High Tide At Midnight. Sara Craven

Morwenna climbed off the sofa and walked across the room to study the pictures more closely. Of all her mother’s work, these seemed more deeply imbued with the almost mystical, fey element which characterised it than any others. When she was small, Morwenna had gazed at the big, dark house on the cliff top with its twin turrets and tall, twisted chimneys and set her young imaginings of Camelot, of Tristan and Iseult among those sombre stones. Laura had laughed indulgently at such fancies, although at the same time she had pointed out that Trevennon owed more to the tin-miners than it did to any fabled knights and ladies.

      Morwenna knew that the rugged coast nearby was littered with the remains of the mine-workings, and the ruined buildings and chimneys stood now only as the landmarks of a vanished prosperity. Trevennon, her mother had said, had been founded on that prosperity, but Laura had never given any hint as to what it owed its present subsistence.

      In fact, when she looked, back, Morwenna realised that her mother had said very little about her life in Cornwall. But she had been happy there, or that was the impression Morwenna had always received. Besides, her own name was a Cornish one, and her mother would hardly have chosen it if it had revived any unhappy memories, although at the same time she was aware that her father had not approved the choice. ‘Pure romanticism’, he had called it, but with an edge to his voice rather than the indulgent note with which he usually greeted his wife’s whims. And he had used the same phrase, Morwenna remembered, when he had looked at the Trevennon group—the house on the cliff-top, the deserted Wheal Vaisey mine, the tiny harbour village of Port Vennor, and the cramped beach of Spanish Cove with the dark rocks standing up like granite sentinels against the swell of the tide.

      ‘Why do you say that?’ As if it were yesterday, Morwenna recalled the lift of her mother’s chin. ‘I wasn’t just painting a place. I was painting my youth, and all I knew then was peace, security and love.’ She had risen from the sofa and walked over to her husband, sliding her arm through his and resting her cheek against his sleeve. ‘I don’t doubt that you’re right, but leave me my illusions.’

      ‘Peace, security and love.’ As the words came back to her, Morwenna felt herself shiver. They were like an epitaph for her own hopes, she thought unhappily. Then she stiffened. A purposeful step was coming along the passage outside, and she turned to face the door as it opened. Lady Kerslake came in.

      ‘Oh, there you are, Morwenna. I’ve been looking all over the house for you,’ she said rather pettishly. ‘I was wondering whether you intended being in for lunch.’ She hesitated, then went on, ‘You see, Guy has just phoned to say that he’s coming down and bringing a friend with him and we thought….’ She let the words drift into silence and gave Morwenna a significant look.

      Morwenna bit her lip. So Guy was bringing his latest fancy down to lunch, and his mother was checking to see that their inconvenient house-guest would accept the situation without showing that she cared, or making any kind of scene. Her temper rose slowly.

      ‘How nice,’ she said with assumed indifference. ‘But if my presence is going to cause any embarrassment I can easily pick up a snack at the Red Lion.’

      ‘Oh, my dear!’ Lady Kerslake’s lips parted in a smile of total insincerity. ‘As if we would expect you to do any such thing! What a silly girl you are, sometimes. Not, of course, that we would wish to interfere if you had made any plans. After all, you’re a grown woman now, and you have a life of your own to lead. It’s perfectly natural that you should want to be independent, and we don’t want to interfere, or feel that we’re holding you back in any way.’ She paused again, invitingly, as if waiting for Morwenna to confide in her. Her tone had been all interest and motherly concern, but Morwenna knew she would not have been deceived for an instant, even if she had not overheard that brief conversation in the drawing room. Cousin Patricia’s whole tone and attitude was hinting broadly that she had outstayed her welcome, and that they were waiting to hear what plans she had made to shift herself.

      The humiliation of having to admit that she had no plans, and that even her embryo career as an artist had died an undistinguished death, was suddenly too much to bear. A germ of inspiration lodged in her brain, and before she could reason with herself or question the wisdom of what she was about to do, she spoke.

      ‘You really don’t have to bother about me any more, Cousin Patricia. I’d intended to tell you over lunch that I’m going away. I—I’ve been invited to stay at Trevennon—with my mother’s people—until I go to Carcassonne in the spring. The letter came this morning. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me. Cornwall’s a marvellous place for painters. My mother used to say that she got all the inspiration for her best work from her time at Trevennon,’ she ended, rushing her words nervously, as the thought occurred to her that Cousin Patricia might demand to see this mysterious invitation.

      Lady Kerslake’s eyes rested wonderingly on the group of paintings over Morwenna’s shoulder, then came back to search her face rather frowningly. ‘Your mother had relatives in Cornwall? I wasn’t aware….’

      ‘Very distant relatives,’ Morwenna broke in. ‘Cousins heaven only knows how many times removed.’ Wildly she searched her memory for names that would add weight to her story. ‘It—it was Uncle Dominic who wrote to me.’ That was the name her mother had mentioned most of all. Dominic Trevennon who had taught the city-born girl to climb barefoot over the rocks, to row a boat, to fish, to lift the lobster pots and relieve them of their snapping contents. It had been Dominic too who had told her the legends that Morwenna remembered as bedtime stories. Tales of the ‘knackers’, the small malevolent spirits who inhabited the tin mines, whose tapping hammers presaged disasters, such as flooding or earthfalls. Tales of the galleon which had foundered off Spanish Cove during the storms that pursued the ill-fated Armada, and the gold it had carried, still to be found, Laura had said, among the sand of the cove by anyone reckless enough to climb down the cliff to search there and risk being cut off by the racing tide. And Morwenna had lain there round-eyed among the comfort of the blankets, hearing the screech of gulls and feeling the sand gritty under her bare toes as she delved among the shifting grains for the doubloons.

      ‘It all seems very sudden,’ Lady Kerslake was saying, her lips drawn into a thin line. ‘But I suppose you know what you’re doing. Have you met any of these—er—cousins before?’

      ‘No, but I feel I know them. My mother told me so much about them.’ Morwenna, guiltily conscious just how far this was from the truth, surreptitiously crossed her fingers in her jacket pockets.

      ‘Well, it’s very kind of them to offer you a home, under the circumstances,’ Lady Kerslake said sourly. ‘I do hope you won’t take advantage of their generosity, Morwenna. You can’t expect to be a burden on other people all your life, you know. But if it’s only until the spring, I don’t suppose it will matter too much.’ She gave a brisk nod. ‘Now, what about lunch?’

      ‘Oh, don’t bother about me.’ Morwenna’s nails dug deep into the palms of her hands. ‘I think I’ll go and see about my packing.’ Another meal in this house, she thought, would choke me.

      ‘As you wish,’ Lady Kerslake concurred, not troubling to hide her relief at the way the situation seemed to be resolving itself. She turned towards the door, then hesitated as if a thought had occurred to her. ‘If there are any of your mother’s paintings, Morwenna, that you would care to take with you, I hope you won’t hesitate to do so. Geoffrey and I were talking last night, and we agreed it would only be fair that you should have some keepsake of her, although there is no actual legal entitlement. I’m not suggesting, of course, that you should take any of the better-known canvases hanging downstairs, but if you want any of the pictures in this room you may have them. I don’t think they can be regarded as her best work by any means, but naturally they will be of sentimental value to you.’

      If she had expected a show of delight, she was disappointed. Morwenna’s face was impassive and her few words of thanks merely polite. Lady Kerslake went away to arrange her lunch party reflecting that the girl was probably put out because she had not been allowed to take her pick of the more valuable paintings.

      As soon as she could be sure that she