Pengarron Pride

by Pengarron Pride (retail) (epub)

A different kind of horror showed on her face. ‘Oh Clem, don’t think I was using you.’

  ‘You didn’t mean to, my love, but don’t you see? We would never be in this situation now if things weren’t desperately wrong between you and Pengarron. You didn’t come to me because you’ve fallen out of love with him or can’t live without me. It hurts me to know how much you love him and you don’t love him any the less because of his wretched behaviour. If we had made love, if you didn’t hate yourself now it would happen tonight, tomorrow or next week and you might have found yourself hating me for being so weak and selfish. It’s been hard living these last years without you, but knowing you could never meet me face to face again without feeling a sense of shame…’He could say no more.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Clem,’ Kerensa said miserably, pulling his head to rest on her shoulder. ‘I never meant to hurt you again, please forgive me.’

  Several minutes later, he said, ‘There’s nothing to forgive, Kerensa. The only hurt I feel is yours at losing Pengarron for the moment. You see, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘And?’ she said, as he raised himself to look down on her.

  ‘Kerensa, you and I weren’t meant to be lovers. A long time ago we very nearly were, but it wasn’t to be then and it isn’t to be now.’ Clem used a fingertip to run gentle little circles on her flushed, puzzled face and eased away the strands of auburn-red hair on her brow and temples. ‘We have a special love, my little sweet, you and I. We have a part of each other that no one else can touch or take away. It’s a love we can share on a higher plane of life to the physical act of love that would only destroy it. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Kerensa?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ she found a simple smile from somewhere and used his favourite form of endearment for her, ‘my little sweet. A different kind of love to that of husband and wife, brother and sister and even lovers.’

  ‘Most of the time people need to fit their feelings into neat little compartments, parent to child, friend to enemy. But we have something completely different, something really unique, quite wonderful.’ He fell silent for a while, then asked, ‘Do you feel any better now, Kerensa, my love?’

  She stroked his hair, twisting its silky fineness round her fingers. ‘Yes, a little… It was beautiful, what you said, I shall never forget it. Does it make you feel better, Clem? You looked so pained a little while ago. I thought I’d broken your heart again.’

  He smiled so deeply his eyes shone with their deepest summer blue. ‘Since I’ve thought it through I seem to have come out of this better than you. I was still cherishing the hopeless dream that you belonged to me and I had the right to claim you as totally mine. Now I know I was wrong. Stealing one afternoon of lovemaking won’t make you mine and it would turn all we meant to each other sordid!’

  ‘You’re a wise man, Clem, wiser and stronger than I am,’ Kerensa said.

  ‘No harm has been done,’ and Clem chuckled, adding, ‘though no one would believe very little happened to see us like this.’

  ‘Not to mention what Mr Barbary would say if he came home at this very minute.’

  ‘He’s a nice old boy and wouldn’t jump to hasty conclusions.’

  ‘Clem!’ Kerensa couldn’t help giggling, ‘What else could he think? Our clothes are on the floor and we’re lying in his bed with nothing on!’

  Clem couldn’t help himself from lifting the sheet and looking lingeringly down her body from head to toes. ‘You are so very, very beautiful, Kerensa,’ he said appreciatively.

  ‘You’re rather beautiful yourself, Clem Trenchard,’ Kerensa murmured, adding not at all coyly, ‘I have noticed.’

  They kissed, for the sheer pleasure of the contact of their lips, then Clem suggested they go back into the other room.

  ‘I’ll cheer up the fire and leave you to get dressed. You, um, you wouldn’t tidy up the bed, would you? I’m not very good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll join you in a little while,’ she told him with an amused face.

  As they entered the snug living room in turn Charity looked up, but having been deserted by them earlier she decided to ignore them now. She replaced her head on the hearth and went back to sleep.

  ‘Charity is vexed with us,’ Kerensa observed, ‘just as Bob was with me for not allowing him to come with me today.’

  Clem stroked Charity’s back. ‘You warm enough, Kerensa?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she replied, resuming her place on the settle.

  ‘You didn’t tell him about the baby, did you, Kerensa. If you had I’m sure he would have stayed.’

