Old Sins Long Shadows (46 page)

He had wanted a family and Hope had come into his life
. He had not asked her or wanted her but she had come all the same. She also had no choice in the matter. Thrown together as father and daughter, he realised they had more in common than not. She moved slightly in his arms and he soothed her with his words. She settled once more at the sound of his voice and he felt his heart swell in his chest for her.

‘
Hello Hope,’ he whispered into her hair, enjoying her little body snuggled up against his chest. ‘Do you know who I am?  I’m your father and you are my little girl.’

Edna took a second slice of Hevva cake and smiled to herself. She knew Daniel would forgive her for not answering the baby’s cry but it was something that had to be done. She had watched with growing concern how Daniel had avoided the little mite and she could not let it go on any longer. If Janey knew what was happening she would have been distraught.

Edna didn’t blame Daniel
. Hope’s birth had been traumatic for all involved and people have their own ways of dealing with such things. Then, of course, there was the discovery of how she was conceived. Edna would not tell anyone who the real father was. After all there were many children in the village brought up by men who were not their fathers. As she often thought, any boy can make a child - it takes a man to make a father and Daniel would make a good father. He just needed a nudge in the right direction. So when Hope had started to cry and she saw Daniel working in the yard Edna had made herself scarce. She had taken a chair into the pantry, shut the door and sat down to wait for Daniel to investigate the cause of the crying. She wasn’t in the habit of hiding from her duties, but it was a means to an end. She sat chewing on the sweet, flat cake feeling rather smug that her plan had worked. Hope had not been the only one to hear her father’s words, so did the old woman sitting not ten foot away behind the pantry door.

Chapter 19

Edna scampered from room to room to reassure herself that the farmhouse was empty
. Satisfied that it was, she made her way back to the front room and pulled the sideboard away from the wall. She disappeared but returned within seconds holding a crow bar in her hand and proceeded to scrape around the edges of the slate slab with it. She had chosen this particular slab because it was smaller than the rest, yet hidden. If she had chosen any of the other slabs she would have found them too heavy to lift. After some minutes she had made a gap big enough for the end of her crow bar. Using her weight she eased the slab free and moved it to the side, exposing the dark earth below. Reaching into her apron pocket she took out a small spade and dug a small hole. Following a furtive glance about her she reached into her apron pocket again and brought out a small parcel. She carefully placed the white blood stained package in the hole and sat back on her heels to rest. The dead bird she had killed that morning was neatly wrapt in a piece of blood stained bed sheet she had saved from Janey’s labour, now it looked like an embalmed miniature body in a grave waiting for burial. This time she had followed her sister’s advice to the letter. Edna remembered how she herself had been on the brink of motherhood, full of joy for the new life growing inside her, her joy ended when she miscarried. The refusal to heed what she saw as her sister’s witchcraft had caused a rift between them that had lasted thirty years and resulted, she now believed, in the deaths of her next seven babies. It turned Edna into a bitter old woman and a lonely one. The sacrifice of the bird would prevent any further miscarriages or deaths due to pregnancy within the house it was hidden. On the night Hope was born, Agnes had taken her sister aside and spoke to her in the Cornish language only Edna could understand,

‘
This house is cursed,’ she had said, ‘Any woman who lives here will be unable to carry a baby to full term, just as your house was cursed. This time do as I told you to do years ago and this house will be full of healthy babies, healthy pregnancies and healthy mothers.’

Edna
had watched her go. Amy and Zachariah’s marriage had been childless in this house. To fill the void they had taken in a thieving boy called Daniel. She didn’t know about the family who lived in the house before them but she did not want to take the chance of not doing what Agnes had said. She would not let Daniel suffer as she and her husband had suffered in the past. She leant forward and covered the bird with soil, replaced the slate slab and finally the sideboard over the top. The spell complete she felt like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Suddenly she knew, with a certainty that surprised her, that any future pregnancies and births in the house would be happy and healthy ones and of this she had no doubt.

