The Captain's Daughter, page 21
‘I thank you for the offer, but I would like to say goodbye to him.’
The old woman continued to knead.
‘I want to speak to Daniel,’ she said again. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s here,’ came a voice from behind her. Daniel stood in the open doorway staring at her carpet bag on the floor.
‘I am leaving.’
‘So I see,’ he said, lifting his dark brown eyes to meet hers.
‘I want to thank you for your help and hospitality,’ she continued, keen for him to know she was not intending to leave without speaking to him. ‘I do not wish to outstay my welcome.’
‘You have somewhere to go?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Where?’
She did not wish to lie to him but she felt she had no choice.
‘I … I … have a position as a governess in North Cornwall. I plan to catch the train at Bodmin.’
‘With who?’
‘A middle class family.’
‘A family with no name?’
‘A family that wishes to remain discreet,’ she countered. He studied her as if waiting for her to speak more but she held her silence.
‘Discretion is important to you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
He seemed to consider her words for some moments. She wondered if he was forming an argument that she might stay.
‘I’ll take you,’ he said, abruptly, before leaving to hitch up the horse and trap. The two women watched him go before Edna let out a chuckle.
‘Seems ’e’s even more keen to get rid of you than I am,’ she said, before returning to her dough.
Remnants of the heavy blizzard still lingered in places in the form of muddied white patches of crystallised snow. The wooden wheels of Daniel’s cart sliced through the discoloured slush and stones in the road, which had been churned up when the main snowfall had melted. However, thankfully, Daniel took great care to drive at a steady pace, reducing the amount of jarring her body was subjected to. Neither spoke, both deep in their thoughts. Finally, Daniel pulled on the reins and brought the horse and cart to a standstill by the side of the road. He looked across the countryside to the granite built farmstead in the distance.
‘Boscarn Farm,’ he said, half to himself and half to her. She followed his gaze and saw his home nestled amongst the trees and sheltered from the moorland winds. To the right spread lush green pastures, on the left the barren landscape of the moor.
‘You are very lucky to have such a lovely place. I’m sorry I did not stay to see more of it.’ She realised as she spoke how true it was. They sat in silence for some moments before he spoke again.
‘Discretion is important to you. Is that why you are leaving today?’
Fear that she had been found out pricked at her skin. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she replied, quietly.
‘I think you do.’
He took something out of his pocket, spread it out on his leg with purposeful movements and gave it to her. She did not need to read the letter to know what it said, as her uncle’s hateful words screamed out at her in black ink.
‘You had it clutched in your hand when I found you. I have not told anyone.’ Janey took it. ‘Is it his?’ he asked. She nodded, unable to speak. ‘I told you there was no future with him.’ He stared into the distance. ‘Were you making plans to get rid of it that day on Hel Tor?’
‘Please, Daniel, I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘I knew something was wrong, but not this.’
‘It is not your problem. Please take me to Bodmin.’
‘To the workhouse?’ he asked. She nodded and he swore. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like in there?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really, I have heard some things.’
‘I do. I’ve spent time in one. It’s no life for a baby. The stench of the workhouse sticks to you and taints the rest of your life.’
‘I have no choice. You did all right.’
He sat silently for a moment then began to speak. ‘My mother was a whore. I never knew my father. I was born in a workhouse and spent my childhood in and out of them. One day I was found eating rubbish by our landlord. My mother had run off and left me to starve. I never saw her again or wanted to. He threw me out into the street and that’s where I lived amongst the tramps and prostitutes of Tudor Street. When I was ten I was caught thieving a loaf of bread. I had not eaten in three days. I was sentenced to hard labour for a year and then to a reformatory. The place was meant to make me a law-abiding citizen but life there was brutal. I survived despite them, not because of them.’
He had not taken his eyes off Boscarn Farm and Janey began to realise just how important having his own home was to him.
‘One day a caretaker asked me my name. When I told him it was Kellow he made a passing remark that it was Cornish. I had a vain hope I would find family in Cornwall so the next day I ran away and came here.’ Daniel dragged his eyes from the farm and looked down at the reins in his hands. ‘It was a foolish dream,’ he said, marking the leather with a nail. ‘There was no blood kin waiting for me.’ He lifted his gaze to find Janey looking at him. ‘I lived on my wits and by stealing.’
Her heart went out to him. She wanted to offer sympathy, understanding – something –but words failed her while his eyes were upon her. He looked away and the moment was gone. ‘One day Zachariah caught me stealing his eggs. His wife, Amy, took pity on me so they offered me work and a home. I became part of their family. They must have seen some good in me.’ His dark brows furrowed. ‘Not everyone does, Janey.’
A sad smile curved his lips as he watched the horizon. ‘Amy told me that her own mother had a dubious past. Her mother’s parents and brothers were all thieves, so it was hardly surprising. Yet she told me that she knew of no other woman who showed such courage, loyalty and love despite her being a thief’s daughter. It taught Amy to believe that there was good in all people, no matter their past. I am the man I am now because Zachariah and Amy took me in and provided me with a home.’
