by Gloria Cook
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Extract from A Cornish Girl
Copyright
About the Book
In the small mining village of Meryen, a dark secret lurks . . .
Amy Lewarne finds her life changed forever when she finds her brother, Toby, dead. And troubles follow when Titus Kivell, the head of a powerful yet belligerent family, puts his son Sol in Toby’s place.
Despite his wild and formidable nature, Amy is inexplicably drawn to Sol, as he is to her. But will his family ties be the ruin of her?
Book One in the Meryen series – a Cornish saga perfect for fans of Poldark, Dilly Court and Val Wood
About the Author
Gloria Cook is the author of well-loved Cornish novels, including the Pengarron and Harvey family and Meryen sagas. She is Cornish born and bred, and lives in Truro.
One
‘I’ll give your brother another ten minutes. If he’s not back then, I swear I’ll send him to work down the mine!’
Amy Lewarne avoided her father’s accusing glare. She was always included in whatever he considered to be her brother’s shortcomings which, for poor Toby, was almost everything he did. It was a bad sign for Morton Lewarne to be sitting at the kitchen hearth instead of in the front room on a Sunday afternoon. He had stationed himself where it would be hard for Toby to creep into the house unnoticed. ‘I’m sure Toby’s not—’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses for him!’ Morton screwed up his pallid, frowning brow and chafed at his wiry side whiskers. ‘You’re as bad as your mother. Turned the wretched boy into a milksop. He’s no right to go off and play after chapel and take that wretched dog with him. He’s fourteen, time he thought himself a man. A privileged one at that. How many sons around here have gone straight into his father’s business? The boy’s a dreamer, unreliable. I’ll take my belt off to him for this. He’s not to have a bite of his dinner when he comes in, do you hear?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Amy wouldn’t obey the order. Her father was right about her and her mild-mannered mother indulging Toby, but it was to compensate for Morton’s constant unmerited disapproval of the boy. Hiding her irritation, she said, ‘Mother’s resting. It’s time I left to teach Sunday School. I’ll see if Sarah’s free afterwards to go for a walk.’
‘You’ll stay here. Reverend Longfellow can manage without you today. And you know I don’t like you mixing with mining rabble.’
Amy received another accusing glare. Her father knew she would ask her friend, Sarah Hichens, to help her search for Toby and bring him home. Unable to sit still, she put the kettle on the slab to boil for tea, then placed a cup and saucer on the little round table at Morton’s side. A master carpenter and cabinetmaker, he had made the table himself. It was more functional than it seemed, cleverly designed to disguise an assortment of drawers and hidey holes, and no one but Morton was permitted to touch it.
Morton never let a vexation rest. ‘The boy had better not have gone off to the woods with that mongrel, ruining his best suit!’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Amy was certain Toby wouldn’t have gone near the woods, even with his dog, Stumpy, for company. It was part of Poltraze land, owned by the belligerent squire, Darius Nankervis. Toby was sensitive and shy, too nervous to be caught as a trespasser. Amy glanced up at the mahogany mantel clock. It was two forty-five.
She willed Toby to walk in through the back door. He had never been this late back from anywhere before, he had never missed a meal.
‘Did your mother eat her dinner?’ Morton’s hard expression furrowed with further displeasure.
‘She ate her beef.’ Amy added to herself, ‘Just to please you.’ Her mother, Sylvia, was laid up with child, pale and weary, her ankles worryingly swollen. Interspersed with numerous miscarriages, she had borne her father two healthy children, although to his mind Toby was disappointingly puny, not at all clever and far too slow at learning his father’s craft.
‘Waste of time having him. He’s going to let the Lewarne name down.’ Morton’s oft-repeated opinion just as often upset kind-hearted Sylvia and infuriated Amy.
She had prayed in chapel this morning that her mother would be safely delivered of this latest baby and would then never have to suffer the pain and indignity of childbearing again.
Morton drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘I suppose she’s doing the right thing, lying about in bed.’
