Miss Mary’s Daughter

by Diney Costeloe

  Undeterred, Sophie went on. ‘She told me about your father too.’

  ‘Nan Slater knows nothing about my father,’ stated Nicholas. ‘He died some years ago, while I was training in London.’

  ‘She says your father was Jocelyn Penvarrow. What do you say to that, Nicholas?’

  ‘I say that the woman is raving mad,’ replied Nicholas gravely. ‘What do you expect me to say?’

  ‘And your Uncle Edwin? Your mother’s brother.’

  ‘Edwin? Why, I told you about him myself, just the other day. It’s what I’m trying to explain to you, Sophie. Nan is confused these days. She knew my mother, I’m aware of that, so she probably knew my uncle as well. But it’s all so long ago and she’s muddled in her mind.’

  ‘Listen to me, Nicholas,’ Sophie said. ‘Please?’

  Nicholas shrugged. ‘Go on then. Tell me what else that stupid old woman is saying.’

  ‘Before I say any more about what she told me,’ Sophie said, ‘I have to tell you what I already knew.’

  ‘Well, go on.’ Nicholas feigned indifference, but he was listening intently. What could Sophie have known before Nan Slater started shooting off her mouth?

  ‘I have letters which confirm much of what Nan says.’

  ‘Letters, what letters?’

  ‘Letters written by my Uncle Jocelyn to my mother in London. They were arranging for him to marry your mother. She was already carrying you and was living with her sister Hetty in Truro.’

  ‘So, you have letters arranging for your uncle to marry some girl who was expecting. But who’s to say that she was my mother?’

  ‘Nan was Cassie’s friend. She was there when you were born.’

  ‘Let me get this straight, Sophie. You believe that I am the natural child of Cassie, Nan’s friend, and Jocelyn Penvarrow?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘That,’ replied Nicholas, ‘is utterly ridiculous.’

  ‘You may say so, Nicholas,’ replied Sophie steadily, ‘but I have come to believe it is true.’

  Nicholas finally took refuge in anger. ‘You mean to say that you believe old Nan Slater more than me?’ he snapped. ‘The man you’re going to marry?’

  ‘Listen, Nicholas. I also have a letter from Cassie, written to my Uncle Jocelyn. She loved him very much and as soon as he was of age they were going to marry. But he died. He fell over the cliff. He died before they could marry and Cassie died soon after, giving birth to you. Nan says—’

  ‘Nan says! Nan says!’ mimicked Nicholas. ‘Nan Slater knows nothing!’

  ‘She says that Jocelyn was your father and the letters I have bear that out,’ repeated Sophie, ‘which means we’re cousins.’

  Nicholas got to his feet and began pacing the room. ‘Sophie, I’ve listened to you. Now you listen to me,’ he said, trying to steady his voice. ‘What you’re thinking is not true. At least, much of it isn’t. It is true that I was born out of wedlock and that my mother died giving birth to me, but do you really think that is something I want the world to know? That I’m a bastard?’

  Sophie flinched at the use of the word and he pressed on. ‘It is a terrible thing to admit that you don’t know who your father is. I was brought up by my mother’s sister and her husband, but they would never speak of my mother. They were ashamed of her and so was I. As to my father, the man the world knew as my father, he was my Aunt Henrietta’s husband, Albert Bryan.’ He glowered at Sophie and said, ‘I am not a Penvarrow!’ And the expression on his face was one she suddenly recognized. She had seen it before, on the face of her grandfather, Thomas Penvarrow, and she knew he lied. Nan Slater’s words echoed in her head. Some of the Penvarrows is kind, others, not so.

  ‘So,’ Nicholas continued, ‘now you know the worst about me. I’m the bastard son of an unmarried mother and an unknown father. I’ve had to make my way in the world with nothing more than the few pounds my foster-father left me. But you know me. I am a doctor, who cures illness and fights sickness. Does it matter who my actual parents were? I was brought up in a God-fearing household and my Aunt Hetty and Uncle Albert were my real parents. Do you love me any the less because my parents were not married?’

  As he asked the question, Sophie was aware there had been a shift in her emotions – not because he was an illegitimate child, that was hardly his fault, but because he was still lying to her.

