The Changeling (57 page)

“Rebecca, if you think I imagined I saw that, you must also think that I am unbalanced … mentally.”

“Of course I don’t. It could happen to anyone.”

“Do you mean to tell me I
imagined
I heard pebbles at the window?”

“I think you might have been dreaming. You went to the window and there was a man. He may have seen you … and bowed …”

“He took off his hat. He was standing under the lamp. I saw his widow’s peak quite clearly. It was what he wanted me to see.”

“You must have imagined it.”

“I tell you I saw it clearly. Rebecca, there are only two explanations. One is that what I saw was his ghost and he has come back to haunt me, or they have hanged the wrong man … and I am responsible.”

“I don’t believe either.”

“You believe that your mother came back after death and made you look after me.”

She was silent.

I went on, “So you
do
believe that the dead can return … if there is something which is very important to them. Our mother did when I was left with Jenny Stubbs. She wanted me in the house where I belonged and she came to you and put all that into your mind. That’s what you’ve always believed, Rebecca. Well, if she could come back, why shouldn’t he? Our mother came back to do good, but she was a good woman. Fergus O’Neill was a man who killed people because they did not believe what he believed, because they did what he did not want them to. He killed for what he could call a cause. He would come back for revenge.”

“Lucie, you must put the whole thing out of your head. You’re overwrought. You have been through a greater ordeal than you realize. You’ve got to get back to normality. I’m so glad you’re here. You’ll be better quickly here … I shall look after you.”

“As you always have, Rebecca. I can’t think what my life would have been like without you.”

“We’re sisters, aren’t we? I suffered terribly when our mother died. I hated your father for marrying her and taking her away from me. That was bad for me. Then it began to be better between us and that made me a lot happier. Lucie, we have to remember that we go through a great drama when we suffer a terrible loss. We are not quite ourselves. Yes, we can become a little unbalanced. We see things out of proportion. We don’t always see clearly …”

“You think I saw nothing last night, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I think you may have had a nightmare … that you awoke startled and were half-dreaming when you went to the window and you saw the man in the street. He was dressed for the opera. That’s not surprising. He was probably returning from the opera. He looked up at the window. He saw you and took off his hat and bowed. Well, he’d probably had a little too much to drink. He was in a merry mood … he saw a young woman at the window … and, well, he bowed.”

“But his face …”

“My dear Lucie, you saw the hat and the cloak. There was just the light from the street lamp. You imagined the rest.”

“Do you really think that could be so?”

“I think it is the most likely answer.”

I closed my eyes. It was what I hoped. Rebecca’s calm common sense was beginning to have its effect.

Of course she must be right. It had been no ghost I saw. It was not Fergus O’Neill who had been down there. Fergus O’Neill was dead. He had paid the penalty demanded by the law. He was a murderer.

Rebecca saw that she was convincing me and she was pleased.

“Now,” she said, “I am going to bring you something to drink.”

“The inevitable hot milk?” I asked.

“It’s the best thing. Trust Rebecca.”

I flung myself into her arms. “Oh, I do,” I assured her. “I always have. You have always been there when I needed you.”

“And always will be. You know that.”

I did. I was feeling a great deal better; and when she appeared with the hot milk, I drank it and was soon fast asleep.

Rebecca had been right. Cornwall had a healing effect. We had crossed the bridge between tragedy and the new life which we had to make for ourselves.

I was thinking more and more of Joel. Soon he must be home and then our engagement would be announced. We would plan our future. We would have a house in London and, I supposed, live at Marchlands. He would have to be in both places … convenient for Parliament and for his constituency. I should wait up for him when the House was sitting late; I should have a supper waiting for him. It would be the familiar pattern, with Joel instead of my father.

I must stop thinking of the past. I had to plan for the future. It would be wonderful. It was just the present that was so hard to live through.

But the bridge was here and we were crossing it.

I had always been fascinated by Cornwall. It was, I supposed, natural that I should be, since it was in the Duchy that I had been born. Rebecca saw that my days were full. I was glad I had told her about my experience. She understood now my preoccupation, my nervous tension; and she had done her best to wipe it away with her sound common sense … which she had done … almost.

