‘Oh, I’ll arrange something, don’t you worry. Can’t see my brothers agreeing to dress up though, that’s if they can be persuaded to come in the first place,’ Jessica replied.
‘But they must come, they’re more our friends than any of the gentry folk, especially that disgusting Sebastian Beswetherick creature who drools over every girl he comes across.’
‘He don’t bother me none, he knows what he’ll get if he ever tries to lay a finger on me,’ Jessica said, then changed tack to tease the other girl. ‘Bet you can’t imagine Philip dressed up as an elf, eh, Cordelia? I bet he wouldn’t do that, even for you.’
Olivia took up the theme but turned the tables on Jessica. ‘But Simon Peter would for you, eh, Jessie? He would dress up as Old Nick if he thought it would impress you.’
Jessica looked crossly at the two cousins as they laughed at her. ‘It’s not at all funny. The poor boy’s besotted with me and he makes me feel guilty because I don’t feel the same way. I wish he’d forget me before he gets even more hurt.’
‘Pity you don’t like him though, Jessie,’ Cordelia said. ‘He’s kind and gentle and is a good catch.’
‘Why don’t you give him the glad eye then?’ Jessica said bluntly then turned her attention to parting tiny clover leaves in an attempt to find one with four leaves.
‘I don’t want to get married. I am quite happy to stay with Uncle Oliver and Aunt Kerensa for the rest of my life,’ Cordelia answered.
‘And then with Luke when he inherits after Father,’ Olivia put in. ‘You’ve always been happy to trot round after him and pander to his every whim, even when he’s being beastly.’
‘And that’s practically all the time,’ Jessica said at once. ‘You’ve got no adventure in you, maid, none at all.’
‘I’m perfectly content as I am, and that says a lot in life,’ Cordelia replied musingly, gazing at her apple.
‘Oh, eat the wretched thing, don’t start daydreaming all over again,’ Jessica muttered at her.
‘We could dress as people from mythology, get some books out of Uncle Oliver’s library and copy their clothes,’ Cordelia said. ‘The men could come as ancient heroes.’ Then she closed her eyes to picture herself in a costume.
‘I think that’s the best idea yet, dear cousin,’ Olivia said excitedly, ‘but only us younger people must dress in costume. Can you imagine the dreadful sight of Lady Rachael Beswetherick, Sebastian’s mother, dressed as a siren or something similar? And we’ll have the food banquet style, lots of fruit and grapes.’
‘Don’t make it sound too naughty or that new parson will have something to say,’ Jessica said, giggling.
‘He can mind his own business!’ Olivia said with a snap. ‘I haven’t received a civil word from that man since I was first introduced to him. I can’t think why Father chose him to take over from the dear old Reverend Ivey.’
‘He’s good-looking though,’ Cordelia remarked dreamily.
‘So what if he is? A parson’s got no right to be good-looking!’
Jessica and Cordelia were so surprised at this outburst they both gave a little scream and rolled about laughing.
‘Shut up, the pair of you!’ Olivia ordered.
‘Hark at Master Luke Pengarron talking through his sister’s mouth,’ Jessica said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. ‘You sounded just like your stuck-up brother then. What on earth made you say a thing like that, about a parson being good-looking?’
‘It’s something old Beatrice says about him,’ Olivia said irritably, pursing her red lips. ‘Let’s get back to my party arrangements and then we’ll paddle in the river. It’s so hot today I can hardly breathe.’
‘I’m not surprised if you can get so hot under the collar so quickly over a parson,’ Jessica said, putting her tongue against her cheek.
‘You’re far too outspoken, Jessica Trenchard,’ Olivia said, throwing her apple core at her friend in an affectionate gesture. ‘Just like your dear mother was. You’re so like her at times, she used to have me in fits of laughter over the way she used to tease Beatrice.’
‘Yes, and just like my mother, there’s always a mountain of work waiting for me back on the farm so I won’t be taking a paddle.’
‘Oh, what a shame,’ Cordelia said. ‘We get so much more free time than you do. But we won’t spend our time idling it away, we’ll collect some comfrey leaves along the river bank for Beatrice.’