  ‘No,’ she said honestly.

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Nicholas’s relief was obvious. ‘My dearest girl, you have to understand that Nan is a confused old woman. Such people become childish as they get older and their memories get tangled up. Please don’t try and disentangle the truth, Sophie. It’s a waste of time.’

  Sophie thought of the letters she had in the drawer in her bedchamber. They were the truth and she knew it. Nan hadn’t lied to her. It was Nicholas who was tangling partial truths with lies, trying to convince her he was not a Penvarrow. But why? It didn’t matter that they were first cousins; that was no bar to their marriage. Why could he not admit that Jocelyn was his father? He must know that he was.

  Suddenly Sophie wanted him to go. She needed to be alone, to think things through and to decide what she should do. She stood up and walked to the window. Nicholas followed her and put his arms round her, pulling her close. She stiffened and he felt it.

  Releasing her, he murmured, ‘Don’t turn from me, Sophie. You’re mine. I love you and you’re mine. Don’t you believe that, Sophie?’

  She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more!’ And with that, she turned aside and left him in the drawing room.

  Nicholas stared after her for a moment before he walked swiftly out of the house and climbing into the gig, set off at a smart trot to Tremose.

  35

  While Sophie and Nicholas were having their luncheon at the Duke’s Hotel, Charles rode into Truro to see Mr Staunton. Sophie had told him that she wanted Nicholas to be present when they were going through the details of the Trust and he was not at all happy about it. Without refusing, he had been noncommittal when she had suggested it, but he was going to see Mr Staunton in the hope there might be some legal reason to refuse her request.

  When he arrived at the solicitor’s office, he was shown straight in and was surprised to find another man sitting at his ease across the desk from Mr Staunton.

  As Staunton’s secretary held the door for him, the lawyer rose to his feet, his hand outstretched in welcome. ‘Mr Leroy,’ he said, ‘how fortuitous that you have called. Mr Jeremiah Hawke is here with some news.’

  Jeremiah Hawke stood up and turned to meet Charles. He was a big man, tall and broad, his waistcoat straining across the barrel of his chest. His large head was circled with a fringe of shaggy black hair, and deep-set eyes peered out from under almost continuous eyebrows, above an eagle’s beak and a jutting chin.

  Hawke extended a huge hand to grip Charles’s in a painful handshake. ‘Howdy do, Mr Leroy?’ he rumbled.

  Charles returned the greeting, thinking as he did so that Jeremiah Hawke was not a man he’d want to cross, or meet in a dark alley.

  Staunton pulled up another chair for Charles and said, ‘Mr Hawke has been working on our behalf and has just this minute come into the office to make his report.’

  Charles sat down and having turned down the offer of refreshment, came straight to the point and asked, ‘What have you discovered, Mr Hawke?’

  ‘Not a great deal, as yet, sir,’ Jeremiah Hawke’s voice was sonorous and slow, ‘but I’m on the trail, on the trail.’

  ‘So where did you start?’ asked Staunton. ‘And where does your trail lead?’

  ‘First off I went to visit the daughter of Dr Marshall. Miss Daisy Marshall. She weren’t hard to find, because so many people knowed her father over the years. Miss Sandra Osell, rector’s daughter in Port Felec? She told me Miss Daisy had gone to live with her sister Perranporth way.’

  ‘And what could she tell you?’ Charles was itching to
hurry the man’s report, but Mr Staunton was used to dealing with him and knew that the quickest way to discover what Hawke had learned was to let him speak in his own ponderous way.

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ Hawke said. ‘Your Dr Bryan come to visit her about nine months ago, not long after her father died. She was still living in her father’s house at Port Felec then. He come along and said he was new-qualified and wanted to set up in practice. Said he wanted to buy her father’s house and dispensary. She asked him how he’d heard about her father’s practice and he said he’d been born in Truro, and that someone in the town had told him Dr Marshall had passed on and there was now no doctor in Port Felec. Your man told her that he wanted to come back to Cornwall and work in a country parish and that Port Felec would just suit him.’ Hawke paused and as Charles drew breath to ask him a question, Staunton gave a slight shake of his head, and Charles sat back and waited for the investigator to continue.

