by Sara Seale
Zachary’s long, dour face at Truro station gave her a sense of homecoming. He had always been kind in his silent, uncommunicative fashion and his face lit up at sight of her in unaccustomed animation.
“We’ve missed ‘ee,” he said laconically. “Something young about the place, you was, miss.”
“How’s my garden?” she asked at once because she knew her affection for the ruined temple had pleased him in the summer.
“Coming along. I’ve sowed a few things and they’re coming up fine,” he replied.
“You haven’t tidied it too much, have you, Zachary?” she asked anxiously. “Is the magnolia in bud? Do the birds come there as much as ever? Is it too early for the lizards?”
So many questions to be asked, so much time to make up since the summer. The cherry was flowering in cottage gardens and outside the Spanish Inn the giant chestnut was heavy with sticky buds. As they turned in at the high gates of Tremawvan the scent of newly-mown grass was on the air and even now a gardener was driving a motor mower across the smooth lawns, leaving a track of incredible precision behind him.
Tina ran into the house, calling: “Belle! Belle! Where are you?” And Brownie came across the hall to meet her.
“Belle’s out, she said. Come here, child, and let me look at you. My! You’ve grown, I do believe.”
“When will she be back?” Tina asked when the greeting was over. It was Belle she had wanted, someone of her own to welcome her.
“Not till late. She’s over to Gwerrenporth playing bridge and such like.”
“Oh! And Cousin Craig?”
“He’s not back yet. Had to stay late this evening to see the foreman about something. Get out of that nasty uniform before dinner, Tina. I never could abide it.”
Brownie went upstairs with her, watching her critically while she changed. It seemed odd to Tina to be back in this room with its sprigged wallpaper and faded hangings as if she had never been away. She put on the new wool frock which Belle had sent her for Christmas, and knew an irrational sense of disappointment that her stepmother had not been there to greet her. She fastened the wide leather belt tightly round her narrow waist and Brownie remarked:
“You’re still too thin. Why didn’t you come for Christmas? Craig was disappointed.”
Tina looked up quickly.
“Cousin Craig? But Belle said—” she began, then stopped at Brownie’s expression.
“H’m, I thought as much,” Brownie said. “You can unpack now if you like.”
Outside in the garden a cuckoo was calling, the first Tina had heard that year, and she shut her eyes quickly to wish.
“Did you ever hear the tale about the cuckoo of Zennor?” asked Brownie, watching her.
“No.”
“The village people there once built a hedge round a cuckoo to keep hold of the spring.”
“Oh,” said Tina softly, her liking for superstition charmed by such an idea. “Brownie, would there be time before dinner for me to go to the temple? Zachary has planted some things in my garden.”
“Yes, if you’re quick, but you won’t see much, it’s getting dusk. Don’t keep Craig waiting for dinner and mind you finish your unpacking first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I will,” promised Tina, and snatching up a coat ran out of the room and down the stairs, hoping she would not meet Craig in the hall.
The sun had dipped behind the distant moor and the walks and shrubberies were dark and a little dank as she ran through the grounds, but in the clearing beyond, the evening light still lay gathered, and the temple stood waiting, just as she remembered it, with its broken plinths and columns and its moss-grown steps, but in the rough surrounding grass wild daffodils grew in careless abandonment, planted, Tina was sure, long ago by Jessie Pentreath and left to run riot. Someone had cleared away the rotting leaves of winter and in the garden Tina had made under the magnolia tree, Zachary’s seeds were thrusting through the freshly-turned earth.
She read the little labels in the failing; light. Mignonette ... veronica ... larkspur ... all the old-fashioned flowers of childhood, she thought, thinking lovingly of Zachary who had known instinctively what she would choose herself.
“Tina!”
It was Craig’s voice calling from the azalea walk, and she jumped guiltily. Was it so late, she wondered, remembering her own disastrous sense of time.
“I’m coming,” she shouted and the next moment he stood at the edge of the clearing, tall and dark and aquiline, just as she remembered him.
