Family Ties

by Family Ties (retail) (epub)

  The children needed hardly any persuading to go to bed. They were all exhausted too, in their ways. And then she leaned back on the sofa, wondering if life was ever going to feel normal again.

  She hadn’t expected Ran to come back to the house after seeing her mother safely home. She was alone, and lonely. She missed Ben. She missed Ran. She heard someone open the drawing-room door and murmured tiredly to Mrs Horn that she would love a cup of something hot.

  ‘Will you settle for me, instead?’ Ran’s deep voice said.

  The tears that welled up in her eyes seemed to come from the heart and soul of her. She held out her arms to Ran and was being rocked within them as if she was a child needing the comfort that only this man could give her. She wept uncontrollably against his chest, while he murmured soft words that she barely heard, and yet somehow they melted all the ice inside her.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Morwen?’ Ran whispered eventually, when she was sensible enough to listen.

  ‘No. Tell me what you think,’ she whispered back, their voices as hushed as if they were in church, even though there was no one else to hear.

  ‘I think it’s time for all this crying to stop before we’re drowned in tears.’

  For a second she wondered if she had heard aright. If he was laughing at her, it was a very bad time for it… and then she felt her own laughter begin, deep down, tremblingly at first, because it was a sound she wasn’t used to, and suddenly they were laughing and crying together, and all the unbearable tension was leaving her.

  ‘Oh Ran, you’re so good for me,’ she gave a long, sighing breath at last, leaning her head against him. ‘And I know we shouldn’t be here like this—’

  He put a finger against her mouth to still her words.

  ‘Why not? How can it be wrong for a man to be with the woman he’s going to marry? Is it wrong for me to tell you how much I love you and how I’ve suffered with you these past weeks?’

  ‘It’s wrong because of Ben—’ she said sadly.

  ‘Ben’s gone. Nothing we do or say can ever bring him back, Morwen. Nothing we do is going to change our feelings, whether we stay apart for a hundred years of mourning to salve your conscience. And I don’t have a hundred years to spare.’

  She gave a small smile. ‘What about your conscience? Don’t you have one?’

  ‘I consider it logically. We’re both free now, so there’s no point in letting my conscience get in the way of my love for you. And you do know that I want to marry you, don’t you, Morwen?’

  For the first time in a long while, she felt the ripples of desire wash over her.

  ‘I know it. And I want it too,’ she said huskily. ‘But it must wait awhile, my love. You must see that.’

  ‘Just as long as I know you’ll be mine before too long.’

  She drew in her breath, loving him so much. ‘I’m yours already. Don’t you remember?’

  She felt his hand, warm on her breast, and held it there with her own. She wanted him with a fierce need, but she could only go so far and no farther. She was still Ben’s widow, and this was still Ben’s house. It was the Killigrew House, and it would always belong to them, no matter how many brides and interlopers came along to inhabit it. She had never felt that so strongly as she did right then. Old Charles Killigrew had built this house for his bride, and their ghosts still lingered.

  She looked at Ran with mute appeal, and, as if understanding more than she realized, Ran spoke less emotionally.

  ‘Have you thought what to do about Walter?’

  ‘I thought you’d seen to that. I can’t thank you enough, Ran. Thank God you knew how to handle the situation—’

  ‘I don’t mean the letter writing. I mean his future.’

  She looked blank. ‘He’ll go back to school, I suppose,’ she said slowly. ‘He’ll have to, sometime.’

  ‘Don’t you think he’s had all the education he needs? He’s a young man now, and his heart isn’t in it, Morwen. Besides, there’s something he wants far more. You’re the only one who can give it to him.’

  ‘I can’t give him Cathy Askhew!’ she began with a small laugh, and then she knew exactly what he meant. ‘You mean I should let him work at Killigrew Clay! But Ben hated the idea, Ran—’

  ‘Like I said before, Ben’s gone. The decisions are yours now. Just consider what it would mean to the boy, Morwen. Working with his grandfather and doing the work he’s always wanted to do. It might make all the difference to his feelings right now.’

