by Gloria Cook
Amy put down scraps outside the back door for the dogs. Stumpy and Rip came barking in anticipation. She walked away from them and faced the workshop. Sol came out to see what the ruckus was about. He stood motionless, a tall and proud figure, like some magnificent animal. Apart from the wind tugging at his hair he was like a statue. She might have been one too, so motionless was she. But emotion raged inside her. She knew it did for him too. For they were utterly connected. The hundreds of yards distance between them fled away and it was as if they were entangled lovingly in each other’s arms. It was only hours ago when she had lain in his bed with him. A lifetime ago. An instant away. The imprint of him was on and in her body. Her lips tingled from the wonderful kisses they had shared secretly on the landing this morning, while listening for her mother approaching. One of them should break away. He had work to do and she had to go to the shops, but both were reluctant to break the wonderful spell.
It was going to be just about impossible to keep their relationship, their love, to themselves for long. Their every glance would betray them. It was hard not to touch and linger and bide with each other. They had not spoken about the future, they were content to just let the next course happen.
‘I’ve written out the shopping list, Amy,’ Sylvia called from within.
She reached a hand out to Sol and he did so to her. Then she went indoors and put on her cloak and bonnet. The quicker she got through this the quicker she could join Sol in the workshop.
The second she had shut the front gate, Sylvia marched to the workshop. ‘Sol. A word if you please. Now! Outside.’
Jowan looked up from where he was fixing a length of wood into the vice. ‘I’ll have none of your cheeky lip.’ She nipped him off before he could utter a syllable.
Sol followed her to some distance away. She kept her back to him. He could see she was simmering with indignation and wrath. He knew what this was about. He came round her, looked down on her. He waited, trying to keep his expression neutral, but a guilty flush spread over every dimension of his face. She was having trouble articulating the words she wanted to say. ‘Mrs Lewarne . . .’
She gazed at him for a moment from eyes that were so like Amy’s, eyes that were brimming over with fury, and he braced himself to witness it unleashed. ‘I’m not a fool! I know what’s happened. I’ve packed your things. I want you out from under my roof today. If I wasn’t depending on you and your reprobate brother then I’d turn you out of the workshop this instant. It’s up to you if you stay or not, but I won’t have you inside the house. Any meals can be brought to you. And Amy will no longer work alongside you!’ Now she was letting rip her voice rasped bitter and full of courage.
Sol knew she was itching to slap his face. He shifted about. ‘I’m sorry you are upset, Mrs Lewarne. Of course, I understand why. I do love Amy, she means more to me than—’
‘Just another conquest?’ Sylvia cried, growing ever darker in countenance. ‘Don’t you dare try to sweet talk me! My daughter is young and vulnerable. She was there for the taking and you took her. And I am as much to blame. I shouldn’t have left the pair of you alone so often and certainly I should not have gone out last evening – the devil has many a trick to lull the faithful into false security. He’s the father of all lies, and you have lied your way into Amy’s heart and more. You had better pray to whatever god you believe in, Sol Kivell, that you have not left her in disgrace or you’ll be wishing you were facing the hounds of hell rather than what I’ll do to you! I lived with a weak husband for nearly twenty years and it left me a weak woman. Not any more! I’m taking charge of my family from this day forward. What I say goes. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Sol had never thought he would be reduced to the rank of a trembling miscreant, eager to make recompense, but he was, and by a normally mild-mannered, middle-aged woman. ‘Mrs Lewarne, let me try to reassure you that I would never harm Amy. Please believe me when I say I love her. That I want to be with her always.’
‘To marry her, you mean?’ Sylvia’s voice verged on mocking.
‘Yes, one day.’
