Family Ties

by Family Ties (retail) (epub)

  Undoubtedly, Mr Randell Wainwright knew what he liked and wasn’t above saying so. And he was making it plain by his smile and the admiration in his eyes that he liked what he saw very much indeed. Morwen dismissed the thought immediately. She was Ben Killigrew’s wife, the mother of his children, and as such she had no right to be standing here like a gauche bal maiden, practically glowing with pleasure at sensing what almost amounted to desire in a young man.

  ‘Someone has spoken of me to you?’ Morwen was unsure whether this was something she cared to hear. Ben would certainly not approve.

  ‘Why yes. Your brother Matt.’

  She sat down quickly, motioning the man to do likewise. Until then she had hardly registered what he had said.

  ‘You know my brother Matt?’ She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Then you are from America, perhaps?’

  ‘I am indeed, Ma’am.’ Again, that quaint little word that was so like the way Morwen had always addressed her own mother: Mammie… the word she was trying very hard to avoid now, since Ben had said quietly that it was a mite countrified.

  ‘How is Matt? Is he well? And Louisa, and little Cresswell? You know them all?’

  Suddenly it was as though Matt had stretched out his hands across oceans and continents, linking them all through this man. She had felt that way once before, when Killigrew Clay’s fortunes were in danger of collapsing, and Matt’s gift had arrived to set them all on the road to prosperity again. Morwen could still hardly believe that her dreaming brother had become a rich man in the California gold-fields.

  ‘I should say I do! I haven’t seen them for a while, since I moved to New York. Matt doesn’t know I’m here, but I couldn’t resist taking the liberty of calling. I hope you don’t think me too presumptuous, Ma’am.’

  The stranger looked awkward for the first time, but suddenly the half-remembered name fell into place.

  ‘Of course! Wainwright! I should have remembered. Matt’s wife was called Louisa Wainwright. And she had a small brother.’ She looked at the elegant young man sitting opposite her. ‘But you cannot be the small brother,’ she stated.

  He laughed out loud. ‘A fair deduction, Ma’am. No, the small brother is away at college and, as you surmise, I am rather older than my cousin Philip.’

  ‘Then you are Louisa’s cousin?’

  ‘And Matt’s, and therefore a kind of cousin of yours also, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.’

  Morwen smiled delightedly. The impropriety of chattering with a stranger without a proper introduction had not escaped her. Ben would not have been pleased… Ben was surprisingly stuffy about such things… but if Randell E Wainwright was a kind of cousin, then that made everything all right. At least, she hoped that it did.

  There were cousins and cousins, of course. Ben’s own cousin, Jude Pascoe, would be shown the door of Killigrew House if he ever dared to set foot near it. Thankfully, Jude was out of their lives for ever, Morwen thought, superstitiously crossing her fingers behind her back for a moment.

  Years ago, Jude Pascoe and her brother Matt had fled the country in dubious circumstances after a wrecking along the treacherous Cornish coastline when a man had been killed. Neither Morwen nor her mother could think of that awful time without pain, even now. To them, America was no more than a great expanse of land on a map, although Morwen had taken a great deal of interest in it since communicating with Matt. Of Jude’s whereabouts, she didn’t know, and didn’t care.

  And this stranger came from over the Atlantic Ocean, he had lived there, he knew the land and her American family. He knew Matt. He was a link with her past.

  ‘You’re very welcome here, Mr Wainwright.’ Her soft Cornish voice was warm and generous.

  ‘Thank you. But please – my family and friends call me Ran. It would give me much pleasure if you would do so too.’

  ‘I don’t know if I should.’

  ‘Why not? We’re cousins, aren’t we? And – forgive me again if I’m too bold, but I already think of you as Morwen. Your name has charmed me for many years, ever since I first heard it. I never thought I would see the lady in person, but now I know that your name fits you perfectly. Mysterious and beautiful, and as fey as the Cornish are reputed to be, I suspect.’

  ‘Mr Wainwright, please!’ Morwen had never heard such artless flattery. Even from Ben, whose education allowed the words to charm a lady flow easily, there had been nothing like this. She wasn’t sure if she should be listening to it, or whether such devastating frankness was frightening or even a little suspect. She didn’t always trust such smooth tongues.

