Chapter Twenty-Nine

J ack stared at his mother’s tragic face, a turmoil of emotions tumbling through his head. What was he supposed to feel? Sadness, shock, anger? Images of the times his father had condescended to spend with him flashed through his mind along with the emotions. An hour here, half a day there, a few minutes before bedtime, a glimpse from the nursery window. Had his father been any better a parent than Harriet’s bullying husband? Probably not.

“When?”

His mother sagged against him, pressing her wet cheek to his coat. “Yesterday. I only found out because Mrs. Pike’s nephew works there. He told his mother, Mrs. Pike’s sister-in-law, and she sent her daughter over with a message for us.” All the servants knew their secrets, of course, in both houses.

“Does he still live?”

She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I’ve had no news since, and I dare not enquire myself. Any servant I sent would be turned away and I refuse to give that woman the pleasure of so doing.”

He held her away from himself. “Pull yourself together, Mother. He’s not worthy of your grief.”

She flashed angry eyes at him. “Oh but he is, he is. He was my one true love, Jack, and he gave me you. He still is my one true love. And he’s your father, never forget.”

“Inside,” Jack said, ignoring this outburst. “Into the parlor and tell me what Mrs. Pike’s relations told you, most of which will be servants’ gossip, no doubt, and without foundation.”

She let him guide her to the parlor, and he closed the door behind him then ushered her to her chaise long. A firm hand on her shoulder, he sat her down then took his place beside her. “Now. Tell me everything you know.”

She seized both his hands in hers, the tears still falling down her cheeks and dripping onto the lace fichu she wore about her shoulders. “Mrs. Pike’s family can’t read or write, so the message was a little garbled. Young Bennath Carthew brought it yesterday evening. She’s just a slip of a girl, but a fast runner. She said her brother, William, a gardener at the castle, told them there’d been an argument between your father and Lady Trengrouse on the terrace, and your father had fallen to the ground, his face purple, gasping for breath. Bennath said her brother saw it all happening, as Lady Trengrouse shouted for his help.” She paused. “Bennath seemed inclined to think Lady Trengrouse had struck your father, but apparently her brother assured their mother it was an apoplexy. He heard the doctor say so.”

An image of his father the last time he’d seen him, over a year ago, across the crowded Assembly rooms in Truro, leapt into Jack’s mind. Many said that Jack resembled him as a young man, but that had been a long time ago and time had not been kind to Sir Austin Trengrouse. Now in his fifties, good living and lack of exercise had crept up on him, making him corpulent and slow, and his once abundant dark hair had turned to gray and thinned. Drink had left its mark across his face in a myriad of small broken blood vessels. He had not looked a well man.

That out-of-character visit to the Assembly Rooms at the persuasion of his mother had also presented Jack with one of his few opportunities to observe his half-sisters. He knew of them, of course, but that night had been the closest he’d ever got to them. The oldest, Horatia, a girl who closely resembled the harridan who’d driven Jack from her home when he was a boy, and who was married to a banker from Truro, had been there with her husband. The second, Honoria, who also resembled her mother, had been about to announce her engagement to a minor aristocrat from Devon. Only the youngest, Lavinia, had looked anything like Jack and their father. Rather a pretty girl but with a discontented expression on her face as though outings to the Assembly Rooms were beneath her. Needless to say, Jack had not had the opportunity to ask her why and had deliberately kept away from that particular part of the Assembly Rooms for the remainder of the evening.

His mother, however, had seen him staring at the little family group. “Lady Trengrouse grows no more attractive with age,” she murmured behind her fan. “I swear she more and more resembles the pig Mrs. Pike is fattening with the kitchen scraps.”

Which had made Jack laugh, and softened the blow of seeing his father out en famille with the girls who had taken his place.

He gathered his thoughts on the present predicament. “They will have sent for the best of doctors, I’m sure. And servants always exaggerate.”

His mother shook her head, fresh tears falling. “I fear not, on this occasion. Bennath was quite sure her brother had heard the doctor say it was ‘a matter of time’ and ‘nothing can be done.’ She had the words off pat. They’re not words a child of twelve makes up, at least, not a blacksmith’s daughter with no education.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps my father is truly dying. If so, what do you expect me to do?”

