Midsummer's Eve (44 page)

“It’s going downhill fast, I think,” said Mr. Tamblin. “Even a big estate can’t stand up to that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“I don’t exactly know. There are rumours. Mortgages and so on … changing things. They’re spending money like water. And there’s nothing done to the farms nor to the house itself. You have to keep your eye on those sorts of places. People forget how old they are. A little crack … and in no time it’s a big crack … and my goodness, then there’s trouble. You’ve got to be on the watch all the time.”

“I should have thought Bob Carter would have seen to things.” I wanted to ask what Rolf was doing about it, but could not bring myself to mention his name.

“Bob Carter? Oh, he’s not there now.”

“Not there? Where is he then?”

“He went over to the Manor.”

“Why?”

“After the marriage, of course.”

“But I should have thought …”

“Apparently he never got on with Luke Tregern.”

“Did he have to? Luke was at the Manor, Bob at Cador.”

They looked at me in astonishment.

“Oh, I suppose you haven’t heard about the marriage.”

“I heard something in London.”

“So you know then,” said Mrs. Tamblin. “You could have knocked me down with a feather. Of course, being as she is, perhaps it fits. My goodness, it was a bad day for Cador when she took over.”

“You just can’t do it,” said Mr. Tamblin. “You have to be brought up to that sort of thing … managing a place like that. You can’t take everything out and put nothing back.”

“But I should have thought Mr. Hanson …”

“He’s sitting pretty, of course. The difference in those two estates! We used to say that Cador was the giant and the Manor the dwarf. It’s a bit different now.”

I repeated: “But I should have thought …”

Mr. Tamblin said: “It is clear you haven’t heard. That woman, Maria Cadorson, as she claims to be, married Luke Tregern.”

Understanding dawned in me in a blinding flash. I felt suddenly deliriously happy.

“I thought … that it was Mr. Hanson who had married her,” I stammered.

“Mr. Hanson! Marry that woman! You must be joking,” said Mrs. Tamblin.

“I heard it in London. Someone said it was ‘the chap from the Manor’ and I immediately thought …”

Mrs. Tamblin laughed. “Not in a month of Sundays could I see that coming about. No, it was Luke Tregern for her, from the moment she got here. She just went for him. He knew which side his bread was buttered.”

“He was always sly,” said Mr. Tamblin. “He always had an eye for the main chance.”

“Mr. Hanson always said he was a good manager.”

“That was when he was managing someone else’s estate. Now he’s gone wild. He’s mortgaged the place up to the hilt, so I heard. He doesn’t work through me. I suppose he doesn’t want me to know too much. I’m too near. But these things get round. Oh, it was a sad day when that woman came to Cornwall.”

I was not listening. I was savouring the fact that Rolf had not married her.

I lay in bed that night unable to sleep. I was here, where I had begun to feel I belonged. And I had misjudged Rolf. I had thought he would do anything to get possession of Cador.

And all the time it was Luke Tregern!

How happy I was that I had come back.

I longed to see Rolf.

The next day we went to the cottage. It looked charming. The workmen had done a good job and Mrs. Tamblin had arranged some things as she thought I should like them.

There were two bedrooms and she had bought beds and put those in because she had thought I would not come alone. She had selected a few items of furniture from those stored and had put curtains up at the windows.

I thanked her warmly for all she had done.

“At least,” she said, “it’s habitable. I don’t know how long you’ll stay, but if you’re going to sell the place you want to have it looking like a home. And you can sell the bits and pieces with the place if you want to.”

“You think of everything, Mrs. Tamblin.”

I felt as though I were walking on air. I thought: I shall see him again and if he really cares for me … this time I shall not be foolish.

Kitty worked hard to get the house as I wanted it. Mrs. Tamblin hovered dispensing little scraps of gossip, little realizing how important they were to me.

Mr. Hanson was away, she told me. He was often nowadays. Mrs. Tamblin had an idea that he deplored the changes. There were conflicts between Luke Tregern and Bob Carter about the land, and it made for an uneasy situation. Mr. Hanson left all the haggling to Bob; it was as though he could not bear to deal with his ex-manager.

