‘A fish?’ I said. ‘I’ve had enough of fish for one day!’ Cissie and me laughed, while the other women looked at each other, not having a clue what the widow was talking about. Tegen shook her head at me, which only riled me, perhaps because in truth I wished I could take back my sharp words as I watched the Widow Chegwidden turn from me.
When the cellar was loaded up to the gills, Cissie and me set off, arm in arm. I saw the smart of envy on Tegen’s face and was glad of it. She was a woeful figure, climbing out of the cellar and shuffling through the carpet of glittering scales that covered the path to the cottage. Cissie and me went and lay on the soft moist turf on the headland, watching the clouds roll by and laughing about Loveday Skewes, her snooty ways, and her sly way of slandering people while pretending to be kind about them. I was sorely riled that she was to be made Sunday school teacher and that was the truth of it. Only when I was walking back home to the cottage, did I feel some qualms about Tegen. I hadn’t been fair to her, but knowing I was in the wrong put me in even less of a mood for making amends.
After all, hadn’t I always stood up for her when we were little? Many was the time Loveday had given orders to that big bully Betsy Stoddern to pull Tegen’s hair or make fun of her. They picked on her because she was a silly fretful thing, apt to start blubbing at the slightest teasing. She had no father to stank on them, and Mamm was rushed off her feet, so it was left to me as the older sister to fight her fights. I used my nettly tongue mostly, but my sharp nails too if it came to it. I got a good few bruises fighting Tegen’s battles for her.
The only thing we had in common was our carroty hair. Tegen tried to keep hers hidden under her bonnet, but it was forever worming its way free and grew out of her skull as kinky as a Hottentot’s. She had a thin skin, and at the first touch of sunlight, her face and arms were smattered with freckles, a thousand tiny tea stains. The slightest pinch or knock left its mark. She was blotchy and broke out in rashes, and she was prone to goosebumps and hives and heaven forfend she should ever brush against a nettle or a midge should nip her. Every little thought told in her complexion, and if a man so much as raised his hat to her, she was on fire from her face and down to her throat and all across her chest.
What a look she gave me when I came home that afternoon! She was on her knees shoving pilchards into a clay jar before they went rank. I took no notice and went up to the bedroom to wash my face and hands. I heard her pushing the broom around down below for a long while. If Tegen wanted to play the martyr, then let her. I’d had enough of her, forever worrying what people would say about me and Johnenry, or fretting about my testimony at the prayer meeting that she said made we Blights a laughing stock. When Tegen finished her sweeping, she came up to wash, pink in the face after her toiling. She groaned to see I’d left the water in the bowl yellow and greasy, and off she went, huffing and puffing, to fetch more from the well. Meanwhile, I put on a nice dress and brushed my hair.
Nathaniel Nancarrow was coming that evening for dinner. He was a great friend to the Blights and never came empty-handed. When he was due, we waited in the kitchen. A sugarloaf had been delivered that day, a reward for my part in the recent wreck. The sugar nips lay alongside it, and a few lumps were already broken off the loaf. Mamm and me warmed our hands on our cups, me at the table and Mamm in her armchair. Tegen poured herself a cup and sat across from me.
‘Won’t you have a bit of sugar, Teg?’ said Mamm.
‘I won’t, she said. ‘It’s off the wreck, where so many poor people perished.’
‘Oh yes, we durst pray for their souls,’ said Mamm. She bent down to place her tea on the floor. Perhaps her conscience had been pricked.
‘A woman needs a little sweetness in her life,’ I said, taking another sip.
There was a knock on the door and Tegen leapt up to open it. Nathaniel’s face broke into his crinkly smile as I pulled out a seat for him. He was a shy man and it showed in the way his head fell onto one side and then the other when you first met with him. Tegen let him have her chair and perched herself on the wobbly three-legged stool, which served her right for being so pious about the sugar. Nathaniel put a package on the table wrapped in old newsprint.
‘What is it this time, Nat?’ I said.
‘Oh, only a bit of sparrow grass from my tattie patch on the hill,’ he said, his big hand stroking his jaw shyly.
‘So you remembered me saying I was fond of sparrow grass?’ I said, teasing him.
