by Gloria Cook
Tara forced the worries aside and concentrated on the view. She was on the top of Oak Hill. It was not the most beautiful of countryside, with scrubland and windswept moor, yet there was a sense of space and purpose. During the spring the banks and hedges were prettified by primroses, bright yellow gorse and dabs of pink and blue and white wild flowers. In the near distance, on a rise, was the heavy grey silhouette of the workings of the Carn Croft Mine, and beyond them, the engine houses of neighbouring districts peeped above the undulating skyline. She remembered everything about Meryen and Nansmere Downs, specially the places where she’d enjoyed Amy’s company, after a chance meeting by an ancient Celtic cross, so-named Pixie Cross, for pixies were said to dance around it on moonlit nights. These memories had kept her spirit afloat during all the stifling and boring days she’d spent since then. Sometimes a younger girl had joined them, an angel-faced ragamuffin called Sarah. What had happened to the downtrodden miner’s daughter? Children of the poor died in droves, from starvation or diseases. Sarah might be dead. Or orphaned if her bullying father had died in an all-too-frequent underground accident.
Tara encouraged her pony into a canter, leaving Atkins behind. Atkins, who doubled as governess and lady’s maid, was awkward on horseback and would soon seek a shady place to pull up and rest. She was stuffily formal, but her affection for Tara allowed a little indulgence, so Tara chanced that she wouldn’t mind her going on alone for a short while. It was good to be free of the pessimistic Atkins. ‘You’re doomed to be an old maid and her ladyship to be shunned for ever. She shouldn’t have minded so much,’ she had once intoned. ‘You’re so comely, Miss Tara, but you’ll never be able to take advantage of it, never go up to London for the season and win for yourself a good match.’ The only time Tara had examined the dismal prophecy she’d concluded that as marriage was the cause of her aunt’s misery, then she’d not be disappointed if it was a state that passed her by. She wondered what it was that her aunt shouldn’t ‘have minded so much’. Perhaps it was better that she never knew.
Tara’s pony was now keeping in line with the path of Sol Kivell’s horses of the day before. She was going this way to avoid being seen, for her aunt would fly into a fury if she discovered she had disobeyed her orders. She dismounted and tied the reins to the same blackthorn bush as Sol Kivell had, then after glancing about hesitantly, she passed over the stepping stones. Feeling an intruder she walked up the Lewarnes’ back garden ash path.
With all the curtains drawn it was no good hoping Amy would see her and come out to meet her. Telling herself to be bold, that Amy wouldn’t misread her appearance as untimely interference, she tapped on the well-constructed door with her riding crop. While she waited for an answer she looked about warily for the dog she had heard about – her aunt would punish her if she returned covered with dirty paw marks.
All was quiet. She knocked again, a little louder, wishing she had written a note which she could leave if her visit failed, expressing her condolences. Bolts were being pulled on the other side of the door. Tara swallowed her unease. It seemed visitors weren’t particularly welcome. The door was opened a crack and a face peeped round it. Then the door was thrown open.
‘Miss Tara!’ Amy cried apologetically. ‘Forgive me for keeping you waiting. Would you like to come in?’
‘I would, Amy, if it’s not an imposition. I’m afraid I’ve only got a few moments.’
Amy led the way to the lamplit kitchen. Stumpy, now allowed by Morton into these more sanctified surroundings in a bid to please Sylvia, gazed up gloomily from his basket then settled back down to mope. ‘Poor dog,’ Tara said. ‘Oh, Amy, I’m so sorry about your brother. I was horrified when the maid told me. Toby was just a little boy when I last saw him. I had to come. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. It’s very thoughtful of you.’ Finally the girls shook hands, a shy, formal undertaking. ‘You must go through to the front room. Would you like a cup of tea? I’m keeping a pot going for when people come paying their respects.’ The table, at which previous callers had sat, before going upstairs for a few minutes with Sylvia, had plates of cake, scones and biscuits on it. Amy’s mind was speeding off to the teak tray and best lace cloth.
‘Oh, no, thank you. Please don’t go to any trouble on my account. How are you, Amy? And your dear mother?’
