‘How dare you take my bleddy dog from me! Get your bleddy hands off him, or I’ll kill ya!’ Gabby lunged at Joe to try to wrest Tickle out of his arms, but Joe was faster in backing away from her towards the driveway. Tickle was growling at Joe and struggling to get free of him.
‘You’re not fit to own a dog!’ Joe yelled at her. ‘I rescued one you’d abandoned in the woods on the cliff just a few weeks ago. You’ve got fed up with every pet you’ve ever had and then you dump them. I’m not going to let you do that to this one.’
‘Hush, little one,’ Lily soothed the little fretful dog. ‘It’s for your own good.’
Joe fended off Lily’s reaching grubby hands. The dog was snarling now and Lily would likely be bitten. Richard grabbed Lily by the shoulders, wrenched her round and gave her hearty push. ‘Go back to the ladies, you!’
‘Joe! Joe! What’s going on?’ Christina shouted to him, riddled with worry because she couldn’t see anything beyond the hedgerows. She couldn’t keep up with Beth and Kitty’s pace, and taking Grace, urged the younger fitter women to run and find out what the bedlam was about.
Mrs Reseigh stayed with her. ‘That’s Gabby Magor’s big mouth we can hear. Dear God, that woman’s language indeed. And in front of children! Shall I ring the constable? Mark must be on his way, hopefully he’ll reach them soon.’
‘Oh my God, I hope we won’t need the police. Joe! Come back here at once!’ The riot out in the lane continued. ‘Right, my son, you’re in a lot of trouble this time.’
Beth and Kitty came upon the melee to see Mark running the last few feet towards the struggle. Joe dodged past the women pell-mell with a small howling mongrel in his arms and Gabby Magor used her thick sinewy hands to push Richard violently out of her way. Richard was sent skidding along the ground and ended up in the ditch. Lily was now in Gabby’s path and she stood transfixed, her eyes large and bright at what the wild woman might do to her. Mark reached Lily and shovelled her up, dropping her safely out of the charge.
He positioned himself in front of Gabby, his stance rock solid and his eyes on fire. ‘What are you doing to these children? Get away from here!’
Gabby spat on her fists and raised them at Mark. ‘Not on your bleddy life.’ She let out the vilest profanities. ‘’Tisn’t me what’s in the wrong. Those bleddy kids stole my dog from me. I’ll get the law on them and ’tis those little bastards who’ll go to clink. I’ll kill ’em if they don’t give me my dog back. And I’ll knock you into hell if you don’t get out of my bleddy way!’
Mark put up his hands in conciliatory fashion. Without looking round, he asked, ‘Is this true, Richard?’
‘Not really.’ Richard was up and rubbing himself down. ‘Joe took the dog from her because she’s cruel to her animals. We’re saving it from suffering, that’s all.’
‘See!’ Gabby yelled. ‘That brat’s admitted it. His rotten bleddy mate stole my Tickle and if he’s not brung straight back to me this minute I’ll knock all your blocks off. Including they two shitty hoity-toity tarts there.’ She gave Beth and Kitty a lewd gesture.
‘That’s enough!’ Mark growled. ‘Mind your language, woman. I think we’d better all go and see Mrs Vyvyan about this.’
‘You, matey, can think what you bleddy like! But I’m getting my Tickle back or you’ll all soon be dead meat.’ Gabby glowered at all the company in turn then pointed at Lily. ‘Starting with that little shower of shit first.’
‘Awp,’ Lily gulped and half hid behind Richard. He put a protective arm round her.
Beth had never seen such a fierce and furious woman, or one as ugly as Gabby Magor. She was like a hideous raging bull. Beth might have been afraid of her but this she-bull had threatened the children. ‘Miss Magor,’ she said frostily. ‘Joe should not have taken your dog. I’m sure Mrs Vyvyan will deal with him accordingly. Would you care to step inside the grounds and speak to Mrs Vyvyan about this?’
Some of the raw wrath seemed to die down in Gabby but she was still like some venomous menacing hulk of machinery, the stuff of children’s nightmares. She snarled, ‘Yeah, let’s get this over with. And she had better do the right thing by me.’ Gabby lumbered past Beth and Kitty, making the ground shudder. ‘And I want that bleddy big kid thrashed for what he done.’
