The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Do you know I quite forgot to tell you,’ she says lightly. ‘He’s been offered a research post in Australia. Very exciting for him but very sad for us. You won’t be seeing much of your godfather from now on, Bruno, but I’m sure he’ll write to you. We shall miss him, won’t we?’

  Neither James nor Julia asks Honor how she has suddenly acquired this information; instead they study the board with great concentration, answering Bruno’s questions about Australia, and, presently, when Emma wakes up, the three of them set off to The Lookout.

  At last James and Julia look at each other.

  ‘I think we underestimated her,’ says Julia after a long moment.

  James resists the desire to point out that he has never been in doubt; he simply nods in agreement and begins to put away the board.

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ he murmurs.

  His instincts have not played him false: Paradise will be safe in her hands.

  8th June 1948

  Darling Vivi,

  This is the last letter I shall write to you, exactly one year since I first arrived at Paradise. After all, this had to be part of that acceptance, didn’t it? The goblin fruit includes pretending that I am communicating with you properly, that one day you will receive these letters and reply to them. Yet I can’t bring myself to destroy them. These letters to you contain the last record of who and what I truly am, and the truth of what happened, but if I am to fully commit I must also finish with Madeleine Grosjean. After all, she disappeared out there in India.

  A man arrived at the door the other day – just a stranger who had lost his way whilst out walking the cliffs – but I was filled with a sudden unreasoning terror. Supposing Johnny were to try to track me down, through Honor and Hubert, or suppose you and Don made some enquiries? I imagine that the news that Lottie and I died in Karachi with Hubert has filtered back and that nobody will bother to question it. Nevertheless, it made me see that I am still vulnerable and I was frightened. Trevannion is an uncommon name and I have yet to brave the moment when the children go out into the world and face the new dangers that could arise with the making of friends who just might recognize the name.

  I must become Honor Trevannion. I must allow her firm kindness, her decisiveness, her strict way of loving gradually to sink into my character. I’ve managed quite well so far but I cannot afford any distractions.

  So no letters, Vivi. I must do without the comfort of sharing with you. Do you remember how we used to chant those last lines of Goblin Market, laughing at them whilst deep down believing in them?

  For there is no friend like a sister

  In calm and stormy weather;

  To cheer one on the tedious way,

  To fetch one if one goes astray,

  To lift one if one totters down,

  To strengthen whilst one stands.

  I shall miss you, Vivi. When I lie awake at night wondering how I shall answer Bruno when he’s old enough to see the flaw, to ask the real question ‘Why did you pretend to be my mother?’ then I shall wish that I had you to help me through. I hope he’ll understand the panic and the way those decisions were taken and how the smallest deception can entrap so quickly.

  I think he will understand, though. There’s something wise about Bruno, some grace which is far beyond his years, which even now casts its healing over me. When he smiles at me, hugs me – knowing the truth as he does – I feel as if I have been granted the absolution I can no longer receive from Confession.

  And there’s something else, Vivi, I cling to when I feel myself, Madeleine, being slowly but inexorably rubbed out. I remember words that Sister Julian read to us.

  Do not fear, for I have redeemed you,

  I have called you by name; you are mine.

  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

  And when you pass through the rivers,

  They shall not overwhelm you …

  Do not fear, for I am with you.

  If He knows me by my name then nothing else really matters, does it? This is my antidote to the goblin fruit.

  There will be so much I shall want to tell you: all those small but significant events that shape the pattern of our lives as our children grow up. I shall be thinking of you, Vivi, and wondering if you will be telling your own children about the way we were and the fun we had. Perhaps I am already an aunt, and Emma has a cousin she will never know and I shall never see.

  I love you, darling. That will never change.

  Your sister,

  Madeleine

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Bruno couldn’t sleep. Emma had gone yawning upstairs hours ago and still he paced the big room, lights switched out and curtains open to the clear night, whilst Nellie watched him from the sofa. As he walked to and fro, or paused to stare out into the darkness, he wrestled with the problem that now confronted him. How was he to juggle the complications of the inheritance with the need to protect Emma?

  In all his conversations with Mutt down the years, she’d pleaded with him that Emma should never know the truth: that somehow, after her death, the deception should be maintained.

  ‘You belong, Bruno,’ she’d said. ‘This is your home and these are your family. I know that what I did would seem unforgivable to most people but you’ve always understood why I did it, haven’t you, darling? What will Emma feel once she knows that she doesn’t belong here? Or that you aren’t her brother?’

  Her very real distress had never failed to move him. Despite the terrible loss of his own family he’d always been able to understand her dilemma and why she’d acted so impulsively fifty years before during those last terrible days in Karachi. Even now he could feel the prickle of terror on his skin, the despair deep in his gut: he could still remember his overwhelming relief when she’d appeared in their hotel room with Emma jabbering cheerfully in her arms. The thought of being without Mutt, that vital living link between the unknown future and the shocking past, was not to be borne.

