Bonds of Earth, The (8 page)

J
ENKEN
B
OLITHO WAS
so eager to begin work at Elworthy Farm that he arrived there the next morning ready to begin work while Goran was still dressing!

Goran had not intended taking him on until Elworthy had moved out of the farm, but the boy was so excited at the prospect of starting full-time work that Goran did not have the heart to disappoint him.

For his first morning Jenken accompanied Goran around the farmyard, learning the daily routine of releasing livestock that had been shut in overnight; feeding, watering and cleaning their pens and houses then checking on the well-being of a number of cows which were in various stages of pregnancy. After this it was time to bring in the milking cow and place it in a stall, ready to be milked by Mabel.

During the course of these chores Jenken was introduced to Elworthy who seemed bemused by the young boy's presence on the farm. However, so much was changing in the simple farmer's life that he accepted without question Jenken's right to be there.

Their early morning chores completed, and in accordance with the established farm routine, Jenken accompanied Goran and Elworthy into the cottage for a breakfast cooked for them by Mabel.

The fact that such a meal was a rare treat indeed for the boy was evident by the enthusiasm with which he devoured the extra large portion placed before him.

His enjoyment of the meal was not shared by Elworthy who merely picked at his food. It was so unlike the usual gusto he exhibited at meal times that Mabel commented upon his apparent lack of appetite.

‘It's because I'm unhappy,' Elworthy replied, his lower lip thrust out in an expression of childlike misery, ‘I won't be having breakfast here after tomorrow … and I like your cooking.'

‘You'll like Agnes's cooking too, Elworthy: she bakes some of the best cakes you'll ever taste anywhere.'

‘It won't be the same … and I won't have you working with me.'

Goran had worked and lived close to Elworthy for long enough to know the simple man often indulged in bouts of self-pity. On such occasions nothing anyone said could dispel the mood but, acutely aware that Elworthy would soon be leaving the comfortable familiarity of the farm that had been his home for so long, he said, sympathetically, ‘I'll be coming to Roach often enough to keep you in touch with what's going on here, Elworthy, and you're welcome to come visiting as often as you like – although I know you'll soon be just as involved with everything that's happening at Roach Farm as you are here. When Agnes sees how well you look after animals she'll wonder how she ever managed before you came to live there. Besides, it will be really nice for a brother and sister to be working together.'

With breakfast over, Goran took Jenken to check on the farm's sheep, most of which were grazing on land well away from the farmhouse. He was also able to point out the boundaries of Elworthy Farm. Along the way, Jenken said, ‘I feel sorry for Elworthy, having to leave a farm where he must have lived for so many years.'

‘I do too, and if Sir John Spurre hadn't tried to swindle him out of the farm Elworthy might have been able to go on for another year or two, but he's been getting more vague and forgetful than ever lately and needs watching in case he does something particularly silly, so Agnes decided she wanted to keep a closer watch on him. If she hadn't I wouldn't have taken over the farm and you wouldn't be working here with me.'

‘I'm
very
glad about that!' Jenken squirmed with delight as he added, ‘Ma's very happy about it too and she hasn't had much to be happy about lately. Still, now I'm working for you I'll be able to make life a bit easier for her and for the whole family.'

‘That's perfectly true … and it reminds me, she said she would come visiting Elworthy Farm soon, but
my
ma says you are to tell her she wants to see her urgently, tomorrow if possible.'

Alarmed about what Mabel could want to speak to his mother about that was a matter of such urgency, Jenken asked, ‘It … it's nothing about me working here, is it? I mean … your ma doesn't think I won't be able to keep up with the work on the farm?'

‘No, it's nothing like that,' Goran said reassuringly, moved by the boy's genuine anxiety, ‘I'm the one who decides whether or not you can do the work, and I'm satisfied there's no problem. No, she wants to see your ma about something I think will please you, but I won't say any more because it's something for your ma and mine to discuss … but talking of folk coming visiting, isn't this Morwenna Pyne walking down off the moor? What's she doing here?'

It
was
Morwenna and she was carrying something bulky beneath her arm. As she drew nearer Goran could see it was a large, leather-bound book.

On the occasions when they had met before today Goran had found Morwenna's attitude uncomfortably confrontational, but today she was surprisingly friendly, although she did not seem particularly pleased to find Jenken accompanying him. Ignoring the young boy, she addressed Goran.

‘Hello, I was just coming down to the farm to see you.'

Taking the large book from beneath her arm she held it out to him, ‘I've brought you this, it's a dictionary I was given a long time ago. I heard you wanted one and as I have no use for it I thought you might as well have it.'

It was a present Goran would have been delighted with had he not been told by Annie Pyne that giving him the dictionary had been Nessa's idea and that she had been willing to exchange her favourite bracelet for it. As Morwenna held out the book to him, he noticed she was actually wearing an attractive silver-coloured bracelet decorated with pale-purple quartz-like stones and he felt uneasy.