During the first afternoon Mrs. Penlock called. It was good to see her and she was quite emotional at our meeting.

“Well there you are, Miss Cadorson. My patience me, it is good to see ’ee. What we’m been putting up with since you left. I can’t tell ’ee all of it. It’s ’ud take a book. I’ve never been in such a place. There be nothing a body can do. I had all them maids under control, I did. I had everything as it should be. The polish on that dining room table … well, it would have done for a mirror. But there’s no heart in anything now. They’re drinking and gambling to past midnight … and in the morning there’s all the mess to clear up. Mr. Isaacs he’d be gone in a flash if he had another place to go to. But he won’t leave the Duchy. Can’t say I blame him. Nor would I. Who wants to go off to foreign parts? Well, you have, Miss Cadorson, but I reckon that’s different. Neither Isaacs nor me would wish to work for foreigners.”

“Oh, Mrs. Penlock,” I cried, “it is good to talk to you again.”

“Never should have been,” she grumbled. “I know in me bones as she’s no right to this place. I reckon it’s all a put-up job, I do. And that Luke Tregern … what right ’as he … lording it over us all? King of the castle. Squire of the house. It’s ain’t right, Miss Cadorson. It don’t work.”

“You say there is gambling and drinking. Who joins them in this?”

“All the riffraff of the countryside. Come from miles they do. Where they find them I don’t know. Villains, all of them. And they quarrel something shocking … him and her. You can hear them shouting. Cador quarrels always took place behind closed doors … in the way of the gentry. I don’t know what we’re coming to. Bob Carter comes in to the kitchen now and then. He’s always been a friend of Mr. Isaacs. Mind you, he don’t want to be seen at Cador. Luke Tregern wouldn’t want him around. He sees too much. But Bob reckons it can’t go on. There’ll be a climax of some sort, he says. That’s what worries us all at Cador, for what’ll become of us? Oh, it was a sad day when you went, Miss Cadorson … and none of us here believe her tale. There’s a bit of trickery somewhere.”

“The court believed it, Mrs. Penlock.”

“Courts is crazy sometimes. Some of them people couldn’t see the noses before their own faces.”

“It is wonderful to be back.”

I introduced Kitty. “Kitty has come with me from London. I shall need only one maid and Kitty takes good care of me.”

Mrs. Penlock studied Kitty with the calculating eyes she bestowed on the maids she employed, and I was pleased to see that they took to each other.

“You must come up to the house,” she said to Kitty. “Some of the maids will like to meet you … so will we all.”

“Is that wise, do you think?” I asked. “
My
maid to come to the house?”

“If I didn’t have control over me own kitchen I’d walk out tomorrow, that I would,” said Mrs. Penlock severely.

“I’d like to come,” said Kitty.

“Then that’s it. I’ll send one of them over to fetch you.”

“I hear Mr. Hanson is away,” I said.

“Oh yes … so we’re told. He’s away quite a lot. Mind you, he knows what’s going on but he does give Bob Carter a free hand. Bob says how lucky he was to have stepped into the Manor estate. There wouldn’t have been room for him at Cador with Luke Tregern.” She gave me a sly look and went on: “Bob says Mr. Hanson is not a very contented man lately. I reckon it’s time he settled down.”

I had been at Croft Cottage a week when Rolf returned.

I had been living in a state of euphoria which meant that I was a good deal happier than I had been for a long time. I had thought that being here, where there were so many memories of my family, I should have been desolate; but this was not the case. They were constantly in my thoughts; I felt their presence here; and it was as though they were urging me to make something of my life—which I knew was what they would do if they were here.

I took pride in the cottage. I had not yet put it up for sale and hesitated to do this. I kept telling myself that there was plenty of time. Kitty and I went into the town to buy a few things which we needed. I was greeted almost ecstatically by the people whom I had known. Jack Gort scratched his head and said that things weren’t what they used to be; and he was not referring to his catch. Mrs. Pendart shook her head and said that it wasn’t natural for some to step into shoes that didn’t fit … not by a long chalk.

I guessed that they all deplored the change at Cador and, of course, they would all be very much aware of it. My father and his family before him had exerted a benevolent influence over the community; local troubles were brought to them; their role was that of caring parents.

