A Cornish Girl by Gloria Cook

Author:Gloria Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Thirteen

Sarah arrived at Poltraze in a small Kivell carriage, made in the community’s workshops and a rather plush affair. She was wearing a mantlet over a two-piece dress, a bonnet, gloves and shoes, all bought with her own money. A footman appeared in a flash and opened the carriage door and had an umbrella ready to shelter her from the miserable steady rain. The butler was waiting for her in a reverent manner up under the portico. She had never thought to be given a reception like this. There seemed to be hundreds of windows in the house and tiny rivulets of rain were running down what seemed to be a thousand small windowpanes. Morn O’ May had seemed huge to her the first time she’d gone there, but this house was vast. Until now, because of rumours, she’d thought the house only a grey bleak creepy place, but used to things so basic and having no sense of what might be considered ill-designed she saw it as grand. She was sure there would be many things inside and outside to amaze her.

Determined not to let herself down in front of the servants – it was well known that some servants behaved more high and mighty than their masters or mistresses – she would take a long interested look at everything as the days passed. She didn’t want the servants to think she had never seen anything splendid in her life before. Amy had come here once with her mother to take part in Tara’s very first charity committee and they had never returned, finding the genteel ladies condescending and the stateliness of the house daunting. Sarah would not allow anyone or anything to make her feel unworthy. In contrast to the grandeur a definite gloom hung about the place. The January rain had turned the stone of the walls, the lofty pillars and balustrades a murky grey. Much of the ground was recently replanted with small shrubs but there was some colour from berries and winter blooms. She frowned at the whole aspect. It was unfair that one small family should live in a house with so many, many rooms while large working families had to cram themselves into tiny cramped dwellings.

She was careful mounting the curved stone steps, still sore throughout her body from the attack. The footman ensured no more than a few drops of rain landed on her. This treatment would have been unwelcome and alien to her once, but she had allowed the Kivells, Jowan and Tempest, in particular, and Rachel, a laughing, eye-catching girl, as free-spirited as any Kivell male, to dole out every consideration on her during her recovery. Isolation was no longer her goal. She did not really have one. Life had taken so many unexpected turns she saw no point in making plans. She would just let things happen, while staying careful not to bring trouble to herself or her friends. Fate had taken this next uncharacteristic twist, she was coming to live in the big house of Meryen, and not up in the attics as a servant.

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