For a few moments he appeared to be thinking, then he sat down very close beside her. ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’ he asked rather stiffly.
‘Yes, thank you, quite sure. Ah, here comes Bob.’
The black retriever sniffed around Bartholomew, weighing him up as friend or foe to his mistress before settling down protectively at their feet. Kerensa stroked the dog’s broad back. ‘How’s your mother and the children today, Bartholomew?’
He stroked the dog too, his deeply tanned hand moving next to hers until Kerensa took hers away. ‘Mother’s about the same. The girls are all right of course at the Sarrisons, those old brothers are a kindly pair, the young’uns not too bad. You asked me about my family once before I remember.’ He looked directly into her eyes. ‘It was after the wreck of the Amy Christabel. I told you then that you were pretty.’
‘Yes, you did,’ Kerensa said, smiling softly at the memory. ‘You could only have been about eight or nine, and a most forward child, as I recall.’
‘I was nine and I was wrong then.’
‘Oh?’
‘You’re not pretty, you’re beautiful, very beautiful.’ Kerensa drew in a deep breath and Bartholomew was satisfied that this time his remark was not to be warded off with indulgent amusement. He knew he was attractive to women, from the village maids to many a woman of mature years. Conquests came easily, but the females concerned meant little or nothing to him. The young woman beside him was a different matter. Kerensa Pengarron was as unattainable as she was beautiful and it was the unattainable and beautiful he seemed fated to desire all his life.
‘Thank you for the compliment,’ Kerensa said in her soft, lilting voice, then turned her head to the sea.
Bartholomew picked up one of her shoes. Holding it out on his palm he turned his work-roughened hand from side to side while looking at it intently. ‘I’ve always envied and respected Sir Oliver,’ he said.
‘Have you?’ she replied, looking at him now. ‘Why is that?’
‘To begin with he has you for his wife.’
‘Bartho—’
Whatever it was that she was going to say was lost as he continued, ‘He’s strong-minded, knows exactly what he wants and never gives up until he’s got it, and of course he’s rich and powerful and owns the estate and is the Lord of the Manor hereabouts.’
Kerensa watched the movement of her shoe and smiled to herself. She liked Bartholomew Drannock and if she’d been in the company of any other young man she would have firmly stopped his flow of speech.
‘Well, I would certainly say you’re strong-minded, Bartholomew,’ she said, with little nods of her head. ‘Are you happy as a fisherman or is there something else you would like to do with your life?’
Bartholomew studied Kerensa with suspicion; was she really interested in him or merely idly curious? Or even out to make trouble? He had never trusted anyone but his mother and the events of his life so far had given him no cause to think differently. Sweeping his dark eyes from her face and down her delicately curved form he stared at her small bare feet. Surely a lady, if not by birth then by marriage, would not stay here alone beside him in a manner others would think unseemly if it was not genuine interest. His eyes lingered on the way back up until they met her own, and drawing back his lips he gave her the smile that could render a female speechless with admiration.
He wanted to talk more about her beauty but he knew she would not allow too many liberties and he wanted to stay. Apart from his mother, she was the only woman who seemed to be able to hold a reasonable conversation, let alone an intelligent one. Lying with a woman was good, but before and after the relieving of his youthful lust their futile prattle and hints of marriage drove him to distraction.
‘I hate to be away from the sea for long, but ’tis a hard life.’ He glanced around the cove. ‘Grandfather and Josh King were washed up here.’
‘Yes, an estate worker found them. Does it worry you? That you could be lost at sea?’
‘No, not really. ’Tis a risk but life’s full of them. It’s the thanklessness of the job that gets me angry at times. You can never get out of poverty. Most fishermen will never make enough money to buy their boats and the owners take the best part of the profits. The fish buyers get another heavy cut of what’s left while we fishermen have more expenses – tackle, nets, the upkeep of the boats to pay for. We get the least reward for the hardest work, while you’re safe asleep in your bed.’
‘But if you’ll forgive a direct question, don’t you have part ownership of your own boat now? Isn’t that some help to you?’
Bartholomew looked deeply at Kerensa. ‘Word’s got around, I see.’
