Listening to the Quiet: A gripping saga of love and secrets in a Cornish village

By Gloria Cook

When new passions rise to the surface, old secrets threaten to ruin everything…

Jo Venner returns to the Cornish tin-mining village to where she grew up to take up the post of schoolmistress filled with memories of the happy days she spent there as a child. Despite being rejected by her mother, she is determined to build a life in Parmath.

She soon falls in love with Luke Vigus who stirs up feelings she has never known before. But Luke is burdened with the responsibility of an alcoholic mother and his three young half-siblings – and their relationship can never be accepted by the villagers.

Meanwhile Marcus Lidgey, the schoolmaster, is drawn to Jo. Yet he too harbours a dark past and is gradually, dreadfully, losing his mind…

An emotional saga of love and community set in Cornwall, perfect for fans of Anna Jacobs and Margaret Dickinson

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo Saga
• Release date: Jan 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788638654

Gloria Cook

Gloria Cook is the author of well-loved Cornish novels, including the Pengarron and Harvey family sagas. She is Cornish born and bred, and lives in Truro.

Book preview

To Roger, for always being there. Vicki and Dave Jones, Yvonne C. Craine, Mary Cross and Jenny Cook for their constant encouragement and friendship. Also Joy, Tina, Heidi, Claire, Margaret S., Margaret D., Roger S., Sarah, Natalie, Joan Sheppard in Canada and Kerith Biggs at Darley Anderson Agency. Special mention to Joanne Willoughby; without her interest and belief in me this book would not have been written.

Chapter One

‘You’re back then. How was it?’

‘You know what funerals are like, Alistair,’ Joanna Venner answered her brother, as he helped her take off her hat and coat. ‘It was awful.’

‘I’m sorry, Jo. You look cold. Come into the sitting room. I’ll order some tea.’

‘No, thanks. I want to have a serious talk with Mother. Straightaway. While I’m in a suitable mood.’ Jo glimpsed herself in the hall mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy from weeping. She flicked irritably at her bobbed, reddish-brown hair; why did it refuse to fall sleekly in front of her ears? She tugged at the waistline of her plain black dress. Fashion at the moment might dictate that her shape was to be desired and envied, but she was ashamed of her almost flat chest and boyish hips, and wished she had feminine curves. ‘Blast. I have only to spend a few nights under the same roof as Mother and I start fretting again about my appearance.’

‘Mother’s upstairs in her room.’ Lounging against the newel post of the stairs, Alistair stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘I’d have thought you two would have become closer after all those years apart. Believe it or not, I actually missed you. Are you returning to Hampshire so soon?’

‘No. I’m going somewhere Mother is most definitely not going to approve of. If I were you, I’d keep my head down all evening.’

‘What’s it all about?’

‘Let me get this over with first. I’ll explain later.’

‘It sounds intriguing, little thing. Want me to go up with you?’ He lazily puffed out a cloud of smoke, adding to the confusion of fittings and furniture, which, like the enormous fir tree, were overadorned with brightly coloured tinsel, baubles and streamers, begging for Twelfth Night to be over. The interior of Tresawna House – stately, built high up on the windswept cliff at Carbis Bay – was an unmarriageable blend of elegant Georgian origins and brash modern art and loud decor; the latter their mother had talked Alistair into buying, to show off to her latest acquisition of social acquaintances. Jo felt little allegiance to the house; she had few happy memories here.

‘Thanks, but I’ll do this by myself,’ Jo said resolutely. Whenever they were together, she and Alistair quarrelled tit for tat, hell-bent on bettering one another’s deeds or witticisms. Sibling rivalry apart, and Jo’s resentment at Alistair’s easy passage through childhood in comparison to hers, he was quietly supportive of her hard-won achievement in breaking free from their mother’s demands and expectations and forging her own life. Confident and unhurried, he was not afraid of asserting his authority over their pretentious mother. Jo loved and respected him for it. ‘You’ve got to live with her after I’ve left. We’ll be able to see each other regularly this time though. I’m not going very far away.’