Something was not quite right and he could think of no reason why it should be Morwenna and not Nessa bringing the book to him … unless something was wrong with Nessa.

He was about to ask after her when some indefinable instinct stopped him from asking a direct question. Instead, he said, ‘It's kind of you, Morwenna … very kind. I shall make good use of it. I must say, I've never seen you without Jennifer and Nessa with you, I hope they're both well?'

‘We may be sisters but we're not tied together. I like to do a lot of things without having them around. Anyway, Jennifer didn't sleep well last night and she's too irritable this morning to take anywhere, while Nessa's up at the mine office helping Pa go through the mine accounts. I was left on my own so I thought I'd come here to see you and bring the dictionary. Ma told us yesterday you'd become a yeoman farmer and as I'd nothing better to do I thought I'd come down to see you and let you show me over the farm.'

‘I'd like to do that, Morwenna, but I don't have time today. I've got a lot of things to do this morning – and this afternoon I need to go and work at Roach Farm.'

Assuming an expression that was more in keeping with the person Goran believed her to be, Morwenna said peevishly, ‘
You're
supposed to be the farmer now. Jenken can do whatever needs to be done while you show me around the farm.'

‘This is Jenken's first day working here. I need to tell him where everything is. Besides, I don't take over the farm until Elworthy leaves – and he's still here.' Goran had realized on the first occasion he had met the oldest Pyne sister that she liked getting her own way and she was not happy at being thwarted today.

‘It seems I've walked all this way for nothing! I thought you'd at least show me around the farm. You told Jennifer you'd let her see some piglets you have in the farmyard.'

‘I'd be very happy to show you
all
the piglets, but not today. Come back another time bringing Nessa and Jennifer with you and I'll show you all the animals. You've just chosen a bad day to call – but your journey certainly hasn't been wasted, I'm delighted to have the dictionary and will make very good use of it.'

‘I suppose that will have to do, but you could at least give me a kiss for coming all this way with it.'

Goran hesitated. Morwenna was being particularly bold in asking him to kiss her, but Jenken was here with them so it would go no further.

Stepping forward he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek then stepped back quickly as she brought up her arms to draw him to her.

Dropping her arms to her side, she said scathingly, ‘Well, that wasn't much of a kiss, but I suppose it will have to do … for now.'

T
HAT EVENING, IN
the Pynes' cottage at the Wheal Hope mine, the family were waiting for Piran Pyne to return home when Nessa, who had been upstairs in the bedroom she shared with her sisters, returned to the living room wearing a puzzled frown.

‘Has anyone seen the dictionary I bought from Morwenna for Goran Trebartha? I can't find it upstairs.'

‘Oh, I took it down to the farm and gave it to Goran while you were working at the mine office,' Morwenna said, casually.

‘
You did what
?'

Although Nessa's disbelief was mixed with a very real anger Morwenna merely shrugged. ‘I felt like taking a walk so I thought I might as well go that way and take the book to him. You were so eager to get it for him I thought it must be urgent.'

‘It wasn't yours to do
anything
with any more, I'd given you my bracelet for it.'

Still behaving with almost insolent nonchalance, Morwenna said, ‘I thought you'd bought it because Goran needed a dictionary, I didn't realize it was the actual
giving
of it that was so important. But if you want to get the dictionary back from Goran you can have your old bracelet again, I don't care.'

Speechless, Nessa stood staring at her sister uncertainly for a long time before turning away and hurrying from the room without uttering another word.

Aghast at the actions of her eldest daughter, Annie said, ‘That was
very
mean of you, Morwenna … and quite deliberate! You knew Nessa wanted that dictionary as a special gift for Goran, giving it to him mattered a lot to her. That is probably the most spiteful thing you have ever done and it will be a long time before I forgive you for it.'

‘Why? What's so special about Nessa and a boy
she
cares for? All she really wants is to look clever and be a teacher. Anyway, no one thought twice about how much
I
cared for Alan Toms when you brought me here – and
he
wanted to marry me.'

‘That isn't true, Morwenna, and it's no use you deluding yourself about Alan. We had to come here because your father's work demanded it, but before we left he spoke to Alan and offered him work on Wheal Hope, even though he didn't particularly like him, but Alan said he didn't want to come, despite knowing he would be more secure working here. Anyway, even if he had wanted to marry you it's no excuse for what you've done to Nessa, that is quite unforgivable – and I've no doubt your father will think so too.'

‘I don't care what any of you think. If Goran likes me better than he does Nessa I'm not going to do anything to discourage him.
He
might want to marry me and being a farmer's wife would be better than being here where no one cares what
I
think about anything, or what it is
I
might want.'

With this, Morwenna rushed from the room, her footsteps loud on the new wooden staircase leading to the two upstairs rooms.

