Page 59 of The Cornish Bride

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They rode down to the sea the very next day. Cubert, who was the younger of the two men, and had turned out to be the old woman Doryty’s youngest son, gave them directions. Carlyon Court being set a short way inland and above tall cliffs, this involved riding north for a mile or two, until the shoreline dipped, at last, to sand hills and a wide stretch of beach. Perfect for a gallop, Cubert promised.

Sam refused to let Ysella go alone, which had been her first idea. Then she’d offered to ride with James as escort, but, as Sam pointed out, James was to take the carriage back to Ormonde that day and shouldn’t be delayed.

So, after a substantial and very tolerable breakfast of eggs, bacon and coffee taken in the freshly cleaned dining room, they set out together on a bright, late-spring morning. Overhead, the harsh cry of the gulls wheeling in a pristine blue sky heralded their journey.

Ysella had only ever seen tiny Nanpean Cove before, where her Uncle Jago lived, the scene of the abortive raid by the revenue men only a year ago. According to Cubert’s effusive description, this new beach was going to be far superior from the point of view of riding. Jaunty in her green riding habit and a matching hat, she sat up straight on Lochinvar, who seemed well-rested after his five days of constant travel, gazing about herself with interest.

Their way led down narrow, high-hedged and stony-banked lanes, with no view at all of the sea to begin with. It climbed across the broad headland that Cubert swore was all that divided the Court from Branok Bay. “It do mean ‘Bay o’ the Ravens’,” he’d told Ysella, with some small pride. “And they do say as there were them old priests there once. Them druidicals. Ravens was holy to them, so they chose the bay as a spot for their temple.” He blushed. “If’n you don’t mind me tellin’ you this. Miss Ys-Mrs. Beauchamp.”

Ysella had laughed out loud. “Oh, Cubert. Please keep calling me Miss Ysella. Mrs. Beauchamp makes me sound like an old married woman, and I don’t feel like one at all.” Her turn to blush as the import of her words soaked in, hopefully only to her and not him. Shouldn’t she be feeling like an old married woman by now, and not a girl anymore? In truth, she didn’t feel married at all, what with sleeping in separate rooms, and only coming together for the occasional meal, and conversing awkwardly like distant strangers. With a shrug she shook off the feeling.

Sam, smart in a well-cut dark blue coat, trotted by her side on Hercules, his sandy hair, unencumbered by any hat, blowing in the breeze. She studied him out of the corner of her eye. He looked happy, but was he? Might she be responsible for making him unhappy? Morvoren had said Sam cared for her, which she’d known to be true. They’d been friends for years, since she, Ysella, had been a child and he a gangly youth. And she cared for him. A lot. Did he secretly want more from this marriage than the clumsy attempt at continued friendship they were making? Was she cheating him of something?

She shook herself. No. She would not think about that. Sam had known what he was agreeing to when he’d said he would marry her. He’d offered it up himself. Said they could live as friends, and friends had nothing more between them than she’d been prepared to give this past month. However, the paucity of what she’d offered him gave her a sharp twinge of guilt, which she shoved aside. No. She wouldn’t think about it. He was happy. Look at him. He was smiling. He must be happy.

The lane curved to the left, and the road began to drop away steeply. Slowing Lochinvar to a walk, Ysella caught her breath. Before them stretched an expanse of sandy beach that made Nanpean’s small cove look like a garden compared to parkland. A border of rolling sandhills separated it from the moorland scattered with isolated forms that backed onto it, and, far out, white topped waves made a pretty fringing to the sand. “Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “I never thought a beach could be so huge.”

She met Sam’s gaze. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

Sam laughed and nodded. “You forget that I’ve been down here with Kit on my own. We traveled on the mailcoach which stops at Penzance. I saw the beach there—which I have to say is bigger even than this. And there’s a little island part way along it, with a sort of castle perched on top of it. Very picturesque. I believe people go to Penzance just to see it.”