  ‘He said he had money and could pay her cash. She being anxious about money at the time, accepted his offer. Enough it was, she said, to let her move to her married sister’s up Perranporth way with something over to live on. I asked her if he showed her anything to say he was a doctor and she said he had some sort of certificate. Didn’t have her spectacles on, she said, but she was sure the large print on the top said St Thomas’s Hospital. He was such a charming young man, she said, and she was pleased that her dear father’s place was going to be filled so soon with a new young doctor from London. All the new ways, she said, all the new doctoring.’

  ‘So,’ Charles was losing patience, ‘where does that take us?’

  ‘It took me, sir, to St Thomas’s Hospital in London. I got a contact there’s helped me before. For a small fee he looked up the records and found that your Mr Bryan had enrolled to learn doctoring, but had disappeared after about nine months. My friend said lots of their students don’t finish learning and this Nicholas Bryan was one.’

  ‘You mean he’s not even a qualified doctor?’ Charles was aghast.

  ‘Looks that way, sir.’

  ‘Anything else that can help us, Mr Hawke?’ asked Staunton.

  ‘He told her he was born in Truro, so that’s another trail I can follow.’

  ‘And where will that take you?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Don’t rightly know yet, sir,’ replied Hawke. ‘Can but wait and see.’

  ‘I don’t know how much time we have to wait and see,’ said Charles in frustration, and he told them of Sophie’s request that Nicholas should attend their meeting the following day.

  ‘Not what I’d choose,’ Staunton said. ‘But if she invites him to be there, we can’t really say no. He is her affianced husband and as such it would be reasonable for him to be there. I expect he will want to be assured that her interests are being properly served.’

  ‘I’m sure he does,’ growled Charles.

  Mr Staunton gave Charles a sympathetic smile. ‘You think he’s after her money, and on balance I do too, so we shall do our best to ensure he don’t get it. Within reason, we can deny him access to her inheritance.’ Turning to Jeremiah Hawke, he went on, ‘Back to London for you then, Mr Hawke, and telegraph me any more information you can discover.’

  When the investigator had left the room, Charles said, ‘So what do we do now? Do we face him with the fact that he’s not even a doctor? Surely that must be enough to make Sophie think again.’

  ‘We could, but I’m sure there is more to discover and I think we should keep our powder dry until we hear from Hawke again.’

  ‘But it’s not just Sophie’s concerns here,’ Charles pointed out. ‘He’s practising as a doctor with almost no training. Surely he can be prosecuted for that. He attended my grandfather with no training at all. His doctoring may even have precipitated his death.’

  ‘Which is why we need to tread carefully,’ replied Staunton. ‘We need concrete evidence of wrong-doing. We only have the word of Miss Daisy Marshall that the certificate she saw was from St Thomas’s. Hawke told us that she didn’t have her spectacles, and if that is the case she could have been mistaken about which hospital it was.’

  ‘Or whether it was a certificate at all!’ snapped Charles.

  ‘Indeed,’ answered Staunton. ‘But there may be one from a different hospital, so I still think that for the moment we should wait.’ He saw the look on Charles’s face and said, ‘If we’re going to catch him, we have to be certain of our facts. It’s no good accusing him of something for which we have no proof. We need proof. If he knows he’s being investigated he may take fright and disappear.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I want him to do!’ cried Charles. ‘I want him to disappear, anywhere, away from Sophie.’

  ‘I know,’ Staunton said, ‘but it’s better to keep him under our eye for now. If he disappears he could well set up the same trick somewhere else. He has to be stopped. I know it’s frustrating, but we do have time. They aren’t getting married until the end of March. Hawke will cable from London in the next few days with more information and we can decide then what to do next.’

  ‘Suppose he finds nothing else?’

  ‘He’ll find something,’ Staunton promised. ‘I told you, I’ve used him before. He has useful contacts everywhere and he’s never failed me yet.’

  Charles returned to Trescadinnick even more worried than when he’d left. Sophie was home again, but she was upstairs in her room and he didn’t see her until they met at the dinner table. She looked pale and seemed very subdued. Was that something to do with Nicholas Bryan? Charles came very close to telling her what Jeremiah Hawke had discovered, but he held back, the words of Mr Staunton echoing in his head. ‘We need proof.’