‘Thank God you came along when you did, Mark,’ Beth said, holding out her hand to Lily. ‘That woman seems capable of anything.’
‘She is,’ Mark replied grimly, motioning for Richard to go on ahead of the grown-ups. ‘She once beat Davey Vage up for no reason at all.’
Evie’s father had been beaten up? Beth loathed the woman even more.
‘I’m going to miss all the dramas when I leave here tomorrow,’ Kitty said.
‘Now, Miss Magor, let’s talk about this reasonably and sensibly, and please refrain from swearing,’ Christina said, amazed at how in control she was. Before Beth had forgiven her and returned her love she wouldn’t have been able to deal with this. ‘First I’ll tell my son to give you back your dog.’
‘I should bled— think so too,’ Gabby rumbled with animosity, shooting out her rough paws for Tickle. ‘Come to Mummy, Tickle. How dare this bled— lot accuse me of ’tending to kick you out.’
Now the initial battle was over everyone was aware of Gabby’s ripe odours. Lily had her hand up over her screwed-up face.
Tickle was struggling to get to his owner but Joe clamped the dog to him. ‘Mum, you have to listen to me. Remember Grace? This woman was responsible for the dire circumstances Kitty and I found her in.’
‘What’s he talking about? Who’s Grace?’ Gabby screeched. ‘I don’t know no bleddy Grace. The boy’s mad.’
‘This is Grace,’ Christina said, ‘here in my arms. My son and Miss Copeland found him abandoned in the woods almost starved to death. Because of your previous neglect and lack of interest in animals we had reason to suspect you were responsible.’
‘I’ve never seen that mutt in my life,’ Gabby roared. ‘You got proof it was me?’
Gabby had the high hand here and everyone glanced wryly at each other.
‘There you are then. Hand my Tickle over to me at once or I’ll get the law on all of you.’
Christina had no choice and ordered reluctantly, ‘Joe, do as Miss Magor says.’
‘Mum!’ Joe protested.
‘It’s the right thing to do. Put the dog down.’
‘Yeah, put him down,’ Gabby crowed. ‘I’ll prove to you how much I love Tickle and how much he loves me.’
Slowly, scowling, Joe started to lower the dog down and Tickle soon struggled out of his grip. Gabby was clucking to Tickle, and Tickle yapped in delight and tore over the grass to her and jumped straight up into her arms and licked her all over her face, his little body trembling in excitement.
‘See, we love each other,’ Gabby gloated with a variety of ugly sniggers. ‘I’ve taught Tickle to sit and stay and roll over and everything. Now I want an apology from the bleddy lot of you. You better not be too stuck up to do it ’n’ all.’
‘I apologize for the trouble that has been caused to you, Miss Magor,’ Christina said, none too friendly. ‘Now please leave my property.’
One by one Joe, with a hard stare, and then Richard and Lily muttered that they were sorry.
‘You have my apologies,’ Kitty said ungraciously. At least the foul woman had denied any knowledge of Grace and she could never put a claim to her by saying Grace had wandered off, and got lost.
‘I’m sorry too,’ Beth said. ‘But let me tell you this, Gabby Magor. You may have taken a fancy to this little dog but we’ll be keeping an eye on you. If there is the slightest notion of you hurting or neglecting Tickle I’ll see to it that you are prosecuted.’
‘Oh, will you now,’ Gabby rounded on Beth. ‘I know who you are, Miss toffee-nosed Elizabeth Tresaile. You needn’t think yourself so bleddy wonderful. I spect you know your father was nothing but a whoremonger, but do you know about all the women he was screwing, eh?’<
br />
Beth’s expression of horror made Gabby bellow with laughter. ‘No, not me.’ Christina hurriedly told Joe to take Lily and Richard away and Joe reluctantly complied. ‘He weren’t interested in me ’cus I had nothing to benefit him. It was your high ’n’ mighty grandmother, the stuck-up bitch, that he was tupping reg’lar. I saw them. She was ravenous for him. I watched and I heard her rowing with him after. “What do you want my wretched daughter for,” she said, all tears. “Aren’t I enough for you, Phil? Christina’s nothing, she’s too weak for you.” Well, that got proved right. Sent you off your head, didn’t he, missus,’ Gabby jeered at Christina. ‘Your mother really hated you but I ’spect you already knew that. Well, I’m off. You can all drop dead, the lot of you!’ With an angry toss of her fist Gabby lumbered away.