  ‘A sort of consolation prize for losing Cathy, you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I think you should do this for him. Or does it hurt your pride to have a son working at Killigrew Clay?’

  She moved away from him indignantly.

  ‘No, it does not! My parents worked there, and so did I and all my family, and there’s nothing lowering in working with the clay—’

  At his soft laughter, she saw the trap he had set her, and smiled sheepishly. She hardly needed to consider.

  ‘I know you’re right, Ran. You always are, aren’t you? You see things for me before I see them myself—’

  ‘And I thought you were meant to be the fey one.’

  He could tease her and coax her so effortlessly, and make her feel so comfortable with him. He was the other half of herself… and she felt the sweet exquisite longing for him that was going to be denied until they were man and wife. And that day musn’t be too far away… once the mourning time was over…

  ‘I’ll ride over to Freddie’s on the day Cathy goes home to Yorkshire,’ she said decisively. ‘Walter will be feeling very low, and this news will be the best he can hear. Perhaps he’ll come home then. I miss him, Ran.’

  Her eyes misted with tears. Until that moment she hadn’t realized just how much she missed her eldest. He had been her son since he was three years old, and although he wasn’t born of her flesh, he was more dear to her than any of the others.

  ‘No more tears, my darling,’ Ran said gently, kissing them away from her eyes, and she gave a tremulous nod. The time for tears was past. He saw her chin lift in the old, spirited way, and was infinitely relieved.

  * * *

  Walter’s eyes were dark with unshed tears when Morwen arrived at her brother’s house two days later. She had told no one she was coming. The other children had all gone back to school, glad to be back to everyday activities. They were resilient, and must be allowed to develop and grow, without the spectre of death shadowing their days. But Walter was different. Walter was older, and had two griefs to bear.

  She asked Freddie to leave them alone upstairs while she had a little talk with her son.

  ‘You haven’t come to lecture me, have you, Mother?’ he asked wearily. ‘I haven’t the stomach for it today.’

  At his tone, she felt a little shock. He wasn’t an abject child, submissively waiting for his punishment. He was a man who was suffering, and taking it for granted that as a woman, Morwen understood his suffering. In that moment, they lost the tie of mother and child, and found a newer tie that was more valuable.

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to lecture you, darling,’ she said quietly. ‘I know how it feels when someone you love seems beyond your reach. I felt that way about your father – about Ben – for a long time. But we came together because our love was strong enough, and if yours and Cathy’s is as strong, then you’ll be together again too. Try to believe that.’

  His face was still steeped in misery. ‘I’ll try, but no matter how young people think we are, Cathy and I are sure that our feelings won’t change.’

  ‘I know, love—’

  ‘And I don’t know how I’m going to face every day without seeing her, Mother. Ever since Father died, I’ve felt adrift from the rest of you. You all had each other, and I had no one but Cathy. And now she’s gone.’

  The agony in his voice might have been almost comic if it hadn’t been so tragic to him. There was no point in telling him his family had been there all the time, loving him
and wanting him home, because he simply wasn’t seeing things that way. There was no point in feeling hurt at his words, because he never realized for a moment that they could hurt.

  ‘I’ll tell you how you’re going to get through the days, Walter,’ Morwen spoke with as little emotion in her voice as possible. ‘You’re going to live each one as if it’s important, because every one you waste is one less of your life.’

  ‘I have no life without Cathy—’

  ‘You have Killigrew Clay.’

  For a moment, it was obvious that her words didn’t register, and then he shrugged.

  ‘So I have Killigrew Clay. I’m part of a family business and that gives me a certain prestige. It means nothing to me, Mother. Can’t you understand?’

  ‘Would it mean more to you if you worked there every day with Granddad Hal? If you were part of it all, instead of going back to school for another year?’

  At last she had got his full attention. At last the bleakness began to leave his eyes, and a spark of excitement replaced it.