He had not spoken so much at one time before, which made his words all the more important to hear.
‘They sound like a wonderful couple,’ said Janey.
The smile faded from Daniel’s lips as he turned to her. ‘Up to that point my life had been tainted by the start in life I had. My mother’s drinking and whoring, my father not wanting to know the child he had. I paid for the sins of my parents and I kept paying. When I met Zachariah and Amy, my life began again.’
He took the letter from her hands to look at her uncle’s writing. He pointed to the words bastard, workhouse, slut. ‘It’s starting again with your baby,’ he said. ‘Your baby’s life is already tainted by its parents’ deeds. Old sins cast long shadows, Janey. An illegitimate baby carries the burden of its parents’ actions for life.’
The words blurred before her eyes. She knew in the society they lived that he spoke the truth.
‘I have no choice,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, you do,’ he replied and turned to look at her. ‘I’ll marry you. I’ll give your baby my name and both of you a home. No one need ever know the child’s his. No one must ever know the child is his.’
‘I couldn’t let you do that,’ said Janey. He ignored her.
‘I will provide you and the baby with a good home, but I expect the marriage to be a complete one. I have no one in the world I can call a relative. One day I want a child in my arms with my blood rushing through its veins. I want to be able to look into its eyes and see my kin. Do you understand what I say?’
She nodded but shook inwardly. Only four months before she had been brutally raped. Would she ever be able to lie with a man again and not think of that day?
‘So what do you say?’
Her baby moved inside her.
‘You will give us your name and bring my child up as if he was your own?’
Daniel clenched his jaw and stared off to the distance once more.
‘Brockenshaw’s child?’ she goaded. She hated saying his name but she would rather give birth to her child in a workhouse than risk a life of brutality and cruelty by a man who calls himself father but despises the child.
‘It is not the baby’s fault who its father is. I will be the child’s father in all ways. It will not know any difference between my own blood kin.’ He turned to her with narrowed eyes. ‘So what say you? Will you be my wife?’
Janey searched his eyes for some tenderness, some hint that he could love her, but in that moment there was none. Instead she saw a steely determination that what he had suggested was the right thing to do. She lifted her chin.
‘I will marry you, Daniel Kellow,’ she said, ‘and I thank you for giving my baby a name.’
He turned the horse and cart back to the village.
‘From now on it’s our baby,’ he said, snapping the reins.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, holding on tightly to the seat as the wagon turned in the road, riding the bank as it did so.
‘To the vicarage,’ he said as the cart lurched forward. ‘We have a wedding to arrange.’
Reverend William Smith had had a torturous morning. He had just conducted the funeral of Boxer Bull Edwards and it would be one that he was unlikely to forget. Boxer Bull Edwards was a brute and a bully. He was built as wide as he was tall, with fists the size of cabbages and knuckles as hard as stone. He got his nickname from his readiness to use his fists and his unpredictable temper which he meted out to anyone that crossed his path or dared catch his eye. No one called him friend and he had liked it that way; it was a life he chose and a life he forced on the woman he married.
For thirty years the villagers watched his pretty wife fade before their eyes to become a nervy, timid, skinny woman, aged beyond her years and regularly sporting a black eye or cracked rib. His domination isolated her from her family and friends and she was rarely seen except running his errands and tending to his needs in a cowering subservient manner. She rarely spoke as her brutish husband, after years of insults, convinced her she had nothing of importance to say. Reverend Smith’s heart went out to her as she sat in the pew silent and in shock, terrified how she would cope without the man who had convinced her she was nothing without him. In time she would begin to bloom again but for now she was petrified at what the future might hold.
The rest of the congregation was made up of three other people. Widow Blewett sat at the back and attended every funeral in the village and even travelled to nearby villages to attend theirs ‘if the pickings were scant’ in Trehale. She did not need to know the departed, or even like them; it was more of a macabre hobby and started the day she attended her mother’s funeral as a child. She often said she would be sitting in the back pew at her own funeral and the reverend was to make sure that her seat was not taken or she would be most upset.
The other couple sat slightly bemused that they found themselves attending a funeral at all. They had visited the reverend that morning to discuss their baby’s baptism. Newly moved into the village, they were strangers, and the vicar had cajoled them into attending to make up the numbers. Fearing they might upset him, they had agreed. However, to find themselves the main mourners at a funeral of someone they didn’t know took them by surprise, if not the wife of the deceased. They were too polite to say anything and acted along with the façade that Boxer Bull Edwards had meant something to them as the newly widowed Mrs Edwards thanked them for coming. As the funeral came to a close they left the church much quicker than they had entered it an hour before.
Reverend Smith took a sip of his flask before stepping out into the cemetery. To his surprise, Daniel Kellow, head down and feet crunching on the frozen patches of snow that still remained despite a part thaw, was walking determinedly towards him and in his wake walked his opposite – pretty, God-fearing, well-mannered Janey Carhart.
‘Good morning, Daniel, Janey. This is a surprise.’
Daniel, in his haste, ignored the greeting. ‘We want to get married, reverend.’ The vicar did not hide his surprise. ‘Today,’ Daniel added.