‘Jo, wait. Be careful,’ Alistair counselled gravely. ‘Mardie Dawes called on Mother while you were out. You know how Mother hates having what she calls her mystical aura disturbed after the fortune-teller’s visits.’ He let out a snatch of laughter, sharing a trait of Jo’s, of switching moods rapidly in a manner others found disconcerting. ‘I listened at the door. Mardie told her the usual old tosh about a new man coming into her life and her acquiring a fortune within the next year or two. Then, after warning Mother to watch out for trouble with her kidneys this winter, she babbled on about someone’s mysterious wanderings and that a certain death was not what it appeared to be or something. Don’t know what that has to do with Mother, she’s hardly been out of the house since she contracted influenza back in November. I nearly gave myself away, I was laughing so much.’

‘I find it hard to understand how a cynical woman like Mother entertains such an obvious charlatan,’ Jo scoffed.

‘She’s like you, little thing. Fascinated by anything out of the ordinary.’

‘You’d never catch me parting with good money for something so blatantly fabricated. The old woman is a nuisance to the people of Parmarth. Anyway, if she really could see into the future she would have told Mother that she’s in for an upset, although, as it concerns me, only a minor one.’

Jo slowly climbed the dark oak stairs to her mother’s bedroom, resigned to what would be a confrontation. Katherine Venner had scorned everything Jo had said or done from childhood, while totally approving of her son, who had turned out exactly as a gentleman of education and privilege was expected to be. Married to a young lady of substance and accomplishment, Alistair was successfully expanding a private yacht-building business established on his late father’s banking fortune. Jo knew that this time she would receive not only the usual scorn at her hopes and dreams, but a round of utter hostility.

As Jo expected, her mother viewed her as she always did, with slight irritation and an entire lack of interest. It was an overcast day, but enough light streamed in through the tall windows to illuminate Katherine Venner’s firm outline. Nudging her fifty-fifth year, she had retained her courtly bearing and was still attractive, albeit hard and aquiline. Buffing her nails at her dressing table, she was flashily turned out in a multicoloured crêpe dress. Her softly waved hair, golden-red by courtesy of her hairdresser’s products, obliged her by lying in perfect symmetry. Jo saw new additions in the room she had rarely entered. On the mahogany bedside table, an ugly bronze statue of a naked man cavorted under a painted-glass lightshade. Brightly painted flatware and glass paperweights were peppered among the more graceful porcelain figurines.

‘What do you want, Joanna?’ Katherine jabbed a cigarette into a jade holder. ‘I asked Emma to make sure I was not interrupted. I want time for a long meditation before getting ready for my dinner party.’

‘Emma wasn’t about when I got back. I shan’t keep you long, Mother. I’ve something to tell you.’

‘If it’s not about accepting a suitable proposal of marriage I don’t want to hear it.’ Katherine pursed her glistening crimson lips. She always overdid her make-up and overplucked her eyebrows. ‘Why the black dress? You look like the lead of a pencil. And you’ve spent too long outside in the wind, your eyes are an unsightly colour.’

‘I’m wearing black and my eyes are red because I’ve just come from Celia’s funeral,’ Jo snapped, controlling the lump rising in her throat, not about to let her mother see the extent of her grief over losing her closest friend. Katherine could make Jo feel like a badly constructed drawing, one that Katherine seemed always to be seeking to rub out and reassemble to her own specifications.

‘Really, Joanna! You know I loathe that woman’s name being mentioned.’

‘How else could I answer your question? I’m sorry you still feel so hostile towards Celia. Have you forgotten how good she was to you when Father and Bob Merrick were killed?’

A tiny blue vein throbbed on Katherine’s temple, indicating her gall at Jo’s direct attack. ‘Joanna, you are too old to be sent to your room. Do you want me to slap your face?’

‘Certainly not.’ Jo found it difficult to imagine this woman had actually carried her inside her body and given birth to her. They were like distant strangers. No, more like two people merely on antagonistic social terms. ‘You ought to remember that if it wasn’t for your affair with Bob Merrick I would never have met Celia. She did you a service befriending me and keeping me occupied while you met your lover on the moors.’

‘I don’t wish to discuss that kept woman.’ Katherine ground her teeth, incensed that Jo should remind her how she had used her as a child as cover for her own adultery. ‘Now go away.’

