Molly began to sob. ‘Oh hell,’ Luke hissed. ‘Now she’s off. Molly, I didn’t mean it. I’ll always make sure you’ve got a proper home. Whenever I’m on the road I’m always thinking about you. I promise I’ll always come back. Look, I won’t go down the pub tonight. I’ll stay in. Where did I hurt you just now? Show me?’ He was actually going to Nance for a secret rendezvous with Jo; he’d have to wait for Molly to fall asleep.
Staying huddled, Molly’s tears persisted.
‘She’s been crying all day,’ Rex said.
‘Why?’
‘She don’t want to go to school no more. She gets teased.’
‘Well, she must learn to hit back. Crying like a baby won’t help. You’re there, Rex, stick up for her. Belt the culprits.’
‘I do when I hear them.’ Rex balled his fists. ‘But I can’t be round her all the time.’
‘I’ll ask Miss Venner to do something about it.’ Luke approached Molly. ‘Did you hear that, Molly? I’ll ask her to stop the bullies, and if they don’t, then I’ll smack ’em into order myself. Right?’
Molly looked up at him from huge baleful eyes. ‘Here, take this.’ He removed the rabbit’s foot from around his neck. ‘It’s lucky. Nothing can hurt you when you’re wearing this.’ Molly continued to stare at him. He dropped the pendant over her head. ‘You’ll be all right. Better now?’
Finally she nodded, giving one last noisy sniff. Luke smiled at her. ‘Good girl. Glad we’ve got that straightened out.’ When he stood up, he was annoyed to see Rex had gone back to his writing. ‘All right, I’ll get the baby this time.’
* * *
‘We’re heading for disaster!’ Keane Trevail thumped the kitchen table. ‘I’m telling you, Abner, there won’t be a tin mine left in Cornwall the rate it’s going. They’ve been picking the eyes out of the mines for years.’
‘You don’t think the Geevor’ll hold on?’ Abner Jelbert gulped down a second mug of bitter brew from Irene’s teapot. ‘It’s got good management.’
‘Maybe it has, but what can they do against a world slump? It’s on its way, I can feel it in me water.’
‘That’s what Mardie said too when she read your palm last month.’ Irene glanced up from her knitting.
Keane made an impatient rumbling sound in his throat and ignored her. ‘The moment the Geevor can’t meet its working expenses they’ll be finished. They did a lot of development two years ago, but will it pay off ?’ He was mainly an optimistic man but he was getting troubled again at the depressing outlook of the industry which now employed only one of his sons – a crime in his opinion. Today he had heard that another young family was about to move out of the village, dwindling the number of children attending the school by three. There had been a time, less than fifteen years ago, when there had been over seventy children running through the school gates. If things went on like this the services of one of the teachers might be dispensed with. It would be a shame if Jo Venner lost her job, and she doing so well for the children.
The pride deeply embedded in the miners of the St Just area was not to be found in Abner. When the Solace Mine had been ‘knocked’ he had found no success in getting another job as a boilerman and had contented himself by scratching about for odd jobs or drawing the dole. However, he put on a sorrowful face at the injustices of life. ‘Good job my father isn’t alive to see this day. Would’ve broke his heart. Nearly all his grandsons going off to work in a different trade, Arnold no prospects of getting nothing decent at all. It’s a comfort to me now that he died how he’d lived, down the mine, where a Cornishman belongs.’
‘Many a good man saw the end of his life or hopes and dreams underground, but it was better’n this. Whatever work men find, it doesn’t pay as well as down the mines,’ Keane rejoined with a strong sense of grievance. He pushed his mug towards the end of the table for a second refill and sent Abner’s empty vessel after it.
Irene hated this constant stirring of her ageing bones. ‘You’ll be up and down the garden all afternoon, Keane.’
‘That’s my problem,’ her husband said grumpily.
While Irene topped up the heavy cloam teapot with hot water, he recounted the sad tales that came to his lips with ever-increasing regularity. ‘My grandfather was killed when the boiler house blew up in 1904, along with Caleb Wearne and three other men drying out their clothes. John Allett suffocated in bad air; never saw his maid born. Young Harry Pascoe was crushed in a rock fall first day down. His uncle and brother was with him and my younger brother, Tom. Billy Bawden fell away, dizzy, from the ladders down Pike’s Shaft, and so did Mark Penrose and Charlie Burthy.’ Keane noisily swallowed a mouthful of tea.
