by Gloria Cook
‘Soon,’ Sarah replied airily. Titus had said it would be soon, if all was well – whatever that meant. He had only left Moor Cottage an hour ago after spending the night with her. When sure Tamsyn and Arthur were asleep, they had made love all through the dark hours. After the first awful, painful time, Titus had taught her many things, things she wouldn’t have dreamed that a man and woman could, or should, do. Gradually she had overcome her horror, reticence and inhibitions to reach a place where she enjoyed lying with him and pleasing him. When she was with him she forgot about the rejection and remarks of disgust brought about from her association with him. When she was Mrs Titus Kivell people would have to show her respect, and she didn’t care if it came about from fear of Titus. ‘Listen, neither of you need go back to the mine again. We’ve got all we need and your few pence a week doesn’t make much difference now. You’d be all right if you stayed at home and tidied up, wouldn’t you? Aunty Molly will be glad to see you, it’s only me she’s refusing to have in her house.’ Molly Pentewan had slapped Sarah across the face. ‘It’s bad enough you’ve brought shame on your poor mother’s memory but to be a whore for that man! How could you? Don’t darken my doorstep again until you come to your senses.’
The little girl and boy were a little less strained. ‘What have you done, Sarah?’ Tamsyn asked. ‘Why do people hate you?’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Sarah held her head up haughtily as she put on her cloak and new winter bonnet. ‘I’ve only fallen in love. People are jealous of me, jealous of us. Jealous that we’ve come up a little in the world, that we’ve got nicer things than they have, that’s all.’
Reassured, Tamsyn finally began on her breakfast. ‘Where’s this nice house we’re going to live in?’ she said, as Sarah reached the door.
‘It’s at Burnt Oak. You’ll love it there,’ Sarah said, full of enthusiasm. ‘There’s no need to be scared of the Kivells. Most of them are quite easy to get along with. You’ll be able to join the children for lessons, be clever like they are, make something of yourselves. Mother would be proud of that.’
‘We saw Sol Kivell yesterday when we ran past Amy’s place on the way home from work,’ Arthur said, following his sister’s example and tucking into his porridge. ‘He gave us thruppence each to buy sweets. If all his family are like him then it must be nice at Burnt Oak and not horrible as people say. Hope we don’t see much of that big man who comes here though. He’s scary.’
‘I don’t like him. He frightens me,’ Tamsyn said, dropping her spoon.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘He’s never said anything to frighten you.’
‘He doesn’t speak to us at all,’ Arthur said, unease making him doubt he wanted his breakfast now.
‘Make sure you behave yourselves today.’ Sarah left with a bang of the door. It was true that Titus ignored the children but he would grow to like them once they had all moved into his house. She’d taken to leaving the house early to avoid walking with the workforce. As always she approached Chy-Henver warily. She had only seen Amy once since their joint excursion to Burnt Oak. Amy had turned up at Moor Cottage looking serious and Sarah had made the excuse that she was busy and had no time to talk. Unlike Sarah, Amy had not gone to Burnt Oak again, but Sarah was jealous of the favourable impression her friend had made on Tempest Kivell. The woman who was to be her mother-in-law was polite to her but reserved, seemingly disinterested, and she had hinted that she thought Amy was brave, a girl of honour. Amy was the one person whose disapproval Sarah would not be able to take. If Amy berated her, if she implored her to give Titus up, she’d rise angrily to his defence. She couldn’t handle a quarrel and loathing from her only friend.
To her dismay, Amy was out in the lane, shivering in the cold wind in her shawl and bonnet, and it was obvious she was waiting for her. ‘Hello, Sarah.’
‘Hello, Amy.’ Sarah didn’t slow down to enter into a conversation.
‘Please don’t go past,’ Amy said, reaching out a hand. ‘You’ve time to spare. Come inside for a cup of tea. I’ve got a pot made.’
Sarah hesitated. ‘Is this a genuine invitation? I don’t want to listen to any moralizing. And what about Mrs Lewarne? She probably doesn’t want a fallen woman under her roof.’
‘Oh, Sarah, we’ve got no cause to pass judgement on others after what’s happened here. You’re my friend, I hope you’ll always remain as one. I know what the villagers are saying and I’ve been worried about you. Come inside. Please.’
‘Thanks, Amy.’ Sarah was consumed with the need to cry. ‘It means a lot that you haven’t turned against me.’