‘Of course she is.’ Amy found it hard to keep the impatience out of her voice. Why did he consider everyone was lazy if they weren’t on their feet? He was getting mean. There was a time when, as in the households of all successful businesses of people aspiring to the middle class, he had employed a part-time gardener and a woman to do the heavy housework, but several months ago he had declared this an extravagance and had dismissed the services of the mineworker and his wife. It was an extra strain on her mother. ‘We don’t want to lose her as well as another baby.’
‘Mind your lip, girl!’ Morton gulped his tea. He fell silent. He had said his piece. He was head of his household, a respected member of the community, with a finer residence than the copper miners, mine ancillary workers and farm labourers who inhabited nearby Meryen Village, and he considered his word as the last. He had built the six-bedroom cottage Chy-Henver and its workshop himself and was proud of every brick, slate and well-honed piece of timber.
Keeping her restless hands folded in her lap, Amy watched him covertly. She was rewarded by seeing his eyelids droop. Morton usually dozed all through Sunday afternoons.
When Morton was snoring softly, Amy slipped out to the back kitchen, hoping to see Toby returning. Their father was unlikely to take his belt to him, he rarely used that sort of punishment for he had a squeamish streak to pain even in others, but he’d confine Toby to the workshop and the house for days, and grumble and find fault and make Toby feel small and unloved, and in turn, Toby would fret that he really would be sent to work under grass at the Carn Croft Mine, over a mile away on the downs. Toby was terrified at the thought of being underground, he was terrified of the dark. Her eye glimpsed something and she caught her breath. Stumpy was outside but it seemed he was back alone. The grey wire-haired lurcher was sniffing about the back yard and searching along the garden path. Perhaps Toby had twisted an ankle and was limping home on his own She crept back to the kitchen. Her father was fast asleep. She would be able to steal away and, pray God, quickly get the dog to lead her to her brother.
When she got outside Stumpy had disappeared, no doubt gone back to meet his young master. He hadn’t run off to the rear of the property because she would spot him easily if he were following the moorland path or climbing up the low grassy hill that gave shelter, so she dashed to the front gate. She was just in time to see Stumpy heading towards the village. ‘Stumpy! Here, boy! Wait for me!’ It was a waste of time. The dog, the greater part of its tail cut off in an accident by a slammed gate, hence its name, only obeyed orders from Toby. Amy chased after him.
A pony and open carriage came trotting along. Amy halted, amazed that
anything as grand should be in the area. It could only be going to Poltraze. Why wasn’t it taking the usual route along the turnpike road? Bobbing a curtsey, she looked up to see who the travellers were.
A pale face, framed by a feather-trimmed poke bonnet, turned to her and a white-lace gloved hand was raised in a demure wave.
Then the young woman recognized her and leaned forward animatedly. ‘Amy! Hello, it’s me.’ The girl, eighteen years old like Amy, was chided by the other female passenger, her guardian, the estranged Mrs Darius Nankervis, and she turned obediently to sit correctly forward.
‘Tara . . .’ Amy muttered. What were Miss Tara Julyan and her aunt doing here after so many years? The trap turned off immediately, in the opposite direction to the moors, rocking over a little-used byway along a rough route that would lead eventually to Poltraze. They obviously wanted their arrival to be circumspect. Soon after Mrs Estelle Nankervis, second wife to the squire, had walked out on him, Tara had written to Amy to inform her, as the only friend – secret friend – she had ever made, that they would never be coming back. Only the self-righteous in Meryen condemned Mrs Nankervis for the desertion. The squire had been unmerciful since the tragic death of his son and heir, as a young man, in the pool at Poltraze. The big house had seen a lot of misery. It was deemed a desolate place.
Amy didn’t stop to ponder the mystery. She pursued Stumpy, to the amused laughter of the children filing into the chapel Sunday School room and the few people who were quietly sunning themselves outside their homes, the land rented from the Poltraze estate. The shops and other places of business were dutifully shuttered and still for the Sabbath.
