‘My mother was working class, she still considers herself working class.’
‘Simon Peter!’ Jessica’s voice rose with exasperation. Somehow this gentle young man’s romantic talk made her feel guilty that she could never reciprocate his feelings. ‘Do you want me to walk off and leave you this very minute?’
‘No, don’t do that,’ he answered, looking at her contritely, then changing his expression to one that pleaded for understanding. ‘But you can’t blame me for trying. I’m sorry that Philip didn’t win his match, he put up a good show.’
‘Thank you, but he’ll beat Matthew King one of these days, you see if he don’t.’
Simon Peter allowed Jessica to propel them in the direction of a high-quality milliner’s shop where she stopped and put her pert nose to the window.
‘Are you going in there, Jessica? Must I be forced to leave you so soon?’
‘Course I’m not going in there. I haven’t got money falling out of my ears to spend on fancy hats and suchlike.’ She tossed her head and her curls swirled. ‘Not that I’d wear such things anyway. I’m looking for Olivia and Cordelia, I’ve got some news for them.’
‘Oh, something of importance, is it?’ Simon Peter asked, turning crimson as a gentlewoman inspecting the wares hanging on a row of hooks looked out and frowned heavily at him.
Jessica saw her and tossed her head away. ‘She’ll be wondering what you’re doing with me, dressed up in your fine clothes.’
‘My father insisted I dress like this today. He hates to think I’ll meet up with someone influential while wearing what he calls my “Methodist” clothes, which he says are too plain and not of high enough quality.’
Jessica looked at Simon Peter sympathetically. ‘Your father does try to force his own ideas on you, doesn’t he? Well, never mind, ’tis better than being accused of being a scruff like me. I don’t think Olivia and Cordelia sure in there. They’ll be some excited when they hear the news I’ve got to tell them.’
‘Oh, and what’s that?’ Simon Peter asked, deeply curious.
‘Well, ’tis nothing that interests me of course, but Kane Pengarron’s suddenly come home.’
* * *
Kane was on his own again and he meandered through the hustle and bustle with the same intention as Jessica, to locate his younger sister Olivia and their cousin Cordelia Drannock who lived with the family at Pengarron Manor. He was unconcerned at being recognised now and was greeted and gossiped at continually. He mingled with east coast fishermen who had come down to the region for the mackerel, and with pious faces heading for sight of St Michael’s Mount on their pilgrimage route which followed the steps of Cornish saints. Also milling about were sailors, soldiers, farmers and livestock holders and quite a few women of the street.
Kane felt sorry for a youth locked in the pillory. He was obviously an imbecile and whatever his crime had been, it was certainly one that he should not have been held responsible for. He watched angrily as folk threw rotten vegetables at the prisoner, and when a gang of youths lurched up and started throwing stones Kane chased them off. He crouched down and wiped the youth’s face clean then paid a brutish-looking young miner to protect the boy until his release, which he was told would be in an hour’s time.
Moving away from the main area of the market stalls, he made for a quieter part of the town. He headed towards the sea and stopped to breathe in a sudden waft of salty air. He felt a burning urgency to get a closer look at St Michael’s Mount, half a mile out in the waters of the busy sea port.
When he got to the beach he found the tide was out and he climbed to the top of the single outcrop of rocks there. From here he gazed at the castle which gave much to the magic of the Mount’s reputation as an important trading place and port on the ancient tin route to the Mediterranean. St Michael’s Mount castle had seen a lot of changes: it had been a priory and a fortress protecting the coastline, and a beacon had been lit on top of its church to warn of the approaching danger of the Spanish Armada. Now an aristocratic family owned and lived in it.
Kane put his face to the chilly wind and surveyed the sea to his right, busy with the fishing craft of Newlyn, Mousehole and Penzance. These were sights he had been looking forward to seeing again for a long time. He jumped down from the rocks, holding a protective hand to his stomach where he had been wounded, and made his way quickly over the grey sand, littered with seaweed and pebbles, tramping in the direction of the fishing boats. He passed a row of cottages built close to the beach edge where folk were about seeing to their boats and nets. The tide was an exceptionally low one and he walked seawards to look over the black stumps of what remained of an ancient petrified forest. It wasn’t a particularly still day, but Kane listened hard, as he had done as a child, in case he could hear the church bells of the legendary land of Lyonesse, said to lie submerged just past the horizon.
