Oliver’s museum was along the harbour road, and it was open. The force of the wind blew me in through the door and I had to lean all of my weight on the heavy wood to make it swing shut behind me and latch.
Inside, everything smelt of the salt of the sea and the old plaster walls and the wood dust that came from the floorboards. Brass ship’s lanterns hung from the dark weathered beams overhead to create the illusion the room owed its brightness to them, not the more modern pot lights set into the ceiling. The ceiling itself seemed unusually low at first, but like most very old cottages here, this one’s floor had been hollowed out so that it actually sat at a level below the street outside. Once I’d gone down the two steps from the door I could stand without bumping my head.
It was rather like stepping below decks, I thought, on a ship. With the posts and the beams and the lanterns and barrels and ropes worked so cleverly into the big room’s design, I almost expected the floor to roll under my feet when I walked on it.
‘Eva!’ He’d been in the back, either reading or working because he was wearing his glasses, but he took them off, tucking them into his shirt pocket as he came forward to greet me.
I looked round the room. ‘This is really nice, Oliver.’
‘Thanks. I’m afraid I can’t take all the credit, though. It was my mother’s idea. She came from a smuggling family herself, and she had this collection of things she’d been gathering over the years, and she always said someone should build a museum to put them in, so …’ With his hands spread, he gestured to what he had made. ‘Mind you, she didn’t stay to help me with it.’
I remembered his mother, a cheerfully no-nonsense woman. ‘Oh? Where did she go?’
‘Up to Bristol, to live with my aunt. Left me to fend for myself, so she has.’
‘Well, you seem to be doing all right.’
‘What, with this? The museum won’t pay any bills for me.’ Oliver smiled. ‘It’s a labour of love. No, I’ve got a collection of holiday cottages over St Non’s way. I let them year round, and so far that’s been enough to keep me in the black. I can’t complain.’
‘Holiday cottages? Really? You wouldn’t have one sitting empty right now, would you?’
‘I’m afraid not. They’re all booked through September.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why, were you wanting one?’
‘Thinking about it.’ I nodded. ‘I’m taking a bit of a break from my job and LA and … well, everything, after Katrina. You know. I was thinking I might rent a cottage round here, maybe stay for a while.’
He said, ‘Choose the cottage you like, and I’ll turf out the tenant.’
I smiled. ‘You don’t need to do that. But if one does come free in September—’
‘It’s yours.’ He watched me looking round the room and asked, ‘You want the tour?’
‘Yes, please.’
He’d done a good job setting up all the exhibits so they flowed one from the other in a pattern that was logical, from the earliest days of the settlement here through the bold privateers of the Tudor age right to the heyday of ‘free-trading’ in the late 1700s, when practically everyone took part in it, sometimes including the revenue men who were meant to be keeping the smugglers in check.
There’d always been trade between Cornwall and Brittany, on the French coast, and neither wars nor taxes had been able to persuade the Cornish free-traders to give up what for them was a good livelihood, and more than that, a most diverting game.
‘Like cat and mouse,’ was Oliver’s analogy. ‘Everyone knew who the smugglers were, the real job was to catch them. And then, once you’d caught them, you had to make the charges stick, because the local juries here would only let them off again. That’s why some of the revenue men in the end gave it up, helped themselves to a cut of the profits and turned a blind eye.’
I couldn’t imagine the constable turning a blind eye to anything, though he had not seemed to me like a man to be easily fooled. He must surely have known what the Butlers were up to. But then again, those men I’d seen from my window had gone to great lengths to come up from the woods without anyone noticing.
‘What did they smuggle in, usually?’ I asked.
‘Oh, brandy and tea and tobacco, French laces and silk. Anything that the government slapped a big duty on.’ He hitched a barrel over and sat down while I examined a small gallery of drawings of Polgelly’s famous smuggling ships.
I didn’t find the one that I was looking for, and so I asked him, ‘Did you ever hear of a ship called the Sally?’
