‘What is it?’ Oliver asked, suddenly uncomfortable after the exposure of one of his weaknesses.
‘I’m sorry,’ she replied, lifting a hand to hide a smile, ‘but it was funny.’
The special friendship made Oliver smile too and he gave her back the cloth, momentarily holding her hand. ‘Yes, I suppose it was funny. Let me know if Rosie has any problems with her ankle and I’ll get Dr Crebo to look at it. Good day to you, Alice.’
Alice marched back to the kitchen to find Clem laughing with tears running down his face while repeatedly kissing Jessica. ‘Sir Oliver is not cross with you, Jessica. Cats make his eyes go all watery if he touches them, that’s all,’ she said soothingly. Morley and Kenver were laughing too and she shook her head, fixing all three men with a sober stare.
Rosie had a smile on her face but her thoughts were not on the recent discomfiture of the rider on the black horse she could see trotting out of the farmyard. Instead, she was recalling how good it had felt to ride home so closely to him.
Chapter 9
Mrs Tregonning, the Reverend Joseph Ivey’s plump, fussy housekeeper, was surprised at the identity of the young man calling at the parsonage door. She bid him wipe his feet, take off his hat and step inside the hall. She eyed his boots critically, grudgingly approved them then waddled to the elderly parson’s study to ask if he would receive the visitor.
‘’Scuse me, Reverend, but Bartholomew Drannock’s turned up wanting to see you,’ she breathed heavily, her flushed face pressed round the study door. ‘Says he can’t come back today if you don’t see him right away.’
The Reverend put down his quill to ponder on this. A moment later, he said, ‘Then you’d better ask him to come in, Mrs Tregonning.’
Mrs Tregonning wasn’t so sure the Reverend should allow himself to be disturbed. ‘What about your sermon, then?’
‘In my experience, Mrs Tregonning,’ he said, with a light smile that took years off his kindly face, ‘the interruption of a laboured sermon can bring forth the very ingredient one needs to write one of excellence.’
‘Very well, Reverend,’ she said, disappearing from the door but continuing to speak, ‘as you please, I’m sure you know best. I’ll show him in, hope it’s not bad news about his dear mother, poor soul…’
As the housekeeper’s voice faded the Reverend speedily tidied up his desk to show no signs of his mental and spiritual labour, then he rose and took up a position in the middle of the room. He always did this when welcoming a caller, expected or not, not wanting them to believe they were a nuisance or wasting his valuable time. He wanted his flock to feel able to unburden themselves of their troubles or if they had joyful news not to dampen their pleasure. For the finishing touch he created a flexible stance and loosened his features, ready to rearrange them the instant he knew why the caller was here.
Mrs Tregonning ushered Bartholomew into the study with an air of total disinterest. It belied her true character, but this was necessary if the parishioners were to feel they could speak to the Reverend in complete confidence.
Reverend Ivey held out his hand, automatically adopting a fatherly expression as he attempted to read the youth’s eyes.
Bartholomew glanced around the room which smelled faintly of the lavender water the Reverend drank to ward off headaches. He wanted to be sure no other person was there before shaking hands.
‘Thank you for seeing me at once,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s difficult to find spare time to see you and I want to discuss something that can’t wait.’
‘There’s no need for concern, Bartholomew. Please sit yourself down. Can I offer you some refreshment?’
‘Not for me, thank you.’ Bartholomew chose the chair opposite the desk and waited for the parson to be seated. ‘I’ve come about my mother.’
‘I rather thought it might be about your mother. Has her condition worsened?’
‘She’s wasting away before my eyes, Reverend,’ he answered, sorrow etched deeply in his face. ‘Since Father died she’s lost the will to live. She just sits on his side of the settle beyond the door and stares at nothing. It’s all I can do to get her to eat a crumb. I know you’ve tried your best to help, Reverend, organising the village women and Mrs Tregonning here to clean the cottage and cook meals for the little ones. But it can’t go on for ever. The children need a woman to look after them properly and I’m hardly of an age to get married. I’m getting desperate to know what to do. I realise you must get a lot of people looking for help following the mine accident and you must be very busy, but I was hoping you might be able to get through to Mother somehow. Encourage her to get out and about, be more her old self again.’
