The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  Shock, she told herself. The spoon clattered against the mug and she spilled the milk as she poured it into the jug. Part of her was with Bruno reading the letters, willing him to empathize, other thoughts jostled to the forefront of her mind as she waited for the kettle to boil. Her mother: what would she say if she knew? Well, she must never know. The secret must be kept. Joss stared round the kitchen, hugging her arms across her breasts, trying to come to terms with the fact that she had no right here: that she and her mother and Mutt were interlopers. It was impossible to take it in.

  Suddenly she needed to see Mutt. Her grandmother had still been deeply asleep when she’d looked in again earlier, halfway through the letter reading, and she’d felt oddly cheated – as if something significant might have been exchanged between them. Perhaps now, Mutt might be awake again and she, Joss, could somehow indicate that she knew the truth and that everything was all right: that, whatever had happened in the past or might happen in the future, Joss’s love for her was unchanged.

  She made the coffee and took it into the drawing-room. Bruno didn’t look up; his face was set and absorbed. Joss slipped out again and up the stairs. She hesitated at the door, her heart banging in her side, and then gently turned the handle and went into her grandmother’s bedroom.

  Mutt wasn’t there. Joss could tell at once that the room was empty even before she saw the lifeless figure on the bed. Mutt was gone and it was too late, now, for the truth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was nearly two hours later when Bruno set the last letter aside, sitting for some moments in silence before glancing at Joss, curled in the corner of the opposite sofa. He’d been hardly aware of her presence – the unobtrusive making up of the fire and a fresh mug of coffee at his elbow as the night wore on – but now he saw how pale she was and stirred himself to deal with the results of her discovery. He’d been moved by the letters but not surprised by the revelations of Mutt’s dilemma. She’d turned to him too often down the years for him to be unaware of her need for his ‘absolution’, as she called it. Now, he could only be grateful that he’d given it unstintingly and continued to reassure her. He’d known the real Mutt who’d hidden behind the cool, sensible façade of widowhood; known the light-hearted, compassionate woman who fought with her own devils of guilt and insecurity.

  The real surprise to Bruno was that touching record of the brief flowering of love between her and his godfather. Of course, it had been finished and Simon had emigrated whilst he, Bruno, was still a small child, yet he felt almost hurt that she’d never spoken of it. Because of their shared duplicity he’d assumed not only that he was Mutt’s only confidant, but also that his comfort and support would have been sufficient for her. Now, with humility, he saw how lonely she must have been. He felt a great need to see her.

  ‘You were quite right to insist that I read them,’ he said to Joss. ‘And you’ve been sitting there all this time, poor love, trying to come to terms with all this. Look, we’ll talk, I promise, but first I need to see Mutt. Can you manage—’

  ‘She’s dead,’ she said. Tears suddenly ran from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. ‘Mutt’s dead, Bruno.’

  ‘But when?’ he cried, leaping to his feet as if even now he might not be too late. ‘You said she was asleep.’

  ‘She was,’ she said, gazing up at him. ‘I went up when you began to read the letters and she’d gone. You must go up and see her. She looks so calm that I’m sure she must have died in her sleep. Mousie will be up soon – she promised to be here very early – and she’ll know what to do.’

  Her eyes were red and swollen and he guessed that she’d been crying in the kitchen alone, miserable and confused. He hesitated, seized by both the sense of his own loss and by compassion for Joss, and then kneeled down and put his arms about her. He could do nothing more for Mutt now, and Joss was suffering. She began to weep, her mouth square with sobs, turning her face into his shoulder. He held her gently, his mind working on several different levels: controlling his own grief, remembering certain extracts from the letters still fresh in his mind, wondering how on earth they would go forward as a family. Part of him could understand Mutt’s need to record her feelings – could even grasp her reason for being unable to destroy them – another part was still furious with her for leaving him with this terrible dilemma. Why had she not asked him to find the letters? Why on earth entrust the task to Joss and risk so much?

  ‘What are we to do?’ he murmured aloud, his arms tightening about Joss, who still sobbed against his shoulder.

  She released herself, accepted his handkerchief gratefully and blew her nose.

