Morwen finally went wearily to bed in Hannah Pascoe’s old room, too tired to notice the strangeness of her surroundings, or even to register that at last she had a room of her own, vast and unfamiliar. The sound of the distant sea, booming against the rocks, lulled her frayed nerves… and then she was suddenly frighteningly awake again, just as she was on the edge of sleep.
She hadn’t extinguished her candle, and her eyes caught the turn of her door handle. Before she could think properly, the lumbering shape was inside and leaning on the door, the smell of drink reeking clear across the room. They looked at each other in the same petrified instant.
Jude saw the slight figure in his mother’s old bed. She sat upright, her cotton nightgown taut against her breasts, tensed with fear. Her dark hair tumbled about her slender shoulders, her blue eyes suddenly darkened, her full mouth unable to stop its trembling. Jude’s lustful eyes didn’t question the apparition. He was too drink-hazed to care how she got here. All he saw was a luscious piece, all ready and waiting, and he lurched across the room.
All Morwen saw was the man she loathed most in the world. She watched his hands move towards his breeches belt, and saw the leer in his eyes. She had no weapon to defend herself, only her fury and the flaring candle. She grabbed the metal holder and held it menacingly. Her heart pounded as she lashed out at him in words he would understand.
‘You come one step nearer, Jude Pascoe, and I’ll burn the bollocks off you! If I had to swing for you, it would be a pleasure, knowing you’d never force your stinking flesh into another innocent girl’s body. Do you understand me?’ She saw the bewilderment pass over his drunken face. He hesitated, seeing she meant what she said. His eyes glittered.
‘What’s all this then?’ he snarled. ‘You weren’t so all-fired prissy with my cousin up on the moors—’
He was guessing. Ben couldn’t have confided anything in this lout… she tried to stop the shaking inside her.
‘Get out,’ she hissed. ‘Or I’ll scream rape to your uncle, and you’d soon be sent packing like your mother—’
‘You little bitch!’ Jude grated. ‘I see your game! After bigger fish than Jude Pascoe, eh? You think Ben Killigrew’s got more to offer in his breeches, do ’ee—’
She hurled the heavy candle-holder at his head. He dodged sideways and caught a glancing blow to his shoulder. The flame went out, and the room was black as pitch. Morwen could hear the thud of her own heart, staccato and wild. She heard Jude’s laboured breathing as he lunged towards the bed. She slid out of it, and met his charging body with her knee, vicious and hard, ramming it into his groin as her fingernails clawed at his face. He howled with rage and pain.
‘You she-devil!’ he screeched. ‘You’ll pay for that—’
‘So will you if you come near me again,’ Morwen said savagely. ‘I’ll tell about how you raped my friend Celia on the moors, Jude Pascoe. The constable’s still curious as to why she drowned herself, and he’d be very interested to know who she’d been seeing.’
She heard his heavy breathing, and smelled it, rancid and stale. But she knew she had got the better of him. He wrenched open the door and slammed it after him, and Morwen wondered that the whole house wasn’t awakened by it. But perhaps they were used to Jude’s lurchings in the night, which was more than she was. Morwen trembled all over, and put a heavy chair behind the door, relighting her candle with shaking hands.
How wise had she been to come here after all? It was for her family’s sake… but she had overlooked how vulnerable she was. She had expected Jude Pascoe to be gone from the house, and shuddered at the thought of him coming here, clearly too stupefied to remember that his mother had gone.
Morwen vowed never to give him the satisfaction of knowing the truth about Celia’s child, and was angry at even hinting something of it to him. She crawled back into bed, burying her head under the bedcovers, and wept from sheer frustration and the traumas of the day.
* * *
She had seen little of Jude since that night. She doubted that he remembered much of what happened, but if it was enough to make him keep his distance, then Morwen was satisfied. As she left Ben’s room, she heard the front doorbell, and her heart leapt as she answered it to find Jane Carrick outside, astonished to see the clayworker’s daughter at Killigrew House. Jane remembered her manners.