‘I haven’t told you my news yet.’ Breaking from her mother’s hostile disregard, Jo went to a window and looked out across the bay. It brought back more hurtful memories of her home life. A little further downcoast, lacy white spume was riding the heavy winter waves surging towards St Ives’ Porthminster beach. Jo had painted this scene several times, outside on the cliff. Once, seeking Katherine’s acknowledgement, she had showed her one of her paintings and had been scorched by her remark, ‘The sea is like the contents of an inkwell and the figures on the beach look like dead ants on crushed biscuits.’

‘I’m not listening.’ Katherine returned to her nails.

‘Before Celia’s sudden death,’ Jo persisted, ‘which you so unkindly saw fit not to inform me of, but left to Alistair five days later, I had arranged to leave Hampshire and go to live with her. I’m changing schools. I’m going to teach at Parmarth.’

‘You’re what? You’ve left the young ladies’ academy? To lower yourself even further by teaching in a worthless primary school, and you even dare to bring your disgrace near to home?’

Squaring her narrow shoulders, Jo looked her mother straight in the eye. ‘Mother, teaching is a worthwhile profession and taking a position in the village where I have so many happy memories is something I wish to do. I don’t intend staying there for ever. I have other far-reaching plans. There is nothing wrong in following one’s desires – if they’re not selfish.’

‘Oh, you choose to make another jibe at me? You are opprobrious and ungrateful. As for teaching, it’s an option for women who have no hope of making a good marriage. You are plain and shapeless, Joanna. Your seemingly high intelligence is another of your displeasing features, but you have the advantage of your father’s trust fund. It is of ample proportions to ensure a gentleman of good repute will take the bait. Yet rather than look forward to your father’s benevolence in the future, you live on a meagre salary and now, presumably, you will earn even less. You have deliberately chosen to go against his wishes.’

Jo was not prepared to be merely swept away. Celia had taught her many things, one of them to stand and fight for her right to be heard. ‘Father died when I was very young, and there was nothing in his will expressing the wish that I meekly hand over my inheritance to someone else. You’re just bitter that Father left you nothing. I don’t understand your objections to my lifestyle. You’ve broken away from convention yourself, refusing half a dozen marriage proposals since you were widowed. And for years you’ve mixed with women who have chosen an academic career, or who earn their livelihood in the arts, in films, or the theatre. Most of them have never married. Why is it so different for me? It’s because you’ve always despised me, isn’t it? Because I wasn’t the sort of sweet, pretty child you could show off as a compliment to yourself.’

‘Yes, Joanna, you’ve always been a disappointment to me, and I’ll never forgive you for becoming so attached to that wretched Sayce woman, for taking her money to sponsor your time at college. Teach in that pathetic little village if you must, but you will not do so from under this roof.’ Katherine took a furious puff on her cigarette.

‘The house belongs to Alistair and he’d make me welcome for as long as I chose, but as I don’t want the atmosphere to be contentious for him and Phoebe, I have made other arrangements now that I cannot live at Cardhu.’ Jo made no attempt to keep the mocking out of her voice. ‘Mercy Merrick has been in touch with me. She’s offered to let me stay at Nance Farm.’

Rising to her well-shod feet, Katherine advanced on Jo, snarling. ‘Is there no limit to the lengths you will go to insult me? You’re actually going to stay with that other despicable woman?’ She halted, as if she could not bear to be close to her daughter. Contracting her eyes, she dropped her voice but still vented pure sarcasm. ‘Do you perhaps get some kind of perverse pleasure from having the Trevail brothers pulling you about?’

‘My plans do not involve getting back at you, Mother. Staying at Nance Farm is simply a practical arrangement. I won’t waste any more time with explanations. You could never understand my reasons for wanting to teach at Parmarth.’

‘Now Celia Sayce is dead you have no reason to stay in Cornwall. Ask Alistair to arrange your reinstatement at the young ladies’ academy.’

‘Can’t you bear the thought of me living so close to you, Mother?’ Jo ridiculed calmly. ‘I’m going to teach at Parmarth. There I shall feel close to Celia even though I won’t have her company. I will not change my plans.’