  ‘I just can’t believe it. It’s been such a shock,’ she muttered. ‘And now with Mutt gone …’ She hid her face in the handkerchief briefly and then scrubbed her cheeks. ‘I was thinking about it in the kitchen,’ she told him, ‘while you were reading the letters. I can’t take it in that we don’t really belong here. Me and Mum and Mutt are impostors, if you see what I mean.’

  Bruno stood up and went back to the sofa near the fire. He looked calm but his mind leaped desperately to find words that were both true and comforting.

  ‘You are exactly who you’ve always been,’ he said. ‘You are Mutt’s granddaughter and Emma’s daughter. Nothing has changed there. As for your relationship to me – well, all I can say is I’ve always thought of Emma as my sister. We were all so close, you know. The letters show that, don’t they? Mutt and my parents were a threesome, though I can hardly remember your grandfather. Your mother and my sister were much the same age and, given that I had to lose my mother and my sister so tragically, imagine the comfort of having Mutt and Emma, who were already family to me anyway.’

  She sat quite still as she watched him; only her hands, pleating and folding the handkerchief, indicated her inner turmoil.

  ‘But you were angry,’ she reminded him. ‘When I told you about the letters, you were angry.’

  ‘Of course I was angry.’ His own banked-down emotions flared briefly. ‘We had an agreement, Mutt and I, that no-one would ever know, and though I’ve told you the truth about how I felt – and still feel – about Mutt and Emma, there were times when it was damned uncomfortable. Of course I’m angry. I’m gutted about Mutt too. To be honest, I can’t quite think straight. How are we going to deal with it now that you know? It’s no good my saying that as far as I’m concerned nothing has changed, is it?’

  Joss frowned, trying to wrestle with the problem, her heart heavy. ‘It’s difficult,’ she began haltingly, ‘because part of me wants to say that Mum simply mustn’t know. It’s bad enough for me but it would simply finish her to know that she’s not a Trevannion and that this isn’t her home at all.’

  ‘Of course it’s her home,’ said Bruno impatiently. ‘She came here when she wasn’t two years old. We are her family. Where else would be her home?’

  ‘Yes, but you know what I mean.’ Joss leaned forward in her chair. ‘You’re right to say that I’m what I’ve always believed myself to be. Mutt, my parents, my home – all those things remain the same, but Mum won’t feel like that. She’s been lied to all along the line. Hubert wasn’t her father, you aren’t her brother, this isn’t her inheritance. And it all means so much to her. She’s … she’s defined by it because it’s all so much a part of her. I want to say that she simply mustn’t know the truth but that means that I’m implicitly encouraging something wrong. Paradise and St Meriadoc belong to your family, Bruno, not mine. Mousie and Rafe have more right to it than we do, so how do we get round that?’

  He was impressed by her intelligent grasp of the situation, her self-control, and felt a sense of relief that he could share this terrible responsibility with her.

  ‘It was quite wrong of Mutt to ask you to deal with the letters.’ He decided to start at the beginning of this new turn of events. ‘She might have guessed that you’d read some part of them, even if only by mistake. A line or a phrase would be bound to catch the eye. After all, t
hey weren’t all in envelopes. Why risk it?’

  ‘Perhaps she thought I’d be too honourable to look at them.’ Joss bit her lips. She’d been trying to deal with that one alone in the kitchen: telling herself that out of unprincipled curiosity she’d opened Pandora’s box and, because of her weakness of character, others would suffer even more than she was already suffering.

  ‘Balls!’ said Bruno impatiently. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let’s do that kind of hair-shirt stuff. The only thing that makes sense to me is that, even if she were not aware of it, Mutt decided it was time that you knew the truth. I can’t think of any other reason for it.’

  Joss was comforted by Bruno’s stark, almost brutal, response but unable to go along with his reasoning.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Mutt was very anxious that they should be found. Probably the American’s visit frightened her and she suddenly remembered the letters and wanted them to be destroyed. She wanted it just to be between me and her. She trusted me.’

