Pengarron Dynasty

by Pengarron Dynasty (retail) (epub)

  ‘Not once in the two years we’ve lived here, and not since your quarrel, has Philip mentioned that it’s his and my money that bought this farm. To people round here it’s you who is Farmer Trenchard, not your son. I call that loyalty, respect and sensitivity on Philip’s part. You need to stop living inside your head, Clem!’

  Catherine stalked out of the room, marched up the stairs, and for the first time in her life forgot she was a lady. ‘Damn you, damn you, Clem!’ She kicked at his work clothes, which he had dumped on the floor.

  She’d had enough of fretting over his moods and his broodings, and enough of the torment at wondering, while he’d been entrenched in Mount’s Bay, whether he had contrived to re-establish old ground with his old love. This desire to move had nothing to do with Philip. It was her. That red-headed picture of mock innocence, that unrelenting siren. Kerensa Pengarron was still succeeding in keeping her hold on Clem.

  They were having an affair! Why else had she engineered her husband’s exit from his fine house? She was a ruthless tactician, to get an autocratic, arrogant swine like Sir Oliver Pengarron to desert his own house, even temporarily.

  In one fierce arc, Catherine swept everything on top of her dressing table on to the floor.

  ‘Cathy—’

  Clem leapt aside as brushes, jewellery, lace runners, china receptacles and scented missiles crashed and smashed, thundered and rolled in all directions about the room.

  ‘Go to her, go on, go now if it’s what you want so much!’

  She faced him in the biggest fury of all time. She wasn’t crying, just shaking from head to toe, scarlet-faced and claw-fingered. It seemed she would bring down every drape with the wind of her breath. ‘If you want to move back to your precious Kerensa, then just go to her. Don’t give another thought to me or John or Flora or Kenver or your newest grandchild. Just get out of the house, go to her for good, and – and take your blasted dogs with you!’

  ‘Stop it! What’s got into you?’ This violence, this rage, this loathing was so out of character. Her accusation neither nettled or disturbed him, but he was concerned for her.

  He had told the truth to Kenver about loving her. He held her in every high regard, she was an excellent woman, her heart kind and true, empty of any hypocrisy. And now she had showed her vulnerable, human side, he loved her all the more.

  ‘I’d just come up to tell you I agree with everything you’ve said about Philip. I needed a good talking to. I wasn’t seeing things in the right light.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ she gasped almost inaudibly, but in such a way it gained his attention even more.

  The ferocity, the moment of madness went out of her. She stood in the middle of the mess and breakages, shocked with herself for creating such chaos. ‘You’re cruel, Clem, and your pride is so often misplaced. You and Sir Oliver Pengarron are much alike.’

  What! Clem nearly exploded, then caught himself. He resented the comparison. ‘Why talk of him? What’s he got to do with Philip, or whether we stay or leave here?’

  ‘Because,’ she drifted down on the bed, absolutely miserable, ‘you want to move back there. Because, just like Sir Oliver, you can’t bear not to be near his wife. I saw how happy you were the moment we arrived at Timothy’s house. You’ve never been as happy as that here with me. And don’t lie about it. I couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘Cathy, my love.’ He went to her, picking a path through the damage. Sitting close, he wrapped his arm round her trembling body, trying to make her feel safe and wanted. ‘I’m telling you the truth. I got my worries over Philip out of perspective. I love you, Cathy. Listen to me,’ and he repeated the three most vital words in the world very, very slowly. ‘I love you.’

  She fell into a heavy quiet, but allowed him to bring her face against his neck. He held her in his arms, kissed her fever-maddened brow. Soon he would suggest, for a second time in a few short weeks to a distraught woman, that he’d help her clear up a mess of her own making, of her own things.

  ‘I’ll talk to Philip, make things up with him. I owe him my forgiveness in view of his loyalty. We’ll stay here, build on our life together, Cathy. Everything will be all right, I swear.’

  Despite his tendency to set himself apart, he knew Catherine as well as any devoted husband knew his wife. He did not doubt that she was already shamefully sorry for her loss of decorum and for the wilful destruction, and that she was too steadfast and humble, and wholly dedicated to him and his hopes and needs, to continue the argument. Now she had dispelled his fears about Philip, improved his confidence and given him every reason to hold his head up in local circles, he felt a little at peace.

