The prostitute looked from one man to the other. Blake’s face had paled considerably, a blue vein twitched on his temple, and it was obvious he was afraid of the man now advancing steadily towards them. When he was close enough the expression on the man’s face brought fear creeping up her spine. She had seen him before, she had even propositioned him once and he had turned her down. Then, he had been irritated; now it seemed hatred was his companion.
The face of strikingly fine, clear dark features was set as hard as the granite of the Cornish cliffs. And looked as dangerous as those rocks, that appeared so innocent above the water but in reality lay in wait with their jagged, bulky shapes hidden beneath the depths to ground and crush unfortunate sailing vessels.
The prostitute stayed to see no more but ran back the way she had come, her legs and skirt becoming splashed in the muddy pools of rainwater.
The two men were now only two feet apart. Blake trembled. Oliver Pengarron’s voice was pure venom.
‘You ask me what I want, Blake? Your life, and no less. You tried to force yourself on my wife. You killed my dog. You frightened my servants and dared to invade the peace of my house. You, Blake, are scum, and scum such as you cannot treat anything of mine in such a manner without answering to me afterwards.’ He had spoken quietly, too quietly for Blake to muster up an ounce of courage or self-defence.
‘You… you can’t mean… to actually kill me,’ Blake blustered.
‘That’s exactly what I mean to do.’
Blake walked backwards. ‘But, look… wait!’
Oliver advanced on him. ‘What’s the matter, Blake? No guts for a fight unless it’s a woman or an old defenceless animal you’re kicking to death?’
The first blow, delivered powerfully to Blake’s jaw, sent him straight back against the same wall as the unfortunate prostitute, but with greater severity. Clutching Blake by the throat, Oliver slammed him again and again against the wall until his breathing came in laboured gasps.
‘How does it feel, Blake? How does it feel to experience what you put my wife through? The same pain you made my dog suffer, eh? The only thing in your favour is you didn’t try to deny it. Or were you going to?’ He punched Blake deep in the belly. He doubled over. ‘Well, were you? Were you?’
Another punch in the same place, followed by a further slamming against the wall, ensured a gasp of an answer. ‘No.’
Oliver suddenly let go of Blake. He sank slowly to his knees before keeling over and writhing in the mud. The rain washed blood off his face and patterns of narrow red rivulets ran over his dresscoat and on to the ground. Oliver pushed dripping hair back from his eyes. Only a small part of the anger, hatred and pain raging inside of him since the news had reached him in Penzance, had abated.
Blake struggled to a sitting position, gripping his stomach and feebly moaning. Oliver bent and grasped his coat by the collar with both hands, but Blake had managed to slip the small pistol out of his waistband and thrust it into the other’s ribs.
He felt Oliver’s body go rigid, and spitting blood in his face, Blake jeered, ‘Looks like… the tables… have turned, Pengarron.’ With two quick movements Blake released the safety catch and pulled the firing mechanism.
Oliver braced himself to receive the bullet in his chest.
Nothing happened.
Their eyes met for a second before Blake panicked. Squealing in fear he wildly brought the firearm down in ineffective thuds on Oliver’s arm. He was hauled to his feet and shaken like a child’s rag doll, biting his tongue in several places.
For the first time in his life all reason seemed to have escaped Oliver Pengarron. He punched and struck the other man unmercifully, until his fists were bloody. Hezekiah Solomon and two of his seamen who had entered the alleyway, ran up and were forced to use all their combined strength to wrest him away from his act of violent fury. ‘Leave him, Oliver! Leave him!’ Hezekiah shouted. ‘You’ll kill him!’
‘It’s no more than he deserves!’ Oliver shouted back. ‘Let go of me!’
Hezekiah held on tightly to his friend’s arm. ‘He’s not worth hanging for, whatever he’s done. Hit that man once more and I’ll swear it’s you who will have to answer to the Almighty. I’d be no friend of yours if I stand by and let you beat him to death.’
Some of the fierceness in Oliver’s dark eyes had drained away. ‘All right, have it your way if you must, but order these men to let go of me,’ he snarled.
‘Only if you give me your word you’ll come with me straightaway for a drink to help you calm down.’