Katherine gave a malicious smile. ‘I think I know what your reasons were for intending to live at Cardhu. You were hoping the Sayce woman would value you so much in downgrading your ludicrous career and keeping her company in her old age that she’d leave you her house and money. She had no family and it was well known in our circles that Sheridan Ustick kept his mistress in comfort.’

‘That’s a vile thing to say! I loved Celia. She encouraged me to make a success of my life, to achieve my ambitions. She was the mother to me you should have been. What I do with my life is none of your business.’ Jo made what she thought was a fairly graceful withdrawal to the door. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’

‘I won’t have you at my table tonight,’ Katherine uttered through her teeth.

‘I want to meet Ben Nicholson. I’m interested to learn about his new approach to painting, something you will only pretend to understand.’

‘I’m quite sure Mr Nicholson and the rest of my guests will have nothing in common with you, Joanna. They’re real achievers, while you’re off to stagnate in a place that’s so primitive it belongs to the Dark Ages. We shall see how long you’ll endure living without the basic things like piped water and the luxuries you’re used to. When do you intend to leave for the farm?’

‘At the end of the week.’

‘Make it tomorrow. Be sure you keep out of my way until then. I have no wish to set eyes on you again until you apologise to me and plead that you have come to your senses.’

Chapter Two

A covered wagon rumbled down the main street of the solemn little village of Parmarth. Ignoring the curious faces popping up at many of the lantern-lit windows, Luke Vigus headed his young working horse round the back of the forge to the stable space he rented.

He took his time in the yard unhitching the wagon and securing the wares he plied all over the West Penwith area. He had just fixed up a good deal in a pub, and also had a load of stolen lead piping hidden on board. He should have been feeling pleased over the large profit he’d make, but in grim silence, he stalled, groomed and fed the horse, then leaned for long minutes on the animal’s warm neck.

When he left the stable, icy raindrops, borne on a cruel wind, lashed his body, wetting him through in seconds, freezing his flesh. He sought no shelter. Facing the stable door, he cupped his hands and lit a cigarette, drew in deeply, then in a defeated manner, turned and leaned against the whitewashed wall, crossing one heavy boot over the other on the cobbles.

Tall, well set, dressed in dusty working man’s garb, badly in need of a shave, his mouth taut, pale blue eyes compressed, he stared at the angry indigo sky and sighed in edgy discontent. He would rather stay here and perish in the extremes of the weather than go home.

It was a few days into a new decade, but 1930 offered no sense of hope, no fresh start for him. He was a young man. All he should have had on his mind was making a living and enjoying himself, not being dragged down by unsought responsibilities.

When the coldness had seeped into his bones, diluting his frustration to a manageable level, he strode down the village hill to the Engine House Inn and stayed there until closing time.

‘You got anything for me?’ Jessie Vigus demanded, the instant he got inside the door of their one-up, one-down cottage.

Glaring at his mother, Luke hurled back, ‘You got something to eat for me?’

‘There’s only the end of a loaf. I ain’t got nothing else in, Luke. How was I to know you was coming back? You’re on the road for weeks. Got a fag?’

Scowling, he ripped out the cigarette clenched between his lips and tossed it at her. Her hair wispy and prematurely grey, her body bloodless and emaciated by years of alcohol abuse, she was too unsteady to catch the begrudged offering and tottered drunkenly to retrieve it from the filthy stone floor.

Luke winced at the sight and smell of her. Jessie never washed the family’s clothes, rarely washed her body. Lew Trevail was a rotten dirty bastard for going with her and fathering another child to drag him down.

The baby whimpered, the pitiful, neglected sound of miscomprehension of an infant starving. Luke glanced down at his youngest sister, lying in her own filth in a corner of a drawer, half pulled out of the dresser. Marylyn’s skin was grey and biscuity, her eyes staring unnaturally out of hollow sockets. Pity his mother’s promiscuity and drinking habits hadn’t rendered her infertile.

‘You can’t expect keep if I don’t get no bloody food.’

‘I bet you’ve had a drink.’

