Chapter Six
Adam felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
He was not alone.
Whoever watched did not want to make themselves known. He turned slowly, looking in the shadows for a telltale figure. Nothing made itself obvious to him. The stream bubbled along merrily as it had always done; the old priory was still there. He’d played in the ruin as a child and later became a man there, in deed if not in years. In fact, it looked as though not another stone had tumbled since he first saw it. It made him feel like he was ten years old once more.
Surmising that whoever watched had slipped away, more cautious of him than he was of them, Adam started whistling a familiar tune, one they used to keep time as they brought in the halyards. He approached the standing end wall where an old window opening would have once have contained stained glass, the sill at waist height. Adam placed a palm flat on the wall to the left of the opening and closed his eyes, feeling the rough texture of stone weathered for centuries but still solid – a mute sentinel which had stood watch while two young people cautiously and tentatively explored the act of love together.
Sweet Constance.
Kenstec House was only just through the trees. Perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm to venture as far as the edge of the lawns. He doubted anyone would recognize him. Squire Denton would be in his seventies now, if he lived.
Even if his presence was questioned, he could always say he was a rambler who had lost his way.
Adam took a deep breath, bringing with it the nostalgic scent of honeysuckle. It was a perfume Constance favored, and it was strong here, as though her presence lingered still. And yet…
He furrowed a brow. There was no honeysuckle covering the ruins, so where had it come from?
He opened his eyes and was face to face with a woman through the opening in the wall.
“Constance?”
The woman looked as shocked as he did.
Before he had time to compose himself, the woman fled, disappearing into the thick of the trees.
“Constance!”
He called out her name once more but had gone no further than a few steps in pursuit before his rational mind could alert him to the differences between the two women.
Constance would be nearly forty now. That woman was at least ten years younger. This woman’s hair was much darker. But it was the eyes he remembered. Constance’s eyes were the lightest shade of blue. His wood sprite had brown eyes – as big and as frightened as a doe’s.
Adam chuckled to himself. He’d frightened a maid from Kenstec House. Or perhaps, it was she who startled him.
Either way, it wasn’t an auspicious return to Ponsnowyth.
He left the woods by the same path he’d entered, one that would take him out to the main road down into the village. He had made his lodgings at the local inn owned by the Trellows and given his name to the young man behind the bar, but nothing out of the ordinary registered on his face.
It would appear the name of Hardacre in these parts died along with his father ten years ago. And he himself had been gone for twenty…perhaps Ridgeway had miscalculated. Why would anyone particularly care about him? And yet his lordship seemed certain enough.
Walking the road, he reached the entrance to the formal drive to Kenstec House and leaned against a stone pillar to relace his boot. Framed in the line of trees was the figure of the young woman in green he’d startled. Now, she made a less hurried pace back to the house.
He smiled to himself and carried on.
At least he could assure himself he hadn’t seen a ghost. His own memories were enough to contend with.
The roundish, middle-aged woman emerged from the tap room and stood before him, her arms placed on her hips, now making her twice as wide as she was tall. She looked him up and down.
He grinned before swooping down and kissing her on the cheek.
“It never is…Adam Hardacre!” she cried. “I thought my boy Will had got it wrong when he told me who the new lodger was.”
“Good day to you, Mrs. Trellow. It’s good to be back.”
“Well, I never thought I’d see the day – I thought ye were wedded to the sea!”
Adam turned around at the male voice and was met by Polly Trellow’s husband, Jory. He shook the big, meaty hand of the tavern owner. Although he was no longer a young man, Jory had a grip that was still strong. “It was just after yer father passed when ye were last here, weren’t it?”
“Aye, it was.”
Jory shuffled past him and his wife to reach the bar. Without asking, he pulled three ale glasses out from under the counter and started pouring from the tapped keg. Polly herded Adam toward the bar with a pat of her hand on his arm.
“Now, are ye back for good?” asked Jory.
Adam had thought long and hard about his answer on the journey from Truro. He was not a man who complained about his lot. He preferred his actions to speak for him. It was in his nature to shrug off a setback and walk on, but now he had a new role to play.