Despite her position, in which she should be able to say anything she liked to such as this young man and receive nothing but a respectful answer, Kerensa coloured a little. She respected other people’s privacy and the right to run their own lives as they chose. ‘Sir Oliver mentioned it to me. We were talking about you and the Kings. I was worried about how you would manage to live without a boat. I wasn’t prying, Bartholomew.’
He studied her face. ‘Fair enough. Yes, things are better with us owning the Young Maid but life’s still very hard.’
‘Of course,’ Kerensa agreed.
‘I want to be rich,’ Bartholomew said suddenly, raising his voice and holding his head up proudly, ‘exceedingly rich. Then my mother can live out the rest of her life as she began it, in comfort and plenty. Did you know she was the daughter of Joshua Mildern, the ship’s chandler in Marazion?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘He doesn’t even acknowledge us.’ Bartholomew put her shoe down and fished something out of his breeches pocket, fitfully turning it over between his fingers. ‘I can never understand why my mother married my father, she was much too good for him.’
‘Didn’t you like your father?’ Kerensa asked, mesmerised by his fidgeting.
He exhaled deeply and tightened his lips before answering. ‘He was a miserable sod. Hard-working and sober I grant you, but too proud for his own good, and ours, and thoroughly boring. I remember when you brought over some clothes for us. A shirt for me, dresses for the girls, something for the little ones. Mother was so pleased we had something decent to wear to church, but what did he go and do? Put a stop to it, just to serve his own rotten sense of pride, didn’t matter how any of us felt about it. Mother used to confide in me, she said it did you good as well, giving to others in your new position as Lady of the Manor. He hurt all of us back then.’ Bartholomew searched her face. ‘You didn’t like him, did you?’
Kerensa coloured again, knowing a lie would hurt more than the truth. ‘No, not very much.’
A trickle of fear tightened her stomach as she thought of the many different complications if Bartholomew and Oliver ever found out the truth of Samuel’s parentage, that Samuel and Oliver had the same father. Samuel had told Kerensa this himself, when he had stopped her gifts to his family, and he had asked her to swear to keep it a secret, pointing out that he hated Oliver as much as he did Sir Daniel Pengarron for siring him and deserting his mother.
Kerensa had not been married to Oliver for long, their relationship had been strained and at the time she had thought it best to keep quiet. She had known Oliver well enough to realise that his honour would have made him want to have some kind of relationship with his half-brother and to provide comfortably for his family. Kerensa had seen Samuel for a stubborn man who meant what he said and there would have been all kinds of troubles and she had not wanted to shoulder the responsibility for that then.
What would Bartholomew think of her keeping the secret? What would he think of his father making them live their lives in poverty when they might have been well off? His reaction wouldn’t be the same as Samuel’s. Bartholomew desired to be rich, he admired and respected Oliver and probably wouldn’t be too proud to accept financial help from him. He would have clashed with his father’s views.
Kerensa’s worst fear was how Oliver would re
act if he ever found out the truth and that she had kept it from him for several years. Only she, and Jenifer knew now, and the Reverend Ivey, whom Jenifer had told to ease Kerensa’s burden of keeping the secret alone. It was a secret that Kerensa wished she did not know, but one she had been told in order to put right her suspicion that Bartholomew had been fathered and deserted by Oliver.
She had been silent in her thoughts too long. Her eyes returned to Bartholomew’s fingers. ‘What have you got there?’
He passed it to her, a small piece of wood with a straight line of white marking on it. ‘I found it down there on the shoreline. ’Tis a little piece of the Lowenek. See,’ he pointed, ‘there’s part of the letter “K”. Mother taught me how to read,’ he explained.
Kerensa tried to hand it back but he closed her fingers over the fragment of the ill-fated lugger. ‘You keep it if you like, it has too many painful memories for me. If my father hadn’t wanted to play the hero he would still be alive and my mother would not be a grieving widow.’
‘I’m sorry for you,’ said Kerensa, offering no pat remarks. She wrapped the piece of driftwood in a handkerchief and burrowed it into a deep pocket of her dress. ‘What would you like to do if given the chance one day? Go to sea to a foreign port? Perhaps even become the captain of a large ship?’