‘We’re trying to be brave.’ The constant threat of tears and holding them back made Amy’s head throb. ‘It’s so hard to bear. Hard to believe it’s really happened. Miss Tara, did you come along the back way?’
‘Yes. I’m not really supposed to be here, you understand.’
‘No. Amy, are you troubled about something? I thought it most unusual that you’d have your door locked.’
‘Yesterday, I had an unwelcome visitor. Do you remember the Kivells? One of them came here. He brought food. A kind thought on his family’s part, but he just walked into the house. I don’t want that happening again. Mother’s expecting. I don’t want her to be more upset. The coroner’s finished with Toby. He’s declared his death was an accident, of course. Father will be back soon from collecting Toby from the chapel, where he was taken. He’d be furious if there happened to be a Kivell here. Miss Tara, please don’t say anything, no one knows Sol Kivell came.’
‘I promise I won’t say a word. Did he frighten you?’
‘Not exactly. He made me angry.’
‘It’s awful that you should have had that to put up with. The Kivells have always done whatever they like. I remember the servants at Poltraze whispering that no one should ever dare to cross them. You must be wondering why my aunt and I are here. We don’t know ourselves yet. Amy, we must keep in touch. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had. Please, call me Tara, as you did in the old days.’
‘Thank you, Tara. It’s good to see you again.’
Both girls were lost for words, thinking how the other had turned out to be neat and pretty. Amy considered Tara to have a delicate, fair-haired beauty. She would be greatly sought after as a wife, already promised to someone, if not for her aunt’s deed. Tara saw in Amy that even in her grief she had poise and confidence. Tara envied Amy her settled home life. The cottage was much smaller than anything she was used to but it was cosy and exuded a sense of belonging.
‘I must go, I’m afraid,’ Tara said. ‘When is the funeral to be?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘I wish I could attend, but my prayers will be with you. I’ll write to you in a few days. Goodbye, Amy.’
‘Thank you, Tara. Your coming here today means a lot.’
Amy saw Tara to the back door. Tara put a light pressure on Amy’s arm with her gauntleted hand, an outward expression of friendship and caring. ‘Goodbye.’
Amy opened the door. She and Tara gasped to see a man outside.
‘Forgive my appearance here, Miss Lewarne—’ Joshua Nankervis broke off. ‘Tara! This is a surprise.’
Shortly after Tara had left the Dower House, Estelle Nankervis received a visitor. Darius Nankervis tossed the reins of his horse to the stable boy, let himself inside and into the presence of his wife.
Knowing from the thrusting open of the doors and the heavy tread that it was her husband, Estelle sat still and aloof, although she was far from unruffled. ‘At last,’ she said, as cold as ice, before he got a word out.
Darius set piercing eyes on her. ‘Estelle. My dear Estelle. How handsome you still are.’
‘Say what you’ve come to say. I’m anxious to leave this place.’ Anxious to get away from him, the man who despite being old enough to be her father had stirred, and could still stir, a great many emotions in her. As damnable as he was, and even though she had soon discovered he had tied up all her own money, she had loved him. Before the summons here she had been living anxiously, waiting out the last long years until Tara came of age, when she’d ensure her own fortune would change.
‘My my.’ Darius’s voice was bordering on jovial as he gazed about. ‘Didn’t know th
e old house had fallen into such a state. It’s as morbid as a tomb. You’ve hardly a stick of furniture, m’dear. Cloth and curtains are a bit mouldy. Is that a spot of damp on the walls?’
‘Is it your intention to mock and torture me?’ Estelle aimed her sentence with a precision meant to snap about his ears.
‘Oh, I’d like to.’ His hooded dark eyes gleamed with a certain lechery. ‘You know what I like, Estelle. You liked it too. Then you misread me. I never really cared about your barrenness. Didn’t I have sons enough? And I don’t think you cared as much as you made out about my mistresses. Almost every gentlemen keeps one or two.’
‘Sir—’
‘Oh, sir, is it?’ He cut her off. Cold. Implacable. ‘Glad you know your place at last, woman!’