Daniel looked across the field of ripening corn. It was the beginning of August and the corn, that only a few weeks ago was green, had now ripened to a waving golden yellow. In a few short weeks the field would be ready for harvesting. Daniel hoped the weather would stay fine to allow the corn to remain dry ready for cutting and stacking. He had purchased a horse drawn reaping machine last year that would save a lot of time. In the past it would take a couple of days to cut two acres with a scythe, but with his new reaper it would take only hours. He would have to arrange the steam powered threshing machine to visit the farm. He would take some of the grain to the windmill on Breock Hill to make flour. The rest he would use for animal feed, or plant for next years crop.

Daniel liked this time of year
. He was able to see the benefits of his hard labour growing strong in his fields, knowing that in a few weeks it would be the busiest time of the year for him. The sunset cast blood red shadows across the evening sky and he wished Janey was here to share the view with him. If it wasn’t for her encouragement he would not have started the dairy business this summer and its success had surprised him. Never feeling accepted by the villagers before, his reliability, excellent produce and reasonable prices were gaining the respect of the shop keepers in the village and their customers. Today, for the first time, a couple of villagers had raised their hand in greeting to him and he knew that the change in their opinion of him was down to Janey. He wished she was here so he could hold her and they could watch the sun go down together.

He heard a woman’s voice call his name from the gateway and he turned to see Janey’s figure carefully shutting the gate behind her before making her way over to him
. She was smiling at him as the gentle breeze lifted strands of her hair away from her face as she picked her way along the edge of the field, the crop to her right, the stone hedge to her left. She was wearing a new blue dress which showed off the curve of her bust and waist in a most enticing manner and not for the first time his body stirred as he drank in the vision of her.

But the figure walking towards him was no haunting or apparition. It had been two months since that terrible day when she lay dying in his arms and he still couldn’t believe both she and Hope had survived it
. He did not know what Agnes did in that bedroom, what spells the wise woman had cast or what she had done to get the baby out and he did not wish to know. He just knew that when he arrived home from Bosvenna Estate he had found his wife still living and a baby girl in Edna’s arms.

Janey had remained very ill for the next two weeks and each morning he woke wondering if she had survived the night. Edna and Molly cared for the baby and at feed times placed her on Janey’s breast for nourishment
. After a slow start Hope began to gain weight and it was around this time Janey also improved. She had nearly reached him and the smile had not left her lips. The healthy glow had returned to her cheeks and to his eye, her womanly post baby figure looked beautiful and alluring. She stepped into his arms and for a moment they held one another in companionable silence before she twisted in his arms to look at the sunset. Daniel rested his chin on her head as he held her to him, enjoying the feel of her bottom against him.

‘
Beautiful isn’t it?’ she sighed, looking at the sun going down.

‘
Mmmm,’ Daniel agreed, enjoying her warmth against him. ‘Where’s Hope?’ he asked.

‘
Edna’s having a last cuddle before she goes home. She’s spending tomorrow with Agnes, and of course she never visits on a Sunday, so she won’t be back until Monday. I’m glad Agnes and Edna are spending time together. They want to make up for the years that have past.’

‘
Yes, thirty years,’ agreed Daniel.

Janey watched as a wave of wind flowed over the crop.

‘It looks almost ready to harvest.’

‘
Another couple of weeks and then it will be. I just hope it stays dry so we can get it in safely. Perhaps this year we will do
Crying the Neck
.’

Janey looked up at him, frowning,
‘And what is that?’ she asked.

Daniel laughed,
‘I forgot you are a
townie
.’

Janey playfully dug him in the ribs,
‘Hark at you who comes from Bristol way.’

‘
I’m sure I am of Cornish stock. I’m a Kellow remember.’

‘
Tell me about
Crying the Neck
,’ she asked again.