Once inside, outer clothes abandoned, the girls sat at the kitchen table and warmed their hands round cups of hot drink.
‘Tamsyn and Arthur not going in today?’ Amy asked with a smile. She wanted Sarah to be fully relaxed, to prove to her she was a real friend.
‘Not today or ever again. Until I give in my notice, there’s no need for them to suffer being shunned too.’
‘You’re leaving the mine?’
‘Yes. Of course,’ Sarah added, becoming confident and vehement. ‘Titus and I are to be married. I know people are saying he’s just using me, but they don’t know him like I do. He’s been so kind to me, so caring.’ She told Amy about the time he’d rescued her off the darkening moors. ‘He could have tried to have his way with me there and then, and at any time afterwards, but he didn’t. Nothing happened until the day we went to Burnt Oak, after he’d showed me what was to be my, and the little ones, new home. I love him so much. I can’t help the way I feel. I’d do anything for Titus. You’ll understand when you fall in love.’ She searched Amy’s stern expression. ‘Do you think like the others, Amy? That I’m heading for a huge fall, for more shame and degradation?’
Amy couldn’t accept that Titus Kivell was nothing more than a dangerous brute. Sarah was blind to the true intention of his seeming generosity. It was awful to know she had been innocent until the day they’d gone to Burnt Oak. She painted on a careful look. ‘If you want a truthful answer I fear you probably are, but I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. It’s your business, Sarah, and I’m your friend and I’ll always be here if you want me. Do you really think Titus will marry you?’
‘He talks about it all the time,’ Sarah replied, eyes dreamy and faraway, picturing her future. ‘We’re going to start a new family. Have lots of children to branch out and spread the Kivell name everywhere. You know how wonderful Burnt Oak is. It’s going to be just wonderful living there.’
Amy agreed about the community. Tempest Kivell had extended an invitation to her and her mother to dine at Burnt Oak; Sylvia was considering it. ‘I hope it all works out for you.’ Amy made the effort to sound sincere.
‘It’ll be strange being Sol’s stepmother.’ Sarah bubbled with excitement. ‘And just think, Amy, if you and he were to marry I’d be your mother-in-law!’
Amy gave a smile that conveyed her reaction: don’t get carried away.
Two hours later, after helping Sylvia with some housework, and changing into an old brown wool dress, her stoutest shoes and wearing one of her father’s carpentry aprons, Amy went to the workshop. Sol had bought sandalwood, and he was fashioning one of the linen boxes for the St Day doctor’s wife and there was the wonderful exotic scent of the wood. He was carving a keel finish, with more flourish to this sort of detail than her father had used.
‘This isn’t necessary, Amy,’ Sol said, running his eyes over her attire, with a long sigh. She had pinned up her hair extra securely. ‘You don’t have to keep trying to help out here. I’m sure you’ve got something more pressing to do in the house.’
She was used to this daily opposition. ‘Mother’s quite happy for me to be here a few hours each day. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same way, Sol, but that’s how it is.’ She looked for the simple dresser shelf she had been spokeshaving the day before. It was gone. It would have been finished off by Sol or Jowan, as had everything el
se she’d undertaken.
She smiled sweetly straight into Sol’s eyes. ‘What shall I do today?’ The first day she’d asked this question Sol’s handsome dark features had stared back in disbelief and the horror of her daring to breach a male sanctuary. His reply had been, ‘Are you mad? I didn’t think you were serious when you mentioned working in here.’ An increasingly heated discussion had ensued, with both of them putting forward every argument on why she should and should not help with the easier, straightforward carpentry tasks. Sol had only admitted defeat when she reminded him it was her family business. ‘If you get in the way or hold us up I’ll turn you out,’ he’d warned. ‘And don’t expect us to treat you differently because you’re a woman.’
Amy knew from her father’s day where things were kept, that tools should be scrupulously cleaned or sharpened, that certain substances were potentially hazardous. Sol had scoffed when she’d produced a pair of leather gloves so she worked without them. It had taken him half an hour to find her something to do; he’d either thought he could intimidate her into leaving or thought if he kept her hanging about she would get bored and go away. Her quiet determination had paid off and he’d begrudgingly beckoned her to him. ‘You can start off with some sanding but if you make a mess of it I’ll make you go back to the house.’
