‘There’s no need for you to feel like that,’ he returned. ‘You’ve betrayed no one, but I nearly betrayed my love for you by putting you in an impossible situation just now. I nearly betrayed Alice too.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘Try to be a good father to my sons, a better husband to Alice… I’ve treated her so badly, I have a lot to make up to her. It’s ironic,’ and Clem laughed in the manner of his last word, ‘I resented Alice because I believed that by having her as my wife she had taken me further away from you, yet all the time you were falling in love with your husband and moving away from me yourself. You asked me once not to hurt her and I’ll do my best to give her some of the happiness she deserves. And you, Kerensa? What will you do?’
‘Go on as before. Don’t concern yourself about me, Clem.’
‘He’s a proud man, your husband. I suspect he’s not sure of your feelings for him, or whether or not you still love me. It won’t be him who declares his love first.’
Kerensa nodded. She knew Clem was right.
From somewhere he summoned a smile. ‘If you ever need me…’ he murmured, then quickly he was gone and she was alone.
Huddled on the carpet before the fire, Kerensa reflected on the bitter-sweet events of the last few months. So she loved Oliver, did she? Well that was no surprise to her really. After all, she had been drawn to him since that very first day he had come to Trelynne Cove… and she had been drawn to this huge old house the very first time she had come here.
Dear sad Clem… What was it Rachael had said to her about him? ‘You don’t sound as though you have an all consuming passion for him’… But she still felt love for him, even now. Kerensa knew that would never change.
And Alice, who had been her friend, her maid, and then Clem’s wife? Thank God you will always be my friend, Alice, she thought, embarrassed by thoughts of what she had almost done with Clem.
Now Alice had Philip and David, but not the daughter she had hoped for. Was there to be a hopeful future for them, would Clem be able to change and treat Alice with the kindness and affection she deserved? ‘I hope so, with all my heart,’ Kerensa whispered.
Why did Clem being here tonight and their nearly making love remind her of the mysterious Hezekiah? He had smiled his angel smile, then told her: ‘You are innocent of this world. Take care someone like me does not destroy you. There will always be someone who may try. Not necessarily an enemy, perhaps someone who loves you…’ Clem… if she had made love with him, how would she now be able to face Oliver, knowing she loved him? Kerensa shuddered at that thought. It frightened her a little.
She stared into the deep red and gold flames. How like they were to the human emotions… slowly kindled or raging… twisted, contorted… burning themselves out… to be relit again?
What now that I know I love you, Oliver? she thought with intense longing. It’s warm and cosy here in our bedroom tonight. I wish with all my heart you were with me.
Chapter 29
Having ridden early to Marazion, Kerensa left Kernick with Ned Angove for an inspection of the pony’s shoes. The town was already busy for the Thursday market. There were traders putting up stalls, farmers herding livestock into pens, farmers’ wives with large baskets of butter, cheese, eggs, cream and preserves to sell. Travelling herbalists and apothecaries, dried flower sellers and knife sharpeners, and pedlars offering a multitude of cheap and gaudy wares.
She had a guinea in her purse in case she saw anything that took her fancy on the numerous, bunched together stalls as she left the blacksmith’s shop to join the early shoppers and bargain hunters. There was nothing that Kerensa particularly wanted to do, or see, or buy. She wandered slowly in and out of the groups of people and rickety tables of colourful wares, keeping a sharp eye open for pickpockets and early drunkards. She thanked a filthy looking farmhand who threw a pile of fresh straw over a recently made heap of pig droppings so she wouldn’t have to defile her riding boots as she passed him by.
She was pleased it was too early for the talents of the showmen, acrobats, freak shows and card tricksters to be put on display. As always, she was repulsed at the moth-eaten appearance of a wretched muzzled brown bear, who never seemed to perform for its master despite the all too frequent lashes it would receive. Kerensa was wondering if the owner would accept her guinea for the bear, and if there was a hut big enough to house the poor animal in at the back of the Manor, when the man in question looked up in front of her. She opened her mouth to speak but the bear trainer looked fiercer than his animal so she turned and beat a hasty retreat.