  Only he, watching her down the years, had sensed the struggle. Some instinct showed him that her guilt would never let her rest: that she took nothing for granted. She looked after them all and the valley had become not only her sanctuary but also her true home. Her creative spirit expressed itself in the Paradise gardens where she and Rafe had worked so tirelessly, and in her tapestry work that now adorned the local churches. He knew, too, that sailing was her greatest joy: that as the gap between the boat and the shore widened so this same joyful spirit, passionate and carefree, shook off the shackles of capable widow and mother who held the cares of family and estate in her hands.

  It was odd, thought Bruno, that he should be the one who knew her best and loved her most. Because of her he’d been obliged all his life to lie, to be on his guard, to watch his tongue. He’d had to deny the memory of his own mother and sister, to accept and live the deception into which she’d plunged them. Yet from the earliest days he’d been aware of her courage – the more so because he suspected that it was hard won and that to be assured and sensible did not come naturally to her. Those odd quirks of memory, fifty years old, showed him his father putting an affectionate arm around her and saying teasingly, ‘You are a Mutt. What a woman!’ He’d felt a kind of empathy with her even then, hearing in that tone of voice the implication that Mutt, though grown up, was still capable of foolish things that seemed to make her an ally with him. She was down there with the children, laughing, loving, ready for fun, whilst the grown-ups watched indulgently from their higher plane.

  As Emma grew up he’d seen the same qualities in her that he still glimpsed in Mutt. She too was passionate, given to laughter, generous, which made it not only sad that Mutt could never let the barrier slip with her daughter but almost tragic that Emma was more fiercely Trevannion than any of them. She loved Paradise, adored Bruno and Rafe and Mousie, and told everyone who was remotely interested about her father’s work as a doctor in India. After she was married she’d come racing do
wn to Cornwall at every opportunity, insisting that St Meriadoc was her real home and where she most belonged.

  They’d almost quarrelled over Raymond Fox, Bruno and Mutt. This was the first time his sympathy for Mutt had given way before a genuine sense of anxiety for Emma. He’d already had a shouting match with Em, each of them deriding the other’s lack of taste when it came to choosing a marriage partner, and later he’d gone up to Paradise to have it out with Mutt. Now, listening to the sea’s rhythmic shush-shush against the rocks below the window, he saw the scene in his mind’s eye as clearly as if it were being enacted on the black glass in front of him.

  ‘She loves him,’ says Mutt, not looking at him, opening the drawers of her desk and closing them again with a bang.

  ‘Emma loves everyone,’ he answers impatiently. ‘She’s always falling in love. Ever since she was about twelve she’s imagined herself in love. I’ve never known a girl like her for needing to love someone and to be loved in return.’

  She turns then, staring at him almost fearfully across the back of the chair as if some new idea has occurred to her. ‘But she’s always known how much we’ve loved her, hasn’t she?’ she asks anxiously. ‘Oh, Bruno, do you think that she’s missed having a father? More than we realized?’

  He guesses that she is feeling inadequate, worrying that she hasn’t managed to fulfil all Emma’s needs, and he is seized with a mixture of irritation and compunction.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he answers restlessly, not in the mood for soul-searching. ‘She’s never given me that impression. The point is whether this wretched Fox loves her, and in my opinion he doesn’t. He’s a cold, calculating type. She won’t be happy with him, Mutt.’

  He sees her expression change from worried introspection to thoughtful consideration of his words.

  ‘He’s steady,’ she says at last. ‘He won’t do anything foolish or make a fool of her with another woman.’

  His laugh is short and explosive. ‘You’re dead right about that,’ he answers crudely. ‘He wouldn’t know what passion was if it struck him in the face.’

  ‘You’re young,’ she says quietly. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like to be abandoned or to have no security. I don’t want that for Emma.’

  He studies her, realizing that he knows very little about Mutt’s own past except in relation to his own family. Some tacit agreement from those early years has cast a cloak of silence over the years in India and, until now, he had the impression that her husband had died in an accident. Now he wonders if it had been more complicated.

  His irritation subsides a little but he has no intention of giving way yet.

  ‘Emma will never be abandoned while I’m alive,’ he says, ‘but even the fear that she might be doesn’t mean she has to marry a man like Raymond Fox. There are other decent men who will love her in return. Don’t imagine I’m doing a “no-one is good enough for my sister” act. I simply want her to have a reasonable chance of happiness.’

  Mutt rises from her chair and begins to wander about the room, tidying some books, picking up a newspaper; her fingers trail idly across a tapestry that lies on the oval, inlaid table.

  ‘You’re not looking at Raymond as a woman would,’ she says at last.

  ‘Clearly,’ he says crisply.

  ‘When it comes to marriage, Emma might want more than charm and fun …’

  She sits down abruptly at the desk again and he wants to ask her if those were the qualities she looked for in marriage and whether they failed her. He sees her fumbling with some papers, clearly distressed but not wanting him to see, and he sighs with frustration.

  ‘He’s wrong for her,’ he insists stubbornly.

  ‘That’s what she says about Zoë. That you married her for all the wrong reasons. I did question it myself, if you remember, but you answered – quite fairly – that you had the right to do what you liked with your own life. Emma feels exactly the same.’