Oliver fixed his eyes on Hezekiah’s pale smooth face. ‘Very well. Now get your hands off me and tell your men to do the same.’
As the three men loosened their grip on him Oliver shrugged them off like an old coat. Sounds of everyday life in the market town reached his ears again and he realised it had stopped raining. The two sailors moved over to Peter Blake, now lying in an inert heap on the ground.
‘Leave him be!’ Oliver shouted angrily at them.
The sailors looked at their Captain for further guidance.
‘Do as he says,’ Hezekiah told them. ‘Go on to the alehouse and talk to no one about this.’ He tossed them a shilling coin each, and with a nod of understanding they took the same way out of the alley as the prostitute had done.
‘Let’s go, Hezekiah,’ Oliver said tightly. ‘The very sight of that scum lying there makes me feel sick.’
Striding back down the alley Oliver didn’t wait to see if Hezekiah was following him. He glanced around to check if anyone was coming through either end of the alleyway or whether the scene of violence was being watched from a window. There was no one that he could see, and sweeping a hand back through his white hair he followed the back of his rapidly disappearing friend, leaving the beaten Peter Blake to his fate.
* * *
‘You were going to tell me what that business in the alleyway was all about,’ Hezekiah said. He had waited a good twenty minutes before asking the question on arriving outside Painted Bessie’s kiddleywink some time after Oliver. The pony Hezekiah had hired could not keep pace with Conomor, and knowing Oliver lacked the patience to wait he had suggested they race on ahead and purge their mutual restlessness.
Oliver had washed the blood off his hands in a pool of rain water in a deep rut near the kiddley’s front door. Conomor had quenched his thirst in the horse trough then had followed his master’s lead by wandering off a short distance alone. Hezekiah had found them, man and horse, alike in their colouring, pride and temperament, looking out to sea. The sun was blazing down with no competition from any clouds, the springy coarse grass beneath their feet already drying out.
Keeping his eyes on a point across the Bay that was the fish market village of Newlyn, Oliver answered Hezekiah’s question. ‘Blake tried to rape Kerensa,’ he said tonelessly.
Hezekiah looked up from the bejewelled fingers of the hand he was studying. ‘When was this?’ he asked, keeping his voice low.
‘Early last evening. He was also responsible for the death of Dunstan.’
‘Then he most certainly deserved the beating you gave him, Oliver. How is Kerensa now?’
‘Shocked, upset. More for Dunstan than for herself. I was over at Penzance. If it hadn’t been for Jack, and Clem Trenchard…’
‘Trenchard? Isn’t that the fellow—’
‘Yes,’ Oliver interrupted, swinging round to face his friend.
Hezekiah knew the discussion was over, but couldn’t help wondering why Clem Trenchard had been at the Manor in Oliver’s absence.
‘I’m ready for that drink now, Hezekiah,’ Oliver said gruffly, leading the way to the kiddley.
Inside the gloom of the shack, Painted Bessie rushed her gross body over to greet her two superior customers. She wiped her nose in her dirty apron and patted her waddling hips as she approached them.
‘Afternoon to ’ee, sirs. Always glad to see such exalted persons as yerselves ’ere. What’s it to be, then? Brandy
? I’ve gotta good supply in, thanks to you both, if you sees what I do mean,’ she said, winking a heavily painted eye at them.
Oliver pushed past Bessie and took a seat in a secluded corner, leaving Hezekiah to confirm they would indeed take brandy. As Hezekiah seated himself a group of miners coming off the morning core from the Wheal Ember trudged into the shabby alehouse. One of them, Colly Pearce, looked nervously away from the pair. He took a huge battered pewter tankard of cheap ale, served to him by a wafer thin girl of about ten years, as far away as he could to sit with his back to them.
Bessie served Oliver and Hezekiah herself with two large glasses set on a clean tray and a bottle of good French brandy she’d obtained from a secret cubby hole in her own private room. She placed the tray down on the table after rubbing away spills from the previous customers with the sleeve of her dress.
Jerking her head towards Colly Pearce, she said, ‘Want me to gets t’ridst of ’im, sirs?’