‘Not forgetting Stan Blewett whose eyes were blown out in a gunpowder blast.’
‘Now he could smell out tin like a dog. I belonged to visit he. Haven’t been out much this winter with my creaky bones.’ Keane’s craggy face brightened. His old friend, who lived topside of the church, was someone else he could indulge his reminiscences with, and Ellie Blewett employed a better hand at making yeast buns than Irene. ‘Think I’ll go up to his place after dinner.’
He rolled a cigarette, and Abner, chuckling, screwed up his ill-favoured face. ‘Arnold don’t half give that Jo Venner the runaround at school. Gillian too. She’s got ’em readin’ better, mind, but we’ve had two notes sent home complaining about their behaviour. She’s got some hopes if she’s expecting Arnold to settle down. I could whip the skin off his backside but he’d still have the last word, cheeky little bugger.’
‘She shouldn’t spend so much time hanging round the Viguses,’ Irene said. ‘Even goes into Mrs Wherry’s to see the baby most days. And she’s getting too close to Luke, if you ask me.’
‘People got a lot to say but many think she’s the best thing to ever come to Parmarth,’ Abner said thoughtfully. ‘She’s an uppity madam but she could fall under Luke’s spell.’
‘So you think so too. Well, Mercy’s sure there’s something going on between them. She come across them together in the barn the other night; unusual place to confide in a teacher. And Jo’s got drawings of Luke in her room. Lew saw them when he went upstairs to use the toilet. He’s thinking of having a word with Luke. Why don’t you go with him, Keane?’ Irene challenged her husband. ‘Put Luke straight about her.’
‘’Tisn’t nothing to do with we,’ Keane objected, wiping his runny nose on his jumper sleeve. ‘Why don’t Mercy put her straight?’
‘She’s tried to. Jo won’t listen.’
Spying a rush of counter-arguments to his protests, he sighed and patted his congested chest. ‘Don’t go on, Irene, I know you like the maid. I’ll see what I can do.’
Chapter Twenty
In contemplative silence, her heart aching with grief, love and gratitude, Jo drew near the front door of Cardhu. She had the keys clasped in her hand of the property she now owned.
That morning, Luke had taken her to the solicitor at Penzance. The solicitor explained Celia had left Jo her entire estate, which included fifteen thousand pounds and many valuable pieces of jewellery, which had been placed for safe-keeping in a bank.
Alone for this pilgrimage, a lump of emotion grew in her throat as she entered the house. The curtains were drawn, the atmosphere still and dark, and she half-expected Celia to meet her, smiling affectionately, arms extended to embrace her.
Putting her coat next to Celia’s in the hallway, Jo moved slowly through the downstairs rooms, disturbing the dust that had gathered in the few weeks the house had been unoccupied. Her shoes tapped on the tiled floor of the kitchen. She opened the biscuit barrel in the kitchen and was delighted to discover it contained ginger fairings, the regional delicacy Celia had introduced her to. At home, as a child, Jo had been denied the treat of nibbling biscuits. In the sitting room she touched an unfinished work of tapestry, the last book Celia had been reading and the Broadwood piano where they had played duets together. On the wall was the portrait Celia had painted of Jo in the g
arden last summer, the painting Luke had seen.
Upstairs, in the main bedroom, she gazed down sadly at the bed where her friend and mentor had died alone, from natural causes the post-mortem had revealed.
Before leaving Cornwall for teacher-training college at Bristol, Jo had read to Celia when she had been ill in bed, those occasions becoming more frequent as the years had worn on. Celia had become prone to chest infections. Jo was racked with guilt at all the time Celia had spent alone – it was over sixteen years since Sheridan Ustick had died – but Celia had urged her to make a good start in her career. Celia’s unselfishness must have left her unbearably lonely, just how Jo was feeling now.