‘I work flaming hard! I deserve a drink. I’ll give you nothing. Where’s the couch? I need something to sleep on when I’m here.’ He glanced at his other sister and his brother, six and seven years old, huddled pathetically in worn-out clothes at the stone hearth in a vain attempt to get warm from the smouldering twig fire. ‘And the kids’ good clothes and shoes I bought ’em? You’ve sold them, you bitch! What for? A few shillings’ worth of Mardie Dawes’ homemade poison?’

‘Luke, please,’ Jessie appealed as she got the shakes. She had trouble striking a match.

‘You can go to hell.’ He searched the cupboard built into the recess next to the fireplace. Pulled out a small tin that had once contained boot polish. Took off the lid. ‘Bloody empty!’ Gone was the money he’d left for Rex to buy food, milk and candles, and to pay the rent. He’d left more than enough for the month he’d been away. He wouldn’t have minded so much if there was something to show for it. Jessie must have beaten Rex, and probably little Molly too, until the boy confessed where he had hidden the tin. It would account for their fresh bruises.

Rex and Molly were used to the verbal abuse of their mother and brother on the few occasions Luke was home, but they were not listening to the quarrel. They watched Luke from gaunt, hungry eyes, hoping…

Cursing his mother, Luke put his hands into his jacket pockets. Jessie watched him avidly, greedily, like a ravenous she-wolf.

‘Here,’ he said to Rex, ‘I thought you’d still be up, and starving hungry. I’ve got something for you and Molly.’

Rex got up on bare, chilblained feet, held out eager hands. Jessie dived between her sons. Luke grabbed her by the arm and pushed her away.

‘They can’t live on fresh air, woman. The place stinks. Have you been sick again?’

While Rex and Molly gulped down meat pies and wrinkled-skinned apples, he hunted about, tossing the odd sticks of furniture out of his way. He kicked at a filthy rag and howled in disgust. A heap of dried vomit was underneath it, adding to the stench of urine and faeces which seemed to emanate from the very structure of the cottage. Luke pressed his knuckles to his forehead in shame and despair. This was his home, a cramped, dark and dank, sodden, mouldy cave.

Jessie made to run for the rope ladder that led to the upstairs room, which was reached through a hatch. Luke gripped her scrawny shoulder. In the worst language ever heard in Parmarth, he berated his mother. ‘Clean it up or I’ll throw you outside for the bloody night. It’s all you’re fit for, the gutter.’ He pushed her towards her offence. ‘This place is worse than a god-damned pigsty!’

‘You don’t have to live here,’ Jessie screeched, scrabbling with the rag. ‘Just piss off and leave me alone.’

‘I wish I’d never looked you up. You deserted me, leaving Gran to rear me. We were poor but everything was clean and not crawling with fleas. I always had food in my belly. I’d have gone off ages ago and never come back if it wasn’t for the kids. I don’t want to see any more of ’em in the churchyard. You go, you filthy whore! We’d be better off without you dragging us down.’

Seven children his mother had borne, each from a different father, none with the benefit of a wedding ring. Luke had been her first. He had dark gipsy looks, had spent a lot of time with gipsies and assumed his father had been one. He was cursed with the gipsy desire to keep on the move. Open spaces were as precious to him as the fresh air he breathed. Right now, he felt he was suffocating.

Dirty and wearily pale, Rex and Molly gorged the food without a murmur, gazing alertly at the pair scrapping and swearing.

Pointing at the baby, Luke asked Rex, ‘She had anything today?’

The boy shook his scurf-ridden head.

‘I’ll go over to Nance Farm and get some milk. Mercy Merrick stays up late. Tomorrow I’m going to see about getting the baby adopted.’

‘You can’t go to the authorities, Luke,’ Jessie wept, shaking uncontrollably, struggling to her feet, her self-abused state forcing her to lean against the dresser. ‘They might wonder how some of the others died.’ She became malicious, mocking him. ‘If they put me away, I’ll say you were in on it. Then we could both hang.’

Luke banged his fist against the cold bare wall. ‘God in heaven, what have I done to deserve this?’ There were times he was afraid he would give way to the utter disgust and loathing which cankered inside him for his mother and beat her senseless.