He considered walking on to Penzance, a few minutes away at the other end of the gently curving beach, but sight of his family beckoned stronger and he turned round. Back in the main street again, it wasn’t long before he saw one of his relations.
Two young gentlemen were leaving an exclusive coffee shop and coming towards him. Both were impeccably dressed in the latest fashion. One was tall, dark and broadly built with an arrogant bearing and a stiffly held right arm. The other was fat and dandy-like. The tall dark man was Kane’s brother. But instead of making himself known immediately, Kane slipped into a doorway to listen in on their conversation.
Luke Pengarron was saying in a harsh voice, ‘If anyone is going to seduce Jessica Trenchard, it’s going to be me!’
The fat dribbly lips in Sebastian Beswetherick’s florid face smirked at the corners. He was trying not to laugh but did not succeed and out came a muted titter. ‘I only said she’s a fine little piece, Luke. A bit too wild and common for my tastes.’
Luke wasn’t convinced his friend was not interested in the subject under discussion. ‘You may have been fortunate at my expense at the card tables last night, Bessie, but don’t you ever forget, when it comes to that little creature, she’s mine!’
‘Jessica Trenchard may have other ideas,’ Sebastian said, unperturbed by Luke’s ill humour, which he was quite used to. He rubbed his wobbly stomach through his yellow and brown striped waistcoat. ‘I don’t think she ever mentions you in those little tête-à-têtes she shares with Olivia and that other little interesting piece, Cordelia Drannock, when they get together.’
Luke Pengarron prodded the other man’s arm. ‘How could you possibly know what those girls talk about? Jessica would hardly speak about me to my own sister. And you can keep your eyes and paws off Cordelia too. Do I have to remind you that she’s my cousin?’
‘I know one thing,’ Sebastian said, his fleshy cheeks going red with exertion as he searched in his pockets in the hope that he’d missed a piece of liquorice in his earlier delvings. ‘Jessica Trenchard hates you, Luke.’
‘I don’t give a damn about that.’ Luke sniffed. ‘I’ve promised myself that one. And when I’ve been successful, I’ll take one of those golden curls as the proof of it.’
‘Would you consider marrying her, I wonder? I do admire the menfolk in your family, like your father, for marrying outside their class. My family have intermarried so much with the county’s gentry that the only ladies who would have me, with me being only a fifth son, are my damned awful second cousins. It’s a good thing to bring some new blood into a family. I wonder if the old pater would consider—’
‘What I intend to do with Jessica Trenchard is my business,’ Luke said, under his breath, paying no attention to Sebastian’s ramblings on his marriage prospects.
Sebastian knew he was being ignored and sighed. ‘I wonder if the wrestling has finished. Someone said that Philip Trenchard is challenging the Barvah Giant this afternoon. Trenchard is good but I’ve got fifty guineas on the Barvah Giant.’
‘I’ve put double that amount on the Barvah Giant. A Trenchard doesn’t stand a
cat in hell’s chance against anyone, let alone the Barvah Giant. And never mind the wrestling now, our conversation has given me a certain appetite. If we’ve got any winnings, we can pick them up later.’
Kane didn’t care for the talk about Jessica Trenchard but he was pleased to see Luke again. He stepped out of the doorway and said, grinning broadly, ‘As I recall from our last meeting, little brother, you owe me a drink and I’m happy to inform you that you can count on having good winnings to buy it with.’
Luke Pengarron was agog for a moment or two, then his dark features broke into a blissful smile. With sight of the elder brother who could usually be guaranteed to go along with his wishes and schemes, Sebastian Beswetherick was immediately forgotten. Luke rushed forward and greeted Kane with a hearty hug.