  ‘Do you mean it? I can work with the clay?’

  Morwen laughed. ‘I never heard anyone so eager to get his hands dirty! Yes, darling, if it’s what you want, you can work with the clay. Your Granddad will be glad to have you there. It’s time some of the family went back to their roots.’

  Suddenly he was hugging her. There was no embarrassment, nothing but the delight of a young man who had got what he always wanted, and Morwen silently blessed Randell Wainright for putting this idea into her head.

  ‘We’d better go and tell Uncle Freddie,’ Walter went on joyfully. ‘I’ll be leaving with you today, of course, Mother.’

  ‘Of course!’ She found it hard to keep a straight face now, and her veins were singing with the glory of this day. ‘But you’ll have things to pack, and I want to go and see Jack and Annie, so I’ll come back for you in an hour.’

  As she reached the door, he called her. His voice was cracked, and she knew he wasn’t far off tears of mingled joy and regret that he wouldn’t want her to see.

  ‘I do love you, Mother.’

  She stumbled down the stairs, hardly able to see, just because her best-beloved had called her by that name.

  * * *

  Hal was delighted, though he warned Walter that the men might not take too kindly to a young whipper-snapper coming in and thinking he could take over.

  ‘I don’t want to take over,’ Walter said indignantly. ‘I want to learn everything. Uncle Freddie said he was once a kiddley-boy, but I’m too old to fetch and carry and make tea, but I can start with the middling jobs, can’t I, Granddad, and work up? I can wheel the little trucks with the waste to the sky-tips or help in the fire-hole—’

  ‘Hold on, boy,’ Hal laughed. ‘You’ll do as I say and not try for everything at once. And you’ll be answerable to your Pit Captain for a start—’

  ‘I aim to be a Pit Captain one day,’ Walter said confidently.

  Hal’s eyes were moist. ‘You’ll work up, I have no doubt. And you’ll be a Pit Captain, like I was once. And just like Sam.’

  They smiled at one another in satisfaction. They had suddenly discovered a great rapport with one another, and not the least of it was the ease with which they could use Sam’s name. Hal’s son, and Walter’s true father. It was a bonus neither had expected, and tied the family bonds still tighter.

  * * *

  The weeks moved on, sliding from May into June, and the bad memories were beginning to recede. Consultations between Morwen, her father and Daniel Gorran had resulted in Hal’s money being put to good use and settling a good proportion of the debts and dues that had accumulated. Killigrew Clay was just holding its head above water, but there was no margin to spare.

  Walter was happier in his new job than Morwen had believed possible, and the men had accepted the new cheerful young Killigrew boy with an unexpected readiness. He wanted to learn, to know all there was to know for the days far into the future when he would take a share in the running of the business, and they respected him for that.

  He was no toff, like his father and grandfather had been, they said sagely, he was more like one of their own. And those who knew the truth of it said it was only to be expected, with Hal Tremayne and his brood in his background. Walter was a born clayworker and revelled in it.

  And every week there was a long letter from Cathy Askhew, to which he replied with an eagerness that made Morwen envy him a little. She never asked to see the letters, but the contents put an extra smile on Walter’s mouth for days after they came.

  Morwen decided the time had come to confide in Bess about her feelings for Randell Wainwright. Sitting comfortably in the garden of her mother’s small house, it was easy to say the words, and when she did she caught her breath, because just saying them brought his image near to her.

  ‘Mammie, would you think it wrong if I were to marry again someday?’ she said softly.

  Bess was startled by the question, not expecting it after the mundane discussion they had been having about the children and Walter’s new outlook.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t think it wrong, my lamb. You’re still a young and lovely woman, and t’ain’t right for you to bury yourself in memories. Later on, when you find the right man—’

  ‘I’ve already found him, Mammie.’ She spoke in a rush, seeing the little look of shock come into Bess’s eyes now. Morwen took her mother’s pin-pricked hands in her own.