‘Go and fit Mr Nancarrow a cup of tea, Teg,’ said Mamm. ‘And make it nice and strong.’ She sat in her frayed old armchair by the hearth, propped up by cushions. She smiled at Nathaniel. Though she was past her fortieth year, and her lungs laboured sorely, she was always keen on the company of men, her own husband now so long in his watery grave. Nathaniel was a favourite with her, as she thought him a solid, respectable man. Tegen went to put the kettle on the trivet, and Nathaniel enquired about Mamm’s health.
When her long health report was done, Mamm smoothed the rug on her knees and turned to Nathaniel. ‘And how be they children of yours?’ she asked. ‘The most darling little angels you could ever see, ain’t they, girls?’ This pleased Nathaniel, whose face broke into a hundred smile lines.
‘Passing fair, Mrs Blight,’ he said. ‘And with God’s help they will remain so.’
Tegen stood Nathaniel’s tea before him. I offered him sugar but he refused. I noticed Tegen smile at that.
‘I hope you didn’t go wading out to rescue people at that wreck the other month?’ said Mamm.
He looked abashed, as if risking his neck to save his fellow man was something to hide. ‘There was naught that I, nor anyone else, could do,’ he said, looking into his cup. Tegen had given him a cup from Mamm’s best tea set, the fine bone china harvested from a clipper a good many years ago. The dainty cup looked silly in his big hand. ‘A capital cup of tea, Tegen,’ he said.
‘It goes to my heart to think of they children of yours, Nat,’ said Mamm. ‘If ever anything should, well, you know what I mean.’
‘My sister in Marazion would take them in if it came to that. Her own are grown now with homes of their own. And my Tamsin is in her fourteenth, after all, and a capable girl. It’s hard to stand by and do naught when lives are in peril.’
Tegen gave me a look, meaning I should get on and make the dinner, but I stayed put, so she went over to the hearth. She poked the faggots in the grate with the fire hook, being sure to make a lot of noise about it, then raked the embers until they smouldered, before drawing the iron trivet forward and putting the baking ire on top. She got the pilchards from the cold room and laid them out in the crock.
Nathaniel and me helped Mamm to the dinner table, each taking an arm. When Mamm had got her breath back and the high colour had drained from her face, she spoke. ‘We’re having fresh pilchards with vinegar and watercress, Nat.’
‘Handsome, Mrs Blight! A real saviour,’ said Nathaniel.
‘The Good Lord provides,’ said Mamm. ‘With help from you, of course, Nat.’
‘Speaking of the Good Lord, I was disappointed not to see you at the prayer meeting last week,’ I said to Nathaniel. ‘The minister were so fervent and devout, so sure in his faith, he might have set the building aflame.’
‘He is a man accounted powerful in prayer, that is true,’ said Nathaniel, quietly.
‘Even I was moved to testify,’ I said.
‘Aye, I did hear that,’ said Nat, with a little smile.
‘I suppose you heard some of our neighbours blackening me afterwards?’ There was a little catch in my voice, and I wondered if he’d heard it.
‘I take no notice of tittle tattle,’ said Nat.
‘So, we can expect to see you at the next meeting then?’
‘Perhaps.’
I didn’t care for his answer. ‘You don’t doubt the new minister at all, do you?’ I asked.
‘If the minister is all he professes to be, he is a righteous man, for sure.’
&
nbsp; ‘Speak plainly, Nathaniel. Say what you mean,’ I said.
‘I’m only saying that life have taught me to weigh up a man’s character on his conduct over time, and not judge him on first acquaintance,’ he said. ‘A plain and honest man may prove better than one who is naught but show. Howsoever, I won’t reproach the minister because I know little about him.’
‘The minister is beyond reproach, you can count on that,’ I said. ‘There is more passion in that man’s breast than in a hundred “plain and honest men”.’ Nathaniel cringed, and stared down into his lap. Perhaps he was envious because I had spoken so well of the minister.
‘There be more to saving souls than wild sermons,’ said Tegen, over at the hearth. She was almost scroached by the fire and was fanning her face with her apron. She looked more vexed than I could remember ever seeing her. ‘Nathaniel might not make fine speeches and lay claim to saving people’s souls, but he have saved dozens of people over the years, clinging to a rope while the waves rolled over his head and the outhaul near dragged him out to sea. Think of that.’ Her eyes were streaming and she could hardly breathe, and I realised it was due to more than just anger at me.