‘Mmmm, maybe, ’tis a thought that’s passed through my mind. Don’t matter too much at the moment though, I have my mother and young’uns to care for.’ His expression changed, telling Kerensa there would be no more forthcoming, he had said all he was willing to say on his hopes and plans for the future. She had seen that look on Oliver’s face, when he wanted to keep something from worrying her, or felt the subject under discussion was not a woman’s concern. Oliver would not be moved and Bartholomew, of course, had no reason to be.
‘My father was a sailor, on a merchant ship,’ she said, trying without success to picture her father’s face. ‘Anyway, Bartholomew, you’ve got plenty of time yet to decide on your future. You’re how old now? Seventeen? Eighteen?’
‘Seventeen, nearly eighteen,’ he replied, ‘the same age as you were when Sir Oliver forced you to marry him.’
Kerensa’s mouth turned into a small circle of shock and she brought up her chin and set her eyes squarely on the young fisherman. ‘You would do well not to be outspoken and to exercise some tact,’ she retorted primly. ‘Your mother would not approve of some of the things you say.’
This brought forth a hearty laugh. ‘You’re right, she wouldn’t, no more than you do.’ He put his face close to hers and moved his dark head from side to side. ‘I bet Sir Oliver is much the same as me, and gets that look from you more often than not.’ He gazed into her eyes until her look of severity slowly melted into a smile and then she was laughing with him.
‘I suppose I ought to be used to you by now, Bartholomew Drannock.’
‘Things have turned out all right for you though, haven’t they?’ he asked seriously. ‘You are happy in your marriage?’
‘Yes, I am,’ she replied. ‘I have been very fortunate.’
‘It’s hard to believe you’re the mother of two children. You look far too young.’
‘Thank you again for the compliment, but I have three children, not two.’
‘You look on that other boy as your own, do you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Kerensa said emphatically. ‘As far as we’re concerned, Kane is as much our child as Olivia and Luke are. He has every right to the Pengarron name.’
Bartholomew said thoughtfully, ‘He won’t inherit the title and estate though, will he?’
‘No, that will become Luke’s, but Kane will be well provided for, as will Olivia.’ Kerensa reached for her shoes and stockings, bringing Bob expectantly to his feet. ‘I ought to be going.’ She gave Bartholomew a look that conveyed it would be unacceptable for him to stay and watch her put them on.
He nodded but first put both his hands behind his head and retied the piece of old string holding back his long raven hair. Then he gave a brief smile. ‘Thanks for the chat. I suppose we’ve told each other things we wouldn’t tell other people.’ He paused. ‘Would you mind if I come here again? It won’t be very often, I get very little free time. Usually it’ll be like today, a Sunday, when we don’t put to sea, and I’d come by myself.’
Kerensa smiled warmly at him. ‘As far as I’m concerned you are welcome to come here anytime you like. Why do you like to come here, Bartholomew?’
‘I like the isolation and at times I have a great need to be by myself.’
She watched his tall energetic figure leap expertly across the rocks then turned to gaze thoughtfully out to sea. Samuel Drannock was somewhere out there, drifting along on the currents or anchored amongst rocks or wreckage. Kerensa hoped for Jenifer’s sake his body would never be found. She hoped for her own sake the truth of who had fathered him would never come to light… and yet, wasn’t that selfish? It would mean the Drannocks would always be poor, dragged down by constant, thankless hard work with no prospects for a better future. Kerensa had often wished she could tell Oliver, but it would have been against Samuel’s and Jenifer’s wishes, and she felt they had the right to live by their own decisions. With Samuel dead, Jenifer still wished the secret to remain, it gave her peace of a sorts, and how could she go against that? But then again, why should the children suffer?
Kerensa walked slowly back to Kernick. To block out her dilemma over the Drannocks she took her mind back a few years and thought fondly of another young man who used to come to Trelynne Cove. Their meetings had not been by accident. She had waited eagerly for him to come and had run to the top of the cliff to meet him. They had strolled arm in arm across the beach and chased each other over the rocks. They had been very much in love but fate had decreed they would not marry.