  ‘But did she actually tell you not to read them?’ Bruno ignored the tremor in her voice, determined to lead her away from the negative bog-land of self-pity and guilt, towards the positive ground of rationality even though he was by no means convinced by his own argument. ‘I’m sorry, love, but the more I think about it the more I feel that deep down she wanted you to know the truth about her. After all, I saw Mutt every day. Nothing easier for her than to tell me about the letters and ask me to get rid of them. I know you and she were very close but she must have seen the risk. That’s not a criticism, Joss. After all, what a thing to ask anyone to do. Look …’ He paused then, and when he spoke again his voice was softer; creating a scene, evoking an atmosphere. ‘Someone we love is at the end of her life – but here is a package of letters, a diary, doesn’t matter what; something they’ve handled, and in which some thought or memory is recorded.’ He glanced at her. ‘There’s something about the written word, isn’t there? Something that’s much more important even than a well-worn garment or an object that the beloved has treasured. Here in your hand is some essence of that person you’ve known and loved, something you want and need because of all that it might reveal. Something more of them; something, even, which might relate to yourself. How can you possibly give it up or consign it to the flames?’

  ‘I did feel exactly like that.’ Joss’s lips trembled and she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘And you’re right about catching a glimpse of some words. Even so …’

  ‘Even nothing,’ said Bruno firmly. ‘Mutt knew all about the weaknesses and temptations of human nature. Old and ill as she was, I think some subconscious desire was driving her, whatever her surface thoughts and words might have been.’

  ‘It might be so.’ Joss was willing herself to believe it although deep down she felt certain that it was much simpler than that: Mutt had rightly realized that Bruno would be furious once he knew about the letters and so she’d trusted her, Joss, to find them. ‘But what now? Do we carry on as if nothing has happened? The trouble is … how has Mutt left things in her will?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She should have left everything to you but I can see that would arouse suspicion. Do you think that she might have left Paradise and The Lookout to you? That would be good, wouldn’t it? After all, if only The Row was left to Mum, nothing need change. Mousie and Rafe would be quite safe and I can buy my little cottage from the estate. No, no, not buy. Nothing should change hands. I’ll rent it just as Mousie and Rafe do theirs. That would be OK, wouldn’t it?’

  He smiled a little at her eagerness to maintain the status quo without benefiting, wondering how to phrase his own fears.

  ‘Of course, your father always wanted to develop the boatyard,’ he said. ‘Knock down the old shed and build a hotel.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ she answered at once. ‘It’s not possible. Oh.’ He saw her catch his meaning. ‘You mean he might try to persuade Mum … Oh, no.’ She shook her head, horror in her eyes. ‘He couldn’t. It would ruin the cove, and what about The Row? Anyway it wouldn’t be his to develop.’

  ‘If the boatyard and The Row should be left to Emma,’ Bruno said gently, ‘we must consider every eventuality. If something happened to her it might then belong to your father under the terms of her will. Of course, she might now make a new will leaving it all to you.’

  ‘But that would be all wrong,’ she protested. ‘And what about Mousie and Rafe?’

  ‘What about Mousie and Rafe?’

  Mousie’s voice echoed in from the hall, cheerful and rather amused, and they heard the front door close behind her. It was nearly five o’clock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Whilst Joss remained in her chair, momentarily paralysed by shock and fear, Bruno swept the letters into a pile beneath the cushioned seat of the sofa. He rose quickly to his feet and went out into the hall.

  ‘Mousie,’ Joss heard him say. ‘Oh, love, it’s bad news, I’m afraid. Dear old Mutt is gone. Peacefully in her sleep, but poor Joss found her and we’ve been having a moment to recover. We were just deciding how to let you know.’

  A brief silence.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.’ Mousie’s voice was barely audible. ‘Poor Joss. We’re never prepared for it, somehow. Perhaps I should have stayed after all, but I had a feeling that Mutt wanted to be alone with Joss tonight. Did Joss telephone you?’

  ‘Come and see her.’ Bruno avoided the question. ‘She’s still suffering from shock, I think.’

  Joss took a deep breath. Her limbs were stiff, her head ached, and she found that she was shivering again. She stood up carefully and tried to smile at Mousie as she came into the room.