‘Good morning, reverend,’ Janey replied, a little embarrassed at Daniel’s behaviour.
The reverend gave a little chuckle as he turned to lock the old oak door of the church.
‘Not today, Daniel. There’s a procedure to go through.’ He smiled at Janey. ‘Good morning, my dear.’
Daniel would not be put off. ‘What procedure?’ he asked, impatiently.
‘Well, the banns need to be called for three Sundays prior to the marriage date to see if anyone has reason to raise any legal impediment to the marriage. So the soonest you would be able to get married is in three weeks’ time.’
‘Then see to it.’
The vicar gave him a look before making his way down the church path, Daniel at his side and Janey following a step behind.
‘And I need to be satisfied that you both understand the commitment you are about to make. Marriage is a sacred union before God and must be taken seriously.’
‘We understand,’ said Daniel, impatiently.
The vicar was not convinced. The last time he had seen Daniel he had turned his back on the girl; in fact he wasn’t even aware they were courting. He told him so.
Daniel brushed his concerns aside. ‘What do we need to do to convince you we want to be married?’
‘I don’t doubt your desire, Daniel,’ said the vicar, but there was something beginning to trouble him. He had remembered Janey seeking him out for advice many months ago. She had told him that someone was trying to pressure her and confuse her thinking. He began to wonder if it was Daniel she had spoken of. He had just spent the last hour in the company of a woman who had become a shadow of her former self due to her overbearing husband. He did not want Janey to follow in her footsteps. He looked at Janey who stood behind Daniel’s shoulder and felt a sudden desire to speak with her alone.
‘Janey, take a walk with me around the church grounds,’ he said. He looked at Daniel. ‘Alone,’ he added, pointedly.
They walked along the path in a companionable silence, while Daniel waited reluctantly by an oak tree, his hands thrust in his pockets and his collar turned up against the cold. He watched them with a worried frown.
‘I have not seen you at church lately, Janey,’ said the vicar.
‘Lady Brockenshaw has been ill so I was required to attend to her.’
‘If you marry you will be leaving your post?’
‘Lady Brockenshaw left Bosvenna Manor to live with her brother a few days ago. His estate is in Falmouth.’
‘And you stayed to be with Daniel?’ Janey did not reply. ‘How well do you know Daniel?’
‘I know of his background.’ She did not tell him she had only learnt of it on the ride to the church.
‘I feel it is my duty to ensure you know of the rumours about him.’
‘I know something of them.’
‘But not all? Let me tell you so you are fully aware of the marriage you may be entering into. The rumours remain and, as his wife, you will have to live with them too.’
They stopped and turned to see Daniel watching them. In that moment she realised that he was aware of what she was about to be told. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear yet she knew, for the sake of her baby, she must listen to what the vicar had to say.
‘Daniel was eighteen when Zachariah died. He was found lying on the ground outside the house, the back of his skull was caved in and a hammer lay by his side covered in blood. Daniel said he had fallen from a ladder and indeed there was a ladder on the ground at the time. The constable was called and it seemed like a tragic accident. The rumours started when the will was read. Six months before the accident the farm had been willed to Daniel. Zachariah’s wife, Amy, had already died by then, but even so it was his cousin who was expecting the farm to be left to him and not Daniel. It was also well known that Zachariah was crippled by arthritis and he could not use his hands, which were very swollen and painful at the time. Daniel’s explanation started to look suspect and the rumours took wings. Only Daniel knows what happened that day and he refuses to speak about it. Some say it’s because he is guilty.’
‘What do you think?’ she asked, not taking her eyes off Daniel, who also held hers. A sudden breeze blew through the churchyard whipping up some long dead leaves into a whirling frenzy between them.
‘I know Daniel feels guilty but whether it’s of murder, I don’t know. Folk in the village are happy to accept his help but they don’t seem to change their opinion of him. Many are jealous that a boy like him has become a man of property. Most people around here are tenant farmers and would do anything to have the opportunity to own their own ground. There is the possibility that Daniel did kill in order to own the farm and be rid of the old man. Daniel has had a rough life. His determination helped him survive. Determination can help you do a lot of things.’
‘Do you think he would commit murder?’
‘I think, given the right circumstances, anyone can commit murder. It is whether a man chooses to is the difference between us.’
Janey wondered for a moment whether she could. If someone was attacking her child would she kill to save their life? If James Brockenshaw had tried to rape her again while she carried a knife, would she have used it? Given the right circumstances she just might.
‘Daniel keeps himself to himself but there are some who think well of him,’ continued the vicar. ‘Have you met Edna, the old woman that cooks for him?’ Janey nodded, a half smile on her lips. ‘She sees some good in him and she is not easy to please! I too like the man, although I feel he could benefit from opening his mind to God’s voice and being friendlier to folk.’
‘It sounds like folk aren’t friendly to him,’ defended Janey. ‘My father used to say that God’s voice is not only heard in the church,’ she added.
‘I trust your father did not like attending service.’
‘He preferred reading his books,’ Janey replied, with a smile.