“Things are different now,” was the general comment.

Many of them were uneasy. They knew the great estate was in decline. Farmers were complaining at the lack of repairs to their homes; the place was going to rack and ruin, it was said.

Kitty was often in the Cador kitchen, but I supposed the new owners did not concern themselves much with what went on below stairs; and Isaacs and Mrs. Penlock, much as they disliked the lowering of standards, were still despotic rulers in their own domain.

Kitty had made a friendship with Mabel Tucker whom I remembered as a kitchen maid. She used to come to the cottage on a return visit. I was very pleased to see Kitty so contented.

Then Rolf came over to see me.

He looked older, I thought. There were a few lines on his forehead which had not been there before, and he looked rather solemn. But his face lit up with pleasure when he saw me. He took both my hands and held them firmly.

“I heard you were back,” he said. “I’m so pleased to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Rolf.”

“I hear you have come back to sell the cottage.”

“That was my intention.”

“That mean you’ll be going away … permanently.”

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s hard to say … so much depends.”

He nodded.

“All this …” He waved his hand. “Such changes. Sometimes it seems quite unbelievable.”

“Yes, I know. One goes on for years expecting nothing to change and then suddenly it does … drastically. Come into the cottage. We’re making it quite a pleasant place, Kitty and I. I brought her with me from London. She is out at the moment. I expect she is at Cador. She gets on very well with the maids there and Mrs. Penlock graciously allows her to visit the kitchen.”

Rolf looked round the little sitting room.

“Very pleasant,” he said and looked at me sadly. “My dear Annora, what you have gone through! I wish …”

I looked at him appealingly. I wanted him to hold me tightly. I wanted to say: This time, Rolf, I would not run away. I want to say I’m sorry. I was so foolish. I just couldn’t believe you weren’t there that night … and now I simply don’t care if you were.

He said: “It was brave of you to come back.”

“One has to go on living. The people here … they talk all the time about the change at Cador.”

“It’s a tragedy. They are ruining the place. I can’t understand it. Tregern knows a good deal about management. He always worked well for me. I never quite trusted him, but he was a shrewd manager.”

“Why didn’t you trust him?”

“I imagined he was not strictly honest. I think certain sums may have found their way into his pocket.”

“Didn’t you tax him with it?”

“I had to have something I could prove first. And he really did a very good job. It was just vague suspicions.”

“What do you think he is doing now?”

“I’m not sure. I know he is raising mortgages on Cador. It seems as though he is short of money. Yet he is doing nothing in repairs. The place is running down at an alarming rate. I can only think it is due to his gambling.”

“I can’t bear to think of it. My father was always so meticulous. Any sign of decay anywhere and he had it seen to at once.”

“It is the only way. There is something odd going on there.”

“And what of her … Maria?”

“She is besotted by him, I hear. She was from the time they met. In a way they suit each other.”

“I was surprised when I heard she was married. For some time I thought it was to you.”

He stared at me incredulously.

“Well, I was told by a prospective Member of Parliament who had been here sounding out the population. He said she had married ‘the chap from the Manor.’ Naturally I thought of you.”

“
Un
aturally,” he said. “What
were
you thinking of, Annora?”

“I, er … just thought you might have found her attractive … and I always knew you had a special feeling for Cador.”

He looked at me in such puzzlement that I wanted to tell him that I loved him. I wanted to tell him about my doubts and misgivings which had started on that Midsummer’s Eve. I wanted to say: Let’s forget it forever. It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened then I would put aside, because I knew my only chance of being happy again was with him.

He was looking into the past too, I believed. Was he remembering that morning when I had ridden over to the Manor with a note for him? I could see now what a terrible hurt I had inflicted on him. I wondered whether he could ever forget or forgive it.

It was not for me to say, I am ready to take you, Rolf. It was for him to decide whether he wanted me after what I had done to him.

“Cador, yes,” he was saying. “It always seemed to me the most wonderful place on Earth. When, as a boy, I rode over with my father, I always gasped at the first glimpse of those towers. I used to wish that I had been born there. I certainly wished it could be mine. But not in that way. Good Heavens, Annora, what an idea!”