The Landower Legacy (9 page)

“I doubt he had much sleep,” I said.

She took me to the window and I looked out over the rich green of the lawns, beyond to the woods in the distance. It was a beautiful view.

She pointed out the tapestry on the walls which depicted the triumphant return of the fugitive’s son to London.

“That was put up in this room some fifty years after the King slept
here. If I were fanciful, which I’m not, I would say that what part of him is left in this room would take some satisfaction from that.”

“You must be a little fanciful, Cousin Mary, to have such a thought,” I pointed out.

She burst out laughing and gave me a little push. She was not displeased.

She took me downstairs and showed me the small chapel, and the drawing room and kitchens. We passed several servants during our perambulations and these she introduced to me. They bobbed respectful curtsies.

“Our hall is quite small,” she said. “The Landowers have a magnificent hall. This house was built when halls were no longer the centre of the house, and more attention was given to the rooms. Much more civilized, don’t you think? But of course you do. Building naturally should improve with the generations. I daresay at first it will be a little difficult to find your way around. Naturally. But in a day or so it will all become familiar. I hope you are going to like the house.”

“I am sure I shall. I do already.”

She laid a hand on my arm. “After luncheon we’ll go for that ride.”

I had had such a full morning that I had ceased to wonder what Olivia was doing and how Miss Bell was faring on her homeward journey.

When I went to my room Betty came in and said that Miss Tressidor had suggested she help me unpack. This we did together and Betty hung up my clothes in the cupboard. She said that Joe would take my trunk and put it into one of the storage attics where it could remain until it was needed again.

After luncheon I changed into my riding habit and went down to the hall where Cousin Mary was waiting for me.

She looked very neat in her well-cut riding clothes, black riding hat and highly polished boots. She studied me with approval and we went to the stables where a horse was chosen for me.

We went down the drive, to the lodge. Jamie came out to open the gates for us.

“Good afternoon, Jamie,” said Cousin Mary. “This is my second cousin, Miss Caroline Tressidor. She is staying with us for a while.”

“Yes, Miss Tressidor,” said Jamie.

I said: “Good afternoon, Jamie.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Caroline.”

“I noticed the bees when I came through last night,” I told him.

He looked very pleased. “They knew you were coming,” he said. “I told them.”

“Jamie always tells the bees,” said Cousin Mary. “It’s a custom. You must have heard of that. But of course you have.”

We rode on.

“He has an unusual accent,” I said. “It’s rather pleasant.”

“Scottish,” she said. “Jamie’s a Scotsman. He came to England … after some trouble up there. I don’t know what. I’ve never asked. People’s privacy should be respected. I suspect he came down here to make a new life. He’s doing that very successfully. He’s happy with his bees, and he does provide us with the finest honey.”

We rode on. She showed me the estate, and beyond it.

“This is Landower country,” she explained. “They’d like to extend it. They’d like to take us in. We’d like to take them in, too.”

“Surely there’s room enough for the two of you.”

“Of course there is. It’s just that feeling there’s been through the centuries. Some people thrive on rivalry, don’t they? Of course they do. It’s something of a joke really. I’ve no time for active feuding in my life and I doubt the Landowers have either. They’ve got other things to think about just now, I imagine.”

By the time we had returned to the house I felt I knew a great deal about Cousin Mary, the Tressidors, the Landowers, and the countryside. I was very interested and felt a great deal better than I had for some time.

The more I saw of Cousin Mary, the more I liked her. She was a great talker and I was playing a little game with myself to try to curb her flow and get a word or two in myself. I imagined I should be more successful at it later; but just now I wanted to learn all I could.

When I went to bed that night a great deal of my melancholy had lifted. I had been thrust into a new world which I was already finding absorbing.

I slept soundly and when I awoke and realized where I was my first feeling was one of expectancy.

A week had passed. I was settling into the household. I was left a great deal to myself now, Cousin Mary having introduced me to the countryside, as it were. This pleased me. It was a freedom I had not enjoyed before. To be allowed to ride out alone was in itself an adventure. Cousin Mary believed in freedom. I was of a responsible age, no
longer a child, and by the time a week was up I was revelling in the new life.

I was given the run of the library. No books were forbidden, unlike at home where Miss Bell supervised all our books. I read a great deal— much of Dickens, all Jane Austen and the Brontes, which particularly intrigued me. I rode every day and I was beginning to know the countryside well. I had put on a little weight. Cousin Mary kept a good table, and I liked to do justice to what was served. I felt myself changing, growing up, developing a certain self-reliance. I realized that I had been somewhat restricted under Miss Bell’s watchful eye.

Freedom from lessons was a relief. Cousin Mary said that as I found such pleasure in the library, the perusal of great writers was the best education I could get and would be more important for me in the future than the multiplication table.

It was certainly a pleasurable way of educating oneself.

Whenever I went out walking or riding I liked to go past the lodge gates where I often saw Jamie—almost always in his garden. He would call a respectful Good morning. I wanted to stop and talk to him and ask about the bees, but there was something in his attitude which deterred me from doing this. But I promised myself that one day I would.

One day I came face to face with a rider in one of the narrow lanes.

“Why,” he cried, “if it isn’t Miss Tressidor!”

I recognized him as the younger of the travellers in the train.

He saw that and grinned. “That’s right. Jago Landower. That’s a frisky little mare you’re riding.”

