‘He’s not dead,’ the doctor pronounced at last. ‘He’s concussed, and he’ll have bruises the size of oranges tomorrow. I can’t find anything broken, but he’ll be badly shocked when he comes round, and he’ll need complete rest for a week.’
The groups of men cheered, and Walter felt as though he had just run up a mountain and back as he let out his breath.
‘Can I take him home?’ Ben asked sharply.
Doctor Pender glanced at him. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course I am. It’s Albert who’s the patient, not me,’ he snapped.
They lifted Albert gently into the cart, and Ben took the reins to take him home. He told Walter to ride on ahead on Ben’s horse and prepare Morwen, and to see that hot water bottles were put into Albert’s bed. After that, he looked stonily away from his eldest son, and Walter knew that the reckoning was still to come.
* * *
When the girls had done their crying and Morwen had been assured a dozen times that concussion wasn’t anything to worry about, and Albert had finally come round and weakly demanded food, Ben ordered Walter to the study. When they came out later, there were weals on Walter’s back and his eyes were red-rimmed but he had stoically refused to cry. It was the first and last time his father would take a strap to him, he vowed.
And later, in his own room, when he undressed and tenderly touched the raw patches on his back, the tears flowed. He knew it was unmanly, but he wasn’t yet a man, and the one thing he wanted out of life was the thing that was seemingly unattainable. He needed his father’s love and approval, and for some reason it seemed the last thing that Ben Killigrew was able to give him.
* * *
They took it in turns to sit with Albert. He recovered quickly, and was soon acting the little hero, and it was Walter who took longer to recover from the beating, physically and mentally. But none of the others knew the truth of that. They could only guess why Walter winced and moved so stiffly, and was more silent than usual.
Ben was surprisingly gentle with Albert, not blaming him for the accident, and the boy took every advantage of it.
‘Can I have anything I want, Father?’ Albert said on the fourth day.
‘Nobody can have everything they want, Albert,’ Ben reproved him. Morwen was sitting quietly by the window, and paused over her sewing at the odd request. ‘But in moderation, perhaps. What is it that’s so necessary to you?’
Albert drew a deep breath.
‘I want to see Uncle Ran. Why hasn’t he come to visit me, Daddy? Walter said it’s because of all the fuss, but I miss him. He’ll be coming to the party for Uncle Matt, won’t he? Walter says he doesn’t know about that either—’ He prattled on and on, making things worse, digging deeper and deeper.
‘Walter seems to do a great deal of talking out of turn,’ Ben retorted.
‘He means no harm,’ Morwen spoke up in defence. ‘And ’tis such a little thing for Albert to ask, and such a big gesture for you to make, Ben. ’Twill put things right, and save any unpleasantness. Families shouldn’t be split like this.’
Ben looked at her for a long moment. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around him, and beg him not to be so hard, so unlike her Ben… but the moment passed and she remained exactly where she was as he nodded grudgingly.
‘Then we’d best not spoil a family reunion, had we? All right, he can come and visit and come to the party, but you needn’t expect me to be civil to him.’
‘Ben, you must—’
He looked at Morwen with open hostility. ‘No woman tells me what I must do. All the same, I may reconsider that remark. Nobody accuses Ben Killigrew of being uncouth either.’
She was thankful when he left the bedroom. She didn’t press it further nor refer to it again. It was enough that he’d unbent far enough to allow Ran to visit. Albert missed him. All the children missed him. And oh, she missed him too… so much…
* * *
He came to Killigrew House as soon as he received word that Albert was eager to see him. Ben greeted him cautiously, but Ran was streets ahead of him in gentility, and conversed with him as if there had never been bad feeling between them. It was Ran who soothed the way, and Morwen was immensely grateful for his tact. She took him up to Albert’s room and was touched by the way the boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of the handsome American.
‘I can’t wait for my new cousin to come, Uncle Ran,’ Albert said excitedly. ‘I shall take Cresswell and show him the stables and the beach, and everything!’ He waved his hands about expansively, wincing a little where the bruises still hurt, and Ran spoke with mild reproof.
‘Just as long as you don’t go showing him any clay chutes. You know you were very lucky, don’t you, Albie?’
The boy pulled a face. ‘I know Daddy’s never stopped telling me what an idiot I was! How long do you think it’ll be before he stops being so angry with me?’
‘He’s only angry because he’s concerned for you.’
‘Do you think so?’ Albert said doubtfully. ‘It seems a funny way to care for anybody, to be angry with them all the time. You never get angry with me, do you?’
Ran laughed. ‘I might, if I lived with you all the time and you did crazy things.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Albert said positively. ‘You’re different. Sometimes I wish you were my Daddy.’
Ran got up from the bed. ‘Now, you musn’t say things like that, Albert. It’s not right. Your father does what’s best for you, and you must remember that.’
‘All right, Uncle Ran,’ he replied meekly.
Morwen cleared her throat. ‘I’m taking Uncle Ran downstairs to have some tea now. He must be parched after riding over here and coming straight up to see you. He can come back upstairs later,’ she forestalled the question.
