Kilgarthen

by Kilgarthen (retail) (epub)

  ‘I come up here often,’ Ince said. ‘I’m fortunate to have always had the peace and quiet.’

  ‘So you’ve lived in the village all your life?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Ince went quiet for a moment. ‘I did my bit for the country working the land but I felt guilty about not fighting.’

  They scrambled down to a spot sheltered by small trees and a tumble of rocks. Despite being well clad, the cold penetrated Laura’s coat and she gave an involuntary shiver. Ince unwound the faded woollen scarf from round his neck and put it over her shoulders like a shawl, then he pulled her silk headscarf out from the top of her coat, put it over her head and tied a neat bow under her chin.

  Laura was surprised with herself for allowing him to do it. It was the first time in years she’d let a man touch her this closely. ‘Thank you,’ she smiled, partly at Ince, partly because she was pleased with herself for losing some of her reticence. ‘I suppose you’re used to doing this sort of thing for Vicki.’

  ‘I don’t think of you in the same way as I do Vicki,’ he said, looking directly into her eyes for a moment. ‘Shall we sit down and huddle out of the wind? I’ve brought a flask of tea with me.’

  He took a blanket out of the crib bag he had brought with him and laid it on the ground. They sat down closely side by side and Ince put a flask cup of steaming strong tea in her hand.

  As he poured one for himself, she remarked, ‘I know you farmers have rights of common here but I’d have thought the cattle would have been brought in nearer the farms in winter, put in barns or something.’

  ‘We house the cows in milk and young stock at night. We have heavy rainfall on the moor and the herd would soon trample an enclosed field out of existence. Actually cattle do well on the open downs, they’re stronger and healthier. In stormy weather they find a fold or hollow, or a hedge or the lee of a wall to shelter in.’

  ‘You make it sound easy,’ Laura said, ‘but I know it’s a tough life, working out in all weathers.’ Reminded of where Ince was living, and thinking that there were no other Polkinghornes in the village, she asked, ‘Haven’t you got any family, Ince?’

  ‘No. My parents died years ago. The Sparnocks took over their cottage. I lodged with Johnny Prouse until Natalie died then I moved into the farm. Sometimes I think I could never leave and give up my role of helping to bring up Vicki, but part of me wants a wife and family of my own.’

  ‘That’s understandable, everyone wants to make their own way in life.’ She had herself, before Bill had stifled her hopes and aspirations. Laura felt warmed through that Ince had confided his feelings to her. He was a comfortable man to be with. ‘It’s unusual, two men bringing up one little girl alone.’

  He hadn’t missed the slight frown on her face. ‘You look as if you don’t approve.’

  ‘I don’t approve of Spencer’s over-possessiveness,’ she replied staunchly. ‘I think Vicki needs the gentler touch of a woman. I think it’s a terrible shame he won’t let Felicity Lean be a grandmother to her. I get so angry when I think how it’s breaking her heart. After all, she lost her daughter. Loving Vicki the way he does, you’d think Spencer would be more understanding.’

  ‘I see you’re catching up on all the local gossip,’ Ince said wryly. ‘You’ve only been here just over a week but you’re already fitting into the village.’

  ‘I’ve had a lovely time over the past two days helping with the scenery for the concert,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘The hall has an excellent stage. Bill didn’t stint with the money he spent in the village.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  Laura shrugged her shoulders and drank the last drop of her tea. ‘I’m glad the villagers have a fine hall.’ She moved a bit closer to Ince. Here was a man she knew she could trust with anything. ‘Ince?’

  ‘Yes?’ he said, hesitating as he pushed in the flask cork. ‘Would you mind if I confided in you?’

  ‘No, not at all. You have my word it won’t go any further.’

  ‘There’s something I want to ask you about Bill. I’ve heard that his real father was William Lean. Do you know if it’s true? You’re not much older than he was but you must know all the village gossip.’

  ‘There were rumblings to that effect. But I can tell you one thing, Laura. Whether he was or not, Bill believed he was William Lean’s son. He went up to Hawksmoor House and confronted him with the rumours. He was about fourteen years old, not long before Lean died. Lean threw him out. He made trouble for Bill until he died. If anything went missing in the village, Lean informed the police and suggested Bill had taken it. He was a very cruel man.’