“Maybe so. It seems the Navy has no time for men like me. Good enough to be a warrant officer, not the right sort to be in the upper ranks.”
Polly clucked her tongue. “Well, perhaps that’s the kind of trouble ye don’t want,” she said. “Them gentry types are peculiar – not for the likes of us to be fussin’ about with.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Mrs. Trellow.” Adam picked up one of the ales and took a long draught. He sighed with great appreciation. “Ah, the finest lager anywhere in the world. It’s good to be back. Here’s cheers.”
They toasted with their ale glasses and Adam took another mouthful then continued. “I was going to stop by the mill. Does old man Kernow still own it?”
“He’s too old to work it now,” answered Jory. “He leased it to a young couple by the name of Trezise. They’ve not been long in the district, but they’re a nice family.”
“Well, I’ve got a little money behind me – the Navy’s had to pay me out for twenty years of service. Perhaps I’ll buy myself a cottage and a fishing boat, and that’ll do enough for me.”
Mrs. Trellow cocked an eyebrow at him. “Now ye’ve settled down, ye should be thinkin’ of findin’ yerself a wife to keep house and be a companion – ye’re not as young as ye used to be!”
“Leave him be, Pol, there’s plenty of time for him yet.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.” Adam grinned behind his glass and drained the rest of the beer. “I think I’ll take a walk down to the fleet at Flushing and see if there’s anything doing.”
“Have ye been to Falmouth, lad?”
“Just once,” said Adam. “The Andromeda is still in port and…”
He shrugged his shoulders, leaving the rest of his feelings unspoken. Jory nodded his understanding. Polly shook her head, tut-tutting her dismay once more.
“Make sure ye be back by dark,” she said. “I be servin’ up pie tonight and there’s a fresh barrel of cider Will’s bringin’ back from Truro.”
“Thank you.”
Adam meant it sincerely. The Trellows were decent people, salt of the earth, and he wanted to lie to them as little as possible.
The road from the village rounded a hill over a distance of several hundred yards before it emerged onto the low lands exposed to the English Channel. Standing lookout over them all was Ponsnowyth Church, Norman in design, made of bluestone. The cemetery beside it was windswept, keeping the grass low, while both tree and headstone alike bowed to the greater power of the elements.
Adam looked up at the sky. With twilight still some time off, he figured he had time to stop. In fact, he had time to do anything he wished. He shook his head at Ridgeway’s instruction to keep himself visible.
In that case, perhaps he should march up to the front door of Kenstec House and deliver a blow or three to Squire Denton in long-overdue repayment of the beating he received at the hands of Geen the overseer as a first and final warning to stay away from Kenstec, and Constance in particular.
For a long time, what happened in the wood after he found his gift to Constance gone was knocked clean out of his head. It came back to him bit by bit like a jigsaw over weeks and months. He had been in agony, Adam recalled, every inch of his body hurt from the beating when they handed him the quill. He signed what he thought was a promise to never see Constance again and another paper that Geen had told him was an apology for presuming to be familiar with someone his better.
What he hadn’t known was one was a letter to his family telling them he had made the decision to go to sea, and the other was his letter of indenture. Adam had only learned about that when he returned to sort out his father’s effects after the old man’s death.
By that time, the circumstances of his enlistment had been moot because, by some strange quirk of nature, Navy life had agreed with him. He had been just promoted to bosun’s mate by then and, for the most part, the resentment was as long gone as the bruises and the cuts he wore on his first voyage. He was genuinely content for a while. His old life – and Constance – just a bittersweet memory.
He glanced over the low stone wall that surrounded Ponsnowyth Church. There, among the greyed and weathered headstones flecked with moss and yellow lichen, was a clean, new gravestone, a little grander than the rest – in marble, no less.
Who was this then?
He opened the gate and entered the churchyard. The western sun shone brightly on the stone and he couldn’t make out the inscription until he was almost upon it.
Beaufort Denton
Esq.
9 September 1732 – 6 January 1804
Late of Kenstec House
husband of Caroline
father of Lydia
So, the old man had kicked the bucket at last. In the mood he was in at the moment, Adam was tempted to spit on his grave, but he refrained.
