Clem staggered backwards. ‘You bastard, Pengarron!’ he gasped, ‘You rotten, pig-headed bastard! I could kill you!’
‘Don’t be fool enough to try, Trenchard. I doubt if you’re a match for me,’ Oliver threatened. ‘But if it’s a fight that you want, I’ll be more than happy to oblige you.’
‘If it makes you happy,’ Clem retorted, throwing off his coat, ‘it will give me the greatest of pleasure.’
Oliver raised his eyebrows, his expression disdainful as slowly he unfastened his coat. He held it out by the collar with the tips of his fingers before letting it slide to the ground.
Clem rushed forward but Oliver was not unprepared for the fresh onslaught. Although Clem’s fist hit home this time, bruising Oliver’s cheek just to the side of his left eye, Clem received another sickening blow in the gut, followed by one powerfully driven under his chin. As he was hurled backwards he snatched a good grip on Oliver’s shirt, pulling the taller man with him as he lost his foothold and hit the ground.
They grappled over the full expanse of the dry grass of the lawn, indiscriminately crushing flower beds and knocking over the Reverend’s bird table, each man warding off as many blows as he received.
Oliver got to his feet and, clutching the youth by the collar of his torn shirt, dragged Clem up with him, only to be surprised by a blow to the jaw which sent him staggering back heavily against an apple tree. Both were now somewhat out of breath. Oliver allowed the tree to support his weight while at a safe distance Clem crouched down, breathing in deeply. But this respite lasted only for a moment. The two men paced the ground, sizing up the other for signs of weakness.
Spots of blood had appeared on the front and sleeves of Clem’s shirt, the scratches from the gorse spines pulled apart in the tussle. He had no sensation of pain, he was enjoying this battle and did not want it to end. He relished every punch he delivered to the other man’s body and took sadistic pleasure at the sight of the cuts and bruises suffered at his hands. But he knew he was unlikely to inflict the kind of damage he wanted to unless he adopted more subtle means.
Oliver Pengarron was bigger and broader than he, stronger too, with the added advantage of more years and the experience of close fighting as a professional soldier.
Clem allowed Oliver to advance almost upon him, and at the last moment butted his head hard into his stomach. As Oliver’s head was brought down Clem ploughed his head in again, this time directly at Oliver’s mouth and nose. The baronet’s teeth cut into his head as Clem grasped Oliver’s legs and plunged him to the ground.
Oliver ended up in a sitting position. Clem, nimbly running behind him and encircling his neck with one arm, used his other cruelly to heave Oliver’s head to the side. Gagging and choking, Oliver reached behind and clenched two fistfuls of Clem’s shirt. The shirt was ripped out of Clem’s breeches but Oliver was strong enough to toss him cleanly straight over his head. Clem’s body struck the ground with a tremendous thud and he lay still on his back, gasping in deep lungfuls of the warm air.
Wiping blood away from his mouth and nose, Oliver said breathlessly, ‘Give it up, Trenchard. This is getting us nowhere.’
Clem raised himself up on one elbow, panting heavily as he spoke. ‘I’ll kill you first, Pengarron.’
‘You most certainly will not! I will have an explanation for this outrageous behaviour, and why the two of you think you have the right to fight on my lawn!’
The Reverend Ivey was furious. It was distressing enough to bury the body of a young and fruitful soul. To come across this immediately afterwards was almost unforgivable.
‘At first I could hardly believe what Ben was frantically trying to tell me,’ the Reverend continued, while the two adversaries pulled themselves shakily to their feet. ‘Clem Trenchard, go and wait by the Parsonage door. I’ll speak to you presently.’
Panting like an old dog Clem snatched up his coat, gave Oliver a look of pure hatred, and made for the Parsonage door, slightly bowed over as he clutched his painful gut.
Oliver watched him derisively but his expression turned to one of shame when the Reverend held his own coat in front of his eyes with the bland statement, ‘I think this belongs to you.’
‘I… um…’
‘Have not set a very good example?’
