Polsinney Harbour: A heartwarming family saga set in Victorian era Cornwall

by Mary E. Pearce

  One day Brice went up to the moor and brought home a cartload of turfs which he had cut early in June. Maggie helped to unload them and stack them up in the back yard, and while they were working thus together, he spoke about the St Glozey sports, to be held the following Saturday.

  ‘St Glozey sports are a great affair. Wrestling, running, sheaf-pitching, and tea afterwards in the marquee. I hear there’s to be a German band and the hand-bell ringers are coming from Steeple Lumbtown to compete with the ringers from Polzeale.’ Brice took a pile of turfs from the cart and put them into Maggie’s hands. ‘I wondered if you’d come with me,’ he said. ‘It’s time you had an outing away from the farm.’

  She stood quite still, looking at him, and her eyes were full of deep-questing thought. What she was thinking he could not divine but it seemed to cause her uneasiness and after a moment she turned away to place the turfs on the growing rick.

  ‘No, I don’t think I should,’ she said.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Brice asked. He was somewhat taken aback. ‘Is it because you think it’s too soon after losing your father and brother?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes. Perhaps.’

  But her glance had now become evasive and he saw that she had been too quick to grasp the excuse he had offered her.

  ‘No one in Polsinney would expect you to keep such strict mourning.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they?’

  ‘No, they would not.’

  ‘I’d sooner not come all the same. It’s kind of you to ask me but ‒ I don’t really like watching sports.’

  ‘In that case, of course, there’s no more to be said.’

  Brice was disappointed and piqued but, brooding afterwards on her refusal, he wondered if his mother might have something to do with it. He decided to find out and spoke to her that very evening. They were alone in the kitchen together. Brice was getting ready to go down to the boat and Rachel was preparing his food for the night.

  ‘St Glozey sports?’ she said blankly. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, my son, if the girl has refused to go with you. I’ve heard nothing about it till now.’

  ‘I realize that,’ Brice said, ‘but I’ve seen the way you look sometimes when Maggie and I are talking together and I thought perhaps you had said something to make her feel you disapproved.’

  Rachel took a deep breath. His challenge had taken her by surprise. She had been conscious from the beginning of the interest he took in Maggie Care and the problem of it had vexed her sorely. She had decided to bide her time but now that Brice had broached the matter she knew she would have to speak her mind.

  ‘I’ve said nothing to Maggie Care but I have got plenty to say to you. I would have thought you’d have had more sense than to fix your attentions on a girl employed as servant in this house. You can do better for yourself than marry the daughter of a fisherman who hasn’t a penny piece to her name and I hope you’ll take heed of what I say before it’s gone too far.’

  ‘As I am a fisherman myself I can see nothing wrong ‒’

  ‘You needn’t be a fisherman all your days and well you know it!’ Rachel said. ‘When your uncle’s property comes to you, it means you’ll be able to give up the sea, and once you’ve built up that business again and got it properly on its feet, you’ll be able to live the life you are best fitted for.’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand that none of that means anything to me. The sea is my life. It’s all I want. But whatever I may do in the future ‒’ Here Brice paused for thought because once again he was being led into making a premature admission. And yet ‒ was it really premature? No, it was not. He knew his mind. ‘Whatever I do in the future,’ he said, ‘I should still want Maggie as my wife.’

  ‘A girl you know nothing about, that I took in off the road?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Don’t you like her?’

  ‘That’s not the point! What I know I like well enough. It’s what I don’t know that worries me. There is something about that girl that’s not quite right and I can’t quite bring myself to trust her.’

  ‘Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough,’ Brice said, quietly, ‘but now that you know what my feelings are, I hope you will try for my sake.’

  This was the nearest he had ever come to a serious quarrel with his mother and he hoped, by appealing to her in this way, to ease the friction between them before he left to go down to the boat. He could see he had made her very angry but anger came so readily to her that he was almost inured to it and he had enough faith in her to know that, given a little time, she would take his words to heart and do what she knew was best for him. Watching her as she packed up his food, he could see her struggling with herself, and when, in a while, she turned to him, he could see that she had reached some resolve.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned marriage yet?’

  ‘No. Not yet. It’s much too soon. Maggie ‒’ He searched for the right words. ‘Maggie is like a wandering bird, looking for a place to rest,’ he said. ‘She needs time to find herself.’

  He took the bag containing his food and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘You won’t say anything to her, will you, about St Glozey or anything? I think it’s better to leave it alone.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my son,’ Rachel said dryly. ‘I don’t intend to do your courting for you. You’re a grown man and you know your own mind ‒ even if you are a born fool!’

  Brice left the house feeling relieved. The quarrel, he thought, had cleared the air. Things would be easier from now on and all that remained for him to do was to woo and win the girl of his choice.

  Rachel, during the next few days, was much exercised in her mind. She still felt bitterly angry over her son’s foolishness and wished with all her heart and soul that she had turned the girl away instead of receiving her into her home. But it was too late to wish that now. She would just have to make the best of things. The trial period of one month was now drawing to an end and as far as her work was concerned the girl had given complete satisfaction.