‘Good-day – Morwen,’ she quickly recalled the name. ‘I’ve come to see Ben – my – Mr Killigrew—’ She hardly knew how to address this newly mature Morwen in the brown housekeeper’s dress, her dark hair swept up from her neck, and more elegant than Jane might have expected.
‘Of course, miss. Will you follow me, please? You won’t have heard that I’m the new housekeeper here.’
Saying the words often might make them seem real, Morwen thought. Situations like this would make them even more real. Ushering Jane Carrick into Ben’s bedroom was obviously permitted, and she saw that he was now in a chair near the window, getting some welcome fresh air. She heard Jane greet him warmly as she seated herself across the room, and thought that if she had been parted from her lover for a week, then neither influenza nor wild horses would have kept her a room’s width from his arms.
Morwen turned quickly and left them alone.
While Jane looked thoughtfully at Ben, and noted the way his eyes followed the trim shape of the Tremayne girl. But after a brief reassurance as to his health, Ben brushed her enquiries aside and demanded to know if she’d heard tell of his father’s heart condition.
‘Not a word!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why should I have known and not you?’
‘I merely thought he may have confided in your father, and passed any news on to you, that’s all,’ Ben said irritably. Inactivity was beginning to irk him, and since the doctor had left, Charles had come to see him, and pooh-poohed the idea of anything seriously wrong. Treating him like a child, Ben had fumed.
‘Is it serious?’ Jane was concerned. Ben grunted.
‘All I could get out of Father was that he’d had a couple of turns, as he calls them. One of which was at the Tremayne cottage, where apparently Morwen played nurse so effectively it gave him the idea of asking her to be our new housekeeper, as you may have gathered! The old goat didn’t think it necessary to tell his own son that there was medicine prescribed for him. Supposing the attack had occurred here, and his damnable pride had stopped him admitting it?’
His throat rasped, not quite recovered yet, and he felt a swift sympathy for Charles. Ben, too, hated admitting he was ill, but stupidity could cost Charles Killigrew his life.
Jane sympathised too, and tactfully changed the conversation. When Ben grudgingly asked after Tom Askhew, Jane hesitated, and then spoke in a rush.
‘Can I tell you a secret, Ben? He had an important visitor this week, who came by train and coach especially to see Tom. His name was Sir Garside Sefton, and he wants Tom to start a newspaper in Yorkshire called the Northern Informer. Tom’s delighted about it. He wants to go back to his roots—’
‘I’m surprised you sound so pleased about it. Not fallen out with him already, have you?’
Jane laughed, her face pink. ‘Of course not! When Tom goes, I shall go with him, and that’s the secret you mustn’t tell, Ben. Tom’s ambitious, and he’s known of this chance for some time now. He’s got an assistant keen enough to take over in Truro when the time comes. We intend to elope when the time is right, Ben, and no one’s going to stop us!’
He saw the determination in her face, more than he’d ever seen it before. At that moment, she reminded him oddly of Morwen Tremayne… the same passionate look Ben had seen in Morwen’s eyes on the night at the Larnie Stone when he’d wanted her so much…
‘Aren’t you going to say something, Ben? You won’t make me change my mind!’ Jane said defensively, as he seemed to be frowning into space.
Truth was, the memory of Morwen that night, soft and pliant in his arms, was so pleasurable to him that he had to force himself to concentrate on Jane Carrick�
��s presence at all.
‘I wouldn’t even try,’ he said shortly.
Jane changed the conversation, burning with curiosity about Morwen Tremayne. Ben shrugged elaborately – too elaborately, Jane thought sagely.
‘You know as much as me. My father dismissed my aunt, and Morwen was installed here while I was ill. That’s all there is to it. I didn’t know she’d been in the house a whole week until today!’
It wasn’t strictly true. He had been uncannily aware of her presence. Her soft hands on his brow, her soothing voice… he saw the quirk of a smile on Jane’slips.
‘She’s a very pretty girl,’ she teased.
‘Is she?’ Ben said distantly. ‘I’ve hardly noticed.’
But they both knew that he had.
* * *
Charles Killigrew strode into the dining-room where Morwen was arranging the table-settings. He was well pleased with the way the girl was shaping up, and he beamed at her now.