It had broken Clem Trenchard’s heart when she had gone through with the marriage that had been part of the bargain over Trelynne Cove. It had changed him from a happy young man full of love and hope to one inclined to sullenness and quiet moods. Clem had hoped to win Kerensa back, even after he had married Alice, her maid, and Alice had borne him twin sons. When he realised Kerensa had fallen in love with Oliver his heart had been broken again. He may have bowed out of her life, making himself a good family man, but she was sure there still were moments when he pined for her.
And Kerensa would never forget Clem. Just as the restless sea called to those who lived by it and travelled upon it, a painful tug would catch at her heart for him – a part of it that would always be his. Kerensa stood still and gazed around and wondered if Clem ever came secretly to Trelynne Cove to relive those early memories.
Chapter 6
Clem Trenchard urgently wiped his boots on the rush mat outside miner Jeb Bray’s cottage and pushed his sister through the open doorway. Rosie Trenchard tried to shrug him off and nearly lost her balance. She would have fallen into one of the tightly packed groups of people sitting on the floor if Clem had not reached out and caught her. Red-faced with embarrassment, Rosie turned on him.
‘Clem, what on earth do—’
‘Just get inside,’ he hissed.
Rosie obeyed, shaking her head in surrender. At times Clem was hard to understand. Usually Alice, his wife, had a difficult task each week to get him to attend the Bible classes. Today he had been over-eager to get there. He and Rosie had come on their own today and he had rushed her over Lancavel Downs while she had wanted to saunter along and capture the feeling of vastness and majesty that only the moors could give on a sun-drenched day, to breathe in the fresh clean air, grasp the loneliness that touched the soul into half-remembered dreams. The walks provided her with a welcome respite from the noise and eternal busyness of the family farm but Clem’s agitation had robbed her of that pleasure today. When she’d tripped in the enforced haste and insisted on sitting on a granite boulder to rub her sore ankle he had trampled a path over a patch of heather and nagged at her until she threatened to turn round and go home. All t
he rest of the way he had scolded her for making them late.
Another push inside the cottage and Rosie trod on an old man’s hand. He grinned understandingly and she smiled back in apology then complained to Clem in forceful tones under her breath, ‘Will you stop pushing me, Clem. Whatever will people think?’
Clem spoke straight into her ear, making her shiver and clap a hand there. ‘Tell Matthias that Alice can’t come today because the twins have gone down with the measles.’
‘Why tell him now? Surely it can wait till after? And why can’t you tell him yourself? You’re acting very strangely these days towards Preacher Renfree. Anyone would think you’ve had words with him the way you always get me to speak to him for you.’ Rosie impatiently pushed her one long plait of fine golden hair from the front of her shoulder to fall in a straight line down her back.
Clem let out an exasperated sigh and swung round to apologise to the woman he had just kicked with the toe of his boot.
‘’Tes all right, Clem, didn’t ’urt none,’ Lou Hunken said good-naturedly, ‘but pushing’ ’er through like that towards un went ’elp ’em along, boy. They went see what’s in front of their own eyes ’less ’ee comes right out with it an’ tell ’em what’s what yerself.’
Shrugging his shoulders at Lou Hunken, Clem persisted in badgering his younger sister. ‘Tell Matthias that Alice wants him to say a prayer for Philip and David before the class begins. You know how poorly they are.’
‘All right, Clem, don’t go on so,’ Rosie said crossly.
She was standing directly in front of Matthias Renfree, the stockily built, gentle-eyed young man responsible for holding the Bible classes. He led the people who crowded into the cottage with warmth, sincerity and understanding and was known locally as Preacher Renfree or Young Preacher, although he had never taken holy orders. He had come under some opposition from Sir Martin Beswetherick, the main owner of the Wheal Ember mine where many of the gathering worked. But Matthias had pointed out to the fat baronet that the mine, still producing good-quality ore when most at its age would have been worked out, would be wise to indulge a trouble-free work force rather than risk many of the miners going off to work at a mine sympathetic to Methodism and have them replaced with a bunch of irreligious rabble.
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