He’d watched her with sighs and heavy stares, but twenty minutes later when he’d stepped up and inspected the piece he’d mumbled, ‘It’ll do, I suppose.’
She enjoyed working in here, intermittently breaking off to fetch the tea. It gave her something to focus on away from the problems, and they were hopefully getting fewer. Most of the creditors had agreed to accept small regular payments and Sol had paid off the others, calling it a loan until the business was making profits again.
‘I’m not going to change my mind, Sol,’ she said today. ‘Everything I’ve done so far has been up to standard so I can’t see why you’re still putting forward objections.’
‘It’s strange having a girl about but I’m getting used to her,’ Jowan said. He winked at Amy. He made the effort not to swear in her presence, and once or twice when Amy had been perplexed about what to do, he’d mimed instructions to her. ‘Let her stay, Sol.’
A few seconds of brooding silence and then he capitulated. ‘There are two more shelves for the dresser, but I want you to promise you won’t touch anything else. I’m going inside shortly to tidy up, to make my way up to Poltraze for the appointment with the steward about the repair work. All being well I’ll win us a very useful commission. It should lift our heads above water and keep us floating.’
‘Thank you, Sol. Good luck.’
Together in close proximity for the last few days occasional contact had been unavoidable. It did not seem too much of a liberty when he touched Amy’s shoulder, as he said, ‘Thanks.’
Amy didn’t mind at all.
It was Sampling Day, a two-monthly occurrence at the Carn Croft Mine. The assayers and managers of the smelters arrived at midday in a force of about twenty to sample the ores for quality. The count house was putting on a meal, always a feast by the standards of the mining folk, and every few minutes the delicious whiff of roast beef and mutton was wafted on the wind, masking the choking smells of dust, oil and hot metal. Puddings and bread and cheese would be devoured and wines and brandy drunk in copious amounts.
While some of those hard at their labour appreciated the rich aroma in their nostrils it made many more envious and discontented. It gave Sarah’s opponents another opportunity to malign her. The bal-maiden at the table to her left looked round her to the bal-maiden on Sarah’s right. ‘Hey, Bess, when was the last time you ate two lots of meat in a day?’
‘Never, Mary. Be lucky if I see it once a week on my plate.’ Bess, short, thick-boned and bluff, made a smarmy face at Sarah and edged in close to her, nudging her hard, putting her off balance so her hammer slipped and juddered on the lump of stone she was bucking. ‘Course, Mary, some of us get more than enough. Twice a day and three times on Sundays at least!’ Bess wasn’t brought up in a religious household and her meaning was lewd.
‘Ugh!’ Mary, sallow-faced and invariably testy, jeered at Sarah’s expense. ‘Do you mind? You’ll put me off that sort of meat for life. Some like it a lot, though. Keep going back for more.’
The two girls cackled. Sarah let her hammer droop in her hand and she stared at the gritty ground. She waited for Bess and Mary to lose interest in her then set about the next lump of rock. ‘I won’t let you get to me,’ she mumbled. She coped by reliving the best moments with Titus and looking ahead to a life with him. Each day here was one less to endure and soon there would be no days here at all.
Sometimes men from the business contingent came as individuals or in groups and looked over the women, particularly those of Sarah’s age. Half a dozen of the assayers and managers wandered over to her shed on the pretext of watching the work process. The men were in good suits and had pocket watches. Two of them were in their twenties and probably unmarried. Some of the young bal-maidens giggled and threw flirtatious or sly glances, others ignored them, and one or two were offended. Sarah wasn’t aware of their presence until Bess pushed her out of line. ‘Hey, you lot. If you want a good time then she’ll oblige you. She’s called Sarah and she’s got no morals at all.’
‘Shut up!’ Sarah shouted, throwing down her hammer and trying to put a hand over Bess’s mouth. Bess fended her off and Mary helped her. Sarah’s arms were cruelly pinned behind her back. ‘She’s got a lover, a man more’n twice her age, who keeps her in comforts. I’m sure she’d let you have the same consideration for a shilling or two.’
The men stood and stared, amazed and then embarrassed. Trying to catch the eye of a girl in the hope of a discreet meeting behind a shed or on the downs after the shift was one thing, such a blatant invitation, delivered with malice, degraded them as much as the unfortunate victim. Bess and Mary let go of Sarah and stared at her in spiteful triumph. All work in the shed stopped and all eyes were on Sarah. She stood transfixed in horror. The racket of the rest of the industry died away and she felt she was in the centre of an unnatural hush. There was nothing she could do to limit the damage or regain a scrap of dignity. She couldn’t bear to see the accusation or the vilification of the gathering.
