Page 26 of The Cornish Widow

Chapter Thirteen

Letting Peggy tuck in behind Shadow, Harriet followed Jack up through the low sandhills onto a stretch of scrubby grassland. Rabbits scattered in all directions, but the small, tough-looking sheep with their wooly, half-grown lambs ignored the horses. Across this open grazing land, the Penzance Road cut an unimpressive swathe. If you could call it a road. She’d noted on their stagecoach journey down into Cornwall that the further they strayed from Bath, the worse the roads became, and here it was little more than a stony, pot-holed track and had been an uncomfortable ride in the stagecoach.

“Not far now,” Jack said, as they turned to the left and headed towards the village, where it sat, hugging the curve of the bay and astride the coach road.

Of course, Harriet had seen plenty of small villages or towns but never a fishing village like this before. On the outskirts, the main road led between the semi-tumbledown cottages of the poorest inhabitants, but as they progressed, the quality of the buildings improved, and soon they were riding down a wide High Street and into a bustling marketplace.

“Market day,” Jack remarked, as though he thought she needed telling. There’d been markets in Bath too. She wasn’t stupid.

Shadow and Peggy had slowed to a walk, passing between stalls selling everything from live chickens to hot pies, possibly themselves made of chicken, a kind of insult to their clucking neighbors. Hurdled pens held pigs and sheep, amidst displays of farm tools, pots of honey and conserves, as well as stalls displaying all-manner of vegetables that were tucked in every possible corner.

The people moving between the stalls were a motley bunch—some of them clearly the poorer members of the community in their drab homespun clothing, the few children barefooted and grubby. Others resembled the better-off working class Harriet had seen in and about the parks and streets of Bath—clean and tidy but in clothes that had seen a good degree of wear. And here and there, the more genteel paraded, women with jaunty bonnets and men in tailcoats and shiny topboots like Jack’s. Not many of them though, and Jack seemed keen to avoid meeting them, hurrying the horses away as he spotted them.

“We’d best leave our horses at the Star.” Jack indicated a reasonable sized inn on the corner of a side road. “I doubt your Mrs. Bolitho will have stables we can leave them in.”

Was he planning on accompanying her right up to the house? Somehow, she’d envisioned herself facing this challenge alone. However, the thought of turning up with a gentleman in tow only had the effect of making her quail. What would Ben’s aunt think of her? That she was a fast woman who had moved on from Ben in the blink of an eye, that was what.

“Captain… I mean Jack. This is something I have to do alone. I appreciate that you are willing to escort me, but really, I think it’s best if I do this by myself.”

He’d kicked his feet out of his stirrups about to dismount. “As you wish. But I insist on taking you to the door, and I shall wait outside while you see her.” He must have seen the expression on her face. “But have no fear. I shall do so unobtrusively.”

She managed a smile. “That is very kind.”

He swung down from Shadow and came around to help her down. “Nonsense. It’s nothing.”

Their eyes met. Was that understanding in his eyes? Surely he wasn’t that perceptive. He was a man, after all. She slid down into his waiting arms and felt the strength of his steadying grip about her waist for a brief moment. Before she could recoil, though, he’d released his hold and stepped back, as if instinct had told him how much she didn’t want to be held by any man. “Thank you.” She smoothed her habit and caught up the loop that would enable her to walk without trailing her skirt in the dust and dirt of the street.

A young ostler in a collarless shirt with its sleeves rolled up above his elbows, over brown breeches, stockings and heavy working boots, emerged from the side gates of the Star. “Stablin’, Cap’n Trevelyan?”

So Jack was well-known here.

Jack nodded. “Thank you, Jonno. An hour, two at most.” He handed a coin over to the man, who took Shadow’s and Peggy’s reins as though he knew them. “Just a slice of hay. No oats.”

The coin disappeared into a leather bag on his belt, and the man saluted, as best he could while holding two horses, then led them through the archway into the inn’s backyard.

Harriet looked back at the street, which seemed suddenly more crowded now she was on the same level as the people on foot. Which way? Luckily, Jack knew. Tucking her hand into the crook of his left elbow, he guided her along the edge of the street, keeping as close to the buildings as possible and skirting the main thoroughfare between the market stalls, where the majority of shoppers were walking.

A bare minute or two later he steered her out of the busy market and to the right, up a street only a little wider than a stagecoach. A selection of shops lay to either side—a dressmakers, a milliners, and a tailors, in between more day to day necessaries such as an apothecary’s, a chandlers, and an ironmongers. So, this was the oddly named Causewayhead. Less crowded down here, as no doubt most of the townspeople were looking for market day bargains.

Mrs. Bolitho’s house lay towards the top of this road, a little back from most of the other buildings which gave it room for a small, iron-gated and stone-slabbed front yard. It stood taller as well, with three main, sash-windowed stories and smaller windows in the roof indicating an attic for servants’ accommodation.

Jack halted at the gate. “I’ve spied myself a coffee house just along the street. I’ll leave you here and wish you luck with your aunt.” He made a bow. “If your interview is swift, then look for me in the coffee house, and we’ll return to our horses together.” He released her hand from his arm, holding it for a moment as though unwilling to relinquish it entirely, and perhaps inclined to give it a reassuring pat. Very avuncular.

His company suddenly felt like something Harriet would have appreciated, going into the lion’s den as she was. Or worse, to face a dragon, as St George had done, but without a trusty sword. Before she succumbed and asked him to stay, she turned sharply away and hastened up to the imposing front door. No. She would not glance back over her shoulder to see if he still stood there.

A bell rope hung by the door, so she gave it a firm tug. From inside came the discordant clang of it ringing.

Steeling herself, she waited.

After what felt like a long time, the door swung open on a young woman in a starched white apron over a dull gray dress. The white mob cap on her mousey-brown hair indicated her status as housemaid. “Can I help you, ma’am?” She sounded nervous.

Harriet took a deep breath. “I’m here to see Mrs. Bolitho. She’s not expecting me, but she knows me and was aunt to my late husband. You can tell her it’s Mrs. Penhallow who has come to call.”

The girl, who couldn’t have been a lot older than Lydia, opened the door wider, her doubtful eyes betraying a certain obvious lack of confidence about letting some stranger claiming a relationship with her mistress into the house. “If you’ll wait here, ma’am, I’ll go and see if the mistress is seeing people today.” And leaving Harriet standing in the gloomy hallway, she was gone up the narrow staircase.

Harriet stared about herself with nervous interest. A few dark pictures hung on the walls, and beneath the stairs stood a door that might lead to the kitchens. If only her heart would cease its infernal hammering she might feel better about this encounter. No matter what she’d thought outside, this was an old lady she was about to see, and not either a lion or a dragon.

The girl returned promptly, her booted feet clattering on the stairs. “The mistress is in the library. She says she’ll see you.” She gestured. “This way.”