  Instead he asked, ‘Did you enjoy your luncheon, Sophie?’

  ‘Yes, it was very pleasant.’

  But Charles didn’t believe her. He had never seen her so cast down. Something must have happened. After dinner he stood aside to let her follow Louisa into the hall and when his mother had disappeared upstairs, he touched Sophie on the arm to stay her and asked, ‘Sophie? Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do?’

  Sophie fixed a smile to her lips and shook her head. ‘No, Charles. There’s nothing wrong, really. But if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll have an early night.’

  ‘I’ll wish you goodnight then,’ Charles said and watched as she picked up her candle and started upstairs. At the turn she looked back, and he thought he caught the glint of tears in her eyes as she asked, ‘What time will Mr Staunton be coming tomorrow?’

  ‘He will be here at two. I thought we might meet in the library. I’ve asked Mrs Paxton to make sure the fire is lit first thing so that room is really warm. I should have asked you first. I’m sorry.’

  Sophie gave him a tremulous smile. ‘You don’t have to ask, Charles. This is still your home, you know.’ And with that she turned away and continued up the stairs.

  It was not long before Hannah came knocking on her door to see if she was all right. ‘You’re looking right peaky, Miss Sophie,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘You needn’t be,’ Sophie replied. ‘I just need an early night.’

  ‘When you was little and something was wrong,’ Hannah said, her back to Sophie as she poked the fire into a blaze, ‘you used to come to me and tell me.’ She replaced the poker and turning round, continued, ‘I’ve knowed you all your life, Miss Sophie, and I can tell when you’re upset or worried. Can’t you tell Hannah what it is that’s troubling you now? You know it won’t go beyond these four walls.’

  Sophie was on the verge of tears and Hannah’s kindness brought them even closer, but Sophie fought them back and said, ‘I need to go home, Hannah. I can’t stay here. I need to go back home for a while, give myself time to get used to... well, everything.’

  Hannah was no nearer knowing what was wrong, but she said at once, ‘Then we’ll go, Miss Sophie. The change will do you good.’

  ‘Really? Do you think we rea
lly can? Just go home, to London?’

  ‘You tell them tomorrow that we’re going and I’ll get everything packed up. We can be on the train on Saturday.’

  Relief flooded through Sophie and at last she gave way and allowed her tears to fall. Hannah put her arms round her as she had when she was a child. ‘There, there,’ she soothed, ‘don’t take on so. It’s been a difficult time, but we’ll be home again before you know it.’

  Sophie didn’t sleep well and in the morning she looked, if anything, paler than the day before.

  ‘I shall be going back to London for a few days,’ she announced at breakfast. ‘I know we have our meeting with Mr Staunton this afternoon, Charles, but Hannah and I plan to leave on Saturday.’

  ‘That’s all very sudden,’ remarked Louisa, looking up from her plate. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing, Aunt,’ Sophie replied. ‘But if I am to come here to live, there are things I have to deal with in London.’

  ‘It’s up to you, of course,’ sniffed Louisa, and turned her attention back to her bacon.

  ‘I quite understand,’ Charles said with a smile. ‘But I’m glad we’re still meeting with Mr Staunton this afternoon.’

  Nicholas arrived at the house ten minutes before Mr Staunton. Sophie was waiting for him in the hall. He greeted her cheerfully, as if the conversation they’d had the previous afternoon had never happened, and asked, as he shrugged himself out of his coat and handed it to Edith, ‘Is the lawyer here yet?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Sophie said, and she led him into the drawing room. She closed the door behind them and turned to face him. He moved forward as if to kiss her, but she put up a restraining hand. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Nicholas. I have decided that at first I shall see my trustees on my own—’ she began, but was interrupted by Nicholas.

  ‘Now, Sophie,’ he said sharply. ‘We agreed. It’s important that I’m there too.’

  ‘And you will be.’ Sophie spoke firmly. ‘But not until I’ve spoken to them first.’

  ‘And what will you say that I’m not allowed to hear?’