‘Heavens above, you’re a sight for sore eyes, dear brother! Come along with me back to the coffee shop or, if you’ve a mind, let’s go into the very house you’ve just stepped away from.’ Luke winked crudely. ‘There’s good sport to be found within, but first I want to hear all your news and tell you what I’ve been—’
‘Slow down, Luke,’ Kane laughed, putting up his hands and acknowledging Sebastian with a polite nod. ‘I’d be most interested to hear what you’ve been doing with yourself since I last saw you, but first I’m for going home, unless you can tell me that Mama, Father and Kelynen are to be found in town today. I have heard that Olivia and Cordelia are about the locality.’
Luke looked sulky and turned his back to Sebastian Beswetherick to block him from Kane’s view. ‘But I haven’t seen you for years and have so much to tell you. And I thought you wanted a drink.’
‘That can wait until later. Come with me and let’s find the rest of the family and you can tell me your news then,’ Kane said.
Luke had wanted Kane all to himself, but he sensed his brother would not be moved. His mouth took on a cruel line. He was slightly taller than Kane and he straightened to his full height intimidatingly. ‘As you please. Father may be about somewhere, he mentioned he was to call on Sebastian’s grandfather, and of course Kelynen will be at his side. Mama did not come into town today.’
Kane asked, ‘How are they?’
‘They’re all very well. Mama and Father are as much in love as ever.’
‘I think I will ride straight for home. It’s only right that our parents know I’m here before gossip of my arrival is spread from a coffee shop.’ Kane looked with distaste at the doorway he’d vacated. ‘And Mama would be most upset if she thought I’d prefer to patronise a place such as this before seeing her.’
Luke scowled, but seeing the darkness under Kane’s eyes he said on a softer note, ‘I’ll see you at home in an hour or two then.’
Kane moved off to the hostelry attached to Angove’s blacksmith’s shop where his horse was stabled. As he drew closer he realised that the ever-increasing noise reaching his ears was not the natural hum of the busy market town. A fracas was in progress. He started to edge round the outskirts of the commotion but a shrill scream sent him plunging into the middle.
Several men were fighting amidst some overturned stalls. It was more than a fracas, it was a full-blown brawl. Kane saw that most of those fighting were sailors and he assumed an old rivalry between two ships moored up at the Mount had turned sour. He was in time to see Simon Peter Blake, who presumably had been trying to placate the warring factions, being punched into the midst of a heap of scattered apples and the girl who had screamed about to throw herself on the neck of a bare-backed olive-skinned sailor.
The sailor growled in his foreign language but then grinned lecherously. He could see different sport here. Kane rushed forward and pushed the sailor heavily aside and back into the thick of the brawl again. Then he gathered Jessica up in his arms and walking backwards as she struggled against him, he clutched Simon Peter’s coat collar and hauled them both away from further danger. Jessica became still when she realised who was holding on to her. She was quiet for once and looked into Kane’s soulful dark eyes.
‘What do you think you were doing?’ he asked her severely. ‘Didn’t I hear your brothers order you not to get into any trouble?’
Chapter 2
Three other members of the Pengarron family were arriving in the next parish of Perranbarvah, having ridden there from Pengarron Manor. Facing the little fishing village that nestled at the foot of the steep hill below the church, they dismounted at the lychgate. Kerensa, Lady Pengarron, gazed for a moment at the fisherfolk moving about down in the village then glanced at the small granite church which was silhouetted against a murky May sky. Finally her grey-green eyes rested mournfully on the graves.
‘I’m glad the rain has held off,’ she said solemnly, as her husband, Sir Oliver, passed her an armful of flowers.
‘I’ll take your pony round to the Parsonage stables, my dear,’ he said gently, regarding Kerensa with concern in his dark eyes. He bent from his great height to kiss her affectionately. ‘Shelley and I will come back another time to pay a visit. Will you be all right?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Kerensa replied, hugging his broad body. ‘I’m always all right when I come here. It’s just that I like to be alone with him for a little while… I’ll see you and Kelynen at home later. I think Luke is bringing Sebastian home for supper tonight and Olivia and Cordelia were going to ask Jessica if she can come.’
Oliver grinned. ‘A houseful of children, eh? And Hezekiah said he will be calling on us tonight. Should make for a noisy and boisterous evening.’
