Chapter Fifty-One
The day after the local newspaper’s front-page story, several people popped into the museum to congratulate Evelyn.
Arnold from The Lugger gruffly told her she was ‘doing a great job’ and Alison’s dad, Keith, came in to say she’d ‘done Portheast proud’.
But towards the end of the day Evelyn had two unexpected visitors – and neither had come about the Horizons exhibition.
The first appeared late in the afternoon, just as the chatter from the café next door was beginning to die down.
When Evelyn heard the scrabble of dog claws, she assumed it was Leonard, who was looking after Max the puppy almost full-time now.
But she looked up to see old Mrs Moran and her three dachshunds fast advancing on her desk.
‘I’ve come to apologise.’ Mrs Moran’s face was scrunched up, as if the words pained her.
‘Oh?’ Evelyn’s curiosity was piqued.
‘I talked to Bob, or rather he talked to me. He told me about you and Cora-May. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘I have nothing to be ashamed of,’ Evelyn said, sitting up a little straighter.
‘Thing is’ – she took a deep breath – ‘I knew about you being born in St Agnes and I should have told you earlier.’
‘Well, you would have saved me a lot of bother,’ she said quietly.
Mrs Moran sank down onto a small milking stool, her bulky bottom spreading over its circumference.
‘Force of habit, I suppose. Me, my parents, my sister, we learned it was best to keep quiet about certain things. My dad worked up at Warburn Hall, you see. Any gossip and he’d have lost his job.
Then, time passed – you seemed a happy enough child.
You went away for a bit, didn’t you? Then, you were back, just getting on with your life.
You lost your mother, Elsbeth. But you seemed to cope.
Kept busy here; doing your thing on the beach .
. .’ Mrs Moran gestured in that direction. ‘Why would I want to upset you?’
‘To tell me the truth?’ Evelyn suggested.
‘I came close, believe me. Especially once Mr Silver, rest his soul, was gone. But then I noticed that the young ’un, that Jacob Warburn, was back in town and, as I say, old habits die hard.
’ She shook her head. ‘“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Especially when it’s a Warburn” – that’s what Dad told us. ’
Evelyn had never been fond of Mrs Moran.
She saw her as a mean-spirited woman and it was telling that her own children rarely visited.
Left alone, she’d made herself feel important by being the town gossip, hoarding information and meting out scraps when she saw fit.
But now Evelyn started to understand that more lay behind her decades of silence: a misplaced loyalty to the Warburn family who had expected discretion from their staff, including their families.
Damping down her anger, she asked, ‘Did you know Cora-May?’
‘We weren’t good friends, but we were at school together.
’ Mrs Moran’s chin shrank into a tight nugget, as if she was trying not to cry.
‘Then she went straight into service and I didn’t see much of her after that.
But up at the Hall, my dad saw her. He heard things, about what happened. ’ She blew her nose.
Evelyn didn’t want this woman’s crocodile tears, she wanted information. ‘What was she like?’ she pressed.
‘Oh, at school she liked to laugh and have fun. She liked animals, I remember that. Cried buckets when her dad killed the chickens. Then, in spring, she refused to eat even the smallest morsel of lamb. Said she’d rather go hungry.’
Evelyn felt a squeeze around her heart.
‘Thing is, I got to know your mum Elsbeth, too. So that was another reason why I didn’t want to go upsetting things. It wasn’t my secret to tell.’
Evelyn remained quiet, waiting for more.
‘I used to see Elsbeth up near the cliff path,’ Mrs Moran continued.
‘I was a mum myself by then and after dropping the kids at school I’d take the dog up there.
It was my escape, just for half an hour, and that’s where I’d see her.
Painting or just looking out to sea. She’d show me her work if I asked, but shyly, like she didn’t realise how good she was. ’
‘She was very talented,’ Evelyn agreed.
‘She was a nice woman, kind to me. But always guarded, like there were things she was keeping inside.’
It felt to Evelyn as if her mother had spent too much of her short life trying to hide things: like why she’d given up her education and future career to move to a small harbour town in Cornwall, where, overnight, she’d become a mother.
Was she simply in thrall to Edwin Silver?
Even if she did some digging, Evelyn sensed this was something she’d never know.
Her mother had always felt unreachable and seemed destined to remain so.
‘There was a point when I thought Elsbeth was going to tell you herself,’ Mrs Moran said in a rush.
‘It was a few years after you came back from London and I met her on the clifftop. We chatted for a bit, she asked after my kids and then she went ever so quiet. Said she was thinking of setting the record straight with you. She needed to ask your dad’s permission, but I got the sense she’d made up her mind. ’
‘When would this have been?’ Evelyn asked hesitantly.
‘Oh, my Sandra had started nursing in Cardiff, so I’d say . . .’ Mrs Moran looked up at the dark rafters. ‘About 1992?’
That would have made Evelyn twenty-eight and, strangely enough, she had sensed a shift in her mother’s mood around then.
With the museum established, her father was away for long stretches, meaning she and her mother had talked more, even discussing Evelyn studying for a Master’s.
‘But not another correspondence course. You could go somewhere with young people and lectures and student halls and fun nights out and, oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful?
’ Her mother’s eyes were ablaze. ‘Evelyn, there’s a whole world out there. ’
At the time, Evelyn had put Elsbeth’s restless outbursts down to ‘the time of life’, because she was forever throwing open windows to let in the cold air and tugging at the collar of her blouse, as if unable to breathe.
