A Cornish Orphan, page 22
It climbed rapidly to two hundred. John paid close attention, assessing each bidder with his dark blue eyes. Then it slowed down as bidders shook their heads and dropped out, leaving two, then one.
‘Two hundred and fifty. Any advance on two hundred and fifty? I will sell . . .’ The auctioneer looked directly at John as if he knew exactly what was going to happen. ‘Two sixty?’
John raised his hand and nodded firmly.
‘Ah – a new bidder. Two sixty – two seventy – two eighty.’ There was a buzz of excitement. Heads turned to look at John.
‘I will sell. Selling at two hundred and eighty guineas. Once. Twice. SOLD! To you, sir. Congratulations. Name, please?’
‘John De Lumen.’
John’s knees were shaking. But he signed with a steady hand. He’d done it! Thanks to Discovering Charlotte, which was now hanging in the gallery in New York, attracting lots of attention and favourable reviews.
‘I hope you know what you’ve bought,’ Maudie Tripconey warned, her beady eyes watching him open his mysterious briefcase.
‘I’m sure I shall find out,’ John said diplomatically.
‘So what are you gonna do with it?’ Maudie squared up to him, watched curiously by some of her neighbours.
‘We shall see,’ John said pleasantly, looking her in the eye.
Maudie walked away, muttering and tutting. ‘A man on his own. ’Tisn’t right, that’s what I say.’
It was not until the crowd had gone and he was allowed to see the deeds of the cottage that John made a mind-rocking discovery. The name jumped out at him. LANROSKA.
What strange twist of fate had brought him to set up home in the very cottage where Charlotte had lived?
Where was she now?
As twilight fell over Cornwall on that balmy summer evening, the breeze dropped and the sea turned milky pale, with the mildest of waves lapping around the dark rocky headlands. On the great sweeping curves of beaches, the lighthouse flashed and the lights of ships shone like studs from lines of portholes.
A silver moon rose, reflected in the wet sand and the glistening dune grass. A clear, still summer night.
Beyond Godrevy, the distant coastline was an inky outline against the sky, and further inland were mosaics of light from the towns of Redruth and Camborne. Between them rose the granite tor of Carn Brea with its stone cross and massive stacks of rock, sculpted into extraordinary shapes by centuries of abrasive winds from the sea.
Twilight was wake-up time for the badgers who had lived on the side of the hill for decades, their sett like a moon landscape of craters and heaps of excavated soil. Sometimes there were humans up there on the hill, picnicking or enjoying the view, and the oldest badger could smell them now, on the night air. Undeterred, he set out on his usual route, a path winding through the dense heather and gorse. It was like a sunken road, so deep and well-trodden by generations of paws that it even sheltered the old badger from storms. He trotted purposefully along it, his fur flouncing in the moonlight like a downy haze of light around his low-slung body. The white stripe on his head bobbed and his black nose glistened as he sniffed the air.
As he reached the top of the hill moving through the sharp moonlight shadows of the gigantic rock stack, the old badger hesitated. The smell of humans was close now. But there were no voices or movement. He listened, and heard them breathing. He crept nearer, cautious but intrigued, ready to flee at the first twitch of movement. It was his first time of being within touching distance of a human.
This one was very small. The badger sniffed her shoes, not liking the leather and the smell of different soil from some faraway place. He sniffed the night air. She had come from the east, this little human. Tentatively, the old badger dared to sniff her socks, and then her skin. He would have liked to touch a tendril of her long hair which was draped over her shoulders and get a better feel of who she was, what kind of energy she carried. But she was wedged in between two boys, an arm around each of them, their pale, unmoving faces close together as they slept deeply. The badger wanted to sniff the smallest boy’s hand which was entwined in the girl’s wavy hair. But it was too risky.
He stood still, his fur silvered by the moonlight, studying the sleeping children while the gentle moths of night fluttered around them. Then he turned and trotted on his way on soundless paws.
Chapter 18
The Stars of Home
A dream came true on that warm summer night.
