The Landower Legacy (45 page)

How could I leave Cousin Mary when she was “like a bear with a sore head” when I was away?

It was comforting to be wanted, to know that I was becoming a success in the work I had undertaken; and yet at the back of my mind was the nagging certainty that by staying I was courting disaster.

I must think about it, I told myself, and the weeks passed.

I often went to Jamie’s cottage. I found such peace there. He now was tending a baby bird which had fallen out of a nest and which he was feeding until it was ready to fly. He kept it in a home-made nest—a coconut shell lined with flannel. I liked to watch him thrusting food into the little creature’s ever-open mouth as he muttered admonitions, warning it about too much greed and gobbling too fast.

I also watched him preparing winter supplies for the bees, stirring sugar in a saucepan over the fire. He was very anxious to make sure that he had ample supplies to keep his colony going through the winter.

“Winter can be a sad time for animals and insects,” he mused. “Nature doesn’t always make provision.”

“It is a good thing that there are people like you in the world to take up where nature leaves off.”

“They’re my friends,” he said. “There’s no virtue in what I do.”

“I should think there is great virtue in it. Any of those living things
who cross your path should be considered very lucky. Have you always been like that … caring for things?”

He clasped his hands together and was silent for a moment.

Then he looked at me and smiled. “I’ve always cared for the wee creatures,” he said. “I’ve been a father to them.”

“You never had any children of your own, Jamie?”

He shook his head.

“But you were married, weren’t you?”

“That was long ago.”

“Did she … ?” I wished I hadn’t spoken because I realized at once that the subject was very painful to him.

“Aye,” he said. “She died. Poor wee creature. She dinna make old bones.”

“It’s very sad. But then life can be sad. And now you’ve settled down here and you have the bees and Lionheart and Tiger …”

“Oh, aye. I’m not lonely any more. It was a happy day when I came to work for Miss Tressidor.”

“I’m glad you came. She is a wonderful woman. She has been good to me, too.”

“There’s sadness all around. Up at Landower there’s sadness. We’re happier here … at Tressidor.”

I wondered if he had heard gossip. He was not the sort to whom the servants would talk. It was only rarely that I could get him to talk to me as he was now, and we had taken some time to reach this stage in our relationship.

He paused with the spoon held over the syrupy mass in the saucepan.

“Yes,” he went on, “there’s a lot of unhappiness there. It is not a happy home, that I know.”

“You don’t have much to do with them, do you?”

“No. There’s one of them comes up to buy honey now and then. It’s someone from the kitchens.”

“The whole neighbourhood wants your honey, Jamie. And does whoever comes talk to you about the unhappiness up at Landower?”

He shook his head. “No one tells me. It’s what’s in the air. I know it. When I pass the house I feel it. When I saw Mr. Landower with you, I knew it. I feel these things.” He tapped his chest. “It makes me sad. I say, there’ll be tragedy there one day. People stand so much and then there can be no more. The breaking point comes …”

He was staring straight ahead of him. I had a strange feeling that
he was not in this room with me. He was somewhere else … perhaps in the past … perhaps in the future. I had the impression that he was looking at something which I could not see.

“It was really a very satisfactory arrangement,” I said. “The marriage saved the house for the family.”

” ‘What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,’ ” he said slowly.

“Jamie,” I said, “you’re in a strange mood tonight.”

“I’m like that when the bees are quiet. There’s a long winter ahead, dark nights. There’s a stillness over the land … It’s the spring I like, when the sap rises in the trees and the whole world’s singing. Now the country’s going to sleep for the winter. It’s a sad time. This is when people want to break out and do what they wouldn’t dream of doing on a bright summer’s day.”

“The winter isn’t really with us yet.”

“It will be soon.”

” ‘And if winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ “

“Winter has to be lived through first.”

“We’ll manage … just as the bees will with all that stuff you’re concocting for them.”

“Don’t go near …” he began and stopped abruptly. He was staring at me intently.

I felt the colour flood into my face. He was thinking of the time he had come upon Paul and me on the moor. He was warning me.

He finished: “Don’t go near that mine.”

“Oh, Jamie, it’s perfectly safe. I wouldn’t dream of standing right on the edge.”

“There’s a bad feeling there.”

“You talk like the Cornish,” I chided. “I don’t expect that from a canny Scot.”

“We’re all Celts,” he said. “Perhaps we can see more than you Anglo-Saxons. You’re practical. You see what’s happening all round you … but you can’t see back and you can’t see forward. Keep away from that mine.”

“I know it’s supposed to be haunted. I think that is probably why it has an attraction for me.”

“Don’t go near it. I know what happened there once.”

“Do tell me.”

“It was a man who murdered his wife. He couldn’t stand her going on and on. They’d been married for twenty years and he hadn’t noticed
much at first, but it got worse and worse. It was his nerves. They jangled … first a little … then more and more and then one day they snapped. So he murdered her and brought her to the mine and threw her down.”

“I’ve heard something happened like that. How did you get all the details?”

“I just knew,” he said. “He said she’d left him. All knew the terms they were on and she’d said often that she’d leave him, so they believed him when he said she’d gone away … gone back to her family in Wales. But he couldn’t keep away from the scene of the crime. That was foolish. He should have gone right away but he was a fool and stayed and he went back to the mine again and again. He couldn’t stay away … and one evening … it was dusk … he heard voices calling him—hers among them—and he followed them and went down and down into the mine shaft to lie beside her. They searched for him. Clues led them to the mine. They found them down there together … him and his wife.”

“I have heard something of that. It was a misty night, so they said, when a man was lost on the moors, wandering round and round in circles. He had upset a witch or something. He must have been someone else.”