  ‘I wanted to, Clem. I very nearly did, but I didn’t want him to stay and feel trapped. This is something he has to do and maybe when he comes back…’

  ‘He’ll come back,’ Clem said at once. ‘He wouldn’t leave you and your children and his responsibilities for ever.’

  ‘Yes… I believe Oliver will come back, but it will be agony wondering what he’ll be like towards me when he does. There have always been depths to him that I’ve never been able to fathom. What if he comes back hating me, never to forgive me?’

  ‘It won’t come to that, I’m sure. But will you be able to forgive him?’

  ‘I think so. You see, I do understand a little of what he’s going through. I just want things to get back to normal.’

  ‘They will, I’m sure, it just takes time.’

  ‘Dear Clem,’ she said wanly, ‘you’re trying to say the right thing but you know so little of what Oliver is really like. I’ll just have to wait and hope.’

  ‘You have me to wait and hope with you, my love,’ Clem said, sitting beside her on the settle. ‘Do you have to go home yet? I can stay another couple of hours. Father won’t be pleased, but no one questions me going off on my own and I can make up my work on the farm tomorrow.’

  ‘I can stay. I told Polly I needed to see a few people and then wanted some time to myself.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he smiled, sitting beside her and putting a strong arm round her shoulders. ‘We rarely get any time to be alone and I’d just like to hold you for a while longer.’

  Kerensa leaned into him, closing her eyes as he held her tightly. ‘Right now, Clem, I could stay like this for ever.’

  Chapter 22

  Rosie Trenchard climbed up Trecath-en’s valley with her niece, Jessica, holding on tightly to her hand. Jessica had small legs but she climbed just as fast. They were on their way to get the twins away from Ricketty Jim; Philip and David had been sent to take bread and goat’s milk up to the rover and as usual had lingered too long.

  ‘Why couldn’t I take the food up to Ricketty Jim’s?’ Jessica asked for the umpteenth time.

  ‘Because you’re too young to come this far all by yourself,’ Rosie answered patiently, yet again.

  ‘’Tisn’t fair, they get all the adventures,’ Jessica pouted. ‘And Mother said we’re not to stop ’cos they’ll be late doing their jobs. But I like talking to Ricketty Jim, he says some funny things.’

  ‘Never mind, Jessica, perhaps when your mother comes this way next time she’ll take you with her and you can have a long chat with him then.’

  ‘Mother’s always too busy,’ Jessica complained. ‘Why not you, Aunty Rosie, why don’t you bring me?’

  ‘Because I’m busy too, Jessica,’ Rosie replied, pushing up the hood that had fallen away from the child’s golden curls.

  Jessica crossly pushed it back off. ‘Why not? You won’t go anywhere these days, you’re always moody, what you need is a man to cheer you up.’

  ‘Jessica! What a thing to say!’ Rosie felt angry, her family did nothing but badger her these days, telling her to get out more, urging her to take up any invitation she was offered. All she wanted was to be left quietly in her own little world with only her private thoughts for company; she didn’t want to be with anyone else, let alone a man, and that meant any man. And now even her little niece was harassing her, repeating things she heard others say. �
�Don’t speak to me like that again, Jessica,’ she warned, ‘or I’ll tell your mother.’

  ‘But it was Mother who said it first,’ Jessica wailed. To her mind the threat of punishment for what she’d repeated was unfair.

  ‘Let’s just forget it then,’ Rosie said wearily, taking Jessica’s hand again and pulling her away from a clump of dead thistles and back on to the worn path.

  Rosie stared downheartedly at the ground. Why couldn’t she just be left alone? If she wanted to be quiet and even miserable, didn’t she have the right to be, for goodness sake? She would say nothing to Alice. She’d told her often to mind her own business but Alice only said she was trying to help, that what was a family for if not to rally round when one of its members needed help? Rosie’s pleas that she didn’t want or need any help fell on deaf ears.

  Mostly Rosie’s thoughts were filled with daydreams and memories of her childhood. They brought her no pain or misery. But just sometimes she would allow herself to think of that afternoon spent alone with one special man in a forest, of the events shared with him. She had not seen him since the awful clash on the Trembaths’ wedding day. A few weeks ago he had mysteriously gone away but it hadn’t lessened the bitter-sweet memories she had of him. Alice reckoned she needed a man ‘to cheer her’. What she meant was a husband. But what man would do after a young woman had had an encounter with Sir Oliver Pengarron?