Outside the bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, her eyes distressed as she looked into Ran’s eyes.
‘Some day they’ll have to be told that Ben’s not their father,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t face the telling, Ran, yet I feel strongly that we shouldn’t hold it off for much longer. I dread the outcome of it.’
He longed to hold her close and kiss away all the uncertainty, but there were people downstairs, and there was only the width of a door between them and Albert.
‘I’m sure you’ll have nothing to worry about if you tell it calmly, my dearest.’ He spoke quietly so that no one would hear. ‘You coped with telling them half the story, and the rest needn’t be so terrible if you choose your moment well.’
She wasn’t convinced. Something deep inside told her the children should be told now, before they heard the truth from outside. There were people in the town who knew… but so far no news of it had reached the children’s ears. And they never came into contact with the clayworkers, none of whom would have forgotten the disaster that resulted in Sam Tremayne’s death, his wife’s untimely death a few weeks later, and the adoption of the three orphaned children by Ben Killigrew and his wife.
She had to admit that St Austell didn’t particularly concern itself with the doings of moorland folk, and that by now the circumstances would have been forgotten by most. And although only a few miles separated the town from the clayworkings, they might have been oceans apart.
Morwen consoled herself uneasily with the thought that Ran was right. She must choose her time well, but it must be soon. Perhaps when Matt and his family had been for their visit, and they were all feeling relaxed and happy. And hopefully, Ben would join in the excitement, and the telling would be made that much easier with his support.
She gave up worrying and enjoyed the rest of the day with Ran’s company and tried not to compare the atmosphere in the house with the way it was when Ben was prowling about in one of his foul moods. She tried to make allowances. She couldn’t blame him for being on edge all the time after the doctor’s pronouncement, and she was half-beginning to wonder if it was all nonsense after all. Ben seemed perfectly well, if she discounted his recen
t gambling fever and the bouts of drinking that frequently left him sprawling on his bed in a stupor.
Doctors could be wrong. Hadn’t Jack and Annie proved? With great care, Annie was going to survive this pregnancy. Ben could survive too, given reasonable luck, and when he realized he wasn’t about to die, perhaps he would relax and be her old Ben once more. Morwen tried desperately to recapture the glow of such a thought, and knew with a great sadness that it would never come again. They had already lost too much, and she was already too much in love with Randell Wainwright.
All she could give Ben now was loyalty, and she owed him that. She had been unfaithful once, and perhaps she continued to be unfaithful in spirit, but that was something Ben must never know. And when Matt came home, things would surely be better for everyone. Perhaps it was foolish to set such a store by Matt’s homecoming, but foolish or not, she undoubtedly saw Matt as the catalyst to make everything come right again.
Chapter Sixteen
Morwen awoke early on a fine mid-April morning, and in her first sleep-hazed moments, she couldn’t quite remember what it was that was so stupendous. She experienced the delicious, not-quite-aware feeling that she hadn’t felt for years. It was a feeling that didn’t happen too often, and therefore made it all the more special.
Like the day after Ben Killigrew had told her he loved her, and she had still found it almost impossible to believe.
Like her wedding-day, knowing that this day was going to change the rest of her life and she had gone to meet Ben at Penwithick church with flowers in her hair and love in her heart.
Like the day their son was born… and she had given Ben what he wanted most in the world, after her.
And now the feeling was here again, tingling through her veins as she stretched into wakefulness and remembered joyfully that this was the day Matt was coming home. She tried to imagine just how her mother must be feeling this morning. Bess, who loved all her children equally… but loved her wayward Matt just a little bit more…
Before Morwen could wallow too deeply in nostalgia, the girls had come bursting through into her bedroom.
‘Primmy says I can’t wear my new dress yet, Mama,’ Charlotte howled. ‘Uncle Ran says I look as pretty as a flower in it. Why can’t I wear it, Mama?’
‘I only said she had to keep it for the party, that’s all,’ Primmy said, affronted, as Charlotte climbed on the bed and was immediately wrapped in Morwen’s comforting arms. Charlotte still smelled of sleep, and at six years old, hadn’t yet lost the chubby softness of childhood.
‘Primmy’s right, darling,’ Morwen said gently. ‘We’ll all want to look our best at the party, won’t we? And it’s only one more day to wait. We must give Uncle Matt time to get over the journey, and tomorrow evening we’ll all be dressed in our finery, and you’ll both be my prettiest girls in your new dresses.’
She was careful to include Primmy. Bess had insisted on making new dresses for all her girls, and had been working diligently on them ever since the news of Matt’s homecoming was announced. Dresses for Morwen and Primmy and Charlotte, and for Annie, whose dress had to be let out even before it was finished, and the twins, Sarah and Tessa. At the last minute, at Morwen’s insistence, Bess had found time to make herself a new dress.
She was such an accomplished seamstress that they would all do credit to Killigrew House. The image flashed into Morwen’s head of another time when her family had all been gauche guests in this very house, the first time she had set foot inside it.
It had been her seventeenth birthday, and the humble Tremaynes had been included in one of Charles Killigrew’s evening occasions after the last of the spring despatches had been sent careering through the steep streets of St Austell in the loaded clay waggons, long before Ben’s railway was built. And Morwen had been so excited over the second-hand muslin dress that her Mammie had decorated with silk ribbons.
