The pool of St Branok

I remembered him. An unkempt old man who always seemed to be collecting the wood or beachcombing. I had always felt there was something uncanny about him. He glared at all who came near his cottage as though he feared they would take something from him. Jenny, his daughter, was what they called in these parts "piskymazed."

"I was going to tell you about Jenny," went on my mother. "She was always a little strange, remember ... going round talking to herself ... singing, too. If you spoke to her she'd look scared and turn away. Well, she went very strange after her father died. She lived on in the cottage. Your father said we should just leave her alone. She was harmless. She kept her place clean. She always had and after her father died it was quite sparkling. She does a little work at the farms when they want extra help. She'll give a hand at anything. There was nothing wrong with anything she did. It was just that she was a little strange. Well, what do you think? She had a baby."

"She married?"

"Oh no. Nobody knows who the father was. There was a man who came to do hedging and helped the farmers. He was one of those itinerant laborers ... so useful at haymaking and harvest and planting and so on. He used to talk to her and she didn't seem to be scared of him. We think it must have been this man. Well, he went off and later she had the baby. Born about the same time as Rebecca. We all wondered what would happen, but we need not have done. It changed her completely. It brought her back to normality. No mother could have cared more for a child than she did hers. The change is miraculous. Did you see her cottage when you went to the pool?"

"I ... I don't go down there very much."

"You might see her about the town ... always with the baby."

"I'm glad she's happy," I said. "What was the verdict of the town? I can guess Mrs. Fenny's."

My mother laughed. "Sitting on the Seat of Judgment, of course. Well, that's her way. And it doesn't make much difference to Jenny."

I could understand how Jenny's life had changed. I had my own child.

The summer passed; it was autumn. Christmas came. The Pencarrons spent it with us.

My parents tried to make it a very special Christmas because I was back and there was now a new member of the family and it would be the first Christmas she was really aware of.

She was nearly two years old now. I could hardly believe it was so long since I had seen Ben. I still thought of him constantly. In fact, more than ever. There had been the excitement of coming home and being reunited with my family; and now that I had settled into this routine, memory was more acute. I had judged him harshly. He was ambitious. I had always known that. He wanted money and power. It was a very common masculine trait. He had to win. My refusal of him must have been the first real defeat he had ever suffered. I could see it all so clearly now. He was determined to fail in nothing else. His search for gold would be successful for he had already found it on another man's land. And because of Lizzie that land was not out of reach. I could understand it all so well. I knew that I could never be really happy without him. I should always be haunted by the thought of what I had missed. I accepted what he had done for when one loved one loved for weakness as well as strength. I tried to throw myself into the Christmas spirit.

Rebecca was talking now. She called herself Becca and everyone took up the name.

It was touching to see her eyes alight with wonder when the Yule log was brought in and the house decorated with holly, box and bay. Red-faced and flustered, Mrs. Penlock was busy in the kitchen. Rebecca was a special favorite with her and the child seized every opportunity of going down to the kitchen. I did not encourage this because Mrs. Penlock could never resist popping things into Rebecca's mouth for she had a conviction that what everyone needed was "feeding up."

My mother and I decorated the Christmas tree with the fairy doll on top which was to be Rebecca's and the jester in cap and bells beside her which was for Pedrek.

We still made the Christmas Bush, which had been part of the decorations before the coming of the tree. It was two wooden hoops fastened to each other at right angles and the frame was covered in evergreens and apples. It was hung up and any pair of the opposite sex meeting under it were allowed to kiss. We had mistletoe as well as the Kissing Bush in the kitchen, which I believe gave great delight to them all, and the stable men often came in to try to catch the young maids, while Mrs. Penlock looked on, purring and not objecting to a kiss for her own august self, because of the time of the year, she said.