gently. ‘Apart from which, Bruno ought to have his parcel, whatever it is.’

  ‘But where is it?’

  Joss now seemed almost as anxious about its whereabouts as Ray was, and Emma breathed deeply, trying to contain a rising irritation.

  ‘Shall we finish lunch?’ she asked lightly. ‘Then we can all have a look for it. Mousie might well have taken it away with her, thinking she was doing us a favour.’

  ‘Yes, that’s possible.’

  Joss seemed to slump a little, relaxing in her chair, and Emma sighed with relief and cast about for a harmless topic of conversation. From experience she knew that – between her husband and daughter – there was no such thing. It was extraordinary how the least controversial topic could develop into a battle royal raging between them.