It was only a few months later that Elsbeth Silver fell to her knees in a patch of sea-thrift and took her last breath, with only Edwin Silver there to comfort her.
A coldness spread through Evelyn, like a dark cloud blocking out the sun, as she wondered what might have been discussed between her parents before her mother took her last walk among the clifftop grasses.
Oblivious, Mrs Moran passed her an envelope. ‘Anyway, this is for you.’
Numbly, she opened the envelope and drew out an old photograph, a school line-up of girls in drab tunics, all looking serious.
Mrs Moran leaned in and Evelyn could smell the woman’s breath, sour as old milk.
‘That’s her,’ Mrs Moran said, pointing to a girl in the back row.
‘And that’s me.’ Her finger moved to the other end of the row. ‘We were thirteen.’
Evelyn had seen Bob’s photographs of Cora-May as a wife and mother, but this was her before she’d set eyes on Jasper Warburn.
Evelyn held the photograph a little closer.
She saw a tall girl with a fine nose and dark eyes and you could tell from the shape of her lips that she was trying very hard not to smile.
‘Lovely,’ Evelyn said, her throat tightening. ‘Thank you.’
Mrs Moran stood and the milking stool wobbled then righted itself. ‘Elsbeth Silver was your mother. But Cora-May, well. As you can see, she’s the spit of you.’
After she’d left, Evelyn put the photograph away.
She would share it with Bob, but not the rest of Portheast. Sometimes, it was important to keep parts of yourself back, she thought.
Not everything was for sharing, not even the dark suspicions that were forming in her mind about Edwin Silver and the final lengths he might have gone to, to secure his world.
When the final visitor of the day appeared, it was a relief, because Evelyn had been left with her thoughts for too long.
It was just before closing time when she heard a timid knock and looked up to see a stranger: a woman who had an evangelical look about her, dressed in light blue with tan tights and sensible shoes.
At her neck hung a small crucifix and her hair was fixed in a neat bun.
‘Are you still open?’ the woman asked.
‘I can be,’ Evelyn replied.
‘I saw the newspaper article,’ the woman said. ‘About your museum.’
‘Ah, well the exhibition doesn’t open until Saturday, but you’re welcome to come then. There will be lots to see, plus some very good cakes and tea or soft drinks.’ She had learned her lesson twice over, that alcohol and museum artefacts were not a good mix.
‘Actually, it’s not about the show. I thought it was high time I came to say thank you.’
Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief: this sort of visitor was always welcome.
‘You found something that was very precious to me.’ The woman came closer. ‘It might not seem important, but it was a reminder of a special day and I never thought I’d see it again.’
‘What was it?’
‘A cracked china cup.’ The woman let out an embarrassed laugh. ‘It sounds silly, doesn’t it?’
Evelyn shook her head. ‘Not at all. Some objects mean the world to us.’
‘I think you found it in a jumble sale.’
‘Yes, in Roche, about six years ago?’
‘That’s the one.’
Evelyn felt a final piece of the jigsaw slot into place. ‘I’m curious, though, how did that pretty cup end up there?’
‘I’d recently moved back to Cornwall, you see, and I was flatsharing with another teacher called Anya, who was organising the school jumble sale.
I was away for the weekend when she did a sweep through our flat for the bric-a-brac stall.
“Help yourself to anything old or broken,” I’d said, so she took a free Sports Direct mug and that little teacup. ’
‘You must have been so upset.’
‘Oh, I was. Funny thing was, the Sports Direct mug turned up again on Monday morning: the headteacher said it was perfect for his morning brew. I asked everyone, but that little cup seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Until a few months ago, when my sister saw it on a poster.’
Evelyn smiled and thanked the woman. Then she said, ‘Will you come back on Saturday, for the opening?’
The woman didn’t answer.
Evelyn added, ‘She’ll be here.’
‘She?’
‘Sariah.’
‘Ah.’ The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘I suppose I should have guessed there are no secrets in a place like this.’
‘Oh, I’d say there are plenty,’ Evelyn replied. ‘It’s just that this museum seems to bring them to the surface.’
Before Rose left, Evelyn said she’d like to show her something and led her towards the Miscellanea cabinet.
‘Found attached to a baby’s blanket with a safety pin (now rusted),’ Rose read aloud. ‘Gosh, that’s very sad.’
‘It is. But there’s an update, so I’ll need to change the label,’ Evelyn said.
‘Does the story have a happy ending?’ Rose asked.
Evelyn thought for a moment. ‘Certainly happier,’ she said finally. ‘I was too late to meet my own birth mother, but in trying to find her I’ve met so many other good people, including your Sariah. She’s been a good friend and you should be proud of her.’
Rose’s reply was barely audible. ‘I am.’
‘So come. On Saturday.’
Rose didn’t reply. Instead, she pointed at the lace. ‘Yours, then?’ and Evelyn nodded.
‘I lost myself for a while, after I had her,’ Rose said, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I was so young and as soon as I could I left home. I wanted to leave that person behind.’
‘We all lose ourselves at one point or another,’ Evelyn said, only just realising the truth in her words. ‘I was lost for years; my whole life, really.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Rose touched her gold chain.
‘That’s OK. I think I’m finding my way home now. What’s that saying? Home isn’t a place, it’s the people. And the funny thing is, they were here all along.’