  Her one and only fault was that she had engaged Brice’s affections and this she had done unconsciously. Unlike the previous servant-girls, who had flaunted themselves in front of him, Maggie had gone about her business and had never for a single instant deliberately put herself in his way. And Brice, who had treated the other girls with good-humoured indifference, had been ensnared by Maggie’s reserve. Perhaps after all she knew this. Perhaps she had been more subtle than they. But Rachel had to admit to herself that, shrewdly though she watched the girl, she could detect no guile in her.

  Maggie was so wrapped up in herself that she seemed unaware of Brice’s interest, and that was a curious thing in itself, singular in a girl of nineteen. But it was only a question of time before awareness dawned on her and once that happened she was sure to respond, for no girl, Rachel thought, could resist a personable young man with prospects once she knew she had his love.

  Rachel, at the kitchen window, stood watching Maggie out in the yard, taking the washing off the line and dropping it into a basket. The girl had good points, there was no doubt of that, and if Brice had set his heart on her, was it such a bad thing after all? ‘I wish I knew!’ Rachel exclaimed to herself. ‘I wish I could see into that girl’s mind!’

  Maggie now came into the kitchen and tipped the washing onto the table. She filled a bowl with warm water and began damping down the clothes, dipping her fingers into the bowl, flicking water over them, and rolling them up into tight rolls.

  ‘If only you’d picked them in earlier, you’d have been spared that job!’ Rachel said.

  Try as she would, she could not always entirely suppress the irritation that rose in her, for what did they know about this girl beyond a few bald facts that told them little or nothing of her character? Rachel respected her for her competence and Brice thought he was in love with her but she was as much a stranger to them now as on the day she had first arrived.

  ‘Tomorrow is Tuesday and you will have been here a month,’ Rache
l said. ‘Do you wish to stay on?’

  The girl looked up from damping the clothes.

  ‘If you are willing to keep me, yes, I would like to stay,’ she said.

  ‘Very well, it’s settled, then.’ Rachel gave a little sigh. ‘You’re a good worker, I will say that, but mind and see that you keep it up.’

  For a moment it seemed as though the girl was about to say something more and Rachel waited expectantly. But the moment passed in silence, the girl went on with her task, and whatever she had intended to say remained unsaid.

  The following morning, when Maggie went out on the milk-round, she was gone longer than usual and when she returned at half past eight Rachel was looking out for her.

  ‘What kept you, miss?’

  ‘I don’t know. Everything seemed to take a long time.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’

  But the girl, Rachel thought, was looking wisht. There was a cloudiness in her eyes; her forehead and upper lip were moist; and although the two milk-churns were empty, the effort of lifting them from the float left her palpably breathless.

  ‘Are you ill?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘No. I’m just feeling the heat.’

  This was a piece of arrant nonsense, for the weather had turned cooler now, and the girl’s excuse only served to deepen the suspicion quickening in Rachel’s mind.

  For the moment, however, she said no more; she pretended to be fully occupied with the business of sluicing out the float; but all the time she was keeping watch and when Maggie went to unyoke the pony, reaching up on tiptoe to lift the collar from his neck, she noted what a strain it was to her and saw how, when the task was accomplished, the girl was overcome by giddiness and had to put one hand on the float to steady herself until it had passed.

  Rachel went to her, took the collar and harness from her, and carried them into the stable. She then let the pony into the pasture and when that was done she returned to Maggie, who still stood beside the float, pale-faced but recovering.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said crisply. ‘It’s time we had a little talk.’

  In the kitchen she motioned the girl to a chair, fetched a cup of water for her, and stood over her while she drank.

  ‘I felt all along there was something left out of the tale you told when you first came and now I know what it is. You are going to have a child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you think it was deceitful, wheedling your way into my house without telling me the truth?’

  ‘Would you have taken me in if you’d known?’

  ‘No, I would not. But where was the point in deceiving me? You couldn’t keep your secret for ever.’

  ‘I thought perhaps, by the time you knew, you would be willing to let me stay. I thought if I worked hard enough ‒’

  ‘Then you were a fool,’ Rachel said. ‘How many people, do you think, would be willing to give house-room to a girl with an illegitimate child? Very few, let me tell you, and I am not one of them.’

  ‘Even though I am willing to work without any wages except my keep?’

  ‘No, it’s out of the question, and you should know better than to ask.’ There was a pause and then Rachel said: ‘Who is the father of your child?’

  ‘His name was Jim Kenna,’ Maggie said. ‘He was one of my father’s crew and he was drowned along with the rest. We were to have been married in September.’

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t wait. You’d have saved yourself a packet of trouble.’

  ‘No, that’s not how I feel,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m glad I’m having Jim’s baby. It’s all I have to remember him by.’

  ‘Have you no sense of shame, girl, at bringing a love-child into the world?’

  ‘No, Mrs Tallack, I don’t think I have.’ Maggie was quite composed now and although her face was still deathly pale, her eyes were steady and clear again and her chin had a certain lift to it. ‘It’s a bad start for a child, I know, but … I shall try to make up for that in every possible way I can.’

  ‘And how are you to do that when you are all alone in the world?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I shall, somehow.’

  ‘What about your lover’s family? Couldn’t they have helped you?’