‘Tegen!’ I shouted. ‘Look what you’ve done!’ I jumped to my feet and threw the front door open, letting in a blast of cold air. I’d been so roused by Nathaniel’s mealy mouthed words about the minister that I’d failed to notice the bitter smell in the room and the thick blue cloud of smoke drifting over from the hearth. Tegen had plain forgotten to keep an eye on the fire. Nathaniel was helping Mamm to her feet and taking her out of the cottage into the courtyard. I followed them, glancing back on the threshold to see Tegen cover her nose and mouth with her apron and walk through the smoke to the fireside. She lifted the lid off the crock and cried out when she saw the pilchards lying in a row, shrivelled, black and charred, no more than empty husks.
7
I was in a waking dream those first weeks after the coming of the minister. He’d chosen me to line out the hymns when Loveday Skewes stood down after making such a laughing stock of herself. None could say I did not read well and, of course, I’d always been known for my singing. Sadly, I was forced to sing the dour dirges without adornment, keeping them as plain and solemn as the drab black clothes I took to wearing as a mark of my purity. At first it vexed me to go abroad in those widow’s weeds, but then the mirror showed me how well my red hair looked against the black linen and I had a change of heart.
I had given myself to Christ now, and kept the stone idol hidden in a drawer. At night I lay abed, gazing at my Band ticket where my name was printed along with the minister’s initials: G.S. for Gideon Stone. When I’d had my fill of looking at the ticket, I put it under the pillow and snuffed out the taper. Lying wakeful in the darkness, my mind turned over and over, wondering about Mr Gideon Stone. I was drawn to him because he was so strong and secure in his convictions. I believed his heart beat with more passion than other men’s, surely more than Johnenry’s, who asked for so little from the world. I knew Gideon must have climbed his own Calvary to reach the heights he now commanded. It made me think that anybody might raise themselves from their station if they put their mind to it.
I had no clear idea what I wanted from Gideon. I only wished to carry on basking in the glow of his good favour for as long as it lasted. I remembered he had a wife, of course, Ellie, and she was in good health, so I tried not to harbour any foolish thoughts on that score. But I also remembered the fervent words he uttered in his ravings when sick, about his ‘Molly’. In the shadows of his past life there was another Gideon who could not so well control his nature. The sweetest pangs came over me when I lay in the darkness at night, thinking of this hidden weakness in the minister. Sometimes I was carried away by wild and foolish longings, seeing myself in another life than this, free from ceaseless toil and hardship, raised far above the bettermost in the village, in fine clothes like those I’d seen on rich ladies drowned in wrecks, and even, in my madness, seeing myself walking down a handsome street in Penzance, arm in arm with Gideon Stone.
While such fancies came upon me at night, in the daytime I put on a pious face and bearing whenever I passed a neighbour in the lane, and never once stopped to tease the menfolk or share a joke, as I used to. Even the likes of Grace Skewes and Millie Hicks were forced to concur that Mary Blight seemed changed since she had come under conviction, whatever the sly polecats might have said behind my back.
I was enrolled in the Society and permitted to attend the weekly Band meetings where we called ourselves ‘the people of God’. Many is the yawn I stifled during those dreary talks on seeking perfection in spiritual matters. To begin with, I was all nerves in such grand company, but soon I saw how easy it was to frighten Millie Hicks, who was elected class leader. I was far above her when it came to citing the Scriptures, and she couldn’t match my sharper wit.
In those early days, Gideon visited the cove every fortnight and attended the Band meetings. There was barely space enough to scratch yourself in that little room when the Band members were all assembled, and you had to keep your elbows at your side for fear of knocking some ornament off the mantelpiece, a china dog or tall brass candlestick, perhaps, or a strangely patterned moccasin made by savages in foreign lands or the irons for frilling Grace Skewes’ caps. The corner cupboard was crammed with more trinkets, such as china, quartz crystals, a ship in a bottle and grog glasses and other heirlooms passed down the Skewes family through the generations. I had never seen such riches.