He considered it a moment. ‘No, it doesn’t ring a bell. Was she a smuggler’s ship?’
‘I think so. She belonged to the Butlers who lived at Trelowarth.’
‘The Butlers? I don’t know them, either. What year would this be?’
‘Early 1700s,’ I said, trying hard not to sound too specific, because I could already tell from his face he was going to ask me,
‘And where did you come across all of this?’
I shrugged. ‘I read about them somewhere on the Internet, I can’t remember where. I wasn’t smart enough to bookmark it.’
‘The Butlers. Did it give their first names?’
‘Jack and Daniel.’
‘Well, I should at least remember that.’ He grinned. ‘It sounds enough like what I like to drink.’ Which led him to his next idea. Glancing at the windows that were for the moment free of rain, he said, ‘You’ve done the tour. Now let me buy you lunch.’
‘That’s what you do for all your tourists, is it?’
‘Certainly.’ His eyes, good-natured, challenged me to challenge him. ‘What’s it to be? Your choice – the Wellie or the tea room?’
I was torn at that, because I’d never been inside the Wellington. It hadn’t been the sort of pub you took a child into, which had only made it all the more intriguing. But I settled on, ‘The tea room, please. I’ll do a bit of corporate spying while I’m here, for Susan.’
‘Right,’ said Oliver. ‘I’ll fetch my coat.’
We were the only customers for lunch, and it was clear the waitress had a crush on Oliver because she set my soup down with a lack of care that bordered on disdain. Oliver, not noticing, looked puzzled when he saw me trying not to laugh.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So, Felicity tells me Sue’s put you to work.’
‘Yes. That’s what brought me down here today, actually. I was hoping I could find somebody famous in Trelowarth’s past, a name that she could use to draw the tourists in.’ I knew from how he looked at me he’d hit upon the obvious, as I had, so I told him, ‘Yes, I know. I told her she should use Katrina’s name, but Susan wasn’t having it. I’ll have to find her someone else.’
‘A famous person in Trelowarth’s past.’ He wasn’t sure.
‘Well, there’s the Duke of Ormonde, maybe.’ We discussed that for a minute. He impressed me with his knowledge of the details of the Jacobite rebellion I had read about, which encouraged me to add, ‘His name was Butler, right? James Butler.’
‘Like your Butler brothers, you mean?’ He considered this. ‘It’s a bit of a shot in the dark.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I told him carelessly. ‘They might have been related.’
‘You’re determined to find Sue her famous person, aren’t you?’ Oliver was smiling, but he sympathised. ‘I know, it would be brilliant if her plans worked out. I’d hate to see the Halletts lose Trelowarth.’
In surprise I set my spoon down. ‘It’s as bad as that?’
He gave a nod. ‘It’s bad.’
‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Never fear,’ he said, ‘I’ll do a little research of my own, and see what I can find. Even if the Duke of Ormonde didn’t come this way, your Butler brothers might prove interesting enough themselves.’
‘Thanks, I’d appreciate that.’
‘Would you? Then you’ll have to let me buy you lunch again.’
The waitress
heard that part, and slammed my sandwich plate down with such force the table rattled.
This time even Oliver noticed. Watching our waitress depart he said, ‘She’s in a bit of a mood today, isn’t she?’ Then catching sight of my face, he asked, ‘What?’ again.
It took an effort to straighten my smile as I answered him, ‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’ But I had a feeling that lunching with Oliver anywhere here in Polgelly might turn out to be an adventure.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Claire was pleased. We hadn’t seen her for a few days, she’d been keeping to herself, and after supper I had walked out to the cottage for a visit, with the little mongrel Samson at my heels. The dog was lying in a warm contented coil now, underneath the narrow table that Claire used for mixing paints in her bright studio. I’d always liked to watch her work. I liked the mingled smells of oil paint drying slowly on the canvases, and brushes left to soak in jars of turpentine, and underneath all that the fainter scent of coffee sitting somewhere in a mug and growing cold because she had forgotten it as usual when she began to paint.