It was not difficult to fill our days. There was so much to do. The gardens at High Tor were a delight. There were no orderly flower beds; shrubs and trees grew naturally; and in a way it resembled the gardens of Manor Grange at Manorleigh. The children loved to play in the gardens and I was with them a great deal. There was the paddock round which they rode their ponies on lead reins. Both Celeste and I were expected to watch their performance and applaud. We also rode. Of course, we had to visit Pencarron, the home of Pedrek’s grandparents who made a great fuss of us.

Then there were trips to Cador to my own grandparents. Cador I loved especially, for it was in that grand house that I had spent the greater part of my childhood. I did not remember very much of those early days in Jenny Stubbs’s cottage; but to be in Cador again with its battlemented tower and its view of the sea always affected me deeply.

There seemed to be an understanding between my grandparents and Pedrek’s that the subject of my father’s death should not be referred to. But there were often times when it seemed to be there, and it put such a restraint on us that sometimes I felt that it would have been better to say what was in our minds. He was always in my thoughts though … and in theirs too, I imagined.

I had to make a pilgrimage to Branok Pool. Rebecca and I went there together.

She understood. It meant a great deal to us both. For her it held terrible memories, for it was there that Belinda had said that Pedrek had attempted to molest her and that had almost ruined Rebecca’s life.

So the Pool had a special significance for her; as for me—it had been close to my first home—that cottage in which I had lived with Jenny Stubbs.

We rode the horses close to the Pool. It was grim as ever with the willows trailing into the muddy water which had been churned up by the recent rains. An eerie spot, full of secrets and memories, the place where legends would be born.

“The cottage is still there,” I said.

“Yes. It is occupied sometimes. It’s useful when it is needed. There are emergencies. The Blakeys are in it now. They have been there for a year or more.”

I nodded.

She must be thinking of the people who had been there at the time when Belinda had set the Pool for the scene of her cruel melodrama, which fortunately had been revealed in time for what it was. And I was thinking of poor, mad Jenny Stubbs—a vague and shadowy figure to me … a soft singing voice, tender hands … Jenny, who had taken me so happily as her own when I was a sickly baby and had nursed me back to health.

With such events to remind us, both Rebecca and I had plenty to think about when we came to the Pool. Perhaps it was not very wise of us to come here.

Mrs. Blakey came out of the cottage while we were standing by the pool.

She called, “Good day to ’ee, Mrs. Cartwright. I see you’ve got Miss Lucie with ’ee. Good day to you, Miss Lucie.”

“We must go and speak to her,” whispered Rebecca and we walked over.

“Miss Lucie is here for a little holiday,” Rebecca explained.

“Oh, my dear, I did hear …”

Rebecca said quickly, “Yes, it was all very sad. You seem to have settled into your cottage very well now.”

“It will be a year or more since we came here, Mrs. Cartwright. Now you must come and take a glass of my cider. My Tom do say that it be better than anything they do serve up at the Fisherman’s Rest.” She assumed a touch of modesty. “Well, maybe that’s for other folks to say.”

Rebecca was always tactful with the local people. She had learned that from my grandmother.

“Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it, Lucie?” she said.

Mrs. Blakey was all smiles. She was clearly proud of her home, and it certainly was a picture of shining neatness. The warming pan hanging by the fireplace gleamed and shone like gold; the fire irons were the same; the linoleum gleamed and the furniture was highly polished.

“You have certainly made it comfortable,” said Rebecca.

Flashes of memory came back to me. In the first years of my life this had been my home. It was familiar and yet strange. It must have been very different when Jenny Stubbs lived here.

The cider was brought and placed on the table.

“Now, if you’d care for a little pasty … I be right down proud of my pasties. My Tom do take one with him every day … when he be working. He says it do keep him going until he do come home.”

“I’m afraid we can’t manage the pasty,” said Rebecca, “much as we should like to. They’ll have a meal waiting for us when we get back and we shall be expected to eat that. This cider is delicious.”

“Delicious,” I echoed.

Mrs. Blakey was a garrulous woman and I sensed at once that she was grateful to Pedrek, and wanted Rebecca to know that she had not forgotten what he had done for them.