  The tiny core of him that always stands apart – watching his own life as an onlooker might, taking notes – observes her restless fingers folding and refolding an old envelope, records that the easy intimacy between them born of shared secrets has slipped behind the cooler, controlling persona that Mutt uses when she needs to take charge of a situation. It is a defence mechanism to be employed when she feels vulnerable and unsure of herself but he is too young, too inexperienced, to wrench it down and to insist that they discuss this matter as equals.

  Nevertheless, because it is Emma’s happiness at stake here, he tries again, pushing against that barrier in an attempt to extend the boundaries of the trust between them.

  ‘So you have actually discussed it with her?’ he asks lightly. ‘That you think that she might be marrying for the wrong reasons?’

  He watches her averted face, sees her bite her lip, and has an odd impulse to go to her and put his arm about her.

  ‘Come off it,’ he might say. ‘You are a Mutt, aren’t you? Can’t we talk about this properly?’

  He might say it, if he were ten years older or more confident, but his own insecurities hold him back. The silence between them is stretched, tense.

  ‘We’ve talked about it,’ she answers evasively at last. ‘Of course we have. She’s in love with him and he loves her.’ Her chin goes up a little higher, her back is a little straighter, and his heart sinks as the gulf is widened and her confidence grows. ‘Oh, yes he does. After his fashion Raymond has given his heart to Emma. She’ll be looked after and he’ll be a loyal husband and a responsible father.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ he says, his voice brittle with defeat. ‘You don’t think that a bit of passion might be nice or even some kind of meeting of minds?’

  The silence this time is of a different quality. Something else has joined them in the parlour: a gentle remembrance of times past that relaxes Mutt’s shoulders and softens her expression. When she speaks her question takes him completely by surprise.

  ‘Have you heard from Simon recently?’ she asks. ‘It seems a long time since you had any news of him.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, confused. ‘Well, I had a letter a month or two back. He sent a photograph of the twins with Tessa on the beach at Bondi. I meant to show it to you.’

  She turns to look at him. ‘Don’t be too harsh on me,’ she says gently. ‘Passionate people need a framework of stability. Emma loves the good things of life and she likes to share them. Raymond is in love with her and he will want to make her happy, according to his lights. She will be able to entertain, give parties, dress well. He’ll see to that because it will be good for business but there will be times when Raymond’s stolidity and lack of imagination will be invaluable to Emma. She’ll use them – and him – as a defence against her own mistaken passions. Friends and enemies will blame him and she’ll be free to be loved for herself.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound a particularly honest way of going on,’ Bruno says after a moment.

  Mutt chuckles. ‘We have to do the best with what we’ve got. Your father used to say, “Never let the best be the enemy of the good,” and it’s worth remembering at times, especially when it comes to relationships.’

  He smiles back at her. ‘That sounds particularly cynical to me.’

  ‘To me too,’ she admits.

  She gets up, light and quick as a girl, and comes to him with arms outstretched.

  ‘It’s so hard to get it right for other people,’ she says almost desperately. ‘Especially when you love them so much. You and Emma. Should I have stopped you from marrying Zoë?’

  He puts his arms about her, knowing that his unchanging love brings her some kind of comfort.

  ‘You didn’t have a hope,’ he says. ‘You’re quite right, Mutt. Why do we think we can get it right for other people when we get so much wrong for ourselves? If Emma’s made up her mind there’s no more to be said about it.’

  They look at each other, unity restored – but both still suppress private fears.

  A door opened upstairs and B
runo tensed, listening: the lavatory was flushed, water gurgled in the cistern, and he heard footsteps overhead. Presently the bedroom door closed again and there was silence. All at once he made up his mind. Taking Nellie through to her bed in the kitchen, shrugging into his coat, all the while he was listening for any further sound from Emma.

  ‘Stay,’ he told Nellie, ignoring her beseeching expression. ‘Good girl, then. Stay.’

  Shutting the door gently behind him, pausing to glance towards The Row, where all was dark and quiet, he set off up the cliff-path that led towards Paradise.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was impossible to get back to sleep. Emma turned on to her left side, tucking the pillow into her neck, and tried to relax.

  Breathe deeply, she instructed herself. In and out … in and out … Think of a garden. Which garden? Any garden with a path winding through it, like the path between the rhododendrons that led from the meadow to Paradise. ‘The Walk to the Paradise Gardens’ was one of Mutt’s favourite pieces of music … Would Joss find the garden at Paradise too much with all her work to do? Well, Rafe would be there as he’d always been: how he loved the gardens and how hard he’d worked in them. He and Mutt had done so much to restore them to the great glory of the pre-war Paradise. Bruno, of course, was useless. Grubbing up perfectly good plants, trampling on new seeds, because his mind was always on some plot or other. Poor Bruno. He’d been having one of his downers, she’d seen that as soon as she’d opened the door. How shocking that business with Zoë and the baby had been, and yet he still stood up for her, lending her money … Lending! That was rich. She’d never paid him back once. Funny how she’d never liked Zoë, not from that very first minute. Could never understand what he saw in her. Well, yes, plenty of sex appeal if you like the undernourished, sly look. She, Emma, hadn’t been impressed.