Lottie awoke to find the heat haze of the day had cleared, and the night around her was indigo glass. The mighty, sun-soaked rocks of Carn Brea were still warm, their shapes black against a sky of brilliant stars. Mesmerised, she lay still, gazing, remembering Arnie teaching them how to find the constellation of Cygnus mapped out by the stars as a great swan flying across the heavens, with Deneb, the brightest star, in its tail. She was sure she could see it directly above her. It hadn’t changed. It never would, Arnie had said.
Her time in the orphanage at Treskirby House had been the worst kind of imprisonment. Unreasonable discipline. Endless drudgery. A loveless, pointless existence. Lottie had ached with homesickness and she had held the dream in her heart, guarding it as fiercely as she had guarded the black velvet bag. The dream was beautifully simple, originating from the words of P.C. Roach: ‘Up there, on the Carn Brea at night, you can see the lights of St Ives twinkling.’ Lottie wanted to do that so much. She’d dreamed the dream, day and night, and had even given it a title, The Stars of Home.
She needed to stand up. Tom was deeply asleep and he didn’t stir when she gently disentangled the ends of her hair from his fingers and put his hand on his chest. Matt lay curled up with his back against her, one hand clutching Lottie’s coat which they’d used as a blanket. She stood up carefully, trying not to wake him. It was her dream and she wanted to do it on her own. Mindful of the steep and stony terrain, Lottie picked her way along the base of the rocks and stepped away from them. I’m very small, she thought, with the starry dome of the universe arched above her. Far below at the foot of Carn Brea were the lights of Camborne and Redruth. Excited, Lottie gazed beyond them, across the night landscape, and her heart leapt when she saw a light flashing. Godrevy! It had to be Godrevy Lighthouse. She counted between flashes, the way Arnie had taught her. Yes, it was Godrevy, and, with a sudden rush of joy, she tasted sea salt on her lips. With her whole being tingling, she followed the distant shimmer of the sea to the left and there, nestled into the cliffs, were the lights of St Ives. Home. But so far away.
For once, Lottie didn’t try not to cry. She let the tears flow freely over her cheeks like a healing tide. Home. Home to St Ives where the sun and moon made paths of light across the water. She thought of Nan, asleep in her four-poster bed with Bartholomew purring under her chin. She thought of Mufty, safe in his stable, and the motherly chickens asleep in their shed.
Overwhelmed, Lottie hugged herself and gazed at the lights of home. It seemed miraculous and mysterious to have such a burden of anxiety and depression and yet be inside this intense diamond of pure happiness.
‘What are you doing, Lottie?’
She heard a scuffle and Matt appeared beside her, shadowy but with the whites of his eyes shining in the dark. ‘You’re crying.’ He hesitated, then put his arm around her shoulders.
Normally Lottie would have flicked him aside with a ‘Don’t touch me’, but now she just leaned. Matt was taller than her now, and her head fitted nicely on his shoulder. His arm felt strong and brotherly. Lottie took some deep breaths.
‘See those lights in the far distance, Matt? That’s home – the lights of St Ives.’
Matt twitched with excitement. He stared and stared and Lottie watched the silhouette of his profile, a haze of light on his lower lip. Then he turned to her with a wide grin. She sensed the emotion quivering inside him. He balled his fists and did a thumbs-up at the sky. ‘Let’s wake Tom.’
‘No,’ Lottie said, ‘let him sleep. We can tell him about it in the morning. The sleep will do him good.’
Matt shrugged. Already the old pecking order was emerging. Lottie was in charge, and he was content to let her be. ‘I wonder what the time is?’
‘Those are mostly lights from cottage windows,’ Lottie said. ‘People used to be in bed by eleven o’clock at home and the street lights were put out too. So it must be well before midnight.’
‘Brain box,’ Matt said, ‘but a pretty one.’ He tweaked her hair. ‘What are we gonna do in the morning? I want to go and see our mum. Do you know where she is?’
‘In hospital.’
‘But where?’
‘In Truro – probably.’
‘How far away is Truro?’
‘It’s in the opposite direction, Matt – maybe it’s about ten miles. And we don’t KNOW she’s there.’
‘Tom’s desperate to see her – really desperate.’
‘Me too,’ Lottie said, ‘but we can talk it over in the morning, Matt. Let’s just sit and gaze at the lights and enjoy the magic of the night.’