That sounded most unusual. “I should like to see that. But for now, Branok Bay will do me. I’m itching for a gallop and I should imagine poor Lochinvar is too, after all the dreadful roads he had to put up with on our journey down here.” She urged Lochinvar into a faster walk. “Let’s hurry.”

The lane wound down the side of the headland, with cliffs to their left and small, stone-banked fields to their right. Beyond the fields lay open moorland, dotted with the small white shapes of sheep. Overhead, the swooping gulls kept up their constant screeching cries.

As they reached level ground, Ysella urged Lochinvar into a trot. “These are the same kind of sandhills they have at Nanpean,” she called over her shoulder to Sam. “Difficult to walk over on foot, and it seems much the same to ride over.”

“They’re called dunes,” Sam rejoined. “Sand dunes. I believe the word has a similar origin to the word ‘downs’ for the chalk hills of Wiltshire.”

Trust Sam to know that.

She was forced to slow Lochinvar to a walk over the shifting dry sand. Hummocks rose before her, surmounted by clumps of long, spiky grass, the dips between them harder packed and easier to negotiate. The distant rumble of the sea drew her on beguilingly, as she led the way along what seemed to be a well-used track. As the sandhills parted, the wide expanse of the beach opened up in front of her.

“We’re in luck we’ve found the tide right out,” Sam said. “See the high-water mark, where all the seaweed and driftwood’s been cast up? That’s all the beach we’d have if the tide had been fully in.”

“The tide?”

Sam nodded. “Twice a day the sea comes right in, but it takes a long time to do so. It’s not a sudden thing, so we’re quite safe. It carries with it all the bits you see before you and deposits them at its furthest reach.”

How handy that Sam knew everything. A trait to be valued in a friend.

Ysella surveyed the evidence of the sea having come up to within thirty yards of the sandhills. “So, with it this far in, we wouldn’t be able to get out beyond those rocky headlands to left and right?”

Sam nodded. “The water will come in and swamp them at high tide, but today we’ll be able to ride out beyond them onto the furthest beaches. Those that are unusable for most of the day. They’re backed by cliffs, so there’s no access to them when the tide is even halfway in or out. Most likely there are strong currents, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to swim for safety if one were caught along there with the tide coming in.”

Ysella swallowed. “I can’t swim, so that would do me no good. I couldn’t swim to safety even if I wanted to.” Kit had learned to swim in the lake at Ormonde as a child, which had seemed manifestly unfair to her when she found out. She’d kicked up a rumpus at not being allowed to do the same, and even hitched up her skirts and gone wading in the shallows until Papa had sent Kit in to drag her out. Girls, it seemed, were not allowed to learn to swim. After that she’d watched, bitter with jealousy, when Kit had friends home from school and in old breeches they’d cavorted in the lake.

“That big old pike’ll bite your feet off,” she’d threatened, but they’d laughed in her face. Mean things.

“Swimming is a useful skill if you live beside the sea,” Sam said. “However, I’ve heard it said that sailors never learn to swim, so if their ship is wrecked, they drown the quicker.”

Ysella shivered. “I should not like to drown at all, so even if I were a sailor, I’d be sure I knew how to swim.” She waved a hand to the left, in the general direction of Nanpean Cove. “Can we canter on the sand? It looks most tempting, and Lochinvar is itching to stretch his legs. I can feel it.”

Keeping the horses in a gentle canter, which Sam said was advisable as sand could vary in consistency, they rode south along the beach towards the first jutting cliffs, a small headland that separated Branok from the next small inlet. A series of such rocky arrangements poked their noses across the sand, each one sheltering the equivalent of a little cove. At last, they reached where the cliffs towered out across the water, and there was no more sand to be found.

Ysella slowed Lochinvar to a trot and then a walk, his sides heaving. “Can we walk the horses in the sea? I’ve heard tell the salt water is good for their legs.”