by Gloria Cook
Sylvia looked at her sharply. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘I went to Burnt Oak the day I was searching for Toby.’ Amy filled her mother in on the details, leaving out the part about Sol keeping her scarf.
Sylvia was quiet for some time. Amy bit her nails. It seemed as if the greater part of her mother had turned to stone. Finally, Sylvia said, ‘If the Kivells were good to my Toby then I’d rather have the company of one of them than your father. Set the dinner table for four, Amy.’
The vegetable soup was steaming hot on top of the slab. A cottage loaf, butter and cheese sat in the middle of the table on a large round board, decorated with a leaf pattern, sculpted by Morton. There were few things of wood in the house that hadn’t been made by him. Sylvia was dignified and purse-lipped as she waited at the foot of the table for the men to come in. Amy’s back was hurting from the knots in her spine. Not a muscle moved in Sylvia’s face as she listened to the men washing their hands in the back kitchen. Amy thought she’d never breathe a breath again that wasn’t loaded with grief and tainted with anger. And loathing for her father and his new worker. Sol Kivell had better not upset her mother . . .
Morton came in silently. The last drop of colour drained from his pinched features when he saw Sylvia in her place. He sat in his own chair, hollow and hunched over.
Sylvia stared straight into Sol’s eyes.
He came to the last remaining place at the table. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Lewarne. Please accept how sorry I am about Toby.’
Sylvia inhaled a deep disapproving breath. She motioned for him to sit. He did so. Bowed his head and folded his hands together. ‘You say grace in your house, young man?’ If Sylvia was surprised it didn’t come across in her bland voice.
He lifted his head. Amy was taken aback to see the respectful gentleness he returned to her mother. ‘Grandmama Tempest insists on it, Mrs Lewarne.’
‘I’m glad to hear that not all your family’s habits are heathen,’ Sylvia said. Amy glanced at Sol, afraid he’d been offended, but he seemed unconcerned.
‘Morton,’ Sylvia said brusquely, raising her hands in prayer. Never before had he needed prompting in his duty to say the grace.
It was an effort for Amy to sit still. It was a day of new beginnings. The power in her home had shifted from her father to her mother.
Morton could manage no more than a couple of spoonfuls of soup and a few crumbs of bread. Sol ate heartily. Sylvia finished most of her meal, more food than she’d eaten for the last few days. Amy ate to show the unwelcome diner that she was not intimidated by his presence, but the food sat like lead in her stomach. Not a word passed across the table.
When Amy put the last washed and dried dish away she wondered if it had actually happened. She knew it hadn’t been a dream when Sol collected his horse from the stable at five o’clock and rode away. How were they going to survive this, him coming here every working day? Yet when she looked at Sylvia, gazing into space, her mind filled, no doubt, with wistful memories of Toby, when Amy saw the fight and the life that had returned to her mother, she had to admit there was a reason to be grateful to Sol Kivell.
Sol didn’t ride far. He left his horse at the back of the Nankervis Arms. Murky, with dirty windows and bulky, low rafters, the tavern didn’t match up to its esteemed name. It was the roughest drinking place in Meryen, its landlord, Dilly Trewin, the mid-Cornwall wrestling champion, was much given to humour of a lewd kind.
Flexing his conquering muscles, Dilly Trewin plonked a tankard of ale at Sol’s usual spot, near the door, far across from the cavernous fireplace, where a smelly old black and white mongrel dozed. ‘’Tis the talk of the village, boy.’
Sol downed a long cool draught, relishing the refreshing of his throat. ‘What is?’
Dilly was one of the few folk who wasn’t easily browbeaten by the Kivells ever-ready confrontational manner. As did Titus, Sol would fix his eyes on an enquirer with more than a view to hurl back that they’d be better off minding their own business. The uneven table, greatly darkened by tobacco ash, wood smoke, and spilled drink, also bore slashes and pits from Kivell knives and fists. ‘What I mean to say is, what’re you doing up-along at the Lewarnes? Strikes me as peculiar.’
‘My father wants it so. That’s all you –’ Sol then glared at the other drinkers, a mix of miners not on their core, old men, and one or two farm labourers ‘– or anyone else needs to know.’