“It was a terrible blow to Tom,” she confided to me more than to Rebecca, who must have heard the story many times before, “when this here rheumatics struck. Sudden-like it came … just a little pain here and ache there … and there came the time when he could hardly get up again if he knelt down. The doctor, he said, ‘It’s this ’ere rheumatics, Tom. It seems your mining days are over.’ We were in a rare old trouble, I can tell ’ee. Tom had been in the mines all his life and his father before him … and his grandfather before that. Doctor said a little light work is all he’d be able to do. It broke Tom’s heart. He’s always been a good workman, always brought his pay packet home regular … a proud man, my Tom. ‘What be I going to do, Janet?’ he said. ‘Where’ll we be to?’ ‘Well, I be a good hand with the needle,’ I said. ‘We’ll pull through.’ Well, there was our home. The cottage near the mine … that goes with the job. That would be wanted for him as took Tom’s place. Then Mr. Cartwright says, ‘I’m sure I can arrange that you have that place at Branok. It belongs to Mrs. Cartwright’s family. It’s empty now and I’ll have a word with them.’ And so he did and we come here … thanks to Mr. Cartwright and them up at Cador.”

“Our grandparents,” said Rebecca with a little smile at me.

“Well, they did say, ‘You just have the cottage, Tom, and never mind about rent and such. It’s there for them as needs a roof over their head. You take it … while you do want it.’ And there’s little jobs Tom can do … on the farms and at Cador. They’ve kept him busy ever since, and my bit of sewing brings in a tidy bit. So there, you see … we’re better off than we was when Tom was in the mines.”

“And how is the rheumatism?” I asked.

“On and off, Miss Lucie. You can tell the weather by it. ‘Going to have a bit of rain tomorrow,’ Tom will say. ‘My leg’s giving me gippo.’ It’s a sure sign. And do you know, he’ll be right. He’s a real weathercock, our Tom, since he got his rheumatics. And now let me top you up, Mrs. Cartwright.”

“Oh, no thanks, Mrs. Blakey,” cried Rebecca in alarm. “It’s strong, your cider.”

Mrs. Blakey laughed happily. Then she looked at me solemnly and said, “Oh, we be happy here. There’s some as say it be a gloomy old place and there’s ghosts and such like on the prowl. Tom and me … we don’t mind the ghosts.”

“Do you ever hear the bells?” I asked. “You know … the ones which are supposed to ring from the monastery at the bottom of the pool.”

“That old tale! How could monks live down there for hundreds of years? It’s just a lot of nonsense, I say. So does Tom. No, we don’t hear no bells. We’re settled here and I don’t mind telling ’ee that, if it wasn’t for them old rheumatics giving Tom gip now and then, I’d be glad. Mines are dangerous things. Terrible things can happen to miners. I used to worry about Tom down the mine. But we were lucky. Tom happened to work for a good owner. I’ll never forget Mr. Cartwright and your grandfather, Mrs. Cartwright. Mr. Cartwright, he be a good master.”

“I am so glad you feel like that,” said Rebecca. “I shall tell Mr. Cartwright. He will be very pleased. He always wants to do what is right for the miners.”

“The Lord will bless him,” said Mrs. Blakey, “for what he had done for us.”

On that happy note we left.

As we made our way back Rebecca said, “She has transformed that place. I always used to think it was rather eerie. It looks so warm and cozy. I wonder how many hours she spends polishing the furniture and the brass.”

“It makes her happy,” I said.

“Oh yes. And talking of mines reminds me. We shall have to go to Pencarron. It’s a week since we were there. We must take the children. The Pencarrons get a little hurt if they don’t see them frequently.”

“Could we go tomorrow?”

“I’m sure we could,” said Rebecca.

The next day Rebecca and I with the children went over to Pencarron Manor. Celeste had said she wanted to go into the Poldoreys to shop. She was anxious not to intrude. The children were excited. They always enjoyed visiting their grandparents for at Pencarron they were apt to be spoiled.

Pencarron Manor lacked the antiquity of Cador and High Tor. It was a solid Victorian edifice, as Josiah said, “Built for use.” And what it lacked in fancy battlemented towers it made up for in modern improvements. “A bit of comfort’s worth a houseful of ghosts,” was his favorite comment.

He was bluff, kindly and somewhat contemptuous of the fanciful Cornish folk, with their piskies and what he called fancy tales about this and that happening to folk who didn’t look out. Mining had been his life; and he had come to Pencarron after his marriage, built the house and turned a failing old mine into a prosperous one.