  ‘Jim had no family,’ Maggie said. ‘He was brought up in an orphanage.’

  ‘Well,’ Rachel said, and drew a deep breath. ‘This is a pretty problem indeed but you’ve only yourself to blame for it. If you’ve got any sense at all you’ll go back to Porthgaran where you belong and let your own parish look after you.’

  ‘No. I shall never go back there.’

  ‘If it’s the gossip that worries you, you’ll find it the same wherever you go, as soon as people know the truth.’

  ‘Gossip doesn’t worry me. I know I shall have to face that. But Porthgaran is an unhappy place, full of bitter memories, and I shall never go back to it now. If I can’t stay here ‒’

  ‘And you certainly can’t.’

  ‘Then I must move on somewhere else.’

  ‘If you go tramping the roads again, you’ll soon be arrested as a vagrant, my girl, and then you’ll be packed off back to Porthgaran whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I shan’t be arrested. I’ll make sure of that.’ The girl rose and went to the stairs. ‘I’d better go up and pack my things.’ Rachel, exasperated, clicked her tongue.

  ‘You don’t need to be so hasty as that. I’m quite willing to let you stay until you’ve had time to think yourself out. I’ll give you until the end of the week.’

  Briefly the girl seemed undecided but in a moment she shook her head.

  ‘There’s nothing to be gained by putting it off. I think I’d as soon go straight away.’

  ‘And where do you mean to go, may I ask?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought. I shall think about it on the way.’

  ‘Such a mess you’ve got yourself into! I can’t think what’s to become of you! You don’t seem to have the slightest idea of the dangers you’re running tramping the roads!’

  Rachel was angry and upset. True, her discovery of the girl’s condition had lit a flame of triumph in her, and never once had she doubted her wisdom in sending the girl away from the farm. But Maggie’s predicament worried her and the haste with which the girl was departing made her feel uncomfortable.

  Still, perhaps it was all for the best. In two or three hours, when Brice came home, she would have to break the news to him, and that would cause him pain enough. But at least if the girl was already gone he would be spared the added pain, not to mention embarrassment, that meeting her was bound to cause once he knew the sorry truth. Yes, indeed, it was all for the best, and this reflection did much to ease the disquiet in Rachel’s mind.

  Upstairs, in her little bedroom, Maggie collected her few belongings and put them into the old worsted shawl. It was a task soon done and she wasted no time over it. She tied the shawl’s corners into knots and, thrusting her arm through the loop, pushed the bundle up high so that it hung, satchel-wise, comfortably over her shoulder. She took a last look round the room, making sure she had left nothing, and went downstairs.

  Rachel, seeing her off at the door, tried to press money into her hand, but she pushed it away.

  ‘I don’t want charity, Mrs Tallack.’

  ‘Hah! That’s all very fine!’ Rachel said. ‘But what were you looking for when you came here, if it was not charity, pray?’

  ‘I was looking for friendship,’ Maggie said.

  She turned and walked out of the yard and Rachel, after a brief delay, followed her as far as the gate to see which way she had gone. The girl had turned left along the road but was already crossing it to take the steep winding track that led up over the moor. For a while Rachel remained at the gate, watching the girl’s lonely figure making its way up the lonely moor, under a sky that threatened rain. That was the last of Maggie Care, she said to herself as she turned away, but although her chief feeling
was satisfaction, it was not entirely unmixed with regret.

  The girl was made of good strong stuff; her help would be sorely missed on the farm; and if circumstances had been different she might even, Rachel admitted, have made a suitable wife for Brice. But circumstances could not be changed and Rachel would not allow herself to waste time in vain regrets. She still had to face Brice with the news and that prospect was enough to drive all other thoughts from her mind.

  Maggie’s objective, as she climbed the steep moorland track, was the old ruined engine-house of Bal Kerensa, standing close beside the stream on the level ground at the top of the slope. The morning’s events had tired her; she needed time to rest and reflect; so when she came to the engine-house she left the track and went inside. Against the far wall, as she already knew, there was a heap of dead bracken, cut by some farmer the winter before and stored there for future use, and on it she made herself comfortable, leaning back against the wall and folding her hands over her stomach.

  This morning, for the first time, her baby had moved inside her womb. The lurching of it had caused her pain; it had made her feel giddy and sick, bringing a darkness that clouded her senses; but the pain had been welcome to her and her heart had leapt in response to it, because of the life thus asserting itself, making demands upon her body, giving her own life meaning and purpose.

  For this child was fruit of the love and the tender overwhelming passion that she and gentle Jim Kenna had known in those few happy weeks before he had been taken from her. She hoped and prayed it would be a boy, who would grow up to be the sort of man Jim had been: strong and gentle, quiet-voiced, full of good humour and kindliness; but whether it should be boy or girl, she would love it and cherish it just the same, for Jim’s sake, because it was his. Indeed she loved it fiercely already and was eager for the feel of it moving underneath her hands. But the baby was quite still now and she pictured it curled at rest in her womb; and in her mind she spoke to it, saying: ‘Yes, you are there. You’ve let me know. I don’t mind if you bring me pain so long as I know you are there and alive.’