‘Excuse me,’ Mark said, looking down then walking away. Mrs Reseigh followed on.
Beth and Christina had paled considerably, but they didn’t need a discussion about Gabby Magor’s spiteful words to know she had been telling the truth. It echoed loudly down the years now, explaining why Marion Frobisher had always taken the side of Beth’s father, Christina’s first husband.
Kitty was mortified for them to have learned these disturbing and humiliating facts in such a brutal manner. ‘I’m so sorry for you both. I’ll leave you to talk.’
To Beth it was as if every last scrap of her being was twisted then torn apart and destroyed in a storm. It had been the last thing she could have thought about her beloved grandmother, that she had pursued her father when he was a young single man, first as a holiday fling and then as a besotted older woman. For some reason she had never loved her own daughter – perhaps Christina had been a burden to her – and then she had come to hate Christina for falling, like herself, under Phil Tresaile’s spell. Had her grandmother’s love and care for her been genuine or merely a way of causing endless heartache to Christina? Beth was numbed through right now. When the full impact of this revelation hit her, would she ever be able to forgive her grandmother? Beth had received shock after shock as she had learned of the tragic innocent babies her father had sired. What if he had impregnated her grandmother? The thought was too horrible. Were there any other Phil Tresaile offspring in the world? She had to end these musings or she’d go mad.
Christina was watching Beth closely and was sure she knew Beth’s thoughts. ‘Will you be all right, darling? You were so close to your grandmother. Can we walk back? My hip…’
Beth immediately took Christina’s arm. ‘The question is, will you be all right, Mum? Did you have any idea or has this been a total shock to you too?’
‘I had my suspicions. I knew my mother liked younger men, but before Phil it had been rich men. Don’t hate her, Beth. Your grandmother really did love you. I think she was glad when my own father died young. She had never had a good word for him, perhaps that’s why she couldn’t tolerate me. Francis taught me to leave the past behind. Please don’t let this latest thing continue to disturb you and steal your peace.’
Beth gave herself a mental shake. ‘I won’t, because no matter how bad my father was all his children were wanted and loved by their mothers. It’s made me more determined to have Evie in my life. Let’s reconvene the coffee and cakes, shall we?’
‘Yes, lovely, and I must think about how I’m going to deal with Joe. He did something wrong but for the right reasons.’ Christina smiled and affectionately tidied Beth’s hair. ‘And I can’t help feeling so proud of him.’
* * *
Beth took Mark his ‘crib’ of a mug of bark-strong tea and a rock cake. Mrs Reseigh repeated Mark’s preferences every time he worked in the gardens and Beth knew he didn’t like coffee and ate only plain food. He was mowing a side lawn that had at the sides beds of fuchsias, red-hot pokers, rich pink and salmon-pink pools of sedum, and bright yellow and red begonias. High, spreading blue and purple mop-head hydrangea bushes added shelter, and then there was a natural higher hedgerow in front of the woods. It was the perfect place to bring a rug and lie down to sunbathe.
Seeing Beth on the way, Mark left the mower and joined her where she had placed the little tin tray on a small well-weathered stone table. ‘Thanks, Miss Beth,’ he said in his respectful yet distant way.
‘I made your tea today. I hope you find it to your liking. I’ve put two sugars in it.’ The curious side of Beth always had a yen to draw the virtually silent Mark into conversation on some subject other than his young daughter. This time she had something to ask him and she would not allow his reticence to stay his tongue.
‘Thanks,’ Mark said again, and that was all.
‘Mark, I need to talk to you quite bluntly. I’m sorry.’ She felt the need to apologize because it was him.
‘Go on.’ He looked at her without expression, and she had no hint as to what he was thinking.
‘There was something I noticed about you during that unfortunate incident with that dreadful woman when she mentioned my father’s and grandmother’s affair.’
Tightening his mouth Mark looked away and gave a small sigh.
‘There it is again, that certain turn of your head, that regretful sigh,’ Beth plunged on. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t spare your feelings. You knew about the affair, didn’t you? I’m sure of it. But how?’
