Family Ties

by Family Ties (retail) (epub)

  They pressed towards the big basin of the harbour. The ship gradually edged nearer to the mooring awaiting its arrival, and they could see the decks crowded with passengers. They couldn’t make out anyone yet, and the sun was blinding their eyes, or perhaps it was pent-up emotion that was making some of them smart a little. Morwen saw her mother grope for a handkerchief, and her own throat was thick. They had waited so long for this moment, and it was almost here.

  * * *

  ‘I can see our Matt. Look there, by the railings!’ Hal shouted, once the ship was tied up, and the passengers began to emerge on to solid ground. At least, it was meant to be a shout.

  To his own ears, his voice was thick and hoarse, and at last, at long last, Hal admitted how very much this moment meant to him too. He had been the strong one for too many years, keeping silent over his own sadness at Matt’s hasty departure from Cornwall. All the amends the boy had made in later years, sending gifts of money and making his peace with his family, hadn’t changed the agony Hal felt at Matt’s leaving. The sense of betrayal, of loss… but somehow it was all wiped out in a single moment, and, for one instant, it seemed that there was no one else there but the two of them. He looked at his boy, whom he had never thought to see again, and the moment of recognition was charged with emotion and forgiveness and love.

  Morwen felt shock ripple through her. It was Matt. Oh, it was undoubtedly Matt, her dearest one… and of course she had expected a change in him. He had gone away a boy, and was coming home a man. But she had never tried to picture him changed. To her, Matt was always the handsomest of the Tremayne boys, with dreaming blue eyes and a way of listening attentively when anyone talked, as if intensely interested in all that was being said.

  He was still handsome. God, but he was, too! What she hadn’t expected was that he would be so like Sam. It was uncanny. Jack and Freddie had developed their own characteristics over the years, but Matt… Morwen swallowed dryly. The sea breeze ruffled Matt’s dark hair in the old unruly way of the Tremayne boys.

  And it was as if time had stood still, and the Sam who had died in the railway accident had suddenly come to life again, more elegant and clearly well-to-do, but unmistakably Sam…

  ‘Are you all right, Morwen?’ It was Ran who murmured beside her, holding her elbow and bringing warmth back to her skin. Ben was trying to control the younger children.

  ‘Yes. It’s just ghosts,’ she said quickly. She glanced at her mother. How must Bess feel, seeing the reincarnation of Sam… and her father, to whom Sam had always been the echo of himself…?

  There was none of Morwen’s reaction on the faces of her parents. No horror, no signs of collapse or weeping, other than happy tears. Was she the only one who saw it, then? Morwen felt faint, finally accepting the inescapable.

  But there was no time to ponder on things that she couldn’t explain, and the small terror passed as soon as Matt was thrusting forward, hugging and kissing every one of his family, those he knew and those he didn’t, but who were all a part of him. He held Morwen away from him for just an instant, and there was only love between them. No ghosts, no past regrets, nothing but Matt coming home.

  ‘You’ve grown so beautiful!’ he said, in the new accent that was half Ran’s, half clinging to his roots. ‘I always knew you would, and I didn’t need Ran’s letters to assure me of the fact. Ever since he came here, I’ve wanted to come too. I was so jealous of his being here with you all.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, ’tis so wonderful to see you. I just can’t believe ’tis really you—’ the words bubbled out, and the tears turned to laughter as she thought how foolish they must all look, holding one another and laughing and crying, and taking so much time to be reacquainted that folk must wonder if they were arriving or leaving.

  There were so many introductions to be made with all the new members of the family. And there was Louisa, whom Morwen loved at once, and Cresswell, whom the children hated on sight.

  * * *

  They finally got away from Falmouth for the joyous journey home. They pointed out Ran’s house on the way, stopping the carriages for a few minutes before returning in triumph to Killigrew House. At least, that was how Morwen saw it. The prodigal son had returned, and was more deeply loved by everyone. Bess seemed totally content now, and the lines of age seemed to have dropped from Hal’s face. The American Tremaynes were to stay for a month, and it seemed an endless time stretching ahead of them, with the mellow golden days of a Cornish spring beckoning.

