I told him what had happened and gently he examined the horse. He nodded grimly.
‘If you could please shoe him right away I’d be glad,’ I said.
He nodded again, looking at me with his bright black eyes. I could see the whites round his pupils, which made him look as though he was staring like Grandfather Casvellyn—and a little mad. He was a fanatic, and when people carry their fanaticism as far as he did, perhaps that could be construed as madness.
I said, ‘It’s a beautiful morning, Thomas. It makes you feel good to be alive on such a day.’
It really wasn’t good at all with Bastian’s deceit so recent, but there was in me a grain of mischief and I knew that anyone’s finding pleasure even in God-given nature would fill Thomas Gast with the desire to rant.
‘You should be thinking of all the sin in the world,’ he growled.
‘What sin? The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. You should see the hollyhocks and sunflowers in the cottage gardens. And the bees are mad with joy over the lavender.’
‘You’re a feckless young woman,’ said Thomas Gast. ‘If you don’t see the blackness of sin all around you you’ll be heading for hell fire.’
‘Well, Mr Gast,’ I said mischievously, ‘so many of us are. You seem to be the only one who is without sin. You’ll be very lonely when you get to Heaven.’
‘Don’t ’ee joke about matters as is sacred, Mistress Bersaba,’ he said sternly. ‘You be watched and all your sins be noted. Never forget that. All your jesting mockery will be recorded and one day you’ll answer for it.’
I thought then of lying in the woods with Bastian, and I knew that Thomas Gast would consider this a cardinal sin which could only earn eternal damnation, and for a moment I trembled, for there was something about Thomas Gast which made one believe, while one was in his company, that there might be something in his doctrines.
I watched him, his strong face flushed by the furnace, his gentleness with the horse—the only time he was ever gentle was with horses—and he began to declaim as though he were addressing an audience in the barn. The day of judgment was coming. Then those who now strutted in their finery would be cast into utter despair. The torments of hell were beyond human imagination. He licked his lips.
I think he saw himself as one of God’s executioners—a role, I decided, which would suit him very well.
I grew weary of his diatribe, and interrupting it I said I would stroll off and return when the horse was shod.
So I left the smithy and looked at the gardens in the little row of cottages. There were six of them—all built of the grey Cornish stone which was a feature of the countryside; they had long gardens in front and a patch behind in which most of them grew vegetables or kept a goat or a pig. But the front gardens were full of flowers, with the exception of the blacksmith’s. He grew vegetables in his, and at the back, pigs were kept. I had been inside the cottage once when the latest Gast was born and my mother had sent Angelet and me over with a basket of good things. Everything in the house was plain and for use, not for ornament. The girls of the household—there were four of them—always wore black garments with collars tight at the neck; so did their mother. Their hair was hidden by caps so that it was not easy to tell which was which. Angelet and I were always sorry for the Gast children.
As I came round by the cottages I saw one of the girls in the garden; she was weeding. I had heard that they all had their tasks and if these were not done to their father’s satisfaction they were severely beaten.
As I approached I called good morning and the Gast girl straightened up and spoke to me. I looked at her steadily and guessed her to be the eldest girl. She was about seventeen—my age. I noticed how she took in my riding-habit, which must have seemed as elegant to her as Carlotta’s did to me.
‘Good day, mistress,’ said the girl.
I was very curious to know what life was like lived in the blacksmith’s house. I could of course imagine to a certain extent, and I pictured myself in such a position. If I had been his daughter I would have defied him, I was sure.
‘You work very hard,’ I said. ‘Which one are you?’
‘I’m Phoebe, mistress, the eldest.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and I said suddenly: ‘You’re unhappy, aren’t you?’
She nodded, and I went on: ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, don’t ’ee ask me, mistress,’ she said. ‘Please don’t ’ee ask me!’
‘Perhaps there’s something we could do.’
‘Ain’t nothing you could do, mistress. ‘Tis done, more’s the pity.’
‘What is it, Phoebe?’
‘I dursen’t say.’
Strangely enough, as I stood there looking at her I was aware of some understanding between us. And I thought: It’s a man.
Then I thought of Bastian, and all my bitterness came back to me and a bond between this girl and myself was forged in that moment.
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘your father sees sin where others see ordinary pleasure.’
‘This be true sin.’
‘What is sin?’ I said. ‘I suppose if it’s hurting other people … that’s sin.’ I thought of myself leading Carlotta to her death. That was the blackest sin of all. ‘But if no one is hurt … that isn’t sin.’
She wasn’t listening to me; she was caught up in her own drama.
I said gently: ‘Phoebe, are you … in trouble?’
She lifted woebegone eyes to my face, but she did not answer and the fear in her face reminded me of Jenny Keys.
‘I would help you if I could,’ I said rashly.
‘Thank you, mistress.’ She bent down over the earth and went on weeding.
There was nothing I could say to her. If what I guessed might be true then Phoebe was indeed in trouble. I had seen that in her face which I believe Grandfather Casvellyn had seen in me. Did girls change when they took a lover? Was the loss of virginity apparent in their faces, I wondered, for I was absolutely certain that Phoebe had had a lover and that now she was faced with the consequences.
The consequences. A child! Then I was overwhelmed by the thought that it might have happened to me. ‘I will marry you when you are old enough or before if necessary,’ Bastian had said.
There had been a certain recklessness in our loving, for we had not to consider the consequences too seriously. I knew that my parents, shocked as they might have been, would have given me love and understanding. So would Aunt Melanie, and Uncle Connell being the man he was would laugh and say Bastian was a chip off the old block.
How different for poor Phoebe Gast. To wear a ribbon, to undo a button at the neck on a hot day, to wear a belt which might hold in the waist of those shapeless black smocks they wore—that would be sinful. But to have lain in the fields or the woods with a man …
I went back to the smithy. The mare was waiting for me. Thomas Gast looked more like one of Satan’s henchmen than ever and I could not stop thinking of poor Phoebe Gast.
Yesterday I overheard two servants talking. I had come in from the stables and they were dusting in one of the rooms which led out of the hall. They could not see me so I sat down and listened because what they were saying interested me. One of them was Ginny and the other Mab, a girl in her middle teens who had a reputation among the servants as one who was ready for adventure, and had an eye for the men.
As soon as I caught the name Jenny Keys I had to listen.
‘She truly were,’ Ginny was saying. ‘White she was but white can turn to black … and it could have been that was what happened to her.’
‘What did she do, Ginny?’
‘Her did lots of good. Why, if I could have gone earlier to her I’d have been spared my shame.’
‘But you wouldn’t have been without young Jeff for the world.’