The Reverend sighed soft and slow. ‘I will go down to see her later in the day, Bartholomew, and of course I will do my best to lift her spirits, but I feel she needs help from a higher level than we can provide for her now.’
‘God, you mean,’ Bartholomew said blandly, his eyes alighting on a Bible.
‘Yes, I do. Your mother needs to be held constantly before God in prayer. The more prayer, the more chance there will be of her breaking out of her despair.’
‘You really believe that, don’t you?’ Bartholomew said, eyeing the parson suspiciously while tapping the Bible. ‘And what it says in here? I know what’s written in it, my mother used to teach me to read it.’
‘Of course. Why are you surprised? I am a minister of God.’
‘The few other clergymen I’ve come across are ministers only unto themselves, their greed and their perversions. I had not expected to find one who really believed in what he preaches. Perhaps if more of them were like you then people wouldn’t need to form a new sort of church outside the church.’
‘By that I take it you are referring to the people that are called Methodists, but John Wesley has no desire to start another church. Do you not approve of the Bible classes on Lancavel Downs, Bartholomew?’
‘I don’t feel the need to pursue the clamour for a new ideology and I sometimes wonder if it’s the Wesleys or Matthias Renfree people follow rather than God.’
The Reverend Ivey pursed his wafer-thin lips and rubbed at the back of his wispy grey hair. ‘Yes, the early apostles were concerned that some of the people were following them and not God. I find your views interesting, Bartholomew. However, do you not think it unfair to form an opinion on what any individual or group of people do, believe or follow if you don’t participate in the proceedings or know all about them?’
‘I do, and that is why I have only thoughts and not opinions on religious matters, and my thoughts I share only with my mother,’ the young fisherman answered as if rising to a challenge.
‘I see. Do you believe in God? You never come to church now.’
‘I went into the church once, alone, a long time ago… to see if God was there.’
‘And was He?’ the Reverend prompted gently.
Bartholomew leaned back and stared at the array of theological books on a shelf behind the parson’s head. ‘I felt this strange kind of inner peace, if that was God… I’ve had the same feeling out at sea, up on the cliffs… If He is anywhere at all, He’s everywhere.’
‘You are right in that.’ The Reverend felt there was no need to say any more.
Bartholomew suddenly jumped up from his chair. ‘Damn it, Reverend, my mother should not have to live in a hovel!’ he cried angrily. ‘She deserves better. She may not have been gentry but she was a lady, she deserved far more than a life of poverty as a fishwife. I want her to have the sort of life she was born to, plenty of food, good clothes on her back, wine on the table, a big comfortable house. Look at her, Reverend, just look at her, she’s like a shrivelled-up body with the maggots already chewing on her!’ He threw up his hands, crossed the room and stared out of the window.
The Reverend Ivey went to him. ‘You love your mother very much, Bartholomew, but aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What?’ asked Bartholomew, without turning round.
&
nbsp; ‘Your mother loved your father very much too. She probably would not have lived her life in any other way if it had meant being without him.’
Bartholomew tightened his mouth. He had no more to say.
The Reverend knew when it was time to talk about something else. ‘I am pleased that at least you have the means to earn a living. I understand that Peter Blake has given you and Matthew King the Young Maid as an unconditional gift.’
‘Aye,’ Bartholomew snickered, ‘it must have half-killed him to make such a gesture. Elizabeth King believes it must be due to the kindness of that lovely wife of his.’
‘Rosina? Yes, it is the kind of gesture that gentle soul would encourage her husband to make.’
Bartholomew turned to face the Reverend. His face was strangely alive, mocking, his eyes dark and challenging. ‘Matthew’d reckon it was the hand of God. Paul says the hand of fate. Do you know what I believe, Reverend?’ He went on, not waiting for a reply. ‘I believe it is more likely to have something to do with the heavy hand of Sir Oliver Pengarron.’
