Elizabeth Elgin - Daisychain Summer

But it was a thought, for all that!

‘Take her will you, Tom?’ Alice withdrew her nipple from her daughter’s lips. ‘Asleep, already. Put her over your shoulder, just in case there’s any wind to come up. Don’t want her waking, soon as she’s put down.’

‘What is it, love?’ Tom gathered his daughter to him. ‘Got a bad head?’

‘No.’ She rarely got headaches. ‘Just that – oh, it’s nothing!’

‘Then why’ve you hardly said a word since I came in, tonight? Summat’s bothering you.’ He knew her too well to accept denial.

‘It’s something or nothing. I suppose. When I went to Willow End –’

‘To see if she’d got herself settled …?’

‘Settled – yes. She put the kettle on and we had a chat. And then she said – oh, I’m daft, even to think it, but –’

‘But best you tell me, for all that.’

‘Well, like I said, I thought I’d push Daisy down the lane – give Keth the sweeties I’d bought for him in the village – just trying to be friendly. Polly Purvis is a worker, I’ll say that for her. She had a stew cooking and the windows cleaned and bread rising on the hearth, when I got there.’

‘She was in service in these parts, I believe, when she met Dickon. But you knew that.’

‘I did, Tom, though Polly reminded me of it. Said she’d soon get the family on its feet again, now they were together and money coming in regular. Said she had contacts around these parts from way back and would be looking for work, to help out.’

‘But what about that little lad?’

‘She isn’t going out to work. She intends taking in washing, if there’s nothing to stop her doing it. I said I was sure Mr Hillier wouldn’t mind, if she hung it out of sight at the back.’

‘Nor will he. But it isn’t the washing that’s bothering you, is it, Alice?’

‘No. It’s more something she said. “We’ll manage all right,” she said. “And once Keth goes to school, I’ll be able to go out mornings, scrubbing.” And had you thought, Tom, that she’ll even have to dig that garden of theirs; Dickon can’t use a spade with one foot near useless, now can he?’

‘Come to think of it, he can’t – though there’ll be plenty who’ll give a hand. But go on?’

‘Well – I wished her luck, told her I was sure there’d be work. And then she said it. Said she looked like Mary Anne and that any woman in their family who’d ever looked like Mary Anne inherited her luck, too.’

‘Mary Anne who ?’ All at once, Tom was uneasy.

‘Mary Anne Pendennis , that’s who! I couldn’t believe it at first, so I said – casual as I could – that Pendennis is an uncommon name but she said no, it isn’t. Not around Cornwall, it seems.’

‘But there’ll be a fair few Mary Anne Pendennises in Cornwall.’

‘So there will, I grant you. But how many by that name married a northerner – a foundry worker, by name of Albert Elliot? Polly had all the family history off pat.’

‘Too much of a coincidence.’ Now Tom knew the reason for his unease.

‘Is it? Think on this, then. Didn’t Mrs Clementina call her house Pendenys Place, and name her first son Elliot – her maiden name? And Nathan and Albert she called for her father and grandfather. Coincidence, Tom? And Polly Purvis was Polly Pendennis, before she married Dickon. She’s actually related to Clementina Sutton. Polly’s grandfather was a Pendennis. She told me he had two sisters; one of them called Sarah Jane – the other –’

‘Don’t tell me! The other was Mary Anne! But what luck did that great-grandmother of Elliot Sutton’s ever have? Took in washing, didn’t she, and worked as a herring woman. You think that’s lucky ?’

‘Look, Tom – Polly said it. Mary Anne’s luck , because Mary Anne’s husband ended up with his own foundry and their son got even richer.’

‘All right, then. Polly Purvis – Pendennis – is cousin twice removed to that Elliot? Can’t hold that against the woman!’

‘No, but there’s her son – that little Keth. He’s dark, too. I don’t think I want him to come to my house.’

‘Dark, like his many-times removed cousin, Elliot Sutton, you mean? So you’re going to hold it against the bairn? You, who said you’d make a fuss of the little lad; feed him up a bit? Yet now it seems he’s got bad blood?’

‘I didn’t say that, Tom!’

‘Bad blood,’ Tom urged, his temper rising quick, Alice acknowledged, as it always did when he got himself bonny and mad. ‘And that little lad isn’t going to be allowed near our Daisy because he’s Elliot Sutton’s distant kin? Oh, Alice, I thought better of you. And it isn’t even proven, either!’

‘It is, Tom. As far as I’m concerned, it is.’

‘Then you’ll tell Polly Purvis; tell her about Elliot who is dark because it threw back from a great-grandmother he never knew? But being dark is nothing to do with it; being wicked is more to the point and being spoiled and indulged by his mother and made to think he can do no wrong. He’s what that foolish Mrs Clementina made him and the washerwoman four generations back has nowt to do with his womanizing nor his wickedness!’

‘I never thought to hear you defending one of Mary Anne’s, Tom!’

‘But Elliot Sutton isn’t one of hers! He’s got her Cornish darkness, that’s all. Mary Anne Pendennis was a woman who worked hard to help her man start his first foundry, and was a decent woman, if all Reuben told me is true. I’ll not have you thinking such nonsense, Alice! I thought you had more sense about you. I thought –’

‘Whisht, Tom! Stop your shouting or you’ll wake the bairn. Here – give her to me and I’ll put her to bed. I won’t have you frightening her!’

‘And I, lass, won’t have you getting yourself into a tizzy because Polly Purvis seems to be related to that Elliot, and so distantly related as makes no matter,’ he insisted, his voice gentle again. ‘And I’m sorry I made a noise. It’s something I’ll have to check, this temper of mine.’

‘Very well, and I’ll try not to let myself worry over it. And I’ll not take it out on that little Keth, either.’ Her lips moved into the smallest of smiles. ‘And when he comes to see Daisy, I’ll give him some toast, well drippinged, and sugared bread, an’ all. Does that please you?’

‘It does.’

‘Then will you take that little lass up to her cot, or are you going to sit there, nursing her all night?’

‘I’ll take her up now – if you’ll forget all you’ve heard this day about Mary Anne Pendennis and not chew it over with Polly Purvis and make more of it than it deserves. Any road, who wants to be saddled with kin like him? Do the young woman a favour, and forget it? And remember, that Cornish great-grandmother is nothing to do with you, nor me, nor Daisy!’

‘Nor is she. And I won’t talk about it again – I promise …’

She watched her man cradling their child, supporting her with a work-roughened hand, and tears sprang to her eyes, just to see the way he loved her.

And he was right – or almost so. That long-ago Mary Anne had nothing to do with her nor Tom nor Daisy. But what of Drew, her firstborn; almost the same age as Keth, and Keth’s cousin, though many times removed.

Yet Keth was dark – Mary Anne Pendennis dark – and Drew was Sutton fair and she, Alice Dwerryhouse, was a happy, contented woman who would be kind to the little boy who lived at Willow End, if only because he had the misfortune to look like a man whose very name she detested. And would never say again, if she could avoid it.

He saw her from his window as she turned the corner by the church, and hurried to his front door. When she opened the gate to his tiny front garden, he was standing on the doorstep, arms wide.