Jo was facing the full-length wardrobe mirror. The bedroom door was ajar, and in the mirror’s reflection she saw it softly open wider. Then the room was filled, like an anointing, with gardenia perfume. Jo turned, stretching out her arms, her heart suddenly overwhelmed with joy. ‘Oh, Celia, you’ve come to say hello. I should have known you’d be here.’
The perfume remained strong for several moments. Jo sat down on the side of the bed, feeling warm and wanted and loved. Close by was the first photograph she had seen of Sheridan Ustick: a middle-aged man with a sanguine expression, neat moustache, and a smile Jo had felt she could trust.
Heavy footsteps were coming up the stairs. Jo was not afraid. Whoever the trespasser was, Celia would protect her. She walked to the landing and as she looked down the stairs her heart leapt with joy. ‘Luke! I was hoping you’d come.’
‘I didn’t know whether I ought to intrude.’ He gave her his striking smile. ‘I was worried about you, sweetheart. You were so quiet on the way back from Penzance, but you look happy now.’
‘Celia was here. I smelled her perfume, felt the essence of her.’
Ascending to the top step, he leaned forward and kissed Jo’s lips then glanced about warily. ‘She might not like me being here. She’d hardly think me good enough for you.’
‘I’ve thought about what Celia would say about us. As long as she knew I was happy it would be all that mattered. Come and look round.’ Jo took his hand and led him into the bedroom she had just left.
Luke studied the distinctly feminine room: flowing, snowy white drapes, shiny brass bedstead. ‘You should live in this sort of place.’
‘I shall keep it as a haven to return to after I’ve founded a school at Penzance. I hope you’ll see Cardhu as a haven too, Luke.’ They had discussed their future relationship, acknowledging they were two very independent people, content to remain lovers. They had both sworn fidelity.
‘The moors are my haven, Jo.’ He paused. ‘And wherever you are.’
‘Really?’ Jo hugged him, completely happy. She had a career which fulfilled her, faithful friends, a home now with roots and blissful memories, and with Celia’s money added to her trust fund, a small fortune. She could put her plans for the school into action any time she liked. Most importantly, she had something very special with the man at her side.
There was a sudden intense sadness and an uncertainty in Luke’s stunning blue eyes. ‘Are you sure about being involved with me, Jo? You have all this, I’ve just got a covered wagon to live in, or a stinking hovel. You’re honest. I’ve thieved all my life and no one trusts me. You’re a schoolteacher and I can’t even read properly. And people are getting suspicious about us. They’ll be warning you off me; there’ll be trouble at the school.’
‘I don’t care about the differences in our backgrounds, Luke, and as for anything else, when I’m with you it simply doesn’t matter.’ She pulled his head down and kissed him fiercely.
Enfolding her in his arms in the way of a man desiring a woman, Luke returned her passion. It was a chilly pre-spring day, but they were quickly warmed through.
Jo said, ‘Do you want to see where I used to sleep? There’s four bedrooms but Celia only furnished two of them.’
‘Lead the way,’ he said, smiling.
In the room next to Celia’s, while she pulled back the curtains to let in the light, he sat down on the small double bed. ‘Soft and comfortable. I can imagine you sleeping here, your sweet little face peeping out the covers. I’ve never slept in a proper bed but I don’t feel I’ve missed out. Gran gave me everything that was really important. She would’ve liked you.’
‘Tell me about her, Luke. How did she die?’
‘It was ’flu.’ His expression was a series of sadness, regret and poignant amusement. ‘I burgled a house in Germoe the night she was took bad. The coppers couldn’t prove it, but they battered on the door and watched my every move while I kept vigil over her. I think she would’ve been tickled at how I made sure I’d never be arrested. Just before the lid of the coffin was nailed down I kissed her one last time and slipped the cache of jewellery inside her nightdress. Gran rests decked out like a lady.’
Jo smiled at his tale but grew serious. ‘Did she ever worry that you’d be sent to prison?’
‘Yeh.’ And he was serious. ‘I don’t do break-ins any more.’
‘I feel I knew your grandmother. She passed on all her good ways to you.’