‘You might believe you mean that now, and that you love her. Amy’s not the usual sort of girl you’ve been involved with.’ Sylvia’s anger did not seep away, and added to it was a deep distress. ‘You can’t be trusted. You’re going to break her heart. Whether you go off now or some time ahead, you’ll leave her stranded in some wretched limbo, for I know my girl, she’ll never love another, and looking at you, I can see only too well why any girl would have her head turned. I shall never forgive myself for her fate. I should have known better than to allow you to remain here after you threw my husband out. It would have been better if Amy and I had given up this place and went to work as bal-maidens.’
An unbearable pain was building up inside Sol’s heart. He had to make this woman listen to him, to understand. ‘Mrs Lewarne, I understand the way you feel, but I swear that if I travelled the whole world and discovered everything there was in it, and if I achieved all that mankind was ever capable of, it would be pointless to me without Amy in my life. Don’t turn me out. Let me go on turning round the business. Please, give me a chance to prove that I am a man of honour, and that I really do love Amy and would never do anything to hurt her.’ He reached for her hand and clasped it tightly. He had to make her see that loving Amy had reached him too in the place that meant he could never love another. ‘Grandmama Tempest says that fate and God takes us on many journeys. That it’s up to us which attitude we take as each step unfolds. I have challenge enough at the moment doing right by you, Amy and Hope. As for the future, I can’t see it would be anywhere for me that Amy wasn’t. Come to Burnt Oak with me now. I’ll ask my father’s permission to marry. He won’t say no. I’ll marry Amy tomorrow.’
Sylvia disengaged her hand. ‘Of course your father wouldn’t refuse his permission, if he saw it as a way of getting his hands on this family’s property. There will be no question of me giving permission to Amy to throw her life away. You will have to prove to me that you really do know your own mind, before I do. You say you’ll stay and work, and you are entitled to do so until you have recovered the money you have put into the business. I’ll bring the croust in ten minutes.’ She walked away from him, graceful and proud.
Amy was on her way back home, her basket laden with things from the general stores, the butcher and the baker. Few people spoke to her in as friendly a manner as in the old days. It was because of Sarah. After chapel the previous Sunday people had been calling Sarah a slut. In her anger, Amy had tried to shame them. ‘The Lord goes out and searches for the lost. Sarah was a member of our flock. She’s young, barely past sixteen. No one’s got the right to judge her so harshly.’
She had met up with Molly Pentewan outside the baker’s, and had been blanked, at first, for a different reason. Then the woman, her back bent over by mine work, had remarked, ‘Buying in your bread now, are you? Well, I suppose you and your mother have no time for proper things now you’re entertaining Kivells.’
‘We’re trying to keep ourselves afloat, the best way we can, Mrs Pentewan,’ Amy replied patiently. Her newfound love for Sol made it impossible for her to be brought down today. ‘My mother has a new baby, she hasn’t the time or the energy to do everything in the house.’
‘Then you should be spending all your time inside it, not acting like a man in your father’s workshop.’
‘There’s nothing wrong in good, honest work of any kind, don’t you think? The Lord helps those who help themselves.’
‘Think the good Lord is helping the Kivells, do you?’ Molly Pentewan had shouted. Amy’s determined brightness was obviously annoying her. ‘They’re helping themselves all right, to trade that doesn’t rightly belong to them and to the village girls.’
Amy had coloured up, afraid that the woman would see that she had been with Sol.
‘In that devil Titus Kivell’s case, the younger the better,’ Molly Pentewan persisted. ‘I pleaded with Sarah no
t to take the children to Burnt Oak. I’m afraid he’ll tire of her in time and start on Tamsyn. Sarah can see no wrong in him. She says, he wouldn’t be marrying her if he was that bad. She’s having his baby. Did you know? He’s robbed her of everything, including her soul.’
Amy put a hand on her stomach behind the cover of her basket. She could be in Sarah’s condition, heading for a rushed marriage. What would her mother say?
She carried on along a quiet stretch, with huge rough boulders, and dips and short rises littered with dead heather, gorse and bracken. She saw nothing, her thoughts again centred on Sol and her hopes for a future with him. She could hardly wait to get back to him.