  Once long ago, an old acquaintance of Ben’s had come to stay at the house. A man with a plausible patter and a slickness of manner, and that man had been so nearly caused her young brother Freddie to lose his reason with his foul words.

  ‘I’m so sorry – have I offended you?’

  She heard Randell Wainwright’s concerned voice, and realized that her shudder had been obvious.

  ‘No – of course not. I’m just – not used to colonial ways.’ She blushed as his eyebrow raised slightly. ‘Now I must apologize. It’s the way my husband refers to Americans, I’m afraid. I’ve never been sure if it’s complimentary or otherwise.’

  He laughed, a deep throaty sound. ‘I’ll forgive you on one condition. That we forget this ridiculous protocol and agree to call each other by our Christian names. We’re family, aren’t we? What do you say, Morwen?’

  She liked the sound of her name on his lips. He was the most refreshing person she had met in a very long time. She had become steeped in domestic affairs for too long, in the little tea parties she was obliged to give as Mrs Ben Killigrew, and smothering her own identity in the process of being businessman’s wife, and mother. Randell Wainwright brought a breath of fresh air into the house. It was almost – almost like a moorland breeze blowing through it, and she followed her instincts about him, feeling her soft mouth curve into an answering smile.

  ‘I think that would be very nice – Ran,’ she said, a little awkwardly. She stood up quickly. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. You’ll have some tea, won’t you? And of course you’ll stay to lunch? I want to hear everything about Matt.’

  She pulled the bell-rope for Mrs Horn. Randell stood up too, holding out his hand to shake hers in a formal greeting.

  ‘Thank you. And I hope we can be friends as well as cousins,’ he said gravely.

  Her hand felt small and delicate in his. She had long ago lost the roughness of a bal maiden’s hands. They were a lady’s hands now and she was absurdly pleased to register that fact. She felt the strong male fingers curl around her own in a protective gesture. She felt warmed by them, then a feeling that was akin to an odd little panic made her almost snatch her hand away from his as the housekeeper entered the room.

  Chapter Two

  Jack Tremayne was in a black humour. He had been at loggerheads with his boat-building partner, who was also his father-in-law, over the purchase of paints and materials; he had bickered with his wife Annie all last night, because she wanted to invite his sister Morwen and her family for tea on Sunday, and it meant Jack riding all the way to St Austell with the invitation, and he was just too busy; his five-year-old twin daughters had upset their nurse by tipping their breakfast all over her, and had since been sent to their room in disgrace. And the doctor had asked Jack to call at his office that day and told him bluntly and in no uncertain terms that Annie was not to have another child.

  Sometimes it felt as though the whole world was against him, Jack thought darkly. He strode angrily through the streets of Truro that bleak September afternoon, after seeing the doctor, then sorting out the building materials problem less satisfactorily than he would have wished, though they had come to some arrangement, at least.

  The bickering with Annie was no more than was normal among married people after eight years or so, and he supposed he’d eventually give in and ride over to Killigrew House with the invitation to Sunday tea. And his little dau
ghters were only being naughtier than usual because they had a new nurse. But this other thing… this straight-talking by that fool of a doctor… that he must be celibate from now on, or risk his wife’s health… what did he take him for? Jack was a healthy, vigorous man of twenty-seven, not a monk! He had no intention of tying his breeding tackle in a knot for the rest of his life because of Doctor Vestey’s say-so!

  The man wasn’t human. It wasn’t natural to lie in wedlock with a woman and not want to love her. It gave more dignity to the beasts in the fields that they could follow their instincts while he was supposed to lie mute every night, think of other things, and let his baser male urges die. Those were the fancy words the doctor had used, but they didn’t change the bald and unnatural facts.

  Jack scowled unseeingly at the young Truro matrons who nodded at him as he passed. Such a splendid man he’d turned out, some sighed. And how lucky Annie Boskelly was to have captured him. The bolder of them avoided each other’s eyes so as not to see the flush on each delicate female cheek, as each wondered secretly how it would feel to be pinned beneath that strong young body and be locked in wanton embraces with him…

  ‘Heyo, Jack, what’s got into you today? You nearly knocked me over!’

