“I’m glad he married again. We all know how it was between him and Angelet. They were made for each other. I think he suffered terribly. I like to think of him … settling down.”
“He hasn’t settled down.”
I told her about the locked room, the sadness of Celeste and the uneasy situation between him and Belinda.
“Belinda is very much aware of it,” I said. “It is quite wrong. But she is much better now. Miss Stringer is very good for her and Leah, of course, dotes on her. She probably lets her have too much of her own way. But what is rather nice is that she seems to be getting fond of me. Lucie is a help.”
“Dear Lucie! One would think she might be the one to develop complexes.”
“She knows of her birth. I thought it best that she should learn of it through me and not discover some other way. Belinda has a knack of finding out things and I did not want her taunting Lucie with it. Oh, they are good enough friends, but you know what children are. Lucie knows that I brought her into the household because her mother died. She does not know of course that her mother was strange and her father unknown. I said her father was dead … as he may well be … and that her mother lived near Cador and we had known her for a long time. She seemed content to leave it at that.”
“I am sure you will never regret insisting that we take her.”
“I had to do it, Granny. It was some compulsion.”
“You are a good sweet girl, Rebecca. You know what a comfort you have been to us.”
“Granny, we are getting morbid again.”
“All right … I won’t. Tell me about Belinda.”
“Christmas was good. There is a friend of my stepfather … well, a business associate really. He came down. He’s one of those suave men … very charming to everyone. Men of the world, I think you call them. He was particularly nice to Belinda and that made her very happy.”
“What that child needs is tenderness … special tenderness.”
“If only her father would notice her. I think that is what she wants. After all he is her father. But I notice that he avoids looking at her … and she knows it, too. It makes her truculent, always calling attention to herself … always wanting to be better than anyone.”
“How does Lucie react?”
“Lucie has a sunny temperament. She takes it without concern. I think she is aware Belinda is the daughter of the house and that she is the one who is privileged to be brought into it.”
“She is a dear child.”
I agreed. “And a wonderful companion for Belinda.”
“All was for the best then. But what are we going to do about Belinda and her father? How could we show him what he is doing to the child?”
“I don’t think he can help it. It’s a sad household, Granny. I liked it better at Manorleigh … when he was in London. Then Celeste had to be with him and we had the house to ourselves.”
“How’s Mrs. Emery?”
“Very grand and so is Mr. E. He’s developed great dignity. They both have. I get on well with Mrs. Emery who invites me to drink a cup of her best tea … Darjeeling … which comes from the Strand in London, she tells me. It’s only used on special occasions and when I take tea with her that is one of them.”
“She’s a good woman and I am glad she is with you. Now, my dear, it is getting late and time for bed. I’ll see you tomorrow … and the next day … and the next… and the next. Sleep well in your old bed and in the morning we’ll talk and talk. Goodnight, my darling.”
“Goodnight, Granny dear.”
It was a wonderful feeling to have come home.
In a few days I had settled in and it seemed as if I had never been away. I had done all the familiar things. I had walked into the town and been greeted by Gerry Fish wheeling his barrow through the streets and beyond as his father old Tom Fish had before him. He shouted a greeting. “Good day to ’ee, Miss Rebecca. How be to, then? You back with us now for a spell, me ’andsome?” Old Mrs. Grant, who had kept the wool shop when my mother was a girl and still did, although her hands were too crippled with rheumatism to allow her to do her crochet work now, came to the door of the shop to welcome me. There were the young Trenarths who had taken over the Fishermen’s Arms from old Pennyleg and were, to the dismay of some, introducing new ways.
They all had a welcome for me.
I paused to chat with the fishermen who were mending their nets and received a detailed description of the gale in which one of the boats had been lost.
It was comforting to realize that life did not change very much here.
The Pencarrons came over the day after our arrival and there was a happy reunion. Both of them had adopted a rather proprietorial attitude towards me. I was now to be their grand-daughter-in-law, and they wanted me to know how happy that made them.
My grandmother had warned me not to mention the mine disaster to them.
“It upset Josiah so much,” she explained. “No doubt he’ll tell you about it later on … or I expect Pedrek will. Just don’t bring it up. Let him enjoy the reunion.”
It was a very happy day. Pedrek was not with us but he would be home for the week-end, and it was arranged that I should go over to Pencarron on Saturday. “So it will be a lovely surprise when he comes in,” said his fond grandmother.
I spent a happy week-end at Pencarron and on the Sunday Pedrek came back with me to Cador. There would be many week-ends like that.
Pedrek and I went riding together and we talked of the future as we made our plans. We would not live at Pencarron. We would look for a house and if we could not find what we wanted we would build our own.
We spent happy hours planning it.
“By the sea or on the moor?” asked Pedrek.
“Somewhere between the two perhaps?”
“The best of both worlds.”
“Are you going to enjoy it, Pedrek?”
“Superbly. But isn’t it frustrating to have to wait?”
I agreed that it was.
“They say that anticipation is the best part of life.”
“We will make the realization even better.”
“Oh, we will,” I said fervently.
I was delighted to see that Belinda was enjoying Cornwall. I had wondered how she would feel when the possibility of seeing Oliver Gerson was removed, for indeed she had seemed to have an adoration—an obsession one might say—for the man. Perhaps I had exaggerated it. She seemed so fond of me now, which was gratifying. I was very content to bask in the affection of the two girls and the love of Pedrek and my grandparents. I was thinking that, in spite of the fact that I had lost my mother and could not forget that, I had a great deal to be thankful for.
Leah took the children into the Poldoreys and on the way she called in to see her mother. The girls were intrigued by Mrs. Polhenny. They rolled about in glee when they described her on her “bone-shaker.”
“She looked so funny!” shrieked Belinda.
“We thought she was going to fall off,” said Lucie.
“Did she give you an exhibition then?” I asked.
“We went there … and there was no one in and just as we were going away she came up on that…”
They were hysterical.
“And what did she say to you?”
“We had to go in and sit in the parlor,” said Lucie.
“There were pictures all round the room. Jesus on the cross …”
“And another one carrying a little lamb.”
“And somebody with a lot of arrows sticking out of his body. She asked Leah if our souls were saved.”
“And what did Leah say?”
“She said she looked after us in a right and proper manner,” Lucie told me.
“Mrs. Polhenny was looking at me all the time,” said Belinda.
She and Lucie could say no more because they were laughing so much.