Leaving the marketplace she walked the length of the town’s long dusty street to make her way down to the beach facing the castle on the Mount. She would have liked to take off her boots to feel the cold rough sand under her bare feet, but her position as wife of the Lord of the Manor forbade any such frivolous action. Gazing across the quarter mile of deep sea, the tide being fully in, she watched the rocking sails of the merchant ships moored up at the Mount’s splendid new pier. Her thoughts travelled to far distant exotic ports and countries, trying to picture what it might be like in Brittany, the Channel Islands, the Caribbean, the West Indies, or Portsmouth, Plymouth; Penzance even. She’d never been on a sailing ship, the farthest distance she had ever been away from home was here, Marazion.
A pitiful wailing broke rudely through her contemplations. An infant who could just about walk, and dressed only in a filthy tattered rag to its knees, was heading in her direction, crying at the highest pitch of its young voice. Looking quickly about Kerensa could see no one who might be responsible for the infant and she ran over to meet it. The child stopped dead when it saw her and she crouched down in front of it.
‘Hello, what’s the matter, my handsome?’ she said very gently, not wanting to frighten the child. ‘Are you lost?’
Kerensa was shocked by the child’s appearance. Unable to tell if it was a boy or a girl she reckoned it to be about fifteen months old, with skin so dirty that lice were crawling over its body and through its hair. Bruises and scratches could be easily detected through the dirt, and the smell of dried urine and excreta that assaulted her nose was foul in the extreme.
‘You poor little thing. Who on God’s earth has left you like this?’
The infant held out its tiny arms to the source of comfort it had suddenly found and Kerensa picked it up. Holding its small light body in close she wiped away its tears and some of the dirt as it stared at her with huge eyes that seemed permanently startled.
‘It’s all right, little one,’ she said soothingly, ‘You poor little soul, you’ll be all right with me.’
‘’ere! What the ’ell do ’ee think yer doin’ with that brat!’ An unkempt sailor was bearing down upon them with an angry scowl on his face.
Kerensa was angry too. She held protectively on to the child and hurled an accusing question at the sailor. ‘Are you responsible for this child and the dreadful state it’s in?’
‘What if I am? Tes no bisness of yourn. Git yer ’ands off ’im.’
‘So it’s a little boy, is it?’ she snapped back. ‘No one can tell in this filthy rag he’s got on. Where’s his mother?’
‘Dead, an’ a good job too.’
The sailor made a step forward and the little boy began its pitiful wail again in obvious fear of the overbearing man. Kerensa stood her ground, glaring back into the evil face that bore a deep scar across one eye that slanted from forehead to cheek-bone. The sailor scratched his bald head and Kerensa was amazed at the long wiry hair on the back of his hand. He was a grotesquely hairy individual except for his bald head, his face and throat adorned with a thick matted beard, more of the same bursting from the top of his shirt. A pot belly spilled over his breeches and the breezes off the sea wafted his beastly smell of stale alcohol and sweat and vomit over her. He smelled like the shroud of a long dead corpse.
Kerensa felt sick and more than a little afraid of this repulsive man, but her anger and
indignation were much stronger. ‘Are you the child’s father?’ she said, raising an authoritative voice above the infant’s wailing.
‘Ais, what’s that to thee?’
‘Why is he in such a filthy state and quite obviously beaten? No one has the right to treat a child like this.’
Putting his hairy hands on his hips the sailor swayed his lower body from side to side and leered at her. ‘My, aren’t we a grand lady with our fine clothes, askin’ questions an’ tellin’ a man ’ow ’e can treat ’is rightful child. Course, the brat mebbe mine, mebbe not. Some other’s bastard is more like it. Who are ’ee anyway? ’ee looks like a piece o’ quality but yer voice tells a diff’rent story. Someone’s fancy mistress, eh?’
The infant stopped crying and turning his frightened eyes from the sailor he rested his head on Kerensa’s shoulder. He smelled dreadful but she held back her disgust as the man snickered at his son’s filth soiling the sleeves on her riding habit and cloak.
Clearing her throat she said haughtily, ‘My name is Kerensa Pengarron. I am the wife of Sir Oliver Pengarron. You may have heard of him.’