Daniel kissed the top of her head as he gathered his thoughts,
‘It’s traditional that when the last standing corn is cut, the farmer takes it in his hands, hold it high above his head and call out in a loud voice “We have it! We have it! We have it!”. The reapers, who are standing around, shout back, “What 'ave 'ee? What 'ave 'ee? What 'ave 'ee?” and the farmer replies, “A neck! A neck! A neck!”. Everyone then joins in shouting, “Hurrah! Hurrah for the neck!”  Then everyone has a pasty supper and a drink of cider or tea to celebrate the harvest being safely brought in. It’s to give thanks for a good harvest.’

‘
It sounds lovely. Molly would love to see it and it would be Hope’s first harvest. We must do it.’  They stood quietly watching the sun, enjoying the peace and quiet. ‘I wrote to Lady Brockenshaw today,’ said Janey, a little unsure what Daniel would say about it, as if by way of an explanation she added, ‘We had become quite close before she left for Falmouth and I have always felt guilty not keeping in touch. Dr Barker visited this afternoon and he mentioned he was paying a social call on her this evening. I asked him if he would pass on a letter to her. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘
I don’t mind,’ Daniel said, rubbing his cheek against her soft hair, ‘What did you say?’

‘
I said I was happily married, that I had a beautiful daughter and that we had started a business making cheese and butter. I said we would be limited to how much we could produce as we did not have the acreage for a larger herd. I stopped short of asking her if she knew who the new owner of the Bosvenna Estate farms is. Dr Barker says she is unwell and I didn’t want to trouble her.’

‘
Our neighbour, Tommy Hawk, wants to give up farming but he doesn’t want to leave his house. It would suit us both if we could rent his fields from his landlord. It would allow Tommy to stay at the farmhouse and it would give us more land for our cattle. It was not only Lady Brockenshaw’s son that could not handle money. Her husband has also been short of funds in the past and has had to sell some of the farms belonging to the estate. The Brockenshaw family, for all their titles and education, are hopeless at handling money. Tommy’s farm was one of the farms he sold. He has never met his new landlord as his rent is collected through a third party. We could ask Tommy who this third party is and track down his landlord that way.’

‘
I would rather do that than trouble Lady Brockenshaw. From what Dr Barker said, she is not long for this world. He felt he could say that as he is not her doctor but visiting her as a friend. She has a doctor in Falmouth attending her now.’

‘
She has had a lot of stress in her life. Her husband was not good with their fortune and her son is even worse.’  They lapsed into silence once more; the name of Brockenshaw often had that effect. Eventually Daniel spoke. ‘Why did Dr Barker call?  Are you unwell?  Is Hope alright?’

‘
We are both well. In fact I asked him to call to confirm that I am fully recovered, which he did after examining me.’ She turned in his arms and threaded her fingers through his. She was looking up at him with a provocative glint in her eye and she was smiling. She kissed her finger and placed it on his lips to pass the kiss on. ‘This means that you have a promise to keep.’  She was flirting with him and Daniel broke into a smile as she started to lead him back to the farmhouse.

‘
I do?’ he teased, pretending to have forgotten what he had said.

‘
You said that you would not touch me again until I was fully recovered from the birth. Well I am and I have waited long enough. Edna is waiting to go home, David is out and Molly has gone to her room. Hope will be fast asleep so we have the house to ourselves when you have returned from taking Edna home. So come on, Daniel Kellow, we have both waited long enough.’

Despite her provocative flirting earlier, Janey suddenly felt nervous. As Daniel had left to take Edna home he had whispered in her ear to remain dressed as he wanted to be the one to undress her. The soft caress of his voice against her skin had ignited a sense of anticipation within her and she struggled to know what to do to occupy her time as she waited for his return. Despite the energy building inside her she had nothing to do but wait. She spent her time alternating between pacing their bedroom and brushing her hair to a shining curtain of softness. Finally she heard the wheels of Daniel’s cart arrive home. From behind the curtains, she watched him strip to the waist at the garden pump and wash himself in the cold water. She bit her lip in excitement as she heard him take the stairs two at a time. The bedroom door opened and he was standing there, his hair wet and sleek, and softness in his eyes as he looked at her. In two strides he was cupping her face like a precious challis and kissing her lips.