At first the Reverend shook his head but changed his mind and brought his head up and down like a puppet on a slow string. He picked up a book resting on the cushion of the window seat and squeezed its top corner between finger and thumb, studied its title without consciously taking it in then dropped it back in its place. Bartholomew waited expectantly.
‘There may be some truth in what you say. The information was brought to me that Sir Oliver paid Peter Blake an unwelcome call on the day following Mark King’s funeral. Beforehand he called at the Blakes’ rooms and was granted entrance by Mistress Blake. He may have said something… I know him to be a man who seeks justice,’ the parson cleared his throat and pulled at the wrinkled folds of skin under his chin, ‘not necessarily by conventional means. Well, at the least it will be easier for you, your brothers and the Kings to make a reasonable living without dues to pay on your boat.’
‘I’m grateful for that,’ Bartholomew said briefly.
‘I have one idea to help your mother,’ the Reverend said. ‘She usually appears a little brighter after Lady Pengarron has called on her. Perhaps Jenifer’s help may come more fully from that quarter.’
‘Yes, Lady Pengarron.’ Bartholomew allowed a smile to touch the edges of his wide mouth at the memory of their meeting in Trelynne Cove. ‘If anyone can help my mother, she can. She’s done everything she can to bring Mother back into the land of the living, so to speak, she even invited all of us to have Sunday dinner at the manor. She thought Mother sitting at a well-set table again would spur her on to wanting to do the best for the little ones, but Mother refused. Lady Pengarron stressed that Sir Oliver wouldn’t mind, that it could be a time when he wasn’t there if it’d make her feel more comfortable about it.’
‘That was a shame, an outing of that kind could have been a turning point for her. I hope the refusal was not purely out of embarrassment.’
‘Might have been, but I doubt it. Mother won’t go outside the door for any reason. She could have been afraid the littl’uns would have felt out of place with the Pengarron children. The youngest one, that Master Luke, is a holy terror and Cordelia’s got nothing good to wear like their maid… I’d like to have gone though…’
The Reverend felt compassion for the youth’s disappointment and dilemma. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with Lady Pengarron, to see what else we can come up with.’ Privately he held little hope of reviving Jenifer’s spirit.
He showed Bartholomew to the door and then went back to his sermon, writing with enthusiasm on an idea that the interview with the youth had given him.
Bartholomew walked down the steep hill to the village, where Matthew King was waiting for him. To supplement their earnings they were about to go smuggling in their rowing boat. Under cover of fishing for bait they were to meet a French fishing boat out in deeper waters and take from it a quantity of tobacco. This would be sold to the Sarrison brothers who, not having the haughty authority of their class to haggle over the cost, would give a handsome price. It would stave off hunger pangs for a few weeks but it was done at the risk of being apprehended by the Revenue men and under the mutual loathing they held for the Frenchmen. There was also the risk of falling foul of privateering by French boats out in the Channel. It was just these kinds of risk that Bartholomew needed to make him momentarily forget his heavy responsibilities.
* * *
In the course of the same morning Oliver was in the stable yard of the manor talking to Nathan O’Flynn, his game keeper and head forester. They were resting idly against a stall door smoking their pipes while Oliver waited for Conomor to be saddled.
‘When I’ve taken leave of the parsonage I shall be spending nine or ten days away on business. Adam Renfree has been informed and I’ve left instructions on my desk.’ Oliver took Nathan’s empty tobacco pouch from his large flat hand and filled it with tobacco from his own.
‘Very well, m’lord. I don’t foresee any problems,’ Nathan said, puffing away contentedly. ‘Thank you for the baccy.’
‘Good, that’s settled.’ With that Oliver shouted across the stable yard. ‘Get a move on, will you, Jack! I want to leave before this time next week, if you please!’
‘I went be long now, sir!’ came a hasty voice from within the stable.
‘What’s the matter with the lad nowadays?’ Nathan mused aloud. ‘He’s as clumsy as a one-footed ox, so he is. You’d think he was in love or something.’
Oliver chuckled knowingly.
The thickset Irishman raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s not, is he? Young Jack, smitten!’