  Ricketty Jim was full of apologies for keeping Philip and David talking, or rather listening to him. ‘I’m awful sorry, Rosie, it seems I like the sound of my own voice too much and you’ve had a needless long, wet, muddy walk.’

  ‘Well, it’s used up some of this little miss’s energy,’ Rosie said, eyeing her recalcitrant niece.

  Jessica had straightaway made herself at home under the awning that was Ricketty Jim’s home, squeezing in between her brothers. ‘Out of there, young lady,’ Rosie ordered, bending down to look in, ‘and you two boys can come out as well.’

  ‘Jim was telling us some wonderful stories,’ David said enthusiastically, ‘about kings called pharaohs and chieftains and sheiks.’

  ‘You can tell me all about them on the way back, David,’ Rosie said, trying not to sound impatient. The longer it took her to get the children back home, the longer it would be before she finished her own jobs.

  ‘Jim said the Pengarron boys came over to speak to him the other day,’ Philip said, scowling as he appeared in the open. ‘Jim said that Master Luke was rude to him. I said I wasn’t surprised, I hate him! He’s nothing but a bighead, thinks he’s so wonderful!’

  ‘Now mind what you say about other folk, young Philip,’ Ricketty Jim cautioned.

  ‘Well, ’tis what you said!’ Philip said heatedly.

  ‘I only said he was rather rude to me. He hasn’t got your good manners,’ the rover replied soothingly, ‘and there’s no need to copy him.’

  Rosie knew Philip was jealous of other children talking to Ricketty Jim, he considered the man ‘belonged’ to him and his twin, but Rosie was sympathetic to Philip’s point of view over Luke Pengarron. Once, when she had been up at the manor kitchens, Luke had muttered, ‘I see the peasants are about again,’ and she had been offended.

  ‘Well, never mind him,’ Rosie told Philip. ‘We must be getting back or half the morning will be gone.’

  ‘Is Uncle Matthias at the farm?’ David asked.

  ‘No, why should he be?’ she replied, getting annoyed.

  ‘Well, he’s there all the time these days, spends more time with us than at Ker-an-Mor.’

  ‘Yes, and constantly hanging around and getting in the way,’ Rosie said sharply.

  At this Ricketty Jim looked at Rosie curiously. ‘I’ll walk down to the farm with you, Rosie,’ he said. ‘Clem’s asked me to make some dung pots for him today.’

  Ricketty Jim chatted all the way to the farmyard carrying a delighted Jessica on his shoulders but Rosie shut herself off and let the children talk to him. A little while ago the rover had shaved off his beard and tidied his hair which revealed a not unpleasant face round his large brown eyes and his age possibly not above forty. With only his bent legs and rolling walk to his disadvantage, some of the unmarried local females had begun to show an interest in him. But not Rosie. As she made for the well to draw water for the kitchen, she wished the world was devoid of all men.

  In the six weeks since Oliver Pengarron had suddenly absented himself, Matthias Renfree had kept a close watch on Clem and called more often at Trecath-en Farm. He was worried that now the rift between his master and mistress had taken this turn for the worse, Kerensa would look to Clem for comfort and Clem would no doubt try to rekindle the old feelings of love they had once shared. Matthias had no evidence that anything furtive was going on. Clem wandered off frequently with Charity trotting at his heels, but it was something he had always done. Kerensa for the most part stayed close to home – she was showing signs of being with child – and Alice Trenchard had increased her visits to the manor. After Miss Ameline Beswetherick’s wedding day, too, Lady Rachael had stayed for a long period at the house. There had been little opportunity for Clem and Kerensa to meet privately even if they’d wanted to. But if that happened, Matthias hoped he could appeal to Clem’s better sense, remind him that he had a wife and family.

  Since Matthias had appointed himself watchdog over them both, his first concern was what excuse to offer for his frequent presence at the Trenchard’s farm. Morley had inadvertently come to his aid. He had asked in that quiet disinterested way of his, ‘Come again to see Rosie, have ’ee, boy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Matthias had answered, latching on eagerly to the convenient excuse.