  He heard the laughing voice, and cleared his vision rapidly. He had been too incensed at his own bad luck, too upset by the misery of his future to notice anything or anyone. His brother Freddie was grinning at him, as tall as Jack now, and should surely be looking for a wife himself soon. Freddie was gone twenty-two, so it was high time he got himself wed.

  If it wasn’t such a damnable embarrassment, he’d warn Freddie to look for a wife with good child-bearing hips who didn’t drop a child before it was halfway to being born every couple of years. He was immediately ashamed of his thoughts. He loved Annie to distraction. That was the hell of it. That was definitely the god-damned bloody hell of it…

  ‘Sorry, our Freddie. I was hard in thought.’ He used the old familiar term without thinking. Hard in thought and hard in body… Jack groaned. From now on, everything was going to be a torment to him.

  There was really no one he could confide in, he thought bitterly. Freddie was not the one. A younger brother never was. Matt was God knew where in California… and Sam… Jack swallowed painfully. The memory of Sam, his best-beloved brother and god, could still twist his gut whenever he thought of him lying among the rubble of the railway cave-in on the moors. Even after ten years, the memory of it could still catch him unawares, making him sick at heart and he missed Sam more as the years went by. He could have confided in Sam, and he swore beneath his breath in bitter frustration that his oldest brother wasn’t around to listen and sympathize.

  Freddie walked easily beside him. Where there had been one handsome Tremayne man, now there were two, and Jack didn’t miss the way the Truro misses eyed up this perky young echo of himself.

  ‘It must have been something important to make ’ee so all-fired miserable-looking.’ Freddie tried to coax Jack out of his mood by responding in the old way.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Jack said shortly. ‘Nothing I can’t put right, anyway.’ If there were ways, he didn’t know of them. Only one way… and the thought of turning his lust upon a painted moonlighter for his own relief revolted him.

  ‘Good. Then I’ve got some news for you.’

  Freddie never wasted words. If somebody didn’t want to invite his confidence, it was a waste of energy trying to persuade them. He hadn’t learned that at St Austell school, but in the private tuition which the teachers had insisted he deserved. Freddie had always been a bright boy, and he had grown into a man with a good business brain.

  He’d begun as an apprentice with Boskelly Boats, following in Jack’s footsteps, but he now had his own flourishing chandlery shop near to the Lemon river where the tall ships anchored, and both they and the busy little sea and river craft kept him busy with their endless requests for supplies of every kind. Freddie had found his own niche without anyone’s help.

  ‘What sort of news?’ Jack snapped. His own was so bad, he didn’t see how anybody else could smile on such a day as this. His sister Morwen had once said caustically that he was the most selfish of her brothers, wallowing in his own misery almost as if he enjoyed it… if that was being selfish, then so he was, he thought with a darker scowl.

  Freddie stopped walking as his brother strode on almost at a run, and Jack was obliged to turn round and wait for him.

  ‘That’s better. I thought we were in some kind of race or summat. Now listen. Morwen’s had a visitor from America—’

  Jack’s mouth dropped open at that, his thoughts temporarily diverted from his own troubles. ‘Not our Matt! I don’t believe it—’

  ‘Shut up a minute, Jack. No, ’tis not our Matt. I called at Killigrew House yesterday when I was visiting Mammie – who wouldn’t mind a visit from you and Annie sometime, by the way – and there’s this tall fellow staying with ’em. I thought for a minute it might have been one of Ben’s college friends, but he calls himself Ran Wainwright, and he’s Matt’s wife’s cousin.’

  He kept his voice quite steady as he mentioned Ben’s college friends. It was a small test he set himself every now and then, and he’d passed it again. The very phrase ‘college friends’ held horror for Freddie. If he lived to be a hundred he would never forget seeing Captain Neville Peterson in an embrace with Morwen’s piano tutor… the immediate shock of it, added to the abuse hurled at him afterwards by Peterson, had been overwhelming.