‘Magic?’
Lottie couldn’t read Matt’s expression in the dark but she guessed it was one of scepticism. She sat down and pretended he wasn’t there. To her surprise, Matt sat down with her in a brotherly silence which she appreciated. There were major decisions to make in the morning. How to get food. How to travel to St Ives without money or a map. How to trust that Nan would still be there and whether she could take all three of them. Especially Matt, Lottie thought.
‘Listen!’ Matt said suddenly. ‘Someone’s coming up the hill.’
It was too late to hide.
‘Keep still,’ Lottie whispered. ‘They won’t notice us in the dark. Pretend we’re a rock.’ She pressed close to Matt, so close that she could feel the beat of his heart inside the threadbare jacket.
The sound came steadily nearer. She pointed to where the bracken was moving, and a flash of white appeared low to the ground. She squeezed Matt’s wrist to make him keep still and he did. Little pulses of amazement passed between them as a badger’s white-striped face emerged, snuffling, from the bracken. With a flounce of thistledown fur, the creature hesitated, looking at them, his black nose twitching. Tentatively, he came closer on quiet, complex paws. He padded right up to Lottie and sniffed her shoe. She felt gentleness and respect emanating from this wild badger. She dared to move, hoping to touch him, but in an instant he was gone, diving into the bracken at full gallop, his lush, furry tail dragging behind.
‘Nan says animals are our teachers,’ Lottie said, ‘and maybe she’s right. Maybe the badger was showing us how to be quiet and careful, run and hide at the first sign of danger.’
In the morning it was Matt who woke first. He had some thinking to do. His mind was a warzone where the euphoria of freedom wrestled with the responsibility he felt towards Lottie and Tom. They should stick together. Despite letting Lottie be in charge, Matt felt he must protect them and see them safely home. But he had his own secret agenda. It was driven by guilt. Matt passionately wanted, and needed, to find his mother and say sorry to her for the cruel way he’d treated her. He wanted to know if she loved him. He didn’t think she had ever loved him, not since Tom, and Lottie. If she didn’t, then Matt intended to follow his burning need to be alone, to make his own way in the world, and grow into a man in peace.
The time in the orphanage had been hard, but in another way it had made him strong. The food had been boring but reliable and plentiful. Matt was now a mature thirteen-year-old, bigger and stronger than the leggy, resentful boy he had been. The work in the garden had built his muscles and given him a channel for his energy. When he saw himself in the mirror over the washbasin he didn’t see a lost, angry waif-like boy any more; he saw Arnie. His dad seemed to be right inside him, looking out, influencing him, trusting him. Matt longed to be reunited with The Jenny Wren, to find his dad’s boat again, to own her like Arnie had promised. To Matt, The Jenny Wren was a person, a safe person, a sheltering friend. If only he could make enough money to buy her back from Terry. He could live on the boat, make himself a cosy den in the cabin.
Another puzzle was his changed attitude towards Lottie. He had hated her, and now, with frightening power, he loved her. It had begun during the car journey to the orphanage, and when they’d been torn apart. When he’d shouted, ‘Run, Lottie,’ he’d meant it with all his heart. He wanted Lottie to be forever free, running and dancing along the satin shore, her hair blowing in the wind, her dark blue eyes deep with secrets. He didn’t want her to be turned into a miserable, servile orphan girl. He wanted Lottie to fly. But she would never love him. He’d treated her so badly. Matt felt he couldn’t bear to live with that. He had to detach himself, give himself space to grow, give Arnie a chance to live within him and make him the sort of man he dreamed of being.
He definitely didn’t want to live with Nan. Nan hated him, he thought. But then – Nan hated everyone except Lottie. Right now Matt was in a turmoil trying to sort out the mysterious, oscillating polarities of love and hate. When love turned to hate, he understood how and why. But when hate turned to love – that was unfathomable.
