Page 28 of The Cornish Bride

His brow furrowed. “I don’t read, Miss.”

Footsteps sounded in the grand hall. Pressed for time, she leaned forward. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of not-so-clean boy. “Captain Oliver Featherstone, at the Castle Inn. Can you remember that?”

“Cap’n Featherstone. I got it. Mum’s the word, Miss.” He slipped coins and letter into a pocket in his faded jacket.

Ysella turned away from him to head for the breakfast room and nearly bumped into Kit coming out of the hall. Still angry with him, she flashed him a dark look and swirled past. Food was what she needed next.

Mama was in the breakfast room sipping a cup of coffee.

Flushed with success, Ysella bounced over to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning, Mama.”

“You seem in a good mood,” Mama remarked, pouring herself more coffee from the silver coffee pot. “Would you like coffee?”

Ysella helped herself to a plate of kedgeree and sat down beside her mother, who poured her a cup of coffee. The kedgeree was mildly spiced just as Ysella liked it. She ate in silence for a short while, thinking.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

Ysella frowned a little. “When Morvoren was ill, I went to the library and found the family Bible. Derwa once told me about…” Here she hesitated, uncharacteristically wondering if she was being intrusive, but she’d committed herself now and had to continue. “That between Kit and me you’d had… other children. Ones I don’t know.”

Mama set down her coffee cup and turned to face Ysella. At least she didn’t look angry. “So you went to look for them in the family Bible?”

Ysella nodded.

“And did you find them?”

Ysella nodded again.

“And I suppose you want to know what happened to them?”

Ysella bit her lip. “Well… if you don’t want to talk about them, don’t. But when I found their names in there, with Morvoren being so ill, I promised myself that I’d try to bring them back to life by asking you about them if she got better. And she did. I’ve been waiting for a moment when I could ask you.” She hesitated. “But not if you don’t want to talk about them.”

Mama frowned for a moment as though considering Ysella’s request. “No. You’re right. I’ve not spoken of any of them since they died. Not even with your father. Saying their names out loud and acknowledging their existence won’t make them live again, but it will make them live in my memories. Your sisters remember them, I imagine, but I doubt Kit does. He was such a boy, things like that went over his head.”

“What happened to them?” Ysella asked, forgetting her plate of food. All she wanted now was to hear the story of the brothers and sisters she’d never had the chance to meet. They were a family of four children, but they should have been nine.

Mama inhaled deeply. “My boy Corentyn was born in 1786, when Kit was only two. Your Papa was over the moon to have a second son, but Corentyn didn’t thrive. We never found out what ailed him. Not even Doctor Busick knew. He died in his sleep at three months old.”

“You must have been very sad.”

Mama nodded. “The pain of losing a child never really leaves you.” She pressed her hands to her heart. “It still hurts, right here, but don’t worry. I want to tell you about them.” She smiled. “Two years after we lost Corentyn another son came along—Gryffyn, we called him. Like Corentyn, he failed to thrive. At least that was what Doctor Busick put as cause of death. He died within ten days of his birth. As did Elowen, the girl born the following year. Your Papa and I began to think we’d been cursed. There seemed no reason that after three healthy children the next three could be so sickly. I began to worry for the children I already had, to think any of them might die at any moment.”

Mama’s eyes had taken on a faraway look as perhaps she pictured in her mind’s eye those children she’d known so briefly. She shook her head. “After Elowen came Melyonen, a girl every bit as pretty as you and your sisters. She lived a little longer, but when Kit and the girls caught scarlet fever, she was too little to fight it off.” She smiled, her eyes full of sadness. “She’d be two years older than you, had she survived.”

What would it have been like to have had a sister that close to her in age?

“And Peran?”

“Ah yes, little Peran. My tiny, dark-haired Peran. That’s what his name means, in the Cornish of my youth. Little dark one. He was born six weeks too early and lived only a day, but he still lives in my heart.”

Ysella swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Where are they buried?”

“In the churchyard near your dear Papa’s grave. A sad little row. When you came along, so healthy and robust, we didn’t dare believe you might live. But you were always a fighter, Ysella, with a strong grip on life. Not like my five lost ones.”

Ysella covered her mother’s hand with her own. “Thank you for telling me, Mama. I’m glad I know now. I can remember them as well, even if I only know their names.”

Mama smiled. “You can be such a sweet, thoughtful girl when you try, my dear. I’m lucky to have you.”