“How do you do, Cousin Craig,” she said gravely, staring at him with those widely-spaced eyes.
“How do you do, Tina,” he returned equally gravely, then she moved brushing the hair from her face with a nervous gesture.
“Am I late?” she asked. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.”
“There’s no hurry. I only came to welcome you home,” he replied and held out his hands.
Her shyness and doubts left her and she sprang across the clearing to put her own hands in his.
“Home?” she repeated and saw again the vivid, penetrating blue of the gaze he bent upon her.
“Well, I hope it is home,” he said with a quizzical smile. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to Truro to meet you. But I was kept late tonight.”
“Oh, but I didn’t expect—” she began and his expression was a little odd.
“I wonder what you did expect,” he observed. “Are you still walking round your natural emotions with your customary caution?”
She laughed and all at once, she found, as of old, he was easy to talk to. She showed him the seeds Zachary had sown and the daffodils which he confirmed had been planted by his mother, and she told him that although she had been very behind in her work the last six months she had now caught up and would be promoted to the sixth form her next and last term.
He watched her swinging on one of the broken columns of the temple. It was dusk now and in the half light she seemed timeless, ageless. Birds were still singing the last chorus of the evening and near at hand a cuckoo called once and flew away.
“Brownie told me,” she said, lifting her head to listen, “that there’s a place in Cornwall where the villagers once built a hedge round a cuckoo to hold fast to the spring. Isn’t that a charming idea?”
His face wore a curious expression.
“The cuckoo of Zennor,” he said slowly. “There’s a lot to be said for it. Shall I wall you up in the temple, Tina, to make sure of perpetual spring?”
She looked down at him, a little startled. In the gathering dusk of the April evening he did not seem the same, and although he spoke lightly enough there was still the hint of a threat in his absurd question. She could imagine the dark Pentreaths with their pirate faces doing just that thing if it meant getting their own way.
“You’re cold,” he said as he saw her shiver and told her it was time they went back to the house.
“Why didn’t you come at Christmas?” he asked abruptly as they walked through the shrubberies.
“I understood it wouldn’t be convenient,” she replied carefully.
“I see.” He sounded cold and she said rather helplessly: “You don’t. But it was your house. When Belle said—I thought—”
“Well, don’t distress yourself,” he sounded a little impatient. “I naturally thought at the time you found your friend’s house more amusing, but it’s of no importance.” How bewildering he was, she thought, conscious now of tiredness after the long day. It was difficult to know whether he was Belle’s nice cousin offering a welcome which was as sincere as it was unexpected, or whether he was just rich Cousin Craig whose hospitality she had unwittingly offended.
“Dinner’s waiting,” Brownie said as soon as they got in and cast a disapproving look at Tina’s dew-drenched shoes. “Go and change those shoes, Tina, and be quick about it. We won’t wait for you.”
III
The Easter holidays passed very quickly and Tina saw little of Craig after that firs
t evening. He seemed to be working longer hours now and seldom got home in time for the five o’clock tea, and at week-ends he spent much time in his yacht. She was a Bermudian sloop of the Teal class with sleeping accommodation for two, and sometimes he would take Zachary and sometimes sail alone. Tina could picture him at the tiller with his pirate’s face and his black hair blowing in the wind, and often wished that she, too, might go, but he never suggested it.
Belle, she thought, had changed. She was no longer a guest in the house and she came and went as she pleased, hiring a car from Merrynporth to take her shopping when Zachary could not drive her, and giving small bridge parties of her own when Craig was safely out of the house. Indolence had grown on her and she was putting on weight.
She had come in late that first night and made more fuss than usual over Tina’s arrival, only laughing when Brownie said sourly:
“I should have thought you could have put off your card-playing for one afternoon, Belle Linden, and been here to welcome your stepchild.”
“Nonsense! Tina wouldn’t expect it, would you, darling? That dress suits you. I must remember that blue is your color. I’ll come in and see you on my way to bed and you can regale me with the horrors of school.”