From his great respect of the old gentleman parson, whom he saw as a father figure, Oliver took the chastisement. ‘I offer you my apologies, Reverend. I’ll send someone over immediately to clear up and repair the damage.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Oliver. Ben doesn’t like anyone but himself to touch the garden.’ The Reverend Ivey looked down at his hands. ‘I suppose I don’t have to guess the cause of the altercation?’
‘No,’ Oliver replied softly.
‘Oliver, if I may be so bold… there are times when your kindness and charity go unnoticed and unthanked. There are other times when your impatience and pride rise to unacceptable levels and you are every bit as rude as the people you condemn for it.’ The Reverend gave a small cough and plunged on, ‘I would even go as far to suggest it is time you stopped behaving like a spoilt child.’
Oliver’s face darkened, but only for a moment. With a wry smile he waved his hands in submission.
‘Good, then that’s got that out of the way. Kindly give my regards to Kerensa when you see her next.’
The Reverend Ivey was surprised at the way the baronet had accepted his remonstrances and hoped the chastisement he was about to give to the lovelorn Clem Trenchard would be just as well received.
* * *
Florrie Trenchard was alone in her kitchen when her son showed himself at last. She was not pleased with him. ‘What have you been up to, Clem? And why didn’t you come over to Polcudden? The Reverend Ivey drew your father aside over there and told him he’d had words with you. You seem to have no thought for anyone but yourself these days.’
‘It’s a long story, Mother. I’m going to change for milking.’
‘Just a minute, my son. Change, you say? From what is left of your one good shirt, is that what you mean? You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what his lordship wanted with you, what the Reverend Ivey said to you, and have explained how you came by those cuts and bruises.’
Clem put a hand to his face. ‘That’s nothing much, Mother,’ he said blankly, all emotion drained from him. ‘Sir Oliver didn’t want anything of importance and the Reverend Ivey told me off about my behaviour.’
‘Oh, what did he say? What have you been doing?’ Florrie Trenchard pointed to a chair but her son did not intend to stay and give a lengthy explanation.
‘He just said my behaviour hasn’t been fair to others. After that he was quite understanding, said I ought to go and talk to Matthias Renfree – but that won’t do any good.’ Clem made for his bedroom and paused at the door. ‘I, um, have been over to the Manor house to ask Alice to marry me.’
‘I see,’ Florrie Trenchard said quietly. ‘What did she say?’
Clem’s face was vacant. ‘Yes. She said yes.’
* * *
Sinking down in an armchair in his study, Oliver closed his painful black eye. Alice knocked and entered with hot water and towels.
‘What’s that for?’ he said, opening his eyelid slowly.
‘I saw the state you were in as you came across the yard. Clem left not long ago in a similar condition. Was it me you were fighting over? He wouldn’t tell me anything.’
‘Yes… among other things.’ He stayed quiet as she cleaned and dabbed at his swellings, cuts and bruises, and finally wrapped the freshly laundered handkerchief he’d given to her the night before around his grazed knuckles. ‘You will not be needing this again, I take it?’ he asked her, holding up his hand.
‘That’s a nasty cut on your lip,’ Alice remarked, then looked into his eyes. ‘No, Oliver,’ she said, now, in private, on first name terms with her master as she was with her mistress, ‘I won’t be needing it again.’
Chapter 13
&
nbsp; Tolwithrick, the grand country seat of the Beswethericks, was roughly the same size as Pengarron Manor. It was more stately in appearance and furnishings and built a century later than the Manor, and did not possess the same atmosphere of history and continuity. There was, however, an abiding atmosphere of contentment throughout Tolwithrick, with children playing noisily up and down the staircases, in and out of the rooms, and all over the gardens, orchards and stables. Kerensa looked forward to each new day there.
Most of the gossip in the kitchens of Tolwithrick for the past week that she had been staying there had centred on her, as Sir Oliver Pengarron’s new young wife.
‘I’d never thought he’d get married,’ the housekeeper remarked.
‘She may not have noble blood but she’s just the sort of little wife young Master Arthur would have liked,’ put in the cook.