“It was the voices that lured him. They said it was the mist. They always would say those things … the Anglo-Saxons …”

“And it is only the Celts who have this special understanding. You and the Cornish, Jamie.”

“We have it more than most. It was the voices he couldn’t resist. He had to follow her down … down … into the mine.”

“All right, Jamie. You have it your way. I don’t mind. It’s a morbid subject anyway. And don’t worry. If I hear the voices I’ll get as far away from the old mine as fast as I possibly can. I think that stuff in the saucepan is sticking, I smell burning.”

He turned his attention to the saucepan and when he was satisfied with the state of the concoction he took it away to cool. Then he began to talk about the bees and their yield, and how he was seriously thinking of getting another hive.

Now he looked at peace and quite different from the seer who had talked of supernatural matters.

I felt better after the visit and forgot the clouds which were building round me … even if it was only for a little while.

The weeks slipped by. I forced myself into a routine and continued to feel very uncertain about the future. Cousin Mary was relying on me more and more. We talked constantly of estate matters in which I was becoming very deeply involved.

I tried not to see Paul alone. Of course we met socially, and I thought he looked strained, enigmatic, secretive. His eyes would change when he saw me; they could become animated and he would make his way to my side and indulge in light conversation—the sort any guest would make if he were at Tressidor or host at Landower.

Sometimes I had a feeling that Gwennie was watching him. She seemed to be more ostentatious than ever. She continually stressed that this was
her
home, that she had made the renovations, discovered how something could be improved and as good as it was in the fourteenth century.

Gwennie was a strange woman. I would have thought she would have been devoted to her child. He was a beautiful boy with deep-set dark eyes and abundant dark hair which sat like a cap about his well-shaped head. One day when I was calling at Landower I found him with his nanny in one of the lanes and I stopped to speak to them. There was something very appealing about him and what struck me at once was how grateful he was for a little adult attention, which signified that it did not often come his way. I sat on the grass with him and asked him about himself. He was shy at first and his dark eyes surveyed me solemnly, but after a while he became friendly. I told him about my nursery where I had been with my sister and he listened intently.

“You mustn’t let him bother you, Miss Tressidor,” said Nanny.

I replied that far from being bothered I was being delightfully entertained.

I told him one of the stories I remembered from nursery days. Supervised by Miss Bell, it naturally had a moral. It was about two children who helped an ugly old woman with her burden through the woods and after they had staggered along with the heavy load they had been amazed to find that the old woman turned into a fairy who gave them three wishes. I could hear Miss Bell’s voice: “Virtue is always rewarded in some way. Perhaps not with three wishes, but it brings its own reward.” I left that bit out, and I was very gratified that Julian was so interested and I saw the look of regret on his face when I said goodbye.

There was another occasion which gave me an inkling of his parents’ indifference. It was when I saw him in the stables. He was looking
with delight on young puppies who were gambolling and indulging in a mock fight against each other. One of the stablemen’s children was with him—a little boy of his own age. They were laughing together and the stableman’s wife came to collect her child.

She stood watching the children’s pleasure for a few moments and then she said quietly to me: “Poor little mite. It’s nice for him to have a companion sometimes.” I realized she was speaking of Julian. “I often think my own little Billy’s got a better time of it than he has for all he’s squire’s son.”

I said Billy looked as though he were a very happy little boy.

“There’s no big fortune waiting for him. But it’s not big fortunes little ‘uns be wanting. It be love … that’s what it be. And our Billy’s got that an’ all. Poor little Master Julian.” Then she froze. “I be talking out of turn. I reckon you won’t want to repeat what I have said.”

“Of course I won’t,” I assured her. “I agree with you.”

I thought, So they are sorry for him! Poor little unloved one! And I felt a great anger against people who allowed their own affairs to overshadow the lives of their children.

I knew from my own experience the lack of parental affection; but I had had Olivia. This poor little boy was alone really—left to the tender mercies of his nanny.

She was a good woman, I was sure, and carried out her duties according to the rules. But I had recognized at once that Julian was a child who needed tenderness and lacked it.

I had never thought much about children before. Now my anger against Paul and Gwennie grew. Gwennie was obsessed by getting value for her money; Paul was equally obsessed by his hatred of the bargain he had made.

I understood them both—Paul taking the easy way out, Gwennie angry because now he had made the bargain he was deeply regretting it. What I could not forgive was what they were denying this innocent child.

Julian was the heir—highly desirable, of course, for he would carry on the name of Landower. They did not appear to think of him as a child born into a strange world with no one but paid servants to guide him.

I became obsessed by Julian. I went often to see him and he began to watch for my visits. It would be noticed soon, I guessed; and I wondered what construction the watchers would put on that.

In the meantime the tension in the house did not decrease. Gwennie seemed to go out of her way to stress what she had done. I could see how Paul tried not to look at her and how his eyes would darken when he did. I thought of a conversation I had had with Jamie. “It jangled on his nerves … first a little bit … and then more and more until one day it snapped.”

Yes, I could see the dangers. I was aware of the warning voices within me. Get away. There will be trouble. Do you want to be involved in it? You should get away … while there’s time.

But still I remained.

I saw Jago frequently. He did me a great deal of good. I could indulge in frivolous, flirtatious repartee with him and we could laugh together. His sunny nature, his casual acceptance of life, were in complete contrast to Paul. Jago would make a joke out of every situation. He pretended to be in love with me in the most light-hearted way. He said I was cruel to repulse his advances to which I retorted that he seemed to endure it very well—in fact to thrive on it. He retorted that he could not fail to thrive in my company.