Tina felt the old warmth of spirit reach out to her stepmother, but it became plain that Belle was not in the least interested in Tina’s affairs. She only wanted to talk about herself and the possibility of a closer relationship with Craig who, she affirmed, should be thinking of getting married. How would Tina like him for a stepfather?
Tina blinked. Belle was given to making extravagant suggestions but she did not think that Craig was the type of man to make a marriage of convenience in order to give them both a permanent home, though Belle said stranger reasons than that had inspired a marriage.
“After all,” she said, “we’re very well suited. If Craig had been going to fall in love he’d have done it by now. He’s nearly thirty-five—but they’re a hard-headed lot the Pentreaths and marry for sensible and not sentimental reasons.”
“Belle—” Tina began but broke off. What was the use of trying to argue with someone like Belle who would simply finish up by telling you you were a silly schoolgirl who knew nothing about such things?”
It was a wet spring so Tina spent a good deal of time in the house, browsing among the shelves in the book-room and helping Brownie with small chores about the place. She was allowed in the kitchen if Brownie herself was preparing a dish, and she enjoyed those rare occasions more than any others. It was pleasant watching the yellow crust form on the great pans of new milk which stood over a slow fire to provide the scalded cream which was served with every meal, and she came to appreciate the unfamiliar Cornish dishes which Brownie still insisted were the best. Starry-gazy pie, cooked with pilchards’ heads protruding from the crust, and the once famous squab pie, made with pigeons and sometimes conger and all manner of vegetables and apples and raisins, the whole being eaten with helpings of scalded cream.
“When you come home for good, Tina,” Brownie told her, “you can try your hand at Cornish cooking. There’s a mort of goodness in some of these old recipes.”
When you come home for good ... For Tina there could be no promise in the phrase. Tremawvan was not yet home and her future was unsure.
“How should I know?” Belle replied when Tina asked her what plans she had. “There’s no telling how far the Pentreath generosity will stretch but I can’t see that Craig shouldn’t have us here indefinitely. Tremawvan’s a big house.”
“But he can’t be expected—I mean, it’s different for you, Belle.”
“You’d better ask him,” said Belle lazily. “He seems to regard you as a responsibility, insisting on another year at school, though that, of course, had advantages from his point of view. Incidentally it was stupid and rather tactless of you to imply to him and Brownie that you weren’t wanted here for the Christmas holidays.”
Tina looked wary. It was disconcerting how her most guarded remarks came to be repeated.
“But, Belle, you did say—I mean, you gave me the impression that Cousin Craig didn’t want to be bothered with me, and then I found he was annoyed, and Brownie says he was disappointed that I stayed away.”
Belle gave her a swift look under her lashes.
“Hardly disappointed, my dear,” she drawled with a brittle little laugh. “You’re scarcely as important as that to my high-handed cousin. If you play your cards right, Tina, you’ll end by sitting pretty, but don’t go telling tales at my expense. I don’t like it.”
It was difficult to know where you were with Belle, Tina thought dispiritedly, and for perhaps the first time she came to realize that her stepmother was not too scrupulous about the truth where her own interests were concerned. It was clearly she and not Craig who had wanted her to stop away for Christmas.
“I’m afraid it’s been a dull holiday for you,” Craig said a few evenings before she was to leave again. “In the summer we must think of some amusements.”
He did not speak as if the summer was to be the end of their visit, but before she could answer him Brownie remarked dryly:
“In the summer she’ll be a young lady and will, doubtless, make her own amusements.”
Craig raised his eyebrows then contemplated Tina’s doubtful face with amusement.
“Will you like being a young lady, Tina?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice. “It has a frightening sound to me.”
Her mobile mouth turned up in a smile.
“And to me, too,” she said, “I don’t think I’ll be a young lady, Cousin Craig. I’ll just earn my living.”
His eyebrows rose again.
“How?” he asked and she looked nonplussed.
