The Ugly Sister (33 page)

I did not mention Slade to him but took out a map to see how far his cottage was from Killiganoon. It was no way – well within walking distance. I asked Sally to make a few enquiries. She said it was his sister he was living with, not his aunt. So I went to see him.

This was close by the village of Feock, a cob-built, slate-hung cottage of four rooms, overlooking the estuary. A large central rectangular chimney rising by decreasing tiers formed the centre of the cottage, and to reach it one took flat stepping stones over a clear-water rill of a sauntering stream with dark cresses growing. The place was in a bad state of repair; the front gate hung on one hinge, the painted front door was down to bare wood; the tall old woman who opened it was overdressed, with earrings – in the morning! – and pendants and brass bracelets, but her dress was stained, had a hole in the armpit and a tear in the skirt. Her hair was dyed an improbably pale yellow. She was not at all like Slade.

When I went in he was in a wheelchair, staring balefully out of the window. Presently he transferred his stare to me. He had lost a lot of weight and looked much older, and this was made grotesque because at last he was allowing his own hair to grow out undyed, so that he had a grey-white head and a black pigtail.

‘What do you want?' he demanded in his old aggressive voice.

I told him.

I
N
M
ARCH
I supped at the Falmouths and slept there. A big party, and among the guests was Jonathan Eliot, who by accident or request was put next to me at the table. He made a great fuss, and I was flattered. It seemed that the operation had worked well enough, the scars slowly disappearing or hidden by make-up, so that young men like him were not put off. He was the third son of the Earl of St Germans and, though he could have no notion of my fortune, plainly considered me of marriageable quality. I wished I cared more for him.

There seemed to be one man who stood between me and all others.

My correspondence had resumed with Charles. At Christmas I had written thanking him for his affectionate letter and saying that although there could never be anything between us but a warm friendship, his letters to me would too be greatly missed. Therefore I was happy if we could continue to correspond, but in his letters please would he always include news of his wife and her health and well-being.

I had deliberately seen nothing more of Tamsin, but just before Easter Bram was called to Plymouth on excise business, so it seemed the opportunity for the confrontation I was planning and dreading. It was essential when I went to see Tamsin that Bram should not be there, not capable of turning up halfway through as he had done last time.

This was an occasion when even Sally Fetch might be an embarrassment, so I set out alone with her protestations in my ears. I had written of my intention to call at Place and spend one night there, so that Tamsin should not be caught unprepared. Falmouth and St Mawes, then a walk to the ferry and a further walk.

A different day from that first summer visit. Now the clouds were being driven across the sky by a stiff north-westerly wind. It had been a rough crossing even in the Roads. In a field near the house gulls were clustering like white paper rags behind Farmer Pardoe who was ploughing, two oxen in the plough with a lead horse in front. The whole district looked tired and windswept, winter still scarcely past, the bare alders, hawthorns and nut trees wizened and bent. Even St Mawes huddled.

Over the front door of the house was the family coat of arms. The English translation of the crest was ‘Be wise and without harm'. Could I be that?

Once again Tamsin herself opened the door.

‘Well, Emma, you have not deigned to call for a long time.' Voice as cheerless as the day.

‘Yes, I know, I have much to say, but I have hesitated to say it.'

‘Pray come in. Celestine is at her lessons. If you have anything special to say to me, we shall be quite private.'

In the main drawing room I pulled off hat and cloak. There was no one to take them so I draped them over a blue plush chair which Uncle Davey had once occupied. Tamsin waited by the window, taut as a bow.

‘How have you been?' I asked.

‘Well enough. And you?'

‘Yes, thanks. Have you heard from Mother lately?'

‘Last month. She's taking some new drops.'

‘Yes, she told me. They make her sleep a bit. I expect …'

‘What?'

‘I was going to say they probably have laudanum in them. A tincture of that was the only help when my face was so painful.'

She looked at me. ‘Has it been worth it?'

‘What, my face? Oh, I think so.'

‘It hasn't been a complete success, has it?'

‘No … I make the best of it.'

‘I'm sure.'

There was a brief silence.

‘Bram,' I said, ‘as you will know, is in Plymouth.'

‘Good of you to tell me. I hear you have been meeting him from time to time.'

So she knew.

‘He comes to see me, I do not invite him.'

‘I suppose you no longer regard him as an enemy, as you used to.'

‘Did I? I don't know. He has always been a challenge.'

‘Are we going to talk about him or about us?'

‘All three.'

‘I do not think I am willing to do that.'

‘There's not much choice, Tamsin. I'm sorry but …'

She turned from the window. ‘This is my house – mine and Bram's. You are my sister, so I give you leave to come here. But you come on my terms. If what you have to say is against Bram or against my association with him, then you can take it elsewhere.'

I had never heard her voice so hard, and the battle not yet even joined.

‘I came today because I knew Bram was not here and could not interrupt us. As you say, I'm your sister – and though we have not perhaps liked each other so well since we grew up, the blood tie is there and we owe each other a little frankness, a little honesty …'

‘Go on.'

‘I don't know quite where to begin. I … have no option but to … Did you know that Slade is still alive?'

She looked up, eyes startled. ‘ What d'you mean? Bram told you. He's dead!'

‘Bram was – mistaken. I have spoken to him.'

‘To Slade? When? Where? I don't believe you!'

‘He is with his sister at Feock. It is quite close to Killiganoon. I walked there.'

‘You – saw him? I don't believe you!'

‘He did not die of a stroke. He was attacked by four men, taken from Place with a tarpaulin flung over his head, kept in a shed without food or water; then both his legs were broken and he was dropped in the tidal mud of the Fal and left to die.'

Tamsin took out a handkerchief and wiped her lips. ‘Bram must have been told wrongly …'

‘Yes … yes. I would like you to reassure me of that.'