One footman nudged another. ‘Do ’ee reckon Sir Oliver will be keeping someone else’s bed warm at the moment, do ’ee?’
‘Dunno,’ the other answered, ‘but we all know his reputation.’ He moved closer to whisper, ‘Bet he’s missing her anyway. I know I would, and I wouldn’t mind gettin’ my—’
‘Ahem!’ A stinging look from Polly Berryman, the maid from Rachael’s household who had been assigned to wait upon Kerensa, and who had come into the kitchen to collect her breakfast tray, brought the smutty conversation to an end. But when her back was turned, a nod and an earthy grin from the first footman informed the other his views were shared.
‘I’ll take this up to Lady Pengarron, then,’ Polly Berryman said to the cook, keeping an indignant eye on the two footmen who busied themselves about their duties. ‘I’ll inform her that Lady Rachael was delivered of her baby last night.’
* * *
‘Babies always seem to be born through the night, don’t they, Polly?’ Kerensa said, sitting up in bed and settling the tray across her lap. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘A little small boy, m’lady. I’ve heard this one is the image of old Sir Martin himself.’
‘Last night Lady Rachael told me she had a feeling the baby would be born before I returned to Pengarron Manor,’ Kerensa said, unable to hide her excitement. ‘Polly, do you think I’ll be able to see the baby today? And to think I slept soundly and knew nothing about it! You say Lady Rachael is perfectly well?’
‘She’s fine, m’lady, and I’m sure you’ll be able to see her and the baby later today,’ Polly answered with a warm smile.
Polly Berryman was a second cousin to Daniel Berryman of Orchard Hill Farm, and had been in service at Tolwithrick from the age of twelve.
Now a sober woman of twenty-five, she had at first been reserved about being called on to wait on a baronet’s wife from a low working-class background. But Kerensa’s friendly simplicity had soon brought a smile to brighten Polly’s pleasant face. Kerensa assumed no false airs like others Polly had known who had married above their station, and was content to allow the maid to help and advise her on what gowns to wear and on how to have her hair arranged. On one occasion she had sought advice on how to behave now she was staying in a conventional noble household.
Kerensa liked Polly too, and as she sat propped up against white silken pillows, chattering like an excited child as she ate her breakfast, she was unaware of the growing loyalty her temporary maid felt towards her.
After breakfast she slipped out into the gardens. Rain showers through the night had refreshed the air and ground. The sun was bright and friendly as she ran with a light step to Elwyn Trethowan, Tolwithrick’s head gardener. A carbon copy of Jake Angove, he gave her a toothy grin as he straightened up from the hydrangea bush he was attending to, and offered her a small fork.
‘Mornin’ to ’ee, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Ready to get yer back into it again, are ’ee?’ Like Jake Angove, Elwyn Trethowan did not stand on ceremony.
‘Good morning, Elwyn,’ Kerensa smiled back. ‘Have you heard about the new baby?’
‘Ais, but it’s not an unusual occurrence round these ’ere parts. See you got summat more suitable to wear today then.’
‘Yes. Polly found this dress from somewhere for me,’ she said, swinging the skirt of the simple light brown dress she was wearing instead of one of her new gowns, the only ones Alice had packed for her.
Kerensa worked with Elwyn for most of the morning in either companionable silence or pleasant conversation, carefully removing weeds that had escaped earlier tending. It was like being at home with Jake, but without the added company of old Dunstan. In fact there were no dogs at all to be found at Tolwithrick, and on enquiring from Elwyn what the reason was for this lack of canine company, she was told Rachael feared them, having been badly bitten by one as a child.
After a hectic luncheon with the five elder children of Rachael and William, Kerensa, now in a green muslin day gown, was ushered into Rachael’s large bedroom. She was sitting up in bed as lively as a young girl at her first ball, belying the fact that she was a woman in her late thirties who had given birth less than twenty-four hours before.
‘Kerensa, my dear,’ she said gaily, holding out both her hands. ‘You do look pretty. Come and sit down here on the bed beside me.’
Kerensa sat carefully on the edge of the creaking bed that had seen the birth of many generations of Beswethericks.