  ‘Poor darling.’ Mousie put her arms about her and rocked her as if she were a child. ‘Poor Joss. Goodness, how cold you are. Come over to the fire.’

  ‘I’m OK really.’ Joss crushed down a sudden desire to bawl like a child. ‘It was all so gentle and quiet. One minute she was sleeping and then, the next time I went in …’ She swallowed piteously. ‘I don’t think there was anything I could have done.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Mousie told her firmly. ‘The doctor warned us that this might happen and we must be glad that there was no pain. Sit down there and get warm. I’ll go and see her.’

  She glanced warningly at Bruno, who obediently piled more logs onto the embers and reached for the bellows, smiled reassuringly at Joss and disappeared.

  ‘This is terrible,’ whispered Joss rapidly as soon as she’d gone. ‘I’ve lost my bearings. It’s like a nightmare where things look the same but everything’s different. Just then, with Mousie, I had the same reaction as when I saw you earlier. I thought, Oh, it’s Bruno, and then: but, hang on, he’s not who I thought he was – yet actually you’re just the same. It’s I who am different. How can I go on like this now that I know the truth?’ She leaned forward. ‘How on earth have you managed all these years?’

  He sat back on his heels, watching the flames, his face bleak. ‘Try to remember that it was rather a fait accompli as far as I was concerned. You don’t have much control at four years old, you know. And anyway, it was what my mother wanted. No, no,’ he saw her expression, ‘not that Mutt should impersonate her but that she should bring me back here. Before she died she made me promise to do everything Mutt said. You’ve read the letters so you can have an inkling of what it was like. Mutt and Emma became my family. My one terror was that Mutt might die too. She and Emma helped me to bear the misery and fear. How could I expose them even if I’d wanted to? And at what point? When I went to school? My twenty-first birthday party? When I got married?’ He gave a little mirthless chuckle. ‘Mutt offered me this house when I got married but I didn’t want it. The Lookout was all I ever needed. Had I accepted it, it might have made things simpler now. I could have passed it over to you without any questions asked. After all, that’s Emma’s dream. Mutt’s too. Those were almost her last words to me. “I want Joss to have Par
adise”.’

  ‘But how could I have Paradise now?’ she asked him almost angrily. ‘It would be quite wrong …’

  She fell silent as Mousie came hurrying down the stairs and into the drawing-room.

  ‘A good, peaceful slipping-away in her sleep.’ She smiled at them both as if to reassure them. ‘Nothing could have been done for her.’

  ‘“The Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect end”,’ murmured Joss – and then flushed as she realized that these were the words Mutt had said to her at bedtime when she was a small girl, staying at Paradise.

  Mousie glanced at her curiously. ‘Bed for you,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s the Bodmin practice today, isn’t it? Not an early start then. Hot-water bottle, a couple of paracetamol and a few hours’ sleep. I’ll wake you in time, don’t worry. Go on up while I do the hottie.’

  They went out together. Bruno waited for a moment and then slipped upstairs and went quietly into the Porch Room. He too was aware of the absence of spirit as he stood looking down at the figure in the bed, at the peaceful, care-smoothed face.

  ‘You knew I’d be angry, didn’t you?’ he murmured. ‘And I was. Letters! Good grief! But see what you’ve done now! You are a Mutt, aren’t you?’ He took her hand, touched it with his lips and kissed her brow gently. ‘I’m glad I read them, though.’

  He stood for a moment still holding her hand, his gaze inward as he remembered certain passages from her letters, until he heard Mousie going into Joss’s bedroom. Tucking Mutt’s hand beneath the cover, he gave her one last kiss and left the room. He hadn’t reached the hall before Mousie was behind him, following him downstairs.

  ‘No point in dragging the doctor out this early,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some tea, I think. Would you like some or should you be going back in case Emma wakes?’ She looked at him, a professional assessment, gauging his weariness and strain. ‘It’s always a shock, even when you’re half expecting it, isn’t it? You didn’t tell me earlier. Did Joss telephone you? Was she worried about Mutt?’