“A little frisky perhaps. That doesn’t bother me. I’ve ridden a great deal.”

“In spite of coming from London.”

“We ride there, you know. And we have a place in the country. When I’m there I’m always in the saddle.”

“I can see that. Are you going back to the Manor?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll show you a new way.”

“Perhaps I already know it.”

“Well, you’re not going the right way if you do. Come on.”

I turned the mare and walked her beside him.

“I’ve looked for you,” he said. “I wonder I haven’t seen you before.”

“I haven’t been here very long, you know.”

“What do you think of Cornwall?”

“Very … fascinating.”

“And how long will you stay?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope you won’t go away too soon … not until you have got to know us really well.”

“That’s very welcoming, I must say.”

“What about the dragon?”

“The dragon?”

“The lady jailer.”

“Do you mean my governess, Miss Bell? She went back to London the next day.”

“So you are free.”

“She was not really a lady jailer.”

“Wrong words. A watch-dog. How’s that?”

“She was sent to look after me and she did that.”

“I see you are a very precious young lady. I’m surprised that they let you out on your own. Oh, but that is My Lady Mary, teaching you self-reliance.”

“Miss Mary Tressidor has shown me the countryside, and I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

“I can see that. And how do you like the ancestral home? And how do you like Lady Mary? We always call her Lady Mary at Landower. She really is a very important lady.”

“I’m glad you appreciate that. This seems a long way round.”

“It is what is called a long cut as opposed to a short one.”

“So you are taking me out of my way?”

“Only a little. If we had gone the way you were going, our encounter would have been too brief.”

I was flattered and rather pleased, and I liked him.

I said: “Your brother was very quick to notice the name on my luggage and realize who I was.”

“He’s very bright, but on that occasion it did not require a great deal of perception. We had been informed that there was to be a visitor at Tressidor and we were well aware who. Your father was well known here. My father knew him and his sister Imogen. Some people thought he would inherit. But it went of course to Lady Mary.”

“Who was the rightful heiress.”

“But a woman!”

“Do you share the general prejudice?”

“Not at all. I adore your sex. And Lady Mary has shown she is as
capable—far more, some say—as any man. I am just telling you why it was we knew you were coming and were to arrive on that particular day. Very few people travel down from London. We saw you when we passed the carriage and my brother said, ‘Did you see the girl with the lady who is obviously her governess? I wonder if that could be the much heralded Miss Caroline Tressidor. Let’s go back and find out.’ So we did.”

“I’m surprised that you went to so much trouble.”

“We go to a great deal of trouble to find out what’s going on at Tressidor. Look! There’s Landower. Don’t you think it’s splendid?”

“I do. You must be very proud of such a home.”

He was momentarily downcast. “Yes, we are. But … for how long … ?”

I remembered what Cousin Mary had said about there being trouble at Landower and I said: “What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Yes, it is magnificent, isn’t it? The family has been there since …”

“Since the beginning of time, according to Joe, the coachman.”

“Well, perhaps that rather overstates the case. Since the fifteenth century actually.”

“Yes. I heard you stole a march on the Tressidors.”

“How well versed you are in local history!”

“Not as well as I should like to be.”

“Well, there’s time.”

I knew where I was now and I broke into a canter. He was beside me. Very soon I saw the lodge gates.

“Not such a long cut, was it?” he said. “It’s been delightful talking to you. I hope I’ll see you again soon. Do you ride every day?”

“Almost every.”

“I’ll look out for you.”

I rode into the stables, well pleased with the encounter.

After that I saw him frequently. Whenever I rode out he seemed to be there. He became my guide and showed me the countryside and he talked a great deal about the old legends and the customs and superstitions which abounded in this part of the world. He took me onto the moors and pointed out the weird formation of some of the stones, which had been put there, some believed, by prehistoric man. There was an air of mystery about the moors. I could really believe some of the fanciful stories he told me of piskies and witches.

“What a pity you didn’t come earlier,” he said. “You could have taken part in the ceremony of Midsummer Eve when we gather here at midnight and light our bonfires to welcome the summer. We dance round them; we become merry and a little wild and perhaps like our prehistoric forefathers. To dance round the bonfire is a precaution against witchcraft, and if you scorch your clothes that means you will be well protected. Ah, you should have been here for Midsummer’s Eve. I can see you dancing, with your hair wild—a real Tressidor.”

He showed me a disused tin mine and told me of the days when tin mining had made the Duchy prosperous.

“That’s what we call an old scat ball,” he said, “a disused mine. It’s said to be unlucky. The miners of Cornwall were the most superstitious people in the world—apart perhaps from the Cornish fishermen. Their lives were full of hazards, so they looked for signs of good and evil. I suppose we should all be the same. Do you know, they used to leave food at the mine head for the knackers who could wreak evil on those who offended them. The knackers were supposed to be the spirits of Jews who had crucified Christ and could not rest. Why they should have travelled to Cornwall was never explained—nor how there could be so many of them. But do you know, there were miners who swore they’d seen a knacker—a little wizened thing, the size of a sixpenny doll, but dressed like one of the old tinners—that means an old miner. What do the knackers do now that so many mines are closed, I wonder. Perhaps they go back to where they belong. Now this particular shaft is said to be specially unlucky. You must not go near the edge. Who knows, some knacker might take a fancy to you and decide to take you with him wherever he belongs.”