She could impress Luke with the details she learned about his property. While his desire to emulate his father as an approachable and benevolent landlord and master was genuine, she knew he was desperate to find a whole day to settle down to his play. Class distinction was to Luke a fact of life. There was only a certain amount of affiliation with these ordinary folk he could stand. Coming from the same degree of background of these villagers, Cordelia felt a sympathy for them that overruled her natural shyness.

‘You must have seed ’em after church yes’day. Half a dozen squires with hair as dark as a dog’s guts, one with the build of ole Blarney’s ox! Mr Doble sired the lot. Found a welcome, he did, most nights in young Becky Kinver. Pretty as a dove she was, had hair as black as night and skin like silk. All the men wanted her, but she wanted finer things. Got ’em too. Mr Doble built her a fine house, gived it her outright.’

‘The first house you come to when you reach the village? It’s up high, with a goodly piece of land to it and must have a fine view of the sea. My cousin was surprised when Cal Barbary told him he didn’t own it, and that it wasn’t the Reverend Thake’s. I noticed those men were well dressed.’

‘Mr Doble didn’t leave Becky no money – she’m long dead – but those boys of hers’ll turn their hand to anything. Grows crops and keeps goats and goes crabbing. Fine craftsmen too. ’Spec’ the young master will be glad of ’em for a thing or two. Born half quality they be, and they’m always busy reproducing the same kind. Some here would’ve starved but for they. One of ’em mended my leaky roof t’other day. Put a hand’s turn for anybody, they do.’ Little Min curled up her face in a shrewd smile. ‘Reckon tes going t’ be Porthcarne’s year.’

‘You do?’

‘Seven’s a lucky number. If you can’t be lucky in 1777, when can ’ee be?’

The tiny dog woke up and Cordelia broke off a piece of spiced biscuit for it. Her basket was now empty and she promised the disappointed, sticky-faced children to come again with a newly laden one soon.

Polgissey House was half the size of Pengarron Manor, the acreage of land a quarter of the estate, but Luke intended to make his property as progressive as his father’s. He had set men and boys to constructing proper roads. The more skilled were charged with erecting a conservatory and a summerhouse for the ladies, others in building high dry-stone walls, a Cornish expertize, to protect the fields.

Oliver arrived while a train of mules and ponies were delivering supplies of wood and stone to the back of the house.