Pengarron Pride

by Pengarron Pride (retail) (epub)

  ‘Alice didn’t mean any harm, Beatrice,’ Kerensa said quickly, although she knew that Alice and Beatrice, the manor’s oldest servant, enjoyed this bickering at each other.

  Olivia enjoyed their interchanges too and she tugged at Beatrice’s dirty apron while encouraging the old woman to go on. ‘Turn Alice into a kitten, Bea, go on, go on, I’ve always wanted a kitten but Father won’t let me. Make one the same colour as Alice’s curls, go on, go on.’

  Beatrice, who never paid much attention to personal hygiene and whose presence was usually accompanied by more than one dreadful smell, screwed up her ugly face and winked at Olivia. ‘I’d reckon she would better make a brown cow all fattened up ready fer the market, my ’an’some.’

  ‘I think we’ve had enough of this conversation,’ Kerensa said in a tone that defied argument. She knew her daughter could be just as outspoken as her friend and Olivia looked as though she was bursting to say something more. Instead she made a disappointed face at her mother and looked cheekily at Alice, obviously picturing in her mind the creature she had next wanted to have her turned into.

  Beatrice studied Alice from short-sighted eyes. ‘I’ve left a basket in the kitchen fer yer little sister-in-law, if ye’ll git up off yer lazy backside drekkly an’ take it ’ome to ’er,’ she said haughtily. ‘Rosie’ll know what t’do with it.’

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ Alice replied, smiling back with mock graciousness.

  ‘And there’s a parcel beside it thee can drop off to Ricketty Jim, went put ’ee out none, ye’ll ’ave to past un on yer way back. ’E’s usually to be found on Trecath-en’s boundary. ’Tis a nice bit of bacon fat fer ’im, ’e do like a nice bit of bacon fat.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Beatrice, I’ll give it to him and make sure I’ll tell him it’s from you. Ricketty Jim’s not starving, you know, I send up something to the rover every day by one of my menfolk.’

  Beatrice sniffed heavily and swiped at a drip of phlegm hanging from her nose. Alice looked away in disgust. ‘Don’t ’ee ruddy ferget!’ Beatrice instructed her. ‘I’ll be off then, m’dear,’ she then told Kerensa, having always addressed her mistress in these terms, and the old crone shuffled off.

  ‘No guesses where she’s going,’ Alice said, looking warily round to make sure Beatrice was out of earshot.

  ‘I know,’ piped up Olivia, ‘off to the stables to hit the gin bottle.’

  ‘Olivia!’ Kerensa exclaimed. ‘I won’t have you saying things like that.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Olivia said, quite unconcerned, and went back to her dolls.

  Alice pursed her lips and moved them to the side of her face as she watched the little red-haired girl at play. ‘If you ask me, they’re all getting more like their father.’

  ‘Not Kane so much,’ Kerensa said. ‘Although he has his moments, he’s usually happy to go along with whatever Luke gets up to, but he does insist that Olivia goes riding with them.’

  ‘I’ve often thought how good it is that the two boys get along so well and how much Kane dotes on the little maid there. I hope they’ll always get along with each other in later years. Kane could even be yours with that lovely auburn hair the same colour as yours and Olivia’s. How old is he now? Ten years, isn’t it?

  ‘Well, ten at the end of November. It’s the time of year I rescued him and brought him home and that’s when we count his birthday. Oliver says Kane was the best thing I ever brought home from the market,’ Kerensa said fondly. ‘Dear Kane, he hates the colour of his hair. Oliver used to say he looked like that field mouse he used to carry about, but I think he has a calm and gentle face.’

  ‘He’s got a gentle nature, too, despite the terrible start he’s had in life,’ Alice said wholeheartedly. ‘Does he still get those nightmares?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so, but not so often as he’s got older. He never remembers what’s in them but I imagine they’re about his early days spent in that brothel or perhaps the fight I had to put up to get him away from his dreadful father.’

  ‘Well, he’s got a good home, a good mother and father now, and he absolutely adores you, Kerensa. It don’t bear thinking about what might have happened if you hadn’t come across him when you did. And if you ask me he’s going to be a fine-looking young man. He’ll give Luke and my boys a run for the maids later on, what with those big sad eyes of his, you wait and see.’ Alice smiled warmly at Kerensa, she knew how protective her friend was over the boy brought up as the Pengarrons’ own son.