‘You’ve been straight with me, Miss Beth, so I’ll be the same. When I was due to take over from old Mr Jewell he showed me round the grounds and he told me what I should think was all your family’s secrets. Like Gabby Magor he saw things that should never have gone on. He said he trusted me to keep my mouth shut but thought I should know it all so I’d have nothing to feel I wanted to dig into. That’s not my way. There was no need for Mr Jewell to insist I listened to him, I didn’t want to know. I swore to keep my peace and I have. I didn’t even tell my wife. So there’s no need for us to ever speak of this again,’ he ended firmly. He picked up his tea mug.
Beth knew he wanted her to go but she had one last question. ‘I thank you for your integrity. Do you think any others know?’
‘There’s no way of knowing that, but if it was common knowledge it would have been all over the cove.’ Mark was looking straight across the lawn, cut off from Beth, but then he suddenly settled his eyes on her. ‘This must be hard for you and Mrs Vyvyan.’
‘We’ll not let it get us down.’ Beth was pleased at his show of concern, to see this kind side of him. If only all men were as faithful to their wives and as caring towards their children as he had been to his, then she and Christina, Evie’s mother and Miss Oakley would never have known their respective horrors. ‘What I don’t understand is why an infamous troublemaker like the Magor woman didn’t spread round what she knew long ago. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Does anything?’ Mark muttered, a tarnish of pain shading his rugged features. ‘What sense was it that my Juliet died? Or Francis Vyvyan? Gabby Magor insults people about their physical looks but she doesn’t often spread malicious gossip about their personal lives. She ill-treats lots of animals then she takes to one and dotes on it. There is no sense in the real world.’ He offered Beth a faint smile of irony. ‘Is there?’
‘No,’ Beth replied after a moments reflection. ‘Just shades of light and dark, and we must learn to leave the darkest ones behind us if we are to get on with our lives.’
Twenty-Five
Evie tried to ignore the drawer in the kitchen dresser but her eyes again wandered towards it. Inside the drawer, slipped under a box of bills and receipts, was a letter she had received, a rare thing for her. When it popped through the letterbox three days ago she had been both wary and excited about it. The postmark was Newlyn. She had been a little scared. The writing wasn’t her fathers – he always sent messages to her by phoning the Sailor’s Rest – so had someone written to her to say her father was ill or had had an accident? No, that didn’t figure either. Even such a message would have been passed on via the pub. Or her uncle, Ken Tresaile, would have sent someone or turned up himself on the door
step.
Taking the letter from the drawer, Evie ran up to her room and sat on the deep cut-stone window ledge, on the long sun-faded cushion her mother had made. The blustery wind was driving scatters of noisy raindrops against the pristine clean glass and there was a bit of a draught, but Evie stayed here in one of her favourite places. She glanced up and down the quay, furtively, guiltily, not wanting to be spied at what she was doing. Not that it was anything wrong. It couldn’t be wrong for her to read again the letter sent to her by Rob Praed.
Dear Evie,
I hope you don’t mind me sending you a few words.
This is hard for me because I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I’ve always gone straight to the point with a woman I’ve taken a liking to. But things are different with you, Evie. I more than like you and I’m feeling a bit shy about asking you to walk out with me. I’ve really enjoyed seeing you those few times since I rescued Smoky. Please will you consider me as a boyfriend? I know I’m rough at the edges but I swear on my heart I will always respect you. You have nothing to fear from me.
When I’m back at the weekend, I shall come round and ask you out for a meal, and ask Davey’s permission too, of course. Please, please think about saying yes.
I’m looking forward to seeing you again.
Sincerely, Rob Praed
Just as when she’d first read the letter, Evie shivered with a fusion of horror and delight. The first time she had thrust the letter in the drawer as if it was burning her fingers. It had certainly burned her sensitivities. During the next three days followed by hard-to-sleep nights, she had turned over her every thought and feeling about it. She had resented Rob for putting her in the most awkward position of her life. It was foreign to her to think about wanting a boyfriend and a husband. She was happy just to remain with her father. She didn’t need a family. Davey had assured her that, if or when the time came when she was left on her own, he would leave her the cottage and ensure she was well provided for, and she would carry on with her craftwork and quiet life.
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