Jessica gazed at the dense colony of the stout plant, its thick foliage growing up to four feet high, its bell-shaped flowers adding a dash of colour, reddish-purple, dull violet, creamy-yellow and a dirty white. Small bees and bumble bees were busy pollinating the flowers, the smaller ones by crawling up the corolla, the bumble bees by biting a hole near the stem to reach the nectar.
‘Oh, well,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘We each have to work in our own different ways. When you’ve gathered enough of that “knit-bone”, there’s some herb robert here you could take to Beatrice,’ she offered, twiddling the red-tinged stem of a delicate wild flower growing against the hedge. ‘Funny though,’ she said, returning to her earlier mood, ‘it seems we all have a man interested in us at the moment but we don’t return his feelings.’
‘How do you make that out?’ Olivia asked, but not really sure she wanted to hear what would come out of her friend’s pouting lips.
‘We know Simon Peter Blake is in love with you, Jessie,’ Cordelia said, waking up from another daydream. ‘But how does what you just said involve me and Livvy?’
‘As I said before, Philip likes you, my dear Cordelia, and I’ve noticed you never stay around for long when he’s about. And Livvy of course has her parson.’
‘I have not!’ Olivia almost screamed. ‘I’ve told you, Jessica Trenchard, he’s nothing but rude to me. How does that mean he likes me?’
‘Men are often rude to the women they’ve taken a fancy to, ’tis how some of them behave, didn’t you know?’ Jessica said in a superior voice.
‘But the Reverend Lanyon’s rude to everyone, including Cordelia. You tell her,’ Olivia implored her cousin.
‘But I’ve heard he’s rude to you in a particular way,’ Jessica persisted.
Olivia got up and knelt before Jessica, clutched her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. What she said next wiped the satisfied smile clean off Jessica’s face.
‘And in the three weeks since my brother Kane has been home I could say that you have been rude to him in a most particular way too.’
Chapter 4
Jessica scrambled over the manmade hedge, built by Ker-an-Mor labourers and heightened by Clem after his father died, leaving him with the title of Trecath-en Farm’s tenant. The heightened barrier was a statement from Clem, signifying the distance between himself and Sir Oliver, and he was relieved that it was Matthias Renfree, Ker-an-Mor’s steward and his brother-in-law, who called at Trecath-en Farm on behalf of his landlord. Clem and Jessica were both glad that Luke Pengarron, who was superior and spiteful, had refused to step over the barrier from the age of twelve.
During their childhood, when they had played together at the wish of their mothers but the disapproval of their fathers, Jessica and the twins and the Pengarron children had made a sizeable gap in the hedge that divided their properties. The gap had not been built up. Despite the difference in their class and advantages, the children had usually got along well, with only Luke’s behaviour upsetting their unusual friendship. The three girls had ended up as firm friends.
Jessica began to run; she had a good deal of work to get through before cooking the evening meal and she kept her mind on what she had to do, temporarily forgetting the promised events of Olivia’s birthday party. She had butter to churn, bacon to put to smoke and washing to be taken off the line. She was half across the bottom of Trecath-en valley where a clump of elm trees grew on the river bank when she saw something that brought her to a halt.
Someone was lying on the ground against the trunk of one of the trees. J
essica could see that it wasn’t Ricketty Jim, asleep after a morning’s work on the farm, or anyone else she knew. The still figure didn’t look like a vagabond but Jessica approached it cautiously.
She bent down beside the unconscious body of a young woman. The woman was dressed in better-quality clothes than Jessica’s own but she didn’t look like a lady. She was dirty all over, her hair was matted, her skin scratched and bruised, her stockings were torn and spattered with dried mud and there was no sign of her shoes.
‘What’s happened to you?’ Jessica whispered, gingerly touching the woman’s cheek. It was cold and lifeless and Jessica thought for a moment she was dead but then she saw her chest was faintly rising and falling. The woman couldn’t have been there long; Jessica had only passed through the valley about an hour ago, but the woman’s face was sunburned on the side that was turned to the sun.
