Bonds of Earth, The (5 page)

W
ALKING BACK WITH
Nessa from the Bolithos' hovel, Goran was still haunted by the poverty of the injured miner and his family but when he voiced his thoughts to Nessa, her response was philosophical.

‘It's possibly the worst conditions I've seen a
family
in but it's something a great many miners accept as part of their way of life. There are always far more miners in Cornwall than there is work for them and when news of a rich find goes around they flock to the area in the hope of being taken on. Sometimes they're lucky and enough mines start up to give them all work, but not all mines succeed. When they close there can be hundreds of miners, thousands even, desperately searching for work and they make their homes where they can, with whatever is at hand.'

‘I don't think I'd like that sort of life.' The mere thought of living in the same conditions as the Bolithos caused Goran to shudder.

‘I doubt very much whether they do, but they say that once you're a miner, you're
always
a miner and if that's what it takes….' The gesture that ended her statement indicated an acceptance of the facts but, changing the subject abruptly, she asked, ‘Where exactly is it
you
live?'

‘In a cottage on Elworthy Coumbe's farm, close to the farmhouse. If you aren't in too much of a hurry to get back to the mine I'll show you. We won't need to go far out of your way; you'll be able to see it from the edge of the moor.'

‘I'd like that.'

There was a natural ease in their new-found relationship that they both recognized, even though neither had experienced it before with anyone other than family. Goran was an only child, brought up for many years on a fairly isolated farm and although Nessa had been brought up in a family environment in the midst of a bustling mining community, she had always lived in the shadow of her older and more outgoing sister.

‘That's the farm down there.' They had reached the edge of the moor and Goran pointed to where a cluster of farm buildings huddled in a shallow hollow surrounded by fields that extended down the slope of the moor's edge to the River Lynher which formed a natural eastern boundary of the farm. ‘Our cottage is the building with smoke coming from the chimney, just to the right of the farmhouse.'

Shifting his gaze further to the left, he said, ‘That hedge over there, running up to the wall of the field where the sheep are, is the boundary between Elworthy's farm and that of his sister, Agnes Roach. I work on his farm from dawn to noon, and hers from one o'clock until dusk.'

Nessa gave him a sympathetic look, ‘Don't you ever have time off to do things
you
want to do?'

‘Not very often. Agnes isn't the healthiest of women – and although Elworthy is capable of working as hard as any two men, he doesn't always think about things and needs to be watched in case he does something stupid. But it isn't as bad as it sounds. Whenever I take animals to market, or things to sell on fair days in Launceston and Liskeard, I often have time to wander around and see things, although if Elworthy is with me I need to look after him. He's as good a farmer as anyone when he's doing what's familiar but he gets confused when he's away from the farm, especially if there are a lot of people around him.'

‘Is that Elworthy down there by the river, talking to a man with a horse?'

Nessa pointed to where two men were talking by a narrow bridge which spanned the river in the far corner of the farm. One of the men was wearing a smock, an article of clothing adopted by many of those who worked the land, but it was sight of the other man which caused Goran to start in surprise. Holding the reins of a thoroughbred horse as he talked to his companion, he was dressed in the manner of a gentleman … and Goran recognized him immediately.

‘Yes, that's Elworthy, but what's Sir John Spurre doing down there talking to him? As far as I'm aware it's the first time he's ever come to either of the two farms.'

As they watched, Elworthy began pointing in various directions and Goran pulled a startled Nessa behind a clump of gorse before the two talking men looked in their direction.

‘I'd rather Sir John didn't see us,' he explained, ‘He's up to something or he wouldn't be down there talking to Elworthy and it certainly won't be a social visit. Sir John despises small independent farmers like Elworthy and Agnes. I'll need to tell her about this.'

‘Why, what could he be saying that's likely to cause any trouble?'

‘I don't know, but Elworthy is so much in awe of anyone in authority he would agree to anything they said, even if he had no idea what they were talking about – and Elworthy seldom understands what strangers say to him. I'm going to have to go right away to tell Agnes what we're seeing, Nessa, I think it could be important. I was meant to speak to your pa while I was up here on the moor, but will you do it for me? Tell him Agnes would like to speak to him about something they need to discuss. If Sir John Spurre is planning something it will be to
his
benefit and nobody else's and I suspect it has to do with your pa's mine opening up here.'