Caroline and Lydia. The old man had also remarried and sired another daughter. Adam looked at the well-tended but older grave alongside the squire’s.
Tressa Denton (nee Keast)
1754 – 1782
loving wife of Beaufort Denton, esq
mother of Constance
forever missed
Obviously not missed that long. But that was odd…why wasn’t Constance’s name on her father’s grave, along with her father’s widow and her half-sister?
With trepidation and increasing confusion, Adam walked along the row of graves that marked the resting places of generations of the Denton family.
Constance’s name was not among them.
*
Constance? Constance!
The man’s question lingered and his exclamation rang in Olivia’s ears as she ran through the woods into the safety of the estate grounds.
Who was he? Why would this stranger mistake her for a girl who had been dead these past twenty years? She was afraid she knew the answer, but no – surely it was too much of a coincidence for it to be Adam Hardacre.
By the time Olivia had got halfway across the lawn, she had dissuaded herself from such a foolish belief. She must have misheard the man. Clearly, he had been as surprised by her appearance there as she was of his.
She let herself into the house via the kitchen and bolted the door. In the stillness, she became acutely aware of her isolation inside the manor walls. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to stay here on her own tonight.
She wondered if it was too late to accept Polly’s invitation to live at the inn for a few days. Olivia hadn’t minded being on her own in the earlier part of the week when there was much to do in the house. But now, with that work nearly completed, one could almost entertain the thought of ghosts.
And while she was in the mood to contemplate such matters, it was also time to stop dwelling in the past; worse still, in someone else’s past.
The fate of the ill-starred lovers from Constance’s diary was long ago and there was nothing more she could do about it. The mystery of it had been solved.
Olivia went up to her room and packed a small valise. The afternoon sun through the window brought out the red grain of the mahogany of the writing box. Inside it, she had reunited Adam’s love notes with Constance’s diary as well as the letters from St. Thomas’ Hospital in London which told of the young woman’s untimely end.
She ran her hand over the box. Did this Adam the carpenter still live?
If she left now, she could stop by the Trezises’ at the timber mill on her way to the inn and ask if they knew how to contact the former owner. She would write him a letter to explain who she was and what she had found. She would make the offer of returning the box and the papers relating to his one-time sweetheart.
Without truly knowing why she did so, Olivia shoved the writing box under her bed next to her trunk. Something that had been hidden for so long ought to be kept hidden until it could be returned to its rightful owner.
And as for the stranger, she would describe him to Polly and Jory and see if they knew him from their village or the surrounding area, or if someone new had arrived locally. If anyone would know who he was, then they would.
The sun had reached the top of the tree line by the time Olivia had bolted the kitchen door and it took another half an hour to brush down and feed the old grey gelding before it started to feel too neglected.
Perhaps she should ride him, although she would struggle to get a saddle on him without the assistance of a groomsman. Cooper, the youngster the Trellows employed as a stable boy, could look after him much better than she could. She would suggest to Mr. Fitzgerald that the horse be agisted in the paddock behind the inn until Mistress Caroline made a decision whether or not to sell the animal.
Olivia tied the green ribbon of her straw hat under her chin and picked up her bag. She followed the drive to the road and took one glance back at the imposing house.
She’d almost forgotten about the uncomfortable exchange with the solicitor earlier that morning. Mr. Fitzgerald had been about to kiss her hand and there had most definitely been a look, although, equally, she could have been mistaken in believing his interest in her extended beyond that of the most basic and professional sort.
But what if she wasn’t wrong? Should she accept his attentions? What were his intentions? Inexperienced in these matters she may be, but she was not a naive woman. Olivia knew full well that a man may use flattery to win his way and offer a woman nothing more than words that would prove empty in the morning.
Olivia Faith Collins, you’re a shilly-shally of the worst order!
And with that admonishment, she squared her shoulders and marched down the road in the late afternoon sun.
It was high time she stopped putting off a decision about her future. The next time Mr. Fitzgerald came to call, she would ask to accompany him back to Truro so she could call in on an agency and begin her search for new employment.