‘Slade was mixed up in all sorts of shady things. You know that yourself. You took great pleasure in coming over to Tregrehan and telling me what you had found out about him.' She sat down.

I sat on the opposite side of the table. ‘Slade had a lot to say when I went to see him. He said that Bram was not only head of the Excise but deeply involved in the trade – in contraband. With his tacit permission certain routes to the continent are – are left open; others, which do not pay him a percentage of the goods run, are closed and the smugglers caught. Slade says – I did not know – that while running contraband is illegal, the sale of contraband, once it has been landed undetected, is not forbidden in law. Bram, he says, draws a profit in this way, also.'

‘What complete nonsense,' Tamsin said with conviction. ‘Utter rubbish! You know how this county is rife with slander and scare stories. You remember how it was said that your deformed face cast a spell on this house and helped to derange Aunt Anna? Well, if you can believe this you can believe that!'

I put my hand up to my face.

‘If what Slade said is true, if, just supposing it
were
true, Bram would have little reason to fear exposure from him. Slade is terrified of what would happen if he spoke out. He says it was Bram's doing, on Bram's orders that he was attacked and beaten. He says he quarrelled with Bram because he took all the risks and should have had a greater share of the profits. They had worked in Place, he says, together ever since the Admiral died. He says there's no one in the trade who would dare stand up in court and testify against Abraham Fox. He even has some of the gentry behind him.'

Tamsin laughed harshly. ‘Don't be so utterly silly. You ought to know that nothing Slade says is worth a moment's belief. You remember the story he told us about burying his children in the cellar? Well,
we
were children then! We're not now.
You're
not. You're old enough to know better!'

‘Yet,' thoughtfully, still rubbing my face. ‘You've just said, Bram told me Slade was dead. You heard him.'

‘Maybe he heard
wrong
! There's no excuse
at all
to suppose that whatever happened to Slade happened on Bram's orders!'

‘Did you know anything about this, Tamsin?'

‘About
what
, for God's sake?'

‘About all I've just said. You say Slade disappeared from this house one day? How did it happen?'

‘Oh …' She made an angry gesture. ‘It just happened. When – when the house wakened one morning he was gone! It was Lucy who came to tell me. When he did not come down at his usual time they sent her up to his bedroom. The room was empty, the bed had not been slept in, some of his clothes were gone. I simply shrugged my shoulders and continued with my life as normal. Slade had become very eccentric, very strange. I think he had a softening of the brain. It is quite possible that he got drunk and fell down some steps and has invented the rest of the story. He is quite capable of making up any wild tale. No doubt he found you a willing listener. You of all people! That you believed anything that Slade said! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!'

I said: ‘If I have made a mistake I must ask your pardon. I shall be very, very, very glad if it is all a mistake – for a reason I'll explain in a moment. But first tell me … Tell me – if Bram is keeping strictly within the law, how does he live as well as he does? He never had money when we knew him first. He went to prison for debt. Well, his salary as Commissioner for Customs and Excise can hardly be that generous. Yet he tells me he pays the rental on your behalf for Place House. And although he works hard he lives a gentleman's existence in the meantime. You too are prosperous-looking and as far as I know you have no money of your own.'

She turned suddenly in her chair and shouted: ‘What
business
is it of yours! How dare you come here questioning me as if you were a judge! What
right
have you!'

‘Only the partial right of being your sister … And for another reason …'

‘
What
other reason?'

‘Bram has asked me to marry him.'

T
HERE ARE
times when I forget that Tamsin and I are daughters of an actress. I find I can simulate moods that are not quite my own, and usually I can detect them in her. As young girls we would challenge each other, instinctively rather than deliberately, what my mother coldly condemned as ‘striking attitudes'. Tamsin, by reason of her beauty and the favouritism bestowed on her, was more prone than I.

But when she laughed at my last utterance I could not tell how deeply she was moved by it, precisely because it was histrionic, hysterical, contemptuous all at the same time.

‘You can't be serious!' she said.

‘I think he is. I think I may be.'

‘You've lost your senses!'

‘It's why I came to ask you these questions about Bram. It is a relief to hear you say that these stories are not true.'

‘You couldn't keep him a month,' she snapped contemptuously. ‘And I don't mean in a money sense!'

‘Nor do I. But he
has
offered to keep me.'

Her eyes glinted. ‘Do you love him?'

‘I think I always have.'

‘And what about me? Have you forgotten about me?'

‘No. I certainly haven't! I've thought of little else. But I suppose I did not feel that you were bound together in a – in a—' I tailed off.

‘Why have you
come
to say this to me? Are you really, really – in your right mind? Do you suppose that my – my relationship with Bram can be parcelled up and put away in a convenient cupboard? My God, your – your impertinence is beyond belief!'

I took a deep rather shaky breath. ‘ The truth may be that we are both a trifle besotted with him. We always have been, haven't we? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I felt I could do no more behind your back, so I came to see you, to have it out – as they say. The truth is you cannot marry him, and I can. It will be a stormy marriage, but I am prepared for that. I am willing to risk it. I thought – Tamsin knows him far, far better than I do. In crude words, he keeps her. He uses her house. Her daughter calls him uncle. She must know a
great deal
about what goes on in his life
outside
Place House. So she will know whether these – these lies, these stories spread about him, are true or have some element of truth in them. Now you say there is no truth in them I feel happier, no longer quite so anxious, quite so concerned …'

Silence fell while the clock in the next room struck three. I could hear her breathing. Then a dog barked down by the river.

‘D'you remember Parish?' I said. ‘I never knew why Uncle Davey so disliked Parish.'

She shouted: ‘And I suppose if I had said your lies about Bram were true you would have pulled your skirts away in disdain and had nothing more to do with him!'

‘I'm not sure, Tammy—'