Stumpy stopped to sniff at the rough garden wall of Moor Cottage, the tiny home of the Hichens family, which was situated uncomfortably close to the Nankervis Arms, one of Meryen’s four drinking establishments. Bal-maiden Sarah, the breadwinner of her family, including for her disabled, widowed mother, had sparse time to relax and she was bending the tops of onions over in the patch of garden. Amy called to her friend. ‘Sarah. I’m searching for Toby. Has he been here?’
Sarah rose. Her shabby dress did not disguise her pretty dark looks, but as always, she wore an air of being dragged down by life. ‘Sorry, Amy. Something wrong?’
‘Not really, well I hope not. He hasn’t been home since chapel. He must’ve got separated from Stumpy because the dog’s now searching for him. Toby’s probably not far away. He’s ripped his clothes or the like and is reluctant to show himself to our father.’ Amy gave Sarah a smile. Sarah had enough worries of her own without having to consider hers. Stumpy took off again and Amy ran after him, sighing. The village of Meryen straggled over slopes and in dells, some homes having up to half an acre of ground, for many miners also eked out their meagre living on allotments and as smallholders. Stumpy kept darting in and out of sight. She passed the church, some cottages of cob and thatch and then reached a short row of new stone and killas, slate-roofed cottages; another row, veering off at a right angle, was under construction. She halted, whirling to the left and right. Where was the dog? As well as the main road that led off to Gwennap, there were many dirt tracks and lanes, and worn-down grassy paths over the scrubland of Nansmere Downs. Which way did he go?
‘Stumpy!’
‘The beggar’s just shot off down Bell Lane, my luvver.’ Godley Greep, a heavily bearded mine surface worker, called from his front doorstep. ‘He’ll be off up Oak Hill and the woods. Won’t see he again till he’s hungry, I b’lieve.’
Bell Lane led to tenanted farms and the occasional wayside home, and was frequently used as a route to Poltraze for staff who lived out. Amy pictured Stumpy sneaking on to the grounds of the big house, nearly three miles away, and receiving Nankervis’s retribution. It would break Toby’s heart if Stumpy were shot. She veered off and pounded along the lane, lifting her skirt and petticoat up out of the dried mud, sighing as her best slippers became animal fouled. She would soon be splattered with dirt, and she had come out of the house on a Sunday without her bonnet! As she began the winding ascent of Oak Hill the pins holding up her light brown hair were falling out and the wavy tresses bounced on her shoulders. She was going to be in a lot of trouble when she returned home.
All the land hereabouts belonged to Poltraze except for a substantial chunk that fell away into a huge enclosed valley. She had covered a mile and a half, was at the top of the hill and had come to Burnt Oak, owned by the strange and formidable Kivell family. While their cattle and sheep grazed freely in their fields, their buildings were surrounded by a square of granite walls, constructed as more than just a wise protection from harsh winter weather. Over the last half-century the Kivells, renowned for their remoteness, had fortified the walls higher and higher following a series of food riots by local tin miners at Redruth market. A few ancient trees gave more cover. Inhospitable iron gates in the outer hedge kept out curious passers-by and an identical pair of gates ran parallel in the front wall far below. Amy was dismayed to see Stumpy racing down over the rough cart track towards the distant gate.
Stumpy leapt through the lower bars of the gate. Amy trod out a frustrated little dance. The Kivells had dwelt in the area for as long as the Nankervises. An old legend had it that in 1066 there were two pieces of land, side by side, of a large and a smaller acreage, ready to be claimed by any of the conquering Normans who rode hard and got there first. A Nankervis had celebrated victory of the manor and a Kivell, an arch-rival, got the much smaller portion. The latter was so enraged for taking a tumble off his horse and losing the greater prize, he’d sulked, and jealously built up an insular community, living mainly self-sufficiently and by producing many fine crafts. The Kivells had evolved from the fearsome French warrior breed and nobility, mixing their blood with gypsies and undesirables and they were notorious for smuggling, poaching and instigating drunken brawls. None sought to work down a mine shaft and indeed none would be allowed to. They applied their own codes and rules as ruthlessly as Darius Nankervis ran his concerns.