She tightened her clutch on his hand, her eyes beseeching. “Jack, my darling. Remember how he used to bounce you on his knee and brought you Scout for your birthday the year you were five. You loved that dog. He went everywhere with you. It wasn’t your father’s fault we couldn’t live together…” Her voice trailed off as her brow furrowed. What was she thinking? “It was his father’s iron rule.”

Jack frowned back at her. “He brought me Scout because his wife had just presented him with a child. My sister Horatia. His legitimate child. It was to make up for that. To assuage his conscience.”

“But it showed how much he loved you.”

Jack shook his head. “No. If he loved me, he would have married you and made me his legitimate son. He would have stood up to his father and refused to marry where he was told. He was a coward.”

Fresh tears sprang into his mother’s eyes. “He was just a boy, Jack. You know he was. Far younger than you are now. I’ve told you often enough. He loved me dearly but I wasn’t his social equal. My father was a tenant farmer… Austin’s father was a baronet. There could never have been any match for us. Not in the eyes of society.”

“No, mother, you delude yourself. You only have to look at your friend, Lady Ormonde. She came from a family of smugglers, no less, and yet Thomas Carlyon didn’t make her his mistress—he married her.”

“That was different. Thomas was not the heir then. His father and his older brother still lived. He could marry where he wished.”

The impulse to give her a sound shaking had to be controlled. “Nonsense. His older brother had already been consigned to the colonies, doing God knows what and most unlikely ever to produce an heir of his own, from what I’ve heard. The old viscount knew Thomas and his children would inherit. Thomas just had more backbone than my father ever did. He married the girl he loved and be damned.”

Her voice dropped. “Do you want so much to be his heir?”

Did he? He shook his head. “I have never wanted to be his heir, Mother. All I’ve ever wanted is to be recognized as his son.”

She seized on that. “Oh, but he did recognize you. Why do you think he visited us so often and settled Rosudgeon on you? Because he still loved us both.” She paused. “Better by far than that woman who looks like a pig. And she’s only ever given him daughters. I gave him the son he wanted.”

“He visited you so often because it suited him to have a mistress on his doorstep. It saved him having to ride to Penzance and find one.”

She pulled her hand free and slapped him hard. “Don’t speak of him that way. I was never just his mistress. I was—” She stopped abruptly.

“You were what?”

“Nothing. I misspoke.”

Jack eyed her with suspicion. That something had gone unsaid was obvious.

She gave herself a little shake. “I cannot go to Trengrouse, Jack. That pig-woman would relish having her servants throw me out of the house. But you can go. She can’t throw you out. I implore you to. You have to see him before he dies.”

“She’d relish throwing me out too, you know.”

His mother shook her head. “No. She won’t. He’d never let her.”

“You’re very confident of that.”

She bit her lip. “I have reason to be. Your father left a letter for you. I was to give it to you in the event of his death, or his expected death if possible. He wrote it shortly after the birth of your sister Lavinia, when he said he didn’t think he would ever get a son from Lady Letitia.” She paused. “The pig-woman.”

Jack couldn’t help a smile. “Mother, you keep calling her that, and it’s most unlike you to insult anyone in that way.”

His mother frowned up at him, tears streaking her cheeks. “Because she is a pig woman.”

“You’ve never called her that before.”

She snorted. “I’ve thought it often enough. Now, wait while I fetch out your father’s letter.”

“You have it on you?”

She reached for her reticule. “Safe here.” She loosened the cords and withdrew a folded piece of paper sealed with a blob of red sealing wax. “You will see I’ve not read it. It is addressed to you alone.”

“And he wanted you to wait until now to give it to me?” Did he even want to read it? “Do you know what’s in it?”

“No.” She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress, avoiding his eyes. Did she know more than she was letting on? “I didn’t ask. He said it was for you and it would explain everything.” She held out the letter. “It’s for you.”

