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.