  It lingered now, whenever he thought of any kind of intimate relationship. Freddie longed for a normal happy life like his brothers and sister, but a deep underlying fear of failure made him wary.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Jack said in astonishment, pulled out of his own misery for the moment.

  ‘Who? Oh – Randell Wainwright – uh, he’s going to study European business methods for a year, and then he’ll decide whether to settle here or go back to California. He dabbled a bit in the gold mining, I understand, same as our Matt, but didn’t stick with it.’

  ‘What sort of business methods?’Jack was already losing interest in this stranger who could mean nothing in their lives.

  ‘Anything legal, I suspect.’ Freddie grinned. ‘I think Ben’s quite keen to fix him up with Daniel Gorran. The old boy can’t go on much longer, and it would be useful to have a sort of relative in the family firm who understands the rudiments of mining, even if ’tis not quite the same.’

  ‘Gorran’s is not a family firm—’

  ‘He’s been the Killigrew accountant ever since anybody can remember—’ Freddie said. ‘That makes him sort of attached to Killigrews, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘And you think it’s a good idea to have a stranger knowing all about the Killigrew fortunes, do you?’ Jack was still determined to be objectionable about everything. ‘Ben ought to have more sense, and I’m surprised that Morwen wants anybody else staying at the house wi’ that brood of children of theirs.’

  ‘Morwen’s very taken with him,’ Freddie commented. ‘And I’d say he’s more than taken with Morwen too.’

  Jack laughed out loud. ‘Now you’re being mist-touched, our Freddie. Morwen’s got eyes for nobody but Ben Killigrew, and it would take more than one fancy American to turn her head!’

  They had reached Freddie’s shop, where the black lettering proudly proclaimed the name of F. Tremayne, Proprietor, over the door.

  ‘See for yourself on Sunday. We’re all invited to tea, the lot of us, in honour of our American cousin. I was coming to tell you, but now I’ve seen you, it’s saved me the bother.’

  Jack groaned. ‘Next Sunday?’

  ‘That’s right. I’ve given you the message, so you and Annie and the girls had better be there, or Morwen will never forgive you. And nor will Mammie,’ he added meaningly.

  He swung into his shop, the doorbell jingling behind him, and Jack swore softly beneath his breath. This was none of his fault. How was he to know s
ome American would be arriving to thwart Annie’s own tea party? Or that Morwen would be acting the fine lady and having a grand to-do with all the Tremaynes and the Killigrews under one roof, when it wasn’t even Christmas? He sighed heavily, making his way home to break the news, knowing it wouldn’t be welcome.

  * * *

  Morwen was indeed charmed by this new arrival into her life. Not for worlds would she ever have admitted openly that life at Killigrew House could sometimes be deadly dull. She was appalled that such a thought even drifted into her mind at times when she was less guarded than usual, because marriage to Ben Killigrew was everything she had ever wanted… and she rarely allowed the thoughts to form that life to a clay boss, however beloved, wasn’t always the easiest form of existence.

  Ben was her life… and so were the five children: Walter and Albert and Primmy… and now Justin and Charlotte. Neither parent showed any preference for either group. The older three were legally adopted by them after Sam’s terrible accident and Dora’s subsequent death, which Morwen privately attributed to a broken heart rather than the fatal attack of measles.

  It had seemed a miracle at the time, in the midst of such misery, for Morwen to discover so soon afterwards that she was pregnant at last, when she had almost given up hoping. Justin was born while the wild celebrations at the end of the Crimean War were still going on up on the moors, and Morwen had been obliged to miss the bonfires and the dancing and cavorting.

  Four years later, Charlotte had arrived to make their happiness complete. She was just a slow starter, Morwen had told Ben happily. If he still wanted more children, there was plenty of time, and to produce a child every four years wasn’t so bad! And it gave them all the delicious time in between to themselves…

  Only now Justin was ten, and Charlotte six, and there was no sign of another child, nor any reference to either Ben or Morwen wanting one. Had they slipped so far apart, she sometimes wondered sadly? Was it really possible that two people who loved as they had done, could find it so hard to talk to one another, except for superficial things, or the doings of Killigrew Clay, that all-important factor in their lives?