Amy bit her lip. She ought to give up and go home, leave Stumpy to return when he would, and let Toby face his punishment. But what if Toby was down there at Burnt Oak? Stumpy might be following his scent. The Kivells bred lurchers, supposedly to help them thieve, and Stumpy had come from one of the litters. Toby had bartered with a Kivell child for him, exchanging a nicely detailed drawing, his one accomplishment. It was the one thing that gave Toby confidence, that he had encountered a Kivell and had come out of it not only unscathed but with a better bargain – Sylvia had been forced to do a lot of pleading on Toby’s behalf to get Morton to allow him to keep the dog. Amy hated to go to such a dissolute place but she hoped the Kivells wouldn’t mind if she enquired if Toby was there.
She hurried down the valley as swiftly as the long grasses, the thistles and the gradient, which dipped sharply in places, allowed. She eased off as she closed in on the veiled property, now feeling herself to be foolhardy, and hid behind the wall. Panting, her heart thudding, the thought sat uncomfortably that while this wall may have been built to keep intruders out, anyone approaching from the higher reaches of the valley could easily be seen. Would the Kivells treat her as a trespasser, and would they be any kinder over the matter than the Nankervises? Any moment now a strapping, long-haired, dark-skinned savage – some of the good people of Meryen called them savages – might demand to know what she was doing here.
Toby, Stumpy, what have you got me into? she thought.
She stayed absolutely still, the only sound her nervous breathing. No one came to challenge her. Apparently, she hadn’t been seen. Perhaps the Kivells were taking a Sunday afternoon nap, the same as the civilized world.
She edged along the wall, grazing her hand on the hefty blocks of lichen-covered granite, until she reached the thick wooden gatepost. Leaning round it she glanced through the heavy sun-warmed bars. All was quiet. Nothing and no one was stirring. It was as if the world had stopped. She had seen nothing like these stone and thatched, or
slate-roofed, buildings before. There were half a dozen situated on each of the three sides of a stone-chipping courtyard, with more, and the farmyard, rambling off behind. The largest house was an impressive three times larger than Chy-Henver, with cross-leaded windows. She caught sight of Stumpy. He was investigating the ground outside of what looked like a workshop. Amy’s stomach tightened into knots. Had Stumpy smelled Toby? Was it fanciful to imagine Toby had somehow got into trouble and this vagabond breed had locked him in there? She was scared but she had to find out.
Taking off her long narrow summer scarf to use as a leash for Stumpy, she climbed through the middle bars of the gate, forcing herself not to cry out as she snagged the hem of her dress. Staring about fearfully, hunched over, she crept across the yard, gritting her teeth as each step made a treacherous crunch. Her prayers that Stumpy wouldn’t suddenly take off again were answered. He kept sniffing the ground, and she reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. The dog jumped at her touch but it recognized her and didn’t make a noise or try to strain away.
‘Stumpy,’ she whispered as she tied the red-flowered, yellow cloth through his collar. ‘Where’s Toby? Is he in there?’ She tried the workshop door. It was locked.
‘There’s no one in there that shouldn’t be,’ came a loud, gravelly voice.
‘Oh!’ Amy leapt around and put her back against the workshop door. Her eyes widened in fear. With a host of fretful lurchers at his heels, a man of about her father’s age, in homespun cloth and leather, his thick devilishly black, silver-streaked hair streaming to his heavy jaw, was staring at her from wild, suspicious eyes. With chills she surmised he had watched her approach and had kept his dogs at bay until now.
‘Stealing one of my dogs, eh, missy?’ He thrust his face close to hers.
‘No! It’s my brother’s dog. He bartered for him fair and square. I swear on the Good Book I’m telling the truth.’
‘Think I believe that?’ the man roared. He thumped his hands either side of her against the workshop door, trapping her. ‘You’re here to steal something. Who are you? Are you from the village?’