Nessa was disappointed that her meeting with Goran was coming to such an abrupt end but she accepted it was due to a matter of some importance.

‘I'll be certain to tell Pa tonight, but will I be seeing you again soon?'

‘I hope so … I've enjoyed being with you today.' Struggling to think of a reason why they
should
meet, he said, ‘Why don't you come down to the cottage sometime? A Sunday evening would be best. Agnes goes to the chapel down the road then and sends me home early. One of Elworthy's sows has just had thirteen piglets and you could bring Jennifer to see them.'

Both Nessa and Goran went their different ways happy in the knowledge they would meet again soon, but, as he neared Agnes's farm, Goran put thoughts of Nessa out of his mind for the moment. He had an uneasy feeling Sir John's visit to Elworthy's farm spelled trouble.

‘Are you certain it was Sir John you saw talking to Elworthy? I don't doubt you might have seen him on the farm. Although he's quick enough to jump on anyone who trespasses on
his
land he doesn't believe the same laws apply to him. Even so, I can't think what he and Elworthy would have to say to each other.' Agnes Roach shook her head in disbelief.

‘It was Sir John right enough, and Elworthy had his hat off, holding it in both hands as though he was nervous. At least, that was the impression I got although I was too far away to see his expression.'

‘It has to be something to do with the mine and the rights they want, but Sir John would have got no sense out of Elworthy, he's been getting worse lately and wouldn't have understood what Sir John was talking about. That reminds me, did you tell that mine captain I want to speak to him?'

‘He was underground all the time I was up at the mine but I left word with one of his daughters, the one who showed me where the Bolithos were living. She promised to tell him when he came home.'

‘I hope she does! Young girls are so empty-headed these days all they seem to think about are young men and enjoying themselves.'

‘I think her older sister might be like that, but not Nessa, she can read and write and knows a lot about all sorts of things. She hopes to be a schoolteacher one day.'

Agnes looked at him questioningly, ‘So,
Nessa
, is it? You seem to know a great deal about a girl who hasn't been in the area for more than five minutes and whom you've hardly met.'

‘I had to go to Captain Pyne's house to find out where Albert Bolitho and his family are living,' Goran said defensively. ‘Mrs Pyne asked Nessa to take me to them. If she hadn't I'd have never found it.'

Memories of the family's home flooded back and he said, ‘You should have seen their place, it was
awful
, our pigs are better housed! He's got a wife and five young boys living in a gap between rocks that's covered over with bracken and with only the one bracken bed for all of them. Instead of chairs and tables they're using rocks. There can't be anyone in the whole world with less!'

Aware that Goran was truly upset by the plight of the injured miner and his family, Agnes said, ‘Then the things you took up there for them won't be wasted. Did you see the boy about helping us with the haymaking?'

‘No, he'd gone to Rilla Mill to collect ointment from the doctor for his pa's leg, but Albert Bolitho said Jenken would do it and I'm sure he will, the family is absolutely desperate for anything that comes their way.'

‘Well, I hope he'll earn what I'll be paying him … but I'm still curious about the mine captain's daughter you seem to know so well….'

‘I'm sorry, Agnes, but I must go now, Ma will have a meal ready for me and be wondering where I've got to …'

Watching him hurrying away from the farm, Agnes thought Goran was reaching an age when most young men were thinking of finding a girl and settling down. Intelligent and hardworking, he would be a catch for any young woman.

Not until he passed out of sight did her thoughts turn to the news he had brought about Elworthy and Sir John Spurre being seen together. She would need to pay a visit to her brother and discover what was going on. He was far too simple to recognize the wiles of a man as unscrupulous as the titled landowner and she did not want him landing himself in trouble.

   

 

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
when Goran began working with Elworthy he tackled him about the meeting with Sir John Spurre the previous evening but Elworthy refused to reveal what they had been discussing.

‘We was talking business, man-to-man, and when two men talk between themselves it ain't nothing to do with anyone else.'