  ‘Being the son of a rich man would have appealed to the Bill I knew. Feeling he was rejected by his real father and having to live as the son of a poor stable groom instead of having a life like Harry’s could account for some of Bill’s failings. Bill was christened William, makes you wonder why.’

  ‘I can see why he strove to better himself,’ Ince said, always one to look for the good in others or make excuses for their bad behaviour.

  ‘He ended up as cruel as the man he thought was his father.’ Before she said something else that sounded bitter, Laura ended cheerily, ‘Well, at least I have the chance to start over again. You must have heard the rumours about my father’s company going bankrupt. It was Bill’s fault. He was good at his job on the board of directors but he used some shady characters to finance his schemes. When he died they demanded their money back, they had everything tied up legally. All I’ve got left is the cottage, some money in the bank and some jewellery. When I’ve decided where my future lies, I’ll either get a job round here or sell up and move back to London.’

  Ince put his hand over hers. She felt his warmth and strength through her glove. ‘I hope you decide to stay.’

  * * *

  When Laura arrived home she found someone waiting for her. The dark, brooding look on Marianne Roach’s pretty face made her forget the pleasant two and a half hours she’d just spent with Ince.

  ‘Can I speak to you, Mrs Jennings?’ Marianne said in a decidedly aggressive manner.

  Laura considered her for a few moments, then said, ‘You’d better come inside.’

  Marianne refused to take off her coat and sit down. As Laura discarded hers, she realised she still had Ince’s scarf; it smelled comfortingly of him. She built up the log fire then faced the sulky girl.

  ‘What can I do for you, Marianne?’

  For a moment Marianne dropped her aggression and Laura thought she was going to burst into tears, but she pushed out her chin and clenched her fists. ‘I… I’ll come straight to the point, Mrs Jennings. I’ve been plucking up the courage for days to say this but Bill owes me some money.’

  ‘Bill borrowed money from you?’ Laura asked incredulously. With the way Bill spent money in the village and showed off, it seemed unthinkable that he’d borrow from a young working girl.

  ‘Are you accusing me of being a liar?’ Marianne snapped back.

  ‘No, of course not. It seems so unlike Bill, that’s all. Please sit down, Marianne, and let’s talk this over.’ Laura pointed to an armchair by the fire. Marianne’s expression changed and she seemed unsure of herself as she sat down. Laura remained standing. ‘Now what’s this all about? But first let me assure you that if Bill borrowed from you I will pay you back in full.’

  ‘B-Bill borrowed from me to buy a present. I work in Launceston and I met him there one day. It was on his last visit down here. He was about to go back to London and he wanted to take a present back for you. We were in this shop and it was about to close. He’d run out of money and he had his heart set on… on an ornament. I’d just got paid and I offered to lend him the money. He said he’d pay me back when he was here next, but then he… he died, and I…’

  ‘Would like your money back?’ Laura was looking at the girl with her lips tightly pursed. ‘How much was it?’ Marianne’s head was bent over and she was looking down at the floor but Laura cou
ld see her turning crimson. ‘It… it was a special present. It cost one hundred pounds.’

  ‘One hundred pounds?’ Laura blurted out. ‘I doubt that you’d have that much money in your purse. I thought you were lying and now I’m sure. Bill never brought me presents back from Cornwall and he certainly never gave me anything the last time.’

  Marianne sprang up. Tears of rage were in her eyes and her mascara started to run. ‘Well, maybe it was for someone else!’ she wailed. ‘Or perhaps he bought it for you for Christmas.’

  ‘Bill was a show-off,’ Laura said acidly. She had a good idea exactly what Bill’s relationship had been with this girl and she wasn’t about to be conned by her now she’d lost her sugar-daddy. ‘When he bought me presents they usually came from Harrods.’

  ‘Ohh!’ Marianne moaned, putting her hands up to her face. Then she looked at Laura with a venomous expression. ‘I should have known better to come to you for help, you bitch!’

  Laura would normally have been stung to fury by the girl’s insult but there was something desperate about her. She had said the word ‘help’. Laura moved smartly to stop her making a hasty escape. ‘Why don’t you tell me the real reason behind your coming here, Marianne?’

  Marianne was crying. She felt so ashamed. She had made up the story hoping Laura Jennings would fall for it and give her the money. It had been her only hope. A girl friend of hers had said she knew someone who would perform an abortion but it would cost one hundred pounds. If she had thought it through clearly she would have realised her plan was hopeless.