Jack looked down at the spidery writing of his name on the letter and the indentation of his father’s signet ring—a dolphin arching across waves. A ring he’d envied as a small boy and wished to have a similar one of his own. His father always wore it.

Did he want to hear his father’s excuses for the way Jack had been brought up, nearly fatherless? Yes, he’d had material possessions, but he’d lived for the days of his father’s visits, which had never come frequently enough. To have that tall, jovial man swing him above his head or tickle him, to play with his puppy, Scout, to set him on the pommel of his saddle and gallop with him along the beach at Morgelyn: all of these things he’d longed for with passion and hope. Only to see his father at church with his humorless wife and three little girls in the family pew, whilst he and his mother sat in the far corner out of sight and mind.

“I hope,” his mother said, “that when you’ve read it, you will understand him better and wish to go to his bedside. I know he would want you there. And she will not be able to turn you away. I swear it.”

That was what his mother thought. Jack had a different opinion.

He broke the seal and unfolded the letter. His fathers scrawl covered the sheet from top to bottom in close packed lines, a little faded with age. It must be all of nearly twenty years old.

He began to read.

My dear Jack, my beloved boy,

If you are reading this then I am either dying or already dead. I ask that if I still cling onto life then you might come to my bedside that I might bless you with my dying breath, for I have wronged you and your mother.

Jack looked up and met his mother’s eyes. Did she really not know the contents of the letter? He bent his head to continue reading.

I was twenty when I met your mother, and she seventeen, the most beautiful creature I’d ever set my eyes on. You will know that she was the daughter of one of my father’s better-off tenant farmers, but what you will not know is that he had ambitions for her and she was well-educated and clever as well as beautiful. How could I not have fallen in love with her? And in return, to my amazement, she fell in love with me. I felt I was the luckiest man alive.

Jack had a sudden feeling of voyeurism at reading his father’s inner thoughts about his mother. He hesitated, glancing up again at her, but she gave him a nod and he lowered his gaze and continued to read.

I told my father, your grandfather, Sir Montague Trengrouse, that I wished to marry your mother. He was so furious he forbade me to ever see her again. I was beside myself, but he sent me off to London to work in the import business he was a partner in, and refused to allow me back into Cornwall for a whole year. Your mother and I swore to remain true to one another while I was gone. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my father evicted your mother’s family from the farm they’d tenanted for centuries, as far back as our family had held Trengrouse. In London, I knew nothing of their fate.

This was information Jack had never heard before. His mother must have known it, but kept it from him. It had never occurred to him to enquire about her family, and he’d just accepted their absence from her life. Perhaps they lived yet, but elsewhere.

When I was at last allowed to return to Trengrouse, and had passed my twenty-first birthday, I fully intended to find your mother and her family and marry her, but my father forestalled me with threats and bullying that I couldn’t resist. However, I don’t believe he knew what had become of them after he’d evicted them from their farm, and he put me to work in the offices of Wheal Lucky. You will know its ruins, although it’s been shut for some years now as I write this letter to you.

Jack did indeed know the ruins of Wheal Lucky, a tin mine that had been unlucky for many, standing just a short way inland from Trengrouse, on the far side of the Penzance road.

Your mother was working there as a balmaiden.

This brought Jack’s head up with a jerk. His mother had been working at the surface of a mine? She’d been a lowly balmaiden, working for pennies? Breaking up the ore the miners were bringing to the surface? Jack’s mouth fell open. “Mother. You never said. You once worked in a mine?”

She bowed her head. “He told you? It’s not something I’m proud of, although in a way I am. I’m proud I could work like my father and brother to bring money in, but not of how low I had to sink to do so.”

“What happened to your father and brother? Where are they now?”

Her chin shook. “They’re still in Wheal Lucky, with the other men caught in the roof fall. The fall that caused the closure of the mine.” She heaved a sigh. “Keep reading.”

He tore his eyes away from her back to the letter in his hand.