  Downstairs, he had realized that his plan to live closer to Kerensa was a stupid one. Jessica and Kane knew the truth about him and Kerensa, they would never allow him to live and work at Vellanoweth. Even if they did, Pengarron would never let Kerensa out of his sight, and continuing their love affair would have been impossible. At least this way he might be able to see her alone occasionally. It was all he could settle for. He must act more wisely from now on, his desires for Kerensa were blanketing his good sense.

  He became aware that Catherine was staring at him. Kissing her lips, he smiled to reassure her. He owed her that. He owed it to her to make her happy, feel wanted and cherished. To feel the love he was able to give her.

  She had powder on her shoulder and splattered down the front of her dress. He rubbed at it gently, pulling free the fine muslin fichu which uncovered the upper swell of her breasts. He loved this part of her. Flawless, snow-white warm skin and he kissed her there.

  Catherine decided to bind him to her exclusively with whatever means it took. She pushed him down on the bed. He looked stunned, she had never initiated familiarity in the bedroom before.

  ‘I’ve missed you, I’ve missed being with you, Clem.’ She crawled up the bed and sat astride his body. ‘I’ll show you how much.’

  Thirty

  ‘What are ’ee thinking ’bout, my ’an’some?’

  ‘Oh, Bea.’ Kerensa was startled and sat up straight in her chair. ‘I was just taking a few quiet moments before your party gets under way. You should get ready. You don’t want to be late celebrating your special day.’

  Beatrice stubbornly made acquaintance with a chair. ‘You forget I knows thee. You was thinking ’bout someone in pa’tic’lar, weren’t ’ee?’

  ‘None of your business, my dear.’ Kerensa smiled in a way to humour the nonagenarian. ‘Now off you go. Polly and Cordelia are waiting for you.’

  ‘I reckon you def’nit’ly ’ad someone on your mind and I do reckon ’is name begins with a C.’

  ‘You think I’ve got Clem on my mind?’

  ‘I never said nothin’ afore, ’twas better to let you an’ Oliver work out yer strivings yer own way, like ’ee did backalong. You was different this time. You was un’appy just the same and you missed un, but I also gleaned ’ow full of spirits you was each time you come ’ome from Tolwithrick. ’Ad to be a reason fer that, and usually when a maid looks that sort of ’appy, it’s ’cause she’m in love. You’ve ’ad yer time with – won’t say ’is name out loud – and now both ’e and Oliver are back in their own ’omes. What’re ’ee goin’ to do now, Kerensa? I’m not askin’ ’ee to tell me, ’tedn’t really my place to ask, but my dear gurl, you’m as precious to me as if I birthed and raised ’ee myself, and I’m takin’ the liberty to warn ’ee to think carefully. You’m in an impossible place, do the wrong thing and you could find yerself without either of ’em, out in the cold, in a living ’ell.’ Tears flooded down the old woman’s raddled cheeks. ‘I didn’t live all these years to see you brung to that.’

  ‘Oh, Beatrice, don’t cry, not on your birthday, not for me.’

  Beatrice caressed her lovely, concerned face with a motherly finger. ‘You can’t ’ave ’em both. I know you want to, mebbe even think you can, but it’s not possible, my luvver. Think on it, promise me you will.’

  ‘I’ve been thin
king about very little else except Oliver and Clem and my feelings for them, Bea.’ Kerensa took her ancient gnarled hands and kissed them both. ‘I promise I’ll think about what you’ve said. Now, dearest, what about your party? Oliver’s gone to such trouble for you.’

  ‘I know that. I’m goin’ now, and I’m goin’ to ferget this sad business till the party’s over. Then we’ll talk again, eh?’

  ‘Yes, Bea, we’ll talk again.’ She hadn’t been thinking only of Clem just now.

  Two nights ago she had found Oliver in the master bedchamber. Her assumption that he was there to ask if he might join her had not been the case. He was standing, slightly stooped, next to her dressing table, holding her hand mirror, staring sightlessly down at the carpet. He seemed mesmerized, and so sad. Gradually, the mirror was slipping from his grasp.

