‘So you left Porthgaran and took to the roads? I don’t know that you were wise, leaving the one place where you were known, to come away among strangers.’
‘The place was too full of memories. I made up my mind to start a new life and put the past behind me.’
‘Didn’t your home mean anything to you?’
‘Our cottage was needed for someone else. The landlord was anxious for me to leave and he offered to buy the furniture.’
‘At least you have some money, then?’
‘No, I put it into the fund, to help the dead men’s families.’
‘And got small thanks for it, I’ll be bound.’
‘I didn’t wait for thanks. I came away that very day.’
‘With nothing but the clothes you are wearing and what you’ve got in that bundle there! It strikes me that’s not very much to start you on this new life of yours.’
Rachel strongly disapproved. She had never met with such foolishness. But the girl appeared healthy and strong and her help would be welcome on the farm. She had not asked for wages; she had asked only for her keep; and so long as she kept her promise to work, Rachel would be well satisfied.
She rose and began clearing the table and the girl followed suit. Together they washed up the tea things and then Rachel led the way out to the hayfield. There was still time to turn a few swaths before it grew properly dark.
The light was just beginning to fade when one of the turf-cutters, on his way home along the road, stopped and looked over the hedge and spoke to Rachel in the field.
‘Evening, Mis’ Tallack,’ he said. ‘Weather’s holding, edn it, you?’
‘So far, so good,’ Rachel said.
‘I see you’ve taken her in, then.’ The man jerked his head towards the girl who worked, a dim figure in the dusk, some little way across the field. ‘Think it was wise of you, midear, taking a stranger into your house, and you all alone when Brice is at sea?’
‘Only time will show that, Mr Wearne, but seeing that you sent her to me, if it turns out badly I’ll know who to blame.’
‘Aw, twadn me, twas Alf Tremearne. I never spoke to her, not one word.’ The man leant closer over the hedge. ‘Where have she come from? Did she say?’
‘She comes from Porthgaran,’ Rachel said. ‘Her name’s Maggie Care and she’s nineteen.’
‘She’s a fine-looking maid, I will say that, but supposing she should turn out a thief? Have you thought of that, Mis’ Tallack, midear?’
‘Yes, I’ve thought of it,’ Rachel said, ‘and I’ve hidden my jewels in a safe place.’
‘Aw, you must have your joke, I suppose, but if anyone was to ask me ‒’
‘Goodnight, Mr Wearne,’ Rachel said, dismissing him impatiently, and the man, after a moment’s pause, answered with a muttered ‘Goodnight, Mis’ Tallack’ and went on his way along the road.
Rachel, barely able to see, tossed a forkful of hay in the air. By morning, she told herself, all Polsinney would know that Rachel Tallack, up at Boskillyer, had taken a girl in off the road. But that was something that couldn’t be helped and if Maggie Care thought to escape attention here in Polsinney, where she was a stranger, she would find that she had made a mistake.
Soon Rachel was obliged to stop work. She called to the girl and they went indoors, and when the two candles had been lit, she moved about the kitchen methodically, filling the kettle ready for the morning, raking the ashes from the stove, and turning the cat out into the yard.
She then led the way upstairs, took a blanket, a pillow, and two sheets from the blanket-box on the landing, and showed the girl into her room: a tiny room with a bunk bed, a cane-seated chair, a chest of drawers, and a row of pegs in a little alcove hidden by a curtain of worn brown plush.
‘The last girl who had this room kept her candle burning all night. I hope you won’t do the same. Candles cost money and they’re dangerous.’
‘I shan’t keep it burning, I promise you.’
‘Then I’ll say good night.’
Rachel withdrew, closing the door, and the girl set about making her bed. She then unwrapped her bundle of clothes, laid her nightdress on the chair, and hung the rest away in the alcove. Her room was at the end of the house, over the stable, and while she was getting undressed she could hear the pony shifting about in his stall below. She blew out the candle and got into bed and lay on her back in the pitch-black darkness. The pony was still fidgeting and the sounds he made were companionable. She turned on her side and went to sleep.