Goran realized that Elworthy's words did not reflect his own thinking – such as it was – but were words that would have been used by the owner of the Spurre estate. He wondered what had been said that Sir John wanted kept secret. However, he knew if he continued questioning his employer about it he would only become increasingly stubborn. He decided to get on with his work and leave Agnes to learn the reason for Sir John's unprecedented visit to the farm, as she most certainly would!

But that afternoon when Goran reached the neighbouring farm to begin his half-day's work there he found to his surprise that Agnes was far less concerned about her brother's meeting with the owner of the Spurre estate than the fact that Captain Pyne had not yet called on her.

When he asked her what it was that was of such importance she was no more forthcoming than her brother had been earlier that day.

‘What we have to discuss will be between him and me. All I'll say is that if he's a straightforward and honest man, the sort of person I can do business with, it will be to the advantage of all of us should his mine workings extend beneath either this farm or Elworthy's.'

‘But what about Sir John, where does he come into all this? He wouldn't have been talking to Elworthy unless it was about something that is going to be to his advantage – and I don't doubt it has something to do with the working of the mine.'

‘You let
me
worry about Sir John Spurre, I'll deal with him if and when the need arises … but don't you have work to do? From all you had to say last evening about the mine-captain's daughter you didn't hurry yourselves finding this injured miner and giving him and his family the victuals I sent to them out of the goodness of my heart. There'll be some catching up to do about the farm, so you'd best be getting on with it.'

The words of Agnes were reassuring, but Goran's confidence in the woman farmer received a severe jolt the following evening. He returned home to the cottage on Elworthy Farm to find his mother so upset she had not even prepared the evening meal.

It seemed Sir John had paid another unexpected visit to the farm that afternoon and after spending some time talking to Elworthy in the farmhouse had taken a walk about the farm in his company, inspecting the outbuildings – and even the cottage where Goran and his mother lived.

Visibly very upset, Mabel Trebartha said, ‘He walked in without so much as a “by your leave” and behaved as though I wasn't here. After looking around him he turned up his nose and walked back out again without having said a single word to me.'

‘What was Elworthy doing? Didn't he explain what the visit was all about?'

‘He never said a word the whole time the pair of them were in here. Just followed Sir John around like some cowed dog and there wasn't anything I could say to him while they were both here together. I looked for him after Sir John rode off, but he wasn't to be found anywhere, and he still isn't around. It's quite obvious he intends selling up but is too embarrassed about it to tell me.'

‘I'll go and look for him now and find out exactly what's going on, but I'll build up the fire first so you can have something cooking for us when I've found him.'

Locating Elworthy was not as easy as Goran had anticipated. He was nowhere to be found in the farmhouse or in the farm complex and during his search Goran discovered that neither the chickens nor the pigs had been shut up for the night. The cow had been milked by his mother but the milk was still in the bucket into which it had been drawn and Elworthy had not performed his usual task of taking it to the wooden churn at the gate by the river, from where it would be collected by customers from the village using their own vessels.

After taking the milk down to the farm entrance himself, Goran walked slowly back to the farm. He was beginning to worry about Elworthy. The simple farmer could not always be relied upon to make a rational decision when one was necessary, but Goran had never known him fail to perform any of the many routine tasks about the farm. Something was wrong,
very
wrong, and the fact that Sir John Spurre was somehow involved made it all the more serious.

Having visited all the places where the farmer might possibly have been working, Goran was about to return to the cottage to tell his mother his search had been unsuccessful, when he remembered something that had occurred a few years before.

One of the mares on the farm had produced a foal to which Elworthy had become deeply attached. It was the first animal to receive his attention each morning, coming to him when it heard his voice, and he was often to be seen leaning on the field gate as the young animal frisked in the field it shared with its mother.

One evening, after paying a final visit to the foal Elworthy must have failed to properly secure the gate to the field and it blew open during the night. As a result both mare and foal wandered out of the field and were not to be seen the next morning.

After a frantic search involving men and women from the nearby village, the disconsolate mare was spotted standing dangerously close to a long abandoned exploratory mine shaft on the moor. The foal was discovered lying at the bottom of the shaft, its neck broken by the fall.