In the blue-white sunshine of early morning, he climbed the massive rocks of Carn Brea, and the climbing did him good. Climbing fired his confidence like nothing else. It lifted his spirits to another level, closer to the shining, uncomplicated sky. Up here on Carn Brea, the sky seemed extra enormous and the wind-sculpted shapes of the highest boulders were extraordinary. From the top he could see the land like a living map, peaceful with the early morning shadows of trees, winding lanes and farms with great granite barns, the chimneys of tin mines. He was so high up that the inland birds flew below him; flocks of rooks and jackdaws, their black plumage turned to beaten silver by the morning sun. Matt watched them, fascinated, and an idea seeded itself in his mind. Maybe I could be an artist, he thought, and paint things nobody’s ever seen before.
Lottie didn’t feel like climbing. Stiff and achy from a night on the damp ground, she sat beside Tom, waiting for him to wake up, anxious about whether he was all right. Matt had made a bold escape plan, and the three of them had broken free from the orderly line of orphanage children queuing to board the train at Redruth. After yesterday’s wild escape through steep, unfamiliar streets, could he face another day of running away? The hunger, the fear, the unknown, challenging journey ahead of them, and the constant worrying about being caught and sent back to Treskirby House was exhausting. She remembered how Tom had always been able to fall asleep if he was upset or stressed. A precious skill. She hoped it was helping him now.
‘Come up here, Lottie!’
Matt was a triumphant silhouette against the dazzle of morning. She gazed up at him. Predictably, he was balanced on the very edge of a massive slab of granite, a sheer thirty-foot drop in front of him, his arms akimbo, his long legs confidently straight. Lottie waved to him. ‘I’m staying here.’ Studying the landscape, working out how to reach St Ives was important, and so was breakfast. She hadn’t touched her packed lunch yesterday. She opened the haversack and unwrapped it, intending to split it between the three of them.
The sound of rustling paper woke Tom. He stretched and sat up, dreamy-eyed and disorientated, and when he saw Lottie a smile lit up his face. ‘Lottie!’ He gazed adoringly at her. ‘Me and Matt missed you.’
‘I missed you too.’
Tom sat up. ‘Cor – look at them massive rocks. Look where Matt is. How did them rocks get like that?’
‘I expect there’s a legend. Nan will know.’
‘They look like a giant chucked them up there.’
‘Look the other way and you can see St Ives,’ Lottie said, pointing. ‘See it? You can just see the island with the chapel on top, and last night Matt and I saw the lights twinkling, and Godrevy Lighthouse flashing.’
Tom’s eyes didn’t sparkle. He stared down at his scuffed brown boots. ‘Have we got to walk all that way?’
‘Don’t you want to go home?’ Lottie asked.
‘I dunno.’
‘Well – I’m going. You want to come with me, don’t you?’
Tom nodded wordlessly.
Lottie was concerned. Something had changed. Tom never used to be stuck for words. He’d been a spontaneous chatterbox, full of life. Had it been beaten out of him? How could she bring it back? The time in Treskirby House must have been devastating for Tom, a deep shock to a happy, secure little boy.
‘We have to go home, Tom. If we don’t, the police will find us and send us back. Let’s just get to Nan’s place. She’ll stick up for us, you know how fierce she is – and then she’ll take us to see Mum. I promise.’
Tom looked at her, his eyes clouded with a muddle of confusion, pain and gratitude. ‘I missed you, Lottie,’ he managed to say.
Lottie opened the stale lunch pack and divided it into three, glad of the generous chunk of flapjack which was chewy and sustaining. They drank rainwater from a hollow basin in one of the rocks. Then Lottie organised the planning of the journey.
‘We won’t be up so high again,’ she warned, ‘so we’ve got to remember this landscape and plot the way to St Ives. Otherwise we could go round in circles and get nowhere.’
‘We can’t go across the fields,’ Matt said. ‘There’s too many prickly hedges to climb. We’ve gotta go along the road and keep looking at signposts. Where’s the main road? The one the police drove us up?’
‘That’s risky,’ Lottie said. ‘There are cars going along it – and carts and lorries. We’d have to keep hiding. We mustn’t get caught. We’ll never get another chance like this one.’
‘But the little lanes are no good,’ Matt said, pointing to one. ‘They wind all over the place. It would take forever.’
‘I know what to do,’ Tom said. ‘We could walk to the sea. It’s only over there – and follow the edge of the cliffs ’til we get to St Ives.’