‘A dear young maid lives there.’ Dilly winked suggestively. There was a tense hush in the taproom. The drinkers knew Dilly would persist. They also knew that if Sol, who appeared to have begrudged every minute spent at Chy-Henver, grew impatient, he might turn quarrelsome.
Sol looked up at the towering landlord from under his dark lashes. ‘I’m not blind.’
There was an outbreak of bawdy laughter. Dilly went to his side of the bar and took wagers on how long it would take Sol to make a favourable impression on pretty Amy Lewarne.
Sol produced the yellow and red-flowered scarf and brought it up to his nose. Amy’s tantalizing fragrance was in the delicate fibres. He twisted it round his hand in the same way he wanted to wind her lovely golden brown hair through his fingers. Did she know about the female company he kept? One of the serving girls here and some older women who obligingly opened their doors to him while their husbands were at work. Amy probably did know. The argumentative, haughty madam disapproved of every part of him. That didn’t bother him one little bit.
Sol was eager to break out into the world but taking over a business in Meryen wasn’t broad enough for his horizons. He’d argued with his father there were better ways of acquiring Chy-Henver than planting him there. His grandmother had advised him to go, saying she had ‘seen’ something to his benefit, and the great love and affection Sol had for Tempest Kivell, who’d come from a wealthy Quaker family in Falmouth, meant he usually went along with her biddings. Titus had ordered him to come home straight away to report on his first day. He could wait. His disobedience sometimes brought him and Titus close to blows, but otherwise, Titus stressed he was proud of his single-mindedness, seeing him as a worthy successor. Sol did not hold his father in much regard; Titus was too objectionable.
Cheap scent filled his nostrils as a young, red-haired woman, with a generously exposed bosom, sashayed up to his table. ‘Enjoying your new job?’
Sol leaned back on his stool, resting his head against the thick stone wall. ‘There’s only one thing you should be concerned that I enjoy, Lizzie.’
She let out a wicked laugh. Sol followed her to a back room and placed some silver in her grasping hand. She shut the door and pounced on him eagerly. Sol was wild with her. When at last he was lying on his back, his broad chest heaving, she ran a fingertip along a thin scar on his stomach, a trophy he’d got here on the premises after he’d quarrelled with an unwise tinner from Lanner, who’d come off far worse. ‘If I didn’t know you better I’d think you had something on your mind.’
He put his arm round her shoulders and brought her hot curves down against his body. Whores knew men. He didn’t want this one to come to the decision that there was a reason for him to be looking forward to his next working day.
Eight
Tara was in her old, austere room at Poltraze, where the only decoration was one bleak landscape on the faded greenish wallpaper. There wasn’t a drape on the half-tester bed, and it was covered with the same old damask counterpane. The air seemed stale, as if filled with the breath of bygone Nankervises, and she missed the freshness of the sea at Penzance. The atmosphere was dull, dull, dull, but she supposed it was marginally better than at the Dower House. Sitting before her dressing table, in her chemise and stiffened petticoats, her left hand strayed to the trinket jars and she chinked her fingertips on the amber glass. She brought the hand up before her eyes. In an hour she would have a three-stone rose diamond engagement ring on it, a Nankervis heirloom. Joshua was going to place it on her finger before they went down
together. They were to be the last to make an appearance tonight at the ball.
She tapped on the silver-scrolled handle of her hair brush, making the bristles bounce on the walnut dressing table. Her life was about to change for ever and she’d been given no say in it. While her aunt was ecstatic about the turn in their fortune, Tara was secretly furious. Furious that Estelle had kept the details of her trust fund from her, and that she was to be used as a pawn to further Estelle and Darius Nankervis’s selfish plans. She was pleased, however, that marriage and children were now to be included in her life instead of futile years of increasing loneliness. She hadn’t had enough time to explore her feelings in regard to Joshua becoming her husband.
They had heard the news of their impending betrothal together, on returning to the Dower House after their visits to Amy. After Joshua had enquired at Chy-Henver if Amy and her mother were bearing up, he had escorted Tara back, both of them speculating over the reason for his father’s summons. ‘You’ve grown up to be very charming, if I may say so,’ Joshua had said, in the manner of a doting older brother, much like the way he had treated her when she’d lived at Poltraze.