  Morwen showed the visitors their rooms while the rest of the family were relaxing and chattering excitedly below, and Mrs Horn and the maids bustled about with refreshments.

  ‘It’s all just darling, Morwen,’ Louisa said happily. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here. I’ve wanted to meet you for so long, and Ran’s told us so much about you I feel that I already know my sister.’

  Morwen warmed to her at once. She was pretty and vivacious and given to plumpness, but it was clear that she and Matt simply adored each other. She gave her a quick hug.

  ‘I’m so happy that you’ve come,’ she said with a catch in her throat. ‘All of you.’ She included Matt’s wife and son in the welcome. Louisa smiled, understanding.

  ‘Come, Cresswell, and help Mother unpack the presents. I think the valise will be in your room by now.’

  The two of them went out, with Cresswell scowling. He’d much rather have stayed in California where his friends were, than come to this miserable little country full of people who talked so strangely, and children who had seemed to herd together when he looked at them, as though he were an alien. He didn’t like travel. His stomach was infuriatingly delicate, which he knew was unmanly, and he was still queasy from the long journey and felt anything but sociable. He also knew very well he was about to get a lecture from his mother on the subject…

  * * *

  The two people left behind in the best guest-room knew or cared nothing of this. Matt held Morwen at arm’s length, his eyes smiling down at her.

  ‘Let me look at you, Morwen. You have no idea how often I’ve pictured this moment.’

  ‘I too,’ she murmured. ‘And Mammie never even dared to dream that you’d come home again. It’s been a long time, Matt.’

  ‘Too long,’ he admitted. ‘I know it, and I intend to make up for it by spending as much time as possible with her, and with all of you.’ The smile broke through the seriousness again. ‘You’ve all changed, of course. Older, and yet still the same. Freddie’s the surprising one, but of course, he was just a sprig when I left. He’s like Sam.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly, her face betraying none of the emotion at realizing it was Matt who was and yet wasn’t Sam, but who was essentially himself. It was an illusion, no more…

  ‘Are you happy, our Morwen?’ The voice was suddenly the old Matt’s, softer than his brother’s, speaking in the old way, the Cornish dialect as rich as cream.

  ‘Happy?’ she said huskily. ‘Why shouldn’t I be happy? I’ve got everything I ever wanted.’

  It wasn’t a direct answer and it seemed as though he looked into her eyes, through them and into her soul, knowing everything. She had never been able to keep secrets from Matt.

  She gave him a quick hug as she heard Louisa and Cresswell coming back with the large bag full of packages. Brother and sister broke apart as awkwardly as if they were lovers, and Morwen knew there were secrets that not even Matt must know to spoil his visit. No one else must know of the intimate troubles between her and Ben, nor of the business worries, and especially not of Ben’s uncertain health.

  ‘We had a wonderful time shopping for all of you, Morwen,’ Louisa said now. ‘I just hope you’ll like the gifts we’ve brought.’

  Morwen gave her sister-in-law a hug as well.

  ‘The best gift is just all of you being here. But I know the children will be excited at the thought of presents when it’s nobody’s birthday, so shall we go down, if you’re ready? There will be tea and cake waiting
downstairs.’

  ‘It’s your birthday soon, isn’t it, Morwen?’ Matt said.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she smiled. ‘I wasn’t going to embarrass you by mentioning it, but I see how daft that was, when everybody else will know it! We’re having a party tomorrow night, but it’s for you more than me, to celebrate your visit.’

  ‘We came here once before to a party, remember?’ Matt said. ‘Ben kissed you when his father teased him into it, and his awful aunt was trying to get the better of you, as I recall. I could have told her then that nobody gets the better of Morwen Tremayne!’

  ‘And you were so thick with Jude Pascoe, and I was all fingers and thumbs because Jane Carrick made me feel out of place.’ The words came quickly, without thinking, and suddenly none of it mattered, because the Tremaynes had found their place after all, and today Morwen and Matt could laugh together over the memories.