  ‘It’s a shame Clem won’t allow Philip and David to come over here to play with my boys,’ Kerensa said with real regret, ‘and little Jessica and Olivia would enjoy each other’s company so much.’

  ‘Well, you know the same as me what Clem’s views are on the matter. He can be every bit as stubborn as Sir Oliver if he’s a mind to be. Anyway, Kerensa, think of it, your boys and mine, they’d probably start a feud between the next Pengarron and Trenchard generation.’

  ‘But they should have the chance to see if they’ll get along or not. It’s mainly Clem who has any ill feeling and that’s only against Oliver. I do understand his reasons but I wish he’d change his mind. I get very little chance to see your children.’

  Kerensa thought back over painful memories of Clem’s anguish when he learned they couldn’t be married and the clashes he’d had with Oliver. She wondered if Clem would change his mind if she approached him herself, but the opportunity to talk to Clem alone was rare.

  ‘Well, things aren’t likely to change, I’m afraid,’ Alice sighed. ‘Men must have their pride.’

  Olivia ran up and dropped a doll into Kerensa’s lap and asked her to tie up the fiddly fastenings on its dress. Then she showed Alice the latest addition Oliver had brought home to the overflowing nursery.

  Alice admired the doll, lifted Olivia up on her lap and cuddled her, then leaned over to Kerensa as if she was about to divulge a secret. ‘You’ll never guess what Clem is up to now.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Kerensa returned eagerly. She liked to hear about Clem.

  ‘Believe it or not he’s trying to get Rosie and Matthias Renfree together.’

  ‘With marriage in mind, you mean? Rosie and Matthias.’ Kerensa looked up at the domed roof of the summer house and pondered this. ‘Yes, I do believe they would make a good couple. At least Rosie wouldn’t have to change her whole way of life like we had to.’

  ‘You try telling her that,’ Alice chuckled. ‘Clem’s getting more and more frustrated with both of them, they don’t show the slightest interest in each other.’

  ‘You’ll have to help them along, Alice, try your hand at matchmaking.’

  ‘I’ve already tried, Kerensa, but I’ve had no luck yet. Kenver’s had a go at throwing them together but Father reckons we should leave things alone. Oh well, if it’s meant to be… Perhaps I should ask Beatrice if she’s got a potion, eh? She’s got one for everything else.’ Alice winked and grinned at Olivia who was listening closely from her perch on Alice’s comfortable lap.

  ‘I’ll ask Beatrice for a potion for you, Alice,’ Olivia offered, wriggling down.

  ‘Thank you, my handsome, but I think we’d better leave it for today.’ Alice kissed the top of her head. ‘But you can do something else for me because I have to go home to my own little girl now. Will you be a dear and run along to the kitchen and fetch my red cloak for me, please? You’ll find it over the back of a chair. And will you bring the basket for Rosie? She’s going to pick some herbs and wild salad for Beatrice, now the poor old dear can’t get about so much. Can you manage all that? Oh, and you’ll find one of my triggy-apples in the kitchen, specially made just for you.’

  ‘Is there one for Luke and Kane too? They love toffee,’ Olivia asked, her little oval-shaped face bright at the prospect of the treat.

  ‘Yes, of course there is,’ Alice laughed merrily. ‘If I forgot them I’d probably find myself caught up in a battle of some sort.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Alice?’ Kere
nsa asked.

  ‘What? Oh! Ricketty Jim’s bacon scraps.’

  ‘I’ll put them in the basket,’ Olivia said, and ran off obligingly.

  Alice got to her feet and watched her. ‘She moves as gracefully as you, Kerensa. Why couldn’t I keep my figure like you?’ she said, pretending to be vexed.

  Kerensa put an arm round her friend’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re no more than a bit cuddly, Alice Trenchard,’ she laughed. ‘Well, I’d better go up and get ready for our visitor.’

  ‘Oh? Captain Solomon, is it?’