In the bedroom shared by the three sisters Nessa was lying fully clothed on top of her bed, staring up at rough, bark-clad timbers supporting the roof, her hands clasped behind her head.

She turned her head when Morwenna entered the room but seeing who it was immediately turned over on her side, facing away from her sister.

The movement prompted Morwenna to say, ‘I can't do anything right in this house, I don't know why I even try!'

When her statement prompted no response, Morwenna added, ‘I thought you
wanted
Goran to have the book, that's why I took it.'

For a moment Nessa wondered whether the explanation might be genuine, but then Morwenna added, ‘At least the kiss that Goran gave me showed that
he
was grateful.'

Turning on the bed so that she was looking at her sister, Nessa said, with disbelief, ‘Goran kissed you?'

‘You mean he's never kissed
you
? I don't believe it! When he kissed me I thought it must be what he was used to doing with all the girls he knew. If it isn't…? Well, perhaps he really meant it when he said he'd like me to come to the farm so he could show me around now
he's
the farmer and can find more time to do the things he really wants to do.'

Satisfied with the effect her words had upon her sister, Morwenna walked from the room, leaving a shaken and very unhappy Nessa behind her.

‘Where are the girls?' Piran Pyne asked the question that evening as his wife put out plates for only three on the kitchen table.

‘Nessa is upstairs in the girls' bedroom and says she doesn't want anything to eat, but I don't know where Morwenna is. I thought she was in the bedroom too, but Jennifer said she went out of the back door saying she was going for a walk.'

Frowning, Piran asked, ‘Has anything happened to upset them?'

‘Yes…' Annie told her husband of the incident involving the dictionary.

After listening with increasing anger, Piran said, ‘That really would have upset Nessa, she was talking happily to me today at Wheal Hope about taking the book to Goran at the farm tomorrow. It's most unthinking of Morwenna to have done that.'

‘Sadly, I don't think there was any lack of thought in what she did. Morwenna is bitterly resentful about leaving Alan Toms behind when we moved here. She's convinced herself he would have asked her to marry him if we'd stayed down west.'

‘We couldn't have stayed there, she knows that. The mine was played out and I was very lucky to have been asked to start up the Wheal Hope, otherwise we could very well have been in a similar plight to the Bolithos. Besides, I offered Alan the opportunity to come here to be near her if that's what he really wanted. Had he accepted he would have been far more secure than he is there. I'll have serious words with Morwenna, she shouldn't have done what she did to anyone – certainly not to her own sister.'

‘I've already made that point to her and I've no doubt the reason she's gone out is because she knows what you'll say to her about it.'

‘I'll say what's needed anyway – although she may get away with it tonight, I have to go back to the mine after supper. We've hit hard rock in the shaft and are falling behind so I need to get the men working nights but I'll go upstairs and speak to Nessa before I go. I think Goran is a nice lad and a solid one, he and Nessa would be a good match. But I do have some good news to tell you. On my way home I met with young Jenken Bolitho returning from his work at the farm. He was happier than I've ever seen him. It seems he's going to enjoy working on a farm. He was carrying a basket of things he'd been given to take home. I think the family will be happy too – and even happier when they learn what Goran and his mother have in mind for them….'

Piran Pyne did not want to exacerbate the disagreement between his two daughters, so he used Jennifer's early bedtime as an excuse for going to the shared bedroom with her in his arms. Here he found Nessa lying on her own bed, still fully clothed.

Lying staring up at the ceiling she took no notice when he entered the room.

‘Hello, aren't you feeling too well this evening?'

‘I just don't feel hungry, that's all.'

‘Well, I have some news that might help cheer you up. I met young Jenken Bolitho coming home from his work at the farm and he was bubbling over with delight about his work and although he doesn't know it yet, Goran has hinted that the family could be moving into the farm cottage. Mabel Trebartha wants to talk to Harriet Bolitho about it. When it's settled you might like to go up to the Bolithos' place and see if there's anything you can do to help with the children during the move. It's high time that family had some good luck come their way.'

‘I'm pleased for the Bolithos, but I'm sure they'll be able to manage without my help.'

‘I thought you might welcome an opportunity to go to Elworthy and congratulate Goran on taking over the farm? It's a great achievement for such a young man.'

‘I think he'd rather see Morwenna than me and she no doubt passed on our family's congratulations when she went to the farm earlier today.'

‘She might have done, but I'm convinced it would mean more to him coming from you – but where is Morwenna, Ma tells me she wasn't at supper either?'

‘I've no idea … unless she's at Elworthy Farm.'

Realizing nothing he said to Nessa this evening would shake her out of her present despondent mood, Piran said, ‘Oh well, I'm putting Jennifer to bed now, perhaps you'll read her one of your stories, she'd like that – and it might cheer you up a bit. I have to return to the mine for a couple of hours.'