‘How are you, Rachael?’ she asked, marvelling at how her friend’s complexion had changed overnight from sallow yellowness to clear pink softness. ‘You look radiant.’
‘I feel radiant, thank you. But then, I’ve always found childbearing easy enough. Do you know, if we go on at this rate, William and I will end up producing more children than all the brats in Perranbarvah?’ At this Rachael hooted with laughter and received a disapproving look from the stern-faced nurse who was in the room folding clean linen.
Kerensa laughed with her and asked hopefully, ‘Can I see the baby today, Rachael, please? Will it be all right?’
‘Of course you can see him. He should wake up soon. He’s in the small nursery in the next room. I’d rather have him in here with me, but she insists it will disturb my rest.’ The last sentence was aimed in the direction of the nurse’s back.
William put his head around the door. ‘All right to come in?’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got Martin and Ameline with me.’
Rachael glanced at the nurse to see if she would raise any objection. With none forthcoming, William and his two elder children tiptoed into the room.
‘You may as well bring the baby in now, Nurse,’ Rachael said.
‘Very well, m’lady,’ replied the nurse, her disapproving look set harder.
Martin and Ameline, the image of their father and mother respectively, gazed down at their tiny new brother with awed wonder for some time after the nurse passed the baby into their mother’s arms. Ameline asked if she could hold him and was told she could in a few days’ time. Martin tried to show that as an almost grown-up thirteen year old he was hardly interested in any baby, but couldn’t hide the look of pride on his young face.
The nurse bundled the children out of the room ten minutes later, and Rachael handed the baby, snugly wrapped in a woollen shawl, to Kerensa.
‘He’s beautiful. What a lovely family you have,’ Kerensa said, smoothing the baby’s soft, downy red cheek with a finger. ‘You must be very proud of them.’
‘Yes, we are proud of them all,’ Rachael said happily. ‘We’ve been lucky too. It’s unusual to have a large family and not lose one or two of them.’
‘Us Beswethericks have always had a houseful of brats,’ William put in, ‘not like the Pengarrons at all. They usually only manage one or two at a time, you know. You must have noticed by now Oliver has hardly any relatives.’
Chuckling to himself he went on, ‘You should have seen him when he was a small boy, Kerensa. He was the most dreadful child! Always up to mischief he was, with Arthur, my youngest brother, in the thick of it too. They got many a beating for Oliver’s daredevil schemes. Poor Lady Caroline had si
x children, but Oliver was the only one to live past two or three years. He was very precious to his mother and father and they spoiled him dreadfully. Oliver was determined to have his own way in everything, always determined to be top dog. And the energy he had! When he came over here to stay with Arthur, he’d have the house in turmoil within an hour. It was almost as if he was making up for not having brothers and sisters, as if he had all their energy as well as his own.’ William sighed, his face shining at his reminiscences. ‘When I think of the things those two used to get up to…’
Kerensa had taken it all in with deep interest. She looked up from the baby. ‘It sounds as though Oliver and your brother were quite a handful,’ she said, wondering if William knew of her husband’s past association with Rachael.
‘They certainly were, my dear. Oliver still is, wouldn’t you say? It’s as if there’s something driving him ever onwards. He works harder than anyone I know. I believe it’s nothing unusual for him to rise well before dawn, work hard for several hours with his horses or on the farm, then sit down to his paperwork. Then he’ll perhaps visit a tenant farm, then a friend, check up on all his injured animals, follow it up with a party, and spend nearly the whole night at the card table. To top it all, he’ll be up bright and early the next day and begin all over again. I’m sure I don’t know where he gets all his energy from.’
Kerensa nodded. It was a good description of the man she was learning more about with every passing day.
‘Then of course there are all his other activities,’ Rachael said wickedly, a twinkle in her eyes.
‘If it’s the ladies she means, my dear,’ William told Kerensa hastily, not sure if the girl understood his wife’s humour, ‘Oliver’s left them alone since he married you.’
‘Yes, but do they leave him alone?’ asked Rachael, teasing William now.
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