  ‘Not this time. It’s a young lady. Miss Ameline Beswetherick from Tolwithrick, Sir Martin’s eldest granddaughter. She’s had a proposal of marriage and needs time away from home to make up her mind whether to accept it or not. She’s quite a pleasant girl, a year older than Rosie. Brought up a lady of course but, unlike her mother Lady Rachael, very prim and proper.’

  ‘Mmmm, she sounds fascinating. What’s the man concerned like?’

  ‘His name is James Mortreath and he’s a very distant relative of Oliver’s. He’s in his mid-thirties, a lawyer by profession. He’s been very successful in London and is very rich. He’s rather quiet and serious. He asked Ameline to marry him ages ago but she keeps the poor man on tenterhooks. He’s been up and back from London several times while waiting for her answer. I quite like him. I think he’d be good for Ameline but Oliver deliberately makes him feel uncomfortable, though I don’t know why. It makes me cross, I think it’s really childish of him.’

  ‘Well, you know what Beatrice says.’

  ‘Yes, how could I forget – men never grow up, they only get worse.’

  ‘And worse!’

  The two young women laughed together. At that moment Luke Pengarron appeared dragging a loudly protesting Kane along by his torn shirt.

  ‘Mama, will you do something about him!’ Luke demanded. ‘Kane is supposed to be dead but he won’t lie down!’

  Alice quickly summed up the situation. ‘Give young Master Luke a clip round the ear,’ she advised Kerensa, as one mother to another.

  Chapter 8

  Rosie Trenchard was seething mad. She had just wasted the best part of two hours taking a so-called important message from Clem to Ker-an-Mor Farm for Matthias Renfree. She had had to wait around to see him, only to be told, eventually, that he was up at the manor house going over the estate’s accounts with Sir Oliver. To make matters worse, when she left a message for Matthias, it seemed he already knew its content: that the widow Trewerggie, over Trevenner way, was anxious to learn about how the Methodist Society looked upon God and salvation with a view to joining it and wanted the young preacher to call on her. How Clem knew about it and why he was concerned about the spiritual affairs of a woman he professed not to have spoken to until market day was beyond Rosie.

  She had lost all patience with Clem and was beginning to believe that the long periods he drew apart from the rest of the family had left him a little ‘touched’. She made up her mind to speak to their father about his behaviour.

  Since her mother and gran had died she and Alice were rushed off their feet now they were the only women on the farm. Between them they cleaned the farmhouse, cooked, laundered, scrubbed, attended to the dairy, fowls, pigs, goats and garden, drew the water, hoed the weeds in the fields and helped with the harvesting. They prepared for winter by salting and smoking meat and fish and making preserves of all kinds. If they got a minute to sit down, there was always a mountain of darning to finish. Then there was Kenver, her disabled brother; he needed a certain amount of attention every day and Alice was glad of a hand with three boisterous children to rear. Rosie had very little spare time and she was outraged at having this precious commodity wasted by carrying unwanted messages for a half-mad brother.

  ‘The next time you have a message for Preacher Renfree, or anyone else in the whole parish, Clem Trenchard,’ she spoke crossly as she approached the boundary between Ker-an-Mor and Trecath-en Farms on her way home, ‘you can do it yourself!’

  So as not to have an entirely wasted journey Rosie looked about for berries, plants and the wild herbs Beatrice couldn’t cultivate in her garden patch. In return for Rosie’s help, Beatrice was teaching her how to make and bottle many useful potions, poultices, and ointments. The ugly, gin-sodden old woman gave her tiny bottles of her preparations, like oil of rosemary and sage to make her golden hair shine. Clem snorted at this arrangement, infuriating Rosie by asking if she was going into apprenticeship as the next neighbourhood witch.

  Rosie came to the hawthorn boundary of the two farms where the ground fell sharply into a valley on both sides leading down to a river. She climbed over the stile on to her father’s land and looked about for Ricketty Jim. He had been there on her way to Ker-an-Mor Farm, boiling river water over a small twig fire. He had received the little packet of tea Rosie had given to him with many polite thank yous.

  ‘Your brother been free-trading, has he, Rosie?’ he’d asked, sprinkling the green tea leaves on to the bubbling water. ‘I’d ask you to share a dish with me but I’ve only got the one crock.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Rosie answered, edging towards the stile. Ricketty Jim, whose name came about because of his bent shaky legs, was long-bearded and his fly-away hair was greying but his sharp brown eyes suggested he was younger than he looked. Although Rosie liked to talk to him, and he was a conversational man, she felt it wasn’t right to spend time alone with him.