I liked her paintings, too. The landscapes had a quality of fantasy about them, as though she’d taken what was there in front of her and shaped it as it could have been. The Christmas cards she’d sent to us each year while both my parents were still living had been painted by her own hand, printed privately, so beautiful they’d sat out on our mantelpiece long after all the other decorations of the season had been cleared away. I wondered what had happened to them. After the death of my parents so many of those little links with the past had been lost.
Claire swept an edge of sunset colour underneath a cloud and said, ‘I’m glad you got to spend some time with Oliver.’
‘I nearly didn’t recognise him.’
‘Yes, he’s changed a little, hasn’t he?’ Her sideways glance was twinkling. ‘On the inside, though, he’s still the same old Oliver he ever was. Where did you go for lunch?’
‘The tea room by the harbour. And Felicity was right, the woman there can’t make a scone to save her life. She’ll be no competition for Susan.’ Which was, I thought, as good a starting point as I was going to get for what I’d really come to talk about. I said, ‘Aunt Claire?’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘If I ask you something, will you give an honest answer?’
The motion of her brush stopped on the canvas as she turned to me with eyes that seemed to know already what I was about to ask her. ‘Always.’
‘How much money would it take for Mark and Susan not to lose Trelowarth?’
She blinked, and set the paintbrush down. ‘However did you hear of that?’
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
Claire crossed to put the brush in turpentine, and slowly cleaned her hands. And then, because she’d made a promise to be honest, she explained how the investments had diminished and the taxes had increased. ‘Mark’s not in debt yet,’ she assured me, ‘but he will be this time next year if he can’t turn things around.’
‘I want to help,’ I said.
‘You are helping.’
‘I mean really help. Financially. I know that Mark would never take my money, but it isn’t mine,’ I justified. ‘Not really. It’s Katrina’s. And she wouldn’t want to see Trelowarth struggling if her money could prevent it.’ I paused long enough to glance at Claire and satisfy myself that she agreed with that before I carried on, ‘I thought if I were to set up a Trust, Mark and Susan could draw on the funds when they needed them, keep the place going, and know that the Trust would be there for their children as well, and their grandchildren.’
I waited for Claire’s arguments, and braced myself against them. There was no way I could properly explain in words why this was so important to me, why it seemed so right to me that something of my sister should remain here, something tangible.
Claire looked at me a long and silent moment. ‘I think,’ she said finally, ‘that would be a lovely legacy. Katrina would be pleased. How can I help?’
We talked it over while we moved into the kitchen from the studio, and Claire made some suggestions as she put the kettle on to boil, and by the time she’d filled the Wedgwood teapot we had worked the whole thing out between us.
‘I’ll go see Mr Rowe at the bank in Polgelly tomorrow,’ I said. ‘He can help me get everything organised.’
Claire smiled. ‘You’ll have to fortify yourself then, for the climb back up afterwards. Which biscuits would you like? I’ve coconut or chocolate.’
As she set the biscuit tin down on the table I shook my head. ‘I’ll have to walk up and down The Hill ten times a day, if I keep eating these.’
‘Nonsense. You’re too thin as it is.’
‘There’s no such thing in California as “too thin”.’
Claire’s dry and wordless glance said much about her view of California and its fashions, but she didn’t say a word. She only opened up the biscuit tin and tilted it towards me till I took one. It was coconut. I shared it with the dog, who’d come to join us with expectant eyes and wagging tail. He settled by my chair as I asked, ‘Have you seen the greenhouse yet?’
‘I haven’t, no.’
‘They’ve painted. It looks wonderful.’ I filled her in on everything Felicity and Susan had been doing, while we sat and drank our tea.
I liked this kitchen, liked the feel of it, the cosy warmth and comfort that owed more to Claire herself than to the decorating. She changed the feeling of the rooms that she was in. She made them welcoming.
And maybe that was why I felt my sister’s presence here as well, this evening. It didn’t take a great stretch of imagination to picture Katrina in the empty chair just at the table’s end, with her chin propped on one hand the way she’d always sat when she was following the flow of conversation.