‘If something better doesn’t happen soon,’ he whispered in despair, ‘I just might…’

Chapter Three

In heavy silence, Jo sat straight-backed and implacable beside Alistair as he drove towards Parmarth. They were bumping along the narrow, winding coast road, which had recently been tarred and gritted for the first time, passing lonely farmsteads, running streams, stone walls, stretches of open moor, all flanked by gaunt boulder-strewn hills.

Alistair always motored idiotically fast and Jo clung to the door strap. Her luggage, heaped on the back seat, was under continuous threat of being pitched on to the floor of the black and yellow Bentley. The air inside the car was choked with the stench of Alistair’s pipe and she wound the window down to draw in a welcome breath of crisp air.

She turned to gaze at the stony entrance of Bridge Lane. A short distance along the quiet thoroughfare, sheltered in a valley, was Cardhu, where she had proposed to live. It was down the lane, on the little flat granite bridge not far from the house, where, as a six-year-old, she had first met Celia. Jo had been washing muck and blood off her hands, knees and dress, after being dragged through a field with cowpats and thistles by the Trevail brothers. She had been brought to the area by Katherine, who had slipped away from the pretence of taking a country picnic, for an assignation with the boys’ uncle, Bob Merrick.

Jo longed to get out of the car and run to the house where she had been treated with such genuine concern, sensitivity and love. This close to Cardhu, she was inspired once again to pursue her dreams, no matter how stupid and futile they seemed to others. She sighed, vexed that her feelings were dismissed in certain quarters.

Alistair crashed the gears as he took a tight bend and ignored her.

They rounded the next bend and the square tower of the village church came into view. Alistair swept the Bentley importantly through the village, making the few people who were about stare and comment huffily at the madness of some drivers.

Jo kept her eyes on the churchyard for as long as she could. Only twenty-four hours ago, she had shivered in the biting winds and wept over the simple coffin of the kindest, most positive person she had ever known. And she had been grieved that so few people had attended the funeral. Celia had been good to the villagers, employing from among them, during a time when jobs were scarce, a washerwoman, a seamstress, a delivery boy and a gardener.

She only caught a glimpse of the school and wondered what it was like inside. In a couple of days she would find out.

Taking her make-up mirror out of her clutch bag, she manoeuvred her head to get an overall view of her face. She touched the pink satin rose, blowing in the draught, on her slouch hat. Free again from her mother’s cold disapproval, she was feeling lighthearted and full of purpose, and she looked it.

‘Why care about how you look?’ Alistair said impatiently. ‘You’re going to live in a primitive backwater. There won’t be anything of what we take for granted. There’s probably not even a cricket team. You must be mad coming to this place.’

‘It’s a perfect place to paint in,’ Jo pointed out. ‘Many important artists are using the moors these days for the clear, vibrant light and the glorious scapes, including Mother’s dinner guest last night. There are writers and poets too.’

‘You mean like that D. H. Lawrence fellow who once lived at Zennor, which we’ve not long passed through? If you paint like he writes, your work will be disgusting.’

‘You just don’t understand what he’s trying to say!’

‘Well, all I can say is, I truly hope you don’t.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

Jo felt the Arctic coldness seep through her fur-collared coat. She sniffed the air. She had not lost the senses she had acquired of what the weather had in store. A heavy shower of rain was imminent.

‘Close the damned window,’ Alistair barked. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

Jo complied, then replied tightly, ‘I’d appreciate it if you knocked out your pipe.’

‘For goodness’ sake.’ He thrust the pipe at her and she was forced to remove its offending matter herself. ‘You can’t expect me to approve of this stupid plan of yours, so stop sulking.’

‘I never sulk, as you well know. I thought you could see things my way a little, that’s all.’

‘You hate it when I take Mother’s side, don’t you?’

‘I simply don’t think you’re being fair.’

‘I’ve driven you to this blasted little place, haven’t I?’

‘You could be more gracious about it.’

‘You could be more grateful. You want everything your own way. Always have. Well, if you make a pig’s ear of it, you’ve only yourself to blame.’

‘Have I ever asked you to take the responsibility for my mistakes?’

‘No.’

‘Well, shut up and drive carefully. I’d like to arrive at Nance in one piece.’