‘It was good of you to keep in touch with me each Christmas,’ she’d replied.
It was extraordinary for them, shortly afterwards, to be staring at each other as two people soon to be married. Mr Nankervis and her aunt had been in the parlour, he seemingly in the throes of some sort of breathless excitement, as if he’d run too far, and she flushed and coy, yet somehow coquettishly grateful towards her husband. Joshua had shot them a look of disapproval and Tara had assumed he was displeased at the decision they had come to without consulting him first. He did not argue about it, his thoughts had been unreadable.
Estelle now breezed into the room. In an off-the-shoulder, puffed, short-sleeved ball gown of pale blue silk, and sapphires on her wrists and at her throat, and a diamond tiara in her hair, she looked exquisite. Atkins and a young maid were with her. Tara braced herself for the torture of being laced into a corset. ‘Now, to get our lovely bride-to-be ornamented in all her engagement finery. Oh, don’t look so glum, Tara.’ Estelle was suddenly impatient. ‘You should be excited to bursting point. I’ll see about getting every modern convenience in this dreary old house. And I swear that I shall soon oust the others out of it.’
‘Miss Tara’s bound to be a little overcome, ma’am,’ Atkins pointed out carefully, guiding the dreaded corset under Tara’s small bosom. Tara didn’t need energetic lacing to procure the much desired tiny waist and she wished her aunt away, or Atkins would be ordered to pull and pull on the laces.
‘I’ve told her not to worry.’ Estelle was dismissive. ‘Married life is a state in which a woman must endure and make sacrifices. Goodness knows I’ve had to. I’d never thought I’d prefer living here to that awful little house in Penzance. I was a fool before. I shall not be making any such mistakes in the future. Turn her out splendidly, Atkins.’ She pushed the maid aside. ‘I’m about to go down with my husband.’
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ Tara asked, gasping for breath as the whalebone and stiffened material became ever more familiar with her ribs. ‘People might hiss at her.’
‘You saw her,’ Atkins said, bright and full of confidence. She had declared it was beyond her wildest dreams for her mistress to be reinstated to her rightful place. ‘She’s sparkling. A match for anyone in the county. The house is bursting at the seams, anyone who’s anyone is here burning for gossip. But you, my little bud, have youth and innocence on your side. The romantics will be smitten by you, the devil-may-cares brought to rein, and the sanctimonious will believe they’re in the company of an angel. No one will give Mrs Estelle a second glance when you glide down the stairs on Mr Joshua’s arm.’
Joshua wasn’t unsettled about his forthcoming marriage, he couldn’t have chosen a better bride himself than the pleasing, pliable Tara. He’d be able to get on with his life much the same as before. The barrage of complaints he was getting from Michael and Phoebe had been very trying though. Now he was about to witness them publicly disassociating themselves from the return of his father’s wife.
‘Why is Father doing it?’ Michael had launched at him before, seeking him out in one of the hothouses. ‘Why has he brought that creature back in the house? She’ll drag the family’s name through the mud.’
‘I don’t care what people think.’ Joshua had not looked up from giving the grape vines a fine spray of water.
‘She’ll make us a laughing stock.’
‘If Father thought that he wouldn’t have brought her back.’
‘I can’t believe this is happening. Estelle’s giving me no peace to get on in the library.’ He was making new records of the family history, a passion equal to Joshua’s for the gardens.
‘Stop being so damned dramatic. Things will settle down in time.’ Joshua wished he could tell his brother the truth. He and Michael got on well enough when Phoebe wasn’t needling either of them. They went their separate ways, desiring their own privacy, and it worked to their satisfaction. It was a pity Michael hadn’t chosen a malleable wife.
Phoebe went further and had vented her gall, when his father wasn’t present, on Tara and Estelle. One night she had paced the floor, fluttering her feather fan wildly, as if she was about to combust. ‘We’ll never be able to hold our heads up again. I hardly feel we can go back to St James’s Square after the recess.’