  She took a handkerchief out of her jumper sleeve and wiped her nose. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. You don’t deserve this. I know you didn’t have a happy marriage with Bill. He used to say horrible things about you. I hated you when I first saw you but after what you’ve done in the village I can see he was lying. Please let me past. I must go.’

  ‘Were you in love with Bill? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘I don’t know about love,’ Marianne snorted, making her nose run. ‘I guess I was mesmerised by him.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Marianne. At least you’re well out of it now, before you got in too deeply with him. Bill would have rejected you eventually, quite ruthlessly, too. I hope we can be friends. Look, don’t be offended, but if you’re short of money, perhaps I can help…’

  ‘N-no. I’ll be all right. I was just… I really do have to go, please, Mrs Jennings.’

  Laura was puzzled and wanted to try to get more out of the girl but her look of acute shame touched Laura’s heartstrings. She moved away from the door. ‘Call in any time, Marianne.’

  When she had gone, Laura regretted the lameness of her last words to her. Any woman left heartbroken by Bill Jennings needed comfort and she had been unable to give it. A rush of rage shot through her. She wanted to run across the road to the graveyard and stamp all over Bill’s grave.

  * * *

  Daisy closed the shop on Saturday afternoons and today she was spending the time stocktaking. Laura had offered to help her. They were still working hard as teatime approached. Laura’s thoughts were on Marianne’s distress as she wrote down figures in a ledger for Daisy.

  ‘That’s a box of twelve Carnation evaporated milk,’ Daisy said. She glanced at Laura who was gazing absent-mindedly across the little storeroom. ‘You still with me, dear?’ Daisy laughed, raising her voice.

  ‘What? Oh, I’m sorry. What did you say?’

  ‘That’s three thousand boxes of Carnation evaporated milk.’

  ‘Three thousand – oh, Aunty Daisy, I nearly wrote that down.’

  Daisy’s wrinkly face was mobile with speculation. ‘You like him, don’t you? Ince. He’s a good man. You must have got on very well this afternoon, by the look of it. You could do a lot worse and very little better.’

  ‘Aunty Daisy, what are you suggesting?’ Laura said in mock outrage. ‘Bill’s only been dead two weeks and he was your nephew. I’d have thought you wouldn’t have approved of me going out with another man so soon, and it wasn’t like that anyway. Ince and I are only friends.’

  ‘For now,’ Daisy said knowingly. ‘I know what Bill was to me but don’t forget I know your circumstances. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting anything serious to happen yet. Ince isn’t the sort of man to rush things.’

  ‘I’m fond of Ince, but no more,’ Laura said emphatically. ‘What would the villagers say if they thought I was looking for a new husband so soon? They’d be shocked and outraged – quite rightly, too.’

  Daisy was unshakable. ‘I was thinking of this time next year. They’d like to see Billy’s widow stay in the village and married to another local. We’ll see.’

  Laura rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘How many boxes of that milk?’

  A loud banging on the shop door disturbed them. ‘I’ll go,’ said Daisy. ‘Someone’s forgotten something for their Sunday roast, I’ll be bound.’

  Laura heard Daisy talking to someone with an unfamiliar voice and curious to see who it was, she went into the shop. One look at the shopper’s baggy clothes and big Wellington boots and she knew it was Tressa Davey.

  ‘A heaped teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in warm water will do the trick,’ Daisy was saying to Tressa. ‘He’ll be right as rain in no time.’

  The old ill-fitting men’s clothes she wore detracted nothing at all from Tressa’s natural loveliness and Laura understood why Andrew had become so quickly smitten by her. There was something spellbinding about her and it was enhanced by the fact that she probably never saw people in terms of attractiveness herself and couldn’t understand how other people, especially men, saw her. No wonder Harry Lean sought to make her a conquest.

  ‘Ah, Laura, you haven’t met Tressa Davey, have you?’ Daisy said.

  ‘No. I’m pleased to meet you at last, Tressa,’ Laura said and held out her hand. She sensed Tressa’s reluctance to shake it but she kept it there, giving the other young woman no choice. She felt the warm roughness of Tressa’s long-fingered hand but it was snatched back after a moment. ‘Someone poorly in your house, is there?’ she asked.