‘I’ll never meet your mother but I can see Celia Sayce in you. She was a real lady. I first met her when I was travelling back this way. She was out walking and stopped me and asked if I could get hold of tapestry silks for her. I told her to make out a list and I’d go over to St Ives that afternoon. She invited me inside the house, didn’t keep me on the doorstep. She led the way to the sitting room even though I insisted the kitchen would do. While I was waiting for the list she gave me a delicious drop of rum. Didn’t have a snobbish bone in her body. I enjoyed talking to her.’
‘Did you think she was lonely?’ Tears pricked Jo’s eyes.
Luke went to her. ‘I thought she had a loneliness about her but she wouldn’t want you to feel guilty about it. This house is her gift to you. Enjoy it. Her love for you was the most important thing and love goes on for ever.’
‘Thanks, Luke.’ Her voice came husky with emotion. ‘You’ve said just the right things.’
Putting his palm on the small of her back he pulled her in closer to him. While gazing into her eyes, he brought her hands up to his lips and delicately kissed each finger and the soft flesh between them.
Jo stroked his face with all tenderness, then their lips met and they were feasting on each other, clinging, embracing, searching. He led the way to the bed and started to undress her.
Jo froze. She needed his touch, his loving, but their previous encounters had not allowed them the freedom of being naked. Rushing out of the hidden darkness of her mind was the old insecurity about her body, cruelly undermining her confidence. Surely Luke would find her body flat and unfeminine. He was well built, perfectly formed, totally masculine, while she was formed as a female on the brink of womanhood.
The buttons of her blouse were undone and he was pulling it off her shoulders. Jo was filled with bolts of panic. Luke would see the shape under her chemise amounted to no more than two insignificant points.
She pulled her blouse out of his hands.
‘Jo?’ He looked tender, concerned. ‘Are you going shy on me?’
‘Yes,’ she said shakily, moving out of his reach. ‘I want you, Luke, but the thing is, you may not find me very interesting with no clothes on. I’ve not got much of… of what a woman should have.’
‘What?’ He gave a puzzled laugh. ‘I don’t understand.’
Trying desperately not to weep in shame, she explained, ‘I haven’t any curves, Luke. I’m not much like a woman.’
A smile full of caring and loving lit up his rugged face, and Jo felt she could drown in him. ‘Of course you’re a woman. I’ve felt your body in my arms. You’re beautiful and feminine and everything I desire. Please don’t torture yourself over something that isn’t true.’
‘But all my life my mother’s told me no man would ever find me attractive,’ Jo cried.
‘Who do you believe? Me or your mother?’
It was his look of such passionate concern that swept away all her years of secret misery. ‘You, darling.’
A deep intimate silence descended on them. He smiled deeply and it was devastating, vanquishing her fears and inhibitions for ever. Her desire now was an unstoppable force. Perfectly comfortable while he slowly undressed her, she undid his shirt buttons and pulled it off him. She rubbed her palms over the smooth bronzed skin of his body, feeling the powerful conformation of the muscles of his arms and shoulders. He was flawless, wholesome, extraordinarily beautiful. He was central to her every sense. She let the scent of him wash over her. As he moved, the crisp black hairs on his forearms grazed her skin, making her shiver deliciously. Kissing his body was different to kissing his lips, it was so much more personal. She was finding out all there was to know about him. Each of his touches was like an act of worship, his fingertips so sure and clever. Moment by moment he was inflaming her, creating sensations unspeakably fine in every tiny part of her.
Luke’s deep blue eyes took in a long lingering look all over her. In comparison to his, her skin was soft and creamy pale. ‘You are beautiful,’ Luke whispered through their heat, their passion, his hands expressing his love for her. ‘Shaped in absolute perfection.’
Jo experienced another rush of desire, an unprecedented hunger. Surrendering to the emotion, she took his dominance, his physical strength. As he lay over her, they became lost in a stream of loving, of honouring, of total sacrifice that seemed to have no end.
Long after their sequence of blissful climaxes was over their touching and giving continued. ‘You OK, my love?’ Luke whispered.
She traced a finger down his gorgeous face. ‘It was perfect, Luke. You’re perfect.’ She now totally understood Celia’s choice to stay in her loneliness, wanting no one else after her lover’s death. But that was because Celia had been so deeply in love with Sheridan Ustick no one else could have taken his place in her life.
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