‘No, he’s welcome to drink alongside of me,’ answered Hezekiah grimly, ‘if he keeps his mouth shut.’
Oliver threw an assortment of coins on the table which Bessie gathered up rapidly.
‘Thank ’ee, sirs. Enjoy yer drink, stay as long as you like, and give a shout if ’ee wants anything else.’
‘That woman is grotesque,’ remarked Oliver, looking as though he’d eaten something bitter. ‘Even Beatrice is better by comparison.’
Hezekiah laughed as the proprietress of the alehouse resumed her usual post, sitting at the end of a large table. Picking up her knitting she puffed away on a dirty clay pipe. ‘She’d make a good mate for Old Tom,’ said Hezekiah.
‘Yes,’ Oliver agreed, pouring two generous quantities of the dark red liquid.
‘Any developments in that quarter since I’ve been away, Oliver?’
‘Not yet. I’ve been down to Trelynne Cove many times and looked around. I’m convinced he’s to be found somewhere about there.’
‘Maybe he really has gone off for good? Could even be dead.’
‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. Ted Trembath shares my suspicions too, I think. He spends a lot of time up on the cliff above the cottage.’
‘What’s he doing there, do you know exactly?’
‘He just looks wistfully out to sea, Hezekiah. Says it helps him to feel close to Davey.’ Oliver shrugged. ‘Anyway, I’d better drink up and set off for home.’
‘Of course,’ Hezekiah nodded. ‘Kerensa will be needing you.’
‘Perhaps,’ Oliver said, causing his friend to look at him sharply. ‘The Reverend Ivey has been with her all the morning but I ought not to leave her alone with only the servants for too long.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Hezekiah.
‘About what?’
‘Old Tom. If he is still around, Peter Blake could well receive a knife in his back one dark night for attacking Kerensa.’
‘Good,’ Oliver said between clenched teeth, before draining his glass.
Chapter 16
‘I don’t… believe… in heaven… so you… can’t… be an angel,’ Peter Blake murmured deliriously between bouts of coughing and choking. The small face peering down anxiously at him told his eyes it was Kerensa Pengarron, but his mind reasoned it couldn’t possibly be her.
‘I’ll try to help you… help you… help you…’
The words echoed through his head as he tried to grasp their meaning, and it took a tremendous effort to focus on the speaker’s face.
‘Try to put your arms around my shoulders,’ the girl said.
‘I… can’t.’
‘Try, please try. You can’t stay here in the mud,’ she encouraged him.
Pain racked every part of Peter Blake’s body. His head whirled and flashed like a crazily spinning maypole, while his lungs felt as though they would burst with every breath. As though in a weird dream, he managed to put an arm around the girl’s thin shoulders and clutched at her shawl. With Blake using his other hand to push against the wall, they got him to his feet. Nausea flooded through him before everything became black again, and desperately he clung to the girl’s small body. She couldn’t hold his dead weight and they sank down together.
‘I’ll have to go for help,’ she gasped, trying to prop him up in a sitting position against the wall.
‘No, please.’ He blinked his eyes again and again. ‘Just round… the corner… to Angarrack’s. I live… over the shop.’
The girl got him to his feet again, struggling to move him down the alleyway. It was not easy, she having a limp herself. They made three steps before nausea overtook him again and he slumped forwards, dragging the girl down.
‘Hold on, Rosina. I’ll help you!’ a shout came from behind them. Matthias Renfree reached them quickly. Disentangling Blake’s arm from the girl’s shawl he helped her to her feet, while preventing Blake from slipping further into the mud and potholes.
‘I’m really pleased to see you, Preacher,’ Rosina Pearce said when she’d regained her breath.
‘It’s fortunate I decided to come this way, Rosina. What happened to him? Do you know?’ Matthias pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and dabbed at Blake’s swollen face.
‘I’ve no idea. I found him like this lying in the mud. He asked me to take him to Angarrack’s, the shoemaker. Do you know who he is, Preacher?’
Rosina knelt down and wrapped her shawl around Blake’s shoulders. He was shaking violently between intermittent periods of consciousness; the shawl didn’t help but Rosina could think of nothing else to do for him.