  She had raced across the floor and had taken it out of his hand.

  ‘Oh,’ he’d said as if in a dream. ‘I just came in to ask you something about Beatrice.’ After explaining his idea for a momentous celebration for his old nursemaid’s ninetieth birthday, he had said goodnight quietly and left her.

  Sitting up in bed she had stayed awake half the night, feeling all alone, her emotions thawing towards the man with whom she had shared so many, many loving nights here. Oliver had not left the manor grounds since they had journeyed silently home from Vellanoweth. He had stayed polite and kept his distance, keeping company with Kelynen, Samuel and Cordelia, and drinking and playing chess with Bartholomew when he was here.

  Not for a second had she believed that his apology to Clem had been sincere. Kerensa’s heart had followed Clem down the farm track, and her opinion of Oliver, out of a need for self-preservation, was hard and suspicious. She believed he had a scheme to lull her, to make her drop her defences, then he’d do something brilliant and deadly to ensnare her, to bind her to him again with the unbreakable calls of loyalty, honour and obedience to him. She had even been a little afraid of him.

  Yet the man who had stood only feet away from her, without the strength or forethought to keep hold of her mirror, was not the proud villain she had once so deservingly slated, had found so hard to forgive.

  Slipping out of bed, she had put on her dressing gown and padded out of the room. Creeping along the corridor, she stopped at the door of Oliver’s room. It was the dead of night. The silvery glow of the moon breached the tall windows behind her, illuminating the bare boards beneath her feet, turning the hand she put on the door knob a cold steely hue and her dressing gown into a shimmering flow. She felt nervous, apprehensive, shivered, and opened the solid oak barrier.

  She could feel the disappointment as acutely now as she had done then, of finding the room empty, the bed untouched.

  Her hands had flown to her face in desperation. She loved him. Dear God, how much she loved him, she had never stopped, never could. And she liked this new Oliver, at last it seemed he had grasped how it was to be a mere mortal, not having the right to abide to his own code of behaviour.

  She had run to the top of the stairs. He was most likely with Bartholomew, but she had to know. She had to know if he was all right.

  A laugh, a typical laugh of male bravado from Bartholomew came floating up the stairs. ‘Come now, Uncle, you’ll never beat me at chess if you don’t concentrate. I’ll away to the cellar and fetch us something rousing.’

  Kerensa listened. Bartholomew’s steps were coming away from the study, where Oliver had his chess set; his papers had been pushed aside for days. Matthias Renfree and Kelynen were entrusted with all estate affairs after a brief weekly audience. Bartholomew was heading in the direction of the cellar.

  As if some notion had informed him she was there, he looked up at her. His words drifted up to her, full of meaning. ‘When you’re ready, you’ll find him waiting for you…’

  Ready. That word, heavy with import, still hung under the ancient beams of the house.

  Oh, dear God, what a position to be in. Choose, Beatrice had begged her. She had, and it meant she was going to suffer the loss of one of the two men she loved.

  Thirty-One

  And so Pengarron Manor was astir with activity of an unprecedented kind, and the talk throughout the establishments of the local gentry was that Sir Oliver Pengarron had gone quite mad.

  ‘He’s giving a party for a servant and, me dear, can you believe, it’s to be outside of the servants’ quarters, in the great hall?’

  ‘Have you heard of such a thing? But, of course, one can’t forget that he married a… well, I don’t know exactly what she was before the wedding but she’s of the lower orders.’

  ‘It’s outrageous! He’ll be giving the working class dangerous ideas.’

  ‘The man’s clearly unstable. All this accident and separation business has driven him to a course that’s extreme even for him.’

  ‘It’s said he has even suspended his harvesting for half a day. Unthinkable!’

  Beatrice would get to hear each and every comment by and by and would be greatly amused by them all.

  * * *

  In view of her age – she retired most evenings at nine o’clock – the party was being held throughout the day, with guests coming and going at their leisure. In the manner of a dowager duchess, to the accompaniment of stringed instruments, she held court from a barrel-shaped chair raised on a specially built platform. She was gruesomely resplendent in a new dress of shades of blue, the divided skirt criss-crossed with tiny silk flowers, a white wig, not too tall or heavy and flowered and feathered by Polly and Cordelia, and new shoes with shiny brass buckles, all gifts from her master and mistress. A lace handkerchief hung importantly from her wrist.