And when we took our tea into the sitting room I felt her come along and curl herself into the sofa at my side, so that I felt no need or inclination to get up, and when Claire told me I looked tired and brought a pillow and a blanket so that I could ‘rest my eyes’ I didn’t argue, only lay my head back happily, still feeling that Katrina was right there with me.
Perhaps she was.
But when I woke, she’d gone.
I’d slept much longer than I’d meant to. It was morning, and the smell of toast still hovered in the kitchen. Claire had left a note: Gone walking with the dog. Help yourself to what you like.
But she had cleaned the kitchen and I didn’t want to spoil its spotlessness, and having slept the whole night in my clothes I felt rumpled. My breakfast could wait, I decided, until I’d got back to Trelowarth and showered. I wrote my own note underneath Claire’s, thanking her, and propped it back up on the table.
Then taking my coat, I slipped out the front door. It had rained in the night, and the leaves in the woods all held loose beads of water and when the wind chased through the branches and set them to shivering light little showers came scattering down on my shoulders and head, and my boots slipped a bit in the mud of the path, but I didn’t much mind. And as I came out the far side of the woods there was sunlight at last breaking through the clouds over my head, and Trelowarth itself standing waiting to welcome me, and Susan coming out now to walk round to the greenhouse. I’d go out myself after breakfast and help her, I thought. And then I’d go down to the bank.
When I took my next step, though, the heavens suddenly opened with a fury, and a torrent of rain blown by wind struck me full in the face out of nowhere. I struggled to regain my footing, steadying myself against the onslaught of the sudden storm, and made a dash towards the house and shelter.
The wind was like a wild thing pursuing me. It shrieked as I blew through the back door and slammed it shut behind me, and the blast of rain that followed pounded on the wood like fists demanding entry.
I had water running in my eyes. I pushed my hair back from my forehead, stripped my jacket off and shook it out and turned to hang it on its hook with all the other coats.
&n
bsp; Except there were no other coats. No row of hooks. No rack of boots.
The realisation hit me with the same force as the storm, and just as suddenly. I let my jacket drop. It made a puddle on the flagstone floor as, stepping from my muddy boots, I padded in on stockinged feet.
In the kitchen, the gnarled branches of the apple trees were scraping at the window and their dripping leaves cast ever-changing shadows in the dimness. All the dishes had been cleared away, the pots scoured clean and set to wait upon the fireless hearth that smelt of cold dead ashes. No one had been cooking here this morning.
Very quietly, I took my sodden coat and boots and stored them out of sight beneath some sacking in the little room that Fergal called the ‘scullery’, which looked to simply be a place for storing things and washing up, with wooden boxes, woven sacks and empty jugs shoved up against the walls, one small scrubbed table and a tall free-standing cupboard with an iron lock.
Then slipping from the scullery I tiptoed back across the kitchen to the narrow back staircase that might let me get to the safety of ‘my’ room before someone saw me. I didn’t have to worry about Daniel or Fergal, of course, but they weren’t the only people living here, and they’d both said that Daniel’s brother Jack might be returning any time. For all I knew, he might be home already.
I kept that thought in mind as I creaked lightly up the steep slope of the stairs to the first floor, and crept past the door of the room that Daniel had informed me was his brother’s. It was closed, as were the other doors up here, but I was still relieved to reach the large front-corner room and shut myself inside it.
And relieved again to find the blue gown draped across the chair before the writing desk, where I had left it. This time it was easier to dress myself, though fastening the bodice with the pins still took some time and patience. But I could do nothing with my hair yet except comb my fingers through it and allow it to hang loose.
Prepared now, I sat on the bed’s edge patiently, and waited.
Maybe I’d come back too early in the morning. It was difficult to judge the time with dark rain sluicing down the windows, driven hard against the glass by a rough wind that rose and wailed and died again into a weeping moan. It was a lonely sound.