‘Be sure that you do, Mrs Nankervis,’ Estelle had broken in, her green eyes splintered and magnificently icy, as she’d sipped an after dinner coffee. ‘There is only one mistress in this house and my husband has given the position to me.’
Joshua saw problems ahead with Estelle, but they wouldn’t last long. She was different from before, when she’d been inclined to sulk and throw rages. Now she bossed and bullied. Oh, for a few hours to revel in with the Kivells. Especially Laketon. His dear Laketon. Meetings with his lover had to be carefully arranged, for if his father discovered his true sexuality, he’d turn him out, penniless, and Titus would in all probability kill Laketon. He and Laketon went to great lengths to hide their true relationship, spending time at brothels, but paying well to keep it a secret that it wasn’t prostitutes they shared a bed with. It was fortunate that Tara had been with Amy Lewarne the day he had called at Chy-Henver, he’d gone there so as to appear he was interested in her; his bride would never guess where his true desires lay.
Tara waited for Joshua in the upstairs gallery, keeping out of sight of the partygoers as they climbed the well-trodden oak stairs to discard their cloaks and wraps in the powder rooms. She watched them covertly as they made their way back down to the Long Corridor, which had been cleared of its clutter for dancing. On every lip, the oddity of Darius Nankervis entertaining here was surpassed by the surprise of her aunt’s return.
She studied the portraits, some by Opie and Reynolds, of previous Nankervises. She would soon be a part of this lot, fated to merge into its now uncelebrated history. There had been some great and gifted Nankervises. Nearly two hundred years ago, Henry, resplendent on canvas in cavalier’s garb, had fought in the successful Royalist campaign at Boconnoc. In the 1750s Francis, like many Cornish landowners, had made the family fortune by leasing mineral rights to the adventurers. The Nankervises were said to have a philistine touch and sadly Poltraze, as it stood now with its featureless remodelling, with no forethought for comfort or style, echoed this truth in its every corner. At least Joshua had something to be proud of as he showed his peers round the grounds. His father had already commissioned the likenesses of Joshua and herself to be painted. One day her children’s might adorn these walls, and in a sudden urge of ambition she desired a son to groom as a man of achievement, who’d rebuild this draughty dark tomb, who’d care about the living conditions of the humblest individual who dwelt on his land and for humanity in general. In a fusion of daring and fear, she wanted to breed a radical who would stand up and be counted. Her future father-in-law wo
uld hate that!
‘What are you thinking about, Tara?’
‘Oh!’ Her hand flew to her heart. ‘Joshua . . .’ He was always thoughtful towards her but now he seemed to be admiring her. Tara was heartened. She had realized that while he saw Amy as a desirable woman – Tara thought she was under no illusions as to why he’d used the Lewarnes’ grief to call unexpectedly at Chy-Henver – he must find her unworldly and sheltered. It was unlikely he was as willing to enter this marriage as he was making out. It occurred to her that by not attempting explanations she could be a little mysterious to him, and that might bode well for the future. ‘Nothing in particular.’
‘You look lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ She felt lovely, Atkins had done her job well. Silk rosebuds decorated the low boat-shaped neckline and waistband of her ivory tulle gown, her hair was arranged smoothly across her brow and held in a chignon behind her ears in a diamond-studded net, and more rosebuds were scattered on the crown of her head. Joshua made a handsome sight in a pleated shirt, tailcoat and lavishly embroidered waistcoat. ‘Your father has been congratulated on his birthday. I heard the cheers go up.’
‘Then it’s our turn to take centre stage.’ Joshua smiled. Tara really was lovely. Unassuming and enchanting. He liked her, he always had. He was sure she’d always liked him. Their marriage would work. He produced the engagement ring. ‘May I?’
Tara gazed at the beautiful rose diamonds twinkling between his thumb and forefinger. She saw the remnants of earth under his nails. His passion for nature’s flora endeared him to her. Her aunt had married a frightening, intransigent, middle-aged man. For herself she was getting Joshua, who was young and carefree. Her life with him, as protector, she was sure, from the harridan Phoebe and the cold Michael, wasn’t going to be too bad. She held out her left hand.