The sailor chuckled and muttered something vile under his breath. ‘Well, well, well. A real lady, ’pon my soul. Ais, my pretty, I d’know that Pengar’n bastard. Accused me once of wreckin’ and plunderin’ a ship that run aground nearly in this very spot four years ago… taken to beddin’ little small maids, ’as ’e? Got an eye fer young’uns these days, eh? What’d ’e marry thee fer? Yer not gentry, though I d’reckon ’e went find none as pretty as thee ’mong that God-fer-sakin’ lot.’ Spitting at Kerensa’s feet he jeered as she jumped back.
‘What are you going to do with your son?’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the sailor lest he rapidly advance on her. ‘Who looks after him when you’re away at sea?’
‘’arlots. That’s who’s bin mindin’ ’im since that bitch ’is mother died. She wus an ’arlot too, curse ’er rotten soul. Died of the pox more ’n’ likely. Well, they went ’ave ’im no more since I come ashore so I’m going to sell the brat in the market. Now give ’im ’ere!’
He thrust out a brutal hand and snatched the little boy’s thin arm and tried to yank him from Kerensa’s tight hold. The child screamed and clutched at her hair and clothes.
‘You can’t sell your own child!’ she shouted wildly, pulling back as hard as she could.
‘I can do what I damn well like with ’im!’
‘Wait! Please! Wait a moment.’
The sailor smirked lewdly at her frantic face. ‘Well, pretty lady, yer goin’ to give me somethin’ worth waitin’ fer?’
‘How much do you want for him? For the child? I’ll buy him from you.’
‘Now yer talkin’ my language,’ he said, taking his hand off the boy’s arm. ‘’ow much yer off’rin’?’
‘A guinea,’ Kerensa said, hoping it would be enough to satisfy the sailor’s greed. ‘I have a guinea in my purse.’
‘A guinea!’ he laughed out. ‘Now a rich young lady like yerself can do better than that. I’ll git a shillin’ or two in the market fer ’im so I’m not takin’ no bloody measly guinea from the gentry.’
‘But I have no more with me today,’ Kerensa pleaded. ‘Surely a guinea is better than a shilling, and you have no use for the child. I’ll give him a good home and see he is brought up properly for you.’
‘I don’t give a damn ’ow the brat’s brung up. Got any jewellery on ’ee, ’ave ’ee?’
The only jewellery of value Kerensa could call her own was the exquisite pearl necklace Oliver had presented her with for her birthday. She would have handed it over to the sailor without compunction, risking Oliver’s wrath; but market day in Marazion was neither the time nor place to wear such a valuable thing and so she hadn’t put it on.
‘No,’ she replied, her stomach knotting, ‘I would not wear jewellery here for fear of it being stolen.’
‘Very wise of yer, pretty lady, but that’s no good to me, is it?’ ’Ow good in bed are ’ee? ’Alf ’our in some quiet little place might ’elp me change me mind ’bout the guinea.’
Fighting down the nausea rising in her throat Kerensa looked again at the ships moored up at the Cornish Mount. If only Hezekiah Solomon was there she could ask him to lend her some money, but there was no sign of Free Spirit or its white haired captain. The sailor had followed her eyes and winked when she looked back at him.
‘Lookin’ fer a lover mebbe?’ He touched his body in a crude gesture making Kerensa wince.
‘Please take the guinea,’ she begged him. ‘The purse too if you like… and my hat and my cloak.’
‘They went be no use to me, can’t be bothered to go round sellin’ ’em,’ retorted the sailor. ‘Now give that brat to me or I’ll ’ave the law on ’ee.’
‘No!’ Kerensa cried angrily. ‘I’m quite sure you wouldn’t go one step near a magistrate. But I will. And I wonder what he’ll have to say about the wilful ill-treatment of this poor child.’
‘You’ll what! A man can do what ’e likes to ’is rightful son in any way ’e God-damned chooses!’ The sailor was furious. He gripped the infant by his arm and the back of his neck, causing him to scream in pain and terror.
Kerensa fought to hold on to him, screaming, ‘No! No! I won’t let you take him!’
Some rough looking acquaintances of the sailor were gathering round as he and the grim-faced girl struggled and fought over the little boy. They laughed and clapped and uttered vile innuendoes as the tussle continued, cheering wildly as the sailor won the battle by brute force as he hurled Kerensa back on the sand, having wrenched the child out of her despairing hands. Thrusting the child under his arm he stalked off, laughing loudly and heartily with his cronies.