  ‘Can we go downstairs, Mother?’ Cresswell said petulantly. ‘I’d like some tea for my stomach.’

  ‘Of course, honey,’ she said at once. She looked at Morwen. ‘He needs something to settle it. You understand.’

  ‘Of course. Can Mrs Horn mix you a powder or something, Cresswell?’

  ‘There’s no need, thank you, Aunt Morwen,’ he said. ‘Some weak tea will be most acceptable, though.’

  Morwen almost smiled at the exaggerated good manners, and then she saw that he wasn’t being clever or precocious just to impress her. It was the way he was. Far older, in ways, than Justin, who seemed such a child beside him, yet they were the same age. Already Morwen sensed that he was an oddly remote boy. It was probably due to his being an only child, Morwen thought generously, meaning to make him doubly welcome and able to fit into this large and loving family.

  Louisa put her hand on Morwen’s arm as they all went downstairs, Matt carrying the heavy valise.

  ‘This means so much to Matt, Morwen,’ she whispered. ‘He’s talked of his family so often that it was obvious how much he missed you all.’

  ‘Yet he never came home before.’ She tried not to make it sound like a censure.

  Louisa shook her head. ‘Somehow the time was never right. We had the business to build up, and then my parents needed us in their later years. Cresswell’s schooling was important too. Well, you’re a woman, Morwen, you know how these things take up time, until before you know it a whole decade has gone.’

  Morwen supposed these things were important. Of course she knew about them, being the wife of a businessman… but she had been a clayworker’s daughter before she was a lady, and family ties had always been the most important of all, and Matt was part of them. Losing him had been like losing a limb. She caught herself up short. Was she being totally selfish? Louisa had been talking about her family too, and her ties were just as strong. The small antagonism passed, and she gave the other girl an answering squeeze around the waist.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said, and walked downstairs with her arm still around her new sister-in-law, to be absorbed into the family.

  * * *

  Charlotte was bouncing on her bed again early the next morning. Morwen felt as though it was still yesterday, and half-wished that it was, because the expectation of something wonderful was almost as exciting as the real thing, and this morning her head felt as if it had been put through the mangle.

  ‘Everybody’s awake, and we all want to get up,’ Charlotte shouted. ‘You have to come down right now, Mama.’

  Morwen groaned. ‘Must I?’ she said, wanting to snuggle down beneath the bedcovers for a few more precious minutes.

  Primmy came rushing in as well.

  ‘Please, Mother!’ she was using the grown-up term more and more now. It was a little thing, but it pushed her further away from the dependence of childhood. They were all growing up, Morwen thought with a little pang… she sat up carefully.

  She had drunk too much wine last night while they all sat and gossiped until the last of the family went home in the early hours of the morning, and her head spun. There was something she should remember about today, but for the moment it escaped her. The girls were giggling together like two small conspirators. She threw off the covers, knowing she would get no more peace. She pulled a dressing-robe over her nightgown and followed them down to the dining-room.

  She was halfway down the curving staircase when she remembered. It was her birthday and neither of the girls had come in singing their usual greeting. They must have forgotten in the excitement of last night. It didn’t matter.

  They reached the dining-room door and threw it open. And Morwen saw immediately that no one had forgotten. A chorus of greetings welcomed her, and the room was filled with laughter at the astonishment on her face. The five children, and Matt and Louisa and Cresswell, and Ben, smiling more naturally than she had seen him in weeks… and in the middle of the table an enormous facsimile of a birthday cake that she knew would be there tonight. A ‘cake’ of piled high breakfast muffins and toast, and in the centre, ‘candles’ of softened and rolled porridge oats stuck into waxed paper holders.

  ‘We did it all ourselves,’ Charlotte shouted. ‘The boys made the cake, and Primmy and me made the candles, Mama. It’s an early present. Do you like it?’

  Morwen ignored Cresswell’s continuing incredulous smile at the extraordinarily naïve efforts of these exuberant Cornish children.

  ‘It’s the best birthday cake I’ve ever had,’ she said, unbearably touched, and kissed each one of them.