‘Set the table for four this evening, m’ dear. Ben will be tired of being spoon-fed, and will be joining us for meals from now on.’
Her heart jumped. This was another hurdle for her to cross. It was a relief that when Jude Pascoe was there for meals, he rarely made conversation. She was becoming used to Charles’s jovial manners, but sitting opposite Ben at every meal… she had expected to eat with the kitchen staff, but Charles wouldn’t hear of it. A housekeeper was a cut above the kitchen staff. His sister had always eaten with the family, and so should Morwen Tremayne. When she didn’t reply, Charles looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Why not take some time off and visit your family today? There’s plenty of time before dinner if you use the pony and trap. Now that the risk of influenza is past, they’ll be longing to see you, Morwen.’
It was true. The disease spread so rapidly that people stayed in their own homes while an epidemic occurred, and Morwen hadn’t been home since moving to Killigrew House. Her mother would be missing her, and anxious to know how she fared at the big house.
Morwen felt suddenly nostalgic for the things that were past. Her life here was luxurious compared with the simple cottage, but her roots were still there. She still felt the urge to run barefoot across the moors at times, with the rain and wind streaming through the black tangle of her hair, and to feel the sensual sting of both on her eyes and cheeks. Or to lie in the warm sun with the summer fragrance all around, squinting up at the sky and sharing secrets with Celia…
Her eyes stung, remembering. None of that was possible any more, and chasing the past was as futile as chasing rainbows.
‘I’ll be back in good time for dinner, Mr Killigrew,’ she said in a strangled voice, and turned away from him lest he suspected she was crying.
She was glad Jude wasn’t in the stables, only the young boy who helped him, and she quickly got used to the pony and trap as she went through the cobbled streets of the town and onto the wild moors towards home. It looked different now. The cottages seemed smaller, and the appalling thought was in her head before she could stop it. She had been away for six days, and already she had changed…
But this was still home, she thought fiercely, greeting neighbours who called out to her, and thought how fine the Tremaynes were becoming all of a sudden. Hal Tremayne with his own trap; Bess at her sewing instead of working the clay; and now Morwen, acting near to being a boss’s daughter and every bit as elegant with her hair piled on top of her head and sitting so poised and smart. Young Matthew too, gone to work at Charlestown port… life was certainly changing for Hal Tremayne and his family.
Bess was overjoyed to see her daughter, and couldn’t resist fingering the soft brown fabric of Morwen’s dress as she went inside the cottage.
‘’Tis so good to see you, love! And how grand you be. ’Tis a fine bit o’ stuff Charles Killigrew provides for his servants!’
They both laughed at the thought.
‘Grand or not, ’tis good to see you again, Mammie,’ Morwen said warmly, trying not to notice the poor furnishings in the cottage. Bess’s hands had lost much of the redness of the bal maiden’s hands, but years of exposure to wind and weather would never make them a lady’s hands. Morwen felt a fierce love for her mother, and an odd stab of resentment towards Charles Killigrew, who had made her aware of such things.
‘And you’ll have a cup of hot chocolate and tell me about the big house. Is Mr Ben quite recovered, Morwen? They say the influenza has carried off a shocking number of folk.’
‘He’s well, Mammie. Though Doctor Pender said it was only his strong spirit that helped him through it.’
‘Ah well. Fine folk have less stamina, I daresay,’ Bess commented, ‘but he’s a strong young man and no mistake. Now tell me about your new life, love.’
There seemed little to tell. Ben’s illness had been dominant ever since she’d moved into his house, and Morwen had felt oddly in limbo ever since. She had been blackmailed into taking the job, for her family’s own good, and she could never tell them that. She felt easier when the boys came home with their father, though the younger ones were a little awed at this new Morwen with the upswept hair and the look of a lady. But Sam remarked that she’d be a fitting flower-maid to his Dora when they were wed.
‘Is it arranged?’ Morwen said excitedly. A wedding was just what was needed to cheer folks, however soon after Celia Penry’s death. To countryfolk buryings and weddings were all a part of life, and none would think it odd to have one so soon after the other.