After the mine disaster that took your grandfather and uncle and left your mother alone in the world, I determined to keep her safe. I had my allowance which permitted me to set her up in a small house in Penzance and visit her whenever I was there on my father’s business. We loved each other and your mother was a virtuous young woman. She was never my mistress. I obtained a Common License from the Bishop of Truro and she and I were married in secret. She has and always will be my dearly beloved wife.

What?

Had he really just read that? His father and mother had been, possibly still were, if his father still lived, man and wife? He wasn’t illegitimate after all? No by-blow bastard-born, but a legitimate son of Sir Austin Trengrouse. A mixture of emotions churned through his head, foremost the pressing question of why his father had always treated him as a dark secret when he could have acknowledge him in public as his son. He glared at his mother. “You knew? All this time you knew? That I’m no bastard? That you’re his wife? And yet you stood by and let him marry someone else—bigamously?”

She met his angry gaze. “He’s told you, I see, but you don’t fully understand. You must read on and let him speak.”

Jack had almost crumpled the letter into a ball and thrown it into the hearth where a fire burned, but a mix of common sense and open curiosity kept him from doing so. He read on.

But I dared not reveal this to my father. He was old and ill, and I thought that once he was gone, I could bring your mother to Trengrouse and she would be my wife in name as well as fact. But my father knew his end was coming soon, and, before he went, he determined to see me well married—a marriage that would increase the land holdings of Trengrouses for generations to come. I could not fight him for fear of his health and my mother’s fury. I was forced, very much against my will and in full knowledge that I was committing the foulest of sins, to marry Miss Letitia Egerton, the only child of Mr. Zachariah Egerton, a man of considerable means.

So, his spineless father had spurned his true love, ignored his marriage vows, and married bigamously for money. What further depths could this man sink to, blaming his own father for them at every turn? Jack read on, his anger growing.

I had no sooner married Miss Egerton than my father died, leaving me as the new baronet. I did not dare repudiate Miss Egerton, for now, if my crime came to light, I would be either branded, or worse, transported to the colonies. And my poor Lady Trengrouse was quite innocent in this deed and already about to present me with an heir I would be forced to pass off as legitimate. I persuaded your mother to remain silent, for love of me, and installed her in Rosudgeon without my wife’s knowledge. Things never came by halves for me, though, and your mother informed me that she, too, was about to produce a child—my true heir. I have never been so conflicted as I awaited the birth of these two babies. And when Lady Trengrouse’s son was born dead, I recognized it as punishment for my sins. You, however, were born alive and kicking and screaming loud enough to wake the dead. A true Trengrouse, although your mother had taken her own mother’s maiden name of Trevelyan. You, my darling Jack, are Jack Trengrouse, not Jack Trevelyan.

Jack let the letter slip to his lap. “Why did you let him do this? Why did you let the world think you his mistress?”

She shook her head. “Because I love him, Jack. I loved him then and I love him now.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “How could I have betrayed him by telling the world he was a bigamist? What good would it have done? He would have been sent to Botany Bay and I would have been more alone than ever. At least I had him from time to time, when he could get away from Trengrouse Castle.”

“But effectively he prevented you from living a fulfilling life as someone else’s husband. You could have married and had other children. Just lived .”

“You think that my life was not fulfilling? You can say that, when I have loved you with all my heart and gloried every day in how closely you resemble your father?”

Unconvinced, he lifted the letter again.

And now I’m writing this in order to give it to you when I’m either dead already, or about to die. For I must do right by you, and you are my true heir. You will be Sir Jack Trengrouse after me, and Trengrouse Castle will be yours, for Lady Trengrouse and I will have no sons. But I pray that you will be gentle with your stepmother and sisters. She is not the guilty one here and nor are my daughters. I am. I have treated your mother badly, but I’ve also treated Letitia despicably. She knows nothing of this, and it will be a terrible shock to her to discover her marriage was a sham. Break it to her as gently as you can. Please. And remember, Jack, that I have always loved you, and it has broken my heart not to see you as often as I would have liked to. You are my boy, and you always will be.

Austin Trengrouse, Bt.

Jack looked up at his mother to find her earnest gaze fixed on him. She licked her lips. “You will go to him?”

He nodded. “I will go.”