  ‘You thought we’d forgotten, didn’t you, Mother?’ Justin said gleefully. ‘I told Charlotte we’d all sit on her if she dared to let you guess.’

  ‘He would have done it too,’ Ben put in, giving his son a playful cuff around the head.

  This was the best gift of all, Morwen thought. Ben was behaving like any other husband and father, indulging his children’s secrets to please their mother. He even kissed Morwen lightly on the forehead and wished her a happy birthday. No one watching them would have thought that they were more usually virtual strangers in the same house.

  She knew it was all a charade, or a kind of truce for Matt’s benefit, but she didn’t care. It was enough that he was considerate enough to do this, to give her the dignity of feeling loved and a part of her husband’s life. Guiltily, she knew it didn’t change her feelings for him.

  She could never recapture that old heady feeling of magic that had existed between her and Ben, and for the moment, this tolerance between them was all she asked.

  * * *

  And tonight they were having a party. Earlier, Morwen had heard the boys arguing over who was going to show Cresswell around the town of St Austell, but in the end it didn’t matter, because Cresswell had decided to spend the morning in bed, reading. Morwen suspected that his weak stomach was a perfect excuse for anything he didn’t want to do.

  ‘I don’t think I like him very much, Mother,’ Primmy confided after lunch. They had gone upstairs together to catch the hem of Primmy’s dress where she had caught her heel in it.

  ‘You mustn’t say that, darling. You don’t know him. He’ll be feeling very excluded being on his own, and we must do our best to make him feel welcome.’

  Primmy frowned. ‘But he doesn’t want to feel welcome. He won’t agree to any suggestion we make. And he’s so pompous and superior.’

  Morwen sighed. She felt that too. It seemed so difficult for Cresswell to unbend. He wasn’t at all like Matt in his ways, who had always been so easy-going. It seemed that Cresswell’s strict and exclusive boarding-school had succeeded in making a man of him long before he was ready, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it in the company of other children.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll start to relax soon,’ Morwen said helplessly. ‘Meanwhile, you must try to like him—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, because he’s your cousin. He’s part of the family. Don’t be silly, Primmy.’

  She looked resentful. ‘It’s not silly. I don’t see why we have to li
ke people just because they’re family. They can still be stupid and horrid, and I think Cresswell Tremayne is a spiteful little prig, if you must know.’

  ‘Primmy!’ Morwen was annoyed now at the vindictiveness in her voice. ‘You’ve no reason to talk like that—’

  ‘Yes I have. He was arguing with Walter about the clayworks when we were in the nursery, and said that clay was poor stuff compared with the gold company his father owned. And his family were far superior to ours, because they could eat off gold plates if they wanted to.’ She snorted. ‘What rubbish he talks. I hate him, Mother.’

  She had said it now, and she didn’t care. Morwen had finished mending the tear in the girl’s dress, and bit off the cotton thread with growing anger. Her voice wasn’t raised, but Primmy was quite aware of the warning in every deliberate word.

  ‘Primmy, you will never let me hear you say anything like that again. While your cousin is our guest you will be polite at all times, and considerate of the fact that he’s a stranger in this country. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Primmy said sullenly.

  ‘And you will go immediately, and convey what I’ve said to your brothers and sister.’ Morwen’s voice was icy now at the sarcasm in the girl’s tone. ‘Nothing must be allowed to disrupt the happiness of this visit, and I demand that you all remember it. Is that quite clear?’

  Primmy flounced off without answering, and Morwen was tempted to call her back and box her ears. But that would make her all the more resentful against Cresswell, and this was a situation she had never anticipated. She hoped fervently that it was only temporary.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Primmy had evidently reported Morwen’s words to the others and they all realized she meant them. Morwen heard the repeated attempts to draw Cresswell into their activities, and his constant rebuffs. She felt a swift sympathy for her own, reluctantly agreeing that Cresswell was really a most difficult child to like. But she would never reveal her feelings. It would be too awful if Matt and Louisa ever guessed, and certainly Jack and Annie seemed to find the boy interesting enough at the party that evening when they were listening to his tales about California and the excitement of a gold-mining town.