Suddenly a man, a beggar, reared up at her from behind a crop of boulders and was directly in her path. She screamed and fear rode up her spine. ‘If it’s money you want, you’re welcome to it. There’s three shillings in my purse and food in the basket.’
The beggar’s stance suddenly drooped and he held out his hands as if helpless. ‘Amy, it’s me.’
She stared and slowly her fright dissipated. ‘Father!’ She could hardly believe this quivering spectacle in filthy clothing and greasy, dirt-streaked skin was him, Morton Lewarne, once an upright member of Meryen. Was it he who had disturbed the dogs, and temporarily last night, hers and Sol’s passion. ‘What’s happened to you? Where have you been all this time?’
‘Amy, help me. Please, I need your help.’ He looked about to fall down on his knees and beg.
She looked behind her and ahead. No one was about. Just in case, she indicated the boulders from which he had sprung. ‘We’ll talk there. I’ve got bread and cheese. You must have something to eat.’
In the shelter of the ancient stones, Morton was gorging himself with food. ‘I’m in trouble, Amy. Will you help me?’ He was like a terrified child, shivering in dread, breadcrumbs falling down his coat, which he snatched up and stuffed into his mouth.
‘If I can. You obviously need clothes and money. What sort of trouble, Father?’
‘I can’t tell you. I need lots of money. Can you get me into the house? I need to get inside. Can you get Kivell away for a few minutes, it’s all I need. I swear I mean no harm to your mother. Do what you can, Amy. I don’t want her to see me like this.’
‘You want the money in your little table, don’t you? Sol found it. It’s in the den. I’ll fetch it for you and the other things. Where will you go?’
‘Abroad, on a ship.’ He wiped a filthy hand across his mouth. His eyes were bulging with fear. ‘It’s my only hope. You’re my only hope, Amy. Don’t let me down.’
‘Is someone after you? Is that it?’
‘Yes, yes.’
She guessed there was a long and sordid story behind his downfall and distress but she didn’t persist with her questions. She was unlikely to get the truth anyway and she didn’t really want to know. ‘Stay here. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Leaving him with the food, she hurried all the way to Chy-Henver, creeping into the house so as not to alert Sol or Jowan of her presence. Her mother was upstairs, she could hear her cooing to Hope. She fetched the bags of money and put them inside a leather satchel. Most of her father’s things had been brought downstairs in case he turned up and demanded his personal possessions. She put together a bundle of his clothes and a pair of shoes, then wetted and soaped a towel, and within five minutes she was out of the house and on the road again.
Morton was hiding behind the rocks and he leapt in fear when she got back to him. ‘Thank God. I was afraid you’d tell Kivell.’ He looked her over, as if seeking to feed a different starvation. ‘Have you brought the money?’
‘Yes, all of it.’ She handed over the satchel, and he scrabbled to poke inside it, counting the money pouches as if to satisfy himself she had not lied about the amount. Amy felt an overwhelming disgust for him. ‘Even if Sol realized what I was doing and he followed me, I wouldn’t let him hurt you, Father. I’ve brought the things you’ll need to wash your hands and face.’
‘You’re a good girl, Amy. You haven’t turned your back on me.’
She refused to accept the compliment, his second remark was an accusation directed at her mother. She turned round while he stripped off his rags, and cleaned up and got dressed. ‘I’m finished,’ he said, his voice firmer. With the satchel over his shoulder, he had a sounder bearing. ‘I’ll be on my way.’
She wasn’t going to let him slip off yet. ‘Will you get in touch? Father, what about the business? It’s hard for us living with such uncertainty.’
‘Kivell’s seeing you all right, isn’t he?’ There was a hard, jealous edge to Morton’s tone.
‘Yes, for now, but he doesn’t intend to stay for good.’ Saying this aloud, the one thing that blighted her happiness at loving Sol, brought a cutting fear in her heart. Her father going off for ever was not really important, the thought of Sol abandoning her to roam the world, perhaps for years, perhaps for ever, was unbearable.