‘I will not go over our old disputes,’ Estelle called on the courage that had helped her leave him and then endure the long stultifying years of disgrace. ‘Tell me precisely why you have insisted I come here?’
‘Don’t worry, m’dear. I’m not about to cut off your allowance.’ He was light-hearted, bouncy again. Estelle followed his every movement, attended to his every tone. He could be at his most dangerous when like this. ‘I’ve come to invite you and the girl to a ball.’
Estelle had heard about his sixty-fifth birthday ball from Atkins, who had gleaned it from servants’ gossip. He could mean no other occasion. ‘Really?’ She made herself appear disinterested, but she was puzzled, nervous. He might be playing a cruel game in which he would cut her off publicly.
‘Always the haughty madam, Estelle. It’s what I’ve always liked about you. I care about you a little, you know.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘I could have made your life a misery these last five years. Do you not concede that?’
How should she answer? Throughout her desertion she had dreaded every footfall outside her door, but no trouble had come. Her allowance of five hundred pounds a year, although a small sum compared to what she had received as his wife at home, was in the circumstances, and knowing his nature, a generous one. ‘I suppose I do.’
‘I’ll not waste time, Estelle.’ Darius lifted his coat tails and took a seat across from her. ‘I want you and Tara at the ball. A lot of fine people will be there. Unknown to my sons I’d planned it a long time ago. I shall be making an announcement.’ He paused for effect.
‘Which is?’ Estelle was too worried to make a dramatic pause of her own. He was forcing her to appear in his home as his wife, a wife fetched out of social shame and put on display. In a dull house in which she could hardly bear to be. What torment had he in store for her? And how would this affect Tara?
‘A betrothal. Of my son and heir to your ward and niece.’
Estelle shot to her feet. Her legs had little strength and she fell back down again. ‘Joshua and Tara! But why? Are you mad?’
‘Not as mad as you think I’m stupid, Estelle.’ Darius leaned back, a malicious smile spreading across his bullish features. ‘Did you think I’d not look into your background, your fine coalmining family in Yorkshire? That I’d never discover that the pretty Miss Tara had a fortune settled on her by her father, your late brother, which she’ll receive at twenty-one years or her earlier marriage? You took a gamble, Estelle, leaving me in such a manner, apparently making the girl unmarriageable. You thought I’d take no more interest in you, that you’d bide your time until you could get your hands on her money. Perhaps you thought you’d take her overseas and wed her to some foreign count. You thought that with her residing solely with you for some years, you’d be her only influence. To be so grateful to you that she’d offer you a home and every comfort till the end of your days. Unfortunately for you, when you made your dramatic gesture, your remaining brother thought the same as society and refused to keep you. You had to stay put here in Cornwall and rely on my mercy. Just like you, Estelle, I’ve bided my time. I’ve been happy to let you suffer years of shame and deprivation.’ He continued in sharp snaps, ‘Now I want Tara allied to my son. I want him to have her money. And I want you to have to rely on Nankervis mercy for the rest of your life.’
Estelle couldn’t move or speak. Her face burned with horror then paled with distress.
‘I taught you many lessons, Estelle, not least in the bedroom. But you missed that no one gets the upper hand with me.’
With an effort she cleared her throat. ‘Wh–what does this mean for me?’
‘I’m not a vindictive man, no, I tell a lie, I am. And I’m proud of it. I’d cast you off, see you in the gutter, but . . . mmm.’ He grinned to himself.
‘But what? Damn you!’ Estelle was being tossed between a glimmer of hope and some dreadful fate. Tara would have to marry Joshua Nankervis, neither the girl nor the young man would be able to stand against Darius’s wish, and if Tara tried to help Estelle, Darius would see her every attempt was harshly thwarted.
‘Come here to me.’
Somehow she made her feet take the necessary steps, each one a humiliation, to stand before him, like a thieving servant about to learn her punishment. ‘It’s like this, Estelle. You know I prefer to spend my time in and about London. I care little for Poltraze but I suppose it should be run well. It’s got a little out of sorts since your day. Michael’s wife does it no justice, she’s little more than a wailing bitch. When Tara marries Joshua she will take precedence over Phoebe but she’s too young and tender for the responsibility. You can come with her. I’ll allow you to resume your place as Poltraze’s mistress.’