‘’Tis for early December,’ Sam smiled. ‘Mammie’s to sew Dora’s dress, and yourn too, I daresay.’
Morwen hugged her tall handsome brother, and suddenly the tiny cottage seemed a joyous place as they all talked at once. It seemed so long since Morwen had laughed, but here there was love and laughter and happiness. They were all there except Matthew, nearly complete again. And Morwen made a silent vow before she left her old home.
She would ask Charles Killigrew directly to keep his side of the bargain. Sam and his bride must have this cosy cottage as their wedding-gift, to be alone as married couples should be. He had promised her family the small house, half-way between St Austell and the clay works, a link between them all. And Morwen and her mother would stroll among the ladies of the town and be part of them…
She left the cottage in a much lighter mood. She still mourned her friend, and always would, but it was as though a ray of sunlight pierced the gloom at last. There was to be a wedding in the family, and she would be part of it.
It was a long while since springtime, but to Morwen on that early autumn evening, as she trotted the pony and trap back to Killigrew House, it was as though all the ice around her heart was beginning to thaw at last. She was coming alive again, the way she always felt with the emergence of spring after the dark days of winter. Young and alive, and renewed.
Chapter Thirteen
In the smoke-filled fug of the Blue Boar kiddleywink in St Austell, Jude Pascoe glowered into his jug of ale. He’d found a kindred spirit in Matthew Tremayne, yet now he wished he hadn’t. If he didn’t like the fellow so much, he could dig a grave for Matt Tremayne quicker than blinking, and get his revenge on the whole shit-bagging family at one stroke. And on the high-and-mighty Morwen Tremayne in particular. He scowled just thinking of her.
The scowl changed to a grin as Matt came into the Blue Boar. There was a change in Matt that even Jude could see. Matt was independent for the first time in his life, and he liked the feeling. When Jude spoke of opportunities across the sea, Matt liked that too, but knew better than to speak of it in his father’s hearing.
‘Weather’s on the change, Matt,’ Jude said, wiping the curve of froth from his upper lip with the back of his sleeve, and feeling the ale course through his body like liquid gold. ‘’Tis a pity we don’t live on the north coast of the county, where the real rich pickings are when the wrecks come floating in—’
Matt felt his pulse quicken as Jude dangled the bait in front of him. His Daddy wouldn’t a
pprove, but his Daddy wouldn’t get to hear of it… Matt put it out of his mind and asked when they were to practise the drill of which he knew so little as yet.
Jude laughed raucously, calling for a jug of ale for his friend, and slapping him on the back.
‘Soon enough! I’ll show ’ee the fine old caves where we can hide the spoils while the customs men be on the prowl, ready for collecting later and selling off to obliging landlords!’
Wrecking was a sport Matt had always thought of with derision, until Jude had made it sound like fair game. The spoils of the sea… Matt had got the taste of adventure in his veins now, egged on by the old sea-salts who frequented the waterfront. He’d heard tales of exotic places, and the golden land of America where everyone became rich. Home was still dear to Matt, but there was a whole world beyond Cornwall, and he was only just becoming aware of it…
‘I thought you weren’t coming today,’ Jude suddenly growled. ‘Drink up, and let’s find some agreeable company, Matt.’
He winked, and Matt’s blood quickened still more. Kitty’s bawdy-house was another delight he’d been initiated into, with sweet-scented girls who made an hour or two more exciting than he’d ever imagined possible. He saw Jude laughing at him, and grinned back. For a moment he wondered what his father would think if he knew the road Matt was taking, and then determinedly put all his family out of his mind. The only thing to concern him now was which one of Kitty’s pretty girls would entertain him.
* * *
Morwen looked at the big grandfather clock in the drawing-room at Killigrew House, satisfied that there was ample time to wash and change her dress before dinner. She had hardly been out of the brown dress since her arrival here, except for sleeping. She hadn’t felt like making an effort, but tonight she did. There was going to be a wedding, and she felt seventeen again instead of a hundred years old, and she knew it would give Charles Killigrew pleasure to see her wearing the second dress he had given her, the colour of young spring buds.
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