In the morning a mist hung over the sea, and the fishing-boats, returning to harbour, came in with it swirling whitely behind them, clinging in shreds about their sails. Rachel, as she went about her tasks in the farmyard, kept a sharp watch on the boats and when the Emmet came in, with the white gulls flying and crying behind her, she gave a nod of satisfaction, knowing that Brice had had a good catch.
Maggie helped her to milk the cows and afterwards herded them out of the yard, across the road and onto the moor, where they would graze throughout the day. Rachel then sent her to fetch the pony and together they harnessed him to the milk-float. Two churns of milk were put aboard and Rachel got in and took the reins. Maggie stepped in behind her and they drove slowly out of the yard, along the road skirting the moor, and down one of the turnings leading into Polsinney village.
Their first stop was in front of the church and Rachel’s customers, on the alert, emerged from their houses with their jugs and came hurrying down the street, knowing that if they kept her waiting she would whip up the pony and move on.
‘Good morning, Mis’ Tallack. You’re some early this morning. Dunt ee never sleep late at all?’
The women, gathering about the float, stared with frank curiosity at the girl, Maggie Care, as she dipped her measure into the churn and filled the first jug handed up to her.
‘I see you’ve got a new dairymaid. Now where’ve she come from all of a suddent? I’ve never clapped eyes on her, dunt believe.’
‘She comes from Porthgaran,’ Rachel said, ‘and her name’s Maggie Care.’
‘Porthgaran? My dear life! That’s a pure long way from here.’ The first customer, receiving her jug, put a coin into Maggie’s hand and looked hard into her face. ‘And what’ve brought you to Polsinney, if I may be so bold as to ask?’
‘I came looking for work and Mrs Tallack has taken me on.’
‘You got relations hereabouts? Or a chap you’re sweet on, perhaps?’
‘No, there’s nobody,’ Maggie said.
The woman was about to question her further but Rachel now spoke sharply.
‘Make room, Mrs Prideaux, please. Mrs Tambling is waiting her turn. And be so good as to tell your boy not to keep jogging the float.’
Each of the twenty-one customers was at last served with her milk; the coins jingled in Maggie’s satchel; and Rachel, with a flip of the reins, drove past the church and into Tubb’s Lane. The milk-float made ten stops altogether and at each of them Maggie was questioned. She was asked about her age and her prospects of marriage, about her past life in Porthgaran, and whether she was church or chapel; and all these she answered with polite brevity; but whenever her questioners probed too close, Rachel took it upon herself to answer brusquely on her behalf.
‘She’s got no family. They’re all dead. Her father and brother were drowned last month. Now move aside, Mrs Roberts, please. I haven’t got all day to linger here.’
Their last stop was down at the harbour, outside The Brittany Inn, and from there they drove to the fish-quay. This was the busiest part of Polsinney, now that the drifters had all come in, and there was a loud babble of voices as the fish-merchants from Porthcoe and the local jowsters, jostling together, called out to the fishermen the prices they were willing to pay for the pilchards glistening in the holds. At the edge of the crowd stood a number of fishermen’s wives and daughters, each with a basket on her arm, and as the milk-float came slowly by, they turned to nod to Rachel Tallack and to
stare at the stranger accompanying her.
The Emmet occupied a berth halfway along the jetty and Brice, together with his crew, stood on a plank across the hold, picking the last few fish from the nets as he bargained with the noisy buyers standing in their carts above. When the milk-float drew up at the back of the crowd, he threw down his section of the net and picked up a basket of pilchards, hoisting it high onto his shoulder. He stepped out onto the jetty, made his way through the crowd, and came to where his mother waited. His sea-boots and short blue smock were covered with glistening fish-scales and his hands were stained with blood and oil. His cap was pushed back from his forehead and his face was smeared with sweat and dirt.