‘Yah!’ Morton scowled. ‘You can’t trust a Kivell. Thinks himself above me, some sort of saviour to you and your mother right now, but he’ll soon tire of it.’ Then, for a moment, his twisted expression softened and straightened. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see right by you, Amy. He won’t have the last word.’
‘What will you do?’ She frowned. What could he do in this wretched state?
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Morton wailed. ‘It’s not my fault I’ve been brought down to this.’
Amy stared at him, wide-eyed, ‘Whose is it?’
‘Toby’s!’
‘Toby’s?’ She could barely keep her anger and resentment in check. ‘My poor dear brother? Your son? How could you say that?’
‘If he had been the sort of son a man deserves, a son to be proud of, one who would take over one day all that I’d built up, to look after me in my old age, then I wouldn’t have succumbed to temptation.’
Unable to speak, for fear she’d say something as horrible as what she’d just heard, wanting to smite the self-pity off her father’s face, she clamped her mouth shut and looked down at the ground. She could not bear to meet his eyes a moment longer.
He moved away. ‘Goodbye, Amy.’
She stayed frozen.
He didn’t go far before halting and calling again, ‘Goodbye. Amy!’
She knew it was important, vital to him, that she replied in kind. She wanted to deny him his last act of selfishness, but an instant later she called to him, ‘Goodbye, Father.’
And off he went, the father who had never given her a single embrace of affection. Her anger waned and she saw him as the most pathetic of individuals.
Once more, she set off. To face her mother’s reaction over her giving away the money that would have helped them greatly towards stability. To Sol, and whatever the future might hold with him.
Twenty-One
Amy and Sylvia were on the way to Poltraze in the Nankervis carriage, which Tara had sent over to fetch them. Neither of them really wanted to go. They did not mention it, but each knew the other’s feelings. What had seemed a good, even thrilling idea, at the time of Tara’s visit, now seemed unwise and even foolish. How could they hope to fit in with ladies of higher birth, in a grand drawing room? Amy and Sylvia could say a lot to comfort each other, they could have come up with a scheme to let them off this without hurting Tara, but Sylvia spoke only to Amy when absolutely necessary.
It was two weeks since Sylvia had banished Sol from the house. She had torn into Amy for being intimate with him, sobbing out her disappointment and hurt over what she saw as a betrayal of her Christian mothering. Amy had taken the chastening silently, but in the light of whom she had just seen that day, she’d cried, ‘After all that’s happened it hardly seems important.’
That had brought Sylvia’s indignation and red-hot anger to a head and she had looked as if she’d wanted to slap Amy’s face. ‘You won’t feel like that if he’s put a baby inside you!’
‘We’re in love, Mother. So
l would stand by me. He’s standing by all of us and he doesn’t have to. The last thing he’d do is run out on me if we were to have his child.’
‘That’s right, Mrs Lewarne,’ had come Sol’s quiet, firm voice. He had dared to put his head round the door. ‘I told you the truth about my feelings for Amy. I’m in love with her. I’m sorry for all this distress to you. I shall honour your decision and move out today. Now I’m about to start work up at the big house I don’t need to be here often. Perhaps we could have a weekly meeting to discuss business matters.’ He’d flashed Amy a deep, wonderful look that put across the depths of his love for her. It had reassured her. Told her to be strong, to be patient. The breath had caught in her throat and her eyes had widened as she’d sent back all her love and trust to him. Then he’d become detached and serious, and held up a scrap of clothing. ‘Stumpy’s just come back with this. I recognize it as being part of one of Morton’s shirts. It’s ragged and dirty. It must have been him who was hanging about the place last night. He can’t be far away. I’ll take the dogs and root him out. See what he’s up to.’
‘My dear God,’ Sylvia breathed. ‘He must be starving, desperate, to come back in such a state. Find him. If he’s hurt, bring him here. He’s still my husband. I still owe a duty to him. He must have need of money. He must be given some.’