She walked away. She expected to receive catcalls and insults at her back but there were none. What the onlookers were doing or thinking, if they had formed a huddle and were talking about her, if Godley Greep had rushed across and ordered them back to work, she had no idea. All she wanted was to get away from here and never come back. To go to Titus.
Numb and as if in the grip of some strange fever she walked and walked, trudging with her beautiful eyes misted over and set ahead, making her way by instinct along the quickest short cuts over the moors to the man she loved.
There was little activity at Burnt Oak and she reasoned the community would be at lunch. When she got to the courtyard, the lurchers leaping all about her, Kivells began to appear from doorways of homes and businesses, ordering the dogs off and enquiring if she was all right. She wasn’t sure if all family members were ready to accept her but she got the comforting feeling that she, as Titus’s intended bride, had these people ready to spring to her defence. She went straight to Morn O’ May and let herself in and headed to the dining room.
Titus was there eating beef stew with Tempest, his sister Eula, and five of his older children. Sarah paused in the doorway, windswept and muddy, in her gook, touser and leg wrappings and work shoes. She was unconscious of the fact she had been crying and her eyes were puffy and tear-stained. ‘S–sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .’
Tempest saw Sarah at the same moment as Titus, and they both rose and went to her. Titus wrapped his arms around her. ‘Darling, what is it?’
‘Are you hurt, Sarah?’ Tempest asked, using her fingers to push back the girl’s hair as she looked for trauma.
‘No,’ she rasped, out of breath. ‘I . . . I
. . .’
‘Take her to my sitting room, Titus,’ Tempest said. ‘She seems to be in shock. Give her a nip of brandy. Talk to her. I’ll come along by and by.’
A feeling of unreality overcame Sarah. She was trembling and weak. Titus lifted her up and carried her out of the room. He set her down on Tempest’s sofa and held her close. ‘Has someone hurt you?’ he demanded, stroking her face.
‘No one’s hit me or anything like that,’ she sobbed softly against him. She filled him in on the day’s events. ‘Everyone hates me except for Amy. The little ones are so unhappy. I can’t go back to the mine, Titus. When are we going to get married? When can I get out of Meryen?’
Titus raised her chin and carefully brushed back the tangled black hair from her face. Even in her distress she was incredibly beautiful. ‘You haven’t had any women’s courses lately, have you?’
‘What?’ It took a while to comprehend his meaning. What a peculiar thing to ask now. ‘No, I, the thing is—’
‘Then you must be pregnant.’ He cut her off. ‘Then I’ll tell you exactly what you want to know. You can move in here today, and we’ll get married the moment I’ve set up a date with the vicar. We’ll make a wonderful new family together, Sarah. Many more Kivells to spread out and take control of this area.’
‘Tamsyn and Arthur can come too? You did say they could.’
‘Your family are my family. We’ll fetch them and your things as soon as you feel strong enough.’
Sarah couldn’t speak through her tears of relief and she clung to him.
Titus gathered her in and rocked her and kissed her hair and said a lot of soothing words, but his eyes were blazing with fury. ‘Now, my darling, I want you to tell me exactly who it was who caused you this misery.’
In a suit of riding clothes as fine as any gentleman’s, Sol handed over his horse to a stable boy at Poltraze and left the cobbled yard. He didn’t go straight to the back door and ask admittance for his appointment, but took the liberty of going round to the front and gazing up at the charred wing. It was plain to him the blaze had taken hold quickly and that perhaps an investigation should have been called as to its cause, but it was none of his business. If the Nankervis sons were happy to believe their father had burned himself and three others to death then so be it. The world was better off without the heartless old squire, now deservingly suffering the fires of hell. He ran his eyes along the rest of the grey stone front. No matter what was done to the house it would never bear an inviting prospect, but its unattractiveness could be forgiven for the gardens were magnificent. Even without bloom the avenues of rhododendrons and camellias, the palms and tree ferns, the conifers and climbers, all of prestigious height, and the tasteful ornamentation presented a visual feast. Little wonder that his cousin, Laketon, a lover of the exquisite, had long trespassed over this land and brought back a wide variety of ideas to beautify Burnt Oak.