The women shuffled about muttering pleasantries, while Grace and her closest mates almost smothered the minister, keeping him all to themselves. Loveday Skewes was there with a little bunch of cronies, including that big old battle-axe Betsy Stoddern. The room was stuffy and I was worried about knocking one of Grace’s illuminated New Testament texts off the wall. What a relief it was to move into the kitchen.
The time came to discuss the revival of the Sunday school. As the minister was present, the lower sort of members, such as me, and young Cissie Olds and old Thomas, were permitted to sit on the benches at the kitchen table along with the bettermost. At other times we’d been obliged to sit in the window seat like children, or on the settle at the foot of the stairs. Gideon took his place between Grace Skewes and Millie Hicks, ducking his head to avoid the herbs that hung in bunches from the rafters. Grace had put freshly cut flowers in the middle of the table that she’d picked from her own little garden. We each had a pitcher of water. The tea set was over on the dresser, but Grace hid her tea caddy inside the cupboard. She knew Gideon would surely have guessed where the tea had come from. Even Grace Skewes, for all her glitter and jaw, baulked at paying the duties on tea.
The sun flooded through the small window and dust motes floated in the stifling air. The heat of so many bodies pressed together on the benches made the women’s cheeks rosy. Grace brought in a plate of saffron buns and scalded milk from her little dairy. The cream was like heaven melting on my tongue, and only pride stopped me taking the last bun off the plate. My mind wandered while Gideon talked about the funding of the new chapel.
‘Money must be found to pay the masons to raise the walls, timber must be ordered for the door, the windows and the forms, as well as thatch for the roof,’ he was saying. ‘The balance of the accounts shows costs at one hundred and forty pounds, while subscriptions are only up to forty. It might take decades to clear a debt of a hundred pounds. The better-off families have been especially generous, of course.’
Here, he turned with a smile to Grace Skewes and Millie Hicks, as if they weren’t puffed up enough already. Their husbands were the skippers of the biggest boats, I thought, so why shouldn’t they bear the brunt?
‘And yet I must lean on you good people for more. You will see the worth of it once the last stone is laid, the chapel consecrated, and you are able to step inside and feel the Holy Fire.’
Next he turned to his lesson from the Scriptures, which was more to my liking. It was about a w
oman in olden times with five husbands. When Gideon had finished, Loveday Skewes, who was sitting across the table from me, tried to explain the parable to her friend, Betsy Stoddern. Betsy turned to the minister, with a creased brow. ‘Will you help me get to the rights of this, minister?’ she said. ‘How can it be that the woman in the parable was able to draw water from a well without a pail? Whoever heard of such a thing?’
‘Perhaps it be one of the Lord’s miracles, Betsy, like when he turned water into wine,’ said Loveday, giving her a stare so she’d stop making such a fool of herself.
‘Aye, but that’s another puzzle, isn’t it, the Lord encouraging folk to drink liquor?’ said Betsy. ‘Surely that’s not good Scripture observance? I suppose it was different in those far-off times.’
Gideon patiently explained the meaning of the parable. Betsy nodded, but was still out of sorts. ‘If you say so, minister,’ she said. ‘But ’pon my soul, I don’t know why the Good Lord couldn’t have looked out a more decent woman to spread the gospel among the heathens than that Samaritan. Why, the strumpet had five husbands.’
‘Oh my dear life, Betsy, what a base word!’ said Millie Hicks, not knowing where to turn.
‘Remember what we discussed before, Sister Stoddern,’ said Gideon. ‘The message of salvation is for all of us, including the poor and the outcast.’
‘As long as they do honest work and don’t live off the parish,’ said Millie Hicks, with a righteous nod.
‘Amen to that,’ said old Thomas. The women gave each other little looks, because his idea of honest work was sleeping under a hedge all afternoon.
There was a pause, so I took my chance. ‘Jesus scolded the Disciples for saying it didn’t belong to Him to talk to a Samaritan. They said he shouldn’t talk with the Samaritan woman at the well, given that the Lord himself was a Jew. But the Lord told them the gospel is for all peoples. So perhaps we hereabouts should think about being more neighbourly to one another, and even to those Newlyn skate.’
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