Jenefer

Caleb and I have decided to have our own picnic at Anlaby. Actually, I invited him. It’s interesting, Caleb has never been there before and yet he’s lived in the area almost all his life. As soon as I read Gweniver’s account, I had to see it for myself. I’ve managed to get my ‘L’s at last and I pull up at the gate with a bit of a roar and a lurch. I think I took my foot off one of the pedals before the other. Caleb’s controlling himself, which is impressive considering he has responsibility for the ute. Dad wouldn’t have controlled himself like that. He took me out on the main road in the twin cab last Sunday. It was awful. He didn’t explain anything properly for a start and then expected me to know what to do. I nearly crashed into a truck trying to pass me. Honestly, you can’t see anything in that blind spot. When the canopy is on, the twin cab has a huge one.

The first thing I notice is the oaks; they’re giants. ‘These trees are still here, just like Gweniver wrote.’ There’s a sign: Please park here and walk up the driveway to the house. And another sign on the gate: Please shut the gate. Two huge Clydesdales stand munching a metre from the gate and stare at us as if we’re the hundredth lot of people they’ve seen all day. They don’t look hopeful that we’ll leave it open either. Another stack of monster oak trees line the drive up to the house. Their trunks look like they’ve been rooted here for more than 160 years.

Already I can tell this place is incredible. There are ruins of garden-type outhouses. I find out later they were conservatories. There’s a grotto made of cement, filled with huge cacti, an old early twentieth century swimming pool. Peacocks strutting on ancient terraced lawns.

‘Look at the maypole, Caleb.’ Masses of roses climb the rusty chains up to the pole in the middle. We pay our money to be part of a tour and see everything, even forty-odd carriages and coaches. I get a kick out of seeing carriages with 1850 or earlier written on cards beside them. I wonder if Gweniver rode in one like this. Or this: Cobb & Co, an original. Straining, I peek into the window of Queen Emma’s Barouche from Holland. And only candles went into the lamps. Caleb’s not quite as interested as I am in European memorabilia; he walks around with his hands in his ripped jeans pockets, just a quick smile every now and then.

We even get shown the underground ballroom, now made into a flat. I mention Gweniver. The lady who lives here now is kind, willing to help. I feel the immediate coolness, almost dampness as we step down. See the dark wood round the edges of the room, beautiful lamps, chequered windows. Gweniver and Redvers came here, danced here. Why wasn’t she happy that night?

We go out again, onto an underground verandah, then up to the main level. This verandah has Victorian tiles like the ones at school — diamonds, maroon, black, cream — and looks out onto the varying levels of poplars, and all the trees that have been planted over the last 160 years. Italian pillars hold up the verandah; majestic steps guide the eye to the green shutters on the windows. The wind reaches down suddenly through the poplars out there; they shake and shine like silver pennies in the sun, glinting and whispering. They make me want to go down to find out what they know. The fountain looks like it hasn’t worked for fifty years and I wonder if it was there when Gweniver was. Probably not.

Caleb brightens up as we head down to the dam. We sit on the grass with half-cold hamburgers while I wonder if this is the dam that Gweniver came to that day. Odd feeling, standing where you know your ancestors walked. We walk all round the dam, holding hands, not saying much. Then Caleb thinks of this idea. ‘You go hide. I’ll find you.’

I laugh. ‘Okay. But we don’t go through any gates alone — otherwise we’ll never find each other.’ We agree on the terms. He lies down and closes his eyes while I wrench myself away to find an accommodating bush. It’s hilarious watching him find me. It doesn’t take long; apparently I’ve left tell-tale clues.

‘All right. We go through this gate, then you hide.’ After counting to a hundred I walk through a paddock with another dam, looking behind every tree, until I come across him, sitting grinning behind a huge eucalypt, picking his teeth with a twig. ‘Why aren’t you hiding?’

‘Thought you’d find me sooner or later. May as well just sit here.’

‘That’s not fair. We’ll go through this gate and I’ll really hide.’ I know we’ll be in the garden then. I undo the orange twine round the gate; tie it up again. ‘Ready?’ He’s got this look on his face, like What will I get when I find you? I run off. Find me first, Caleb, then we’ll see. But when I get into the ancient rose garden, I falter.

There’s a Grecian statue that most probably wasn’t there when Gweniver was, but the roses sure look ancient. All with little signs on, giving botanical names. Hedges, bushes, stray grass; the poplars murmuring high above. Ghost gums whispering secrets, like waves crashing on rocks in the far distance. Did they hear Redvers? What bitter disappointment he must have felt that night, yet Gweniver wrote nothing of how it must have affected him.

I go down some steps onto a grassy terrace; find a spot in the rose bower where white roses are climbing over an archway; lie down and close my eyes. The peacocks from the other side of the gardens call out, and a bird answers close by. Honestly, when you close your eyes in a place like this it sounds like the sea pulling back after rolling up on the sand.

I feel Caleb’s shadow on me before I hear him. ‘You’re no challenge.’ I squint up at him and grin as he sits down.

‘You know, Caleb, do you ever get a sense of people being here before? I don’t just mean here, but in places where you go?’

‘Sometimes, I guess.’ He’s picking blades of grass; puts one between his teeth.

‘I really feel it here. They walked, talked here. If only words stayed in the atmosphere and you could catch them years later — feel them in the air.’

‘You mightn’t like that if everyone could do it. What if people weren’t happy? What if there was killing? We wouldn’t want to hear the screams forever.’

I can see his point and we fall quiet. This is like a secret garden, a jungle overgrown. How many secrets are hidden here? How many people came to propose? How much happiness? Sadness too, like Caleb said.

What was Gweniver trying to tell Redvers that night? He proposed; she cried. Why? I know she wasn’t married before — her name was still Rundle. Because she’d been on the stage? A singer? Why should it matter anyway?

‘So what has today done for you?’

I don’t answer straight away. I still don’t know what Gweniver’s problem was, nor do I really expect to find out. ‘It’s just been good to be here where they were,’ I say. At least Caleb understands this. He grunts in agreement and moves closer to claim his reward for finding me. It’s not until I get home that I realise what I put Caleb through. So much land that belonged to one English family years ago, just like any farm or station in this state, but not only my ancestors walked on it — his might have too.

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Later, when I check my mail, there’s an answer from the Cornish library. They were quicker than I expected.

There is a good book, Music in Cornwall by R. Hammat, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1992. It’s not an e-book but you may be able to access it through a library.

I hope the above details will be of some help.

Music in Cornwall by R. Hammat, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1992.

Is there some way of getting it from another library?