But Kerensa was not beaten yet. Quickly scrambling to her feet she raced after the sailor and grabbed his free arm, clinging on, like a limpet to a shoreline rock, as he tried to shake her off while keeping up his long bow-legged strides. He twisted his hand round to stroke her face and she recoiled from his rough touch.
‘Changed yer mind, me ’an’some,’ ’bout ’aving a little lie-down with me, ’ave ’ee?’ he laughed crudely, his cronies joining in.
‘I have a pony at the blacksmith’s,’ she got out breathlessly. ‘Its saddle is made of the finest quality leather. You could sell it for at least ten or fifteen guineas, maybe a lot more.’
The sailor stopped short. With a nod he thrust the screaming infant back to her. ‘You ’ave a deal, pretty lady, lead me to it an’ the brat’s yourn,’ he said, rubbing his dirty hands together.
‘Only the two of us and the child,’ Kerensa said, warily eyeing the other rough-looking men.
‘Looks like she fancies ’ee after all, shipmate,’ one said, nudging the sailor with an elbow and winking a bloated eye.
‘You dock-rats ’eard what she said. Clear off, you scum!’ the sailor growled. ‘An’ show some respect. Me an’ this lady ’ere is doin’ bisness.’
Walking as fast as she could towards Ned Angove’s shop, Kerensa tried to keep a few steps in front of the sailor. She cooed to the little boy who gradually became quiet, putting his thumb into his mouth and staring up at her with large frightened eyes. Stallholders, shoppers and passersby stared curiously at the small group as they reached the marketplace, but Kerensa ignored them.
As they approached the blacksmith’s shop Ned dropped his hammer with a clatter on the stone floor and hurried to find out the meaning of this strange situation. His wide brow furrowed as Kerensa explained all that had happened and the clear plan she had conceived of what she wanted to do next. Ned wasn’t sure whether he should try to talk her out of her plans or not. But he could see she was firmly set on having her own way, so he called his daughter, Lowenna, to fetch a clerk from Nancarrow and Holborn, Notaries and Commissioners of oaths. Before Lowenna left, Kerensa scribbled and signed a note for her to take to Mistress Gluyas’ shop, asking the dressmaker to send back with Lowenna some infant’s clothes suitable
for the little boy to wear.
Close to the blacksmith’s was Araminta Bray’s grocer’s shop, its windows well stocked with goods from Oliver’s freetrading activities. Quite unable to bear being in the presence of the sailor for a moment longer, Kerensa took the child into the shop, leaving Ned Angove to pick up his hammer and keep a watchful eye on the boy’s father.
Leaving her other customers at once, Araminta Bray, a widow with a vacuous face and sharply receding chin, ushered Kerensa into a back room. She asked Oliver no questions about the goods he provided to sell in her shop, and none to Kerensa about her reasons for having a filthy ragged infant in her possession.
Peering over the top of her circular-framed spectacles, Araminta listened without comment as Kerensa outlined a brief account of her encounter with the child and his father and the reason for the errand Lowenna Angove had been sent on. As she listened she put an old tin bowl of hot water, a cake of harsh-smelling soap, and clean towels on a wooden table in the corner of the room for the child to be washed. Then leaving Kerensa to return to the shop, she promised to look out for Lowenna’s return and to send her in with the clerk and the clothes.
Sitting the little boy on the table, Kerensa laid her cloak aside and began to wash him with gentle hands. Carefully she tugged off the close-fitting filthy rag and threw it on the fire. She could have cried at the condition of his body. His stomach was distended from constant hunger, his skin thinly stretched over protruding bones and covered with weeping sores. If Kerensa could hate anyone, it was the people responsible for this sort of cruelty.
Lowenna joined her with the information that the clerk would be along shortly with pen, ink and paper as requested. She brought with her a baby’s linen gown, a square of cloth for a napkin, a thick knitted shawl and a small blanket. She helped Kerensa to finish washing the boy, gently rubbing off more filth from his tiny body while Kerensa held him on her lap. Although he looked uncomfortable at all the unaccustomed and unwelcome attention he was receiving, he sat still without complaint, looking from one girl to the other with wonderfully sad brown eyes.
Pengarron Land Page 48