Chapter Six
“This is your first time traveling by train?” Nathaniel asked, his gray eyes full of amusement.
Laura nodded, embarrassed by the sheltered life she’d led. Her parents had insisted she travel in the family carriage with her maid wherever she went.
“The journey to Penzance takes nine hours,” he said. “We’ll have to change at Plymouth.”
The train rumbled beneath her, the wheels click-clacking on the tracks. It seemed as if they’d already been traveling for days, having risen so early to go by carriage to Paddington Station. It would be close to five o’clock when they reached Penzance. Nathaniel’s carriage would then take them on to Wolfram.
“I prefer train travel whenever I go to London for Parliament,” Nathaniel said. “There will be short periods when you will be alone at the abbey. I hope you won’t be lonely.”
“Of course not, I’ll be too busy,” Laura said in a firm tone, her ribcage tightening with unease.
She tugged at her collar. The train carriage was humid with the windows shut against the smoke. Every seat filled, even in the first-class compartment. It was difficult to talk to him with a crying baby and a demanding young child sitting opposite, so she couldn’t broach any private concerns.
“Rest your head against my shoulder,” Nathaniel said, taking her hand.
Laura settled closer. She watched the green fields, woodland and quaint market towns rush past the window. The speed was remarkable, and the noise! Horses danced away to the far corner of their paddock as the train roared past. The carriage rocked on the track, but at least it didn’t bump one about like a horse-drawn vehicle.
The novelty of traveling in a train had worn off by the time they reached Plymouth and changed trains. Finding the movement hypnotic, Laura closed her eyes.
***
“Wake up, Laura. We’ve arrived.”
Laura sat up so quickly her head spun. She rubbed her eyes. The train had pulled into the station. Nathaniel stood and began to pull down their bags from the shelf overhead.
After he helped her down onto the platform, she turned to survey her new home, but a mist hung over Penzance. Laura could see little beyond the end of the street.
“There’s Ben Teg.” Nathaniel strode toward the road where a fair-haired young man jumped from a smart brougham and hurried to meet them.
“Teg, this is your new mistress, Lady Lanyon.”
Teg touched his cap. “Dynnargh dhis, my lady.”
“Good afternoon, Teg,” Laura said, thinking she must learn some Cornish words. “Will this mist make it difficult for us to travel?”
“Not for a Cornish lad, Your Ladyship. I’ll get you safe and sound to the porth.”
Although she found Teg hard to understand, Laura liked his friendly, open face. “I imagine the porth means a harbor?” she asked Nathaniel in an undertone.
“It does. You’ll become familiar with the language in time.” Nathaniel placed his portmanteau and Laura’s carpetbag in the brougham and assisted her up the step. “Teg has been with the family all his life, and his father before him.”
When the sun broke through the bank of clouds, the temperature seemed to rise several degrees. It was warmer here than in London, and she sweltered in her brocade suit. She would change as soon as she reached home. Home. The word sent a shiver of excitement through her. She was impatient to see Wolfram.
Laura opened her parasol, as Teg, along with another servant, stacked the trunk and bandboxes into the trap.
Teg jumped up onto the seat of the brougham and took up the reins. “Walk on.” He cracked his whip, and they set off along a lane bordered by paddocks and high hedge rows.
They had only been traveling a matter of minutes when an obstacle struck the carriage door on Nathaniel’s side with a bang. Whatever the projectile was bounced away into the ragged gorse bushes before Laura could catch sight of it.
“What was that?” she asked, as Nathaniel stood up to stare back along the road. Unaware, or seemingly unaffected, Teg slapped the reins, and they turned a corner where shrubs and trees blocked the road behind them.
Nathaniel took his seat. “Someone might wish to voice an opinion,” he said in a humorless tone.
“Opinion? Of what?”
Nathaniel placed his arm along the back of the seat as if to protect her. “I was jesting. It was more likely to be a stone on the road, thrown up by the wheel. Forget it, please. I want you to enjoy your first day here, instead of worrying over little things of no importance.”
She shivered. He had not been joking. Nathaniel’s words were clipped; he was angry, although not with her.
The beauty of the place made her push the incident away. They followed the river through a green valley ringed by forest. A flock of birds disappeared into the misty distance as if by magic, their calls muted. Dry stone walls crisscrossed the countryside. Black-faced sheep paused to watch the carriage pass by.
When they topped a rise, the clouds shifted. Laura caught her first sight of the sea, like golden gauze under a westerly sun.
She craned her neck. “I can see the water!”
“A pity we have fog today. But you will come to love the mists here at Wolfram as I do.”
She wasn’t entirely sure she would ever relish the suffocating fog, not if it was anything like London, but she patted his hand, which rested on hers. “I know I shall.”
Small cottages crammed into a warren of narrow cobbled lanes as they traversed the road leading down to the bay. The seaside embraced them, warm, salty and unfamiliar. Foreign smells washed over Laura. Gulls cawed overhead in the misty sky, the view over the water vanishing into thick fog.
They arrived at the water’s edge where a row of narrow-fronted houses, a shop and an ancient Tudor inn faced the harbor foreshore. Fishing boats bobbed along the seawall where a wash of surging waves sent a curtain of spray over the paved quayside.
Nathaniel motioned to the inn called The Sail and Anchor. “We’ll take some refreshment.” He jumped down and turned to assist her.
Laura suffered a wrench of disappointment. She was eager to reach the abbey. “Can’t we go home?”
“The causeway’s underwater, Your Ladyship,” Teg explained, standing at the horses’ heads. “We must wait for the tide to turn before we can take the carriage across.”
Laura raised her eyebrows and stared at Nathaniel. “There’s a causeway?”
“It’s high tide. Shouldn’t be more than an hour before we can proceed.”
Laura was silenced, incredulous that he had not seen fit to explain this to her before. The prospect of being cut off from the mainland unnerved her as she stared out over the misty stretch of water. Beyond a glowing description of the abbey’s history, Nathaniel had told her little that really mattered. Not that they were to live on an island. And nothing of his first marriage. She bit her lip, needing to be reassured.
He took her arm in a purposeful grip. “We’ll take the boat, Teg. I’ll leave you to bring the luggage. Lady Lanyon is impatient to see her new home.”
Teg touched his cap “Right you are, Your Lordship.”
Laura walked with Nathaniel along the harbor foreshore to where a fishing boat unloaded its catch onto the wharf, and squabbling gulls dived in a hungry frenzy. The men nodded as she and Nathaniel approached, studying her with ill-concealed curiosity. She’d never smelled anything like the overpowering stench of fish, but she managed not to take out her handkerchief. Instead, she smiled at the men. “It seems you’ve had a splendid catch today.”
“Better than most, madam,” one craggy-faced man replied, tossing his knife into a bucket.
Nathaniel paused. “My wife, men, Baroness, Lady Lanyon.”
The fishermen removed their hats and murmured a welcome. She found their manner guarded. Nathaniel was too formal. Perhaps he didn’t associate much with the village folk. She most certainly would.
“Here we are. The steps are slippery. I’ll carry you down,” Nathaniel said.
A rowing boat tied up at the wharf bobbed about in the water. Nathaniel hefted her into his arms and descended, then set her on her feet on a step beside the boat. Laura eyed it with alarm.
Nathaniel held her arm and assisted her as the craft rocked alarmingly under her feet. “Sit there in the middle.”
Uneasy, Laura obeyed. Her woolen suit was completely unsuitable for scrambling about in boats. Unstable in her high-heeled boots, she clung to the hard, wooden seat as the boat danced on the waves. The ocean swirled beneath them, deep and forbidding. What had she gotten herself into?