Inconsolable, Elworthy had disappeared in the same manner as today. Goran had eventually located him in the hayloft above the stable, but he could not be persuaded to leave his hiding-place until Agnes had been fetched from the neighbouring farm. She had then spent more than an hour consoling her distraught brother and convincing him it was not entirely his fault the foal had died.

Making his way to the hayloft now, Goran climbed the steep, wide-stepped ladder from the stable and entered the loft. There was a strong aroma of musty hay here and it was too dark to distinguish anything very clearly. Gingerly making his way across the ancient, woodworm-infested boards, Goran opened the door through which newly mown hay would soon be forked from hay-wagons, and late evening light flooded into the loft.

Turning back from the open door, he heard a scuffling from a far corner where the remainder of last season's hay was piled and saw the legs of Elworthy extended across the dusty boards, much of his upper body concealed behind a cross-beam which was supporting a roof truss.

‘Close the door, I don't want no light.'

The words were muffled and indistinct and the simple farmer sounded desperately unhappy.

‘What's the matter, Elworthy, what are you doing hiding away up here?'

‘Go away, I don't want to talk about it.'

‘You
have
to talk about it, Elworthy. Unless you tell me what it is that's making you so unhappy I won't be able to do anything to make it better. You can't stay up here for ever.'

‘You can't do anything to help me, I've been silly. Very silly.'

Goran's eyes were becoming accustomed to the poor light in the loft and he could make out Elworthy's face now. It was evident he had been crying.

Crouching down with the beam between them, Goran said sympathetically, ‘We all do silly things sometimes, Elworthy, and I'm sure that whatever you've done is nothing to be so upset about. Come down with me and have some supper. Ma's cooking it now. While we're eating you can tell us what you think you've done wrong.'

‘I don't want any supper – and you can't help me, nobody can, not now.'

‘That's probably not true, but we can't help until we know what it is you've done. Does Sir John Spurre have something to do with it?'

The silence that greeted the question was an answer in itself and Goran said, ‘You mustn't take any notice of anything Sir John says to you, Elworthy, he's not a nice man and if ever he tries to bully you you're fully entitled to order him off your land. He may think he's a great man because everyone on the Spurre estate bows and scrapes to him, but on this farm it's
you
who's in charge,
you
who gives the orders and
you
who decides who's allowed here.'

Instead of reassuring him, Goran's words seemed to upset Elworthy even more and, suddenly, he blurted out, ‘I can't tell
anyone
what to do here, Goran, because I don't own the farm any more. I've told Sir John he can buy it. He's coming here in the morning with papers for me to sign selling it to him.'

Looking up at Goran, bottom lip pushed out and his chin trembling, Elworthy added, tearfully, ‘Agnes is going to be very cross with me, isn't she? I don't know what I can do….'

In spite of the deep dismay he felt at Elworthy's admission, Goran could not help feeling sorry for the simple farmer. He had seldom seen anyone quite this unhappy, and Elworthy did not have the mental capability to deal with it.

‘Yes, Agnes is going to be cross, and it's something that will affect us all, but she'll be even more angry with Sir John than with you and it might be something she can sort out. Come on down now, have some supper and go to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning.'

When Goran followed Elworthy into the cottage, Mabel Trebartha took one look at the distraught farmer and exclaimed, ‘Look at you! What on earth is the matter?'

Behind Elworthy's back Goran signalled frantically but silently for his mother not to ask any questions. It seemed for some moments she would ignore him but, eventually accepting that her son would tell her later what had been happening, she clamped her mouth shut and turned her attention back to the pots and pans which had been waiting alongside the fire for the arrival of her son and his employer.

The meal was eaten in an uncomfortable silence, Elworthy too unhappy to speak, Mabel barely concealing her impatience to learn what was happening and Goran wondering how he was going to break the devastating news to her of the imminent sale of the farm and their home.

When Elworthy left the cottage and returned to the farmhouse, Goran told Mabel what had happened and she was as upset as he had anticipated. He tried unsuccessfully to reassure her by saying they must not accept the accuracy of what the simple farmer had said until he had spoken to Agnes, but he too was very concerned about both their futures.