Jo’s eyes were drawn constantly to the forsaken works of the Solace tin mine. Laid bare to the weather, set close to the cliff edge a quarter of a mile away, the buildings were silhouetted against the murky, darkening sky, dominating the western horizon as they had done for eighty years.

Hunching his shoulders over the steering wheel, Alistair tacked a path to avoid muddy puddles and the heaps of manure left by livestock. ‘I didn’t really see any harm in you taking up a career, Jo, but to seek such a lowly position, to teach creatures who aren’t worth the bother, is inconceivable. It’s pathetic.’

A mix of determination and indignation became Jo’s expression. ‘When I come into my trust fund, Alistair, I’m going to strike out on my own. Open a school for girls, where they will be given every encouragement to strive for their ambitions, like Celia Sayce did for me, and I shall provide scholarships for girls just like those who live in Parmarth. And the children here are not creatures and they are worth every consideration. How dare you take such a high and mighty attitude towards the lives of people you know nothing about?’

‘You don’t know them. The Sayce woman kept you all to herself. Besides, their families are as poor as church mice. They won’t welcome someone of your background.’

‘I may not know this generation of children but I once mixed with some of the villagers.’ Jo was aware that she knew little of the conditions most of her pupils lived in but she felt an empathy with them. She knew what it was like to be considered of no value. Now she was back on the beloved moors where she had gained her freedom, where she had been loved and nurtured, she no longer cared about Alistair’s views, or her mother’s.

‘What, those scabrous brothers?’ he scoffed. ‘Hardly a recommendation.’

Jo saw no need to justify her actions and fell silent again, reintroducing herself to the moors. The high ground of the coast road afforded spectacular views of the carns and mighty tors, the cliffs and the seaboard.

While she savoured these familiar sights, the first freezing raindrops hit the windscreen. Winter had its harsh grip on the surrounding land. The uninitiated might see only its barrenness and the bleak derelict engine houses, the towering chimney stacks and ugly slag piles; tragic memorials of Cornwall’s once thriving tin and copper industry. Jo, however, saw life and purpose. The vast sweeps of bracken, dead gorse and heather, and the huge granite boulders were coloured in living, vibrant browns, russets, reds and every shade of grey. She sensed the presence of the ancients who had trodden the long-vanished paths, felt the very spirit of the land. She had come back, and it was as if during her absence this soul-stirring beauty had been waiting for her.

Nance Farm’s rambling buildings were situated either side of a bend in the road, and sheltered by high grey stone walls from the vagaries of the wind and rain which swept over the West Penwith moors, the most westerly moors of Cornwall, with unrelenting regularity at this time of the year. Next to Cardhu, it was Jo’s favourite place to come back to.

Alistair stopped the motorcar on the road. ‘Much more sanitary than the farmyard, I’m sure,’ he muttered darkly.

Jo did not wait for him to help her alight. ‘Don’t worry,’ she smirked, ‘you won’t spoil your shoes.’ A path of straw had been laid over the thickly muddied ground, from the wide, open farm entrance to the front door; a thoughtful gesture by Mercy.

Within minutes they had deposited Jo’s luggage inside the porch, then stood gazing at each other, many a remark lying unspoken on their lips. An intense steamy smell threatened to clog their nostrils, but if Alistair noticed the fouled air he chose not to mention it.

He smiled faintly. ‘I don’t want to leave you here, little thing.’

‘I’m a grown woman, Alistair. I can look after myself.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing. Well, you can always find a telephone and get in touch if you need me, I suppose.’ He kissed her cheek, and before she could reply he left her.

Outside in the rain, she watched as he reversed the Bentley into the yard and drove away, waving until he was out of sight.

Then she turned her back on her family’s disapproval, to relish every inch of the rugged, neglected aspect of the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. The roof had been slated in 1919 when the thatch had caught fire, taking away some of its charm. A coat of dark green paint had been dabbed on the window frames and splashed on the door, without the old paintwork first being sanded down. Dust, grit and mud had gathered carelessly against the doorstep. The long narrow flowerbeds either side of the porch, once proudly tended by Mercy’s good-natured