‘Who’s this you’ve got riding with you?’
‘Her name’s Maggie Care,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve taken her on to help on the farm. But never mind about that now. Let’s have that basket aboard, quick sharp, so that we can get out of this crowd.’
Brice and the girl exchanged a glance and Brice put a hand to the peak of his cap. He went round to the back of the float and, with a little twist of his body, swung the basket down onto the floor, beside the two empty milk-churns. The girl moved to make room for it, pressing herself against the float’s side, and Rachel turned to look down at the fish.
‘Better than yesterday, anyway.’
‘Yes, they’re all prime fish,’ Brice said, ‘and the biggest catch of the season so far.’
‘See that you get the price they deserve.’
The float moved away along the jetty, to a place where there was room to turn, and Brice went back to the boat. The crew had finished clearing the nets and were counting the pilchards into the baskets. Brice stepped into the fish-hold and Ralph Ellis spoke to him.
‘I didn’t know your mother had got a new dairymaid.’
‘I didn’t know myself till now.’
Above him the merchants and jowsters were clamouring for his attention. He paused in his counting to look up at them and his blue eyes were suddenly keen.
‘Well, gentlemen, and what’s the best bid?’
Rachel and Maggie, leaving the quayside, drove along the harbour road, past the shops and the warehouses, the fish-cellars with their dwellings above, the coopers’ huts and the customs house and the tiny stone-built fishermen’s chapel dedicated to St Peter.
At the other end of the harbour, where it completed its horseshoe curve, there was a second quay with a slipway, now fallen into disrepair and used only by smaller craft, punts and dinghies and lobster-boats. Above this old quay stood a small cottage, built on the edge of the sea-wall itself, backing onto the foreshore, but facing inwards across the harbour. Beside it there was a big cobbled yard and on the inner side of the yard stood a sail-loft and some stone-built sheds. Outside the cottage, an elderly man in a wheelchair sat with a spyglass to his eye, looking across the curve of the harbour to the fish-quay on the opposite side. As the milk-float drove past the yard the old man swung his spyglass round and watched it until it passed from sight. Rachel was well aware of this but kept her eyes on the road.
‘That’s my brother-in-law, Gus Tallack. He’s an invalid, as you see, and got nothing better to do all day than spy on people with that spyglass of his, minding everyone’s business but his own.’ Then, in the same acid tone, she said: ‘He owns my son’s boat, the Emmet, and he’ll be on tenterhooks till he knows how much money Brice got for his catch.’
She whipped the pony to a trot and turned up the steep winding road that followed the curve of the cliff.
As soon as they had washed out the churns and sluiced the spilt milk from the floor of the float, they set to work on the basket of pilchards, splitting them open and cleaning them, cutting off the heads and tails, and laying the fish down in salt in two big earthenware bussas. Maggie worked with extreme quickness and Rachel noted approvingly that when she topped and tailed the fish she did it precisely, without waste, and that when she laid them in the bussa, each layer was perfectly even, with the salt pressed well down round each fish.
The bussas were put away in the cellar, the offal was given to the pigs, and the empty basket and chopping-board, already attracting flies, were scrubbed clean under the pump. By now the sun was scorching hot, the dew had dried from the hayfield, and Rachel and Maggie, with their big wooden rakes, began drawing the hay into rows, ready for putting up into pooks.
At nine o’clock Brice came home and Rachel went in to prepare breakfast. On his way up from the harbour, he had been stopped by a great many people, enquiring about the girl, Maggie Care; but, as he said to his mother in the kitchen, they had told him a lot more than he had been able to tell them.
‘I hear you took her in off the road and somebody said she’d tramped all the way from Porthgaran. But what brings her here to Polsinney?’
‘Her father and brother were both drowned when their boat was lost off Garan Head. It was in the papers a month or so back. Do you remember reading about it?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Brice said. ‘The boat was unsafe. I remember that.’