‘We’d better get him home quickly,’ Matthias said, looking at the girl. ‘If he lives over Angarrack’s he must be Peter Blake. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course, but can you manage him on your own?’
‘Don’t worry, he’s no great weight to me.’ Matthias put one of Blake’s limp arms around his shoulders and lifted him easily to his feet. Blake slumped backwards with a groan, and realising the injured man would not be able to help himself, Matthias eased him over his shoulder and carried him. A fairly tall but stocky man, he found lifting Blake’s body no greater burden than the tasks he carried out on Ker-an-Mor Farm.
Rosina picked up the wicker basket she’d dropped when she’d first come across Blake’s unconscious body. It contained only two brown eggs, a slither of pale yellow cheese, and three rashers of thinly cut bacon bought from the market stalls. She straightened the white muslin bonnet that held her long fair hair tidy, then followed Matthias Renfree out of the alleyway.
Passersby looked curiously at a young man carrying the swaying unconscious body of another, and the girl limping along beside them, mud and blood on her clothes. Some, on recognising the injured man, passed by with a nod to Matthias and their faces grimly set. James Andrew, the tenant farmer of Barvah Farm, the smallest on the Pengarron Estate, was the only person to offer assistance.
‘Here, young Preacher, I’ll take him from you,’ he offered in his deep voice. ‘Some wouldn’t bother to help this man. Tis all round the district what he did to young Lady Pengarron yesterday.’
‘Some haven’t bothered to help, James, just like you said. What is Mr Blake supposed to have done to warrant such an uncharitable beating? It’s all right, I can manage to carry him the rest of the way, but I’ll be glad to have a hand to get him up the stairs.’
James Andrew glanced at Rosina who was listening attentively. ‘Here, maid,’ he said, smiling at her as they neared the shoemaker’s noisy shop, ‘be a dear and go up they stairs beside the shop there, and knock up Mr Blake’s housekeeper.’
Rosina smiled shyly and passed the three men quickly, her lame right foot of little hindrance to her.
When she was out of sight James Andrew jerked his head in Blake’s direction. ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of the little maid, Preacher. Seems he here, early last evening, tried to… you know, to Lady Pengarron, Old Tom’s granddaughter I mean. And after that, tis said he kicked Sir Oliver’s old dog nigh to death
, and it had to be shot. And everyone knows how Sir Oliver loved that old dog.’
‘How do you know all this, James?’ Matthias said, having to walk around two stern-faced matrons who refused to move out of his path.
‘Beatrice! She’s going all round the town saying she’ll kill this bleddy sod – sorry, Preacher – Mr Blake,’ James Andrew replied rather heatedly, prodding the inert body from where Matthias couldn’t see him. ‘She said the poor little maid up in the Manor’s in some dreadful state. Smacked her round the face he did, terrified her out of her wits. And she loved that old dog too. Apparently, she’s taking his death really hard. Tis a crying shame, young Preacher, that maid’s had a Hell of a year so far as it is. Folk are outraged about it, and no wonder.’
‘I see. That’s terrible,’ said Matthias coldly. The strong smell of leather filled their nostrils as they hauled Blake between them up the narrow wooden staircase of the shoemaker’s, their feet scuffling noisily on each step. ‘And presumably that’s the reason for him being in this state now?’
‘Wouldn’t be at all surprised. I saw Sir Oliver myself riding out from town not half hour since with that strange white-haired sea captain friend of his. No, Sir Oliver’s not the sort of man to take a thing like that lying down.’
‘I don’t hold with this sort of behaviour though, James,’ retorted Matthias, sadly shaking his head, ‘and some of this mud on Mr Blake is drying off already so I wouldn’t be surprised if other people left him lying in the alleyway before Rosina came across him.’
They had reached the top of the stairs and came up behind Rosina who was knocking loudly on a door. ‘Shall I try one of the others? There’s two more on this landing.’ Peter Blake moaned and rolled his head. James Andrew took all of his weight from Matthias. ‘Knock on ’em all, young Preacher, this man is getting proper poorly.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Rosina said, putting her head closer to the door. ‘It’s all right, I can hear someone at last.’
Pengarron Land Page 30
