Marguerite Kaye - Invitation To A Cornish Christmas

If it wasn’t, or if Treeve ultimately decided to stay, then that would be a very different matter. If he were to remain as lord of the manor, she would have to keep him at arm’s length, for she could not risk their feelings running deeper. She knew what heartbreak felt like. She would not inflict that on either of them.

Emily stared down at the bonbon dish in dismay. She had brushed so hard, she was in danger of wearing through the design. Was she still heartbroken? She must have loved Andrew, that other, gullible Emily. If she had not loved him, he would not have succeeded in his deception, and if she had not been so determined to turn a blind eye, he would not have continued to succeed. She most certainly didn’t love him now. His betrayal had been so callous and the extent of it so shocking that he had destroyed not just her faith in him, but in human nature. She was determined to recover from that, despite the fact that a separate part of her was broken irreparably. But she couldn’t blame Andrew for that. His only crime had been to inadvertently highlight an unpalatable but inescapable fact.

Casting her work in progress aside, Emily got to her feet. This morning’s paddle had not eased the restlessness she’d woken with. She was tired of being cooped up here, alone. Pulling her cloak back on, she hurried out once more into the fresh air.

The gatehouse had been built at a later date than Karrek House, though in a sympathetic style, with a sharp pointed roof and mullioned windows. It had lain empty since Emily’s arrival, but now the windows on the top floor were open, presumably to give the place an airing. Treeve’s doing perhaps, or possibly a signal that a new tenant was imminent.

There were two stone lions standing guard just beyond the gatehouse on the path leading up to Karrek House. The salty Cornish air had eaten away their features, leaving the pair with bizarrely broad smiles, no noses, and manes that had long lost their shagginess. The Penhaligon family home was beautiful, an Elizabethan manor built of Cornish granite with five distinctive Dutch-style gables. Three narrow protruding wings formed an ‘E’ shape. Was Treeve inside, going through his estate account books? Or was he outside, making a tour of his inheritance in Jago Bligh’s company, eager to be reassured, eager to get back to his ship, and the life he loved?

A seagull came to a squawking halt on one of the lions’ heads, making Emily jump. The last thing she wanted was to be caught gazing forlornly up at Treeve’s house. Emily turned on her heel and headed for the village.

Budoc Lane, the main street of Porth Karrek and the hub of village life was narrow, steep and cobblestoned, the whitewashed shops which lined both sides protecting those going about their business from the worst of the elements. The door to the butcher’s shop stood ajar, but there was no sign of Phincas Bosanko. Phin, as he was known, though Emily never dared address him as such, was a very fine specimen of a man, if you valued brawn—and a fair few of the local maids certainly seemed to. As far as Emily had been able to deduce, the butcher dispensed his favours evenly, treading a fine line between flirtation and commitment to cannily keep all his options open. It amused her on one level, but on another, the idea of him assuming he had the right to break as many hearts as he wished made her hackles rise—though she knew she ought not allow her own pathetic history to colour her view.

The mouth-watering smell of fresh-baked bread wafted from the baker’s yard at the rear of the shop. ‘We’ve no pasties ready yet, if that’s what you’re after.’ Eliza Menhenick eyed Emily with her customary reserve.

‘Thank you, I would like a loaf of that delicious-smelling bread, Mrs Menhenick.’

‘What size of loaf would suit you, Miss Faulkner?’

‘The smallest one you have, as usual.’ Emily forced a smile. She’d been buying her bread here for nigh on seven months, yet each time Eliza Menhenick asked the same question, determined to remind Emily that she was a stranger in Porth Karrek, and a solitary one at that. How long would it take, she wondered as she left the shop, the bread tucked into a fold in her cloak, before she was accepted as one of the locals? A lifetime most likely, and for the likes of Eliza Menhenick and Jago Bligh, even that probably wouldn’t be enough.

The village shop run by the Chegwin family was at the bottom of Budoc Lane, facing directly on to the harbour. Besides groceries, the shop stocked a bit of everything, from rope, needles, cotton, and the rough-spun, oiled wool used to knit fishermen’s jumpers, to nails, ink, pencils, herbs and spices, and cooking pots. There were everyday candles of tallow, more expensive ones of beeswax, and the most beautiful carved and scented candles made by Cloyd Bolitho, a melancholy candlemaker who looked as fragile as his creations. The Chegwins also stocked flagons of rough cider, the strong fermented apple drink that Emily suspected would crack her head open with one taste. There were other, unmarked barrels in the shop too, which it didn’t take a genius to work out contained contraband. She had enjoyed a glass or two of Bordeaux in the past, but she couldn’t afford such a luxury now, and in any case knew better, as an incomer, than to suggest to the Chegwins that they would be able to sell her such a thing. The shop smelled of a particularly pleasant combination of tea leaves and coffee beans and cheese and—for some reason—wood shavings, but Emily had no purchases to make there today.

The harbour beach, a mixture of sand and stones, sloped steeply down to the water. The tide was still out, leaving the limpet-covered harbour wall exposed. A number of the smaller boats were beached on the sand, their moorings at full stretch, though the bigger pilchard boat belonging to Jago Bligh was tied up close to the wall, and still afloat on the water. The air was rich with the tang of the sea, the remnants of yesterday’s catch, and that distinctive smell of brine-soaked nets and rope which Emily had never been able to put a name to, but which was another reminder of happier times, watching the catch come in on her grandfather’s herring fleet at Stornaway harbour.

She wandered out along the harbour wall to stand at the furthest point gazing out beyond the headland to the sea, where The Beasts were only just visible, the waves cresting white as the incoming tide broke over them. Beyond the wall the sea was grey-blue, but inside it was calm, turquoise, the sandy seabed visible, shoals of tiny fish darting about in the seaweed.

Picking her way back through the ropes, creels and nets, she saw a tall figure striding down Budoc Lane, recognising him immediately. Treeve didn’t get far before he was waylaid by the butcher. The two men struck up what looked from this distance like a friendly conversation.

Emily stood in the lee of the Ship Inn, curious to see what the other villagers would make of their new landlord. Phin was laughing at something Treeve had said. The two men shook hands. The butcher, in her view, had an inflated opinion of himself but there were no sides to him, from what Emily had seen, and she liked that about him. When she’d arrived in the village back in April, Phin had been openly curious rather than hostile, his blunt questions as to where she had come from and what she was doing in Cornwall a refreshing change from the mutterings and speculation of most of the others. She had, of course, answered none of his questions, and to his credit he’d not persisted either. A man who liked plain dealing. He and Treeve would likely do well together.

How the Menhenicks received Treeve, she had no idea, for he disappeared into the shop for a good ten minutes. Several other villagers watched his progress towards the harbour front, some answering his ready smile with a doffed cap, a curtsy, a handshake, others a sullen look, one or two with a pointedly turned back. She could have avoided him altogether and headed back up Budoc Lane while he was in the Chegwins’ shop, clearly on a mission to make himself known to one and all, but that would be to attach an importance to him she had decided she didn’t want to encourage. So Emily waited, intending to bid him a polite good day, before heading home.