  ‘Oh, can’t you guess who it is? He’s been my strength for many months now, and I can’t keep it to myself any longer—’

  ‘Not Ran!’ Bess echoed. ‘But he’s family—’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Morwen laughed gently. ‘He’s no blood relation, Mammie, and that makes it all right for us to marry.’

  ‘Does he want to marry ’ee then?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We both want it, very much.’

  She felt her face grow hot, and it was just as though her mother could see into her thoughts, and know that she was remembering all the times they had shared. The few precious kisses since Ben’s death, and all the clandestine meetings before that, and the one magical night in a London hotel room when they had truly belonged…

  ‘Then that’s what ’ee should do, Morwen. There’s no sense in two people living apart when both of ’em want to be together. Even young Walter knew that, but thank the Lord he’s found his feet in the clayworks. The boy’s not ready for marrying, but I’d say you’m more’n ready for it again by the looks of ’ee.’

  Her face was hot as fire now, and she knew she had betrayed her feelings on it.

  ‘But not yet, Mammie. I’m still in mourning for Ben. We have to wait a while, of course. I was just telling you so you wouldn’t be too surprised.’

  ‘Mourning’s a waste of living time,’ Bess said practically. ‘What do it matter if a few townsfolk raise their eyebrows and look scandalized for a week or two? ’Tis your life, and if you and Ran want to be married, that’s all that counts.’

  For some inexplicable reason, Morwen hadn’t wanted her mother to react like this. She couldn’t explain it, but she’d wanted Bess to look indignant and demand that her daughter waited a decent interval before walking down the church aisle a second time. For Bess to give her blessing so freely was disconcerting, even though she knew the sense of it.

  Her mother’s reasoning was still that of the clayworkers, for whom life and death could be a swift cycle, and moorland folk took no notice of the conventions of townsfolk. Morwen had become so used to town ways, and to Ben’s ways in particular, that her own mother’s ready acceptance of the new situation made her recoil from rushing into a hasty marriage, as though there were a shotgun at her bridegroom’s head.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone about this, Mammie,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Ran and I aren’t ready to do anything yet, and besides, there’s Freddie’s wedding to be thinking of in a couple of weeks. Let folk get used to one Tremayne getting married, before they start gossiping abou
t another.’

  Why had she called herself a Tremayne, when she had been a Killigrew for fifteen years! Sometimes there was no difference between them, she thought faintly. Their lives had intertwined and mingled and all merged into one, so that she hardly knew who she was any more.

  ‘All right, if that’s what ’ee wants, my lamb.’ Bess was comfortable, whatever was decided. She was just thankful that her girl had someone to turn to, and that the children were settling after Ben’s death, and that she and Hal were still muddling on like they had always done…

  ‘Your Daddy were telling me about Ran’s offer to buy into Killigrew Clay,’ Bess commented. ‘We don’t have no secrets from one another, Morwen, as well you know, and ’twas beyond me to give ’un any ideas on it. ’Twill all be solved easily now though, won’t it?’

  ‘Will it?’ Morwen stared, not understanding yet.

  Bess gathered up the sewing that was her constant companion, indoors or out, and arranged it more comfortably on her ample lap.

  ‘Well, when you and Ran are married, I suppose he’ll be taking control of Killigrew Clay instead of you, won’t he? You won’t want to be bothered with all that business nonsense, ’specially if more babbies come along, and you ain’t too old for that yet, Morwen, nor will ’ee need to watch the pennies.’

  She hardly noticed how set her daughter’s face had become as she rambled on, happily making plans and looking into an imaginary future.

  ‘Thirty-two’s no age at all to be thinking of having more babbies, and with a new husband ’twill possibly be easier than with the last, God rest Ben’s soul. No, you’ll be nicely set up, Morwen, with money coming in from two sources, and good luck to ’ee both. ’Tis summat I never dreamed of seeing for ’ee, and that makes it all the more deserved. You’ve always been a good girl to your father and me, love, and I’m happy for ’ee.’