‘Can you think of another reason for him to be slicking back his hair and putting on his best shirt and making his way over to Lancavel Downs? I don’t think Matthias Renfree realises there is an ulterior motive for Jack’s sudden appearance at the Bible classes.’
‘A girl, eh? Let me see… Rosie Trenchard, she’s a pretty little thing. Got young men from all over the place running after her. Michael and Conan, the stable boys, have both made a bid for her, till her brother saw ’em off. Now it’s Jack’s turn, eh? Make a good match, he and Rosie,’ Nathan grinned, ‘if he can get past Clem, that is. Reckon he must think only the Sheriff himself is good enough for Rosie.’
Oliver shook his head. ‘You’re way off the mark, Nat. Jack! Hurry up, damn you! Whoever she is, he’s keeping her close in his thoughts but I’ve a notion he’s trying to catch more than a glimpse of Carn Bawden’s daughter.’
‘What? That little spitfire? Heaven only help the lad. Jack will never handle that one.’ Nathan shook his head as he gathered his gun, crib and dogs together.
Oliver stared at the stable door from where Jack and his mount would appear and made a wry promise. ‘If he doesn’t bring Conomor out in less than ten seconds heaven help him now. I want to see the Reverend Ivey before he thinks of retiring!’
* * *
Thus, as one tall, black-haired, unexpected caller left the parsonage, he was replaced a short time afterwards by another to interrupt the writing of the Reverend Ivey’s sermon.
Quill in hand, inspiration on his face, the parson’s hand stayed over the paper as Mrs Tregonning announced, ‘Sir Oliver for you, Reverend.’
‘It looks as if I have broken the flow of something important, Joseph,’ Oliver said, as the Reverend stood up to shake hands.
‘Nothing important, Oliver, I assure you. Bartholomew Drannock has not long left here. During our conversation he gave me an idea for my next Sunday’s sermon. I shall not forget what he said, he is a most intelligent young man.’
‘How odd, he is the very person I have come to see you about.’
‘Oh, has it anything to do with his mother, Jenifer?’ the Reverend asked, as they seated themselves comfortably over a glass of mead. ‘Bartholomew is very concerned about her, her condition is steadily worsening. I told the boy just before he left that the only person who may be able to lift her out of her despair is Kerensa.’
&
nbsp; ‘Kerensa will do what she can to help the poor woman, but the reason why I’m here,’ said Oliver, attempting to read an upsidedown sentence of the sermon to try and make out what the Drannock boy might have said, ‘has nothing to do with Jenifer or Drannock’s tragic death, but with the boy himself.’
The parson did not want to talk about Bartholomew Drannock. ‘When you came in, Oliver, I was worried you were bringing more sad tidings. It is a month since the last funeral at which I officiated and I hope the last for a very, very long time. In fact on Sunday I have the happy occasion of baptising the infant grandson of Daniel Berryman of Orchard Hill Farm, then in the middle of the week I am to marry the couple who took over Rose Farm. Purely by chance I happened to find out they have never been joined in wedlock and having broached them on the error of their ways they shamefacedly agreed to right their wrong.’
‘Yes, I know all that,’ Oliver said impatiently, drumming his fingertips on the desk top.
‘It is a good thing they have not had any children yet. And how are your dear children? Is Miss Ameline Beswetherick enjoying her stay with you?’
‘The children are all well, thank you, and Ameline has settled in and made herself comfortable.’ Oliver glanced pointedly down at his dark blue frock coat and plucked at a nonexistent piece of fluff. The Reverend knew he had to stop the small talk.
‘Um… you have something in mind for Bartholomew’s future?’ he asked hopefully.
‘His past would be nearer the mark. Since he was a child I’ve intended to ask questions about the boy’s parentage and a conversation I had with Captain Solomon a while ago has prompted me seriously to wonder if there’s any Pengarron blood in the boy’s family. Captain Solomon pointed out that the boy bears a notable resemblance to me. Have you by any chance heard any mumblings in the parish about his parentage?’
This was what Joseph Ivey had feared, the moment he had lived in dread of. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, taking a long moment to answer. ‘I… cannot say that I have not, Oliver.’
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