  After that, however, whenever he dropped in, Rosie was called from her chores or the tiny cramped room she slept in. Matthias was seated next to her at the supper table and sometimes the family drew aside and left them alone together. But when Philip and David began grinning at him and muttering about another wedding feast and Alice’s face took on a certain knowing look, the look females reserve for manipulating an unmarried man into wedlock, Matthias grew alarmed.

  He took a long ride over the moorland of Lancavel Downs to think it over. It dawned on him how unfair he was being to Rosie, lovely sweet Rosie. Matthias was shocked as another realisation surged through his brain.

  Lovely sweet Rosie – not Clem’s little sister any more as he had always thought of her. She was a young woman now and must be all of twenty-one years old. Most girls were married at her age. Rosie was a comely young woman and must have had lots of offers, many men had beaten a path to her door despite Clem’s over-protectiveness.

  ‘No, she’s more than comely,’ Matthias told a bird skimming on the wing, ‘she’s quite beautiful and very sweet and the most pleasant company.’

  He smiled manfully as he summed up Rosie’s attributes and recognised he liked her far more than as just a member of ‘his flock’, as he thought of the folk who attended the Bible classes.

  But how does she see me? he wondered. As a man, her brother’s friend, a likely suitor, a possible husband, or only as ‘Preacher Renfree’? Morley, Clem, Alice, Kenver and the twins obviously saw him as Rosie’s suitor. But did she? He didn’t think so, and suddenly he wanted her to; he wanted to see her eyes light up when she saw him, see her blush and smile when he looked at her. How did a man attract a woman? He really had no idea.

  He could not talk about Rosie to his father. Adam wasn’t a sensitive man, seeing women only as a vessel for his lust or a provider of meals. Matthias could hardly ask Clem or Morley, they would think him an idiot, and Kenver probably had little idea how to advise him.

  Then came the dark brooding face of Sir Oliver. Matthias gave an ironic laugh. There was a man who would certainly know all there was to know about women and the wooing of them – and their conquest. But he was away, and even if he hadn’t been absent, Matthias wasn’t sure he could have brought himself to confide in his master, although Sir Oliver always gave a symp
athetic ear to requests for help. Jack? He was too young. Jake Angove, too old. Nathan O’Flynn – of course! Nathan! He had been successful in courting Polly although a confirmed bachelor in his late twenties. He would ask Nathan what the best approach was.

  Nathan advised Matthias to give Rosie flowers, the perfect gift to give to any woman on any occasion, but especially for the kindling of a romance. But what flowers grew in this wild-weathered month of February, the month known as the gateway to the year? Matthias knew that like most country girls Rosie preferred wild flowers. Perhaps the right bouquet could lead him through the gateway to a new life.

  The eventual bunch of flowers and leaves was a resplendent host of mainly subdued colours gathered with the greatest of care from the roadside, grassy banks and coastline. Fluffy yellow lamb’s tails mingled with the vanilla-scented flowers of winter heliotrope, white and purple scurvy grass, male ferns, coltsfoot, chickweed, strawberry leaves, and alexander – a tall bushy plant with pale yellow flowers. Cautiously set in the middle were a few prickly teasles and budding golden gorse.

  Matthias set off with the bouquet tied firmly with a length of bright purple ribbon, the effect finished off with a delicate bow at the front. The ribbon had been left, long forgotten, in Ker-an-Mor’s farmhouse parlour by Kerensa.

  As he crossed over from Ker-an-Mor to Trecath-en farmland he was pleased he had got thus far without anyone seeing him. He sighed with relief that Ricketty Jim was not to be found about his ditch home. Ricketty Jim, who swore he had seen the spirit of an ancient Guise Dancer moaning up in the branches of a hawthorn tree on Twelfth Night this year, never missed a body walking or riding, even if you tried to slip by him. With his gossipy disposition he would have wanted to know whom the flowers were for and might have spread the information around. Matthias didn’t want it known that the ‘young preacher’ was calling on the ‘young maid of Trecath-en Farm’ all spruced up and armed with a great big bunch of flowers. Then, on another thought that threatened to upset Matthias’s fragile confidence, what if it spurred the rover on to make a play for Rosie? Some women seemed to find him attractive. Matthias decided he didn’t like Ricketty Jim living this close to Rosie.