And later she had been mortified to discover she was among a company dressed in fine silks and satins, not the least among them the beautiful golden girl she was convinced Ben Killigrew was going to marry, Jane Carrick, who had eventually run away to marry the newspaperman, Tom Askhew.
It was all a long time ago, but the memory was as sharp as ever. And tomorrow it was her birthday again, and there was to be another party at Killigrew House. And Morwen Tremayne was no longer the humble girl dressed in muslin, but the mistress of the house who would be wearing a beautiful blue satin gown to match her eyes. And she wouldn’t be seventeen years old, blushing at birthday kisses, but a wife and mother of thirty-two. The thought gave her a small shock.
‘Mama, aren’t you ever getting up?’ Charlotte wailed, now that she had been mollified. ‘The boys are already downstairs, and I’m hungry, and isn’t it time to go soon?’
Morwen laughed, shaking off the little silent ghosts that plagued her.
‘All right. Let’s go and have some breakfast. I don’t know how long we may have to wait for the ship to arrive at Falmouth, and we can’t have you starving, can we?’
She was smiling now, for this was no day to be sad or regretful. This was the best day of her life so far…
* * *
By the middle of the morning, the entire family was gathered on the quayside at Falmouth, straining their eyes for the first glimpse of the ship that would bring Matt Tremayne home to Cornwall. Ben and Morwen had brought the three older children with them. Hal and Bess came in their modest trap after all, bringing the younger ones, for Ran would need his transport to take the American Tremaynes and their luggage to Killigrew House. It had taken some sorting out, but it all added to the heady excitement of the planning that had culminated in this wonderful day.
And Ben had at last shaken off the irritability of recent months. He seemed to be enjoying all this as much as anyone, and Morwen gave a silent prayer of thankfulness. They had been joined by Jack and Annie and the twins, and Freddie, handsome and elegant, with a young lady stepping out of his trap and clinging to his arm. This then, was the Honourable Venetia Hocking.
Morwen felt swift sympathy for Freddie, knowing her youngest brother so well. This was the least embarrassing way of introducing Venetia to his family. Without formality, when all of them were too taken up with the day’s important happening to be too over-awed at the lady’s status.
But from the moment Freddie made the swift introductions, Morwen realized that what he said about Venetia’s father being only recently made a Lord through an accident of kinship, was obviously true. The girl had a soft accent like her own, and seemed more nervous of meeting this large family than the rest of them were of meeting her.
The tables had turned, Morwen thought. Venetia was the odd one out for the moment, like Morwen had once been. She was very secure now in her place among the Tremaynes and the Killigrews, and she spoke with a special warmth to the titian-haired girl.
‘We’ve heard a lot about you, Venetia.’ She addressed her simply. ‘Has Freddie asked you to come to the party tomorrow night? You’ll be very welcome.’
‘I would like to,’ the girl said shyly. ‘But are you sure I won’t be intruding on a family occasion, Mrs Killigrew?’
‘Of course not. And my name is Morwen.’
Again that little echo from the past. Jane Carrick, splendid and serene compared with the awkward bal maiden, and telling her quietly that her name was Jane. Morwen seemed beset by echoes of the past today, but perhaps it was only to be expected. The past had a habit of overlapping into the present, and especially on days like these… she gave a small smile. As if such spectacular days happened that often! This was one to savour, and to cry over a little, if need be…
‘I saw someone you used to know the other day, Ben,’ Freddie remarked later. By now, the children had begun to tire of waiting for a ship that was dependent on winds and tides and seemed as if it would never come, and were now racing about, to the despair of the grown-ups.
‘Oh? Who was that?’ he said carelessly.
‘Jane Carrick –
Askhew, I should say now, of course. Her husband’s gone on some foreign jaunt for his newspaper, so she’s in Cornwall on a prolonged visit with her daughter.’
Hearts didn’t really leap, Morwen told herself furiously. It was just an expression. They stayed firmly in one place inside the rib-cage. And if they didn’t actually leap, then did this searing jealousy running through her at the idle mention of her old rival’s name, mean that she was still in love with her husband after all? How could Freddie have chosen this very day to bring such irritating news!
But of course Freddie had been too young to know how certain Morwen had been that Ben couldn’t really be in love with a clayworker’s daughter. That his destiny had been with Jane Carrick of Truro, and Morwen Tremayne was going to be merely a dalliance… Freddie had never known of the jealousy that had tormented her on Jane Carrick’s account…
‘Perhaps we’ll see something of her then,’ Ben was casual, as if the news meant little to him. ‘You must invite her to tea one afternoon, Morwen.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Just don’t suggest that she comes to tomorrow night’s party, she thought heatedly. The moments passed, and Ben didn’t mention it. She sighed with relief, knowing how foolish she was to let old feuds cast a cloud on today.
At last there were excited shouts from the children, and they were carried forward with the rest of the expectant people on the quay as the long-awaited ship was sighted.
Family Ties Page 21