“I don’t know. But I’ll have to work. Belle always said—”
“She’s right, you know,” observed Belle, regarding him with speculative eyes. “Girls don’t stay at home doing nothing these days.”
“We’ll talk about it later on,” he replied. “Are you sorry or glad this is your last term, Tina?”
“A little of both, I think,” she answered, relieved that the talk had turned to school. “Belle, you will come to our Speech Day, won’t you? The term you leave is always special, and I’ll have to have a long white frock, too.”
“For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Belle. “Won’t the one you’ve got do? It cost a lot of money.”
Tina’s eyes were fixed on her stepmother with childlike intensity. For a moment she was all school girl, hating to be different. She had forgotten the others.
“But it’s traditional,” she cried. “The leaving girls all wear long dresses. I can’t be different.”
“Oh, well...” Belle sounded bored. “Perhaps Brownie can run you up something.”
“And you will come, Belle?”
Belle lighted a cigarette impatiently.
“Oh, darling, don’t be tiresome. Of course I’m not going to trek all that way for a lot of silly speeches.”
“I think you will Belle,” said Craig quietly and unexpectedly. “Parents are expected to attend these functions.”
“Well, I am not a parent,” she retorted, eyeing him a little provocatively.
“You might try and behave like one sometimes,” he returned quite mildly, then his jaw suddenly tightened. “You’ll go to Tina’s speech-giving whether you want to or not. Is that quite understood?”
Tina, embarrassed, made a swift movement towards her stepmother.
“I don’t think you should give Belle orders, even in your own house,” she said quickly, the color suddenly staining her cheek-bones.
Belle looked amused.
“Thank you, darling,” she said. “It’s nice to know you’ll stand up for me.”
Craig’s arrogant blue gaze rested on Tina’s flushed face, then he smiled slightly.
“I stand corrected,” he said gravely. “I’ll make it a request and not an order, and if I add that it would be a good opportunity to spend a f
ew days in London and fit you out with an appropriate wardrobe and perhaps add something to her own, I’ve no doubt Belle may change her mind.”
“That,” said Belle, regarding her cousin with tolerant humor, “is different.”
“It’s a pity you’ll miss the Furry Day at Helston, Tina,” said Brownie, deliberately changing the conversation, “Merrynporth has its own spring festival but it’s not the same. Still and all, they’ll bring the Hobby Horse up here and that’ll be something for you to see.”
Tina woke very early on the morning of May Day, glad that it was tomorrow and not today that she was to return to school. Even so, she was not quite early enough, and she had time only to scramble into an old frock before she heard voices singing in the drive. Not waiting even to find a pair of shoes, she ran down the stairs and across the hall to fling open the front door.
The motely procession bearing the traditional branches and twigs was dancing up the drive, singing the Morning Song. The teazer, a man dressed as a woman, danced vigorously in front, sometimes alone, sometimes with the Hobby Horse, an elaborate figure with its mask and its plumed hat and wide, hooped skirt. They looked fantastic in the early light of sunrise, and Tina watched breathlessly as they filed past her. One of the dancers, dressed as a buccaneer, caught her hand in passing, dragging her into the dance and she looked up into the dark, challenging face of the young man she had met last summer outside the Spanish Inn; the younger Pentreath whose home, Craig had said, was forbidden territory.
“Let me go,” she laughed, pulling back, “I won’t know what to do.”
“Oh, no, my dear, you’re a pirate’s captive,” he replied, his grip on her wrist tightening. “Follow the ones in front. The steps are simple enough.”
The whole procession, led by the teazer and the Hobby Horse, turned on to the lawn in a wide circle, sweeping Tina with them, and as she felt the shaven, dew-wet turf beneath her bare feet, he gave herself up to the strangeness of the morning. She could not sing with the others, not knowing the words or music, but she danced with young Adwen Pentreath, conscious of his dark eyes laughing at her and aware of how well his costume suited him. Some lines from a poem in the anthology Craig had given her rang through her mind...