Jessica pulled off her tucker, the piece of frilled muslin worn round her shoulders and covering the greater part of her bosom, and went to the river and soaked it. Wringing it out, she returned to the woman and wiped it gently over her face. The woman did not move, not even a twitch. Jessica next wrung water over the woman’s face but still she remained lifeless.
‘You’re either totally senseless or completely wearied out,’ Jessica muttered sympathetically.
She studied the woman, considering her weight and size to see if she could carry her to the farm or would have to run and fetch one of her menfolk. The woman was short and thin with no figure and Jessica thought she could manage on her own. She put out an arm to slide it under her shoulders when the woman sprang up and screamed in terror, ‘Don’t you touch me! No! No!’
Jessica stopped a scream of her own by clutching her hands to her mouth, but she quickly got a grip on herself. ‘It’s all right! I won’t hurt you. I only want to help.’ She had to shout to get through the woman’s abject fear.
The woman suddenly went quiet. She stared at Jessica from terrified glassy eyes, her mouth sagging open.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ Jessica repeated in a clear, calm voice. ‘You are safe now. Let me help you. I live not far away. Let me take you there and help you to clean up. Then you can have a proper rest on a bed.’ Jessica wasn’t sure if she was being understood.
‘Don’t let him hurt me, will you?’ the woman said, whimpering.
‘I won’t let anyone hurt you.’
The woman kept her eyes rooted to Jessica’s face and in a daze she allowed her to help her to her feet.
‘Lean on me,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ll help you to the farm where I live, ’tis not far away.’
The woman clutched Jessica tightly and peered all around then seemed to be trying to hide herself behind Jessica’s body. Jessica looked up and down the valley. ‘There’s no one here but me. Can you walk? If not, I think I could carry you.’
The woman’s head came up to Jessica’s shoulder; she laid it there and wound her arms round Jessica’s waist. Jessica could see she wasn’t going to get an answer and took a tentative step forward. The woman moved forward and after a shaky start matched Jessica’s slow, careful steps. It was going to take a long time to get to the farm.
* * *
Clem was in the farmyard leaning over the pigsty fence, fully involved in a friendly discussion with Kane Pengarron. ‘So you’re planning to set up your own farm then?’
‘That’s right. I learned a lot from my visits here as a boy as well as from Ker-an-Mor,’ Kane replied, sounding nostalgic. ‘It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a child.’
‘You sound as though you’re really glad to be home.’
‘I want to do as you, and your father before you, have done. Build up a profitable farm from a scrap of land. It’s a constant struggle. You always have uncertainty ahead of you, but you always have a challenge too.’ Kane glanced around the yard. ‘I can see the changes you’ve made since Morley’s death and I took the liberty of riding around your fields before I came here. If the weather is on our side this summer, you should get good yields from your fields. I’ll be glad to help you with the harvesting, Clem, just like I did in the old days.’
‘I’ll be glad to have your help.’ Clem looked at him thoughtfully. ‘So all those years away in the army, you didn’t really have your heart in it then?’
Kane reached over the fence and patted the back of one fat white pig. ‘I didn’t mind it for a short spell but I was never really keen. I suppose I did it for my father. He wanted to see his sons follow him into the regiment but of course Luke wasn’t fit for service with his frozen arm. He had his heart set on a long and distinguished army career but then came the accident…’
‘’Twadn’t your fault, Kane,’ Clem said, stroking the head of one of his three dogs which had nuzzled his knee. ‘You were only boys when that happened and Luke has always been headstrong.’
‘But I was the elder. I should have stopped us going riding that day.’
‘Some people do exactly what they want to and your brother will always be one of them. I’ve got one just as stubborn in my family.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Kane said, smiling, thinking back to the day he’d arrived home and rescued the other man’s daughter from a brawl.
‘So what made you finally decide to leave the regiment then?’
‘It was because of something that happened out in the Caribbean. When the unit left St Vincent in seventy-three I was flat on my back recovering from a serious sword wound. It nearly cost me my life. Only my father knows that. I didn’t tell Mama, I don’t want her worrying and I’m asking you to keep silent about this too, Clem.’