‘She’s got no family left now, she says, and after she’d buried her father and brother she decided to leave Porthgaran for good. It strikes me as very strange that she should leave her own home town to come away among strangers, but it seems that people in Porthgaran had some hard things to say about her father, so she upped one fine day and came away. She’s been roaming about these past three weeks, doing casual work on the farms, and last evening she turned up here saying she’d heard I needed help.’
‘Well, that’s true enough,’ Brice said, ‘though yesterday, when I mentioned it, you told me you could manage alone.’
‘You mentioned asking the Pentecosts: I can certainly manage without them.’
‘You prefer this Maggie Care?’
‘I said I’d give her a month’s trial. After that ‒ well, we shall see.’
Rachel now had a good fire going. She pulled the frying-pan onto the hob and dropped six rashers of bacon into it. She then began laying the table. Brice, standing at the kitchen window, could see the girl out in the hayfield: a tall, slim, rather boyish figure, dark hair bare to the sun, strong arms moving rhythmically as she raked the loosely scattered hay and drew it into windrows.
‘Judging by what I see, she’s no stranger to work,’ he said.
‘So far, so good,’ Rachel agreed. ‘But that’s often the way with these young girls. They begin well enough but then they get slack. They take advantage. You’ve seen it yourself.’
‘She doesn’t look that sort of girl.’
‘You can’t judge people by their looks.’
‘What did you judge her by when you decided to take her on?’
‘Whatever it was,’ Rachel said, ‘I could still turn out to be mistaken.’
‘Don’t you trust her?’
‘I don’t know. She seems anxious enough to please and she says she’s looking for a place where she can settle down for good. She wants to start a new life, she says, and put the past behind her. But I don’t begin to understand her. Not yet at least. It seems to me she’s a hard nut to crack and she has a way of looking at you sometimes as though she cares not a penny piece for anything you say to her.’
‘Not very surprising, perhaps, considering what’s happened to her.’
Brice was young. He was twenty-three. And although he favoured his mother in looks, having the same stubborn jaw and the same keen blue eyes, deeply set, his nature, taken as a whole, was more like that of his dead father. The story of the girl’s double bereavement therefore touched his sympathy and he was young enough to be stirred by the thought of her courage and resolution in setting out all alone to start a new life for herself. He began to say something of this to his mother but she cut him short.
‘You may call it courage if you like but I have a different word for it! What would have become of that girl if I hadn’t taken pity on her and given her shelter in my home?’
‘I suppose she would have gone elsew
here and you would have lost a good worker.’
Rachel snatched a fork from the table and went to turn the bacon sputtering in the frying-pan.
‘Are you going to get yourself washed? Then hurry up or your breakfast will spoil.’
Brice, sitting opposite Maggie at breakfast, was able to study her at his leisure. His first meeting with her on the quay had shown him a girl of striking good looks, but if he had never met her again, all he could have said in describing her was that her eyes were a pure, clear grey. Now, however, as he studied her closely, he saw how shapely her features were and was struck by the way fineness and strength were blended in the structure of her face. Her cheekbones, perhaps, were almost too strong, but were softened and rendered beautiful by the delicate hollows underneath and by the perfect curve of her chin. Her mouth had forgotten how to smile and in those clear grey eyes lay a shadow that robbed them of expression; but surely, not so long ago, that mouth had expressed tenderness and those eyes had been full of humour and warmth; and one day, in God’s good time, Brice thought, those things would surely be restored.
He wanted to know more about her but was shy of asking direct questions. Instead he talked of the night’s fishing and described how he had shot his nets three miles west of the Oracle Rocks.
‘The night was perfect, dark as dark, and the sea was as docile as a lamb. We got three hours sleep while the nets were out and when it came time for hauling them in everything went like clockwork. But then we decided to shoot again and that wadn smart, as Billy said, for it meant we had our work cut out making harbour in time to get a good berth.’
Polsinney Harbour: A heartwarming family saga set in Victorian era Cornwall Page 2