  Ricketty Jim had turned up in the parish on a summer morning some three years ago. He was shabbily dressed with an old sack of a few belongings, obviously a rover, but he asked for no charity and would put in a hard day’s work on the local farms and ask for no more than a good meal in return. He informed the folk curious about him that he came from the north of the county and preferred to live under the stars, usually moving on every two or three months, and that he was likely to leave a parish as suddenly as he’d arrived in it. While he was in Perranbarvah he made his camp where Rosie had seen him. The Trenchards didn’t mind him squatting on their land and other folk soon grew to respect him and took his presence among them for granted, seeking him out for interesting discussions and to listen to his entertaining story-telling.

  Rosie could see no sign of him now. Under the hedge by the stile on Trecath-en’s side of the valley was one of his favourite spots but he had obviously moved on to another. As always, there was no sign that he had ever been there.

  Rosie moved down the valley in careful side steps making for the path at its bottom that led straight home. The ground was rough and uneven all the way down to the cheerful river that ran alongside the path and needed careful negotiation through thick clumps of tall sharp thistles. There were no suitable plants for Beatrice’s needs here but Rosie knew she would find a wealth of them down by the river.

  Afterwards, Rosie couldn’t recall the reason why she lost her footing and fell. She may have been deep in thought about leaves or wild flowers, or where Ricketty Jim had gone, or it may have been her anger with Clem. But she had felt her ankle go in one agonising movement and she was falling, rolling over and over the fierce thistles with the bottom of the valley rushing up to meet her.

  When she finally came to a halt, the breath knocked out of her, her hat had come off, her faded blue dress torn from her petticoat. It was several minutes before she could pull herself up to a sitting position but the effort ended with her hunching her upper body over her knees. Her head was spinning and she was horrified to think that somehow she was badly injured.

  She moved her arms and legs one by one, a little at a time, overwhelmed with relief to find all in working order apart from the wrenched ankle. It throbbed painfully and was badly swollen. Rosie groaned in anguish when she realised the shoe of her injured foot was missing. She must find that shoe, it was half of the only good pair she owned and there was plenty of wear left in them. She would have to search for the shoe when she was sure the rest of her was not hurt.

&nb
sp; To ensure there was no neck injury, she moved her head gingerly from side to side and round in a circle. Then she listened for sounds and gulped with relief at hearing the birds chirping and the gurgles of the river on its progress to the sea. Next she looked up and down the valley; her vision was clearing but tears were threatening to fall as a result of shock and she took a deep breath to forestall them. Grazes and scratches were now beginning to sting; the skin of one elbow had been skimmed off and blood was staining her sleeve. Investigating inside her shift and under her petticoat, she discovered bruises on both shoulders, legs and knees.

  Rosie wished Ricketty Jim hadn’t chosen today to wander off, he would almost certainly have seen her fall and could have helped her home. When her breath was a little recovered, she decided to try and hobble for home but even the lightest of pressure on her wrenched ankle made her scream in pain and sink back to the ground. She felt sick, her head swam and her ears buzzed.

  When she could think reasonably again she knew there were only two courses open to her. She could either crawl home on her hands and knees or wait for Clem or her father to come looking for her. It made sense to wait for help and this did not worry her overmuch. She was not far from the farm, there was a bright warm autumn sun in a clear sky and she should be discovered before darkness fell.

  Rosie had been cradling her swollen foot for over an hour when the snorting of a horse at the top of the valley gave her a rush of hope mixed with tearful emotion. She hoped the rider would see her and raised a feeble hand. She expected to see Matthias Renfree who called regularly to see Kenver, or perhaps Adam, Matthias’s father, calling on estate business, or Nathan O’Flynn, the estate’s gamekeeper, who occasionally paid the family a visit. The horse was a magnificent thoroughbred, as black as night. Its rider dismounted and lowered his great height in front of her.

  ‘Well, Miss Trenchard,’ Oliver said, his voice softened in the way one employs to comfort the shocked and injured. ‘It seems you have met with an accident. Where are you hurt?’