We turned away from the coast to take the road to Trystan Priory and our horses could not carry us fast enough. My father was in the courtyard when we arrived, for he had seen our approach from one of the turret windows, knowing that it would be that day for he was well aware that as soon as my mother received news of his arrival she would lose no time in setting out.
His eyes went first to her. He lifted her down from her horse and they embraced there. The servants looked on with a kind of wonder. There was something about this love between our parents which was sacred to us all. Bersaba felt it; we had discussed it; we had once both declared that we would never marry because we couldn’t marry our father and where in the world would we find another husband like him? There flashed into my mind then a vision of Carlotta’s long secretive eyes and I wondered what she would have said had she been here. I was glad she was not. I could not have endured her cynical comments or her looks which would betray her thoughts about my parents, so I was glad that she had stayed behind at Castle Paling, but I knew that she would come here some day. Then something would change to make it different and I did not want it to change.
My father had turned to us. ‘My girls,’ he said, and caught us both up in his arms. ‘You’ve grown,’ he accused us. ‘You’re not my little girls any more.’
Our brother Fennimore was smiling rather sheepishly. He was just as happy as the rest.
‘And you came while I was away …’ my mother was saying. ‘Oh, Fenn, I wish I’d known. We’d only been there a day or so … if only I’d been at home.’
‘Well, you’re here now, my love.’
‘I must see the servants. I must go to the kitchen … Oh, Fenn, when did you come?’
He said: ‘Leave the kitchen. Stay with me. Let us talk and talk …’
So we went into the house, and for a short time we forgot Carlotta and her mother.
We dined in the intimate parlour—just the family—and Father talked of his adventures.
Trade was becoming more prosperous. The great rivals were the Dutch because they were very commercially minded and were seeking maritime expansion. They were good sailors—as much to be feared as the Spaniards had been a few years back. They were as deadly in a way, for while the Spaniards had never lost sight of the desire to bring Catholicism to the entire world, the Dutch had one objective—maritime supremacy, which would make them the biggest and richest traders in the world; and as the very same ambition was possessed by the English in general and in particular those of the East India Company, the rivalry was intense.
‘They want to drive us off the seas,’ Father told us. ‘And we are determined not to be driven. Why people cannot trade in peace has always been a mystery to me. There are riches enough in the world for us all and let the man who finds them first keep them.’
Our mother was in full agreement with my father and I thought that if everyone in the world was like them it would be a happier place.
My father told us stories of his adventures in strange lands. He made us see palm-fringed islands where the people lived in primitive fashion and rarely saw a white man, how they had been overawed by the sight of the big trading ships and were sometimes hostile. But he always implied that there was no real danger and that he would emerge safe from all his adventures, and I fancied that he sometimes coloured the stories to give this effect, for the last thing he wanted was to add to our mother’s anxieties. We basked in this atmosphere of contentment and neither Bersaba nor I thought beyond the present; we shut our eyes to the truth that one day he would sail away again. While he was home there must be perfect contentment.
We none of us asked that first day of reunion when he would be leaving us again, and it was the next day before we mentioned Senara’s return.
Then a faint frown appeared on his face, and I thought uneasily: He doesn’t like Senara.
‘You knew her well, Father?’ I asked.
‘Not well,’ he replied. ‘I knew her. She left before your mother and I married. I had met her when I visited the Castle.’
My mother said: ‘She will come here. She wants to be with me awhile but I think the Castle has some attraction and she will go back there after visits with us. It was her home. Like myself she was born there.’
‘So she will be here,’ said my father slowly.
‘You would not have me not receive her?’ asked my mother, little lights of horror appearing in her eyes. Was it going to be their first disagreement?
‘My love, if you want her here … of course you must have her.’
‘Dearest Fenn,’ said my mother, ‘she is as my sister.’
‘She was not always good to you … to us …’
‘Oh, but she is good at heart. She was wild in those days. She acted without thought. But she was as my sister and I could not turn her away.’
My father nodded, but I could see that he was uneasy and I wondered what had happened to make him say that Senara had not been good to them.
Bersaba asked her when she was alone with her and she told me that my mother replied: ‘Oh, she tried to stop your father and me marrying. She was jealous, that was all. She did not want me to go away from her. She was very fond of me. She confessed and then everything was all right. That was all, but your father has not forgotten.’
My brother Fennimore wanted to go to sea with my father, but my father thought he should stay at home and look after the estates but most of all my mother.
My parents used to talk about it at length. I would see them in the garden, arm in arm, in earnest conversation and I guessed what it was about. My brother Fennimore was like them in that he wanted to do the best for the family, but it is not easy to be denied what you really want to do in life.
My mother knew this and she tried to persuade my father to let him go. She was perfectly safe, she declared; she had good servants and Fennimore’s heart was with the Company just as his was.
While my father was home many people came to visit us. There were men in the Company who never went to sea but took part in its management from their offices in England. Some came from London to see us and those would be days of great excitement. The servants would be busy in the kitchen baking pies of all descriptions—all our old Cornish ones would appear, to the delight and amazement of the visitors who had never heard of taddage pies, which contained prematurely born sucking pig, and muggety, the entrails of sheep and calves. My mother wondered whether such food would appeal to the fine folk from London, but they seemed to eat it with relish and were not told until afterwards what the pies contained. Then, besides our old Cornish dishes there would be beef, mutton, boar’s head, duck and snipe, partridge, pigeon and fish like lampreys, sturgeon and pike, with fruits—mulberries, apricots, medlars and green figs—to follow. My mother was a devoted housewife and herself supervised the making of many of the dishes, so eager was she to welcome all our father’s business colleagues.
There came the day when we heard that our father had relented over our brother Fennimore and he was to go to sea with him when he next sailed. Fennimore was going round in a state of quiet pleasure because of this. He was so like our father and he did not shout with joy or say very much, but we were all aware of his contentment.
A week had passed since our return—a week of meals eaten in the great hall, for there were these constant visitors and we never knew when more would arrive. Most of the rooms in the Priory were now occupied and Bersaba and I recalled that this was how it always had been when our father was home.
‘I wonder what Carlotta is doing at Castle Paling?’ I said one day.
Bersaba answered: ‘They will not come here until Father has gone. I heard Mother say she would ask them not to, making the excuse that every room was occupied by Father’s business associates.’