‘We’ll give the young’uns their tea later on.’ As she spoke, Ruth began tentatively to gather up discarded clothing. ‘’Twill be good to be kept busy at a time like this.’

Esther’s hands strayed towards the table and itched to start stacking up the dishes.

‘Yes, of course,’ Kerensa said, noting their red-rimmed eyes. Before the news of the tragedy, she had never known either of the sisters to cry. Somehow she found it embarrassing. It was time for her to leave. Looking back at Jenifer Drannock, who was now hunched up on the settle and moving her body in a rocking motion, Kerensa thought it a pity this poor woman did not cry too.

Chapter 4

Oliver strode through Marazion’s one long straggling street, his head up, ignoring the summer shower of rain blown into the front of his body. Passers-by, hunched over with their eyes down on the muddy road, clung on to their hats, stopping only respectfully to acknowledge the tall imposing owner of the black polished leather boots. Oliver spoke to some, merely nodded to others, as the mood took him.

He called at Araminta Bray’s grocery shop. The sharp-chinned bespectacled widow was one of his best customers for the smuggled goods he helped to bring in from various spots along Mount’s Bay. Despite the fact that the country was fighting a colonial war with France, on foreign ground, smuggling with the enemy was still active and Oliver kept the shop well stocked and liked to see the neat displays that Mrs Bray made of the tea, coffee, spices, dried fruit and other items he regularly provided. His ventures were mainly with Hezekiah Solomon who had revealed he had a residence on French soil and there passed as a French gentleman. From him Oliver occasionally gleaned useful information which he passed on to the Admiralty; it pleased him to be doing something for the latest war effort.

Oliver took a long, satisfying sniff of the darkened shop’s mixture of exotic and homely smells. He handed Mrs Bray an order made up by Kerensa for items he did not smuggle in, then intimated to the shopkeeper that she should be prepared to have her stock replenished in a week’s time with the ones he did.

When he turned to go he found a cluster of curious women behind him. They all quickly curtsied and moved back in a semi-circle, a gap at their centre to give him a clear path to the door. They all stared at his handsome face; it was a favourite pastime of the local women of all classes. Oliver included them all in one sweeping glance and abruptly left the premises. Outside he grinned knowingly, confident they would swing back into a huddle and ply Mrs Bray with eager questions as to what business the Lord of the Manor of the next parish had in a woman’s domain.