‘You have my word not to say anything to Kerensa.’
Kane knew about Clem’s love for his mother and that they were still close, but such was his friendship with Clem that they could talk about Kerensa unselfconsciously.
‘It was a long time before I got back to England,’ Kane continued, ‘and a long time after that before I could run or sit astride a horse.’
‘So what happened to you, boy? Sounds ominous, if you ask me, and you have the look of pain still about you.’
‘I was wounded helping a fellow officer. He was having an affair with a foreign official’s wife. The official found out and it got back to me via a worried servant that my colleague was about to have his throat cut. I went to his aid and probably saved his life but ended up spiked through the stomach for my trouble. The whole thing was sordid. The officer wasn’t even in love with the wife concerned, it was no more than mutual lust, and he got away without a scratch. The incident being of a sensitive nature we couldn’t tell the truth, of course, so we said we were attacked and robbed.
‘The wound became poisoned and I spent weeks in delirium. The officer wrote to my parents and told them I had a tropical fever. After that, when I wrote, I thought up excuses as to why I was so long in coming home. When I finally did get back to England and was fit again, I took my time thinking over what I wanted to do, which way I wanted my life to go. In the end there was only one choice. I’m a man of the earth and fields, so I won’t be going to Ireland with the regiment this year.’
Clem shook his head in wonder. ‘You were away for nearly two years all told, Kane. Kerensa told me she was worried about you.’
‘Well, I’m home now and Mama and Father know of my plans. They want me to take my time adapting to civilian life again, before I decide on which piece of land to buy. I’ve got my own money and I’m raring to go.’
‘You sound like Jessica, but she can’t keep still for even a minute.’
Kane looked up and his eyes became more startled-looking than they usually were. ‘Talking of Jessica, what’s she doing?’
Jessica had entered the farmyard with a woman clinging to her.
Clem swung round and gave out an exclamation. ‘Jessica, what’s happened? Who’s she?’ He surged towards them and Kane followed but when the woman saw the two men, she screamed and clung to Jessica’s body, twisting a fold of Jessica’s flesh on her
back and making her cry out.
‘Stop! Don’t come any closer!’ Jessica shouted, then lowered her voice to ease the woman’s distress. ‘Stay there. She’s frightened of you.’
The dogs were bounding towards Jessica and the woman, and Clem commanded them to lie down. They obeyed immediately and lay in a scattered line between him and Kane and Jessica and the woman. The men stayed their ground but Jessica had to edge back from them, dragging the woman with her until she stopped blubbering.
‘What’s wrong with her? Where did you find her?’ Clem called out.
‘Down by the river, she was lying under one of the trees. She’s in some awful state, something terrible must’ve happened to her,’ Jessica explained.
‘What can we do to help?’ Kane asked, his body, like Clem’s, alert and ready to move.
‘Just stay completely still. She seems to be scared of you both.’ Jessica edged the woman slowly, a few steps at a time, towards the farmhouse. She fought back tears of pain as the woman seared her back with an ever-tightening grip. When she tried to move to lessen the pain, the woman panicked and the cycle of grip and pain was repeated.
Thankfully the farmhouse door was open wide to let in the summer’s fresh air and Jessica stumbled through it with her burden and made straight for the parlour. Once inside its cool confines, she struggled hard to disengage the woman’s hold on her and pushed her into a lumpy stuffed chair. The woman grabbed her dress and Jessica stood still, close in front of her, breathing in relief and giving comfort by putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders.
‘You’re safe now,’ Jessica said tenderly. ‘I’ve brought you home.’
‘No! Not home! I don’t want to go home!’ the woman shrieked, and her hands flailed out and tried to grasp Jessica’s body again.
‘I mean I’ve brought you to my home,’ Jessica said loudly above the hysteria. ‘You’re all right now, you’ll be safe here, you can trust me.’
The words got through the fear and the woman went quiet. Jessica had forgotten her own pain and bent and gently stroked her face. ‘I won’t leave you, I promise.’
Pengarron's Children Page 5