  ‘My father,’ Tressa muttered, tossing her head like a restless moor pony. ‘He’s got bad indigestion.’

  ‘Oh, dear. What a shame. My friend, Andrew Macarthur, met your father and your Aunt Joan.’ Laura paused for effect. ‘He found them extremely welcoming and friendly.’

  Laura was thrilled when Tressa flushed guiltily and she knew from Daisy’s look of fervent curiosity that she was on the scent. ‘Andrew’s a kind and honest man, you know, Tressa.’

  Tressa gulped and Laura knew she’d hit a raw spot. ‘Gone back to London, has he?’ Tressa asked gruffly.

  ‘Yes, but we keep in touch. He might phone me tonight.’ Laura raised an impertinent eyebrow. ‘Pass on a message to him from you, can I?’

  Tressa’s lively dark eyes burned in her skull. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to he. How much is the bicarb, Mrs Tamblyn?’

  Daisy took the money and handed Tressa her purchase in a paper bag. Tressa looked as if she couldn’t get out of the shop quickly enough, but Laura had one parting shot. ‘Next time I speak to Andrew, I’ll pass on your regards, shall I, Tressa?’

  Tressa swung round at the door with her mouth wide open. She let out a loud ‘Umph!’ and left, slamming the door.

  Daisy grabbed Laura by the arm. ‘What was that all about? And don’t go round all the houses telling me.’

  Laura told Daisy about Andrew’s attraction to the quiet farm girl. She felt she had got even for the way Tressa had treated him.

  ‘I thought he was interested in her but I didn’t know he’d made such a strong play for the maid. She came to see him in the pub that night. I never could make out why. What happened then?’

  ‘Her father sent her there to apologise for making Andrew walk through a bog. He tried to get her to have a drink with him but she spurned him again. He was so forlorn about it. I’ve never seen him so upset. Before he left he
asked me to put in a good word for him if I met her. Well, I’ve done that, though it was obviously a waste of time.’

  ‘You’re telling me. You ended by putting her back up. Well, well, you never know what’s going to happen next. I can’t wait to tell Bunty how she treated him. A solicitor all the way from London falling head over heels for that dear little maid. I can’t think of a more unlikely couple in the world than they two.’

  Laura was still chuckling as they returned to the storeroom. ‘Unless it’s me and Spencer Jeffries.’

  Chapter 17

  Two weeks went by in which Laura saw plenty of the heavy rainfall Ince had told her about on Hawk’s Tor; at one stage water ran like a stream down the village hill. On a trip into Launceston to buy wool so she could knit some doll’s clothes for Vicki she had been frightened by the sudden whoosh of rain water bombarding the sides of the bus as it had splashed up from dips and ditches. But it was wonderful to snuggle up in front of her fire while the elements lashed against the walls and windows of Little Cot.

  Very little happened in the village but she saw that even the smallest events had a pattern to them, like the petals of a flower slowly unfolding in the summer sunshine. Most noticeably, Johnny Prouse steadily recovered, and one fine afternoon he went for a short stroll on Laura’s arm.

  Laura had gone twice for morning coffee with Felicity at Hawksmoor House, each time making sure Harry wouldn’t be there. She had invited Felicity back to Little Cot but Felicity explained that she disliked going down into the village. She had talked fondly of Natalie’s childhood and how proud she was of Harry who was enjoying an excellent career. She hadn’t mentioned her husband. Laura felt increasingly sorry for the lonely woman.

  The scenery for the Christmas concert had been finished and rehearsals were taking place. Cecil’s regimented drilling of the school’s contribution had taken effect and the children themselves were confident of the quality of the final performance they would give. The sketch Cecil had written was based on the fairytale of the Elves and the Shoemaker, the elves in this case being piskies. Laura was learning about Cornish folklore; piskies were mischievous ‘small people’, much given to pranks, about eighteen inches in height who dressed in ‘sugar-loaf’ hats and little red cloaks. She couldn’t wait to see the children in their costumes which Daisy and Bunty were industriously making out of old curtains. Laura tried to talk to Marianne when she turned up at the hall one afternoon with a message for her father, but the girl ignored her. Marianne hadn’t looked well. Spencer brought Vicki so she could see the stage she’d sing and dance on and she had a wonderful time playing with the other children, but Spencer seemed aloof and grumpy.