  With a never empty glass of the highest quality gin, she grinned hideously while receiving the gifts or good wishes from the manor’s servants, the Renfrees and estate workers, and invited servants from other great houses – her gossip machine. There were also those she numbered among her friends, like an equally haggard-looking crone known as Painted Bessie, who kept a cliff-top kiddleywink, where smuggling operations, Oliver’s among them, had been arranged for over three decades.

  Oliver and Kerensa kept attendance on either side of Beatrice’s chair. When she was given a present, she said regally, ‘How kind. Thank you for coming.’ Then after taking a sharp-eyed look at it, humming her approval or not, she passed it to Oliver, saying in her usual dribbling rasp, ‘Put un on the table with the others, boy.’ For every good wish, she said, ‘Well, I’ve the good Lord and these two dear people ’ere to thank for livin’ long enough to see this day.’ Then, in most cases, she leaned confidentially towards Kerensa and whispered what she really thought about the well-wisher.

  Kane, limping with the aid of a stylish ebony stick, gave Beatrice a box made from Pengarron oak, the size of a small wall cabinet, with compartments inside and a handle attached for carrying, for her awesome collection of herbal potions and medicines. Throughout the rest of the proceedings he kept a watchful eye on his parents.

  It was half past two when Bartholomew brought Tamara, and Jessica brought Harry down from the nursery so that Beatrice could dangle them, with help, one at a time on her knee.

  Bartholomew teased the old woman. ‘You must be about ready to take a little nap now, eh, Beatrice?’

  ‘Gis on with ’ee, not a weary bone in me ol’ body t’day. I’m not goin’ to miss a moment of my birthday.’

  Luke and Jack had ridden over to Marazion in the morning to buy something for Beatrice. Luke chose a pretty cameo brooch and Jack the old woman’s favourite selections of sweetmeats.

  Jack didn’t have quite the heart for the occasion. Sir Oliver had employed a new head groom and it hurt Jack to think of someone else living in his cottage. Worse than that, he and Alicia had had another quarrel that morning, and it had been a very fierce one.

  On his return from Marazion, he thought he would try his best to forget her ruthless treatment of him on Midsummer’s Eve and attempt to resume the full warmth of their
easygoing relationship. Alicia was too big with child now to consider intimacy again anyway.

  While she had been tying his neckcloth for him he had placed his hands on her swollen waist and kissed her cheek. ‘My love, before we leave on the morrow, and when Beatrice has got over her carousing, I’ll ask her to look you over.’

  ‘Why?’ Alicia had nearly spat out the word, her face aflame.

  ‘Well, you know she’s an authority on childbearing.’

  ‘So you say! How dare you assume I’d let that disgusting, filthy old witch touch my body, or my child!’

  Rocked by her venom, he’d had a hard task to find his voice. ‘I – I’m sorry, Alicia. Don’t be upset. I made a stupid suggestion. I meant no harm.’

  ‘Harm! I’d never let anyone harm my baby.’

  ‘Nor would I. Surely I’m to have some say in how it’s reared. Beatrice has attended all the births on the estate, even her ladyship’s.’

  ‘It’s my baby. It’s not for you to say what happens to it in any way. Do you understand me?’

  Jack had finished dressing in heavy-hearted silence. He had been spoken to as if he was his wife’s servant, no, less than that. He wasn’t sure any more how he felt about becoming stepfather to the offspring of the weak-spirited, undeserving Lord Alexander Longbourne.

  Throughout the party, Alicia refused to go near Beatrice, even if she did smell of rose-water and not grime and perspiration.

  * * *

  Tamara began to fret and Cordelia carried her back up to the nursery and handed her over to her nursemaid.

  Luke went with her. ‘We should talk, Corrie, and I mean properly. You still haven’t explained why you won’t come home to Polgissey with me. You’re not letting Bartholomew’s brat keep you away, I hope.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak about Tamara like that.’ Cordelia rounded on him. ‘Who do you think you are? She’s a beautiful, sweet-tempered child and she’s my niece. I feel as close to her as I do to Samuel.’