Estelle thought she would swoon with relief at this unexpected concession so soon after the ruination of her plans. ‘And . . . in return? There must be some stipulation I have to adhere to. What do you require of me?’
‘You will run my house but not the lives of my sons. You must return to my bed and never deny me. Do we have an agreement, Estelle?’
Estelle’s green eyes shone like agates. The future she had planned had been annihilated but this new proposition meant she was to be reinstated as a wife, able to mix with smart people again, and now without the fear of taunts from Darius at not conceiving a child, something she’d never wanted anyway. Scathing whispers behind fans would be unimportant. Darius spent as little as eight weeks in a year at Poltraze. She would be able to reign, more or less, in her own little kingdom.
For this she swiftly regained her full dignity.
‘We do, Darius.’
‘Knew you’d see things my way. Have your things packed. You can return to the house today. Send for the dressmaker.’ He was gazing from her snow-white throat to her toes, lingering on the upthrust of her corseted breasts, recalling what he knew lay under her petticoats. ‘That dress looks good on your fabulous body but it’s not grand enough for your station. Do as you will with the house, with Joshua’s agreement, of course.’
‘Why are you being so generous, Darius?’ Estelle’s refined features flickered with distrust.
‘I very much enjoyed the look of shock and horror on your face just now and I shall enjoy it again on Michael’s and Phoebe’s. Of course, you haven’t seen my granddaughters. I’m hoping your niece will present me next year with a healthy grandson, one to be proud of.’
Estelle considered what this meant for Tara. Life for her would be much the way Estelle had wanted it. Joshua Nankervis figured among the most eligible bachelors in the county. He was the only one of her two stepsons who had shown her any respect. Any hostility that would come her way from Michael and Phoebe did not bother her. Darius’s arrangement meant she’d hold a superior position to them, and Darius wasn’t the only one who owned a ruthless streak. With her new power she would fight for her rights. ‘I’m pleased it’s Joshua whom Tara is marrying. I shall tell Tara the news as soon as she comes in.’
‘Order her to keep it to herself for now. I’ll tell Joshua tonight. I don’t want the reason for your return to Poltraze to become fully known until the night of the ball. Do you hear me?’
‘As you please, Darius,’ Es
telle said softly, slipping back into the role of a dutiful wife.
‘Good. Where is the girl?’
‘She’s out for a short ride.’
‘Again, good. You are here alone.’ He was on his feet and closing in on her. ‘Upstairs, Estelle. You and I will consummate this agreement now. Take care to show me just how grateful you are.’
Five
The wind and rain up on the high ground of the Carn Croft Mine was sharp and relentless and penetrated Sarah Hichens’s hand-me-down, calf-length dress, petticoat, shawl and hessian towser apron and bit into her flesh, adding more misery to her hard life. Her gook, the cotton bonnet which was gathered at her neck and under her chin and had a long flap over her shoulders, offered little shelter. The shed where she and thirty other girls worked had no sides and when she stepped outside of it her cracked leather shoes, an old pair of Amy’s, filled with mud and grit. The canvas bands she’d wound round her legs, necessary for protection and decency due to the traditional short length of a bal-maiden’s dress, were being breached by the wet and her skin was becoming chaffed. Often, due to the constant cacophony of noise and labour, she went home with an headache.
Bal-maidens worked at the various dressing stages, in different sheds, according to age, toughness and experience. Sarah’s job on the dressing floor, after the ore had been broken to fingertip-sized pieces by the cobbers, was to crush it with a bucking iron – a flat hammer – to small granules on a long table. Bucking was the hardest of the jobs carried out by girls and women. It made their backs, shoulders and arms ache and their hands hurt from the shock of the continuous blows. Suppressing a shiver, finding it hard to believe it was late summer, Sarah pinned the flaps of her gook across her face, leaving only her eyes free to the weather and flying splinters. The hours before the mid-morning croust seemed twice as long today.