‘Not me though, Father,’ Kelynen said, winding her arms round Oliver’s waist and holding on to him possessively. ‘You promised me a game of chess, remember?’
‘I haven’t forgotten and I’m looking forward to it, sweeting,’ Oliver said indulgently to the fourteen-year-old daughter he adored, whom he always called Shelley, a derivative of Michelle, the name he had chosen for her.
He gave her a leg up on to her pony and swung up on his big black horse, a fine specimen called Gereint. Then Kerensa stood back to wave them off for their ride to Marazion to visit Sir Martin Beswetherick.
The flowers Kerensa was holding were mostly of wild varieties and divided into three bunches. She passed by the paupers’ graves and those mainly of the fishermen of the village and made straight for the Pengarron plot where she stopped in front of a tiny grave. Laying two of the bunches carefully on the ground, she put the third bunch, the smallest, into a little black granite pot. Then standing back and wiping tears from her eyes she read, as she always did on this weekly pilgrimage, the inscription on the headstone: ‘Here lieth Joseph Henry Charles Pengarron. Beloved infant son of Sir Oliver and Kerensa, Lady Pengarron. Born 26.1.1773. Died aged 1 Month 2 Days. In God’s Keeping.’ Losing her baby Joseph was the only bad thing that had happened for many years in the marriage Kerensa shared with the tall, aristocratic man she loved passionately.
She stayed there for ten minutes, bending to tidy the grass that covered the small mound and polishing the headstone with a cloth. Then she rose for one last look, pushing back a loose strand of her glossy auburn hair under her wide-brimmed hat, blinking away the tears that told of her grief.
She moved on to a nearby grave and placed another of the bunches of flowers at the bottom of the headstone inscribed to the memory of the Reverend Joseph Ivey who had been parson of the parish and who had died in the same year as her child. Holding the last of the flowers, she rounded the side of the church and saw someone was already at the last grave she had come to visit.
There stood a tall, lean man with blond hair, his head hung down as if deep in thought, his hands pushed lightly into his coat pockets. Kerensa moved silently up beside him and slipped her hand into his. Surprised but pleased to see her, he smiled from behind deep, summer-blue eyes.
‘Hello, Clem,’ Kerensa said softly. ‘You must have arrived after me because I didn’t see your horse tied up outside the churchyard when I came in. I’ve brought some flowers for Alice.’
> ‘I brought some myself,’ Clem Trenchard, who was Jessica’s father, murmured. ‘I put them in the pot – not very neatly I’m afraid.’
Kerensa looked down at the grave. A knot of emotion caught in her throat at the higgledy-piggledy arrangement hanging over the side of a simple brown vase on Alice Trenchard’s grave.
‘You still miss her, don’t you?’ she remarked as she bent and tidied Clem’s flowers and added the ones she had brought.
He bent down beside her. ‘’Tis two years but it only seems like yesterday.’
‘I still miss her too. Alice was the best friend I’ve ever had. The pain never goes away, does it?’ she asked, thinking back to the little grave she’d just left.
‘No, Kerensa, it doesn’t,’ and he knew who she was thinking of. ‘I never saw your baby. Alice did, she was full of the news the day he was born… She always wanted another baby herself after Jessica, did you know?’
‘Yes, she talked about it often.’
Clem picked up a lump of earth and rubbed it between his fingers, staring at the powdered soil he made. ‘She was so proud to be asked to be your baby’s godmother. “Fancy that,” she’d say proudly. “Me, plain and ordinary Alice Trenchard, farmer’s wife, former lady’s maid, ex bal-maiden at a tin mine, godmother to a Pengarron, no less.”’
‘Dear Alice, I felt it an honour to ask her to be one of Joseph’s godmothers. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she handed him over to the Reverend Ivey to be baptised, standing there among the gentry. She was so nervous but I thought she was going to burst with pride.’
‘Aye, and ’twas said so would the Reverend Ivey having the baby named after him.’
Kerensa’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘And then… the typhoid outbreak… and in a week they were all taken from us. But at least I feel Alice and the Reverend Ivey are looking after little Joseph.’
Pengarron's Children Page 2
